Death Knights in Northrend 5 mans

I posted an entry a little while back about running 5 mans with the Death Knight in the Outland. While 5 DK’s in Ramparts or Blood Furnace is a rip-roaring kill fest, my impression of them has changed somewhat in the Northrend instances. I decided to switch over to playing my druid “Spugnort” for a while as a resto spec in the 2 entry-level instances for Northrend. First I ran Utgarde Keep and then Nexus. In both occasions, having a Death Knight in the party has made me cringe as the healer. They still dish tons of damage, which translates into tons of threat. I’m not sure if it is just that people haven’t figured out how to play the DK effectively or maybe I was just running with some knuckleheads, but I *REALLY* don’t like trying to keep DK’s alive.

The DK seems to take 2-3x the damage of a Bear or Warrior tank and typically have far fewer hitpoints. I know that Blizzard has stated that the DK is going to be a viable tanking class, but so far, as a healer I have more DK deaths than I do Warlock or Mage during 5 man instance runs. They generate tons of threat, have no aggro clearing capabilities and very little health in comparison to some of the other tanking classes. In most cases, once a DK has pulled aggro, they will be dead on the floor in less time than it takes me to wind up a healing touch. As such, I won’t currently run any 5 mans with a DK as the tank - only as DPS.

I’m sure I’ll catch some heat for this view of the Death Knight as I am sure there are some of you out there that may have mastered the class. I have seen the YouTube videos of DK’s performing well - but that seems to currently be the exception rather than the rule.

Hopefully, it will just take some additional tweaking and a little more player practice to make the DK’s a fun class to have around. For now, however, I will continue to cringe each time one joins my party in Northrend.