I would so do me

Ninja Halloween costumes rock very hard.

Got my Ebon Mask (thanks to Del and Cop for their kind assistance in ST) and may I say: w00t. It's a nice bit of kit.

Also picked up some Stormshroud Duds at the AH. I think I'll go for the set, they look kinda cool, all orange and black and wavy.

contemplation

Don't sneak up on skeletons with swords. ESPECIALLY if you're a defenseless bunny rabbit.

Hanzo

I have been wanting a Hanzo Sword almost ever since I started playing WoW. Last night I got one - a bargain at 46g on the AH.
The whole reason I started a rogue was the ninja / samurai thing - you know, sneaking around, garotting people from behind, dual-wielding the long-short. Of course, the codes of ethics of your stereotypical ninja are very different from your garden-variety samurai, but I take what I like from both. The ninja's dress sense and morals, with the samurai's achingly cool weapons.
Now the circle is complete - apart from the Ebon Mask (and that's next).

laaaaaaaaaaaaag

OK, my WiBb card (Wireless Broadband for the uninitiated) sucks. My latency tonight hovered between 1300ms and 3000ms. That's 3 seconds for something that should take less than 1/10th of a second.

Needless to say, I didn't run Sunken Temple. Instead, I did a grindy rogue quest chain that, conveniently, ends in a boss in ST. The big reward is the Ebon Mask which, apart from being a neat bit of kit, allows me to keep up my bandanna commitment.

What is my bandanna commitment? Well, back when I was a wee nipper rogue, I got a red silk mask and thought it was the best thing since sliced murlocs. I committed at that point that I would always have a mask, not a helmet. It just felt more roguely.

It became Catheryna's thing and I now always wear one unless I am fully specced for an instance or soloing/raiding in the world. I do carry a helmet (currently my Spooky Dog Hat which I picked up in ZF) but I always switch back to the mask in towns and for social occasions.

So I'm looking forward to the black mask - I can ditch the rather silly dog hat and have one ninja looking mask for all occasions. Sweet.

The Blasted Lands

" ... and she gazed upon the Dark Portal for the first time, her eyes drawn to the shimmering magics within. She approached it, feeling the inexorable pull of the promise of limitless power, and reached out tentatively towards the crackling surface.

A dark, hollow voice spoke in her mind, mocking and cruel. She recoiled in anger and frustration at the cold words...

You must be at least level 58 to enter Outland."

Bugger.

Tarren Mill and Swamp of Sorrows

The Knights Templar had a guild raid on Tarren Mill on Friday night which was a bit of a hoot.

Still, as a 49 I got pwned good and proper most of the time. I found my best success rate came from sneaky cheapshots on otherwise-engaged 70's. A 4-second stun really gives our guys a chance to wail on the person unopposed - and if it's resisted, well I just stay in stealth and try again. I actually sort of ganked a Horde 70 doing this - he had run away from Southshore chased by one of the (pretty tough) human guards, and he got proper beat up once I stuck him in the goolies. I actually got the killing blow on him too while he was occupied with the guard - a 5-dot eviscerate. Noice.

The highlight for me though was almost pwning a level 70 rogue. Key term: almost. Humankiller had been annoying us all evening and I finally chanced upon him fighting one of our 70's. As is my wont, I I cheapshotted and backstabbed a couple of times while he was tied up and between us we got him down to about 1/4 health - at which point he ran like a little girl! Big bad 70 running from a tiny 49 (and a 70 of course, but that's by the by).

So of course I threw all caution to the wind, thumbed sprint and chased him while my guildies cackled uproariously at the sight :) We got past the SS graveyard before he stood to fight. My vanish was on cooldown but unfortunately his wasn’t - he vanished and circled around for a sap. If I had been just a fraction quicker on my trinket I would have broken out in time to hit him with the 5-dot eviscerate I’d saved specially, but it wasn’t to be - he ambushed me for 2900-ish in one hit - and I went down like Paris Hilton after a bacardi breezer.

The Nostromo really is the shiz for PVP though. If I was a little higher up the learning curve I would have hit that trinket in time and it would have been something to crow about indeed had I chanced a decent crit.

In other news, I had a solo venture into the non-instance part of the Sunken Temple for the first time last night. Very atmospheric, can't wait for the full instance run on Tuesday night.

nostromo and big crits

I picked up a Belkin Nostromo N52 yesterday. Yes, I freely admit, until yesterday I was a clicker. Now - omg - I am not. Not ever again. After the learning curve (which I am admittedly still on) even as a left hander it makes a HUGE difference. No more mis-clicking, and the twitch hits readily available when needed without thinking. it is an awesome addition for the PVP'er, even one as hopeless as me.


I practised for about an hour last night on the 43-44 elite trolls in Tanaris and after that short time refining my profile I was reflexively stunlocking and absolutely tearing through them. Until you make the decision to stop clicking you will never know the true joy of dishing out instinctive hurt.

I still accidentally hit my trinket every now and then instead of backstab, but that will disappear with muscle memory. Of course the real test will be PVP, and I'll hit WSG tonight sometime to try it out.

In other news I got my biggest ever crit - 1092 on a 5-dot eviscerate with my Searing Needle. Sweet.

Arathi Basin for Cockheads

I've just spent a few days grinding AB and WSG for tokens and PVP gear. This resulted in a) my first ever epic item (which I can't yet use) and b) the opinion that approximately half the people in AB are cockheads.

I'm normally a pretty easygoing sort. I go along with the BG commander's plan, even though it might be flawed. I report recon. I don't fight off the flags. Yada yada. So when it was my turn to be BG commander, I greeted my PUG with something approximating the following:
"Hi folks. Let's try grp 1 GM, grp 2 BS and grp 3 LM then see what happens. Please report what you see, call out any zergs and don't fight off the flags. Good luck."
Pretty reasonable I thought. The response, of course was something similar to:
"stfu n00b"
"hahahhahha"
"wtf thay always send mroe thn 5 to bs"

The last guy has a point, but as I pointed out to him: "if you can organise 7/7 and the fat kid with a PUG, be my guest". Response: "n00b". Same response when I reported the numbers at the LM, when I advised LM was safe, when I called out numbers at BS from my recon at LM... and so on. As almost everyone else fought off the flags. He eventually went on /ignore, so the FSM only knows what he said after that.

This guy is quite clearly a cockhead.
AB is full of them.

The cockhead matches invariably ended the same way: one token. The non-cockhead matches ended more often in an Alliance victory than not. Given that I needed 50 AB tokens for my PVP gear, I must have run it around 30 times. So I think I'm somewhat qualified to comment on what makes a successful AB run. And that is: a) A DESIRE TO WIN, b) BRAINS and c) COMMUNICATION.

The desire to win is almost invariably absent in cockhead matches. They mindlessly bash each other for honour kills, ignoring the flags. I really don't get it - what use is honour at 40-49 without tokens? Does anyone really want to spend 3 times as much as is necessary to get their PVP gear? I have never fallen short on honour for rewards, tokens are always the limiting factor. What are you cockheads thinking? Please, if you're an honour-kill cockhead post a comment and tell me what the attraction is. Is it just to baffle people like me?

Now it's possible to want to win but still fail to use one's brains. Here are some classic AB goofs:

• treating the stables like it's something special. Stables are just another flag - if you can't cap it because of numbers, leave it. They are weak somewhere else as a result.
  
• Trying to defend a zerg. If you're heavily outclassed, they are going to cap that flag. They will not trip over your corpse and impale themselves - your death will serve no purpose. Again, if they are zerging they are weak somewhere (almost everywhere) else. Go there. Don't call for reinforcements. Say this: "/bg zerg at gm, lost it".
• NOT re-tapping flags when the opportunity presents. I have lost count of the number of times I've re-capped one of our flags that has been contested by simply looking around, seeing that no horde were watching the flag during the fight, and going to tap it. A lot of people get caught up in the whacking and don't realise that the clock is ticking. If someone gets a 10-second tap on your flag, you just lost a) a resource node and b) a graveyard. Anyone who dies (horde or alliance) will spawn away from the flag you're defending. It is VITALLY important that you tap it back. 10 seconds is all it takes and the flag goes straight back to blue, restoring resources and graveyard instantly. Defence is much easier than offence because when your defenders die on a held flag they rez right there at the battle. That is why you usually need greater numbers on offence than on D.
• Not understanding the mechanics of the BG. The example above is the best one, but I had a conversation like this the other day: "Folks, I'd prefer 3 AB tokens than 1 this time, can we try to win?" " you mean we get 3 if we win? I never knew that" "Really? Yes we do get 3 tokens if we win." "Oh, I've never won, so I didn't know". Read wowwiki.

Now here are some of the things I like to do as a sneaky rogue:

• Stealth to undefended flags and tap them. This is surprisingly easy, especially at the farm, GM and LM which are often under-defended as the horde focuses on the BS. If you time it right with a sap you can contest the flag before the (single) guard wakes up. Then it's 1v1 and up to your PVP skills to hold it. I have held flags for a couple of minutes by myself after a solo cap - people just get distracted. Ninja-ing flags is a great occupation for under-levelled rogues (i.e. 40-47 in a 40-49 bracket).
• Use stealth to make them nervous. I once lost a flag to a mini-zerg (I was the only one who stayed behind to D after a cap) but managed to rez at the local graveyard before they tapped the flag. Now if I had stealthed in and cut up a couple of them I might have delayed their cap by 10 secs or so, but I would have died and rezzed elsewhere. So, I let them see me coming from the graveyard, then I stealthed. I kid you not, 5 horde started running around looking for me - one lone rogue tied up 5 assorted badasses at one flag. I just avoided them while they pissed themselves waiting for the cheapshot. Meanwhile, the rest of the team capped the other 4 flags with a 14-10 advantage. Let them see you disappear, it makes them very nervous.
  
• Stealth is also good for misdirection. Whenever I think the farm might be undefended and I'm coming from stabs or LM down the right hand side, I do this: I ride fully visible to the bridge up to BS and then stealth. To the casual observer (e.g. from farm or LM) it looks like I'm going to ninja the BS. Once cloaked in shadows, I turn around and go for the farm. Misdirection and cunning, both roguely tools. It works in a lot of other cases too - a highly visible run from stabs down towards GM, stealth then go for BS. Horde at GM are typing "oh crap, Catheryna's coming" and pissing themselves looking for me (well, maybe) while I ninja the BS. It's gold.

So brains is really just keeping that situational awareness and thinking "where should I be, and what should I do, to bring my measly skills to the most effect?". The answer almost never is "bashing big group in the middle of nowhere". Like it or not, in a PUG you will almost always be a loner. Maybe a loner in a group of people who all had the same idea at once, but essentially a loner. You have to use your brains and, as a tidy segue, your mouth.

Bad communication kills more AB campaigns than anything else. If I had one rule for BGs it would be this: when you are waiting at a graveyard to rez, type intel. That's it - just tell everyone else what you know about the tactical situation. You got something better to do? You're a ghost. There's nothing else you CAN do, unless you're a cockhead. In that case, instead of disseminating useful information, you should abuse everyone on your team and/or complain about Alliance always losing BGs.

update

Well, let's see: Catheryna is now lv48, I'm now on the Nagrand server with some buddies, I'm in a new guild and I'm a little less n00bish in my WoWishness.

Gurubashi Arena

My very first time in the Gurubashi Arena - last night, at lv32, solo - I got the chest. Well, mostly.
First of all let me say that it was 0600 server time, so not likely to be the busiest time for a US-based server.
I ran up from Booty Bay and just made it in time as the goblin was putting out the chest. The arena looked empty, but I was paranoid (luckily). I circled the chest warily and all of a sudden a lv40 undead rogue popped out of stealth and started opening the chest.
Heart in mouth, I hit him with a cheapshot and started wailing on him. He didn't know what hit him initially, but he recovered quickly and started jumping all around me trying for backstabs I guess. I hit him with a 5-dot rupture and left him bleeding with a 3-stack DOT poison as I vanished to catch my breath and recover energy.
I don't know why, but he went straight back to the box and started opening again. By this time I was pretty low on health, but I figured "who dares wins" and ambushed him for a big critical. I thumbed evasion and just kept hitting until he went down. I had about 15 health left when he did.
I have no idea why he didn't beat me. Well, I know why - no poisons, no vanish, no evasion - but why didn't he use those? A 40 vs 32 rogue-on-rogue should not end like that.
Anyways, I looked around and to my horror saw a couple of lv60 warriors in the stands, obviously in a group and waiting for me to make a move on the chest. My vanish was on a cooldown, I was totally outclassed.
What can you do? I faced away from the chest and stealthed to try to give the impression I was going to try to fight them, then turned around and moved in for the chest. As I opened it, coming out of stealth, I saw them leap off the stands and run for me.
As the loot window opened, I frantically stuffed loot into my pockets as they bore down on me. Just as I got to the arena master badge, the charge arrived and I went down like a cheap tent. I was literally clicking on the "yes" confirmation button for the soulbind as I died.
I would have loved to have seen the expressions on their faces when they realised that a lv32 rogue had cheated them out of all but one items in the chest :) About 15G worth if my auctions sell.
Hooah!!!

32

Grinding in Stranglethorn Vale. What fun. It's a skinner's paradise though - I reckon I picked up over 1G worth of skins just lying around, following other people as they grind the multitude of STV quests.
Up to about 7G and have a long way to go if I'm going to get a mount at 40. I think I'll just hit the battlegrounds at 38-39 and avoid XP while leatherworking and AH trading my way to 100G.

gah

I got a fortune from Sayge at the Darkmoon Faire in Goldshire a while ago. I had to go to Wailing Caverns (deep in Horde territory) and enter the instance for a mystery chest. So tonight, after much procrastination, I did it.

I got all the way there, after sneaking around Horde guards, raptors and alligators the size of small trucks, saw the chest, opened it...

... and realised I didn't bring the fortune with me.

Seriously.

It took me about an hour. How pissed was I.

In other news, I lost a naked duel with a lv60 rogue. We were both naked, except I had my swords. I got her down to about half health, which was pretty good going. I wasn't a total pushover.

Oh, and someone gave me 3g to open a 125-skill lockbox. Inside was a pouch worth 1g. And he didn't want a refund! Sweet.

31

31 last night after a weekend of new things.

I now have an AH mule called Shpanda - that's an abbreviated form of Sexual Harassment Panda, for the South Park fans. I've embraced the name - if you see a near-naked dwarf running around the IF AH, it's probably me. At least, I haven't seen many other near-naked dwarves around. Guess I don't go to the right bars.

I'm still getting used to dealing with the mule, but it is very handy when, say, doing some leatherworking and needing to check if, say, Elemental Earth is available at the AH. I can quickly switch to SHP and get a price. I also gain his backpack and bank account, so I've almost doubled my storage spots which is useful for those rare patterns, gear and mats that I can't use yet but don't want to sell.

I won my first duel! I've totally sucked at PvP until now, but I pwned the guy good. Even better - he was also a rogue. Even even better, he was 2 levels above me! However, he either wasn't trying too hard or he was a bit of a gimp, because he didn't have poisons on and didn't use evasion at all. It started badly, he SS'd me before I could get into stealth, but a quick vanish and cheapshot had him on the ropes. He vanished but my DoT poison broke him out, so he missed his chance at a cheapshot - and I thumbed evasion and gouged, SS'd and eviscerated until he begged for mercy. It was gold. Favourite onlooker comment: "That was wrong". Representing the KoT, w3rd.

I finally took the big step and tried the Arathi Basin Battleground. Of course, the 39 twinks totally pwned me, but it was good fun. The XP from that and a bit of grinding raptors took me to 31. Out of 6 battles, the Alliance only won 1, which I am led to believe is fairly good going :) Why do the Alliance get crushed in the BGs? My theory is that the majority of people start with Alliance, whereas the majority of Horde players have played at least one Alliance character before. Thus they are more experienced.

My final pondering is regarding grinding; or more specifically, grinding for the purposes of levelling a skill (e.g. leatherworking). If I want to get my leatherworking from, say, 180 to 225, and the best patterns I have require heavy leather, would you say I would be better off:

a) grinding lv30-31 raptors which drop mostly medium leather (5 of which can be turned into a heavy leather), but sometimes heavy leather, until I have enough; or
b) running instances (e.g. Deadmines or Gnomeragan), selling the items I gain and using the proceeds to buy heavy leather (roughly 50s-60s at the AH per 20-stack).

I'm not high enough to solo the bosses in DM/Gnomer yet, so the greens would have to come from peons. Obviously doing SM with a buddy would be better for loot, but I'm looking for solo strategies here. Which would get me leather faster? Skin or buy?

30 - and picking of the pockets

I dinged 30 last night. Had quite a fun time running around with a guildie plus a couple of pickup pallies doing The Dark Iron War and other quests in that area. Gained about 25000 XP in one shortish night, though as most of the targets were humanoid didn't really get to level my leatherworking as I'd hoped.
Of course, I didn't leave myself enough cash to get the five - count them, five - new skills I'd have available from the class trainer. What we really need is a plugin that analyses your trained skills and tells you how much you're going to need at that next even level to stay fully trained. Sounds like a good exercise for the bus home. Not that I've done any WoW plugin work before.
On another topic, what do people feel about Rogues pickpocketing? Here's the approach I take. If the group is in a comfortable fight (i.e. no more than one mob each if quivalent level & non-elite or equivalent) and I'm un-engaged, I'll stealth and pick a pocket before cheapshotting and getting in the fight. If the group is hard-pressed or even if they're evenly matched, I'll get straight in there and forget about the pockets. The loot comes off a different table, and by only pickpocketing during comfortable scraps, I'm not disadvantaging anybody (other than, perhaps, the tank - whose armour might take one extra blow from the delay thus cost slightly more to repair).
So, non-rogues and rogues alike: what do you think about this?

my first asshat

Well, I made it to level 28 before I encountered my first WoW asshat.

So there I am in the Arathi Highlands, grinding level 30-32 raptors for leather and XP (if only raptors had pockets, they'd be perfect!). I see off in the distance a level 32 pally doing the same thing, but not taking the skins. Awesome, free leather.

The pally is taking on the level 34 raptors, which are a bit scary for me at 28. So he pulls one and starts wailing on it. But he gets an add - another 34 - and suddenly he's in trouble. There are big hairy spiders around and if he pulls another add he's dead.

So, in the spirit of cooperation, I run in and aggro the add. Having not has the time to stealth and cheapshot, he starts tearing me to bits; but the pally, with the add off him, is able to finish his raptor off. At which point, with me struggling with a raptor 6 levels above me after saving his life, he...

... loots his kill and strolls off.

I mean - seriously.

Not a word. Not a "thanks dude" or a single blow on the gnashy-teeth monster that's eating me for breakfast. Walked off, sat down, had some lunch. Watched me almost die and have to vanish, losing my kill.

Who does that?

Asshat.

you see?

This is what I really like about WoW. I'm standing in Menethil Harbour, all by myself, with a real epic quest ahead of me. And not of the canned "kill 20 crocolisks and report back here, by crikey!" sort, but one I invented for myself. I will cross the ocean to the unknown far continent, set forth on foot through strange and dangerous territory, by myself, and seek out the one person in the world (of Warcraft) that can sell me...
... a cookbook.
Yes, I want to get my cooking skill up over 150 and there's only one person that can help me.
Now I could spend the time grinding raptors for leather, or knocking off the 16 or so quests I have queued up, but this one really interests me. Exploring. By myself. The great unknown.
Wait, here comes the ship. More later.
*EDIT*
OK, that was great. Ran across two territories, found my cookbook and - get this - also found a skinning trainer who could train me to Artisan level. What a great night.

thoughts after 2 months of playing

Following on from the last post, I've obviously stuck with it. Did it get less stupid? No, but it got more enjoyable.
There are some things I really think should be done to the AI. There is far too much standing around in circles and the mobs are far too predictable. More on this later.
I solved the login problems with a switch to the Tanaris server, which is US based. This means that at the times I'm playing (AU east coast) a lot of US players are snuggled in their beddy byes and there's no wait.
The exploring is the thing that gets me. New places, new towns, new interesting dungeons. I'm turning out not to be a real power-player; I spent way too much on a Siamese Cat yesterday and as a result didn't have the cash for my skills upgrades when I hit 28. And I didn't care too much.

where it all began

About 2 months ago I installed WoW and had a play with it. I wasn't impressed. Here are my initial thoughts from another blog:

WoW is stupid

I finally caved to the pressure and installed World of Warcraft from a demo CD. I've got 14 days to decide if I want to pour money into this game. Well, it's not looking good, Blizzard.

Firstly, I'm admittedly a city boy but I'm still pretty sure wild boars don't roam around carrying 2 copper pieces and a battered shield. So why do they drop them when you kill one? I don't remember foxes dropping iPods when I used to go shooting in northern NSW.

Along the same lines - if a monster is carrying a +5 magical hammer of head-smiting, why do they attack you with a pointed stick and bad breath? Surely they'd attack you with the damn hammer. Oh, they don't have the skill for hammers? Well, I personally don't have any skills or training in whacking people in the neck with a broadsword, but I bet I could have a good aussie go at it if they were doing the same to me and my only other option was a bit off a tree.

Now of course I'm not a paying subscriber yet, but trying to log on to an oceanic server last night I was placed 206th in a queue. Presumably many of those people were paying subscribers. Call me stupid, but if I've paid sixty-odd bucks for a game, then a monthly subscription fee, I sure as hell don't want to be stuck in a 200-person queue to be able to log on and play. EvE doesn't have queues, Blizzard. For that matter, EvE doesn't have separate realms either - everyone is in the same realm. Sort it out.

No, I understand there is a need to train new players on easy monsters, but there certainly is a fertility boom for wolves, boars etc around cities. There's hundreds of them, thirty seconds' trot from the pub. And these aren't your typical slavering, starving, hunting-in-packs, sweet-jesus-get-it-off-me wild animals, no. These ones just kinda wander around in circles, apparently without any need for food, shelter or entertainment. They do get a bit narky when you inexpertly lob an arrow in their general direction, but of course the others around just keep plodding around in circles waiting for their turn to drop 2 copper pieces and a bit of wolf jerky. I mean, seriously. A troll cave? Are the trolls sitting around the campfire swapping tall stories, learning a trade, making little troll babies? No, they're standing still. Just... standing. "Oh, someone shot me! Grr! You will die soon! Come on Bruce! Bruce? Stop staring at the wall Bruce, someone just shot me! Bruce?"

So, it didn't start well. It had better get WAY less stupid.

sneaking

Being a rogue in W0W is cool. I can't imagine why you'd want to play anything else.
I've got a human rogue called Catheryna on the Tanaris Realm. She's currently at lv28. This blog is for rogue and general WoW-related stuff as I think of it.