In regards to the AoE tanking:

It seems like BB could work quite well to maintain threat, if you have a 2nd DK in the group who is also spreading diseases during your cool down. This should help ensure that every mob that is being tanked has at least one disease when the 15 second cooldown is up. It seems like it would be an effective combination for increased threat, kind of like a tankadin getting the benifits of sanctity aura (obviously not in the beta where it no longer exists). Or I could be understanding the mechanics entirely wrong.

This is my concern with the class overall. You are locked into cooldowns on spells, cooldowns on runes and both of those limit the amount of RP you generate. Outside of those issues you still have the GCD to worry about. This will impact tanking and PvP the most; dps shouldn't be as hard to manage since you will just follow a laid out cycle.

The class is a lot of fun right now in the mid 60s but I'm finding it hard to react to any situation that I didn't plan for ahead of time. This includes someone pulling faster than you expected, someone pulling off of you, getting jumped while attacking a mob/just killing a mob, or when your ghouls/worms do some stupid AI pathing and pull 5 more packs to you.

I already have abilities that just don't get used during leveling because there is no way to squeeze out another cycle to fit them in. Luckily most things die before you even get to thinking about testing out the perfect combinations.

Originally I thought the removing of custom rune setups was a good idea, but now that I've been playing the class I long for that ability. I'm not sure how else to balance this out other than moving some abilities off of Runes and over to RP, or drastically change how many spells use more than one rune.

From running 5mans, it seems if the target is unable to move on it's own, Grip won't pull it, but the taunt effect still occurs. This is includes stuns/sap/root effects. Not sure how it interacts with fear or poly.

It's not new and it has been mentioned in this thread
http://elitistjerks.com/830790-post772.html

It seems that leveling a DK as Blood would be very simple and you would have little to no down time at all. Sadly, I'm not in the beta so I have no way to test things myself so my question goes out to those that have beta access. What are some of your talent choices while leveling and why?

Small good news from the new build. NPC are displaying exact health amounts, so I can repeat to you EXACTLY how how Heart Strike works vs an NPC.

Emaciated Mammoth Bull in Dragonblight

Engage, first swing it a HS
6612/7433

duration expires, no other damage done.
8264/9291

I know there's a lot of questions about combat and use vs a boss encounter, gonna do that today at some point.

HS applies to every mob and elite i came across, including elite's in Nexus. Bosses are immune. Its fun to see a 40k hp elite hp go down by 20% in one swing (not literaly ofc).

I did a quick search and did not find the answer, so I just wanted to let you know:

1) Lichborne will make you vulnerable to a pally Turn undead spell.
2) If you lose a duel as unholy, you will die and come back as a ghoul.. and then actually die.

You don't die in duels, they end when someone reaches what would have been 0 hp(but is actually at 1hp).

No that is an effect that triggers on death. In a duel you dont actualy die.

5 man boss. Heart Strike on last boss in Azjol-Nerub.

Took the boss from 164,000 to 131,000 max health.

After your ghoul timer runs out and you spirit run towards your corpse. Is the corpse at the original place of death or where the ghoul was when the timer runs out?

I guess that makes Heart Strike required.

I think he's referring to the bugged version. When DKs dueled, upon hitting 1 health, they'd turn into a ghoul and then die. Not sure if they fixed that.

Trust me, you die when you duel if you are unholy DK. I did this late last night after the patch. I dueled before on the DK as blood and it didn't kill me, but if you have the talent to come back as a ghoul, you will and then you'll die.

I had a guildie playing a paladin and we were testing the effect of lichborne, and when he beat the crap out of me, I turned into a ghoul and then i died. First time, i exploded myself, the second time I just played with the ghoul leap and vomit (infect) abilities. When the timer ran out, I died, my guildy ressed me.

They'll just make all bosses immune to the effect, similar to Vindication (and they will invariably forget to make one boss immune to it, which will result in videos and bitching.)

I guess I didn't look at the notes enough, what was the DnD nerf?

They fixed the double-damage thing and then reduced the base damage by about 2/3.

That poster more than likely forgot to omit parry from the Druid part of painfully vague post. High this, low that, no number, conclusion: buff us.

I mean, the first post in that thread, while more detailed and does have some good points, seems to be missing the boat on some basic principles. First, of course the DK isn't going to have as much dodge as a warrior, DK's are missing a crucial 5%. Might have as much parry(but shouldn't, really, blood is a terrible tanking tree...oh, look, which tree did she spec down?)

Second, I don't know what magical gear set she's using, but Unholy Aura + DK Toughness will almost always be equal to warrior toughness + shield. I did it on my warrior, but since a few of my pieces are old(level 60 AQ40 shit, which actually would have placed more emphasis on shield AC), I did it on some T6/SW profiles, same result. There might be some nice 2H tanking weapons too.

Third, I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of people aren't using Icebound Fortitude...at all. Talented it's 50% mitigation for 18s every 60s. HELLO! That's 15% mitigation averaged out per cooldown, and in effect, more because you probably spend some of the cooldown time out of combat. You CANNOT use IBF as a reactionary, it is too damn good. Notice how, the OP in that thread, it's not specified in her rotation.

So, basically you've got people speccing poorly, playing poorly, and gearing poorly complaining about tank balance. Which is fine, DK's are new, they'll learn mechanics eventually. But don't take their current opinions too seriously.

My impression on the Frost tree is that the attempt at using 'frozen' targets as a way to bolster damage/threat while tanking isn't really playing out as well as it probably should. I'm sure it would work a lot better with a frost mage in the group but a Death Knight on its own doesn't seem to be able to 'freeze' things enough to make the bonuses on the half dozen or so talents pay off. As such going past ~35ish points in the Frost tree isn't very worthwhile at the moment. You're better off amplifying your Plaguestikes, Degeneration, getting Lichborne, etc in Unholy and some of the lower tier mitigation talents in Blood.

Yes, Icebound Fortitude and Bone Armor are amazing. But active, short-duration mitigation abilities don't make for good raid tanking. My concern is that DKs are going to take very spiky incoming damage as those abilities drop off, which will just make the MT healers work harder than they'd need to with a different tank.

I respecced as frost today to see how it worked with the new changes. I feel it's a step in the right direction, even if not everything is working right now.

Frost was definitly playing better then before..not as awkward. Mind Freeze and Icy Touch talented have a 15% chance to freeze target...and with Mind Freeze using no runic power on my build, I could use it whenever it's up...unless I was fighting caster and wanted to keep the interrupt up.

My rotation started like:

plague strike->degeneration->mind freeze->

if frozen I did Howling Blast->Frost Strike(not doing extra damage yet)->Blood Strike

If not frozen I used Icy Touch(try for another freeze)->

If frozen Howling Blast-> Blood Strike

If not frozen Frost Strike-> Blood Strike.

I'd be using death coil in there whenever I had enough runic power.

It was a lot of fun to be honest, probably some of the most interesting play really...as there are decision to make. It's not a fix rotation which more reactive. Sadly with the mob having 0 armor, frost strike being buggy it's hard to say how it will really work out...like would Obliterate be better then a Frost Strike+Blood Strike at the end, I don't know.

I think with some tweaking, frost will be quite a blast.