What makes a good Death Knight?
If I was asked what makes a good class-toon normally I’d be looking for nice gear, following instructions, and being on vent as the top three. However Death Knights have built up a shady reputation over the lifespan of Wrath (DeathTard anyone?), in that everyone has played one, and a lot of people persist in playing them, making the opinions of the class are very broad.
To my perception after so many players trying the DK class it seems that even this long after release we are still seeing really bad Death Knights. So bad in fact that it makes me ponder just how incompetent the person at the keyboard really is.
Here are brief musings of being a Death Knight character that I’ve encountered over the past few months or so, and what they did well, and what went badly. Some of this material can be applied to all characters, and some of it is DK specific; and as you’d expect the non-dk material are things that everyone should be thinking about.
Attitude is everything…
…especially with DKs. Because the population is so high, the attitude you project will speak volumes about you, and is the first real way to stand out from the crowd of “LFG melee dps”. Being polite and speaking up without speaking out of hand is the goal, and then performing well will make folks remember you. Also ponder that with so many Alt-DKs floating around a player who behaves like they care will often be remembered well, as opposed to a player who is just taking it easy, or killing time, or trash talking other folks in the run.
A case in point recently I saw was a dps-dk forming a group for the heroic daily. He wanted gear scores, spoke in trade-chat language, and was generally a borderline idiot. Once we formed up at the stone I did a quick inspect and saw a set of blue gear with missing gems and enchants and prompty asked him to put his propper dps gear on. Apparently he thought it was acceptable to get carried through the heroic daily, because his main was well geared. Now I think if he’d been up front about it, or even less of a pain about everyone else in the run then that would be ok, but after his attitude he just came across as a fool.
We ran with him anyway, he died a lot (I think the healer meant it), and provided marginally less dps than I did in my Tank set. Poor sap even went as far to talk about putting us on friends list, which I noted nobody mentioned recipricating.
Another example was watching with displeasure as a DK tank zerged at full speed through a UK pug run, but at no point used any tanking cooldowns, or waited for his healer/mana. The Death Knight has some awesome panic abilities, and this guy seemed to only know that Blood Boil did AoE. This is basically unexcusable. Each power is there for a reason, and ignoring them is gimping your own performance and that of anyone who you play with. His health was poor, threat was an issue, and he would not stop typing comments and advice. Basically a player who is a complete waste of oxygen, who proceeded to moan about the run being too slow. I mentioned the instance lock expired in 4 hours, but the subtlety was lost and that seemed to reinforce the stupid behaviour. I’ll live and learn, I doubt he will.
Welcome and embrace your death…
You have to have a death wish, and like being right up close to the kill targets. This will lead to you being number 3-4 on the threat meter, which in turn means that you’re next to the boss when the tanks die, and often the next character to get smashed.
Naxx’s Patchy fight illustrates this well. I’ve accepted that my role is to die straight after the tanks, and offer the other raid members the opportunity to run like bastards, or feign/invis/vanish. If you’re a tank you know that you die a lot, so you’ve already embraced the Ghost form as your form of threat reset. A repair bill is not bad if those repairs moved the group forward.
Love white line fever…
In concern with that deathwish should also be a fanatical drive to dps as hard as possible. To me that means spending time getting the rotations right, and learning what is best for your playstyle; a.k.a. White Line Fever. “Blah-spec” dps rotation might be technically best at the moment, but if you play on a high latency connection you’ll be forever out of sync with your cooldowns. Trial out a few specs on a dummy for 15-20 minutes, then pug something easy and spin up the rotation on a boss.
The contrast to this rule worth mentioning is:
a) never pull threat as dps, lest you look like a fool, and you’ll find your dps drop to zero very quickly. I love surfing the threat wave, and think its all part of taking it seriously.
b) Utility is as important as dps. This means that many abilities we have are present for the benefit of others. Every player should be thinking about the team’s overall progress, not position on the damage meter. You should be keeping Horn of Winter up all the time, and every other buff and debuff you can. Think about locking down mobs with chains if they’re hitting the healer, or using Death Grip…
Everyone Hates Death Grip…
Knowing when Death Grip is useful is a boon. DG is mostly hated by non-Death Knights, and thats because its generally used in PvP (*smile*) and often badly in instances or raids. It does however have huge potential outside of strategic use in particular boss fights like Malay and General Vez. I recently used DG in a CoS pug run, to pull an errant caster mob into the Paladin tank’s consecrate. It worked a treat: switched targets away from the mob straight after, and it mean the Pally could keep doing his tanking as normal. The Tankadin even thanked me.
and Army of the Dead…
AotD is the new Death Grip. Look for places that Army of the Dead can be used, and use it often. BGs are a given, some instance runs where there is a lot of trash, and even some raids can benefit. I use this regularly to begin soloing the Threat From Above daily quest in Ice Crown, always use it for “oh bugger!” moments in runs, and rarely get negative feedback from groups. The poor dragon in TFA is sometimes dead before the Army has de-spawned. This goes hand in hand with learning what is appropriate, and what better place than a battleground to test those different tactics. Note though – some Tanks hate it, which has to be respected since aggro-pong can frustrate the hell out of them.
You might need a rename?
Any damn fool DK that has a name which references Arthas but with a typo, accent, or extra vowel. I know (before the hate-email begins) that it is not fair to categorise everyone as shoddy for this choice of name, some players might be cool folks. However think back to the bad character names we’ve all seen in the past: Legolasss Hunters, Merlin mages, etc. It makes you look initially suss, and then your first mistake marks you as a try-hard. Its the same reason that Dkleetsauce is bad, as the viewer does not see the sarcasm or humour, just the character’s silly name. This counts double if you’re using the Jenkins title.
Strange but true…
There should be an achievement for zerging through a normal Ramparts run at level 60 with no healer. This was a while ago and it was funny to attempt, and ugly as hell. It worked only because the DKs spread out and taunt-ping spammed the bosses between the level 60 Death Knights in the group. From memory there were 4 DKs and a Hunter, all of whom had accepted that our repair bills were going to be huge, and we would rather do this than wait in LFG for a healer. That this is even possible could be seen as representation of how broken the class gear was at initial release, but the fights were darn tough when done this way. Somehow I doubt that we’d get away with it now, especially with deminishing returns on taunts. We had to focus fire and co-ordinate a lot, and you bet that the chance of getting any loot was so much lower when x4 plate wearers all roll Need.
Lastly a job well done…
Early in Wrath I watched in awe as a Dps Death Knight in VoA stepped up and took the Tank pain after one of the tanks DC’ed. He seemed to Frost-pres switch darn fast (almost like he was expecting it), and was blowing cooldowns straight away. An impressive amount of healing was needed to keep him up, but that was far better than watching the squishies try to face tank, or leaving the other tank to get smashed. It was totally ugly, far less than ideal, and had many dead at the end; but for the most part the team survived and we were able to rez the dead and loot.
That particular DK is still on my friends list, and he’s out performed time and time again since.
cheers,
TyphoonAndrew
——
TyphoonAndrew has been a wow blogger since November 2006; a self professed devil’s advocate who enjoys the lighter side of wow. The Death Knight was initially just a way to see the new content, but since the first few quests left him drooling, he’s been a DK fan ever since.
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I found this article well worth the read, especialy as a fairly new person to WoW, and being the only reason I started WoW was to play the DK class. I think since the class was initially overpowered many many people found it was easy mode and chose to play the ‘leet’ class of the time to shine, but now those days are far behind us and some skill is actualy involved to play the class optimaly.
I started off my DK as a blood tank sometime around november of last year, back when blood was the “DPS spec” to everyone else and was even booted from groups that had never grouped with me before simply because of this. But overtime I learned how to rotate my cooldowns and increase my longevity in groups with subpar gear. I left the game a couple of months ago and now freshly back with all the new changes and I still use my rotation of panic buttons albeit moreso now than ever. To play well DKs can be hard to play especialy without supergear and subpar group members, and unforunately bad players of any class I imagine have given the deathtard stigma to us. I have friends that wont run with DK tanks unless its me because they dont trust them and thats a sad affair.
Oh but one thing I run with the jenkins title since it being my only title lol. =)
Thank you for saying/writing what so many of us think.
First time I saw DKs was shortly after release in Warsong and god, I hated them. Never a chance to kill them ranged. As a hunter very, very, …. very (!) frustrating!
I had simular exp. with DKs as you, concerning stepping up in a Raid. Heck he took a bashing. And still he saved a lot of us.
By now I dare not say, I am fit in tanking, beeing a DD the whole time, but I’m learning. I do admit, that there are frustratingly many BAD DK running throughout the realms. And I tell you, its not better in Germany or the UK…
I am taking a lot of inspiration from your blog, keep posting.
“LEEEEEEEEEEROYY!” for the win!
Heya Noirangel and Môrgue,
Thank you for the positive feedback, good to hear. Secretly I love the Leroy title, its one of those things that everyone should do at leasy once.
Your article had some excellent points, some which I have come across too often, and some not quite enough.
I do have a few things I would like to add regarding Death Grip. It is always nice to offer the courtesy of informing the tank in a group that if an add gets away, you will likely death grip them back. This will reduce the amount of time spent running around, and will ultimately lead to your living longer (because the tank will be aware of what is happening).
Personally, as a DPS DK, the only time I use DG is when I see it heading out toward the caster DPS or healers. My hope is that, even if I die, they won’t, and I have done my job…helping the group succeed.
Anyway, I too get annoyed with DPS DKs (alts specifically) that don’t take the time to get to know the class a little. In fact, I have mentioned this to a guildie if mine that has problems beating out the tank in DPS, even in non-heroics. All it takes is spending a little time to figure out what each spell/ability does and when to use it.
Thanks for this info! With everyone assuming you’re an idiot when you’re a noobie, it becomes difficult to learn the scene and become an effective player having to guess so often. This info was very beneficial as I now feel I have some idea of what to consider with my new DK (named Oopseybear) How’s that for a name? ;-)
Thanks again!
Jessica aka Oopseybear (Dunemaul Server)
Heya OopseyBear, damn me that name is different. Certainly as odd as some of my toon names, and fine with me.
Glad you liked the article.
TyphoonAndrew
/agree
many many dk’s out there who give us a bad name. But it seems like if people encounter one rotten dk, that particular one represents the WHOLE dk community. People really love to hate dk’s. I have run instances with very bad hunters, mages, pally’s, warriors, shamen’s, druid’s, warlocks, priests, rogue’s and death knights. But to claim ALL of them suck coz just one sucked? He’ll NO.
Geeoorrggee of Aerie Peak eu.
Realy good written article. As a main Death Knight I can relate myself in quite a lot of these situation.
Have the bad habbit to leave a group when there are idiots in them as is. As you say, there are a lot of prejudgements on DKs, one ramperts run were a paladin incisted another paladin (retri lvl67) tanked (me beeing frost/tank specced, lvl60), just becouse he had more health.
As much as I tryd to explain the first guy (belf plai) it didnt helped, he even went that far to call me names just ‘couse I played a n00bclass as the dk. All in all been called everything in the lvl60-70 range, from the simpel noob until the more cencured names.
All DKs should remember there frost pressence, not idealy in dps gear/spec, but when the main tank dies it can and will save the group in quite some times. Heh, offcourse, most of the time I can easily tell my girl (holypali), on the other side of the room, to spamheal me.
All in all, DKs have a bad reputation, but its quite fun to prove you are not one of those.
Ahwel, playing an endgame geared, raiding, dual wielding frost DPS deathknight that cant wait to plant his axe in Arthas’ skull.
Asherdu – lvl80 – frost DPS Death Knight – The Sha’tar (EU)
Hey man thanks for writing that it was truely inspiring especially to a young dk tank like me. I’m now starting to get better as a tank. My gearscore has gone from 1900 to 2300+ in a matter of days. People still say dk tanks suck and it was starting to make me feel as if we were just dps but your words tell me otherwise
I reAd this article through a few times and understood it completely I play dk, got into wow to play as a dk. And about idiot dk’s I understand ur point I have seen countless imitations of arthas or frostmourne as players names. I totally get you on the DG part I used to use it in the mid-60’s during ramps and bf and I realiZed the non dk’s just hated it. Thanks for posting it was awesome
hi folks,
@Aenin, Dkorion, Asherdu, Geeoorrggee – thank you for the great comment of support. A pleasure to put something positive into the WoW community about Death Knights.
I had a further thought that as we’re all pretty sure we’re the DK justice, what we need to do is promote the practices too. Get into it and smash the DK mediocrity illusion!
It is up to us to change the perception of DKs for the better.
cheers,
TyhoonAndrew
[...] DK mediocrity illusion TyphoonAndrew December 30 2009 2:37 am No Comment Thinking back to the post about good Death Knights, we (meaning all the DK players out there) need to destroy the illusion that Death Knights are for [...]
[...] as well as How To Be a Good Death Knight. [...]
Well, DG is i think the most useful tool as a DK Dps to have, for example there are many add’s in icc10 that are out of reach of tank’s aoe (lady deathwhisper adds) and you can quickly pull them over to the tank. and as they are spell casters, your AMS means you take little to no damage from them.
and wooh, 1 shot all bosses in icc10 today =p as a dk =D
Good article.
I have been a DK since they came out. Changed my main from warrior to DK and had to learn the rune system and runic power abilities and short comings. The main reason we were hated when Lich first came out was due to our being so over powered that a simple blood boil brought the house down on you. Few of us knew back then that we were roughly 20-30 percent over powered and that any of our abilities not focused on the specific mob being hit by the tank would result in an inadvertent pull. Many of us had some of the coolest effects in the game, ie., magic zone. “Where are you, I can’t see you i am in flight” “Look for the purple dome” DK pops AMZ, looks like an atomic explosion from the air. So envy is what was our downfall which none of us fully understood at the time. With our first set of gear we could take elites where it simply wasn’t possible for other classes to attempt.
Skip a year and half. Many DK’s went back to their mains. Guilds started to learn how to properly use our abilities, albeit nerfed to a large degree. With every patch we find it harder to perform at the numbers we previously were able to hit. Blizzard has made this hero class a fun class to run, but one which you simply need to know every ability or you will be ridiculed in your 5,10 or 25 man run for either low dps or pulling a trick that everyone remembers was a problem in the past. For example, death grip is still perceived as the red headed step child by many tanks. So how to fix.
EDUCATE YOUR TANK
DG is the most resourceful of all our abilities. When it first came out dg would aggro every mob within 5 yards of your pull including the targeted critter. Now that is what everyone remembers. For some reason, either tanks sheer presence has created enough threat in 5 mans to not pull them accidently or Blizz fixed that aggro range to un-targeted critters. One way or another, whisper your tank at the beginning of the run, “hey, this is UK, when we hit the second floor there will be ghouls who will charge, you will aggro a most of them, but if one gets away, if you don’t mind i will pull him back into your aggro range. My dg has low aggro so a consecrate will pull them off me immediately.” If the tank says no thanks, then leave it alone and don’t use dg even if the heals is going to die. Pop CoI to save heals. This is how we build respect for our class. We need to know not only our abilities but also the fight. We need to know that DnD is not helpful to the tank, nor your dps.
About DnD.
DnD is considered great for dps initially, but it has lost its luster. First, it will pull off the tank, so if you see a pally who has drop consecrate, hold off for three seconds if you want to drop dnd. Let the tank gather the mobs, then drop it. So many dk’s still drop their dnd ontop of a consecrate without a second passing. Moreover, DnD is horrible for our dps. It costs 3 runes to pop. Your rotation should not afford you to loose 3 runes in a single drop. Pop your disease on skull, then apply your love via pest. then DC or your other runic power ability to you begin to burn all the targets. The worst case scenerio is dropping dnd on a consecrate, pulling all the mobs to you, tank burns all his/her cool downs to bring them back into line and then you drop another dnd or your dps is below the tanks because your misused your runes.
These are some thoughts. I think we are one of the most under utilized classes in WoW, but we can be the right hand man of the tank which is like being the eyes of the tank, that my friends is where our respect comes from. Other dps classes won’t care about respecting us unless you are like me and see an add pounding a clothie and you send your ghoul to break up the fight. Healers won’t be too concerned unless you keep pulling threat but that can happen to any dps. So in the end, we need to educate our tanks on 5 mans, 10 mans and 25 mans. To educate our tanks, we need to educate ourselves. Know our strengths and our limitations and we will have gain the respect of the tanks who will begin telling the other classes, “Stop your complaining, I already told the dk to use dg, AmZ, AoD etc.”
See you in game.
Ericson, Minions Inc., Khaz Modan
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