Dirty Deeds: A Rogue Story

"Will of the Forsaken now shares a 45-second cooldown with similar effects, including the Medallion of the Horde, Titan-Forged runes, Insignia of the Horde, etc."

Seeing how I just changed my rogue from a Blood Elf to an Undead this change is somewhat upsetting at first.  But, then I got to thinking about it.  Being able to break a fear, charm or, sleep affect and still being able to trinket immediately afterward was a bit unfair to fear classes.  And this will not go into effect until 3.3 anyway if it makes it out of the PTR.  I tend to believe that it will.

Now a 45 seconds cool down really isn't that bad.  I haven't run into too many occasions yet, where you need to go back to back with WotF and trinket.  I would still prefer WotF over any other racial for a rogue for the simple fact that it is now a second trinket for most situations on a 45 second cooldown and a 2 minute wait before you can use it again.  I know that sounds odd but, you know what I mean.

I'm sure you'll read a lot about this change both people praising it and condemning it but, in the never ending pursuit of 'balance' it is a change that had to be made.  And remember that with Cataclysm most racials are going to be changing anyway.

Dueling is rare on my server.  You hardly ever see anyone outside of Orgrimmar or in the sewers. So when I saw an unusual message in trade chat it caught my eye.  I can't remember exactly what the message was but, basically someone (an affliction lock) was looking for people to duel outside of Org and, he wanted to bet on the duels based on the gear difference.

I finished up what I had been doing and headed over to find about five people outside.  From what I remember that ties the most I've ever seen outside Org.  It looked like no one was actually betting but, the lock was repeated asking and making fun of those who didn't want to.  I just sat and watched for a while as the lock destroyed everyone who came up to him.  One thing I noticed immediately was how hardly anyone was wearing PvP gear.  The lock himself only had a couple pieces of deadly on. Not really all that surprising on Staghelm I guess.

Finally, I stepped up and challenged the warlock to a duel.  Ten seconds later it was over, he was on his knees and, I was hardly touched.  He said, "Finally, some competition" and, wanted to bet on our next match.  I declined saying that I wasn't much of a betting man.  We dueled a few more times.  These matches were all closer but, I came out the victor in each of them. 

I told some guildies in vent what was going on and, they all couldn't believe I didn't wager after our first duel. But, I just didn't see the point in betting on a duel.  To me duels are practice, if you bet and someone wins anything worth while they are likely to leave; in fear of loosing what they have won.  Instead of staying and having some more matches.

Have you ever seen people betting on their duels? Would you or do you bet on your own duels?  What do you think about it?

Either with a faction transfer, server change; or completely re-rolling.  There are a few things to consider when choosing your new home.

First I would recommend taking a look at this list: http://www.wowwiki.com/US_realm_list_by_datacenter.  Choosing a realm with a near by datacenter (or the datacenter that you have the best ping to) is very important as a rogue.  Rogues are very twitchy class where a lot of our success can be determined by reaction time. Adding another 240ms ping to those reactions will not help.  You can also see what time zone each server is and what battlegroup they are in.  Find a realm where your ping is low and that is in a time zone where the server's peak hours match your play times. The best way to do this is to try out the realms on different datacenters at different times in both the starting areas and in a major city.  If you ping ever spikes on a certain datacenter you may be better off looking elsewhere.

Next thing I would do is head over to a server census site like: Warcraftrealms.com.  There you can see what the Alliance to Horde ratio is for the server you are thinking about moving to.  Just keep in mind that all information for that site is submitted by players, if no one submits data, the data will be off.  I would suggest finding as balanced a realm as possible.  It is rarely fun being vastly outnumbered.  And being able to roll the other faction consistently gets old after a while also.

Finally, spend some time on your chosen server before you transfer any existing characters there. It is amazing what you can find out about a server just by spending a little time in Trade chat.  Although rarely will you find any huge positives in Trade; you can find out if you can handle the negatives.

So you've chosen a Realm that you like.  Part2 will cover racials; specific to the rogue class.

My rogue alt on Blackrock had his first experience in world PvP today.

I was in STV at level 30 working on the first of Hemit's quests.  Killing the tigers and panthers working my way over to the raptors when I spot a human warlock working his way around the area. I finish off the panther I was working on and stealth a little bit closer to get a better look.  He was a level 35 warlock with no heirloom gear. I decided that even with my heirloom advantage five levels would be too much to make up so I back away and start my killing of raptors a little ways off.

About five minutes later I had just finished killing two raptors and was at low health so I eat and stealth.  Just as I was about to move on to the next raptor I get a dot thrown on me.  I quickly duck around a nearby corner and I see the same Human Warlock a few yards away.  I gouge the incoming Voidwalker, sprint to the warlock and interrupt his immolate cast. I start to build combo points on him with Sinister Strike. I get feared, Will of the Forsaken out of it, Kidney Shot and, start again.  His next fear I took but, was able to vanish his shadow bolt.  After a bit more back and forth I killed him only to die from his Dots before I could drop out of combat to eat.

It was a rush and I'm sure the battles will only increase as I gain levels and move to more populated zones.

About the Author
I have been playing games since I was a kid.  I started with Wolfenstien 3D.  And have played anything from Doom, Descent, Medal of Honor and, countless console games among others.

I started WoW in February of 2008.  I bought the battle chest after a boring night out and gave the free trial an hour before I bought an account.  I tried all of the classes for about 10 levels and settled on a Hunter.  I raided during BC and into 3.2 with my hunter.  During this time I also leveled two other characters to level 80.  A Protection Warrior and an Enhancement Shaman.

With a change in my work schedule I started a Refer a Friend account and leveled a rogue.  I had tried a rogue before and I didn't care for them.  This time though, I was hooked.  I guess it was the first few levels that turned me off on a rogue at first but, as soon as I got into the level 20 range I just could not stop playing.  With a guild change also came a change of mains and I now raid on my rogue.

About the characters
I currently play two rogues.  A level 80 rogue on a PvE server and I have started another rogue on a PvP server.

Korzik - is a level 80 Male Undead Rogue on the PvE server Staghelm.  I raid with Bound who's guild leaders host the podcast, Rawrcast.  I have also just started to play in Arenas and am working on refining my play in PvP.

Akruz - Is my rogue alt on the PvP server Blackrock.  I started this character to help myself with maximizing my PvP play.  Blackrock is currently the top Horde Arena server.  I have never leveled on a PvP server and I am actually looking forward to the experience.

You can expect a few stories and experiences from both of my rogues to show up here along with opinions and thoughts on the rogue class overall.

Atraira did an incredible job with this movie.  The editing and story telling in a boss kill movie are the best that I have come across.  While the movie is obviously not strictly rogue related I think it is worth a watch for everyone. The movie is dividing into 3 parts.

Part 1

Part 2




Part 3




I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.  And please head over to Atraira's YouTube page to let them know your thoughts as well.

Here are some of my favorite rogue macros for both PvE, PvP and, Utility.

#showtooltip Deadly Throw
/Cast Deadly Throw
/Cast Throw

Is a great space saver macro.  This will use Deadly Throw if you have combo points on the target, if not it will use your thrown weapon.  For leveling rogues or, if you have more than one ranged weapon for different situations.   You can add the line /cast shoot at the end to use your bow/gun also.



#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt] Eviscerate; Envenom

I use this macro for my PvE Mutilate spec.  Sometimes while questing/farming or even rarely during raids a mob will almost be dead but, you haven't gotten a Deadly Poison up yet.  Hold Alt and this macro will switch to Eviscerate instead of the standard Envenom.


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

Great for raids.  Set whoever you will be wanting to cast Tricks of the Trade on as your focus using /focus with them targeted.  And this macro will cast TotT on them without ever deselecting your current target.  Not only is this macro convenient; it is also a DPS boost as you will not loose any white attacks due to switching targets.  And for PvP you can just replace the [target=focus,help] with [target=(teammate name)] and get the same benefit while keeping your focus frame available for an enemy target.


#show sap
/cleartarget
/targetenemy
/cast sap

A PvP macro that will clear your current target, attempt to find the closest target and, sap them.  What that boils down to is that this macro is a spammable sap macro very useful for fining enemy stealthers.  Any PvP rogue should have this macro on their bars along with standard sap.



#showtooltip Mutilate
/startattack
/cast Mutilate

((If you are combat just replace Mutilate with Sinister Strike)) This macro will start your auto attacks on a target even if you do not have the energy to perform your yellow attack.  This will save you those couple of seconds waiting on energy and will make sure you are at least white hitting your target.


#showtooltip Stealth
/dismount
/cast [modifier: shift] Stealth; !Stealth

A spammable Stealth macro. This macro will dismount you and put you into stealth.  No matter how many times you hit after you are in stealth it, will not de-stealth.  If you want to exit stealth, hold down the Shift key and press the button.  I personally like to have the /dismount in there for quickly and easily getting off of my flying mount. Just be careful hitting this if you are flying at any altitude.


#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] blind
/cast [modifier:alt, target=focus] blind
/stopmacro [nomodifier]

This Blind macro will Blind your current target by default.  Or you can hold down the Alt key to blind your target.  This is a great macro for Arenas.



#showtooltip
/use [nomodifier] Wound Poison VII; [modifier:alt] Deadly Poison IX; [modifier:shift] Instant Poison IX; [modifier: ctrl] Mind-numbing Poison
/use [button:1] 16; [button:2] 17

And this All-in-one poison macro is one of my favorites.  One action bar button for all of your poisons.
By default this macro will show Wound Poison.  Hold down Alt for Deadly.  Hold Shift for Instant.  And hold Ctrl for Mind-numbing.
Click the button with your left mouse to apply shown poison to your Main Hand and click with the right mouse to apply the shown poison to your Off Hand.


All of these can be edited to fit your keybinds or play style.  Such as changing the modifiers.  It is as simple as just changing a line like: [modifier: shift] to [modifier: alt].

If you would like to learn more about building a macro, I highly suggest http://www.wowwiki.com/Making_a_macro   as a start.  Macros can be confusing or intimidating but, knowing what they are capable of doing and how to get the most out using them will greatly increase not only your gaming experience but, also your play.

In case you haven't seen the Tier 10 Rogue models.

• Rogue T10 2 Piece - Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
• Rogue T10 4 Piece - Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.

 The 2 Piece is amazing and will make Assassination that much more of a combo point game.  Being able to do two Envenom back to back occasionally will be great. Just try not to overlap the Envenom buff too much to maximize the chance of extra Instant Poison procs.
The 4 Piece is just as nice as Tricks of the Trade is an ability we use every cooldown, or at the very least during any 'burn' phase.  Getting energy back instead of spending energy for this ability will be very nice and, a much bigger DPS boost than it may appear at first.

(Update: it appears as though MMO or Blizzard had the set bonuses reversed. What I have listed as 2 piece is 4 Piece and vise versa)

To Dirty Deeds: A Rogue Story.
I hope to fill this blog with stories and thoughts from both of my rogues. One is a raiding rogue on a PvE server and I just recently started another rogue on a large PvP server.

This is my first ever blog so expect to see a lot of growth in the blog as time passes. So be sure to let me know what you like and don't like!