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?

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!***

At Last We Greet You, Karazhan...

Last night was so much fun that I was on for about 3 hours longer than I should have been.

Which then caused me to stumble into work MUCH too late. Lovely. Not good.

So here's what went down...

FIRST - I logged onto my rogue, got all the mats necessary - and made those wonderful Deathblow X11 Goggles that I wanted, then quested and farmed more mats getting my mining up to 367, and TRYING to get to 62 so I could "Show my pride" and actually WEAR the goggles. (Thanks for the comic reminder from an anonymous commenter - Scout Report is fun!)

Then my guildies logged on, and we have been planning on finally finishing up the now not totally required Kara attunement. We were expecting to take one or two of our members through Old Hillsbrad to get ready for Black Morass. We invited a 66 Ret Pally in the guild to come along to fill our group. Good that she came too, because there were some good blue upgrades for her!

Final setup was 70 Feral Druid tank, 70 Subtle Rogue, 70 Holy Pally, 70 BM Hunter and 66 Ret Pally. Durnholde is easy now. My guildmates do an amazing job as well... although we definitely need a bit more experience getting it perfect... I have to charge down mobs going after our hunter at times because we aren't focusing on the target I'm mainly tanking (Multiple mob pulls).

"Hey lets get Black Morass out of the way too!" I say

"I don't think we can handle it... Especially not with my heals" says our better-than-he-thinks-he-is healer. (He's awesome)

"Well let's go anyway!"

CHARGE!!! 18 waves later... Ba-da-bing that was EASY - but you know what? Probably the most fun I have ever had in an instance! I think we will continue getting others through the Kara Key process just because getting through the dungeons and BM is a great learning experience. And its FUN.

We only had one death on Temporus the 2nd boss - But that was only because the Hunter was a bit trigger happy and got a bunch of aggro before I'd even engaged him! The jerk didn't even drop the Hourglass of the Unraveller for us Other than that Chrono Lord Deja and the final boss Aeonus were pushovers.

My tactic on all the rifts and bosses was to position myself between the boss and Medivh, and when a new mob spawned and headed off towards Medivh (Stubborn bums have to be physically hit to stop them from bee-lining to Medivh - so no easy Ferocious Roars or Faerie Fires :( ) I would target and swipe him or lacerate just as he got close to where the Rift-boss was. That was usually good enough to keep them on me. Swipe was especially effective in getting the attention of those little whelps that spawn in 3s. Other than that we had our hunter and rogue picking up the runaways as well as burning down the Rift-bosses to close the rifts. We did a really good job.

It was also nice to laugh at the naysayers who said we couldn't do it!

After turning in the CoT quests I am almost Revered with KoT (hit honored on the way through), so I picked up the Heroic CoT key and the pattern for Drums of Panic. I have a feeling these will be fun in AV, AND even better it allowed me to finally cap my LW! 375 yay!

So of course we had to go into Kara to see what's up in there. Even just the front area is a lot cooler than many other instances - there's just a... Aura to the place that the developers really put some thought into this one. We died a couple times - but I turned in the first quest from the outside (and died) and now I have to find some diary.

Awesome night.
- Cool goggles for my rogue (and Tigersoul is jealous)
- Maxed Leatherworking
- Karazhan Master Key obtained for 4 of my guild officers so we can now organize runs
- Began discussing changes to guild structure to allow for some very laid-back Kara runs.

We'll see how it all works out.

APRIL FOOLS!!!

Wait... what?

I'm too late?

Dang. I hate when that happens.

While not WoW related - I am in LOVE with this little girl!



She's definitely too cute!

So in WoW news, it's still kind of hard for me to get through all the Sunwell quests every day - and I really want the Tabard. I also want the Neck piece they have available - but I'm not sure if I want Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve or Shattered Sun Pendant of Might. Tough choice! But... is it better than the Haramad's Bargain I've been wanting forever!?

Took my now level 60 Rogue through Ramps with some guild members... we had no tank. Having no tank was much easier when we had a 70 mage come back and help us out. It was a lot of fun, although our level 60 Shaman we had with us kept dying. Lucky for her almost every boss drop was perfect for her, so she got lots of nice loot. I was happy to get the Sure-step Boots from the quest Weaken the Ramparts. Not bad. Now to get to level 67 so I can equip the Tigersoul-made Fel Leather Gloves and 69 so I can equip the other two pieces of the Fel Skin set sitting in the break! Having a "higher level" rogue is a lot of fun. I'd better do a couple more AV's before I'm in the higher bracket!

The Armory

I really like the Armory. I like being able to look at the "recommended upgrades" and check out what my guildmates and friends are up to. It breaks the monotony of work when I can use my couple of "quota-time" minutes to bypass the firewall and look at the beautiful purples that I want...

So it's sad when it doesn't work for me.

Oh yeah, I said that yesterday.

RIGHT that's what I'm here for.

PROOF that yesterday it said I had last been updated January 1st (not the 16th), 1970

Hmm... I should have changed it to my Melee stats, and been in catform. Rawr. Oh well... instead you can see that in my Mostly PvP gear I have 28 bonus damage and 80 healing yay! No wonder I heal like crap...

Heroic Tanking - Part 2

I think I have found one of my possible dream jobs through WoW Insider. I wonder how many people would apply for something like that? Unfortunately - I don't have much gaming industry writing experience - and I doubt it would pay enough to live in Irvine, California!

-Heroic Tanking Part 2-

Shortly after writing my "Heroic Tanking" entry, I logged on and found a Depleted Badge for sale on the AH for 450g. I've been keeping my eye out for this baby for a long time now - and had earlier last week bid 500g for an already charged Badge of Tenacity, only to have the seller cancel the auction, then repost at 150g higher... So I bought out the new uncharged badge immediately and charged it up - making my tank gear very nicely at over 23k armor. I also got to Revered with the Netherwing yesterday and received the Commander's Badge, but I'm trying to decide whether the added Health is better for me than the Stormpike Insignia Rank 6... I like that +24 dodge and +Restore Health... (Oh and Mulv! You're going DOWN!!)

Last night I was bored, and tired of the dailies, so I decided to head to the Scrap Heaps near Area 52 to farm Zaxxis Insignias for Consortium rep. I'm determined to get that Haramad's Bargain for my DPS gear! Before I could even start to kill those Magical Mummies, I got a whisper from a former 2v2 partner.

"Hey bro, can you tank?" What kind of question is that - of COURSE I can tank! I'm a DROOOD!!! "We need your help in Heroic Slabs to kill Murmur" Now in my opinion Murmur isn't THAT hard of a boss to tank - it's pretty easy to keep him focused on me, and as long as the healer does his duty (which is much harder than the tanks duty - and I've thankfully had some good ones here!) nobody has to die. However I'd never done Heroic Murmur, but I figured this was a good chance to try out my new gear and get over my trepidation at tanking a Heroic.

I can do it. ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people LIKE me!")

Our party consisted of: Warlock, MS Warrior, Fire Mage, Shaman, and Feral Druid (tank/me). The Warlock in the group had been in my guild 30 levels ago so it was nice to see him again. But, after telling me "Dude, I'm fully epiced!!" he proceeded to ask me "Are you sure you can tank this?" Grrr...

Did I mention that ALL the trash had respawned? That meant I would be tanking through all the trash with no possible rewards/drops from the first three bosses... Lovely. Oh well I can use the Lower City rep and try out that Shapeshifter's Signet someday, right?! (Optimism FTW!!)

We (mostly) cleared the way up to Murmur's hall, we wiped on the first set of mobs due to a pull when one of those extra quickly-killed-by-Murmur mobs added and pulled the next set causing mass confusion...after that wipe, the party basically fell apart.

What caused our downfall, along with a few observations on Tanking and instances in general:

• In a group pull of 4 or 5 mobs - let ME, the Druid Tank pull so that all the mobs come after ME initially and NOT the squishy puller. Makes it a LOT easier to start and maintain Threat. On one of these pulls of the Demons here I was able to somehow keep the Demon on me even though the puller had TWICE my TPS... VERY lucky we didn't wipe on that one.
  
• Haste makes Waste - I don't think people realize how TRUE this is in all areas of life, and WoW. Rushing through ANY instance is more likely to lay waste to the party many many many times than it is getting you to your objective faster. Patience and strategy can make life SOOooooo much easier. Relax! Take a deep breath! Take it easy!
  
• Don't change the Mark for sheep from Circle to Moon without informing the polymorpher
• DON'T HIT THE SHEEP!! ((Sadly this is a reminder for myself... happened THREE TIMES last night - BUT - when I'm trying to get all 4 mobs off the early pull by a clothie who was trying to show how important it is to pay attention and hurry without TELLING anybody he was going to pull...(and ignoring the first point above..) I can forgive myself that mistake in the resulting confusion, especially if only the puller dies and we are able to get out of it.
• Don't take too many shortcuts. It can come back to bite you. HARD.
  
• Don't complain about a healer that's actually doing a good job in a kind of weird group... If you are dying a lot more than everybody else, that might just be one of the reasons why! ((along with pulling too early, pulling instead of the tank and getting too much threat right off the bat, pulling the wrong guy... etc.))
  

Nothing new there really... but wow!! Every one of these happens a lot! Every one of them happened a lot last night too. Was I perfect? No way! I have a lot to learn.

I think another reason I often decline invitations to run Heroic instances is I don't like to rush or be rushed. If I feel like I can't put 100% into an endeavor because I have something I need to do soon, causing me to be impatient, then it's not worth doing as it will most likely be done badly. (This is true in real-life for me as well) Am I a slow person? Heck no - I like to get things done fast, but more importantly, get them done RIGHT. Rushed people don't work at optimum quality or efficiency. And they die. A lot.

So in answer to the question I asked in my last entry; Can I tank Heroics? (Slabs was a GREAT place to check this theory eh?) I will answer that question with an emphatic YES.

But... before I do Slabs again - I want to get some more experience in what I'll call "Heroic Party Mechanics" in some of the lower Heroics... ;-)

Heroic Tanking

To date - I have been in 1 Heroic instance (Ramps) as DPS and occasional OT. 15 gold in repairs later and the PUG disbanded not very nicely.

Almost every day I receive at least one Whisper from a random person, "Do you want to tank Heroic *insert instance here*?" Most of the time I get these as I'm doing Dailies, helping a guildie with something, or MOST often; about to log off.

Occasionally though, one will catch me when I'm not doing anything important. And almost always, I decline.

WHY? I want to run Heroics, I currently have no Heroic Badges so I can't improve my gear that way or improve my Profession with Primal Nethers. (LW 371 currently) I'm also a Rep-Whore and LOVE getting closer to exalted in any Faction (I joked in /guild last night that I was going to get exalted with the Magram Centaur in Desolace...) - and I need the rep from the Heroics to advance in standing with Lower City, Cenarion Expedition, etc. (I want that Earthwarden!)

So why do I decline? PART of it is I'm a bit worried about working with a PUG and everything that goes with that. Mostly - I worry my gear isn't good enough. The thing is, as long as there is a decent healer, I should be fine in many of the heroics, I think.

Here is a quick list of my tanking gear - which you can't normally see on the Armory because I am almost ALWAYS in DPS/PVP gear when I log off.
Head - Stylin' Purple Hat (Probably replacing with s2 or s3 in the next few weeks)
Neck - Necklace of the Deep
Shoulders - Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders
Back - Cloak of the Valiant Defender
Chest - Heavy Clefthoof Vest (Might switch to my Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic... slightly less armor but...)
Wrists - Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers
Hands - Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves
Waist - Manimal's Cinch
Legs - Heavy Clefthoof Leggings
Feet - Vindicator's Dragonhide Boots
Rings - Delicate Eternium Ring, Ogre Slayer's Band
Trinkets - Stormpike Insignia Rank 6, Ancient Draenei War Talisman (wow need to improve these!)
Weapon - Braxxis' Staff of Slumber (someday... Earthwarden)

After MOTW (so basically self buffed) I end up with just under 22k armor, 12.8k Health, just over 29% dodge and am uncritable due to Resilience. What do you think - is this Heroic Instance Tankable gear?? I could use some help here I think. :)

In the end I think it just comes down to Instance experience. I'm lacking - I need it. I think that's my biggest problem.

HA in other silly "stroking my huge ego" news...over at Gankbang I'm FOURTH in Alliance Dragonmaw Feral Druids in Health, and in the top ten for Stamina I think, and something like 31st in Attack power. What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing because all of this info changes all the time, and other than pulling from the Armory, I have no idea how they get all the info - but it's kind of fun to see anyway. :p