Heya guys!!  So, I’ve been remiss in my e-mails for the past week.  /sadface  Sorry.  I’ve been pretty busy recently, but I couldn’t even tell you why or what in the hell I’ve been doing.  >.<  That’s the worst, heh.  But, I figured I could take some time out of my busy schedule to bother answering ya’lls questions.  I mean, isn’t that cool of me or what?!?!    Heh, j/k.

So let’s not waste any more time, eh?

 

Loot/Itemization Availability

Blizzard *says* that it’s totally random.  Well, I think that’s BS, and so do a lot of other people.  They may think it’s random, and have it set up to be random.  But it’s not.  We’ve gone multiple weeks in the same raid seeing the same item drop every single week from the same stupid boss.  Or even now in Naxx25.  We’ve killed 3 bosses in a row and seen the same two “random” items drop all 3 times.  *shakes head*

My personal opinion has always been that it’s a code issue.  Something in the method used to generate random loot has some code that allows for repetative loot distribution, without it being apparent to the guys who look at said code.  But to this day Blizzard still swears that the loot distribution is totally random.  Phhbttt…  Not buying it.  But that is why IMO you will sometimes go several runs and not see one possible piece of gear you are after.

Don’t forget there is the RNG bad luck factor as well.  And if you’re running Heroics and never seeing any loot you can use, make sure you are running something that drops loot you can use.  I’ve known people to do multiple heroics that can’t drop anything they can use, and then sit there and b!@#$ about how they never get anything they need, lol.  Check Atlas Loot or WoW Head always guys.  Plan out the instances you will farm for gear you need.

 

What items should you be going after?

A lot of times people wonder whether they need to get items crafted, which heroic badge items should they purchase, how can they get better gear quickly, etc…  The fact is that there is no easy blanket answer.  Your playstyle, time that you can invest, personal preferences, raid progression, etc…  These factors all come in to play.  So lets cover some of the basics eh?

Planning Ahead – Try to go through Atlas Loot or WoW Head and find gear that you want to pick up from Heroics.  If you plan on raiding, these items do not have to be the best possible.  But as long as you try to focus on the better items possible you should be fine.  Know which heroics drop the epics that you need, and then also note which instances have comparable blue item drops as well.  I personally keep a notebook for WoW which I’ll make notes in.  Especially for when I need to prepare for raiding, I’d note which Heroics I need to farm for specific gear.

Buying Gear – After you’ve planned out which items to farm, then you should examine what can be purchased with mats/gold.  Ideally you’ll find about 2-5 items that can be crafted, and then focus on farming instances for the other slots.  The goal here is to gain as many item upgrades as quickly as possible to increase your performace so that you are included on more runs by people you meet, your friends, and your guild.

Badge Gear – I personally try to hold off on Badge gear and here is why.  You never know what will drop from instances.  So I try to bank some up first, and then farm for some gear.  If I’m having issues filling out a specific slot, then I’ll just go ahead and buy a badge item for that slot.

PvP Gear – You should never forget about this stuff.  It’s just like Badge gear.  Banking up some Honor or Arena gear can allow you to purchase an item for a slot that you’re having really bad luck filling out.

 

How do you stand out as a DK in a pool of 1000 other DK’s?

Many times DK’s have a hard time finding groups.  Whether it’s because “Deathtards” have left a bad taste in other people’s mouths, or every group already has 1-2 DK’s and don’t want anymore…it’s not easy getting included as a DK sometimes.

If it comes to PuG’s, first off try forming your own then.  This is what I used to always do before I got into raiding.  It’s easiest to do /who searches for specific classes at 80.  Make a “LFM” macro and write specific messages for each role you want to fill.  Ex: “Hello!!  We’re looking for a tank for H Occulus, would you be interested?”  Whisper 2-4 people at a time until you get some replies saying yes/no and then once done, edit the macro for a healer or dps role.  You’d be surprised how easy that makes it to form a group.  Also the upside is that you can focus on non-plate classes.  You can invite cloth, leather, and mail classes making it guaranteed that you’ll get any plate drops.

Outside of that, you need to find ways to make yourself an asset to your guild and friends in WoW.  You need to have a Tank and a DPS set.  It doesn’t matter if you prefer to only do one.  Prepare your alternate set of gear and let them know that you can tank or dps as needed.  That is worth more than it’s weight in gold.  I almost never get asked to tank, but my friends know I have a tank set and will do it when needed.  That makes you more “valuable”.

Making sure you know how to play your class, coming prepared to all runs, using consumables without being asked to, using your skills without anyone asking you to, and knowing the strats without someone explaining it to you.  These are all things you can do to set yourself apart from the average DK and make people go out of their way to find you.

 

Patchwerk – lolwhutdead?!!?

First off, good old “Patchy” here hits the person in melee range who has the most hit points while excluding whomever has current agro.  So if you’re guild is making the MT tank Patchy, you’re already boned.  The MT is the OT here.  You run 2 OT’s and 1 MT.  And the OT’s should have hella awesome hit points.  And as a DPS you should be clicking off your Fort buff.  Hit Points = bad here.  Lastly, don’t ever ever ever ever ever stand in that damn slime.  It lowers your stats, that is why your hit points go down.  So you do crappy dps.  I mean it.  Don’t stand in the damn slime!!  This isn’t Ghostbusters.  GTFO!!

 

Tanking Posts

Sadly I do not have a lot of Tank oriented posts atm.  I’d like to remedy that in the future, but there are limitations.  Consider the fact that on average I post 15-24 times in a week, and I still do not manage to touch base on every topic I would like to.  I’m still back logged with post ideas, projects, and plans for the site.  /sigh

My BISI posts are not meant for PvP or for Tanking.  They are DPS posts for PvE.  Why?  Because that is the most popular apsect to DK’s, and it just so happens to be my personal favorite as well.  Also, they have things like Tank Points, which when combined with Atlas Loot makes measuring tanking items very very easy to do.

I do plan on making some Tank oriented posts in the future, but as things stand it is a bit lower on the priority list.  Since I spend the majority of my time either as PvE DPS or PvP’ing, that tends to be the focus of my posting.

 

Tanking Playstyle

Something very easy to understand is that tanking is a lot like dps’ing.  You use Rune Strike, whereas you never use it when you DPS typically.  You also need to be prepared to have resources to fire off defensive CD’s like IBF or Bone Shield.  But otherwise you drop your Runes on DPS oriented rotations just as if you were DPS’ing.  Just always make sure you are in Frost Presence and that you are firing off your AoE’s early for trash, and that you keep your diseases up.

 

Rotations, Specs, Etc…

I’m not delving into this for now guys, not until 3.0.8 releases.  There are a lot of things in the air atm, and quite frankly I’m not up for researching stuff that may change in as little as a week’s time.  Do not fret however as I will be updating Rotations, Specs, etc when the patch releases.

That being said, here is *MY* Unholy Spec: 17/0/54  If you wish to just run headlong into DPS’ing this is the highest possible DPS outside of a DW build.  If you wish to see what the best DW spec possible is at the moment check out my Number 1 DPS Spec post.  For the record any DPS I’ve shown you here on this site to date from my toon, Skeletonjack, is as 17/0/54.  Skeletonjack has never been spec’d into anything outside of Unholy for PvE and a Unholy/Blood hybrid for PvP.

 

Which Presence do I use when?

Blood Presence – PvE DPS always.  DO NOT USE UNHOLY PRESENCE TO DO PvE DPS OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL BEAT YOU WITH A STICK!!! 

Frost Presence – PvE Tanking always, and sometimes for PvP when focus fired.

Unholy Presence – PvP always.  Burst, burst, burst, burst, burst.  More attacks in a shorter period of time = win.  Being faster than your opponents = win.  Nuff said.

 

Gems

Expertise, Hit, and Strength.  End of story.  Period.  Nothing else, and I mean it.  Don’t make me go get the stick again!!  Heh, heh, heh…  The only time you should deviate from those three stats is if you have to slot in 2 blue gems to meet a metagem requirement.  That’s it.

 

Agility vs. Crit Rating

Crit wins every day of the week.  Always.  Agility will only affect your melee and your strikes, while crit will affect your spells, your melee, and your strikes.  If comparing relatively equal amounts of both stats, the crit will win by a landslide.

 

Desecration and Unholy Aura

OK, a lot of misconceptions abound about these two talents.  So lets put it to rest.  I will probably do a post later on showing the napkin math on this stuff, but for now here is the short version.  And FYI Outbreak sucks.

Desecration – You almost never stand still long enough to truly take advantage of the Desecration patch outside of Loatheb and Patchwerk.  Most fights in WoW require movement making this talent worth much less than it is.  Is it still worthwhile?  Sure.  But the problem is that because it is devalued in the majority of encounters, that makes other talents generate better overall DPS for you.

Unholy Aura – This is a MANDATORY raid buff for raid content.  Long story short, this one talent adds more total raid dps that just about anything else that is brought to the table.  And it increases healing too.  People getting to where they are going faster means that much more DPS and Healing.  And as everyone should well know by now, sometimes 1-2 seconds really does mean the difference between a wipe and a kill.  Add that 1-2 seconds up for every single time movement is required in a fight, and you can start to see how it adds up.

 

N52TE

Some people may get this and go, “OMFG THIS SUCKS!!!”  Hell when I swapped over from my old N52 to the TE version I felt that similar emotion.  I wanted to scream because the thumbpad sensitivty (which I use to swap between multiple action bars) was *so* different from my old one.  I was always missing activations.  Like I told people before it will take a minimum of 2 weeks of constant play just to get used to it.  Read: “get used to it.”  Not master it.  This thing is an investment of time and practice.  But the payout in the end is beyond reproach.  You will be such a better player if you take the time to master it.

 

The future of DW Specs

A lot of people have been asking questions about Slow/Fast or Fast/Fast weapons for DW and also what will be happening due to KM, etc…  Sorry guys, but there is no telling atm.  I personally think that Blizz wants to slap a bandaid on the problem for now, just nerfing DW down to 2H capacity.  But for the long term I’d expect them to redress the issue for the 3.1 release of Uludar.  DW scales far better than 2H atm, so it’ll only be natural for DW to eventually leave 2H builds behind in the future with improved gear.  We’ll have to see how things pan out.  So long as DW outperforms 2H builds however I would expect to see Blizzard issue nerf bats for it.

 

DK Lore

You guys interested in it at all?  If I made some posts about the fun “Role Playing” aspect of it, or just the storylines and plots behind DK’s would you read it?  You guys curious about where we came from, and the stories behind the original Death Knights before Arthas?  He was not the first DK.  Curious now?

 

Not hitting DPS like mine or others and you’re sitting there going, “But, but, but…aww man!!”

There could be a million factors there guys.  Is your raid stacked properly to where you are getting every raid buff and the bosses are fully debuffed?  Are you comparing “like” bosses?  IE. compare Patchy versus Patchy.  Don’t compare my Patchy results versus your Thaddius results.  Do you have a lot of lag/latency, or a bad computer?  Do you sometimes have Runes sit on CD or let your RP actually hit 100+ and lose some of it?  Do you have equivalent gear to myself?  Are you using a good dps spec?  Are you really truly “good”?  It takes practice and effort.  I’m not trying to be a jerk, but there is a difference between a good player and an average player.  Addressing these questions is the very first step to reaching 5k+ dps numbers.

 

Hit and Expertise Caps

First off if you have any questions you need to go read Hit and Expertise Revisited.  Now if you are having trouble understanding how much hit you need after you melee cap, then again go back and read this post.  It tells you how to prioritize spell hit, and how to easily reach it.  Hit is still good, and needed past melee hit cap.  But it’s not something you should sacrifice good dps upgrades for necessarily.  It’s a judgement call…something you need to feel out.  Hence why that post has a priority listing where Hit falls after the melee hit cap.

 

Something Special, Epic Fail Style

Something Special, Epic Fail Style.  For all of you guys who sat there going, “Ahh!! Ahh HA!!!  PHOTOSHOP!!!”  You’re the same !@#$’ers who tell kids there is no Santa Claus aren’t you?!!?  I mean c’mon, it’s funny.  Shooting holes in it like you’re evil elves trying to kill Santa.  Jerks!!!  Heh,

 

How to find me?

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

 

/endwalloftextcritszomgpewpew!!!

 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Questions

Heya guys!!  So, I’ve been back logged on E-mails and on Comments on the site.  So, Tuesday will be E-mail today this week.  I’ll be hunkering down after work and answering E-mails and Comments here on SJ.  Yes, that’s right.  No e-mail responses themselves, but answers here on the site.  Because sometimes, player questions are relevant to more people than just the person asking.  And…there might be another BISI post in Tuesday’s future as well.  Who knows, we might just get crazy!!

Skeleton.Jack@hotmail.com

 

As to PvP… 

/sigh

So my 5v5 never got off the ground last week.  People (me included) were just not all available at the right times.  It’s hell scheduling 5v5’s sometimes.  As to my 2v2…well we didn’t do so hot.  We stayed at the same rating basically, but we made no forward progress.  It probably has something to do with we played stupidly late on Monday when we both were not focused, but that’s our fault.  So no one to blame but us.  Ah well, we’ll do it fresh next week.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Coming Soon

 

“Heya guys!!  How are you today?  Well…honestly I don’t care about what the answer is.  So long as you frickin’ let me ride your group for exp and loot today.  I’m awesome, and you’re not.  I need loot, and you don’t.  It’s simple.  And I’m going to need to take an AFK break to go run to the store and buy myself some food while we’re in the raid.  I fully plan to be back in time for the next boss kill however, so get us there quick allright?  And don’t worry, my dps will be half of yours.  But I’m still better than you.  KKTHXBAI!!!”

 

Welcome to the Deathtard.  The next step in evolution from the Huntard.

 

Huntard

(huhn – tahrd): A derogatory term for any player in the MMORPG “World of Warcraft” who plays a hunter that has developed bad habits and inferior skills for playing in groups.  Huntards often fail to watch their threat, use their “feign death” ability at the wrong moment, don’t understand how to properly kite/trap targets, regularly cause party wipes, and send their pets into combat while the party is trying to ressurect others.

Deathtard

(deth – tahrd): As the newest and easiest class to level, a migration of underskilled players who do not fully understand the game now play the Death Knight class in the MMOPRP “World of Warcraft”.  As the most populous class in WoW in the LK expansion, the prevalence of underskilled DK’s with poor habits and playstyle have ovewhelmed the player community making most forget the dreaded Huntard, in fear of it’s new replacement the Deathtard.

 

Origins

The origin of the Deathtard is best explained by understanding where the Huntard came from.  In original “vanilla” WoW (pre-expansions) the easiest class in the game to level was a Hunter.  Don’t believe me?  I’ve got proof.  Power Leveling and Gold Selling companies abound for no other reason than there is a market, and people will shell out their cash for it.  What’s the relevance?  Power Leveling.

Many companies who offered power leveling services would charge various rates based upon how much time they would end up spending leveling your characer.  “Back in the day” all of the classes did not have any where near the same damage or survival capacity while leveling as they do now.  Some classes were pure misery to level.  But then you had the Hunter, the easiest and fastest leveling character of them all.  Power leveling companies offered discounts if you wanted to get a hunter leveled over another class.  You could save sometimes upwards of $20-40 just by purchasing a service for a hunter over say a paladin.

The ease of leveling such a character lead many regular players in WoW to leveling one, smashing their faces into mobs with their pet, while they sit back and scream “Loldie!!” at mobs.  These characters were often used for farming, relaxation, or were just played by people who did not know any better.  No skill was required to level up, even if the Hunter class itself requires a great deal of skill to actually master.

Now this isn’t the fault of Hunters, it was simply the easiest class to play and was very fun.  A condition which would appeal to the class of player known as Huntards.  So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that when a new class was released in LK, available to anyone with a level 55+ toon, that was even easier to level than anything released before (and more powerful to boot) that everyone moron and their mom rolled a new DK as well.  Now there are more DK’s than any other single class in all of WoW.  And theyr’e sitting there screaming, “LOLDIE!!!”  /sigh

 

Tell Tale Signs of a Deathtard

Sometimes its not completely obvious what a Deathtard is.  Or even if someone is a Deathtard.  I mean, really.  With a brand new class it is difficult to know if someone is screwing up all of the time.  It’s not a Hunter where everyone has a basic clue as to what they can do after how many years of existence. 

While you might think this would help DK’s who are not Deathtards, the inverse is actually true.  Because it is more difficult to spot a Deathtard off of the bat, it makes people far less likely to group with a DK in general.  Which in turn only helps predicate more DK’s without the proper skills and experience to play their class.  Now this isn’t to say it’s anyone’s responsibility to help someone else learn how to play their class, but it is worthwhile noting that it is a contributor to the problem.

Off the top of my head I can think of 7 different viable Raid PvE DPS specs using both 2H and DW.  Add in to that the personal variations added in for raid utility and/or personal PvP/Farming routines, it becomes even more difficult to simply examine a player’s spec to see if they don’t know what they are doing.  Furthermore, even the biggest moron knows how to do an internet search and use a “cookie cutter” spec making the difficulty in spotting a Deathtard before grouping with them even more difficult.

Most of the time you will be stuck waiting for the signs as you are grouping.  Whether he’s tanking/pulling before the healer has mana, running in and agro’ing mobs before the tank is ready, doing 1k dps while the rest of the dps’ers are doing 2-3k dps, or never casting Death and Decay when you AoE pull…you won’t see these signs until after you’re playing together.

 

Intervention

Sometimes it’s worse than just meeting a random Deathtard in a PuG and grouping with them.  You actually know them and have to play with them.  Whether it’s a friend, a guild mate, or a friend of someone you group with often, you will be forced to play with this person.  Simply kicking them from the group is no longer an option.  Time for an Intervention.

Addressing the problem is usually the first step.  Is the problem that they suck as a player (in which case you are likely screwed, lol) or that they simply don’t understand their class?  If they suck as a player you have a major problem there.  There is no guide that will tell you how to play a game better.  It’s a question of practice, experience, and an actual desire to improve on their part.

Now sometimes you can inspire that desire by informing them on occasion that you took someone over them because their perfomance has been under par.  It’s a way of hinting that they need to go do some homework.  But always remember that if the problem is just that they are not good, always try to give them something to help.  A link to EJ Forums, tell them to come here and read SJ, find a place that has DK guides, etc…  Try to give them some pointers and explain things to them that they do not understand.  Don’t be condescending though.  I mean it.

If however the problem is that they simply don’t understand the class, well then you’re set.  Nothing pisses me off more than someone who can be good, but refuses to take the time.  This is when you tell said person that if they don’t want to bother learning how to play their class, then you will stop inviting them to group with you.  That’s me personally anyway.

Direct that person to EJ Forums, here, or tell them they need to do some internet searching on videos and/or guides to improve their game.  The fact is, a good player should not have a difficult time finding the resources necessary to play a DK decently.  Notice I said the word “decently”.  A decent DK is not a difficult thing to be, and a massive improvement from a Deathtard.

 

Basics of not being a Deathtard

You’d think these would be obvious, but they’re not.  /sigh  So here we go:

• Don’t pull agro.  Watch your threat meter.
• Don’t AoE before the tank grabs agro.  Give him 5-10 seconds before you unleash unholy hell.
• Don’t run in and agro mobs because you wanted to look at something.  The tank should always be standing in front of you.
• Don’t DPS in Frost/Unholy Presence in PvE.  Especially Frost, you will pull agro.
• Don’t keep your Ghoul set to agressive in instances…*EVER!!*
• Don’t let your Diseases fall off.  Renew them.
• Don’t let Runes sit there avaiable to be used.  USE THEM.  You should only be waiting to use a Rune because you need a 2nd or 3rd to use an ability.
• Don’t Tank in Blood/Unholy Presence.
• Don’t pull mobs before your healer has mana when tanking.
• Don’t pull mobs while your party members are still dead.
• Don’t pull mobs without checking to make sure your health bar is full.
• Don’t forget you have other tools available to you such as Death Grip, Ghoul Stun, Army of the Dead, Strangulate, Empower Rune Weapon, etc…
• Don’t forget that Death Grip “TAUNTS” the target, making it attack you.
• Don’t forget that your taunt Dark Command has a 20 yard range, not melee range.
• Don’t use a fast 2H.
• Don’t forget that Icebound Fortitude also reduces the amount of damage that you take in addition to making you immune to stuns.
• Don’t ignore Death Strike when the healers are low on mana because you “NEED MOAR DPS!!!”
• Don’t wear spell damage gear.  Ever.  I mean it.
• Don’t sit on your Runic Power thinking the full bar looks so pretty.  SPEND YOUR RP!!!
• Don’t wear tank gear when DPS’ing, and don’t wear DPS gear when tanking.
• Don’t take a name that is a rehash/spelling of Death Knight.  I mean…really?!  Really!?!  I’d rather see “LOLDIE”, ”UNHOLYGOD”, or “PEWPEWLASERS” than another “Deathnite” or “Dethknight”.  Seriously…

 

More Help Incoming!

I will be putting out two guides in not too long on Tanking and DPS’ing as a Death Knight.  These will not go into specs and/or specific rotations.  I say again, these will not be “How To’s” for specific specs, but rather for the roles you will be expected to perform.  Tactics, strategies, and how to bring the most out of your class.  When to use abilities, and when not to.  How to do speed pulls, etc…  Until then I suggest you send any Deathtard you meet to read stickied posts in the Official WoW Forums for DK’s, and to then head on over to both my site and the EJ forums and get some hardcore reading in.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Epic Fail