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

and wooh, 1 shot all bosses in icc10 today =p as a dk =D

@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

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)

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.

Glad you liked the article.

TyphoonAndrew