Posted 1 week, 1 day ago at 12:03 am. 12 comments
None of this is a secret. Virtually none of this original. Most of this comes from the analysis by Elitist Jerks on their forums, WoWWiki and numerous other sources.
I’m going to approach this from the same perspective I did as I made suggestions for our new Rogue to rebuild her character with the goal of maximizing DPS during raids. I had her spec for the common 20/41/0 Combat Swords build.
There is a common perception that DPS is easy. It is. Performing well at DPS is not easy. You have to know what you’re doing. You have to know what stats you should focus on. You need to know about the aspects of your character that don’t lead directly to DPS, but help you survive like Cloak of Shadows, Vanish and Feint. You need to be aware of your surroundings. You have to know when to use what abilities at what part during a fight to maximize your damage, while ensuring your survivability by pulling aggro or breaking CC. (See also: Dirty Tricks to Surviving)
Weapons
Whether considering normalized or non-normalized attacks, your weapons as the basis of your DPS. If you are a Combat Swords Rogue, you want the slowest sword with the highest average damage in your main hand. You want the fastest sword with the highest average damage in your off hand. Swords wielded in the off hand can proc the extra sword swing, but the main hand sword is weapon that gets the extra attack. One challenge faced by our new Rogue was the lack of a decent main hand sword for her Combat Swords build. But even that was easily fixed with honor and the purchase of the [Gladiator’s Slicer] from Season One PvP gear.
Build
Next, we examined her build. I had her change her build to match my cookie cutter build. Her choices were mostly correct. How can you go wrong with more than 41 points in combat? But we trimmed the few points she had in Subtlety and transferred them over to Assassination.
Stats
Using Recount allowed me to quickly gauge how often she used each ability and whether she needed to focus on more +Hit without ever looking at her equipment or Armory profile.
I emphasized these stats in the following order:
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Hit Rating. As a duel-wielding Combat Swords Rogue, your chance to miss a 73 raid boss on a normal swing is a whopping 28%; missing on a special attack is still 9%. Reducing this chance to miss by increasing your hit rating adds directly to your damage. The Combat talent
Precision reduces your chance to miss by 5%, reducing the hit rating you need to eliminate misses on special attacks to 64. Eliminating misses on normal attacks will require 363 hit rating, something virtually impossible to acquire without severely hindering your character in other areas. I have found at the SSC/TK level that ~300 is a good level to obtain.
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Attack Power. Attack Power affects almost all Rogue combat abilities in a linear fashion. If you have more attack power, your attacks are going to do more damage. As a general rule, remember that every 14 points of attack power yield 1 additional DPS on normal attacks. You get 1 point of Attack Power for each point of Strength or Agility.
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Haste. I’d place this below Attack Power as Haste helps maximize what you already have, and you need to be able to hit, hit hard, and then hit fast.
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Agility. Agility is going to provide you with Attack Power (1 Agility for 1 Attack Power) and Critical Strike chance. From item budgeting, Agility seems a bit overvalued, so you’ll find it easier to improve your Attack Power with items with Attack Power rather than Agility. [Many posters have commented on this post that Agility is more attractive than Attack power because Agility scales with
Blessing of Kings. - Val 05/07/2008]
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Expertise Rating. As explained back when it was implemented, Expertise reduces your opponent’s chances to parry and dodge. Think of it as another Hit Rating. While a mob cannot parry attacks made from behind, they
can dodge them. Since every point of Expertise lowers their chance to dodge by 0.25%, you’ll need 26 Expertise or 104 Expertise Rating to eliminate their chance to dodge. That’s 63 more Expertise Rating from gear if you pick up
Weapon Expertise. You can pick up 44 Expertise Rating from just the
[Shard of Contempt] from Magister’s Terrace.
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Critical Strike Rating. Critical Strike Rating is not quite as important for a Combat Swords Rogue as perhaps it might be for a Backstab Rogue or Mutilate Rogue. It shouldn’t be completely ignored, but Hit Rating and Attack Power will provide us much higher overall, sustained DPS.
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Armor Penetration. After everything else,
Armor Penetration is excellent, especially against bosses. However, until you have a large amount, it isn’t going to help you as much as any of the above stats.
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Strength. If you see items with Strength on them, PASS. These are meant for DPS Warriors or Ferals. Strength only gives you 1 Attack Power for each point. You’re better off with other gear. Trust me.
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Stamina. You should get enough of this elsewhere. Do not try get to any more. Do not consider this stat when you look at gear. It shouldn’t matter.
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Armor. See Stamina. If Blizzard made DPS cloth, I’d suggest you look into it.
Ability Use
As I run Recount almost constantly, it was easy to examine the new Rogue’s choice of abilities based on the damage sources from her attacks. Though I couldn’t tell from Recount explicitly, I surmised from the amount of swings she may not be using Slice and Dice as often as she could (the number of her normal, melee swings with weapons of similar speed to my own was significantly lower). Also, Eviscerate showed much higher use than Rupture, even during boss fights. There are only a few rules that I feel Combat Sword Rogues need follow for attack abilities in raids:
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Open with Garrote. As a bleed, it’s slow and steady damage. It gives you a combo point to start your
Slice and Dice. However, don’t waste too much time trying to apply
Garrote. If the fight starts and you’re nowhere near the boss, just unstealth and start off with a
Sinister Strike after your tank has established some aggro.
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Use your first combo point for
Slice and Dice and try to never let
Slice and Dice fade. For our new Rogue, I suggested she swap around some of her gear to get the two piece set bonus of
Netherblade set. This makes a 1 CP
Slice and Dice last 17.4 seconds.
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Spam Sinister Strike up to five combo points and use Rupture on any mob you think might live more than ten more seconds. Any less and you’re probably better off using Slice and Dice or Eviscerate. If your mob is near death and you have 1-3 combo points left, spend them on Slice and Dice; if you have 4-5 combo points, use Eviscerate.
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If your Slice and Dice and your Rupture are still up and you have five combo points, continue to use Sinister Strike until Rupture fades, reapply Rupture and then use your next combo point on Slice and Dice. This often happens during Adrenaline Rush.
Cooldowns
As a Combat Swords Rogue, you’ll have access to two Combat Tree abilities: Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. These two abilities should be used as often as possible at the right times.
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Blade Flurry. (a.k.a. Death Blossom, Cuisinart, Rogue Suicide) Make sure you time your Blade Flurry for when you know you won’t break crowd control and you won’t grab aggro. Available for 15 seconds every 2 minutes, this should be used as often as possible even on boss fights as it’s another 20% increase to your attack speed. Combining Blade Flurry with Adrenaline Rush maximizes both abilities.
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Adrenaline Rush. Like Blade Flurry, you should definitely time this ability for the start of any boss fight after tanks have established aggro. It also last 15 seconds, during which you’ll have virtually endless Energy. If Slice and Dice, Rupture, and Adrenaline Rush are up with 5 combo points, keep using Sinister Strike until Rupture fades. Again, combining Blade Flurry with Adrenaline Rush maximizes both abilities.
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Vanish. After building up all your threat from stacking all of these abilities, it is usually a good time to check your threat meter and use Vanish to dump all your threat.
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Trinkets. If you have a
[Bloodlust Brooch] or other trinket with an On Use ability, time their use for
Blade Flurry and
Adrenaline Rush to maximize your bonus Attack Power.
Enchants
For weapon enchants, I still like Mongoose for its Haste and 120 Agility proc. I wouldn’t bother with +20 Agility on a weapon because, as stated above, Agility is expensive for its return and I think the Haste with Mongoose is worth it. Executioner, which provides an Armor Penetration proc, looks promising if you already have high Armor Penetration from other sources.
For gear, look at the Stats section above for what you should focus on. Everything that can be enchanted should be enchanted as follows:
Gems
I’m not going to go through all the gems. If you’ve read the rest of this post, you know what you should focus on: Hit Rating, Attack Power. Ignore Stamina. When looking at socket bonuses, always get Hit Rating bonuses, consider Agility bonuses, ignore Stamina bonuses.
Consumables
Before combat:
During combat:
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Use
[Haste Potion]s as often as possible in situations where you might not have to use a healing potion to save your life. These potions increase your attack speed by 25.37% alone. Timing these with your cooldowns will also help maximize each of their uses.
Focus and Skill
It’s not enough to have a character with the right gear, the right enchantments and the right gems. You need to know how to use it.
You need to ensure you’re not engaging targets before a tank establishes aggro, but that you’re also engaging as quickly as possible.
Get into position early. And your position should always be behind the boss. Use stealth when appropriate, but don’t worry about wasting ten seconds stealthing to the boss mob after combat starts so you can get that Garrote in. If think you’re more than 3 seconds off from when the tank has aggro, it’s better to unstealth, run in and Sinister Strike for your first combo point for Slice and Dice.
Be aware of crowd control. Nothing else is going to get you on the bad side of the raid leader, the healers and the crowd control than breaking their sheep because you’re not paying attention. And it could very likely get you or another soft, squishy target killed.
Summary
Weapons, build, ability use, cooldowns, stats, enchants, gems, consumables, and focus and skill. Each area alone is going to help you improve your DPS. As you look to improve each of these areas, you’ll start to feel the synergy of them helping you achieve your maximum potential.
Posted 1 week, 6 days ago at 5:02 pm. 1 comment
This post has two parts. Today I’m going to talk about my guild situation. Next post, I’m going to go over some tips on how to maximize DPS as Rogue during raids.
Our guild has had a lot of changes lately. Much like Dinaer’s situation over at Forever A Noob, my guild faced a merger situation. We had about 25-35 raiders, but due to scheduling, we often only had 20 people at the start of our 25-man raids. We would usually fill the remaining spots with whoever we could find. This resulted in taking some characters that might not have fully been ready for the raid encounters, gear-wise or play-wise.
Now, let me just say real quick that we’ve never considered ourselves a hardcore guild, but more like a casual raiding guild. Most would say that is an oxymoron and we’ve been fighting with progression for a long time. However, with the end of Burning Crusade looming with the coming of Wrath of the Lich King, my guild wants to see all of the Burning Crusade before we move on.
Another guild was in the same spot as us and their guild leadership had left the game leaving them somewhat crippled. After a lengthy process, we accepted their members into our guild. We allowed them to bring a percentage of their DKP with them as part of their collective bargaining.
Separate, we were both making slow and steady progress. Together we are dropping new bosses on our first night of attempts. In the last two weeks, Aegis Hestia has dropped four new bosses: Magtheridon, Karathress, Leotheras, and Solarian.
We have gone from having 17 people signing up for raids to having 30 people sign up for raids. This leads to a serious issue as we now have to make a choice of how to fairly rotate members through raids while not alienating our player base.
We chose to restructure our guild leadership at the time of the merger and assign officers to oversee the four roles in raids: melee DPS, ranged DPS, tanking and healing.
I am currently the Melee DPS Officer. It is each of our responsibilities to shepherd those in our group to help them improve, to advise the raid leader in determining what balance we need in a raid group, and to help decide what members to include in the raid based on raid success, member performance, a member’s previous sit outs, etc. The goal is to move the guild forward and ensure every member that wants to raid gets a chance.
Most of our melee DPS are veteran players. I have 5-7 Rogues including Valenna, 3-4 Feral Druids, 1 Retribution Paladin (let’s not get into it), 2 DPS Warriors, and an Enhancement Shaman.
One of my Rogues is relatively new to the game, and understandably has been ending up lower on the damage meters. While she has been working hard to improve her gear, she also asked me if she was doing anything wrong. Tomorrow I’ll share the suggestions I gave her. Because of her hard work, I’m happy to announce that on our last Void Reaver fight her performance was fantastic.
Posted 2 weeks, 4 days ago at 10:31 am. 4 comments
Whether good or bad, Rogues are again ignored by the latest patch. However, a few things are definitely Rogue-related.
First, there’s the change to [Renataki’s Charm of Trickery]. This Epic item, one of the five pieces of the set Madcap’s Outfit, was obtained from Zul’Gurub by collecting the four pieces of the bosses from the Edge of Madness. This once hard-to-obtain and relatively outdated trinket was one of the only items in the game to restore energy to Rogues. It has been reported to now give 20 energy back rather than 40 energy back on use at level 70. This makes it completely worthless in my eyes and I can’t see any Rogue going through the trouble of obtaining it during their 50-60th levels where it may be somewhat useful. At least now I can free up some inventory space.
A few other patch notes of note to Rogues:
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Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to affect us overall. I cannot think immediately if there has ever been a main hand weapon I would have preferred to an off-hand weapon, but maybe something might emerge from this. I’m guessing this change is mostly for DPS warriors.
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The rogue talent Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used. I wonder if any Mutilate Rogues have been thinking that they might have received a stealthy damage boost from this error. ^_^
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Ability: Blade Flurry: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets. This is definitely a good thing as I’d rather have my Blade Flurry hit one of hostile targets in combat rather than some squirrel sitting nearby.
Well, that’s it! Like I said, this seems like a rather minor update as far as Rogues are concerned. Let me know if you see anything else that affects us!
Posted 3 weeks, 3 days ago at 11:14 am. 5 comments
Blizzard just announced that they are going to have a music video contest for the Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain song “Rogues Do It From Behind”.
Listen to the song and read more about the contest here!
It’s not exactly the type of music I listen to, but perhaps it is the type of music Rogues like? You tell me.
Posted 1 month ago at 3:49 pm. 2 comments
My guild is currently going through what seems to be quite common at the moment especially if you examine the BlogAzerothosphere. With the realization that WotLK is in alpha, the statements that there will be no more fundamental class changes and no other major patches, and the removal of all attunement requirements from the highest end raid instances, people are reevaluating how they want to spend the rest of their remaining time in The Burning Crusade. Big Bear Butt and Cassieann took a step back from their raiding guild for something more casual. Dinaer and his guild is looking at a merger with another guild.
My guild is also looking at absorbing members of another guild. We’ve struggled a lot lately with how to keep our "casual" feel while still making progression towards the next raid instance. Any attempt to bring a little bit more "hardcore" to our guild has resulted in it being shot down. At times, I have even actively participated in these attempts "to squash towards our casualness".
However, a paradigm shift is occurring within my own mind and I think among the long time players that are still playing in my guild. One part of our casual nature is the ability of every guild member to feel included and wanted. But this concept of "every member feeling equally entitled to a raid spot in whatever instance we are currently attempting" has seemed to work up to now, but also stifling our progression.
As a result, I’ve posted this on our guild forums in reply to a thread discussing the merger with this other guild.
RE: the other guild and raid spots
I’d like to preface this by saying I mean all of this in the most positive light. It’s not disparagement toward anyone or our current state, but once again a call of encouragement and honest examination of where we are.
**********
It is rapidly becoming very apparent that our progress is going to be severely limited with our guild in its current state. If we are only raiding 25-man content on two nights every week, we need to make those two nights are stacked in our favor. Currently, we seem to have 20-30 guild members that show up to a raid. Everyone that logs on gets in as every filled raid spot helps towards completing our goal.
I hear a lot of dissatisfaction in the guild. I don’t hear many people grumbling about the rigors of our schedule nor the grueling demands of our requirements to raid.
People seem to be unhappy that we are constantly having to reiterate the same points over and over again to try to increase our chance of success:
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Sign up, aka COMMIT to being there.
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Show up ready and on time.
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Make the raid leadership aware if you need to leave early.
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Minimize time spent for wipe recovery.
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Maximize your own contribution to the raid by using consumables and FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.
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Ensuring your raiding character is ready for the instance by:
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Optimize your talent build for your raid functions.
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Actively seek out the most effective gear.
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Diligently research the ways to improve your play.
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Don’t waste 24 other people’s time.
Let’s face it. Right now, we don’t have much incentive for people to try to improve. Your spot in a raid is guaranteed because 1 more DPS/HPS/TPS is better than 0 from an empty spot.
Many guild members are playing alts because their mains are "capped". There is no other way for them to progress except for our guild to move forward to the next raid instance in the Kara/SSC/TK/BT/MH/SWP progression. Others are focusing on several characters to ensure we have more selection for raids - while this is beneficial, two characters wearing 75% of our high-end available gear maybe not help us as much as one at 95% of our high-end available gear.
We need bodies and not just any random body to fill a raid spot, but one that wants to be there, has worked to be there and is fully prepared to be there.
It’s time to stop thinking that merely because you have a guild tag over your head that you are guaranteed a raid spot.
If we accept these members, they would be held to the same standards that every guild member would be held.
If you are worried about the raid spots, think about what you can do to make yourself more indispensable to our raids. We aren’t going to bench our most effective people. If you’re struggling to justify your spot, maybe the character you’re bringing isn’t ready for the top end instance we are attempting.
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 12:03 am. 7 comments
I’ve recently acquired a level 70 Druid, and I asked Phaelia what suggestions she had for me. She let me know all the secrets to being a Restoration Druid and I thought I would share them with you:
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As a healer, you are indispensable. You have a guaranteed spot waiting for you in every group or raid. Constantly
boast complain about the endless number of requests you receive to heal for groups of complete strangers.
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In a party — heal only the main tank as he prevents the mobs from killing you. As the only healer, you are already number one on the healing meter. Ignore healing the rest of the party, except yourself, of course. Remove the DPS from your UI. If they pull aggro, it’s not your responsibility to reward their stupidity.
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In a raid — heal everyone. Focus on the DPS Warrior. Don’t worry about the main tank as much, someone else will take care of it. As you are no longer the only healer, prove your unquestionable worth by healing the DPS Warrior to your #1 spot on the healing meter.
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Ignore every other aspect of your class. You’re a healer. If you wanted to CC, you’d have made a Mage. If you wanted to do damage, you’d have made a … Mage. If you wanted to Remove Curse, you’d have made a … you get the idea.
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Healing meters are more important than everything — except loot. Remember you can only feel useful if you’re #1 on the healing meter.
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If you’re not #1 on the healing meter, #1 cheated and rolled a Shaman. Or a Paladin. Or this fight is obviously biased against HoT-based healing.
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Never use a mana potion. That’s why Elune gave you Innervate. And never, ever, under any circumstance use your Innervate on another player. Also, remember that non-Restoration Druids don’t need their Innervate and ensure you ask for theirs before they use it for something foolish, like themselves.
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Complain about the lack of out of combat resurrection. It really isn’t good enough that Druids can do everything else. We just aren’t complete without it.
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If you manage to get aggro from healing, there’s nothing you can do about it. Immediately stop healing — panic, scream over Vent, and run in wide circles.
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Play down your class’ dominance in PvP. Ignore the fact that it is merely a current design quirk of your spec/class/gear that allows you to do so. Bemoan the nerfing of this clearly (unadmittedly) overpowered ability.
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Healing is EASY. And it only gets easier with alcohol.
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Save your Rebirth. It’s expensive and not really useful as you can’t use it out of combat. If you do use it, use it on the first person who dies even if you know they’ll die three seconds later. Remember it’s the thought that counts.
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Always act like healing is the most stressful thing you’ve ever done in your life. Let them come close to dying just to remind them that you hold their lives in your branches, and it is only by your grace and mercy that you allow them to advance in the game.
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While it may seem contrary to #13, you should encourage everyone to use healing potions, healthstones and even bandages. This is mostly just to stress how great your healing is and how important you are. Plus, this gives you a little more time to take a sip of wine.
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Don’t concern yourself with your facing or where you should stand. You only have to worry about keeping the bars full. If you die, it’s definitely someone else’s fault.
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Shadow Priests in the Mage group don’t help keep the raid alive. Your Shadow Priest pet is your ticket to endless mana. Yes, I know his Shadowfiend only helps the Shadow Priest. By "pet", I was referring to the Shadow Priest.
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Lifebloom. Lifebloom. Lifebloom. You don’t need anything else.
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Roll on every piece of loot; after all, one of your four different roles might be able to use it. If it is mail or plate or a weapon you can’t use, take it to compensate for all of your reagent costs. If it is cloth, bemoan that they never make anything as useful in a leather version. And roll on it anyway.
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Pretend that you have sympathy for the lack of model changes for ferals and moonkin, but as you’ll never use those forms you really shouldn’t care all that much.
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You should always have priority on every piece of loot. Those specialist classes are too rigid and lack your versatility. By ensuring you have the ability to fill any role, your guild will be prepared for any event. The fact that you never intend to change your build or do anything else other than Restoration doesn’t change the fact that you could — if you wanted.
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Expect a nerf in every patch. Threaten to reroll even if it only affects PvP or ferals. If you do it enough, Blizzard will roll it back. Works every time.
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Cast
Mark of the Wild because if you don’t you’ll look like you’re slacking, not because you want to. It’s completely useless compared to every other buff, but players do enjoy its purpley glow. Don’t waste your money using
[Wild Quillvine] to save time or extend the casting time. Plus, this way you look frugal
and focused!
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Discourage any new Druids from joining the raid or guild regardless of their build. Even one of them is competition for your uniqueness, spot on the healing meter, and most importantly — gear.
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Remember to whine as much as possible. Oh. It’s spelled "wine". Oops.
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Blog … constantly. As a Druid, you can blog about any one of the multiple aspects of your class (even if you only play one of them). Guilt your best friend, Valenna, into posting on his blog even though nothing ever happens to Rogues.
I shared some tips with Phaelia and she wrote up a guide for Roguery on her site. I highly suggest checking it out.
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 8:53 am. 4 comments
I was prepared. I patched. And all my add-ons were as up-to-date as I could make them. Recount and Omen2 claimed to be up-to-date as well. Problem was neither of them worked correctly. Damage meters seemed off, Omen2 was completely inoperable.
As a result, my guild called off our Tuesday Serpentshrine Caverns run as no one really had a reliable threat meter. Most of the guild participated in Magister Terrace instance runs, though we didn’t get many upgrades as most of the gear was subpar to our existing gear.
Also, I heard a lot of guildmates commenting about the visible filtering of the combat log that occurs everytime you zone. It seems excessive and I’m not sure as a programmer why this can’t just be cached in some way.
It was interesting again to be playing without any threat or damage meters. I just had the flash of scrolling combat text to tell me that I was kicking butt. Everything seemed slightly new again and we had a record number of people online to check out the new zone and all the changes.
Still, a lot of changes in the patch seem really fun, the new dailies, the new interfaces, the new gear, the “newness” of it all. I’m just looking forward to coming out of the darkness and back into the light. ^_^
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago at 7:02 pm. 1 comment
Personally, I can’t wait. 2.4 promises to include something that will break several of my add-ons and I’m actually quite excited about it. Blizzard is changing the way the combat log works and it’s already exposed several misconceptions that players have and even a bug with Shiv.
First, there’s the Shiv bug that was reported back on March 14th that Shiv, contrary to popular opinion, can be dodged and very likely parried and blocked as well. CM Hortus replied,
I’ve spoken with the devs and shiv not being missed or dodged is a bug and was never intended. The changes to the combat log revealed some problems with how this spell is coded and it is being worked on.
Second, we have a very recent post by a Priest casting Shadow Word: Death on a Rogue and getting a nasty surprise.
Rogue gains Cheat Death.
Your Shadow Word: Death is absorbed by Rogue.
You suffer 732 Shadow damage from Shadow Word: Death.
Cheat Death can save a Rogue from Shadow Word: Death and still counts as damage dealt for the spell. Therefore, the Priest suffered an extra 732 damage from their own spell. Again, CM Hortus came back that it was not a bug and working as intended.
First, this isn’t new to the PTR so it doesn’t belong in this forum.
Second this is not a a bug. Absorbed damage is still considered to be dealt.
I’m sure this might have been visible before but I think the combat log is going to make situations like this a lot more visible.
I believe it should make all theorycrafting much easier to categorize and quantify and it’s probably one of the thing I’m most excited about from 2.4.
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago at 9:19 pm. 4 comments
Now don't get me wrong, you should know by reading this blog, I love damage meters; I love crunching numbers. Mmm.. Numbers. But numbers aren't everything. It's simply not good enough to beat everyone else on the meters, you need to look good while doing it. World of Warcraft is a graphical game. It's not a spreadsheet. We don't play with numbers in a vacuum. From the first moment of the game, we were presented with our character's appearance at his or her creation: 4 different races (5 after TBC) for each side, numerous options for skin color, hair color, hair style, face type, etc. Ten of thousands of combinations. For some, it didn't matter. They hit the random button and then the accept button. For others, we poured over our options — and discovered that we were disconnected when we made our final decisions.
It's simply not good enough to beat everyone else on the meters, you need to look good while doing it.
For those of us that are concerned with the appearance of our avatars, we picked whatever gear made our characters more in line with our carefully crafted image, or reluctantly wore whatever helped us reach our goals, resenting it until we found something else. Now, it's not all about being "pretty". I know just as many Hordies (and a few dwarves) that revel in looking unattractive and "hardcore". It's about caring about what your character looks like.
For these players, the allure of non-combat pets is pretty strong. Especially at level 70 when characters begin to look so similar wearing top-end matched gear, non-combat pets are an element players can use to set their character apart and further distinguish themselves from everyone else.
... there's at least one other reason most Rogues might want to consider using non-combat pets: Rogues using non-combat pets stand out more when stealthed.
But let's say you don't care about setting yourself part or how your character might look, I'm going to contend that there's at least one other reason most Rogues might want to consider using non-combat pets: Rogues using non-combat pets stand out more when stealthed. Just remember not to leave it out in PvP. While increasing your visibility while stealthed might not matter to you, but in some circumstances it might make it easier for your tank to distinguish you when you are close to your sap. Or maybe I'm just trying to justify why there's an in-game reason am I never without my pet.
So, if you're a Rogue, what pets should you think of getting? Breanni, an illustrious member of my home server, has an entire website devoted to non-combat pets. While I could espouse that certain pets are more suited for Rogues than others, I am simply going to highlight a few of my own favorite pets from my collection.
Valenna's Collection
I've got about 18 pets currently. I'm not going to go over all of them. I'm a Rogue, but I'm still not that cruel. I'm just going to go over three four of my all-time favorites.
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Smoulderweb Hatchling: My first pet that made me realize that I really, really enjoyed non-combat
pets. I even gave him a nickname: Orrin. And we were inseparable for a long time. Like all of my pets, I enjoyed my Smoulderweb Hatchling because he was quite difficult to obtain. Gathering the eggs from Lower Blackrock Spire was impossible in a raid and difficult to justify doing in a 5-man before TBC, but easily soloable for a Rogue. I consider it the quintessential Rogue pet, but I'm obviously biased.
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Magical Crawdad: It took a lot of fishing and catching two
[Mr. Pinchy]s for me to get my Magical Crawdad and for that reason alone it's on my list.
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Firefly: If you're not aware, the Firefly pet is obtained from the
Bogflare Needlers of Zangarmarsh. It is also a reference to one of my favorite TV shows. Some people kill 1 Needler and get their Firefly, some kill thousands upon thousands in a fruitless effort to get one ... and never do. I'm the latter group. Luckily, my wife Khatrina is the most awesome person ever and found one on the auction house and purchased it for me for a Happy Thursday gift. <3
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Spirit of Summer: I've saved my favorite for last. Certain pets mean more to
me in some ways (like the Firefly), but the Spirit of Summer is the only pet I've found that you can bring out without breaking stealth. This alone makes it my favorite pet at the moment. In addition, Phaelia and I went through the quests to get the Spirit of Summer at the same time and it was an immensely fun endeavour.
There are several pets that I would love to have, but I haven't been able to get. The Panda Cub from the original Collector's Edition is one of them and the Sinister Squashling from the Halloween event is another. It seems like the Panda Cub will forever be out of my reach, but I'll try next Halloween again for the Sinister Squashling.
As for what types of pets I'd like to see I'm still unsure. So, I'll ask my readers which pets they want to see and which do they think would be most fitting for Rogues!
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago at 2:25 pm. 14 comments
By popular request, and by popular, I mean Cassieann via Big Bear Butt via Phaelia told me I should write up a Pre-Karazhan Gear guide. That’s like what? Three people? I’ll take what I can get. ^_^
So, you’ve just hit 70 and you’re ready to get into Karazhan and snatch up all the purples your bags can carry. Not so fast! You should really have as many of following to pull your own weight.
I tried to pick items that were easy to obtain through quests, world drops and 5-man instances. I avoided recommending the full Assassination or Wastewalker sets because they are difficult to collect and most of the gear you’ll be wanting from Karazhan is far superior. I also did not list any Heroics or Badge Loot as they can be very hard in mostly green and blues, but if you are adventurous and have four other Karazhan geared members, I’d look at the gear from Slave Pens, Mechanar and Botanica as they are the easiest of the Heroics, in my opinion.
Without further ado, here are my suggestions for each item slot. Many of these are the same pieces I used until I got my replacements from Badges or Karazhan+. If more than one item is listed, the first one is the one I preferred.
And after you’re done collecting these, you should head over to Dinaer’s site to learn your roles in Karazhan boss fights. He also highlights which Rogue gear you should keep your eyes open for from each boss!
