Why the nerf on DKs?

[Greengrim]

Is it me or we're just being shoved into the ground, again? Correct me if I'm wrong, but DK hasn't shined ever since WotLK.

On the wowmeta sims from 05.10.2020 FDK was already bottom tier. Why in the hell were such hard nerfs necessary?!

So Blizzard's genious design is to bring back 2H Frost, for which we beg for years, but in the same time, make it ridiculously weak and unfavorable to both DKs and group recruiters?!?!

[Eapoe]

DK discord and icy veins tier list still showing Frost DK as A tier. Now, not sure after these recent nerfs, but they don’t appear so huge to cry out the sky is falling.

[Kaver]

DK discord and icy veins tier list still showing Frost DK as A tier. Now, not sure after these recent nerfs, but they don’t appear so huge to cry out the sky is falling.

... on the other hand if it had been hunter nerfs THEN there would have been reason to cry!

[Rngmonster The God]

DK discord and icy veins tier list still showing Frost DK as A tier. Now, not sure after these recent nerfs, but they don’t appear so huge to cry out the sky is falling.

What? Icy Veins is still a thing? Good to know..

[mrinvisable2]

you know that wowmeta is total garbage and on beta frost dk preforms well

[Nzx]

Lmao I love this new wave of people complaining about things they haven't even played based on some absolute trash-tier "sim" fuckery. It's like Noxxic guides all over again. Fantastic.

[Eapoe]

... on the other hand if it had been hunter nerfs THEN there would have been reason to cry!

Not really. I’m planning on swapping to DK in Shadowlands, so nerfs do irritate me. That said, Hunters have been nerfed constantly in Beta. MM was S tier and has fallen to A tier, where Frost sits. BM and Unholy in same tier, while SV is dead last. So yeah, I follow both but plan on maining DK as I want a change from Hunter.

[Greengrim]

you know that wowmeta is total garbage and on beta frost dk preforms well

Even after the last nerf to MotFW, OB, PoF?

DK discord and icy veins tier list still showing Frost DK as A tier. Now, not sure after these recent nerfs, but they don’t appear so huge to cry out the sky is falling.

You feeling ok there brother?

-5% on MotFW
-10% on OB
-3sec on PoF, AND +15 sec additional cd

Does this really look like fine tuning to you?

[Kuja]

I loved my DK in WOTLK. Back then they were strong. But since then I don't remember seeing any DKs topping meters in raids. Would love to play it again, but only if the DPS is good. Would make sense for them to be strong in Shadowlands.

[Eapoe]

What? Icy Veins is still a thing? Good to know..

Yeah, it’s kind of a nice guide where people from Discord put good information on what they find. That said, it does run behind a bit, but even going on Discord I haven’t seen anyone posting doom and gloom about DK.

- - - Updated - - -

Even after the last nerf to MotFW, OB, PoF?



You feeling ok there brother?

-5% on MotFW
-10% on OB
-3sec on PoF, AND +15 sec additional cd

Does this really look like fine tuning to you?

It looks like balancing. Again, Frost DK is/was one of the A tier ranking dps. If it doesn’t knock it down that far then they are still in a good spot.
As stated, so far there are multiple specs/classes getting nerfed. Spriest is sitting at the pinnacle of all dps and it got nerfed as well. The only thing I didn’t see get nerfed so far is Aff Lock, and they need it.
Blizz is balancing things right now. Hell, they just reverted the last round of nerfs to some classes, as well as buffing/nerfing some legos as well. I wouldn’t be too downtrodden until SL launches and we see where they are sitting. As is, per the last raid testing, Frost and Unholy were in good spots, with Frost in the great spot. So no, I wouldn’t freak out just yet.

[loanel]

As long as the fucking breath doesn't FINALLY get reworked and starts working like Bonestorm (it uses your current runic power only, you can't extend it), balancing this spec will never work, and the breath playstyle will always prevail. It's honestly mindblowing how they're pushing this ability for the 3rd expansion in a row, and how it interacts with the spec considering the fucking post they made before reworking shadow priest's Voidform.

This ability is just broken in a spec that doesn't have any other efficient runic power spenders, both for single target and AOE. Up until the Legion changes, the deal was simple; Two Handed style uses KM for Obliterate (so it deals damage with runes) and DV uses KM for Frost Strike (so it deals damage with runic power). After the changes and KM only affecting Obliterate, the only way to use your mastery scaling with runic power properly was Breath; that's why this ability always gets ahead. With the change to KM giving frost damage to obliterate and MOTFW (without going into a discussion about how fucking stupid the implementation of this is, sometimes i wonder if the devs remember that this spec has more than 3 skills) there might be a way to finally ditch that fucking skill, but with these changes i lost all hope for them even giving a fuck about doing this properly. They're out of time, so it's time to cut the losses and leave everything like it was.

You can talk to me about "intra spec balancing" or some fucking mathbrain calculations that put us in some fucking A tier if you use breath, but as long as this ability will be on top, majority of the normal playerbase will not play a FDK. If they want to intra-spec-balance the class by making everything but Breath weaker (can't they balance it by buffing breath damage instead of nuking obliterate from orbit?), how about some intra-spec-meme-balancing to add more abilities that use runic power if you don't want to jerk it off by jizzing ice over a monster without moving for 40+ seconds? Make frostscythe baseline and cost runic power? Glacial advance baseline? Make frost strike cleave in DND? How about giving us some fucking options instead of shoehorning people into breath again, because it's the only talent-efficient build in the entire spec?

And how the fuck, considering the current situation, does Unholy, with the insane amounts of aoe abilities they have already, get an aoe RP ability baseline FASTER than frost? Are there separate devs working on the specs?

[Greengrim]

@loanel

I think you're very much right about BoS. For example, I too, personally completely ignored frost until Icecap became a thing at some point.

I got very excited about 2H frost coming back, thinking that Blizzard will finally listen and shine some spotlight on our DKs, but so far I see no such thing. It looks like BoS will remain the way to go for frost. On top of that the whole spec got a smack by the nerf bat without even being remotely powerful as other beta classes.

[Doffen]

I think BoS is cool personally.

About the tuning, Frost is a bit undertuned in pre patch, but on beta its better. Now, the 2hander nerf is a bit strange, seeing its a bit lacking from before. If they make it so that we can use 2hander again, make it viable. But I guess scaling is also being considered when they now tune it.

[Saltysquidoon]

As long as the fucking breath doesn't FINALLY get reworked and starts working like Bonestorm (it uses your current runic power only, you can't extend it), balancing this spec will never work, and the breath playstyle will always prevail. It's honestly mindblowing how they're pushing this ability for the 3rd expansion in a row, and how it interacts with the spec considering the fucking post they made before reworking shadow priest's Voidform.

Blizzard pushes Breath because they accidentally made it the spec's one unique mechanic and they know that if it ever goes away Frost goes back to being the most basic archaic spec in the game and they'd have to put actual dev time into modernising the base kit.

With respect to the OP. DK's vary and Blizzard is always quick to pull the trigger on DK nerfs, people like to pretend it's because of wrath so that's as good a reason as any.
Generally for raiding DK balance goes: Top 50% tier, at least one fight we can cheese to be gods and overall below average ST, above-average cleave; A Bottom 50% their, dead gutter class except for that one AoE fight.

[Draken4o1]

DK discord and icy veins tier list still showing Frost DK as A tier. Now, not sure after these recent nerfs, but they don’t appear so huge to cry out the sky is falling.

No idea what discord you are following....
The nerfs are live today in beta. 2 hand obliteration is as of this stage dead. It will be playable for people that dont care about performance and want to look cool.. yay! They reverted the nerf of the best legendary, but reducing the uptime of obliteration by 40% an reducing the damage of obliterate by 25% burried the build. That build was A tier for single target fights yes. But As soon as you add second target or cleave situations breath of sindragosa become top again. It was fun to have 2 equal in power builds for different situations. It feels like blizzard just looked at pvp and the bursts dks could do with 15+k obliterates, or the damage metter where obliterate was 40-45% of our overall damage... aaand just "balanced that sh*t out".. Obliterate was the flavour of our spec.. now with all the legendaries/conduits and stuff. its just slightly stronger than frost strike. (on prepatch is weaker than frost strike...) There was nothing wrong to make a build around one ability (look at frost mage and their icelance!!) . Pillar of frost nerf needs to be reverted. 1 min cd unsync-ed our cooldowns. If obliterate damage nerf stays.. other abilities need to get buffed so the consistant damage gameplay is still valuable. Most of the dk players dont like breath of syndragosa gameplay. We want obliteration build that is competitive.

Nerfing the core of the build only because it will rely on borrowed power later is just wrong. Its wrong because its immposible to balance 3 borrowed power systems at once.. ..good luck with that.
From what ive observed from alpha till now, playing and testing.. blizzard burried them self in such a hole and now trying to get out but its too late.
All the dk changes they made feel like 1 step forward 2 steps back.
Just look at unholy dk.... still broken gameplay.. They started fixing stuff and ended up breaking it even more than what it was in bfa. And the main reason i feel is like... they just dont want to listen to the community and trying to think of something new and original. People wanted 2 simple spells off gcd to fix our long opener. Their solution was to add an useless aoe effect to one of them.. and delete the other from the game.... Nice.
They added 4 wounds to unholy frenzy that noone wanted only because in their head its a smooth gameplay options to apply 4 wounds and burst them str8 after with apocalypse. You can witness with that change that blizzard dont play the classes. You need to delay unholy frenzy by 1-2 seconds after you press apocalypse, because the ghouls take 2-3 seconds to raise up from the ground and start hitting target. So u delay UA so they can benefit fully from the haste. All we wanted is the original unholy frenzy off the gcd .. same with recklessness and pillar and bunch of other short duration buffs in the game.. but no.
So yeah.. the sky is falling for a lot of us.. if we are forced to play broken cl till the end of the expansion.

[Eapoe]

No idea what discord you are following....
The nerfs are live today in beta. 2 hand obliteration is as of this stage dead. It will be playable for people that dont care about performance and want to look cool.. yay! They reverted the nerf of the best legendary, but reducing the uptime of obliteration by 40% an reducing the damage of obliterate by 25% burried the build. That build was A tier for single target fights yes. But As soon as you add second target or cleave situations breath of sindragosa become top again. It was fun to have 2 equal in power builds for different situations. It feels like blizzard just looked at pvp and the bursts dks could do with 15+k obliterates, or the damage metter where obliterate was 40-45% of our overall damage... aaand just "balanced that sh*t out".. Obliterate was the flavour of our spec.. now with all the legendaries/conduits and stuff. its just slightly stronger than frost strike. (on prepatch is weaker than frost strike...) There was nothing wrong to make a build around one ability (look at frost mage and their icelance!!) . Pillar of frost nerf needs to be reverted. 1 min cd unsync-ed our cooldowns. If obliterate damage nerf stays.. other abilities need to get buffed so the consistant damage gameplay is still valuable. Most of the dk players dont like breath of syndragosa gameplay. We want obliteration build that is competitive.

Nerfing the core of the build only because it will rely on borrowed power later is just wrong. Its wrong because its immposible to balance 3 borrowed power systems at once.. ..good luck with that.
From what ive observed from alpha till now, playing and testing.. blizzard burried them self in such a hole and now trying to get out but its too late.
All the dk changes they made feel like 1 step forward 2 steps back.
Just look at unholy dk.... still broken gameplay.. They started fixing stuff and ended up breaking it even more than what it was in bfa. And the main reason i feel is like... they just dont want to listen to the community and trying to think of something new and original. People wanted 2 simple spells off gcd to fix our long opener. Their solution was to add an useless aoe effect to one of them.. and delete the other from the game.... Nice.
They added 4 wounds to unholy frenzy that noone wanted only because in their head its a smooth gameplay options to apply 4 wounds and burst them str8 after with apocalypse. You can witness with that change that blizzard dont play the classes. You need to delay unholy frenzy by 1-2 seconds after you press apocalypse, because the ghouls take 2-3 seconds to raise up from the ground and start hitting target. So u delay UA so they can benefit fully from the haste. All we wanted is the original unholy frenzy off the gcd .. same with recklessness and pillar and bunch of other short duration buffs in the game.. but no.
So yeah.. the sky is falling for a lot of us.. if we are forced to play broken cl till the end of the expansion.

Following the one where Frost Main channel there is t anyone talking doom and gloom and still discussing things.

[Blofeld]

A question about something else: does anyone know how either frost or unholy's doing in M+? I haven't seen any of them on beta/pre-patch streams, only specs who's woefully untuned. I usually enjoyed pushing keys with unholy, and it seems it will be better in SL with epidemic and such. Or...?

[Synical123]

Sort of a bummer I was wanting 2h frost to be my alt along side my priest. Maybe I just won’t have an alt this expansion. If 2h frost is actually this weak now I feel no need to forcing a circle through a square. Honestly from the light research I did prior to this nerf they didn’t even seem that crazy tbh.

[Raisei]

Sort of a bummer I was wanting 2h frost to be my alt along side my priest. Maybe I just won’t have an alt this expansion. If 2h frost is actually this weak now I feel no need to forcing a circle through a square. Honestly from the light research I did prior to this nerf they didn’t even seem that crazy tbh.

Don't put too much faith into some complainers. The tuning is still on-going and will be going at least for the duration of the first raid. Nothing we see atm is final.

For me it is not so much about numbers, but also about the feel of the spec and 2H Forst feels so much better then dual-wield. I will try it out for myself for sure. Atm I am playing the spec as the WoWhead guide suggests, since we are lacking the higher level passives that make 2H Obliteration really strong, but even playing it with Breath feels great.

Thanks to the GCD changes we can literally bind all DpS CDs into a Macro with Breath. Pillar, Hypothermic, Raise Dead and starting Breath in one Button. Runeblade could theoretically be added too, but serves as a nice CD a few seconds into Breath, when Hypo stops and you are slowly getting desperate for extra RP.

Tuning and simming will show if and how the spec is still A-tier. Frankly if it is really so bad that you either go Dual-Wield or not use it, I will go Unholy again.

I can't stand twirling those toothpicks as DK.

[Bisque]

I assume all the nerfs, tuning changes are for level 60 endgame so for those with Beta access, those dks who are level 60 who have unlocked the 2nd rank of obliteration, the rank that allows Obliterate to do frost damage, how are Frost dks at 60? Are the oblit build, icecap and breath build closer to another? Do frost dks still feel underwhelming at level 60 (because they sure do in pre-patch)?