Warspike's modified pvp combat build

Currently Warspike's build is combat fist but with a slight difference from the cookie-cutter build. I've put points into MoD for additional stealth - and when doing lots of BG that stealth is very welcome. I can easily say that rogues without MoD are very easy to spot... For me MoD has become a requirement.

Warspike's Combat Build

Assassination Talents - 15 points

The first tiers of the assassination tree is almost a requirements. I would recommend all rogues to go for 11 points here. Malice, Ruthlessness and Relentless strikes are god send.

# Improved Eviscerate - rank 3/3
# Malice - rank 5/5
# Ruthlessness - rank 3/3
# Relentless Strikes - rank 1/1
# Lethality - rank 3/5

Combat Talents - 41 points

Combat tree for sustained damage. If you do venture down the combat tree make sure you pick up the signature moves here - Riposte, Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. When you combine BF and AR you are effectively in god mode. Add evasion and not much can withstand your fury. This goes for both PVP and PVE. Although make sure you have the target stunned before starting.

Personally I chose to go with Combat potency (for that extra energy) and all the way to Surprise Attacks (10% damage increase) and I love them both!

# Improved Gouge - rank 3/3
# Improved Sinister Strike - rank 2/2
# Deflection - rank 5/5
# Precision - rank 5/5
# Riposte - rank 1/1
# Improved Sprint - rank 2/2
# Improved Kick - rank 2/2
# Dual Wield Specialization - rank 4/5
# Blade Flurry - rank 1/1
# Fist Weapon Specialization - rank 5/5
# Aggression - rank 2/3
# Adrenaline Rush - rank 1/1
# Nerves of Steel - rank 2/2
# Combat Potency - rank 5/5
# Surprise Attacks - rank 1/1

Subtlety Talents - 5 points

The king of the rogue talents - if you are the stalking kind of guy that is... I cannot play wihtout it, I feel naked and I do even consider dropping a few points from assassination and put them into camoflage for increased speed as well.

# Master of Deception - rank 5/5

This works for me, although I used to play with maces before getting my Nexus-Claw and that was even more fun! With mace specialization you get a chance to stun and increased weapon skill. Very handy... and very annoying for your cloth targets.

Patch 2.1.2 is here - Arena Season 2

Right now the 2.1.2 patch is getting downloaded ... with lots of warnings on the downloader that "the download is not authorized"... sounds interesting. I guess I'll know about that in a few hours when the servers gets back up.

So lets just quickly look at what the new patch brings.

* Start of Arena Season 2...

The biggest thing with the patch is of course the start of the new Arena season. This also means new gear! I am at level 67 (almost 68) so for me the season could have waited a few more

weeks. I'll be getting into the season early on though. Just as everyone have upgraded their initial gear to season 2.

And the second biggest thing (IMHO):


* PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character.

This is huge - and will be very interesting to see how it will work. This will even out the playingfield between a few of the classes.

You can view the full patch notes here.

Update: It seems that a few people's anti-virus programs are detecting Trojans in the patch. According to Blizzard this is false alarm and you simply need to update your anti-virus program.

Finally - Cloak of Shadows

So finally Warspike has reached the esteemed level of 66 which means a trip to the rogue trainer for that lovely skill - Cloak of Shadows. The skill allows a rogue to remove all harmfull effects and then have 90% resist to everything nasty for the next 5 seconds. The number of PVP tricks that this skill alone allows is amazing. Needless to say CoS is an integral part of end-game PVP.

In addition I've made it to Nagrand now. A beautiful zone with lots of beasts to kill - and skin! It seems that every mob that goes down has something for a faction, a quest or just plain simply some good knothide leather. The landscape is very interesting - rolling hills with little ponds and other interesting landmarks. Even though it is pretty open it is hard to spot the opposing faction... very interesting.

I haven't taken part in the world PVP action in Nagrand yet. There is a neutral town smack in the middle and apparently either horde or alliance will have control over it - along with its questgivers and other NPCs.

Going from level 64 - 66 went amazingly fast and I guess the main reason is the ease of doing the quests in Terokkar forest.

Reputation grinding in WOW

One of my biggest problems with WOW is the constant requirement to grind repetation for the various factions. Actually it is not the need for the grind but how the grind is supposed to be carried out that disturbs me.

Take Thrallmar for example. A high reputation for Thrallmar is required for a few crafting recepies but more importantly the key to the heroic instance in that zone. When a new player arrives at the Hellfire Penisula the most obvious thing to do is to do quests for Thrallmar - for reputation, experience and gear. But the most effective way to gain reputation is actually to avoid the Thrallmar quests and go for the ones out at Falcon Point (gives reputation for Silvermoon) and hit the ramparts and blood furnace over and over again until honored with Thrallmar. When finally honored with Thrallmar then should the quests should be completed (at this point the player is also probably over the minimum/recommended level for the quest making them a breeze). This saves multiple runs into Shattered Halls later on for that precious exhalted reputation.

While I understand the need to have reputation grinding as part of the current system, I would prefer it to be a little more similar to how Aldor/Scryer reputation is gained - using quests, and token turn ins. For example I have choosen Aldor for Warspike and it allows me to either go out and kill orcs for tokens or buy them on AH... buying them on AH allows me to grind other things I find more interesting and sell or trade tokens. It gives me freedom to play where I want to... I have yet to experience the new 2.1 content with the daily quests and all - I expect it to work out much better than that annoying Thrallmar reputation =)

It reminds me of the old days in Diablo II where most (end-game) players kept doing runs into Mephisto to get the good loot. It was the only way to really gain good end game gear.

Oh and Warspike turned 65 the other day! I have him decked out in the Thick Draenei leather set so far. I am not going to get overboard in gearing up until I hit 70.

New patch 2.1.2 incoming

Seems like the big 2.1.0 patch spawned quite a few issue to be taken care of... mostly minor changes but for us rogue there is the revertion of Sword specialization:

The change to Sword Specialization making its extra attacks appear in yellow has been reverted. Extra attacks will appear in white and act like any auto-attack. They will no longer reset the swing time of your weapon. [2.1 changed Rogue Sword Spec to do yellow damage and not reset swing timers. This reverts the "yellow damage" part.]

I guess yellow damage and no swing reset was too powerful or conflicted with something else. It has been reverted for warriors as well. I never had any time to try it out as I have been busy with joy over mace specialization.

Check out the full patch notes at: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Also there seems to be new functionality over at the armory with an item database and more goodies. It is not implemented on the european site yet. Actually going to the armory at the european site crashes my firefox... over and over again.

Ding 64!

Warspike is slowly sneaking towards level 70 and all the goodness that awaits! Recently he passed the 64 mark. I've also installed the mod auctioneer to see if I can get some help in making great money from the AH. I usually manage to do Ok but it can't hurt right?

It does take quite awhile to scan the AH for prices and the mod itself do have a heavy memory load. I'll see if I can manage to keep it around.

What is your experience with auctioneer?

A few good combat rogue macros

I've scurried around the official rogue forums in search for a few useful macros for a combat specced rogue such as myself. The first one incorporates riposte into a mashable sinister strike/riposte macro. I am not overly enthustiastic about it since it relies on spamming the button. It does allow you to use riposte a wee bit more at the sacrifice of full control.

/startattack
/castsequence reset=1.5 Sinister Strike, Riposte


The next one covers blind. Using blind against multiple targets can sometimes get a bit tricky, especially if both are all over you. This macro allows you to throw blind by simply moving the mouse over your intended target and press your button.

/cast [target=mouseover] Blind


Finally the I.W.I.N. Button for combat rogues. Pressing it turns on all those killing moves and ends with a sinister strike for good measure. I've not really used this one and I am told that if evasion is on CD it will end right there.

/startattack
/castsequence reset=120 Blade Flurry, Evasion, Adrenaline Rush, Sinister Strike

Regarding macros - I very rarely use them. The only one I've used extensively was a weaponswap macro for my warrior - swapping between sword+shield and my trusty 2-hander.

How many macros do you use?

Work in progress...

Doing some changes to the visual layout of this blog. Don't worry I'll have it refreshed in no time. Actually it do feels a little bit of what I am doing when the main character is getting a bit boring - i.e. getting a new alt.

New rogue build - combat mace

With my beloved horde rogue Warspike dinging 62 last night I bought him a spanking brand new mace (Fist of Reckoning). Its a great weapon for Hemo but even although I love the sub tree I want to investigate a combat mace spec first. Not being 70 yet I had to ditch a few assassin/combat talents...

My build (11/41/0) - I might actually end up placing the next points into MOD instead of more DPS from the Assassin tree.

I was extremely pleased with the result. Adrenaline Rush + Blade Flurry = God Mode

Combat Potency procs alot - giving me faster energy regen. It is more like I am used to with hemo or even seal fate. I need to get myself an even slower offhand. Right now I have some Unyielding sword from a quest.

Surprise Attacks - Increase damage 10% and make the finisher undodgable.
The mace spec procced very often and I can't wait to take this build into the battlegrounds to see how it fares against various classes.

Recruited by the Horde

So for the last couple of weeks I've been playing almost horde exclusivly. A year ago or so when I played my first horde alt (a rogue named Rippz) I used to despise the other horde players. When they talked in general complaining about the weak alliance I just wanted to log in my alliance rogue and gank the living daylights of them.

Now that my main is a horde character (well.. I guess Warspike is my main character by now) I've learned to appriciate the horde much more. It is funny though.. when I played as alliance I always had to listen to the whining in the battleground channels. I thought this was mainly an alliance phenomenon:

- "just let the other side win so we can get a mark"
- "AV is so unfair"
- "We always loose - why bother"
- "Quickly, all turn in your marks before we loose"


However now that I play horde I keep hearing the same thing... did those players switch as well or do both faction have the same kind of players. I believe the latter... and that the green always seems greener on the other side.

Warspike update
Lately I've been playing in AV to get enough honor to get the Insignia of the Horde. I realized that just after a few games I have enough marks and honor for the lobotomizer. Back in the days... I never managed to finish the grind to get the lobo for Hexapuma. AV was simply too slow, too long queues and the rep required too much for me. As soon as I have the insignia I am going to wait with the BG until close to 70.

Simple Lockpicking guide

Skilling up lockpicking can be tough, especially if you don’t concentrate on it from the start. There are basically four ways to skill up lockpicking and that is from junkboxes, footlockers, doors and treasure (chests/lockboxes).

For me I’ve used footlockers to around 250 and then moved over to junkboxes and doors. When arriving in the Outlands I rely completely on pickpocketing all the junkboxes i need.

First of there is an excellent guide to lockpicking at http://www.wowwiki.com/ and if you have the time check out their lockpicking article. I am going to just mention Junkboxes and Footlockers in this post…

JUNKBOXES
I’ve only marked the skill level to when it turns green…

Battered Junkbox – skill 0-75 (drops from level 22-32 mobs)
Worn Junkbox – skill 50-120 (drops from level 32-42 mobs)
Sturdy Junkbox – skill 175-225 (drops from level 42-52 mobs)
Heavy Junkbox – skill 250-300 (drops from level 52-60 mobs)
Strong Junkbox – skill 300-350 (drops from 61+ mobs)

A hot tip is to save all junkboxes you find in the outlands and use them to skill up while you level. When you’ve filled your level’s five skill ranks, mail the remaining boxes to an alt and have them returned when you ding!

FOOTLOCKERS
Opening footlockers is the reliable way to grind your lockpicking skill up to 300 as it doesn’t require you to rely on luck from pick pocket. Your rogue trainer will tell you where suitable footlockers for your skill level are located. Personally I switch place as soon as the footlockers are turning yellow… after that it fails too often for me to have the patience to continue.

Ashenvale (Zoram Strand) 75-95+
Hillsbrad (Durnholde Keep) 75-95+
Stonetalon Mountains (Windshear Crag) 75 – 110+
Stonetalon Mountains (Windshear Mine) 105 -150+
Wetlands (along the coast) 110-145+
Desolace (along the northern coast) 150-175+ (bring water breathing apparatus/potion)
Badlands (Angor Fortress) 150-200+
Swamp of Sorrows 175-200+
Searing Gorge (slag pit/quarry) 200-225+
Searing Gorge (slag pit/upper quarters) 225-250+
Tanaris (Pirate area) 225-250+
Azshara (bay of storms) 235-275+ (bring water breathing apparatus/potion)
Eastern Plaguelands (Tyr’s Hand) 250-275+
Zangarmarsh (Feralfen Village) – 305-310+
Nagrand (Kil’sorrow Fortress) - 325-350+

I strongly recommend you to avoid Angor Fortress and instead go for Desolace. The trafic in Angor Fortress on my server is unbelieavable...

That's it!

The Light at the end of the tunnel - Ding 60!

After several days of hard labor - my undead rogue turned 60! It is time to go over to the dark side of the horde for good.

The last part was boring and nearly crushed me - only my alt hunter kept it going.

So introducing Warspike soon in a battleground near you.

My first big adventure will be going into Stormwind to do the mandatory ganking on poor unsuspecting PVP flagged players.

Hunting high and low...

So I have two pet projects at the moment... one is to level up a new horde rogue to go arena fighting and dungeon-crawling with my RL friends. The other is a Blood Elf hunter..


Introducing Hexaspider - the hunter of all hunters (or at least of my characters). At the time of writing he is approaching level 22 - and it goes fast. I had almost forgotten how quick this class levels. Zero downtime and capable of handling multiple mobs at the same time. Given I've played a hunter to 60 before and knows the in and outs of the class - especially how to manage the pet.


My first challenge with Hexaspider was to get myself a worthy pet - and that pet is a spider boss at the Draenei starting area of Bloodmyst Island. Just going there at level 20 was a very exciting mission. It took a few deaths at the Auberdine docks, but otherwise it went just fine.

I've been taking the path of the Beastmaster... being a loyal reader of Big Red Kitty, I've been following his advice on how to build a beastermaster.

By the way.. extra kudos if you recognize the band this post pays homage to.

Another trick up the rogue sleeve

The rogue has a unique set of skills that allows him to respond to a situation in an instance going ballistic. Take the following example. Your party is inside an instance busy fighting a group of mobs, the mage has one mob sheeped and the others are being dealt with. Then behind you a new group of patrolling mobs appear... this is usually disaster for a PUG group trying an instance at the correct level. As a rogue you have several means of avoiding this....

1. Throw a distract, turning the oncoming patrollers away for a few precious seconds. Might give you enough time to down that mob and avoid panic.

2. If the group is humanoid - vanish, distract and sap one of the incoming patrollers.

Usually #1 is the correct way as it gives the group valuable reaction time to the new threat.

The New and Improved Rogue
For awhile I've been levelling a new rogue, albeit on the horde side. The time has come for me to switch to the other side. I am still fighting with the road to 60 and to speed up the process I've decided to stay away from battlegrounds (a vice of mine). I am also dangerously close to getting burned out on WOW. My own recipe for that is to take up another alt until the feeling passes. So... I have a little hunter in training as well.

Damn this altism =)

The different faces of the rogue

While endulding myself in the deepest ressesses of altism - to level a horde rogue to be able to play with friends again - I've discovered a few types of rogues.

There are actually three types of rogues:

1. The War Rogue - Only plays the rogue for the PVP. If they progress beyond mid-level they end up doing countless and countless of AB/WSG/AV and now probably also the new outland BG - The Eye of something. These rogues are usually horrible in instances. Going for very specific PVP gear such as all-out-AP, disregarding lockpicking totally, have no clue of aggro-management at all. Finally they lack all the finer finesses that is possible with the rogue class. How to recognize them - they will challenge you to duels over and over and are most likely twinked beyond all reason.

2. The Raiding Rogue - These rogues have raided for far too long. Actually they spend very little time on their rogue not raiding - PVP is done with a warlock/hunter/shadow priest and they might even have an arsenal of alts to keep wow being fun. Take these rogues into an instance and they over-aggro over and over again while putting all of the blame on the tank or priest. While they are powerful they expect themselves to be able to handle any instance by themselves - and are over and over proved wrong.

3. The True Rogue - This is a player dedicated to the rogue class - PVP, PVE and raiding, The true rogue knows his class's strengths and weaknesses. They are the ones that can pull an ace out of their sleeve when the shit hit the fan. In an instance they will almost never pull aggro unless it is to save a clothie. They have full lockpicking, switches poison depending on the situation and knows when to vanish =)


Personally I love to group myself as #3 =)

Incoming altism - take cover!

I don't know if it is the pain of leveling enchanting or if it is just the fact that most of my old WOW friends have rerolled and now plays on the dark side..err the Horde, but I feel a strong pull towards creating a new toon.

I know it is going to be a rogue.. but I can't decide if I am going with a Blood Elf or an Undead. I don't care about the racial traits (if so I would probably have chosen a gnome) but style and appearance.

I've alreay created two horde rogues on my preferred server, one elf and one undead. I did create a female bloodie mostly because of the sick cool stealth animation they have. If you haven't seen it... roll a blood elf rogue and level her to 2 and get stealth... its currently maintenance over here or would gladly have posted a fresh screenshot. Didn't find any animation on youtube besides this one.

Getting enchanting 1-300

So previously Hexapuma was herbalist and engineer. Engineering was really sweet in PVP with all those little gadgets and especially spell interrupting grenades. In a couple of patches ago the grenades were nerfed big time. A grenade throw would be aborted if you took any damage.

I do understand that the developers might have considered grenades or actually engineering a wee bit too powerful for PVP. At one time almost everyone dedicated to PVP had to be an engineer.

Come TBC I didn't find any new gadgets or gear I thought interesting... so why keep the old profession. Also the factions out there doesn't give any cool engineering recipes when gaining reputation.. I decided to take up enchanting. Now I always find myself wanting loads of enchants but never the patience of waiting around in Ironforge to find a decent and trustworthy enchanter.

So last Friday I dropped engineering and went for enchanting. I figured that if I spent sometimes in deadmines and then the higher instances I don't have to spend a fortune in buying reagents.

Boy was I wrong!

Running Deadmines did help me raise enchanting from 1-100 but thereafter... oh the pain. You actually need to disenchant ALOT to get the required stuff. I've heard that it is actually totally worth it to level tailoring at the same time to be able to control the enchanting ingredients. And cloth is easily farmed.

By the end of the weekend I've raised enchanting to about 275 and it has so far cost me about 200 gold. I expect to spend almost the same amount on the next 25 skill points. And then its the next level from 300-375... although I am not that stressed out of increasing that last part so quickly. It is getting it up to 300 that is important for me now.

To help me level enchanting I've used this Enchanting 1-300 guide. It is excellent and I strongly recommend it!

Oh.. Hexapuma dinged 67 while finishing up the last quests in Terrokar Forest!

T6 rogue armor

Even though I am not a raider I do find the new T6 armors interesting. The rogue T6 armor is somewhat cool looking but nothing special. I sometimes wonder if Blizzard's art department do make the tier sets look cheesy so that we casual gamers can laugh behind the raiders' backs.

From MMO-Champion.com:

Have gun, will travel

Hexapuma turned 66 this weekend and in addition to getting the fantastic rogue ability Cloak of Shadows, he can now wield the very slow fist mainhand weapon: Nexus-Claw! The weapon is fantastic because it has a whooping 2.8 weapon speed which is very uncommon among the new weapon arsenal of TBC.

Why get so excited about a slow mainhand you ask? Well for a rogue a slow mainhand is king as it allows bigger insta attacks. In addition attack power addition to the talent hemorrage (or plain and simple hemo) is not normalized - which means that hemo takes full benefit of a weapon being really really slow such as the Nexus-Claw.

The Claw is a green vendor item sold by Dealer Jadyan in the Netherstorm. The weapon is rare so odds are you'll find it overly expensive at AH or worse, you reach Jadyan soldout.

For me it was pretty exciting to travel to his location as it included lots of ganking (with me being the victim) and a fine moment of revenge at an over-confident L69 undead rogue.

Now with my amazing pair of claws I am actually thinking of respeccing into a build containing both combat and subtlety...

Musings from Terokkar Forest

Going from Zangarmarsh to Terokkar Forest was a wee bit of disappointment for me. The washed out colors of the zone does not sit well with me and for some reason the initial kill X timber worgs to collect their tails isn't doing it for me either. I guess I really hate animal-collection quests. That quest aside - I did have a lot of fun with the numerous birdmen quests.

I've now reached The Bone Wastes, helping refugees and what not. More collection quests, although these have better drop rates. I am seriously thinking of leaving this zone and move on to Nagrand or the Blade's Edge Mountains.

Did you like Terokkar Forest?

Epic Tiger Mount....

So while I have been doing the first parts of Terrokar forest, I've also taken Hexapuma over to the Night Elf starting areas and completed all quests.. all on Teldrassil, Darkshore and in Ashenvale.. the result was exhalted status with Darnassus and a brand new epic tiger mount.

With the remake of the riding skill around the release of TBC, an epic mount now only cost 90g (with exhalted discount). The part that is expensive is actually getting the epic riding skill. So without having to spend a single gold on runecloth I dinged exhalted. Now... do I need one of those mechanostrider-thingys as well?

I guess in the end it is quite pointless since I expect to start grinding for a flying mount soon.. but hey.. you have totravel in style while grinding.

So what are you riding?

The Underbog

I've tried another instance last week... the Underbog in Zangarmarsh. Compared to the Ramparts it is much more fun, more interesting fights and way cooler layout. I wouldn't mind going back in a couple of times. The loot was all mail or plate so no goodies for me. Did pick up a mushroom trinket though that grants 200 health after each exp yielding kill. Don't see myself using that anytime soon. 200 health is less than peanuts above level 60.

Hexapuma dinged 64 as well and I am actually already close to 65... Looking forward to 66 as it marks the level where I'll be getting new weapons.

Still questing in Zangarmarsh. As soon as I think I am almost ready a whole new bunch of quests opens up. This time it was getting friendly with the Kurenaithat unlocked a new quest hub.

Even though I really love the marsh it is time to move on... thinking of going south to Terokkar Forest next.

Regarding PVP - I've not found one shaman in the zone... plenty of hunters and other rogues though. And lets not forget all the Blood Elf paladins running around judging things. So far none of them are causing me any trouble.

A rogue's adventure in the Ramparts

Yesterday I decided to explore the new instances in TBC. While I did like the instances of old the whole process of finding a group, going there and actually running the instance took forever.

Now it was as simple as opening the LFG tool, check the instances and wait. It took me about 5 minutes to end up in a group that filled up... just missing a tank. After 15 minutes of waiting and shouting in general/lfg I got a whisper from another group. "We need a DPS"... Without any remorse I switched group and entered the instance.

Our setup was warrior, priest, shaman, paladin and me as a rogue.

The Ramparts was fast and very linear. Actually I had lots of fun but when I think back on the layout it felt much as a long corridor lined with trash to the end. I had loads of fun shadostepping in for a quick sap. I was busy the whole time. Our tank took the role of leader and did an excellent job of marking targets and when needed giving sound tactics.

During two of the boss fights, I had the chance to play hero in taking over the tanking after our warrior died at the very end of the fight. I can tell you that preparation + evasion does allow for superhuman feats for almost a minute. At least it was enough for us to down the nasty dragon. The paladin in our group was retribution specced but more importantly did not show any sign of being capable of holding aggro or even using a shield.

Oh.. I almost forgot.. I did manage to do a few noobish mistakes. I am certainly I caused one wipe with a really bad pull. Halfway into the instance I got cocky and decided to pull what I thought was a solo mob to speed up our progress. I ended up pulling too much for us to chew. The leader was real good though, instead of giving me a public scoulding he whispered "What the hell was that"... After a few embarassing "I am sorry, won't happen again" we continued.

Also I learned that while shadowstepping + sap sounds really effective, it isn't when stealth sniffing dogs are involved. It is much safer to distract and then use sprint to run up to the target... shadow stepping has its disadvantage that 1) you sometimes don't end up where you thought and 2) there seem to be a slight delay before you can use an ability right after a shadow step...

Rewards... well I replaced my old Nightslayer boots and also managed to grab a nice blue sword.

The whole instance run took about an hour...

Zangaramarsh PVP
After the very fun adventure into the ramparts, I returned to Zangarmarsh for a little more questing. I did encounter a few horde that needed to be taken care of. One was a L63 warrior armed with dual swords. I've always had a problem with warriors so in order to learn I waited until he was healed and not in combat.. and attacked. The warrior fell so fast it wasn't even funny. I looked him up on the Armory and discovered that he had some extremely strange equipment... most of the stuff was green plate with additional intellect and mana regen... and his equipped trinkets was The Eye of Shadow and the Argent Dawn trinket... now what kind of player has this gear? My final guess is someone using a powerlevelling service...

Hello Zangarmarsh

So I've finally left Hellfire Penisula behind me and entered Zangarmarsh. I love this zone! It looks amazingly beautiful, a vast improvment over Swamp of Sorrows which it reminds me of. Another zone I really liked.

There are quests a plenty from the Cenarion Expedition outpost, the Dranei town and the odd but cute Sporregars.

For once I found myself stop doing quests and actually really enjoying grinding faction rep by killing giants and nagas. It took me very little time to get to honored with Cenarion Expedition and friendly with Sporregar.

I've met almost no horde while running about in Zangarmarsh... compared to Hellfire this zone feels almost deserted. Also after discovering the PVP rewards available at the Scout Outpost I am doomed to go back to Hellfire to grind away Honor Marks by capturing the outposts.

I've updated my gear with a Fist of Reckoning and it works wonderfully with my hemo specc.

I haven't set foot into any of the instances yet - but I do plan to try to find a PUG for the Ramparts. I need to get started trying those out as everyone says they are much faster than the WOW 1.0 instances. Fear the PUG though... usually the group starts killing without declaring tank, tactics or other vital things and when I bring it up I am usually ignored or laughed at.

Hexapuma Rogue Challenge
So how did my rogue challenge turn out? I did find one poor shaman to kill but after moving over to Zangarmarsh I haven't encountered any horde at all with the exception of the odd rogue or priest. So for the next week I have to continue with shaman-hunting.

New gear for the hemo rogue

I've been shouting for joy over shadowstep previously. Well while going deep into the subtletly tree you might as well pick up hemo for its energy-saving qualities. Actually I probably have a wierd talent build at this point, but I'll cover that in a later post. I've picked up a nice and slow mainhand fist weapon just for big hemo numbers and I've made some gear arrangements and started to pick up on the AP. Judging by numerous post on the official rogue forums you need at least 1000 AP for hemo to be worthwhile.

Bullocks

You can do fine with less. However it is good to have a goal and room for improvement. Most of the posters on the official forums are trying to be top of the crop.. and it doesn't matter what spec you go with it is going to have high gear requirements.

Hexapuma rogue challenge
In order to improve my pvp skills I've decided to give myself a challenge every week. This week's Hexapuma Rogue Challenge will be to:

* defeat 3 different shamans of equal or higher level in a non-battleground or duel environment.

Update - One down, two to go. Bagged a shaman of one level higher. By looking at the armory the shaman was enchantment specced and enjoyed dual wielding. Well doesn't seem to be the best pvp build.. or?
This challenge is only for me to learn better how to fight as a subtletly rogue.

The joys of shadowstep

I've been enjoying the 41 point talent shadowstep immensly. In PVE it allows you to almost soar around when grinding mobs and I've found that most quests on the Hellfire Penisula either requires mobs to be killed or areas with gates/siege equipment etc to be cleared. Shadowstepping around reminds me of playing a warrior with a stealthy charge.

PVP the skill is also super nice. Stealth/vanish and a moment later you are already behind your enemy ready to plunge that dagger into his/her back.

Not hours ago I was jumped by a mage while I was engaged in turning a Hellboar into a steak. Granted the mage wasn't really that hot but even so I can imagine that he was mighty surprised when I vanished right before he landed his sheep and ended up behind him... *splat*

In other news.. I've been away from WOW a couple of weeks as I've been visiting US.. actually I attended Game Developers Conference 2007 in San Fransisco. The conference was alright but more importantly San Fransisco is a wonderful city... not the horrible spawl I find LA but really nice. I could get used to live there... and who knows what the future holds.

How to AOE grind with a paladin

Recently with the new talents of TBC and the enormous flood of new Blood Elf paladins a new way to level with the paladin has emerged. It is the AOE paladin, capable of going toe-to-toe with a whole party of mobs. The more the merrier. For a full guide on the subject of AOE grinding with a paladin I suggest you check out Iloveari's guide. I'll explain the very basics...

AOE grinding builds on the idea that you reflect damage back to the attackers using the Retribution aura and shield spikes. As your Protection paladin levels up you add more reflective damage through Blessing of Sanctuary and Holy Shield. During the battle the paladin keeps Seal of Light/Wisdom both judged and as active seal to keep the mana and life up. For increased pacing - pop Concecration once or twice. A very important talent is Reckoning which allows the paladin to do some decent damage at his current target but even more importantly speed up the mana/health regeneration through the SoL/SoW.

AOE grinding can be pretty fun - seeing all the numbers explode around you as 6-7 mobs are beating on your poor paladin is pretty fun.

A few hints on AOE Grinding:
* Make sure you always face all the mobs, or you won't block/parry the mobs
* Use a fast 1-hander to ensure that your mana and health stays up. Remember its not the damage from your 1-hander that matters. Its all the reflects and block damage that does the trick.
* Find a good grindspot with lots of melee mobs that are easy to round up. At level 50 Sorrow Hill is an excellent place.
* Stay away from casters - your tough armor and shield won't do shit against fireballs ^^
* Check out Iloveari's suggested talent build.

Blizzard undoes the bubble nerf

After several days of wild whining on the official paladin forums about the expected upcoming nerf to the paladin bubble the unexpected happens - Blizzard backs down on a proposed change. Good news for the paladins but only temporary, Blizz will find a way to balance the divine shield...

Re: Forbear. and DS/AW nerf added to ptr note

"After further testing, we've decided to undo the following changes to the Paladin for the next patch as we felt the adjustments were too imposing on the class' ability to tank in dungeons.

-Increased the duration of "Avenging Wrath" by 50% (now lasts 30 sec.) This ability no longer invokes "Forbearance", but shares a cooldown with "Divine Shield".

-Forbearance now reduces damage dealt by the affected player by 15%.

With that being said, we do feel that the Paladin is currently capable of producing too much burst damage and are investigating reasonable ways to make minor reductions for the future. "

Very interesting as my Paladin, Hexapanther, is nearing 60 and one of my hopes is to bring him into the arena at level 70...

Level update
Hexapanther dinged 59 yesterday after some questing in Silithius. I respecced him from heavy protection into heavy retribution. The AOE grinding days are over for now.

Ripperjack the Troll dinged 15 somewhere in the Barrens. He will slowly progress mainly during lunch hours...

Your WoW personality

I spotted a "wow personality test" over at Kinless' Chronicles and just had to take it. The result:

Human Warrior Humans tend to be the ones in the middle. Not as sexy as the Night Elves; not as stumpy as the dwarves or gnomes. As a human, you pretty much go with the flow of things. As a warrior, you like to take charge of things. You feel that you're an important part of what's happening - and if things turn sour, you like to have a very large weapon on hand that you can use to negotiate. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Well it could be worse.. still I am happy I ended up a melee character. I've had lots of various characters in WOW but it seems only melee characters are surviving the race to 60. I've tried to love and play clothies but it just don't work for me. Something about them being totally fragile and depending on gulping mana potions left and right.

I currently have a Blood Elf Mage at level 20 that I hoped would keep my interest but right after finishing up the Bloodmyst area I created a new horde character - a Troll Warrior.

Full subtlety rogue build

Well, being persistent about actually doing something about the carebear nature of the outlands at Ravencrest I respecced Hexapuma from a full Seal Fate / Combat Fist build to going all over to the dark side... the subtlety tree.

I've always loved the talents in the subtlety tree but I've always felt forced to stay assassin/combat. To hell with it... I need a good gank setup to start fights and going all out in the subtlety tree allows me to do that.

Hexapuma is still 60 so I had to do with a 60 talent build... and in my case it turned out to be 10/0/41. I am not completely satisfied and I think I put a few points wrong. I do miss imp. gouge for getting enough energy for backstabs. Initially I did not use hemorrage so I missed improved sinister strike... after a few test runs I've slowly adapted to the new way. I need a good slow fist/sword to dish out hemo damage but also a slow MH dagger for those imba ambush crits.

Using shadowstep is a ton of fun in PVE.. but its use is limited when you want to pick a mobs pocket first. And in order to get that lockpicking up you need to pick a lot of pockets for junk boxes.

So... what am I doing in the subtlety line of PVP?

Sneak up to the target - with Master of Deception it is much easier to approach higher leveled players without alerting them. It might not be all that useful at 70 but right now it is godsent as most of my targets are 58-62.

Shadowstep to target *poof* and you are behind your mark. This is incredibly handy. No need to slowly stalk your target. Step into the shadows and you are ready to plunge the dagger into the unsuspecting fool's back.

Behind your target you have many opptions but start out with Premeditation and what ever opener you go with you almost always have a full 5 point finisher to follow up with. I haven't fought many paladins or warriors yet but I am dying to try out garrote -> rupture & vanish... with preparation it is possible to do this twice...

I've found that my pvp skills are somewhat lacking since my long break and also that I've spent too much time in Battlegrounds.

Better start reading up on some rogue tactics ... I've always liked the ones Osiris wrote. I wonder if he still plays a rogue...

I am stuck on a carebear server?

Am I playing on a PVE server?
Seriously the horde and alliance seem to have a truce going on in the Hellfire Penisula. Orc and human fighting side by side... I jumped an undead priest and shortly after his demise I recieved whispers from another ally in the area to cut it out since the horde would revenge...

Seriously, I feel that if you want to play side by side with the other faction - go play on a PVE server. I chose a PVP server to experience the thrill and additional excitement of being a munchy target at any time. Yes, sometimes that means I get to run back to my corpse, yes, sometimes several times.

When I started playing WOW two years ago the world of Azeroth was a harsh place. If you spotted a red it surly led to combat. I played a warrior and I did get my fair share of corpse running from "imba" mages and priests. Strangely enough - I miss it. In the end game world pvp dimnished and now it seems to be even lower with all PVP concentrated around the BGs and the arenas focused on item grinding. Dont get me wrong.. I love fighting in the BG but I also need that extra excitement when doing mundane quests.

Combat and PVP in the Outlands

I've started on the various quest chains originating in Honor Hold and I find myself replacing my PVP and Tier 1 gear at an alarming rate. Actually I love that... WOW is an RPG and gaining level and replacing equipment is what you are supposed to do, anything else and it would have been a huge disappointment.

A few observations so far:
1 - World PVP - almost non-existent. You pass horde characters sometimes alone and sometimes in groups. Neither attack. People are simply to busy to level to engage in some serious pvp. For me still being 60 and everyone else around 62-65 it doesn't do much. But I do play on a PVP server... My initial 1-60 race back in the days were riddled with world pvp, corpse runs and gankpatrols. I can't say I miss the corpse runs but I do miss the excitement and the fear...

2. The Quests - Blizzard is doing so many wonderful and new types of quests. The bombing run quests are excellent! I hope these odd quests are not the only ones, rather I hope you'll be able to find these all the way to the end.

3. Visuals - So far I am kind of disappointed with the looks of the outlands. It feels like the unholy mix of Max Max's wastelands and some crazy purple cartoon from the childern's channel. The floating islands are very cool though ^^

Gearing up
A nice MH fist of the monkey dropped yesterday.. and so far I have not specced into any specific weapon type so now I am wielding a fist. Very nice.. I've also managed to replace the very cool ghostshroud with a very ugly leather helmet. Feels good to wear greens again =)

Draenei update
My Draenei warrior dinged 20! I have completed almost all the quests on Bloodmyst island including the two-three elite ones. I'll be finishing up those and then probably put the character on hold while I try out the Blood Elves starting grounds. My intial plan was to level a BE mage but after a few comments about how cool the BE stealth animation looks it might be another rogue =)

My combat rogue build

So I finally took Hexapuma into the Outlands today and before doing that I had to decide a talent build. Hexapuma mostly have pre-TBC pvp gear and the weapon arsenal consists of lower tier raid weapons, which means that most weapons would probably be upgraded in the first few levels. In order to be as weapon independent as possible at start out I opted for a Seal Fate - Combat build... or 30/21/0 build at level 60 and then continue to add points to the combat tree towards level 70 (especially imp kick and other goodies).

My rogue combat build at 60

You might notice that I haven't put any points into daggers/fist/sword/maces.. but the idea is that what ever godly weapon I'll find.. I'll pump up. Most likely I'll end up respeccing to try out different things but this will get me started.

A quick description of my chosen build

Pros
* Strong PVE
* Blade flurry and AR+EV = lots of multi-pulls
* Fast combo-generation with SF
* Strong finishers with imp. evis ( When trying out the new finishers I might end up ditching this)
* Quick-recovery - very interested to see how good this is with my life leeching gear (lifestealing enchant, heroism deck etc)

Cons
* Not especially powerful in PVP (in my experience combat build isn't really that strong since it lacks true burst damage)
* Not that fun - mash sinister strike over and over again.
* No MOD! - big issue for me since I like to sneak around, both in PVP and PVE to explore new content.

I'll keep you updated of how my build feels and when/if I do any changes. Right now I can tell that I am very interested in going maces. I'd love to see how the stuns will work out in the arenas. Disruption ftw!

Draenei update
My Draenei warrior have now reached the respectable level of 16. That means she is still adventuring in the Draenei zone. I am still very impressed with the zone - the way blizzard have spread out the quests is really great. You have something to do in every area of the zone and there is very little running back and forth. Something I found you would be doing a lot when leveling up as human or any alliance for that matter. Darkshore anyone?

Protection Paladin
Hexapanther my paladin keeps amazing me with how awesome a protection specced paladin can be. I've now main tanked Zul'Farak and Sunken Temple and the Aoe grinding he is capable of is amazing. I regularly hit 40-50K exp/hour when grinding at the "correct" spots. Good grinding spots so far include:
* Sorrow Hill (the undead)
* Tanaris - Noxious Lair
* Tanaris - Pirate cove (forgot the correct name)

Regarding the noxious lair - this is probably my only character that actually thrives down in the insect caves.. multiple adds - no problem, poisoned - no problem it can be cleansed...

Impressions of the burning crusade

Playing the Draenei
Let me start by saying that so far I am really impressed with The Burning Crusade as a whole. Yesterday I stood in the AH checking out all the new cool items wondering if I should blow some gold on items before getting into outlands with Hexapuma. I really haven't settled for a good build either. Lots of confusion. While I stand there next to the auctioneer thinking this Draenei shaman runs up to me asking for the opening of a lockbox. That shaman was already 50... and then I realized that sooner or later I'll have to check out the two new races starting points.

The Blood Elves doesnt really interest me at all. The whole horde need a pretty race seems a bit wierd to me. Instead I rolled a female Draenei warrior... The male draenei looks really bad. They are so top heavy with their wierd tentacles and "soft" horns. Some of the face textures on the male characters are stretched and thus bugged... So it had to be a female and they actually look pretty cool. I selected warrior because I really like melee and heavy armor ^^



The Draenei starting area is beautiful compared to the old races starting points. Lots of vegetation and details in the environment. One thing Blizzard has done really well is the amount of quests in the new Draenei area (I guess the Blood Elves have the same). It seemed I always had quests and didn't really have to comeplete all quests because there were just so many of them. I´ve now reached level 12 and it has been an amazing time. I found myself reading all quest descriptions and really trying to understand how the Draenei story relates to the rest of the WOW lore. At first I was a bit sceptical of the whole "Draenei space ship" thing.. but after playing through the first 10 levels it feels pretty cool. So unless I am completely mistaken The Exodar is not only the Draenei captital - it is also the space ship which they crashed on Azeroth with.

I am really looking forward to play the next Draenei zone and I will probably keep all other characters on hold until that is finished.

The many personalities of Hexapuma

I am such a sucker for alts... and now that I have returned and no longer raid and the honor system has been revamped I have much more time to actually play alts. While my rogue is without a doubt my favourite character and my "main". I enjoy playing a paladin as well. They are very different since they have so much more to offer in terms of support.

Having played so much battlegrounds as a rogue it is very refreshing to play support and healer sometimes. Of course everyone really appriciates my heals and buffs =) If I were to add something to the rogue design it would be some sort of buff or aura... doesn't have to be super or amazing at all.. just a little something to repay friendly buffers.

The server I play on, Ravencrest, is unstable at best and during its downtimes I've started an undead priest on another server. It is actually quite fun and I can't wait until my first battleground expeditions. Since I am going to try PVP early with her I am going into the shadow tree.

Preparations, preparations

Just getting back into the game was more difficult than I anticipated... of course Blizzard's manage account page had to be down when I finally decided to return. I quite understand it though as the pressure on Blizzard's site must be huge now that all subscribers are upgrading their accounts and with all of us oldies returning to play again.

Finally I managed to re-activate my account when the next problem appeared ... deciding the new talent build for my rogue. Well ... when I left WOW in October last year I was very happy with SF dagger build. With all the new talents I have a really difficult time to decide upon my next build. Fortunately there are a few good sites out that gives a pretty good orientation of various builds.. I strongly recommend www.roguespot.com and www.worldofming.com...

Before nailing down the talents... I ran into another problem. MODS! Most of the mods I used before doesn't work anymore so just getting them all back is going to be a pain.

Instead of going for the old ones I used I've downloaded Wowace updater.. which you can find at www.wowace.com ...

And by the way… for some fun podcasting I recommend listening to a couple in Azeroth’s podcast… which you can download from their site here.

Joining the Crusade

The time of rest is over. Hexapuma returns to Azeroth.

I've just downloaded three huge patches and updated my client. I still haven't purchased the expansion but I am going to return to check out the new arena play, the new talents that has been introduced for TBC. Hopefully I'll be able to brush up my old rogue skills after being absent for a few months. If I like what I find I'll probably go running for the actual expansion asap.

So What have I been doing all this time?

I've played a lot of other games... Total War, Silent Hunter IV, Civ IV and making out with another great MMO.. EVE-Online. Eve is pure fantastic... focused on PVP but do lack interesting settings and environments.

Hexapuma is in torpor...

So finally after almost two years it is time for me to put the WOW gaming to rest. A lot of other things have come up and on the gaming front I've started playing EVE together with the very same people I once started out WOW with.

I still have my account active and do mainly PVP with my Paladin alt, Hexapanther.

So if this blog suddenly changes to feature lots of starships and other sci-fi elements you now know why... and to all rogues. Take care out there and be careful with that thistle tea.

.Hexapuma

Looking for new server

I've been up to lots of things since the last post. Basically I've had it with the long wait queues in Battlegroup 3 for getting into AB/AV/WSG... so I've been researching various other realms.

It does mean that I have left my old guild. Painful.. and it is more painful that all of my friends are on the Ravencrest server. The only other option I have is to level a new rogue and stay below the 60 bracket or get busy with my alts...

Regarding raiding.. I've had my share of raiding now and quite frankly the 40 man raids lasting for 5-6 hours are not my idea of fun. I really dislike the idea that in order to get a *good* weapon you need to raid. I am so looking forward to TBC for the arena battles and the revamped honor reward system.

to be continued

BWL & Onyxia here I come

So last night I decided to ignore the guilds MC run and instead concentrate on getting leather-clad destroyer through UBRS. First off, I truly despise sitting waiting in IF spamming LFG every other minute. Especially when the channel is filled with crap from people who just gotta be heard. Every minute is painful.

While doing the LFG routine I got a lot of whispers with: LFG? Yeah a group not a player... eventually I understood that if I was to get me and my daggers into UBRS it would be by setting up my own raid.. including all the hassles of getting a keyholder, tank and healer. So instead I took the LFG channel with me into AB...

Even though you are automatically entered into a raid when going into the battlegrounds, these does not affect your "Real" party status. I was able to get invited by a group ready to go to UBRS =) No more waiting in IF for a group. SWEET!

The UBRS raid was led by an epic warrior from Inquisitors. Yay, this might even work =). It was a long time since I ran UBRS and those lower instances but it was fun. My new gear cut through their armor like a hot knife through butter. While the tank was AFK downing a pizza I was the tank =) Actually it works quite good as long as you don't have to tank multiple mobs.

Loots of stuff dropped, but no Eviscerate book..I did pick up The Shadow Prowler's Cloak. Never seen it before but it was a good find.

In the end I am now attuned for BWL, Onyxia and the next part of the MC questline! I increased my FR by 30 from the quest objectives alone ^^

Returning to IF my guild asked me if I'd join for Ragnaros.. I came into MC right as Majordomo was killed. To my surprise the Core Hound Tooth just dropped... when we downed Ragnaros (on second try) the Perdition Blade also dropped... I lost it to another rogue. If hadn't bidded on the claws previous MC run I would have had sufficient DKP to bring them home. Well there is always a next time - I hope.

Oh.. regarding the fists I picked up last week. Yes they do lots of white damage and yes they do work in raids but I am not overly impressed with them. I have not yet tried any PVP with them. My Krol Blade pops back into my hands as soon as danger lurks around the corner.

I am such a fool...

I am such a fool... last night in MC I was so hyped about the chance of getting a weapon upgrade. I was also in the lucky position of being top rogue DKP. So basically if anything would drop I'd be guaranteed to win it. Somehow I managed to fumble it... before the raid I noted down my DKP and that of the next one in line just to be sure. At Garr both Brutality Blade and the Gutgore Ripper drops. After a moment of joy I decided to go after the Brutality Blade (being human and found of Sword combat it was a rather easy choice). The Gutgore is auctioned first.. I pass and another happy rogue gets it. Next up.. the Brutality Blade.. I bid my max and just waits for the announcement.. but its not me its another rogue, the one just below me in DKP count. The strange thing is he bids with the same amount I have as max... and then it hits me. I misread the dkp chart.. instead of noting my own I had noted the other rogues dkp. Bleh. No weapon upgrade for me this run. So lesson learned? Double, nay, tripple check the dkp properly.

Well I didn't go completely empty-handed away from last night. I did pick up Eskhandar's Right Claw for minimum dkp. Now it was more of a fluke... I am curious of trying out a fast weapon with lots of poison. Before you say anything... I am pretty sure that a slow weapon is better for pumping out lots of nice sinister damage and it will be pretty moot in PVP.

But I rather discover that one myself after testing it... so for the next raid I'll be respeccing for fist/poison combat. If you have any suggestions I'll be happy to check it out.

Profile updated

So I took the time to actually create & update a ctprofile profile for Hexapuma. The main profile is what I use for grinding, PVP and raids without the need for FR. The fire resistance profile is (surprise surprise) used for the more fiery parts of MC including Ragnaros.

I am slowly upgrading my FR gear to become less and less of a burden for the healers, although I think I am already doing a fine job of that.

My next goal is to get a Molten Helm, Lava Belt and maby even Molten Boots. For the observant I don't have the pre-onyxia quest completed yet. I am waiting to get myself into an UBRS run. Something which has proven incredibly difficult after the Eviscerate book update... that combined with my time schedule.

Actually if I just could get one run into UBRS I would complete:
* The onyxia pre-quest and get my a valuable FR necklace
* The BWL pre-quest
* The Hydraxxian Waterlord quest for the FR ring.

Conclusion.. I really really need to zip through UBRS.

Cross-server Battlegrounds

So after two weeks of Cross-server battlegrounds I can only say it has been a huge let down for me. Previously on Ravencrest it took me 4-5 minutes for AB or WSG game and almost instantly for an AV game. Now the wait time is over 20 minutes for AB/WSG and around the hour for AV games. I suspect it is an overrepresentation of Alliance players in the battlegroup because there are an astounding number of instances up.

Anyway this is really sad... I love going into the battlegrounds but this is simply not an option anymore. I can't login, wait around for 20 minutes, play 5 minutes and then wait another 20.

So what can I do? I can play my alts and avoid the level 60 bracket or I could PAY and get a transfer to another battlegroup. Missing friends and all... Very unfortunate.

Had a great guild raid to Molten Core yesterday and we cleared all bosses of MC without any wipe on around four hours. With my gear somewhat good (PVP set + Nightslayer) I am holding out for a weapon. With my build now combat I managed to stay on the top 5 of the damage chart. I am sure that I can go higher when I get more efficient with AR and BF.

My biggest issue so far compared to a SF build is the lack of combopoints. It takes forever to generate them... ^^ I was hoping to do a little combat in BGs too... but hey the queues were simply too long.

Combat Swords...

So after being specced Seal Fate for a good while I wanted to go back to combat swords again to see if my gear would have improved it since last time. New build 16/31/4 (I personally can't live without a few points in MOD).

Survivability ... I seem to survive longer in BG's but when solo grinding I actually take more hits now. The whole SF build is all about gouging and getting a few nasty backstabs in.. combat swords is more about upfront damage. I haven't really nailed down a good flow yet and I suppose I'll have to rely more on kidney shot...

I am scheduled for a MC raid tonight but it seems like I'll have to sit this one over as it has 7 rogues signed up already... guess it will be BG night ;) If I do get into the raid I'll see if I have increased my dps with combat swords...

Guild trauma

We had a rough night... our server had constant lagspikes and we were supposed to get little ragnaros down. After 8 or 9 attempts ragnaros despawned (he will despawn 2 hours after the first battle with him has been initiated). It is a shame because we have had him 3 times before and I wish I could blame the lag but it wasn't entirely its fault.

With the guild progressing through MC, we've burned out 3 raid leaders. The guild is going through alot of inter-drama. I hope we sail it through. I've read on numerous other guildpages and blogs that once you nail Ragnaros and start peeking into BWL things are bound to change. Alot of guild can't handle the shift - suddenly you need enormous commitment. Lots of reagents to be farmed - fire pots, health pots, and gold for repairs, flasks and a gazillion other things. Constant wiping doesn't improve morale either. It becomes a rift between the truly hard-core raiders and the "causal raiders"... HC raiders being annoyed by the lack of dedication from the casual and the causal being annoyed by constant wiping.

Our guild started out casual, became semi-hardcore and now has both types of players. Various penalties are being handed out for leaving mid-raid (without notice) and the mood is getting darker.

Personally I am probably more of a casual raider. My schedule only allows me to raid once a week but with periodic gaming during the rest. It allows me to do some farming and more importantly PVP =) I love the guild and if it breaks down I gather it will be hard to find another that will accept a rogue that can only raid once a week =/

Oh .. our server is getting a hardware upgrade this maintenance. I wonder if we'll notice any difference. Hopefully it will quell some of the lagspike we have. I just wished more horde would play in our battlegroup since the waiting time is about 15minutes for AB and over an hour for AV... funny enough, the BG queues are much faster on lower levels.. so either there are plenty of hordes in training or just less alliance there. Dunno but I am getting most of my PVP fix at the lower brackets right now.

SF and UI hell!

So I picked the old classic Seal Fate for my new 1.12 build. I really wanted to go Hemo or heavy combat swords... but my weapons are not really up to par with hemo and I hesitated so much.. so I went with SF to see how the BGs would come out.

BGs in battlegroup 3 has been a pain. There is lag from hell when it comes to actually join the queues. You talk to the NPC... but nothing happens. 10 minutes later the instance list pops up for a second, just enough to remind you that if you were patient enough and waited by the NPC for an indefinate period of time you would be able to join the 40 minute queues.

But they'll fix it.. it will take a while but then it will start working. That is how it works.

I downloaded a new UI to celebrate the 1.12 patch... going with NurfedUI and nothing more. I've always believed in having as few mods as possible. But man! going from one UI package to another is time consuming. Spent a few minutes in AB in confusion of where my skills were and it seems everytime I tried to go for Cold Blood I would switch the menu page. SHIFT-2 is my usual Cold Blood key.. but without fixing up Nurfed UI correctly it swapped my main attack skills for bandages and shit...

1.12 rogue talents reviewed

So I've just downloaded and installed the 1.12 patch. Later tonight I'll have to respec and to be honest I don't really have a clue of what to spec. My previous spec was a classic Seal Fate (31/8/12)... I'll see if that will serve as a starter or else I am going with a Combat Sword build to make sure I don't gimp my PVE DPS too much.

Combat Sword is also quite handy in the BGs... although you need slightly better backup.

I just quickly browsed through the official wow forums and they are filled with many "OMG! the worst review ever" threads. Somehow I think the rogue community is a crowd impossible to please.

MC on farm status?

Yesterday the guild cleared the whole Molten Core in one go... little over four hours and without a wipe. I guess this qualifies for putting MC on farm status. Unfortunately I wasn't raiding yesterday. I had plans to join tonight.. with no raid going I'll try to get into an AQ20 spot later this week to get the quest Perfect Poison completed. I desperately need to upgrade my Heartseeker...

Anyways with MC cleared the guild will be hard pressed to start with BWL. While I want to get into BWL I still think we are miles away from doing anything but wiping as most of our members still only have very few T1 pieces. I gather we should stick around in MC for a few more weeks before seriously attempting BWL. Problem is that the most raid intensive members have little left to gain from MC and will probably do their uttermost to start BWL. We'll see what happens.

In other news.. this weekend I'll be taking care of our very-soon-to-be 4 month old son alone for the first time. It will be a great adventure! He is the curious, awake kind of little guy so I'll have my hands full.

Ragnaros down

I had a great time in MC... on our guild's third attempt we managed to kill Ragnaros. It was one of those really legendary fights that will live on in memory for a very long time. Our raid leader did a really good job shouting "More dots" and "Hit it like you mean it" during the fight. We had a few newbish players during the fight such as the paladin in my group that never tried to stick close to his melee group. I noticed how the Fire Resist Aura would come and go as I moved back and forth dodging Ragnaro's AOE blast.

Rogue tactics during the Ragnaros event is fairly simple. Start out behind Rag and move in to melee. Start building DPS slowly with lots of feints. As soon as the 5 sec raid warning appears move back to the edge to avoid getting thrown high into the air. Rinse and repeat. The last few percent was extremely exciting as we were just a few people left alive. Mostly caster loot appeared and no Perdy =(

Interestingly I didn't use any sharpening stones or other consumables than a +25 strength thingy from Blasted Lands. I ended up third on the meters.. a combat rogue in the 0.5 set did an excellent job of topping the charts. Guess I have to start focusing more ;)

Pinioned has now successfully cleared ZG and MC. My guess is that we'll soon start with the first bosses of BWL once we've killed Rag a few more times. So it is time to stock up on even more FR gear.

The new Burning Crusade PVP

I just read Joystick's exlusive intervju with Blizzard designer Jeff Kaplan.

There was a few very interesting tidbits...

The first is the arena combat system. You'll be able to join a team: 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. There are two different modes you can play: One is called practice mode to hone your skills and the other is competitive mode, which is level 70 only.

Very interesting. This will allow champions to emerge from pre-made groups. Hopefully the end of a few premades vs pugs. I really look forward to the 2 vs 2...

You can get the best rewards in the game on par with the raid game. So, wherever the raid game loot is currently at, the PvP arena system will match those rewards. And, the arena system is a seasonal system that will last three months then reset with a new set of rewards each season.

Again interesting.. I'll be sure to look for the raiders to start whining about easy epics. I guess most of them have not fought a godly team. On our Ravencrest server it used to be a guild called Amazing Randy... they sure showed skill.

The last pvp improvement is:

The third thing is a revamp of the honor system. We're not going to do away with the honor system, but we're going to fix many of the flaws with it. The first thing players will really care about is that your honor points will no longer decay. Honor points will now become the like the PvP equivalent of a PvE experience.

Finally.. I wonder if they do use some sort of weekly comparisson to adjust the amount of honor each player recieves compared to the amount of PVP done.

All in all extremely interesting features that definately gets my interest to wait for the expansion.

Move along, nothing to see...

Did some more raiding with the guild... and it was interesting to try out the Seal Fate build in a raid. It worked pretty good and I ended up third on the damage meter. Topped by another rogue (Mulán) and one of our mages (Fireleon). It was a close race. No deaths this time except for a full wipe as we were heading to Golemag... unlucky body pull as we were going to bypass a few mobs and a Core Hound appeared. In the end we got everything and a quick trip to the graveyard.

The guild got the whole beginning of Molten Core nailed down now. We need to learn Sulfron and then its Ragnaros time. I've started to farm for gold again to keep afloat. Wipeing costs gold and my reserves just went down after a lucky break on the AH... Goty myself a Myrmidon's Signet.. It was about time to replace my Mason fraternity ring =)

Everytime I go raiding I miss PVP...

Seal fate so far

I've been pleasantly surprised with the Seal Fate build for mob grinding. It is not a combat spec but it is still very efficient. I have yet to try it out properly in PVP and raiding.

Tonight I have a MC raid scheduled so we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll have to vanish a lot ;)

A WoW Memory
About a year ago I was in Darnassus with my warrior, Ripperjack. I was lingering around the bank waiting for a friend to arrive. At that point a low level rogue approached. He whispered to me: "Hey can you craft me a dagger?" At that time most warriors were actually blacksmiths.. Ripperjack on the other hand was a herbalist/alchemist. So I replied to him "No, I am no blacksmith, I run around picking flowers and making tasty drinks instead :)" The rogue responded: "..." and then "Thats so gay". I don't know if it is unmanly to pick flowers but it did make me rich ;)

Talent Respec

So before the much anticipated 1.12 patch I decided to respec my old PVP build to 31/8/12, the much popular Seal Fate build. I've been itching to try out vigor, seal fate and cold blood.

Much to my dismay the queues to AB during the summer period is long. 28 minute instead of the usual 5-6 minutes. So far I've just noticed that I truly miss Preparation & Camo . I've also noticed that I am a poor finisher... especially to remember using Cold blood. More buttons to press but it has not let me down yet.

I also did the first two Molten Core quests... first a quick stop at EPL for the plagued elementals and then over to Silithius for even more elementals. Everytime I do a bit of grinding a miss my old combat spec. Silithius is thick with farmers... both alliance and horde. It seems they do have an unstable truce. All it took was one dagger in the back and a full war was raging - with me in the middle. Fun.. again World PVP is probably where we still shine as heroes or perhaps villains.

Was fun to do a bit of questing.. next stop is UBRS so I'll probably have to find me a nice PUG. The dread.

Hexa goes raiding

So I've been raiding in MC alot lately (that is once per week) and even though I missed the last ring I blew all my dkp on the Quick Strike Ring when it dropped this time. I switched a +9 agi/stam green ring so it was a pretty good upgrade. I was actually quite surprised when I won it since I dont have an especially large DKP pool but people are greedy =) also i gathered that it would be a hard fight against the other rogues in the guild to get any Nightslayer pieces.

We had trouble dealing with the Imps (at lucifron) or rather not trouble but we were slow and our raid leader wisely wanted us to clear em out to stop people of accidently pulling them into the fight or getting Mind controlled there. All the imps led our mage to get a good start into the damage meters but I prevailed and ended up second. Not bad for a shabby single target rogue.

With my focus being more on raiding instead of PVP I gather it is time to once again respec to combat swords... I love that build since I don't have to run around repositioning myself all the time... and in MC that is all you do.

The 1.12 patch looks exciting, although I am a bit disappointed. I had hoped for bigger changes - to bring a new fresh wave into the rogue game. Seems like the traditional builds still holds except a few talent changes. My personal build won't survive 1.12 so I'll have to find a new one.

over and out..

Garr drops fine loot...

We went into MC tonight... and except for an embarassing wipe at the initial firelords (a bad pull) we cleared our way to Garr before call off. Guess we still need to work on our speed... A few cool items dropped such as the Quick Strike Ring and the Brutality Blade.. however my meager DKP wasn't enough. Strangely enough the Brutality blade didn't go for much dkp at all... guess most of our guildies are kinda greedy on their dkp =)

Ended up #5 on the damage meter so I still need to improve. Not bad though considering I have a straight PVP spec.

The Fire Festival

I've been pretty focused on PVP the last months but with the little Fire festival event I couldn't resist to ride out in the world to check out the various fires.

I had a blast... riding through semi low level areas looking for the fires was not only fun but it also brought me back the joy of World PVP.

It took me little more than 2 hours to complete a few of the quests but it was great fun. Rewards are not especially enticing as they only last for a set number of days.

There is something very sinister to world PVP as a rogue.. you really have complete control in when to start a battle and how to proceed whereas in the BGs you have a timer running (kill the horde before he caps etc).

There is a fine balance between World PVP and BG PVP.. and unfortunately rogues are gods in world and lackeys in BG. It will be interesting to see what blizz have in store for us in patch 1.12... I wouldn't be surprised if Blizz thanks to world pvp will be very limited in the ways that they improve our class.

Oh.. tonight I am going Molten Core with the guild... perhaps a nightslayer piece or two will be mine. I upgraded my OH dagger from Blood-etched blade to Scarlet Kris yesterday... ;)

Global LFG channel = bad

Well I guess I am not the only one that finds the new updated Looking for Group channel is really crappy. At first it seemed ok.. a way to find instance groups without having to loiter around in IF... but in a couple of days the LFG channel degraded into what best can be described as the Barrens' general chat. /leave

I guess the way to use it is to join the channel only when you are actively looking for an instance group. So the whole global idea kinda fails...

I hope the wait for 1.12 is a short one.. the 1.11 probably took longer than usual since it added the whole Nax instance. I wouldn't be surprised if 1.12 is almost complete by now.

Quick visit to Molten Core

Yesterday I had a chance to raid with the guild and we went down into the Molten Core. Since I don't raid much I was amazed to see how professional the guild has been in clearing trashmobs and the bosses. It was one of the first times that Pinioned went into MC as guild-only.

We effortlessly cleared our way to the first boss Lucifron. A freak pet pull had us wiped the firt try. Actually I wouldn't even call it a try =) A few minutes later Luci droped Cenarion Belt and the Gauntlets of Might.

Magmadar was next up... of all my MC runs (and I have about 10 under my belt) this was by far the most painless. From his bloody corpse our dear Krinssan looted the Aged Core Leather Gloves. Most of the rogues were uninterested and the gloves went for a lousy 50 dkp. While those gloves aren't the best, they are pretty good raiding gloves for a dagger rogue.

The raid continued to Ghennas. Unfortunately I had to leave right before the boss figh... I heard that Ghennas was killed at firt try and the Nightslayer Gloves droped. Oh well.. there is always another raid.

Patch 1.11 tomorrow!

Patch 1.11 is due on the EU servers tomorrow according to Blizzard posts. Very exciting and it brings us one step closer to our beloved 1.12 rogue patch =)

A few friends are sending out warnings to mail all their pots to their mains since they've seen screenshots of pots being bind on pickup. Personally I don't believe it for a second as it would make the alchemy profession seriously gimped. Something is bound to happen though as Argent Dawn will trade major health/mana pots for special crystals that will drop from the undead.

If worst comes to worst my alchemist will be stuck with a large supply of useless firepots. Bring it on Blizzard =)

Warsong wants you!

This weekend is WSG weekend.. so its an obvious hang out place for me who needs lots of honor at short time. Games are fast and at my server there are about 50/50 wins. It is also kinda nice to take a break from AB... I do have approximately 20k rep to grind and in my pace that will take about 10 weeks... =/

I ventured into Alterac Valley today. Just sniffing around checking the rep income to see how long it would take me to get the lobotimizer. Too long. However the game was won by the alliance! It is my first won AV - ever! I used to play alot of AV with my hunter (almost exhalted) so I've seen plenty of AV action. To my great disappointment the reward for winning AV is amazing for new hunters and warriors but totally sucky for rogues. I got the crossbow...

My computer is restored now.. for some reason I cant get the wirless network to work =/ Luckily I had a cable to plug it directly.

HD incoming

Just a little update on the HD situation.. Grimbold (co-worker) managed to restore all of the data on the HD so life is good! A new HD has been ordered and should arrive tomorrow... Felt a wee bit odd to raid at work the other day =)

Hakkar defeated

Last night I raided with my guild and it was loads of fun. We went directly for Hakkar (as they had cleared the five channeler bosses the day before). After a few wipes we downed Hakkar in a glorious battle. We had a pretty strange lineup for the raid with only 1 druid, 2 priests, 3 rogues, 2 paladins, 3 hunters, 3 mages, 1 warlock and 5 warriors. It is the third time Hakkar is downed by Pinioned so they're getting the hang of it. So loot... I've hard that Hakkar drops rogue loot galoré - not so this time. Heart of Hakkar, Cloak of Consumption and the Soul Corruptor's Necklace plopped out of his messy corpse.

After Hakkar we proceeded to take out the fishboss, Ghaz'ranka. And from his body we pilfered Nat Pagle's Fish Terminator. After a few crazed attempts by our seemingly drunk priest to bid on the staff a warrior finally won it. Except for the name, the Fish terminator is actually a really good 2H warrior weapon with more than +40 strength.

Now I have to find more time to do some guild raiding... I might get away with a raid once every other week =/

Analyzing the HD...

The HD is now under the microscope.. our sys admin is having a look at it. *holding thumbs*

On another note... tonight my wife is going on a small barbecue with her colleagues and taking Nemo with her. She is after all his personal food machine. So tonight is raid night for me. Was a month or two since last time but Zul'Gurub 'ere I come!

Harddrive crash

So my harddrive crashed this weekend. After a couple of hours with DELL tech support and running a few diagnostics we zeroed in on HD failure. It is not completely busted so even though DELL can't do anything I might be able to persuade our company tech support to help me extract important files from the HD. My biggest gripe is that I have about 5 years of digital photos stored on that drive and no DVD backup. yes stupid I know... but how often does a HD crash anyway? First time for me... So I'll probably play little to no WOW in the coming week =/ Guess that will ruin any chances for me to hang on to rank 8.

Amazing session

Last night after reconfiguring my equipment and reaching a whopping 600 AP together with 3.9K health I broke a few new records in AB. Mages, Shamans, warlocks and priests quickly fell to my amazement after receiving a 1.8K ambush and a backstab over 1000.

I guess for most end-game rogues this is pretty lame but for me it was a world of difference. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I really really need to replace my old Heartseeker with something more powerful. The Thunderwood Poker is just around the corner for me but I do need day to raid AQ20. Time my friends is not something I have a lot of these days.

oh.. and I got the Nightslayer Bracelets today... yummy.

Pinioned winclipped...

One of the guild's founding members (raidleader, main puller and guild bank) decided to move on to greener pastures this week. She left for one of the most prominent PVE guilds on Ravencrest - The Inquisitors. I fully understand her choice as she had most of the gear from MC already from various "open MC raids". She also plays in a whole other league than most of our members when it comes to time and dedication.

She will be missed.

However during times like this other members step up and get a chance to be main puller and even raid leaders. I think in the long run we'll grow stronger even though we'll have a setback in the comming week(s).

It does not really affect me since I have very little time to do any raiding at all. I need to start doing a few ZG runs though to get the primal hakkari's needed for the Madcap outfit. Especially now since there are rumors of the set being boosted from superior to epic quality...

I've been buying bijou's of AH for money grinded in various low-level instances so I should be able to pump up my rep to revered pretty easily. Just need those drops!

Finally a little humor - guess most of you have already seen it. But 'tis is good stuff =)

Knight-Captain Hexapuma

So I made rank 8 this week. Sweet. I've finally been able to toss away that old green of the monkey shirt and replace it with the rank 8 chest.

I still can't believe that my old devilsaur still is far better than the pvp set. With 1.11 the new pvp armors will be better though. So even though I had planned to relax the honor race a little it seems I will have to prevail until 1.11 patch is published.

I had a big laugh in AB this weekend as in one game two people were trying to direct the zerg to various locations. "Everybody - GO MINE NOW!!!" and five seconds later the other one would shout "DEFEND FARM FARM"... it was a fun game. At one point one of the "commanders" was angry yelling for people to stop attacking so many different places. Normally I would agree - but this time the zerg actually attacked what the two commanders asked for.

A tip for budding AB commanders. If you want to direct people to do things. Use more descriptions than "Attack Farm now".. people don't know how to choose between defending and attacking and odds are that no one will stay on defence.

Mind-numbing discoveries

I've had to scale down a little bit on my PVP this week. I hope it won't hit my rank too much. Worst case would be to have to grind AB one more week. I really want to get back into a little guild raiding once or twice a week but with a 6 week old baby in the house its hard to get those raiding hours together.

I've been a somewhat typical rogue and stalked around AB with dual crippling poison applied. I've started to experiment with other poisons as well and now I usually go with the crippling and mind-numbing combo. I do feel that it really improves my chanses against casters ... what a surprise =)

Worst thing to encounter at a flag is actually another rogue with cripling and deadly poison. Seems like they only exist to counter other ninja rogues. Wham-bam and your have crippling, deadly poison and a 5-pt rupture. Thats when a rogue is a true sitting duck... I'll be doing a little experiments with that myself next week.

Oh.. gotta run to IKEA now for a little furniture boost at home. Need another shelf to put our CD/DVD.