I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately. It’s just been uneventful. We get new PTR patches frequently. Some contain new stuff, some are less than exciting. I’ve been chilling with my buddies over on Silver Hand. Other than Warbull and his new Paladin, they all level slow.
So what have I been doing? Gearing up a DK on off raid days like a mad man. We’ve ran so many heroics it’s ridiculous. I’ve already bought the tanking belt with badges, the tanking Sigil and I just bought the tank badge neck. And I also picked up the Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver after our second Halls of Lightning run.
At the rate we are going, I fully expect to have “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” on this Death Knight before I switch back to Hunter focus come 3.1.
I am open to suggestions on anything I can do to improve this DK. I know I am low on Expertise and Hit rating. But some of that will come with better gear. You can check out the DK right here. Just know that the weapon is now the Cleaver and my neck is the badge tanking neck (if you happen to look at it before I log out). I am told that the Expertise cap for tank DKs is 60.
Truth be told, I kind of miss tanking. It’s been nice being such a crucial part of the group. Not saying DPS isn’t crucial, but you know what I mean. :)
I apologize again if the blog has been boring lately and quite un-Hunter related.
Drotara (or BehemothDan) considers himself a geek on many levels. A web developer and programmer by trade, he has no shortage of geeky hobbies. Whether it's trying to stay current in World of Warcraft raiding, playing competitively in the WoW TCG, Magic: The Gathering with friends, or a night at the local shop playing DnD, it's all good to him!
Really the only thing I can see gear-wise is that I would try to replace your emerald boar with either the dodge trinket from badges or the essence of gossamer or whatever from heroic AN. I’m in the middle of healing said instance on my lil baby tree so I haven’t looked at your spec, but I’m sure it’s great :P
@Rhodospin You speak the truth. And I actually did pick up The Essence of Gossamer as I was typing the post. :)
I’m also a little jealous that you’re defense capped without enchants and can use the ring from DTK, I just recently picked up the defense trinket from 10-man Thaddius but prior to that I needed all the defense on both of my rings ><
As a dps, I thought of myself as easily replaceable and not very important. When i started healing instances (pugs), however, I realized how rare good dps was and how important. After all, they’re the ones doing the primary job, killing stuff. If they don’t do it well then every aspect of the run suffers.
Now I almost prefer having good dps than having a good tank now (almost).
It is like being in a band, if one is out of tune the band suffers. But there is only 1 lead singer (tank), so dps does get recognized just not as much as the person on point. I like being dps, there is a huge time commitment that I can not make to be MT. But the commitment I do make I take very seriously.
I have entered raids during progression, and gotten whispers after saying thanks for coming you made the difference, from several peeps. I was kind of shocked to get these because there is so many dps in 25. I am usually in top 3 and pride myself on bringing everything I can. I am not full BiS but on my way, every enchant/gem is best available to me.
I realize how most of the wow community doesn’t know about BiS, and how rare good players are, yes players not toons. Everytime I try to Pug something I understand it all over again just how good I have it with my guild.
Dro glad you are having fun with your DK its better than burnout. I just can’t give any advice because I dont have one.
That’s funny.
Your DK’s guild name is the same one I’m currently in on my server.
I know there’s no relation, but eh, coincidence nonetheless.
K’s last blog post..Creature Feature: Dragonhawk
@K It came off a joke when one of my friend’s got the SM shield and were making “Captain Canada” jokes. Then ran with the Avengers theme. :)
I play a Death Knight myself, also tanking, and I just wanted to give you a few inputs on yours.
As for your specc, it’s okay, but I would make a few minor adjustments to it, something along the lines of this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=j0xMZGxxt0fbohRVssx0xhh
- You can remove Acclimation and put it in Morbidity or Killing Machine if you prefer.
I removed Merciless Combat and Icy Reach from your specc, as they really do no difference for a tank. Extra damage when the target is at <35% hp doesn’t really do much, as it is the initial aggro that is crucial. Extra range is also not really needed.
I also put the final point in Virulence as this is a _very_ important talent for frost DK tanks. Nearly all our threat is from spells, and if you miss, it’s bad. Just my 2 cents on your specc from a fellow frost DK tank :) If you wish, you can check out my character on the armory; http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Shattered+Hand&n=Maevi
And by the way; you should focus more on getting hit rating rather than expertise, because like I said, frost DK’s rely on threat from spells a lot more than melee hits. :)
PS: Hungering Cold is also quite crap atm, though it _can_ be useful in certain heroics etc.
My DK is what’s keeping me entertained right now. I’m not able to log into my guilds raids as much on my hunter, and I really get bored of the rep grinds as well. I don’t necessarily need any more badges on my hunter, except maybe for the mammoth mount, so I will probably work on getting my DK geared while waiting for ulduar I think.
I’ve got a buddy with a tree that’s relatively freshly 80, so between him and I we’d just need a tank and a couple other DPS, which should be easy to find in our guild.