Level 80 Rogues in Wrath of the Lich King

 wrath of the lich king  Comments Off on Level 80 Rogues in Wrath of the Lich King
Sep 132008
 

My wife and both kids have got their [tag-tec]Wrath of the Lich King[/tag-tec] 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:
Level 80 Orc Rogue Showing 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.
Level 80 Orc Rogue with Starting Gear

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.

WoW PvP – Hunters, Gnomes, and Level 80s

 PvP  1 Response »
Sep 112008
 

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

Wrath, WAR, Blizzard, and Whatnot

 wow news  Comments Off on Wrath, WAR, Blizzard, and Whatnot
Aug 302008
 

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.

Rogue Talents and Glyphs – WotLK News

 Rogues, wrath of the lich king  1 Response »
Aug 282008
 

Parry! Dodge! Spin! has a post covering the various Glyphs that the new Inscriptions will add to the [tag-tec]Rogue talents[/tag-tec] 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.

The Ultimate Level 19 Rogue Twinking Guide?

 Rogues  4 Responses »
Aug 172008
 

Twinking is the fine art of taking your character to levels far beyond what he/she should be able to do at any given level. For example, a Rogue twink, at 19, with 2,000 HP? It’s been done.

The [tag-tec]Warsong Gulch[/tag-tec] Battleground (Capture the Flag) has a level 10-19 bracket. Naturally one wants to be level 19, otherwise rapid doom will happen. Then one needs that little edge over the other 19s…

AzerothNow.com has a killer twinking guide for those level 19 Rogues bent on mayhem and slaughter in Warrsong Gulch (and maybe a duel or three.)

So you’ve done your dailies - everyday, you’ve cleared Heroics and Karazhan for Badges until your eyes bleed, maybe you’re even utterly tired of farming Illidan every week or wiping on Kil’Jaeden. But what now? Level another character? Cancel your subscription until Wrath?

Well, I have your solution: why not create a lvl 19 Twink Rogue? But what is a lvl 19 twink Rogue, you may ask. The simple explanation is that they are characters with the best possible gear for their level (including enchants), whose purpose is PvP, and their playground is the 10-19 bracket of Warsong Gulch Battlegrounds.

Here’s the rest: The Ultimate Guide to Lvl 19 Rogue Twinking

edit: A commenter points us to his twinking guides and I may just make use of his level 39 Warlock guide. Very cool. WoW Twink Guide: 39 Affliction Warlock

I Have a Cunning Plan…

 Rogues  Comments Off on I Have a Cunning Plan…
Jul 292008
 

Actually, it’s a Cunning Blade and I’ll skip further Black Adder references.

[tag-tec]Rogues[/tag-tec] at level 10 can do a quest chain to get this Cunning Blade as a quest reward. This quest chain is entirely optional and if you browse the Auction House regularly you’re likely to find better weapons for not much gold. (And you twinks can stop laughing now.) 🙂

Still, it’s a fun little quest chain and it can be quite challenging for your average level 10 Rogue. Each race has a different quest, in its own area, but the quest rewards are the same.

Gwynne’s done a complete walk-thorugh of all of these level 10 quest chains. So if you have an up and coming Rogue, here you go:

  1. Level 10 Rogue Quests for Horde
  2. Level 10 Rogue Quests for Alliance

WoW Rogue Macros

 Rogues, WoW Mechanics  8 Responses »
Jul 022008
 

I’ve been fussing around with macros for my Rogues and have come up with a couple of useful ones. Now, I’m more the “copy and paste” type than any kind of macro programmer, but the macro system is worth learning and will save you a lot of clicks and keymashes.

Basically a good macro set will make you a leaner meaner killing machine.

By the way, this naturally applies to classes other than Rogues, it’s just that I’m working with [tag-tec]Rogue macros[/tag-tec] at the moment. There are a variety of other sources for WoW Rogue Macros and I list a couple at the end.

So here are the macro basics to start:

  1. Type /macro to open the macro interface
  2. Hit “new”
  3. Pick an icon
  4. And then you’ll enter your code.

For my Shadowstep (Swords) Rogue I use this:

/cast Premeditation
/cast Cheap Shot

Replace Cheap Shot with the opener of your choice, eg: Ambush. Premeditation adds 2 combo points right before the attack (with a 2 min cooldown.) So with this build I Cheap Shot and can frequently add an immediate 5 pt combo finisher. If the cooldown hasn’t finished then just the Cheap Shot will fire.

This one makes sure you bandage yourself and not the other guy. 😉 Replace the bandage with whatever bandage you’re using at the moment.
/use [target=player] Heavy Netherweave Bandage

This next one allows me to strike with Ambush and immediately switch to swords or maces or whatever. Probably not the most efficient thing to do, but it’s fun. Slot 16 is your main hand, 17 is your off hand. Just swap in whatever weapons you’re using.

If Ambush doesn’t fire for whatever reason then the weapons still swap. If you’re one of those people who likes to spam the Ambush key as you approach then this won’t work so well, because the weapons will swap before you get the ambush off.

/cast Ambush(Rank 2)
/equipslot 16 Diamond Hammer
/equipslot 17 Ironpatch Blade

Here’s a quick swap macro. Make a couple of these and switch back and forth as the situation dictates.
/equipslot 16 Mainhand weapon
/equipslot 17 Off hand weapon

Macros can get far more advanced than these, allowing you to simplify many different actions.

Killer Guides’ Rogue Guide has a bunch of other macros and a ton of great Rogue info. Get your’s here.

Arena Junkies has a page with macros for all classes that’s worth checking out, especially if you do PvP.

Looting the Scarlet Monastery

 Get the Gold  Comments Off on Looting the Scarlet Monastery
Jul 012008
 

Took my level 70 Rogue through the Scarlet Monastery today and took notes as to what was looted. Just the one one run through each of the four instances. I did run out of bag space, so some greys were tossed to make room for better stuff.

So for those of you who might be interested in doing this, here are the results. I’ll post actual sales totals when they’ve all come in. I expect this will come to over 300 gold total. Not bad for the time spent.

22gold, 27 silver after cash looted and selling greys and Bind on Pickup blues (BoP). All other items were sent to my Auction House mule for sale or disenchanting (and selling of the pieces.)

12 stacks of silk cloth, put up for about 9 gold. Don’t have any 1st aid or tailoring to work up or Rep that I want, so it’s all sold.

13 greens disenchanted into 9 vision dust, 20 soul dust, 1 greater astral essence, 2 lesser mystic essence, 1 large glowing shard. Posted on AH for just over 24 gold total.

7 greens put up on Ah for 3 to 15g each. Asking a total of 41.34

3 Bind on Equip (BoE) Blues found, 215.41 total asking price.
Here’s what I found:

Also found were a few skins (from skinning) and a few potions.

So I may do this again.

edit – Stuff has mostly sold. Not at 300g, but not bad. Current total is 258g 60s for everything from junk to BoE blues. The Butcher sold for just over 150g (Bloodscalp server.)

I may set aside a few hours and do it again. Clear the four instances, sell at Brill, mail everything else to the mule, rinse and repeat.

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