Go, Atl Team, Go

So, I've been spending a lot of time working on my alts recently.

It seems that my DK is at a stand still until we can rebuild enough to get us back into Ulduar and ToC10. She's got all of her emblem gear and there isn't much left to do with here since she isn't' the toon I choose to work on achievements with.

With that being said, I've found a long lost love in my little priest.

As most of you know, I switched Kalyanna from her pretty little Draenei with the pigtails to the somewhat cute tiny undead girl, still with the pigtails.

This was a tug at the heart strings to say the least. Mainly because she was my first serious toon, the first to see 70 and the focus of all of my attention in BC. She was the founder of my Alliance side guild and to me was everything that was Last Call.

Due to a huge phase of "Burnout" I had officially retired her when Wrath came out to focus on a DPS toon for a change. She slowly made her way to 80, simply to be able to max out her professions and spend her days in Dalaran. I rarely played her until recently.

When I transferred her she was in her Moonshroud gear, a couple of odd and end Shadow pieces she had gotten from Alt runs in Naxx and nothing more. I waited patiently, while Eto leveled his Druid with less the high hopes of actually being able to have fun with her again.

I was so certain that the trials and tribulations of BC raid healing had forever soured me to my priest. I just knew there was no way I was going to enjoy healing again. But I was willing to give it a try since it would greatly decrease our queue times if Loki was tanking and I was healing.

Low and behold, here we are 2 weeks after dinging the druid at 80 and I'm in LOVE with my priest again. She is 73/100 into getting her pug pet. She's in 4 piece T9 and the only heroic she hasn't been able to get through is HoR. She even healed Loki through VoA10.

Now, this is no major feat to most of you I'm sure. But for a little girl that I thought I'd never play again, this makes my heart sing. It's added new excitement to the game and I'm actually enjoying healing.

This isn't to say that if I made her my full time focus again, started raid healing exclusively, that I wouldn't hit that burnout stage again. But as an alt, running randoms, she's a lot of fun.

My original plan was to try out the Disc spec. However, I've remained Holy against the persuasion of every other priest out there. Why? Holy is what I know and it has changed very little since BC. I'm sure being Disc would have gotten me through HoR but I still enjoy Holy and that's what this toon is all about...just having fun!

Now curse Blizzard for throwing me head first into HoR on random! How dare they?!? :)

As for the lock that I dropped my priest for? She's still sitting around Dalaran in her T8 gear, Alliance side. I have pulled her out with the hopes of giving her Loremaster before the big change hits her as well.

I'm reluctant, more so with her, to transfer. She is my last high level Alliance toon. In my eyes making the switch to Horde with her is going to be forever saying good-bye to them. Forever letting go of the Alliance.

I've come to realize that I'm not doing myself any justice by abandoning her over there. I loved my lock just as much, if not more, then I loved my DK. Well, not exactly, I loved her minon. Her felguard to be exact. Zili is the whole of everything that is lock-dom to me. He's the reason I never made the switch, for high dps numbers, to destro like everyone suggested. There is just no way I can ever give up my Zili.

My dream for her was always to make her a gnome. As soon as Blizzard made the option available I was going to make her a gnome. Something about a cute tiny little warlock with her big massive Felguard guardian...that's just awesome. But I have since learned that my home is now Horde side and sadly, they do not accept gnomes. So instead, she'll turn herself into either a skinny, little, wispy blood elf or a cute undead. That is, unless Cataclysm hits before I finish Loremaster...then there is a possiblity she will wait to become a goblin!

But....only after I'm ready to say good-bye...

Possible DK Tanking Changes with the Patch

So I found this in a "blue" post on MMO-Champion:

Effective Health and Tanking
Too many of you are using EH (which is a very powerful concept for purposes of trying to decide how to gear your tank) as the number that indicates tank awesomeness. The higher the EH, the better tank I must be. It's just not that simple.

I have yet to see any data that suggests warriors wipe relatively more than other tanks. What so many of these posts say are:

1) I wipe a lot. It must be my class.
2) Because my EH is lower, I am guessing that I wipe more often.
3) I'm not sure if I wipe more often or not, but please just give me a buff so I feel better.

The only argument I have seen so far that seems at all reasonable is that stamina scaling or other factors might eventually lead to warriors (and DKs) having a problem, and that "eventually" could happen in Icecrown. Unfortunately that's impossible to prove or disprove at this stage since it's all speculation. It's definitely something to keep an eye on though.

So the part that is of concern is highlighted in the last paragraph.

"The only argument I have seen so far that seems at all reasonable is that stamina scaling or other factors might eventually lead to warriors (and DKs) having a problem, and that "eventually" could happen in Icecrown."

It appears from reading through the post, a lot of warriors are complaining that their tanking ability isn't as high as Druids, Paladins and possibly DKs.

I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with that statement. I believe all tanks have perks based on their class. Druids have ungodly amounts of health and armor. Paladins have great AoE ability and not to mention Lay on Hands. Deathknights have Death and Decay combined with Pestilence and Rune Strike. Warriors have shield bash in the mix of other class specific abilities.

So I'm not sure I agree with the logic behind the complaints but what does worry me is that they are talking about stamina scaling us?!? Seriously, we don't have any more stamina boost than a Paladin has. We sure don't have the amount of boosts that a druid gets.

Yes, Frost Presence does give me an added 6% boost to my stamina. 6%! That really isn't that much! I've picked enchants and gems to help it boost where I can. I currently have all epic stamina gems in my sockets...that gives me +32 stamina each. I am using 2 dragon's eye gems for stamina that gives me +52 stamina each and I have a couple stamina boost enchants.

Rightfully, I've worked hard to get my health pool up to 32,000+ self buffed. Compared to many of the other tanks I pass in Dalaran and near summoning stones for raids...I'm not nearly as high as most of them.

So with that being said, if you "scale" my stamina boosts too much, that nice little health pool that I've been trying to build up could drop back below 30,000.

I'm not sure what boosts warriors get but I'm sure they wouldn't be too happy to see their health pool dropped either.

On the reverse of this. Deathknights do have a large mitigation percentage. The idea for me is to NOT get hit but when I do, to have the health to buy time for a healer to recover me.

With a druid, their avoidance is much lower, but they can take more hits and still recover.

Paladins and warriors have the ability to block. This is a stat that I can't get. I don't have the ability to carry a shield. Not to mention Paladins want to get hit in order to help them gain threat.

All things being said and considered, this could be a big downfall for DKs more so then warriors I think. It's not unusual now to see "LF Tank for xxxx (no DKs)" in the looking for group channel. Lowering our stamina could make this even more common. We're already classified by many of our fellow gamers as "dumbknights", why give them another reason to doubt our abilities?

Maybe it's time for me to rethink the idea of rolling a Paladin.

I may be totally off here and they are talking about the nerfs that have already taken effect, and I hope that's the case. Maybe they aren't leaning towards nerfing our stamina pools again. If that's the case, then I'm ok with where my stamina pool is now, just don't lower it again!

Quiet Night

Ran H-HoL last night. It went very smooth. Had a couple great pug people, including a hunter that I enjoy running with. Everyone was patient, we didn't have any wipes and finished in a timely manner even with the horrible server lag.

Sadly, my shoulders didn't drop. Guess we can keep trying. I know the instance and have completed it successfully so no need to avoid it any longer.

Next to tackle...H-CoS and H-OK. We'll see about those.

Gear Upgrades

Looks like I've been focusing on some of the wrong rep factions. I have three substancial upgrades available to me, pre raid. But it means I'm going to have to overcome my fear of two specific heroics.

Breastplate of the Solemn Council - Revered with Wyrmrest. (Sadly I am only honored)
This will provide me:
+73 Armor
-11 Strength
+14 Stamina
+2 Defense Rating
+56 Expertise

Iron Dwarf Smith Pauldrons - Drop off of General Bjarngrim (1st boss in H-HoL ahhhhh!)
I have avoided tanking this instance. Along with H-HoS and H-CoS, simply because I'm afraid of these three. But, this will provide:
+129 Armor
+24 Strength
+18 Stamina
+10 Defense Raiting
+40 Perry
-24 Expertise

Bindings of Dark Will - Drop in H-CoS.
Stats compared to my current bracers:
+75 Armor
+15 Strength
+36 Stamina
-21 Defense Rating
+30 Perry

With that being said, I could work on getting Bracers of Herald, but I'm not sure which heroic scares me more. CoS or H-OK.
Stats to compare to current on this one:
+107 Armor
+7 Strength
+45 Stamina
-16 Defense Rating
+49 Perry

Now just to make myself get in there and do those heroics. Maybe I'll need a drink or two....

Vault of Archavon

Yep, broke through my fear...baby steps right?

Tanked 10man VoA last night. Well more so off tanked it. There was a pug group in trade looking for a OT and healer. Just so happens I can OT and I have my own pocket healer. So, before I could let my nerves change my mind, we accepted.

It honestly went very smoothly. We had one wipe on Koralon. Which I wasn't really surprised. I figured it being my first time we'd have a death or two. We had him down to about 6% when I died and his next meteor fist strike hit the target for a lot of damage since I wasn't there to split it. Let me just say, trying to stay right on top of another player when they are moving around isn't as easy as it sounded! But it was successful, sadly he dropped Mage and Warlock items and we had neither in the party.

Emalon, oddly, was a piece of cake. I took the boss and the warrior took the adds. I found this a little unusual, I figured I would take the adds since I've always considered warriors to be better 1 target tanks. Regardless, we downed him on the first try. He did drop PvP pants for me, since I was the only DK and caster gloves for Eto, who was also the only Shaman in the group.

Now Archavon, he was a little confusing. I had seen this fight a ton of times on my lock, and pretty much knew that the tank would get yanked up and the OT would taunt when the aggro dropped. But we just went charging in and occasionally I would get a whisper that said "taunt" from the MT, then he'd taunt back off of me. I think, from what I've heard, normally the tanks keep aggro till they are yanked up, then the other picks up and keeps it till he is yanked, etc. So I assume because most people were over geared for this fight and ready to go, we just went with it. Was slightly odd that they instructed the healers to dps as well.

Anyway, I have pretty comfortable with that raid now, on 10 man at least. My next task, Naxx. I think I should be able to handle that pretty easily since my gear is pretty much above the Naxx10 level.

Motivation

I'm slowly loosing motivation on my Death Knight. I'm not sure what is causing this or is it motivation on the game? This is a common reaction to me getting a toon to 80 and having her there long enough to get decent gear. I slowly, or not so slowly, loose motivation with her once she gets her gear, mounts, rep and a little gold in her stash.

The proof of this? I have an utterly awesome level 80 lock Alliance side who has pretty nice (read, a lot of tier gear and raid drops) gear, is a couple mounts away from her Albino Drake achievement, has the Ambassador title, is exalted with all her factions and the Argent Crusade, etc. What is she doing now? Just sitting in Dalaran, with her loyal demon companion passing the days away.

The same can almost be said for my 80 Priest, if I cared enough about healing to want to play her more. Honestly, I thought about blowing the dust off her and trying to get her to an acceptable level. She was my main all the way up to Wrath after all. At one point in time she too was my pride and joy. In the days of BC she was geared up, raid healing and strutting her stuff in Shatt with everything to be proud of. But I also grew tired of her.

Now, fast forward to present day and my once cute baby DK. Don't get me wrong, she's still cute but there is something missing. Oh, yeah..motivation. So this may just be the norm for me. Or it may be that I see Eto going off to do bigger and better things. Quickly bypassing me in gear, rep and over-all standing. He did Ulduar 25 Saturday night. I encouraged him to do this..."for the betterment of the guild". You know, with the one guildie that we HAD that was 80 and wanting to raid. (Said guildie also /gquit sometime in the early morning hours afterwards). But I won't get on to the guild standings, that's depressing enough. He made a pretty good impression on the guild he ran with, as he was invited to join their chat channel so he could be involved in future stuff. Future being the next day, when they invited him to do Sarth+3. Unfortunately, we were doing the Headless Horsemen boss and he didn't get to go.

But anyway, my DK now has pretty decent gear. I was able to get her awesome Spiked Deathdealers made last night. She is sitting in all epics, minus 3 pieces. I know there are still things I can improve on. Her Be Imba! score isn't so bad, 442.56. From what is suggested I need to be in 25 man content and Ulduar 10 content at this point. But guess what? Those things scare me. So, instead of tackling my fears, what do I do? I wander around Dalaran and read Trade chat. This is where I wish we had a guild with 80s that way I could move on to this content without the ramification of doing it with a pug. Pugs are very unforgiving of a baby tank in training.

Maybe our jump from Bronzebeard to Shadow Council came a little too early. A little more raid experience and confidence would have done a DK good.

New Gear, new guild...Now What?

It's been a pretty exciting, though very tiring, weekend.

As my previous posts have implied, we made the move from Bronzebeard to Shadow Council late Saturday night. I bought the guild charter on my DK, since I figured it would be easy to get sigs on her then on a level 1 bank toon, and headed out to the troll/orc starting area. With the help of a few great wow_ladies readers, we had the charter signed and turned in before I logged that night.

I spent most of the day on Sunday trying to find and recruit new members. Wow, I remember how much I hated recruiting in the beginning days of LC. Sadly, or happily maybe, by the end of the day I had recruited 5 new people. The level 13 undead something quit when we advised we do not promote boosting after he begged in /g for a deadmines run. Nothing lost there. But we do have a level 74 prot/ret pally, 80 something mage and a 80 survival hunter. Our 4th new member is a level 40ish warrior.

We'll see how the guild growing goes. It's a long tedious process, especially when you're starting a guild with only two people. At least when I had LC growing, I had a couple friends as officers from the beginning, that were helping us find new members.

On a happy note! I'm so glad to be back on a server were people actually use the LFG option!! Eto and I were able to pug several runs of normal ToC and a h-VH run with no problems at all. It's so nice to pop into LFG or Trade and ask for 3 dps and have them in 2 minutes flat, as opposed to sitting in LFG for 3 - 4 hours and never getting a group!

Now my dilemma. I got some pretty good drops last night. A couple really good ones actually. The problem being that now my defense is way over the cap. Currently sitting at 550 defense and feel like I'm wasting stats. Looking at my armory page (like on kalyara in the crew tap) my stats look pretty good to me, I just can't figure out where to drop the defense at.

That leads to another issues. It seems my mitigation needs to go up. Here are my stats with the new gear:

HP: 28,461 (unbuffed)
Dodge - 19.89%
Parry - 15.21%
Defense - 550
Armor - 14,347
Strenth - 855

From what I understand these are the points to keep in mind:
- Dodge is greater then Parry since parry is a direct reflection of your strength (25% gained from)
- Expertise on DKs does not effect spells and most of our abilities are therefor this stat is not as important to us as say a Warrior.

The hard part is I can't seem to find a straight answer that says, X is how much dodge percent and/or parry percent you need. I've read various post that say adding the two together and getting close to 40% is a good starting point. I've read various posts that give detailed math formulas that sound great but make little sense. And then I read further and they go on to inform that those formulas are geared more towards warriors and paladins. *sigh*

So, anyone have any thoughts or ideas to back any of this?

Going Home

Been complaining about Bronzebeard for awhile now. Well, actually since I rolled on that server to be exact. The complaints being mainly about the nonexistent LFG, bad guild, lack of support from my other 80s, etc.

Events from said bad guild and even more so the annoyance of trying to find a pug for HoL for the last 3 days and failing, is finally pushing us over the edge. We've decided to transfer our toons from Bronzebeard to Shadow Council.

Originally, we had thought we would faction and server transfer and put them happily Alliance side with our other toons. After some long debate we've decided we're happy with these toons being Horde and would like to keep the support mainly for future endeavors (Goblins of course!).
So, that's going to save us some real life money! We're only going to have to pay....ahhhhhh!....$125.00 to server transfer 5 toons. *cries* Are we crazy?!? We're going to dump $125.00 into a game?!? Oh well, call us crazy if you wish. But we hate, hate, hate...or I hate, hate, hate Bronzebeard.

Now the question becomes...we are signed up to do a Naxx10 run with the so called bad guild on Friday night. Do we stay for the possible Naxx run and hope for some nice drops before we leave? Or do we go ahead and transfer ourselves off before then?

Honestly, I don't feel any remorse for leaving the guild. Yes, it's ran by a couple so called "friends" of Eto's. Yes, I have used things from the guild bank to level my professions. But in my defense, I have been donating gold to the bank, the gems I took I returned in the form of cut gems and the few enchanting mats I've used to level were returned to the bank as enchant scrolls. I think I've paid my due diligence back to them ten fold. For the last 7 or 8 weeks, I've played as much an active role as they will allow, I've giving to the guild bank, I've done instance runs for people that I didn't need, I've offered advice and assistance...but in the end I don't care to be in a guild that is full of hypocrites. I have never asked to be boosted, given freebies, etc..but I have asked in guild for dps for instances that I've needed for one item or another. Sadly, it's always been to no avail.

It's time for Kaly to go home. To a server where I know people pug..and pug well. A server where I know the AH is a true source of exchange and not a rarely used building collecting dust. Seriously, people don't trade on the AH for a profit? Shocked!

So, the plan:
1. Clear Babibank's inventory and mail everything to the DK.
2. Check the rarely used AH on Bronzebeard to see if there is any need in buying low to sell for a profit on Shadow Council. Highly doubt this, since Shadow Council has a greatly used AH and Brozebeard's economy is slightly off.
3. Drop a couple hundred gold in the said bad guilds bank for any mats I may have used that they could consider not paid back by other things I've deposited.
4. Delete some lowbie toy toons off the roster on Shadow Council.
Keep - Kalyina, Kalyanna, Kalyista, Alirah, Ash and Kalybank. That means I have 4 lowbie rarely played, somewhere below level 20 alts that can be deleted. Oh and I have to hold on to the name holder for my Goblin. Tinkabella was not available on Shadow Council so looks like the baby mage will be called Tinkabell instead. (Just love the idea of a Goblin named Tink)
5. Create the new Horde side Shadow Council guild...hmmm...do I want to be GM again?
6. Actually get my butt in action and do it.

On a side note, Eto and I did duo up to and including the first boss in normal UP last night..several times...praying she would drop her tank bracers. Sadly she did not! But, much tanky love and many thanks go out to Aelystriel for bringing it to my attention that I could be using Tempered Saronite Bracers to get me over the defense cap. See I knew I blogged for a reason....very thankful for the advise and support from my fellow lady tanks!

Tanking Fears

So I'm starting to frustrate my healer. I can see it a little more each day. He's ready to do things that for whatever reason, I don't think I'm ready for. Higher end heroics, VoA, lower end raids, just to name a few.

I'm not sure exactly why I'm so scared of these. I just don't think my gear is really ready for those encounters yet. I have a hard enough time with some of the simpler heroics. Managing heroic Gundrak is still a lot of work for me.

I am 1 point below defense cap for 80 raids. That puts me at 539. It's not gaining or holding threat that bothers me. I've proven that. My dodge and parry percents are pretty good as well but it's my health or the lack there of that worries me. Unbuffed, I range in at a little over 25,000. Trying to get my defense to cap has caused me to have to pass on some of the higher stamina items.

I know I need to farm normal HoL and hope for the defense trinket to drop again. That is easier said then done when no one wants to run normal instances...there are no emblems or epic loot to be had there, so they don't want to bother. Which I can totally understand when you're already running around in epic items, looking for emblems and deciding that normal instances are below you. But sadly, I need that trinket.

I've encouraged Eto to do the daily heroic with his friends and the guild, to go to Ony, to pug VoA..he's a healer, it's not going to take long for him to get snatched up. I can't exactly dps in tank gear and then roll on tank drops. From my experience, most pugs don't want you rolling that way. But frustrated he still is and frustrated I'm becoming.

Honestly, I'm willing to try anything once. I'm willing to try the heroics I avoid. The only exception being I want to do it with people that I know...not pug an instance and make a idiot of myself because I'm not ready. Know what I mean? Surely, I'm not the only one that doesn't want to spend forever apologizing to random strangers for causing them costly wipes, lockouts and headaches to realize you're just not ready for it.

Think it's just something I have to get over or go back to being DPS.

Tanking chaos and guild complaints

Where to start? It was a pretty..eventful...weekend.

Tanked my first raid. Yes..you heard right..though I really just off-tanked. We did OS10 Friday night with the guild. Apparently, they decided I was geared well enough to off tank. Surprisingly, it went very smooth. Except, I was getting and holding aggro a little too well. I was pulling adds off the warrior tank and I'm just not geared well enough to take that much direct damage. So, once I backed off a little it was smooth sailing. I got my T7 glove drop. That was a pretty good upgrade for me. Yay!

Have I mentioned that I hate pugs lately? So this is how it goes....
ME: LFM 3 DPS for h-gundrak, pst
Stupid Mage in whisper: I'll go
-Stupid Mage joins group-
Eto: Yay! Full group
ME: Flying that way
Stupid Mage in party: uh, who's tanking
ME: That would be me
Stupid Mage: Are you in tank gear?
ME: Yes
Stupid Mage: 25,000 health?
ME: Would you prefer to tank?
Stupid Mage: I thought tanks were suppose to have a lot of health.
ME: Your call dude, you're welcome to find another group.
-Stupid Mage leaves group-
-Not so stupid mage joins the group-
It's just Heroic Gundrak...not like I'm trying to tank Ulduar. *sigh*

We finish gundrak without any major problems. It did wipe twice. Once because I attempted to tank the snake boss in the room at the bottom of the stairs, snakes wrapped me and thus causing a wipe. Moved the DPS and healer to the top of the stairs..snake boss went down with no problems. Second wipe was on the last boss. I don't think Eto was expecting me to take as much damage as I did when he went Rhino form. But second try, popped Unbreakable Armor when he transformed and all was well.

Watched, or semi-watched, Eto heal the new Ony encounter with the guild Saturday night. I watched the first attempt, they wiped, then decided to walk away for a bit. Yeah, I was jealous. Think that was magnified after the run when I saw what Eto got off the run. Oh well. Never said I wasn't human. Well..Bloodelf..but we can be jealous too. =(

Got pulled into a Flame Leviathan run last night. I did walk away from it with Ironsoul. =D

The guild is a little odd. They aren't geared or ready in any way for Ulduar but the GM insists on skipping all the early 80 raids in hopes of getting them directly into some of the higher end content. The hidden reason for this...because he's already done everything up to and including most of the ToC10 stuff. So instead of building his guild up and showing them how to work together, which they seriously need, he'd rather skip right to the content he can use.

Sadly, most of the DPS from his so called "old friends" is well below where it should be for their level. I'm not just talking about them being under geared. I'm talking about them needing help understanding the concept of raiding. For the most part, they are pretty well geared, with emblem items and a few drops. But they aren't exactly well spec'd or using the proper rotations to get the max damage they could be doing.

Example...a destro lock, in combination T7 and T8 gear, nice weapons and trinkets, is pulling about 2000 dps. *shudder* I almost shed a tear when I saw this. Not to mention the weeping I did when I saw the Demo lock, in horrible gear, walk into the instance with her Voidwalker out. I inspect her and she hasn't talented into her Felguard. *gawk*

Those are just a few of the things I've seen going on with the DPS I've had in my 5 mans. We have decent mage damage output..but they haven't learned to control it. The raid leaders have to actually tell them when they can start dpsing. Otherwise, we have mages shooting fireballs before the tank even gets to the target.

I find myself more and more annoyed with this guild as of late. They all want to throw advise around and have the attitude that I seriously just started playing yesterday, but they can't play their own toons. Honestly, I accept your advise and thank you for it, but I'm not a noob. Really I know what that is used for and I know how to gear my toons.

I've never been the kind of person to need to stroke my own ego or prove my point. But sadly, right now, I'm ready to faction transfer my lock to the server just to prove girls can play and in this case, better then most of the guys in the guild.

The Home Stretch

The DK hit 79 last night and is almost half way through the level. I suspect we'll hit 80 before the end of the week.

We ran HoL and UP with the guild and had a pretty easy time. Tanking the instances wasn't too bad. We were heavy in the melee department with myself, a 77 prot pally, an 80 feral druid, 80 shadow priest and then Eto healing. HoL went pretty smoothly, only a couple of mess ups on my part. Simply because I was use to dpsing and wasn't' familiar with what mobs needed to die first but we all made it through without any wipes. The awesome tanky trinket did drop..yay!..but I lost the roll to the warrior...boo. Oh well, she's in more need of it right now then I am anyway. And her main and only spec, is prot so I'll get it next time.

Our first ever wipe came in UP on the last boss. Apparently, Bane, is a very bad thing when you are melee heavy. But after reminding everyone not to touch him when he casts Bane, it went pretty smoothly.

Kaly now has her sexy new silver-plated battlechest from UP as well as some new crafted legs (daunting legplates) and gloves (daunting handguards). I was also able to pick up the Ebon Blade rep tank boots last night. I know, I know, Toxin-Tempered Sabatons, have block and "silly DK you don't have a shield!" I'm just waiting to get this. My guild already thinks I'm just a dumb girl and has no idea what I'm doing. I didn't pick them up for the block but they have nice defense for a starting tank, even if I can't wield a board.

Seems I find myself defending my every move with the guild and most other people I come up against. I swear I'm not crazy, I have done my research and I do know what I need. I need defense, stamina, dodge/parry and expertise. Those are the stats that will benefit me. And if it just so happens that a piece of armor has block on it too...oh well. I can use the other stats from it until I find something more suited for me. So, I'll just kick ass, and watch them eat their words when they realize.."hey, maybe she does know how to tank".

We did find out that Eto and I pretty much have our raid spots guaranteed to us when we hit 80. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. They want me to tank and want Eto to MT heal. That's great but honestly, the guild isn't ready for the content the guild leader is notorious for jumping too.

A little history..
The GM of the guild I'm in now, was a member of Last Call Alliance side awhile back. He's been a friend of Eto's for awhile and played with him on Brozebeard before Eto moved to playing Alliance. So, the GM, is use to running upper end content, isn't very patient and wants things done NOW. Fast forward to the new Horde guild. These players, really don't' know much about their classes, are running really low dps and just need practice in instances and raids. For the most part, the few I've ran with, haven't done much group content.

I topped our DPS meter in both instances last night and that was against an 80 kitty druid and an 80 shadow priest. Granted they are good people but if he wants them to raid, we're going to have to start off slow with things like Naxx.

*sigh*

Death Knight Tank Gear

I've been thinking, since my DK is another level closer to 80...what am I going to do for tanking gear. Of course, as I've been leveling there hasn't been many options. I've taken every tank option the quests and instances have offered. But normally, tanks get shafted. Most of the gear offered is plate healing gear or dps gear. Guess Blizzard doesn't' think tanks actually level as tanks.

Oh well. So, what gear can I get. I've searched high and low, every website I could find and done my research. I know as a Death Knight, I need Defense, Stamina, Parry and Dodge. Block does nothing for since I obviously don't have a shield. With those stats in mind, and trying to remember I need the magic 540 defense cap, I've found the following.

I think, most of this should easily get me tanking heroics for some better gear.

INSTANCE/QUEST GEAR:

Head: Heroic Gundrak
Ground Tremor Helm
OR
Head: Quest Icecrown
The Crusader's Resolution

Wrist: Heroic Culling of Strat
Bindings of Dark Will

Chest: Quest (Junk in my Trunk) for Utgarde Pinnacle
Silver-Plated Battlechest

Shoulders: Quest in Halls of Stone
Pauldrons of Reconnaissance

REP GEAR:
Wyrmrest Accord:
Breastplate of the Solemn Council - Revered (Chest)
Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - Honored (Back)
Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - Revered (Feet)

Argent Crusade:
Special Issue Legplates - Honored (Legs)

Knights of the Ebonblade:
Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - Honored (Feet)

CRAFTED:
Wrist: Tempered Saronite Bracers
Gloves: Daunting Handguards
Waist: Tempered Saronite Belt
Legs: Daunting Legplates

A little tank and spank..

So, DK tanking, seems to be my new found passion. Interestingly enough, the mechanics of it are fascinating. I have never tanked before...have been either on the healing lines or the dps side. Admittedly, I've always held a secret desire to level a paladin and try my hand at being the star of the show. Though, sadly, none of them ever seemed to get past level 20.

Why Paladin? Well I'd seen my boyfriend Paladin tank, and very well I may add, and it didn't seem to difficult for him. Where on the other hand, I've watched warrior tanks in our guild struggle to hold aggro on anything more then one mob. So, in my eyes AOE tanking = Paladin. I have been pleasantly surprised at how easily AOE tanking is with a DK.

Picking a DK was more of a rush decision and less of a thought out choice for me. After more then a year playing Alliance side on Shadow Council, the boyfriend decided he wanted to go back to playing Horde on Bronzebeard with his still, at the time, level 70 toons. So what was I to do? Level a toon from 1 - 70, very quickly, in order to be able to play with him? That wasn't' going to happen...sheesh, leveling toons on my own takes awhile. So, the most obvious thing to do was roll the DK. I hadn't played one to this point. Mainly avoiding them because I was too focused on my caster. Honestly, I'm glad I did.

Creating and leveling the DK was a totally new adventure. I got her all the way though Outlands in little to no time and was caught up with his Shaman. We were well into Northrend before I attempted tanking my first real instance. Yeah, we had 2 manned a lot of stuff in Outlands, but not with real DPS in the group. So UK was a pretty interesting adventure but..I was hooked.

Tanking puts so much spin on the game but at the same time, is relatively easy. Just hold aggro. It's that simple. Well, that sounds simple sometimes but isn't always so easy.

With abilities like Death and Decay and Blood Boil, which took awhile to get in the habit of using, AOE tanking has proven to be about as easy for a DK as it is for a Paladin. Granted, we have to have runic power in order to use our abilities, which is a little hard to manage at times. Though I wouldn't guess it to be any harder to manage then mana for Paladins and rage for warriors.

One added ability DK's have that seems to be the death of most Paladins, is magic tanking. Death Knights can spec into Spell Deflection (16-18 points into Blood tree) that reduces incoming magic damage based on their Parry chance. I haven't been able to figure out how to get my talent build to allow me to get this far into the Blood tree, but that is to be my next project. mwhahahah, I shall be stronger then a Paladin!

My second point of interest is in Death Grip. Do you have any idea how much fun it is to "snatch" an unsuspecting mob? Death grip is on a 35 sec cooldown but can be reduced to 25 sec with two points in Unholy Command. If only I could figure out how to get points into that as well.

So, we'll see what I can do, but just playing around with the talent trees hasn't let me figure out how to get points into Blood tree to get spell deflection. *sigh*

Lock MIA and Pic Updates!

Got to thinking last night/this morning. I am really missing my lock. Now that I've been playing on Brozebeard, on my DK, I've realized the things I enjoyed on her that I miss. Specifically, I find myself a little "jealous" of what Matt's already established toons have on this server that I don't...but my lock has them. Mainly...cooking, fishing, gathering professions, mounts, vanity pets...all the things I worked so hard to get for her and my little DK has...well, nothing really. She has her DK class mount, no flying mount, 2 little vanity pets and 2 decent professions. But she can tank..which I love.

I find myself a little sad when I think about my lock just sitting there in Dalaran, not being played. Don't get me wrong I love my DK. Even though I know I complain about the guild and not really having any friends on Brozebeard, I still like my toon. Kalyina was my signature toon. I wanted her to have the titles and the achievements...she's my main. Or well..is she really? Since the only thing I do with her anymore is log on to do the cooking and fishing daily? You know to add to my 1088 Northern Spices just sitting in my bank and the chance to maybe get that turtle mount while fishing, that I won't really get to use.

Balance...I don't have much. But what is there to do on Shadow Council? The guild I'm in there isn't really doing much. They don't want to teach Ulduar fights to new raiders. Not that we can raid there anyway since Matt works most nights now and doesn't get home till almost 8, which is raid start time. I don't need to do heroics. I could log on while he's at work and just farm. But for what purpose? To make money for the expansion? But I want to play a goblin..and that's horde so I need to be making gold on Brozebeard...thus I roll another toon. My hunter, who is occupying my time on that server while Matt's at work. With the hopes of making some gold. But...she's not my lock.

Just bitching I guess. =(

So on to more productive things...the list:

1. Kill Onyxia and do the 60 head quest - CHECK!











12. Level my DK to 80 - IN PROGRESS: Past outlands and well into Northrend!!



15. Level a horde toon from 1 - 80 - IN PROGRESS: Meet Shakya!


New and Interesting things:Kaly and Eto had a baby?!?!?!
AAAAHHHHHHHH - Nah it's just an orphan matron in Northrend...how cute!!
(and what a relief, Bloodelf/Tauren baby..scary!)




Kaly got to meet Thralls grandmother....Squeeeeee!!

Continuing Stories...Updates

Round 2 - _____________________________________________________________________
Shakya settled herself down onto the hard wooden floor. Pulling the bow from her back, she laid her weapons gingerly beside her on the mat. Slowly she settled onto her back, locking her hands behind her head as she stared up at the sky above her. The gaps between the large wood slats forming the ceiling of the shack allowed her a slightly obscured view of the night sky.

Sighing deeply as her body began to relax, Shay's thoughts wandered back to the events of the day.

The Orcs had given her various mediocre tasks to preform. She was sure it was nothing more then a way to test her ability. To be sure she was going to be an asset to the battle and not a hindrance. Rounding up cactus apples for the cook, collecting scorpid venom, checking on the peon workers in the field...nothing very exciting but she had done all that was asked of her without complaint.

Everyone seemed friendly enough. At least under the circumstances. One of the hunters in the camp had even shown her how to craft scorpid sting arrows. Subconsciously, Shay reached over to trail her hand down the strings of her bow, assuring herself that it was still within reach. She knew the bow she had brought with her wouldn't last much longer.

She had been approached shortly before sundown, handed a scroll and instructed to deliver it to the chieftain in Sen'jin villiage. The village was just off to the east and actually a very short run. Within an hour or so, she had arrived at the village. It reminded her of her home. There wasn't much to it, other then a few nicely crafted wooden huts. But the village was a bustle of activity. The population consisted mainly of trolls and for that she was thankful. At least her people didn't strain to understand her. ______________________________________________________________________
Round 3 - _______________________________________________________________________
The sun dawned early gleaming off the red rocks of Durator. Shay had been up and about for several hours, eager to get to work.

A hint of excitement bloomed within her as she thought about the day's task. She was making her way to Razor Hill this morning, then hopefully on to Orgrimmar. There was very little need for her services in the village. She had done all she could to assist the villagers. But the work was not as fulfilling as she had dreamed it to be. There was little glory in aiding the world against a few extra crabs and boars. Today, however, would surely prove to be more.

Placing her fingers to her lips, she let out a lough whistle has she exited the building. Waiting momentarily, listening closely as a huge smile spread over her face. The large shadowy figure topped the hill beside the hut. It's massive size darkened as the sun shown in a halo outline around the creature.

The large raptor let out a screech as it bound down towards her. Crossing the distance with minimal effort to stand beside her. His massive head butting against Shay's shoulder causing her to laugh.

"Good boy, Aladar" Shay reached up to stroke his head. Learning to tame the beast had been one of her many tasks over the past few days. The local Hunter in the village, the same that had taught her so much, had shared his secrets on beast taming with her. It was the art of a hunter. The mark that set their kind apart from all others. But it wasn't all that simple. Learning to tame Aladar had proven to be a very trying task.

The beast was at least twice her size. Her skull still ached from being thrown around by him. But it was the pains of love. He had become her best friend. If that were possible, he was her only real friend. And he was devoted to her and her alone. He fought by her side, defending her from would be harm. It was a relationship no other person could understand. The trust of a beast and his master.
_______________________________________________________________________

Nothing major to report on after this weekend. Shay dinged 14 finally, her story is only up to date to 10 so far. I will attempt to update that more tonight to tomorrow. I'm finding it harder and harder to actually write that in a story format, but we'll see how it goes.

DK hit 72 last night. She's been a lot of fun to play. And we found the cutest thing ever last night. Making our way to Agmar's Hammer in Dragonblight, in the top of the tower you will find a bunch of little tiny baby cows. That's right, there is an orphan matron there taking care of the Tauren baby's. They are sooo cute. I did take screen shots and will update tonight when I get home to show them. They are adorable!! It's finding things like this on the Horde side that makes it so interesting to me.

Tanked my second instance over the weekend as well. All in all, it went great and was a ton of fun. Did a Nexus run with some guildies, including a level 80 shadow priest, who I was able to keep aggro off of! There was only one wipe and it was not my fault!! The hunter's pet decided to go off and aggro two groups. I did attempt to regain control of the situation but keeping me up with two groups beating on me didn't go so well for Matt. But I do feel more confident and think I might actually like tanking....really. The poor hunter on the other hand...was a totally different story. First off he runs out of arrows and decides he can..melee it? Wow, yeah..that was interesting. Then to top that off...he NEEDS on a caster off hand drop off the rift boss?! WTF does a hunter need with an off hand book, with spellpower, int and mp5?! Oh well...some people give "Huntard" the true meaning of the word.

Matt's work schedule this week is a little sad...he's 2 - close every night, so I'll sadly have more time for the Shay and less time for the DK. Good news..she may actually get her pretty green raptor mount to match her beautiful red raptor pet and the adorable little raptor hatchling pet! Yay!!

Tank n' Spank..and a new toon?

My DK hit 70 Saturday night. Northrend should have been in her immediate future but it took most of Sunday and Monday to get her professions, and Matt's Shaman's, to the point they should be to start Northrend. But she finally made it. Sheesh, I never realized what a pain it was to level Jewelcrafting and Enchanting when your toon starts with nothing at level 55 and doesn't have the support of a level 80 toon with gold to spare. Needless to say she still can't fly and is pretty broke.

Tanked my first instance last night. We did UK. My DK tanking, Matt's Shammy healing and a DK, mage and shadow priest as dps. The crazy mage would sheep as soon as I marked her target, never waiting till we were ready, even after being asked to wait. The other DK in the group was constantly pulling and yanking mobs. Sadly he was the guild leader and a former member of Last Call when I was GM. It turned out to be choas. I can't count the number of times I lost aggro. Though thanks to great healing, we never wiped. I died once when Matt turned to answer a question for Zack. I'm sure the more experience I get the easier tanking will become. I found afterwards that I was missing rotations, etc.

Alliance side? Nothing much to report. We still haven't been playing much there. Tried ZG again but no raptor mount drop. I did get my baby raptor pet the last run though. That was super exciting. I am beginning to think Blizzard is lying and they took that raptor mount out of the game!

So I'll have a lot of time to myself, with Matt's new job, to work on WoW. I think I might level my hunter. She is alliance side on Shadow Council but I think I want to play her and I did find I enjoy questing on my own sometimes. I think because it keeps my head occupied and it's kind of relaxing. It's either my hunter or my druid. It may be both, since I may have ALOT of time to kill. We'll see. But I have visions of a cute Night Elf Hunter with an awesome array of pets.