Interview with Grimtorn of Me and My Ghoul
I asked Grimtorn, the writer of the Death Knight blog Me and My Ghoul, if she would like to be my first interview subject here at Alterac Volley and thankfully she agreed. I was interested in her thoughts on tanking as a Death Knight as well as her thoughts on the recent Hunter nerf since her other character is currently specced Beast Mastery.
Before creating Grimtorn had you ever had any prior tanking experience? For everyone, like myself, with Death Knights and an itch to tank, do you recommend a Death Knight as a first tanking character?
Prior to Grim, I had no tanking experience. It was a lot of trial by fire, several “oh sh*t” moments (had one of those last night, even), and a lot of reading around the web (particularly on healer-oriented sites) to try and understand how I could be the best tank I could possibly be. I still have a lot of trouble with adds in raid-level instances – I have a hard time gathering up and keeping them on me while laying down threat. That usually seems to be an either/or proposition, and high threat AOErs can really do me in.
Death Knights *can* be a good first tanking character IF the player is going to take the time and effort to learn how to tank. There’s a reason that the “Death Noob” label already exists – it’s people assuming that just because they’re specc’d Frost, that they can tank a 25 man. While I suppose that can be true of any class (people not knowing how to play their characters), it’s going to be especially true in a class like DKs, where one doesn’t have to toil in the lower levels learning how to actually play properly before they reach end-game.
You’re currently specced Unholy but you also have a heavy dose of the Blood tree as well. Is that a viable setup for tanking only or could that also double-up as a decent spec for someone interested in solo survivability as well?
The setup Grim has now is definitely a viable tanking build. I’m not sure if it’s ideal for soloing, but I’ve never had any problems questing and/or farming with it. As it is, I’m still throwing around respeccing once more to remove AMZ, since 3.0.8. took away a lot of the usefulness of that spell.
What Heroics have caused the most trouble for you as a Death Knight tank? My experience with Heroics is entirely with PUGs and I’ve seen a lot of Death Knight tanks have some trouble in tougher runs like Utgarde Pinnacle.
That…is harder to answer then it might seem. We haven’t run as many heroics as I might like (and I’m not a fan of pugs), and I was pretty poorly geared still the last time we tried (a few weeks ago!). I can say that Grim has handled regular UP just fine when we ran it the other night. Only wipe was in the gauntlet, a DPS who got out of LOS of the healer.
What are your thoughts on the heavy nerf to Beast Mastery? It’s forced a spec switch to Marksmanship for my main but I see you’re still keeping the faith with your Hunter character Malanior.
I’m not really a fan of the nerfbat to BM Hunters, but if it hasn’t already been made clear by my previous answers, I’m not a hardcore raider. We raid for fun (and what I jokingly call “teamship”). With regards to Mal though, it definitely lessened my desire to play him more. There was a strong point when I was having trouble producing an acceptable amount of DPS on him, and to hear that I was going to lose even more of that was disheartening at best. But again, if the guild was more hardcore raiding, I’d probably have been told to respec Survivial or MM – but the raid lead said it best last night -”It’ll be a cold day in hell before I can convince you to spec away from BM!”
What do you think about Wrath now that it’s been out for over two months? What have you liked the most and the least about the expansion?
Wrath was the first expansion I got to experience live (yes, I’m a relative WoW noob – only been playing for a year or so now), so by and large I’ve enjoyed most everything I’ve encountered. I was kind of indifferent to Borean Tundra, but really started to enjoy myself in Dragonblight and Grizzly Hills. Wrathgate, by far, has got to be my favorite ‘encounter’ in Wrath, and it still gives a lore-geek like me chills to think of what I got to participate in there. If theres something I haven’t enjoyed, it’s how only some professions have quests/special currency to buy new recipes. I look at Grim and his blacksmithing and feel like he got screwed there. Surely they could have added a special currency ore that could have been traded in for new recipes!
Check Out Me and My Ghoul
I want to thank Grimtorn for taking the time out of her day to answer my questions. If you haven’t been to Me and My Ghoul yet I highly recommend you check it out. It’s a good look at someone experiencing Death Knight tanking in Wrath.
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eresin on January 29th, 2009
I agree about the professions thing, my b/f is a jewelcrafter and he’s in the same boat as you with the blacksmithing.
At least with LW you can hanf in leather to get recipies, which is easy if you take it with skinning.