It is my belief that the changes in Cataclysm are another attempt to open the game to those with less time or ability. By eliminating the cookie cutter specs that seem to prevail in other classes, the plan is to open up more “fun” abilities and allow the players to choose what are essentially cosmetic changes; work on balancing classes will become much easier, as there will, in essence, be only 3 types of each class to balance around. This also makes it easier on the player, but not necessarily as fun – part of the challenge of WoW has been to craft a spec around your play style, or vice versa. This, however, will be a major blow to the DK class – one of our strengths has been our versatility – despite the reputation of the class fostered by hordes of former huntards who decided they wanted to tank too.

So the question I ask is, “Why blood for tanking?” Well, a number of talents offered increased healing ability, and some damage mitigation. However, to me it seems that frost was the “tank spec” of choice. Talents such as unbreakable armor fall into frost, and frost presence will be required for tanking. With the DK lacking a shield, and the ability to prevent a percentage of damage simply by equipping a shield, DK tanks have relied on other forms of mitigation. Dodge and parry are the commonly mentioned stats, but there is another form of damage mitigation that can be essential to a DK: slowing the pace of the enemy. The slowing aspects (“anti-haste” if you will) of a DK sit firmly in the DK tree – and if it takes the boss longer to swing his axe/tail/claw, the less often you will be hit – and the less damage done, live firmly in frost. This means that the tank might not require a mage’s frostbolt. Given the overhaul, it would be reasonable to move some of the talents from the blood tree to frost, hopefully it will allow the class to shake the image it’s had in regards to tanking ever since patch 3.2.

Welcome to Suffer Well, a column I’ll be penning approximately monthly.  In this series, we’ll be dealing with topics for new Death Knights.  To those of you with characters at 80, I apologize in advance; I’m assuming no knowledge of certain mechanics in WoW.  I’ve seen many a DK come in and do some things out of ignorance, not stupidity.  (Ignorance can be fixed, stupid is forever.)  Now, Stand at Attention you worthless resurrected ape…

In this column, I want to look at the difference between Tanking and DPSing, not only how the play styles are different for DK’s, but why some folks very capable during solo questing have problems in group settings.  The roles of a tank and DPS are, of course, different; and they require that a different set of abilities be used.  Through the course of this series, and the evolution of WoW, I’ll attempt to cover each of these more in detail, but let’s start off with some knowledge of what basic abilities should be used when.

When running instances, the bar changes.  Many of the abilities you’re used to spamming in solo questing may have a profoundly different effect on the group as a whole.  This is not to say that they won’t affect the mobs the way you’re used to; more importantly, they affect the way mobs attack both you and your party.  If you’re not familiar with the concept of Threat (aggro), you need to do a little reading here.  During solo questing, you’re acting as both a tank and DPS, so gaining aggro on another mob simply means you have to fight another one.  But these mechanics divide up into tanking activities that are designed to grab and hold aggro, and others that are designed to do damage without causing every mob to focus away from the tank.

Death Knight tanking has some very powerful ways of gaining and maintaining threat, particularly in generating area of effect (AOE) threat.  For you new tanks, this is the method of throwing out your red cape in front of every bull in the arena at once – you’ll get their attention and hopefully keep it.  Your two primary AOE threat generators are Death & Decay(D&D) and Blood Boil.  D&D is often thrown out at the start of the fight, gaining the attention of a group of mobs to hit you at once, and Blood Boil used through the fight to maintain aggro.  However, don’t start using Blood Boil until after you’ve laid your diseases down and spread them throughout the pack using Pestilance.  This last activity will also generate more threat, so it is important that the tank be the one to do it if possible.

Death Knights also have two very useful single target spells, Dark Command and Death Grip.  Dark Command forces a single target to engage you much as Taunt does for Warriors.  Death Grip drags the mob in from a distance to within melee range, acts as an interrupt, and forces the mob to attack you for 3 seconds.  However, if you’re not at the top of the threat meter at the end of 3 seconds, the mob will head to someone else.  This is why, although many DK tanks like to lead with Death Grip, this is not always the best use for such a button.  The best time to lead with Death Grip is when you wish to drag a caster out of a group, that you plan to down first, and there are no other casters in range.  When used from max range in this way, it allows the tank to get a hit or two in, along with laying down D&D to grab the other incoming mobs.  Otherwise, I would recommend reserving the use of these buttons for when a mob goes astray, headed towards the healer or (sometimes) a DPS who is putting out too much threat.  I will discuss the interrupt ability of Death Grip in another column, but understand if a caster begins that really nasty explosive spell, use it even if they’re right next to you.

DPS members, on the other hand, are designed to do as much damage to the mob without gaining more Threat than the tank.  Hence, you will almost never use the abilities listed above.  I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a DPS Death Knight run behind the tank and pop Death & Decay, then drop dead after he is killed by every mob and add within sight.  D&D creates a huge threat presence, and many times cannot be overcome by a tank unless they significantly outgear you or already have a huge threat lead.  Be judicious in spreading diseases, and the use of Blood Boil on mobs will result in a nasty look from your tank.  Now, there are cases where everyone is AoE damaging the group of mobs, but be sure that the tank knows before you pop those mechanics.  Death Knights specced properly offer superb single target damage as well, by stacking diseases and using abilities such as Heart Strike (in the Blood Tree) and Obliterate (Unholy), you can take down a mob very quickly.  However, as DKs do not have a reliable aggro dump, you have to be careful not to approach the 110% threat level of the tank too closely.  A good threat meter such as Omen is as useful to you as it is to the tank. 

However, DPS Death Knights do have the ability to save the day.  Our focused aggro abilities are not restricted to a particular tree, allowing DKs to spec any tree and retain this ability.  The time to pull these abilities out of the bag is when a true emergency occurs, and the tank cannot react.  For example, if a mob breaks off and heads towards the healer like he was the last bag of Doritos at a Grateful Dead concert, use Death Grip to drag him back to where you, and hopefully the tank, are standing.  Then, the tank can use their own version of Taunt to pull the mobs attention back to where it should be.  Frost Presence, Death Grip, or Dark Command can be used to prevent the dreaded 1% wipe as well, where the boss is nearly dead, drops the tank, and heads for the over-achieving hunter.  Use your abilities to call him back towards you; even if you can only act as a speed bump, it may give the other members of the party enough time to bring him down.  You might end up dead, but if they down the boss you’re a dead hero – and that’s a bunch better than your former life as a lackey of Arthas.  And, need I say it, if you have Frost Presence on during the group normally, they have the right, and the obligation, to beat you to a pulp – it generates huge threat and is the tank’s presence of choice.

There is one last ability to discuss – Army of the Dead.  It should be called Army of Taunt – the ghouls have an automatic taunt ability, and will pull aggro off the tank quickly unless the tank has superior ability.  Don’t drop this unless the leader calls for it – it can be mighty handy when used in conjunction with Heroism/Bloodlust, so there may be a reason your leader is saving it.  The long cool down is a factor to take into consideration, so speak before you blow it, and be sure the leader is ready for it.

Suffer Well
Blackrune

As Blackrune has recently dinged 70, I’m in the process of dual-speccing him, with the intent of tanking instances – which ought to be a change from the heroics everyone’s running.  So, stick around – I’ll be disucssing the Death Knight’s changing role both in tanking and DPS: from our uber-nerf in Icecrown through our place both in lore and in groups in Cataclysm.  This ought to be an interesting ride.

-Torval