Current issues with Death Knights overall.

[Riven]

I've also brought the thread to the attention of Lore through Twitter, so hopefully we get some discussion by the devs on our issues for the future.
Please tell me if there's anything else that needs to be said in the main post and I'll add it, more specifically about Blood's issues. There is a small post there quoted from Raegwyn, but I think it could be discussed further.

[Deleted]

Please tell me if there's anything else that needs to be said in the main post and I'll add it, more specifically about Blood's issues. There is a small post there quoted from Raegwyn, but I think it could be discussed further.

That's mostly it. It doesn't scale too well with heavy damage and contradicts itself by forcing us to take huge spikes after absorbing/parrying/dodging too much, mainly due to very weak passive mitigation and how DS doesn't care about vengeance but instead damage taken.

Utility and mobility issues were also underlined, so that's it.

The only thing I could add is that I find our physical debuff management a bit weird. We can't spam it without gimping ourselves because plague strike costs an unholy rune, which is needed for death strike. It's also not an aoe, which means we actually have to use 2 GCDs to spread it on all our targets, while still not generating any amount of aggro, since outbreak and pestilence don't even deal damage. You actually have to pick up Roiling Blood to deal damage on the second GCD, or else it'll cost you 3 GCDs.

For example, while tanking heroic tortos, I literally can't apply my physical debuff on every pack because I need the mitigation to not get completely crushed. Outbreak is awesome because you can debuff a bat when it's still flying and then spread with blood boil when the whole pack is at range, but outbreak has a freaking 1 minute cooldown. I could totally do the same thing with Icy Touch to ensure the reception by spreading frost fever, but then, not only will I prevent myself from using a death strike, but my targets still won't be physically debuffed. (Since it's tied to plague strike, which is a melee attack)

Same thing for Horridon. When adds die too fast, I don't have anything to apply diseases on the incoming mobs, unless of course I decide to use DS ressources on that, which is kinda dumb.

During Cataclysm, Outbreak was on a 30 sec cooldown for blood DKs and it was actually okay to be honest. We were still far from being able to spam it every 10sec or so (random number, I actually think it's lower than this) like every other class would do, and it's still not an AoE (like every other move that applies the physical debuff) but it definitely helped with flowing adds and situations where you can't keep a diseased mob on hand to spread stuff.

[Riven]

Thank you! Added to the thread!
Would love to see feedback from a high level DK pvper, as I have quite limited ideas as what DK's need in PvP that would be balanced etc. and anything I post on that subject is merely guesswork.

[devilminion]

That's mostly it. It doesn't scale too well with heavy damage and contradicts itself by forcing us to take huge spikes after absorbing/parrying/dodging too much, mainly due to very weak passive mitigation and how DS doesn't care about vengeance but instead damage taken.

Utility and mobility issues were also underlined, so that's it.

The only thing I could add is that I find our physical debuff management a bit weird. We can't spam it without gimping ourselves because plague strike costs an unholy rune, which is needed for death strike. It's also not an aoe, which means we actually have to use 2 GCDs to spread it on all our targets, while still not generating any amount of aggro, since outbreak and pestilence don't even deal damage. You actually have to pick up Roiling Blood to deal damage on the second GCD, or else it'll cost you 3 GCDs.

For example, while tanking heroic tortos, I literally can't apply my physical debuff on every pack because I need the mitigation to not get completely crushed. Outbreak is awesome because you can debuff a bat when it's still flying and then spread with blood boil when the whole pack is at range, but outbreak has a freaking 1 minute cooldown. I could totally do the same thing with Icy Touch to ensure the reception by spreading frost fever, but then, not only will I prevent myself from using a death strike, but my targets still won't be physically debuffed. (Since it's tied to plague strike, which is a melee attack)

Same thing for Horridon. When adds die too fast, I don't have anything to apply diseases on the incoming mobs, unless of course I decide to use DS ressources on that, which is kinda dumb.

During Cataclysm, Outbreak was on a 30 sec cooldown for blood DKs and it was actually okay to be honest. We were still far from being able to spam it every 10sec or so (random number, I actually think it's lower than this) like every other class would do, and it's still not an AoE (like every other move that applies the physical debuff) but it definitely helped with flowing adds and situations where you can't keep a diseased mob on hand to spread stuff.

Agreed. I used to use outbreak glyph before i quit. worked well on both fights. and its getting slightly buffed next patch.

[Omertocracy]

Blood is the only tank that:
Does not scale defensively with Vengeance.
Has to sacrifice survivability for AoE.
Has to spend what seems like forever to get AoE Weakened Blows. (OutB+Pest+BB vs TC, Thrash, Hammer, Keg)

Adding my voice to the clamor.

[Kio]

Yet, the same issue arises as always, how exactly are any of these things bad?
That is what you have to prove to devs, not explaining the abilities they designed themselves and already know very well how they work, probably better than you do yourself.

They're bad because why bring a tank that has to make sacrifices to accomplish anything when you can bring one that can do it all.

[Deleted]

I hate playing Unholy compared to Frost, but it just isn't viable to do so. Unfortunately it does indeed look like we will be very underpowered again in 5.4

[Nyanmaru]

They're bad because why bring a tank that has to make sacrifices to accomplish anything when you can bring one that can do it all.

Though, to play devils advocate, is the DK situation bad or the situation of the other tanks? Why change DKs that are "working as intended" if it will be solved when the other tanks get introduced to similar things. It may take them 2 more expansions to get there, but well... life ain't no pony farm. And you bring the tank because he's a great player, same argument as always. Even if there's no spot in hardcore progression, blood tanks are fine for everything between levelling and LFR, even normals aren't much of an issue. And bam, 99% of the playerbase can use them. So as long as there's other issues for more than 1% of the playerbase, why not focus on those first?
I know that it's not what any of us wants to hear, but it's a perfectly fine developer decision.

And I honestly wouldn't want DK tanking changed but rather have other tanks face similar situations. Because let's face it. Paladin tanking produces nice numbers, but is dead boring. I just tried Druid and Warrior tanking next to Paladin and they felt equally uninspiring. I personally feel DK tanks are fine, I just think that the other tanks are a bit too much.
The only thing I feel is really stupid is that the reactive tanking only works well with low to moderate damage and is very prone to fail in burst damage situations. But I'm at loss how this could be solved without simply copying the other tanks mechanics.

[Jackkernaut]

2 major suggestion for Blood DKs:
1. Make HS useful Maul like (add blood shield power based on the damage it does, and it does quite low so it shouldn't be problem).
2. Make an attack free of resources, preferbley range with CD or make Outbreak 30 sec CD or less that damage on impact the sum of the deseases damage when they first tick.

[Jackrabb1t]

What I can't for the life of me understand is: how does Desecrated Ground, a lvl 90 talent that is on a 2-minute cooldown, NOT remove roots?

[Mitra]

What I can't for the life of me understand is: how does Desecrated Ground, a lvl 90 talent that is on a 2-minute cooldown, NOT remove roots?

if you ask blizz the answer will be like: "dks have ranged habilities, no need to remove that".
overall i see DG as a nice talent for pvp, it's right where he needs to stand (as a talent).

I hope blizzard fixes some bad things with dk's, i'm not hoping to see it happening in a patch during MoP, if they don't i'm really considering reroll to other class, maybe a ranged one, since most of the fights "require" low melee numbers.
i see my self taking more effort in giving "nice" damage numbers with unholy dk than with other melee spec(festerblight), frost is just weapon scaled damage, not from far a perfect thing for me IMO.

[Xucuroz]

The rune regeneration tier is the dullest tier of any class. They should just increase the base rune regeneration rate to match the average benefit of the any of the three and free up the tier for some actively-used abilities. Something with three choices that play very differently, have flashy graphics, and good headroom on the skill cap. The priest level 90 tier is a good role model.

In my opinion, they never should have even made rune regeneration a talent tier. Just reeks of lazyness. Having the Rune regen baseline, like it was in Cata was far better. Not to mention leveling a DK until 75 feels terrible without them.

[Beefkow]

In my opinion, they never should have even made rune regeneration a talent tier. Just reeks of lazyness. Having the Rune regen baseline, like it was in Cata was far better. Not to mention leveling a DK until 75 feels terrible without them.

I thought everybody thumbs up on the idea of 75 being the rune regen tier? i am wrong i guess (honestly, i hate that tier as well, tells me that blizzard doesn't have imagination).

[Enosh]

Even if there's no spot in hardcore progression, blood tanks are fine for everything between levelling and LFR, even normals aren't much of an issue. And bam, 99% of the playerbase can use them. So as long as there's other issues for more than 1% of the playerbase, why not focus on those first?
I know that it's not what any of us wants to hear, but it's a perfectly fine developer decision.

by that logic blizzard might as well fire the balancing team and proclaim "mission accomplished"

[Riven]

Interesting discussion on Blood, I don't think it's worth changing the points made about blood in the thread however as it seems to outline the main issues people are having with blood, and leaving it up to the devs on if it actually needs changing or if other tanks need changing to make them more similar to Blood.

[Deleted]

You know, the posts about animations being boring just reminded me that the Templar's Verdict animation was supposed to be for Death Strike.

Sorta mad.

[Varyk]

You know, the posts about animations being boring just reminded me that the Templar's Verdict animation was supposed to be for Death Strike.

Sorta mad.

never knew this


you...bastard

[Nyanmaru]

never knew this


you...bastard

The animation is called DeathStrike or something like that in WMV, we had this thread some time back http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/990471 about it (but don't necro that old bat). And it wasn't exactly news about the animation back then.

But if you check icon names and stuff in the game files, there's so many icons that imply a use for DKs it's not even funny...

So it's not exactly like the animation was meant for us, it just has that name.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

If we aren't as good next tier I won't really mind, we were the absolute best melee this tier by far, and were very strong in T14 with our utility. Will I enjoy being thousands of DPS below someone who is garbage but his class carries him? Not really, but there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it, and blizzard sure isn't wanting to fix things.

[Deleted]

I feel like, on top of all scaling issues, the rune system itself is obsolete and should be completely reworked in 6.0.
I think it should work like shadow orbs or soul shards and leave Runic Power to be the actual ressource.
For example, let's say a DK has one set of 3 runes: he could use them however he wants to increase his damage, his defense or use a special ability.

Then comes the Runic power:
Since hunters and rogues have a full bar of ressource available, Runic Power should stay the way it is and go the way of the warrior to be like Rage:
-Runic power generating abilities (auto attacks or cooldown-based small attacks)
-Runic power consuming abilities (heavy attacks)
This would help the devs to smooth out the skills, the rotation and the CDs of both DPS and tank DKs.

It would also prevent ressource overcapping for both RP and runes, for which we are currently the only class with that kind of issues. (warriors can dump rage easily, same for rogues, same for hunters)