rogue Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Accidental Achiever

December 29, 2013 by Belghast

Outside is Evil

Yesterday we recuperated from the whirlwind shopping trip around Joplin Mo. It was a pretty glorious day to be honest, because we were both in hibernation mode. We talked for a bit about getting out, because it really was a lovely day. But when it came to actually getting up and doing it… we both failed the willpower check. Personally I am completely fine with this notion, that we both stayed in, ate three meals in, and overloaded on relaxation. I hung out in my fuzzy blanket cocoon on the sofa and she upstairs in her loft of power (that you all will remember once it was my game loft).

I have a feeling that once summer happens the roles will switch with me inhabiting my office and the loft and she the downstairs, but it is cool that we have our own places and are still within vocal range of each other. I played a ton of World of Warcraft, attempted to play a closed beta I got into… but suffered from severe graphical issues that made it completely unplayable, and snuggled with my ferrets each and every time I passed their cage.

Accidental Achiever

I rarely if ever set out to master a tradeskill in a game, but instead it is a thing I usually do out of an odd sense of commitment more than anything. Lately I had been on a mission to level my rogue so I could get a transcriptionist up high enough to be able to start making living steel. I want the 30 bars that it takes to craft my Sky Golem pretty badly. So yesterday I was not paying much attention was I was pushing my way to 600 alchemist when immediately after getting it, I also got the Master of All Achievement. Sure enough… now that I think of it… I do have a max crafter of every profession. The only disappointment is you get exactly nothing for it… except for 75 achievement points.

This is a pretty massive undertaking if someone was to actually set out specifically to do this achievement. I think it is worthy of a crafting tabard, mount, or at the very least a title. I feel like this is a pretty massive oversight on the part of blizzard. Then again crafting is kind of its own reward. Being completely self sufficient feels amazing. Additionally you end up needing to hit the auction house far less often because your army of crafters can make damned near everything you would ever want made. It is a pretty great feeling knowing that you can make an entire set of gear for a friend, as I did for Scarybooster yesterday. In a matter of moments I had a starter set of gear for level 85 ready for him, and I did the same thing for my rogue Gloam.

A Vicious Sneak Thief

Speaking of my rogue, I am roughly halfway through Jade Forest and as of yesterday am about halfway into 87. I should finish up and ding 88 before I finish the area, and will likely skip Valley of the Four Winds entirely and go straight to Kun Lai Summit. When I am trying to power my way through to 90 the path I tend to take is to milk every last drop of experience from Jade Forest, transition to Kun Lai immediately after and then transition to Townlong as soon as you get the quest starter to go there. Finally this ends up with you either dinging 90 in Townlong or doing so just inside of Dread Wastes. Granted this is complete shit for your quest completion, but I figure it also gives you a lot of “questing to make gold” time if you so choose it at max level since xp gets converted up to gold.

Granted I have yet to actually do that one of of my 90s… since as soon as I hit maximum level I start going through the paces of trying to gear out the character and such. I am such a sucker for getting my characters those purples and am willing to sit through all manner of horrible LFR experiences just to do so. I should however have most of a set of timeless leather stocked away and ready for this guy when he needs it. I will just have to figure out how best to get the weapons. This time around I will likely just craft him a set of 463 agi swords and call it good until I can get something decent from LFR. Once I finish his leveling the characters I really need to work on are Belghast, Exeter and Belgarou as they are woefully behind Tallow and Belgrave in gear levels. Oh well… the faffing about with my characters never seems to end.

Mecha Belgrave

December 27, 2013 by Belghast

Mecha Belgrave

One of my big goals over the last few days was to get both Tallow and Belgrave through all four parts of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR. Both of them could use gear out of there, and instead of piece-meal like before, I wanted to clear all of the bosses during this reset. The other day I talked about how much success I had with Tallow in that he got both a mainhand and offhand weapon and two pieces of tier 16. Yesterday I may have just blown that completely out of the water. Previously on Belgrave I had gotten a shoulder drop, but was not using them as I had slightly better shoulders from flex. Christmas day when I got home that evening, I popped into LFR and it inspired yesterdays topic on a social justice system.

However even though it had some frustration I managed to get Garrosh to drop two of the tokens that could be turned into any set piece. I used those to give myself the tier 16 chest and legs, and then yesterday Nazgrim graced me with dropping the gloves token. Just like that over the course of two days my Deathknight is wearing nearly a full set of tier 16. I already had a helmet with the same graphic so for all intents and purposes I have a complete visual set. I am really not sure what I think about the set, because honestly it feels a little out of place for being a Deathknight set. Where are all the skulls?

Instead of being straight out of a deathmetal video… I guess I am fresh from some manga? I need to find a similarly mecha inspired two hander to go with it. Thinking about maybe one of the ones from Ulduar… like Abaddon from Yogg Saron. I am sure if I try hard enough I can find something suiting the look and feel of it. Maybe it is just that it looks goofy on a worgen. I remember seeing this in most of Qelric’s videos, and on her character it does not look half bad at all. I feel that is the problem with most bestial races… the armor either looks really amazing or really awful.

Graduating the Cataclysm

After finishing my tour of Siege of Orgrimmar for the week, I hopped over on Gloam and started working on him again. I guess in a way for the good of the various raids I have been participating in… I felt like I needed to try and gear both Belgrave and Tallow. In both cases I did very much so, and I figured I could take a break from LFR to work on my little rogue. I managed to push him last night from 83 to 85 and finish off his Cataclysm era Alchemy. I figure at some point soon I will farm up mass amounts of Pandaria materials and push him up in level to 600, but for now I am working on the leveling portion. I would really like to find a pair of Fists of Fate to level him to 90 with, however there have been absolutely none of the auction house of late. These carried my enhancement shaman all the way to 90, and I was still using them when I got my first epic weapon drop.

Instead in the mean time I guess I will make a pair of Ghost-Forged blades, which are not nearly as nice but should give me a decent boost through the Pandaria content. The only problem is each takes 2 Spirits of Harmony, which are bind on pickup. This means I will be out farming something that gives Black Prince reputation trying to collect four of them on my Paladin. For whatever reason the characters that need them, cannot get them to drop… whereas the characters that have literally NO use for them like my Inscriptionist has 200. This gives me a good excuse to get him to honored with the Black Prince, which is a normally tedious task. I did however make a complete set of leather gear on my leatherworker so as soon as the blades are acquired I can begin my push to 90.

Onwards to Joplin

Needing to wrap up quickly this morning as we have a bunch of running around to do. We are going to be running up to Joplin for a bit to check things out there. I didn’t figure I would get time to do a blog post, but after showering and getting ready I decided to try and rush one through. I had no clue what time we would be getting home, and after a day of running around the last thing I want to be is creative. Hopefully you all had a great Christmas, and hopefully the loot gods have been smiling on you as well.

Matter of Perspective

December 8, 2013 by Belghast

Unexpected Route

Yesterday I set out with the mission of running the rest of my characters through LFR, but after some frustrations with a couple of bad tanks… I decided to retreat into the comfort of leveling. The problem is… leveling through Wrath content feels extremely slow. The way they lay quests out just is not conducive to burning through them. I began the day at 71 and after a few hours I had finally dinged 72, so I figured I would take a break and run a dungeon. Apparently somewhere along the way I had forgotten just how good Wrath era dungeon experience was. I quickly shifted from questing my way across north rend to chain running dungeons.

I am generally the most anti-pug person you could imagine, but for whatever reason as I said the other day… if I am dpsing I have the patience of a saint generally. What I found surprising however was just how painless the whole event was. We had one tank rage quit because we did not clear the optimal number of mobs, and someone aggro’d one pack too many. After calling us all noobs and leaving we got another tank within seconds and completely the dungeon without issues. We had another tank that did not know which way he was going in Gundrak and after going swimming with the angry fishes for an extended period of time several of the people afk’d out of the dungeon, and I joined them. Other than those two instances… I had 26 instances of success.

At times the group was chatty, other times they were utterly silent. In all cases however we succeeded without much effort. It feels like they have nerfed the dungeons to the point at which anyone can run them without much thought. As a rogue I pretty much spammed Fan of Knives as we pulled huge packs of mobs. I found it surprising how quickly I hit 80. Thanks to the handy dandy statistics inside of World of Warcraft I know I ran exactly 26 dungeons to get from 72 to 80, which was the better part of a day. However this is definitely the express elevator through wrath content, and I feel like I will do this with pretty much all of my alts that have yet to clear that hurdle. In fact I am considering today once I have gotten a bit of gear, to do the same with the 80-85 climb.

Matter of Perspective

Maybe my fear and loathing of pugs is unfounded? Maybe it really is a simple and efficient way to level? Maybe chain running LFR has just given me a perspective on what I should expect from others? In any case it was not nearly the traumatic experience I had expected. I figured I could stomach anything for a single group, however I found the experience rather refreshing. It may simply be that at this point everyone knows the wrath instances like the back of their hand, and can pretty much run them on autopilot. In any case I might have to revise my opinion of pick-up groups. That’s one of my good traits however is that none of my opinions are so intractable that they cannot be changed. After all I had sworn off World of Warcraft for years, and now find myself enjoying the hell out of it again. Just like everything in life, I feel that it is all a matter of perspective.

Transmutation

December 7, 2013 by Belghast

Trolls of Thunder

Yesterday went pretty much as I had intended it. I hung out around the house and ran first my Paladin and then my Shaman through a bunch of LFR. Things went a bit slower than intended since I kept getting in on the end of a run and having to queue again to catch the first boss or two. I managed to get both characters up into the 480ish range. Still no real luck with the weapon drops, which seem to be the issue with catching characters up enough to be able to do Siege of Orgrimmar. As a result my warrior, paladin and shaman are all using 450 level weapons still, and I have not really had much luck with getting spirits of harmony on the smith to be able to bump those up to 463.

Of the options I have at my disposal for weapons, none of them really seem palatable. I could queue for heroic dungeons and have a random chance of getting the dungeon that drops a weapon… and a random chance on top of that of getting the weapon to drop. This would only take me to 463, so not really great in the grand scheme of things. I could farm timeless isle coins, but it takes 10,000-20,000 to be able to purchase a weapon… and in those cases the weapon is only 476 which really doesn’t help that much. So the best option still seems to be to queue for Throne of Thunder each week and hope, all the while trying to accumulate Spirits of Harmony for the smith.

Transmutation

With all of my crafters going, I have really felt the lack of my alchemist. There are some pretty sweet items you can make as a blacksmith that are 502 ilvl but they require lots and lots of Living Steel. Once again the only way to get living steel is to get it transmuted by an alchemist. As a result I have been directing my extra effort towards leveling Gloam my rogue high enough to be able to raise his way through the Pandaria alchemy. Currently he is capped out at 450 and cannot progress again until I level 75. As a result I have been working on quests out in Borean Tundra and I almost have him up to 72. Thinking about just making a serious push to try and get him to 90.

Rogues are way squishier than I remember, and while they have recuperate it doesn’t seem to offer the level of survival I am used to with my other characters. As a result leveling the rogue has been less than enjoyable. I am not really a stealthy person, and I have always played my rogues more like a swashbuckler than an assassin. However the only time combat goes really smoothly is if I make sure I stealth up and get my opening attack. Hopefully with time I will get back into the swing of playing one, as in the past… burning crusade especially my rogue was my favorite alt.

The thing I find most humorous is that Paladins now kinda play like rogues. I have been doing a lot of Retribution paladin, and the mechanics are almost exactly like a rogue. Thing is in many ways it works better. Instead of everything being based on 5 combo points, all of the attacks seem to be based on 3 even though your bar can fill to 5. I keep thinking that rogues as a whole would benefit if most of the combo point dumpers capped at 3 as well. I think this is why I enjoyed my warrior in rift so much as opposed to my rogue. The three mechanic just seemed to work better, it made the game play feel more “in the moment”.

Too Many Choices

Right now I feel absolutely deluged with choices anytime I play the game. At this point i have yet to run Siege of Orgrimmar LFR on Belgrave or Belgarou my two best geared characters. I am 4 coins away from getting all of my sigils of power and wisdom, so I would not mind finishing that off so I can continue down the legendary cloak line. I have not even begun to work on Belghast, so in theory I could get his gear in order and start doing heart of fear or something like that to get him high enough to queue for Throne of Thunder. Additionally I really do want to get my rogue up so I can have a transmute spec person again. I spent a good amount of last night prior to our 10 man catching his herbalism up so he can now at least harvest whatever I come across in northrend.

In the past when I have quit the game I feel like it has been because I lost sight of the things I wanted to complete. I feel like I almost need to create a World of Warcraft Bucket List. There are so many little things that I forget about that I do want to complete. There are so many pets and mounts that I could be spending my time farming. The entirety of all of this is really almost overwhelming. I have never completely loremaster for example, and that’s a thing I have always wanted to do. I doubt I will ever work on the Insane title like Rylacus, but I am sure there are hundred of other little bullet points that I would actually enjoy. I feel as though if I had a list of these all, it would be much harder for me to lose sight of the progress I am making towards the total.

As a result I think I am going to add a new section to my site, similar to my beta list for my WoW Bucket list. As I think of more items I will add them to the list and then as I complete them… I will check them off the list. Probably will keep it as a google spreadsheet for ease of use. I’ve seen a few other players with these and I thought they were pretty cool. All I know for certain is that I am having a blast with all the players that seem to be back from their own hiatus. It is wierd to see my battletag/realid lighting up with players I have not seen in years. At the end of the day, this game really is about the people you play it with.