The dreaded Archdemon has been slain and the advance of the darkspawn halted by a lone, heroic Grey Warden. The kingdom rejoices, but at least one question remains: what happened to Morrigan? The sorceress joined the Wardens cause, but it is said her true purpose was not revealed until the eve of the last battle. She vanished into the shadows, and while rumors claimed she crossed over the mountains into Orlais no trace of her path could be found. She was never heard from again… until now. Nearly a year has passed since the Archdemon’s death, and word has reached the Wardens that Morrigan has returned to Ferelden. She has been sighted in the southern wilderness where she was first encountered. Is it truly her? If it is, then why has is she here and what secret does she carry with her? The Warden heads into the forest to find out and tie up this last loose end once and for all.

[Source]

I made another rogue yesterday. Part of the reason is because I was bored. The other part is that I wanted to see how it would be like to play one with all BoA/heirloom gear. So I deleted by noob hunter to make room, grabbed all the heirloom gear I needed then made my toon. Note that I already had the chest, shoulders and trinkets courtesy of my other alts so I didn’t need to spend much. It was just about getting the daggers, really. Getting them enchanted proved to be a somewhat of a challenge because the formula required Timbermaw rep but I managed to find someone who did them for me without draining me dry.

My intent was to document his leveling progress but frankly, I’m having too much fun to pause the game do all that so it’s just going to end up as snippets of what I did in this area, then the next, etc., etc. I made several screenshots  to chronicle the experience and all I can say is that it’s been fun so far. The extra hit I’m getting from the gear is making it really easy to kill mobs and I find myself pulling one after the other just to make things interesting. I still can’t pull them en masse because I don’t have an AoE but taking them on in quick succession isn’t bad at all. Although I’m wielding dual daggers I chose to level as Combat until I have enough points to get Mutilate. Actually, I’m thinking about maybe holding off until I can get Precision because the extra hit is always useful. I guess I’ll think about it when I get there.

We are pleased to announce this morning that the next Mass Effect 2 DLC episode The Lair of the Shadowbroker will be available on the PC and Xbox 360 on Tuesday September 7 and will cost 800 BioWare/Microsoft points. Not only is this an excellent adventure through Illium and the shadowbroker’s secret lair, this new DLC will add the Shadow Broker intel center, new research, and five new achievements – and give fans from Mass Effect 1the chance to continue a relationship with Liara.

To help whet your appetite, we have added 4 new Shadowbroker screenshots to the Mass Effect gallery. You can check them out here: http://masseffect.bioware.com/media/screenshots/

[Source]

[Joystiq]

So, let’s talk addons. The most important thing that comes to mind right now is keeping track of one’s energy and combo points because of how crucial they are to DPS. Now, I don’t know about you, but the default UI isn’t exactly friendly in terms of achieving that. Your energy is below your health bar on the top left corner of the screen. Combo points appear as tiny dots on your target’s bar. You can also enable floating combat text to notify you about them. I personally find it a little difficult to keep track of what’s going on when your eyes are alternating between the middle of the screen (where the fight is) and the top left corner. Here’s what I do to address it.

The way I have it set up is that the left side arcs have my health and energy while the right side arcs contain my target’s information. This is also where dots appear to designate how many combo points I have on the target. It’s as simple as that. What I like about all this is that it centers my vision. I’m only looking at the middle of the screen to keep track of everything. I know when I can hit Mutilate or Sinister Strike, when to hit finishers and how much health I have left. What’s even better is that you don’t lose raid awareness. You can see where the boss is, what he’s doing and what your position is relative to him. Raid warnings are also easy to notice.

I think I have one more addon to write about that’s more or less rogue-related then it gets generic from there. How about you? How do you keep track of your energy and combo points?

I’ve been thinking about writing a UI post but I keep forgetting to take screenshots when I’m at home. I then decided to take a look at my web albums and found pictures of Sin’s early days. This is from a set of a Scarlet Monastery run. My pants are funny-looking.

I’m sort of a UI nut. I used to be obsessed with finding the right-looking one and, after going through a multitude of them, ended up designing one of my own using existing addons. Note that while the design and layout are original, none of the actual tools are. Anyway, that UI will show up in a different post. For now, here’s a picture of an old one, featuring a level 40 Sin.

I’ve had a level 60+ paladin for a while now and last week I finally paid the gold to get her dual specced. I wanted to try pally tanking for some time now and, given that I was too lazy to go questing at the time, finally decided to do so. It’s certainly different, I’ll give it that. First, its mana usage caught me off-guard because my previous tanking experiences, specifically through my DK and druid, relied on runic power and rage, two resources that were generated from my abilities and, in the latter’s case, from taking hits. Mana is obviously something that’s consumed, not generated, so I have to have it from the start. Second, I’m actually using multiple skills to generate and maintain threat, which is a good break from relying on usually just two skills for my other tanks. I use Death and Decay and Blood Boil on my DK then Swipe and Maul on my Druid.

Is anyone else having a hard time with StarCraft 2’s offline mode? I bought the game the other day. My Internet connection wasn’t working today so I couldn’t log in to Battle.net to play. The offline mode kept telling me to authenticate my game client first. How is this done? Obviously I need an Internet connection to do so but I don’t know what the next step is. Hopefully I’ll have time to figure it out later when I get home.