Blog Posts from "Life of a rogue"

The Dark Knight: A Review, The Better Joker

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 07:29:29 -0400

The Dark Knight needs some heavy anger management.

As many critics have already pointed out, The Dark Knight is an amazing movie. However, as with every form of entertainment, there are some flaws, as well. Given that, I must admit that this movie definitely stands up to the original Batman. Heath Ledger had some big shoes to fill as it was obvious he was going to be compared to Jack Nicholson, and some feel that he actually surpasses Nicholson in this film.

The flaw in the plan: Why so serious, Batman? I feel that Bale changes his role up a little bit here. Nolan says that he wants the film to explore Wayne's function as a "detective," but clearly he fails here. Wayne is not a detective in this film at all - he is all action and emotion. Perhaps a little bit too emotional, actually. While Batman disguises his voice in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, it is much more dramatic in the latter. He constantly sounds unrelentingly angry, and while it is okay for certain interrogation scenes, it should not last throughout the entire movie. As a fan of the Batman who is known for his intelligence and quick thinking, I was a little disappointed in this display of Superman with a mask (and without his cup of coffee).

The other potential flaw in the movie is the Harvey arc. It felt rushed and added on towards the end. Harvey's irrational thirst for revenge on his friends is an interesting plot twist, but it could have waited for the next movie. Harvey falling into the darkness is cool, but this Two-Face just does not scream out "bad ass supervillain" like the Joker did. The reason? Because his turn to evil was added in the last 20 minutes of the movie, and he really didn't have enough time while fallen to do his part justice.

The good, of course, vastly outweighs the bad. Heath Ledger plays a superb Joker. He has the psychotic part down perfect. No one will be disappointed with his magic tricks, either. The movie honestly had me wondering not what Batman would do next, but rather the Joker! As he himself explains, he is a spontaneous individual. By having no set plans, one never knows how to predict his next move.

The plot of the movie rivals Ledger's performance, as it is one twist after another. While parts of it are fairly predictable (possible spoiler: I'm pretty sure we all knew what would happen to the boats), it simply takes the concept of pulling down the heroes to the villain's level and runs with it. Also, for perhaps the first time, we see Batman truly being forced into making a sacrifice. Like Spiderman who must choose to save Mary Jane or a school bus of children, Batman must choose as well... but unlike Spiderman, he can't save both.

Nicholson versus Ledger? Who's better?

The popular opinion on the internet seems to be that Ledger is the better Joker. Personally, I think that people simply prefer the more modern interpretation. That said, I prefer Nicholson. While Ledger has the sociopath part down, he's missing the clown. Where's the smiles? That said, Ledger makes a villain that you love to hate. And you hate him so much more than Nicholson, because he keeps on doing things that are just... well, EVIL. He's not just a sociopath trying to kill people - he's trying to turn the heroes into villains, too.

Ledger and Nicholson played Batman's of a different era. But they can still be compared, right? Which one is crazier? Once again, I've got to say that Nicholson is creepier than Ledger. Because Nicholson ENJOYS what he's doing, while Ledger comes off as angry clown (notice the lack of smiles). You've got to admit, the guy that's having fun while he kills people kind of throws you back a little more than the guy that gets down to business. Even so, I don't think I'd want to get to know either of them. The way Ledger gets to "know" people by killing them freaks me out as well, just in a different way.

Nihilium Wins MLG PC Circuit

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:20:41 -0400

Just wanted to say, called it. No way GGE will beat them.

Druids are present in pretty much every team matchup for the entire tournament, when will see other healers viable? Oh, and even if GGE loses to frag dominant, then nihilium will just beat frag for a second time.

New Rogue Talents Review and LoLReligion

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:26:37 -0400

http://wrath.druzya.org/yarr/?c=rogue

It's a given that some of the more famous bloggers around here have already given a review, but I feel I can give a more balanced review of what is actually happening with the new rogue talents. Anyways, let's start with the bad and end with the new.

Subtlety:

Taken from kingpin to lower city scrub, the subtlety tree has given its "dark chakra" to the assassination tree. Wrongfully accused is quite a useful talent, pretty much making the rogue an extremely bad first target depending on your set up. Oh wait, aren't sub rogues already a really bad target that is almost always ignored? We'll see if this changes in WotLK, but unless prep/cheat death is changed, you won't see a whole lot of mileage from this talent.

Honor among thieves is an extremely potent synergy for those of you grouping up with other players, but overall it seems like a very average talent much like setup. And like setup, I doubt we will see many players picking this talent over others that seem much more powerful. Sure people crit all the time, just like you dodge and resist spells all the time. But in the end those extra combo points based on RNG just aren't worth it compared to other stuff. Why the hell isn't this talent in the combat tree? It is exactly the sort of thing the combat tree needs.

Slaughter from silence - ah, interesting. This is Blizzard's attempt to make daggers viable, and perhaps it will. Combined with waylay, we can see some very powerful ambush specs rolling around. Obviously shadowdance is also required to make this useful. The problem? Shadowdance returns you to stealth every 3 seconds, but it doesn't prevent you from being unstealthed. Dots, aoe spam, or crowd control can all make this talent almost completely useless. Kind of reminds me of this skill called vanish - seems that people complain that it gets broken by the most random stuff. Anyways - back to the point - ambush specs are gimmicky at best. You either kill the guy during shadowdance or you lose the game in an arena match. Best used for double dps teams, but I can't see it ever being worth it over the new mutilate talents - which I'll get to soon enough.

Conclusion: Blizzard did literally NOTHING for hemorrhage synergy past 41 points this time around. They've practically abandoned it and thus hemorrhage will probably see little life in WotLK. The new talents are designed around ambush, and thus the sub tree is once again back to being the lol world pvp spec. Please, Blizzard, redesign the end of the tree to give some benefits to hemo rogues. Pretty please.

Combat:

The tree has a decent 45 pointer. This talent is basically lethality for normal attacks, too. It's a good talent, folks - don't get me wrong. But for a 45 pointer? I expected something a little more interesting. Might as well call it improved lethality.

Unfair advantage is a joke, stay of execution should be in the sub tree. Switch it with honor among thieves. Throwing spec - nice for pvp, but don't we already have pvp gloves for that? Murder spree - looks very interesting. I think it will definitely be a popular 51 pointer, especially for leveling and grinding with its low cooldown. No doubt it will probably be used in conjunction with mongoose procs to have devastating effects in raids.

Conclusion: The combat tree has way too much garbage filler, and not enough dps increase talents. See the new druid balance tree for a tree full of talents that compliments the spec - in fact its so bloated that you can't even get all the talents that compliment it. The combat tree is honestly very broken and has too many talents that just don't increase dps at all. Combined with the fact that the new 45 point talent is less of a dps increase than many of our lower end talents such as combat potency and dual wield specialization, I can see this as a very bad thing for end game raiders. Rogues are already barely on par in raids - yes, we do the most dps, but if you add in the synergy bonuses from other classes, WE ARE FAR FROM #1 DPS. Very far. So if I were you, I'd be very upset with the combat tree right now. At least the new riposte is quite sexy - I'd look into it if you plan on combat pvping - oh wait you're probably mutilate

Assassination:

Here we are. The pinnacle of true power. This is by far the most amazing job I've seen them do on a rogue talent tree as long as I've been playing the class. In fact, the new poison talents are so good that I'd say they'll be practically mandatory for pvp- even over shadowstep. Yes, they are that good.

Vile poisons - 3 points. Sweeeeet. Improved poisons - 5% per point. 25% bonus application chance compared to 10% right now. Yes, this is VERY VERY GOOD. 55% chance to apply crippling with an autoswing? Oh, if you think that's good, just wait til you see the new poison talents!

Fleet footed! 50% reduction in snare time. Amazing, seriously. Try to remember that frustrated warrior - he has to apply hamstring every 6 seconds, not counting all those annoying dodges and parries.

Deadly brew - the first of the new mandatory pvp talents. It literally allows you to use four poisons at once. It's debatable whether wound mainhand or wound offhand will be the most effective, but I'd say with a 50% proc chance, it'll be the most effective on the mainhand. Wound automatically procs crippling. On the offhand, you'll be using instant, which will auto proc deadly. Long gone are the days when warriors own you in pvp - you'll be busting out cold blood envenoms with no worries about losing wound or crippling poison. And yes, it's true - envenom will be good, all thanks to this talent. The only real problem unfortunately is that mind numbing still has no place. It is synced with crippling, which sucks. All this means is that you'll have two offhands to swap based on who you're fighting. Fighting a paladin? Wound/mind numbing. Fighting warrior/druid? Wound/instant. Simple.

Devious poisons - the second of the new mandatory pvp talents. 100% chance when a poison is cleansed to afflict the healer. Using mind numbing poison? Paladin just cleansed your target of mind numbing, now he has it on himself. He tries to cleanse himself, the poison reapplies itself. Over and over and over. Seriously, this talent is amazing.

Turn the tables - RNG talents really bother me. This is really hit or miss, but I'll honestly say I think it's pretty good. Reflecting an execute crit can really make your day versus a warrior.

Blood splatter - obviously for the pve variant of mutilate, but if one were to take the sub route he could get 50% bonus rupture damage. Unlikely to see much use, honestly. This talent simply isn't as good as the others in the tree, and with so many very good talents, a mutilate rogue will be hard pressed to only put 51 points into the tree while getting other goodies like dual wield spec or serrated blades. It's a solid talent - it's just not as good as the others. Honestly, guys, this talent is another one that should be in the COMBAT TREE.

Focused attacks - makes a lot of sense for a tree extremely focused in the benefits of critical strikes. It is a nice source of extra energy to be sure. It is an example of a balanced talent - not overpowered, but worth the points for sure.

Cut to the chase - interesting. It would be better if instead of just renewing slice and dice, it actually used slice and dice, otherwise this is a pve only talent. Considering how bloated the tree is with good talents, this is not necessarily a bad thing for pvpers.

Hunger for blood - it's good. In fact, it kind of screams overpowered. I mean, honestly, it's cloak of shadows and warrior enrage combined into one talent of awesomesauce. Cast spells on me and increase my damage for free plz!

Conclusion: The assassination tree is amazing, and I'd honestly say that one or two of the talents here ought to go over to combat to give it some loving. There is way too much filler there, while there are way too many GOOD talents in this tree. All the rogue trees need love. This tree will definitely be the dominant pvp tree imo. Shadowstep is hardly necessary with poisons having become MUCH, MUCH more difficult to remove. These new poison talents are so good that I actually can't imagine any pvp talent build without them.

As for religion lol, well, take a look for yourself: http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Best-Caller-Ever-on-The-Atheist-Experience

I found it rather amusing.

Gameriot Tournament

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:10:43 -0400

Who else is excited as hell about this tournament? Although I highly doubt my team will be able to win with such little experience, I still feel like we could do pretty well. I am really feeling the whole e-sport arena thing. Even if the arenas aren't entirely balanced, it is still the most objective measurement of skill in the game at the moment. Even when I inevitably lose, I'm still rooting for my battle group. Go Ruin!

So, anyways, in other news... my 3v3 team managed to get 2150 rating. We lost about 80 points in a mirror match. These guys had a Power Infusion priest, a frost mage, and a mutilate rogue. Translation: A lot more burst than us, and probably more experience playing the combo. But then we fought a much higher rated team that literally was our mirror in specs, and we took a few tricks we learned from that power infusion team and busted them for 44 rating. Funny how our enemies are making us better players.

In 2v2, I've been playing with he who is literally considered the best druid on our server by many, EXC. That guy is a beastly druid, and his experience in arenas often leads me not to question his decisions. The only teams we have EVER lost to so far in 2v2 is warrior/healer. Currently like 34-3 and rising. We'd be at 2200 by now in 2v2, I think, if queue times weren't ridiculous. We usually only play for a little bit at a time. When have to wait like 4-5 minutes per game it sucks, and I much prefer the instant queues in 3v3.

Next job: Power level a 5v5 team to 2100. Can it be done with a ROGUE? You bet it can! Me and Earrl have decided to take our 3v3 team, Rogue/mage/priest, and add the two most overpowered classes possible! Warrior and a paladin. A lot of people say that a second warrior is always better than a rogue, but I feel that improved expose armor and deadly/mindnumbing poison can add a lot to the field. A fully exposed priest takes over 20% increased damage from the rogue and the warrior. OUCH! You guys just wait! Our team will be called, "Rogues have no place in 5s".

Warriors Are Retarded

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:06:06 -0400

But everyone already knew that. Thought I'd make a topic to catch your eye!

So our 3v3 team has made it to 2105 in two days and we're still winning the majority of our games. We went 23-12 for our second day of playing, and as per usual, we beat multiple teams that we lost to. Teams that stood out to me as impossible to beat with our composition? You guessed it! Double warlock druid and warrior/shaman/paladin. When fighting warrior shaman paladin, there is really no ideal target for me to hit. The easiest player to kill is obviously the paladin, but I have doubts that my priest would have a chance to mass dispel with a warrior and an elemental shaman bashing his skull in. So, next choice? Kill the shaman.

The first game we did really well vs this team and actually beat them. The game ended with the shaman being at 5500 mana because I wouldn't let him cast any spells. Second game? Bigtime loss for us. The shaman learned to fake out his chain lightnings and started getting some casts off. With him literally wearing plate level mitigation and not dying til the paladin runs out of mana, this was definitely a counter to us. It was a mana game, and our priest could not beat the paladin in that. Third game, seeing as how nothing else worked, we tried to lock down the warrior. We actually surprised them and bursted them to 30% health and forced an early bubble. Then: Mage, blink. Warrior: Intercept. Me: USE ICEBLOCK. Warrior: WINDFURY! MACE STUN! WINDFURY! Mage: =(

To the person who said "mage druid warlock is a rare team because of rogue mage priest" well it doesn't seem like this is so! On our battlegroup, there is at least 2 or 3 teams like that in the top 20, but priest mage rogue seems not to be found. I guess that team set up just sucks!

Anyways, I feel like we can still go higher, but for this week I am satisfied with 2105. It feels good to be getting 900 points instead of the 600 I've been used to for the past month. I don't honestly think we can pull off rank 1 with so many warrior teams in the battlegroup. Rank 1 really requires you to be able to consistently avoid such teams or counter them, one or the other. However, in a more positive light, I can definitely see us being the only priest rogue mage team on the front page. 2200 is only 100 points away, and we are still winning the majority of our games. In any case, I feel certain that we'll get gladiator if we keep up doing what we're doing.

p.s. Nerf abolish poison.

Rogue Priest Mage: thanks for the rating kids

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:00:21 -0400

So, yea, today I finally got my rogue mage priest team together. In one night we boosted ourselves up to 2k which I consider pretty respectable. We didn't lose to any teams that we felt we could not beat - it was more of us getting used to who to kill. It's weird, but sometimes the best person to kill is the frost mage. Usually the last person you wanna kill, amirite mister iceblock blink? But a lot of times it truly is better for me to be killing that mage. Like priest rogue mage mirror, when the rogue and mage go for our priest, the rogue does no damage at all. My priest just laughs his socks off while the rogue tries to kill him. But the mage is polymorphin and icebolt hitting for 2k every cast. I feel like he is definitely the best target to take unless their rogue targets me. In which case I introduce him to my bonecrushing maces.

There was one team that did catch my eye as being completely unbeatable by our setup. Korean People Never Sleep from Warsong (ruin bg). This team is double warlock with specs like 28/33 or a slight variation, plus a resto druid. Now let's be honest here: If I was a warrior, we might have had a chance. But here I am getting fearlocked, and cycloned when I'm not, and all my poisons are constantly being dispelled by abolish poison so I might as well be a feral druid. And to top it all off, my priest can't even dispell abolish poison or hots because he's busy being feared/cycloned too. Our entire team is being controlled by this team nonstop. It's pretty crazy. I think it's a pure counter to our team.

Anyways, it's nice to finally be out of the 1700 brackets. I feel like our team is extremely versatile, but at the same time, the teams that give us the most trouble tend to be caster ones instead of melee ones. Rogues are supposed to be anti casters, but I feel more like anti nothing when trying to fight 28/33 warlocks and ice mages too. Funnily enough, warriors give us not much trouble at all right now because I have a mage to keep him under control. Of course, we haven't played any druid/warrior/<insert healer here> teams. Those would still be pretty scary. Abolish poison + keeping my priest on lockdown = good game everytime. I've recently picked up blade twisting to counteract this, and god forbid, it's actually a pretty nice talent. It still doesn't make up for the fact that wound poison is no mortal strike, though.

I'm going to be honest, though. I still feel like another class would fill my role better. Why? Because of one simple thing: Repeatable crowd control in 3v3 is king. Mages and warlocks equal my damage, but in utility they are twice as good. I blind people nearly every game at key moments like when a partner is low on health or a healer when someone is low, but it's usually instantly dispelled or trinketed. It's still worth using to make them use that global cooldown, though. I wouldn't mind the lack of CC if I had something like mortal strike to back me up, though (poor hunters! got it worse than me). The talent that gives 40% chance to resist dispell is pretty good, but it's not even viable to get as a non dagger user. And daggers are pretty trashy in the first place, imo. I wish they'd make it more accessible and less demanding in points.

I'm not trying to whine, though. I know that rogue mage priest is an amazing combo and I feel we have the potential to be great. But as a rogue, can I take them to the top? Only time will tell. I'd like to blame the class before myself, but other people can get to the top with rogue mage priest. So, I guess I can't blame the class all that match. I still like to complain about druids, though. Wow, who would've thought that I'd end up hating them more than paladins?

Another thing: I notice I am pretty much never the target in 3v3. I have been slowly replacing my half stam half damage gems with pure damage while keeping above 10.5k life. I should be at 1400 ap/30% crit pretty soon as opposed to my now 11k, 1300 ap, 28% crit. Fun fun.

To end this wonderful rant: Nerf warlocks, but don't forget warriors - because warlocks are the only thing keeping warriors under control in 2v2/3v3.

How did things ever get so bad?

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:45:17 -0400

It's a good question to ask. You see, I used to be the #1 dps rogue in the #1 raiding guild on the server. Times change, though. I'm still geared to the teeth, and I have a duelist title. But my arena teams right now can't even break 1700. It's embarrassing. Things are about to change though. I have teamed up with uber priest & gladiator Earrl and soon a mage to break top 10 in 3v3.

The real question is: How did things get so bad? For the most part, I believe it's just bad circumstances. The talent pool on my server is pretty poor. You can maybe find 2 resto druids on the entire server worth the time of day. Dwarf priests? Yea, I'm lucky to have met Earrl. The problem isn't really that these people are scrubs per say, but they are preoccupied. They are not hardcore and ready to dedicate the arena over something like raiding. The other problem is warriors. I can pretty readily say my bad luck with finding warriors screwed any chance of me becoming a gladiator. I could gain 100 points in a day, but then I'd fight 5 different scrubba dub dub warrior paladin teams afterwards with my druid partner. I've got to say, I truly believe the only viable partner for a human rogue is a dwarf priest. In order to be #1 in a bracket, you definitely need 2 things: A team that can adapt to beat any other team, or a team that can play at odd hours and avoid the tough teams. Unfortunately, I had neither. I was playing with a raider.

I've got to admit, things aren't that bad for rogues. We are definitely competitive in 3v3. But it's frustrating being a rogue because our partners and team setups are extremely limited. Dwarf priest is a given. We have no defense against fear which is pretty clutch (don't have wotf). We can work without a priest, but it's gotta be a team that has cc out of the wazoo to make up for our weakness. Druid/rogue/mage I can see working because of the ridiculous amount of CC, but druid/rogue/warrior? Hell no. Same for druid/rogue/hunter. So that in part is a reason why things have been so bad. It's hard to find the right class composition to support us. The classes we need to support us are not like warriors and paladins - they are pretty rare and difficult to find. A good druid is one in a million. Same for dwarf priest.

I believe rogue buffs are coming, though. I have faith that things will get better, since I haven't given up yet. Shadowstep is going to be usable out of stealth - or at least I think it will. I can't see a 41 pt talent that only improves our opener ever being viable in the arena. The entire arena is designed for sustained dps and against the burst of an opener. So if blizz wants to make sub the pvp tree again, they need to start by making sub king of mobility. And with that, I can see our reliance on the dwarf priest actually going down. Being feared won't mean we're permanently kited for the rest of the battle after sprint is gone.

Ah, well, back to afking in the AV cave.