<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:blogChannel="http://backend.userland.com/blogChannelModule">

<channel>
<title>World of Warcraft forum - dslreports.com community</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/wowetc</link>
<description>World of Warcraft forum current topics</description>
<language>en</language>
<copyright>Copyright 2007, dslreports.com</copyright>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:15:12 EDT</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:15:12 EDT</lastBuildDate>

<image>
<title>dslreports.com</title>
<url>http://i.dslr.net/bbrdisc1.gif</url>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com</link>
<width>19</width>
<height>18</height>
<description>bbr disc</description>
</image>

<item>
<title>Can I haz sum gold plz?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421344</link>
<description><![CDATA[So when I am in SW browsing the AH or whatever, I almost always see some level 13 Rogue/Hunter/Warrior asking if he can have "50 silver for a sweet new item!"

Instead of ignoring them or telling them to politely go f#$k themselves, do what I do, and send them on a quest.

I usually ask them to get me 5 honey mint tea =D]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421344</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 16:18:27</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Where to farm for frostweave?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421495</link>
<description><![CDATA[ANyone have good spots?]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421495</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 16:45:48</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[WotLK] Doing away w/ conquest?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421999</link>
<description><![CDATA[There have been rumors floating around that with the next patch, Badges of Conquest will be replaced w/ Badges of Triumph in Heroics. I looked over the 3.3 patch notes today and didn't see that.....maybe I missed it. Does anyone know if this is true and if so, why the hell should I be bustin' my butt gearing up my 245s now when I can just wait and run Nexus/UK/DTK and then cash in?]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421999</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 18:07:30</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Hots and Dots</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23422611</link>
<description><![CDATA[I am curious if anyone knows how the damage/healing from dots and hots is calculated with respect to your bonus damage/healing... as a boomkin/tree I have wondered whether when I cast a moonfire or something at the tail end of a SP pot/trinket effect if the effect carries through every tick or is each tick calculated based on my bonus damage at the time.  Thanks for the input]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23422611</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 20:03:45</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>[WotLK] What guild perks would you like to see?</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23394883</link>
<description><![CDATA[With the new guild perks upcoming in Cataclysm, I wanted to bring up the subject:

What perks would you like to see for your guild? 

Please no outlandish suggestions, and no create toon @ lvl xx that everyone qq about. Personally, I would like to see some sort of guild Store tab, where ppl can trade 2 items for one of the same ilvl.]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23394883</guid>
<pubDate>2009-11-25 13:48:17</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Patch 3.3</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23413336</link>
<description><![CDATA[When do you guys think 3.3 will be dropping im hoping tomorrow because i cant wait to try the new LFG system what are your guy's thoughts.]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23413336</guid>
<pubDate>2009-11-30 10:22:00</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>So I found a gold mine...</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421793</link>
<description><![CDATA[I can't believe I haven't done this before now. I recently discovered these little things called Armor and Weapon Vellums....ok maybe not discovered, I always knew they existed.

Anyway, I decided instead of listed my raw enchanting mats like I've always done, make a bunch of enchant scrolls up with these Vellums instead and list on the AH.

Holy shit, these things sell like hot cakes, and for rediculous prices. It's mind boggling other people will pay these prices for these scrolls.

From Nov 22nd-29th, I've made nearly 10,000g between selling these, ore, and potions. The majority though from scrolls.

Enchants like Crusher, AP to bracers, Agility/Haste to cloaks all sold anywhere from 150-220g per scroll. The mats if listed individually sell for now where near this amount.

I sold 10 Mongoose scrolls this last week, these all went from anywhere of 375-450g per scroll.

So just thought I'd let you guys know, if you're listing enchanting mats try doing some scrolls instead.]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421793</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 17:32:26</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Maximizing Rogue DPS for ToC/ToGC (3.x)</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23410118</link>
<description><![CDATA[Looking at the last "Maximizing" topic i made there was a lot of errors. A lot of things that i said weren't fact or set in stone yet and i made a lot of speculation on things that maybe worked once but weren't really true. For this guide i have taken the time to do more and more research to make sure your getting the right stuff. This is specifically geared for a rogue to use the abilities we have to not only maximize damage, but minimize damage taken and improve you chances of survival. Everything posted here is just a combination my personal experiences and things i have taken from other sites. Constructive critism is always appreciated here. So better late than never this is maximizing rogue DPS for TOC/ToGC (3.x).

Some essential Rogue Macros
Coming soon...

Recommended Rogue Addons
All of these addons can be found at either wow-interface.com or can be downloaded through Curse.com or curse client.

Power Auras
This is a dream addon. It can be configured to show just about anything. Personally i use it as a buff tracker to show a large indication on screen when either of my trinkets proc so that i know exactly when to killing spree. It can also be configured to show combo points and poison stacks. There are alot of guides on youtube for how to configure this addon and i will post links when i am home from work and have access to youtube. 

Forte/Rogue Power Bars
Although Forte is primarily a warlock addon it works well for rogues also. It shows a handy bar that shows when you abilities come off of CD and also shows timer bars for slice and dice, blade flurry, and any other buff you have. It is also highly configurable to show many different buffs/debuffs. Rogue power bars is used solely to track buffs and debuffs on your target in the format of large colored bars. Either of these are a must to make sure your Slice in Dice/Hunger for blood never drops off. 

Tiny Melee Stats/SLDT Statline
Both of these addons will show your current stats. I use this so that i can physically see how my numbers look before letting off cooldowns. For combat spec i recommend using Statline because it shows your current armor penetration %, Critical strike % and attack power. For mutilate rogues Tiny Melee Stats shows your weapon speed of your current MH and OH, Critical strike  %, and attack power. 

Proculas
This addon will show the internal cooldown of your current trinkets/enchants. If you have proc trinkets this is very helpful for timing special abilities. Just another small way to Maximize your strongest abilities. Also you can set it so that a bell will sound when your stuff procs. This is handy because you don't have to constantly glance at it to know when your ready to push it. If you hear three bells you know that three things have procced and its time to killing spree. 

Trick or Treat!
This is a very handy addon if you trade tricks with another rogue in the raid. It gives a message when you cast tricks, and then after the damage bonus from tricks expires it gives another message of how much damage the bonus gave. It also shows when you are receiving tricks of the trade. Another cool feature of this addon is that it will tell the target their current threat percentage if they are over a threshold that you set. 

Ghostpulse
This addon will show a giant watermark on screen to show when an ability comes off of cooldown. You can set the duration, location, and the opacity of the watermark. Its just one more way to make sure you know whats off cooldown without having to glance at your action bars. 

I could go on all day with different addons that will help you in a raid situation. Of course there are the bare essentials and alot of these are based on preference. Omen and Deadly Boss mods are the bare minimum addons you will want but this is pretty common knowledge.

Gear Spec Etc...
A lot of these current options for choosing the right gear is pretty common knowledge but im going to back track for those having trouble deciding which gear to wear into a raid these days. First of all lemme say that rogues are pretty well off right now. Maces, Daggers, Fist, and swords/axes are all pumping out some ridiculous numbers these days. For the most part its a thing of preference. As far as gear goes there are a lot of different setups. I am not going to tell you what is better slot by slot. Your spreadsheet will do that. If you don't know where to get a good spreadsheet poke your head over to Elistjerks rogue forums.  

Agility or Armor Penetration Combat rogue
The major debate i see going on is whether or not to gem Armor penetration or Agility. The thing about armor penetration is simple. Its an unbuffed stat that is more of a debuff to your target than an actual buff to your stats. It is not affected by sunder and at 1399 rating you've reached 99.99% and the stat looses all value. This is a very unique stat in the sense that the closer you get to the cap, the greater the value is. I suppose you could say the same for hit or expertise also, but the ARP cap is such a steep one that the dps increase is more than marginal for reaching such numbers. 

The answer to the question at hand tends to really be answered by your current available gear, with an emphasis on trinkets. If you are using Grim Toll, or the Runestone and have a fair amount of gear with Armor Penetration on it then you wanna aim for the following softcaps; 787~ for grim toll and 734~ for the Runestone. Remember you can use food to get that last 40 rating if you wanna get more AGI. A matter in fact i recommend staying 40 under the cap because agility food is a lot more expensive than Arp food. 

Your second option is this. If you are using Greatness, Deaths Verdict/Choice, Comets Trail, Mirror of truth, darkmatter or any combination of trinkets without an Armor pen proc and you have a really decent amount of armor pen gear then you can essentially drop one Nightmare Tear into a blue socket, and socket every other socket armor penetration regardless of the socket color. This seems to work when you have Comets Trail/Deaths C/V and then have the gear to reach 1000+ armor pen passive. This is prolly the TOP dps setup because of the DPS you'll gain from trinkets. 

Your third option is this. Get a good mace for your main hand. The Grinder or Remorseless/Blood and Glory will both work well. If you have and Arp proc trinket then throw it in the bank and grab banner of victory from regular ToC. Essentially grab up any and every piece of gear with armor pen on it and socket it with armor pen. After you reach about 1190 from gear spec into maces and you should be at that magic number of ~99.99% arp procless.

Of course planning to take the armor penetration route will leave you in a little bit of a pickle with rupture. First of all, don't. Simple, do not rupture. Spec into Imp Evis, grab a glyph of evis and on every 4-5 point finisher Eviscerate. This makes for some really nice DPS but at the same time it makes for a really easy rotation that many are finding boring. The only thing you are essentially watching is the timer on your SnD. If you refresh SnD at the last second then your DPS will continue to rise. This spec is very dependant on raid buffs like windfury totem. When buffed right you can hit very high DPS. 

And of course there is Mutilate...
Seeing as how i have not raided consistently mutilate i will not dive too deep into the subject. I do however read into the mutilate forums on several sites and i still use mutilate for certain encounters in Ulduar. The spec received some well deserved buffs with Envenom not consuming deadly poison stacks. The main reason i have stuck to combat is because of the versatility. For the most part when changing targets a lot on a fight like Northerend Beast, you will loose more and more DPS with mutilate spec. By all means don't let this deter you from speccing this way. It is still, imo, the highest single target DPS spec you can achieve if played right. For mutilate you will have some gear with armor penetration it. Its almost  unavoidable at this point. With combat you see more and more rogues not using any tier gear besides maybe the pants. However mutilate you will prolly want to use 4/5 pieces and either Leggings of the broken beast as your legs, OR Heroic shoulderpads of the snowy bandit. It all depends on what boots and belt you have for expertise. You never want to socket Armor penetration for mutilate spec. Envenom already ignores all armor and a large portion of your damage is through poisons that ignore armor also. Poisons also scale with attack power. I am going to assume that you are glyphing and speccing as of my last  guide, these things have not changed. You will most likely have a very high hit rating. Aim for deaths verdict/choice, comets trail, or bood of the old god as some solid trinket choices. Overall though, your spread sheet is gonna tell what is best for you. 

Boss Strats
Now that we got all of that rift raft outta the way, lets get into the meat and potatoes of this guide. Now there is no doubt in my mind that many of you have been successful over the encounters in ToC. None of the encounters are particularly difficult besides maybe Hardmode Anub but at the same time even that encounter is just all about the last 30% push. So we will start with Northrend Beast.

--Northrend Beast--
Northend beast are a rag tag group of the strongest monsters captured from all over northrend intent on stopping your raid. No one even knows what the motivation is for beast to kill man. Maybe they are just confused, pissed off, and tired of being trapped in the argent tournament grounds. Maybe just hungry. Regardless of their motives, they all must die. The first of this 3 round fight is Gormak the Impaler. Gormak is essentially a tank and spank DPS race that requires the tanks to switch off after a certain amount of debuffs. This is a very single target tank healing fight and there is plenty of raid damage to go around when gormak stomps. In order to make things easier on your healers you could Feignt the stomp but its usually not a huge issue for any decent raid. For the most part blow all of your cooldowns at the very start. If your raid has you killing snobalds they will be brought into the melee and save blade flurry to take these down and still do damage to gormak. Remember you cannot target Gormak and assume blade flurry will hit the adds. They have to be targeted individually. After blowing the majority of your CDs sustain your rotation and you should be doing pretty high up on the DPS be the time gormak is dead. 

The second boss in this trio is Acidmaw and Dreadscale aka The Gruesome Two-some. They are basically two Jungumars with an attitude. This can be done two different ways depending on how your raid does it you will be killing either acidmaw or dreadscale first and letting the other one enrage. For our raid we kill the stable one first and let the free roaming one enrage (i forget the names). If you are killing the stable one then this is probably the time that your raid leader will call heroism in order to get that worm down as fast as possible. The stable worm will do a sweep. Make sure you are standing on a side that is not put you in line with the poison pools. If you are sweeped you can fly into the poison and get gibbed. You can however avoid the sweep almost all together as a combat rogue. On the first sweep, about half-way through the cast you want to Vanish. This will prevent you from even taking any damage from it at all. When the second sweep happens you can killing spree to avoid suffering from the knockback. You will still take damage. Make sure you are using Tricks of the trade because every time they burrow and come back up it is an aggro reset. I recommend setting a tricks of the trade to each tank so that you don't accidentally tricks the wrong one. Make sure and save Cloak of shadows for when you get the debuff.  If you get the debuff twice then you better find the antidote fast and get back to DPS. When DPSing the mobile boss its similar to Grobbulus in Naxx. Stay behind him but avoid the poison pools. Watch your threat.

The last beast in Northrend beast is a real beast. The air itself freezes...at Icehowl. This is a fat snowmonster that does'nt know wall from foe. This fight is one of the main reasons why i use Cat's Swiftness on my boots. Mobility is key, and Will of the forsaken/Every man for himself is king here. Make sure and stay on the side of icehowl that is closest to a wall so that whenever he does the knockback you will no fly as far away. When he does massive crash you have two options; A) vanish and the massive crash will not hit you and you will have 5-6 seconds of extra DPS time while be prepares to charge, B) Killing spree will also cause massive crash to not stun you. 

**WARNING**
Using vanish or killing spree on massive crash can sometimes cause Icehowl to hit the wall but still enrage, wiping the entire raid. DO NOT do this unless you are very fast with Shiv and have Anestethic poison ready. However if you are feeling lucky and your guild isn't attempting immortal, then go for it.

When icehowl is stunned make sure and position yourself near the wall so that you he wont knock you too far away. Blow all of your cooldowns during the stun and use your potion of speed here. Also save Will of the forsaken/every man for himself for when he does the icebreath. If you accidentally get knocked back then use sprint to get back into things faster. Using Vanish and Killing spree here to avoid getting knocked out of range makes me thing that this fight favors combat. However i have had some really good mutilate rogues do some very good numbers here also. Stay on your target and you might find people calling you The Northrend Beast!

--Jarraxxus Heroic--
Lord Jarraxxus is summoned by Wilfred Fizzlebang. His abilities are simple. Summon volcanoes to burn you up, cast shit on your tank, or call forth his bitches of doom to pull off spinning pile drivers (Zangief style) on members of the raid. The fight is essentially tank and spank with some target changing on the hard mode. For a normal mode guide just disregard the target changing segments all together. This is a fight where, as a combat rogue, i really find the use of proper cooldown management and timing as the key. At the start I use killing spree as usual after opening up. For the most I continue with my rotation until he spawns the portal. Make sure and sprint here. Although its only about 10 yards, you can get back on target a lot faster. I do not use my cooldowns for the portal however as soon as I am back on Jarraxxus i am watching the mistress. When she does her spinning pile driver and drifts back into the raid i do blade flurry+ adrenaline rush and make sure i am on range of her. I usually see my DPS peak during this time. 

After the mistress dies then i continue on as normal. One quick thing to remember is Cloak of shadows is your lifeline here. Save it for when you get either debuff. Cloak of shadows will eat either debuff and save your healers alot of stress. The second target change is the Volcano. Make sure and switch as soon as it spawns. After the volcano dies then the infernos will  most likely stack near the center of the arena. If they are stacked on each other and start to AoE feint. This will buy you healers enough time to top you off through the AoE. After the infernos are dead then wait for the Portal and the Mistress. Your blade flurry should be off of CD at the time that the mistress spawns. Use your haste pot here. When the mistress is dead then its just a burn to the finish. Maybe one more volcano and hes dead. 

--Onyxia's Lair--
The brood mother herself returns in all her glory. This is a fairly easy encounter as long as you follow a few simply rules. Stay from in front of her to avoid getting cleaved, also stay from directly under her tail to avoid tail whipped. 

Perperation
As a combat rogue I recommend using wound poison on both hands for the improved AoE damage. Also if you drop 3 points from relentless strikes and put those into Vile Poisons your poison AoE damage will be above and beyond stellar. If you are like me, and carry spare glyphs, i also recommend  using Glyph of Fan of Knives. Set your Tricks of the trade on the main tank and what ever tank is tanking the welps.

At the start of this encounter, the main tank will pull Onyxia to the very back wall. Tricks right at the start because the main tanks threat generation will be lower than usual. Once he is in position killing spree and go all out on Ony while she is in place. Save Adrenaline rush/Vanish for when the welps come out. After she moves from her position and begins to take off, get into position near the whelp tank you are assigned to Tricks. Once about half of the whelps spawn, Tricks of the trade and open up. After you Fan of knives once or twice combat rogues pop Adrenaline Rush and mutilate rogues vanish for the energy regen. Proceed to Fan until there are just 3-4 whelps remaining. Make sure and use evasion in case you pull threat on a few adds. When the whelps are dead move on to the area where the large add will enter. Stand near the add tank and Tricks when the large add comes out. The add will cast something that makes him do an AoE. Feignt before this goes off to avoid damage. On 10 man you can disarm the add to keep your tank from taking too much damage. Make sure you avoid the deep breath and stay mobile. More whelps will spawn about halfway through the air phase so be ready to Tricks those onto the add tank. 

In the last phase of this fight Onyxia will land to the ground. If you havent been gifted enough to be in a group with a shaman you will be feared every 15-20 seconds. If you are human/undead you can use your racial to avoid at least one fear. As a combat rogue you can also use killing spree as soon as she cast to avoid another. For either specs you can vanish as soon as it is cast to also avoid a fear. Thats 3 fears a human/undead rogue can avoid so you have alot better chance than anyone in the raid to pull some good numbers here. 

Stay tuned for the second half of this guide with Faction Champs, Twins, and seperate guides for anub reg and anub hard 10 and 25 man.
--
Coffee, Tea, SEGA!!!]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23410118</guid>
<pubDate>2009-11-29 14:54:16</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Save the Murlocs</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421686</link>
<description><![CDATA[Have you seen this?

Enjoy.....

http://savethemurlocs.org/]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,23421686</guid>
<pubDate>2009-12-01 17:17:03</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Official Mal&#x27;Ganis Thread</title>
<link>http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22988693</link>
<description><![CDATA[My satisfaction with WoW has gone up 10 fold in the last few days for one simple reason: I'm not playing really on my old server. I spend the $55 to faction change & server transfer over to Mal'Ganis. This was mostly to just hang with Archivis and casually play there on my druid.

Why I'm likely going to not be playing my warrior anymore: Gorgonnash sucks. No one pugs anything. You might have one or two Uld pugs per week, and those usually go through a couple bosses and fall apart. Take this in direct contrast to Mal'Ganis where there's always a couple groups going for Naxx10/25, OS10/25, EoE10/25 (Yes, people actually run that instance and pug it. I haven't seen or heard of a guild or pug running EoE on Gorgonnash since January.), VoA10/25 (Horde seem to OWN WG, so this is an almost guaranteed thing... I've gotten >125 marks in the last couple days w/o doing a single WG quest), Uld10/25 and tons of ToC10 groups.

This has raised my satisfaction so much. I have no idea if I can play WoW tomorrow or Wednesday, or Friday. I can't tell anyone "Yeah, I can make it 3x a week for 3 hours to commit to a raid." I can't do it. I don't want to do it and my family comes first. But when I DO have a free afternoon or evening, I can hop on and join in a pug.

If you're like me and might want to raid casually and enjoy more content that you can't get to see on your server, I highly recommend scoping out some of the genuinely High pop/Full pop servers where your faction is dominate. 

This is my armory for the druid. I just got him to 80 on Thursday (or was it Friday?). 1 day 13 hours /played (with at least 6 hours sitting doing nothing in Dalaran, Orgrimmar or Argent Tournament or being 100% AFK)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mal'Ganis&n=Galain
--
Come play Mafia! | My Picture Blog]]></description>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,22988693</guid>
<pubDate>2009-09-08 03:14:57</pubDate>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>
