1) Hold off on that AOE for just a second if you would. Death and Decay is less like a Thunder Clap and more like a Consecration: a pulsing mass of energy on the ground that steadily builds threat. It is not a huge spike of threat, and it will not build threat if an enemy dashes into it and you immediately shoot them, causing them to run back out. Sure, its puny-looking damage is amplified by our talents and AP and whatnot (plus diseases, for Unholy DKs with Ebon Plaguebringer), and it has an enormous threat component when combined with Frost Presence (something ludicrous like 250 Threat per point of damage), but here’s the part a lot of AOE happy boomkeks and volley launchers don’t seem to get: it isn’t going to build any threat if you don’t for Heaven’s sake let me hit it first. Let me put down my D&D and spread my diseases - my other quick method of building constantly ticking threat, and you’ll know when it’s down because you’ll see black lines briefly connect through all the trash - and look at Omen, and then go ahead and unleash your great thundercloud of lightning-y doom.

One thing a lot of people are not aware of is that most of the DK specs are relying entirely on D&D for AOE threat. Unholy tanks used to be able to count on Unholy Blight as well, but our giant cloud of buzzy fleas is now simply a DOT applied when we cast Death Coil. Frost tanks can use Howling Blast, but that’s got its own cooldown on top of our normal rune cooldown; they’ve probably got it easiest. Blood tanks are a lot like warriors using Cleave, only they can’t add an extra target via glyphs - Blood AOE consists of tab, Heart Strike, tab, Heart Strike, tab, Heart Strike. It’s kind of hectic.

In short: if I see one more hunter target an enemy on the other side of D&D and expect a simple run through the red glowy circle to out-threat their shots, or a druid who pops a thundercloud before Death and Decay has ticked once, and then bitches at me because they’re getting their face beaten in, I am going to scream. No lie.

2) If we are silenced, please dispel it. This is something a lot of DKs are not aware of, as well as a lot of people around them - hell, I didn’t figure it out until I started tanking. If we are fighting a mob who is capable of silencing us, and you notice we’re silenced, please do something to get rid of it if we can’t do it ourselves. When silenced, we lose access to:

• Icy Touch

• Howling Blast

• Death Coil

• Death and Decay

• Dark Command

• Blood Boil

• Pestilence

• Icebound Fortitude

• Bone Shield

• Death Grip

• possibly Strangulate

• possibly Mind Freeze

• Anti-Magic Shield

• Anti-Magic Zone

• possibly Rune Tap

• Hungering Cold

• possible Vampiric Blood

The list goes on and on. Essentially any spell-like ability is affected by silence. In short, if a DK is silenced, our list of threat and survivability tools is reduced to Plague Strike, Scourge Strike (unholy only), Blood Strike, Frost Strike (frost only), Obliterate, Death Strike, and Heart Strike (blood only). We lose the ability to lay down an AOE (any of them at all), we lose the ability to taunt, and we lose our biggest source of magical protection and free runic power.

So please, if you see your DK tank get silenced, and it’s a kind of silence you can dispel, please do!

(P.S. Casters with silence and hunters with silencing shot, if you really want to shut a death knight down in PvP, I guess now you know what to do.)

There seems to be a new trend in instances these days: more, quicker, faster, get in - get the loot and badges - get out. Take the money and run, as it were. Now, I like the loot from ToC and Ulduar as much as anyone else, but I can’t help but shake the feeling that the instances and raids are losing their, for lack of a better term, place-ness. It’s a hard concept to explain; the best I can do is contrast instances that feel like places to exist or be, versus straight lines full of target dummies and loot.

In case you haven’t been over to check out The Big Bear Butt’s post from today, I’ll post a little about this here myself.

One of our near and dear Devils, Julie, has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and is due to start treatment on November 9th. We’re hoping to show our love and support for Julie, and have put together Raid for the Cure, a cross-factional event taking places on the Kael’thas (US) server.

What is it? An event for both the Alliance and Horde, a cross-factional march to show support for someone going through a trying time and to encourage donations to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity, so that maybe someday events like this won’t ever have to take place. Pink Mageweave Shirts will be provided for walkers of both sides, and we’ll have some representatives from Sidhe Devils on hand to ensure the walk goes smoothly (i.e. security detail).

This is not a race, despite the pic above. It’s more about solidarity for a cause.

When and where is it? The event will be held on Saturday, November 14th, at 2PM Central Time (Kael’thas’s server time). Participants for the Alliance side will start in Shadowglen near Darnassus, participants for the Horde in Camp Narache in Mulgore. Members of Sidhe Devils will be available to both factions to hand out Pink Mageweave Shirts to those who’re showing up from other servers to participate.

How do I participate?

1. The most obvious way, of course, is the march. Both sides will work their way towards Crossroads, meet up and head for Ratchet, take the boat to Booty Bay, and boogie down with the pirates in a giant sea of pink shirt and dress-sporting toons. Afterwards there will be a drawing (offline) for…

2. … the raffle! In order to raise money for breast cancer research, we’re holding a raffle. Various prizes will be coming from the WoW community, with the grand prize being a guest spot on the “Sidhe Devils Gone Wild” podcast. If you want to enter the raffle, it’s simple enough: go to the Raid for the Cure website (set up by Sidhe Devils for donations, but administered by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and make a donation using a valid email address. Afterwards, email a copy of your receipt to tigerlordgm AT yahoo DOT com with the words Raid for the Cure Raffle Entry in the subject line. That’s all it takes - you’ve donated to a fantastic cause, and entered yourself in the drawing for fantastic prizes. One entry per person, no minimum donation necessary. Even if you can’t make it to the march, we encourage you to donate to this great organization.

BBB has a lot more details on his blog, including exactly when and where people should meet up for the run.

See you there!

I’ve seen a lot of people talking jousting lately - people who are just now getting to the tournament level, people who’ve hated jousting all along, people who actually refuse to do Trial of the Champion because it involves a short joust at the beginning… and realized a lot of the frustration stems from the fact that the instructions you get on how to joust aren’t really all that great. Stationary targets are fine and all, but what about when the target fights back? And moves?

This is a short example video of how I joust. It may not be the greatest demonstration in the world, but it should give you an idea what I do. Barring the few times I’ve mysteriously gotten 2500ms+ ping, or down in Icecrown when I accidentally tagged 3 Commanders at once (ouch…), I boast a 100% success rate.

Jousting? Yeah, I got that.

I’ll add this note for Nibuca’s sake: a few people have told me they don’t “get” strafing. It’s also probably true that what I do isn’t strictly strafing - it’s a combination of strafing and mouse movement. Anyhow, for those of you who still have your movement bound to the default keys, Q strafes left and E strafes right - moving you left and right without actually turning. It’s great for getting at range from someone.

For those of you using the n52 or n52te, with movement bound to either the keys or the joystick, you can simulate the leftward movement I do in the beginning of the video by moving the joystick/keys left while mouse-moving to the right - it ends up with a pseudo-strafe rotation that still leaves you facing your opponent (even if it doesn’t look like you are). The right movement is exactly the reverse - joystick/keys right, mouse move left.

Of Old Ironforge, also known as the Hall of Thanes or Assembly of Thanes, the Warcraft RPG lorebooks say:

The Hall of Thanes is a massive, natural cavern complex. It is located in Ironforge’s lowest depths. The area is a true marvel of organic stone formation: no dwarf has touched this area with pick or chisel. Ironforge’s kings are buried in the Hall of Thanes, and the old throne is here as well. Also within this cavernous area is the ancient, weathered Iron Forge — perhaps the greatest titan artifact ever unearthed. The dwarves do not use this holy anvil, but keep it near their honored dead and the seat of their power. Brann Bronzebeard believes that as dwarves uncover more truths about their ancestry, they will find greater uses for the Iron Forge. He believes the titans must have given it to them for a reason.

It does exist in modern-day WoW, behind an inaccessible door in Magni’s room - there’s a few ways to get into it, and in the 3.1 PTR it was in fact an openable door (though still blocked by an invisible wall).

However, I’ve never been one to let silly things like walls or door stop me.

Not a lot to look at right now - a long hallway running from the High Seat down to a vast flat stone area (that’s screenshots 1 and 2), then a little winding path that goes under the first area and deadends at two doors that don’t go anywhere. (Oh, and lava. Lots of lava.)

If you liked this little exploration of closed areas, you might want to check out my look at the Farm at the End of the World, and perhaps in a few days I’ll post another good look at the Ironforge Airport. After all, who knows if it’ll still be up there, come Cataclysm?

1) Saw Ony, finally. No one got breathed on, and I got a thing or two.

2) Got other upgrades, mostly from badges and ToC and suchlike. Is all good, but paying for enchants and gems is getting old.

3) Got Kallech ready to run Sunken Temple, then do one last leveling sprint in vanilla.

4) Grinded pirates for 4 or 5 hours. Noticeable progress made!

5) Completely invalidated all my numbers on pirates (some of which were wrong anyway due to a miscalculation about when the rep stopped - right BEFORE revered, not just AFTER revered) by changing Rajaat to a human for the duration of the rest of Insane in the Membrane. Bleh. Not super-happy about it, as humans in WoW are kind of… well, bland… but I think I’ll get more mileage out of Every Man for Himself and the expertise racials (and, of course, Diplomacy). I dunno. We’ll see if I stay that way or not - maybe being human will grow on me.

After talking to Ratshag, by which I mean mostly talking at Ratshag while he ignored my mathspeaks and did things that were actually interesting, I believe I have a plan now: Operation Grind Pirates ‘til My Eyes Bleed.

• Currently my reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel is as follows:

  • Ratchet: 9138/36000 Hated

  • Gadgetzan: 8578/36000 Hated

  • Everlook: 8055/36000 Hated

  • Booty Bay: 8055/36000 Hated

• I’m totally a popular guy. So here’s the facts. For the first part of the reputation grinds:

  • I’m not grinding Knot Thimblejack runs. I may regret it later, but I need to be able to set foot in goblin towns, and honestly - doing speed runs through DM to kill just the bosses to get Gordok Shackle Keys is not getting me any more librams than just wandering in and slaughtering everything willy-nilly - in fact, it’s getting me less.

  • Killing pirates outside Ratchet nets me approximately 6000 rep per hour with Ratchet, because I can do it at top speed. Also, Baron Longshore is kind enough to simply count as 5 pirates. They also stop giving rep once I hit Revered with Ratchet. Keeping that in mind, I’m looking at having to kill approximately 10,771 Southsea Freebooters outside Ratchet, which will consume nearly 9 hours of my life.

  • Since these pirates also yield 2.5 reputation with the other 3 Steamwheedle factions when killed, I’ll gain approximately 26,926 rep with the other 3 as well.

• So after finishing up Ratchet, where does that leave us, approximately?

  • Ratchet: 3/21000 Revered

  • Gadgetzan: 35504/36000 Hated

  • Everlook: 34981/36000 Hated

  • Booty Bay: 34981/36000 Hated

• Well, uh, almost 1/4 of the way there!

  • Now it’s off to Gadgetzan. Here, killing the Southsea Pirates again nets me 5 rep a pirate until revered; again, Andre Firebeard is nice enough to count as 5 pirates. If I get bored I can go kill Wastewander Bandits, but unless there’s something I’m forgetting, they’re actually more spread out and would slow down my rep gain in Tanaris (3000/hr max) even more. Plus, Caliph Scorpidsting only counts as 3 pirates. Borrrrring (comparatively). Southsea it is.

  • Once again, we kill pirates! Luckily, it’s a lot fewer pirates to get to revered with Gadgetzan, thanks to all that grinding in Tanaris. I have to kill exactly 5500 pirates in Tanaris - approximately 10 hours. This tips me over into Revered with Gadgetzan, and adds another heap of rep to the other 3.

• How much, approximately?

  • Ratchet: 13,753/21000 Revered

  • Gadgetzan: 4/21000 Revered

  • Everlook: 3731/6000 Friendly

  • Booty Bay: 3731/6000 Friendly

• Well, not bad. Ratchet is well on its way. If I killed another 2900 pirates in Tanaris (and really, after I’ve killed five and a half thousand, what’s another 2900?), that’d finish off Ratchet - netting me 7,248 rep with the three non-Gadgetzan cities (roughly 2 and a half, maybe 3 hours). Now, approximately:

  • Ratchet: 1/999 Exalted

  • Gadgetzan: 4/21000 Revered

  • Everlook: 4979/12000 Honored

  • Booty Bay: 4979/12000 Honored

• At this point, I have two choices: go back to doing Knot Thimblejack runs, or go back to Ratchet and grind their super-fast pirate rep grind until Everlook and Booty Bay ding exalted. I think I know which one I’m going to pick, don’t you? That’s 28,022 rep (roughly), or another 10 hours, or, in pirates, 11209 pirates. Putting me at:

  • Ratchet: 1/999 Exalted

  • Gadgetzan: 999/1000 Exalted

  • Everlook: 1/999 Exalted

  • Booty Bay: 1/999 Exalted

Oh, and then I still have to get exalted with Shen’dralar, exalted with Ravenholdt, and exalted with Darkmoon Faire.

Total Body Count: 30,380 pirates
Total Time Spent Just On Steamwheedle Reputation: 43-44 hours

Spot the madman!

One of the more interesting parts of WoW tooltips, in my opinion, is flavor text. It’s not found on many items, but that yellow text occasionally gives me a little chuckle. Plus, the developers are known for putting yellow flavor text on spells, as well, especially spells that players will never see. Some examples of my favorites:

• The Fist of Subtlety from a quest in Zul’drak, which simply reads: “Not at all.” I confess to laughing way too long upon reading this one, and wishing I had a class that could use fist weapons.

• Extinguish All Life, Yogg-Saron’s enrage timer. At 15 minutes, he simply wipes the raid. Not fair at all. However, it does do almost exactly what it says: “Extinguishes all life. Kaput.”

• However, Yoggy pales in comparison to Archimonde, who - if he can’t reach anybody to smack them around - starts giving everyone the finger. Specifically, the Finger of Death, which (in addition to being a nod to D&D) “strikes an enemy with the finger of death, inflicting 20000 shadow damage upon them, their children, and their children’s children.”

Those are just a few of my favorite examples - what’re yours?

So last night, I did something I hadn’t done in a while: I logged onto an alt I hadn’t played in close to two years, and I genuinely enjoyed it. However, unlike Bell, who is flailing about as a hunter, my alt in question is my long-abandoned shaman, Kallech, who isn’t even at 80. My first alt upon my return to WoW (and have I ever posted about the first time? I was a druid, believe it or not), Kallech got dropped sometime around the time when my cousins lost interest in WoW and therefore I knew no one Alliance-side to play with. He moved around a little bit - I moved him to Silver Hand once, even, because I knew a person or two there.

So why did I revive Kallech? It’s hard to say. I’ve been taking a greater interest in my alts lately, mostly out of a desire to try different things. After all, prior to my DK, I only really had one other main - my warlock - and so there’s a lot of things I haven’t done. I’ve never leveled a healer past the 40s, for instance! Kallech is proving to be fun, too. Just for fun, I bought a mix of greens and blues off the AH and talented him up as elemental. Why? Mercurial whims - I woke up yesterday and was, for no apparent reason, really jazzed to play an elemental shaman. Turns out the late 40s is as good a time as any to do this.

After wandering over to Ironforge to get my Totem of the Earthen Ring, and equipping my newer bigger bags and my new shiny horribly mismatched greens and blues (I’m practicing my Outland clown suit look, if anyone asks), I then took the annoying trip to the Exodar. I hopped on my slow elekk, wandered down to the tram, took the tram to Stormwind, took the boat to Darnassus, got on the boat to the Exodar, and almost made it all the way to the Exodar without anyone pointing out that I could get my fast mount at 40, what a nub.

Sigh.

So after getting equipped with fast mount, then helping some lowbies stop the horseman in Azure Watch (fun fact: it is nigh impossible to see the fire in some places in there), I went back to the Hinterlands and pew pew’d my way through wolves, trolls, slimes, and what have you. Yay!

In 3 more days I’ll be the Champion of Ironforge, which will in turn bring me all the way up to Crusader level. I believe my first purchase will be a vest and those goofy-ass elemental shoulders, and maybe even one of the weapons. (I have a lot of champion’s seals.)

Alternately? I may just buy the two heirlooms, and a pony, since Ghostcrawler finally gave us that pony he promised.

All the wimmens and all you other flubbernuggers too:

Now I thinks I know how Linedan What Takes Good Facepunches was feelin’ back when I said I was quittin’ the first time around. As of this mornin’, ol’ Ratshag’s gone a-fishin’. No, Mr. Shag: not bad fer a humble orc from Durotar. Not bad at all.

So raise yer glasses, those of you what’s drinkin’ this hour of the mornin’, and pour a little out on the ground fer an avatar of virility what once roamed this here interwebs. We’ll miss ya, Ratters.

Then drink the rest. What? We ain’t wastin’ good beer, ya glubbermunghin’ morons!

TO RATSHAG!