Death Knight Talent Tree short comings. 14/12/10

[Herald]

Wow I hope this thread ends soon. Its full of people thinking their opinions are fact and emo kids. Can we get a moderator to just get rid of it?

EDIT: @ Herald

I did read your wall of text. I play a DK as my "main alt" and disagree with most of what you said and I agree with mostly what Zito has said. In before you attack me for something.

Yet neither of you can say why? Ok buddy.

---------- Post added 2010-12-15 at 06:09 AM ----------

I repeat things back to you because you completely ignore them and you don't think about them except you try and think of a way to say "im right". You also didn't log anything you just stated your experiences like I stated my experiences.

You've yet to offer a counter explanation or otherwise neutralize my own statements. I'm getting bored with you.

[zito]

Yet neither of you can say why? Ok buddy.

---------- Post added 2010-12-15 at 06:09 AM ----------



You've yet to offer a counter explanation or otherwise neutralize my own statements. I'm getting bored with you.

I have provided enough info in one of my posts to counter yours. Like I said before you are just ignoring them because you believe your right and everything you say is fact. When its not so you just completely ignore everything. Im getting bored of your ignorance.

[Unknown12345]

I think I'm going to end my involvement in this thread right there. I just came on for a quick browse before I ran home to play after work. Zito I recommend doing the same. Arguing on the internet is stupid. Just let the OP rage in peace.

[Herald]

I have provided enough info in one of my posts to counter yours. Like I said before you are just ignoring them because you believe your right and everything you say is fact. When its not so you just completely ignore everything. Im getting bored of your ignorance.

You've provided nothing more than these exact words "I disagree". You never elaborated beyond that and you've presented nothing that would cause me to believe you have any idea what you're talking about.

[Foibles]

I can read perfectly fine, its basically a QQ post about your thoughts about some talents that you don't like or the position of the talents. And when someone disagrees with your opinions with their opinions you don't contribute anything except trying to troll.

The only thing I agree with you is about BCB however I don't agree with everything else you said because you have no valid proof or reason.

I'm a little surprised Bladed Armor isn't mentioned. The concept of the OP's post is "These talents shouldn't exist when 'mandatory or boring' talents were supposed to be removed in Cataclysm.

An easy example is Bladed Armor. Warriors had the exact same talent in the Fury tree, and it was removed in one of the first talent passes. It's a boring, mandatory dps increase. The Warrior version was removed, but why not the DK talent?

Virulence is the same way, exact compared to Paladins.

You may think the OP is all QQ, but it really isn't.

[zito]

You've provided nothing more than these exact words "I disagree". You never elaborated beyond that and you've presented nothing that would cause me to believe you have any idea what you're talking about.

Post number 10 on front page. Provides examples and my experiences countering some of your experiences. I stopped half way threw to get my point across but you just completely ignore the entire thing congratulations. So there is no point in continuing when you just ignore everything everyone says that disagree with you.

[Milosaa]

I agree with a lot of what you said, only thing i really disagree with is hungering cold only being for pvp. When i do heroics with my friend a warrior tank, we use it as an oshit button if the healer is falling behind then we can burn one mob while the healer catches up and its good from there. Also yeah dks have some misplaced or pointless talents, but we are still one of the top pvpers, top dps and imo the top tank even with the armor nerf so if they were to give us more useful talents, we would get nerfed to keep us close to other classes

[zito]

I'm not in my own little world. I'm just right and I know I'm right and you want me to be wrong but alas, I am right. To be frank, I disregard everything you say because you've yet to say anything of value or otherwise prove that you are capable of saying anything of value.

Like I said before you think your right because you disagree with everything I said. But the fact is I have been in different situations then you, i have stated them and you just completely ignore them because you think I don't know anything. You need to grow up because you are being an ignorant troll at this point.

Once again just because you experienced one thing does not make it fact.

[Irefusetodie]

First, I want to say that this is a well organized and a well thought out post. Thank you for not posting "i dont like the new trees".

Talent Specializations

- Blood Rites: Whenever you hit with Death Strike or Obliterate, the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.

Due more to a design flaw than a talent flaw, this is an ability that remains insignificant for 99% of all encounters. There is very little reason for a Death Knight to use those Death Runes to spam Heart Strike or Blood Boil as opposed to using Death Strike; even in AoE situations, Death Strike/Rune Strike/Heart Strike + Tab is more effective than spamming Blood Boil. Blizzard has made it clear that they have no qualms with the current Blood rotation (diseaseless with large Death Strike priority) and therefore need to make this specialization more applicable in many more combat scenarios or replace it with something else. This is one of those abilities which cause no harm to the player but also lack a definite, and useful, application.

I disagree completely. It's amazing to have the ability to choose what you need to do. Without this, we'd have to resort to 2 DS or 2 ITs and 2 PSs for whatever we needed. This gives us the ability to choose BB for heavy Aoe, HS for multiple targets when survivability is a nonissue, and RT.

Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 12 sec, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage. The rune weapon also assists in defense of its master, granting an additional 20% parry chance while active.

The problem with this talent is the RP cost. It's not that just that it's too high; it's that it's completely meaningless aside from the horrible ramp up time required. The additional threat granted by DRW + Glyph causes the Death Knight to generate only a tiny bit more threat over using the RP on Rune Strike. This would lead me to assume that Blizzard was keeping an eye on opportunity cost when they designed this ability; but it's still as pointless as spending 60 RP to instantly generate 60 RP. The result is that this ability really only grants your 20% Parry. Blizzard could easily remove the extra threat and the RP cost and make this a much more easily managed survival CD.

I would much prefer to maintain the threat on it and drop the RP cost down to 30. It'd actually be usefull but with ERW dks could put out to much threat at the start of a fight.

- Hungering Cold: Purges the earth around the Death Knight of all heat. Enemies within 10 yards are trapped in ice, preventing them from performing any action for 10 sec and infecting them with Frost Fever. Enemies are considered Frozen, but any damage other than diseases will break the ice.

This has no reason to be linked with Howling Blast. This is a PvP talent and soloing talent. The CC application of Hungering Cold is too extremely limited to consider it reliable CC. It's so limited that I cannot think of a looser way to use the term "CC". This link with HB is nothing short of an open palm slap in the face from Blizzard devs hellbent of forcing "underused in WotLK" talents down player throats.

It can actually be quite useful for interupts. It doesn't really hurt us since it's only one talent point.

- Mastery-Blightcaller:Increases the damage done by your diseases by 40%. Each point of Mastery increases disease damage by an additional 5.0%.

Diseases make up such a small percent of overall damage on a single target that this Mastery can be considered nothing more than "doesn't hurt to have". When an entire community of players thinks your new spec-specific and unique mechanic is so underwhelming they'd rather have more crit, it's safe to say that you did a lackluster job and should be entertaining the idea of a redesign.

There are several specs that don't require mastery to perform well. I'd much prefer there be certain specs that are more than "Get as much mastery as possible". I think it's a good thing that there are trees that don't require tons of mastery, but that's just my opinion.

I pretty much agree with everything else you said, there have been some definitive oversights for Dks. We're far from a rough spot though, so I guess we just have to be thankful for the fact that we aren't enh shamans or rogues.

[LeviathanZero]

Mods, can we please have this thread locked?
As amusing as it is seeing Herald assuming he is always right, his word is god, and everyone that disagrees is wrong, I really don't think it serves any purpose.

Herald, for reference while I agree with some of what you've said, I agree with Zito more. If your personal playstyle leads you to these conclusions, that's fine, but when someone with an equally valid playstyle comes along with equally valid but differing opinions, insisting that "Your word is reality" is just childish.

[Herald]

Like I said before you think your right because you disagree with everything I said. But the fact is I have been in different situations then you, i have stated them and you just completely ignore them because you think I don't know anything. You need to grow up because you are being an ignorant troll at this point.

Once again just because you experienced one thing does not make it fact.

I've heard what you've to offer. It wasn't significant or even correct. If you don't agree, you're best course is to exit this thread because the consensus is steadily becoming that the wall of text I posted is completely relevant and of sound logic and reason based on the current state of the game.

You really should have tried to save some face; I have zero respect for your reasoning skills.

[Milosaa]

What i dont understand is why zito is getting all worked up about your opinion though it is very sad that he has to discredit you to feel good about himself. I understand this is a discussion, but he is just being a jerk.

[Nangz]

You guys are going to make my life difficult I see. Well, here comes the cleanup patrol.

This will be the only time I say it. Keep this thread on topic. The topic being talents and specs posted by the OP in his first post. Discuss ways for the talents to be adjusted or the current problems with it but do NOT take personal shots. Much of what the OP stated is opinion but that does NOT mean that anyone has the right to bash him on these forums.


I am temporary locking this thread untill I am done cleaning it of useless posts that say things to the effect of " oh yea? Prove it!." Feel free to post in this thread again once discussion can resume.

Edit:

Reopening thread without all the personal shot and minor spam.

Rule of thumb when posting responses to this thread. Opinion is not fact. Opinions can be backed up by fact. Testimonials are not facts. Testimonials are opinions when posted on this forum because, in most cases, a testimony cannot be backed up with sufficient evidence. None of you are experts and if you believe you are, you have not provided sufficient evidence to prove such in this discussion. Saying " I play this content so I know what I am talking about" is not any way to discuss a topic rationally.

Definition
: testimony relaying opinion as opposed to direct knowledge of the facts at issue
Opinion testimony may be allowed in evidence when it helps the factfinder understand or determine the facts at issue. Such testimony by a lay witness must be rationally based on his or her perception. A qualified expert witness may also give opinion testimony. The expert's opinion may be based on facts or data that he or she perceives directly or of which he or she is made aware other than by direct perception at or before trial. http://research.lawyers.com/glossary...testimony.html

By this quote I say that if you disagree with ones opinions that he backs by his testimony, you should be refuting his testimony and perception of specific events not his opinion through your own testimony. If you perceive a situation in one way and use your experiences as backup for your argument be prepared for people to try to counter your experiences by suggesting that maybe you did not understand the situation to its fullest.

If a healer has a bad experience with healing a death knight in a 5 man on a specific pull and he claims that death knights are incapable tanks as a result. Saying his opinion is wrong and here is why, is not a very friendly way of showing someone in a reasonable manner that they are incorrect. People get defensive when told outright that they are wrong. They best way to change the aforementioned person's mind would be to question the specifics of the event in quetsion, what spells were you casting to heal him? Was he popping cooldowns as necessary? Were more mobs pulled than intended?


Hopefully you all can understand that what the OP said is opinion which means it is not fact. His opinion can be based in fact but I suspect that the experiences he has had are not fact. I am not trying to take sides in this post and say that any of the people in this thread are right or wrong. I am merely saying that the discussion taking place here is not appropriate and does not give any verifiable and specific data to backup any points.

Now time for the part of my post that does not make me physically tired to think about at 1 am.

Blood Rites:

I do think that the point of this talent is contradictory with today's instances. Mobs hit hard. We want to be able to last as long as possible so for a rotation to increase our threat as opposed to our survivability seems awkward. I do also say that allowing for 4 of our runes to be turned into death runes gives us way more flexibility and that is ALWAYS good for a tank.

Butchery:

I can't help but think, this talent does have some use. In leveling it is decent and in pvp it is decent aswell. Personally, the 20 runic power on a kill isn't as impressive to me as the 2 rp per 5 secs. Maybe I am just a min-maxer but when I was doing sindy, BQL, and other fights that forced me to stay off the boss for a decent amount of time I couldn't help think about me not being able to do anything. Pooling runic power aside, if we are away from the boss our dps is limited. Sure, our runes refresh, but our active damage is low. A warrior gains rage during combat passively for being in combat. For us we do not. It would be nice to have just 2-5 extra runic power at times when our runes are on cooldown so I can get off an extra death coil and I think that this talent gives people like me some reassurance.

Blood Caked Blade:

I agree that this talent feels out of place. Without it my threat is fine and if I specced into it I would be regretting it. A proc threat increase? The threat per proc isn't even that great. Especially, as pointed out, without much haste the amount of procs on this will be low.

Crimson Scourge:

It is hard for me to say that this talent is useless because even with disease-less tanking having 40% extra damage to blood boil is good. In all the heroics I have ran so far it seems clear to me what tools I should use and when. Blood boil as a debuff on any amount of targets. Heart strike for threat against 1-3 targets. Blood boil for more. Blood boil used exclusively if dps are splitting their dps or focusing more on heart strike if a target is marked to die first. It doesn't make much sense to me why blizzard intends for us to clip our diseases as per the 2nd effect of this talent. It would make more sense to make it proc a free blood boil when we plague strike a target with frost fever already on it.

Dancing Rune Weapon:

Looking back when rune strike proced ONLY from dodges or parries it makes sense that this talent gives 20% parry in addition to extra threat while up. One would use this when they needed to get alot of threat out quickly because more parry would give more rune strikes in addition to the threat from the DRW itself and the glyph. With rune strike being made baseline it makes this an awkward spell I admit but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a use. The cooldown is so short that it shouldn't be a major problem if this is blow for threat or survival. Either situation gives both benefits and isn't gamebreaking if popped in a wrong time. It is probably our weakest survival cooldown but our greatest threat cooldown. I do agree with 60 rp. That is a lot.

Nerves of Cold Steel:

I don't want this moved to tier two. with Unholy DW being superior to 2h, moving this deeper only makes the problem more penalizing to unholy. Unholy is not designed to be a dw tree and making it harder for us to be optimal isn't the way of chainging anything. They need to make DW not optimal by cutting the benefit we get from DWing not making the benefits of DWing harder to achieve. I am all for making nerves of cold steel a frost passive and moving any of the T2 talents to T1 but swapping them only makes DW unholy more gimped without solving the problem of DW unholy

Hungering Cold:

I do agree it feels like blizzard is forcing this one down our throats. The CC isn't long enough to be something we are loved for. Its like a warlock being taken over a mage because he can death coil a mob. ( Or shadowfury for that matter). If they made Hungering Cold have a PVE viable duration then I would be extremely happy. I am not upset with taking this talent by any means but it does feel like we are left with a sub par talent that we must take to be optimal

Mastery- Blightcaller:

I dislike this from the POV that diseases deal so little damage as a death knight in ANY spec. They could make our mastery decent if they made diseases deal good damage across the board but that probably isn't going to happen as it would require strike damage nerfs across the board. Our mastery doesn't need to be our best stat but mastery should be within 25% in terms of stat weights of our best stat. Currently it is 1/3rd of the benefit of haste. It should be more like crit which is about 75% the benefit of haste. (I'm comparing to haste because it is our top stat after hit and strength.)

The talents in the early tier of unholy:

My impression of blizzard dropping talents down to 31 points was to take the talents that either everyone, or nobody, takes and remove them aswell as talents that are genuinely boring. While nearly all the talents in early unholy are exciting they are all necessary and potent in PVP. The problem with these all being baseline is that the difference between PVP and PVE specs becomes almost too small.

Virulence:

This really does need to be baseline. They made all death knight spells crit for 100% extra damage when WOTLK released as a passive in the frost tree. They could do something similar with Virulence, especially since all specs DO use spells.

Epidemic:

I think this talent is fine. In current 5 man content one should always be using diseases as a tank because you debuff targets for survival and put out nearly equal threat. It is debatable to me in raiding content because, while the buffs can be covered, the damage does not seem to be extremely different with or without diseases. To use blizzard's words, " We are fine with players opting for a simpler rotation as long as the simpler rotation is the only way to play."

Anti Magic Shell/ Anti Magic Zone.

Of the two dps trees we have, each tree brings its own unique little spells. I hope that Anti Magic Zone remains unholy only much like I hope that hungering cold and pillar of frost remains frost only. Bringing magic suppression down though so it is capable of being gained by both frost and blood is something I would like. Maybe the intent is that only unholy gets the survival of 100% magic absorption during AMS. If that is the case then I think they should put the runic power generation of AMS back onto the spell as baseline and make magic suppression a pure upgrade in terms of amount of damage absorbed.


Feel free to disagree and I would love to hear your thoughts. These are my opinions.

[Muraza]

Nerves of Cold Steel:

I don't want this moved to tier two. with Unholy DW being superior to 2h, moving this deeper only makes the problem more penalizing to unholy. Unholy is not designed to be a dw tree and making it harder for us to be optimal isn't the way of chainging anything. They need to make DW not optimal by cutting the benefit we get from DWing not making the benefits of DWing harder to achieve. I am all for making nerves of cold steel a frost passive and moving any of the T2 talents to T1 but swapping them only makes DW unholy more gimped without solving the problem of DW

Having NoCS in the top tier for frost will only lead to unholy getting nerfed. Blizzard took all this bitching from players to make a dedicated tree in the DK talents for DW, seeing that unholy is better at DW with just the NoCS talent will make blizzard nerf whatever is making it so good.

[Nyanmaru]

With NoCS unreachable for Unholy, wouldn't it make "2h unholy = DW frost >/= DW unholy > 2h frost"
If there would just be a way to buff 2h frost to make it the same as DW unholy the world would be perfect and we'd be able to chose what aesthetic style to play...

[Avatar Killer]

In BG's butchery can be very promising for unholy or frost, the extra RP from kills (which happens a lot in bg's) can generate more frost strikes or more death coils which are hard hitting abilities and high in priority.

LOL um no. you have to actually deal the killing blow to get this and even if that was the case (which its not) this ability is manditory in unholy because of the lack of other talents to get for a pve spec, which is what he meant anyways. In a 10 minute fight you generate what 120 RP by the 10 minute marker. GREAT that's what 4 free abilities for two talent points? Absolutely not worth 2 talent points if I had the choice. I wouldn't willingly even get this if it was 1 talent point AND added another RP to the mix.

your hungering cold post held absolutely no bearing on anything, as pointed out by your buddy nangz
He said we shouldn't be required to pick up pvp talents in a pve spec and wow what do you know.. hes right. SURE!!! this can be used in pve... show me where. give me one instance where it is a usable ability that isn't used as an oh sh*t button. lol good cause you cant. there are actual CC mechanics out there that are guaranteed to be in your group, raid whatever. This isn't a raid CC ability its a life saving utility for people that should want to grab it. Are unholy DKs required to get AMZ? no. you know why? cause it does the same thing as HC does for frost. As SF does for Blood. its is NOT needed on those trees why is HC needed in frost? Let us decide what we want to pick up if its not going to be usable at least 5% of our time. GIVING it to us is one thing, Forcing it down our throats is another. and if you have something to say SAY it. Don't make us fill in your post with stuff like "he really wanted to say there's nothing wrong with this post he just forgot to post it". This is a discussion forum not a place to make us guess what you were thinking.

Your post contains good discussion but this part is pointless. Don't include this in the future. If you disagree with something point it out but don't rely on others to see their own mistakes if you are the one claiming it is a mistake. Edit for discussion if you wish. ~Nangz

Mastery for some classes plain right suck, because mastery is a stat and should be prioritized like every other stat. They can't make mastery SUPER FABULOUS for every spec or else people would stack it. Think of it this way, would you rather have 40% extra disease damage passively or would you rather still have it in talent form?[COLOR="red"]

LOL fail. Even blue posts from blizzard said they didn't do a good job with this one. it was a trial and error. it didn't work and they will fix it. the game has been out for a week. beta has been out longer but they wanted to make sure it wasn't just beta players making it seem bad so they released it. if they feel the need they will make it useful in some way. they are not stupid, they didn't put a specialization ability in EVERY SINGLE CLASS just to turn their heads and ignore their own mechanics. they haven't been around for the last 6 years with this game just to ignore their own rules.

Lastly there is ALWAYS room for improvement in talents and spells and what not. THAT is what these posts DO for people is show everyone our concerns so that they will be read and adjusted accordingly. Blizzard is not a company of multiple billions because they sit idle while people walk away. they are constantly adjusting stuff to better their games. If something doesnt work they fix it. Look at DKs when they were originally released. They were GODS. literally. if that DK still existed today nothing in the game could stop them. complete immortality. THAT Was broken so blizzard fixed it to better tune it to the game.

[RabbitPrime]

This same guy (I'm assuming) posted this on the tanking and DK forums over on the bnet site. It created some really awesome discussion and raised a lot of questions. I recently tried to find it again and found out Blizz purged the whole thing; just deleted all of it. GG Blizz, way to consider the players. Dude's a DK named Destous, I forget what server he's on though.


As for the thread discussion, I feel that moving NoCS is the cleanest way to knock down DW Unholy's 2% lead on 2h Unholy.

[Supermassive]

There are several specs that don't require mastery to perform well. I'd much prefer there be certain specs that are more than "Get as much mastery as possible". I think it's a good thing that there are trees that don't require tons of mastery, but that's just my opinion.

I feel the pain of the mastery issue with Unholy, its great for AoE packs but in the end, its utility ends there and becomes a wasted stat that i find myself avoiding or reforging to get my single target dps up to snuff. I dont want to be forced to stack mastery, but it would be nice to have an actual attractive mastery so that any mastery rating i do have feels like a useful bonus and not a negligible dps increase. I do however like the idea of increasing stack damage per disease which would help with increasing dps without making the spec too dependant on haste or crit and therefore becoming a useful stat for all unholy dk's.