Heya guys!!  So, what do Death Knights bring to the table?  How do they help your raids?  What unique buffs and abilities do they bring to the table?  What kind of tanking and dps’ing can they really do?  These and more will be comming soon!!!

No wait!!!  Come back!!!  I’m telling you now, lol.  Keep reading.  This post was a bit delayed from late last night like I wanted…but then I do have to work for a living.  >.<

Death Knight Class Abilities

So what abilities do a Death Knight bring to a table that is going to help you on your run?  Let’s get into it!!   Now the following are not an all inclusive look at every ability available to a DK.  They are instead abilities of interest that stand out. 

Blood

• Abomination’s Might – This is a Blood talent.  This is basically the DK version of an Enhancement Shaman’s Unleashed Rage buff.  Long story short if you don’t have an Enhancement Shaman then you want this!
• Heart Strike - This is a deep Blood talent.  What’s so nice about this is that many bosses have buffs that grant them bonus damage and/or haste.  By just bringing one Blood DK, you’ve already made your healers’ jobs a lot easier for keeping your tank alive.
• Mark of Blood - This is a Blood talent.  Anytime you know healing will be an issue…here you go.  The DK pops this up when a Frenzy for a boss in incoming, greatly reducing the spike damage for your tank.
• Strangulate - The uses here are minimal at best, but a ranged silence can come into play at times.  Worth noting.
• Dark Command - Even if not tanking, this is useful for your DPS DK’s.  With a 20 yard range a DK can peel off an add as needed or even help reposition something.  A 20 yard Taunt means they don’t have to come within range of a melee hit, and a Tank can take the target off of them before it reaches them.

Frost

• Chains of Ice - Immobilize meets Slow basically, and stupidly useful.  Take Gluth for example, this allows some breathing room for a healer or kiter who has ghouls on them.
• Chilblains – This is a Frost talent.  A Frost DK will only spec into this if you truly find you need them to have access to it.  No tank or dps spec uses this.
• Frost Presence - Long story short here is that against anything other than a boss, this Presence will allow your DK to temporarily tank something for at least a short period of time if absolutely necessary.
• Horn of Winter - Horn of Winter is the equivalent of the Strength of Earth Totem from shaman.  While an Enhancement Shaman’s totem is better, if you don’t have one you still get this phenomental buff.  Keep in mind Agility = dodge for your tanks.
• Hungering Cold – This is a Frost talent.  A Frost DK will only spec into this if you truly find you need them to have access to it.  No tank or dps spec uses this.
• Icebound Fortitude - Ever wish you had a tank for just a moment?  Any dps DK can tank for at least 12 seconds with this ability.  Got an emergency moment where a tank dies?  Or an OT does and someone needs to step in fast while you B Rez?  IBF is amazing.  Not even counting the uses for just keeping them alive when healers can’t get to them and AoE dmg is high.
• Improved Icy Talons – This is a Frost talent.  This gives your raid an Enhancement shaman’s Improved Windfury Totem (Windfury Totem) buff basically. 
• Improved Icy Touch - This is a Frost talent.  This causes Frost Fever to be equivalent to a talented warrior’s Improved Thunder Clap.
• Frost Fever - Untalented this is a 14% reduction to melee/ranged attack speed and is better than Thunder Clap from a warrior.
• Mind Freeze -  Your basic interrupt for 4 seconds on a 10 second CD.  Always good to have available.  This ability is not on the GCD, meaning they can fire this off regardless of their current rotation.
• Unbreakable Armor – This is a Frost talent.  Again, like IBF, this amazing talent will allow any DK in Frost Presence to be able to tank for a short period of time if needed by the raid encounter.

Unholy

• Anti-Magic Shell - Considering how prevalent AoE dmg is nowadays, any DPS who can stop some of the dmg they will take to easy up stress on your healers is always a plus.
• Anti-Magic Zone – This is an Unholy talent.  No dps spec will use this talent.  This is a tank/PvP spec talent.  From a DPS DK this will stop 20,000+ damage from hitting your raid, if used at the right time.  Please note that it only stops 75% of the damage to one person, so 25% will get through still.
• Army of the Dead - This can literally save a raid boss fight from being a wipe.  If they are on their toes, and you have a MT or OT die on a boss fight, firing this off will drop down about 6 lil ghouls who will run around and Taunt everything they can.  More often than not, this will buy you enough time for the raid to recover instead of the boss/adds instantly killing half of your raid.  Or you can use this aggressively letting them take hits to buy your healers time while they ignore an OT for a few moments.
• Bone Shield – This is an Unholy Talent.  The big upside to this talent is that is doesn’t lose bones (or ticks) from indirect sources such as DoT’s.  The initial hit will take one away, but no more.  The bones have a 3.5 second internal CD, so this is guaranteed to last 12 seconds (15 sec w/Glyph) even if you’re taking non-stop attacks every second.  Highly useful for momentary offtanking.  And since it lasts 5 minutes, Unholy dps DK’s tend to take significantly less total dmg than other dps.
• Death Grip - Take Malygos.  Doing this fight without a DK is a pain.  You never know where the sparks will spawn, and if the tank doesn’t move correctly when the raid does…cleave city = dead raid.  Being able to move targets around to specific locations easily can sometimes be a great boon.  Bringing adds into range of Grand Widow Faerlina for melee to assist killing them for her enrage is another example.
• Death Strike - Any dps that can heal itself – especially melee dps – is always huge.  There are times when healers just can’t heal anyone but healers/tanks.
• Ebon Plaguebringer – This is an Unholy talent that also grants the Crypt Fever effect.  One Unholy DK means all of your other DK’s and Feral Druids get +30% disease damage bonus.  Also, every mob (including trash mobs for faster trash clearing because all DK’s Pest their diseases out onto everything) will always be taking +13% from all magical sources.  A warlock is no longer required to put up Curse of Elements anymore, allowing for more raid dps as they can use Curse of Agony or Curse of Doom.  Also note that without an Affliction Warlock you don’t get Malediction, so a standard CoE is substandard.
• Shadow of Death – This is an Unholy talent.  Basically even if they die, they can contribute some dps for another 45 seconds.  Hardly useful for farm content, but a great asset when learning encounters.
• Unholy Aura – This is an Unholy talent.  Hands down the biggest draw for bringing any DK into a raid, this basically increases the overall raid healing/dps by getting everyone into position faster.  Also for fights where movement is crucial (such as Heigan), this talent makes life a million times easier.

But, but, but…you talk as if this is only about DPS DK’s… 

Well first off, if you’re a raid leader and you cannot connect the dots for how these abilities are useful on your tanks…well…how did you get to be raid leading to begin with?!?!  OK, ok, ok…that was a little bit mean maybe…  I’m sorry.

No!!!  I’m not rolling my eyes or laughing… o.o  I swear!!!  *innocent look*

Right, so there are other aspects to consider.  New players to a tank or melee dps who are not connecting the dots.  Or even a fresh brand spanking new Raid Leader!!  It does happen.  So here is what I have for you guys.  I do plan on initiating some more Tank oriented posts.  I’ve been doing my homework already on Frost and Blood since I’m not as savy with those specs, and I’ve been delving into Tanks as well.

When the Tank posts come out, all of your extra special details and attention will come then. 

Anyways…I’m HUNGRAY ZOMG FOOD!!!!!!!!!  Believe it or not, this took over an hour to write getting the links and everything nailed down…and I was starving before I started!!  See?!?!  I’m dedicated to you guys!!  I pissed my stomach off just because I hadn’t posted something today yet!!    Check you guys out later!!

P.S.

I feel like I should note that the size of the lists or walls of text are not indicative of which ones bring more to a raid.

Unholy brings the most to a raid.  The why is simple, and it isn’t personal bias.  Unholy Aura and Ebon Plaguebringer are just that damn uber and useful.

A very close runner up is Blood.  The main reason is Heart Strike.  Any ability that takes haste away from a boss (which nothing else in game does this) is just UBER!!!  Though admitedly, Abomination’s Might is awesome providing no Enhancement shaman is available.

As to Frost…it’s not a 3rd place raid utility spec exactly.  It’s actually got more to do with your raid composition.  If you don’t run with an Enhancement shaman or a Prot warrior, then any Frost DK is going to be invaluable.  Improved Icy Touch and Improved Icy Talons are both amazing, however most raids tend to already have these bases covered by other classes.

Unholy offers Unholy Aura and Blood offers Heart Strike, two unique raid buffs/debuffs.  Frost is duplicated elsewhere however.  Does this mean you shouldn’t bring a Frost DK to your raid?  Hell no!!!  Frost DK are awesome in a raid environment (even if I do hate on them for leveling up, heh).  As a raid leader however, you should still be aware of the overall raid impacts of each spec and where they may be lacking.  For guilds without a Prot warrior MT however, Frost DK’s are *very* appealing.

Tags: Raids