Posts with tag Anti-Magic-Shell

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.

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.

With Mists of Pandaria less than a month, it's a good time to get caught up on your chosen class' mechanics and playstyle in order to get a good start in the new expansion. With that in mind, we've spent the past few weeks discussing the various specs and how they'll play. This week, we add to the collection with a guide to unholy death knights in PvE. As a reminder, the following guide is for the basics of the class and spec.

Unholy basics

Unholy, much like its sister trees, remains more or less unchanged in basic look and feel. Of course, there's enough tweaks that there's stuff to learn, but if you liked the way unholy played back in patch 4.3, you'll like the way it plays in patch 5.0.4 and Mists of Pandaria. The biggest change you'll notice is that the new version of Ebon Plaguebringer no longer has the magic damage debuff or the third disease. They have upped the damage on our strikes to compensate, but it's one more little piece of unholy look and feel that's gone.

Unholy is, of course, played with a two-handed weapon enchanted with Rune of the Fallen Crusader, as you will need its power to get the most damage from your strikes, and in Unholy Presence. You will also want to make sure you have your ghoul out as much as possible, as it makes up a not insignificant amount of your damage. If you don't want to deal with a pet or want to dual wield, you're better off switching to frost DPS.

Last week, we started our discussion of the redesigned glyph system for Mists of Pandaria. This week, we'll finish out that discussion, covering the remaining major glyphs as well as minor glyphs.

The glyph system continues to look remarkably alien compared to what we have had before, but there are still some familiar glyphs, as well as a few long sought-after cosmetic additions. As we mentioned last week, there are very few mandatory glyphs, so a lot of this is going to come down to your personal preferences and playstyle. Be sure to read part 1 of this guide if you haven't already, then read on for the rest.

In redesigning the glyph system for Mists, Blizzard's taking away the prime glyph tier. More than that, though, they've essentially gutted the system, removing many glyphs and changing others in incredibly drastic ways. In the case of death knights, what this has done is leave us with very few mandatory]glyphs and even fewer glyphs that greatly affect our ability to do our jobs or climb higher on the damage meters in any meaningful way.

With this in mind, lets take a look at death knight glyphs in Mists of Pandaria as they stand. You will be able to use three major glyphs and three minor glyphs at any given time. There's a lot of glyphs to cover, so we'll do this in two installments. We'll cover most of the major glyphs today, and next week we'll finish off the major glyphs and talk about the minor glyphs.

Like just about every Blizzard fanboy these days, I have been playing a lot of Diablo III. And while playing it, I have indeed been looking to complete achievements whenever I can. A lot of Diablo achievements are similar to WoW achievements, but one category Diablo III has that WoW doesn't is class achievements.

This is understandable. There are a lot of reasons WoW doesn't have class achievements. It's harder to level multiple characters and get them all. It's harder to implement flashy achievements that could force you to put a group at a disadvantage. People could focus on gaining achievement points rather than winning a battle. That said, I still think there's some merit to the idea.

One of the best reasons to have class achievements, I think, is as a possible teaching tool. There's still not a really solid, in-game way of teaching you how to play your class, but a few achievements that rewarded you for using certain skills in certain ways might just be a good start. Sure, you could just cheese them anyway, but if you tried to get them legitimately, you could very well find yourself learning how to play along the way. This week, we'll brainstorm a few death knight achievements and see how they could help a lot of people play the class better.

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.

A guide that tells you how to play is pretty helpful, don't get me wrong. But just reading that and following along often isn't enough. Sometimes, we make mistakes anyway. If it were simple as reading a guide, we'd all be in heroic raid groups never doing any less than 40,000 DPS on Madness of Deathwing and/or never dying due to our constant chain of Blood Shields while tanking. But human error will always enter into things.

Of course, realizing what mistakes you're making and getting them fixed is easier said than done, especially when they're being yelled at you by an irate guild leader or that especially grumpy member of your Raid Finder group. This week, we'll look at some of the most common mistakes death knights make and offer some short and sweet commonsense tips to avoiding them.

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.

I know it's probably a bit weird to be talking about PvE DPS when the big story for PvE is the new cool stuff we can get by tanking -- but by now, the shine is probably off the apple for many Call to Arms participants. With bugs preventing us from getting bags and DPSers who refuse to follow kill orders or use crowd control, many have decided even the chance at a cool new pet isn't enough.

That's why, for everyone who's gone back to DPS and for everyone who never stopped DPSing, I want to offer a few quick tips for surviving in PvE. Maybe you're dealing with an inexperienced Call to Arms tank; maybe you're still working on recognizing your own threat levels. But whatever the reason, DPSers do die from time to time, and in Cataclysm, they seem to die faster and easier. Many of these tips will be death knight-specific, and some will be a bit more general.

Early this morning, a player by the name of Koosh posted an idea to the official achievements forum: Why not add class- or role-specific achievements? If implemented, could these achievements be used to help players learn the specifics of their class? Koosh uses Team Fortress 2 as an example, and I think it's an excellent one. If you're unfamiliar with the game, Team Fortress 2 is a competitive (but light-hearted), class-based first-person shooter.

Here are some examples of Team Fortress 2 class achievements:

• Scout Brushback: Stun 50 enemies while they are capturing a point or pushing the cart.
• Pyro Hot Potato: Reflect 100 projectiles with your compressed air blast.
• Soldier Death from Above: Rocket jump and kill 2 enemies before you land.

Achievements like this push you to learn how to play your class and how to play it well. It might be a very strong tool for training players in World of Warcraft. Interrupt 1,000 spells as a rogue? Use Anti-Magic Shell to absorb 1,000,000 damage? Replenish 150,000 points of other players' mana with Innervate, as Koosh suggests?

Readers, do you think this would be a viable way to teach players how to use all of the tools at their disposal? What achievements do you think your class should have?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Art of War(craft), covering battlegrounds and world PvP, and Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Battlemaster Zach Yonzon, old-world PvP grinder and casual battleground habitué, rambles on about anything and everything PvP.

So the bomb finally dropped. As expected, Patch 4.0.1 finally made it to live realms and players are scrambling to get used to everything new. For most players, that first free respec is used for PvE to enable them to join the latest PUG looking to down the week's raid boss. This is when reality bites -- that spec you've been fiddling around with over at Wowhead or wowtal.com isn't delivering the way you thought it would. That's OK. If you're doing some PvP, understand that there are a number of bugs out there, so things aren't behaving exactly as they should. Add to that the fact that the game is balanced around being level 85, that stamina is low, and resilience has taken a hit ... things are going to be somewhat wonky. So don't write off that spec you've theorycrafting on for weeks just yet.

Since specs are pretty complex and fluid at this point, we'll take a look at vital PvP talents instead. The fun thing is that at this point in the game, all specs are good to go for PvP -- although your mileage may vary. There isn't much room for variation, unlike before, when players could reach deep into two trees, especially for PvP. But inevitably, there are talents that are extremely useful in a PvP environment. Today we'll take a look at core PvP talents for each spec for death knights, just in case you were wondering what to do with those last few talent points. For this exercise, we won't bother discussing any 31-point talents because, well, you're supposed to pick those up, anyway.

Welcome to Lichborne, WoW.com's weekly death knight column. Daniel Whitcomb sort of wanted to call this week's column "Neener neener, I can stand in the fire and you can't," but the editors weren't too enthused with it.

One of the most important things you can do to become a good death knight is to solidify your damage (or threat) rotation or priority system so that you can consistently keep your runes on cool down and your damage high. That said, it's far from the only thing that marks a good DPS or tank. Another thing is flexibility.

Death Knights have a wide variety of tools and tricks that can turn the tide of a battle. These tricks can be hard to weave into your existing system without giving up your rotation, but there are tricks to making it easier, and sometimes the benefit outweighs having to mess up your rotation for a few seconds. Let's take a look at 5 specific buttons that more death knight should be pushing.

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly foray into the news, strategy, and zen of being a Death Knight, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb.

So. You've conquered Ulduar and Naxxramas. Or maybe you've just collected a lot of badges and got some nice shiny gear. Either way, you're ready to go humor that old codger Fordring and fight and die in his silly little Arena. Even if the whole thing is obviously a waste of good time that could be spent killing the Scourge, the Ebon Blade's agreed to cooperate, so you'd better be ready too, death knight. So today, we'll give you a few tips about surviving the first few bosses of the Trial of the Crusader the death knight way.

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.

Here's a question I'm sure a lot of players have asked themselves when faced against those dreaded Death Knights. Critical QQ wrote an interesting post in his blog theorizing that the side with the most number of Death Knights will win. Think Ret Paladin during the first week or so of Patch 3.0. He posits that Death Knights are such a powerful PvP class that they tend to turn the tide of a battle. To a degree, it's actually true. The very first Arena Master was a Death Knight.

The blog post plays out several scenarios where Death Knights make a difference but doesn't get into too much detail. But the point he makes is clear, and some of you might have actually felt it whenever you played some Battlegrounds -- whichever side has the most Death Knights wins. I've never actually stopped to figure out the ratio of Death Knights in all my Battlegrounds games, but there's no question a Death Knight is a force to be reckoned with in PvP. But are they unbeatable?

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: