via onemorelevel.com

Thought I’d escape non-console gaming for a bit but I’ve always had a soft spot for the Diablo franchise. So when I heard that beta keys were being given out of course I had to ask for one..

So for the last couple of weeks I’ve been exploring the beta and the new classes and skills and it’s looking awesome. The in-game sounds are amazing at this early beta stage, and although you only really get to play a small part of the game up to the first boss it looks quite finished. I’m not sure if I like the way the skills are at the moment but there haven’t been any runes in the beta so far so it’s hard to tell.

The Demon Hunter is my fav class at the moment, oddly enough, the concepts with full gear set looks rather rogue-like. Will post up some stuff in a bit.

Thanks, c, for the invite!

“I mean c’mon, trolls have tits. Do they breastfeed their kids while their tusks are comin’ out? They’d gouge out their fuckin’ lungs…”

Hilarious!

The rogue is now 85 :)

I haven’t done as much with the rogue as I’d have liked, but I did get some time to PvP. It used to be a joke because I am not much of a PvP’er – but since there are now only 2-3 active players in my guild I have been earning all the guild PvP achievements. My Frostwolf rep is almost exalted so I decided to put some time into farming some honor and rep in Alterac Valley.

Today I went into Molten Core and solo’ed it up to Golemagg.. didn’t die until Golemagg when I had a little brain fart and forgot that his dogs don’t die! It was all pretty easy and hard to believe it used to take 40 of us to do this! Garr was a little tricky but kill all the small guys first and you are good as gold. I used to say I could evasion tank this and no one believed me.. Haha :) And here I am vendoring all the epics I picked up! Not a bad ~300g run.. Would you believe no rogue drops.. except for QSR! :P

Anyway have an awesome 2011 – I’m off to do some real life stuff :)

** Hyjal spoiler ahead ***

Mount Hyjal as a starting zone has been really fun. During beta I took the Vash’jir route, and only did ~20 quests in Hyjal on a Priest, so most of the content in the zone is new to me.

I’ve now completed every single quest in that zone, including all the optional ones, up to the final Hyjal quest where Ragnaros makes a reappearance in a pretty epic fight against Cenarius. It yields a pretty decent ring. I remember the 40-man fight well. This time Rag still has the more hit points (22,339,000 to his previous 1,099,230 in Molten Core) but at Level 82, ~90k crits (with debuff) he went down pretty fast. Sons of Flame still appear (but fewer than the MC fight) and to my chagrin Cenarius sends me off to help Malfurion (Stormrage) and Hamuul (Runetotem) with the Sons.

[I've been meaning to set up my mods..!]

There were a number of other quests styles that I really enjoyed, particularly The Bears up There. If you’re headed that way, there is a Bounce achievement on that trampoline that I can’t seem to make happen..

The worse quest of all was the (optional) Hatchery chain that starts with The Hatchery Must Burn. It is in a zoned area where 3 other quests from the series requires flying around on a mount that is extremely annoying to control.. but I finished it because it there is an achievement for finishing the quest chain and a companion pet (!) reward.

Overall questing is a breeze with hubs marked out really well with lots of hand-holding from Blizzard – one of the most thought out starting zones yet.. though the zone after Mount Hyjal – Deepholm – is deeply immersive.. possibly the best zone I’ve played so far. I’m already at Uldum and not far from 84.

Assassination
Q: What’s the recommended spec for Assassination?
A: 31/2/8. Taking the third point in Precision instead of Opportunity may be viable for some rogues, but for most gear combinations I’ve checked so far this works out to be better. The point in Deadly Brew can be moved elsewhere if you don’t need the snare, but in general I think Deadly Brew or Deadened Nerves is the best choice. Similarly, the points in Nightstalker can be moved to Improved Ambush, but in the vast majority of cases I think Nightstalker is a stronger option.

Q: What prime glyphs should I use?
A: Mutilate, Backstab, and Rupture are pretty clearly optimal in most circumstances. Vendetta only provides about half the average-case benefit, so in almost all circumstances you’ll want to use these 3.

Q: What cycle should I use?
A: Rupture if its down, Envenom otherwise. While Mutilating, use 4+ finishers. When Backstabbing, 4+ and 5 give very similar results, but the latter appears to be slightly superior for most gear sets.

Q: What speed weapons should I use?
A: Slow MH, fast OH.

Q: So, I was looking at those EP values up above, and it looks like you’re saying I shouldn’t worry about maxing expertise at all and should instead prioritize agi > spell hit > mastery > everything else?
A: That appears to be the case, yes. If cycle stability turns out to be a problem that advice may be revised, but that’s the best guess right now.

Combat
Q: What’s the recommended spec for Combat?
A: 7/31/3 appears to be the current leader. The points in Improved Sprint and Blade Twisting are pure filler and can be freely rearranged as needed.

Q: What prime glyphs should I use?
A: Sinister Strike and Adrenaline Rush are clearly the best 2 options. For a third glyph, Slice and Dice is the current leader, but both Rupture and Revealing Strike seem reasonably competitive.

Q: What’s the optimal cycle?
A: Keep SnD up, spam 5pt finishers – Rupture if its down, Eviscerate otherwise. Basically what we called “low rupture” in Wrath. However, see the next two answers for additional comments.

Q: Is it viable to drop Rupture from the rotation?
A: It appears to be about a 1% DPS loss to do so.

Q: How should RvS be used?
A: Optimal use involves using it only when at exactly 4 CP. However, the difference between that and never hitting it at all appears to be around 100 DPS, so on complex fights it may well make sense to ignore it completely so as to be able to spend more attention elsewhere.

Q: So the difference between doing the 5-button RvS/SS/SnD/Rupture/Evis cycle and the 3-button SS/SnD/Evis cycle is less than 2%?
A: That’s about the size of it, yes.

Q: Should I use KSp as soon as it comes off cooldown or wait for Bandit’s Guile to stack up?
A: It seems to be a slight increase to wait for Bandit’s Guile.

Q: What about Adrenaline Rush?
A: Good question. We don’t know for sure. I don’t think it matters very much.

Q: Should I use a dagger OH?
A: A fast OH is important. If you can find a fast nondagger OH, it’s probably worth using. None are currently known. And you definitely want to use a dagger over a slow OH.

Subtlety
Q: What’s the recommended spec for Subtlety?
A: 8/2/31 appears to be the highest DPS right now. Note that every single talent point in that is a DPS talent so you have basically zero flexibility. If there’s some filler talents you can’t live without, the weakest DPS talents are Initiative and then Elusiveness.

Q: What prime glyphs should I use?
A: Backstab and Slice and Dice are the best two; the model is insufficiently sophisticated at this point to determine whether Shadow Dance or Eviscerate is better for the third.

Q: What’s the optimal cycle?
A: Keep SnD up, put up Recuperate if its down, and spam Eviscerates to roll Rupture. Backstab is your primary combo point filler. Hemo appears to generally be a DPS loss in all cases, though additional modeling is needed. Vanish/Ambush on cooldown to put Find Weakness up. Primary combo point builder switches to Ambush during Shadow Dance.

Q: What weapons should I use?
A: A slow dagger MH, a fast weapon (type doesn’t matter) OH. Currently this means a dagger.

Q: Is Agi really that valuable?
A: Seems like.

Q: Doesn’t that mean that 22 agi to cloak and 20 agi to gloves are optimal for Sub?
A: Yep.

(More here.)

Blizzard is making it way too easy for people like me who just want to blaze through to endgame with the new map/quest system. Everything is clearly marked out, from quest items to mob locations to named kills. The only effort I seem to have been putting into leveling is lazily mouse-clicking my way through mobs and quest-givers. Yawn.

Don’t get me wrong, the new content is good. But you hardly get to appreciate it, since most of the time I’m spamming my mount shortcuts and dropping in from above right on specific mobs that I need – something on the lines of Dismount > Mid-air Stealth > Land > Pickpocket (LOL) > Cheap Shot. I haven’t needed to cloak and dagger my way through jack for some time, which is a crying shame since I play a rogue.

Speaking of – rogues with the new Recuperate ability (combo-point based heal-over-time) are a Chinese gold farmer’s wet dream. High burst damage, stealth and survivability – and now I don’t even need to stop and med, much less weigh my precious bag slots down with consumables. Heal numbers seem to be based on a % of base HP and duration on combo points, which at the moment seems a bit OP to me. Looking out for a nerf, but really hoping it doesn’t, since in raid/dungeon situations it would be really handy to be able to self-heal through AOEs and get the healers off our backs. It also did save my ass when a lock and mage tried to double-team gank me last night. I survived with a 5CP (from a previous dead mob) Recuperate and burning all my CDs + Vanish (now working as intended, finally!). Otherwise I’m a bit disappointed to report that cross-faction dealings have been close to zero on Tichondrius – I’ll have to double check it’s still a PvP server and hasn’t gone Care Bear on me since I last logged on.

Hating the new guild levels and reps – but only because I’m still in my old raiding guild and we have a total of 2 active players. Oh well, it’s not like I have time to raid again anyway.