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Encrypted Text: Guide to Rogue stats for new raiders
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll discuss what stats are important for raiding Rogues in today's end-game.Wrath's first true raid instances come in the form of a level 60 raid instance put in the microwave for 20 levels and served with a side of dragons. Don't get me wrong; I love the retouched Naxxramas. I never got to experience all of the fights against Kel'Thuzad's minions before they relocated to Northrend, so being able to re-enter the citadel of death and slay some undead is a welcome opportunity.If you search for "naxx 60 rogue gear guide" I'm sure you'll find a bunch of articles that recommend you sport at least 8/8 Bloodfang and maybe a weapon or two from Ahn'Qiraj. Times have changed, and so have the gear requirements. There are a few magic numbers that every Rogue wants to shoot for. After the cut I'll detail these vital stats and explain why they're so important to us.
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon
Our podcast is back for another day today, and it's going to be a good one. We're welcoming to the airwaves the first ex-Blizzard employee we've ever had. Michael Sacco, aka Belfaire, aka The Talbuk, is going to be live on our show, and we'll talk to him about what it was like to be an actual Blue. Turpster will be on as well (and you know it's a good time when he's around), and we'll be chatting about whether Heirloom items are worth the purchase, the most embarassing things we've all done in Azeroth, how to dive into Heroics right around when you hit level 80, and we'll try to conquer some of the Death Knight changes in the upcoming patch.And as usual we'll answer your emails and just generally have a great time. The show starts at 3:30pm Eastern, 8:30 GMT over on Ustream or right here (we've put an embed of the feed right after the break, so you can listen right from our site). Remember, if you're in the chat and you want to change your name, use "/nick name" (where name is the name you want), and if the feed cuts out for any reason, you can probably refresh the page and it'll come back up. Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times, and please don't feed the Turpster, his trainers give him plenty to eat as it is.See you at 3:30 Eastern! Enjoy the show!
Heroics as a fresh 80: Don't be that guy
Back in the beginning of Burning Crusade, when heroic instances were originally introduced, you had to get to Revered standing with a dungeon's associated faction to buy a key that would let you into heroic mode. Later, that requirement was relaxed to Honored. This was taken one step further in Wrath of the Lich King, where there is, technically, no requirement to enter a heroic besides being level 80. However, this doesn't mean you're ready for heroics (and Naxxramas-10, which is about the same difficulty) the moment you ding 80 and go train. This is something I found out on my own first 80, when I scratched and clawed my way through healing a heroic Old Kingdom in mid-70s dungeon and quest gear (we never did get the last boss down). I was told that I was rather undergeared for heroics, and to go do some normal-mode level 80 dungeons first (Halls of Lightning, Utgarde Pinnacle, Oculus, Culling of Stratholme). This was some of the best advice I ever got in WoW. I ran each of the L80 normal-mode dungeons once, and my gear level improved by about 50% in the space of a day or two. There are some extremely serviceable quest rewards in all of these dungeons, not to mention drops and rep gains. There is also some excellent crafted gear out there, if you have some any spare change or mats kicking around. And from that moment on I wasn't that guy trying to tank heroics with 20,000 HP, or the DPS doing 1,000 in Naxxramas. Please, don't be that guy: run some normal-mode level 80s, and maybe pick up a bit of crafted gear or rep rewards, before you try to do heroics or raids.
TalentChic updates for Wrath
Remember TalentChic from a couple months ago? They mine Armory data to show the most popular builds for each class and playstyle (playstyle being determined by what kind of gear is equipped, which is slightly iffy, but it's hard to do better with Armory data). Anyway, whether you remember them or not, they're now updated for Wrath, with level 80 and Death Knight builds. There isn't a lot there that surprises me much. I wasn't expecting 51/13/7 to be the most popular DK build, though; everybody seems to be talking about dual-wield builds, which this decidedly is not. Balance comes in much lower on the Druid specs than seems to be the case on my realm, but my experience might just be biased. As tipster Waluigi mentions, DPS specs dominate for many classes (notably Paladin and Priest). However, Resto is the most popular shaman build, and a tank build is most popular for druids, so this is not the case for all classes. It'll be interesting to see how this develops as more people hit 80 and get to endgame activities.
The value of questing after level 80
I'm always amazed when people hit 80 and then start wondering how to make gold. Sure, there are all kinds of money tricks floating around (playing the AH is always fun, and everyone has their own tips they've picked up), but quite frankly, the easiest and most reliable way to pick up a ton of money at level 80 is just to do what you've been doing: go quest. Blizzard has made it so that there's no way you've hit all the quests in Northrend when you've reached the highest level, so odds are that you've got at least one (if not two or three) untouched zones of quests to do. And as folks have discovered on the forums, there's a ton of money to be made there.Given that after level 80, experience turns into gold, the return on time invested with leftover questing is awesome. You can pick up over three thousand gold easily just by clearing out the zones you haven't hit hard, and by vendoring off the quest rewards that you get for completing the quests, you can pick up even more. Sure, some folks will have AH schemes that will bring in more money, but Blizzard has done their darndest to make sure there's money in them there questgivers, so if you're slouching around at 80 wondering what to do, go finish up your quests.And of course if you really have finished up all of the quests in the game (and seen all the amazing storylines and character development that go along with doing so), then there's always daily quests to work on. While they won't pay out quite as much as one-time quests, when you break down the time you invest versus the gold you get out of it, they're often the best way to cash in your playtime as well.
Vikings punter Chris Kluwe plays WoW
Most Minnesota Vikings fans are saying that their punter, Chris Kluwe, is probably the best dropkicker to play for the team, and this profile in the Star Tribune reveals something else about the young (he's 27) football player: he also plays World of Warcraft. Not only is he breaking team records left and right, but he's an avid videogame player, and talks about his time in Azeroth so much that a local morning show has dubbed him "Chris Warcraft." His Wikipedia entry also says he once sent a signed Wrath mousepad to a fan in Canada, too. So while he might not be 80 yet (the Vikings have been busy winning my sorry Bears' division this year, and now they're headed to the playoffs), he has been around and playing lately.Unfortunately, while there are quite a few notes about his game-playing around the 'net (he's also a big Guitar Hero fan, so Activision-Blizzard will probably appreciate that), we haven't seen his characters mentioned anywhere, so we have no idea what class or race he plays. For some reason, Mage jumps to mind as a complete guess, and so does Horde, but we'll probably have to ask Kluwe himself to find out.Update: Internet detectives in the comments below say he's a Troll Rogue on Kil'jaeden. And that he's already hit 80 (isn't he supposed to be practicing for the playoffs?).Update2: Kluwe got in touch with us and confirmed that yes, he's an 80 Rogue (so I'm 50/50 on the random guessing). He also says that he hasn't had too much time to play lately, since he and his wife just had a baby girl. And he says that if you really want to be amused at how he spends his time, check his achievements. Yes, he's a Merrymaker.
Freezing Arrow and you
Aspect of the Hare has a great post up about "Freezing Arrow for non-Hunters" -- of all of the new Wrath abilities, Freezing Arrow seems right up there with Death Grip as a game changer during instance pulls. But as great as it is (a Hunter can now trap a mob at a distance, which means trapping casters is much, much easier), there are drawbacks that you other group members need to know about, hence AotH's post.First and foremost, chain trapping is out. On a normal trap, a Hunter can lay down a trap early, and get past the extra 10 second cooldown on getting the trap up again, which means they can have another trap pick up the same mob when the first one finishes its duration. But pulling with Freezing Arrow means you can't lay down the trap early, which means that the 10 second cooldown will always be in effect: there will be ten seconds after the trap comes up before the Hunter can Freezing Arrow again.There are loopholes, as AotH says: Resourcefulness can help Survival Hunters with the cooldown a bit, and Readiness means a Hunter can throw out two Arrows in a row (but no more than that). And of course positioning helps a lot -- if a Hunter can lay down a Freezing Arrow early and then kite a mob into it, chain trapping is theoretically possible (though with casters, it's going to be really tough, just because you have to move so much to get them to move after you). But non-Hunters beware: Freezing Arrow is good for trapping a mob for about 20 seconds. After that, you're on your own.
The many benefits of being a high-level Cook
I agree with Relmstein: Cooking is awesome. Unlike, say, fishing (which I said on the podcast last week will never really stop being boring, since boring is "working as intended" for that one), cooking has really transitioned over the years. Back in the day, it was kind of a silly way to make new foods to eat, in Burning Crusade it became a pretty solid extra buff to have, and it Wrath it has really become a necessity for anyone looking to make their characters and their raids the best they can be.Plus, as Relmstein notes, there's added functionality -- the feasts let you lay out an entire meal for your party, and the addition of the Dalaran cooking quests (and the recipe rewards) have turned the daily cooking quests from just a few extra gold and mats per day into a whole currency system on its own. Fooding it up ingame has become a minigame of its own, and with food giving out such diverse (and significant) stat bonuses, not to mention that it often fetches great prices on the AH, there's no reason for your level 80 character to not have worked a little bit on leveling up cooking.Sold yet? One of the last things I did at level 70 was level up both cooking and fishing using El's Angling's great guide, and though it took me the better part of two weekends in a row, it's paid off many times over since. Cooking has definitely moved from kind of a fun third profession to mess around with to something that will seriously benefit you as a character in quite a few ways.
Guildwatch: Rolling the endgame
Boy, there's definitely no Naxx bump this time around (unlike the old Karazhan bump) -- guilds are hitting 80 and rolling right into the endgame. Of course, with even casual players moving this fast (surely casual players are 80 by now right, Ghostcrawler?) there may eventually be a problem of having new content to experience... unless you consider all of the rep grinding and Wintergrasp to be new content (and we do). But pretty soon, we'll have to have guilds reporting on achievements instead -- anyone actually beat Sarth with the three drakes yet?In the meantime, there's plenty of regular downings, crazy drama, and some good guilds recruiting right after the jump, so click the link below to see what's new around the guilds of World of Warcraft.
Ask WoW Insider: Getting rid of leftover gear
We're a bit late this week, but we've got a good question for you readers from Hylia, a Shadow Priest on Arthas. If you have a question you'd like to ask the readers of WoW Insider, don't forget to send it to ask@wow.com.I've got a question regarding the level 70 epics I've been pilling in my bank. Since I just hit 80 and I`m changing all my gear now, I don't know what to do. The thing is: I don't know if I should just sell my old gear or if I should disenchant it. I have over 20 of those purple shards too and I'm not sure they would sell well.Thanks in advance for the help.HyliaIt's a good question that lots of us are dealing with as we make our way up to 80: what do we do with the old level 70 epics? Personally, I've just been selling most of it -- I have kept a few sets, such as my Tier armor and a crafted set I made and socketed, but I'm not an Enchanter, and, like Hylia, I don't know how old shards would sell now anyway.What have you been doing with the old gear? Vendor, disenchant, or is your bank packed with Gigantiques so you can keep it all?Previously on Ask WoW Insider...
Poll: Are you level 80 yet?
With the news last week that the majority of players are not level 80, and that Ghostcrawler considers you to be "hard core" (more or less) if you're at 80 already, the question that's come to my mind is: exactly how many people reading WoW Insider have hit the level cap already?I've only got one of my toons at 80. I suspect it's going to take over a year to get them all up to max level again. Not complaining, I just don't have the stomach to power level all my alts up like that so quickly. After playing the game since release I managed to get nearly every class to 70 before the release of Wrath, but that took...well...years.Gotta space it out and everything.But in our completely non-scientific and totally truthiness-ey poll, let us know. Are you level 80 yet?%Poll-23452%
Ghostcrawler: If you're 80, you're hardcore
We had quite the firey argument yesterday here on the site -- first, Adam postulated that raiding was so easy we didn't even need to track it, and then I responded by saying that anyone who'd already beat the raid content was just going too fast. And now we have a response from Ghostcrawler (even though he beat us to the punch anyway by posting on Wednesday -- that's just how awesome he is). "If you're 80 already," he says on the forums, "you are a relatively hardcore player."That will ruffle a few feathers, and I should know, because I ruffled a few of the same feathers yesterday. But the stats back GC up -- it's true that most of the players in the game haven't gotten to 80 yet, and of course it doesn't mean that you're a no-life loser if you're 80; it just means that you're faster than the average player. Congrats.But in the hopes of actually bringing this whole thing home to a place we can all agree on without flaming each other, let's take a look at the new way of doing the endgame: the regular, show up-and-fight PvE content is now for casual players. Ulduar will be harder than the current endgame, says GC, but it still won't be as hard as AQ40 and the original Naxx were in their day. And for the hardcore players, Blizzard is offering achievements and special runs -- have you finished Sartharion with three drakes yet, he asks? Have you finished all of the achievements yet (and if you have, let us know, because we'd love to post about you)? There are really hardcore, really challenging things to do in the game, still, and Blizzard is working on offering appropriate rewards for them, says GC. But the average endgame is no longer the domain of people who raid three times a week or more, and that's the way Blizzard wants it.
Majority of player base does not have a level 80 character
Vaneras on the EU forums this morning responded to some criticism that everyone is already 80, etc... He makes a few interesting points.First, he notes that they have internal numbers that the majority of players don't yet have a level 80 character. This might be a known or assumed fact by some, but for many of us it's interesting to hear Blizzard extrapolate on the issue.Vaneras goes on to point out an important tidbit – don't assume just because all your friends are 80 that everyone else is as well. People that play all the time tend to gravitate towards other people that play all the time, and folks that only log on once or twice a week gravitate towards each other as well.This means that just because everyone on your friends list is 80 doesn't mean the whole server is yet. I know that for myself nearly everyone's main is either 80 or high 70s now, and most have alts quickly getting up there in level too.But then I'm reminded of my brother, who just dinged 77 a couple days ago.This is also good to know as it means battlegrounds and Wintergrasp will be filling up more as a greater number of folks ding. That's only going to lead to more fun for everyone.
The best of WoW Insider: November 25 - December 2, 2008
December is here, and where are WoW players? In Northrend, of course -- a sizable amount of the population has hit 80 already, and the rest of us are scrambling through the new content to join them. In the meantime, WoW Insider continues to have everything you need to know about the world's most popular MMO, from new spec and gear guides to the coolest quests and items on the way up. Here's our most popular posts from the past week. News Level 80 Death Knight solos Zul'GurubEven more old content made trivial by a few extra levels and a new class. Dual spec updateA dev updates us on one of the most awaited features in the game right now. Ghostcrawler: Wrath's difficulty is where we want itIs Wrath too easy? GC says no. Four year anniversary pet and feat of strength achievementFor the game's fourth birthday, we all got a baby bear pet as a gift. Wrath of the Lich King breaks internal records at EB GamesA secret correspondent in the big games retailer snaps a shot of the internal email about how well the expansion did. Features WoW Insider's 2008 holiday gift guideYes, it's that time of year again, so here's a guide that will help find a gift for the WoW player in your life. Five old world vanity pets you may have missedEveryone's chasing achievements, so if you're trying to get every single noncombat pet out there, here's five you may have missed the first time around. A Death Knight's first dungeon: Dos and Don'ts part 1How to run your first instance with a new class. The Oracles' mysterious egg is a must-get We're slowly finding out about some of the cooler rep rewards in Northrend. The Queue: Tradeskill bits and piecesOur Q&A column answers reader questions about tradeskills. Have one of your own? Ask it in the comments.
Breakfast Topic: What's your questing style?
It seems like there's a few basic questing styles I have noticed in Northrend. There's the guys people who just sort of go where the wind takes them, maybe try a few quests out of this zone, a few out of this zone, and play around. Others are focused on the level 80 and rep grinds, so they have the quests they want to take mapped out and plotted, the best to get to that end game so they can start heroic dungeons, raiding, PvP, or whatever else it is they want to do after they're done leveling. Then there's the people who want to get into every nook and cranny of a zone, trying to finish every quest before they move on.I'm generally in the last category myself. There's so much interesting lore and compelling story in Wrath that I don't want to miss risking a questline anywhere I go. Besides, if I finish all the quests, I'm that much closer to becoming a Loremaster, if nothing else. I do mix it up sometimes if I want to head into a zone early to grab a specific quest reward, such as heading into Borean Tundra to get my Axe of Frozen Death before heading back to Howling Fjord, but for the most part, when I head into a zone, I like to get it nice and cleared out from end to end. How do you quest, and why? Do you fit one of the types above, or do you have another method?
Getting all the Well Read books
It's the weekend after Thanksgiving, the family has all left, there's nothing but turkey leftovers to eat, and you hit level 80 last week, and you're just waiting for your guild to level up so you can start the endgame. What is there to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Find all of the Well Read books -- WoWWiki has the guide I've been looking for ever since I first got excited about this achievement. I count 43 in total, and they've got a list of all the books you need and where you can find them for reading.The vast majority of the books can be found in Scholomance and the Scarlet Monastery, so a run through both of those instances (you can easily solo both at 80) will get you many of the books you need. From there it's time to travel the world -- Brill, Southshore, the Eastvale Logging Camp, Duskwood, and Booty Bay, and a few other places, depending on your faction (Alliance seems to have a little bit of an advantage there, as Stormwind and Orgrimmar have nice libraries. There are a few good books in Undercity, but the Orcs and Tauren aren't much for book learning, apparently).Seems totally doable in a quick afternoon, and while you won't really get anything but the 10 achievement points (and probably a nice chance to pick up some more of the old Azeroth explorer achievement), why else would you do this, other than to brag about it. Whenever anyone argues that you don't know your Azeroth lore, you can just point them to your Armory page, and tell them to check the part about you being Well Read.
Breakfast Topic: What's your first level 80 goal?
For some people, the game changes a lot at level 80. A whole lot of new opportunities open up. New reputations to work on, new instances to check out, new raids to explore and beat, items to chase that you know you won't replace in a day or two. For others, it doesn't really change anything. You pick up your new level 80 spells and abilities and you go right back where you left off, questing in some zone.Personally, I'm more like that first type. I quest hard until top level, then take a break from it while I work on other things. I quested through Storm Peaks in the Wrath beta, but I haven't done it on live yet. I hit level 80 in Icecrown and haven't done much questing since then, I've mostly been running raids and heroics, finally replacing my level 70 gear. My first goal, though? I wanted the Reins of the Red Drake.
WoW Insider Show Episode 66: Felicia Day and her show
Yes, our podcast is a little early today (due to the holiday, I'm going to be traveling on Saturday, so no live show as usual this week), but we've got a bonus for you anyway: Felicia Day, creator of The Guild and star of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, joined us to talk about the second season of her web series, which just started up the other day, and the deal they've recently made for Microsoft to show it exclusively on MSN, Zune, and Xbox Live.Since most of our bloggers were out for the holiday this week, it was just me and her, but we had a lot of fun -- there are some good hints in there about new characters coming to join our favorite guildies this season, the third season (!) of the show, and how Felicia is able to get MMO concepts (like "DKP" and the idea of a "guild" itself) across to people who may not play MMOs. And I also got to read some emails and get a little bit of WoW talk in there -- if you'd like to email the show a question or comment for next time, you can do so at theshow@wow.com as always.We'll be back as usual live on Ustream on Saturday, December 6th at 3:30 Eastern, so make sure to tune in then when we'll get back to the WoW talk. In the meantime, enjoy the show, and do go check out the first show of The Guild's second season (or watch it in HD on Xbox Live) -- it's great.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Level 80 Death Knight solos Zul'Gurub
Paladins have been the solo instance kings for a while now, from BRD to Onyxia to Blood Furnace, but there may be a new contender in town. Felblood let us know that his level 80 Death Knight (I believe this is his Armory page) has soloed one of my favorite instances, Zul'Gurub, going from the snake boss all the way to Hakkar with just his character.The snake boss, he says, was easy, just a nuke. The bat boss Jeklik silences, and a few of his resists failed on her, so she got some healing off, but she still dropped. Panther and spider went down all right, though the spider's webbing apparently kept him from healing as well -- being silenced, he couldn't cast disease, so Death Strike didn't heal. Bloodlord Mandokir was super tough, apparently -- I can imagine that watching would be pretty nuts during that. On Thekal, the tiger boss, his problem was that he was killing too fast: the boss would get ressed when one of the adds died early. Eventually he just brought them down to 50% and then just nuked all out, and the second phase was easy.And Hakkar was anticlimactic -- he just basically tanked and spanked. He tried to anti-magic the Blood Syphons, but they didn't heal for much, so he just wailed on Hakkar until he was the last one standing. Quite a feat. Of course, at level 80, he was 20 levels above where this 20 man instance was meant to be, so we probably haven't seen the end of the level 60 content being soloed. But it seems that Death Knights are almost more equipped than Paladins to bring down some of the raid content on their own.
Matticus' powerleveling tips for shooting to 80
Our good friend Matticus is one of the WoW Insider bloggers who's already gotten up to level 80 (we've got three or four of them floating around), and over on his own site, he's shared a few powerleveling tips for those of you who'd really rather just get right on back to the endgame again.A lot of it is common sense, but it's mostly "go fast, and go big." Get as many quests as you can, and do them all at once. Pop all your cooldowns whenever they come up, and even while you're looting something, be looking for the next quest target or the next thing to kill. Professions are out the window, of course, and reading quest text will just slow you down, so just click accept, and read what you're supposed to find while you're running out to find it.In case you're wondering, no, I don't recommend playing the game like this (it's fine to be a slow leveler), and even Matt admits that you'll miss out on pretty much everything pre-80, including all of the lore and story Blizzard's baked into the game this time around. But if getting to 80 is your only goal, his tips will help.
