And Keiji makes 4...

With a valiant push, Keiji has hit level 80. With regret, I respecced to say bye bye to Hammermouth, Limbbreaker, Gutchewer, Eyedirt and all the ghouls who have come before.

And then I stepped into regular Halls of Lightning with my crafted defense gear and four companions, Vaalena the priest, Sorakos the unholy deathknight, Seraphelia the blood deathknight and Vialora the retribution paladin...

And I held aggro. And I did well. Yay for Unholy Tank! It's fun. :) I just need to time my rune cooldowns better, a few times I pulled and couldn't do plaguestrike because I didn't have any runes available. That's the one downside I see to being a DK tank... our pulling timetable has to be more measured than another's because of our reliance on runes for some of our abilities.

In other news, I was having a discussion about parry before and what it means.
I have always maintained that DPS stays behind the boss so the boss can't parry. If the boss parries, his swing timer is reset/shortened, causing increased damage to the tank.

The same holds true for us tanks. If we parry, our swing timer gets reset, resulting in increased output from us.

The debate was... if I parry, does the boss' swing-timer reset. I maintain that it does not, because that is not how parry works. The opposite (my) side of the argument is that when I parry, MY swing timer resets. Likewise, when the boss parries me, HIS swing timer resets.

'A successful parry nullifies the attack (for the attacker it is like a miss) and reduces the swing timer of the defender.'

'When you parry an attack, the remaining time on your current swing is reduced by 40% of your weapon speed, unless this would result in a reduction to less than 20% of your swing time remaining.'

This is why expertise is important not just for DPS to avoid those pesky dodges, but also for tanks.

'While tanks like to profit from this effect, melee damage dealers should attack from behind whenever possible, both to increase their own damage and to avoid causing unneeded damage to the tank through the enemy's parries.'

Tanks need 9%-12% expertise to reduce/not get parried by a raid boss. (I can't seem to find any hard source that gives one particular number, but most seem to agree that it's somewhere between 11-12%) Any of you DPS up there in front of the boss, getting parried and resetting his swing timer so that he hits me faster... not gonna be happy with you!

So, parry is a very nice push for us tanks who hold aggro in part through damage, as it resets my swing timer. And with a big slow two-hander, this is awesome. Yes please, make my swing timer faster on my big ass weapon! Thanks!

So... now Boon asked if I wanted to level my mage a little bit. YES PLEASE! :D