With the transfer of my rogue to Magtharidon for the Inglorious Gankers project, (of which I am still not an official member of the guild, in fact I am not in the guild at all due to the level 80 restrictions in place at present), I have been getting back into the world of battlegrounds which I have not frequented since the days of Burning Crusade. Back then I didn’t know much, which is why I went in as a combat rogue. Now I know a lot more, which is why I’m going in as a combat rogue. You see, combat rogues are probably the weakest of the three rogue specs for doing PvP, as rogues rely on being sneaky for PvP and combat ones are just not that sneaky at all. We don’t do backstab, we don’t dance around the shadows or whatever the hell it’s called, we just run up and start hitting you. Like a warrior, I suppose.

But the thing is that my weapons are forcing me to stay combat. I only have a single dagger, the Black Knights Rondel, and it is kind of hard to find new ones on this server. The highest level dagger in the AH is usually around level 30, and you try getting a raid together on this server – you’ll be lonlier than the school nerd at lunch time. And I’m guildless, so no help there at the moment. On that subject, I thought that being a level 80 rogue who is reasonably geared on a server devoid of players, (typically on a Saturday night you can find about 40 level 80′s online), would have meant that I would have been bombarded with requests to join what guilds there were. Yet I haven’t received a single request to join any guild. Even when standing around Dalaran with my head up my arse trying to look like the hot female night elfie that I am. This server must really be dead when a hot night elf rogue doesn’t get asked out to the party.

So I have loads of swords and maces and fist weapons and stuff, so I’m staying combat for the moment. At least I know how to play a combat rogue. This is what you do when you’re a combat rogue in a battleground:

Before the start timer ticks down to zero, make friends with a paladin. It’s that simple. I whisper this message to a paladin:

“Do you want to team up with me in a purely platonic way in order to kill people and not die?”

I have this macroed by the way. They usually answer in the affermative due to my night elf hotness as they incorrectly assume that the person playing the toon looks like the toon and might think that they themselves look hawt. Then we proceed to go out into the battleground. My favorite battleground to do with this little duo is Eye of the Storm. Eye is realtively simple to cover like this: take one of the towers and keep it. The paladin stands in the doorway, thus looking like some doof head standing around by himself waiting to die. I am stealthed on the path up to him. In Eye you can see anyone coming from bloody miles away. I let them pass me then attack them from behind whilst my paladin buddy keeps me up. If you’re going to be a combat rogue in this situation I have only one word for you:

Killing Spree.

If you hit this at the right moment, you have won. Hit Blade Flurry, Adrenaelin Rush and Evasion all at the same time and you can take down a couple of opponents, particularly if they are clothies. It’s not subtle, which is what rogues are all about, but it’s working and I’m stacking up the honor to get some good PvP gear. At present I only have the pants. I have noticed however, that my burst damage seems to be down in comparison with when I played these in BC. I assume that this is due to all the resiliance and stamina gear that is now out there, of which as noted I have bugger all.

On the auction house front on this server I’m doing quite well disenchanting mid-level items and selling the mats. Vision, illusion and dream dust are all particularly good sellers for some reason. I haven’t been able to enact my ganking of the fishing competitions yet as I have been damn busy for the last few weekends. Hopefully I will have some luck in the next couple of days.