TR Dueling Weekend, Akrios Arena Volume IV

Aura Mastery - Now causes your Concentration Aura to make all affected targets immune to Silence and Interrupt effects and improve the effect of all other auras by 100%.  Lasts 10 seconds, 2 minute cooldown.

Don't really expect this to go live as is, this is what TR is for . . . It is only 11 points deep, so every paladin will get it.

With just over a month left in tournament realm, I am considering making a dueling video similar to the one I did back in season 1 TBC.  The reason I will take TR over 3.1 PTR is because everyone gets equal gear for as many specs as they like, and can enchant/gem/glyph to the max for duels.  On PTR not only we will constantly be dealing with bugged skills/talents/items and what not, gear disparity also makes it difficult to judge pure skill (Akrios-san's double sinister revenge vs Neilyo-kun's PVP gear come to mind).

Rogue heroes will likely be using heavy PVE gear against most opponents, unloading full CDs and trying to end the fight before they run out of CDs.  Almost all classes we encounter will be going heavy on stamina/resilience, and it should be very interesting to see how rogues stack up against best of the best opponents when everyone is geared/specced to the max for duels.

Before people say "duels don't matter", keep in mind Koreans make duels a very big part of their GOM TV competitions.  So if you want to be as good as the Koreans, duels do matter!

Format:  Rogue heroes take on the toughest possible opponents for our class 

Rating Requirement: 2100+ In At Least One Bracket
No Eating/Drinking Allowed, Only Bandages
Only CDs Usable In Arena Are Allowed (No Lay On Hands For Example)
All Duels Will Take Place On Open Ground Similar To Ironforge / Durotar

I will have a list of "certified" opponents for you to choose from, I will try to pick two opponents per class.  It is up to you to warm up against them in casual duels, and once you feel like you can actually win a series, I will record the series.

If your series is chosen for the video, I will show at least one of your wins if you win the series, I will show at least one of your losses if you lose the series.  Series score will be displayed so there will be very little doubt about the final result.  Dahis-kun was the most impressive rogue of my level 60 dueling video, Inactive-chan stole the TBC edition, who will be the best rogue of this edition?  It could be you!

Considering rogue vs rogue has been done to death in so many WOTLK videos, I probably won't include it in this video unless somehow we have two equally impressive rogues when you look at their scores against other classes.  In which case a mirror will be recorded for the final series of the video.

03/13: Warm-up
03/14: Warm-up
03/15: Recording Session 1

Additional recording sessions will be announced, I expect to record every weekend until 3.1 is released on TR.  Feel free to practice a match-up as much as you can before the "official" series.  Feel free to record your own series but make sure your opponent send me a PM and acknowledge it as an official series.  Matches from rogue hero's perspective will certainly be very interesting!

LFM: Rogue Killers Who Feel His Class/Spec Can Not Lose To Rogues

Certified Opponents:

Mage: Venruki
Death Knight: Serennia

Expect the list to grow quickly.  To be honest if your name is mentioned in this blog often, you are pretty much pre-certified.  Just leave me a PM and tell me you are interested in beating down some rogue heroes on video and I will add your name to this list.  If you are relatively unknown, just show-up to the warm up sessions, if you do good you will be included.  People who have worked with me in the past know I put a lot of effort making the opponents look formidable.  You will see more of your wins than losses, unless you lose every series.

You should gear/spec your character around one purpose: anti-rogue, nothing more.  Like wise, rogue heroes should maximize their build/gear choice against the class in question as well.  DPS classes will see more of their matches shown than healer classes for obvious reasons.
 
Akrios Arena Volume IV

Akrios released his latest video on roguerogue.com.  It is for the most part, more of what you would expect from the author.  You get mutilate/prep arena fights that have been done a million times in other videos.  Akrios has better editing and clip choices than most other authors, but it is hard to be flashy with this spec.  Perhaps the only way to make mutilate arena refreshing, is voice commentary Minti-sama style.

Having said that, presentation is excellent.  Akrios put status bars right next to his character, and carved out all the unneccessary areas around the screen to create a "zoom in" effect and gave it a cinematic feel.  It is very clean and highly recommended for other producers.

He did have a few solid duels.  The match against Venruki was pretty much what would happen if everything went perfectly right for the rogue.  Needless to say I highly doubt a series against Venruki will look the same way, in fact I seriously doubt anyone can defeat him in a series (unless you do something super lame like cloak/vanish to reset long CDs 1234567 times until you get chain crits). 

The protection warrior didn't look good in the series.  Missed shockwave, didn't make use of charge in combat after he landed a shock wave late in the match that should have certainly resulted in a kill, also was missing many anti-rogue talents.  I think Serennia playing with that warrior's gear would easily win the series.

Overall a 7 of 10 for me, it was a very solid effort.  You can tell the author really put some effort into it instead of "a few random nights worth of casual arena".  Good job!

For Anyone Interested In Finance/Banking

Radikal-san put up a hilarious video on his blog, I watched it at least six times tonight.  I have to say even right now, I rather be a banker than consultant.  There is a Chinese saying that a starving camel is still bigger than a horse . . .