gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

A quick update on my death knight. Over the weekend I hit level 80 with lots and lots of solo content to spare. I dinged having not touched quests in Sholazar Basin, Storm Peaks, or Icecrown. I did do both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord and ran about half the leveling up instances once, but still there’s way more content than anyone should need to hit the level cap. Read more… »

Now we come to the tanking build those of you with dreams of usurping your guild’s main tank want to see. Our attacks ignore armor while looking good and giving the raid buffs, what do you got Mr. Protection Warrior? Oh, you have years of experience to our weeks of experience and massive defensive stats with your shield slot. Hmm… we may have to rethink our cunning plan of world domination. Read more… »

You don’t need a tanking build until you are level 80 and looking at tanking heroics and raids. The only reason to go with a tank build before level 80 is because you want to level up doing almost nothing but instance runs.

The instances we run while leveling up are designed for leveling gear and specs for all classes. Shadow priests can heal and fury warriors can tank. The same goes for death knights of all builds. Frost Presence turned on is really the only mandate. Tank gear certainly helps and I do advocate getting some, but it can be done in leveling gear as well. Don’t gimp your leveling for extra threat generation and damage mitigation you just do not need. Read more… »

As you approach level 80 your mostly green tanking gear isn’t going to cut it, especially in heroics and raids. While the stats on the gear hasn’t change the value of the defense rating has diminished by about half between 70 and 80. So as you go through the mid and later zones of Northrend (Grizzly Hills, Zul’Drak, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown) you’ll want to collect a new tank set. Luckily for us it is possible to reach the level 80 defense cap (making you uncritable) without needing any instance drops. You’d be more impressed with this if you knew how much defense warriors get with shields and one handed weapons and I don’t go into druids and their talent for defense cap. Read more… »

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers. To everyone else, um, have fun at school and work? Read more… »

With just one instance run and 24 [Cobalt Bar] you can get a tank set within hours of hitting Northrend. What’s more this set is just under the defense cap for level 70 (though it is worth noting that by level 80 the value of your defense ratings will have lost more than half their value). Read more… »

Of course you want to tank! There’s a tank shortage out there and you, my death knight friend, were specifically created by Blizzard to fix it. I was hearing complaints within days of expansion being released about not enough tanks being available for groups, both in the guild and for pugs. Of all the high speed level 80s in my guild none are tanks. Granted the problem is being compounded by players refusing to tank. Among those complaints were stories of warriors and paladins looking for tanks. Even one case of two paladins looking for a tank and a healer. Apparently some people have yet to get the memo about tanking, so I say we take advantage of the situation and get all the instance runs we want. Read more… »