Death Knight Healing...pretty much gone?

[Decisive The Hallowed]

So I have Been testing out my Frost DK on the PTR...while I can adjust to most changes to Frost...The removal of instant Healing feels like a major slap in the face. Currently on Live, Im spec'd for Death Pact which gives me an instant 50% heal which has saved me countless of times with troublesome mobs. If that was on cooldown, I would just use Empowered Rune Weapon and get about 3 Death Strikes that could heal me up another 30% in total. So thats about a 70-80% total heal in about 5 seconds flat. (if I had both of those healing abilities combined)

And on PTR what do we have...oh...no Death Pact (or any of the other Healing Talents)...and Death Strike is now requires 40 Runic power (rather than just instantly using them if you had a spare couple of runes).

Now, I tried out the Legion Invasion event, and I have well enough gear to give out damage and take a fair amount, but at the end the last boss came out, and dealt out quite alot of damage near the end...
So he ht me down to 30% health, and so I tried hitting him some more to gain Runic Power to use Death Strike on him...which took so long to gain that I ended up getting hit down below 10% and had to back off and to simply wait for the Boss to die.
Now that was the moment when it just took me out of the fun...really...standing back waiting for the boss to die because I didnt have any abilities to heal myself. That is just...not fun at all...anyone else feel my pain?

[Necroofeelya]

So I have Been testing out my Frost DK on the PTR...while I can adjust to most changes to Frost...The removal of instant Healing feels like a major slap in the face. Currently on Live, Im spec'd for Death Pact which gives me an instant 50% heal which has saved me countless of times with troublesome mobs. If that was on cooldown, I would just use Empowered Rune Weapon and get about 3 Death Strikes that could heal me up another 30% in total. So thats about a 70-80% total heal in about 5 seconds flat. (if I had both of those healing abilities combined)

And on PTR what do we have...oh...no Death Pact (or any of the other Healing Talents)...and Death Strike is now requires 40 Runic power (rather than just instantly using them if you had a spare couple of runes).

Now, I tried out the Legion Invasion event, and I have well enough gear to give out damage and take a fair amount, but at the end the last boss came out, and dealt out quite alot of damage near the end...
So he ht me down to 30% health, and so I tried hitting him some more to gain Runic Power to use Death Strike on him...which took so long to gain that I ended up getting hit down below 10% and had to back off and to simply wait for the Boss to die.
Now that was the moment when it just took me out of the fun...really...standing back waiting for the boss to die because I didnt have any abilities to heal myself. That is just...not fun at all...anyone else feel my pain?

I have not tried the Legion PTR. Frost has always been the spec to have the least amount of healing availability. With the change of Death Strike using Runic Power which does make the matter worse.

I play an Unholy DK. Nothing against frost damage wise because frost damage is fun. Its the sustainability though. Unholy DKs have an effective 3rd heal that Frost does not.
At 25-30% health I would pop Lichborn to which I have a macro that automatically casts Deathcoil on myself and it quite literally heals me to 95-100% again.
Granted you can still do the same thing in frost, but it is more effective as an unholy since death coils costs is reduced greatly in that spec.

[Deleted]

I have not tried the Legion PTR. Frost has always been the spec to have the least amount of healing availability. With the change of Death Strike using Runic Power which does make the matter worse.

I play an Unholy DK. Nothing against frost damage wise because frost damage is fun. Its the sustainability though. Unholy DKs have an effective 3rd heal that Frost does not.
At 25-30% health I would pop Lichborn to which I have a macro that automatically casts Deathcoil on myself and it quite literally heals me to 95-100% again.
Granted you can still do the same thing in frost, but it is more effective as an unholy since death coils costs is reduced greatly in that spec.

Lichborne doesn't exist in Legion and Frost hasn't had Death Coil since WoD.

[Necroofeelya]

Lichborne doesn't exist in Legion and Frost hasn't had Death Coil since WoD.

I was waiting for someone to say that. Crap. I am not 100% filled in with what the dks got jewed from in legion.
Totally forgot about Frost losing Death coil in WoD. Have not touched frost since MoP

INFRACTION

[Derah]

"A slap in the face"? That's a little melodramatic considering other classes are in a MUCH worse situation regarding their self healing. Its true we've lost most of it, but dark crusader mixed with dark succor is more often than not enough to keep me going on the beta. Artifacts will have perks that greatly enhance your survival.

Frost has one that makes your IBF increase the healing of death strike by 100% per rank (for a total increase of 300%) and yes, this stacks with dark succor. At 110 this usually heals me for over 500k per DS. I can go from near death, to full life with that. On top of that, we have the permafrost talent which, when mixed with icy talons, means bubble spam. Frost DKs are currently one of the tankiest DPS specs around.

Unholy is a little more shafted with the perks. All they get is a 21% increase of the effect of dark crusader (healing included), and an increase to their maximum RP and how much you generate per rune spent, resulting in more death strikes.

All in all, while we've been knocked down several notches, we're FAR from the only ones with this problem. And all things considered, we got off easy compared to others.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Ashbringer's traits only have a few unique effects. It's mostly damage upgrades. Our self Healing is also terrible as well. No Selfless Healer, no Supplication anymore. We can talent into WoG but it's not very strong either and has a CD. There IS a trait that increases the healing of Flash of Light but it's very deep within the Artifact so that's a problem.

So I understand feeling shafted when it comes to new class design :/

[Derah]

Ashbringer's traits only have a few unique effects. It's mostly damage upgrades. Our self Healing is also terrible as well. No Selfless Healer, no Supplication anymore. We can talent into WoG but it's not very strong either and has a CD. There IS a trait that increases the healing of Flash of Light but it's very deep within the Artifact so that's a problem.

So I understand feeling shafted when it comes to new class design :/

Ret pallies definitely got screwed over with the self healing. My advice? Spec into justicar's strike. When mixed with judgment and a stun (of which you have two) it can heal you for truly OUTRAGEOUS amounts. The best part is that the hit can crit (increasing healing) and the heal itself can crit (again increasing healing). Getting a double crit with it is basically a free "lay on hands"

[Maxweii]

Even at 723 ilvl (if your sig is up to date OP), you shouldn't take longer than 2-3 GCD's to get to 40 runic power. It's excessively easy to get runic as Frost, especially in the PTR considering we have end game overpowered stats especially with the removal of MS so things got shifted all around.


Taking Frosts self healing at 100 though means nothing for what it has in Legion. The trait, as was already mentioned, which increases DS healing by 300% when IBF is up, is just ridiculous. It is essentially 80 runic for a full health bar, or with Dark Succor up one strike and you're fully healed. Combine that with a stun that is in your basic rotation and Frost feels really good self sustaining wise.

There are things dps specs shouldn't tank now though, and will beat you down like this. You have two options, overpower it and dps it down faster than it kills you, or have someone else tank it while you dps it down. There's been plenty of mobs in Legion beta where it should have a tank, but a couple people just attack it and the melee ping pong it off each other once one of us is about to die.

[Mythbredor]

The healing in terms of frost is almost nonexistant. Death strike doesn't even really do enough to use you're better off trying to slaughter your opponet before they kill you. Which i'm not really looking forward to a zerg(ish) meta in pvp. It's better than the current spam CCs untill your opponet dies. But it still isn't good you need to strike a balance between sustain/cc/dps on the max level pvp realms on beta frost does a pretty high amount of damage one of the best DPS currently besides tanks. But I do almost no healing. Idk it's just a change we'll see what happens once Legion is live and we can really see how it balances itself out.

[Kraeth]

Pretty much all selfheals got either removed or tuned down across the board. Sure, it feels super bad especially if you're used to Death Siphon. But it's not like we're the only class that got cut down. Although I'm willing to say that come Legion there are classes with better selfheals than us.

[TrixieDK]

I'm interested to see how this plays out in the leveling phase for new characters, I found myself needing to DS during leveling a lot.

[Kelathos]

I'm interested to see how this plays out in the leveling phase for new characters, I found myself needing to DS during leveling a lot.

This sustain has been a big part of enjoying DK over the years.

[Maxweii]

I'm interested to see how this plays out in the leveling phase for new characters, I found myself needing to DS during leveling a lot.

As Frost you should have no problems, even with as low as premade gear. RW's stun keeps you from taking damage and the shield from auto attacks keeps you up otherwise. DS now and then from killed mobs with Dark Succor, but if you're DSing other than that you're overpulling.

[TrixieDK]

As Frost you should have no problems, even with as low as premade gear. RW's stun keeps you from taking damage and the shield from auto attacks keeps you up otherwise. DS now and then from killed mobs with Dark Succor, but if you're DSing other than that you're overpulling.

I agree, frost has much better self healing at lower levels, but I leveled as unholy

[Maxweii]

I agree, frost has much better self healing at lower levels, but I leveled as unholy

With Unholy you rely more on killing stuff semi at range. You can pulls packs just as big as Frost but you can't face tank em like it can. Gotta be smart with how you attack em otherwise they beat you down. I mean maybe Corpse Shield would help on large pulls but otherwise I mainly did the approach of 'they should be half dead before they touch me'

[minteK917]

Self healing was nerfed across the board. As it should be.

[TrixieDK]

With Unholy you rely more on killing stuff semi at range. You can pulls packs just as big as Frost but you can't face tank em like it can. Gotta be smart with how you attack em otherwise they beat you down. I mean maybe Corpse Shield would help on large pulls but otherwise I mainly did the approach of 'they should be half dead before they touch me'

Totally agree man!

[Hellishreaper]

Self healing was nerfed across the board. As it should be.

except death knights have always been about self healing via necromancy, we should be the class with the MOST self healing

[minteK917]

except death knights have always been about self healing via necromancy, we should be the class with the MOST self healing

*ret paladin/enh shaman they dont have any worth mentioning either.