Sprint Will Have A One Minute Cooldown

So this is tight. In Cataclysm, Sprint's cooldown is being reduced from 3 minutes down to 1 minute! It'll last only about 8 seconds compared to 15 seconds, but that's more than fine. That'll free up our mobility like crazy. Like crazy I tell ya... CRAZY! Woo...

Chase Christian, over at wow.com, sums it up pretty well. Yeah, we don't need a bunch of new and fancy shit, just improve on our current arsenal. Man, I can't wait!

Prey on the weak,
Nightelf Rogue
Jeaxx - Icecrown Continue reading Sprint Will Have A One Minute Cooldown

Deadly Poison Will Get Your PvP Ass Killed

This is something that applies to all rogues, no mater your spec. One thing I see a problem with is the type of poisons most rogues are choosing to use in PvP. That problem? Deadly Poison.

Lately, it seems 75% of rogues or more are using Deadly Poison for PvP. I know because most Horde rogues I fight use it against me, and most Alliance rogues I see also use it.

So what's the problem? Well the problem of using Deadly Poison dates back to the start of rogue PvP. Nothing's really changed, Deadly Poison's always been a problem. In fact, unless you recently started playing a rogue or never really started PvP until recently, you should already know the problems.

Uncontrollable DoT's are bad, ya dig?

To start, Deadly Poison is a DoT (damage over time). This isn't the only DoT we have, we have Rupture and Garrote. Both of those are DoT's we control. Ya hear me? We control them. But with Deadly Poison, it's an uncontrollable DoT. You need to understand the importance of that. It's a DoT you can't control.

It's all about blindin' bitches

The reason it's bad to always have a DoT on a target is because it keeps you from being able to Blind or Gouge your target. Combat and Assassination rogues (such as myself) won't use Gouge as much as Subtlety rogues, but Blind is so incredibly important.

As you should know, abilities like Gouge and Blind are immediately broken once any damage hits your target. Only an idiot would put a bleed (DoT) on our target and then try to Blind them. But with Deadly Poison, it's doing just that.

With Deadly Poison, you can only blind a target you haven't hit at all. So that means Blind is only useful to a target you haven't touched at all (such as a healer healing your target).

Not using Deadly Poison, it's possible to do the total stunlock method. This method is meant when your going one-on-one with a target and know no one else is going to join the battle.

You open with Cheap Shot, build combo points and then do a 4-5 combo point Kidney Shot before Cheap Shot wares off. You damage your target without using bleeds, and right as Kidney Shot is about to wear off, you Blind. Then, after 6 seconds, you reenter stealth. Right before Blind wears off, you Sap them (not only does this allow time for all diminishing returns to reset, but also give Kidney Shot's cooldown to finish). Right before Sap ends, you open with Cheap Shot, build combo points to 4-5, then do Kidney Shot. At this point, your target will either be near death or already dead. All without them ever touching you. From then, it's your full health vs. your target's low-ass health.

But with Deadly Poison, it's a DoT you can't control. Blind will be useless in this situation.

It's not just for offensive. For defensive, Blind can be a lifesaver. Let's say you got a warrior on you and your near death, with a 5 second bleed. You can blind it for 10 seconds, run, wait until your bleed wears off and stealth. Or against a warlock, if your low on health, no Cloak of Shadows and a warlock (without a pet) has DoT's on you, blind will allow you to run away, mount up and ride away until you can figure out what to do about those damn DoT's (continuing to eat repeatedly 1 second at a time works great).

Targets won't wait around for Deadly Poison

But that's not the only problem with Deadly Poison. There's the problem of consistent damage. Deadly Poison has to do it's damage over 12 seconds. Deadly Poison can be cleansed or removed by most classes, including rogues (also, remember classes can cleanse other players). Your counting on that damage, and to have it removed before it does it's damage is horrible. And unlike warlocks, we can't instantly reapply our poison DoT like warlocks can if we're being kited.

Envenom is also a problem, because although it's great against plate targets as it's a finishing move that ignores armor, it's not usable until you have one stack of Deadly Poison, and really not effective until you have 4 to 5 stacks on your target. The other problem is, even when our target can't remove the poison, if they kite or try to run away, if their Deadly Poison runs out when you catch back up to them, you can't use Envenom.

Your a rogue, not a warlock!

The next problem is more of a mental problem with your prey. It ain't as complex as it sounds. When your fighting your target, you want them to know your fucking them up. You want them to see how much of their health they're losing. You want to put them info defensive mode. You don't want them to think they have a chance, you want them to flee or overreact.

Think of a warlock. I've seen many times where a warlock will put a crap load of DoT's on a target, and the target doesn't realize how much that shit'll damage them, and they'll foolishly fight the warlock. Within a few seconds, the warlock has enough DoT's on the target that it'll be dead within 10 seconds. But that target turns on the warlock and kills it (when the target could have tried to flee, heal, stealth, etc to fight a more strategic fight). That's why warlocks always hide. Not because they can't handle themselves under attack (fear, portals, etc), but because their targets never realize how badly they're going to be damaged. People don't fear warlocks because they say "Oh, that spell didn't hurt..." and they charge them. So a warlock literally has to fear them manually.

Same for Deadly Poison. You want every poison proc to be instant, so that your target (and yourself) sees exactly how well your doing against it. If you open up with let's say double Instant Poison on a target, and by the time your stuns wear off they're at 50% health, they're gonna' focus on defense as well as offense. A druid moonkin may try to transform into cheetah cat form to run away. But if you damage them to 75% with Deadly Poison and Instant Poison, that same druid will clearly feel more confident and will try fighting you full force. Sure, that Deadly Poison will take that druid down to 50% in 10 seconds or so, but that's after it's rooted you, prevented you from going stealth and is shootin' crap at you. Even if you and your target are at 20% health, instantly damaging poison can kill that druid a second before it killed you. Whereas a DoT poison will mean you died before your damage could do it's full effect. Claiming "I got a kill!" after your already dead is worthless.

It's also worth mentioning that Instant Poison can't be cleansed. Instant Poison can be "resisted" via certain cleansing (a spell buff), but once it goes through, it can't be cleansed. It just goes through. Deadly Poison can be cleansed and you better expect your targets to try and cleanse your poison as soon as it first procs.

Sometimes you only have a few seconds to get your blades on a target before they try to keep you away to heal, cleanse, vanish, etc. You want your damage to be instant. You may be on a healer (or a target receiving heals) and you only have 2 seconds to do damage before your stunned, rooted, etc. Your target could be at 20% health. You need your target dead. Not "Ok, I'm gonna' damage you over 12 seconds now.", because a heal can go through and heal that cheap bitch up.

What PvP poisons should be used?

So what poisons should you use? Well you can use whatever poison you want. But, what I go into battle (as I have been for years) is with either Wound Poison and Instant Poison, or with double Instant poisons. Here's why.

Wound Poison loves only you

First of all, let's see what Wound Poison for what it really is. It's a weaker version of Instant Poison that brings with it a healing debuff. Instant Poison, with my PvP gear, does 785 damage, with Wound Poison doing 447 damage. So Wound Poison does about 60% the damage as Instant Poison. But it brings with it an extremely incredible healing debuff, which reduces all healing done to the target by 50% for 15 seconds.

Think about that... If your target manages to get a heal, it only received 50% of the heal. If a healer could heal themselves from 25% health to 75% health, Wound Poison will make that heal bring them from 25% to only 50%. This works not only against healers healing themselves, but any class that received a heal (including health potions, bandages, healing talents, etc). What good is being able to get your target down to 25% with your "massive damage output" if your target then gets healed to 75%?

Wound Poison is simply amazing. It functions exactly like Instant Poison (although it's healing debuff can be cleansed, which is no big deal). You don't have to do anything with it or even think about it. You simply put it on one of your daggers (your slowest dagger would be my advice) and forget about it. And best of all, in case any of you were wondering, Wound Poison's debuff does not break crowd control.

The majority of the time in PvP, I have Wound Poison and Instant Poison equip.

Double Instant Poison, double the fun

Wanna' do the kinda' damage to your target as an Envenom built but have none of the DoT drawbacks? Soak both your blades in Instant Poison. That shit'll really pack a punch.

A lot of you out there are probably thinking "Wait, wait, wait... why not just do Deadly Poison, as when a Deadly Poison stack reaches past five, it'll instantly proc your other weapon's poison to go off. In this case, Instant Poison.". That's fuckin' pointless. This ain't PvE, so you know the problems with using Deadly Poison in PvP. And Deadly Poison procs based on your weapon, so if you had Instant Poison on that weapon, Instant Poison would proc instead of Deadly Poison. The goal of that strategy is get Deadly Poison to the point where it'll trigger Instant Poison, so fuck that and just go with double Instant Poison.

If you want further proof, look at the damage of Deadly Poison vs. Instant Poison. Deadly Poison does (based off my PvP gear) 862 damage, while Instant does 785. Man, that's damn near the same damage. But Deadly Poison doesn't do all that damage at once, it does 72 damage a second (over 12 seconds), while Instant Poison does 785 instantly (or 785 each second for 1 second if you wanna' view it "per second").

It's important to note that Deadly Poison procs more than Instant Poison however. In the timespan of 5 Deadly Poison procs from let's say your mainhand weapon, you can expect about 3 procs of Instant Poison. But again, Instant Poison can never be removed once it's applied. I call that an edge to Instant Poison

The competitive edge

Mostly all of the really good rogues I've ever faced or fought along beside used either Wound Poison & Instant Poison, double Instant Poison or Wound Poison and Mind Numbing poison (Mind Numbing poison has really started becoming unpopular to use though). But those were the really good, hard to find rogues.

If you really wanna' become competitive and become the best rogue you can be, find out this shit for yourself. Test it out. I did, about a month ago I tried an Envenom build and, although I found it a little better against Paladins, found it horrible compared to most other targets. That shit also got me killed more because I couldn't Blind, Gouge or frag belt bitches or simply kill them fast enough as I could with Instant Poison and Wound Poison.

So figure this shit out for yourself, but if you wanna' know what poisons I use... for my daggers, my mainhand is a Heartpierce dagger, and my offhand is a Flesh-Carving Scalpel dagger. But I have a second Heartpierce dagger that I use to poison swap when needed. So 80% or more of my time (in battlegrounds / world PvP), I'm doing Wound Poison & Instant Poison, and the other 20% of the time I'm doing Instant Poison & Instant Poison.

Prey on the weak,
Nightelf Rogue
Jeaxx - Icecrown Continue reading Deadly Poison Will Get Your PvP Ass Killed

I'm Back, And I'm An Assassin, Baby!

It's been nearly two years, but I'm back, baby! And, and... I'm no longer a subtlety rogue. I'm assassination. So what on Earth happened for me to make the change? Here's my story...

I was already a subtlety rogue before Wrath (mainly PvPing), so with the "bug" of Honor Among Thieves, subtlety rogues were the kings of the DPS crop. Shortly before my last post (January 2nd, 2009), changes had happened to subtlety rogues. That change came in the form of Honor Among Thieves, where they added a one second cooldown. It killed the DPS of subtlety rogues. I was noticing my DPS was way, way below not just combat and assassination rogues, but all other DPS classes. My DPS was barely above the tanks.

But that was just for raids, I used subtlety for PvP too. But that also became a problem. Ambush and Backstab both need to be from behind. But in PvP, when you got your feet rooted or frozen and your target is facing you, stunned, you can't do any real damage. Sinister Strike with a subtlety build doesn't do serious damage.

The PvP environment (and subtlety build) changed with Wrath of the Lich King. Shadowstep and Ambush and Shadow Dance and Backstab use to dominate all other rogues in PvP during the Burning Crusade. Not any more. Not only was subtlety not cutting it much against other classes (unless your target keeps its back to you), but combat and especially assassination rogues were able to stand toe-to-toe with me, and unless I could keep their back to me, I'd miss out on getting a chance to kill them.

Shadow Dance was the main problem. Shortly after Wrath was released, Ambush did less damage than it used to. So in order to take out a target one-on-one, you needed Shadow Dance. And let me tell ya, I can count more times that Shadow Dance failed than it worked (was stunned, rooted, wrong position, etc).

So I decided to test out combat. Vast change in DPS for PvE compared to subtlety. Huge, huge change. For PvP, I tried out a combat PvP built. I found, when using all cooldowns, there was a lot damage. But I found that, without cooldowns, I preferred subtlety over combat. I seemed to die quicker than I did when I was subtlety. So I stuck with subtlety for PvP and combat for PvE.

I did combat for about a week. I then tried out assassination. I tried it out for PvE and found I got more DPS with assassination than I got with combat on single targets. In fact, I loved Mutilate. It has the power the original backstab, but has NONE of the positioning requirements. So it's great for solo PvE and raid PvE.

I tried assassination out for PvP also and I was floored. It was amazing. Every Mutilate had the power of the original backstab, but I could do it from any position. (Yes, rogues do it from behind, but because we choose to, not because we can't do it anywhere else.) There was such power and survivability with this spec and build. It was just like how the subtlety spec used to be, but lacked Shadow Step. But in giving up the mobility of Shadow Step, I then gained full run speed while stealthed AND a 15% run speed increase. Ohh-yeah...

So I was sold. Subtlety has always had great survivability (such as Ghostly Strike, Cheat Death, etc) for PvE, but weak DPS compared to the other specs (and other classes). But now that it's DPS seems to have gotten even weaker for PvE, and a PvP Mutilate assassination build has gotten much stronger for PvP, I've made the switch to assassination for both PvE and PvP and I'm lovin' it.

Then shortly after I made the switch, I stopped playing for, shit... at least a year. I came back for about a two months during Trail of the Crusader.

But I stopped playing WoW for a few months and then started back again at the start of Icecrown Citadel's release. I've been an assassination rogue ever since, doin' raids and mainly PvP.

It's unfortunate what's happened to subtlety, but I've just been burned too many times before in the past. Now I'm gonna' go with what puts out the most power, what feels the best and what's the funnest to play. If something doesn't have all three of those things, I ain't doin' it. Now my loyalty lies with whichever spec does me right, and for the past year of on-and-off play, assassination's had my back every time.

Prey on the weak,

Night Elf Rogue

Jaexx - Icecrown

Continue reading I'm Back, And I'm An Assassin, Baby!

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

Ahh, the Mirror of Truth. It's gotta' be one of the most desirable trinkets for rogues. The only way to get it is buying it with 40 Emblem of Heroism marks. This was the first thing I bought with my Emblem of Heroism marks, and for good reason.

This should be the very first thing you buy with your marks because armor and weapons are all things that can drop in instances / raids or can be created for you. For instance, I had my main epic dagger created for me with my mats. Same DPS and specs at the dagger sold with Heroism marks and my crafted dagger looks much better, and the same for the epic cloak, shoulders and belt I had made. And there are weapons and armor of the same power and specs (and better) that can be found in instances and raids.

But trinket drops are much rarer, and the ones that would happen to drop most-likely aren't going to be for a rogue at all... or other DPS classes will roll for it. And on top of that, the Mirror of Truth trinket is one of the best trinkets for rogues.

I recommend you buying this trinket as soon as you get 40 marks. (And, in fact, anything you buy should be something rare, like your thrown weapons or a cloak, rather than something more common, like a dagger or chest piece.) It looks like any other end-game trinkets won't be any more powerful than this thing really, so buyin' this bitch will be somethin' you won't replace anytime soon. (I'm sure there will be better trinkets in time, but whatever.)

So, what makes it so great? First thing to note is that it's not a trinket you "activate", it's one of those passive ones. It's not somethin' you control, it does it's shit automatically. Some of you out there might prefer a trinket that you control, so you can become the most powerful when usin' somethin' like Shadow Dance. Don't worry, I think this is totally worth it because most of use probably waited to activate our trinkets only at special times and not using it as much as we could have been.

The first stat of Mirror of Truth is that it increases your critical strike by 1.83%. That's fuckin' nice right there. I mean, that's almost 2% critical strike. Wow. The next thing... "Chance on critical hit to increase your attack power by 1000 for 10 secs." Holy shit... 1,000 attack power? Seconds?? Yeah baby, sign me up!

So ok, here's how it works... not theory, not math... but the actual real world truth of it. This thing has a chance to go off when you get a critical strike, either with your special attacks or with your auto damage (and even if your poisons get a critical). That means once you start fighting, it should go off about 1 to 30 seconds. Once it goes off, you'll get a bad ass buff called the Reflection of Torment. This bitch shares the same icon as Sinister Calling, the sub talent, so that right there makes this fuckin' awesome. But, Reflection of Torment gives you 1,000 'freakin' attack power for 10 seconds. How great is that. No matter what your attack power is on your character, havin' 'freakin' 1,000 attack power will always be a huge boost.

But here's the deal, the trinket, the Reflection of Torment buff, it has an internal cooldown of about 50 seconds. That means, no matter what kinda' crazy critical shit you're doin', the shortest time the Mirror of Truth can activate is 50 seconds. But that'll only if you happened to get a critical that triggered it at the perfect moment. Realistically, it'll go off about once every minute or longer if your unlucky.

Now some of you might be thinkin' this sucks, but it doesn't. That's 'freakin' awesome. I mean think about this... most "activate" trinkets have a cooldown of about 2 minutes and I guarantee you're not usin' it every two minutes. In fact, I'd only use my trinket in sync with Shadow Dance... which I won't do Shadow Dance every two minutes, I try to always save it for a boss fight, tough PvP kill or when shit's goin' bad (but that's just me, you should be doin' it as much as possible). So havin' this baby go off every minute or so is so great.

But ok, what about the people out there who were using a trinket in sync with Shadow Dance on boss fights? Well it's simple... Just go in and attack the boss like you normally would and just wait until you get Reflection of Torment. Once you get it, start the Shadow Dance. I know it'll throw your timing of keeping full energy up and / or five combo points and a finisher right before you do Shadow Dance, but it's cool... either do Shadow Dance without Reflection of Torment, or do it with it. If you start Shadow Dance before Reflection of Torment has gone off yet, it'll probably go off with one of your ambushes or finishers.

Mirror of Truth... fuckin' awesome. Go get it, and enjoy it.

Jeaxx Continue reading Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

Rogues Do It From Behind...

This should be common sense for all you subtlety rogues out there (and all rogues in general), but stay behind your target! Subtlety rogues are the most dependent for needing to be behind our targets because of our abilities, so mostly all of you better understand that already. But you need to be behind so that your target can't parry attacks and other reasons.

Your auto attacks and special abilities can be parried, but your target can't parry your attacks if you're from behind. Not only is this good for you when fighting targets as it'll allow your auto attacks (white damage) to go through much more, but if you're fighting your target from the front, if your attacks are parried they actually give your target more damage, so it would hurt your tank more.

But being behind your target when using your abilities is even more important, both on PvE and PvP. Getting one of your abilities parried, such as Kidney Shot or Dismantle, can really fuck you over in the long run.

There are four things that can make your attacks fail. You miss, your attack is dodged, parried or blocked. The way it works now, players and targets can dodge and block (players can only block if they have a shield) from any direction, and you of course can miss from any direction.

You can help not miss so much by skilling your weapon to max or investing in hit and expertise I believe (but I don't worry about hit and expertise). There's not much prevent your attacks from being dodged (there are things expertise, but not worth mentioning) it's because that's based on your target and not you. There's not much to prevent your attacks from being blocked either (if it's blocked, your attack will still go through but won't be as powerful). But when it comes to havin' your shit parried, you can prevent it 100% if you're behind your target.

As you should have already known, this is advice that all melee classes should follow. This is why all pets and minions always attack from behind now and why you should see all melee classes fighting right along aside you, from behind.

And remember, some mobs (and I guess players too) have attacks that can hit any melee players in front of them... so another reason not to be fighting in front as your tank.

So your attacks can be parried, you can hurt your tank and you can be hit also if you're in front of your target. Mostly all melee classes should know their rolls on where to stand when fighting with a tank by now. But shit, not long ago, man I'd see armatures and seasoned melee players, including rogues, fuckin' fightin' from the front. Bein' a subtlety rogue, I had to be behind my target for my own abilities... so it'd be so funny to see a rogue in much better gear as me get fuckin' told where to stand 'cuz they were messin' shit up or gettin' killed. Just another reason to do your own experimenting on your class and not wait until people start tellin' ya what do it. (I was even told by combat rogues back in the way "dude, dont stand behind, stay front of the mob"... fuckin' button-mashin' dip shits.)

Yeah, it's freakin' hard stayin' behind your targets in instances, but bring the party or raid some PvP experience... stay on your fuckin' toes the entire time (and rely on Shadowstep) to stay behind your target. It's not hard at all when you consider the shit you gotta' go through for PvP... but just keep on your toes. If you're doin' it right, you'll be the first one to targets and the one that's movin' around the most and the quickest to react, even against other rogues.

Jeaxx Continue reading Rogues Do It From Behind...

Ghostly Strike, Useful or Useless?

Time to talk about the ability only found in the subtlety talent tree... Ghostly Strike. But is it useful or useless? Let's start with a little bit of background...

Back in the original days of WoW, before the Burning Crusade, I was one of the only subtlety rogues around. I had Ghostly Strike speced. Not only was I one of the only sub-speced rogues around, I never once heard the Ghostly Strike sound effect from anyone... ever, besides from me. So all the rogues that may be usin' or talkin' about Ghostly Strike now, they weren't usin' it back then.

So, was it useful or useless? This is gonna' surprise you, but it was useless. I did heavy PvP in battlegrounds and it was useless in PvP, but no surprise there, tactics for PvP are complex. But, for PvE, it was useless. Yes, useless. But that was back then...

Why was it useless? Simply because it didn't do shit for me. Ghostly Strike isn't meant to be used for damage... Sinister Strike can be used for that. But Ghostly Strike is used as a mini Evasion in addition to doing Sinister Strike damage.

But, whenever I used it against fighting PvE targets, it didn't do hardly anything for me... I got hit the same way as if I didn't use it. It's important to note that I'm a bad ass night elf. I already have a special 1% chance to dodge attacks from my racial, Quickness. So I didn't notice it helping, that's pretty bad.

So, for the longest time I kept it speced but it was really useless to me. Although, from patch to patch, abilities get tweaked and changed. You see comments talkin' about it now, hailing it as a "GODLIKE!" type of ability... yeah, we all know "poster comments" can be complete bull shit because, well... anyone can post a comment.

How is Ghostly Strike now though? Useful or uselsss? It's a big surprise, but Ghostly Strike is very useful to me now. Clearly the mechanics or somethin' has changed. Now it's very useful. The way to think about it is as a mini-Evasion, like I've mentioned before. Don't find it realistic at all to use in PvP, but it is for PvE.

I've found it most useful in any kinda' groups where a tank is present. Ghostly Strike is perfect for when you draw aggro for some reason (including the death of your tank). Of course, Evasion is really the ideal thing if you get a shit load'a crap on you, like your tank dying... but Evasion should be a "last ditch effort" kinda' thing so you never wanna' use it for in groups unless you can get the most use outta' it. So that's when Ghostly Strike's become a god-send.

I've noticed myself using it so often in level 80 groups. In fact, when I notice myself taking damage (such as from melee AoEs), Ghostly Strike helps me dodge it. Or I suddenly will get a boss on me, I immediately hit Ghostly Strike helps me dodge some of those devastating attacks, until I'm able to put Tricks of the Trade on the tank or until the tank can regain aggro naturally.

So yeah, Ghostly Strike has become very useful to me. In fact, it'd really change the way I play in groups. In fact, there are many times when you can't do a lot of your normal defenses. Stuns won't work on some elites, including every boss. Blind is almost useless because every person in your group will be using some kind of AoE, even if you're fighting only one target (go fig...). Evasion and Vanish (and Shadowmeld for us night elves) are the only options we have (when Tricks of the Trade might not help in time)... but with Ghostly Strike, it can really help you. And best of all, if you take really serious damage, if you do use Evasion then, it's cool 'cuz the buff you already got from Ghostly Strike will already help ya.

There are tons of people that talk shit like "use it with Evasion". I don't recommend that at all. Don't use Ghostly Strike for Evasion... use it in the way I mentioned. Use Evasion just when you normally would. But, once you've got Evasion up, you can use Ghostly Strike to help out Evasion, but I actually recommend using Ghostly Strike towards the end of Evasion. "lol noob thats not how u use gs" The reason why is because it in a sense extends Evasion... Evasion lasts 15 seconds, so then if you use Ghostly Strike towards the end, it'll make your dodge chances last slightly longer. Now, I do use Ghostly Strike in the middle of Evasion, sometimes just to get insane dodge 'cuz I feel like it or because my health is so low I may not survive to the end of those 15 seconds of Evasion. So what I want you to understand both reasons for using Ghostly Strike to enhance Evasion and using Ghostly Stroke to extend Evasion.

Now there is a glyph called Glyph of Ghostly Strike. I don't recommend it at all. It increases damage and makes it last 4 seconds longer, which is really nice... But, it increases it's cooldown by 10 seconds. Instead of being 20 seconds, it's 30 seconds. That doesn't seem like much, and normally I would recommend this glyph... but shit, I've found myself hittin' my "f" key (key mapped to Ghostly Strike) in desperation because Ghostly Strike was still on cooldown, but I couldn't afford to use Evasion because we're right about to fight a boss (and you can't afford to have Evasion on cooldown during a boss fight). Or a more practical use... I get a target, or boss on me, and as I look down, I see Ghostly Strike finishing it's cooldown, thinkin' "Crap, it seems like I just used it a few seconds ago... Great!" and hit it. That 20 second cooldown comes in hand at the most important times.

So, when it comes to recommending Glyph of Ghostly Strike... if it's not good for me, then it's not somethin' I'm gonna' recommend to you.

Back to Ghostly Strike, it's somethin' I rely on so much in groups now and I recommend it to ya.

Jeaxx Continue reading Ghostly Strike, Useful or Useless?

Get At Me...

So how to get at me? If your wonderin' why you can't leave comments on the pages, it's 'cuz I saw the comments starting turning into shit that reminded me of the trade chat. So no comments on pages...

So, how exact are you 'sposed to get at your favorite, wild-eyed rogue? Simple baby... chase me down in Stormwind, Darnassus or in the Dalaran sewers and be like "Yo baby! I got's somethin'ta tell ya!" and I'll be all like "Yeah?! Bring it...".

But I bet 95% of you aren't from my realm, so here's what you do. Go create a bad ass lookin' level 1 night elf rogue on the Icecrown realm and add "Jeaxx" to your friends list. If I'm on, whisper my ass. If I'm not on, or I don't see your whisper, simply send me some in game mail. To get money for mail, complete the very first quest, The Balance of Nature, and you'll not only get mail money, but selling the loot you collected, you'll collect over 1 silver. You then have the 30 copper to send a letter to me. Then write whatever you want to me; include your character and realm you're on, and at the end, say "send mail money". I'll write back to ya and send you some silver for mail money. ('Cuz I'm generous like that...)

Then what you do is just keep your level 2 character on Icecrown and simply switch over if you need to check mail from me or write me somethin'. And don't bother leveling this character, just focus on your main. (I have only one character in total, and that's Jeaxx)

Any questions? Well if you got'em, you know how'ta spit'em my way...

Jeaxx Continue reading Get At Me...

New And Improved Feint?

So 'ight, the big buzz for us rogues is our first AoE, Fan of Knives, and our first party buff and aggro misdirect, Tricks of the Trade. Has I had mentioned in a previous post, Feint had become pretty much useless. You know, why use Feint when we have Tricks of the Trade? Well patch 3.0.8 is gonna' change all that.

Feint is getting a new use. Read for yourself...

"Rank 8 now reduces the damage taken from area of effect attacks by 50% for 6 seconds in addition to its existing effects."

Fuck yeah! That's 'freakin' awesome. I doubt no one will use Feint to reduce aggro after the patch, but we will use it to reduce AoE damage taken.

It's like this... your in an instance or your in PvP and somethin' starts spittin' out AoE bull shit at you or your group. Activate Feint and, although it doesn't keep you from gettin' hit, it reduced that damage by 50%. Every class, as far as I know, has an AoE now of some kind, so that's gonna' be so useful in PvP and it's gonna' be life saving... yes, life saving, in some of these tough instances and raids where just one target doin' AoE damage can rip you up ('cuz healers aren't the quickest bunch to switch off the tank). So man, I'm lookin' forward to the new and improved Feint.

The only other change is a huge one... one I've known about for the longest time, but wanted to make sure it was really gonna' happen before I talked about it... Fan of Knives is gonna' have it's cooldown removed and it's gonna' deal 150% weapon damage if you're usin' daggers. Oh 'freak yeah. I realize, too, why they gave daggers 150% more weapon damage... not to show dagger luv, but because swords, fist weapons and maces are slow but have high damage. What that means is, even if my daggers have a higher DPS than someone usin' swords, the sword rogue will do more Fan of Knives AoE damage than me because Fan of Knives damage is based off of your weapon damage and not weapon speed and damage (DPS). So Blizzard corrected this by giving a buff to daggers so that daggers will do the same damage as swords.

So, Fan of Knives havin' zero cooldown will be fuckin' awesome. Right now, havin' Fan of Knives use 50 energy, you'll be able use to Fan of Knives once every 5 seconds (assuming you're starting from zero energy), the time it takes your energy to refill. You can do two AoE's instantly pretty much from full energy, but just consider Fan of Knives havin' it's cooldown reduced to 5 seconds to keep it simple. I'm so lookin' forward to that.

And those are the only changes to come to rogues, and that's cool 'cuz those are big changes. We get our AoE "fixed" and we also get defense against harmful AoE's. I'm lookin' forward to this...

Jeaxx Continue reading New And Improved Feint?

Solo PvE Backstabbin'? I Got You Covered...

I'll be out tearin' up some target solo and, from time to time, I'll get whispers from "dagger rogues" (as they like to call themselves) after seein' me, askin' how I'm able to do so many Backstabs or what tactics I'm usin'. Tactics, talents and glyphs... that's how I'm able to pull off some crazy shit and I'm gonna' tell you exactly how I do it.

On a single target, I'm able to pull off an Ambush and three, count'em, three Backstabs... all before my target even has a chance to hit me. After that, a level 80 target will be down to 10-20% health by the time they're finally able to face me and, by that time, a quick Eviscerate takes care of'em... all without me takin' hardly any damage.

There are three important factors that have to be there in order to do this shit. Combo points, energy and damage from Ambush and Backstab. But combo points and energy are the most important. Without enough energy and combo points, you won't be able to do this shit in enough time.

Before I tell you what I use and what you'll need to perform this stuff, I'll go over the process. First enter stealth and select your target and activate Premeditation. That gives you 2 combo points on your target instantly. You don't have to use Shadowstep, but Shadowstep is very helpful, not only will it make your Ambush more powerful, but because there's a chance that you'll slow your target down (like Crippling Poison does). Next you'll Ambush your target. You'll always either have 4 to 5 combo points (most of the time you'll have 5). At this point, you'll be down to about 75% energy. Then, you wait about a second or two to regain 90-100% energy. Because of the mini-sprint you get with Shadowstep and hopefully the slowing effect of Ambush, you run from your target slightly so your target can't hit you and wait a second or two to regain energy. You must have 90-100% energy and 5 combo points, if you do, perform Kidney Shot. You're now able to run behind your target and you'll be able to pull off 3 Backstabs before Kidney Shot wears off. From those three Backstabs, you'll then have 3 combo points. By the time your target has time to turn around, you can either finish your target off with an Eviscerate, or if your fighting a real bad ass and their health is above 50%, then just start your fight as normal... which I'll then use one Hemorrhage, then Ghostly Strike and shit... if my target still ain't dead by then, I'll do Gouge Backstabs.

Now, you won't be able to do this without talents and glyphs. So here are the talents that allow me to do this.

Relentless Strikes 5/5

When you use Kidney Shot with five combo points, you'll have a 100% chance to restore 25 energy. This will be needed to have enough energy to perform 3 Backstabs before Cheap Shot wears out.

Opportunity 2/2

Increases damage for both Ambush and Backstab by 20%.

Initiative 3/3

This gives you a 75% chance to add that fifth combo point to your target after doing your Ambush.

Improved Ambush 2/2

Increased your critical strike chance of Ambush by 50%. This is important for the Waylay talent.

Dirty Deeds 2/2

It gives an amazing 35% damage bonus when your target is below 35% health.

Master of Subtlety 3/3

This causes all damage to do 10% more damage for 6 seconds after breaking stealth. This gives your Ambush and Backstabs more power.

Premeditation 1/1

This is the ability (talent) that allows you to put those all important 2 combo points on your target from stealth.

Sinister Calling 5/5

This makes your Backstab do an additional 5% damage.

Waylay 2/2

When you get a critical strike from your Ambush, you reduce their movement speed which can help you "kite" them for about a second or two until you have enough energy to perform your Kidney Shot (will will prevent you from getting hit, keeping your health extremely high after killing your target).

Shadow Step 1/1

This causes you to not only have Shadow Step, but it also gives you 20% more damage to your Ambush and also gives you a mini-sprint that'll help you kite your target, even if Waylay isn't active.

Slaughter from the Shadows 5/5

This reduces the energy cost of Backstab and Ambush by 15.

So those are the talents that let you have the energy, combo points and damage. But there's also a glyph that comes into play.

Glyph of Backstab

This increases your Backstab damage by 20% against stunned targets. This is perfect because, in solo PvE, that's the only way you'll ever be able to Backstab your target, either through Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot or Gouge.

So with all this "math" shit over... let's just go over what this'll allow you to do in a nut shell. You Ambush your target, stun your target, run behind and pull off 3 Backstabs, all without your target hitting you. By that point, you can just finish that bitch off any way you want. I love showin' off against combat rogues when fightin' the same type of targets. Not only will I finish a target off slightly quicker, I'll have like 70% health and the combat will be down to like 20% after a while of fighting. While they've stop to eat or "vanish" because their health drops down and almost die, I'm still goin' out doin' my shit.

It's important to note that, instead of using Kidney Shot and doing Backstabs, I can Eviscerate and use other abilities and take my target out about just as quickly... but, I'll take damage the entire time. So, doing this method not only is cool and it's "show off" type shit, but it really keeps you alive and well, free from most of your target's damgage. That helps you kill more targets without having to heal yourself.

one important thing to realize is that, if your target is stunned, your target can't block, dodge or parry your attacks so your Backstabs will always go through, unless you happen to miss.

This works out perfectly for PvP too, just make sure you do everything perfect... and when doing your Kidney Shot, it may help if you Dismantle melee players so they can't parry or block your Kidney Shot.

So go out there and show off those sexy subtlety skills of yours.

Jeaxx Continue reading Solo PvE Backstabbin'? I Got You Covered...

Fan of Knives, You So Sexy

After hittin' 80 ('freak yeah), I've finally got Fans of freakin' Knives! This is our first (and only) AoE (area of effect) attack. Mostly all classes know what an AoE is, because every single 'freakin' class in the game has had them... but us rogues (and no, combat spec and talents are not AoE's). An AoE is an attack that damages anything in the circle, simple as that.

So, we've all been waiting to find out... is Fan of Knives bitchin' or not? It's bitchin'. Now only does it look good, but it also does decent damage. The bad... it uses 50% energy and it has a 10 second cool down. That's a long time. But here's the good, very, very surprising news... 'freakin' Fan of Knives will actually apply poison to your targets! Yeah, no kiddin'... Basically, the way it works is... any targets in a 8 yard radius will get one auto attack hit from both of your weapons. You'll see two attack numbers float above each target... one attack is your main hand weapon and the other is your off hand.

Now here's the interesting thing... this isn't a "magical" attack like most AoE's, this is an actual "weapon" attack so your targets can parry, dodge or block either one of your AoE hits. And that's pretty tight it's like that. And don't worry, both weapons attack at the same time so the odds of both attacks being dodged, parried or blocked are slim.

So back to what we were talkin' 'bout, not only will all weapons attack any targets near you, but each weapon has a chance to poison your target, whatever poison is on your blade at the time. As you can see in the screen shot, there's a lot happening here. I choose to do Fan of Knives near a heroic boss target dummy and level 70 target dummy. The boss is getting hit by my off hand I assume (244) and has parried, dodged or blocked the main hand hit. The level 70 target dummy is getting hit by I assume my main hand (652) and by my off hand (221). But, there's an extra hit there... you can see the poison visual FXs on the target dummy, so clearly that 592 number is my instant poison. 

So not only am I hitting the level 70 target dummy for 873 from my weapon damage, but my instant poison takes the damage to that target up to 1468. Now picture doin' damage to multiple targets. Yeah, now you get how useful Fan of Knives can be.
We understand how it works... now, how's it in action? I wanted to wait to write this until I was able to use it in some heroics. Let me tell ya, it's 'freakin' amazing!.

Tactics for using Fan of Knives is so much different than anything else we've faced because, simply, we've never had an AoE before... so I'm gonna' cover Fan of Knives tactics, both for PvE and PvP in another post later so we can really get into deep.
So is Fan of Knives fuckin' sexy? Yes... Is Fan of Knives fuckin' awesome? Yes... Is it everything we've been hpin' for? Oh 'freak yeah... If you ain't usin' Fan of Knives, you don't know what your missin' baby.

Jeaxx

Continue reading Fan of Knives, You So Sexy

Why Shadow Dance Doesn't Have FXs

So, I've figured out why Shadow Dance doesn't have FXs. A lotta' subtlety rogues have complained to me about Shadow Dance not having any FXs, and I even wondered the same thing. But I realized awhile ago why Shadow Dance doesn't have any special FXs like Shadow Step or any of our other abilities do... it's not meant to!

I thought to myself, "Why would Blizzard do this? It used to have special FXs, so why not now?". They knew exactly what they were doing. They did that so that no one can tell when we start the Shadow Dance. They did it to protect and help us while doin' PvP. One of the worst things that can happen to a rogue is being stunned, frozen or somehow locked down in the middle of Shadow Dance. If Shadow Dance had special FXs, it would be a big ass red flag to anyone and everyone around to stun or disable your ass. I mean, can you imagine being Dismantled in the middle of Shadow Dance? Shit... tha'd mess your whole game up!

So, yes, there were special FXs for Shadow Dance, but Blizzard was smart and took it out. I'm so glad they did it. I'm also glad that Ambush and Backstab have the same sound FXs because while you're doing Shadow Dance, no one can tell if you're just doing Backstabs or if you're doing Ambushes (until they look at their health, haha).

Jeaxx Continue reading Why Shadow Dance Doesn't Have FXs

Off Hand Weapon Speed You Can See

It's hard for a lotta' people to visualize the importance of weapon speed. I mean shit, most people barely understand DPS. But weapon speed is important, not just in how much damage you do in the long run... but it's something you can actually see.

I'm in the process of leveling so, currently, these are the weapons I'm using right now: Wodin's Second-Best Shanker as my main hand dagger and Saronite Ambusher as my off hand dagger. Now what I really love is my Savage Cobalt Slicer sword. I had both the Savage Cobalt Slicer and the Saronite Ambusher made for me with materials I created myself (since I'm a miner). I love the Cobalt, it's such a huge, 'freakin' awesome lookin' sword. And I had it created before my Saronite Ambusher, so I was using it for about two days. Mainly just for looks.

But looks aren't important... damage is. And when talkin' about white damage (damage from your auto attacks), speed is very, very important, especially for your off hand.

I took my blades out on a training dummy, considering my Cobalt is a slow, 2.70 speed and my Ambusher is a 1.70 speed. I let myself just auto attack my target. What's interesting to watch is the speed of your off hand. With my slow, off hand sword, for every main hand dagger hit, my off hand sword would hit, but it would take two main hand dagger hits before my sword would hit again. It's clearly visible that my off hand sword was not hitting as much as my main hand dagger. But with my off hand dagger, the Ambusher, with a quick speed of 1.70, my off hand dagger hit exactly as much as my main hand dagger.

To put it into perspective, here's how many hits were made with my main hand dagger and off hand sword, in let's say 10 seconds.

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Sword
Main Hand Dagger

Here's how it went with my main hand dagger and off hand dagger, for the same amount of time, 10 seconds.

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger

Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger
Main Hand Dagger
Off Hand Dagger

Much more hits were taken place. Now the DPS of the Savage Cobalt Slicer sword is 104.2 and the DPS of the Saronite Ambusher is 106.8, so their damage per second (DPS) is the same, so all this stuff about speed shouldn't matter, right? If this was my main hand weapon, sure, but we're talking about the off hand, and weapons in your off hand do 50% less damage, so this is why you want a weapon that is faster in your off hand so it'll hit more often. "Weapons equipped in the off hand generally do 50% less damage than they would do when equipped in the main hand, and many players equip speedier weapons that hit quicker to mitigate this effect."

So, when it comes to weapon speed, this is something you can actually see for yourself in action. And don't worry, there are swords that have a fast speed for your off hand, like my PvP sword was, but they're rare to come by until you get into PvP rewards or end game type of stuff. It's much easier to just go with daggers for your off hand. (Although I like the animation of a sword in the off hand much better than a dagger in the off hand.)

This outta' clear up any confusion about weapon speed and DPS and how it all works for your character.

Jeaxx

Continue reading Off Hand Weapon Speed You Can See

Tricks of the Trade, My New Bitch

I've finally tried out the level 75 rogue talent Tricks of the Trade... and man am I lovin' it. Tricks of the Trade is a "misdirect" type of ability that'll let you direct 100% of any aggro directly to someone in your party for 6 seconds. It also gives a 15% damage buff to that target.

Now I've been askin' level 75 and higher rogues what they think of Tricks of the Trade and they all said they haven't been using it. When I asked why, most of them really didn't understand it. And as you can see from the wowhead comments about Tricks of the Trade, there's a lotta' bull shit bein' "taught" about it. Mostly all of the comments were said before WotLK was even released, so how the 'freak you gonna' be talkin' about somethin' you don't know anything about? (yeah, I really doubt they all were beta testers) So I'm gonna' tell you how it really works...

Tricks of the Trade is 'freakin' awesome when you're in a group doin' PvE. Some rules about Tricks of the Trade... You can't use it on yourself. You have to be in a group to use it on other people. You can use it on raid members even if they're not in your group. And one of the most important, Tricks of the Trade becomes disabled (greyed out) if you're grouped with someone who's a much lower level than you.

So 'nough of that; how's it great? The bitch is awesome... it lets you direct all aggro, threat, to any target you want, as well as give our first and only buff to other players. It'll allow you to do one of four things. It'll allow you to pull a target like a hunter's Misdirect does. It'll allow you make the first attack on a target without worrying about the tank "gaining aggro" first. It'll allow you to manage your threat levels if you've got a target on you. And, it'll allow you to force a target into attacking someone in your party you don't like.

There's a lotta' bull shit online about how it's not a "Misdirect" for rogues... but really, it is. They say that, although you can "misdirect" one "mob", all the rest will be on you and "lolol noob, u will be a dead rogue". That's not the truth. If you put Tricks of the Trade on your tank from stealth and then let's say Shadow Step and Ambush in on some targets, any targets that would get pulled will all go for your tank. Now all level 80 warriors now have Heroic Throw, which means that they won't need hunters (or rogues) to do long distance pulls (where charging in on a target would cause problems). But rogues can absolutely do pulls the same exact way hunters have been with Misdirect. If the tank stands back in the group, if you go to your target and attack, they all will run to the tank. But we can also do long range pulls... Simply be in stealth, activate Premeditation, to put two combo points on your target and then get within range for Deadly Throw. Now Deadly Throw slows your target down, so if it's a pull, the other targets will reach your tank before your main target, which isn't really ideal. So, if you're with a group that either has a warrior who hasn't reached level 80, or some other tanking class and you happen to have a hunter in your group, rely on the hunter or warrior to do long distance pulls. You'd rather do an Ambush on your target than a 2 combo point Deadly Throw anyways.

When it comes to making the first strike, Tricks of the Trade is perfect for that. The old saying goes... "Give your tank a few seconds to build aggro until you attack". That's true and not true... A good tank can gain aggro off you regardless of what you do... but, I've noticed a lotta' hybrid classes, druids in bear form or paladins, have trouble keeping aggro, so you did have to give them time to build aggro. So that's where Tricks of the Trade is perfect. Go ahead, go make the first attack... not only will you not be gettin' any aggro, but it'll actually help... yes, help, your tank build aggro that much faster.

And one of the nicest things about Tricks of the Trade is threat management. What would happen before is that, if you got aggro on yourself, let's say from a boss that can tear you up... you would either have to use Evasion or Vanish, or try and use Feint, or... stop attacking so the tank can regain aggro. That sucks, havin' to use cooldowns to keep yourself from getting hit or stop attacking. Now, with Tricks of the Trade, you can put that onto your tank and, instead of using Feint or trying to be "gentle" on your damage, you now wanna' try to do as much immediate damage (such as Eviscerate) because for 6 seconds, the more hurt you dish out, the more the target will get off your ass.

And the best thing is usin' Tricks of the Trade to make a target attack someone that you don't like... you know, someone you want the target to attack, either to give them a tough time or to try 'n' kill. I'll explain in a sec...

So, how to use it. It doesn't break stealth so it's perfectly fine to use it from stealth on your tank and make the first strike. Until Tricks of the Trade becomes more well known, simply link to your party that you'll be using Tricks of the Trade, so there's no confusion or anybody thinking "The rogue isn't waiting for the tank to build aggro, so I don't need to either" kinda' thing. It's so much fun... I've always felt that rogues should be the first one in battle, and now you can. In fact, if your party is smart, they'll want you to do that.

An important talent is Filthy Tricks (Rank 2). It not only reduces your Preparation from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, but it also reduces your Tricks of the Trade from 30 seconds to 20 seconds. That makes Tricks of the Trade available at almost anytime.

For complex pulls when you're not with a level 80 warrior and don't have a hunter, don't be afraid to do the pull yourself... just let your tank know. If you can, move up and sap one of the targets, move back and then do Premeditation and Deadly Throw. If you don't want your target to be slowed, just simply throw your weapon at your target.

It's also good for tagging targets. I was with a group doin' the new Ring of Blood arena in Northren. We were already done with our quests, but we were trying to "tag" the bosses people summoned so that we'd get the XP from the kill (while they still got credit). It wasn't easy 'cuz we had multiple groups in there, all tryin' to do the same thing. I could normally attack the boss first and get it tagged, but the boss would be on me and if I didn't use Evasion, I'd get torn up. Well that's when Tricks of the Trade was perfect... I'd attack the boss and each attack directed the boss to our tank, which not only tagged it for us, it put the boss right on our tank and left me untouched. Gotta' love that...

And one of the funnest things to do is put this on someone in your party who isn't a tank. With the same group in the new Ring of Blood, it was at the stage where guy with the mount comes out. A level 79 druid in feral cat form (I was level 75) from our group kept jumping into the mount each time the mount dropped. This was our 5th time facing this boss and the druid kept getting into the mount... so when it was time to face this boss, instead of putting Tricks of the Trade on our tank, I put it on the druid. Boss turned to the druid and ripped him up, almost killing it. What would you know, 20 seconds later Tricks of the Trade was ready, put it again on the druid and the boss killed the druid this time. Haha... Druid didn't even know it was on'em either. (I explained what I did after the fight and the druid thought it was funny, I had already saved his life a few fights before so he didn't mind.)

Speaking of being creative with Tricks of the Trade, I was the leader of a 5 man in a level 75+ instance... We lost our healer so I had my bud, a level 80, join. Most of us were in this instance to do a quest, to collect a quest item. We originally had five people collecting the quest items, and bein' the leader, I made sure everyone collected the quest items before me. But we were right near the end of the instance and I barely had any quest items, so I needed to grab any and all quest items. I saw one of them off in a corner, right near an elite. I told the group to go back, take this one elite out so I can get the quest item (they were all finished but I wasn't), but my level 80 bud wanted to just rush through the instance, not caring about the quest items. Screw that, that's why we all came here, but because he was a level 80, they all kept falling him and pushing on. Screw this, I'm not gettin' fucked over just 'cuz the level 80's in a rush or the rest of the group finished their quest items.

Tricks of the Trade only has a 20 yard range, really short... so I ran up to the level 80, out of stealth, put Tricks of the Trade on'em, then sprinted to the elite... as soon as the elite came to attack, I used Sinister Strike on it and it immediately made the elite run the level 80 to attack. I was able to loot the item then. Once the elite ran and found my bud, oh... now he tells everyone to attack the elite. Yeah, don't try'ta screw me over.

As you can see, you can use Tricks of the Trade in very creative ways. Just be aware that an icon floats over your head so everyone can see when you're using Tricks of the Trade. But, the good thing is that you'll be using it enough that if you do put it on yourself in an "evil" way, people will probably just think your putting it on the tank, or not think anything of it at all. And, if someone does say "Hey, you put that buff on me and that's why I was attacked!" you just say "Sorry, I was trying to target the tank." Haha, ohh, so fuckin' nice 'n' evil.

This ability functions like healing abilities do (I assume), where you can apply this ability to a party member without having to be off your target. When you click Tricks of the Trade, a "select target" icon comes up and you select your party member. You can select your target on screen, like if your tank's in front of you, but I don't recommend that because it's too hard to target someone on screen and you can easily miss and hit someone else in your party. Instead, click it and select your party member's icon to the right of your screen. It's much faster and more reliable (that's how healers heal). You can target your party member and then click the ability and it'll go directly on your party member, but you really shouldn't have a party member targeted... you should have an enemy targeted, simple as that. Because of that, this is one ability I'm not key binding to my keyboard because I already need to use WoW's cursor. If you are in a raid, but your main tank isn't in your group, you can "set focus" to that person to put their icon on screen.

Now, Tricks of the Trade is really only for PvE, it's not for PvP. Of course, with players, there is no threat or aggro, so that goes out the window. You can put buffs on players, give them 15% damage boost... but, you really just need to worry about yourself. Although if you happen to be in stealth and are walking pass someone in a battleground fighting someone, it's safe to put Tricks of the Trade on that person and know it won't break stealth or commit you to the fight.

As you can see, there are so many creative ways to use Tricks of the Trade and I'm sure there will be many stories that'll come out from this ability. Use it for good... use it for evil... it's up to you.

Jeaxx

Continue reading Tricks of the Trade, My New Bitch

Raiding: Rockin' It Subtlety Style

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Cooldowns You Shouldn't Blow

One important thing every rogue should practice is learning how to save certain abilities with long cool downs for just the right situation. Those cool downs are Blind, Vanish, Preparation, Evasion, Shadow Dance, Sprint and Insignia trinket (or similar movement-freeing trinkets and / or racials). This is an important topic to cover for both PvE and PvP 'cuz it can literally mean the difference between life or death for you.

Some rogues, including myself, feel the tendency when fighting PvE targets to use certain cool downs at the start of a fight against a PvE target, thinking "The sooner I use Shadow Dance now, the sooner I'll be able to use it against a target when the cool down's done." Yeah, that's true, but these abilities can be used for special occasions that'll either allow you to become much more powerful than you were, or will let you escape something that you normally would have died from. Let me explain... As a subtlety rogue, until you hit level 80 and get our Fan of Knives AoE, we can only attack one target at a time. So, our goal is to attack one target at a time and move on to the next (hopefully from stealth). But for the times when we get two or three targets on us at a time that we weren't prepared for... we still can only fight one target at a time, and the only combo point ability that can carry over from target to target is Slice and Dice. If you saved some, or all of your special abilities for a situation like this, you can deal with it better.

Evasion is great when being attacked by multiple targets because it'll help you avoid gettin' hit on until you can finish one of your targets and move on. Blind is amazing because it allows you to keep a second target outta' the fight for 10 seconds. Shadow Dance is ideal because it'll allow you to do much, much more damage to finish one of your targets to move on to the next. Sprint and Vanish are there to help you escape the action (or kill one or most of your targets and escape the rest when you can't take any more hits). And Preparation is good clearly because it gives you an extra Sprint, Evasion and Vanish (in other words, finishes their cool downs). Rather than using them whenever their cool down is up, by saving them it'll make you stronger and more survivable in the long run.

This also goes for PvP. It's pretty much the same example (besides arenas, when it's usually better to blow all your cool downs on one target to try and kill it early on). Let's say you're in a battleground, fighting in AB. A target comes along, such as a mage, that you think you can kill without dying. Shadow Dance and Evasion are there, just waiting to be used. Do you use it? No... save'em if you can. You end up killing the mage with 50% health left. Good. Now you see a holy priest healin' that no one's attacking. This will be easy. You stealth, Shadow Step and do your thing. To your surprise, the priest is barely gettin' hurt and is healing themselves while you're losing health. "Crap..." your thinking, this wasn't what you expected. What do you do? You use those abilities you saved on this target; Shadow Dance and Evasion. You know realize "Man, I'm so glad I saved these abilities for a situation like this." That's what you gotta' do.

There's times when you not doing anything special... 'yer chillin' in Stormwind, just takin' care of business 'n' crap. You gotta' get through a long building to mount up. You could activate Sprint to get outside to mount quicker. Don't be lazy; save it. In times like these, nothin' special will happen... but on those times when you hear somethin' and go "Crap, an enemy player's near me in my city!", don't start fightin'em, have them kite you with you thinking "Crap, you're lucky I wasted sprint running to the bank...". Point is; you never know when you'll need these abilities and you'll be doing yourself a favor not blowing them if you can.

These seems like complete common sense to me, but clearly it's not to some rogues because I see sprint and vanish and evasion and others wasted for the simplest (and stupidest) reasons, both in raids, PvE and PvP. Then when it comes time for the serious stuff, those rogues get beat down or shut down while I'm still killin' 'n' thrillin'... simply because my abilities are ready and theirs weren't.

Do yourself a favor and be smart about your abilities.

Jeaxx

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