Thew new patch is just a hairs breadth away so I thought I'd give people that want to change to a DK or that return to WoW a quick rundown of what's cooking. Don't expect hardcore theorycrafting or lot's of pretty pictures.
Things that didn't change:
- Blood still tanks with a 2h.
- Frost is still DpS with DW or 2h.
- Unholy is still DpS with 2h and pet.
- DKs still use Runes and Runic Power.
Well what did change?
So now this is the more interesting part since there's a lot of small details and larger things that got thrown around so here's the rundown without getting into too many numbers.
Global Changes
- GCDs for all specs are now 1s by default
- Unholy Presence no longer reduces the GCD (since it's baseline)
- Frost Presence gives 20% RP gain and -15 RP cost to Frost Strike
- Horn of Winter is now 10% AP and no longer gives Str or Agi
- Frost Fever and Blood Plague last 30s each
- Frost and Unholy DKs bring a new passive "Unholy Aura" with 20% increased melee and ranged haste
- Blood Tap got overhauled (see talent section)
- Blood Strike is Unholy only
Blood Changes
- Death Strike can no longer be parried.
- Scent of Blood got reworked. It now gives you a stacking buff on successful melee hit that increases the healing of your next DS by 20% per stack and makes it generate 10 RP.
- Lichborne is a Tier 2 talent (see talent section)
- Death Pact is a tier 4 talent (see talent section)
Frost Changes
- Howling Blast now adds Frost Fever as baseline
- Icy Talons is a passive 20% melee haste
- Might of the Frozen Wastes now buffs 2h weapons with 10% inc. damage and +50% damage to Obliterate and is baseline for Frost
- Threat of Thassarian makes your strikes hit with the offhand when dual wielding and also increases Frost Strike damage by 50% and is baseline for Frost
Unholy Changes
- Unholy Frenzy is no longer an Enrage effect (still has the same other effects)
- Ebon Plaguebringer now applies the 4% more physical damage taken debuff instead of the magic damage taken debuff.
New Stuff
It's not like we didn't get anything new but the above changes, there's a few new skills to be added to our repertoire.
- Soul Reaper Yes, we finally got an interesting execute. It deals a bit of weapon damage upfront and applies a debuff that deals a massive amount of damage after 5s (it has 6s CD) if the target is below 35% health. If the target dies while afflicted by the debuff you gain a large haste buff for 10 seconds.
- Control Undead Similar to the warlock control demon ability you take control of an undead NPC which has diminished attack speed. You can only have 1 controllable pet so it's practically useless for Unholy DKs and the other 2 specs can't summon their 'dumb' ghoul while they control a pet (though they can summon the ghoul first and then control an undead).
The Talents
We get a major overhaul in the way talents work so here's a short glance at what DKs offer:
Tier 1 - Disease talents - Roiling Blood - Plague Leech - Unholy Blight
They are pretty self-explanatory in how they work. Plague Leech + Blood Tap can be a nice combination for an emergency DS for a Blood Tank. Other than that the talents are all situational.
Tier 2 - Survival talents - Lichborne - Anti-Magic Zone - Purgatory
Lichborne and AMZ didn't change much, the only noticable change is that AMZ isn't PBAoE but targetted AoE now. Purgatory is a passive with 3m Cooldown that converts any damage that would have killed you into a healing absorption barrier that lasts 3 seconds. If the barrier runs out of time, you die. If you get healed enough for the barrier to fade, you live.
These talents again, are situational and can be picked depending on the encounter you are progressing on for maximum effect.
Tier 3 - CC/utility talents - Death's Advance - Chilblains - Asphyxiate
Death's Advance with it's 10% movement speed increase at all times makes it a rather easy default choice for most PvE moments. Chilblains are (like in Cataclysm) useful if you have to kite one or multiple adds. And Asphyxiate converts your Strangulate into a 5s stun (or silence if unstunnable) with a shorter cooldown and no cost.
Tier 4 - Self Healing - Death Pact - Death Siphon - Conversion
Blood will most likely want to pick Death Pact as a Death Siphon costs 1 Death Rune and thus takes away half a Death Strike. Frost on the other hand will find that Death Siphon is a nicely scaling self-heal that works on range. As for Unholy the Death Rune cost can tank quite a bit of DpS. Conversion is generally the weakest as it is too costly to use in most of the cases.
Tier 5 - Rune Regeneration - Blood Tap - Runic Empowerment - Runic Corruption
Looking at it from a pure effectivity standpoint, all 3 are quite close to each other. The biggest difference is in the amount of attention needed to make them work. Blood Tap places all of the control in the users hands so it's easiest to screw up. Runic Empowerment still has a random element to it that may make you waste either RE procs or RP. Runic Corruption on the other hand is most likely the most failsafe of the 3 options. This is true for all 3 specs and should be chosen with your playstyle and amount of concentration you want to put into rune management.
Tier 6 - AoE Crow Control - Gorefiend's Grasp - Remorseless Winter - Desecrated Ground
Sad but true from a PvE perspective the level 90 talents are pretty underwhelming. Neither of them has a noticable effect on your DpS and they could be used gimmicky at best. Remorseless Winter probably has the biggest use as the stun can help to establish control on a number of adds or trash and prevents some damage that way.
Glyphs
The skills and talents aren't the only thing that got overhauled, we also got some shiny new glyphes from our local scribes. Most of them are situational and can be adapted to your personal tastes so I'll just give you a rundown of those with the biggest use in everyday PvE situations.
Blood
Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon - huge TpS boost
Glyph of Icebound Fortitude - may be useful depending on the encounter (short high damage attacks quite often)
Glyph of Vampiric Blood - same as in cataclysm, more healing but no health bonus
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell - Let's you absorb some more damage compared to an unglyphed one
Frost
Glyph of Shifting Presences - keep 70% of your RP when switching presence
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell - Let's you absorb some more damage compared to an unglyphed one
Glyph of Tranquil Grip - Death Grip no longer taunts
Unholy
Glyph of Unholy Frenzy - Unholy Frenzy no longer deals damage.
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell - Let's you absorb some more damage compared to an unglyphed one
Glyph of Tranquil Grip - Death Grip no longer taunts
Rotation, Priorities, Routines
Whatever you wanna call the order or decisions you put into pressing your buttons, this part deals with telling you what's changed. Though remember, this is a short preview so not many details, see cataclysm guides for a general idea of what the priorities were before.
Blood
Single Target - Still the same as always, keep your diseases up, time your Death Strikes and use Blood Boil to refresh your diseases
Multiple Targets - Spread diseases. 1-2 targets = Heart Strike 3+ targets = Blood Boil (and remember, Blood Boil once every 30s to keep your diseases up on all of them)
Frost
Single Target - Three big changes, by picking your weapon, by picking rune regeneration talent and by including the execute. First the easy part, keep Soul Reaper on CD once the target hits 35% HP. Second the weapon choice (2h vs. DW) affects if you want to use KM on Frost Strike (DW) or Obliterate (2h). And third the rune regeneration talents: the Runic Empowerment way plays almost the same, just that you don't have the old Blood Tap anymore. Blood Tap plays similar to the old Runic Empowerment way but you can control when you want a proc instead. And as mentioned before Runic Corruption keeps all the complicated thoughts from you and you just need to focus on hitting the attack that has the highest priority. Cooldowns didn't change compared to cataclysm, just using Pillar of Frost will be a bit more clunky without Blood Tap.
Multiple Targets - It's only useful when you face 4+ targets below that number just stick to single target. On a high number of enemies, spam Howling Blast, keep DnD on CD and use your remaining Unholy Runes to hit different targets with Plague Strike.
Unholy
Single Target - The same as before, just include Soul Reaper on cooldown when your enemy hits 35% HP.
Multiple Targets - Well, I didn't find much consens on it yet, but Diseases, Blood Boil and DnD are pretty strong AoE.