death-knight-dps
Latest
Lichborne: The latest Patch 3.3 PTR death knight changes in depth
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's death knight column. Remember when I said that it looked like Patch 3.3 was going to be relatively quiet for us? I may have spoken too soon. There's been a pretty major shakeup to Unholy DPS (again), and there's one or two other changes we might want to discuss, including news of some armor tier bonuses. Let's get to it. Scourge Strike Rebalancing: The Neverending Story So before we delve into this change, let's take a moment to review the star-crossed history of Scourge Strike. Scourge Strike is meant to be the basic Frost/Unholy attack of an Unholy death knight, and the hardest hitting of their attacks. In theory. Here's the thing with Scourge Strike: It does shadow damage. That means it completely bypasses all armor, meaning it does a lot more effective damage than you might guess just from glancing at the tool tip. The problem back in the early days of the class is that it was doing far too much, easily outstripping Obliterate. So, Blizzard nerfed the damage, and all was well for a while.
Lichborne: Death knight leveling 68-80
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's column for all things deathly, knightly, and death knightly. So, death knight. You're through with Outland. You just dinged 68 in Nagrand and want to move on to whiter, snow covered pastures. Maybe those pastures are in Northrend. Maybe those pastures are in Alterac Valley. Either way, let's discuss getting through those final levels and pushing you through to the end game.
Lichborne: Emblem of Triumph Gear for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your look into the issues of the moment for the death knight class. Ah, Emblems of Triumph, the new hotness. Even if you're not running the coliseum, you still have chance to grab them in the heroic daily, and by now, surely most of us have at least had the opportunity to save up enough to buy something. Deciding what to buy, however, is a whole different question. Let's take a look at the badge loot and see what's in it for a death knight.
Lichborne: Analyzing the latest Patch 3.2.2 PTR changes
Avast ye swabbies! Welcome to Lichborne, where Death Knights rule the Seven Seas and the rest of ye lubbers walk the - Oh. Wait. Talk like a Pirate Day is OVER? Well, dangit. At least I still have this cool buff for a few more hours. These past few weeks have bought a flurry of updates the Patch 3.2.2 PTR servers, and a lot of the updates have a lot to do with Death Knights. Since we were the most changed class in Patch 3.2, it might be expected that we got a good amount of tweaking in 3.2.2 to complement and compensate the Patch 3.2 changes. Thus, it would behoove us to take a look at said changes and see where they'll leave us coming into the likely rapidly approaching patch.
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Death Knight Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.With the arrival of Patch 3.2, let's take stock of what's going on with Death Knights and how things have turned out for us. The Patch 3.2 PTR's been the testing grounds for a few major changes to various trees and play styles, and now it'll be interesting to see how things play out on the live server. You can see the basic size of the Death Knight changes in this original analysis of the patch changes, but some things have changed since then, as we will note below.TankingWe do get a couple hits to tanking this patch. Frost Presence will be switching from a health buff to a stamina buff, and Veteran of the Third War will be nerfed to only a 3% stamina gain at the top level. Toughness is also dropping from 15% to 10% armor buffed at its top level. Honestly, I don't think these changes alone will be so bad as to drop us too low on the tanking totem pole, especially since we've been up at the top so long.
Class Q&A: Death Knight
Third in the class Q&A series is Death Knight. I thought it was going to be Warlocks, but I guess plans change. So far Shaman and Mage have been covered, and in each post the Ghostcrawler has been talking about the developer vision for the class past and future, as well as answering popular questions from the forums. What do they have to say about WoW's first hero class? Read on. Introducing a new class to a game that didn't really have an empty niche was tricky, but they think they have succeeded - "perhaps too well." They like that there's a lot of room for variation in player skill. In patch 3.2, they wanted to reduce DK AoE and defensive cooldowns, which they definitely did. The resource system (runes and runic power) is a large part of what makes Death Knights unique. They also have a lot of medium-length cooldown (able to be used a few times per fight), and there's a lot of skill involved in knowing when to use them. DKs are also especially well-rounded, with a lot of versatility and a lot of tricks, which makes them at risk for being over-powered in PvP.
Patch 3.2 Death Knight changes
Death Knights are among the most-changed classes in the first PTR version of patch 3.2, which is not terribly surprising for such a young class. Because of such significant changes, all DKs will receive a free respec. Blood Strike will scale more from disease (up to 50% per disease), while Frost Strike is receiving significant nerfs: it can now be dodged/blocked/parried, and only gets a 55% bonus from weapon damage, instead of 60%. On the tanking front, one of our major cooldowns was nerfed, although DKs are still probably the king of tanking CDs (disgustingly powerful new Ardent Defender aside). Icebound Fortitude's CD was doubled to 2 minutes. Veteran of the Third War's Stamina bonus was cut in half, and Toughness was cut by a third.
Lichborne: Outland leveling Supplemental: Professions and Dungeons
Two major questions remain from our Outland Leveling advice column from last week: Is it worth it to run Dungeons, and is it worth it to level a Profession? In both cases, the answer is: It depends. I know that sounds like a bit of a copout, but it is true. You can pretty much level straight to 70 and even 80 without ever touching a dungeon or learning a profession and do just fine. That said, there are certainly advantages to delving into dungeons or putting your Gnomish Army Knife to actual use. Let's take a look.
Lichborne: A Patch 3.1 talent build cookie platter for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, your (usually) weekly (I swear) source for Death Knight news and tips.So now that Patch 3.1 is underway, the basic cookie cutter tank and DPS builds have begun emerging. The Patch 3.1 nerfs really haven't slowed us down in any major way, and with dual specs in, we're doing better than ever on the whole versatility front. In recognition of this, let's give you some straight information, no chaser. Here's a handful of cookie cutter DPS and Tank builds for each tree to get you on the right path to DPS or tanking dominance in Patch 3.1, or both if you've dropped that 1000 gold. All of these builds also included recommended glyphs at the link as well.
Observations from running a Naxx-25 PuG
I'm very "up" on PuGs. I started my career as a PuG tank and met a lot of great players that way, many of whom I still raid with today. I've always been a stout supporter of throwing caution to the wind and joining LFG for an afternoon to see where it'll take you; it's been my experience that random players on your realm can and often will surprise you. Once you master the art of the 5-person PuG, the ultimate risk is a raid PuG. One-shot the instance, or spend the night wiping? You won't know until you try.I used to run Hyjal PuG's in late Burning Crusade and got to be the person in charge of arranging healers on Anetheron, explaining where to die on Azgalor, and uttering a hollow laugh at suggestions on whether or not Archimonde was in the cards (answer: hell no). I wasn't around for my guild's Naxx run one of these past weeks, and a few guildies were interested in gearing up their alts, so we thought -- PuG a 25-man Naxx? Why not?
Lichborne: More emergent builds on the 3.1 PTR
The builds and changes and tweaks seem to be coming faster and more furious, but at the same time seem to have settled down to changing things in a very final and deliberate way, if that makes sense. Whether we're a week or a month from 3.1 going live though, things are likely to change a little bit. Still, my gut tells me that most of the major tree shifts and mechanics changes are probably out there, and it's just a matter of tweaking numbers. So it may be a good chance to take a look at what newish builds are getting some buzz in the Death Knight community for being the new hotness in 3.1. In specific, let's look at a Blood Build that reacts to some of the latest changes for that tree, and a stacked Unholy build.
Lichborne: It's been one week (of 3.1)
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column. This week, Daniel Whitcomb continues to make sense of just what the heck they're doing to us on the PTR.So we have one week down in the PTR. We've had a chance to get more familiar with the Death Knight changes, both the documented and undocumented, and to see how they'll affect the way we play once 3.1 goes live. Of course, by the time 3.1 goes live, they could be changed pretty extensively, but for now, it's a good idea to check out where they are right now, and not only predict where they might go, but let the developers know by our feedback, based on testing, where we think the class should go. With that in mind, let's take a look at the current state of the class on the PTR, where we're going and where we want to be heading.
WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Death Knight changes
Good Morning Death Knights! As expected, we got a pretty long list of changes for Death Knights. The frost tree has received some extensive and actually somewhat shocking reshuffling, and there's a few other unexpected but interesting changes. It's good to be mindful that these changes are still in flux. We'll probably see more changes and perhaps some reversion of these changes depending on what happens. It's worth noting that MMO Champion currently has undocumented changes and a completely different 3.1 DK Talent tree up that doesn't even match the one suggested in the patch notes, so we can't say for sure if the patch notes are already outdated. But for now, we're going to focus on the patch changes for the most part. So, let's dive right in.
Lichborne: Top Death Knight DPS builds and patch 3.1
Welcome to Lichborne, where we've pretty much gone insane waiting for the PTR, and are thus stuck in the Death Knight starting zone pretending to be a pretty pretty princess on our very own pony. The problem with writing a Death Knight column at the moment is that there's so much that's changing in 3.1 - So much that will change, on the test servers at least, sometime in the next few days. With a promise that Unholy, especially, will probably be nerfed significantly, almost any advice I give right now could be outdated in very short order. That said, after some thought, I figured I might as well take a look at nerfs. Namely, I'd like to take a look at a few popular Death Knight builds, how we already know they'll change, and what other changes may be coming to them.
Lichborne: On Dual Specs for Death Knights
Welcome to this week's installment of Lichborne, where we're preparing to head further down the rabbit hole that is patch 3.1. With the details about dual speccing becoming clearer, it's probably about time to start thinking about how it will affect Death Knights. We're probably a little luckier than many classes in that all of our trees are pretty solid for either tanking or DPS, but at the same time, some trees are better than others for certain roles, and you're definitely going to want to switch out some talent points for optimal performance in either role. Some Death Knights have actually been experimenting with "hybrid" DPS/Tank builds up until now, but with dual specs, it'll be a lot easier to just dedicate your time to one or another and go from there.Essentially, There's 3 major ways I see most people going with dual specs: Tank/PvE DPS, Tank/PvP DPS, and PvE DPS/PvP DPS, depending on their interests. The complications will probably come in deciding which combination is right for you and your raid, and which trees to focus on.
Lichborne: PvE Enchantments for Death Knights
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's weekly stop for Death Knight news, analysis, and guides. Fresh on the heels of last week's gemming guide, we have an enchanting guide. Like gemming, enchanting is an easy way to go the extra mile to get your gear the best it can be so you can properly keep aggro without dying and/or top the damage meters in your next Naxxramas raid. Since there's so few enchants available, it's a lot less complicated than gemming too. DPS will just want hit to the cap and attack power (Sorry, there's not many strength enchants), while tanks will want defense to 540 and stamina. It's also worth noting that almost every slot with an enchant has a weaker version and a more powerful version. Although it's usually frowned upon to go weak when can go strong, in the case of enchants, it's probably okay at the entry level to go with the weaker version of an enchant. The more powerful ones generally take Abyss Crystals and the like, and may be a bit steep. In addition, there's a few other quirks and special enchantments to watch out for. Let's take a look, by slot, at some of the best choices for enchanting for both DPS and Tanking.
Blizz wants more Frost and Blood, working on EP fix
This is a slightly esoteric Death Knight issue, so those of you not yet converted might want to just move along. It is also an issue close to my own heart, as I am pretty enamored of my Unholy DPS DK. What am I talking about? Ebon Plague stacking, of course. The other two main DK diseases, Blood Plague and Frost Fever, stack just fine, but if you've got two UH DKs with the talent in your raid, only one of them at a time gets to have EP applied to the target. This lowers the DPS of any DKs that don't have it applied, since so many of our skills do damage based on the number of diseases we have applied to the target. Most sources estimate the DPS loss as not very high, but it's still annoying as heck. Ghostcrawler has finally addressed this problem, and says they plan on fixing it by making EP count as a third disease for everyone that's talented for it, regardless of who cast it (if I'm reading correctly). But he does note that this fix is not top-priority, saying "our priority right now is making sure more DKs spec Frost or Blood, not how to reward groups that bring multiple Unholy DKs," going on to say that they nevertheless will fix this bug. According to Armory Musings (thanks to the Scarlet Mathematician for pointing me to that site), Unholy does account for almost half of all Death Knights, so it makes sense that Blizz would be trying to up the market share of the other specs some. Still, I love the Unholy play style, so I hope they fix EP sooner rather than later.
Lichborne: Death Knight DPS gear for Naxxramas
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly class column for Warcraft's newest class, the Death Knight.Ok, I know I've been focusing on tank quite a lot lately, but I'm here to say that I swear I haven't forgotten about the DPS. To prove it to you, this week's edition of Lichborne is all about gearing up to hit 10-man Naxxramas as a DPS. For the most part, your gearing choices as a DPSer are going to be more or less the same no matter what your spec. For the most part, I'm going to be following the statistical information I outlined in the Death Knight statistics primer, which means the gear I pick out will follow this basic rule for stat choice: Hit rating to the 8% cap > strength/attack power > critical strike rating > expertise > everything else.
Lichborne: A Death Knight statistics primer
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column by professor Daniel Whitcomb, who totally has a PhD in Death-Knightology from Ebon Hold University. It's the truth, I swear. I've seen a lot of people asking these questions as we've been getting into the expansion: Now that I am trying to gear by Death Knights, what stats should I get? What's good for a Death Knight? Which armor should I take. We've started getting in that somewhat in the last few columns, with advice on reputation gear and starting zone gear, but I figured today we should delve a little bit more into the why of Death Knight stats. Today's column will double as a little bit of primer on how Death Knights get their power, and what stats you should be looking for on armor in general to make your Death Knight the best it can be. It's not completely in depth, but it should get you well on the road to understanding just how Death Knights get all that awesome power and sexiness. We'll have 3 sections today. The Good are stats that are excellent choices for DPS, Tanks, or both. The So-So are stats which still do us some good, but are pretty situational or conditional in their usefulness. The Outcasts are those stats that you should avoid -- Well, I'd say avoid like the plague, but we're Death Knights. We like the plague around here. So I'll just say you should avoid them.
Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow melee, part 1
Dear reanimated angst-puppy hero corpses,Love what you've done with the smell, really. The little air freshener attached to the runeblade is a nice touch. Now that I'm in the beta, I've had the opportunity group with -- conservatively -- billions of you. I've healed a lot of Death Knight tanks, and tanked for a lot of Death Knight DPS. Most of you seem like cool people, so I say this with sincere love in my little Druid heart and a touch of worry over what will happen in November:Most of you are awful.I don't wish to be needlessly cruel here, mind you, or to overlook that the class is still new. Blizzard endlessly tinkers with you, so it's not like your rotations haven't changed, or your talents and skills are stable. And I know you're not coming to Northrend with a bank full of awesome gear from Burning Crusade. This isn't about your wearing greens or using the wrong attack or tanking rotation; I'm not even going to bother with the theorycraft surrounding the ideal DPS rotation until Wrath actually ships. But I'm seeing an awful lot of you running around playing as if...almost as if...you haven't played a tank or a melee class before. It's uncanny. But when I switched from playing a balance to a feral druid more than a year ago and knew nothing about playing a melee DPS/tank, I made all the mistakes you're making right now. Help me help you!
