Oddities of the Death Knight Talent Trees. 06/02/11

[Herald]

Let's face the hard fact of WoW right now: Blizzard knowingly released a product months too soon. As many, many players have realized already, their classes feel incomplete. They feel like they know what their class in intended to do, but it's not quite all there. The large part of this problem is the obviously rushed talent trees. I admit that Paladins are much further along than the other classes, but even they have odd spots that beg the question "Why would you do that, Blizzard?".

This is an updated list for my analysis of the DK Talent Trees design.

In this thread, I'll briefly cover Death Knight talent tree "short comings" or "disappointments".

*Note: I'm only listing things which I feel need addressing.

Blood

Talent Specializations

- Blood Rites: Whenever you hit with Death Strike or Obliterate, the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.

Due more to a design flaw than a talent flaw, this is an ability that remains insignificant for 99% of all encounters. There is very little reason for a Death Knight to use those Death Runes to spam Heart Strike or Blood Boil as opposed to using Death Strike; even in AoE situations, Death Strike/Rune Strike/Heart Strike + Tab is more effective than spamming Blood Boil. Blizzard has made it clear that they have no qualms with the current Blood rotation (diseaseless with large Death Strike priority) and therefore need to make this specialization more applicable in many more combat scenarios or replace it with something else. This is one of those abilities which cause no harm to the player but also lack a definite, and useful, application.

Talents

- Butchery: Whenever you kill an enemy that grants experience or honor, you generate up to 20 runic power. In addition, you generate 2 runic power per 5 sec while in combat.

This is a leveling talent through and through, but it is not a useful leveling talent. The RP5 is unseen in battles while leveling and even more negligible in prolonged raid encounters wherein 2RP5 is meaningless next to 10RP every time you spend a rune. The 20 runic power generated isn't enough RP to grant you a free anything. If mobs are so far apart that you feel like you could really use a 20RP buffer to offset decay, then mobs are too far apart for it to make a difference. The truth of the matter is that Death Knights are not Warriors and Runic Power is not Rage. We have an alternate resource and always put the RP dump in the end of our rotations. This is a blatantly useless talent and what's worse is that it's in the first tier of the tree making offspecc'ing Blood a really foul option.

-Blood Caked Blade:Your auto attacks have a 30% chance to cause a Blood-Caked Strike, which hits for 25% weapon damage plus 12.5% for each of your diseases on the target.

The only thing that screams "Blood" about this talent is the name; it is, otherwise, completely misplaced. Remembering that Blizzard has no plans to change disease uptime for Blood, this talent deals half it's potential damage 30 seconds of every minute. It's gimped from the get go. What's more is that this is a talent with an effect that is greatly increased by haste, but it's too deep in the Blood Tree for any haste stacking Death Knight build to pick it up. This needs to be changed in effect (as in a completely different effect), moved or removed.

- Crimson Scourge: Increases the damage dealt by your Blood Boil by 40%, and when you land a melee attack on a target that is infected with your Blood Plague, there is a 10% chance that your next Blood Boil will consume no runes.

Again, we have an effect that is completely gimped by the way Blood manages diseases on a target. Admittedly, this is an effect targeted at AoE situations, but if a DK were to use diseases for AoE, they would likely only pick one to save a GCD and because Blood Boil bonus damage caps at one disease. It is yet another unused effect.

- Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 12 sec, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage. The rune weapon also assists in defense of its master, granting an additional 20% parry chance while active.

The problem with this talent is the RP cost. It's not that just that it's too high; it's that it's completely meaningless aside from the horrible ramp up time required. The additional threat granted by DRW + Glyph causes the Death Knight to generate only a tiny bit more threat over using the RP on Rune Strike. This would lead me to assume that Blizzard was keeping an eye on opportunity cost when they designed this ability; but it's still as pointless as spending 60 RP to instantly generate 60 RP. The result is that this ability really only grants your 20% Parry. Blizzard could easily remove the extra threat and the RP cost and make this a much more easily managed survival CD.


Frost

Talent Specializations

- No issues here.

Talents

- Nerves of Cold Steel: Increases your chance to hit with one-handed melee weapons by 3% and increases the damage done by your off-hand weapon by 25%.

Blizzard has made it clear that the only spec which is intended to Dual Wield is Frost. So I ask: Why is this in the first and most accessible tier of Frost talents? Why is it not swapped with one of the three talents in the second tier (Lichborne, On a Pale Horse, Endless Winter) which are useful for every Death Knight spec? This is also responsible for many Death Knights trying to Dual Wield tank. It's a misplaced talent and it causes unnecessary confusion for some players.

- Hungering Cold: Purges the earth around the Death Knight of all heat. Enemies within 10 yards are trapped in ice, preventing them from performing any action for 10 sec and infecting them with Frost Fever. Enemies are considered Frozen, but any damage other than diseases will break the ice.

This has no reason to be linked with Howling Blast. This is a PvP talent and soloing talent. The CC application of Hungering Cold is too extremely limited to consider it reliable CC. It's so limited that I cannot think of a looser way to use the term "CC". This link with HB is nothing short of an open palm slap in the face from Blizzard devs hellbent of forcing "underused in WotLK" talents down player throats.

Unholy

Talent Specializations

- No issues here

Talents

*Note: The first two tiers of the Unholy talent tree is comprised of PvP only talents and talents which should be made baseline (with the exception of Morbidity) and so, I will be addressing the problem in a slightly different format.

- Unholy Command: Reduces the cooldown of your Death Grip ability by 10 sec, and gives you a 100% chance to refresh its cooldown when dealing a killing blow to a target that grants experience or honor.
- Desecration: Your Plague Strikes and Scourge Strikes defile the ground within 7 yards of your target. Enemies in the area are slowed by 50% while standing on the unholy ground. Lasts 20 sec.
- Resilient Infection: When your diseases are dispelled by an enemy, you have a 100% chance to activate a Frost rune if Frost Fever was removed, or an Unholy rune if Blood Plague was removed.

Now, there is zero problem with putting PvP only talents as optional point dumps. There is, however, a huge problem with stacking them high in the first two tiers of a talent tree to the effect that every Unholy spec must choose one of these abilities to place a point in so that the player can progress down the tree. This is horrible, horrible tree design.

Epidemic - Increases the duration of Blood Plague and Frost Fever by 12 sec.

Talk about your outdated talents. There is very little incentive for any of the specs to want this talent. Unholy can easily close the 30 second gap between disease duration and Outbreak CD with Festering Strike and Frost only has two rotational abilities which benefit from Blood Plague (Blood Strike and Obliterate); if the DK has Glyph of Howling Blast, they needn't worry about keeping Frost Fever up. Frost is the only spec that really benefits from this talent. Blood, as you well know, is diseaseless in rotation. Both Epidemic and Virulence are abilities which should be talent specializations.

Another glaring fault of the Unholy tree is the amount of useful talents packed into the last four tiers. A talent like Improved Anti Magic Shell (which is useful for all three specs) can be higher up in the tree and still be linked to Anti-Magic Zone. The entire Unholy tree lacks consistent coherency.


These are the faults of the Death Knight talent trees as I see them. Feel free to disagree.

[seam]

You could go back and look at talent trees from every expansion, and classic, and find faults far worse than anything here.

There were always abilities that were lackluster, and you can't expect every single talent to be "OMFG I WANT THIS RIGHT NOW!@!!". It never has been like this, and never will be.

Example? Shadow Nova in the Warlock Destro Tree back in BC. Bad aoe damage, had to be cast, and no one went Destro for PvP at the time.

You can't accuse Blizzard of 'rushing' out 'unfinished' talent trees simply due to the fact that you don't like a few talents.

[Herald]

You could go back and look at talent trees from every expansion, and classic, and find faults far worse than anything here.

There were always abilities that were lackluster, and you can't expect every single talent to be "OMFG I WANT THIS RIGHT NOW!@!!". It never has been like this, and never will be.

Example? Shadow Nova in the Warlock Destro Tree back in BC. Bad aoe damage, had to be cast, and no one went Destro for PvP at the time.

You can't accuse Blizzard of 'rushing' out 'unfinished' talent trees simply due to the fact that you don't like a few talents.

I offered a great deal more than "I don't like these." as evidence for my thoughts.

As well, your logic is disappointing. Just because something has always been ill designed doesn't mean such a thing should always be accepted and tolerated.

[harky]

Is this a serious topic? I can't tell. There are a few good points, like Blood Rites being a bit silly (partially fixed by 'Diseaseless' dying) and Crimson Scourge (already changed come Tuesday)... but uh... Okay, I'll give it the relic of Hungering Cold and Howling Blast being linked. That's leftover from the old trees. But the rest? Really? I mean come on, you need one filler point to get to tier 3 Unholy as pure PVE DPS. One... 9/15 are direct DPS gains. Good luck keeping up a proper Unholy rotation without Epidemic by the way. Wasting all those Death Runes on Festering instead of 2x Scourge is just silly.

[seam]

I offered a great deal more than "I don't like these." as evidence for my thoughts.

As well, your logic is disappointing. Just because something has always been ill designed doesn't mean such a thing should always be accepted and tolerated.

I was commenting more on the fact that you took the "These talents are pretty bad" and made it into, and I quote,

Let's face the hard fact of WoW right now: Blizzard knowingly released a product months too soon. As many, many players have realized already, their classes feel incomplete. They feel like they know what their class in intended to do, but it's not quite all there. The large part of this problem is the obviously rushed talent trees. I admit that Paladins are much further along than the other classes, but even they have odd spots that beg the question "Why would you do that, Blizzard?".

I disagreed with that. Yes, you offered more than a simple "I dont like this", you gave good reasons. But it comes out to the same, you are accusing them of rushing something out that is unfinished, when it WAS finished...just had bad talents. I'm not saying it SHOULD be this way, I'm saying it IS, and it HAS BEEN. Thus you can't say Cata is incomplete because of it.

Not every talent can be amazing.


That said, I agree that Unholy's first tiers are too heavy on PvP talents, and it's not spread around as it should be.

[Deleted]

- Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 12 sec, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage. The rune weapon also assists in defense of its master, granting an additional 20% parry chance while active.

The problem with this talent is the RP cost. It's not that just that it's too high; it's that it's completely meaningless aside from the horrible ramp up time required. The additional threat granted by DRW + Glyph causes the Death Knight to generate only a tiny bit more threat over using the RP on Rune Strike. This would lead me to assume that Blizzard was keeping an eye on opportunity cost when they designed this ability; but it's still as pointless as spending 60 RP to instantly generate 60 RP. The result is that this ability really only grants your 20% Parry. Blizzard could easily remove the extra threat and the RP cost and make this a much more easily managed survival CD.

So, you're whining about a survival cooldown, that can get buffed to also give you the threat you would have otherwise lost by using it? Sounds like you need to stop with the tears and actually look at it properly. If you want to see really bad talent tree design i suggest you find the paladin talent trees from wow 1.0, those were downright horrible. Actually, they are to be found right here: http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?vie...y_select_id=12

[Saverem]

You make some good points, but I'd have to agree with this one the most:

- Dancing Rune Weapon: Summons a second rune weapon that fights on its own for 12 sec, doing the same attacks as the Death Knight but for 50% reduced damage. The rune weapon also assists in defense of its master, granting an additional 20% parry chance while active.

The problem with this talent is the RP cost. It's not that just that it's too high; it's that it's completely meaningless aside from the horrible ramp up time required. The additional threat granted by DRW + Glyph causes the Death Knight to generate only a tiny bit more threat over using the RP on Rune Strike. This would lead me to assume that Blizzard was keeping an eye on opportunity cost when they designed this ability; but it's still as pointless as spending 60 RP to instantly generate 60 RP. The result is that this ability really only grants your 20% Parry. Blizzard could easily remove the extra threat and the RP cost and make this a much more easily managed survival CD.

60 RP for that talent is just ridiculous. They need to change the glyph to reduce it's RP cost to 0 like with the Hungering Cold glyph. It's actually a decent DPS and defense ability on a relatively short cd, but 60 RP makes it COMPLETEL UNRELIABLE. You have to PLAN a time to use it, you can't just go "Shit! I'm taking too much damage, better pop DRW!" because half the time, you won't have the RP needed to summon it.


I do like that it adds an addictional frost/blood disease on the target giving you essentially 4 DoTs. pretty neat.

[Zao]

I'll agree with seam here.
Our talent trees are decent and I do not expect every single talent to be worthwhile taking. Some are always going to be worse than others.

The only two things I'd change would be Blood Rites, because it's something that can not be skipped and only servers as a method to BB spam on AoE fights, and the cost of DRW

[AetherMcLoud]

Making it cost a single blood rune instead of runic power would also help a lot I think. And yes blood rites should really be the other way around, converting blood runes into death runes.

[Deathquoi]

Let's face the hard fact of WoW right now: Blizzard knowingly released a product months too soon. As many, many players have realized already, their classes feel incomplete. They feel like they know what their class in intended to do, but it's not quite all there. The large part of this problem is the obviously rushed talent trees. I admit that Paladins are much further along than the other classes, but even they have odd spots that beg the question "Why would you do that, Blizzard?".

Even if we accept that this is the truth, which I don't, I would rather have an unfinished Cataclysm than several more months of Wrath.

[Herald]

So, you're whining about a survival cooldown, that can get buffed to also give you the threat you would have otherwise lost by using it? Sounds like you need to stop with the tears and actually look at it properly. If you want to see really bad talent tree design i suggest you find the paladin talent trees from wow 1.0, those were downright horrible. Actually, they are to be found right here: http://wowvault.ign.com/View.php?vie...y_select_id=12

That's a beta build from vanilla WoW; I would hope to hell that it'd be far more horrid than anything we're looking at today.

Even if we accept that this is the truth, which I don't, I would rather have an unfinished Cataclysm than several more months of Wrath.

It's very much the truth. Blizzard focused most of their effort on aesthetics when designing Cata. The new zones are beautiful and the redesigned Azeroth is amazing, but the classes are still being modified a tremendous amount; and anyone who was on the Cata beta forums knows that 90% of the changes they've made since launch were suggested weeks to months before the Cata launch.

Cata was rushed out the door for Christmas, like it or not. Was it the smart move considering how much everyone was enjoying Wrath at the times? Yes, it was their only option; they had wedged themselves pretty securely into a corner at the time.

As a sidenote: Keep in mind that this is a very brief analysis. Also keep in mind that they've actually made changes since my last analysis back at launch; I see progress so long as players remain committed. I also haven't demanded that they fix some sort of talent tree paradox; everything listed can be easily fixed.

[wooootles]

I find Resilient infection a bit odd... Being an Unholy talent, why take a talent that takes effect when your diseases are dispelled, when Unholy Blight a few points down makes your diseases undispellable anyway? I mean, Blood and Frost specs can take them as optional PvP talents I guess...but it pales in comparison to the other 2nd-tier points such as hand of doom, Imp. Blood Tap, Lichborne, On a Pale Horse...

[Deleted]

That's a beta build from vanilla WoW; I would hope to hell that it'd be far more horrid than anything we're looking at today.



It's very much the truth. Blizzard focused most of their effort on aesthetics when designing Cata. The new zones are beautiful and the redesigned Azeroth is amazing, but the classes are still being modified a tremendous amount; and anyone who was on the Cata beta forums knows that 90% of the changes they've made since launch were suggested weeks to months before the Cata launch.

Cata was rushed out the door for Christmas, like it or not. Was it the smart move considering how much everyone was enjoying Wrath at the times? Yes, it was their only option; they had wedged themselves pretty securely into a corner at the time.

As a sidenote: Keep in mind that this is a very brief analysis. Also keep in mind that they've actually made changes since my last analysis back at launch; I see progress so long as players remain committed. I also haven't demanded that they fix some sort of talent tree paradox; everything listed can be easily fixed.

sorry my friend, did you play any expantion at release before cata? because i can't remember a release that din't have few totally broken classes (both over powered and underpowered) and a long list of talents that needed a HUGE tuning work
just to say a couple of things people will surely remember from wrath release:
Readiness and Bestial Wrath
Ret Paladin Burst
Death Knights (pretty much anything about them on release)

complaining about few talents that need more work to justify something like "cataclysm is an half assed rushed expansion blizzard didn't work well" seems a bit too much to me.
PLUS, there are a couple of mistakes on this threat imho
1) ok, on a 25 men you might go diseasless and slack, but on a 10 men raid (and many people run those) running diseaseless means giving up the 2 major debuffs a tank needs to keep on mobs, it's just plain stupid
2) the problem with blood rites is a matter of design, we have 3 specs for 3 kinds of runes, blood is supposed to be tuned around Blood Runes, not frost or unholy ones. with DS being as strong as it is now many people go for a DS spam rotation totally forgetting HS
3) butchery is a GREAT dps talent, i know it might sound wird for you, but after the first 31 talent points in your tree (or a few more) you're supposed to spec in other places, butchery is decent for BG PvP (where we're pretty much immortal) and gives DPS something to pick in other trees
4) Dancing Rune Weapon is not that bad, i really don't understand why people keep crying about it so much. The 20% flat parry is not bad, the bonus threat is nice, expecially since you can use DRW in the first 10 seconds of the fight to keep ahead of your dps. It costs a lot and you need to plan when to use it? big news! a good tank always plans where to use his cooldowns for maximum efficiency, if you're saving them as "oh shit" bottons you're doing your job really bad

Crimson Scourge was stupid since, beta, everyone knew it, and it's finally getting a change. with Lichbourne spec going away in 2 days i think a lot of people will give it a try now, free threat is always nice, and if the buff lasts long enough it might become a great help for any fight where you need to pick fast lots of adds (stuff like Maloriak)

[Deathquoi]

That's a beta build from vanilla WoW; I would hope to hell that it'd be far more horrid than anything we're looking at today.



It's very much the truth. Blizzard focused most of their effort on aesthetics when designing Cata. The new zones are beautiful and the redesigned Azeroth is amazing, but the classes are still being modified a tremendous amount; and anyone who was on the Cata beta forums knows that 90% of the changes they've made since launch were suggested weeks to months before the Cata launch.

Cata was rushed out the door for Christmas, like it or not. Was it the smart move considering how much everyone was enjoying Wrath at the times? Yes, it was their only option; they had wedged themselves pretty securely into a corner at the time.

As a sidenote: Keep in mind that this is a very brief analysis. Also keep in mind that they've actually made changes since my last analysis back at launch; I see progress so long as players remain committed. I also haven't demanded that they fix some sort of talent tree paradox; everything listed can be easily fixed.

Classes have been in flux since vanilla launch, I fail to see how this is a problem, as the only spec with severe issues is Ret.

[Herald]

sorry my friend, did you play any expantion at release before cata? because i can't remember a release that din't have few totally broken classes (both over powered and underpowered) and a long list of talents that needed a HUGE tuning work
just to say a couple of things people will surely remember from wrath release:
Readiness and Bestial Wrath
Ret Paladin Burst
Death Knights (pretty much anything about them on release)

complaining about few talents that need more work to justify something like "cataclysm is an half assed rushed expansion blizzard didn't work well" seems a bit too much to me.
PLUS, there are a couple of mistakes on this threat imho
1) ok, on a 25 men you might go diseasless and slack, but on a 10 men raid (and many people run those) running diseaseless means giving up the 2 major debuffs a tank needs to keep on mobs, it's just plain stupid
2) the problem with blood rites is a matter of design, we have 3 specs for 3 kinds of runes, blood is supposed to be tuned around Blood Runes, not frost or unholy ones. with DS being as strong as it is now many people go for a DS spam rotation totally forgetting HS
3) butchery is a GREAT dps talent, i know it might sound wird for you, but after the first 31 talent points in your tree (or a few more) you're supposed to spec in other places, butchery is decent for BG PvP (where we're pretty much immortal) and gives DPS something to pick in other trees
4) Dancing Rune Weapon is not that bad, i really don't understand why people keep crying about it so much. The 20% flat parry is not bad, the bonus threat is nice, expecially since you can use DRW in the first 10 seconds of the fight to keep ahead of your dps. It costs a lot and you need to plan when to use it? big news! a good tank always plans where to use his cooldowns for maximum efficiency, if you're saving them as "oh shit" bottons you're doing your job really bad

Crimson Scourge was stupid since, beta, everyone knew it, and it's finally getting a change. with Lichbourne spec going away in 2 days i think a lot of people will give it a try now, free threat is always nice, and if the buff lasts long enough it might become a great help for any fight where you need to pick fast lots of adds (stuff like Maloriak)

Again, the logic of "all xpacs had broken mechanics, so it's ok" is fail; stop being complacent with obvious flaws and they'll go away.

1. 10m raids bring two tanks, make sure one isn't a DK and diseaseless will be fine.

2. Yep.

3. Butchery is a horrible DPS talent. Butchery is a horrible leveling talent. Butchery is a horrible BGs talent. Butchery gives you 24RP a minute, totally insignificant. Butchery gives you 20 RP that sits and rots and eventually caps out as you go from mob to mob opening with rune attacks because it's the superior rotation. Butchery only grants you RP if you deal the killing blow. Butchery is a totally insignificant talent; Death Knights are not Warriors and RP is not Rage.

4. No one is saying DRW is "bad". The issue with DRW is it's redundancies. The high cost is in place to justify the extra damage the move provides in addition to the Parry. The high cost also makes using DRW a threat drop, so Blizz puts in a glyph to increase the threat of DRW (why not just make the glyph remove the cost, right?). So now DRW has a high cost and a threat compensation glyph and cannot be used optimally (for threat) because of the cost which only exists because of the extra damage which is only important because of the additional threat which is only additional threat if you glyph it. It's horribly designed/a total clusterfuck.

[Deleted]

thanks for that link Draken. man the old vanilla trees are a total abomination ^ ^

[AetherMcLoud]

thanks for that link Draken. man the old vanilla trees are a total abomination ^ ^

Indeed, vanilla was a strange creature. Priest armor buff giving ATTACK POWER? And a talent that increases the attack power buff? Best. Caster buff. Ever.

[Zao]

Again, the logic of "all xpacs had broken mechanics, so it's ok" is fail; stop being complacent with obvious flaws and they'll go away.

1. 10m raids bring two tanks, make sure one isn't a DK and diseaseless will be fine.

2. Yep.

3. Butchery is a horrible DPS talent. Butchery is a horrible leveling talent. Butchery is a horrible BGs talent. Butchery gives you 24RP a minute, totally insignificant. Butchery gives you 20 RP that sits and rots and eventually caps out as you go from mob to mob opening with rune attacks because it's the superior rotation. Butchery only grants you RP if you deal the killing blow. Butchery is a totally insignificant talent; Death Knights are not Warriors and RP is not Rage.

4. No one is saying DRW is "bad". The issue with DRW is it's redundancies. The high cost is in place to justify the extra damage the move provides in addition to the Parry. The high cost also makes using DRW a threat drop, so Blizz puts in a glyph to increase the threat of DRW (why not just make the glyph remove the cost, right?). So now DRW has a high cost and a threat compensation glyph and cannot be used optimally (for threat) because of the cost which only exists because of the extra damage which is only important because of the additional threat which is only additional threat if you glyph it. It's horribly designed/a total clusterfuck.

0: Same goes for the "They should delay everything until every class has 100% perfect talents and is balanced in every aspect" logic. If they'd do that, we'd still be sitting in old Naxx.
Talents will never be exactly equal. Some will always be better than others, which isn't that bad. For example: RT is a terrible talent when compared to Sanguine Fortitude. That still doesn't make it a bad talent, it's just not as good as Sanguine Fortitude.

1: You enver raided 10 man, eh? Most encounters either have the two tanks on different targets, or just have one tank.

2: Yep #2

3. It's actually quite awesome for leveling and even when grinding daily quests. Getting 20 RP after each kill, to spend on your next target has a considerable impact on how long it takes to kill something.

4: DRW is not used for threat, since we currently do not care for threat. But I agree, the cost is too high to make it a reliable defensive cd.

[Deleted]

0: Same goes for the "They should delay everything until every class has 100% perfect talents and is balanced in every aspect" logic. If they'd do that, we'd still be sitting in old Naxx.
Talents will never be exactly equal. Some will always be better than others, which isn't that bad. For example: RT is a terrible talent when compared to Sanguine Fortitude. That still doesn't make it a bad talent, it's just not as good as Sanguine Fortitude.

1: You enver raided 10 man, eh? Most encounters either have the two tanks on different targets, or just have one tank.

2: Yep #2

3. It's actually quite awesome for leveling and even when grinding daily quests. Getting 20 RP after each kill, to spend on your next target has a considerable impact on how long it takes to kill something.

4: DRW is not used for threat, since we currently do not care for threat. But I agree, the cost is too high to make it a reliable defensive cd.

i'm just quoting to add a couple of things:
about talents on release, that was exactly my point, there has always been stuff that needed to be fixed, sometimes it's predictable, sometimes it isn't, that's the reason we have patches, is it perfect? no, is it better then 3 more months of raiding ICC and RS and having Cata out just now? YES!
on 10 mens you don't have 3/4/5/a billion people bringing the same buffs and debuffs, you have 2 tanks, you don't always get to pick the classes, if you have a DK and the boss isn't Argaloth he HAS to keep up the diseases on what he's tanking, diseaseless blood is for a few lucky snowflakes who can have other people bringing the same stuff for them, most of us humans have to work their asses off for 100% uptime on Frost and Scarlet Fevers
Butchery, no matter how much you might scream and cry about it IS a dps talent, it's for the lack of any kind of alternative? well, yes, but it's still in any cookie cutter frost spec, and will probably be in any unholy spec once the patch hits the server and unholy DW will die. PLUS it can be a GREAT dps talent on any fight involving adds, ever tried magmaw as frost? throw 2 howling blasts on the parasites, and then turn back on the boss with a full RP bar, ever tried maloriak? same stuff there

stop thinking about your little nieche of happyness and try to watch stuff on the large scale, you may realize it's not all perfect, but we're not as doomed as you like to describe


EDIT: some math: DRW costs 60 RP, that's 2 Rune strikes, with 50% more threat generated with the sword active if you can't thorw off 4 rune strikes for the duration, or equivalent threat, you're doing something terribly wrong when tanking, i mean, it's 12 seconds, that's 8 global cooldowns, saying it's a threat loss is stupid

[Avatar Killer]

while i agree on most of the post
Butchery IS definitely lackluster but if you do the math over the course of say JUST a boss fight of say 8 minutes you have:

(2RP/5 sec)* 480s in an 8 minute fight you get 192 rp. at roughly 32 RP and 34 RP per DPS ability you get roughly 6 extra FS or DC totaling 60k-100k damage total give or take buffs and/or crits. though this is really not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things it is a tier 1 ability. most tier 1 abilities don't provide anything stupendous except for blade barrier as a tank. It in itself isn't wonderful but it does do its job.

---------- Post added 2011-02-07 at 01:31 PM ----------

Classes have been in flux since vanilla launch, I fail to see how this is a problem, as the only spec with severe issues is Ret.

lol well this is a DK forum not a general forum to compare pallies (or any other class regardless of what the post is trying to point out)to DKs in any manor at all.