A Rogue's Diary

Last Minute Cooking Leveling!

wrthofnino — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 08:00:02 +0000

Thought I’d repost this from last year, it is an invaluable rundown of power-leveling your cooking during the Pilgrim’s Bounty from Wow.com.

For anyone out there playing ANY toons that do not have 350 cooking skill, please read this immediately! ~~Ok, so this is like, last minute~~, but I needed to put this out there so anyone reading might have a chance to take advantage of this, (which I will be doing RIGHT after I publish this post).

Per. a post at WoW.com and a rundown given by a poster at Wowhead.com , during Pilgrim’s Bounty, (~~ending tonight at 11:59p server time… that’s in like 8 hours!!~~), you can easily level your cooking from 1-350 for as little as about 10g in mats, (either vendor mats or easy farming right next to vendor).

Yah, so for all you slackers out there, you have NO excuse to not have at least 350 cooking, (well, actually, you would if you just found out about it or didn’t log in during Pilgrim’s Bounty.

So, here is the quick version rundown, (all recipes from holiday vendor):

Level 1-60 – Buy recipe for Spiced Bread, buy enough Simple Flour (vendor) and Mild Spices (vendor) to make 80 bread and cook away.

Level 60-100 – Buy Bountiful Cookbook to obtain Spiced Stuffing recipe, use spiced bread from previous leveling and Autumnal Herbs (holiday vendor).

Level 100-160 – Buy Pumpkin Pie recipe, buy honey (holiday vendor) and Ripe Pumpkins (~~Darnassus~~ Stormwind holiday vendor).

Level 160-220 – Buy Cranberry Chutney recipe, buy more honey and Tangy Cranberries (IF holiday vendor).

Level 220-280 – Buy Candied Sweat Potatoes recipe, buy sweet potatoes (Darn holiday vendor), honey, and Autumnal Herbs. (Note, you should buy all your pumpkins and lots and lots of sweet potatoes with one trip to Darn).

Level 280 – 350 – Buy Slow Roasted Turkey recipe, buy more sweet potatoes and honey and acquire turkeys from farming in Elywnn Forest.

That’s it! Some running around and minimal farming/gold and you too can be a cook! Just hurry, like I said, it ends in just 8 hours!

/cook

T-11 Previews and Commentary (All Classes)

wrthofnino — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:18:32 +0000

Direct from Totalbiscuit, T-11 previews and commentary on all classes. Also, Cata is almost here! Decided it’s time to come back and start being active again ;) More to come!

For your convenience, shortcut links to the different class previews movie times:

Warlock “Shadowflame”

Mage “Firelord”

Priest “Mercurial”

Druid “Stormrider”

Rogue “Wind Dancer”

Shaman “Raging Elements”

Hunter “Lightning Charged”

Paladin “Reinforced Sapphirium”

Death Knight “Magma Plated”

Warrior “Earthen”

YSERA DOWN! YSERA DOWN! Completely unrelated non-rogue video CAUSE I’M BORED.

wrthofnino — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:51:43 +0000

Yes, this is my baby priest Sanguis on Ysera, exploring the uncharted wilderness ;) Took the video about a week ago, so this is definitely live, (well, it would be if the server was up :P (Yes, I know it sucks and has no music… my first video on YOUTUBE EVAR… I’ll looking into some video-editing software soon and maybe get into it, was pretty fun, (big thanks to Wegame for not gouging me for the free in-game video capture, unlike some OTHER well-known capture solution, (*cough FRAPS *cough $35.00 *cough).

Ok, so the obligatory “why I haven’t been writing” paragraph… been called on by my guild to basically have two mains… that’s right, both Ray and El have been pulling double-duty… and with that and my per-Cata priest project, haven’t had much of a chance to comment on all the rogue “developments” for Cata. (I put the quotations around “developments” because we know probably 50-75% of what is out there right now on BETA will get twisted and changed come the live release anyways).

I’m still here, still reading all your great WoW and Rogue related blogs, so keep up the good work rogue/Wow community, cause this rogue is semi-afk from the blogging scene until Deathwing makes his grand appearance ;)

New Cata Rogue Talent – The “Sneaky Watson” ;)

wrthofnino — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:04:24 +0000

Just got word that rogues are getting a new talent in Cataclysm called the, “Creepy Watson”. Check out the demo.

Basically, we move in the broad day light WITHOUT BEING SEEN MOVING… like a NINJA!

Also, based on this movie:

SUGGESTED VIDEO (thanks Ian) – “The Weeping Angels” – Dr. Who

;) i wish. [addendum: especially that “Weeping Angels” bit, THAT would strike fear into a few people in BG’s! – when opponent facing rogue, becomes completely unharmable, as soon as they look away/turn their back, +200 speed boost and +2000 AP… THAT would be crazy OP and a top tier subtlety talent!]

Just so ya’ll know, I have been raiding still, working with my guild into ICC progression still, working on my Paladin, which substitute heals ICC progression, and leveling my Priest shadow to 80 before Cata… so I’ve been busy but not necessarily only on roguish stuff ;)

ERROR! Guildlaunch Website Still Down

wrthofnino — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:39:33 +0000

Wow… Guildlaunch website still down. If your guild hosts with this service like ours, you’ve been SOL for the past 36hours. They are indicating some type of DB corruption and restoring a backup, but wow, you would think they would have a better plan in place to keep downtimes limited… still waiting :P

In the Still of the Night… (in Which Elentari Comes Late to the Party…)

wrthofnino — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:38:33 +0000

Well, probably about 2 hours after I edited my post last night lamenting Blizzard’s lack of following through with their deadline on posting proposed changes to the rogue, those sneaky bastards at Blizzard channeled their inner rogues and posted the rogue changes right before midnight PST. Pairing that with the fact I worked all day today, I am not posting my reaction much after most other rogue bloggers have already thrown their two cents in.

But yah, I’m still gonna do it ;) Please please comment and point out things that perhaps you like about this or parts that I have misinterpreted, this is all still pretty darn new, (ie. less than 24 hours old).

Quote:

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

This was SO needed! The FRUSTRATION of building 4-5 CP only to have your target die not only kills your DPS but pisses the CRAP outta ya. While most rogues will pull off that last second finisher, there are times where your party is crittin’ the hell outta something toward the end and you just don’t get it in. Also nice that we can use Slice and Dice on these points… so we can easily carry our CP over to another mob quite a bit away and start up our Slice and Dice without having to Mutilate first. (I mean, if it drops… if it’s still up you can Mutilate the hell outta it). I assume that there will be some type of start-up limit, (like TotT), where you will have to use your redirect within a certain timeframe before making the CP points nul.

Quote:

Combat Readiness (level 83): Combat Readiness is a new ability that we intend rogues to trigger defensively. While this ability is active, whenever the rogue is struck by a melee or ranged attack, he or she will gain a stacking buff called Combat Insight that results in a 10% reduction in damage taken. Combat Insight will stack up to 5 times and the timer will be refreshed whenever a new stack is applied. Our goal is to make rogues better equipped to go toe-to-toe with other melee classes when Evasion or stuns are not in play. This ability lasts 6 seconds and has a 2-minute cooldown.

Umm… I MIGHT be reading this incorrectly… but if each stack of this buff gives 10% damage reduction, would that mean all 5 stacks would give a 50% damage reduction?!? FINALLY, I’ll be able to kill that pesky Prot Paladin!! 30 sec. total uptime makes this SLIGHTLY less OP… but yah… unless I am totally reading this wrong… we are going to have a much more viable survival mechanism! As far as PVE application… probably only helpful for when you come “toe-to-toe” with some adds during a boss fight, (Rogue Tank anyone? Probably not.)

Quote:

Smoke Bomb (level 85): The rogue drops a Smoke Bomb, creating a cloud that interferes with enemy targeting. Enemies who are outside the cloud will find themselves unable to target units inside the cloud with single-target abilities. Enemies can move inside the cloud to attack, or they can use area-of-effect (AoE) abilities at any time to attack opponents in a cloud. In PvP, this will open up new dimensions of tactical positional gameplay, as the ability offers a variety of offensive and defensive uses. In PvE, Smoke Cloud can serve to shield your group from hostile ranged attacks, while also drawing enemies closer without the need to rely on conventional line-of-sight obstructions. Smoke Cloud lasts 10 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown.

No more LOS pulls!?! Oh Oh, suddenly you WANT us on your raids and dungeon runs for our UTILITY again?!? I see how ya are. Pretty awesome applications for PVP too, but even though he hasn’t posted about it yet, I’m sure he will, so I’ll leave that writeup in more capable hands.

The rest of the changes are tweaks and changes to existing mechanics of the rogue class… however you will apologize if I don’t deal with the PVP aspects as I haven’t been much into PVP lately and leave these abilities reactions in more capable hands.

Quote:

In PvE, even accounting for active modifiers like Slice and Dice and Envenom, a very large portion of the rogue’s damage is attributable to passive sources of damage. Yes, they are using abilities for the entire duration of a fight, but we want to reduce the percentage of rogue damage that comes from auto-attacks and poisons. More of their damage will be coming from active abilities and special attacks.

So people in Blizzard finally found a way to nerf Assassination rogues to the point that they will (probably) no longer be THE PVE spec of choice… with the lose of our white and poison damage vitality, you might think that haste will no longer be stacked… however I have heard rumors that haste will increase energy generation, but that wasn’t confirmed in this release… we’ll keep our eyes out for these changes.

Quote:

We are also providing rogues with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT).

I’m sorry… but who in there RIGHT MIND would convert DPS pounding CP into SELF-HEALING?? MAYBE this might be viable if your Redirect is on cooldown and this ability has a VERY LOW energy requirement, or maybe leveling… but DURING a raid situation, would there really be any time in which we would STOP DPS’ing to heal for a “small heal-over-time”… Gift of the Naruu before the SLIGHT buff a few patches ago? no thanks, that’s what healers are for :D (ok ok, before all the healer hate, would you seriously look for me to BANDAGE myself in the middle of a fight??)

Quote:

As we’ve done recently with some of the Subtlety abilities, we want to make sure more rogue abilities aren’t overly penalized by weapon choice. With a few exceptions (like Backstab), you should be able to use a dagger, axe, mace, sword, or fist weapon without being penalized for most attacks.

More weapons for Rogues. Cool. Didn’t almost every other class already have this? :P Gee, thanks Blizz.

Quote:

Deadly Throw and Fan of Knives will now use the weapon in the ranged slot. In addition, we hope to allow rogues to apply poisons to their throwing weapons.

So yah, that makes sense… BUT HOLD ON! Did they say our poisons could proc?? Does that mean if we continue to get energy regeneration from talents and gear, that if we FoK into a group, and some of the get a Deadly poison proc… we could get energy regen from it?? HEH HEH. I’ve been reading some of the other posts, and supposedly this is something that already happens with talents… (guess I don’t use it enough to have noticed :P), maybe making this universal? Maybe a big change, maybe not.

Anyways, those are my kneejerk reactions for now: if you want more, check out these other Rogue Community Blogger’s reactions to the announcement today:

Slice and Dice – Cataclysm Rogue Changes – New Talents
RogueRogue – Rogue Cataclysm Class Preview
Rogue Raider – Rogue Raider Buffs
Eviscerate Spam – Evee’s Inner Thoughts on Rogue Preview
Azure Shadows: – Rogue Cataclysm Preview Musings
DPS For Dummies – Initial Thoughts: Cataclysm Rogue Review
Kill That Cheerleader – Rogue Preview
D. of Ravenholdt Manor – Proposed Cataclysm Rogue Changes
Forever A Noob – Cataclysm Rogue Preview
Blame Squelchy – The Cataclysm Rogue Preview

Did I miss your preview reaction? Leave a comment below and tell us where you put it, gal’darn it!

THE WAITING… MY GOD THE WAITING…

wrthofnino — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:26:24 +0000

OMG OMG! This is freaking killing me! So we have gotten the Cataclysm class previews for Shammies, Locks, Priests and Warriors… and Rogues are on tap for tomorrow (sorry, I”m losing track of time, it’s hopefully later TODAY!!).

Let’s hope the abilities and changes aren’t, well, LAME.

My wishlist includes more ninja-y-like abilities like being able to walk on tree branches and water, (without sprint and the glyph… ie. all the time), and the ability to dodge incoming projectiles all “matrix” like.

Here’s hoping!

(UPDATE: OK, so it is now April 9th and still no news… you guys are killing me here… I hate you Blizzard… hate you so much…)

Fool Me Once…

wrthofnino — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:31:42 +0000

Notice.

Today is April 1st, otherwise known as April Fool’s Day.

Therefore, don’t believe a DAMN thing you hear related to WoW as far as upcoming patches, changes, or other news related to huge changes within the game.

It simply won’t be true today. As most of you know, Blizzard and it’s affiliates are NOTORIOUS for pulling cute little, eye-rolling “practical jokes” on their players today, so turn off your news-feeds for the day and let it go.

April Fool’s “Jokes” from Blizzard from Yesteryear:

2004– Two-headed orcs playable by two players at the same time.
2005– An announcement in-game food ordering w/ Panderen Express.
2006 – Blizzard announces a nation-wide food chain. New playable races… WISPS! Also, these EVIL patch notes.
2007– Tinfoil hat. All posts on official forums are blue posts.
2008– New hero class! The Bard! Nihilum Disbands!?
2009– Dance Battle System!

ADDED: 2010– E.P.E.E.N. (Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number)

Blizzard - "Fooled you!"

Wow.com’s Rogue Rage, a Month Later

wrthofnino — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:18:23 +0000

As many of you may have read about a while back, I wrote a bit of a reaction post to a blog post over at WoW.com’s Encrypted Text entitled The Art of The Gank in which the author, Chase Christian, wrote about being rogue-y in PVP. As you probably remember, one specific line got many in the rogue community a bit up in arms:

“Don’t neglect to kill lower-level players either, drilling a healthy respect for the opposing faction into them early will make them more likely to PvP when they’re fully grown.”

… which lead to some pretty lively discussion on ganking lowbies and general differences between PVP- and PVE-realms. (Rogue Diary original post here).

Yes, I am a Care Bear... and I'll stab you in the eye if you got a problem with it.

Well, the comments died down about a month ago, so I assumed that was the end of it, until today: from first impressions, it appears the author, (or someone posing as the author), of the original WoW.com post left a comment earlier today.

You’re absolutely right when you mention that the article was pointed on purpose. I mix a few different ideas into my ideal concept of ‘rogue’, and one of those is the ‘assassin’. I spend most of my time talking about PvE and how to top the damage meters, but that completely leaves out an entire aspect of the class. Like it or not, stealth itself implies ganking (surprising opponents with force).

I look at ganking as a blitzkrieg instead of killing lowbies. There’s nothing wrong with killing low level players, but I’m also not saying ‘avoid level 80 players’. I mentioned that we should kill lowbies TOO, not solely. The fact is that without a healthy amount of respect and fear between the factions, we may as well be playing World of PvE Craft.

Rogues aren’t holy or virtuous. Look at where they put our trainers in major cities: the shadows. Look at the names of our abilities: Murder and Dirty Tricks. Look at the mechanics of our class: stealth and ambushes. We are known as gankers because we approach unexpected, and players feel cheated that we surprise them. I have no problem perpetuating that ideal if it keeps the blood flowing from the Alliance and Horde.

To which, I of course responded:

… and AGAIN I’ll say it… I have NO problem with ganking a character of comparable level. I think all to often we “carebears” are made out like we abhor PVP, which in most cases just simply ISN’T the case. I TOTALLY agree that rogue class mechanics are slanted towards sneaky surprise attacks, and I have no issues with trying to keep “the blood flowing from the Alliance and Horde,” but the whole point of my reaction was to question your methods of making it happen, (ie. specifically ROFLPWNING lowbies).

What I and alot of other rogues took offense to was the fact that a person who has been put forth as a principal voicepiece of the rogue population was calling out a “hit” on defenseless opponents worldwide. I was/am one of many rogues out here on the interwebs that feel your comment put forth a perception of an ignorance that not all rogues attribute to, and only served to throw gas on the already raging rogue hate-fire.

Murder, Dirty Tricks, etc., do they make us awesome? OF COURSE they do, but my argument is that they only make us awesome when we can use them on a balanced, (albeit hopefully SURPRISINGLY one-sided), battlefield between opponents who can defend themselves to a certain extent. You know… when SKILL might be involved?!? Using these abilities on lower-level players do NOT make us awesome, they make us lame; the equivalents of bullies on the digital playground.

I question what kind of honor there is in this type of behavior, and therein lies the issue: PVP and PVE realm players simply do not see eye-to-eye on this issue, (see the 15-odd comments before yours between myself and Pitrelli as proof), therefore, you will continue to stay on THAT side of the playground and we will stay on ours, and we will continue to agree to disagree on this subject.

I do, however, want to thank you for taking the time to comment. I understand that, as the author, you may or may not have meant for that to be the main point of your blog post, but the perception of a single word or phrase can EASILY shift the focus of an entire argument, and I think that is exactly what happened. I agree with/enjoy 99% of what you write as a regular reader of Encrypted Text, but it was that other 1% that I think alot of us could have done without.

On a happier note, since our little digital spat more than a month ago, Pitrelli and I called a truce and now enjoy each others blogs, so peace can be had between players like us… we just can’t play WoW together >.<

Umm... no particular reason to post this... just my guild messing around in ICC :D

So a month later, this comment tells us at least two things:

This is an issue that isn’t going away anytime soon. While I respect the opinions ever ANYONE who chooses to post on this issue, I can also say that I honestly will never understand nor condone this type of behavior.
If this IS the ACTUAL Chase Christian, then I find it a bit amusing that, after a month, he is still posting defenses to his original post… especially on little, hole-in-the-wall blogs like little ol’ mine :D BUT, I also understand and respect the fact that when an author makes a statement, he/she has every right to defend their original thoughts to the fullest of their abilities… but the rogue hate-fire continues to burn hot and bright, and the reaction to this post will be a hard thing to shake.

New Feature! AH Speculation!

wrthofnino — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:59:54 +0000

I am not going to deny my true nature any longer.

While I’m a roguish character by heart, I also moonlight as an AH speculator, (i.e. trying to predict market changes before hand to maximize my AH profits), and I am going to add just a little sidepage to this rogue blog that speculates patch and trend changes to the Auction House economy on your average WoW server.

Entitled “AH Buy/Sell” on the top right corner of the screen, this page will be updated whenever I feel there is a noteworthy change to some commodity of interest in the WoW market. These changes are driven almost exclusively by patches and content changes, so my updates to this page will be driven by the changing market.

Click “AH Buy/Sell” on the top right of the page, or click the link below to see my most recent recommendations.

https://roguediary.wordpress.com/ah-buysell/

Also, I’ll post here a notification of any changes to this page so my RSS feed friends can check it out :)

/PROFIT!