Outland Dungreon Hero - Underbog

I originally thought I would continue on a logical path with my solo attempts and with my Classic Dungeonmaster achievement behind me I would need to start on the Classic Raider achievement. However time will not permit me to follow such a linear path as the Raids seem to take much more time to complete then the dungeons. I will do my best to follow the linear path but work generally gets in the way of raiding on weekdays (haven't even been able to attend a guild raid in a while). On top of that once I trained in dual spec and selected my solo Blood spec I was anxious to test it out. At that point the idea for this blog was non-existent so I ran out to solo my first Heroic instance. No, it wasn't a lvl 80 heroic but a BC heroic, more specifically Underbog.


Once I learned my new spec and trained at Ebon Hold I was anxious to try it out, just how much surviving could I expect from this blood tree I wondered. Knowing I wasn't nearly ready for a lvl 80 heroic (or even non-heroic) I went back to an instance I had tried to run in the past on regular difficulty with my frost spec, tried and failed. I am going to assume that those of you reading this blog (is there anyone reading this blog? lol) know what Underbog is, if not I suggest your find out all about it on one of my favorite websites Wowhead. You can find it here.

From the start of entering the instance I have to admit I had a little adrenaline flowing, I was excited and anxious to see if I had what it took to even start on this little adventure of mine. I had a new spec, with a new rotation that I never even tried out before this and some rather old tank gear, granted much higher gear then I would have had if I were trying this before WotLK came out, not that I would have been able to try it then since DK's did not exist before that either, but I digress.

From the first trash pull up to the first boss Hungarfen was no problem, I was very impressed with the self healing the blood tree provided me, my rotation was IT>PS>Pest>DS>HS, DS>DS>HS>HS (repeat with the occasional Pestilence to refresh diseases). I almost never had lower then a few hundred HP's lost so there was absolutely no issue with surviving.

Feeling very confident I made my way up the ramp to take on Hungarfen thinking this guy had no chance against me, I was going to take him down and laugh at how easy it was. Well I was wrong. I was paying attention to my runes, my runic power, everything but my health. "I don't have to worry about that I have a new blood spec, these measly mushrooms and this Bog Giant thing don't stand a chance against this slightly geared 80 Death Knight." I thougt. Turns out that even with the self healing powers of blood and being 8 or so levels higher then the bosses they still can hurt you, especially if your not paying attention at all.

So I made my way back into the instance to recover my body, sat down to eat some vendor food to replenish my health and made my way back up the ramp. Coldly staring down Hungarfen I thoguht to myself "You may have won the last battle but this time your mine.". I then proceeded to attack this time paying attention to my runes, my runic power, and my health. I kited him away from the spawning mushrooms, backed up when he used his Foul Spores and even had to kick in my "Oh Crap" sequence when my health started to get low. My "Oh Crap" sequence is a series of abilities, spells, potions, etc. that I use when my health gets low and I think there might be a chance of dying.

In this case, and with this blood spec, my "Oh Crap" sequence is this cast Vampiric Blood which grants me extra health and more importantly 35% increased health generated from spells and effects for 10 seconds (plus 5 seconds for the glyph) - cost 1 blood rune, place Mark of Blood on the hardest hitting NPC (in this case the boss) - cost 1 blood rune, hit blood tap to activate a blood rune and turn it into a death rune - no cost with glyph, then cast rune tap - cost 1 blood rune (which at this point should be the death rune created by blood tap) . If After this sequence I will continue to generate 35% extra health from the damage I am doing and having improved blood presence (maintain 4% of heath generated while in frost presence). This sequence was more than adequate for this level boss to bring back to almost full health, but if it wasn't I would continue the sequence with raise dead - no cost, then death pact - cost 40 runic power. Additionally I could then pop a healing potion and if all else seems not to be working cast Army of the Dead (AoD). AoD would allow me to take less damage and bring xtra DPS into the, also depending on when it was cast might also allow me to take advantage of another Death Pact.

This boost in health allowed me to finish of Hungarfen and have no down time before starting in on the next set of trash. Interestingly enough after this boss fight I had no problems finishing the dungeon, not even needing to go to my "Oh Crap" sequence on the remaining bosses. I slowly worked my way towards Ghaz'an disposed of him in a timely manner, moved on to Swamploard Musel'ek, then The Black Stalker. All of these went down under my crushing blows from my Titansteel Destroyer and my unwillingness to die due to blood health regeneration.

So I am impressed with the Blood talents and the spec I choose to start with, I still have some learning to do and I realize now I won't be able to just proceed on automatic pilot but may actually have to pay attention to what I'm doing as I progress through the content. I think a few tweaks might help out, one I am considering is not going into frost presence but instead stay in Blood presence. I loose the extra armor and damage reduction that frost provides but I gain a great deal of healing power and damage from blood presence. Keeping in mind I don't need to worry about the loss of threat from being in blood presence since I am soloing the instance. Another thing I may look at is wearing my DPS armor, I wasn't very happy with the damage I was doing in my tank armor and it took longer then I thought it should to bring down both the trash and the bosses. I'll play around with it a little and let you know how I go.