Raiding Excitement – Not as Anticipated

Last week was full of raiding excitement!

Just not on Arioch.

Log in Tuesday and mill about Org, waiting for an invite.

(Actually, I stood around and made cloth bolts, Arioch isn’t a scribe. OK, bad joke is bad.)

The roster looks a little thin… only a handful of people are on.

Word finally comes down that it’s postponed to Wednesday.

No problem, just level that pally up to 79.

Log on Wednesday.

Again with the waiting.

Postponed until Friday.

No problem, just crush out some dailies.

And then Tir looks at me and says they need a 10^th for an alt DS run.

Honey, I Shrunk the DKs!

Has any one else noticed that their DKs, which have always been sized oddly on the character selection screen, are now minuscule?

I present the before and after 5.0.4 screen shots of my DKs:

Kaayn:

The cat is out of the bag!

So quite some time ago, I made mention of a super secret DK project.

I never did come up with a cool code name for it.

Anyway, the secret DK had clawed his way up to level 82 in (mostly) secrecy. (Zar knew I was there.)

And then…

Life blew up with work and toddlers and other raids and kittens and rainbows (surprising amount of rainbows in D3).

The secret DK project got left behind as I moved over to a new DK for yet another not-quite-so-secret DK project.

But a chat with Zar reminded me of the languishing first DK (which is really my second DK, or third if you count that one over there… why do I keep making DKs?) and I decided to make the push to carry out my secret mission prior to MoP.

Cue Ominous Clouds

And some dramatic music…

Who is this masked man?

Because I said I would

So sorry about the lack of posts. Lately I’ve had the choice to either play WoW or write about WoW… playing won out.

I’m having a blast on my little secret project DK, with most dungeon runs being civil and smooth.

Most.

Then I get this gem of a tank.

He’s not a bad player, per se. (And I say “he” as he was claiming to have an enormous and magnificent dick.)

OK, he was bad.

Level 79 and direct queued for Drak”tharon Keep. Apparently he had been in the instance before, but after the first boss was dead and was attempting to get the achievement for completing the dungeon before hitting level 80.

Of Deserter Debuffs

More crazy adventures of my top-secret DK!

One of my earlier runs was in Ramps.

OK, MANY of the earlier runs were Ramps, I thought that’s all I was going to get until I was eligible for Utgarde and then maybe Stonecore for all of eternity after that.

Ramps is generally a well-designed dungeon.

It’s short, has easy access back to the quest givers once the dungeon is completed, there aren’t an insane amount of trash pulls, the pulls require a little care for an undergeared or underskilled group, and it’s fairly linear.

The only big problem that Ramps has is the first patrol.

If you zone in and a party member takes 4 steps forward to be in range of the quest giver, they are now in range of the patrol at the end of his path. And he pulls the first two guards with him.

All hell breaks loose which sucks when your tank hasn’t loaded or the healer is still in their DPS spec.

Button Pounding DK Scrub

Good band name?

We’ll get back to the regularly scheduled 20 days of WoW Blogging after I do some blogging about WoW.

Ironic, no?

Anyway, I have a feeling that my secret-DK project (which really needs a cool code name) is going to be ripe for the blogger fodder.

Got Slave Pens.

Again.

There is a disease running rampant through the group. One that saps 25 strength. That’s more strength than I have on most of my gear pieces, I could just run around without my pants for less effect. And when your party is all melee, it starts to take a bit longer to kill things.

And next up

we have Kaayn!

So with Cruorem’s banner I was just playing and went, “hey, I should slap a character on this!”

With Kaayn’s I had a little more forethought and planning involved.

He’s currently specced unholy.

I have a frost spec that I’m even worse at, if that’s possible.

I *really*miss the days of blood DPS.

But since those personal glory days of blood are gone, I wanted to showcase his unholy side with a dash of the frosty.

Out of my league

I’m sort of bad at melee DPS.

As a result, I often begin leveling melee toons (think I’m on my 6th warrior) and about the time things get complicated (fighting in a party, so level 15 or so) I tend to lose interest and wander away.

This is how my DKs end up as gathering toons. I’m relatively safe in plate zipping about, picking flowers, and hitting rocks.

But we’re at a situation in the guild where it would be awfully handy for me to have a third character to raid on when a warm body is needed and they’ve managed to get both my mage and priest saved to the same Firelands raid.

A normal BoT was being run.

They needed a warm body.

My DK is level 85.

He’s also ilevel 301.

The Lich King is talking to me!

The Lich King is talking to me!

I expect at least one other person is hearing Dennis Leary say that line.

Kaayn finally got to run a 10 man ICC and listen to the tempting whispers of the Lich King.

I really think what with this being an RPG and all we should have an option to rejoin Arthas.

I also think we should have that option in the DK starting area. I want to turn XP off and just slaughter innocent peasants for a few hours.

It feels good to laugh that much.

Anywho, before I get carted off as a blood thirsty loony…