zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

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.

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.

Icecrown is a great place to earn gold through daily quests. I’m going to post my usual route through the area, but please take note of a few things first: some of these quests are only available once you unlock them. I suggest that you do quests in Icecrown as soon as you can so you can unlock the dailies ASAP. Also, I skip some of the quests because some of them are out of the way so I don’t bother with them. I prefer quests that are concentrated on a single area or are at least nearby each other. Finally, this guide is intended for all classes and not for rogues only.

Before we start, here are a few addons that will prove useful.

OPie - it’s primarily a radial action bar mod, but what’s great about it is that it has a preset ring for quest items. That means you can hit the key bind for it to bring up a ring menu that has all of your useable quest items. It eliminates the need to search your inventory to use them, saving you time and effort.

Questguru - what I like about Questguru is the sound alert. You get an aural announcement every time you complete or partially complete a quest, letting you know when it’s time to move on. It also has an autocomplete feature that will turn in quests automatically when you talk to the NPC. I know it’s only an extra click, but don’t knock off the benefits of not having to do so. When you’re doing something repetitive such as dailies, anything that automates the process is a godsend.

The first place you want to stop by is Orgrim’s Hammer. This is the horde flying ship. The easiest way to get to it is actually in Dalaran. Talk to Sky-Reaver Klum [69,41] and ask to be flown to the ship. He’s near the Dalaran FP. If the option to be flown there isn’t available, you may need to unlock Cold Weather Flying first.

Once there, talk to Koltira and grab Not A Bug and Drag And Drop. You can also grab That’s Abominable if you want to, but it’s a little way off the path I usually follow so I skip it. Next, talk to Sky-Reaver Korm and get Keeping the Alliance Blind. The other one is a PvP daily. I’ll leave it to you if you want to take it.

Go outside and look for two wandering NPCs, Brother Keltan, who gives Slaves to Saronite, and Warbringer Davos Rioht, for Blood of the Chosen. Finally, go below and talk to the goblin at the end, Chief Engineer Copperclaw and get Retest Now. I don’t grab the other one because it’s another quest that’s off the path I follow. You should see a trend by now.

Now head to Ymirheim [57,53] and start killing the mobs there. You need to kill 20 humanoids here to finish the quest. The males are straightforward fights. The females offer more variety because the Blight Falconers have pets called Carrion Hunters while the Ymirjar Element Shapers are casters.

When you’ve downed 20 of them, go inside the cave at [56,57] and talk to the slave NPCs there to free them. Some of them will commit suicide, some will free themselves and some will attack you. For NPCs that are supposed to be slaves, they hit pretty hard so be careful. Also, the Val’kyr mobs here have a nasty habit of attacking you from behind so keep an eye on them. You may want to engage them first before talking to the slaves so you get the first strike advantage. Once you’ve freed 10 slaves the quest is done. I find this quest pretty annoying because talking to the NPCs takes me out of stealth. I can’t imagine caster classes having a good time with this one either. Anyway, I just wanted to let that out as a warning. As a rogue, I skip it. As a death knight, I don’t.

Head out of the cave, mount up then fly north a bit to [55,47]. Kill Bitter Initiates until they drop an Orb of Illusion. Look for a mob called a Dark Subjugator and throw the Orb at them to turn them into humans. Do this three times to finish the quest. Take a look at the second screenshot above to see how you can select the Orb using OPie. Note that you cannot use the Orb while in combat.

Mount up, head north a bit to The Valley of Fallen Heroes. [47,43] is a good spot. Map the SGM-3 to a hotkey and type “/tar sky” over and over again. You can add it to a macro, copy-paste it or whatever, just spam the heck out of it till you target a Skybreaker Recon Fighter. Once you do, hit the hotkey immediately to fire. Doing it this way prevents you from having to manually click on the Skybreakers with your mouse to target them. You don’t even have to look up to search for them, really. Just enter the command and fire the rocket. Do this 6 times to clear the quest. Watch out for the undead pats in this area.

Mount up, head north up to [50,33] and use the Diluted Cult Tonic in your inventory to get the buff that will let you loot a Tainted Essence from a mob here. Once you have 10, use them to turn them into a Writhing Mass, then go near a cauldron and use it to complete the quest. Watch out for the green clouds that the mobs create because they do a DoT at 500 HP per tick if you stay in them.

Mount up, then head northeast to [53,31]. Kill the orc warlocks and their voidwalkers then use the Rod of Siphoning in your inventory to grab a Dark Matter. You don’t need to target the voidwalker. Just stand close to it and you should get the quest item. Make sure that you get the item off the voidwalker shortly after killing it otherwise you won’t be able to get anything. I suggest you kill one master-and-minion pair at a time. Gather 5, then fly to [53,33] and right click on the giant shard to finish the quest. Fly back to Orgrim’s Hammer and turn in everything.

You’ll notice that you start at Ymirheim and then inch your way northward from there. We’ll cover the Shadow Vault and Death’s Rise dailies next time. If you have any questions and suggestions, let me know. You guys might know of a few more dailies that I missed.

A lot has changed since I last posted my macros so I thought about doing a revisit. Similar to my previous entry, I still take a 3-step approach when it comes to fights but I’ve also included a couple of other things in the mix as well. My key bindings have a lot to do with the way I play so I’ll be including those as well. Of course, feel free to modify the macros to your liking.

Stealth - Mapped to “1″

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:ctrl]Feint; [modifier:alt]Throw; [combat]Slice and Dice; Stealth

1. Casts Stealth by default.
2. Casts SnD during fights.
3. Casts Throw when pressed with Alt.
4. Casts Feint when pressed with Ctrl.

Not much to see here. This macro is not as situational as the others except for SnD. You’ll see what I mean when we get to the other ones.

Opener - Mapped to “2″

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift]Cold Blood; [stealth]Cheap Shot; [nostealth]Mutilate
/startattack [nostealth]

This is my basic attack macro for assassination. For combat, I use this:

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift]Adrenaline Rush; [modifier:alt]Blade Flurry; [stealth]Cheap Shot; [nostealth]Sinister Strike
/startattack [nostealth]

1. Casts Mutilate or Sinister Strike by default.
2. Casts Cheap Shot when stealthed.
3. Casts Cold Blood or Adrenaline Rush when pressed with Shift.
4. Casts Blade Flurry when pressed with Alt.

Combat has more skills to trigger like Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry compared to assassination so it has more modifiers. I feel more comfortable pressing Alt than Shift, so skills with shorter cooldowns get mapped there. The last line of both macros ensures that you attack your target whenever you’re not stealthed. Without that line, the following problems may occur:

Switching targets may cause your toon to stop attacking (depending on your settings).
Your toon will do nothing out of stealth. That would be defeating the purpose of something that’s supposed to be an attack macro.
Your toon will do nothing if he or she does not have enough energy to do the default attack skill (in this case, that’s either Mutilate or Sinister Strike).

Finisher - Mapped to “3″

#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt]Envenom; [modifier:ctrl]Eviscerate; [modifier:shift]Rupture; [stealth]Garrote; Kidney Shot

1. Casts Kidney Shot by default.
2. Casts Garrote when stealthed.
3. Casts Rupture when pressed with Shift.
4. Casts Envenom when pressed with Alt.
5. Casts Eviscerate when pressed with Ctrl.

Replace Kidney Shot with your preferred finisher except for Slice and Dice (see the first macro). I stunlock when I do dailies or farm so that’s why it’s my default skill. Just substitute the modifiers and abilities to your liking.

Multi-purpose - Mapped to “`”

#showtooltip
/castrandom [modifier:alt]Dismantle; [combat]Shiv; [stealth]Pick Pocket; [flyable]Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, Onyx Netherwing Drake; Purple Skeletal Warhorse, Horn of the Frostwolf Howler
/dismount [flying]

1. Casts a random land mount by default.
2. Casts a random flying mount if flying is permitted.
3. Casts Pick Pocket when stealthed.
4. Casts Shiv during fights.
5. Casts Dismantle when pressed with Alt.

This is an all-purpose macro that has actions specific to certain situations. I can pick pockets with it if I’m stealthed, cast Shiv when in combat and cast Dismantle when I want to. Outside of combat and stealth, this becomes a mount macro. The last line will dismount me whenever I’m flying.

That’s it. Again, change the key bindings, skills and modifiers to what you prefer. Hopefully this will help you create your own macros. For you subtlety rogues, sorry if I didn’t include it because I haven’t played that spec in a while. Also, you’ll notice that some important skills like Hunger For Blood and Kick are not included. They’re assigned to individual buttons so that’s why you don’t see them here.