ninja chimp

out

2009-09-29T12:16:00.002+10:00

I have quit WoW. There, I've said it.

Thanks for all the fun times, the friends and the laughs. I have a lot of good memories.

I realised that I was only playing for two reasons: the social aspect and an addiction to improving Cat's gear. The latter is obviously a fruitless pursuit in the big scheme of things, and the former was great but it was taking me away from social time with my own family. It came to a head when I caught myself thinking "damn, I can't spend time with the missus tonight, I have to raid".

All the best to everyone. I'll leave this blog up for nostalgia reasons, and out of some vain hope that one of my dribbly rants might help someone with something roguey.

roguecraft spreadsheet

2009-06-30T20:02:00.003+10:00

Just going through updating Cat's details in the spreadsheet, thought I'd note things as I went. It's a lovely piece of work. However, I've noted a few things just in case Vulajin is reading (yeah right!):

Glyphs of Mutilate and Hunger for Blood aren't included
There is no way to add a scope to a ranged weapon (not that it affects DPS)
Few Ulduar items

About here I gave up. Meh.

However shortly afterwards I found Mavanas's DPS Simulation sheet and it has the bonus of being user-modifyable, including adding missing gear items. It's not entirely intuitive (especially on gems and slot bonuses) but it's the goods for now.

So I discovered a few things:

With my current stats (close to the PHC at 302 hit, and expertise capped) choice of food makes no real difference. Fish Feast still works out slightly (0.5%) ahead. However, the sheet has no facility for +40 crit food, which I'd be interested in trying out.
Talent swaps: 2/2 Murder = 6044. 2/2 Quick Recovery = 5818. Sticking with Murder.
Talent swaps: 3/3 Master Poisoner = 6044. 3/3 Turn The Tables = 6012. Sticking with MP.
Grinding Hodir rep to upgrade my shoulder enchant is a net DPS increase of about 30 DPS. Not exactly a huge priority, given the amount of effort required.

Next I'll try swapping in +agi gems in place of the current +AP/+Stams and see what happens. Rumour is that +agi is the shizzle. I also want to see if I have some swapsie gear that I can use to reduce my expertise, currently at 36, and what effect this will have.

looking to the stars

2009-06-30T17:23:00.005+10:00

I want star ratings on my achievements.

Allow me to explain.

At my level - i.e. an Ulduar- and Naxx-geared endgame PvE 80 - there are certain achievements that are at my level, certain ones that are just below, and some that are trivial. Much of the QQ from the hardcore comes from the fact that post-nerf, muppets can get the same achievement as them and there's no way for them to lord it over the plebs other than with the date of the achievement, which depends on everyone knowing that a certain fight was nerfed on a certain date.

My solution (as you might now have guessed): star ratings.

If I get an achievement in current content (i.e. currently, content introduced in 3.1) it gets rated 3 stars. So Ulduar on any mode and Emalon, but not Naxx or Archavon. I achieved it before it was deprecated somewhat by new content. 3 stars.

If I get it after a certain point, say a major content patch (n.n level) it's 2 stars. So it's still legitimately difficult content, but you weren't in that top end that did it when it was fresh. Heroics, Naxx, etc. Maybe toons 70-79 could stil get 2-stars for non-heroic 5 mans.

If I get it after it became trivial, 1 star. Non-heroic 5-mans (for toons at 80), Classic and BC achievements, etc.

Now 3.2 comes out, and suddenly Ulduar achievements drop to 2-star with Naxx and the rest. Coliseum acheivements are the only 3-stars available, and they will only be 3-star until patch 3.3.

Of course there are always issues. A normal WotLK 5-man is challenging for 5 toons 70-79. It's trivial with 4 80s and a single 70. How should that be handled? I suggest that Blizz looks at the maximum star rating that would have been awarded if no party/raid members had already achieved it. So if you bring a single 80 into that non-heroic 5-man, everyone who doesn't already have the achievement gets a 1-star, not a 2-star. Of course that's not perfect, but it's a start.

Do you think that will address some of the legitimate recognition issues that the really hardworking players have? Amaze me with your boundless ability to find QQ.

Thorim

2009-06-29T00:05:00.005+10:00

... down in 25 man after 14 attempts.

Shagged.

*edit*

OK it's the next morning now and I'm reflecting on last night's guild first drop of Thorim. It's an infuriating fight as it can be so dependent on individuals. Neither WoWWiki nor Encrypted Text offer much in the way of useful strategic advice either, so I will try to explain things from the rogue perspective. (please note: I do generally find Chase Christian's Encrypted Text very useful, and I have a great deal of respect for his knowledge and contribution to the rogue community, but I just don't find that Rogue in Ulduar series very useful. Feel free to disagree with me.)

In the first part of the fight, you run in en masse and take out 6 mobs in the arena while Thorim watches. This is dead easy. Target the healer, then the big worm, then AoE the others. Don't pull aggro, DPS, done.

The next part is arguably the hardest. The raid will split in two - one group heading off down the tunnel to get to Thorim, and the remainder staying in the arena to take down the spectators who jump into the fight. Rogues will generally remain in the arena and not be part of the tunnel group, due to the extreme usefulness of Dismantle and Kick for the Dark Rune Champions and Dark Rune Evokers.

As a rogue, your priorities are the Champions, then the Evokers. One of each will run into the group about every 25 seconds (on 25 man). That means that with two rogues you can Dismantle two in every three Champions, and with three rogues every Champion can be Dismantled. You need to do this because the Champion's Whirlwind is a healer-killer (and the healers can't stand back due to the charged orbs - everyone is in the middle). The Champions usually start their Whirlwind about 3-5 seconds after engaging in melee, so the 3 second mark is the right time to Dismantle them.

I found that Dismantle does not trigger if someone has already used theirs on that mob, so don't stress too much about setting up a rotation (we did it with 3 rogues). If they do get off a non-Dismantled Whirlwind, try Kick. I had mixed success with Kick - sometimes it seemed to work and others it didn't. Same with Feint - sometimes it seems to reduce damage from the Whirlwind and others not. Burn down the Champions as fast as possible, ideally within the 10 second window of Dismantle, but as each has 300k HP that's not an easy task. A combat rogue specced for Throwing Specialization is invaluable here, and I would say almost a necessity for the FoK interrupts on the Evokers.

Aggro is a big issue in the arena. There are lots of mobs streaming in and it is very busy for the tanks. Help out where you can by tricking the Champions onto your designated Champion tank but be very careful when tricks is on cooldown. If you cop a Mortal Strike, you'll die. If you're like me, you'll cop one very early in what turned out to be a near miss attempt, and realise that if you hadn't died, your DPS would have been the difference between a 4% wipe and a win. Not a nice thought.

So you've got the Champions figured out. Whenever possible, you need to help with interrupts on the Evokers. Both Runic Lightning and Runic Mending need to be suppressed wherever possible.

I find /target macros very useful in this fight as there are a LOT of mobs and picking out the Evokers and Champions can be hard. Some suggest using an /assist macro, but I think that the tanks are going to be switching targets too often for this to be a viable strategy. I have one /target macro for each type, and simply keep an eye on the edge of the arena waiting for one to run in, face it, and hit the macro to target. Don't just spam it, because you will target Champions and Evokers in the bleachers who haven't joined the fight yet.

Mutilate rogues may find that they are way down the meters on this phase. It seems to be a particular mechanic, with waves of tough trash, that the fights are too long for our nice opening burst to make too much difference, but too short to be able to reliably keep SnD and HfB up. Combat rogues own Thorim's arena.

So you do the arena for some time while the other group fights their way to Thorim. If you lose anyone in the arena, it will start to overwhelm you and you won't last long enough for the other group to bring Thorim down. Stay alive, take care of the Champions and Evokers, and clean the last of the adds down when Thorim jumps down. Then it's time for the final phase.

Aggro shouldn't be a problem in the final phase, but use Vanish offensively anyway. Depending on your raid makeup, you should consider trading tricks with another rogue to maximise DPS to beat the enrage timer; however if you find that DPS with no threat wipe ability (e.g. Shadow Priests) are having to back off, give your tank a hand.

Two of Thorim's abilities will kill you very quickly. Lightning Charge is relatively easy to see and avoid - one of the orbs will start to zap Thorim with lightning, and you need to stay out of a 60 degree cone around the lightning stream. Or you will die. It can be cloaked if you get caught.

The other is Chain Lightning, which chains up to 8 times. If my math is correct, the 50% increased damage on each chain means that if you're 8th in the chain, you'll take between 79k and 92k damage. One shot much? You don't want to be more than fourth in that chain or it's crispy rogue for Thorim's post-wipe snack. So how do you avoid it? You don't, but you can minimise it same as you did on KT. Put lucky charms on two melee DPS, and have them at 4 o'clock and 8'oclock with the tank at 12 o'clock. Split the melee stacking on those two marked melee. Stay out of range (set DBM /range to 11 yards) of the other stack and the tank, and you shouldn't have more than 4 within range of an arc. If your group is very melee heavy, you're in trouble. The 5th arc is 23-27k.

Of course it will be chaos during the regular Lightning Charges, when you have to abandon your lovely 12-4-8 triangle and avoid the lightning cone. But as soon as that's done, go back to your stack. It's tough on melee. Real tough. And someone else's positioning mistake can and will cost you your life.

Good luck my roguely friends.

the top 1%?

2009-06-22T23:25:00.007+10:00

Interesting observation tonight: WoWRanked has Cat as rank 102,928 for gear in the world.

If there are 12 million accounts, and each has on average just one toon over level 10, that's well into the top 1% for gear.

In the world.

That kinda made me feel good. Then I looked at my brother-in-law's rogue. Ranked 7,455. In the world.

Bubble: burst.

*EDIT*

But then we dropped Hodir again, and Freya 25 for the first time tonight (25/6). And what did Hodir give up? The Conqueror's Terrorblade Breastplate. Which catapulted me to 13th on the guild DPS roster (the 3rd highest rogue) and 77,668 on WoWRanked.

In the world.

Oh and did I mention my spot on the Hodir meter? #1 for the first time ever in a guild progression raid. 6k DPS baby.

Hodir down

2009-06-21T22:53:00.002+10:00

25 man Hodir down in an epic 4-wipe attempt. We lost to the enrage timer twice and had 2 quick wipes but he went down with about 10 seconds to spare on the final attempt.

I love that fight.

Even better: I was crushing the meters tonight. I mean crushing. I don't for a minute believe that pure DPS is the only measure of a rogue, but it is certainly high on the list. I was on the ball, wasn't dying, and everything was going in slow motion. I was spotting who was going to get iceblocked on Hodir while scouting for a sunbeam and shooting and standing on the snow pile; I only got iceblocked once due to a late knockback from a cave-in hidden under a bunch of spell effects; I was swapping my tricks to the highest DPS that had a safe margin on Omen; I was just on the ball tonight. I love it when that happens.

A look at gear post 3.2 from the grinder's POV

2009-06-21T13:39:00.000+10:00

A quick look at the best PvE gear available in 3.2 from EoC/V/H plus crafted and Argent Tournament rewards (i.e. totally available from 5 mans and grinding, with no 10-man or 25-man or arena rating required) from a rogue perspective:

- ilvl 213 helm
- ilvl 226 3rd best in slot neck (3rd only to items available on Freya and Vezax hard modes)
- T7.5 ilvl 213 shoulders
- 2nd best in slot ilvl 226 chest, 2nd only to item from Thorium hard mode
- 2nd best in slot ilvl 226 belt, 2nd only to item from Yoggy hard mode
- 4th best in slot ilvl 226 legs, next to items from Uld25
- best in slot ilvl 226 boots from leatherworking, or ilvl 213 boots from emblems
- ilvl 213 bracers
- ilvl 226 gloves
- ilvl 213/200 rings
- ilvl 200 trinkets
- ilvl 213 cloak
- ilvl 200 thrown weapon
- ilvl 200 weapons for pretty much every major spec

So it is possible, without even considering what gear might be available in 3.2 or for EoT, to completely deck out a rogue in ilvl 200 or better PvE epics without ever doing 10 man, 25 man or arena - completely from grinding "heroic" 5 mans, gold and tournament dailies. Some of those items are 3rd, 2nd or best currently in slot. I suspect other classes are the same.

3.2 QQ

2009-06-20T22:01:00.002+10:00

Well, what a stink. The 3.2 PTR patch notes have put the cat amongst the pigeons with regard to the new Tier 9 of PvE gear, the associated Emblems of Triumph and the changes to 5-mans which mean that you can now get the new top-end emblems from running daily 5-mans.

OK raiders, cease foaming at the mouth now. Take a deep breath.

I'm all for casuals. Hell, I'm a casual by most definitions - I have 1-2 largely uninterrupted approved WoW nights a week (which I use for raiding) and otherwise it's on a no-commitment, as-available basis. And yes, WoW is a game dominated by casuals.

But - and it's a big but - I don't believe participation trophies should be the same size as the winner's trophy. I believe in the beauty of Zipf's Law which is, essentially, that the glory of being #1 is exponentially bigger than the glory of being #2, and so on down the chain. Life is competitive, and competition is healthy. WoW reflects life in that only the most talented and dedicated people who persistently attempt the most challenging content (should) get the best rewards.

I am not #1 in WoW. Nor do I have the time or dedication to be so (though I like to think I have the skill, or at least the ability to develop the skill). However, I believe that my gear accurately reflects my circumstances - when someone sees my T7.5 shoulders, they know I've been doing Nax25. When someone sees my dual Mongoose, they know I'm serious about my spec but don't have the time to get the money for dual Berserking. When they see my neck piece, they know without doubt that I have dropped 19 bosses in Ulduar25, and/or know my way around Emalon pretty well.

Blizzard, in their increasing desperation to retain their flattening user base, are resorting to participationism. There's a back door to the grand finals, if you're prepared to play enough little league. But as most people know, you may get to the grand final that way, but when you start to play it doesn't matter how shiny your uniform is. You're going to die in the fire. And when you stand on the podium to collect your runner-up trophy, you'll have a hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach and you'll feel like a fraud.

Apparently the idea is that a) people will go back into heroics, and b) more people can see the endgame content. Well let's see.

The first is probably accurate, but it will be at the expense of Ulduar. In half an hour with four other people, you can faceroll 5 EoC and 2 EoT from H Nexus if it's the daily. Follow up with H VH and H CoS and it's EoC city within another hour. Why would you get 24 other people and spend twice the time getting past Iron Council for 5 EoC and no EoT? The only people that will be running Ulduar are the hardcore raiders, for item drops that they can't buy with welfare emblems, to gear up for Coliseum. Blizz are actively encouraging grinding rather than attempting hard content. How disappointing.

The second: an unskilled raiding group will still fail on every fight in Nax, even in T9 welfare epics. Never mind (presumably) the Coliseum. Gear is only one part of the equation, and I suspect it won't affect the numbers of people dropping KT at all.

Any guild that relies on pugs to make up a 25 man (such as, often, ours) is going to have a nightmare time with the abundance of notionally geared folks in LFG. Expect more achievement linking, more assessment, less trust. Guilds that use pugs must establish a whitelist of known good pugs to raid with and find a way to integrate them into their loot system, or they will ruin raid nights with trial and error pugging. If you're a habitual pug, you'd better establish a rep with a number of guilds, because nobody's going to trust your gear anymore.

That said, gear is definitely one factor that can prevent an otherwise decent raider from seeing the content they crave, and the new system will help alts.

I'm not going to say that it's necessarily bad, because there will be pros and cons. I guess the meritocrat in me dislikes grind-based backdoors. I'm going to think some more and try to be a bit more Zen about the whole thing.

5k

2009-06-18T00:39:00.003+10:00

Ignis the Furnace Master. 5027.7 DPS.

Strut.

Downed up to Kolo tonight in Uld25 and followed up with H VoA. The very tasty Proto-hide Leggings and Deadly Gladiator's Leather Tunic dropped for me. Also bought the Broach of the Wailing Night with vadges. 16th ranked guild DPS now.

more lewts

2009-06-15T09:58:00.004+10:00

25 man Nax clear (I almost typed Kara there...): Murder for my PvP offhand, Valorous Bonescythe Helmet to upgrade my T7, and Belt of the Tortured which was a nice upgrade. Stats were OK. Not happy at all with my deaths on Heigan and Patchwerk (opened too early with a mis-hit TotT and copped a Hateful Strike), but it was otherwise smooth; one-shotting everything (except one wipe on Gothik as the dead side was undermanned) in 4 hours.

I was actually pleasantly surprised at the benefits of some PvP practice for raiding. During the Gothik wipe, as we were getting overwhelmed on the dead side, I was running about with tricked fans trying to pull adds off the healers. At one point I must have done a fan too many, and ended up 1v1 with a big DK. Now with evasion and vanish already on CD (as I say, we were struggling undermanned), normally I would have been a bloody mess by now, but my PvP training kicked in and I twitch-hit Dismantle and Blinded another that was running loose. Not any great achievement, but they were reflexes that had degraded over a long time of hardly needing them in raids, and all it took was a bit of PvP to sharpen them again.

Current plan is to get everything over ilvl 213: that means Nax25, EoE10/25, OS10, OS25+2 and Ulduar. All that remains at ilvl 200 are my neck, chest, one ring, one trinket and cloak. Also working on Heirloom shoulders for Merry and PvP set by grinding Wintergrasp. Alarm set!

Uld25

2009-06-11T10:29:00.006+10:00

4 new bosses (for me) in Ulduar 25 last night: Assembly of Iron, Kologarn, Crazy Cat Lady and Hodir (who we called after 3 attempts).

Iron Council was a bit of a poop as I died in the fire. I was doing my best to run out of the big circle, but forgot to cloak and paid the price. Nuts.

Kologarn finally went smooth as butter for me. The only other time I've seen him was in 10 man and we had a wipefest, so it was a nice relief to one-shot him, especially as I pulled 4.3k DPS and didn't run myself off the edge. Sexah.

Auriaya was... confusing. I had read up on Encrypted Text, but soon found that it didn't really cover the sort of detail that one really needs on the first attempt. It was basically a mess of "stand in front" and "DPS the add" over vent, and at some point I died. That said, after a brez I still managed to punch out a useful, if not overly respectable, 3k. I'm going to need to review the logs and the detailed fight notes to figure that one out.

Hodir is my new favourite fight. for those of you who haven't done it, it is MENTAL. 8 minutes of crazy running about and trying to not die. You really have to have your head on a swivel - people getting iceblocked that need to be freed, icicles to stay away from, big icicles to initially stay out of then go into, buffs to go into, roots, AoE... it has it all. I was actually really happy with my performance on Hodir - 4.6k averaged over the 3 attempts, and a 3rd on the meter 4.9k on the final attempt. By my reckoning the raid needs 68kdps total to beat the enrage, which is about 4k each assuming 17 DPS toons. In the end the enrage timer beat us, though we had him to about 5%. Tonight, big guy... tonight...

My gloves and boots have hitherto been impossible to replace, being my last two blues. Guess what - Gloves of the Stonereaper dropped for me on cat lady and I understand I'm to be ticketed the Runed Ironhide Boots from Iron Council. How bout that - now my two best items, upgrading blues. And both from fights that I died on. Must be something in that... I say to you: woot.

I also finally got around to clearing VoA25. No loot though, which is a shame as I'm keen for my PvP gear to drop now.

*Edit* I got the boots thanks to Talendos's generosity. Nice one mate, I owe you an EPGP priority. I'm now up to 21 on the guild's DPS list (29th overall) which, with alts and inactive raiders, means I'll rarely be unable to get into the 25 mans. Tick!

frost mages

2009-06-09T22:07:00.005+10:00

Bah. Damn their eyes. I found some good ones in Strand of the Ancients today, and 1v1 they always leave me a chilly blob on the ground.

My rogue instincts say that this is not because they are good, but because I am bad. A rogue can beat anything. So: introspection (note: written from the 41/5/25 Mutilate/Prep perspective).

What happens? I was opening Cheap Shot, but it seems they would simply Blink, Frost Nova/Cone of Cold and pew pew until I died. Not fun. Of course, the correct opener on a mage is Garrote for the silence effect. A proper rogue/mage fight starts at the 3 second mark, with the mage the victim of a couple of mutilates, 5 combo points up, Crippling Poison on and 15 sec of DoT remaining. A nice place to start, but then what?

At this point the mage can do a few things. Ice Block clears off the DoT and poison and buys them some time. They can throw down Frost Nova or Cone of Cold to root you, probably in concert with a Blink to get some range on you. Either way they'll get their Elemental out for 45 sec, which gives him another 2 abilities independent of your CC: Freeze and Waterbolt. They'll also be spamming Ice Barrier to limit incoming DPS.

Now I'm not going to get into "if they do this, do this" because I definitely won't remember and I doubt 90% of rogues will. But understanding what's up the mage's copious and effeminate sleeves is half the battle. The rest of their abilities fall into 2 camps: pew pew and a PvP trinket. The roots are their biggest weapons, and after the Ice Block you've got 30 seconds to kill him or you're at a serious cooldown disadvantage. Against the roots, you've got a trinket (or EMFH), CoS and Vanish. He also can't cast if he's incapacitated, and for that you've got CS and KS, plus Blind, Sprint and Deadly Throw to let you close the gap. Plus there's Preparation to make all the goodness come once more.

TBC...

the return of PvP Cat

2009-06-09T17:57:00.002+10:00

Here's me saying that PvP is boring and all I'm interested in is raiding, and in the space of 2 days I've gone and bought dual-specs, have started experimenting with 41/5/25 Mut/Prep, have bought me some Hateful Gladiator gloves and started an arena 2v2 with my brother's ret monkey.

I'm under no illusions about the likelihood of doing well in T7 raid gear with a rogue/retadin combo, but it's just for fun and practice really. When another brother finishes levelling, we might try rogue/retadin/huntard in 3v3 and really tear up the DPS.

I love my PvP spec, it destroys everything. I'm even remembering all those things that have been sitting unused on my action bars, like Dismantle, Eviscerate and Deadly Throw, and have started getting used to when to use or not to use Preparation. All my recent PvP experience has been in Wintergrasp though, which is nothing like arena, so I'll update ye all on the progress of Unresilient as we go.

alternate MMOs

2009-06-04T15:56:00.004+10:00

There are two MMOs that have a chance of having me swap off WoW. Star Wars: The Old Republic will tap into a deep-seated part of my medulla oblongata that has been fantasising about being a Jedi since the original Episode IV came out. I will definitely try it, and as I probably only have room in my life for 1 MMO, it will be an interesting time to see what happens.

But even more exciting is the prospect of an MMO based on the Warhammer 40,000 IP. I played the original 40k way back in the Rogue Trader days, and over the years have amassed many armies of miniatures. Sadly, when we moved home from the UK, I ebayed it all but I have lately been considering getting back into the tabletop as a result of reading some of the incredibly rich and well-written WH40K fiction. Make no mistake - if a quality 40K MMO is released in 2012 as rumoured, I will not only quit playing WoW/SWTOR but I will also probably quit my job and mutate into a half-man, half-chair gaming automaton, existing purely on cheezels, Dr Pepper and forty-first millennium pure WIN. Please, THQ, I beg you: make it full of win. It is an epic franchise that absolutely must not be sullied with an inferior product.

Although 2012 is a long time to wait, THQ will have ample time to learn from the SWTOR MMO and apply those lessons. There are a few things that interest me greatly about how it might be implemented:

Presumably Humans would be one of the initial races, as would Orks. This immediately lends itself to a "faction" system similar to WoW. But what about Eldar, Tau, Necrons, Chaos etc? Nobody really fights on the same side as anyone else. It's almost going to have to be everyone versus everyone, possibly with server-wide or even zone-wide temporary alliances between certain races? Even then, can you imagine Eldar and Slaanesh Marines being allied for any reason? Not me...
Taking Humans first: there's a hierarchy in the various arms. The Astartes report really to nobody except the Emperor, though they have some respect for the Inquisition. Would anyone want to play an Imperial Guard toon when there was absolutely no way they could be as powerful as a Space Marine toon? the only way to even it would be to have the MMO less "individual toon" based and more "warband" based - so a level-cap marine may have a squad of marine "combat pets" but a max level Guard commander may have a whole platoon plus heavy weapons, etc? Then it's almost a fair fight. Balance is going to be a hard thing to achieve, but it would be awesome to have a bunch of NPC combat pets doing your shooty bidding.
There are degrees of "freedom" in the various denizens of the 40k milieu. Marines for instance are loyal only to their Chapter and the Emperor. They do what they're told - simple instruments of war, with little thought to personal advancement. How does that work for levelling/gearing up? Is a rank and file marine or Guardsman even an appropriate toon, or would it be too restrictive? Will it need to focus on the more "individual" characters in the milieu - Inquisitors, Harlequins (Solitaires?), Rogue Traders, Fallen Angels (aaaawwwweeeesome), etc.
"Quests" - it would be great to have these race-specific. So for example for a marine toon, the missions would be handed down by the chapter in a level-appropriate way, possibly for a zone-wide PvE "instance" - so you could solo it as a skirmish, or group up with others from the chapter or allied factions to tackle a larger 5- or 10-man instanced zone quest. For Ork toons, maybe you're a small cog in a Waaaaagh, following your Warboss from world to world and occasionally encountering PvP resistance from opposing factions. Then the level-cap zones would be the epicentre of the fighting - where the Waaaaghs meet the Crusades, the Hive Fleets, the Craftworlds etc and all fight against each other.

Holy cow I wish I was working on this project. THQ, if you need a project manager, I could not be more motivated to see this MMO kick ass.

podcast review

2009-06-03T00:14:00.002+10:00

Adam of The Noisy Rogue gives us his first scathing WoW podcast review. His first target: The WoW Insider Show. Enlightening and entertaining reading :)

everyone gets nerfed

2009-05-28T10:01:00.006+10:00

So I read the 3.1.3 patch notes, which seemed to elicit more than the usual QQing on wow.com. Of course I'm stoked about the buff to Overkill, which for PvE rogues is a nice addition to our trash FoK DPS. But it also inspired me to write yet another song, so here goes. I'll definitely record this one soon:

Sung to the tune of "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M.

EVERYONE GETS NERFED

When the maintenance is long
and the news from the PTRs seems wrong
and the patch notes talk of nerfs to your class
hang on

Don't let yourself QQ
'cause everybody cries
and everyone gets nerfed
sometimes
sometimes balance is all wrong
now it's time to sing along

when your salvation is gone
and you feel like speccing ret
and you think you've had too much of death knights
hang on

Everyone gets nerfed
take comfort in your skill
everyone gets nerfed

Don't whine on the official forums
ooooooooh no
Or if you do, at least whine in an amusing rap battle
When you feel like you're alone
2 million people playing warlocks say you're not alone

When your buffs are gone
and the cooldowns on your favourite skills are long
and you think you've had too much of death knights
to hang on

Everyone gets nerfed
sometimes everybody whines
everyone gets nerfed
sometimes
everyone gets nerfed
sometimes
so hold on
hold on
hold on
hold on
hold on
nerf hunters
hold on
hold on

everyone gets nerfed

2 more songs

2009-05-27T22:07:00.005+10:00

Turpster's music kind of inspired me to finish off two more songs I've had in the works for awhile. Again, both are based on Dos Gringos songs, for no reason other than that was what I was listening to at the time I was inspired to write them.

Sung to the tune of "The Bitch Spent All My Money" by Dos Gringos

MY ALTS SPENT ALL MY MONEY

I make a thousand extra gold each month
and you would think with that amount
I'd have a positive number inside my backpack account
How many times can one druid hit
the auction house in a day
you can bet your ass that a pvp bitchslap is on its way

I got a story to tell to you
and man it ain't funny
I've been grinding daily quests
and my alts spent all my money

I know when you go into Deadmines
you want to wear something leet
but who the hell spends a hundred gold on level 16 purple feet?
And how bout that three hundred gold
on just one pair of pants
Hell I only spent 25 on my repairs from the Heigan Dance

Yeah I got taken to the bank today
by my own lowbie dummy
I've been grinding daily quests
and my alts spent all my money

You know I still love you baby
Yeah, but something's missin'
yeah I can't believe you spent last week's earnings levelling up Inscription
Besides, it's not even going to matter in Outland
No matter how epic your gear
You'll replace everything in a matter of minutes, including those Molten Core Tiers

Yeah it's not fair
I still want to level you honey
I've been grinding daily quests
and my alts spent all my money
Yeah don't laugh 'cause it could happen to you
and man it ain't funny
I've been grinding daily quests
and my alts spent all my money

Sung to the tune of "Jeremiah Weed" by Dos Gringos

TASTY THISTLE TEA

When I was a young'un my trainer said to me
Son I wanna know what it is you wanna be
I said I'll never wear a dress, But I love to PVP
I think I'm gonna be a rogue! The stealthy life for me

Well I heard my guildies cheering cause I said it over voice
My trainer said that I had made a pretty awesome choice
He gave me a quest to find a journal and a key
And on return he hooked me up with a simple recipe

Press 1! To stab them in the knees
Press 2! To slip away unseen
Press 3! When you're low on energy
A big chug from a green mug of tasty Thistle Tea

Now if you play a mage you make dinner for the team
And if you have a priest you make bad guys run and scream
And if you have a hunter you never find a group
'cause you're running round in Stormwind picking up your tiger's poop
And if you play a death knight you ninja all the plate
And if you play a pally then your raiding buffs are great
And if you've got a warlock, then my advice to you
is to moan about the nerf bat, there's nothing else to do

Press 1! To stab them in the knees
Press 2! To slip away unseen
Press 3! When you're low on energy
A big chug from a green mug of tasty Thistle Tea

The greatest raiding rogue that ever I did see
came in one day and took his place at the tank's side next to me
I knew he was a killer, his DPS was off the tree
The fucker had rotations that included Thistle Tea

Now everyone is curious, they all wanna know
Will it raise your stats, will it make your e-peen grow?
Well it won't bring you women, and it won't bring you luck
so why do we drink it? Cause our DPS rocks!

Press 1! To stab them in the knees
Press 2! To slip away unseen
Press 3! When you're low on energy
A big chug from a green mug of tasty Thistle Tea

lol

2009-05-27T14:52:00.004+10:00

I like a good WoW song, and Turpster has a bunch of them. Warning: he's a godawful singer, but he's the Ricky Gervais of WoW lyric writing - witty, dry and slightly rotund (sorry Turpster!).

I'm currently working on recording "Evasion Tank FTW", but have had problems knocking the lyrics out of the original song due to its somewhat garagey recording. Might have to get my brother to do an original guitar backing track for it.

In other news: loot drama rap battle. Full of win.

how not to suck at powerlevelling

2009-05-26T09:34:00.009+10:00

Let me say before I start that while this post is inspired by two twink runs through Stratholme last night, it is not meant as criticism of those involved. I actually had a bit of a laugh despite the numerous, numerous deaths, and the points below are as much for me as for anyone. So please take it as intended :)

To begin: You may find yourself, dear reader, at a point where you are levelling an alt or indeed levelling your first main on a server with some high level friends. With the XP rate boost as it is, you may also consider that running high level instances (as high as you are permitted to enter) is a good idea. You may also realise that having one of the said high level toons along may make said instances rather quick and, quite frankly, a loot and XP pinata.

All good and sound thoughts.

What you may not have thought of is that this run has the potential to be one of the more frustrating, demoralising and painful experiences in your WoW career to date.

For the purposes of the exercise, let's look at a typical twink run of a single level 80 toon and one or two lower level toons.

Your twinker pretty much must have a strong AoE attack. Until recently, that meant no rogues; however with the advent of Fan of Knives, rogues are now viable twinkers. It would also be extremely useful if the twinker were survivable and has a rez ability. Pallies probably make great twinkers. Make no mistake though: twinking is not the same as soloing. When soloing, all you care about is your own progress through the instance. When twinking, you've got one or two utter aggro magnets along for the ride and if they keep dying due to proximity pulls you will have an abysmal time of it. You must:

Destroy everything in the instance
Keep everything off the twinkees
Keep the twinkees in XP range
Allow the twinkees time to loot
Not let anyone die (except maybe twinkee DPS/tanks in emergencies, if you have a rezzer in the party)

Finding the balance between speed through the instance and time for looting can be hard, especially in a loot-heavy instance like Stratholme. Furthermore, depending on the relative levels of the twinkees to the mobs, the aggro radius may be fairly close to the XP radius, which is challenging. The twinkees have to stay close enough to you to get the XP, but not so close that you're constantly pulling mobs off them. They also have to loot FAST and they will be watching their bags more than they're watching the mobs. Generally speaking, closer is better, especially if the mobs use stuns, roots and disarms, which can affect you no matter how high level you are and keep you from intercepting mobs wailing on your twinkees.

You may also be dealing with inexperienced twinkees, who will pull aggro in all sorts of unforeseen ways. A typical twinkee will be two- or three-shotted by trash, and one-shotted by bosses, so you haven't got much time. Make sure your twinkees know that they are not to do anything offensive (including healing and buffing) when anyone is in combat.

Looting is a hard one. You'll really want Free For All set on in the interests of speed, but your twinkees have to understand that they mustn't take BOPs that are useful for another twinkee. Even with Free For All and autoloot, they will get a warning when they try to loot a BOP blue and they must stop and think before they grab it. This might be different to what they're used to, especially if they've done a lot of soloing and are in the habit of blindly taking whatever drops. It's easy for experienced raiders to be critical of this looting instinct, as our instincts are now to immediately stop when we see blue or purple; but I remember a time when I did the same thing.

As the twinker, you may need to brief the twinkees on loot etiquette, especially if there are multiple twinkees and/or an enchanter along. Anything DE'd can be used to immediately enchant the nice new blue drops after the run! You might also want to consider flicking master looter on before a boss pull. BoEs aren't an issue, as being picky about those will just slow things down. Sort out BoEs after the run.

For the twinkees, your role is both simple and complex. You must:

loot as fast as you can
do not mis-loot
do not pull aggro
do not die
stay in XP range of the twinker
know and use all of your survivability abilities
know and use all of your buffs
heal the twinker when out of combat

Learn your proximity pull range in a safe environment at the start of the instance. Burn it into your brain. If you get aggro - run to the twinker and don't actively defend yourself (with heals and DPS), you will just make it harder for the twinker to pull them off you. Burn your passive defensive/threat wipe abilities (PW:S, Fade, Evasion, Vanish, FD, bubble etc) and stay alive.

There are also slight role differences as a twinkee. Any twinkee with a rezzing ability should give first priority to their own survival. DPS and tanking toons: I'm sorry, but you are the sacrificial lambs. If your death will save a rezzer, even briefly, do it. They can rez you. You can't rez them. Your intervention may save a corpse run, which saves time and frustration. Die, get rezzed, move on.

And my final tip: use voice. Vent, Teamspeak or ingame, it will help immensely as your twinkees will get aggroed and will need help right away.

When it's done right, the rewards are astounding. My 55 and 3 quarters priest (fully rested) went to 57 and a half from one run through Stratholme (with quests) and took a fistful of nice blues as well, and picked up about 40 stacks of Runecloth for Cat's Gnomeregan rep. Even when it's done wrong, you'll level fast but the angst factor might be higher. Hey, the more you do it, the better you'll get and it's sure as hell better than doing "fedex and kill-x" out in the world.

Enjoy your twinking!

RT

2009-05-26T09:30:00.001+10:00

A few great posts on leadership in WoW:

The Noisy Rogue part 1 and 2
The Wordy Warrior

the dedicated few

2009-05-25T16:56:00.003+10:00

Scene: It is approaching 9pm on Saturday. I thought I'd do a few dailies and retire early, so as to be fresh for the traditional 25-man on Sunday night. Then the call goes out for Nax10. Sucker!

As it turns out, we have at it with only 8 people and decide that we may as well have a go at The Dedicated Few, which I believe nobody had yet achieved. We had (according to WoWRanked for my guild): healer #1 and #12, tanks #7 and #9, and DPS #2, #20, #48 (me), and #49. So a strong triumvirate at the top, but alts and newbies (myself included) under that.

The half-hearted shorthanded Undying attempt ended almost straight away, to everyone's relief. Nobody seriously thought we could pull it off with 8 people anyway. Still, we dropped Heigan with 8 left standing and didn't meet any serious resistance until Four Horsemen, which wiped us 3 times before we found our rhythm. Sapphiron also gave us a wipe, but it was KT that both made and ruined the night for me.

By the time we hit KT it was past 0130. AM. I was completely shagged and sore, having had a single 3 minute bio break in the entire raid. I'd also not had a single piece of loot, burned almost a full stack of Fish Feast, and was on my fourth flask. KT casually wiped us twice, and we started to wonder if it was going to happen.

The third attempt started in the worst possible way. I'm going to claim tiredness - I managed to get myself out of healing range while cleaning up the last of the adds in Phase 1, ate a Frost Blast and despite mashing pots, died. The raid, though, settled into a rhythm and burned KT down towards 50%.

I was hoping that the drood OT would throw me a brez at 50% before the add phase, but sadly it wasn't to be. The adds came out and the real race began, with 3 DPS, the MT and our main heals covering KT and the OT and off-healer covering the Nerubians. At that point I felt we simply wouldn't have the DPS.

Then just when it was looking good, with KT below 10%, the OT wore a Frost Blast and went down. The adds went straight for the main healer and she went down faster than a cheap tent. The off-healer shortly followed and we prepared to wipe it up. I felt gutted, as with my DPS it would have been over by now.

I reckoned though without the DPS. With perfectly timed cooldowns, they ran him down before he could finish the job, at 02:08 AEST. Left standing: Hunter, Rogue and DPS DK. Both tanks dead, both healers dead, me watching from the tiles. Huzzah, epic finish. And he dropped my hat.

So yes, I got the aptly named achievement. Yes, I finally got a Northrend helm, after an accidental need from one of the others saw it ticketed to me. Yes, I made few mistakes and pulled my weight on the meters. Yet somehow, that last fight that I missed out on largely ruined it. I found myself cheering for the others, not for myself. It's irrational, but there it is.

Ulduar

2009-05-20T23:29:00.003+10:00

Finally set foot in Ulduar 25 tonight!

I wasn't really set up for raiding unfortunately - normally raid night requires pre-notification to She Who Must Be Obeyed. Fair enough too, as it takes me out of the loop for household tasks for an entire night, and she then has to respond to any child-based dramas. We try to stick to sunday nights, I make sure everything's squared away in advance, and she stands guard duty over the kids.

Anyway, I digress - the point is, I wasn't expecting an invite to Ulduar, and couldn't turn it down when it came. Luckily, the whole family was asleep at 7pm. So.

Flame Leviathan was FUN. I was a gunner on a siege engine, and simply blasted the crap out of stuff for a good 20-30 minutes. I still have no idea what was going on, but we one-shotted him and it seemed to go OK. Seems like a hell of a thing to have to redo if one wipes on it, but luckily I didn't find out.

XT-002 Deconstructor was a more straightforward fight, and I feel I did OK over the two attempts. Phase 1: DPS the boss, run more than 15 yards away from everyone if you get a bomb debuff, feint during tantrums. Assist on adds if required. Phase 2: DPS the heart. Rinse and repeat. Averaged 3.5k DPS over both attempts, and we got him (her?) on the second.

Ignis the Furnace Master was a bit of a douchbag. I'm not sure if it was because I was the lowest-geared melee DPS in the raid, but over the 5 attempts I was pulled into the codpiece twice, and just died. I can understand that I might be pretty low on the list for bomb heals, but it's a shame to have one's best efforts cut short by the RNG. Most of the later fights consisted of the following inner monologue: "OK keep SnD up, keep Rupture up, keep HfB up, Tricks, is Cold Blood up? Don't stand in the fire, gosh I hope I don't get pulled into the codpiece." 3.7k DPS on the drop, pretty happy considering the rogue company I was in. He dropped Flamestalker Boots, but they went to another more dedicated raider, and I'm glad (but still a wee bit sad).

That's where my run ended in a cacophany of screaming children and glowering wife, as the family roused all at once.

Overall I'm happy that I can still consistently pull 3.5-3.8k DPS on T7/8 content while staying alive through largely unfamiliar fights. Considering I'm still rocking some blues, a T5 helm (!) and a BC necklace, I go to bed satisfied that my raiding skills are returning.

To dream of Ulduar...

pug loot rules

2009-05-19T12:35:00.004+10:00

Many of you will probably have come across this issue: you pug somebody into a guild run, it's all going swimmingly and then, just when you're getting a nice sense of comfort, something epic drops.

And the pug wants it.

Now hopefully you've told them before the run started what your guild's approach to looting with pugs is. If you didn't, you're probably in a world of hurt right now - and to be honest, you probably deserve to be. Pugs have a right to a share in the loot, and the RL has a responsibility to ensure they're happy with the loot rules before they get saved to the instance. So, rule 1: define and communicate the rules upfront.

But what is a fair rule? Guildies quite rightly feel that they should not be disadvantaged by pugs, especially if they've been saving DKP/EPGP for specific items. That said, if you've got to the point of pugging a slot, you probably wouldn't be running right now without that pug so wouldn't have had any shot at the loot anyway. Then again, the pug presumably hasn't had a chance to build DKP/EPGP priority. But wait, without the 24 guildies in the raid kindly pugging them in, they wouldn't have had a shot at the loot either! Oh, the confabulation and bother!

The watchwords should always be transparency and consistency. Whatever your rules are, from RAR GUILD PRIORITY to a pure /roll, if the pug knew about it before they saved, they have no complaint.

SO that brings me to my suggestion. My guild uses EPGP, and we tend not to have issues with pug loot (at least not in Nax and OS, I'm not in Ulduar yet but I believe we don't pug slots there anyway) due to most of our folks being geared past there. An undergeared pug can look forward to a loot pinata. That said, an EPGP+pug strategy is always useful to have in one's back pocket. I'm thinking from an EPGP perspective, but I suppose this will work with DKP too.

What are the guidelines? My thoughts are:

a system that neither unfairly advantages nor unfairly disadvantages pugs on loot rolls
a system that can be clearly and unambiguously explained in advance
a system that can be transparently applied

OK. So with EPGP, all guildies get a need/mainspec roll first. If nobody elects to go for that, there is a greed/offspec roll. If items are still not taken, it is DE'd and the mats go in the GB.

To integrate a pug or pugs into this, the three phases should be regarded distinctly. So first, here is a rule:

The pug will be judged as need/mainspec based on the spec they bring to the raid.

Now dual specs present a problem, but in general the raid will need specific roles and the pug will be brought in to fill that role primarily. So that, for the purposes of loot, is the pug's mainspec.

On the need roll: pugs who want to need/mainspec an item simply /roll when the item is announced during looting. Guildies use EPGP votes. One of three things will happen:

One or more guildies has needed, and no pug has rolled. The item is distributed by EPGP.
One or more pugs have rolled, and no guildies have needed. The item goes to the highest pug roll.
One or more pugs have rolled, and one or more guildies have needed. Take the number of folks that either needed or rolled, n, and apply the following formula, rounding up: x = 100 - (100/n). So with 2 guildies needing against two pugs, the highest pug roll must be greater than x (in this example, 75) in order to win the item. If the highest pug roll is <= x, the item goes to EPGP.

the first two make perfect sense. I believe the latter is reasonably statistically consistent. I ran a monte carlo simulation on the odds with 5000 samples, and from the perspective of a pug, it scales well with multiple guildies. There is a minor issue with multiple pugs, especially when they are rolling against few (but not 0) guildies. This is simply due to the fact that they must beat all the other pug rolls as well as getting statistically high roll; however the difference is not going to be more than a 5% chance overall and of all the formulas I tried, this is the best balance of simplicity and fairness.

The outstanding issue is on multiple rolls. There is no disincentive for a pug to roll need on anything that might be the slightest upgrade, and there is no penalty for continued wins (as there is with EPGP priority). A pug has the same chance to win every time, whereas from the point of view of a guildy, their chance to win reduces with every loot win (assuming they're rolling against other guildies).

We could weight rolls with item history, but that would make the calculation too complex. Instead, I would propose that a simple limit is imposed; maybe say maximum 1 need upgrade for every 3 bosses (unless no guildies need/mainspec, in which case go for it). You don't want to put a hard cap on pug upgrades, because they may just decide they have to go, and leave your raid in the lurch.

Greed/offspec simply uses the same rules, but on the second loot round.

The simplest way for shards to be handled is for everyone to /roll on each shard. If a guildy wins, into the GB. If a pug wins, they get it.

Many raids will roll for shards at the end; so if there are 10 shards to distribute, get everyone to roll and the top 10 rolls get a shard (or in the case of guildies, into the GB).

Well that was an epic post. I'd like to hear what you have to say about pug loot distribution, and whether you think this is fair and workable in a real situation.

Stay epic!

the pressure, the pressure!

2009-05-18T11:15:00.003+10:00

It's been a good week. Got my artisan flying (finally!) and became a Champion of Stormwind. Rode the loot train to Epicville last night in a 20-man H Nax and walked out after 3 wings with Twilight Mist, Webbed Death (both now avec Mongoose), Grim Toll and the Ring of Invincibility from emblems. Pretty happy with 3.8k DPS on Patchwerk (new 25 man record).

But the majority of the run was done under the crushing pressure of achieving The Immortal - pretty ambitious when we had only 20 in the raid. You could feel the tension grow on Vent as we strode nervously into Heigan's room, and the more experienced players simply waved it off as a fait accompli that someone would bite the dust on the dancefloor. Personally, I was pooping myself - having only seen the dance twice before, and only surviving it once.

Once it started, it was obvious that the achievement pressure was weighing on our DPS greatly as we kept one eye firmly on the ground (and the other too, as often as we could). In the end, despite the flares being dropped out of position and having to compensate for that ("run 2 meters to the right of the 2 middle flares!") and due in no small part to the awesomeness of our healers, we all lived.

In the end, it was Gluth that got us. There were 2 deaths to Zombie Chow. One of them messaged the raid to express his sorrow at borking the achievement, and I whispered back "dude, there are 18 people who just breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't them that borked it" at which he laughed. It's true too - the remainder of the raid was much more pleasant though it must be said, less disciplined - and I count myself too, taking my eye off the ball on Thaddius and getting fried for my trouble.

Maybe next time eh. For now, rejoice in the madness of purple fever (and grind for enchants).

the Wormhole

2009-05-13T13:43:00.020+10:00

A while ago I was thinking about the hassle of levelling an alt from 1-80 and how daunting that is for casuals like me, who make up the bulk of the WoW player base. I mean, I love the endgame but having levelled Cat 1-80 and Merry 1-55, I just can't face taking Merry through another 25 hard levels of Outland and Northrend despite my very real interest in endgame raid healing. Even less appealing is levelling a drood 1-80, despite the fact that I really am interested in trying out a drood.

Try as they might, Blizzard just can't sell the "bring the player, not the class" story to non-hybrid classes like the Rogue. It doesn't matter how good a player I am (listen to the peanut gallery and their sniggers!) I simply cannot tank or heal and those roles are necessary. I need a max-level alt to fill those roles.

So my brain, as is its wont, got to a-thinkin. (wavy dream sequence starts...)

Imagine, if you will, a 10 man instance in the Caverns of Time called The Wormhole (or something more imaginative and consistent with the lore). This is available to characters in certain bands, similar to the battlegrounds: 10-18, 20-28 etc all the way up to 70-78. Only toons in a raid group who are all in the same band are permitted to enter. Importantly, it is also only available if each of those toons are owned by an account with at least one level 80. So it is an instance for alts, not for mains.

The mechanics of the instance are largely unimportant. However, I had envisaged something like a trash gauntlet on a moving conveyor belt in a tunnel, dragging you "back in time" while you fought onwards through the wormhole against a raid timer to a portal and a single final boss at the end. Dead toons are slowly dragged backwards towards the other end, where another portal exists. Every toon gets a single-use "rezzing stone" that they can use on any other toon except themselves, and if any player corpse hits the rear portal or the raid timer expires, it's game over for the whole instance. Teamwork! Drama! Sacrifice! Tension! Sounds cool huh? Wait till you hear the best bit.

If you "win" the instance (defeat the final boss, every toon is alive and exits via the final portal in the allotted time) all those toons get instantly levelled to the level below the next bracket. If you go in at level 10-18 and win, you come out at level 19. Grind out one level (and level up your weapon skills, learn your new spec etc), and you're eligible for the Wormhole again in the 20-28 bracket. Incidentally, the bands are 10-18 not 10-19 to stop a newly Wormholed 19 going back in and stacking a Wormhole attempt for some friends.

If you "lose" (any player - live or a corpse - enters the rear portal, or the timer expires), every player in the raid goes back to the previous bracket, a quarter of a level below eligibility for the Wormhole. At bracket 10-18, you go back to level 9 3/4. That serves two purposes: it makes you take it seriously, and it stops raids stacking higher level toons to trivialise it, because the consequences of failure are much bigger for someone at the top of the bracket than someone at the bottom.

So what does that mean to someone who has a level 80 and wants to try endgame with a different class, but not spend months levelling an alt? They roll their alt, level it to 10 and get a bunch of like-minded individuals to try The Wormhole. They win, they come out at level 19. Grind out a level, gear up (with your level 80 sugar daddy providing the cash) and go again at level 20, coming out as lv29 and so on up to 80. You grind 17 levels, and win the Wormhole 7 times, and you're a level 80.

What does Blizzard get out of it?

An alt means more reason to spend time in the game at the endgame stage. Rather than gearing a main up, you're now gearing two or three or more toons up. Rather than losing interest in WoW because your main is tooled to the hilt and you've run out of content and you can't face levelling an alt, you stick around and try the endgame from a different perspective. "Bring the player, not the class" takes on a whole new perspective, because that player may now have one toon in each major role.
It's a gold and time sink, and creates a new market for outdated crafter items. Suddenly all those low level patterns are useful again. People are grinding dailies to get heirlooms (which this dovetails perfectly with). People might run all the old content again, especially if things like special mounts etc are available only at certain levels). People are spending money to pimp out their alts to make sure they win the instance.
Take the wind out of the levelling services' sails - people can now quickly level alts themselves.
All these new alts will probably have low profession skills - so more time spent levelling those professions, more olde worlde mats and items on the market, demand for gems and enchants etc.
When the next expansion drops, players will level their main through the new content, Wormhole all their alts and then spend two or three or four times as much time and gold doing the endgame stuff as they would have with no max level alts. It broadens the appeal of the endgame content without cheapening the levelling content. Also, it slows people down through the new endgame, so there's less clamouring for new content a week after the release of the expansion.
Casuals are no longer limited to the role decision that they made (probably without even knowing it) when they rolled their first ever toon. Blizzard can push their broad appeal agenda without all of this ridiculous class homogenisation that's been going on.

What do players get out of it?

Try the endgame with a different class without having to grind 80 levels!
Extra raid/PvP utility by being able to fill alternative roles
Got a friend on another realm and want to raid/PvP with them, but don't want to leave your current server with your main? Level your alt and server transfer them, or roll your alt on that server and level it there.
Guild bonding
New content (you could have a different end boss at each bracket?)
Players levelling their mains the hard way will suddenly find there's a market for their BoE green and blue drops, other than people levelling enchanting.

How could it be abused?

Stacking the raid with higher level toons. They have more to lose if they fail the raid, and in any case the instance could be scaled according to the levels of the raid toons? In any case you're only going to get to do it once before you have to grind out levels in order to stack again. There could also be a disincentive to stacking, for example giving a stacking 5% stat debuff for every level over the minimum?
Levelling services? Maybe, but why would you bother paying for a levelling service (except maybe if it's your first toon) when you can level an alt so quickly yourself?
Gold services are probably the biggest downer, as this instance would create a massive demand for gold.

Balance and other issues:

Making it hard enough to present a worthy challenge that needed preparation and gear, but not so hard that it actually takes longer to level an alt through the Wormhole by being constantly defeated
Scaling it so that it is not unbalanced by high level stacking
What happens if a player DCs?
What can be done to prevent players simply hearthing out, or deliberately DCing, if the timer is about to expire?
Will this create a wasteland in the 10-80 zones, as alt level grinding becomes a thing of the past? Will this be disheartening to brand new players, as the 1-10 zones are full of life and there is nobody to party with for the next 70 levels, apart from other noobs and the odd n9 powerleveller?

So that's the idea. It will be especially relevant as the level cap goes up to 90, 100 etc. I reckon if Blizzard doesn't implement something like this, one of their competitors will. What do you think, I'd love to hear your opinions?

Blizzard, my terms are very cheap. One shiny United States penny each time a toon enters my instance. Bargain!

*edit* on second thought, made the bands n0-n8 rather than n0-n9. Makes more sense from an abuse point of view.
*edit* the 10-80 zone wasteland problem

OS25 0D down

2009-05-12T12:45:00.005+10:00

I imagine that Sarth would be quite difficult with a group that was geared appropriately; however in my case last night, where we had 24 of Pinnacle's best and brightest (plus me) he went down like a cheap tent. Will need to do that a few times before I can say for sure I know what's going on, but I stayed up (more from Meishy's amazing heals than by my own awareness) and punched out 3694 DPS, a new 25 man record. Yay raid buffs.

Concealment Shoulderpads were a nice, if minor upgrade, but as they have very different stats to the T7.5s, I can mix and match to keep my expertise balanced etc.

Gold grind is up over 4000 now, getting very close to that epic flying. Sweeeet.

And my bow skill is now 38. Poor penguins.

Nax10

2009-05-11T12:46:00.003+10:00

New personal best 10 man raid DPS: 2670 on Maexxna (Loatheb and Thaddius don't really count due to the DPS buffs). Swoit.

Survived Horsemen and Patchwerk this time, but had an epic lag-fail on Heigan. Ah well.

But what you're really interested in is the mad loot right? Check these out: Cloak of Mastery, Heroes' Bonescythe Breastplate, Accursed Bow of the Elite (no I didn't take it over a Hunter, it was going to vendor), Loatheb's Shadow and a gun and a dagger that I'm not using right now. Loot pinata indeed.

stupid dailies

2009-05-09T20:50:00.002+10:00

Blizzard usually gets the mix right when they create dailies. Fish for this thing, cook this thing, collect these stones for an ongoing construction project, etc. It makes sense that these would be done every day, even if particular folks have unusually passionate taste for leftover wine.

But what's the deal with the daily The Edge of Winter? How many stupid times do I have to get the same sword from the same ice-encased maiden? This quest makes no sense as a daily. But as it's worth two Valiant's Seals, I can't not do it or my AT grind will take nine days instead of five. Meh.

omg more goldz

2009-05-09T17:23:00.002+10:00

Put my Rigid Stormjewel on the AH at a speculative 750 bid / 800 buyout... and it has a bidder.

I say again, woo. That will take me over 3000g for the flyer. Yay fishing.

the slow grind to my epic flyer

2009-05-08T14:14:00.007+10:00

Read an interesting post over at The Noisy Rogue (which, curiously enough, I read as Thenois Y Rogue when I first saw the URL) about, amongst other things, grinding for the epic flyer.

I am doing this. Ask me if I enjoy it. Go on.

I'm up to 2000g, mostly from dailies. Problem is, I'm also starting to gear up in Nax, and every time I get a new bit of kit I feel honour-bound to gem and enchant it to maximise my raid utility. Each tasty new piece of equipment is, in fact, a bill for between fifty and several hundred gold and, by extension, an invoice for several hours of doing dailies.

Yay upgrades. Woo.

So I've started looking for other ways to increase my earning rate. Advertising in /trade as an Ironforge tram tranny-toy has met with limited and fairly disturbing success. Somewhat more successful was spending the time and cash to level Merrybelle to 350 enchanting, and shipping all my BoE drops to her for DE. Thomasy (my bank alt) is also scouring the AH for bargain ilvl 121+ items for DE into Infinite Dust and Cosmic Essence, both of which are key materials for Northrend enchants and are in high demand. Based on limited testing, I can make about a 25% profit on this. However, it's limited by the supply of AH greens, and it will take me a bit to figure out the most economical stack sizes - individuals purchasing for specific enchants will want specific stack sizes, but enchanters will want big stacks. Saving all the auctions for 48 hour Friday night stacks is probably a good idea.

The Argent Tournament doesn't seem to be the goldmine that everyone says - maybe because I'm ~~still a lowly Aspirant~~ edit: just became a Valiant of Stormwind! We shall see. Whenever possible, I'm doing the five tournament dailies, plus the cooking and fishing ones, and four of the Hodir ones for rep. That's about 143g per day, plus what I dig up on heroics and drops (plus Wintergrasp if I can be arsed).

Any other ideas?

new toy

2009-05-07T22:42:00.004+10:00

Mirror of Truth pretty sweet...

Burned through H AN, H CoS (daily) and H VH tonight. Got the timed achievement on CoS with a couple of mates and 2 good pugs. Didn't get the drake, but we're going to try to run it regularly until we all have it.

I'm happy that I currently have my Expertise balanced (26) and my Hit pretty much where it needs to be for 25 mans (277). While a bit more would help me hit the PHC in heroics, I'd have to gimp myself and really I'm still doing well on the meters in heroics unless there's a ton of AoE, where extra hit won't help me anyway. 2771 AP with another 1670 from trinket procs and on-use.

Wondering actually if it might be wise to cook up some +crit food and start stacking crit gems, as the Mirror of Truth procs on crit (not on hit)? Yet another reason to use Cold Blood whenever not on cooldown too.

Children's Week - Meh

2009-05-07T12:35:00.004+10:00

I started kid's week all enthusiastic - right up until I realised I'd need to run battlegrounds and UP. Think I can find a tank for UP? No way. Think I can be arsed stuffing about in battlegrounds trying to organise achievements while the 50% of BG asshats either ganks me or abuses me for ruining their PvPness? Screw that.

Started the Argent Tournament questline and dailies instead. Still not quite sure what I'll get out of it, though the prospect of getting exalted with Gnomer and getting a mechanochicken mount seems pretty cool.

In other news, Merry is finally 350 enchanting. Now she can DE every BOE in the game. Ench mats FTW.

Nax25

2009-05-04T17:09:00.002+10:00

Finally!

Guild run, full clear, 2 wipes (Thaddius and KT). Thrusting Bands, Valorous Bonescythe Pauldrons, Valorous Bonescythe Legplates.

Myself: apart from the 2 wipes, I had 3 deaths on trash (cleaves and whirlwinds - just awareness really), plus Patchwerk's Hateful Strike (might try dipping in the slime next time), Gothik (I'll buy that one), Horsemen (volleyed) and a void zone on the KT wipe (too worried about distance from the tank and not watching the ground enough) though I stayed up the second time. Pretty happy that I survived the Heigan Dance, Sapphiron and the other "first timer" killers.

DPS was about 2400 over all of the bosses, which I'm pretty happy with given that I was (and am) still carrying a lot of quest and BC gear. My new gear took my unbuffed+poisons dummy DPS to about 2100, so I should do a bit better now when raid buffed.

Yay Nax!

the surprising fun of achievements

2009-04-27T22:20:00.005+10:00

I had a funny day today. I was busy with a lot of work but took some time at lunch to do the fishing and cooking dailies. That's when I got bunny-eared.

"What's all this?" I thought, and after some research, had discovered the Noblegarden festival. Well I'm a sucker for a title (having only Sergeant until today) and I went for it.

Collecting eggs is a pleasantly mind-neutral experience, easily done during a conference call and with a four-year-old playing along. Actually, my son had heaps of fun helping daddy collect easter eggs! I wonder if there are any nonviolent dailies out there that we could make a regular activity of? But I digress.

The best part was definitely the stalking of females of various races for Shake Your Bunny Maker. I simply sat at the Dalaran fountain levelling my fishing, and waited for a female of the appropriate race to turn up. Most of them were pretty easy to find except (in increasing order of painfulness): Orc, Tauren and Dwarf. Orc females are pretty rare. Tauren females look exactly like male ones and I blew 2 cooldowns on males before I found one outside of her armour. And female dwarves - I swear there's only one on the Nagrand server. I got lucky.

The surprising part was the amount of fun I had stalking the orc and tauren. It came down to a tense wait, with my thumb poised over my flower button hotkey, for the existing bunny ears on my chosen target to despawn and... POUNCE!

So now Cat is Catheryna the Noble. Was it worth the time? Hell yeah. Would I have done it if the Naxx25 run had gone ahead (the third in 4 days to fall through undersubscribed)? No way. Hey, I've got my priorities...

H UK

2009-04-26T22:45:00.000+10:00

Drake-Mounted Crossbow.

Woot. Best in slot until Naxx25.

glyphs

2009-04-26T09:48:00.007+10:00

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Mutilate rogues should be taking Glyph of Mutilate, Glyph of Hunger for Blood and Glyph of Rupture. The first two are no brainers, but I'm not so sure about the last - what about Glyph of Tricks of the Trade, Glyph of Cloak of Shadows or Glyph of Feint (given Feint's nice new AoE benefit). What do you think?

The first is a direct DPS buff - 5% rather than 3% if you keep Tricks up - and the second have the potential to ease the load on your healers in progression content, particularly Feint as AoE is something you can't avoid as melee DPS. 50% reduction in AoE damage 60% of the time equals 30% less AoE damage over an AoE-heavy fight. 20 energy every 10 sec is a lot to give up, but 10 energy every 10 sec is a lot better.

I'm going to try TotT for awhile, maybe swap in Feint if we're butting up against content due to AoE healing load.

Naxx... not

2009-04-24T23:22:00.003+10:00

Naxx10 fell through. Damn.

So, H Gundrak and H HoS. Guess what? The Fleshshaper (now with added Mongoose), Hemorrhaging Circle and Gorloc Muddy Footwraps.

So not a bad night after all! Also, Monk and I have started a new tradition. When we replace epics we had grown fond of, we toss them into the Dalaran fountain. That way we know where they are, and console ourselves that just maybe some new 70 will fish them up.

So what should PvE rogues do when they hit 80?

2009-04-24T11:11:00.010+10:00

Understandably, I've been asking myself that over the past couple of days. The simple answer is, of course, "get out there and raid". Ah, if only it were that simple...

To raid, even in a very tolerant guild, one needs gear. To get Naxx-suitable gear, one needs to do heroics. One also needs enchants and gems to maximise the value from the gear. That means gold. We will get to all of this, but first: stats.

You've probably heard a lot about the Hit Cap and Expertise Cap. There is a lot of very comprehensive info out there on these topics, but comprehensive often equals long. So here it is in a nutshell.

You need 99+ hit rating (the Yellow Hit Cap) or your special attacks might not hit. Gear for this first. Unless you're a complete wally and have been stacking druid gear, you're probably at this point. Don't ever let it go.
You need 26 Expertise/214 Expertise Rating (the Expertise Cap) or bosses might dodge you. Gear for this next. Don't ever let it go once you've got it. Any more is wasted, so don't go nuts.
With that sorted, start stacking more +hit. For guild raiding, you want 210-237. For pugs and heroics, you might need closer to 315. This is the Poison Hit Cap, which ensures that your poisons always hit. If you want more details, it's out there. Just trust me.
Now you can stack Attack Power, Crit and Haste.

So now you know what stats to go for. Where do you get them? Heroics and gems, my stabby friend. Shadowpanther (armour and weapons) and guides such as Encrypted Text are your friend here.

My key criteria for grinding gear is: "how long will I keep this item?" Given that the aim is to get into Naxx and move on to Ulduar, spending ages grinding Exalted rep for an epic item that will be replaced in one's first Naxx25 run seems a waste to me when there are other more easily accessible items of suitable, if not equal, quality. Go for "bang for buck", where the "buck" is your time.

There is some rep that is worth grinding though: Knights of the Ebon Blade revered for the Arcanum of Torment head enchant, and Sons of Hodir exalted for the Greater Inscription of the Axe (unless you're a 450 Scribe). Both of these are best in slot enchants that will be used over and over as you upgrade gear in those slots. Grinding those dailies will get you gold as well. The Ebon Blade rep can also be brought up by wearing their tabard on your heroic runs.

Enchant everything, even placeholders. Get what you can afford. Use the recommendations from be.imba.hu, checked against Shadowpanther. Weapon enchants are a sticky one, as you certainly want good ones on your longer term weapons. I quite like Greater Potency on placeholders. The mats are cheap and it's about half of the MAEP of a Mongoose for a tenth of the price. If you've got the gold, go for Berserking on everything. I don't, but I've got a couple of Mongoose scrolls in my bag for when those really nice raid dag gers drop. Again the diminishing returns: Mongoose is 80% of the MAEP of Berserking, for about 1/3 the cost on my server.

Gem around your hit and expertise caps. Once you've got a pool of swapsie gear, you might for example trade some excess hit for some haste etc. Spreadsheets are your friend.

On gear swapping, I have a golden rule about gear retention. I won't vendor any gear if:

It is similar in quality to an equipped item, but with different stats, and/or
I really like it.

So yes, I still have my Hanzo Sword and Ebon Mask. Sue me. If I ever get a figureprint, they will come in handy.

The point of the golden rule is this: let's say you have 2 chest pieces: 1 with +hit and 1 with +expertise. You're at the EC, so you wear the first to get closer to the PHC. Now some awesome head piece drops, with so much +hit it's just crazy. Problem is, your existing head piece has +expertise, and you're now below the EC. If you had vendored the chest with +expertise, you're stuffed. Because you're following the golden rule, you simply swap chests and party like it's 1985.

Finally on Emblems: there are some very good items to spend your EOH on. I'm going for the Mirror of Truth first, then the Pendant of the Outcast Hero. Of course, if something better drops in the meantime, I'll happily spend them elsewhere.

So here are my final tips:

If be.imba.hu says you're not yet at the Naxx stage, do all the above until you are. Focus on the YHC and EC with easily obtainable gear, gems and enchants.
If you're ready for Naxx, do Naxx. Meanwhile, keep the gold and select rep coming in. Don't worry too much about grinding for gear, do the daily Heroic and store up those Emblems. You'll get the gear in Naxx.

And read up on Naxx! Good luck.

and there it is

2009-04-23T03:19:00.004+10:00

Dinged 80 at about 1am in a specially organised Nexus and Azjol-Nerub run. Thanks to all the Pinnacle folks who helped me out, I am truly overwhelmed with the generosity.

Followed it up with a Heroic Nexus run, and lo and behold both the Spaulders of the Careless Thief and the Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood dropped for me. I'm speechless.

Can't say I enjoyed the levelling, but I enjoyed dinging 80 and I'm keen as mustard for Naxx10 on Friday. I say woo to you, sir.

So I'm now rocking new shoulders with a Greater Inscription of Vengeance I had left over, an Ice Striker's Cloak and Chain Gang Legguards with Nerubian Leg Armour from the GB, and dual Librarian's Paper Cutters with Greater Potency.

Now, the game begins. I need Expertise.

not quite...

2009-04-20T22:40:00.000+10:00

7/20 bubbles to 80. Still over a million XP to go.

79

2009-04-20T00:11:00.001+10:00

79 in Storm Peaks after a looong session in Zul whatever. The final stretch - 1.6 million XP to go.

78

2009-04-16T00:43:00.002+10:00

78 in Zul whatever. Yay, only about 3.5 million xp to 80.

realm still down

2009-04-15T09:50:00.005+10:00

... so I've had a look at my talent build. Here's what I think - cookie cutter Mut/HfB with Vigor:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#f0efoexoVboIzAo0xV0hZLb:TIimVc

I won't go dual spec yet as I'm saving the cash for my raid enchants. When I eventually do, I'll probably take a quite difference PvP spec, maybe a Shadow Dance spec or something.

The other option, that Monk is running with, is to run a HaT build as secondary for when the raid is stacked with crit-heavy toons. Something like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#fhbbZ0xV0x0xoZxbcbIMddAzVc:ckfmcV

The Triple Shiv Opener

2009-04-14T18:27:00.007+10:00

I've been playing around with a little spreadsheet of my own devising, which I'm using to optimise my boss opening in 3.1. It seems a little weird at first, but hear me out:

Shiv > SnD > Shiv > Rupture > HfB > Shiv > Envenom

Allowing for GCD, helmet fire and a wee bit of lag (essentially mandating 1.5 sec between button presses) that puts me 10 seconds into the fight. SnD (my most valuable ability) has been up for 8.5 of those 10 seconds, and has another 21 sec to run (maximum refresh from Envenom). HfB has been up for 4 sec already, with 60 seconds to run. I've also got a 1-dot Rupture up with another couple of seconds to run. I'm running at my maximum white damage (with SnD and HfB up), low threat (no big bursts) and I've made maximum use of my combos (none left) and energy (5 left). It's also non-positional.

Opening Ambush from stealth is an alternative, but it loses me white/poison time on target (my maximum DPS abilities) unless I can start behind the boss in stealth. It also puts 2 combos into the initial SnD (wasted with the usual intent of refreshing with Envenom), uses twice the energy of Shiv (making other abilities harder to access) and generates a lot of threat. On shorter fights that might be worthwhile (maximising the damage with CB/TotT), but I'm talking about long tank'n'spanks here.

Open Mutilate? Possible, but again 2 combos get wasted into the initial SnD, it doesn't get the benefit of the "poisoned" buff from Deadly (which a Shiv opening guarantees for later Mutilates) and it uses even more energy than Ambush.

With my opening, I've got my high-value abilities up in absolute minimum time, and am pooling energy for say a CB/TotT double Mutilate to 4- or 5-dot Rupture, with 21 sec breathing room before I need to worry about another Envenom. Throw some Tea in there and I get another couple of seconds' grace.

Opinions?

getting back in the "swing" haha

2009-04-14T13:21:00.006+10:00

Have just checked out my WWS from a recent DTK run. Couple of notes:

Stealthing for an opener is costing me a lot of time on target.
I shouldn't be using Eviscerate (a hangover from grinding)
SnD shouldn't be dropping (once)
Rupture! Better get used to it, it'll be essential for HfB in 3.1

On rotations, it is a really complex balance. I need to keep 3 abilities up:

Most importantly: SnD - refreshes with an Envenom after initial activation. Should never drop.
Rupture - harder to keep up as requires specific refresh, and is useful in 3.1 for HfB.
HfB every 60 seconds, requires a bleed (like Rupture) to come up (but not to stay up).

SnD is clearly the priority as it is a 40% boost to white and instant poison damage, which together represents about 55% of my damage. Fast daggers and SnD = high DPS. Combos should be used on Envenom to refresh SnD to full if there's any chance of it falling off before combos are available again.

So long as that is up, HfB is next. As it expires every 60 sec, I just need to keep one eye on it, as it may need a Rupture in advance to enable it. Luckily it doesn't use combos.

Rupture is nice to have up, but without a lot of combo procs, might be hard. Reserve for a) quick bleed when necessary for HfB, and b) when I have 5 combos and everything else is peachy.

If those are cooking along, then Mutilate. Ideally with a 120 energy pool for 2 quick Muts, and on the tail end of a CB/TotT for guaranteed crit and threat handoff, and a 5-dot Envenom for added instant poison procs. Bit of a PITA selecting the focus for TotT, will have to work out a macro.

Problem comes in with that rotation that Mutilate is the only combo builder. It's 60 Energy (55 glyphed), so if something is about to drop and energy is low, Shiv is the answer. It can't crit (in 3.1) but it gives a combo and applies Deadly Poison automatically and only costs 35 energy. Emergency use only, but definitely useful. (Note: see above post about the Triple Shiv opener).

Another problem: what if there's no warrior doing Sunder/Revenge/Devastate (or Feral Drood), Expose Armor needs to be in the mix, and done at 5CP for best effect. In raids this shouldn't be a problem, but in heroics it definitely is. This is one area where the rogue must sacrifice individual DPS for the good of the party DPS. Technically speaking, depending on the number of physical DPS dealers, it even needs to be ahead of SnD. It's only every 30 sec, but still needs to be factored in.

Another consideration is Attack Power. Most rogues will have a +AP trinket or two. When's the best time to use them? Well, seeing as both Rupture and Envenom scale with AP, ideally just before a 5-cp Envenom or Rupture refresh.

One final point: trading tricks. If the tank is doing well on threat and there's another rogue in the raid, trading TotT with them will give an average 3% DPS boost to both. The threat handoff is negated if both rogues swap tricks with each other, and both get the benefit of 15% increased damage for 6 seconds on a 30 sec cooldown. Requires some coordination as ideally you'd want to call for tricks just as you're about to unload a CB double mutilate or whatever your grandaddy burst is with other specs.

And all those people say that Rogues just mash 2. Pah.

I don't want another expansion

2009-04-13T14:07:00.004+10:00

Talk has already begun about the next expansion. I may make myself a pariah here, but it's my blog so I'll say what I want.

I don't want another expansion.

Am I mad? Well, possibly, but that's beside the point. The simple fact is that I can't stand another 10 levels of "fedex and kill-x". It is pointless - a meaningless grind that simply forms a speed hump between the release of the expansion and the things I want to do. I mean sure, occasionally one comes across an entertaining quest, but seriously, how much can we really be expected to enjoy meandering around new zones leaving a trail of bodies in our wake in exactly the same way as we meandered around the new zones in the previous expansion?

How much effort goes into creating these quests that we simply accept without reading, blow through, hand in and vendor the reward with barely a thought? What is, to be brutally honest, the freaking point?

Why not leave the level cap at 80 and release new content patches? Kara, ZA, BT, Sunwell, they were all content patches and kept a great deal of people happy without forcing them to meaninglessly butcher thousands of random mobs to do it. Ulduar will be great. Why not just keep doing that? More Hero classes, more interesting questlines for rep or tokens, more dungeons and raids, more content at the current level cap.

Surely it makes sense from a casual point of view too. How many casuals never set foot inside Kara, because they didn't gear up in enough time before it was rendered irrelevant in WotLK? Surely by extending the life of the level cap, casuals (who make up the bulk of the player base) will get better use out of the content?

How intimidating is it now when considering levelling an alt? You're facing 80 levels of the same boring shite that you've done on your main. Now imagine that after another couple of expansions. 100 levels of grind if you feel like trying out something different. Whoopee.

Levelling is a pain in the arse, let's stop pretending it's not. Less frequent expansions, more focus on content patches at the current level cap. Sounds good to me.

77

2009-04-12T00:37:00.001+10:00

77 just now in Sholazar Basin. Thanks to Ponendus (my brother) who dinged 77 2 mins before I did :)

gear upgrades

2009-04-09T09:44:00.002+10:00

So Cat is 76. She's still in T4/5 raid gear, which is holding up nicely. However, she's starting to see some blue gear drop that may well be an upgrade.

Ohnoes.

I've deperately resisted the clownsuit in Northrend, but there will soon come a time where my old gear will be holding me back. I don't expect that to be a big issue until I start doing heroics and raids, at which point I'm going to have to simply suck it up and send in the clowns.

It's complicated by my gems and enchants, which where almost all best-in-slot at 70. Do I abandon a 103dps dagger with Mongoose for a slightly better and/or faster blue that I won't be enchanting? I guess only a spreadsheet can tell me.

So, my plan is:

- No greens. I draw the line at greens.
- Inconspicuous blues (i.e. those that aren't in highly visible slots like rings, trinkets, bracers etc) will be equipped if they're an upgrade according to the spreadsheet.
- Conspicuous blues will be equipped if they are a significant upgrade according to the spreadsheet. If they're major clowny capers, I reserve the right to vendor or bank them. I mean, I worked hard for my Swiftstrike Shoulders and the Grim'grin Facegard looks completely badass, I'm not giving them up for some random quest drop.

So I think that's fair. When I'm raiding, I'll be a little bit more mercenary, but until then I'm not hurting anyone.

76

2009-04-08T23:23:00.000+10:00

76 just now in Grizzly Hills. Fark I hate levelling.

Gundrak

2009-04-07T12:15:00.004+10:00

Ran Gundrak with a few folks from my brother's guild < Have Kids Will AFK >. Good people to run with.

Was pretty easy as there were some 80's along. Still held up well on the DPS, pulling about 50% of the top DPS (Azarul, lv80 Balance Drood in full epics). I think that's probably OK given 5 levels difference, and I'm still rocking my lv70 raid gear!

Others were Nianii (80 Prot Pally), Ponendus (75 Prot Pally, my brother) and Catraa (75 Holy Pally).

Great run. Picked up my Manual: Heavy Frostweave Bandage and 3 blobs of XP as well. Neato.

75

2009-04-07T10:39:00.000+10:00

75 last night in the Grizzly Hills. Christ I hate levelling.

74

2009-03-26T23:02:00.001+10:00

... and 74 with Monk's help. Cheers mate.

73

2009-03-24T10:47:00.000+10:00

Dinged 73 last night questing in Dragonblight. Thanks for the help, Neezer.

back... sort of

2009-03-23T20:53:00.002+10:00

Had a bit of a hiatus from WoW, what with a huge upturn in work busyness and moving house and whatnot. The release of Black Shark and Dawn of War II didn't help either. However, now I'm semi-committed to getting Cat to 80. We shall see. I have a few nights in a hotel this week, that will be a good start.

Wrath

2008-11-14T03:56:00.002+10:00

Logged on, took a boat to Borean Tundra, the guild decided to do a run through Utgarde Keep and we one-shotted the place. The last boss was still pretty tricksy, and after a battle rez I ended up doing an honest to god Evasion tank FTW. A glorious way to start in Northrend.

Close to halfway to 71, I'm off to bed.

The Burning Crusade

2008-11-12T21:52:00.008+10:00

So that, appropriately enough, concludes the Burning Crusade for Cat. It's been quite a ride. What do I remember?

Running through the Dark Portal for the first time.
The Kara attunement chain.
My very first Kara run, also my very first Pinnacle run, and my very first raid. Prince and Nightbane. Malchazeen.
The grind for Mongoose mats that I ended up doing 4 times.
375 Leatherworking, and the Primal Intent set that I only finally laid to rest this week.
Electricmonk, Tempalilacu, Quron, all the guys from Pinnacle and the Knights Templar.
Crystalgypsy giving me most of the gold for my flying mount (thanks hun).
The grind for, and eventual high from, my Swiftstrike Shoulders.
Being useless in PvP.
Getting Lurker down, and the fishing grind that I never used to fish him out.
Rage Winterchill.
Racing home from the airport with WoW on my laptop in the cab, talking over the Naj'entus fight, and then dropping him as soon as I walked into my house.

Thanks Blizz, it was fun.

Lichy, you're on notice baby.

Black Temple

2008-11-12T21:23:00.007+10:00

Yay Pinnacle! We finally made it into BT and had a blast. High Warlord Naj'entus and Supremus went down like cheap tents (one-shotting both) and we only called it because it was getting late and people wanted to rest up for launch night tomorrow.

It was a pretty funny run for me - my flight ran late and I missed the start of the raid, which had me absolutely spewing. I finally logged in from the cab at about 8pm, and thanks to my awesome guild still got an invite. I sat through the Naj'entus brief on vent in the cab, and as soon as I got home I paid the guy, folded up my laptop (still running WoW with the WiBb dongle connected) and ran for the office. I knew there would be a good chance my wife would be putting the kids to bed, and it was so. Dropped Naj'entus on the laptop over WiBb (didn't want to risk a DC switching to WiFi), then went inside for a bio and family catchup :)

The Naj'entus fight went well - I managed to get spiked twice! I was healed through the first one, but the second was right at the end of the fight (literally in the last 1%) and it wasn't worth the heals. Supremus didn't go so well for me, as I was dumb enough to chase him around in melee range in phase 2. Surprise surprise, I got one-shotted.

Some great loot dropped, and I was lucksy enough to roll a 100 on the Pattern: Bracers of Renewed Life from Supremus.

So if I'm right that takes Pinnacle to:

Before the patch: 5/6 SSC, 2/4 TK, 1/5 MH
After the patch: 6/6 SSC, 3/4 TK, 3/5 MH, 2/9 BT

A pretty good effort for a casual raiding guild that's just a year old. Roll on Pinnacle in Northrend.

ZA

2008-11-11T00:45:00.003+10:00

Finally finished off ZA tonight, downing Jan'alai, Hex Lord Malacrass and Zul'jin for the first time. Got some seriously phat lewt, with both the Bladeangel's Money Belt and the Grimgrin Faceguard falling for me. Thank you ZA for a seriously cool hat.

Also hit the Sunwell trash for the first time, though only one sunmote dropped. Still, seeing the whole guild showing in Sunwell was still pretty cool. BT on Wednesday, and if we can drop just one boss, I'll be a happy tranny.

WWS for tonight, I'll analyse it tomorrow. Probably still quite sketchy though.

messing with the nubs

2008-11-02T08:39:00.002+10:00

I had a little bit of fun with Merry last night, helping my brother level his huntard. Ploddy is a brand newbie to WoW and kinda digs on the PvP, so was getting into the duels with Merry and my youngest brother's pally. All good, a good way to learn PvP in a safe environment.

At one point Ploddy and Merry had a duel and Merry just turned her back and allowed Ploddy to pew-pew her down so that Ploddy could get the duel achievement (throwing up a PW:S at 5% was my little way of messing with him). I did laugh after the duel when he asked "so you let me win, right?" and offered to have a real duel with him. Shadowform, Mind Blast, dead Huntard. Rofls all round.

Ploddy then thought that Ponendus was an easier target being only 7 levels higher and I saw the flag drop. Figuring I'd make up for my recent incineration, I threw a sneaky Renew on Ploddy just before the duel began, effectively tripling his health for the fight. It was a close fight, well done by both, and Ploddy emerged victorious by the slimmest of health margins. Well, you should have heard the crowing! Banging on about how awesome he was, how awesome his pet was, how crap Ponendus was, the general awesomeness of hunters in general, yada yada. I had tears streaming from my eyes with laughter as I broke the news that he'd done it with triple health. The following duel, on honest terms both, ended more predictably :)

Aaaah, messing with nubs...

2008-10-29T13:51:00.004+10:00

Some feedback from the very helpful Timeless (EU Norkal) on the below has alerted me to the preference for Envenom over Eviscerate for a Mutilate finisher. Also it appears (thanks Daemona of EU Destromath) that Windfury has been reworked and no longer requires dropping the OH poison. Good and bad - good because I don't need to worry about it so much, bad because it means I had the benefit of it in ZA, increasing my potential DPS quite a bit, and still only pulled 1176!

So given that Eviscerate is gone from the rotation, do I use Cold Blood on Mutilate or Envenom?

evaluating Mutilate/HfB, continued

2008-10-29T00:50:00.011+10:00

By way of example, here is my WWS report from my very first ever venture into Zul'Aman. Should probably start with a caveat - I suck at the moment. I haven't been raiding much, have a totally new build, and a new Nostromo to get used to. So, expectations suitably lowered, let's proceed...

OK So this report is from the following bosses: Nalorakk, Akil'zon, Halazzi (including a wipe), and finally a shot across to Karazhan to drop Attumen. 5 fights, 51/4/6 HfB.

I violated the first commandment twice, both on Halazzi (although one was a wipe, so that doesn't really count). Slap on wrist.
first of all: the chart (bosses only, trash doesn't really count). Damage out looks good, second only to Gank who is a pretty awesome rogue (10/51/0 Combat Swords). 1176 DPS which is well below my theoretical maximum from the spreadsheet of 1980. Of course that is unattainable with ramp up times etc, but I should do better than 1176. Damage in looks OK for melee DPS, below the tanks and above the ranged classes. Gank does a better job at avoiding being hit. Heals, looks like I did a good job of taking care of my own healing, but if I was better at avoiding getting hit I wouldn't need it so much! Still, I'm glad I wrote that /userandom healing macro to spam.
On to boss fight individual stats. Swing at 36% is low, that is because I'm still getting used to keeping SnD up with Eviscerate/Rupture. 20% of my Swing misses, so I could use some more +hit. Only 13 Eviscerates and probably roughly the same number of Ruptures seems a bit low. Flipping to Gains, Buffs & Debuffs explains that to some degree - 12 SnD gains in 5 boss fights! So I let it drop at least once in each fight, which diverted combos to reinstating it. Back to Abilities - 5 (4 + 1 crit) Envenoms looks ok (assuming at the end of the 4 successful fights, plus a mis-hit extra). The single Backstab is a remnant of Combat Daggers muscle memory :) Eviscerate crit % is very low at 11%, I should probably save Cold Blood for Eviscerates as they do kickass damage when they crit.
Back across to Gains, Buffs & Debuffs: Gained HfB 16 times! 0 is the number I'm looking for there, as it should be active before the fight begins. So I let it drop on average thrice in every fight. Not good at all, that's 180 energy in each fight, or three Mutilates - which means 7 or so combos, so all in all it's 12k or so damage per fight, just from letting it drop (about 7% of my damage on Nalorakk). It also means I spent a period of the fights (no idea how long) doing 9% less damage than I could have been. 5 gains of Lust for Battle, 3 of Ferocity and only 2 of Drums of Battle mean I'm not using trinkets and drums nearly enough. I don't have Haste potions, so that's missing, as is Thistle Tea which I haven't used in awhile. Probably should get back into the tea.
External buffs: Windfury is totally absent, 8 Unleashed Rage and only one Battle Shout? Flip to the shammy shows he was dropping Windfury, so I should have dropped my offhand Instant to grab the Windfury buff.

So there's a lot of fun stuff there, and a few good lessons for me.

Keep HfB and SnD up!!! HfB drops cost me about 7%+ off my possible DPS.
Keep trinkets and drums going
Cold Blood -> Eviscerate Mutilate/Envenom, see the next blog post
Look out for Windfury no longer required, see the next blog post
Get the Tea going again

evaluating a 51/x/x HfB rogue

2008-10-25T12:08:00.004+10:00

Vulajin at Elitist Jerks has long held the title of author of the most useful post for a raiding rogue. However with the release of 3.0.2 and the ascendancy of Mutilate/HfB for raiding, it does need some updating. He's stated that it won't be updated until Wrath is released and people are raiding at 80 on regular servers, so here's a starter summary. I don't pretend to be an expert in mathcraft or even general roguery outside the specs I play, but I do raid a bit and have seen every raid in WoW/BC except BT. Additionally, the only toon I raid on is my rogue.

The Commandments are still very applicable, with an amendment for HfB. A 3-stack HfB gives you a flat 9% DPS buff. Renewing it before it expires costs you 30 energy. Bringing it up afterwards costs you 90 energy. No debate, keep it up at all times.

Don't die.
Don't do anything that risks wiping the raid.
Maximize your time on target.
Don't let your energy cap out.
Don't let SnD or HfB drop.
Use one of the spreadsheets to figure out your best cycle; this will usually be the highest Rupture uptime cycle that doesn't violate rule 4 or 5.
Use your cooldowns.

To be continued...

Hyjal

2008-10-22T23:29:00.005+10:00

Well Hyjal is still as much fun as I remember. Tonight I was there for guild-first kills of Anetheron and Kaz'rogal. Both great fights.

2 wipes on Azgalor beat us but it was a great way to start getting used to my new build. Combos just keep coming, it's incredible. It's tough remembering to keep up Hunger for Blood and I'm slowly adjusting to the new hotkeys for my trinkets, Deadly Throw and pots/bandages. The decision tree for combos is interesting though - 1) SnD if it's down, 2) Rupture if it's down or going to expire, 3) HfB if it's down or going to expire, 4) Eviscerate. The free SnD refresh from Cut to the Chase is brilliant - but you do feel like allowing SnD to expire without getting an Eviscerate off is a waste of combos in getting SnD back up. Same with allowing HfB to drop. There is a real emphasis on not allowing those timed abilities to drop, because there is a real energy/combo penalty if you do. Yay ClassTimer.

2 of my brothers just started playing - Ploddy (Draenei Hunter) and Ponendus (Draenei Pally). A brother of mine a huntard. Ugh!

Going Down

2008-10-20T15:53:00.002+10:00

Well as soon as I saw this Going Down achievement I thought I'd better get it. Of course, a Rogue does get some resistance to falling damage, and I could get a pally to bubble me or something, but I really wanted to do it myself.

After one failed try off Aldor Tier from the top (obviously an enormous source of amusement to the nice person who rezzed me) I figured it out. Start from the bottom of the elevator, let it take you up to about halfway, then run off. One of three things will happen:

You'll run off too low. No achievement, try again.
You'll run off too high. And die.
You'll run off in the right zone, take a huge whack of falling damage, live and get the achievement the hardcore way. Like me.

builds

2008-10-20T11:31:00.001+10:00

Neat site: http://www.talentchic.com/Assassination/Raid/Rogue

more songs

2008-10-17T13:03:00.003+10:00

Once I'd finished Evasion Tank FTW I listened to some more Dos Gringos and have some more lyrics in development for the following songs:

Jeremiah Weed (tentatively titled Roguey Thistle Tea)
The Bitch Spent All My Money (tentatively My Alts Spent All My Money)

Watch this space. Obviously there's a lyrics warning on those songs. The clue's in the title.

Evasion Tank FTW

2008-10-17T08:41:00.006+10:00

So I just got back from New Zealand. I've had one hour's sleep since 6am Thursday (Brisbane time). And due to the entirely inconsiderate person next to me, who had a bladder with the strength of a piece of wet toast, I had three hours to contemplate my navel with a flat laptop battery and no reading material on the flight.

So, I turned to my iPod. The first song that came up (serendipitously as it turns out) on random was called "Twelve Inch Penis" by Dos Gringos. If you're not into aviation you probably won't get a lot of the references, but it's basically about trying to pee in an F16 cockpit. High class stuff.

Stay with me, this will make sense eventually.

So I was listening to that and my mind turned, as it sometimes is wont to do, about how awesome playing a rogue is and how much I hate PUGs. So, I put one and one together and got 11. I wrote WoW lyrics to the tune of the song I was listening to. I call it "Evasion Tank FTW", or alternatively "The Ballad of the Raiding Rogue". I like the first one better.

Evasion Tank FTW by me

Sung to the tune of "Twelve Inch Penis" with thanks to Dos Gringos for also being awesome.

There I was, pugging a boss

and we could tell he was getting a little cross

from all the damage we were getting on that day

Now an undergeared tank is bad enough

but it's even worse when you're missing buffs

just a plus stam and Salv would really ease the pain

'Cause if you pull aggro on Magtheridon man, it's over

Now about four minutes into the fight

I started to get nervous 'cause things were looking tight

with healers calling OOM and the hunters just standin' around

then a mage Ice Blocked, I knew he was in trouble

and a couple ret pallies started poppin' their bubbles

then the off tank he fell stone dead to the ground

And there's little old me in my leather armour

So we finally got him down to 20 percent

when the main assist said his gear was bent

I mean who the hell raids without getting repairs?

So I thought real hard about my rotations

popped a healthstone and a healing potion

watched the tank die and the druids go bears

And I cursed the shammy's name for forgetting Windfury

So I knew that I'd need a little help

to keep from bleeding all over myself

and if I stressed any longer well I'd give myself cancer

So in my hour of great despair

I offered up a little prayer

to Jesus, hoping that he might answer

And to paraphrase a bit, this is what I said

(CHORUS)

Oh Lord won't you give me

just one more cooldown

just one Adrenaline Rush will do

cause I'm stuck with these dumbos

and I need just a few more combos

and I swear I'll hearth as soon as I am through

Now things started looking pretty darn bleak

when Mags knocked the warlock into next week

and one shotted a shadow priest with a flick of his tail

The hunters feigned death but it didn't help 'em

Mags gave them both a pretty solid beltin'

and they QQ'd and died with a pitiful wail

Fucking huntards

Now it was too much to hope for a Power Word Shield

so I feinted and vanished and bandaged and healed

and jumped back into the fight with a look of dismay

And I never really thought about what was ensuin'

when I realised that there was nobody left pew-pewin'

and I paused for a second, and began to pray

Dear Lord, you gotta give me this one

(CHORUS)

Oh Lord won't you give me

just one more cooldown

just one Evasion will do

cause I'm stuck with these dumbos

and I need just a few more combos

and I swear I'll hearth as soon as I am through

Now just as Mags landed a crushing blow

my energy bar, it started to grow

and before I knew it, it was at least a foot long

Cold Blood jammed down for unlimited crits

and Evasion made me impossible to hit

and I couldn't help whistlin' a cheery song

Now I know you've figured out what happened next...

Well that was pretty much the end of my woes

since I poured DPS like a fire hose

and dodged every claw with a wink and a grin

24 bodies lining the pavement

watching this epic rogue with amazement

whispering "evasion tank for the win!"

This could be you if you learn2play, noobs

I finished off Mags with a Mutilate crit

looted and hearthed from that demonic pit

and ignored everyone before they could aggrieve me

I thought about boasting in guild chat

but something fairly obvious held me back

a fairly good chance no-one would believe me

Think I'll just quietly let the legend grow

(CHORUS)

Oh Lord won't you give me

just one more cooldown

one Cloak of Shadows or two

cause I'm stuck with these dumbos

and I need just a few more combos

and I swear I'll hearth as soon as I am through

yeah I swear I'll hearth as soon as I am through!

raiding with Mutilate

2008-10-16T09:09:00.002+10:00

Basically, the trick is this:

Keep Hunger for Blood up at all times, even when not in combat. Hotkey!
Keep up SnD as usual.
Keep your drums and trinkets up as usual.
Keep your DoTs up - Deadly Poison and Garotte/Rupture. Garotte is still the best opener if threat is a problem.
Watch your threat. Feint, Vanish and if all else fails, Evasion, are there if you need them.
Combos should be spent on SnD, Rupture, and then something that does damage. I've not decided yet if Envenom or Eviscerate are the best way to go - probably Envenom at the end of the fight, Evis + Cold Blood otherwise if you have a threat buffer. Remember that both of these will refresh SnD if you have 5/5 Cut to the Chase (which you should in a 51 point Mutilate build).
Of course, keep an eye out for opportunities to use Kick.
On trash, keep one eye on your squishies and intervene with a blind/gouge. You can quickly build 3 combos for a Kidney Shot with a Cold Blood/Mutilate (assuming you have 5/5 Seal Fate) - with the added advantage of a huge crit that will definitely attract their attention! It might be worth Shivving them first to get the 50% damage bonus from Mutilate.

There you go, easy!

the patch

2008-10-15T21:40:00.005+10:00

Well it's certainly worth a look. After a long long time in Combat Daggers, Cat is now 51/5/5 Mutilate. Even on the first night using the spec (I've never used Mutilate at all) she still pulled a clear second on the meter in a quick-pace 2 hour Kara clear tonight. I'm feeling it's a good spec!

Her current spec is pretty close to the draft cookie cutter 51/3/7 Mutilate.

Mine takes 1/1 Vigor, 2/2 Quick Recovery and 2/3 Master Poisoner, but
Cookie takes 2/2 Murder and 3/3 Turn the Tables instead.
Cookie drops 2 points in Dual Wield Specialisation to pick up the missing 2 in Relentlesss Strikes.

I'm not sure about the cookie cutter decisions. Murder might be useful in levelling, but is it better on boss fights than say the 2/3 in Master Poisoner? 4% increased damage against certain bosses, vs 2% extra crit chance against all but poison-immune bosses? Would like to see the mathcraft on that.

I can see the attraction of Turn the Tables over Vigor. But Quick Recovery looks good for boss fights, where you're often taking splash damage - 20% less mana used on you. 4% crit chance on finishers is not that super when you're probably going to be rotating SnD and Rupture (which don't crit) with maybe Envenom and Eviscerate which can crit. But one of those will get the benefit of Cold Blood, so hanging onto 80% of the energy on failed finishers (which mean they can be immediately repeated) seems a good bet.

Giving up 13% of your offhand damage to get an additional 8% chance to get 25 energy on a finisher doesn't seem worth it to me. Again, the mathcraft will decide.

*EDIT*

Right, I plugged the numbers into the Rogue DPS Spreadsheet in Cat's current gear. On the Assassination tree talents, it's a no brainer. Cookie cutter is clearly better than the build I chose. Mea culpa.

On the Combat and Subtlety talents, we were both wrong. The optimum build is actually 4/5 Dual Wield Specialization and 4/5 Relentless Strikes. However, there's only about 10DPS in it over all three builds.

Looks like I'm up for a respec!

a nice way to level

2008-10-10T09:12:00.004+10:00

Merry is 41 now and finally out of STV. Jeez that place gets irritating after awhile. The changes to XP rates and having a mount at 30 made it a lot less painful, but even so something about STV makes me want to donate to PETA.

My 3 favourite spriest spells: Levitate (for shortcuts), Mind Control (for snigger value and fighting groups) and Shadowform (cool looking and a nice buff).

Questing with Ben and Michael (both shammies) is way better than the lonely soloing I did with Cat. Plus, as Ben's main is a tailor and Cat is a LW, we can keep each other in decent gear. Rock on the sugar daddies/mamas.

priesting

2008-10-01T11:36:00.004+10:00

Who'd have guessed. I actually enjoy priesting. It is a PITA to solo, but very easy to pick up a group and group healing is a load of fun (even though she's specced shadow). Pushing 32 now and bouncing back and forth between STV and Desolace. Ugh... STV.

300 fishing

2008-09-23T14:39:00.000+10:00

Ding.

more asshattery

2008-06-24T09:28:00.003+10:00

Ran H SP with Temp and Q last night to try to get a look at the new seasonal boss. We had to pug a tank and a DPS warrior, and that's where (as usual) the heartache began.
First, our original tank realised he was saved to SP and protested, when I politely dropped him, that he could "reset". O...K. Yes, you can - at 3am when the server resets the Heroics. Which is 6 hours away. Kthxbai.
Our replacement tank did OK until we started clearing mobs, whereupon he berated me for preventing him building rage by opening with Kidney Shot and stunning with my mace. A lengthy discussion followed, and he didn't seem to appreciate that a) KS is not an opener but requires combo points (he was thinking of Cheap Shot, which I don't generally use in groups and certainly wasn't in this one), b) I was not actually using KS except on one mob at the end of the fight where it peeled off to attack the healer due to the tank's lack of aggro, and c) I was using daggers, not maces (which I would have thought was fairly obvious).
He persisted however, and it wasn't until I pointed out that the DPS Warrior was hefting a huge two handed PvP mace that he realised maybe it wasn't me that was hurting his rage generation. Whereupon, instead of apologising, he just went quiet.
When the two warriors insisted that we bypass the seasonal boss because "there's no point" I started losing interest. Someone upstairs likes me, because at that point DCs and major lag started, and after 20 minutes of trying to log back into Lagrand, I gave up. Sorry guys, I tried, I really did.

The Lurker Below - Rogue Strat

2008-06-14T15:59:00.005+10:00

I have here re-posted the SSC Lurker Below CliffsNotes post from Roguespot, and appended my comments. Many thanks to Roguespot and the original author.

Trash: Large groups. Greyheart Technicians are weak and stunnable, and don't hit very hard. Kill them first, with or without a tank on them. Once all the trash is dead, the water boils and kills the hungry fish. Groups include 2 caster types which heal. These will probably stay sheeped, but are susceptible to kick and KS.
Boiling Water: 500 damage every 3 seconds. If you jump in the water, each jump causes 500 damage. If you're in the water, do not jump. Be careful when jumping back onto an island from the water not to panic and keep jumping if you miss - it's 500 damage each jump. Take an extra second to get it right.
Poisons: Normal If you're the only rogue, Deadly is a good MH choice so you can continue doing some damage while running out for Whirls.
Buffs: Unless you're a DPS god, you won't need Salv. Kings helps with surviving an unlucky Whirl/Geyser combo. Bring health pots.

Phase 1: Lasts two minutes

Whirl: Physical aoe to all in melee range. 3-4k damage, 5 yard knockback, 30 sec cooldown. BigWigs gives good warnings on the cooldown, but does not notify of the Whirl which always occurs immediately after a Spout. If you're on the outer part of the ring, you're safe from Whirl. Stand on the inner edge of the ring, so when whirl knocks you back, you won't fall off the island. OR watch the timer on whirlwind and backup to the edge of the island just before whirl, so it doesn't hit you at all. I recommend backing off to save your healer's mana, it's a long fight. See the pic below for the safe zone.
Spout: Every 45 seconds, a water ray starts at the tank, slowly rotating in a random direction for a full turn. Over 6k damage with a huge knockback (over 30 yards). Run around the island to stay ahead of it, or drop into the water and go under so it passes overhead. You get hit with this, you're pretty much dead, and will be mocked as a tard by your raid. Easy way is to jump into the water in the centre of the ring while the spout passes overhead (it's ok if your head is bobbing out, you don't have to be completely underwater) - this way you can continue DPS. Just remember to get back out after the spout has passed so you don't get cleaned up by the Whirl.
Geyser: Random single target for about 3k. Seems to pick you if you get whirled! Don't get whirled.

Phase 2: Lasts one minute

Lurker submerges and nine adds appear.
Coilfang Ambushers (6) - Two on each outer island. Groups on those islands will take care of those. But they will ranged DPS you on the inner ring so watch your health.
Coilfang Guardians (3) - Inner ring only. Assist off the tank. These cleave. The cleave will one shot you unless you're topped off. Don't get in front of these guys.

Phase 1 and Phase 2 continue to alternate throughout the entire fight. On return from Phase 2, he always immediately does a spout then a whirl.
Drops: Boots of Effortless Striking which probably won't be much use. The trash drops epics including LW recipes which are nice.
Rotations: Now here's where there be dragons. Keep in mind I'm a die-hard dagger rogue. My general principles are these, in priority order:

If SnD is down, get it up, even with 1 combo point (unless he's about to Whirl). 1 combo SnD should get you 16 sec SnD (with T4 and 3/3 Improved SnD) compared to roughly 33 sec with 5 combos. The Whirl timer is the thing that determines how many combos you need to use on SnD - don't use more than you need as they'll be wasted.
Backstab. Don't SS or Shiv. Wait for it.
If you have 5 combos up and Whirl is 25-30 sec off, SnD.
If Whirl is impending, Shiv your combos up to 5 and Rupture.
Otherwise if you have 5 combos up, Eviscerate for max damage.
Rinse and repeat.

The Lurker Below

2008-06-14T14:22:00.003+10:00

Probably the best WoW feeling to date last night... The Lurker Below went down in a cloud of stinky fish breath at 1130 last night after 8 or 9 attempts. It's a furious fight for a rogue, trying to maximise DPS, avoid the AoEs, watch health and threat and knowing that you are one stupid mistake away from dying the whole time over a 15 minute fight. Gladly I didn't make many stupid mistakes after the first two attempts, although my second (and last) death to the spout was a clanger and certainly qualifies as stupid. I won't go into detail, suffice to say that it involved a lamp post and me wondering why I couldn't run into the water. Nuff said. Dumb as a box of hammers.
The strats I'd read gave the basics, but tbh they didn't really cover all the things you need to know as a rogue on the "big fish fight" as nobody but me calls it. I'll follow this post up with a specific rogue strat post for the curious.
Also picked up a nice new LW pattern: Belt of Natural Power. The trash drops in SSC are very nice indeed. Anyone on Nagrand who wants one, let me know.
W00t!

update

2008-06-12T17:09:00.002+10:00

I officially hate myself. Kara was super smooth last night until about 11pm, when everyone was tired and we hit Netherspite. I just couldn't get it into my head to stop hitting him when he came out of phase 2 and promptly got myself smeared all over the tiles. Remember the threat wipe dumbass! He goes down tonight, to make it a full clear (and a quick one for us, as we did all the other bosses in 4 hours with a few new folks in the ranks).

In other news:

Prince gave up the Netherblade Gloves, taking me to 4/5 T4 set with both set bonuses.
First time on Wizard of Oz last night, pretty cruisy.
Necklace experiment favours the +hit. Aldor pendant goes in the bank until I'm closer to being hit-capped - currently only 245.
All gems and enchants in place except for my Netherblade Breeches, which I'll slap Nethercobra Leg Armor on tonight if Netherspite doesn't give up the Skulker's Greaves.
Picked up a Pristine Fire Opal in Sethekk Halls, which went into the head
Swift Blade of Uncertainty is the next upgrade, hopefully by the end of the week if I can get the badges together.
First run in ZA hopefully tonight! And first look at SSC on Friday!

10 minutes to invite... final check

2008-06-12T16:29:00.007+10:00

I've been putting together a list of things rogues should be checking 10 minutes before invites to raids. Much is common sense and straight from other guides, but it's worth thinking outside the box a little too...

A stack of every poison (Deadly, Instant, Wound, Anaesthetic, Crippling and Mind-Numbing). You can swap out before (and even during) encounters and not worry about running out.
Sharpening Stones if there are going to be poison-immune mobs. Expensive for the good ones - befriend a blacksmith.
One stack (preferably 2) of Flash Powder. Other rogues often run out and will hit you up for loaners. The first time you reach for Vanish and it isn't there, you'll wish you brought more flash powder.
2-4 stacks of Super Healing Potions. I eat these like candy. Dead rogues do 0 DPS. Charged Crystal Focus are nice to have as well as they're on a separate cooldown to pots (though they share one with Healthstones).
A couple of Flasks of Relentless Assault, or a stack of Major Agility Elixirs (Flask if you're expecting wipes). Actually I usually go completely with the major agi as they're cheap on my server and the flasks... aren't.
Demonslaying Elixir if the raid calls for it. Flask of Chromatic Wonder for +resist and a good stat buff?
Buff food: Spicy Hot Talbuk and Ravager Dog are the undisputed kings. However, also consider bringing things like Crunchy Serpent, Spicy Crawdad and Kibblers Bits: useless for the rogue directly, but casters and hunters will love you and protect you when you feed them tasty treats. For the same reason, bring a stack of Super Mana Pots to donate to your favourite healer. Nothing says "please keep me alive" like free pots.
Full repairs.
+resist gear and every trinket you own (even a 25% arcane resist on something like VR can save your skin). PvP trinket for Hyjal.
With the endgame recipes available to Leatherworkers now, most rogues should be considering it as a profession. Which means you should have drums. Which means you should bring drums - I bring at least 20 Drums of Battle, plus I have a few Restoration and Panic just in case. You can't break up the stacks, so it might be worth bringing an old set of War drums in case you get begged by a less well-prepared LWer.
One stack, preferably 2, of bandages.
Updated Omen, DBM/BigWigs etc.
Consider being at the stone at invite time. Yeah you may miss out on 15 mins of dailies or whatever, but someone's gotta be there to summon and it may as well be you.

There, that should keep you out of trouble. Anything to add?

exalted with the Aldor

2008-06-08T13:50:00.002+10:00

Exalted with the Aldor now (though I still owe Belaide 6 Fel Armaments, thanks for the loan mate). That means I now have my Greater Inscription of Vengeance and can equip my Shattered Sun Pendant of Might, which theoretically is better than the Worgen Claw Necklace. However, I lose a fair chunk of +hit, so only experimentation will tell.
Gruuls/Mags tonight.

a nice way to wake up

2008-06-06T08:55:00.004+10:00

I quickly checked WoW mail this morning, not really expecting to find anything. Imagine my surprise when a token for the Netherblade Breeches was sitting right there. Thanks Trix and Yoso for sorting that out.

So what now?

Meta gem for the helm (should be in the mail this afternoon)
Save for Exceptional Stats and Assault enchants, and Nethercobra Leg Armour
Get Aldor Rep to Exalted
Look out for rings, trinkets, thrown weapon and a cloak in Kara and Gruuls (though there is also the Angelista's Revenge and Dory's Embrace, both for 60 Badges each)
Run ZA, SSC and TK for the first time
Start thinking about upgrading weapons! Maybe the Blade of Serration (105 Badges) and the Swift Blade of Uncertainty (45 Badges)? Then of course I'll need Mongoose enchants again...

Oh, and be.imba puts me into SSC/TK now. W00t.

Tier 4

2008-06-05T23:50:00.003+10:00

Finished off Kara tonight without a wipe, dropping Netherspite, Chess and Prince first go. Netherspite went much better, so long as I stay away from the Netherbreath, I'm gold. Zooming the camera right out with the cameraDistancemax script helps a lot to see which way he's facing.
Was a bit disappointed with the Prince fight - I got about 75% through until Prince was surrounded by infernals, and I just couldn't get to him. In the end I died trying, which was a shame because I think I have that fight at "cake" level now.
Prince did, however, give up the Tier 4 headpiece - the Netherblade Facemask. I also bought the Master Assassin's Wristwraps with the badges I'd saved for a helm, upgraded my Violet Signet and scored the Violet Badge quest reward (useful in TK) and socketed the helm, the bracers and my Netherblade Chestpiece with 4 +8 Hit gems and a miscellaneous +crit/+AP red. A guildie is cutting a Swift Skyfire Diamond for me too.
On top of that! I got exalted with the Shattered Sun and picked up the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might which I'll leave in the bank until I'm exalted with Aldor (another 14k rep :( ).
Pretty awesome couple of days for T4 gear. Be.Imba puts me at ZA now, w00t.

Kara

2008-06-05T11:27:00.002+10:00

Got as far as Netherspite last night, where we wiped. Tough fight, still getting used to it. Dropped Illhoof and Shade for the first time, and Attumen gave up the Worgen Claw Necklace which I was very happy to accept (saving me the 25 badges I was going to spend on the Choker of Vile Intent).

progression

2008-06-02T10:23:00.005+10:00

Tonight was a big one in Tier 4 raiding. I saw - and dropped - High King Maulgar and Gruul for the first time, and finally got Magtheridon down. I wouldn't say I really know any of the fights that well, though Gruul was certainly the best for me (being alive at the end). On the High King I'm not really sure what happened, I must have caught a cleave but I'm sure I didn't pull aggro. On Magtheridon it was much more clear - one of the knockbacks later in the fight bounced me in front of Mags and boom - cleaved.
Picked up tokens for the Netherblade Chestpiece and - once a minor looting error has been resolved - the Netherblade Breeches. The pants are a slight upgrade from the Fel Leather, so they'll go on straight away, but the chest is only an upgrade from the Primalstrike once properly gemmed, so I'll hold off for a little while as I collect some nice gems.
We followed up our successes in T4 with a venture into The Eye to face Fel Reaver. Tier 5 content, and isn't it a doozy. We had a bit of trouble with the trash and I accidentally caused a wipe as I was blown back into another group of adds. In my defence, I stopped and vanished as soon as I heard the aggro siren, but it was too late. Positioning is the key there I guess. I went down like a cheap tent the first (wipe) on FR but after that I hit my rhythm. It's a tough fight for melee DPS - you have to run in from 16-18 yards, take a few swipes at him then run out again before the stomping starts again. When CoS is up you can - if you time it right - light up trinkets, BF and AR and stay in through the stomping. It's a real rush pulling it off as until then you've been doing maybe 4k-8k every 13 seconds (3 secs of stomping and 10 sec DPS window) but with CoS up you get a solid 23 secs of backstabbing goodness in between stomps. I need to average 6.5k on each cycle to do my bit, which is a bit challenging at this stage.
So I finished the final attempt at the enrage with about 160k damage done and FR at 40%. We're a bit light on DPS - assuming 15 DPS types, we need to be able to pump out 300k each on average (500DPS over 10 minutes) - but ranged DPS should be able to pew pew more consistently from outside stomp range. I need to not run out too far, and not run in too far either, to maximise DPS. Still, I lived till the end on 2 of the 3 attempts, and now I know the fight. Sweet.

a Merry milestone

2008-06-01T08:56:00.001+10:00

In other news, Merrybelle hit level 20 last night. Good grief, how do priests keep track of all those spells? Maybe if I can get healbot to work properly, it will be a bit easier.

gear progression

2008-05-30T11:18:00.006+10:00

So where to now?

Head: Mask of the Deceiver for 50 Badges (Netherspite and High King Maulgar also drop suitable alternatives) and an appropriate set of gems (probably the Swift Skyfire Diamond as it only requires 2 yellow and 1 red gem to get the bonus). However, if I can get myself into SSC I'll be praying to Lady Vashj for the Deathmantle Helm!
Neck: The Shattered Sun Pendant of Might once I get Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive (I'm halfway through Revered). The Choker of Vile Intent is a good alternative too at only 25 Badges, as the +hit is useful.
Legs: the Skulker's Greaves from Netherspite or the Netherblade Breeches from Gruul (obtained 1/6/08).
Ring: the Ring of a Thousand Marks from Prince, and/or the Garona's Signet Ring from Curator.
Trinket: The Dragonspine Trophy from Gruul would be lovely. Otherwise there's a few, including Romulo's Poison Vial from the Karazhan Opera Event and the Violet Badge once I've dropped Prince again.
Back: Drape of the Dark Reavers from Shade of Aran is probably the best bet.
Thrown: Xavian Stiletto from Illhoof is really the only option.

All the rest I'm pretty happy with currently, but if something drops I'll take it!

So: Badges, Kara, Gruuls, Gold. The usual.

we ain't in Goldshire no more, little Catheryna

2008-05-30T10:36:00.006+10:00

600ish gold for the pattern. 1350 gold for the mats (plus leather, which I had in stock), and would have been another 150 gold if it weren't for a generous donation of Primal Air from Electricmonk. All that for one set of shoulder armour - the Swiftstrike Shoulders.
According to Shadowpanther, these sit between the Deathmantle (T5) and Slayer's (T6) in terms of effectiveness for PvE Rogues. That makes them my first ever piece of T5+ gear and I finally, finally, have a piece of gear better than Monk again. That hasn't happened since we were in our forties and he blew past me.
These put me firmly into Gruuls/Mags. Thank Elune for the dailies - without those, I never would have had the patience to grind the gold. W0000000000000000t!

New gloves, and Mags

2008-05-26T09:33:00.003+10:00

Picked up the Grips of Deftness from some trash mobs in Kara with the Best PUG Eva TM. Slap an Assault enchant on there, and they're a very nice upgrade from the Fel Leather.
Ran Magtheridon's Lair with the guild last night. Three decent attempts, each better than the last, but we got to 10pm and called it. Shame to punch out with an hour remaining on my Flask of Relentless Assault, but I (mostly) learned the fight and didn't cause a wipe. Counts as a win at this stage of my experience and gear :)

long time no post

2008-05-23T12:04:00.004+10:00

Well it's been quite a while since I updated the blog. So here goes:

Biggest news is that I've taken Cat across to Pinnacle . Despite best efforts, TKT are still a ways off being able to mount a credible challenge into Kara and I want to see Illidan before WotLK. So.
I've started a shadow priest - Merrybelle - who is now lv14. They grow up so fast! She's kinda fun to play, I never thought I'd get into a healer but I did and I do.
Gear - where do I start. Dual mongoose now on both daggers (still the same daggers), the Primal Intent set is finished, I picked up patterns for Boots of Utter Darkness and Swiftstrike Shoulders though I'm still grinding the mats for the shoulders. Boots are nice.
Got my Cenarion Expedition rep to revered, so now have the Glyph of Ferocity. Other enchants: Exceptional Stats, Assault and Dexterity.
Next is farming badges for the Bloodlust Brooch to get rid of my last green, and money for mats for the shoulders. Looking forward to seeing where things go with Pinnacle, they seem like a good bunch.

you know you're sick of it too

2008-02-27T15:12:00.002+10:00

the new weps

2008-02-26T22:25:00.001+10:00

I feel, somehow, like I've made it now.

I love - LOVE - my new daggers. Happy, happy day.

another very good day

2008-02-26T16:14:00.008+10:00

The big K.

I thought it would be a while before I saw it. Gear up in heroics, get some S1 and S2 weapons, finish my Primal Intent set, then I'd maybe get an invite. I reckoned without an ex-guildie, Belaide, who recently jumped ship for Pinnacle, a raiding guild.

So it turns out that their rogue was late for the final stage of their Kara run. The Prince. Bel knew I was recently keyed, sorta kinda geared, and keen as mustard. The invite came, I almost choked on my water, and I was beamed up to the gate of Karazhan.

Now The Prince isn't an easy fight for under-geared rogues. we wiped twice, and on both occasions I stayed alive all of about 40 seconds. Combination of the 1-hp enfeeble debuff and the AoE shadow nova blast got me both times. Third time though, I did better but still got killed when a nova knocked me back into one of the hellfire pools. Low stam hurt me, and I died having done about 40k damage. For a boss with over 1 million hp, I wasn't impressed with myself. Nevertheless, he dropped.

Now: the master looter asks me to roll. I say - publicly in raid chat - that I didn't contribute much to the fight, was only parachuted in 75% of the way through the instance, and didn't want to roll against anyone for loot. However, the master looter insisted and I rolled a totally gammy 86. Much to my surprise and, to be honest, guilt - I received the holy grail of Karazhan for dagger rogues: Malchazeen.

Thankfully, we went on to drop Nightbane where I carried myself far better. I only died on the first two wipes once the tanks were dead and I was pulling the dragon off the healers, and the third attempt (when we eventually dropped him) I got unlucky on the final skelly fight, wore the fireball and got aggroed by a bunch of skellies with no evasion up. Until that point, I was neck and neck with the other two rogues for DPS.

So: what started as a reputation-wrecking failure on the Prince ended nicely, got 5 of the 10 Badges of Justice I need for my next BOP epic, and I got a truly epic main hand dagger to boot. And I've still never even fought Attumen :) Having this drop means I don't need to keep saving honor for a S1 main hand, and can instead get a nice S1 offhand. Tonight.

Yeah baby.

a big night

2008-02-21T11:02:00.003+10:00

1. Aeonus goes down like a cheap tent in Black Morass, after 2 wipes. Grats also to Quron and Zah, and big big thanks to Sal for giving up her own chance at The Master's Key to tank for us. BM is my new favourite instance.

2. As a result, The Master's Key is mine and I can now enter Karazhan. Tits.

3. As a result of the rep gained in BM, I got the pattern for Drums of Panic which took me (finally!) to 375 Elemental Leatherworking.

4. As a result of that, I made my first BOP epic item: Primalstrike Bracers.

So, a big night no? About on par with dinging 70. Still buzzing over BM.

The Karazhan portcullis opens for me now. Phear.

my nostromo

2008-02-18T16:43:00.004+10:00

A few people have asked now how I have my Nostromo N52 set up. Well folks, it's your lucky day.

Basically, the setup is this:

The middle row of buttons are my core attacks - SS/Shiv (I move the icons around depending on my equipment), BS, Garrotte/Rupture (depending on stealth state) and Ambush/SnD (again depending on stealth state). Above that are my core interrupts: Kick, Gouge, Kidney Shot (or Pick Pocket in stealth), Blind.

Next to blind I have bandage, so I can quickly hit the blind>bandage combo. With health pot under bandage, the right hand side becomes my healing functions.

The bottom row is Cheapshot or Blade Flurry (depending on stealth state), Trinket 1 (which will be either an AP trinket or Insignia of the Alliance), Tea or Drums (I drop the most likely one to be used into the appropriate slot before battle) and Sap (in stealth)/Distract.

Stealth, Feint and Vanish are on the bottom left of the thumb button, deliberately close together as if I'm trying to feint, there's something wrong and accidentally hitting Vanish is no big deal. Hitting feint also triggers Trinket 2, which is always an AP trinket. Feint and AP on the same key? Isn't that two opposite things? Well I make a point to always blow Trinket 2 at the start of the fight when feint kinda helps (I've usually opened with a big crit) and after that if I need to hit feint the AP trinket will probably be on cooldown.

Evasion, Sprint and Adrenaline Rush at the top right of the thumb button. The scroll wheel is next/previous target so I can quickly cycle to the one I want to put the hurt on.

Where are Cloak of Shadows, Eviscerate and the other of Shiv or SS? On the keyboard, near my arrow keys which I use for movement. There just weren't enough keys.

So that's it. The idea is that every most common function is quickly available for a twitch hit if needed. Organising them in this way helps me to remember where everything is, but it's getting to the stage of muscle memory now. It also helps that I only play a rogue - I think if I ever level Sprynkles I'll have to get another Nostromo for her so I don't have to relabel :)

a new build?

2008-02-18T16:06:00.004+10:00

I'm thinking about a new (really, only slightly tweaked) build.

It basically gives up 1% dodge and 4% non-crit rear-attack damage to get 100% chance to silence for 2 secs with Improved Kick. I've really found I've missed that silence when grinding and in PvP. What do you think?

the knights

2008-02-18T15:15:00.001+10:00

A nice piccy of some of the boys in Shadowmoon.

2v2

2008-02-18T15:10:00.003+10:00

Ph34r the Noobs Templar! Quron and I have decided to get our feet wet in Arena.

BM attempt 1 and 2

2008-02-17T22:38:00.002+10:00

Got to 12/18 portals and wiped on Temporus. Wow, that's intense.

redux

2008-02-17T14:50:00.002+10:00

And with far less drama, I got the 3rd frag with a guild group tonight. Thanks to all the folks that helped - Wev, Sal, Zah and Monk.
We followed it up with a successful run (with Sal, Lon, Quron and Temp) through Old Hillsbrad to complete the pre-req quest to get into the Black Morass for the final stage of the Kara attunement. We now have about 6 guildies all at or near the same stage, itching to get into the big one.

the 3rd frag... or not.

2008-02-16T16:23:00.002+10:00

So I've been reading WoWWiki a lot lately about the Kara chain, and I started reading in a lot of places that the 3rd frag was duoable with another Rogue or a Drood. After my success ninjaing the 2nd frag, I wanted to give it a try.

So, I sit in LFG for a little while casting out for a partner to give it a shot. Eventually the guildless Quron answers my call, and we book it for The Arcatraz.

Well. It all turned untidy almost immediately as the initial corridor, complete with unending stream of Horrors, cast a very strong and harsh light on our unimproved stealth abilities. Eventually we zigzagged through to the next room, only to be set back with spawns and have to try all over.

An hour passes. We make it to the Sentinel guarding the Voidie Room, which contains the treasured key frag chest. The strat guide calls for a stealth sprint and well-timed CoS, which is intended to get the rogue past the Sentinel un-destealthed, so that he (I) can pull, evasion tank and vanish (or die) to get the stealthed Drood through.

Amazingly, after the frustration of the past hour, it goes off without a hitch. First attempt, Q gets to the Kara key and hugs the corner, I make my way over to him having vanished safely, and we prepare to spank the chest guardian.

So, for one reason or another, we get the guardian to 1% before we get wiped by one of the Voidies. Shame, but we're pumped and believe it's doable. We sneak in again.

Now the problems start. I'm unable to repeat my success with the steath/CoS, and the Sentinel aggroes me. I run, evasion, and die far enough away to get Q through. Sweet, I can come back. Q settles into the corner for the wait.

And wait. And wait. I'm unable to stay stealthed through the Sentinel for another half-dozen attempts. The one time I do, a Horror on the other side runs right on top of me, destealths me and I fall under a hail of blue fists.

It's now about 2 hours into the attempt and we've decided to give it one last try. Amazingly, it works. We huddle in the corner, with the chest guardian sniffing for us, and plan the fight to the nth level of detail.

It works. The guardian goes down like a cheap tent, but Q dies to a Voidie. I'm left in evasion, with my health rapidly declining, and with the Voidie standing on top of the dead guardian, I'm unable to get a loot. I die - disappointed, exhausted and lootless.

Now: at this point you're probably thinking: "no worries - just stealth back in, loot the corpse and you're gold". And you'd be right. Unfortunately, a combination of exhaustion, frustration, a time well past midnight and having already committed to "one last try" we had a collective brain fart and hearthed out.

Q logs. I cast around YouTube looking for 3rd frag videos and something in one of them triggers an awful thought in my mind. OMG. The frag is just sitting there waiting for me to loot it.

I jump on a bird and book it back to the Arc. I stealth in, die three times on the horror corridor, but eventually get to the Sentinel. I try the stealth/sprint/CoS trick, and it fails again. I die in sight of the Key corner - where there is no sparkling loot. 40 mins after the kill, it's too late.

Yes. You're right. You STUPID BASTARD, ME!

Positive end result: Quron joined the Knights, and got the frag in a guild run the next night. I logged on 3o mins too late and missed the run. Sigh. The quest continues.

370...

2008-02-14T00:01:00.002+10:00

Hit 370 LW tonight crafting Drums of Battle. Only, surprisingly, took 6 to go from 365-370 at yellow.
Next: Honoured with Keepers of Time, buy Drums of Panic and hit 375. Then, my friends, it's on.

Shiv

2008-02-12T21:24:00.000+10:00

I was grinding leather today (in my usual lazy fashion - BS > SnD > spam SS) when I wondered something: maybe Shiv is more effective in a front-on spam fight than SS?

Now the caveats here would be:
- combat dagger spec (I'm 15/41/5)
- dagger in MH (I have Ced's Carver)
- fast weapon in OH (I have Revenger)

SS is definitely going to beat Shiv if Combat Swords spec due to the reduced energy cost of SS and the likelihood of having a high-damage sword in the MH. However, comparing SS to Shiv with the above caveats:

- SS: 129 wpn dam + 113.5 SS dam + (170 instant poison VII dam * 20% chance to apply) = 276.5 average damage per SS
- Shiv: 107.5 wpn dam + (170 instant poison VII dam * 100% chance to apply) = 277.5 average damage per Shiv

Now of course that isn't so impressive a difference, but remembering that SS costs 45 energy (combat daggers remember) and Shiv only 35...

For a 10 second grind fight (100 energy at start plus 100 regained during fight):
SS: 276.5 dam * 4.44 cycles = 1229 total dam or 122.9 DPS
Shiv: 277.5 dam * 5.71 cycles = 1586 total dam or 158.6 DPS

So it seems that Shiv is about 29% more effective in a front-on combat daggers lazy grind fight.

Now this wasn't just to show off my dubious math skills, I have a question: what have I missed?
- I am assuming that the % chance to hit with the SS and Shiv is the same; is this correct?
- Given that Shiv is an OH attack, which usually has only 75% damage (with maxed Dual Wield Spec, as Combat Daggers should have), should I apply this?
- Any other stupid and wrong assumptions?

With the 0.75 weapon damage applied to the Shiv calculation (assuming it still gets the full damage from the poison), Shiv still comes out on top with 143 DPS vs 123 DPS.

You may say "so what, this is only applicable in very limited circumstances" and you'd be right, but hey the servers are down so why not think about this stuff? :)