When Wrath of the Lich King releases, we’re going to see death knights popping up everywhere. The class sounds cool, but I’m wondering how they are going to fit into raids. The Death Knight can fill two roles, tank or melee dps. On my server, and I assume on many others, neither of these two roles are currently lacking.
Tanks are already a dime a dozen because of the way raid progression is set up. When you hit level 70 and start running instances, a typical party is 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 dps. Then you start running 10 man raids, and generally the party makeup becomes 2 tanks, 3 healers, 5 dps. At that point tanks are fine, but you start to run low on healers, while having extra dpsers. Then you make the jump to 25 man raiding. Fights vary, but in general, most raids have 2-3 tanks. There are only a few fights where 4-5 tanks are useful: Magtheridon, Fathom’Lord Karathress, and Al’ar. At this point most guilds drop a few tanks. It’s nice to have extra tanks, but if they are always sitting out on boss fights they get bored, and go elsewhere. Meanwhile you need 7-9 healers for 25 man raids. This is where you start to feel the pinch, and guilds are constantly recruiting healers. Whatever spots are left over in the raid go to dps, usually 12-16 people.
Since there won’t be room for all of these new Death Knights to play tanks, many will opt for the dps route. I predict they’ll be just as disappointed finding raid spots. For every fight like Kaz’rogal in Hyjal Summit where melee shine, there are 2 or 3 where they are inferior to ranged dps. Melee dps generally take more damage than ranged, have less flexibility in positioning, are affected negatively by knock back effects more than ranged, and vulnerable to melee range abilities that never affect ranged dps.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a firm believer in a balanced raid, and melee dps are part of all of my raids. We usually have one melee dps group, and I just can’t see death knights taking many spots when I already have enhancement shamans, rogues, dps warriors, feral druids, and the occasional ret pally. So before you scrap your current main and jump into your new death knight, look around at all of the other lemmings running off the cliff. You sure you want to be one of them?
Or maybe this is all an elaborate plot to convince you not to play one, so my death knight will have a raid spot!
1 response so far ↓
1 Ash // Sep 22, 2008 at 6:34 am
And this: melee DPS have to *run around*. After playing a hunter, then a warlock, then a warrior, I could not believe how goddamn fucking annoying it was to *have to run around*. Sheesh.
And it’s not just “I need to get closer” “I need to get closer”"I need to get closer” “I need to get closer” “I need to get closer” “I need to get closer”. (I turned the stupid error-whining off some years ago, but the memory is still clear.) The facing concept of WoW is kind of retarded as well. Being behind (the giver, not the taker) is such a massive advantage that it forces PvP fights into an undignified struggle to be behind each other. This honors exactly two cinematic traditions: sadomasochistic gay porn, and Greek wrestling. Yay the brave heroes.
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