…heh. That’d be why you’re having trouble with it then. One of the spells for the big trolls puts a really strong heal over time on you.
Left hand on the numbers, right hand on the cursors. And you start charming the second troll while the first one is still alive.
This.
In other news, I bit the bullet, blew about 3k gold, and set up a tank set for Muzungu (link). He’s now Def capped (436 def rating plus about 120 for Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle), but needs some more enchants, particularly the stam enchant on the ring, titanweave on the cloak, and armsman on the gloves, as well as leg and boot enchants. For the moment I guess I’ll keep wearing my remaining DPS gear until some good tanking gear drops; at least it’ll help me generate threat.
Any comments on my talents/gear?
Finally managed to complete Betrayal. I went in an realized that the ahem geniusus who had designed it had put the HoT way over on the far left of the bar. As in, nowhere near the other notable abilities. As in, located in the worst place possible for a time-sensitive, frantically-escaping-the-clouds-of-death, solo quest.
I went to the Obsidian Sanctum last night with my friend and his guild. It’s pretty straightforward, though there was some confusion at the end. People weren’t running where they were supposed to be running to. I also went to heroic Nexus with some guildies.
I think Muz is an enchanter, IIRC, but in case I’m wrong, Kene can do any enchants you need. I’m not qualified to comment on your tank spec, though – my only tank is a different class and 26 levels lower.
Attention Burning Dog Legion:
It’s Wednesday, which means instance run! Tonight the goal is to finish BRD. We’ll start by heading straight to the Grim Guzzler bar. Mordrin and I have collected the mats for The Love Potion quest, which will get us through the locked door. From there we’ll try to make it to the last few bosses.
The party is open to any guildies or friends in the appropriate level range (50-59ish). We’ll start around 8:45 server time (Central).
What’s screwing with my head actually is trying to figure out how to play him. Death Knight dps is very very simple; blow horn and frenzy the ghoul before while the tank is marking stuff, then once he attacks, lay down diseases, hit blood strike, and then cycle between death coil, scourge strike, and blood strike as runes and runic power become available.
With the tanky spec, I think my order of activity ought to be
(mark, blow horn, summon ghoul)
(1) if it’s a group with only 1 or no ranged, pull the ranged with the “get over here” attack. If it’s a group with more than 1 ranged, skip to 2.
(2) lay down Death and Decay around where you plan to fight.
(3) hit icy touch, plague strike, and pestilence.
(4) death coil twice if possible while runes come back.
(5) hit howling whatchamacallit to get more AoE damage in.
(6) lay down obliterates, frost strikes, and rune strikes (when lit up). Throw in death coils when runes are run out. Also that melee attack that uses runic power, when lit up. Hit pestilence again to refresh diseases when they’re low. In the meantime, hit howling when it’s off of cooldown or proc’d and re-lay death and decay when possible. Oh, and once the primary target goes down, drop a corpse explosion for still more AoE threat.
In addition to all those, I also need to be zapping my defensive powers - icy fortitude, ice armor, anti-magic shell, and maybe the interrupt power. And I also need to be watching others aggro to see if I need to taunt something off of them. And not standing in poison, and making sure to face anything with line/cone attacks away from the crowd.
Makes me head hurt.
What do you guys think of having a gear requirement for a guild?
My guild has been kicking around the idea of requiring new applicants to be geared with heroic purples and at least 300 conquest emblems worth of conquest gear. The reason is that we want to dump our monthly Naxx runs (other than gearing up newbies it is a waste of our time).
Hope we can get in the Rise of the Machines boss. Rummy should be available (and sporting a blingy new boa trinket).
If you can guide me to him when we get inside, we’ll take him on.
There is definitely a lot to think about while tanking - MUCH more than DPS. I’ve only just started doing it with my DK, and as blood, so I don’t know much more about Frost tanking than what I’ve read.
Lots of info here: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t42539-death_knight_faq_read_before_posting/
One thing is that you should be using Obliterate a lot on single targets, and should probably use the Obliterate glyph. Probably in place of the Icy Touch one. In fact, their recommended build has three completely different glyphs than you do, so it’s something to think about.
There are a few talent differences, but those are more due to them going down Blood instead of Unholy as the second tree (and the second row in Blood does have some really nice talents). Also, they don’t use the Improved Icy Talons talent, which does provide a nice group buff, so I can see going either way. They don’t use it there because it doesn’t stack with a Shaman’s Windfury totem. If you don’t normally have a Shaman then IIT is nice.
I’m assuming you’re not trying Dual-Wield tank, right? Cause if you are you definitely need the Threat of Thessarian talent.
Oh, and on your Unholy build, why do you have the Blood Strike glyph? How often do you have your target snared? I think the commonly-accepted glyphs now for Unholy DPS are Ghoul, Dark Death, and Icy Touch. Disease is good too, especially for AoE situations. For some reason Scourge Strike isn’t, even though it’s the main Unholy attack - extended disease duration just isn’t that helpful, and can muck up a nice rotation.
I could also never get Ghoul Frenzy into my rotation so I dropped that talent.
Tons of ridiculously detailed (and constantly updated) Unholy DPS info here: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t72364-unholy_dps_scourge_strike_forever_always/
I’m in for tonights run on my warlock.
Yes Lightbird is a tank, just a very bad one. I’ll beta respec to frost on Rottingbird has better luck at tanking:P
I’ve been trying to get better gear so I can jump into heroics (and get better gear)
Lockbird has just been a diversion to work on some enchanting/tailoring. Next alt will go mining/engineering and be a melee. 
Got my T9.whatever (emblem + trophy) shoulders last night! And I’m less than 3k gold away from my mammoth.
Oh, and I’ve officially been upgraded to member status in Fury of War, so it looks like I’ve found a new home for my main.
Seriously, just let him die–even if your husband isn’t healing, whoever is healing probably isn’t any happier with this moron than you are. Or kick him from the group if he can’t do his job right.
What’s the CD on Soul Shatter? If it’s low enough, you might want to just pop it every time it’s up, unless you’re way behind the tank on threat.
What do you mean, “a return of”? Salv still exists. (I believe it’s now “Hand of” instead of “Blessing of.”) I know it does, because one of our Paladins hit the wrong button last night as we were pulling Onyxia and and Salved the MT. /facepalm
Possibility, sure, but IME it’s always worked great. Even the people who complained the most about Loot Council when we started it in AF became convinced it was the best method–when we took a vote to stay with LC or move to DKP, there was a unanimous vote to stay with LC.
Practicing his circle-strafing? /shrug
Exactly.
Also true. I’m just saying that if a DPS or healer pulls off of the tank because the tank isn’t putting out as much threat as they should be, that’s the tank’s fault as much as it is the DPS’s.
To use another analogy: if I’m tanking and I’m not getting heals, my HP gets low, and I get killed because I waited for another heal instead of popping a CD, even though I could have prevented (or at least delayed) my own death, it’s at least as much the healers’ fault that I died.
They’re really not that bad. Take a Saturday to chain-run Heroics, and you’ll come out with over 50 badges.
Do you have any friends with Enchanting? If so, you can send them all of the greens you pick up to DE. That’s what I do–all of my greens go straight to my pocket healer, who’s also a chanter, and then he just keeps a stash of chant mats we both use.
It also happens when there’s a DPS who isn’t moving out of the poison or the WW, and the healer tries to split their attention between that idiot and the tank. (Why yes, I have died that way.)
Exactly. And especially right after Wrath dropped, DKs were complete faceroll autowin for leveling. (They still are pretty OP compared to other toons of the same level, at least from my exeperiences leveling in Outland in TBC.)
Storm Peaks or Ice Crown is where you should be at 78 to get the best XP and rewards.
Bwaha, ditto. Zul’Drak was probably my favorite zone in NR–great atmosphere, great music, great lore, great quests.
Your tank should be kiting the boss throughout ph2 (walking backwards in a circle around the outside of the areana). That should keep everybody out of the range of the exploding ghouls and the ground AOE.
You’re very welcome, Quasi!
Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in Naxx, it’s kind of necessary. It’s obscenely easy to gear up these days, since everything drops Conquest or Triumph badges. Having a basic level of gear also shows a certain level of commitment–if they want to raid, they should be willing to put in the time to prepare themselves to be there, instead of showing up undergeared and expect to be carried and have upgrades handed to them.
Added on preview:
Tom Scud, Jas09 asked if you were going to go DW tank… I strongly suggest that you don’t. Dual wield is not really viable for DK tanking. IMO, you’ll never get enough Hit and Expertise to make it worthwhile.
Thanks; I’ll take a look at that link once I’m home.
Not for now, anyway. I need the Stoneskin Gargoyle rune and its +120 def rating until I get a better set of tank gear, and that only works on 2-handers.
Uh, because I haven’t updated my glyphs since the last patch. :smack: Obviously that glyph was for when I used to have little hands reaching up out of the ground allathatime.
Yeah, I don’t use it in rotation very much, just as a pre-fight buff when the tank is going slow enough.
But it’s very handy in solo situations when I want to just leave my ghoul to tank an add, so it stays as I spend probably 80% of my in-game time doing dailies these days.
See my comments on finding groups for heroics as a DPS DK, passim. Now that I’ve got my tank spec, I might actually be able to find groups.
And I’m pretty sure my wife would not be happy with me spending all day Saturday on WoW.
K. Wasn’t going to happen any time soon anyway.
It doesn’t work the same as it used to though; it used to be a 30m Blessing like the rest, that gave a 30% reduction to threat for the full duration. Everyone in a raid could have that Blessing on them, giving them the extra cushion on threat. The new Salv is a 10 second buff with a 2 minute cooldown that reduces the target’s threat by 2% every 1 second. It’s nice, but definitely not the same, and limited in application.
Clearly, the answer is to get your wife to play WoW with you. Then you’ll have 2/5 of a group ready to go!
Think of it as an ohshit button. If you start creeping up on the tank, you can call for a Salv if your threat dumps are on CD. A 20% reduction in threat is nothing to sneeze at.
And right now they’re tossing around the notion of having everything that drops Conquest badges right now drop Triumph instead in 3.3 so everyone can get up to speed on ilevel 245 stuff.
As long as Cataclysm doesn’t hit before spring of next year I should definitely get my wish to join in Icecrown raiding, considering how fast they’re bumping up gear.
:smack: I’m coming to the conclusion that my reading comprehension takes a nosedive in pressure situations. I thought the HoT was the troll’s self-healing (and it would appear that Smiling Bandit read it the same way), and I found myself wondering why it didn’t seem to be working.
Unfortunately, that would be extremely counterintuitive after spending a few hundred character levels (spread across multiple toons) moving with my left hand, not to mention nearly every video game I’ve played (going all the way back to arcades in the '80s) putting the movement controls on the left hand. I’ve been getting better at moving with my mouse, but I’m not good enough at it yet to make me confident that I wouldn’t end up running myself right off the edge of the platform.
I thought of that, but I was put off by multiple comments on WowHead warning that if I mind-control a second troll before the first one is dead, the first one will reset to full health and attack me.
Do a lot of paladins fight like that? I’ve seen rogues doing it a lot, and it took me a while to figure out why (Gouge, circle behind, Backstab … I guess), but I’ve never seen any reason to do it as a paladin and have never seen a paladin (other than this one) doing it. Paladins don’t have any Backstab-like attacks that do more damage from behind. I’m aware that attacks from behind can’t be dodged/blocked or whatever, but neither can attacks made to a stunned target, which is what this guy seemed to be doing (Hammer of Justice, circle behind, whack). The impression I got was that this player’s main must have been a rogue and he was trying to use his rogue techniques with a pally.