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About the Bloggers: Chase Christian
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more of our staffers in earlier About the Bloggers profiles. What do you do for WoW Insider? I was hired by WoW Insider in late 2008 to write the weekly rogue column, Encrypted Text. I had actually applied for the position a few months earlier but wasn't originally selected, so I simply assassinated their first choice and left them with no choice but to sign me instead. When WI decided to expand its coverage of hybrid classes, I put in my application for the holy paladin position. I currently maintain both Encrypted Text and The Light and How to Heal It portion of the paladin column on a weekly basis. My secondary role is to get confused with Christian Belt and Chase Hasbrouck.
WoW Insider Show Episode 121: So long and thanks for all the Fah-jords
Our podcast reached the end of part one last weekend, as both Turpster and I announced that we'd be leaving the show. But we didn't let it become a sad affair -- Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian both joined us for some Warcraft discussion (including when it's ok to votekick someone, and lots of Battered Hilt discussion), and we finally were able to have one of our favorite guys stop by: Scott Johnson from The Instance podcast. It was a great show, and as usual, you can tune in at all of the links below. Thanks again for everything -- even though Turpster and I are moving on, the podcast will continue, so be sure to come back and see what they brew up for you. But it's been a heck of a ride these past two-plus years, and we've had measurable metric tons of laughs and fun together. Thanks so much for listening and chatting with us and all the emails and excitement. Enjoy the show, and don't forget to grab your sword and fight the Horde. 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: <cke:object width="290" height="24" type="" application="" x-shockwave="" -flash"="" data="http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ab/audio_player.swf"> <cke:param value="http://o.aolcdn.com/os/ab/audio_player.swf" name="movie"></cke:param> <cke:param value="soundFile=http://podcasts.aolcdn.com/wow/podcasts/12-21-09-wow-E121.mp3" name="FlashVars"></cke:param> <cke:param value="high" name="quality"></cke:param> <cke:param value="false" name="menu"></cke:param> <cke:param value="transparent" name="wmode"></cke:param></cke:object>
WoW Insider Show tomorrow at 3:30pm Eastern
My last episode of the WoW Insider Show is on the air tomorrow afternoon -- it'll be sad (I really love doing this show for you all), but hopefully it won't be too maudlin. Fortunately both Matthew Rossi and Chase Christian have agreed to join us, and of course Turpster will be on with us as well -- whenever the T is around, you know it'll be a good time. We'll be talking about the most popular stories in Warcraft for the past week, including the arrival of Winter Veil, patch 3.3.0a and all of the other hotfixes this week, and just because I think it's interesting, we'll talk about the Battered Hilt as well. And as usual, we'll answer your emails and chat live with all of the folks in the chatroom. You can email us any time of night or day at theshow@wow.com, and you'll be able to listen in to the show on the feed over on Ustream itself, or right after the break below. Please do join us, should be fun.
WoW's 5th anniversary: Our writers' memories
We at WoW.com are a sentimental bunch. I always privately thought that, but now I've got the sort of ironclad proof beloved by canny blackmailers everywhere. In the weeks before WoW's 5th anniversary, a backchannel team discussion sprang up on our memories of the game and the players with whom we've had the great privilege of playing, and we decided to collect them here in honor of WoW's birthday. Some of us are hardcore gamers with lots of experience with other games. For others, WoW was their first (and in some cases, only). Most of us raid, and some of us PvP or theorycraft. A few of us are nuts for hardware arguments, but others are surprised to discover that WoW does not actually play on our toasters. Many of us are pretty easygoing in our approach to the content; others would sell their grandmothers up the river for a server-first. One among us hates warlocks, and everyone else just hates rogues (unless you're Chase). But we do share one thing in common, and that's that we love the game no matter what we're doing while playing it -- and we hope you do too. From all of us at WoW.com, happy birthday, World of Warcraft!
WoW Insider Show Episode 115: Use your i-mage-ination
I am pretty flabbergasted by all of the pictures you listeners have sent in to our podcast -- it seems we've got listeners all over the globe who do all kinds of different things while listening to the show. In other words, we've got eyes everywhere, including Gormal, an 80 hunter from the Villiage Idiots on Quel'dorei. He found this boat on the way to work, and suggests to us it might actually be Ghostcrawler's famous yacht. Why is it dry-docked? GC's working hard on Cataclysm, of course -- who has time for sailing when paladins need nerfing? Lots more reader pictures in our gallery below. And oh yeah, there's a show, too. Christian Belt was kind enough to join us this weekend -- along with Chase Christian, Turpster, and I, he talked with us about mages and how they're doing, Blizzard's new pets-for-cash scheme, and what's been showing up on the patch 3.3 PTR lately. Enjoy the show -- we'll be back next week as usual. %Gallery-77044% 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:
Listen to the WoW Insider Show live this afternoon
Our podcast returns to the virtual airwaves this afternoon and if you were watching our Twitter feed this week, you'd know the big news: Christian Belt has decided to come and join us. Not that we're not fans of all of our bloggers, but he's been one of the most requested voices on the show for a while, and he's finally decided to make the jump and meet all of you through the magic of Ustream. Better not disappoint him! And that's not all -- Chase Christian will be on (that's right, twice the Christian on the 'cast) with Turpster and I, and we'll be talking of course about Blizzard's jump into selling fake items for real money, "Icecrown Radiance" and what it means, and all the fun stuff we've been seeing come out of the PTR. And as usual, we'll chat live with everybody in the chatroom, as well as answer your questions via email -- I see already that we've been getting lots and lots of pictures of where people are listening in, so we'll be talking about those and you'll see them in the gallery next week as well. Should be a great time -- come and join us on Ustream or right after the break on this post when the show kicks off at 3:30pm Eastern this afternoon.
WoW Insider Show Episode 111: Ninja werewolf
Good times on the WoW Insider Show last Saturday -- even though Turpster was AFK for the week, we had a packed show, with Matthew Rossi, Chase Christian, and Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington all jumping on to share some opinions. We talked about the new instances already testing over on the PTR, as well as what we'll find in Icecrown (we kept the story spoilers out of it, though we did talk about some bosses and their abilities). And we hit up the character selection and creation screens and chatted about what might be better on those.Email was also answered, and we even heard from a fan that the Ustream app will even work over just a plain Edge network connection, so if you've got an iPhone or iPod touch, there's no reason that you can't listen live on the show every Saturday at 3:30pm Eastern. Meanwhile, enjoy the show this week, and oh yeah: there's only a little bit of time left to put in nominations for the Podcast Awards, so if you feel the inclination, please put us in for your People's Choice and Gaming podcast nominations over there. Thanks! 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:
Faction change service now available [UPDATED]
Our tipline just lit up with news that the faction change service discussed so often recently is now available! At least in the US, anyway. One of our super secret to-be-announced new bloggers from the EU mentioned that he doesn't see it overseas yet, but Rogue specialist Chase Christian is already swapping his Rogue over. Hopefully Europe will have it very soon.The faction change (accessed via your account management page), in addition to allowing you to flip from Horde to Alliance (and vice versa) also seems to include the ability to change anything else you could change through a character recustomization, such as a name change for the price of $30. We have some picture of the process incoming, so keep an eye on this spot. We'll have them put together for you in just a moment.Update: And here are the images of the process. Enjoy!Update #2: The faction change FAQ has some additional details you might find interesting. There are some mount/reputation restrictions when you switch over that you might want to be aware of before you drop your $30.%Gallery-71584%
Encrypted Text: The Lumberjack Rogue
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 talk VERY tongue-in-cheek about the upcoming addition of Axes to the Rogue arsenal.As it turns out, my cynicism last week was completely unfounded. I had assumed Death Knights would be getting the new weapon skill that Blizzard had thrown up for grabs, and that we'd have yet another class rolling on Fist weapons. However, Rogues were the recipient of this new buff, and we'll now be able to use Axes in the upcoming patch!While many of the old Rogue veterans may put the kibosh on using anything that's not a dagger, I'd like to see us take the opportunity to embrace this change. Orc Rogues will be able to take full advantage of Axe Specialization (which will actually include Fists in 3.2), and it opens up the door to an entirely new playstyle that I like to call 'The Lumberjack'. You'll see what I mean, after the cut.
WoW Insider Show Episode 95: Just for you
Quite a show on our podcast last weekend -- while, despite lots of pre-show tweaking, I still wasn't able to get audio set up correctly, we were still able to get all our guests on. Both Lesley Smith and Chase Christian joined us to talk about all of the patch 3.2 changes we've heard about on the coming PTR, including Chase's thoughts on Rogues getting Axes, what the Coliseum will be like and the changes to Emblems in raids and Heroic instances. We also talked for just a bit about the Midsummer Fire Festival, which is on the realms right now. Turpster will be doing it, as he's still in the chase for the holiday achievements, but the rest of us are pretty meh.And we talked about our plans for BlizzCon (live streaming ahoy!), and even gave away some loot codes. The contest from during the show is over and done with (so please don't bother emailing us about Yogg Saron any more), but just so you weekly listeners aren't out in the cold, we'll do this: two random commenters on this post before Wednesday the 24th at midnight will win a loot card code each. That's right: comment on this post (using a real email) before Wednesday at midnight and you'll have a chance to win a Footsteps of Illidan loot card of your own, thanks to our friends at WoWTCGLoot.com. Enjoy the show, and we'll see you next week.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:
WoW Insider Show live today at 3:30pm Eastern
Our podcast returns once again to the virtual airwaves this afternoon, and this is going to be a good one: we're welcoming back both editor Lesley Smith and Rogue columnist Chase Christian, and as usual, Turpster and I will be on to answer your emails and chat live with you over on the Ustream page. We'll be talking mostly about patch 3.2, of which the patch notes hit our eyes just this week. There are some more details about the upcoming Crusaders' Coliseum instance, the Emblem system (that will definitely inspire some discussion), and all of the other changes that caught our attention in there. Plus, Midsummer Fire is almost upon us, so we'll chat about that as well.Tune in this afternoon over on the our Ustream page at June 20, 2009 3:30 PM EDTvar date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); , or you can jump after the break to see an embedded feed. If you'd like to email us questions, feel free: the address is theshow@wow.com. And what the heck -- we'll be giving some loot card codes away on the show today as well, so tune in if you can and you might pick up some free in-game loot. See you this afternoon!
Encrypted Text: Everything but Vanish
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 talk about what's up next for the Rogue class. Hopefully, nothing!While I don't have any official numbers, I think it's easy to say that Rogues are the class that sees the most complaints from others. Crying about Death Knights has been en vogue recently, but we've still got years of threads calling for the complete and utter downfall of every assassin. While all of this negative press has resulted in a few nerfs that nobody was happy with, it seems that Blizzard has chosen to rise above the noise and ensure our slot at the top of both the DPS meters and PvP representation charts.We went through a spell as the least-played class of WotLK: a level that Rogues had never even approached previously. We were largely middle-of-the-pack in PvE and PvP, with HAT exploits and Glyphed Vigor + Overkill + Mutilate combos barely sustaining us. However, Blizzard heard our cries for a resurrection, and we were reborn in patch 3.1. With the newly minted PPM Poison mechanics adding gobs of nature damage to every spec, and the redesigned Combat tree breathing life into the raiding scene, we're sitting pretty as the #1 DPS class in both Ulduar and the arena. The question that's on my mind now: "What next?"
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Ulduar, part 3
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 talk about a few of the general raiding tips every Rogue should know.As a break in the boss-by-boss breakdown of Ulduar fights, I wanted to go over a few general raiding tips for Rogues. Some of them may be very old ideas that you've been using since level 60, while a few others are new tricks that we've learned in WotLK. Hopefully you'll be able to glean a few good bits of information to take with you the next time you zone into any raid. There's nothing more important than properly preparing for a new fight, but knowing the general tactics for any encounter will make understanding new fights much easier.First, however, I would like to comment on the new Overkill. Its new form is a significant buff when looking at total energy generated, and also for PvE Mutilate Rogues. However, it is a nerf to our 6-second burst window during a Cheap Shot -> Kidney Shot combo. I feel this will end up being a net buff for Rogues, as relying solely on the first 6 seconds of a fight in PvP has become far to gimmicky for us to rely on.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Ulduar, part 2
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 continue our discussion of tips and tricks for Ulduar.Last week, we covered the first few tiers of Ulduar bosses, and what Rogues can do to maximize their performance on these fights. I was happy to see some great tips in the comments as well, such as using Cloak of Shadows when you are afflicted by XT-002's Light Bomb. If you have any advice to add to the conversation, please use the comments to give us your thoughts.This week, we'll be talking about the Keepers, the real meat and potatoes of Ulduar. These bosses drop our coveted Tier 8 (complete with its fantastic 4-piece bonus!) and other loot that you'll want to get your hands on. These fights are also more technically complex, and so you'll want to be prepared before attempting to down these bosses for the first time.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Ulduar, part 1
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 discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Ulduar.With Ulduar laid wide open, many Rogues and their guilds are flocking to its gates. Brand new bosses and shiny gear upgrades are just two of the reasons that I've seen so many 'LFM Ulduar' advertisements in trade chat. However, as the dungeon is still relatively new, many of us haven't had the opportunity to confront every giant-sized boss in the instance.I've compiled a list of basic roles for each boss fight in the instance, as well as a list of cool tricks and tips you can use to make your first (or eighth!) run through Ulduar as smooth as possible. Blizzard has included several fights in the instance where it is advantageous to bring a Rogue, and being able to proactively seize these opportunities will put you at the head of the pack.
Encrypted Text: The logic behind Rogue axioms
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 discuss some of the logic behind a few of the popular Rogue mantras.While I was on the WoW Insider show last weekend, a question came up regarding weapon speeds and poison selection for a Combat Rogue. I answered the question in detail, and after finishing my explanation, I realized that I sounded more like an algebra teacher than a gamer. There is a lot of math involved in mastering the Rogue class.While spreadsheets provide exact numbers for DPS and gear comparison, it's often that a Rogue is unable to take the time to run the numbers for every weapon and gear combo. It's important to have a firm understanding of HOW Rogues work, in order to make your own decisions without needing to consult the formulas. After the cut, I'll be explaining a few of the current "Rogue axioms" in detail, so that you can understand the logic behind the tenets.
Encrypted Text: How to use a spreadsheet
Every Wednesday (usually), 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 discuss how to properly use a DPS spreadsheet.Patch 3.1 is finally released, and there is a ton of new gear available for Rogues. The Argent Tournament has some great gear for newly 80 Rogues looking for solid-quality blues and epics, Ulduar has over 800 new items (more than all of TBC's raids combined), and Arena Season 6 should be starting next week. There's multiple new epics for every slot and for every playstyle.With this sudden influx of new gear, the infamous Rogue spreadsheets have seen a huge increase in download traffic. While I haven't seen any officially updated sheets from our friend Vulajin, Aldriana has published a pair of new Mutilate and Combat spreadsheets. While not quite as pretty as Vulajin's, Aldriana's has all of the major features that you need to plan your gear upgrades. Read on for detailed instructions on how to use a spreadsheet.
WoW Insider Show Episode 86: No love for Gnomes
Here's this week's episode of the WoW Insider Show, in which we recapped patch 3.1 and all of the class goodness and new content included in there, as well as the Ulduar cinematic and that fact that Gnomes have been historically dissed by Blizzard's machinimists. We checked in on your emails as well -- we got some Rogue theorycrafting in the mix thanks to our Encrypted Text writer Chase Christian stopping by, and we checked back in with Duncor of WoW Radio for the first time in a while on both which tank is the best and whether leather-wearing casters should get cloth upgrades or not.Was a good show -- you can give it a listen at any of the links below, or just subscribe to us in iTunes to get the show automagically every Monday. We'll be back live on the air next Saturday, and we're climbing ever closer to a few big goals: in just 14 weeks, we're set to hit our 100th show, which will definitely be a nice anniversary for us, and we're only 600 followers away from hitting our goal of over 9000 followers on our Twitter account. So join up there if you haven't yet, and I'll get the tux out to the cleaners in anticipation.Enjoy the show this week and we'll see you next time!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:
WoW Insider Show live this afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern
Our podcast goes live again today as usual, and it should be a good one. We're going to welcome Rogue blogger Chase Christian back to the show, Turpster should be along for the ride as usual, and we're planning to have an old friend on who we haven't seen in a long time: Duncor may be making his long-awaited return, which should be a lot of fun. Of course we'll be talking all about patch 3.1, including how the dual spec system is working so far, some of the major class changes that made it through, and what's going on with the Argent Tournament. And we can't forget about the Ulduar cinematic -- that was a fun bit of lore that popped up out of nowhere this week.The show starts at April 18, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page (or just check the feed right down on the bottom of this post), and we'll be chatting live with you during the show as well as answering emails that you send to theshow@wow.com. We'll see you this afternoon!And if you've got a little bit of time after the show, be sure to head on over to Rawrcast's Ustream page for their show, directly after ours. Our friend Stompalina is going to have none other than the inimitable Turpster, and apparently he'll be playing a game show that you can participate in. Turpster was also on The Instance earlier this week, too, so give that a listen if you just can't get enough of the T. Man that guy's like the Jaina of podcasts this week -- he's getting it on with everybody!Update: That Rawrcast show with Turpster is apparently next week, April 25th. So if you thought you missed it on Saturday, no worries -- tune in next week to catch it live.
Encrypted Text: Tips for key binding your Rogue abilities
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 discuss the how to properly bind your abilities to the keyboard.While on a Sartharion 25 raid this past weekend, I noticed one of the other Rogues in the group moving very peculiarly. It took me a second to put my finger on it, but I figured out what was happening. He would be running around normally, and would then stop in place for two seconds every time he used Fan of Knives. I sent him a friendly whisper, asking why he was pausing when using Fan of Knives. He replied back that he had to stop moving and click the FoK button on his action bars, of course. I asked why he didn't simply bind FoK to a key for easier access, and he replied with "My 1-9 keys are already full!"Many Rogues spend hours choosing between different gems and weapon choices, when often the difference is less than 1% of their DPS. I see the control aspects of the class as more important than gear choices (not that gear is unimportant!). Without the ability to perform your rotations and combinations with finely-tuned timing, you could be losing as much as 25% DPS on certain fights. Making proper use of key binds and user interface addons are crucial to maximizing your DPS and reaction times in PvP.
