The halfway point and the return of Combat

Let's get the important things out of the way first. I hit the midpoint of my journey to 80, which, surprises me, due to the fact that it took me what... 6 months to get to 70? Here I am less than a month in and 50.3%. Once I hit 75, a look within was required. What I find is that a) I am a packrat, b) my gear needs a few upgrades, and c) my survivability is lessening in both PvE and PvP.

Packratism

from Webster.com:

Main Entry: pack rat
Function: noun
Date: 1885

a person who collects or hoards especially unneeded items

Ever been truckin around and questing, then get a quest reward for your class that has some meaningful stats, but you just don't know if it's better than what you are wearing, or it has a Use: that just warrants a look-see in the field? Sure, we all have. But, I am willing to bet dollars to donuts (mmmm, donuts) that you are fairly quick in the judgment of an item's usefulness, no matter how short lived. Oh, a neck, that has +18 Sta, 20 AP, and 12 crit... but I have this neck that gives me +16 AGI, 18 STA, and 10 AP. From what I know of the formulae involved with rogue kind, the AGI to AP is 1-1, so in the case of the latter, I get 26 AP and all the benefits of AGI included. SO, should be a no brainer, right? Well, that's when "the voice" comes in. You know... that guy in the back of your head say "dude... it's got +Crit... You LOVE crit. Hang on to that!"

Well, my voice bit me in the ass this weekend. Bags full of voice-heededness. This led me to find what I think is a bug, I which my Zappthrottle Mote Extractor will consume the cloud, even if my inventory is full. I call shenannigans on that. SO, i spent a good while trying on this and that and making loads of room for fur scraps and primordial crystals, and the occasional bent key. Found out that I had a lot of +Int crap in there... The nerve. Maybe one day, i'll wear a bunch of +INT gear for fun and /s about my leet gear in a crowded area.

Welcome back, Combat!

Well, i decided that it was time to retire my daggers to a more damage ready spec of combatitiveness. It was like returning home to old friends... Adrenaline Rush! Blade Fury! Combat Potency! Finishers that no longer miss! And an ability that reminds me more of getting turned around in a stampede. I am talking of course about the new top tier combat ability Killing Spree. They should have named it "Teleport Frenzy" since that's basically what the ability is. I can't wait to try this ability out in PvP.

Earlier the thought was to go Sub and try out the Shadowstep and Shadow Dance goodness, but I'll hold off till I hit 80. Then... I think I'll go for my "The Explorer" title while we skip merrily through Heroics. And you know what that means... I have to visit some popular attractions such as Elwynn Forest and Westfall...

It's gonna be soooooo much fun.

/vanish

PvP blues

Was in Borean Tundra last night, right around the dig site where you talk to the big rock. I'm out there questing, you know... killin 5 of these, picking up 8 of that. Pretty much me and an undead guy for a while. Then... the universe tore asunder and birthed about 10 Allies. So, my night turned from PvE, to PvP instantly.

What happened astonished me. I got my ass wiped left and right by a buncha 70-72 jackasses. Now, if you guys are reading this, my toon is Corelestus, a 74 Belf Rogue on Lightninghoof, and I claim no PvP smarts/tactics/abilitys, so hopefully that takes some of the shine off killing a higher level toon. My key layout is set to a comfortable PvE rotation (for a Mutilate rogue), so I don't have my left hand set to ignite the fire. Usually when PvP happens, I am so unready for it, that I fumble around and start hitting keys and clicking Vanish as fast as I can so I don't die when the GCD drops. In the end, i get fed up, burn sprint and truck as far as my HP (now up to 11K) will allow.

Usually when someone gets the drop on me, it's during a fight with a mob where my health is below 50%, which really pisses me off because there's no fair fight there. When I find a target that I want to smack, I engage them with full health/mana. I figure the honorable thing to do is to give them some sort of sporting chance... If you lauged at that last statement, don't worry... I did to. It is usually this sort of thinking that leads to my pvp demise. Maybe I should change that tactic.

Herk told me the other day that I should really go ShS (this coming from a guy who never leveled a rogue), and now, I think that's starting to become a good idea. I've got the Assassination tree figured out if I want to respec, so it should be an easy reswitch should Sub not work for me at all. Another reason this is a good idea to me (also noted by Herk) is that it would really help out against hunters. Last night i found myself the constant target of some "restlessone" dillweed who seemed to get the better of me. I couldn't outrun the arrows.

I thought I showed some sack by engaging some "of the Shattered Sun" guy, and it would have worked..... if there wasn't a damn priest healing. I need to bust out that Blind mouseover macro into my bars so I can silence them a bit. Maybe some kind of kick mouseover too... this requires more research.

So, to sum up. 30% to 75, gear is crap, dying frequently.

But, i'm 3/4 to my quest clearing for Borean Tundra (thank God) and almost Revered with the guys who will eventually supply me with the plans for a Hog. And that is why I am not in Dragonblight right now.

and in the end, THAT's

3 banger

Holiday vacations are great for increased gameplay. Due to earlier misfortunes with balancing RL and WoW, my wife put stipulations on my gameplay that, for all intensive purposes, lead to "not while I am awake." This means that I get maybe 2 hours a night to play. 3 if I am lucky or just plain refusing to sleep. Holiday weekends bump that gameplay up a lot. The conclusion of football season helps a lot too!

We did a 3 in one a few nights back (where I mysteriously dinged to 73, where I am now 80% through) where we did Nexus, Azjol-Nerub, and the Old Kingdom landed me a nice dagger and some bitchin quest rewards (just for nexus tho). Now, i'm spoiled. I want another Cobweb Machete. Guess I'm forced to pug now..... groan.

Since I am in no hurry to level, i've switched over to Borean Tundra to complete all of those quests. One thing I have found is that the Mightstone Quarry is horribly layed out. 1, there's not an easy way to get from the hold to a straight into open field without aggroing 17 spiders. At least make the boards on the scaffolds wide enough to give you some play. not everybody makes absolutely perfect 180s. 2) the quests are sub par. I'm a god here compared to the Fjord. Over there, i ran a lot for my very life (because staying alive and questing was better at time management than getting sent to a graveyard on the west side of the zone, when die on the east). There aren't that many group quests here. It's like this zone is Easy Mode and the Fjord is Int/Advanced. I get a quest to kill a leet fish, but they dumb it down by giving me a harpoon that reduces him to 6K hp. Booooring.

3) If I get hooked on one more damn plant, i swear i'll quit the game. It's bad enough that fences and sign posts stop me. but a plant? these things have a snag radius the equivalent 3 feet to standard human measurements. And since this is brought up, since when should a dead guy get stopped by a fence or tree?

If I go on the 1-5 scale, i give Howling Fjord a 5, and BT a 2. Maaaaybe a 3.

One plus for BT was that after clearing out Hellscreams quests, i got a nice little world blue upgrade dagger, though only 3 more dps than the green I was using. I'm having a problem figuring out what gear to use on my toon, but that is a discussion for a later day.

Homework for the readers:

I'm faced with a small dilemma: AP or Haste gear? I'm trying the haste route right now, but i don't see a huge diff. probably because i only have +~60 haste. Someone help me out.

Follow Up: Achievements

Just dinged to 72 last evening, and refused to go to bed until i had finished up my quests to get the "Toured the Fjord" achievement. I also picked up (don't laugh) the 1000 quest achievment. Which means that i'll have to go back and do all the Eastern Kingdom/Kalimdor/Outland quests to get that super duper achievement (which I say may happen in about 3 or 4 years.

I really really like the achievement system. Had it not been in place, i would have bypassed the walrus people quests and run over to Borean Tundra or even Dragonblight. Now, i WANT to discover all the map locations. I WANT to finish all the quests. I don't find that I am bored doing so either. Props to the Blizz folk on this one too. I find now that when I get bored, or am just waiting on a friend to help, i look throught he achievements and say "OOH! haven't done that!"

This reminds me of an old quote i heard from a movie i don't remember the name to: "Give him an enima. It'll give him a feeling of accomplishment!" If you know the quote, please tell me the film.

Well, back to work.

/out

Back from Blog Vacation

Ok, long story short, I hit 70 about 2 weeks before Wrath dropped. Then I just kinda petered about for a while till launch. Played a lot with the Assassination build during the lull and pretty much layed off playing for a while to boot. I spent a hell of a long time crafting a new rogue to 70 so I decided, (or my wife decided for me) that I needed a long vacation.

Now, here i am, roughly 3/4 through 71 and working on my "I've Toured the Fjord" achievement. I'm currently at 73/105 quests completed and, with thanks to Sederasha The Pin-cushioner, found out there's a walrus base in the waaaaay southwest of the map that I completely disregarded. I've decided to clear out each zone as I get into them just because hey... I have YEARS till another expansion comes out, and questing in this place is so much damn fun. I've thrown about the idea of just getting my hot and happy belf butt to 80 as fast as Herk (impossible), but sometimes it's all about the journey to the destination, rather than reaching it. Or, if you don't buy that, I don't play 1/2 (possibly 1/3) of the time that he does.

I've been questing mostly with the assasination build, which to my surprise has been a truckload of fun. I find that i am able to do way more damage quicker than my old combat swords build, pre-wrath, however my survivability is not all that great. I am glad I'm a cook, because I clean my stores out of food FAST. I'm trying to learn (on my own) the best way to maintain a good DPS rotation, and keep my energy bar from zeroing out constantly. This is probably due to my inexperience as a mutilate rogue, but if someone has a good method for keeping the energy up, i'd love to hear it.

To echo the great and powerful Herk, I love what they have done with the content. The zones are beautiful. The soundtrack is awesome. My only complaint is that this version is so much more hardware intensive that I find myself on the lowest of the low settings just to have a stutter-free walk through the jungles.

As far as profs go, i'm leveling the Engineering a bit, and love the new toys i get. I've been loving ENG since I started WoW and picked it over the others. This was mainly due to the fact that all my other friends were taking up the other profs. we had an alchemist, a leatherworker, an enchanter, a blacksmith, but nobody wanted the engineering. Dude, for a pally it worked great, since there was no way to pull anything at early levels. Ah... Pallies suck.

That's all for today kids. Tune in next time when I hit 72 and respec to add Hunger For Blood to my list of goodies.

Tata.

November 4, 2008. 10:05 PM.

This is how liberty ends... With thunderous applause.

Almost there!

A lot of crap has been going on since the last post. None of it important, but still... a lot of it. I've been trying to get to the ole 7-0 for quite the long time (i believe since way back in March or April) with my rogue. Now, i realize that 6 months is plenty of time for most of you freaks to get 2 guys to 70 and maybe one halfway there. But hey, there it is.

So i hit 69 JUST before the patch drops. Being that I was now awarded a fresh respec with a bunch of goodies, i decided to forego the tier 10 wasteland (not very much of it good to me at the moment, as well as others) in favor of a hybrid build. This is the first hybrid build i've done on the rogue, and up till now it's been straight Combat. So what I went with was an "ass dagger" build. I have 2 Ced's Carvers waiting in the bank and already have my 2 daggers from Ring of Blood and Hai'Shulud (still lots of Dune love) and they are suiting me just fine. And since I am this close to 70 i figure why not make a PvP build so I can start running with the big dogs in a couple of days.

Now, before you give me hell, i've never played the rogue outside of the combat tree. And I must say.... Assassination = Fun on a bun! I lost a bit of survivability, and my baby Blade Furry. But I make up for it with sweet nourishing carnage! I'm not purpled up or anything and my blue-green count is even (except for the soon-to-be-upgraded Deathblow Goggles) and my crit's up to 24%. My AP currently is lame sitting about 1400.

I should hit the 70 sometime this weekend and when I do, i'm gonna take a looooooooong nap.

I think when I hit 70 i'm gonna camp outside Everlook and gank some allys much in the same way they ganked me in days gone by.