The gnomified population of Azeroth as documented by my “print screen” caps.

musik :
L’Heros by “The Pinker Tones“
From the 2007 album More Colours: The Million Colour Revolution on Nacional.
(via KEXP song of the day)

Thanks to the sobbing idiots who can’t play thier classes or use trade skills but keep an open eye on what ever others are doing, blizz has quietly nerfed the rogues once more in the patch. This time, by moving the chests in Mech a few inches so it will be impossible to kite the mobs the way we used to in order to farm the chests.

Some called it an unfair advantage to rogues, other, like me, just thought its a good rogue play. After all, we suppose to be a class of quiet sneaking thives. That’s the dictionary defenition of the Rogue class.

Apparently blizz is not that into backing up the lore of the class. Just like the way the lore can change when they want to make some easyRL gold by creating another expansion. In Azeroth, lore is not carved in no stone.
This is the kind of corporate thinking that I truly hate in RL. Never go an extra inch outside the sells-department box. Always have to keep everyone happy and smiling, as long as they seem to be the majority of the paying customers according to the graphs.
thank you blizz for reminding me that this is an RL enviroment with some poligones to cover the mediocre thinking of the mainstream customer.

Come to think about it, if the moving of some virtual chest, bound by XML to some virtual happiness, makes me that angry, maybe its time to leave azaroth for some RL time. After all, this is just a video game. Isn’t it?

There are many ways to play our leathery class in raids. Those tips are based on personal experience as a combat dagger rogue, and I hope to get more tips and advices on other specs and styles.
This guide is an open draft and is edited when ever I have the time.
Any contribution will be welcomed through the comments.

Maximizing your damage

Rogue’s damage is what gives him the precious raid spot.

1. You probably have heard this before but I’d rather be safe then sorry – SPEC COMBAT.
   There comes a point in every end gamer’s life when he must choose raid or PvP. If you have decided to be a raiding rogue, go combat.
   I know that you like the cool mutilate or the ability to sneak past any white faced human in AV, but Combat is the best raid DPS spec for most gamers.
   While combat swards spec suppose to be the best and subtlety maces considered the worst possible for raids (and in this combination – for anything), you should always find what’s best for your gameplay and flavor. Combat is known to work well for most raiding rogues.
   More about rogue builds: http://www.wowwiki.com/Rogue_builds
2. Combat daggers works best with a fast off-hand. If your off hand is a 1.8 speed, I think (but not sure) that mutilate is the spec for you.
3. Stack +hit gear.
   1. Because you need it to fight higher level mobs such as those you will meet in raid instances.
   2. Because it’s the only stat you can’t get buffs, chants or food for. Hence, you must have it on your base stat.

   Your +Hit goal should be 200 to 320, depending on your build.
   More info and math about the +Hit statas can be found here.
   And a forum thread about +Hit rating – here

4. Forget about Eviscerate. Acquaint yourself with that long forgotten Rupture. Mobs and bosses, which are not immune – should be ruptured.
5. Options for weapon enhancements:
   - When you have a shammi in your group that can cast Windfury - use it.
   - Adamantite Sharpening Stone – always keep a stack of those.
   Both of those options are very good against any poison immune mobs and bosses, and Windfury is a good option to have at anytime if you have a shammi.

Extensive theory and math crafting :
http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/The-WoW-Alley/Raiding-Rogue-Information-by-Myrx/

PVE Rogue Starter Gear:
http://shadowpanther.net/starter-pve.htm

Maximum DPS Armor Chart:
http://shadowpanther.net/armor-max.htm

Agro/Threat control

When grouping and raiding, the tank’s job is to get agro and let the DPS classes do their work. Unfortunately, in the first raid you’ll do, e.g Kara, your tanks will not always be the best they can (just like you will have a lot more to learn). When grouping with a tank who has hard time maintaining agro, you must know how to deal with your argo generation.
While soft mages or purple priests must take a step back and hold on their fire, so not to make the boss too angry at them, we can burst full DPS, then feint or vanish, and do it again in just seconds.
Agro control is a key to be a good raiding rogue.

1. KTM (or the new and improved Omen) will tell you when that trash mob is about to turn its deadly force to your delicate (but good looking) leather suite. Agro meter such as those 2 is not an option but a must have.
2. Anesthetic Poison – it may not give as much damage as the instant poison, but will do extra damage without the extra threat, therefor allow you to put an overall more damage.
   (again, that is off course unless the boss is immune to poisons)
3. Using Vanish, when you’re agro is too close to the tank, will allow you to restart the damage dance, but it has the 3-5 min cooldown.
4. Use Feint if your agro gets too close to the tank and vanish is on CD.

Add ons

Must have

1. Damage meter/SW Statas – evaluate your output compared to others.
2. Fubar DPS (or any other personal DPS counter) – evaluate your net output. Some addons will slice your dps by the ability used and other details.
3. KTM / Omen – To help you manage your threat levels.
4. eCastingBar – customize and mobile your enemy and personal casting bars. Will help when you most needed – to stop casters Etc.
5. DOTimer / CCWatch – timing your CC’s. It’s good to know when that sapped mob is about to wake up and go looking for you.
6. Deadly Boss Mode – will help you know when to COS, run away, stop DPS or any other action you need to take in any boss fight.
7. CT_RaidAssist – Everything you wanted to know and configure about your raid group display and info.

Good to have

1. Outfitter - when you need to switch arcane resistance gear, or go from PvP to PvE, in a click – you know you want this add on.
2. AtlasLoot - if you want to plan your time and look for gear drops where you might get them
3. TrinketMenu – not a must, but its nice to be able to switch trinkets with 1 click.
4. SpamSentry - keeping your raid channel clean is pretty important even with voice chat.
5. NugieComboBar / Archud or any other tool that will place your CP right up front.
6. EquipCompare - make faster loot rolling decisions when you can easily comper it to your current item.
7. ElkBuffBars - I like those for showing me all my debuffes clearly.

There are planty more recomanded addons – for your bags, proffessions, poisons, loot and any other aspect of the game and it’s interface. Those listed are just the addons you will want, or must, have in a raid.
To find more addons you can visit – http://wow.curse.com/downloads/
(again, any suggestions, recommendations and well written opinions ar more then welcome)

Interface design

Personally i like to have the crucial data in the center and move any none battle necessary items to the corners, or top.
I need to have immediate data such as threat and mob health in my main focus (the green circle in the picture), without loosing eye focus. That’s very important when every millisecond of unfocused eye work can be crucial. I disable any non relevant combat text (such as heals gained or damage dealt). I have even removed the group icons from the raid interface and cleared it a little more.

The two main points to a good interface are:

1. Clean - the less on-screen data, the faster you process the data you do have.
2. Data placement, from the center outward – according to it’s importance and battle relevance.

An example to the second rule is that in a fight where I need to interrupt spells (R&J, High King Etc.), the target cast bar will be placed in a centered position, and be moved to the bottom in any other situation. Same with centering the debuff floating frame when debuffs are relevant (Heroic Mech Mechano-Lord Capacitus Etc.).

General

1. Always keep a stack of 20 from each of the main poisons rogues can use.
   Anesthetic Poison is good to deal damage without the agro penalty.
   Deadly Poison the favorite off hand poison of most rogues. Just don’t use it in a CC rich environment or you’ll have your group gratitude for some nasty wipes.
   Instant poison should be used whenever agro is not an issue.
   Wound poison is good against almost any boss with self healing capabilities, from Romeo’s biatch to the blind seer and beyond. Don’t forget about it.
   Crippling Poison is good in vary rare ocasions (such as Moroes add kiting), so it is good to keep a stack of it anyway.
   Mind Numbing is useless in most raiding situations.
   More about poisons and uses – here
2. Make sure you have the gold.
   Raiding can be expensive, from repair bills to regents and mats. An average raid can cost you 20g-50g or more. Don’t get to learn a new boss fight and wary about your repair bill and don’t come unprepared to a raid just because it requires gold. There are many ways to make gold, and if you are good enough player to raid, you should be good enough player to take care of the farming/trading/grinding side.
   What ever you do, remember that buying gold is the lamest way to make it, and that you often expose yourself to threats such as Trojans, account hacking and just plain cons.
3. Go heroics whenever you can. I know it’s a general recommendation and not a rogue specific, but do it. Heroics can gear you, by collecting the Badges or with some of the boss’s loots. Bloodlust Brooch and Searing Sunblade are two of the best items you can get in their slots till Gruul and beyond. I use the Sunblade even after Romeo’s biatch was kind enough to supply me with her nifty little offhand dagger (1.3 speed goes great with my play style).
4. Everyone will tell you to never leave home without some 10, or more, healing pots. Also to keep some Agi pots, Relentless flasks, or what ever redbull keeps you going.
   I’m just adding some sneaking potion to your grocery list.
   It’s good to have those, especially for a combat rogue, for any sneaking and recon missions you might need to do.
5. Read this guide to bad rogueing, be honest with yourself and find out what have you done wrong. It’s never too late to mend.
6. Don’t take anything you read on the web for granted – always try for yourself, use damage meter and find the best spec/tactics combination for your gear and game style.

Any other suggestions and tips are always welcome.

Additional info:

how to lrn2raid – more for the raiding rogue:
http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/07/25/encrypted-text-how-to-lrn2raid/

Kara, Gruul and Magtheridon strategy guide for rogues:
http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Guides.Detail&id=230

Useful info and links:
http://www.gameriot.com/blogs/The-Rogue-Compendium/

Thanks for the rogues who donated criticism and info at the official forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=2043716553&sid=1

Thinking about it, there is only one solution to our constant nerfs – we should stand and protest against the upcoming Haste NERF.

Here are a couple of suggestions for a non violent effective protest, in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi (a priest, not a rogue, but a wise men non the less)

1. Every day at 5:00pm – 5:05PM server time (on each server) , rogues, furi warriors, and anyone else who feels that this nerf will effect him, should dance nude in the main cities central locations. Places like the bank fronts of Ironfourge or Stormwind and the Hoard’s equivalent.

If you support it and want to take part, just spam your local trade channel some time before 5pm. Let people know to come and let them know whats its all about.

2. Create toons named “Nerfnomore” on each realm and bring them to lead the dancing.

3. Spread the word.

Any other suggestions will be welcomed. Its time to stand for your right to top the charts! Hell, someone will be there anyway – so why not us?
Remember that unlike a nature disaster – NERFING CAN BE STOPPED!

The constant nerfing of rogues is going yet another step on in the coming patch – the haste rate nerf.
It seems as if blizz is trying to turn the rogues into peons or just to get rid of this class. So, being a sporty kind of rogue, I’ve decided to give Blizz a hand and write down some more suggestions to be implemented on the next patches. Follow them, and you’ll have no more rogues by the time the dreaded Death Knight will start to roam around.

How can blizzard nerf the rogues even more

1. Leather is too OP, rogues should wear clothes.
2. Vanish is an unfair advantage. It should have a 30 min cool down and a chance to increase threat by 500%.
3. Off hand damage should be reduced to 10%. 50% is just too high. Main hand should be penalized two, just to make things even. I’d say that 60% damage is good enough for a main hand.
4. Lockpicking can have a chance for the item, being picked, to explode and cause 9000 area damage.
5. Average price on Super Healing Pots is just 3G, Blizz should change the ingredients again to include at least 1 primal air.
6. Hit rating hasn’t been nerfed yet. Hint hint, nutch nutch, say no more, say no more.
7. The number of Combo Points required for each use should be doubled.
8. Back stub should require 100 energy.
9. Evasion may have a chance on use to leave the rogue naked and stunned. Just to make evasion tanking so much funnier.
10. And last but not least – “Rogue” is a too powerful word. The class name should be changed.
    I suggest “Scarecrow“, to reflect the fact that our powers are being taken away and still there are some fools being afraid of us and constantly asking blizz to nerf rogues even more.

But hey, i shouldn’t just bitch.
Thank you Blizzard for Increasing the frequency and amount of Blinding Powder drops.

Quick Tip III – Switching alchemy mastery

“WARNING! You can only select one alchemy specialization.”

When you first get the alchemy mastery quest, the giver warns you that there will be no turning back.
But, if you’re stuck with pot mastery (and not that nice rl one) and you want to make some gold from your profession, maybe even get a nice epic flayer, you will have to make the switch.

How do you switch alchemy mastery?

Simple, yet costly. Just go to the alchemy master who gave you the initial quest, and ask him nicely. For a bribe of 150G he will be kind enough to remove your current mastery. Then, you can just fly to the location of your desired mastery and learn it. No need to do a quest again. With 2 xmute procs – you will cover the cost and even have some left to buy those Fireworks you always wanted.

Note: please remember, and take under consideration, that Master of Elixirs is very useful for raids and guilds.

The masters can be found at:
Elixir Mastery : Shattner City (Terokkar Forest)
Transmute Mastery : Stormspire (Netherstorm)
Potion Mastery : Cenarion Refuge (Zangermarsh)

Alchemy quests (for more info)

And yet another idea from all that time waiting for the vanish cd to end.

Sneaking Potion – always keep some in your bags (if your combat or muti).

Mech farming being the rogue national sport, it gave me a small business idea. Had a couple of Dark Leather Gloves made by a leatherworker and sold them for 10g a pop. You can still get failed lockpicking, but your chances are better wearing them.

Now, hopefully my instance entrance count was reset and i can go farm the next round.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And if your a 70 rogue and don’t know what Mech chest farming is, check out:

• YouTube guide (Just look on the Related links and you’ll find a ton more clips)
• A Thread about it at the official forums
• Some low life whine about it in the official forums

A couple of days ago my guild died. It was a fairly new raiding guild, with good players and really bad management. I made the mistake of sticking with it to the end. Other guildies started to look for a new home a couple of weeks before the sad end, since the crash was pretty visible in the horizon. As a result i found it much harder to find a new guild since most of the good raiding guilds on our server don’t have an opening for a rogue anymore. The last ones was taken by my quicker ex-fellow rogues from the dead guild.

But, I’m not here to bitch about it but to give you some thoughts about guild shopping. Specially if, like me, you want to switch server on the way. In my case, I want to take this opportunity and switch to an eastern time server with more suitable hours.

How to look for a new guild at a new realm

Step 1: Look for optional realms, cut down to your preferred timezone and population size at:
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/realmstats.php?sort=UTCOffset
The timezone is self explanatory, but the population size is important since it effects several key issues -

• The bigger the population – the more possible guilds. Most small servers will not have high level raiding guilds, which has gone further than gruul or SSC. Depending on your level it can be an advantage or disadvantage.
  (* note – this is based on a number of servers I have checked through WowJutsu, as step 2 will explain)
• More buyers means stable economy, cheaper prices and better availability on high level mats and trade goods. Also, a bigger market for your goods, if you craft any.
• Bigger population means more options, if you will not like the guild you’ll get into – you have more chances to find another without hopping to another server.
• Bigger community means more competition. On a heavily populated servers you will have more competition on any open spot in the best guilds.
• If your into a PVP realm – see if your side has the majority, minority or is the server balanced.
• And the obvious – Blizzard doesn’t approve realm transfers to heavy populated realms.

Step 2: Look up the server at WowJutsu, check out the guilds list and see which of them has progressed as you would like.
If you come from a guild that just starts Kara, don’t even think about a guild which is farming SSC and going through Hyjal, and if you have downed void reaver a couple of times, don’t waste your time on a guild that still cant down Moroes.
WowJutsu may not be accurate to the point, and it does miss some guilds, but it can give you a good range of guilds to check in each server.

Step 3: The armory. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but its the next logical step. Check out the guilds you like, see how many players they have of your class and spec. The guild statistics page will give you all the info you need.
As an example, if your a rogue, and they have more rogues than priests, chances are that you will get a polite rejection no matter what your gear or raiding history is.
You can see if they have high percentage of 70’s or a few 70’s and a ton of alts or just lowbis. This info , for example, can give you the initial taste of the guilds spirit.

Step 4: Create a toon on the realm you’d like to check. Use the “WHO” screen and fined players from the guilds you like. Start talking to them, ask general questions about the guild, raiding hours, average ages or any other info that can help your decision. Ask them about the recruiting policies and the guild’s web site (if you couldn’t google it before). You can try to find your class officer and talk to him.
* Remember to pst players who are in main cities only. For god’s, and your own, sake – don’t pst someone who’s in BT and start asking him about the guilds loot policies.
Nine out of ten replies to the question “may i bother you with some guild questions?” will be “sure“.

I can tell you that from a mage in one the the best looking guilds, according to the first 3 steps, i heard that the guild is about to break if they can’t down Gruul in tree days. And here goes my application…
I also had the only rude replay from a priest in one of the coolest looking guilds. So the forth step is incredibly important to do before you try to apply to any guild (which you don’t know any of its members).

*Note – while your there, take the time to check out the AH as well. Check the prices of items you craft or you often buy and compare them to the price range at your current realm.

Step 5: Applying to the guilds that made the cut. Go to their web sites, read the forums a little, the recruiting instructions, the guild’s info and rules, any thing you can. Get the final impression at how the guild presents itself. Then, try to apply with the five most favorite guilds you listed. Know that guilds will be less likely to recruit a player from another server which non of their members have played with before. So in this kind of application, your written skills, at the application form, may be crucial, fill it carefully and thoughtfully.
Remember that it can take a couple of days to get replies so be patient.

GL and may the schwartz be with you.

Related

How Blizzard monitors realm populations
Population Balance
Realms FAQ @ Blizzard

What are you looking for in a new server

Quick Tip II – Make more of your Ogri’la dailies

If your an alchemist and your doing the Ogrila daily quets – when you banish deamons – do it on the Abyssal Flamebringer on the south side, at Forge Camp: Terror.

The reason is that those dudes drop the recipe for Major Holy Protection Potion. A recipe that will come handy on the maiden (if your just starting kara) or on the AH.
Doing your daily quest on then can save the headache of a mindless grinding to get this recipe.

As with any major prot recip, using it a couple of times should teach you to make the Cauldron of that prot pot, which is always nice to have.

• All Ogri’la info at Wowwiki