Posts with tag axe

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 have a long history of exploiting weapon speeds for their own gain. The Barman Shanker was farmed by thousands of rogues, becoming a rite of passage in the early rogue community. While its model was unique, nobody farmed it for looks. The Shanker's unusual 2.0 attack speed dramatically improved the damage of our Ambushes and Backstabs, providing us with an amazing amount of burst damage potential.

The slow-is-best phenomenon was cropping up with the other classes as well, and it started to create balance issues. Blizzard countered by introducing a new mechanic, normalization. By adjusting the attack power formula, instant attacks no longer favored slower weapons as heavily as before. Thus began the first of many changes that have led us here to the obsolescence of weapon speeds entirely.

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. Email Chase if you have any questions or want to submit a great screenshot.

If you've been plugged into the rogue community for any length of time, you're familiar with some of the common thoughts that we share as a class. We're all very thankful that Cloak of Shadows is now a 100% immunity to spells, that aggressive min-maxing is part of our culture, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that our most pressing concern is getting Swirly Ball back. I would mention our years of torment waiting for a functional Vanish, but it's working now, and I don't want to jinx it.

We don't always see eye to eye on every detail, though. While I imagine the rogue as a brutal killer, some prefer to think of our class as a group of honorable assassins. One of the most common ideas that I've seen but not understood is the obsession with daggers. I've heard the old standby of "a rogue not wielding a dagger isn't a rogue" a million times, but I just don't get it. Maybe it's combat talking. I even lobbied at BlizzCon for the devs to implement quick off-hand axes and swords, but the request fell on deaf ears. Like it or not, rogue weaponry has evolved.

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. This week, I'll be sharing my report from BlizzCon 2010 for rogues.

As a member of our shadowy brotherhood, my duty to investigate and report on the rogue class is never over. Even though I was enjoying the festivities at BlizzCon 2010 and testing out the new demon hunter class in Diablo 3, I still made time to take care of business. The class Q&A panel is one of the best places to communicate directly with the WoW development team, and so I staked my place in line before the prior panel had even ended.

When my turn finally came, I had to first pay my respects to the developers. I had asked them at the prior year's BlizzCon if we would ever see a Vanish fix implemented, and Ghostcrawler avoided promising anything. Fast-forward a year and we finally have a Vanish that I'm proud to call my own. I opened my time by giving them their much-deserved thanks. I then took the opportunity to ask about something near and dear to my heart: off-hand weapon speeds. Axes and daggers were simply never meant to be used at the same time. Their art styles don't even match!

How would you plate-wearing raiders like your best-in-slot (pre-Shadowmourne) weapon first thing upon stepping into the 25-man version of Icecrown Citadel? If Lady Luck is on your side, it could happen. Bryntroll the Bone Arbiter was, for a few glorious weeks, far and away the best weapon available to death knights and retribution paladins before Shadowmourne and its own Heroic counterpart. Slightly less awesome for warriors, but still pretty amazing. Can you believe it drops from Lord Marrowgar, the first (and probably the easiest) boss in ICC?

Let's talk numbers, shall we?

Name: Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter
Type: Two-Handed Axe
Damage: 801 - 1203 Damage, 294.7 DPS
Speed: 3.40
Attributes:

• 169 Strength
• 161 Stamina
• One red socket and one blue socket
• Chance on hit: Steals 2138 to 2362 life from target enemy.

People who were worried that creating Shadowmourne, the legendary two-handed axe, would be double the grind that Val'anyr was might want to relax a little, as the official WoW Armory just clued us in as to where and how often the Shadowfrost Shards necessary to craft it drop.

As per the quest The Splintered Throne, you're required to collect 60 of the little buggers, and from the site, it appears that they're around a 25-50% drop rate off of all bosses except Arthas in the 25-man version of Icecrown Citadel on normal mode and a 50-100% chance off of the Heroic versions of the same bosses.

All in all, not bad. It'll still be a, well, legendary process to get your axe crafted, but at least you won't need to suffer through awful drop rates to make it happen.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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This is probably my favorite name for an item in the game.

Name: Last Laugh (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Epic One-hand Axe
Damage/Speed: 192-357 / 1.60 (171.6 DPS)
Attributes:

• +37 Strength, +73 Stamina. Interesting -- I don't know if I've ever seen a weapon where the attribute numbers are reversed like that. Probably not done intentionally, but it's an interesting little quirk.

This one's by request this week -- Twitter's own @Random_Tangent recommended it to us. We've done a few Ulduar items lately (we'll have to go phat next week), but here's another nice one.

Name: Stormedge (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Epic Two-hand Axe
Damage/Speed: 594 - 892 / 3.50 (212.3 DPS)
Abilities:

• Um, it's badass?
• +106 Strength, +125 Stamina. Which means this is a straight-up 2h DPS weapon -- the Strength adds a huge damage bonus to Warriors, Death Knights, Feral Druids (edit: well nevermind then), and Paladins by giving them a +212 attack power just from the weapon alone, not to mention other places Strength is used. Shamans also get a buff -- not quite as big, but still nice.

So by now, you've probably heard of Tenris Mirkblood, the Blood Elven vampire boss in Karazhan who is surprisingly generous with his loot, dropping a Vampire Batling for everyone in the raid as well as a very sweet axe by both the musical and weaponry related terms -- Although only one of those, unfortunately.

Tigole answered a few questions about this boss in a recent post on the forums. Tenris will only be around for about 10 days, which is why he's so generous with the bat pets, and the axe is the only other item on his loot table, if you don't count the Badges of Justice.

So what this means, first of all, is that if you haven't managed to get a group to go beat him down, you'll want to do it soon or lose your chance at a pretty cool pet and a pretty cool -- if rather weak -- novelty trinket. In addition, if you weren't lucky enough to win the roll on the Arcanite Ripper on your first try, it looks like you'll only have one more chance at it. Sacrifices to the gods of dice and/or the Gods of Metal, whichever you subscribe to, are recommended.

After a short hiatus last week (due to the Friday evening patch 2.4 mayhem), the phat loot is back, this time with an axe that not only has one of the best names in the game, but can give you a little ranged help as well.

Name: The Decapitator (Wowhead, Thottbot, WowDB)
Type: Epic One-Hand Axe
Damage/Speed: 167-312 / 2.60 (92.1 DPS)
Abilities:

• Improves crit strike rating by 27
• Use: Hurls the axe through the air, directly at a target's head (very "vorpal," if you get that reference). Causes 513-567 damage with a 3 minute cooldown.
• It's a 40-yard range, instant cast, so definitely very nice for pulling. Shows up as a black version of the Paladin's ranged attack.
• And it was rumored that this was counted not as a melee attack, but as a spell. However, players have apparently confirmed that spell damage does not add to it, although we're still not sure if spell crit helps the percentage. Maybe commenters can shed light on that one-- I don't have this one around for testing.
• Bosses, as you may expect, are immune to the throw. But it is pretty easy to put together a macro which will let you use the throw ability to pull, and then switch over to your usual tanking weapon.

How to get it: Pretty simple-- drops from Prince in Karazhan. People are downing him with PUGs nowadays (and odds are your guild, if they're raiding at all, has like three groups clearing it every week), so hope for the 13% percent drop chance to kick in, win the roll (tanks and shammies might be rolling on it, but by now, everyone who wants one probably already has it), and it's all yours.

Getting rid of It: Sells to a vendor for 12g 44s 56c, and disenchants into a Void Crystal. That's all I got-- I guess you could destroy it if you want, but this is the kind of item where the proc would probably come in handy at almost any level. Have a good weekend.

We're having a lootful Friday around here, so I just want to take a quick second to address something that's been going around ye olde internets for the past few weeks.

Grom Hellscream does not have a legendary axe.

Contrary to popular belief, Grom Hellscream's axe does actually drop in the game, and no, it ain't orange. In fact, the name heard to this point -- Grom'ogh, Edge of Hellscream -- isn't even the moniker of the in-game weapon. Instead, our buddy Grom carried around Gorehowl, a regular old epic axe of pretty decent statistics.

Anyway, just a little bit more loot info for you on a Friday evening. The controversy has been settled, the true identity of the axe revealed, yada yada. Now be sure to let my pally and my shammy roll on it.

Blades of Light! In one of the best-loved (and most traveled) instances in the game, you'll find this axe with what might be the most fun proc in the game.

Name: "The" Ravager (it's actually just Ravager, but this weapon is so cool it deserves to be singular)
Type: Rare Two-hand Axe
Damage / Speed: 104-157 / 3.50 (37.3)
Abilities:

• For the down and dirty on today's Phat Loot, we're going straight to Isobelle over at Not Addicted, who says, "Why do I have such a stiffy for this Radiant Shard in Waiting? Take a look at that proc!
  
  Chance on hit: You attack all nearby enemies for 9 sec causing weapon damage plus an additional 5 every 3 sec.
  
  Are you kidding me? ALL NEARBY ENEMIES? Whirlwind hits only four additional enemies, has a ten second cooldown, only works in berserker stance, and has a cost of what some might call "much rage". This thing costs zero rage, works in any stance, and will hit as many enemies as you can get into melee range before it procs." Yeah. She loves it. And we do too.
• The only problem? Whenever it procs, you stand there spinning for the whole nine seconds, whether there are enemies around when you're done or not. We're talking endless entertainment here. Isobelle: "It procs All Day Long. It procs procs, which then proc a proc. We've seen it go 4 times in a row, which can be a good thing, or a bad thing. That's like 20 seconds of whirlwind vortex love (when it re-procs, the 9 second timer resets, so you don't get a full 4x9 out of it), but sometimes you want to turn it off. You can't."
• And Isobelle didn't mention it, but we will: the thing looks darn cool, too. As part of Herod's Scarlet set, it goes especially well with his helm and half-shoulder, too.

How to Get It: No quests, just lots of elite, instanced killing. The Ravager drops from Herod, the last boss in the Armory part of the Scarlet Monastery (to get inside there, you'll need the key from the end of the Library wing, but everyone runs SM all the time, so it's likely someone you know will be able to get you in with or without the key). The drop rate stands at about 12%, which isn't bad, but the fact is that this axe is great for anyone who can use a two-hander, so if you have any other heavy melee classes in your group, it's likely you'll have to win a roll for it.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed yet, Herod yells "Blades of Light!" a lot. Isobelle recommends setting up a macro to /yell that phrase whenever this procs, and we concur.

Getting Rid of It: BOP, Disenchants into a Small Radiant Shard, sells to vendor for 1g 89s 23c.