State of the Death Knight, Two Months In
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Project Lore Editor on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 36 Comments Tags: DPS, Death Knight, deathknight.info, deathtard, kenzi, rune, tank, two months in, wrath of the lich king
Project Lore Editor on Thursday, January 22, 2009 - 36 Comments Tags: DPS, Death Knight, deathknight.info, deathtard, kenzi, rune, tank, two months in, wrath of the lich king 
Kenzi from DeathKnight.info has been running one of the most amazing Death Knight sites since long before Wrath of the Lich King launched. In case you decided not to make a Death Knight your new main or if you just haven't been paying a ton of attention, here he tells us how things have been going with WoW's first Hero class.Two months have passed since the release of Wrath of the Lich King! The initial rush to roll a Death Knight has come and gone. Many have leveled their "free" level 55 for a bit then went back to their mains while tons have benched everyone for their new DK. However you fall into the two categories, one thing is for sure; everyone has had an experience with a Death Knight.
Getting past Deathtard.
So, are Death Knights the new Huntard? With the ease of availability and thought of being overpowered, many a tard has made their way to managing rune cooldowns and trying to tank. Has that put good DK's in a questionable position? I don't think so. In all actuality I found that those outside of the DK community were more oblivious to Death Knight capabilities then the ones actually playing them. How many of you tanking DK's got asked if you where "frost" before entering a pug? Was it really a mainstream opinion that tanking Death Knights had to be Frost and that Frost was -the- tanking build? Better yet, how many of you tanks got asked.."uh, hey man...where is your shield?"
Luckily the above scenarios didn't last long after launch and some of the more stupid events happened a little less often. Or...is it still common to see a Death Knight in spellpower gear?
Finding our place taking it in the face!
Once most people learned that Death Knight's could seriously tank...without a shield...it became easier to find our way into groups and raids. Tanking problems still existed though. Many tanks found it hard to get and stay defense capped. Most of the preraid gear was from crafted blues that are really high in defense, but low in other avoidance stats. In order for a tanking DK to stay defense capped they usually have to put tier 7 epic upgrades in their bags because the lower defense rating caused them to drop below the cap. Unless you are lucky enough to get your hands on certain pieces of gear, getting and staying capped is a struggle.
To help that struggle, Blizzard announced that with the release of patch 3.0.8 Death Knights would be getting a new "tanking" runeforge enchant that gives 25 defense skill along with a new tanking sigil that procs a 55 defense rating buff. Notice the runeforge has 25 skill, not 25 rating, which means Death Knights can easily afford to lose 154 points of defense rating via gems and enchants and still stay defense capped. The thought behind it was because DKs can't use shields they miss out on a huge opportunity for more defense rating, which has lead to many topics about gemming and enchanting post 3.0.8.
Single target threat has also been an issue for tanking Death Knights. Some have experienced problems with their threat scaling with their raids gear improvements. As the DPS in raids gets better and higher, holding threat becomes harder and harder. It was announced that a bug with Frost Presence was keeping the skill from properly resetting after a death, meaning when the DK died the presence was removed, but the server thought he still had it. That bug was hotfixed and it was also announced that with 3.0.8 Runestrike would be adjusted to be the proper tanking skill it was meant to be. The damage will be lower and the threat increased, which will make for even easier single target threat.
You mean I need two runeweapons to melt faces?
Enough tank talk, lets pew pew! It's been known for a while that Death Knights could dual wield as well as swing a big two hander and for the most part it was widely accepted that duel wielding was the inferior choice for DPSing. Wrong. Many smart people played around with and stuck with dual wield enough to finally find those right talent choices to make it work. And make it work they did. Now it seems almost all of the high DPS numbers we see today are from the dual runesword wielding Death Knights.
So, do you think Blizzard is happy their first hero class, the fabled Death Knight who is famous for the two hander, is forcing people to go DW to DPS? The short answer is no, Blizzard will be changing some DW talents to bring DW DPS "back in line" with two handed DPS. Soon you will get a legitimate choice between one and two handed weapons without gimping your DPS.
This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.
PvP is still pretty open for debate. The new WotLK season 5 is still somewhat fresh. Most of the complaints about Death Knights stem from just the lack of understanding of what they can do and how to deal with them. One can argue though, that many of the PvE nerfs stem largely from PvP overpowerness. Take Anti-Magic Zone for example. The duration is being reduced to 10 seconds in 3.0.8, down from 30 seconds now. Runestrike's damage being reduced also came from some complaints that argued that a high damaging Runestrike combined with a Scourge Strike, Obliterate or other attack in quick succession made it nearly impossible to stay alive long enough to kill a DK.
All valid complaints, but it tends to rub people that wrong way when an ability is nerfed on one side of the fence because it is overpowered on the other. Maybe one day there can be balance between PvE and PvP.
Moving on without the Lich King...
So here we are, two months in, patiently waiting our first round of "balancing". Our class is starting to take a nice shape. We still have to battle against prejudice and thoughts that we are the new love of Blizzard. Yes we are called a "hero" class, but hero is nothing more than a fancy title for "you start at level 55". Wer're still going to see nerfs, get buffed and share that same car on the balancing roller coaster as everyone else.
Reader Comments (36)
@Deidare
I think you are missing the whole point of the blood and unholy spec. Yes you are right that they do not have talents to increase defense, because that is what makes them different. If you have the appropriate gear then you should be defense capped, or close to it.
Blood focuses on health regen, so if you are constantly getting your health back without using a pot then that is a great ability for a tank - one because it will take a long time to get you down, and two it takes some of the work off of the healer.
Unholy is more about diesases and pets, so they have bone shield, anit-magic zone, gargoyle, ghoul, insect swarm, and increased diesease damage.
And if you take a look at the frost tree it has some talents for defense. But most of the tree, just like the other two have a lot of talents that increase damage or critical strike chance.
So it all boils down to how you play your DK, each have viable talents for tanking, but unfortuantely the mass population thinks that frost is the supieror build so you hardly see any other style DK tanks. The other reason all three make viable tanking specs is because of the way Blizzard designed threat for us. We get most of our threat from our damage which is why it is commonly mistaken that we are DPS. We have very few abilities that are used just to increase threat.
Now if they are needing gear that has a block value or spell damage/intellect then yes they will not make a very good tank, or DPS in that matter. But in order to tank as a DK we have to focus on defense gear and most importantly dodge because we can't use shields.
Deidare.......
U could not be more WRONG. WTF is "Eight- i hate Dks that are blood or unholy and for some reason think they need defense gear and dodge… HELLO your a dps spec you freakin need crit chance, crit rateing, and mabye even hit chance! Not defense though! Nine- Steal gear from alot of other class’s and just ticks me off."?
I Suggest Mate that u look up and learn about the DK class b4 u make stupid ill informed comments such as that. it just shows how little you know and how much attention u actaully paid to the Atricle. Blood Frost and Unholy CAN ALL TANK. all 3 trees are designed to be able to tank with talents from the other 2 trees aswell. Each Tree Has tanking abilities which all Blood/Frost/Unholy Tanks need to use. So i gather ur a Huntard?
I myself Have been a Blood TANK and now Specced Unholy TANK.
Hello :D
bahahahaa
the problem with DK drama on this server is yes the universal you must be frost to tank horse crap because personally I can tank Unholy I just dismiss my pet and I personally feel its great for AOE. Another issue I find is that, there are some really bad Death Knights ruining it for the good DK's I have met my few share of instances that they made a mockery of me wanting to take or a friend of mine wanting to tank. The Mockery turned into getting kicked out of the group all to be replaced with a "real" tank. Death Knights on my server just really isnt taken seriously aside from the DPS standpoint. It drives me mad and it really ticks me off. There are some really great DK tanks out of there, and people only assuming they suck because these people met a few bad eggs is unfair.
@ Deidare
You are wrong with your assumptions you are like the people I deal with on my server on a daily basis. They think just because a few noobs suck that the really good Death Knights out there who do Tank and DO dps are going to suck to thus why they dont take them seriously.
I personally TANK FULL Unholy and I have no issues with that. ALL tallent Trees are there for you to either tank or DPS and I personally have stated before I dont use my pet when I tank I use other measures to keep my threat up.
I working on getting my DK up to tanking, but I have to say I love the unholy tree the most! Yet I get constant, and I mean constant, responses from friends and guild mates that only Frost can tank. >.> I'll believe that when I see them with a lvl 80 DK. Blizzard state specifically in the Forum at BlizzCon that all trees of the Death Knight will have tanking possibilities and DPS possibilities. So It's how you read everything and understand what your clicking on when you spect.
Personally, I go with a few Frost bits (defense and enough for the two hander specialization) Mostly Unholy and I'm debating some of the Blood as the wording confuses me.
Deathknights come in 4 types:
The raider who wants a tank alt
The hunter who wants to tank- after staying BM after the recent patch. 'Nuff sed (Dorkins)
The PvP'er who whas been ganked so many times by them he deleted his main and made one
The Clueless nub
i have a level 80 ghome DK me and that little guy has been yjough allot and i got to say i love it it makes me said you cant make more than one per server i got the new i just got teh new sigil i love how horn of winter of winter has no runic power cost love vaperic blood gives 15% healph i can bring my healph up to 23k but it makes me so mad how they decresed runic strike damage by 50% whats wrong with OP have you fought a ret pally that damn stun i think DK should get some stuns nerf these bastards i allways hated these shields iam glad that blizz will bring DW to the 2 hander level DK have no whear to got no whear to go but up
I chose frost as my tanking spec because I just like the tree better and howling blast is awesome. However, all 3 trees have been designed to tank, just different styles. I have MTed everything other than Heroic Malygos and have 0 issues, so saying DK tanks suck is just ignorant. Is there people out there who can't play the class? Yeah, but every class has those people. Tank is a lot different with DK than it was with other classes. The other classes have a more passive style, where as most of the DK stuff is reaction and therefore you have to know when to use your abilities to be effective.
erm i think all who posts on these forums are retarded noobs , first of all Dks dont need stuns , they are OP enough as it is, DKs are fine tanks but it attracts little kids and just ppl that dont know how 2P .
I hate DKS they are so lame overpowered like nothing else. Stupid Dks kill me so fast and I can barely damage them. I almost got killed by a 62 level dk or so... and yes I can 1 on one kill most guys well ok not paladin stupid cheaters those guys are too.
sTUPID Warrior Arms warrior hating blizard smacked down execute too.. DKs out there I will kill you as I fly like a fat ARMS Armed Epic Flying Pig I will kill you cheater scum who stole my plate / one hander/ rolls... I hate you all if I see you in The quickei mart wearing a Dk shirt I will smosh my slushie in your face - and I know you fairy goth emo boys who play dks will only cry and call the police but I will be long gone in my range rover with my warlock girl sluping on a tasty treat i playa with since my you stupid dks stole my imaganry two handers cuase you needed them you greedy DK oth l00zers