So how would YOU redesign Death Knights?

[hasslehoof]

re-balance SS so the shadow portion can crit again.

that is all.

[Rothulean1]

Class changes
Reduce DK runes from 6 to 3 (less reliance on runes to complete actions, more usage of runic power and other resources)
Reduce rune regen time to 6 seconds.
Simplified diseases: Blood and Frost only use 1 disease. Unholy still uses 2.
Diseases no longer modify weapon damage.
Icebound fortitude: cost removed.
Chains of ice: cost changed to 10 runic power, slow reduced to 4 or 5 seconds.
Path of frost: cost removed
Tier 75 talents removed.
Diseases update dynamically.
Rune of razorice removed.
Army of the dead: Cost removed, no longer channeled.

Blood
Rune regen for blood is 4.5 seconds.
Rune Tap: cost removed, adds to Blood Shield, 1 minute cooldown.
DnD cost changed to 10 or 20 runic power.
Now only uses 1 disease: Blood Plague.
Blood Plague: damage doubled, applies weakened blows, and stacks charges for Mark of Blood.
Mark of Blood: whenever you Death Strike a mob infected with Blood Plague, you gain X charges of Blood. When you gather enough charges, you infect the mob with Mark of Blood, causing all physical damage dealt by the mob to heal you for 5% of the damage dealt (a 100k hit would heal you for 5k). You can save up to 3 fully charged Mark of Bloods. All charges and stacks are removed when combat ends. Lasts for 10 seconds or 5 hits.

Frost
Frost presence: no longer reduces the cost of frost strike (to prevent GCD capping issues). Instead, causes your frost strike to deal an additional 15% damage.
Pillar of frost: cost removed. No longer grants strength. Instead, increases all damage dealt by an additional 10% frost damage. Cooldown and length remain the same.
KM: damage increased by critical chance.
Howling Blast: single target damage reduced.
Icy touch: single target damage increased to replace howling blast.
Rime: now activated by frost strike.
Frost fever: your critical strikes on a target infected with frost fever cause razorice, increasing the damage of your next 3 auto attacks by your mastery. These charges can stack to 6.

Unholy
Unholy presence: no longer reduces rune regen time. Instead, it increases the damage of diseases by 20% and Scourge Strike by 10%.
No longer a permanent pet spec.
Now uses 2 different diseases: Wandering Plague and Ebon Plague.
Ebon plague: causes physical vulnerability
Wandering plague: see Festering Strike.
Unholy frenzy: removed
Master of Ghouls: reduces the cd of Raise Dead to 1 minute. You can have more than 1 ghoul up at a time, but ghoul damage is reduced by 50%.
Dark Transformation: now applies to the Death Knight as well. When activated, increases strength by 5% per charge up to 25%. Can be activated at any time from 1 to 5 charges of shadow infusion. Lasts 20 seconds, requires 5 stacks of SI. Shadow infusion charges build up outside of combat.
Shadow infusion: no longer passively increases damage.
Scourge Strike: whenever you Scourge Strike a mob infected with wandering plague and ebon plague, the cooldown of raise dead is reduced by 6 seconds.
Festering strike: whenever you festering strike a mob infected with Wandering Plague, 20% of the damage dealt by the last Wandering Plague tick is applied in an 8 yard radius. (This brings back wandering plague while limiting its AoE capability to only activating from the mob you cast festering strike on).
Corpse Explosion: explode all nearby ghoul corpses. For every 3 corpses exploded this way, you gain 1 stack of shadow infusion. 1.5 minute cooldown.

Essentially, the focus becomes Scourge Strike, disease and dynamic pet summoning. And obviously, numbers would be adjusted overall to compensate for the changes.

[Murdos]

Only major changes I'd make; reduce Army of the Dead's CD to 5 minutes, and Empower Rune Weapon's to 3 minutes, and make Soul Reaper Shadowfrost damage.

[Sorrior]

Regardless of anything else, I would make the rune mechanics like they were before Cataclysm. That was much more fast paced and fun.

This right here is what i came to say.....I dropped my DK come cta but in wrath i liked it so much i learned to tank even just barely JUST so i could still be a blood DK come cata....But the rune changes ruined it for me.

[syn1k]

i want my lk dk back where dw obliterate was fun and hb was used for aoe.

[Clash the DK]

@ vmagik & Rothulean1

I like the ideas you both have brought to the table. I can see a very clear vision for what you both have in mind. I wish that Blizz could settle on a singular path towards an ideal version of the class. Sometimes I think they may have too many cooks in their kitchens.

[Deleted]

Summonable Bone Walls that have low health but allow you to LoS some abilities

That sounds fantastic :-O

There are some awesome ideas on here tbh, I also really like:

Glyph of Scourge Power -

You now faintly glow with energy, giving you a thin colored outline dependent on your spec.

If that worked for presences instead of spec I'd have a sex wee... You have any idea how many times I've switched spec and forgotten to pop the presence? :-D (yeah I'm a nab, I know)

[Deleted]

Unholy
No longer a permanent pet spec.

NO, you will take that back!


ontopic
old SS and works on reaping, remove FS
remove 75 talents, give back baseline abilities and baseline blood tap




(wtb old imp presences with raidwide buffs http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9...8211713nx3.jpg not mine, but double blood presence buff or even more )

[kynthrus]

DW Tanking... GIVE ME BACK DW TANKING!!!!!

[Dasani]

Personally i'd make killing machine have the damage of the ability increase by the same percentage as your crit chance so crit has the same value, just like how chaos bolt works for destro warlocks.

I'd also change the ugly pet in unholy and instead go with multiple undead pets instead. Maybe 4 of em up at once, just because it feels more "undead commander"ish. I've always felt one pet at a time is pretty tacky design that all MMO's live by. Four ghouls would be pretty neat I think. They can adjust the damage they do to balance it out obviously, but i'd like to see unholy go more pet-oriented in this way than just one pet that you can occasionally make look hideously ugly with clunky mechanics.

[Rothulean1]

NO, you will take that back!


ontopic
old SS and works on reaping, remove FS
remove 75 talents, give back baseline abilities and baseline blood tap




(wtb old imp presences with raidwide buffs http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9...8211713nx3.jpg not mine, but double blood presence buff or even more )

It's still a pet spec. Just not permanent.

[Slummish]

There are some pretty good suggestions on the first page. Personally, I'm happy with the current state of DKs except for the final tier talents; they're pretty underwhelming. They feel like they should be the on the level 75 tier. The Death rune generation system kinda pisses me off sometimes; it's like feast or famine, but I can cope.

[Nalfeinn]

Looks like more than 1 DK per server might actually be in the pipeline now, Do like some of the original ideas, even though some are really OP
One thing i felt short changed on is our vanity glyphs, i know it doesnt really matter but we didnt get alot fo cool stuff, snow on howling blast OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH wow, how about a minor glyph to change the appearance of DnD to Defile? I would wet my pants at that, In fact just gimme all LKs stuff, and his HP kthanksbye

Im fairly happy with DKs at the moment, I do agree that a few things should be baseline and our talent tree should at least contain a choice of a new epic attack of some kind, just from looking at the lvl 90 selection for monks and rets, while RW is fun, the other 2 are either very situational or useless

But in the spirit of the post heres my suggestions for new toys


Change blood shield to have some form of magic absorbtion, either 50/50 magic/physical or changes via a glyph

Move RW to a "CC" tier to talent tree, maybe with chillblains and deaths advance, give asphyx to blood DK and strangulate to frost/unholy

Make the lvl 90 tree offer an attack, lightly based on a spec but viable for any spec(ish, what comes to mind is the monk talents that have different effects based on spec)

[Kaleredar]

Give us back shadow of death.



That is all.



But in honesty, some nice changes would be allowing DKs to "tame" undead looks for their ghoul, and going back to allowing Frost DKs to choose between DW or 2h for masterfrost or hastefrost, instead of locking them in. I'd also make chillblains baseline for frost DKs, so we actually have an actual option on that talent tier...

[Nalfeinn]

@ Dasani.....Is that my toothbrush? :O

[Omertocracy]

I made a thing! It's terrible, but here it is anyway:

Talents
56
Roiling Blood: Good as is.
Unholy Blight: Good as is.
Plague Leech: Removed.
Pustulent Blow: Your next Icy Touch or Plague Strike applies both diseases to all targets within 5 yards and has no rune cost. 90sec CD.
57
Lichborne: Also provides immunity to Disorient effects for its duration.
Purgatory: You are immune to damage during its 4 second window.
Anti-Magic Zone: Flat 40% reduction, or 4000% Strength scaling instead of 400%.
58
Death's Advance: Made baseline.
Chillblains: Good as is.
Asphyxiate: After the stun wears off, target is snared by 70% for 3 seconds.
Iron Grip: Your Death Grip spell now moves you to the target instead of it to you. Reduces the cooldown of Death Grip to 20 seconds.
60
Death Pact: Automatically summons your ghoul if it is not already summoned, then uses Death Pact.
Death Siphon: Slight increase to scaling, applies 50% Blood Shield if Blood, causes Rime if Frost, causes one stack of Shadow Infusion if Unholy.
Conversion: No longer prevents alternate Runic Power generation.
75: BT (Cata version) and RE made baseline, RC glyph to replace RE.
Blood-Caked Blade: 25% chance to cause 15% weapon damage per disease present to all targets within 8yards.
Shadow of Death: If your ghoul dies from damage, you instantly summon a new one. If your ghoul lasts its full duration, You gain 10% Strength for 15 seconds. 90 second cooldown on this effect.
Deathchill: Increases your critical strike chance by 50% for 10 seconds, reduces damage you take by 25%, Spell Damage by an additional 25%, and all direct attacks and spells automatically crit you. 2min CD.
90
Gorefiend's Grasp: Range incrased to 30, Deals 125% main hand weapon damage to each target.
Remorseless Winter: Each tick deals damage equal to 2x Frost Fever.
Desecrated Ground: Causes damage equal to 2x Blood Plague each second, and causes all diseases present to tick each second as well.

Army of the Dead costs 50RP instead of BFU. You now continue to melee attack, Parry, and Dodge during its channel.

New ability added: Defile.
Defile works like the Lich King version, but caps at a much smaller radius (20 yards), and its damage ramps up the longer it is down. It will not damage targets not already in combat or that are under the effects of any full CC.

Threat of Thassarian affects all Strikes and is available to all specs, making Dual Wielding viable, but 2H balanced higher for Blood survival and UH dps.

Icebound Fortitude is now free for all specs.

Rune Regeneration base is 8 seconds instead of 10.

Remove additional RP from Frost Presence.

Death Coil now costs 35 RP flat.

Frost Strike now costs 20 RP flat.

Unholy: Death Coil damage now increased by 10% per disease on the target.
Rothulean's idea with dynamic ghouls sounds awesome. Put permanent pet in as a glyph reverting it?
Gary now does Shadowfrost damage instead of whatever-the-crap they call ShadowNature.

Frost: Might of the Frozen Wastes and the Frost Strike damage boost of ToT are now baked into Frost Presence.
Obliterate no longer benefits from having Blood Plague on the target, and instead benefits 25% from Frost Fever only.
Killing Machine now only affects Obliterate.
Rime now also affects Frost Strike.
Icy Touch now does 25% more single target damage than Howling Blast. Howling Blast does equal AoE and single target.

Blood: Blood Shield will no longer deplete more than half of its current amount on any single attack. Damage absorbed by Blood Shield will affect Death Strike healing.
Blood Strike added back. Deals 2/3 of Heart Strike's damage, does not cleave, activates Blood Shield at 25% of what a Death Strike Would.
Rune Tap: Affected by Mastery. 1min CD.
Mark of Blood reintroduced. Whenever the target attacks, it heals all allies of its target by 4% of their max health plus 20% of damage inflicted as an absorb effect.
Dancing Rune Weapon cost removed, bonus damage lowered to 20%, threat increased by 25% during its duration.

Runeforges: Rune of Lichbane changed to Rune of the Lich.
Rune of the Lich: Reduces Disarm and Silence duration by 25%. Your attacks have a chance to apply Lich's Curse (disease) to your target for 10 seconds.
Lich's Curse: Target takes 5% additional Spell Damage, its movement speed is slowed by 15%, Casting Speed by 25%, Spell Damage lowered by 25%. If this disease is dispelled, it is applied to the Death Knight that caused it.

Glyphs:
Minor
Glyph of the Wyrmling: Your Summon Gargoyle now summons a Frost Wyrmling instead of a Gargoyle.
OR
Glyph of the Val'kyr: Your Summon Gargoyle now summons a Val'kyr to attack your target.

Glyph of Foul Menagerie: Made base, also affects regular ghouls.

Glyph of Gorefiend: Your Gorefiend's Grasp now taunts all affected targets for 1sec if cast on yourself.

Major
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude: Your Icebound fortitude reduces damage taken by an additional 20%, but no longer grants stun immunity.

Glyph of Focused Fortitude: Icebound Fortitude duration reduced by 75%, Cooldown reduced by 50%.

Glyph of Shifting Presences: Retain 70% RP when switching, causes all presences to share one effect from each presence. Blood shares 8% Damage Reduction. Frost shares 20% CC reduction. Unholy shares 10% attack speed and rune regeneration.

Glyph of Corrupted Runes: Replaces Runic Empowerment with Runic Corruption.

Glyph of Timmy: Reverts Unholy to having a permanent pet.

[Cherrytie]

Make Corpse Explosion usable on every target agin
and give the Blood Dk the passiv RP regen back (not only by whitehits)

[valliant13]

Regardless of anything else, I would make the rune mechanics like they were before Cataclysm. That was much more fast paced and fun.

pretty much this. I hate how slow it is. Also now that(at least frost) only hits about 4 buttons a raid I feel we could go back to the LK priority system. Just change SR to RP and I think it would work fine.

[Deleted]

Just give us back a spammable necrotic strike, like in Cata. That's all.

There should be at least one class in this game that destroys healers by default, in 1on1.

[Terahertz]

God am I glad Rothulean1 isn't a DK developer. So many simplifcations it's unbelievable. Do you people truly want such a simplified class by only have 1 dot to worry about and less rune managing?

The only real thing I'd redesign about DKs is by adding a couple of fun vanity glyphs like someone suggested. Really liked the idea of changing the glow of your eyes depending on presence