1. Dual wield is pointless once you obtain Naxx level gear. Your defense is fine and you're expertise starved as it is. Grab a two handed mace to tank with. There is an epic crafted two handed mace if you don't have access to naxx drops.
2. There are multiple specs that are optimal for the difficult encounters. Saritharon (sp) with drakes screams acclimation and improved death and decay. Lichborne lets you completely wipe the whelp debuffs at a very critical time through near 100 percent mitigation. For most this fight, bone armor doesn't stay up long enough to make a difference, imo. Patchwerk? Seems fine as frost but I'd like to try it as unholy and would assume it would be a much better spec for it.
For heroics, the most important points you can spend are in improved death and decay. I've yet to have a healer get near pulling adds through the regular dnd, 2 disease/pestilence rotation.
While the class is fun, I think I'm going to find myself a different class to main. For what I had mentioned in the previous thread about there being too many death knights on my server, yah confirmed that -
There's more death knights from 71-80 then there are Hunters, Priests, Rogues, Shaman, and Locks.
Edit: In fact horde side, they are the third most populous class in that level range O.o
For a second I thought you were saying there were more DKs than Hunters, Priests, Rogues, Shaman, and Locks combined.
Just third most populous? Meh, I don't think that would be a big deal. Ravenholdt is a bit better, with more hunters, pallies, rogues, and warriors, and DKs are dead even with druids.
Ravenholdt?
*perks up*
Are there many of us PA players on Ravenholdt? Me and 3 room-mates play on the Horde side. The name is Hruka, a 70DK.
How are you jerks handling your ghouls whilst tanking? I'd like to keep mine up permanently incase I need to sac' him for the health, but aside from telling him to stay next to the healer before every pull I can't really figure a way of keeping the little bastard alive.
Shouldn't he run behind whatever he's attacking, like other pets do? I'm not tanking stuff on my DK really, but I haven't had a problem with him dying in 5 mans.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Do you have a tanking focused spec? If so, I'd either take night of the dead, or not take master of ghouls/ravenous dead at all. They just like to die a lot.
Eh, he only tends to die to AoE because Blizzard, in their infinite stupidity, thought "Hey, Ghouls, unlike every other permanent pet, don't need AoE avoidance!".
I can keep him alive on most things, just spam "Follow" when running away from horrible shit that's trying to kill you and leave him on passive. There's some fights (like the air elemental guy in HoL) he's gonna die on no matter what though.
I'm running this right now, but I could totally go 3/5 Impurity (because they're pretty much filler talents considering how little beneft per point you get) and try out night of the dead. I don't think I could live without my perma-ghoul now.
Pets in this game have always annoyed me, I'm considering dropping bloodworms just because it drives me nuts when they attack the wrong target or pull agro or whatever.
Not that you want them while raiding anyways, as the healing they do is insignificant. Really only a leveling talent.
Shouldn't he run behind whatever he's attacking, like other pets do? I'm not tanking stuff on my DK really, but I haven't had a problem with him dying in 5 mans.
Pets in this game have always annoyed me, I'm considering dropping bloodworms just because it drives me nuts when they attack the wrong target or pull agro or whatever.
Not that you want them while raiding anyways, as the healing they do is insignificant. Really only a leveling talent.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
edited December 2008
More free Death Knight leveling advice:
Well, after hooting with glee when I obtained the Halaani Claymore, I replaced it after one (1) quest in Borean Tundra. The first quest that you receive after you walk outside the front gate.
The lesson being to all DK's still in Outland; don't fuss too much over your weapon, you will be replacing it at level 68 in about 3 seconds.
So last night an 80 elemental shaman jumps me(72 uh dps) alone questing in dragonblight and I proceed to take him to 16% health. I was shocked(har har) maybe the guy was terribad or something idk but really that shouldn't happen right??
I was hoping this was the case. I haven't encountered much of elemental shaman pvp with my spriest and wasn't sure if they are just really squishy or something atm.
I was hoping this was the case. I haven't encountered much of elemental shaman pvp with my spriest and wasn't sure if they are just really squishy or something atm.
Did you play well (ei anti magic shell, strangle, mind freeze lockdown, death grip) or did you just basically auto swing until he died?
As a former elemental shaman, melee classes with a spell interrupt are my worst nightmare. I would imagine a well played DK to be able to take down a well played ele shaman.
Although if he was in any kind of 80s blues... he should have been able to gib you before you could react.
I stunned him with the ghoul, death gripped him, mind freezed him, then popped my boneshield and ibf when that went down anti magic shelled. So yea I was pretty active in the fight. I was more amazed with how hard I was hitting him when I landed. I hit a 2200 runestrike while on my cooldowns.
To date my best pvp moment was when the 75 rogue tried to kill me while I had 2 mobs on me at 71, he missed his opener and proceeded to get mualed by my aoes and garg that were up when he engaged me.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
It wouldn't just apply to rogues though. Anyone attacking you in melee is going to light up Rune Strike: feral druids, enhancement shamans, hunter pets. They apparently didn't intend Rune Strike to be some huge hitting PvP ability, so they're changing it. It's not just about rogues.
A large part of the reason I'm strongly considering going frost dps rather than unholy.
Glyph of obliterate at least gives you an option that isn't so heavily reliant on prepping a target beforehand. It sucks needing two runes and 3+ seconds to just get to a stage where you can put out decent damage.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
It wouldn't just apply to rogues though. Anyone attacking you in melee is going to light up Rune Strike: feral druids, enhancement shamans, hunter pets. They apparently didn't intend Rune Strike to be some huge hitting PvP ability, so they're changing it. It's not just about rogues.
But due to rogues being stuck in leather, and the rune strike being unavoidable, it certainly hurts them a lot more than other classes.
I think the ability is a piece of crap anyways, it doesn't fit in with the DK mechanics at all, and they as much admitted they tossed it in because it was an easy fix to improve threat generation. Why not reduce the D&D cooldown? A passive threat-increasing buff when runes are on cooldown? There seems like there's a lot of other in-theme ways to boost threat generation that are better than giving DK's a reactive style.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
It wouldn't just apply to rogues though. Anyone attacking you in melee is going to light up Rune Strike: feral druids, enhancement shamans, hunter pets. They apparently didn't intend Rune Strike to be some huge hitting PvP ability, so they're changing it. It's not just about rogues.
But due to rogues being stuck in leather, and the rune strike being unavoidable, it certainly hurts them a lot more than other classes.
Well sure, but you'd still see some pretty hard hits against cats, enhancement shamans, warriors in berserker stance, hunters who whiff a Wing Clip + melee attack, and the poor, resilience-less pets. My point is anyone saying this change was solely a result of rogue vs. death knight 1v1 scenarios is being rather short-sighted. The ability just does way too much damage for only 20 Runic Power.
And as has been mentioned, the ability is rather uninteresting and just gets sunk into macros for each of a DK's main attacks for FREE SUPERBURST.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
It wouldn't just apply to rogues though. Anyone attacking you in melee is going to light up Rune Strike: feral druids, enhancement shamans, hunter pets. They apparently didn't intend Rune Strike to be some huge hitting PvP ability, so they're changing it. It's not just about rogues.
But due to rogues being stuck in leather, and the rune strike being unavoidable, it certainly hurts them a lot more than other classes.
Well sure, but you'd still see some pretty hard hits against cats, enhancement shamans, warriors in berserker stance, hunters who whiff a Wing Clip + melee attack, and the poor, resilience-less pets. My point is anyone saying this change was solely a result of rogue vs. death knight 1v1 scenarios is being rather short-sighted. The ability just does way too much damage for only 20 Runic Power.
And as has been mentioned, the ability is rather uninteresting and just gets sunk into macros for each of a DK's main attacks for FREE SUPERBURST.
Yes, well I was being facetious of course. I am just referencing that they chose rogues as an example of balancing it around. (which I realize they clarified later).
They are awesome, fun, and powerful. Threat is a little lower than other tanks at the moment, survivability is arguably better than any other class if cooldowns are used effectively.
Take note, things will be changing for them shortly as devs tweak abilities, namely bone shield and frost presence, so anything could happen.
Here's a question just because a friend was arguing with me about this; why is it not ok for DKs to be getting this kind of lolburst with RS, but ok for me to be getting 5.2k shield slam and 4.6k revenge crits in crappy warrior gear?
Here's a question just because a friend was arguing with me about this; why is it not ok for DKs to be getting this kind of lolburst with RS, but ok for me to be getting 5.2k shield slam and 4.6k revenge crits in crappy warrior gear?
The real question is why is it ok for ret pallies to gib someone in the space of a bubble
The mysteries of pvp before people start getting arena gear!
In more seriousness though, I think maybe it has to do with the fact that those two abilites are the major source of your dps? RS is just gravy on top of lolobliterate or frost strike. Whereas what else do prot warriors do for dps, devestate?
Be interesting to see a tweak to dual wielding that increases parry chance instead of offhand dps, but maybe at a loss of offhand attack speed? Seems like it would work two-fold for a tank. Increased mitigation, with decreased parry hasting.
So how are DKs as tanks? I'm thinking of leveling one up to replace my feral druid for 10mans and heroics.
I'm sick of looking at the ass end of a bear, basically.
Mechanics wise, they handle threat well. It's the damage mitigation that can be painful. It's harder for healers to predict how much damage you'll eat when IBF or bone shield and the like drop. Getting defense is annoying, though I have a feeling you're not unfamiliar with that as a bear. Seeing all the tanking plate that has item budget "wasted" on shield block will make you cry.
Lol, so we have one guy saying that threat needs work but survivability is great, and another saying threat is great but survivability needs work.
Yeah, I'm kind of used to having a thin range of viable tank gear coming from the druid class, and having streaky incoming damage (crushcrushcrush!). When I quit bears couldn't even use potions to mitigate it.
I do enjoy the fact that the mantra "pvp is not balanced around 1v1" suddenly doesnt apply when rogues get a solid counter class.
It wouldn't just apply to rogues though. Anyone attacking you in melee is going to light up Rune Strike: feral druids, enhancement shamans, hunter pets. They apparently didn't intend Rune Strike to be some huge hitting PvP ability, so they're changing it. It's not just about rogues.
But due to rogues being stuck in leather, and the rune strike being unavoidable, it certainly hurts them a lot more than other classes.
I think the ability is a piece of crap anyways, it doesn't fit in with the DK mechanics at all, and they as much admitted they tossed it in because it was an easy fix to improve threat generation. Why not reduce the D&D cooldown? A passive threat-increasing buff when runes are on cooldown? There seems like there's a lot of other in-theme ways to boost threat generation that are better than giving DK's a reactive style.
Well, actually, Rune Strike was originally a way to dump excess Runic Power. They then morphed it into a threat generating move because DKs needed one.
Well, despite the conflicting opinions in here, one fact is that DKs are the most difficult tank to get to uncrittable status.
I don't think threat is a major issue, but it's generally not quite as ezmode as it is for the other tanks. If you're good and your DPS isn't retarded, DK threat is fine.
Is it a talent issue that makes it so difficult to get uncrittable? I'm pretty behind on what's been going on with WoW and I never paid much attention to that stuff on my druid anyway- they were super easy to get over the +def cap.
Nah, other than with feral druids (who are immune to crit through talents alone), there are no longer any tank talents that reduce the chance to be crit. DKs' problems stem from the fact that neither two handed weapons nor sigils currently offer defense, while warriors and paladins can pick up defense in the main hand and off hand (and ranged slot for warriors). A DK could dual wield tank weapons to pick up some defense, but that isn't Blizzard's intent for a DK tank, and apparently it's rather sub-optimal anyway.
Supposedly a future patch will offer runeforging and sigil options to alleviate the DK lack of defense problem somewhat.
Posts
1. Dual wield is pointless once you obtain Naxx level gear. Your defense is fine and you're expertise starved as it is. Grab a two handed mace to tank with. There is an epic crafted two handed mace if you don't have access to naxx drops.
2. There are multiple specs that are optimal for the difficult encounters. Saritharon (sp) with drakes screams acclimation and improved death and decay. Lichborne lets you completely wipe the whelp debuffs at a very critical time through near 100 percent mitigation. For most this fight, bone armor doesn't stay up long enough to make a difference, imo. Patchwerk? Seems fine as frost but I'd like to try it as unholy and would assume it would be a much better spec for it.
For heroics, the most important points you can spend are in improved death and decay. I've yet to have a healer get near pulling adds through the regular dnd, 2 disease/pestilence rotation.
Ravenholdt?
*perks up*
Are there many of us PA players on Ravenholdt? Me and 3 room-mates play on the Horde side. The name is Hruka, a 70DK.
Five minute cooldown on raise dead sucks.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I can keep him alive on most things, just spam "Follow" when running away from horrible shit that's trying to kill you and leave him on passive. There's some fights (like the air elemental guy in HoL) he's gonna die on no matter what though.
Not that you want them while raiding anyways, as the healing they do is insignificant. Really only a leveling talent.
I guess Rune Strike could use a nerf. This class makes me so happy.
They apparently can do about 50-60 sustained dps.
They are nerfing it. Though I think the fix is mostly directed at pvp.
According to them, it was always intended to be a tanking threat move. They didn't want it to cut rogues in half.
Well, after hooting with glee when I obtained the Halaani Claymore, I replaced it after one (1) quest in Borean Tundra. The first quest that you receive after you walk outside the front gate.
The lesson being to all DK's still in Outland; don't fuss too much over your weapon, you will be replacing it at level 68 in about 3 seconds.
Did you play well (ei anti magic shell, strangle, mind freeze lockdown, death grip) or did you just basically auto swing until he died?
As a former elemental shaman, melee classes with a spell interrupt are my worst nightmare. I would imagine a well played DK to be able to take down a well played ele shaman.
Although if he was in any kind of 80s blues... he should have been able to gib you before you could react.
To date my best pvp moment was when the 75 rogue tried to kill me while I had 2 mobs on me at 71, he missed his opener and proceeded to get mualed by my aoes and garg that were up when he engaged me.
Glyph of obliterate at least gives you an option that isn't so heavily reliant on prepping a target beforehand. It sucks needing two runes and 3+ seconds to just get to a stage where you can put out decent damage.
But due to rogues being stuck in leather, and the rune strike being unavoidable, it certainly hurts them a lot more than other classes.
I think the ability is a piece of crap anyways, it doesn't fit in with the DK mechanics at all, and they as much admitted they tossed it in because it was an easy fix to improve threat generation. Why not reduce the D&D cooldown? A passive threat-increasing buff when runes are on cooldown? There seems like there's a lot of other in-theme ways to boost threat generation that are better than giving DK's a reactive style.
And as has been mentioned, the ability is rather uninteresting and just gets sunk into macros for each of a DK's main attacks for FREE SUPERBURST.
Even with the nerf I'm still happy with the DKs.
Yay DKs.
Yes, well I was being facetious of course. I am just referencing that they chose rogues as an example of balancing it around. (which I realize they clarified later).
I'm sick of looking at the ass end of a bear, basically.
Take note, things will be changing for them shortly as devs tweak abilities, namely bone shield and frost presence, so anything could happen.
The real question is why is it ok for ret pallies to gib someone in the space of a bubble
The mysteries of pvp before people start getting arena gear!
In more seriousness though, I think maybe it has to do with the fact that those two abilites are the major source of your dps? RS is just gravy on top of lolobliterate or frost strike. Whereas what else do prot warriors do for dps, devestate?
Mechanics wise, they handle threat well. It's the damage mitigation that can be painful. It's harder for healers to predict how much damage you'll eat when IBF or bone shield and the like drop. Getting defense is annoying, though I have a feeling you're not unfamiliar with that as a bear. Seeing all the tanking plate that has item budget "wasted" on shield block will make you cry.
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Yeah, I'm kind of used to having a thin range of viable tank gear coming from the druid class, and having streaky incoming damage (crushcrushcrush!). When I quit bears couldn't even use potions to mitigate it.
Well, actually, Rune Strike was originally a way to dump excess Runic Power. They then morphed it into a threat generating move because DKs needed one.
I don't think threat is a major issue, but it's generally not quite as ezmode as it is for the other tanks. If you're good and your DPS isn't retarded, DK threat is fine.
Supposedly a future patch will offer runeforging and sigil options to alleviate the DK lack of defense problem somewhat.