I am Meatshield

Went and spec'd full Prot this past weekend and MT'd Karazhan. Our MT druid was under the weather, our main MT warrior wasn't around, and people wanted to go raid. So off to the trainer I went, 30g later, I'm a meatshield. This was the first time I've spec'd for Devastate, it just wasn't inticing enough for me to get it all the other times I went protection. Now after they've changed it, it's a great tool for making mobs hate me more than other people.

The first night we went through the Opera Event, which is a normal night for us, that's where we stop. Everything went great, one wipe through the night on the Crone, just because people had a brain fart on how to handle the event. Buffed up and slaughtered the little pretties, and their little dog too. Had a great time being the MT, I felt like I had everything under control. Only had a couple deaths, that was the mages during AOE dance hall. I don't take the blame for those.

Went back the next day to finish up where we left off. Smoked Curator right after he was done with his 2nd Evocate, skipped Aran to go to chess. We've been having problems with that guy so now we just skip him. Then up to Prince, which didn't go so well. Not sure what it was, think my armor may be a little lacking for Prince, I still use the shield from Shattered Halls 1st boss, my shoulders are the quest reward out of Durnholde. Kinda sucked to get to Prince, and not down him. We used the "safe spots" shown in Wowwiki, so Infernals weren't the problem. Some thought it was because we only had 2 1/2 healers, but that shoulda been enough, the 2 main healers (priest and shammy) are geared out and are good. The 1/2 healer was a feral druid that was my OT both nights, figured he be better off healing instead of running back and forth from Enfeebles. One of the deaths I got 2 crushing blows in a row in Phase 2. Tried 3 times before we had respawns and couldn't get back without clearing again.

Ah well, I got the tank belt off of Maiden, got screwed the first night out of 2 badges, not sure where they went, kinda just didn't appear in my bags, I know I looted.... Opened a ticket but didn't get a response by the time i logged off, now I'm too lazy to open another ticket. Also picked up the necklace out of the Chess box, just to check it out for dps purposes.

On another note, I cancelled my account. Holidays are here and I need to spend some time with my family and get things straightened out around the house. Will also take vacation back to the states in Jan. I'll be back after the busy times are done.

Christmas Shopping!

Time to make up my wish list, why not? It's Christmas time, so it's the best time to do it.

Warrior wish/goal list:

Exhalted with Sha'tar, I need a better shield, and since he doesn't get many badges, this would be the easiest way to get a shiney new hunk of metal to block all the attacks from baddies. I need about a little more than 4K rep, so it's not too far away as a goal.

Epic flying mount, just because he's my only gatherer as a miner, I'd like to get ore faster, and with that note...

375 Blacksmithing, and a bunch of Primal nethers to craft stronger axes, the bigger question is, upgrade the Lunar Cresent first? or The Planar Edge? I PvP a lot with him, trying to get new gear (welfare epix!~) But i like DW'ing, and even use my Planar Edge in my tank suit just because it hits harder than the dagger i'm using and gives me more crits for more rage/threat.

More time in Karazhan, I have fun on my warrior, I only like to tank if it's with my guildies, they're more forgiving for a bad pull. But I want to get him in for the rep and maybe gear if it drops. It's nice playing a different class once in awhile, even tho it's still a melee class, and if i'm not tanking, I'll be dual weilding just like my rogue, but hey, it's still different... right?


Rogue Wish/goal list:

375 Fishing, I don't know why, I've started fishing again the past few days and got up to 270, was 203 just 2 days ago. But still not sure why, maybe for the food buffs to make for my wife? Or maybe it's for Mr. Pinchy? Maybe I just like the serinity and quiet, a time to reflect on life as i'm staring down my bobber looking for the slightest movement... nah, gotta be one of the first two. This isn't a priority, just one of the things i'm working on.

Badges badges badges badges MUSHROOM MUSHROOM. I want to get myself some of those sweet Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots to replace my Edgewalkers, but it requires many many badges. Maybe even a Dora's Embrace Cloak for PvP....

PvP Gear, just so I can withstand more damage in Arena's. I do 2V2 with my wife, we're not the best team, hell, we're just an ok team, we're currently at 1447, below the starting rating, only played 10 games. And will only do about 10 each week if we get a chance. But it's fun, we love it when we beat a team, I believe it's good for our marriage to go out and kill horde in an organized manner.

More bosses killed in ZA! That's more of a guild thing, but it would be nice to see more bosses downed in ZA, currently only killed the bear boss, I haven't even see the other bosses, just cause we had problems with the trash, and navigating around the instance finding the next place.

Make the gold to get my epic flying mount for my warrior. Rogue is my money maker, i'm gonna shake him as much as i can to get that money. I've been doing a few dailies lately, but I mostly cut gems to auction, and slowly increase my bank roll. Just about 3k more to go....


Mage wish/goal list:

Maybe some gear, i dunno, don't play him enough to really care

More discoveries! I've only had 2 discoveries in my alchemy career, I'd like more. I get all my herbs from my wife, since i don't have a herbalist, why should I? Men don't pick flowers! =0P

Umm.... not sure what else with this guy, he's not played enough for me to care, I just use him for xmutes.

Got change for a hundred? Nalorakk does!

So we went over into Zul'Aman this past weekend, said hello to the big bad bear, he said hello back, over and over and over again. After about 10 resets or so (have no idea really, lost track) we got into the grove of things and slowly dwindled down his hitpoints to 0, a big fat 0. Needless to say, we were all pretty hyped, especially myself, cause they opened the corpse to check out what he's been eatin, and he had THIS in his guts. The Bladeangel's Money Belt, pretty sweet, and as a rogue, who lost the roll for Girdle of Treachery the only time I've seen it come out of the Chess Event, I was real pleased to hear everyone telling me grats. I figured I'd roll against our bear tank for it, but he generously passed it to me. I'm not too familiar with feral tanking, what kind of stats they look for, what gear is good, or what buttons to spam as a bear tank... or.... anything else about them, but.... well i forgot where i'm going with this, but a big Thanks to Illianna on Stormreaver! Who also, btw, made me a Shadow Prowlers Chestguard to replace my blue BOE chest piece, the one it seems all rogues use. I know it's more for droods, but with the sockets, the high agility on it, it came out to be much better, just lost about .2% crit, which i coulda made up for if i put a crit gem in it. That Illianna guy is awesome, he's always trying to better everyone in our guild so that we can get on to bigger and better things. A true leader. Thanks for the chest piece!


Bear Lord Nalorakk, our strat, a rogues view:

Seems this fight was a healer check, making sure healers don't blow all their mana too early in the fight. We brought out our best geared group with who was online when raid formed. Our group make up was:

Druid Tank (Illianna)
Warrior Tank (Ramatar)
Combat Dagger Rogue (Me)
Destro Lock (Kaelie, my wife)
Holy Priest (Asteria)
Holy Priest (Celestialyte)
MM Hunter (Raxzo)
Resto Shammy (Silviodante)
Boomkin Druid (Rilak)
Mage (Mageshiva)

Warrior started the fight holding agro during 1st phase, when phase 2 hit, druid tank taunted. This is because of the bleed put on the first tank, in phase 2 Nalorakk applies another bleed effect that ticks for huge amounts, the debuff applied in human form increases the damage of the bleed effect. He also does a swipe that hits hard, but having 2 tanks, the damage is split between them. Bear form brings out a charge that targets a random ranged person, after the charge he goes back to the tank that was holding him

The rest of the raid spread out on the platform. Nalorakk does an aoe silence when in bear form that will shut down your healers, so having HoTs on the tank is needed during this time so that the tank doesn't die. The first few times we tried, we noticed this, so we had the Boomkin go into healing gear and throw hots on the tank. Melee raid members just stand behind and DPS, I hardly took any damage at all.

He has a ton of health, make sure your tanks are throwing out a lot of threat, because you have to throw out a lot of damage. I used every cooldown i had, multiple times. As soon as my trinkets/Adreneline Rush/Blade Flurry cooldowns were up, i was clicking them again, during the whole fight. Think the fight lasted around 8 minutes, but not sure, seemed longer. Kept slice and dice up, and constantly put ruptures on him. Used my feint also, just because we had no pally for salvation, used vanish around the middle of the fight just so i can pop a bunch of cooldowns at the same time.

Healers need to load up on mp5, I brought Flasks of mighty restoration for them to use. There's also food buffs for this. Since it's a long fight, all this is very handy. Don't want to be fighting him and hear inervates are down, healers OOM when you still have 50% to go. Bring lots of mana pots, use them when you can. Still got 70% mana? use a pot! I'm sure a mana battery Spriest would be good in this fight, but we didn't bring one.

After he died, we were all pretty pumped up, we forgot about the quest item to pickup on the platform that yeilds a free 20 slot bag. A few of us went back later on that night to go grab the item, mobs didnt respawn after he died, only 1 pat was walking around, but are easily avoidable. I got the bag on all my lvl 70 toons, why not? it's free!

2.3 has arrived

While I haven't checked it out all that much, I'm still happy it's out. So much more I need to look at, how good is the XP jump? What's the hype about the dungeon dailies? Where do i find the person for cooking daily quest? How hard is ZA?

I did do the PvP daily quests on my rogue and warrior, tried on my mage, but alliance couldn't get a win in Eye of the Storm. We got close, 1995/2000, the alliance flag carrier dropped it right at the end, horde picked it up and capped it to hit 2k. That really sucked, why can't alliance be competent in the BGs?? AB we get pwned, WSG we get pwned, AV we used to win all the time, but lately, we get pwned. Maybe it's just my battlegroup, but why just leave me alone everywhere i try to defend, i sure can't do it myself against 3-4 horde that come to take a flag/node/base.

My warrior is currently spec'd protection, wanted to do some heroics last weekend and they needed some tankage so our feral tank can play his priest for a change of pace. Tanking is bittersweet, i'd rather dps tho, less brain power is used. The heroics we did went... umm... ok i guess, many deaths, but stuck through it to the end. We did an underbog heroic and a slave pen heroic. My shield absolutely blows, it's the netherwing one from that quest to unlock the captured dragon that Zuluhed caught. Trying to get exhalted with Shatar to get that shield, don't want to save badges for the shield, rather use them on other items.

My guild will be going into ZA today, however i won't be able to attend cause i'm here at work. I only get to raid on the weekends with them since I live in Japan they're all in the states. Hopefully they get some good learning tips and we can go friday(my saturday) and stomp a few bosses.

Warrior Enchants

Since I've been playing around with my warrior a lot lately, I've decided to put together a list of enchants that I think are good for DPS Warriors.



Head - Glyph of Ferocity (Cenarion Expedition Revered)

Chest - +6 Stats

Legs - Cobrahide and Clefthide armor kits, whichever floats your boat for pve/pvp

Back - 12 Agility

Gloves - 15 Strength

Wrist - 12 Strength

Boots - Boars Speed is good, Sure-footed is also

Weapons - 20 Strength for DW, 70Ap for 2h is my preference. Some go with Mongoose for the crit boost (haste boost is minimal) and there is also the new Executioner enchant from ZA which decreases your targets armor.

Rings - +2 Weapon Damage or +4 all stats (Enchanters Only!)

I need to come up with a list for tanking warriors, eventually...

Bringing the Warrior back to life

Been playing my warrior Balz lately, mostly just pvp'ing. Used to be protection spec'd, but changed it all around after getting the Headless Horseman's Helm. Respec'd to 31/30/0 to have some fun. Changed my BS profession over to axesmith, crafted both the epics, and off to the bg's I went. The way i set up my spec, I can use a big 2h weapon when pvp'ing, getting big hits on clothies, but when raiding, I can go DW and pump out some damage since i took flurry and unbridled wrath for rage generation. It's not the best damage but allows me to switch up my playstyle. Tanking 5mans kinda sucks since it's harder to build up my threat, but I have a couple decent tank pieces from kara.

I've been called out to off tank in Kara this past weekend since respec'ing, haven't taken the warrior there since getting my rogue attuned and makin him my main raid toon a few months ago. The real test was being the off tank for moroes, which was a pain in the ass. Generating rage sucked, and trying to be 2nd on the threat. I used my fury gear and dual weilded to try to get agro and rage, but as soon as he gouged the MT, he got on me and I wasn't fast enough to switch to sword and board, and hence, we had to reset Moroes by running out of the room. I dropped fast, so did the healers he went to after. The other few times we tried I couldn't get my threat up and he would go off to slaughter the cows in the pasture that were throwing fireballs at him. After resetting him about 4 times, I finally got the groove down and was able to be quick with my swapping. Dropped him and we were all happy it was finally done with.

Enchanting

List of enchants Eskrima can do, TBC and a couple extras.

Chest
Exceptional Health (+150 Health)
Exceptional Stats (+6 Stats)
Major spirit (+15 Spirit)
Restore mana prime (+6 Mana every 5 Seconds)

Boots
Cat's swiftness (+6 Agility and Minor speed Increase)
Sure Footed (snare and root resistance by 5% and increase hit rating by 10)

Wrist
Assault (+24 Attack Power)
Brawn (+12 Strength)
Major Intellect (+12 Intellect)
Stats (+4 to all stats)
Superior Healing (+30 to Healing)

Gloves
Major spellpower (+20 Spell Damage)
Spell Strike (+10 Spell Hit rating)
Major Healing (+35 Healing)
Major Strength (+15 Strength)
Assault (+26 Attack power)
Blasting (+10 Spell Crit rating)

Cloak
Greater arcane Resistance (+15 Arcane Resistance)
Greater Agility (+12 Agility)
Major Armor (+120 Armor)
Spell Penetration (+20 Spell Penetration)

Weapon
Sunfire (+50 Damage to Fire/Arcane Spells)
Major Healing (+81 Healing)
Major Intellect (+30 Intellect)
Major Spellpower (+40 Spell Damage)
Major Striking (+7 Weapon Damage)
Potency (+20 Strength)
Crusader
Fiery
Lifestealing


Shield
Resistance (+5 Resistance to all magic)
Major stamina (+18 Stamina)
Tough Shield (+18 Block value)

Jewelcrafting

Eskrima's Rare Jewelcrafting Recipes on Stormreaver(US)

Red
Bright Living Ruby (+16 Attack Power)
Flashing Living ruby (+8 Parry)
Subtle Living Ruby (+8 Dodge)

Yellow
Rigid Dawnstone (+8 Hit)
Smooth Dawnstone (+8 Crit)
Gleaming Dawnstone (+8 Spell Crit)
Brilliant Dawnstone (+8 Intellect)
Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resillience)
Thick Dawnstone (+8 Defense)

Blue
Stormy Star of Elune (+10 Spell Penetration)

Purple
Glowing Nightseye (+5 Spell Damage and +6 Stamina)
Shifting Nightseye (+4 Agility and +6 Stamina)
Purified Shadow Pearl (+9 Healing and +4 Spirit)

Orange
Veiled Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Hit Rating and +5 Spell Damage)
Wicked Noble Topaz (+4 Critical Strike Rating and +8 Attack Power)
Glinting Noble Topaz (+4 Hit Rating and +4 Agility)

Green
Dazzling Talasite (+4 Intellect and +2 Mana every 5 seconds)
Radiant Talasite (+4 Spell Critical Rating and +5 Spell Penetration)
Steady Talasite (+4 Resilience and +6 Stamina)

Meta
Bracing Earthstorm Diamond (+26 Healing Spells & 2% Reduced Threat)
Brutal Earthstorm Diamond (+3 Melee Damage & Chance to Stun Target)
Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond (+12 Critical Strike Rating & 5% Snare and Root Resist)
Insightful Earthstorm Diamond (+12 Intellect & Chance to restore mana on spellcast)
Powerful Earthstorm Diamond (+18 Stamina & 5% Stun Resist)
Swift Skyfire Diamond (+24 Attack Power and Minor Run Speed Increase)
Thundering Skyfire Diamond (Chance to Increase Melee/Ranged Attack Speed)
Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (+12% Spell Critical & 3% Spell Critical Damage

Jewelry
The Frozen Eye
Chain of the Twilight Owl
Khorium Band of Leaves
Pendant of Frozen Flame
Pendant of Shadow's End
Pendant of Thawing
Pendant of the Null Rune
Ring of Arcane Shielding
Khorium Band of Frost
Thick Felsteel Necklace
Delicate Eternium Ring
Necklace of the Deep

Raid DPS guide for Combat spec

Found on worldofraids.com thread on dps'ing in a raid, not mine, not sure who the author is, but big ups for him writing it.

How to Raid as a Rogue, v. 1.0:

Before RaidingFirst off, spec Combat--20/41 for Swords or Fists, 15/41/5 for Daggers. There is no reason to be any other spec for raiding if you want to maximize your DPS. Remember that you are not speccing to top the meters on clearing trash; you are speccing to maximize your DPS for boss fights. Swords and Fists are pretty much equally viable.

Swords, Fists, and Daggers are all competitive with each other--the main problem with Daggers is the abundance of fights in TBC which force you to move around, and the slightly more complicated cycle that it uses, which both make it less easy to play. In the hands of a skilled rogue, all three weapon choices are viable.Mutilate builds can do decent damage, but it has no place in 25-man raids if you want to do the best DPS you can possibly do. It can be almost "competitive," but not optimal.

That being said, here are some of your most viable raiding specs:

20/41 Combat Swords/Fists: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=w0ebovZMIVobVzxMGot

20/41 Combat Swords/Fists, Poison/Bleed-immune mobs: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fhebotZMIVobVzxMGotSubstitute 5/5 Fist Spec for 5/5 Sword Spec if you prefer them.

15/41/5 Combat Daggers: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=w0gcoLZMIVbrEz0MMotV

Improved Gouge, Improved Sprint, Endurance and Improved Kick are all filler points and can be exchanged to your liking, but all the other points should remain as they are.

The other important part of preparing yourself for raids is configuring your gear properly. There are a few stats which you want to focus on, in no particular order:

-Agility: 1 point of Agility increases your Attack power by 1. Every 40 Agility increases your chance to Crit by 1%. Every 20 Agility increases your chance to Dodge by 1%.
-Hit Rating: 15.8 hit rating = 1% chance to hit a mob. You need 25.5% hit to not miss a level 73 mob (aka, raid bosses). 5/5 Precision reduces this number by 5%, and 2/2 Weapon Expertise reduces it by 1%, therefore you need 19.5%--308 hit rating--to never miss a level 73 mob with the aforementioned talents. A Human using Swords will need 300 hit rating. Further weapon skill decreases the amount you need even more, and is discussed a few lines below.
-Crit Rating: 22.1 Crit Rating increases your chance to Crit a mob by 1%.
-Attack Power: Every 14 Attack Power increases the DPS of your weapon by 1, by increasing your weapon's damage range. This affects both white damage and yellow attacks.-Weapon skill: 3.9 weapon skill RATING on an item will net you 1 weapon skill. 1 weapon skill gives you .1% increased chance to hit as well as a small increase to your chance to crit and a small decrease to the chance that the mob mitigates your attacks. These numbers are not included since they are disputed and undergoing testing.
-Haste: 10.51 Haste Rating gives you 1% Haste. Scales incredibly well with Sword Specialization, Windfury, and raid buffs.
-Armor Penetration/Ignore armor: Ignores some portion of your target's armor. Only found on end-game items, for the most part. Very useful, since it increases all of your damage by some percentage.

Ideally, you want to balance these stats, with the consideration that having a high hit rating is very important--if you miss the mob all the time, it doesn't matter how strong your attacks are. A rogue who has all the Karazhan epics up through Opera but instance blues for all the rest, with all of his gear enchanted, might look something like this:
-1500 AP
-280 Hit
-23% Crit

The high hit rating comes from the early Karazhan drops (such as Romulo's Poison Vial) and items such as the Fel Leather set, which is an excellent set of starter gear for raiding.

A Rogue in full epics including some T5 gear/heroic gear/some T4 gear might look like this:
-1750 AP
-250 Hit
-25% Crit

Karazhan/T4 gear has abundant hit rating, whereas T5 gear starts to push you towards heavy AP and more crit while sacrificing some hit rating.

Weapons:
Main Hand: Slow (1.8-19 for daggers, 2.6-2.8 for Swords), high average damage, high DPS weapon for heavy hits with your instant attacks.
Off Hand: Fast (1.3-1.5 speed in either case), high DPS weapons for more Combat Potency procs, more poison applications, and more sword specialization procs. You should really do a couple weeks of Arena, even if you only play ten games a week, to get the Season 2 Offhand weapon of your choice: it is truly the most powerful Offhand you will find until very, very late in the current raiding progression.
Choose ranged weapons purely for their stats, but keep a throwing weapon for PVP as well.

Enchants:
Finally, enchant your gear. The following are the best enchants for each slot and are meant for very good gear; cheaper ones are listed after it for beginning raiders:

Weapons: Mongoose on both (Cheaper: +15 Agility, +7 Weapon Damage)
Head: +34 AP/+16 Hit (Glyph of Ferocity)
Shoulder: Either Aldor (+30 AP/+10 Crit) or Scryer (+25 AP/+15 Crit) shoulder enchant.
Chest: +6 All Stats
Legs: +50 AP/+12 Crit (Nethercobra Leg Armor) (Cheaper: Cobrahide Leg Armor: +40 AP/+10 Crit)
Gloves: +15 Agility, or +10 haste rating at a certain point of Hyjal/BT gear.
Back: +12 Agility
Feet: +12 Agility
Wrist: +24 AP
Rings: +2 Weapon Damage. Enchanters only.

During the raid:
ALWAYS ATTACK FROM BEHIND. Mobs cannot parry or block your attacks from behind, and it is obviously a requirement for Backstab, Garrote, and Ambush. You also won't get cleaved by mobs that can do so.

On Regular Bosses:
Windfury MH, Deadly Poison OH if you have a ShamanDeadly Poison MH, Instant Poison OH if you don't.
On Poison Immune Bosses:Windfury MH, Adamantite Sharpening Stone OH if you have a ShamanAdamantite Sharpening Stones on both if you do not have one.

COMBO POINT CYCLES (very important):
You need to know how to use your combo points properly in order to do well. This is a heavy factor in what separates good Rogues from bad ones. Your primary goal is to keep Slice and Dice up at ALL times. It is by far the best PVE finishing move. Once you keep that up at all times, you will want to toss 5 point Ruptures or 5 point Eviscerates (for bleed-immune mobs or trash) into the mix.

OPENING MOVE:
It's a good idea to get an opening move off to get an initial combat point so that you can get Slice and Dice up immediately. Try not to use Cheap Shot unless an encounter or trash mob specifically calls for it; it will really annoy your tank when he is trying to move a mob into position. Instead, if you are opening from Stealth, use a Garrote or an Ambush (if you are Daggers). If Stealthing is not possible, using your normal CP-generating attack (Sinister Strike is backstab) is fine. After you have a Slice and Dice up from your initial combo point, the following cycles are some of the most efficient for many configurations of gear:

Daggers:3 Backstab, Slice and Dice, 5 BS, SnD, 5 BS, Rupture, repeat

Swords:(with 2-piece T4 set bonus): 1 Sinister Strike, SnD, 5 SS, Rupture, repeat(without) 3-5 SS (depending on your exact gear configuration), SnD, 5 SS, Rupture, repeat.

These can change slightly depending on your gear, but the importance of keeping SnD up at all times stands.

Use consumables, especially when learning new content. The best flask you can use is an Elixir of Relentless Assault; the best food available is either a Warp Burger or Grilled Mudfish. Scrolls of Agility V (random world drops) , Haste Potions (created through Alchemy), Drums of Battle (Leatherworking item) are all items that can squeeze out an extra little DPS.

The most important rule of all: do not pull aggro. A rogue who pulls aggro and dies is not only completely useless, but will probably wipe the raid on many bosses. If you wait a little bit to start DPSing and time your Vanish right, you will probably not have to use Feint at all assuming your tank is competent--in the hands of a good rogue, Vanish isn't an emergency tool but a tool that you use once (or twice) per boss fight at the perfect time to maximize your DPS. Don't be afraid to simply STOP ATTACKING if you cannot keep your threat generation low enough with both Vanish and Feint.

The one important lesson I hope for you to learn from this post is that the hard part of being a successful rogue preparing beforehand. The only real hard thing you have to do while actually playing the game is keep your cycles up, watch your aggro and respond to whatever gimmick abilities the mob has. Once you get your gear, spec and combo point cycle set up right, hitting the buttons during the raid is the easy