Druid in duck form attempting to pickpocket while using Distract.
I posted this today in the rogue section of the forums for The Council Of The Sword. I felt it had re-posting value.
Rogues have a wide variety of skills, and some of the more esoteric ones get overlooked. I know lots of rogues who “never bother” with learning to pick locks. Don’t even get me started on this one. Gweedo’s lockpicking is maxed, and it’s one of his most useful skills.
The other one that an even larger segment of the rogue population ignore is Pickpocketing. The moan ‘n groan I hear from rogues over and over again is “Why should I bother pickpocketing? I can’t make any money from it.” Sometimes they throw in a grunt about how difficult it is too. So basically they’re saying that the reward is not worth the effort, but I would like to prove otherwise. Over the course of seventy levels as a subtlety rogue, I’ve pickpocketed every humanoid I’ve killed since I learned the pickpocketing skill. Think about that for a second. Think about that “pitiful small amount” of money you made the time you tried it and decided it was worthless. Now multiply that by the average number of humanoids you kill in a level, and it becomes a big chunk of change.
And you get other stuff too! Besides money, you also get rogue poison reagents for FREE! (Packaged in handy boxes you can practice your lockpicking skill on, no less!) Free in-game means: Something you don’t have to spend money on, therefore, money you can spend on something else. (By the way, as a side note. If you’re a rogue and you don‘t use poison — even if you’re not assassination spec’ed, but especially if you are — you’re a moron. End of discussion.) You get other fun stuff too. Mostly vendor trash (more money), but if you’re a romantic try pickpocketing the undead near the Western Plaguelands flight point. You’ll get enough roses to last you through seven in-game wives. Trust me. I still have some banked.
*cough* Moving on….
The trick is, of course, a macro. Any “starting move” you have will need to be macro’ed. I will offer an example for Cheap Shot, but you can apply the same technique to Ambush or any other move you open with.
Create a new macro, give it a name, and pick the red question mark as your icon. Trust me on that one. You’ll see why in a minute.
These examples assume you have auto-loot turned on. You’re going to need to use auto-loot. In the macro box, you will need to type the following:
#showtooltip
/cast Pick Pocket
/stopcasting
/cast Cheap Shot
That’s it. Now drag it to an action button and be prepared to reap the rewards of pickpocketing! As you will see after the action bar has a chance to refresh, that #showtooltip on the top line replaced the red question mark with the icon for Cheap Shot, saving us a lot of time digging through the icon palette. (It also makes the Cheap Shot tooltip appear when you mouseover the action bar.)
You can do this for different opening moves by changing the ability on the last line. That’s all there is to it!
Read Full Post »
Yes folks, it’s true. On the eve of the second expansion of World of Warcraft I still know people who are addon virgins. To me it’s unfathomable. I don’t know how to survive without at least a few basic addons. First of all, let’s dispel some rumours that are very false.
The Life Of A Rogue Named Gweedo 