I AM WARRIOR

“I AM WARRIOR. Where others would hide behind their faith, summon the powers of corruption, or simply disappear into shadows, I will stand and fight with honor. And I will win.”

I just gotta love this signature.  It’s very poetic for a warrior.  It’s so bold.  Not literally, of course. LOL!

But really it’s ironic too.  “.. . I will stand and fight with honor,” Yeah of course.  You will just stand there stunned with that spammable  warlock AOE stun.  And when the lock incinerates your ass to kingdom come, that would be honor.. .  an Honorable Kill for the lock that is!  Hahaha.. . :p

This is taken from the signature of one warrior in one of the threads under the General Discussion forums of the World of Warcraft.

Salute Sir!

back to my favorite playstyle – Dual Wielding!

my Frost death knight dual-wield spec – 2/52/17

there is nothing more sexy than having 2 offensive weapons on each of your hands.  back when i was still a scrub warrior, this was always my setup when not tanking.  death knights, thankfully, were given the ability to wield 1-hand weapons on both main and off-hands.  unfortunately it got broken in a nerf not so long ago.

now once again, with the new patch (3.2.0), the frenzy of dual-wielding death knights is back!  and this time, it’s more than every death knight could have asked for with the addition of a new talent – Threat of Thassarian.

so what is this new Threat of Thassarian talent?  well in a nutshell, it allows a dual wielding DK to do damage with the off-hand weapon on certain special strikes.  it is a 3-point talent, and raises the chance for your off-hand to do damage for those special strikes by 100%.

now don’t confuse this with Nerves of Cold Steel.  this talent increases your chance to hit targets with one-hand weapons, and also increases the damage of your off-hand weapon.  it used to be that special strikes, such as Frost Strike, was counted only as a main-hand strike.  so if you had a 1-hand weapon, damage from the strike is counted as a main-hand strike only.  Threat of Thassarian allows you to do 100% damage on your off-hand weapon on certain special strikes, thereby making dual-wield damage viable once more.  it’s like hitting Frost Strike on your target with your main-hand and off-hand weapon now.

search through the web and you will find lots of links to cookie-cutter dual wield specs.  mine is no different really.  but i always tend to customize a talent or two.

here is one of skeletonjack’s dual wield recommendations – the 3/51/17 build.  according to SkeletonJack (SJ), it is the dual wield build with the highest damage output.

i adopted the 3/51/17 build above, but made a few modifications of my own.  i didn’t like how SJ spent his points in the frost tree.  (a) for one, he placed 1 point in Hungering Cold (HC), and left out Unbreakable Armor (UA).  errr, what’s with that?  in a damage perspective, UA clearly beats out HC  by far.  that’s a no-brainer.

but i know SJ, i’ve read lots of his posts.  he always has a reason for this, although i missed out on his reason why he took HC instead of UA.  maybe its a raid utility talent.  helping the tank perhaps in securing the mobs from wandering off to unsuspecting healers or careless ranged DPS casters?  who knows.  for me it’s UA or nothing.

(b) on second note, he took 2/2 Improved Frost Presence (IFP).  while i don’t really have anything against this, i saw 2 other options where you could rather spend your points.  by the way you need 3 more points to spend at least 35 points in the frost tree in order for you to access the higher tier talents. so the next 3 points are basically filler points.  spend them according to your preference.

(i) you can spend 2/2 on Icy Reach (IR) and another 1 on IFP.  or have it 1/2 on IR and 2/2 on IFP.

HC for me is not an alternative damage-wise.  while it does infect all your victims with Frost Fever, you have the glyphed Howling Blast for that to take care of. i am not in favor of Glyph of Disease by the way.  there are lots of boss fights with adds in Ulduar (and other raid dungeons?), so it’s your choice.

now why Icy Reach?  there are several boss fights where you will be thrown off to a distance or have to run away.  being able to attack farther away gives you lesser damage downtime.

why not Improved Frost Presence?  fully raid-buffed and without IFP, i can still reach a ridiculous amount of 26-28k HP in my present gear.  having more health is always a good thing for melee damage dealers.  but being able to attack while farther away from the boss/target is better for me on a DPS perspective.

besides if you’re gonna take this option you get 3% increased stamina anyway.

(ii) or you can forget about IR and IFP and instead spend all 3 points in Icy Talons (IT).  that’s right, 12% more haste on your attacks for the next 20 seconds.  that is getting half of what you lose for not taking 5/5 IT (20%) and Improved Icy Talons (5%).  faster attacks is a good idea.  you can get more procs from killing machine this way.

besides, if there are no enhancement shamans in you raid, you’d be missing out on the haste effect of their totem.

so after you’ve decided what talents you take as fillers, go on and get the other good stuff in the frost tree.  don’t forget to grab Unbreakable Armor.  that’s an increased strength buff by 25%  for 20 seconds.  very nice when timed with Heroism/Bloodlust i say.

all in all, this takes out 52 points spent under the frost tree.

for the blood tree, 3/3 is recommended for Subversion and that’s about it.  you spend the remainder of your points in the unholy tree.

so why Subversion?  it drastically lowers your threat while not in Frost Presence.  this can’t be argued.  lesser threat means more chances of survival or causing raid/party wipes.  i however have been testing 0/53/18 for a while too.  so i’m used to the threat issues and how to deal with it.

but the real  icing in taking Subversion is not for the lesser threat.  it’s the added critical strike chance to your Blood Strike (BS) and Obliterate (OB).  2 of the strikes you use often as a frost-spec’ed DK.  3/3 of Subversion and that’s an additional 9% critical strike chance!  yummy!

i only took 2/3 from this talent.  like i said, i’ve tested 0/53/18 for a while and it deals damage just as well as without it.  damage-wise though, there is really that difference that i noticed, of course, with having more critical strikes from BS and OB.  6% is good enough for me.  i could always take out 1 point from another talent, but 6% will do for now.

now for your final points, it’s all in the unholy tree.  see how i spent it here.  you basically have to take Necrosis and Blood-Caked Blade to maximize your dual-wield spec damage output.  dual-wield is about fast attacks which means more white attacks.  one of your top damage, when you review fights, should come from white attacks too.

enjoy!

the purging of pestilence

it will not be soon.. . perhaps in another patch next to the upcoming one, but it is eminent that Death Knights will slowly be stripped of their AOE damage capabilities.  it has already began.  pestilence no longer does damage as it used to be.  in a few months, unholy blight will be losing its AOE damage as well.  and why, you ask, should this be happening to death knights?

you see, the very thing that makes a death knight so powerful in multiple mob fights, or bosses with lots of `adds`, is the fact that it can easily spread diseases with just a single rune.  although the range in spreading diseases is fairly limited, a glyph can be used and the idea of keeping, or tanking, these adds very close together so that they can be burned down easily, is what makes the whole concept of pestilence quite deadly.

while mages, warlocks and shadow priests can easily burn down multiple mobs with AOE spells even better than death knights, they are not as free to use these same skills on boss fights with adds.  if they do so, they will be gimping their damage output terribly.  on the other hand this is where death knights excel.

with just a single blood rune, pestilence can be used once on an 18-second rotation without even affecting the death knights damage output.  it would only make it even greater, especially when there are lots of mobs around it.  and when it is talented, pestilence when used, causes the next rune to become a death rune.  and gaining death runes is a must for all death knights. here’s why.

for an unholy death knight, for example, there are three ways to gain death runes.  these are through the use of blood strike, blood tap and pestilence.  if i am facing several mobs with the boss in a fight, i will usually start with the core diseases, such as frost fever and blood plague.  ebon plague is gained when any of the unholy death knight’s diseases is succesfully applied to it.   once these are all on the target, preferrably the boss, i would then use pestilence.  by now all of my blood runes have been used up and awaiting to be re-activated after 10 seconds.  i would then use blood tap, converting one blood rune into a death rune immediately.  with a death rune active, and another one coming out of cooldown soon, i can either fire up a scourge strike or a blood strike. the general rule is to always have two death runes available. so blood strike you say?  for me i don’t.

i have found out, and it’s not even hard, that during the first few seconds of the engagement, this is where almost all trinket and talent effects become active by chance.  the chance of a darkmoon card: greatness’s bonus to go off, for example, almost always comes out at the start.  a blood knight’s Abomination’s Might most likely will go off at the start of fights too.  these effects have internal cooldowns.  so make the most out of these bonuses.  using a scourge strike will give you a very high chance of getting a big critical strike.  follow it up with a blood strike.  your other death rune should have been active by now.  then blow up unholy blight or you could death coil.  with multiple mobs around the boss, it is best to use unholy blight instead of a death coil.  after this, go on with your priority rotation such as making sure your diseases are up, spamming scourge strike as much as possible, and so on.. .

with this happening and the WOW developer team actively pursuing its goal to make all hybrid’s damage lesser than pure damage classes, it won’t be a surprise when the changes to pestilence will soon be made.  as with other hybrid classes’ AOE capabilities, it is only logical that a death knight, being a hybrid also, should have its damage kept in line with the rest.  single disease rotations such as a frost knight with the howling blast glyph is already working and doing a very good damage output.  frost knights can deal as much damage without even using death and decay and pestilence but just the glyph.

whether it will be removed or modified i don’t know.  what will happen to pestilence in the next few patches we will soon find out.  for sure the WOW developers will have some nasty trick up their sleeves, as they always do, to upset the very same people that give them their daily bread and butter.

controlled PVP environments

many of the nerfs or “balancing,” as what WOW devs fondly call it, are being put out because of PVP reasons.  people QQ that class X is so OP and when a number of these complaints become substantial enough, i guess, the devs take a look on the issue with the nerf bat ready in their hands.

i was wondering how battlegrounds should be controlled instances, just as arena is somewhat controlled.  in arena, for example, you can’t use your abilities that has a 15 minute (or greater) cooldown. you can’t use potions, food buffs, elixirs and the likes, inside it too.  some things are allowed, like a lock candy or buffing up your team.  but any other external means of buffing is almost always not usable in arenas.

but arena is far from being a perfect controlled PVP environment.  one thing that should not be allowed in arena is being able to resurrect a teammate.  a resto druid did this twice in one of  our 3v3 matches.  and i was shocked and dismayed at the same time, on how this could ever be allowed to happen.  mage novas also doesn’t have a diminishing return.  there have been many instances when the mage, with its partner dead in 2v2 matches, can still proceed to demolish a double dps teams on its own.  if on a 1v1 mages can pawn any class, clearly, there is something wrong if 1v2 mages still pawn.  maybe their frost novas should be subject to longer cooldowns just like every other class.

but really, the issue here is how PVP environments should be controlled to balance the classes without affecting PVE too much.  BGs and arenas are instances.  Wintergrasp in patch 3.2, i heard, would become another instance and not a world PVP battleground that is open for all.  so if these are instances, surely something can be done.

in dungeon raids there are, and have been, many bosses that have abilities, or trigger effects, that places debuffs on the players.   General Vezax in Ulduar, for example, makes it harder for mana users by stopping their mana regen totally unless the players kill a saronite vapor.  mana users can have a bonus by standing on a shadow crash after it has crashed, but not for too long.  melee are given a disadvantage as well. their attacks become 20% slower.

if PVP environments such as battlegrounds can be like this, i think it could fix some of the issues of class imbalance.  give penalties to each class but only in battlegrounds and arenas.

where nerfs are epic

Welcome to the World of Warcraft!

• this is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG).  it is the number one and the biggest in the planet in terms of subscriber base.  yes it is quite addicting to play!
• this is not a Free to Play (F2P) game.  it is paid for, also known as Pay to Play (P2P).  about $15 a month.  relatively cheap if you are earning a steady income.  yet Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind World of Warcraft, has been very succesful on this MMORPG and has raked in tons and tons of gold.. .err dollars (US$).. . off of it.
• being that one of the most successful game company is behind this MMORPG, and might i add, a company known for creating one of the best lores and storylines with their games, World of Warcraft follows the same tradition that Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft did.  be that as it may, it’s never really followed in-game.  it’s just for promotional purposes in my opinion.
• World of Warcraft has been around for over 4 years and it continues to be strong.  while it is losing customers left and right, it is gaining more everyday too.  so while it is at its peak, the game makers are making sure they get the most out of it (read: earn more money!).  hence they are adding in more features to keep the newer (noobs) players interested and happy, while the interest of those who have been playing it for some time dwindles day by day.  but this is a smart scheme.  you can’t expect people to play this forever. sooner or later someone has to stop. they can’t do anything about this, so always keep the noobs happy. they are your major cash earners anyway.
• FOTM or Flavor of the Month is one of the basic ways they keep people interested or continue to play.  say for this month they buff up one class so much to a point that players call these classes OP.  that’s short for Over-Powered.  meaning the class is too strong it would be hard to beat them.  but what really happens is that it’s just a hype.  they only let you think that way when in fact it’s not.  the truth is, casters have been very much OP ever since.  tales and youtubes of warriors dominating are exceptions, not the rule.  any mage or warlock can decimate you with two to three spells.
• while casters being OP is not entirely true, yes, coz pure damage dealing classes are basically favored over hybrids.  so rogues and hunters are as mean-ass as mages or warlocks.  lately the rogues have been buffed up greatly.  hunters have been toned down coz hundreds of thousands of hunter victims have QQed (cried and whined) in the official WOW forums to nerf them.  but that smile on your face won’t last long.  hunters are slowly being re-buffed again to what they once were -  the kings of battlegrounds and the kings of PVE damage.
• perhaps the only one hybrid class that’s continuously being favored while the rest gets the nerf bat are paladins.  yes!  they have it all.  they are the true hero class.  not death knights (DK).   DKs are just FOTM.  it’s clearly a publicity stint to bring back interest to people and bring in new blood (read: more income!).  paladins excel in all areas may it be in PVE (player vs. environment) tanking, healing or damage dealing or in PVP (player vs. player). while paladin healers may not be AOE healers, they are very good with keeping your tanks alive just like any other healing class, no questions about that.  plus who doesn’t love pally power – blessings of might, kings, wisdom, etc.?
• this is World of Warcraft, don’t be surprised if your hybrid class gets nerfed every now and then. that’s perfectly normal.  it’s been happening since the first WOW patch started.  it’s never gonna end.  that is the truth.  accept it or quit.  it’s a WOW cycle.  QQ as much as you want. they will still nerf you next patch or on a “silent fix.” the game developers clearly stated that no hybrid dps should ever be above a pure damage class’s dps.
• don’t whine if game developers don’t like your class.  warriors have been nerfed time and again without any logical discretion.  and to state nerf when the fledgling warrior class is as weak as it was, is really an overstatement. this is World of Warcraft, favoritism is always there.
• World of Warcraft is full of elitism.  only the top ranked guilds and the top ranked arena players get a chance at influencing the game for changes, fixes and balances.  i said chance.  developers might or might not listen to their inputs.  developers of WOW are known to be stubborn and vague to everything they say. not to mention that elitism is already being branded on the pure DPS classes.  eat that hybrids!
• Ghost Crawler (GC) the lead game developer can be equated to a traditional politician.  he says things to appease the customers.  but  he says it in such a way, that nothing is really definite.  he’ll have you assuming things and later on will tell you that he never really said it.  instead you will end up being wrong coz you assumed things.  quite tricky.  but that’s how the game is played, just like in real-world politics.  he will also say things definitely from time to time, and then later on, will just eat his own words.  he’s been known to do that a lot.  and this is not just limited to WOW’s beloved GC, the same thing goes for any of their game developers or “blue posters.”
• this is World of Warcraft and magic pawns might anytime.  don’t be surprised if your rogue or DK gets 2-shot by a warlock or mage.  that happens.  you also can’t kill a resto shammy.   but he/she will kill you with a totem while just healing his/her shit out of your damage. rofl!
• Arthas was a paladin.  when he went over to the dark-side, he became The Death Knight.  perhaps when he was a paladin he was a protector of life, truth and justice, so it it normal that paladins should be able to tank and heal and DPS.  but as a death knight, Arthas was only meant to sow chaos across Azeroth. as the Lich King, he is the pure meaning of death, corruption and destruction (read: damage dealer).  death knights were never meant to tank.  Blizzard just wanted another tank to satisfy the bored warriors. plate means nothing against magic. we know that. druids can tank too, so it doesn’t mean plate wearers immediately become tanks.  fix your shit Blizzard or i dare you to make shamans and rogues tank.  rogues can have a riduculous dodge rate and give them an armor buff like droods.  shamans have shields.  if you pigeon-hole plate-wearers and shield-bringers as tanks immediately, why not include shamans as well?
• this is World of Warcraft where everything is about nerfs and more nerfs, your definition of epic will never be the same again.  that is why people love and hate the game at the same time.  be ready for the ride of your gaming life!

a theory on the RNG factor in WOW

RNG is short for Random Number Generator.  this is also a term that is used in abundance in the popular game, World of Warcraft.

now how is this important to the game?

well for one, if you are not in a guild with a laid out system already, such as those making use of the DKP or EP/GP looting system to distribute the loots from raid instances to their members, RNG will certainly be a BIG factor to you.  in most cases, you won’t be in such a guild.  only hardcore and some slightly-dedicated raiding guilds use such loot distribution systems.  and how many hardcore/dedicated raiding guilds are there in a realm?  perhaps only 25-30% of the active population?  so most of the time, you will be left to the mercy of the /roll system.  pray the RNG gods are in your favor.

/roll is an internal game command that you can use to generate random numbers.  /random is similar.  based on the official definition of the 2 commands, they are exactly the same (check it out here for reference of the said commands and their usage).  but some addons, loothog for example, discriminate against using the /random command.

so what really is the difference between /roll and /random?

most players will use /roll instead of /random.  i think there really is none.  most probably it has to do with /roll being a shorter command and thus faster to type in the keyboard. and games such as the World of Warcraft, they are so full of shorthands, abbreviations and acronyms that would almost make up a new language.

how reliable is the World of Warcraft RNG?

i would say it is NEVER reliable.  it is random, yes?  not really.  try to observe in your guild raids how some player will always get a high roll than the rest of the players most of the time.  this is very true.  in our guild, since we’ve been raiding from February, there are 3 to 5 prominent players who will, most often than not, get high rolls. i am not saying they win all the time, but their rolls are up there.  this happens most of the time, ridiculously i say, that it is very hard to miss once you’ve been running with the same set of people several times.

in all the complexity of the World of Warcraft, and given how many people are playing it at any single time of the day, not to mention that you have a hundred other issues to consider, random number generation that is done server-side, has several controversial issues.  for example,

(a) Need or Greed system in the game.  how many times have you heard or been in cases where in a 5-man raid, 3 in the group selects Need and all get a roll of 100, but the first to roll need always gets the loot?  this scenario is familiar is it not?  it doesn’t happen all the time, but it has happened many, many times. of course, there would have been X times as well that the first player to roll a 100 and got a tie from another player, also didn’t get Y item.  that goes for the other players who got a 100 as well.  Blizzard says the server will pick out a random player as a winner when this happens.  Read this article for more information.

(b) try to observe or remember how many times your rolls are low,  like below 50 low, since 50 is the median in the accepted rolling system of a number between 1 and a 100 in the game.  i myself can certainly attest to this.  i’ve been in countless situations where my rolls never go above 50.  sure, you can say i must’ve rolled a number above 50 countless times too.  true.  but then we go back again to being in the same set of people in every raid and the same people getting high rolls, it’s just impossible to miss.

(c) some people would  even say that there is a pattern to the number the /roll command gives.  they say it is 1 low, 1 mid and 1 high roll in succession.  the low, mid and high rolls referred here won’t always mean low is below 50 and high is above 50.  it is said that the rolls would look like this if you observe carefully – 14 (low), 32 (mid), 33 (high) or 77 (low), 92 (mid), 99 (high).  some say your first 2 rolls are always low ones. the 3rd produces a high number.  i’ve never seen this pattern.  normally when i just /roll to check my luck (or the lack thereof), the results would be mostly low numbers.  yes i’m not exaggerating.  anyway, if many people have noticed this so-called `pattern` to comment about it, then there must be some truth in it.

(d) ever notice how rolls seem to be grouped or close to each other?  if someone rolls a 90, there will be a high chance that more people will get to roll numbers that are close to, or over, 90.  try to observe that in the occasion that you roll against other players for a loot.  this also happens a lot in programming. i’ve seen this many times over the years.  you generate a set of random numbers, the results seem a bit much clustered to every other number.  if the first random number is a high in X loops, then many of the succeeding random numbers would also be highs.  same goes the other way around.

why do other players get high rolls most of the time?

i believe it has something to do with the random number generation and seeding used by WOW.  in programming, there is really no such thing as random.  there are many algorithms that can create very long sequences of numbers with good random properties but eventually the sequence repeats after only tens of thousands of trials.  these functions may even fall short of a high-quality randomness that is required for applications of a statistical nature, cryptographical, or in numerical analysis.

everything is in some way pre-determined by some initial value(s). this is what you would call a Seed or a Key. in its simplest definition, a seed is, A integer used to set the starting point for generating a series of random numbers. this is what they call pseudo-random number generation (PRNG).  if you are familiar with functions in popular programming languages that produce random numbers, you will find out that there is a pattern to how the function produces random numbers based on a seed.  or to put it directly, if you use the same seed on a random generator, no matter how many times you use it, it will always produce the same set of numbers.

now given that there are some seeds for these functions that will output low numbers more than half the time, say for example, in a thousand iterations of a number between 1 to 100, inclusuve of the min/max boundaries.  it is also true that there are seeds that produce mostly high numbers.

ever since i have noticed how the same set of people in a group/raid only a few select people get high rolls many times, while the rest get low (or mid) rolls, i have started thinking that each player must’ve been assigned a seed at some point in the game.  this would minimize the computing overhead for generating random numbers several thousand times a day on their servers/software.  this is not just in the case where the game client will have to call on /roll. there are several instances or mechanics in the game where RNG is needed too.  your attacks are also subject to RNG.  the same thing goes for heals, blocks, parry, etc.  these things however can be manipulated in some way through your choice of gear.  still, they rely on RNG.

while i can’t provide any evidence on this claim, then why in the 3 to 4 months of raiding do i only remember just 3 to 5 same people in a raid composed of 25 getting high rolls several times. and once again, i must say, their rolls are ridiculously high most of the time it is impossible to miss it.  i myself get low rolls a lot of times.  and i do mean lots, lots of times!  these are rolls that are lower than 50, and somewhere around the 20s and 30s.

this seems to be too much to be just a coincidence.

my death knight 10/10/51 build

and so the 2 most popular death knight (DK) builds after patch 3.1 are:

12/0/59,  recommended for those that are still starting Ulduar and have not a Conqueror’s/T8 set gear yet but have at least 4 pieces of the Valorous/T7 set

and

0/10/61, recommended for those with at least 4 pieces of the Conqueror’s/T8 set, or more.

most of the DK sites, blogs and forums recommend these 2 builds. i however went with another.  the not so popular 10/10/51 unholy build.  this has been floating around for quite a while now. certainly i am not the first to use this build i am sure.  but this one i did not copy.  i just read `talks` and references of the 10/10/51 build and thought i’d create my own. it’s not hard.  you just use your better judgement in distributing the points and pray you get lucky with it.  LOL!

when patch 3.1 came out, i was not happy with 12/0/59/.  it was just like the the old one, minus the +5% crit from  Dark Conviction, but the added mobility that comes with the run speed increase from an improved unholy presence.  0/10/61 puts you in with more threat since you don’t have Subversion invested into your talents. plus its a more suitable build with Ulduar gear. i didn’t like the latter for the reasons that, (1) since our guild is still learning Ulduar (now past Auriaya), i wouldn’t be of much help to our tanks grabbing the threat from them.  it’s not that our tanks are bad. they are very good. when my crits are in a string i am sure to grab aggro from Bosses or mobs, especially at the start of fights, even from our best paladin tank who is geared to the teeth in heroic Naxxramas gear. without Subversion, i’ve done this lots of times when i was still a dual-wielding (DW) death knight using the now defunct 0/32/39 shadow-frost with perma-ghoul build.  so i didn’t wanna repeat the times when, for example, during the adds fight on Thaddius, i was thrown instead of the tank.  weee.. . flying is FUN when you are not on a mount. LOL! and, (2) my gear is not Ulduar level yet. well i got 2-3 pieces, neck and ring and another one, from Ulduar. having a 2-piece Conqueror’s set would really get me started on this particular build.

so what is my 10/10/51 build?

well it just takes most of the important talents in Unholy, up to the 51st talent which is the Summon Gargoyle.  let’s go down from top to bottom of which talent i skipped or partially put some points on.

Unholy Tree – 51 points

(what i did not get or partly did)

Wandering Plague.  i didn’t take this talent at all.  for me it didn’t hold much allure.  even before patch 3.1, everytime i review my DPS meter, wandering plague was always at the bottom of the damage i’ve done, and it didn’t proc that often.  i’m not so sure how this talent really works, but it is definitely equal to your melee critical chance, and for this to work or to benefit the most, there should be more than one target nearby.  with my unbuffed critical strike rating going down from reshuffling my gear for hit and without Dark Conviction, this talent definitely didn’t get my interest.

Magic Suppresion.  no use getting this if you want to maximize your damage.  this is more of suvivability.  well they say a dead DPS is zero DPS. which is absolutely true.  most DPS builds won’t include this talent. so it’s your take.

Anti-Magic Zone.  didn’t bother on it.  this, in my opinion, is only useful in boss fights with heavy magic abilities, and you are assigned to lessen the blow from magic damage to the raid.  i don’t even think Unholy (UH) tanks get this ability.

Improved Unholy Presence.  most people recommend UH death knights to get this.  it will give you, according to their calculations and based on previous facts, a slightly higher DPS gain on running fights.  i would tell you to get it too.  Ulduar is full of running boss fights.  however i did not for my build to work.

Dirge. spent 1 talent point on this. just to reach higher talent tiers.  2.5 additional runic power is not so bad at all too.

Blood-Caked Blade. skipped this.  chance again! i placed everything instead on Necrosis which deals 20% additional Shadow damage on auto attacks.  from my DPS meter reviews on boss fights, next to my Scourge Strikes, melee (or white attacks) is the highest in overall damage.  while BCB is definitely not bad at all, i thought it would be best if i poured out the points on just Necrosis, giving me a flat 20% increase damage on all my white attacks.  BCB also doesn’t double-dip anymore.  they nerfed it.  it doesn’t crit too.  so why do i have high number of melee attacks, i wonder? perhaps i got too much haste? LOL!

note: i’ve been reading the forums heavily, and some say Necrosis is better than this, while some say otherwise.  most of the time, Necrosis stands out as the winner.  5% dps increase, compared to 3% on BCB.  that is point for point of the talent.

On A Pale Horse.  errr what?!  PVP perhaps?  don’t get this.

Corpse Explosion. very good on trash pulls for AOE damage.  doesn’t work all the time, since it doesn’t explode elemental or mechanical mobs.  but fun, FUN!  ok i skipped this.

Epidemic.  take this or not, this talent is really good. get it.  i did not get it though. hehe.. . i placed my points instead on Morbidity, which lessens the cooldown of my Death and Decay, while increasing the damage of my Death Coil for another 15%.  besides, didn’t blizzard increase the duration of 2 death knight main diseases by what, 3 seconds?  that’s good enough for me. if i had more talent points to spend, i’d definitely get this. but i need it for the other trees so i have to sacrifice something.

Unholy Command.  great for PVP and leveling!

Anticipation.  get it if you’re a tank!  enough said.. .

Ghoul Frenzy.  i have yet to try this. it doesn’t look very interesting.  plus you will have to put this in your rotation on when to blow it since it uses a rune.  this will just add more headaches to an already complicated UH rotation.

Frost Tree – 10 points

(what i have)

Improved Icy Touch.  3 of 3.  no explanations needed.

Runic Power Mastery.  not much choice here. they reshuffled most of the frost talents. then again it’s not too bad.  more RP means you will have enough juice to squeeze in a death coil or an uholy blight in between rune CDs or when your gargoyle is summoned.  you just got knocked back far, far away from melee range from a boss?  your DPS loss wont be so bad being a melee. with full RP  you could death coil twice, icy touch  1 or 2 depending on available frost runes, then death coil another 2 times.  if lucky, you get 6-8k death coil crits. yes this does happen. yes, i know the rule of never letting your RP bar go full.

Black Ice.  5 of 5.  they nerfed this for frost, so to speak.  but the overall gain from the 10% more damage in both frost and unholy spells is a win, especially that i am a shadow death knight.  stronger Scourge Strikes and all.  WOOT!

Blood Tree – 10 points

(what i have)

Butchery.  this is like our mp5 equivalent.  hehe.. .

Subversion.  less threat, more crit chance.  though UH DKs would only be able to use blood strikes.  lesser threat is generally a good idea!  would’ve been perfect if it also increased Scourge Strike crit chance. but then that would be too imba!

Bladed Armor.  3 of 5.  filler points which are definitely very good.  if you want, you can spend all your remaining points here.  but you lose out on  Two-Handed Weapon Specialization.

Two-Handed Weapon Specialization.  hmm.. . 4% increased damage to all weapon-based abilities.  definitely a go!

—

there you have it.  tailored to my gear and preference.  here is a link for my build.  try this if you want.  you might like it.  not to brag, but i top damage meters, and such, every so often with this build.  that would go for my guild and in PUGs given my gear level. my gear is not the best in slot.

—

for my glyphs i’ve always used the following except for the new Glyph of Dark Death which replaced the Glyph of Blood Strike.

Major Glpyhs

Glyph of Scourge Strike – 25% chance for this strike to cause Frost Fever and Blood Plague

Glyph of the Ghoul – gives your ghould additional 40% of your strength and stamina

Glyph of Dark Death – your death coil damage is increased by 15%

Minor Glpyhs

Glyph of Raise Dead – makes summoning your ghoul a free one. no more corpse dust needed.  this saves you bag space plus gold!

Glyph of Pestilence – extends the effective radius by which your diseases are spread via pestilence by another 5 yards.

Glpyh of Horn of Winter – increases the duration of your Horn of Winter ability by 1 minute.

—

Xzeeviera of Kul Tiras

death to the Horde!

This is a real in-game experience as written by a Cajunjane of Kul Tiras, one of the premiere death knights of the raiding guild Bisdak.  The former is an officer and one of the founding members of Bisdak.  Read on.. .

One night, 5 dreary Bisdak members went to hunt spiders in the cave at AN [Azjol-Nerub]
.. and Lo! Hordes of horde were waiting in ambush!!!

Sarevok broke the tooth off the orc shaman…
.. Sygbine bit the leg of the tauren cow warrior
…Murdak death-kissed their female elf paladin
….Ascorbate ripped the skull off the undead priest
…and Cephas stripped the Knight out of their troll Death Knight.

It was a long terrible fight. The cave echoed with the awful noises of painful screams and battlecries. All around people stopped and wonder if the titans themselves have descended and laid a terrible war against the dragons. Only to find out it was the terrible screams of these valiant heroes as they tipped their glasses on their pcs, ram their keyboards hard, kicked their desks and shook their fists at the latency rate.

In the end…after several thousands of milliseconds of that awful battle..silence came. And when the dust cleared.. a lone unflagged alliance gnome came out from the corner and shouted in testament to the scene of glory depicted before him: “FTW Alliance rules!”

And there 5 men…of the clan Bisdak valiantly stood…with their shining swords and golden armors bloodied and soaked with the blood of the enemy. And all around them lie the bodies of 8 hordes. The rest flew away, terrified..never again will they try their will against our young heroes.

At last…one of the 5 spoke.

“Naa na tanan? Tara na. Sayang oras.” [Is everyone here?  Let's go. Time is running.] “Ok, let’s go!”  “Unsa to sila?” [What were they?] “Ambot nag tira man so tira lang pud ko..” [Beats me, I was just pewpewing away like everyone else..] “ah…looya oi.” [oh..what a pity.] “Bitaw… ” [Agree...] ” pa bap pls…. ” [buffs pls....]

And our heroes walked into the lair of the spider.

surviving the Storm

my first kill for Emalon the Storm Watcher last night was quite a very exciting experience.  if you didn’t know, Emalon is that new raid boss in the Vault of Archavon at Wintergrasp.  at that circle halfway down to Archavon, there is a hallway to your right that opens up to this new boss.

quite hard i must say. especially for the inexperienced.  i guess all boss encounters generally are.  but my first Archavon fight (back in December 2008) was immediately on a 25-man raid.  my hunter friend just told me to “avoid those rocks and the clouds”, as if i had any idea what he was talking about.  but then he said that’s pretty much it.  and so Archavon is one easy fight even for undergeared people.  if you are wondering, i didn’t die in my debut with Heroic Archavon by the way. i also was 6th place in the DPS charts provided that i had not a single naxxramas gear on me, while the rest did.

now Emalon is hardly anything like Archavon.  a lot of peeps say it’s not PUGable (pick-up group), but i guess people will just have to get used to him. this first boss kill was a semi-PUG, albeit on the 10-man version only. but without the right gear you’re sure to wipe many times even on normal.  we wiped twice before finally defeating Emalon.  i am saying semi-PUG because half of the raid were from my guild.  the 2 tanks, a bear and a paladin, were already naxxramas-25-geared from my guild, and so were the 3 DPS composed of 2 shadow priests and yours truly.  the healers were a restoration shaman and a holy paladin, who was rather a tank as his main spec.  a hunter was leading our group (nice turtle pet by the way).  the other 2 DPS were a retribution paladin and a mage.  the mage was undergeared and was doing just over 1.4k DPS average.  well she had greens and quest blues on her yet.  she was gearing up as best she could though, as evident of some crafted and exalted faction  status epics.  another mage was kicked by the raid leader (RL) for having very poor gear and DPS.  i hope the RL was not too harsh on him.

the encounter is quite simple once you get the hang of it.  it just needs quick reaction for all in the raid on most parts of the fight.  there are 3 things to watch out from Emalon. these are (1) chain lightning.  Emalon casts this quite often on a random player. stay away from each other to minimize damage. (2)  lightning nova.  this has like a 5-second cast time.  make sure you enabled your cast bar.  run away from the boss once you see him casting this, especially if you’re a melee, or you could get 1-shot from its damage.  the last one is that he (3) `empowers` (Overcharge) 1 of the 4 adds (Tempest Minions) and charges them up so that it will deal more damage. the size of the add also increases making it easier to spot.  the buff on the add stacks and when it reaches 10 stacks it will explode causing so much damage that almost always guarantees in a wipe.

now for the tanking spots.  for our strategy we had our paladin tank the adds while the bear was on Emalon.  the off-tank (OT) engaged first, making sure he got aggro on all, while the main-tank (MT) followed shortly after, and taunting the boss off him.  the OT went to the left side of the area.  the MT to the right side.  let the MT establish aggro and position first before DPS goes all out on him.  for melees, spread out far apart from each other to minimize the chain lightning damage.  do the same for ranged and healers.  as soon as the boss starts casting lightning nova, run as far away from him as possible.  nova is said to have a 20-yard range. healers and ranged DPS, make sure you are not too close to the boss.  for our case, we wiped on the 2nd try becaues our MT healer was standing at only medium distance from the tank and ended up eating the nova.  the farther away you are from the boss, the less damage his nova does.  if you have abilities to reduce this damage, make use of it.  a death knight’s  (DK) anti-magic shell (AMS), for example, is very useful on this.  don’t hesitate to use it.

approximately every 45 seconds one of the adds starts getting the buff from Emalon. make sure you are wary of the emote that says, “Emalon the Storm Watcher overcharges a Tempest Minion.” every DPS must focus immediately on the add that got the buff and nuke it down with everything they can. save your CDs for these cases, not on the boss, but pop them on the add instead. from what i’ve been hearing, the add blows up around 15 seconds once it has started to charge.  once the add dies, Emalon will summon a new one.  the OT must pick this one up as soon as possible.  repeat the whole process and win!

as a note, the PUG i was with were saying that it takes 15 seconds for the add to blow up.  wowwiki.com on the other hand states that it will stack up to 10 times at rougly 2 seconds interval for both normal and heroic mode.   quite frankly, i never counted how long it took the add to blow up.  i was too busy bonking the add with my trusty `Jawbone`.  so if i were you, i would stick with the lower value.  that is, take it down in 15 seconds or below.

for our first try, we got the strategy right, but were a bit slow on reacting to the add being charged by the boss.  one of our strategy was to let the OT mark the add to be DPSed down.  this required him to constantly switch on each add once the emote comes out. i wouldn’t suggest this, since it will certainly have a big margin for error. luckily we had one of our best tanks on the adds. so we were quite confident he could pull it off. another possible way is to download an addon.  i forgot the name, but there is one that supposedly marks the add automatically.  this would be very handy if there is indeed such an addon.  go google it!

on our 2nd try, we already downed 2 adds that were charged successfully, but our MT healer was too close to the boss. she ended eating up the bulk of a lightning nova.  ugghh!!!

for our last try, we got it perfect!  and mind you, the raid instance was on a lockdown notice already, since the battle for wintergrasp was about to begin. we barely had 11 minutes to down the boss.  fortunately enough, we kicked the b`jeezuz out of Emalon and his minions, with a few minutes spare to pick up the Valor emblems and the 2 epic gear that dropped – a PVP necklace and a warlock item i didn’t bother to check.  too bad there wasn’t a warlock in our group.

for the DPS in this group, 2 of us exceeded 3k, the rest were above 2k, while the mage was just over 1k.  quite remarkably, our OT did a ridiculous amount of damage. he also went over 3k DPS. but then this is because he was handling 4 mobs, which was constantly on him and respawning after one died.

and finally for my stupid and near-death experiences on this last fight here we go. (a) we just killed an add and i was running back to Emalon and foolishly didn’t have him as my target. i think i was too busy looking for my ghoul that time? so naturally i didn’t see him casting his nova.  i ate up so much damage but luckily didn’t die from it.  i had like 2k health left, when i was raid-buffed to over 24k HP. hehe.. .   (b) another one was when i waited to get off one more scourge strike before i ran away from the boss while he was casting nova.  luckily i’m a DK. just moments before the nova went off, my AMS was already protectively around me.  weee, AMS for the win! maybe i was over-confident that i had AMS up and ready to go.  but i won’t suggest this.  you’re not helping the raid at all.  always run away from the novas!

so there you go, i hope i helped you out. enjoy the new boss.  looking forward to defeating Emalon the Storm Watcher on heroic difficulty.

the bard in you 2

well there you have it. the newest hero class that will come out when patch 3.1 goes live!

New Hero Class Revealed: Bard

The deeds of every great hero inspire countless songs of triumph, virtue, and epic adventure. But although a hero’s glory endures in song, the creators of those songs are seldom remembered. After ages spent singing of the heroic exploits of others, the bards of Azeroth are finally stepping into the spotlight on their own terms, proving once and for all that while just about anyone can pick up a sword or cast a spell, only a true hero can vanquish evil with the power of ROCK!

i wonder why it took too long for Blizzard to have their own bard class? it, or something similar, has been around for other DnD-like games. i know in NeverWinter Nights, there is a bard class that gives out insane buffs to the party. can’t remember if it gave out debuffs to enemy mobs or bosses. but my buff bar would be full once the bard started rockin!

Armed with a trusty axe, killer riffs, and a ton of attitude, the guitar-wielding bard is the second hero class to be introduced in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft. The bard excels both as a solo performer and as part of a solid group lineup, able to front in a number of roles as varied as his musical repertoire. The bard’s extensive Metal skill line grants the potent transformational ability “I Am Murloc,” as well as direct damage effects like “Epic Solo” that will rock foes into oblivion while powerful Indie debuffs such as “Tape Jam” and “Shoegazer” keep them in check. If things heat up, the bard’s Punk tree can support the party with a wide range of abilities, such as “Nonconformity,” which dispels fear, mind control, and similar effects, or “Mosh Pit,” which briefly boosts the group’s movement speed while its members stay within range.

To fuel his or her powers, the bard uses a brand-new resource system called “groove.” Selecting an ability launches the Fret Bar, which will display a number of riffs the player needs to activate using a new guitar-based keyboard peripheral that will ship with Wrath of the Lich King (a special Frostmourne-themed axe will be sold separately). The better the player’s accuracy and timing, the more powerful the resulting ability becomes. The riffs also become more difficult as the bard’s abilities progress, ensuring that the bard gameplay experience remains fast-paced and skill-oriented. Executing abilities also builds up groove, which further fuels the bard’s epic rock powers. Some abilities such as “Epic Solo” require a certain amount of groove to be unleashed, and the more groove, the more powerful the effect.

The time has come for the bards to claim glory for themselves. No longer will they remain shrouded in obscurity while less-talented adventurers are hailed by the masses.

you can get more info at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/bard/bardclass.xml

New Race Revealed: Two-headed Ogre

or choose to play both hero classes with the newest WOW race, the Two-headed Ogre. or maybe play with a buddy?

By selecting the Two-headed Ogre race, you are selflessly choosing to share your existence in World of Warcraft with another player. That is, you are staking claim to one half of the Ogre whole. As a Two-headed Ogre, you will have control of one head and one arm at all times. Your other half will be controlled by a second player automatically and permanently paired with you upon character creation. Each player residing in the Ogre body will be free to choose his or her own character class at creation, so for example, it is possible to have a Two-headed Ogre who is half Mage and half Warrior. It is also possible to have two halves of the same character class, depending on the random pairing. Two-headed Ogres serve the Horde, and in keeping with the theme of their inherent duality, their starting zone will be located near the Crossroads, which resides in the Barrens region of Kalimdor. The classes available to Two-headed Ogres are: Mage, Warrior, Priest, Druid, and Warlock (what?! no Death Knight?). Sharing a single body with another player can produce an mutually enlightening, symbiotic relationship or a constricting, insanely frustrating experience depending on the player you are randomly matched with. Good luck to you!

imagine a tank, healer and dps in just one toon! hahaha.. . what would be a good combo? a paladin and death knight sounds good? both plate wearers, strong buffs, and possibly some crowd-control from the pally, while the death knight tanks and DPS’ at the same time. oh yeah! but i think it doesn’t let you choose a death knight. hmmm.. .

The Two-headed Ogres of Azeroth are a Horde-born byproduct of the Second War. Created as mutations of natural Ogres by Gul’dan, the massive Two-headed Ogres of the Horde quickly became known (and feared) for their ability to do a large amount of physical and magical damage in a short amount of time. Like the Orcs, Ogres originally entered Azeroth from Draenor, bringing with them a strong sense of tribal loyalty as well as a natural inclination toward one-upmanship. With the addition a second personality within one body, these traits were compounded in the two-headed variety of Ogre: theyre fiercely loyal to the Horde, and theyre fiercely competitive with themselves, with one head always trying to outdo the other.

sadly, this ogre race is exclusive to the Horde. enjoy anyway! have a funny April 1st.. .

find out more at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/races/two-headed-ogre.shtml