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Encrypted Text: 3 Diablo monk moves that WoW rogues should steal

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

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Encrypted Text: 3 Diablo monk moves that WoW rogues should steal originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 23 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Rogues can actually tank

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

In the original WoW beta, rogues were designed to be off tanks. Complete with a high dodge coefficient from agility and a buckler, rogues could survive quite a beating. Evasion was a tanking cooldown, and Vanish was a useful tank-swapping ability. Hunters worked similarly, also sporting bucklers and using Feign Death to lose aggro. Obviously, the developers scrapped both of these ideas before launch.

During The Burning Crusade, Gaeowyn broke the combat table by achieving unhittable status with 102.63% avoidance and using it to successfully slay Illidan. After that, the crew slew Gruul with just five people while it was still relevant content. In Wrath, Jider abused Shadowstep and our amazing damage output to solo several Naxxramas bosses. The upcoming Mists expansion looks to again revitalize rogue tanking, with the advent of the druid ability Symbiosis and our bonus ability, Growl.

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Encrypted Text: 2 Stealth secrets in Mists

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:00:00 EST

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Encrypted Text: 2 Stealth secrets in Mists originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 09 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Should all rogues use daggers?

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:00 EST

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Customize your guild bank icons with this handy script

(Chase Christian) — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:00:00 EST

Have you ever wanted to customize your guild bank icons but been daunted by the sheer number of icons to choose from? The default interface for picking icons isn't very easy to navigate. There are hundreds of icons, and they're not searchable or sortable. Trying to find the icon you're looking for is like finding a needle in a haystack. In fact, not every icon in the game is even listed in the default interface!

There's a better way to assign icons to your guild bank tabs. With a simple script command, you can assign any icon that's in the game to any one of your tabs. The first step is to identify the icon you want to use. Wowhead is your best bet here, as it's got the icon files for every spell, item, and achievement in the game. Find the ability that shares the icon you want to use, and then click on the icon image to grab the specific icon identification string, like "spell_nature_bloodlust" for Bloodlust.

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Customize your guild bank icons with this handy script originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 01 May 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Crimson Tempest revitalizes the rogue AoE game

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

For rogues, enemies come in one of three group sizes: a single enemy, two enemies at once, or several enemies at once. Subtlety rogues love to focus on a single opponent, combat rogues absolutely soar when destroying two targets, and assassination rogues are the kings of sustained damage on multiple targets. Combat's AoE damage to a group is pitiful, while subtlety rogues start falling behind the instant there's more than one target on the field.

The balance of rogue AoE today is determined by two abilities: Blade Flurry and Fan of Knives. These are currently our only two multi-target abilities, and so each spec's AoE potential revolves around these two moves. Mists of Pandaria is changing everything we know about rogue AoE by introducing a brand new AoE finisher, Crimson Tempest. In addition, the AoE hierarchy is also being shaken up via the revamping of Fan of Knives. The days of mindless FoK spam are over.

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Encrypted Text: Crimson Tempest revitalizes the rogue AoE game originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: An interview with Haileaus, the white knight of subtlety rogues

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

One of the developers' design goals in World of Warcraft is ability parity between PvE and PvP. The problem with this strategy is that it becomes very difficult to buff a dominant PvP class if it's performing poorly in PvE. Beast mastery hunters and frost mages have long been maligned in raids while being feared in PvP combat. No spec knows this story better than the subtlety rogue, which has simultaneously been the best PvP spec and the worst PvE spec in the game.

Most active subtlety rogues are quite content, as their main focus is PvP. Due to the stringent requirements of most raiding guilds, there are only a few raiding rogues that have stuck with subtlety through the years. In order to get inside the head of these persistent shades, I spoke with one of subtlety's most stalwart champions, Haileaus. He currently maintains the amazing subtlety PvE thread on the official forums and was the rogue who inspired me to try out subtlety raiding on more than one occasion during Cataclysm.

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Encrypted Text: An interview with Haileaus, the white knight of subtlety rogues originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Bringing fun back to the rogue class

(Chase Christian) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

The amount of fun that you can have on a rogue has been steadily declining since WoW's release. The original stunlock is gone, Swirly Ball was removed without any warning, and the Dungeon Finder effectively killed stealth boss runs. There are no more random chests for us to unlock, and our lockpicking levels up automatically. In Cataclysm, for the first time since launch, there was no epic weapon to look forward to through pickpocketing.

Mists of Pandaria is bringing fun back. With just three little glyphs, I've had more fun in the past 48 hours than I've had in years. Glyph of Detection reintroduces Swirly Ball to our arsenal, after years of fervent lobbying for its return. Glyph of Decoy leaves a copy of you behind when you Vanish to distract your enemies, just like our old friend, Archmage Vargoth. Finally, Glyph of Disguise allows you to copy the appearance of any humanoid that you use Pick Pocket on. There is nothing more fun than flying around, looking for new appearances to steal. I will never forget the first person I ganked while disguised as Durn the Hungerer.

Gallery: Mists of Pandaria new rogue glyphs

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Encrypted Text: Bringing fun back to the rogue class originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: The Shock and Awe build

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

If you have been raiding 10-man Dragon Soul every week, Wrathion should be handing over the Fangs of the Fathers any day now. Even the second rogues in most 25-man groups will be collecting their last Elementium Gem Clusters shortly. For many rogues, these daggers are the first legendary weapons that they've ever acquired. When you receive them from Wrathion, it might feel a bit overwhelming. What do you do with these weapons? What will they do to you?

There is a quote that's been passed down from thief to thief, assassin to assassin, and rogue to rogue for generations: "If your blades are happy, you're happy." You want your weapons to work for you, and not the other way around. You can't starve your blades, trying to forcefully adjust their diet to tolerate Morchok's rocky hide or Hagara's snow cones. If you want to keep your blades happy, you have to feed them what they really want: player blood, and lots of it.

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Encrypted Text: The Shock and Awe build originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Major AoE healing changes in the Mists beta

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Blizzard has been deploying beta patches at a record pace, which has a lot of stale info being bandied about as fact. The official Mists of Pandaria talent calculator is wildly out of date, and much of the commentary made over the past week is now superannuated. The developers haven't been shying away from making major class changes in these early days of the beta, and so everything is still up in the air.

What we do know for sure is that there's work being done to modify our holy AoE arsenals specifically. First, Holy Radiance still generates holy power points for us. The holy power generation mechanic was moved from Tower of Radiance and placed directly onto Holy Radiance itself. Other than that, every other piece of our holy toolkit has been updated, and for the better.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Major AoE healing changes in the Mists beta originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: The lazy combat build, part 2

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST

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Encrypted Text: The lazy combat build, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 Dragon Soul tips to make your DPSers love you

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

With the 15% nerf to Dragon Soul slated for Tuesday and Mists of Pandaria's beta test here already, Cataclysm is winding down. Many guilds are on autopilot in Dragon Soul, simply clearing the place each week for another shot at an elusive trinket or item. You can buy the heroic Dragon Soul title or mount on most realms without too much trouble. With a few months of the same eight bosses ahead of us, it's easy to understand why everyone is focused on what's coming next.

I am always looking for ways to optimize my guild's raids. If there's a way that I can shave a few seconds off a boss encounter, I'll take it. There are plenty of areas in Dragon Soul where a clever holy paladin can help move things along. I currently run with a secondary holy talent build that includes Denounce specifically for the purpose of speeding up our runs. If you're still learning Dragon Soul or working on a new heroic encounter, these tips probably won't apply to you.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 Dragon Soul tips to make your DPSers love you originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: The lazy combat build, part 1

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

After this week's deluge of Mists of Pandaria information, Cataclysm is fading fast. Everyone is looking ahead to the future, with dreams of exploring Pandaria and complaining about monks being overpowered on the general forums. Deathwing has been vanquished millions of times, and with no new content slated for Cataclysm, this expansion has come to its end.

We're now officially entering the inter-expansion lull.

What better time than now to roll a new rogue alt? You've got plenty of justice and valor points banked, and your guild has probably been level 25 for months. If you haven't been playing recently, then you can simply have someone use a Scroll of Resurrection to give you a free level 80 character on the server and faction of your choosing. If you've ever wanted to play a rogue, there's no better time than today to try one out. If you're lucky, you might even make it to 85 in time to pick up your guild's inevitable fifth or sixth set of Fangs of the Father.

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Encrypted Text: The lazy combat build, part 1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 holy talents I want to see in Mists

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

When I look at our upcoming talent tree in Mists of Pandaria, I'm not blown away. Repentance and Divine Purpose are nearly identical to the versions in the retribution tree today. Pursuit of Justice and Speed of Light have been edited slightly but fulfill the same general roles. There are definitely some new talents in the mix as well, like Holy Avenger and the new Sanctified Wrath, but many of the choices are simply repeats of existing talents.

I have a few ideas on how to fix that. With equal parts of stealing talents from other classes and coming up with brand new ones, we could liven up our options quite a bit. I want to see more dynamic healing options available, rather than yet another cooldown like Clemency to manage. We spend most of our time in the trenches, pressing Holy Light and Holy Shock until our fingers are numb. Improving holy's style of healing will go a long way toward making the class more exciting to play.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 holy talents I want to see in Mists originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Shuriken Toss breaks all the rules

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

Raise your hand if you remember fighting against Shazzrah. I'm not talking about our recent bout with Shannox or even our old fights against Mother Shahraz. Shazzrah goes way back, to WoW's very first raid instance, Molten Core. Due to the frequent AoE explosions that Shazzrah unleashed, rogues couldn't engage him without being slaughtered immediately. While the rest of the raid fought the boss, I joined the other rogues in my group crushing Blindweed and making some food next to the Cooking Fire.

As a melee class, our biggest weakness for years has been that we can only deal damage to nearby targets. It's limited our ability to swap targets effectively, our ability to avoid point-blank AoE attacks, and our ability to attack any target that's not on the ground. Rogues, along with other melee classes, have actually been benched because of these limitations. These shackles and restrictions have bound our class since its inception.

Shuriken Toss has the chance to change all that. The new level 90 rogue talent slated for Mists of Pandaria might redefine what it means to play a rogue.

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Encrypted Text: Shuriken Toss breaks all the rules originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Evaluating Mists of Pandaria talents for holy paladins

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Speculating on talent choices that aren't even being publicly tested yet is risky business. Mists of Pandaria isn't in beta testing yet, which means that everything is still be up in the air. What if holy power gets scrapped between now and then? What if the developers decide that shockadins should actually be viable? There are simply too many unknowns when discussing an upcoming game that hasn't faced any public scrutiny.

At the same time, speculating on talent choices with no empirical evidence whatsoever is also fun, because we get to make it up as we go along. I am already imaging a build with the new Pursuit of Justice, where I stack up 5 holy power points via Boundless Conviction and run around with 60% bonus speed for an entire encounter. Will it work with 5 holy power points, or will the speed boost only count 3 of them? Only time will tell. Or Ghostcrawler. But mostly time.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Evaluating Mists of Pandaria talents for holy paladins originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: More rogue poison news from Ghostcrawler

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

Two weeks ago, I asked you to throw out everything you knew about rogue poisons. I was being silly, because I know that would be a lot to ask. Many of us have spent years learning the intricacies of the poison system, studying PPM charts and evaluating our options. Unfortunately, it looks like there was actually no hyperbole in my original request. With the latest round of info we've received, every single poison mechanic in the game will be overhauled in Mists of Pandaria.

We already know about the new lethal/non-lethal designations and how we'll be able to have two poisons on both of our weapons at all times. We already know that poisons will be critting for double damage in Mists and that their crit chance will be calculated based on our melee crit rate. These improvements are just what we needed to increase our utility options and to boost crit's viability as a secondary stat. In addition to these sweeping changes to poison crit mechanics, we've learned that poison's hit mechanics are also being revamped.

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Encrypted Text: More rogue poison news from Ghostcrawler originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Evaluating Holy Radiance's fifth tick

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

I made a lot of sacrifices to hit the 3,500 haste break point, which grants our Holy Radiance spell a free fifth tick. The truth is that the extra tick wasn't free, and it came at a great cost. The question in my mind was whether or not the cost was worth the benefit, whether or not the fifth tick made up for the losses in other areas. Holy Radiance is a pretty important spell in our arsenal right now, and haste is good generally, and so I figured there was at least a chance that the fifth tick could prove valuable.

I knew I was making sacrifices to get to that haste plateau, but I had no a priori way to quantify exactly how that would affect my overall healing. I just went for it. After last week's full clear of Dragon Soul with my 3,500 haste build, I now have data to parse. I started matching encounters and parts of encounters in apples-to-apples comparisons using CompareBot to evaluate my performance. The results of my experimentation with a 3,500 haste build had me quite intrigued.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Evaluating Holy Radiance's fifth tick originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Meet your new poisons

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

The new poison system that's being implemented in Mists of Pandaria might seem like a fairly major revamp for a class that's typically seen very little change between expansions. The conversion of poisons from items to skills and the new lethal/non-lethal categorization is a massive update compared to what we saw between Wrath and Cataclysm. A rogue's ability to provide utility in a raid environment is being expanded dramatically and has always been a weakness of ours.

The truth is that those changes pale in comparison to the other poison updates due in Mists. While not carrying poisons around in our bags is simply a quality of life change, obtaining new poisons for the first time in years will have a much larger impact. The poison crit system, which has been fundamentally flawed since its inception, is being redone properly. Shiv is actually going to be back on every rogue's hotbar. Poisoning both weapons at once is merely chump change, while the rebirth of random stuns deserves the loudest possible heralding.

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Encrypted Text: Meet your new poisons originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The road to 3,500 haste

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

I love the stat break points in WoW. The idea is that at certain values of a stat like critical strike rating or haste, your character's power improves dramatically due to some complex interaction. Not ever spell scales linearly, and so as you reach certain thresholds, your potency can vary wildly. Holy Radiance's interaction with haste rating is a perfect example. The haste rating we acquire obviously lowers the spell's base cast time, which is how every spell works.

However, at certain values of haste, we can actually cause Holy Radiance's AoE HoT to proc for an additional tick of healing. The extra tick of healing tacks on an extra 10% to 15% healing to each Holy Radiance we cast, dramatically affecting the spell's potency. The problem is that while the first haste break point for HR is easily achievable at 777 haste rating, the next break point requires nearly 3,500 haste rating to achieve.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The road to 3,500 haste originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Rogue poisons dramatically redesigned in Mists of Pandaria

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

Throw out everything you know about rogue poisons. No, we need to go deeper than that. Throw out everything you know about rogues altogether. In the past few days, we've seen more blue posts on the official rogue forums than we'd seen since Cataclysm's launch. Poisons have been at the heart and soul of the rogue kit from day one. Even though parts of the poison system have changed over the years, the general concept has always remained the same.

Let me blow your mind: In Mists, you can have two poisons on each of your weapons at once. Let me do it again: All poison proc rates will be percentage-based. And a third time: Poisons are no longer applied to your individual weapons but to both weapons at once.

What does it even mean to put your poisons on both hands at once? What in the world am I supposed to write this column about if nobody's asking which hand to put Deadly Poison on any more? I'm going to slip and tell some new rogue that IP/DP is the best, and he's going to laugh and call me an old man.

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Encrypted Text: Rogue poisons dramatically redesigned in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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4 major updates for holy paladins in Mists of Pandaria

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Blizzard recently promised to release a flurry of Mists of Pandaria information in March, but apparently it's opened the gates early. The Mists of Pandaria talent calculator and ability list received a massive update this week, giving us new info on the talents and spells that holy paladins can look forward to in Mists. In addition, the Blizzard community managers have been answering questions about the new data at a rapid-fire rate.

Holy paladins have a lot to look forward to in Mists. It's clear that the developers have been looking at our weaknesses as healers, as several of our long-standing issues have been addressed. While we've always had a wide variety of utility abilities, until recently, holy paladins really only had single-target heals at their disposal. With the introduction of the revamped Holy Radiance in late Cataclysm and now the new talent options we'll in Mists, our base healing toolbox is looking more and more complete.

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4 major updates for holy paladins in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: No'Kaled makes its claim for the throne

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

If you're frequenting any of the rogue community sites, you've seen the question: Should I be using No'Kaled? While assassination and subtlety rogues can blindly equip the legendary quest daggers at each stage, combat rogues have to make a decision. As I've said for years, rogues spec for their weapons. You need to round up all of your available weapons, and then mix and match to find the right combination.

There are three different levels of No'Kaled, and there are also three stages of daggers we receive from Wrathion. Between all of these weapons, there are nine different possible combinations that you could have today. Your personal arsenal of weapons is dependent on your Elementium Gem Cluster acquisition rate and your luck with Madness of Deathwing drops, but chances are that you have at least one version of both the quest daggers and No'Kaled.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: No'Kaled makes its claim for the throne

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Encrypted Text: No'Kaled makes its claim for the throne originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: New tools for evaluating holy paladins

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

DPS classes have it easy. Their only goal is to deal more damage than the other guys. Their existence revolves around a single, immutable metric: DPS. There's no ambiguity when comparing two damage classes, as their DPS speaks for itself. As a DPS player's gear and skill improve, it directly increases their damage done, allowing them to evaluate their performance clearly and instantly.

Evaluating a healer is much more difficult. As their group's damage and skill improve, their healing numbers will actually go down. Healers are relied on the most when a raid is attempting a new encounter and gradually become marginalized as the fight moves toward farm status. As a healer, your best HPS performance might be the very first time you down an encounter. If you're killing heroic Ultraxion in four minutes, your raid simply isn't taking enough damage for you to parse highly. In order to properly evaluate a holy paladin's play, you have to dig deeper.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: New tools for evaluating holy paladins

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The Light and How to Swing It: New tools for evaluating holy paladins originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Examining the rogue's assassin ancestry

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

If you start looking into the history of the rogue class, you end up reaching several dead ends. The reason is that a rogue who's easy to track or trace isn't much of a rogue at all. We specialize in disappearing, which makes rogue family trees notoriously difficult to map. Garona Halforcen is often considered to be the mother of the rogue class, executing one of the earliest and most daring acts of assassination and regicide in Azeroth's history.

The truth is that if we want to find our spiritual beginnings, we have to look back even further than Garona and even further away than Azeroth. The true ancestor of today's rogue class first found life eons ago, in another realm, known only as Sanctuary. There, the assassin class stood against the three Prime Evils, defeating the Burning Hell's greatest powers with elegance and subterfuge. The rogues of WoW were inspired by the assassins of Diablo II, and that influence can still be felt today.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: Examining the rogue's assassin ancestry

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Encrypted Text: Examining the rogue's assassin ancestry originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In defense of intellect plate

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST

Continue reading In defense of intellect plate

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

In defense of intellect plate originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Retribution paladin DPS broken after realm restarts [Updated]

(Chase Christian) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:01:00 EST

According to several reports, including the official forums, World of Logs, and several of our own staff, retribution paladins are experiencing a bug after tonight's rolling realm restarts. The bug has retribution paladins dealing several times their normal damage, with new records on World of Logs easily exceeding 100,000 DPS on any given Dragon Soul encounter.

The bug appears to be related to Seal of Truth, as it's dealing over 60% of the affected ret paladins' damage, vastly dwarfing all other sources. The bug seems to be affecting PvP and PvE, as there are many reports of retribution paladins being nigh unstoppable in Battlegrounds tonight. One group of retribution paladins toppled Lord Rhyolith in under 15 seconds.

There has been no official word from Blizzard just yet on these developments, although we can be sure that there will be a change deployed to fix this bug as early as possible.

Reminder from the editors: Do keep in mind that abusing things like this is considered exploitation. Blizzard does have the right to ban you for abusing this if you're using it to bypass content à la our old friend Karatechop. Don't make Blizzard's job harder, and don't risk your account.

Update 10:00 a.m. EST Blizzard is aware of the problem and is looking for a way to solve it. They also issue the same warning we did -- don't exploit this.

Zarhym -- Ret Paladin DPS Bug

We're aware of this issue and looking into it right now. It's likely we won't have further updates for you until we're back in the office in the morning PST.

Just as a reminder from the Terms of Use:

C. Rules Related to Game Play.
(i) Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players.

source

Filed under: Paladin, Bugs

Retribution paladin DPS broken after realm restarts [Updated] originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: My ganking toolbox

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

I love being prepared. I always like having the right tool for the job. My desk at the office is covered with spare parts and manuals, and my junk drawer at home is filled with cables and loose screws. And when I say junk drawer, I mean junk cabinet. I won't throw away something that could be useful later, which has me worried that my next TV appearance will be on Hoarders.

Luckily, I can't be judged for all of the goodies that I keep in my rogue's bags. One of my favorite threads on the official rogue forums is the Ganker's Kit of Ganking. It's a very robust list of items in WoW that can help you kill your targets and avoid being killed yourself. I find that we're usually so focused on our normal gear that we forget about all of the other items in our inventory that can make playing a rogue fun.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: My ganking toolbox

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Encrypted Text: My ganking toolbox originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Nerfing Holy Radiance to the ground

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Paladins haven't always had the most amicable relationship with the community team and developers at Blizzard. Retribution paladins have fought for years with the blues over their perception of being constantly nerfed, which is a nice way to say that ret paladins enjoy playing the victim. Their claims do have some merit, though, as the paladin class has undergone major transformations in nearly every expansion, and not always for the better.

In patch 4.3.2, the developers are handling a few balance issues. Fire mages are being tweaked downward, while hunters should be doing slightly better overall. Oh, and the mana cost of Holy Radiance is going up by 14%. Holy paladins are already complaining on the forums about this nerf, but the truth is that it's irrelevant. Even as Holy Radiance has seen two nerfs in as many patches, it's still an amazing spell. It takes a lot more than a 14% mana cost bump to erase Holy Radiance's dominance.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Nerfing Holy Radiance to the ground

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The Light and How to Swing It: Nerfing Holy Radiance to the ground originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: When your DPS doesn't matter

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

Rogues are all about DPS. You've heard my spiel about us being the only pure melee class, which makes DPS the only thing we bring to the table. SportsCenter can claim that Tim Tebow is a great quarterback, in spite of his shortcomings, because of his "intangible" benefits. Rogues don't have that luxury. If you parse poorly, then you get labeled as a bad rogue.

I was in the Raid Finder last week, and a warrior from another server tried calling me out for using Cloak of Shadows to stay in during Morchok's Black Blood phase. "Hey, that rogue didn't run out, that's not fair," he complained in raid chat. The last time I checked, all is fair in love, war, and the DPS meters.

However, there is one higher calling than DPS, and that is the success of your raid or party. Even though it's against our nature, we occasionally have to sacrifice some of our personal DPS in order to benefit the raid.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: When your DPS doesn't matter

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Encrypted Text: When your DPS doesn't matter originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 essential addons for holy paladins

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Holy paladins have come a long way from the days of five-minute Blessings and WhisperCast. There's a good kind of complexity that comes from being given choices, and there's the bad kind of complexity that comes from busy work. The developers are constantly streamlining the game and removing outdated mechanics, and I can't complain. Even though addons like PallyPower made our lives easier, the new Blessing system is so simple that we don't need any external help to handle it.

Today's holy paladin has different addon needs from the healer of yesteryear. Three of the most important holy paladin addon concerns are unit frames, holy power management, and raid-specific alerts. In Dragon Soul, there are plenty of important things that we need to keep track of. Raid encounters are only going to get more and more complex and chaotic, and we need to be able to quickly get the information we need.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: 3 essential addons for holy paladins

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 essential addons for holy paladins originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: How fast can you get Fangs of the Father?

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

Last week, a rogue obtained the very first pair of legendary daggers, Fangs of the Father. The spelling of the rogue's name is Имбос, and I can only imagine it sounds like the words "borscht" and "gulag" combined, because those are the only two Russian words that I know. You might recognize Имбос's guild, Exorsus, as the guild that achieved the world-first Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider. Thankfully, I can actually pronounce Exorsus. How could one guild win both the Glory achievement and legendary dagger races?

In fact, how could any rogue have obtained the Fangs of the Father when they take eight weeks to acquire, at the very least? If you're keeping track, there have been seven raid lockout periods since patch 4.3 and Dragon Soul were released. If you examine Имбос's armory, you'll notice that there are a combined nine kills of Yor'sahj listed (three normal, six heroic). Lockout resetting is a known issue for progression raiders, but since it hasn't been declared an exploit by Blizzard, there's nothing stopping players from spending some cash to get ahead. I'll be waiting to congratulate the first rogue to acquire Fangs of the Father in a mathematically possible timetable.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: How fast can you get Fangs of the Father?

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Encrypted Text: How fast can you get Fangs of the Father? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: How to compare intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

With Mists of Pandaria coming up on the horizon, many holy paladins are looking ahead to the changes that the expansion will bring. Most of the talent and ability info is still very malleable at this point, and as such, I haven't begun to worry or get excited just yet. One thing that we do know is that in Mists, intellect will finish the transformation that it started in Cataclysm. Intellect is going to become a throughput-only stat, as it will stop increasing our maximum mana.

Today, intellect and longevity are nearly synonymous. Replenishment and Divine Plea are two of our largest mana sources, and they both scale off of our intellect. Most paladins are sporting intellect gems and trinkets, and intellect flasks and food fill up our bags. Holy paladins have been leaning on intellect for a long time due to its versatility, and it seemed like the decision to roll spell power into intellect would permanently ensure intellect's role as our best stat. By decoupling intellect and mana, the developers are changing everything we know about gearing a healer.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: How to compare intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria

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The Light and How to Swing It: How to compare intellect and spirit in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 15 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: The economics of energy capping

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

I'm not an economics expert, and in fact, I never even studied it in college. World of Warcraft is what drove me to stay up late at night reading articles on Wikipedia about game theory and the invisible hand of the market. A plethora of interesting mathematical models are at play in WoW, spanning everything from zero-sum DKP systems to diminishing returns on tanking secondary stats.

Energy capping is a big deal for combat rogues right now, as our shiny Dragon Soul epics have us swimming in more haste than ever before. Both of our current tier set bonuses further exacerbate the issue by reducing our energy expenditure and extending our energy regeneration cooldown. There's an economic solution for the problem that we're facing, and understanding what an opportunity cost is will help us make the right decisions.

Continue reading Encrypted Text: The economics of energy capping

Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text

Encrypted Text: The economics of energy capping originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Examining secondary stats for holy paladins

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

Despite any arguments to the contrary, I don't feel that spirit is a true secondary stat. I know you can reforge in and out of it and that it's not as ubiquitous as intellect, but it's actually closer to being our fifth primary stat. In Mists of Pandaria, intellect will no longer grant additional mana, making spirit the only game in town for improving longevity. Because of the way holy paladins function with the new Judgements of the Pure regeneration mechanic, spirit has gone from a good choice to a must-have stat.

When we start talking about the true secondary stats, we realize that there's a lot of baggage here. Haste rating was the de facto champion due to its ability to affect all of our heals, critical strike rating was avoided after the removal of Illumination, and our master rating has gone through more iterations than any other spell in Cataclysm.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Examining secondary stats for holy paladins originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: How to deftly swap targets

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

There are a lot of names for a simple raid encounter in WoW: tank and spank, churn and burn, rush down, the Raid Finder. In a rogue's perfect world, every raid boss we face would simply be Patchwerk (or two Patchwerks, if you play combat). It's our prerogative to deal the maximum possible damage, and we perform at our best when we can tunnel-vision and focus solely on managing our own energy, abilities, and cooldowns.

In spite of our preferences, bosses in WoW are rarely that simple. No two bosses are exactly alike, and even as we see the developers reusing ideas or abilities, each new fight is different from the last. One of the most common mechanics we deal with in a raid encounter is the addition of extra enemies, or adds. Any time a rogue switches targets, they lose some of their overall damage output. Redirect and Sprint are our two tools to minimize any lost damage, and yet they're woefully underutilized.

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Encrypted Text: How to deftly swap targets originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Remembering our first year of holy power

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

As I looked forward to this year last December, I wasn't sure holy paladins were going to survive 2011 in one piece. We were just learning to adapt to the three-heal model and figuring out how to manage our holy power properly, and I had serious doubts about our AoE healing and mastery bonus. Luckily, I was wrong, and we have thrived in Cataclysm. We started by focusing on our specialty, powerful tank healing, and then expanded to take over the raid healing role as the year progressed.

While holy power and the new healing model were the big topics of early 2011, AoE healing has clearly been the topic that defined this era in holy paladin history. Holy Radiance's first beta version, Healing Hands, was loudly trumpeted when the Cataclysm NDA was lifted. Light of Dawn's struggle to find a place in our arsenal has caused more lines of paladin patch notes than any other ability. Learning to AoE heal has been our biggest challenge this year but also our greatest success.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Remembering our first year of holy power

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The Light and How to Swing It: Remembering our first year of holy power originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Remembering 2011 as the year of the rogue

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here, like how to sneak around wearing a gaudy sweater.

With 2010 fading fast, rogues apprehensively looked forward to Cataclysm and how it would shape 2011. We were the crowned kings of Icecrown Citadel, with armor penetration and attack power as our top stats and both assassination and combat battling for first place. Mutilate rogues still tied down by Hunger for Blood, and combat rogues were spamming Blade Flurry on cooldown for the attack speed increase.

Looking back, we have grown since Wrath. Each of the rogue specs has evolved and found a niche, and even subtlety can make a reasonable claim for a raid spot now. With the massive talent system revamp, the developers struggled initially to balance each spec against the others. Rogues entered into 2011 and Cataclysm with a whimper, as the loss of armor penetration and the conversion of attack power to agility was not as smooth as Blizzard would have hoped.

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Encrypted Text: Remembering 2011 as the year of the rogue originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 5 clever tricks for maximizing your Dragon Soul healing

(Chase Christian) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

If you're a holy paladin with a pulse, there's no reason not to be raiding Dragon Soul. The Raid Finder allows us healers to find groups in minutes, with no strings attached if you have to leave early. The normal versions of the bosses are all accessible for guilds across the spectrum of dedication levels. Healing a raid in Dragon Soul gives you access to the best gear available and provides us with the greatest challenge we can face today.

I was looking at my World of Logs parses from the old days, and I was surprised to see how bad my HPS looked then when compared to more recent parses. The first step in preparing yourself to heal in Dragon Soul is to realize that the instance isn't built like Bastion of Twilight or Firelands. While the Ascendant Council repeatedly punished the raid for clumping and Baleroc crushed our tanks, many fights in Dragon Soul involve tight stacking and tons of AoE healing. Optimizing our AoE healing has become a key to succeeding in Dragon Soul.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: 5 clever tricks for maximizing your Dragon Soul healing

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The Light and How to Swing It: 5 clever tricks for maximizing your Dragon Soul healing originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Encrypted Text: Expanding your collection of rogue resources

(Chase Christian) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here.

While death knights have only been around for a couple of years and retribution paladins are tasked with rediscovering themselves every few months, rogues have remained consistent throughout WoW's entire lifetime. We've obviously received tweaks and changes along the way, but the rogue of today looks an awful lot like the rogue of the past. Over the years, the rogue class has been dissected from every angle, and our studious brothers and sisters of the shadow have discovered its secrets.

There are three main areas of rogue research: mathing out how the class works (and yes, mathing is a verb), picking the right gear, and figuring out the best specific strategies. The best and brightest rogues are constantly monitoring our DPS models to ensure their continual accuracy, compiling lists of the best gear and how to get it, and detailing their guides for dealing with players and raid bosses alike. I can say with a tremendous amount of bias that Encrypted Text is the best source for rogue info, but of course there are other sites that are useful as well.

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Encrypted Text: Expanding your collection of rogue resources originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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