Death Knight - Cataclysm Preview Compilation

[Exclusive]

Still DK's are OP. On youtube you see DK's soloing Magtheridon, Gruuls and many wotlk hc's, i don't see any other class doing that.....

Paladins were already solo'ing stuff before DK's even existed.
Nothing to do with being OP, just has to do with a class having ways to avoid incoming damage and to heal him/herself up.

OP would be if a shit geared DK would do 10% more damage than a better geared mage, or when a DK can win a 3v1 arena match by himself, or when a DK tank has 10k more hp and takes 50% less damage than other tanks.
THAT would be OP, it has nothing to do with solo'ing stuff.

[Redundancy]

My Main is a Forst DK tank and it is easily the best tanking spec... for mitigation and for threat... Blood does have burst damage for high single target and yes self healing but frost has always been better... they may be bringing some talents over from other trees but if they dont bring HB and several other items from frost over to blood its going to ruin the death knight tanking. also the longer rune cds is going to suck... i dont understand why they make a hero class, give them the ability to choose what tank spec they like, (even tho one is definitely better thank others) then change it all after people get used to it...

[Denalian]

Death Knights have been an experiment throughout the expansion.
Blizzard tried something entirely different with our talent trees which, if successful, would possibly be transferred to other classes too. However, as you probably know, there's been quite a few balancing issues regarding this specific model.

Balancing a talent with just one role in mind is difficult enough.
Having to balance the trees with PvE DPS, PvP DPS, and Tanking in mind, just left all trees watered down and highly limited in how much each talent was allowed to perform.

The resource system was also something entirely new. You can't argue that it's very punishing if you're forced to make a change in your rotation, or if you just make a simple mistake. This change is something that, if done right, will allow Death Knights to perform even better the more skilled the player is. Anyone can push buttons according to a specific rotation. It takes more skill to actually know when to use what and how to best use the "free GCDs", in my opinion. However, this is just something we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.

I'm glad Blizzard is still giving their new class a lot of attention. Hopefully they'll make the best of it.

[Elactran]

My Main is a Forst DK tank and it is easily the best tanking spec... for mitigation and for threat... Blood does have burst damage for high single target and yes self healing but frost has always been better...

You must not be tanking end game stuff then. The utilities of blood tanking come into play far more than anything frost provides in ICC atm. Tanking heroics and not letting the baddies pull aggro off of you (which with the gap in gear these days between average Joe and super raider) is one thing, but actually staying alive and doing your job while taking major ability hits from LK and friends is another. With talents being spread to dif talent trees, dk tanking is simililar to dk dps. It is situational and yes one fight might be suitable for frost tree, most are not.

DPS on the other hand, read up. Blood/Frost DW/Unholy kinda scales a bit with gear. I play as both Frost DW and the new sub-frost/unholy 2h as well. Most fights I find myself using sub-frost/unholy over DW because we have an enhance shammy. I have tried both and prefer 2h. It is a matter of what you are comfortable with. Alot of major guilds are having their dks switch to DW frost simply for the fact of the raid wide buff allows shamans to go ele instead of crappy enhance. Point in case there is always somebody out there stating "this is the best" when in all reality just because you are medium geared and can hold off the noobs or do more dps than average Joe does not mean your spec is the best ect ect. DKs seem to have this problem when they start getting a bit of gear. I guess ego goes with the territory.

Elactran
Draenor-US

[Ashenray]

I've played my DK since the release of WotLK, and I've QQ'd over the nerfs (especially since I don't PVP and think there will NEVER be a true balance while both aspects share the same talents). I like the idea of a dedicated tanking tree, and I love playing DW Frost. It is not as forgiving as UH is, but I actually have to pay attention to what buttons I push and what not. But this new Rune system has me kind of scared. Unless they have some skills that will be used based on RP or free in the middle we will have tons of idle time. If I open up with (Frost spec) IT/PS/BS/Pest/OB (the Pest makes sure that when my Blood runes turn into death runes and I Oblit, the diseases will still be up when they turn back to blood) and then maybe a FS or two thrown in, when my runes fill up again, I will be able to Oblit then wait because the other runes don't fill in until first ones are full. And then the whole idea of Death Runes, I really like our current setup, then again maybe that's because it's what I'm used to using too(Humans aren't fond of change at first anyways). I do like the idea of having a skill that you use all of the time during your rotation instead of a RP dump, now of course Frost Strike is the exception because of KM Procs, I guess that's what I like about DW is it's not a set rotation. Now if we have skills based entirely on RP and are actually good enough to use and will be available enough to be counted on (not being RP starved) then it will be fine. I guess time will tell and the Devs say they do not want us so GCD restrained, so hopefully they will work this all out. And let's hope that during the Beta phase they do A LOT more testing then they did with WotLK and spend the first couple of patches in Cata re-working our class over and over and changing everything, maybe they'll pay more attention during Beta and tweak the classes until they are even and somewhat balanced.

[cisco]

Idk about this rune system change, does this mean we will have a haste cap like the old mp5 stuff? Seems like all this stuff is more pvp changes than anything else. Outbreak is probably the only thing nice in the changes, that should reduce or ramp up time but at same time there changing the impact our abilities have by self seems like outbreak will just become another filler ability. I hope i get into beta to test this stuff.

[saudade]

So as a blood/frost tank, frost really being for lazy 5 man tanking more so than anything, the part that confuses/worries me the most is the rune system.

Take current blood tanking rotation for example (with death runes and talented diseases):
icytouch
plague strike
heart strike x2
death strike

(u+f refresh) death strike
(b runes refresh) heart strike
(u+f refresh to death runes) hsx2 (or refresh diseases depending on the fight)

Puts all of your runes on cooldown and gets blade barrier up as quickly as you can. I'm not seeing how blade barrier works out in the new model, if its 10 seconds you'd be forever losing and refreshing it as the sequential reload would mean both aren't on cooldown. Assuming 10second recharge on a rune and currentish mechanics (ignoring the new strike since i don't know resource use).

start: R means recharging, I means idle.
B U F
B U F
icytouch
plague strike
heart strike x2 (? this might simplify keeping blood runes on cooldown for barrier, i'd rather barrier not be so tedious to manage however)
I R R
R U F
death strike

I I I
R R R

Then, refresh diseases and heart strike I guess, followup with a death strike and heart strike and voila new rotation? Since waiting now won't kill you as much as not keeping runes on cooldown you can wait for your diseases to finish easier. The only thing I see as being bad is having a rune close to refresh and a refreshed rune and not using the refreshed rune before the next rune refreshes. (apologies for the bad grammar)

Anyone seeing logic i'm missing out on for this? It just seems to make things a bit linear as to what you can do versus the mad scramble to keep runes off cooldown that exists now. And no, I don't like hitting heart strike 6 times in a row and restart rotations now thank you. Having 2 gcd's where I don't have to spam some strike would be nice. I kinda see the direction, but its not all too clear.

As for rune strike going away, those strikes using runes will have to hit like a bus. According to TankadinTPS rune strike is ~40% of my threat on icc 25 fights. As for the dps changes, eh, I hardly ever dps so I'm not overly worried. Guess I'll wait until we get actual information rather than a "here's what we talked about over the watercooler" preview.

[Sandra.P]

I can already see the headaches that will come with Healing Absorption.

"Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, you'll receive an additional effect that absorbs incoming damage."

Imagine if Blizzard makes Blood Tanks heals scale decently, they would be self healing for decent amounts plus absorbing incoming damage (OP or what!)

Now if they realize this and make the absorption scale poorly with the healing, or the healing scale poorly with absorption.... then the ability will be pretty us-less as content progresses and Paladins and Warrior (maybe druids to) all start taking less damage as gear upgrades and Dk's 51 point Mastery lags behind....

Why don't they make the absorption effect scale with Damage the tank does?

Or simply make it a flat 30% damage reduction for X seconds when the DK performs X heal spell (Death strike probably) and call it Blood Barrier. Then have the Damage reduction scale with mastery.

I just see a-lot of problems balancing Healing Absorption from what they have shown in its current format.

[Zao]

@ Saudade, you're still assuming that we'll have the same "rotation" and talents that we have now, which most likely won't be the case.
They said they will add quite a few "free or RP based" skills. and I'm pretty sure that they would change Bladebarrier, should they decide to keep it, accordingly.

[Auria]

My Main is a Forst DK tank and it is easily the best tanking spec... for mitigation and for threat... Blood does have burst damage for high single target and yes self healing but frost has always been better... they may be bringing some talents over from other trees but if they dont bring HB and several other items from frost over to blood its going to ruin the death knight tanking. also the longer rune cds is going to suck... i dont understand why they make a hero class, give them the ability to choose what tank spec they like, (even tho one is definitely better thank others) then change it all after people get used to it...

Please stay off my Howling Blast.....(says the Frost specced Dualwield DPS DK)
let him please stay there :P...dont move him anywhere =)

[lichspawn]

blood tanking? tbh blizzard are now starting to take the p*ss, and i'd sooner chew glass than tank in blood, time to move on and find a new game, f*ck you blizzard, f*ck you very much

[Gimvarg]

No, they won't. Blood will be a DEDICATED tanking tree, which means not viable for DPS anymore. That's like hoping Blizzard will make warrior prot tree viable for DPS. Noob.

he wasn't saying blood, dood... he just wants frost or unholy be more physical damage based, to make up for the loss of blood as a physical dps tree.....n00b

[HemmerN]

Blood dps is doing so well because it scale so well with ArP and ArP scale with itself. And since ArP is gone as a stat in cata...

[Stieger23]

Ugh, I can't believe what a whine fest this is. Cata is going to cause wholesale changes in the way that many classes are played and, more drastically, the balance between damage and healing. Even if they weren't "taking away" blood dps, it likely wouldn't be recognizable as the same tree in Cata anyway. Seriously, chill out and wait until you've actually seen the changes before you declare that nothing will ever be right again and these changes are a personal insult to you.

TL;DR: Stop QQing about changes you haven't seen or played. Grow up.

[Undercovercracker]

Unholy and Frost are shit dps tree's

Blood > frost/unholy

Obviously youre nuts.......seriously.

[Undercovercracker]

I don't get why tanks are hoping that there will still be a DPS element in the Blood Tree. With this new Vengeance mechanic, tanks are going to be hitting for sick numbers.

Example.
Raid buffed I have about 75.-7.9k Attack Power. Rune Strikes are critting for over 11k and HS for over 10k
With Vengeance buff, since I've 50k HP unbuffed, full stack of Vengeance = additional 5k AP.
Meaning that my main tanking abilities are going to be hitting for stupid amounts. I'm doing a solid 3.5k-4k DPS as a tank as is, and this buff will easily push me to over 5k.
/cheer for tanks not just being the armored vehicle, we get to fire our guns as well. :>

Theyre removing Rune Strike AND everyone will be critting less....so.

[Undercovercracker]

they're turning DKs into a Warrior clone...
single tanking spec, and 2 dps specs, warrior-like with 2h, rogue-like with DW.
in the next upcoming patchs maybe we'll see DKs using shield and daggers.
a lot of things that made DKs unique are being deleted or edited.
sure, some stuff still remains, but imo, most of them are the worst.blood was still the best dps spec around, and they're deleting it, probably cause most ppl just cant push its DPS.too many buttons to press, unlike unholy or frost.its too hard to play it...

the game is getting worse every patch/expansion released...

This fool CANT be serious?!

[Undercovercracker]

This change makes me want to rage.

When wrath first came out when i lvled my DK i loved blood. loved the idea loved the playstyle loved everything about it. favorite spec in the game. hits like a truck and has so much healing and burst dmg is fun in PVP and PVE.

I could care less that they make blood the primary tank spec but why cant they hybrid it like feral druid. can be a cat and a tank just a few talent changes. all the talents have different effects depending on the form. why not make it same idea but with presences..

And so were you

Erm Unholy and Frost can have huge burst aswell. The self heals will be great for blood dk tanks.

[Undercovercracker]

well, lets see, as frost starting out dps i got around 4.5-5k dps, now with blood i get about 9k dps. for blood its all about the armor pen

and here is my link instead of just saying what i can do
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...cn=Beli%C3%A2l

Theyre getting rid of armor pen for the most part........

[Demoncrash]

Unholy and Frost are shit dps tree's

Blood > frost/unholy

UH and Frost are decent dps trees which do comparable (if of not superior) dps to blood

common sense > stupidity/ignorance

Good riddance to blood dps imo. Id gladly sacrifice any of the dps trees to see one dedicated tanking tree.