Arena players say they can't compete with Death Knights
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 20th 2009 at 3:00PM
A Korean Arena team named Kill e A has dropped out of the upcoming Extreme Masters tournament and claimed that they just can't compete with Death Knights in the Arenas. "Due to recent balance changes resulting from the 3.0.9 patch, we believe that it is no longer possible for the Mage and Rogue character classes to remain competitive in a high-level PvP setting," says the statement posted on the ESL's site. They go on to say that "our testing has shown that it is now impossible for other classes to compete effectively with the Death Knight." Since they don't have a DK player and their team's strategy is based around using a Mage and Rogue, they're out, and another team from SK Gaming is in. The SK Gaming team will be running with a DK, and they say they're certain they won't be the only ones.And Kill e A isn't the only team dealing with the power of the Death Knight. Gotfrag has an interview up with Rumay "Hafu" Wang of Fnatic/Orz, winners of two big tournaments last year. She too says Death Knights are a force to be reckoned with, though the recent changes might bring them down a notch. Plague Strike, as even the NPC Death Knights say, is a Lifebloom-killer, and Hafu says that as a Resto Druid in the Arenas, she can't match them.
Blizzard will definitely be watching during the upcoming Arena tournament -- if Death Knights are as overpowered as these players claim they are, we might see some PvP-based nerfs in their future.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Classes, Death Knight, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
FifthDream Feb 20th 2009 3:06PM
This is why i like my DK. I can actually DO things with her...
Taladan Feb 20th 2009 3:22PM
(I know this may sound a little bit inflammatory -- heck, even a lot -- but keep with me, mkay?)
The current problem with DKs is that you don't need to understand the class to play well. Take, for example, paladins: Yes, we wear plate; yes, we have high mitigation; yes, we can heal ourselves. And, yet, people need to understand the class to play well: Bubble will cut your Wrath; flash of light/holy light different manage usage, timing (which is important if there is a rogue kicking you around), healing effectiveness; how "restart" the combat when you do something wrong... that kind of stuff.
DKs, currently, require none of this. Just jump there with your blood aura and blow your runes and runic power. If you have the proper gear, your damage should be pretty high, your mitigation will be high and, contrary to every other class in the game, you don't need to directly worry about your health, 'cause all that damage will turn into healing -- and you don't even need to stop hitting someone to heal yourself.
Jon Do Feb 20th 2009 4:02PM
Funny that you should say that:
I know a guy that put his DK abilities on a single key programmed to randomly use abilities, and he was beating just about everyone he dueled by spamming a single "whatever" key.
Fortunately, I have no dog in this hunt: I've been purely PvE since 2.3.
TheKarmaPolice Feb 20th 2009 4:08PM
I call bullshit on that Jon Do, a lot of our skills are dependant on other skills, like diseases
We have to watch our runes, our RP (for gargoyle or DRW)
and other skills do absolutely no damage (DG, Blood boil without diseases (it's random remember?), HoW, Raise Dead, raise ally, all three presences, AMS, Death Pact, Dark Command, Blood Tap, etc etc etc) so if you tell me he won a duel with a button that randomly do all the DK skills, then either he lied to you, or he was beating on someone hit by narcolepsy
Mitch Feb 20th 2009 4:27PM
@TheKarmaPolice: I don't know much about DKs, but he could create a macro sequence of a set order of abilities to use; so as he was hitting that one button it was a set sequence that was going off. No idea if that was it or not, but just saying it's a possibility.
Taxidermy Feb 20th 2009 10:26PM
@ Mitch. Thats called a grinding macro.
AyaJulia Feb 20th 2009 5:41PM
@TheKarmaPolice: Calm down, kid. John Do didn't say the guy put *all* his abilities on the random button now, did he? I could easily macro this:
/castrandom Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, Blood Strike, Death Coil, Strangulate, Death Strike
I accidentally his whole HP bar, is this bad?
kabshiel Feb 20th 2009 6:22PM
I royally suck at PVP, but I actually do decently well on my DK. That's a red flag right there.
Netherscourge Feb 20th 2009 3:08PM
...and of course with PvP nerfs come PvE disaster.
Thanks again, Blizzard, for making these piss-poor Arena's and ruining the rest of the game with them.
Nadril Feb 20th 2009 3:18PM
They haven't even announced anything yet. It's a bit early to be bitching about the arenas, isn't it?
Really this is the number one thing I hate about WoW, every single person who raids seems to blame arenas for their shortcomings in PvE.
I should start blaming PvE for nerfs/buffs in the arena. Srsly.
Taladan Feb 20th 2009 3:26PM
In the same line, we could blame the PvE for the current imbalance in PvP. DKs were already hard to kill when they came out -- not the current "they just faceroll and kill everyone" hard it is right, but it was not a walk in the park. Then Blizzard decided to increase their survivability so they could tank better and do more DPS in PvE.
So yeah, PvE ruined PvP. "Damn casuals that want everything easy."
zombie Feb 20th 2009 3:40PM
you're forgetting one thing, Arena is a mini game added after the second expansion. Since then Blizzard has tried to balance the clases for it, and I'll say it, ruined the real game (pve). Before that the class imbalance was kinda cool in PVP . locks stay away from rogues, eat mages fer supper, that kinda thing. Now locks need to stay away from everybody. Just face it, the classes will NEVER be balanced get over it and go play Warhammer.
Marc Sadowski Feb 20th 2009 3:43PM
Blizzard will fix this by nerfing paladins. ;-)
HWL Feb 20th 2009 6:20PM
Amen bro, arena is destrying the game.
This whiny arena players are a shame for anyone that PVPs but I dont blame them, I blame the arena game.
lol blizzard
Caronome Feb 21st 2009 4:09AM
A Modest Proposal: keep DKs and get rid of PvP.
Max Feb 28th 2009 7:47PM
here's the funny thing.
arena balancing isn't ruining ANYTHING
PvE, if anything, is a million times better than it was two years ago (besides the whole raiding-is-too-easy thing, but we won't even go into that).
What people are upset about is their specific CLASSES getting nerfed because of PvP. On the whole, pve is fine. Every class and spec is moderately viable. raiding is so damn easy that even frost mages can do it.
Terry Feb 20th 2009 3:11PM
/yawn
Wut? You ppl just realize how it feels like to play a shaman in arena since TBC?
Let's talk more about player skills.
Jayeless Feb 20th 2009 3:09PM
And we know Blizzard has... difficulty in tweaking how well a character performs in PvP without hurting their ability to perform in PvE as well.
By 3.3 or 3.4 we might be calling Death Knights a Loser Class instead of a Hero Class.
Fauxgt4 Feb 20th 2009 5:24PM
Wait DKs are overpowered for arena? Serious? I hadn't realized...
Oh wait...
And why does blizzard have to wait for a tournament to realize this? Do they never play live server arenas or something?
Aaron Feb 20th 2009 3:09PM
L2P Noobs!
/sarcasm