Patch 3.3.3 Notes, A.K.A. Blizzard Loves Me

As of this writing, the Patch 3.3.3 notes have some pretty delicious changes for Death Knights, especially of the Frost DW variety. Go on, take a look at them. I'll wait.

Done? Excellent.

There are three of these that I find particularly exciting for DW Frost in general and my playstyle in particular:

• Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.

This is just a nice, straightforward DPS buff for DW. Any attack based on weapon damage, including some of our staples like Obliterate and Frost Strike, get a nice little buff from this talent by working alongside Threat of Thassarian. This will also buff threat generation for tanks as Nerves of Cold Steel was already a staple of DW tanking specs.

• Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.

The implications of this are obvious, targeted at tanks of any spec. One of our lead-off spells, and a ranged one at that, now generates extra threat when in Frost Presence. I see this as a sign that Blizzard is trying to move people away from the single-disease Glyph of Howling Blast tanking style that's become popular of late. When single- or no-disease rotations have become popular in the past Blizzard has made changes to make them less desirable, and they seem to be continuing to assert that a two-disease (or three-disease for Unholy) rotation is the way they intend the class to play.

• Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged.


• Glyph of Disease: When this glyph causes Frost Fever to be refreshed, it will now also trigger a refresh of Icy Talons. (This is further down under the "Items" header.)

Now, the first of these two changes seems to negate the second, but a blue post has since explained that the glyph change was implemented before they decided to phase out ability-procced raid buffs across a number of classes. What this effectively does is make Glyph of Disease viable for Frost DKs who were only loved for their ability to keep Improved Icy Talons up for a raid group. I've spoken before of my fondness for Glyph of Disease for keeping your diseases up at a minimal cost, and this will enable you to do that without getting chewed out by your raid leader. I also note the second change because it shows that this is something Blizzard intends for us to be able to do rather than just a nice side-effect of the change to ability-procced buffs.

Of course, this is all subject to change, and I assure you if it does I'll let you know with a nice round of QQing. In the meantime, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that this goes live.

Death Knight 101: Tanking Basics

Whenever I ask my friends what sort of topics they'd like to see covered on a Death Knight blog, I almost always hear, "Tell them how to tank!" I came into DK-ing from playing a Prot Warrior in Burning Crusade, so I had already learned the basics of tanking back when "threat" was as much about yelling at your shaman friend who thought Chain Lightning was the best thing ever as it was holding the attention of the mobs. But for a lot of people, their Death Knight is their first tanking class. If that's the case for you, well...welcome to the wonderful, stressful, but ultimately satisfying world of tanking!

Let's start with the two most basic aspects of tanking: Threat and Mitigation.

Threat
Since patch 3.0, generating threat has been much easier than it used to be. Until your DPSing friends start pushing at least 4k DPS you'll likely hardly ever bother to glance at a threat meter. But it's still important to understand the concept, because to hold threat first you have to establish it.

Threat is, essentially, based on damage. So how do we generate more threat than the DPS if we do less damage than them? That's thanks to our good buddy Frost Presence. The most important thing you as a Death Knight can do to generate threat is to stay in Frost Presence! In addition to other benefits, Frost Presence makes the little bit of damage we do much more threatening than, say, your mage friend's damage. But you can't just turn on Frost Presence and stand there. Threat generation is why you will see tanking armor with DPS stats like Hit on it and why so many talents are shared between a good tanking spec and a good DPS spec in the same tree. Though I focused primarily on mitigation talents in my prior post regarding tanking talents, the need to generate threat also makes DPS talents like Bladed Armor excellent for tanking. This is why Threat of Thassarian, on the surface a DPS talent, made DW Frost tanking not only viable but the preferred tanking spec of the moment. All the mitigation in the world won't do any good if you can't hold the boss' attention well enough for the DPS to do their job.

When tanking, one should keep in mind the need for both single-target and AoE threat. Single-target threat is most important on bosses and on those rare occasions when DPS can be coaxed into focusing fire. However, whenever engaging more than one mob you always need to employ AoE threat tactics for one very important reason: so your healer doesn't get eaten. The most important tool Death Knights have available for AoE threat is Death and Decay, and I personally recommend it in any situation where you're pulling more than one mob. It's also a good idea to hit Pestilence as soon as your diseases are up on your main target to spread your DoTs around, and then of course Howling Blast if you're Frost. Death and Decay alone is enough to keep mobs off your healer, but a full disease and HB rotation will give you enough threat on the whole group to let the DPS say "lol kill order". As someone who started tanking as a warrior, nothing makes me happier than to see the DPS kill something I've held aggro on exclusively through AoEs.

And for any class, no matter your level or your gear, the single most important thing you need to do to establish and hold threat is pay attention! Death Grip or Strangulate that caster who didn't run into your Death and Decay with the rest of the pull. Taunt (in our case, that's Dark Command) that mob running off to smack the mage around. Situational awareness isn't what makes you a good tank, it's what makes you a tank, and you can never learn it too early or practice it too much!

Mitigation
The other basic aspect of tanking is mitigation, or your ability to take punishment and stay alive while not making your healer cry. This is a much more passive thing than threat. You will have abilities that you can use to decrease the amount of damage that you take based on your level and spec, but primarily your mitigation will be tied to your gear and your talents. I don't like bogging down my DK101 posts with too much math because I don't want them to be obsolete in a month's time - that's what the links to Elitist Jerks and Tankspot on the sidebar are for - but once you reach 80 there will be some vitally important numbers to remember.

While leveling, though, there aren't many benchmarks for mitigation, so the most important thing (apart from, again, Frost Presence) is to be as well-geared as you can manage. I can vouch for the fact that a DK in an Unholy DPS spec can get away with tanking Blood Furnace in starter gear and plate heirlooms because I did it once for a few pulls when the tank DCed, and my healer friend said it was no trouble keeping me up. But if you plan to tank as you level, put points into a proper spec for it and grab every quest reward with Defense you're offered. Greens with "...of the Champion" stats are also excellent. You don't need to have every slot filled with tanking gear like you do when you're 80, but the more you have, the better. Make sure all your armor is plate. You may have found some awesome leather gloves for DPS, but no one but a druid should be caught trying to tank in anything but plate. And that goes for any heirlooms you may have, too. Don't try to tank anything in cloth heirlooms! I saw a paladin try it once and it was not pretty.

Anything I have to say about level 80 mitigation will be completely obsolete once Cataclysm comes out, but for now, if you decide you want to start tanking at level 80, make sure you have at least 535 Defense Rating for Heroics and 540 for raids! That's Defense Rating, not raw Defense. This will keep you from taking massive critical hits. You also want items with Dodge and Parry for mitigation and Stamina for straight-up HP. Since Death Knights don't use shields, we don't benefit from Shield Block. In general, it's best to have as much of those primary mitigation stats as possible, especially as you're starting out and getting a feel for the role.

Balancing the Two
I often see newer tanks who are still getting a good grasp on these concepts asking, for instance, if they should use DPS weapons vs tanking weapons when dual wielding. This is an excellent example of deciding between threat (DPS weapons) vs mitigation (tanking weapons), and often these decisions are situational. If you're running Heroics in full T9 or T10 with equally geared DPS and heals, then you want to focus on threat so you can stay ahead of your friends. If you're just starting out in Heroics or with a group running earlier Wrath raids and your DPS friends aren't riding your tail on the threat meters yet, you might as well make life easier for the healers and focus on mitigation. Sometimes it's even good to put a nice slow hard-hitting DPS weapon in your main hand and keep a tanking weapon in your offhand for the mitigation stats.

With these basics in mind, I encourage anyone interested in tanking with their Death Knight to use the aforementioned resources to find the most up-to-date information on the specific numbers they want to be aiming for as of the most recent patch. Then check that Tank role, queue up, and good luck!

Buff Time!

According to a Blue post from yesterday, one of the assorted undocumented hotfixes from this week was a buff to Death Knight tanks! From the post:

Death Knight:

• Frost Presence now provides 8% Stamina, up from 6% Stamina.


• Icebound Fortitude now provides 30% base damage reduction, up from 20% damage reduction. For a geared tank with high defense, this translates to 50% damage reduction, up from 40%.

The interesting thing about the Frost Presence buff at the moment is that, if you have Improved Frost Presence, it's still only applying the 6% when in Blood or Unholy Presence. This gives you a very easy way to check how much of a difference that 2% makes. For me, in my 10-mans-and-badges gear, it was an increase of 490 HP. Presumably this will be rectified at some point, but for now it gives an easy point of comparison.

Death Knight 101: What Makes a Tanking Spec?

I mentioned in my last post that there are tanking options in every talent tree, but that you wouldn't want to use exactly the same spec for tanking that you do for DPS. So what sets a tanking spec apart from a DPS spec when they're both in the same tree?

The Big Three
Each tree has a first-tier talent that's a must-have for tanking: Blade Barrier in Blood, Toughness in Frost, and Anticipation in Unholy. Once you've filled out your chosen tree to the 51-point talent, these should be your next priority if you plan to tank while leveling. No level 80 tanking spec should ever be lacking these talents! You can use these as a cheat sheet in PuGs to see if your DK tank is actually a tank and not just a DPSer who wanted a faster queue. These talents, in addition to a set of proper tanking armor and a tanking-appropriate weapon rune, are part of what keeps you from going squish like a clothie.

The A La Carte Talents
Each tree also has at least a couple damage-mitigating talents far enough into the tree to make them prohibitive to pick up unless you're committing to that tree. Frost has several: Frigid Dreadplate, Unbreakable Armor, Improved Frost Presence, and Acclimation. Lichborne used to have a damage-mitigating component, but it's since been nerfed into something more suitable for PvP than tanking.

Blood's tanking talents are less directly mitigation-based. Scent of Blood doesn't mitigate on its own but procs when you mitigate. Veteran of the Third War gives a Stamina boost. Rune Tap, Improved Rune Tap, Vendetta, Mark of Blood, Bloodworms, Improved Death Strike, and Vampiric Blood are all self-healing talents. Spell Deflection and Will of the Necropolis are the only real mitigation talents in the tree. Improved Blood Presence should be skipped in a Blood tanking spec as you will still tank in Frost Presence (which I'll be writing about later.)

Unholy has the fewest talents with tanking utility, but Magic Suppression and Bone Shield do provide some mitigation. Again, Improved Unholy Presence should be skipped in a tanking spec because you won't be tanking in Unholy Presence.

Keep in mind that you may not need to use every tanking talent in your chosen tree, as depending where they're at in the buff/nerf cycle some may not be worth taking at the moment. And Death Knights can still do acceptable DPS out of Frost Presence with a tanking spec - not competitive with a proper DPS spec in raids, but good enough for soloing. When leveling or even in PvP you might want to put some points into these tanking talents for survivability.

Next I'll be explaining the Presences and why the best Presence may not match the tree you're specced into!

Death Knight 101: The Talent Trees

Because we start at level 55 and unlock our talent points over the course of only three levels' worth of quests, the question of which tree to put your talent points in comes up much sooner for Death Knights than any other class. We are also unusual for having talent trees that are less clearly-defined than most classes, as you can find a spec in any tree for either tanking or DPS (though you shouldn't rely on the same one for both if you want to do either well). There are more nuances than just, "This tree is for tanking," and as a result your choice of spec is based more on your own personal preference than anything else. So which one do you pick?

Before I really get into the meat of it I'd like to note that this post isn't going to be about min-maxing except for the occasional "As of this posting..." comment. We didn't see nearly as many adjustments to our class in the most recent patch as we have in prior ones, but Blizzard is still working out the kinks. The flavor of this month may not be the flavor of next, and I would like this post to still be a useful resource next month. Therefore, I'm just covering the concepts of the different talent trees rather than what's currently best. As always, I recommend Elitist Jerks for up-to-the-minute theorycrafting.

Frost
I'll start with Frost because, as you may have noticed, it's my specialty. Early in development, Blizzard declared Frost to be the tanking spec for Death Knights. They later changed their minds and gave all specs viable tanking options, but it's kept that reputation. More recently it's become the dual-wield spec because it is the only tree with talents that apply specifically to one-handed weapons. Both of these are misconceptions to a certain degree: It has excellent, solid tanking options but is not the only tree for the task, and while your DPS will be gimped if you try to dual wield as any other spec there are perfectly good two-hander-based Frost specs.

Personally, I see Frost as the AoE spec, whether you're DPSing or tanking, no matter what weapon you're carrying. The tree's 51-point talent, Howling Blast, is an AoE powerhouse for both damage and threat, doing damage on par with Obliterate on each mob it hits. Frost tanking is comparable to Paladin tanking for AoE threat generation, and it's excellent in any situation with trash pulls, especially if you're dealing with a rowdy PuG. For leveling, it's best for burning down large groups of mobs. If you're going to dual wield, the talents Nerves of Cold Steel and Threat of Thassarian are absolutely required for reasons that are self-evident in their descriptions. No other tree has talents that are specifically geared to bringing DW damage in line with two-handers.

The downside to Frost for most people is that, compared to the other trees, it's frankly kind of boring. There's no real gimmick to it. Even from a lore perspective, you have the necromancy tree, the vampirism tree, and the...hypothermia tree. The 9k+ AoE crits keep it interesting enough for me, though. The emphasis on proc-based talents like Killing Machine and Rime make it more reactive, which doesn't appeal to everyone.

TL;DR: Spec Frost if you want to dual wield or if you want to have strong AoE capabilities.

Blood
The whole point of Blood is survivability, both through raw stamina and self-healing. Early on it was primarily considered a leveling tree, since the self-heals meant you could keep going with very little downtime. More recently it's become a popular raid-tanking spec, trading Frost's AoE threat for talents that just plain keep you alive longer. Where Frost's threat generation is like a Paladin's, Blood's is like a Warrior's, with more emphasis on single targets. DPS is likewise more single-target based, with Strength-buffing talents that improve your overall damage but no AoEs except the basic class ones. This is fine for leveling, since you likely won't have more than a couple mobs to deal with and you can survive long enough to take them all down one at a time. It's also very good for boss fights. As a whole, Blood is the least magic-focused of the talent trees.

The downside to Blood is that when tanking, much like Warriors, you need time to ramp up threat on multiple mobs, which requires your DPS to actually show some restraint and maybe follow a *gasp* kill order. For DPS, your numbers won't look quite as good on those big trash pulls as more AoE-based classes.

TL;DR: Spec Blood if you want self-healing and extra survivability.

Unholy
The poor Unholy tree has been nerfed and buffed and tweaked all over the place since Wrath went live, but the basic concept has stayed the same: This is essentially the pet spec. All Death Knights can summon a ghoul for a short period, but with Master of Ghouls you get a permanent buddy. It even gets a new name randomly generated from some ghoulish words every time you raise one, some of which are unintentionally hilarious: I have a friend who once summoned a Gravelstealer, inspiring us to express concern about the safety of our driveways, and I once saw a Bonegobbler which made me giggle because I have a dirty, dirty mind. The perma-ghoul is a great little DPS boost for groups or soloing as well as an irritant for PvP. It's also useful for distracting any mobs that might attack when you're mining or herbing. I went Unholy DPS for a bit before 3.2 made Frost dual wielding viable, and I missed my ghoul when I changed. Unholy also has an AoE in the form of Corpse Explosion, but it requires you to have finished killing something to use it, so it doesn't have quite as much utility as Howling Blast.

The downside to Unholy is that, while you certainly could tank in an Unholy spec, there's nothing to recommend it like Frost's AoE threat or Blood's survivability. There's also the added responsibility that comes with using a pet, such as keeping it from randomly attacking the wrong things.

TL;DR: Spec Unholy if you want to play as a pet class, or if you think making corpses explode is the best thing ever.

Hopefully now you have a better idea of which talent tree is right for you and your up-and-coming Death Knight. In an upcoming post I'll get more in depth on the nuances that can make the same tree good for both tanking and DPS roles!

AddOns for Death Knights

Before I start, I recommend that any WoW player who is unfamiliar with addons read up on the idea itself. Addons can do add any number of things to your game, from making your user interface (or UI) more customizable to measuring your DPS to giving you a heads-up when your pizza is ready. Installation requires you to be able to navigate your computer's file directories, and they take varying levels of fiddling to configure, but if you don't already use them they can change your gameplay completely.

Anyone who regularly plays in a group situation will want to have a few particular addons installed. Omen Threat Meter, Recount, and Deadly Boss Mods or variations on them are all very basic, and they're all covered extensively elsewhere so I'm not going to go into detail on them here. They're also just as useful no matter what class you play (except possibly the first two for healers), so there's nothing very Death Knight-specific to discuss. Just remember that tanks want to be at the top of Omen, and DPSers want to be at the top of Recount! Though sometimes DPSers can get confused and think they want to be at the top of both.

For those already very familiar with addons, there are some I've found especially useful for Death Knights. Even a beginning DK can get a great deal of use from DeathKnight.info Runes/DeathKnight.info Diseases from the DeathKnight.info community. This is technically two addons, but they come packaged together and both are extremely useful. DKi Runes is a bar that you can move to anywhere on your screen that gives a graphical representation of your rune cooldowns as well as two other configurable bars that can be set to your HP or Runic Power. This lets you move your rune bar to somewhere more obvious than your character frame, and it looks really awesome to boot. For beginning DKs it's perfect for forming an awareness of your cooldowns, and even experienced DKs can benefit from tracking them more easily.

DKi Diseases fills a tracking function as well, in this case tracking your diseases. This addon creates movable, configurable bars to show how much longer your diseases will be up on your main target, with another underlay (or overlay) showing a timer for diseases spread to other targets by Pestilence. I can't stress enough how important it is for Death Knights to keep their diseases up! I've personally set mine to display right under the target frame below the other DoTs so I can glance up and see when I need to refresh them.

While it's not specific to our class, as a Frost DK I've found Power Auras Classic exceptional for making sure I get the most of my procs. It's an extremely fiddly little addon, and it may take a bit of tweaking to get it to do exactly what you want, but fortunately there's an entire wiki devoted to it. I use it to give me a heads-up when Killing Machine or Rime/Freezing Fog have procced as well as when my RP is getting too high. I have also tied the latter to a sound file of the Corrupted Ashbringer saying "Kill them all," because as we all know, runeblades are evil bastards. It's also good for letting you know if you're in the wrong presence, letting you know when Horn of Winter is no longer up, and any other warning you can think of. I've poked at it a little on some of my other characters, but my Death Knight is the one for whom I've found the most use for it.

I know there are other DK-specific addons out there I haven't tried, so feel free to comment with a testimonial on your favorite!

Sigils and Where to Upgrade Them

Sigils are for Death Knights what Librams are for Paladins or Totems are for Shaman: This is our Relic-slot item. It gives us a class-specific, Trinket-like Equip bonus, such as an attack power buff toward or after using a certain ability. When you complete the quest "Into the Realm of Shadows" below Acherus, you'll get your first one, the [Sigil of the Dark Rider], alongside your Deathcharger spell. This will do you great through Outland and through the first part of Northrend, until the first upgrade becomes available at level 74. Let's take a look at the Sigil upgrades we have to choose from:

• At level 74, get your undead rear over to Grizzly Hills and the Venture Bay PvP area. For a mere 30 Venture Coins, obtainable in a half-hour of questing at worst unless your server has some crazy hard-on for Venture Bay, you have a choice of three shiny new Sigils: The [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience] (unsurprisingly my favorite!), the [Sigil of Arthritic Binding], and the [Sigil of the Wild Buck]. Frozen Conscience, as you can guess from the name, is great for Frost with a buff to Icy Touch. Arthritic Binding is good for Unholy, as it buffs Scourge Strike. Wild Buck seems intended for Blood just by process of elimination, but as it buffs Death Coil (Blood's only real good Runic Power dump) it would be fine for Unholy as well.


• At level 80 you'll primarily hit up the Emblem vendors for your Sigil upgrades. 15 Emblems of Heroism will get you the [Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight] for tanking or the [Sigil of Haunted Dreams] for DPS, 25 Emblems of Valor will get you the [Sigil of Awareness] for DPS, and 19 Emblems of Conquest will get you the [Sigil of Deflection] for tanking or the [Sigil of the Vengeful Heart] for DPS.


• I'm not going to go into detail on those at this point, though, because Emblems of Triumph have become the common currency. For 25 of them you can get the [Sigil of Insolence], an upgraded version of Deflection which lets your Rune Strikes proc more delicious Rune Strikes. DPSers can get the [Sigil of Virulence], which gives a Strength proc to bread-and-butter DPS abilities from every spec. Both are excellent for their intended uses, and with the new cross-realm LFG system raining Emblems on our heads any serious Death Knight who's been level 80 for more than a week should absolutely have the one for their preferred role.


• There are also two Sigils available for 30 Emblems of Frost each, the [Sigil of the Bone Gryphon] for tanking and the [Sigil of the Hanged Man] for DPS. However, as they have a stacking buff rather than a flat buff and even at full stacks they do not have a significantly better buff that the Triumph Sigils (+30 Dodge over Deflection, +19 Strength over Virulence) you may want to just keep those Emblems of Frost tucked away for T10 instead unless they get a buff at a later date. They aren't bad, but they're still not a significant upgrade. Note that the uptime for Hanged Man will generally be better than Bone Gryphon, and it will be better for Frost or Unholy than it will for Blood due to the frequency of the trigger ability in your respective rotation. It is worth noting that they are the first Sigils to use a different tooltip graphic.


• I'm not an expert on Death Knight PvP, so I'll just touch on the PvP Sigils, all available with Honor and/or Arena Points: The [Deadly Gladiator's Sigil of Strife] is currently 15,300 Honor, the [Furious Gladiator's Sigil of Strife] is 6,400 Honor and 350 Arena Points, and the [Relentless Gladiator's Sigil of Strife] is 1,150 Arena Points. All are held in rather poor regard, so Death Knights interested in PvP should probably just get one of the PvE DPS Sigils listed above.

So don't forget to upgrade your Sigil while upgrading the rest of your gear. There are excellent buffs to be had from them!

How Not to PuG

Let's be honest: Death Knights get a bad rap. We're a popular class because we're new and easy to level. Everyone has one, whether they've put any effort into learning to play it or not. Anyone who managed to faceroll another class to level 55 can roll one and just push the "I Win" button through Outland and much of Northrend. Heck, when I was leveling Dariahn I made a point to keep pushing to areas at least 1 if not 2 levels above me for maximum XP because I could get away with it. We're exhilaratingly overpowered when leveling. The playing field levels out at 80, but at that point we've only had 25 levels to get the hang of some fairly complicated class mechanics. It's no wonder the ones who have learned how to play have so much to prove!

Since the implementation of the random PuG system, I've heard a lot of complaints. Some come from my boyfriend, who is valiantly trying to level a resto druid through the last part of the 60s through random PuGs. Some come from friends in general. Some come from the wow_ladies community over on LiveJournal, who were kind enough to share their anecdotes with me. So here's some advice from one Ebon Blade to another on How Not to PuG:

1. Don't queue as a tank just because you can.
This is the biggest complaint I hear: Death Knights queuing to tank just because that little checkmark next to the shield icon is clickible, with no idea how to actually do it or gear for the role. This is especially bad because, due to the relative number of tanks vs DPS, if you checkmark that shield and then queue up, you will be tanking. Do not queue up as a tank and then show up on the dungeon doorstep asking who's tanking. Surprise! It's you!

This is not to discourage people who genuinely want to tank! If you're familiar with the basic concepts of tanking and you want to give it a try, go for it! Pop into Frost Presence, put down your D&D, and have fun! But, especially in anything harder than Hellfire Ramparts, you want to make sure you're geared for it. Don't show up in a level 80 Heroic with two pieces of tanking armor thinking you'll be fine. Tanking is srs bsns! Make sure you're capable of doing it before queuing as a tank, I do not care how much shorter the wait is. See also #4 below.

2. If you're not tanking, don't tank.
Okay, so let's say you followed #1 there, determined that you are in no shape to tank an instance, and signed up as DPS. So don't tank. That means do not pull, do not initiate boss fights, do not use Frost Presence, do not put down Death and Decay unless you know the tank has established a firm grasp on all the mobs. Do not drop Death and Decay on top of CCed mobs. Do not use Death Grip unless absolutely necessary, such as to pull a caster back to the tank or to save a healer from a stray. Using Death Grip to pull something off the tank because you are level 60 and still think Death Grip is hilarious does not fall under "absolutely necessary". Along those same lines...

3. Army of the Dead is a Sometimes Ability.
This could go under one of the other headers, but it's come up so many times it clearly needs a section to itself, possibly with blinking sparkle-text. Blizzard had the grace to make nearly all raid bosses immune to their taunts, but I can count on one hand the number of situations you will encounter in 5-man instances where it's okay to use Army of the Dead. Think before you use it! They will taunt bosses off the tank, which can quickly wipe the group if the boss needs to be tanked in a certain position, and they will pull extra adds in trash pulls. Never, ever use Army of the Dead without checking with the group to see if it is okay. It very rarely is.

4. Learn to play your class before you queue up.
The middle of an instance is not the right time to go, "Hmm, what does THIS button do?" Before you subject other people to your totally awesome new Death Knight, go read up on the basics - or heck, just read your tooltips! Learn basics such as what presence you want to be in for your role and whether you need Spell Power (Spoiler Alert: You don't.) before an unfortunate group of random strangers who have been playing their classes for 60 levels as opposed to your 5 have to teach you. Learn what kind of stats you need to tank so you can follow #1. Know the defense cap before you queue as a tank for a Heroic.

5. Don't be a dick.
This goes for any class. Don't post Recount to show everyone how awesome you are three pulls in. (As of this posting it's broken in cross-server instances anyway.) If the casters need mana, let them drink. If the tank assigns a kill order, follow it. When running lower-level instances, remember that not all classes are as OP as we are and be mindful of your threat if DPSing. That warrior who's tanking Ramparts for you was not handed a full set of blues on an ebon platter at level 58. So long as the job is getting done, don't give unsolicited advice to your PuGmates, especially the DPS. Someone's DPS is way too low? Are the mobs still getting killed? Then hush. You were a new 80 once too. The defense-capped but blue-wearing tank is taking damage just fine but can't keep up with your full-T9 DPS? Throttle back and remember that everyone has to start somewhere. The important thing is that you finish the instance, not that you show random people you may never see again how big your epeen is. Be excellent to each other.

So with all that in mind, go forth, PuG, rack up the sweet XP or badges, and give people a good Death Knight story for once!

On "Rotations", Part 1: Tanking

I often get asked what my rotation is, and the idea of "rotations" as something to strictly follow is a pretty strong one in the WoW theorycrafting community, but personally I don't feel they're as valid for Death Knights as a spell priority. There is a particular sequence I always use for starting combat, but once that has been established it's largely a matter of using the best abilities for the resources I have available. Death Knights have a complicated resource system, and it lends itself to a much more reactive playstyle than, say, a mage. As always, my advice is heavily biased toward Frost, but can be adjusted for your spec of choice.

I should start by saying that I can't lavish enough praise on Glyph of Disease. It's vastly preferable to spend one Blood Rune that'll flip into a Death Rune to refresh your diseases on all targets than it is to spend a Frost/Unholy pair that could be spent on an Obliterate or a Howling Blast. I'm also fond of Epidemic from the Unholy tree for letting you refresh them less often. Disease management is important, but anything you can do to keep it from taking too many resources from other things is worth doing.

A good Death Knight will remember that their starting rotation is highly situational. If you're tanking multiple mobs, you want to start with Death and Decay, then Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Pestilence. From there it's just a matter of hitting Howling Blast whenever possible, especially if Killing Machine or Freezing Fog proc, Rune Strike when it becomes available, Frost Strike when you have the spare Runic Power, Obliterate if you have the runes for it but Howling Blast is still on cooldown, Pestilence whenever your diseases need to be refreshed if you glyphed for it, Icy Touch > Plague Strike >Pestilence if you didn't, and Blood Strike whenever you need to flip an extra Blood Rune.

When tanking a single target I personally skip over D&D and go straight to Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Obliterate, then Blood Strike/Blood Tap to churn out some Death Runes, Rune Strike/Frost Strike because I have some RP now, and then I move to a minor variation on the priority above. A good single-target priority is pretty much the same as the AoE priority with Obliterate replacing Howling Blast. If Freezing Fog procs, use it. Try to fit it in when your runes are on cooldown and you don't have enough Runic Power for a Frost Strike, since it's not as important to get maximum AoE out on a single target, but don't let it go to waste because even on a single target it's a nice chunk of damage and damage, of course = threat. If you have Glyph of Disease it's best to just hit Pestilence to refresh your diseases when needed, since even on a single target it's cheaper than Icy Touch > Plague Strike again and you get a Death Rune.

I'll note that I don't bother with Blood Boil much because Death and Decay generally provides all the AoE aggro I need until Howling Blast is available, and since it doesn't refresh into a Death Rune it's not as good a use of a Blood Rune as an ability that does.

There's also the matter of your mitigation cooldowns. Those are too situational to hammer into an iron-clad rotation, and on top of that hitting them takes away resources that would throw your rotation off if you stuck to a set one, so the fact that you need them pushes DKs further into a "priority" playstyle rather than a "rotation" one. I'm personally fond of tanking trinkets with a Use effect, as that gives me a mitigation cooldown to add to the rest that doesn't use any resources. I wouldn't turn down a significant upgrade in favor of one, but I would probably hem and haw over it for a bit first.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a look at optimal Frost DPS priorities. Spoiler alert! They're very similar to the tanking ones. :)

It's Just The Gear You Want, Part 2

In yesterday's post I went over the drops from the normal version of the new Frozen Halls instances that Death Knights will want to look out for. Today we'll discuss the Heroic drops. Now, in Heroic mode the Frozen Halls are nothing to sneeze at, so you will have to work for that iLevel 232 gear, especially from the Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection. So put on your srs face and keep your fingers crossed for these:

Heroic Mode:

• The Heroic Godfather of Souls has the [Weeping Gauntlets] for DPS Knights, with Crit and Haste. In general, you'll see more Haste on the DPS drops on Heroic, not the Best Stat Ever for DKs but good for those Killing Machine procs. He also drops [Nighttime], an excellent one-handed axe with Haste and Armor Pen. I have a friend who's already dual-wielding them.


• The Devourer of Souls here drops some good solid tanking boots, the [Black Spire Sabatons], as well as the Crit/Haste [Pauldrons of the Devourer]. It also drops the painful-sounding [Needle-Encrusted Scorpion], but with a huge base Crit bonus and an Armor Pen proc, expect to have to fight all the other DPS for it.


• Forgemaster Garfrost loves the DW Frost types on Heroic, with the [Shoulderplates of Frozen Blood]'s Expertise for tanks and [Malykriss Vambraces]' Crit-and-Hit for DPS. He also drops the [Barbed Ymirheim Choker], but it's another general-DPS item that's better suited to an Agility-based class.


• There's only one thing worth looking for from Ick, but it's a doozy: [Ick's Rotting Thumb], an excellent tanking trinket with Dodge and an HP on-use effect. Mmm.


• Scourgelord Tyrannus still isn't giving up his T10, but he does give up two excellent tanking drops: the [Icebound Bronze Cuirass] and a good solid tanking one-hander, [Rimefang's Claw]. For DPS, the [Tyrannical Beheader] has excellent stats for Blood, and the [Frost Wyrm Ribcage] is another Crit/Haste armor item. The [Band of Stained Souls] is another solid but, for a DK, unremarkable general DPS ring.


• This time through it's Falric who drops nothing of note for DKs of any spec, though if you really, really need an upgrade you can ignore the Shield Block on [Falric's Wrist-Chopper]. His bestest friend Marwyn drops the [Orca-Hunter's Harpoon], and while the enchant effect on it will stop traffic in Dalaran, the Agility makes it more of a Hunter/Druid weapon. Still, if you Need Upgrades Badly, you could do worse for two-handers.


• Once they're back on safe ground (and I'm still not going to spoil it!) tanks can look forward to the [Fossilized Ammonite Choker], with all the usual tanking stats. There's also the [Second Helm of the Executioner] for tanks, but again, it has Shield Block. DPSers have a better chance of a useful drop from there, with [The Lady's Promise], and excellent plate DPS ring, the [Grinning Skull Boots], with a solid Crit/Armor Pen combo perfect for Unholy, and the [Black Icicle], a one-handed mace with Crit/Hit. I'm personally hoping for a second of that last one.

So there you are. While you're at it, you'll be racking up [Emblems of Triumph] that you can spend on other upgrades you might need including T9 pieces, as well as some [Emblems of Frost] you can start saving for the new Sigils and maybe even some T10.

Later this week I'll be back with a look at the story of the Frozen Halls (with spoilers!) and how it ties in with the themes and origins of the Death Knights.

It's Just The Gear You Want, Part 1

It's been about a week since patch 3.3 dropped, and by now I'm sure all the level 80s out there are well aware that what truly lies inside the Frozen Halls is delicious, delicious lewts. Bosses in Normal mode drop iLevel 219 epics, with a jump to 232 in Heroic mode, making this an excellent place for casuals or players who just plain haven't been lucky with drops to do some make-up work. Here's a breakdown of what my Ebon Blade brethren will want to roll Need on:

Normal Mode:

• Tanks will want to be on the lookout for the ridiculously oversized [Lucky Old Sun] from Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls in the first part of the instance chain, the Forge of Souls. He also drops the [Minister's Number One Legplates], with the delicious Hit and Crit that Frosty DPSers need. And be sure to turn up his music while you're there.


• The next stop is the Devourer of Souls, who drops the [Legplates of Frozen Granite] for tanks with great Hit for DWers and the [Lost Reliquary Chestguard] with more of that Hit-and-Crit perfect for Frost DPS. He also drops the [Sollerets of Suffering], but the Shield Block makes it less than ideal for DKs, and the [Accursed Crawling Cape], which is fine as a general DPS cloak but the Agility makes it better for non-Strength-based classes.


• Also keep an eye out for the [Plated Grips of Korth'azz], which are a BoP trash drop. You may also encounter the [Titanium Links of Lore], but again, the Shield Block makes it less than perfect.


• Going through the portal to the Pit of Saron, we find Forgemaster Garfrost, who drops [Garfrost's Two-Ton Hammer] for those of a two-hander inclination. He also drops the [Ring of Carnelian and Bone], but again, it's more of a general DPS item than a plate-specific one. Hold out for...


• ...The next boss, Ick, who has an actual plate DPS ring, the [Purloined Wedding Ring]. He also drops the [Bent Gold Belt] for DPS types. Both of these have Crit and Haste, which is not bad at all for Frost DPS.


• At the end of this instance we get to our brother in Death Knighthood, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Sadly, he's a bastard and won't drop the T10 he's wearing. What he does drop is the [Scourgelord's Frigid Chestplate], which is interesting for a tanking piece as it doesn't actually have any Defense on it. It does have Expertise on it, great for a DW tank, so if you can spare the Defense or make it up elsewhere (maybe the new Rune of the Nerubian Carapace?) this is excellent. He also drops the [Painfully Sharp Choker] for plate DPS, with Armor Pen that's especially good for Blood and Unholy types.


• I'm not going to spoil the Halls of Reflection for you, but the first boss you'll fight will be Falric. The only thing of interest from him is the one-handed sword [Ghoulslicer]. His fellow captain Marwyn drops nothing of interest to DKs on Normal.


• At the end of the instance (which I will not spoil!) you have a chance for [Mourning Malice], an amazing-looking two-handed sword with Crit and Expertise, or the [Hate-Forged Cleaver] for DWers. The [Tapestry of the Frozen Throne] is an excellent plate DPS cloak, with Crit/Hit. The [Crystalline Citadel Gauntlets] also drop at the end, but note the Shield Block.


• Also keep an eye out for the [Eerie Runeblade Polisher], another BoP trash drop, and a perfect cloak for DK tanks to use to, uh, polish their runeblades.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a run-down of all the loot you can't live without from the Heroic version of these dungeons, and later in the week I'll get into some of the lore of the place. Stay tuned!

Welcome to Chill of the Grave!

I know, there are already so many WoW blogs out there, why start another one? Well, for one thing, because my boyfriend was getting tired of me keeping him up all night debating to myself the relative merits of Glyph of Death and Decay and Glyph of Obliterate. I'm a writer deep down in my bones, and a chatty one too, so this is largely a place for me to talk about things.

It's also a place to provide information for people who want to actually learn to play this class, though I'm more interested in debate than simply saying "This is how you have to do things or you fail". While there are definitely things you have to follow, there's plenty that is open to your own personal playstyle, and I believe all valid ways of playing the game are, well, valid. I prefer debating the advantages and disadvantages of one thing vs another to outright declaring that one is the only way to do things. I personally prefer to play as DW Frost, both in my Tanking and DPS roles, and that's the view I'm going to bring to this blog, but I don't think other specs are wrong. In fact, if this blog catches on, I'll look into getting Blood and Unholy columnists, too. I'm planning to approach things more in the fashion of sites like Mania's Arcania than Elitist Jerks. So expect that to be the attitude of the blog going forward: Informing and discussing decisions, not making them for you.

I'm also planning to do something most class sites don't: Discuss the lore of the class. I'm a creative type and an RPer at heart, and part of what made me so certain I would love playing a Death Knight from the start is the compelling lore around which the class is based. Expect to see discussions of lore and write-ups/reviews of things like the Death Knight manga in between posts about PvE mechanics and tanking.

And just who am I? My main is Dariahn of Thorium Brotherhood, Forsaken Death Knight of the RP guild Hand of the Blightcaller. I don't do much in the way of progression at the moment because of time limitations, but I do weekly 10-mans, roflstomp Heroics, and stay abreast of everything going on with the class. I was raid-tanking in Burning Crusade as a Forsaken Prot warrior, and I knew from the announcement of the Death Knight class that the combination of tanking capability and Forsaken-esque lore was going to make me love them. Since before I could roll one I was determined to learn to play the class well, and I like to think I've done a pretty good job of it.

So check back every so often! I hope to update at least once a week, ideally more, with assorted thoughts and opinions on WoW's most misunderstood class, and always feel free to comment!