Ulduar

So... being the casual raider ( ok...I seldomly raid anymore) I went to Ulduar for the 1st time yesterday. I know that is pretty "lamesauce" since that raid has been out for a while, but hey, what can I say. Needless to say I was absolutely jazzed about the run. It was short as we were there for the weekly raid quest to kill XT-002. I was the only one that had not been there. We had one DPS DC so we were able to successfully 9 man the event. I must say it was a very easy fight. All I have been hearing is that Ulduar was so tough. I hope be a regular there!

New Patch!

So Enigma has downed Arthas in a matter of hours since the new patch came out today.

Not only that... they streamed it here.... epic!

Death Knight Tanking and Spec

So I have my Death Knight up to level 72 and decided to try tanking. After much reading on all kinds of forums to find the best spec, I have come up with my own for now. I am tanking some Northrend Dungeons so I am not raiding or doing heroics ( naturally as I am 72 at the time of this post).

 

This spec is revolved around survivability and making it easier on my healer ( I know what it is like to try to heal a crappy tank). I would love to be able to get the 6% stamina increase in the blood tree ( 23 points into the Blood tree) but I did not want to sacrifice the added 6 seconds to IceBound Fortitude and Unbreakable Armor. As you can see, being level 72 ( and a casual dungeon runner) I do not have the best defense gear ( unbuffed hit points are about 14.5K, armor is about 16.5k, dodge is about 15% and parry is about 15%. This is of course in frost presence ).

 

I added the 6 points in blood for Bladed Armor ( 5pt) and Rune Tap ( 1pt) just to make questing and grinding easier. I think they are a waste otherwise ( for tanking) although I am not sure.

 

It appears that the Death Knight builds and holds agro by DPSing, and not so much by “Threat buttons”, although Rune Strike and Death and Decay are very, very helpful. Also Death Grip and Dark Command are pretty useful.

 

Lore III

After taking a break for 90 LONG days ( I really thought that I was done with WoW), Blizz did it again. Yep, you guessed it… a FREE 10 day trial of the latest expansion, the Wrath of the Lich King. How could I not try it ??? I mean come on!!

So yea, I am back. Currently, I am Ret spec and level 77. Just shelled out another 1000g for my cold weather training, so I have been flying around Northrend for a little bit.

I must say, Blizzard knows what they are doing. They introduced a new class that can be ANY race. It is the Death Knight. You must have a level 55 character or higher to be able to create one. These Plate wearing guys absolutely RULE. Naturally, it seems, everyone and their second cousin has one ( this makes running dungeons interesting when you are running with 3 other DK’s).

There have been many changes for the better ( some I don’t agree with but that is beside the point). The questing is absolutely great. It is not so much of the “ go here… kill this” ( although they still have that). There are a lot more “interactive quests” that allow the use of vehicles.

As I explore, I will be sure to pass the info along.

Lore Part II

Knowing nothing about the game - other than it takes place in Azeroth - I leveled my toon to 60 just weeks before the 1st expansion came out ( Burning Crusade ). I did not get to spend much time raiding the "old school" dungeons such as ZG, MC or AQ.

Being a "60" was great while it lasted. As soon as the expansion came out we all headed to outlands. Many complained that the green items dropping in Hellfire Peninsula ( the 1st zone in outlands) were better that some epics that people had spent many, many hours raiding to get. Not me. The gear was great and the quests were (IMO) a lot more enjoyable than the old content.

Leveling was great in the different zones. "Phat Lewt" was in abundance and I climbed my way to 70 ( the cap at the time). At this point, I felt I had a pretty good grasp on playing the game ( or my class at least). I specced Holy and did some minor raiding ( Karazhan mainly, with some experiences in Gruuls Lair, TK and SSC.). I never made it to Mount Hyjal ( I will go one day).

Also with the expansion, 2 new races were revealed, the Blood Elves and the Draenei. Sticking with the Alliance, I rolled a Shaman. I must say I leveled it to 70 alot faster than my pally. This could be due to the fact that I was more familiar with how things worked ( Quests and Zones) and helped by the fact I was doing more DPS ( damage per second) than my pally.

Another cool thing was the introduction of flying mounts. These are available at Level 70 and cost about 1000g with the training. This was one of the coolest highlights of the expansion ( again IMHO).

Lore Part I

Hey all, 

I thought I would welcome you all to my new blog spot. This is geared toward the ever addicting game of World of Warcraft ( which I call WarCrack ). Currently Blizzard ( the masterminds behind the game) has about 11 million subscribers.  I started playing fairly "late" in the game when it only had 6 million subscribers.  A friend intoduced me to the addiction ( my bro tried to get me to play EverQuest and EverQuest II about a year earlier- I declined as I " could not see my self getting into MMORPGs") by getting me a free ten day trial. I thought " What the hell, its only 10 days right?" That was 3 years ago...

My main is a human paladin. The reasoning behind that- I was given a copy of the RTS game "Warcraft II" from my brother years ago that I played (way too much)and when it was time to select a class in WoW, the paladin brought back all kinds of memories. It was all downhill from there.