Filed under: (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.

As it was for, to some extent, all classes, 2012 was a busy time for the death knights, as one expansion ended and another began. As the news of Mists of Pandaria began pouring in, I started making some predictions. As the Mists beta progressed, I started mentioning things that I felt, or that the death knight community felt, needed to change or would change. This week, I figured it might be interesting to look back on some of those old articles and see what exactly happened, and how far off the mark I was (or wasn't).

Given that I have been talking the past few weeks about unholy's woes and some things Blizzard will probably never give us, I wanted to spend this week talking about some of the good things Blizzard has given us. Luckily, Blizzard decided to give us the greatest Christmas gift of all: Meaningful balance and mechanics changes to the unholy death knight on the upcoming patch 5.2 PTR.

Plague Strike delivers both diseases

Applying diseases when Outbreak is on cool down has been one of the most awkward parts of playing unholy ever since Scourge Strike was switched to a single rune model. Applying via the usual Plague Strike/Icy Touch model leaves orphaned runes that cannot easily be spent on a standard strike that fits into the basic unholy priority system, throwing off the rotation in a pretty jarring manner and making fights with multiple target switches a bit of a pain. However, in patch 5.2, Ebon Plaguebringer will allow Plague Strike to apply both Frost Fever and Blood Plague.

Death knight complaints and requests can change with patches, dealing with current issues or balance problems, but there are other death knight requests that come up time and time again, and will probably be asked about until the day they finally shut down the servers for good.

This week, we're going to look at three requests that probably will be around that long, just because it seems very unlikely Blizzard will ever fulfill them.

The power of the hero class

The "hero class" moniker has a long and storied history. It comes from Warcraft III, where hero units like paladins and death knights towered over the rest. By design, you only had a few of these every game, and they had more powerful skills that allowed them to dominate the battlefield when deployed.

When WoW came around, rumors of the hero classes spread throughout beta, but in the end, Blizzard went away from the model. Paladins, a hero class in WCIII, were made a regular class, for example, while other hero class mechanics, such as the Far Seer's Chain Lightning, went to regular classes.

On the PvE side of the death community, one of the most hot button topics right now is unholy DPS. All through the Mists beta, there was a large clamoring for an overhaul to the spec that never really came, and while Blizzard did add some decent quality of life and power changes, overall, many death knights felt the base flaws remained.

As it's played out in Mists so far, unholy death knights do appear to be a much rarer creature than frost death knights at the raid level. In addition, while sims suggest unholy should only lag slightly behind frost, actual raid parses often show unholy lagging behind by a far larger margin.

What does all this mean? How does unholy continue to have these issues? This week, we'll look at some unholy spec issues, and consider how, or if, they should be fixed.

I love my death knight. He will probably be my main for as long as I play WoW. That said, sometimes you want a change of pace. Sometimes, you've finished all the dailies, ground all the factions to exalted, and run every heroic dungeon and raid on a single character until your eyes are bleeding. Sometimes you want something else. And for that, we have alts.

Of course, alts don't mean you've completely abandoned your death knight. Sometimes, alts teach you something about your death knight. In my case, most of my alts were created before the death knight, since he didn't come along until Wrath. That means that a lot of what I learned playing them has informed how I play my death knight from day one. This week, I'm taking a look at my stable of alts and seeing what lessons they've taught or reinforced for me about my death knights.

Keep your diseases up

I've been playing a warlock alt since the vanilla era, sticking mostly to affliction, although demonology's been proving pretty fun so far in Mists. My priest I don't play quite as much, but I still like taking shadow out for a spin every once in a while.

Patch 5.1 contains relatively few direct death knight changes, but those changes it has are large enough to talk about. PvE escapes relatively unscathed and gets a few nice goodies, but PvP takes a bit of a hit. Today, we'll talk about what patch 5.1 has in store for death knights thus far.

The death of Death Strike in PvP?

So far, there is one single class change for death knights in the patch notes, but it is a doozy. Death Strike's bonus healing from taking damage will no longer apply to damage received from PvP combat.

This doesn't mean, of course, that death knights are completely without healing in PvP now. They should still successfully get the minimum heal and the shield it provides. It does mean, however, that they lose a lot of self healing, enough that a lot of people are working on their frost and unholy PvP skills once again.

Reading a guide is all well and good, but sometimes, even after you read, you still have questions or need clarification. This week, I've taken 3 questions I see death knights ask a lot at various places around the web, and provide some advice and clarification.

Why don't tanks need so much hit and expertise?

If you've been reading the column, you've probably noticed that I have de-emphasized hit and expertise when discussing blood death knight tank gear and strategy. This is for a very good reason. Certainly, active tanking is the rule of the day in Mists, which means in theory that tanks should want hit and expertise so their abilities land. In theory, if your Death Strike doesn't land, you don't get the healing or the blood shield, right?

Terrace of Endless Spring is the last raid of tier 14, but features the same item levels as the Heart of Fear. If you didn't find an upgrade there, chances are you'll find it here.

As with previous weeks, we'll be examining the loot on a boss by boss basis, in order to give you a better idea about which bosses to spend your Elder Charms of Good Fortune on. In addition, our analysis will be based primarily on normal gear drops. If you are raiding LFR or heroic tiers, your gear choices may vary a bit based on item levels.

Heart of Fear, which will open up this week, is the next step up from Mogu'shan Vaults. As a result, the ilevels are a bit higher and the gear just a bit more desirable. We'll be checking out the loot on a boss by boss basis, in order to give you a better idea about which bosses to spend your Elder Charms of Good Fortune on. As with last week, our analysis will be based primarily on normal gear drops. If you are raiding LFR or heroic tiers, your gear choices may vary a bit based on item levels.

It's actually more important than ever to know what loot drops from what bosses in raids in Mists. This is because, if you've been collecting Elder Charms of Good Fortune, you'll have the option when a boss dies to spend one for a chance at extra loot. Knowing what loot is available means you can be better informed when you spend coins. With that in mind, let's take a quick look at the bosses of Mogu'shan Vaults and figure out if their loot is worth spending charms on.

This analysis is made on the basis of the normal 25-man raid drops. If you are running raid finder, many valor point choices may pull ahead because of superior item level. On the other hand, you do have a highly limited number of valor points due to the 1000 per week cap, so in some cases you may want to "settle" for the raid drop so you can use your valor points to buy something else. In addition, DPS will want to maintain 7.5% hit and 7.5% expertise at the raid level. This can usually be accomplished via reforging, but there may be times you take an "inferior" piece of gear to hit one of those caps.

This week, we'll cover the personal benefits of the primary professions for death knights at level 90. Many of the perks and benefits are the same as they've been at levels 85 and 90, but there's stronger versions, of course, and a couple other changes that are worth covering. This guide will focus primarily on the self-buffs and bind on pickup rewards, though many professions will, of course, have its own BoE things that all death knights will want to make use of, so consider that when you pick your professions.

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.

In the past, dungeons have been seen as a stepping stone to raids. If you stopped there, so be it, but the goal was generally to get past them and get on to bigger things. With challenge modes now in game, it may be that 5-man groups will be seen as a pinnacle of end game activity.

With that in mind, getting the good gear out of these dungeons may be more important than ever. This week, we'll take a look at heroic dungeon drops. For the most part, in comparing these pieces, we will be focused on getting parry and dodge for tanks, critical strike and haste for unholy and two-hand frost, and haste and mastery for dual wield frost. Note, of course, that you still want to get 7.5% hit and expertise each as DPS, so that may override other gear choices at time.

Note that Scenarios will also have a chance to drop an item level 463 item, so if you do Scenarios, keep an eye out for those. However, since they are all items with randomly generated prefixes, it's difficult to preview them in a gear list, so just know they exist.

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.

One of the first things you'll likely do once you hit level 90 in Mists of Pandaria is start looking into reputations. Faction reputation reward gear, at least at the start of an expansion, is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get the item level for heroic dungeons and raids.

In Mists of Pandaria, however, it's a bit different. Valor and honor point gear is now on reputation vendors, and if you want it, you will actively have to grind out those reputations (via dailies, no less, as tabards no longer grant reputation in dungeons). This week, we'll take a look at the gear offered by these factions, and how it stacks up for death knights.

Note that we will cover only those factions that offer gear specific usable for death knights to better their tanking or DPS. I hope getting rep for Tillers, Anglers, and Loremasters for the awesome vanity gear goes without saying.

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.

By the time you read this, Mists of Pandaria should be out and playable in Europe (coming soon to the US), and there's probably even a few of you who will have hit level 86 or 87. With the new talent and specialization system, I expect figuring out how to level will be easier than ever, if only because it's a lot more difficult to go wrong. Still, there's a few recommendations to make that may help you hit level 90 just a bit faster, and we'll go ahead and dispense some of that advice today. Note that all advice here is for leveling only, and may not apply to end game dungeon running or raiding.

Choosing your leveling spec

I would recommend you choose either two-handed frost or blood as your leveling spec. Blood is strong enough and has enough self-healing and emergency defense tools that will probably never die. That said, your DPS won't be as high as you might like. Frost will allow you to kill things faster but still gives you some decent survivability options in the form of Death Strike and, if you talent in to it, the Lichborne heal trick. If you do level as blood, make sure you are either queuing for dungeons as a tank, or have a secondary frost or unholy spec ready to switch to when you DPS a dungeon. Blood is still not great DPS, and your dungeon group will need better than what you can put out as blood.

Mists of Pandaria is now barely a week away, and within two to three weeks, many of us will be getting those first few pieces of end game gear. With that in mind, it seems like a good idea today to help you figure out how to get that gear kitted out with the best gems and enchants to get you that edge going into dungeons or raids.

This guide will, when possible, suggest lower cost alternatives, but if you are serious about raiding or challenge modes, it will generally be a good idea to go for the epic or rare level options. Certainly, you'll want to do that once you get up to valor gear and raid drops. You will also want to be aware of when your profession offers better alternatives for a given slot. Blacksmiths, of course, will want to add those extra sockets, and engineers those extra glove enchants as well.