This week’s In Frost We Thrust will tackle the status of the various Death Knight Abilities in Scapegaming, specifically WoWcr*ck (current patch Wotlk 3.0.9). After some not-so-reliable testing based on actual gameplay (grinding/questing to be exact), I noticed some abilities that does not work or does not work as intended. I posted it in the Scapegaming forums with the thread title: “Working/Non-Working Death Knight Abilities (not Talents)”.

Legend:
Working
Partially working
Not Working
Not Confirmed

Death Knight Blood Abilities
Blood Strike
Strangulate
Dark Command
Death Pact
Blood Presence - only 2% heal of damage dealt
Blood Boil - inflicts base damage
Forceful Deflection
Pestilence
Blood Tap

Death Knight Frost Abilities
Icy Touch
Path of Frost
Icebound Fortitude
Horn of Winter
Frost Fever - does not scale with AP
Chains of Ice - target is supposed to regain movement speed over time but does not
Obliterate - does not consume diseases
Mind Freeze
Rune Strike
Empower Rune Weapon
Frost Presence

Death Knight Unholy Abilities:
Plague Strike
Death Grip
Death Gate
Death and Decay
Blood Plague - does not scale with AP
Death Coil - does not heal
Death Strike - does not heal the right amount of HP
Raise Dead - Ghoul still needs to be fixed
Anti-Magic Shell - doesn’t reduce incoming magic damage and does not make you immune to harmful effects while active
Unholy Presence - doesn’t not increase your movement speed by 15%
Army of the Dead - works only if you do not have a target (the Ghouls will attack anything that’s hostile)
Raise Ally

Runeforging:
Lichbane
Cinderglacier
Razorice
Fallen Crusader
Stoneskin Gargoyle
Spellbreaking
Spellshattering
Swordbreaking
Swordshattering

Is it possible to tank as a Death Knight in 3.0.9 Wotlk Scapegaming servers? We will soon find out. In Frost we Thrust will attempt to answer that question. For now, with the many bugged talents and abilities in WoWcrack, it is hard to say but it does not mean that Death Knight tanking is not viable. Below are talents that a tanking Death Knight should consider:

Blood:
Rune Tap - heals
Improved Rune Tap - reduces cooldown of Rune Tap ability (but does not increase heal recieved)
Mark of Blood - marked target heals its target(you) everytime it attacks (works for melee only though)
Veteran of the Third War - increase Stamina and Expertise
Vampiric Blood - increases healing received (but does not increase maximum health)

Frost:
Improved Icy Touch - targets afflicted with Frost Fever reduces melee and range speed
Toughness - increases armor value
Icy Talons - reduces target’s melee attack speed
Frigid Dreadplate - reduces the chance melee attacks will hit you
Frost Aura - gain spell resistance
Unbreakable Armor - increases armor and parry chance
Guile of Gorefiend - increases duration of Icebound Fortitude
Acclimation - spell resistance
Tundra Stalker - increases Expertise

Unholy:
Anticipation - increases dodge
Morbidity - reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay ability (AoE threat generating ability)
Unholy Command - reduces cooldown of Death’s Grip (similar to Warrior’s Taunt)
Anti-Magic Zone - ability that absorbs spell damage
Bone Shield - ability that reduces damage taken
Rage of Rivendare - increases Expertise

By playing along the mentioned talents and putting the remaining points on other talents for threat generation, one will be able to make a Death Knight build suitable for tanking. Here are some suggested tanking gear from Tankspot

In Frost we Thrust will feature some of the useful macros that I currently use for Death Knight in Scapegaming 3.0.9.

Critical Hit Obliterate
This Death Knight macro activates Deathchill, which enables the next Obliterate to critically hit and also pops up trinkets for added damage output before striking with an Obliterate. Add “/use 14″ if you have 2 trinkets that boosts damage.
#showtooltip Obliterate
/cast Deathchill
/use 13
/cast Obliterate

Tanking Rotation
This macro cycles between the Frost Death Knight’s tanking/defensive abilities
Blood:
/castsequence Icebound Fortitude, Vampiric Blood
Frost:
/castsequence Icebound Fortitude, Unbreakable Armor
Unholy:
/castsequence Icebound Fortitude, Bone Shield

In Frost We Thrust, is the new section of this blog which features the Death Knight Class in the Scapegaming realm. This is not to be confused with The Way of the Rune which deals about the Death Knight in the official realms. In Frost We Thrust, however, may or may not be limited to specializing in the Frost tree which is one of the many talent tree specialization available to the Death Knight.

Finally, Scapegaming has introduced the Wrath of the Lich King patch and as expected, there are still quite a number of bugs and fixes to be done. MMO Champion provides a 3.0.9 Death Knight Talent calculator suitable for customizing one’s intended build in Scapegaming. Mooncrosser compiled an updated talent tree for the Death Knight Class. Here goes…

Legend:
Green - Working as intended
Red - Bugged/Not working
Yellow - Not working as intended
White - Requires more testing
Blue - Bugged in a good way

Blood Death Knight Talents
Scent of Blood - Does not consume a stack, and for the whole duration of 20 seconds you gain Runic Power probably per melee hit.
Improved Rune Tap - Reduces cooldown but does not increase healing done.
Bloody Strikes - Increases damage on Blood Strike and Heart Strike. Other bonuses, however, are not yet confirmed.
Hysteria - Does not increase damage.
Bloody Vengeance - Does not increase damage but the buff appears.
Sudden Doom - Death Coil does not critically hit.
Vampiric Blood - Increases the amount of health generated but does not grant the increase in maximum health.

Frost Death Knight Talents
Lichborne - Does not cause melee attacks to miss.
Improved Icy Talons - Stacks with other Death Knights and does not increase personal haste.
Howling Blast - Does not deal double damage to targets afflicted with Frost Fever.

Unholy Death Knight Talents
Ravenous Dead - Increases personal Strength. Increase to Ghoul’s Strength and Stamina not yet confirmed.
Necrosis - Additional damage applies on all attacks when it should only apply to auto-attacks
On a Pale Horse - Does not give stun resistance.
Ebon Plaguebringer - Increases critical strike chance only.

Taste my Blade will now cover the supposed changes for the Warrior class once patch 3.1 hits.

General Patch 3.1 Changes
I’m not quite informed of ALL the changes this coming patch will have but I do know some that are worth of note. Probably the basic among the changes is the change to how often players can go home. Hearthstone cooldown has been reduced to 30 minute from a 1 hour cooldown. This is a very welcome change indeed but what everyone is excited about is the coming of the Dual Spec System. With such system, anyone can basically change spec when out of combat. This means that a Warrior can freely switch from DPS role to Tank role whenever the need arises. A Warrior can now truly be a Hybrid class able to fulfill both damage dealing and tanking roles. Dual Spec is available for a price of 1000 gold which is pretty cost efficient if you ask me. I might as well have a “re-spec anytime” skill than spend more than 20 re-specs, not to mention Warriors are known to be the class that has to re-spec the most. In addition, a Warrior has a different Glyph Set and Action Bars as he switches spec. Dual Spec is trainable from any Warrior trainer.

Warrior Class changes
Perhaps the most anticipated change is the change to how Rage is spent when changing Stances - a Warrior now loses 20 rage when switching Stances. This, however, is met with both positive and negative feedbacks. This change in mechanic saves Rage when the Warrior has too much of it but it certainly devours Rage when in low Rage situations, which is usually the case. Another generic addition in Rage generation include Warriors gaining Rage even when an incoming damage is absorbed. Blizzard seemed to focus this patch’s development on Warrior PvP performance. Some talents were added in the Arms tree making it look bloated now. Battle Stance now has Armor Penetration attached to it which could prove useful in PvP. Damage done through Blood Frenzy is increased making the Warrior a much useful addition in raids. Weapon Mastery from the Fury tree is moved to Arms, boosting Warrior PvP effectiveness against dodges and Disarm by other players. Sunder Armor now reduces armor by rate not by a fixed amount and was reduced due to its rather overpowered utility against cloth wearers in PvP.

I am aware that there are more changes I haven’t covered. I will edit this post once I update myself of such changes.