Why Does Everybody Keep Picking On Me?

Well, not me, per se... but Death Knights in general.

Why, when the raid is being assembled, do you look at that box of 25 squares as they fill up with different colours, wondering what colour is coming up next, in eager anticipation of the next person joining the raid?


"Okay, ten more to go... 


*bamf* (Orange)... What? Another druid? What are they? Flavour of the month now?


*bamf* (Pink)... Hmmm... fourth paladin in the group... maybe that means that I can get Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Might... Better not hold my breath too long, though...  Wait a minute!  I don't see any Pr-


*bamf* (White)... Phew!  Was getting worried there - I like my stamina buff, I do.


*bamf* (Red)... Awww... man..."




So, I use Healbot on every character I play; it gives me an idea as to what's going on in the middle of a fight: who has aggro, who's DCed, who's got the horrible debuff, who's dead...  Anyway, I love that addon and it's set up to show me the class colours in each character's cell; as you can see from above I'm not really a fan of seeing red boxes in the raid - with the odd exception of known and trusted Death Knight players.

Now and again I wonder "Oh my god... do people think the same way when they see me popping up in a raid?"

In a way, this oddly mirrors the final quest in the Death Knight starting chain (you know, the one where you have the citizens of Stormwind/Orgrimmar yelling at/spitting on/throwing stuff at you) -  we're still looked down on by other classes.  I have to admit, that one of the reasons that I play a Death Knight is because of this and it's one of the things that drives me to not be rubbish; challenging preconceptions and all that...

I'm aware that when Wrath launched, everyone and his sister rolled a Death Knight. Thrown into the big, wide world at level 58, having had three whole levels to get to grips with all of your overpowered abilities before tearing around Hellfire Peninsula is not exactly going to endear you to people that have spent a lot of time and effort leveling the traditional way and find themselves overshadowed by these Johnny-come-latelys.  Is it a surprise that people weren't impressed by players who were ripping the place apart, despite not having a clue as to what they were doing?

Players that didn't have the skill to play other classes flocked to the Death Knight class, abandoning their old favourite, the Hunter... so renowned for this move, the moniker "Huntard" crossed the class divide and spawned the "Deathtard".

None of this bothered me or was noticed by me at the time; I started playing WoW shortly after Wrath launched, I knew nothing of Deathtards or Huntards - I was still grinding boars in Elwynn Forest on my first ever character - a warrior.  Many months, nerfs, a dwindling DK population, more XP bonus granting heirloom items and allowing flying mounts at level 60 with patch 3.2 convinced me to level a Death Knight.

The end game raiding world of Wrath is not overrun by those legions of Deathtards, I'm surprised if there are are more than two or three in an ICC25 run (including me), I rarely, rarely see one when I'm running random heroics - are the groups balanced so that you don't get more than one of each class, or something?  At the end of the day, Death Knights have become just another class, no better or worse than the others.  I assume that people have got bored of playing something that they originally hoped was going to be overpowered and realised that they would have to put as much effort into getting results as any other class. No longer do I need to groan when I see one in a group, right?

Well, that's what I thought, anyway...

My original warrior, who has spent the past year in the tavern in Honor Hold, drinking himself into oblivion, has decided to sort his act out.  He's been to Alcoholics Anonymous, got some heirlooms, got a shave and a haircut, got his Epic Flying and is trying to become a responsible member of the community by tanking stuff.

It's an interesting and fun experience to tank on a different class, running the 5-man normal level dungeons at the appropriate levels is great fun, knowing the instances and the pulls inside-out means that you can concentrate on holding aggro and not dying.

Then, every so often, you get a Death Knight DPS in your 5-man.  I can cope with being in odd gear or oddly specced.  Heck, I can even put up with them wailing away at a target that I've hardly sneezed on (almost...).  But when you're pulling aggro because you're in Frost Presence instead of Blood Presence, I really have to take a deep, calming breath before I offer up any words of advice to them.

Yep, make no mistake, the Deathtard is alive and well - this is why I don't like Death Knights...