Minding my own business, catching sagefish in the pond down the hill when the “Tarren Mill is under attack!” message appears.  As you know, that appears for one location or another continually, and you just sort of ignore it unless you happen to be involved.  It went on for a while, and I asked Bourg and Ally if I should try to help.  Since it was just up the hill and all.  They laughed (we are at Level 31 now with these characters.)…. said they would all be 80s.

BUT … the attack message went on for 15, 20, 25, 30 … finally,almost 45 minutes!  So,I went up into town to see what was what, and the Alliance bunch was killing everyone and waiting for each to rez, and then, killing them again.  They would just gang up in the center of town and wait for most to rez, then blast them all again.  This went on two or three times, and I told Ally and Bourg.

They assembled all of you who could come help at that time, and I just sat back and watched.  What a bloodbath.  What a firestorm.  I got to see incredible spells, sure, including finally understanding what use shaman totems (maxxed out) are, and what a draenei shadow priest does.  A bunch of assorted alliance, including and most especially a killer shaman,  shadow priest, death knight and rogue wiped out everybody several times, until reinforcements arrived.

It was a terrific battle, yes, and it was incredible to watch, but why would those people do this?   It was shooting fish in a barrel.  Bourg and Ally said they do this intentionally BECAUSE they know a bunch like DN will come to the rescue, and that it’s FUN.   Just the battle itself.  It that’s your goal, it seems a rather uncertain and disorganized modus operandi to me, but I guess it’s the unknown factor of the thing – if, when and who will come – that is the draw.

I especially liked the part where you all hightailed it to Southshore and retaliated, so that they went running back there when they rezzed!  I cannot wait!

I was especially impressed with the Thaddeus/Feugen/Staggerlee (Stigmata, Sabbata – can’t recall his name) battle – that was epic.  And I still can’t get over how you all chat while chopping – incredible.  Oh, I don’t mean the calm, controlled constantly-changing stat quotes that Malfean and others insert, but the casual, off-hand comments; e.g., Iga’s “the chick who hit her is going to JAIL! – Ha, ha!!”  while simultaneously rezzing and/or healing and buffing 79 people (it seems) 79 times while under attack in the midst of furious battle.  Incredible.

And Iga, I was only laughing at your Frogger Annihilation because of the irony of it – I mean, you all had JUST discussed whether or not you were going to continue to make incessant fun of all who cratered at the Frogger crossing (quiet snickering from all)  with comments about how maybe it ought to be changed to the Thaddeus Leap, and you immediately went and Frogged out.  The humor of it just struck me, that’s all.    Just WAIT until I get my warlock out there, with her Doom Guard, and I will make up for it.

Whatever foul creatures you go after tonight (or tomorrow?), I will be cheering all of you on in the bleachers, here!

Hello to you all, and thanks to Malfean and Ally for letting me join a group like this.  I am a 65-year old mother of six, grandmother of 11, great-grandmother of 4.   Ally is the youngest of my six kids.  I have worn many hats in my life – jack of all trades, master of none – and I have arrived at WOW with a background in console RPGs, the most involved, complex and difficult ones I could find.  They, of course, are nothing compared to WoW, which is absolutely great stuff – light years beyond anything I have experienced before.   Malfean and Ally are helping me power level, and they are VERY patient with the difficulties I am having in converting from controller to keyboard, and vision/perspective issues.

I watched you all do the Obsidian Sanctum raid, and it was terrific!   I look forward to reaching level 80 in the distant future, and going with you to screw up everybody else doing all the wrong things … “more dots, many dots! …  many whelps .. many whelps .. handle it!”

I am tickled to be here, and thanks!

BTW, Iga, thanks for your response, welcome and comment to my previous post yesterday (thus, this recap), which I somehow accidentally deleted!    I have not been “speaking” much in the online Guild Chat while playing because I am concentrating so hard on doing the right thing with my character.  Can’t multitask, or multitrack, so well or rapidly any more.  BUT, it will improve as I get better!  I promise to respond, at least a LITTLE, even if it’s only a “zug-zug”.

Death Knight tanks are being gutted. There is no other way to describe it. Let’s review the impending changes between the PTR and Live, shall we?

General

Frost Presence: 15% magic damage reduction to 10% magic damage reduction. Flat out 5% magic damage mitigation nerf. This is a nerf to all DK tanking specs.

Blood

Blade Barrier: Changing from 10% parry to 5% damage reduction. This is a flat out 5% nerf to DK damage mitigation on physical bosses, and a 5% gain on magic damage. Except Frost Presence is being nerfed by 5%, so it’s no gain overall. This is a nerf to all DK tanks, as it is one of the core talents in all tanking specs. This also reduces DK threat per second, as fewer parries means fewer rune strikes.

Will of the Necropolis: A 15 second cooldown is being added to the damage reduction effect. This is one of the changes that just completely floored me. It seems very much like the age old situation of a PvP nerf FUBARing PvE.Blood spec nerf.

Vampiric Blood: Cooldown doubled to two minutes. The, as Blizzard calls us, “cooldown tanks” now have fewer cooldowns available during a fight. Blood spec nerf.

Blood Gorged: Losing 5 expertise, gaining 5% armor penetration. More TPS(maybe?), less damage mitigation on most bosses due to parryhasting effects. Blood spec nerf.

Frost

Lichborne: 25% miss chance being removed from the cooldown, making it a will of the forsaken for Death Knights. The “cooldown tanks” now have one fewer cooldown available. This is, for the most part, a nerf to all DK tanks, as Lichborne is taken in almost all DK tanking specs. Upside, 1 more talent point available to blood and frost specs, 3-6 more TPs available to unholy spec.

Unbreakable Armor: The lackluster ability(25% armor increase) this cooldown provides on live is being changed to damage reduction that scales with how much armor you have, and the amount of parry it grants is being nerfed from 10% to 5%. Cooldown is doubling to 2 minutes. So, the cooldown is being made useful for magic damage, but again, fewer cooldowns available during a fight. Frost spec nerf.

Howling Blast: The gutting of Howling Blast has been somewhat reversed, it’s gone from 5 second cooldown double damage on targets with frost fever to first 5 second cooldown, +50% damage against targets with frost fever, to 10 second cooldown base damage doubled scaling doubled. Not sure how this will effect the ability. Also moved from 31 point talent to 51 point talent.

Unholy

Bone Shield: Cooldown doubled to 2 minutes. Yet again, the “cooldown tanks” have fewer cooldowns available during a fight. Unholy nerf.

So, Blood DKs are getting hit the worst(expected), with Frost and Unholy also getting significantly nerfed with the spec specific nerfs and the general DK tanking nerfs. Now, I understand there are some issues with tanking parity and shield-based tanks falling behind druids and Death Knights. The answer to this problem, however, is not to break Druid and DK tanks so that all of the tanks are subpar for bosses with big, slow hits. Specifically for Death Knights, the tanks with the most Damage Taken Per Second(DTPS) are going to be taking even more damage. I do not envy the struggle healers will be facing healing Death Knight tanks in 3.1.

Oh, and so I can avoid being told that all I’m doing is whining without any kind of suggestions for ways to fix the problem that don’t involve nerfing Druids and DKs to the ground, here we go: Change shields so instead of blocking a set amount, they block a set percentage of damage from a hit. Seems like it would buff a warrior or pally’s capability of dealing with big, slow hits without screwing those of us not using shields.

Secondly, I have a new and fun thing for you Windows Vista users! If you are using the Vista Sidebar with all of the fun gadget options like calendars, clocks, sticky notes and slideshows, there’s a new one just for WoW players! It’s called WoW Explorer. A neat little gadget with several nice background choices, that will display the realm status of your chosen realm(s) on your desktop all the time. (Handy for Tuesdays.) Also, it has a search feature that lets you search from among your favorite WoW related sites such as WoWDB, WoWHead, Thotbott, Allakhazam, WoWInsider, Curse Addons and even the Armory! Just today it’s been really handy for me when I was trying to figure out where to find a kind of fish I hadn’t gone after before. I recommend it!

And on a final note, when we do get our access back up and running, we should be introducing a new blogger to you. A blogger with a unique viewpoint. Stay tuned!

So, big things are afoot in the RaidedM household…mainly, it is changing locations. I was laid off in November, and we’re moving to BFE, Texas so Sharon can be closer to her family…down the hall closer. We hit the road March 10th, so things have been and will continue to be hectic. Also, we’ll be without ‘net access probably for about a week or so once we get down there. Is there a way to set up an intravenous WoW drip?

On the WoW front, Blood has surprising become a very viable tanking spec. I’ve been main tanking Naxx 10 using this spec, which I’ve been extremely happy with. Sadly it’s getting a slight nerf in 3.1 as of the PTR right now, losing the expertise on Blood Gorged and gaining armor pen. On the upside, it gives some more liberty to not go 51 points deep in Blood, and play around a bit more in the other trees. Once 3.1 lands, I’m considering going with a Blood/Unholy tanking build that uses Death Strike for it’s U/F pair, skipping Annihilation for more toys in Unholy.

Also, in news from the PTR, Frost is taking it in the ass. Not only is Howling Blast getting moved to the 51 point talent, it’s taking a 25% damage cut, nerfing aoe threat generation for frost tanks in a big way, which will push more people into Blood or Unholy for tanking, and push the majority of DK DPSers to Unholy, pretty much killing Frost’s viability. The good news? Unholy is being buffed, so we can expect a nerf to Unholy and a buff to Frost shortly after the patch, if things remain as they are on the PTR.

And why is all of this taking place? Because Blizzard can’t seem to figure out how to make dual wielding a non-viable raid dps spec. Now, granted, the HB/Impurity/Crypt Fever build has been pretty broken for some time. Tossing on some rep blues/mostly greens in 3.0.3 and rocking 1800-2k DPS in heroics was a tad broken. However, there has to be a way to kill the DW specs without gutting Frost tanking in aoe situations. If they’re that determined to nullify dual wield in raiding situations, just remove the ability from DKs and compensate one handed weapons in inventory somehow.

Why do I say Blizzard is trying to remove dual wield viability entirely, rather than just balance it? Let’s look at the facts. Back in beta, Blizzard openly stated that they wanted 2h DPS to be superior to DW DPS. Also, let’s look at the tree. With Howling Blast moved to the 51 point talent, it is no longer possible to obtain it and Impurity, which was the main talent boosting the damage on it so high for DW DKs. You’re also no longer able to pick up desecration, another cut to the HB damage. I believe these changes would have brought DW spec in line with 2H DPS. However, to remove those talents interacting with Howling Blast -and- cut the damage on it by 25%, you’re gutting the ability, yet again making a substandard ability for the 51 point ability in Frost.

As a disclaimer, all of this ranting is regarding PTR patch notes/changes, which are subject to change at any time.

Today, I bring you my Death Knight’s tanking spec. Here’s a talent calculator link.

Right now, I’m specced 23/48/0, and quite happy with it. The highlights of the spec are Guile of Gorefiend for the boost to Icebound Fortitude, Acclimation, Frost Aura, and Spell Deflection for caster mitigation, Improved Icy Talons for buffing the party/raid, Howling Blast for aoe tanking, and Unbreakable Armor and Lichborne for the talented oh crap button.

So far I’ve tanked most regular 5 mans with this spec. Frost is far and away the best tanking spec, in my opinion, as the aoe rotation is much cleaner, and the mitigation is much better, at least at lower gear levels. Once I’ve pushed my avoidance higher, I’ll try Unholy again to see how the uptime on Bone Armor is enhanced.

My basic rotations are Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Frost Strike, wash rinse repeat for single target. For aoe tanking, the rotation alternates. Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Death and Decay for the first rotation, then Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Howling Blast, Blood Boil for the second rotation, with some RP dumps thrown in the end of each, situationally.

So, that’s my extremely basic Death Knight tanking guide. Hope this helps some of you.

I had no real intention of playing a Death Knight. After dabbling with them on the beta, I knew they were fun and all, but I had no interest in having one of my own. Truth be told, I really still don’t. However, since Malfean intends to main-switch, I made a Death Knight to run around Outland with him until he hits 68, at which point I am going to switch over to my main, a rogue, and continue on into Northrend. I’ll keep the character around, though, because I’ve had so much fun that I’m thinking I might actually want to finish leveling her at some point. So here are a few reasons why, even if you don’t think you want to play a Death Knight, you really do:

1. Appearance. Ok, I’m a girl, but holy freakin’ tauren, the new Death Knight skins are wicked. Baleful blue glares and hollowed out cheeks, grey-bluish skin and sickly blue hair…they look half dead and all evil, which is how I likes it. It also seems that blue is a big theme with Death Knights. Half of what they wear gear-wise has a blue cast to it, at least until you start trading it for Outland clown-gear.

2. The Starting Area. Now, all of the new content has some new quest types that are interesting and fun. Yes, there are a lot of the standard “Go get me fifteen snake gonads and I’ll give you a whistle that makes you dance” quests, but there are also new siege engine quests and phased quests and the like that will keep you interested. The Death Knight starting area has all of the best of the new quest innovations rolled into one fast-paced and highly entertaining spot. You want to fly on a Frost Wyrm and set fire to mobs below you and explode things? Check. You want to experience the sensation of your actions actually having a dynamic impact on the landscape around you? Check. You want to experience the exhiliration of being part of an epic battle with death, destruction and dying screams that looks like something out of “Lord of the Rings”? You can do this! Roll up your Death Knight now.

3. AOE the World. Have you, much like me, never had one of those classes that people constantly scream about being OP? Have you always missed the brief window of insane DPS before the soul-crushing nerfs? Then now is the time to make a Death Knight. I knew that the Death Knights seemed overpowered in their starting area, but I had no idea what it would be like beyond that, as I hadn’t taken one any further on beta. When Malfean and I ventured into Outland, I was stunned. Mobs go down faster than anything I’ve ever seen before. We routinely pull giant groups of mobs and throw around the Pestilence, Death and Decay and Blood Boil Death Knight AoEs and everything just falls before us. Whole islands of Naga, elites we used to have to get guildmates to help with, group quests for 3 or more…all no problem for a couple of piddly little Death Knights. I can’t help but think that this stuff is going to get nerfed, especially since even I, the one who never PvPs, can see the PvP potential in all of this. Casters wouldn’t have a chance.  Get yours before they nerf them into the ground.

4. Lore. Admittedly this is an area where Malfean has more interest and knowledge than I do. I tend to be the kind of person that flips past game intros and skips reading quest “color” text just to get to the heart of what I’m supposed to do. Lets get on with it! However, when you watch Arthas and Tirion Fordring’s scene at the end of the last quest in the Death Knight starting area, it’s hard not to be enthralled. Even me. It’s hard not to get swept up by the epic scope of it all.

In short, even if you never wanted a Death Knight, even if you aren’t interested in them at all, make one just for a little while. Enjoy this new, truly Heroic class that Blizz has given us. It’s one of the few things in the game that actually feels like you hoped the game would feel when you looked at your first World of Warcraft box and thought “Wow…I want to go there.”.

I walk inside, and give them my phone number for my preorder, and pick up a third copy for a guildmate who’s local that preordered from Circuit City(they gave him a delivery date of Dec 22nd, he cancelled). So, they give me my total, I swipe my card….declined. WTF?! I swipe it again…declined. They run it as credit….declined. Pwned.

So, I ran off to find an ATM, and call Sharon to have her call them and find out how late they’re letting people in, and find out it was happening to everyone. Every card that was swiped was declined. I lost my third spot in line for no good reason! Argh!

However, I found an ATM, scored my copies of Wrath, and am now installing. Happy! Anyone else have horror stories of Wrath day?