WoD Death Knight Changes

[Skarssen]

The NS thing....not sure how I feel about it. NS really wasn't very good for frost anyway, so no big loss there. But unholy, NS made the spec. Unholy had the feel of the necromancer that whittled you down, sucking your life away and preventing your from doing anything about it. Frost was/is the up frost burst damage spec. I liked how they played completely differently in PVP, and don't want to see them become more homogenized.

On the PVE side, Killing Machine still sucks.

[klob]

You are comparing Dks to warriors in MoP, and not WoD thats you problem. Warriors are losing shield wall, second wind, getting nerfed on rallying cry. VS all of a death knights healing and AMS spells being buffed indirectly through no battle fatigue.

Just one example but on NS being the only spell in game no one has I agreed with that, its iconic and a niche, which is why Id like it to stay in SOME form.

ams got nerfed from the absorption limit. They're taking away the only GOOD thing the class still has (unholy wise) and giving us nothing that will help us, which is why the warrior, even after the changes will still be a better, stronger class.


I, also can not keep up with most of these changes. The alpha note's are extremely annoying to read, so as I'm probably wrong in some ways, I feel like the class design itself is changing and not in a good way. I still haven't pre-ordered yet, because i haven't seen anything that's worth the 10$ increase.

[Erishkigal]

Won't miss necrotic strike, would like dark command back.

[valliant13]

SO with the removal of Necrotic, are all other classes aside from warriors losing their healing reduction debuff? If not then that change is piss poor. It was the only thing that made DKs viable in arena currently since we can have some of the best pressure(tied in with certain classes with great CC). Regardless of the healing meta being changed, I see absolutely no reason to bring a DK instead of a warrior or rogue for melee.

EDIT: To add, I find it quite sad that our dps specs didn't need much to be pruned yet they continue to take things away and not give anything new back. I understand they want to remove certain abilities but this seems excessive.

[Baphomette]

The main use of NS as Frost was adding healing pressure through your target's defensive cooldowns. If they weren't using some kind of damage reduction, NS didn't really add much pressure over Oblits. So while it's had its uses, I'm not sorry to see it go /if we are compensated elsewhere./

If healing debuffs are staying in the game, attaching one to Blood Plague might not be a bad place to start.

[Athdeux]

In all the tears about NS, what's being glossed over and which I think is a huge change for DKs is the new passive that gives a 5% bonus to the secondary stat that blizz thinks you should be focusing on as the secondary that will provide the highest throughput.

For Blood, it's multistrike
For Frost its Haste (Haste!! not Mastery? Is that catering to 2H Frost only or do they expect Haste > Mastery for DW as well?)
For Unholy, multistrike!? I've seen no discussion here on how valuable multistrike will be to Unholy and yet Blizzard is indicating that they expect it to be the highest throughput stat for the spec and the one we should be focusing on

From the patch notes:

A new concept that we’re introducing is each specialization having an attunement to a particular secondary stat. These take the form of a passive ability that grants a 5% increase to the amount of a specific secondary stat gained. This provides a good starting point for where to focus your secondary stats. Usually, it will be your highest throughput stat (not counting Spirit for Healers, and Bonus Armor for Tanks, which is an optimal secondary stat in most cases). There are exceptions, and raw throughput may not even be the biggest concern in some situations. Treat this as a guideline, not a rule, about which secondary stat to favor.

[bals]

In all the tears about NS, what's being glossed over and which I think is a huge change for DKs is the new passive that gives a 5% bonus to the secondary stat that blizz thinks you should be focusing on as the secondary that will provide the highest throughput.

For Blood, it's multistrike
For Frost its Haste (Haste!! not Mastery? Is that catering to 2H Frost only or do they expect Haste > Mastery for DW as well?)
For Unholy, multistrike!? I've seen no discussion here on how valuable multistrike will be to Unholy and yet Blizzard is indicating that they expect it to be the highest throughput stat for the spec and the one we should be focusing on

but every class and spec gets that? not sure why you think that's a huge change for dks in particular.
just seems like another completely random knob they can turn.

[Darkedge]

but every class and spec gets that? not sure why you think that's a huge change for dks in particular.
just seems like another completely random knob they can turn.

It isn't, it was just a way to passive aggressively bash those who were against the change.

[Schizoide]

Small note regarding something I read above:
Death Coil is not removed from Frost, despite what alpha notes may say. You still have both. (and this is great, and I hope it doesn't change.)

Awesome news! My concern is that since it is in the patch notes, they may have just forgotten to remove it. I hope they don't.

[Deleted]

NS removal also has the added benefit that uh-dks are no longer forced to take BT in pvp.

And losing NS doesn't necessarily mean dks are useless in pvp, there are also the mobility-nerfs to other classes, the healing changes, and the reduction of cc.

And while a healing absorb certainly was unique, NS was to other damage sources as absorbs are to heals, both do the same thing. The strenght of absorbs however is that they can increase your max health. NS can lower your opponent below zero health while he's still alive, which isn't really a benefit.
So it's just damage that fades after some time if it isn't healed through.

Flavor-wise, a healing absorb fits the dk-theme really well, so I'll agree the absorb should stay in some way (maybe add a bit to DC), but NS is the wrong place for it.

[Gemini Soul]

In all the tears about NS, what's being glossed over and which I think is a huge change for DKs is the new passive that gives a 5% bonus to the secondary stat that blizz thinks you should be focusing on as the secondary that will provide the highest throughput.

For Blood, it's multistrike
For Frost its Haste (Haste!! not Mastery? Is that catering to 2H Frost only or do they expect Haste > Mastery for DW as well?)
For Unholy, multistrike!? I've seen no discussion here on how valuable multistrike will be to Unholy and yet Blizzard is indicating that they expect it to be the highest throughput stat for the spec and the one we should be focusing on

It's so simple as to why they made frost boost Haste, really simple reason...

If they boost crit, it will make 2H frost stronger than DW
If they boost Mastery it will make DW stronger than 2H

By making it haste they can make them both better while not giving a passive 5% bonus that favors more heavily one play style of frost than the other.


As for Unholy picture this Multi-Strike + NP + keeping a 15 stack rolling on the boss for the whole encounter that will also MS.

[Schizoide]

Could have used multistrike or versatility. DKs have problems with GCD-capping, so boosting haste is not ideal.

[roahn the warlock]

im not sure how exactly we are going to be focusing on stats without reforging. And with the new gear stuff, there isn't much BiS anymore either.

[Deleted]

If they boost crit, it will make 2H frost stronger than DW

Actually, DW benefits more from crit than 2h does. Most of the damage from 2h comes from OB, which is affected by KM, so it doesnt benefit as much by crit, wheras most of the damage dw does comes from HB, which is not affected by KM and therefore benefits more from crit.
Crit is only the best stat for 2h because haste is useless once gcd-locked and mastery doesn't do much for 2h (hopefully the changes increase the portion of 2h damage that is frost damage (seems like it), so mastery will be a slightly better stat than currently) .
Hopefully we won't be gcd-locked, so haste should be the best stat for both 2h and dw.

[Challenge]

NS removal also has the added benefit that uh-dks are no longer forced to take BT in pvp.

And losing NS doesn't necessarily mean dks are useless in pvp, there are also the mobility-nerfs to other classes, the healing changes, and the reduction of cc.

And while a healing absorb certainly was unique, NS was to other damage sources as absorbs are to heals, both do the same thing. The strenght of absorbs however is that they can increase your max health. NS can lower your opponent below zero health while he's still alive, which isn't really a benefit.
So it's just damage that fades after some time if it isn't healed through.

Flavor-wise, a healing absorb fits the dk-theme really well, so I'll agree the absorb should stay in some way (maybe add a bit to DC), but NS is the wrong place for it.

Yeah with NS being solely used in PvP, and it fits the unholy toolkit and them moreso than frost, I would hope that it comes back as a PvP set bonus that procs off scourge strike or death coil.

[GodEmperor]

I'm sorry but the NS change is dumb, I found the spell very fun in PvP. It added skill to the spec and it's unique to DKs. Without it, we'll just be lesser versions of arms warriors with dispellable diseases and low mobility.

I would rather have NS back than them buffing diseases or scourge strike to compensate. If they buff Scourge strike, we'll be too similar to warriors and if they buff diseases, we'll be lesser versions of affliction locks.

Also, I half think this change might be a typo seeing they even introduced glyphs affecting Necrotic Strike in the previous release.

[Nayami]

Screw NS.

Make Blood Plague remove HoTs again!

[Shiira]

I can't say I remember the last time I used necrotic strike as I don't pvp, but I can't really understand why blizzard want to remove it.

Have they mentioned any reasons for ability pruning besides bloat?

[Dnusha]

From now on we are warriors. Thanks bliz(not really)

[Strangebrew]

I can't say I remember the last time I used necrotic strike as I don't pvp, but I can't really understand why blizzard want to remove it.

Have they mentioned any reasons for ability pruning besides bloat?

I don`t know how it even is button bloat, it`s a big part of what we bring to PvP.