The Blizzcon Death Knight Thread

[Schizoide]

Ah, I hadn't considered that they might roll both a mob squish AND player buff, that seems somewhat overkill.

Doing both is unnecessary. They certainly won't do extra work.

[Skullflower]

Had an interesting discussion with one of the DK devs. Wish I had more questions and things to say planned out beforehand.

1. UB + NP won't work together so they're most likely going to be changing that up.
2. Festering strike does not effect NP.
3. On the discussion of Festerblight, there's no plans to try and bring that back, they don't want to make it feel mandatory.
4. I asked about having to use IT in the unholy AE rotation and possibly introducing a new ability or way to make using it worthwhile but he said they don't want to add on more abilities than the new talents nor add unneeded complexity.
5. No plans for changing runeforges, they like the way it works.
6. Unrelated DK question about racials: obviously changing them since hit/exp is gone. They haven't discussed anything yet about how they would be changing them.
7. I asked him if they had any other ideas for new talents besides the ones we have. He told me they were discussing adding on a 4th rune set of death runes (BBUUFFDD) and they were also discussing adding a CD ability like shaman's ascendance that would give us some caster-oriented abilities.
8. On the discussion of HB outscaling SR, that was just a mistake when they were tuning abilities. They plan to make it hit like a fucking truck come 6.0.

[Bendeis]

4th set of runes could be pretty interesting actually.

[Shiira]

and they were also discussing adding a CD ability like shaman's ascendance that would give us some caster-oriented abilities.
8. On the discussion of HB outscaling SR, that was just a mistake when they were tuning abilities. They plan to make it hit like a fucking truck come 6.0.

Both of these things make me happy, frost needs a real cooldown and unholy needs something that hits harder than a damp paper towel.

Props to you for having relevant questions to ask.

[blackblade]

- Only primary stats will change on gear that changes between things like strength and int.

Did they ever announce how spirit factors into this?

Spirit is generally treated like a secondary stat, but is lumped in the UI as a primary stat.

It kind of defeats the purpose of removing 'Pally plate' if we start seeing STR plate drops with +spirit. (maybe just convert it into +haste?) Alternatively, I suppose they could just reserve spirit for non-armor gear (rings/trinkets/neck/cape/weapon)

Unrelated to DK's directly:
It's also kind of interesting that quest rewards can have dynamic qualities. Could open up some potential rewards to continuing to quest post level cap (fishing for purps/blues)

[Northern Goblin]

From the sounds of things, spirit will be more on jewellery/cloaks/trinkets, which will remain more role specific, to cater to healers who want spirit, over everyone else who doesn't.

[Astro9866]

Doing both is unnecessary. They certainly won't do extra work.

I think that the player buff would only work in Raids and maybe dungeons. Or, that's at least how I saw it.

[Nangz]

Both of these things make me happy, frost needs a real cooldown and unholy needs something that hits harder than a damp paper towel.

Props to you for having relevant questions to ask.

I think you would be suprised how much damage gargoyle is currently doing, personally, I hope that stays, having a powerful gargoyle feels like quality flavor.

[Maxweii]

I think you would be suprised how much damage gargoyle is currently doing, personally, I hope that stays, having a powerful gargoyle feels like quality flavor.

Gary def hits like a truck now, feels good to pop him and see his numbers fly

[Darkedge]

Had an interesting discussion with one of the DK devs. Wish I had more questions and things to say planned out beforehand.

1. UB + NP won't work together so they're most likely going to be changing that up.
2. Festering strike does not effect NP.
3. On the discussion of Festerblight, there's no plans to try and bring that back, they don't want to make it feel mandatory.
4. I asked about having to use IT in the unholy AE rotation and possibly introducing a new ability or way to make using it worthwhile but he said they don't want to add on more abilities than the new talents nor add unneeded complexity.
5. No plans for changing runeforges, they like the way it works.
6. Unrelated DK question about racials: obviously changing them since hit/exp is gone. They haven't discussed anything yet about how they would be changing them.
7. I asked him if they had any other ideas for new talents besides the ones we have. He told me they were discussing adding on a 4th rune set of death runes (BBUUFFDD) and they were also discussing adding a CD ability like shaman's ascendance that would give us some caster-oriented abilities.
8. On the discussion of HB outscaling SR, that was just a mistake when they were tuning abilities. They plan to make it hit like a fucking truck come 6.0.

Yes please.

[blackblade]

From the sounds of things, spirit will be more on jewellery/cloaks/trinkets, which will remain more role specific, to cater to healers who want spirit, over everyone else who doesn't.

There's a GC tweet confirming this, found it like 5 mins after asking, hah.

[Kaleredar]

Had an interesting discussion with one of the DK devs. Wish I had more questions and things to say planned out beforehand.

1. UB + NP won't work together so they're most likely going to be changing that up.
2. Festering strike does not effect NP.
3. On the discussion of Festerblight, there's no plans to try and bring that back, they don't want to make it feel mandatory.
4. I asked about having to use IT in the unholy AE rotation and possibly introducing a new ability or way to make using it worthwhile but he said they don't want to add on more abilities than the new talents nor add unneeded complexity.
5. No plans for changing runeforges, they like the way it works.
6. Unrelated DK question about racials: obviously changing them since hit/exp is gone. They haven't discussed anything yet about how they would be changing them.
7. I asked him if they had any other ideas for new talents besides the ones we have. He told me they were discussing adding on a 4th rune set of death runes (BBUUFFDD) and they were also discussing adding a CD ability like shaman's ascendance that would give us some caster-oriented abilities.
8. On the discussion of HB outscaling SR, that was just a mistake when they were tuning abilities. They plan to make it hit like a fucking truck come 6.0.

I wanted to know if they had considered rolling chillblains into a baseline ability for frost DKs, seeing as they pretty much have to take that in PvP anyway...

[Clash the DK]

Had an interesting discussion with one of the DK devs. Wish I had more questions and things to say planned out beforehand.

1. UB + NP won't work together so they're most likely going to be changing that up.
2. Festering strike does not effect NP.
3. On the discussion of Festerblight, there's no plans to try and bring that back, they don't want to make it feel mandatory.
4. I asked about having to use IT in the unholy AE rotation and possibly introducing a new ability or way to make using it worthwhile but he said they don't want to add on more abilities than the new talents nor add unneeded complexity.
5. No plans for changing runeforges, they like the way it works.
6. Unrelated DK question about racials: obviously changing them since hit/exp is gone. They haven't discussed anything yet about how they would be changing them.
7. I asked him if they had any other ideas for new talents besides the ones we have. He told me they were discussing adding on a 4th rune set of death runes (BBUUFFDD) and they were also discussing adding a CD ability like shaman's ascendance that would give us some caster-oriented abilities.
8. On the discussion of HB outscaling SR, that was just a mistake when they were tuning abilities. They plan to make it hit like a fucking truck come 6.0.

Thanks for sharing this!

~ Yeah, Necrotic Plague can't be too useful with our current toolkit, otherwise it might over-shadow any other options in the tier.

~ I hope they change their mind about IT in the Unholy AOE rotation. Fixing that situation doesn't necessarily have to be complex. All they have to do is add one new ability to Unholy that replaces Blood Boil. An AOE ability that consumes 1B/1F.

~ I am very interested in the potential addition of more runes (BBUUFFDD). This could open up a great number of possibilities.

- - - Updated - - -

I wanted to know if they had considered rolling chillblains into a baseline ability for frost DKs, seeing as they pretty much have to take that in PvP anyway...

We don't want it to be baseline because there are times when we do not want to slow specific targets. It has to be optional in some fashion. IMO, the "50% slow" component of Chilblains should be made into a Major Glyph. In turn, Chains of Ice would be put into the talent grid. CoI would then come with the "root" component of current Chilblains. Also, the damage of CoI would be increased significantly in this scenario. But this only works with the current configuration of our talents. It's yet to be determined just how much (if any) they change our talent grid.

[Shiira]

I think you would be suprised how much damage gargoyle is currently doing, personally, I hope that stays, having a powerful gargoyle feels like quality flavor.

Sure, but for the other two and a half minutes out of every three I feel like I'm slapping things to death.

I like unholy's cooldowns as they are, but I'd also like more active damage in general.

[Kaleredar]

We don't want it to be baseline because there are times when we do not want to slow specific targets. It has to be optional in some fashion. IMO, the "50% slow" component of Chilblains should be made into a Major Glyph. In turn, Chains of Ice would be put into the talent grid. CoI would then come with the "root" component of current Chilblains. Also, the damage of CoI would be increased significantly in this scenario. But this only works with the current configuration of our talents. It's yet to be determined just how much (if any) they change our talent grid.

Then you've pretty much just made an essential glyph for Frost DKs in PvP... as for chains of ice, they'd probably have to up the snare duration as well if they were to make that "a talent."

[Clash the DK]

Sure, but for the other two and a half minutes out of every three I feel like I'm slapping things to death.

I like unholy's cooldowns as they are, but I'd also like more active damage in general.

Yes, they just tried to do too much with Unholy from the beginning. Strong Dots plus empowered pet doesn't leave much room for the DKs regular abilities to make a big difference. However unlikely, IF they ever do something like 4th specs, I hope they address that. One DPS spec focused solely on spells and abilities (Frost), another focused on the permanent pet (Unholy?) and another focused on multiple empowered diseases (4th spec?). That would be a nice mix IMO.

- - - Updated - - -

Then you've pretty much just made an essential glyph for Frost DKs in PvP... as for chains of ice, they'd probably have to up the snare duration as well if they were to make that "a talent."

I don't have a problem with essential PvP glyphs. But with that being said, I do think they should expand upon the Major Glyph system. I would like to see even more glyph options. We should be able to socket at least 6 Major Glyphs. That is much needed character customization.

[Erishkigal]

I wanted to know if they had considered rolling chillblains into a baseline ability for frost DKs, seeing as they pretty much have to take that in PvP anyway...

Better off leaving it as a talent and making death's advance baseline imo. Sometimes you want to snare stuff, you want to run faster all the time.

[teteiyusu]

I'd personally like to see the rune regen talents placed back to being baseline for their spec and having my runic corruption back to not getting nerfed the higher my haste is. I really miss my runic corruption the way it used to be that let me keep a nice clean rotation and not have brutal downtimes.

[Shiira]

Runic corruption doesn't get nerfed by haste, it just doesn't scale non linearly any more.

You always get an extra 0.3 of each rune type per proc regardless of haste now.

[Schizoide]

Like I've said so many times before, that exposes the main problem with the L75 talents. Here we are over a year in and most people still don't understand how they work.