And now the end is near …

And so I face the final curtain.

Which was ICC HC last night. Demeternoth and her Number One Tank Buddy, aka Darklive, aka My Crazy Dutch Man, have retired from raiding and to round off a great year, we headed back to where it all fell into place, Ice Crown. Of course umpteen (nay thousands, maybe millions?!) have already bopped Ole Lich King on the head in HC mode but we, in the Uber Noob raid team of Deadbeat Desperados, the Old Double Ds, ended Wrath on 6/12 on heroic. And last night we got through the whole place with 15 minutes left to bop LK. Not really long enough as it turned out but this isn't a bad thing. There will always be 'One more boss' for us now :D

Today I am reminiscing about all the raid bosses we have killed, the wipes we’ve had and the unforgettable nights of fun and laughter. At the beginning of ICC, having not been able to find a suitable tank to partner Darklive and having two DPS DKs, Demeternoth stuck her plucky little hand up and said ‘I’ll tank’. Deme and Dark have been the tanking pair in Double Ds ever since and Deme was proud to wear the Nipple as her mark. Yes there is a theme here, BOOBIES!

I will never forget dancing in front of Marrowgar, shouting at all three healers who were trying to tell me, individually, where to place Sindy, sucking with all my might on Proff P and doing the Hokey Cokey on ole LK himself. In between all that we cleared most of Ulduar on 10 man too, some of us did the whole thing including Algalon on 25 man and we even ventured into the old favourites of Naxx, EoE and Obsidian Sanctum to clean off a few titles, achievements and have a bit of fun. That big purple dragon in the Ruby Sanctum dropped the very same week we killed LK. I guess the Game Gods were on our side that week.

As anyone who has read this blog will know, my time in WoW has been coming to an end and the blog hasn’t been getting regular updates for a good few months now. With the end of raiding on Demeternoth, I anticipate another dip in activity here. I will post if I have something interesting to say of course, but for the most part, there’s plenty of other blogs and resources for people to get the information on Death Knights so this is likely to become a much more general wow place. Especially since that little warlock is quite addictive and the druid is howling for attention. In time though, even our casual play will dwindle as we move on in life and begin to tank our very own set of raid bosses, a house renovation/redecoration plan and begin our own little dps team :D. We don’t need any more tanks in our household afterall. Maybe a healer for a 5 man dungeon team.

I will greatly miss talking to Vecio, Gorani, Hugregotwo, Andycoopsdk, Jarobh, Candlewaxx, Serkul/Sertel, Grokknar and Zetronex two nights a week. Candle and Hug have become two great friends to myself and Darklive and as for the hunter who’d never used Misdirect until we got to Halfus, I salute you Serkul, you miserable old fucker. Andycoopsdk, my in game brother, our little warriors grew up together followed by our DKs. You couldn’t get a more stereotypical pair of noobs. I’ll never forget asking for help in Redridge and running Deadmines with you tanking :D. Good times! Vecio – you don’t say much but when you do you make it count. Thanks for healing my arse! Gorani you giant spacegoat. Keep those balls up. Jarobh, thank you for the portals and healthstones. Warlockery is awesome, who needs a mage?! Pink Pally #2, aka Zetronex, get those tanking boots polished and those weapons sharp. Take care of the team and they’ll take care of you. The biggest thing to remember is to talk to the rest of the guys and especially your co-tank, your life depends on it!

And finally Grokknar, the original Pink Pally in a Skirt, well I can’t say how grateful I am to you for raid leading this bunch of noobs. Your patience and approach to raid leading is refreshing and sets the tone for the rest of us to enjoy our evenings together.

Demeternoth and Darklive’s final week of raiding has been marked by two events. The ICC HC run and a wedding. At Light’s Hope Chapel at 2000 realm time on Saturday 26th March, Darklive and Demeternoth exchanged vows. After all, if a Death Knight can essentially repent and feel guilt for the killing they did in the Lich King’s name, they can feel love again right?!

Demeternoth and Darklive will now be found on a little farm, just north of the lake in Stormwind. Deme doesn't want to move back to Northshire since most of its burnt and Darklive wants to be near a lake for fishing. They plan to raise a few DPS and a healer whilst running a totally self-sufficient farm. Look out for 'DD Farm Produce' at the Stormwind Farmers Market soon.

Jumping the Whale Shark

I don't think I've posted on Patch notes much before now, if at all. But something in the patch notes for 4.1 couldn't fail to catch my eye.

• Raise Ally has been redesigned to be a battle resurrection, analogous to Rebirth. It is instant cast, but costs 50 Runic Power to use, and has a 10-minute cooldown. It shares the same global battle resurrection cap with Rebirth and Soulstone.

Erm, say what?? Deme will be able to B-rez her allies and instead of 'spamming 1' they can actually fight? First reaction, Yippee!! What a great update for a spell that isn't really made the most of currently. Then I thought about it some more. Death knights. The clue is in the name surely? D E A T H. We shouldn't be able to resurrect people, as Shizukera on Twitter said "They're harbingers of death, not bringers of life".

Rioriel said "HI! Want to play a class defined by unique abilities? TOUGH THEY'RE ALL THE SAME. In 5 years we'll just have one stat: Awesome." Which was kind of my 3rd thought. If I wanted to be able to 'rescue' players I'd be a healing class. I have a lowbie priest, specced in holy and disc. She's low level for a reason. I like smashing stuff in the face with a big sword in my hand.

Which brings me to Psynister's recent Rift review where, understandably, he compares it to WoW. It was the remarks about class balance which struck me most.

There’s a lot of simplifying going on in WoW right now where classes and roles are being standardized so that everyone can do the same things with every class, and that takes away some of the uniqueness that used to be really appealing in WoW. So right now Rift is at one extreme (lacking balance) and WoW is at the other (excessive balance)."

The emphasis there is mine, but it sums up how I feel about this change pretty well and it makes me wonder what else is about to happen in the name of balance and how much do I want to be a part of that? I'm starting to think WoW has jumped the Whale Shark.