Name: Tauburn
Race, Class, and Main Spec: Blood Elf, Death Knight, Blood
Armoury Link: Link may change

How old are you? Please express your answer in Reverse Polish Notation.
10 10 4 +

How long have you been playing World of Warcraft? What experience do you have of endgame raiding?
I first started World of Warcraft in November 2004, only playing for a few months. I returned to the game a month before Burning Crusade (December, 2006), creating my first character to engage endgame raiding, Blood Elf Holy Paladin, specialising to a Tank role when required. With the buffs introduced in 2.3, I had the gear to become viable as a Retribution Paladin. I gained experience first as a member, then as Paladin Class officer, experiencing up to Hyjal in content pre-nerf. Due to situation on server, a large majority of the raid force server transferred, severely crippling progress as the new replacements were nowhere as trained or as geared. The transfer included the Raiding forces hierarchy, leaving me and the Shaman class officer as only original officers left, and I accepted the responsibility of Raid Leader. I managed to re-organise the raid force and regained our progression back up to KT. With stresses on the Horde-side raiding (5 raid forces collapsed, due to server transference), it came to the point where we struggled to field a sufficient forces and we had to disband the Raid force and I left World of Warcraft.

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I returned to World of Warcraft as a Death Knight Tank, originally specialising in Frost due to the survivaliabity the tree granted before the tree reformation in 3.1. I was part of a small raiding community set up with a few friends from before I left; I came fully geared in Heroic and Badge content, and showed dedication to the task of being the main tank. We cleared all four wings of Naxxramas on 10-man, before the server first of Kel’Thuzad. Due to situation between the community leaders, a guild that was involved and a couple of members jumping ship, the community group died, I decided to quit World of Warcraft due to my efforts being seemingly wasted and the lack of recruitment, especially for Death Knights or Tanks,

I only recently returned to World of Warcraft (24th of Feb); at the insistence of a friend who is on Alliance side on this server. I levelled from scratch a Worgen Protection Warrior (Ezekiel) which is currently doing heroic dungeon content. However, the guild he is currently in has an unhealthy warrior and druid (feral) population, leaving no room for neither a Protection nor DPS warrior, even though there is a high demand in the Pick-Up-Group market. I decided to re-roll as a Draenei Mage to fill a role as a ranged DPS within the guild, also to provide more opportunities in other game areas such as PvP. A friend who also played on the Horde side (Ailell) who just applied here commented that you were interested in a Death Knight tank when I was discussing the issues on the Alliance side I have having. I decided to transfer my level 80 Blood DK across from my old realm and recently just advanced him to level 85, currently tackling heroic content to increase his item level, in the hopes of having an opportunity if I applied to this guild, I would be accepted.


Is this your main? How often do you play this character? Tell us about your other characters, including any serious alts.
I transferred this character to this server to consider playing him, from advancing in levels, I have grown to really enjoy Blood tanking in comparison to my Protection Warrior. I got him from 80 to level 85 within three days, and I am hoping to spend far more time on him.

I still play and talk to friends on the Alliance side, and recently being granted some new guild responsibilities over there, I won't be on this character 24/7, though I am currently fully flexible for the raid times and days. My main Alliance character is the following:
Ezekiel (Protection Warrior, Worgen) - Pentifex Order

What's your complete guild history, on this realm as well as any other? Why did you leave / are you leaving your current or previous guild?
Steamwheedle Cartel (RP) -
Burning Crusade:
Order of the Sun (RP Guild, Guild Master)
Forgotten Souls (Raiding Community/Guild, Started a member, promoted to Raid Leader, then Guild/Community Leader)
Wrath of the Lich King:
The Ebon blade (RP Guild, Guild Master)
Blood Oath (Raiding Community, Main Tank)

Ravenholdt (RP-PVP) –
Merchants of Death (Social Guild, Officer)

Defias Brotherhood –
The Pentifex Order (Social, turning RP, promoted to Officer)

Provide the names of some people we can get in touch with in-game as references. Please note that references are required: give names of characters on other realms, if necessary. If you know anyone on the Path, either in-game or IRL, mention that here also:
Ailell (Horde) – Friend and Former Raiding partner – Experienced TBC Raiding, WotLK raiding, and Cataclysm Heroics
Alumari (Alliance) – Second of the Pentifex Order – For a character reference from someone who didn’t know me until I recently started on Defias Brotherhood.

What is your role in raids? How do you judge whether you're doing a good job or not?
I constantly self-criticise myself, trying to maximise my potential. I use various tools as a guide to my performance in my assessments. I consider things such as threat generation, spatial awareness of the mobs, who is getting damaged and from what, and that I am interrupting and positioning correctly. If something isn’t going exactly to plan, such as an add managing to escape (due to DPS not targeting Skull, for example), I can shift myself easily to able to re-assume aggro, and keep threat generation up to keep it in place. On boss fights, I watch out for what is happening around me, so if a wipe occurs, I generally have a good idea on where the issue lies. If it lies within me, I correct myself. I aim to make sure at end of the run when people are talking, when they mention about the tanking, they don’t have any complaints.

Describe your choice of spec, how you came to your current build, and any other things you feel we should know about why you spent your talent points the way you did.
I am currently utilising a 31/8/2 specification. This build takes the key talents, also reaching into Frost for the free Mind Freeze (for interrupting casters) and providing the Abomination's Might buff to the group/raid. I chose this over 32/6/3 because I have had numerous issues with group members in the past failing to interrupt and wasn't in the position to cover the loss with a well timed mind freeze due to its cost. The other decision was taking Abomination's Might over Imp. Blood tap. Current dungeon situations have required me to be able to produce more AoE for threat via Heart Strike (which uses a blood rune), so the two talent points devoted into Blood tap were costly in the benefits it would have brought to be personally, in comparison of that providing the group with Abomination's Might.

Where do you go to read about your class outside of the game?
Elitist Jerks is great for getting some raw information to help make informed choices, but usually I discuss it with other members of my class who are successful for their insight and from raw personal experience [WoW forums, Guild forums, etc]. While Elitist Jerks can tell you what a robot can do in number crunching, it is only a baseline to help inform you, especially as I am able to perform my own analysis through several instances.

Please provide a screenshot of your UI during raid boss or dungeon boss combat.
Here are a few screenshots covering various situations. As a note which you cannot see in the pictures, all the ability buttons are on keybind as well.
A clean screenshot
I can mark mid-boss fights
Even if the healer and a dps fails to do the tactics probably, it didn't stop us from downing him
I am completely in control of situation, even doing 10k dps in that fight.

Role-playing Section: End your application with a short in-character biography, a note from your character to the officers, or other RP story or RP statement about yourself. Effort is much more appreciated than length or content, and your application will not be considered without it.
Due to the size of the story I constructed specifically for this application, I have uploaded it as a.doc on filefront to make reading this application easier.
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20175373 ... uction.doc

What's your most and least favourite raid boss up to now and why?
What I enjoy in bosses is the variety and tactics involve. From the Deadmines Heroic 'Gauntlet', the 'Safety Dance' in Naxx, to successfully navigate myself around and make me think, "Damn, you did good."

As for least favourite, it would be the really boring 'Tank, Spank and Loot' bosses. Just standing there pressing a couple of rotation keys isn't the greatest time of your life.

The most important factor is actually the company I have. With great company, even the 'Tank, Spank and Loot' bosses are enjoyable as you can have a laugh, you have a connection of trust between each other, you can rely on one another. Unfortunately, the opposite is true, even the most enjoyable bosses can be really dire when you start questioning if they simply bought the account from ebay. People whining and complaining about healer, tank or the mage not sheeping "properly" when you discover it was them who kept standing in AoE, ninja pulling and breaking sheep constantly. When the someone "off-spec" ninja's a piece of loot you put countless efforts and runs to obtain.

What stats do you prefer to stack/gem/enchant and why?
Mastery, Stamina and Avoidance. These are the only things and mainly in that order as well. Blood shield is an amazing tool in a Blood DK arsenal, enabling you fend off damage, sometimes when you are lucky, even allowing the healer to conserve some mana as you don't require the intense healing other classes may require.
Stamina is always good for the simple fact of "If you got life, you are not dead, you can prevent others from dying". Though I usually only stack it in blood slots only for gems, and +stam enchants when there is not a better alternative. Stam will become a higher priority when other stats have hit their DR caps, so stacking in them becomes pointless.
Avoidance is great for the fact is it can prevent things from hitting you, but making this high priority at expense of others is simply asking for trouble and leads intense spike damage.
[Hit and Expertise will also be soft-capped, but mentioned as an extra as it is an obvious requirement.]

What other duties does a tank have besides standing infront of a mob slapping it with its weapon for threat?
The "Tank" is basically summarised as put forward in the question on the simplest level, but the true responsibilities of the tank is looking out for the group/raid and thinking about their requirements and their issues. This involves positions mobs and bosses so the DPS has the best field of damage, it involves making the boss cast AoE's away from the other members, it involves thinking about the healers mana and thus timing cooldowns at appropriate places in order to make their lives simpler. It involves using keeping sunders/diseases on the boss and interrupting their spells, it involves knowing the tactics on the level where some raid roles would have a heart attack over. While you may have a tank who just stands there, slapping the mob, being a great tank involves intimate knowledge of the situation, a complete lack of 'tunnel vision' and being able to provide for the groups/raids needs on an almost omniscient level.

Additional notes. Optionally, mention anything else you'd like us to know about your application.
I am making this application with an interest to join the Social section as I gear up and finish item levelling this character, with intent to consider raiding as a Death Knight, as Blood spec. I am open to questions, so feel free to ask and I will give you an honest answer. I have been as honest as possible in this application, but if something doesn't look right to you, feel free to bring it up and I would clarify my statements.

On another more personal note, since leveling my Death Knight to level 85, I have become very passionate with him, especially with numerous of very good experiences in PvE and PvP content. These range from "The guy who tanked Van in AV" and getting impressive number of killing blows in PvP content, to my latest personal achievement of tanking Ozruk successfully in Heroic mode on the first try and not getting hit by his slam or his shatter.

I feel like this might be brought up, so I will comment on it, "Why this guild?". I will be honest, it doesn't have the highest PvE rating on the realm or have some grand reputation but there is something I definitely have noticed is how all the members I have spoken to have all been very polite, friendly and I wish I could have the opportunity to know them better. Yes, my original reason was because Ailell applied here but it is the conversations I have had with people such as Luminor, Vedder and random encounters with others which have strongly appealed to me and given me valid independent reasons for me wanting to apply, so it isn't a case of "A guild with Ailell", it is a case of "A friendly pro-active guild with great members, which Ailell is also a part of". So if you are wanting a member who wants to join for the great company, who won't be disappearing after receiving a few epics, someone who knows what they are doing and will work hard, I am offering myself to you.

Very impressive application!

I can't access your talents on armory for some reason so for now I'm just going to comment on couple things I saw in your application. First of all I understand your talents are aimed at doing 5-mans at the moment, but I'll still comment on them with raiding in mind. Abomination's Might is potentially nice, but it doesn't stack with Blessing of Might, or with the shaman talent Unleashed Rage, both of which we usually have in raid. I wouldn't put any points in Endless Winter either, because it really should mainly be your DPS interrupting since your miss chance is so high that it makes you a very unreliable interrupter, and also if you really need to interrupt I think it's relatively easy to keep your rp above 20. Main reason for not taking either in raid environment though is that there are simply more useful talents to spend those points on.

Now I know that blood tank stat priority isn't 100% clear even to the biggest theorycrafters so I'm not going to pretend I know it either. Still the general wisdom seem to be that mastery and avoidance are about equal, but both are much more useful for us than stacking stamina. Also I don't think you should you be trying to get more hit/exp, you should be trying to get rid of it in favor of previously mentioned stats.

Here is the armory of one of the best known DK tanks in the world: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/I ... s/advanced as an example.

Last couple questions, which is more important dodge or parry ? Explain the priority queue for tanking ? How is Mind Freeze going to change in 4.1 ?

Damn, answering my question before I can ask it.


Lovely application to read.
10/10 Would read again.

I'll try come up with something later.

I don't know anything about playing a death knight, but I do know a good story when I read one! Usually I'm not much for such elaborate depicitons of battle, but I liked how you made it come alive (no pun intended), and how you subtely used different abilities existing in game.
Thank you!

Understood, I have no issues changing when needed and you are correct in assuming my current specification at the moment is centered around 5-man Heroics PuG's.


The issues of avoidance is the potential DR cap, however, I am currently in no position where there is a serious issue. As for hit/exp, the changes to vengeance have definitely made them less of a priority than in previous versions of WoW. Stamina isn't a stat I am going to potentially stack, as I was going to go as far as blue gems being the only source. I am definitely open to Mastery+Stamina gems for the blue slots, but when I checked the AH at that time, there wasn't any in stock. Obviously by joining a guild like this one, there would most likely be a jewel crafter who could cut me such gems in the future for a good price,


Parry and Dodge are effectively equal now as in they diminish at the same rate. In my current set up, I have significantly more parry than dodge, which makes dodge very interesting stat for me to stack over parry in that situation. This is different for a protection warrior since they have "Hold the Line" talent making parry significantly more favourable for them.


The priority is a reference to the infeasibility of processing a direct rotation which other classes may experience. There are several things which are important:
diseases: They reduce incoming damage from mob and also increases threat due to attacking hitting for more.
Runes constantly being refreshed: This is mainly by using death-strike which uses unholy and frost, also turning them into Death runes while using blood runes for rune-tap, heart-strike, pestilence, and other abilities. The downtime on the Blood runes also activites blade barrier giving a -6% damage reduction.
Runic Power: This helps fund abilities such as DRW, which gives more threat with gylph, also allowing Runic Strike spams giving significant threat.
There are more subtle tactics such as making sure to use death-strikes after hard hitting events for bigger Blood shield returns, and keep popping the blood tap cooldown to turn a blood rune into a death rune to allow you to use other abilities which don't require blood runes.


It will no longer require spell hit as it is a non-damaging interrupt ability.

Was really happy to see your answers, you obviously know lot about the class, and its easy to see you actually understand the reasoning behind using different abilities. Just little clarification about the Mind Freeze thing, Blizzard are changing interrupts so that all non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. We already got the 9% spell hit buff in 4.0.6 when they included that in Runic Focus.

Just as a gear update, I secured the Epic BS chest from Alliance side, so that should be transferring over soon once Ailell comes online and is able to help me with that.

Well damn, this is the most complete app I've ever seen I think...and I've been around a while Kudos! *goes to read the RP story*

Hey there Tauburn,

Not gonna keep you waiting any longer, this is indeed a very nice application which really makes us want to see more of you.
But to be fair against all other raiders you are accepted on the same terms as Ailell: social member until you've no longer proven to be a target in need of a boost run. Let's make that period as short as possible, I'm sure most people will help you grind some heroics whenever they have time .

Whisper me, Savian, Jotra or Arache for a /ginvite