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Lichborne: Death Knight Tanking
Welcome to the first post-Wrath installment of Lichborne, the weekly Death Knight column. Join Daniel Whitcomb on the bleeding edge of a new and untried class.So Wrath is upon us, and we can finally start leveling our Death Knights on the live servers. That's right, this time it's for keeps. I'm pretty excited about that. One thing, though, that I haven't gotten to do yet on live servers is tank a dungeon. It's not that I don't want to, it's that 98% of the people leveling through Outland right now are Death Knights, so finding a healer is a bit difficult. Still, I did my fair share of tanking on Beta servers, and I played a Druid tank for years, and I'm figuring I'll do my fair share of tanking again at 80. Thus, I decided that this week is the perfect time to start getting ready to tank, even if Utgarde may be the first instance most Death Knights will get a group for. Let's get down to the basics:
Lichborne: Talents for catching up
Welcome to Lichborne, where Daniel Whitcomb is doing some last minute agonizing over what face to give his Death Knight on Thursday.So there are quite a few of us, I imagine, who are still on track to switch to a Death Knight, or at least play one quite extensively, immediately when Wrath of the Lich King hits the live servers. But the fact remains that you'll be 15 levels behind everyone to start, and if you have friends to catch up to, you're going to want to get up there pretty quickly, most likely. Even if you plan to take it slow, you'll still want a good effective leveling build, most likely. So today, we'll look at three solid solo DPS builds from each tree, and discuss how to use them most effectively for grinding and leveling.
Lichborne: State of the Death Knight
Welcome to Lichborne, WoW Insider's newest class column. Every week in Lichborne, Daniel Whitcomb will explore the ins and outs of Blizzard's newest class, the Death Knight. It's Wrath of the Lich King Beta time, and finally time to meet the new Death Knight class. Unfortunately, we can't really guarantee you'll be meeting the same class that you'll see in the live game, per se. It's not that the class isn't shaping up well or isn't quite distinctive, it's more that there's just so much that's changing. The next build that's scheduled to hit the Beta servers is a perfect example. Not only will talent trees be changing extensively, with some talents becoming baseline and some baseline abilities becoming talents, some talents switching tiers, and others even switching trees, but the very way we inflict and stack diseases will be getting some tweaking as well. In addition, many of the Death Knight's baseline abilities, especially related to disease and damage rotations, are changing as well. So with all these changes, what can you say about a class that's changing drastically on a weekly basis, and may look completely different from how it does now by the time Wrath goes live? Is it really possible to speak about an overarching unifying theory of Death Knights? Well, let's try. Welcome to the first annual State of the Death Knight address.
Death Knight Frost tree changes in latest Wrath Beta build
Between Blood's lack of downtime and Unholy's AE abilities and Ghoul control, Frost is starting to feel a bit like the unwanted orphan of the Death Knight trees. While it's heavy on the tanking talents and has some burst potential, we've been there done that, perhaps, already have Frost Mage alts, and so on and so forth. Luckily, Blizzard recently made some changes to the tree on Beta which look like they may be nudging the tree in the right direction toward equality with the other two trees. Here's a concise list of the changes via MMO-Champion: Improved Icy Touch now increase the damage of your Icy Touch by 10/20/30/40/50% and its damage against Frozen Targets by 20/40/60/80/100% (Old version : Reduces the cooldown of your Icy Touch spell by 1/2/3/4/5 sec and increases its critical strike damage bonus by 10/20/30/40/50%) Nerves of Cold Steel has been moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2. Annihilation has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 3. Aneurysm has been moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7. Merciless Combat has been moved from Tier 8 to Tier 6. New Talent - Blood of the North - Tier 8 (5 Points) - Whenever you use a Blood Strike there is a 20/40/60/80/100% chance that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates Frost Aura increases your Frost Resistance by 32/65 instead of 22/45. Frost Strike prerequisites have been removed. (Merciless Combat was required before)
Death Knight Gameplay Movies: Frost and more Blood leveling
We bought you Jadefury's Unholy and Blood Death Knight game play videos yesterday, and now he's released another batch. This time, his Death Knight is a bit higher level, and he puts two new talent builds through their paces. In the video above, he focuses on the Frost tree. You can see the control that Frost provides specifically - the freezing effects actually seem to last a remarkably long time, certainly long enough to set up a nice chain of abilities and spells for maximum damage. A Hungering Cold followed by a Deathchill and finished up with a Howling Blast can be particularly devastating. Jadefury also points out that if you have any lingering diseases on any of your targets, you can use Blood Boil to quickly wipe them out, doing extra damage and making them susceptible to being frozen again. Frost, reports Jadefury, is probably the least solo-friendly build. Because you need to go very deep into the frost tree to get all the abilities you need for maximum control and damage, You can't get the self-sustainability talents in the Blood tree such as Vendetta. That said, Frost should still be amazing for groups, since you'll be able to provide some very passable crowd control and damage, and I myself am still looking forward to seeing what a good Frost Mage/Death Knight team can do in PvP. Now that his Death Knight is a bit higher level, Jadefury also released a second Blood tree video that showcases a higher level build.
WWI '08 Death Knight Demo: Frost spells and talents
The Frost tree was originally designated the tanking tree, and the Frost Presence will likely still be the presence of choice for tanking Death Knights. Interestingly enough, very few of the other spells and talents in the Frost tree -- with the exception of Icebound Fortitude -- really scream "tanking." However, some of them do scream "crowd control," which may amount to the same thing in the end -- just freeze, slow, or silence extra mobs until you have a chance to focus on tanking them. The "frozen" bonuses in some of the talents also suggest that Frost Death Knights may have a lot of good synergy with Frost Mages as well, assuming their frozen status afflictions are identical to each other. Below is a listing of some of the Frost spells and talents shown in the WWI Death Knight demo: Frost Spells: Icy Touch:Requires level 55Costs 1 Frost Rune Instant cast, 6 second cooldown20 yard rangeDescription: Deals 217 to 235 Frost damage modified by attack power and reduces the target's ranged, melee attack, and casting speed by 15% for 20 seconds.Chains of IceRequires level 56Costs 2 Frost RunesInstant cast, 16 second cooldown20 yard rangeDescription: Freezes the target in place for 3 seconds. the target regains 10% of their movement speed each second after breaking free of the chainFrost Presence Requires level 57Instant castDescription: The death knight takes on the presence of frost, increasing armor by 45% and threat generated by 25%.Mind FreezeRequires level 57 Requires Runic Power10 second cooldownDescription: Strike the target's mind with cold, dealing 100 frost damage modified by attack power and interrupting spellcasting while also preventing any spell in that school from being cast up to a maximum of 4 seconds. Obliterate Requires Level 61 Costs 1 Blood Rune, 1 Frost RuneDescription: A brutal instant attack that deals 100% of weapon damage plus 330 and 122 additional damage for each of your diseases on the target, but consumes the diseasesEmpower Rune WeaponRequires level 68 3 Minute cooldownInstant castDescription: Empower your rune weapon, immediately activating one of each rune typeIcebound Fortitude Requires level 72Requires Runic Power1 minute coooldownDescription: Consumes all available runic power, causing the Death Knight to become immune to stun effects and increasing armor by 50% for up to 12 seconds. Does not remove existing stun effects.Frost Talents:Frozen Rune WeaponRequires 10 talent pointsCosts 1 Frost RuneRequires melee weaponInstant castDescription: Imbue your rune weapon with frost, causing 29.9 to 92 additional frost damage, based on the speed of your weapon. Also has a chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to frost damage. Lasts 10 minutes.DeathchillRequires 20 talent points2 minute cooldownInstant castDescription: When activated, increases your critical strike chance with frost spells and abilities by 100% for the next 6 seconds. Howling BlastRequires 30 talent pointsCosts 1 Frost Rune30 second cooldownInstant cast20 yard rangeDescription: Blast the target with a frigid wind, dealing 278 to 302 frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Deals triple damage to frozen targetsMerciless CombatRequires 35 talent pointsCosts up to 3 talent pointsDescription: Your frost spells and abilities do an additional 20% damage per talent point when striking targets with less than 20% health.Frost StrikeRequires 40 talent points, Merciless CombatCosts 1 Frost RuneRequires melee weaponNext MeleeDescription: A strong attack that deals weapon damage as frost damage. Has a 10% chance to freeze the target.Hungering ColdRequires 50 talent pointsRequires runic power1 minute cooldownInstant castDescription: Unleashes all available runic power to eradicate all heat from around the Death Knight, freezing enemies within 10 yards and preventing them from performing any action for 2s per 10 runic power. Enemies are considered frozen, but any damage will break the ice.
