Ding #4

 
  I'd been avoiding my DK lately. I think it's because I hate tanking for lousy players. So I do a last few randoms to get to cap, and I get into a string of groups so bad, I nearly swear off tanking.

  At level 30, it's all well and good to tell the gogogo DPS in full heirlooms "You tag it, you tank it." That doesn't work near level 85. The gogogo's die quicker than the healer can even react. I believe it may be caused by players having a greater amount of anxiety when close to cap, and becoming less tolerant of proper procedure, i.e., "CC far right, please. Pulling up to here."

Enter These Guys

  The last trash pull in VP with the humanoids in the triangle just about broke me. A Mage doing 4k DPS refused to CC, and the Hunter doing 6k intermittently couldn't trap right. He didn't even know what Distracting Shot is, much less how to use it to trap! Ugh! If you've tanked this pull in a bad group, you know how it is.

  The very next group, though, was a couple of low, but not bad DPS (they stayed on target, waited for threat, ect) who were friends of the healer who wasn't outright bad, but I sure had to keep my cooldowns sharp. The fourth was a Rogue who just did all the good things Rogues can do. The last pull comes up, and we just straight flub it. The SPriest who insisted on MC'ing everything MC'ed the Adept I had just used Strangulate on. The other Adept is free-casting in the triangle. The Minister and friends, meanwhile, are not going down at all. Then the Rogue reappears and he and I start picking the group apart. After all my CD's were blown and potion used, the Minister goes down, and I see that the second Adept is Blinded. I didn't know that worked in the triangle. The first Adept I can finally peel off the SPriest, and it goes down fast with the Rogue and I alternating interrupts. After making short work of the rest, I thanked the Rogue for being on top of his game. I'm sure he knows how it is.

  My faith in the playerbase semi-restored, I did one mediocre run through GB, with the only hitch being a buggy General Umbriss. He reset 3 times, and I don't care why. We 1 shot the Forgemaster, who was easier than I remember, and surprisingly also 1 shot Drahga. I thought for sure the healer would die there, but we got lucky. Erudax took what seemed forever, and everyone was about to die, but we got it, and I dinged.

  I crafted up a full 377 set (helm and shoulders transmogrified), and bought a couple of Soul Blades. It was my intention to start owning some BG's, but I decided to do a couple of heroics first to get used to the rotation. Now I'm the one barely above the tank in DPS, but since it was a Guildie tanking, we made short work of it.

 Anyways, I find that the Frost DK rotation is even more frantic than the SV Hunter's. It's going to take awhile to get used to, so I went ahead and started supplementing my tanking set with some BOE's. Between the new PvP set and the tanking upgrades, I'm down 15k gold. I'm also down for some real tanking. Heroics don't scare me. The M&S do.