Death Knight Button Bloat

[Dakara]

Like most classes, there's still plenty of abilities which should transform based on spec, and not just exist for all 3 trees. Bloodboil (as discussed above) has no purpose as Frost, so why is it there?

Also, Icy Touch, Chains of Ice and Howling blast, while different, are also too similar. Chains of Ice + Icy touch could be wrapped into one and Bloodboil could morph into Howling blast as frost (for example).

Unholy Blight could be baseline, with a rune cost, and ditch pestillence.
Death Siphon could replace Death Strike for Unholy/Frost, and modify/buff Death Strike for Blood.
Necrotic Strike should be a Talent (or Glyph), and then built into another ability.

Just a few ideas, but ultimately, Blizzard has simply given every class a new button to press when they want to give them a new utility. IMO, these utilities (namely debuffs, PvP orientated) should be a choice via talents/glyphs. You want Necrotic strike? Ok, but there's a tradeoff.

Removing ability bloat could also greatly open customization at the same time.... similar the the runes in Diablo. Give us more Glyphs, more Glyph slots, and roll all those utility skills into them.

My 2c

[Deleted]

Just a few ideas, but ultimately, Blizzard has simply given every class a new button to press when they want to give them a new utility. IMO, these utilities (namely debuffs, PvP orientated) should be a choice via talents/glyphs. You want Necrotic strike? Ok, but there's a tradeoff

I really believe we're already suffering too much from this. Our talent trees is all about making drastic choices. Some examples;

-Choosing between a raid and personal cooldowns; AMZ / Lichborne and Purgatory.
-Choosing between CC and mobility; Ashpyxiate, Chillblains / Death's advance.

I'm not exactly sure it's really the best thing to do that, because right now, I find it more annoying than anything else. I'd rather see stuff like IT and PS go away entirely and maybe change the way diseases work, so they feel a bit more interesting while using less buttons to maintain, Blood Boil being removed from Frost, Blood Strike removed from Unholy, etc.

I don't want to suffer from such huge tradeoffs. It's already the case and I don't like that.

[Dakara]

I really believe we're already suffering too much from this. Our talent trees is all about making drastic choices. Some examples;

-Choosing between a raid and personal cooldowns; AMZ / Lichborne and Purgatory.
-Choosing between CC and mobility; Ashpyxiate, Chillblains / Death's advance.

I'm not exactly sure it's really the best thing to do that, because right now, I find it more annoying than anything else. I'd rather see stuff like IT and PS go away entirely and maybe change the way diseases work, so they feel a bit more interesting while using less buttons to maintain, Blood Boil being removed from Frost, Blood Strike removed from Unholy, etc.

I don't want to suffer from such huge tradeoffs. It's already the case and I don't like that.

If DK's were the only class to suffer tradeoffs, I can definitely agree, it would be terrible. If it was across the board, I can see a lot of merit to it, and it opens up more customization, especially if we had enough slots to "Glyph" every (or most) abilities.

That being said, I can sympathize with those who wouldn't want it this way, as I'm taking the idea from D3, just with a lot more abilities.

[ro9ue]

Chains of Ice and Icy Touch for sure. No reason for both.

After that it gets a little more touchy.

Control Undead I could see as a talent.

Blood boil should have Pestilence baked in baseline instead of needing a talent, Roiling Blood.

I'd give a lot more passive options in the talent trees. Maybe a glyph that turns Army of the Dead into a passive chance to raise a skeleton on melee hit or something.


Of all the classes, my DK gives me the least problems with ability bloat. I think Warlocks and Druids have the biggest problems.

[Erishkigal]

Blood Boil - Blood only, spreads blood plague
Howling Blast - Frost, causes FF on all targets
Pestilence - Unholy only, spreads both diseases, does damage

Empower rune weapon should go or get an overhaul/cd reduction
Icy Touch/chains could be folded into one ability
Cut Dark Sim

[Tojara]

We don't have button bloat at all. Some abilities might not pop up from time to time, but that doesn't mean they are completely unnecessary. We don't for example use control undead at all, but I really don't want to see it go away either. An ability like that just doesn't occupy my bars and I simply drag it out in the very few circumstances where it's useful. I am of the belief that some abilities need to stay even if they aren't used much just because they fit the theme of the class.

Blood strike is about the only ability that doesn't fit, but you really don't need it anywhere near your bars. Maybe pestilence? As blood about the only time I use it is if adds are going to stay up for a decent amount of time and I want to spread my DRW diseases, that's really about it. I'd make rolling blood baseline honestly if it didn't fuck up FB playstyle for unholy.

Death strike also feels like shit for both frost/unholy, not even sure how necessary it is anymore to even be in the game. Glyphed it's okay for what, leveling?

DKs, along with possibly Rogues are probably the two classes that have the least button bloat in the entire game. Unholy really doesn't have button bloat either. It's to be expected that a spec with a pet is going to have more buttons, but even UH really isn't that excessive.

Whether some of our abilities are strong enough is an entire other story. For example I find DnD fairly lackluster compared to what it use to be.

Icy touch and chains being folded into one ability at the moment would be way too strong. You would have moderate damaging ranged attack that dispels, puts a disease up and snares with one press. It would devalue chillblains as a talent a bit but taking chillblains would make icy touch/chains a root as well.

Most DK abilities have a defined role and a purpose. Our RP/rune system might be dated, but the fundamental core of the class (ability wise) is fairly solid. If anything we are probably the class that suffered the most from the talent tree revamp. We had A LOT of abilities and CDs through the old talent system and/or baseline. We have to make choices, where other classes (not all) just pick up new things.

Also fuck whoever decided that frost and unholy shouldn't have a taunt. Jesus.

[Nillo]

Death strike also feels like shit for both frost/unholy, not even sure how necessary it is anymore to even be in the game. Glyphed it's okay for what, leveling?

Glyphed it's really great for leveling and challenge modes.
The usefulness is somewhat lower in raids but it still has it's uses.

[Thes]

imo Rolling blood should just become baseline and Pestilence should be removed. Both unholy and Blood require rolling blood, frost doesn't.

Blood strike is also worthless.

Dark sim also worthless outside of pvp. (and even in pvp you rarely copy anything useful), control undead is also pointless.

Dark sim is absolutely essential in pvp. When you control the fight/you can make right reads you can pretty much tell what your opponent is going to use next and copy it. It's especially easy against mages and retri paladins. You can always bait a IB/Blink/Bubble/Freedom/Hammer of Justice from these opponents if you know what you are doing and what they have to do. All these abilities can win a match for you.

Non-instant abilities are really easy to copy and only the high end players will juke the DS with instant casts and you end up getting Ice Lance or some crap like that, though it all comes down to mind games in those games anyway.

Removing DS without compensation would make DK pvp absolute crap and un-interesting.

[Raugnaut]

As I have stated before in other threads, Ability Bloat needs to be defined. For DKs, there really isnt a single ability that can constitute as "bloat". Icy Touch can have the dispel attached to it, Plague strike is useful for unholy when you target swap frequently, but dont have outbreak/pestilence up.

I would personally like to see bloat defined as A) An ability that is made redudnant by another ability (Easily seen with healers, the Heal, cheap/slow cast equivalent spells are useful only at very low gear lvls and then is entirely ignored at higher gear levels), or B) An ability used that can be made baseline/incorporated into another ability.

Of course, I also see that many DKs on this thread do not feel as though they are suffering from ability bloat.

[Thes]

Of course, I also see that many DKs on this thread do not feel as though they are suffering from ability bloat.

I do not believe that we have ability bloat at least.

[Dakara]

Ability bloat is made up of 2 factors (imo), useless/hardly used abilities, and overall number of keybinds.

Deathknights, being a newer class, seem to suffer less than others when it comes to useless abilities, but they still have a lot of binds. My standard keybinds (for all classes) consists of 22 binds. I use them all on my DK, and I feel 22 binds is too many.

We have plenty of useful abilities, which are very situational or just rather weak, but still have their place, other are just double ups due to CD's. What I think people need to understand, is to remove the bloat, it's not just a matter of removing abilities, it's about re-packaging everything, so we lost buttons, but still retain many of the functionality.

Take tanking for example. With active mitigation, how many tanking CD's does a class really need? IMO, one, maybe 2 on 30 second CD's. Why do we need Bone Shield + IBF + AMS + Blood Tap + Rune Tap + Death Pact?

Bone shield could be become "Bone Armor", IBF could have it's CD reduced to be our one and only "shield wall", Rune Tap could just vanish completely, AMS wouldn't be needed if IBF had a shorter CD, and Death Pact could be replaced by a passive that massively buffs DS when we're "At or below 35% HP".

Now, those are just *some* ideas, they aren't necessarily very good, and would require a lot of balancing to smooth things out, but the point remains, you don't need to give a class many rolling CD's, when one of two on short CD's could do the same job.

Other abilities I believe, could be wound into Glyphs. e.g. Glyph of Necrotic Strike, Reduces the damage done by Obliterate, Death Strike, and Scourge Strike but X%, but they now cause the Necrotic Strike debuff. Or, Glyph of Dark Sim - Your strangulate ability ability no longer silences, but allows you to copy the spell being cast. Spell cast is still interrupted.

Once again, just ideas, not suggestions, just demonstrating how glyphing (like in D3) could be vastly expanded upon to let us customize our skills. Give us a core set of skills, and then let us tune them toward PvP or PvE as we see fit.

You also can't compare bloat removal in a vaccum. "We need this ability else mages will roll us!" for example... if the bloat gets addressed. then every class will lose abilities, not just DK's, so there will need to be balancing accross the board. Probably the most likely reason it hasn't happened yet.

[ymirsson]

Removing abilities is not necessarily the solution. Justifying it by "everyone will lose buttons" is kind of weird. And although having options through glyphs is cool, WoW is not D3 and shouldn't be.

[Dakara]

Removing abilities is not necessarily the solution. Justifying it by "everyone will lose buttons" is kind of weird. And although having options through glyphs is cool, WoW is not D3 and shouldn't be.

I think you missed the point of my post entirely.

My point, is that you can't simply single out abilities and say what we need/don't need based on the current game. The bloat removal will require radical re-designs and overhauls of every class to be balanced.

As for the part about D3, WOW already has glyphs, and I feel they're terribly under utilized. D3 is the most commonly known game on these forums to draw a comparison too in regards to how glyphs *could* be built upon.

[Veraxys]

I would like a real taunt again.

I'd like a true AoE taunt.

[Deleted]

Icy touch and Pestilence strike should be removed, instead add rune cost to pestilence and give it some threat generation for blood.

Blood boil should apply diseases if it strikes 4+ targets (glyph maybe?)

Necrotic strike should be baked into something else. Maybe glyph that reduce damage from filler and add heal absorbtion effect to it.

Soul Reaper should be removed, its anoying to use (imo) just let our skills stack dot on targets below certain treshold of HP.

Army of the Dead should be turned into passive ability, let us spawn ghoul from time to time.

Raise Dead should be removed, only use for this is to macro it with Dark Pact.

Rune Tap turn into passive, when will of necropolis proc you are healed for x% of HP.

Dark Simulacrum, it will be nice to actually use it somewhere in pve...

[Deleted]

I thought unholy dks have an unholy button bloat...until I tried playing an enh shaman and an affliction lock. THAT's button bloat.