Slain by Elf

A new face appeared in the World of Warcraft, in the realm of Draenor. Knifey, the gnome rogue, joins his friends in the quest to be a hero. Picking up a kitchen knife I set off to start stabbing monsters in a brave tale of nominative determinism. After stabbing some wolves and getting the meat off their flanks I am rewarded with a knife that is slightly more befitting a rogueish type, and almost doubles the amount of damage per second (dps) I can do with a dagger. What joy, to stab with more deadly force! I imagined that if my luck kept up I could become a real threat to Nefarian, Lord of Blackrock himself within a matter of hours.

Of course, my luck didn't keep up, but I wasn't really paying that much attention to it. I was getting trained to deal more damage, and to have new abilities, but I stuck with my Anvilmar dagger, doing its puny just-under 2 dps. Mobs just weren't dropping anything I could use. Sure, there were axes and maces, and the odd two-handed weapon, but I can't use any of them. At least, not without spending what seems like a godly amount for someone so young to get trained in that weapon. No, I'd need to stick with daggers until I have made the fortune that was 10 silver to get trained in swords. Even then, I'd need a sword to drop.

My plight wasn't highlighted as effectively as when I reached my tenth level and I was asked to steal some documents from a rat. Sure, I'll do that! I didn't even need to ask why, that's how much I was born to be a rogue. I tip-toe my way in to the rat's shack, and am a bit disappointed in his not having a candle to steal whilst I was there, delve in to his pocket without him feeling a thing, and make off like a bandit back to SI:7 in Stormwind. Some shifty-looking fellow thanks me and gives me a shiny dagger indeed! 6.8 dps!

I run around with a crappy skewer for 8 levels before I get an upgrade. That's just not on, frankly. For a class that needs a good weapon to do damage, and being a damage-dealing class, it strikes me as absurd that there isn't either an intermediate quest that offers a better dagger or a more dynamic drop system that can account for what a player is more likely to need. I really don't want to see another two-handed axe when I am still struggling with a dagger I got at level 2, thank you very much. I could go to the auction house, but as few white items, and no grey items, are listed it gets more expensive than buying weapons training for a grey drop you get, so that is not really an option either.

On top of that, at 10th level I got to dual-wield. Woo, feel the power of my two daggers! Except the quest I just completed gave me one good dagger, and the only other weapon I can use was my previous best weapon, the crappy 1.9 dps dagger. Great. Feel the power of one of my daggers, and I'll tickle you with the other to open your defences, you cur!

I was lucky enough to get high-enough level to attempt a run through the Deadmines with my friends, helped by the recent reevaluation of the instance levels so that you don't start out facing kittens licking your face and end the instance being crapped out of a dragon. This made it much easier to survive, being a few levels lower than recommended. I also ended up getting the Buzzer Blade that drops from Shredder, which gives almost 15 dps! This was just a few levels past getting the 6.8 dps rogue quest reward dagger. Wow! On top of a sword that had around 8.5 dps I was now much more stabby than before, and I could feel it in the wild. Stabbing horizontally, vertically and diagonally, I was the Connect 4 of stabbing, and monsters and beasts were dropping much more quickly. This is what it is to be a rogue. And this is what it should be like.

I hope this trend doesn't continue through the mid-levels, where I struggle to get any decent weapon, and thus maintain my dps, without having to be in a group and running an instance or paying over the odds for a weapon on the auction house. The one benefit to being higher level is that I know have some money to spare, and I can afford to buy something off the auction house. If times get desperate, I now have that option, whereas it was not available before. Oh, and don't get me started on bag space. HULK SMASH LACK OF BAG SPACE.

This entry was posted on 17th December 2007 at 12.47 pm and is filed under World of Warcraft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.