DK Hotfixes Jan 12/13th.

[Khain]

This is really sad, dk single target is garbage already we lose 1/3 of our aoe dmg we lose our niche completely. Now there won't be a single encounter that we can shine.

[Mannic]

Hello from the WW monks. Dks.... welcome to the club!

[Senel]

Enhance AE was nerfed by 14% with >6 targets (which is where they were particularly strong).

Ret ranked #2 and Arms #7, so enhance got an AE nerf and Arms didn't get one at all (rightfully so, as it did not deserve one). And enhance arguably could deserve a single-target buff; it was lower middle of the pack on The Butcher. Probably buffed for the upcoming raid tier.

I'm not arguing with their buffs, it's just that 33% is a MASSIVE nerf. No way it was overtuned by that much. Probably the biggest nerf this xpack among all classes.

[Schizoide]

This is really sad, dk single target is garbage already we lose 1/3 of our aoe dmg we lose our niche completely. Now there won't be a single encounter that we can shine.

That is not correct. Unholy is solidly middle of the pack on The Butcher. Doesn't deserve buffs or nerfs in ST. It was very, very strong in AE/cleave. If by "shine" you mean be extremely strong, you're right. But nobody deserves to be extremely strong.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not arguing with their buffs, it's just that 33% is a MASSIVE nerf. No way it was overtuned by that much. Probably the biggest nerf this xpack among all classes.

Sims as a 6% nerf on 2 target cleave. Unholy certainly won't be anywhere near #1, but no reason to expect it to be below the middle of the pack post-nerf.

[Senel]

Sims as a 6% nerf on 2 target cleave. Unholy certainly won't be anywhere near #1, but no reason to expect it to be below the middle of the pack post-nerf.

I'll live with the nerf obviously, even tho it doesn't make sense to get such a big one while other classes who were on par with it stay untouched (or get minor nerfs).

[zoomgpally]

Won't blood's single target be pretty bad now? They are dead middle of the pack now (WFT pallies) on butcher. This is the problem they created by removing heart strike - they needed to make blood boil strong because it's single target as well as AOE.

LOL oops.

They COULD just give it the howling blast treatment, doing more damage to your current target.

Or they could NOT give the 2nd worst dps tank huge buffs while nerfing the worst dps tank...

[Nangz]

Unholy was the #1 spec in the entire game this week. The nerf was probably aimed at Unholy.

Don't get me wrong, someone needs to be #1, and Unholy wasn't an outlier. By which I mean the was no vast gap between #1 and numbers 2, 3, 4, etc. But it was the very tippy top.

Frost DK was one of the weakest specs, coming in 2-4 steps from the very bottom, depending on the metric used. It deserved a large buff. I haven't simmed it yet, so I don't know if 15% more haste will make it competitive or make haste Frost's #1 secondary stat, as it should be due to the attunement. I am very happy that alongside the 11.1% overall haste buff for everybody, Frost's downtime will be lower now regardless. It will be more fun to play.

Edit:
Simmed Unholy with the newly nerfed Blood Boil. It is still worth switching to AE priority at 2 targets. Effectively zero gameplay change due to this nerf, just a straight cleave performance loss.

Unholy T17H 2 targets ST priority pre-nerf: 38.2k
Unholy T17H 2 targets AE priority pre-nerf: 42.2k (+10.5%)

Unholy T17H 2 targets ST priority post-nerf: 38.2k
Unholy T17H 2 targets AE priority post-nerf: 39.8k (+4.2%)

Note I did not sim the 11.1% haste increase for everybody as it shouldn't have any impact on the AE priority threshold.

If anyone would like to duplicate, the override is:

override.spell_data=effect.43101.ap_coefficient=0.45

Would be interested where you get your information about unholy being #1 spec this week. I've not seen anything that supports that no matter how I dig into some stat sites. I see us in the top 3 depending on fight, percentile, ilvl etc. But never #1, its almost exclusively enhance.

There are many problems with the hotfixes that went out today.

1. Many key specs were nerfed who are relevant to progression, fights like Tectus and Imperator are made significantly easier with strong aoe. Mid monday night raid no less. ( Could have happened during maintenance tomorrow)

2. The two reasons I listed in my above post specifically for Blood Boil.

3. Mid tier stat weight changes are always a fun thing!


Also, your sims seem incorrect, unless the AP coefficient is listed incorrectly on wowhead/wowdb. 33% off the 60% these sites list would be 40% not 45%.

[BurningSkies2018]

Why do people constantly go "oh great they nerf it but so and so class is fine?!"

Ret is in a good place, I'm failing to see why it would even need a nerf..

Blood boil (for blood, mind you) was over the top. I do think there should be a little compensation though since that is a really steep nerf (even if it was warranted.)

What I want to know is why the huge nerf to it, and barely touching shaman aoe...

[Deleted]

Enhance AE was nerfed by 14% with >6 targets (which is where they were particularly strong).

Arms ranked #2 and Ret #6. Unknown why Arms got a buff. Probably for the upcoming raid tier. Ret didn't deserve a nerf.

The Arms buff in the current wording is very minimal (below 1% on all fights). However, it will be a substantial SINGLE TARGET buff in BRF when mastery gear is actually available.

[Schizoide]

Simmed ST results post/pre-buff and got new stat weights for frost. Note these do not include the 11.1% overall haste rating conversion buff... not sure how to do that as an override. Probably needs an updated version of simcraft. Anyway, haste's value will definitely be higher for 2H frost in particular. It still won't be the #1 secondary stat, though, certainly.

DW Frost T17H Pre-buff: 35.0k (12.6% wait time)
DW Frost T17H Post-buff: 37.1k (+6.0%, 8.2% wait time = GCD-locked)

2H Frost T17H Pre-buff: 35.5k (18.9% wait time)
2H Frost T17H Post-buff: 37.5k (+5.6%, 15.0% wait time)

Unholy T17H: 33.8k (keep in mind that the sim is comparitively wrong here; Unholy won on The Butcher in Highmaul)


DW Frost T17H Statweights
Str: 6.55
Mastery: 3.29
Multistrike: 2.90
Versatility: 2.79
Haste: 2.24 (low value makes sense, DW is GCD-locked now)
Crit: 2.20

2H Frost T17H Statweights
Str: 6.28
Multistrike: 2.83
Versatility: 2.81
Haste: 2.77
Crit: 2.36
Mastery: 2.17

If anyone would like to duplicate, the overrides are:

override.spell_data=effect.43101.ap_coefficient=0.45 
override.spell_data=effect.252146.base_value=20

Edit:
@Nangz: Unholy is (or rather was) the #1 spec in highmaul normal and heroic according to WCL. There aren't enough parses for mythic, and the parses that do exist are mostly incomplete, so we can't prove anything about mythic rankings.

It's always a toss-up how they do these "X%" changes. Sometimes a 33% nerf is *0.66, sometimes it's /1.33. I went with the latter. We won't know until it's live, really.

They said it was a buff from 5% to 20%, but I showed Icy Talons at 10% already, buffed after WoD release. So it's less of a buff than you might think. Still nice, though.

[Senel]

Why do people constantly go "oh great they nerf it but so and so class is fine?!"

Ret is in a good place, I'm failing to see why it would even need a nerf..

Blood boil (for blood, mind you) was over the top. I do think there should be a little compensation though since that is a really steep nerf (even if it was warranted.)

What I want to know is why the huge nerf to it, and barely touching shaman aoe...

Exaclty. I understand completely that BB for Blood needed a nerf. But 33% for Unholy who wasn't even the top AoE Spec I cannot.

[zoomgpally]

2H Frost T17H Statweights
Str: 6.28
Multistrike: 2.83
Versatility: 2.81
Haste: 2.77
Crit: 2.36
Mastery: 2.17

Haste useful?

...now if they could only solve our terribad crit/mastery scaling

[Eats Compost]

I'm not sure where BB was at for Blood, but this is terrible for Unholy. Unholy is operating in a comfortable AoE niche right now, and a whopping 33% nerf to Blood Boil crushes that. Sure, Unholy Death Knights have good AoE, but not necessarily good enough to nerf and DEFINITELY not enough to nerf the main damage dealer by a third.

[Myci]

keep in mind there is like a 12% buff to haste for all classes. This might not be as bad of an aoe nerf to unholy with that considered.

[Schizoide]

@Zoomgpally: Multistrike, Versatility, and Haste are close enough that they're eessentially identical. This is great, because it means we can choose-- and the smart choice is to stack Versatility.

Not that it really matters, since without reforging all you can "stack" is enchants. But still, free survivability, that ain't bad.

@Myci: Not in absolute numbers perhaps, but everybody got that haste buff. What matters is where we stand in comparison to other classes.

[Eats Compost]

keep in mind there is like a 12% buff to haste for all classes. This might not be as bad of an aoe nerf to unholy with that considered.

Which is a buff that all other classes benefit from too. Unholy, by relative standards, is still going to suck horribly.

[Schizoide]

Unholy, by relative standards, is still going to suck horribly.

Going by overall DPS rankings in WCL, which had Unholy ranking #2 previously, a 6% nerf would place the spec around #8. That's just fine and far from "sucking".

Of course the nerf is much larger with >2 targets. But I still don't anticipate Unholy dropping below the middle of the pack.

If BB is at 40% rather than 45%, that changes things a lot.

[ablock87]

Good

Blood Boil was stupidly OP. Shouldn't see the main tank on top of the DPS charts on Imperator.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Bring the other tanks in line with us. I'm frustrated. I like my AoE on adds on every boss. This change pisses me off.

I've been banking on this as well for CM, but if you are upset you aren't realistic.
Brewmaster was the same way in 5.0, got nerfed in 5.1, 5.2, and 5.4 eventually ending up with a RED character sheet to nerf the total damage they did like they had rez sickness.

I was seeing 150k on the gauntlet in Slags and 120k on the 2 bird pull before Ruk in Skyreach. That's not balanced.
Its a shame its over, but I am the furthest thing from surprised it happened, just surprised it happened in a hot fix.

[dixincide]

I've been banking on this as well for CM, but if you are upset you aren't realistic.
Brewmaster was the same way in 5.0, got nerfed in 5.1, 5.2, and 5.4 eventually ending up with a RED character sheet to nerf the total damage they did like they had rez sickness.

I was seeing 150k on the gauntlet in Slags and 120k on the 2 bird pull before Ruk in Skyreach. That's not balanced.
Its a shame its over, but I am the furthest thing from surprised it happened, just surprised it happened in a hot fix.

Glad I took care of my CMs when I did, not that this would cripple the runs but its pretty shitty to read about.