Welcome! My name is Cerias Shadows and I am a Masochist! Come join MAN (Masochists Anonymous of Norrath) Thats right I said Norrath not Azeroth.
- Do you like completing quests with no exclamation points or question marks or detailed route maps that do everything but move your character for you?
- Do you enjoy a sense of danger that comes with real danger?
- How about mobs that are capable of beating you down if you get too cocky?
- A world that really feels… big?
- Feeling… Lost?
- Retro 1999 Graphics?
If so, I want you to join my group MAN. Thats right Come play Everquest on the Progression Server Vulak ‘Aerr. (Fippy Darkpaw was too crowded for my tastes) Come marvel at a game world that captivated… no… captured hundreds of thousands… literally… they were so addicted they couldn’t leave.
Feel for the first time what it truly means to get loot. Not phat lewts… thats stuff that drops off mobs in wow and you replace by dinner time with something from a battleground. I am talking about loot… stuff that you level with long periods of time… and when it comes time to replace it… you bank it due to some displaced emotional attachment you feel for an electronic item.
Experience what non instanced content is… Yep kids back in the day… when you killed the Dragon… he was gone… for like a whole week. Or if you were really unlucky and it was special dragons they and their loot were gone forever.
Come get a sense of the depravity and despair inside your own soul as you slowly lose your mind during a 36 hour camp for a single piece of crummy parchment that happens to contain a piece of a map… that lets you finish a quest… for an item that serves no purpose other than its cool!
But fear not… some of the roughest edges of this game have been tamed. The population has voted out Corpse Runs. Do not fear losing all of your gear permanently because your guild wiped to some dragon who is now gleefully camping your corpses.
And do not fret the levels that required so much experience to get out of them they were referred to as Hell Levels have been ironed out.
If you ever enjoyed EQ classic come play with me on the progression server Vulak ‘Aerr and take a trip down memory lane. Were still on classic content so we have 5 expansions before they ruin the game again!
~Cerias Shadows
65 Marauder [Tarew Marr]
11 Bard [Vulak 'Aerr]
Raynikins is the winner of the November submission contest. His entry “Perspective from the bottom (not because I am a gnome)” was selected at random from the 6 total entries that were submitted.
Thank You everyone who participated. While I will not be running a December version of this contest (I am getting married this month and will probably be incredibly short on cash 
I may bring it back in the near future. I would have liked more participation but I think what really needed to happen was more cash and prizes!
~Cerias Shadows
Coming soon! All entries are in and I will be doing a random number generator soon to pick a winner. Just wanted to post to let you guys know that I had not forgotten!
The rogues duty – staying alive and maintaining DPS.
As my guild progressed through the heroic content of ICC I started to realize that while staying alive as a rogue has always been important, that the specialized mechanics, huge DPS load, and overall “hand-offs” made by raid leaders when it comes to rolling with three healers or pulling out that extra DPS has become the most important priority.
Does this mean a reduction in the amount of DPS that is possible to come out of an exploding rogue? I don’t think so. In this case, we can be sure that it is possible to maintain a high level of DPS while avoiding damage. Especially with the most recent patch (4.0.3a) additions to damage over time poisoning, with a 30% increase to base and AP damage from deadly poison and an additional increase to Venomous wounds there is no reason you can’t be dodging, moving, hiding, and running to reduce your total damage overload while maintaining 10-20 seconds of serious rogue punishment on any target.
While maintaining a 5CP rupture, with 5pts of Deadly Poison, you have the potential to regain 80 energy and boost your DPS by 500-600/s. And that is before you account for the increase given by AP and any other procs that have stacked for you.
What does this mean? For me this means I now have the extra energy to be maintaining SnD, Rupture, standing happy with pretty continuous mutilates. All the while, utilizing a Glyphed Feint to make sure I always have a 50% reduction in my AoE damage at all times.
How does this translate to ICC heroic mode battles?
Lord Marrowgar – Feint significantly reduces the damage from ColdFlame (from 11000 each tick to 5500). Combination with evasion and Cloak of Shadows during Bone Storm means you can stay ON TOP of him without dying, maximizing DPS for the fight.
Saurfang – Feint significantly reduces the damage of Mark of the Fallen Champion – consider that this could be a reduction of 3,000 to 3,200 for each tick against Boiling Blood or Blood Nova, should you be the unlucky victim. That means a reduction of 12,000-15,000 damage during this fight for every 6 second Feint – which adds up to well over 100,000 if you use Feint each time. That healing can then be channeled to your tanks.
Lady Deathwhisper – The most obvious benefit of Feint here is for Death and Decay – this reduction means standing in DnD is only a 3000 damage tick. Meaning if you happen to get caught in it (and what rogue doesn’t?) you receive less damage while moving out. In this case you come back to the DOTs that have been greatly improved for rogues – which will allow you to maintain roughly 40-60% of your on target DPS while you are not on (if you can manage to have Rupture and DP up while you step away during DnD). This also means, that since you are looking at less DPS from DnD than in a regular that your healers may be able to heal you through it, while you continue to open up on the Lady – and bring down those all important Kicks.
Festergut – This should be too obvious to mention – but a majority of this fight is related to the AoE damage that will be done. Feint effectively reduces the damage from Gaseous Blight to truly manageable levels (if your raid is having any issues) while also allowing you to greatly reduce the amount of damage taken from Pungent Blight (in case your raid is going for heroic achievements. In this case the higher value Assassintation DOTs will also allow you to maintain most of your DPS while you run out of the group with your spore, should you be so chosen.
Rotface – Feint shouldn’t be helping you reduce damage to much during this fight, as you should be moving about to prevent almost all of the damage you might be taking. But the improved DOT abilities will be helping you maintain DPS while you are running about the room dragging those little oozes to the big ooze.
The Professor – Feint will greatly help you during Phase Three while you are most likely standing in goo for a second or two while your tank is moving the Prof around the room. You’ll still be using Cloak of Shadows to reduce your overall damage taken. And probably enjoying the benefit of Vanishing during Tear Gas for phase transitions. Either way, your DOTs will assist the raid during transitions and will allow you to also maintain DPS while you are chasing down the Gaseous Bloat and Volatile Ooze mobs.
Princes – Feint will reduce your damage taken from Kinetic Bombs and Shock Vortex, which is nice. DOT are not as effective here as they might be, since the Princes share their lifeforce. So don’t feel the necessity to waste CP dropping a second rupture if you haven’t switched to a new target yet, a single rupture should be enough to bounce you to the next Prince.
Blood Queen – Feint will reduce your damage taken from Swarming Shadows and Bloodbolt Whirl. This means an average reduction in damage of 4.5-6k per second. During the air phase DOTs become more important, so make sure you had her stacked full to 5P DP and 5pt Rupture as she about to rise up and send you running around the room.
Dreamer – Feint will reduce your damage taken from Lay Waste as well as, any Frostbolt Volleys your unlucky enough to be standing in. This means you can utilize your Cloak of Shadows to get rid of the Frostbolt debuff and keep driving down those Blazing Skeletons and Suppressors. Your DOTs are not necessary in this fight, as creatures won’t live long enough to benefit from them. Do feel free to forgo Rupture and focus your CP on envenom and recuperate (so your healers can focus on the dreamer and not you).
Sindy – Feint will reduce the damage from potential mistakes from Unchained Magic, but hopefully you won’t be experiencing that. In addition, you should be able to Cloak and Vanish through Blistering Cold, so you never have to stop DPS. Your DOTs are gain important as she starts to go into Air Phase, as they mean fewer air phases and a shorter fight in all.
LK – Feint is important in this fight. It reduces your amount of Infect damage taken by ~3k while also reducing your damage taken from Pain and Suffering. In the event that your ranged can’t handle the Ice Spheres, your feint will reduce your damage taken here to only 5k, which is much more manageable even if heals are not directly available. It would probably reduce your damage from Defile as well, but if you’re dumb enough to be standing near defile, this post won’t help you anyway… But! Your DOTs on the LK will be helpful to make this a shorter fight for all (isn’t that always important) while you are punching Valks in the face and making sure to stay spread out for defile.
Moral of this story – Feint is free, use it! DOTs are good, when in doubt, rupture. I hope someone finds this helpful. With the latest and greatest Assassination rogue updates I’m happy to report higher than expected DPS output and excitement as my 10 man team marches towards heroic LK.
~Cassin
Hello there, I am Rosvall. I’ve played the rogue class nearly since release and have experienced almost all content pre any serious nerfs, not really counting c’thuns first nerf 
And all after that. Mainly, I’ve farmed content for months and months, this article is why I still enjoy farm raids after seeing content like BT for 9 months before we got sunwell.
I have played various healers and have had a few tanks as alts, but I’ve always thought they were utterly boring compared to playing a rogue.
Most stuff in WoW is pretty basic and can be learned by just practicing. You can take someone whom have never played WoW before. Give him a random dps class, non rogue. Give him a rotation, or in later days a priority system, teach him how to face a specific encounter, how you should move and after very short time he will be able to play just as well as any top player would be playing their off-class.
What it all comes down to is
1) Maximize dps time on target. Being dead counts in here.
2) Learn to spam you keys in the right order/prio as fast as you can.
Why is rogue any different and why is rogue so much more interesting to play?
Mainly that apart from every other class out there, we will not do more dps by spamming our buttons as fast as we can. We even lose theoretical max dps by just spamming our buttons as fast as we can. We are the only class that are not capped by global cooldowns nor do we lose any damage from letting our energy increase above the 40 it takes to sinister strike or 55 to mutilate, unless of course we cap out but that is a different story. We can actually wait several seconds to see if we get procs that makes us hit harder before we use our attacks and if we do not get any procs, well we still have not lost any dps by waiting this time.
The rogue class can not be played perfectly nearly as easy as for example a mage. If a mage is 0.1 sec late on his fireball, he loses a lot of dps, so all he wants to do is spam the key. However if a rogue spams his key and doesn’t have the right procs up he will lose a lot of dps.
It may seem tough to keep track of so many timers. Double weapon procs, double trinket procs, external procs, class procs etc. You have to focus, but you can not afford to make mistakes on the encounter. You need to be able to move correctly, respond correctly, don’t die, don’t put others at risk and at the same time keeping track of an ~10+ different timers. Sounds hard? Well…
Every farm raid is an opportunity to practice! You have to learn about a lot of mechanics, you need to understand how the game works to be able to adjust to every possible situation that can arise. This is not the case for other classes that could just as well have a picture beside telling them what key to mash into oblivion.
So the reason for why I love the rogue class so much is because its HUGE potential and how you even though you’re a great rogue topping several World of log dps records still improve on so many levels. It’s a never ending challenge, a challenge I wish for the developers to continue designing our class around even in cataclysm!
~Rosvall
Rogue Reports -2 (continued from Rogue Reports -1)
‘I’m not telling you anything’ hissed the captive;
‘We’ll just have to see about that’ smiled Ehmsee.
He moved towards him and dragged him easily to his feet. Trussed up like a turkey, the young man was unable to resist. Ehmsee bent and picked up one of the daggers from the floor and walked away, casually checking the blade and satisfied that it was clear of poison. He flipped it over a couple of times, assessing weight and balance, on the third flip, he caught it deftly by the tip of the blade and in one fluid movement, turned and let it fly. The mans eyes were wide with surprise as he slowly raised them to see the dagger, about two feet above his head, embedded right to the hilt in the wall. Ehmsee walked back to him, raised his bound wrists over his head and lifting him up on his tiptoes, slid them over the dagger hilt.
Ehmsee went back to the items strewn over the floor and picked up the nearly-new lead sap. It was simply two pieces of spoon shaped leather stitched together, with the ‘bowl’ end filled with lead shot. In the right hands it could totally deaden the large muscles in the arms or legs, rendering the limb virtually useless. It could also, as the young man could personally attest to, knock you out cold. However, in unskilled hands it was unpredictable; if too much force was used, it could easily fracture a skull and kill rather than incapacitate. Even though he didn’t feel it at the moment, the young man was lucky that Ehmsee was highly skilled in its use. He turned it over in his hands, for a simple tool it was really good workmanship, Tynuss Venomsprout from Ironforge would be his educated guess, educated because it was where he purchased his own, nearly twenty years ago.
The young human was starting to sweat, ten minutes in this stress position, back arched, toes barely touching the ground, were starting to tell in his face. The hatred in his eyes and the grimace on his lips told Ehmsee that it was time to turn it up a notch. He picked up one of the fist-weapons and sniffed the blade carefully, the unmistakable odour of deathweed mixed with essence of agony made his nose wrinkle, nasty! The merest drop of that in a wound would cause a serious amount of pain, with the added side-effect of resisting all but the strongest healing potion or spell. Its erstwhile owner was carefully watching every move Ehmsee made and the slightest flicker of fear crossed his eyes when he watched him slide the glove over his hand and flex his knuckles.
The next movement was a blur; Ehmsee jumped and spun a complete 360 degrees lashing out at the young man with the poisoned fist-weapon before he had time to react. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, bracing himself for the spasms of pure white-hot agony which were to come; only they didn’t come. He opened his eyes, looked down at his ravaged leather breastplate hanging in tatters and beneath, his black silk shirt cut to ribbons. There were no poison-stained lacerations on his white skin, no blood and no writhing spasms of pain. He looked up at the night elf in utter disbelief, ‘who are you?’ he asked. ‘Ehmsee R’ffles’ was the reply; the human looked blank, ‘You may know me as McRaffles’. The bound man looked like he had been kicked in the stomach, what colour was left drained from his face; ‘Oh Shit!’ he all but whispered.
~McRaffles
Title: Rogue Reports – 1
Author: McRaffles
Ehmsee woke with an almost imperceptible start, instantly alert he slowly turned his head to locate the source of the unfamiliar noise. There it was again, the slightest metallic scrape and click of lock tumblers being eased into place. He smiled to himself and thought ‘here we go again’. Though the cellar was not actually small, the ceiling-high racks of wine and the three huge ale-barrels took up most of the floor space. The air was still and smelt of candle wax and malted barley, the candles were long extinguished and what little illumination there was came from a diffused, pale moonlight that seeped lazily through the two filthy, street level windows high up on the west wall. Scrape-click! The last tumbler was coerced into place.
Ehmsee silently drew both of his daggers and waited; patience, as ever, was a virtue in his line of work. He was virtually invisible atop the middle ale-barrel, totally cloaked in the shadows which were his life-long friend and ally. The door opened but a crack, there was a slight pause then it swung open a little further. A figure dressed head to toe in black almost seemed to slither into the cellar and quietly closed the door behind them. ‘Amateur’ thought Ehmsee, ‘why do they always wear black?’ The figure crouched, waited a second and scanned the cellar, looking and listening intently. Ehmsee instantly surmised by the way he moved that this was a young human male, and still at a crouch, he came tentatively down the stairs and into the cellar proper. He was wearing fist weapons, three talon-like blades sprouting from the back of his black leather gloves like dagger-length steel claws. Even in the limited light, Ehmsee saw the tell-tale greenish sheen to the blades, the viscose coating of poison.
The would-be assassin came further into the cellar, keenly alert, as he passed slowly under the middle barrel; it almost seemed that he was trying to look in every direction at once. Ehmsee had already sheathed one of his daggers and replaced it his trusty lead sap. He flicked a pea-sized stone-chip into the depths of the room and was moving while it was still in the air. There was a tiny clink as it hit a dusty bottle in the far corner wine-rack and the human instantly stopped and turned in its direction, however prior to fully completing the half-turn, Ehmsee had slipped off the barrel and expertly sapped the black-clad intruder into unconsciousness before landing catlike on the floor.
Ehmsee estimated that he would have about five minutes, give or take, to fully disarm and securely bind the interloper before he regained consciousness; he had completed the task in less than half that. Spread out on the floor in front of him were all the tools of the trade, providing the trade was assassination of course. Beside the poisoned fist weapons there were two daggers, five throwing knives, a garrotte, blinding powder, lock-picks and a very new looking lead sap. Ehmsee was casually comparing it to his own when he noticed the subtle change in the bound mans breathing. ‘Welcome back’ he said warmly ‘I know you’re awake, no use pretending otherwise’. The young man opened his eyes and scowled at Ehmsee; he tested his restraints and quickly came to the correct conclusion that struggling against them would be quite useless. Ehmsee waited until he had finished and said ‘Now you’ve got that out of your system, let’s you and I have a nice little chat’. The smile that accompanied the words was anything but warm.
~McRaffles
(to be continued 11/12/2010)
Title: Why I love Rogues
Author: Heavendenies
In a world filled with magic of every type, inter-planetary travel,
space demons, Titanic Gods straight out of Norse legend. Coupled with
shaman who can summon elementals, druids who can shift their form to a
number of animals, warlocks who can summon demons, death knights who
can raise the dead, priests who can raise the dead, paladins
delivering divine judgment. Among all these other worldly powers and
abilities the one who still strikes the most fear is a guy waiting for
you to drop your guard and knife you in the face. How f*cking badass
is that?!
But seriously how badass is it that with people doing all these crazy
things the most feared one is the shady guy in the corner of the room,
who waits till you go to sleep and stabs you about the face and neck?
I mean just look at our abilities; cheap shot, blind, kidney shot,
gouge, garrote, killing spree, prey on the weak, mutilate, eviscerate.
All these moves aren’t designed to be pretty and flashy…they’re
designed to tear a f*cking hole in some poor unlucky bastard.
I mean lets face it; rogues are the most hated and feared of all the
classes. Hated in in PvE due to our massive dps and hated in PvP for
the same reason…well that and our crowd control. I believe it’s due to
the nature of the class that we’re hated so much and that’s fine with
me. Hate me all you want, but when you see me vanish or hear that pant
soiling sound of cheap shot…I know all that hate for a split second
turned to fear when you shouted “Oh sh*t!! Where did he come from!?!”
So to sum it up; I love the rogue class because with in a world filled
with magic and science the most feared and deadly thing is the guy who
picks your pockets, then ambushes your ass. So badass.
~Heavendenies
Title: Perspective from the bottom (not because I am a gnome)
Author: Raynikins
Note: I hope you aren’t expecting a lot of statistical power gaming information, because you probably won’t find it here. This is just about having fun playing a rogue and what boost to the fun level the 4.0.1 patch has added to leveling a rogue.
I recently began exploring Azaroth again after a 2 year hiatus from this world. My previous incarnation involved a rogue of the 72nd level of training. Having been out of circulation for so long, I decided the best way to get back in to the swing of things was to start from the beginning and this is my impression of the first 10 levels of my training post patch 4.0.1.
Just for some background, my previous focus in Warcraft that pretty much led to me taking a long break from the game was the cookie-cutter method of doing Combat spec for fastest leveling, then moving to instance/PVE builds in order to achieve the necessary DPS for a group to let you join them in an instance.
My return this time is purely to have fun and the changes incorporated in the 4.0.1 patch led to immediately increasing the fun level even at level 10. I have always been a role-player at heart but the way the rogue had to perform at low levels didn’t really lead to a whole lot of “fun” role-playing style.
Other than the standard quests that you progress from levels 1 through 10 doing, the change up of the skills you can learn by level has made sense. First of all, you get to start out dual wielding from the beginning which just looks cool. It is so much better looking than running around with a little pig sticker in one hand. It also increases the damage you get where as you used to have to wait until level 10 to be able to dual wield.
It used to be at level 4 you would get Backstab and Pick Pockets which were cool, but it just wasn’t THAT cool. Plus the 150% bonus to damage for daggers just isn’t very impressive. Now you get Ambush at Level 8 instead of Backstab. This doesn’t require you to use daggers but if you do the damage seen from Ambush goes from 190% + 53.2 all the way up to 274% + 77. It also awards 2 combo points.
Just this little change has lead to a huge increase in the fun-factor. What isn’t cooler than stealthing behind a mob of equal level and putting them down with one quick Ambush. That’s what Roguing is all about. However, the fun doesn’t stop there. At level 10, you get to choose your talent tree. With the addition of base skills gained once you select your talent tree, the fun-factor shot through the roof once I selected subtlety for my focus. This immediately gave me Master of Subtlety (Passive) with +10% damage when stealthed, Sinister Calling (Passive) which increases Agility by 25% and will come in to more effect once I can Backstab and Hemorrhage.
The big kicker to the fun-factor is Shadowstep. This skill used to be way up in the talent tree and took forever to get to. Now it’s a basic part of being Subtlety. Not only do you get to One Shot an opponent, but you can pop behind him from 20 yards away and do it. Fun! Fun! Fun!
Now, that does it for my journey through levels 1 – 10 as a rogue. I hope you are enjoying the new 4.0.1 as much as I am.
Signed: Raynikins
Well really its only cash unless I figure out some type of prize… maybe a copy of Cataclysm or something but honestly I know I am usually in line for that shit the day it comes out making it pointless to receive it several days later from a third party.
Reguardless I had the idea that asking Rogues to write for RogueSpot goes against your very nature as a class. I beg and I plead and all I get back compassionless glares as if you are asking to see the money first with your eyes. Ok so I will play your game but with my own rules!
From Oct 22nd – Nov 31st I will accept articles / stories / rants / just about anything about Rogues in wow. Any type of article. If its posted on the site you will get … probably some hate mail from whoever disagrees with you… but also a chance to win $50 come Nov 31st.
So lets break this down. You right an article you get one chance to win $50. If no one else writes an article or anything… then 100% chance to win. However if someone else writes an article that gets posted you have a 50% chance, etc.
Now a little disclaimer. If I don’t approve of your article it will not get posted… I am judge, jury and executioner in this court. If it is really obvious your not trying… or your just spamming to get attempts in… I will just deny you and ignore further attempts. However if you write 30 awesome articles I will not hesitate to post all 30. Just expect them to be scheduled for release through out the month.
If this first period is successful. ie. I get more then one article and the attempts are halfway decent. I will continue this each month. If only one person is turning in one article each month. I will probably stop as that is not worth it for me.
Q: Why am I not doing Oct. 22nd – Oct 30th.
A: Im poor. I just came off unemployment which I have been on for damn near a year… save for some side jobs. Cut me some slack.
Q: Can I win more then once?
A: Yes.
Q: How will you pick the winner?
A: I will assign each entry a number and use a random number generator most likely. I am looking for a site that does this and makes it public and secure so there will be no accusations of funny business. Hey were rogues… its base instinct right?
Q: Copy, Cut, Paste?
A: I will be checking for plagiarism and like in school… you will FAIL.
Q: Where do I submit my literary masterpieces?
A: My email. cerias.shadows@roguespot.com
Q: What format do I submit in?
A: A format I can copy paste from. I will not type anything out no matter how amazing it is. I use Word / Google Docs / Word Pad etc. If you send me some wall of txt in notepad that does not have line breaks for paragraphs etc. Do not expect me to bother with it.
Q: English is not my first language, I like to write like I txt on my phone, I’m not gud at speling?
A: If your post is embarrassing, I will not post it. I am not asking for perfection, even my style is very conversational with lots of pauses indicated by ellipses… but If your just bad, I am sorry.
Q: What if this is really successful?
A: Expect me to do it every month and most likely raise the prizes in relation to how successful this is.
More questions to come soon… im sure.
~CS
Thottbot
