WoD Death Knight Changes

[Raikh]

Just let 2h die. It is already neglected and inferior in virtually every situation except really low gear levels. I wish this were not the case, it is my favorite DPS spec since blood went away, but its continued existence does nothing for the class and Blizzard just doesn't seem inclined to fix its issues.

The fact that is sucks isn't even the problem. The problem is that you can't play 2h and be considered "good". You will never rank well with 2h. Your performances will be in the 70th percentile (most likely) because it isn't separated in the rankings. At least when someone decides to play an arms warrior they can still compete with their fellow arms warriors. Sure fury is better, but if you really like arms and are a good player you can demostrate your skill in comparison to other arms warriors. If you really like 2h frost it doesn't matter, because you could one of the best in the world and all people will say is "hey, this guy consistently performs in the 70th percentile, he isn't any good".

That is why I hate subspecs.

Aside from very specific scenarios you're doing it wrong if you only get a 70th percentile with frost 2h, the difference isn't that brutal. Its inferior and that is a problem for sure though.

But the chances are next to zero of one playstyle getting removed soon. Instead of suggesting to remove it, we should think about how it might work for both to coexist without one being the clear loser.

I have a strong dislike to remove specs becuase it remembers me of the ignorance that killed blood. Blood was underrepresented because of mechanical failures that were easy to fix but just didn't get fixed until the decision arrived to scrap it.
Alone because many player may cherisch frost 2h in its state its worth keeping and trying to get it working rather than scrapping it. If its inferior and you don't want to play an inferior spec, don't do it.
Frost dw does not suffer from frost 2h existence. Frost in general suffers from certain design decisions which were done years before the explicit differentiation between dw and 2h became a thing.

BoS needs spec specific design to work properly. I guess they will ignore that though, say its AoE only look that its worth AoE for all 3 specs somehow and send it out as the garbage it is.

NP is actually the least problematic of the 3. It has only two requirements which are easily met by simple number tweaks and those are: 1. Unholy generally gets more out of the L100 row. 2. Frost deals higher damage than unholy without L100 talents.

Talents don't need to be an equal gain. What matter is that they work and that the class as a whole works. BoS doesn't really work atm, frost still has problems, mainly originating from obliterate because its growth is horrible and slightly from km.
Defile looks like a gimmick fhough. Needs to deal significant damage as it is very situational.

[roarfacelol]

Death pact has a different role to the other talents in the tier, they aren't directly comparable.

The damage tradeoff for death siphon is much smaller than for conversion, you're definitely right about that.

There are still a couple of advantages to conversion that you're ignoring though. As long as you put conversion up and have runic power you're getting healing. It doesn't matter if you get silenced or ccd, the healing doesn't stop. In addition to this, you don't lose globals to heal after conversion is already up. You can continue doing damage as normal without spending any more globals to heal. These advantages are mostly irrelevant in pve though.

Sorry if I wasnt being specific. I was speaking from a PvE perspective. Another huge advantage that death siphon provides is being able to attack from a range which is a HUGE mechanicle advantage over conversion in many scenarios where we have to get off the boss. We're still putting out damage and generating RP for DCs while conversion just soaks it all up. Even with the WoD version where it does proc rune regen, you're only proccing IT as your ranged ability.

[Challenge]

Yes raikh i meant DsI not conversion. Im sure once the damage tuning is done I believe that it will be as relatively strong as it is live without battle fatigue and thats ok with me.

I dislike the damage negative gameplay conversion has and death pact is too long a CD for me. I prefer the damage neutral DsI and (more consistent.)

[valliant13]

I like to think that Dark Apotheosis and now Gladiator Stance are just testing the waters for 4th specs for all classes (And 5th for Druids because Blizzard loves em). I'd like to see Blood seperated into a new 4th spec for tanking, bringing back Blood as DPS and killing 2h Frost.

The problem is, the dps and tanking in any spec(aside from unholy) originated with DKs. We should have had first priority to a dps "tank" spec. Meanwhile sword and board dps definitely shouldve been introduced as well. With the way things are looking with DK's if I continue playing wow in WoD I am most likely going glad stance warrior.

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Make Blood DPS into the "Vampire" spec, causing physical damage with weapons and feasting on the enemies blood. The more damage you inflict the more powerful you become. One of the things I really liked about warriors pre-Cata was that fury had this feed-forward rage mechanism that yes sucked at low gear levels, but really made you feel awesome when your gear got better and better. I might actually resubscribe if they did that for DK's .

Blood has lost its...."blood" theme anyway. It is just unholy with a tanking ability.

They've complete gutted the spec of what made it cool and now you only do melee damage with soul reaper(initial hit) and Death strike. Obviously auto attacks too, but every bit of the physical aspect of the spec is gone and it's pretty sad.

[Deleted]

And don't get me started on the fact that we're one of the two classes that don't have any spec-specific talents. The other class being a pure dps.

This is something that seriously needs to be done, it's just ridiculous that it hasn't been done already. Some rows work for both tank and dps, like our rune regen tier, but our self heal and avoidance tier simply don't work that way. DSi is garbage for blood, no matter how you look at it, and conversion is only useful for soloing, DP is the only option there. Lichborne is useless as a tank, since it's balanced ouround the damage a dps would both take and deal, making it far to weak for a tank. AMZ is weird in that row no matter how you look at it.
Our new level 100 talents have a weird mitigation effect added to them that doesn't make any sense, making tanks choose not only between situational mitigation abilities but also between damage dealing talents, and dps got the same problem in reverse, they need to pick a damage talent and get a (in the case of NP mostly useless) mitigation ability on top, where sometimes Defile or BoS might be more benefitial from a defensive point of view, but as a dps you simply cannot choose it at the cost of damage.

They need to bring back blood DPS and end this shit with 2H frost. I know some people enjoy playing 2H frost, but most of those whom I personally know that like 2H frost only play it because it's the closest thing they have to blood dps. I know a sword and board dps option needed to come, but they shouldn't have stiffed DKs on a "tank" spec in a dps role either. With our original design it made no sense to take away a dps spec, should have just given us four specs similar to druids.

Can we just stop doing that? Stop suggestion scrapping either 2h or dw, stop claiming blood dps is more important than sword and board, and stop suggesting a fourth dk spec based on the existing ones, because all of these suggestions are simply stupid, no matter how much you like them.

Scrap either 2h or dw: There are people who enjoy 2h frost, there are people who enjoy dw frost. Scrapping either, even if it would be for the better of the class, would would cause them to be seriously pissed. They scrapped frost tanks and unholy tanks, and it was for the better of the class, and people complain, but 2h and dw are even worse. They are so close together that it doesn't even make sense scrapping them. Having two subspecs CAN be balanced, there is no need to drop that concept. If not there's also the possibility of merging the two playstyles again.

Blood dps: Yes, some people enjoyed blood dps, but there already are hard-hitting 2h specs, arms and 2h frost. However, there are no sword and board dps, but some people would like that, so obviously gladiator stance has a higher priority.

4th dk spec: This doesn't even make any sense. The difference between dw and 2h frost are minimal, there is simply not enough there to split them. Feral and Guardian have been two seperate specs from the beginning, different abilities, different resources, even different role. DW and 2h are the same spec, just different rotations. Blood dps as a seperate spec is exactly the same issue.

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The issue with increasing FS to 30RP is it would nerf the spec as a whole. As much as we complain about haste capping so early for frost, it's an ugly necessity of the spec. If you're not pushing something as frost philosophically youre losing damage, which is why KM is being ignored currently. I don't see frost doing well if it is sitting around waiting to push stuff. While it will keep haste a more prominent stat for frost throughout the expansion we would lose two frost strikes with that change. If any nerf to FS in terms of RP cost should come into effect it should be changed to 25RP. This way only one FS is lost, and it doesn't make for awkward moments of RP(like if you cap then hit FS3x and you're left with 10RP after that). They would also need to buff the spec a lot to consider that downtime as well in terms of raw damage.

That made absolutely no sense at all.
Being gcd-capped is not a necessity for doing optimal damage, just look at rogues for example. If you don't have enough resources to fill every gcd you are not losing damage as long as you actually spend those resources without wasting them.
How does a 50% increased cost equal a loss of two FS, and a 25% increased cost equal the loss of one FS? Compared to a full bar of RP? why would you compare it to that? a 50% increased FS cost simply means pushing FS 33.3% less often, without our feedback loop. With it would propably be about 35-40% less FS, not 66.6 like you claimed. It would also not be a damage loss if FS damage is just buffed by 50% in return.
Increasing FS cost to 25RP wouldn't solve that problem, it would just lower the loss when using anything else but FS, not remove it, which actually was the goal.
Why is it important that we can spend a full bar of RP on FS with no RP left? DC also costs 30RP, you have 10RP left wenn trying to spend a whole bar (RS on live also). Having a full bar of RP is something you don't want anyway, since it means you probably already lost RP from capping resources.

[valliant13]

This is something that seriously needs to be done, it's just ridiculous that it hasn't been done already. Some rows work for both tank and dps, like our rune regen tier, but our self heal and avoidance tier simply don't work that way. DSi is garbage for blood, no matter how you look at it, and conversion is only useful for soloing, DP is the only option there. Lichborne is useless as a tank, since it's balanced ouround the damage a dps would both take and deal, making it far to weak for a tank. AMZ is weird in that row no matter how you look at it.
Our new level 100 talents have a weird mitigation effect added to them that doesn't make any sense, making tanks choose not only between situational mitigation abilities but also between damage dealing talents, and dps got the same problem in reverse, they need to pick a damage talent and get a (in the case of NP mostly useless) mitigation ability on top, where sometimes Defile or BoS might be more benefitial from a defensive point of view, but as a dps you simply cannot choose it at the cost of damage.



Can we just stop doing that? Stop suggestion scrapping either 2h or dw, stop claiming blood dps is more important than sword and board, and stop suggesting a fourth dk spec based on the existing ones, because all of these suggestions are simply stupid, no matter how much you like them.

Scrap either 2h or dw: There are people who enjoy 2h frost, there are people who enjoy dw frost. Scrapping either, even if it would be for the better of the class, would would cause them to be seriously pissed. They scrapped frost tanks and unholy tanks, and it was for the better of the class, and people complain, but 2h and dw are even worse. They are so close together that it doesn't even make sense scrapping them. Having two subspecs CAN be balanced, there is no need to drop that concept. If not there's also the possibility of merging the two playstyles again.

Blood dps: Yes, some people enjoyed blood dps, but there already are hard-hitting 2h specs, arms and 2h frost. However, there are no sword and board dps, but some people would like that, so obviously gladiator stance has a higher priority.

4th dk spec: This doesn't even make any sense. The difference between dw and 2h frost are minimal, there is simply not enough there to split them. Feral and Guardian have been two seperate specs from the beginning, different abilities, different resources, even different role. DW and 2h are the same spec, just different rotations. Blood dps as a seperate spec is exactly the same issue.

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That made absolutely no sense at all.
Being gcd-capped is not a necessity for doing optimal damage, just look at rogues for example. If you don't have enough resources to fill every gcd you are not losing damage as long as you actually spend those resources without wasting them.
How does a 50% increased cost equal a loss of two FS, and a 25% increased cost equal the loss of one FS? Compared to a full bar of RP? why would you compare it to that? a 50% increased FS cost simply means pushing FS 33.3% less often, without our feedback loop. With it would propably be about 35-40% less FS, not 66.6 like you claimed. It would also not be a damage loss if FS damage is just buffed by 50% in return.
Increasing FS cost to 25RP wouldn't solve that problem, it would just lower the loss when using anything else but FS, not remove it, which actually was the goal.
Why is it important that we can spend a full bar of RP on FS with no RP left? DC also costs 30RP, you have 10RP left wenn trying to spend a whole bar (RS on live also). Having a full bar of RP is something you don't want anyway, since it means you probably already lost RP from capping resources.

Just because you don't like blood dps, or the idea of blood dps doesn't mean it should stop being thrown around. Current 2H frost only exists DUE to blood losing it;s dps option. While you could 2H frost before that, it was primarily a dw spec. We were the first class that could tank or damage in any spec we chose to play. Which is why it should have been prioritized back to us. I fully understand people want a sword and board dps spec(I'm one of them), but you can't completely disregard bringing back blood dps simply because you don't like it. If Blood DPS was an option right now as well as 2H Frost, DW frost, and unholy. I can guarantee a lot of 2H frost DKs would go back to blood dps. You're only argument is I didn't like it therefor it can't come back stop suggesting it. If you want to keep 2H frost with dw then they need to homogenize the spec and make it so the rotations are the same, damage is the same and it's only an aesthetic choice. You're right in the fact that subspecs can be balanced, yet blizzard seems to not understand how to do it with frost. So I would rather one go for the better of the class and spec than keep both and continually see problems. The hilarious part is you're saying that it would cause a shitstorm if they took one away with some players...have you seen the warrior changes? Blizzard doesn't care what the players want in terms of class development. They neutered both arms and fury and don't care that people are mad about it. I personally don't care if both stay, but if both stay then balance them. If you can't balance them get rid of one. That will start the process of fixing the frost spec. Aside from other glaring issues(KM mostly).

My comments of the FS increase make sense, you just choose not to accept it because it isn't what you want. In a pool of 100RP you lose two Frost Strikes to current making our entire loop even more shit. We aren't rogues, we werent built around waiting to hit stuff. We were built around constantly hitting things. 25RP would be a better point for Frost Strike than 30RP. You obviously didn't read what I said either about the FS change you want. I never said it would be hit 66% less, it would be hit 40% less before the feedback loop. Unholy also doesn't rely on runic power like frost does. That's why they can get away the increased cost. Also you throw stuff around liek buff damage x%. Do you only think of the consequences in PvE? you need to think of both aspects. Say what you want goes through and FS crits for 40k right now, it would then crit for 60k. Granted a lot of stars need to align but lets say you have 90 RP, and get lucky and get 3 crits in a row...180k damage in three globals...That's too much in pvp sorry....stop thinking everything only effects PvE, there's a whole other side of the spectrum that everyone here continually overlooks. I don't even PvP and I know what doing stuff like buffing the damage of something 50% in both cost and damage could do in that aspect of the game. Granted you probably didn't play frost in 4.1 when frost went from bottom dps spec to middle of the road to be nerfed to lowerish mid less than a week later due to their change making frost "op" in pvp.

[Deleted]

stuff

I don't hate blood dps, I would like to have something like gladiator stance myself, but you have to realise that this is an experiment, so obviously they won't add somthing like that to all tanks, and sword and board is more requested than blood dk.
"Blizz doesn't care what the players want" yeah right... No matter what you think the devs listen to player feedback.

And again, your whole paragraph about FS doesn't make any sense.
1) FS/100RP is a completely pointless metric. It wouldn't make our feedback loop shit, it would bring it closer to unholy and blood. Frost would still gain the most benefit from the feedback loop because of our 20% improved RP generation.
2) We were built around having to wait for resources. That was one of the design concepts of our resource system.
3) You said we'd lose 2 FS, while we actually lose half a FS (currently, 30RP=1.5 FS, with my proposed changes 30RP=1 FS). As I said, number of FS per 100RP is a completely useless metric. Using less FS doesn't equal lower damage, because FS damage can just be buffed by 50%.
4) Unholy doesn't rely as much on RP as frost does. So? That's damage/RP, which can be the same no matter how much our RP spender costs.
5) OB (for 2h) already hits a lot harder than FS, and theoretically you could get three crits in a row there too. Increasing the damage of a single attack does not break a class for PvP. The damage also doesn't need to be added to FS, it could also be added into one of our other abilities. Not a problem.

Increasing the cost of FS to 30RP not only makes haste more valuable (it opens up globals AND slows down our feedback loop), it also brings FS in line with all other RP spenders, like conversion or BoS, making them less of a damage loss to use.

[valliant13]

I don't hate blood dps, I would like to have something like gladiator stance myself, but you have to realise that this is an experiment, so obviously they won't add somthing like that to all tanks, and sword and board is more requested than blood dk.
"Blizz doesn't care what the players want" yeah right... No matter what you think the devs listen to player feedback.

And again, your whole paragraph about FS doesn't make any sense.
1) FS/100RP is a completely pointless metric. It wouldn't make our feedback loop shit, it would bring it closer to unholy and blood. Frost would still gain the most benefit from the feedback loop because of our 20% improved RP generation.
2) We were built around having to wait for resources. That was one of the design concepts of our resource system.
3) You said we'd lose 2 FS, while we actually lose half a FS (currently, 30RP=1.5 FS, with my proposed changes 30RP=1 FS). As I said, number of FS per 100RP is a completely useless metric. Using less FS doesn't equal lower damage, because FS damage can just be buffed by 50%.
4) Unholy doesn't rely as much on RP as frost does. So? That's damage/RP, which can be the same no matter how much our RP spender costs.
5) OB (for 2h) already hits a lot harder than FS, and theoretically you could get three crits in a row there too. Increasing the damage of a single attack does not break a class for PvP. The damage also doesn't need to be added to FS, it could also be added into one of our other abilities. Not a problem.

Increasing the cost of FS to 30RP not only makes haste more valuable (it opens up globals AND slows down our feedback loop), it also brings FS in line with all other RP spenders, like conversion or BoS, making them less of a damage loss to use.

We were never built around waiting. sorry that's just wrong. We were more GCD locked in wotlk than live without the crappy regen talents. While yes there was some overload, it at least made gameplay consistent.

You obviously don't PvP, you don't even know how buffing anything for this class in PvE will effect anything. Frost DKs have a VERY high burst potential on pvp targets. Also what's going on now is resilience, that is what will keep Obliterates from going off back to back for high damage. Not to mention Obliterate is effected by armor and Frost Strike isn't. In WoD they are increasing our health pools to deal with the damage. There is no battle fatigue there is no resilience. What we hit on bosses we will hit for close to on player targets. Making a fifty percent buff to something a problem. My biggest issue however is you'd rather buff stuff than fix mechanical issues. FS costing 20 FS is part of our mechanical issue, but you can't just up the rp cost and buff the damage. That's not an equal trade off, so in relative we use FS about 40% less often after the regen loop starts but gain fifty percent damage? That's an even more reason why you're proposition is ridiculous to up it to 30RP. While yes it would fix haste problems, Frosts problem isn't just haste and on a personal level haste is one of the last things I care to be fixed when it comes to frost. Subspecs, KM, overall scaling are things I would prefer to be fixed before just haste by itself. What ability will they put that proposed buff into? we only have three main attacks and Buffing Obliterate will have dire consequences as will FS, and they most likely won't buff a cleave spell either....so your proposition is terrible for the fact you couldn't think outside of that. Especially considering Frost is most likely taking NP at level 100. So we lose plague strike, use Death runes on HB, frost/unholy on obliterate and use up our RP....Maybe if we had filler attacks or more attacks I could agree with you but frost as is I cannot.

[Shiira]

We also had twice as many runes in wrath, and resources weren't designed to scale with haste.

Wrath dk is a completely different class to current dk.

[valliant13]

We also had twice as many runes in wrath, and resources weren't designed to scale with haste.

Wrath dk is a completely different class to current dk.

What do you mean twice as many runes? We still had six, they just regenerated once we used them instead of separately. Therefor some attacks used two runes to compensate.

As I said, did you end up with resource overload...occasionally, but the gameplay was more consistent and procs felt rewarding, something that has been lacking since cata.

[Shiira]

I meant exactly what I said, two runes regenerated at once.

Resources were completely different for us back then.

Now that resources scale with haste we have to be designed with some wait time or we are unable to benefit from haste properly.

[valliant13]

I meant exactly what I said, two runes regenerated at once.

Resources were completely different for us back then.

Now that resources scale with haste we have to be designed with some wait time or we are unable to benefit from haste properly.

That doesn't mean we had twice as many runes as we do now. Howling Blast and Scourge Strike costed two runes then, if they were single rune abilities like now I could see your point however I don't see the we had twice as many runes point you're trying to make. While yes resources were different and I absolutely agree I don't want to play like a rogue and waiting for resources. I have liked the way the class plays as a whole, GCD locking is an issue but there should be more than just rune regen speed tied to haste for us. You know that as much as I do. I personally like the playstyle of always pushing something, it's what drew me to the DK class. If I wanted to play the "meaningful choices" game play like HiFish suggests I would play a rogue or would have kept with my ret pally in WotlK. More activity is better to me personally. I would rather hit something more often for less than something less often for more. Look at blood on the Beta without NP...it's atrocious. I would really hate to play frost that way.

[Helwinter]

I play 2h Frost, I wouldn't want to see the spec gone - it would just be easier to merge 2h and DW into a single spec and make the choice between 2h and DW purely aesthetic.

[ryudaraku]

I meant exactly what I said, two runes regenerated at once.

Resources were completely different for us back then.

Now that resources scale with haste we have to be designed with some wait time or we are unable to benefit from haste properly.

If only there were some sort of mechanic that haste could be made valuable beyond just resources so that is still provides a benefit at GDC cap.

*Cough Windfury and Poisons Cough*

[Deleted]

I would rather hit something more often for less than something less often for more. Look at blood on the Beta without NP...it's atrocious. I would really hate to play frost that way.

That's why I still think a drastically lower base rune regeneration coupled with a free filler spell is the best solution to our haste problems. Fast gameplay, haste scaling beyond the first raiding tier and the option to pool resources, blood finally has a free spamable attack. That's also a way Blood could get HS back, and if frosts filler spell did frost damage that would also make mastery more valuable for 2h.

[valliant13]

That's why I still think a drastically lower base rune regeneration coupled with a free filler spell is the best solution to our haste problems. Fast gameplay, haste scaling beyond the first raiding tier and the option to pool resources, blood finally has a free spamable attack. That's also a way Blood could get HS back, and if frosts filler spell did frost damage that would also make mastery more valuable for 2h.

Absolutely, I am not against that in the slightest especially if it ups mastery value for 2H. And it would basically kill bloods current downtime on beta. I still think we need something else with haste aside from resources. Whether it effect diseases, or something I dont know what but I would love for haste(and crit) to not suck. I really would love to see a massive change to KM and something to fill the gaps, however the damage of this filler spell would be about what % of our damage?

[Raikh]

Actually increasing RP cost of FS could bring quite some interesting changes which I find really engaging and haste envaluing. Frost 2h might want to use Hb without km for death runes untila certain haste amount as 2x Hb beats OB, some tuning might make that also more attractive than gambling for rime and still only using Ob. Km on OB would still be top prio so you may want to to sacrifice 2 death runes on a Km Ob -> Km game play.
As you spent runes more slowly the chance on having runes for Ob should also be slightly bigger, although it would still be very fluid.

Haste would then not only be interesting until you're gcd capped with using Hb on death runes and such, but also beyond as Ob spamming will be a gain if you can reach a state of being gcd locked without using Hb constantly.

This is just a rough idea and also the one I'd really like to see in some form. Switching towards that change is via rp cost increase is ofcourse better tailored for 2h, even more so as FS will hit significantly harder making FS km way more forgiving. This is a bit contradicting for my earlier example of Km game play but its basically two ideas which both take some of the frustration out of km.

I don't think we'll ever see a free filler. Blizz stated that they have nothing against melees being not gcd locked and simply won't introduce something prooting it to no end.
That idea would also be brutally punishing for any kind of delaying ability usage. Currently we can buy atleast small windows or have small downtimes which we can use to time some button presses, but as soon as you have a free ability this will turn into a dps loss in most cases as every second we spend not hitting buttons is wasted dmg, thats too brutal, even though I like fast play styles.

[Schizoide]

Actually increasing RP cost of FS could bring quite some interesting changes which I find really engaging and haste envaluing.

Is "envaluing" a word? Anyway, I digress.

The devs tried something similar with WW monks, increasing Jab's cost by 25%. This was done to stop GCD-capping. It resulted in >30% time spent waiting on resources, and WW monks are pissed off beyond belief. And the thing is, it's not even the right solution-- if WW values haste, it'll GCD-cap later on anyway.

The right solution is to flatten the curve of haste's impact on resource generation so it provides more resources at low patch 6.0 gear levels and much less at end of expansion 6.4 gear levels. This applies to every resource-constrained spec.

The alternative is to change-up gameplay to such an extent that players revolt in patch 6.0, with >30% wait times, like WW and Blood have now. These players are unhappy. And they'll GCD-cap before the expansion is over anyway. They're upsetting customers and not even fixing the problem!

[Kiqjaq]

Celestalon said that if all you're interested in is damage done, as in a patchwerk type fight, then it's not the talent for you.

So no one ever except for maybe as a niche in 1 fight next expansion.


But yeah, I never considered the PVP uses, mostly because I dislike this game's PVP. Too many of these talents are just for PVPers (too much fun in general is nerfed because of PVP, but that's a different conversation).
We need more tiers like the Rune Regen tier.

[Schizoide]

We need more tiers like the Rune Regen tier.

/facepalm

And this, ladies and gents, is why the rune regen tier will not be fixed.