Rokk Talk

Sometimes it’s a little embarrassing when you admit to people that you play World of Warcraft. You get a look like you just admitted to rampant buggering of livestock. In my case, the look of disbelief that I get comes from the fact that I don’t look like someone who plays WoW. I’m not obese, therefore I keep myself in above average shape as far as gamers go. I practice personal hygiene; no gamer funk for this guy. Mrs Rokk was worried I’d let myself go once we got married. “I can’t,” I told her. “I have a stereotype to break.”

Fast forward to last weekend, when I hopped on the wife’s mountain bike and began my 6K trek to the gym. Knowing what little regard traffic has for pedal-pushers, I opted to take a bike path. There were signs up for this particular path, making sure both pedestrians and bikers alike knew the other was on the path.

I’m progressing down a hill at a rapid pace, knowing I have a long incline waiting for me around the blind corner ahead. So I wasn’t expecting to have to slow down anytime soon. Of course, that was until I rounded that corner and came face to faces with a line of senior citizens who happened to be taking their pet grandson out for a walk.

The Rokk Says: When approaching a blind corner, always stay on the right so that people can get by you. DO NOT WALK SIDE BY SIDE LIKE YOU’RE LEADING THE PRIDE PARADE!

I knew I couldn’t get by them, and there were trees on either side of the path. Oh yeah, I wasn’t wearing a helmet either.

Apply front and back breaks. Hard.

Sadly, the front brakes held a little more.

Rokk-et into the dirt.

I will take partial blame for the accident. I should have slowed down a little more when approaching the corner. I had slowed down to the point where, if I could have, I would have been able to hug the right hand side of the path and whistled by the Old Train.

They were fine. I ended up with my right elbow fractured, and a few cracked ribs.

While it is possible to play WoW with one hand, I haven’t tried jousting or any of the major daily quests. I’m typing this whole mess with one hand. Until I find out if I’ll be in a cast or needing surgery to repair my busted wing, I know one thing for sure – I won’t bitch about my situation. I won’t bitch about my game play.

Once again, I’m breaking the stereotype of the average WoW player.

“QQ” my ass.

Huzzah… I guess.

Well here’s some of the changes coming up for Death Knights –

* Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.
* Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.
* Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
* Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.
* Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
* Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
* Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
* Talents
o Blood
+ Bloody Strikes: This talent now provides 5/10/15% increased damage to Blood Strike instead of 15/30/45%.
+ Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
o Frost
+ Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
+ Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
+ Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
+ Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
o Unholy
+ Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
+ Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
+ Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
+ Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 20% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Even better… BUG FIXES!!

* Anti-Magic Shell: The tooltip for this ability will now reflect modifications from the Magic Suppression talent.
* Blood-Caked Blade: The damage from this talent is no longer normalized to weapon speed.
* Chilblains: Icy Clutch can no longer miss when Frost Fever hits, however, when Frost Fever is dispelled Icy Clutch will also be dispelled.
* Dancing Rune Weapon: The rune weapon will no longer cast Corpse Explosion.
* Desecration: No longer causes unnecessary combat logging.
* Horn of Winter: Learning rank 2 of this ability caused players to unlearn rank 1, such that it no longer appears in their spellbook. It is now possible to relearn that rank, and death knights will no longer “forget” rank 1 when they learn rank 2.
* Lichborne: The buff from this ability can now be cancelled.
* Raise Ally: Using the Gnaw ability while under the effects of this spell will now initiate auto-attack. In addition, the damage done has been changed from a flat value to a percentage of weapon damage.
* Raise Dead: This spell will no longer give two errors when the casting player lacks the reagent to cast it.
* Rune of Razorice: Each death knight can now have his or her own copy of this debuff on the target.
* Rune of Spellbreaking: Tooltip now indicates the effect from this enchantment does not stack with other effects which reduce the duration of Silence effects (including not stacking with a second copy of this enchantment). In addition, now reduces damage from Holy spells.
* Rune of Spellshattering: Now reduces damage from Holy spells.
* Summon Gargoyle: Corrected the inaccurate tooltip which claimed a Gargoyle could last up to 40 seconds, when in fact 30 seconds has always been the maximum.
* Rune of Razorice: Corrected a bug where this applied to frost damage done by others.

Edit: the maintenance time has been extended to 3pm PST.