 I have posted the below on Elitist Jerks, which is the final version of the information structure I have been sharing for input (page 3). I’ve worked out what I’d like to put into the new EJ OP for DK tanks, and what I will exclude. I’m happy to take suggestions. I’ll start the new tank thread when the Beta changes have settled to a point where we can fruitfully write about raid tanking, which should be when we’re close September 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
 From: Death Knight tanking specifically |  Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, ej  Zao has done some testing on the blood parasites on beta. My impression is they’re very good, giving a group to nearby allies (ie. not party or raid, proximity-based like a Druid’s wild growth). He’s got some figures on their mechanics. Extract of Zao’s post, the rest is in his forum post. Since I was able to finally log on to the EU realms again, I could do some testing on the Blood Parasite on the heroic July 29th, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Mechanics and systems beta | Tags: blood parasite, Cataclysm speculation before Beta  I completed the Stonecore a few days ago in beta 16404. I did all four bosses, but accidentally only recorded FRAPS of the first three. This shows that I’ve improved my Beta tanking skills, helped along by the 16404 patch which made Morbidity accessible. Whilst we hear that Blizzard will be reducing the need for AOE tanking, I’m not seeing it. There are spawn waves on the first and fourth bosses of this instance. There is a gauntlet in Throne of Tides. There are large pulls regulalry. I’ve used cc on one mob on nearly every pull of three or more. I’m not seeing an implementation of the “less AOE” from a tanking perspective. However, from a DPS perspective, you can’t AOE these mobs. Their HP is too high. Some trash pulls in the current tuning take a minute or more to clear. They really take a while to kill. Whilst this is happening, the tank needs to hold AOE threat. The current beta for DKs lets us pick up Morbidity, which is required, but it’s still tough to hold threat on them all. That said, here is the video of DK tanking in Stonecore. I’ve edited them a bit more than usual, but haven’t shorted the boss fights even if they get a bit long. » continue reading July 27th, 2010 | 5 comments |
From: Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, instance, stonecore  Here’s some perspective on how large the Vashj’ir zone is. I have completed all the quests in the first sub-zone, Kelp Forest. I’ve previously written about my first impressions and how you get over there initially. The zone, like Mt Hyjal, is storylined in the new way that quests unfold in Cataclysm. You have breadcrumb quests which lead you to the next quest hub, who may have been phased-out before. You only have a few quests in your log July 27th, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Zones beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, Quests, vashj'ir  Images of what happens when you ding, with the new 31-point talent system, on a new DK. The new DK still feels pretty powerful, and the spells you gain at L56 are sensible. Currently I cannot complete the DK starter zone because the quest where you kill a fellow of the same race doesn’t have a goblin, so no quest giver lights up. » continue reading July 27th, 2010 | 2 comments |
From: Zones beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, goblin  GC has made a long post describing their design intent and current status of talent trees over here. He made a few follow-up posts too, so it’s worth looking over the whole thread with a bluetracker. In another thread, he posted that their is a design intent for Frost to be more proc-based and Unholy more predictable. I point out there’s no such preference in the general tank population and describe the rune-lockout we currently see on beta as July 26th, 2010 | 3 comments |
From: General beta chat | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, ghostcrawler Some thoughts on Beta tanking, which I originally posted in the official forums. Morkarion makes a good post earlier. I too am well aware it’s beta. No need for anyone to remind me that means there will be bugs and changes. I too am just stating the awkwardness of giving useful feedback, or performing focused tests, when it’s complicated by both bugs and AOE. That said… some recent thoughts on tanking as DK. BUGS I have trouble providing effective July 25th, 2010 | 3 comments |
From: General beta chat | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, talents  Two very short videos showing you how the runes recharge, are embedded below. You can see the lockouts. Runic Empowerment would help give you some randomly recharged runes if you get a rune strike and it procs the RE random chance. Beta 12604. Note in the video, at the beginning, I should say ‘outbreak’ but say something else. I’m not so comfortable with how it plays out for tanking. I regularly have rune blackouts, where I need to do an attack (usually an AOE situation) and simply have nothing I can do (other than blood tap or ERW). July 24th, 2010 | 13 comments |
From: DK talents - specs - glyphs - mastery - rune system and rotation | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, runes Insolence has documented the incoming changes, many for us DKs. General
Blood
July 23rd, 2010 | Visit our forum to comment |
From: DK talents - specs - glyphs - mastery - rune system and rotation | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta Thankfully, Blizzard are tuning up the mobs in Mt Hyjal. I commented on an earlier video that I “was cutting through these guys like butter, not even caring about health”. It was too easy. We also had a chat in the forums about how, worse, the named and elite mobs could be solo’d. You are supposed to use some kind of mechanism to kill them. Forgemaster Pyrendius, for example, is meant to be kited over ‘portal runes’ which I July 23rd, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Zones beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta  I have been trying to catch this bug on fraps too, but no luck. However, Raxxnamus has got it! This is another reason I have been having trouble tanking. Watch his death runes carefully. See how even when trying to use an ability, it doesn’t work, yet there are death runes ready and waiting. Update, I later got a video of a rune error at 0:56 in this video. July 22nd, 2010 | 4 comments |
From: Mechanics and systems beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, death runes Some of the things I do when testing. Thought I’d share this one. No major insights, just some documentation of a world of logs analysis I did of the damage from a blood tank. On live, here are my stats below the break. » continue reading July 22nd, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: DK talents - specs - glyphs - mastery - rune system and rotation | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta  I tanked Blackrock Caverns the other night. I had been in once before in Alpha. Didn’t get any further on this attempt; the second boss isn’t intuitive. That’s good. It’s nice to have a boss who you can’t just work out on-the-run. I had not watched any videos on strategy for her (I prefer to do that, so I can give more accurate testing feedback). I’m happy to only have people tell me what they know in party chat. July 20th, 2010 | 2 comments |
From: Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: beta, blackrock caverns, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, instance  I tanked all the bosses of Throne of Tides and have uploaded all the footage, including my many failures, onto YouTube. This was the first time I’d got past the trash in the initial corridor, since in Alpha that was about success as I could muster during the Australian timezone. Now with a larger beta test base, there are a lot of people running around from US EU and other regions too. I discovered, after recording this video, that July 20th, 2010 | 2 comments |
From: Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, throne of tides  Hi guys, back after two weeks’ off; a week’s holiday then a week working abroad. A lot happened during that time! Blizzard’s announcement of the revamp of the entire talent and ability system is quite something. I like a lot about it. Getting something cool for each ‘ding’ is a welcome change, Some people might complain about the loss of diversity in talents specs. Tanks, who used to have three talent trees to choose from, now have one. Within July 19th, 2010 | 5 comments |
From: DK talents - specs - glyphs - mastery - rune system and rotation, General beta chat | Tags: 31 points, beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, talents 1:20hr of footage, high-def, of Mt Hyjal, with my talking commentary the whole time. I’m on Gravity, transferred over, in both frost and unholy DPS specs. I swore a bit, and called a lot of mobs noobs, and ramble on a lot about the alpha and current beta. Details here. A playlist of the 10-part series is available at this link, over 1hr 20 minutes. Embedded below. » continue reading July 4th, 2010 | Visit our forum to comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, mt hyjal I’ve uploaded three videos of a Goblin Shaman in the Lost Isles, the second starter zone. Also the rest of the Goblin Rogue videos are up now, all in high-definition. Lastly I found Gamon in the new Orgrimmar, and said hello… put the video of that up too (embedded below). July 3rd, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Zones beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, gamon, goblin I have uploaded several videos of the Worgen hunter. One example is embedded here, showing the character screen. The others are listed on this forum post. They’re in HD. I also have footage of the animation changing from human to worgen, with the quest that grants the power. » continue reading July 2nd, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Zones beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, hunter, worgen 
You get to the zone in the very first place on a boat. You’re led to that boat by a quest giver who’s just standing at the front gate of Orgrimmar. Then, you watch an animation play out on the boat. It’s entertaining. Picture shows the guy you talk to for Vashj’ir. You’re then sunken, and begin the quests underwater to save your fellow travellers, and uncover the secret behind whoever attacked your ship. On this premade DK, I’d done a good number of starting quests during Alpha in Vashj’ir. The videos below are further into the zone. July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Zones beta | Tags: beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, Quests, vashj'ir  The choices for a new Goblin death knight. And a Worgen, which is broken right now. You can’t change skins on the DK Worgen  The beta server is up now, v12319. Items in beta have changed slightly from live, most notably so far is armour. Items with bonus armour get heavily reduced, whereas items without bonus armour (like my T10 legs) get a slight reduction. Also, of course, the defence stat doesn’t exist anymore because there is an uncrittable talent instead. Live Beta July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Mechanics and systems beta | Tags: armour, beta, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, stats  This sigil has stats. Not complicated fancy proc blah blah, just nice, easy-to-measure stats. I’m happy about this change, particularly getting stamina on the sigil. Quest reward from near completion of first zone, Mt Hyjal. This is an alpha image, so I don’t know what the stat values will be like on beta now. New sigil: Azralon's Twisted Rune July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: alpha, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, sigil, tank  The goblin starter area quests are absolutely awesome. Funny, enjoyable, loaded with goblin character. I laughed out loud a few times. All about making money. I regularly grinned with pleasure as I drove around a goblin hotrod (seriously) to pick up friends, or drive over the top of looters. » continue reading July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Zones beta | Tags: alpha, Cataclysm speculation before Beta, goblin, shaman, starter area  It’s really confusing at first. Everything has moved to some degree. Bank and auction house have moved, with central position now taken by Horde HQ (Garosh is in there if I remember right). Zeppelins now fly and take off from a plateau inside Org. » continue reading July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Zones beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, orgrimmar  A selection of the leather rewards from quests in Mt Hyjal, the new zone. This is from Alpha, so I haven’t checked yet if Blizzard have re-balanced the stats on these items. Maybe they’ll be less powerful in the beta, maybe not. » continue reading July 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment |
From: Cataclysm Beta, Quests, gear, levelling and instances beta | Tags: Cataclysm speculation before Beta, gear, levelling and instances beta, Quests |
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