Army of the Dead 3.3 change

[Fargom]

You shouldn't be casting it in combat (90% of the time) in less your a tank in the first place. You cast it when your going in on the pull so all your ruins are off CD.

This is not true, army will produce more damage than the loss of dps for 6 seconds. It's a net gain to cast army of the dead during combat if you can't get them inbetween phases.

[Cirayne24]

You shouldn't be casting it in combat (90% of the time) in less your a tank in the first place. You cast it when your going in on the pull so all your ruins are off CD.

For sure, I never see my DKs cast it during the fight and they pull top 5 easy.

[Sidorenko]

same thing as innervate change, 1/2 the CD, 1/2 the effect

[Deleted]

So no CD for UH spec? PLEASE!

I can just see DKs crashing server by gathering and just keep spamming AotD ;D

(Will no doubt be changed, so no need to worry about that)

No, but really... I can see this change making AotD a more "staple" part of playing a DK. Like, actually being able to use it on (almost) every boss.

Besides, I always hated those way too long CDs.

[Pascal]

I hate it every time a DK uses AotD in a heroic. It's annoying as hell when I'm tanking, it's even worse when I'm dpsing on my shaman. If I were feral DPS, I'm pretty sure that would take the cake for when AotD is most annoying.

Clearly this is an intended buff to pugging DKs' ability to be annoying.

[Deleted]

I hate it every time a DK uses AotD in a heroic. It's annoying as hell when I'm tanking, it's even worse when I'm dpsing on my shaman. If I were feral DPS, I'm pretty sure that would take the cake for when AotD is most annoying.

Clearly this is an intended buff to pugging DKs' ability to be annoying.

Haha.

Well, I rarely use AotD in heroics. Only when we as a group decide on it... Or when i really want to make it painful for my Tank friends ;D

And gosh they hate it...

[Fornaw]

I hate it every time a DK uses AotD in a heroic. It's annoying as hell when I'm tanking, it's even worse when I'm dpsing on my shaman. If I were feral DPS, I'm pretty sure that would take the cake for when AotD is most annoying.

Clearly this is an intended buff to pugging DKs' ability to be annoying.

QFT

Also not every mob in every raid boss encounter is lvl 83, though off the top of my head I can't think of anything 81 or 82 that would be devastating if a ghoul taunted it, maybe a mistress of pain, emalon's adds?

[Deleted]

Dont think Anub's Adds are in toc...

I seem to recall "some" DK thinking popping aotd on the pull was a good idea, having the tanks starting to yell...

[Ytinasni]

This is not true, army will produce more damage than the loss of dps for 6 seconds. It's a net gain to cast army of the dead during combat if you can't get them inbetween phases.

this.

Its not always up when the pull starts, and sometimes its not useful to use it at the beginning due to positioning requirements.

sometimes it has an optimal use time (before an icehowl charge on northrend beasts- heartbreaker anyone?)

Currently it causes more dps than the 6 second dps loss, and the best way to use it via in combat situation is right before you need to refresh diseases so you can take the best advantage of only having one set of runes up (2 gcds for diseases and less than 1 second adjusted for IT haste/lag and your other BFU will be up) barring GoD builds in which case you use pest then aotd or use it with ERW

By cutting the damage it causes in half you are effectively removing any possible use it has after combat has started.

Its a nerf.


EDIT: aotd is fun in heroics with bosses that use breath (last boss in VH for example) ARMY ROULETTE- unfortunately the last few runs of mine she has died before breath.

[Cirayne24]

sometimes it has an optimal use time (before an icehowl charge on northrend beasts- heartbreaker anyone?)

When would you use them on other bosses where your DPS time never stops? I'm not trying to argue or anything, I've just never seen it. Both times you listed were times when your ablitiy to DPS wasn't there so losing 6 seconds of DPS time wasn't really 6 seconds. Its ~4 seconds for the charge and XT to have his heart pop out or so.

But on a DPS fight like, Lord Jaraxxus, when would you stop to cast it? All our DK's are Unholy, and the 10 second Rotation leaves little room to wait for the 6 second cast.


And yes, Anubs Adds in ToC are tauntable, so are Yoggs. Anything that doesn't have a skull for its level will be taunted by the ghouls.

[Ytinasni]

I'll give you a hint, the damage you deal over the duration of army is GREATER than the damage you lose during the 6 second cast.

period.


especially for an unholy build taking advantage of glyph of ghoul and notd


also if you wait for the charge you wont get a full cast of aotd, and if you wait to use it on heart for the animation then you lose dps uptime plus the time it takes for ghouls to spawn and get in range

[Cirayne24]

Okay its a nerf to the damage part of the spell. I'll agree. But lets be honest. After you cast it, say your the one to cast it at the start of most fights, unless theres a better time between phases, how many times do you cast it in one encounter? In fact, how many encounter go over 10 minutes right now? Yogg is about it, and you wouldn't want to use it in p1 or p3 anyways due to the adds.

Some encounter barley make it to 3-5 minutes. The only long encounters are the final bosses, and currently they all have adds that make AotD useless.

Yes its a nerf to the DPS, a buff to tanks. But did their DPS really ever make or break a fight? We've done multiple attempts at different bosses with or without AotD and succeeded with both.

Yeah its a cool spell, sweet to raise my own little army to fight for me. But I doubt DPS numbers will change that much.

[Ytinasni]

Well your points are all valid, but this brings up the question of if the numbers are so trivial, then why bother lowering the damage it deals, I mean even if an unholy dk manages 2 of them in a fight because of his 5min cd on it its not going to have him top the charts by more than a margin of 30-40k (paltry in bossfights)

The cooldown reduction is a cover to nerf an arbitrary ability for little reason.

Although I can see how its a buff to tanks, esp unholy ones.

[Cirayne24]

To be perfectly honest, I have no good reason why the damage would be reduced other then to probably keep on the same track that they did with other spells, like innervate. If they didn't nerf it the same way, people would cry more then they are now. Now druids can be like lol feel our pain... but it doesn't really hurt us. At least its not a need to cast EVERY boss encounter spell that was nerfed.

AotD is a gimmick spell that they made probably to help sell WotLK and the idea of Death Knights. I remember seeing the spell cast in their demo and was like "OMFG Thats gonna be soooo cool." But was sadly disappointed when I finally got it. It helped me solo elite quests but whatever, I probably could have done it without Army.

At some point it may be extremely useful on some gimmick fights in ICC or later, but besides that... I have no other reason to think of why they would consider it OP

[Lokigar]

unless they remove the taunt from the ghouls it will continue to be raid worthless.

If the Ghouls are pulling off your tank.
1) Your tank's bad.
2) Your tank doesn't know how to taunt.
3) All the above.

Level 83 mobs have been immune to ghoul taunt since early patches post 3.0's launch.

[Noxia]

I am amazed. How can someone be so retarded that they actually think this change is a BUFF when it comes to pve dps? Unbelievable. And why the hell are people comparing this to the innervate change? Most retarded comparison ever. Sure, the ghouls will still deal the same amount of total damage if the fight lasts for almost 11 minutes, but the thing is there are no fights like that in the game. Not to mention 2 casts of army of the dead take 12 seconds total, which means you will do LESS dps as a whole anyway if you cast it twice, compared to the old AotD.

Innervate on the other hand used to be a 6min duration ability, which meant you pretty much had only one opportunity to cast it. Now that it's a 3 min cooldown, you will have atleast 2 chances to use it on pretty much every fight where it matters (remember that the faster you kill the boss, the less likely you're run out of mana). Now you can also "split" the effect on two targets if you want, wasn't possible with old innervate.

Why didn't they lower fire elemental damage by 50% when they dropped its cd from 20min to 10min? This is bullshit.

[Mindipedia]

If the Ghouls are pulling off your tank.
1) Your tank's bad.
2) Your tank doesn't know how to taunt.
3) All the above.

Level 83 mobs have been immune to ghoul taunt since early patches post 3.0's launch.

They still taunt off herioc bosses - which is annoying when I'm being lazy and tanking half-asleep and I think a dps has pulled it so I taunt, then another one taunts. Which makes the tanks taunts useless against so many. Then again - I really shouldn't tank when I'm half asleep :P Also I think being a bad tank includes the second option. So really all you need is the first option and wallah. Less typing. Lazy ftw.

[Proxy5]

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t42392-r...ses_army_dead/

[Cirayne24]

I am amazed. How can someone be so retarded that they actually think this change is a BUFF when it comes to pve dps? Unbelievable. And why the hell are people comparing this to the innervate change? Most retarded comparison ever. Sure, the ghouls will still deal the same amount of total damage if the fight lasts for almost 11 minutes, but the thing is there are no fights like that in the game. Not to mention 2 casts of army of the dead take 12 seconds total, which means you will do LESS dps as a whole anyway if you cast it twice, compared to the old AotD.

Innervate on the other hand used to be a 6min duration ability, which meant you pretty much had only one opportunity to cast it. Now that it's a 3 min cooldown, you will have atleast 2 chances to use it on pretty much every fight where it matters (remember that the faster you kill the boss, the less likely you're run out of mana). Now you can also "split" the effect on two targets if you want, wasn't possible with old innervate.

Why didn't they lower fire elemental damage by 50% when they dropped its cd from 20min to 10min? This is bullshit.

Why are you so upset? AotD is a gimmick spell. You don't have to have it to beat any encounter in the game. And you don't have to have it to still be top DPS in a lot of the encounters currently in the game. I've never heard of a raid saying, "Man, we we only had Army two or three times we wouldn't have wiped. I know that we messed up on that ability, but more Armies man... we would have beat him easy!"

I think people should be less upset with a spell like AotD being nerfed, damage wise, and concentrate on other core abilities that need to be changed. And to be perfectly honest, I like the changes coming out this patch so far. Look they are fixing Scourge Strike.

It's no wonder Blizzard doesn't listen to anyone when people complain, because we complain about EVERYTHING, even when it doesn't matter in the long run.

[Noxia]

Why are you so upset? AotD is a gimmick spell. You don't have to have it to beat any encounter in the game. And you don't have to have it to still be top DPS in a lot of the encounters currently in the game. I've never heard of a raid saying, "Man, we we only had Army two or three times we wouldn't have wiped. I know that we messed up on that ability, but more Armies man... we would have beat him easy!"

I think people should be less upset with a spell like AotD being nerfed, damage wise, and concentrate on other core abilities that need to be changed. And to be perfectly honest, I like the changes coming out this patch so far. Look they are fixing Scourge Strike.

It's no wonder Blizzard doesn't listen to anyone when people complain, because we complain about EVERYTHING, even when it doesn't matter in the long run.

That's kind of my point, how on earth did they feel this ability is significant enough to nerf its effectiveness by 50%? I'm not even sure if it will be worth to use it in combat after this change so that's like almost completely stripping me from one ability, an ability which I happen to like a lot. I see no valid reason for this, that's why I'm upset. I would be extremely upset too if they suddenly decided to remove blood tap from us for no apparent reason, even though it wouldn't be such an amazing DPS loss that everyone would be screaming "Oh if our DK's still had their blood taps, that hard mode boss would have gone down for sure!".

Yes, the new scourge strike change looks promising indeed, but this topic is about the 3.3 AotD changes not about praising SS from ground to heaven.