Why I bought AION and why I wish I didn't have to

Yes I have bought and Aion and sadly it does mean that I have ended my subscription to WoW. In honesty I haven't really been playing WoW since a little after the release of patch 3.1 as in fairness there hasn't been any reason for me to do so. Why have I had nothing to do in the game? Well the answer is simply lack of content.

I've realized that blizzard are slowly killing off WoW and focussing on their new MMO, or at least I hope they are. What I mean by lack of content is not just raid but content in general.

Raids - Raid content has been a serious problem since the launch of WoW as there were only 3 bosses. Yes there was Naxx but this was just re-used content from Vanilla WoW. This is a problem compared to Onyxia as 3.2.2 is a 'minor content patch' whereas revamped Naxx was the basis of a whole expansion.
Ulduar was then pretty good and I was actaully impressed that it contained some very good fights and plenty of challenges. My only concern was that this content should have been released at launch rather than the filler stuff we had at the begining. I also really didn't buy in to any of these acheivements as they were not real content. I'd much rather be able to say 'gratz guys we downed this boss after trying really hard for several weeks' than 'Good job guys we managed to down this boss in under 30 seconds after killing him every week for the past four months'

5-man Somehow, the 5-man content in Wrath managed to be even worse than the raid content. Sure the 5-man dungeons and heroics are pretty well designed with good artwork but they are so easy that they give me a migraine and are a huge step back from the ones in TBC. I honestly haven't been able to tank a heroic without falling asleep since I hit 80. 5-mans don't need to be incredibly hard but requiring a little coordination and at least occasional CC would be nice.

Solo Content So, you're not in a group? Might as well log out now. Playing solo there's only 3 things you can accomplish.
Daily Quests - have fun repeating the same 3 dailies at the Argent Tournament every day for the next 2 months until you can unlock more (again a huge step back to the amazing Sunwell Isle in TBC).
Reputation - This is the only area that could be considered better than in TBC, this is not because the system in Wrath is good but because the system in TBC was even worse. Again, doing 5-mans to get reputation wouldn't be so bad if 5-mans weren't so terrible.
Achievements - Really? You're gonna spend the next month of your life on repetitive, menial tasks so you can have Chef/Explorer/Quester/Whatever in front of your name.
Crafting - ???? There's a crafting system in WoW now, oh right its that guy that sells the same 6 gems and potions to me.
Character Progression/customization - Again, nothing other than 'OMG i r can change hair'

PVP
Don't get me wrong, PvP in TBC was terrible too but they could have improved it in someway. Yes there's arena but as blizzard should have noticed, the majority of players don't compete in the arena and I'm sure that even the one's that do would agree that there has to be some reason to play in battlegrounds.

Anyway, sorry about the rant but I felt that it need to be said. Anyway, I haven't read any reviews on Aion but i'm hoping its a good game and I might even turn this blog into one about Aion.

Death Knight DPS Stats

Todays post is on, you guessed it, stats you'll need as a DPS death knight. Enjoy.

Hit Rating: Hit Rating can be thought of as to DPS what defence is to tanking. It is the one stat that is absolutely crucial as a DPS, up to a certain level. The way hit works is the more you have the less likely you are to miss your target and so it is a huge dps increase. The 'hit cap' when using 2handed weapons is 9% and so you need 290 hit rating to ensure you never miss. Though this may seem a lot at first it can easily be increased by eating certain foods / elixirs that increase your hit rating for a set amount of time.

The 'hit cap' for spells such as howling blast and death coil is 17% but I wouldn't really worry about this too much as almost all of your dps will come from physical strikes as a death knight.

Lastly, the 'hit cap' for the few remaining dual wielders out there is, I believe, around 27% and so I would not bother going this far with hit rating as it will handicap the rest of your stats so just try and get as much hit as you can on your gear other than going for the cap.

Strength: The most imortant stat as a DPS once you reach your required 'hit cap' is strength in short strength can be summed up like this. 1 Strength = 2 Attack Power, More Attack Power = more damage dealt. Therefore, you should always try and stack as much strength as possible.

Crit Rating: Is not a stat that you will really want to gem into because as a death knight it is not really required. Blood specs will require some crit rating but this should be sufficient on the gear you get. Frost does benefit most from crit due to its high burst damage and so stacking crit is a possible option. Unholy however gets a lot of its damage from DoTs (damage over time) and so crit is not as valuable.

Agility: Those used to playing rogues might cry for hearing this but I think its fair to say that for Death Knights at least Agility Sucks. All that agility gives you is a fairly small increase in critical strike chance (62.5 Agility is 1% increased crit chance). The only other benefit is a slight increase in armour (2 armour per ponint of agility) and if you are specced for Bladed Armour this will increase your attack power by 1 for every 18 points of agility. Even if specced this way however 36 points of agility will only be equal to about 1 strength and 25 points of Crit Rating.

Expertise: Expertise is a relatively new stat as even though it first appeared in TBC (The Burning Crusade) it was not really viable to stack it until this expansion. What expertise does is that it lowers the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried this is not that important for Death Knights however as many of our attacks (Frost Strike, Death Coil, Unholy Blight, Howling Blast, etc) can be neither dodged nor parried. It is however a bit more important for Blood specced death knights as most of their attacks can be dodged and parried.

Armour Penetration: This stat is a bit more complicated than others as what it does is that it reduces your targets armour and so increases your overall damage, every 15.39 rating of armour penetration you have reduces your targets by 1%. Armour Penetration is another stat that really depends on which way you’re specced. Frost and Unholy death knights won’t really see much gain from it but blood death knights will as the majority of their damage comes from physical attacks.

Haste: The final stat to look at as a DPS death knight is haste it increases your weapon speed and so 1% of haste increases your ‘white weapon damage’ (auto-attack hits) by 1%. Therefore, it is not very viable for those who use 2 handed weapons but it can be quite effective for dual wielders.

That’s it for now but let me know if there’s something specific you want me to write about.

Death Knight Tanking Stats

Hey again everyone,

As my first official Death Knight related post I thought that I might as well start from the bottom up namely, which stats you need as a Death Knight. First I'll go over the stats needed for tanking.

Tanking

Defence: Defence rating is the single most important stat for a tank but only however up to a certain point. For those who are unaware raid bosses are for gameplay purposes 3 levels above you (i.e. level 83) what this means is that if you don't have 540 defence (not defence rating) then you will be critted by bosses and you wil die. After 540, defence does give you some extra avoidance (parry/dodge) but there are much better stats.

Stamina: Stamina is a fairly simple stat and works very simply. The more stamina you have, the more health you have and the more damage you can take. Do not however fall into the trap that stamina is the end-all tanking stat as there are many more important ones. An important note however is that many PUGs will prematurely judge your ability as a tank by the amount of health you have. Do not give in and just try to stamina as these are usually the PUGs that you won't want to be a part of.

Parry/Dodge: I've put these two together as they do more or less the same thing and that is they prevent you from taking damage. They are fairly important for tanking and I would personally get them over stamina.

Armour: This is another fairly simple stat as all it does is decrease the amount of damage you take. Important but don't worry about it as it scales with whatever level of gear you have.

Strength: Strength is another very important stat as it not increase threat you cause by increasing your damage (you get 2 attack power for every 1 point of strength) but also because it gives you 0.25 parry rating for every point of strength you have. This should always be taken above attack power or agility.

Check back soon for a review of the stats you'll want to stack as a DPS death knight.

A Short Introduction

Hey everyone,

This is the first post in my new blog on World of Warcraft and specifically, the Death Knight class, although, I will also post about other things WoW related or otherwise.

Anyway, my name is Nicky (WoW name Rakzuk) and I have been playing World of Warcraft for about three years. Before I started a Death Knight I mostly played as a rogue (who's still at level 70 poor guy) and when Wrath of the Lich King came out I realized that having a plate wearing rogue/warlock was a better idea.

I currently have two Death Knights one as a tank and another as a dps. Yes I could just get two sets of gear for one but I just love leveling them. (Maybe I should level a PvP one?)

I hope to be able to post on this site at the very minimum twice a week and hopefully shed some light on the class for beginners and maybe even give some helpful tips to veterans of the class. Also, anyone who plays a lesser class should also check out this site as hopefully I can give some helpful tips and who knows, you might come to the dark side eventually.

Anyways, thanks for checking out my blog and I hope to have some posts up soon.