rogue-combat-encrypted-text
Latest
Encrypted Text: Stealth mechanics deep-dive
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 rogue iconic ability: Stealth. Have you ever tried to describe the rogue class to a friend or family member? I remember when a paladin acquaintance of mine asked what rogues were all about, what their secret sauce was. The question took me off guard, because I had been playing the rogue for so long that I saw everything through rogue-colored glasses. I struggled to find a simple explanation, because we are simply such a diverse class (once you overlook the pure DPS aspect, at least). While we could be summed up by one word, awesome, I have always felt that describing our class is a real challenge. Once I started thinking seriously about it, trying to find a class-defining moment or example, it hit me. What could be more ubiquitous than a rogue stealth run? An assassination force of shadow, rogues in their most feared form. We approach our opponents unnoticed, we strike from the shadows with great force, and we retreat into darkness before we're ever seen.
Encrypted Text: Patch 3.3.3 changes mean subtlety is back
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 upcoming patch 3.3.e changes, and what they mean for subtlety. I promised myself I would never say this. When I took up the mantle of Encrypted Text, I knew that with great power comes great responsibility. It was my duty to ensure that accurate information reached the readers of this column, and to keep them abreast of upcoming changes. The other sites could do as they pleased: I would remain steadfast. Unfortunately, as we all know, Blizzard loves to shake things up when they feel that the status quo is stale. The recent subtlety changes are an example of this. Because of those changes, I have to break that promise that I made. Today, I am forced to say something which I never thought would be seriously true. Today, I am telling you that hemo daggers is a viable spec.
Encrypted Text: The art of the gank
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 how to gank with style and grace. You're tired. You've been slaying the denizens of Icecrown Citadel for hours, you've spent your entire week clearing the daily heroics for your valuable Emblems of Frost, and you can't remember the last time you left Dalaran when you weren't en route to a raid. Your work has not been in vain, and you probably have some stiff new leather armor and maybe a plastic-wrapped weapon or two to show for it. Your new armor is too tight, it is stifling and you must be nimble. If your weapons are too mint, they won't fit in your hands, and they will throw off your balance. With such little time left at level 80, we don't have the luxury of underperforming. How can you make your armor flexible to allow you to avoid enemy attacks? How can you mold your weapon to become an extension of your own arm? And how can you vent the pent up stress of mindlessly spamming Fan of Knives in heroics for hours on end? Luckily, there's a magic element that will solve all three of these problems: innocent blood.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Icecrown Citadel, Part 4
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 Icecrown Citadel's fourth wing, Frostwing Halls. Dragons. We've been hunting these flying lizards for years immemorable. From the first slain whelp of our rogue infancy to the most powerful reptiles in the land, we've made our bones by assassinating these majestic reptiles wherever we can find them. No phase in WoW was complete without a dragon (or several) to take out, and Northrend is no different. We've faced a variety of dragons already: black, blue, undead, and more. Our axes are strong enough to tear through their scales, while our daggers are adept enough to slide between their armored hides. The dragon encounters that we face in ICC are of a different breed than what we're used to fighting. For instance, the first encounter actually has us teaming up with a green dragon to combat Arthas' corrupting power. The second faces us against the undead brood mother, the largest and most powerful dragon we've faced to date. While Deathwing awaits us in Cataclysm, Sindragosa is clearly the ultimate dragon encounter we'll face at level 80.
Encrypted Text: The last percent
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 how to maximize your DPS by using a few custom macros and clever use of your abilities. If you've been keeping up on yesterday's patch notes, you'll notice that quite a few of the hybrid and caster ranged classes received some significant DPS buffs. They have been trailing in the ICC meters, and these changes were designed to bring them back within range of the rest of the pack. Rogues have still been stunning on every fight in Icecrown, but the competition is definitely heating up. The true test will be how we fare against the Lich King himself. We've all heard about the hybrid tax: Blizzard regrets mentioning it, and every druid and ret paladin brings it up when they complain about their position on the DPS charts. Some estimates put it between 5-10%, but obviously hybrid classes are currently designed to stay near the pure DPS without passing them up. However, how many rogues are actually doing their maximum theoretical DPS? There are several common mistakes or oversights that can cost us dearly. Read on for a detailed list of ways you're hurting your own DPS, and how to fix it before your next raid.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Icecrown Citadel, 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 discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel's third wing, the Crimson Halls. Blizzard has been bringing their A-game in Icecrown Citadel, with each new wing's difficulty greater than the last. The most recently released wing, The Crimson Halls, plays host to a quartet of vampiric elves who will push your raid to the limit. ICC has been gradually becoming less and less PUG friendly, with complex fights, tight DPS checks via innovative berserk timers, and about twenty different ways to die per encounter. Add in the fact that each end-wing boss has a limited number of attempts, and it's easy to see why raid leaders only want to bring the best of the best to their runs. The two boss battles we find in the Crimson Halls are night and day when it comes to how a rogue should approach them. The first, an unconventional 'council fight', will have your thief senses tingling as danger comes from every angle while you move about the room. The second, a DPS race of highest order, will have you drooling over the huge numbers that appear on your screen as you assassinate yet another member of royalty: the Queen of the San'layn?
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Icecrown Citadel, 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 discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel's second wing, the Plagueworks. Blizzard has stepped up the pacing mechanic in Icecrown Citadel, releasing each new wing in two week intervals. With the latest wing, the Crimson Halls / Blood Wing (also called Vampire Wing if you're a Twilight fan), recently unveiled, there's bound to be a ton of interest in raiding ICC on your server. This week, I'd like to talk about the bosses that were released in the previous wing, the Plagueworks (Unholy). Once I get a chance to fight the Blood Princes and Blood Queen Lana'Thel first-hand, I'll have a write-up posted here. The Plagueworks revolves around Professor Putricide and his two abomination creations: Rotface and Festergut. Each of his children have a 'dog' to call their own, and plenty of trash guarding the way to their inner sanctum. These fights are a tier above what you've faced so far in Icecrown, and will push your DPS, your awareness, and your reaction times to the limit. Don't hold back in the Plagueworks: use every consumable and tactic available to maximize your DPS, or find yourself facing one of a few very interesting enrage timers. Unfortunately for us, as you can see in the picture above, our view for the first two encounters involves standing behind bosses that resemble a pair of deformed potatoes.
Encrypted Text: The sun is fine after recent rogue nerfs
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 recent Hunger for Blood and poison coefficient nerfs. If you have been anywhere near a WoW forum or news source in the past week, you'll certainly have heard of the largest rogue nerf seen in WotLK. Hotfixed into the game on the 8th, this nerf hit both Assassination and Combat, though Mutilate was hit far worse. I've seen rogue pundits claim that the sky is falling, and death knight forum posters shouting that the nerf was well deserved. To put it in the words of a forum poster now quoted in Ghostcrawler's signature: "blizzards solution was F) destroy the sun." A full 5% nerf to Hunger for Blood is pretty simple to model: it's a 5% nerf to Mutilate's DPS. Ghostcrawler has been exalting the idea of a simple talent/mechanic that allows Blizzard to tweak a class' DPS with minimal backlash or unexpected consequences, and it seems HfB is truly the precursor of what's to come with the Mastery system. The second nerf was also calculated, it struck Combat and Mutilate both, via a poison scaling coefficient that's invisible to players. While it only amounts to a 2-3% nerf for both specs, it's enough to convince many players to abandon their thieves and assassins. Here's the secret: post-nerf, rogues are still way on top.
Encrypted Text: Knowing your stats
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 how a few stats interact with various rogue specs. Have you ever had a problem finding a group as a rogue? My own rogue isn't immune to this issue, and I sometimes find myself without a raid group on a Saturday night. The rogue population has been steadily growing since its sharp decline right after the launch of Wrath, and that means increased competition for the coveted melee DPS raid slots. With the plentiful bounty of Death Knights and Ret Paladins vying for the three different two-hand weapons that drop from just the first 4 bosses of ICC10 and ICC25, it can be tough finding your place. However, with hard work and good performance, most raid leaders will see the value in bringing back quality DPS. To ensure that you're on the reinvite list, doing as much damage as possible will leave the most tangible evidence of your efforts (as well as being your overarching goal). Sometimes this means doing more with less, and using the gear you have to its highest potential before you're able to reap the benefits of the great 251/264 epics that you're working towards.
Encrypted Text: New Year's Resolutions
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 list of the things you should accomplish before 2011. With 2009 fading quickly and Cataclysm on the horizon in the upcoming year, the WotLK chapter of our lives as rogues is coming to a close. Preliminary numbers from Icecrown Citadel show rogues performing admirably, especially on fights like the Deathbringer, where we truly get to focus on a tight rotation and maximum single target DPS. While much of ICC has yet to be unlocked, I am confident that we'll find the best way to tackle the challenges it will place in front of us. Arena season number 8 (and likely Wrath's final season) is to be released shortly as well, which will see rogues vying against the plate classes for the top melee DPS honors. Cataclysm is bringing some of the most sweeping changes the game has ever seen, and so this is our last chance to experience the WotLK rogue before it disappears forever. Between the talent tree rebuild, the complete stat overhaul, and the massive world disruptions that are planned, we are running out of time to finish all of the items on our rogue to-do lists. Whether you're a new rogue, or a grizzled 5 year veteran of the Horde-Alliance war, I'd suggest knocking out these rogue-specific objectives that may be disappearing forever.
Encrypted Text: Two-horse race, 2009 in review
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. In this special edition, we cover the top 10 changes of 2009. We've been through a lot in 2009. It seems like every time we get settled on a spec or playstyle, Blizzard flipped it around with the next content patch. With each raid dungeon released, the top DPS build seemed to bounce to a different tree every time. I would say that rogues are probably in the top 3 classes for 'most change received' in 2009, especially when talking about changes that redefine the class completely. While death knights will complain that all they saw was the nerf bat this year, rogues have matured as a class and are far more versatile than where we were in January. We exited last year with Mutilate reigning over Combat, daggers standing triumphant at their long-awaited return to a rogue's hands. Early Naxxramas raids had me convinced that I had better start enjoying the Assassination tree, because a double Webbed Death rogue was a force to be reckoned with. Our PvP viability looked something like it always had: the ultimate ganking machine, but not much else. Let's explore some of the changes that took us from our previous one-trick-pony status to the versatile killers that we are today.
Encrypted Text: Rogue tips for raiding Icecrown Citadel, 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 Icecrown Citadel. With patch 3.3's release last week, we saw a brand new tier of raid content released. Our mission to assassinate Arthas while he sits upon his throne has reached its conclusion. After dealing with the immediate threat of Yogg-saron's corruption and proving ourselves in the Argent Tournament, we've been selected as the agents of the Lich King's demise. We haven't come this far to fail now! Before we can walk in and show Frostmourne and company what's up, we have to cut our teeth on Arthas' doorkeepers first. The first four bosses of Icecrown Citadel are now available to tackle, and provide some of the most interesting and innovative mechanics that we've seen in a boss fight yet. Considering that you'll be facing these same 4 bosses for the new few weeks, it provides a great opportunity to really learn the fights and capitalize on any tricks that will keep you alive. Read on for my analysis of the first wing of ICC from a rogue's perspective, with specific tips and tricks for assassins only!
Encrypted Text: Rogue gear guide for patch 3.3
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 all of the new gear you can find in patch 3.3. Patch 3.3 descended upon us rather quickly, bringing all of the new patch notes to fruition. It even brought extended maintenance and instance server outages in its wake. You can read more of WoW.com's coverage of 3.3 in our comprehensive guide. I was lucky enough to survive the instability long enough to run the new 5 man's, and they're a ton of fun. I've talked about the changes that rogues can expect, with Combat seeing a nice boost via the Deadly Poison change, and Mutilate is sitting pretty with Murder and the DP change putting it in sole possession of first place. Hopefully you've got a pair of daggers lying around. If you don't, have no fear! Blizzard has put in a ton of new rogue loot, and really pulled out all of the stops. Read on for a list of all the gear you'll be able to acquire in these first few weeks of our final confrontation against the Lich King.
Encrypted Text: Notes from the Patch 3.3 PTR
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 shaking for rogues on the patch 3.3 PTR. If you've logged into WoW at any point in the past few days, chances are you've been a target of the infamous Turkey Shooter. Someone on the Blizzard World Event team decided to put us in the crosshairs during this Pilgrim's Bounty holiday season, via the Turkey Lurkey achievement. Orc and dwarf rogues are especially vulnerable, as your rarity will have people spamming trade chat with shouts of "I found one near the North Dalaran bank!" Outside of this Thanksgiving-themed festival, there have been a ton of changes for rogues in other aspects of the game. The patch 3.3 PTR has been buzzing with new changes, affecting us from levels 1 to 80. Considering it's likely to be the last major content patch before Arthas goes down, this is Blizzard's last real attempt to finalize any balancing issues before they're pushed to Catacylsm. I believe that with a few tweaks, rogues can be more versatile than we ever have before.
