Project Lore

Now you see me...

When I first rolled Locomomo, going rogue was an easy choice. I thought the idea of having stealth right from level 1 was absolutely brilliant. I loved it, and reveled in it. From the start, I embraced the cunning practice of disappearing into the shadows and pick pocketing my enemies before ambushing them with poisons. By the time I was seen, my dagger already was bloody with my opponent's innards. Just like most other elusive rogues, I didn't mind using crafty, violent and yes, even straight up vile methods to down those who would stand against me. The power consumed me, and I grew stronger.

Now you don't!

My deception also was my entertainment: I took comfort in harassing those who couldn't see me. I would stealth, and choose a friendly, lower-level target to distract while they puzzled at a puff of smoke exploding, and then laughter echoing in the seemingly empty street in front of them. But slowly, the novelty wore off. Sap and Cheap Shot became routine, and my daggers rusty. I was eager to level, and I traded in the backstabbers for two shiny new swords. A quick respec for dual-wielding swords, and I was ready to go. No more backstab or ambush, my two key skills requiring daggers. No hopes for mutilate, either. And not as much need for stealth, since I didn't have to get behind my enemy. But level, I did. Soon, I reached Outland, and then Northrend. It was the Borean Tundra that brought me back to my stealthy roots. First, a series of quests led me to the Fang of the Desolate Soul. Then, east to Dragonblight where I was asked to kill Magister Keldonus and in exchange, take possession of the Backtwister. A free respec for patch 3.1.1 solidified my conviction - it was time to  regain my close quarters combat specialization and rediscover my love for stealthier gameplay. So far, I'm having a bloody good time. Now I wouldn't say that rogues are the best class for everyone. And I can't leave out the fact that we've gotten nerfed from time to time. But I'm in it for the fun. And, damn. Stealth is fun. I think iTZKooPA knows what I'm talking about, and also has some good tips for the muti spec. So now you all know one of my favorite aspects of being a rogue. Based on a thread in our forums, I know I'm not the only one. So, what is it that drives you to play your class?

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The smoke is starting to clear from all the changes in patches 3.1 and 3.1.1, and players are figuring out how all the class changes have affected preferred talent specs and accompanying glyphs. Also, with the recent addition of dual spec, there are a lot of players out there who've recently been looking into the best builds for different aspects of gameplay. So there was plenty to consider with the patches, and thankfully we have a lot of tools out there for figuring out which builds we like best. When I was trying to figure out how to spec for my foray in the arena tournament, I used the WoWWiki page for rogue builds, found the PvP spec I liked best, then figured out how to gear up based on my new talents. But there are downsides to that route - posters don't always have the best insight into which builds are best, and there's a whole array to choose from, each with slightly different tweaks. Now I'm all for personalizing your character based on your own preferences and playing style. But when thinking about completely switching your specs (or adding a dual spec), sometimes it's good to go for the tried and true specs to start off with, then figure out what changes you want to make from there. I think the best tool out there for this is TalentChic.com, and the recently added sister site, GlyphChic. Here's how it works:

"To find the most popular talent builds, the system scans both the US and EU WoW armory sites to find the talent points chosen by characters. It then sorts those according class, spec and playstyle and collates the results... We continually scan the armory and update the popularity score of the most popular builds hourly. "

Just by looking at the TalentChic home page, we can see that the overall most popular builds among "the best players" who are included in the calculation are:

1. Elemental Shaman 57/14/0
2. Restoration Shaman 0/16/55
3. Fire Mage 0/53/18
4. Combat Rogue 15/51/5 (And coincidentally, also the spec I'm working my main toward)
5. Shadow Priest 13/0/58

But the interesting part is when you use the site's filters to break down the popularity of a build according to class and find out specifics. As of my writing this, the top 10 most popular Death Knight builds are either Frost or Unholy, with Blood only making the list at number 11. You also can sort the list according to specific talent trees. The top four builds for hunters, for example, are minor variations on a survival spec.  But you also can look specifically at the beast mastery tree to see that among those specs, several different versions of a 53/11/7 build are the most prominent. And if you want to watch and see how any patch changes affect the popularity of builds, you can sign up to get updates when a specific page on the site changes. Currently, the site is updated based on how players have rebuilt their specs that were reset with patch 3.1 and again with 3.1.1. The sister web site, GlyphChic, operates very similarly. You choose your specific considerations, and the site reguritates useful stats back at you. Among players who also use my favored combat spec, for example, the most popular major glyphs are of sinister strike, rupture and slice and dice, while the favored minor glyphs are of blurred speed, vanish and safe fall. The site's been around since the talent respec that came with 3.0.2, and the WoW community continues to be a little smarter because of it. So for anyone who hasn't checked it out yet or who hasn't been back since last Tuesday, definitely take a look. You may find yourself surprised, entertained or at least more informed.

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Deeps clothing provided by Ctrl-Alt-Del.

My new guild - can I still call it new when I get personalized greetings at sign on? - has been going through some troubles lately, and it isn't drama related.  I guess you can blame the lack of healers for causing some drama.  On top of trying to solve this ancient MMORPG problem, we have also been hit by scattershot attendance.  Our GM and Officers have done their best to recruit eager players to the raid, but for everyone four recruited, it seems that only one is willing to show up.  Showing up is only half the battle though.  Being an able bodied raider is the other half.  Apparently, they didn't get the Level 80 memo. At this stage in the game, gear is only part of one's ability to generate respectable DPS.  Don't get me wrong, having the correct gear is incredibly important, but like the global warming problem, it is only one piece of the pie chart. Gear: There is gear, and then there is correct gear.  For instance, I could have some sick 1.8 Speed Daggers equipped.  In fact I have one from Naxx but I never use it.  Why?  Because its slow speed doesn't mesh well with Mutilate spec - this may be changing come v3.1.  There are tons of ways to judge gear which can cause tough decisions.  One of the easiest, but not the best, is to let an addon like RatingBuster do the comparisons for you. Making that type of decision means you have already located and won what you need, which is often the most time consuming challenge.  Thanks to Blizzard's constant updates to the WoWArmory, your character profile can give you some tips on what to hunt for.  Take Solidsamm's rings (or trinkets) for instance.  A quick check through the Upgrade link (On mouseover, hover over the arrow that appears to the right of the item) and you are hit with a two page list of items that are side-grades or better to his Ring of Foul Mojo. If you don't have the time to sink into instances or Heroics, then perhaps player created gear is more suitable.  Crafted gear is a quick and easy way to upgrade many slots.  The catch 22 is that these items can be pretty pricey.  However, if you spend your downtime shopping around for the mats while grinding the other non-craftable slots, you should save some serious gold. Spec: A player's spec is incredibly important for everything they do.  A few misplaced points and a toon can be out of 5-20% of potential DPS, making them a poor choice for a raid or PvP partner.  I am not trying to say that we should all be cookie cutter copies of each other, but the pattern exists for a reason.  My suggestion to those trying to eek out more DPS is to look at the cookie cutter version of your spec and analyze any and all differences.  Weigh the differences to see if what you have selected is truly better for what your spec is built to accomplish.  And don't be afraid to ask guildmates for opinions and tips! Glyphs: These bad boys should be used to strengthen your main spells and abilities.  They are relatively cheap compared to other consumables and will remain viable additions to your character until you change specs or new Glyphs are released, which isn't all that often.  Again, select Major Glyphs that modify the main abilities you use.  For a Mutilate rogue like Solidsamm that would be Slice n Dice (for more poison procs), Rupture and Garrote.  Unfortunately there is no Envenom glyph. Enchants: Enchants are often over looked, and with good reason.  As mentioned in one of my first posts, it is hard to justify sinking tens to hundreds of gold into gear that will likely be replaced very soon.  To avoid emptying your coffers repeatedly, only pick-up the most suitable enchantments on gear that shouldn't be replaced in the short term, meaning most epic quality items.  For those blue items, grab the mats and have a guildmate do middle of the road buffs on the cheap.  If you still have a collection of greens, the money and time are better spent just replacing the gear entirely. Gems: Another often overlooked and easily solvable problem.  Follow the same suggestions for enchants, saving the best gems for the best gear.  Gems are also a fantastic way to boost other stats that you could be lacking, such as Hit and Expertise rating.  Once you get those stats on board with the needed numbers, you should re-gem to help your spec, where applicable. When you do get that fantastic gear that you have been working towards for weeks, be sure to gem it and enchant it ASAP.  I always try to keep a handful of gems on hand to apply to new gear on the spot.  Why would I do this?  Two reasons really.  First, I don't want the new piece of loot to look "worse" than the old piece simply because it isn't gemmed.  Second, I try to get my gems at rock bottom prices, which means I have to wait sometimes.  During the interim, I slap a middle of the road gem in the socket as a placeholder.  The trick is that when you do the on the fly gemming or enchanting, you have to remember to go back and replace it.  That is a personal tip to myself, evidenced by my recent gemming excursion to replace all the green gems I had. Don't forget to play the game the way you want to though.  Just because one spec does a little more DPS than the other, doesn't mean you should suffer through mechanics that you don't enjoy.  After all, you should still want to play the game after you make the changes to be a more productive member of your guild!

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Choosing gear used to be so simple. When you roll a new character, you start out with the crappiest of the crap. At first, it’s just a matter of picking whatever has the highest armor rating. Couldn’t be easier. Then you add in stats to consider. Would you rather have agility or intelligence? Is your character more suited to armor of the bear or of the tiger? Are you mainly PvE or PvP? The choice becomes slightly more difficult, but usually is still pretty clear-cut as long as you have a certain spec in mind. My main character is a rogue, so I almost always went for the agility, with stamina as my second-favored stat (<3 “of the monkey” armor). Then come item enhancements. Being a leatherworker, for me the choice was between using an armor kit or getting a guildmate to enchant my gear with increased stats. Again, I usually went for the agility whenever possible. But then I hit the high-50s, and things got more complicated. Blue armor was no longer always better than green armor. The stat bonuses started getting better. Many items offer bonuses to more than just one or two stats. And now there are sockets to consider, along with bonuses for actually filling the sockets. Or, bonuses for having multiple items in a set. And in addition to just stat bonuses, there also are pluses to attack power, crit rating, resilience rating, dodge rating, resistances etc. Too many choices! Of course, one helpful trick is to equip back and forth between the gear you’re choosing from, and see how the stats that matter to you change. Or, if it’s a bind on equip item, you can use an add-on specific to your spec (I use GearDPS) to see how the gear will work for you. Sometimes you have to choose between one great stat and another great stat. A straight-up plus to agility isn’t always my best choice anymore, not when so many other enhancements may increase both agility and a combo of other needed stats. How does one cope, especially when making the shift to questing in Outland, then Northrend, where much, much better equipment is given as quest rewards (and it drops pretty frequently, too)? In the early 60s, I often found myself carrying around gear that, as it was, wasn’t quite as good as what I had equipped. But if I was able to get it enchanted, it would be a little bit better. Then I would find an even better item before I had the chance to enchant the second one. Or I would hold on to gear that I thought was awesome, but that I wasn't high enough level to equip yet. But once I reached the right level to equip it, my gear already had surpassed that mark. Now that I'm in Northrend, it’s getting even more complicated. So, I became more stingy with my gear. For BoP gear that's a quest reward and already obsolete, I'll just choose whichever item sells for the highest amount (yay, Auctioneer addon). For me, I can't justify equipping BoE gear if I’m going to find something better in a half-level anyways. Instead, auction it! Or give it to a guildy to disenchant.  Do those few extra tenths-of-a-chance to crit really make a difference when I can level quickly without it? Is it even worth keeping spare sets of gear for different uses when you’re leveling up so quickly that it becomes obsolete before you can use it? At least until I hit 80, my guess is no. So how do you go about choosing whether to use gear that may be replaced quickly? Do you go ahead and equip it and make use of it while you can? Do you just go for the money? Or is there a happy medium?

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During the (incredibly short) leveling process my Priest was mostly specced Shadow, with a little bit of Discipline thrown in for good measure. Upon hitting level 60, and no longer gaining the benefits of the Refer-a-Friend program, I promptly respecced Holy. It has been three weeks since the change, and I feel that I can finally weigh in on my decision with a semblance of intelligence. In weeks past, Solidsagart has gone from level 60 to level 66, sheerly through instances (along with some dungeon-based quests). I stuck to dungeons so I could prepare myself for group healing. Not to mention the fact that the grind as Holy would totally suck. Initially, my healing ability was appaling; ADHD would kick in and I stopped paying attention, stopped looking at people's health, or decided that I was DPS again, and wasted all my mana trying to contribute to the chart. What can I say, old habits die hard. I decided that the best way to overcome my need for DPS was to stop playing my Rogue for awhile. For more than a solid week, Solidsagart was the only character I played, allowing me to hone my healing skills, and grab some respectable gear from the early Burning Crusade dungeons. Another obstacle I had was to get used to multi-target healing, rather than a single-target mindset. Thankfully, my spec has some built in utility for AoE healing. While on the topic of my spec, I have heeded some of the insights from the previous post's comments. I decided that Guardian Spirit is indeed, nearly useless (thanks Ryan) . Along those lines is Spirit of Redemption. The talent is very situational, and doesn't increase my healing unless used.  It has only made a difference once to date. So, I will be moving that SoR point and Guardian Spirit's into Holy Reach (thanks Claxo). I thought about moving two points from Searling Light to have full Inspiration (as PopeSeanPaul suggested), but decided that I wanted some DPS buff, for when I grind between instances. As a personal experiment I will be dropping Silent Resolve, moving the trio of points into Serendipity to help with mana conservation (numerous people pointed out the overheals issue). I would like to think that I do not burn too much mana off overheals, but I know I burn some. On the flip side, I have yet to pull aggro from the tank. Hopefully, I can maintain that statistic. The slightly modified spec now looks like this. I doubt I will get any raiding time in before Wrath of the Lich King, so that report will have to wait a few months. I would also like to thank the players (not Goggins) who pointed out Grid and Clique, they have been wonderful additions to my suite of addons. Groupmates have loved my "Oh, SHIT!" button. :p

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My new Mutilate build has definitely gotten me back into my Rogue.  I took quite a break from him due to my little excursion with finally leveling a healing alt, but have since returned to him with reckless abandon.  Mostly, the new build has me excited due to its different play style, as opposed to my old combat spec. I have always been partial to daggers, subscribing to the mentality that they are more roguish; although the daggers in World of Warcraft are far too large for my liking.  I also would get incredibly annoyed with having to be behind mobs for a Backstab/Ambush build, especially when the servers (or Comcast) decided to be laggy.  Those two reasons, and the refunded talent points for Echoes of Doom, made me look good and hard at the new Mutilate build, one without the need to be behind my target. Yesterday, Blizzard decided to give me something else to look at, thanks to the release of patch 3.0.3 and its class changes.  Rogues may not have received as many changes as...well any other class, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to think on.  Nothing directly affects the new build, but the changes could have me second guessing my move.  They don't. I will just start off with the one thing that could be construed as a nerf, the modification to how Combat Potency can proc.  CP will now only have a chance to proc off of an autoattack, specifically, via your off-hand weapon.  Previously, players would often spam the low energy ability Shiv to increase the number off OH attacks.  That strategy will no longer work. Aside from that modification, Rogues see a few outright buffs.

• Fan of Knives can now be cast without have anything targeted, and had its cooldown reduced by 10 seconds.  The ability will also benefit from Find Weakness, not to mention, flat out look cooler.
• When Rogues enter Killing Spree, players will lose their target on them.  While the caster will still take damage, they will become “unstoppable.”  Which leads me to believe they cannot be stunned or incapacitated, but can be killed, during the duration.  Does anyone know if friendly players lose the target as well?
• Riposte will no longer have its effect reduced by other effects that reduce disarm duration.
• Shadow Dance will no longer increase the cooldown for Stealth abilities (Sap, Garrotte, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Premeditation, Pickpocket, and Disarm Trap).
• Last be not least we have the removal of the Glyph of Shiv.  The Glyph of Vigor replaces it, which I am all for. *Note - WoWHead's tooltips are messed up on this at the moment.

Hey look at that, I do have an incoming buff from the patch.  Awesome.  How do my other brothers of the shadows enjoy the changes?  Do you guys agree, that overall, we are getting a bit of a buff?  Generally speaking, most of the classes are though.

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I was around during the initial Scourge Invasion.  In fact, I was still playing WoW hours upon hours a day, many of them spent in raids, instances or just farming for gold.  Yet, I never really joined in on the fun of the Scourge Invasion.  I checked it out, but you wouldn't find me there day in and day out, in an attempt to stop the Necropoli from taking over.  I can't recall my reasoning, but it probably had something to do with the fact that I already had the Argent Dawn reputation that I needed for Naxxaramas.  This time around, I have been all over the invasion. This year's invasion started off with the infamous plague that turned so many of Azeroth's heroes into minions for the Scourge.  The Horde and Alliance put aside their differences, got together, and rid the lands of the threat in only a few days time.  But the plague was only an attempt by the Lich King to weaken Azeroth before sending out his Necropoli and Undead fodder. I enjoyed the plague for all that it was worth, and the continuation into the Scourge Invasion is partially what sucked me into the re-hashed event.  Invasion 2.0 is not all that different from the original pre-Naxxaramas event, if I remember correctly.  We have the areas under attack by the Necropoli, Necrotic Shards, Shadow of Dooms, Undead weapon enchants, and extra bosses in select instances. Only a few things have been added, namely rewards for participating.  Rather than receiving superior gear for our efforts, players can now select from almost Karazhan-quality gear that bump up one's Undead slaughtering capabilities.  We even have a few trinkets that summon an Argent Dawn agent or abilities to our side.  On the content side of things, players can still tackle the new Karazhan boss, Tenris Mirkblood, who seems to be the only thing remaining from the plague days gone by.  Not to mention, the only thing I have found that could really link the two events. This Rogue and Priest combo will be continuing the purging of the Undead from the Plaguelands until the event ends.  I am mainly doing it so I can try out Solidsamm's new spec, but I tend to be a sucker for summonable buddies.  So if you see a purple skull appear on your map (and are on Magtheridon), I will likely be in their base, killing their mans.  To bad the Argent Dawn reputation has been replaced by the Argent Crusade in Wrath of the Lich King and will be useless. Sadly, I haven't seen many other people partaking in the Scourge Invasion, is it just too old hat for you?  Or are you burned out from the plague - as the Lich King intended?

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I believe that one of the biggest issues with raiding and partying in World of Warcraft is ego. So many people out there think that they know the game better than the creators themselves.  That confidence can often be a player's downfall. The fact of the matter is this, probably less than 1% of World of Warcraft players know it well enough to be considered experts at the game. Sure, many players known their class very well, but do they know its utility for raids, parties, Battlegrounds, Arenas and every boss fight? Not likely. What about the other classes?  Do they know how to get the most out of the Auction House? The ins and outs of WoW's scripting language? The often neglected lore? Doubtful. You may think I am here to gripe about how we could all open our eyes and learn a little from our guildmates, PUG-mates or Buddhism, but I promise you that isn't the case. Sure, I showed an officer last night that he could link his professional abilities rather than telling everyone what he can do, but he was gracious about learning from the “new blood.” I am actually here to ask for help. If you have been following my blog here at Project Lore, then you know that I made a Priest alt for the Refer-a-Friend promotion. I have never, ever, in all the MMOs I have played, gone healing. With Wrath coming in less than a month's time, I figured now is as good a time as any. With the refunded talent points I created this healing spec. Let me restate this, while I know the basics of healing, I certainly do not know the nitty-gritty details. My spec was designed to reduce casting time and mana consumption, while bolstering heals and crit heals and the chance to crit. Survivability was an afterthought. I do realize that being new to the “keeping people alive” rather than “killing everything that moves” mentality will likely cause me to waste tons of mana on overheals. So, the Serendipity talent is something I will likely move too. So Priests, and healers in general, now is your time to shine. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated – that means the first poster better have some good input – and it just doesn't have to be talent spec pointers. Good addon, macro or rotation suggestions are welcome too! I did create one macro already, my personal “Oh, shit!” button which I stole from my brother's old Priest. It yells, says, sends to party and raid the following message: “Fox! Get this guy off me!”

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