Death Knights Lead the Way… (or leaded)

Patch 4.0.6 has been out for 2 weeks already. This patch deployed a couple of “nerfs”, and “buffs” adjustments to various classes to “balance” them. Unholy death knights were lucky enough to receive an extra “adjustment” a few days after release.

Dreadblade, which is the new mastery for UH Death Knights is a welcomed adjustment. This new mastery affects our shadow damage. Such abilities like; Death and Decay, Scourge Strike, and Unholy Blight. Still mastery isn’t as good as Haste, but definitely better than expertise and crit. Not saying that expertise is worthless, it still helps our GCD, so it’s viable to have on gear, but not the extent were you are sacrificing haste or mastery in order to achieve the cap. Strength>Hit (to cap)>Haste>Mastery>Expertise>Crit, are our stat priority.

The “BiS” pre-hardmode change a bit, not much though. Adding the BoE Ring, Boots from Chimearon, Pants from Ala’kir, and Cloak from Valor Points. (Note: Having such a list helps you itemize your gear properly. Understanding WHY certain Items are BiS is also key into gearing.)

Mind Freeze is still pretty frustrating to depend on if you’re on interrupt duty. Very latency relied on and even an extra attack can put you under the RP required to interrupt. (Darn that 1 second delay).

Still feel like “we got did dirty”, but life goes on, but we adjust and keep on moving. Prime Glyphs should be: Ghoul, DnD, and Dark Death. I’m actually replacing DD glyph with SS, seeing that DC has been nerfed twice. I’m still figuring out the exact DPS GAIN/LOSS for this choice, (need to run a week with DD glyph to compare). Yeah, I should rawr it, but it doesn’t take in account play style. Because play style varies depending on the encounter, and that can’t be sim’ed. Maybe DD is more beneficial on fights where you are out of range a lot, and SS more solely for straight up ground and tank n spank encounters.  *Note: I’m doing this with no 2 piece or 4 piece tier. So, Glyphing would probably change once I hit 2 piece. Yeah I’m a baddie*

LOOT AND YOU!

Cho'gall down on 25m.

This is going to be an off Topic post fyi.

Loot… we all love it right?

<Conquest> loot system is  Loot Council.  Yours truly is on the Loot Council itself.  Honestly, it adds a bit more “stress” when an item a lot people need on.  For example Tier tokens. 

The way I prioritize loot is: Skill>Dependability>Attendance>Chemistry.

Skill

To me this is one of the most important factors when deciding loot.  Is the raider doing as much DPS possible? Is the raider able to keep the raid alive? is the raider taking in or dying to avoidable damage? Are they min/maxing gear?…. I can go on and on.

Dependability

If a raider consistenly D/C’s or lags out, that’s a huge weight added to the raid during progression encounters. 

Is the raider dependable on handling interrupts, raid wide cd’s, boss mechanics?

Attendance

Attendance is as important as the last 2 mention traits.  You can’t asses the player if he/she is not there right?

Constant sign-outs, are just as bad as not showing up for a day. Life happens and it’s understandable, but the raider not being there affects progression.

Chemistry

If the person is anti-social, that’s one thing.  But if the raider seems like they are going to leave the guild soon, then yeah… no.  Which is hard to tell, but sometimes there are obvious signs.

ANYWAYS sorry for the short post, but I’m pretty beat from work and life lol.

Next week, Ill be able to talk in depth about the mastery change for unholy. Changes to both frost specs. blah blah blah…

Raiding, Raiding, and more Raiding.

Our guild’s goal this is expansion is to be within the Top 10 guilds within our server. I, personally think this is do-able.  So far, we managed to knock out Magmaw on 10man, 10m Conclave, and Halfus on 25man.  Our best attempt on Theralion and Valionas was bringing them down to 31%.

10-Man Magmaw

25-Man Halfus

One thing, we are lacking amongst few of the players, is skill.  The DPS gap between the top 3 and the rest of the DPS team is pretty horrid. I compared our logs to the top 3 guilds on our server, and there is a huge difference. Those top guilds, don’t have anyone below 13k DPS.  These are my thoughts on the Issue:

Skill – We were a casual raiding guild in WoTLK.  Now, we are aiming to be more than casual.  With these sorts of goals, all raiders need a deeper understanding of their class. This means KNOWING the proper rotation, enchants, gemming and stats priority.

I, for one am competitive when it comes down to DPS (not to be confused for a DPS whore :p). If I’m not where I’m supposed to be at, with current gear and content, you will see me idling and researching through DK class forums to improve my play style. I believe everyone can do the same. Also, asking other players of the same class from higher end guilds could also shine some light.  I tend to get random tells from lower end guild players, asking about rotation and gear itemization. I’m always glad to give a few helpful tips here and there, or clarify a concern. Even though, when I explain things, it tends to get the other person confused heh.

Gear– At this point, you cannot use this as an excuse for your poor performance. No one is geared. 2-3 purples won’t magically give you an extra 5k dps. Everyone is at the basic ilevel for raids (or should be). Running a few heroics isn’t hard. Even in Random dungeon finder. Occasionally, you’ll get the group who have wiped to the same boss more than 10 times.  You can either:

A) Assess the source of the problem!

B) Re-queue with the group for another dungeon.

C) Leave and re-queue.

Patience is virtue, during these times. If you don’t want to spend Gold on repairs, or are afraid to wipe, then you shouldn’t be raiding nor doing dungeons.  If gear is such an excuse, then invest in some “purples”. Gear shouldn’t be that much of an issue until a few months into T11 when attempting hard modes, even at that.

Raid Utility– I’ve heard this excuse before.  Honestly, this is true to an extent. Some classes right now aren’t that great.  But so far the only class I’ve heard mentioned and seen missing from logs, or are continuously at the bottom, are elemental shamans.  Other than that, all other classes still seem competitive at this point in the game.

If one day I fall behind the curve, and I am dead weight to the raid, I would do the raid a favor and just sit out.  I wouldn’t want to hold progression up due to my lack of competence. It would such, but we are only as strong as our weakest link.

Lord knows I need improvement as well. This rant also pertains to me. Such things like CD and rune management. As Death Knight’s we shouldn’t be below number 5 on the charts. If you’re at 16.5k you’re doing fine.

Maximizing RP gain and Survivability

One thing I’ve loved so far is the benefits of using AMS at the proper time.

Halfus – So far AMS is magic during the mass fire breath AoE the aerial drake does.  Thus leading to RP gain and saving the healers a bit more mana.

Magmaw – I tend to pop AMS when he faces towards melee and sprays us with his juice.

Omnomnom System– I save it for either the fire golem when he does his massive fire AoE, or when I’m in the puddle and Electron is out doing his chain lightning ability.

Valiona and Theralion– When blackout is casted and dispelled, it helps mitigate a lot of the damage. Also, it’s helpful when you have a kamikaze range who doesn’t grasp the concept of GTFO during phase 2. It can be also used during the crashing of the meteor when stacked up against each other (Remember the 45 sec CD, so try to time it with other abilities if you are able).

That reminds me I should write-up about my UI and explain my Add-On choices  ;D.

It has begun.

Since the release, I spent hours playing WoW.  I wasn’t server first, or guild first, but I was among the first wave of new 85’s.  I quested with a 2h Frost DPS spec like I mentioned before, but as I hit 84 and ventured into Twilight Highlands, I switched to the 2h Unholy build.

Dungeons

Regular dungeons at the start weren’t THAT much of a pain.  For starters, it was a bit strange to not go in and “superman” the whole instance.  As a new 85 tank, even regular can be a bit challenging.  The environment of the new dungeons are amazing.  So far, my favorite would have to be Halls of Origination.  Not only are the boss mechanics are quite clever in that instance, but they are  rather challenging (actually that goes for all instances ;D ).

 

First boss in Halls of Origination ( Make sure you interrupt after pulling the levers ;D )

I have to admit, I’ve died to random damage that COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED :P.  In my defense, it was during the learning process of a boss heh, I atleast don’t constantly stand under falling rocks and what not.  In a way, I use this as a gauge to determine a player’s situational awareness.

Heroic Dungeons

CC’s are a must! IF YOU DONT LIKE TO USE YOUR CLASS MECHANICS TO DISPEL, INTERRUPT, SHACKLE, FEAR, STUN, POLYMORPH, HEX, SLOW, TRAP, ROOT, SLEEP,  OR SILENCE THEN GTFO… Healer’s are constantly either OOM or about 15% mana half-way through a boss encounter, so its imperative for us Death Knights to use Anti-Magic Shield, Icebound Fortitude, Death Pact,  and AoTD.

.AMS– Healers probably love us because this ability works like a charm when there is massive amount of any sort of magical AoE.

 

IBF– I tend to use it when there is a lot of damage being outputted by a boss and AMS is on CD.  Preferably I like to use both CD’s at the same time when I see a healer’s mana at 6% or lower.

Death Pact– Sacrificing your ghoul, [in which you lose a lot of  (unholy) DPS] it  is also a very helpful ability to lessen the load at those critical moments.  Not only is it recommended for DPS DK’s to sacrifice their minions [when actually needed], but also the proper DK tank should do this at very crucial healing intensive times.

Yup... I went Worgen.

AoTD– The mitigation of  damage is based off of a Death Knight’s dodge and parry chance.  This ability should be used as a tool for distraction though.  If the tank isn’t aware of AoTD, he would probably be pissed off at the DK who summoned them.  I have used AoTD to help our tank from getting a debuff that had constantly had him below 50% and was getting getting killed by the following attack.

That’s pretty much all I can write about right now, still trying to recover and get back on a regular sleep pattern.  Another topic I would like to write about it is raiding.  But so far, we don’t have any official raids planned until January of  2011.  We are doing benchmark raids where we asses our new recruits abilities, but I wouldn’t want to flame anyone…. yet [including myself ] ;).  Situational Awareness is key to success.

Past. Present. Future.

Cataclysm is almost here, and it will be my first expansion transition. My journey through WoW: WOTLK, started around a month before I left the Marine Corps. I was recruited by my old boss to be their Warrior Tank on Dalvengyr.  But when I actually went to get the game I saw the cover of with the Lich King on it, and from there on I decided that I wanted to be a Death Knight.  Only thing was that I HAD NO IDEA what World of Warcraft was about. Anyways after FINALLY getting to level 55… I was finally able to create……………… I actually felt accomplished. But it never crossed my mind that DK’s were pretty much different from being a warrior (Oh yeah.. I leveled as prot 😛 ). I basically just went with the flow, until hitting 80.  At the time, my old boss/friend, was part of a raiding guild on Dalvengyr, .  In which, they were patient enough to deal with my noobery.  I literally had no idea wtf I was doing.  But I was reluctant to get better.  My first raid was a 10-man Naxx, In which I got my very first tier piece. After raiding for a few months, summer hit.  Like every guild, we started having attendance problems.  This went on for a few weeks, until the guild started to fall apart.  Our “rival” guild on the server was <Incurro Noctis> and <Reloaded>.  Half the guild went to IN and the other half to Reloaded.  I went on with IN, but didn’t feel quite at home.  Raid spots were based on who was at the summoning stone first, and not based on skill.  After much debate, I decided to server transfer to Ner’zhul. Upon reaching Ner’zhul, I had no idea on what guild to apply with.  , was one guild I appe’d too, which was a 10-man guild. I was really looking into a 25-man guild, and out of the guilds I saw very interesting was , (TBH, I really liked the guild name… CONQUEST). This is all during the TOC and TOGC era, which was September of 2009. Thanks to the raid and guild members of Conquest, I was able to improve my skills as a Death Knight and as a WoW player.  At first, I was in awe of the professionalism being conducted in raid.  Intimidated actually.  EVERYONE for the most part played at a certain caliber that I was not used too. We went on too being Top 10 on Alliance and Horde Pre-ICC progression wise.  After a big overhaul with our raid roster, we ended up being Top 20.  Not bad though, major comeback in WoW history IMO. Experiencing WoTLK on Ner’zhul was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my time playing WoW.  I have met alot of great people who have enhanced my time online.  I’m looking forward to fully experience the pending Cataclysm with and on Ner’zhul.

 

One last shot.

Recently my guild has been bombarded with Death Knight applications.  Our current raiding DK’s (including myself), are stellar.  Not perfect, but we are reliable enough to get the job done, except for the rare deaths on HM Marrowgar *cough* Smourne DK *cough* or the “once in a blue moon” cutter death on Halion (that one is all me… lol).

With that said, we are pretty much set on DK’s for current content, and maybe for Cataclysm.

But since we ARE RECRUITING FOR CATACLYSM, we got a few DK apps.  Out of 4 apps, 3 applicants showed little, too no knowledge of the class.  Of those 4 apps, only 1 was taken  for a trial run. Sadly, that DK didn’t make the cut. Dps was decent, not horrible but also not great.  So why didn’t he make the cut? Lack of environment awareness, which equals, DEATH.

Usually when I look at apps, I go straight to the armory page, and look at Talent choices, Stats, and experience. Also, when a Screen Shot of the UI is included, I look at pet abilities (if they’re on and WHICH ONES are on.), and Overall UI set-up. THEN, I ask my favorite question at the moment, “Have you reforged any of your items? and if so, can you list what items and why?”……… ( unless your someone I know who had the best app in the world ;),  it was a non-dk app tho … but if she was a DK… I would have been benched lol)

There was this one app, that made me sad. Not only a DPS Nelf… but the poor guy had NO IDEA, of his class.  One of our DK’s asked him:

The DK applicant responded with :

I’m not trying to flame the guy…but still, know your class to an extent.  I wish all the DK and other class applicants the best of luck :).

Tomorrow in a bottle.

Blizzcon 2010, was dope.

 

Friday:

Pretty much got to know people from my guild.  I went to a few of the panels, such as the open ceremony, raid and dungeons panel, live raid… and I can’t remember the rest.  I opened my first beer around 1140am… What sucked though, was that I lost my ATM card :(.  But thanks to some of my guild members for helping out :).

At night we went to the TNB meet-up at bubba gumps restaurant. My fellow dancing partner was helping me promote this noobish blog of mine haha.  Our fearless Raid Leader was our DD, which was nice of him.  After TNB, we headed to the Dave and Buster meet up, where my GM ACTUALLY out chugged me…….. After about 0100, we left and headed back to the hotel room to continued the festivities.

Saturday:

I woke up with a massive headache. When I went looking for my car in the parking lot at the convention center, I was freaking out because I wasn’t able to locate my car.  Thank God, I was on the wrong level. I was afraid that my car got towed for leaving it there overnight, but I just ended up with a ticket. I left my pass with Rykga, so she could enjoy the rest of blizzcon, since I had to go to my bank to pull out some $$$.

Pretty much, saturday was a “recover” day for me.  Around 2030 I headed back to meet up with the guild, went to “Revolucion” Bar, in Downtown Fullerton. Pretty much I felt stiff since I had no alcohol lubrication for my joints haha.  But it was fun regardless :), really enjoyed it.  Headed back to the hotel, and ended blizzcon weekend with more beer and “Bro Bonding” haha.

Also, I was getting clowned on… about “Myspace Pose” pics that I have -_-

Pretty much, a great weekend. Slow start, but ended well.

Thanks to <Conquest>, for the alcohol and the time spent.

Oh, and I got “ICED”… and ended up throwing up. Logan brought up a good point. I had excellent aim, and hit the sink lol.

( Yeah, none of this is DK related lol)

Unholy

 

Yes, yes. I neglected my blog once again. I have been busy with work + raiding + me time.  Anyways, Patch 4.0.1  was finally launched on live servers.

So… the choice was either, Unholy dps or 2h Frost.  On beta I tinkered a lot with frost, but did not care much about itemization or stats. As 2h frost stat priority is as follows; Hit (Cap)>Expertise>Haste>Mastery>Strength>Crit. Rotation;  PS+IT> Ob( if D/D runes are up or F/U are paired.)>BS (B runes) >FS> Rime > Ob>BS> HoW.

The Only problem:  GEAR!( I was not itemized properly to perform at full potential )

I thought, I was done. Reluctantly I went unholy, since my gear was already properly built for the spec. For unholy, the stat priority is; Hit (cap)>Str>Haste>Crit>Mastery>Expertise (Cap before going for agility)>Agility. Rotation;  PS+IT> Dark Transformation (Ghoul Ability)>SS ( If D rune’s and U rune’s are up)> Festering Strike ( If F rune and B rune ARE BOTH UP)> DCx2 >SS> Festering S. ( If both F &B are up, to convert them into D runes)> HoW. Also Pay attention to your PROCS! Easy enough right?

I approached the dummy in the Archerus: Ebon Hold, and BAM! 12.6k sustained DPS (until I had a “wtf” moment do to being too excited).  **Tip: Macro pet ability Claw into SS**

Naturally topping the charts in ICC 25 HM’s, has not been a problem.

Anyways, I’m off to read Ender’s Game (because someone recommended it 😉 ).

 

 

 

OH YeAH !BLIZZCON THIS FRIDAY! ZOMG!

(Yes.. I’m going..)

 

The world has too many….

So I’ve been gone for awhile. To be honest, I totally forgot about this blog, and got bored and demotivated for a bit… BUT I found some new dog’gone motivation g2g?! YEAH YEAH, My guild is finally 11/12HM on 25man ICC (yeah the exact amount of beers I try to consume in one sitting…).

Like everyone, I’m very excited about World of Waracraft: Cataclysm (woot woot! Collectors edition!). I’ve been on beta since day one actually and I was able to check out some of the new zones,quests and features. But, I get bored pretty easy, so that didn’t last long (especially with no guildies around 😦 ).

In the horizon is Patch 4.0.1, which is bringing a crap load of changes to current content. Talents, got re-done (30 point system), and the biggest change that will affect all players once the patch goes live.

So… What spec will DK’s play? Well… I, for one, will go with a 2-h frost build.  Dual-Wield Frost builds currently bring competitive DPS and a useful melee buff to a raid. So, 2h Frost build should be just as OP? Maybe.

The screen-shot displayed, will most  likely be a viable spec  for current raiding content.  The only problem I found, is the massive amount of threat generated.

I will cover Unholy speccing, glyphs and rotations…. after this raid ;).

 

 

So…

I’m pretty bored and decided to be like everyone else, and start blogging about my adventures in World of Warcraft as a Human Death Knight, and also LIFE!! lol.

But for now, I need to get ready for some hot wings and some cold Hefeweizen beer @ alondras.