zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Logging on to WoW has become an adventure of its own lately. All of my addons obviously became outdated after patch day, so I tossed caution to the wind and checked the “load out of date” box anyway. Only one of them wasn’t working. Unfortunately, it was an addon that was responsible for how the bottom half of my UI looked. When my screen finally loaded, it looked like someone had walked all over it. I had no choice but to disable it. I did so with a heavy heart though. It was kgPanels. What made it tough was that I used it to design a custom UI of my own. I’ll check for an updated version and see if there’s a way to save it.

I’m also running into the loading screen problem. I’d log on, select a toon, then wait for the loading progress bar to go from left to right. If this was the first time I ran WoW since I turned my computer on, it would fill the bar to the max then stop there. It will not load the actual game screen. I have to shut down WoW then reload it. It works fine afterwards. Our guild’s main resto shaman, Itsuki, told me that he was also running into the problem so at least there’s the consolation that it’s not only happening to me. Is anyone else running into this?

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So you’re done with Dragon Age: Origins. You’ve slaughtered the Archdemon, saved Ferelden and paved the way for a new monarch. Now, the expansion is out. Will it give you enough reason to don the old armor and head back to the fray?

Dragon Age: Awakening is a strong expansion for the series. Almost everything that you liked about the original is retained here. The story and setting progresses in a logical sense and is ultimately satisfying. Players are given more specializations, skills and talents to further define their characters. Combat, while unchanged, is still a lot of fun.

Before we go on, note that my playthrough was with an imported mage from Origins. This means that I’m using the OP class and I’m more than familiar with the original. This isn’t a fresh look into Dragon Age as a whole, but I am writing this after finishing one playthrough of the expansion. Also, I do not intend this to be a full-blown review. I just want to highlight the good, bad and so-so points of the game. With that said, let’s move on.

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Patch 3.3.3 is live. I don’t know if I should link what I think about it considering I have very little input on the changes but here it is anyway. The message that Blizzard wants to send is clear: they want to make Subtlety a viable tree again. Whether they succeed is yet to be seen.

On a side note, I’m looking forward to seeing those Auction House changes. Of all the things in the game that I’ve learned to use well, the AH was never one of them. The past two weeks have been a welcome change, however, considering I’ve been making a decent amount of gold from it. It’s been a nice source of income now that I’ve stopped doing daily quests.

So, onward till the next patch. This one isn’t terribly large but I do hope that you have extra Frozen Orbs lying around to take advantage of the new NPC. At least we’ll have something to do till the next one hits, then we’re on to more dragon killing.

It’s been nearly a year since I joined a raiding guild so I’m kinda in the mood to reflect on what it’s been like and how the previous months have turned out for me.

First, a lot of history. This is going to be long so consider yourself warned. Also, this isn’t a guide or anything so if you’re looking for ways to bump your DPS, this isn’t the post for that.

I started playing WoW on a private server with a couple of real-life friends and officemates. When I got banned (woot!) for exploiting, I went ahead and joined the real thing. Note that this was during TBC, pre-Sunwell. Through careful prodding, and a lot of not-so-subtle manipulation, I was able to encourage most of my friends to follow suit. We were initially Alliance. My first toon was a warlock. The first class I got to level 70 was a hunter.

I started doing 5-mans with my friends and for a while, we were content with it. It got boring later on though so we decided to gear ourselves using welfare epics by doing BGs. The repeated losses we experienced in AV prompted us to re-consider our faction and, a couple of days later, I made the decision to start over on a new realm and roll Horde. This was pre-WotLK, folks. Faction transfers weren’t in place yet so we literally had to start over from scratch.

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You probably noticed that I made no comment on the upcoming changes to Subtlety. That’s because it’s the tree that I’m most unfamiliar with. I haven’t used it since the days of TBC, which is a little ironic considering that it’s the spec I leveled with.

It’s always been my opinion that Subtlety is the tree that allows you to experience what a Rogue is supposed to be like: one who’s at home in the shadows, an individual who feels more comfortable while stealthed than out of it. Unfortunately, Sub doesn’t provide optimum raid DPS. I actually had trouble letting go of it back in the day when dual specs weren’t implemented yet.

So, fast forward to today and you can tell why I didn’t write anything about it. One, I can’t say anything relevant about the changes because I haven’t been Sub for a while and won’t be able to contribute anything significant. Two, the changes won’t change raiding as a Rogue as we know it. I find that unfortunate, actually. A little variety would’ve been nice at this point.

Before we start talking about the boss, note that the room itself is a part of the fight because a quarter of it will get flooded with slime. I’m not sure if it’s random as I’ve never paid attention to the timing, but you can tell if it’s about to get flooded by looking at the pipes. When ooze starts flowing out from them, the floor below is going to get slimed. Stay away from it.

Now, about the boss himself. Rotface is mostly a tank and spank except with a lot of movement. At the start of the fight, DPS away. He’ll cast Slime Spray at some point. Aside from the cast bar, you’ll know he’s going to do it when he suddenly turns away from the tank. The simple rule is this: if he’s looking at you, things are going to get ugly if you stand still. Move to his side, get behind him, etc. Just don’t be in front of him when he sprays.

The only debuff you have to watch out for is Mutating Infection. Like most debuffs, it’ll cause damage, but that’s not what you should worry about. When the it expires, it will spawn a Little Ooze that’s stuck on you until you merge it with another Ooze. What you should do next depends on the following:

If there are currently no Oozes other than yours, you’ll have no choice but to wait it out until someone else gets the debuff and spawns another Little Ooze. Bring them together and they’ll merge into a Big Ooze.

If there’s a Little Ooze on another player, bring them together so they’ll merge into a Big Ooze.

The Big Ooze is tanked/kited by your raid’s off-tank. If you get a Little Ooze and there’s a Big Ooze present, bring yours to it so they can merge.

When the Big Ooze gets enough stacks (I think it’s five), it will animate as if it’s boiling and then explode. There’s an emote announcing this so just watch out for it. Your off-tank should be able to call this out as well. When the Big Ooze explodes, it will send a bubble of slime to each raid member. It arcs in the air so there’s travel time involved, giving you a few seconds to move out of the way. It will land in spots where players were at the point of explosion. Simply put, the Big Ooze goes boom, get out of the way and make sure you end up in a spot where nobody else was during the explosion.

Here’s a little trick for this fight. While you have to run during the explosion, you don’t necessarily have to run away from the boss. Picture the fight: the boss is being tanked in the middle of the room. The explosion occurs. Everybody turns 180 degrees and runs. Your main tank does not have this luxury. Instead, he starts walking backwards, kiting the boss. You can follow him or her as he does this as long as you make sure you move along a path that no one else was on during the explosion. This is easier to execute if you’re attacking the boss from the side and not directly behind him. Why? Because when your tank moves backward, you don’t end up moving forward and running along the path he or she was just on. You just move sideways.

I’m not sure if Feint will help minimize the damage from the explosion but give it a try and let me know.

TL,DR:

Stay away from the slime-flooded area. Don’t get hit by Slime Spray. Merge the Little Ooze with another Little Ooze or the Big Ooze, whichever case applies. Watch for the explosion and move away from the raining slimes.