gnomeDK – Your Pink Haired Guide to All Things Death Knight

As you’ve no doubt heard patch 3.0.8 is being rolled out. You can all thank me for the roll out, I respected and got some gear enchanted on Monday so now I get to respec again Tuesday and pine over the wasted enchanting mats.

If you’ve kept up with the various changes in this patch you know death knight changes are significant. The changes from the launch of the public test realms to today have also been significant. We’ve been teased with changes only for them to be taken away. Check out Blizzard for the official patch notes (as of this posting they aren’t up, but will be at the link provided). I also love MMO Champion’s coverage of patches, as they cover the notes and the stuff left out of them. I don’t want to do a point by point reposting of death knight changes this patch, but there are certainly plenty of items worth highlighting.

Class Changes

Lots of buffs and nerfs. This patch is a big part of our class balance. Keep in mind that we’re a few years behind the balancing curve so expect us to get what may feel like more than our fair share of changes for a while. You definitely want to go over them all and consider making changes to your talents, skills you use, and maybe even your glyphs. The more notable ones include:

• Horn of Winter, which now gives us runic power instead of using it.
• Killing Machine, which isn’t as drool worthy for dual wielders as it once was.
• Night of the Dead, which gives unholy death knight ghouls a chance to actually survive a boss fight.
• Raise Dead, which is now two spells on two cooldowns, ones for your ghoul and one for raising another player as a ghoul.

Item Changes

• [Ring of the Kirin Tor] is now available if you have the gold. It is better than any agility based DPS ring but it is weaker than the few strength based DPS epic rings available.
• [Spiked Titansteel Helm] is losing some strength but will gain crit and a blue gem slot.
• [Sigil of Arthritic Binding], [Sigil of the Wild Buck], and [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience] have been added and are easy to get. All three are an upgrade over the start area sigil.
• Enchanting mats for recipes have changed, a lot. Most of our favorite enchants are included in the changes. Be sure to look up the new mats before your next enchant. Overall it should make your enchants cheaper.

Tanking Changes

A lot of the larger changes are specific for tanking. Overall Blizzard is making it easier for the new death knight tank to get geared up for heroics and raids and making our ability to handle damage less spiky (which isn’t as big of a deal for you, but it is for your healer).

• Frost Presence has been buffed for better full time damage mitigation. In exchange Icebound Fortitude and Bone Shield have been nerfed for lesser short term mitigation.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle, a new rune for our two-handed weapons, grants 25 defense (or 123 defense rating) and 2% increase to our stamina. Some people are thinking the 4% parry rune will still compete as a tank rune, but I doubt it. Stoneskin Gargoyle opens up a lot of gem and enchant options for those heavy in defense with those, and even if you are past that with your gear the defense is still bonus dodge, parry, and miss.
• Rune Strike’s damage is getting nerfed but its threat increased. This puts it more in line with its original intent as a backup aggro strike, not a ZOMGWTFBBQ PvP strike.
• [Glyph of Death and Decay] is losing its cower feature, which is sad, but it is getting 20% more damage in exchange, which is good for aggro.
• [Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight] is good for the new death knight tank desperate for more defense. Personally I’m thinking of getting [Sigil of the Frozen Conscience] for the extra initial aggro.
• [Tempered Titansteel Helm] is gaining a meta gem slot and a blue gem slot. To be honest, though, I’m still not sure it would be an upgrade over my [Arcane-Shielded Helm]. I’d be trading a lot of dodge for stamina, some armor, and some defense.
• Bonus armor on any item (armor in green text) now no longer get multiplied by any talent or Frost Presence.

PvP Changes

PvP is something I’ve gotten more into as an in game hobby, so look for some postings about it later on.

• Vehicles can now be affected by any spell that doesn’t affect speed, so now we can disease up those siege engines before we start smacking them. I bet they make for great Death Strike targets when low on health.
• [Titan-forged Plate Helm of Triumph], [Titan-forged Greaves of Triumph], and [Anvil of Titans] are now available as epic PvP gear for [Wintergrasp Mark of Honor]. Unless you are competitive in arenas these are excellent, and fairly easy to get, PvP items. The hit rating really makes the helm and greaves especially a must have pre-arena gear.
• Our PvP glove bonus has been changed from a cooldown reduction on Strangulate to chance that your Frost Rune will refresh when you cast Chains of Ice.
• Overall a lot of our skill changes were based on PvP balance. This is certainly not the first Blizzard has affected PvE in the name of balancing PvP.

The Taketh Away

Not everything we were once told will be coming to pass.

• The new two-handed tanking sword and axe crafted by blacksmiths have been removed and will not come back. In short Blizzard was worried about death knight tanks keeping them through multiple raid tiers and they feel the new tanking rune and sigil will take care of our early defense needs.
• Howling Blast still has a cool down. However it has been changed to 5 seconds (from 6 seconds) to better match the 10 second rune refresh cycle.
• Howling Blast and Killing Machine changes have really put down the idea of every death knight going dual wield with two fast weapons for max DPS. Further testing after the patch will give more info, but for now it looks like two-handers are still just as viable as dual wielding and frost isn’t necessarily the top DPS tree.