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Encrypted Text: Expanding your collection of rogue resources
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. While death knights have only been around for a couple of years and retribution paladins are tasked with rediscovering themselves every few months, rogues have remained consistent throughout WoW's entire lifetime. We've obviously received tweaks and changes along the way, but the rogue of today looks an awful lot like the rogue of the past. Over the years, the rogue class has been dissected from every angle, and our studious brothers and sisters of the shadow have discovered its secrets. There are three main areas of rogue research: mathing out how the class works (and yes, mathing is a verb), picking the right gear, and figuring out the best specific strategies. The best and brightest rogues are constantly monitoring our DPS models to ensure their continual accuracy, compiling lists of the best gear and how to get it, and detailing their guides for dealing with players and raid bosses alike. I can say with a tremendous amount of bias that Encrypted Text is the best source for rogue info, but of course there are other sites that are useful as well.
Encrypted Text: How PoisonSwapper shaped rogues forever
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Rogues are a pure DPS class, which means that all three of our ability trees are DPS-focused. We don't have the capability to heal or tank, and our ranged attack arsenal is weaker than a hunter's argument that he deserves a Crystallized Firestone for his Ranseur of Hatred. While there are other pure DPS classes like the mage and warlock, rogue specs have more in common than fire and arcane or destruction and demonology. Our combo point rotation system defines each talent tree's playstyle, and many of our signature spells are shared between all specs. Because of the similarities between our specs, there are several concepts that apply to all rogues. I've called these axioms, rules, and laws in the past, but the truth is that they're not always inscribed in stone for everyone to read. I'm talking about the knowledge that established rogues take for granted, as we're so used to our habits that we forget why we started them in the first place.
Encrypted Text: Even rogues have homework
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any screenshots you'd like to see featured here or any questions you might have! I hate homework. When I was in school, I was always finding creative ways to turn my assignments in as late as possible. I completed most my English assignments the night before they were due, and I've solved a few calculus questions in the car on my way to class. No matter how important the assignment was, there was always something more interesting that I would rather do. When it comes down to a heads-up match between playing Warcraft 2 and studying biology flashcards, there's really no contest. Playing a rogue successfully in the endgame of World of Warcraft requires a lot of homework. We've talked before about the very math-centric natures of rogue theorycrafting. Without a spreadsheet or other mathematical tool, it's almost impossible to create a working model for testing DPS and checking gear. Boss abilities are constantly changing and being added, and they often interact with our abilities in non-standard ways. Blizzard's developers are implementing fixes on a daily basis. In order to keep up with the pace of WoW's development, you simply have to do your homework.
Addon Spotlight: HudMap
Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW game play experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same! This week, HudMap replaces the hole AVR will eventually leave in your heart when it is destroyed in patch 3.3.5. With the imminent demise of AVR and AVR Encounters, the World of Warcraft community was torn in two. The prominent issue that resulted in the destruction of AVR and its ilk was the simple fact that the game world could be "drawn" on, modified without Blizzard's consent. This simple fact lead to some of the most hilarious comedy and the saddest, depressing tragedies. We even did a podcast about it! In swoops addon guru Antiarc, famous for Omen, Sexymap and Sexycooldown, to deliver us the functionality of AVR and AVR-e without the game breaking, world drawing and inexplicable phalluses. Praise to HudMap, an addon marvel.
AddOn Spotlight: SexyCooldown
AddOn Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience -- the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your AddOns folder will never be the same! This week, we get real sexy. Timers for spells is an imperative addon for many classes that rely on steady rotations of DoT management and keeping debuffs up on enemies. DPS can be greatly altered by the careful balance of spell effects lasting for certain periods of time on enemies. There are a lot of good timers out there for spells and abilities, but today I want to introduce you to my favorite. If this addon is old news to you, and you already know how powerful it can be, help out the less fortunate! If you're new to his wonderful piece of code, stay a while and listen, as I sing a love song to SexyCooldown.
Preview of the new minimap mod SexyMap
The mod I'm about to talk about isn't some essential combat mod. It doesn't vastly change how you play the game. It won't help you in the arena or in raid dungeons, or even RP. What will it do? It will make your minimap look totally sweet.From one of the original authors of Omen and the maker of Chatter (among other things) comes the simply (and appropriately) named SexyMap. Using spell effects already in the game files (I believe the default uses Hand of Freedom as the outside ring and Hand of Salvation on the inside), SexyMap makes your map look... sexy. It's difficult to see just how awesome it is from pictures, but I don't have video handy, unfortunately. What you can't see there is the two rings are animated, one moving clockwise and the other counter-clockwise.
Interview with Antiarc, author of Omen
Even if you don't use Omen, it's likely you've seen it or heard about it here on WoW Insider, in WoW itself, or somewhere else in the WoW community. Patch 2.4 and the redesign of WoW's combat log called for a complete rebuild of many mods, and Omen was far and away the highest in demand.There were certainly some issues with Omen the day 2.4 launched, but the one man army behind the mod worked endlessly to get the addon in working order, while somehow making time for a chat mod, too. I think it's fair to say we know a thing or two about the mods, but what about the modder behind them?Luckily for all of you, Antiarc(aka Adrine) is open to bribes(not really) so I've managed to sucker him into answering a few questions for us, many of which are taken from you, the readers! We'll go through a series of three categories. The Man, in which we delve into Antiarc's personal and professional life. The Mods, wherein we ask a few questions about his experiences in mod-writing. The Miscellaneous, where we ask Antiarc random questions that hold no bearing on absolutely anything! Hooray! Read on!
Upcoming interview with the author of Omen
We've talked about Omen(a lot) and now we've talked about Chatter, but what else does the author of these mods have planned?That's what we're going to try and find out in an interview with Antiarc, which will be coming soon to WoW Insider! Here's the special part, though: I'll be taking many of the questions from you, the readers. If there's something you want to ask the author of one of the most widely used mods in WoW, just submit it in a comment at the bottom of this post.I'll comb through them and pick out the best questions to present to Antiarc in addition to my own questions, and we'll see what he has to say. Have you ever been curious about the modding community or the development process of Omen? Want to know a little about the man behind the mod? This is your chance!
Issues with Omen?
I gave a preview of Omen 2 awhile back before patch 2.4 hit, and we saw just how popular the addon is the other night. It has become almost necessary in the WoW community, and when it isn't working right, it really has an effect.Everyone that has downloaded Omen 2 has noticed that there are some... issues. The author is aware of most of these, so fixes are on the way, but there's only so many hours in a day. Bugs and issues can crop up in strange places though, so it never hurts to report them. There are some minor things you can do yourself to make sure things work smoothly and be confident the problem isn't on your end, so take a look behind the jump for some tips.
Have you hit the 2.4 content yet?
Obviously, everyone knows patch 2.4 hit today. You can't turn around without seeing something about it. And, well... if you play WoW, you were probably assaulted with a downloader before you could log in. Basically, 2.4 hit. You know that.Have you really dug into the content yet, though? I know a couple members of my guild decided they would rather spend the day farming Adamantite and Mana Thistle in the 'old' Burning Crusade content because it was mostly abandoned. While it isn't fresh and exciting, it is certainly making them quite a bit of cash.Me, personally? I jumped in feet first. As soon as the servers came up I was flying to Quel'Danas and putting together a Magisters' Terrace group. My original intent was to get the new daily quests out of the way first, before everyone got home from school or work or whatever it is they do, but the server wasn't agreeing with me on that. Amusingly, after the mobs on my server were killed, they weren't respawning whatsoever. The server actually stayed up that way for about two hours, devoid of mobs, with hundreds of people standing around on Quel'Danas trying to figure out what was going on.%Gallery-19191%
Curse interviews Omen creator
Curse has a great interview up with Antiarc, creator of that Omen threat addon that you raiders like so much. He talks about how he got started in WoW addons (with this crazy awesome Zelda UI), dealing with WoW 2.0, and the big differences between KTM and Omen.It's a good read-- Antiarc seems like a smart guy who not only knows the ins and outs of the UI system, but knows how to bring them to our screens elegantly and simply. He's also really positive, which is great-- even though Blizzard said at BlizzCon that they're thinking about building a threatmeter into the UI, Antiarc doesn't see it as a "threat" (pun intended)-- instead, he's excited that Blizzard is acknowledging how useful threatmeters are, and that hopefully Blizzard will include API hooks into anything they release.Very good read, whether you're just an Omen user, or someone actively developing addons for WoW.
