Filed under: (Rogue) Encrypted Text

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 rogue questions you would like to see answered.

In the immortal words of our favorite crab, "WoW is a game about upgrading your stuff." While achievements and professions allow for your character to grow, they don't make you any stronger. If you want to increase your power, you need to upgrade your stuff. Gear improvements are often the difference between success and failure on cutting-edge encounters, when your raid needs to meet specific raw damage and healing numbers to pull off a win.

While it sounds easy, it's not always as simple as it seems to upgrade your stuff. While the advent of the ilvl system allows for us to quickly judge the rough quality of an item, it doesn't provide any help when comparing two items from the same dungeon. It also doesn't assist us in our gemming or reforging choices. Making intelligent gear decisions is a part of every rogue's life. In order to make the best choices for our characters, we use what's known as theorycrafting to evaluate the various stats in the game. The end result allows us to make educated gearing strategies and ensure we're doing the most DPS we possibly can. But how do we get from evaluating stats to choosing an actual piece of gear?

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. This week, I interview Aldriana, the infamous author of rogue spreadsheets.

Nobody likes rogues. Whether it's due to an instinctive fear of being stabbed repeatedly in the back or a Freudian bout of jealousy, we are easily the most reviled class in WoW. Death knights may be characterized as noobs while hunters are blamed for rolling on every single weapon, yet rogues still receive the least amount of good will. Because of this, it's rare to see anyone talking about rogues outside of asking for massive nerfs for all of our abilities. Playing a rogue has become a thankless job.

I'd like to take this opportunity to reverse that trend. With the last tier of content for level 80s (and the associated gear), Aldriana released the final copy of his infamous Wrath spreadsheets, which had been maintained since Naxxramas' release. Aldriana has a long history of involvement in the rogue theorycrafting community, particularly on the rogue forums of Elitist Jerks. With spreadsheets dating back to The Burning Crusade and numerous contributions before that, Aldriana has been dedicated to keeping rogues informed for years. Blizzard itself even gave Aldriana a nod via an in-game item, Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy (thanks splodesondeath). I recently had the pleasure of asking him a few questions about his rogue, his spreadsheets, and life as an EJ moderator.

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 rogue questions you may have, like how to get yourself out of a straightjacket with only your mace.

With just one month remaining until Cataclysm's release, everyone is getting ready for WoW's latest installment. I have been working on refining my leveling builds for my characters, preparing heirloom gear for my upcoming goblin shaman, and solidifying my guild's roster for January's inaugural raids. Cataclysm will be the biggest expansion yet, and there is no lack of work to be done.

Many of you are doing likewise, adapting to the changes introduced in patch 4.0.1 and planning for the future. I have been receiving a ton of great questions via email about best practices moving forward. While some things are still up in the air (like combat's viability), most of the changes are settling down, and we can really start to make plans knowing that it's unlikely we'll see any new major changes.

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. This week, I'll be sharing my report from BlizzCon 2010 for rogues.

As a member of our shadowy brotherhood, my duty to investigate and report on the rogue class is never over. Even though I was enjoying the festivities at BlizzCon 2010 and testing out the new demon hunter class in Diablo 3, I still made time to take care of business. The class Q&A panel is one of the best places to communicate directly with the WoW development team, and so I staked my place in line before the prior panel had even ended.

When my turn finally came, I had to first pay my respects to the developers. I had asked them at the prior year's BlizzCon if we would ever see a Vanish fix implemented, and Ghostcrawler avoided promising anything. Fast-forward a year and we finally have a Vanish that I'm proud to call my own. I opened my time by giving them their much-deserved thanks. I then took the opportunity to ask about something near and dear to my heart: off-hand weapon speeds. Axes and daggers were simply never meant to be used at the same time. Their art styles don't even match!

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 you'd like to see answered.

With patch 4.0.1 in our rearview mirror, we've had over a week to fix our addons and get our houses in order. I've already had a few decent raid DPS parses forwarded to me by subtlety rogues, who are finally able to actually do reasonable DPS. Traditionally, there has always been a few "bad" specs in WoW, but subtlety was so bad that it was tier below the other bad specs. Its arrival has brought back several of my old friends from retirement, who were looking forward to the frenetic rotation of finishers.

Assassination rogues have been enjoying the synergy between Vendetta and cooldown like Bloodlust, and their relative DPS is still decent. The addition of Rupture as a finisher and Backstab as an alternate generator has their rotation shaken up a bit, but still easily manageable. I actually found the Mutilate-centric build to be pretty fun to play after the patch, and I'll be using it to raid with for the immediate future. However, it wasn't assassination's playstyle that caused me to promote it to my main spec, but rather combat's current weakness that drove me to enchant my daggers with Mongoose.

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. This week, we're talking about the changes of the recent patch 4.0.1 and what they mean for rogues.

With patch 4.0.1 now upon us, rogues are experiencing more changes in a single patch than probably ever before. While our talent trees have regressed to 31-point incarnations, new mastery bonuses and abilities have been added to each tree to create definition and purpose. The glyph system has seen a similar reworking and boosts the number of glyphs we can use by a full 50 percent. Finally, the reworking of the buff and debuff system has granted us new utility in a raid environment.

Due to the breadth of the changes and the uncertainty of new mechanics, it's difficult to predict exactly what the outcome will be. It's hard to say which spec will be the most powerful, as each has seen significant change. Assassination rogues were hurt the least by the removal of armor penetration, but combat rogues had many of the abilities buffed to compensate. Subtlety may even be the dark horse, eclipsing both of the traditional PvE specs if everything goes its way. After we've had a few more days of patch 4.0.1 under our belt, it should be easier to figure out exactly what's working and what isn't.

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 new rotations that rogues will be using.

After Blizzard's latest press release, we know that Cataclysm will be released in early December. We already know that there will be at least one patch that precedes the expansion. The period of time between patch 4.0.1 and the expansion's actual launch is a time of transition, and it's rapidly approaching. The transition phases of The Burning Crusade and Wrath were rocky to say the least; it's safe to say that that we're looking forward to exciting times.

Many classes are hurting pretty badly on the PTR for patch 4.0.1 right now. Blizzard had the great idea of temporarily granting rogues Cloak of Shadows as our 31-point subtlety talent back in patch 2.0 to help us deal with the souped-up casters of that era. A similar change could be used to give retribution paladins access to Inquisition (at the cost of Zealotry) to bolster their damage until Cataclysm. Luckily for rogues, we were on the receiving end of the latest "damage pass." Several of our core abilities were granted significant damage and scaling bonuses to keep us competitive in a pre-Cataclysm world.

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 new heroic dungeons in the upcoming expansion.

I remember what it was like to play a rogue in dungeons in vanilla WoW. Our only form of long-term crowd control was Sap, and it brought us out of stealth every time we used it. Subtlety rogues could spend three talent points on Improved Sap, which still left Sap knocking us out of Stealth a tenth of the time. Every mob had some sort of AoE or whirlwind-style attack, and rogues were often right behind tanks in terms of healing necessary.

We've come a long way since the old days. Tricks of the Trade, with its instant threat transfer, has become the crutch that supports even the greenest tanks. Fan of Knives is one of the best AoE abilities in the game and synergizes with our poisons for incredible potency. Improved Sap has been baked in to the ability, and we can use our CC safely on a wide variety of targets. Feint's new ability to reduce our AoE damage taken also allows us to survive most attacks. You might say that rogues are nearly perfect for running heroics. Unfortunately for us, Cataclysm's heroics have a thing or two to teach us about complacency.

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 new abilities that we'll see as we level up in the upcoming expansion.

As I've mentioned several times before, rogues are often thought of as the "cooldown class." We've got a plethora of abilities, with nearly one (or two) for every situation. We're then regulated via cooldowns attached to each abilities, limiting how often we can use them. This gives the rogue class incredible potency in short fights, when our cooldowns are able to be used in quick succession. However, we have often stumbled in longer encounters, when our cooldowns are only active for a small percentage of the overall fight. Blizzard has been working on resolving this by reducing both the potency and the cooldown of a few of our moves, like Sprint, to give us more flexibility.

The DPS model for rogues hasn't change at all since The Burning Crusade. The only real addition was the creation of Mutilate and Envenom, which have been staples for rogues for years now. While Fan of Knives was a fun addition at level 80, its use on anything but trash has been limited at best. It's unsurprising that even though we're receiving three new abilities in Cataclysm versus BC's two, they're still all cooldown abilities. However, our new spells are actually incredibly fun and useful. They also take some skill to use properly, which is something that the rogue class needs desperately to get back to. Using your abilities wisely should yield a large reward -- and with that thought, I will now introduce the 2010 graduates of the Rogue Ability Academy.

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 new PTR and the upcoming patch 4.0.

If you haven't heard, there's a new public test realm in town. It's riding on patch 4.0.1, the fabled pre-Cataclysm patch that contains a ton of class and stat changes. While you still can't fly in Azeroth and goblins are still just NPCs, you can experiment with the future of the rogue class without waiting for a rare beta invitation. As a rule of thumb, any changes that don't add content like quests or zones are in, while anything specific to Cataclysm, like archaeology, is out.

It's important to note that patch 4.0.1 is not intended to be balanced in any way, shape or form. It effectively marks the end of competitive PvE and PvP until Cataclysm's release, and I can guarantee there will be class mechanics that are simply out of tune. What you should be focusing on are the changes to our class, how they function and how some of the new systems work in practice. Also, remember that it's your duty as a rogue to exploit any variations in power to kill as many of the opposing faction's members as possible.

Back in the day, before Wrath was even released, I had incorrectly speculated that there would be three tiers of glyphs in the expansion. It was my very first post on WoW.com, and my mistake was clearly pointed out to me by some of the helpful commenters. It turns out that I was actually right -- it just took Blizzard a few years to get around to adding the extra tier of glyphs.

There are now three types of glyph: prime, major and minor. Prime glyphs aren't necessarily fun; they just buff us. Major glyphs are sort of the utility glyphs that give us a measurable benefit, but they're not necessarily mandatory. Minor glyphs are just for fun things that make our lives easier. Luckily for us, many of the new Cataclysm glyphs are available on the beta, complete with the shiny new glyph interface. While scribes may be complaining about their business models going out the window, I'm busy drooling over some of the new glyph options we have available.

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 awesome rogue items that help define our class' image.

I remember the first time I was ever kicked from a guild. At the time, my main character was my very first rogue, who was a new level 60. I browsed around the realm forums for any guilds recruiting and found one that seemed to fit my schedule. I started raiding with them, and everything seemed to be going great. Well, it was going great, until I decided to argue with a hunter about weapons. The raid had a Core Hound Tooth drop for them in Molten Core, and a hunter had used his DKP to win the item. I saw him walking around Ironforge with it the next day.

I argued with him that a rogue should've had first priority for it, since it's one of our main weapons. His stance was that any weapon a hunter could use was a "hunter weapon," or else Blizzard would've made it so that they couldn't use it. His other weapon was an Azuresong Mageblade that he claimed boosted his Serpent Sting and Arcane Shot damage. It turns out he was a high-ranking officer of the guild, and our spat was grounds for a /gkick. Luckily for us, there are a few items in game that rogues can take claim of. These items were designed specifically with us in mind and have become instantly recognizable symbols of our class to everyone.

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 rotation model of DPS, and how it defines our class in every way.

Blizzard has a long history of taking popular addons and rolling their functionality into the game's base user interface. The first instance of this that I can remember was when Blizzard introduced its own quest objective tracking overlay, nearly copying MonkeyQuest's original configuration. The dev team also inserted dungeon maps for the various instances, taking a page out of Atlas' book. Their latest invention is a replacement for Power Auras, the popular notification mod that displays custom graphics when a specified event occurs.

Looking at the list of spells for which Blizzard created custom "spell activation" effects (thanks BB!), we see mostly random and reactive abilities on the list. Paladins will enjoy the art for Art of War, and every mage spec has a particular proc to watch patiently for. What intrigued me was that there is actually a spell activation effect for rogues, an orange lightning bolt that represents Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice, as any rogue will inform you, is not a random proc; it's a core part of our DPS and should be up at all times. While having a lightning bolt on my screen at all times sounds like fun, it got me thinking about the rogue DPS model. I utilize Power Auras extensively on every other character I play, yet I don't even have it enabled on my 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 about the brand new version of Sprint in the beta.

I'm freshly back from slaying elementals and cultists alike in the Cataclysm beta, and I'm here to bring you some good news. I already talked about how Vanish was finally fixed and has managed to stay fixed on the beta servers. The mechanic they're using is a two-stage process, similar to how a space shuttle launches. The first stage is a buff called (unsurprisingly) "Vanish," which isn't actually Stealth, but a pseudo-Stealth that keeps us out of sight. The Vanish buff only lasts for 3 seconds, at which point regular Stealth takes over. We can't leave Stealth for those 3 seconds because we're not actually in Stealth anyway, which is a pretty elegant way of fixing the problem.

I'm rambling again, as Vanish is fixed and you've already heard about it. Blizzard's newest gift to the rogue community comes straight out of our de facto wish list, again. General mobility worries have been heard from rogues since warriors received Intecept, which is to say we've been complaining about it since Day One. An oft-suggested change has been halving Sprint's cooldown and duration, and it seems that the dev team actually took the idea to heart. As the screenshot above shows, Sprint is now on a 1-minute cooldown.

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, I'm talking about my experiences in as a beta tester.

I love energy. Of the three different resources in WoW at level 60, energy was definitely the best around. While death knights may argue that runes are more fun, they suffer from up to 10-second lockouts on some abilities once a particular rune is used up. Some hunters in the Cataclysm beta have claimed that focus is the best thing to happen to their class since pets. That's fine, but energy doesn't require us to play the regeneration minigame to ensure that we're producing enough.

Energy is simple to model and even simpler to use; no ability is more than 6 seconds away. The system has seen constant upgrades since its humble origins, though its core functionality has remained unaltered. It's become a crucial part of our mindset, and it defines the experience of playing a rogue. I had an old friend that used to say that all true rogues set their watches to only tick every 2 seconds. What is about energy that keeps it marching on so reliably?