Death Knight Tier 12 Gear

Credit from MMO-Champion. A huge thank you to them for providing such quick info. Showing the T12 here for convenience purposes and to filter DK information.



Is it just me, or does it look really weird? Perhaps the thing I like here are the Helm, Shoulder flame color, other than that... nothing really. I am just going for the stats. I do hope they make a more epic Engineering helm. I would rather wear shades than that helm.

Royal Wedding

A big congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. That's all I can pretty much think of at the moment. Nothing else to say really, they have it all. I just hope that they do live a fulfilling life. Status and protocol usually get in the way.

And now for her new stylish Coat of Arms:



Source

4.1 Observations

All I can say is wow!

They did buff the DPS of Frost DKs. I think it is a buff well-deserved, after a long stretch of frustrations and trying your best to keep that overall dps up but you still felt like you could do higher, but nothing's happening.

Perhaps it is fine on your end, but on mine, it was really bad. I had inconsistent latency as of late, and that affects Frost DPS immediately. Fortunately, this patch had remedied those.

The glaring change would be the stat weights, and how HASTE now is vital to one's success. Yes, I have tried the pre-4.1 spec to the post 4.1 spec, and there is indeed a DPS increase if you go Unholy Presence and Prioritize haste over mastery.

With the change of dynamic on the runes and how haste really helps your rune regen, it is a beautiful and fun system when you start your DPS. Take care though, you can pretty much grab aggro instantly.

For those not ready or does not want to change your pre 4.1 spec, no worries for you. At the moment, it is VERY competitive, and I tried that on my first random daily heroic before actually doing research, and it was surprisingly boss. So you can stick with that for now. But come on, the movement bonus you get from UP is just lovely. Based from loose observations, it would also be best if you are able to get your haste rating to break 1000. If you do that, I think you will be benefiting greatly from the new spec. If you are unable to do so, might as well stick to your guns before trying to reforge/respec. It might not do you any good.

I have only tried Zul Aman. Now it is boring in my opinion. It is boring simply because I tanked that instance. Okay, seriously, it is just too long. I do not want a raid-like instance (well I think that was what it was back in BC) just to get some valor. If they made it 300+ valor per run, that would have been worth your while. 140, while it is a lot, just does not justify such runs. I was tired, I wished I raided instead to be honest.

It may not be the most competitive or highest DPS output (I have not checked other DPS sims or whatnot), I surely felt like this earlier when I DPS'd:

4.1 Hotfix

Death Knights:

- Runes will no longer be regenerating erratically.

Source

Really? It better not be our little "buffs".

Happy gaming people.

I am going to have a massage date with my girl. Too bad I will not be able to experience content any time today. I am extremely happy though with the new system 4.1 had implemented. That means I can Random binge tomorrow and save me the trouble of having to play every day just to cover my raid obligations. At least I can set aside a day or two for that, and the rest, simply just for fun. Awesome stuff.

Hope you all are having fun today with the new patch. My UI is still crap but my latency is better. That is a huge relief. If you know any good UIs, please let me know lol

A little old school music for you guys. I cannot believe this can be considered "old school" already with so many crap songs out there.

Zul'Aman, Zul'Gurub Boss Overview

4.1 is LIVE. Have fun all!

Now, I woke up with a fresh wipe of my UI, so that is taking forever on my part and it still looks like crap. At least I am the one making it. Anyway, here are vids from MMO-Champ about the 2 new heroic dungeons. Good luck! Kudos to OMFGCata and Yogscast for awesome vids.

ZA



ZG

Song to start a spark and some latency advice

I heard this song from the TV Series House. Perfect for that part.

If you have any latency issues, you might have "Downloading while playing World of Warcraft" ticked on your "Downloader Preferences". At the WoW launcher, Options>Downloader Preferences. I have been repairing and resetting UIs, WTF folders and all that jazz or perhaps I did not check that one when I installed Cataclysm. I have been having some latency issues when I knew I should not be having any. There was indeed some latency issues due to the recent Japan earthquake, but my internet's fine, and primed for gaming. Thank God I checked this time. See, new everything is a good thing. Change is inevitable, accept it and adapt, which is one of humanity's best traits.

New Patch, New Beginnings

If real life could be patched like the game, things would have been easier.

I decided to reset my User Interface (UI). I have been using LUI for quite some time, and it is great. However, not being the author of it, or having full knowledge of the nooks and crannies of that UI, I cannot help but think that I am not being able to use it to its fullest potential.

It is common knowledge that addons or custom UIs break when big patches do come in, so everyone will have to do a readycheck of their addons and see what is broken. So instead of checking it, I will flush it clean.

Naturally, it will sacrifice the aesthetics. Come to think of it, it will only sacrifice the panels I love. Not a huge tradeoff when you have access and knowledge of your UI inside and out. It does not affect my gaming significantly using other custom UIs as I play with only the bare essentials, but it does restrict myself in attempting to play around with the other addons available out there. An example would be that I will now use Skada instead of Recount. Not a huge difference if you know your UI, but it will mess up things a little bit in LUI. Regardless if there is help as how to go around it, why bother with too much when you can deal with so little?

With all the things going on in real life, I got lazy with my gaming, not only when I picked it up when I had spare time to play did everything improve. This time there is a patch coming as well, and everything will be different from my perspective.

So, what about your UIs, fix or flush?

Rise of the Zandalari Trailer

Looks more and more than the patch will be tonight! Happy hunting peeps!

Show Goes On

Just some music for the soul and to those in need of it. Thanks to Lupe Fiasco for an awesome track.

Patch 4.1

Based from MMO-Champion, it will be out later or tomorrow, depending on your location.

Fellow Death Knights, start figuring out changes that will impact your gaming. Relevant patch information regarding our beloved class are a few posts below this one.

I am looking forward to the changes. Having a brez would be awesome. I was in a raid earlier and we did not have a Druid. That sucked. I kept thinking what if patch 4.1 was live that time. Saved us a wipe or two.

For those on Nefarian, well here's a video from Tankspot. Kudos to them posting such useful stuff. So far EpiCasuals are targeting this boss. So hopefully this gets resolved quickly. Managing crackles they said. Awesome news. I have to raid more. Damn real life lol

Job Opportunities

To summarize, one's curriculum vitae (or resume, but I do not know how to do the e thing) must be simple, concise, information-filled. If you can compress it to one page, go do it.

In a nutshell, I did my resume like this:

- Contact Information
- General Qualifications (for the position you want)
- Education
- Training
- Work Experience
- Literary Works
- Interests

Now, you would probably swap training and work experience depending on your strength. I do not have a lot of work experience so I have to show that I am capable of learning. As a future lawyer, yes that will be key.

Screw literary works if you do not have it. I simply mentioned my dissertation and whatnot. Interests will be KEY. They will look onto this as well. I do not have a term for it, but from experience I usually look at the first and last page. Same with people who are so bored with resumes as they are always burdened by it. Make it interesting enough, without trying too hard.

Good luck, future employed people.

Most Recent DK Changes to 4.1

It seems, as MMO-Champ had mentioned, the awaited patch will be released by tomorrow or Wednesday, depending where you are. To be more specific, on the 26th or 27th of April 2011. Happy waiting for the patch guys. Relax for an additional twelve (12) hours as I would think there will still be stuff they would have to fix once the patch is implemented. Do not stress yourself out waiting for the wrapping up of the supposed "maintenance end time", which I became a victim of. Not nice considering the time it ends from where I am staying.

In my humble opinion, I think this is a good start and balanced buffing of DK DPS and making us balanced. A battle res, seriously? Nifty tool. Also, myself being a hardcore dual-wielding, swashbuckling Death Knight, the buffs on Frost tree will make the DPS uptime more consistent, and I do see the attempt of Blizzard to remove the heavy dependence on Obliterate and makes the system more flexible, but still challenging. I will post more on this when I do get to experience the changes.

Anyway, the Death Knight changes are here for your perusal. Thanks Blizz and MMO-Champ for being such responsible and diligent posters:

- Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.

- Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

Talent Specializations

Blood

- Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.
- Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.


Frost

- Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.

- Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.

- Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers. In addition, Howling Blast now has a facing requirement.


Unholy

- Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.

- Rage of Rivendare again applies 15/30/45% additional damage to Plague, Scourge, and Festering Strike, up from 12/24/36%.




Glyphs

- Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster.


Death Knight Bug Fixes

- Runeforging no longer displays a skill-up UI element.

Background Downloads

As I have been back from my awesome vacation, a lot had happened in-game. Not only did I lose my valor points for five (5) days, there's been some guild stuff going on. Nothing bad, just changes. Thing is, I've been on like you guys for a long time, and the time I leave and go on a break, things happen. I've had a week of nothing to do and observe and police the guild, but nothing is really happening. I just left for a couple of days and whoa, GOOD MORNING!

I am plastered. So tired and sleepy from a great trip that I needed. I'll be posting pictures and will elaborate on this point at a later time, when I am refreshed due to sleep.

Thanks for viewing peeps. Much appreciated. I do hope you learn or realize a thing or two. Anything that stimulates brain activity is always a plus, good or bad. Here's to hoping it is good though!

Holy Week Commonsense

Yes, I am a religious person. Or at least I take advantage on what is supposed to be a half-week of reflection to take a vacation from reviewing for the upcoming bar examinations. This is a good break for myself and for those at work as well.

This would entail a couple of days off. Resorts, beaches and what-have-you are fully booked, spread across the region. Urban cities transforms into a ghost town for a couple of days. Taking a well-deserved break from all the pounding from its citizens.

Naturally, this will not bode well for your normal WoW habits (Unless you have a kick ass gaming laptop that has internet access wherever you are. If you do, you suck./bitter). Personally, attempting to gear up to better serve my raid team for current content, this will have an impact for your Valor collection, farming of materials and simple practice sessions with your skill.

I would consider taking a break from the game similarly to a break from work as well. End-game raiding can indeed be a lot of work, that is why you need to insert the fun-factor or else you will burn out. Consider this a good hiatus from the game, come back refreshed, then break stuff in instances once you are back online.

There was a time I sat out a raid since I was having some latency issues. I have never been happier playing the game. Playing with real-life friends on randoms, arena or battlegrounds made me feel as if I had regained some form of control over my gaming. Raiding requires precision, with intense pressure if you are beating a standard, which I usually do meet. However, when there are times that I mess up, I take it hard. It is this competitive nature in me that I have to be the best for my team, and pick up my team when they make their mistakes. It is tough.

I always strive to get better, but it can take a toll on you. You do not have enough time to actually be what you want to be in game, not to mention one's daily struggles with their real lives. I love the challenge of juggling these around, managing my time and succeeding in it. But when internet issues arise, it frustrates me. I consider this my fault, my mistake, for letting people down. It is something out of my control, but this is just me, this is the bar I set for myself. I want to adjust to every curve ball that is thrown at me.

Most of the time it is fun, but there are times you would just want to smash that monitor. It is no one's fault, but I cannot help but think it is my own undoing.

I've gotten over that hill, and I have been better than ever. You just need a step back, to breathe. Everything will fall into place.

I am taking a break for these couple of days. These days will be for my lady, for my own reflective state. This break will be useful as I hone myself and harness both positive and negative energy to my benefit, to be better.

This step away from everything will make me better: as a person, as a lover, as a student, as a friend, as a son and as a gamer.

Everything will fall into place. I hope you do try to make the most of whatever breaks you have fellow gamers.

Epitaph Gaming is Recruiting

Epitaph of Caelestrasz is one of the most decorated guilds in the server. Its longevity and reputation for excellence and resilience speaks for itself. Server firsts left and right, a consistent core of skilled progression team raiders and EpiCasual members make it all worth your while.

Please do check out the site. If the schedules fit to your preference, do not hesitate to fill out an application.

While there is so much drama surrounding popularity, surprisingly, from experience, there is little to no drama at all in Epitaph. Check it out!

State of the DK on PTR 4.1 12 April 2011

Here are the relevant DK notes for the PTR Patch Notes. MMO-Champion as well provided that Death Strike healing will be up from 15%-20%. Thank you to them and Blizzard. These are not final, so do not hold your breath or whine about it just yet.

"Dark Simulacrum now works on numerous additional spells in dungeon encounters.

• Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

Talent Specializations

• Blood

- Blood Shield now only works while in Blood Presence.

- Death Strike self-healing no longer generates threat.

• Frost

- Blood of the North (passive) now permanently converts both Blood Runes into Death Runes. There is no longer any proc interaction with Blood Strike required to activate Death Runes.

- Frost Strike now deals 130% of weapon damage, up from 110%.

- Howling Blast damage has been increased by 20%. To compensate, the area-of-effect splash now does 50% of the single-target damage, down from 60%. The net result of this change leaves the area-of-effect damage roughly the same as 4.0.6 numbers. In addition, Howling Blast now has a facing requirement.

• Unholy

- Desecration no longer triggers when an applicable strike hits a snare-immune target. This is primarily to avoid unnecessary spell effect clutter during boss encounters.

- Rage of Rivendare again applies 15/30/45% additional damage to Plague, Scourge, and Festering Strike, up from 12/24/36%

• Glyphs

- Glyph of Raise Ally is now Glyph of Death Gate, and makes Death Gate cast 60% faster."

Source

Also, there are rumors that 4.1 will be out probably last week of April or early May. So it might take a while. If not, then that would also be a welcome change. Kudos to those hardworking men and women at Blizzard!

A solo DK kill of Orzuk and Slabhide by Raegwyn

This guy's been popular (I think) for doing solo kills. Just like that other rogue that soloed Patchwerk.



Kudos to Raegwyn for the kill and for the efforts made on the video.

A blog about a casual raiding and whatnot in the game as a Death Knight

Greetings!

This is a test post. I have made this blog for all Death Knights that are looking for some relaxation from all the intense research about how to improve their class, or to simply check another site regarding Death Knights.

This is Scherbatsky reporting from Caelestrasz. I do play World of Warcraft and raid with a great bunch of guys in the guild Epitaph. I have been here for almost a year, and so far so good.

Unfortunately, I am also busy in real life. It is all but easy for me to juggle playing time and work, and other obligations as well. If you are searching for a blog that caters to the everyday person, yet strives to be the best at the game, but gets frustrated because of real life obligations, this is for you!

Naturally, there are more detailed databases for Death Knights, but this is not the aim of this blog. The aim is to synthesize the information and make it apply to the person actually testing it out. This will mean that all posts will be based on my experience. Perhaps it works for me and increases my DPS, but it may not for you. Heck, even if they have all the math right in Elitist Jerks or whichever site, sometimes, they just do not work out for you. So this will be the place where you can find another opinion without all the fuss of sifting through all the posts from their sites.

I do plan to also implement a casual approach in this blog (that is redundant). This will involve anything and everything under the sun. Of course as much as possible it will be relevant to the game, or how to adjust things for the game, but it should also be the other way around. If you are playing the game for more than twelve (12) hours a day, that is a big problem you must solve. Playing more than five (5) hours a day, if you are not self-employed or retired, is also a problem. Please, do not waste your time doing so. This does not apply on your rest days or weekends of course.

So here is the first post, I do hope to share and make this blog a fruitful and great experience for you all. It is nothing grand, nor am I the leet DK, but it is a start to either amuse yourself or facepalm at it.

Enjoy your day!