Rogue Ability Bloat

Recently Blizzard has been giving out all sorts of information about the upcoming expansion, Warlords of Draenor. There's lots of interesting stuff, but the tidbit that I found most interesting was that they've removed 20% of skills and abilities from the game to combat "ability bloat". They haven't specified which abilities have been axed, and I'm guessing some classes will get more cut than others, but it's probably safe to say a few of your rogue's abilities will be gone come WoD. In light of this information here's my list of abilities we could stand to lose.

Fourth Spec...ulation

Who cares about this dusty ol' Mists of Yesterdaria, lets talk about the next expansion! Why, you ask? Because I saw this. It's supposedly a "leaked" image from Blizzard, an internal mock-up not meant for the eyes of the public. I'm 99% sure it's a fake, but seeing it has got me thinking about the next expansion. What's the big feature going to be? Well, this rogue is hoping it's fourth spec.

Moral Choices in WoW?

Today I read a WoW Insider post entitled Why are there moral choices in WoW? The post muses over the moral decisions we make in WoW. For instance, in the quest Money Matters we can choose between threatening Halfhill villagers into paying a debt, or paying it for them. Personally? I threaten everyone. All of the time. I think I paid a debt once just to see what would happen...and when I noticed it didn't change anything in the slightest, I resumed my campaign of intimidation. The sad thing is that this quest mirrors most of WoW's "moral dilemmas" in that they just don't matter.

Firefox Fu: Quickly Search Wowhead

These tricks apply only to Firefox, but other browsers, like Chrome, may have similar functionality.

Ever wanted a quicker way to search Wowhead? I mean...you could type "www.wowhead.com" in the address bar, but that takes forever. Well fear not, gentle reader, for I've found a solution.

Rogue MoP Talents Revamped!

What is this? A post about rogues on Rogue QQ? Wasn't this blog supposed to get turned into a Starbucks? No my friends...as much as I love overpriced coffee, it's still a blog primarily dedicated to discussing all things rogue. As such, I feel compelled to write about the recent changes to the mists talent calculator. There has been a change avalanche, and, for once, rogues received a nice little piece of that avalanche. So as long as I'm snowed in with no food or water, with no rescue in the foreseeable future, lets discuss these changes.

Cataclysmic Agoraphobia

Cataclysm will be ending soon™ and it has me looking back on the expansion. I don't play the game right at this moment so my gripes aren't going to be as current and focused as they could be, but looking back on my play time I still think I have enough material for a post. So here we goooo...

Why Do People Hate the Pandaren?

Is a question I've heard asked. The pandaren race, which is to be a huge focal point of the next WoW expansion "Mists of Pandaria" seems to be its most polarizing feature. People either love them or hate them. In fact you can see this split in opionion expressed quite clearly on the MoP Preview Trailer. The likes and dislikes are split almost perfectly in half! There are various arguments for and against the pandaren. I'm going to address a few that I've heard and tell you why some of them don't hold water, and why some of them actually make sense.

Post-Blizzcon Roguestravaganza

So Blizzcon happened. No, I was not one of the lucky people who attended the event. Seriously, it seems like everyone and their dog went to Blizzcon, something that seems incongruous with the fact that there are a limited number of tickets that literally sell out in seconds. More likely it's because the people that are going feel the need to howl about it while the people who aren't don't. Anyways, it's over and there was a ton of tasty changes that have me incredibly excited!

Firelands Nerfs Make Me Sad

So Firelands got nerfed today, and I'm kind of torn about it. On one hand I'm glad to be done with the struggles and the stupid 20% wipes. With these nerfs what would of been a wipe is now a kill. Hell, I don't even think we'll see Majordomo's orb phase. So for that I'm glad. The part I'm not so glad about is that these nerfs kind of invalidate all the work we've been doing these past months.

Patch 4.2: Rage of the Nerfbat

Up until a couple weeks ago the changes to the rogue class in patch 4.2: Rage of the Firelands were pretty minor. As I've said before we got a small buff to Blind and a bug fix and that was it. Now, however, Blizzard has released a new set of patch notes and I almost wish we could go back to having just the two sentences. We were riding high up until now, but at last the nerfbat has come, and it's hungry...hungry for survivability.

All That Controversial Goodness

We continue our slow march towards patch 4.2. Seriously, when is this thing coming out? I've got a green thumb, and I need to grow me a tree in the middle of a fiery wasteland. That's the best place to plant it when you think about it, because it's the last place they'd suspect. Rag is looking outside like "where the hell are they putting that tree?" and it's right under his nose, but Rag doesn't have a nose. Now there's something to think about. Anyways, I thought I'd talk about all the controversial changes Blizzard has been announcing of late. I'm starting to think they're just trolling. Next they're going to announce all tier sets will be sold on the online store, just to see the community implode so they can watch from atop their citadel like a modern day Nero. Hey, I would pay for some Tier 2. Yea, I'm that lazy.

ccComboPoints Post Updated

I finally updated my post about ccComboPoints for Cataclysm! Yep...it took all the way until patch 4.1 for me to do that. Anywho...if you haven't read it you or have read it and were disappointed by the outdatedness then check it out!

Patch 4.1 = Best Ever

The patch notes for 4.1 were released today and I have to say I'm a little surprised. I wasn't expecting them for at least a couple more weeks (then again releasing the patch notes doesn't necessarily mean we're even close to the actual release of the patch). I scrolled down to the rogue changes expecting a few anemic sentences carrying nothing but bad tidings, but it was almost the exact opposite. The changes are awesome! They're almost too good to be true. If this patch was released today it would be literally the best patch for rogues that I can remember.

Justicar Blues

I recently read a comment on WoW Insider talking about the Justicar/Conquerer, lamenting the sheer grindiness of the achievement. For those who don't know this is an achievement you get for reaching exalted with each BG faction, it grants a title, and it's no small task. Warsong Gulch is the most difficult rep of all as the only way to get reputation with the Silverwing Sentinals/Warsong Outriders is to cap the flag. Considering in some games your team may not even cap at all this can be a pretty laborous process...and it should stay that way.

A Rogue's Guide to Cataclysm Reputations

Cataclysm has predictably brought a slew of new reputations, and every single one of them offers something rogueish, but that doesn't mean they're all equal. I'd suggest first focusing on those that grant rewards at honored and revered as the grind from revered to exalted can be lengthy. Also, a faction's quests can take you pretty far (to midway honored or even revered), which is nice because you'll be able to grab easy gear to up your ilvl. Now let's take an in-depth look at these reputations so you can make an informed decision about which one you should focus on instead of blindly repping up the first faction who happens to clap their tabard around you.

Leatherworking "Nerfed" in Patch 4.0.6

If you've been looking at rogue professions at all I'm sure you know that Leatherworking trumps all by a long shot. The Draconic Embossment - Agility leatherworker-only bracer enchant grants an astonishingly high 130 agility. The second best bracer enchant is 65 haste, and considering agility's high value, the difference between these two is huge. This means that either you roll Leatherworking, or you're playing sub-optimally. Luckily this will be changing soon because of a new enchants coming in 4.0.6.

WoW Music

Well the Cataclysm expansion hit this week. I'm kind of bummed because I can't play it. I've been working on this music article for a while and I think I'm just going to release it now. I want to include some additional songs from each favorite artist, but I'll come back and do that later. Please enjoy!

The wow community has spawned an amazing amount of surprisingly decent music, and in this post I'm going to share my favorite tunes. I've listened to a lot of wow music over the years (yep...it's been years), and I really wanted to bring it all together into one place, somewhat for myself, but I also hope that a few wet-behind-the-ears warcraft newbs might stumble upon this and unlock a treasure trove that took me, well, my entire wow career to discover. I'm going to pick one song per artist, because if I discussed each and every song I like from each artist then this post would simply be too long.

Still QQing After 4.0.1

The much anticipated 4.0.1 patch has finally been released, and I know this not just because I check MMO-Champion as often as a germaphobe washes his hands, but also because the forums are aflame with people asking "which stats r gud nao?" The answers are here, so quit clogging up the boards with your redundant posts! And don't let their modesty fool you, the people over at EJ are mathematical gods. In fact, if they turned their efforts into proving the Unified Field Theory we could all be on a warp ship to Alpha Centauri within the week! Not really. So 4.0.1 has finally come, but don't worry because even in this golden age there are still things to QQ about.

Ruby Sanctum Rogue Lewtz

So apparently patch 3.3.5 is dropping tomorrow and it's bringing us a new raid called "Ruby Sanctum" and something called "Real ID", which I couldn't care less about. I hate social networking and I fear the day our toasters send status updates to our Facebook pages that we just got done toasting a bagel at the "lightly toasted" setting. Anyways, Ruby Sanctum is a lot like Obsidian Sanctum: three minibosses who all drop one badge each, and one main boss, Halion, who drops all the loot. Lets see what rogue loot Halion will be dropping in patch 3.3.5's new raid.

Hunger for Blood Becomes Vendetta

   

A while back Ghostcrawler said that that Hunger for Blood would be going away in Cataclysm, and there was much rejoicing, but we didn't know what its replacement would be. Now, scarcely three weeks from that first announcement information has been released about our new ultimate ability: Vendetta! I've always thought vendetta would be a cool name for a rogue ability, and I was disappointed to find such an awesome moniker was wasted on some stupid DK talent, but apparently Blizzard doesn't care that two spells now share the same name. In this post I'm going to do a critical analysis of this new ability; what I like about it, and what I don't.