View Full Version : Need Rogue Guide info..
Im starting work on the WoW rogue page for the safehouse..
Any and all guides (poison, skills, etc) are welcome to be submitted..
please feel free to post them in this forum or send them to me via email..
you will of course be credited as author.
UPDATE: please submit your guides directly into the article database.
you can find a direct link to the WOW guide section here:
http://www.thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=cat&cat=11
although HTML is enabled within the article submission forms, it is acting funky. I would suggest sticking with BBcode if possible.
Gonna start working on something in the next few days. I'm only level 12, but I think i can come up with some basic stuff.
How about a 1 - 5 guide Thwick. Just a simple wtf am I doing/need to do type of guide would be cool. I'm currently learning game mechanics at this point, next step will be trying out the rogue. Something to smooth the learning curve a bit.
yea level guides would be perfect..
Maybe a "Getting started with Poison making" guide as well.
Lenardo
05-21-04, 11:34 AM
just remember gotta be 20th level to even learn poisons
(i got a 20th rogue, 19th shaman 22nd shaman(current char) & 12th paladin)
Well, as I'd expect everything to change a lot before release, I'd say you don't want a guide to get TOO extensive at this point...here's the just-starting basics, tho.
STATS
WoW characters have 5 stats. Note that Str and Agi can have slightly different effects for different classes. For rogues, stats have the following effects:
Strength - Slightly increases damage; slightly increases chance to block. Rogues can use Buckler-class shields, and in fact, you will certainly be using one up to level 10, when Dual Wield becomes available. Choosing to stay with a Buckler instead of using Dual Wield is certainly a valid decision, if an unusual one - see Dual Wield below for more information.
Agility - Slightly increases damage. Increases chance to dodge. Currently, Agi and Str provide the same damage increase point-for-point; I'd bet this will change to favor Agi in the future.
Stamina - Increases HP, and gives a decent amount per point.
Intelligence - Currently does nothing for rogues.
Spirit - Increases HP regen rate.
Increasing stats
Stats are shown with both a level and a cap, eg. "Stamina 23/28". You will begin with all of your stats filled up to their caps. As you gain levels, your stat caps will rise automatically, but your stats themselves will not; you must use skill points to increase your actual stats (which can be done right from your character information screen, no trainer required). Equipment and buffs can raise your stats additionally; the caps are only limits on how much you can train.
When you kill a mob you gain both base XP and bonus rest-state XP; the rest-state XP is currently being tweaked but as it stands now, you begin at a 100% XP bonus and drop down to a penalty over time. The rest state takes quite a long time to drop at low levels, so when you first start, you'll typically be gaining around 75 (base) +75 (rest-state bonus) XP per kill. For every 300 base XP, you gain a skill point, and you must use these skill points to increase stats, as well as learn tradeskills, gathering skills, and new abilities. Skill points used to increase stats and learn abilities are permanently used. Tradeskills and gathering skills can be "unlearned" to recover the skill points used. At higher levels you will be gaining skill points quickly enough to keep your stats maxxed, abilities learned, and a handfull of tradeskills; however, at lower levels you will need to choose whether to increase stats or start a tradeskill. Personally, I would recommend keeping Agility and Stamina maxxed at all times.
SKILLS
Rogue skills are divided into several different skill trees, and using any skill will increase your rating in that tree (with the exception of Stealth; see below). Rogue skill trees include:
Street Fighting - Most of your use-anytime combat abilities fall under this tree, including Sinister Strike, which you begin with.
Assassination - Most finishing moves and use-from-stealth moves fall under this tree. You will begin with Eviscerate.
Stealth - You become translucent, move at 50% speed, and become much harder for mobs to detect. Mob detection is not just a simple matter of sees/doesn't-see, but is instead based on your position and movement. Mobs have a much higher chance to notice you if you approach from the front, and the smart rogue will sneak from the side or back whenever possible. More below.
Pickpocket - Steal items from humanoid mobs. Note that pickpocket pools and normal loot pools are independant; pickpocketing mobs does not hurt your fellow players in any way.
Poisons - Rogues can eventually mix poisons, at slightly higher levels (begins at 20th). I haven't made L20 yet so can't speak too much about poisons; however, you can essentially add snare, DD, and DoT procs to your (and other people's!) weapons.
STARTING AS A ROGUE
You will begin with a dagger, a few pieces of junky armor, and a handfull of skills: Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and Stealth. Looking up at your portrait in the corner, you will see your HP bar, and your Energy bar below it. Your Energy is expressed in percentages, not fixed numbers; you will always have 100% Energy and the bar will never increase at any level. Using most any of your combat moves costs some Energy, and Energy refills very quickly over time - it only takes maybe 20 seconds to go from 0 - 100%. Learning the Energy cost of your skills versus the time you have to wait in-combat to use another move will come fairly quickly, and you will soon discover patterns that work well for you personally.
When you select any target, their portrait will appear just to the right of yours, and will give their level, HP bar, and Energy/Mana/Rage bars as appropriate. Select a level 1 or 2 mob, move up to it, turn attack on, and then use Sinister Strike. You will perform a normal melee attack, and then immediately add the Sinister Strike as well, which causes a few more points of damage. More importantly, you will see a column of 5 bubbles appear on the side of the mob's portrait, and the top bubble will be lit up.
These bubbles represent your combo meter. Any of your combat moves classified as "Opening Moves" will award you Combo Points if they land successfully, and if you hover the mouse cursor over the Sinister Strike icon in your abilities window the description will indeed include "Adds one combo point". Generally, abilities will add 1 point, tho some add 2 at higher levels. Combat moves classified as "Finishing Moves" require both Energy and Combo Points to use, and will all have greater effects when the combo meter is higher.
Now that your combo meter has 1 bubble, you can use Eviscerate, which will give you another instant hit with a damage bonus. On the other hand, you could Sinister Strike again, which would give you an instant hit and another Combo Point, which would then let you use a 2-bubble Eviscerate for higher damage. Decisions, decisions! The way you decide to use Opening and Finishing moves will drastically impact your fights, and knowing your skills well will allow you to take higher-level mobs without much trouble - on the other hand, using moves willy-nilly may very quickly lead to a dirt nap and a corpse recovery.
For example: "Why use Eviscerate," you ask, "when I can just keep Sinister Striking and not worry about Combo Points?" Well, let's take a quick look at some numbers. Sinister Strike uses 45% Energy, and performs a melee hit with about 4 extra damage. Eviscerate uses only 35% Energy and performs a melee his with about 8 extra damage - and that's only for one bubble! Two bubbles would add 13 damage, three bubbles would add 18 damage, four bubbles would add 23 damage, and a full five-bubble combo meter's worth would add 28 damage - but that means you need to fill the combo meter first, which means you would have to land 5 Sinister Strikes at 45% Energy, which means you have to dump your entire energy bar almost 2.5 times...which can be an awfully long time to be fighting, sometimes! Getting a feel for when to build combo points and when to burn them doesn't take long, tho.
Personally, I found myself fighting humanoid mobs quite a lot, all of which will attempt to run away. I often used Eviscerate to quickly drop them down from low-hp-and-running to dead before they could cause much havoc, so fighting for me at lower levels was something like: Attack, Sinister Strike, Sinister Strike (down to 10% Energy), normal melee attacks for a few moments (up to ~75% Energy), Sinister Strike (down to ~30% Energy), Eviscerate.
Stealth
Beyond your melee abilities, you will also begin with Stealth. When you click Stealth, you'll notice a few things right away: you become somewhat translucent, you move more slowly, and your hotkeys have all disappeared! Relax; Stealth actually has its own dedicated hotkey bar completely above and beyond the normal 6 bars you can use. This way, you can put any abilities which require Stealth on their own bar, which will be automatically switched to when you're Stealthed, without cluttering up your normal hotkey bank. One thing that is fairly useful is to set the actual Stealth ability to the same number on both your normal and Stealthed hotkey bars - this will allow you to both Stealth and Unstealth with the same key.
While Stealthed, most mobs will generally not notice you. If a mob detects you, several things happen in stages. First, the mob will stop moving and their head will turn to look in your direction. If you move towards them their chance of detecting you will increase quickly; if you freeze or try to move out of their line of sight they will hopefully look around for a moment and then go back to whatever they were doing. Approaching a mob from the front gives it a fairly large chance to notice you, whereas approaching from the side or back makes your odds better and better. Additionally, the level difference between you and the mob looking for you plays a role. Unlike all other skills which have a chance to increase every time you click them, Stealth increases by pushing your luck and learning from it: you need to move near an aggressive target while stealthed until they spin to look for you, and while they are looking, you have a chance for skill increases.
At first, Stealth won't do too much for you. At level 4, however, you can learn both Pickpocket and Backstab from your trainer, and good Stealth skills suddenly become much more important! Pickpocket, as mentioned earlier, gives you a chance to grab items from a mob that will not otherwise drop, and you must be in Stealth mode to use the skill. Failing to pickpocket will cause your target to attack you, so be sure to Pickpocket all the time as you level to keep your skill up!
Backstab is an Opening Move which requires you to be behind the target. Note that backstab does NOT require you to be stealthed; however, you obviously can't use it on aggressive targets while visible, as they'll hardly be willing to sit still while you move behind them. Backstab uses 60% Energy, and gives you a melee hit at 150% of normal damage with an extra 15 damage tacked on, and awards 1 Combo Point. When soloing you will typically open with a Backstab so that you can begin the fight with a good hit and a Combo Point; when in groups you can sometimes Backstab a single target several times. You can also try to Backstab a fleeing target, but the 60% Energy cost often makes it easier to use an Eviscerate instead for 35% Energy - assuming you have a Combo Point for it. You'll find it handy to put Backstab on both your normal and Stealthed hotkey bars.
You will get Gouge at level 6 (or so?), which you will quickly fall in love with. Gouge is an Opening Move which costs 45% Energy. Gouge must be used from the front of a mob. Unlike Sinister Strike which gives you a free melee attack with a damage bonus, Gouge only hits for a flat 10 damage - but then dazes the mob for 4 seconds. This is NOT a stun, as any damage will break the daze, but conveniently enough if you land a Gouge you will automatically have attack turned off. This gives you 4 seconds of breathing time to recover a few ticks of Energy, use a Bandage without interruption, whatever you like - the time to recover Energy without being pounded on can be invaluable. Gouge does have a couple-second cooldown, so you can't spam it. You can also use Gouge for silly tricks like Backstabbing in-combat - wait for 100% Energy, Gouge (drops you to 55%), wait a moment for one more tick, then run through the mob and quickly Backstab before the daze breaks.
That's the first couple levels and basic gameplay in a nutshell. All numbers should be right but may be wrong - writing from work off the top of my head. ;p
Edits: Updated Agility stat description; fixed some typos.
Well, looks like you've definitely got it covered there. I haven't been playing for all that long, i'll see what I can add in there later.[/b]
Excellent berael. Just what I needed to jump in with both feet. Hopefully by the time the weekend is over, I can give some input myself.
Edit: Please note that his tip on Sinister Strike and Eviscerate immediately got me into this game's combat. Excellent tip.
Quick question on the Stealth however. How do you trigger Pickpocket or Backstab when the controls are locked out? I managed pickpocket by bringing up the abilities page (i). Couldn't figure out any other way. Numerical hotkeys didn't seem to work.
Llabak Tharr
05-22-04, 05:41 AM
The stealth hotkeybar is its own separate one that you can add abilities to. My stealth hotkeybar has backstab, pickpocket, throw and destealth on it.
Definitely visit your trainer every level. I forgot all about going to see my trainer until like level 4 and I had missed picking up a few skills that would have helped me.
Explore as much as possible, the world is amazing. It reminds me a lot of my time at the beginning of EQ when you wanted to see all there was, and trust me, in this game, there is a ton to see.
Quest, find as many quests as you can and do them all. They're a blast, even though most are collection quests or killing a certain amount of monsters, they're a great boost to exp and have some of the best rewards.
Exclaimation Points:
Green: Gryphon Trainers, right click on these guys and you open up a new spot to ride the Gryphons to.
Gold: These guys have quests ready for you, right click and they'll give it to you.
Silver: These guys will have quests for you in 1-3 levels, I believe.
Gold Question Mark: NPC is waiting for you to get back to him.
Travelling: To me, it seems a ton faster to repeatedly jump instead of run. If you jump and then when you are about to hit the ground, jump again, you can jump continously. You seem to be able to move faster than normal, I can outrun enemies this way without having to use Sprint or anything like that. And even if it's not as fast, you'll still see Thwick the Hopping Rogue jumping around the world, it's just more fun to travel that way.
Sap (learned at 10 or 11): Only usuable on Humanoids and from Stealth. In addition, it seems the monster cannot already be in combat, so if he's wailing on your buddy you can't sap him to knock him out for a bit. It's an amazing skill, and it has so many uses outside of mezzing one guy to finish another guy off. Is your copper vein located right near a camp, close enough to aggro one guy, Sap him, mine twice, stealth and sap again, and finish off the vein. Or is there a treasure chest that you want to loot, but you'll get clobbered if you try, Sap the baddie, then loot and run off. But be aware, Sap does generate aggro so after the NPC wakes up, he'll be coming for ya.
Tradeskilling: A lot has been said about this in other threads, but for any rogue the best thing I can tell you, for those who will be doing one, pick up a gathering skill as early as possible, you'll see so many uses of it go to waste if you wait until around 9 or 10 when I finally picked up skinning. I could have made a lot more leather goods if I had gotten it around level 5 or 6.
As already said, when stealthed a separate hotkey bar comes up, it'd be smart to put Pick Pocket, Backstab, Sap(when you get it), Stealth(to get out of it quickly, just in case), and throwing.
Speaking of throwing, it's not as bad as you may think. The weapons are cheap in price and don't do bad damage at all. In your first few levels you can get in 2 throws before the monster gets to you, and get about 14 damage on them, and it'll scale up from there. Also, as long as the target was in your range when you first hit throwing, it will still get them, even if they move out of range.
Throwing doesn't do much damage, but is really nice for pulling, and relatively convenient since throwing daggers come pre-stacked by the hundred.
As far as visitting your trainer goes, you will generally get something on every even-numbered level. The trainer you begin at or near typically only has a handful of skills, however; you may have to go to a nearby town to find a full skill trainer. Many of the skills you can learn are simply upgrades to existing skills, fr'ex Sinister Strike II instead of Sinister Strike. Note that, unlike for casting classes where their spells increase in cast time and mana cost for every rank, a rogue's combat moves have the same Energy cost throughout the skill tree, so you always want to buy the highest rank of skills available.
Travelling: You don't go any faster jumping that I can tell (and you indeed appear to go more slowly if you are jumping uphill), but you will typically outrun a mob just by running, and all mobs will lose interest in you after a few moments. Your trains can aggro other people though, so be courteous.
You will eventually get several "panic buttons", with two of them coming relatively early - Sprint and Evasion. Evasion increases your chance to dodge by 50% for 30 seconds; Sprint increases your run speed for 15 seconds. Both have only 5 minute cooldowns. Evasion, if used in combination with Alchemy, can allow you to take on 2-3 mobs that are 1-2 levels higher than you and have a good chance of winning - especially if you're good with timing Gouges. Why Alchemy? Well, at even the bare starting levels you can make a minor healing potion which restores ~80HP instantly, as opposed to the several-second use time of First Aid's crafted bandages. At slightly higher levels you can make AC buff potions as well. I would strongly, strongly recommend taking up both Herbcraft (necessary for gathering components) and Alchemy as soon as you have 15 free skill points left over after capping Agility and Stamina.
Once you learn Herbcraft, you will get an ability which will cause pickable bushes to show up as bright yellow dots on your mini-map for 3 minutes. You will want to have this active at all times; note that using it will not break stealth so you can put it on both your normal and Stealthed action bars. Bushes will typically be in or near aggressive mobs, so you'll be making xp as you track down your herbs. The minor healing potions require two very common herbs and one vial each; the vials are available from various Herbcraft and Tradeskill vendors and stack up to 20. If worse comes to worst and you decide you don't like Herbcraft and Alchemy after all, simply go to your skill page, select them, and Unlearn them to recover the skill points. Note that if you re-learn them in the future, you will be back at 0 skill again.
Between keeping yourself stocked in potions, having Evasion to pump your dodge rate up, having Gouge to buy yourself a few free rounds, and being able to flat-out run away, you'll find that you will have a fun and rewarding solo career.
Wife is poking me to go to Best Buy - more later as I think about it.
Whups - said earlier I would get into Dual Wield a lil.
At level 10, Dual Wield becomes available to learn on your skills list page. Dual Wield costs 30 skill points to learn, is not unlearnable, and allows you to wield weapons classified as One-Hand in your offhand. Note that there is a difference between Main-Hand and One-Hand weapons; Main-Hand is primary only; One-Hand can be wielded primary or offhand. There is a damage reduction on your offhand weapon and it does not appear to swing every round - the devs have stated that the intention (for now, at least) is to have both Twohand weapons and using Dual-wielded weapons give about a 40% damage increase over a single one-hand weapon.
Obviously, most people will jump at the chance for a 40% damage increase and use Dual Wield as soon as possible. However, rogues do have proficiency in using Buckler-class shields which, while they are the smallest shields in the game, do have relatively large AC values and give a chance to block. When you block a hit in WoW you mitigate the damage; being hit for 12 but blocking 10 of it is not uncommon, fr'ex. It is a perfectly valid decision as a rogue to use only a single weapon with a shield to improve your survival odds, although you would obviously be in the minority. Beyond dropping down by roughly 40% damage, you will also need to keep your Strength trained to cap to improve your block chance, which will use skill points that could otherwise be used towards tradeskills. On the other hand, Strength does increase your damage rating, so it's not like you're hurting yourself by training it...
Since you will be using a shield until level 10 one way or another, you'll have plenty of time to see the difference with and without. I suggest that you be smarter than I was, and have 30 points saved up for when you ding to level 10. I didn't realize that Dual Wield had a point cost so I was almost level 12 before I could afford it. ;p (Yes, I could have un-learned Herbcraft and Alchemy for 15 quick points back, but I had invested time into them and I was stubborn).
Aside from Dual Wield, rogues can learn many other weapon types. You will begin knowing how to use Daggers and Thrown weapons; you can purchase the ability to use Swords (30 points), Maces (30 points), Guns (100 points), Crossbows (100 points), Bows (100 points), and Unarmed fighting (30 points). All of these are non-refundable values. Backstab does specifically require that you be wielding a Dagger in your main hand, so if you decide to use another weapon type, keep in mind that even if it has a higher DPS rating your damage output may potentially suffer depending on how important Backstab is to your playstyle.
There is an Opening Move called Garotte which you learn eventually that can partially replace Backstabs; Garotte I (50 Energy) causes 108 damage over 18 seconds, while Backstab II (60 Energy) does 150% normal damage plus 30. As most of my Backstabs are 50-ish damage, you can see where swapping a dagger for a higher-DPS sword and using Garotte would be advantageous - except that Garotte requires you to be both Stealthed and behind the target, while Backstab only requires you to be behind the target; therefore, you can only Garotte once. Again - decisions, decisions! Especially once the Talent system is implemented, there will be several different "builds" of rogues, lending a lot of flexibility and ability to pick your own playstyle.
Caution: As Arafain fully explains here (http://forums.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?t=10114), wielding any non-dagger weapon in either hand leads to many things breaking - I expect this will be fixed, but be aware that flakiness abounds for now.
Questions that I know I could use answered:
1. Explain in a little more detail how the skill point system works. (Where the points should go, what is going to raise by it's self, whats essential to buy, etc.)
2. How do the different crafts fit into a rogue's progression? (Poison, Alchemy, Tanning, Engineering, etc.) I don't know if I should be spending those points to be an herbalist to work on alchemy, or if I should save up for poison (it costs skill points right?) and engineering (for lockpicking?)
3. How much DO the alternate abilities of a rogue (Lockpicking, pickpocket) come into play? Are there quests that should be avoided? Are there quest that every rogue should do?
4. Whats the best way to aquire equipment? Is player made, dropped, bought, or quested equipment where I need to be looking for upgrades?
These are just some suggestions of questions who's answers might go in the guide.
1. Explain in a little more detail how the skill point system works. (Where the points should go, what is going to raise by it's self, whats essential to buy, etc.) If you open up your skill page ("Skills" tab from the inventory window), you will see a list of stats, skills, weapon proficiencies, and armor proficiencies.
Stats: Stats can be increased up to their current caps by using skill points permanently. Stat caps are level-based and the caps will automatically increase as you level; actual stat scores only increase when purchased. You may begin with, say, Strength 21/21 - your stat is capped, and you can not purchase any more. If you don't train it at all then by level 10 you may be at Strength 21/30 - your stat is now below cap, and you can purchase up to 9 more points if you wish.
As best as I can understand the stat cost system: The cost to purchase stats varies based on that stat's priority for your class and your current level. Priorities are pre-determined by class; not being at my computer currently I think that for rogues Agility is primary (green), Strength and Stamina are secondary (yellow), and Int and Spirit are tertiary (red). This means that to begin with, 1 Agi would cost 1 skill point, 1 Strength would cost 2 skill points, and 1 Spirit would cost 3 skill points. After you put several points into Agi it will eventually start to cost 2 skill points per, then 3, etc, as the stat gets higher and higher.
Skills: Skills increase automatically and do not require skill points to raise their level. Skills include your class's abilities, such as Assassination and Street Fighting for Rogues, Ice Magic and Arcane Magic for Mages, etc. Skills are capped at 5*Level. All skills begin at 1, and by and large increase with use - you will start the game with Assassination 1/5, and have chances to get a skillup any time you use an Assassination skill. Stealth is one semi-exception in that skillups are gained by being noticed while Stealthed; simply using it and never being noticed will not get you increases. Class-based skills are obtained by purchasing them for money from a trainer once you get to the appropriate level.
Skills also include both tradeskills and gathering skills, such as Smithing (tradeskill) and Mining (gathering skill). Tradeskills and gathering skills are obtained by learning them from a skill-specific trainer and do require skill points - learning a new tradeskill costs 5 skill points, and learning a new gathering skill costs 10 skill points. Both tradeskills and gathering skills ARE refundable, and you can "unlearn" them at any time which causes you to lose the skill and regain the skill points you used. Trade- and gathering skills are both capped by rank. When you very first learn one you are Apprentice, which puts you at 1/75. Once you reach 75 skill you must go back to the trainer and purchase Journeyman, which costs (...50? not certain) skill points and allows you to reach up to (...150? not certain) skill.
Weapon proficiencies: These begin at 1 and are capped by 5*Level, and increase with use. Rogues will begin with Dagger 1/5 and have a chance for a skillup every time you swing. Weapon proficiencies that are greyed out can be purchased by using skill points permanently; any weapon type not listed can not be used by your class. You can purchase these right from the skill list, no trainer is needed.
Armor proficiencies: These are pre-determined by class, do not have any levels or points, and can not be changed or purchased. Rogues can wear Cloth armor, Leather armor, and Bucklers.
2. How do the different crafts fit into a rogue's progression? (Poison, Alchemy, Tanning, Engineering, etc.) I don't know if I should be spending those points to be an herbalist to work on alchemy, or if I should save up for poison (it costs skill points right?) and engineering (for lockpicking?) Since both tradeskills and gathering skills are un-learnable, there's no harm in picking them up just to play with as you go. Personally I began with Mining and Smithing so that I could make Copper Daggers for myself, un-learned both of those when I decided I would just purchase from other players, then put the points back in to learning Herbcraft and Alchemy. You do not HAVE to take up gathering skills; however, since tradeskills require gathered components it's silly not to - being an ass-kickingly great smith doesn't do you much good when you can't get your hands on any metal (of course, you could always purchase metal from players who have Mining but not Smithing, but taking up a gathering skill without a tradeskill is equally rare). If you're patient, it is possible to take up a gathering skill exclusively to sell the components to other players, however your market may be slim since most traders gather their own pieces.
As far as progression goes, I very very highly recommend using your skill points to keep both Agility and Stamina capped for your level, and saving the rest. Once you have 15 spare points saved up, learn both Herbalism and Alchemy; you will find that minor healing potions are quick and easy to make and will help you enormously. Beyond that, continue keeping your stats capped, and then you can fiddle around with other tradeskills as you have extra points to spend...just un-learn anything you decide not to follow through with.
I can't speak to poison, not having made L20 yet. I don't have lockpicking yet either, but there seem to be plenty of engineers out there selling practice locks (which are unfortunately single-use; hoping to see that change).
3. How much DO the alternate abilities of a rogue (Lockpicking, pickpocket) come into play? Are there quests that should be avoided? Are there quest that every rogue should do? Pickpocketting is extremely useful in keeping your purse filled; since pickpocket loot comes from a different pool, either you steal it or it poofs - no reason to let it poof! You can also potentially steal relatively valuable tradeskill components, although getting a few coppers is much more typical. All humanoid mobs can be pickpocketted and it does not break stealth, so you can pickpocket before you start fighting. I can't speak to lockpicking yet as I haven't learned it, but I gather that currently it's mediocre since mages can unlock the same chests via a spell which doesn't need to be practiced and trained up.
I have not yet found any quest that I regretted doing, since the XP rewards are always very nice. Even for a quest that has no usable rewards, you can pick an unusable reward and sell it to a merchant. Quests will frequently send you to an area with lots of nice XP mobs, and the lore and story is a lot of fun. A great quest to look for: at level 10, you get a quest for a majorly kick-ass dagger from your guildmaster...be sure not to miss this one! The human version is particularly fun and involves sneaking past a guard patrol to steal a list from a mob without him noticing you.
4. Whats the best way to aquire equipment? Is player made, dropped, bought, or quested equipment where I need to be looking for upgrades?So far, a combination of quest rewards and random drops has kept me happily geared without any complaints. I have seen several tradeskill-crafted items for sale which would be upgrades but haven't felt a huge need to buy any yet.
I have added a WoW guide section to the article manager. See the firrst post in this thread for the link.
You can submit them directly there..
Authors should be able to edit once the article is published. You may want to wait until you have a semi organized guide so it looks clean within the article manager.
Thanks guys.. Good stuff here..
bereal,,
I have added your guide info into a gaming guide in the article manager..
http://www.thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=15
you should be able to edit it.
Here's my attempt at a beginner's guide to poison.
Disclaimer:
It's still beta so anything is subject(and likely!) to change. I'm also far from an expert on the subject being only level 29. Feel free to post any corrections.
Intro:
At level 20, rogues can learn the Poisons skill from any rogue trainer(except the newbie ones, which only have up to level 6 abilities...). Poisons adds some additional utility to the class as well as potential to do more damage. It's also good, clean rogue-ish fun ;)
Basics:
As mentioned above, Rogues cannot learn the Poisons skill until they achieve level 20. At that point you can go to your favorite rogue trainer and learn the skill for the low price of 30 silver.
When you first learn the skill, the Poisons ability will be added to your Abilities screen. Simply drag it to an empty slot on your hotbar and click it to bring up a list of your recipes(alternately, you can simply right-click the ability on your Abilities page).
Each recipe is color-coded, and the various colors correspond to how lilkely you are to get a skill increas for making that poison. Grey means the poison is trivial, green means it's easy(and therefore you'll likely not learn anything new from making it), yellow is average(a pretty good chance of gaining a skill increase), and orange is difficult(you'll almost always gain skill).
When you click on a recipe, the ingredients needed will be displayed below the recipe list. Each ingredient's icon will show you how many you have, and how many you need.
Getting Started:
Your trainer is kind enough to supply you with two recipes to get you started: Instant Poison(Rank 1) and Crippling Poison(Rank 1). The former requires 1 Empty Vial and 1 Dust of Decay, and the latter requires 1 Empty Vial and 1 Essence of Pain. All of these components can be purchased from suppliers usually found near trainers(Shady Dealers, and such) for low prices.
Once you have the necessary ingredients, you select the poison you want to make and then click the create button. You will fiddle around with some vials for a moment, and then the poison will appear in your inventory. Each poison can be put into stacks of 10. You will also likely gain an increase in your Poisons skill.
Your number of points in the Poisons skill determines which poisons you can learn, as well as the difficulty(and thus chance of getting a skill increase) of making a poison. It has no effect on how powerful your poison is... A Rank 1 Instant Poison will always do the same range of damage, whether your skill is 1 or 100.
Like other tradeskills, you do not lose anything for failing to make a poison. In fact, I've never failed at making a poison period.
To use the poison, open up your character screen, right click the poison, and then click on the weapon you wish to apply it to. You're now ready to poison your opponents. You can also poison other people's weapons for them. Have them place the weapon they want poisoned in the trade window, right click the poison you want to apply, and the click on their weapon. You both need to accept the trade at this point, or the poison will not go onto their weapon. As a note, after you apply the poison, the perspn can mouse-over the weapon and see a message similiar to "Item will not be traded" as well as a description of the poison.
Ingredients:
Every Poison requires a container -- either an Empty Vial(low level, costing 2 copper each), or a Leaded Vial(higher level, and costing 20 copper each). These can be purchased from numerous sources... Your rogue supplier is always a good choice, but Alchemists and General Trades Suppliers and Reagent Vendors also carry them. Higher level poisons may require alternate containers as well. Both types of vials can be stored as stacks of 20.
You'll also need the noxious ingredients that make up the poison iteself. For your two starting poisons, you'll need Dust of Decay and Essence of Pain. These are sold at your Rogue Supplier for 20 and 50 copper respectively.
Some other components that are available at your rogue vendor are:
Tomb Rot(10c), Lethargy Root(40c), Deathweed(10s), Maiden's Anguish(1s), Torment Vine(2s) and Tomb Dust(5s).
It's been said that alchemy/herbalism will play a role in higher level Poisoning, so expect to see some ingredients from those skills as well.
Some components can be found on your enemies. Tomb Dust for example can be found on some of the ghouls in the Ravenhill Cemetary in Duskwood.
Each ingredient I've encountered goes into stacks of 20.
The Poisons:
I've only have access to 3 poisons so far... Instant, Crippling and Mind-Numbing. These ones all last for 30 minutes once applied to a weapon, though some of them have charges... If a poison had 10 charges, it would fade from your weapon after working 10 times.
Instant(Rank 1): 1 Dust of Decay, 1 Empty Vial. This poison has a 20% chance of doing 22-28 points of damage on a successful hit. It has 40 charges. Goes up to Rank 3.
Instant (Rank 2): Requires level 28, and 140 Poisons skill. 2 Dust of Decay, 1 Leaded Vial. Identical to Rank 1, except it does 31-41 damage, and has 60 charges.
I honestly don't use this that often... It's instant, one time damage(as the name suggests), not a DoT(damage over time).
Crippling Poison(Rank 1): 1 Essence of Pain, 1 Empty Vial. This poison has a 30% chance of effecting the enemy with every successful hit. Enemies who fall prey to it have their movement speed reduced by 70%. This poison doesn't have charges, so it will last for the full 30 minutes.
I use this all the time(unless what I'm fighting doesn't run). Stopping runners makes the life of a solo rogue a lot less stressful. It's also a huge boon to our group, especially in cramped dungeons, or other crowded areas with lots of hostile mobs.
Mind-numbing Poison(Rank 1): 1 Dust of Decay, 1 Essence of Pain, 1 Empty Vial. Has a 20% chance per hit of effecting your target. On a successful affliction, your enemy's casting time is increased by 70% for 10 seconds. It has 60 charges. Goes up to Rank 2.
I don't consider this all that useful for general PvE play. Rogues are already great against casters because we have several stuns at our disposal which interrupt spellcasting. We also do fast damage, and mages have few hit points so they go down pretty quickly. That said, I'm sure it will be great for PvP, and for high-HP boss casters, and healers.
There are two other poison types that I don't have access to at the moment... Deadly, and Blinding Powder. I'm assuming Deadly is going to be a damage over time effect. Blinding Powder is the componet used for your Vanish ability.
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There's more I could say, but I dont have time at the moment. Let me know if this is useful/informative. Also post any questions you might have, and feel free to ask for further clarification if I was clear in some areas.
ShadowCross
06-22-04, 11:18 PM
Just a FYI: Almost all of the info in this topic concerning skills & skill points isn't valid anymore...
- weaponskills can be unlearned now (both stuff like Swords etc and Dual Wield)
- stats can't be increased by skill points anymore
- most skills auto-train with leveling
Yeah, I know. Been utterly swamped at work and barely been checking SH, much less logging in. Will try to update when I can. ;p
Finneus
07-06-04, 05:20 PM
Is Poison Making still learned from the rogue trainer? I hit 20 and it wasn't on the list. I'd heard people mention there was a quest to teach you somewhere but they knew no details.
ghrey_the_grim
07-07-04, 12:18 PM
Alliance level 20 rogue quest starting with Matthias Shaw in Stormwind gives you poison skill at the end of it.
Can't tell you about Horde :(
AzmirFV
09-13-04, 03:54 AM
For the Horde, to get poisons, have to visit rogue trainer in Ogrimmar (orc capital)
He sends you on a level 24 Elite quest to finish it, luckily, I had a lot of friends who were higher than that to help me get it earlier.
The quest was pretty cool though, had to learn a secret salute, go to an aggressive level 35 guy, shoot flares in the sky to let him know that a friendly is approaching (he then turned yellow(neutral) and then I had to go to him and do the secret salute which turned him green(friendly), gave me some info on what I needed to do.....
The quest was to pickpocket someone for a tower key, go in the tower, kill the boss's bodyguards and assassinate the box, lockpick his chest and steal an item to bring back for examination :P all in all, very well designed.
Here's a pic of the completed path and one damn happy rogue
http://img9.imgspot.com/u/04/256/11/Azpoisons.jpg
can do it solo at 20. just have to stealth up and open the chest after you steal the key.
same quest as the alliance side it sounds like.
I completely rewrote the Rogue information to account for all the changes made, and submitted it as an entirely new article. Left the old one for now, though we'll probably want to delete it. The rewritten version should be up soon, I'd imagine.
Thanks berael.
Bah, but it's not up yet.
Updated guide is up (http://www.thesafehouse.org/kb.php?mode=article&k=45). Hope it helps.
Llabak Tharr
12-05-04, 06:16 AM
Great job berael!
Edit - unstickeying and locking this thread since there's a lot of old info in here and we don't want people getting confused.