The AU Death Knight

[Absintheminded]

Ok so the title is tongue-in-cheek. Basically, I've been thinking about different ways the DK could have evolved along with the class and talent redesigns over the years and How it could have retained as much of the original DK allure as possible.

With the DH coming very soon, we see Blizz really trying to focus on two solid specs, with distinct talent choices available. In hindsight, could the DK not have been worked-reworked similarly in such a way to retain things like spec/role choice, pet-less UH, 2H Frost, DW tank, etc?

I believe so.

For instance, one base tank spec and one base DPS spec, with generic, broad, basic abilities given. Like how previously DK's all started with things like IT, PS, BB, etc and then went on to using some of those abilities.

The previous "flavors" would come via talents. This would make for much more interesting choices, however, in a much more predictable way. One rank of talents for Tank could be like preferred style of mitigation. Another could be preferred main strikes. Additionally, we've seen some fairly complicated talents that have a passive and active effect. I've already began brainstorming a generic talent tree in this context, and I think it would be sick. I mean, who's to say that an actual Death Knight in Warcraft would choose to only use frost or shadow abilities?

[Zerref]

Well..an actual Death Knight would be more of a shadow mage wielding a 2-handed truncheon. ie. Gorefiend

[Absintheminded]

I'm specifically talking about the playable class in the game based on Arthas' Death Knights. Were you simply being facetious or...?

[Angeredsoul]

I'm from Australia, what's up?

[Leviatharan]

Well the way I see it, Death Knights could easily have been split into tanking, melee, and ranged specs.
The Death Knight unit from WC3, and a lot of the DK enemies released prior to WotLK, have been hybrid ranged units; with DKs essentially taking the Necromancer slot for WoW (likely because such a class would've been too similar to either Warlocks or Shadow Priests), it would've been entirely possible to have one caster DK spec with all the Necromancer elements that wouldn't make it in - for instance, turning into a Lich.
At some point or other, several elements that would be fitting have ended up in Unholy's kit, but never enough to make that full push. Shame that the devs decided to finally make Int gear share stats with Agi/Str gear, or we could've finally had a second repository for Int plate with Holy's intended antithesis.

Furthermore, every spec could and should have had the option to be a pet spec. We could've had a tanking spec summon an Abomination that would share part of your damage taken and occasionally tank in lieu of you, or a Blood Beast or Val'kyr that would heal you and transfer its threat to you. Of course, one spec could still be the "dominant" pet spec, having to opt to play pet-less instead.

Personally I just have a problem with Frost in general. Unholy's been faithful to the WC3 DK for the most part, and Blood really does have its own unique take on tanking while playing well to the DK strengths, but I don't get why Frost exists when, prior to WotLK, no DK unit even cast Frost magic (hell, we actually had more available who cast Fire; the only Scourge units capable of Frost magic are ones who could cast Frost attacks in life, leaving Frost DKs themselves as the odd men out). Frost doesn't really even have anything tying it to the "death" theme anymore, aside from a couple talents; now that runes aren't based around specific specs, there's really no precedent to the Frost spec existing, aside from "Frostmourne has FROST in it".

Lastly, why do we have to turn into ghosts for our sprint? We're literally based off of a mounted unit, but Pallies get combat-steeds before we do? (I mean yeah, we get a class hall perk, but so do Pallies, and we only get it for an hour a day while questing outdoors...).

[Absintheminded]

I would be fine with a ranged spec if they had more iconic abilities than just Death Coil.

Other than that I completely agree. There's a lot of they could do, like as you mention with pets. They could make Bloodworms into a pseudo-pet talent and add a CD that turns them into one of the really ugly big worms with a mouth, does damage, blows up, etc.

Edit: Upon refreshing my memory with the four horsemen, I'd be ok with Ranged as there are several different abilities, including the Fire stuff. Interesting.