By Gravity
15 commentsI am most pleased that Cataclysm might clean out some loser DKs alts who clog up PUG raids, gearing themselves up, playing badly and giving us a bad name.
Since there’s a gear reset and with new races and a much rejuvenated L1 to 58 levelling process, we should see the old classes getting some love again. That should leave some DK alts on the bench.
Generally, I dislike people who play really badly and make no effort to improve themselves, and (worse still) don’t even type proper sentences (I hate l33t speak). As a GM, I would not let them into the guild.
The DK is the easy alt class. I think they’ve taken the mantle formerly held by ‘huntards’, which was arguably the easiest and fastest class to level, resulting in L70/L80 hunters who otherwise would have got lost in a rat maze due to their lack of any intelligence.
Related aside, DKs should know how to do a jump shot for use with Icy Touch.
Which to be your main in Cataclysm and which alt to level 2nd?
If I was going to level a new class from scratch it’d be a shaman or priest. I’d be tempted to level a warrior (to be a second tank, of course). I think a goblin warrior would be funny, much like gnome warriors, they’re just win out of the box. I still remember healing an gnome MT on Nefarian (end boss of BWL), that was so epic and ridiculous at the same time.
Priest and shaman because they’re healing pwnage, and I really enjoy healing.
On my USA account I’ve my DK (will remain my main, not even a second thought), L65 druid, L70 mage and a L30s hunter and warrior. Once my DK is L85 maybe I’d think about levelling one of them or a new class. Not sure.
Most realistically though, I’d just start the never-ending gearing process on my DK. I enjoy it.
Hopefully by then I’ll have the name Gravity again rather than Industry for my DK. No reply on my offer to the current nameholder to delete his character. 
Less DKs?
Certainly with this kind of decision-making being made by every single player, some of the current L80 DKs will stay on the shelf, and I hope at L85 we’ll see a more even distribution of classes (ie. less DKs).
I hope we’ll have more bear tanks. Where’d they all go?
Thanks to TyphoonAndrew for this thought.
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They still exist! They’re just having more problems gearing up. *watches gear go to rogues*
I’m with you on the dktard situation, Gravity. It’s a shame that until you get into raids, a poorly played DK can still equal or slightly exceed a well-played character of another class, so it’s not until they die to environmental damage that you realize they aren’t playing attention. More than once I’ve told one “you’re really not doing anything to help break the stereotype, you know”, a comment that had previously been reserved for Hunters.
Personally, I’ll be keeping my Paladin tank as my main, with a resto shaman as my primary alt. All my other characters I’ll get up to 85 over the six months or so following Cataclysm, though I’ll probably try to get their tradeskills up to 525 before that (if only because I hate to be dependant on others for gear enhancement).
Before I round out all my alts though I’ll be rolling a NE mage and Worgen Druid (or if I get tired of Alliance before that, probably a goblin mage and troll druid – though I hestitate to spend another £140 to do that, especially when the idiots are fairly evenly spread between factions these days.
At some point I’ll probably spend a summer working on my US characters as well, but not until we’re well past the first or second tier of raid content in 4.x.
Good points, and I agree – if Blizzard makes it equally easy to level other classes, we will hopefully see less loser DK alts.
I dont think there is a toon named Gravity on Eldre’Thalas…..
Twitter: Shayzani
I’ve been playing a bear lately and its a lot of fun. I’m almost tempted to make it my main come Cata its just that cool. Still, the Death Knight should be better once they give us the crit reduction talents like what bears have now.
Twitter: gravitydk
I remember reading your PTR blog entry about learning/remembering how to bear-tank, on the job, was pretty funny. I guess you’ve really taken to it eh?
Twitter: Psynister
I hate Death Knoobs with a passion.
But, I’m not sure that Cat is going to reduce the number of DK’s that we see. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an increase as people jump over to fresh servers, roll a DK for gold/gear, and then level up their alts.
I don’t know what’s going to happen for sure, but I don’t expect to see an end of the Death Knoobs any time soon.
My badger is awesome. He tanks both the twins in 25 hardmode at the same time and is easy to keep alive.
No, you can’t have him! He’s mine!
We have 2 bear tanks, 1 DK tank and 2 pally tanks at the moment. Our MT of several years retired from tanking on his warrior, and we are actually missing a warrior tank for the first time like… ever!
Here’s something my guild’s top mage found out when he wanted to change his name. If the placeholder is a level 1 inactive character, if you open a GM ticket, the GM will free up that name for your use.
Twitter: gravitydk
Thanks TRM (your name is so hard to spell); Feist mentioned this too and I raised a ticket today. Thanks for letting me know; it’s not common knowledge.
Twitter: Plaguedcandles
My Death Knight is going to be 85 and Tanked on until I feel like DPSing. (Improbable!) My Mage will most likely follow up behind, and possibly a Goblin Rogue/Troll Druid if I actually like them enough.
I doubt my Characters are going to change much.
As for the Death Knuggets, there will probably still be tons. “Zomg Worgen + DK = amazing!?!?”
Blizz needs to do IQ tests before one is to create a DK. Seriously…
What do you have against newbie Death Knights ? You hate the fact they are Death Knights or the fact they are newbies ? What difference would it make if the newbies were evenly distributed between classes ?
Most people prior to patch 3.3 learned how to do dungeons and raids at level 80, and newbies with pure DPS classes outperform newbies with hybrid classes most of the time, which is why we have an excess of DPS players and hunger for tanks and healers. Being a hybrid is harder in the long run, especially when you do something responsible like tanking or healing and you know it.
My Guild had a seething hatred for DKs after many, many bad experiences with them. I had a similar opinion for a long time until I asked myself “Is it DK that is inherently bad or does it just attract the worst kind of morons in the WoW playerbase. So I took the time to get to know a few DK players and read up on any and all articles I could find on the net related to playing a DK well.
I’m now top DPS in my guild and an integral part of our raiding group as we mostly do 10mans with a heavily magic/disease damage mix. (Naturally I play Unholy for DPS, it’s just too insane to pass up)
My next goal is to prove that DKs can be effective tanks to the Guild, and I’m nearly raid ready with my gearing (We seem to have a strict ProtWarrior/Tankadin bias, Bears and DKs need not apply… )
But it is a long, uphill battle for respect after the bad name Death Knoobs give DK players. It takes me an age to get respect outside the Guild and get into non-guild raids. I hope the OP is correct and we can see Death Knoobs weened out to make life a bit more bearable for the rest of us.
Yes, i would have to say that there seem to be a lot of DK noobs, but no, it doesn’t bug me that they are noobs are that they are DKs… What bugs me is that they make no effort to improve what they are trying to achieve… I mean, we where all noobs at once, and as far as im concerned we all have plenty of room to learn more and improve. Noobs will always be here, only thing we can do is hope that we will get more of those that are willing to improve themself (either by trying to take advice from others and improve themself, or by not being so full of themselfs that they wont take advice from a more “seasoned” player… that just “might” know what they are talking about lol)
ill just keep my fingers crossed till then hopeing for non-fail (note not noob, but fail 
) players (all not just DKs lol)
And personally as far as im concerned that if Cata makes it so much easier for people to roll alts, i think it will just increase the amount of noobish people (wanting to try new things without true effort to be good/great at the class). only way that we will really tell is when cata comes out and the noobs come about at lvl 85 hehe