World of Warcraft - Killer Instinct Fulgore reference

I don't know if you've noticed but Vul'gor is a reference to a Killer Instinct character, Fulgore. Below is a picture of him. Notice the claws on each arm? Hehe just in case because he was one of my favorites in that game.

Rogue Tier 17 bonuses

Blackrock Foundry is going to be opening soon but who cares about the new encounter? Its time to start thinking about the tier set bonuses. Here they are:

•  Item - Rogue T17 Combat 2P Bonus: Increases the chance for Revealing Strike to generate an extra Combo Point by 10%.
•  Item - Rogue T17 Combat 4P Bonus: Your finishing moves have a 25% chance to generate 5 combo points and cause your next Eviscerate to consume no Energy.
•  Item - Rogue T17 Subtlety 2P Bonus: While Shadow Dance is active, your abilities cost no Energy.
•  Item - Rogue T17 Subtlety 4P Bonus: For 5 sec after Shadow Dance ends, your finishing moves will refund 5 combo points.
•  Item - Rogue T17 Assassination 2P Bonus:Mutilate and Dispatch critical strikes restore 10 energy.
•  Item - Rogue T17 Assassination 4P Bonus:Envenom refunds 1 Combo Point and activates Blindside

Hmmm I hope that I get my tier pieces soon! Nothing beats being able to put out more damage

Raiding Highmaul as a Rogue

Raiding as a rogue and viewing the trends of fellow rogues has proven that the subtlety rogue is now a viable option for raiding. Its odd really but in Mists of Pandaria, the subtlety rogue still was ranked the highest in the DPS charts with the combat rogue coming in first and the assassination rogue coming in last based on sources like Noxxic and Icy-Veins. Despite it being the highest DPS spec it just didn't become the top raiding spec in Mists due to a couple of reasons.

The tier bonus of the Siege of Orgrimmar gave a combat rogue a shorter cooldown on damage enhancing skills, shadow blades and adrenaline rush. Along with that, the attack speed was greatly enhanced by Haste in Mists of Pandaria. With Haste being the main secondary stat of Mists of Pandaria, the combat rogue gained more damage up time then a subtlety rogue could. Another reason why the combat rogue didn't have issues like damage per second was because they could maximize their abilities more easily compared to a subtlety rogue that was limited from using backstab as a primary damage dealer since they had to be directly behind the target.

With that the combat rogue dominated encounters like the spoils of Pandaria, Protectors of the vale and Garrosh himself.

That though is a different story in Warlords of Draenor. The combat rogue's haste has been turned down a notch and was increased on the most recent hot fix if I'm not mistaken. With haste's effectiveness lowered, the all important auto attack damage that accumulated the DPS charts of a combat rogue gradually reduced. Shadow blades has been removed and subtlety rogues now can use backstab as the position requirements have been lifted partially and can be used on the sides of the bosses. Now with the subtlety rogue giving as much attacks as a combat rogue, the importance of that all important burst comes in to greater value thanks to Multistrike giving the rogue more chances to trigger critical blows. The AOE rotation of a subtlety rogue also helps as its just fan of knives and crimson tempest.

Oh the bliss of being a subtlety rogue is now an option for raiders and PVP'ers alike. That's why I'm currently running a Subtlety / Combat rogue right now. The secondary stats easily mesh and it depends on the current weapon and trinket. That is for now...Once Blackrock Foundry is out, the tier bonus will kick in and the higher i-lvl crafted gear will change things. I hope not too much though because I'm enjoying subtlety right now.

The beauty of World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

I've been busy since my last post but I've decided I needed to make time to post about World of Warcraft so I just wanted to share this picture of beauty as I was fishing in shadowmoon valley.

Rogues in Highmaul

It's been quite a busy week now that the gates of Highmaul are open both for the raid and the LFR and I've had a chance to go into LFR, normal and heroic. If any of you have attained your silver damage medal as a DPS rogue (That's the only spec we can do anyway)  you will find that normal and heroic raids have a very similar feel to the current heroic dungeons.


I'm happy really as I don't feel that my class is weak in anyway and that I'm crucial to the team instead of tunnel visioning into pure DPS mode. I was surprised though that a subtlety rogue performed better than me as a combat rogue and I think that it's time I went subtlety. I'll first gather all the critical pieces for my set so I can become the class that I can start using to spam content. I still feel though that the combat rogue will be used for most PVE content but I want to start using subtlety for raiding and only switch to combat in the event I will have to AOE. The reason for this desire to play subtlety is because I want to beat other DPS specs that have a crit centered build. I found myself being outdone by those classes because of the difference in damage given. Well here's to getting all the parts I'll need.

World of Warcraft - Warlords of Draenor - The combat rogue talents - Venom rush

In a earlier post I stated that shadow reflection was the level 100 talent for the combat rogue.

Alot of posts and guides though recommend that venom rush is the talent that is recommended. Of course I believe that isn't wrong because venom rush is useful since you are given additional energy and potentially more energy regeneration due to 3 targets having venom rush on them giving you a 15% increase (maximum energy increase from the talent) but you're not always in fights that would provide you with multiple targets. Which is unfortunate but it makes me wonder if that 5% increase and an additional 10 energy would provide you with the additional DPS on a sustained single target fight that most raids and dungeon bosses turn out to be.

In those situations I would then lean onto shadow reflection as the best choice for burst damage instances as a rogue. Albeit it'll be much harder if you are not going to be a good melee and miss out on the opportunity due to mechanics but that's the dance we can now take as a combat rogue as blizzard realized that not having the ability to control our insight phases was weakening our overall damage. For those of you who aren't aware we can move from each insight phase by using 4 Eviscerate's. This is important as you can maintain a insight phase longer because you know how many will need to be used and you won't need to worry so much about keeping the insight phase up because each Eviscerate will cause the insight phase to refresh it's timer but this only applies to the first 2 phases because the last phase will not refresh it's timer.

I don't feel any loss from not having shadow blades because now I'm more focused on maintaining the phases alongside ensuring that I'm using my energy efficiently. This is a good move really because it adds depth to being a combat rogue because during mist of Pandaria's siege of orgrimmar days, I was finding it extremely easy to raid, and give damage but on the long run would have been boring for a competitive player and move onto a more challenging spec like subtlety or worse... Another class altogether.

World of war craft: The state of combat rogues and the current heroic dungeons experience

A week after the launch of Warlords of Draenor, I'm now level 100 and working on the needs of my garrison and overall character.

It's funny really.... After raiding seriously in siege of orgrimmar, I can feel importance of crowd control abilities as I'm not able to carry the rest of the dungeon group in DPS. Time to gear up seriously and run encounters on a regular basis. At least I know now where I can get my gear from thanks to the dungeon journal.

The experience of reaching level 100 and replacing my tier equipment is somewhat like a step back from how my character felt during the siege of orgrimmar days. I'm back to casting my abilities slowly as the 4 piece tier bonus is gone. I liked the way it felt though being able to throw out my abilities continuously to reduce the cooldown times of my main damage causing abilities. It tempts me somewhat to go back to my mythic gear just for that because I feel oddly weak in heroic dungeons.

Thing is weak is a unfair term because I understand that Warlords of Draenor has been tweaked so that you aren't just being a silly DPS crazed character pumping out damage. Instead you're supposed:-D  to be managing the fight with a balance of helping out the healers by taking less damage by staying out damage causing phases or areas. Then their is doing your role and making sure you use crowd control and interrupts. I feel this is most noticeable now as DPS to the healers as its not like my health is constantly being maxed out for the fight.

In a way, now I understand what the developers were aiming for in Warlords of Draenor because the tuning is supposed to make the gaming experience "engaging" for MMORPG players and to constantly keep the world of war craft  fan base on their toes. So far I'm enjoying my experience in Warlords of Draenor and have much to expect from it.

The Warlords of Draenor level 100 rogue talent tree

2 days till the Iron horde of Grommash Hellscream attacks Azeroth. As a combat rogue, I'm excited to see what my questing experience will be like since I'm partially mythic geared.

Replacing gear isn't going to be a problem but I'm more concerned about what skills I will be taking from the level 100 talent tree.

The 3 talents are probably organized for each spec from left to right in this order,  Assassination, Combat, and Subtlety. The Assassination spec is dependent on mastery which boosts it's poison so the potential of strengthening them further would do that. The combat spec is dependent on the burst damage that can be churned out in the most important damage dealing phases and being able to do it again without energy or combo points is going to be perfect. As for subtlety, it's a critical damage spec with a emphasis on position so being able to throw out splash damage while possible will be the key.

The 3 talents are:
1. Venom rush (Assassination) - Increases your maximum energy by 15. Increases your energy regeneration rate by 5% for every enemy you have poisoned, up to 3.

2. Shadow reflection (Combat) - Summon a shadow of yourself on the target that will watch you and memorize your offensive ability usage for the next 8 sec. After this time, it will mimic the memorized abilities on its target over the next 8 sec.

3. Death from above (Subtlety) - Finishing move that consumes combo points on the target to empower your weapons with shadow energy and perform a devastating two-part attack. You whirl around, dealing up to (133.3% of Attack power) damage to all enemies within 8 yds, then leap into the air and Eviscerate your target on the way back down, with such force that it deals an additional 50% damage.

Death from above sounds like a perfect gap closer in PVP and you are immune to CC so that can help in both PVE (possibly) and PVP. This has only been confirmed for PVP and not PVE as far as I know. Anyway another point I want to look into is, does this ability proc criticals? Meaning does crits affect abilities like this? If so the giant DPS boost might be what I'm looking for, as it has a pretty big chance of being my go to skill for subtlety which I will be trying to use for PVE raiding in Warlords of Draenor.

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - Earning cash during the iron tide - Legacy raids in 6.02

While running around, I realized how the older raids got nerfed to the point that my 574 combat rogue can now solo 25 man runs. Ones that were particularly easy was the Firelands and Assault on Ice crown.

I easily got 2k from going through them and now I will go through it with my 573 monk to get more xmog gear and gold :D

Hopefully all of you will try raiding cata raids. This post will be short because I want to eat but I'll elaborate more in my next post.

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - Earning cash during the iron tide - SOO and Fortune Cookies

Its already quite close to Warlords of Draenor but I just wanted to share with you the things I've earned gold on.

While going through a quick heroic run on one of my alts. I noticed I had earned 700+ gold from just running through the Siege of Orgrimmar. Now I tried it on normal difficulty and earned roughly around 500+ gold. Thats pretty decent considering that the repair bill was covered by the guild but if you're in a decent group that knows what its doing. You can literally gear up toon's and earn gold as you enjoy the last few runs in the Siege of Orgrimmar for awhile.

Another thing that has recently caught steam is the Fortune cookies learnt from cooking trainers. The fortune card that drops give the chance of getting the 5000 gold card that people are dying to get. So am I but I think it'll earn more of a profit if you just sell the card and fortune cookies on the auction house because I'm pretty sure the gambling addiction of players can't be appeased especially if the possible reward of 5000 gold is at stake.

Unfortunately a patch has just updated the timeless isle frogs from dropping the Wilted Lilypad. Oh well. Good bye mini gold farm.

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - The Binds on account shuffle

Now that there is a buff so that each character is guaranteed a binds on account weapon, it has become the joy of every single raider now to run their class thru the siege of orgrimmar in hopes of getting a coveted mythic or heroic weapon that will carry them through the Warlords of Draenor.

Personally I find this exciting as I will at least have a weapon I can use for the overall questing experience of Warlords of Draenor. What I'll be doing is going through every nook and cranny, so I can enjoy this zone in all its glory like Mists of Pandaria.  I didn't get to appreciate going through out lands as my priority was to get to the cataclysm level since I started playing wow during the latter months of that expansion.

To my surprise though, I was able to get a binds on account weapon for most of the specs I'll be using in Warlords of Draenor. The only weapons I need now is daggers for my subtlety rogue and a one handed healer weapon for my holy paladin. The healer weapon is my priority since I want to be able to go in dungeons healing but I am expecting that a weapon dropped from every day questing will have to suffice if I don't get anything. Well good luck for me and to all who are hoping that something will drop for them.

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - Earning cash during the iron tide - Timeless isle

Now that the iron tide invasion has been averted, it's time to ensure that we have enough gold for our heroes when they descend on Draenor and start building their army

Let me talk about what we can do on the timeless isle, many of the items that you can get on the timeless isle particular the overgrown lily pad now has lost its ability to give symbiosis to yourself.

Now it's just a wilted lily pad that can be sold for 100 gold. Remember though that it's a soul bound item and you can only have one of it in your possession so make sure you've sold it before you go farming for this item. If it's in your bank, sell it! They can be looted from those frogs at timeless isle with their unnatural respawn rate. It's nice to have a mount that you can sell stuff to immediately instead of walking back or use your timeless isle trinket to warp back. Even the companion guild page is good to summon as long as you can spend more time killing frogs.

Speaking of those frogs, you should be getting a lot of those timeless armor parts that you can sell for 20 something gold if you have an alternate that uses that piece to transmute it into an armor piece that can use it. If not it's only 5 gold. While you're there you get dozens of timeless coins and lesser charms of good fortune. Make sure you've got a potion of luck ticking so that you get additional chests that give you more gold and items.

If you're a rogue, while you are killing Ordos' followers, you can pickpocket them for odds and ends that they have and get gold. Thing is this process is slowed down if you're slaughtering them left and right with a party so potentially you should earn more if you go in as a full party.

You can also go around killing ordos and the celestials for that bonus role to get items you may or may not need or gold. Either way it can be sold for gold and that's always good.

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - The combat rogue in the pre-patch

Playing as an assassination / combat rogue for mop has taught me that the combat rogue spec is the class for me in a PVE environment.

The Combat rogue rotation is focused on the expert timing of bursts to make the most of passive states(Revealing strike, Deep insight, Slice and Dice, Rupture, Shadow blades and Adrenaline Rush) to cause more damage.

If you were a combat rogue user, the first thing you want to do is get your slice and dice, revealing strike & rupture up. Maintain it through out a whole fight and use Sinister strike to build up combo points. Of course using your finishing moves to constantly give damage (Envenom / Eviscerate). The ideal state after you've got this all going is that once you should have 5 combo points ready due to Anticipation and 5 more for your opponent. When Deep insight triggers, you immediately use Killing spree, after that killing spree, activate Adrenaline rush and shadow blades, then fire off your first finishing move, then once the reserve 5 come into place , trigger another finishing move! Then go crazy and build massive combo points with revealing strike / sinister strike, use more finishing moves and reset any passives that are close to fall off. The perfect way to end a deep insight phase is to use a rupture w/ 5 combo points.

The purpose of this is to maximize the additional damage bonus that'll come from the deep insight phase. If this is done successfully, the passive effect of Restless blades would have refreshed the cooldown of killing spree and get more then 2 minutes of the cooldown times of Adrenaline rush and Shadow blades. In between this time you are building up combat points and refreshing cooldowns then the cycle begins anew. There is actually one more passive you can churn out is the crimson tempest one but I have difficulty putting it into my rotation so I'm usually leaving it out eventhough its a DOT.

Its a wonderful rotation wherein your focus is to time things according to the passives cooldowns. In between this all you're trying to survive the onslaught of whatever target you are dispatching. The beauty of such a rotation really comes out when you're against a raid boss. Planning what I like to call murder phases wherein I can churn out as much damage as possible.

The only disadvantage of this spec is that you can't control when you go into the deep insight phase. This of course is now controlled in Warlords of Draenor because the only way you can trigger the movement between the phases is by using sinister strike. It gives you more control and allows you to time those burst phases. This is all the more important in Warlords of Draenor as the auto attack damage has been reduced so you can't only rely on your auto attacks.

Based on my limited time playing the pre-patch, Rupture is gone with Shadow blades but I still use the same rotation and replaced my rupture with crimson tempest so no lose there. I didn't feel any weaker and felt like I had more control with my class. I'm looking forward to my new level 100 abilities...do I take the one for poisons? Or shall I go for death from above? I feel that the death from above is the right choice for combat and the poison talent will be for assassination but who knows? We'll find out once we get to November 14, 2014.

I can't wait :D

Wow: Warlords of Draenor - The invasion of the iron tide

October 14 has finally come and it's time for Grommash's Iron horde to start it's foray into Azeroth.

The patch implementation has been smooth and all I had to do was really wait for the files to finish initializing in battle.net and it was time to throw myself at the pre-patch.

First impressions was how things got lively in our capital cities with people buzzing about the changes. To my delight, I had my challenge gear mounts sent to me and my valor, honor and justice converted to gold.

I went through the fun process of converting stuff I had in my bank into toys for the toy box and retiring MOP items. It's funny though, I didn't expect some items like the overgrown lily pad to change into the wilted lily pad. It is a symbiosis item for sale pve'ing but it's not a loss since I rarely used it.

What I enjoyed seeing in particular was Khadgar return to the front line of the story. I remember him like this...

Forcefully aged and hanging around Shattrah. They had a cool pic of him up in the battle.net site but his 3D sprite didn't do him justice. Well not until the pre-patch

He's now a battle hardened mage with a gritty look that reminds of the characters of warhammer. Old gritty men whose seen hard times. I'm looking forward to more fun experiences. Oh blizzard... Let's have fun..

WOW Loot Hunting - Silent Crusader - The Blade of Naxxramas

A Combat Rogue with 2 Silent Crusaders

Before we adorn this blade with praise and awe let us understand where it came from and possibly learn a little more about the blade itself.

The first thing you should know is that its a drop from several enemies in Naxxramas. Its not dropped by any specific boss but i sought by many due to its unique appearance and nature.

This is obvious due to the possibility of getting this prized blade from the monsters housed in Naxxramas. It wouldn't be a exaggeration to say that its a sword that symbolizes the cold one can only understand in Northrend. 

Although this sword is found in Naxxramas, it cannot always be considered as a evil sword brandished by their users. Just as there is no such thing as absolute evil, there isn't such a thing that there are users that are completely hated and they don't exist as a user cannot always be evil. So I view it more as a decorative weapon that bears the appearance of my cold resolve to render stylish justice! 

The Wow TCG card doesn't have special flavor text but here goes "Shhhh...." -Rordag the Sly

Instead I prefer that we focus on the character Rordag, "Don't think of yourself as bait for the legions of undead. Think of it as more of a diversionary tactic." His flavor text is hilarious. Too bad he isn't bearing the famed blades.

WOW Loot Hunting - Starshard Edge - The perfect celestials dagger for a rogue

I ran Ulduar today with my Rogue today in order to get the gloves for the terror blade set but then I realized that I still haven't gotten the Starshard edge. Its funny really. I only found out about the presence of this weapon when I started running the MSV raid back in 2012 and realized that Rogues don't seem to get a weapon that is like a constellation.

Its madness isn't it? Rogues deserve to hold the stars in their hands since this would be a coveted weapon as a representative of the celestials. To my surprise though, rogues have had it in their hands as early as the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. The Ulduar raid drops a dagger called the Starshard Edge. Unfortunately it doesn't have a description on it I find that this daggger deserves one.

I would consider this dagger a must-have for any fan of the Ulduar and Throne of Thunder Raids as there are plenty of drops there that hint at their relation to the Celestials. Of course it doesn't end there. The Siege of Orgrimmar has a few drops for the rogue to provide them with armor that symbolizes the users connection to the celestials. I'll post some pics about it but hopefully I'll find a nice replacement for robe that comes with the set.

Funny thing is that in the process of looking for more information about this dagger. I found out that there is one more dagger that drops in the Ulduar raid that is worth mentioning....I'll discuss another time as I'll look into the details behind it.

Heroes of the Storm - Alpha Access

Wow! I got access to play the Heroes of the Storm alpha. This is my first time being allowed into a alpha so I'll be busy enjoying it :D Thanks Blizzard.