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Know Your Lore: Which side is Wrathion on, anyway?
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Once upon a time, an egg from a corrupted flight of dragons was purified. Even before he hatched, the dragon in that egg began to plot and plan. His first step was freedom -- both from those who sought to contain him, and those who sought to kill him. The second, far larger step was born of a vision ... a terrifying vision of a precious, fragile world abruptly coming to a devastating end. Wrathion is one of the stranger characters to have been introduced in Warcraft. While his plans in Cataclysm were fairly straight forward, Mists has proven to be a far more complicated gambit. And through all of the quests and all of the plans, Wrathion has remained as enigmatic as he was the first time rogues set eyes on him. He can be cruel, he can be downright merciless if the need calls for it. Yet at the same time, he seems to possess an altruistic capacity that we've simply never seen before from a black dragon. He'll promise the world to you, and then turn around and promise the same to your enemy. Is he bad? Is he good? Is he siding with the Alliance or Horde? What makes Wrathion tick, and just whose side is he on?
Know Your Lore: The mysterious motives of Wrathion
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Wrathion made his debut in the Cataclysm expansion -- not as a raid boss, but as a clever ally to rogues looking for legendary weapons. His words seemed genuine and sincere, although his actions revealed a vicious streak that players would be wise to avoid. Yet his origins go back even further, to a small quest chain in the Badlands in which Wrathion is born to a mother who is captive of the red dragonflight, his egg later tampered with and then hidden for safe-keeping. He's only two years old, give or take a few months. Yet Wrathion is far, far more clever than one would expect for someone of his young age. And given his actions in Cataclysm, and later in Mists of Pandaria, one thing remains perfectly clear: This is not your typical dragon. But what exactly is Wrathion after? What, exactly, is the purpose of his scheming, and perhaps most importantly -- should we be worried? Please note: There are some small spoilers for patch 5.4 content in this post.
Encrypted Text: What Fangs of the Father could have been
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. Every DPS spec in World of Warcraft is in competition with every other DPS spec. It doesn't matter if you're playing the pure DPS rogue or the hybrid DPS priest, you want to be at the top of the meters. For some players, being at the top of their raid's DPS chart is good enough. For others, they won't stop until they're at the top of World of Logs' rankings. World of Logs is like a world-wide Recount. When the first few Dragonwraths were earned by casters, their stock on WoL saw a notable spike. The legendary staff's massive stats and spell-doubling effect were incredibly potent. Every caster with Dragonwrath saw their DPS skyrocket. When the first few Fangs of the Father were earned by rogues, it was largely anticlimactic. Heroic No'Kaled, which had already been obtainable for months, was a viable competitor to our legendary daggers. No legendary weapon has ever been pre-empted as quickly as our daggers were.
Encrypted Text: The Shock and Awe build
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. If you have been raiding 10-man Dragon Soul every week, Wrathion should be handing over the Fangs of the Fathers any day now. Even the second rogues in most 25-man groups will be collecting their last Elementium Gem Clusters shortly. For many rogues, these daggers are the first legendary weapons that they've ever acquired. When you receive them from Wrathion, it might feel a bit overwhelming. What do you do with these weapons? What will they do to you? There is a quote that's been passed down from thief to thief, assassin to assassin, and rogue to rogue for generations: "If your blades are happy, you're happy." You want your weapons to work for you, and not the other way around. You can't starve your blades, trying to forcefully adjust their diet to tolerate Morchok's rocky hide or Hagara's snow cones. If you want to keep your blades happy, you have to feed them what they really want: player blood, and lots of it.
Encrypted Text: How fast can you get Fangs of the Father?
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. Last week, a rogue obtained the very first pair of legendary daggers, Fangs of the Father. The spelling of the rogue's name is Имбос, and I can only imagine it sounds like the words "borscht" and "gulag" combined, because those are the only two Russian words that I know. You might recognize Имбос's guild, Exorsus, as the guild that achieved the world-first Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider. Thankfully, I can actually pronounce Exorsus. How could one guild win both the Glory achievement and legendary dagger races? In fact, how could any rogue have obtained the Fangs of the Father when they take eight weeks to acquire, at the very least? If you're keeping track, there have been seven raid lockout periods since patch 4.3 and Dragon Soul were released. If you examine Имбос's armory, you'll notice that there are a combined nine kills of Yor'sahj listed (three normal, six heroic). Lockout resetting is a known issue for progression raiders, but since it hasn't been declared an exploit by Blizzard, there's nothing stopping players from spending some cash to get ahead. I'll be waiting to congratulate the first rogue to acquire Fangs of the Father in a mathematically possible timetable.
Encrypted Text: Remembering 2011 as the year of the rogue
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, like how to sneak around wearing a gaudy sweater. With 2010 fading fast, rogues apprehensively looked forward to Cataclysm and how it would shape 2011. We were the crowned kings of Icecrown Citadel, with armor penetration and attack power as our top stats and both assassination and combat battling for first place. Mutilate rogues still tied down by Hunger for Blood, and combat rogues were spamming Blade Flurry on cooldown for the attack speed increase. Looking back, we have grown since Wrath. Each of the rogue specs has evolved and found a niche, and even subtlety can make a reasonable claim for a raid spot now. With the massive talent system revamp, the developers struggled initially to balance each spec against the others. Rogues entered into 2011 and Cataclysm with a whimper, as the loss of armor penetration and the conversion of attack power to agility was not as smooth as Blizzard would have hoped.
Encrypted Text: Turning murder into legendaries
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. Patch 4.3 is now live, and with it comes plenty of new additions. You can spend your time playing games at the newly revamped Darkmoon Faire, or you can play dress-up by transmogrifying your old tier sets. The developers buckled down and cranked out three new dungeons, complete with a plethora of new gear and valor point options. The new dungeons are also bristling with new lore moments and plot exposition, giving us insight into Deathwing's madness. But you're not here for that. You're not reading this post because you can't wait to hear what fashion style I'll be transmogging to. (A pirate, FYI.) You couldn't care less about tossing rings or commanding tonks on Darkmoon Island. Dungeon guides can wait. If you're as black-blooded as I am, then there's only one thing on your mind: Who does a rogue have to kill around here to get a pair of legendary daggers?
Patch 4.3 PTR: Rogue legendary dagger proc revealed
The legendary rogue-only daggers coming in patch 4.3, the Fangs of the Father, bring an epic quest line and a cool cosmetic effect with them. But of course, you or a rogue you know will want them for one thing and one thing only: the proc. And here it is in all its glory: Shadows of the Destroyer. Not only is it a permanent (if variable and requiring some buildup) agility boost, but it'll also periodically explode to immediately grant you 5 combo points and cause your finishers to also generate 5 combo points for 6 seconds. Now, the only downer here is that it doesn't make your finishers cost 0 energy, so you probably won't be able to fully take advantage of those 6 seconds, but it's still a damn good proc. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Patch 4.3: Rogue legendary Fangs of the Father official preview
Blizzard is on a roll today with new information and official previews -- not least of which is the new rogue legendary coming in patch 4.3, The Fangs of the Father. Rogues will be tasked with assisting Wrathion, the young prince of the Black Dragonflight, through acts of burglary, stealth, assassination, and manipulation. For their troubles, rogues will be granted a set of daggers that gets progressively more powerful as the quests continue. The legendary items will provide a stacking agility bonus that culminates in a combo point cost reduction for finishing moves, increases the damage of finishing moves, and unfurls large black wings that look imposing and destructive. Rogues can also call upon the wings on command to act as a built-in slow fall (or to just pop out the wings to look cool). Check out the official video preview of the Fangs of the Father after the jump.
Patch 4.3: First look at the rogue legendary daggers
Blizzard loves rogues in patch 4.3. Not only are rogues getting a pair of legendary daggers (potentially named Fangs of Father), but the daggers will give the rogue black dragon wings as well. First revealed in Blizzard's Facebook album "Glimpses," the picture depicts a night elf rogue in full tier 13 Blackfang Battleweave wielding the legendary pair of weapons, black wings unfurled. The wings go perfectly with the bat aesthetics of the tier 13 armor and give the set something totally unique. That rogue also looks pretty high up in the sky, so could the legendary daggers also be a type of mount not unlike the caster legendary Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest? We will know soon enough. All I've got to say is one word: awesome. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Encrypted Text: Welcome your new legendary-wielding rogue overlords
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. World of Warcraft is alive. The game is dynamic, always churning and changing. Guilds rise and fall, chapters of lore are closed, and new challenges are introduced. The balance of power shifts like a scale at sea. While the developers do their best to steer the ship through the rough waters of chaos, players are exploiting even the slightest imbalances to gain any advantage over their peers. The constant struggle to maintain order and balance has been fought for years, with neither participant yielding to the opposing side. As the developers are tweaking class mechanics and players are finding new ways to break them, there is one force that silences everyone -- the legendary weapon. With their orange text and powerful attributes, legendary weapons are capable of raising a class out of the war zone of balance and elevating them to the pillar of dominance. The wielders of legendaries are above the laws of balance and fairness; they get to define their own reality. Rogues have been named as the next recipients of this power in the form of a pair of legendary daggers, the Fangs of the Father. I couldn't be more excited. Even in my glee, I still wonder: Why would the devs introduce weapons so powerful that they undermine their own attempts at balance?
Patch 4.3: Rogue legendaries, Raid Finder, and more
Blizzard's patch 4.3 info drop continues tonight with interviews going up across the blogosphere. Our sister site Joystiq posted a whole bunch of new info about 4.3's dungeons earlier, and now we've learned a few really cool pieces of information from Curse's interview with Greg Street (aka Ghostcrawler) about the new rogue legendary weapon, the Raid Finder, and more. First, the rogue legendary is actually a pair of legendaries -- specifically, a pair of daggers named the Fangs of Father (which may be a mistranslation), according to Taiwanese Gamebase. GC explains across his interviews that rogues have understandably felt left out of this expansion both in terms of numbers and content, so giving them a legendary of their own was a good way to get them into the spotlight. The quest line for these daggers will revolve around the single pure black dragon egg that players helped protect in the Badlands. The dragon will hatch (it's a boy!) and lead rogues on a time- and gold-consuming quest around the world for their well-earned blades.
Patch 4.3: Rogue legendary, new raid difficulty, and other details
The afternoon, The Escapist published an interview with World of Warcraft's Lead Producer J. Allen Brack on all things patch 4.3. Some of the topics discussed are topics we already know quite well: the nature of transmogrification, how void storage works, and so on. However, the interview also includes juicy bits we didn't know. For example, patch 4.3's legendary weapon, which was initially stated to have a "narrow audience" in the tanking edition of the Ask The Devs series, will be a rogue dagger. Brack states that they haven't settled on a name, lore, or any such thing for the weapon, so who knows what its quest chain may bring. That is actually a very interesting detail in itself: If Brack is being truthful and Blizzard doesn't know anything about the dagger's design yet, are we as close to seeing patch 4.3 on the PTR as the armor previews suggest? Or will Blizzard need to cobble it together in a hurry late in the patch's development cycle?
