Patch 7.2.5 Unholy Death Knight Changes

[rainzoro]

Not sure why people aren't talking about this but the confirmed "increase in cost and damage of Death Coil" can potentially be a huge buff for Unholy for several reasons.

1. Increased Death Coil cost leads to increased Runic Corruption proc chance. This leads to more FS and CS usage over DC.
2. Increased Death Coil cost also reduces waste of overflowing Runic Power.
3. Damage increase of DC per GCD.

I know that many wanted to completely eliminate DC off of GCD but I feel that would complicate our already complicated cycle. Increasing the cost & dmg of DC is way better.

Below is the original blue post from Blizz.

Patch 7.2.5 Unholy Death Knight Changes
We are increasing the cost and damage of Death Coil in 7.2.5. Even with no other changes, that change is likely a pure buff (even though it looks neutral), since the resource it's draining is one that was being wasted anyway.

It's not yet clear whether we'll open up further changes in 7.2.5, since the core rotation is generally working well. Having 3 main buttons (Festering Wound, Scourge Strike, Death Coil) that all have no cooldowns, but instead juggle 3 resources (Runes, Runic Power, Festering Wounds), is a relatively unusual melee rotation that we think has turned out pretty interesting. The biggest thing it needs is space to breathe on the resources, as has been discussed a lot. We'll see how it looks with the Death Coil change in addition to the earlier Runic Corruption change, as well as the loss of T19 set bonuses, and see if there's still a problem.

If we need to make further changes, the goal would likely be to focus on talents that cause a very large swing in resource generation or GCD usage. Because the rotation needs to not be flooded for max-level players with endgame bonuses, but also not too slow for leveling players, as was pointed out. This is an issue we're starting to pay more attention to across all specs (especially melee specs). As we have more rotation-affecting talents in the game than ever before, and we buffed a lot of of them in 7.1.5, many talents (or legendaries or similar bonuses) are trying to effect large DPS increases solely through giving more of a resource or proc. It's becoming a more common problem that specs which initially had good pacing get flooded in certain setups, and we want to start correcting those where we can. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[Hubbubbe]

I think it will be a good change. But I'm unsure if it will be enough to eliminate the rng problems with the spec. Maybe raising the cap on wounds to 10 could help to avoid overcapping, especially if castigator becomes viable again.

Looking forward to playing more UH since I don't like the Frost BoS playstyle. And the fact that i got the legendary UH bracers yesterday makes it even more fun.

[Rixarius]

I've thought since near the beginning of this expac that Death Coil should dump most/all of your RP in one button. Make it do huge damage if you spend like 100 RP on it, but save some GCDs. There would be some functionality issues with Scourge of Worlds and Runic Corruption, but I think it would be a step in the right direction for the resource overflow that UH suffers with.

[dmchellfire]

I've thought since near the beginning of this expac that Death Coil should dump most/all of your RP in one button. Make it do huge damage if you spend like 100 RP on it, but save some GCDs. There would be some functionality issues with Scourge of Worlds and Runic Corruption, but I think it would be a step in the right direction for the resource overflow that UH suffers with.

If the resource cost is bumped up too high, it would kill Necrosis as a talent. I agree it needs an increase in cost and an increase in damage, this should fix the overcapping, but not so much that it devaluates necrosis

[Hubbubbe]

If the resource cost is bumped up too high, it would kill Necrosis as a talent. I agree it needs an increase in cost and an increase in damage, this should fix the overcapping, but not so much that it devaluates necrosis

Maybe make DC always cost 50% of you current RP and let the dmg scale from RP used? Or change necrosis from increasing the next SS/CS, to the next two or into a 3 sec buff that increases all SS/CS.

[dmchellfire]

Maybe make DC always cost 50% of you current RP and let the dmg scale from RP used? Or change necrosis from increasing the next SS/CS, to the next two or into a 3 sec buff that increases all SS/CS.

Making Necrosis time based as in "buff ss for x seconds" will just make it a shorter clone of Scourge of Worlds that does the exact same thing, and also procs off of Death Coil

I would like Scourge of Worlds operate slightly different from the way it does now

Suggestion - Once procced, each CS,SS used while SoW is active, empowers it to increase SS or CS damage by an additional 10% per stack until it either runs out, or you reach 5 stacks, dropping off at 5 stacks (This would benefit both Necrosis style, as well as infected claws)

[Wildcaard]

Not sure why people aren't talking about this but the confirmed "increase in cost and damage of Death Coil" can potentially be a huge buff for Unholy for several reasons.

1. Increased Death Coil cost leads to increased Runic Corruption proc chance. This leads to more FS and CS usage over DC.
2. Increased Death Coil cost also reduces waste of overflowing Runic Power.
3. Damage increase of DC per GCD.

I know that many wanted to completely eliminate DC off of GCD but I feel that would complicate our already complicated cycle. Increasing the cost & dmg of DC is way better.

Below is the original blue post from Blizz.

Patch 7.2.5 Unholy Death Knight Changes
We are increasing the cost and damage of Death Coil in 7.2.5. Even with no other changes, that change is likely a pure buff (even though it looks neutral), since the resource it's draining is one that was being wasted anyway.

It's not yet clear whether we'll open up further changes in 7.2.5, since the core rotation is generally working well. Having 3 main buttons (Festering Wound, Scourge Strike, Death Coil) that all have no cooldowns, but instead juggle 3 resources (Runes, Runic Power, Festering Wounds), is a relatively unusual melee rotation that we think has turned out pretty interesting. The biggest thing it needs is space to breathe on the resources, as has been discussed a lot. We'll see how it looks with the Death Coil change in addition to the earlier Runic Corruption change, as well as the loss of T19 set bonuses, and see if there's still a problem.

If we need to make further changes, the goal would likely be to focus on talents that cause a very large swing in resource generation or GCD usage. Because the rotation needs to not be flooded for max-level players with endgame bonuses, but also not too slow for leveling players, as was pointed out. This is an issue we're starting to pay more attention to across all specs (especially melee specs). As we have more rotation-affecting talents in the game than ever before, and we buffed a lot of of them in 7.1.5, many talents (or legendaries or similar bonuses) are trying to effect large DPS increases solely through giving more of a resource or proc. It's becoming a more common problem that specs which initially had good pacing get flooded in certain setups, and we want to start correcting those where we can. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Damn i hadnt seen this yet but ive been saying they should do this since legion dropped. Might cause some issues with necrosis though.

[Angeredsoul]

I hope necrosis is replaced with a new pet based talent as the other two traits in that row are.

Would love a petless talent with a focus on disposable swarming minions.

[Amalkatrazz]

If they change the ability to increase its cost, the most optimal solution in my opinion would be as follows:

1. DC costs 30 to 100 RP
2. Scourge of the Worlds has a proc chance of 1% per RP spent, i.e. 30 to 100 percent.
3. Shadow Infusion reduces the remaining cooldown of DT by 0.(6) sec per 10 RP spent, i.e. by 2 to 6.6 seconds.
4. Necrosis removed whatsoever because it would be nowhere near viable if unchanged, and making it buff your SS or CS for its entire duration would essentially just double the effect of the Scourge of the Worlds.
Alternative option here: Necrosis: doubles the effect of SotW. Not a good idea, however, because no talent ever has been artifact-bound.

Since the other two talents in this row are buffs to your pet, I think it would be an obvious solution to replace Necrosis (which is the most boring and clunky option in the entire talent set anyway) with yet another pet-based perk. However, petlessness (as suggested by many) is not an option because essentially, Blizzard's philosophy is that every talent should be functional with any other talent picked, not necessarily optimal. And if we get a talent that says 'sudo rm pet // increase-damage -20%', the shield talent in the defensive row above will not function—and there's no way to work that around because you won't have any other permanently present minion to transfer damage taken to.

My suggestion here is as follows:

Unholy Empowerment: when Dark Transformation is up, increase Death Knight's damage by 15%. Yep, that's just the good old T18 set bonus, and the talent would make for a 5% (0/7 artifact trait) to 8,4% (7/7 artifact trait) increase to your own damage. That would, in my opinion, make a very sound and yet balanced talent.

[Hubbubbe]

Making Necrosis time based as in "buff ss for x seconds" will just make it a shorter clone of Scourge of Worlds that does the exact same thing, and also procs off of Death Coil

I would like Scourge of Worlds operate slightly different from the way it does now

Suggestion - Once procced, each CS,SS used while SoW is active, empowers it to increase SS or CS damage by an additional 10% per stack until it either runs out, or you reach 5 stacks, dropping off at 5 stacks (This would benefit both Necrosis style, as well as infected claws)

Yes you are right. Your suggestion is better. Necrosis and SotW is just wierd since they basicly do the same thing (death coil buffs CS,SS). Necrosis needs change.

- - - Updated - - -

If they change the ability to increase its cost, the most optimal solution in my opinion would be as follows:

1. DC costs 30 to 100 RP
2. Scourge of the Worlds has a proc chance of 1% per RP spent, i.e. 30 to 100 percent.
3. Shadow Infusion reduces the remaining cooldown of DT by 0.(6) sec per 10 RP spent, i.e. by 2 to 6.6 seconds.
4. Necrosis removed whatsoever because it would be nowhere near viable if unchanged, and making it buff your SS or CS for its entire duration would essentially just double the effect of the Scourge of the Worlds.
Alternative option here: Necrosis: doubles the effect of SotW. Not a good idea, however, because no talent ever has been artifact-bound.

Since the other two talents in this row are buffs to your pet, I think it would be an obvious solution to replace Necrosis (which is the most boring and clunky option in the entire talent set anyway) with yet another pet-based perk. However, petlessness (as suggested by many) is not an option because essentially, Blizzard's philosophy is that every talent should be functional with any other talent picked, not necessarily optimal. And if we get a talent that says 'sudo rm pet // increase-damage -20%', the shield talent in the defensive row above will not function—and there's no way to work that around because you won't have any other permanently present minion to transfer damage taken to.

My suggestion here is as follows:

Unholy Empowerment: when Dark Transformation is up, increase Death Knight's damage by 15%. Yep, that's just the good old T18 set bonus, and the talent would make for a 5% (0/7 artifact trait) to 8,4% (7/7 artifact trait) increase to your own damage. That would, in my opinion, make a very sound and yet balanced talent.

This is a good suggestion. Makes for three interesting talent choices in that row: Better uptime on the pet, better dmg while pet is up or more resources from the pet.

[Protean]

If they change the ability to increase its cost, the most optimal solution in my opinion would be as follows:

1. DC costs 30 to 100 RP
2. Scourge of the Worlds has a proc chance of 1% per RP spent, i.e. 30 to 100 percent.
3. Shadow Infusion reduces the remaining cooldown of DT by 0.(6) sec per 10 RP spent, i.e. by 2 to 6.6 seconds.
4. Necrosis removed whatsoever because it would be nowhere near viable if unchanged, and making it buff your SS or CS for its entire duration would essentially just double the effect of the Scourge of the Worlds.
Alternative option here: Necrosis: doubles the effect of SotW. Not a good idea, however, because no talent ever has been artifact-bound.

Since the other two talents in this row are buffs to your pet, I think it would be an obvious solution to replace Necrosis (which is the most boring and clunky option in the entire talent set anyway) with yet another pet-based perk. However, petlessness (as suggested by many) is not an option because essentially, Blizzard's philosophy is that every talent should be functional with any other talent picked, not necessarily optimal. And if we get a talent that says 'sudo rm pet // increase-damage -20%', the shield talent in the defensive row above will not function—and there's no way to work that around because you won't have any other permanently present minion to transfer damage taken to.

My suggestion here is as follows:

Unholy Empowerment: when Dark Transformation is up, increase Death Knight's damage by 15%. Yep, that's just the good old T18 set bonus, and the talent would make for a 5% (0/7 artifact trait) to 8,4% (7/7 artifact trait) increase to your own damage. That would, in my opinion, make a very sound and yet balanced talent.

How about "Dark transformation gains 2 charges"? I JUST WANT MY SHOULDERS TO NOT BE TRASH ANYMORE

[Malkiah]

was thinking about this today, and i'm not suggesting this is a fix-all but i keep thinking this would make unholy a hell of a lot smoother and fix many/most of our rotational weirdness.

1. return wounds to 8 stacks
2. festering strike always applies 4 wounds
3. change scourge of worlds to a debuff that causes CS to burst all wounds on the target for the duration, OR "next CS bursts all wounds on the target", OR "increase the next 4 CS strikes by 30%" lasting 10s.

i mean i think that kinda fixes nearly everything purely in terms of rotation doesn't it?
rotation baseline would be: FS > CS 4x > dump RP for RC and scourge procs and some damage, scourge of worlds would make next rotation cycle FS 2x > CS, then you could either FS again followed by a single CS, or dump more DCs to hope for another scourge proc while your runes are all refreshing to continue the rotation.

then if you take castigator or have bracers it can add some RNG to the rotation, but otherwise it becomes far more fluid since it would revolve around a single bar of runes per cycle.

[Deleted]

2. festering strike always applies 4 wounds

This, this , this. I want that so bad , would reduce the rng of the spec and make the gameplay better.

[Hubbubbe]

was thinking about this today, and i'm not suggesting this is a fix-all but i keep thinking this would make unholy a hell of a lot smoother and fix many/most of our rotational weirdness.

1. return wounds to 8 stacks
2. festering strike always applies 4 wounds
3. change scourge of worlds to a debuff that causes CS to burst all wounds on the target for the duration, OR "next CS bursts all wounds on the target", OR "increase the next 4 CS strikes by 30%" lasting 10s.

i mean i think that kinda fixes nearly everything purely in terms of rotation doesn't it?
rotation baseline would be: FS > CS 4x > dump RP for RC and scourge procs and some damage, scourge of worlds would make next rotation cycle FS 2x > CS, then you could either FS again followed by a single CS, or dump more DCs to hope for another scourge proc while your runes are all refreshing to continue the rotation.

then if you take castigator or have bracers it can add some RNG to the rotation, but otherwise it becomes far more fluid since it would revolve around a single bar of runes per cycle.

2. Would be a fantastic change for our dps, but I think it will be OP. Since Festering Strikes averages on 3 wounds/cast today it's more reasonable for it to always apply 3 wounds.
3. I think the first suggestion to Scourge of worlds will be to much burst dmg for Blizzard to accept, especially with DnD out for aoe. The second one is good.

[Protean]

was thinking about this today, and i'm not suggesting this is a fix-all but i keep thinking this would make unholy a hell of a lot smoother and fix many/most of our rotational weirdness.

1. return wounds to 8 stacks
2. festering strike always applies 4 wounds
3. change scourge of worlds to a debuff that causes CS to burst all wounds on the target for the duration, OR "next CS bursts all wounds on the target", OR "increase the next 4 CS strikes by 30%" lasting 10s.

i mean i think that kinda fixes nearly everything purely in terms of rotation doesn't it?
rotation baseline would be: FS > CS 4x > dump RP for RC and scourge procs and some damage, scourge of worlds would make next rotation cycle FS 2x > CS, then you could either FS again followed by a single CS, or dump more DCs to hope for another scourge proc while your runes are all refreshing to continue the rotation.

then if you take castigator or have bracers it can add some RNG to the rotation, but otherwise it becomes far more fluid since it would revolve around a single bar of runes per cycle.

I'd like to see festering strike have 3 baseline, with crits proccing a 4th wound. It would give crit more value and we really only need 3 wounds per FS to smooth out rotation.

SoW and Necrosis needs to proc on cast instead of on landing. With too much haste the rotation gets really clunky because you have to wait for DC's to land on target to see if you procced or not.

[Malkiah]

i'd personally prefer FS to apply 4 wounds because of what it would do to the base rotation.
6 runes total.
2 to apply FS and 4 wounds, then 4 runes on CS to pop them - nice, simple, clean baseline rotation for the spec.

then you can add things like castigator or the bracers to add some RNG to it, but i just feel like having the rotation revolve around one full set of runes baseline is the right way to go.

[Deleted]

Sudden doom procs, shoulders, DA, Sephuz and the new reworking of DC could add potential and huge gains.

A rough average of the first cast of DA would be around 12 million and I've had anecdotal reports of it going up to 18 million, this is without shoulders. If they're increasing the cost of DC the damage DA could do with decent empowerment from shoulders, sephuz and heroism could be sizeable. How much will depend on the final build of patch 7.2.5 and the imagined baseline cost of RP for DC, since SD procs count as RP spent when reading thr DA tooltip.