Death Knight 6.0 - My Final Design

[Clash the DK]

Updated 5/23

This will be my third and final redesign idea for Death Knights. This specific design revolves around three large changes to the current live design:

1. All runes would start to regenerate immediately after they have been used. No more half-pair regeneration.
2. Runic Corruption would be the baseline rune mechanic. Runic Empowerment and the current Blood Tap as we know them would no longer be available. The proc chance of RC might need to be lowered to the 25-30% range. This might make it feel more like a bonus rather than a necessity.
3. A new ability tentatively called Death Tap would be implemented for all specs. This ability would activate and transform both spec-specific runes into Death runes. It would have either a 30 second or 1 minute cooldown. This would work very similar to our original 'Blood Tap' ability back in WotLK.


Below is an example of how our current abilities would fit with the new system. And here is the link to the accompanying Talent Grid:
http://mop-talent-grid-maker.appspot...&gridId=600001




BLOOD



1 Blood Rune - Blood Strike - (Applies Blood Plague)
1 Blood Rune - Heart Strike - (Single Target Strike)
1 Blood Rune - Blood Boil - (AOE + Spreads Blood Plague)
1 Blood Rune - Rune Tap

1 F / 1 U - Death Strike - (Blood Shield Mechanic with Self Heal)

2 Death Rune - Death Siphon - (Small heal baseline) (Increased healing through Talent Grid)
2 Death Rune - Necrotic Strike - (Damage and healing absorption adjusted)

30 Runic Power - Death Coil
25 Runic Power - Rune Strike
25 Runic Power - Massacre - (Cleave Ability) (Functions like current Heart Strike)

FREE of Cost - Dancing Rune Weapon
FREE of Cost - Death and Decay
FREE of Cost - Army of the Dead - (Channel time reduced significantly)
FREE of Cost - Strangulate





FROST



1 Frost Rune - Icy Touch - (Applies Frost Fever) (Consumes Rime)
1 Frost Rune - Howling Blast - (Applies Frost Fever) (Consumes Rime)
2 Frost Rune - Death Chill - (AOE ability, details below) (Frost Damage) (Consumes Rime) (Consumes Killing Machine)

2 Blood Rune - Obliterate - (Procs Rime)

2 Unholy Rune - Vanquish - (Single Target Strike) (Shadowfrost Damage) (Double damage to targets below 35% Health)

2 Death Rune - Death Siphon - (Small heal baseline) (Increased healing through Talent Grid)
2 Death Rune - Necrotic Strike - (Damage and healing absorption adjusted)

30 Runic Power - Death Coil
20 Runic Power - Frost Strike - (Consumes Killing Machine)

FREE of Cost - Pillar of Frost
FREE of Cost - Death and Decay
FREE of Cost - Army of the Dead - (Channel time reduced significantly)
FREE of Cost - Strangulate





UNHOLY



1 Unholy Rune - Plague Strike - (Applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague)
1 Unholy Rune - Soul Reaper - (Delayed damage would activate after 3 seconds instead of 5)
2 Unholy Rune - Scourge Strike
1 Unholy Rune - Dark Transformation - (30 second cooldown, 15 second duration) (SI damage built into DT)

1 B / 1 F - Festering Strike
1 B / 1 F - Shadow Slash - (3 Target Cleave Ability) (Weapon strike, but full Shadowfrost Damage)

2 Death Rune - Death Siphon - (Small heal baseline) (Increased healing through Talent Grid)
2 Death Rune - Necrotic Strike - (Damage and healing absorption adjusted)

30 Runic Power - Death Coil
20 Runic Power - Pestilence - (Spreads diseases and activates Wandering Plague)

FREE of Cost - Death and Decay
FREE of Cost - Army of the Dead - (Channel time reduced significantly)
FREE of Cost - Strangulate





IMPORTANT NOTES:

~ Frost would no longer have permanent Death runes. They would have Blood runes baseline just like the other two specs. Obliterate and Vanquish would both create Death runes.

~ The idea with Frost is for Obliterate to be used on Death runes while the target is above 35% health. When you enter your execute range, Vanquish becomes the priority. And if it's a multiple target situation, then Death Chill takes priority. Obliterate and Vanquish would both hit hard and for a similar amount. The big difference is the fact that Vanquish would be Shadowfrost damage and Obliterate procs Rime. The priority for Rime would be Death Chill, unless you need to spread Frost Fever right away, and then you would use Howling Blast, unless using an AOE ability is a liability. In that case you have Icy Touch. Killing Machine would be best used on Death Chill. Frost Strike would be the more readily available secondary priority.

~ Death Chill: I'm not for sure how this ability should work. It needs to be different than Howling Blast, but yet bring the cool factor. Maybe the Death Knight would extend his/her rune sword out to pierce the chest of their target causing an explosive wave of Frost damage to all targets within a certain radius. It could then be based on weapon damage, which would mean it would scale well. That would keep the status quo with Killing Machine usage stable throughout a whole expansion since Death Chill would compete with Frost Strike. Another idea is to rename the ability Frost Storm or Ice Storm and have it play out like a frosty version of the Paladin's Divine Storm ability. Either way works for me.

~ The idea with Unholy is for Scourge Strike to be used on Death runes unless it's a multiple target situation; Then Shadow Slash would take priority. Both Festering Strike and Shadow Slash would create Death runes.

~ Blood would only have access to Blood Plague and Frost would only have access to Frost Fever. Unholy, being the master of diseases, would have access to both.

~ Blood Strike would now apply Blood Plague for Blood spec.

~ Icy Touch, Plague Strike and Blood Strike would not apply any disease(s) right out of the box. That function would be available early in the leveling process and would be specific to each spec.

~ A majority of Unholy's AOE would be from their diseases + Wandering Plague. Potent enough. In fact, this might need to be watered down from the full effect that once was the original Wandering Plague. Maybe 50% of a diseases damage to all targets within 8 yards instead of 100%.

~ The talent Chilblains would be removed from the game. A new glyph would be implemented (Glyph of Disease?); This new glyph would cause any target affected by any of our diseases to be slowed by 50%.

~ Chains of Ice would be moved into the talent grid, altered slightly and renamed Chains of Death. Each spec would apply their spec-specific disease(s) with this ability.

~ Lichborne would no longer work as a self-healing mechanic.

~ Purgatory and Gorefiends's Grasp would be baseline for Blood spec.

~ New raid cooldown in the form of AMZ, but on the same tier as Bone Shield. Very useful choices.

~ Horn of Winter would no longer grant Runic Power. We are Death Knights. Not Bards. Fire and forget for 5 minutes.

~ A few new abilities. Shiny.

~ My Tier 1 talents are a work in progress. Not sure if the secondary functions of those talents will allow the tier to be balanced and offer true choice.

[tachycardias]

Wait...so you want WLK style rune regen AND cata Runic corruption? You'd be so GCD locked it'd be nuts. You'd run into the same problem as in WLK- which was that DKs felt spammy and the impact of individual strikes felt weak. Except it would be worse because now you have RC.

I know it comes down to personal preference- theres been a huge rogue thread saying they want to be more spammy like monks, but I personally prefer to be limited by resources rather than GCDs. A pause every few abilities is a good thing IMO.

[Clash the DK]

Wait...so you want WLK style rune regen AND cata Runic corruption? You'd be so GCD locked it'd be nuts. You'd run into the same problem as in WLK- which was that DKs felt spammy and the impact of individual strikes felt weak. Except it would be worse because now you have RC.

I know it comes down to personal preference- theres been a huge rogue thread saying they want to be more spammy like monks, but I personally prefer to be limited by resources rather than GCDs. A pause every few abilities is a good thing IMO.

We are only in the second tier of content in this expansion and I'm already GCD locked. Granted, having something to push every GCD doesn't bother me as much as it does other people. But, what we have now didn't solve the original "problem". I very much prefer the more smooth style of the WotLK rune system. I just found it more fun. But, there needs to be some RNG and that's where Runic Corruption comes into play.

But yes, there would need to be some adjustments made elsewhere. The proc chance of RC might need to be lowered or the actual refresh time of our runes might need to be increased. The effect of haste on our rune regeneration could be another area to make adjustments. They could increase the value of Mastery and Crit so that we would value those stats over Haste. This way they could create a stable system that isn't so incredibly feast or famine while still offering some RNG to the availability of our resources.

I'm sure that the Devs have some tricks up their sleeves to make it all work.

[Eruntien]

As a pvper this seems horrible losing multiple main soec abilitys no perma death runes

[Nyanmaru]

We are only in the second tier of content in this expansion and I'm already GCD locked. Granted, having something to push every GCD doesn't bother me as much as it does other people. But, what we have now didn't solve the original "problem". I very much prefer the more smooth style of the WotLK rune system. [snip]

GCD locked isn't an issue about "having to push a button every GCDs" it's about "wasting resources because the GCD is too damn long"
Imagine having twice the number of available runes and how there are always runes wasting recharge time because you haven't got enough GCDs.

What we have now perfectly solved the original problem.
1. resource increase by linear haste scaling is possible
2. lesser penalty for not being able to use your runes immediately

The old WotLK system was build around having a steady rune regeneration of 9s or 10s. Blood DpS was extremely GCD capped back then, when going for the 6 HS. With haste scaling runes it wouldn't work at all. Unless you push the single rune recharge up by a considerable margin which would lead to severe rune starvation issues. (used your UU runes already and now need one for that important skill? too bad, wait 14s until they recharge and be unable to do anything useful until then)

The biggest flaw about the old rune recharge system was that your runes would be available at the same time. Use a 2 rune strike to create death runs, they pop up at the same time, you use one and lose a full GCD of rune recharge time when you want to use the second. Next time you want to use the 2 rune strike you have to wait for the rune from the second death rune attack which makes you lose another GCD worth of rune recharge, this time on the first rune. At 10s rune recharge that's a 5% loss of rune recharge. And with more hasted rune regen the loss becomes even greater and that's not even accounting for interface, network and input lags.

In regards to that: The old rune system was about as smooth as a rusty saw blade.

Having a window of about 4-5s to use a rune without capping rune recharge and avoiding capping runic power gives way for a much smoother play.

[rhapso]

Blizzard wanted to improve talents by making them having an actual impact by being an ability that changes your gameplay and 7 out of your """talents""" are just passives.
Also, I despise having to choose between a weakish AMZ (even with your changes), Bone Shield and AMS - a Tank DK identifies himself by having so many cooldowns.

I also dislike your arrangement of the talents, LB vs DA vs DesG makes no sense to put them in the same row, similar to Chains vs RemW vs Asphyxiate, could you enlighten me on how you tried to arrange them? It's a bit too simplistic just to say "umm.. LB DA and DesG are in so weird sense similar due to movement and cc-interactions".

The general rune-strike-ratio is better than what I've seen the last time and I think you are going into the right direction with that one, still: I wouldn't go back to the WotLK model or even if: let ppl choose between RT / RC and RE - that was one of the biggest improvements imo (along with the 1sec gcd).
I pretty much love the idea of RS vs Massacre in terms of runic power spender, but I can't see the point of using Necrotic Strike?

[ChristopherD87]

For your "death trap" idea, what about something like, every 20-30 seconds for 5 seconds, whenever u use a rune, it's automatically turned into a death rune (fully regen not having to wait for it to regen)

[Clash the DK]

GCD locked isn't an issue about "having to push a button every GCDs" it's about "wasting resources because the GCD is too damn long"
Imagine having twice the number of available runes and how there are always runes wasting recharge time because you haven't got enough GCDs.

What we have now perfectly solved the original problem.
1. resource increase by linear haste scaling is possible
2. lesser penalty for not being able to use your runes immediately

The old WotLK system was build around having a steady rune regeneration of 9s or 10s. Blood DpS was extremely GCD capped back then, when going for the 6 HS. With haste scaling runes it wouldn't work at all. Unless you push the single rune recharge up by a considerable margin which would lead to severe rune starvation issues. (used your UU runes already and now need one for that important skill? too bad, wait 14s until they recharge and be unable to do anything useful until then)

The biggest flaw about the old rune recharge system was that your runes would be available at the same time. Use a 2 rune strike to create death runs, they pop up at the same time, you use one and lose a full GCD of rune recharge time when you want to use the second. Next time you want to use the 2 rune strike you have to wait for the rune from the second death rune attack which makes you lose another GCD worth of rune recharge, this time on the first rune. At 10s rune recharge that's a 5% loss of rune recharge. And with more hasted rune regen the loss becomes even greater and that's not even accounting for interface, network and input lags.

In regards to that: The old rune system was about as smooth as a rusty saw blade.

Having a window of about 4-5s to use a rune without capping rune recharge and avoiding capping runic power gives way for a much smoother play.

I'm quoting this particular sentence: "The biggest flaw about the old recharge system". That "flaw" happens with our current rune recharge system. Any time you use a two rune strike with the intent of using more powerful single rune strikes, that will happen. It happened with Blood during WotLK, and it happens with Unholy right now. There is no way around that. So, changing the way our runes recharge did not fix that "problem". It's just the nature of the rune system. It's like saying that we are wasting resources when we enter a fight with a full set of runes. You can't use all six of them in one gcd. So, they sit there until you do use them.

Our runes would still be affected by Haste in my design. I stated in my last post that the parameters of the system would need to be tweaked: Base rune recharge time and the effect that haste has on rune regeneration being the top priority for adjustments. I think we could get to a happy place. I'm talking about a situation where we want to get to a certain Haste range (we will never have a hard haste cap) and then focus on Mastery and Crit.

The old rune system is superior in the fact that it plays more nicely with two rune strikes. Having all runes recharge after use allows for a lot more space to mix up the way we play the class. Just take a look at my Frost spec design. And personally, I think it's much easier to read my runes when I know exactly what order they will be available. That gives me more time to look at the actual game I'm playing and less time studying my UI. I can't even put a price tag on that.

Oh and, what is the important skill that you would need to use that couldn't be used with Death runes?

---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 07:38 PM ----------

Blizzard wanted to improve talents by making them having an actual impact by being an ability that changes your gameplay and 7 out of your """talents""" are just passives.
Also, I despise having to choose between a weakish AMZ (even with your changes), Bone Shield and AMS - a Tank DK identifies himself by having so many cooldowns.

I also dislike your arrangement of the talents, LB vs DA vs DesG makes no sense to put them in the same row, similar to Chains vs RemW vs Asphyxiate, could you enlighten me on how you tried to arrange them? It's a bit too simplistic just to say "umm.. LB DA and DesG are in so weird sense similar due to movement and cc-interactions".

The general rune-strike-ratio is better than what I've seen the last time and I think you are going into the right direction with that one, still: I wouldn't go back to the WotLK model or even if: let ppl choose between RT / RC and RE - that was one of the biggest improvements imo (along with the 1sec gcd).
I pretty much love the idea of RS vs Massacre in terms of runic power spender, but I can't see the point of using Necrotic Strike?

It is my opinion that we don't need more "optional" abilities. I think we have plenty of those types of abilities already. Maybe even too much. I do believe that Frost needs more "rotational" abilities. But, that's about it.

On the topic of Bone Shield, what percentage of the time can you keep BS up these days during Boss encounters? I really want to strike a balance between AMZ and Bone Shield for tanks.

And you realize that I didn't put AMS in the talent grid, right? The Magic Suppression talent would be a modifier of our baseline AMS ability. It would be a very niche talent choice and useful for encounters where you need to soak damage that would otherwise kill you. The Heroic Will of the Emperor encounter comes to mind.

The talents are arranged to allow choices for very specific areas of PvP. Having Bone Shield in the talent grid would give us a much needed increase to survivability. So, we have to keep the other aspects very regulated. Currently, there is a lack of theme to our talent placement within the grid. This creates a problem where you have little choice in what talent to actually take. If and when a talent tier has similar functions, then they can be tweaked to offer choice in playstyle.

LB vs DA vs DG: These are all talents that specifically allow you better control of your own character.
CoD vs RW vs Asphyxiate: These are all talents that specifically allow you to control your opponent.

The problem with BT/RE/RC is that there is a lack of choice. I generally play Frost. That automatically rules out Runic Corruption. And RC is by far my most favorite of the three because it is most similar to our original rune system. So, in my opinion, it was rather pointless creating the false choice of rune mechanic in the first place.

Yeah, I like the idea of Massacre a lot. Not only for the fact that it creates a new interesting use for Runic Power. But, it also frees up Heart Strike to be a hard hitting single target strike. This should theoretically help with threat management, especially during tank swaps.

Necrotic Strike would still be a PvP-only ability. Doubling the rune cost would mean that the damage and benefits would need to be doubled as well. I like the thought of that. Getting a larger absorption shield up faster would be to our advantage.

---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 07:57 PM ----------

For your "death trap" idea, what about something like, every 20-30 seconds for 5 seconds, whenever u use a rune, it's automatically turned into a death rune (fully regen not having to wait for it to regen)

If I understand what you mean correctly, I don't think that would be as beneficial as what I am proposing. With your idea, you would actually have to have runes available to use in the first place. The idea is for it to work as an emergency or burst mechanic, depending on whether you are playing Blood or one of the dps specs.

For Blood, maybe you need runes right now for immediate threat or healing, so you pop your Death Tap ability and both of your Blood runes (no matter the state before) are activated as Death runes. You would now be able to dish out two Heart Strikes or one Death Strike depending on your needs.

[ChristopherD87]

true, didnt take that into account lol. good thought

[Clash the DK]

As a pvper this seems horrible losing multiple main soec abilitys no perma death runes

What main spec abilities are being removed that would cause you such grief?

The only thing that I can think of that might be an inconvenience with this particular design would be Strangulate costing a Blood rune. I think that maybe it should be made free of cost. It's always been a slight problem no matter what incarnation of the rune system we have used. I'll update the OP with that.

[SSHA778]

I'm quoting this particular sentence: "The biggest flaw about the old recharge system". That "flaw" happens with our current rune recharge system. Any time you use a two rune strike with the intent of using more powerful single rune strikes, that will happen. It happened with Blood during WotLK, and it happens with Unholy right now. There is no way around that. So, changing the way our runes recharge did not fix that "problem". It's just the nature of the rune system. It's like saying that we are wasting resources when we enter a fight with a full set of runes. You can't use all six of them in one gcd. So, they sit there until you do use them.

You completely missed why what he said was an issue. Completely missed it.

The fact that both runes come off cooldown at the same time is not a problem. Yes, currently, you can have both runes from a two-rune strike come back at the same time but they are not guaranteed to do so under the current rune regeneration system. The problem is what the implications are of having any two runes that are off cooldown simultaneously in your system. In the Cataclysm system, there are no implications (unless they're of the same pair).

Yes, for both systems you start off with six runes that are off cooldown, however, in the Wrath system you're already being penalized twice as much. There are six runes that could be regenerating during your opener. In the Cataclysm system, there are only three. However, this is not the focal point because that only happens at the opener and is not worth discussing (because it only happens during the opener, which is once). The focal point is what happens normally and routinely during the rotation (every other cycle) in the Wrath system.

The problem is the fact that all runes regenerate immediately after use in your system. Thus, any time you have a rune that is not regenerating, you are flat out losing DPS and there are no two ways around this. I really hope this is obvious. If I spend a rune at t=2s, and my regeneration timer is 10s, then the rune will be available at t=12s. If I instead wait until t=3s to spend that rune, my rune comes back at t=13s. I have now lost a second of regeneration that I cannot possibly ever regain because the fight has a pre-determined length of time that is (almost entirely) independent of that singular event--let's say it's 312s. Summing this delay over an entire fight at every time this happens will lead to significant loss. This delay is not a guarantee under the Cataclysm rune system--it depends on the rune's mate. This delay is, however, a guarantee when runes regenerate independently.

When both runes come up at the same time (your system and the Wrath system), and you're going to use them on single-rune strikes, this requires 2 GCDs. By spending a GCD on one of those new runes, you have lost a GCD's worth of regeneration on the other rune because it sat there for a GCD unused while you spent the other rune. I.e., you have now lost a GCD's worth of resource regeneration: you had a rune that sat there for a GCD and was not spent, but if you had spent it, it could have regenerated by one second (but there is no possible way you could have spent it).

After that GCD, you will spend the second rune. When your next rune cycle comes around, the rune you spent first will become available first (t=2s example versus t=3s). But this rune by itself is useless for the impending two-rune strike, so you must wait a GCD later for the second rune to become available. I.e., you had to sit on the first rune for a GCD, meaning you lost yet another GCD's worth of resources by the same means: you had a rune that, if it had been spent (which it could not have), could have regenerated for one second.

Therefore, in total, you lost a GCD of regeneration on the second rune (front-end) and another GCD of regeneration on the first rune (tail-end) through a mechanism that is entirely out of your control. That is, you were penalized by doing what you should have done. And this happens every single time you use a two-rune strike in order to later use two single-rune strikes. Which is to say, every other rune cycle, and there are bit more than just a few rune cycles in any given fight, wouldn't you agree? This is also amplified by baselining RC, might I add, since a GCD may not only be just 1s of rune regeneration. A GCD with RC active is twice the loss in this system (whereas there is no loss in the Cataclysm system). Really, actually, any haste-scaling with runes amplifies this issue--it is not just attributed to RC alone.

This is completely unavoidable and is entirely independent of the phenomenon of GCD-capping. If you use FeS, and then those two death runes on two SSs, you have replicated the scenario, yet you weren't GCD-capped (you only used 3 GCDs). GCD-capping merely exacerbates the issue because now more runes are at stake, whereas the Cataclysm system limits this to three runes maximum (and only one of each type). The Wrath system and your system open this potential loss up to any and every rune.

The problem Nyanmaru mentioned is a direct result of the very nature of rune regeneration under that system because that method of recharging mandates that you cannot sit on any runes for any given time without incurring a loss proportional to that duration of time. This is why using Rime in Wrath could result in a resource loss. That GCD you spent was a GCD that could have gone toward rune regeneration (if one was off cooldown).

The current rune system is better for two-rune strikes and I have tried to explain this to you multiple times. The Wrath system penalizes you for something that is entirely out of your control. The Cataclysm system has no such penalty.

Take off the rose-tinted glasses. The Wrath system (i.e., independent rune regeneration) is deficient in almost every conceivable way.

[Clash the DK]

The current rune system is better for two-rune strikes and I have tried to explain this to you multiple times. The Wrath system penalizes you for something that is entirely out of your control. The Cataclysm system has no such penalty.

Take off the rose-tinted glasses. The Wrath system (i.e., independent rune regeneration) is deficient in almost every conceivable way.

I would say that it is the two of you who are missing the point. I am GCD locked right now. That means that I use 10 abilities every 10 seconds. It doesn't matter how the runes regenerate once you reach a certain level of Haste. It's always been about maximizing what resources you do have. It always will be. Your point is completely nullified.

But at least with the WotLK rune system, the runes are much easier to read and it allows more options for working design. Also, it would be much easier to fix the problem of us having too little resource generation in the early part of an expansion. If tweaked in the right way, it would be a much more stable system over a full expansion.

[Nyanmaru]

If your argument is "I'm wasting resources, so it's necessary that everyone is forced to waste resources" then there's no discussion to be had here.

[Clash the DK]

If your argument is "I'm wasting resources, so it's necessary that everyone is forced to waste resources" then there's no discussion to be had here.

I would argue that if you are not "wasting resources" right now in our current tier, then you are not playing the class to it's fullest. The skill is in knowing when and what resources to "waste".

Being GCD locked is an inevitability. Due to the way our rune system works, it will be a dps increase to stack haste until you reach the point that you are GCD locked. Except for 2H Frost, who will gain dps up until they could fill every single GCD with Obliterate alone. Because our runes are currently set to a 10 second recharge, and they regen in half pairs, we will always reach a point in a single expansion to where we become GCD locked. The farther they push that date back in an expansion, the worse the gameplay will be during the beginning of said expansion. So, it's kind of a catch-22 there. This is the major flaw with our current rune system. Therefore, I would just rather have the old style rune system return. But, of course tweaked with the knowledge we've gained over the past 2-3 years.

[SSHA778]

If you think the issue is GCD-locking, you have missed the issue entirely again. By this point (including the previous thread) the only logical conclusion I can make is that you are trolling and therefore I will not respond after this. You, however, are free to do whatever you please.

The problem both Nyanmaru and I have described still occurs when you are not even remotely close to being GCD-capped.

For every other rune cycle (but you have 2 rune cycles going simultaneously, so every rune cycle on average, basically), you lose 2 GCDs of rune regeneration potential in your model in using two single-rune strikes on the runes that regenerate from a two-rune strike. If a rune cycle takes 30 seconds, you lose 2 GCDs of potential rune regeneration. If a rune cycle takes 10 seconds, you lose 2 GCDs of potential rune regeneration. If a rune cycle takes 5 seconds, you lose 2 GCDs of potential rune regeneration. If a rune cycle takes 1 second, you lose 2 GCDs of potential rune regeneration. If a rune cycle takes 0.0001 seconds, you lose 2 GCDs of potential rune regeneration. Do you see a pattern here?

Notice that I didn't ever once mention whether you were GCD-capped in any of these scenarios. None of these scenarios are guaranteed to be GCD-capped either because I didn't even specify the length of the GCD (it could be any arbitrary number greater than 0 seconds). The only variable I changed was the length of a rune cycle, which had no impact whatsoever on the number of lost GCDs of regeneration. That is, this loss is entirely independent of the length of the rune cycle. It is also entirely independent of the length of the GCD (not expressly demonstrated).

It is not a result of GCD-capping (by the classical definition, that is: having every single GCD filled for the entire fight). It is not even related. Yes, you calculate the loss from what we're describing and the loss from GCD-capping with the same equation, but that doesn't make them have the same origin.

To think this issue and GCD-capping are related is a very juvenile understanding of the issue. This is similar to claiming that the gravitational force from Earth (henceforth "gravity") does not act (zero magnitude) on an object that floats on the surface of water at some elevation h = L because you don't see it sinking (i.e., its velocity is zero), whereas if you place that object in the air at the same elevation L, gravity does act (nonzero magnitude) because it falls (i.e., the velocity is nonzero). Clearly, since the only variable you changed was exchanging water for air, then gravity does not act in water. Gravity most definitely acts in the first scenario and is the reason why that object is floating in the first place by causing a pressure gradient. You are so fixated on whether the object falls or not (the velocity) that you completely missed the fact that gravity is not only present in both scenarios, but also acts with the same magnitude (initially) in both scenarios because the existence of gravity is independent of whether an object falls or not.

The issue we're describing is the result of the simple fact that a GCD exists (i.e., a forced time-delay between abilities), however small, combined with the fact that your proposed system dictates that for any time period that any rune spends not regenerating, however small, potential regeneration is lost.

A two-rune strike causes two runes to come up at the same time in your system. Spending one of those runes causes a forced time-delay (i.e., triggers a GCD). That forced time-delay causes potential regeneration of the other rune to be lost, which then necessitates that potential rune regeneration of the first rune is then also lost later. It doesn't matter if you are GCD-capped or not. If you are GCD-capped, the loss is simply C * (2 + n), where C is an arbitrary coefficient relating GCDs and time and n is the number of additional potential GCDs lost because of GCD-capping (n = 0 if not GCD-capped). That 2 isn't a coincidence, and you will never have a loss that is less than that.

This lost regeneration is unavoidable because it is a result that is mandated by the underlying mechanics; this is the only outcome. The player has no control over this because they cannot change the fact that a GCD exists. It has nothing to do with being GCD-capped.

Gravity exists, and therefore a gravitational force acts on you regardless of whether you're floating or skydiving. To prevent this force from acting on you, you have to change gravity itself, not your velocity.



And in case the metaphors were not clear:
Velocity - what you're measuring to determine if a loss exists, which, yes, increases as the magnitude of gravity increases in the second scenario.

Gravity (force with a magnitude) - what you should be measuring to determine if a loss exists instead. This is the loss that exists inherent to the Wrath rune system. The minimum force ("minimum loss") is at elevation h = L. For h < L, the force is the minimum (2) plus some additional amount (n; hence 2 + n). The minimum exists because I placed the object somewhere. I.e., it exists because the object exists (that is, the loss of 2 GCDs exists because the GCD exists). The object in the second scenario falls because it is unsupported, so the additional component increases in severity as h decreases (that is, GCD-capping increases the loss by causing the lost potential regeneration to exceed 2 GCDs (n > 0)). When it is supported, the additional component is zero, but the total magnitude is not zero.

Water - the state of not being GCD-capped

Air - the state of being GCD-capped

I would argue that if you are not "wasting resources" right now in our current tier, then you are not playing the class to it's fullest. The skill is in knowing when and what resources to "waste".

There is no skill in trading 2 GCDs of resource regeneration because you hit your main strike, which is what you propose. It is like having a rogue lose two combo points after every 3rd Mutilate. If you don't agree that this is a direct parallel, there is no reason to continue discussing this matter with you.

[schwank05]

I vote go back to the origional Wrath style DK, and give me back my damn DPS spec let one of the other 2 shitty specs be forced to be tanks. or leave it as it was in WOLTK as that was the best time for DK's IMO. I wont even play my DK anymore since they screwed my Blood dps.

[Clash the DK]

If you think the issue is GCD-locking, you have missed the issue entirely again. By this point (including the previous thread) the only logical conclusion I can make is that you are trolling and therefore I will not respond after this. You, however, are free to do whatever you please.

I will quote exactly what GC replied on Twitter recently regarding our rune system:

QUESTION: Are you happy with how the current dk resource system works? Or do you feel the rune system was better in wrath?
ANSWER (GC): Honestly not sure. Current model solves the orphaned rune and GCD lock problems better, but it is complicated.

The GCD lock problem of WotLK was one of, if not the biggest reason that our rune system was changed in the first place. It was know back then. And GC just reconfirmed that. You can check page 2 of this site for confirmation.

What you are complaining about has nothing to do with how the actual runes regenerate. If Scourge Strike where to cost 2 runes, would it fix the issue you have with the rune system? If so, then it's not the rune system itself.

And is AMS soaking a bad mechanic because it gives you excess resources? It might cause you to "waste resources". Does this make it bad?