Death Knight Blog

Death Knight Pets

2012-01-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

So Pokemon style pet battles are coming to World of Warcraft, perhaps with the next expansion Mists of Pandria. Benefits of leveling your pets do not include combat buffs, but may cosmetically change your toon. So this got me thinking, what kind of pet best compliments a Death Knight?

I mean, I look a little funny already picking flowers while all death'd out. Cute little rectangular bunnies don't quite fit my brooding motif and gnarly just isn't gnarly enough. It's time to start scoping out the most Death Knight complimenting pets available in game.

The first few that come to mind are the following:

Black Kingsnake
Cobra Hatchling
Core Hound Pup
Feline Familiar

What Death Knight pets will you be scoring as soon as they become battle ready?

Chance Meeting of a Death Knight and Paladin

2012-01-12T14:03:00.001-08:00

With transmogrification anything is possible, what have you been doing?

Death Knight Transmogrification Gear

2011-11-30T07:56:00.001-08:00

Wish you would have saved all that Death Knight starting gear, back when Wrath launched? No worries, the quarter master, Ozorg, has all your starting gear for sale. Now you can transmogrify to your hearts content and look like you are getting back to your roots.

There are reports of people showing off the gear they never got rid of, but now it's time for them to feel foolish. Why wouldn't Blizzard throw us a bone, so we too can enjoy the Transmogrification added to the latest WoW Patch 4.3?

Find Quartermaster Ozorg here.
Have fun looking like a dk noob.

4.3 Patch Today

2011-11-29T06:27:00.001-08:00

It looks like patch 4.3 will be hitting live servers today, which means a handful of changes for us Death Knights and lots of additions for everyone. By now I'm sure you have heard of the 3 new 5-man dungeons, not to mention the new raid content. But, don't forget, if you did the WoW Annual pass you will also get your special mount, Tyrael's Charger.

Tyrael's Charger

4.3 Patch Changes for Death Knights

Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.

Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.

Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.

Blood
Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.

Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.

Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.

Unholy
Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.

The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Tier 13 Death Knight Armor

2011-11-14T11:24:00.001-08:00

This tier of Death Knight armor has not been making DK fans very happy.

Only component I am a fan of on the Tier 13 set is the horns, which protrude up and out. Actually feels demonic, unfortunately the rest of the set just seems very uninspired.

Preparing for Transmogrify DK Guide

2011-11-11T10:51:00.001-08:00

Oh wait, we don't have any retro gear to worry about.

4.3 Death Knight Balance Explained

2011-11-11T10:45:00.001-08:00

Blizzard has stated why they felt the buff to Blood Presence was necessary.

We decided not to prevent or discourage block capping for paladins and warriors, because it would have required several corresponding changes to compensate for such severe nerfs and the risk of getting things wrong or asking players to change gear was just too great. Instead, we decided to buff DK and druid tanks to improve their ability to handle streaks of bad luck. In the DK’s case, we increased the armor bonus of Blood Presence.

I feel what that will mean for PVP, especially that Druids are getting a similar buff. The last thing I would imagine DK's need in PVP would be increased survivability in Blood Presence.

4.3 Patch Notes for Death Knight

2011-11-10T14:07:00.001-08:00

Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.

Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.

Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.

Talent Specializations

Blood
Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.
Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.
Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.

Unholy
Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.
The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Official Battle.net Blog Post with latest updates to the 4.3 patch. The update released today was marked as a release client, so expect the 4.3 patch to go live this coming Tuesday or the Tuesday after.

4.0.6 Death Knight Live Patch Notes

2011-02-09T06:05:00.000-08:00

4.0.6 Death Knight Patch Notes

The official 4.0.6 patch went live yesterday and even most servers came up on time. By now you've probably had an opportunity to see the previous PTR notes affecting Death Knights, but here is the list that is now officially in game.

Death Knight

Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.
Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
Necrotic Strike’s absorption effect is now reduced by the target’s resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.
The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.

Talent Specializations

Blood

Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.
Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.
Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.
Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.
Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.
Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap’s cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.

Frost

Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.
Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.

Unholy

Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.
Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.
Death’s Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.
Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.
Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.
Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.
Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.

Glyphs

Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.
Glyph of Death’s Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.

Runeforging

Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

Death Knight Bug Fixes

Blood of the North is no longer incorrectly increasing Blood Strike damage by 10%.
The tooltip for Blood Presence was giving an incorrect value and has been corrected.
The amount of bonus damage Blood Strike was receiving per disease was inconsistent with its tooltip and has been amended.
Crimson Scourge will no longer proc if Blood Plague is not present on the target.
Death Grip has a minimum range requirement of 8 yards against players, but this was not stated in the tooltip. The tooltip has been updated.
Desecration should stay in place while on the Alliance Gunship in Deepholm.
When a character is raised as a ghoul with Raise Ally, there is no longer a considerable pause after losing control of the ghoul before being returned to the corpse or graveyard.
The Scourge Strike tooltip is now correctly augmented by Rage of Rivendare.
The shadow portion of Scourge Strike was receiving more than 10% increased damage from Frost Presence and has been corrected.
The shadow portion of Scourge Strike no longer incorrectly still receives a 13% spell damage increase from Earth and Moon.

Glyph Fixes

The Chains of Ice tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Chains of Ice.
Glyph of Raise Ally now correctly affects the risen ally's health.
The Vampiric Blood tooltip became awkwardly worded after applying Glyph of Vampiric Blood. We made the words less awkward.

Latest 4.0.6 PTR Notes for Death Knights

2011-01-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

The latest round of 4.0.6 PTR patch notes have been placed, which will be affecting all Death Knight talents and a single glyph. Despite all the beta, it sure seems like we are having more changes and hotfixes than any other expansion I can remember. Perhaps it's just the newness of it, but I'll be very thankful when things start remaining consistent for longer than a week at a time.

Blood

Heart Strike now causes 175% weapon damage, up from 120%. Deals an additional 15% for each of your diseases present on the target, up from 10%.
Improved Death Strike now increases the damage done by Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%. Still increases critical strike chance by 3/6/9% and amount healed by 15/30/45%.
Scarlet Fever (Rank 2) now procs from Blood Plague. (Tooltip bugfix)

Frost

Chilblains now also causes your Chains of Ice to immobilize targets for 1/3 sec.

Unholy

Rage of Rivendare now increases damage of Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and Festering Strike by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
Shadow Infusion now increases the damage dealt by your Ghoul by 8%, down from 10%.

Glyphs

Inscription: Glyph of Dark Succor now causes your Death Strike ability to always restore at least 15% (down from 20%) of your maximum health when used while in Frost or Unholy Presence.

Again, these patch changes are not on live servers yet and are still undergoing testing on the Public Test Realm. Looks like the Blood buffs will help with some aggro, Frost gets a barely noticable CC buff and Unholy is left to be nerfed.

See ya in Azeroth!

Blood Tank Reforging

2010-12-14T07:35:00.000-08:00

Personally, I'd wait until you start gearing at 85 before reforging. I noticed during leveling from 80 to 85 that I was swapping gear out constantly, weapons, shoulders, everything just seemed to be constantly replaced. This is expected, so don't worry about min/maxing just yet. Although, the cost is low enough, if you are struggling with tanking some dungeons, go ahead, throw a reforge on there to get used to it.

Mastery is a great stat for Blood tanks and generally speaking this would be the stat I would reforge into. However, you must first be to the Hit and Expertise soft cap. This will become an issue as you struggle more and more for aggro as your DPS starts gearing and becoming more of an issue. After hitting the mob is no longer a worry, start putting some points into Mastery.

A Death Knight Tanks Mastery Rating will affect Blood Shield. Blood Shield will proc off of your use of Death Strike, which will provide a 50% damage absorption of what you were healed for. The percentage of damage absorption is directly affected by how many points you have in Mastery. Each point in Mastery stats will increase the percentage of absorption by 6.25%

More Blood Shield information on Wowhead.com.

Therazane Dailies in Cataclysm

2010-12-14T07:22:00.000-08:00

Therazane Rep

It's been 1 week since Cataclysm has been released and we are starting to see a lot of level 85's running around. But even if you are taking your time, enjoying the sights, this doesn't mean you can't work on some reputation. One of the first reputations you will want to earn at least honored with and move into revered and later exalted will be Therazane.

Therazane is the faction in Cataclysm, which can be found in Deepholm, which provide you with your shoulder enchants. There are a total of 8 shoulder enchants, 4 available at honored that cover all classes and then an upgraded version of each at exalted.

Therazane Rewards

Honored
Death Knight Tanks will want - Lesser Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz
Death Knight DPS will want - Lesser Inscription of Jagged Stone

Exalted
Death Knight Tanks will want - Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz
Death Knight DPS will want - Greater Inscription of Jagged Stone

To unlock the Therazane Quartermaster you will need to complete one of the last quest chains within Deepholm. After completing the quest you will also unlock a number of dailies, comparable to the Sons of Hodir. More dailies become available at different reputation levels. Below is a list of all the dailies that will become available for gaining Therazane rep.

Therazane Dailies

Therazane Dailies List

Beneath The Surface
Fear of Boring
Fungal Fury
Glop, Son of Glop
Lost in the Deeps
Motes
Soft Rock
The Restless Brood
Through Persistence
Underground Economy

Death Charger Animation Limp

2010-12-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

Death Charger Animation Limp

The complaints have been in place since beta and now Cataclysm is live and our Death Charger is gimped or at least it looks like it in the animation. It appears that the animation of the Death Knight Death Charger horse mount is now the same as every other horse animation in game, not like the wild Mustang animation from Wrath.

But, who is actually still using this mount, even now when you can fly in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. However, I understand the frustration, especially for mount nerds, and I mean that in a nice way. Hopefully Blizzard will see fit to fix the now boring animated Death Charger and bring back a more unique mount to a unique class.

Death Charger Discussion on Official Battle.net Forums - http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1115861849
MMO Champion Discussing the Broken Animation - http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/796893-4.0.3a-deathcharger-animations

Unholy, Blood, or Frost for Death Knight Leveling In Cataclysm

2010-12-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

Really depends on your favorite flavor of leveling on what spec you wish to use while hitting the new 85 level cap. Currently I'm using a dual spec of Blood and Unholy, which allows me to tank the new dungeons and kill things faster while questing. At this point, the cost for dual spec shouldn't be a hindrance and any hybrid class should be taking advantage of the ability.

But you say, 'I don't have good enough gear to run the new normal dungeons in Cataclysm as a tank.' Pfsssh, the first few quest rewards are green items of ilvl 277 or higher, which will be the best gear available at lvl 80, pushing you above the arbitrary gear score Blizzard requires for queing in the dungeon finder.

Been doing a bunch of quests in Hyjal and starting to get burned out, take a break and go discover the new dungeon entrances. As of this posting you cannot use dungeon finder to que for a dungeon until you discover it's entrance. This means at level 80 you need to discover Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides.

Fast XP

I will tell you that you need to take time to run each low 80 dungeon at least once. The amount of XP received from running Blackrock Caverns is just a crazy amount and the new quest system is amazing. The quest giver and receiver is all inline within the dungeon, so no returned trips necessary. Kill 'X' and receive upwards of 70k experience and with all the bosses in Blackrock Caverns this adds up really quick.

Blackrock Caverns

Death Knight Blood Tanking Nerfs

2010-12-01T06:37:00.000-08:00

So, if it sounds like a nerf, acts like a nerf, and looks like a nerf, it's probably a nerf. However, just because it's a nerf doesn't make us irrelevant or unable to complete content current or future within the World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, a lot of people get worked up over a few set backs or tweaks within our class, so lets slow down and take a look at what is actually going on with the latest Blood Tank Spec nerf.

Blood Tank Nerf Gun

First of all, armor and stats are based off of existing equipment and gear. Next week all of this will change and new gear will be on par with the talent trees Blizzard has imposed upon us. Perhaps a new spec will be in order, something more optimal, or more cookie cutter. Either way, Blizzard will not just allow a tank class to flop around on the ground, unable to complete dungeons or raids.

Now, I will agree that we aren't the flavor of the week, but guess what, no one is. Every tank class has been nerfed in some way, where we may have been dinged hard on armor, others were dinged hard on threat, AOE abilities, and stamina.

Things will start to normalize, but not with a new expansion imminent and probably not until a few months after content is starting to be cleared. Hunker down, take the nerfs on the chin, and let it make you a better tank and/or DPS. It's not worth complaining about, but it is worth discussing in an open and constructive format.

Lastly, keep in mind situational abilities. Perhaps its time to revisit our spell book and take a look at some spells that we perhaps didn't use as much before. Change up some rotations, plan ahead, because Cataclysm will change the way 5-Man normal and heroic dungeons are ran.

Looking for a place to vent your concerns in a constructive manor? Check out this thread over at MMO-Champion.

Deathwing Fly Overs Are Meh

2010-12-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

Talked with my guild last night and ever since The Shattering, NONE of us have seen Deathwing do his fly over thing. No one has been burned and trust me, we have a lot of guild members out doing the new quests in Azeroth, not just parked in Dalaran. So, what gives?

Apparently Blizzard wanted to make the Deathwing burn achievement be uber random, so getting scorched actually meant something. But after a very lackluster elemental experience, I'd kind of like to be a part of this upcoming expansion and at least interact a little bit with the new baddy before Dec 7th. Anyone else had this experience, is he bugged on servers, is he working as intended?

Death Knight Leveling from 81-85

2010-11-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

All the experts are coming out of the wood work to tell you the best way to power level, get a realm first, or just stomp out levels 81-85 in time to grind heroics the longest. My advice sucks, because I don't know the best Death Knight leveling spec, and I certainly won't bet getting a realm first. I'm above casual, but I also enjoy the game, so my journey will be just as important as my destination.

That being said, let's look at some Death Knight Cataclysm leveling tips worth looking into. These won't get you there the fastest, but will hopefully aid in the completion of the thousands of new quests that await us in the newly destroyed Azeroth.

Auto Loot - Quite possibly the simplest of tips, it's a check box in your interface menu and allows for short work of all the sparkly dead bodies laying at your feet.

Use Buffs - It's been a long time since some of us have ingested a potion, elixir, or buff food in any other setting besides a raid. Well, get back in the habit of making sure your self buffs are all up before accepting that big yellow exclamation point.

Dual Spec - We have the ability and relatively inexpensive method of having multiple specs now. Go ahead, spend the gold and buy that second spec that you will use specifically for leveling purposes. You won't need to be min/max'd for raids any time soon, so sacrificing a lil DPS for more self heals in a balanced build will help the quest turn-ins fly by.

Unholy Death Knight Leveling Spec

I won't pretend to say this is the end all answer to a leveling spec, but it gets a lot of things right. Depending on your method of leveling, this will be balanced enough to do crazy amounts of damage and provide some survivability. Obviously this Unholy leveling build requires you to be at least level 79.

Death Knight Leveling Spec

WoW Head Death Knight Leveling Spec - http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jbhZZcucdfcodfo
How to use this spec automatically with WoWTal.

I think in another post installment I'll do a write up of the best places to level and when to pickup some notable quests. You know, the ones that reward decent gear to help get you prepped for Heroic Dungeon grinding. ;) See you in The Shattering!

4.0.3a The Shattering Is Now Live

2010-11-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

Amazingly enough the servers ended up coming online sooner than projected, within the 2nd or 3rd delay. Hmm, does that makes sense to anyone else? It's like Blizzard and Valve work on the same twisted time zone. At any rate, new textures, some devastation, and a few thousand new quests await you next time you log in.

I had left my Death Knight logged out in Iron Forge and when I logged in I started off in the grave yard outside. From what I understand this is typical, so if you logged in Stormwind, you'd find yourself starting off in the Elwyn Forrest grave yard. Which would be nice, since the first thing you see when strolling into Stormwind would be the giant burning claw marks left on the castle structures.

Bombarded with questions about what the first thing I would do once The Shattering hit, I surprised myself. All I did was stroll out to Westfall, look at the big hole in the ground and go back to farming. What did you do last night, roll a new toon, finish leveling to 80 on another?

4.0.3a Death Knight Patch Notes

2010-11-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Shattering is currently under way and we are dealing with a very extended maintenance schedule. Personally, I feel sorry for the Blizzard employees that have had to be there since 3 this morning. Surely they go out and party after a clean patch day.

At any rate, below are changes to Death Knights that will take affect immediately after the realms come back online.

Death Pact now heals for 25% of maximum health, down from 40%.
Death Strike now heals for 25% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds, down from 30%, and will heal for a minimum of 7% of maximum health, down from 10%. The tooltip may not yet be updated to reflect this change.
Icebound Fortitude now provides 20% damage reduction, down from 30% (now 50%, down from 60% when talented), and has a 3-minute cooldown, up from 2 minutes.
Talent Specializations
Blood
Rune Tap now heals for 10% of maximum health, down from 15%. The tooltip may not yet be updated to reflect this change.
Glyphs
Glyph of Rune Tap now heals for 5% of maximum health, down from 10%.
Bug Fixes
Frost Fever critical strikes now apply the correct amount of bonus damage.
Horn of Winter will once again provide runic power when used while another Attack Power buff is already present on the death knight.

Also, don't forget the major changes to Azeroth, which include thousands of additional quests from 1-60. In addition, more important to new or leveling Death Knights, there has been a change to allow a 25% leveling time from 71-80. Now, get out there and get ready for Cataclysm.

How Will You Buy Cataclysm?

2010-11-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

A topic going around my social circle is how we will be purchasing the upcoming WoW expansion Cataclysm. There are a few options available, brick and mortar store bought DVD, order the Cataclysm DVD or special edition DVD online, or buy directly from Blizzard and download, sans physical product.

In the past I've always bought my games from either Wal-mart or Best Buy. For better or worse I've always been able to walk right in, purchase my game, go home, and enjoy. The idea of trying to fix something that isn't broken makes me nervous, especially for such an anticipated title like Cataclysm. The world is changing, why would I want to gamble on availability!?

So there it is, in an informal questionnaire, much less evasive than trying to get through TSA check points this Holiday Season. How will you be buying Cataclysm?

To Download or Not To Download?

The Shattering Happens Today?

2010-11-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday, patch day, and we have an extended maintenance. Further evidence, like an official blog post discussing The Shattering and patch 4.0.3a, make for a compelling argument that the event has hit. However, I realms are still down and I just can't imagine then starting something in the middle of the Pilgrim event.

I mean, we are currently in a Holiday, Thanksgiving is on Thursday, and they want to set Azeroth ablaze? I'm fine with that, but can you imagine the posts, complaints, and utter anarchy that will be found on the WoW forums? It's been proven time and time again that people will complain about anything, so here is something else for them to get all hot and bothered over.

So, since we still have at least a few hours before servers come back up, will the actual Shattering event happen as soon as realms come back up, before the end of the Pilgrim Event, or after the Holiday like on Friday?

*Update - Maintenance on Tuesday 11/23/10 The Shattering 4.0.3a extended till 7 pm.

Death Knight Preparation for Cataclysm Leveling

2010-11-18T08:03:00.000-08:00

The end is near, Cataclysm is looming in the distance and the shattering will be happening any day now. So what should Death Knights be doing to prepare for leveling to the new cap of 85? Also, what will be the best way to gain experience from 80-85?

Of course there are plenty of arguments about taking your time, power-leveling, instance runs, or just questing. Really, I prefer a mixture of all of the above. I love questing, but get bored fairly quickly and the same can be said for running instances over and over and over again. Furthermore, I normally hit the power-leveling quick and hard, but back off as the bubbles disappear and my rested XP wears off.

Leveling Spec and Buff Stuff

If you don't plan on tanking instances all the way to 80, it may be a good idea to at least dual-spec into Unholy. Unholy will provide the most damage and allow the completion and killing of Cata Creatures much faster or efficiently. Also, the use of buff food, elixirs, and potions will help min/max your leveling experience to 85.

Personally I've been stocking up on some Strength Elixirs and other various buff foods. If you happen to be a cook or alchemist the need for this may be null and void, since so many new buff stuff will be available. However, if you are buying it all, you may save some money buying the Lich King expansion goodies now.

Instance Runs

Sprinkling in some dungeon runs will help break up the monotony of quest grinding. Also, it has the added benefit of potentially providing superior loot, which will also in turn help your quest leveling process. The stronger you are, the harder and faster they fall.

Death Knight tanks will also have the added benefit of learning the normal mode dungeons before jumping into heroics at 85. This could pay off in spades, to learn the more difficult Cataclysm dungeons on a normal mode, when everybody is feeling their way around. I find this will take the stress off of every trying to push for a rush as soon as heroic modes are available.

Misc Tips

Stocking up on gold will offer the side benefit of helping leveling your mat using professions. Gold will become an even larger sink if you lack a gathering profession or there are people waiting in line for certain veins or herbs. How long into Cataclysm before the auction house stabilizes?

Bonus Secret Extra XP Tip

Do 25 daily quests before Cataclysm launches on December 7th. Then, once you have installed the expansion, had your level cap raised, go turn in said 25 quests. This way you get an immediate boost in experience, perhaps just not enough to hit 81. ;)

Favorite New Death Knight UI

2010-11-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

I go through phases on what I expect and want out of a UI or user interface. In the past I always liked the bulky and full look of Spartan UI and it included a lot of what I needed, just some nice organization. However, lately my attention has been drawn to a need to create a clean, light weight, and fast UI. Not to mention I finally got around to cleaning out my Addon folder.

Thankfully there are a lot of options available for premade UI's. These combo packs of user interface goodies can of course be found and downloaded from Curse. But, occasionally there are packages available that can't be found officially on the Curse World of Warcraft add on website, which is the case with the Tukui user interface.

What I love about Tukui is that it automatically sets itself up optimally for the class and character you are playing. No more fumbling around for profiles, there is a few clicks to get you to DPS mode, and you are done. However, if you are someone that likes tweaking the night away, there are plenty of options available for that as well. For example, I've customized how many action bars are up at one time and had to move my stance bars around. Other than that, this baby comes ready to roll.

Built into the Tukui UI is bag sort, map mods, chat mods, automatically sell/repair, and more! I found myself only needing to add a few more addons to reach my normal functionality. Postal, Advanced Trade Skill Window, Tidy Plates Threat Plates, and Deadly Boss Mods rounded out my setup.

I now enjoy an extremely clean and light weight user interface. Although it's still early in the adoption phase, I think I'll be keeping this UI around well into Cataclysm.

4.0.3 Now Live, Still No Shattering

2010-11-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

It'll be another few days at least until the event known as the Shattering actually takes place. The latest patch, 4.0.3, is just putting things in place so that Azeroth falls apart as planned. Look for a 4.0.3a patch to trigger the event and release Death Wing.

So, as far as this patch is concerned no real content added. Mainly we get some bug fixes, pre patch patching, and a UI tweak. For all purposes patch 4.0.3 is for back end goodies and nothing that we will notice in our day to day trekking.

General

Much of the data being downloaded in patch 4.0.3 will pave the way for the shattering of Azeroth shortly before the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on December 7.
The leader of Wintergrasp raids can no longer kick players from the raid (this change will also apply to Tol Barad in Cataclysm).
When in a Looking For Dungeon group, using an instance portal to that instance will now take players to the Looking For Dungeon entrance point instead of the normal destination of that portal. This will make it easier to return to the instance after dying in an LFD group.
Honorable Kills are no longer awarded for killing players below level 5.

User Interface

Added pets to the new raid unit frames when displayed in party.
The default UI Scale has been altered so it will be set at a 1:1 pixel/texel ratio. This will result in a smaller UI appearance for higher resolution monitors.
Players may now adjust the local "Lag Tolerance" time for better precision of spell timing. This is an advanced-users-only feature found in the Interface Options (Combat) panel.

Bug Fixes

Macros now handle spell variant transitions better. For example, Trap Launcher causes a different version of Frost Trap to be cast. Previously the macro system was not handling this transition properly.
Queuing in Looking For Dungeon for a different wing of the instance a player is already in now works properly. For example, a party can now queue for Scarlet Monastery - Library after completing Scarlet Monastery - Graveyard.
Killing High Interrogator Gerstahn before killing Emperor Dagran Thaurissan in a Blackrock Depths - Upper City random Looking For Dungeon run will now provide the proper reward. This also applies to Archmage Arugal and the Crown Chemical Company bosses in Shadowfang Keep during the Love is in the Air holiday event.
Repeatedly inspecting other players should now function correctly.
Area heal-over-time effects should no longer cause players to stand up.
Male blood elves have received a crash course in dancing and now know to stop dancing when they run.
Drake mounts have gotten bored with gliding and will flap their wings again when flying forward.
Druid Flight Form now properly appears in the Spellbook before Expert Riding is learned.
Sunfire's damage-over-time effect now deals damage at the same rate as Moonfire's damage- over-time effect.
GM Ticket messages should now displace buff icons instead of obscuring them.

Death Knight Tank Reforge Gear Guide

2010-11-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

With the introduction of 4.0.1, everyone has access to an NPC that will reforge your gear. That is, reforging will allow you to take 40% of one stat and convert it to another stat not found on that particular piece of gear. Reforging cannot affect gem slots or base stats, which means as a Death Knight tank you will typically only be attempting to reforge stats to reach cap on hit or expertise.

When choosing a stat to reforge, consider stealing from hit or expertise. The reason for choosing these stats is because you are most likely over the cap for one or the other, if geared well. Take the amount over cap and convert that stat into the one needed or into the new Mastery stat.

Basically the reforging process is a method to get rid of useless over cap stats and convert them into needed stats to reach cap. Once caps are reached, spend excess stat points on the Mastery skill.

Death Knight Nerf On Beta Build

2010-11-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

Those playing the Cataclysm Beta will tell you there is a big nerf coming that will effect almost every class. Specifically the Death Knight Frost and Unholy specs will be receiving some changes.

Frost

Rune Strike now scales from 15% of Attack Power, down from 20%.

Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage taken by 20%, down from 30%. Cooldown increased from 2 min to 3 min.

Unholy

Mastery: Blightcaller now increases damage done by your diseases by 40%, up from 32%. Each point of Mastery increases disease damage by an additional 5%, up from 4%.

Again, Death Knights aren't the only ones getting beat up on the current Beta build. Hopefully this will be a brief test on what may be too far and these changes will never make it live. Time will tell.

Death Knight Tank Recommended Addons

2010-11-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Addons provide a functionality or user interface change not available in the standard setup of World of Warcraft. Blizzard is known for their availability to the mod community, ease of access, and lack of customization limitations. Basically with addons you can do almost whatever you want within WoW, including making your life, as a Death Knight Tank, easier.

Below are a list of addons that I recommend for Death Knight Tanks. Please don't consider this the end all guide to addons, rather a brief list of what I personally couldn't live without. I would encourage everyone to add their own list of addons that they can't live without in the comments section at the bottom.

Tidy Plates - Curse Link To Tidy Plates

Nameplates refer to the health bars and names of your enemies and friends that float above the characters heads. Although standard Blizzard setup has them set to hidden, pressing 'V' reveals them. Tidy Plates takes the default look of these name plates and presents them in a much cleaner format.

Threat Plates - Curse Link to Threat Plates

Threat plates uses Tidy Plates to display threat levels in the form of graphical changes within the nameplates of your enemies. These makes tabbing through enemies more efficient and will quickly alert you to low threat and loss of threat situations. Thus allowing you to react to a situation faster.

Deadly Boss Mods - Curse Link to Deadly Boss Mods

If you are one of the 5 people who still haven't installed Deadly Boss Mods or DBM, then stop what you are doing and make it happen, NOW. Although not a tank specific addon, DBM fulfills the requirement of a tank and that's having all the information available about an instance. This simple addon announces changes within a boss fight, allowing for better reaction times, and saving on time needed to read up at WowHead.

Omen Threat Meter - Curse Link to Omen Threat Meter Addon

Perhaps this should have been linked at the top, a necessity to keep an eye on threat levels. Does what Threat Plates does, only provides threat levels in the form of bars at the top of your screen, for easy monitoring.

These are not the only addons that I use for Death Knight Tanking, but it is a minimum list that I will use when doing randoms. However, this list grows pretty fast when getting involved in Raids, inspecting, and of course the gold making tools.

What are the minimum addons you will use when tanking as a Death Knight in 4.0.1?

Rune Strike Issues With 4.0.1

2010-10-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

Many people have been complaining about the new changes to Rune Strike, specifically it only becoming available after an avoidance move. Some Death Knight tanks feel this modification in the 4.0.1 patch makes the rune regeneration modification even more convoluted. It's virtually impossible to create a fluid and sustainable threat level, especially on single target.

Right now there is a 4 page thread in the Death Knight Forums calling out for a hot fix. As of this post, no dice.

Consider the need for such a fix to RS in 4.0.1. It's another casualty of the random number generator (RNG), that doesn't allow proper planning when coming up against tank changes, boss pickups, etc. The issue of not being able to build agro with Rune Strike becomes an even larger threat barrier when coming up against caster bosses.

What do you think about the change to Rune Strike in 4.0.1?

4.0.1 Death Knight Unholy DPS Talent Spec

2010-10-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

Looking to maximize your DPS in 4.0.1 as a newly revamped Unholy Death Knight? Look no further, as of level 80, the following DPS spec will be the best at supplying consistent single target damage explosions.

This level 80 talent spec uses all the best DPS talents and will rely on having your ghoul out and the occasional Death Coil. ;) In addition, the use of this Death Knight spec will require you to remain in Unholy presence. Not sure how long this will remain as powerful as it is, but lets jump on the band wagon now and enjoy the big deeps.

WoWTal 4.0.1 Death Knight Unholy DPS Spec

How to automatically use the above spec in game.

The above dps talent spec uses the following;

Prime Glyphs:

Raise Dead
Scourge Strike
Death Coil

Unholy DPS Major Glyphs:

Anti-Magic Shell
Pestilence
Blood Boil

Unholy DPS Minor Glyphs:

Horn of Winter
Path of Frost
Resillient Grip

The WowTal link above should automatically use the glyphs mentioned above, but if not the list has been provided.

How To Spec Into A Talent Tree Automatically

2010-10-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, you spent more time playing with talents and getting things to jive, than actually playing the game. I have an awful time of looking at a web page talent calculator, alt+tab back to WoW, do a few talents, alt tab back to the other window, rinse and repeat until fully spec'd. However, you should know that there is a simpler way and WowTal.com provides a quick and easy script to facilitate updating your talent trees.

First, cruise on over to WowTal.com and start building on your Death Knight Talent Spec. WowTal.com has even been updated to allow for glyphs and Cataclysm only spells and glyphs. So, future builds can already start being theory crafted or actually used if you are lucky enough to be playing the beta.

Next, click the 'Use it ingame!' button. This will provide you with a popout, which contains a command line script which instructs you to copy and then paste in game. But where are you supposed to paste the code from WowTal in the World of Warcraft game client?

The WowTal script must be pasted into the chat window of the Wow client. If you are not familiar with scripts in Wow, then know that it is common place to allow certain commands within the chat line. Yes, the same place you make 'anal' jokes is the same place you will make your life easier with seemingly complicated script lines.

For a complete list of chat command line summaries please click here.

I should also mention that there are certain Addons that allow the same type of functionality. Talented is one such addon that allowed users to link spec's from many popular talent builders and then have them automatically previewed, then applied. However, most of these addons have yet to be updated for 4.0.1, so for now WowTal.com will be my talent builder of choice. Expect these builds to be linked in my posts, much like my Death Knight Tank 4.0.1 Spec.

4.0.1 Death Knight Blood Tank Talent Spec

2010-10-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

Looking to hit the ground running with the all new 4.0.1 patch? How about starting things off with this level 79 Blood Tank spec, which gets you the basics of a good build, at least what worked well on the public test realm.

This build also focuses on Rune Strike, which continues to be a primary threat builder moving into 4.0.1 and beyond. However, if you are looking for a bit more of survivability and less on the threat scale, then perhaps consider putting some points into improved Blood Tap.

Blood Tank Spec for 4.0.1
WowHead Link - http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jchr0srrusdZ0h:Rzosmac
WowTal Link - http://wowtal.com/#k=YfHoQ3t1.a5o.deathknight. (How to use WowTal.com to automatically update your talent spec in game.)

Patch Day For 4.0.1

2010-10-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

Looks like the new patch is for sure hitting the Blizzard servers as we speak. It's a massive patch, 4.8gb to be exact and is reportedly taking up to 2 hours on a decent computer to install. Yes, that is 2 hours to install, not just download. Hopefully everyone started their background downloader a week ago.

4.0.1 Patch Highlights for Death Knights

Runes - The way they fill is different, which slows the special ability use down, but allows for some different fighting mechanics. Runes will now fill one at a time, instead of all at once. Not meant to gimp the Death Knight, just allow for some broader changes come Cataclysm.
Blood Is Only Tanking Tree - As mentioned in another post, quite possibly the biggest change for patch 4.0.1 will be that blood is the only tanking tree for Death Knights.
Rune Empowerment - Ability to instantly refill certain runes, which allows for less cut'n paste rotations, a little variety in your fights.

Blizzard claims the servers will most likely be back up at noon, I'm doubtful. Such a huge patch and Blizzard's history of never hitting patch deadlines, you'll probably be lucky to play before dark. Hmmm, wonder if there will be a que to log on to my server?

Blood Will Be Only Tanking Spec For Death Knights

2010-10-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sure was nice while it lasted, being able to dual-wield, blood, frost, and even unholy tank as a Death Knight. However, that time has come to pass and the next patch will be the end of unique tanking trees, when 4.0.1 becomes live, Blood will be the only tanking tree. This becomes a real bummer for me, since I had finally got used to dual-wield tanking in Frost and loving it.

Early on, while learning to tank as a Death Knight, I had been using the Blood spec. It provided a lot more room for error, plenty of hit points, just maybe not so much control over AOE threat. Thankfully Blizzard has made it clear that they will be stealing some of the talents from Unholy and Frost to make up for the lack of Blood specific tanking abilities.

Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood.

There has been some speculation that the next patch will be out next Tuesday, October 12th. Start holding your breath now.

Death Knight vs Druids

2010-03-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knights in WoW vs Druids.

Druids can be hard to defeat in the battle. Your success rate of fighting with druid will depend on the skills and specs of the druid in the fight. Feral druid will start the battle in cat form and stealth. To damage the enemy’s stealth, you can use the D&D. If the druid knows that you are going to throw down the D & D, he will attempt to keep himself at a distance. Next, the druids will open up with Leap which is followed by the Maim. From this stage, the druids technique will be different. Some druids will persist in dps you while others will transform into a bear for a stun from Bash.

Some druids will perform the Cyclone action and regain stealth. You should not waste the trink on the stuns. If you feel that you can get the icebound fortitude off, you shoucan use the trink for the cyclone. When the druid gets low, he will attempt to heal himself. If you manage to stop the druid from healing himself, you will wint the match. If he is likely to heal, you can use the icebound fortitude on him. If the druid tries to use cyclone on you, you can counter attack it with mind freeze or pop the anti magic shell. The anti magic shell will help to absorb it so that you can win the battle.

Experienced druids will use Nature’s Grasp to root you and escape to a distance to heal itself. If you know the druid is going to heal himself, you can use the anti magic shell to waste his nature grasp. If he manage to root you, you should death grip him back before he run away to a far place so that you have have time. After that you should strangulate him once he is out of range in order to silence him. In this way, you will have time for the root to fade. You should let the enemy get the range so that you can interrupt him when he begins to cast his heal. It is not recommended that use chains of ice because he will be able to easily move out of it. If the druid is unable to move to a distance before he manage to heal himself, you can wait for him to be healed and then interrupt him by using the Death Grip.

The balance druid is harder to cope than experienced druids. The balance druids is dangerous because they will attempt to root you and bomb from within a range while they are moving out from the chains of ice. Therefore, you will not be able to keep close to them. In this situation, you can make an initial interruption by using Entangling Roots. The entangling roots power will cause the balance druid to blow their nature’s grasp. If you possess the runic power, you can use the anti magic shell to stop them from rooting you. By using the anti magic shell, you will be able to cause serious damage on the enemies.

Death Knight vs Death Knight

2010-03-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article on Death Knights vs Death Knights.

When fighting with the same class, the only differences are that the experience and talent build in the enemy death knight. If the enemy death knight has the same gear and experience, your abilities will be optimal against others.

In PvP, the enemy death knights are likely to possess some blood abilities. When you are fighting with an blood death knight, you must for the mark of blood. If you damage the mark of blood on the enemy, you will receive 4% of target health. If you have the mark of blood, you should not use the auto attack or Icy Touch to attack the opponent. Instead, the runes should be saved up for the death strike. If you possess the frost talents, you can use Obliterate.

If you are a blood death knight fighting against a death knight with a pet, you should place the mark of blood on the pet and not the player. The pet will assail in a faster speed and cause less damaging auto attacks and returns 4% of his target health. This technique can be used when fighting against hunter pets and warlock pets. However, it will not be effective on water elementals.

If you are fighting against frost death knight, you can use the frost strike to attack him. When the frost death knight attempt to fight you with chains of ice, you can alternate between obliterate and frost stroke to cause burst damage. If the frost death knight is using dual wielding, you can mark of blood them.

Unholy death knight tend to kill slowly. Therefore, you should keep someone in the death & decay area. The initial stage of the battle with the unholy knight is the most important part. You will want to throw his normal rotation off and cause him to become nervous. If you are able to get him low quickly, he will release spam and not use the solid rotations which are what you want. After you have use AMS on him, you must monitor your health when it is below the 5k – 6k. The rotation that you should use throughout the battle with the unholy death knight should be icy touch, plague strike, obliterate, heart strike, heart strike, icy touch,plague strike, heart strike, heart strike, heart strike and heart strike. This is a simple rotation so you should be able to implement them on the enemies. The obliterate ability should be used for the death runes. In addition, you are to keep the diseases stacked. To damage the enemy from a range, you should keep yourself away from the melee range as SS hurts. Since you have better health regeneration, you are likely to win in this battle.

One of the strategies which you can use is to wait for the enemy death knight. With the enemy death knight near you, you can drop the death and decay. After observing the radius, you can add your own so that it partially overlaps it. If the enemy death knight is ignorant, you can trick him into fighting on your side of the D&D. The enemy death knight will think that you want to cause damage and happen by chance to engage in battle with you.

Death Knight Mount

2010-03-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

Guest article submission on Death Knight mounts.

The mount is used to help the death knight to ride on the backs of exotic beasts. Besides the death knight, the warlocks and paladins can also be used to summon mounts as class perk. By mounting on a beast, the death knight can travel faster than walking. In the burning crusade expansion, the flying mount is introduced.

In the past, mounts are expensive but their prices are now lowered. However, the cost of the training to ride them has increased. Some of the mounts don’t require any gold or Marks of Honor. These types of mounts are usually offered at very low rates from bosses such as stratholme, Sethekk Halls, Karazhan, and Urgarde Pinnacle.

In general, there is a 1.5 second castig time for mounts. During the casting time, it can be interrupted by damage or entering combat. When you are not moving, you can press the space bar on your keyboard to perform a special action such as hawskstriders will shriek.

The death knight can increase their mounting speed through enchantments and skills. Some of the speed increase items include Mithril Spurs, Riding Crop and Crusader Aura. Mithril Spurs, Riding Crop and Crusader Aura will not work with players above the level 70.

In the world of warcraft, there are seven types of mounts including Riding Turtle, Sea Turtle, Felsteed, Great Brown Kodo, Flying Machine, Turbo Charged Flying Machine Control and Ashes of Al’ar. Riding Turtle mount cannot increase speed. Sea Turtle mount can increase 60% of water movement speed. Felsteed mount can increase 60% of ground movement speed. Great Brown Kodo can increase 100% of ground movement speed. The flying machine mount can increase 60% of ground movement speed and 150% of air speed. The turbo charged flying machine control can increase 100% of ground movement speed and 280% of air speed. The Ashes of Al’ar can increase 100% of ground movement speed and 310% of air speed.

There are four riding skills including Apprentice (Level 20), Journeyman (Level 40), Expert (Level 60) and Artisan (Level 70). All the land mounts can swim through bodies of water therefore the death knight will not have to remount after leaving the water.

The cost for the training of Apprentice riding skill is 4 golds and 1 gold for the mount. The rare ground mounts has the ability to increase 60% of movement speed. It was lowered to level 40 and 90 to undergo training in Patch 2.4.3. In Patch 3.2.0, it was reduced to level 30 and 35.

The cost of the training for the journey man riding skill is 50 gold and 10 gold for the mount. The epic ground mount can increase 100% of the movement speed. After completing the quests Grand Theft palomino and Into the Realm of Shadows, the epic ground mount called the Acherus deathchanger will be given to the death knights.

The training cost of the expert riding skill costs 259 golds while the cost of the mount is 50 golds. For Horde players, the expert skill is taught by Wind Rider Jahubo in Tharallmar in Hellfire Peninsula. For Alliance players, the expert skill is learned from Hargen Bronzewing in Honor Hold. The expert riding skill is also learned from llsa Blusterbrew in Wildammer Stronghold and Shadowmoon Valley.

The training cost for the artisan riding skill is 500 golds while the mount will cost 100 golds. The epic flying mounts can increase 100% of the ground movement speed and 280% of the air movement speed.The cold weather flying rising skill will costs 1000 golds. The cold weather flying skill cannot be discounted and requires at least level 77.

Death Knight vs Rogue

2010-03-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knights vs Rogues.

Rogue is not very difficult for the death knight because of the parry chance and heavy armor. You can use the rune strike to increase the power of your melee attack. However, you should not use the death coil except you want to kite them.

You should not attempt to stun but save it for his kidney shot. If you possess the runic power, you can tricket out from his cheap shot and use the Icebound Fortitude to defend from a kidney shot. You can also put Mark of Blood on the rogues and this will effectively defend you from the rogue’s fast attack speed which can damage you for 20 seconds. While keeping the rogue at range, you can use the death coils or ghoul to damage them. After that, you can use Icy Touch and Chains of Ice to damage them depending on the situation. Most of the time, you will not want to use icy touch on the rogue except in frost spec condition. If you manage to escape from their stun lock, you can pop cool downs to ease the severity of the damage and kite the rogue. If you follow these steps, you should win the fight.

If you possess the glyph of raise dead, you might get lucky because of the reduced global cool down. If the rogue chep shot you, you must trinket out of it. Next, you should summon the ghoul for 20 runic powers and use the icebound fortitude to escape from the kidney shot.

If you come across a rogue and they attack you, you can use icebound fortitude on him. If the rogue discovers your immunity and waits, you can spam them.

You can also cast diseases on the rogue to stop vanish. However, you can use the CloS to eliminate them completely. Since the rogue will keep on attacking while in invinsible form, you should cast Unholy Blight or Summon Gargoyle anytime.

You can also stop a running rogue by telling your ghoul to follow you and attack them again. If the rogue stealth, your ghoul will know their whereabouts.

Most death knights is not familiar that the rogue poison can be absorbed by the anti magic shell. When a rogue use poison on you, you can pop the AMS to kite them and watch how it absorbs the crippling poision. Despite that, this technique is useless if the effect of the crippling poison already get you. If the Icebound Fortitude did not successfully defeat the enemy, you can pop the trinket and instantly pop the AMS to kit them. The trinket has the ability to remove crippling. By using your shield, you will be immune and able to kit the rogue. You should attack with the chains of ice on the rogue until it wears off. Most of the time, the glyph is used as the glyph of anti magic shell. The glyph of anti magic shell will lengthen duration of the AMS by 2 seconds. Although 2 seconds is brief, it can be used to determine a battle in PVP.

Death Knight vs Paladin

2010-03-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knights vs Paladins.

One of the most difficult opponents of death knight is the paladin. The death knight must damage the paladin before they can regenerate health. Despite that, if you are in melee range, your health will be destroyed in a brief time so it is better to remain in frost presence. In addition, you should pop the cooldowns early. When the enemy uses the hammer of justice against you, you must use icebound fortitude to fight it.

There must be a distance between you and the paladin while you are damaging them with the icy touch and death coil. Staying close to the paladin can injure you so you will want to keep them within a few feet away. The death knight should only get near them when using the rune stroke/death stroke/frost strike combos.

If you want to be close to them, make sure it is instant because they might use the two handed weapons on you. The damage caused by the two handed weapons will be faster that you are able to regenerate with blood abilities. You should not use mark of blood since they are useless against DPS paladins. Instead you should make them pop bubble, and run to a distance. Once at a distance, you can use the rune tap to turn the blood rune into 10% of your maximum health. When your health is restored, you can prepare to kill again.

One of the reasons why Ret pally is hard to defeat is that they cleanse spam. Since they are cleanse spamming, you can use the frost runes for icy touch. If possible, you can use the plague strike because he does not have the ability to cleanse the aoe showing effect. If the freedom is on cd, you will have a few seconds to apply the diseases and use death strike to heal yourself. When the enemy is up, you can use anti-magic shell to fight it. If you are equipped with an addon called afflicted, you can use it when the pally use its seal on you. If the apally absorb the afflicted power, it will not be able to regain mana so that he cannot cleanse as much.

The protection paladins are another enemy of the death knight. Protection paladins gain mana and hp through the death knight’s melee attacks. Therefore, you must keep a distance from them. Because protection paladins have a large amount of HP and armor, you will need to spend a lot of time with them. You should not waste the life drainers by using them with full HP. During the early fight, you should use the anti magic shell and avoid the avenger’s shield. To keep the pally inside it, you can use the anti magic zone. If the pally escape, you should death grip it back. You can also kit the prot pally because kiting it is thr protadins main weakness. Once the paladin is above level 75, they will have the power to use shieldbase to deal with the large damage. In addition, paladins can fear undead for approximately twenty seconds which removed your undead pet and cause you to be kept in undead form. If the army of the dead is used as a last resolution, and the paladin did not used the divine protection until now, there is a high possibility that he will use to counter all the army’s blows.

Death Knight vs Mage

2010-03-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knights vs Mages.

Mage are DPS caster which has the power to create burst damage and cast area of effect spells. The main function of the mage is to damage dealing and crowd control by implementing the polymorph. By using the polymorph, the mage will turn humanoids and beasts into critters that is not capable of causing harm. Generally, you should never use death grip to make an initial interrupt in the fight. The death grip is suitable for ranged classes or people that want to run.

Death knights are equipped to defend himself with any threat from the mage. The opening sequence is the most important factor because it will determine the rest of the fight. Your ghoul must not be with you. The mage will rush towards you and release the frost nova on you. If they manage to frost nova you, the deep freeze will follow. To oppose this, it is important that you build your runic power before the battle begins. To build the runic power, you can place the D & D on the ground and utilize the horn of winter. When the battle begin, you are to use the anti magic shell ability to absorb the damage of offensive spells and converts to runic power. If the mage happens to blink, you can death grip it back. However, a powerful mage will steal a magic buff from you so that you cannot death grip it. The mage will benefit from the stolen buff for 2 minutes. You must apply the chains of ice towards the enemies so that you can get all the cc you need.

If the mage attempt to use polymorph on you, you must pop Lichborne. The polymorph will transform you into an undead knight so that you become immune to sheeped. You must never use AMS to absorb sheep. The AMS should only be used to absorb damaging spells. When the mage pop mirror image, you can wield the weapon pestilence to cause the disease to spread from the mage to the clones. If you can quickly off the pestilence, the mage and his clones will perish in a brief time. After that you must pop anti magic zone if so that you have some time to spot out the real cone. If the mage ice blocks, you can perform as many damage as possible until the mage depart from the ice block.

The main weapons that you will use against the enemies include Chains of Ice, Plague Strike, Death strike and Death Coil. You should not use the scourge strike on the mage because the death strike is required once you are near enough to a mage for melee. When necessary, you can apply spells such as Mind Freeze and Strangulate. You should store enough Anti Magic Shell to protect yourself in case he or she pop the Shatter combo. If you continue to deal the damages in this way, you will surely win the battle since the mage has no healing skills.

Death Knight Tanking Rotations

2010-03-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission discussing Death Knight Tanking rotations.

Tanking rotation is different than damage rotation because the spells that is used will be different. One of the disadvantages of the tanking rotation is that it is very hard to establish a rotation because of the different tanking situation. Tanking death knight has two important roles which is surviving and producing the highest threat on the enemies.

Passive defensive abilities are always kept at the highest level so you don’t have to worry about anything.

Active defensive abilities will help to increase your life span but they must be placed on the spell bar. It is difficult to place the active defensive abilities in a predetermined spell rotation because they are only used when you cannot be healed. Good tanking death knights will protect their healers and keep them alive. The cool down of the spells will stop them from being up throughout the time.

Offensive abilities are used by the tanking death knight to cause damage in order to hold the agro. Single enemy tanks uses power that are very similar to the damage spell rotations. The situation will become difficult when you are tanking several groups of mobs.

After you have applied the diseases on the Icy Touch and Plague Strike, you will use the pestilence ability. The pestilence ability will cause 65 – 79 shadow damage on the foes located within 0 yard. This ability will also spread the diseases on the targets to other enemies. The diseases that are applied on the enemies will last for a full duration. The pestilence ability is useful as an aoe disease refresher.

The blood boil had the ability to boil the blood of the enemies within 10 yards. It can also cause the 180 - 220 shadow damage. The blood boil is used after you have spread the diseases on the targets with pestilence. With the blood boil ability, you will be able to cause a lot of agro. After using this ability, you must reapply to other diseases.

The dark command will command the target to attack you. The dark command will put you at the top of the threat list when are unable to overcome the mob. Before the dark command spell end, you should first build on the threat.

The strangulate ability will strangulate the enemy and keep him silence for 5 seconds. This ability will also deal with 180 shadow damage at the end of the spell. The strangulate ability is suitable for tanks that are tanking caster mobs and need them to come to you. When you use this ability, the diseased mob will run to you to perform the melee. The bonus of the strangulate ability is that it will offers a small amount of damage after the silence has ended.

The rune strike ability will throw off your rotation and limit the threat generation when the mob resists on your abilities. Rune strike should be used whenever you are starting a threat on the enemies.

The death and decay ability is used in multiple mob tanking. Although it is expensive, the 30 second cool down allow you to perform many other task in between the cast.

Death Knight Damage Rotations

2010-03-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knight damage spell and ability rotations.

The basic spell rotation is built on the runes and runic power which forms the resource systems for death knights. The runes are an essential elements of the death knight. They are available In three forms including blood rune, frost runes and unholy runes. The runic power is generated when the death knight uses its rune abilities. If the runic power is not spent, it can decay after a period of time. From the basic rotation, other spells and abilities are substituted into it.

The basic spell rotation uses six abilities including Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate and Death Coil. In this spell rotation, the death knight will applies 2 main diseases to the foul. The death knight will obtain its abilities from attacking the mobs that are infected by diseases. The death knight can also use an ability to consume the damage so that he can get bonus damage. From the basic rotation, the death knight can build any spell rotation.

The blood death knight spell rotation uses 6 abilities including icy touch, plague strike, heart strike, heart strike, obliterate and death coil. In this rotation, the heart strike ability replaces the blood strike ability in the basic rotation. The blood death knight rotation is based on the similar resources as Blood Strike. In addition, the blood death knight can take advantage of the diseases to build a stronger rotation. You can replace the death coil with any rune power.

The frost death knight spell rotation uses 11 abilities including Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Frost Strike, Obliterate, Frost Strike, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate and Hungering Cold. This spell rotation is specced fro Annihilation during the first half spell rotation. The rotation ends with the death knight applying the diseases on the foul. In this way, the frost death knight doesn’t have to reapply the diseases on the enemy by using the Icy Touch and Plague Strike. The Obliterate ability will require the frost and unholy runes. With this spell rotation, your best choice is to use the frost strike and hungering cold. You should choose the ability of your choice based on your circumstances. If you want to damage the enemy, you can use frost strike.

The Unholy Death Knight’s spell rotation uses 11 abilities including Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Scourge Strike and Death Coil. The most powerful ability in this rotation is the Scourge Strike which replaces the Obliterate ability. The Obliterate ability is a more powerful version which does not consume the diseases. However, Obliterate cannot consume the diseases when it is used with the talent Annihilation. The second rotation starts with Scourge Strike because the diseases are not consumed yet. In addition, the unholy death knight will have two more choices for using runic power including Summon Gargoyle and Death Coil. Summon Gargoyle and Death Coil can be used if it happens that the runes are cool down.

Death Knight Sigils

2010-03-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article on the differences and availability of Death Knight Sigils.

There are a number of sigils in the game. However, Blizzard claimed that there will be more sigils for the death knight. At the present moment, all the sigils will increase your damage because of the lack of tanking sigils.

Sigil of the dark rider is given to you after you have created the character. The sigil of the dark rider will increase the damage dealt through the blood strike and heart stroke by 90. This sigil is the solid basis. However, if you hit Northrend, you must replace it.

Sigil of awareness will increase the damage dealt through the scourge strike by 189. In addition, it will increase the damage dealth by the obliterate strike by 336 and death strike by 315. This sigil is suitable for death knights that are unholy spec but with lesser frost spec. Due to the fact that you can spam scourge strike as unholy, you will be able to use this sigil on most of the assails against you. Frost spec will use obliterate lesser but it is still the best choice. If you are a blood death knight, you should not use this sigil because they will use Obliterate to cause the effect of the death runes.

Sigil of haunted dreams will increase the base damage dealt by blood strike and heart strike by 173 strikes in 10 seconds. Because death knight produce lots of blood/heart strokes, it makes the sigil likely to proc. This sigil can be obtained for 15 Northrend heroid badges

Sigil of unfaltering knight increases the defense rating for the icy touch by 53. This sigil is suitable for tanking death knight that have not obtain the recommended defense rating. Most tanking death knight has the icy touch as part of their rotation so the sigil of unfaltering knight is good for them.

Sigil of arthritic binding will increase the base damage dealt by the scourge strike ability by 91.53. This sigil is suitable for unholy death knight that is unable to obtain the sigil from 25 man Naxxramas. If you spam the enemies with scourge strike, your blood runes will transform into death runes.

Sigil of the wild buck increase the base damage dealt by your death coil ability by 80. This sigil is suitable for all kinds of death knights except frost death knights that has the frost strike spec.

Sigil of the frozen conscience increase the damage dealt by icy touch ability by 111. This sigil is used with the Icy Touch. However, before choosing this sigil, you must determine how often you are going to use Icy Touch. If you are an unholy death knight, you will not regularly use it because the scourge strike will refresh the diseases. Blood and frost death knight can obtain talents which will lengthen the duration of diseases so the icy touch is only use to apply to its disease.

Sigil of deflection will cause your runes ability to grant 136 dodge rating for 5 seconds. This sigil is suitable for tanking death knight which can gain access to the Ulduar loot. The sigil of deflection can be obtained from Razorscale.

Sigil of the Vengeful Heart will increase the damage dealt by the Death Coil ability by 380 and frost strike ability by 113. This sigil is suitable for the any death knight including blood death knight, frost death knight and unholy death knight that carry out destruction up to Ulduar.

Death Knight Tanks

2010-03-23T08:26:00.001-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knight Tanks.

Although Blizzard had claimed that the death knight is a hybrid tanking/DPS class, there are very little information on how death knights can serve as tanks. When coming to tanking, death knight are often looked down by other tanks. If you roll a death knight tank, you must keep in mind that a druid, paladin or warrior will often be selected by the group. One of the reasons is that you have less experience tanking. Besides, you are not equipped with a shield.

The tank has three important functions. Firstly, they must be able to create more threat compare with the healer on all targets. The thread is the number which is the priority on the agro table. The character located on the highest level on the agro table is central focus of the mob. When the tank is being healed, the healer will cause threat on the foes so the tank must protect the healer from the foes by staying in front of them on threat. Secondly, the tank and healer must survive. The tank will protect itself by dodging off hits, easing the severity of the damage coming in its direction and create a lot of hit points. In order to survive, the tank and the healer must work together so that the tank will require less healing and stay longer in the battle. Thirdly, the tank must generate threat on the primary target so that the damage dealers can kill it effectively. It is important to note that the tank’s responsibility is not to generate thread but to remain below the threat.

The first two functions are of utmost importance because if they are unsuccessful, they will perish and the group will be wiped out in a very short time.

Death knight possess only one threat generating ability which is the Rune Strike. The Rune Strike creates a next melee swing hit for 150% of normal damage, and 175% bonus threat which sum up for 262.5% of the thread of a normal attack. Generally the death knight utilizes a similar rotation as the DPS death knight but there are some exceptions. When aiming at more than one targets, the death knight can use death and decay because it provides a lot of bonus threat.

The frost presence is essential while tanking because it can increase the total armor by sixty percent and the total stamina by six percent. In addition, frost presence will generate 2.0735x bonus threats for each of the damage released to the enemy. Frost presence gives the death knight ability to tank without requiring a shield just like in the Druid’s Bear form. Due to the fact that death knight can attain a large numbers of armors without a shield, the death knight can use two hand weapon. As a result, they can significantly increase the damage release to the Prot warrior or Prot Paladin.

All death knights are equipped with certain survival abilities including icy touch, mind freeze, death strike strangulate, death pact, icebound fortitude, anti magic shell and chains of ice. Each of this survival ability will protect the death knight in their unique way so the death knight can do his or her job of holding agro.

Death Knight Leveling from 55 - 58

2010-03-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on leveling your Death Knight from 55 to 58 in the World of Warcraft MMORPG.

Death Knight is a playable characters on an account with level 55 or higher character. At the beginning of the game, you will start at level 55, where there is a floating citadel on top of the eastern plaguelands. The eastern plagueland is only accessible by Death Knights.

The Death Knight is equipped with tools such as a set of gear, and 4 x deathweave bag. The first aid skill gives the Death Knight ability to make and use bandages for up to a potential skill of 300. The Death Knight can use the cloth to make bandages found on the humanoids.

In addition, the Death Knight is equipped with 225 skills in riding from the beginning. The riding skill allows them to ride on non epic flying mounts at a speed of 150%. With the riding skill, the Death Knight can be trained at level 60 at the cost of 250. If the Death Knight has exalted reputation, the cost can be discounted for up to 200. For example, if you want to train with Orc trainer Kildar, the cost can be discounted based on the reputation from Orgrimmar. In this case, gamers are required to train their riding skill with the Orc trainer. If he is exalted with another race or visiting a northtrend trainer, he will not be required to train with the respective race’s trainer. You can buy the flying mount from the trainer for 50. The flying mount will be consumed upon learning the mount. Later, you will be able to use the mount to cast spell in the Mounts section of the Pets tab. For the current expansion, players can only use the flying amount in Outland and Northtrend.

As you proceed through the game, you will encounter different quests that form the Death Knight story line. Once you finished the game, you are equipped with a quality set of gear, a free epic land mount and flightpoints.

One leveling tip is to follow the instruction and not skip the Death Knight quest. If you put the talent points into talent, you will reduce the downtime and increase the Death Knight’s damage. The auto loot feature allows you to save time when looting bodies. You can turn on auto loot by pressing ESC on the keyboard. Next, you should select Options > Controls > Auto Loot. It is recommended that you don’t waste your time finding group. Instead, you should only group with people when necessary. You should use only one weapon because it is time consuming to level the weapon skill. Since you start out with a sword, you can use the two handed swords for the rest of your leveling. PVP will slow you down when you are performing the leveling. If possible, you should not confront the PVP and avoid the opponents. Confronting the PVP will put you at a higher risk compare to drying world mobs and slow you down. In addition, killing the enemy players will not give you any XP at all.

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Types of Death Knights

2010-03-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on the roles Death Knights can fill in the World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is a famous game with millions of fans around the world. Many players spend several hours playing the game on the internet. One of the most prominent characters in the game is the Death Knight. The Death Knight will start to appear at level 55. Like the tanks, Death Knights is very destructive in the battlefield. There are 3 types of Death Knights including first generation Death Knight, second generation Death Knight, and third generation Death Knight.

The first generation of Death Knights is created by instilling the soul of an orc warlock into a corpse of the fallen knight of Azeroth. The knights cannot fight efficiently in the battle but they are intelligent and have superior magic power. They can use terror tactics to resurrect the fallen enemy soldiers to make them their servants. The fallen enemy soldiers will attempt to protect the Death Knight from the enemies in the battle field.

The second generation Death Knight is created from a group of fallen paladins. The paladins’ souls are twisted and succumbed to the Frozen Throne. Unlike the first generation Death Knights, they have unlimited casting spell ability. The paladins are former skilled warriors in the art of physical combat and can cast death coil, enhance the allied movement and resurrect the fallen enemies. The second generation death knights can also use the Death Pact spell to destroy the minion to obtain more health. Modern Death Knights are more flexible compare with the first generation Death Knights. Despite that, both the first and second generation of Death Knights are highly destructive and aggressive when face with enemies in the battle field.

The third generation Death Knights is originally created by the Lich King to support Acherus: The Ebon Hold. The Death Knight is includes a small number of the second generation Death Knights. Knights of the Ebon Blade can remove the scarlet crusade from the Plaguelands. In the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion, the Death Knight is freed from the Lich King but ally with their former factions. Under the supervision of the Highlord Darion Mograine, the freed Death Knights is now marching toward Northrend. The third generations Death Knights are an imitation of the previous incarnation and are equipped with melee abilities, and plate armor. They possess the dark magic which help them to fight against their enemies. By using the runic power, they can cast three different types of spells including unholy, blood and frost spells.

The Death Knight character takes a long time to build and often frustrate players who don’t know how to use them efficiently. If you want to find out the major options for the Death Knight character, you should buy a good Death Knight leveling guide.

Death Knight Lore

2010-03-16T06:35:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on Death Knight lore in the World of Warcraft MMORPG.

The name of Death Knight refers to a class that is under the control of two organizations of powerful witches. The Death Knights shares a number of common points. For example, the Death Knights ride on horses with horned skulls.

When Orgrim Doomhammer becomes the new warchief, the first thing that he do is to destroy the orc warlocks from the Shadow Council. However, Orgrim spare the life of Gul’dan. In turn Gul’dan will become his servant and create a powerful army of warriors for him. After Gul’dan have researched on the soul of the slain members, he manage to invoke the spirit of Warlock Teron Gorefiend to live in the body of a dead knight called Stormwind. In this way, he successfully instilled the first Death Knight. Later, Gul’dan also transformed other council members into the Death Knight so that a legion of unholy warriors is formed. The unholy warriors are responsible for causing troubles in the land of Azeroth during the Second War.

After Orgrim died, some of the warriors of Horde including the Death Knight make their escapes from the Dark Portal to Draenor. The Death Knights that survived from the Draenor’s destruction also escaped. However, some of the Death Knights including Ner’zhul are arrested by the Burning Legion. After the capture, the Burning legion transformed them knights into liches. The Demon Lord, named Kil’jaeden imprisoned them by taking away their free will so that they can serve the Lich King. In Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, the liches belong to the spell casting hero class units.

Blizzard reveals the location of a powerful Death Knight who manages to escape from the evil Teron Gorefiend. The game starts with Blizzard deceiving the players with a fabricated history so that they will help to release him from prison. Due to the fact that the story is a deceptive maneuver of Blizzard, it can be assumed that there are a number of first generation detah knight who still exist in their original form including Gorefiend.

Many years later, the Lich King invents a new type of Death Knights that are evil. The most powerful Death Knight from the new breed is Prince Arthas Menethil. Formerly, the Prince Arthas Menethil is a champion of the Silver Hand who relinquish his soul to obtain the runeblade Frostmourne. The new breed of Death Knights is different than Gul’dan Death Knights because they don’t have the free will. Their minds are controlled by the Lich’s King’s vast consciousness. These powerful mortals sell their soul to the Lich King in exchange for immortality.

After destroying the Frozen Throne, Arthas join effort with Lich King. Since then, the power of the Death Knights had grown to become more powerful. As a result, Azeroth is once again troubled by the Lich King’s Death Knights.

Death Knight Hero Class

2010-03-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article submission on the Death Knight Hero class in World of Warcraft.

Death Knight is the first hero that is introduced for World of Warcraft. According the Blizzard developers, the Death Knights have the ability to fill the tank or DPS roles. The DPS Death Knight can choose to fill the role as a raid or group depends on the circumstances. If this is done at an appropriate timing, you can save the group from a wipe. The talent trees is used to fill up the DPS role. Despite that DPS builds are more suitable to be used for leveling.

In Blizzard’s original concept, Death Knight is a knight which can cast spells. Death Knight make its debut in the Warcraft II:Tides of Darkness. The Death Knight is a fictional horseback mounted undead creature that is often seen in fantasy game. After the Warcraft II:Tides of Darkness is published, Blizzard introduced a new game called Warcraft III:Reight of Chaos.

Death Knights can wear plate armor or use weapons engraved with rune alphabets but they are not allowed to use shields. The Death Knight can invoke the ghoul for only a brief time. However, Death Knight can develop a skill to make the ghoul permanent so that they can have full control over it.

If you have the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, you can have the level 55 Death Knight per realm after one character reaches the same account of level 55. Newly built Death Knights has the ability to cast more spells compare to other characters from other classes. Despite that, the newly created Death Knights have to start with no talent points. You can unlock the talent points by completing quests in the starting area in Eastern Plaguelands.

In the beginning of the game, the Death Knights will be bestowed with a 225 kill in riding. The riding skill allows you to ride on non epic flying mounts at a speed of 150%. If you want to train the riding skill, it will cost you 250. Depending on the reputation from any race’s trainer, the cost can be reduced for up to 200. Players must train their riding skill with the respective trainer except if he is exalted with another race. If he is visiting an Outland/Northrend trainer, he is also excluded from the requirement to train with the race’s trainer.

The Death Knight uses a different combat resource system called the runes. The runes is based on the runic power which is displayed under the player portrait. The Death knight uses the runes to generate the runic power to fight against the enemies in the battle. The Death Knight is equipped with two of each rune type including blood, unholy and frost. When the Death Knight has used a rune, the rune will automatically entered into 10 seconds cool down mode before it can be reused again. The Death Knight can also transform the runes into death runes. Death runes can be used as any type of runes. Besides, the runic power can become useless after a long time the Death Knight fought in the combat.

Death Knight Talent Tree Guide

2010-03-15T06:22:00.000-07:00

This is a guest article on Death Knight Talent Trees in the World of Warcraft.

Death Knight is the hardest of all the classes in the World of Warcraft game. When playing the game, you can experiment with the different talent builds. There are three types of talent trees including blood, frost and unholy. The Death Knight talent has no DPS or tanking tree. There is also no connection between the blood, frost or unholy talent trees. The tank build always use the Frost presence. PvE DPS build uses blood presence whereas PvP builds can switch between different presences.

The blood tree increases the power of the Death Knight’s spells, and weapons. This tree will deplete the energy of the enemies. The blood branch can increase the damage of the enemies over a period of time. It can also incur high damage per seconds rating.

However, it has the longest kill time compare to other trees. The blood tree talent is used for the physical damage and self healing. For example, the butchery talent can generates up to 10/20 runic power. The subversion talent can improve the critical strike chance of Blood Strike, Heart Strike and Obliterate. The blade barrier will reduce the damage by 1% - 5% in 10 seconds. The bladed armor talent will increase the attack power within a range of 1 – 5 for each 180 armor.

The frost tree has many control elements including a powerful bonus-damage theme. The talents in this branch can improve the physical damage mitigation. Some Death Knight rarely carries their icy skeleton pet. The icy skeleton pet can enhance the damage per second rating of the group. Without the icy skeleton pet, you can still increase the damage per second by using the frost tree. The frost tree has a total of 30 talents which focus on burst, and dual-wielding. For example, the icy touch talent will create additional 5% – 15% damage and the frost fever will reduce the melee. The runic power mastery talent has the ability to increase to the maximum runic power in a range of 15 – 30

The unholy branch places a strong emphasis on diseases and related abilities. The unholy branch is also used to improve the minion summoning skill. The unholy tress has other elements including AoE, spell damage shielding, and themes for improving the mobility.

The unholy branch is the most important branch of the three in the talent tree and is responsible of fulfilling the group and the rank tank. Though players cannot easily level the protection paladin, they can use the unholy branch to increase the speed of the rune power so that it becomes more aggravating. The unholy tree has a total of 30 talents. For example, the vicious strikes talents increase the critical strike chance in a range of 3% – 6%. The virulence talent ill increase the spell casting chance by 1% – 3 % and reduce the damage on diseases by 10% – 30%

As the game becomes more mature, people can split the talent trees to attain a specific goal. By using the talent calculator, the player will be able to build his character more efficiently. However, you will not be aware of the overall effectiveness of the character you built.

Break The Death Knight Stereotype

2010-02-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

In game I'm lucky, rarely do I experience any type of discrimination simply because I play a Death Knight. Normally group members are just happy to get a tank and usually I surprise them because of their low standards for Death Knight tanks, according to the popular Death Knight Forums. I've composed a list of a few things that we can do, as Death Knight Tanks to bust up the myth that we are all bad.

Be Honest - If this is your first run for a dungeon, especially one of the new ones, let the group know. They can offer up advice and they can react on their toes a lot faster if they can expect a few short comings from a tank not familiar with a fight of a pull.
Be Prepared - This is taken right off of my Death Knight Tank Check List. It'll alleviate stress on your healers and DPS if you come to the fight prepared for what you know. This means have food buffs, potions, and elixirs.
Know Your Spec - Whether you are a Death Knight DPS or Tank, know the limitations and the strengths of your specific spec. Don't pull ahead of your abilities and don't try to AOE dps on a single target dps strong spec. Knowing your talents and abilities goes a long way to proving to the group that you aren't a Deathtard.
Don't Death Grip - There are only a few instances when using Death Grip is warranted. If you aren't a tank or the tank doesn't request it, then just remove it from your keybinds. Furthermore, even tanks should only be using this in a good group or on mobs that break lose from your aggro table.
Don't Army Of Dead - Using this in specific circumstances lends itself to item #3, knowing your spec and talents. Generally speaking, just don't pop it unless you know it won't affect a fight. For example, on a dragon boss that's going to be spinning around trying to hit your little mates, DON"T. Popping AoD on trash or certain bosses is like wearing the retard Tabard.

That's all the tips I have for now, so how do you break the Deathtard mold?

Regarding Rolling

2010-02-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

With the upcoming patch 3.3.3 there will no doubt be some roll changes to many servers. The usual way to roll on items would be to Greed, but with changes to Frost Orbs being traded for mats, why shouldn't everyone roll Need? But another discussion would be about Tanks rolling on DPS gear and vice versa.

I'm a firm believer in a few things, which have shaped my random dungeon runs and made them tolerable. First of all, announce your intent at the beginning of the run. If you will be rolling Need on Orbs, let it be known so that everyone has a fair shot at it. Also, if you are a Tank looking for DPS gear, tell people up front, and likewise if you are a plate wearing DPS that you are looking for tank gear.

The only real issues crop up when it's a surprise and lack of communication develops bad attitudes. Also, by announcing your intent to roll on certain loot you are giving others an option to drop if they don't like it.

The importance of establishing loot rules up front will become even more important the closer we get to Cataclysm and after Cataclysm is released. Those that have been tanking the majority of the Lich King expansion will be wanting to grab some DPS gear out of the early Cata dungeons, so be prepared for drama over loot.

What tips do you have for rolling on gear in random dungeon runs? And no, the answer is not always to just run with friends and guild mates. ;)

Death Knight Forums

2010-02-24T13:04:00.000-08:00

The internet can be a vile and horrid place, full of misinformation. Websites seemingly devoted to helping you improve your game can be a haven for those looking to troll and upset your actual abilities. Keep this in mind as I provide the following links to Death Knight forums, most all information must be taken with a grain of salt. Use this information found on these Death Knight forums wisely.

Official WoW Death Knight Class Forum - One of the larger offenders of providing misinformation. Often these forums are trolled by others looking to spread incorrect information and strengthen the myth that all Death Knights are bads. Only use these Death Knight forums as a last resort if the Death Knight information you are looking for cannot be found anywhere else.

Elitist Jerks Death Knight Forum - The EJ forums are some of the better place to find information, less the idiots looking to cause havoc. However, with great power comes great confusion, so expect to comb through a lot of numbers and theory crafting to find the simple details. Most information found on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum has been tested, retested, numbers crunched, and then made complicated and then throughly spread out over the course of 100+ pages. If you can find what you are looking for then consider it golden.

WowHead Death Knight Class Forum - I would place the Wowhead forums one step above the official World of Warcraft forums, in regards to troll population. More often than not there is a slew of idiot questions and not enough answers. Furthermore this problem is compounded by having idiots spewing more misinformation, mainly those details that they found on the official WoW forums. Garbage in, Garbage out.

DeathKnight.Info Forums - This can be a pretty good source of information and interaction within the Death Knight community, however it is not heavily traveled. So, you may get all kinds of replies and feedback on general wow or Death Knight discussions, but specific information is generally copied and pasted from other sources.

MMO Champion Death Knight Forum - Pretty good mix of information and fun details mixed into one well designed Death Knight forum. MMO Champion is also known for having the latest information on upcoming patches and behind the scenes information on Blue Posts from Blizzard.

Ten Ton Hammer Death Knight Forum - Again, pretty good forum for Death Knight information, but not one that is heavily traveled. As of this post there were only a handful of threads that had even been updated in the past 15-30 days. So, if you are looking for some general information it might work out, but for some patch sensitive info you might want to stick to some of the other options listed above.

Lastly, just a reminder, use all of these Death Knight forums as a tool. A lot of the information surrounding Death Knights can be interpreted differently and should not 100% affect your play style. Learn what you can, apply what you know, and test test test to see what works best for your Death Knight. Have fun and beware of the forum trolls.

Make Money As A Death Knight

2010-02-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

The upcoming patch 3.3.3 will have far reaching implications for everyone trying to make a little gold. Specifically there will be some very convenient changes to the way items are listed on the auction house, the availability of rare mats, and the removal of cool downs.

First of all the auction house changes, which will make listing a large number of items easier. The new World of Warcraft auction house will allow you to drag and drop entire stacks of an item into the window and then have the option to sell in smaller quantities. This removes the requirement to break down all your stacks to sell things like infinite dust. Much more efficient auction listing and management, without the need for add ons.

Next will be the Frost Orb exchange, which allows a 1 to 1 exchange for more expensive mats. For example, when patch 3.3.3 becomes live you will be able to exchange one Frost Orb for one Frost Lotus. No doubt this will drop prices on items like Flasks immediately, so start stocking up on those vendored orbs now.

Lastly, Patch 3.3.3 will remove global cool downs on abilities like Titan Steel Bars. Obviously this will help drive the price of craftable ilvl 200 gear down as well, making gearing up easier. There should be no reason to not hit defense cap immediately after hitting lvl 80 for Death Knight Tanks.

Makes me wish I would have been saving all those Frost Orbs, so keep an eye out on ninja's needing every time.

New Death Knight Tank Check List

2010-02-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

It's intimidating learning how to tank and its even worse when learning to tank on a Death Knight. Throw in the fact that you are learning on Heroic level 80 dungeons and it makes for some heart pounding stress. But, if you like taking control, or if you are just sick and tired of DPSing from the cheap seats, jump right in.

The new LFG Tool makes joining dungeons a breeze and the fact that you will never see these people again should alleviate some of that noob tank stress. Every tank had to learn at some point, but not every tank who gloats in party chat had to learn in the circumstances surrounding Death Knights. Lastly, don't let that 2 button Druid Tank try to tell you how easy tanking is, it's much more complicated and involved to be a good Death Knight tank than a bear.

That being said, below is a check list I would recommend all Death Knights adhere to before jumping into your first Heroic tanking situation.

Reach Defense Cap - Yes, it is that important. Make sure you have at least 535 Defense before jumping into a Heroic Dungeon. I don't care that you've done it before without problems, you are a huge strain on your healer and a couple RNG crits will be the end of you and your group. So, go buy that cheap ilvl 200 tank gear, throw a Stoneskin Gargoyle Rune Forge on your weapon, and drink an Elixir of Mighty Defense if need be.
Watch A YouTube Video - I'm talking from experience, tanking an instance and dps'ing an instance are very different things. Watch a YouTube video of the fights in all of the Northrend Dungeons. You don't have to have them all memorized, but it will help in knowing the little tricks and odd mechanics of some of the boss fights from a tanking perspective.
Be Over Prepared - This means make sure you bring your own food buff, elixir, potion, or whatever. Minimum stats are just that, minimum requirements, be over prepared to alleviate healing and dps stress on others in your group. At this point, more often than not, your other party members will be over geared..so you should do everything you can to boost your stats.
Take Criticism - Even if you have a few flawless runs, ask at the end of the group what you could have done to improve. Most people are more tolerant of those willing to learn, than those that just assume they know everything. It also doesn't hurt to ask about an instance, if you have a question, while people are buffing at the beginning. And, don't get your feelings hurt if they point out your weaknesses during the run, use that input and take it all with a grain of salt. Knowledge is Power!

That's it for my checklist for now. It's important to not get discouraged and spread your tanking out over a few runs. If you see yourself starting to get angry, just step back, run as DPS for a few dungeons, and then come back to tackling the differences in tanking. It's ok to fail, despite what the WoW forums say.

Please chip in if you have any other tips for new Death Knight Tanks.

5 Reasons To Drop Group

2010-02-17T12:48:00.001-08:00

The new LFG Tool Blizzard has implemented has been a godsend and an eyeopener to boot. Imagine wielding the ability to randomly run dungeons and be thrown into a group willing to do the same, without having to spam trade chat in the big cities. Well, that's what we got, well, that and a whole new type of headaches.

Below are 5 reasons to immediately drop group in a random Heroic Dungeon run.

DPS only uses capital letters in chat and frequently replaces letters with numbers.
Tank states he's close to Defense cap, but should be fine.
Healer asks who's tanking after the 2nd pull.
Oculus
You join a run in progress that's taken 15 mins to get to first boss.

Bracer Upgrade For Death Knight Tanks

2010-02-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

If you are like me, you have been struggling to upgrade your tanking bracer. I don't get a lot of Raid time in on my DK, so I've had to rely on using the available PVP bracer, for the stamina boost and a little resilience. However, we now have access to crafted ilvl 245 Saronite Sword Breakers.

The Saronite Sword Breaker bracer recipe is a drop in ToC, so hopefully now that ICC has been out for awhile we'll see the prices start to drop. The mats for Saronite Sword Breakers are 4 Crusader Orbs, 20 Saronite Bars, and 8 Titansteel bars.

These are a must have upgrade for Death Knight tanks, especially if you don't see a lot of Raid time. Every little bit helps when power pulling through Heroics and everyone loves a properly itemized tank. Not to mention with the extra defense you might even be able to swap out the Rune Forge you have on your 2 handed tank weapon. ;)

Recommended Death Knight Macro's

2010-02-17T07:01:00.001-08:00

You can be a good player without using Macro's, but to be the best you can be, you have to use Macro's. Without question a Death Knight rotation, especially that of a DK Tank, require the use of Macro's to properly run through a rotation. Below are a collection of Macro's recommended for Death Knights.

Army Of The Dead Speed Cast
/use speed potion
/cast Army of The Dead

Rune Strike Macro
#showtooltip
/cast someability
/cast !Rune Strike

The Rune Strike macro is probably the most important Macro in the arsenal of a Death Knight Tank. Rune Strike is one of your primary threat builders, next to your Death and Decay, and damage causing abilities. Therefore, it's important to automatically Rune Strike when available and by using the above Macro you can forget about the procs and focus on your rotation.

Elitist Jerks has a HUGE thread dedicated to what Macros other Death Knights are using. Please view the Elitist Jerk Death Knight macro thread here.

Update Your Spec At Patch Time

2010-01-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

Each patch brings it's own challenges in regards to every class and race. Typically even if you are a class that gets nerfed you can soften some of the blow by changing up your talent tree to compensate. Furthermore, what may have been the cookie cutter answer to Death Knight tanking 2 patches ago might not hold true now. Lastly, lets not forget those theory crafting freaks at elitist jerks, that are constantly updating what is the perfect option for Death Knight talent builds.

I've been tanking primarily in Blood Spec and after some reading and acquiring gear I realize it's time for me to respec. Since I have a lot more mitigation than previously, I can afford to drop some of my talented mitigation and move on to more damage producing talents, which will also increase my threat generation.

This is the recommended Blood Tank Spec from Elitist Jerks following the latest patch 3.3

Death Knight Tank Blood Spec Build with Rune Tap

So, don't set on your laurels and get used to the same spec your entire WoW career. Stay up to date on what nerfs and buffs are coming through on patch day and learn to adapt your talents as need be.

What Is An Update For The Titansteel Destroyer?

2010-01-13T11:58:00.001-08:00

Death Knight tanks fight over weapons that may also be decent for other classes, like Druid's and Hunters. Luckily there are a few easily accessible weapons in the game that make replacing that craftable Titansteel Destroyer a little bit easier. We will stick to 2H Weapons, which will of course require the rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle for tanks.

Edge of Ruin - This is a great 2h Axe with lots of stamina and a plethora of strength, which us DK's eat up. Death Knight tanks appreciate the increase in strength to increase our damage and thus improve our threat.

The Edge of Ruin drops from the Champions Cache in Heroic Trial of the Champion.

Tyrannical Beheader - This 2h Axe is an ilvl 232 with lots of stamina and strength. Without question this is a big update from the Titansteel Destroyer, but may remain marginal when compared to the ilvl 219 Edge of Ruin. The main reason is because it contains haste, which is kind of a toss up stat for Death Knights. So, it's still an upgrade, so feel free to roll against those Hunters and Druids.

The Tyrannical Beheader drops from Heroic Pit of Saron on the last boss.

Long Time Coming

2009-12-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite some time since I found time to post about my Death Knight tanking escapades. A lot has happened since the end of October, which includes joining a Guild, which has made gearing up a lot smoother. Not necessarily easier, just more predictable with running heroics, and not getting stuck with the level 80 wearing grays.

Furthermore I had the opportunity to tank my first Raid last night, which was 10 man Naxxramas. I'm way over geared for the place, but was a good learning experience, even as the off tank, since my main is a Mage which only sees fights from the cheap seats. The run wet my appetite, yielded me the Tier 7 shoulders, and left me craving for more.

Tonight I hope the opportunity will present itself for me to tank OS, with at least 1 or more Drakes. I think I'm ready, or at least I hope the Raid has patience and a bank roll to help pay for repairs. ;)

I full intend to return to posting regularly again, with helpful information, and not worthless information about my own play time. Death Knight tanking is a blast, no matter who bashes it, it's viable and provides a challenge to the player, while being versatile. Ttyl.

Death Knight Tank Elixir and Potions

2009-10-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

I've become good friends with a couple of consumables that make my tanking easier. As mentioned previously, I'm new to tanking, so any help I can get I'm going to use. Consumables like potions and elixirs will be the first to come to mind, but don't forget the extra attack power and stamina boost from chowing down on your favorite food either.

Until defense capped I always used Elixir of Mighty Defense, which obviously can help you reach that cap to run Heroics or even Raids.

To help with threat generation I also down a Elixir of Mighty Strength. This is becoming increasingly important because most dps out gear me at this point and keeping threat on multiple mobs can be a challenge. Heck, even on single target tank'n spank bosses it can be an issue if maxed out warriors or warlocks decide to crit it up. Thank goodness Dark Command is on only an 8sec cool down.

To recap, new Death Knight tanks should always bring along Guardian Elixir's and Battle Elixir's. Only one of each can be active at any given time and they are inexpensive enough to keep plenty in your bags, just in case of wipes.

Lastly, as a side note, your healer may request you use Elixir of Mighty Fortitude. This has been a helpful elixir before I had a larger stamina pool or if my healer wasn't equipped to the teeth.

Happy Tanking.

Leveling A Death Knight

2009-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Without a question leveling my Death Knight was much more fun than it was on my Mage or Hunter. Death Knights are just plain fun and when leveling Blood you just feel OP at lower levels. It doesn't mean the class needs nerfing, all classes should be made this fun when leveling from 1.

Perhaps that's what Blizzard will try to achieve when they release Cataclysm, a 'Buff' to all classes so that they can be as fun to level as a Death Knight from level 1. We need more fun in the lower quests, more story telling, more involvement, and a feeling of opness so that the time goes by faster. Right now, it just seems like leveling takes forever. Yes, adding mounts at lower levels is a step in the right direction.

Also, I'm not against allowing classes to start at a higher level, like the Death Knight did, if a person already has a max level character. I didn't tank until I got to Northrend and I did just fine and I think others will too, even if they have to learn their class at max level. It's not like people are tanking at level 10 or clutch healing at lower levels either. Let's start all classes at higher levels...or just wait and see how much fun Cataclysm will be for starting a new class.

Death Knight Tanking Gear List BoE Ring

2009-10-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

A good friend pointed out to me last night that there is a Bind on Equip (BoE) tank ring that is perfect for a Death Knight. Also, if you are like me, my rings were some of the lowest and least effective tanking gear I owned. So I was happy to dish out a few hundred gold to replace one of the weakest links in this Death Knights chain.

The Titanium Earthguard Ring provides a nice boost in stamina, defense, and doge. The tank ring is an iLevel 200 gear piece and is easily obtainable if you know a friendly crafter. For some reason the ring was never on the auction house, so I HAD to make friends. ;)

Kicked Out of Group By Healer

2009-10-07T05:59:00.001-07:00

I had a first experience last night that truly confused me. It was during a PUG run of Heroic Violet Hold, where the group consisted of a Warrior, Death Knight, Rogue, Druid Healer and me tanking. I was informed that I wasn't cutting it and was booted from the group by the healer.

The reason given to me, after blaming me for dieing twice, was that the healer couldn't keep me alive. I was badmouthed and immediately removed from group without being able to discuss the problem. To be honest, I'm not sure what the problem was.

First of all, I am defense capped at 540 and have over 26k hp. I've ran heroic Violet Hold before without any issues, not one death, but for some reason I was blamed for a healer not being able to keep me alive. Furthermore, consider that I've also ran Heroic Nexus with an under geared healer, dressed mostly in quest blues with 1 or 2 greens. So how was this my fault again?

I can only hope that the next tank the group picked up was dieing just as I had. After 2 tanks in a row surely the Healer wouldn't be able to push the blame off on someone else again. Just frustrating.

My Must Have Head Enchant

2009-10-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Time to start grinding out some reputation to get certain rewards and enchants that will make my Death Knight Tanking life a little easier. Currently I'm setting at 500 defense and it' recommended to be 535 defense capped for heroic dungeons. To get there I will need some lucky drops in regular ToC and enchants. The Argent Crusade will provide me with my first tanking head slot enchant.

At revered the Argent Crusade rep vendor will sell you Arcanum of The Stalwart Protector. This head enchant will add 37 Stamina and 20 Defense rating to any head slot item. It's a must have and fairly easy to obtain, considering it's only a revered requirement.

To start getting reputation for the Argent Crusade, simply do quests in Zul'Drak and Ice Crown. There are a few long quest chains that help in getting at least a boost to your reputation. Just completing the one Ice Crown alone got me to Honored.

More on enchants for Death Knight Tanks coming later. Also, be sure to read other posts related to Death Knight Tanking Gear.

PTR Raid Spoilers

2009-10-02T11:18:00.001-07:00

There is a great discussion going on in the forums today about the problem with testing raids on the Public Test Realm. Some believe that allowing guilds to run raids on the PTR for a month or more before going live ruins the 'surprise' factor. Consider that high end raiding guilds are able to clear the hardest raids day one of patch day.

So what do you think, do you think Raids and new Instances introduced during patches should be internally tested, so that when it goes live no one has seen the fight before?

Forum Thread Here: Beta Testing Raids

Personally, I like the idea of having seen an instance ran before going at it. Just because you see how a fight goes down does not always make it any easier, especially when coordinating with 10 to 25 people. It still takes some practice, good gear, and fast reflexes, which is what gaming is all about, at least to me. I'm happy seeing videos on Youtube for how to clear Raids and reading tips on WowWiki for killing the last boss.

Not that it really matters in the long run, after all most end game content I will never see. I never saw Black Temple and time will tell if I even see all of Ulduar. I'm casual, so it's never a surprise and I'm ok with that.

Death Knight Tanking Gear List Trinkets

2009-10-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

There are some seriously nice tanking Trinkets for Death Knights available once you start raiding Heroic Naxx and Ulduar. However, this post will focus on building your tanking set before entering Raids.

The two tanking trinkets most easily accessible will be Seal of Pantheon (WoW Head Link), which is an iLevel 200 Rare piece and Essence of Gossamer (WoW Head Link), which is an iLevel 200 Rare Piece as well.

The Seal of Pantheon drops off of Loken in regular Halls of Lightning and the Essence of Gossamer drops off of Hadronox in Heroic Azjol-Nerub. While these aren't the easiest instances to be learning to tank in, with a good healer they are possible to run. Also, the experience in these more difficult instances will prep you for things to come.

Join The Death Knight Blog

2009-09-30T13:39:00.001-07:00

I'm currently looking for a few Death Knights that enjoy sharing their experiences in Azeroth. Your writing doesn't have to be perfect, just coherent, and English must be your first language. Leet speak is fine and there are no grammar nazi's around, just Death Knights looking for a little bit more information about their class and surroundings.

To apply to be a contributor to The Death Knight Blog, please leave a comment here. I'll contact you through email. Please be prepared to submit 1-2 unique posts that you've created, along with non-specific information about your experience with World of Warcraft. If it's what I'm looking for then you will be added to the blog so that you can add content at your leisure. Remember, generally speaking, articles over 400 words long lose the interest of WoW addicts, so please keep them relatively short.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

My Death Knight Hit 80

2009-09-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, my Death Knight hit 80 last night! It's been a fun ride and now the adventure really begins, mainly with my foray into tanking at max level. Unfortunately characters aren't automatically endowed with copious amount of perfect gear once dinging, so I've been running some level 80 reg's and dps'n in heroics. Oddly enough I've been getting in groups faster and easier as DPS rather than PUG's needing a tank. We'll see how long that lasts.

I'm looking forward to gearing up for Raids, even at a casual pace. Thanks to Blizzards methods of badge rewards and craftables I should be well on my way to handling most heroics in a few weeks. As I do research into what gear I need and work toward I'll post here, with options for new level 80 Death Knight Tanking and DPS gear.

See you then.

Unofficial Mount Prices Fall

2009-09-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

It's being reported in the forums that the price of mount training has fallen yet again since the release of 3.2. Now there are reports that you can purchase the Normal Flying Skill for 237 gold and Artisan Flying Skill at 4250 gold.

And to think, I'm still pissed about not realizing I could buy cold weather flying as an artifact for my DK at 70. What the hell was I thinking, I'm fairly certain I would be 80 by now had I known.

Death Knight Leveling In Alterac Valley

2009-09-22T12:34:00.001-07:00

Believe the rumors, put on your pvp gear (or whatever) and head on over to Alterac Valley. Bar none it seems to be the absolute fastest way to level, especially compared to grinding out instances. Heck, even compared to non flying mount questing it seems faster, but that might be attributed to the play style.

After every single AV game I've played I've went up at least 1 bubble, even if I lost. However, if I got a good team, which caps towers, prevents capping, and smacks Drek, then I can get 3 bubbles easy or more. This is the average I've been seeing from level 74 to 77, give or take.

I like it because it always takes less than 1 minute to get into a game and provides a clear goal, instead of following the quest helper arrow around. Not to mention it's nice to take a break from grinding instances and quests, yet still have a means to earn XP. Consider this, by the time I'm done running all these Alterac Valley's to hit 80, I'll be able to score some decent Purple PVP gear too. Some gear that will allow me to jump right into tanking some heroics.

*Update

Looks like I opened my mouth too soon and just at the wrong time. Apparently there was a ninja nerf to xp gain in Alterac Valley with the release of patch 3.2.2. This means that the XP gain in Alterac Valley was nixed by about 50%.

Big Bummer.

Death Knight Venture Coin Rewards

2009-09-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

Well, after completing all the PVP dailies down on Venture Bay and taking over the zone by myself, I realize the rewards were not that great. As mentioned in an earlier post, there are 3 new Sigil's available for purchase from the Venture Coin Vendor, but for my playing style, they just weren't the 30 coins each.

I think my time will be better spent moving on to Dragonblight and doing all the quests out there. Mobs are definitely not a problem, especially since I just upgraded most of my gear to blacksmithing blues. I even created enough gear to use the integrated Blizzard Equipment Manager, which allows me now to easily swap out between DPS and Tank gear.

Speaking of Death Knight Tank Gear, as mentioned in a post found on the Blizzard forums, for leveling dungeons I'm only planning on stacking stamina. The rest will work itself out as I get closer to 80 and have to worry about Heroics. Right now I want to focus on just being able to handle a few big hits from bosses so my healers don't stress too much.

Thoughts On Cataclysm

2009-09-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

I can't get over how many people are getting excited about Blizzard revisiting old content with the upcoming Expansion Cataclysm. There seems to be plenty of confusion about what it means to change the landscape of the original Azeroth and most importantly for those that might not end up purchasing this next World of Warcraft Expansion.

First of all, new alts or players to WoW won't notice the changes that will come with purchasing Cataclysm. The destroyed lands of Azeroth, as shown in the teaser trailer, will most likely only be seen through those who have purchased the expansion. Which leads me to believe that the land won't truly be changed at all, in regards to lower levels trying to level up.

My guess is that Azeroth will become one huge phase. Think back to how parts of Icecrown and even Dragonblight were phased, so that there were different stages of 1 area. If other toons weren't at the same stage in the phase, then you couldn't see or interact with those toons. So, it would be highly unlikely that low level toons would notice high levels interacting with new parts of Azeroth.

I wouldn't hold my breath for a completely revamped lower leveling experience. I'd expect more of the same in terms of grinding your way out to the future level cap of 85. However, if you disagree or want to contribute to the hysteria surrounding the next WoW expansion, please visit the Cataclysm Forums.

New Death Knight Sigil At 74

2009-09-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Looking to upgrade that tired old Sigil you started with as a level 55 Death Knight? Well, at 74 there are 3 more readily available for purchase with a few coins and a little gold. Specifically, there are 3 Sigil's available for completing the PVP quests in Grizzly Hills, with the acquired Venture Coins.

The daily quests themselves are simple as pie and the coins come easy. The Sigil's you can purchase are 30 Venture coins each, so if you are looking for some variety, why not buy all of them. Each Sigil will either provide a bonus to your Death Coil, Icy Touch, or Sourge Strike.

Sigil of Arthritic Binding
Sigil of the Frozen Conscience
Sigil of the Wild Buck

After feeling connected at the hip with the Death Knight Sigil I started with, I might just have to purchase these to change things up a bit. As it stands I'm about 6 bubbles from leveling to 74, might as well start heading to Grizzly Hills.

The Problem With 25 Man Raid Tanks

2009-09-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

A diamond in the rough has emerged with a very thoughtful thread on Death Knights tanking level 25 Raid dungeons. Essentially most agree that there isn't an issue, even in 10 man Raids, but once a DK tank makes it to 25 he becomes too squishy.

Generally speaking most Death Knight tanks can handle the threat production, have plenty of armor, great evasion, but just can't cut it when they get hit. In a 25 man Raid, when they get hit, they get hit hard and it becomes an issue for healers. Where as compared to Paladins, Warriors, and Druids, healers have more consistency with heal requirements.

Below are a few suggestions by the thread starter:

1. Make Toughness back to the way it was with 15% increase to armor at 5 points, but switch it's position with Killing Machine. This puts the armor talent deeper into the tree(4th row) similir to both warriors and pallys both on the 3rd row of talents, forcing those that want it for PvP to ether spec frost or switch up where they put their points. Putting KM on the first row is completely uselss to both Blood and Unholy since they won't have Frost Strike or Howling Blast.

2. Have the Frost Pressence talent increase armor bonus by 5/10% and reduce damage by 1/2% or just increase armor by 10/20%

Most Death Knight tanks responding to the thread are suggesting that the talent trees become specialized. As it stands now, almost any tree can perform almost any roll. Like other tanking classes, there should be a clear tanking tree and a clear DPS tree. This way a Death Knight can specialize in either/or, instead of mediocre at all.

Death Knight Tanking Tip #2

2009-09-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

So what happens when a new tank and a new healer get together in an instance? Magic! That's right, both are willing to help each other out, talk, and work out strategies. If one were much more advance than the other, chances are frustration would set in, wipes would happen, and groups would disperse. I've learned to love working with new healers and it provides a great learning opportunity.

2. Save your trinket and/or pots.

Having a backup doesn't hurt and can save the group from a wipe if the healer gets stunned or runs out of mana early during a boss fight. It's not necessarily because they are a bad healer or you are a bad tank, it's just a learning phase. So, having a little bit of back up makes the run smoother for all involved and keeps you on your toes.

Remember to pop that trinket at just the right time, like when you are about to die. ;)

Death Knight Tanking Tip #1

2009-09-09T14:04:00.001-07:00

As a new Death Knight or at least new to tanking as a Death Knight, I'm finding out little things that might not be immediately apparent. So, I've decided to start a series of tips for tanking with your Death Knight. Keep in mind, these are just tips, not the end all and not the general info you can find on proper gear and boss fights.

1. Don't pull mobs with Death Grip.

Death Grip is a great tool to use if you happen to lose agro on a mob. This can save your group from a wipe if you have a healer that pulls agro or an overzealous Warlock or Mage that love to AOE.

So, just pull with something else and save Death Grip for when it really matters.

How To Get Rooster Mount

2009-09-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

There has been some confusion amongst the World of Warcraft community on how to obtain the ultra rare Rooster Mount. Although I'm not sure what the fascination is with wanting to ride a cock around in a virtual world, but whatevs.

To obtain the Rooster mount you must either purchase WoW Trading Card Packs and hopefully get a rare loot card or purchase a statue of your toons likeness from FigurePrints.com and enter to win 1 of 10. Either way, your chances of scoring a Rooster Mount will be slim to none, you might have better luck playing the lottery.

Or, to be guaranteed a Rooster Mount, simply wait a month or so and check on eBay for an over priced Rooster Mount Loot card. If I remember right the Spectral Tiger mount cards were going for around $400. Ouch!?

Death Knight Gear At 73

2009-09-08T05:19:00.001-07:00

I leveled to 73 last night, through a combination of grinding out quests and running a few instances. The most beneficial instance I ran was The Nexus and not because I lucked out on a drop, but because of the easy to obtain Blue Quest Rewards. The following quests provided some Blue loot to make it easier on a low 70's level Death Knight, especially one interested in tanking.

Have They No Shame? - Reward is a decent set of Plate shoulders with great stats like Stamina, Strength, Dodge, and Defense. There is a Shield stat too, which obviously doesn't pertain to Death Knights, but still makes this a great addition to a leveling DK.

Postponing the Inevitable - Reward is a sweet set of Plate gloves that comes with a little bit of Hit rating and the usual Strength, Stamina bonuses.

Quickening - Time to replace those Cobalt Boots or Spiked Cobalt Boots. The quest reward for this one offers 2 different Plate Boot options, so choose wisely. Hint, being a Death Knight means you could care less about Intellect. ;)

Also, keep in mind this gear is easily obtainable at a lower level. I ran this with a group of 70's and even a level 69 DPS. So, while it might be a little challenging for a tanking Death Knight at a low level, support can get you there if you're in a hurry.

Mok'Nathal Down Again

2009-09-05T05:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not a WoW addicted lunatic, but when I get opportunities to play I would like to enjoy the game uninterrupted. However, it seems like lately Mok'Nathal has been down for some time every single morning. For most, this isn't a problem, but for those of us with families, it's beginning to become a nuisance.

An hour before the family gets up may be all the time I have to play WoW during the day. So what then when unscheduled maintenance, unscheduled upgrades, and then the flukes start happening at day break?

Like everyone else, I'll grin and bear it. It's just so darn frustrating when I could be playing WoW right now instead of writing this silly blog post.

Faction Change For My Orc Death Knight

2009-09-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I started the faction change process for my level 71 Orc Death Knight. Well worth the $30 fee imposed by Blizzard, considering how much time I had already invested. I'm more of a casual player, so I was not prepared to throw away 350+ professions and a 71 experience level. Besides, the only reason I even created a Horde Death Knight was so that I could experience the greener grass of Horde PvP.

The faction change process only took my character about 8 hours to complete. Once finished I was not notified by email that the pending status had been lifted, but when I logged in the changes were complete. It was like creating a fresh toon, only with all my other gear and professions already in place. Heck, I even picked a new name, abandoning Tabtech and going with a reborn Mehlord. ;)

I hadn't played my DK since last February, decidedly because I was working on an Alliance Druid. However, now that all my toons are back on the Alliance side, I think I will take the DK to max level. This blog will be a place where I can organize my thoughts on Death Knight leveling and where others can come for advice, by learning from my mistakes.

Lesson number 1, the grass is not greener on the other side. I read it best on the WoW forums, the sting of defeat lasts much longer than the thrill of glory.

Welcome To Death Knight Blog

2009-09-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

This blog was created because I found there to be a lack of Death Knight specific websites. Much of my WoW related reading online comes from blogs like Big Red Kitty and 4 Haelz. So you can see my frustration when trying to find a DK specific blog to discuss and comment on.

Things to expect from this blog:

Death Knight related news as it pertains to me leveling my own DK toon.
Death Knight related news in regards to leveling tips.
Spec discussion.
Death Knight PVP and PVE discussion
and other related WoW news as I see fit to post on a slow news day.

I'm looking forward to contributing to this blog, so I hope you look forward to reading it. If you have an idea on what I should be covering Death Knight related, let me know in the comments area, I hope to hear from you.