The Death Knight Advantage


death-knightThe Wraith of the Lich King introduced a new class in addition to the new content and higher levels, the Death Knight. Both Alliance and Horde players can create a Death Knight, as long the player already has a level 55 or higher character. The Death Knight starts at level 55 with a full set of green equipment.

The Death Knight is considered by blizzard to be a hero class. There is little information on what this actually means in direct comparison to the other classes, though many players consider this to mean that Death Knights are meant to be more powerful than the standard non-hero. This obviously causes concern for balancing in PvP (player v player) encounters.

The Death Knights starter area also has a number of quests with blue equipment rewards. So a full set of blue equipment is obtainable by the time a Death Knight has left their starter areas, which is around level 58. When these Death Knights enter the 51-59 battlegrounds they can be considered to be fully twinked. Twinks are characters that are alts and are fitted with the best equipment possible for that level, benefiting from a a high level main character to farm the gold and loot required.

So the first encounter of a Death Knight in the battlegrounds maybe slightly misleading, as their high level equipment is the source of much of their power. This is not the case however at later levels.

First we need to examine the mechanics of balancing PvP. Many mmorpgs will take a rock, paper, scissors approach. So one class may have an advantage against a particular class and a disadvantage against another. In, addition PvP situations involves attacks and counter-attacks.

Death Knights have a range of skills and abilities that allows them to deal with a variety of situations. They wear plate armour that can be augmented so that they have a good buffer against damage from melee classes. In addition self heals means that a great amount of burst damage is required to bring them down. So a Death Knight is a formidable opponent against any melee class.

Typical, if a class is strong in melee combat they are usually designed to be weak against ranged classes. The Death Knight has two great features for dealing with ranged classes.death-knight-with-pet

First they have a pull ability. Unlike the warrior which charges to an enemy to close the range, the Death Knights pull brings the target to them. This means that they are not in the line of fire, instead the target becomes  within range of the Death Knights group. Second the Death Knight has a pet. This can be extremely annoying to ranged classes if a hit causes them to interrupt their casting.

So a Death Knight it a very strong melee class and has great abilities to deal with ranged classes. Since they start at level 55, with easily acquired full set of blue items, the Death Knight are a popular class. Blizzard have started to tone down, aka nerfing in wow gamer terms, the Death Knights  to some extent in the 3.x patches, so time will tell if they remain as popular in the future.