It’s been about a week since the first major buff to DK’s in what feels like months, and it seems that we’ve weathered the storm. No hotfixes, no emergency nerfs, and just like that, the whole Icy Touch threat debacle seems to have died down to mere background noise. So what changed?

Blizzard didn’t panic, that’s what, and common sense prevailed. Yes, DK tanks can generate a ton of threat if they spam Icy Touch. No, they weren’t really doing that unless they needed to. And no, we don’t need to spec some gimmick, bogus Icy Slam build to be able to string off a couple IT’s to build a threat lead – any tank spec can do it. The point is, Icy Touch can give us enough of a comfortable lead of particularly front-load aggro to allow us to settle into a regular rotation doing more DPS and AoE TPS. And all things considered, it seems DK threat isn’t ridiculous – factoring in a regular rotation, DK’s, warriors and paladins seem to hover at about the same level in terms of threat generation now. I’m not sure about druids. Druids are weird and smell funny.

Also, Will of the Necropolis seems solid. Not gamebreakingly overpowered, but definitely solid.  For DK tanks feeling too ’squishy’ in heroics, WotN is a must have, and it’s pretty dang hawt for progression raiding too, obviously. This pretty much cements Blood as the go-to spec for DK’s who want to tank.

Long story short, DK tanking is fun and good again.

On the DPS front, I’ve had marked success with the frost subspec, and 0/17/54 seems to be doing a tad more sustained dps. The real success story is, of course, Dual Wield Frost, and the world first Lich King 25 Hard Mode was done with 2 Frost DPS DK’s in the raid. The spec appears capable of pushing some great numbers, and is particularly good at squeaking out burst when needed which is apparently needed for this fight. Its’ still a good idea, even perhaps required to have a single Unholy DK in the raid to spread Ebon Plague, and the synergy between 1x Unholy and 1 or more Frost DK’s is quite solid. Personally I’d love to go Frost DPS, definitely my favourite DPS spec to date, but until I get a pair of good 1-Handers, sticking to Unholy+Frost-sub with Bryntroll remains the best best.

Overall 3.3.3’s been a great patch for the class, although there appear to be problems with some people signing on and/or staying online. Often I time out and get disconnected trying to log  in, and this seems to be a problem many folks are facing. Hopefully these issues clear up soon.

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