I'm Back!

Due to time restraints this week and some unfortunate family medical concerns from this past weekend, I was unable to place the final finishing paragraphs on my tanking strat article. So today I will be making a short post about nothing specific.

Lately I have been feeling great pressure playing my DK, my Rogue, Redyps and my Warlock, Redfyre. I have only been on my DK for raids over the past couple weekends and of course, for my Daily Random Heroic. Redyps and Redfyre have only been logged on when I need something specific from their inventories or professions.

I have actually felt somewhat burnt out, but for some reason I was still researching and studying my DK so as to further his skills. But people in my guild and raid group knew I wasn't myself. I was getting irritable in raid. People weren't performing that way I wanted them to. I wasn't performing the way I wanted to. I stopped thinking of scenarios to different bosses. I stopped being creative with my abilities, with my tanking. I was on autopilot tanking.

These past couple weeks I have been leveling my Hunter, Redblud, and my Druid, Redwulf. Mainly through instances with a couple of guildies who were running the Recruit-A-Friend, who were mainly running through instances with no or little questing but since I wasn't a RaF toon, I was definitely questing more to keep up which has worked out so far for my hunter who is now level 71.

My guildies went ahead and made another set of toons and now my Druid, Redwulf has been keeping pace with them.

It's been nice playing these newish toons of mine and giving me a break from the 'grownups'. They are also planning on making another set of toons after the current set hits 60 so I went ahead and made another toon, a Warrior named Redrayge to prep and get ready for the next set.

All in all it has been fun, but I was still feeling the crushing burden of being run down and I didn't know why. I have thought on it and thought on it. Still nothing, then last night I got tired fast after work. I got home made dinner for my wife, my cousin and myself, got on WoW and played two instances, one on my DK and one on my warlock. After the second instance I knew I was crashing. I went to bed, my wife came with me.

Now normally I go to bed on a weekday(workday) at 12midnight or 1am. Last night I hit my pillow at 8-8:30pm. I wasn't feeling sick but just dragged-through-the-mud tired. I awoke early this morning at 5am, about two and half hours before my alarm would go off, wide awake. So I figured I would take a shower and maybe finally alter my jeans to keep from dragging the ground under my boots. (And Yes....I know how to sew....sewing machines are for suckers. Here is where all the ladies say, 'OMG! He can cook and sew!'(I'm sorry, Ladies. I'm already taken and there is no way you can beat my wife in looks.))

Well after my shower and altering my jeans, I figured I would do some WoW.com surfing. I hit to site only to find an article on Invincible. I click the links and somehow ended up on the Battlecry Mosaic site and found the 'Invincible' song that was currently unlocked. I listened to it and let me tell you. If you want my attention give me a good song to listen to. Songs get my attention, having grown up musically and trying to go through college as a music major until my college loans got to be too much for me. Music speaks to me. And this song spoke volumns.

I don't know if it was the music, or the sleep but I was feeling my old self again. I want to play all my toons. I want to try and be the best at what my toons do. My old self was bubbling to the surface. The self that was confident, the self that could stir my abilities to perform differently, the self that could have fun!!

Man!!! I cannot wait to get home tonight! What fun I will be having after work!!

Where is your fun self?

Death Knight is the RoaDK to Awesomeness

I never know how to start these articles of RoaDK so listen to the video above while you read today.

Another raiding weekend has passed and at least another boss was downed. While we didnt make a lot of progress in 25 man we gave several good attempts on Rotface and if we can clean up our kiting of the oozes then we can get him down. We gave a try or two on Festergut but still seems like a DPS race and we seem to be lacking there, for now anyway.

10 man had a lot more promise this week. We were able to finally get Rotface down. It was close, oh, so very close, with myself as the Big Ooze kiter I went down near the end of the fight due to the building of a second big ooze in my kite path. With me down and the big ooze going crazy with power we ended up killing Rotface but only with two or three people alive. This week I feel that we can get him down cleaner.

Since both Festergut and Rotface were down, their door valves were active and we were allowed to used these to open up Professor Putricide's door and enter his Laboratory of Horror and Fun.

On the way to his door we took down a couple respawns and trap trash. Standing there in front of the hallway, we watched as the doors filled with Festergut's gas and Rotface's slime causing the doors to open and we entered unsuspectingly into that hallway. I say unsuspectingly because the way was open with no trash but as soon as we stepped in the doors closed and in jumped Flesh-eating Insects! No tab targetting and having a hard time to mouse click them we just had to use AE damage to take them down. It wasn't that hard but a good surprise and of course some of the ladies in my group were kinda screaming. It was pretty funny.

We gave Prof. Putricide a good three tries before calling it for the night. We were unable to get him into second phase but we had a fun time and of course I was the sexy OT Abomination, eating away at that slime. Yum!

After 25 man ICC on Sunday our group went back and we gave him another 5 attempts and were able to get him into second phase. At one point we were almost at the third phase but didnt quite make it.

Some people had to go and we felt that getting a new person in and with only two attemps left, it would take too long for them to get adjusted and for us to teach them what they needed to do, so we decided to call it for the weekend.

Overall it was a great weekend.

Keep your eye out for the next article. I will be going over DK tanking strategies, which abilities to use for both AE tanking or Single-target tanking, and which abilities should always or never be used, this will include a good rotation for either spec. I will be placing emphasis on both Blood tanking and Frost tanking in particular and with a minor glancing of Unholy, since this spec is not one I research, so most of that info will be second hand. Enjoy your week!

Puppy Pound

Another week, another challenge! And no, I am not hurting any puppies. Have you seen the video above. Cutest little furry bastards EVAR!

This past weekend was the first weekend of Icecrown Citadel: The Plagueworks Wing, featuring the two new abomination models of Festergut and Rotface and their very senile father, Professor Putricide, who to me sounds ridiculously similar to Professor Farnsworth.

Now to get a longer raid time for ICC 25 man we switched our raiding schedule around so that we were 10 manning on Saturday and 25 manning on Sunday. Saturday went really well boss-wise until we met Rotface. We wiped several times on him, but every time getting him closer and closer. 25 man consisted of us killing the first 4 bosses but unforntunately it definitely seems like a DPS gear check on Festergut and we were unable to take him down but we did make the Enrage timer which is good. So we put notice on Rotface for 10 man this next weekend and Festergut on 25 man for hopefully this next weekend as well.

But I am not here to talk about them. I am here because of two mobs that were placed in this new wing in the halls before each Festergut and Rotface. Yes, that's right. I'm talking about Stinky and Precious. These two look and play just like Gluth does, except one is smelly and likes to ooze green clouds at everyone all the time and the other likes to play with zombies.

The one thing I did notice was that Precious has a buff of a 1st Place ribbon on her and that made me wonder when these guys found the time to have a dog show if they are continually trying to kill every living thing! Wait! Maybe that's why this wing was closed down for those 28 days before opening! They had the who's who of the Evil lore dudes parading their pretty pups around and judging the best one. Which begs the question that if Precious won, who was last place? My vote is on Kael'thus.

But I'm begging the pooch here...hehe....begging......ahem...nevermind.

Now I liked the Gluth encounter in Naxx and was quite happy with the placement of Stinky and Precious in ICC. Both Gluth and the Abom-pups have similar abilities, such as Decimate and the stacking debuff called Mortal Wound that reduces healing. The differences lie in the stacking of that debuff, which stacks faster and can easily get to 10 stacks which reduces the healing on the tank completely. So two tanks are definitely needed.

Both Stinky and Precious do another ability, just not the same one. Stinky has flatulence issues and constantly pulses out an AoE called Plague Stench. Coupled with Decimate, this could definitely cause a raid wipe. And with us it did. Decimate followed by a pulse equals dead DPS and healers. But we got back up and took him out the 2nd time.

Precious, like I said earlier, likes to play with her food and has the ability to summon ghouls, which require immediate AoE to start taking out as many as possible. Now these ghouls do not heal Precious thankfully, but the tanks that are tanking Precious should not be tanking the adds as they also place a stacking debuff on their targets. I seem to remember getting her down the first time but it could have been the second time but I could be getting my 10 and 25 man mixed up.

Now after killing Stinky, Festergut speaks up and yells at us about killing his pup so while fighting Precious, I told myself that I would die laughing if Rotface pops in spouting, 'Preciousss, my Precioussssss.' *gollum, gollum.* Alas! he did not. Would have been hilarious though. Too bad.

All in all, it was a fun weekend of new sights, especially since Slime Frogger in Naxx was moved to this new wing in the form of Frost-Fire Frogger. Blizzard is tricksy, yess preciousss, very tricksy. *gollum, gollum.* About 4 people bit the dust walking into those traps after zoning in. The good news is that you can send one person good at frogger in to activate the Frost Rune teleporter for those of you who can never make it.

Have a great week and I will see, well write again next week!

The Frost Hungers

Howdy all!

Recently, I have been playing with a new tank spec besides my current Blood tank spec.

After patch 3.3 dropped, the addition of Rune Strike to Threat of Thassarian, Dual Wield tanking has taken a nice climb in the ranks of Death Knight tanking. My current DW Frost tank build is 5/61/5. I have added functionality with Improved Icy talons for a group buff on haste(my raid group has curently made a change and we now have a Enh Shammy so I will be dropping Icy Talons before next raid and placing those points elsewhere) and to activate my own Killing Machine procs and for Chillblains to help in mob groups and with the Deathbringer Saurfang fight in ICC. Those Blood Beasts can move fast and with the chillblains the movement reduction helps the DPS take those things down fast and with less kiting.

I am currently using a slow main hand DPS weapon and a fast off hand DPS weapon. One thing you need to know about the DW tanking is the amount of Expertise you will need to cover the parry gibbing from raid bosses. If you're using a setup like I am, Expertise should be around 30, that's about 8%. Now I hate math so there was no way I was going figure this out on my own. I used Tankspot for information on this, and as soon as I find the correct page I will link it(Found it! MATH BE HERE). But according to their math with a DK having two fast one-handers, they will take as much or less parrying as a warrior tank by about 0.2%. So if you want to DW tank, Expertise should be at 30 or 8% for two fast one-handers or at 26 for two slow one-handers. If you plan on using a fast offhand and a slow main hand then always shoot for the 30(8%) Expertise.

I like the fact that as Frost, a lot of my attacks are instant and non-melee. This definitely helps when it comes to parry hasting on bosses and with Rune Strike not being able to be parried, this means all the more threat to raise.

As of right now I am enjoying DW tanking thoroughly. A few more cooldowns and you have to admit and seeing a DK dual wield tank is pretty sweet looking, especially with 2 huge axes being swung around.

I am finding that in Heroics, Frost is definitely better all round, especially since with the new Looking for Dungeon UI is out and people want to speed through the instances trying to beat the some kind of record within the confines of their head, I guess. And with my Blood tank still my primary for the moment, I can switch at need if I get a healer who is not quite on the ball.

As for Raids, I'm finding that I take slightly less damage and have tanked all current bosses in Icecrown Citadel excluding the new wing that was opened this week. My threat output now is I believe comaparable to Paladins, which is great.

If you plan on Dual Wielding tanking anytime soon on your DK, here is a few weapons you might want to pick up to get started. If you want to use the 2 slow 1-hander DPS weapons, you can pick up a couple of Nighttimes from Heroic Forge of Souls off of Bronjahm, Godfather of Souls. if you want a couple of classic 1-handed tanking weapons(stat sticks), force a few of Rimefang's Claws out of Scourgelord Tyrannus, who watches over the Lich King's waiting room in Heroic Pit of Saron. Be careful with him though. He says we should have stayed in the mountains, and you may wish you were there after meeting him.

Well that about wraps things up for now. So grab your armor and ready your steel, for the Lich King comes!