1 rune type makes DKs harder, not easier, PLEASE understand this

[Deleted]

I keep seeing people going on and on about their class being dumbed down, monks are doing the same right now and believe me, these changes don't make things easier. You're actually gonna have a harder time now mastering your rotation NOT easier.

If all the runes are the same, it means bad players will just keep smashing their hardest hitting ability every time they come off cooldown. The current system doesn't let them do this, in fact it rewards them for smashing any button that lights up because they can only exhaust certain rune types as it stands - not all of them.

When 1 rune type is in play, you can't play whack a mole and smack whatever lights up first on your action bar. If you do, you're going to starve yourself of resources and probably be using the wrong spell at the wrong time etc.

In laymen's terms, by giving you the freedom to use any spell you want, it is like removing the stabilisers on a bicycle. That doesn't mean you're going to do well without those stabilisers, or in this case, fixed rune types.

[Shiira]

Now that I've had more time to think about this change, I like it.

Right now your ability usage is controlled by rune availability, removing rune types adds decisions.

We need a lot more than the stuff that has been previewed so far to make it interesting though.

[Detheavn]

In laymen's terms, by giving you the freedom to use any spell you want, it is like removing the stabilisers on a bicycle. That doesn't mean you're going to do well without those stabilisers, or in this case, fixed rune types.

So you mean to say that people will actually need to learn their classes?
I like this.

[Phasmus]

One, you couldn't possibly know for sure without playing it.

Two, how is punishing poor play a bad thing?

[Aridn]

I'm just excited about the ability to play without having to use so many extra arbitrary buttons that add a false sense of complexity. Half of unholy rotation seems like your converting runes instead of doing real damage. Of course you're going to have to use rune strike still to keep your diseases up, but hopefully gone are the days of blood tapping and plague leeching to keep death runes rolling.

[Coldfire989]

Really doesnt change anything if they spam random stuff now they will still do this one rune type wont change this at all. Legion will let you have a few buttons to worry about or a few plus 3 if you want. Again WAY to early to say how anything is going to work for sure.

[Radaney]

Well having two runes of each was limiting, having all the same runes is not limiting so that's a positive change in essence. We'll see how it works out.

[Ygorl]

Sinsla, you describe how having only one rune type makes it easier to play terribly, instead of merely badly. But it also makes it easier to play well, instead of merely decently. For example, as it is now, as Unholy, you ideally want to make sure you've got a bunch of death runes (instead of frost/unholy) available when you need burst AoE. This requires using Festering Strike long enough beforehand, and ideally Rune Tap on unholy runes, i.e. planning. With this change, you don't have to worry about that, because all your runes will be able to drive Blood Boil.

In other words, going from terrible to mediocre will be more rewarding, while going from decent to good will be less rewarding.

Of course, tons of other factors, many not yet known, will also play a part. Just talking about the rune change.

[Alroxas]

When 1 rune type is in play, you can't play whack a mole and smack whatever lights up first on your action bar. If you do, you're going to starve yourself of resources and probably be using the wrong spell at the wrong time etc.

But since when do we want people to play whack a mole? Besides, from the class preview (which is a preview folks) we see that our mitigation abilities are now separated. Marrowrend uses runes to generate bone shield charges while RP is now used for Death Strike for self-healing & phys dmg shield.

I assume that if you somehow did spend all your runes, you should have some RP left for the DS. I guess we'll find out more as talents get revealed to us.

Meanwhile, tanks that do poorly tend to be replaced....

[Fenris65535]

Previously, poor play would be punished (from a blood perspective) by either not having a death strike available when you really need it or not being able to get snap agro on a streaming add. Or possibly not having rune tap up. You essentially had 3 resources, Blood runes, Death Runes, and RP. Lower skilled or less interested players could take passive talents to facilitate the whack-a-mole gameplay but any good DK takes blood tap and plague leech and managing the crossover and interaction with the runes is a compelling (if slightly unintuitive) gameplay mechanic.

Using single blood tap to pair a death rune from the blood set and squeeze out another death strike instead of a blood boil could potentially be a life saving maneuver that a poorer player wouldn't have managed. Likewise, there's a one-way interaction that leads to some nuanced gameplay in that you can spam blood boil for AoE threat all day long but death strikes for survivability are more precious, again giving a weaker player an opportunity to dig himself in a hole that a better player may not.

It's not a huge game changing decision, but it is, in the current form, taking away a lot of our more advanced gameplay elements and generally making the class easier rather than harder. Lots of simple choices vs fewer more complicated choices is what it boils down to.

In any case patience is prudent right now because it sounds like they're trucking 75% of class complexity into the as-of-yet unrevealed talents. Hardcore raiders will be back to cookie cutter specs with the choices rolled into gameplay rather than character sheet while the LFR crowd will be able to mash two buttons for 75% of their potential, which is a huge improvement from item level 700 LFR kiddies doing 12k dps consistently and should make the overall experience less toxic and less dependent on high end carries.

[Xanwryn]

From our lack of understanding at the moment the way runes will work is either we get to spam our best skill mindlessly or we will have cooldowns on our hardest hitters.

The former would be hilarious if they let through just for how lazy we'd be, even compared to now. The latter? The latter is what we have already. Runes are just glorified cooldowns affected by Haste (similar to paladin) with more options to "reset" them compared to other classes.

Rune management is hardly some mindboggingly difficult challenge.

[purebalance]

One, you couldn't possibly know for sure without playing it.

Two, how is punishing poor play a bad thing?

Except it's not punished and you're toxic if you try to tell someone they're doing it wrong like telling a warlock they shouldn't be spamming drain life.

[Deleted]

the only way it can be conceived easier is if today's priority/rotation existed, because you would just spam FeS to get the correct duration on NP so that it lines up with UHB and then endlessly spam SS with 0 mistakes, that isn't the case in Legion because the spec is being re-made. It's pretty much a non-factor for Frost too since it will basically play exactly the same with maybe a few extra buttons to press.

it's really not hard to comprehend.

[shise]

I say let's wait and see, we have to remember that presences have also been removed, so it all means that we are in for some big class changes, or that's how it looks.

Beta will light it up soon.

[Grimlair]

I think people need to stop making assumptions on something they have no information on how everything is going to work in legion.
Lets just wait an see for the beta to hit an go from there.

[Deleted]

I say let's wait and see, we have to remember that presences have also been removed, so it all means that we are in for some big class changes, or that's how it looks.

Beta will light it up soon.

Presences were utter shit and pointless apart from DPS being able to switch to blood in pvp or in very few specific boss abilities, all this is fixed by upping the current defensives a bit like they have done.

[Rooskie1993]

In PvP IT WON'T FUCKING MATTER. Spam necro strike and win.

[Maybach]

It is way to early to draw any definitive conclusions

Legion is unlikely to be out before August next year, nothing has really been tested yet, and, as with every other expansion, by the time we get a finished product on release things very rarely resemble what was announced this far in advance

[Milocow]

Frost is gonna spam obliterate

[Deleted]

Frost is gonna spam obliterate

So nothings changed then.