DPS DK viability in M+ in BFA?

[Deleted]

@Donimic for some clarity im still going to play my DK in BFA and ill still do +15-21 keys as Frost, Unholy and Blood as i have in legion, this doesn't change for me, nor does it inhibit my ability to make (what i think) cogent remarks on the class going forward. But never lose the fact this is a forum to discuss ideas and thoughts.

This is also important and true. I mained dk since Wrath and I've no intention to reroll ever, and as I already said I'm a blood player so dps specs are a marginal issue for me. Still, just like in Legion if I'll have to dps I will still stick to frost/unholy rather than bring one of my alts (also because I don't bother to gear them with the zeal I have with my dk).
Despite all of this when it comes to discussions about classes I think it's crucial to remain as objective as possible, both in respect of whoever is the OP asking, and for the possibility of making the community aware and unanimous on what feedback to provide (even if most of the times is futile).

[kail]

TBH, dks no longer serve a purpose in the PVE world.

We bring nothing to the table except DG and BR.

IIRC, druids, locks, and hunters also have BR so..... I guess we bring death grip to the table.

Other than that, why bring a DK? lol.

Because DG. There will be cases where DG and GG can smooth out a run.

[Beefkow]

Because DG. There will be cases where DG and GG can smooth out a run.

Let me rephrase, dps dks no longer serve a purpose in the pve world.

Blood dk is actually a good tank to bring.

[msdos]

I think this thread got rocky because "viability" is too nebulous of a term. Got people talking about numbers and over-all vs priority damage vs saps and grips..

OP should define what he means by "viability".
We know DKs will pull numbers (most likely), we know they will be fun to play and we know that they are squishy as all hell melee. Are they that much more squishier than they were in Legion? Not really.
So viable? The answer is yes.

At 20+ keys, as DPS, I'm still using my Rogue, if I even DPS them at all. In Legion, I didn't really start seriously DPSing M+ until half way through ABT. Tanking them takes more than enough out of you.

[Deleted]

DPS Monk did very well in Mythic + in Legion, didn't they? Could've sworn I saw the tournament thing had a lot of them.

Monk only did well late and only was represented that well on the tournament realm because of how the equipment for the premades was constructed since the artifact weapon was low compared to the average ilvl and Monk was the class that did not scale with weapon ilvl.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Monk only did well late and only was represented that well on the tournament realm because of how the equipment for the premades was constructed since the artifact weapon was low compared to the average ilvl and Monk was the class that did not scale with weapon ilvl.

ah ok, makes sense.

[Cytraz]

I think this thread got rocky because "viability" is too nebulous of a term. Got people talking about numbers and over-all vs priority damage vs saps and grips..

OP should define what he means by "viability".
We know DKs will pull numbers (most likely), we know they will be fun to play and we know that they are squishy as all hell melee. Are they that much more squishier than they were in Legion? Not really.
So viable? The answer is yes.

At 20+ keys, as DPS, I'm still using my Rogue, if I even DPS them at all. In Legion, I didn't really start seriously DPSing M+ until half way through ABT. Tanking them takes more than enough out of you.

I will clarify what I mean by viability.

Will DPS DKs be able to push the highest keystones? Why/why not? Also, if one pushes aside Warlock/Mage/Rogue/Boomkin for DPS, which class(es) are next in line in terms of strength in M+, meaning being able to push the highest keystones?

[pay928]

I will clarify what I mean by viability.

Will DPS DKs be able to push the highest keystones? Why/why not? Also, if one pushes aside Warlock/Mage/Rogue/Boomkin for DPS, which class(es) are next in line in terms of strength in M+, meaning being able to push the highest keystones?

For that sort of viability, not unless their damage is brokenly overbalanced. The best melees, mechanically, will be Rogues, DHs, and Monk (combation of mobility, utility, immunities). In general, Ranged over melee.

[Cytraz]

For that sort of viability, not unless their damage is brokenly overbalanced. The best melees, mechanically, will be Rogues, DHs, and Monk (combation of mobility, utility, immunities). In general, Ranged over melee.

Which ranged DPS would you think are good in M+ in BFA? Most people say warlock, mage and boomies, but what do you think comes after those 3, unless you of course disagree with any of the mentioned 3 classes/specs.

[pay928]

Which ranged DPS would you think are good in M+ in BFA? Most people say warlock, mage and boomies, but what do you think comes after those 3, unless you of course disagree with any of the mentioned 3 classes/specs.

I don't know enough about ranged to know the good M+ specs, but warlock and mage seem strong contenders (CC, Ice block, self healing, cleave/ae). Not sure what Boomie brings that they're top 3, I only played it for mage tower.

[Raiz]

Which ranged DPS would you think are good in M+ in BFA? Most people say warlock, mage and boomies, but what do you think comes after those 3, unless you of course disagree with any of the mentioned 3 classes/specs.

It's too early to know. You can't expect the beta tester to play all their classes to 120 and deciding which one will be strong. And we don't know how blizzard gonna change some of the classes. What's worse, you can't expect us to answer your question. You have to figure it out yourself if you're planning to do some competitive M+.
All we will be saying are merely opinions.

[Cytraz]

It's too early to know. You can't expect the beta tester to play all their classes to 120 and deciding which one will be strong. And we don't know how blizzard gonna change some of the classes. What's worse, you can't expect us to answer your question. You have to figure it out yourself if you're planning to do some competitive M+.
All we will be saying are merely opinions.

I was only asking for opinions though. Maybe you didnt notice it, but I said "would you think", meaning I am asking for an opinion. And no one on these forums can expect anyone to answer any questions. People answer whatever they want to, they arent forced to answer anything. If you ask a question in one of these forums, you cant expect anyone to answer that either. Your point is redundant.

However, you can look at the tools available to classes now and based on that you can form a rough idea of which classes are strong utility/ability wise and which ones arent. What can change the meta, though, is overtuning and undertuning. If a class is overtuned, it could potentially become fotm. But if we imagine everything is balanced, then we can isolate the toolkit that each class has and based on that we can get a pretty decent idea of whos going to perform well.

Forexample, warlocks self substain, healthstone and CR is not going to be taken away from them. If their numbers arent undertuned, they will most likely be among the top classes based on their toolkit. A class like unholy DK needs to be overtuned to do well, simply because it doesnt have as good utility as other classes.

[Baddok21]

I was only asking for opinions though. Maybe you didnt notice it, but I said "would you think", meaning I am asking for an opinion. And no one on these forums can expect anyone to answer any questions. People answer whatever they want to, they arent forced to answer anything. If you ask a question in one of these forums, you cant expect anyone to answer that either. Your point is redundant.

However, you can look at the tools available to classes now and based on that you can form a rough idea of which classes are strong utility/ability wise and which ones arent. What can change the meta, though, is overtuning and undertuning. If a class is overtuned, it could potentially become fotm. But if we imagine everything is balanced, then we can isolate the toolkit that each class has and based on that we can get a pretty decent idea of whos going to perform well.

Forexample, warlocks self substain, healthstone and CR is not going to be taken away from them. If their numbers arent undertuned, they will most likely be among the top classes based on their toolkit. A class like unholy DK needs to be overtuned to do well, simply because it doesnt have as good utility as other classes.

to Answer your question as best as possible

MELEE

Rogue - High Mobility, High Survivability, AoE Group stealth, high Single target and AoE dmg along with a mix of single target CC types (Threat redirect will be huge later on when DPS start outpacing tanks again, especially for affixes were kiting is required)

DH - High Mobility, Personal dmg immunity, high single target and AoE dmg within the same spec, AoE Stun (Huge), group dmg buff

Monk - High Mobility, average survivability, High single target and AoE dmg within the same spec, AoE Stun, Group dmg buff

these will be the 3 melee you will always aim for first with the current talents and utility in mind, next on the list would be War > Dk, Survival,Enhance > Feral, Ret (I imagine Ret AoE will be addressed in 8.1?)

The Issue with the DK is that Blood looks to be once again the Top tier tank for M+ so group will look for a BDK tank and a DH DPS instead of a DH Tank and a DK DPS this is because almost all the real utility of a DK is found in its tank spec and its not shared with its DPS variants, meanwhile outside of 2 sigils all the DH tank utility can be achieved with its DPS spec. this is a similar issue Survival hunters will have as its the DPS spec that does not have the vaunted utility that Marks/BM will offer, Survival will be good DPS but it will be shunned in favor of its ranged variants (this also applies to Feral but does not apply to Ele vs Enhance shaman).

the classes/spec that you will see in heavy rotation will be

TANK
BDK or Vengeance DH

DPS MELEE
Rogue, Monk, DH (sometimes Warriors)

RANGED DPS
Warlock, Moonkin, Mage (sometimes hunter)

HEALERS
Disc Priest, H Paladin (sometimes Resto Druid)
(this is the wildest in terms of representation as it will swing from affix to affix IE: dont bring disc to Grievous week)

and there are some new factors due to Raid/Party buffs comming back

VDH - Mage - Warlock - Moonkin - Disc Priest is fueled by the VDH 5% magic dmg taken debuff
BDK - Rogue - Monk - War - Hpal will be really strong on dungeons that have no ranged benefits (and where affixs permit)

however VDH - Rogue - Mage - Moonkin/Warlock - Disc is your one size fits all group comp

all of this can be invalidated due to release date changes though (tuning more than class/spec changes since they said there waiting till 8.1 on that)

[Deleted]

Blizzard won't balance M+ past the reward scaling and that's +15. DKs will be just fine.

Past +15 and MDIs, yeah, some classes are better than others and that's ok, there's no way to balance everything other than making everything the same. If you envy rogue toolkit just play rogue, they aren't going to balance it.

[Cytraz]

to Answer your question as best as possible

MELEE

Rogue - High Mobility, High Survivability, AoE Group stealth, high Single target and AoE dmg along with a mix of single target CC types (Threat redirect will be huge later on when DPS start outpacing tanks again, especially for affixes were kiting is required)

DH - High Mobility, Personal dmg immunity, high single target and AoE dmg within the same spec, AoE Stun (Huge), group dmg buff

Monk - High Mobility, average survivability, High single target and AoE dmg within the same spec, AoE Stun, Group dmg buff

these will be the 3 melee you will always aim for first with the current talents and utility in mind, next on the list would be War > Dk, Survival,Enhance > Feral, Ret (I imagine Ret AoE will be addressed in 8.1?)

The Issue with the DK is that Blood looks to be once again the Top tier tank for M+ so group will look for a BDK tank and a DH DPS instead of a DH Tank and a DK DPS this is because almost all the real utility of a DK is found in its tank spec and its not shared with its DPS variants, meanwhile outside of 2 sigils all the DH tank utility can be achieved with its DPS spec. this is a similar issue Survival hunters will have as its the DPS spec that does not have the vaunted utility that Marks/BM will offer, Survival will be good DPS but it will be shunned in favor of its ranged variants (this also applies to Feral but does not apply to Ele vs Enhance shaman).

the classes/spec that you will see in heavy rotation will be

TANK
BDK or Vengeance DH

DPS MELEE
Rogue, Monk, DH (sometimes Warriors)

RANGED DPS
Warlock, Moonkin, Mage (sometimes hunter)

HEALERS
Disc Priest, H Paladin (sometimes Resto Druid)
(this is the wildest in terms of representation as it will swing from affix to affix IE: dont bring disc to Grievous week)

and there are some new factors due to Raid/Party buffs comming back

VDH - Mage - Warlock - Moonkin - Disc Priest is fueled by the VDH 5% magic dmg taken debuff
BDK - Rogue - Monk - War - Hpal will be really strong on dungeons that have no ranged benefits (and where affixs permit)

however VDH - Rogue - Mage - Moonkin/Warlock - Disc is your one size fits all group comp

all of this can be invalidated due to release date changes though (tuning more than class/spec changes since they said there waiting till 8.1 on that)

Thank you for your useful answer.

I thought about the whole Blood DK viability and how that will affect DPS DKs, since you probably dont want to bring x2 DKs. On the other hand, VDH looks to be a top contender also. Havoc DH could in that sense also lose some viability if HDH turns out to be used a lot.

I'll need to consider this when deciding what to main in BFA. Warlock is the best all around pick I'd say. Great in raids, great in m+, at least historically. But I find their rotation to be so stale and easy to execute, which is a turn off for me.

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard won't balance M+ past the reward scaling and that's +15. DKs will be just fine.

Past +15 and MDIs, yeah, some classes are better than others and that's ok, there's no way to balance everything other than making everything the same. If you envy rogue toolkit just play rogue, they aren't going to balance it.

Yeah, problem is that I am very picky when it comes to what classes I like, and I'm just not that into rogues (or warlocks for that matter), so although these classes have a great toolkit, they will get boring for me to play in the long run.

[Raikh]

DPS DK viability hinges more on their throughput rather than their kit. ST stun, DG and combat ress are not really gamechanging in a way that would make DKs inherently attractive comapred to other options w/o the numbers to back it up.

Which is honestly the case for basically all dps specs. First your damage needs to be up there, second you look at what the class brings. Looking at DHs and Rogues as mentioned quite often already a DK would need to outperform them quite significantly to make a case against them since they are either better at surviving or bring more or better things to the table.

Depending on how the m+ tuning turns out AMS+IBF+Death Pact might actually make for decent survivability atleast if all the feedback given how the m+ damage scaling in legion was seriously hurting class diversity, even moreso with gear swapping being killed off, was taken to heart but that is to be seen.

And even if its just mediocre we have the brilliant example of WW monks which basically were god tier for the whole of Antorus in m+ and just since it was mentioned: It wasnt so popular in the MDI because of too low scaled weapons. The global stage increased weapon ilvl by a whole 25 ilvl from 970 to 995 and most teams still ran a WW monk, some even two occasionally. WW damage was simply busted and looking at how they essentially had the highest death rate it wasnt their amazing survivability that got them there. If you are OP enough you kit matters much less and taking a few extra deaths is quite worth it.

For quite a while during the beta Unholy looked super promising for m+ and it was very very powerful but since that time a majorly OP Azerite trait was massively nerfed followed by a total 20% nerf across the board which elft the spec in shambles. If you look on WCL and ANtorus parses you see that unholy doesnt really hold a candle to any of the better kitted specs and from what I've seen form azerite traits and max level on beta that wont change for the better that much, so unless we see huge buffs itsa middle of the pack best case really.
Same or even worse for frost. FSc is already a bit weaker comparatively to legion and with losing so much mastery and crit which it highly depends on AoE will take a huge nosedive, combined with frost being insanely reliant on the brutal BoS damage you can't really expect any crazy damage out of a frost dk outside of those BoS windows every 2min which are also not tailored for AoE. And outside of frostwyrms fury which ahs yet again a long 3 min CD other AoE options dont really make a case even if FSc is severly weakened which makes forst also an unlikely contender.
Especially so since Frost damage in late legion was quite high but it wasn't high enough given frosts lackluster kit and that AoE stun it atleats offered is now gone, too.

So in conclusion, dps dks are not a save bet. Current tuning doesnt make them out to be anything special, their kit is a bit lackluster so they bring inherently less to the table than a atleats a few other options and its only real point is that it can get its slot on high end m+ if it suddenly turns out to be one if not the best dps spec.
You dotn take a dps dk for its kit but for its damage and that damage is currently not there and if its goign to be there once another tunign pass hits is a question probably nobody can give an answer on.

[Deleted]

all the pretty boys here are fightning for who will get to dance with the prom queen,while ugly fat protection warrior stands in the corner crying...

Bringing buffs back was a bad idea and I believe we will see them removed mid-BfA.

Since druids are kinda meh,if you dont have a warlock,then you are forced to bring a DK for combat rezz. Then the problem for DPS DK is how good blood is
I can see DKs have big represantation on M plus,they are not shamans or druids after all,but 90% of them will be blood.

[msdos]

all the pretty boys here are fightning for who will get to dance with the prom queen,while ugly fat protection warrior stands in the corner crying...

Bringing buffs back was a bad idea and I believe we will see them removed mid-BfA.

Since druids are kinda meh,if you dont have a warlock,then you are forced to bring a DK for combat rezz. Then the problem for DPS DK is how good blood is
I can see DKs have big represantation on M plus,they are not shamans or druids after all,but 90% of them will be blood.

You can't be a mong and succeed with Blood though. Most of the dps DKs are going to reroll or play something else, you know it to be true. Tanking got less faceroll with BFA changes.

Also, trying to transition into a high level tank from DPS over night will not work for most players.

All that's left will be the Blood players, if that's what you were getting at.

[Baddok21]

all the pretty boys here are fightning for who will get to dance with the prom queen,while ugly fat protection warrior stands in the corner crying...

Bringing buffs back was a bad idea and I believe we will see them removed mid-BfA.

Since druids are kinda meh,if you dont have a warlock,then you are forced to bring a DK for combat rezz. Then the problem for DPS DK is how good blood is
I can see DKs have big represantation on M plus,they are not shamans or druids after all,but 90% of them will be blood.

my only issue is with pre-raid BiS gear (high haste) in every slot at ilvl 340 you can only achieve 15.8-16.4% haste depending on your ring choice thats litterally with every Haste-Crit and Haste-Mastery piece in the game pre-raid, that simply doesnt bold well for early blood, Unholy and Frost. Its really unbearable to play all 3 specs with that but outside of the Unholy nerf, Unholy is still the strongest due to its large amount of passive dmg sources from Disease and pet, Frost you pretty much spec for Frostscythe simply so you have a viable single rune dump which actually works sorta for the time being.

i mention that to say Vengeance DH is not really stronger than BDK but its much better to play while everyone is swimming in shallow secondary pools.

[Raiz]

my only issue is with pre-raid BiS gear (high haste) in every slot at ilvl 340 you can only achieve 15.8-16.4% haste depending on your ring choice thats litterally with every Haste-Crit and Haste-Mastery piece in the game pre-raid, that simply doesnt bold well for early blood, Unholy and Frost. Its really unbearable to play all 3 specs with that but outside of the Unholy nerf, Unholy is still the strongest due to its large amount of passive dmg sources from Disease and pet, Frost you pretty much spec for Frostscythe simply so you have a viable single rune dump which actually works sorta for the time being.

i mention that to say Vengeance DH is not really stronger than BDK but its much better to play while everyone is swimming in shallow secondary pools.

Only 16% haste ? Jesus, that's gonna suck big time.