Deathknight Basics

I'd post a bunch of great things about Northrend, but I haven't gone yet, so instead I'll do a little on the newest class, Deathknights. At this point almost everyone has one, and they are all playing at once. You would think that with such great proliferation of a class people would have some idea what they are doing with it, not to mention the fact that you have to have already gotten a character to level 55 to even make one. I guess I could give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they haven't played a melee class, a tank, or know how to read the tooltips and think for themselves, but where's the fun in that. Either way, let me lay a few simple things out for you.

The Deathknight is an extremely powerful class when it starts out, but won't be anything particularly special at 80, especially since there will likely be way more DK's than anything else and a large portion of them will suck. It's almost the same as the problem with hunters, only worse. Hunters are easy to level, but DK's are already leveled. Either way, the class itself is meant to be a tank, or a melee DPS class. To switch between them all you have to do is change Presences. You'll notice that I said Presence NOT spec. Do not be fooled into thinking that each spec is designed for one thing in particular. Nor should you think that just because certain weapon based talents are in one tree means that you have to use that weapon style, or not use it if you want to but aren't specced for it. More on specs later, Presences first.

Your Frost Presence should primarily be used to tank because it dramatically increases both your armor and your threat. That doesn't mean that it can't be used for other things, such as just grinding, or questing. The increase in armor alone is a great boost to survivability, especially if you end up pulling a few mobs at once. Frost Presence will also contribute to the armor rating for the talent in the Blood tree that adds attack power for every 180 armor, which can give you a significant boost. Blood Presence is best for grinding through mobs. With the boost to damage, and the bonus healing it helps not only to speed up the slaughter, but also helps keep you mostly topped off on health so that you don't have to slow down or stop. This is the Presence you are most likely to be using all of the time, unless you run certain specs, or are always tanking. Unholy Presence, with its haste and run speed, can be used in place of Blood, and should in some cases. In instances and raids the bonus run speed will actually help you during certain fights, getting you in and out of the action faster. The haste is always a nice thing, but keep in mind that most procs use a proc per minute system, which means that even though your weapon hits more often you will still get the same number of procs. However, anything that has a listed percent chance to activate on a melee hit WILL go off more often. A lot of people like to think of the Unholy Presence as the PvP one, which is mostly true, but, as always, it depends on what you specced. In PvP the haste and the run speed are a phenomenal help, but if you specced for icy talons, and have the run speed enchants, you really don't need to use Unholy Presence.

Now lets talk about specs a little. In VERY general terms these are what the specs are for. I say this because you can do whatever you want, but this is the way the trees are generally focused. Blood is for soloing and single target combat. The only real AoE damage you can get here is pestilence + blood boil. You will also pick up great survivability through combat based health regen, and even a self (upgradeable to group) heal for 10% to 20%. Frost is generally a tanking spec. It has a few different armor talents, a 20% personal/group/raid haste, and a great AoE talent. Unholy is harder to place into a category. It's more of a utility tree, but it does have some great DPS in it. You will pick up an actual pet, a third disease, a PBAoE, AoE snare, and a few other little things. The pet adds a fair chunk to your dps, and it can pull a mob or two off of you. The third disease is really a huge bonus to your ability damage because most of your skills add damage per each disease you have on the target.

With a class like the Deathknight there is no wrong answer. Pretty much the only thing to really base your spec off of is how you like to play and how you like to level. Keep in mind that as of right now there is a ridiculous number of Deathknights around, and all of them start off in the same place, and then move directly to Hellfire, so you will be fighting for quest mobs and drops. The most efficient spec for leveling is Blood, no matter what anyone will tell you. By efficient I mean that you will have less downtime than the others. However, the other two aren't bad specs, just not optimized for leveling the way Blood is. With Blood you will almost never get below 75-80% health as long as you pay attention, whereas the other two will periodically require you to bandage. But if you would rather pull 2-5 mobs at once and AoE them all into the ground then by all means go Frost or Unholy.

Weapon choices are the other thing that people argue over all the time. DK's get 1 and 2 hand axes and swords, as well as polearms. No maces. The only real choices are looks and whether to go dual wield or 2 handed. Looks is your choice that I refuse to influence, but the style choice is important. A lot of people think that dual wield will do more damage, but this is wrong, mostly. There are two real reasons for this. The first is the same argument that has been going for ages: mitigation and avoidance. Two weapons that hit half as hard will be absorbed by armor much easier than a single hard hitting weapon. As for avoidance it's not the dodge that's important, it's the mobs parry rating. When a mob or boss parries it resets the swing timer. You can avoid the problem with parry by staying behind something, but there isn't much you can do about the armor. The second, and larger difference is that a large number of the DK abilities are based on weapon damage. For dual wield this will be your main hand, but no matter what a two hander will have a much higher damage to work with. There are a couple ways to make dual wielding have a higher damage output, but the best is actually a tri-spec, with a few more points into Frost than Blood or Unholy. Make sure that you get the dual wield talent in Frost, as well as Howling Blast, and then Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis from Unholy. In Blood you'll want to get Dark Conviction, but that's about it. Maybe Death Rune Mastery. I'll draw up and post some sample specs for you all over the next few days.

Hopefully this helps people get a little better general idea of what to do with their Deathknight when they start leveling them. As mine progresses farther I will continue to post about what I learn. Also look for things similar to this for Druids, Shamen, and Hunters in the future, as well as some postings on what to expect in Northrend.