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What do you think?

What Color is your Death Knight?

I've seen a metric ton of postings in various blogs, fora and websites describing in detail what the Death Knight is like to play, their available specs, the pure awesomeness of their starting zone, the keenness of their riding mounts, and so forth.

What I really want to know is this:

What is the default color for the class-specific coloring of a Death Knights' name?

Let's review. We've got priests that are white, rogues are yellow, druids are orange, hunters are green, mages are cyan, shamans are blue, warlocks are purple, warriors are brown and paladins are pink.

From your standard box of 8 Crayolas, the only colors left are red and black. Black I think is out because it won't necessarily show up on the "darkish" background of most windows. Red has to be ruled out because many of the mods that use class coloration use red to represent the player.

What's left then?

I think there are really three decent choices:

• Grey: There's something to be said for keeping with the darker hues to reflect the death-iness of it all. Again the actual saturation of the grey would have to be pretty light since too dark a grey (a charcoal if you will) would blend into too many backgrounds. Some unit frames that use class colorization also grey out for units out of range. The greys may be too similar.
• Tan: This would be visually distinct from just about every other class. Depending on exact shade used, it might be too close to warriors. This was a problem with mage-shaman distinction early in Burning Crusade.
• Seafoam: The blue-violet end of the spectrum gets pretty crowded, which leaves us looking somewhere in the green-yellow area.

So, while I'd most like to see grey, I think the seafoam is more likely. If anyone actually knows, let me know!

Warrior Hit Rating

First off, I want to apologize to two DPS warriors in my guild. Last night in a Zul'Aman run I was musing on the lack of hit rating on both Schaden and Atalex. It seemed intuitive to me that since "white attacks" were counting for about 30-40% of their damage that they should want to do everything in their power to make those attacks not miss.

I promised to do some research and call them out by name if they were wrong in insisting that capping their special attacks at 142 hit rating was enough. I was so sure I was going to be vindicated and belittle them. It turns out, I'm the one that is belittled. I consulted Elitist Jerks and looked on the DPS Warrior Compendium. It turns out that Hit Rating is very important up to 142, which is the soft hit cap. At the soft hit cap, special attacks (i.e., Yellow Damage) no longer misses. Once a DPS warrior hits that cap, other statistics become more important including dodge, Armor Penetration, and others.

I'm apologizing to both Atalex and Schaden. I was wrong. You guys rock on DPS. Keep it up and be sure to make fun of me.

Hunter (Re) Gemming

So my hunter is pretty well set up now. I finally got the Nethercobra Leg Armor on my leggings. I'm just an enchant away from replacing Savagery on my Legacy with 35 Agility. And now I look at my gems.

What I'm looking for in gemming is to replace all of my blue quality gems with epics. I'm going to be trying to get my hit rating over the 142 cap but as little OVER 142 as possible. Right now I'm 3 points over-capped. In general, I'm going to favor Agility over Attack Power. AP is probably the easiest buff to get in raids; agility is harder to come by.

Here's the table, showing my plans:

Equipment	Socket	Current	Planned
Helm	Yellow	+4HR/+4AGI	+10AP/+5Crit Rating
	Meta	+24AP/Minor Run Speed	+12AGI/3%Crit Damage
Shoulder	Red	+24 AP	+24 AP
	Yellow	+8 HR	+10 HR
Chest	Yellow	+5 Crit/+10 AP	+5 Crit/+10 AP
Boots	Red	+8AP/+6STA	+5AGI/+7STA
	Blue	+4AGI/+6STA	+5AGI/+7STA
Bracers	Blue	+5AGI/+7STA	+5AGI/+7STA

With these changes, I'll lose 2 hit rating (taking me down to 143 - still hit capped) and 22 AP.

I'll gain 5 Crit Rating, 14 Agility, 2 Stamina and 3% extra critical strike damage.

Since 1 AGI = 1 AP, I'll make up 14 of the lost 22 AP (net loss of 8). Additionally, my crit percent will go up 5/22.08% (from Crit Strike Rating) and 14 x 0.025% (from Agility). This is a .58% increase. I'll also be enjoying the 3% extra damage from critical strikes from the different Meta Gem.

The only drawback is even though I'm a jewelcrafter, I'm not exalted with the Consortium. Thus have no source for the recipe. Let's hope the guildmaster IS exalted with them.

In the interest of Full Disclosure

My previous post may have led the casual reader to believe that my guild has lost the ability to even take out someone like Baron Rivendare. Let me lay that misconception to rest.

In a concerted effort, we achieved a guild first of unlocking the first TWO chests in Zul'Aman last night. It was awesome to still have three minutes left on the timer as the second boss went down.

We hurriedly cleared to the Dragonhawk Dude, but only had about five minutes left by the time we got all the way there and so took a more leisurely stab at him.

I'm not saying our slump is over, but I'm happy to report this piece of positive news.

Progression Blues

I normally don't make the sorts of posts that just report on "what I did this week," but today I'm going to because I'm seeing it as symptomatic of a new expansion looming.

While we normally raid fairly well, the last week or so, we've just not been nailing it as normal. Here's the recap:

• Fridays we do (at least) the first boss in Mount Hyjal. I wouldn't say we farm him, but he generally goes down. Usually we have to wipe on the first attempt and get him the next time. We had epic fail on Friday and never got him down.
• Saturdays we do Serpentshrine. Lurker is on clear farm (although it's still a long fight) and we've gotten Morogrim to under 1/4 of his health. This week we had 16 people show up for the raid. *cancelled* Some went to finish a Kara from earlier in the week, others swapped to alts, I did the daily heroic.
• Sundays is generally a Black Temple Trash clear up to and maybe including first boss. Not enough online a fresh Kara was started
• Mondays we do Zul'Aman. We're generally very, very close to second chest. This time a wipe on the Eagle made sure we didn't even try for the second. And some untimely disconnects precluded us from doing the Bear. I went a did the daily heroic.
• Tuesdays we farm Gruul's & Magtheridon's Lairs. An hour in each and we're usually done. I was excited for this raid because I was slated to get my Champion of the Naaru title. Two and a half hours later Gruul finally was defeated. No need to mention that Magtheridon never happened.

So, what is it? Content we know well and have done easily in the past is giving us problems. New content is eluding us either because we don't have the folks online or can't seem to muster the strength to conquer it. Is it just pre-expansion depression? I wish I knew.

If I don't get my Naaru Champion title soon, I'll scream.

Hunter Hit Rating

In order to get your level 70 hunter ready to begin raiding, you need to get your hit rating to the magic number of 142. This number is based on the fact that hunters are for the vast majority of the time going to be filling their enemies full of either bullets or arrows. With a very few exceptions, melee strikes shouldn't even be happening. Some hunters do equip two weapons and dual wield. However, for the purposes of the following discussion, I'm going to assume your hunter is using a two-handed weapon (axe, mace, sword or polearm)

So, why is hit rating such a big deal? Well, for PVP it's not. Since the hit calculation roll is based mostly on the difference in levels between attacker and target, two level 70's are going to basically be a wash. Where that difference starts to make itself felt is in heroics and raids. Raid denizens (bosses and trash) can be up to three levels higher than a player. To overcome the difference in levels, a hunter needs a hit rating of 142.

Knowing the number is only half the fight though. The real challenge lies in getting exactly to 142 because hit rating in excess of the cap is wasted. It doesn't add any further benefit.

There are several pieces of gear that will boost your hit rating. Again, we're only discussing normal dungeon drops and quest rewards.

Armor
Armor is where you'll find most of the hit rating. Blizzard tends to put hit rating on helmets & belts. But the full list is below

Helmets

• Dream- Wing Helm - Drops in Shadow Labyrinth from Ambassador Hellmaw and has 13 hit rating.
  
• Cenarion Thicket Helm - Quest reward from quests in Terrokar Forest (actual quest lines are slightly different for Horde & Alliance from what I can tell) and has 16 hit rating.

Pants

• Greaves of Desolation - Drops in Sethekk Halls from Talon King Ikiss and has 12 hit rating.
• Nether Leggings - Quest reward from Dr. Boom in Netherstorm and has 17 hit rating.

Belts

• Tracker's Belt - Drops in Slave Pens from Mennu the Betrayer and has 14 hit rating.
• Rune-Engraved Belt - Quest reward from Fel Embers in Shattered Halls. This has a whopping 24 hit rating on it. I can't seem to get a replacement for my hunter who routinely goes to Serpentshrine Cavern.
• Shattrath's Champion Belt - Quest reward from How to Break into the Arcatraz and has 15 hit rating.

Hands & Feet

• Gloves of Marksmanship - Quest reward from Leader of the Bloodcrest in Zangarmarsh with 16 hit rating
• Fleet Refugee's Boots - Quest reward from Helping the Lost Find their Way in Terrokar with 17 hit rating.

Weapons
Some pieces here will have some decent hit rating on them. I've eliminated the non-hunter items from this list based on the stats (i.e. no Strength items here).

Ranged

• Skyfire Hawk-Bow - Drops from Warbringer O'mrogg in Shattered Halls and has 14 hit rating.
• Alley's Recurve - A quest reward bow from Mark V is Alive in Netherstorm that has 7 hit rating.
• Deadeye's Piece - A quest reward gun from quests in Terrokar (the lines differ for Horde & Alliance) with 6 hit rating

Melee

• Sonic Spear - Drops from Murmur in Shadow Labyrinth (if you can get it to drop) and has a whopping 24 hit rating. I ground for this so long, I got Legacy from Karazhan first.

Rings, Amulets, Trinkets & Glyphs
There are a large number of rings and amulets that are both drops and quest rewards. In fact, there are enough I won't list them all here. Be aware that as you get into this area you're going to be competing (for drops at least) with DPS warriors, enhancement shamans and rogues.

There is a trinket from Terrokar quests (Again, the line differs for Horde & Alliance) called the Terrokar Tablet of Precision. This baby has 22 hit rating on it and can easily fill holes until you get better gear.

Getting revered with Cenarion Expedition will allow you to purchase the Glyph of Ferocity with another 16 hit rating on your helm.

Filling in the Holes
So, now you've collected all the gear you can get and are still a few points short. How is it possible to make up the last few points of hit rating you need? Well, if you have gem slots you can use Glinting Orange Gems that grant +4 hit rating (and +4 agility) at the rare level; they grant +3 at the uncommon level. Rigid Yellow Gems grant +8 hit rating at the rare level; they grant +6 at the uncommon level.

Finally, you can also eat. Spicy Hot Talbuk grants 20 hit rating for the length of the food buff. The recipe comes from the daily cooking quest, so if you can't make it yourself, perhaps a guild mate can. (If you're looking for this recipe to drop, it only comes from the Crate of Meat reward from the daily. The crate can also contain the Kibler's Bits pet food recipe.)

Finally Hit Capped
So, that's all there is to hit rating. Get it to a minimum of 142 and then start playing with gear. As you start raiding you may absolutely need the Talbuk to hit your 142, but as you begin getting more gear you can switch to an Attack Power or Agility food. Welcome to the hit rating dance.