Death Knight PVP: First impressions

I ventured into Warsong Gulch on Silang last night. I've been pretty focused on getting Ahami to 80, then on getting her geared up enough to heal heroics first and maybe survive for a reasonable amount of time in the battlegrounds second (I lack resilience ... a lot), raising her rep with various factions, and then on playing Ideale (don't let the Armory fool you - she's one bubble from 72!). So really, the only time I've been playing my death knight was when I was rolling with my shadow priesty friend (we're trying to catch her up).

Last night, though, I was bored and really didn't feel like running dailies. Huntering sounded fun, but I really wanted to run some battlegrounds as DPS, and with Ide still 71, that just didn't seem like a fun idea.

And then I remembered that I have a 58 death knight. Now, I suck at melee (though apparently less than I thought), but I figured it would be fun. So I did three runs of Warsong Gulch (would have done more, but the second and third took roughly 45 minutes apiece, and I stayed because we had a really good group on both sides; it was the same group both times).

First off, death knights in PVP are a total blast. I did have some trouble with ranged classes — one pretty good frost mage kept tricking me into blowing Death Grip with Ice Nova, and then kiting me around. Icy Touch is about the only ranged thing you get that doesn't cost runic power, so staying in melee is important. Death Grip and Chains of Ice help with this.

Second, Death Grip is an incredible, incredible ability. Why? You are the ultimate flag runner protector (well, other than a priest or pally). Run along about 20 yards behind the flag runner, and when someone gets right on his ass, Death Grip, Chains of Ice, and either take him down or keep following the flag runner, depending on which seems more helpful at the time.

Defense is also awesome — just wait for someone to grab the flag, then Death Grip and melee them down.

Other things I noticed: Pestilence + Blood Boil = yay. I really ought to have used Mind Freeze on that mage, now that I'm thinking about it. Unholy is super fun for PVP, mostly because when you die, you self-rez for a short time as a ghoul. If you target someone in a group of Alliance (or Horde, if you roll with the other side), do the leapy thing into the middle, and explode yourself, it's really, really satisfying. Especially when a hunter on your side has dropped frost trap and is volleying the group already. I think we took out five people at once one time. (Of course, this is not so good when the three offense who ran into their flag room suddenly have to deal with the five folks running from the graveyard. *facepalm*)

I can already see how some of these would be applied in Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm. (Death Grip is seriously one of the coolest PVP talents ever; it interrupts, it slows people down/removes their progress, etc. The Gargoyle is pretty handy, too.) I think I'm going to have to actually run Alterac Valley to get a feel for DK PVP there — it just plays so differently.

Still, for WSG I think I did okay — I topped or came close on the damage meters, protected the flag runner on a few runs, and killed the other side's flag carrier several times (although I am so slow on clicking the flag back — I play defense almost always in WSG and I think I've had a total of, like, four flag returns across all my characters because I'm just too slow). Also got the Not So Fast achievement! I must not have done too bad, because it got where every time I was on defense, they would run in and all unload on me first. So either they thought I was dangerous enough to deal with ASAP, or I'm an easy mark (the latter is probably more likely, since I really am bad at melee).

It's also nice to see AFKers forced to play. This orc shaman was standing at the graveyard for most of the first battle, and kept getting reported. Finally he got booted from the round. When we all got in the second round, he was there again, and we were like, "Oh, great, 9-man again." And then he had a flag carry and three defends, and came in third on the damage meter, and was like, "Hey, that was an awesome match!." Isn't it way more fun when you actually participate? You get more honor that way, too.