Intro Post

This is my new blog to post about my World of Warcraft activities. The name of the blog is a reference to the Mutilate animation for rogues, which I've always thought was an expression of the rogue's desire to hug his or her enemies, conflicting with the refusal to drop the shiny stabby things they love so much.

My main toon is Aidnan, a dwarf Assassination rogue that I am currently gearing up through Trial of the Crusader . I have a ways to go, as I had previously retired the character during a time where I felt like everyone hated rogues on principle, and was never able to get into any groups. Fortunately I'm in a good guild now that values inclusiveness, so I'm getting to see a lot of content finally. Plus all that bias seems to have gone away now that rogues are in a better place, mechanics-wise.

My only other Level 80 toon is Kraellu, a draenei warrior who I levelled as Protection, and farmed heroics until I ran out of stuff to do outside of raiding. Unfortunately, most people are much more demanding of the gear that tanks wear than the DPS, and the guild I'm in already has way more overgeared tanks than we need, so I switched to Arms. But then it occurred to me that if I was just going to be gearing up for melee DPS, I might as well go back to my rogue who was better geared already. So Kraellu doesn't get a lot of action right now unless someone needs a tank for a heroic.

I have a few other alts that I'm working on right now, including a Balance druid in the 30s, and a soon-to-be Protection paladin in his teens, that I plan to level cap at 60. But my main focus is playing my rogue, with the Assassination spec, which I think is the most fun out of the three possibilities, with the class that I enjoy the most. For now, anyway.

Rogues are in a good place these days, as evidenced by the patch notes for Patch 3.3 - that is to say, there's almost nothing being done with Rogues, which everyone pretty much agrees means Blizzard is happy with them for the moment. I do wish there was a bit more balance between high DPS and survivability - if Subtlety was a viable raid DPS spec, I would definitely at least dual spec to it for awesome talents like Cheat Death and Enveloping Shadows. I get tired of ending up on the floor on any fight that has a Whirlwind mechanic. But at the same rate, it's nice to feel like there's a solid design to the class, and know that if you work your rotation right - which isn't nearly as hard as it used to be - and have the right gear, you'll see the results you expect.

One thing that's come up is that I'm something of a rare breed for choosing my spec, at least in my guild, as most rogues don't have the patience to farm daggers exclusively. I can understand that, and I'll offspec roll on non-dagger weapons when I see them. But really my commitment to Mut spec comes from two sources:
1) All evidence shows that my DPS is higher with Assassination
2) I really, really hate Combat.

I played the cookie cutter game in Burning Crusade, speccing Combat like every other PVE rogue in existence to get the same numbers they were. While the consistency was gratifying, and there was certainly a large community of people to get feedback from, I found the playstyle to be incredibly boring. Maybe I'm just a fan of seeing big numbers on my screen, but the machine-gun approach of rapid fire attacks, vs. the GIANT EXPLOSIONS OF POISON DAMAGE that we get with Mutilate, didn't hold up. Assassination clicked with me the minute I respec'd after 3.0.2 came out, and I've never really wanted to go back. If the spreadsheets ever indicate that my current gear would result in higher DPS with Combat than Mut, I'll think about it. But until then, I'm loving my ear-stabbing ways.