11.2 DK Changes up on PTR

[Vanholden-area-52]

Continuing the discussion from Ghosts of K'aresh Development Notes:

@Linxy

DEATH KNIGHT

• New Talent: Unholy Momentum – Increases Haste by 2%.
• Developer’s notes: In Ghosts of K’aresh we are looking at Death Knight’s raid utility to help give them a better identity that isn’t completely reliant on tuning to make an impact. One immediate change you may notice is that Abomination Limb has been removed, its existence made it incredibly hard for grip to matter in any real capacity because of how potent and easily accessible it became. This led to many raid mobs being immune to grip as way to counter what should normally be one of Death Knight’s most powerful tools. This change limits the number of Death Grips available to a raid at any moment and allows us to design more moments for Death Grip to be tactical and powerful when Death Knights choose to use it. This change should be immediately apparent in the new raid Manaforge Omega.
  Secondly, plenty of time has passed since Castle Nathria and it’s given us some time to reflect on our change to capping Anti-Magic Zone. In Ghosts of K’aresh, we are returning AMZ to a % magic damage reduction effect with no cap. We have increased the cooldown and reduced the duration and effectiveness downward from what it was prior to the Castle Nathria nerf which should better align with our expected output for a DPS/Tank Damage Reduction cooldown. We hope that by adding this back as a meaningful cooldown alongside their grips that Death Knight’s will be able to carve out a spot for themselves in raid compositions.
• Anti-Magic Zone has been updated – Places an Anti-Magic Zone for 6 seconds, reducing the magic damage taken by party or raid members by 15%. 4 minute cooldown.
• Assimilation has been updated – The cooldown of Anti-Magic Zone is reduced by 60 seconds and its duration is increased by 2 seconds.
• The following talents have been removed:
  • Abomination Limb
  • Unholy Ground
• Hero Talents
  • Deathbringer
    • Exterminate has been updated:
      • First scythe of Exterminate no longer has a chance to apply Reaper’s Mark.
      • Frost – First scythe of Exterminate has a 100% chance to grant Killing Machine.
      • Blood – The first scythe now has a 25% chance to summon a Dancing Rune Weapon for 6 seconds.
        • Developer’s notes: We found that relying on chance for Reaper’s Mark created too much variance in damage output, which made it feel inconsistent and unreliable.
  • San’layn
    • The Blood is Life has been updated:
      • Dark Transformation/Dancing Rune Weapon summons a Blood Beast to attack your enemy for 10 seconds.
        • Developer’s notes: Similar to Exterminate updates, we found that the chance based spawning of Blood Beast created too much variance in damage output and reduced player agency.
      • Blood Beast now deals 15% of the damage accumulated for Unholy and 25% of the damage accumulated for Blood specialization (was 25%/50%).
    • Visceral Strength has an additional effect for the Unholy specialization – When Scourge Strike consumes Virulent Plague, your next Outbreak costs no Runes and casts a Death Coil or an Epidemic at 100% effectiveness, whichever you most recently cast.
    • Infliction of Sorrow has an additional effect – After Gift of the San’layn ends, you gain a charge of Death and Decay.
    • Infliction of Sorrow buff that makes Scourge Strike/Heart Strike to consume Virulent Plague/Blood Plague now lasts for 30 seconds (was 12 seconds).
• Frost
  • Developer’s notes: In Ghosts of K’aresh, we’re revisiting the core building blocks of Frost Death Knight. We’re making adjustments to reduce friction between how the spec uses its resources and to focus its power into more iconic abilities, alongside some new ones we hope you’ll enjoy.
  • Many talents have changed positions and new pathing options added.
  • Glacial Advance is now learned at level 10 (was a talent).
    • Developer’s notes: We’re making Glacial Advance baseline to allow Frost Death Knight to use Runic Power in AoE without having to spend a talent point, especially for early leveling experience.
  • New Talent: Frostbound Will – Consuming Rime reduces the cooldown of Empower Rune Weapon by 4 seconds.
  • New Talent: Runic Strikes - Increases the damage of Obliterate by 10% and the damage of Frostscythe by 8%.
  • New Talent: Runic Overflow - Increases the damage of Frost Strike and Glacial Advance by 10/20%.
  • New Talent: Icy Onslaught - Frost Strike and Glacial Advance now cause your next Frost Strike and Glacial Advance to deal 15% increased damage and cost 5 more Runic Power. This effect stacks until the next Runic Empowerment.
  • New Talent: Frostbane – When you cast Glacial Advance, each foe struck has a chance to transform your next Frost Strike into Frostbane. The chance increases with the number of Razorice stacks on the target. Capstone Talent.
    • Frostbane – Start a frozen onslaught that strikes twice, unleashing the chilling essence of winter, dealing ap% Frost damage to all enemies caught in its wake with each strike. Each enemy struck reduces the damage dealt to the next foe by 5%, down to 40%.
    • Developer’s notes: We wanted to move away from tab-targeting Frost Strike gameplay as it is difficult to execute and track, and used this opportunity to design a new capstone.
  • New Talent: Killing Streak – Obliterate and Frostscythe consume all Killing Machines to deal 25% increased critical strike damage and grants 1.5% Haste for 6 seconds or each stack consumed. Multiple applications may overlap. New 3rd gate talent before Obliteration.
  • New Talent: Northwinds – Howling Blast now hits an additional target with maximum effectiveness. Rime increases Howling Blast damage done by an additional 75%.
  • New Talent: Frostreaper – Obliterate has a chance to tether the souls of its target and a nearby enemy to yours. Frostscythe severs the tethers, dealing Shadowfrost damage to both foes.
  • New Talent: Howling Blades – Rime empowered Howling Blast unleashes 2 icy blades at its target that deal Frost damage and have a 15% chance to grant Killing Machine.
  • New Talent: Frozen Dominion – Each enemy Frostywyrm’s Fury damages grants you 8% Mastery, up to 40% for 15 seconds.
  • Empower Rune Weapon has been redesigned – Drain the will of your enemy to empower your rune weapon, dealing Shadowfrost damage and reduced damage to enemies nearby, gaining 40 Runic Power and grants you Killing Machine. Has 2 charges with a 30 second recharge.
    • Developer’s notes: We’ve found that there were too many passive effects that granted Rune or Runic Power in Frost Death Knight’s resource economy. While moving away from some of these passive effects, we want to give you the tools to use your resources more methodically.
  • Empower Rune Weapon visual effects have been updated and the talent moved to Gate 1.
  • Breath of Sindragosa has been redesigned – Call upon Sindragosa’s aid in battle, consuming 16 Runic Power to deal Frost damage every second to enemies in a cone in front of you. Deals reduced damage to secondary targets. 1.2 second empower, 2 minute cooldown, and has 3 stages.
    • I: Deals Frost damage instantly and lasts for up to 8 seconds. Refunds 75 seconds of its cooldown.
    • II: Deals Frost damage instantly and lasts for up to 15 seconds. Refunds 45 seconds of its cooldown.
    • III: Deals Frost damage instantly and lasts for up to 30 seconds.
    • Grants a charge of Empower Rune Weapon at the start and 2 Runes at the end.
    • Castable while moving with 30% reduced movement speed.
    • Developer’s notes: We’re exploring a new design space with this iteration of Breath of Sindragosa. We want this update to give you more control over how you use the ability, so you can adapt it to whatever the fight demands. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback to iterate further or change directions.
  • Rime has been updated – Frost Strike and Glacial Advance have a 45% chance and Breath of Sindragosa has a 30% chance to cause your next Howling Blast to consume no Runes and deal additional damage (was Obliterate 45% and Frostscythe 22.5%).
    • Developer’s notes: One of our main goals with this update is to make Runic Power spenders feel better to use. The interaction between Obliterate and Howling Blast was making it difficult to use Runic Power spenders without over capping on Rime, Killing Machine and Runic Power.
  • Might of the Frozen Wastes has been updated – Wielding a two-handed weapon now increases Obliterate damage by 30% and Frostscythe damage by 30%. The rest of the effect stays the same.
  • Frostscythe has been updated – A sweeping attack that strikes all enemies in front of you for Frost damage. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets. Consumes Killing Machine to have its critical strikes deal 3 times the normal damage. Costs 2 Runes and has no cooldown.
  • Frostscythe visual effects and animations have been updated and the talent moved to Gate 1.
  • Cleaving Strikes has been updated – Frostscythe deals 20% increased damage during Remorseless Winter.
    • Developer’s notes: We’re moving away Obliterate cleave and aiming for a new vision for how Frost Death Knight deals damage in AoE with Frostscythe. This will also help us in adjusting the power of abilities more effectively.
  • Everfrost has been updated – Rime empowered Howling Blast deals 50% increased damage to secondary targets. Remorseless Winter deals 6% increased damage to enemies it hits, stacking up to 10 times.
  • Rage of the Frozen Champion has been updated – Frost Strike and Glacial Advance have a 15% increased chance to trigger Rime and Howling Blast generates 8 Runic Power while Rime is active. No longer a choice node against Frigid Executioner.
  • Frigid Executioner has been updated – Runic Empowerment has a 20% chance to refund 1 additional Rune. No longer a choice node against Rage of the Frozen Champion.
  • Glacial Advance now cost 40 Runic Power (was 30).
  • Frost Strike now cost 40 Runic Power (was 30).
  • Frost Strike animations have been updated.
  • Enduring Strength now increases Strength by 8% (was 15%).
  • Runic Empowerment now has a 1.6% chance per Runic Power spent to grant a Rune (was 2%).
  • Runic Command now additionally increases Rune regeneration rate by 8%/15%.
  • Murderous Efficiency – Consuming Killing Machine now has a 20% chance to grant you 1 Rune (was 25%).
  • Artic Assault – Consuming Killing Machine fires a Glacial Advance through your target at 45% effectiveness (was 80%). Moved to gate 1.
  • Obliteration – While Pillar of Frost is active Frost Strike, Glacial Advance, and Howling Blast always grant Killing Machine and have a 20% chance to generate a Rune (was 30%). Now a capstone talent.
  • Obliteration has an additional effect - During Pillar of Frost, Empower Rune Weapon causes your next Obliterate or Frostscythe to cost no Runes.
  • Cryogenic Chamber replaces Remorseless Winter – Pillar of Frost now summons a Remorseless Winter that lasts 4 seconds longer. Each time Frost Fever or Empower Rune Weapon deals damage 15% of the damage dealt is gathered into the next cast of Remorseless Winter, up to 20 times.
  • Inexorable Assault – Obliterate and Frostscythe consume up to 3 stacks of Inoxerable Assault (was 1) and now grants a stack every 4 seconds (was 8).
  • Shattering Blade now makes Glacial Advance apply Razorice on top of its original effect. Glacial Advance no longer applies Razorice baseline.
  • Frostwyrm’s Fury is now a 90 second cooldown (was 3 minutes) and stuns targets for 3 seconds baseline. Visual effect and animation has been updated. Now a gate 2 talent.
  • Biting Cold moved to gate 1.
  • The following talents have been removed:
    • Absolute Zero
    • Chill Streak
    • Cold Heart
    • Enduring Chill
    • Frostwhelp’s Aid
    • Horn of Winter
    • Icecap
    • Improved Frost Strike
    • Improved Obliterate
    • Improved Rime
    • Piercing Chill
    • Shattered Frost
• Unholy
  • Developer’s notes: With Ghosts of K’aresh we’re looking into reducing the number of cooldowns Unholy Death Knight has and provide some new tools to both apply and remove Festering Wounds in AoE more efficiently.
  • Some talents have changed positions.
  • New Talent: Plague Mastery – Critical strike damage of your diseases is increased by 25%. Choice node with Grave Mastery.
  • New Talent: Grave Mastery – Critical strike damage of your minions is increased by 15%. Choice node with Plague Mastery.
  • New Talent: Desecrate – Death and Decay gets replaced by Desecrate after it is cast. Choice node against Defile.
    • Desecrate – Consume your Death and Decay and crush your enemies within, dealing 150% of its remaining damage instantly and applying 2 Festering Wounds. Grants you the benefits of standing in Death and Decay.
  • Abomination Limb has been renamed Legion of Souls and redesigned – Summon a legion of clawing souls to assist you, dealing Shadow damage and applying up to 6 Festering Wounds over 12 sec to all nearby enemies. Deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets. Grants you the benefits of standing in Death and Decay. Choice node against Raise Abomination.
  • All Will Serve has been redesigned – Raise Dead summons an additional skeletal archer at your command that shoots Blighted Arrows.
    • Blighted Arrow – An unholy arrow that deals Shadow damage. When consuming Sudden Doom, your Death Coil commands your archer to fire an additional Blighted Arrow at 80% effectiveness. Epidemic will instead cause Blighted Arrow to ricochet and hit up to 2 additional targets.
  • Reaping has an additional effect – Soul Reaper’s execute effect increases the damage of your minions by 10% for 8 seconds.
  • Apocalypse now replaces Dark Transformation if it is known and also summons your pet ghoul on cast.
  • Decomposition – Virulent Plague has a chance to deal 100%/200% of the damage it dealt in the last 4 seconds (was 50%/100%).
  • Unholy Pact now forms a shadowy chain between you and your pet.
  • Festering Scythe override aura now lasts for 30 seconds.
  • Plaguebringer and Clawing Shadows is no longer a choice node.
  • Improved Festering Strike is now a 1-point talent.
  • The following talents have been removed:
    • Pestilence
    • Runic Mastery
    • Ruptured Viscera
    • Vile Contagion

[Arkthugal-turalyon (Arkthugal)]

I cannot BELIEVE we still have to deal with festering wounds.

[Altesh-area-52]

I may be in the minority on this, maybe not, but I love that Abomination Limb is removed. It was a mandatory pick up that I was so bored of pressing, and it’ll give some oompf back to Death Grip.

*we’re looking into reducing the number of cooldowns*

I think they say that every time they make changes to DK lmao

I dislike Apocalypse replacing Dark Transoformation.

• Plaguebringer and Clawing Shadows is no longer a choice node.

Absolutely love this. And I love that VC has been removed, I hate it and get nervous about being pushed to it.

Overall, good changes. Nothing really gameplay altering though.

@Arkthugal-turalyon

I cannot BELIEVE we still have to deal with festering wounds.

I don’t mind FW but it could be a lot more interactive.
That isn’t a change they’d make towards the end of an expansion though.

[Brandyn-stormrage]

@Linxy

Apocalypse now replaces Dark Transformation if it is known and also summons your pet ghoul on cast.

Going to suck for PvP. Won’t have the option to press Dark Transformation to interrupt anymore. Plenty of times I will be at range of something and need to interrupt with my pet. Now I have to be in melee range to be able to DT.

Won’t be the end of the world. They should’ve just taken Dark Transformation or Apoc off the global cooldown instead though.

[Arkthugal-turalyon (Arkthugal)]

AND abom limb is gone.

Fire these devs into the sun.

[Shøcktherapy-emerald-dream]

please get rid of Festering Wounds

#removefesteringwounds

[Sargis-shadow-council (Sargis)]

I am by no means a DK expert, but I’ve been playing frost dk a lot lately and I’ve been having a blast on it. I’m getting pretty hyped as I’m reading these changes, and I took a look at the new talent calculator as well. So not having a ton of knowledge, I’m curious to see if someone with more knowledge than me can share their thoughts on the frost revamp.

edit - I am THRILLED to see they are moving away from obliterate cleave while standing in dnd.

[Kelliste-antonidas (Kelliste)]

Decoupled aoe and st which they needed to do and more emphasis on runic spenders. There are some other stuff going on, but thats the major thing.

[Flâggedname-area-52]

What did they not understand about raid buff. Seems like amz is just worse. Lost the utility of abom in m+.

Other very questionable changes for unholy and STILL NO RAID BUFF. You can bring dk for the one fight you need grip and bench it again. Likely just use knocks to ignore it altogether.

[Gurthuan-moon-guard]

These changes flipping suck! The only good one is the update to All Will Serve. Give us an actual raid buff and bring back Abomination Limb and give us a better Anti-Magic Zone! This is not OK!

[Nozshelen-zuljin]

Give it time my dude and they even admitted abom was limiting raid design for grips. AMZ is now just a straight magic dr and not a wonky location based absorb and can no longer be broken based off damage taken.

[Necrophage-zuljin]

@Linxy

• Blood Beast now deals 15% of the damage accumulated for Unholy and 25% of the damage accumulated for Blood specialization (was 25%/50%).

@Linxy

• Infliction of Sorrow has an additional effect – After Gift of the San’layn ends, you gain a charge of Death and Decay

oh HELL YES. I get to do less signature ability damage, and put down another death and decay! More red floor, and less big numbers! aaaaaand I don’t get to use abomination limb anymore!

This is true class fantasy and immersion

[Veritania-kelthuzad]

Oookay, this is… a lot to take in. Let’s go with the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The Good

• Frost: Glacial Advance Baseline. That’s good!
• Frost: Arctic Assault moved upwards.
• Frost: Frostscythe is getting a lot of love. Esp for 2-handers! No cooldown either!
• Frost: AZ baked into FWF.
• Frost: Inexorable Assault got… interesting buff.
• Frost: We BoS users are Evokers now. That’s… Interesting.
• Frost: ERW has two charges!
• Frost: Frostbane is interesting twist from Shattering Frost. Does that mean I get to hit a poor shmuck a 2.5 million damage Frostbane twice?
• Frost: FS, GA and BoS give Rime now! Making it so all RP spending abilities granting it would have been nice but it’s a start. It makes RP feel better to spend.
• Frost: Cleaving Strikes increases FScy dammies rather than more Obliterate hits.
• Unholy: AWS got more interesting.
• Unholy: Desecrate is… Interesting.
• Unholy: Reaping Augment Soul Reaper secondary proc.
• General: AMZ no longer capped.

The Bad

• Frost: ERW is your main way to manage your resources. Sad to see the haste go though. You also need to be in melee range to use it.
• Frost: No baby whelps! Not an end of the world thing but I will miss it.
• Frost: You need Shattering Blade to apply Razorice with Glacial Advance. So if you really don’t want to consume your Razorice and stick to FC on your weapon, your only source of Razorice is Avalanche.
• Frost: RIP Icecap. So much potential with this thing. Now it’s just juggling Rimes with ERW.
• Frost: FS and GA cost is now 40 RP… which means 64% RE proc down from 80%… with many nodes enhancing this. I’m really not sure how I feel about this.
• Unholy: Legion of Souls is nice in all but no Rider will choose this.
• Unholy: Unholy Assault BURST Wunnds rather than applying them. Because we need a 2nd Apoc.
• Unholy: Apoc replaces DT… One hand merges the GCD, on the other… removes player agency for separate situations. I would have just left them alone altogether and have the player use the Macro when they wish to merge them.
• General: Mind Freeze still not baseline.
• General: Asphyxiate is still not baseline… let alone Strangulate PvP Talent requiring this talent to be taken.
• General: AMZ Cooldown is MUCH longer… whopping 4 minutes and lasts for 6 seconds. 3 minutes and last for 8 seconds when Assimilation is allocated. 20% to 15% Magic Dammies redox.

The Ugly

• Frost: RIP Horn of Winter. Maybe it’ll come back some day?
• Frost: RIP Chill Streak.
• Unholy: You must still deal with the Festering WUUNDS CHAMPYEN.
• Unholy: Gary is still sobbing in the corner.
• General: Abomination’s Limb removed… Freaking… Why???

Uhh… Especially with the removal of Slappy Hands. I’m really not sure if I am feeling it. Hate to say that Rensi is right on this one.

[Necrophage-zuljin]

@Veritania-kelthuzad

I’m really not sure if I am feeling it. Hate to say that Rensi is right on this one.

HR deemed “slappy” hands as unacceptable, game is about peace and friendship and hugs. Not slapping

[Deathspacito-bleeding-hollow]

I’m tired of having fun abilities removed from the game because of raiders. Removed a great ability from M+ just because of raid trash and adds. So stupid. Blizz has done a good job these last 2 exacs for blood imo. If these changes go live and remove abom. I’ll be unsubbing for the first time ever and I’ve been playing since MoP.

[Kelliste-antonidas (Kelliste)]

@Veritania-kelthuzad

Frost: You need Shattering Blade to apply Razorice with Glacial Advance.

Good. Make the Runeforge important again.

@Veritania-kelthuzad

Frost: FS and GA cost is now 40 RP… which means 64% RE proc down from 80%

You make this sound like its 80% now, its only 60% now so its actually a slight increase. Not to mention there is a 15% rune regen increase, Runic Empowerment having a chance to grant an additional rune.

2h might also take a hit depending on how strong the gate 2 talents are.

[Kiras-moon-guard]

Removing Abom limb from a slow tank spec is really obnoxious. Hope they revert this change. Our ability to grip things outside of Death Grip is part of what makes it a viable option in grabbing big groups.

[Moonshinefox-tanaris (Moonshinefox)]

@Veritania-kelthuzad

Frost: RIP Horn of Winter. Maybe it’ll come back some day?

They stripped it from us once before and we got it back!

[Moonshinefox-tanaris (Moonshinefox)]

Pretty mixed bag of updates. Some I really like and I think will do well by the class, others, not so much. It’s a start though.

I do really like that it seems frostscyth is the focus for our area damage, rather then doubling down on more D&D. Breath is nice for me, it’s not a “super-optimize or waste” thing anymore, a simple choice of how much damage you want up front, and how much in the DoT. Getting to have Pillar kick of RW is a super nice option.

I’m torn on slappy. I wasn’t a fan of the constant grips, since I don’t tank, but it was a solid AoE for us. Won’t miss the fugly graphics on it though.

[Veritania-kelthuzad]

@Kelliste-antonidas

Good. Make the Runeforge important again.

I think they’ve always been important. Razorice wise…

@Kelliste-antonidas

You make this sound like its 80% now, its only 60% now so its actually a slight increase. Not to mention there is a 15% rune regen increase, Runic Empowerment having a chance to grant an additional rune.

2h might also take a hit depending on how strong the gate 2 talents are.

In terms or Runes as a resource, it’s a wait and see kind of thing. They’ve already remedied one of my biggest gripes of Frost: RP not doing enough.

It’s funny because I hit a poor shmuck with 2 mill FS with Shatter.

Also looking at Runic Command, the tooltip is misleading. If RE rate is now 1.6% instead of 2%. Then yes, every FS and GA you use is 64% chance to get your runes back. 73.6% with Runic Command.

And hey, if you are not getting your runes back, you got Icy Onslaught that scales inversely with Runic Empowerment. Odd, but here we are. xD