death-runes
Latest
Lichborne: Survivability for the DPS death knight
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Death knights have long been notorious for their insane survivability since they were first introduced. Over the years, a lot of it has been nerfed, but a lot remains. While blood knight survivability feels somewhat obvious, it's a little harder to see what unholy and frost death knights have going for them. Today, we're going to examine how DPS death knights can use their skills to stay alive when the heat is on. Anti-Magic Shell Anti-Magic Shell remains one of the most versatile and underrated tools in our arsenal. By absorbing most of the magical damage from a massive magical attack, it allows us to stay in position longer than other classes, and save ourselves from own mistakes in some cases.
Lichborne: 3 more death knight issues that need fixing soon
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Last week, I talked about three quick fixes death knights should get before the Mists of Pandaria beta is over. This week, I'd like to discuss three more death knight issues. These aren't necessarily any less urgent or problematic than last week's issues, but they're complicated enough that we probably can't expect them to be fixed before the expansion goes live. Still, they should probably be dealt with sooner rather than later. 1. Tier 5 talents have got to go. I have to admit, the level 75 death knight talent tier had me pretty excited when it was unveiled. Finally, anyone could choose their flavor of rune regeneration. At optimal balance, it seemed like everything could turn out great. People could choose how much control they wanted, people could avoid rune tetris if they wanted, and everything would be cool. In practice, it hasn't worked out like that. It's become more and more obvious that it will be nearly impossible to balance the three types and that Blood Tap is the clear winner for any death knight DPS player, with Runic Empowerment nearly equal and Runic Corruption taking up the distant rear. The level 75 tier, in other words, doesn't pass the basic litmus test for the new talent system. There's no real choice. Min-maxers will feel forced to take a specific talent on this tier in all situations, and it will, in fact, almost always be Blood Tap.
Lichborne: 3 quick fixes death knights need for Mists of Pandaria
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. We still don't have an official release date for Mists of Pandaria, but conventional wisdom says it's going to be out before the summer's over. I tend to agree with that, so it's getting the point where we have to assume we have two to three months to see our class really where we want it to be before the game goes live. I have to say, I'm not as optimistic as I could be. The players and developers seem to be at loggerheads to what the real issues of the death knight class are or even if it has any major ones at all. Still, the blues have also shown that they may be coming around to at least some of our points of view, so in the interests of figuring out our major problems (and realizing we're running out of time to do any major revamps), I offer three quick fixes that might hold the class over for a few content patches in lieu of any major class mechanics changes.
Lichborne: Preliminary patch 4.1 PTR impressions for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. Join World of Warcraft's first hero class as we head into a new expansion and shed the new kid on the block label. Greetings, one and all, and welcome to the patch 4.1 PTR, where I am happily testing out the new death knight flying ability -- that, or I'm lagged to hell. I'll let you believe what you want. Seriously though, the PTR for patch 4.1 is out and active, and there are death knight changes to be had. These changes are large enough that I figure it'd be a good use of our time this week to take a quick look at them and figure out what they do and what they'll mean for our class if they go live.
