[Opinion] All three Death Knight specs should be changed

[Claymore]

I played a DK pretty much since they were first available in the Wrath Beta. But to be perfectly frank, I think that while they have had their ups and downs, I think the fantasy of each Spec has been fundamentally misunderstood, and could be far better worked.

Here's how I would redefine these three specs:

- Frost: The "Arthas" spec, Tank

I don't give a shit if "most of his skills were Unholy", when you *think* about Arthas, you're thinking about Frostmourne and the Frozen Throne. I would dive fully into that fantasy, with Frost wielding a single 2hander, a juggernaut that is meant more for *taking* punishment than necessarily doling it out.

Not only does it better fit the "fantasy" of a Frost Death Knight (a slow-moving, hulking behemoth of a man), but I think by tying its identity directly to Arthas (much as Havoc DH's are to Illidan), it would inspire more players to take up the mantle of Tanking, which is always helpful in MMO's.

- Unholy: The Necromancer, WC2-style Death Knight

In a more startling shift, I would change Unholy to be more of a traditional "Necromancer". Not *totally* traditional, mind you; just *more so*. During Legion, the Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, did an absolutely *incredible* job of capturing the fantasy of being a melee-oriented Necromancer, where your attacks had you summoning a constant barrage of one-off undead for sometimes a single attack.

That was a really cool fantasy anyways, and this could bridge the gap a little more with the WC2-era Death Knight, who was also quite cool in his own right. If you had to put a specific name to it, I suppose Teron Gorefiend is about the only well-known WC2 Death Knight.

Also, by being a bit more "ranged" focused, it paves the way for a more unique interpretation of...

- Blood: The "new" Death Knight

While Frost and Undead serve as solid callbacks to Arthas and the WC2 era Death Knight, respectively, I would use the opportunity to reinvent Blood spec a bit.

It would be the more pure *Melee* DPS-spec. I would throw a spin on things by perhaps coupling their ability to drain blood (health) with abilities to also *expend* it. I would go entirely Dracula/Vlad the Impaler for inspiration for the spec, depicting Blood DK's as mighty, bloodthirsty warriors, but also with a dark, supernatural/vampiric quality.

I feel like not only would that be wholly unique, but also mesh quite nicely with one of the new zones and covenants in Shadowlands, which seems *very* inspired by Dracula's castle.

To give the spec a bit more defined "personality", I'd say you'd want Blood spec represented by either some kind of bloodthirsty Orc (perhaps re-defining Nazgrim as a Blood DK?), or maybe a Blood Elf or one of the San'layn.

- In conclusion...

I think these specs would feel far more distinctive and iconic that the current ones we have. Sure, the current specs "work", but honestly I don't think any one spec is particularly exciting. Doubly-so when Frost is now DW-only.

Speaking of which, now that we have *so* many dual-wielding classes in the game, I would legitimately propose removing dual-wielding entirely. I simply don't think it fits the Death Knight class. As for the Legion artifact, just retcon it to a singular "Blade of the Fallen Prince", and increase the size of the 1hander models to be suitable for 2handers.

[Alanar]

I played a DK pretty much since they were first available in the Wrath Beta. But to be perfectly frank, I think that while they have had their ups and downs, I think the fantasy of each Spec has been fundamentally misunderstood, and could be far better worked.

Here's how I would redefine these three specs:

- Frost: The "Arthas" spec, Tank

I don't give a shit if "most of his skills were Unholy", when you *think* about Arthas, you're thinking about Frostmourne and the Frozen Throne. I would dive fully into that fantasy, with Frost wielding a single 2hander, a juggernaut that is meant more for *taking* punishment than necessarily doling it out.

Not only does it better fit the "fantasy" of a Frost Death Knight (a slow-moving, hulking behemoth of a man), but I think by tying its identity directly to Arthas (much as Havoc DH's are to Illidan), it would inspire more players to take up the mantle of Tanking, which is always helpful in MMO's.

- Unholy: The Necromancer, WC2-style Death Knight

In a more startling shift, I would change Unholy to be more of a traditional "Necromancer". Not *totally* traditional, mind you; just *more so*. During Legion, the Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, did an absolutely *incredible* job of capturing the fantasy of being a melee-oriented Necromancer, where your attacks had you summoning a constant barrage of one-off undead for sometimes a single attack.

That was a really cool fantasy anyways, and this could bridge the gap a little more with the WC2-era Death Knight, who was also quite cool in his own right. If you had to put a specific name to it, I suppose Teron Gorefiend is about the only well-known WC2 Death Knight.

Also, by being a bit more "ranged" focused, it paves the way for a more unique interpretation of...

- Blood: The "new" Death Knight

While Frost and Undead serve as solid callbacks to Arthas and the WC2 era Death Knight, respectively, I would use the opportunity to reinvent Blood spec a bit.

It would be the more pure *Melee* DPS-spec. I would throw a spin on things by perhaps coupling their ability to drain blood (health) with abilities to also *expend* it. I would go entirely Dracula/Vlad the Impaler for inspiration for the spec, depicting Blood DK's as mighty, bloodthirsty warriors, but also with a dark, supernatural/vampiric quality.

I feel like not only would that be wholly unique, but also mesh quite nicely with one of the new zones and covenants in Shadowlands, which seems *very* inspired by Dracula's castle.

To give the spec a bit more defined "personality", I'd say you'd want Blood spec represented by either some kind of bloodthirsty Orc (perhaps re-defining Nazgrim as a Blood DK?), or maybe a Blood Elf or one of the San'layn.

- In conclusion...

I think these specs would feel far more distinctive and iconic that the current ones we have. Sure, the current specs "work", but honestly I don't think any one spec is particularly exciting. Doubly-so when Frost is now DW-only.

Speaking of which, now that we have *so* many dual-wielding classes in the game, I would legitimately propose removing dual-wielding entirely. I simply don't think it fits the Death Knight class. As for the Legion artifact, just retcon it to a singular "Blade of the Fallen Prince", and increase the size of the 1hander models to be suitable for 2handers.

I think you nailed it, Blood sounds realy as my cup of tea and would 100% play it. I loved the blood dps time in wrath, but giving it more feel and asteatic, yes!

I am not much of a pet player, so maybe keep a talent or something for frost to still feel like arthas but be a dps option as well. That would be it for me.

[Nihilux]

I miss Frost tanking. I miss Blood DPS. So in a way it sounds great. Then again, I loved the DK design of WotLK, although it was uneven, but it was at least really fun. Frost tanks got kinda screwed though from certain awesome talents in Blood and Unholy.

[VarsityAthlete]

I played a DK pretty much since they were first available in the Wrath Beta. But to be perfectly frank, I think that while they have had their ups and downs, I think the fantasy of each Spec has been fundamentally misunderstood, and could be far better worked.

Here's how I would redefine these three specs:

- Frost: The "Arthas" spec, Tank

I don't give a shit if "most of his skills were Unholy", when you *think* about Arthas, you're thinking about Frostmourne and the Frozen Throne. I would dive fully into that fantasy, with Frost wielding a single 2hander, a juggernaut that is meant more for *taking* punishment than necessarily doling it out.

Not only does it better fit the "fantasy" of a Frost Death Knight (a slow-moving, hulking behemoth of a man), but I think by tying its identity directly to Arthas (much as Havoc DH's are to Illidan), it would inspire more players to take up the mantle of Tanking, which is always helpful in MMO's.

- Unholy: The Necromancer, WC2-style Death Knight

In a more startling shift, I would change Unholy to be more of a traditional "Necromancer". Not *totally* traditional, mind you; just *more so*. During Legion, the Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, did an absolutely *incredible* job of capturing the fantasy of being a melee-oriented Necromancer, where your attacks had you summoning a constant barrage of one-off undead for sometimes a single attack.

That was a really cool fantasy anyways, and this could bridge the gap a little more with the WC2-era Death Knight, who was also quite cool in his own right. If you had to put a specific name to it, I suppose Teron Gorefiend is about the only well-known WC2 Death Knight.

Also, by being a bit more "ranged" focused, it paves the way for a more unique interpretation of...

- Blood: The "new" Death Knight

While Frost and Undead serve as solid callbacks to Arthas and the WC2 era Death Knight, respectively, I would use the opportunity to reinvent Blood spec a bit.

It would be the more pure *Melee* DPS-spec. I would throw a spin on things by perhaps coupling their ability to drain blood (health) with abilities to also *expend* it. I would go entirely Dracula/Vlad the Impaler for inspiration for the spec, depicting Blood DK's as mighty, bloodthirsty warriors, but also with a dark, supernatural/vampiric quality.

I feel like not only would that be wholly unique, but also mesh quite nicely with one of the new zones and covenants in Shadowlands, which seems *very* inspired by Dracula's castle.

To give the spec a bit more defined "personality", I'd say you'd want Blood spec represented by either some kind of bloodthirsty Orc (perhaps re-defining Nazgrim as a Blood DK?), or maybe a Blood Elf or one of the San'layn.

- In conclusion...

I think these specs would feel far more distinctive and iconic that the current ones we have. Sure, the current specs "work", but honestly I don't think any one spec is particularly exciting. Doubly-so when Frost is now DW-only.

Speaking of which, now that we have *so* many dual-wielding classes in the game, I would legitimately propose removing dual-wielding entirely. I simply don't think it fits the Death Knight class. As for the Legion artifact, just retcon it to a singular "Blade of the Fallen Prince", and increase the size of the 1hander models to be suitable for 2handers.

literally the idea I had for making legion artifact appearances bigger like 8 months ago so we could get rid of shit dual wield. grats

[Yaersulf]

100% agree. How they came up with the coolest DPS cooldown in the game in Dancing Rune Weapon, then decided that blood should tank, I'll never know.

[Throwme]

Not only does it better fit the "fantasy" of a Frost Death Knight (a slow-moving, hulking behemoth of a man), but I think by tying its identity directly to Arthas (much as Havoc DH's are to Illidan), it would inspire more players to take up the mantle of Tanking, which is always helpful in MMO's.

No. People do not chose to tank or not tank depending on the fantasy of a spec. They chose to do or do not do so because of how it actually feels for them to play it. Back when Frost was considered the tanking spec, due to Frost Presence giving bonus armor and magic damage reduction, I did not at all want to tank with it. It wasn't until Cata, when Blood became the tank spec, that it felt right FOR ME to tank.

Similar, I've always been Unholy as mainspec, even when Frost was king of the charts, because that's what I liked to play. That's what felt the best to me. Didn't matter one bit what Arthas did, how Arthas acted, looked or even sounded like. I love Unholy. I will play Unholy because I like Unholy. And I will tank as long as it feels right to do so. Magically swapping Frost and Blood again, like it happened in Cata, doesn't mean more will suddenly tank on their DK.

[Miyagie]

100% agree. How they came up with the coolest DPS cooldown in the game in Dancing Rune Weapon, then decided that blood should tank, I'll never know.

Iam more pissed that its bugged since the beginning of BFA and they didnt even try to fix it.

[Shiny212]

So basically, the original DK speccs as defined in WOTLK, when the world made sense xD.

[Kithelle]

I played a DK pretty much since they were first available in the Wrath Beta. But to be perfectly frank, I think that while they have had their ups and downs, I think the fantasy of each Spec has been fundamentally misunderstood, and could be far better worked.

Here's how I would redefine these three specs:

- Frost: The "Arthas" spec, Tank

I don't give a shit if "most of his skills were Unholy", when you *think* about Arthas, you're thinking about Frostmourne and the Frozen Throne. I would dive fully into that fantasy, with Frost wielding a single 2hander, a juggernaut that is meant more for *taking* punishment than necessarily doling it out.

Not only does it better fit the "fantasy" of a Frost Death Knight (a slow-moving, hulking behemoth of a man), but I think by tying its identity directly to Arthas (much as Havoc DH's are to Illidan), it would inspire more players to take up the mantle of Tanking, which is always helpful in MMO's.

- Unholy: The Necromancer, WC2-style Death Knight

In a more startling shift, I would change Unholy to be more of a traditional "Necromancer". Not *totally* traditional, mind you; just *more so*. During Legion, the Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, did an absolutely *incredible* job of capturing the fantasy of being a melee-oriented Necromancer, where your attacks had you summoning a constant barrage of one-off undead for sometimes a single attack.

That was a really cool fantasy anyways, and this could bridge the gap a little more with the WC2-era Death Knight, who was also quite cool in his own right. If you had to put a specific name to it, I suppose Teron Gorefiend is about the only well-known WC2 Death Knight.

Also, by being a bit more "ranged" focused, it paves the way for a more unique interpretation of...

- Blood: The "new" Death Knight

While Frost and Undead serve as solid callbacks to Arthas and the WC2 era Death Knight, respectively, I would use the opportunity to reinvent Blood spec a bit.

It would be the more pure *Melee* DPS-spec. I would throw a spin on things by perhaps coupling their ability to drain blood (health) with abilities to also *expend* it. I would go entirely Dracula/Vlad the Impaler for inspiration for the spec, depicting Blood DK's as mighty, bloodthirsty warriors, but also with a dark, supernatural/vampiric quality.

I feel like not only would that be wholly unique, but also mesh quite nicely with one of the new zones and covenants in Shadowlands, which seems *very* inspired by Dracula's castle.

To give the spec a bit more defined "personality", I'd say you'd want Blood spec represented by either some kind of bloodthirsty Orc (perhaps re-defining Nazgrim as a Blood DK?), or maybe a Blood Elf or one of the San'layn.

- In conclusion...

I think these specs would feel far more distinctive and iconic that the current ones we have. Sure, the current specs "work", but honestly I don't think any one spec is particularly exciting. Doubly-so when Frost is now DW-only.

Speaking of which, now that we have *so* many dual-wielding classes in the game, I would legitimately propose removing dual-wielding entirely. I simply don't think it fits the Death Knight class. As for the Legion artifact, just retcon it to a singular "Blade of the Fallen Prince", and increase the size of the 1hander models to be suitable for 2handers.

Some interesting concepts except I disagree on the DW part...you do know there are about as many DW specs as 2H? More 2H if we were to count things like Feral and Guardian but I wont. Always thought Unholy should be the DW...death by a thousand "wounds".

Rogue is the only other class that has a similar play style though all 3 specs and Subtlety has kinda suffered from trying to be original but the same. I enjoy DWing and I enjoy Unholy...plus it would be nice since I enjoy melee and there is only 2 melee pet classes in the game, both of them currently use 2Hers.

[Dannyzk]

The Arthas Frost DK Spec sounds absolutely amazing. I would also love to play a Blood DK DPS again.

What i miss is:
- being able to decide to either dps or tank as frost
- being able to decide to either dps or tank as blood
- being able to decide between dual wield or 2h weapon as frost.

Why restrict us to one thing? All the time, it's annoying.

[Erous]

Bring back WoTLK Frost tanking please, thanks.

[Claymore]

So basically, the original DK speccs as defined in WOTLK, when the world made sense xD.

The funny thing is, I didn't even make that connection until AFTER I typed this out!

But yeah, right now the specs may work fine mechanically, but I don't feel like they really correlate with their "specs" very much. Nothing about "Frost" seems to imply dual-wielding plate wearer. Consequently, "Blood" doesn't feel evocative as "something that shields itself from taking damage".

As for the other user regarding DW'ing:

I'll admit, I personally don't think dual-wielding "suits" the Death Knight class itself. However, I think there's a much more compelling argument to be made in favor of Unholy. Assuming your weapons are infected to spread diseases, then to me, it would make more sense to have two weapons, as another said, sort of a "death by a thousand cuts", because the goal is spreading diseases, not cleaving your enemy in half.

In a perfect world, they would simply let us *choose* what we wanted. Or perhaps "transmog" whether you want to dual-wield or use a 2hander. The only rub with DW'ing Unholy is that it would make Legion's Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, perhaps a bit wonky.

The other thing I had wondered, though, is if Unholy might be cooler going *TOTALLY* Necromancer, going so far as using Intellect as your main-stat and maybe wielding Staves, just like the WC2 Death Knight? Or maybe wielding a large, imposing Scythe? I could see those options working, too.

Either way, I definitely feel like the current DK has just sort of lost its identity over the years. I think these suggestions (which, as said, are closer to their original iterations) would feel much more compelling.

[Shiny212]

The funny thing is, I didn't even make that connection until AFTER I typed this out!

But yeah, right now the specs may work fine mechanically, but I don't feel like they really correlate with their "specs" very much. Nothing about "Frost" seems to imply dual-wielding plate wearer. Consequently, "Blood" doesn't feel evocative as "something that shields itself from taking damage".

As for the other user regarding DW'ing:

I'll admit, I personally don't think dual-wielding "suits" the Death Knight class itself. However, I think there's a much more compelling argument to be made in favor of Unholy. Assuming your weapons are infected to spread diseases, then to me, it would make more sense to have two weapons, as another said, sort of a "death by a thousand cuts", because the goal is spreading diseases, not cleaving your enemy in half.

In a perfect world, they would simply let us *choose* what we wanted. Or perhaps "transmog" whether you want to dual-wield or use a 2hander. The only rub with DW'ing Unholy is that it would make Legion's Unholy artifact, Apocalypse, perhaps a bit wonky.

The other thing I had wondered, though, is if Unholy might be cooler going *TOTALLY* Necromancer, going so far as using Intellect as your main-stat and maybe wielding Staves, just like the WC2 Death Knight? Or maybe wielding a large, imposing Scythe? I could see those options working, too.

Either way, I definitely feel like the current DK has just sort of lost its identity over the years. I think these suggestions (which, as said, are closer to their original iterations) would feel much more compelling.

Hey I totally agree. DK is one of the many classes that have lost their identity, or had it warped into something undesirable, like compulsory dual wield DK speccs.

[Absintheminded]

No. People do not chose to tank or not tank depending on the fantasy of a spec. They chose to do or do not do so because of how it actually feels for them to play it. Back when Frost was considered the tanking spec, due to Frost Presence giving bonus armor and magic damage reduction, I did not at all want to tank with it. It wasn't until Cata, when Blood became the tank spec, that it felt right FOR ME to tank.

Similar, I've always been Unholy as mainspec, even when Frost was king of the charts, because that's what I liked to play. That's what felt the best to me. Didn't matter one bit what Arthas did, how Arthas acted, looked or even sounded like. I love Unholy. I will play Unholy because I like Unholy. And I will tank as long as it feels right to do so. Magically swapping Frost and Blood again, like it happened in Cata, doesn't mean more will suddenly tank on their DK.

The only people that thought Frost was *the* tank spec simply didn't know any better. For a class that heavily relied on active mitigation before it became a role-defining thing, Unholy had the most, best cooldowns.

Edit: to reply to the OP, yes I agree DK's deserve a major overhaul and I'm still 100% with giving them back the ability to choose what spec to dps or tank with.

[Nurvus]

I both agree and disagree with the OP.

World of Warcraft has Classes with 2 and 4 specs.
There is nothing binding Blizzard to a 3 spec scheme, specially when they were originally designed to be able to fulfill 2 roles with each tree, and even giving you the option to choose between DW and 2H for most builds.

I would say add more specs, and not just for DK - Blizzard could also take that opportunity to rename some specs.
Some of these specs could definitely share abilities.
Blizzard should even go back to when you started out without a spec, with generic abilities, and then choose a spec, modifying/gaining abilities.

I do believe, however, that Blizzard should still introduce Necromancer as a full fledged class focused mainly on skeletal and ghostly undead, bone spells and soul manipulation/curses, in a way that would reminisce of D2 Necromancer (minus the Poisons).

Death Knight:
New - Sanguine - 2H DPS
New - Icecrown - 2H Tank
Change - Frozen - 2H or DW DPS
New - Undeath - 2H Tank with a focus on ghostly minions and soul abilities. Zombies, Ghouls, Gargoyles and so on would remain an Unholy thing.

Hunter:
Change - Survival - Less about traps and explosives; more about animal moves and the old Aspects; and shifting between Melee and Mid-Range with new moves like Eagle Dive (charge) and Monkey Vault (high backward jump that enables specific abilities while airborne), etc.
New - Pathfinder - Old Survival; ranged with focus on Traps and Explosives, etc.

Warrior:
New - Gladiator - Sword & Shield DPS

Demon Hunter:
Hatred - DPS with Melee & Ranged modes (think Illidan air phase in Black Temple).

[Skildar]

It could be good, but at the same time, why?? oO'
Only to attract the ire of people like those who still hate survival being melee?

Blood works well as a tank and has a good amount of player enjoying it. Frost works well as a dps spec and has a lot of player enjoying its fantasy.
You can shift things around, but for what purpose? All I'm reading is that you want frost spells while tanking instead of blood-related ones. The benefit of this whole overhaul operation is not clear to me, and what you're talking about is not cheap!

[Ange]

I played a DK pretty much since they were first available in the Wrath Beta. But to be perfectly frank, I think that while they have had their ups and downs, I think the fantasy of each Spec has been fundamentally misunderstood, and could be far better worked.

1/3 if my total /played comes from 1 DK character, so I saw most iterations of this class ingame.



I did not see big shift from the class fantasy over the years.

I am not really sure why frost tanking from WotLK allways comes back in this kind of lists. It was just a meme spec from the beginning in WotLK. Major-Blood or split Blood/Unholy for the sartharion-3d-spec was game braking and dominant over the whole expansion and ARP killed frost as DPS again later on with its scaling issues. Outside of Hodir cheesing there was never a reason to even use frost for anything.

The major issue since WoD this class got, is that it lost nearly every utility it had till WoD, its overloaded with micromagement and since balancing is done with spreadsheet-only, basicly all 3 specs are f.ed, because the tuning is not done with number-to-engaging gameplay in mind.

Basicly HIGH-RISC => LOW-REWARD is the common denominator and additionally the base tuning for the DK class is at the bottom of the OVERALL DPS list, so real game numbers are much worse, while basicly every other class does simDPS PLUS additional BONUS padding with better spell mechanics or with mobility/uptime.

DEVs dont play the game anymore and this class is a minority choice for a while. We get either ignored and the LEGION/BFA show will just continue or the DK specs get dumbed down to other melee / tank levels to fit better into the spreadsheet-balancing. I won't expect any other outcome, since there is no class representation among the DEVs.

[Absintheminded]

1/3 if my total /played comes from 1 DK character, so I saw most iterations of this class ingame.



I did not see big shift from the class fantasy over the years.

I am not really sure why frost tanking from WotLK allways comes back in this kind of lists. It was just a meme spec from the beginning in WotLK. Major-Blood or split Blood/Unholy for the sartharion-3d-spec was game braking and dominant over the whole expansion and ARP killed frost as DPS again later on with its scaling issues. Outside of Hodir cheesing there was never a reason to even use frost for anything.

The major issue since WoD this class got, is that it lost nearly every utility it had till WoD, its overloaded with micromagement and since balancing is done with spreadsheet-only, basicly all 3 specs are f.ed, because the tuning is not done with number-to-engaging gameplay in mind.

Basicly HIGH-RISC => LOW-REWARD is the common denominator and additionally the base tuning for the DK class is at the bottom of the OVERALL DPS list, so real game numbers are much worse, while basicly every other class does simDPS PLUS additional BONUS padding with better spell mechanics or with mobility/uptime.

DEVs dont play the game anymore and this class is a minority choice for a while. We get either ignored and the LEGION/BFA show will just continue or the DK specs get dumbed down to other melee / tank levels to fit better into the spreadsheet-balancing. I won't expect any other outcome, since there is no class representation among the DEVs.

100%. I was never against Frost being viable,but it was literally an "I'm bored and terribly overheated for this content" spec. A lot of the problems with it we're solved in later expansions though, expertise, hit rating, defense rating, etc.

I played petless UH tank for the entire expansion, which was more or less UH/Blood, but Frost has some good talents as well. I've never had more fun playing WoW than tanking in Wrath.

[Claymore]

The problem is that after Wrath, Blizzard completely ditched the concept of "hybrids" entirely. Death Knights had some of the most well-designed talent trees ever made, but unless Blizzard brings back talent trees, being able to choose if each spec is Tank or DPS will just never be an option.

Like I said, there's nothing inherently *wrong* with the playstyles as they exist now. But the specializations themselves are just fundamentally at-odds with their combat roles, and I think that's something that is still important to address.

I think giving each spec a more defined sense of identity would go a long ways towards making the class feel exciting again, and also provide a clear-cut outlet for each type of "Death Knight fantasy" different players are striving towards.

[Absintheminded]

The problem is that after Wrath, Blizzard completely ditched the concept of "hybrids" entirely. Death Knights had some of the most well-designed talent trees ever made, but unless Blizzard brings back talent trees, being able to choose if each spec is Tank or DPS will just never be an option.

Like I said, there's nothing inherently *wrong* with the playstyles as they exist now. But the specializations themselves are just fundamentally at-odds with their combat roles, and I think that's something that is still important to address.

I think giving each spec a more defined sense of identity would go a long ways towards making the class feel exciting again, and also provide a clear-cut outlet for each type of "Death Knight fantasy" different players are striving towards.

I have to disagree with the notion it's impossible to allow role/spec independence under the current system. I could think of several ways right now that would work. We could get two specs and all spec flavor given to the talents. We could keep the current system and have the first row of talents be DPS / DPS w pet / tank.

As far as the playstyles go, they just don't hit the mark. UH is a combo point management system that's just really not that fun. Frost is a 2 or 3 button spec with several short/medium cooldowns. It's like Havoc but not as fun or strong.