I know this is going to ring hollow coming from a DK, but Death Grip is a 25 second cooldown. If you have the talent for it, it carries two charges. I don’t think you’re getting hit with Death Grip as much as you think you are. If anything, Abomination Limb is also coming into play as it is able to pull the same target once every four seconds over a 12 second duration.
In PvP, it’s almost rock, paper, scissors with some classes. You’re playing a hybrid DPS/healing spec (but let’s be honest, disc is not exactly a heavy hitter) against a class that is designed to be annoying to casters, as well as a class with multiple ways to slow/snare and otherwise impede opponents. I’m honestly not sure what you’re expecting the outcome to be.
Key thing with a DK in PvP: more often than not, you have GOT to take them by surprise and burst them down as fast as you can. Assuming equal PvP item levels, if you are a caster of any kind, they see you coming, and they have all of their abilities off cooldown? Yeah, one on one I’d say a good DK wins that battle about eight out of ten times.
As a discipline priest however in a one on one situation? Yeah, I wouldn’t dare attempt that.
Run BGs with friends if you can, and have them ready to help you out in the event a DK gets in your face, cause trying to get randoms to help in that situation is like herding cats. If at all possible, coordinate cooldowns and burst abilities with your team. In the event a DK is dealing with multiple casters, it sometimes becomes hard to for us to prioritize our skills, and two hard hitting casters bursting at the same time can quickly burn down even a well timed AMS/AMZ. On the opposite end, if the DPS attacking the DK are melee, the DK now has to contend with either pressing the attack on you, or dealing with their own issues in melee range, and if they get tunnel visioned and focus on melee, that’s generally going to be the time for you to PI someone while also keeping them shielded and healed. There might be a few additional issues if a DK is playing unholy (can’t speak from experience as I’ve not touched the spec in years), but generally I find that most UH DKs aren’t particularly great at controlling their ghoul, especially if they just play the class/spec casually, so unless you’re dealing with a well geared player in ranked matches (I feel the odds of them actually knowing what to do is much higher), it should be easy enough to handle
Mind you, this is all assuming you’re dealing with frost or unholy. Blood is an entirely different beast in itself, but if a blood DK is running around a map going after casters as opposed to running flags or holding bases, then the team they are playing on might have bigger issues.
Above all else however: do NOT engage a DK alone! You might be able to annoy them and make them waste time by keeping yourself alive, but you aren’t typically going to have the damage output to take them on alone unless there is a MASSIVE gear difference in your favor, or the DK player straight up has zero clue about the basics of the class. Should you find yourself getting pinned by one constantly near your spawn (such as in AB), then let your team know immediately, especially if you are a healer as no team ever wants to be in a situation where they are essentially down a healer.
