Chase Christian
Santa Barbara, CA - http://
Chase Christian is a network engineer by trade, but when the shadows fall, he is found playing his Rogue and Holy Paladin on Azgalor-US. While not focusing on leading dual weekly raids for each of his characters and managing a guild, he is an active theorycrafter and forum poster.
by Chase Christian 
on Feb 7th 2010 (1 day ago)
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the addons and macros that can be used to make your life easier.
Holy paladins have come a long way since our days in vanilla
WoW. Back then, we were a three button class: Cleanse, Flash of Light, Holy Light.
The infamous addon Decursive even did all the dispelling for us, leave the human user simply casting Flash or HL for hours on end. Seals and Judgments were for retribution and protection: we were standing 40 yards away filling up life bars. Things didn't improve much in
TBC either: while
Holy Shock was fun to finally use, we ended up being purely FoL bots in most raid situations.
Blizzard took a new approach to healing in
Wrath, including completely revamping each existing healing tree to make sure each one was balanced, viable, and most importantly, enjoyable. Holy paladins now enjoy a complexity that is multiple times more entertaining to play than anything that we've seen in the past. However, with this added functionality comes added complexity. To help us lighten the load, we can use a few amazing addons and macros manage our "holy 3.0" paladins; this allows us to focus on keeping people alive.
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Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
by Chase Christian on Feb 3rd 2010 (5 days ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how to maximize your DPS by using a few custom macros and clever use of your abilities.
If you've been
keeping up on yesterday's patch notes, you'll notice that quite a few of the hybrid and caster ranged classes received some significant DPS buffs. They have been trailing in the ICC meters, and these changes were designed to bring them back within range of the rest of the pack. Rogues have still been stunning on every fight in Icecrown, but the competition is definitely heating up. The true test will be how we fare against the Lich King himself.
We've all heard about the hybrid tax: Blizzard regrets mentioning it, and every druid and ret paladin brings it up when they complain about their position on the DPS charts. Some estimates put it between 5-10%, but obviously hybrid classes are currently designed to stay near the pure DPS without passing them up. However, how many rogues are actually doing their maximum theoretical DPS? There are several common mistakes or oversights that can cost us dearly. Read on for a detailed list of ways you're hurting your own DPS, and how to fix it before your next raid.
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Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
by Chase Christian on Jan 31st 2010 (8 days ago)
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we examine the basics of a holy paladin, from gems and enchants to talents and spell usage.
I have always been of the belief that the paladin is a healer at heart, with their hybrid nature simply an extension of their healing capability. In vanilla
WoW, paladins were the Alliance's healing all-star, with our tier sets and raid utility focusing on the restorative arts. Retribution and protection
both have abilities that heal in some way, and their talent trees even have
pro-healing options. If you want to experience the purest distilled essence of the paladin class, you have to try holy.
This is intended to be a guide to the holy paladin's basic principles and tenets, not an in-depth guide into high-end raid healing or specialized gearing choices. If you're new to the holy paladin or want to discover what the spec is all about, read on.
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Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
by Chase Christian on Jan 27th 2010 (12 days ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel's third wing, the Crimson Halls.
Blizzard has been bringing
their A-game in Icecrown Citadel, with each new wing's difficulty greater than the last. The
most recently released wing, The Crimson Halls, plays host to a quartet of vampiric elves who will push your raid to the limit. ICC has been gradually becoming less and less PUG friendly, with complex fights, tight DPS checks via innovative berserk timers, and about twenty different ways to die per encounter. Add in the fact that each end-wing boss has a limited number of attempts, and it's easy to see why raid leaders only want to bring the best of the best to their runs.
The two boss battles we find in the Crimson Halls are night and day when it comes to how a rogue should approach them. The first, an unconventional 'council fight', will have your thief senses tingling as danger comes from every angle while you move about the room. The second, a DPS race of highest order, will have you drooling over the huge numbers that appear on your screen as you assassinate yet another member of royalty: the Queen of the San'layn?
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Filed under: Rogue, Raiding, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
by Chase Christian on Jan 20th 2010 (19 days ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel's second wing, the Plagueworks.
Blizzard has stepped up the pacing mechanic in Icecrown Citadel, releasing each new wing in two week intervals. With
the latest wing, the Crimson Halls / Blood Wing (also called Vampire Wing if you're a
Twilight fan), recently unveiled, there's bound to be a ton of interest in raiding ICC on your server. This week, I'd like to talk about the bosses that were released in the previous wing, the Plagueworks (Unholy). Once I get a chance to fight the Blood Princes and Blood Queen Lana'Thel first-hand, I'll have a write-up posted here.
The Plagueworks revolves around
Professor Putricide and his two abomination creations:
Rotface and
Festergut. Each of his children have a 'dog' to call their own, and plenty of trash guarding the way to their inner sanctum. These fights are a tier above what you've faced so far in Icecrown, and will push your DPS, your awareness, and your reaction times to the limit. Don't hold back in the Plagueworks:
use every consumable and tactic available to maximize your DPS, or find yourself facing one of a few very interesting enrage timers. Unfortunately for us, as you can see in the picture above, our view for the first two encounters involves standing behind bosses that resemble a pair of deformed potatoes.
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Filed under: Rogue, Raiding, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
by Chase Christian on Jan 13th 2010 (26 days ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the recent Hunger for Blood and poison coefficient nerfs.
If you have been anywhere near a
WoW forum or
news source in the past week, you'll certainly have heard of the largest rogue nerf seen in
WotLK. Hotfixed into the game on the 8th, this nerf hit both Assassination and Combat, though Mutilate was hit far worse. I've seen rogue pundits claim that the sky is falling, and death knight forum posters shouting that the nerf was well deserved. To put it in the words of a forum poster now quoted in Ghostcrawler's signature: "
blizzards solution was F) destroy the sun."
A full
5% nerf to Hunger for Blood is pretty simple to model: it's a 5% nerf to Mutilate's DPS.
Ghostcrawler has been exalting the idea of a simple talent/mechanic that allows Blizzard to tweak a class' DPS with minimal backlash or unexpected consequences, and it seems HfB is truly the precursor of what's to come with the Mastery system. The second nerf was also calculated, it struck Combat and Mutilate both, via a poison scaling coefficient that's invisible to players. While it only amounts to a 2-3% nerf for both specs, it's enough to convince many players to abandon their thieves and assassins. Here's the secret: post-nerf, rogues are still way on top.
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Filed under: Rogue, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
by Chase Christian on Jan 6th 2010 (1 month ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss how a few stats interact with various rogue specs.
Have you ever had a problem finding a group as a rogue? My own rogue isn't immune to this issue, and I sometimes find myself without a raid group on a Saturday night. The rogue population has been steadily growing since its sharp decline right after the launch of
Wrath, and that means increased competition for the coveted melee DPS raid slots. With the plentiful bounty of Death Knights and Ret Paladins vying for the three different two-hand weapons that drop from just the first 4 bosses of ICC10 and ICC25, it can be tough finding your place.
However,
with hard work and good performance, most raid leaders will see the value in bringing back quality DPS. To ensure that you're on the reinvite list, doing as much damage as possible will leave the most tangible evidence of your efforts (as well as being your overarching goal). Sometimes this means doing more with less, and using the gear you have to its highest potential before you're able to reap the
benefits of the great 251/264 epics that you're working towards.
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Filed under: Rogue, Guides, Classes, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
by Chase Christian on Dec 30th 2009 (1 month ago)
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the list of the things you should accomplish before 2011.
With
2009 fading quickly and
Cataclysm on the horizon in the upcoming year, the
WotLK chapter of our lives as rogues is coming to a close. Preliminary numbers from
Icecrown Citadel show rogues performing admirably, especially on fights like the Deathbringer, where we truly get to focus on a tight rotation and maximum single target DPS. While much of ICC has yet to be unlocked, I am confident that we'll find the best way to tackle the challenges it will place in front of us.
Arena season number 8 (and likely
Wrath's final season) is to be released shortly as well, which will see rogues vying against the plate classes for the top melee DPS honors.
Cataclysm is bringing some of the most sweeping changes the game has ever seen, and so this is our last chance to experience the
WotLK rogue before it disappears forever. Between the talent tree rebuild, the complete stat overhaul, and the massive world disruptions that are planned, we are running out of time to finish all of the items on our rogue to-do lists. Whether you're a new rogue, or a grizzled 5 year veteran of the Horde-Alliance war, I'd suggest knocking out these rogue-specific objectives that may be disappearing forever.
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Filed under: Rogue, Classes, (Rogue) Encrypted Text
