Got a 70 Rogue with decent gear? Try the Mana Tombs in Terrokar Forest (The Mana-Tombs are a wing of the Auchindoun instance. It is accessed due north from the Ring of Observance.)

Zuggy, of Zug Gaming, has a video showing you just how to do this. He says that a Rogue can generate from 100 to 400 gold per hour, depending on your server, the economy at the moment, and your skills at clearing the mobs.

Your targets are the two chest that spawn at random places in the instance. It also helps if you have a combat build, but that might not be necessary.

Check out his page for the video. Mana Tomb Stealth Farming

And check out Zuggy’s Gold Mastery Guide for more killer gold making tips.

Hey, if this is your first time here, consider subscribing to my news feed or even subscribe to this blog by email. Thanks for visiting!

The Patch has landed.

1.2 gigs of data, wow. Not so bad if you’ve been playing regularly, the background downloaded already has it. If you’ve taken a break for awhile, well…

From the new splash screen when you log in to the modified talents and trees to the new Inscription skill, there are a lot of changes here. Check out the Latest Patch Notes for details. Also keep in mind that the patch has probably broken at least some of your addons. I referred to that previously and linked to an addon update list.

So what I’ve put together here is a collection of posts regarding the new talents and builds. I did this previously (Level 80 WoW Talents And Builds) and this new post links to new and, hopefully, updated info.

Dual Talent Builds and What’s Not in This Patch:

Dual Talent Specs - At last — “…And my personal favorite: Dual Talent Specs. This new feature should be added to the game in one of the content patches following the release of Wotlk. Hopefully in Patch 3.1.” What does that mean? It means you’ll be able to save 2 different Talent Specs for your characters, and that you’ll be able to switch between the two as much as you want, any time you want, besides while in combat or in arenas.

Breaking News: Patch 3.0.2 will not contain all major class changes - There were spells and abilities missing, talents not enumerated, and generally the notes looked as if they were lifted from a version of the game done a few weeks ago. Apparently this was intentional. Ghostcrawler made a post moments …

Class Talent Discussions:

Hunters: BigRedKitty: 3.0.2 Hunter talent trees - The major purpose of this column is to give you, the WoW Insider reader, a point of reference. You know our writing, you know our play-style. You should know our limitations and the areas at which we’re not too shabby. …

Warlocks: Patch 3.0.2 primer for Warlocks - In fact, out of all the 11-point talents, Soul Link is the only one that should give us any pause for thought. Considering that for about a month, we can only allocate up to 10 points in another tree if we choose to get a 51-point …

Mages: Mage WotLK Talents & Developer Q & A - She has done a great job already working with many of classes and now she’s finally making it to the mage class, particularly the information regarding the new spell frostfire bolt. Initially I really didn’t understand the purpose of …

Priests: Spiritual Guidance: Patch 3.0.2 - Holy and Disc Priest talent review - This post will cover all of the new Holy and Discipline talents that will be accessible when the patch becomes live. Not only that, I’ve offered up some suggestions on different builds to remain raid viable (at least to the rare few …

Shaman: Going Resto in Three-point-Oh - New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Requires 5 points in purification and 30 points in Restoration) - 1 point - Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect. Shaman get an all-in-one …

Warriors: The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Door Swings Open Pt 1 - Honestly, the difficulty here is not in finding good protection talents you can spec into, it’s in picking which ones to talk to you about now. Some of these talents (like Gag Order) only get really good once you have abilities you …

Ferals: 3.0.2 for Feral Druids - In a few hours, when the servers come back up, patch 3.0.2 is going to hit, and WoW will change drastically. Every tree is get revamped to a greater or lesser extent, and extended up to 51-point talents. The Feral tree changes, …

Rogues: Four Seasons of TBC, Rogue 3.0 Specs - However, without prep which mutilate doesn’t get until WOTLK, the spec is severely lacking in outs and terrible at catching mages, one of the most dominant classes in 3.0. For offensive comps, perhaps a prep spec is still worth …

Paladin: Prot Paladin Talent Build - Block hurts them afterall. We’ll see. Lastly no Holy, nothing in the Ret tree beyond the above, and as the levels tick toward 80, they’ll all get spent in the Prot tree. Tagged: build, Paladin, pally, prot, talent.

Tankadin Preparing Your Tankadin for Patch 3.0: Part 3: Changed Tools - 10/8 - Part 3: Changes to Existing Talents and Spells 10/9 - Part 4: New Talents, and suggested Trees 10/10 - Part 5: The New Threat Rotation or 96969 10/11 - Part 6: Threat Stats for Protection Paladins and Tank Gear Reitemization …

That should be enough to chew on for now. Feel free to comment or, if you like the post, use the share buttons below.

PS: Wrath is bringing a lot of changes and Northrend is a pretty good sized place with a lot going on. Take a good look at the Killer Guides’ Wrath of the Lich King guide - It will make your trek to 80 much easier and much more lucrative.

For those of you interested in the PvP game here’s an overview of what’s happening with PvP as Wrath of the Lich King gets ready to invade our gaming space.

As always, keep in mind that very little of this is final. Finality won’t be reached until the actual game is in our greedy little hands.

WoW: Wrath of the Lich King PvP Portal Launched - Ten Ton Hammer - We have launched a new portal to collect all data on the PvP side of Wrath of the Lich King. If you’re looking for the latest information on PvP, from Honor, Arenas, and Screenshots from the new areas, visit our new PvP portal! …

Lifestyle of the Northrend Rogue - This is significantly more than it dealt previously, and I can see more Rogues integrating this into their PVP rotations.Gouge still adds 1 combo point to the current target (its combo point generation has been in limbo). …

WoW: State of the PvP in Beta Editorial - Ten Ton Hammer - Wrath of the Lich King’s PvP keeps adding new features and evolving so that players will have different experiences in PvP than they had when they played through WoW’s second expansion. In this article, Gabriel “DarkFact” Zamudio checks …

Wrath of the Lich King Beta Death Knight PVP Nerfs - I’ll never become a fully endorsed Blizzard fan-site because I criticize the developers for some of their decisions when it comes to the game. Case in piont, the Death Knight. They’re not a broken class in my honest opinion, …

WotLK PvP Changes and Blue Posts - There’s been loads of changes in the past few days for WotLK, specifically related to PvP. Take a look at a few of the most recent blue posts and updates regarding pvp in the last 48 hours. WotLK PvP Recap from Zug Gaming Berserker Rage …

The Eye of Eternity Loot, WotLK PvP Gear - WotLK PvP Arena Gear - ilvl 252 Warlock LK Arena 6 Warlock Helm LK Arena 6 Warlock Shoulders LK Arena 6 Warlock Legs LK Arena 6 Warlock Chest LK Arena 6 Warlock Gloves, WotLK PvP Honor Gear - ilvl 252 LK Honor 5 Caster DPS Bracers …

WotLK - PVP Rogues OP? - WotLK will certainly shift the way we play not only in PvP, but PvE as well. If you haven’t checked out the new talent points then get your butt over to Blizzard’s website and be amazed. Rogue beta talents …

Northrend will start at level 68, so if you’re not that high yet you should check out Zygor’s leveling guide, it’s the best thing out there for getting leveled fast.

Paladins in Warhammer Online? Is this what Paladins were meant to be? From Blessings of Kings, the Warrior Priest:

I gave the Warrior Priest in Warhammer Online a whirl. This class is awesome! If the class plays at endgame like it does now, Blizzard is going to lose paladins to WAR. (At least, if there are any old-school hybrid paladins left.)

Do you play the Pen and Paper RPGs, such as DnD? I have been since, oh, ‘79 or so, right about the time the original DnD Player’s Handbook came out. What about you? Tobald’s MMO Blog asks the same question:

My pen & paper roleplaying group just started a new campaign, this time playing the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game (2005 edition). I’m playing with these guys for years now, various campaigns, usually every second Monday evening. But we are all around 40ish, and sometimes I feel like being a dinosaur when rolling dice and scribbling on character sheets.

The rest: Do you play pen & paper RPGs?

Spooncraft has some thoughts on leveling Blacksmithing before Wrath, or waiting till after it hits. Ask Spoon: Should I Level my Professions now or wait until Wrath?

Have a Hunter who’s approaching 70? Check out Aspect of the Hare’s The Hunter Enchants Cheat Sheet: Burning Crusade Edition

You want enchants. I see a lot of freshly-minted-70 hunters who do not have their gear enchanted, or have them enchanted incorrectly. Fear not, Pike is here to help while her WoWish avatar Tawyn goes off to get smashed at Brewfest (Seriously, part of Tawyn’s RP is that she’s an alcohol fiend. Brew-of-the-Month-Club has her name all over it.)

In this guide, I’m going to tell you the best enchants you can get per item slot, and how to get them. As a forewarning, do note that this list is PvE-oriented. So let’s start at the top:

Zuggy has some remarks on the Rogue’s Assassination tree: Rogue Opportunity Changes - Build 8982. Of course, I expect that any changes to the Rogue (and other class) talents aren’t finalized yet. Expect more in the near future.

There’s been some pretty big changes to the rogue class during this wotlk beta, none larger than the change to mutilate and positional attacks, but blizzard just tossed out yet another curve ball…take a look at the rogue changes for beta build 8992.

And in the This is Just Fraggin’ Cool department: Today, I was Reminded Why I Play WoW

Edit - In the “Some Things I’d Really Like to See in WoW” department: City of Heroes is coming out with some cool stuff.

• Multiple Builds. One character, two builds. Wouldn’t this be a cool thing for raiders who also PvP, or Visa Versa? I’ve seen it suggested a few times by WoW players.
• Leveling Pact. Have a buddy that you like to play with, but one or the other of you gets to play (far) more often than the other? CoH is going to implement a leveling pact where you and your buddy’s XP is shared. As either of you levels the other gains XP as well, whether or not they’re online at the time. That way you and your partner stay at the same level.
• And, of course, the CoH character builder, which just pwns every other one out there.

The Wrath is coming. Time to hide.

Of course, one of the big changes in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is the changes to all the various talent trees. As you probably know, Blizzard isn’t just adding a few new talents or increasing the level cap to 80. No no no, there’s a little more to it than that - they’re making large changes to existing talents and shuffling around their exact position in the talent trees.

So what I’ve put together here is a collection of posts, from various places, that discuss the level 80 talents and changes. Some of these also offer build suggestions, both from raiding and PvP points of view. In addition, If you want to play around with talent builds for your own characters you’ll find the level 80 WoW talent calculator here.

Of course, the changes aren’t 100% finished, all of this is still in beta test, and Blizzard has been known to make big last minute changes. We can count on more changes along with the usual collection of nerfs and maybe some buffs. Still, it’s a place to start thinking about how you might spec your characters when you upgrade to Wrath.

Update 10/14: The 3.0 patch has arrived and here’s an update post on what’s happening with the WoW Talents and Builds.

’nuff said, here ya go!

WotLK: Build 8962 - 4 Extra Points for Frost - When the WotLK expansion hits, as I level up, I will start filling in the Arcane tree until I get Focus Magic. When I hit 80 and start raiding again, the talent build that I will most likely be using is this: 80 PvE/PvP Frost.

WotLK Paladins May Have “Shocking” Potential - All of the above said, the following, were I to PvP as a Shockadin at level 80, would be my talent build without question:.  Allow me a couple caveats with the above build: …

Tanked! Revaluing Feral Combat Talents in Beta Build 8926 - The pictured talent build is essentially what I’d like to be using at 80. All PH NYI (place holder, not yet implemented) talents are now “live” on beta, and it’s pertinent to note that the talent “Mother Bear” has been renamed to the …

Want to hit level 80 fast? Looking for ways to familiarize yourself with Northrend without wasting valuable playtime running around in circles? Check out the Killer Guides’ Wrath guide and get ready to go before the expansion hits.

Shock and Awe: The Art of Dual Shockadins in WotLK - Both of these assumptions are based off of items I found in the WotLK database at WoWhead situated around an item level of 200 (the item level which seems to be the base for epics at level 80). In addition to these two assumptions, …

Why 3.0 will change Arena entirely - Much like when Blizzard imeplemented the WoW 2.0 41-point talent trees into the game shortly before TBC, and much of the dissaray it caused, the WoW 3.0 talents are almost entirely based around players being level 80 and consequently …

Truckload ‘o Changes - At level 80, this 80 spellpower. Much higher than it was before. I believe it is still weaker than Flametongue Totem and doesn’t stack with it. Twin Disciplines - The tooltip was fixed to read: Increases your spell power on instant …

8926 DK changes, Blue Posts, and Site News - They may be fun in that you get a lot for your money, but they work against the design goal of being able to build a customized talent tree for your character. They also make spec parity or class balance a lot harder when there are …

A look at our Bear Tanking future in Wrath - Clearly (I hope) a class that could do rogue-level dps and warrior-level tanking with the same talent build is the kind of thing that makes other players a little miffed. But we’re reevaluating a lot of old (and some admittedly tired) …

[Druid] The 3.0 patch - cat build edition - That’s about .66% dps per talent point, which just isn’t that good. This may not make the cut at level 80; it’s still lower per point than master shapeshifter. Rend and Tear barely makes the cut. Assuming that you’re only hitting …

WotLK Hunter Pets - Major Changes - Pets will still have to level to some degree, but it will be a lot more transparent than it is now. A level 1 beast trained by a level 80 hunter will hop to level 70 instantly. That way the pet isn’t completely useless while you try

Edit: Big Red Kitty says - Beta Talent Builds, Just Say No - “OK, see? The hunter class is going to be totally mixed up. Anything and everything people have said, including us, is kaput and moot.”

Edit: By the way, don’t forget to grab your free Death Knight Starter Area Leveling Guide.

My wife and both kids have got their Wrath of the Lich King beta keys, but not me. Sob. Guess I’ll just mooch off their accounts. Mwahahaha!

So as you may know, especially if you read my other post WoW PvP, Blizzard is letting you copy premade templates of level 80 PvP characters into your Wrath beta account. (They’re also letting you move your regular PvE characters to PvP servers, but that’s another post. )

If you have your beta key, you log into the WoW Beta page, pick the copy template option, and go from there. You’ll land on a page which gives you two choices, one ally, one Horde, for each class in the game. You can pick any three and it takes about a day for them to copy over.

Once it’s copied you’ll have a nicely PvP geared 80, in Dalaran, to play with. My Rogue, for example, has 747 resilience. Not bad.

There’s an interesting glitch, though. Apparently, and I assume this will be quickly fixed, some classes have invisible gear. The female Blood Elf Pally, for one. There are others.

The gear is a mix of blue and purple, so this isn’t a maxed out character. PvE geared characters are not available. I assume this means they want to test the PvP system, right? Well the instances are open (and Rogues don’t need a key,) but the battlegrounds and arenas are not, at least as I write this. Being beta things will change and then change again.

Here’s the Rogue with Weapons:

Click here for the full size shot

If you’re wondering… I went with a Shadowstep build on this one. The world server is down at the moment, so I don’t have exact numbers, but it’s a pretty basic build. You can hit the level 80 WoW Talent Calculator here and play around with builds.

You do start with some stuff and some nice bags. Haris Pilton, in Shattrath, sells the Gigantic bags at a Gigantique price.

Here’s a screenie of the Orc Rogue with bags. Note the bandages (heal 5800) and the poisons, which are now (will be) bought from vendors. No more flash powder for your Vanish, either.

Click here for the full size shot.

Naturally, when Wrath goes live all beta characters will be deleted. Still, this gives us a good chance to play around with talents and see what gear will be coming.

I’ll probably use Zygor’s Guide and blast my Rogue to 80 ASAP, then work for some of that gear in the BGs and Arenas (with my 1200 Arena rating.)

Deathknights are a lot of fun so far, so that one will be next. After that, we’ll see.

I expect all the new talents and everything DeathKnight will be significantly tweaked between now and release, so take all beta info with a hefty lump of soothing spices.

Looking around my blog list I came across a couple of interesting PvP posts that I thought you might like to see.

This first one is arena based, but I think it could be easily used elsewhere, in the unlikely event that you can find cooperative players in the BGs. Since my main is a Rogue i particularly liked this one.

Rogue / Rogue vs. Druid / Rogue is no easy match, typically any team with a druid is going to be a tough match for a double rogue team. That said, using systemic decision making and quick reflexes we can learn how to effectively counter these 2v2 teams.
Rogue / Rogue Vs. Druid / Rogue 2v2 Arena Strategy

Gnomes. There’s just something disturbing about them. Must be the remnants of the radiation poisoning. It is rather interesting how those Tauren mallets are just the right size…  Anyway, here’s a fun story of the Hunter and the Gnome Rogue.

The Tauren Hunter was merrily bounding into the Silverwing base in Warsong Gulch; she had been enjoying these player-verses-player excursions lately and was rather fond of her 25,000 honor that she had stockpiled for when she would hit 70 in a couple more levels and would need a nice set of war gear to go with her set of standard adventuring gear. She made it to the roof of the enemy building when suddenly she was jumped upon! By a very persistent gnome rogue.
The Fable of the Gnome Rogue

Rogue’s Eye View has something which some of you know about already, but maybe a few don’t. Hope into your very own premade level 80, then go kill the other 80s!

To those that don’t know, earlier this week it was announced that level 80 premades are available to players in the beta test.

In order to copy over a premade character, you’ll need to log into your account at beta.worldofwarcraft.com and make your way to the character copy section.
Level 80 Premades Available for Beta Servers

Bits and pieces from other places.

From Tobald:

Blizzard just announced that parts of Wrath of the Lich King content will already be released “in the coming weeks”…

But many people interpret the patch announcement, and the new features that were announced for Wrath of the Lich King and which just happen to be similar to features that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has, to be a defensive move by Blizzard…

Here’s the rest: WoW is fighting back. There are a ton of comments on that post, so join the fun.

Blizzard does need some serious competion, but WAR doesn’t seem to be it, except maybe in the PvP area, though I think WAR will do well if it has a smooth launch. I think Bliz has the formula that most others are missing, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be on the lookout for nifty ideas that make their game more interesting for more poeple.

Spooncraft has a post on new voices in Wrath, and a video with the voices: Wrath of the Lich King Beta 8885 brings new Death Knight Voice Options

Spoon says:  Awesome changes, not exactly sinister but at least now Blood Elf Males actually sound like MEN. You have to go into the sound options menu (if you’re a Death Knight) and turn this feature on for it to work. I am very excited about this and hope that it stays in game permanently.

Go check it out. Now I’m going to go see what my DK troll has to say.

Here’s a bit on the new Level 75 ability for Rogues, “Tricks of the Trade,” from WoW Insider: Rogues in 8885: Tricks of the Trade

Ok, time for dinner.

Parry! Dodge! Spin! has a post on what’s happening with the Rogue talents.

New Rogue Changes Coming

Parry! Dodge! Spin! has a post covering the various Glyphs that the new Inscriptions will add to the Rogue talents and abilities:

First of all, I think every other class needs to send Blizzard a thank you card for the following change to Mace Specialization. As a Combat Swords Rogue (and as a Resto Druid), I’m pretty excited to see it myself. This should make Mace Specialization a bit more attractive for raiding as well.

Mace Specialization (Combat) no longer stuns enemies, and instead increases critical damage bonus by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Here’s the rest: WotLK Beta 8820 Rogue News

You’ll want to look at the comments, too. As usual with something like this there’s a wide differing of opinion.

One of the comments points out that resilience pretty much negates the crit bonus. Still, not everyone in PvP is running around with 400+ resilience or s4 gear. For leveling the damage bonus might be better than the rare stun proc.

Keep in mind that this is still in beta test and the final numbers may well be somewhat different. I’m sure that no matter what change Bliz make there will be whoops of praise and howls of outrage.

I think a lot of the Glyphs look pretty nice. What do you think?

Edit: Azande, in the comment, has some interesting stuff for the rading Rogue and more remarks on the raiding potential of Glyphs.