t 3 in my ongoing set bonus examination. Today's post will review the Death Knight tank bonuses. If you haven't been following, the Prot Paladin and Druid posts are up. Enough with the pleasantries, moving on to the important stuff. Here are the bonuses as they appear on the PTR:- 2 Pieces (Tank): Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%.
- 4 Pieces (Tank): When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 seconds.
Right, standard deal here. The 2-piece bonus provides a damage increase to an ability (the Druid and Paladin bonuses did the same), but the Death Knight bonus is much less exciting. The Druid and Paladin bonuses buffed abilities that are used all the time as part of a regular tanking ability rotation. Death and Decay, however, is the Death Knight's situational AoE threat generating ability. It is not something used while tanking single-target, primarily because of its cost. DnD uses one of each rune type, which is tremendously expensive. On top of that, let's not forget that it is designed to hit multiple targets, so it won't (or shoudln't) ever beat out a single target ability like Obliterate, otherwise why have anything other than AoE spells in the game? There may be some situational use for this set bonus, however. While a main-tank won't be too thrilled, it has the potential, when combined with the Glyph of Death and Decay, to turn a DK into a superior AoE tank for situational encounters and trash, which could speed up clearing to the next boss. In the end, though, it seems entirely situational at best, and although I'm not thrilled with it, I will reserve final judgment until setting foot into the Citadel.
The 4-piece near mirrors the Druid bonus. In this case it is tied to Blood Tap, another 1-minute CD ability. It's also the same 12% damage reduction that druids receive. As I pointed out in before, this damage reduction is powerful when compared to avoidance, because mitigation works no matter what your situation (stunned, feared, etc). Combined with the other (as some would call them OP) cooldowns Death Knights posses, it should be a nice boost, and yet another indication that we should be seeing some seriously healer-taxing encounters.
So one mediocre and (as of yet) untested bonus and one carbon-copy bonus. It could be worse, but then again Death Knights have started to fall back a bit in tanking power, though that really means much to other players when complaints come from the class most favored by Blizzard's Art Department. Just look at the DK Tier sets. Each one more class defining than the last. Beautiful.
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