Why do you play your spec - Death Knight

I thought about posting something else for a bit but than figured I wouldn't be happy with myself until I managed to finish this series. Than I debated whether to post my mage next or death knight. Finally I decided Tyledres would be next because so far all the posts have been in line with who was actually leveled first and the death knight was leveled before the mage was created.

Tyledres is a newer toon for me. I didn't create her until Cata was well under way. It's not that I haven't had death knights before. When Wrath launched I was there with hundreds of other people trying to get though the death knight starting zone. It's a really neat place. The class also really confused me. And every time I thought I might have an idea what a death knight was it would be changed. So I ended up starting a death knight, getting it though the starting zone, and than deleting it an awful lot.

It's not that I didn't like death knights. I thought they were so cool. And I had a guild master who was able to play a beastly death knight. My guildies and I dubbed him God after he practically soloed one of the heroic dungeon bosses. He was really good and he was what I thought of when I thought of death knights. I've had a healer friend who absolutely hated death knights. Her experience was with the really terrible ones. I have no doubt that of these two examples I was more a terrible death knight than a good one.

Eventually I leveled though the death knight starting zone enough times that something finally clicked in my mind and I was finally able to be a decent death knight. I managed to level to about level 70 and than I stopped. Eventually I had a friend who was leveling a hordie on my server. I didn't have any empty slots left so I couldn't level with her. I eventually deleted my death knight to make a troll one. The name I had been using didn't seem to work for a troll and I eventually came up with Tyledres. My friend than decided she didn't want to be horde anymore and switched to alliance. So I deleted my troll and made a human death knight. I really liked the name Tyledres so it stuck. Before I had made my death knights night elves but I was starting to feel like I had way too many night elves. I wanted more humans so that's what Tyledres became. 

I leveled Tyledres as blood and unholy. I choose blood so I could tank and I choose unholy because I thought having a permi-ghoul would be awesome. Frost just didn't seem interesting to me at all. I didn't touch the unholy spec. I spent my time as a blood death knight running dungeon after dungeon until I reached level 80. Than I switched to unholy. I'll admit that I was afraid to keep trying to tank the cata dungeons. They weren't easy when I went though on my druid and she had been wearing ICC gear. My death knight was in leveling greens. So I figured I'd been out in the world doing quests and that unholy would be easier for leveling since it's a dps spec. 

I stopped at level 83. I just couldn't keep going. I try questing, I tried dungeons, I even thought about trying pvp. Unholy was not working for me. I felt that I spent way too much time trying to build up to the good damage abilities. And I had to choose between making my ghoul stronger or summoning a gargoyle. I also took a lot of damage and to try to heal it I threw off my rotation. Than a friend said, "Why aren't you leveling blood? It's faster." 

So I switched back to blood and wondered why I ever stopped playing that spec. I love bone shield, I like my blood worms, and having a second weapon was a blast. I also tanked dungeons and I never once felt weak. She was a death knight and she was godly. She was also very lucky. She managed to hit 85 and by the next day was already running the hour of twilight dungeons and before the week was out was running dungeon finder. The gear was dropping and not just for her tank spec. By the end of the week she had a nice tank set and a decent dps set. I also had my choice of weapons. So I tried to look up the best dps spec. Different sources said different things but I noticed that of the two frost specs DW frost was supposed to be better than 2H if the weapons where close enough. So I went DW frost. 

I loved it. I wasn't completely sure what I was doing at first but I was doing damage. Howling blast is amazing. It's not a really flashy spec or very complicated but I have a blast playing it. It's fast, no build-up, and very steady damage but with some dps cooldowns. 

I eventually took my death knight into battlegrounds but originally as blood because I didn't have dps gear and I was more concerned with surviving than trying to do damage. Normally I tolerate pvp or else I really dislike it. But I loved killing stuff with Tyledres. I think part of it was my first battleground. I got twin peaks and had a group with 5 rogues. 5 really good rogues. And I got to carry the flag. Lots of achievements there. Eventually I got enough pvp gear to feel confident making the switch to pvping in my frost spec. Still lots of fun. I eventually changed my frost spec from a pve one to a pvp one and loved being a pain with my chains of ice, licheborne, and even started figuring out how to catch people in my pillars of frost. I don't think I've ever loved pvp as much before.

I'm very happy with Tyledres as my main. I never really planned to make her my main but she managed to get her way to 85 and than refused to let me out of her grip. I love some of the new changes to the specs. I can now choose to either DW or use a 2H for my frost spec without visiting the trainer to fix my spec. I can also pvp or pve without having to change my spec either. While I don't necessarily want the same talents for either of them the ability to change my talents on the fly is something that's mind boggling for me. Really? I can have this talent and than change it later to run bgs and change it back to run dungeons? Only for the cost of a reagent? Much nicer than running back to the trainer ever time I turned around.

I still enjoy tanking things as well but I tend to think of Tyledres's main spec as frost even if it's not the one she uses the most. I'm pretty certain that Tyledres will still be a blood/frost death knight in Pandaria.