Arghghgh. So I’ve just started playing as a rogue and this is really aggravating me. Is it normal to have your attacks Miss so much? My hunter has always been able to survive without me having to use special attacks, but I have to use Sinister Strike and Eviscerate on the simplest of battles because half of my attacks never connect. Does this get better as time goes on? I keep on dying simply because my accuracy rate sucks. I’m only at level 11 right now.
It’s probably because you’re dual-wielding. The base miss rate for your off-hand weapon is 24% (compared to 5% for main hand), so you miss a lot more…but you also get in a lot more attacks, so it pretty much evens out, damage wise
So, from my quick perusal of the thread, I’ve gathered that the Burning Dog Legion on Cairne is the “official” SDMB guild…Is that anywhere near being correct?
I’ve got a number of Alliance characters, but have never been able to get into playing Horde, probably because the few people I know who play are all Alliance. Should I roll a new toon and grace you all with my presence?
My main is the gnomish terror of my guild.
I loves me some gnomes. Can’t wait to make a gnomish healer come Cataclysm!
FOR GNOMEREGAN!
I’ve definitely noticed a lot of annoying misses at lower levels. Rogues seem to have a tough early game soloing, but later on they are a ton of fun, imho. I recommend running some instances later on to get better weapons. Playing a rogue can be really tough if you don’t have up to date weapons.
You can’t rely on just white damage. You’ll have a very hard time if you do. A good rotation to use is to Sinister Strike until you have 2 combo points, and then use Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice is crucial and very helpful to keep up as much as possible. Once slice and dice is up, you can sinister strike some more and use eviscerate as appropriate.
I’m working my way towards Northrend. I hit 66 yesterday, and I’ve been running a lot of the Outlands dungeons. I just ran Escape from Durnholde keep yesterday, and I’ve ran Mana Tombs and all the dungeons before that one as well.
On a different note, has anyone noticed that SO much of the leather gear that drops in Outlands is caster leather? And I see a lot of daggers that drop in Outlands instances that I get all excited about and then I notice that they are caster daggers. I’ve ran a lot of Outlands dungeons, and I almost never see a drop that I can use. I’ve seen about 10 million plate drops, and 20 million cloth drops.
If you’re looking to play without a lot of specials, then rogue really isn’t the class for you. The rogue’s entire shtick is flailing away with rapid attacks, they even get a faster global cooldown than everyone else to facilitate the spam. But yes, it’s perfectly normal for your auto-attacks to miss a lot. That’s the penalty baked into dual wielding, to slightly offset the otherwise huge damage gain you get from a second weapon.
What is a PvP server? Is it just Alliance vs Horde and you’re permanently flagged? Does anything stop a lvl 80 character stomping through killing low levellers everywhere?
Zones are divided into Horde, Alliance and Contested. In your home faction zones, your PvP is off unless you turn it on. In your opposite faction zones and Contested zones, your PvP is constantly on. Since the newbie zones are all home faction zones for those newbies, they’re safe unless they’re stupid enough to turn on their PvP.
In other news, I think I’m burning out on WoW. I’ve tried to play at least 3 times this weekend and every time I ended up at character selection, staring at the monitor and trying to decide if I wanted to play anything or not. I ended up playing LOTRO most of the weekend. The burn out is almost certainly a temporary condition (I’ve had it before)…in a few months I’ll probably want to play again. Or I could get on tonight and decide I actually want to (though it’s unlikely). I haven’t even completely decided I’m taking a break yet. Restless cat is restless. shrug
[Adrian Monk]Here’s what happened…[/Adrian Monk]
Culling of Stratholme is a nasty dungeon because it overturns the ideas many players have about dungeons. It rewards you for hurrying through things with an optional boss (which means more lewt and emblems). Also, the stages are relatively static, as you go back and forth over the same ground. This can trick people into taking a group which hasn’t run it a dozen times before around trying to hit everything ASAP. Add in that the first two tanks had no idea what they were doing, and it gets a little sad. The real mobs hit surprisingly hard, and they will hurt you badly if you’re not prepared. You NEVER rush into the 80 elite mobs on CoS without your party ready and backing you up.
However, the fact is that it’s not a hugely hard dungeon. It just takes patience and alertness to finish. People get confused because of the “time limit” on the extra boss, when you actually need to take more care. You have plenty of time, and you’ll get there more often if you do it “right” than if you do it “fast”. Basically, CoS separates the people who pay attention and learned their class roles frm those who didn’t.
A question for Dopers:
I finally got a new PC and got back into WoW. Yay! However, I’m also a sad Panda - I mean, Night Elf.
My Guild is dead. It still technically exists, but the guildmaster (who is my mentor in raiding and all) moved to Greymane. His wife, who is very sweet and kind as well, apparently also went. Almost everyone I know on the server has moved on. In fact, many of them left before. It’s an Rp server, and some left to pursue RP and some left to pursue Ero RP… or were shoved out for doing Ero in guildchat.
Well, truth is I really have no reason to stay on the server. I enjoyed it being an RP server when it meant avoiding the idiots, but the battlegroup sucks (PvP is a nightmare for Alliance here) and we get pretty mediocre random dungeon people as well. My guildmaster is already enjoying greymane, and I’ve thoguth about moving. Really, I only have one friend on the server…
Who just stiffed me out of a pile of cash. I loaned him a hefty amount of gold. Sure, I didn’t really expect it would get paid back, but I sorta expected him to offer, or at least plead poverty in repaying me. I didn’t expect him to just ignore it and when I reminded him to just go “Oh yeah, I remember that,” without mentioning it again.
Ugh! I hate that. When I created a DK on Garrosh to join Wreck List (the Daily Kos guild there), I was cash-short when I turned 60 because…it’s a DK. I only really had 2 levels to get gold at that point. I mentioned that I couldn’t afford flying/flying mount in guild chat (just venting, not to manipulate anyone into loaning/giving me gold). The guildmaster of Wreck List said she would mail me the money, plus “a little gift”. She mailed me 500g! I swore to her in /w that I would repay every last penny, and about a week later, I did. Every last copper. Because I wouldn’t want to be stiffed on a loan myself. Too bad more people don’t have that kind of ethic.
Well, gratz on finishing it; sorry it was such a nightmare. With a competant tank and party who know what they’re doing, CoS is not very hard and if you beat the timer for the extra boss, you have a 20% to 100% chance of getting a new drake mount out of it, depending on who in your party already has it.
Last time I ran it we had the opposite problem. One wave would go down, and the rest of us would run over to the next group and …hey? where’s the tank? He was holding back for some reason (didn’t need mana or anything). We took aggro and wiped. This happened more than once until he dropped.
Well, it’s not official in the sense that it’s endorsed by Cecil or anything, but we have a pretty good group on Cairne now. If you haven’t already, re-roll and join us!
Okay, update on my new computer: what I ended up doing was networking my new PC and my old one together so I could just copy the WoW directory over. I’m not sure this was the fastest way to do this – maybe I should have started by installing the WotlK DVD. The file transfer would only run at about 700 - 725kps, which for a 21G transfer took - oh, about 11 hours. So I didn’t get any play time on Friday night, and just let it run overnight while I slept.
But when I logged in on Saturday – oh my goodness! It’s like a new game! I was able to turn on all the effects, shadows, textures, etc. and it’s so much more dimensional than before. On my old computer, I had most of the graphics on their minimum settings and would get 10-15 frames per second (sometimes 6 in Dal). On Saturday night, with all the graphic options on the highest setting, I was getting 100+ fps (this was sitting around waiting to fight Festergut). I’m a happy camper 
Looking forward to the BDL raid of OS tonight, and I’m hoping to either find some guildies or a pug group for the weekly raid quest in Naxx, since I didn’t get to do it this weekend.
I went on a raid this weekend, after not raiding with the guild for anything other than the occasional weekly quest for a few weeks. We were doing ICC10’s Plagueworks; the guild needed another DPS, and my husband gave me the big puppy eyes look, so I caved. We took down that big valkyr, the “dogs” (Precious and whatever), then Festergut and Rotface. Sadly we failed on Prof. Putricide; too many DPS get into the “must DPS boss” mode and just suck at paying attention to anything else like the blobs. Maybe next time.
For my boomkin, I got the Abracadaver staff that dropped off Festergut, because no one else wanted it.
Also, on my priest I went back to a spec I haven’t seen in 20 levels - Shadow. I realized my priest was sitting idle since I hate doing randoms on her because I hate healing those groups, and she’s Holy vs. Disc dual-spec. Except that I haven’t used my Holy spec in forever… so I respec’d. I’m such a packrat that I still had two T8 (? iLvl 200) set pieces for shadow in the bank that I’d received because no one else wanted them on raids, and I’d kept other DPS stuff too. So with a not-so-bad DPS set, I am off to the races again!
I await level 15 with excitement. I can’t wait until I can do instances.
I can’t get Slice and Dice yet, but I am beginning to see things looking up once I started using two one-handed swords instead of daggers. Any loss in speed is definitely offset by increased damage. I know this will limit some of the special attacks, but right now it’s awesome.
When I levelled my rogue (stalled at 78) I found that a Combat spec while dual-wielding swords (ideally the speediest ones you can find) was the quickest way to take down mobs. The lowest levels were by far the hardest; it got much easier later on.
Well, I was gonna stick with it, doggonit! It was my first random of the day, and darned if I was gonna drop group and get stiffed out of my 2 Frosts! (Would I have gotten stiffed? Or would I simply have been able to get them on the next random that I actually finished?)
Who’s the extra boss? We (well, the healer and I anyway) downed the four main bosses for the H:CoS achievement - Meathook, Salramm, Chrono-Lord Epoch, and Mal’Ganis. I don’t recall if we engaged another boss or not.
I’m not sure what the deal was this weekend, but I experienced no lag whatsoever in Dalaran. That was a very nice change of pace. Lately I’ve gotten in the habit of sitting in SW or the Argent Tournament grounds while I’m queued for randoms, because several times now during “peak hours”, I’ve finished a random and then crashed the whole game when I teleported out back to Dalaran.
Regarding the ICC 5-mans … I did FoS, PoS, and HoR on normal difficulty a couple weeks ago, but the Heroic versions haven’t come up in the RDF since then (and indeed, they also don’t appear in the list when I select “Specific Lich King Heroic”). Is there something else I need to do to qualify for the Heroic versions? I remember hearing I needed to complete some things on Normal before I’d be allowed to do them on Heroic, but I don’t see any other ICC 5-mans. Does this mean I need to do the 10- or 25-man raid(s) first? Or is there some minimum gear level that I haven’t met yet (the GS addon has me at 4712 now, though I know Blizzard doesn’t use that number)? I do recall that the “Normal” ICC 5-mans seemed tougher than the older Heroics I’ve been running. I want to try to get the Tyrannical Beheader, but it only drops in Heroic PoS. (That seems to be one of the few weapon upgrades I can get outside of a raid - I haven’t seen anything higher than iLvl 200 drop in the Heroics I’ve been running.)
The extra boss in CoS is the Infinite Corruptor, who is near the end and disappears 20 minutes after the instance introduction ends. So you have to take down the first three bosses and get through the gauntlet with enough of the 20 minutes left to take down the Infinite Corruptor, who always drops the drake (and extra emblems). That’s why groups are often in such a rush in CoS; they’re trying to beat the 20-min timer.
As for the heroic ICC 5-mans, I’m not sure why they’re unavailable to you unless it is indeed your gear level. You definitely do not need to do the raids first.
Speaking of Heroic HoR, I did it for only the second time ever this weekend - randomed into it. and I got a nice caster trinket to boot. With that plus the off-hand Shriveled Heart that drops there, I don’t think that instance has anything else I need. Which is good because I don’t like it at all.
Woohoo! Don’t you feel pretty? 
Nah, I get the same feeling when it’s all the same class or spec. I’ll often swap around mounts to match the people next to me, too.
Because of the gauntlet style of the entire run, CoS is very easy to do poorly.
Pretty much *any *character is never going to survive very well on just auto-attacks. The game is 100% balanced around using your specials. The only exception to this is at *very *low levels when you don’t have many yet and/or your resources are too low for you to be able to consistently use anything.
The flagging has already been addressed, so I’ll respond to your next question. No, there’s nothing to stop high-level characters from stomping flagged low-level ones. On a PvP server, you’re expected to find PvP solutions to PvP problems: i.e., if a bunch of 80 Alliance are raiding Crossroads, you’re expended to drum up a bunch of 80 Horde to fight them back.
I’ve not even logged on for… jeeze, probably three weeks now? I’ve been playing Dragon Age.
I love that staff so much. Mainly because of the name.
From the time you start-start (not including all the initial dialogue), you have 30 minutes (ETA: At least, I think it was 30… Could be 20. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t hit it with plenty of time to spare, so. /shrug) to reach the Infinite Corrupter, who’s a Dragonkin around the corner from where you’d go to fight Mal’Ganis. If you reach him in time and kill him, he drops a Bronze Drake mount (280% speed). If you take more than half an hour to get there, though, he’s no longer killable.
You probably need to gear up more. Check your specific dungeon list, versus the random–you should see a little padlock where the checkboxes would be for H-FoS, H-PoS, and H-HoR. Mousing over the padlock will give you the reason why you’re not allowed to queue for that dungeon. If there’s no padlock, though, it just means that the RNG has passed you by. If there’s a specific item you’re going after, it can be worth your while to queue for the dungeon that drops it. All you lose is some extra cash and badges.
Okay, I do recall fighting that guy. But, what with all the waiting around for new tanks, I have no doubt the 20 minutes was up long before we got to him. Oh well, next time. Or the time after that. Not too concerned about the drake, though. I think my Albino Drake looks better than the Bronze Drake anyway
ETA: Other thing: I see the Noble Garden commoners are still standing around SW and still handing out the holiday starter quest to go talk to the holiday NPC in Goldshire … who is, of course, not there since the holiday is over. Weird.
What SFG said. Some of the gear requirements are pretty stringent - Rumpole wasn’t yet qualified for HoR when he had a 2200-ish gear score according to Wow Heroes (not sure what that translates to in the other gear score), though he is now at 2300. First try at HoR, our healer dropped link on the second wave; whee. I wish that (a) either they would let you vote out a link-dead player immediately instead of waiting 15 minutes or whatever and (b) you didn’t get the Dungeon Deserter debuff if you dropped out of an incomplete group.
Oh so pretty! I feel pretty, and witty, and … um, bright? 
I have discovered, with hunters at any rate, that I have to really ration out the “special” attacks. Otherwise, it’s too easy to pull aggro off my pet. So I send in my pet and let him get a few licks in, then it’s Sting, Autoshot, Arcane Shot, Autoshot, Autoshot, Autoshot, and maybe one more Arcane Shot when it comes off CD and the mob still isn’t dead.
Okay, just checked my list again, and the ICC 5-mans are now showing up there. As far as my gear goes, almost everything is iLvl 226 and higher. The exceptions are my weapon (iLvl 200), trinkets (200), cloak (219 - Tapestry of the Frozen Throne! Got it my first time!), and one ring (213), though it’s the Inscribed Ring of the Kirin Tor and another 1000g will bump it up to 226.
As far as the stuff I can get with badges, I’m not even going to bother trying to complete the Triumph pally set (Turalyon’s Battlegear). I’ve got the gloves and the pants, and the helm will be an upgrade, but it’s all iLvl 232 stuff and my chest (Titanium Razorplate, iLvl 245) and shoulders (Raging Behemoth’s Shoulderplates, iLvl 264) are already better than that. Though it is nice to see, style-wise, that those shoulders perfectly match the plate I can buy with Frosts.