Ragar: Tuesday's the day when me and Solannis' guild has their 25-man Naxxramas run scheduled every week. Per their request, Sol has been our team representative on these dungeon runs. Today though was different - the raid leader asked if Sol had any upgrades he was still looking for out of Naxx. Since Sol's pretty much down to one or two specific pieces and some sidegrades out of there, we were given the option of subbing someone in from the bench. I was tempted to take the spot myself, but since I've already had the chance to do a couple 25-man runs of my own, I gave them Mordigg. So Mord, how was your first 25-man?
Mordigg: Similar for the most part to the trips I've made into the 10-man version of the necropolis, though with a few exceptions. Mostly it was just dealing with larger pulls and having to work around multiple tanks.
Ragar: Pick up anything shiny?
Mordigg: I won a handful of upgrades. Some new shoulders, a breastplate, and a cloak. All three of which replaced some blue-quality pieces from quests or heroics. I lost a few points of my defense buffer, but overall my avoidance went up. I think I calculated something like 50.8% unbuffed, 60.8% with Blade Barrier up.
Ragar: Any thoughts about the experience? Some things you want to watch out for the next time you go?
Mordigg: For the most part I'm satisfied with my performance, though I'm far from perfect. When it was me and the off-tank pulling while the main tank distributed loot, I noticed that some of the DPS could pull off of me if they front-loaded a lot of damage onto a single target. I might be able to clean this up a bit rotation-wise, but I think part of it is just something I need to learn to deal with as a death knight. The majority of my threat generation for groups is built upon damage over time effects (i.e. Death and Decay, disease-based abilities like Howling Blast and Obliterate), whereas my burst threat is from Rune Strike and large Obliterate/Howling Blast hits. Rune Strike is most of my burst, but unfortunately it has two limiting factors - single target only and it goes off on my next melee swing. As someone who wields two-handed weapons, this makes my task somewhat difficult since that "on next swing" means that once I use Rune Strike, it's going to be at least three seconds before I make contact and three seconds in Naxxramas feels like an eternity. I can use some other abilities in the meantime, but having that strike hit faster would certainly make things so much easier.
Ragar: Let's see if we can fix anything on your end. How do you begin the pull?
Mordigg: Depending on whether I run into the pack or pull them to me, it'll be Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence to spread the diseases, and Death and Decay either before that set (drop it on or in front of a group I'm running towards) or after (Death Grip pull and the group's heading towards me). After that it's usually Howling Blast and a Blood Boil or a Pestilence on a different target to buy another few seconds on diseases and getting Death and Decay up as soon as I can.
Ragar: So not a lot of single-target threat then.
Mordigg: Usually I'll try and focus on that after the initial set of runes. Since there's a 10-second cooldown on each rune, I have to lock in threat on the pack quickly. Part of the problem is that Naxxramas is so AoE-heavy: grab the group, AoE everything down while the tanks hold it all. If someone's going all out on a single target when I'm trying to hold onto everything against warlocks chain-casting Seed of Corruption and hunters using Volley on everything in sight, there's not a whole lot I can do other than use Dark Command when it's available.
Ragar: True enough. Looking at your equipment, I think there are a few spots we can clean up that might help some though. Your bracers can be replaced with the ones sold for Emblems of Valor (I think Sol's almost got enough for another pair) and that green trinket desperately needs replaced with the Essence of Gossamer, so I'll try and set you up with some Azjol-Nerub runs. Of course, if I can get you signed up for a 10-man Naxxramas run in the meantime or get you into next week's 25-man run, you might get something better.
Mordigg: There's also Darkmoon Card: Greatness. That would be a sizeable tanking upgrade as well.
Ragar: Yes, but knowing our luck, we'll end up finishing two Chaos decks by the time we get those last two Nobles cards and I can't afford to pay for what we're missing since the lock's a level from being able to fly in Northrend. 60% speed flight is far from efficient, so you, me, and Sol are gonna have to start making some gold to fix that soon.
Mordigg: Oh joy, more daily quests...
Ragar: It's that or I have to listen to the lock complain about spending all that time flying around and not doing engineering research. It's worth the money to preserve my sanity.
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