Necrotic Strike Removal

[Tyrean]

So first of all, I understand that not all changes are in yet I am more interested in what the role of a DK will be in the WoD meta game in PvP. I think a lot of the discussion in the changes thread about Necro is more from a PvE stand point and some people don't understand what necro means to a DK. I guess first of all I should point out the very few reasons DKs are brought into rated play right now:

RBG:
Dks are brought in for massive spread pressure, death grip, and pre-stacking necro on kill targets. As I understand it so far, we will still do a lot of damage and still retain death grip so it might not be a huge loss here. In RBG settings it is actually somewhat hard to get a proper stack on a kill target simply because of all the "smart" aoe healing being thrown around. I can say though, that many a game I have played has been won because we got a good kill on a target that was wounded but with a giant necro stack that could not be recovered from once we switched to them.

2v2:
Necro is currently huge here and pretty much the only way a DK can land a kill. It is unlikely that you can run double dps as a DK to any high rating, mostly because of the DK defensive toolkit being so slim. So in order to land a kill mostly solo as a DK you have to have to use necro wisely. The difference between a good DK and a beast is when they choose to stack up a big necro. Frost suffers from being able to do huge amounts of spike damage, but not quite enough to finish a target before they run out of runes, so most 2v2 play is unholy. Unholy is built around constant pressure and in order to land kills they need necro to protect soul reaper and to a larger effect make all those small ticks of pet, dot, strike damage amount to something scary to heal when behind a healing absorb. Without necro all those small hits are easily swatted away and unholy would need some serious big guns which would put them into season 5 mode with the garg, pet, diseases and then hard hitting strikes as well.

3v3:
It is much the same as 2v2 except your main job is to facilitate kills for your dps partner. Necro is how you do that right now because of the necro mechanic absorb not being affected by defensive CDs. You and your hunter/war partner start in on a target and when they pop defensives that is when you keep pressure on them with necro while your partner locks down the heals. Then when their defenses are down they have a giant stack, your partner starts back and the target most of the time dies.


The problem I think with the current discussion is that lots of people seem to think that necro is just damage in a different form. So why not just replace it with regular damage? Necro does not work that way, and people that use necro as just regular "delayed" damage are basically using it wrong. Necro has a couple of main uses:

1.) Delayed damage that is not readily apparent. This is in the case of large skirmishes where the healer will not see a target as being in trouble until they have a large deficit to make up.
2.) Keeping pressure up through defensive cooldowns. This is the real big benefit of necro, something that normal damage just cannot do.
3.) Covering DK execute mechanics. Soul reaper sucks pretty bad. We have to have necro stacks to keep people in that range long enough for soul reaper to proc. Even then it does not mean a kill, just more pressure.
4.) Assisting partners by artificially keeping a target in execute range. With the way healing works if necro were just straight damage then targets would get healed out of execute range pretty quickly which reduces your damage and your partners (in most cases).


Now the interesting thing that I would like to discuss is where will DKs fit into the WoD meta? If it is true that healing will be less whack a mole from 20% to full and more triage healing, then I understand how necro would be too strong. I don't think they will ever get healing into that state though because they have said time and time again they want to do this and all we get is more burst. Without necro what does a DK bring? death grip? damage? Why bring one of the squishiest classes if all they can do is damage? We have no CC, we are the least mobile melee by a long shot, when focused it not only tanks our damage but we just fold over and die... so what is the point of bringing a DK if they don't have the one thing that they were brought for anymore?

[GodEmperor]

Good post, hope they change their mind about removing NS. I don't even like using Scourge Strike in PvP and they will never buff it to be as good as NS because it only needs an unholy rune. Getting death runes and spamming SS will feel almost the same as warrior Slam-spam which is dumb. Inb4 warrior don't have good dots like dk. Half of their damage comes from spreading undispellable Deep Wounds.

Biggest 'wat' was when I saw Holinka retweeted that NS is redundant.

[Deleted]

They already have proven to not know anything about how our class works when they claimed Necrotic Strike is equivalent to an MS effect. Still, Necrotic Strike does limit us, taking it away could be a step into the right direction, provided they give us other reasons to get brought along as compensation and make death runes more flexible in their use, and ultimately, the class more flexible in it's actions.

[Tyrean]

I would love to think that removing necrotic frees them up to make us better in general, but we all know that there is no way they will take away and then give something back. I already have not enjoyed all of the skill taken out of playing a DK over the last couple of expansions, I don't want to be even more of a damage bot. It was already hard to overcome the prejudices around DK, and making us into a low skill damage bot by design will make it even harder to find partners or groups. There have been RBG games this season when I was at like 20 KBs with the next highest person on either team being at 5 or 6 and double the damage of the next person and no one thought that was skill, everyone in skype was just "hur hur DK is hard"

What would our niche even be? It certainly won't ever be a mobile melee, that belongs to ferals, warriors, rogues, monks, and rets and to a lesser degree enhance. (hur hur) It won't be a CC class, it won't be a tanky class... what will it be?

[ymirsson]

What would our niche even be? It certainly won't ever be a mobile melee, that belongs to ferals, warriors, rogues, monks, and rets and to a lesser degree enhance. (hur hur) It won't be a CC class, it won't be a tanky class... what will it be?

SO, are there even non mobile melees?

[Nomisno]

What would our niche even be? It certainly won't ever be a mobile melee, that belongs to ferals, warriors, rogues, monks, and rets and to a lesser degree enhance. (hur hur) It won't be a CC class, it won't be a tanky class... what will it be?

Why not a tanky class?

Also they COULD give us actual mobility (1. make DA baseline, 2. increase the speed boost a bit, 3. ???, 4. mobile profit), but meh, we have DC and grip, that is totally enough.

[Tyrean]

SO, are there even non mobile melees?

Yeah, my joke was that DK is the only one. But it is okay because we have ranged damage!!!! Enhance only has a few outs as well, but all those other melee have multiple options to get out of snares and roots, and even have some options to close gaps in a hurry or to get away in a hurry.

[Nomisno]

it is okay because we have ranged damage!!!!

True! IT totally makes out for that. Who needs to touch frost mages anyway?

[Kezotar]

Blizzard is too much trying to balance the game with the perspective of having EVERY class homogenized.
The removal of NS will break unholy for PvP; our diseases don't do enough damage, our gargoyle is on cd and can be easily handled and tbh, it's a pet.

Either way, Blizzard has to stop with this madness, they totally change the playstyle after every expansion. Feels like I'm playing another class, it's totally a mess.

[Super Kami Dende]

I do love every Alpha complaint thread that uses how our Class work now as a basis for how bad they will be in WoD

[Dnusha]

Bring back necrotic strike or riot.

[Adrim]

I too think removing Necrotic Strike is stupid because it's one half of an unfinished promise. It's the girl giving up sex because the guy swears he'll marry her after.

The promise in this case is that WoD healing with neither be 1) overwhelmingly instant and 2) overwhelmingly effective. My limited experience with PvP has taught me to be hugely suspicious. People can outrange DKs so quickly that even bandaids become a viable source of healing against them.

All I can say is that Arenas and Rated BGs better be a team full of half health players running around with healers freaking the fuck out trying to triage and prioritize where to send their long cast heals. Because that's what they sound like they are promising. I for one do not believe them because my very first introduction to PvP healing was watching 2-3 druids sitting in the courtyard of Wintergrasp keep an entire raid of 40 people alive while strolling through every stacked AoE on the planet.

[Crovyn]

News from a tweet? Don't see the removal anywhere: http://wod.wowhead.com/guide=2297#sp...ations-removed

[Kraeth]

News from a tweet? Don't see the removal anywhere

It's from alpha, WoWHead prolly doesn't have the datamine yet.

[Volitar]

I'm happy to see it go.

[Crovyn]

I'm happy to see it go.

because you are not a DK

It's from alpha, WoWHead prolly doesn't have the datamine yet.

I hope that was just a weird test...

I have no problem with them doing something against ability bloat, but taking away tactical abilities like this IS dumbing the game down. I am very concerned about WOD. I was hopeful and happy before (so glad to get out of the panda / monkey / rat /rabbit land), but in the last few weeks ...

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s
An truly unique spell gone!

Is it just me or are they just going too far when they are removing cool class spells like this? (Even dumber than merging passives)

[Challenge]

This is actually a very good change mechanically (if they follow through), but bad flavour wise, since the NS effect was pretty unique.

[Volitar]

because you are not a DK




I hope that was just a weird test...

I have no problem with them doing something against ability bloat, but taking away tactical abilities like this IS dumbing the game down. I am very concerned about WOD. I was hopeful and happy before (so glad to get out of the panda / monkey / rat /rabbit land), but in the last few weeks ...

I have a DK too, still glad its gone.

[Kezotar]

Unholy is the new frost. Two buttons. Next expansion and WoW is being changed into Diablo 3 ..