Short stop in Arathi...

So I took a short stop in Arathi to turn in one of the AB quests (capture all nodes)... I figure since I am grinding the battlegrounds for better PVP armor I might as well do the quests associated with them. Arriving in Arathi I find Hammerfall besieged by a hunter and his friend... the hunter, a level 69 night elf and a level 33 warrior. They had apparantly been playing tough guys with our friendly hordes in the neighbourhood.

I got into stealth, sapped the hunter and killed the little one in two strikes.. before he would break the sap (obviously not wearing his PVP trinket) I could reset the fight... I hate fighting against hunters and part of me just wanted to vanish and be happy with the lowbie kill. But I went in and after a short fight the hunter lay dead at my feet. A lot of hordes praised my name with /yell and I had become hero for a day...

It wasn't much but I had great timing... and I love taking out bullies.

First 2vs2 arena experience

So I just finished my first arena game... a 2vs2 with an IRL friend playing a resto druid. A rogue and resto druid feels strong. However in our first match we got defeated. The opposing team was a Warlock and a Paladin. Man.. I hate paladins. They seem to last forever. In this particular match we went for the warlock first. Didn't really feel good. While I pounded on the warlock, and tried to blind/gouge the paladin at all possible times the warlock did burn down my druid. In the end I was alone against them both... and it went quick downhill from there.

Next time I rather go with my gut feeling of trying to burn down the paladin first..

For our next game the server crashed... bah... so I probably started my arena career with a loss and another loss due to disconnects. It is mainenance day tomorrow so that might be the reason.

New patch notes on PTR for 2.2.0

Well a big PVP oriented patch is on its way to PTR. For the full specs check out http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

There are alot of small fixes and changes to all classes as well as instances and items. My biggest concern are those affecting us rogues:

• Blade Flurry: This ability will now do damage to secondary targets when the primary target takes no damage due to a damage shield (such as Power Word: Shield).
• Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Blind by 8/15 seconds.
• Master of Subtlety: The bonus damage from this talent is now properly removed when a Rogue loses stealth from zoning.
• Sap: It is no longer sometimes possible to Sap two targets at the same time in the outdoor world.
• Sap duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
• Sword Specialization: This talent’s free extra attacks can no longer trigger additional extra attacks.

The new blind seems very sexy... and while sap is now reduced to 10 seconds of CC so is the mage's polymorph!

Death from above

Finally I've gotten Warspike airborne! A green mount seemed to be the perfect candidate for my future aerial maneuvers. Flying is amazingly fun... although with the initial flying mount it is kind of slow. I have started to grind the money for the epic mount... It will take me quite some time.

I've also managed to get exhalted with Aldor! YAY! My first faction at exhalted. Everyone keeps telling me that the Aldor/Scryer faction is the fastest one. It did net me a great 1h sword... so I am back to Combat Swords for the time being. I didn't really like mutilate for PVE and it looks like I am going to do a bit of grinding for gold...

NEWS: Planned Resilience Change...

Just spotted this on www.worldofwarcraft.com:

"In the next major content patch, the combat rating, resilience, will also reduce the damage dealt by damage over time (DoT) effects. As it currently stands, each new tier of equipment adds to the amount of damage DoT abilities have, yet that damage is not mitigated through combat ratings found on typical equipment. This change will help ensure that DoT effects do not scale too well compared to other damage mechanics.

The amount of damage reduced will be equal to the critical chance reduction effect that resilience grants."

Right now there are quite a lot of shadowpriest/warlock teams that are relying on dots to take down gladiators with full resillience gear. Some teams have begun stacking shadow resist gear that they switch to during the games...

This seems like a great thing. All damage should be covered with resilience!

Stalking Halaa

In the middle of the african-inspired Nagrand lies the neutral city of Halaa. It is the object of the zone's outdoor PVP mode. When killing a member of the opposing faction you are awarded a Halaa Battle Token - and if your faction controlls the city you can use these (together with research tokens gathered from the zone's mobs) to purchase pretty good PVP gear.

For about a week Warspike has called Halaa home. Especially when controlled by the alliance. You see stealthing and stalking in the Halaa is very easy.. and several 64-66 comes there to turn in their tokens and they don't really expect a dagger in the back. The guards will assist if I get too close so controlling the fight is paramount. Crippling poison or you better have vanish ready. The mutilate build is excellent for this kind of dirty burst kill.

My favourite PVP moment here was when ambushing a hunter on his flying mount at ground level. After a few stuns he managed to get away and simply soared up in the air with almost no health... I had 4 full combo points on him and next thing a Deadly Throw killed him midair! I love being a rogue =)

I've collected 60 marks.. earned a good chunk of honor and now purchased the Shadowstalker's belt and leggings. It was actually a pretty painful week to do all the marks at once. But now that I am done I can leave Halaa and the alliance there alone.

My next stop is grinding Aldor rep to exhalted... and I am very very close. You see in Nagrand I've been killing beasts like there is no tomorrow (when not in Halaa). The leather and especially the clefthoof leather sells for a good deal of gold. For those earnings I've bought Fel Armament and Mark of Saragas. Doing the Aldor quests in the Netherstorm has helped as well.

Oh.. I am close to finally buying a flying mount.. but we'll see if the gold I have after a few quests is enough.

Learing the mutilate build...

So know I've earned some experience using a mutilate build. I am not convinced that this is the ultimate build but it seems amazing for battlegrounds and large-scale battles. The burst damage you can deliver is more than anything I've been able to deal before. For PVE I think it is simply horrible. I have been trying to finish a few quests in Netherstorm for gold and rewards but with my mutilate spec it takes forever... and the corpse runs. You see when I was a combat rogue I could easily deal with one or two adds without breaking a sweat. Just pop AR+BF+Evasion... With a mutilate build there is really no ace up the sleeve when that extra add comes. I've also discovered that I am truly in need of both more crit and +hit for mutilate to shine. A missed Kidney Shot can screw up a whole battle.

After a few battles I think I got a PVE combo going:

1 Start with cheap shot for a good stun and 2 combo points
2 Mutilate during the cheap shot for 2 more combo points and sometimes 3 with seal fate
3 Wait for energy and then Kidney Shot. There is really no use throwing a 5pt kidney shot if you don't have full energy
4 Mutilate (at this point you have Find Weakness and Imp KS running for additional 19% of damage)
5 Mutilate
6 You usually have 5 combo points here... and I like to throw an Eviscerate

This can also be done against unsuspecting, non-trinketing players... but I've found out that it is seldom they'll let you bash unhindered.

I'll finish this post off with a little PVP anecdote that happened yesterday in the Alterac Valley BG. There was a huge battle raging at Tower Point, the alliance was slowly gaining more and more ground. A very strong defence kept the allies fighting for every inch (meanwhile our own attackers made progress further and further into the dwarves territory). With my mutilate build I wanted to try out burst damage. I looked for mages standing in the middle of the "crowd". I could not find anyone hurt. So I just picked one with big shoulders (usually the damage dealers from hell) and crept up behind him. I released everything... cold blood, Ferocity trinket and a long string of loud curses. I managed to get about 3/4 of his health before his friends started bashing on me. Suddenly I had a debuff list almost covering the whole screen and I got a nasty stun. When the stun released I managed to give the mage one last mutilate - it critted and the mage died. With almost no HP left I did what any rogue would do... Cloak of Shadows, Vanish & sprint. I survived... and as soon as I hit friendly space I got a ton of heals...

For me it was a glorious moment. This is what I've been dreaming of doing as a rogue in the battlegrounds. And that my friends is what still keeps me as a mutilate rogue. I am not going back to combat for awhile.

Boom 70, and respec to a mutilate build

After hours of slaving away in the Netherstorm Warspike was finally rewarded by reaching level 70.

Three cheers for me!

My goal at 70 has always been to start PVP in full. I look forward to all the four battlegrounds as well as starting up an arena team with a few of my guildies. I will not grind much more, nor quest more than neccessary so I feel confident that I can leave my combat fist spec behind. Even though it worked really good in PVP I've always wanted to go back to be a rogue with daggers.. hiding in the shadows waiting for the perfect strike.

I have two builds to try out in the near future, the first being a PVP oriented Mutilate build. The second build is the old classic dagger PVP build - 30/0/31. Actually the last one is very similar what I used with Hexapuma pre-TBC.

What was the first thing you did when you reached level 70?

Warspike almost 70

Warspike dinged 69 today ... and only a few hours later the experience bar showed a litte less than 60% left to 70. It seems the road from 69-70 is much shorter than the earlier levels. I remember feeling the same when my first toons were about to hit 60. I suspect I'll hit 70 tomorrow.. and then I'll be busy with getting flying mounts, aldor exhalted, getting PVP gear and more importantly finding an arena team.