Army of the Dead is a boring cooldown and doesn't need to be in BFA

[franksredhot]

It's an iconic talent for the DK and absolutely should stay. Individuals with only 59 posts and most likely /played on a DK dates only back to MoP shouldn't interject opinion on DKs.

That's obviously not a meaningful metric. Are the coaches of sports teams the best athletes? What makes them competent to tell superior athletes what the best solution is?

By your logic, the employee with the highest seniority should always be making the decisions. You can only come to the gym if you're already in shape.

There is a reason "fresh blood" is an idiom.

[Deleted]

Not sure if it was on mmo I saw this suggestion but would be quite cool if they removed the wounds and made festering strike summon ghouls instead.
The ghouls would be turned into glorifed dots that can be moved the way the current AotD/apoc ghouls are moved (haveing pet attack something) or a new button (lock style)

And if they removed AotD the dmg could be decent as well so you would fear them a bit as well in pvp not that AotD is useable in pvp anyways..

[franksredhot]

Not sure if it was on mmo I saw this suggestion but would be quite cool if they removed the wounds and made festering strike summon ghouls instead.
The ghouls would be turned into glorifed dots that can be moved the way the current AotD/apoc ghouls are moved (haveing pet attack something) or a new button (lock style)

And if they removed AotD the dmg could be decent as well so you would fear them a bit as well in pvp not that AotD is useable in pvp anyways..

Someone on this forum was saying there was an older tier bonus where zombies would proc occasionally. That would be an interesting replacement.

[Rothulean1]

It's an iconic talent for the DK and absolutely should stay. Individuals with only 59 posts and most likely /played on a DK dates only back to MoP shouldn't interject opinion on DKs.

They already tried to take AotD away. It wont happen.

[Leviatharan]

It's frustrating.

Blizzard believes that Army is a pillar of the Death Knight identity, specifically Unholy - and admittedly, I don't disagree with them. It ties back to Raise/Animate Dead from the WC2 and WC3 inspirations for the class, and many of us were instantly taken in by the iconic image of a knight calling a storm of shadow-lightning over the battlefield to summon a horde of minions he controlled, with the knowledge we could do that too.
(This being the age before Stampede and the revamped Demonology Warlock, of course.)

The trouble is that Army has always been little more than a cosmetic skill, due in no small part to the long cooldown. A half-hour channeled cooldown when first released; a 10 minute cooldown today without the T20 bonus - which is easily the longest wait for any single damage cooldown, short of raid utilities. Blizz insists it's supposed to be so important to us, but they refuse to improve its cooldown or exorbitant cost, and even stripped it from two specs.
"Well it's worth more than a Festering Strike and a Scourge Strike!" Once per fight... and barely, at that, given we have to pre-cast it for the full effect.

What frustrates me most of all though? I can absolutely see the potential of Army!

We're the original mass-summoner class, after all. Just badly executed.
With the removal of Apocalypse's CD in BfA, I'd still love to see some method of spamming disposable minions at the enemy like a melee DemoLock, maybe even as a replacement for the RNG-focused Festering Wounds system. Don't need it as a lengthy cooldown, we've already got Gary for that.
Imagine: Replace Festering Strike with a 15 second CD skill with 3 charges, 2 runes apiece, which summons two or three minions. Every time you use Scourge Strike, the cooldown on this attack diminishes by 25%.
Exact same resource consumption rate on the average as Festering Wounds, but we're proactive rather than reactive. Then just bake in minion buffs like "Claw has a chance to make Virulent Plague erupt", replace Wound talents with a few of the Apocalypse traits, maybe even bake in Tak's Command for a full synergy suite.
Boom, done. We still summon and fit the aesthetic, Army is just part of our core rotation.

If they're gonna insist on keeping Army as a cosmetic ability, just make it a friggin' cosmetic ability like Corpse Explosion.

[franksredhot]

Replace Festering Strike with a 15 second CD skill with 3 charges, 2 runes apiece, which summons two or three minions. Every time you use Scourge Strike, the cooldown on this attack diminishes by 25%

This would be a cool talent choice to replace apoc. I really think they are keeping apoc, and we are early in alpha. The fact that they let the question linger is a mistake imo.

[Yhcti]

I'd be happy if it was a 1 button instant click, the channeling bothers me, not sure why... just does.

[Beefkow]

I'd be happy if it was a 1 button instant click, the channeling bothers me, not sure why... just does.

At least it wasn't ACTUALLY CHANNELED (sucks to be interrupted while channeling a 10 min cd), it is instant cast but takes 3 seconds to take full effect.

Anyhow, I still can't state or provide any information as UH has yet to be touched AT ALL.

Crossing my fingers they get rid of that god forsaken festering wounds mechanic.

[Nefarious Tea]

Honestly, Army of the Dead became redundant as soon as Unholy received Apocalypse's artifact ability.

[Nemesquish]

Someone on this forum was saying there was an older tier bonus where zombies would proc occasionally. That would be an interesting replacement.

Yea, I think it was Throne of Thunder 2pc that did it, Honestly it was pretty boring, cause a little troll zombie would just spawn and melee the boss. Nothing fancy, but still around 4-5% damage.

[franksredhot]

At least it wasn't ACTUALLY CHANNELED (sucks to be interrupted while channeling a 10 min cd), it is instant cast but takes 3 seconds to take full effect.

Anyhow, I still can't state or provide any information as UH has yet to be touched AT ALL.

Crossing my fingers they get rid of that god forsaken festering wounds mechanic.

What's your concern with festering wounds?

It seemed to provide a class-fantasy way to solve AOE and also provided the mechanic to make Apoc work. I actually really like it.

[Cosmic Janitor]

What's your concern with festering wounds?

It seemed to provide a class-fantasy way to solve AOE and also provided the mechanic to make Apoc work. I actually really like it.

It's a poor man's old-school combo point system that was implemented after they declared that the way combo points work is no longer sensible in <current year/>. Not to mention it feels more like popping zits than making your oponent's body burst open.

[franksredhot]

I see what you're saying. Yeah rogue, warlock, and feral all get to take their combo points with them when switching enemies. Wounds are really an issue on mythic High Command. Unholy is just not as useful on switching adds that fast.

They could just change the spec to have some passive called "Serated Edge" and justify that we tear the wounds from the target and stick to our weapon.

That would be an improvement. But I think it might be hard to go the other route and tie apoc into runes or runic power, especially if they keep dark arbiter around.

[Kendros]

Its not a boring cooldown, its the coolest ability in the game, the damage and cooldown, however, is very lackluster. Either make it a lot stronger than it is now, bordering being OP and keeping the cd as it is, or decrease the coodown and just buff it little bit.

The real problem is that for a 10 min cd is not of a strong enough spell, its decent with all the artifact traits, but when we lose it will become a meh ability.

[Crutos]

They should just lower the overall damage of the ability, lower the CD and increase it's duration. Let it summon 2 of those archers from "All will Serve" that is NEVER being used. Make the Ghouls put a debuff on the target in some manner like now with the Artifact trait (less powerful so we can have a lower CD), like "necrotic wounds: The claws of your undead minions causes necrosis in the target, bursting a festering wound now does X% of the damage done over Y seconds, stacks up to Z times". You could even make synergy with your pet like "While you Ghoul is under the effect of Dark Transformation the first rake hit after transforming will refresh the duration of Necrotic Wounds, and every X subsequent hit". Or even better let it buff you in some manner, like "Runic corruption has a 100% chance to proc". Of course the Unholy Death Knight master of the undead should gain some sort of buff while he is surrounded by his ghoulish minions.

[Nayami]

Not sure if it was on mmo I saw this suggestion but would be quite cool if they removed the wounds and made festering strike summon ghouls instead.
The ghouls would be turned into glorifed dots that can be moved the way the current AotD/apoc ghouls are moved (haveing pet attack something) or a new button (lock style)

And if they removed AotD the dmg could be decent as well so you would fear them a bit as well in pvp not that AotD is useable in pvp anyways..

This would be really cool especially if we end up losing Apocalypse. It will suck if the only ghouls we can summon are from a 10min cd or just our standard pet summon.