Nope, I’m Still Here

Wow, more than a week between posts.  I suppose I should tell you that I’ve been sick.  In fact, my voice has yet to fully recover, and as a music teacher, that kinda sucks.  Anyway, between my job and my health, I’ve been a tad pre-occupied.

I have been working on achievements and the like in game, and since my last post, Sam’s got 4 new titles:  Jenkins (finally), the Noble, of Gnomeregan, and of Stormwind.  Ulduar is progressing nicely, and overall things on my end are pretty good.

I’m also the proud owner of a brand new Logitech G13, and I’ve gone from a good keyboard turning clicker, to an even better mouse turning keybinder in a week.  The initial transition was weird, as the fingers I have been using for years to move were now being used to activate abilities.  It took the longest to adjust on Sam and Anabelle, as they are my oldest toons, but for Cristobel, my Frost mage, the change was almost instant, and it felt good.  For those of you who are keyboard turners / clickers, you’ll improve your game if switch to mice / keybind, and though it may feel weird at first, you’ll probably wonder why you didn’t switch sooner.

I think that’s enough random babble for now.  On the horizon: a combat spec a friend of mine is using with great success, a revisit of the Combat vs. Assassination damage output, and the Leveling UI post for UI and you.  See you soon.

-Sam

Combat Dummy Testing and an Idea

It’s a widely known fact that major cities in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms have Combat Dummies; what’s not as widely known is how to effectively use them.  Today I’m going to discuss how to use a Combat Dummy to test your DPS.  Also, a friend of mine had a good idea for how Blizzard could improve the system, and I’ll share that, as well as my thoughts on it.

Guide Updates for 3.1

All of my guides are now up to date.  The How to Spec and Play Combat guide took the longest, and the Subltety leveling guide needed no changes, so it was already done.  I hope that everyone that’s been using them will find the updates useful.

I’ve been known to make mistakes often enough, so If you spot something amiss, please let me know.  I’m sure there’s a few typos to be found.

- Sam

Initial Testing: Combat vs. Assassination

After fixing my problem from the other night a.k.a /facepalm and grabbing a couple of Titanium Weapon Chains for my Combat weaponry, I got to work with some initial tests between Combat and Assassination DPS.  As far as the gear used for the test, I’ve got 200 iLevel gear (one 213 piece), gemmed and enchanted reasonably.  That should give you an idea of how your gear compares to mine.  I suspect that many of you have better gear, as I spend a good deal of my raiding time playing my Paladin as a tank or healer.

Anyway, here’s some information about the tests:

1. Other than weapons, I used the same gear for both tests.  Please note that my gear is tuned for Assassination, which means I’m way over the expertise cap for Combat when I switch specs.
2. All tests were 10 minutes long.  I did go a second or two over in some tests to allow finish part of a rotation, but never more than five seconds over.
3. The tests were conducted against a level ?? (83) boss Combat Dummy.
4. I used Instant Poison on my main hand, and Deadly on my off hand for each test.
5. The DPS meter I use is Recount.  If you are not familiar with it, it’s definitely worth the download. 

Spec Changes, 3.1, and /facepalm

When the servers finally went live last night, I had about an hour to play around with some things.  I did go out to Icecrown and check out the whole Argent Tournament thing, and I spent the rest of the time testing my DPS.  I made minor changes to both my Assassination and Combat Specs, and spent the 1,000g for Dual Spec.  If you don’t plan on PvP and PvE roles for your Rogue, it’s a waste of money, but if you do, welcome to paradise.

Here are the two specs I tried last night:

-  Assassination  -

51 / 13  / 7

The only real change I made here was to drop Turn the Tables for Master Poisoner.  We’re usually without a Ret Paladin, so the raidwide 3% crit buff to poisoned targets isn’t over written, and the increased application of deadly poison is also attractive.  I thought about keeping TtT, and dropping Close Quarters Combat in the Combat tree, but in the end the extra 3% crit on my combo moves would have cost me some energy in the long run from my melee critical strikes (Focused Attacks).  All things considered, I didn’t notice a ton of difference with the play, and my DPS was fairly consistent with pre-patch levels

-  Combat  -

7 / 51 / 13

Unfortunately I’m still stuck with a Fist/Sword combo for my weaponry, but I did slim down my spec and only take one specialization.  I have Hailstorm, which is 1.31 speed with my haste, and Greed on my mainhand, so I went for the extr 5% crit from CQC.  I used the 4 points I gained from dropping Sword Spec to grab Lightning Reflexes and 1 point in Endurance.  My DPS was lousy as combat (more on this in a minute), but I was testing at the same time as two other rogues who were pulling more DPS combat than they were Assassination.  I’m going to be doing actual DPS tests either tonight or tomorrow.

And now for the  /facepalm….

New Series: UI and You

Patch day.  As sweet of a feeling as it is, if you’re an addon junkie like myself, it can be a nightmare.  With every new patch, addons can stop functioning properly, cease to work, cause in game errors or even crash your game.  I’ve been wanting to do a series on User Interface modification, and with the likelihood of needing to revamp your UI because of 3.1, now seems like as good time as any.

UI modification is an art form, one that can show the beauty of simplicity and the chaos of clutter.  Getting your UI perfect is probably a Utopian idea that you may never achieve; however, getting it close to perfect is obtainable, if you’re willing to work at it…

3.1 Today (a.k.a. DPS testing and Rewrites)

With 3.1 going live today, I’ll be using the small amount of time before our Ulduar raid tonight to get some DPS testing comparing the improved Combat to Assassination, and determine which one (at my gear level at least) is better for single target DPS.  I hope to have those results here for your perusal tomorrow, but that’s dependant on server stability, and if they actually come up on time.

I for one am interested to see what effect the changes to Instant poison from a percentage to frequency will have on my DPS.  I’m fairly certain that this will move the Librarian’s Paper Cutter farther down the list of main hands, as a lot of what made it so great was the extra Instant Poison procs from the sheer speed of the weapon.

After the theorycrafting is finished I’ll start the rewrites  with the Combat and Assassination spec guides, and then I’ll revisit the leveling guides.  I’ll be honest though, I’m going to be pretty consumed with enjoying the game most of this week, so it might take some time to get the motivation to stop playing long enough to take the time to update all of the guides. 

- Sam

And We’re Back….

The vacation at the beach was fun, albeit cold and windy.  I put a few back for those who asked for it, and enjoyed some needed relaxation.

But.

It’s time to get back to work.

There’s 3.1 on the horizon which means a re-write of several guides, and some theorycrafting to do.  I’ve had some requests for some other randomness that I’m likely to oblige, and I’m more than ready to get some Ulduar in.  I might get on some of that randomness that I’ve been asked to do over the weekend, but, I’ll likely not do anything major other than that until 3.1.

- Sam

Samueltempus is AFK

 

Well folks, even the Rogue needs a vacation. The wife an I will be are headed for some fun in the sun (and I hope some relaxation too).   We’re departing tomorrow (Saturday) morning, and will be at the beach until Thursday.  I’m leaving the computer at home, but I will have my iPhone, so I’ll still be checking up on comments and email alike.  I wouldn’t exect any lengthy posts, if I post at all.

Mrs. Samueltempus and I will be busy eating the local seafood, and of course taking long walks on the beach.  I’m sure we’ll return with another bucket full of shells this year (yes, this is a yearly expedition).  Hopefully, she’ll allow the use of a frisbee and/or baseball as well….

- Sam

P.S – If you need me to ”drink one for you” while I’m gone, I’m sure that can be arranged.  

Guild Loyalty – Gear or Friends

While there are a variety of reasons for someone to stay with a group of people in this game, a good majority of these reasons can be boiled down to the following two points:

1. This group of people can get me gear
2. I enjoy playing with this group of people

Addressing the first point, some people are motivated solely by gear. While gear is a bit lower on my priority list, I can see why people are so moved by getting it. I can hear it now. “It’s shiny.” “It’s new.” “I can pull more threat.” ” Crit heal for 20k!” “I just gained 80 DPS.”

To be honest, other than the empty feeling of burnout when there are no more upgrades, there’s nothing inherently wrong with playing the game solely for gear. I personally find it to be a bit of a empty reason to play, but if that’s your bag, by all means go for it. I’m a firm believer that no one should tell you how to play your game.

Moving on to the second point, there are other people that stick with a group because they enjoy their company. They consider each other to be friends. They’ll run content for fun whether they can get gear from it or not. These are my kind of people, and the core of my guild.

That’s not to say that we’re not driven to progress. I don’t think anyone that’s in the guild ran Naxx in it’s original form, or in beta, so it was brand new content for us. We cleared it in less than 4 weeks, and under 20 raid hours. I’m sure the more hardcore players are laughing right now, but for a casual guild with little experience in the raid, we cleared it pretty fast. Sarth was a one shot, and Maly was done on the first night of attempts.

It is possible to have a group of people that perform well, be friends and enjoy the game without using gear as a motivator. That being said, my guild is painfully close to being able to run our own 25 man raids. I use the word painfully because we can’t seem to get over the hump. Despite the fact that we are a well established guild on our server, there are about 25 other newer guilds about the same size as ours that are all vying for recruits as well.

I’d love nothing more than to get to the point that we’re raiding 25 mans every week. Some of the members of my guild took their alts to another guild and are decked out in 25 man gear. I have no issue with this. The other raid is (local time) from 11-2am, and it in no way interferes with our raid schedule.

However, there were two other members of my guild, another husband and wife team, that were still guilded and going with this other guild on their mains. Again, this was a 25 man raid, so it didn’t have any effect on our raids. This is again something else I don’t take issue with. I myself go to pug 25 mans.

The other guild had asked them to retag to their guild temporarily to get a full guild clear. When they talked to me about it, I said, no problem, just let the guild know, and I’ll reinvite you tomorrow. Then I wake up this morning and…

This is not going where you think it is…

I have a private message on our guild website. Upon checking it, I find out that the other guild has enough people to do the 25 man without them, and pressured them into joining or they couldn’t go. Reading further, when the wife asked her husband “So, do you think there’d be any forgiveness for in this world or the next if we left Bucklers for ******?” His reply: “It’s simple. The gear is one place, my friends are another, and my friends are more important.”

Folks, that’s friendship and loyalty there.

- Sam