The Recked Report: Hallowed Be My Name Now!
October 30, 2009
As Hallow’s End comes to an end the pressure is on for those who are still chasing that title.
I must admit I never really bothered too much with World Achievements. Having been inspired by Sam’s Hallowed post over on Slice and Dice I thought I’d give it a go too.
Like Dinear over at Forever a Noob, I thought it would just be a grind but there were parts I enjoyed… Flying all over the old world was nice and brought back some of the old areas long forgotten. It was nice just chilling one evening and flying from here to there.
Having said that the most frustrating part of the entire event for me was killing the Headless Horseman until the Hallowed Helm dropped.
The Sinister Squashling dropped on the first kill which was lucky but it took me another gruelling 24 times before the helmet dropped. Now I’m just glad it’s over with.
After all that it turns out the title is now bugged so I can’t even join Sam and show it off. I suppose this will just have to do until Blizzard sorts it out:
Overall, I enjoyed taking time to do something a little bit different and perhaps I’ll get involved in the next World Event.
Did you take part in Hallow’s End? What was your experience?
Rogue Weapon Swapping in Raids… A Myth?
October 30, 2009
I’m not a fan of weapon-swapping while raiding and never have been. Personally, I don’t think the rewards for doing so are worthwhile. It is useful in PvP… You can switch your weapons and poisons depending on whether you’re attacking casters or plate-wearers for example… But in PVE!?
Well, some Rogues use the technique in raids and over on the WoW Rogue Forums the issue of having to weapon-swap has been raised (and addressed).
Irian, in her original post, explains the issue:
“For rogues to compete now, they have to swap their offhand twice every 12 seconds or so. Please kill this like you said you would, as it is completely ridiculous and horrible to do. Give some minor haste and white hit buffs to rogues so they can compete with the better scaling plate wearers, etc instead.
… Weapon swapping of this manner involves getting 5 deadly stacks up (deadly on your offhand), then swapping to dual instant (or wound for some combat fights), then swapping back to deadly offhand a few seconds before the deadly stack fades. GC stated this was not an intended mechanic, and would be killed if it became too viable/prevalent, which it has.”
I agree. The techique is horrible and in my opinion over-complicates fights. We’ve already got enough to worry about with positioning, interrupts and rotations without all this weapon-swapping business for a little extra DPS.
BUT…
I do NOT agree we need this “for rogues to compete now”. We are dealing some serious damage without using overly complicated techniques like this. Of course, I appreciate it’s in every Rogue’s nature to maximise their damage output… BUT… With weapon-swapping? Really!?
For those of you who haven’t heard of the technique there’s a great post over on One Rogue’s Journey by Zaltu which includes the actual macro.
Weapon-swapping does have it’s uses in certain situations…
For example, you can use it to apply anesthetic poison on Icehowl when he goes into a frothing rage after trampling someone.
Anyway, don’t worry Ghostcrawler has addressed these weapon-swapping concerns for all:
“We think the problems with swapping weapons get overstated a lot. There is some theoretical evidence that you can get a small dps increase by swapping weapons. In reality, many of the rogues who try it find that it’s too prone to error given the marginal benefit. If you can make it work, that’s great for you, but we don’t think that weapon swapping will be the typical way for rogues to max out their dps.”
If it were such a necessity that weapon-swapping was to be used in order for Rogues to maximise their DPS I’m (relatively) confident Blizzard would address the issue.
Surely, if it really did provide that much of a boost to our damage that every Rogue has to use it, this would signal something fundamentally wrong with the class (i.e. it’s been severely gimped). Blizzard wouldn’t want weapon-swapping to become a core mechnic now would they?
Don’t be stupid! Of course not! Right Blizzard? Ghostcrawler?
“Now if it got the point where the typical raiding rogue was dependent on swapping weapons, we’d probably do something about it.”
Probably?… What do you mean PROBABLY… Meh!
So there you have it… Weapon-swapping is useful for certain situations but in terms of using this technique to boost your DPS it’s probably a waste of time.
What do you think? Do you use weapon-swap macros in PvE?
p.s. I recommend reading Justin’s comment about an addon that can make your life a hell of a lot easier if you do want to give weapon-swapping a try.
Rogue Rookie: Alliance Racial Abilities for Rogues
October 29, 2009
For those of you who don’t know, Blizzard released the World of Warcraft Race Change Service this week. So… What better time is there to take a look at each of the races from a Rogue perspective? Let’s start with the Alliance…
Dwarves
I don’t see many Dwarf Rogues. they’re not exactly the most agile looking race are they? Dare I say it?… Dwarves are… How shall I put it?… ”Dumpy”. Personally, I think there are better races out there for Rogues but Dwarves do have quite a nice ability…
Stoneform removes all poison, disease and bleed effects and increases your armor by 10% for 8 seconds. There’s also a 2-minute cool down. Useful in PvP for removing those annoying poisons and bleeds so you can Sprint and Vanish without it breaking. Also could be useful in PvE wherever there’s poison, diseases… Or… Errr… Bleeds… Obviously.
Mace Specialization gives Dwarves a +5 expertise bonus when using Maces… Nice bonus for you Combat Rogues.
Gnomes
Yes, they are annoying! Why? Well, before we even get into their racial abilities, they can be difficult to target and they can run places most of us wouldn’t fit. For Horde there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a Gnome being thumped.
Escape Artist is a useful ability which allows you to escape the effects of any immobilizing or movement speed reduction effect. Nice for Gnome Rogues and it’s on a 1-minute 45-second cool down. Speaks for itself really.
Engineering Specialization gives you a +15 boost to Engineering skill. Useful for levelling Engineering but once you’re maxed out, you’re maxed out (until the next expansion that is).
Humans
I see a lot of Human Rogues out in Battlegrounds and come up against them a fair bit in Arena too and it’s no wonder really… They have, by far, some of the best racial abilities in the game for Rogues:
Perception gives you slightly increased stealth detection which is useful in PvP (for getting the opening move on other stealth classes). 9 times out of 10 if you can get the opener on another Rogue you should win.
Diplomacy gives a nice 10% boost to reputation gains. Who really enjoys grinding reputation with whatever-faction anyway?
Sword & Mace Specialization gives Humans +3 expertise when using Swords and/or Maces for you Combat Rogues.
Every Man for Himself is probably the best racial in-game now following the incoming nerf to Will of The Forsaken in patch 3.3. Effectively this is a Medallion of the Alliance trinket which removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. It shares a cool down with other similar effects (e.g. PvP trinkets) and has a 2-minute cool down. This racial means you can equip 2 other trinkets instead of the PvP ones and still have your “get out of jail free card”.
Night Elves
I see quite a few Night Elf Rogues out there, not as many as Gnomes and Humans but still a popular race. It’s not difficult to work out why when you take a look at their primary racial ability. Looks wise Night Elves are the most convincing Rogues on Alliance; they look fast, dark and shadowy. On the downside they do have floppy ears though.
Shadowmeld is effectively a second vanish. When activated you slip into the shadows in an improved stealth mode which lasts until you cancel it or until you move.
Quickness reduces the chance melee and ranged attacks will hit you by 2%. Ok, it’s not quite as exciting but still a nice little bonus. What more do you want?
Wisp Spirit transforms you into… Wait for it… A Wisp! When you die you can run back to your battered body at 75% speed and resurrect yourself. A bit of a funny one this – perhaps Night Elves die a lot? I suppose it helps minimize downtime when levelling… Especially when you do that “ooops-i-pulled-too-many-mobs” trick some Rogues are so good at.
… And those are the Alliance Races for Rogues.
In addition to the racial abilities listed here, there are others; however some are just a general 2% resistance to this and a 2% resistance to that and; some are simply useless for Rogues. If you want to see a comprehensive list of racial abilities take a look at Wowhead’s Racial Traits Database.
What race are you? Are you going to use the new Race Change Service? Which race are you going to pick?
WoW News: Race Change Now Live in US and EU!
October 28, 2009
What??! You can now change your race?
Yes you can!
Blizzard have announced the new World of Warcraft race changing services are now live.
There are some basic rules though which does mean, unfortunately, you still cannot play a Tauren Rogue. Of course this means lots of you will have questions… But WAIT!… Before you fire away, go take a look at the official FAQs:
Cataclysm Races: What about Goblins & Worgen?
Unfortunately “details are not available at this time” as to whether you’ll be able to select the new Cataclysm races once they’re available in game. I’m guessing this will happen at a later date after the dust has settled from the release. However, that’s a long way away so let’s not get into that now.
Are you thinking of changing your race? To what and why?
WoW News: Will of The Forsaken Nerf in Patch 3.3
October 28, 2009
It’s true I’m afraid and sad news for Undead Rogues…
Will of The Forsaken will share a 45-second cooldown with similar effects, including trinkets like Medallion of the Horde and Titan-Forged Rune of Determination, making it similar to Every Man for Himself… But…
The Human racial “removes ALL movement impairing effects which cause loss of control of your character”. Whilst Every Man for Himself has always shared a cooldown with other similar effects, Will of The Forsaken only removes any charm, fear and sleep effects.
I wonder if Blizzard have opened a “can of worms” with this one. Are they going to balance this change by nerfing Every Man for Himself too?
WoW Rogue Vanish Fix… Errrr… Has Vanished?
October 26, 2009
Most of you who regularly read the WoW Rogue Forums will appreciate the problems we have with Vanish and the 3 loooooooooong years we’ve been waiting for a fix.
Despite previous “working as intended” comments, finally Blizzard recognised there IS a Vanish bug afterall (ironically they haven’t been able to find it).
Here’s Ghostcrawler’s post on the official WoW Rogue Forum:
“We have a change for Vanish in place for 3.3. You will get to try it out soon ™. As promised, if it proves a significant buff to rogues, we may have to compensate elsewhere. Just because it hasn’t worked as intended doesn’t mean it will be balanced when it does.”
Akrios on RogueRogue.com made some very valid points about this in his “Finally a Vanish Fix in 3.3” post.
It’s hard to argue with the fundamental point; why would a Vanish that works (and does what it’s actually supposed to) be overpowered?
Blizzard were thinking of providing a 0.5 second timing buffer so if a spell is cast and doesn’t hit us until just after we hit the Vanish button it doesn’t break.
However, AOE spells, bleeds and other DoTs should still bring you out of stealth when it ticks.
Can’ t argue with this… BUT I would like to know how they would re-balance Rogues after the fix. We may well end up regretting it if they gimp something else at the expense of a working Vanish.
“Vanish failing is a bug, but it’s a hard one to fix, and rogues are dominant in both PvE and PvP despite of it, so it’s also not a “all hands on deck” problem either.”
I agree with Akrios’ take on the subject; we’re doing ok and holding our own but Rogues are hardly dominant.
Anyway, to cut a long-story short the Vanish fix has been reverted. I don’t see this as necessarily a bad thing; if they’re going to fix it I’d rather it was fixed properly.
A bugged Vanish is better than no Vanish at all.
Here’s the full explanation from Ghostcrawler:
“We’re not happy with the current Vanish fix on the PTR.
Even at 0.5 seconds, the rogue sometimes gets hit by a missile already in flight. Yet, even at 0.5 sec it’s too easy to screw up using AOE to break the stealth, which is a totally legit counter in our minds. Therefore, making the immunity longer or shorter causes other problems.
As I said earlier, the attempt was *not* to make Vanish into Cloak of Shadows Jr. We’re not trying to offer a big PvP buff to rogues. We just want the ability to work as advertised. The intent of the 1 sec (then 0.5 sec) immunity was to provide a little padding so that the ability didn’t fail in situations where it is supposed to succeed. I’m not sure it’s doing that though, and it’s causing other problems.
The way we want it to work: If you Vanish after a single targeted spell is cast, you’re safe, even if the missile is still in the air. If an AE spell is cast on you, even if you just went into stealth, it should break you out.
We’re working on a hopefully better fix now where we record the time that a missile leaves the caster and compare that to when the Vanish is activated. There still might be edge cases though that this doesn’t fix, if for example the cast and the Vanish happen very close together and someone’s client isn’t updated quickly enough. TLDR: It’s complicated.
For perspective, in patch 2.4 prior to LK, Vanish was more reliable in the situation I’m talking about above: used after a spell was cast would make you immune to the spell. It had some other bugs at the time, but all of those that we know about have been fixed. We have made many changes to the way spells work in the 3.X cycle, and one of them made the situation bad again. We need to get the conflict between missile travel time and Vanish resolved the way it used to work. The bad news is that since this is a code fix, it might not make it into 3.3. The good news is that because it is likely a server fix, it doesn’t need to wait for a major patch.
I’m also going to stamp this with “no promises” since unreasonable players may start complaining if Vanish isn’t fixed in exactly one week from now.
P.S. I used the word “spells” a lot above because to a developer, everything you do in WoW, even a melee attack, is a “spell.” It isn’t necessarily confined to what players think of as spells, such as Fireball.”
So there you have it… The Vanish bug DOES exist and Blizzard are working on it.
What’s YOUR view on Vanish?
Icecrown Citadel Rogue Gear Recipes Revealed!
October 24, 2009
Yes! You heard me right!… The raid recipes from Icecrown Citadel have been revealed.
That’s not all… Check out the stats courtesy of World of Raids:
According to WOR these recipes will be available from normal 25-man mode.
… And if that doesn’t get you drooling just think what the T10.5 armor stats are going to be like.
One thing’s for sure, with stats like these combined with the Tier-10 set bonuses, Rogues will be dealing some serious damage in Icecrown.
Rogue T10 2-Piece Bonus
- Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.
Rogue T10 4-Piece Bonus
- Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
Now show me the weapons already damn it!
WoW News: T10 Armor Set from Emblems and T10.5 from Tokens?
October 23, 2009
Well, well, well… What have we here?
In a Q&A session Blizzard has revealed T10 and T10.5 armor set pieces will be available from a mixture of Emblems of Frost and Tokens.
- T10 armor set pieces will be available from Emblems of Frost similar to the T9 set and Emblems of Triumph.
- T10.5 will only be available from Tokens from the 25-man raid similar to the T8 Tokens from Ulduar.
Here’s the actual quote from Aratil:
“With T10, are we going to see tokens like in Ulduar? or like Crusaders’ Coliseum? CC style had every class and spec rolling on same thing?
With T10 we’re going to see a hybrid. The Tier 10 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 10-player raid) will be purchased with Emblems of Frost.
The Tier-10.5 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 25-player raid) will be obtained by getting a token (one that is specific to 3 or 4 classes, much like the Ulduar tokens) and using it to upgrade the Tier-10 item that was purchased with Emblems of Frost.”
This is one way of dealing with the ”everyone wants the Trophies of the Crusade” issue we have with ToTC 25-man. Sounds like a good idea to me.
So it looks like we will simply pick up the Tier-10 gear from Emblems to get into Icecrown 25-man. Once in Icecrown we’ll pick up Tokens (and no Emblems) to upgrade our set to the 25-man level armor. This would be very nice… It would certainly save us having to farm loads of Emblems.
If only they thought of this with the T9 and T9.5 armor sets!
As far as I can see this is the only drawback going down the T9 armor set and upgrading to T9.5 route:
You’ve farmed 160 Emblems of Triumph to get your T9 armor to get into 25-man raids (assuming you get the cheapest 4 pieces in order to get the set bonus).
You get into Trials of the Crusade 25-mans and pick up Trophies of the Crusade. Now you have to farm another 240 Emblems in order to upgrade to the T9.5 set.
What if you had 4 pieces of T9 and only had to use the Trophy to upgrade it to the T9.5 set? Although you wouldn’t need Emblems anymore you would still be running the 25-man raid anyhow for the other items (weapons, belt, boots, etc).
What do YOU think?
p.p.s. The Rogue T10 set stats have just been revealed (on 12th November 2009). Go check it out.
Rogue Rookie: Onyxia Rogue Loot and Tactics
October 22, 2009
In celebration of the World of Warcraft 5-year anniversary the dreaded brood mother Onyxia was revamped. Ok, this isn’t really news anymore and most will already know the dungeon has been converted into a 10 and 25-man encounter.
For those who have done the encounter before back in the day it’s a chance to relive those memories and a bit of nostalgia for you. For those who haven’t, it’s a fantastic opportunity to get to see what all the fuss was about.
Anyway, what has all this got to do with Rogues I hear you ask? Ok, ok, I’ll get to the point…
Onyxia Rogue Loot
There are a couple of items well worth picking up from this raid encounter:
Bloodfang Mask - This is an updated version of the original Tier-2 Bloodfang Hood. There’s a level 232 and 245 version (from 10 and 25-man) so if you haven’t got the T9 headgear go get it!
Sparkling Onyxia Tooth Pendant - This is a must have! According to Shadowpanther.net this is the best in-slot neck item for Rogues bar the Collar of Unending Torment and Charge of the Eredar. These 2 necklaces are only available from Heroic Trials of the Crusader 10 and 25-man so my guess is you’ll be using this one for some time.
The pendant doesn’t actually drop from Onyxia. It’s a quest reward for A Most Puzzling Circumstance which you get when you pick up the Head of Onyxia. There are other rewards for this quest but this is the only useful one for Rogues.
Onyxia’s head is guaranteed to drop from both 10 and 25-man and the reward from both encounters is the same (level 245!).
Onyxia Rogue Weapons:
There are some weapons. They’re not great but if you can get into a group and you’ve got worse they could provide a nice upgrade for you:
- Empowered Deathbringer
- Rusted Gutgore Ripper
- Singed Vis’kag the Bloodletter
- Snub-Nose Blastershot Launcher
Is that it?
Of course it wouldn’t be much of a celebration if that was it now would it? In both 10 and 25-man you can also pick up the 22 slot Enlarged Onyxia Hide Backpack with some nice gems inside if you’re lucky.
And probably THE coolest mount in-game…
There’s only a 1% drop-rate apparently but if you are lucky enough a) for it to drop and; b) to win the roll; you’ll be the envy of everyone as you fly around Outland and Northrend at 310% speed on Onyxia herself… Well ok, not quite but near enough!
Emblems of Triumph
In addition to the loot above you’ll also pick up 2 Emblems of Triumph each from both encounters which will go towards getting your T9 armor set and Emblem gear.
Onyxia Video & Tactics
In my opinion Onyxia is one of the most impressive bosses in terms of looks. In fact, I’d go so far as to say she is my personal favourite. So I suggest if you haven’t already had a go, even if you don’t need the loot, go check her out. You don’t know what you’re missing!
Oh, and make sure you take a look at the 10-man and 25-man Onyxia videos and tactics before you do…
A bit of Onyxia Nostalgia
And of course, this wouldn’t be an Onyxia post without this. The sound is actually taken from a real 40-man Onyxia raid back in the good ol’ days….
WARNING: Contains adult language some people may find funny… Or offensive.
MORE DOTS!
New Rogue Season 8 PvP Weapons!
October 20, 2009
Thanks to the guys over at MMO-Champion we can now get a sneek preview of the new Season 8 PvP weapons.
Armor sets are not up yet but when they are I’m sure they’ll be the first to know about it.
Stats are not available yet but we will let you know as soon as they are.
The daggers look proper evil and, being an Assassination Rogue, I would love to get my hands on them! However, I have only dabbled a little in Arena and squeeze in what I can when I’m not raiding.
So for me I don’t think it’s likely I’ll get to see them. Maybe I will?… Who knows? One can dream though right?
For you Combat Rogues there are pictures of the axes, fists, swords and maces available for you to check out too.
Let the drooling commence!…
Rogue Season 8 PvP Weapons:
If you could have any of these which would you go for?
