Button Bloat - Which DK abilities will be removed?

[Taninsam]

Really surprised nobody's brought up Control Undead. Correct me if I am wrong but it is useful for two (2) mobs in the game: Risen Guards in Scholomance and Plague Scientists in ICC. I don't foresee much more use for it at 100 than it had at 90.

There are many mobs to use it on. I.e. the timeless isle pandaren ghosts are undead.

[Nnyco]

to be fair, button bloat for frost? i think they should add 1-2 more buttons for that spec haha

[Maxweii]

Dk's dont have ability bloat, because they are much younger than the old classes

Yeah i'm just thinking this most the time I am reading here as most people are talking about abilities like Strangulate, Dark Sim, Control Undead, which aren't rotational and aren't bloat, or are talking about the few few CD each dps spec has (Frost has 1 frost specific CD, Unholy has 2).

Frost would benefit from more abilities, Unholy is pretty well set off right now with having a good rotation without being a huge list of things you need to do, and Blood is fairly well set off too.

[Krashkam]

For blood I would cut Rune Tap.

[Baphomette]

Nobody brought it up because it isn't button bloat. It's surprising how few people understand what the devs mean by button bloat.

Fun/situational abilities you rarely use that aren't in your primary rotation do not qualify for button bloat. The devs specifically noted that by saying Eyes of the Beast should not have been removed.

Haha, by that definition we have the opposite problem. (Button famine?) Our normal rotation has the fewest binds of ... any spec?

[Deleted]

It is very useful.. Unless you're not paying attention or playing badly, no offense, this ability wont do you any good, buy if you acutally got some experience with it you can get w/e you want. I mostly get blocks, bubles, clones and polys. I see my focus casting clone, there you go. I got a clone. It doesn't take a experienced player, just someone that actually plays instead of rolling their face on the board.

Actually I know how to use the ability very well in pvp and pve so don't imply I don't.

Sure you may get lucky and get something good but most of the time you get an instant ice lance, fel flame, hot or something else.

In siege only shams and garrosh's far seer has any use everything else is immune so majority of dks dont waste runic power on it.

[Schizoide]

Haha, by that definition we have the opposite problem. (Button famine?) Our normal rotation has the fewest binds of ... any spec?

Not really, most specs have 7-10 or so primary keybound abilities. In addition to the below, DKs can also choose to spec into additional complexity with Plague Leech and manual Blood Tap.

Unholy, 12: Outbreak, PS, FestS, SR, DT, DC, ScS, HoW, BB, DnD, death strike, healing talent
Frost, 10 (ignoring mastersimple as it is not intended and will not last): Outbreak, FS, HB, SR, PS, Oblit, HoW, DnD, death strike, healing talent
Blood, 8 (ignoring tank cds, even though many are short cooldowns): Outbreak, BB, DS, HS, RS, HoW, DnD, healing talent

Compare that to other specs.

Survival, 7: Serp sting, cobra shot, explo shot, kill shot, black arrow, arcane shot, multishot
Windwalker, 9 :Expel harm, jab, tiger palm, RsK, BoK, Chi Wave, Spinning kick, EW&F, TeB
Ret, 9: Inq, TV, Exec sentence, Hammer of execute, Crusader strike, judgement, divine storm, exorcism, Hammer of righteous
Arms, 11: Col smash, slam, MS, OP, battle shout, heroic throw, execute, sweep strikes, thunderclap, shatt throw, charge, bladestorm
Arcane, 6: liv bomb, AM, ABarr, ABlast, L90 talent, AE
Prot paladin, 10: crus strike, judgment, aven shield, HW, exec sentence, hammer of execute, consecrate, hammer of AE, word of glory, sacred shield

I tried to be consistent with cooldowns and such, including <=1m cooldowns but not others, but I didn't spend an hour writing this list so I'm sure you can find some stuff I missed. But the point is that DKs really don't have less buttons than other specs.

[SSHA778]

Not really, most specs have 7-10 or so primary keybound abilities. In addition to the below, DKs can also choose to spec into additional complexity with Plague Leech and manual Blood Tap.

We may have that many abilities, but in terms of degrees of freedom, the developers have very little. The majority of the DK spells you listed currently exist as fillers (PvE).

Unholy:
Low frequency and/or low damage (5): HoW, Outbreak, PS, DS, DT (the cast itself, not the buff; e.g., what is the benefit of not auto-DT?)
AoE only (2): DnD, BB
Primary (4): FeS, DC, SS, (arguably) SR
3.5 DoF.

Frost:
Low frequency and/or low damage (4): HoW, Outbreak, PS, DS
AoE only (1): DnD
Primary (4): FS, HB, OB, (arguably) SR
3.5 DoF.

If the developers really want to tweak our damage outside of lame UM buffs by tweaking an ability we use, then they have only 3 abilities to play with. This gives the perception that the DK rotation has very few buttons, because very few of them actually even matter (other than the binary "is it up?" every half minute or so). This also means that any primary ability they tweak has a substantial impact on our rotation and our stat weights, which places the developers in a dangerous and limiting position.

[Schizoide]

Completely agree with your thoughts on low frequency and/or importance. Several other specs have the same problem, Enhancement immediately comes to mind.

I considered auto-DT too, but figured people would complain about it as they save DT for critical damage phases and PvP burst. Edge case. Unholy ramp-up is, as you probably know, my primary problem with the spec.

Rumors are that Horn will have a long duration no longer provide RP, so it's not a primary keybind any more. They're doing something with diseases, but we don't know exactly what. It's possible we'll drop to a single disease. And finally, AE-only abilities are desirable; the devs want AE gameplay to diverge from single-target.

The devs constantly push those lame UM buffs (and do the same for others, like hunter aspect of the hawk buffs, etc) because their metrics tell them that changing gameplay within an expansion-- even buffs-- cause players to quit. There's tons of design space to buff Unholy. They just deliberately choose not to do anything that impacts gameplay unless absolutely necessary. That's not at all a DK-specific issue.

Going back to the low-importance bit, the devs explained their thoughts in MoP beta in a post about monks. They told us that monk abilities were intentionally more intricate/multifaceted/apply buffs/debuffs, because monks have a simple resource mechanic and DK abilities tended to be one-dimensional as DKs have a very complex resource mechanic. I'm not saying I accept this reasoning or think it's logical (I don't, and I don't), but there's some insight into what they were thinking when they created boring abilities like Blood Strike and Obliterate that just "do damage", and perhaps why they're changing diseases to just "do damage" in WoD.

[Shiira]

The relatively simple gameplay of death knights has resulted in the way we spend runes not being complicated at all.

Okay, we technically have four separate resources, five if you count blood charges. We still don't have to make difficult decisions about how we spend them.

[Schizoide]

Okay, we technically have four separate resources, five if you count blood charges. We still don't have to make difficult decisions about how we spend them.

Absolutely spot on, and I see that as a real design deficiency. You always want to spend a given set of runes on one thing. The devs don't see that as a problem, though.

The one exception is 5.4 unholy, who can choose to spend Death runes on either Festering Strike (if they have strong diseases active and the target time to live >[disease duration]+6s) or ScS. That's going away in 6.0, and it's unclear if Necrotic Plague will offer the same meaningful choice-- from current info, it seems more likely that 6.0 Unholy specced into NPlague will spend all Death runes on Festering Strike. So NPlague will offer a gameplay change, but not the same second to second forced decision that we have now in 5.4.

Well, a bit more complex than that since each FeS adds stacks to NPlague, and there's a time to live calculation there too, but I'm not going to spend time calculating something off placeholder blizzcon numbers and offhand tweets.

[Shiira]

FeS with trinkets down, SS with trinkets up, adjust from there to maintain stacked necrotic plague as necessary.

I'm starting to think that the current version of necrotic plague shouldn't go live, I can't see any of the gameplay that will result from it being interesting.

[Hand Banana]

Not really, most specs have 7-10 or so primary keybound abilities. In addition to the below, DKs can also choose to spec into additional complexity with Plague Leech and manual Blood Tap.

Unholy, 12: Outbreak, PS, FestS, SR, DT, DC, ScS, HoW, BB, DnD, death strike, healing talent
Frost, 10 (ignoring mastersimple as it is not intended and will not last): Outbreak, FS, HB, SR, PS, Oblit, HoW, DnD, death strike, healing talent
Blood, 8 (ignoring tank cds, even though many are short cooldowns): Outbreak, BB, DS, HS, RS, HoW, DnD, healing talent

Compare that to other specs.

Survival, 7: Serp sting, cobra shot, explo shot, kill shot, black arrow, arcane shot, multishot
Windwalker, 9 :Expel harm, jab, tiger palm, RsK, BoK, Chi Wave, Spinning kick, EW&F, TeB
Ret, 9: Inq, TV, Exec sentence, Hammer of execute, Crusader strike, judgement, divine storm, exorcism, Hammer of righteous
Arms, 11: Col smash, slam, MS, OP, battle shout, heroic throw, execute, sweep strikes, thunderclap, shatt throw, charge, bladestorm
Arcane, 6: liv bomb, AM, ABarr, ABlast, L90 talent, AE
Prot paladin, 10: crus strike, judgment, aven shield, HW, exec sentence, hammer of execute, consecrate, hammer of AE, word of glory, sacred shield

I tried to be consistent with cooldowns and such, including <=1m cooldowns but not others, but I didn't spend an hour writing this list so I'm sure you can find some stuff I missed. But the point is that DKs really don't have less buttons than other specs.

Unfair comparison. You can't list horn of winter, death strike, and healing talent for dks then list only damaging abilities for everyone else. Hunters might as well have, pet abilities, glaive toss, murder of crows, Fervor, and disengage listed. That said, they really don't have the "button famine" so I agree with you.

Dks dont have button bloat. They have things that need to be trimmed up like pestilence blood strike but they are fine. Please don't simplify unholy any more for pvp; I like that its rotation and resource management are something you actually need to think about.

[Bmfstunner]

They do want to remove and consolidate DPS cooldowns, but my hope is that they remove/consolidate the boring ones with the cool sexy ones.

Army, Raise Dead, and Summon Gargoyle are sexy and iconic. They summon short-duration pets, they are visual, they have an impact. These abilities should remain in some form.

Pillar of Frost, Unholy Frenzy, and Empower Rune Weapon are not sexy. They're just buttons you push. They aren't visual. They could easily be removed or consolidated into other cooldowns. For example,

Raise Dead (Frost)
Instant 1 min cooldown
Raises a frozen ghoul to fight by your side. Ghoul attacks deal Frost damage. The ghoul increases the Death Knight's Strength by 20% and icy crystals hang heavy upon the Death Knight's body, providing immunity against external movement such as knockbacks. Lasts 20 sec.

Raise Dead (Blood)
Instant 2 min cooldown
Raises a blood ghoul to fight by your side. Ghoul attacks contribute to your Blood Shield. Lasts 40 sec.

Summon Gargoyle
Instant 2 min cooldown
A Gargoyle flies into the area and bombards the target with Plague damage. The Gargoyle incites the Death Knight into a killing Frenzy, granting an additional 10% Multistrike and Mastery. Persists for 20 sec.

Army of the Dead
1 Blood, 1 Unholy, 1 Frost
Instant 10 min cooldown

(Frost, Unholy)
Summons an entire legion of Ghouls over 4 sec to fight for the Death Knight for 40 sec. The Ghouls swarm the area, fighting anything they can. Ghoul attacks deal Shadowfrost damage.

(Blood)
Summons an entire legion of Ghouls over 4 sec to fight for the Death Knight for 40 sec. The Ghouls swarm the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. Ghoul attacks contribute to your Blood Shield.

Glyph of Army of the Dead
Minor Glyph
(Frost, Unholy)
The ghouls summoned by your Army of the Dead taunt their targets.
(Blood)
The ghouls summoned by your Army of the Dead no longer taunt their targets.

I know this isn't the thread really to discuss this but I never understood why Army has a cost and a channel for a 10 min cd. I mean aren't pretty much all other cds with high cooldowns insta and no cost? Bloodlust? Stormlash? Stampede? Infernal/Doom Guard? All those insta offensive cds are above five mins and require no cost and you don't have to channel them.

[Schizoide]

Unfair comparison.

I guess you missed the part where I said "I didn't spend an hour writing this". But please do nitpick further even when you agree with the point of my post, because that's super productive.

@Bmf: Army has a cost because it always has had a cost-- I don't think the cost has ever really been examined. I don't really care about the cost on its own; I just want the ability to be fun to use and worth casting in-combat.

[SSHA778]

All those insta offensive cds are above five mins and require no cost and you don't have to channel them.

Note that AotD is not only an offensive CD. Remove the channel and you've eliminated a very powerful tank CD.

[Schizoide]

My solution addresses that, as would many others.

[Maxweii]

Army is a defensive as well as offensive CD, it's damage makes up for it's channel time, and it also costs 3 runes which in turn gives us runic power. I think only time I have ever had problems channeling it is if I (stupidly) tried to cast it on a high stack number on Thok's and his roar interrupted me.

[Alanar]

Army is a defensive as well as offensive CD, it's damage makes up for it's channel time, and it also costs 3 runes which in turn gives us runic power. I think only time I have ever had problems channeling it is if I (stupidly) tried to cast it on a high stack number on Thok's and his roar interrupted me.

It hardly makes it up for uholy/frost atm. those runes u used on this could have spend it better.
Also you would like to have a glyph for this wasted as well.
I really don't mind seeing this go for the 2 dps specs.

[Skarssen]

From a thematic standpoint, I sort of like the idea of frost fever only for frost, blood plague only for blood, unholy with both, and all specs get a choice to take a second (in this case necrotic plague). Doesn't make a lot of sense for a blood DK to be spreading a FROST disease, and visa versa. Just having 2 disease DoTs ticking....that do nothing other than add a small amount of damage.....isn't interesting at all. Make FF and BP trigger a proc or in some way interact with frost and blood, respectively, so that diseases actually add something to game play other than "refresh this every 30 seconds", while adding depth to unholy by allowing the spec to gain a lot of interesting interactions via managing 2-3 diseases.