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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGhostcrawler's thoughts on Death Knights
by Alex Ziebart 
Dec 2nd 2008 at 7:00PM
He mentions a number of problems that have cropped up with Death Knights since launch (or before in some cases) and some potential ideas on how they can be fixed in upcoming patches. No official change announcements, just thoughts and discussion. If you want to see the full list, head on over to the forum thread. I'm just going to touch on a few that I've experienced firsthand.
Ghostcrawler mentions that Death Knights tank well when their cooldowns are available, but take too much damage when they're not. The potential fix being lowering the effectiveness of things like Icebound Fortitude, but boosting their baseline mitigation. A simple fix, and a good one. This is probably the single biggest annoyance when working with a Death Knight tank. They quickly go from having higher mitigation than any other tank to taking massive spikes of damage that you can't do much about except spam your heals harder. It's less than ideal, to say the least. I'm really glad that this is a recognized issue and something will be done about it. Right now, they're really not in line with the other tanks.
The ability Rune Strike came up: "Rune Strike was intended to be a reactive tanking tool, not a rogue killer. We will probably chill its weapon damage and increase its threat." Yeah, this is a good move. I think this is one of those things everyone saw a mile away. Rune Strike is basically Overpower combined with Revenge and injected with steroids. That's pretty wild and not what I'd call balanced at the moment. Toning down its damage is a good move.
It looks like there will be a whole bunch of changes to the Ghoul for ease of use, which I'm happy to see. Unholy ghouls need better raid survival than they have right now (considering they've become kind of important), and non-Unholy ghouls are just clunky and frustrating.
Ghostcrawler also mentions splitting the Raise Dead spell in half, one to raise players and one to summon your own ghoul. While this is a change mostly aimed at the 'fun factor' of raising your buds as a ghoul while keeping your ability to keep your pet ghoul, I think it will just plain help the spell's functionality.
I can't count how many times my raid's Unholy Death Knight tried to resummon his ghoul after a death and ended up raising another member of our raid that had died. It didn't do anything useful, just wasted a cooldown since its priority is to raise a player before creating a new ghoul. The easy fix is to wait until everyone is rezzed to use the spell, but making two different spells is a much more convenient fix. And yeah, way more fun.
There are more sigils on the way, and their absence is something my guildmates love to complain about, so I definitely can't wait to see them. They're aware of how hard it is for Death Knights to get their hand on Defense gear, and while they don't want to make tanking 2Handers, it is an option. My personal hope is they don't do to Death Knights what Protection Paladins had to go through for awhile. There were really only a couple 'Paladin weapons' that had real tank stats alongside their spelldamage. Beyond that, you just stole whatever caster weapon had the most Stamina. Kind of a pain. I'd much rather see a more graceful fix, like converting weapon DPS into some sort of defensive stat or ability.
Overall, I think these are good changes. As awesome as the class is in certain aspects of the game, it's bogged down with quite a few problems of its own. I hope to see everything get into working order sometime soon.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 4)
Narissa Dec 3rd 2008 8:25AM
I will say now, I have seen fewer and fewer hunters, so Hats off to the DK for absorbing the Huntards 8).
The problem with the Hero class argument ( That they should be OP because they are a Hero Class ) is that everyone has one. It's not Heroic if everyone has one.
Vic Viper Dec 3rd 2008 12:40PM
tbh, i think they should have changed the requirement, thing is, chances are that by the time your first char gets to 55, you'll be a bit tired of him, and the DK being so good at soloing and so equipped (if you compare him to an 55 that was an main, chances are the DK will have better stuff) doesn't help it.
IMO, the requirement should be having an 70 or 80 character at least, so that people would actually consider how good of a deal is "ditching" your main for an "fresh" 55 char and maybe it would take longer for us to see this many DKs.
Netherscourge Dec 3rd 2008 8:37AM
They need their damage nerfed, yes.
But they need their threat MASSIVELY upgraded. It's way too easy to pull aggro off DK's IMO.
I've had to scale back my own DPS output just to help some DK's hold mobs better.
Naix Dec 3rd 2008 9:50AM
Uhh it's a damage class much like a warlock, mage, or rogue. Why would they nurf a DPS class?
Oh you must have lost to one in a duel.
Scribe Dec 3rd 2008 9:51AM
Threat for DK - I ran regular violet hold and regular old kingdom back to back with a DK tank who used to be a warrior tank. We did have a few threat issues in Violet hold, but the tank was 76/77, healer was 80, elemental shammy at 80, my hunter at 76/77 and a mage at 74.
A misdirect with a volley/multishot solidified the tank's aggro in VH, just like any other normal tank. Once he built his threat, there was only 1 or 2 instances where I got the standard 90% threat warning from Omen, and that was on trash as opposed to the boss.
The burstiness of his damage was an issue, but the healer was overgeared for the instance, so it wasn't a huge issue. Running the instance with people only geared to the instances would have been a different story, I think.
As with all other classes, you'll find good DK tanks, and you'll find bad DK tanks.
Aeryk Dec 3rd 2008 12:14PM
Ive tanked several instances in Northrend with my unholy specced DK, and Ive never had an issue with generating enough threat.
All you need to do is remember to switch to frost presence and drop Death & Decay whenever possible. Im fairly inexperienced at tanking, and when our guilds main tank went to out-aggro me, he had to work to generate more threat.
Shuggins Dec 3rd 2008 12:38PM
I disagree with the changes Blizzard is thinking about making in regards to our cooldown abilities. I have been tanking Naxx for the last week and a half and have had no issues with my mitigation/health as an unholy specced main tank.
The playstyle of the DK class was supposed to be different and we are supposed to juggle our cooldowns and special abilities. The ability to do so is what sets the good DK players above the bad. Streamlining us with the rest of the tanking classes in this regard will be a huge step backward, and IMO result in making the class dull.
DeathPaladin Dec 3rd 2008 2:10PM
I am definitely enjoying Death Knight more than I ever enjoyed Paladin, and it's also easier to read about changes. I think it's because there's more of a grasp on what a Death Knight is supposed to do, since its role is more clearly defined.
Regardless of whether the changes are good or not, there is definitely a more measured response when dealing these changes. "DK tanks are getting bad spikes, so we're increasing mitigation, but to compensate IBF will be more like a shield wall than a bubble" or "Rune Strike isn't being used as a tanking strike like we intended, so we plan on decreasing the weapon damage and upping the threat generated" lays out specific concerns about the balance, while also presenting the intended solution.
Much better situation than the nightmare of being a paladin in 3.0.2 with "You are op, so we hotfixed a bunch of damage nerfs. We might give you something in the next patch, but we aren't going to tell you anything about what it might be until we decide whether we'll even give it to you" every day for almost a week.
As for sigils, I figured there would be more released as time went on, just like with badge gear. As it stands now, there's no reason for me to use anything other than the Dark Rider sigil from the starting zone, since it increases the damage of one of my primary strikes and none of the others really jump out as improvements over that. I levelled primarily as an Obliterate Blood spec, and am now trying out a Blood/Ghoul hybrid. Conflicted as to whether I'll stay there, even though I love my little Gravereaver to pieces. He was Marrowslicer until he got accidentally gibbed by an elite, and so he took on a cooler name. I mean, slicing marrow is a pretty hard concept to visualize, except maybe in an episode of Iron Chef. But smashing a tomb and carrying off the remains is pretty easy to understand.
Zane Dec 7th 2008 12:11PM
@ Roke on the point of DKs (some of us) being terrible.
I agree. SHOCKER to all? Too bad. I LOVE being a DK, and honestly I am glad for it, due to I was burning out trying to gear all my 70s, steadily getting sick of the classes I have leveled.
----
Now to the point. The biggest issue is that people have been leveling and think they are Godmode or something with their DKs. I power leveled my DK so I could enjoy him in endgame, smashing my face to the granite (or so I am making the saying go :P) learning how to tank with this class. BUT, by the time endgame really comes, with more guilds maturing to higher raiding content, I am hoping this will level out. The mistakes you make PUGing are quickly shored up in a raiding guild, and roles are assigned, making the DK have a utility role the same as any other. I just hope not to be discriminated against due to picking a DK as my tank instead of trying to do it with more traditional classes. I just like tanking with my DK due to the unique feel it brings to me as a tank. but all be warned, beware your CDs, lest you wipe... :)
Zane
Veg Feb 13th 2009 12:57PM
A DK is fairly well balanced, but there are a few complaints that I (a mage) have.
Firstly, the whole "Coming back from the grave" thing is complete bullshit; it needs to be removed or made into what I think it was intended to be, which is a way for the dk to basically self-destruct and do some last-second damage. As it is the ghoul he resurrects as is as powerful as his pet, which needs to die when the DK is killed (pre-ressurection.) So if two players are on even grounds in terms of skill and gear, and one of them is a death knight, chances are the death knight will win, simply because you have to kill him twice. This is counter to the spirit of the game.
Secondly, the pet shares the DK's strength. The pet needs a nerf, hard core. The other classes which can get pets take serious drawbacks for it (usually in terms of survivability--i.e. hunters and warlocks). But the DK basically gets a second DK. Again, counter to the spirit of the game.