Anyone Remember When DK felt like a real class?

Haven’t played my dk in a bit. Stopped pretty much after first 2 weeks of the season. Pretty much just collect 1800 pvp gear at this point due to lack of time to dedicated to both pvp and pve. (New father).

What happened to dk? All 3 specs, despite the devs best efforts, feel like a shell of their former selves.

Frost still has janky crit scaling, issues with damage outside of pillar(speaking from pvp pov) and the tree is just a mess full of talents that feel boring (looking at you auto attack talents) or talents that will just never be taken.

We were told we were getting real disease play back for UH… Yea seems like that was a lie.
UH in general has an identity crisis, and sadly wounds somehow still exist despite the community asking for it to be reworked for years now.

And blood… well I stopped playing it entirely. Tanked a few lower keys and already didn’t like the changes to it.

Not sure if DK will ever feel truly fun again like it used to.

In general I think all 3 specs need a rework, and not just talent changes. They need fundamental changes on how they function as a whole.

Not to mention visually… You can search probably over a thousand posts about visual updates. Models still in use since WOTLK is just bonkers.

There has been soooo much feedback given by so many people… Yet we are still in the state we are in. Devs really just need to rework the class. Paladin got how many reworks? Maybe one day dk will be great again!

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I am not speaking for PvP but for me… I don’t feel powerful as a DK in PvP. Maybe that’s just me thing especially with all the hamstring attached that are PvP modifiers. On PvE side though, Frost DK pumps… for numeric reasons rather than the functionality of the spec.

It’s funny that Crit is widely avoided secondary stat and yet it is something a spec like Frost or Marksmanship would want to make it perform in PvP. You may as well get Haste to weave in more Globals in Pillar.

You know… the DK tree is… I agree. A mess. The only things that are remotely interesting are Shatter Line and for me… Hyperpyrexia. Or literally any node that make Runic Power more interesting to use. No, Unleashed Frenzy doesn’t count as it used to be 6 bloody seconds and god forbid Arctic Assault would be removed because it gives Frost DK the ability to compress a Rune Spending ability and an RP Spending ability into one global when consuming Killing Machine.

Runes are completely inflated as a resource imo to the point the specs kinda feels watered down too much. What other Runic Power Abilities do we have other than Frost Strike, Death Coil, Death Strike with BoS being its ultimate payoff ability that not only used best to maintain it as long as possible but also have it “passively” regenerate your rune behind a cruel RNG that is Runic Empowerment/Corruption.

As boring as nodes like Smothering Offense, IDT and The Long Winter. IDT hits pretty hard. Shame that it has natural bias towards DW though.

Not to mention about these things:

  • Why is Mind Freeze a bloody talent!?
  • Glacial Advance should be baseline at this point since they made Epidemic baseline for Unholy.
  • Rune of Fallen Crusader is so good that you are trolling if you aren’t using it. Even moreso if you are using Rune of Apocalypse. Alias, the worst runeforge in the game.
  • Some of the notable talents are locked behind throwaway nodes like Subdued Grasp for Slappy Hands or Enfeeble/Sac Pact into Death’s Reach (You might as well make it an Unholy only for this)
  • Sac Pact is just a mockery of what old Death Pact used to be. Sacrificing your Timmy for health gains. What’s even funnier is that modern Death Pact would give you more Healing Absorption than the amount of it actually heals when you have MS or in a Dampening Setting.
  • Nobody uses Cold Heart for a reason.
  • IA is whatever.
  • Frostscythe is whatever. THIS talent has an identity crisis now.
  • Soul Reaper is whatever.
  • WTF is Cryogenic Chamber.
  • Why is Improved Rime a thing?
  • Why does Runic Command just increases your RP capacity. This talent is straight up isn’t an implicit damage increase unlike Murderous Effiency due to how valuable Runes are compared to Runic Power.

Oh but I’m not finished!

As long as Necrotic Plague and its support lays forgotten by Blizzard, it is VERY unlikely that Unholy would be a rot spec. This especially got a nail in the coffin when Blizzard for some bloody reason added pet damage to Unholy’s Mastery. Then, Unholy’s Mastery was so OP it got nerfed overall, including SHADOW DAMAGE.

The fact that there are players who want an option of petless Unholy, foregoing the WUUNDZ mechanic or GOD FORBID CHOOSING RP COST OF FROST STRIKE TO 25 instead of 30 of player’s choice shows that I feel like there is a bigger issue with the game. The lack of player agency behind every spec and ability is just… grinding my gears at this point.

B̷r̷i̸n̴g̵ ̶b̵a̵c̴k̵ ̵N̶e̷c̵r̵o̸t̵i̶c̵ ̸P̵l̷a̵g̶u̵e̵,̸ ̷y̶o̴u̴ ̶b̴l̴o̸o̴d̷y̶ ̴c̷o̷w̶a̴r̷d̸s̷.̸

… and remember Bone Shield was an Unholy Ability?

Good times. And no, I don’t mean to play WotLK classic, Cata classic, or even MoP classic. I think the true Warcraft trilogy was done the moment Arthas died.

… But maybe I am wearing my rose-tinted goggles. Ugh. But hey, grats on the kid though OP!

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Thank you, I appreciate it.

Also agree with pretty much everything you mentioned.

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I want to emphasize this because I agree it was one of the biggest mistakes they made for the long term health of the spec. Nowadays unholy mastery may as well read “Increases all damage by X%” seeing as only auto attacks, festering strike, and half of scourge strike don’t scale with our mastery, everything else does. A mastery that increases 95% of our damage isn’t interesting, it’s just a more boring crit that happens to have a higher multiplier.

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It feels like the devs legitimately don’t like Death Knights.

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wod was the last time i felt like a hero class then legion everything went into the crapper

alot of stuff in the trees should be baseline. this is true for every other class as well

them giving us will of the necro is nice n all but i want toughness back

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I’ve always had a massive dislike for how Frost DK works with crit. Mainly that it can be both our best and worst stat. Really wish Blizz would come up with a better way for us to trigger KM as opposed to crits which then becomes useless since KM is a guaranteed crit.

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A lot of stuff already is baseline, its just people think they actually have a choice because its in the form of a talent tree. Most of those points go towards mandatory picks.

They had this, and they had it figured out from Wrath - WoD. Having a guaranteed crit be based off of crits is poor design. Blizzard figured this out back in Wrath when it did have auto attack crits gave KM procs, which would make Howling Blast, Frost Strike or Icy Touch crit. They changed it to just regular auto attacks and then changed it back in Legion as well as removing Frost Strike from the list of abilities that could consume it.

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