Tank you very much!

So, I decided to dive into the wide world of tanking.
First problem; GEAR.
I am, as I write this, sitting at 460 defense and 18k health.
Waaaaaaaaiiiittttt…
I was at 20k with PvP gear, but I learned (The hard way) that early tank items have their budget eaten by defense. I have half a tank set and no tank spec, so hold back on the “WHOMG SCRUBKNIGHT!”. I have recently tanked H VH (Well, xevozz anyway) with 400 defense, and a Druid healer (Meaning no spike heals). So I realized; “Hey, I’m not bad at this!”
All I’m trying to say is; Try tanking. If you become known, even just in your guild, as a good tank, you’ll have groups with no trouble. If you become known as a bad tank… Well, not so much. Work on it though, and if your guild doesn’t at least give you a chance to try again, even in a heroic or 80 normal, look for a new guild. Especially if it’s just because you’re a DK.
UPDATE: Now at 20400 hp in frost presence, and 545 defense. Yay!

My First Epics!

Well, 9 hours into being 80, and I have two epics. One hateful gladiators piece, and one T7 tanking piece. There’s a kicker, but I’ll get to that.
I had just done wintergrasp (3 Kbs, 5k honor… And 10 deaths /facepalm) and thought, epics? Sign me up. So I did H VoA, thinking, hey, I do pretty good dps. After putting up with a downright SPASTIC tank who would charge after the leaps (Bear tank, don’t flame me bro! Heh… Flame retardant.), forcing the melee dps to head over to the new location, instead of waiting for the return, I still had a good 1.5k dps, with 50% ToT ( time on target). This placed me 7th of 20 dpsers. No death knight stuff dropped. None.
I think, heh… 1.5k raid buffed dps… I still have the buffs… I head out, and get into a 10 man. We kill him, with a much better tank (/glare) and we loot him. 2 emblems of heroism, per usual, but.. Wait… 2 DK items, one DK i.e. Me. The kicker I mentioned? Both were gloves.
I’m still mad.

The Home Stretch!

600k Experience left for me in level 78. I’m almost through the leveling process, planning to hit 80 sometime in late March/early April. If you think I have blogoreah now, just wait. I have plans… Eeeevil plans. Ahem.
Though, as I noticed… I’m going to run out of quests. I may have to either do dailys for the final few days, do an instance or three, or (Gulp) go into storm peaks without an epic flying mount.
This is just a bit of advice: Never skip grizzily hills. Loads of quests there, some of my guildies didn’t touch Icecrown or Storm Peaks until 80. And that’s a nice cash injection when you do ding; in Icecrown alone, at 80, you can make nearly 2,000 gold (!) by questing to the achievement, due to the Exp conversion. Never skip stormpeaks, either, unless you have normal flying. Dear lord, the flight times! (Offer on the donations still open fwiw.)
ANYWAY, the original point of this post was not to set my pet textwall on you, although ask me about Norse mythology in game and I’ll be happy to sic him on you- Ahem. My original idea, pre randomness attack, was to outline a post series overview. I.e. Recurring topics, for those who don’t speak bloggerese.
I will be doing the following kinds of posts, after I hit 80. Until then, too focused. (Never seen a focused geek? Pray that you never do. We’re scary.)

Instance strategies for Death Knights. (Some slightly overleveled, gimmick runs possibly.)
Gear suggestions (Useful and otherwise)
Spec ideas (Ditto)
Actual specs (See above)
Looks at new content, either when I make it to my guild’s A team (I.e. Only team, we’re looking to get bigger) or looks from a fresh view
Lore (if you ask nicely… And literately.)
Views of death knights from others PoV (Possibly)
And finally, stories. If something strange, humorus, stupid, annoying, or ironic happens in WoW, and it happens to me or any of the people I play the game with, expect to hear about it.

That’ll do it for now, I will try to keep up with all these, but may have trouble for reasons that I’ll keep to myself right now (And that will surprise you.). But hey, you’re not paying me to do this (Waiiiit a minute…) so be happy with what you get!
UPDATE: I dinged 79 while posting this. Wish me luck!

I’m going to attempt to bring you a guide to gear for level 80 from pre-80 quests. This’ll probably be mainly as guidlines, and mainly from personal experience.
First-ish, stats to avoid like… Well, like the plague.

Spellpower
Mp5
Spellpower
Haste (most of the time)
Intellect
Spellpower
Defense (If not tanking or not for tank set)
Spirit
Block rating (Durr.)
Block value (Means you have old gear)
Did I mention spellpower?

I was praying for the fate of DK’s as a class when I saw ‘DK Lfg H nexus, 2000 SP’
Yes, it affects IT and HB, but we have a skill that turns AP into effective SP.
Now, the good parts. Here’s what you DO want for dpsing, in order (somewhat).

Expertise till softcap
Hit till 9%
Strength
AP
Crit rating
Stamina

The first two are NON-NEGOTIABLE at 80. The other 4 need to be balanced, with strength being prefered over its equivalent in AP. Why? We have talents that boost AP from strength.
That’s it for today. And if I catch anyone with SP on their gear… Pain will ensue.
-We will wipe the living off of Azeroth!