Shadow Panther's Mirror Site

Google-

1/29/12

I've been Shadow Panther longer than Google's been Google.

Let that sink in for a second...I didn't realize it myself until just this week.

So, what's the significance, you might ask? Well, a few days ago, Google+ announced that they were going to "broaden support for established pseudonyms, from +trench coat to +Madonna." But there's a catch - you need to provide "proof of an established identity online with a meaningful following". It's still not clear exactly what qualifies as a "meaningful following", but apparently "gamer handles" don't make the cut.

I tested this out myself by trying to sign up as Shadow Panther, but it was immediately flagged as a name that would require further justification. So I submitted a list of links to Google+ providing proof of my established online identity including links to my site, my Twitter page, etc. Despite all that, I received a notice several days later that my request had been rejected because "the name provided violates the Google+ Names Policy".

I have used the name Shadow Panther, in various forms, since before 1996 when Google was first formed. I'm known as Shadow__Panther on Twitter, Shadow Panther on AOL/AIM, Shadow Panther on Xbox Live, and many more sites and services across the web. Thousands of gamers around the world know me as Shadow Panther and have benefited directly from the resources found on my personal site.

Before World of Warcraft, I had a significant following on Xbox Live (beginning with the original Xbox back in 2003) when I made charts for MechAssault, Halo 2 and other games. In those early days, I also managed the Co-op Games List as well as the massive Xbox Clan Registry, which helped numerous players find and contact Xbox clans.

I like to think that I've established a very "meaningful following" over the past decade consisting of thousands of fellow gamers who have supported me and my various efforts. Google+ may classify Shadow Panther as merely being a "gamer handle", but for me it has been my primary online presence for over 15 years.

If you doubt me, go to Google and type in "Shadowp"...because that's as far as you'll need to get before my site (and hundreds of sites mentioning me and my work) appears. If that's not "proof of an established identity online with a meaningful following", then I don't know what is.

Updates to some Patch 4.3 items on my charts

12/29/11

I've updated my Rogue Weapons and Armor charts to correct a few changes made to items between the PTR and Live versions. In particular, many of the trinket proc effects were revised before going live, so I've updated my charts to reflect those changes.

Powerleveling Guide for Rogues updated for Patch 4.3

11/29/11

I have updated my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues (both the Adobe .PDF format and the Kindle format) to be current for Patch 4.3.

If you purchased the Adobe .PDF guide, you can go back to the Download Link provided in your "Order Info" e-mail to download the updated guide for free. If your Download Link has already expired, you can use that link to request an additional download. If you've lost or deleted your "Order Info" email, contact me and I'll send you a copy for your records.

If you purchased the Kindle guide, you should be receiving an e-mail from Amazon soon asking if you would like to download the free update of the guide. If you have any problems updating your guide, you will need to contact Amazon support for assistance.

Note: When replacing a previous version of the guide, loading the new version will cause any highlights, the last page read, and bookmarks to be removed, and the locations of any notes you've made will no longer match the updated copy of the guide.

Legendary Daggers and Epic Gems added to my charts

11/27/11

I've added all three stages of the upcoming Legendary Daggers to my Rogue Weapons charts. I've also updated my Gems charts with epic gems from Patch 4.3.

More Patch 4.3 Updates to my Armor and Weapons charts

11/19/11

I've updated my Rogue Weapons and Armor charts with a few more items from the PTR and I've also updated the source and location information for many other items added over the past few weeks.

Powerleveling Guide for Rogues now available in Kindle format

11/12/11

I've converted my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues into Kindle format available for purchase through Amazon. Now you can easily download and read my guide on your Kindle or on the upcoming Kindle Touch or Kindle Fire. If you don't have a Kindle, you can still read it on just about any computer or mobile device using one of the free Kindle Apps available through Amazon.

More Patch 4.3 items added to my charts

10/28/11

I've added about 100 more Patch 4.3 items to my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts, including new Raid Finder rewards.

Numerous Patch 4.3 items added to my Armor and Weapons charts

10/10/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with over 100 items from the upcoming Patch 4.3, including Tier 13 "Blackfang Battleweave" gear and Season 11 PVP gear.

Support ShadowPanther.net by shopping at Amazon

10/4/11

People occasionally ask how they can support my site. There are now three easy ways you can help support ShadowPanther.net:

• My Powerleveling Guide for Rogues.
• My Donations page.
• And as of today, ShadowPanther.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

When you're shopping, just go to Amazon through this page and I get a small referral bonus in return. Thanks for your support!

UPDATE: (10/9/11) Apparently, Amazon has separate affiliate programs for each country in which it operates. So I've updated the link above so that you can choose which Amazon you'd like to visit.

More updates to my Twink charts

8/8/11

I've updated my Rogue Twink Armor Chart and Rogue Twink Weapons Chart with new sections for level 10 and level 20-24 gear. Players with Level 10 twinks enjoy beating up on level 14 players due to stat scaling benefits while level 24 twinks are becoming more common for players looking to get an advantage over the influx of level 20 Starter Editon Free to Play (F2P) opponents.

UPDATE: (8/10/11) Due to the addition of these new sections in my lowest level twink charts, those charts have now become quite large. To help alleviate some of this problem, I've moved over the 50-59 section of both charts into my 51-60 Twink charts.

Updated Trinkets

8/5/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor Charts with the recently buffed Darkmoon Card: Hurricane and the nerfed Unheeded Warning.

Numerous updates to my site and charts

7/28/11

Over the past few weeks, I've been making several changes to my site and charts to improve the user experience throughout.

Site updates include:

• Removed unnecessary scripts from most of my non-chart pages to speed up page load times.
• Removed outdated Internet Explorer 6 HTML workarounds in those same non-chart pages.
• Added a Brazilian Portuguese translation icon to the list of foreign translations for each localization of the game.

Chart updates include:

• Tweaked the format of my charts so that they wouldn't be so wide.
• Removed suboptimal gear from many of my high level charts to reduce the size of those charts.
• Removed the TCrit and TAP columns from my high level charts to further reduce chart sizes.
• Updated the stats and Loc/Info/Source for all currently listed gear.
• Updated Valor/Justice/Conquest/Honor point prices for all gear affected in patch 4.2
• Added various items to my low level twink charts to help players in the 10-20 level ranges.

A lot of those technical modifications should enable my site to be more user-friendly for people visting on mobile devices with smaller screens and slower download speeds.

Powerleveling Guide for Rogues updated for Patch 4.2

7/22/11

I've made a few updates to my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues to be current for Patch 4.2. If you previously purchased this guide, you can go back to the Download Link provided in your "Order Info" e-mail to download the updated guide for free. If your Download Link has already expired, you can use that link to request an additional download. If you've lost or deleted your "Order Info" email, contact me and I'll send you a copy for your records.

Twink Charts updated for Cataclysm and Starter Edition

6/30/11

Over the past month, I have been painstakingly updating thousands of items contained in my Rogue Twink Armor and Weapons Charts so that those charts would be current with all Cataclysm changes. I'm still working on adding some items to those charts that had been overlooked, but all items currently listed on those charts should now have the correct stats.

In addition to those updates, I have added a new Level 20 Starter Edition bracket to my Level 14-59 Twink Charts for those players interested in trying out the new World of Warcraft Starter Edition trial accounts. Those Free to Play "F2P" trial accounts are limited to level 20 characters with other significant restrictions including max 10 gold, max 100 trade skills, and no access to AH, mail or trades.

More Patch 4.2 Updates to my Armor and Weapons charts

5/31/11

I've updated my Rogue Weapons charts with a few more items from the PTR Build 14199 update. I've also updated the source and location information for many Firelands items added to my armor and weapons charts over the past few weeks.

Patch 4.2 Heroic Firelands gear added to my Armor and Weapons charts

5/26/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with Heroic Firelands gear from the PTR Build 14179 update.

More Patch 4.2 items and World Event loot added to my charts

5/19/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with more Firelands gear and upcoming World Event loot discovered in today's PTR Build 14133 update.

More Patch 4.1/4.2 items added to my Armor and Weapons charts

5/17/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with about a dozen items including new Patch 4.1 Al'Akir loot and more Patch 4.2 Firelands gear.

Powerleveling Guide for Rogues updated for Patch 4.1

5/12/11

I've made some minor updates to my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues to be current for Patch 4.1, and I've also reduced the price to just $4.99. If you previously purchased this guide, you can go back to the Download Link provided in your "Order Info" e-mail to download the updated guide for free. If your Download Link has already expired, you can use that link to request an additional download. If you've lost or deleted your "Order Info" email, contact me and I'll send you a copy for your records.

More Patch 4.2 items added to my Armor charts

5/10/11

I've added several more items revealed in today's PTR update to my Rogue Armor charts, including the Tier 12 "Dark Phoenix" gear.

Numerous Patch 4.2 items added to my Armor and Weapons charts

5/7/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with over 100 items from the upcoming Patch 4.2, including Firelands loot and Season 10 PVP gear.

Zul'Gurub/Zul'Aman items updated in my Armor and Weapons charts

4/28/11

I've updated the Location and Source information for all Zul'Gurub/Zul'Aman items on my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts.

Patch 4.1 Zul'Gurub/Zul'Aman items added to my Armor and Weapons charts

4/6/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor and Weapons charts with items from the upcoming Patch 4.1 and Zul'Gurub/Zul'Aman 5-man instances.

Powerleveling Chart and Links Page updated for Cataclysm

3/6/11

I've updated my Rogue Powerleveling Chart and Rogue Links to be current for Cataclysm. The Powerleveling Chart is a nice resource to use along with my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues. The Links page is a compilation of every Rogue-related website, guide and resource I've been able to find. In addition to that, there's also a comprehensive list of useful sites for other classes at the bottom of that Links page. I have removed all of the old, outdated and broken links on that page, so the majority of sites listed there should be current and relevant for Cataclysm.

More charts updated for Cataclysm

3/5/11

I've updated my Rogue Armor Sets and Rogue Armor Locations charts for Cataclysm.

Powerleveling Spreadsheet for Engineering updated for Cataclysm

3/4/11

I've updated my Powerleveling Spreadsheet for Engineering (.XLS version) with Cataclysm recipes up through level 525. I've also removed all of the ammunition schematics and updated raw material prices based on current average market values. According to my revised calculations, it takes approximately 8,000 gold to powerlevel Engineering from 1-525. More than 2/3 of that is just from 426-525. And that doesn't even include the 2,000 or so gold that you'll need to make your helm, tinkers and cogwheels.

So what makes this spreadsheet better than your average powerleveling guide? Most guides don't really address the issue of using alternate schematics nor do they provide you with any kind of estimate as to how much this effort is going to cost you. I've designed this spreadsheet to give you the ability to select alternate schematics, calculate material costs and customize your own personal powerleveling plan based on resource availabilities and AH price fluctuations. Not only that, but I've also included tables at the bottom of the spreadsheet that you can use to calculate the approximate number of attempts needed to skill up each point in the Yellow -> Green -> Gray ranges, which can be useful for pretty much any profession.

Rogue Leveling Tips and Twink Specs updated for Cataclysm

2/19/11

I've finally gotten around to updating my Rogue Leveling Tips and Rogue Twink Specs for Cataclysm.

Rogue Talent Calculator, Talent Specs and other resources updated for Cataclysm

2/13/11

Lots of players have recently been contacting me asking when I would be updating my Rogue Talent Specs, but I knew that wasn't going to be a simple task. Updating my Excel-based Talent Calculator and Talent Spec pages required a lot of effort because I had to completely rebuild those charts to account for all of the changes to the Talent Tree system. I'm pretty satisfied with the current results, which includes easily viewable Wowhead Tooltips for each rank of those talents.

The following charts and pages on my site have now been updated for Cataclysm:

• Rogue Talent Calculator
• Rogue Talent Tree Analysis
• Rogue PVP Specs
• Rogue PVE Specs
• Rogue Stealth Chart
• Rogue Nerfs, Buffs & Fixes
• Shadow Panther's Site FAQ
• I also added an Engineering Cogwheels section to my Gems charts.

Charts updated with Patch 4.0.6 and AEP/MAEP changes

2/10/11

I have updated many of the charts on my site with Patch 4.0.6 changes. I've also updated my AEP/MAEP formulas for those charts, the details of which can be found in my Formulas, AEP/MAEP and Pawn pages.

Powerleveling Guide fully updated for levels 80-85 and Patch 4.0.6

2/6/11

I have finished updating my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues all the way up to level 85 as well as incorporating changes from the upcoming patch 4.0.6. If you previously purchased the guide, you can go back to the Download Link provided in your "Order Info" e-mail to download the updated guide. If your Download Link has already expired, you can use that link to request an additional download. If you've lost or deleted your "Order Info" email, contact me and I'll send you a copy for your records.

Several charts updated for Level 85

1/21/11

I have updated my Rogue Consumables, Races and Professions charts for Cataclysm and Level 85. I added a "Lvl" column to the Consumables chart to help players figure out which items were applicable to their Rogue. I also updated the components needed to make many of those consumables. The Races chart has been updated with the new Worgen and Goblin races, both of which scored highly for PVP and PVE. Finally, I have incorporated a few upcoming patch 4.0.6 changes into those charts.

Enchantments charts updated for Level 85

1/18/11

I have updated my Rogue PVP Enchantments and Rogue PVE Enchantments charts for Cataclysm and Level 85. I've added "Lvl" and "iLvl" columns to those charts to make it easier to figure out which enchantments can be used on your Rogue's gear.

New and Updated Rogue Starter and Twink Weapons charts

1/16/11

I have updated my Rogue Starter Weapons chart for Cataclysm and Level 85. This time, I've decided to split it into two separate charts; one for PVP and one for PVE. I've also created two new Rogue Twink weapons charts to assist players in twinking/leveling in the sub-85 level brackets. Listed below are the descriptions for all of those charts:

71-80 Rogue Twink Weapons Chart (New) - For those players who don't have Cataclysm yet or want to raid/PVP at 80.

80-84 Rogue Twink Weapons Chart (New) - For those players who are twinking/leveling in the 80-84 level range.

Level 85 PVP Rogue Starter Weapons Chart - The best pre-Raid/pre-Arena weapons to get geared up for PVP at 85.

Level 85 PVE Rogue Starter Weapons Chart - The best pre-Raid/pre-Arena weapons to get geared up for raiding at 85.

High Level Rogue PVP Weapons Chart - Endgame PVP weapons for competitive Arena/Rated Battlegrounds at 85.

High Level Rogue PVE Weapons Chart - Endgame PVE weapons for high level raiding at 85.

Updated Weapons charts and Weapon MAEP values for Level 85

1/14/11

I have updated my Rogue PVP Weapons and Rogue PVE Weapons charts for Cataclysm and Level 85. I've also made some adjustments to the MAEP values for Weapon Speed and DPS in those charts, which has been carried over to my updated AEP/MAEP formulas and Pawn scales. At this time, I don't plan on updating the charts for each individual weapon type (swords, maces, etc.) since the removal of weapon specializations has made the differentiation between non-dagger weapon types mostly cosmetic.

Updated Rogue Starter Gear charts and New Twink/Leveling Armor charts

1/12/11

I have updated my Rogue Starter Gear charts for Cataclysm and Level 85. Those armor charts list the best pre-Raid, pre-Arena items that can be crafted, purchased, acquired from quests or obtained in 5-man Regular/Heroic dungeons. I've also created two new Rogue Twink Armor charts to assist players in twinking/leveling in the sub-85 level brackets. Adding and updating those charts has allowed me to reduce the size of my High Level Rogue Armor charts to a more manageable level.

With so many armor charts, it can be confusing to figure out which one(s) to use, so I've included descriptions below.

71-80 Rogue Twink Armor Chart (New) - For those players who don't have Cataclysm yet or want to raid/PVP at 80.

80-84 Rogue Twink Armor Chart (New) - For those players who are twinking/leveling in the 80-84 level range.

Level 85 PVP Rogue Starter Gear - The best pre-Raid/pre-Arena gear to get geared up for PVP at 85.

Level 85 PVE Rogue Starter Gear - The best pre-Raid/pre-Arena gear to get geared up for raiding at 85.

High Level Rogue PVP Armor Chart - Endgame PVP gear for competitive Arena/Rated Battlegrounds at 85.

High Level Rogue PVE Armor Chart - Endgame PVE gear for high level raiding at 85.

Finished updating my PVP and PVE Rogue Armor charts for Level 85

1/11/11

I have finished updating my Rogue PVP Armor Chart and Rogue PVE Armor Chart for Cataclysm and Level 85. I have added over 400 new items and updated the stats, prices and other info for every item on those charts. Soon I'll work on updating my weapons charts and starter gear charts to be current for level 85.

Currently updating my Rogue Armor charts for Level 85

1/9/11

I'm currently working on updating my high level Rogue Armor charts for Level 85. Listed below are the various changes and improvements I'm making to those charts:

• Change the ArP column to Mastery.
• Update all previous ArP gear with their new stats.
• Move Mastery values for currently listed gear from the Special columns into the Mastery column.
• Incorporate my updated AEP/MAEP values into the charts, including rare gems values from my Gems charts.
• Modify the AEP/MAEP calculations in my charts to award reduced socket values for socketed gear below Ilvl 285.
• Remove ranged weapon bonuses and add static "Thrown Weapon bonuses" for all thrown weapons.
• Update the TCrit and TAP calculations with Level 85 formulas.
• Remove italic socket bonuses from stats and break those values out into the Special columns.
• Update the stats and Loc/Info/Source for all currently listed gear.
• Add all new and missing Cataclysm Rogue gear. (In progress)

Level 85 Rogue Stat formulas, AEP/MAEP formulas, Pawn scales and Gem charts

1/5/11

In preparation for upcoming changes to my various charts, I've updated my Rogue Stat formulas, AEP/MAEP formulas, Pawn scales and Gem charts (PVP/PVE) for level 85 and patch 4.0.3. Soon I will incorporate many of these changes into the rest of my charts.

Powerleveling Guide fully updated for levels 1-80

1/2/11

I have updated all level 1-80 information in my Powerleveling Guide for Rogues to be current with patch 4.0.3a. I will be adding level 81-85 information to the guide soon.