Blizz's Recent DK ChangeFollow

I wouldnt take to heart the description change. Current talents still allow Frost tree to tank.

what i wonder about lichborne is if its considered undead in the truest sense of the word, as in a "being healed will hurt you" kind of way.

i dount theyd do that, but ya never know.

personally, im inclined to say that blade barrier would be the optimal way to go if only because it brings the extra spell damage reduction chance based on parry. since the DK is ostensibly the anti-caster tank it makes sense, and it seems you could more consistently keep blade barrier up than you could bone armor.

bone armor would be nice for certain niche tanking situations, such as large, relatively slow bursts of magic damage on a medium-longish timer, giving bone armor time to cooldown. added to frost presence, youd have a 50% reduction in magical damage, which is really pretty insane.

ultimately tho, i think the steady reliable source of mitigation from blade barrier would be preferable to that of bone armor. i see bone armor as more of a pvp talent, since youll be able to pop it in response to a dangerous situation (i.e. shatter combo from a mage, death wish/reck on a warrior, wings on a ret pally). plus blade barrier/spell deflection would be kinda useless in pvp, since itd require rune spammage to keep up and a DK isnt going to be parrying much vs casters who will never engage him with their melee weapons ever.

Lichborne has a 5-minute cooldown currently, recently nerfed down from 15mins. That makes it, in my eyes at least, equivalent to many of the o-**** tanking buttons available like Shield Wall and Evasion, a once-per-fight long-duration avoidance (in contrast to stuff like Shield Block) that could be rather helpful during stuff like Enrages, which tend to happen towards the end of the fight anyway. I agree Blade Barrier looks promising, but a little bird tells me a hidden cooldown might be on the way to prevent it being used constantly. Otherwise it could be used in PvP to equal effect vs melee classes, and a continuous 45-50% parry chance (Barrier + Forceful Deflection + natural Parry%) while frontloading Frost damage and CC is just nuts, especially with Frost Presence mitigation in the mix too.

I might switch mains to Death Knight so I actually hope it IS that good, but it's still nuts.


Being a bit pedantic here but Icy Touch has been changed to 1 Frost Rune, but your comment stands; using your Frost Runes should be easy, although you'd have to spec out of the Death Rune and Frost Rune Mastery talents or youd actually be exposing yourself to more damage, it would totally balls up your cast cycle.


The synergy with Frost Mages looks vaguely terrifying... I'd expect a truly evil 3v3 comp to consist of <insert healer here> + Death Knight + Frost Mage. A Druid would be the obvious choice for Cyclone, doubling up on CC and then Shatter-critting with Frost would be something to see... particularly as the Frost Elemental also deals Frost Damage. Never heard of a 'Frost train' before, but there's always a first time.

Clearly we cannot speculate with any accuracy on Arena balance at such a high level, but the apparent lack of disease dependence (removing the primary 'counter' ability of Shamans) makes a Frost DK even more attractive...

Edited, Jun 5th 2008 1:49pm by Sinstralis