zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

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?

Blizzard opened Ruby Sanctum this week so it’s time for another strategy guide. Let’s focus on the final boss of the raid, Halion.

Phase 1

Like any dragon boss, Halion has a cleave and a tail swipe so you want to stand on the side of one of his hind legs and DPS from there. He will put a debuff on a random raid member called Fiery Combustion. The best way to handle it is to run and head for the outer wall, then wait for someone to dispel it from you (you can use Cloak of Shadows to remove it yourself). The reason behind this is because there’s a secondary effect that you don’t want to spread to the raid. Running to the outside wall minimizes the chances of doing that. Watch out for Meteor Strike as well. There’s a visual effect that looks like a ripple of fire that indicates where it’s going to drop. Avoid it, then stay out of the fire that spreads from it.

At 75% HP, he’ll go to phase 2.

Phase 2

Welcome to the Twilight Phase. Give your tanks a couple of seconds to pick him up (Tricks if it’s up, of course), then DPS the boss. The debuff to watch out for here is Soul Consumption. The same strategy applies; if you get it, run to the outside wall, have it dispelled (again, Cloak works), then resume DPSing.

The second thing to watch out for here is that there are two orbs orbiting the outside wall. At some point you’ll get a warning, followed by the appearance of a purple beam connecting the two orbs. This is the Twilight Cutter. Regardless of how might think of the color purple, this beam will kill you if you stand in it.

At 50% HP, Halion moves to phase 3.

Phase 3

There are now two versions of Halion, one in the physical realm (phase 1) and another in the twilight realm (phase 2). Your raid leader will you which phase to go to but the point here is that both versions have to have the same amount of HP as much as possible. So if physical Halion is at 48% HP, twilight Halion has to be the same or very close to it. Otherwise, he’ll regenerate. He retains his abilities in both phases, so aside from watching his health, both groups have to deal with the debuffs, the meteors and the cutters.

Blood Queen Lana’thel is a straightforward fight. You have three debuffs to watch out for, two of which you’ve probably seen before.

The first debuff is called Essence of the Blood Queen, AKA the vampire bite. It usually goes to the second player in her threat table but I’ve seen it go to someone else so don’t quote me on that. The queen will bite someone in the raid and give him or her this debuff. Assuming it goes to you, you will have sixty seconds of pure DPS bliss: damage is increased by 100% and cause no threat for 60 seconds. Of course, it’s still a debuff, so here’s the catch: once that minute is over, you will receive Frenzied Bloodthirst. Your action bar will be replaced by a single button. Find another DPSer, target him or her, then hit the button. This will make you bite that person, dropping Frenzied Bloodthirst and bringing back Essence of the Blood Queen. Your bite target will also have Essence. You and your victims will eventually pass this to the rest of the raid. If you don’t bite someone, you’ll get MCed.

The second debuff is Pact of the Darkfallen. This one draws a red line that connects certain members of the raid, causing damage during its duration. Close the gap to get rid of it. The final debuff is Swarming Shadows. It’s like Jaraxxus’ fire debuff except it’s purple. You can use Cloak of Shadows to remove it even before it drops a trail. Otherwise, you’ll leave a trail of fire while it’s on you so run but try to keep your movement as tight as possible so you don’t end up making a mess in the room.

At some point during the fight she’ll go up in the air. You’ll get feared while she AOEs the raid. There’s little that you can do at this point except to hit Cloak of Shadows and hope you time it right. Once she lands, it’s back to her old cycle, minus the bite.

The gimmick of the fight, DPS-wise anyway, is managing the bite. If it doesn’t go to DPS, or to DPS ASAP, she’ll still be alive by the time everyone gets bitten.

Welcome to the Blood Prince fight. From left to right, we have Prince Keleseth, Valanar and Taldaram. The gimmick of the fight is that only one of them can be DPSed at any given time. When your raid pulls the bosses, the first target will always be Valanar.

Valanar will have Invocation of Blood. What this does is that it marks who is supposed to be the killable target. It also causes one ability to be Empowered. When you start the fight simply DPS the boss. DBM will call out Empowered Shock Vortex when Valanar starts casting it. This is your cue to turn around and run away from him and anyone close to you. It deals damage but also causes a knockback if anyone is nearby. On 10-man this isn’t much of a problem but on 25 it can be. Just stay away from fellow raid members as much as you can during this time. Once the ability is finished run back and continue to DPS.

Invocation will eventually jump to a different Blood Prince so be ready for it. If it goes to Taldaram, here’s what you should do: just DPS. The only thing that’s special about Taldaram is that he casts a huge fireball on a random ranged target. The fireballs takes a little time to form above him before it actually moves, so whoever it’s on has time to get some distance. The farther the fireball goes, the less damage it deals. Normally you wouldn’t have to worry about this since it always targets ranged, but there’s a slight chance it will if there’s some distance between you and the prince (for example, during the transition phase of going from one prince to the next), so just watch out for it. Otherwise, DPS away.

Prince Keleseth is also a tank-and-spank. There are two things that you should never do if he’s the active target: don’t hit the purple orbs. At all. Second, watch your threat. Whoever is tanking him will be busy gathering the said orbs and will rarely be hitting the boss. This means you can out-threat him easily. Throw out a Tricks on that tank to help him out.

There’s one more thing to watch out for throughout the fight: the normal, non-Empowered Shock Vortex. This appears as a swirling sphere of white light that phases in and out while it’s animating, making it difficult to see. When DBM calls out that there’s one near you, you have a few seconds to move out of where you are before it appears. If you happen to be near it, it will knock you back. If you find yourself knocked back for no apparent reason, don’t just run back to your former spot. There’s a good chance that a Shock Vortex spawned there. Recognize it, avoid it.

TL;DR: Watch out for normal and Empowered Shock Vortex. Only one prince can be DPSed at any given time. Don’t touch the purple orbs. Run away from huge fireballs heading your way.

Note that this was written with new rogues in mind. I recently ran a fail group on my DK and it was tough to see a fellow rogue just suck at DPS. I was tanking Anub’Arak in AN and things were going well until he burrowed and the adds came. Recount told me that I was number two in DPS, behind the mage but above the rogue. You know that a group is fail when the tank is doing more damage than the rest of the group.

So, here’s a little something to raise your DPS in heroic 5-mans:

• Go Combat. Equip your best weapons, then spec into it.
• Set the tank as your focus target (click on the tank, type “/focus”).
• Make this macro and map it to a button:
• /cast [target=focus] Tricks of the Trade
• Doing the above will cast TotT on the tank.
• Everytime your tank pulls, hit the macro, then spam Fan of Knives.
• Profit!
• For big pulls, cast Blade Flurry, TotT, FoK. Whenever BF is up, remember to stand close to two adds or more since you’re cleaving.
• For big, prolonged pulls, cast Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry, TotT, FoK.
• More profit!

It’s an oversimplification and sort of a repeat post, but hopefully it should get things started on the road to better DPS. Seriously. What I just saw was painful to watch.

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.

Festergut is a DPS race. He’s got a 5-minute enrage timer that you have to beat.

Again, for melee DPS this is mostly a tank and spank fight. Stand behind the boss and hack away.

Aside from the 5-minute timer, the other gimmick to the fight is Pungent Blight, an AOE spell that will one-shot everyone in the room. Surviving the ability will depend on how many stacks of Inoculated you have on you.

Festergut will put Gas Spores on random raid members (2 on 10-man, 3 on 25) prior to casting Pungent Blight. The spores cause a 12-second debuff and then explode. Anyone nearby will get Inoculated eventually (it causes another debuff first). He will cast the spores three times, which means you can get Inoculated three times, before casting Pungent Blight.

As you can tell by now, spreading the spores is vital to the raid. On 10-man, you’ll have a ranged group and a melee group. DBM will mark the two members who get the spores with skull and X. Your raid leader will likely designate which mark stays with melee and which mark runs to ranged. Pay attention to that part because you want to know when you’ll be running to ranged if you get the spore on you. For example, if your RL says X goes to ranged and you get marked X, then you’ll have to stop DPS, get to the ranged group and stay there until the spore explodes. You have 12 seconds to do all that. On 25, it’s the same, except that there are 3 spores and DBM marks the third raid member with square.

Still on the spores, the last thing to remember is that a tank can get a Gas Spore as well. This can screw up your assignments. Imagine the same scenario above where X runs to ranged. What if the tank is marked X? Obviously, he can’t go to the ranged group since he’s tanking the boss. Be ready to adjust accordingly.

Finally, Feint is your friend. When the boss starts casting Pungent Blight, get Feint up before he finishes and you’ll get hit with less damage. It’s even possible to survive with only two stacks of Inoculated because of it. And no, Cloak doesn’t work. Not in my experience anyway.

TL;DR:

Get 3 stacks of Inoculated. Bring the spores to the correct group when you get them. Use Feint to minimize the damage from Pungent Blight.

Saurfang is a tank and spank affair for melee DPS. Just stand behind him and DPS away.

All of his skills and abilities need not be your concern. Yes, even the dreaded mark. They’re things that your healers have to address.

What you have to watch out for is what not to do when the adds spawn, and that involves not AoEing (see how I just turned that into a verb? You get it, right?). Since Fan of Knives has no place in the fight I doubt that you’ll be casting that and hitting the Blood Beasts by accident. Time Killing Spree and Blade Flurry carefully so that you’re only hitting the boss when they’re up.

2 Blood Beasts spawn on 10-man while 5 appear on 25. They don’t do much damage and therefore don’t need to be tanked, but when they hit a raid member they return blood points to Saurfang. This is the reason why they’re usually assigned to ranged DPS. If your raid leader wants you to help DPS them down, then hit hard and fast. Bring them down quickly so that they die before you get aggro.

I’m probably over-simplifying the fight at this point since the boss has more abilities than I mentioned here, but none of them should be of any concern to you as melee DPS.

I tend to think of this fight as ICC’s version of the Chess Event in Kara because of how easy it is. Your goal is to bring the enemy ship down using the cannons mounted on the side. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first thing you want to do is to talk to the goblin near the boss on your ship and grab a jetpack. Equip it then map it to a key in your action bar. Try it out and get an estimate of its range. Your raid leader may or may not assign you to a gun. Since you’re melee, there’s a good chance he or she will so here’s how to use it:

• Spam the first button until you get to 80-90%.
• Hit the second button. Repeat step one.

If you’re confident about your latency, I recommend waiting until you’re at 90% before hitting the second button. Shooting it as early as 80% is just a safe number for those who have relatively high lat. Since you’re basically spamming the first button it’s possible to lag a bit and then find that you reached 100%, rendering the cannon useless for a few seconds.

If you’re not assigned to cannon duties then help out with the adds that will spawn on your ship. These will spawn in the center and will be tanked by your OT. They spawn one at a time, so watch your threat. Don’t find yourself in a situation where you pick up an add that your tank hasn’t even touched yet.

The last thing to worry about on your ship is that the enemy ship will fire rockets at you. There will be a mark on the floor that will symbolize where they’ll land so watch out for it. They look like small arcane circles.

At some point during the fight your cannons will freeze. This means that a sorcerer (I know it’s a mage, but Bronzebeard keeps calling it a sorcerer for some reason) has appeared on the enemy ship. Use your jetpack to jump over and kill the mage. She’s in the center, stuck in a channeling pose. She does not need to be tanked so feel free to go all out on her. Note that Bronzebeard is the true threat here and your tank has to pick him up as soon as he lands. It’s a good idea to watch your tank and wait for him to jump over before you do so yourself. This way, you’re sure that someone’s going to pick the boss up while you make your way to the mage.

Once the mage is down, jump back to your ship and resume add-killing or cannon-shooting duties, whichever case applies. Repeat this process until the enemy gunship is down.

Obligatory TL;DR version:

• If you’re on cannon duties, spam 1 until you’re at 80-90% then hit 2. Repeat.
• If you’re on adds, DPS as you see fit. Watch your threat. Look out for rocket marks on the floor.
• Jump to the other side of the ship when the cannons freeze and kill the no-need-to-be-tanked enemy mage. Make sure your tank jumps first so he can pick up the boss. When the mage is down, jump back and resume whichever role you were doing.

Lady Deathwhisper is the second boss of ICC. Here’s how to deal with the fight as a rogue. Be prepared for a very long read (at least by my standards).

The fight has two phases. The first phase involves burning down her mana shield. Once it reaches zero, phase two starts. The key to the fight is controlling the adds in the first phase because it’s easy to get overwhelmed if they’re not handled properly. Recognition of which mobs to DPS is important.

Phase 1

At the start of the fight, ranged DPS has a few seconds to kill the boss. After a while, the first wave of adds appear on the alcoves on the sides of the room. For the 10-man version, they spawn on the left side first then the right. For 25, both sides spawn adds simultaneously.

There are two types: melee mobs named fanatics and caster mobs named adherents. Your role is to DPS the caster mobs. On the left side of the room, the adherent is always in the center alcove. On the right, they’re on the front side (near the boss) and the back area (near the entrance to the room). This means that only one adherent will spawn on the left while two appear on the right.

For the 25-man version, an extra add spawns in the back of the room where the entrance/steps are. This can be either an adherent or a fanatic. Obviously if it’s the former, you have to kill it too.

Adherents do not need to be tanked. When they spawn, DPS them ASAP. They start out as regular adds but if they don’t die fast enough, two things can happen: they either become Empowered Adherents or Reanimated Adherents. The crucial thing to remember when this happens is that the casters won’t be able to help you with them at this point (they can with the regular ones), so it falls to you to take them down. It’s kind of your fault for not killing them quickly enough anyway. It’s very unlikely that you’ll run into this problem with the left side of the room since only one adherent spawns there but, with two adherents, the right side can be a problem.

I can offer no shortcut here. Simply put, the adds have to go down. Some people have trouble recognizing which add to kill. When that happens, it causes a delay in taking them out. You can avoid the confusion by answering the following:

• Can you identify which alcove they spawn from?
• Do they have the word “adherent” in their name?
• Are they casting spells?
• Do they have a mana bar?
• Do they have a staff?

If the answer’s “yes”, you can identify the right mob. Here’s a hint: if they’re hitting you with a big axe, it’s unlikely that they’re casters.

Oh, keep out of the Death and Decay.

Phase 2

When phase 2 hits, it’s mostly a tank and spank. Mostly.

Avoid the blue ghost-like things that approach you because they go boom. They’re actually tough to see in 25-man so keep an eye out for them.

Make sure you interrupt frost bolt whenever you can. I know, it’s KT all over again. For the 10-man version, Kick should be enough to cover it. She’ll cast the spell, you interrupt it. By the time she tries to cast it again, Kick should be available. You’ll see her use frost bolt more often in 25-man. Interrupt when you can.

Use Tricks on the active tank whenever you can. The boss casts a debuff that reduces threat. You can use Tricks to counter it.

Here’s the TL;DR version:

Phase 1

Kill the caster adds. Identify their spawn points and learn to recognize them. They do not need to be tanked so just burn them. Stay out of Death and Decay when it’s cast.

Phase 2

Interrupt frost bolt. Use Tricks on the active tank. Run away from the blue ghosts. DPS the boss.