Can we get some adds with a little less whirlwind

Rounding up and AoEing trash in instances and raids isn't a massive problem for rogues these days, no cooldown on Fan of Knives and a couple of slow daggers means we can easily keep up with mages and warlocks.

However there is a certain ability that warriors are fond of in PvP that several trash mobs are also keen to use. I'm talking about Whirlwind, something that will kill me 9 times out of 10, and quite frankly it's getting on my nerves.

I'm not talking about remove the ability, that would be unnecessary, but can we stop giving it to trash mobs that the tank expects to round up and be burned down at the same time.

Reasons are this:

1. When doing single target dps, Quartz will show me when whirlwind is being cast and I can run the heck away.
2. When mobs are being tanked away from each other, a mob spinning around is a good indication that it's performing whirlwind.

Problem when 4 mobs are grouped up on top of each other, and the marked skull doesn't whirlwind chances are the rogue is going to die.

This came to light the other night when we were attacking the military wing in Naxx. Our melee DPS included me and 2 death knights and unless I got lucky with evasion or the healers were on the ball I died on nearly every trash pull compared to the plate wearers who laughed it off. This slows the raid while I'm rezzed and buff up and quite frankly annoys the bejesus out of me. In the end I resorted to try and train ranged skills and this isn't fun.

I mention this now because of the Razorscale fight in Ulduar which has Iron Dwarf adds during the air phase and the highest priority one to kill does a, guess what, whirlwind attack. At least this one we should be able to run away from, but that still limits dps on a fight that relies on killing things quickly.

This is probably a personal moan, and I expect QQ comments should anyone choose to do so. But when raid trash is designed to be rounded up and killed en mass it seems slightly unfair that classes with low armor that need to stand in the middle (I'm including Arcane mages in this) can be killed very quickly because one guy decides to spin around with his big sword.

Patch 3.1 Fallout

The big patch has landed (and was quickly followed up by a smaller one) which has brought many changes and additions to the game. Here's a quick run down of the major ones that have affected me and my thoughts.

Fishing dailies
Having leveled fishing up to 450 trying to catch the rat and fishing up all the coins in the fountain it's quite nice to have something else to fish for with random rewards. There's only been three of the five quests offered so far but I've received the jeweled fishing pole, the weather beaten fishing hat, a new fishing line and some vendor trash which has netted a tidy sum.

Dual Specs
I've purchased this for Crash so far, which does provide a slightly pricey achievement. I've stuck with an assassination spec for raiding and have a subtlety one for mucking about in PvP and soloing. Personally it's just a nice thing to have, but for classes which can do more than one thing it does add an extra dimension to putting groups together and changing group makeup once you're in the raid.

Assassination Spec
The two big changes I've noticed are the Hunger for Blood change, which is a blessing given how much I hated having to try and remember to refresh the buff within 30seconds. Now once a bleed is there I can put the buff up and given Rupture up almost constantly it's less of a problem to refresh it when I have spare energy. Secondly the changes to poisons to proc based on weapon speed rather than a flat figure means it's possible to use a 1.8 speed dagger in the main hand again rather than trying to find the fastest available, and not necessarily finding them in the raids we're hitting as a guild.

Subtlety Spec
I hadn't played subtlety since TBC when I spec'd for a blast at the battlegrounds to grind honor for the season weapons when they were the best available to the 10 man raider. However now for soloing and hitting battlegrounds or WinterGrasp it feels really good. Premiditation, Ambush, Eviscerate is generally enough to reduce most mobs to tears if not kill them outright.

Ulduar
Our guild is clearing Naxx fairly regularly now and so far we've had one night to have a play around in this new instance. The Flame Leviathan fight is an interesting diversion and we've managed to down Razorscale. However the lack of spawns in the air phase of that fight means I don't think we've done it properly, but at least know what not to stand in and the tanks know what to do during the landed phase. This appears to be a tougher raid than Naxx which means hopefully the challenge will remain for longer. Plus there's always the hard modes to beat once we've killed the bosses on normal.

Argent Tournament
I loved the Isle of Quel'Danas when it opened, especially considering the Blood Elf lore surrounding it, and worked hard to get to exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive in order to purchase the title once our server unlocked phase 4.

The new tournament appears to be more of the same and I'm eagerly working my way through the quests. So far I've managed to become the exalted champion of Silvermoon and am currently working on Thunder Bluff as I need the most rep with them. Once I've become a champion with them I'll move onto the Trolls which should then net me the Ambassador title while I work my way to the Crusader title that I really want for when we face Arthas.

Non-combat Pets
Finally the Horde have a way of getting hold of some pets that were only available to the Alliance. The Westfall chicken is obtained by buying the seed from the farmer in Brill and then spamming a /chicken emote at a nearby chicken until the quest becomes available. The Sprite Darter Hatchling is another kill grind through Feralas. This was a lot quicker and easier than any of the dragon whelps, twenty minutes of running around and the egg dropped.

I'm planning to write some more posts about my experiences on the bosses in the new raid as and when we hit them.

The one where Crash writes a catch up post

By the Sunwell, where does the time go when everything appears to be happening at once.

Real life has been intruding quite a lot recently which has meant I've not had the time to write as much and playing has been mostly in fits and starts as and when time has allowed.

Some notable stuff that has happened:

• I finally got round to sticking my head in Obsidian Sanctum and have defeated Sartharion.
• I've defeated every boss in Naxxramas, and picked up a piece of T7.
• Chef Crashandburn has been seen around the place adding cooking, to the list of professions at 450 (Skinning, Leatherworking and First Aid being the others).
• Medrare has dinged 80 and has successfully tanked a heroic, grabbing a staff at the same time.
  

I've been hitting a few achievements as and when time allows, plus I need to stay ahead on points against a certain obsessive shaman, but at the same time taking a relaxed approach given there isn't a set of holiday achievements to grind for the shiny mount.

Our guild is moving on to attempt Malygos at the moment, and once I get another couple of upgrades then I'll be aiming to stab the big blue a few times.

The only other big decisions at the moment are whether I'll go for dual specs on both characters, or just Medrare in case I decide to scratch an itch to try healing, plus working out how the class changes will affect how I play each of my characters. I've avoiding getting too attached or repulsed by any of the changes as they get announced as chances are they'll change before ever hitting the live server.

Catch you soon....

Rogue guide to achieving 'Intense Cold'

The Intense Cold achievement is done in heroic Nexus and is on the last boss Keristrasza. To do this you have to prevent the Intense Cold debuff to stacking to more than two. Normally this isn't a problem as movement will cause the debuff to be removed. However the Crystal chains which you get hit with stop you moving for 10 seconds and can be enough to ruin your attempt.

So if you need to have this on your rogue here's how I managed it in a heroic pug.

Positioning: Like pretty much all dragon bosses in game you want to stay away from the head and the tail as there are cone based attacks around this area. So stick yourself facing the ribs and you should be safe from those attacks.

Movement: A simple jump is enough to remove the debuff so that's all you need to do every time Intense Cold gets applied.

Chains: The first time this gets applied use Cloak of Shadows, the second time Vanish. After this unless you're combat spec'd with Improved Sprint you'll need to hope your dps is high enough to take the boss down before you get chained again. A sub rogue could also use Preparation to reset the necessary cool downs, but as a HfB/Mutilate rogue I was left with just the two and a lot of praying.

Don't be disheartened if you don't manage it the first time you should hopefully running this instance a few times for the chest piece and the trinket. (I have yet to see the trinket drop but the chest piece has dropped every time).

Good luck

Don't Panic!

There's another patch on the horizon which does contain some rogue changes. I'm not talking about 3.1 which is so far out there that I'm not going to comment on the changes that have snuck out so far as they'll likely change again (like with patch 3.0).

Patch 3.0.9 is due to hit this week and amongst the changes is a doozy. A 30% drop in mutilate damage against poisoned targets. On it's own this would seem like a horrendous nerf, but whilst Blizzard taketh away, they also giveth. Hunger for Blood is being buffed up to 15% damage increase from 9% and Slice'n'Dice is increasing attack speed by 40% up from 30%.

Now I haven't crunched the numbers so I can't tell you if the damage output from a mutilate rogue such as myself will be the same but I would hope that they would be given I seem to be holding my own damage wise against other dps classes in our raids.

However this could be a buff when we look at the next big raid encounter, Ulduar. The bane of the mutilate rogue has always been the poison immune mob, I'm looking at you here Curator. Now given that the current Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightening instances have contained a light smattering of poison immune mobs it's not a huge leap to assume that there might be some more in the raid instance.

With this change hopefully we won't be at such a disadvantage as our combat and subtlety spec'd brethren. Of course there may still be a lack of damage at which point it might be time to work out a combat daggers spec or try and get hold of some swords and head back to the monotony of combat swords to have as the alternate spec.

Time to switch main?

The rogue has been a class close to my heart. My very first character on a trial account was a rogue, and my first level 70 and 80 character has been Crash (I started playing just after TBC came out so 60 wasn't a massive milestone). However now I've got there and started hitting the heroics and early Naxx I don't find myself enjoying the class as much as I did back then.

It's great to play daggers again, and when soloing I'm an unstoppable killing machine as everything dies whilst stunned, but the constant button pushing to keep HfB up, the lack of AoE when dealing with trash and the feeling that using stealth just hampers dps rather than adding to it means I'm not enjoying the group play as much.

Whilst it's been quiet over the Christmas break I've started levelling Medrare again and am remembering how much fun druid is. Plus as a hybrid class I could tank (which I've done a bit of), dps (rogue with less issues) or once the dual specs thing comes in heal, though Elune help anyone who takes me as a healer initially.

This might make things a bit tricky to start with as we currently have some high level tanks who have been running stuff for weeks and so have lots of the tasty badge gear but I don't think this will be too much of a problem as we go on as there's always plenty of dps looking to do runs.

I'm not making the decision just yet, especially as I'll have to go through the whole levelling and gearing process again, but with the alchemy trinkets available and Crash already able to make nearly all the leatherworking stuff it might be a bit easier this time around.

Watch this space...

The man who doesn't like to pug...

...pugs the 10-man version of the Wintergrasp raid.

I decided to have a go at Wintergrasp whilst online just to see what the zone was like and see how well the Eviscerator's set I've crafted holds up when fighting against everything else.

As it turns out the Horde were outnumbered but the Tenacity buff and some good work from those involved (no real idea who) meant we won, provided the buff to all the instances the rest of the guild were running and made the raid instance available.

There were soon messages running around the General channel, and having heard good reports about pugging normal and heroic instances I decided to give it a go, especially as there would be the chance for some nice epics. Sadly no rogue loot dropped but I did get a chance to have a look at the boss fight.

First up, we are definitely in a dps race, there's a 5 minute hard enrage timer so you need to get him down within that time. Second there's a lot of damage everywhere, the boss has a couple of random target abilities and leaves an AoE effect about the place meaning ranged need to keep on their toes as well as the tank if he leaves one on top of the melee. Finally he'll wildly lunge and grab the main tank, meaning he needs to be picked up by an off tank for the duration.

As a rogue there are two key things for this fight.
1) Stay below both tanks on threat. Think Gruul, think Moroes, just stay below both of the tanks or you'll be dead as soon as the main tank gets picked up.
2) Tricks will aid which ever tank needs it most so use it as much as possible.

The week lock out means you're not going to be farming it any more than the other raid instances but with the right group (or even within guild) there's a potential quick way to some epics and a couple of emblems.

Rogue DPS in instances

I was lucky enough to run a couple of level 80 instances with some guildies and as with most things I had recount running as a way to check how I was doing. I'm very aware that having respecced that my dps cycle is not down pat yet, the variations in combo point generation, energy regen and mob abilities mean that I'm not keeping up all buffs and debuffs that I should.

There were times that I was feeling about down about my performance, out of the five of us I was running third overall in damage done, behind a DK and slightly worrying the tank. However before running off to the forums and QQing about how rogues are broken and need x, y and z done to fix them let's look at how the pulls were being done.

Generally we would have a group of 3 or 4, the tank would mark the skull and charge in, we'd take down the skull and then pick off the rest. Given I have no real AoE dps, other than Fan of Knives which is currently on a 10secs cool down trying to get poisons and rupture up on mobs that are already below 50% health means there's little to no chance of getting those key abilities up for any meaningful time.

Ok, so my damage is nerfed, how come I'm below the tank? Well while there's 3 or 4 mobs on him he's busy using Swipe and a glyphed Maul which means he's hitting multiple mobs as is the DK who has a ghoul minion in tow.

Let's compare this to the final boss fight in Halls of Lightning. Loken requires that everyone stay close within range of each other and then run away when he starts casting the large AoE spell. This is a single target fight, and while there's movement, it's not bad enough that every debuff drops off. Checking the stats for that fight showed me well up in the number 1 spot in terms of damage done and raw dps figures.

What this shows is that rogues are still the kings of single target dps, and needs to be considered when looking at damage meters just how the damage was being dished out and how the mobs were being taken out.

Mutilate Solo DPS

As I mentioned in the last post I've switched back to mutilate spec and have found it very, very efficient for killing mobs whilst keeping me alive. So I thought I'd share what I've chosen in terms of spec, what buffs I have up, glyphs and what rotations are used.

The spec I'm currently using is 57/8/5 and is geared to being a soloing spec, hence why there isn't 5 points in Precision and I haven't taken Blood Spatter. However Deadly Brew and Improved Kidney Shot are great soloing abilities as well as for use in PvP.

In terms of poisons I run with Instant on the main hand and Deadly on the off hand. Instant on both wouldn't allow for the poison debuff from Master Poisoner and Mutilate to be available and Deadly on both is over kill due to having 1.4 speed daggers and some haste rating available on gear. Along with the increased chance to apply poisons from the Improved Poisons talent getting a deadly poison debuff up isn't a problem.

Ability rotations depend on whether I successfully get the jump on the mob from stealth or pull (either by proximity or Throw).

Stealth
Pickpocket -> Cheap Shot -> Mutilate -> Kidney Shot -> Mutilate -> Envenom
There may be time (and energy) to get a second Mutilate after the Kidney Shot, and if you're unfortunate enough to come up against a poison immune mob then replace Envenom with Eviscerate.

Non-stealth
Mutilate x2 -> Kidney Shot -> Mutilate -> Envenom

Finally in terms of glyphs I'm still running with a Glyph of Slice and Dice, but have also picked up a Glyph of Vigor giving me a total of 120 energy, and am looking for a Glyph of Rupture to fill out the slots. If the dual spec implementation also allows you to swap glyphs then I may revisit but at the moment they're mostly geared to group play.

Ding 80!

Some heavy questing (thanks in part to a four day Thanksgiving weekend, I'm not American but whilst working here I get the holidays) has meant that Crash has dinged 80 and now it's time to play the rest of the game without the nagging though in the back of my mind that I need to be levelling and how much XP I need to hit that next level.

Along the way I've replaced nearly all the epics I had from TBC which was a bit hard for the first few but gave way over time as it became clear they were definitely upgrades. Also with the exception of trinkets they've all been blue rewards from the end of quest chains or group quests.

I managed one afternoon of serious instance boshing doing Gun'drak, Halls of Stone, Drak'tharon Keep and the Violet Hold (twice). In all this I managed to pick up one drop, sometimes the RNG is a harsh mistress. The instances on the whole feel very good, the trash isn't horrendous and the bosses are different without being insane. My only complaint would be that too many so far have relied on switching target or some other mechanic which causes a loss of combo points or things like Slice'n'Dice fading. While it's not been a massive problem or caused a lack of damage output on my part it does seem slightly frustrating.

I've switched back to Mutilate and wow, it's just fantastic now. Mobs die within a stunlock if I cheap shot them or if I'm not in stealth then they don't have long to hit me before being stunned and finished off. I thought losing blade flurry would hurt more when I had two or more mobs on me but due to the speed at which things die it hasn't been a problem.

For weapons a friendly blacksmith made me a couple of Saronite Shivs which are so loaded with goodness that I don't see them getting replaced quickly and the speed means that poisons are nearly always up, which is handy for using Envenom to refresh Slice and Dice. I'm just about getting a skills rotation down but the fights and spec means it's not as cookie cutter as combat swords was at 70 so expect a write up soon(ish) on what I do and the spec I'm going to use for raiding. Currently my spec is more suited for solo questing so when duel specs finally come in it may be worth switching between the two rather than anything else.

Right, time to decide which faction to champion first :)

(Over) Half way there

The questing continues and having blitzed through Grizzly Hills and heading into Zul'Drak, Crash finds himself at level 76 with some new abilities to try out and Cold Weather flying within stabbing distance.

I am going to be hitting up an instance with my guild so Tricks of the Trade is going to get some testing (and may be a life saver given I'm a few levels above the tank) so a macro is going to be required. Most people have recommended setting the tank as the focus target and then having a macro like this:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

However if I'm going to be sapping things, I tend to set the Sap target as the focus target so that Class Timers can show me how long is remaining on the crowd control. In this situation the following macro may be more useful:

#showtooltip Tricks of the Trade
/target "Tank"
/cast Tricks of the Trade
/targetlasttarget

The only disadvantage here is that there will be some loss of white damage whilst I'm not targetting the mob, and will need to be careful about how combo points are preserved when switching targets.

Finally I'm planning to switch back to mutilate, a blacksmith in guild has agreed to make me two Saronite Shivs which appear to be awesome for PvE so it'll be fun to go back and see how the changes in the Assassination tree pan out.

(Thanks to One Rogue's Journey for the details on the macros)

Raiding after the patch

Thursday is one of our normal raiding nights and true to form we tried to run one, however this time it was a chance to hit up some of the old world instances as an easier way to check everything was still working and get used to some new 51pt talents. Once the servers came back from an unscheduled shutdown we went in and downed Onyxia with no major hassles, though being able to spam 'Moar dots!!!' through raid warnings was great fun.

Once we'd turned the head in to Thrall, confusing a few people in and around Org we went off to kill some trolls in Zul'Gurub. Again this didn't cause any major hassles and soon we'd killed off all the Avatars and Hakkar himself. No mounts dropped sadly but we did get the achievements which does generate a large amount of spam when 15 people all get it at the same time.

Having completed the raids I have a few thoughts on how raiding is going to work (for us) until the expansion hits.

Raid addons
CT_RaidAssist is dead, it has ceased to be, and seriously screws up your chat window if you try to load it. In it's place we're running with oRA2 which provides all the same functionality and a little bit more. Suddenly raid votes and ready checks bring up a window showing who's voting which way.

Omen3 is the latest update to our favorite threat meter which now uses the built in threat information from the game. What this means is that the threat information is more reliable and should be able to cope with mechanics like threat resets, if we do something like the Nightbane fight this can be put to the test. There are also more information available during fights, such as when you're high on threat, losing threat, the mob is attacking you and if a mob changes target. Extra information is always good regardless of whether you're tanking, healing or dpsing.

Personal Addons
Most things seem to be working, and I'm taking the opportunity to have a clear out of addons which I no longer use or don't really need. Hopefully this will speed up some loading times and allow me to get the the occasionally mentioned, often done UI post.

The key thing at the moment is to get a working HUD up and running, ArcHUD2 is getting there but the latest build didn't show combo points properly which is a bit of an issue for a rogue. I'm currently playing with DHUD which shows everything I need but is slighlty different and not completely bug free.

Combat style
The standard 1pt S'n'D/5pt Rupture holds, but with a few new twists to the tale. My spellbook is currently inscribed with a Glyph of Sinister Strike and Glyph of Slice and Dice. The extra combo point generation and duration on Slice and Dice meant that I could refresh Rupture twice before Slice and Dice ran out. Not that I'd suggest trying this all the time but it's certainly worth considering based on the type of fight you find yourself in.

Now that a poisoned mob take a flat damage increase from everybody it's more of a requirement that there's at least one Deadly Poison debuff is on the mob. This means keeping an eye on the poison stack and using Shiv when appropriate to ensure it doesn't drop off.

Killing Spree is a lot of fun, as an AoE ability it doesn't really work on more than 2 or 3 targets, and jumping about all over the place can be a little disorientating. However on boss fights it's a good burst damage move and allows for energy regen whilst it's happening. Probably best that you do this right after a Rupture application to try and avoid any buffs dropping off.

Other than that everything seems to be carrying on ok, though with raid stacking buffs the huge number available now means you've gotta check very carefully to make sure you get the ones you want need.

Post 3.0.2 Spec

So with the patch going live it's time to look at how to spend all those refunded talent points and what the new bottom of the tree holds in terms of goodies.

I've decided to stick with combat swords for the moment mainly because I went all out once I had the S2 swords and had Mongoose put on both, a double Lightening Speed proc is a wonderful thing to behold and I'm not in a position to get my daggers up to the same level.

So without further ado here is the planned spec with explanation off the key points to follow.

Assassination (5 points)

5/5 Malice - Extra crit chance, key in any PvE build

Combat (51 points)

2/2 Improved Sinister Strike - SS spam for combo point building so make it cheaper
5/5 Dual Wield Specialization - Key talent for PvE builds
2/2 Improved Slice and Dice - Longer on S'n'D means more time to be able to refresh it
5/5 Precision - Key PvE talent, reduces need for hit rating
2/2 Endurance - Extra stamina and a reduced cooldown on Sprint and Evasion, very nice for soloing and possibly a heroic 15seconds of tanking a mob/boss.
2/2 Improved Kick - A personal choice mainly because I like the extra silence involved which can help the tank on a chain casting mob once Garrote has worn off.
5/5 Aggression - More damage from SS, enough said
1/1 Blade Flurry - Extra haste and a limited AoE, key in a combat build
5/5 Sword Specialization - Extra main hand hits, key talent that makes this combat swords :)
2/2 Weapon Expertise - Help reduce dodges from mobs (and to a lesser extent parries)
2/2 Blade Twisting - An interesting addition to a previous builds, but again extra damage for SS
3/3 Vitality - Quicker energy regeneration => more dps
1/1 Adrenaline Rush - Double the energy regeneration, not sure yet how this stacks with Vitality, time for some homework there.
5/5 Combat Potency - Extra energy, procs fairly regularly with a quick off hand weapon
1/1 Surprise Attacks - Make sure that Kidney Shot always hits home
2/2 Savage Combat - Raid support talent, just need to ensure that deadly poison stacks don't fall off.
5/5 Prey on the Weak - Increased damage for 100% of your dps time in raids (assuming bosses don't get heals)
1/1 Killing Spree - Another limited AoE or single target burst damage

Subtlety (5 points)

5/5 Relentless Strikes - Must have talent, see here

I'm holding off on a full 80 point talent tree, as it's already been said by Ghostcrawler that there's still some adjusting to do between now and the expansion release and almost certainly some more balancing to be done once the expansion hits.

Plus there's the whole dual spec detail to come with a decision on whether to have a PvE and a PvP spec, or a trash killing and boss killing spec, or a soloing and an instancing spec.

What glyphs to use?

So according to all indications patch 3.0.2 should hit this week (Tues for the Americans, Weds for us here in Europe) and with it comes the new profession, Inscription.

Alongside this level 70 characters will find themselves with the ability to have 2 major and 3 minor glyphs augmenting their spell book and with a variety of glyphs available which one's should the raiding rogue use.

I think the key one will be Glyph of Slice and Dice, however given this is the 2piece set bonus from the Tier 4 rogue set you may want to pass on this one while you've got the armor pieces.

Second to this will be Glyph of Rupture which increases the duration of Rupture. As the other key finishing move for raiding, increasing the duration of it will not only increase the damage from this finishing move but gives you a few more seconds to get that last combo point before refreshing it.

Assuming that you still have space for another major glyph at this point, your decision will be based on the spec you're playing with.

A combat swords rogue will want to take Glyph of Sinister Strike for the change for extra combo points, a combat daggers rogue will want to take Glyph of Backstab for the extra damage. Mutilate rogues will want to consider a choice between Glyph of Eviscerate for bigger damage when using this to refresh Slice and Dice or Glyph of Shiv to make it easier to get a poison on the mob before using Mutilate.

I've concentrated more on the damage glyphs as they suit the role of the rogue in current raid instances, the utility glyphs like Glyph of Sap and Glyph of Feint may well find place once we hit level 80 and get access to another major glyph slot. Also the dual spec changes that are coming with their different glyphs and hotkeys will certainly make things interesting and will be the subject of a future blog post.

Rogue 101: Stealth

There's been some discussion recently centered around the fact that rogues are getting something very similar to Misdirect in the form of Tricks of the Trade, whilst Hunters are not getting Camouflage because it was too similar to stealth and the developers referred it to a class defining skill.

Now I'm not going to go into the relevant merits of whether this is right or not, there's plenty of that here and on the forums but some of the comments about stealth were so inaccurate it's prompted me to write another Rogue 101 article.

So let's start by looking at the in-game description of this ability:

Allows the rogue to sneak around, but reduces your speed by 30%. Lasts until cancelled.

This is the current highest rank of stealth available (trainable at level 60), lower levels provide the same buff but have a higher reduction in movement speed. It is worth noting right at the start that stealth is not the same as Invisibility, any buffs (such as detect invisibility) that allow you to spot invisible targets will not help you spot a rogue in stealth.

To be spotted in stealth you need to be in front of the mob/player and close to them. How close depends on your stealth level compared to their stealth detection level. The general rule of stealth is that each level grants you 5 points of stealth and 5 points of stealth detection. So differences in level will be a big factor in how close you can get before before you're spotted. When sneaking up towards a mob, if you're spotted you'll get a warning as the mob makes a noise and turns to look at you, if you stay very still or back away you'll normally get away with it, otherwise the mob will attack and you'll lose the element of surprise.

An important thing to look for on a mob is an eye like symbol above their head which you can only see whilst in stealth. This indicates that the mob has the 'True Seeing" buff and will see you from a lot further out than a normal mob of that level. This is particularly important in dungeons and raids where there are more of these mobs and it'll negate the use of Sap as crowd control as you won't be able to get close enough to use the ability before they spot you and attack.

There are a few buffs that can be used to increase your stealth level which can be found on armor, talents or potions. Using these may allow you to sneak past higher level mobs or make you harder to spot whilst participating in a battleground.

Now that we know how stealth works and how it relates to other players and mobs, let's look at how we can use it during questing and playing in a group.

There are some key abilities that can only be used whilst in stealth:

• Cheap shot
• Garrote
• Ambush
• Sap
• Distract
• Pick pocket

Cheap shot is the standard opening move whilst questing which stuns the mob and adds two combo points.

Ambush requires the use of daggers but is great for burst damage either in PvP or soon in groups with the use of Tricks of the Trade on the tank.

Garrote adds a bleed dot and silences the target for a few seconds, this is a standard opener in PvE groups now, since the change making more mobs susceptible to bleed effects came into effect. Doing damage over time means that you're less likely to steal aggro from the tank in those first few moments of a fight.

Sap is the rogue crowd control which currently only works on Humanoids, but will soon be expanded to anything with a brain. Doesn't have a chance to break early and lasts 45seconds keeping the mob in place.

Distract causes mobs to look where you've put the distract. When used a targetting circle appears, everything in the circle will look at the centre of it should it not be resisted. Be wary of resists as you'll need to either wait for the cooldown or make another way round.

Pick pocket accesses a second loot table on humanoid mobs which always has some cash in it along with the possibility of some other goodies such as potions or junk boxes. Be vary careful using this before sapping as a resist on this will break you out of stealth and in the middle of a group of angry individuals.

The abilities we can use whilst in stealth as rogues are what make it such a core ability of the class. The fact that it's used to sneak around, bypassing mobs and getting the jump on opposing players only really scratches the surface of what it provides.

Do I need to spend 5 points there?

Whilst I've been mucking about a bit on the PTR (inbetween downloading patches) I've not really felt able to talk about the new talents and specs as they are still going through fairly big changes. Once you've got a handle on how things might work, things change and you need to re-evaluate whether the points are worth spending in a particular way and how it may affect your rotations.

One of the big changes that has been permanent for a while was the change to Relentless Strikes from a 1 point talent in the Assassination tree to a 5 point talent in Subtlety. As described in my post on energy and combo points, this talent makes the key finishing moves Slice and Dice and Rupture free when it procs, and it's a guarantee when you use 5 combo points on a finishing move.

Having to spend 5 talent points when you used to only have to spend 1 (and this is a key talent in any cookie cutter PvE build) made me look to see whether is was still required or whether other talents could mean you could spend those 5 elsewhere. For the purpose of this I'm looking mainly at the Combat tree as this has the Vitality talent which has changed from increasing stamina and agility to increasing energy regeneration by up to 25%. This means that instead of regenerating 20 energy every 2 seconds you'll regenerate 25 which will soon add up over the course of every fight. I'm also ignoring any procs of Combat Potency as they're a bit random and can't be relied on during a combat rotation.

So the question for me then was would the increased energy regeneration make up for the fact that your finishing moves no longer have a chance to return 25 energy?

In short no, and if you're not interested in my maths you can stop reading here and work out how best to spend the other 66 points you'll have at level 80.

Still here, ok, calculations are based around a combat style rotation of
1xSinister Strike->Slice and Dice->5xSinister Strike->Rupture
starting at 100 energy and using each ability as soon as you have enough energy to do so.

Once you've hit Rupture you're sat there with 0 energy and watching it smoothly come back. So the quicker you can get a combo point available for a Slice and Dice refresh the better and you'll need 40 energy to use Sinister Strike (talented). With all that in mind let's look at some figures for how long it will take till you can get that point:
Without Relentless Strikes

• Normal - 4secs
• Vitality - 3.2secs

With Relentless Strikes

• Normal - 1.5seconds
• Vitality - 1.2seconds

Looking at the results it should be clear that Relentless Strikes with it's 25 energy from the 5point finishing move beats the improved energy regeneration, though Vitality does look like it will add a nice DPS boost as you generate and spend combo points faster.

Rogue 101: Energy and Combo Points

The unique combat mechanic of the rogue class is the use energy and the generation of combo points. For anyone who's been more used to rage or mana which are just used in order to perform an action or spell things can be slightly confusing, and this is where this article hopefully comes in :)

Energy
The basic rules of energy are that you have 100 energy which regenerates at a rate of 20 energy every 2 seconds. Currently this appears in 20 energy blocks, however the next patch will change this to a much smoother rate of 1 energy every .1 second.

In the same ways that spells cost mana, rogue abilities cost energy and it's always a fixed amount for each ability. If you don't have enough energy then you can't perform that ability and an error message will appear in the same way as if you try to cast a spell when you don't have enough mana.

There are various items and talents which can affect energy regeneration which we shall look at now.

The first is Thistle Tea which is a special rogue only potion made via the cooking profession and gained by completing a faction specific quest. Up to level 40 it returns 100 energy and after that returns 100 - ((level-40) * 2) energy meaning that at level 70 it'll only return 40 energy, which is only really an emergency finishing move or a talented sinister strike so isn't seen very much in current end game raiding.

In terms of talents there are 4 major ones to be aware of (patch 3.0/WotLK stuff included).

1. Relentless Strikes - A tier 3 assassination talent which gives a 20% chance per combo point to restore 25% energy. In real terms this means that a 5-point finishing move such as rupture and slice and dice is effectively free as they cost 25 energy and are guarenteed to restore 25 energy due to this talent (5 * 20% = 100%). In patch 3.0 this talent is due to be moved to a tier 1 subtlety talent and will require 5 points in order to gain the same effect.
2. Combat Potency - Lurking at the bottom of the combat tree we find this talent which with 5 points invested in it will give successful offhand attacks a 20% chance to restore 15 energy. Now with slice and dice up you're going to be hitting the mob a lot (especially with a fast off hand weapon) so this will proc fairly often and allow for extra attacks sooner than initially expected.
3. Focused attacks - A new talent for patch 3.0 in the assassination tree which with 3 points in gives melee crits a 30% chance to restore 3 energy. This is very similar to the Improved Leader of the Pack heal on melee crit, but doesn't appear to have the hidden cooldown.
4. Arcane Torrent - One of the Blood Elf racial talents, currently restores 10 energy for every mana tap you've got stacked (up to 3). Come the next patch this is changing to restore 15 energy but is more likely to be used for the silence component when kick or gouge are on cool down.

Finally, I said at the start of this section that you have 100 energy, well it is possible to have more through a couple of means.

1. Vigor - Another assassination talent which increases your total amount of energy by 10 so with this alone you can go up to 110. More energy means more damage and given that Mutilate costs more than Sinister Strike an assassination rogue can always do with that extra top up. Patch 3.0 is moving this higher in the tree so we may see more rogues taking it for end game at level 80.
2. Gladiator's PvP gear - The 4-piece set bonus increases maximum energy by 10 so an assassination rogue could end up with 120 energy for double mutilate goodness in a battleground or arena fight.

Combo points
Combo points are gained in 1s 2s or occasionally 3s when you sucessfully perform an ability that grants them. If the attack is parried, dodged or misses then you aren't awarded the points so it's always worth checking to see whether the attack landed. Combo points are tied to a particular mob and you can have a maximum of five on that mob. Finishing moves consume the combo points and are generally more potent the more points that are used. This can be in the form of increased damage or a longer duration buff or a combination of the two depending on the move.

Each ability that generates combo points will generate a fixed number which is listed in the description but there are other ways combo points can be generated.

1. Seal Fate - 5 points into the assassination talent means that every combo point generating move that crits adds an additional combo point. The additional is the key point, a mutilate (which adds 2 combo points) that crits will add 3, which is enough to consider a finishing move if you need to.
2. Premiditation - A subtlety talent which adds 2 combo points which are available for 10 seconds or until used. Not having played a subtlety spec fully I'm not always sure of when to use this, but I suspect it would be useful for increasing the duration of a stunlock or ensuring a bigger eviscerate/envenom should you need to finish someone off quicker.
3. Initiative - Another subtlety talent and with 3 points spent in it gives you a 75% chance to add an additional combo point when using one of your abilities from stealth.
4. Ruthlessness - Back in the assassination tree, 3 points in this talent gives each finishing move a 60% chance to generate a combo point.
5. Netherblade - The Tier 4 rogue armor from Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon, 4 pieces of which will give your finishing moves a 15% change to generate a combo point.

A useful fact about 4 and 5 is that they are independant chances so when the random number generator is on your side a finishing move can generate 2 combo points and cost no energy (see above).

Summary
Energy is something that is always available and will always regenerate at a constant rate. It is used to perform abilities that generate combo points and spend them. Always ensure you have enough energy to perform the moves you need and wait for the energy to regenerate if you don't. Combo points are available on a use them or lose them basis on a single mob but the more you have the more powerful the finishing moves you'll be able to perform. When playing keep a watch eye on both how much energy and how many combo points you have at any one time.

I'm in

Characters have been copied successfully and were there when I logged into the PTR this morning. Crash (or Crshnburn as he's had to be called) has got a shiny new assassination spec to play with. Initial testing show it's a lot of fun, though I'm going to have to go up against something quite tough to make use of all the new talents and abilities.

Also going to have to hack in some addons, really can't cope without my Hud showing energy amount and combo point totals.

Stay tuned...

Things I miss when playing the other character

We had another of our weekly Karazhan runs last night and due to a surplus of tanking specced classes Medrare got to go as dps. With no other feral druids in the party I had the extra challenge of keeping Mangle and Faerie Fire up on the mobs being focussed on. It was a lot of fun especially as I was acting as raid leader again so had to run tactics as well.

Given that running around in Cat form is a lot like playing a rogue it got me thinking about what I miss from one class whilst playing the other. So here is a non-definitive list for each of them:

Rogue
Heals - Relying on food, bandages and natural regen can be slow and expensive at time. Linked with this is Improved Leader of the Pack with it's improved crit chance and heal every so often when you do crit helps you to do the Duracell Bunny thing and keep on going.
Instant pulling - Whilst stun locking and getting the first blow in from stealth is the way of dispatching a mob 99% of the time. That other 1% requires you to pull 1 away from the group to dispatch away from his friends who might be slightly upset with you. Throw or Shoot take time to happen plus the travel time which means that the bad guy has the opportunity to wander. Something like faiere fire means that you use it you know you're only going to pull the mob you're interested in.
Variety - When raiding or instancing the rogues job is usually the same in every fight, do as much damage as you can whilst not causing the tank a headache, an occasionally preventing a spell cast. Whilst you can tweak and perfect your rotation to try and eek out those last 1 or 2 dps after a while it can become a bit samey. With a druid, even a feral one you've got all the tools to heal and provide ranged damage, it's not the best but whilst raiding I've provided a combination of tanking/dps and healing all in the same run.

Druid
Interrupts - There is nothing more annoying that seeing a mob casting something that would cause a lot of pain should it complete. Whilst Maim can be used it does rely on not just having spent all your combo points on Rip and having the energy to use it. Having something else in Cat Form such as Kick would be fantastic.
Vanish - Not only great for dumping threat should you need to during a fight but when things get a bit tricky due to running mobs or things wandering in during the middle of your fight being able to trick them all that you're not there can be a big life saver.

Now this isn't a wish list for either class, just trying to highlight some of the key things each class can bring by noticing them when they're missing when you play a different one.

Now where'd I leave my daggers?

A few weeks back I posted my thoughts on what would be a good rogue build once Crash reached level 80. Now in hindsight I should have listened to BBB's advice and not got quite so giddy about the new information, but I fear I might be about to do the same again.

Latest posts on the beta forum has shown some really interesting news and changes which may have suddenly made me decide on who gets levelled first. I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail but the changes to mutilate just make me smile all over.

The removal of the positional element will make a massive difference to game play and style. Whilst 99.9% of the time the phrase rogues do it from behind is apt, there are times when it's not possible to be behind the target due to game mechanics. Think of the Romulo fight where he has a backward stab, Aran where he's spinning like a top channeling arcane missles at the ranged and Nightbane where you need to stay away from the tail.

I always enjoyed my mutilate build, it was a lot more technical to play, and it looks like the new talents are only going to complement that style of play. Having had Malchazeen in my bags for ages it might well be time to break it out for some fun (though I probably should get the S2 offhand again).

Once the patch hits the live servers I'll have a play and post what I come up with right here.

I have seen the comment asking for information regarding AP vs crit for feral druids and I'm working on it, but it's turning into a chunky theory crafting post so will take some time to put together, stay tuned.