Today we have a new author joining our ranks here at Top Rosters! Meet Khaas – our resident tanking Death Knight. He harks from over at Srsbusiness: a great DK resource that you should definitely check out. So let’s get to know him!
Who are you and where do you come from?
My real name is Keith, I live in Arkansas. Most people however know me as Khaas the Insane, I am the guild leader and main tank of Face on Fire, one of the top guilds on the Bloodscalp US server.
Tell us a little about your WoW history. How did you get started?
I came over just before the first battlegrounds were released, several friends of mine from the EverQuest days were already playing. I dropped in for a visit one day and left with my own copy of the game.
Have you always played a death knight and what draws you to them rather than any other classes?
Actually, the absence of the Death Knight class was one of the things that initially kept me away from World of Warcraft. I’m an old Dungeons & Dragons player, and I always loved the Death Knights. I was definitely anxious to see one after experiencing them in WCII and WCIII, so I was a bit disappointed at their initial absence. I created Khaas about 15 minutes after I received my copy of Wrath and have been playing him almost exclusively since.
I like Death Knights for a lot of reasons, obviously there’s the tie to D&D. In general though, what’s not to like about a class with undead minions and evil looking armor? The simple answer though, is it just feels good to be bad.
When did you realize that you loved raiding?
The first time I raided, I was hooked. It was actually a pug (though we didn’t call it that then) it was for Lord Nagafen, a Dragon in EverQuest. Coincidentally, I got my first piece of loot that day too.
Tell us a little about your raid progress to date.
In Vanilla I raided pretty much everything, even Nax. I was burnt out by the time BC was released though, and did little more than 10 mans (and those only late in the expansion) I was really into PVP and Arenas at the time. Wrath came out, and we built up the guild – started crashing through instances. We managed realm first for Earth, Wind, and Fire and several other achievements as a casual raiding guild. Unfortunately, Bloodscalp is a bit of a backwater. There’s not a lot of serious progression raiders around, despite the lack of recruitment opportunities the guild has prospered and gotten more serious, to date we’ve gotten 2/13 heroic bosses down.
What is your all time favorite boss encounter and why?
Ragnaros, he epitomizes bad guy – absolutely huge pillar of flame and lava with a face and a massive hammer. It was also a revelation when it came out, the multiple stages to the encounter were very different from what many players had experienced previously in games like EverQuest where boss fights were typically tank and spank with very little variation on the theme. Moreover, he was a very fitting end to the instance. And of course, his scripted encounter with Majordomo never really gets old. I could see him smite that guy all day – everyday (well maybe that’s a stretch) but you get the idea..
And I mean look at the guy, that’s what a bad guy should look like…
What do you make of Cataclysm as a whole?
Cataclysm has been good to me, but I could use some more content. In general, I think Cata did a lot to make WOW better mechanically. Unfortunately, it didn’t add a lot in terms of innovation or anything. I imagine it’s hard to at this point. I’m not overly thrilled about the state of guilds at this point either, the already thin pool of progression focused players seems smaller and smaller each day thanks in part to the normalization of loot and progression across 10 and 25 man. I will say however, that the addition of the new guild controls and perks is quite a nice addition.
I still think that WOW’s the best MMO out there, I still love it, but I also think there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
When and why did you decide to start your blog?
I actually started writing about my gaming experiences about ten years ago while I was still playing EverQuest. I kept blogs on LiveJournal and Blogger before moving to my own hosted version of SRS Business about two years ago. When I started SRS Business I was actually reading a lot of blogs from various players in the gold making community, most notably Gevlon of the Greedy Goblin. I had been doing a lot of the same things these people were doing, be it on a much smaller scale since I started playing WOW. I decided to make a concentrated effort to hit the gold cap. Since then, I’ve capped several times over. The blog has offered me the opportunity to meet some really interesting people and to share my experiences and ideas in a way that just wasn’t possible when I first started playing MMOs.
What is your long term goal for Srsbusiness?
The blog has grown in scope, it’s not just about what I do with my Death Knight anymore. And it’s not just a gold blog either. Long term, I’ll be focusing more on my new Player VS Developer segments, guides, and a few other things I’ve been working on. Ultimately blogging isn’t like writing a book, it’s never really finished until you stop writing. I guess my long term goal is just to keep writing.
What do you do IRL?
I’m a Rhetoric student, for cash I cook.
Do you play any other games?
Not as much these days, my wife and I are getting ready to move so I haven’t had quite as much free time (or money) to try out new games. There’s a few games that are never very far away like Plants VS Zombies.
I really want to try out Magicka with some friends after we move, that game looks tailor made for some LAN hijinks. (Just ask TotalBiscuit and the Yogscast)
And though I hate to admit it, because it feels a bit like coming out of the closet or something – I’ve actually been playing a Facebook game…
Dungeon Overlord is my guilty pleasure.
Any weird or wonderful hobbies outside of WoW?
I have an almost Encyclopedic knowledge of music, there was a show called Name that Tune that my grandfather loved when I was a kid (I think it was already in reruns at the time) where they would basically bet on how fast they could name the song correctly. As I grew up, I started paying close attention to songs. And now, I can hear the opening bars of a song and almost always name it before it comes up on our radio display in the car. Great trick in bars and parties I assure you.
Tell us an interesting fact about yourself.
I actually come from a long line of bootleggers, rum-runners, and other miscreants; most notably the infamous gangster and bank robber Charles Arther “Pretty Boy” Floyd.
Do you have any raiding rituals or superstitions?
I prefer not to call it a ritual, more of a game within a game. A meta game if you will. I keep a Steno Pad next to my keyboard, on page one is a list of rules for “the Game”. Before the raid I roll some dice to pick which rules we’ll be playing by this week. Basically the rules are along the lines of each time my DPS officer calls people baddies, I take a shot. Each time we wipe, I take a shot (that one’s a default rule). Every time someone calls my healing officer bro, I take a shot. You get the idea. Fear of alcohol poisoning is what keeps me doing random rules each week.
I have kept a mini fridge within arms reach of my PC since I started playing WOW, I find having a ready supply of Dr Pepper and good alcohol makes raiding go a bit smoother.