Random thoughts on levelling a DK in Cataclysm

One word: OOOOhhhhhh YEAHHHH!!!

It was a ton of fun racing to 80 - as I mentioned Monday, once I stopped trying to get there first.

So here are some thoughts I had during levelling and reflecting on the process of getting to 85 and the first things to do when you get there.

1. Frost spec works like a charm. As I mentioned prior to expac release, I was going with a 2H Frost spec for levelling. It worked fine for every situation I found myself in. Generally speaking, mobs died before I'd expended all my runes and runic power, even in Twilight Highlands.
Start off with maxing Frost, then add bladed armor, and from there take your pick of talents. You get burst, mount speed, and don't have to worry about diseases. It still works very well in 5-man levelling dungeons. In fact, howling blast on trash packs is a wonderful thing, and overall the rotation was pleasing and easy to maintain! For questing with normal mobs, all you do is drop off your mount, preferably next to one mob while you death grip another to you. make sure they're both in front of you, howling blast, obliterate, frost strike if full of rp, and obliterate/FS until they're dead. There's a good chance you won't even need to use your blood runes, but if you do you can toss a few blood strikes in there.

2. Stick with an area till it's done. Technically, you can go to Deepholm when you hit 82, but if you're not done with Hyjal/Vashjir, I recommend staying until you have the loremaster achievement. Do the same thing in each zone. Several reasons for this: quests are linear, and quest rewards get better later in chains. Also, you want to get as much 'free' (non-grinding) rep for each faction as you can.

3. Find each of the 5-man instances as early as possible, and run each of them at least once. First, they're fun! Also, as you enter each of them, there are a number of quests just inside. These have nice xp and often item rewards. Finally, you'll get familiar with each of them before you come back on heroic difficulty, and it will help you a great deal to know what to expect. Many people have written that it's not efficient to level by farming 5-mans and they're right. If you really love instances, feel free, but running them over and over is a slow way to level, especially if you're not using rest.

4. Keep every meat drop you get. Eventually you'll use the meat for cooking (or if you refuse to cook, sell/donate it, but do not vendor it). Especially crocolisk tails. This meat is used for the best individual buff food for dps DKs. Side note: the best place I've found to farm this is next to the Tol Barad keep in the swamp. Any other suggestions? There are lisks up and down the banks of the river in Uldum, but they're farther apart.

5. Buy the highest speed mount you can afford. Travelling fast has always been and always will be the biggest boon to levelling. And if it feels expensive, it's really not too bad. From 80-85, if you have nice big bags to allow you to vendor greys, keep boe greens for disenchanting, and so on, you can easily make 5-10k gold! I had 7 thousand more gold at 80 than 85, and that doesn't include enchant mats or my mining. I leveled fast, and sold the first 20-30 stacks of each or I got in part to make even more gold, which I did. Even now, where there are plenty of gatherers out there, you'll make plenty of cash if you level a gathering skill (side note again: I'm dropping mining to level LW this weekend). Random thought #5 could easily turn into its own post about making gold, but suffice it to say that you'll make plenty of money while levelling, so don't be shy spending it!

6. Get ready to raid! You can do this even as you level. By doing the daily level-appropriate 5-man, you'll be getting justice points. If you're maxed out, buy gear and stockpile it for when you're 85.
    6a. Level professions. If you're on Elitist Jerks, you know that JC/LW are the 'ideal' way to go, but most professions have something to offer. Level them as quickly as you can so that by the time you're raiding, you can have one or two nice epics to go with your justice and heroic gear to help you succeed in that first 10-man. JC gives a nice trinket that's worth using, and of course LW allows you to do leg and bracer enchants.
   6b. Grind reputations. If you're questing, finish off each zone. You'll get really nice reputation for questing for each faction. While most factions have something worthwhile, in particular you'll need:
        -Therazane. They're your Hodir as many have said; your shoulder enchant unless you're an inscriptionist. They're easy to max. Unlock their dailies via questing in Deepholm, then do the dailies. DON'T wear their tabard; I was exalted with them three days into the expac following the above. The shoulder enchant is pretty cheap - buy several and put it on every upgrade once you hit 85.
        -Wildhammer. They're your dps head enchant. It will take a little longer, but I recommend doing their dailies (in northern Twilight Highlands) and not wearing their tabard either. Why? Because...
        -Ramkahen is probably your other most important rep. The epic neck you get from them at exalted will last you until heroics in Tier 11. Right now there is only one daily, so as soon as you get enough rep from questing in Uldum, get their tabard and wear it.
    The other reputations aren't as important, as they can offer some decent stuff, but none of it will last that long, so feel free to level them at your leisure.

Once you're 85, do both the normal and heroic daily. If you're having trouble with heroics, do normal 5-mans until you have enough justice points for a few items - it won't take long. Heroics can - as has already been written about many times - be very challenging, with raid-like mechanics, but with familiarity, gear, and practice, they're all very doable.

It may take a little time, but you're goal should be the achievement Cataclysmically Superior (blue superior item in every slot). I got mine just yesterday, and am now officially ready for raiding!

Good luck to all in leveling and preparing for raids!

Happy Cataclysm Eve!

To all you EU players out there: less than 8 hours till launch!
To all of us US players, tonight is your night, bro! (hurrah for ancient Schwarzenegger/DeVito references)

I know we're all excited, and, I hope, prepared.
I've talked about my preparation several times, so the tl:dr version now is:

I'm frost 2H for leveling; one can pretty much howling blast/obliterate/frost strike spam everything that's non-elite, at least until Uldum/Twi Hi

I have my flasks and food prepared.

I will mine when I can, but my primary goal is leveling, so you will likely not see another post here, nor will I level cooking, rep, or anything else until I'm 85. Once I'm there, I'll have the remainder of the week to work on those things.

Good luck all, have fun, and See you on the Other Side!

Leveling as Frost in Cataclysm: Okay, I'll give it a try

For readers of my blog, you'll have noticed that I've spent little time as Frost.
I leveled and tanked as Blood. I've primarly dps'd in various incarnations of Unholy.
Besides a few dalliances with DW Frost in TOC, I haven't spent much time in Frost spec. I know, there are lots of players out there who love it, but for some reason, it's never floated my boat.

I was convinced recently, however, to give Frost a try for leveling after reading this short comment on Consider's blog:

"Grizzi says:
Because it has greater burst, and you can start out with oaph from level 80, and it runs in unh pres. If u level as unh be it DW or 2H, then u will rarely get DT up, and ur pet will spend time spawning whenever you dismount, and the pet is to big a part of your dps for that to be worth it."

I'll put in a Frost leveling spec tonight and start trying it out. Note, while I will have most of the dps-heavy talents, I will likely take both On A Pale Horse which is so powerful for leveling, as well as Lichborne and the Lichborne glyph (for self healing). Self healing and travel speed are overpowered for leveling, which in this case Frost offers along with the dps talents that a blood spec would lack. Grizzi's points about burst and the pet's drawbacks for levling purposes are well-taken, as well.
 
I'll give Frost a try and hopefully will rock the DK leveling race!
 
Now that the Shattering has occurred, I'll see you on the Dark Side!

Not Done Yet

With the abundance of nostalgia posts floating around, you might think I’d jump in as well.

But no, not Hine!

I haven’t posted much because:

1) I’ve been very busy with RL stuff. In addition to the day job, I’ve been working at least as many hours on a ‘side’ job, leaving very little time for much else. I haven’t even raided much recently.

2) As a raiding-focused DK, there just hasn’t been much new to write about for the remainder of the Lich King expansion.

But I’m Not Done Yet!

I may not write a whole lot until just before or even just after Cataclysm release, but I certainly plan to return to my ‘typical’ blogging ways when we have more to write about. I never got a beta invite, so I don’t have much pre-Cataclysm stuff to discuss, and even though I’m on PTR now, I’m still waiting for the dust to settle on the class before posting much.

So, what’s happening in the Hine camp now?

-Zombie Raiding. My guild, like most, is mostly going through the motions. When I’m able to make raids, we quickly bolt through Icecrown Heroic, kill Lich King on normal, do the weekly raid, VOA, and maybe a side raid or two. 2-3 nights later, there isn’t much going on. The raids are a jumble of joking, lack of focus, and general malaise. Many of my guildies are sleepwalking through the raids, and who can blame them. It’s time for something new and different, and the motivation to push Hard Mode Halion or LK just isn’t there. So, we’ll do what we can, raid, maybe do a little 10-man raids, and wait for Cata.

-Preparing Hine for the Change. No, not that change – she’s undead for goodness sake! I don’t think offspring were ever in her future anyway, but no, no worries about hot flashes for her!

I’m hoping to take a week off the week of release to try to level as quickly as possible. A server first Death Knight/Draeni would be lovely, but just the fun of immersing myself in the new content for a week will be worth it (as it was for LK release; I was the Alliance first DK, but one Hordie beat me to 80. Still, it was an amazing experience).

I’ll have a nice surplus of buff foods/flasks etc to max my leveling experience, and yes, I plan to level fully buffed as much as possible.

I’ve already dropped Blacksmithing (keeping JC) and leveled mining to 450. I’ll mine as I level and as much as possible the first couple weeks of the expansion. First priority will be to obtain enough materials to powerlevel my JC and BS professions to the new max level as quickly as possible, and secondly to make some extra gold for the expansion. I already have the materials set aside to level BS back to 450, so I’ll just need the new Cataclysm mats.

I’ll spend enough time on the PTR to be familiar with the new rotations and talents so that it won’t slow me down as I level in the ‘new’ ‘old’ Azeroth. Since I already have a 310% mount, all I’ll need to purchase will be the relatively inexpensive flying skill for Azeroth and I’ll be off! I’m already almost as ready as I can be, but I’ll do everything I can to be prepared.

Other than that, in my remaining time available, I’m just playing around. I’m very slowly leveling a mage, Hinetapeka, and my warlock (75) gets an occasional turn through a daily dungeon before going back in the garage.

I can’t wait for Cataclysm!

DKs in Cataclysm; First Look

The inevitable post about the first glimpses of DKs in Cata is here. :)

Meh.

I could leave it at that, but ok ok, let's rant discuss a little more, and damn those rogues for all the cool new shinies they'll be getting.
To see exactly what I'm referencing, you can read the posts about the changes at MMO-Champion.com.

First, the tank change.
I had a long discussion with a friend who really was disappointed with this decision. He really liked being able to tank in all three specs. I think Blizzard worked very hard and made tanks of all three flavors 'viable.' However, it became clear that of course DK theorycrafters would try to find the 'best' tank spec and unholy was not it. Blizz still managed to keep blood and frost somewhat decent, but overall, it was indeed annoying to be selecting a tank spec, working your way down to that juicy talent deep in a tree, and have to spend most of your points on dps abilities. And of course vice versa (speccing dps meant avoiding those 'useless' tanking talents in every tree). So all in all I'm in favor of the change. Blood does indeed have the most unique feel for tanking. If it's not going to be a shield based tank (and I really realllllllly hope they don't create a 'prot' DK talent permitting shields), then self-heals is a pretty cool mechanic. They can really devote the tree to providing some cool tanking talents, and maybe even a couple of different tanking approaches within the tree. Putting more tanking abilities in the tree may also mean that several of them get weaker, since having too many of them available would be overpowered.

Vengeance could be a decent way to handle increasing threat generation for tanks, compared to some of the clunky mechanics we have now.

Ok, what about the other changes?

Rune system changes: meh. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Yes, we have tended to be fairly gcd-bound, pressing keys constantly, so if this change allows us to function with similar mechanics yet be more 'choosy' about the when and where of using abilities, it could be a good thing. I'll reserve judgement.

Outbreak: I like it, but I don't think it offers much. It's kind of a glyph of disease but for openers. I guess it will be nice to be able to apply diseases a little quicker.

Necrotic Strike: Bleh. How is this different from Death Strike again? It's a hot instead of instant heal? I dunno, sounds really boring, and redundant.

Dark Simulacrum: half a thumb up? Could be kind of fun, depending on how it works. It's not clear from the description if the target has to be targetting you, or if the attack is wasted if the incoming spell isn't 'reflectable.' It does just sound like a weak spell reflection (since it doesn't cancel the incoming spell).

I do like change to passive bonuses in trees in general: speccing the majority of our points in a tree get us that 'tree buff,' so unholy and frost dks get damage buffs (this isn't new, but still worth mentioning). It rewards you for committing to the tree that suits your style the most.

It will be interesting to see what they do with presences.

All in all, though, most of this doesn't do much to excite me. I'm hopeful they come up with better as we prepare for the journey to level 85 and beyond.

Leveling your DK: 68-80

Yipeeeee!!! Level 68 gives you 'permission' to head to the fertile xp grounds of Northrend. Given the increased experience from questing and killing mobs, you'll hit 70 before you can say "Death Knights are OP!"

You won't get a lot of new abilities, but as you add talent points to your blood tree, you'll find it a breeze to solo your way to max level, or find a group of buddies and farm instances for the same.
So, congratulations! You've made it to Northrend!

Whether this is your first time here, or your 8th alt, take a few minutes to enjoy the scenery. Northrend has some truly incredible vistas to offer, from the soaring bluffs of Howling Fjord to the savage green wildlife in Sholezar Basin, to the rugged blue peaks of Icecrown. Enjoy!

Now, about getting that DK to 80......
;)

Leveling your DK: 60-68

So you've made it to Outlands! Welcome! The land of the Burning Crusade - home of lurid skies and lurid gear :)

Level 60 gives us an important tool for leveling: Death & Decay. Now we can really aoe! Combined with pestilence to spread your diseases, and blood boil, you can now do some serious damage to as many mobs as you can pull. Your leveling will never be the same. Read on, McDuff for more suggestions on burning your way to Northrend...

Leveling your DK: 55-60 & miscellaneous considerations

So, given several requests for information on leveling DKs, I'll accelerate my plans to blog this topic and get started.

First, my qualifications to give suggestions on leveling DKs:
1. I leveled a DK 55-80 on the beta, which is when I decided DKs were for me. I tried all three main talent trees as I went.