Your First Epic DK Weapon

If money is no object, your first two handed weapon should be the Battered Hilt to start the Quel del'ar chain of quests. This mythically rare drop epic only appears on elite ( non trash ) mobs in the three new Heroic 5 man instances for ICC. You can only run them once a day and possibly a few times if they come up as random runs.



Quel Del'ar . BIS 5 man dropped weapon / quest item. Super easy quest to do. AH prices on this item on my server have gone from 14,000 gold to as low as 11,500 gold. Consider yourself the luckiest DK in the world to get this drop, roll need, and win it to start the quest. The rest of us peons don't have the money or eventually upgrade to the 10 / 25 man epics. I have run each of these instances maybe a hundred times combined on six level 80 characters. Never once seen the hilt drop. Other players sell them off once a month for extra cash. Sickening.



Tyrannical Beheader. Once you qualify to run Heroic Pit of Saron ( 2000 GS or better ), you should repeat this instance to get this rare drop off the last boss - Scourgelord Tyrannus. Run as a DPS and you shoulnd't have too much competition getting the axe. Fury 2H warriors, Ret Paladins, and Ninja Tanks should be your only other competition as a Dps DK.



Orca Hunter's Harpoon. AGI / STA version of your beloved Axe. This one is a polearm. Primary competition is the Hunter / Ret Paladin crowd. It also has a gem slot for occasional use as a tanking item. Don't turn down a 232 iLevel weapon if its an upgrade.



Garfrost's Hammer / Edge of Ruin. Third tier 219 iLevel Dk tank weapons. Good for the job. Pretty common to get. Don't invest too much effort in Re-running Heroic ToC. The same que time can be done to get into HPoS for a much better axe.



Pre-level 80.... Wow, there's alot of open debate. I would personally get the quest 2H blue weapon from the Ampitheater of Anguish. It's a fine 178 iLevel axe. Old guides will lead you astray, grasshopper. You would work your faction up to Revered with Knights of the Ebon blade and get their faction 2H Weapon. That's a 187 iLevel sword. Possibly , you could work your way up thru the Argent Dawn Tournament and get epic weapons from your favorite city group. Finally it was recommended to run Heroic Halls of Lightning to get the 200 iLevel Epic Axe from Loken. It's good, but you won't get alot of mileage out of it, if you raid - at all.



Now, it's just Easier to run the new 5-man ICC instances until you get the Epic flavor of the week. Two handers not your favorite brand of damage dealer? The new ICC instances have a bevvy of Axes, Swords, and Maces to slake your thrist. Grind em out. Collect your badges, and get that 4pT9 set put together. There's enough 232 gear in the new heroics to equip a DK nicely as a DPS and an Offtank for ToC 10 and Ulduar 10.



There are at least two weeks of SOLID work to gear up for a 2500 GS and a shot at Icecrown Citadel 10. If you are in an established guild, you can ride along or you get very lucky with a PuG group, you may find yourself the proud owner of a 251 Citadel Claymore or a Ramaldi's Polearm. Thank your lucky stars, because the final tier is the ICC 25 weapons or Shadow's Edge.

Dual Wield and + Hit

Just a few weeks ago, I decided to dust off my shaman and get him going again. At level 20, the new patch of WoW gives you tremendous bonuses to grind from a riding mount to Relic gear to XP reduction on pre-60 levels. IMHO the most beneficial things to have while levelling are the 2 piece Relic Armor, a Relic weapon, and a high level "buddy".

I took the Enhancement tree to spec before level 80 and the dps has been really great lately. The combat is very intense and visceral, instead of casting 3 dots and fear or Pyroblast and Fireburst. Totem layout and mana recovery being your biggest steady state issues. Afterwards, it's gearing up correctly. The first big hurdle is level 40 = Dual wield.

By level 30, you get your windfury weapon enchant and your windfury totem. Lava Lash is a talent that gives 100% of your offhand weapon damage instantly every 8 seconds. If your offhand is enchanted with Flametongue, you get 125%. I have a slow offhand weapon and was using the PvP Relic dagger. My dps at level 40 was a respectable 69 dps. Getting a slow mainhand works GREAT with Windfury effects. I got a second Relic Mass of McGowan. I enchanted it with Crusader and jumped up to 96 DPS.

Now my only problem is that I'm missing everything I'm attacking. Missing horribly. Nothing could be worse on scrolling combat text and my Recount than Miss, Miss, Miss, Hit, Miss, Miss, Glancing Blow, Miss, Miss. Wow Dual wield sucks. Maybe I sucked. Time to fix things!

I swapped some gear around and got more +hit. Getting more +hit is actually VERY difficult at lower levels. Nothing has gem slots. The first few talent points after Dual Wield must be placed into your three "Accuracy" talents that give +hit. Re-spec if you haven't done this already. Looking at the DPS charts = Pro hint. DPS charts are entirely for YOUR benefit. I don't like to link charts. They're for me to see the fight. Even on my hunter rocking more than 6k DPS on some fights... it's just not cool. So, looking closely, my dps chart gave me a 25% miss chance against level 42-44 mobs at Level 40. The opponents are higher level. They naturally dodge and parry more. It's an uphill battle. I'm probably killing them more with Lightning shield than my own weapon / spell damage. I have to fix that.

Take your +hit talents. Get the +hit necklace made from Jewelcrafting ( Lev 39 crafted item). Hunt down any +hit items. I wound up getting the Mail legs from Marudon, the DPS ring from Princess Theladras, and some +8 hit mail gloves from the AH. All this trimmed my miss percentage to below 10% and my dps from 96 to 250. What a huge jump!