… We’re in****KILLER MODE!, and we’re about to enter “KILLER CORRUPTION!!”
Q
Our server seems to be losing some of the most hard core people to other servers. My guild used to be one of the top guilds during vanilla and chocolate and when WOTLK (strawberry?) rolled around, we lost a dozen of our most hard core raiders to another server. The typical server just doesn’t have the population to generate enough hard core raiders to fill up multiple high end guilds, or at least that has been my experience.
I am concerned about the ring. There was a time when the upgraded ring was at or one level below the top level gear. Now my best gear is 258 while my ring is still only 226. This is the largest gap I have seen and I haven’t heard any plans to close that gap so it might just end up being another hearthstone that sits in your bag most of the time.
There are new versions of the ring coming with the 3.3 patch that are ilvl 251. Not nearly as good as Icecrown rings of course, but just a step down from them. I just bought the ring for my alt when I heard about the new upgrade to the rings. A 251 ring will last him a long time, as I don’t raid with him much at all. I imagine the Dalaran teleport will still be handy in Cataclysm too, as access to Capital portals is very nice.
Well if they are upgrading the ring then cool. In fact if it really is 251 then I will buy it rather than spend DKP for a moderately better ring. But right now, the ring is in danger of sitting in my bag for extra hearths because there are two rings you can get from the triumph badge vendor that are better than the dalaran ring.
Score one for delayed gratification: Instead of buying the hideously expensive BOE bracers from the whatever-is-lower-than-conquest vendor, I bought a couple bits of conquest gear (tier whatever chest and gauntlets) and prayed for a H ToC drop, and sure enough, today I got my Vambraces of Unholy Command, and the Superior achievement.
Poor guy! Hope he’s not sitting in a corner with cold chills/sweats and stuff!
[Emily Latilla (love you, Gilda)] I thought I was gonna die that week I went cold turkey during the vacation![/EL]:eek:
Quasi
So I made my first attempt at tanking a heroic in Violet Hold - it had looked pretty easy from a DPS’s point of view - go find the next portal, throw down an area effect damage, and whack at whatever comes out, then go on to the next one and so on. It all went great until the last but 2 (I think) of the waves, when I didn’t manage to corral the spawn of 3 guys, and we lost our mage. Then during the next spawn, our priest was still ressing the mage and I didn’t realize it (and blow all my defensive cooldowns) until I was dead. Oops. Anyway, we then proceeded to walk in and get killed one by one and didn’t get around to trying to rally in the safe zone until it was too late and there was a spawn and a half plus the dragon out there. At which point we gave up.
Oh well. I got some experience anyway.
Still accessing through supervenusfreak’s computer…I’ve been literally sick for the last four days. It’s some kind of flu, but I’m not oinking yet, so hopefully not swine. I haven’t really had the mental clarity to actually work on finding out anything about my computer for the last few days, though. I almost haven’t had the fortitude to even bother accessing the internet…this is my most active day since Thursday.
I found a link that shows screenshots of the upgraded rings. You can see them here: http://worldofraids.com/news/945-patch-3-3-ptr-build-10747.html
OMG!:eek: Best wishes for a speedy recovery my friend! :concerned look:
Bill
Thanks.
Those look good enough to wear (at least good enough so that you might not spend DKP to replace it immediately).
Congratulations on the upgrades and achievement! How long until the Epic achievement!? H ToC has always frustrated me on the drops. It seems everytime you need a big upgrade piece, it never drops! I’m trying to get my rogue geared up there and it’s slow-going at the moment.
Live and learn I guess. I’m sure we’ve all wiped in HVH at one point or another. It’s too bad you had it happen to you at the end boss. Once you get the rhythm down it goes pretty smooth.
Priest should have known enough to tell you that he was rezzing and you’d have to take care of yourself for a few seconds. Ah well.
I need a sigil, a trinky, a helmet, and a cloak for Epic. I’ve got 34 Triumph badges now, and I’m torn as to whether to wait until I have 50 and can buy one of the +128 hit rating trinkets (probably the one with the attack power boost), or to buy the melee DPS ring with the +44 hit rating.
My problem is that I’m diving straight into the Uncanny Valley of hit rating - I’m already nearly gemmed and enchanted to the max for hit rating, and if I ditch my titansteel helm and its +60 hit rating in favor of the T8 death knight helm, which has I think crit rating and armor penetration but no hit rating, I’ll be 31 points short of hit capped even swapping the few non-yellow gems I currently have out for more hit rating. The Triumph ring will bring that up to within 7, which is good enough for now, and I can get it next time I finish the daily heroic. The trinky, OTOH, will basically mean my hit rating worries are over and I can gem for strength, but it’s going to be another 7 dailies to get it, which would probably take another month or more at the rate I’m doing them.
I had to “cheat” to get my epic rating, since my ilevel 200 libram(sigil) is still best for my slot. I don’t think they’ve fixed it, but what you can do is buy a 213+ emblem piece, equip it, and then resell it back to get your emblems. Rinse/repeat until you get the achievement. And an FYI, if you already have one ilevel 213+ trinket, just move it into the other trinket slot to satisfy the requirements.
It’s sometimes tough to choose between which items to buy. I always tend to buy the most expensive pieces first (50 emblems of triumph, or the head/chest conquest) and then the lower pieces. After saving up that many emblems, the grind to get the lesser-expensive items doesn’t seem as daunting.
I could have cheated for Superior easily enough, by buying some non-plate rep bracers and equipping them, but I wanted to get it legitimately. I think I will semi-cheat on Epic by moving my rings and trinkies around, but otherwise I want to get it straight. In any case, for the cloak slot I think I need to buy from the Valor vendor or else get a H ToC drop (or, horrors, actually go raid).
FWIW, I tend to go for the biggest upgrade first, also factoring in what else can drop. For example, the first Triumph item I bought was the Thrown tanking weapon, 'cause it’s far and away the best ranged weapon for a Prot War right now **and **was a huge upgrade from the BoE Engineering-made gun that I’d been using up until then.
I find it’s generally helpful to just park my butt in front of the vendors and compare gear. 
Rings, trinkets, and ranged-slot items are often the best things to prioritize, because when they do drop, there is often a larger number of classes and specs rolling on them. (E.g., DPS Plate armor will have a lot fewer people who can use it than a physical DPS ring, because more people can equip it.)
Yep. As a new DK tank (leveled as DPS, didn’t go tank until 80) I had nightmares about HVH because I was never all that good at AoE tanking. These days, though, I like it because it’s a nice quick run–the secret for me was getting the hang of the one nasty pull where the mobs run at you from two different sides. Once I got that down (and made sure my team didn’t hit anything until I had them all under control) it was cake.
You’ll get it. Like **Jbone **said, it’s all about rhythm.
I’ve found that it works best to actually just tank everything at its portal. You have to run fast to get there, but it makes everything so much easier (especially for the pain-in-the-ass spawns, like getting a group from an upper-level portal). Dunno what kind of tools you have as a DK, but as a Prot War, if a group splits before I get to it, I can TC the one or two on my side, then do some combo of HT/Taunt/Charge/Intervene on the others.