Kudos to those that got the movie reference!

WTF am I blabbing about? Artie earned the Sword in the Skull achievement and picked up his Quel’Delar, Might of the Faithful yesterday. I’ve applied a Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle to it for the defense boost. Tooltip readers will recall that Icebound Fortitude scales with Defense. Defense cap?!? Nope! My other 2h options have been: Edge of Ruin, Tyrannical Beheader, Claymore of the Prophet, or Titansteel Destroyer.  The QD slays ‘em all.

As an aside, why go with Might of the Faithful instead of Ferocity of the Scorned? As well as my liberal arts educated brain can process, Death Knights should value Strength over Agility, because Strength contributes to both Parry and Attack Power.  More parry equals less damage taken.  More Attack Power equals more threat. Besides, the Stamina boost is greater and I think it would rock to sport as much health as a druid in Bear form.

Anyways… back to the subject at hand.  Now that I have a bit better 2H to equip, I’m changing my mind again for the “which spec to tank with” question.  After spending all that effort playing with talent calculators and devouring the threads at Elitist Jerks and Pwnwear refining my Dual Wield approach, I’m leaving it in the dust to swap back to a 2H build.

Switching back to a 2H spec does not mean I’m locked to Frost. It’s been tactfully pointed out on some reader comments that perhaps I misunderstand the mechanics of tanking in specs outside Frost.  And you know what?  You’re right. I haven’t fully played with either Blood or Unholy tanking specs to claim any level of expertise.

Why?

Up to now, my stance on Artie has been that he’s an instance tank, not a raid tank.  Talent, gear and expectations have all been based around the 5m Heroic level; the frost specs I’ve shared on this blog have all been optimized for heroic instance tanking. However, due to some personnel changes within my guild, there is a slot in some raids for a tank. I was lucky enough to tank on an Onyxia 10m last week… earning Artie’s first ever actual raid achievement and my personal first Onyxia kill on any of my WoW toons since Ony dinged 83!

That experience got me thinking… if I’m going to actually have some chances to raid as a tank, then I need to step up my spec choices to reflect a more raid friendly tank spec.  Something with more single-target threat and survivability or “effective health” (which from what I’ve gleaned is where Blood really shines).  I got lucky in the Ony run — my instance tanking spec was a great match for my role, since I was on whelp duty.  Just like in a 5m instance, the snap aggro of Howling Blast helped pack in the whelps to nice tight AoE targets for the ranged DPS. The other nice plus was my contribution to raid buffs with the Improved Icy Talons! It’s nice to know that I can fulfill a tanking role and still bring utility to the party, as well.

I’m excited to have an opportunity to raid, to see some of the fights I read about, and to experience part of the game that I rarely have seen in the past.

Cheers!