Death Knight or Paladin?

[forever]

I'm coming back to the game after taking nearly a half year break. I'm starting fresh and need help deciding which class to play. I'd like the following in the class:

1. Good at soloing. Besides instances I'll be leveling up on my own so I'd like to be able to do group quests on my own etc. I'll have dual spec whenever it becomes available and pick up a tanking tree as a sub spec to my dps leveling spec.

2. Good at PvP, MAINLY battlegrounds but maybe a few arenas here and there. I'm not a big fan of arenas but I do enjoy battlegrounds. I'd also like to be able to do alright in 1v1 (the less HARD counters the better). I don't have any intention of healing, just DPS.

3. Good DPS and decent AoE tanking. I'll do some raids later on but likely just as DPS. I'd like to play a class that has good AoE threat that doesn't require intense concentration, but isn't exactly faceroll.

4. In addition to #1, I enjoy going back to old content and farming set pieces, mounts.. etc. Which class has it easier when it comes down to that? I hear good things about Prot and Blood. I'm assuming Blood is faster?

The main thing I want in my new character is the ability to tank and dps. I've never been much for healing. Druid and Warrior do not appeal to me and Paladin/DK both seem to have their pros and cons. If anyone who has played both recently can comment, I'd really appreciate it.

[Blonk]

Death Knights will trump just about every one of those points.

[Deleted]

In PvE DPS i think ret is higher than both DK speccs atm actually.

[forever]

Another couple things... what about general survivability of Ret vs Frost or Unholy? Which class has a more difficult DPS rotation?

[Ballom]

well ret is more difficult to play well now dk is easier and better, while ret might do a little bit more single target dps atm it's not that much. also i wold take dk any day in pvp. the new sacred sheild si cool but they will nerf it to 60 sec. so i would go for dk also because they have pets

[Blonk]

In PvE DPS i think ret is higher than both DK speccs atm actually.

lol no

and since that message is too short:

loooooooooool no

edit:
also, whether or not ret is more difficult than unholy/frost is subjective. when playing a death knight correctly, it's arguably one of the harder "rotations" in the game. you manage a multi-resource bar instead of just one while still watching for procs that change the next ability in your line up.

[Khwaj]

1. both are decent at soloing old instance, but things will most likely change with the wog nerf as blood dks dont sacrifice dps for their self heals

2. dk for sure, the devs dont know how to balance rets, they always get teh short end of the stick

3. both do decent dps, i find that pallies are the better tanks in heroics (avenger shields good for caster mobs), but on bosses, they both arent that bad at all

4. wog nerf might make soloing old stuff a tad bit harder

ive played both dk and pally but judging by ur criteria, dks will be better for u

[Topornic]

Dk is easier to to deal dmg but has lower survivability than retri. Also they are both different playstyles an I think you do stupid by asking "who is better in that and that and that?" I would rather play class which is fun to play not the one which does 500dps more in the same gear. It's about having fun after all.

[Elrandir]

My opinion after playing both: DK's will be a bit better for soloing, dps (unholy and frost both perform well) and farming old content. Pallies are easier and better at AOE tanking (avenger's shield to pull, hammer of the righteous), tanking is near faceroll (druids more so but with the comparison that their cooldowns are not as powerful and their self-healing is passive not active, druid tanking is my least favorite cause of the lack of control when things go bad). Death Knight tanks require bone shield, blood barrier and blood shield to be up as much as possible and require more management, they have more cooldowns for tanking though not as powerful as lay on hands or bubble so I feel both are balanced out for the amount of control you feel, though pally requires less of it, cause for instance, if a dk needs to pop big cooldowns you start with vampiric blood healing increase, then rune tap, raise ghoul+deathpact or Lichborne-deathcoil spam - a pally just pops lay on hands (though can only do so every 7-10 minutes depending if glyphed). Aoe tanking is a bit less for DK, cause the blood boil increase dmg talent isn't taken in lichborne spec, but DND and heart strike work better than a warrior's method of AOE tanking).
To level I think both classes are quite fast in whichever dps spec. Retribution has that delightful speed increase through talents after a judgement, but I enjoy frost and unholy dps more (will be even better now with the new death strike 15% heal glyph) than the very-proc based retri spec of now, which also has frequent gaps in rotation cause of longer cd on Crusader Strike than prot spec, ugh). Hope that helped a bit .

[Gunslinger]

Go for paladin.

- Great solo abilities
- Decent DPS (and has CC)
- Buff Class
- Holy is great fun
- Good at PvP

Fact is both classes are great fun and good. Paladins give you a wider variety in choice.

[Deleted]

dk would probably be ur choice, start at 55, get dual spec, fast lvl. Their good at tanking and dpsing and shit easy to solo things with. U have probably seen the dk that soloed marrowgar, Insane

[Orcbert]

One big pro you can't miss on is I'm pretty sure you haven't leveled in the old world post-Cataclysm yet. It's tons of fun! I would suggest Paladin just so you don't miss it.

[Taylorheikkila]

For the whole tanking aspect, I play a Blood Death Knight, and I have absolutely no problems with AoE tanking. Go in DnD, Outbreak, Pestilence, Heart Strike, Death Strike, Rune Strike, rinse and repeat. Also in Raid content on my Death Knight for Tanking, I often have troubles with the other tanks being able to keep up with my damage output (Argaloth afterr 1st meteor slash) and I pull agro back from them in a matter of seconds, so I would say single target tanking DK is top of the line. But when it comes to the use of cooldowns we deffiniatly have it a lot more difficult and have to be more careful with ours. Hope this could help.

[forever]

Which class has a more difficult DPS rotation?

[Tritton]

I'm coming back to the game after taking nearly a half year break. I'm starting fresh and need help deciding which class to play. I'd like the following in the class:

1. Good at soloing. Besides instances I'll be leveling up on my own so I'd like to be able to do group quests on my own etc. I'll have dual spec whenever it becomes available and pick up a tanking tree as a sub spec to my dps leveling spec.

2. Good at PvP, MAINLY battlegrounds but maybe a few arenas here and there. I'm not a big fan of arenas but I do enjoy battlegrounds. I'd also like to be able to do alright in 1v1 (the less HARD counters the better). I don't have any intention of healing, just DPS.

3. Good DPS and decent AoE tanking. I'll do some raids later on but likely just as DPS. I'd like to play a class that has good AoE threat that doesn't require intense concentration, but isn't exactly faceroll.

4. In addition to #1, I enjoy going back to old content and farming set pieces, mounts.. etc. Which class has it easier when it comes down to that? I hear good things about Prot and Blood. I'm assuming Blood is faster?

The main thing I want in my new character is the ability to tank and dps. I've never been much for healing. Druid and Warrior do not appeal to me and Paladin/DK both seem to have their pros and cons. If anyone who has played both recently can comment, I'd really appreciate it.

I personally would recommend a DK for your requests. I may be biased, however, as a DK is my main. I do have a pally at 80 though that I played in wrath .

1. Unholy DK is great for solo leveling. Good DPS, a variety of spells and melee and a ghoul to speed things up. Blood is also very good DPS for leveling too... you're able to pull 2-4 mobs consistently, doing good DPS, and not even close to dying.

2. Unholy DK is considered OP at PVP at the moment... we did get a pretty big nerf damage wise, but Death Advance made it so our mobility insane. Very viable in both Arenas and BG's.

3. I tank on my Dk primarily, and can tell you its pretty easy, but never gets boring. Just throw down a DnD and you won't lose AoE threat unless someone isn't following your markings. Even then you can usually keep it unless its a good DPS. Anyone can be a decent DK tank and get through heroics, but if you want to raid there are enough things to keep you busy that you won't get bored either. Lots of cooldowns and abilities to keep track of for elite Dk's.

4. As stated above, the way that Dk's survive is with Death Strike building up a blood shield and self healing. Death strikes damage was recently buffed, and it makes soloing old world content very very easy. I personally do about 2-4 old raids a week for gold and loot. I generally make about 1.5 to 2k+ gold a week from this. Its incredibly easy and fast.

In the end though, try both out and play which one is more fun . I love unholy DPS, but also like Ret. Just a matter of preference.

[Nyanmaru]

Both are two peas in a pot, the PvE content you adress can be facerolled with both specs.
Paladin has a concept that is a tad easier to grab hold off.

DKs are disease dependant, paladin has all he needs passive.
And Paladins have it easier to have "their strike" available and don't need to juggle runes.

Play them both for an hour or two (a paladin in the 20's plays pretty close to one in the 80's, at least from the basics)

[Magnusdragon]

Ret in no way has more survivability than unholy. Especially if you spec into Lichbourne and glyph into Dark Succor (Always heal for minimum 14% of your health when you use Death Strike) I also glyph into Death Strike which increases damage based on amount of RP you have and i can get 15k death strike hits easy. So there's death strike self heal, lichborne self heal, and Death Pact self heal. Plus you've got Anti-Magic Shell so if timed correctly again you get a free Gargoyle and completely negate a caster's damage / rogue's poisons / pally's seals + exo. Not to mention the amount of kiting you can do as a DK and the inability to be kited due to the new talent Death's Advance. Then there's the ability to spell steal which is simply amazing if you happen to time it up correctly and get Avenging Wrath / a similar damage increasing buff or even better a pally's Divine Light. The only thing pallies have over DKs is bubbling and being able to heal other players. No competition imo, especially when you see that DK's are much more represented in top teams and ret can rarely get past 2200.

I also tank as a DK and have a prot / holy pally. I'm definitely less stressed when i tank on my DK because of the amount of self-healing i can put out and of course the retarded amounts of damage you do as blood. Upwards of 25k on halfus and if you are tanking for a full fight you can easily get 60-70k death strikes which is really just excessive. My pally was the first toon i've made but i gotta admit, DK's are winning out so far in Cataclysm.

[Simca]

Hopefully you've gotten enough answers here to stop making threads about it, but PLEASE read the Forum Guidelines before you keep spamming the forum with these threads! They're not allowed.

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