WoW: Introductory guide to fighting death knights

Tags : wow guide, class guides, wow class guide, death knights,     

Zach is a PvP nut who is excited at the prospect of more meaningful Battlegrounds play. He is about as unfunny as Jay Leno but has a slightly smaller chin.

When the game's first hero class was introduced with Wrath of the Lich King, it was no coincidence that their popularity was directly proportional to their being completely imbalanced and overpowered. It was so broken that Arena Season 5 was dominated by death dnights and even unskilled keyboard turners and clickers could sometimes achieve gaudy rankings using the class.

While the class has been tuned down somewhat, this hasn't diminished their popularity and death knights remain formidable opponents in the Battlegrounds and world PvP. Today we'll take a look at the dreaded death knight and try to outline a few key points to remember when facing one. Just as with the first installment of this series, these articles are by no means an exhaustive and complete guide to fighting a particular class. PvP depends greatly on context, in part determined by your own class, your environment, your opponent's spec, and player skill among other things. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's take a quick overview of death knights just to give players a general idea of what to expect.

Dual resources
The main thing that separates death knights from other classes is that they operate using a completely different resource mechanic -- Runes and Runic Power. The three basic Runes -- Blood, Frost, and Unholy -- are a constantly regenerating or more appropriately, refreshing, resource that can be used to cast spells. Because they renew at a constant rate, the closest parallel resource to runes would probably be rogue Energy. On the other hand, Runic Power is generated when the death knight attacks or uses special abilities but decays over time through inactivity. In this way, one could imagine Runic Power being very similar to warrior Rage.

Death knights basically have two sets of spells that use two different resources. The advantage that death knights have over other classes is that Runic Power is the only one of the two resources visible to opponents, such that there's no way for players to know what Runes are off cooldown. Even if players were to memorize the Rune requirements of a spell, all three death knight trees have talents that can conditionally produce Death Runes which count as Blood, Frost, or Unholy Runes which complicates matters for those who like to keep track of these things.

Furthermore, death knights also have a few spells which require absolutely no resources such as Death Grip, a spell that very often sees use in PvP. Blood Tap is a spell that converts a Blood Rune into an active Death Rune and uses no resources, although demands 6% of the caster's base health. Then there's the Frost talent Lichborne, an extremely useful PvP talent, which doesn't use either Runes or Runic Power. As an added bonus, none of the aforementioned abilities trigger the global cooldown, which make them usable pretty much anytime.

It's very difficult to determine a death knight's full capabilities upon engagement solely on the basis of the available visible resource. As a general rule, death knights are at their most dangerous when they're loaded with Runic Power, although abilities have been rebalanced so as to no longer scale with it, such as Summon Gargoyle. A death knight with a lot of Runic Power can fire off two or even three Death Coils in quick succession, or use other abilities also popular in PvP, such as Icebound Fortitude and Mind Freeze. Because Runic Power decays, death knights often want to use abilities that use up Runic Power, so be wary. That said, even a death knight with 0 Runic Power can build it up relatively quickly.

A plateful of diseases
Another interesting feature of death knights is that they deal a mix of physical and magical damage, similar to retribution paladins. They also make use of a previously uncommon debuff type, Diseases, which plays a huge part in death knight damage -- or at least the unholy spec, which is popular in PvP. Classes able to remove diseases such as druids paladins (sorry, missed that one! thanks, folks!) and shamans have fair defense against them, and it's often a good strategy to spend some mana and a few global cooldowns removing their debuffs, which can prove fatal if allowed to stack and run their course.

Death knights are a plate-wearing class, which allows them to withstand a lot more physical damage. On top of that, they have a few healing abilities that allows them to heal themselves or their undead allies. Don't be surprised to have a death knight be low on life and suddenly be rejuvenated. Regardless of spec, a death knight can use Death Pact to sacrifice a minion such as a ghoul or gargoyle to regain 40% of the death knight's health, as well as use Death Strike to regain health while dealing damage. blood-specced opponents, in particular, can generate a lot of health using various tricks. We'll get to that when we take a look at each spec a little more closely.

Although most effective at close range, death knights have a few means by which to close the distance, most notably the fearsome Death Grip. A lot of less experienced death knight players will use this as an opener, which can work to your advantage as long as you are mindful of the ability's long cooldown of 35 seconds (or 25 with Unholy Command). Another important snare ability is Chains of Ice, which uses up a valuable Frost Rune. Dispelling the first Chains of Ice is a good way to waste a death knight's Frost Rune. It's a Magic effect, so classes that can dispel magic such as priests or paladins should do so instead of using a trinket or Hand of Freedom. Frost Runes are needed for some important strikes such as the unholy talent Scourge Strike or Obliterate, so many death knights will be judicious in their use of Chains of Ice, although they won't hesitate to use it often to keep enemies in place.

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A note to casters
Death knights were designed to be the anti-caster class. Blizzard had initially envisioned death knights to fill the niche role of tanking caster bosses and gave them abilities that are excellent against casters such as Anti-Magic Shell and Anti-Magic Zone. They also have abilities such as Strangulate (1 Blood Rune, 2-minute cooldown) and Mind Freeze (20 Runic Power, 10-second cooldown) which can silence and lock-out casters from particular schools. They won't hesitate to use Strangulate and often use it early in the fight in order to gain the upper hand. On a good note, death knights have a particular weakness that can be exploited by smarter players...

Mobility
Aside from their ability to pull opponents and ensnare them, death knights have no natural way to remove snares. This makes them particularly vulnerable to kiting. They have no rush abilities such as a warrior's Intercept or fast-moving forms like a druid or shaman, so a slowed or snared death knight is vulnerable to ranged attacks. In PvP, death knights are often in Unholy Presence, which grants them improved mobility by 15% (as well as reduces the global cooldowns of all their abilities by 0.5 seconds). Death knights won't hesitate to use Anti-Magic Shell to shake off magical snares, but have nothing against physical snares such as Hamstring or poison effects such as Crippling Poison. This is one of their few pitfalls, and classes able to take advantage of this should find it a little easier to deal with death knights. Remember, however, that Death Coil is a ranged attack, so make sure to kite them when their Runic Power is low.

Identifying specs
Unlike last week's druids, identifying a death knight's spec isn't as simple as checking out their forms. However, unholy death knights are very easy to spot by virtue of the swirling bones around them and their having a permanent ghoul by their side. Those ghouls are named, too, as opposed to the generic type summoned by other death knights. Blood and frost-specced death knights are a little less obvious so it might take actual engagement to reveal their specs.

While death knight abilities seem formidable, not all specs have access to all their fearsome abilities. For example, a frost-specced death knight with access to Hungering Cold, arguably the best peeling ability in the game, won't be able to summon a gargoyle. An unholy-specced death knight -- a popular tree for PvP -- isn't likely to have the self-healing capabilities of a death knight specced deep into blood. An opponent that spawns Bloodworms with her strikes is likely to be deep in blood and won't have the deeper frost and unholy abilities. So on and so forth. What's important about identifying specs, as is true with all classes, is that it gives you an idea of what to expect.

Blood
It won't be easy to identify a blood-specced death knight right away. The most telling sign, perhaps, would be the Bloodworms that usually spawn when they start attacking. They will almost never use Dancing Rune Weapon unless their opponents are vulnerable and are at low health, so don't expect to see that ability until very late into the fight (hopefully never). Blood-specced death knights are a good counter against melee classes, as they can pop Mark of Blood against an opponent to heal themselves. They will usually do this against fast-hitting opponents such as rogues or Enhancement shamans. If you're a melee class and find yourself with a Mark of Blood, try to remove it or disengage until the duration of the debuff wears off. Barring that, turn off auto-attack and only use hard-hitting attacks. Smarter death knights will even apply Mark of Blood on pets, who have low damage but fast attacks. If you see the debuff on your pet, turn off its attack.

Blood-specced death knights can recover a lot of health in a very short time. They can activate Vampiric Blood and use Improved Rune Tap (1 Blood Rune) while spamming Death Strike (1 Unholy and 1 Frost Rune) to generate massive health very quickly. Because the blood spec doesn't rely on pets, some death knights will even Raise Dead and immediately follow it with a Death Pact in order to heal. The most you can do in this situation is to remove diseases because Death Strike will not heal at all if no diseases are on the target. Also remember that those low-health Bloodworms help heal the death knight, so eliminating them with a well-placed AoE should help you in that fight.

While blood-specced death knights have incredible durability and self-healing capabilities, they aren't known for dealing as much damage as the other two specs. Diseases won't be particularly strong and they won't have a ghoul to occasionally stun and pester. Fighting blood death knights is all about trying to keep their self-heals under control, so healing debuffs or Mortal Strike effects work particularly well here.

Frost
Frost death knights aren't easy to spot, either, but can sometimes be identifiable through dual-wielding and opening with an Icy Touch. Some will have the Chilblains talent, which should appear as a snare debuff, and this should tip you off. The surest but unfortunately most painful sign, of course, is when they finally unleash Howling Blast on you. One interesting point about frost-specced death knights is that they are more likely to use their Runic Power on Frost Strike rather than a weaker Death Coil, so try to kite them as much as possible.

Save your trinket for Hungering Cold, which they will pull off in order to escape or maneuver. They will try to deal as much damage as possible by using Obliterate and Howling Blast, which is a dangerous thing especially if Rime procs. Casters in particular should be wary of frost death knights, who might even pick up Acclimation, a deep Frost talent that boosts resistance to particular schools of magic. They are also able to cast Mind Freeze for free, essentially capable of interrupting spellcasting every 10 seconds without worrying about Runic Power.

Also noteworthy is that a lot of frost damage bypasses armor because, well, it's Frost and not Physical. This makes frost death knights pretty effective against other melee classes, especially considering they can also mitigate physical damage with Unbreakable Armor. Note that when death knights use Lichborne, they are considered undead and can therefore be Shackled or Turned. They are also able to heal themselves (a Runic Power intensive endeavor) using Death Coil.
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Unholy
The unholy tree is widely considered to be the most effective for PvP, so players should expect to see it a lot on the battlefield. As mentioned, the most telling sign of an unholy-specced death knight is the persistent ghoul with a unique name. Better death knights will be able to micromanage their ghouls such that they can Gnaw at strategic moments, effectively having another interrupt in their already considerable anti-caster arsenal. Most death knights, however, will simply have it on auto-cast.

More than any other spec, the Unholy death knight relies on stacking diseases upon diseases, so classes able to remove them should do so at every possible opportunity... even their auto-attacks benefit from diseases with Blood-Caked Blade. Naturally, unholy death knights also inflict more kinds of diseases than other death knights and capitalize on this with their bread and butter attack, Scourge Strike.

Another wonderful PvP talent is Desecration, which ensnares opponents in a wide area. In conjunction with their persistent increased movement speed regardless of Presence and a reduced cooldown on Death Grip, unholy death knights are particularly difficult to peel from. They can also sic their ghouls with a Leap and a Gnaw in order to catch up with opponents.

Unholy death knights are basically a pet class similar to hunters and warlocks. This means it can sometimes be worth the hassle to kill the pet, although you should expect the death knight to Raise Dead almost immediately, necessitating killing the pet twice. Alternately, some classes can keep the ghoul crowd controlled with a Shackle Undead or Turn Evil. Keeping the ghoul out of the action will help against an unholy death knight.

Death knights can also summon a gargoyle, which deals respectable DPS and can cause a lot of harm if left unattended. This uses up a lot of Runic Power, so expect it when the death knight needs a Runic Power dump. Gargoyles can be targeted and destroyed or, just as with the ghoul, kept crowd controlled. Keeping it crowd controlled is best because it discourages the death knight from simply sacrificing it to a Death Pact. Some death knights will cast Death Pact on a ghoul or gargoyle being attacked in order to recoup some health rather than losing the pet to opponents.

Unholy also has Bone Shield which the death knight will throw up whenever it's off cooldown in PvP, making them tougher to crack. Bone Shield is a physical buff and cannot be dispelled, so the best way to remove it is to attack fast in order to consume the charges quickly. Bone Shield is on a one-minute timer, so removing it as fast as possible after it goes up is key to making the death knight more susceptible.

General notes
The bad news is that death knights are everywhere. They're a very popular class and encountering them is unavoidable. The good news is that most death knight players suck. With due apologies to the death knight player population, this is a direct result of the class being relatively new and very few players will have played death knights long enough to understand all the nuances of the class. There also isn't enough knowledge about death knights compared to other classes, so resources are few and far between (Daniel's awesome Lichborne column is one of the oldest death knight guides available).

Many death knights, for example, open with Death Grip, even against a hunter. Many will use Icebound Fortitude prematurely. A lot of these small sub-optimal plays are a result of players not knowing their class thoroughly and also because the class has also changed quite a bit throughout its short history. In PvP, take advantage of this lack of familiarity. The death knight has been nerfed considerably such that most players with reasonable skill can take down a death knight. It used to be harder then when the class was ridiculously imbalanced.

Other reminders... avoid fighting on top of Death and Decay. Many death knights will pop Death and Decay at the beginning of a fight which should be taken as an opportunity to keep off the affected area. More experienced death knights will pop it in the middle of an encounter, when snares have been applied or Desecration is in effect, to maximize (and obscure) the effects of the AoE.

Because they are a melee class, disarming their weapon works well against them as many of their special attacks require a melee weapon to execute. They aren't without other tools, however, as Death Coil or Howling Blast, for example, can be fired off without a weapon. Death knights also do not enchant their weapon. Their weapons are runeforged, so there should be no fear from any wacky enchants. Some players will PvP with the Rune of Swordbreaking or Swordshattering specifically to counter disarm mechanics. Others will use Rune of the Fallen Crusader to keep their focus on dealing damage and survivability.

It's always important to pay attention to the death knight's Runic Power. Runic Power management is an advanced death knight skill that not all players can maximize. Players who keep dumping their Runic Power often become susceptible because they won't have access to particular abilities that might be clutch in certain situations. A few death knights keep their Runic Power almost full and use it only to prevent wastage from Runic Power gains, always leaving enough to allow them to pull off important strategic moves.

*talents

While knowing these abilities won't prevent the death knight from using key strikes that use runes, it should give players a better understanding of the two important resources that death knights use. Again, I will stress that these introductory guides aren't a comprehensive guide to fighting death knights. Many players will have key insights on how to deal with death knights and particular death knight specs. I encourage all readers to share their experiences and knowledge in the comments section. Last week's article had some great input and I fully expect this week's installment to be just as enlightening. Next week, we'll take a look at how to handle hunters! That should be interesting.

Source: wow.com

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