Neirai the Forgiven
Christian Guilds List Manager
Hi, I'd like to use this thread to discuss the various nuances of playing a Death Knight, in regards to maximizing utility and fun. Amongst our wea---topics are optimal races, specs, and professions for Death Knights in each of their roles.
The Death Knight is a very flexible class, and will therefore be able to fill multiple roles. Each of my introductory comments below will be aimed at the idea of Death Knights fulfilling a (PVE) Tanking, (PVE) DPS, and general-purpose PVP role. As I don't really do PVP, my knowledge of PVP roles is sadly limited. PVPers, feel free to fill in my gaps.
Races----------------------------------------------------------------
One of the hallmarks of the Death Knight class is its racial diversity -- any race can be a Death Knight! A wise player, however, may want to choose a race that most benefits his or her role choice.
Alliance
Humans: With their ability to break snares and increased stealth detection, they make good PVP Death Knights. Also, their increased chance to hit with swords make them decent for any PVE role -- as long as you're carrying a sword or two.
Dwarves: Their resistance to frost (sure to be common in Wrath) and their ability to take on Stone Form means that they're okay as PVE tanks and decent PVP races... but they're easily outshined by others.
Night Elves: With their latent -hit-to-attackers, Night Elves make excellent PVE Tanks and PVP characters. Their shadowmeld ability, however, is only all that great in PVE DPS and as a PVPer.
Gnomes: With their ability to remove speed altering affects, Gnomes make great PVPers. Also, their increased Intelligence is invaluable if you're planning on specializing as an Unholy Death Knight. Finally, their added skill in Engineering is perfect for anyone planning on going Engineering (esp good for PVP.)
Draenai: Their +hit bonus is great for any PVE role. In addition, they have a bonus to Jewelcrafting, so if you plan to go that route, they are your best choice. Finally, their bonus "Gift of the Naaru" heal, while pretty pointless if you spec Blood, might come in handy for a Frost or Unholy Knight.
Bottom line: If it was up to me, I'd go (Tank) Night Elf, (DPS) Draenai, and (PVP) Gnome.
Horde
Orcs: With enrage, added Axe expertise, and stun resistance, Orcs make great PVE and PVP characters. Also, if you plan on going Unholy, once you get your ghoul pet, the +pet damage bonus will apply. Orcs make awesome Death Knights!
Undead: The Will of the Forsaken is great in any role, but especially for tanking. Cannibalize is practically useless if you spec Blood, however.
Tauren: War Stomp is always awesome in PVP. Also, their increased health is good for both tanking and PVP.
Trolls: Berserk is good all around. Their bonus beast damage, however, is mostly only good for PVE. Extra health regeneration is mostly pointless for Death Knights, however.
Blood Elves: Magic damage resistance and silencing is great! Except that Death Knights can already do that, to a certain extent. I'd probably only use these guys if I was going pure PVP. Blood Elves also get a bonus to enchanting, which is good if you're going that route.
My opinion: Orcs, Orcs, Orcs, and in PVP, Orcs or Blood Elves.
Specializations----------------------------------------------
I'm not really going to say much about this... I want you all to come up with it yourselves! However, I'm going to talk a little about strengths and weaknesses of each kind of Death Knight.
One thing you may not have heard (or have heard from me way too much) is that Death Knights' roles are not bound by their specializations. A Blood Knight, geared and specced properly for the role, can tank, PVE DPS, or PVP. Death Knights do not have specific "Tank Trees" or "PVP Trees." Each Tree can do all three, pardon the rhyme.
What I will be discussing (guessing at?) is the optimal utility and possible weaknesses of each class type in each of the roles.
Blood
Tanking: A Blood Knight tanks by dealing damage and subsequently healing himself. Therefore, a powerful Blood tank becomes his own healer, allowing the healers involved to relax a bit. Lesser healing spells should be adequate to keep a Blood Knight up. The weakness, however, of a Blood Knight is that the Blood Knight's tanking prowess largely depends on his ability to keep his stream of healing up, so stuns, fears, and especially Mortal Strikes are particularly deadly for him.
DPS: Damage-dealing Blood Knights are very useful as support healers in the way that they keep themselves and those around them from being killed off by random situational damage, like AOEs or the like. This allows healers to keep their focus on the tanks. Unfortunately, the Blood Knight will also produce more threat than the other Death Knight specialization. Moreover, like the tanking Blood Knight, if the Knight's damage is stopped up somehow, his utility and survival goes down the tubes.
PVP: In PVP, the Blood Knight keeps himself and his allies alive while contributing to the deaths of his or her enemies. The Blood Knight should be a dire threat in battle, leading many successful zerg and charge attempts. However, the Blood Knight must be in melee range in order to deal most of his or her damage and almost all of his or her healing prowess. This means that the worst thing that can happen to the PVP Blood Knight is to be snared or slowed down, because then the Blood Knight will no longer be able to succeed in his PVP role. Playing a gnome or human is a good way of getting around this.. but that's only a tool that can be used by Alliance players. Another Blood Knight ability that is useful in PVP is "Heart Strike" which prevents its targets from benefiting from any haste effects -- which is lethal for many. Weaknesses: Warriors and Mages.
Frost
Tanking: Frost Knights tank by slowing down enemies' attacks through various talents, and by slowing down or even stopping their movement, making them less dangerous to party members. This gives healers additional time to keep the Frost Knight alive. Moreover, the Frost Knight has the best Runic Power management skills of any death knight. Frost Knights use a mix of ranged and melee powers, and have less of the glaring weaknesses (but also less of the great strengths) of Blood and Unholy tanks. Their "Lichborne" skill allows them to avoid Fear effects, but they are very susceptible to Disarm abilities.
PVE DPS: With talents to allow them to produce extra Runic Power and to preserve their existing Runic Power, Frost Knights are able to keep us a stunning array of extra attacks. This is largely due to their use of the ability "Frost Strike," which is the only Death Knight melee weapon attack that does not require an active Rune to use. A Frost Knight, then, can spam attacks faster than any other Death Knight. It is in the PVE DPS Frost Knight's best interest to carry a large two-handed weapon rather than dual-wielding.
PVP: The Frost Knight's PVP niche is its large number of movement slowing or stopping effects, coupled with its devastating Obliterate finishing move. Slowed PVP players are, of course, easy pickings for rogues, warriors, feral druids, enhancement shamans, and other Death Knights. The Frost Knight's chilling effects also make it lethal in combat with other melee classes, while his or her ranged effects also allow for a bit of caster control. The Frost Knight's enemy? Disease cleansers and Hunters.
Unholy
Tanking: The Unholy Knight's best tanking role is the anti-caster tank. With multiple ways of stopping casting coupled with a powerful "Anti-Magic Zone" that protects from incoming spells, the Unholy Knight can mitigate more magic damage than any pre-WLK tank thought was ever possible. Also, added talents in "Blood Boil" and "Death and Decay" make AOE tanking a breeze for the Unholy Knight. The Unholy Knight's tanking nemesis is any purely physical-damage oriented bosses, against which the Unholy Knight's powerful anti-magic will be of little use.
PVE DPS: Unlike the other two trees, the Unholy Knight is much more comfortable as a ranged caster. With many summoning abilities -- vermin, ghouls, and gargoyles -- as well as an array of ranged spells -- death coils, blood boils, and corpse explosions -- the Unholy Knight is not as dependent on being up close and personal with his or her prey. The Unholy Knight lacks the survival skills of the Blood and Frost Knights, however, unless magic damage is in play. All in all, however, the PVE DPS Unholy Knight is an excellent blend of fighter and caster, and can easily prove a great ally later in a fight, when friendly corpses can be animated and enemy corpses exploded.
PVP: The PVP Unholy Knight is a much more defensive or support role than the other two Trees. The Unholy Knight is at home on defense, hiding behind a magic shield and using his or her ranged abilities to avoid bringing the fight to the enemy. Quite literally, the Unholy Knight can frequently pull its targets right into melee range, ending their lives with a few well-placed shots. The Unholy Knight is aided by a pet-bar-enhanced ghoul, who does much of the dirty work outside of the magic shield and is easily replaced with the corpse of a friend or enemy. Finally, the Unholy Knight's prowess is supplemented by his or her summoning and AOE abilites. Weakness: Physical combatants with lots of HP or disease cleansing abilities -- Paladins.
Professions---------------------------------------------
Everyone wants to be professional! But with the dawn of the Death Knight and the upcoming changes to the professions, choosing a profession set can be hard. This is particularly true when one remembers that the Death Knight might overlap some of the benefits that a particular profession may give you. In this section I will try to be brief (compared to the above) and give you a quick rundown of the benefits and overlaps of each profession.
Alchemy
Pros: Allows you to make potions and elixirs, as well as transmuting Eternal Essences. The new ability Mixology allows you to gain an added effect from your elixirs. The WLK Endless Potions can be used once every 3 minutes and inside Arenas.
Cons: You don't need mana potions, seeing as you have no mana. This applies to all the other kinds of mana potions. Also, other than the small bonus from Mixology and the Endless Potions, there is no benefit in being an alchemist if you have a good alchemist on hand.
Blacksmithing
Pros: You can make some plate armor and bladed weapons for yourself. You can also add sockets to your gear, which is beneficial in PVE. **It's not clear whether Blizzard will be continuing the BOP Blacksmithing Armors or Weapons as found in TBC**
Cons: **It's not clear that we'll be getting cool BOP Blacksmith Equipment.** And Blacksmithing is so hard to level.
Enchanting
Pros: It's enchanting. As an enchanter, you can enchant your rings.
Cons: Many Weapon enchants are pointless because you'll be rune-chanting your weapon anyways. Exceptions might be in PVE DPS or some PVP specializations. Also, the new BOP wands will be useless for you.
Engineering
Pros: Engineering will be great in WLK. It will be able to make you a vast array of tools, the awesome BOP headpieces, and even mobile Auction Houses and Mailboxes. Most awesomely, the engineering items such as parachutes and rocket launchers now take the form of item enchants, which will allow you to use them without nerfing yourself down to cloth.
Cons: But they will prevent you from enchanting your items, which probably means that these particular upgrades will be mostly useful in PVP/Arena only.
Inscription
Pros: You gain an ability called "Deciphering." Too bad nobody knows what it is. There's a chance you gain a fourth rune slot. But nobody knows about that, either.
Cons: The big myth about Inscribing is that it's terrific for Death Knights. It's not -- you can't use the Off-hand books, and the low-end cards don't help you level up seeing as you're already level 55. Like Alchemy, there doesn't seem to be much benefit in being an inscriber as opposed to having an inscriber. If you don't have access to one, by all means get one. But it's not the supreme Death Knight profession by a long shot.
Jewelcrafting
Pros: Allows you to make awesome PVP/PVE DPS trinkets and up to 3 special epic-level "Prismatic Gems" for your gear.
Cons: --
Leatherworking
Pros: Not really anything. You get to make Drums and bracer upgrades, which are okay, but the rest is going to waste.
Cons: You don't use leather or mail.
Tailoring
Pros: Not really much. You can make special threads for your cloaks and pants.
Cons: You don't use cloth.
Gathering
Pros: You can have more than one gathering profession and just sell mats for money. Go Mining/Herbalism for a Tank and Mining/Skinning for everyone else.
Cons: You don't make anything or get special upgrades.
Yes, this was a wall of text. Feel free to discuss or debate anything I've said!
The Death Knight is a very flexible class, and will therefore be able to fill multiple roles. Each of my introductory comments below will be aimed at the idea of Death Knights fulfilling a (PVE) Tanking, (PVE) DPS, and general-purpose PVP role. As I don't really do PVP, my knowledge of PVP roles is sadly limited. PVPers, feel free to fill in my gaps.
Races----------------------------------------------------------------
One of the hallmarks of the Death Knight class is its racial diversity -- any race can be a Death Knight! A wise player, however, may want to choose a race that most benefits his or her role choice.
Alliance
Humans: With their ability to break snares and increased stealth detection, they make good PVP Death Knights. Also, their increased chance to hit with swords make them decent for any PVE role -- as long as you're carrying a sword or two.
Dwarves: Their resistance to frost (sure to be common in Wrath) and their ability to take on Stone Form means that they're okay as PVE tanks and decent PVP races... but they're easily outshined by others.
Night Elves: With their latent -hit-to-attackers, Night Elves make excellent PVE Tanks and PVP characters. Their shadowmeld ability, however, is only all that great in PVE DPS and as a PVPer.
Gnomes: With their ability to remove speed altering affects, Gnomes make great PVPers. Also, their increased Intelligence is invaluable if you're planning on specializing as an Unholy Death Knight. Finally, their added skill in Engineering is perfect for anyone planning on going Engineering (esp good for PVP.)
Draenai: Their +hit bonus is great for any PVE role. In addition, they have a bonus to Jewelcrafting, so if you plan to go that route, they are your best choice. Finally, their bonus "Gift of the Naaru" heal, while pretty pointless if you spec Blood, might come in handy for a Frost or Unholy Knight.
Bottom line: If it was up to me, I'd go (Tank) Night Elf, (DPS) Draenai, and (PVP) Gnome.
Horde
Orcs: With enrage, added Axe expertise, and stun resistance, Orcs make great PVE and PVP characters. Also, if you plan on going Unholy, once you get your ghoul pet, the +pet damage bonus will apply. Orcs make awesome Death Knights!
Undead: The Will of the Forsaken is great in any role, but especially for tanking. Cannibalize is practically useless if you spec Blood, however.
Tauren: War Stomp is always awesome in PVP. Also, their increased health is good for both tanking and PVP.
Trolls: Berserk is good all around. Their bonus beast damage, however, is mostly only good for PVE. Extra health regeneration is mostly pointless for Death Knights, however.
Blood Elves: Magic damage resistance and silencing is great! Except that Death Knights can already do that, to a certain extent. I'd probably only use these guys if I was going pure PVP. Blood Elves also get a bonus to enchanting, which is good if you're going that route.
My opinion: Orcs, Orcs, Orcs, and in PVP, Orcs or Blood Elves.
Specializations----------------------------------------------
I'm not really going to say much about this... I want you all to come up with it yourselves! However, I'm going to talk a little about strengths and weaknesses of each kind of Death Knight.
One thing you may not have heard (or have heard from me way too much) is that Death Knights' roles are not bound by their specializations. A Blood Knight, geared and specced properly for the role, can tank, PVE DPS, or PVP. Death Knights do not have specific "Tank Trees" or "PVP Trees." Each Tree can do all three, pardon the rhyme.
What I will be discussing (guessing at?) is the optimal utility and possible weaknesses of each class type in each of the roles.
Blood
Tanking: A Blood Knight tanks by dealing damage and subsequently healing himself. Therefore, a powerful Blood tank becomes his own healer, allowing the healers involved to relax a bit. Lesser healing spells should be adequate to keep a Blood Knight up. The weakness, however, of a Blood Knight is that the Blood Knight's tanking prowess largely depends on his ability to keep his stream of healing up, so stuns, fears, and especially Mortal Strikes are particularly deadly for him.
DPS: Damage-dealing Blood Knights are very useful as support healers in the way that they keep themselves and those around them from being killed off by random situational damage, like AOEs or the like. This allows healers to keep their focus on the tanks. Unfortunately, the Blood Knight will also produce more threat than the other Death Knight specialization. Moreover, like the tanking Blood Knight, if the Knight's damage is stopped up somehow, his utility and survival goes down the tubes.
PVP: In PVP, the Blood Knight keeps himself and his allies alive while contributing to the deaths of his or her enemies. The Blood Knight should be a dire threat in battle, leading many successful zerg and charge attempts. However, the Blood Knight must be in melee range in order to deal most of his or her damage and almost all of his or her healing prowess. This means that the worst thing that can happen to the PVP Blood Knight is to be snared or slowed down, because then the Blood Knight will no longer be able to succeed in his PVP role. Playing a gnome or human is a good way of getting around this.. but that's only a tool that can be used by Alliance players. Another Blood Knight ability that is useful in PVP is "Heart Strike" which prevents its targets from benefiting from any haste effects -- which is lethal for many. Weaknesses: Warriors and Mages.
Frost
Tanking: Frost Knights tank by slowing down enemies' attacks through various talents, and by slowing down or even stopping their movement, making them less dangerous to party members. This gives healers additional time to keep the Frost Knight alive. Moreover, the Frost Knight has the best Runic Power management skills of any death knight. Frost Knights use a mix of ranged and melee powers, and have less of the glaring weaknesses (but also less of the great strengths) of Blood and Unholy tanks. Their "Lichborne" skill allows them to avoid Fear effects, but they are very susceptible to Disarm abilities.
PVE DPS: With talents to allow them to produce extra Runic Power and to preserve their existing Runic Power, Frost Knights are able to keep us a stunning array of extra attacks. This is largely due to their use of the ability "Frost Strike," which is the only Death Knight melee weapon attack that does not require an active Rune to use. A Frost Knight, then, can spam attacks faster than any other Death Knight. It is in the PVE DPS Frost Knight's best interest to carry a large two-handed weapon rather than dual-wielding.
PVP: The Frost Knight's PVP niche is its large number of movement slowing or stopping effects, coupled with its devastating Obliterate finishing move. Slowed PVP players are, of course, easy pickings for rogues, warriors, feral druids, enhancement shamans, and other Death Knights. The Frost Knight's chilling effects also make it lethal in combat with other melee classes, while his or her ranged effects also allow for a bit of caster control. The Frost Knight's enemy? Disease cleansers and Hunters.
Unholy
Tanking: The Unholy Knight's best tanking role is the anti-caster tank. With multiple ways of stopping casting coupled with a powerful "Anti-Magic Zone" that protects from incoming spells, the Unholy Knight can mitigate more magic damage than any pre-WLK tank thought was ever possible. Also, added talents in "Blood Boil" and "Death and Decay" make AOE tanking a breeze for the Unholy Knight. The Unholy Knight's tanking nemesis is any purely physical-damage oriented bosses, against which the Unholy Knight's powerful anti-magic will be of little use.
PVE DPS: Unlike the other two trees, the Unholy Knight is much more comfortable as a ranged caster. With many summoning abilities -- vermin, ghouls, and gargoyles -- as well as an array of ranged spells -- death coils, blood boils, and corpse explosions -- the Unholy Knight is not as dependent on being up close and personal with his or her prey. The Unholy Knight lacks the survival skills of the Blood and Frost Knights, however, unless magic damage is in play. All in all, however, the PVE DPS Unholy Knight is an excellent blend of fighter and caster, and can easily prove a great ally later in a fight, when friendly corpses can be animated and enemy corpses exploded.
PVP: The PVP Unholy Knight is a much more defensive or support role than the other two Trees. The Unholy Knight is at home on defense, hiding behind a magic shield and using his or her ranged abilities to avoid bringing the fight to the enemy. Quite literally, the Unholy Knight can frequently pull its targets right into melee range, ending their lives with a few well-placed shots. The Unholy Knight is aided by a pet-bar-enhanced ghoul, who does much of the dirty work outside of the magic shield and is easily replaced with the corpse of a friend or enemy. Finally, the Unholy Knight's prowess is supplemented by his or her summoning and AOE abilites. Weakness: Physical combatants with lots of HP or disease cleansing abilities -- Paladins.
Professions---------------------------------------------
Everyone wants to be professional! But with the dawn of the Death Knight and the upcoming changes to the professions, choosing a profession set can be hard. This is particularly true when one remembers that the Death Knight might overlap some of the benefits that a particular profession may give you. In this section I will try to be brief (compared to the above) and give you a quick rundown of the benefits and overlaps of each profession.
Alchemy
Pros: Allows you to make potions and elixirs, as well as transmuting Eternal Essences. The new ability Mixology allows you to gain an added effect from your elixirs. The WLK Endless Potions can be used once every 3 minutes and inside Arenas.
Cons: You don't need mana potions, seeing as you have no mana. This applies to all the other kinds of mana potions. Also, other than the small bonus from Mixology and the Endless Potions, there is no benefit in being an alchemist if you have a good alchemist on hand.
Blacksmithing
Pros: You can make some plate armor and bladed weapons for yourself. You can also add sockets to your gear, which is beneficial in PVE. **It's not clear whether Blizzard will be continuing the BOP Blacksmithing Armors or Weapons as found in TBC**
Cons: **It's not clear that we'll be getting cool BOP Blacksmith Equipment.** And Blacksmithing is so hard to level.
Enchanting
Pros: It's enchanting. As an enchanter, you can enchant your rings.
Cons: Many Weapon enchants are pointless because you'll be rune-chanting your weapon anyways. Exceptions might be in PVE DPS or some PVP specializations. Also, the new BOP wands will be useless for you.
Engineering
Pros: Engineering will be great in WLK. It will be able to make you a vast array of tools, the awesome BOP headpieces, and even mobile Auction Houses and Mailboxes. Most awesomely, the engineering items such as parachutes and rocket launchers now take the form of item enchants, which will allow you to use them without nerfing yourself down to cloth.
Cons: But they will prevent you from enchanting your items, which probably means that these particular upgrades will be mostly useful in PVP/Arena only.
Inscription
Pros: You gain an ability called "Deciphering." Too bad nobody knows what it is. There's a chance you gain a fourth rune slot. But nobody knows about that, either.
Cons: The big myth about Inscribing is that it's terrific for Death Knights. It's not -- you can't use the Off-hand books, and the low-end cards don't help you level up seeing as you're already level 55. Like Alchemy, there doesn't seem to be much benefit in being an inscriber as opposed to having an inscriber. If you don't have access to one, by all means get one. But it's not the supreme Death Knight profession by a long shot.
Jewelcrafting
Pros: Allows you to make awesome PVP/PVE DPS trinkets and up to 3 special epic-level "Prismatic Gems" for your gear.
Cons: --
Leatherworking
Pros: Not really anything. You get to make Drums and bracer upgrades, which are okay, but the rest is going to waste.
Cons: You don't use leather or mail.
Tailoring
Pros: Not really much. You can make special threads for your cloaks and pants.
Cons: You don't use cloth.
Gathering
Pros: You can have more than one gathering profession and just sell mats for money. Go Mining/Herbalism for a Tank and Mining/Skinning for everyone else.
Cons: You don't make anything or get special upgrades.
Yes, this was a wall of text. Feel free to discuss or debate anything I've said!
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