So basically I’m gonna talk a little bit about everything. Kind of a week in review post.

•The new ICC buff is active. I must not have paid much attention because I hadn’t heard about this until last week. Lots of people said it had been announced before ICC was released but again, hadn’t been paying attention. Anyways this buff adds 5% health, damage done and healing done to every raid that enters ICC. It is supposed to be increased weekly until it reaches 30%. I would be a hipocrite if I said I didn’t like this. I started playing again at level 75 about 8 or 9 months ago. Ulduar was active at the time and here I was a undergeared basically new player getting back into the game. In a matter of weeks I was geared and ready for raiding. Alot of that had to do with the guild helping me out but for the most part I ran heroics until my clicking finger was about to fall off. Warcraft’s move to the casual player helped me greatly. Now I am well geared and was able to join a new progression guild because of it(more about the guild later). If these were the days of Vanilla wow I would have been twiddling my thumbs probably doing PvP all day. But now I hope to see the Lich King soon!

•Stoneybaby from Big Hit Box has a new project he’s working on. Big Crits is going to be a reality web based series on a raiding guild. Looks to be interesting, for people like me who love to see these projects based around MMO’s (i.e The Guild and Second Skin). I really hope they’re able to get this together.

•Lastly The Noisy Rogue reported that the bloggers guild is active. The Guilds name is Single Abstract Noun and they are located on the Argent Dawn EU server. If your interested in Single Abstract Noun and are in the states, like I am, then you can join on the Argent Dawn US server and here’s a link to the details. I’m not sure if I will be rolling a toon there. My experience with alts tend to be bad. After rolling a Rogue, I have trouble when I can’t stealth out of bad situations and restart. Hence why my DK has been stuck at 61 for so long. But there’s no doubt in my mind it would be interesting as I’m sure there’s never a dull moment in guild chat.

In Uncleleo personal news, I’ve joined a new guild! It’s a progression raiding guild as opposed to the great casual guild I was in before. This guild is small compared to my last guild with only about 13-14 geared raiders and we are currently 7/12 ICC 10 normal. Working on Blood Queen and Putricide at this time. I actually met this group through a PUG and was lucky at the time that they were finishing up recruiting for their first 10 man group.

[Rants] to Blizz for not sending me a Starcraft 2 beta key yet. Send it now. That is all…

Although that is done I am also starting to see the power of duel speccing into combat. The fact that to be truely helpful to my guild in ICC I may need to dump the daggers only and finally give combat a shot. There are far to many fights where movement is a mehanic and changing targets is the norm. The one I’m seeing the most difference is on the Blood Princes encounter. We have been struggling on this fight where as everyone else seems to say it’s “Gunship Battle 2.0″. It reminds me alot of the the Twin’s fight in ToC where it becomes simple once everyone pays attention and does their job. I remember Pugs that just couldn’t get the concept of The Twin Valkyrs and wouldn’t read/listen to their DBM. Fact is that changeing targets to new Princes, combat pulls ahead in this fight and I have seen combat have 1,000 higher DPS then me in the fight.

But the adding of a combat spec is not an overnight job as gemming is so different that you would literally need to gear yourself twice to be successful in both specs. That plus the fact that I have never touched a combat spec and will have to do some research to learn the rotations. I’m basically telling myself that to be a successful PvE Rogue I will have to drop my Mutilate/Prep PvP spec that I love and run two PvE specs.

I’ll keep you updated on my journey into combat as I grab gear for it. At least I know Capping ArP won’t be all that hard…

It seems like such a simple sentence of blue text. But it’s been blown up and the Forums and Blogging community are a buzz yet again. Ahh Rogue Speculation. It’s so fun to watch. Everyone’s waiting to hear what the best spec is for this patch. Here’s a couple links to the forums that have good discussions going on;

Elitist Jerks
Wowhead
MMO Champion

No one really knows for sure which Rogue spec is going to top the DPS meters. Not until the patch is final. But one thing is for sure the two button mutilate build we enjoyed for a couple months is in jeopardy as Blizz tries to revive Rupture.

Here are the three major unanswered questions for Rogues so far;

1)Combat vs. Mutilate – This has been the back and forth spec battle over the past two patches. Mutilate with this patch loses nothing and has possible gains. But does Combat gain enough with a Rupture finisher as opposed to the normal Eviscerate finisher to get back to the top?
2)Mutilate Haste vs. Crit – Ruptureless Mutilate focuses on Haste. Mutilate w/ Rupture would focus on crit. What would we do with all this haste we’ve been gemming for? Would we focus on AP?
3)Glyph – Tricks of the Trade vs. Rupture – Basically this is the one thing I see most people talking about on the forums. The argument is that although adding a glyphed Rupture to your rotation may raise your DPS you might be losing out on raid wide DPS by not using a glyphed Tricks of the Trade on every cooldown. This is a viable argument and honestly this will probably be the most contested point to TotT vs. Rupture. How many Rogues would see a decrease in their personal DPS and want to sacrifice that DPS for the good of the raid group?
We all wait with bated breath for EJ to release their ever so popular spreadsheet and put an end to this speculation.

O yea and subtlety is getting some buffs…*snickers*

Keep up with the latest PTR patch notes here!

“Tim: There he is!
King Arthur: Where?
Tim: There!
King Arthur: What? Behind the rabbit?
Tim: It *is* the rabbit!
King Arthur: You silly sod!
Tim: What?
King Arthur: You got us all worked up!
Tim: Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit.
King Arthur: Ohh.
Tim: That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
Sir Robin: You tit! I soiled my armor I was so scared!
Tim: Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s a killer!
Sir Galahad: Get stuffed!
Tim: He’ll do you up a treat, mate.
Sir Galahad: Oh, yeah?
Sir Robin: You manky Scots git!
Tim: I’m warning you!
Sir Robin: What’s he do? Nibble your bum?
Tim: He’s got huge, sharp… er… He can leap about. Look at the bones!
King Arthur: Go on, Bors. Chop his head off!
Sir Bors: Right! Silly little bleeder. One rabbit stew comin’ right up!”
Clip from Monty Python and The Holy Grail

***Insert cute lil’ waskily wabbit pic***

Think about this as a weekly raid quest. There’s an old man waiting at the entrance of the second wing of ICC. I can literally see this conversation happening.

As for appearance, did anyone see the Hogger Raid video from Blizzcon? He looks so small in the video. Yet is packing a quick cruel punch. What if you came across a little bunny in ICC, maybe one fake ear or a tail that’s been sewed back on by Putricide, piles of bones all around him from heroes before you.

Here’s how the fight goes. You talk to the old man. He gives you the disclaimer above. You then walk in to engage the bunny. He comes up to your raid group friendly, smells blood on you from the previous kills you have made and goes into a frenzy. Jumping from raid member to raid member throwing bleed effects on everyone from his sharp pointy teeth. Think about the cat lady encounter in Ulduar except without the Lady. Bunch the group together to keep him from pouncing. Next ability would be Bunny Eyes (The Bunny fixes his cute watery eyes on you) turn around like the ToC boss, Eadric the Pure, or you will be mesmerized by his cuteness and lose control of yourself for 10 secs. His other ability would be an AoE attack much like a Rogues fan of knives only he would be throwing out bones from the adventures before you. Or carrots but that seems a little ridiculous that a warrior in plate armor would get hurt by a vegetable. Last but not least is the burrow ability. At 30% health the bunny becomes rabid and will burrow every 10 secs reappearing in a random spot and your group must be quick to group on him to prevent pounces and stuns.
All that work to be rewarded with nothing. No Loot for You!

So there it is. My raid boss. Nothing super hard but damn cute.

Want to read other ideas for raid bosses, check out Blog Azeroth

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to check out my mindless dribble and endless rants. Also thanks to the subscribers who not only came here once but were brave enough to come back again. I’m really happy with the site and it’s has been a huge help to me in becoming a better player. Hopefully my noobness hasn’t rubbed off on to many of you!

If you want another way to keep up with all my posts you can follow me on Twitter using the link on the side of the page! (@DPSforDummies)

-Uncleleo

Mouse or Keyboard

I have always wondered how other players can bind everything to their keyboard. Personally I have been a clicker for my entire life as a gamer. From back in the days of Age of Empires, Starcraft and now Warcraft. I do use a couple of key bindings and macros but anytime there is movement involved I am stuck with my cursor over mutilate.

I’m sure I am losing out on some DPS by not being able to use my keyboard for everything but at the same time it seems like a tough transition and one that would take alot of work. I know I also lose out on valuable UI space because I have to have my buttons big enough to find during an intense fight.

I am interested to see if I am the only clicker left out there or if some other people still practice this ancient art. Also if anyone has any good tips on losing the mouse please let me know!

On a side note, I did something dumb yesterday and reinstalled Starcraft. I’m getting pretty excited about the upcoming SC2 release so needed to shake off some cobwebs.

Click here to see the original post on the Warcraft Forums or you can read his post below.

“Now that Icecrown Citadel has been fully unlocked, allowing players the ability to progress in 10- and 25-player formats to defeat the Lich King, new raid weekly quests have been unlocked! These quests are specific to the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon and do not correspond with the standard random raid weekly quest offered in Dalaran. Here’s an overview of what you need to know.

The Reward:
Completing any of these quests will reward each member of the group with a Sack of Frosty Treasures and a healthy chunk of gold. The sack will contain Emblems of Frost and other potentially valuable items! ”
Posted by Bornakk @ 02/05/2010 02:01:34 PM PST (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=23042294083&sid=1)

Here’s a link to what you can expect to find in the Sack of Frosty Treasures.

You may consider combat to have all the cooldowns for the Rogue class, and for the most part you’d be right. But Mutilate and the Rogue class in general do provide some other options for CD’s that some people don’t consider.

Tricks of the Trade should be considered a CD that is popped whenever it is available. Even if your not getting the two piece tier 10 set bonus (Adding 15 energy instead of using 15 energy) it’s still going to benefit the group for you to throw this on the second highest melée DPS in the group. Again this won’t benefit you directly unless you are wearing two tier 10 pieces but it will benefit the group by adding 15% damage to a melée DPSer of your choice.

Vanish is one CD I think alot of Mutilate Rogues forget about. Vanish is great as it’s an instant aggro dump, let’s you throw an extra bleed effect on a boss with Garrote and the major benefit is the Overkill buff which increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth. Your initial burst damage on a boss is made possible by the overkill buff and Mutilate gets a way to do that again in the middle or end of a fight.

The last one that I use and I think most Rogues have retired is Thistle Tea. Ah yes, the once useful thistle tea. When you get to the end of a boss fight every tick of energy is important. Why not a free 20 energy boost. I keep a couple of these on me at all times just for the occasion at the end of a fight where I can use it.

On alot of these fights I’m using my CD’s as soon as I’m into my rotaion because on a fight like Saurfang you’ll be able to use these multiple times. But when you hear those words come out of your raid leaders mouth you’ll be ready for them!

Any CD’s I missed?

That is what’s going on in my world, now on to Uncleleo’s.

Believe it or not I am finding my experiences pugging to be very good lately. I have got an extremely fun and knowledgable group for 10 man ICC. 5 to 6 of us as a core group pugging the rest when we need. Out of the 6 from the core group 3 of us are guildies.

I have also found a 25 pug that I join when I can. I’m not sure what it is but in these pugs I am seeing less and less Rogues. I would have to think that with such high DPS, rogues would be in pretty high demand right now. That matched with the ease of getting gear and I would figure you would see more Rogues in these raids. My conclusion as to why I don’t see as many is because most of the Rogues have a 25 or 10 man team and have no reason to PUG. Therefore I have found myself in a position that’s very surprising. I’m topping the DPS meters. This is something that regardless of what I did in the past I never could consistently top the damage meters. I think for the first time I truely understand my class and spec. I understand what tools I have to max my DPS. I understand that Blizz has done everything in their power to make Dagger Rogues the top DPS in the game. All of that mixed with the fact that Im not competing for gear against other Rogue’s makes pugging the perfect situation for me.

Granted I would much rather be in the same core group each week, because hearing a Raid leader explain the fights every week gets pretty old pretty quick. Right now the only runs I am doing with my guild are the Weekly Raids. The guild usually can get two 10 man raids for the weekly, with mains and alts. So pugging the higher raids (ToC and ICC) is the best option for me.

All in all each PUG is it’s own adventure. There’s one thing you can expect when Pugging, the unexpected. Try not to limit yourself or shy away from Pugging because you never know which group will turn out to be good and you might make a few in game friends along the way like I have.