What do DKs use for spellpower?

[Melkor]

Hi,

I am tinkering around with creating a hybrid class just for kicks and i was wondering how classes with both melee and spell components increase spellpower. How do DKs boost the damage of spell-like effects like their diseases and projectile attacks?

[Wingwraith]

I'll play along.... Attack Power ie Strength.

[Melkor]

Thanks. Just to clarify, AP also boosts teh damage of diseases and the like? Does this happen passively for all specs? I know Ret paladins and Enhance shamans have specific abilities that cause other stats to boost spell power.

[Deleted]

Yes, as a DK you stack strength with increases physical and spell damage of DK abilities. If you PVP, you will need some spell penetration so spells don't get resisted.

[Deleted]

Thanks. Just to clarify, AP also boosts teh damage of diseases and the like? Does this happen passively for all specs? I know Ret paladins and Enhance shamans have specific abilities that cause other stats to boost spell power.

Because those specs' primary stat is not intellect but still use a lot of spell power based abilities and they need a way to boost them.

[Blueeagle]

a really long time ago i wanted to make a frost dk in all cloth spellcaster gear.....then i actually made one and found out how they worked...
woulda been cool too, causing another plate wearer to use spells and such =D

[Deleted]

Ban the OP maybe?

Dk is a Hero Class not a hybrid, Thus their dps is on par with PURE dps classes.
And stupid questions are stupid if you read your tooltips in your spell book and talents n such you would know what coefficient/stat more or less contributes to spell power. Just like a ret pally, or an enhance shamman or any spec rogue and their poisons see where i am going with this?

Our diseases make up a very small portion of our dps ( especially if your are frost) as all forum posts and help tips state if you even bothered to read ( its never worth gemming for secondary stat ie. crit/hit/haste/mastery/ect) always gem Strength(unless socket bonus will not result in a net loss if you match the color) Strength increases everything we do. From our auto attacks hitting harder to our pathetic disease ticks.
So... there ya go strength our number 1 stat. StR turns into Attack Power and our spells coefficients scale from that attack power.

I actually felt like typing this morning to bad I wasted it on this

Yes, ban the OP for asking a question. Get your head out of your ass.

[Deleted]

Ban the OP maybe?

Dk is a Hero Class not a hybrid, Thus their dps is on par with PURE dps classes.
And stupid questions are stupid if you read your tooltips in your spell book and talents n such you would know what coefficient/stat more or less contributes to spell power. Just like a ret pally, or an enhance shamman or any spec rogue and their poisons see where i am going with this?

Our diseases make up a very small portion of our dps ( especially if your are frost) as all forum posts and help tips state if you even bothered to read ( its never worth gemming for secondary stat ie. crit/hit/haste/mastery/ect) always gem Strength(unless socket bonus will not result in a net loss if you match the color) Strength increases everything we do. From our auto attacks hitting harder to our pathetic disease ticks.
So... there ya go strength our number 1 stat. StR turns into Attack Power and our spells coefficients scale from that attack power.

I actually felt like typing this morning to bad I wasted it on this

Being a hybrid has to do with being able to fill multiple roles. It has nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with being a hero class. The only reason it's called Hero class is because you start at a higher than normal level. Your character is already a champion by the time you start playing it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Furthermore, there is no hybrid tax. Sometimes a hybrid will be ahead, sometimes a pure will be ahead. Why? Because it's near impossible to balance, and that's just the way it is.

It's not every day you get to read the ignorant garbage displayed in the post quoted.

[Soisoisoi]

Ban the OP maybe?

Dk is a Hero Class not a hybrid, Thus their dps is on par with PURE dps classes.
[..]
I actually felt like typing this morning to bad I wasted it on this

First off, why would the OP get banned? You didn't have to reply, and all you are doing is flaming, if anything you should be banned.

Death Knights ARE a Hybrid class. (Hybrid = More than one role; Aka can Tank and/or Heal and/or DPS)


OT:
Things like Mental Quickness increase Spell damage for melee-based specs. They could also just be effected by AP instead of SP.

[Ealyssa]

Just like a ret pally, or an enhance shamman or any spec rogue and their poisons see where i am going with this?

Your plain wrong with retpal and enh shaman. They both have a specific spell (Sheath of Light and Mental Quickness) which convert ap in spell power. It's needed because of their caster spec, their spells coefficients can scale just with SP (more for the shaman) or double dip ap/sp (more for paladin)

On the other side, DK and rogues don't need spellpower because all their abilities are full ap based.

[bloodwulf]

On the other side, DK and rogues don't need spellpower because all their abilities are full ap based.

This 100%. DKs does not get spell power from STR the way ret does. None of the dk abilities actually use spell power. This is definitely evident if you use Dark Simulacrum to steal a spell like a heal (that actually uses spell power) and than use it on yourself and only heal for a measly about.

Also as an aside. Tru you should not flame people just for asking a question...specially when you evidently do not know the answer yourself. Hero Class at this point strictly means they start at 55 instead of 1...There is no other benefit.

[Deleted]

Ban the OP maybe?

I actually felt like typing this morning to bad I wasted it on this

Why, he was doing some research, may have been a simple enough question, but the overly aggressive reply was out of order.

[Wingwraith]

First off, why would the OP get banned?

Well, in Tru's defense, it was kind of looking like the OP was simply trolling. (their's your banable offense).
But from follow-up responses, it looks like the OP was simply ignorant of DK class mechanics and was genuinely looking for advise.

[stacker55]

DK's dont use spellpower
/thread

[ChildeRoland]

Death Knights does not use Spellpower in any form. They do neither get spellpower from their strength.

While a caster's spells might be coded like this: Fireball deals [((SP*1,19)/PlayerLevel)*(SP*0,45)] fire damage to the target; a Death Knights spell might look like: Howling Blast deals [((AP*0,79)/PL)*(AP*0,25)] damage to the target and [((AP*0,395)/PL)*(AP*0.125)] damage to all targets within 5 yards.

[Melkor]

Thanks much for the info (that one jerk of a poster aside). I'm really just interested in how Blizzard chose to approach this game mechanic and how it affects gameplay. If you are thinking of developing a class for yourself answering those questions aren't as straightforward as they might seem (well the answer is, but the why isn't). For example, Prot and Ret pallies have different mechanics for increasing spell power.

[stacker55]

Thanks much for the info (that one jerk of a poster aside). I'm really just interested in how Blizzard chose to approach this game mechanic and how it affects gameplay. If you are thinking of developing a class for yourself answering those questions aren't as straightforward as they might seem (well the answer is, but the why isn't). For example, Prot and Ret pallies have different mechanics for increasing spell power.

the why is contained in what that class can do

shamans and pallys both can heal, without spell power heals would hit for nothing, thus each of their spec NEEDS spellpower. to try and prevent those classes from wearing cloth to stack spellpower they instead made their attack power increase their spell power.

of course this doesnt apply any more but i remember playing my vanilla hunter when it was popular to stack cloth/spellpower peices to make arcane shot do tons of damage. since then they've removed spell power coefficients from most if not all melee/physical classes without heals

[Melkor]

the why is contained in what that class can do

shamans and pallys both can heal, without spell power heals would hit for nothing, thus each of their spec NEEDS spellpower. to try and prevent those classes from wearing cloth to stack spellpower they instead made their attack power increase their spell power.

of course this doesnt apply any more but i remember playing my vanilla hunter when it was popular to stack cloth/spellpower peices to make arcane shot do tons of damage. since then they've removed spell power coefficients from most if not all melee/physical classes without heals

Is this a programming issue? Say you had a class that had both a melee and a spell dps spec with no healing (outside of self-healing) would that apply as well?

[bloodwulf]

Is this a programming issue? Say you had a class that had both a melee and a spell dps spec with no healing (outside of self-healing) would that apply as well?

Less programming issue more design issue. For shamans/pallies to be able to heal with out spell power they would have to change the coefficients to use something different like attack power. It would require a huge number change to implement.

They actually considered this briefly for pallies because they wanted to do away with the spell power plate which is good for 1 spec in the game. I think they later said it was more work than they were wanting to implement.

[Deleted]

Is this a programming issue? Say you had a class that had both a melee and a spell dps spec with no healing (outside of self-healing) would that apply as well?

The difference between DKs and, for example, Shamans, is that the entire Death Knight class is designed to work with Strength (which gives AP) as it's primary stat. That means there is no reason to let the "spells" scale from SP, you can just make them scale directly from AP instead. Shamans, on the other hand, is mainly a caster focused class. That means all spells scale from SP. However, since Enhancement does not want/need caster (Intellect) gear, they have a talent that will convert some of their AP to SP, so that their spells actually can deal some damage.

One could also argue that it has to do with what Blizzard thought made sense back in the Vanilla days.