Current issues with Death Knights overall.

[bals]

I find it odd that no one has mentioned that Control Undead only works in Icecrown and VERY FEW other places, rendering the spell virtually useless at level cap

most of us probably forgot it exists

[Jce]

most of us probably forgot it exists

Heh, I find it ironic that it's even mentioned during the warlock green fire quest, as can be seen here: http://wowpedia.org/Legacy_of_the_Masters_(Part_1)

"In the wake of the Cataclysm, the rising tensions between the Horde and Alliance have driven the greatest heroes of Azeroth to train for war. Warriors have readied their war banners, the Death Knights of Acherus have learned to control the undead and it is even said the Mages are researching ways to undo time itself."

So much for a cool ability..

[bals]

well we are one of two classes without a level 87 skill

[Beefkow]

well we are one of two classes without a level 87 skill

Soul reaper?

[Gorfion]

Isn't soul reaper our lvl 87 ability?

[bals]

yeah, weird, doesn't show up on wowhead
http://www.wowhead.com/class=6#spells:type=7
guess it's under specialization so nevermind

[Jce]

Isn't soul reaper our lvl 87 ability?

Yeah, it is, but I think he's meaning that an execute is something we should have had to begin with. Dk certainly gets the short end of the stick when it comes to the 87 abilities that every class got

[Deleted]

Yeah, it is, but I think he's meaning that an execute is something we should have had to begin with. Dk certainly gets the short end of the stick when it comes to the 87 abilities that every class got

Soul reaper isn't "bad"... It just underperforms (and doesn't feel like it fits) as 2H frost. As unholy, especially mastery stacked (which I still might do in 5.4) it's a joyous moment seeing huge SR crits. As DW it fits the rotation nicely and (at least in 5.3) it's still worth using.

We didn't have an execute from the start, but we did have "merciless combat" which would passively do more damage (with a number of frost spec-related abilities) when the target was below 35% health.

If you want an effective execute that doesn't screw with your rotation then there's only so many options. In 6.0 it could be redesigned in a similar fashion to the old rune strike with your melee attacks having a chance to trigger the Soul Reaper ability when attacking enemies below 35% health and costing runic power to use... It could have a secondary effect like granting a guaranteed proc of whatever level75 talent you've chosen (or 5 blood tap charges /shrug).

I've said it before, but I'll be really surprised if we don't get an AOE runic power dump in 6.0 - seems like the only logical thing left to give us.

Control Undead should seriously be redesigned as a "tame undead" ability, allowing unholy to keep different undead pets. Even if the differences were mainly cosmetic and tamed undead creatures could only fall into a "light armor(rogue)/heavy armor(warrior)/caster(mage)" template. Having the option of a caster rather than a melee pet could potentially fix pet "lag" or pathing issues in PvE.

It would also be nice if there was at least a few spells/effects per raid that you could copy with dark sim :-(

[Deleted]

On the topic of the underused control undead ability I was thinking about Dark Sim the other day.

It's only been useful in 1-2 fights per tier, if that, since it was introduced and at the moment it feels desperately underwhelming. Sure it would be a tiny bit more work for the devs, but giving us an option to steal more spells and having them 'scale' to a reasonable level so they aren't stupidly OP would make me feel a lot better about it rather than not even having it on my bars (as a pve'er).

And yes, I know it's amazingly brilliant in pvp but I can't think of too many spells which have a use for one but are almost completely worthless in the other situation.

[Tatsh]

Please just take away the RP cost for Raise Ally

[st33l]

Please just take away the RP cost for Raise Ally

^^ Seriously. "Yes, yes, I am rezzing him, wait, let me get some runic!"
Geez, why the f would they even add a runic cost for a Brez.