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Lichborne: Hour of Twilight tips for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With End Time and Well of Eternity down, the last dungeon we examine is the Hour of Twilight. This dungeon technically takes place in the present day, acting as a precursor to the Dragon Soul raid. Unfortunately, you do have to escort Thrall through the dungeon, but if you turn off the sound on the voice acting and squint, maybe you can pretend it is a cooler shaman like Nobundo or Mylra. For now, though, what we're most interested in is getting through this dungeon as a death knight, be that tank or DPS. It's a short, sweet dungeon, but there are a couple of tricks and gimmicks you'll want to know to make the fight as smooth as possible. As with the other two dungeons, the loot here will be mostly sidegrades to Firelands stuff, a great way to catch up an undergeared death knight for Dragon Soul. (For a more complete overview of the dungeon from all angles, be sure to check out WoW Insider's guide to Hour of Twilight.) Trash for Arcurion, the first boss, isn't too annoying -- just some run-of-the-mill elementals. The second pack comes at you from both sides, so you may either want to wrangle the single dude in with Death Grip or have one of your DPS CC it.
Lichborne: Cataclysm pre-raid gear for death knight DPS
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. Now that you've had a couple weeks to run heroic dungeons and grind reputations, chances are you're raring to start tackling raids. Whether you already have a raid group or whether you're trying to find one, one of the easiest things you can do to give yourself an edge is to make sure your gear is up to snuff. This week, we'll be looking at the best DPS gear options for death knights looking to break into Cataclysm raiding. Since gearing requirements for most raids are a bit more stringent, this list is going to be a bit shorter and more focused than the pre-heroic gear list. I've tried to make it clear what gear is best for what spec in the list, but we should probably go over it in general here, just to be clear. Unholy death knights' main focus should always be strength. They'll want to go for 8% hit, of course, but even that's not quite as potent to as stacking more strength. After strength and hit rating, haste and critical strike rating are their main secondary stats. 2H frost death knights are going to want to hit the 8% hit requirement and the 26 expertise dodge soft cap. Their main focus should then be strength, with haste and mastery as their main secondary stats Dual wield frost death knights also want to hit the hit and expertise soft caps, and strength is supreme for them as well. However, their main secondary stats are mastery and critical strike rating. As you can tell, each spec's gearing requirements are just different enough to make things complicated. I've tried to simplify it as much as possible with this list, but in some cases, you may want to take the "secondary" choice for your spec in order to hit the hit and expertise soft caps. Remember that you can also regem and reforge to hit those caps if needed, or to shed extra hit or expertise rating above those caps. Also, be aware if your race provides extra expertise for wielding a certain type of weapon, as it can often inform your exact gearing choices. Finally, keep in mind that this gear list may not be completely comprehensive. I have focused primarily on gear of item level 346 and above. Some gear that feels sub-optimal (such as gear with low strength) or seems like too much of a hassle or expense to get for what it offers (mostly blue crafted gear) has been left out deliberately. This is the raid game, so you should be making an extra effort to get properly geared. With that said, let's dive in!
Lichborne: Gearing for new level 80 DPS death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at death knight news, guides, tips and tricks. So you've just dinged level 80. Now what? If you're lucky, you've saved up a few Emblems of Triumph from random dungeon finder runs -- but for now, you're new, you're only halfway geared and you want to start running the dungeon finder as soon as possible so you can see the Lich King die before Cataclysm hits. How do you do that? Let's give you a few tips and a list of gear to shoot for to get you in top pre-raid shape.
