Just another DK.

Inept!

I've never denied it, I'm a bad DK. I laugh at myself for just how bad I am. Being a solid DK has never been a priority. I mean for as good as I am at tanking, DK tanking came easy but as far as what a DK is really capable of I'm not that kind of player.

I've had some really newb moves with this toon.are laughable and legendary. I had hit level 80 with Khasey and never reforged her weapon, why you ask? I didn't know how to open the book that allowed me to pick. I had to ask while in Ebon Hold. It caused a bit of giggle in local but yep, that's me. That isn't even the worst one. I had asked my guild to get a good group together so I could run ZA/ZG with people I know. I didn't want to bring a group down, at least not with strangers. One the way to the bank after the run, a guildie asked me over vent, why I didn't have the DK only flyer. I was stunned! I was like, "dude, stop messing with me". He assured me, he was not messing with me and that they sold a DK flyer that was like a bone gryphon. I went to the trainer after having him give me directions and bought it. I was amazed.

See, I'm not the most pro DK out there. I've always marveled at good DK's that could use all their tools to perfection. I know there is some, not many but those guys are good! I've played with a few that made me marvel the class. I've also had a few people who stopped playing because of how OP the class is. Needless to say they are a tad polarizing.

I tell you all this because I'm leveling my DK as my second to 90. Believe me when I say this, the second time around it is going faster. The killing speed that she offers is AMAZING. Much better than a ret pally offers. I go with a pretty stock UI and don't really worry to much about all the tricks and tools but they are on the bar.

I"m leveling straight DPS this time around. I'm really kind of over tanking for strangers that have zero inhibition on what they feel they need to say to complete strangers. So I que as DPS and just do my job.

I have even read a blog on how to increase my DPS and what kind of stats I need to be a good DPS toon.

Me EPIC?

So today, I went in and did Shado-Pan Monastery in a PUG.It wasn't great, even at lvl 87 I was killing in DPS. I did about 26K DPS or about 6k more than the next high DPS. This might be a long run I was thinking. After clearing to the last boss and pulling him TWICE, I was even on that horrid fight still about 5k more DPS. We had a ranged DPS pulling 6800 DPS, yes at lvl 88 a Warlock hit 6800 on that fight. He dropped group and we got another lock. Mid fight our tank died, then dropped group. I was going to Rez him but he was gone.

I thought oh jeeze here we go again. I didn't want to give up. If you have ever read my blogs in the past you know I do NOT like to give up on a fight. It kills me to not try it completely before you die.

My instinct kicked in. I pushed blood presence, grabbed the boss and tried to maintane aggro as best as I could. The healer died! I'm like we'll this is it. I had enough Runic power to battle rez the healer, and we got pulled to the ORBS. I pop'd army right after that happened. I was taking a beating and had zero blood runes to hit Death Strike, so I sacked my ghoul and hit  Ice bound fortitude and helped with the Orbs as the boss fought. Boss was at about 1 million health. I figured we could do this..,. and we did!

(ok for those that see my DPS for this fight, remember I was running for my life for most of it, brez'n the healer and poping army while trying to avoid damage LOL)

Right after the fight, WOW, great job and AWESOME came up in party chat. Not for me, just for us, for 4 manning a boss that we all thought we were going to die on. Can you imagine a 5 man group acting together and to get a job done. Most of the time we take it for granted but every once in a while a run comes around like this that tells you even if you aren't good on this toon, you can still pull some amazing things off because you don't want to die.

Not bad for just another DK and I had FUN doing it.

Down goes the monstrosity!

Raids-

Background: I joined a guild that was 2/12 back on Feb. 23rd. I took a shot at them over a few others because it just felt right. I think I picked a winner! This guild raids two times a week for a total of 8 hours in that week. We have progressed 1 new boss a week as long as we have had the people to raid. I'm pretty happy overall after my start to Cata to land with the great group of people I have.

This week started ok, fell off quickly at the end of the 1st night and when I logged on last night I didn't know what I was going to log into. We had a few that were under preforming and just not doing what they needed to for the rest of us. Yes, as a raider you owe good play and solid performance to the 9 or 24 others!

We head to BoT, 1shot Halfus, 3shot the Dragons, and pulled our way to the Elementium Monstrosity, we had 3 new people there. The RL explained the fight and our tactic we were going to use, ready check and Pull.

Our 1st pull went really smooth, we got to the Monstrosity! I made a huge error in tanking him, Tank spot needs to update, they show you do a little circle and the boss follows, I can tell you that the boss DOES NOT follow you any more, he stands there like a dumb ass and casts shit. Pally and range tank is not a sentence you hear much. I cut the raid off from DPS'n and we lost. Got it to 5% or so. The next pull or two were RNG luck with the buff/debuff placement and didn't get to P3.

We finally got P1and P2 smooth and P3 started with boss at about 28%. I got the boss, and started to kite, this ass hat likes to stand in one place and not move much. I literally had to run 30 yards to get him to follow. The DK tank taunted and we noticed something, the DK did a better job of the "I'm going to stand here and not move while I cast and the DPS overtakes your aggro" thing this boss does. We jumped in tank vent and worked out a plan. Oh, yes, we wiped at 1% or about 480k health left on boss. OMG 1%....really!

Next pull, we did amazing, thngs were going smooth and the Monstrosity came up at about 26%, the DK had a bit of problems moving her but all in all it was going good. I did get a chance to WoG our priest while in the air and added utility where I could. I hate when I don't do my job the right way. It happens from time to time. But we did it we got the council down. A boss that only 13% of the guilds in the world have done. This isn't a heroic clear or a server first but it is a great thing after the way the week started and looked like we were going to have.

After this we went back to BWD and 2 shot Maloriak. Grabbed some gear for some, some shards for enchants and all in all it was a great week. The officers and RL stepped up and worked out our issues we had and we are progressing nicely.

Oh Blizz, could you please please fix the effin loot system. We get the same drops week after week, of the 3 helms that can drop for a tank, two of those bosses are on farm and they haven't dropped them AT ALL in fact we have de'd about half of our drops lately and our main healer (priest) is still sitting about 350 ilvl due to the shitty drop nature!

In other news-

I started work on Byka, my toon from Tanking Adventures. I hit level 81 and I really can't believe this, I went from 42K hp's unbuffed to 58k with 2 pc's of gear and 1 level. That's amazing. Keep in mind she was about 246 ilvl before Cata hit. 

My plans are to level her soon to 85 and see where I can get prior to 4.2 coming out.

I started tanking with my DK. I wanted to go tank for a few reason, I was only planning on going DPS but didn't like it. So tanking is my thing I figured I'd just tank with her. I got her to ilvl 345, which isn't bad, she's squishy and takes tons of damage but its another tank for the guild and fun all in all.

An epic title, Kingslayer. An epic fight.

Its about time, I've been fighting him since the 5% buff hit, we started on with my old guild on my old server and last week I got to tank and kill him.
It was pretty epic, even with 30% buff I will never forget the fight. Its not a totally complex fight, nor is it a simple tank and spank. It takes movement, thought and tank swaps. Oh, luck doesn't hurt either. Blizz did a great job setting this fight up and really, it was a great closing on a good expansion.
The fight, as many of us have seen it went down like this...
Phase 1 was flawless and simple, and even the transition was good. We had 5 replacements in raid that had never seen the fight so this was our 4th attempt. Our 1st we got him to P3.We 3 tanked it and had a warrior go prot so he could have unlimited taunts for vile spirits. Our GL/MT/DK had boss I had adds and, spirits. At the start of phase 3, the MT went down. Yep, he died. We lost a few others it was looking like we might have a wipe. I had a transition spirit up still and the warrior took that add, I switched to LK since I'm a tad more geared then him. We were losing people to stupid stuff still and the raid was getting thin. The second vile summons, we lost the warrior and we were down a ton of people. A few said its probably a wipe, I looked and seen he had 2% til we win. At this time we had 3 healers, 6 DPS and me alive. I had all my CD's ready and was hoping I didn't get a bad soul reaper. I was almost constantly kiting him due to spirits up, we lost another healer and a dps and were now down to 8 people alive. Our RL said, I think its a wipe guys we don't have the DPS. I was very sharp in saying, we have 7 minutes and alot of want to kill this bastard, just do your job and we got it. Yes, this is a pretty talented guild w/a 30% buff struggling to kill LK but a few hadn't got him down yet and I've had enough wipes and bad luck, I wanted this fight BAD. So we kept at it. Defile and soul reaper almost hit at the same time, I had defile on me so kited, AD hadn't proc'd yet but I did use my shield wall/half bubble. I was praying we had the dps to finish this, oh was I praying. It was getting tense, my aoe taunt was on CD and we had a ton of viles around. I popped a armor pot, hit my DS macro to limit some damage and....we died.....WE DID IT! With 6 people alive we did it. WOW what a feeling. For four months I've been trying to kill Arthus and I finally had it. Cheers went up and so did the rez's. So yes even with the buff, it was a epic kill as I watched Arthus die beating on my shield.