9.0 and beyond?!

[Rustaclut0]

Good Afternoon (from the UK)

I would just like to hear everyones opinion on what you personally would like to see change in terms of the Death Knight class in the upcoming 9.0 and the next expansion as Blizzard have made it clear they're not doing any "major" changes until the next expan.

Unholy - I would like to see a switch away from mele damage and bring the class back to a disease based class along the lines or Cata festerblight build, the current dot system DK is boring and linear surely they can do better then this, also haste why is this not effecting our dots?

Frost - Personally i don't enjoy the BOS build and playstyle, spec feels weak and sh*t outside of BOS and with FS and Obliterate hitting like wet noodles the class has lost so much of its unrelenting feel and feels like a combat rogue with.

Blood - I dont personally play much blood and i kind of enjoy it when i do currently so i dont have much to say about this spec.

Please have a discussion about this below and dont get into arguments about what is and could be its just a matter of opinions

Thanks,

[Thraenduil]

First up, Frost and unholy should get gorefiend's grasp back.Then they should make all specs able to dualwield or use 2-hander. After that it gets tricky because Death Strike is the only button DKs share in their rotation if you leave utility out. Since DKs choose a spec right after starting out, they get their own rotation going instantly. Their playstyles are also so different that sharing any of those spec-speficic buttons just feels wrong.

Death knight also could have another problem in 9.0 and beyond. If level squish happened, how would it change leveling experience? As i said before, DKs get almost all of their rotation in first hour of gameplay as rewards for quests. This made sense in Wrath where there wasn't so much to level. But in the future if Dks start, say around lvl 18-22 in squished World, they would have so much more room to grow. Getting new skills and talents could be widened across more levels.

For that to happen, Blizzard must change the starting area and leave some of the rewarded skills to be acquired later in game. Frost for example can manage with just Obliterate, FS and Death strike at start. Also, if BLizzard wants specs to have more shared skills, they need to add several new abilities or change some of the current ones.

Army of the dead, Dancing Rune weapon, Empower Rune weapon and maybe Raise Dead could be made to universal skills for DK.

TLR: Besides Gorefiend, DKs differentiate too much for further skill-sharing to happen without big changes to overall image of class and their skill allocation.

[msdos]

Blood needs some of their parry talents back. You used to have layers of mitigation with Blood and could work with that coupled with your giant health pool and short term, burst cds like Rune Tap and Blood Tap and ERW.

Unholy and Frost are decent in the resource department these days, it's Blood that feels awkward, especially if you're not at 20% haste. A tank desiring that much haste to feel good or even function is kinda bad.
I hate how Blood is just a bunch of useless talents surrounded by Death Strike. Notice how only one talent actually affects Death Strike directly. They should scrap all that useless filler garbage and replace it all with Blood Tap, Blade Barrier, leave Tombstone, maybe something that increases your HP for every few points of STR you have (Abomination's Might).
You could fill Blood's talent tree with a bunch of abilities that do different things, kinda like Rune Strike. Maybe have a dot that is basically Unstable Affliction, but regenerates our runes at the end of if its cycle so we have to time it properly (bring dot management back).