srsbusiness

Welcome to my guide to the Shadowmourne quest chain. We will begin with an overview of the entire quest chain along with the relevant rewards. Afterward I will talk about each step in the chain, as well as how best to accomplish these tasks as quickly as possible.

The Quest for Shadowmourne
+ 1. The Sacred and the Corrupt
+ 2. Shadow’s Edge [ Reward: Shadow's Edge ]
+ 3. A Feast of Souls
+ 4. Unholy Infusion
+ 5. Blood Infusion
+ 6. Frost Infusion
+ 7. The Splintered Throne
+ 8. Shadowmourne! [ Reward: Shadowmourne ]
+ 9. The Lich King’s Last Stand

The Extras
On April 05, 2010 it was confirmed that a new item was dropping from the Lich King when one of the attending raiders has Shadowmourne equipped. The item [ Sealed Chest ] when taken to Highlord Darion Mograine is opened, and the player receives five quest items, each item when turned into their respective quest NPC rewards the player with a cosmetic item.

The Rewards:
+ Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger
+ Muradin’s Favor
+ Jaina’s Locket
+ Tabard of the Lightbringer
+ Sylvanas’ Music Box

Step 1. The Sacred and the Corrupt
The first objective when working on this thing is to reach Friendly with the Ashen Verdict. At which point you can go just inside Icecrown Citadel, and speak to the appropriate NPC to claim your ring. You may also notice a blue ! off to the left, over the head of Highlord Darion Mograine. Speak to him and accept the quest The Sacred and the Corrupt.

From here, you begin collecting the first pieces necessary to craft Shadow’s Edge, the epic weapon that forms the base of Shadowmourne.

This is the cave where Arthas infamously throws down his mace and took up the cursed blade Frostmourne at the end of the human campaign in Warcraft III. You will see the mace laying in the snow with light surrounding it, when you move to take it the Lich King will appear, and freeze you and throw his mace across the cave.

After a brief scripted encounter with Arthas, a massive horde of level 80 Ghouls will spawn all over the cave, and an elite will spawn on the mound in the middle where the mace once was…

Clear your way through the ghouls to the mace’s new location, once there the mace will fly above your head and begin nuking everything undead in the cave.

Once all are dead, the Vyrkul will respawn and you must fight him. He doesn’t hit hard at all, but he’s got a lot of HP.

Once you’ve killed the Vyrkul claim your new quest item Light’s Vengeance (can’t equip the mace QQ) and begin collecting the rest of the pieces.

Primordial Saronite can be collected several ways: buy them on the AH (or from other players), get these from running Icecrown Citadel, or turn in Emblems of Frost for them (23 Emblems per Saronite). You may get the nod from your guild to keep all of the Primordials until you finish this part of the chain, if you’re not so lucky then you’ll have to decide between new armor/gear or Primordials for your quest.

Finishing the Sacred and the Corrupt
With the opening of the Plagueworks it’s now possible to finish this part of the quest chain, obtaining your bloods is quite simple: kill Rotface and Festergut in 25 man ICC. The bloods are a 100% drop rate, and can only be looted by someone who has the quest.

Killing the Abominations

After you killing the pair of Aboms take the portal back to the entrance and go to the runeforge next to Highlord Darion Mograine on the left (as you enter the instance). Darion will show up, there’s more lightning, smoke, and fire thrown around than at a KISS concert… slowly a form appears hovering in the air between you and Darion, which becomes: Shadow’s Edge.

Step 2. Shadow’s Edge
At this point, Darion gets a quest icon over his head and it’s time to accept the quest Shadow’s Edge, he tries to talk you out of taking the weapon (for fear of your immortal soul). Of course you accept, and claim your new axe.

Step 3. A Feast of Souls
Now we begin the quest in earnest. Feast of Souls requires you to kill 1000 of the Lich Kings minions in ICC 10 or 25. Originally, it was thought these had to be undead, but not so. First, summoned adds count, such as those lovely Essences called by the Harbingers in Plague. Also, the opposite faction NPCs on the ledge before the Gunship count, as well as all of the adds on the opposing gunship. Even the zombies summoned by Precious count. After doing a run through 10m to Putricide, I found that there were about 200 kills that gave credit. So, don’t sweat this one too much. Tuesday when everything opens up again, you can even do a few rep runs before raids to bump it up (and hopefully) finish it off, before you hit the instance for real.

Note: I’ve been informed that several of the mobs that counted when I did this have been hotfixed, and no longer give credit for this quest. This still should not prove to be much of an issue as the entire instance is now available, along with a ton of mobs that definitely DO count. And if you can’t get far enough into the instance to kill these… you’re not likely to finish anyways.

Step 4. Unholy Infusion

Step four brings us to the infusions, these are likely to be the most challenging part of your quest. Before we get into the infusion quests, it’s recommended that you run these encounters in ten man first to become accustomed to the fight mechanics of each encounter. This is particularly important on the Unholy Infusion portion, as this is essentially a vehicle gimmick that takes a little getting used to, and you probably don’t want to bone it for twenty five people (if you can avoid it).

As the quester you will be on Abomination duty, that means that as the tank runs in you will go and click the alchemy table just behind the Professor (Note: you will see “Drink Me” in the tooltip when hovering over the appropriate area). Your primary job during the course of this fight is to “Eat Slime” and slow Oozes.

The slimes are the green puddles that spawn at random on the floor, two spawn at a time. As you eat these, the slime pools get smaller and eventually disappear. If you do not eat them, they continue to get larger until the entire room is covered in slime (the slime does periodic damage to anyone standing in it). Additionally, you gain 4 energy each time you use the Eat Ooze ability on the slime pools. This is vital, as the energy is used to activate your other abilities. Your first priority here should be to eat the first pool immediately, afterward you can eat the second slime a little at a time till it’s small enough that one more little drink will cause the pool to disappear, wait a few seconds and the pool will increase in size slightly. When the pool grows, you can take another little drink by doing this you’ll ensure that you can maintain maximum energy which will be very important once you’re ready to use Shadow Infusion. Otherwise, it’s also a good idea to maximize your energy so as to be ready in case of a bad transition, in which you have to slow the Ooze twice.

The Oozes, there are two. The Orange and the Green. As the Abomination, it’s your job to ensure both of these are slowed to ensure people don’t get hit (and die) this is where Regurgitated Ooze comes in.

So, when should you use Shadow Infusion? Putricide has an enrage timer, keep tabs on this. The buff you receive from Infusing the axe lasts for 6 minutes, so if you wait until there is six minutes or less on the enrage timer you’ll be fine. The exception to this would be with high DPS groups, if DPS is that high then be sure to get the infusion off before Phase 3 or you will miss your opportunity for and will either have to wipe it or wait another week. The other consideration for the imbue is this: only imbue when a Green Ooze is about to spawn, when the green spawns it pauses momentarily before picking a target and moving. This gives you a little bit of a breather before you absolutely have to slow.

Note: All infusion quests require that you survive until the boss dies, if you die you lose your buff and will either have to wipe or wait a week to complete that step in the chain.

Mutated Abomination Abilities
1. Eat Ooze [ 40 yd range ] – Eats nearby Mutated Slime decreasing the size of the pool, giving you 4 Ooze energy! Instant
2. Regurgitated Ooze [ 50 yd range ] – The Regurgitated Ooze has a surprising effect on the target, slowing its movement speed by 50% and dealing 6,338 to 6,662 damage every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. Instant
3. Mutated Slash [ Melee Range ] – Inflicts 100% weapon damage instantly!
4. Shadow Infusion [ Must be standing in Mutated Slime ] – Siphons malignant Ooze to infuse Shadow’s Edge with Unholy power.

Note: Abilities are listed in the order they appear on the action bar (1, 2, 3, 4).

Step 4. Blood Infusion

Note: For this fight you will probably want to DPS, it is possible to finish the quest as an Off Tank however, it needlessly complicates the encounter. For this quest you will need to be hit with the Blood Mirror debuff, then bite three separate people without succumbing to Uncontrollable Frenzy. Below I’ll cover each of the abilities you need to be aware of for the quest.

Abilities of Interest
+ Blood Mirror You gain this debuff by standing in front of the Blood Queen when she’s in combat, this debuff is normally taken by the off tank during the course of the fight. This debuff turns into Gushing Wound (more info below) and you need to get this debuff before biting anyone.
+ Gushing Wound This debuff stacks three times (the stacks increase every time you bite someone, the third bite infuses Shadow’s Edge) and deals periodic damage to the quester during the encounter. Over the course of the Blood Queen fight you will take 200-300K damage from this buff. However once you have the Essence of the Blood Queen buff you’ll be healing any damage that you take from the debuff (provided you are actually doing damage). This means heals will need to keep an eye on you only during air phase, or when you move to bite someone.
+ Essence of the Blood Queen Since you need to bite three people you need to be bitten either first or second. The buff increases your damage and makes you heal yourself every time you deal damage.
+ Vampiric Bite Sixty seconds after getting the Essence of the Blood Queen you will have the ability to use this ability on another player, you need to do this three times for the quest. You need to be very close to your target, my advice target them and get inside their hitbox (the circle on the ground at their feet). When next bites announced, I also recommend focusing your target to allow for quick switching/biting. You’ll also obviously want to start figuring out where your intended target actually is at this time. Remember, the most important thing is to bite someone, so if your target is not safely reachable it’s more important you bite anyone (even a healer) to avoid Uncontrollable Frenzy.
+ Uncontrollable Frenzy You lose control of your character and start attacking the raid. This usually results in a wipe, but even if you managed to fulfill all other conditions of the quest and were MCd by this ability and STILL managed to kill BQ, it will not complete your quest.

The fight is a DPS race, there’s a bit of movement and certainly a heavy RNG element to it (I got the flames twice in a row when I completed the quest) but the main thing to understand is the abilities listed above. Health Pots/Healthstones are advisable to keep you alive when chasing down a bite or during the air phase, similarly do NOT forget your defensive cooldowns. Death Knights especially have no excuse for not using Icebound Fortitude, Anti Magic Shell, etc during the air phase to keep themselves alive.

Step 6. Frost Infusion

This is the final infusion quest, Sindragosa is a tough fight thankfully this quest is relatively straight forward. You need to be hit by Sindragosa’s Frost Breath attack four times, after which you receive a buff called Frost-Imbued Blade. You’ll have six minutes from the time of receiving the Frost-Imbued Blade buff to kill Sindragosa or the buff falls off and you have to start taking Breaths again.

For a tank, this proves to be much simpler than it does for DPS. I don’t really have to do anything different than what I normally do on this fight. For DPS however, there are some concerns.

First, her breath does do a significant amount of damage. It’s possible you may want to get a little bit of resist gear for the fight (I wouldn’t go overboard though) the helm from Onyxia 25 is a good option, as well as the tanking rings (if you can snag them) similarly be sure to get any enchants (such as the FR/Sta Helm enchant from Sons of Hodir). You’ll need to keep up with the timing on the thing, I would say probably run in and get a breath attack early then run out to DPS for a while, then go back in periodically. Be sure to coordinate with your healers to ensure you stay alive through the breaths. Staggering breaths this way should keep you from running the healers OOM as well as ensuring you’re doing some damage to the boss. Congratulations, time to grind again!

Step 7. The Splintered Throne
It’s time to start farming shards. This quest is very straight forward, much like a Feast of Souls it’s all about grinding. This time however, we’re grinding bosses in Icecrown Citadel. Every boss has a chance to drop a Shadowfrost Shard (25%-50% on normal bosses, 51%-100% on hard mode bosses according to wowarmory.com) You will need to collect fifty shards before turning in this quest and claiming…

Step 8. Shadowmourne!
Time to harvest the fruits of your labor, bring your Shadow’s Edge to Darion in exchange for Shadowmourne!

Step 9. The Lich King’s Last Stand
Though the quest for the legendary is complete, there is still one quest in this chain remaining. Simply put, kill the Lich King and claim a gold reward.

Additionally, killing the Lich King while a raid member has Shadowmourne equipped results in a 100% drop quest item, that turns into 5 quests with vanity rewards.

Thank you for reading, hopefully this guide has proven helpful. And congratulations to all of those who’ve gotten their legendary axes.

For more, you can also visit the official page on the Blizzard website found at the following link

For comments, corrections, or additions please reply below…

Basic Training
Welcome to the srsbusiness guide to Death Knight tanking. As tanks, our job is to piss things off and live to talk about it. But if you’ve come here, you already know that. I’ve compiled the information in this guide to give beginners and veterans alike a source for meaningful information and analysis pertaining to the intricacies of our job.

Acknowledgments
This guide would not be possible without the work of other like-minded enthusiasts, for their varied contributions I would like to thank each of them.

+ Gravity of Pwnwear
+ Satorri of Tankspot

Guildies, for their support and advice
+ Martei of Face on Fire
+ Threedrakez of Face on Fire
+ Zelthas of Face on Fire

+ Introduction to The Death Knight
The newest tank and WoW’s first Heroic class, Death Knights borrow greatly from several classes. Death Knights are particularly heavy on resource management however, so keep this in mind if you are considering becoming one of these powerful plate wearers.

Due to the complexity of the Death Knight’s abilities, and the broad toolset available to a DK tank, there is a lot of terminology to familiarize yourself with. For brevity sake, these terms have been abbreviated, the key to these abbreviations is provided below.

+ Common Acronyms:
BS = Blood Strike
PS = Plague Strike
IT = Icy Touch
OB = Obliterate
DS = Death Strike
RS = Rune Strike
BB = Blood Boil
DnD = Death and Decay
DC = Death Coil
BP = Blood Plague
FF = Frost Fever
Pest = Pestilence
IBF = Icebound Fortitude
AMS = Anti-Magic Shell
AoD = Army of the Dead
RP = Runic Power
ERW = Empower Rune Weapon

HS = Heart Strike
SoB = Scent of Blood
Vot3W = Veteran of the Third War
MoM = Might of Mograine
WoN = Will of the Necropolis
B-G = Blood-gorged

HB = Howling Blast
FS = Frost Strike
HC = Hungering Cold
NoCS = Nerves of Cold Steel
CotG = Chill of the Grave
KM = Killing Machine
BoN = Blood of the North
ToT = Threat of Thassarian
GoG = Gift of Gorefiend

ScS = Scourge Strike
CE = Corpse Explosion
UB = Unholy Blight
AMZ = Anti-Magic Zone
RoR = Rage of Rivendare

+ Rune System Terminology:
Rune Set = 2 Blood, Frost, and Unholy runes, the 6 runes available to all Death Knights
FU Pair = 1 Frost and 1 Unholy rune, frequently used together for moves.
Rune Blackout = when all 6 runes are on cooldown and are not available

+ General Game Jargon/Terminology:
Mob = an enemy, monster, or computer controlled non-player character (npc).
Proc = a spell, talent, enchant, or glyph effect that triggers from some set of conditions usually providing a buff or ability.
Tank = the designated character in a party or raid who gears to be strong on survival and takes the primary attention of enemy targets.
DPS = short-hand for damage dealers. I will use the lowercase “dps” to short-hand for damage per second.
Pop = slang for using a spell or ability.
Cooldown (CD) = the period where a spell or item is unusable because it is refreshing.
Global Cooldown (GCD) = the game is built with a base cooldown for the player client of 1.5 seconds. This keeps the player from being able to use most abilities less than 1.5 seconds apart. Some abilities can be used without triggering the Global Cooldown, while for certain classes, the Global Cooldown can be reduced in length with certain stats or abilities.
Internal Cooldown (ICD) = a cooldown hidden in a talent, set bonus, trinket, or gear proc. Cooldown is not visible to the player, but the ability won’t be able to proc again until the cooldown is finished.

Acronym and Terminology Key taken from Satorri’s Guide

PISSING THINGS OFF: The Basics of the Blood Rotation
One major concern for tanks is maintaining aggro and building threat. Aggro means that the mob is aggressive toward you. When you and a group of people are fighting a mob that mob has a threat list. Your job is to be at the top of that list, do everything you can to prove to that mob that you are the biggest threat on the battlefield (whether that’s actually true or not is irrelevant).

For the purposes of this guide we will assume a full 3 points in Death Rune Mastery, so each alternate set will have 2 Blood and 4 Death Runes.

» Set 1 ( IT – PS – HS – HS – DS )

» Set 2 ( IT – IT – HS – HS – IT – IT )

This rotation is for maximum threat, with the threat coefficient attached to Icy Touch you should be generating massive amounts of threat. The alternative would be a more DPS oriented rotation as shown below…

» Set 1 ( IT – PS – HS – HS – DS )

» Set 2 ( HS – HS – HS – HS – HS – HS )

A Quick Note on Death Runes
In both of the rotations listed above you have a little wiggle room, specifically in each Set 2 where you have 2 BR and 4 DR available. The biggest reason to have these four abilities separately instead of in a castsequence macro is to offer versatility. Depending on your situation you may opt to use Death Runes for survival abilities (Rune Tap, Death Strike, or Vampiric Blood, and in Cataclysm for Bone Shield). Knowing when and what to use in these situations can mean the difference between a wipe and loot, as a rule of thumb set yourself a threshold (say 50% health) if your health drops below that point heal yourself.

Remember always, healing yourself is absolutely not a waste of resources… live tanks are doing their jobs, dead tanks are not.

When and Why?
When tanking bosses you’ll want to lead off with the threat rotation, this will establish an early threat lead (especially when combined with Misdirect and Tricks of the Trade), you can then switch to the DPS rotation. However, it is important to keep tabs on your threat relative to that of the other raiders, as well as allowing for fight mechanics – though rare threat resets during a fight are not unheard of.

Runic Power and Your Rotation
As in life, when you are tanking… sometimes you just have to take a dump. Each of the abilities listed in the rotations above generates Runic Power. Some of your other abilities require this resource to function as well, so depending on the fight you will want to adjust the amount of RP you have on reserve. If you have 60+ RP you should dump with Death Coil. The main consumer of RP however will be Rune Strike, and should be used anytime that it lights up. Both of these abilities will add threat as well as damage, but due to their nature they are not “technically” a part of your rotation.

TLDR VERSION: If left with the choice, use RS over DC. And you may want to keep enough RP around to cast Icebound Fortitude of Mind Freeze (depending on the situation).

Managing Cooldowns
Both Blood Tap and Empowered Rune Weapon are powerful tools in your arsenal, here I will discus the practical application of each.

» Blood Tap (hereafter referred to as BT) – Supplies a quick Death Rune, this I consider mainly for use with Defensive abilities which we will cover in the next section. But the primary reason for this, is it keeps your rotation in tact while allowing you to use abilities like Vampiric Blood or Rune Tap.

» Empowered Rune Weapon (hereafter referred to as ERW) – This ability finishes the cooldown on all of your runes, it has a five minute cooldown itself though. Which may cause you to want to save it, myself I tend to blow it after Set 1 at the beginning of the fight for a quick burst of early threat. Typically it’s available again before the boss is dead, and generally toward the end of the fight when I might want to blow everything just to survive.

Macros
I use four basic macros in my rotation, each is set up to que Rune Strike, turn on auto attack (in the event I don’t have any runes), and to clear any errors associated with mashing the macros. Likewise, I’ve added some modifiers to two of these macros to save me some action bar real estate.

Icy Touch + Death Coil
/cast [nomod] Icy Touch
/cast [mod:alt] Death Coil
/cast Rune Strike
/startattack
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Pressing the button will cast Icy Touch, and if conditions are right will que up Rune Strike for your next white swing. If you hold down Alt while pressing the key you will cast Death Coil instead of Icy Touch.

Plague Strike
/cast Plague Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/startattack
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Very simply casts Plague Strike and ques up Rune Strike for your next white swing, assuming conditions are met.

Heart Strike + Blood Strike
/cast [nomod] Heart Strike
/cast [mod:alt] Blood Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/startattack
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Pressing this key will cast Heart Strike, holding Alt while pressing the key will cast Blood Strike instead.

Death Strike
/cast Death Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/startattack
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

And finally Death Strike with the usual Rune Strike addition.

LIVING TO TALK ABOUT IT: Mitigation and Avoidance
What is Mitigation? And what is Avoidance? Which one do I need?
The difference between mitigation and avoidance is that mitigation lowers incoming damage, avoidance attempts to avoid damage entirely. Mitigation tends toward a passive reduction whereas avoidance is dependent on RNG or a % chance to succeed. Both are very important to the continued success of the tank and by extension his group.

Mitigation: The first stat a new tank will be focusing on is their Mitigation, the primary objective is to reach 5.6% Crit Avoidance. This can be achieved through Defense or Resilience (15 Resilience = 0.18% Crit Avoidance, 22 Defense = 0.18% Crit Avoidance). The real difference is that Resilience only affects your Mitigation and Defense affects both Avoidance as well as Mitigation, thus making it useful even after removing Criticals from the combat table. Beyond this, tanks will be working to lower incoming damage through armor, resistances, set bonuses, etc.

Avoidance: Avoidance is the second stat a new tank will be focusing on, you want to aim for a 50% or higher Avoidance. As a tank you should be focusing on Dodge rather than Parry. And with reason, the short version being: Dodge does not suffer from the overtly debilitating DR that Parry does, so it’s just not worth your time to focus on it unless there is a radical change in the way Blizzard’s combat mechanics handle Parry Rating. The easiest way to track your avoidance is through the TankPoints AddOn, which can be downloaded here.

Effective Health and Hit Points: Effective Health is a formula that shows the amount of damage a tank can take (without heals) before dying. This will give you a general idea of what you can tank, for simplicity state I recommend using the following website to calculate your EH. After getting Crit Immune and getting your Avoidance to around 50% your next goal should be to increase your EH as much as possible. You can never get it too high so just keep pushing for higher numbers while maintaining your threat stats.

+ Effective Health Calculator
+ More information on the mathematical formula behind this can be found here.

THREAT REVISITED
Expertise: All tanks need to actually hit a mob to generate threat and effectively hold aggro. One way of ensuring this is to get Dodges off of the combat table, to do this a tank would need 26 expertise to negate a boss’ dodge chance, and 60 expertise to prevent parries.
Hit: Similarly, your hit rating is important to reduce misses. Tanks will need 263 Hit Rating (223 with Hit food) to not miss with auto or special attacks. Unfortunately, some abilities (most notably Taunt) are considered spells, and thus the hit cap for these abilities is actually different from the melee hit cap. The actual cap can vary wildly depending on certain conditions (class, race, buffs, talents). Tanks are advised not to push past the 263 threshold, going beyond this level is likely to eat into your item budget, and simply isn’t worth it. If you are that worried about missing a taunt, I would recommend getting the 8% taunt glyph instead of gearing for hit beyond 263.

STATS: the TLDR Version
These are my general rules for stats for both threat and survivability, these rules govern my choices for gear, gemming, and enchanting.

+ Threat
a 220 hit (260 after food) and a 26 Expertise. With parry haste being a non issue I don’t recommend going beyond the Expertise soft cap.

+ Survivability
540 Defense and 50% Avoidance, higher is better but after this point I begin to really focus on Stamina and Armor.

TALENTS: Building a Better Tank
I’ve been tanking with my Death Knight since the release of Wrath of the Lich King, initially I was Unholy but since the release of Ulduar I’ve been Blood. Blood is strong in single target threat, and overall survivability through powerful self-healing abilities that scale with gear. Death Knights are also capable of AoE threat but it does require a bit more thought and finesse than say a Paladin.

Recommended Spec(s):
+ Survival / Progression Spec
+ Threat Spec

Recomended Glyphs are provided with the spec link listed above, however if you are drastically below the hit cap you may opt for Glyph of Dark Command.

+ Key Abilities:
+ Vampiric Blood This is the Blood DKs signature defensive cooldown, it’s easy to dismiss this talent as a watered down Last Stand. The difference is the bonus healing component attached to this ability, it’s similar in function to a priest cooldown increasing ALL healing received by the tank by 35%. This ability alone will make healers love you. Additionally, you can macro this along with any temporary health trinkets such as Juggernaut’s Vitality for an even bigger gain. Since VB does require a Blood Rune macroing it along with Blood Tap is recomended so as not to interfere with your rotation.

+ Rune Tap For those who played back in the days of MC and BWL, you will remember when multiple healing potions could be (and were) used in combat. RT manages to not only bring that back, but better than before. Where a Runic Healing Potion can only heal a flat amount, fully talented RT will heal the tank for 20% of their maximum health, with a 30 second cooldown and at the cost of only a Blood Rune. Again, it’s important to note RT heals a % of your maximum health, so it is effected by better gear and buffs. And though the threat of heals is divided by the number of target, RT provides threat comparable if not better than a single Heart Strike (against a single target).
Note that Rune Tap does not share a cooldown with Healing potions or Health Stones so it is possible to use all 3 along with a Death Strike in quick succession for those OH SHIT moments.

+ Mark of Blood A somewhat controversial talent, there are those who will say this talent is completely worthless. However, it is situational in it’s use. Helping to even out damage from bosses in high risk situations. I tend to use this one in fights where tanks are taking turns taunting off each other to ease the transition. If timed right, it can also be helpful in situations where a boss will incapacitate you. The healing effect will persist while you are immobilized and may just save you.

MACROS: Yes, More Macros
It’s important to note, the spammable rotation buttons below are no substitute for good resource management. These will however work fine for levelling up, grinding quests, etc.

Oh Shit Button
#showspellbyname Icebound Fortitude
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Icebound Fortitude

Uses both trinkets and casts Icebound Fortitude.

Hysteria
#showspellbyname Hysteria
/target Soandso
/cast Hysteria
/targetlastenemy
/w Soandso Hysteria ON YOU!

Casts Hysteria on your focus target without losing your current target.

Focused Taunt
#showspellbyname Dark Command
/cast [target=focus] Dark Command
/targetlastenemy

This will taunt your focus target without losing your current target.

Focused Death Grip
#showspellbyname Death Grip
/cast [target=focus] Death Grip
/targetlastenemy

Casts Death Grip on your focus target without losing your current target.

Focused Strangulate
#showspellbyname Strangulate
/cast [target=focus] Strangulate
/targetlastenemy

Casts Strangulate on your focus target without losing your current target.

Note: The Focus macros above require you to have either a Set Focus macro or set Focus to a Keybind, personally I set my focus to the ~ key. These focus macros are great for tanking and pvp, their primary use is that you do not have stop hitting your primary target to use these abilities on your focus. If you’re off tanking, you can toss an emergency Strangulate to interrupt a boss, etc. Also quite useful for encounters where tanks are switching tanking duties because of a debuff, like Kologarn.

THE ARMORY: Enchants and Gems
This section is all about being prepared. It’s not as simple as saying “gem and enchant for Stamina”. You need to be able to look at your options critically and decide what gives you the most benefit. If you’re just starting out your primary concern should be Defense, Defense, and more Defense. If you’re not at the 540 Defense point (unless you’re a Druid) you don’t have enough. So get it where you can, as your gear improves you’ll have more Defense naturally than you know what to do with. But for a beginning tank, pile it on till you reach the cap. Then, start working on your health, until you can reach the EH minimums for the encounters you’re facing. Past that, it’s time to start working on rounding out your stats, and making the tough decisions as noted below.

Are you hit/expertise capped? If not, then how is your threat? If you’re having problems there, then you might consider pushing for a little extra hit and expertise. If you’re not having problems there, then how’s your avoidance? Are you at the point of diminishing returns? If not you might consider getting a little Dodge where you can. If you are both hit and expertise capped, and dodge capped. Then you have the option of piling on more expertise or more EH. Past a certain point, tank gear will give you enough of those basic stats by default, that’s when you really can start piling on Stamina with near impunity.

+ Enchants
Head:
[ Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector ]

Shoulders:
[ Greater Inscription of the Gladiator ] – Effective Health
[ Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle ] – Avoidance

Cloak:
[ Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Mighty Armor ] – Effective Health
[ Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Titanweave ] – Avoidance
[ Scroll of Enchant Cloak - Major Agility ] – Avoidance

Chest:
[ Scroll of Enchant Chest - Super Health ] – Effective Health
[ Scroll of Enchant Chest - Greater Defense ] – Avoidance

Bracer:
[ Fur Lining - Stamina ] – EH +Leatherworker Only
[ Scroll of Enchant Bracer - Major Stamina ] – Effective Health
[ Scroll of Enchant Bracer - Major Defense ] – Avoidance
[ Scroll of Enchant Bracer - Expertise ] – Threat

Gloves:
[ Heavy Borean Armor Kit ] – Effective Health
[ Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Armsman ] – Threat/Avoidance
[ Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Expertise ] – Threat
[ Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Precision ] – Threat

Legs:
[ Frosthide Leg Armor ] – Avoidance/Effective Health

Boots:
[ Scroll of Enchant Boots - Greater Fortitude ] – Effective Health
[ Scroll of Enchant Boots - Icewalker ] – Threat

Ring:
[ Enchant Ring - Stamina ] +Enchanter Only

Misc:
[ Vindicator's Armor Kit ] – Avoidance
Note: When you’re starting out, hitting the defense cap can be tricky. It’s absolutely essential that when you begin running heroics to gear up that you are able to hit the cap, these BC era kits can sometimes fill in the gap until you’re getting better gear overall. You will definitely want to dump these kits by the time you start hitting raids however.

[ Eternal Belt Buckle ]
[ Socket Bracer ] +Blacksmith Only
[ Socket Gloves ] +Blacksmith Only
Note: All tanks can (and should) use the Eternal Belt Buckle, if you’re a smith then you definitely should be using the Bracer and Gloves sockets as well, you can add these sockets without interfering with enchants in any way. Since these sockets are colorless they also give you a lot of flexibility. If you don’t want to give up socket bonuses but still want some extra Threat, Avoidance, or EH this is the most painless way to get it.

Weapons:
[ Rune Stoneskin Gargoyle ] – EH
[ Rune of Swordshattering ] – Avoidance

+ Gems
Meta:
[ Austere Earthsiege Diamond ]

Blue:
[ Solid Dragon's Eye ] +Jewelcrafter Only
[ Solid Majestic Zircon ]

Red:
[ Guardian's Dreadstone ] – Threat/Effective Health
[ Regal Dreadstone ] – Avoidance/Effective Health

Yellow:
[ Vivid Eye of Zul ] – Threat/Effective Health
[ Enduring Eye of Zul ] – Avoidance/Effective Health

Consumables
Flask: [ Flask of Stoneblood ]
Food: [ Indestructible Potion ] or [ Runic Healing Potion ].
Food: [ Worg Tartare ] for hit or [ Rhinolicious Wormsteak ] for expertise.

Final Word on Enchants, Gems, Etc:
There are definitely points where it’s more attractive to go for something for one stat over another. The point is, this is a guide and should be treated as such. When you reach a point where you’re questioning the enchanting/gemming strategies listed above you shouldn’t need me to tell you how to do it, experiment and adapt.

With Cataclysm on the horizon, much of this guide will surely change if not be entirely rewritten. I will however continue to be a tanking DK in Cata, so for those that read the blog regularly you can definitely expect more information as I have it available. Thank you for reading, and I hope at least it was entertaining, if not informative.

» Khaas, and the Origins of Hor
My main is Khaas, the Death Knight, yet many people still refer to me simply as Hor. Even people who know me in real life call me Hor. Why you ask? Well, it all started ten years ago in the game EverQuest. Back then I was a Barbarian Shaman named Horaxe. The name was both a bastardization of the name I tried before “Horus” and of course, a not so subtle combination of two things to make what I felt was an appropriately fantasy sounding name. Originally I wanted to just put in Thundar but apparently someone else watched that cartoon as a kid too…

I quit EQ after several years, the game slowly started to die. And I just wasn’t into it anymore, I had a brief fling with the game again, as I made a Wizard named Volos and started dual-boxing the Wizard and an enchanter named Lurmael with my then-roommates in Utah. World of Warcraft was in Beta, and people kept leaving EQ little by little, it was inevitable, servers began to merge in a last ditch effort to make them seem less empty. For me at least, that was the final death toll for the game.

Initially, I didn’t even want to play WoW; when asked I presented all of the usual arguments: It’s not EQ, I hate the graphics, I can’t get my heart broke again. Eventually though, my friends won out. I returned to Arkansas for a wedding, and to decide where I was going next. I dropped by to see an old friend from the EQ days, WoW had just been released: he and his brother were already level 10 and they wondered where my copy was. I told them if they got me a copy of the game I’d play with them, an hour later I was making my mage: Malignor. I leveled him up, started raiding and eventually quit WoW.

My friends had quit, and I was really only playing on that server because of them. Actually, I was only playing at all because of them. Then, sometime later we all rerolled on the Malorne server, this time they were both well ahead of me. Level 60 already, one was the guild’s MT. It took a couple of weeks, but I caught up with my new Human Lock, Xombi.We were there for quite a while killing boss after boss, I had a lot of fun then, but it was also very draining. Raids lasted, and lasted. “One more attempt…” over and over again. By the time BC came out, the guild was falling apart. My friend had been hacked and lost his gnome warrior, and was talking about never playing again. In fact, several tanks left. The guild simply dissolved overnight.

I didn’t play at all for a little while, then I asked one of my friends from Utah if he played. So, I rerolled again, an Orc lock this time. I power levelled to 70, started doing arenas. In fact, BC was just about all about arenas for me. I leveled two warlocks, a warrior, two paladins, two rogues, a druid, and four shamans during BC most of those ended up getting pretty solid pvp gear. I liked raiding, but it wasn’t really accessible for us. There was only Karazhan really, and then later ZA. Our guild was close friends and family, and we lacked the full raid force.

Then, Wrath Came out…
One of the reasons I didn’t want to play WoW from the beginning was admittedly the lack of a Death Knight class. I have loved the DK since playing Warcraft II once upon a time. That love only increased when WC3 was released and there was a whole story arc about the DK. So, a little after midnight on November 13, 2008 I crossed the street from the gaming store to my apartment, installed the expansion and made the Orc who would be known as Khaas. I was prepared, my wife was out of town and I had a couple of days off of work. I even had provisions ready: I had to get to Northrend ASAP. At this time, I was still five-boxing regularly and had a group of Shamans ready to add the DK and start power levelling. I was 63 by the time I went to sleep that night… And some time later, I hit 80 on Khaas as well as the Shamans. I started running Heroics because I had decided long ago that I would be leaving my comfort zone in Wrath, I would finally start tanking.

It took some time and some repair bills, but I got it down. By the time I was done, I knew I could tank. And better, I hadn’t made a horrible reputation for myself by getting other people killed all the time while I “learned my role”. It’s been a while since I’ve boxed, I now dedicate my time solely to tanking, so much so in fact that I’ve started leveling alternate tanks one of each class. I’ve even dual box tanked a bit in Ulduar (though I don’t recommend it, if you can avoid it). But generally speaking, I’m back to being a single box player. I still dabble in multi character madness once in a while, but really my attention is focused toward raiding with my friends, both new and old. Which brings me to…

» The Guild
Face on Fire has been around for a couple of years, basically it’s something we talked about when I lived in Utah and we were still playing on the dying EverQuest servers. At the time, we were trying to figure out what game to play, and what to call our guild. But nothing came of it initially. One of the people involved went to Russia for two years shortly after that, his girlfriend started playing on one server, while I was on another, and the others… who knows where they were at the time. But still, we somehow managed to get it back together. And I got to meet new friends, people I had not had a chance to meet during my time in the desert. And others only half remembered.

In the months following the release of Wrath, the guild leader and her husband have left for Russia again. And several others have left indefinitely for one reason or another. Meanwhile, the guild has actually been thriving on Bloodscalp. I and Someshta have been recruiting, shaping a raid force unlike anything we as a guild have had before. As such, we’ve made solid progress in Ulduar (currently only Vezax, Yogg, and Algalon still live). And to tell the truth, the people in the guild now are actually pretty great. We raid hard a couple of nights per week and I don’t feel burnt out like I did in Vanilla…

» The Player
So, here’s the part where I tell you about myself. My name is Keith, I’m 29 and live with my wife of 4 years and our Pug Buster, in Arkansas. Currently we’re on the move, my wife’s accepted a teaching position near the capital. So we’ll be leaving the apartment for our newly purchased house several hours from our current residence. I’ve been playing video games most of my life, my parents were into Pong, Frogger, and Asteroids when I was very young. And when I turned five I got the only Nintendo on my block, I was the cool kid for a couple of months. I love to cook, and I love food in general: hot, cold, sweet, and sour. I build computers in my spare time, mostly for myself but I build them for friends occasionally too. I’m also a student, working on a Rhetoric degree, though my interest is really in folklore. Specifically, the traditions and ceremonies surrounding death. For example, did you know in some asian cultures, they celebrate for a month every year serving plates full of food for the dead, running performances of plays, movies, etc with not a single living soul in the audience? Maybe someday I’ll write a book about it…

Bucket List?
No, this post has nothing to do with Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, or their movie “the Bucket List“. Well, not really. My bucket list is simply a to do list of things I want to accomplish before Cataclysm launches.

The List
1. One Man Army
Attain max level at least once with each class.
Death Knight
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior

2. The Consummate Professional (COMPLETE)
Attain maximum level with the following professions.
Alchemy
Blacksmithing
Enchanting
Engineering
Herbalism
Inscriptions
Jewelcrafting
Leatherworking
Mining
Skinning
Tailoring

3. Hit the Gold Cap (COMPLETE)
Earn 214,748g 36s 46c
Mo Money, Mo Money
Earn 500,000g 00s 00c

4. I is Legend (COMPLETE)
Complete the following legendary weapons.
Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Wind Seeker
Shadowmourne

5. Go Insane (COMPLETE)
Complete the Insane in the Membrane meta achievement by reaching the reputations listed below:
Honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers
Exalted with Booty Bay
Exalted with Darkmoon Faire
Exalted with Everlook
Exalted with Gadgetzan
Exalted with Ratchet
Exalted with Ravenholdt
Exalted with Shen’dralar

6. The Juggernaut, Bitch! – [ Origin ] (COMPLETE)
Attain 50,000 Hitpoints Unbuffed

7. What is Best in Life
To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Complete the [ Master of Isle of Conquest ] meta achievement and obtain Tabard of Conquest

Requirements:
Isle of Conquest Veteran
Four Car Garage
A-bomb-ination
Cut the Blue Wire… No the Red Wire!
Back Door Job
Glaive Grave
Mine
A-bomb-inable
Mowed Down
All Over the Isle
Demolition Derby