Current issues with Death Knights overall.

[Raegwyn]

talents are fucked up as mentioned by Asheriah.
no raid CD as blood compared to other tanks (AMZ isnt really a option for tanks in progression and bloodworms dont count)
scaling with damage taken (mitigated damage) instead of vengance (unmitigated) like other tanks.
vengeance gives us no single bonus in survivability, while it gives other tanks a lot.
we also scale much less with vengeance dps wise than other tanks (what gives us a unique feeling though since we do more dps at low vengeance values)
DRW is still bugged and does whatever it wants
Frost specc is boring.

[Riven]

talents are fucked up as mentioned by Asheriah.
no raid CD as blood compared to other tanks (AMZ isnt really a option for tanks in progression and bloodworms dont count)
scaling with damage taken (mitigated damage) instead of vengance (unmitigated) like other tanks.
vengeance gives us no single bonus in survivability, while it gives other tanks a lot.
we also scale much less with vengeance dps wise than other tanks (what gives us a unique feeling though since we do more dps at low vengeance values)
DRW is still bugged and does whatever it wants
Frost specc is boring.

Ah yeah, I forgot to mention Anti-Magic Zone. It's being.. Changed next patch, both a buff to being an actual raid cooldown outside of a single hit, and nerf as it doesn't absorb that single hit that made it so strong. Also a nerf to it's PvP uses. It really should be baseline for all specs to make that tier competitive, especially for blood.
Thanks for the contribution for the Blood side of things. I haven't main tanked as Blood since Dragon Soul, so I couldn't really comment on them.

[shells]

Having played all three specs this expansion (and Cata), blood is the only one I enjoy. Switched to tank in our raid because I'm getting tired of unholy. Lots of micro-management and disease gaming.

The problem is the devs try to balance pve and pvp at the same time. Usually the pve side of things is what gets gimped the most.

[Riven]

The problem is the devs try to balance pve and pvp at the same time. Usually the pve side of things is what gets gimped the most.

I don't think DK's have had much of that. We aren't incredible in PvP either unless played with a Hunter, like basically every melee.
We haven't had the Frost Bomb/Destro GoSac treatment on any of our abilities.

The problem is we just never got anything good in the first place because our talent tree is screwed up and it took two patches to get our survivability looked at through Conversion change, even then, Conversion, AMS and Death Pact are basically useless now due to the strength of Battle Fatigue with AMS barely absorbing 100k. The amount of times ive had AMS instantly break and I've died in arena on Tournament Realm from a single Ele sham/Mage is ridiculous. It's even worse if you compare it to 1 minute Cloak of Shadows as well.

The class has become too mongo-damage bot in PvP as well, apart from Dark Sim usage and properly using AMS/AMZ, the skill cap on PvP DK's is pretty low as most of the abilities that took thought were either removed or replaced.
We've been given a thousand CC breaks we don't need at all, but no buffs to our defensives (which we can't even use while silenced) and we have 1 cc ability on a long as cooldown (not counting what you can steal with Dark Sim).

Seems both sides have been pretty gimped unfortunately.

[Azerul]

IMO they noticed how they screwed up with DK's and thats why they are waiting for new exp. instead trying to fix it with patches.

[Beefkow]

I have a feeling they are holding up all of the changes till the next expansion, honestly at this rate its too late to make "decent" changes.

[scabobos]

IMO they noticed how they screwed up with DK's and thats why they are waiting for new exp. instead trying to fix it with patches.

we can only hope... but based on how little attention we've gotten the last couple of years, I'd be surprised if we weren't mostly ignored yet again. I think Blizz sees that we're still a pretty popular class and assumes we're okay i guess.

[Nangz]

we can only hope... but based on how little attention we've gotten the last couple of years, I'd be surprised if we weren't mostly ignored yet again. I think Blizz sees that we're still a pretty popular class and assumes we're okay i guess.

Well they remade paladins at the height of their popularity soooo

[Crazyjrco]

Talents, you can let your cat choose them and, it wont be no difference at all.

And we talk about DK's damage output, its pretty, pretty bad compared to other classes such as mages, and we got nerfed (unholy aura) by 5% str base in the 5.3 patch? like seriously? we are in the top of the worst dps ever, and we get more nerfffs?, i don't get how blizzard is working now, this might be because of PvP because i don't get it.

AND YEA, I was thinking the same thing, what are unholy dk's going to do without the feather? i know we have survived without but, its a good boost even we still pull low damage.

(If i want to play frost i just could let my cat walk on the keyboard and pull the same dps i would do.)

[Wrien]

Mastery for frost is perfect. Rework (revert) 2h frost to be frost-damage based, not physical damage!

Obliterate based 2h frost ruined 2h frost.

[Nangz]

Talents, you can let your cat choose them and, it wont be no difference at all.

And we talk about DK's damage output, its pretty, pretty bad compared to other classes such as mages, and we got nerfed (unholy aura) by 5% str base in the 5.3 patch? like seriously? we are in the top of the worst dps ever, and we get more nerfffs?, i don't get how blizzard is working now, this might be because of PvP because i don't get it.

AND YEA, I was thinking the same thing, what are unholy dk's going to do without the feather? i know we have survived without but, its a good boost even we still pull low damage.

(If i want to play frost i just could let my cat walk on the keyboard and pull the same dps i would do.)

I suppose damage output could be a current issue, but then again, every single spec has damage issues, they are either too high or too low. Unholy is probably middle of the pack and frost is probably middle to lower of the pack. We are fine for the moment. Raids are not hurt by bringing death knights.

Mastery for frost is perfect. Rework (revert) 2h frost to be frost-damage based, not physical damage!

Obliterate based 2h frost ruined 2h frost.

The number of times you've said that on this forum alone....anyway....

Frost has always been obliterate based. Frost's description is "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering vicious weapon strikes." The only change is that obliterate hits much harder proportionally nowadays. Is that wrong? Does the flavor bother you that you're willing to play whatever revamp, good or bad, they give you?

My only complaints about frost is that Killing Machine is a passive dps increasing proc. No other class has a proc that they completely ignore for free damage.

[Raikh]

Playstyle wise a really strong obliterate is not a problem, but it is a big part of breaking stat scaling for 2h.
Generally obliterate is set up very badly, for dw it wields less dpe than howling blast at some point of gear, while costing more runes and only gives a chance of granting a free hb, the only thing that is interesting is the extra rp which is 60% of a frost strike you gain more for this one gcd. There might even be a point where even that is to ignore, although it might no be reachable.

It just screws the last bit of okayish stat scaling the spec had, the 2h obliterate makes mastery nearly worthless, the dw oblit makes haste worse because we only want to use hb for runes at best and blood tap reduces the uh runes we get so we use oblit even less. crit is killed by killing machine, yeah thats it, oh, and naturally gaming our proccs is a dps loss because its fucking random and can chain proc like mad, because we have such a ridiculous attack speed.
It would be really hard to find a good argument for blizzards dk philosophy, not only that they are not talking to the community but also only give us the patchwerk of frost from the thousand nerfs and fixes from wrath without a second thought, if their dk design would be a school exam they wouldn't even pass.

Frost can only be broken, because our scaling is fucked up, if we get a dmg buff to make us on equal in dmg to the most other classes, we will be infinitely op in pvp and lower content levels. There are 2 possiblities of fixing the frost dk, redo the core mechanic or change crit and mastery both would be effective and the second would be fairly easy to handle, even for a content patch - very easy, just look at the overhauling of frost mage mastery and ww mastery.

The unholy mgiht nerf for uh is just a big bad joke, we were in a somewhat good position without it, the tricks nerf was fine, but a 3% dmg is just disgusting to a middle of the pack spec. Additionllay we're pretty much being carried by the feather, festerblight or not. And from current ptr tests only one of those new trinkets can match up the feather with 10 item level more and that is the stacking crit trinket which currently has a 90%+ uptime and is probably to be fixed, the other trinkets have low uptime which may also be fixed, but the uptime has to increase massively.
I wouldn't even wonder if we keep the feather the next content, which is big smack in our face because it is a missing upgrade for us.

[Wrien]

The number of times you've said that on this forum alone....anyway....

Frost has always been obliterate based. Frost's description is "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering vicious weapon strikes." The only change is that obliterate hits much harder proportionally nowadays. Is that wrong? Does the flavor bother you that you're willing to play whatever revamp, good or bad, they give you?

My only complaints about frost is that Killing Machine is a passive dps increasing proc. No other class has a proc that they completely ignore for free damage.

You do know that the description for frost bacame "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering vicious weapon strikes." in MoP, while it was "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering rapid weapon strikes." in cataclysm, and played that way in Wotlk as well.

No, we've never been Obliterate-bases. Obliterate has usually been the biggest hitter slightly, but Frost Strike has always been the top damaging ability. Frost was always about "delivering rapid strikes", where we had no downtime and used lots of Frost Strikes. Now 2h frost has lots of downtime, and uses Frost Strike less for every patch that comes (espesially in pvp). Obliterate was primary the runic-power builder, and frost was primary the runic power spec . Now DW frost is the only remaining runic power spec. We had lots of frost damage-buffs in cataclysm (from other classes as well), and even more in Wotlk (increase frost strike damage on infected targets etc.), which made Frost Strike the top dps-skill.

What they should do:
- Remove the Obliterate damage bonus from Might of the Frozen Wastes
- Revert Might of the Frozen Wastes to what it was in Cataclysm (has a 45% chance to grant 10 runic power on auto attacks, and a 10% melee damage bonus)
- Increase Obliterate damage from 230% weapon damage to 260% weapon damage.
- Remove the Frost Strike damage bonus from Threat of Thassarian
- Increase Frost Strike damage from 105% to 155%
- Keep the other parts of Threat of Thassarian, make it work with Necrotic Strike as well.
- Make Howling Blast (main target) hit for higher than Obliterate and Frost Strike, give HB a CD (5-10 sec), and make Rime reset it's CD (as in Wotlk). This way we'll be using Obliterate primary as the runic power builder, while Howling Blast hits for more, but requiers the use of Obliterate. That way we wont be using Howling blast over Obliterate, but both.
- Give us back Hungering Cold.
- Make Chillblains a frost passive, replace the talent with the old Desecration.

[Clash the DK]

You do know that the description for frost bacame "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering vicious weapon strikes." in MoP, while it was "An icy harbinger of doom, channeling runic power and delivering rapid weapon strikes." in cataclysm, and played that way in Wotlk as well.

No, we've never been Obliterate-bases. Obliterate has usually been the biggest hitter slightly, but Frost Strike has always been the top damaging ability. Frost was always about "delivering rapid strikes", where we had no downtime and used lots of Frost Strikes. Now 2h frost has lots of downtime, and uses Frost Strike less for every patch that comes (espesially in pvp). Obliterate was primary the runic-power builder, and frost was primary the runic power spec . Now DW frost is the only remaining runic power spec. We had lots of frost damage-buffs in cataclysm (from other classes as well), and even more in Wotlk (increase frost strike damage on infected targets etc.), which made Frost Strike the top dps-skill.

What they should do:
- Remove the Obliterate damage bonus from Might of the Frozen Wastes
- Revert Might of the Frozen Wastes to what it was in Cataclysm (has a 45% chance to grant 10 runic power on auto attacks, and a 10% melee damage bonus)
- Increase Obliterate damage from 230% weapon damage to 260% weapon damage.
- Remove the Frost Strike damage bonus from Threat of Thassarian
- Increase Frost Strike damage from 105% to 155%
- Keep the other parts of Threat of Thassarian, make it work with Necrotic Strike as well.
- Make Howling Blast (main target) hit for higher than Obliterate and Frost Strike, give HB a CD (5-10 sec), and make Rime reset it's CD (as in Wotlk). This way we'll be using Obliterate primary as the runic power builder, while Howling Blast hits for more, but requiers the use of Obliterate. That way we wont be using Howling blast over Obliterate, but both.
- Give us back Hungering Cold.
- Make Chillblains a frost passive, replace the talent with the old Desecration.

Reverting MotFW back to the Cata model would be a mistake. We would run right back into the same problem of 2H Frost hitting the "Haste Wall". This would happen even sooner than what we are experiencing in MoP. I've said it once, and I'll continue to say it again and again until things are changed: The choice of DW versus 2H Frost should be cosmetic. For the sake of the spec.

And there is no need to put HB back on a cooldown. That was one of the very few good changes made in Cata. There are plenty of other ways around that.

[Wrien]

Reverting MotFW back to the Cata model would be a mistake. We would run right back into the same problem of 2H Frost hitting the "Haste Wall". This would happen even sooner than what we are experiencing in MoP. I've said it once, and I'll continue to say it again and again until things are changed: The choice of DW versus 2H Frost should be cosmetic. For the sake of the spec.

And there is no need to put HB back on a cooldown. That was one of the very few good changes made in Cata. There are plenty of other ways around that.

Yes, make them cosmetic only. But make them more like DW is now. Remove Mop 2h frost playstyle and never make frost like that again.

[Riven]

I've attempted to consolidate the discussion in this thread in order to post it on the official forums, this could have been a bad idea depending on how uninformed I sound to the community based on how it's written, but hey whatever.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...90725?page=1#0

Requires feedback/proof reading. Badly consolidated at this point, very tired.

[Deleted]

blizz wont do anything major to fix us this exp, they are using the excuse "we listened to you guys too well during wrath beta and look how dks launched so we are not gonna listen anymore"

[Clash the DK]

Yes, make them cosmetic only. But make them more like DW is now. Remove Mop 2h frost playstyle and never make frost like that again.

I was a major proponent for something similar to our current DW playstyle. Well, the basic idea was more focus on FS and frost damage. This was during the middle of Cata. They obviously liked the idea; But, they did it their way. And they felt the need to keep the old playstyle as well to appease the masses so as not to rock the boat too much. If I knew that the spec would be divided like it is today, I would have kept my mouth shut. So, I feel a little bit responsible for the mess we are in now.

They need to rethink ToT/MotFW or our Mastery to even start the repair of the spec. But at this point, I don't really care what they do. I just want the spec to be fun, competitive, and scale well.

[enchanted]

I'd prefer the old talent of 2h/dw frost rather than these so called "DK Talents". I totally agree with the OP as the class seems dull and there hasn't been a rework for quite a while now

[Deleted]

I've attempted to consolidate the discussion in this thread in order to post it on the official forums, this could have been a bad idea depending on how uninformed I sound to the community based on how it's written, but hey whatever.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...90725?page=1#0

Requires feedback/proof reading. Badly consolidated at this point, very tired.

Thank you so much for doing this.