Posts with tag distract

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 article suggestions or questions you have!

The word "rogue" has several meanings. Some people envision a swashbuckling pirate, deftly wielding two maces and smashing faces in. Others imagine a trained ninja, assassinating marks silently in the night. Many of those with Dungeons & Dragons experience expect rogues to be similar to the thief, sneakily disarming traps and picking locks. I love the rogue class because it has enough versatility to meet all of these stereotypes and more.

Before dungeons were the streamlined "on rails" encounters of today, they were complex and open-ended. There were several paths to victory, and rogues had the ability to use their unique flair to unlock alternate routes. While it's obviously not good for business to have rogues be a pivotal part of every dungeon, it was nice to see our utility actually being utilized. Young rogues today don't get the experience of playing their class outside the box.

Marilyn has an interesting point over at WoW Ladies: if you see her grinding Consortium rep and taking on three mobs at a time in Netherstorm, leave her alone-- it's all under control. I sometimes have this same problem as a resto Shaman-- onlookers don't always realize that even though my health is low and I'm almost out of mana, redemption for me is just a huge heal and a Mana Tide totem away. Things may look bad, but really, don't worry about it-- my Earth Shield just got refreshed, and I'm good to go for two more mobs, so no, I don't need saving.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I really want to discourage people to help in this game-- I'd much rather have them help me fight than really be in trouble and have them /laugh as I die. So I'm not sure I'd tell everyone to lay off.

Rather, the problem here is that when I pull a group of mobs, I don't want someone else stepping in and tagging them away from me in the name of help. So there are plenty of ways to help that don't include stealing my XP-- drop a DoT on something that's been tagged (I do this all the time on my Shadow Priest), or throw me a heal (always appreciated, even if my Mana Tide totem is off cooldown). And just paying attention is nice, too-- nothing burns me more as a Rogue than taking the time to sneak up on a mob, only to have them charged by an overzealous warrior who claims afterwards that they didn't see my Distract go off.

If it's legitimate kill-stealing, the best option is just to ignore and move on to a less populated area-- there's no dealing with those people. But if you do see someone fighting a bunch of mobs solo, there are better ways to help than grabbing one of their kills, and chances are they'll be more than happy to help you the next time around.