Hey guys! Big time unholy fan here. Been away from WoW for a year now, partially due to WoD completely screwing unholy gameplay, making it as boring and dull as it could be IMO.
*Looking at all the info already released for Legion got me very excited for the Unholy revamp, and after going through all the changes, i was very eager to get into the alpha and share feedback on the alpha forums, but getting into alpha is very hard.
*Therefore id like to at least share my thoughts and impressions about the spec's new mechanics here with the alpha testers on MMOC, to see if anyone agrees with most of it (or not) and to hopefully persuade someone into bringing some of these thoughts to the official feedback forums, since this is the moment they listen to us the most.
Bear in mind that most of my experience in WoW comes from PvP, but since im writting about the spec's core mechanics, it involves PvE as well. Without further delay, lets get to it (big wall of text incoming!).
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01. THE RNG OVERLOAD
What stands out the most about Legion Unholy so far, when compared to previous expansions, is the huge RNG increase baked into the specs abilities. So much that i had to start talking about it now so as to not get repetitive later on!
While im certain some players hated this change entirely, i personally believe that small doses of RNG can actually benefit the spec a lot, specially when it promotes risk management. Its very clear that Blizz splashed too much RNG on UH though, so most of my suggestions for UH either tone the RNG down or apply it in more active, meaningful ways.
02. FESTERING WOUNDS
This is a great idea. It fits the class fantasy, rewards the player for following a dynamic priority system
instead of a boring fixed rotation, and finally gives Scourge Strike the spotlight it deserves in UH's
army after being a lowly squire for years.
Its execution seems quite off though (which is to be expected, its alpha after all), and i believe the
suggestions below would go a long way to make it better:
A. Make Festering Strike apply 02 FW stacks MINIMUM;
This is a change i think UH absolutely cant go into beta without. Just thinking about the possibility of hitting FS twice and getting only 02 stacks can make a vein pop out, this skill requires the minimum amount of stacks gained to be 02 simply cuz of the rune investment! Apocalypse on a 45 second cd wont be enough to offset this btw.
RNG is only fun when we choose to rely on it, being forced into relying on it all the time can be horrible. It sounds like an obvious change, but theres a world-drop legendary for UH that reduces FS rune cost to 1, and im afraid Blizz will have to take these into account when balancing the specs. Yet another reason to get veins popping!
B. Make the Blackjack minigame "feeling" of the Festering Postules talent BASELINE;
Damage wise, Festering Postules is the most underwhelming choice in the 2nd talent tier, but it seems to be the most FUN choice gameplay wise IMO. Why? Because it turns the FW mechanic into a minigame of Blackjack!
That happens because the maximum amount of FW stacks on a single target is 08 and Festering Postules allows FS to give you over half of that maximum in 01 hit, so when you hit FS once and roll 03 stacks or more, you must ask yourself the exact same questions you would if you were playing Blackjack:
"What are my chances of losing if I hit again? Is it worth it?"
In Blackjack, going over 21 points makes you lose the game; in Legion, going over 08 FW stacks makes you lose damage.
This is it! THIS is a great example of how RNG should be implemented in the game! This minigame promotes active risk management, so instead of having our rotations dictated by pure RNG, it is decided by whether we want to rely on RNG or not! This promotes clever, split-second decisions and ensures that the unholy rotation will never be exactly the same all the time.
Such a cool-looking mechanic shouldnt be available only to those who choose the Festering Postules talent, so heres my suggestion:
B2. Change Festering Wounds maximum baseline stack to 06, and make the Festering Postule Talent increase it to 08;
Dont pay much attention to the numbers, they are there just to make the suggestion easier to understand. The point is: give baseline FS the chance to roll over half of the FW maximum baseline stack, thus emulating the Blackjack minigame, and give Festering Postules the adittional bonus of increasing the maximum number of stacks on the target.
This hits 02 birds with 01 stone, cuz it makes the Blackjack minigame baseline while also giving FP a much needed buff to compete with the other talents in that tier.
03. THE DEATH AND DECAY/SCOURGE STRIKE AOE COMBO
Again, another great idea! Giving UH an AoE mechanic that doesnt rely on disease spreading may sound odd, but it sure looks interesting and refreshing! With that said, the sinergy shows some problems, all tied to the fact that 30 seconds on DnD is too long of a cooldown for an ability that is too easy to avoid.
I've seen many players suggesting that DnD should become mobile and have the DK at its center, but i completely disagree with this. This suggestion turns DnD into a mindless AoE cleave and promotes dumbed-down gameplay, which is what Blizz should always avoid. Instead, i suggest this:
*A. Give Defile the chance of ignoring cooldown and being used for free when Sudden Doom procs;
OR
B. Take away Defile's FW popping effect and instead make it spread FW stacks to all the enemies it damages;
These changes should be mutually exclusive as they would be too strong together. Defile MUST be the go-to talent if you want to focus on this mechanic, so its only natural that the changes should come with it and not baseline.
*The first suggestion has been given in the official forums by other testers and i like it quite a bit. It gives us the option of choosing between ST and AoE in our core rotation, while making Sudden Doom way more interesting. With Double Doom being nerfed to 25% from 50%, this could actually work.
The second one gets rid of Defile awkward FW popping effect, which conflicts with Scourge Strike, and gives UH a cost-efficient, RNG-free way to get FW stacks on multiple targets (the only way unholy can do that right now is with Infected Claws + Sludge Belcher aoe cleave, which has a 50% chance to fail).
In the second suggestion, Defile could either apply 01 FW stack to all targets in the area whenever it ticks, OR snapshot the highest FW stack found on an enemy and apply it onto any other enemy that enters the AoE (the snapshot only happens again if the enemy reenters the AoE, NOT whenever Defile inflicts damage!).
Both ways of FW spreading have their pros and cons, but both work like the old Desecrated Ground talent, since they give a decent instant benefit for using it at the right time and more benefits the longer you manage to stay within it. This is how all stationary AoE should work IMO.
04. VIRULENT PLAGUE/OUTBREAK
This is as lazy as it gets, basically a nerfed Necrotic Plague made baseline with not much thought needed to use it properly. It really bothers me that this mechanic has barely any sinergy with the rest of unholys gameplay, its mostly there just to say UH has more diseases.. so boring!
There are only 04 talents in the normal tree related to it, which is not enough to emphazise the specs focus on this mechanic. 01 more VP focused talent should be enough though, something like Dark Arbiter making VP erupt with every hit instead of the boring ramp damage (they tied pet with FW synergy in Infected Claws, why not give an option to do the same with VP? Just an example).
**Another idea would be to make Epidemic cost 30 RP instead of 02 runes, but only make VP erupt on targets in a 20 yrd radius of the user. That would improve the AoE aspect of our dmg greatly while again making us choose between that and single target dmg.
**Epidemic would deal more dmg than Death Coil, but would have half its range and no synergy with Scourge Strike via artifact traits.
They seem to have buffed Outbreak's infection range to bearable levels, so its an ok ability now. The 6 sec cd is probably meant to prevent abuse of the Pandemic PvP talent in BGs, which is bad cuz it punishes PvE players for something they cant even use! Not sure what could be done to change this though.
05. THE NECROTIC STRIKE "DEATH TRAP"
I did as many backflips as any other uhdk player when i saw NS coming back, after all its removal is 01 of the reasons UH is so bad in WoD PvP. It was only after a more detailed analysis that i realized our horrible mistake when we asked for its return. What have we done??
This has to do with DK's new rune system. First of all, theres no problem with all 06 runes being death runes so as long as the player is punished for not following the priority system. So instead of being prevented from dealing the most damage right away, the player will now do less damage if he/she doesnt use their abilities in the right sequence, which is fine.
The problem lies on the other half of our resource changes: rune management for UH is now 100% RNG! Enpower Rune Weapon, Blood Tap and Plague Leech are all gone and the only way we can get runes faster now is by stacking as much Haste as we can (to buff Runic Corruption) and sacrificing virgins to the RNG gods everytime the Scourge the Unbeliever artifact trait decides to work!
THIS IS ABSURD! Who thought alienating the player from half of his resource management was a good idea? Managing the ability of getting runes on demand to use at the right time was a huge part of UH skill cap, and now its completely gone!
Now you must be asking what the heck does NS have to do with any of this, and the answer is EVERYTHING. Its obvious Blizz would not allow NS to come back in its full glory, but everyone QQed so much about its removal they had to bring it back in any way they could just to appease the community.
In order to balance it with our new rune system, NS is now half as effective as before, with 02 NS stacks applying almost as much pressure as 01 stack back in MoP (given the current numbers on alpha). So not only does it apply less pressure than Scourge Strike, which is more powerful given the several modifiers it receives through talents and traits, NS is now way more boring since it requires no setup to stack.
But what if UH could have runes on demand? Being able to go beyond 06 NS stacks on demand would certainly be too powerful, and THATS why we no longer have any control over our rune regeneration! Not only isnt NS nearly as good as it once was, it is now forcing the devs into making horrible design decisions!
Im sure the community will end up regretting this situation later on, so its better to realize these issues now before its too late. NECROTIC STRIKE HAS TO BE REMOVED FROM THE GAME, for good this time! Id rather have more active ways to interact with our runes and another talent than a braindead spammable debuff any day of the week!
*An interesting idea to replace NS would be a talent that turns every enemy inside DnD AoE into undead, and makes it so Control Undead mesmerizes for 5 secs when used on a undead player, becomes instant cast with a long cd.
*Turning other players into undead and "attempting" to control them feels very thematic for UH imo, its balanced cuz the mesmerize only works inside DnD, so other CCs that break on dmg cant be chained easily, cant be chained with Reanimation cuz theyd be in the same PvP tier, while also giving attention to Control Undead, an ability that havent seen much play since WotLK and hasnt been pruned for some reason.
**Taking away NS alone allows Plague Leech to come back as a talent, hopefully replacing Blighted Rune Weapon, which is horrible. PL would remove all stacks of FW (min. 02) from the target and give you 2 runes on a 25 sec cd.
Thanks for reading and sorry for the long text! Agreeing or not, please share your thoughts!