With WoD looming on the horizon and updates on what the next expansion will bring it was high time I gave my DK some love along with my other alts.

Xiionia is my trusty bank alt. I use her to stash items I don’t need right now but someone might need in the future. Yes, I am a WoW horder…

As soon as I got her out of the starting zone and into Stormwind I left her there. She was my second char and at the time I hated her with a passion. I had leveled a ranged to the then max level 85 and now I was playing on a melee that I was just button bashing. I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Fast forward two years and I had a Druid and a Priest. There is the prospect of insta-boosting a char to 90 which I was going to use on a brand new mage or warlock but the interesting twist is that if it’s used on a lvl 61 or over, then the professions are instantly boosted to 600 too.
This changed the playing field. I had for my other two as literally my profession slaves. One to benefit my main and the other to make some gold. So now I was faced with leveling the dreaded DK to 61 at least so I could boost her when the time came to it.

I was also looking at actually getting Pazima and Emava to 90. Truth be told I find it easier on Pazima. She’s ranged and it’s not often that I’m out dps’ed on a boss fight. There was an interesting dungeon experience that really, no clothie should ever end up in the position I was in…

The dungeon was Throne of the Tides. One that is always going to tug at fond memories as it was the first ever dungeon I ever ventured into. There was the usual rag-bag group that you get flung together with when you roll the ‘dungeon finder’ dice.
There was a DK tank (who didn’t have a guild), a Paladin healer, a Hunter, a Rogue and me. Things should have started to add up when the tank just stood at the entrance. After a while he zoned in and set off for the trash that awaited us.

He taunted one and then started just parrying. While the rest of us were attacking the tank just couldn’t hold aggro. My portrait was engulfed in red as I desperately tried to kill the thing before it got to me. This happened again on the next set. ‘Maybe they are trying a new spec’ I quipped to myself as I got the full attention of another mob. This carried on all the way to the first boss. When it was just one we had to contend with it was great. The tank tickled the boss and then stood there. The Hunter misdirected him as much as he could to keep aggro on the tank and the healer just got confused as in turn each persons party profile turned red.

We got to a boss that looked like Medusa if she was an eel. Things got real interesting real quick.
When she went into her vortex thingy the tank kept trying to aggro her. We were left with two relativity small adds who we could deal with without a tank. The problem was the large lumbering add who was left to roam free and rip us apart as and when it chose to. I had positioned myself in the small sanctuary of the doorway, to leave the Rogue and Hunter to tackle the big add while I took out the smaller ones. When I was done the big add was still there. The tank had died, a lost cause for the healer as he wasn’t doing enough to warrent being saved. I was left kiting the big mob around the room as the Hunter and Rogue kept attacking. The Hunters pet then became the tank and we ploughed through the remainder of the fight.

The crunch time came when we were going towards the right hand passage when you come in from the entrance. The tank wanted to go left. The Healer stood near the mobs and didn’t move. The rest of us ran circles in the ‘lobby’ torn between following the tank and staying with the person who would keep us alive. Eventually the Healer said to go to the left and the tank went running up. And promptly died. Yet again I was tanking. My divine shield was in over drive. Thankfully in the interest of self preservation I had glyphed it to heal me and reflect attacks. While I wasn’t able to pull off much in the way of damage, spamming my instant casts that I could while moving, healing myself and chucking a few out to others meant that I was holding the mobs attention well enough that the others could continue to do what they were here to do. The beast finally went down, the tank was resed and promptly went storming into the final pack of trash before waiting to be fully healed. ‘I’ve only been tank ten days’ he said. Needless to say, Blizzard seemed to overrule whatever the player was trying to do and just killed him. My tanking skills were once again put to the test. It was bearable with one beast but two was the undoing of our valiant effort. We killed one but succumbed to the perils of being thrown in the air by the remaining mob. It was at this point everyone decided that the tank should go. The healer also quit. Leaving just us dps. We then got a healer… The same one who left. After a few laughs we said our goodbyes and parted before or group had even got going.

I’m all for giving people a fair chance but when someone is completely out of their depth and not willing to learn from their mistakes in quite happy to say goodbye.
Throne of the Tides had been a benchmark for the acceptance levels of people. The was a run where the healer said right off the bat that they were learning. The tank took it slow and add much surprise even to myself I found my fingers typing the reply “it’s ok, I can help” I’ve not healed as a conscious effort since that fateful dungeon where I was flamed by the elitist tank back at level 30 ish. Being in shadow means I have about four spells, none of which I am overly familiar with but the sense of acceptance for people who were learning I found myself in the position where I was more than happy to spam heals until my mana ran out to make sure everyone survived. I might be inclined to turn my xp off and just run this constantly to get some practice in as so far, touch wood. The players I’ve randomly encountered here have been cheerful, haphazard and best of all, tolerating.