Clawing Shadows

[Kronik85]

Yeah, I was thinking of you when I was typing it out! Couldn't find the post again to quote it so just wrote something brief myself. Reading it again makes me excited for the next build, I know that the probability is that it won't happen but I've already been surprised with all of the DK changes we got so maybe, just maybe, we'll see something similar to this talent.

Ye I'm actually hyped for the next build and whilst I also would love a complete ranged UH build I accept it's not going to happen, it's just a little too difficult to implement without some really radical changes. "The Death from Afar" concept is really cool but the reality is that you will just run into melee and get the AA damage anyway and my Ghoul solution practically guts the rotation into Shadow Claw spam.

I think the reality of all these cool ranged options are like what Maxweii is saying they are for, to make up for having no mobility tools. Unholy gets to deal an awful lot of damage at range and Frost gets so much defensive power it rarely needs to bother with moving.

[Deleted]

As they are bringing some fun abilities back from the past I kind of see this talent as a reminiscence to the old Shadowfrost gameplay, who still remembers that? Golden days of stomping everything in PvP

[Deleted]

As they are bringing some fun abilities back from the past I kind of see this talent as a reminiscence to the old Shadowfrost gameplay, who still remembers that? Golden days of stomping everything in PvP

I only started Dk last month in Cata, was shaman mainly before that, what was the shadowfrost gameplay if you don't mind?

[Challenge]

anyone with access know if sludge belcher still disabled?

[Deleted]

anyone with access know if sludge belcher still disabled?

yes it is still NYI

[Deleted]

I only started Dk last month in Cata, was shaman mainly before that, what was the shadowfrost gameplay if you don't mind?

I think he means back in wrath when people could pick talents from different trees. There was a DK pvp build with talents from both Frost and UH.

[Nobloodz]

tl;dr Clawing Shadows deals less damage than default scourge strike so as a melee build you loose damage yet alone being purely ranged. It would be great for situations where you want to briefly attack mobs at ranged, maybe you are AoE farming and want to chain pull spread mobs or you unable to be in melee range for a significant portion of an encounter, then sure it would have potential. It is too early to tell since it's undertuned, though I think CS has potential.

[Deleted]

I only started Dk last month in Cata, was shaman mainly before that, what was the shadowfrost gameplay if you don't mind?

Back in WotLK when you could spend talent points in several trees there was a spec around for some time that was very popular in PvP because it was basically playable at 30 yrd range with very strong damage.

The core gameplay was that Killing Machine (the Frost proc thing) affected all Frost skills, especially including Icy Touch. IT was hitting for a lot more back then compared to now and would crit for very high amounts with KM. Additonally, Blood Boil had like a 30yrd snare on it. The spec centered around basically spamming Icy Touch (Frost runes), Blood Boil (Blood runes which turned into Death runes to be spent on more ITs in the next rotation) and dumping runic power with Death Coil. It was insanely OP back then because you were basically a plate wearing Wizard without cast times and with lots of crits on your hardest hitting ability. Of course it got nerfed and DK was back to a melee oriented class again ;-)

[Deleted]

Back in WotLK when you could spend talent points in several trees there was a spec around for some time that was very popular in PvP because it was basically playable at 30 yrd range with very strong damage.

The core gameplay was that Killing Machine (the Frost proc thing) affected all Frost skills, especially including Icy Touch. IT was hitting for a lot more back then compared to now and would crit for very high amounts with KM. Additonally, Blood Boil had like a 30yrd snare on it. The spec centered around basically spamming Icy Touch (Frost runes), Blood Boil (Blood runes which turned into Death runes to be spent on more ITs in the next rotation) and dumping runic power with Death Coil. It was insanely OP back then because you were basically a plate wearing Wizard without cast times and with lots of crits on your hardest hitting ability. Of course it got nerfed and DK was back to a melee oriented class again ;-)

Thank you for explaining! I hope it'll be possible for a sort of range plate spec or atleast 70/30. Who else but the Dk to fill that nische It shouldn't be OP but atleast, it's a great feel to it I bet. What drew me to unholy in end of cata was the melee-range hybrid gameplay, and aswell as rotting people was something I never knew I would get obsessed and feel so at home with unholy.

[Aeriel]

Thank you for explaining! I hope it'll be possible for a sort of range plate spec or atleast 70/30. Who else but the Dk to fill that nische It shouldn't be OP but atleast, it's a great feel to it I bet. What drew me to unholy in end of cata was the melee-range hybrid gameplay, and aswell as rotting people was something I never knew I would get obsessed and feel so at home with unholy.

Holy Paladin level in that niche. Plus there have been "Shockadin" builds off and on that focused on using Holy Shock as primary DPS. This is also the direction that the spec is going in for Legion. Making Unholy mirror that style would be interesting to say the least.

[Kithelle]

Thank you for explaining! I hope it'll be possible for a sort of range plate spec or atleast 70/30. Who else but the Dk to fill that nische It shouldn't be OP but atleast, it's a great feel to it I bet. What drew me to unholy in end of cata was the melee-range hybrid gameplay, and aswell as rotting people was something I never knew I would get obsessed and feel so at home with unholy.

Well since they removed the only ability to which you could generate even relatively decent runic power from range, I don't think it would be 70/30 in melee favor...I'd say closer to 80/20 or 90/10.

Clawing Shadows is just utility for bosses which you can't melee on 24/7, not to be a plate warlock...while I may have been a little harsh and kinda a dick in my last posts, with the removal of that talent that greatly increased your yield of runic power from festering wounds, you aren't going to be able to do anything from range but some clawing and a couple death coils.

Unless they re-add that talent back somewhere, and likely add more range friendly talents, which I doubt they will (I wonder if they removed it because of ideas like in this thread or just people calling it a lame talent, maybe a little of both) they aren't going to turn unholy in a plate warlock.

[Maxweii]

Well since they removed the only ability to which you could generate even relatively decent runic power from range, I don't think it would be 70/30 in melee favor...I'd say closer to 80/20 or 90/10.

Clawing Shadows is just utility for bosses which you can't melee on 24/7, not to be a plate warlock...while I may have been a little harsh and kinda a dick in my last posts, with the removal of that talent that greatly increased your yield of runic power from festering wounds, you aren't going to be able to do anything from range but some clawing and a couple death coils.

Unless they re-add that talent back somewhere, and likely add more range friendly talents, which I doubt they will (I wonder if they removed it because of ideas like in this thread or just people calling it a lame talent, maybe a little of both) they aren't going to turn unholy in a plate warlock.

You do realize you're completely ignoring artifact traits. Such as the one which increases runic power gen as well as cap for unholy, the one where SS does 50% more damage after the target is hit by DC and how SS can have a super high chance to refund a tune.
Realistically we will be able to do a lot from ranged with a fully kitted artifact.

[Kithelle]

Holy Paladin level in that niche. Plus there have been "Shockadin" builds off and on that focused on using Holy Shock as primary DPS. This is also the direction that the spec is going in for Legion. Making Unholy mirror that style would be interesting to say the least.

Has always been Shockadin builds...but none of them ever worth much outside of PvP, they may be getting more damage in Legion than they ever had before, but if they get to much damage potential I think blizz will tone it down.

- - - Updated - - -

You do realize you're completely ignoring artifact traits. Such as the one which increases runic power gen as well as cap for unholy, the one where SS does 50% more damage after the target is hit by DC and how SS can have a super high chance to refund a tune.
Realistically we will be able to do a lot from ranged with a fully kitted artifact.

No I'm not, I just think it's foolish to think that Unholy will be anything but melee primary, especially with this expansion they clearly only want each spec to fit a specific roll. They killed Gladiator and 2H Frost...if Unholy gets to good at ranged I'm sure they'll just change all of that up so it's less effective. Unholy is a 2H melee pet spec...

If you really want to talk about artifacts...you're losing damage from having useless slots on your artifact. You're losing 2 free death coils from sudden doom procs, the festering strike damage is useless, falling crusader and the bonus from it is less effective since it will proc less, less chance to proc a shambler, and less chance to proc a member from the army of the dead.

A lot of that from just not using your auto attack...

[Maxweii]

Yes I'm aware of that. However saying that Unholy won't be a very strong spec in its ability to do damage from range, as a melee, is silly. It can maintain most of its rotation at range, almost no melee specs can do that. It not only helps in its versatility but in its ability to counteract low mobility.
Also the reduced chance to proc an army or shambler will be fairly small depending on how long you're at range. As they proc from your attacks, not melee hits specifically.

[Halliax]

Yes I'm aware of that. However saying that Unholy won't be a very strong spec in its ability to do damage from range, as a melee, is silly. It can maintain most of its rotation at range, almost no melee specs can do that. It not only helps in its versatility but in its ability to counteract low mobility.
Also the reduced chance to proc an army or shambler will be fairly small depending on how long you're at range. As they proc from your attacks, not melee hits specifically.

Agreed, Unholy have the tools to become a nightmare on PVP...And I think it will be strong on PVE too.

[Maxweii]

Agreed, Unholy have the tools to become a nightmare on PVP...And I think it will be strong on PVE too.

Yeah for PvP it will be a nightmare to peel off, and will always have minions on you as well so you're always being harrassed.
In PvE it will likely just come down to tuning, if it's not worth taking because X other talent does so much more then RIP Clawing Shadows. However if they are tuned fairly well I see it as essentially a mobility tool. You have to move from A to B, where the target at A disappears and another appears at B. The travel time between them is say, 3-4 seconds at 115% move speed. Without clawing shadows that means you have 3-4 seconds of essentially full downtime. With it however you can move so that those 3-4 seconds you're just dpsing from range and getting in range of the new mob at B right as it spawns.

[Deleted]

It's just a horrible talent plain and simple, it has no place in the PvE/General tree, if anything it should be PvP only. It will never be better choice over the 2 other talents in the row that offer DPS increase for full duration of boss fight or most of it at least, when CS only has use when you are knocked away or something similar even then you can just spam DC.

[Maxweii]

It's just a horrible talent plain and simple, it has no place in the PvE/General tree, if anything it should be PvP only. It will never be better choice over the 2 other talents in the row that offer DPS increase for full duration of boss fight or most of it at least, when CS only has use when you are knocked away or something similar even then you can just spam DC.

I mean if you want to look at it with blinders on sure but if you're being realistic it has lots of applications.

[Kithelle]

I mean if you want to look at it with blinders on sure but if you're being realistic it has lots of applications.

Well it's not like you're not looking through some blinders yourself, while I don't agree it's useless with anything but pvp...you're just over estimating its strength...and you're ranged DPS is depending on RNG to even get output of one or more of your abilities...if your ghoul doesn't proc infected claws...you're losing out on a damage mechanic and extra runic power.

Unholy isn't going to be a ranged spec...if it gets to that point I'm sure they will change things...sure it can be more mobile than most melee classes...but it wont be a ranged spec as long as blizz wants a specific set role for each spec.

[Deleted]

I mean if you want to look at it with blinders on sure but if you're being realistic it has lots of applications.

No it doesn't, there isn't a single encounter in HFC for example where CS would be in anyway more beneficial than Scourge Strike, not only is it a massive DPS loss because the dmg is low, now you could say number tuning has not happened yet which is true, but the fact is that blizzards current idea is for it to deal quite a bit less dmg than Scourge Strike. If you think the 30y range is going to save it you are just delusional, once again the time it takes you to run that 30y allows for what? 2 CS attacks possibly? and this isn't free dmg either because normally you would just DC instead.

Not only is this enough to render the talent useless at it's current form, but on top of that you also lose Unholy Frenzy/Castigator atm, making the DPS gap even larger.

Lets face it, how much time do you actually spend out of range running to your target in HFC for example? and while running i mean actually 30y range which would allow CS, the answer is hardly in any case, and even if you do gain a slightly more dps from those 2-3 random situations in a encounter, it's no match for the fact that Scourge Strike offers more dmg for the full duration of the fight and allows you to pick another DPS talent on top of it.


I think it's a cool mechanic that offers us something new but it doesn't belong to the DPS row of our talents, unless it's PvP tree.