Two Rogues in the Arena

I've been working on pvp gear and am now the owner of 2 shiny epics [Deathblow X11 Goggles] and [Gladiator's Right Ripper]. I am getting closer to the Left Ripper as well... but I kind of burned out on BGs last weekend. So I am undergeared for Arena's ... although I DO own all the Opportunist's set except the helm and shoulder because my goggles are better than the helm and I need to do Black Morass to get enough rep for the shoulders.

So how did I do in my first arena outing? I was happy that we (2 Subtlety Rogues, yeah!) went 2 wins and 5 losses - although 2 of those losses were SO ridiculously close. First close one came down to me versus another rogue - the reason I lost was totally gear differences. He was in s1, s2 and a few s3 pieces, where I have the pvp-rep-blues. At his gear level compared to mine he SHOULD have mopped me up real quick, especially since I was at half health and he was full when we were finally one on one. His higher health finally prevailed. The 2nd close match was my compatriot vs a resto druid (I died from the leftovers of a FROST SHOCK because my cloak of shadows had 5 seconds left, doh!). Somehow Deadly Throw didn't work as she cheetah'd away, and the bear outlasted the hemos.

After 7 games we finished the last three with our main chars (MM Hunter and Feral Druid) 2 wins, 1 loss. That 1 loss on our mains was ridiculous. We went up against a Hunter and Warlock team that I could NOT stay out of CC. The very next fight was a different Hunter and Warlock team that our rogues lost to quite badly earlier... we mopped them up so fast it was ridiculous. Definitely made me feel good.

Normally I am not a vengeful person. In real life, revenge really doesn't make you feel better, doesn't really bring """Closure""" (sorry I don't really like the idea of closure, but meh) - but DANG. On a PvP server in WoW... successful revenge feels SO good.

I really do enjoy Arenas. However, 10 games a week is usually more than enough to sate that hunger.

Tips for rogues (i.e. stuff I need to work on!)
Remember to use:
Kick
Blind
Trinkets! (attack boosting and escaping)
Stuns
Run away and bandage if it gets tough

Most of all have fun. Otherwise what's the point?

Eye of the Storm

I very much dislike the Eye of the Storm Battleground.

Yes I already ranted about this. I am in one as I write this trying to get enough marks for my first weapon.

Really though, it CAN be fun... but that is usually only when you are winning. Like I JUST did wow that was great we 4-capped! Funny to be writing about how much I hate this BG I go ahead and join a gropu that wastes the other team. Sweet!

There is a decent strategy posted at WoWWiki that, if followed, can win you all the EotS' you need!

If you can help take (and of course defend) 3 bases you can win! Yay!

Grinding the PvP Epics

So as I wrote in my last post - my REAL goal on my rogue is to get some good PvP gear upgrades.

Last night I started the Battleground Grind. Alterac Valley is definitely still my favorite. Eye of the Storm CAN be fun, but is probably my least favorite because the games can go forEVER if it isn't played smart. (And unfortunately it rarely is) People often say Warsong Gulch is the worst because it really can go on for a ridiculously long time - but I've NEVER been in a WSG battle that has been even half as long as my longest EotS battle.

So you can imagine my chagrin when I took a break from the madness and hopped over to the Hall of Champions to check out my first two shiny purple goals. Weapons!!
Gladiator's Right Ripper - 18,000 Honor, 20 EotS marks
Gladiator's Left Ripper - 9,000 Honor, 20 EotS marks

First: Nobody has convinced my NOT to get the fist weapons yet. And for some reason I really like them. So unless I can get a really good reason NOT to get them I'll plan for them. It's going to take a while because...

Second: WHAT!?!?! 40 EotS marks to get my Main and Off Hand PvP weapons?? That is going to take forever.

40 marks is pretty bad for EotS. Then I decided to look at the armor and other requirements. YIKES! Even MORE EotS required! NOooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

In order to get the two weapons, 4/5 armor pieces (don't need the helm with my current gear being slightly better) along with the boots, belt, bracers, neck, cloak, medallion and rings (Vindicator's AND Veterans);
We have a grand total requirement of:
Honor: 194,196
AV marks: 40
AB marks: 110 (!)
WSG marks: 50
EotS marks: 90 (!)

Welfare Epics? That's actually a LOT of work! I'm not even sure how I got most of these on Tigersoul.

Ding!

Fries are done!

I mean...

Congratulations to my SECOND level 70 Character Katryona!!

(She was quite tired when this picture was taken...BEFORE70)

She also has a nice shiny new helicopter. Okay... so it really isn't shiny and it smokes a lot. But it cost me less than the 100g Gryphon!

Next goal: Pickpocket every mob in the Outlands to find Spinesever or the Night Blade from a Strong Junkbox. That would be wonderful.

(Real goal: On a PVP server... gotta get some PVP gear upgrades!)

**Any rogue suggestions are appreciated**
***I really like subtlety and might farm then waste honor on THESE BABIES unless I am convinced otherwise!***

Baby Girl and the Sunwell

We had a baby girl on Easter which is why nothing has happened here. Longest break from WoW I've had in a while too, and it was quite nice. She's a gorgeous dark haired little beauty.

We returned home with our new little baby Tuesday afternoon - so I didn't have to wait for the maintenance to be completed. I logged in, installed the patch, and got a quest to go speak with somebody on a boat at the Sunwell offensive. I must say I like the changes to Shattrath. It is definitely a more interesting place now - and I like the Sunwell Tabard! Hopefully I'll be able to get one.

The biggest thing I learned from my first excursion on the Isle was that our server has a ridiculously wide gap in the numbers of alliance players versus the number of horde players. Alliance-side Dragonmaw tops our Battlegroup in Arenas, and our top raiding guilds are quite a bit further than the Horde counterparts. But when there are 40 lvl 70 Horde running around an area where there are 10 lvl 70 Alliance... you will be ganked.

I was able to see some of Magister's Terrace - and I barely made it into the instance because of the mass of horde hanging around the summoning stone.

So. So far I think what I've seen is very cool (although nothing that new if you've played through the Blood Elf starting zones!) - but it's a somewhat small area for the number of lvl 70s running through!

Rogues are FUN!

As I've mentioned a couple of times, I've been playing my rogue Katryona a lot lately due to some slow times with where I'm at on Tigersoul right now. Basically it's hard to get my guild together for instances to get us into Kara. However we did Slabs last night and got the first key fragment for a bunch of our members. We would have done more too, but I had to go. Having sick family is no fun.

But Rogues ARE fun. Oh yah... the title already says that. Well I'll even say it again, again! Rogues are FUN!!

I love the ability to sneak around and kill things quite quickly. I thought I wouldn't survive long, and there are times I don't survive long enough sure - but with all my evasion and escape techniques, I live a LOT more than I die.

It's silly, but one of my absolute favorite places to be as a Rogue is surrounded by lots of pick pocketable humanoids. Sap-pickpocket, sap-pickpocket, Mwahahahahaaa! Do it some more!! With subtlety talents, unless I am attempting more then 2 levels higher than me they rarely resist unless I'm positioned weird. And then I Vanish and keep on going.

I have gone entirely subtlety so far. I LOVE it. In fact, both the lvl 70 rogues in my guild are Hemo/Shadowstep builds (can you tell we are a non-raiding guild on a pvp server?) but they've chosen slightly different emphasis's that somehow seem to work well for them. I don't understand not taking Cheat Death though. I LOVE that one. For a while I think I'm going to try putting all points into Subtlety just for fun. I'll respec to something more useful closer to 70.

Before I get to 60 I need to complete all the Sunken Temple quests and finish the AV quests. Sadly the last AV quest I have is the one where all you have to do is Defeat Drek'thar. I've done about 10 AVs (and got some NICE xp from those quests too!!) and my HK's went from 20 (all world-kills usually helping other allies in trouble or revenge on gankers) to over 300. AV is fun. Strange that in the 51-60 bracket I haven't won yet...

Now for some linkage!
There are some really good Rogue Blogs out there that have helped me a lot.

http://doomilias.com/ - Sure sure Doomilias talks about poo a lot, but he also has some really really good tips on playing rogues. All his early posts are Mutilate-centric, but he has tried out some of the others as well. Also has the best Nerfs ever. Picked me some up for the wife and kids just yesterday! Oh and for me too.

http://www.parrydodgespin.com/ - Valenna blogs about a multitude of topics, but my favorite so far is her pre-Kara Rogue gear guide. I'm looking forward to using it, or start picking some of those items up when I get to Outlands SOON!

Netherwing Drake and more!

Yesterday, or was it the day before yesterday...?

Argh! I hate you Daylight Savings!!

Actually I am mad at Daylight Savings Time (DST) because it has messed up my Arena schedule. My partners in doing PvP (and doing it badly, but we are improving!) are in Australia... in fact in one of the states of Australia that DOESN'T have DST, so they come online an hour later now, which makes it difficult to get the 10 Arena matches done... especially when we are starting late anyway. So instead we tried to raid Thunder Bluff with 3 people... a 62 Druid that yelled in Stormwind trying to start it all... a 70 rogue (guildmate and Arena partner) and myself. More on that later.

Most exciting news of the night - I can finally stop using that Silver Nether Ray, which just makes me nauseous now bouncing up and down like that, and have gotten myself a Black Netherwing Dragon! Okay, so technically it's "Onyx" but whatever. I think if you were to look at the Netherwing Market, over 80% is Onyx. The only one I would even consider getting is the Cobalt, but it's not as cool as the Onyx.

So here we are - pictures of the gloriousness - oh and you can see my new shoulders I talked about as well! (Thankfully... no visible flowers - at least I don't think so)

So there you have it. Definitely cool - because Dragons, are definitely awesome.

So back to the Thunder Bluff raid. We didn't have much time - my partner and I were considering trying to get our Arenas in (only an hour and a half left 'til rollover and 2v2 queues are horrid), when somebody yells they are starting a stealth raid of Druids and Rogues to Thunder Bluff and we're meeting in Theramore. So we decide that sounds fun. On the flight to Menethil I ask my rogue friend, "So... how many people do you think will be there?" He says..."3" And he was right. We probably should have spent the time helping a guildie in the Blood Furnaces, but we were already on our way when they asked, so we had fun making horde run around trying to find us.

One thing I don't understand... when we attacked NPCs in Thunder Bluff, Bluffwatchers, the lvl 65 guards popped out of nowhere and started beating on us, and as soon as we get one of them down, another shows up. I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen in Stormwind when it gets raided. Am I wrong? Or is this a Horde only effect? Interesting.

Visiting Thunder Bluff brought back some good memories. TB is quite confusing at first - but once you get to know it - I think it's one of my favorite cities.

And finally - if you are going to "stealth raid" an enemy city - you should probably do a couple of things:
a) get some of your own guildies to come with you and don't expect people to come if you just yell in a major city
b) be a level or 5 higher than the basic city guards so you can sneak by them
c) 3 people isn't a raid
d) Enjoy it no matter what - because the confusion of the opposing forces really can be a funny thing to watch! Stealth FTW! (I still wish Catform had vanish...)

Gear To The Rescue!!

What do you do to get yourself out of a funk?

Go shopping of course!!

So Tigersoul has been in a bit of a rut - but started to come out of it a bit when the strongest members of the guild decided it was time to get attuned. A little late sure, but it has gotten us running instances which is a very good thing. My guildmates aren't the best players in the world - but we just GET each other, and we work very well together. Group quests and instances fall before our might! Arena teams quake... although mostly that's just laughter... but anyway.

I had 1311 Arena points and for some reason I didn't think it was enough to get anything I wanted. I may have been saving up for later as well, but in the end - I decided I needed to spend ALL but 7 of those points and pick up the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders, which I've always thought looked very cool, and have some very nice stats on them. Currently they replace the shoulders in both my tanking and DPS slots. DPS/PVP set is now at just over 250 resilience. Not bad. We'll see how it works out in Arenas this week.

So I logged into WoW today, got to the character select screen and admired my new Shoulders when I noticed something. WAaa-hay-hay-hayyyy-t a minute...?!?! Are those FLOWERS that occasionally bloom on my shoulders?! Holy moly way to ruin a really cool look, lol.

I was talking to my friend Helstrike about it - she has the same shoulders, but the resto version - and we think that each spec needs a different animation. Flowers popping out is GREAT for a Resto Druid. But a Feral or Balance druid?? Come on! I'm tough! MANLY! RAWR!! Give me some CLAWS or SPIKES or SNAKES or something. And my Boomkin friends need little explosions or lightning popping out of those babies! Yeah, THAT's the ticket!

Anyway - helping my guildies (and myself) get closer to Kara, my new shoulders, and non-PUG instances have basically gotten Tiger out of his rut. I think it also helps that Katryona is in need of some Rested XP.

Ramblings of the WoW and Non-WoW Sort

Sorry for the lack of posting lately.

Kids are sick and it finally caught up with me as well. Seems like there is a lot of that going around, and then people slam up a lot of amazing posts that I barely have time to read!

On top of that I've got a possible job change going on at work that is distressing because the only reason I'd take this job is more money. Tough decisions.

For the past week or so I've also been obsessed with my Rogue Katryona - leveled her from 24 to 42 in the past little bit, and it's been fun! I've learned that while my PvP skills (regular SouthShore vs. Tarren Mill world-type pvp I mean!) are passable as a Feral druid - I need some SERIOUS work as a rogue. I should probably take her into some BGs.

One of my favorite things to do as a rogue is sap and pickpocket every humanoid possible. So I went subtlety. Some say that's not a good leveling spec but DANG! It's fun and I kill fairly quickly and survive very very well. My Talent choices might be a little strange though... any thoughts from Rogue-specialists out there?

My guild is finally starting to instance together. We "4-manned" Durnholde in the Caverns of Time - 70 Druid, 70 Rogue, 69 Paladin, 66 Druid. It was a lot of fun! For some reason my favorite fights are the ones where there are so many mobs attacking that a wipe seems imminent, then somehow, that amazing druid tank busts his way through and keeps aggro on all of them and nobody dies. Yes, it is MUCH easier to do in a lvl 66ish Caverns of Time instance, but I've had it happen in Heroic SLabs too (although unfortunately, that time 2 or 3 people died before we were safe... but it was still fun!)

Once we get more 70s and a few of us get the key - we should be about ready to get some Kara going by the beginning of next patch! When nobody else is doing Kara anymore! Can I hear a big fat "WOOT!?"

Now all I need is the 3rd fragment from Arcatraz and the Black Morass Event and I'll be good to go.

Arenas

Arenas are crazy.

They can last from as short as 30 seconds to 10 minutes.

The biggest factor in a successful arena is the way that team is setup for the bracket.

Lets take a look at MY arena teams and make a quick discussion as to the good and bad aspects of these teams. (Links to Armory Arena Teams pages for each one)

2v2 - "No juice for you" - Hunter, Druid - Basically all out DPS on this team with a little healing from me. The biggest problem on this team is ME because a) I don't heal enough b) I don't Root enough c) I don't cyclone enough. I'm working on it. 3-7, unfortunately we were doing these on a Monday night so we didn't get credit for the ten. With more practice I know we can win more than we lose.

3v3 - "Wrathful Angels" - Our most successful trio seems to be the Hunter, Mage, Druid combo (yay I'm part of it!) - Last night we only needed to do 4 matches to get everybody over the 30% mark to get points, and we won every one of them. Granted - we are down near the 1200 rating mark - but you'd be surprised how many people buy those lower teams and basically "power-level" them up back to a better rating. You can tell the difference between a team that really should be at that rating and one that shouldn't. We have 5 members of this team and the constant mixing to make sure everybody gets a shot at points makes us lose.

5v5 - "Deaths Angels" - Hunter Hunter Rogue Mage Druid. All DPS is probably NOT the way to go in 5v5. Especially when you are against a group with 2 pallies, or a mix of a pally and another healing class - you will die. We finally added a priest to the mix - with him healing and me providing backup heals and DPS - it SHOULD work out a lot better. Unfortunately, one of our Hunters is Pregnant, our rogue is in the Navy stationed in Guam, the other hunter and mage are in Australia - and I THINK the priest is too, but he parties a lot - so we haven't been able to try out our new setup. I think with the good experiences I've been having in 2v2 and 3v3, I'll be much more beneficial to the team - EVEN though I'm an arena gimped Feral...

There are LOTS of PvP strategies out there - but in my blog readings today, I was reading Kestrel's Aerie and he posted a link to A Dwarf Priest where there is an awesome entry on Priest PvP tips against other classes. I actually got some good ideas from reading it (on how to druid pvp better yay!) and even learned some things I DIDN'T KNOW!! ((There is also a GREAT synopsis of the "Love is in the Air" Holiday - I got TWO romantic picnic baskets yesterday - so I gave it to a friend instead of taking it out of the gift - the baskets can not be, but the gifts of adoration CAN be traded even after you opened it to see what it was!)

Like I said I felt like I needed to use Cyclone more to help - but there are DIMINISHING RETURNS on cyclone. From the Dwarf Priest:

Cyclone has diminishing returns (first time cast on you it lasts 6 seconds, the second time is 3 seconds, the third is 1.5 seconds, the fourth and subsequent times you are immune) which get reset if combat is left.

Now why didn't I know that? Probably just because I didn't use it enough to figure that out. :p So it looks like if I run away enough to "leave combat" I can then cast the 6 second Cyclone again, right?

Great! Running away strategies!

One thing I have noticed... Some druids are good at ONLY the "run away!!" strategy and not the "run away heal run away cyclone run away heal heal heal don't run away turn into cat form and mangle the face off that remaining opponent!" strategy.

Right... Sorry about that got a bit excited about that last part there as I was able to successfully do that in all the battles my 3v3 group had last night. We only had one death in all the matches we played last night. That's not bad!

Unfortunately - because I only had time for one thing (and logged off immediately after getting everybody to 30% played) - I missed out on a VERY kind invitation to run Sethekk Halls from my good friend Ethlite. Sorry about that Helstrike!! I really want my Swift Flight Form - all this time spent "mounting" my Nether Ray is just too much time wasted when I can insta-shift into flight!!