DK class fantasy regading mobility

[Bloodlunch]

I had a DK (tank) as my main since launch day of WOTLK until legion launch. This expansion, I switched to demon hunter. The main reason that I switched was that mobility on death knight felt terrible, and demon hunter felt like the exact opposite.

Recently, I have started leveling my DK and am considering making him my main again. Mostly I'm back on my DK because the fantasy and lore around being a DK feel badass to me.

One thing that has struck me, is how the class fantasy fits with mobility. The lack of mobility given to DK has been attributed to DK being sort of a slow, unstoppable force. I used to understand this fantasy somewhat as a DK tank, but I really don't anymore. In doing leveling dungeons, I have really been struck by not having icebound fortitude and lichborne. Not for the damage reduction or self heal potential, but to be able to break stuns and fears. I'm really missing those CC breaks that made me feel like that unstoppable death knight that keeps powering forward no matter what you throw at him. At least there is still AMS that you can time to avoid some mechanics.

Just wanted to rant that my DK doesn't feel like it used to. Wondering if anyone is feeling the same about mobility and class fantasy.
I'm going to keep giving my DK a shot, hopefully these things will bother me less as I adjust to the class changes.

[Nayami]

The 'March of the Damned' talent allows you to break Stuns with... Wraith Walk. Not as good as old IBF though.

[Hugoboss]

(...) Wondering if anyone is feeling the same about mobility and class fantasy.
I'm going to keep giving my DK a shot, hopefully these things will bother me less as I adjust to the class changes.

I'm absolutely in agreement. Even with the overall nerf to mobility (which only makes DH mobility even more ridiculous), the issues DK face are particularly glaring.

Mobility impacts heavily in pretty much every aspect of the game: it defines how long it takes to complete daily chores (and how tiresome that is), it influences uptime in fights, it makes or break your viability in bgs and even more so in world pvp. And DKs, particularly frost dks, are at the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to mobility. You could argue priests and warlocks have similar issues, but both are ranged classes - which alleviate a lot of the pain of low mobility - or that paladins are almost as bad.

But the thing is, there's really no tradeoff for DKs. Warlocks and priests are ranged classes, paladins have better cc removal and a much better movement ability, on top of having better sustain, utility, survivability AND comparable damage. And these, again, are all low-mobility classes.

Now, I understand and endorse Blizzard arguments for not giving DKs comparable mobility to, say, a warrior or demon hunter. Not only it doesn't fit the core fantasy of the class (which seems to be one of their mantras these days), it risks serious character homogenization, and to bring back the mobility creep (both of which are things they've obviously strived to remove or reduce with all the changes made for Legion). Balanced Asymmetry is a glorious (if lofty) ideal that should be pursued.

That being the case, we could start with the premise that DKs mobility isn't getting improved (with the exception, perhaps, of a much needed fix, rework or replacement of wraith walk) and work around that fact to make sure that the class is, regardless of that fact, viable, fulfilling and enjoyable to play. The changes, I feel, should be tri-fold:

- First, they should address performance:
If DKs have less mobility and reach than other classes, they should perform comparably better when they can reach their targets. That means more damage, better CC options, more ways / lower cooldown to actually get your target to you (Death Grip, Gorefiend's Grasp...).

- Second, they should address uptime:
Mobility and reach are the main tools on most specs' arsenal to guarantee uptime. If we're forfeiting both as DKs, other aspects could be buffed to make up for them. CC removal / reduction and lingering offensive effects both help getting the job done, without compromising on the class' identity.

- Third, they should address survivability:
Being quick and nimble often is enough to get you out of the harm's way. If you're not, you need to be able to shrug some of the punishment you'd otherwise avoid to be competitive. Again, goes well with the class fantasy and helps get the job done without homogenizing.

[Deleted]

Now, I understand and endorse Blizzard arguments for not giving DKs comparable mobility to, say, a warrior or demon hunter. Not only it doesn't fit the core fantasy of the class (which seems to be one of their mantras these days), it risks serious character homogenization, and to bring back the mobility creep (both of which are things they've obviously strived to remove or reduce with all the changes made for Legion). Balanced Asymmetry is a glorious (if lofty) ideal that should be pursued.

The problem is (in general, not only blizz's awesome design (har)) that 99% of people don't get how this works. If A is OP B,C,D is mediocre and E is uttershit you buff E not randomly wrekt A because it was OP, buff B to become the new A and pretend to buff E but it's just a bandaid. You read up on WHY people think E is bad, then calculate if E is actually bad because of that. And buff E, don't nerf A but then you have A as OP, B,C,D and E as OK. Read up on why A is OP, etc...

What blizz does is "If I don't like the complain or the complain I will ignore it and then just hardcore nerf whatever is at the top, do a bandaid fix instead of actually fixing the issue.". See BDK's beta feedback answered with a more adult version of "Lolfuk u " see the shitload of years of frost noscaling see blizz saying absorb is OP and then giving a tank a huge absorb based gameplay and of course said tank being OP. See blizzard deciding that we (the players in general) should get all of our utility castrated and that tanks needed a beating, see them under-valuing movement and over-valuing self healing (even if it's a horrible tank mechanic), see them putting rng onto of rng (brm has *triple* layered rng, DH could have an alternate playstyle but it can't because of hardcore rng on the soulshards, see outlaw being RNG: The spec).


In short: Ignore this post because so will blizz.