In the first part of the Rogue Discussion we covered Stealth and Vanish. Both of these abilities are being looked at on the rogue forums under the stealth vanish thread posted by Tyren. Today I am going to look into rogue poisons. I will briefly cover what people do not like about them and include some of the suggestions that have been listed to improve poisons. Be sure to leave your comments at the end of this post if you favor a particular solution over another.

Rogues currently have several poisons available to them. Among those it is has been agreed upon that Wound Poison is pointless. Deadly poisons have a very limited use in keeping other Rogues from getting back into stealth on you. I am personally very satisfied with Mind Numbing poison it works great when I am soloing bosses in dungeons such as DM. I usually apply it to my off hand though unless I know ahead of time I am going to be facing a lot of casters. The top two poisons and most commonly used are Crippling and Instant. Crippling is irreplaceable in a PVP setting. It brings Hunters, Mages, Priests, Warlocks to their knees as well as knocking Warriors down a few notches. If your PVPing without crippling up your probably dieing more then necessary. Instant Poison is the defacto PvE poison. It does tons of damage without getting in the way of our blinds or gouges. It can also be good in PvP combined with dual life stealing, hand of justice and maelstrom trinket.

Before I get any farther let me clear up some of the problems that really are not problems at all just misunderstandings. First, poisons are worthless in Molten Core. If you do not already know rogue poisons are Fire based. Is this a bit odd? Yea. But it does explain why they are almost completely useless in MC and against fire mobs in general. This does not mean that poisons are worthless in all end game instances. The new instances coming out for Sithilus are rumored to be Natured base.

After looking over the first couple of pages of feedback to Tyren's stickied thread on rogue poisons I decided to comment on the most common. Most of the ideas fall into basic alterations to poisons, altering poison talents, or increasing the fun and utility of poisons.

The basic alterations that most rogues are seeking are pretty straight forward. We would like to see a price reduction since we are heavily based on our reagents (Blind Powder, Flash Powder, Poison Ingredients). I have no idea how much would be needed to ease the financial burden of poisons but this is not nearly as important as increasing the stack size of poisons and allowing Rogues to apply poison while stealthed. Currently poisons stack in 10's which means I am carrying 8 stacks of poisons. That is half a bag atm devoted to poisons. Allowing Rogues to apply poisons while stealthed maybe a bit controversial since it gives us the power to prep for the fights we can already pick and choose. See a mage load up crip and mind numbing. See a rogue load up crippling and deadly, etc etc. It would be a nice compensation for the recent damage adjustments that shaved damage off our instant attacks.

Altering poison talents takes a little more thought. Ideas have ranged from simply increasing the proc percentage of poisons to greatly increasing the damage done to them. Personally I feel that they should keep the one increasing chance for your poison to proc. The rest should be reworked into new talents. For example allowing rogues to poison throwing weapons and maybe even have a chance to throw a poisoned weapon and stay stealthed. There's a lot of room for creativity here that could make rogue poisons more fun.

Some of the ideas that don't include reworking talents include making Rare poisons... kinda like they descibe on the Rogue class page. Making more varieties of poisons including a rage poison and a poison that prevents druids from shape shifting. There are lots of ideas here and its easy to go nuts and forget that some balance must remain. I think it would be neat to have poison ingredients that dropped in Molten Core or Blackwing Lair that allowed us to make more effective poisons against the mobs in those zones or other zones.

regardless of what ideas you like its evident that rogues would like the poison skill be beefed up a bit more. Am I complaining? No. Rogue poisons already 100 times more useful then poisons in Everquest. However since the door has been opened for constructive discussion on the topic of poisons I think there are things they can do to improve the use of them and make them more fun to use.

If you could change one thing about poisons what would it be?

• Reduce the price of the ingredients
• Increase the stack size of poisons in inventory
• Allow poisons to be applied while in stealth
• Allow rogues to apply poisons to ranged weapons
• Allow rogues to apply poisons to another player's weapons. (only 1 or 2 others)
• Rework the poison talents to make them more potent.
• Include Rare poisons into the game as originally intended or hinted at.

Please leave your votes in the comment section for this post.

~Cerias Shadows

Well to all those playing other classes, I just want to say that you LOSE. That's right we got the pornstar on our team. Fear the Stabby Stabby.

Ok... This video was linked to from the WoW forums last nite immediately followed by a list of comments a mile long that just proves that even though Rogues may have the hottest unofficial CM most of us will never get laid... Ever. Something tells me Kate either no longer plays wow because she was run off by every other rogue on her server trying to duel her naked or her ignore list grew to big.

Having her nominated unofficial rogue Rep does bring something to mind about our "Official Rogue Reps". For some reason no matter how many times the CM's state they are simply the messenger or data collectors taking the prayers of Rogues to our gods (the Dev's in this case) the rogue forums are still filled with temper tantrums of a dozen rogues whining and making threads stating they are angry.

I don't consider myself a Blizzard fan boi, if they were screwing up I would voice my concerns. But it seems childish to kick and scream even after presented the evidence. Everywhere I look I see a list of classes that are going to be looked at for talent changes. I see rogues last on the list. I still see Rogues bitching every 10 seconds that we haven't been looked at. Am I the only Rogue that sees the trend here. Classes have been evaluated in the order they were on the list I haven't felt the need to complain once. Including all the mini nerfs we have received I am still formidable. The idea of Nerf is very broad nowadays, it includes anything that does not specifically improve your class. If all damage across melee classes is adjusted then we scream Rogue nerf. When in fact its not a nerf but an adjustment. Hunters, Warriors, Rogues, and any other class that has an instant melee attack was changed with the 1.8 patch. A nerf would have been "Rogue Damage tables have been reworked so that all Rogue Melee attacks hit for 25% less damage. " that's a nerf. Not this sissy crap were whining about.

If you have never watched Bruce Almighty I think now is a good time. Besides helping some of us develop a sense of humor, I think it accurately portrays how the devs feel about all the whining and bitching "praying" that happens on the forums. Like Bruce they could with the wriggle of their nose and a wink grant every player their wishes. This would immediately be followed by total chaos and the destruction of World of Warcraft as a playable game. Watch the movie and you'll see what happens when EVERYONE gets their way. How many people really know what they want anyway?

With that said its time for all the little Anal Dwelling Butt Monkeys (trolls) on the rogue forums to go home.

~Cerias Shadows

I know I am not the only person to notice the current fire resist gear fad and I am positive that Arthas is not the only server experiencing it. If you have been to the Auction house lately you will have noticed that any piece of equipment with fire resistance is so incredibly high priced its like ordering your jewelry out of a Tiffany's catalog.

It's not a mystery and the reason is pretty straight forward. Demand. End game instances of UBRS, MC, and BWL have created so much demand for Fire Resist gear that rings that maybe sold for a couple of gold now sell for 200 Gold or more. For the Rogues its especially crucial. There is no place to hide from Fire AOE's when you have to be up Ragnaros' butt crack.

You shouldn't have to spend the money for your epic mount on fire resist gear though. RogueSpot plans to help with that. Everyone wants a couple of +15 FR rings but before you go buy that overpriced crap on the AH check out Shadowpanther's compiled list of Fire Resist gear for rogues. The guide is very well done as it contains links on all the items to thier respective thottbot pages.

To get you started though go pick up a set of Volcanic gear. Get the leggings, breastplate and shoulders. There is close to 20 FR on each piece. Next finish your Onyxia key quest. The neck piece will give you +10 FR. Do a DM Run with a friendly rogue or solo it I believe Ming covers that in his Advanced Money Runs. You want to get the Felhide Cap from DM. Do a couple of UBRS runs with your guild or friends and pick up a Wildfire Cape for +15 FR. You can also grab some Flamescarred Shoulders for 10 more. Thats +73 FR right there. While 73 may not be enough for Rag its a good start, the rest can be obtained through quests and raiding.

The key of course is to keep your AEP as high as possible while outfitting yourself with a good set of FR gear. I keep my FR gear in a bag in the bank and just swap out one of the bags in my backpack when its time to raid. It saves me picking through gear or missing something.

You should be aware though that the current pricing is simply a fad. Either that or we are all in trouble. If you want to be smart start building all your resist suits NOW! Start working on a Shadow and Nature resist suit as well as one for the other resistances. Collect it while its cheap. The demand for resist gear will change month to month as new instances are added that stress other types of resist gear. The most important thing is not to cash in your life savings for one lousy +15 FR ring.

~Cerias Shadows

If you clicked on this link you probably expecting an article about vanish... Instead you get to hear that RogueSpot will be vacant for a few days. Heading down from Jax, Fl to Orlando for the weekend. Hopefully before Wilma gets here and destroys civilization as we know it... Ok maybe it wont be that bad. Ill be back Sunday or Monday with a decent update.

~Cerias Shadows

Well I am always looking for ways to add content and overall usefulness to this blog/website. After seeing Ming's AEP system I thought it would be a good idea to make some sort of upgrade guide. When I posted my first version on the WoW Rogue Forums I was immediatly informed that something like this already existed and it seems to be very well done. If you check out www.shadowpanther.net youll find a really great set of armor charts that encompasses alot of end game equipment. He even includes an AEP value in the chart. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

~Cerias Shadows

This is the first of my Rogue Equipment Overview's abbreviated REO's for short on the side bar. They serve one purpose and that is to give you an overview of all the equipment within a certain level range for Rogues. It also lists the AEP value calculated using Mings 1.8 Revised system. If you dont know what AEP is or how its calculated I suggest reading up on Ming's AEP System (1.8 revised). If you already know what AEP is then check out the REO - Chestpiece overview. It should give you a quick reference of all the 50+ Rogue BP's and their corresponding AEP value.

A quick word about AEP. You have to trust the math behind it before it can work for you. If you dont beleive 10 STA = 10 AGI or any of the other rules used to calculate it than this page is pretty worthless for you. So before you go argueing that a certain Item should have a higher or lower AEP value take in to account that each items value was calculated the same way. If you find a genuine error on my part (I am sure there are some) please email me at cerias@gmail.com.

Well the weekend is here... TGIF... All that BS. I have been working hard to turn this from just another "blog" to a site Rogues can depend on as the best source of information... without wading through 3 million posts of rants and raves only to realize the useful information fell off the forum an hour ago. Here are some of the things to look forward too.

New Team Members:
Team members are Rogues that contribute to RogueSpot actively or passively. Either by consenting to let their posts, opinions, etc to be hosted and posted here or by activly working with me to make this a better site. I am looking to add 1-2 more team members that would like to contribute to the Rogue Community. Rogues with varying viewpoints are always welcome but you should be able to argue or debate your opinions and topics with out resorting to flaming. A little colorful language is acceptable but you must always keep a cool head when defending your views.

You need to have plenty to write about to become a poster and you need to complete a 4 part interview. 1 part in game chat to verify you have a 60 Rogue. 1 part forum search to see all your recent posting activity. 1 part email to let me know your interested and tell me where and how you can contribute to RogueSpot. 1 part an article written on anything to do with Rogues or World of Warcraft. If you have Chicken Little Complex (CLC) please do not apply. If your interested contact me at Cerias@gmail.com

New Articles:
I am looking forward to covering the last 3 topics in the Rogue forums dealing with Poisons, Armor, and Damage as well as an indepth upgrade guide based on Mings AEP System (1.8 revised)

More Resources:
I am constantly looking for good resources for Rogues. If you find something on the wow forums while sifting through the mass of crap that has become the rogue forums please shoot me an email directly at cerias@gmail.com I have recently come across the site www.worldofroguecraft.com Check it out they have their own forums and some good clean discussion. Also any of you rogues still bitching about the latest "nerf" in 1.8 please see the link to the Damage Charts for pre and post patch. It showcases just about every weapon and shows you exactly what you lost for damage. Thanks to Ming for helping me out with the Ming Analysis section and I am looking forward to getting more Numbers and Math up there as I get them.

Advanced Rogue Guide 2.0
I am in the process of updating the Advanced Rogue Guide 1.1 cutting the fat and putting in new information and updating the old where necessary. Its going to be a while still but looking forward to finishing it.

RogueSpot pulls in about 600 unique hits on a slow day and over 2000 on the high traffic days. Im excited to keep this momentum going and make RogueSpot indispensable to the Rogue Community.

~Cerias Shadows

Any Rogue that consistently pulls instances has probably had this happen to them. It is the product of poor communication often and can result in party wipes. To be effective Vanish pulling cannot be something used on a whim. It must be practiced so that it is quick and efficient and transparent to the people in your group. You can only use this once every 5 minutes or for prep rogues 3 times every 10 minutes. I used to have a section on vanish pulling in the Advanced Rogue Guide 1.0 but removed it because I couldnt get it to work repeatedly.


After a couple of runs of BRS I have all but sorted out how to get it to work. Now its up to you to master the technique. Vanish pulling is actually very simply, it takes two people a Rogue and Preferably a Hunter to pull off gracefully. The setup should look something like this. In this pic we are trying to split the target from the adds. The Hunter should be positioned behind the rogue. The idea here is that the Rogue will pull and everything will start running towards him. The goal is to time the Vanish so that the first mob is inside the agro range of the hunter while the other two mobs (adds) are outside the agro range of any other player in the group.



This Next image shows what should be happening when the rogue successfully vanishes with the mobs at the propper distance. Your adds should retreat and your target should agro the hunter which can now be pulled back into your group. If for some reason all 3 of the mobs had agroed the hunter he could simply Feign Death to lose agro and you could try again if the Rogue has prep up or move on to a different strategy. The key to using Vanish pulling successfully in any group is practice. Practice preferably before you are in a situation where the groups life expectancy relies heavily on your ability to Vanish Pull. The setup used in Vanish pulling is a great setup for pulling period. Rogue and Hunter up front making sure that the rest of the group cannot get agro. Especially if you are attempting an instance with people that are not quite level 60 yet. This method of pulling could be exactly what you need to keep low level agro from wiping the group.

That is all there is too it. So when your in a group without enough crowd control remember you can vanish pull to split that group in half before the mage has to suicide sheep.

~Cerias Shadows

Allright the 1.8 Patch is now live on the server. Heres a quick update on everything thats gonna effect Rogues. Most melee classes are getting a nerf not just rogues. I beleive warriors are actually getting hit the hardest by the new weapon damage calculations.

• Instant Attacks
  The mechanics of most instant melee attacks have been modified to improve item balance. Previously, instant melee attacks did damage based on the damage range of the weapon, plus a bonus for the player's attack power. This bonus was then multiplied by the speed of the weapon. As a result, slow weapons did more damage than was intended, and fast weapons were considered inferior by most players. We have changed the way the attack power bonus is calculated for instant attacks. This change does NOT affect attack power calculations for normal melee attacks. Instead of multiplying by the speed of the weapon, the attack power bonus is now multiplied by a fixed number pulled from the following table:
  
  -Two-handed weapons: 3.3
  -Daggers: 1.7
  -All other one-handed weapons: 2.4
  
  As a direct result of this, many weapons have shifted position in their relative power. In particular, many Epic (purple) quality items are now more powerful than slower Superior (blue) weapons.This change was not made to reduce the power of instant attacks, but to correct the relative imbalance of weapon itemization. At a given level requirement, epic quality weapons should always be more powerful than superior quality weapons.Please also note that all normal weapon swings will be completely unaffected by this change. The following abilities are affected by the design change: Sinister Strike, Ambush, Backstab, Whirlwind, Mortal Strike, and Overpower.
• Perception (Human Racial) is now usable while stealthed.
• Vanish - Fixed a bug where the Chilled effect caused by Ice Armor/Frost Armor was not removed properly when vanishing.
• Parry - Minimum level to train this ability has been lowered to 12.
• Blade Flurry - This ability will now trigger correctly off of special attacks such as Sinister Strike and Kick.
• Shoot Bow/Crossbow/Gun - Fixed a bug where these abilities could be used faster than intended.
• Throw - Use of this ability will now only cause a cooldown with Shoot abilities.
• Ambush - Now uses normalized attack power.
• Backstab - Now uses normalized attack power.
• Riposte - Now properly sets its cooldown.
• Sinister Strike - Now uses normalized attack power.
• Items which provide +hit chance will now be allowed to counteract the increased miss chance penalty of dual wielding. This is great news for dual wielders, as you can now go above the 5% chance to hit cap. (thanks for adding this Giya)

Overall Rogues are taking a hit this patch... the only real plus goes to Human Rogues. /golfclap I am not exactly looking forward to this. I havent been in game yet and only time will tell how much the attack power change will hurt us or even if it really will at all.

~Cerias Shadows

Well the servers are down and the forums will be impossibly slow. You could undoubtedly be using this time to get some extra work done at the office or finish your homework early. Screw THAT!

Take this time to tweak your interface. Make sure you have all the latest tools to make your life easier. Since I recently started playing WOW again I deleted all my addons and went through and got the ones I needed again. This helped clear out my addons folder of the ones I didnt use. Ill list the best ones here and you can compare notes.

Roguely Addons
- CoolDownCount (Important!)
- Buy Poisons
- Stun Watch (Important!)
- Scrolling Combat Text
- Weapon QuickSwap
- Recap

General Addons
- Bank Items
- Monkey Quest
- A Sistor (Important!)
- EmptyLootGone
- Good Inspect
- UsebyName
- Gadget (Cool!)
- QuickMountEquip
- Target of Target's Health
- Radar (Cool!)
- Alpha Map

Well thats about half of my addon directory. I browse for most of my addons over at Curse Gaming. The site is ussually a bit slow on Tuesdays and today being a patch day as well means alot of people updating their addons and looking to download new ones. If you have Roguely addon that your life depends on please list it in the comments section.

This week look for an article on Vanish Pulling as I try to put some science behind this freak occurence that happens to any rogue that pulls enough.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK !

~Cerias Shadows

The chances of someone from blizzard actually reading this post is about 0.00001 Percent but I am gonna rant on this anyway because it Needs to be fixed. Blizzard you have a Ninja problem. Since I have come back to the game this past week it is painfully obvious that ninja looters are still going strong and with no fear of repurcussion of their actions. They are not even worried about their reputation.

Reputation used to be huge in Everquest. If you werent in a top tier guild then you lived and died by that reputation. Or at least your charachter did... If you decided to Ninja Loot something you might get away with it one or two times before everyone on your server knew and you couldnt get a group to save your life. The players controlled the Ninja Looters by not grouping with them... as such it was not a good thing to be labeled a Ninja Looter.

In World of Warcraft things are a bit different. People joke about Ninja Looters and Ninja Looters get lots of group action before they are finally so well known that they have trouble getting groups. But instead of hindering them Blizzard helps them with the Ninja Looter protection plan. Thats right simply delete your charachter that has a bad reputation. Create a level one with the same name as your old charachter and then have a GM restore your deleted charachter. They will ask you to pick a new name because ... oh no... the other one is taken... Somebody slap blizzard. NO! NO! Bad Blizzard! You do not help the anti-social morons.

Here are the solutions. Blizzard can implement these if the desire is there and it will all but fix the problem.

1. Attach a fee to name changes. 50 dollars please.


2. If a player is getting a charachter restored and their old name was Cerias. There new name is Ceriasx.


3. Make the friends window show both names. Ceriasx a.k.a Cerias.


4. Allow guilds that boot ninja looters to Uniquely identify each user. If they come back let the guild master and officers be able to see who this person really is.

I beleive that if a players name changes and you have them on your friends list then the name changes on the friends list and they stay on your list. This is a good start and it does help but there needs to be more to discourage the act from the start. Allowing a players reputation to stick with them is the best way to handle this. If they do decide to become a "ninja" then make them suffer the consequences.

I don't think there is an honest player out there that will disagree with me. The only thing worse then having that uber item you have been running this instance 20 times a day for ninja looted is having it ninja looted twice by the same person with a different name.

~Cerias Shadows

It has been considered a problem since open beta. Bugs with vanish and nerfs to Stealth have left Rogues craving a little love in this area. The main complaint with Vanish is that rogues want it to be the end all be all of escape and it isn’t. It is highly effective at allowing you to escape combat, even more so when combined with certain potions or abilities like Restorative Potions and Sprint.

Most complaints from Rogues stem around the fact that each class gets something that can knock Rogues out of Stealth or their Vanish easily. Rank 1 Spells and Abilities that cause no damage are among the top annoyances. Suggested solutions range anywhere from the completely ridiculous to the “… hmmm why didn’t they just do it that way in the first place”.

As far as Stealth goes rogues want to be able to apply bandages, eat, drink potions, and apply poisons with out breaking stealth. They want everyone in their raid party to see them so they don’t get skipped over for heals and buffs. They want hunter flares to have a visible AOE so they can be avoided. Especially since they last for 30 seconds. We would really like Hunter Pets to stop chasing us while stealthed unless they posses some special ability that allows them to pursue us. Other suggestions include only allowing spells relatively close in level to the target break stealth. So rank 1 spells wont reveal a 60 rogue. Also damage absorbed by potions / trinkets should not break stealth.

In the Vanish arena Rogues are asking for a bit more. Some Rogues would like to be able to Vanish out of Stuns like Mages can blink out of ours. Granted the mage is still visible after it blinks and is still very much being persued. Other suggestions include making vanish only break on death or having vanish remove all the DoT’s placed on the rogue. A couple have suggested that Vanish is more of an offensive ability now because it isn’t as useful for escaping and should be treated as such by reducing cool down timers. I am strangely comfortable with vanish in its current form. This could be due to the fact that I am a preparation rogue so I have two vanishes available everytime I need to escape. A little practice goes a long way to making vanish work more effectively. Rogues can use sprint to gain distance between melee players and mobs, expect vanish to be much more effective this way. Restorative Elixers can also be used before hand or while sprinting away from a fight to get rid of DOT's and Hunters Mark.

Below I have compiled some of the ideas I found in the Rogue Forum under the Vanish / Stealth discussion. Please vote for the solution that is the most agreeable with you… It will allow us to see in what direction the majority of rogues would like to go with improvements. If you have a better idea please choose “other” and post the suggestion in the comments for this article.

I took the polls down a bit early cause they were slowing down the page. The results for stealth werent surprising 45 percent of the 44 votes wanted to be able to perform not damaging actions without breaking stealth. (potions, eating and drinking, poisons) 27.3% did not want rank one spells to break level 60 stealth. I think both of these ideas are excellent, both could be implemented without breaking gameplay.

The Vanish poll only racked up about half the number of votes as stealth with alot of people telling me they liked vanish the way it was. However of the people that voted most (50%) would like Vanish to only be broken by death. Which means if you were dotted and vanished you would stay vanished until vanish wore off... if the dot continued to deal damage after that point you would be revealed from stealth.

Please keep all comments constructive I don’t want to have to Nerf comments!

~Cerias Shadows

With the new dragons coming out in the next patch all I can say is… It’s about damn time! Up to this point we have I think 2 contested world targets at the moment? Azuegos and Kazzak are currently the only non-instanced raids. The 4 new green dragons will bring the total to 6 outdoor contested raid encounters.

I don’t know if Blizzard has finally caught on or learned the secret to success but they are well on their way if they continue this path. The reality is that contested encounters drive the game. They need to add these four dragons and keep trucking. Easily accessible / farmable content that is not entrenched deep in a dungeon is key. It makes end game raiding guilds abandon scheduled instance runs and be on alert 24/7. If a raid target pops guilds assemble and race for the mob. Being in an endgame raiding guild racing for content gets your adrenaline pumping, even if you have done the content 100 times. This goes double if your on a PVP realm.

Outdoor raid content also allows for short 30 minute to 1 hour battles that result in upgraded gear. But Blizzard should not stop at super duper 40 man contested raid encounters. No… They need to include some 1 group encounters… some 2 group encounters… and some of everything in between.

This is almost the perfect solution for all those people that don’t have the time to raid 6 hours at a time and that will never be in an end game raiding guild. Instead of having to venture into Molten Core what if it was 3-4 contested 1 group mobs and maybe 1 that was soloable. The quest would require you to collect map pieces off each mob to turn into a little pirate on some deserted island. The catch of course is that one mob is on a random 19 hour spawn timer and can skip spawns. One mob spawns every 12 hours give or take an hour but because the gear it drops is so nice its farmed left and right. The other 2 mobs are cake to get. The reward would be as valuable to a level 60 as it would be to a level 40. The item itself might even serve as a status symbol signifying that either you have 0 social life or that you are incredibly determined based on whether your glass is half full or half empty of course.

A lot of people will argue that Blizzard took a path in the beginning so that the object of the game is not to camp long hours at a time to complete a quest. I have to say I do like this method, it appeals with the instant gratification side of me. But it sucks that no matter what I get from a quest everyone else can also get this item too and within a half hour to an hour tops. Either that or I will never get the item because I am not a member of an elite raiding guild.

So before you denounce me for suggesting that Blizzard bring back the “camp” imagine if there was a chance to get an incredibly useful item of epic quality maybe even rare quality depending on the difficulty of the camp.

As it stands right now besides the two 40 man encounters every rare mob In the game has a random chance to spawn with a random set of loot or no loot at all. I am asking for Mobs that are guaranteed to spawn every so many hours / days / weeks with a restricted loot table like any boss mob and with a bit of randomness thrown in so the spawn can’t be timed exactly. I think this would add an exciting element to the PVE game as well as stimulating the outdoor PVP game that blizzard has stated they are trying to revitalize after the introduction of battlegrounds.

In conclusion… I do not want Blizzard to abandon creating high end instances where the best of the best test there metal. I am suggesting that Blizzard add in more high end contested raid content as well as contested content for individuals or groups. I believe that doing this will bring more people out of the instances and stimulate world PVP at the same time. If you have any suggestions, ideas or opinions leave a comment.

~Cerias Shadows

Well I have been around the MMO scene for a while. Played EQ Live for 3-4 years, played EQ2 and EVE-Online too. It doesn't make me an expert in MMO's but I have noticed a trend. As developers strain to maintain balance of the classes it is inevitable that the classes will cycle in power and utility. I have seen the Rogue class beat into the dust time and time again only to rise each time back to a state that was as good or better then it was before.

I visited the Rogue forums upon getting back up to speed in game after my several month long absence and it seems every post is crying over the impending changes (nerfs) to how damage is calculated. Most of the posts are complaining that we are getting nerfed each patch while every other class is getting buffed. Some posts are simply untrue and some are so obviously flame bait that you read them and chuckle to yourself until you see the long list of replies from guppy rogues being sucked into the thread.

I wish I could give the Rogue community an IQ boost or more preferably a couple of valium. I personally believe they are up in arms and making much ado about nothing. How can I remain perfectly calm while the rest of the rogues here on the forums run around like chickens with there heads cut off making statements that have absolutely no validity what so ever.

I have heard cries to remove the rogue class completely... Some jokingly and some disturbingly serious. I think most my fellow rogues who are loyal and faithful to the class because it has always been the class they enjoy most in MMO's the class they would play regardless of how bad we got owned are the ones sitting back at this moment and strapping themselves in for the ride. A look at their faces shows a smirk of confidence, while all the other classes boast of their new improved abilities.

Maybe they know something the rest of the rogue community does not. Maybe they have been on this ride so many times its just routine for them. They may also have seen some of the same hints that I have scattered around blizzards web pages and forum posts. One in particular caught my eye on the under development page.

• Additional Talent Improvements
  Paladin, Priest, Mage, Shaman and Rogue!

A lot of Rogues have pointed to the forum sticky by Tyren stating that they are not overhauling the rogue class and are disappointed... I for one am happy. We are not broken and we are a very capable class, we do not need drastic changes we just need to be kept up to date. Which is why the quote from the under development page is so important. It casually suggests and I have heard it elsewhere from blues too... That we will be the last class to be looked at. This is exactly where I want to be. I definitely don't want to be first, then you become the standard upon which everyone else will be buffed too. So after every other class has been buffed and had improvements made to their talents... The rogue community will be tuned. We will be brought upto par or exceed that of every other class. When all is said and done we will have the last laugh.

I am not suggesting hard times are not ahead. Maybe even months of being dominated by other classes letting them work the chip off their shoulders. Instead of crying about it as it seems we are so prone to do, I suggest we scheme and bide our time make intelligent suggestions and discuss viable improvements to our talent tree. If the rogue forum is a center for intelligent discussion save for a few instances of other classes whining that they still get stomped the devs will be more likely to peruse this area for information. If all there is to see is rant after rant and crybabies screaming there is no point for them to show their face here.

I have even seen some rogues go so far as to suggest one person... The author of the World of Roguecraft Videos single handedly got us nerfed. The idea is amusing, even though the videos were very well edited (whether they be real or fake) I do not believe the dev's were completely and totally seduced by one warlock.

So take pride rogues. Winning is always fun but winning as the underdog gives you that much more reason to rub it in. As far as being underpowered, its only temporary. So to everyone in the World of Warcraft Rogue Community I have one last bit of advice for you....

DON'T PANIC!!!

~Cerias Shadows

Well I am back from my vacation from World of Warcraft. I have been on Hiatus for the past 3 months… maybe a bit more as I don’t remember when I cancelled my account. In that time I have played a month of EQ2 and I have played a month of Eve-Online. Both games are really fun but were missing some key elements of game play that I need to be satisfied with my MMO experience. First a review:

EverQuest 2: I joined up with my old guild from EQ1 Pak’Cafan. Great group of folks that some how manage to blend a casual friendly atmosphere with professionalism and the ability to raid end game content in a timely manner. I was impressed from the first day I raided with these folks in TOV in EQ Live. I still am today. I would play with them in WoW had they started on a PVP server originally. Anyway back to EQ2. I Love the group combat. Being able to start or end combat sequences adds a whole new dimension to group play and its one of the features of that game that I will miss. I also enjoyed the housing system in that game. Some of the screen shots of houses attest to the amount of detail and imagination that can go into planning and setting up everything inside. My main problem with this is that PVP wasn’t planned or thought out very well in this game. Every since playing World of Warcraft I crave the danger and the adrenaline rush that comes with balls to the wall PVP. I like the feeling that I have to be constantly vigilant and always looking over my shoulder to make sure I don’t get ganked. That feeling is very lacking in EQ2. The PVE element is there but that’s always been EQ’s bread and butter.

Eve-Online: This is a space MMO and I was seriously skeptical of it when I first started playing but it lots of fun. There is the PVP element and always having to watch your back combined with the vastness of space. I always imagined zones like in EQ like I would run into a wall or something. However when you open the in game map of the Universe for the first time and rotate it around and then start zooming in… and zooming in … and zooming in…. its kinda like a Matrix… Woah…! There is no other way to describe the feeling that you will never be able to see everything in the game no matter how long you play. The only problem this game has is that everything is auto pilot. Granted the game would be next to impossible to play with out auto pilot but there is no chance for you to grab the joystick and dogfight it out with other players or enemies. Instead you orbit the enemy turn on your guns and combat is very straight forward with a couple of twists thrown in depending on your skill level and if you have any surprises like shield boosters fitted to your craft. The game comes with a 14 day free trial and I recommend at least playing through the tutorial and maybe a couple of missions just to experience it.

That being said I have returned to WoW. I re-activated my account the other night and have been running around getting restocked.

Poisons Restocked – Check
Potions Restocked

• Major Healing -Check


• Free Action - Check


• Limited Invulnerability - Check


• Restorative Potion – Check

Add-ons updated – Check
Nostromo n52 Profile Reloaded – Check
Bank Cleaned up – Check
Get Incoming Cash Flow – Check

With all that out of the way I am starting to work on my Onyxia key and get Blackwing lair attunement. I am also eagerly awaiting the new outdoor raid dragons. This contested content is something blizzard should have been very strong with from the start. There is nothing better then the feeling of racing another guild to a raid target regardless if you are PVP or PVE.

I will also be going back through my Advanced Rogue Guide stickied on the Blizzard forums and bringing it up to date and adding new information where I see fit. I would also like to recover some of the links that have fallen off the Blizzard forums. So if you have any of this content that I have linked to and no longer works, email me cerias@gmail.com. I will be finding a permanent home for all of that useful information and giving credit to all those that created it or worked on it.

~Cerias Shadows