zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Welcome to my guide on the Trial of the Crusader. Please note that I will cover rogue-specific roles and strategies only, although melee DPS will probably find something useful here as well.

Northrend Beasts

The first round of TotC pits your group against 4 Northrend Beasts: Gormok the Impaler, Acidmaw, Dreadscale and Icehowl.

Gormok the Impaler

Gormok is a magnataur that carries 4 snobolds on his back. This fight is mostly a tank and spank.

• Get out of the fire on the ground.
• Kill snobolds when they hop on to someone in the group.
• DPS the boss.

Acidmaw & Dreadscale

The next fight involves two jormungars: Acidmaw & Dreadscale. The important thing to note here is that one of them will be mobile while the other is rooted. You need to identify that. The simplest way to do it is to look for the tail. If you can’t find it, then that’s not the worm you should be DPSing.

Dreadscale always starts as the mobile worm. At some point, they’ll burrow to the ground and then swap places, with Acidmaw becoming the mobile worm.

• DPS the mobile worm. Make sure you stay behind it. Stay away from the rooted worm.
• Watch out for poison clouds from the mobile worm. They look like the ones that Grobbulus drops.
• The fight’s big gimmicks are two debuffs: Paralytic Toxin and Burning Bile. Paralytic Toxin can only be dispelled by Burning Bile. If a tank gets hit with the toxin and you have the burning debuff, run to the tank to remove the toxin, then run out of the group because you’ll be doing AoE damage while Burning Bile is on you. If you get the toxin, run to someone with the fire debuff.
• Burning Bile can be dispelled by Cloak of Shadows. I have not verified if this applies to the toxin as well.

Icehowl

Icehowl is a yeti and is the final boss of the Northrend Beasts encounter.

• Again, this is mostly a tank and spank.
• Watch out for Arctic Breath. I recommend you attack him from the side and not from behind.
• He knocks back often. Make sure you’re close to a wall so that you don’t do a lot of walking back.
• His big gimmick is Massive Crash. When he does this, everyone gets knocked back to the wall and gets stunned. Pay close attention to who he targets and get ready to run. You’ll have plenty of time to move away from his charge.
• If he doesn’t hit anything, he gets stunned. Unleash massive DPS.
• If he hits someone, he enrages. Hunters can dispel this, but so can you with Anesthetic Poison.

We’ll cover Lord Jaraxxus in the next post.

Let’s say you have the best possible gear that’s accessible to you, all fully gemmed and enchanted and you’re ready to go. How do you go about dealing maximum DPS?

Slice and Dice

If you use WWS while raiding, you’ll see that your swing damage is where most of your DPS comes from. Swing is your default, non-ability attack. It’s what happens when you right-click on a hostile target, click on the Attack button or cast /startattack. Since it makes up a good chunk of your overall DPS, keeping Slice and Dice up should be your number one priority. Don’t let it drop.

Hunger for Blood

If you’re specced for Assassination, then this one’s a no-brainer. Keep HfB up along with SnD. Maintaining SnD is simplified thanks to Cut to the Chase, so the only thing you have to look out for is HfB. You’re not the only class capable of causing bleed damage so keep an eye out for it so you can apply cast the skill ASAP.

Rupture > Eviscerate/Envenom

The fast and flawed advice here is to cast Rupture once you have SnD (or SnD + HfB) up. However, some mobs die too fast for Rupture to finish its duration. In that case, it’s better to hit Eviscerate or Envenom, depending on your spec. Obviously, you should cast Rupture first before the other two during boss fights.

Fan of Knives

For trash pulls and multiple mobs, Fan of Knives is your best friend. Get into range and spam the hell out of it. You’ll be dealing damage that even casters will be envious of. You can combine FoK with Blade Flurry or Adrenaline Rush for mad DPS. Also, don’t forget to cast Tricks of the Trade on your tank prior to spamming it.

Yes, I know that it’s going to get nerfed in the next patch, but it was bound to happen. We’re not supposed to be an AoE class. It’s nice to finally have an AoE skill after all these years but we shouldn’t be topping damage meters because of it. Single-target fights should be our area of expertise.

Now that 3.2 is out, emblem farming is the trendy thing to do. I know that some of you don’t like the way Blizzard is practically giving away epics, but what can we do, you know? Might as well go with the flow.

I found myself in a curious situation a couple of weeks ago before the patch came out. After doing a quick gear check, I saw that there were no upgrades available for me in terms of Conquest emblems. I was done. For someone who only raided Kara in BC, it was quite a shock. I’ve never had this much gear before.

After the surprise went down, I looked at the Triumph emblem vendor and checked what I needed to do next. Maybe that’s a question you’re also asking yourself. I mean, which gear should you get first? The answer lies in a spreadsheet. Grab one that’s ready for 3.2 and check what you should get. As much as I would like to get the 45-emblem shoulder piece, breaking the 4-piece Terrorblade set bonus hurts my DPS too much so I’ll have to settle for something else. Right now, I’m set to get the ring then the thrown weapon.

3.2 is all about upgrading your gear. Like I said, Blizzard is practically throwing them at you so run those heroics when you can. Do the daily heroic, farm heroic Trial of the Champion till you’re blue in the face. This is our chance to catch up with the content. Might as well take advantage of it.

Patch 3.2 is in full swing and as a Combat Rogue, there aren’t a lot of changes worth noting yet. The biggest one is the ability to use one-handed axes, which is the least stealthy weapon that I can think of. However, one can also say the same about swords and maces so there’s really no point in arguing. It’s also a little too early to tell how much of an impact axes will make to Rogue DPS. Hell, I’ve yet to learn the skill to use them.

Blizzard has kept its word regarding the dailies though. One of the dilemmas of getting the Crusader title was that you lose the faction dailies. No dailies, no gold. Thankfully, the patch opens several new quests that you can repeat to your delight. Furthermore, they give players the opportunity to get more Champion’s Seals per day, making the grind to those mounts less of a pain. You can also make your squire a little more useful than being a banner carrier.

I’ll post an update on the Icecrown dailies once I get used to the new dailies. They’re pretty straightforward (I like the new quest log, by the way) so they’re easy to do. Finding the quickest way to do them all is the tricky part.

Tricks of the Trade is the lesser known (as opposed to Misdirect) aggro management skill that allows Rogues to redirect threat to the tank. Think of it as a short-ranged version of the more popular Misdirect. Used properly, it will allow you to unleash damage without having to worry about getting aggro.

As you can tell from the description, Tricks will redirect all of the threat caused by your actions to whoever you cast it on for six glorious seconds. Minus macros and addons, you can cast it by hitting the spell, then clicking your target, which is usually the tank. I don’t have a habit of casting it on another DPSer because I don’t want threat issues and I don’t want to share the damage buff. Yes, I’m selfish. Terribly, horribly selfish.

Now, doing it that way is a bit tedious. As rogues, we’re used to casting skills without having to worry about who or what to cast them on. When we press a button, there’s usually no need to select a target because we’re already on it. That’s where Tricks is…well, tricky. You have to cast it then click on your tank to use it successfully. Macros will remove that unnecessary click.

1. Select your tank, then enter “/focus”. You can also right click on his frame and then set your focus there.
2. Create a new macro and then type:
   • /cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade

Bind the macro to a key and try it out. Hitting it will cast Tricks on your focus target, removing the extra click.

What I really like about Tricks is that it gives you a full six seconds to do anything you want. The next time your raid runs into a big group of mobs, try doing Tricks + two Fan of Knives + Adrenaline Rush and watch your damage blow up everything in sight. Don’t be shy about using Killing Spree and Blade Flurry as well.

• Please note that I will be discontinuing the horribly outdated pre-Naxx gear guide because patch 3.2 is just going to blow all the content out of the water. With item levels 200 and 213 gear readily available, there’s no sense in maintaining the list.
• WoW Insider has an interesting Q&A on Rogues, discussing the present and future of the class.
• Fellow rogue Dinaer at Forever A Noob has you covered on epic gems for the next patch. Keep an eye out for his ongoing rogue strats for Ulduar as well.

I’ll post a couple of updates over the next few days.