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.

Hit rating and expertise are the life blood of the max level PvE death knight. DPS death knights need exactly 7.5% hit rating and 7.5% expertise to avoid missing raid bosses or having their attacks dodged outright. Even tanks, while a miss is less of a big deal for them, may find hit and expertise helps them keep threat and prevent key debuffs from falling off the mob. They're so powerful that if you aren't near those caps, your DPS will suffer horribly, and in most cases, the one thing you do to increase raid DPS is to hit those caps if you aren't at them already.

Now, this is what we have reforging and regemming for though, right? Sometimes it's just not that simple. Today, we'll take a look at the problems with hit gear and suggest some solutions.

The big problem is that once hit and expertise do their job of letting you hit the mob, they are almost literally useless. Dual wielders get a little bit of extra help for their normal weapon hits, but 2 handed wielders get literally nothing else out of them at all. They're dead stats. Arguably, it's bad even if you are at the 7.5% caps, because that means you have a bit of hit and expertise. and expertise rating that's not needed for daily questing or dungeon runs, or even for most raid trash.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

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.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. It's a busy week in WoW. Not only has Noblegarden begun, but the patch 5.3 news keeps rolling out. Don't worry though. It may April, but we are not fools. We're keeping up with it all and reporting it to you. Downtime this morning is limited to a series of rolling restarts at 7 a.m. PDT, but there's a lot of news to catch up on. Read on for the usual roundup.

Hot news and features

• You still have a week left to win The Art of Blizzard Entertainment from our contest.
• The Overachiever has a guide to Noblegarden 2013.
• Check out the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for March 27 and March 29.
• There's some new scenarios and some new content with Lorewalker Cho coming in patch 5.3, and we have a rundown for you.
• We have a look at the new Shado-Pan Arena coming in patch 5.3.
• The Barrens and Durotar are undergoing major changes in patch 5.3 as Garrosh's troops take over.
• Even more battle pets have been found on the PTR.
• We take a look at some of the new mount models and achievements in the PTR files.
• We've run some the Heroic Scenarios on the patch 5.3 PTR, and have a report for you.
• These epic cloaks could be part of Wrathion's patch 5.3 legendary storyline.
• Ghostcrawler clarified the meaning of that tri-spec achievement discovery in the patch 5.3 PTR files.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

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.

With patch 5.2 well underway, by now you've probably spent a good amount of time on the Isle of Thunder. There's lots of fun stuff to dig into there. For the most part, non-raid content seems designed so that most classes can deal with it with a minimum of fuss. Still, some classes will have an advantage, and this time, death knights are among them. Today we'll look at a few ways in which you can use your death knight specific skills to make your time on the Isle of Thunder more profitable.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. The past week or so has been one of unexpected announcements, to say the least. First, we heard about Hearthstone, the Warcraft-based online CCG, then we had the first patch notes and build for the patch 5.3 PTR, right before the first guild downed heroic Lei Shen. I am pretty sure Alex is clairvoyant now, because he picked the perfect week to go on vacation.

Downtime today is limited to rolling restarts at 7 a.m. PDT, but trust me, a lot of stuff went down this week and you'll want to read about it all. Our usual roundup awaits you below.

Hot news and features

• Check out the official announcement cinematic for the new Hearthstone online CCG.
• Read the first set of PTR patch notes for patch 5.3.
• Dawn got a chance to play Hearthstone at PAX East, and has some impressions. She also got a chance to sit down with the developers and ask some burning questions about the game.
• We have roundup of all we know so far about Hearthstone.
• Item upgrades will return for PvE gear in patch 5.3, but not for PvP gear.
• Patch 5.3 will have some major PvP gear changes, but don't panic.
• Patch 5.3 features new battle pets and a new pet battle hit rating system.
• A possible third talent spec option has been datamined in the latest PTR files.
• Want some patch 5.3 lore spoilers? Check out the latest datamined sound files.
• Check out the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for March 19 and March 21.
• Oondasta's health pool has been nerfed by 50%.
• Raiding the Forgotten Depths in the Raid Finder? We have a 5-second guide to the bosses therein.

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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.

DPS guides are usually pretty straightforward. You have your damage rotation, your stat priorities for gear, and maybe an extra section with some tips on using some of your more esoteric abilities. Tank guides get a little bit more slippery, though. Sure, you can cover some of the same stuff you cover in a DPS guide, included stat priorities and tips and tricks for using specific abilities, but a tank will operate on a different level. They need to know when to use their defensive cool downs. They need to know when specific boss fights may require them to switch up gear. In some cases, they need to know certain intangible things about a boss and about raiding or grouping that it doesn't seem like DPS quite need to deal with. These aren't things that will ever really involve using Death Strike, but they may be just as important to being a successful tank as Death Strike ever will be.

This week, we'll take a look at some of these intangible things and discuss ways to make sure you're on top of them. Most of this will apply primarily to pickup groups, since at the raiding level, it's easier (or at least necessary) to make sure even healers and DPS know this stuff. But if you're in Raid Finder, boy howdy will you want to keep this advice in mind.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning, everyone. We're to that period in the new patch where we haven't quite finished the content, and there's still hotfixes every other day, but things have simmered down a bit and a lot of us have our daily routine down again.

That said, there's still plenty of cool stuff going on, and we have the usual roundup of all the news from the past 7 days, along with more guides to help you get the most from Patch 5.2's new content. Scheduled maintenance starts at 5:00 a.m. PDT today and is expected to last for 6 hours, so you should have time to get caught up.

Hot news and features

• Check out the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for March 11, March 12, March 14, March 15.
• There won't be any more 5-man dungeons in Mists, but they will be back for future expansions.
• PvP season 13 has begun.
• If you're delving into the Raid Finder for the new raid, you'll want these 5-second guides to the bosses of the Last Stand of the Zandalari.
• We have a guide to running the new single-player Troves of the Thunder King scenario.
• Blizzard is offering free server moves for select servers until March 21.
• If you're visiting from a different realm, you won't get loot from an Oondasta or Nalak kill.
• Do you hate the CRZ system? It turns out some realms my be exempt from it.
• Want to keep track of your Isle of Thunder tasks? There's an addon for that.
• The Call to Auction podcast recently got a chance to ask some questions of Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street about the economy and professions.
• WoW Archivist suggests 11 great moments in WoW history that should return as scenarios.
• Rossi speculates on the possibility of scaling old raids to max level players.
• Is WoW too easy? Blue poster Draztal disagrees.
• Blizzard may allow you to get off-spec gear in Raid Finder in the future.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

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.

With patch 5.2 in full swing, we've had time to take stock of the changes, not just in terms of new content, but in terms of the buffs and nerfs our classes received. I'm just going to come out and say it. As a class, death knights feel about the best they've been since the Wrath era. There's a lot of great stuff to be excited about, so let's go down the list.

Unholy is fun again

Unholy has, as a spec, been sort of on the outside since Cataclysm. Blizzard's revamp, which put unholy on a different rune spending scheme from the other specs and pulled it even further away from weapon damage and toward special ability damage, created a unique melee spec, but the complications and weaknesses that came with that spec were a bit much for many people, and with frost generally beating it in both DPS and simplicity, the spec gained a reputation for being played only by the most hard headed diehards.

Patch 5.2 came along and bought with it a much needed unholy revamp. The addition of Frost Fever to Plague Strike alone has helped make unholy's rotation smoother and more intuitive, as well as made target switching feel at least a little less punishing. AoE is still a little more awkward, but with Icy Touch on Reaping, you can at least get through that first setup and get to the main AoE rotation a lot more smoothly.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Happy Tuesday morning everyone. We're a week into the new patch, and with a new patch comes new bugs. Among the biggest bugs to crop up in the wake of patch 5.2 so far were a pet leveling XP bug that let you level from 1-89 in a matter of hours, and a monk DPS bug that let them do massive damage. Both have been hotfixed.

Bugs are to be expected of course, and I find it sort of fun to see what crops up. Blizzard, of course, is pretty good about smashing them down, so in the end, I just like to sit back and watch the show. If bugs aren't your thing, there's plenty of other cool things going down with the patch. Downtime this morning starts at 5:00 a.m. PDT and is expected to last 6 hours, so you have time to catch up on the news. Read on for a roundup of patch 5.2 and the guides you'll need to get the most out of all the new content.

Hot news and features

• Check out the official patch 5.2 patch notes.
• With a new patch comes new hotfixes. Check out the latest patch 5.2 hotfixes for March 5, March 7,
• Want to know when you get to kill Lei Shen? Check the Throne of Thunder raid release schedule. While you're it at, review our Throne of Thunder boss guides as well.
• The Isle of Giants isn't as well known as the Isle of Thunder, but you may want to head out there anyway.
• Wondering if patch 5.2 is worth getting back into WoW? Here's 5 reasons why it's worth it to resubscribe (or just log on again).
• If the new patch enticed you resubscribe, Blizzard has a returning players guide.

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Filed under: Realm Status, News items

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.

This week, we'll face down the final few bosses of Throne of Thunder to see what loot they have. After that, we'll take a look at our valor point offerings and the world bosses of patch 5.2 for their loot. This will round out our look at patch 5.2's loot, and as with the last 2 weeks, the same disclaimers apply. Since this is based on PTR information, drops can change. In addition, this preview focuses on normal gear, so your gearing priorities may change if you get thunderforged gear or heroic gear.

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Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne