Okay, first things first - you probably know the Jaraxxus remix song. Like most people, I came to greatly love it, especially after I had actually fought Jaraxxus. And every time I fight him now I still play it in my browser (or at least in my head).

I AM THE. BLACK KNIGHT.

(I suggest hitting play and then continuing on. The clip is just the song, no video.)

But before Jaraxxus was 5-man ToC's Black Knight. The first time I saw him fly down in the arena I instantly thought of an amazing song that my friends and I discovered back in high school, from an old pinball game called Black Knight 2000. The following is what played in my head EVERY SINGLE TIME I fought the Black Knight - that's countless times farming it on regular, running it on Heroic every day for at least a month trying to get Marrowstrike, and even now occasionally as a random heroic.

So on the weekend I queued up for my random heroic, and we got ToC. I ended up partially tanking the Black Knight.

As my hunter.

As my HUNTER. Not a tenacity pet, didn't pet-tank it, but ME.

NO WAY

(I seem to have adopted the Gnome's blog style & line delivery.)

I'm not exactly sure what the tank was doing, but at the end of Black Knight phase 2, he just stood around waiting for phase 3...in the middle of a horde of slowly exploding ghouls. Obviously, he got blown to bits, and chaos ensued.

YOU GOT THE POWER

I feigned death right away since I was next on the threat list, flipped on my wolf's Growl and tossed him a Mend Pet, and commenced FULL BURN.

GET READY FOR BATTLE

Our poor resto shaman had her work cut out for her as the Black Knight's damage slowly, inevitably began ramping up and whittling our ranks. That being said, she did an amazing job keeping us alive long enough to wear him down, and I saw her die and immediately ankh to hit us with a few extra HoTs and heals. I know I took way more damage than my max HP, so it was only due to her great work that we won! I wish I had screenshotted her name so I could acknowledge her publicly. :(

Soon only my wolf, myself and the shaman were alive, but the Knight was tantalizingly close to death. And then my wolf croaked, followed by the shaman (again).

HA HA HA HA HA HA

So I kited, jump-shot, and Deterrence-tanked him to death.

Disengaged to get some shooting range, pew-pewed, then hit rocket boots to run away again as he got near.

When he reached me again, I popped Deterrence and prayed.

Normally Deterrence-tanking doesn't really work when you're the only one alive, but in my case it served three essential purposes.

It allowed one more Serpent Sting tick (a crit, for ~1200 damage).

It bought me a precious 5 seconds off my Kill Shot cooldown.

And it deflected two Black Knight attacks, Death's Bite which would have hit for around 4.5k, and Marked For Death which would have doubled my damage taken for the rest of the fight.

YOU CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT

As it was, Deterrence prolonged the fight just long enough for me to hit the Black Knight with a second Kill Shot as it came off cooldown, which dealt JUST enough damage to kill him. As in, 800 damage overkill.

If I hadn't gotten that one extra Serpent Sting tick during Deterrence, or if either of the Deterrence-deflected attacks had hit me, I would have died instead of the Knight, and it would have been a wipe.

BEAT THE BLACK KNIGHT

Instead we emerged victorious! Everyone was laughing like crazy in party chat, and we chuckled for a few minutes about what a fun kill that had been before parting ways to our respective servers.

The moral of the story?

Deterrence is so imba.


Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death's Bite (11).
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4081 Shadowfrost.
Rades's ranged shot hit The Black Knight for 1951 Physical.
Rades's Multi-Shot hits The Black Knight for 4759 Physical. (Critical)
The Black Knight's Marked For Death misses Rades.
Rades's ranged shot hit The Black Knight for 1981 Physical.
Rades's Kill Shot hits The Black Knight for 13555 Physical. (Critical)
The Black Knight suffers 1394 Nature damage from Rades's Serpent Sting. (Critical)
Rades's Serpent Sting dissipates from The Black Knight.
Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death's Bite (12).
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4232 Shadowfrost.
Rades's ranged shot hit The Black Knight for 3925 Physical. (Critical)
Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death's Bite (13).
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4314 Shadowfrost.
Rade's Arcane Shot hits The Black Knight for 2089 Arcane.
Rade's Pyro Rocket hits The Black Knight for 3652 Fire. (Critical)
Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death Bite (14)
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4487 Shadowfrost.
The Black Knight is afflicted by Rades's Serpent Sting.
Rades gains Rades's Deterrence.
The Black Knight's Death's Bite was deflected by Rades.
The Black Knight suffers 1255 Nature damage from Rades's Serpent Sting. (Critical)
The Black Knight's Marked For Death was deflected by Rades.
Rades's Deterrence fades from Rades.
Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death Bite (15)
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4721 Shadowfrost.
The Black Knight suffers 582 Nature damage from Rades's Serpent Sting.
Rades's Arcane Shot hits The Black Knight for 1831 Arcane.
Rades is afflicted by The Black Knight's Death Bite (16)
The Black Knight's Death's Bite hits Rades for 4732 Shadowfrost.
The Black Knight suffers 1255 Nature damage from Rades's Serpent Sting. (Critical)
Rades's Kill Shot hits The Black Knight for 4664 Physical (67 Blocked)(827 Overkill)
Rades has slain The Black Knight!

YEAH