Double Zombiedrake

Given that I’ve never heard that term outside of my guild, I’m going to assume (probably wrongly) that we invented it (the term, not the accomplishment).  Anyway…

Zombiedrake [zom-bee-dreyk] -noun – A successful run of Heroic KoT: Culling of Stratholme in which the group completes both the Zombiefest and Culling of Time achievements.

We did this the other day, not once, but twice.  If you haven’t tried this before, it’s a good challenge for a dungeon that I’m sure we’ve all seen enough of.  To really understand the challenge, you have to realize that doing Zombiefest will take 5-8 additional minutes of timer for the Culling of Time…

Great Quote from a Guildie

***Slightly more mature than my normal posts.  Just slightly, but hey, you’ve been warned.***

The other night, we were in ICC 10 working on Lady Deathwhisperer and having a bit of trouble.  When I decided it was time to rally the troops, I declared that we were going to progress all the way through Icecrown Citidel, becuase I was going to “teabag Arthas before this expansion is over.”  Well, that little motivational tidbit led a good friend to reply:

“If you’re going to teabag the greatest Death Knight of all time, you’ve got to grow a pair first.”

Rofl.

Just thought I’d share.

- Sam

The New LFG = Win

I like the new LFG.

Nay.

I LOVE the new LFG.

The Random button is the most fun I’ve had in recent history.  I hated running Heroics in BC for badges; in fact, loathe probably isn’t a strong enough word to describe my hatred for them.  Running for Badges of Justice back in the day as a Rogue wasn’t easy.  It was hard to find a group, and often the groups were terrible.  However, that experience isn’t something I’ve had since last Tuesday.  I always tried to get a guild run for any heroics I would do before 3.3, and while I still do go on those runs, I really enjoy running the random heroics.  They’re usually successful, and I get to interact with new people.

Truth be told, Sam has 220 Emblems of Triumph, and other than converting those into Heroism for a Mammoth or gems, I’ve not a lot of use for them.  Staying current in the raid game (unlike BC) I’ve been able to keep my gear up to par with whatever we’ve been working on.  I run them on my Paladin for gear, but on Sam, I run them for fun.  Sure, I’m working toward a Perky Pug, but even after I get it, I’ll probably keep running them.

3.3 Assassination vs. 3.2 Assassination

Time to get back to work…

I’m sure most raiding Rogues have been keeping up with the PTR and have already seen this a million times, but just in case, I’ll throw this in here one time.  Yesterday, with the release of 3.3 Assassination Rogues got a fairly substantial buff to our single target sustained DPS.  Here’s the parts of the patch notes that are of particular interest to this post:

• Deadly Poison: In addition to its existing effects, when a rogue applies Deadly Poison to a target which has already reached the maximum number of applications, this will also trigger the poison which the rogue is using on his or her other weapon.
• Improved Poisons: Bonus chance to trigger Deadly Poison from this talent increased.
• Murder: This talent now provides a flat damage increase of 2/4% against all targets, instead of only targets which do not appear in Icecrown.

The buff to Murder is nice, even if it’s only noticeable when you’re attacking targets that it previously didn’t work against, but the main damage increase comes from the two poison talents.  These changes were added to address the weapon swapping some Rogues were doing to get extra Instant Poison procs.  Based on what I’ve seen on a static target, they’re adding more DPS than weapon swapping did.

Have You Seen This Gnome?

I’m sure some of you have noticed a lack of posting as of late; sometimes life just gets in the way…

The biggest of my issues is that work blocked WordPress, and I used to get a fair bit of work done in my down time on the site.  It’s not like I just sat at work (hard to do as a teacher) and worked on the blog all day, but I did get some time every day where I could work on it.  Losing that meant having to make up that time somewhere else, and I’ve not figured out exactly where to put it quite yet.  It’s not like I’m unable to write posts at work and post them when I get home, but that’s time that I was using for other things.

What other things you ask?  My friend Tom and I write and record music together.  It’s something that we’ve dabbled in for years, but we finally got more serious about it this year, and set aside a couple of hours every Monday to record our music.  That doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but I spend more than those two hours on it every week.  I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’ll re-record a near perfect vocal part 10 times if I can get it perfect.  Also, I do all the mixing when Tom’s not here, so that’s even more time spent messing around with the music.  It’s a lot of fun, but very time consuming.

Anyway, I can find a million reasons why I haven’t been spending or had the time to work on the site, but I only need one to know that I should find some more time to work here too.  I love to write, enjoy to share and aspire to help when I can.  Don’t worry, I’ll have some time to get back into the swing of things this weekend, and I can get back to some sense of normalcy with posting.  I enjoy writing and the people I meet through this blog too much to let it stagnate for too long.

- Sam

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Turkey Day from Sam and The Mrs.

What’s up with my Heroic DPS?

I’ve had a few comments and emails recently about Rogues getting destroyed on heroic bosses by Mages.  I figured I’d do a quick write-up on why.  Before I get into that there are some things you should know:

• It’s going to happen.
• It can happen often.
• It doesn’t matter if you’re better geared.
• There’s not a whole lot you can do about it.

A well-played Mage will destroy a Rogue on fights that last around 40 seconds every time.  This happens due to our resource, Energy.  Energy is a great mechanic.  Even if we’re completely out of it, Energy will completely regenerate in ten seconds or less.  However, it’s not Mana, and for that reason a good Mage can whip you on those short fights every time.

Envenom & Eviscerate

One thing I’ve noticed traveling in Azeroth and what’s left of Draenor (that’s Outland for the lore challenged) is that a lot of Rogues don’t completely understand what’s going on when you use Envenom and Eviscerate.  I’ve known more that one Rogue that had never used Envenom during Burning Crusade, and was halfway through leveling in Northrend before they used it for the first time.  If you’re not a theorycrafter, you might not care what’s happening mathematically when you press a button, but that knowledge can help you decide exactly what you should be doing in your DPS rotation.  Today, I’ll break both Envenom and Eviscerate down so that you can decide for yourself which one is better for you.

Dagger Conundrum

I often get asked what weapon speed is preferred for each hand, and while that option is pretty cut and dry for Combat, sometimes the results with Assassination will surprise you.  Before we get started, know that I spent an hour at the dummy last week when I did these tests, so I ran these tests multiple times and chose the results that best represented the average for each specific test.

Generally speaking, for PvE, a fast off hand weapon coupled with a heavier hitting slow main hand is the way to go.  Of course there are exceptions.  If you are Assassination spec and have a choice between an ilevel 200 and an ilevel 232 dagger, the 232 will probably be the better way to go regardless of weapon speed. For example, I was using two Dirk of the Night Watch , a 1.4 speed dagger.  I have a plethora of ilevel 200-219 daggers that are in my bank that I don’t really use, but I’m too much of a packrat to get rid of.  Many of those daggers are 1.7+ speed, but their damage range is very similar to that of my two Dirks, so the Dirk in the main hand essentially is as good at dealing damage as any other slow dagger I have, with the benefit of being a bit faster.  I recently replaced that Dirk with the other ToC 10 Dagger, the Icefall Blade, which is 1.8 speed.  You might think that that would be a guaranteed huge upgrade, but the results I have are different that you might expect.

The Hallowed

I know that some of this title was based on luck.  I also know that I saw 3 Hallowed Helms yesterday, the third coming in a treat bag after I finished the Achievement.  I’ve also already received multiple sets of toothpicks from treat bags.  Lucky or not, I finished all of the achievements this year in less than 2 days.  Check my Armory if you don’t believe it.  It is possible, and it really doesn’t require that much work.  Just make sure you’re running with a consistent group for the drops off HH and trick or treat whenever possible.  You’ll get there, you still have almost 2 weeks.

Good Luck,

- Sam