Posts with tag sigils

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly look at news, tips and strategy for the death knight class, with your host, Daniel Whitcomb.

Last week, we took a look at frost DPS. At that time, I posted a basic DPS build for beginning frost DPSers to provide a good balance of DPS and utility. As I mentioned back then, though, the basic frost DPS build is pretty nice in that it does allow a bit of flexibility in your build; that is, there are a few places where you can swap around points a bit depending on your gear level and personal needs. We'll also take a quick look at optimizing sigil usage, which should come in handy for blood and unholy DPS as well. But first, let's take a look at those frost talents.

Continuing on the data-mining train, we have now learned the set bonuses from the tier 9 gear that is coming in patch 3.2 (confirming, by the way, that there will be a real tier of gear in the Crusader's Coliseum raid). There is also information available on some new relics for the relic-bearing classes (Paladin, Druid, Shaman, and Death Knight).

Information after the break. Keep in mind some of these are certainly placeholders. The priest healing 4-piece, for instance, is strictly worse than the priest healing 2-piece Tier 8 bonus; there's no way it would go live like this. Some of the bonuses don't even make any sense, like the Warlock 4-piece. Datamined info is always suspect.

Exactly what weapons Death Knights will be able to wield has been the subject of some controversy. Originally, it was speculated by Blizzard that one- and two-handed swords and axes would be the extent of it. Currently in the beta, polearms and one- and two-handed swords, axes, and maces are usable. Daggers, fist weapons, staves, wands, and ranged weapons are not (updated with verified information).

But not many people have talked about what's going to go in that ranged slot. A moment's thought reminds us that every other class that can't use ranged weapons or wands (Druids, Shamans, and Paladins) have Relics in those slots. If you're not familiar, Relics are class-specific items that typically provide a boost to particular spells; they come in different flavors for the different classes. Druids get Idols, Shamans get Totems (confusing, yes), and Paladins get Librams.

Wrath will add one more to the list: Sigils, for Death Knights. So far only one has been implemented in the beta – Sigil of the Dark Rider, one of the first quest rewards in the DK's starting chain. Blood Strike, as far as I can tell, is meant to be a staple skill for many DKs, like Heroic Strike for Warriors, so this should come in handy. And unlike Paladins, DKs have plenty of ranged spells, so pulling shouldn't be problematic – they even have a spell that brings the enemy straight to them, Scorpion-style. Get over here!