Propositions to fix the DK problem.

[Malgru]

Hi. As you may have noticed through skirmishes, Dk's are in an odd situation. Although not receiving any direct damage buffs or incredible abilities, DK's have become one of the strongest melees in the game, standing next to ret, feral, and prot warriors. Although with the Nov 25th hotfixes, feral offhealing has been tuned down (although still arguably strong, but we will have to see in the future) and prot warrior damage has been reduced, making both specs more in line. However, there were no changes to DKs. With the changes of CC in wod, the dk class has become incredibly strong.

• The removal of disarms allows for DK's to have a much stronger presence against classes such as rogues, warriors, monks, and the occasional hunter or warlock. In MOP, DK's were the only melee faced with a full 8 second disarm without sacrificing a massive portion of their damage (you would lose 15% str proc that had a very high uptime). Going with a disarm reduction was simply not worth losing that much str in order to reduce disarm duration by four seconds. However, since no classes have disarms now, DK's are much harder to contain when they are on a rampage all over your healer or wizard.
• The removal of a large amount of blanket silences has also influenced DKs. Previously, you could blanket a DK in order to prevent very important defensives, such as IBF, AMS, lichborne, and Desecrated Ground, or offensive ones, such as Gorefiend's Grasp (Aoe grip), Death grip, and lich borne. (I did not mention death strike in the disarm bullet since it healed for near nothing in MOP with a high rune cost. I'm not sure how it compares in WOD yet, but it heals for ~10% of my hp in 618 ilvl pve gear.) With warlocks, hunters, and monks (both ring of peace and their regular blanket) losing their blanket, it is much harder to secure a kill on a dk. The only remaining silences are Garrote, priest Silence, Strangulate (which no dk in their right mind would take unless playing against melee cleave in rbg), and Solar Beam (unreliable as is, but can be very effective). This means that DKs are no longer able to be absolutely demolished in a blanket, which was one of their biggest weaknesses in MOP.
• The reduction of general CC's in the game has also yielded positive results for DK's. Due to their biggest weaknesses going down in frequency (disarm / blankets), DK's are able to run rampant throughout the game. AMS can prevent all spell CCs for five seconds, IBF grants immunity to all stuns for twelve, Desecrated ground grants immunity to ALL cc for 10 seconds (it was buffed in wod - it now breaks roots as well!), lichborne grants immunity to fear for twelve seconds, and DK's have the option of going for the regular PVP trinket for more CC breaking, or with a damage trinket for higher pressure.
• With necrotic strike going away, DKs now spend much more runes (death runes can be used for any ability - this was the rune that used to be used for necrotic) on damaging abilities, which greatly increases the pressure they put out. No, it does not provide the same type of pressure that necrotic once did, but i fear for the rot cleaves that may terrorize the arena, such as boomkin-dk (boomies are very strong at the moment), shadowcleave (with the recent affliction buffs we will have to see how it turns out), or shadowplay (i have not yet seen spriest-dk played yet - it could be terrible).
• Due to the nature of DKs being able to throw out both single target and aoe pressure (gargoyle hits like a truck, and if you shut down a healer then it leaves the dk's dots and a wizards dots to wear away at the healer's partners), dk's can fit into nearly any 3v3 comp. This means that there will nearly always be some type of comp that a dk can play to high rating. Although dk's were rare to see on the ladder in s15, phdk could terrorize your team if you did not play against it correctly, and often forced teams in the US attempting to get 3k rating to dodge for hours due to 2700-2800 phdk's randomly beating everyone with a bit of RNG crits or lucky traps. Now that we see other specs on the rise to viability, we will see more dk comps on the ladder - Ret-DK (incredibly strong atm), TSG (with the nerf to prot we will have to see how it winds up, but I expect arms or fury to be buffed soon), DK-boomie, shadowcleave (recent warlock buffs make this look strong), DK-mage, phdk, dk-monk (can be very strong if played correctly, but suffers against cc on the WW).
• (Some points I expanded on were originally posted by Dillypoo here)

The general design of the DK class has been reduced to this simple playstyle - do damage, break CC, and then kill your healer. Dk's have been notorious for their ability to kill healers and shut down wizards since their release, and none of that has changed. Although having no real AOE cc (remorseless winter is ridiculously unreliable and honestly just sucks) and their second death grip being removed, their single target pressure is beyond insane. Mind freeze, death grip, asphyxiate, pet stun, then their partner comes in and puts in an interrupt, then mind freeze again. By the end of that, the target is usually dead if cooldowns are used by the dk and partner. It is difficult to peel off a dk due to points I made above - AMS, IBF, lichborne, 2 trinkets. Combine that with a ret's powers - freedoms, BOP to break physical CCs, Sac to break cc on the ret to provide more uptime - and you are faced with a very difficult time surviving as a caster. The point is - DK's have very little counterplay to them right now. There are not many things to choose from in this game compared to other PVP games (DOTA2, LoL). Those games have a constantly shifting meta with a large amount of opportunities for counterplay (yes, sometimes those games are very set in stone with the meta for a period of time, but it will always change). Compare this to WoW, and the only counterplay you can take is changing a couple talents or glyphs, but you can't sacrifice too much of what you have or else you'll lose extremely important abilities. Additionally, DK's have very little peel potential for their partners if against teams that have rets, ww's, warriors, or other dks.

I suggest this - change many of the talents for DK's. Changes should be made to the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th tier of talents, and some general abilities should be changed, specifically IBF, AMS, and Strangulate. I have proposed a few changes below.

• Lichborne has been changed. It no longer increases leech by 10%, but instead increases healing taken by 15% during the duration. Additionally, it no longer grants immunity to Fear, Charm, and sleep effects, but will break them upon use. Cooldown increased from 120 seconds to 135 seconds.
• Anti-Magic Zone has been removed.
• New talent in place of Anti Magic Zone. Increases movement speed of a target ally by 50% for 6 seconds and grants them 15% increased healing taken for the duration. Cannot be used on the player. 90 second cooldown, 30 yard range.
• Purgatory has been changed. Instead of its current effect, it now brings the DK up to 15% hp upon receiving a fatal attack and threat levels by 90% for all mobs in the area (for unholy / frost), or reset the cooldown on Rune Tap and make the next Rune Tap and Death strike free of cost (for blood). Cooldown has been reduced to 120 seconds.
• Death's Advance active effect has been changed. Instead of its current effect, it increases movespeed by 70% for 8 seconds, but you lose the passive effect while it is on cooldown. Cooldown increased to 45 seconds.
• Chillblains movespeed slow duration has been reduced to six seconds.
• Asphyxiate has been removed.
• New talent in place of Asphyxiate. Passive - Death grip cooldown reduced by 10 seconds, but allows the target to cast while moving towards the DK.
• Strangulate no longer has a cost and reduces target movespeed by 70% for 2 seconds in addition to its current effects.
• Glyph of Strangulate has been removed.
• All level 90 talents have been removed. (rbg exploits no more!)
• New talent in place of Gorefiend's Grasp. Passive effect - Death grip now has two charges, but cooldown is increased by 5 seconds.
• New talent in place of Remorseless Winter. Bombard the souls of nearby enemies (within 10 yards) with horror, causing them to be feared for 4 seconds. 60 second cooldown.
• New talent in place of Desecrated Ground. Hungering Cold has been re-added to the game, without a cast time. 10 yard range, 45 second cooldown, 6 second duration, breaks on non-periodic damage. Shares DR with Polymorph DR (includes trap / ring of frost / hex / etc)
• Icebound Fortitude no longer grants immunity to stuns and will not break stuns upon use. Damage reduction increased to 40% for 12 seconds.
• Anti Magic Shell no longer prevents application of magic effect CCs (and also hex / cyclone / narrow escape). Duration increased to 8 seconds. (Now it is only used to generate RP or mitigate magic damage taken)
• Obliterate, Howling Blast, and Festering Strike have all had their damage *MARGINALLY* reduced.

Let me know what you think of the proposed changes and overall the design of the dk class. I hoped for these propositions to allow for better peel potential so that DK's no longer have to focus on constant offensive pressure, and also to reduce some of the frustration that wizards have while playing against them. These changes also allow for DKs to have some utility to them, especially in RBGs or raids, so that they aren't only brought along for AOE grip and stupid amounts of damage.

Open to any constructive criticism. Thank you for reading.

[Aryah]

I think most DKs can agree that the class design is very flawed i.e. Do lots of damage and try your best not to be controlled. I do however think that the community in general is being a little dramatic when it comes to the DK class and it's effectiveness at the moment. Let's have a look at the points:

1. DKs were disgustingly vulnerable to disarms. It basically made frost useless against any class with disarm and was a huge burden for unholy as well. This needed to happen regardless of any other change.

2. This was good for the game in general and definitely needed to happen. Paladins desperately needed this too.

3. Desecrate ground only makes the DK immune to cc in the small area in which it casts it. It's quite a big distinction because you're rarely able to sit in the area after casting it. It's a little dramatic to say that DKs can run rampant. Having said that, I believe the buff to desecrate removing roots was needed in a less than ideal world, but more on that in a bit.

4. Necrotic strike was a nice mechanic for DKs and I was sad to see it go; I personally enjoyed using it. Unholy is definitely weaker because of it. Trust me when I say that the community should be very thankful that it's gone. This was definitely a nerf and saying that it's somehow a buff because of DKs seeking alternative comps and having more runes to spend doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.

5. Well, DKs have a lot of viable comps for once. Having played DK since WotLK I am glad to see this for the first time since early WotLK seasons (except maybe early Cata). Many classes have enjoyed a wide variety of comps so why can't DKs now as well? I've stuck by my class and it's nice to be in the spotlight for once. I hardly think their comp viability or synergy with one class is reason enough to criticize.

I completely agree with the flawed mechanics of the DK though; it makes balancing DKs very difficult and the play style isn't as fun. I mostly disagree with your proposed changes.

* They need to remove the leech from lichborne. What were they thinking with that? I want the death coil self healing back for frost. Glad its still there for blood and unholy.
* Remove the current desecrated ground! Give us the old desecrate ground back!
* Give back hungering cold. I'll even take it with a cast time.
* Remorseless winter makes me feel like the Lich King. I want this ability purely for its coolness and design. Also I can make it work with chilblains against melee cleaves.
* Tone down the damage a bit.

With those changes I think DKs will be fun and in a good spot.

I'll be honest. I'm really glad that DKs are in a good spot now. I stuck with my DK for a long time and MoP was really rough (I didn't play much RBG). I'm so desperate after MoP that I'll take the flawed DK just to be more viable again.

Currently frost DKs are very good because of a combination of early expansion low stats and the killing machine mechanic. Frost does not scale well at all and killing machine makes that fine when everyone's stats are low. You will see as the expansion goes on frost will become less viable. Unholy will start to become more prominent then I think because it scales just fine.

It's maybe a little early to really tell what's going to happen though. Once season starts we'll see if they're as broken as what everyone thinks. In skirmishes I still have a very frustrating time unless I queue with specific classes and I just get controlled all the time. As people get used to how DKs work now it will start to get easier for them. Maybe if things don't change a nerf is in order, but I don't think it's necessary at the moment. I mean, we're not dealing with early MoP warriors and hunters or god comp. That was some ridiculous stuff right there.

Your profile seems to be centered around DKs but I think your hunter side is giving you an anti-DK agenda. Hunters aren't in a great spot at the moment and that's fine, but don't base your criticism on a class on how your own class is currently doing. If my assumption is wrong then fine.

[Malgru]

You make fair points. I guess every dk has just a different playstyle - I would also kill to have the old Desecrated Ground back, I forgot about that actually. I meant that the necrotic removal is a buff to aoe cleaves, not to single target burst cleaves. Sorry if that came off wrong. There are pros and cons to it, really.

Also, lichborne heal is not there for any spec. Not unholy or blood. None. If it is, then the tooltip doesn't state it. I haven't even played frost this expac, so I'm not mixing the specs up. edit: im wrong

But yeah, frost will fall off in a couple seasons and unholy will start getting better. The same thing happened in mop, except with the aid of seemingly random buffs and nerfs to unholy and frost respectively. The scaling would have fixed the damage anyway.

Yes, I agree that DKs arent nearly as bad as what KFC was or beastcleave or turbo was. And I haven't played my hunter since s12, dunno. My post could be better, yeah. Overall, I just really want some changes to dk's. I love the class but hate the playstyle that we've shifted to. I also really dislike frost, so my post was mainly centered towards unholy.

Here's the thing: although dk's are not in a spot that warriors/hunters/enhance was in 5.0, they are still a notch above the others (aside from rets or ferals). But just because something isn't ridiculously broken doesn't mean it isn't broken, and broken also does not mean OP. I, personally, would call MOP Rets broken. They were so unbelievably awful. Could also call ele in MOP broken. The word can go both ways, I guess. I just want a game where there isn't an obvious FOTM. But uh, I don't think that'll happen in this game until they introduce different damage and healing for PVP / PVE, which they refuse to do.

[zoomgpally]

If warriors or mages are FOTM(or year), people just reroll to them
If DKs or shadowpriests are FOTM, people complain

I've already seen more complaints about dks being op in wod than I ever saw about warriors literally oneshotting people in 5.0

[Deleted]

SO.... I have a deep love for our DK class. It is my most played, I did also almost level all classes to 90 in late mop just because I was bored and had nobody to arena with. I'm roughly 2.3k rated in mop as DK but that doesn't matter. When necrotic was removed, i thought, this wont work anymore, removing my beloved spell :'(

So I spent most of 2014 playing a druid and leveled it to 100, but right not leveling my DK afterall the last few days before new season. Somehow DK's seem very strong and I can't deny missing being it so I'll give it a go, yes they seem very strong. But every dk I met 1v1 as Boomkin I had no problem with. Putting dk, ret, disc in 3v3s will be scary as hell though, I don't know how to balance them. Why change so much as they do, removing the healing absorbing unholy playstyle? Now it's just about damage. I think we should wait some more weeks and see where the classes stands.

Going from MoP Boomkin to WoD Boomkin have been extremely horrible, went from neverdie class, and perhaps the strongest class by the end of MoP... to healing 20k on healing touch and ONE defensive, I die so stupidly fast as boomkin right now, and it's funny since they're still strong. Then i see all melee classes running around healing full easily, and no I don't enjoy feral I felt ashamed playing feral in wod. Tried coliseum arena and it was a walk in the park as feral. They got their healing toned down, glad warriors got damage nerf, ret and dk are pretty much untouched. You think they'll do more balancing before season 16?

[Aryah]

Also, lichborne heal is not there for any spec. Not unholy or blood. None. If it is, then the tooltip doesn't state it. I haven't even played frost this expac, so I'm not mixing the specs up.

Currently blood and unholy can self heal with death coil and lich. Frost only gets the leach. 100% confirmed; I use it all the time.

Yes, I agree that DKs arent nearly as bad as what KFC was or beastcleave or turbo was. And I haven't played my hunter since s12, dunno. My post could be better, yeah. Overall, I just really want some changes to dk's. I love the class but hate the playstyle that we've shifted to. I also really dislike frost, so my post was mainly centered towards unholy.

Here's the thing: although dk's are not in a spot that warriors/hunters/enhance was in 5.0, they are still a notch above the others (aside from rets or ferals). But just because something isn't ridiculously broken doesn't mean it isn't broken, and broken also does not mean OP. I, personally, would call MOP Rets broken. They were so unbelievably awful. Could also call ele in MOP broken. The word can go both ways, I guess. I just want a game where there isn't an obvious FOTM. But uh, I don't think that'll happen in this game until they introduce different damage and healing for PVP / PVE, which they refuse to do.

DKs are up there, but I'm okay with that. They've been one of the arena runts for such a long time that I'll take what I can get.

If warriors or mages are FOTM(or year), people just reroll to them
If DKs or shadowpriests are FOTM, people complain

I've already seen more complaints about dks being op in wod than I ever saw about warriors literally oneshotting people in 5.0

I saw some really big uproars and hilarious videos about hunters and warriors in early MoP :P

Also I've seen a lot of bad fotm DKs. People should be taking advantage of them.

[Saverem]

Tell you what, nerf our survivability in PvP, but in exchange, give us a mobility buff so we can at least compete with the other melees in that area.


Fucking tired of getting pillar'd by literally every other class in the game.

Death's Advance is shit. 25s CD Death Grip is shit. Ranged snare that shares runes with DPS rotation and is dispellable is shit.

[Aryah]

Fucking tired of getting pillar'd by literally every other class in the game.

Death's Advance is shit. 25s CD Death Grip is shit. Ranged snare that shares runes with DPS rotation and is dispellable is shit.

This is what hasn't changed in WoD. I'm still worried this is going to be my life in arena honestly. Very frustrating gameplay...

[zoomgpally]

Tell you what, nerf our survivability in PvP, but in exchange, give us a mobility buff so we can at least compete with the other melees in that area.


Fucking tired of getting pillar'd by literally every other class in the game.

Death's Advance is shit. 25s CD Death Grip is shit. Ranged snare that shares runes with DPS rotation and is dispellable is shit.

Agree with this, DA is the only sprint not worthy of being called a sprint

[Malgru]

Currently blood and unholy can self heal with death coil and lich. Frost only gets the leach. 100% confirmed; I use it all the time.

My fault then. It doesn't state it in the tooltip and I asked a friend, and I just never tried it since I assumed both were correct.

I saw some really big uproars and hilarious videos about hunters and warriors in early MoP :P

Those were fantastic.

[pinkz]

curious what the OP is playing

looking at 3's for the past most recent expacs

in CATA when they had the cash comp for 3's, all the top ten teams were mage, res sham, warlock with only 1 team having a warrior in place of a warlock
in MOP seems that comp carried thru, at blizzcon the top US team was mage, res sham, warlock but switched to a WW inplace of monk, losing to EU team that also had a res sham, warlock, with a bal druid instead of a mage (rare)

rogues got too much credit in BC, it was mages and fotm healers that were OP. in WotLK mages and priest were so OP rather than nerf them, blizz declared they will remove team ratings from 2's and they only balance 3's and higher. problem lies if classes in a group of 2 are OP it carries imbalance into 3's and above

i would like to see for once anything but mage, res sham, insert FOTM dps this expac

[Hand Banana]

Dks biggest weakness is still the same. CC/root/kite and ignore them. Played a few skirms and dks are pretty strong but still need to be dispel babysat or they don't catch anything. They are still extremely positional-heavy in terms of their dps and surviability since their mobility is trashticles. The problem is you give them classes that offset this weakness like rets, or babysitting specs like booms, and they are a problem.

[Kapaya]

From someone who plays PvE, all I can say is to gtfo with those dumb changes of yours. No offense, but you'd kill the DK class in PvE pretty much.

Also, IBF is 8 seconds now.

[Aryah]

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all I can say is to gtfo with those dumb changes of yours.

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[Malgru]

curious what the OP is playing

looking at 3's for the past most recent expacs

in CATA when they had the cash comp for 3's, all the top ten teams were mage, res sham, warlock with only 1 team having a warrior in place of a warlock
in MOP seems that comp carried thru, at blizzcon the top US team was mage, res sham, warlock but switched to a WW inplace of monk, losing to EU team that also had a res sham, warlock, with a bal druid instead of a mage (rare)

rogues got too much credit in BC, it was mages and fotm healers that were OP. in WotLK mages and priest were so OP rather than nerf them, blizz declared they will remove team ratings from 2's and they only balance 3's and higher. problem lies if classes in a group of 2 are OP it carries imbalance into 3's and above

i would like to see for once anything but mage, res sham, insert FOTM dps this expac

Well, you can tell I play DK, from my avatar...

But in Cata, I remember the best comps were RLS, LSD2, RLS, MLS, RMP, shadowplay, Ret dk priest, PHDk (to some effectiveness), KFC & jungle(semi-top tier), and even ret-rogue-hunter. There is no way that the top ten teams only had MLS and 1 WLS. There were plenty of other comps that got r1.

MOP had thug, KFC, phdk, LSD, LSD2, RMP (semi-top tier), jungle, and beast. Those were pretty much all you saw at the top of the ladder. Sometimes an RLS thrown in there by samx or something and an HLS from maldiva.

From someone who plays PvE, all I can say is to gtfo with those dumb changes of yours. No offense, but you'd kill the DK class in PvE pretty much.

Also, IBF is 8 seconds now.

I made no changes to damage. I probably increased the utility of the class. AMZ absorbs hardly anything, lichborne is rarely used (and 10% leech is barely anything), Purgatory could stay yeah but it's awful in PVP, AOE grip is only used on trash, Remorseless Winter is only used on trash, Desecrated ground is nearly never used, Asphyx is only used on trash, AMS is only used to mitigate and generate RP and not to prevent CC, IBF is never used to break a stun unless on a heroic dungeon boss or trash... you see the pattern? I didn't change any of the rune talents nor the level 100 talents, damage would not change. Utility would probably increase.

Anyway.

[Emophia]

Problem with DKs is the 50 trinkets.

Remove Desecrated ground, make ibf premeditated like before and DKs are fine.

[Lulbalance]

The problem with dks is everyone else's gear... Game play and QoL issues I won't pretend to Know about since I haven't had a dk since early wrath .

[Deleted]

At the moment, not a single spec or class cleaves my face as fast as frost dk. Thanks to an amazing 15% cloth damage reduction, I can lose half my hp in just 2 seconds thanks to obliterates critting for 50-80k. The 50% heal on a low cooldown is also absolutely crazy.

A lot of specs are like this though, rogues, MM hunters with crows, glad stance, ret pala while others are incapable of doing damage.

[Eruntien]

The ways you suggest to "fix" DK would ruin the class, every other class has a stun so why should we not?

Removing AMZ is unfair to PVE

there are many more sisues with all your changes but if any of this went through it would make DK flat out worse warriors

[Aryah]

Problem with DKs is the 50 trinkets.

Remove Desecrated ground, make ibf premeditated like before and DKs are fine.

I'm totally okay with this. Just add some more utility on the back of it.