How to be a Great DK

As DPS.

Because if you dont look like a bear, or have a shield, you shouldnt be a tank.  jk.


But really though, here are some things to always look out for when doing dps in five mans or whatevers.

1. Use Anti-Magic Shell. Often.
It absorbs magic damage around you and give you runic power in return (for more death coils, mind freezes, and gargoyles).  what's not to like about this ability?
It eases the strain on healers healing multiple people through magic AoE damage.  they'll really like you for it.  trust me i would.  unless they're bored.  yes, then they'd want everyone to take some damage so they can heal and act somewhat useful.
What else does it do?  it keeps you from having to run for your life in certain situations. Boss is casting an AoE blast (Loken, anyone?) what do you do?  run away?  no.  you cast anti-magic shell and anti-magic his ass. note, do this for the second blast, since the first one doesnt hit that hard. anyway, overall, this improves your dps.  you want that dont you?  go you.

2. Use Icebound Fortitude. Same reason above.
When things get hairy and the tank cant keep up with the 8th add to the pull, you IBF and tank it for him for a second.
When an "engineer" decides to toss you a land mine or bomb, or when mana wyrms blow up when they die, IBF. 
When a boss decides to whirlwind and you want to stand in it for an extra few seconds.  IBF.

3. Learn to Death Grip.
No i do not mean learn to press death grip when you see a mob.  anyone can do that.  what i mean is learn when you should use it. 
Use it to grip a caster the tank doesnt have aggro on.  stand close to the tank and deathgrip a caster.  if you place yourself right, the caster should be standing right in front of the tank.  of course, you'll grab aggro for a sec, but any smart tank can see you just did him a favor and will taunt it off you or hit it off you.  or mind freeze the caster and he will eventually fall to the tank's AoE attacks eventually anyway.  end result?  you look awesome.  healer doesnt get aggro. everyone thinks you're "pro". 
death grip a mob who's running to the healer (whose purpose is to bash said healer's face in, ofc). sometimes this saves your healer and will give your tank some valuable time to grab the mobs back.  always remember that you're using this spell to "guide" the mobs back to the tank. 
One thing to remember about death grip is that it interupts casting.  meaning, that healer who's about to heal the whole part is almost done casting Greater Super Prayer of Healing.  what do you do? you're too far away to do a mind freeze (more on this later), and you're out of runes.  Deathgrip will kill the cast. 

4. Mind Freeze Casters, especially healers
You can often tell when a mob is casting.  they have casting animations.  you can also tell, from experience, who the healers are in a group.  always save your runic power, at least 20, for situations like this where there are healers, or casters who casts mana burn, or casters who will do some AoE damage... oh and of course those casters who like to polymorph random party members.  Some even work on the boss. It doesnt hurt to try.  These interrupts can be a life saver.  sometimes, its just there to speed things up.  the less a mob healer heals their party, the less time you need to spend killing.  the less a mob casts mana burn, the less time you have to wait for the healer to drink.  see how that works?  When that first boss in Ramps yell, Heal Me!! Quickly!!  you turn to his lackeys and hit Mind Freeze.  no more heals. 
The above advice also works with Strangulate. It does the same thing but has two big differences.  one, it can be cast at range.  and two, it lasts for 5 seconds. oh and it costs 1 red rune instead of 20 runic power.

5. Use your Cooldowns.
Wait, dont you mean IBF and AMS? you already mentioned that in 1 and 2. 
No, i mean the other ones. Blood dps have Hysteria.  Use it on yourself, or the top dps to make his dps even more uber.  Frost Dps should all have unbreakable armor.  its has a strength boost similar to a trinket.  use it.  use it in conjunction with your trinkets.  use it in conjunction with Blood Lust.  Use it, use it, use it!  Unholy Dk's use your bone shield to gain more attack power, use your pet's frenzy if you have it. These are all spells used to increase dps.  use them!!

6. Use your Resets.
Most DK's only have two.  Rune Tap resets a blood rune one cooldown and makes it a death rune... to be used for ANYTHING.  if your spells dont work, its because all of your runes are on cooldown.  this spell will give you one rune back to be used for anything.  use it.
Empowered rune weapon.  this is even better.  it resets all your friggin runes. come on now.  whats not to like?

7. Use your Final Talent Tree Abilities.
Blood Dks have dancing rune weapon.  Unholys have a gargoyle.  Frost has... well nothing really.  but they're so awesome they dont need a stupid pet weapon killing things.
Anyway use those.  the talent points are spent, so use the abilities already. 


There.  Hopefully this list will help the OK DPS DK, doing uber dps and all, topping the charts dk , hopefully it will help him to actually learn to play his class.  hoepfully.