Talented Rogues

Once upon a time, a young rogue named Valenna picked up the Thrash Blade! DUN DUN DUN!

Thrash Blade Binds when picked up One-Hand Sword 66 - 124 Damage Speed 2.70 (35.2 damage per second) Durability 90 / 90 Chance on hit: Grants an extra attack on your next swing.

It was like Arthur picking up Excalibur! From the fateful moment, I became a Combat Sword rogue. Most other rogues went Daggers, a few CrAzY rogues went Fists, but I liked and stayed Swords. I did a lot of damage and never really had to concern myself too much with positioning or other things.

But when the expansion came, I found better daggers much sooner than I found better swords. Until one day, one of my daggers, the Emerald Ripper, was so much better, I simply had to switch.

When I switched to Daggers, my build became what you see now on the Armory.

My blog title is obviously named taken from the quote of Daffy Duck from Robin Hood Daffy. However, as my current build shows, I have no Deflection, thus the Parry! portion of my title may be a bit misleading. As I leveled, Parry and Riposte were essential to survival. But now, looking at the butt of a raid boss or even fighting level 70 critters in Tier 4 gear, neither requires me to Parry much and pretty much everything in a raid is immune to disarm. Therefore, both of these were dropped from my build as soon as I started raiding.

Strangely, looking at one of my new favorite sites, Gankbang, I do fit the Dodge! part of my title. Based on the site, it seems I have the highest Dodge percentage, 36.75%, of any rogue on my server. o_0

Spin! will obviously now refer to how quickly I change my build. After looking to increase my DPS, some analysis shows that the Swords specialization should give me the higher damage I'm looking for. My new build switches from a Combat Daggers & Backstab build to a purely Combat Swords build. I'm also going to take this opportunity to reduce my Lightning Reflexes and move my Dodge down to more normal levels. In the process, I'm picking up several talents for PvP, such as Improved Gouge, Improved Kick, Nerves of Steel, etc.

The swords I'm currently planning on acquiring will be the Merciless Gladiator set of the Slicer and the Quickblade.

Merciless Gladiator's Slicer Binds when picked up One-Hand Sword 203 - 305 Damage Speed 2.60 (97.7 damage per second) +27 Stamina Durability 105 / 105 Requires Level 70 Equip: Improves hit rating by 10. Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19. Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 12. Equip: Increases attack power by 30.

Merciless Gladiator's Quickblade Binds when picked up Off Hand Sword 102 - 191 Damage Speed 1.50 (97.7 damage per second) +27 Stamina Durability 105 / 105 Requires Level 70 Equip: Improves hit rating by 10. Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19. Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 12. Equip: Increases attack power by 30.

I should be able to get the mainhand next week and the offhand a few weeks later. The decision to switch from Daggers to Swords has been a hard one, but it's not as if I will not be able to go back to what I have now if it doesn't work out. The only thing I will have lost is the Arena points I've ground out with my 5v5 team fighting against OPlocks.

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Haste Nerf Confirmed!

Well, apparently, you all are fully aware about how we Rogues are so OP when it comes to PvP and PvE lately. So, as a result, Blizzard decided to nerf to haste rating to melee and bring us down to the caster's haste rating conversion.

I'd like to thank Blizzard for correcting this heinous indiscrepency.

=P

source: MMO Champion post on PTR 2.2 notes.

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PTR Haste Nerf?

It was reported on the european servers that ratio of haste rating to haste percentage has changed:

Live: 10.5 haste rating for 1% haste
PTR: 15.7 haste rating for 1% haste

If true, this is a 33% reduction in the amount of haste given for all haste items across the board. This is a direct rogue nerf as these items here are considered to be at the top of most rogue lists:

Abacus of Violent Odds Binds when picked up Unique Trinket Requires Level 70 Equip: Increases attack power by 64. Use: Increases haste rating by 260 for 10 sec.

Dragonspine Trophy Binds when picked up Unique Trinket Requires Level 70 Equip: Increases attack power by 40. Equip: Your melee and ranged attacks have a chance to increase your haste rating by 325 for 10 sec.

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