Sandy turned 14 without me even noticing. I'm in the middle of some "whack trolls and collect x jujus" quest and WHAM, the sparkly colors are flying. Leveling combat rogues is, after your third point in Sinister Strike, E-Z.
I know some of this is simply because I want to start playing "for real" again, but I've got to say, Sandy finally got me hooked on Combat Rogues. The DPS is insane. After dropping a third point into improved sinister strike, she's hemorrhaging DPS. Greens have started dropping like crazy too. Before, I had trouble with yellow mobs, now oranges and yellow elites are no problem. And, as I read later is common, she doesn't even really have to rest or stealth any more with all this DPS and recuperate. She just waxes one mob after another, leveling like mad.
But though I'm not wasting any time researching quest rewards or items, I am taking a few seconds to maximize stats with what I've got (duh). One thing that was weird -- my 9.1 DPS green sword is in her off-hand, and 5.8 DPS grey is in the main. Huh? When I tried to swap, I was told I wasn't a high enough level to swap hands. But I could drop the green in the main. I just couldn't get the grey into the off. ARGH.
And I'm WoWHeading and WoWWikiing (hello, out of date). Amazing the simple stuff you don't have to know playing different classes. As any n00b rogue (or any n00b dual weilder) knows, there are main hand, off-hand, and one-hand weapons. The first only goes in the main, etc etc.
The formula for DPS is apparently...
Dual Wield: Effective DPS =
0.76 x ( [Main Hand Weapon's DPS] +
( 0.5 x [Off-Hand Weapon's DPS] ) )
Also important: The power of Ambidexterity. It looks like that gives you 87.5% of normal DPS with your off hand. I'm missing something there, though, b/c that gives you more DPS with your off-hand (87.5) than your main (76)?
Anyway, BAM, rogue theorycrafting. Nothing boggling, but I have hit WoWHead and friends pretty hard. I'm looking at lists of twink weapons (not too useful), quests with decent rewards I can use in either hand, searching good drops, finding craftables, and performing weapon searches, you know, just to see what's out there, like this one that I'll never get, or this one that I could grab if I wax enough murlocs.
And at level 22, heeeeello Slice and Dice. No wonder folks love to play these guys. Though I have to remind myself that Mists kills talents. /sigh I hardly knew ye.
These spells and abilities will be trained in the field, appearing immediately in players' spellbooks once they reach the appropriate level. As a result, there will no longer be a need to visit class trainers save to re-spec or purchase Dual Specialization, keeping players engaged and doing what they enjoy.
The more things change, the more crufty old players like have to complain about.
She reminds me of Jal now -- a character I started playing just to see what things were like, no real time spent investigating playstyles, no time wasted (particularly with Sandy) comparing items or figuring out builds. Just grabbing what seemed to make the most sense until, surprise!, you turn the corner and are addicted. I even spent time leveling her cooking. We've bonded.
And finally, I won't keep posting this stuff any more, but here's one final "Sandy's vanishing wardrobe" post. Perhaps I'll follow up with a more sustained post later, but let's just say I didn't really notice Jal's clothes being quite as annoyingly bare.
Before and after...
Who designed this stuff? If you don't want your daughter wearing it, it shouldn't be something a game for kids is using as an easily achieved, low level item either. I'd say it shouldn't be a higher level item either, but I'm betting the number of under fifteen year-olds with tiered armor is much lower than the general WoW population. If you must be crass, do it responsibly [as if that wasn't oxymoronic].
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