I'm on a Boat (10 player)
1500 Dungeon & Raid Emblems
Must Deconstruct Faster (10 player)
The Crimson Hall (10 player)
New Videos
By Uncleleo | April 19, 2010
Screwing around this weekend I added a couple new videos.
Commence time wasting now!
First up is my druid alt Mandelbaum in Slave Pens, sped up to 400%
Next is Leo in Nexus, sped up to 500%
Initial Thoughts: Cataclysm Rogue Preview
By Uncleleo | April 9, 2010
Well the Cataclysm Rogue preview is up. I posted it early this morning. I have to say I was pretty impressed with my internal clock. I’m in the states on the east coast and I woke myself up about 2:45 am. Just in time to hit refresh a couple times and sure enough the Rogue preview was posted 3 minutes before midnight West Coast time. I wanted to give my thoughts on the preview.
I want to start out by saying that there is alot of pertinent pvp abilities in this preview. Since I don’t do much PvP, I was fairly dissappointed. I’m going to skip a couple of the PvP abilities and focus on some PvE changes. Believe me there is some QQing here. But at the same time I understand the tough job the designers have in coming up with great abilities for all classes and balancing classes and specs for both PvP and PvE. It’s no easy task and for the most part I applaud Blizzard for the job they do.
Tricks of the Trade to be nerfed – This one raised my eyebrow a bit when I read it. My opinion on ToT is it is our buff to the group. Every other class and spec has something to give to the group whether it’s a raid wide buff, an aura or a cookie of somekind. Rogues have Tricks. Our buff makes sure that tanks are gettig aggro, and at the same time offering damage increases to another melée during the actual fight. I was actually hoping Rogues might see their first raid wide buff or aura. But it doesn’t look like we are, so why is our only beneficial raid ability being nerfed?
Redirect – In a nutshell redirect is an ability trainable at level 81 and was created so that combo points are never lost. Whether you are just switching targets or a target dies you can always switch those combo points to a new target. As a mutilate Rogue we see uses for this all the time. As everyone knows Mutilate is a single target DPS spec and although we can put out decent numbers on multiple target fights it is no where near the single target DPS. This ability will be beneficial for any Rogue spec and both PvP and PvE but because of the CD it may be a situational ability and to me doesnt look like it will dynamically change anything we are already doing.
Along the same lines as Redirect, spells such as slice and dice will no longer have target requirements meaning instead of building combo points on a target we are basically building CP’s on ourselves for slice and dice.
Passive Attack Damage Reduction – In an indirect way this was already announced back at Blizzcon. The change to the haste stat should be efficient enough to achieve this goal. The fact that while not only affecting attack speed, haste will effect energy regeneration and in turn raise the number of special attacks done. Along with this Blizzard has made it known that they would also like to make capping such stats as hit and expertise a little tougher which would also lower the amount of white hits that are landing on a boss. Pretty simple and a welcome change in my opinion.
Lastly would be the mastery bonuses – Assassination continues with their poison damage with emphasis on crit. Combat would seem to be an overall heavy hitter and easier combo point generation, with haste as main stat. Sublety gets the heavy finisher as their mastery and will rely on Armor Penetration. I think I was expecting a little more emphasis on stats as mastery instead of the different ways each spec does damage. But do these stats look out of place to you? Assasination is reliant on poison damage, shouldn’t we be worried about haste for more poison procs? Combat is a beast all through their abilities wouldn’t they want to ignore as much armor as possible? Finally if your goal is to make Sublety dependant on big finishers, wouldn’t it be important to make sure those finishers are critting? I could be way off on this and if I am feel free to correct me.
So there it is. My initial thoughts on the Cataclysm preview. Looking back through all these changes I can’t help to wonder if Rogue’s will be having the same problems as they had in Wrath. I’ve got to think that from Expansion to Expansion alot changes with class and spec and there will almost certainly be different things for players to QQ about. The main fixes to Combo Points corrects the problems we have now but what will be some of the issues that arrise after Cataclysm drops. As we close in on the Beta I’m sure we’ll be getting more info that we can digest and more info on how exactly all of these stats and abilities will work.
Wow.com put up an article with some blue posts from Blizz that attempt to clarify some questions on the abilities.
What are your initial thoughts on the Preview?
Cataclysm Rogue Preview
By Uncleleo | April 9, 2010
Source Posted at 2:57am EST or 11:57pm PST. Ugh, O’well here ya go…
“In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we’ll be making several changes to class talents and abilities across the board. Here, you’ll get a glimpse at what’s in store for the rogue class, including a look the new high-level abilities and an overview of how the new Mastery system will work with the rogue’s different talent specs.
New Rogue Abilities
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.
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.
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.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
We’re also planning to make changes to some of the other abilities and mechanics you’re already familiar with. This list and the summary of talent changes below it are by no means comprehensive, but they should give you a good sense of what we want for each spec.
In PvP, we want to reduce the rogue’s dependency on binary cooldowns and “stun-locks,” and give them more passive survivability in return. One major change is that we’ll put Cheap Shot on the same diminishing return as other stuns. The increase to Armor and Stamina on cloth, leather, and mail gear will help with this goal as well.
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.
We would like to improve the rogue leveling experience. Positional attacks and DoT-ramping mechanics will be de-emphasized at low levels and then re-introduced at higher levels for group gameplay. We are also providing rogues with a new low-level ability, Recuperate, to convert combo points into a small heal-over-time (HoT).
To complement the change to combo points, non-damage abilities such as Recuperate and Slice and Dice will no longer have target requirements and can be used with any of the rogue’s existing combo points, including combo points remaining on recently killed targets. This will not affect damage abilities, which will still require combo points to be present on the specific target you want to damage. To coincide with this, the UI will be updated so that rogues know how many combo points they have active.
Ambush will now work with all weapons, but will have a reduced coefficient when not using a dagger. When opening from Stealth, all rogues will be able to choose from burst damage, DoT abilities, or a stun.
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.
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.
We are very happy with Tricks of the Trade as a general mechanic and as a way to give rogues more group utility, but we don’t want it to account for as much threat transfer as it does now.
New Talents and Talent Changes
In Cataclysm, the overall feel of each of the rogue’s talent trees will change, as we would like each tree to have a clearly defined niche and purpose. The talent details below are meant to give you an idea of what we’re going for.
Assassination will be more about daggers, poisons, and burst damage.
Combat will be all about swords, maces, fist weapons, axes, and being engaged toe-to-toe with your enemies. A Combat rogue will be able to survive longer without needing to rely on Stealth and evasion mechanics.
The Subtlety tree will primarily be based around utilizing Stealth, openers, finishers, and survivability. It’ll be about daggers, too, but less so than Assassination.
In general, Subtlety rogues needs to do more damage than they do today, and the other trees need to have more tools.
Weapon-specialization talents (for all classes, not just rogues) are going away. We do not want you to have to respec when you get a different weapon. Interesting talents, such as Hack and Slash, will work with all weapons. Boring talents, such as Mace Specialization and Close Quarters Combat, will be going away.
The Assassination and Combat talent trees currently have a lot of passive bonuses. We plan to dial back the amount of Critical Strike Rating provided by these trees so that rogues still want it on their gear.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Assassination
Melee damage
Melee critical damage
Poison damage
Combat
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Harder-hitting combo-point generators
Subtlety
Melee damage
Armor Penetration
Harder-hitting finishers
The initial tier of rogue Mastery bonuses will be very similar between the trees. However, the deeper that a player goes into any tree, the more specialized and beneficial the Masteries will be to the play style for that spec. Assassination will have better poisons than the other two specs. Combat will have very steady and consistent overall damage. Subtlety will have strong finishers.
We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we’re looking forward to hearing your initial thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.
Cataclysm Stat & System Changes: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23425636414&sid=1
Mastery System Preview: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23710210871&sid=1“
Rogue Rubberneckin’
By Uncleleo | April 5, 2010
Quick Disclaimer; If you’re not an Engineer or have no interest in being one in game then this post will probably waste 5-10 minutes of your life.
I tend to enjoy checking out (rubbernecking) other Rogues not only on my server but also ones from other top level guilds to kinda see what the flavor of the week is. See how gemming is changing and also see if anyone is having the same problems as me and ways to fix it. Well I stumbled upon something this week that makes me feel like a total noob again. The fact that my engineering has been useful for me ever since I hit 80 and I haven’t been using a single one of the raid applicable enhancements. Sure I use my Jeeves and my portable mailbox for raids. Hell every now and then my gnomish army knife will even bring someone back from the dead. But there are a couple things I completely overlooked when gearing my Rogue. So if your a 450 engineer and a Rogue there are 3 things that may be helpful at 80…
Nitro Boosts – Chances are you’ve seen those toons with the fire under their feet hightailing it through a major city. These things not only add 24 Critical Strike rating but also give you a speed boost if you ever find yourself in trouble in a raid. These also provide a great CD when doing PvP.
Hyperspeed Accelerators – These things are great. They add a CD to your bracers that can be used multiple times during a fight. This gives you 340 haste rating for 12 secs when activated and with such a short cool down, a minute, this is a no brainer for a Rogue engineer.
Frag Belt - This doesn’t seem all that great for raiding, but the fact is it’s a free upgrade as you can have this and a belt buckle attached at the same time so you lose nothing by adding this to your belt. I personally haven’t mastered when this is useful but I’m sure I’ll find an occasion or two where I can squeeze it in. In my opinion I think this is mainly useful for the stun mechanic but would probably only work leveling/questing or maybe on Faction Champs in ToC.
So if your not an engineer I’m not saying go out and spend tons and tons of gold to level engineering. Basically I’m saying if you made the mistake of starting with engineering and can’t see yourself dropping it, then you might as well be useing it as much as possible. I personally look at my engineering as a trophy, being one of the most expensive professions to level, I’m proud to say I was able to get it to 450. As much as I’d love to drop it for Jewelcrafting or Enchanting I just can’t see myself doing it.
My tip for you, go Rubberneckin’ and check out some of your fellow Rogues as you never know what you might find.
Your Healer Will Love You, Feint
By Uncleleo | April 1, 2010
I spoke a little about Expose Armor a couple weeks ago but I wanted to draw attention to another Rogue ability that may need to be dusted off as you head into ICC. Feint; Performs a feint, causing no damage but lowering your threat by an amount, making the enemy less likely to attack you. In addition, reduces the damage you take from area of effect attacks by 50%.
I know what you’re thinking, what do I care about Feint. I thought the same thing. But recently our raid composition has changed and we’ve been running 10 man ICC with two healers. Because of this we’ve seen a few more deaths then we used to. So I find myself using this ability more and more in ICC to take a little pressure off of our healers.
The threat reduction is really not that useful for raiders, pretty much because by the time you realize you’re going to get aggro you’re either dead or tabbed to a new target anyway. Plus your Vanish is your ultimate aggro drop.
The part I want to talk about is the 50% damage reduction from area of effect damage. There are a couple of fights where this ability is very important.
Let’s start with some trash. The trash in ICC is often considered a joke. Therefore dieing to this trash may cause doubt in your uber abilities by your fellow raiders. Right off the bat in ICC you’re gonna run into some trash called The Damned. Although while alive they don’t provide much danger to melee, when killed they let out a flurry of bones that do quite a bit of damage. If there is only one dieing at a time this damage is manageable, but as multiples die at the same time you may be eating some dirt very quickly. So I like to tab till I get to the lowest health target and feint when he’s about to go down. This just ensures that instead of taking the full hit I’m only taking a little bit just in case another one decides to blow up shortly there after.
Second boss I use this on is one of the mini bosses in the second wing of ICC. Stinky. This little bugger likes to do an ability called Decimate bringing all raid members health down to 15% of your maximum. If your group is unlucky he may let out an aoe effect shortly after, dealing 4.5k finishing some melée off. Feinting right as Stinky decimates insures that your healers have a full 4-6 seconds to get your health up to an acceptable level, all depending on when Stinky does his next aoe attack.
Lastly is Blood-Queen Lana’thel. This chick is pretty healing intensive as every one of her phases, she causes tons of raid wide damage. I pop feint on every cooldown here to minimize the effects of Shroud of Sorrow which ticks for 4,000 shadow damage every 3 secs. It’s something that is unavoidable in the fight so minimizing this damage will help you when you get picked for other abilities such as the Pact of the Darkfallen or during the air phase where you take some direct damage from Blood Queen through Twilight Bloodbolt.
Unfortunately I have not progressed past the Crimson Halls so I’m not sure in what other areas feint may be useful but I know in these three situations feint has become another CD in my arsenal. Many people feel that using feint is a waste of energy as you could be pew pewing. But as we all know a dead dps does no dps so when your healers are stressed and need a little help, feint may just be worth it.
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