Death Knight Leveling from 81-85

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?