Rock 'n' Roll Train

I talked on Tuesday about a makeover I was going to have for my Death Knight. I have never really been a melee kind of guy, but Janingvaar wants to teach me everything about the Blood spec, and who am I to refuse such a kind offer.

I play 10 different classes and some of them are genuine dual spec, so ultimately I am at least currently aware of certain aspects of 13 different specs. For somebody of my age, it can be quite a wrench to switch from Healing on a Shaman to levelling up a Ret Paladin. I tend to place my buttons in an order of approximate rotation, so even if I forget how to play a class, I can at least activate the spells from left to right with a reasonable response.

I have on really dabbled with the Death Knight Blood Spec and have really only semi-mastered the Unholy spec. I know the spells by sight but not by name, so if you want me to use Death Strike, then I have no idea what you are talking about, so it is my job to supersede instructions with my own mental map. Just in case you are as bad as I am the Death Strilke looks like this  . The biggest memory muscle trigger is the prevalent colour of an Icon, in this case it is red, and the image is of an Axe covered in blood. When I need a heal, I am not thinking time to Death Strike, I am looking for a Red Axe covered in Blood.

Typically Rogues are the worst for baffling teh hell out of me, take this for instance:

The rotation I am using atm is something like this:
Amb -> RStrike -> SS -> SnD A Rush -> ShadowB -> SS til 5 CP -> Evi -> Repeat until CD's fade -> Killing Spree
Then I just keep Rev. Strike and SnD up, dump my CP's on Evis and use CD's when ever they are ready.

I am left bewildered by a string of letters that means nothing to me, but I do have the Rosetta Stone in my possession and the ability to translate if I so desire. The downside is I have to work out the spell names and then translate them into my memory bank. I cannot read music but it does not stop me picking up the guitar and knocking out a tune.

SS is Sinister Strike which is the Purple Stabby knife , that I use to generate Combo Points and it is located to the left of my toolbar because I use it often.

Using this as my backdrop, Janingvaar took me by the hand and lead me of to the Practice Dummies in Stormwind. First I had to re-spec, everything was wrong except for one option which I refused to change. My Glyphs sucked but I knew that anyway, some of my enchants could have been better. Ok not a bad start, the problem was trying to keep up with what Janingvaar was trying to tell me. I had Internet pages with reference material open on one screen and WoW open on the other, but I think I got most of the changes done correctly.

Next was practice at the dummies, the biggest issue with this for a Tank to practice they want to activate shields, blocks, and heals, not bashing out the spell combos with highest damage potential.

Sorting out my spells I soon realised that I have a huge toolbox of tricks for every occasion but there just too damn many of them. In my opinion a good PvP Hunter faces the same problem and when they master the full toolbox, then they make a formidable opponent, but usually they get ambushed by a stealthy back stabber who will turn them into a greasy smear before they get to turnaround or drop a trap.

With so many buttons to press, this was not going to be an easy task for me, and beside from that I needed to compute the right buttons to press at the right time and which ones were my ooh shit buttons. After an hour my head was in bits, and I promised to try it out after the weekly reset.

Wednesday came and went, and by Thursday, Janingvaar was interested to know the results of his teaching. I suggested bagging some Zandalari Warscouts and Warbringers, Janingvaar was keen to tag along and see the results and offer some more advice when needed. Needless to say it went very badly, but it did get better, but it was still backward step from my previous setup. It is the equivalent of a golfer changing their swing, any improvements will come in time not immediately.

For a change of pace we set off for the Battlefield: Barrens, and the scene of other famous battles, and besides we had recruited the services of Mrs Janingvaar. I started off carefully rounding up 4 or 5 flame dogs from the Stone quarry, before advancing to much larger numbers. The next problem was keeping them all aggroed because Blizzard have tried to make it more difficult to round up the entire place in one go.

The result was I would tank and they would pretend to get into trouble and bring more mobs into my ever increasing pile. After you settle into the routine the numbers of mobs become meaningless and the spikes are smoothed out and the healing is constant, the plague and pestilence is transferred to everyone at 10 second intervals, and DK's are not short of AoE capabilities.

Next on the list was Demolishers at the oil refinery. I have taken on 1 surrounded by 8 engineers a couple of incinerators and the odd overseer before. This time was the plan was multiple Demolishers and corresponding baggage. 2 was no problem, 3 was no problem and I am sure 4,5, or 6 are all possible. The healing process was smoothed out and the damage dished out by the Death Knight was of a reasonable standard which is important that you don't get too bored and nod off in the middle of the fight.

I am more than happy with my setup and my master sat down and enjoyed the spectacle of his pupil passing his first test.

Blood Brothers

Recently I have spent some time playing with my Blood Death Knight, and I have written previously about how this fascination started and my first tentative steps. I have 5 characters capable of Tanking yet I have only ever felt the inclination to do so on my Paladin. It was tanking by numbers and whilst I could always generate enough threat, it used to drain my mana, and would require regular pitstops between each pull. The Go Go Go LFG's resulted in a switch to Holy and the experiment was laid to rest for 2 expansions.

During Cataclysm, I switched to PvP instead of trying the Zul's and it was in one such battleground that encountered the Death Knight PvP tank. Not overly dangerous, but impossible to damage, never mind kill.

Since encountering Janingvaar I have built my own Sherman tank, with 3 pieces of Tanking gear courtesy of the Trolls who are stockpiling the Kor'kron resources for the impending siege of Orgrimmar. I could amass more Tanking gear but it does not seem to matter for what I require.

I have extended my limits by attempting to accumulate more and more mobs with each pull, and providing I have the time to start spreading diseases then I have more than enough regenerative skills, and spell shields to survive. I got so confident that I started tackling Kor'kron Commanders, and was rewarded by some kind words from my fellow scavengers.

Boosted by this new found confidence I even ventured into the Slave Pens to confront Ahune the seasonal boss. When this boss was first introduced, a good group would kill on the second appearance and a bad group would kill on the third. This group I was in managed it on the 6th or 7th appearance. It was a long boring fight and hard work for a new Tank who was also topping the charts on about 40K. The bottom placed DK was on 13K and appeared to only have one spell in his repertoire, Blood Boil. Needless to say this bottom feeder died halfway through the fight (I am not sure how this possible unless you can't stay out the bad), making this whole fight longer than it should been. When the Tanking Cloak dropped I was overjoyed that there was a reward for the hard work. I searched in my bags to find the new cloak, only to discover that Doucebag Karl the crap DK had nicked it in a Need roll. It took me awhile to calm down and I was not going to attempt another 10 tanking attempts in the hope of seeing it again. Everybody knows that the odds are stacked against Tanks, in an attempt by Blizzard to get them to stay in these useless groups.

My one tanking experience in Pandaria was tainted, but I think I will attempt tanking again, but only in the safer confines of a Guild run.

Last night I found a mail from my new best mate, Janingvaar who thinks that he can tweak my build for the better. I am all ears for my first lesson.