WoD Death Knight Changes

[Nangz]

Since we will likely be getting alpha notes in a short while, here is a thread for consolidation. I'll update the OP when the notes go live.

Edit: This OP is very out of date. Many things likely have changed.

Death Knight
Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage and is only available to Blood Death Knights.
Dual Wield is now only available to Frost Death Knights.
Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour.
Necrotic Strike is now learned only by Frost and Unholy Death Knights.
Raise Dead is now only available to Unholy Death Knights, summons a ghoul as a permanent pet, and has a 1-minute cooldown.
Master of Ghouls has been removed.
Rune Strike now replaces Death Coil for Blood Death Knights.
Frost Strike now replaces Death Coil for Frost Death Knights.
Obliterate now replaces Blood Strike for Frost Death Knights.
Unholy Frenzy has been removed.

And from our frontpage:

Death Knight Leveling Perks

All
Improved Diseases - Increases damage done by your diseases by 20%.
Improved Soul Reaper - Increases Soul Reaper damage by 20%.

Blood
Enhanced Will of the Necropolis - Allows Will of the Necropolis to be triggered again 30 sec sooner.
Enhanced Rune Tap - Reduces the cooldown on Rune Tap by 10 sec.
Enhanced Death Grip - Reduces the cooldown on Death Grip by 5 sec.
Enhanced Bone Shield - Bone Shield has 2 additional charges.
Improved Heart Strike - Increases Heart Strike damage by 30%.
Improved Death Strike - Increases Death Strike damage by 20%.
Enhanced Rune Strike - Rune Strike also creates a Rune Shield, absorbing the next XXXX Physical damage within 10 sec.

Frost
Improved Razorice - Rune of Razorice deals an additional 12% weapon damage when it triggers.
Improved Cinderglacier - Rune of Cinderglacier has 3 additional charges when it triggers.
Improved Soul Reaper - Increases Soul Reaper's Shadowfrost damage by 40%.
Empowered Pillar of Frost - Pillar of Frost provides an additional 10% Strength and no longer costs any runes.
Empowered Icebound Fortitude - Icebound Fortitude reduces damage taken by an additional 10%.
Empowered Rime - Rime also increases the damage done by Howling Blast and Icy Touch by 20%.
Enhanced Death Strike - Increases Death Strike healing by 20%.

Unholy
Enhanced Death Strike - Increases Death Strike healing by 20%.
Enhanced Dark Transformation - Dark Transformation no longer costs any runes.
Improved Scourge Strike - Increases Scourge Strike damage by 20%.
Improved Festering Strike - Increases Festering Strike damage by 20%.
Enhanced Fallen Crusader - Rune of the Fallen Crusader heals for an additional 7%.
Enhanced Death Coil - Increases Death Coil damage by 20% and range by 10 yards.
Empowered Gargoyle - Increases the duration of Summon Gargoyle by 10 sec.

Twitter Clarifications

On AMS changes
Is the goal with AMS soaking to only allow a maximum of 100 RP to be possible from a fully absorbed shell? Big nerf to soaking.

Yes, intentionally. @Celestalon Source

Is the rationale because you'd like to reduce GCD locking by DKs, or because you don't like balancing us around AMS soaking?
Both @Celestalon Source

On "Rune Shield"
Is Rune Shield only generated by Rune Tap? What types of damage will it absorb?
All damage. Also another source: See the Draenor Perks. @Celestalon Source


Followup: Perks suggest Rune Shields from Rune Strikes absorb only physical damage. True, or erroneous?
Mistake; it's 'All' damage for now. May revise based on testing. @Celestalon Source

Will repeated Rune Taps and Strike increase the size of the Rune Shield like Blood Shield currently?
Yes, successive Rune Strikes and Rune Taps add to the size of a Rune Shield. @Celestalon Source

On Lichborne
Lichborne? What happens to it?
We're going to make it grant you X% Leech. @Celestalon Source


On Defile
Is Defile also intended to deal Shadowfrost damage and scale with both DPS masteries? Tooltip suggests shadow damage atm.
Yes, Defile is Shadowfrost damage. @Celestalon Source

Also, Defile will last for 30 seconds? You mean 10 with 30 sec cooldown?
Ah, yep. Defile lasts 10sec, I believe. @Celestalon Source


On iconic spell removal
Why are deathknights losing all the iconic necromancy spells with army only for blood and raise dead only for unholy?
Army was a ton of visual noise, annoying to use pre-pull, and an additional DPS cooldown (which we want to cut). Kept its tank part.
Raise Dead was another DPS cooldown, which we want to reduce. @Celestalon Source

Soul Reaper Shadow Frost
Is Soul Reaper now shadowfrost for Frost with the Draneor perk or by default?
By default. @Celestalon Source

On Runeforges
More! Frost DK, Perks improve Razorice/Cinderglacier, 2h currently uses neither (favoring Fallen Crusader). Changing that?
Yeah, we're going to try mixing up which runeforges Frost uses. Realize that that's a big change, and what you see isn't enough. @Celestalon Source

Interesting. Going to be a playstyle thing, or more "x rune required for x type of fight"?
Current plan is Cinderglacier for 2H, Cinderglacier+Razorice for DW. Definitely not set in stone. @Celestalon Source

Other Changes and Clarifications
A few things have happened for Death Knights. As described above in Ability Pruning, several cooldowns were made spec-specific. Rotations remain unchanged for the most part. One thing we did polish up is the effect of Diseases on the damage of other abilities. Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them, so having them act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities was extraneous, and just cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities. We removed those multipliers, and just baked in their benefit to the corresponding base spell. This slightly reduces ramp-up time.

Blood Boil damage has been increased by 50%, but no longer deals additional damage to targets affected by Blood Plague or Frost Fever.
Heart Strike damage has been increased by 30%, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.
Obliterate now deals 25% more damage on both main- and off-hand weapons, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.
Scourge Strike no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target. The ability now deals 50% of the Physical damage dealt as additional Shadow damage; this effect can critically hit and no longer ignores modifiers.

In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights, we reduced the power of their passive Unholy Might ability.

Unholy Might (Unholy) bonus changed from +35% to +10%.

Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights' tanking style. However, it went beyond that, and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard. We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat. This includes making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power, but be affected by the new Resolve passive (see Tank Vengeance and Resolve, above), which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage. Plus, Rune Tap is being significantly improved, to become a strong Active Mitigation button. To tie those together, Blood's Mastery is being changed to affect both the size of the Blood Shield absorb, and the new Rune Shield absorb. Additionally, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to auto attack and Rune Strike crits. Finally, we tweaked the targeting AI of Dancing Rune Weapon, and fixed it up to use most Talents that you know.

Heart Strike now only cleaves 1 additional target (down from 2).
Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 sec. This healing is affected by Resolve.
Blood Rites now causes Death Strike to also cause an absorb for 50% of the amount healed.
Rune Tap now grants an absorption shield that scales in effectiveness with Attack Power, instead of a heal based on a % of maximum health. It also now has 2 charges, with a 30-second recharge time.
Will of the Necropolis now grants an immediate charge, and makes your next Rune Tap free. However, its damage reduction buff now only lasts 4 sec (down from 8sec).
Mastery: Bloody Shields now increases the effectiveness of Blood Shield and Rune Shield by 16% (percentage increased by mastery), instead of adding the Blood Shield effect.
Riposte has been redesigned.
Riposte: After getting a Critical Strike with an Auto Attack or Rune Strike, you gain +100% Parry chance until you Parry an attack. This can stack up to 2 times.
Dancing Rune Weapon's summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight's target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight's current target.

Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only, that presents a problem for Death Pact. We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion, but work a little differently. We left it at 50% heal, which is effectively a 33% buff to it from before (see Healing and Player Health above), and added a heal absorb for half the amount healed, instead. It should now be a relatively more effective heal for staying alive immediately, but with the downside of needing to heal through the heal absorb before you can be healed any further.

Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a heal absorb on you for 50% of the amount healed.

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable, and balanced.

Anti-Magic Shell now restores 2 Runic Power per 1% of max health absorbed.

Datamined Glyphs

• Glyph of Absorb Magic - Increases the total samage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell by $s1%, but Anti-Magic Shell no longer generates Runic Power.
• Glyph of the Ice Reaper - Reaping is now also triggered by your Chains of Ice.
• Glyph of Icy Runes - You gain an additional ${$159419m1/10} Runic Power when you use Chains of Ice.
• Glyph of Empowerment - Your Empower Rune Weapon also heals you for $s1% of your maximum health.
• Glyph of Necrotic Strike - $s1% of all healing absorbed by Necrotic Strike heals you.
• Glyph of Raise Ally - Your Raise Ally ability no longer costs any Runic Power.
• Glyph of Rune Tap - Instead of granting an absorb, Rune Tap heals you for $s1% more than it would have absorbed.
• Glyph of Runic Power - Whenever you are struck by a movement-impairing effect, you will generate $/10;159430s1 Runic Power every $159430t1 sec for $159430d.

[NatePsy]

"Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage and is only available to Blood Death Knights."
"Unholy Frenzy removed"

Really? They better be giving us DPS DKs something to compensate..

Edit: Seems all those percentage buffs are to make up for the losses. Can't wait to see how those changes play out though. Yay for a new shiny every level until 99 though.

[Darsithis]

Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage and is only available to Blood Death Knights.

I'm upset. This tier has been a godsend for dps & AoTD with Galakras' trinket. Don't take it away from us!

[Deleted]

so nothing new apart from from a talent tier and number changes zzz

[Saiona]

AOTD removed (Super iconic spell) raise dead removed for frost (fun dps CD). Yeah not going back to DKS

[Xenonn]

looks like my DK wont be my main come WoD, thanks blizz

[Adlian]

Looks like they will never make the DKs as fun as they used to be back in Wotlk...

[Darsithis]

I personally hate Army. It is a supremely clunky CD with it's 4-second cast time IMO.

It is a bit clunky. Personally I'd rather it wasn't channeled and just lose the damage protection. But to lose something so iconic for death knights? No, that's wrong.

[Restors]

Can someone tell me how "Death Pact" is an viable option for all speccs now when "raise dead" only is for UH?

[Immitis]

y u take my armiez blizz O-O

[NatePsy]

Can someone tell me how "Death Pact" is an viable option for all speccs now when "raise dead" only is for UH?

They removed the "Requires minion" requirement.

[Deleted]

it wont require a ghoul

[Nangz]

Not too excited about these changes. Plenty of positives but also plenty of negatives.

[Kaleredar]

Really? Remove raise dead from frost DKs?

Guess Blizzard was telling the truth in the patch notes when they said "the pact has been unsealed"

And I'd rather have AOTD stay its clunky pre-engage CD than removing it entirely.

[gcubeftw]

So blood and and rune shield are separate physical damage shields? Interesting. (Could be wrong as I skim read the notes.)

[FluFF]

• Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage and is only available to Blood Death Knights.

Thanks for taking my truly iconic DK ability Blizzard, Guess I can be a Dunkin Donuts Knight now

[Keile]

Army change doesnt bother me much. It was too clunky for DPS, and it caused more annoyance than anything (since a lot of people didnt glyph out the taunt....).

I like it better as a tank CD, personally, since the damage reduction during channeling can be quite powerful when timed right. HOWEVER it should be available to Blood and Unholy. Frost doesn't need it.

Sky isn't falling people, odds are they will tweak the numbers on your actual abilities so YOU do more damage and do not have to rely on minions.

[Enfilade]

I, for one, am GLAD to see Army gone for DPS. Give us real cooldowns!

[Khiyone]

Ewwwww. What about Lichborne self-healing?

[Kaleredar]

Army change doesnt bother me much. It was too clunky for DPS, and it caused more annoyance than anything (since a lot of people didnt glyph out the taunt....).

I like it better as a tank CD, personally, since the damage reduction during channeling can be quite powerful when timed right. HOWEVER it should be available to Blood and Unholy. Frost doesn't need it.

Sky isn't falling people, odds are they will tweak the numbers on your actual abilities so YOU do more damage and do not have to rely on minions.

Things like raise dead, aotd, and death coil add flavor to the game.

And death pact was hella helpful in PvP, I can tell you that. Death coil was also nice for building blood tap charges at range as well for frost.

Really, I'd call DKs one of the LEAST button-bloaty classes. Everything had its place.