DK Mobility

[cerebro]

I have been playing my Warrior only for a few weeks now and kind of neglected my DK. I am sitting at around 2k CR in every bracket, so I am in no way a Glad.

Last night I tried to PvP on my DK for the first time in a while, the movement on my DK is absolutely attrocious. I mean anyone with even a remote spec of skill can kite my DK endlessly. When I did connect however the damage I would put out is insane. I really hate the mobility on dk's and its making me want to just shelf my dk permanently until were given some kind of Leap/Charge to keep up with our target. We get Grip.. but they quickly get away. We have Chains .. wars have hamstring.. and they don't have to sacrifice there charge to make it root when they double hamstring.

[Bromium]

With:

- death grip
- death's advance
- desecrated ground
- engineering (outside arenas)
- lichborne
- AMS
- chains of ice
- go tailoring for the net??

I don't find too much difficulty in sticking on a target. I'm not a gladiator either, so maybe it's waaay different in the upper echelons. Maybe get a team mate with good DK synergy?

[Mihalik]

What spec are you playing?

I have a feeling you are not using your chains/stuns/pet/macros right.

[cerebro]

With:

- death grip Teleport, Blink, Leap, Guise.. etc..
- death's advance I would never give up a 30 sec stun for this- desecrated ground Not going to use this on a slow/root
- engineering (outside arenas) This post is about arenas- lichborne This heals me, gives me immunity to some cc.. not slows- AMS This is a defensive, I dont use it offensively- chains of ice Only viable cc althought by the time I get to them, I find them breaking away.
- go tailoring for the net?? ... Arenas

I don't find too much difficulty in sticking on a target. I'm not a gladiator either, so maybe it's waaay different in the upper echelons. Maybe get a team mate with good DK synergy?



/10 char

[Raugnaut]

For unholy, Death's Advance is near-mandatory.

For frost, if you are picking up Asphyxiate, use it as the first gap closer, and then follow up with Death Grip+AMS+Chains for some good uptime.

It'll go something like this.

You vs. Frost Mage.

Open up with Asphyxiate.
Mage blinks.
Death Grip+AMS
Mage attempts to Frost Nova, does not work due to AMS being up.

Proceed to rofl pwn mage. Use IBF(glyphed of course) to break any incoming Deep Freeze stuns, interupt Polymorph/Ring of Frost.

With this, you get ~14 seconds of uptime on the mage assuming hte mage gets no peels, and should be able to force him into popping Ice Block.

A few howling blasts should be able to make quick work of the Mirror Images. (Blizz really, really needs to remove their snare)

[Coldhearth]

For unholy, Death's Advance is near-mandatory.)

No. Nobody worth their salt uses Death's Advance. Ever.

OP, you need to play with a healer who can dispel you. DKs are amazing with heals.

Mobility isn't that bad either really. What spec you playing?

[cerebro]

For unholy, Death's Advance is near-mandatory.

For frost, if you are picking up Asphyxiate, use it as the first gap closer, and then follow up with Death Grip+AMS+Chains for some good uptime.

It'll go something like this.

You vs. Frost Mage.

Open up with Asphyxiate.
Mage blinks.
Death Grip+AMS
Mage attempts to Frost Nova, does not work due to AMS being up.

Proceed to rofl pwn mage. Use IBF(glyphed of course) to break any incoming Deep Freeze stuns, interupt Polymorph/Ring of Frost.

With this, you get ~14 seconds of uptime on the mage assuming hte mage gets no peels, and should be able to force him into popping Ice Block.

A few howling blasts should be able to make quick work of the Mirror Images. (Blizz really, really needs to remove their snare)

I only roll with Unholy, and no in arenas Asphyxiate is mandatory unless im runnning with a stun heavy class as a partner.

Say I go with your strategy, stun/grip/chains. What will happen is I get cc'd soon as AMS is down, they line up hard burst on me and CC my healer and kill me because I blew my AMS carelessly to prevent cc.

- - - Updated - - -

No. Nobody worth their salt uses Death's Advance. Ever.

OP, you need to play with a healer who can dispel you. DKs are amazing with heals.

Mobility isn't that bad either really. What spec you playing?

I am generally running with MW healer and either a warrior or hunter for 3v3.

[Coalbane]

Yes, our mobility sucks. You are entirely reliant on your healer to dispel/freedom you and to time your AMS to prevent roots/nova. Highly recommend glyph of regen magic so you can use AMS to push more often.

[RealWoW]

I agree. I have a tough time as well

[Deleted]

Felt quite alright, as either Unholy or Frost, you have ranged poke options. Much of the advise said above works, as well as any talent.

DK needs to use a lot of stuff pre-emptively, to avoid being kited in the first place.

Can expect the frost nova spam, or the the earthgrab, and already have Desecrated Ground ready, though a smart cookie will CS silence you, and I don't know how silence works with Desecrated Ground. I think it broke me from silence come to think of it. Very uncertain. I play with Remorseless winter more lol

Remorseless Winter can be quite something too btw, it tends to force a cooldown most of times, or protect you from heavy damage, though you need someone to dispel.

Overall Remorseless is better for battles of attrition to make them lose trinkets and CD's, while Desecrated's more for TSG-style zergfests where you just pop everything and ensure nothing will stop you, or fail and die.

But yes, DK needs to predict being kited a lot. Most of times it's easy though. For example, chasing a hunter, just about to go around the pillar out of LoS from team? Better AMS, dat disengage endless root is coming! And even then, compared to other melees, you're going to sit in these roots for a while! But you have ranged options to protect yourself.

[Deleted]

Felt quite alright, as either Unholy or Frost, you have ranged poke options. Much of the advise said above works, as well as any talent.

DK needs to use a lot of stuff pre-emptively, to avoid being kited in the first place.

Can expect the frost nova spam, or the the earthgrab, and already have Desecrated Ground ready, though a smart cookie will CS silence you, and I don't know how silence works with Desecrated Ground. I think it broke me from silence come to think of it. Very uncertain. I play with Remorseless winter more lol

Remorseless Winter can be quite something too btw, it tends to force a cooldown most of times, or protect you from heavy damage, though you need someone to dispel.

Overall Remorseless is better for battles of attrition to make them lose trinkets and CD's, while Desecrated's more for TSG-style zergfests where you just pop everything and ensure nothing will stop you, or fail and die.

But yes, DK needs to predict being kited a lot. Most of times it's easy though. For example, chasing a hunter, just about to go around the pillar out of LoS from team? Better AMS, dat disengage endless root is coming! And even then, compared to other melees, you're going to sit in these roots for a while! But you have ranged options to protect yourself.

When I was doing 3s last night I noticed that Desecrated Ground is currently broken. You can still be rooted or snared while standing on it.

Although it's been fixed for 6.0.

[Eliseus]

I do pvp as frost and I do feel your pain op.... to an extent.

One of the most important factors to take into consideration when playing a DK in pvp is to NOT waste death grip when it's not necessary. 9 / 10 DKs are death grip happy which usually eludes this idea that we can't keep close to targets. You can basically back to back death grip in pvp, if you hold onto it and wait for a target to use an ability like disengage, you can immediately pull them back, and if they have another one, it is usually instantaneously used, which allows you to death grip again.

Between deaths grip, asphyxiate and remorseless winter, you shouldn't have as big as issues as portrayed. Also, I suggest using the glyph of icebound fortitude for stuns to help when people run. I love purgatory in pvp, can't tell you how many times that 3s has actually helped, but consider using lichborne also. Even more, we have chains of ice, though I don't use it often, I do still use it if everything else is down.

That being said, even when someone IS able to successfully get away. There is in both frost and unholy, the capabilities to range them till you catch back up (and don't play chase the hunter if you go against a good hunter, I like to LoS them and just death siphon their pet till they come at me). For example, I make sure I've plague striked the target. When targets run, I spam howling blast (and howling blast does hit pretty hard, I've been able to out dmg some heals running with it). I use Plague leech to get runes back for more howling blast, and worst case scenario if empower rune weapon has not been used for something yet (I actually like to try and hold onto specifically because of this) I pop that and spam...... more howling blast. By this point though, if you are still chasing whoever is running, you probably failed anyways because you should of just hopped onto someone else, or if it is a healer, they most likely LoS' whoever they were healing.

This all being said, DK may not be the best when it comes to mobility, but I feel it is vastly underrated (especially frost). Also, any complaints about CC isn't just a DK issue, but CC in WoW pvp is atrocious in general.

[Coldhearth]

When I was doing 3s last night I noticed that Desecrated Ground is currently broken. You can still be rooted or snared while standing on it.

Working as intended. It only protects against spells which cause you to lose control of your character like fears and stuns. Being rooted or snared doesn't cause you to lose control of your character as you can still attack and use abilities.

[Mitak]

I main a DK since beginning of WOTLK and our mobility is really sub par. I have also all other classes except shammy and priest on 90 so ive played with the most of them and DK feels the slowest by far from at least the melee classes (except ench shammy which i haven't played).
The best feeling of mobility i had with warriors. Their double charge and low CD (with glyph) jump synergize very well in arena so that you always have a way to get to a place quick. Warriors feel like a ping-pong ball. Sadly my DK feels like he has 20kg wights tied to his legs. If there were such glyphs i'd gladly trade some damage for an extra gap closer.

[eScar95]

Death Knights aren't very mobile. They make up for this with their anti-mobility (sorta) and ranged abilities like Death Grip, Icy Touch, Death Coil, and D&D. But, I do agree DKs are one of the weaker classes when it comes to PvP.

[Kraeth]

But, I do agree DKs are one of the weaker classes when it comes to PvP.

I certainly wouldn't call UH a weak pvp class at all.

[Deleted]

DK's don't really have mobility issues at all if you play them right, because DK's are far more range than people give them credit for. Don't Death grip on pull to get the target close to you, use it to counter the blinks etc.

With DC, Blood boil, Icy touch, Howling blast, DnD. Just because were rooted doesn't mean were helpless.

UH, keeps it's pressure up with diseases, and Frost can do it with HB.

Desecrated in 6.0 break roots as well, meaning coming WoD DK's will be stupidly OP. With no disarms anymore we will have so much uptime that will we literally reck anything moving