PUG Fail

A week or so ago I got Hotplate up to 80. Since, I've been focusing on trying to get defense capped ( 540 +def) in order to start doing higher level regular dungeons, and some of the beginning heroics. Unfortunately defense capped != ready to tank.

Last night I queued up in LFG for the two starter heroics ( Utguarde Keep and Nexus) as tank/dps and also queued up for regular Trial of the Champion as a DPS. 10-15 mins later I got a whisper asking me to TANK Trial of the Champion, they said they just needed a tank. I said I'd give it a shot, hoping that their healer was up to the challenge of keeping a newb tank up. We got to the 3v5 fight, and got the Shaman, Rogue and Warrior. We did better than I expected, dropping the Shaman before I went down. Apparently the group had already wiped a few times, so they decided to reset and try for an easier group. That meant going through the jousting portion, which is the most boring part of the instance, and doesn't even drop loot. After resetting we ended up getting THE SAME three. We tried again, and wiped. At that point the group fizzled and I was left looking for another group.

About 10 more minutes later, I'm invited to tank Heroic: Ank'haet The Old Kingdom. For this I figured I would at least have a shot. I tanked Heroic Nexus a few days ago, and while I took quite a bit of damage, I finished it without too many wipes. After a long walk, I found that they were again, already halfway through the instance. I opted to accept being saved to the instance just to get the bad taste of ToC out of my mouth. On the first trash pull, I ask if everyone is ready. A few people said ready and I made the pull. Ten seconds later I was on the ground. Turns out the person that wasn't ready was... the healer. Another long walk, and an accidental aggro ( by said healer) and the group breaks up AGAIN. I'd like to say that I was upset that I was saved to a failed instance without even a single kill, but I wasn't. The night had gone so horribly wrong that it just seemed to fit.

The healer and a dps stayed in the group, and wanted to try to reform for another dungeon. I passed lead to the healer, mainly cause I was so sick of trying to find people. A well geared druid tank was found ( 37k health wow!), and I switched to DPS. Another two DPS were found, a hunter and another DK with much better gear. The run went smoothly enough after that, the DK was a bit trigger happy and died a lot. He had much higher dps than I did, at some points topping 3k to my 1.8k. But because he died so much, I was ahead in overall damage done. At the end I grabbed http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37167, even though they were plate. Slapped some cheapo +12str gems in them and logged off.

I'd like to think the failure was mostly due to my gear not being up to the job, but I'm sure that my complete ineptitude for popping cooldowns at appropriate times contributed to our failures.It feels like I'm behind the gear curve. There's that point where you have enough gear that you can get into the good instances, and acquire the better gear quite easily. It feels like I'm just behind that curve.

I think I have to rethink my strategy. I've been avoiding crafting the Titansteel epics to save money, thinking I should just be able to get some nice quick upgrades from ToC. Its much harder to get gear than I imagined. Its frustrating being on my healer and not being able to find a tank, then getting on my tank and not finding a healer. No wonder people dual-box!

I've started gathering the materials for a titansteel destroyer, mainly cause I can use it for both my DPS and Tanking sets ( Runeforging ftw). After that I will get a Tempered Titansteel Helm made, then maybe a Spiked Titansteel Helm made also. If i'm buying gear I might as well go full out.

DK Update ( level 77 )

Hotplate hit 77 this wekeend. A lot has happened to the intrepid Death

Knight in the past few days. When she hit 75 ( or was it 76? ) I got

her dual-spec to celebrate. Since then I have spruced up her tanking

gear and she now sits at 430 defense rating.

Tanking:

I spec'd her as Blood Tank. The biggest reason for this was the

similarity in spell rotation for Blood tanking as Blood DPS. The only

major difference I can see is that instead of favoring my Heart Strike

ability I now favor Death Strike ( to recoup some HP), that and hit

Blood Boil more for AOE threat.

My first tanking experience was Violet Hold. I went in at 75, with a

level 80 DPS and some other 76-78's. I might have lucked out because I

most just tank-n-spanked the bosses we got. I held aggro pretty well,

with just the level 80 pulling off me occasionally.

I also recently tanked a 4-man Amphitheatre of Anguish run, with 2

other level 80s and a 76-ish. That went well enough.

I haven't quite decided if Tanking or DPS will be the primary spec of

Hotplate. I already have a well geared Plate DPS character ( Hooff the

Ret Pally ), so having another Plate DPS wouldn't be that new. My only

tank is Waash, but he's stuck at 76 for the forseeable future.

If I do choose to primarily tank with Hotplate, I see myself getting

quite a bit of Titansteel tanking armor crafted. That should get me

most of the way there to be able to tank regular Trial of the Crusader

and with farming that ( and possibly other level 80 regular dungeons)

get me ready to tank Heroics. After that I'll be farming Heroic ToC

and whatever Heroics I can get into for Naxx-level gear.

After getting to that level gear, it's going to be heroic farming for

Tier 8 emblem gear. I would really love to start raiding again, but

that would require finding a guild that can raid during my

schedule. With paddling the way it is, I don't know how much free time

I will have.

Death Knight in Utgarde Keep

Last night I got a chance to run my DK ( Hotplate ) through Utgarde Keep regular. Instancing is quite a bit different than leveling and it took some adjustment.

Spec:

My current spec is actually a spec I googled. Its more of a leveling spec than a max-dps spec. It gives up some of the balls to the wall DPS talents for more health regeneration, for less downtime. In a dungeon, since you have a healer behind you, health regeneration is pretty low priority. I had to shift my rotation from favoring Death Strike, to favoring Heart Strike. Heart Strike is the DK cleave, does great DPS when you have Icy Touch and Plague Strike on the target. I did have to hit Death Strike a few times, mainly cause everything else was on CD.

My DPS was decent, at times topping 1k. For a level 72 ( ending 73 ) I think that's pretty good dps. I was #1 DPS, even out DPSing our 74 pally tank. The rest of the DPS was a 70 ret pally and a 72-ish Rogue, so I did have a bit of a level advantage.

So far I like Blood DPS, it gives a decently simple rotation, and good DPS. I would have liked to have tried Unholy, but it would feel a little too much like my Affliction lock, plus I've had enough of juggling DOTs.

I was thinking of dual-speccing and picking up a tanking off-spec. It would be nice to have another leveling toon that can tank, would certainly ease getting into groups. I guess I should do some more research on DK tanking. I wonder how close to the defense cap I need to get to do regular dungeons?