Yes, I run into the occasional jackass on the Alliance side, but they are usually just whiners who drop group ridiculously fast. Every non-guild horde run I’ve done for the last week has contained at least 1 abusive asshole. I guess anyone who thinks Garrosh Hellscream is cool is going to have problems, but seriously why does the horde seem to have an outsized proportion of truly vile people playing it?

Come to think of it, most of them have been wearing Arena gear too. Another primary indicator…

And for the most part, I haven’t had to group with a lot of jerks (one or two in the time since the tool came out). Most people are civil, if quiet.

But man. 18 minutes on average if I queue as DPS. That’s primarily on Chingching or Seneschal. Yes, Seneschal has a tanking spec, but her gear isn’t, IMO, up to tanking heroics yet (I want more health and more hit).

It’s enough some nights to make me just do the random on Flaime (who always tanks) and log. I know the solution is to get Sen’s tanking gear up to snuff and tank on her, but, to be honest, I don’t know DK tanking all that well yet, and I have fun DPSing. And that doesn’t help with the mage at all.

Hopefully there’s a streamlining coming soon.

Now, I believe you can safely attribute some of this to the fact that it was a normal instance, not a heroic. And, for the most part, the group seemed to know what they were doing (except for the DPSing dk).  But once I remembered to switch to frost presence, nobody was ever within 10% of me on Omen. And aoe tanking was so much easier on the death knight (mind you, I’m Blood, not Unholy, so AOE tanking really isn’t how I’m specced). The only thing I could ask for is a tanking talent that would allow you to reset the cooldown for death and decay every couple minutes…that was a part of one of the other tanking talents I already have:D).

So, after succeeding on TOC, I decided that I would be willing to try tanking a heroic. 1st up - Utgarde Pinnacle - let me preface, I don’t like UP. Skadi is one of the worst fights in the game for randomness and people not paying attention and I’m really not great at tanking it - my reaction times are just too slow to save people who won’t save themselves.  On the other hand, after we worked out that DPS would have to single target to start out with (and I remembered to switch back to frost presence), it was a pretty smooth run. In fact, at the end, one of the random people commented I was one of the better DK tanks they had seen lately. Now, I’m sure that wasn’t that hard, but considering it was my first run in a heroic on my DK, I was pleased.

It remains to be seen if I will like DK tanking as much as Bear tanking when the gear level is comparable, but It has been okay thus far.

I’ll be commenting on things I want to comment on, and talking about playing and so on and so forth. If you wander back here, great. If not, well, I’m mostly writing this for myself anyway:D.

And the few feral druids that do numbers in the blog world don’t even care. Karthis doesn’t even seem to tank anymore. He’s all about the DPS nonsense. As is Kalon. BBB hasn’t commented, but he’s pretty much all about the hunter now anyway.

The problem is, I don’t want to DPS. I want to tank. Tanking is fun. DPS is boring on a druid. And healing…healing sucks ass. The most unpleasant task in the game is druid healing. (Those druids who don’t think so must not remember the “heal or get out of my group” days we went through).

And yet, I haven’t found a class as fun as the druid to play…maybe it’s time to look seriously at my DK>

A simple rule of thumb…hunters have no business rolling on anything with armor when there is a feral in the party. Ferals have a small case for rolling on +hit, but it is generally something you will see more tilted towards a hunter, and unless it’s a MASSIVE upgrade, they should probably pass to any hunters in the party.

At 72, you can pick up the Staff of the Spiked Beast from Conversing with the Depths.

At 73, there are 3 quest reward upgrades: Timeshattered Spire from Mystery of the Infinite; Staff of Righteous Vengeance from Sasha’s Hunt; and Branch of the Roaming Spirit from Free at Last.

At 74, Staff of the Sorrowful Chieftan is rewarded by Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper.

At 75, Jailer’s Baton drops in Violet Hold.

At 78, Hewn Sparring Quarterstaff drops in Halls of Lightning.

At 80, you have 3 drops: Enraged Feral Staff from Heroic Utgarde Keep; Lightning Giant Staff in Heroic Violet Hold; and Staff of Trickery in Heroic Violet Hold

Now, on with the show!

Rings:
Baseline: Ravenclaw Band and Overseer’s Signet

Both rings require a bit of effort to get but they didn’t require raiding and, in the end, were about as much as I thought I could expect a non-raider to be able to get.

At level 70 in WOTLK, the first item you will be able to get is a green crafted item: Bloodstone Band. It’s unique, so you will replace the Ravenclaw Band with it. There is also the Ring of Indignant Rage from The Assassination of Harold Lane to provide a second upgrade. The Bloodstone Band is better, but it is also more easily obtained, as The Assassination is the last quest in a chain.

At 72, you can pick up Kurzel’s Rage to replace the Ring of Indignant Rage. It the reward from Search and Rescue.

At 73, you’ll replace the Bloodstone Band. Your first choice is the Worgslayer’s Ring from Attack on Silverbrook. If you are a little bit lucky, you will be able to pick up Jedoga’s Greatring in Ahn’Kahet.

At 74, you’ll be replacing your lesser ring with the Ring of Foul Mojo from For Posterity

If you are still using Kurzel’s Rage or less as your second ring at 75, you’ll want to replace it with the r
Petrified Ghoul Finger from Feedin’ Da Goolz.

At 76, the Bent Crockolisk Tooth
is slighting better than the Petrified Ghoul Finger. It’s the reward from Crockolist Mastery: The Ambush.

At 77, you’ll have to opportunity to replace both rings:
Frog-Toe Band is the reward from Basic Chemistry.
The Signet of Bridenband is the reward from Light Within the Darkness.

At 78, there is again opportunity to upgrade:
The Bjarngrim Family Signet drops in Halls of Lightning.
The Ring of Scarlet Shadows is crafted. The Ring is a bigger upgrade than the signet, so if you only try for one, get the ring crafted for yourself.

There are 6 available upgrades at level 80, prior to raiding (from least to greatest):
the Stained-Glass Shard Ring is a world drop, but most of the drops I have seen for it are in Heroic Ahn’Kahet or Heroic Azjol-Nerub.
The Signet of Edward the Odd is another Northrend world drop, this one having been seen all over the continent.
The Mobius Band drops in Heroic COT: Strat.
The Band of Kirin Tor is for sale for 8k gold in Dalaran.
The Hemorrhaging Circle drops in Heroic Gundrak.
The Titanium Impact Band is crafted.

Trinkets:
Baseline: Trinkets are pretty hard to baseline because there’s such variety that people might have obtained. So I’m going to be a little arbitrary and set the standard pretty low:
Abacus of Violent Odds and Bloodlust Broach were both comparatively easy to get. Certaily easier than running heroic Magister’s Terrace over and over…

If you don’t have at least the baseline, you can pick up the First Mate’s Pocketwatch from The Jig Is Up.

You don’t really see an upgrade from baseline until the Goblin Repetition Reducer at 74. It’s available for Venture Coins in Grizzly Hills.
Tehcnically, the Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury and the Oracle Talisman of Ablution are usable at 70, but since they both require exatled with a faction in Sholzar Basin, they aren’t really practical until 77 or 78.

If you are an alchemist, at 75 you can make a Mighty Alchemist’s Stone.

At 77, you can pick up the Crusader’s Locket from Defending the Vanguard.

Finally, at 80, you can pick up several better trinkets:
The Metorite Whetstone drops in Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.
The Incisor Fragment drops in Heroic Drak’Tharon Keep.
The Mirror of Truth is a Heroic Emblem item.
And the Darkmoon Card: Greatness
comes from the Darkmoon Faire, of course.

Again, I just listed the upgrades from my baselines…there are a lot more trinkets out there that you can discover at lootrank.com by picking the feral druid - cat template and selecting the appropriate level…Just have it list 20 or 30 options and tell it to only list trinkets.

Baseline: Fel Leather Leggings, an easily obtainable crafted item.

At 71, Wrynn’s Legguards of Brutality are available from The Battle for the Undercity.

At 73, the Patchhide Pants are awarded by Local Support

At 75, you get the Tatooed Deerhide Leggings are awarded from Containment.

At 77 there are three upgrades:
The Legguard of Guided Travel are awarded from The Activation Rune.
The Cured Proto-Drake Hide Leggings is awarded by Discipline.
And the Constellation Leggings drop from the Tribunal Chest in Halls of Stone.

At 78, cats have three more upgrades:
The crafted Eviscerator’s Leggings;
The crafted Leggings of Visceral Strikes;
or the Azure Strappy Pants, available at revered from the Frenzyheart Tribe.

And at 80, cats have the following options, prior to raiding:
Ravenous Leggings of the Furbolg from Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.;
The Mind Expanding Leggings at revered with the Kirin Tor.
and the Gored Hide Leggings from Heroic Gundrak.

Feet:

Baseline: Fel Leather Boots are, once again, an easily obtainable, decent pair of cat boots.

There is a quick upgrade at 70: the Treads of Torn Future awarded by Quickening.

At 72, you can pick up Don Soto’s Boots from Death to the Traitor King or the Treads of Aspiring Heights from Azjol-Nerub.

At 74, you can get the Rhino Hide Kneeboots from One of a Kind.

There is a very minor upgrade at 78 in the crafted Jormscale Footpads.

80 brings a slew of choices:
The Darkspeaker’s Treads from Mind Tricks;
Gorloc Muddy Footwraps from heroic Gundrak;
Slag Footguards from heroic Halls of Lightning;
Boots of the Whirling Mist from heroic Halls of Stone;
and Boots of the Neverending Path at revered with Argent Crusade.

Baseline: the Fel Leather Gloves are fairly common and pretty cheap, so I’ll baseline from them.

At 70, the Time-Stop Gloves are a quick and easy upgrade from Postponing the Inevitable.

The next upgrade doesn’t come until 75 with the Handguards of Rapid Pursuit from Ichoron in Violet Hold.

At 77, the Rough Climber’s Grips are rewarded from The Reckoning.

At 78, the Handwraps of Preserved History are awarded from A Royal Escort

At 80, there are 2 non-raid upgrades:
Gilt-Edged Leather Guantlets drop in from King Ymiron in Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.
The Gloves of Fast Reactions are a BOE world drop.

Waists:

Baseline: Guardian’s Dragonhide Belt. Yeah, it was a grind, but you weren’t going to find anything better outside of raiding. Unless you usually had 10k gold laying around. And, ultimately, it was pretty easy to get. Took me about a week of 3 times/day BGs.

The first waist upgrade doesn’t happen until 73. You can get the Waistguard of Expedient Procurement from Drak’aguul’s Mallet or the Pyramid Embossed Belt, which drops from Herald Volazj in Ahn’Kahet.

At 74, the Strange Vodoo Belt is awarded by Gul’Darah Must Pay.

At 78, you can get the crafted Eviscerator’s Waistguard or the Glitterscale Wrap is availabe at revered with the Oracles.

80 gives a wide variety of waists:
The Treasure Seeker’s Belt drops in heroic Azjol-Nerub.
The Bat-Rider’s Cord drops in heroic Drak’Theron Keep.
The Sharp-Barbed Leather Belt drops in Heroic Utgard keep.
And the Trollwoven Girdle is crafted.