DK really needs a ret-level rework

Classes Death Knight
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(Unholy Perspective) Just got back in to playing my DK, finally just got it as my last class to 70. Why’d it take so long? Because while I’ve enjoyed it in the past, the class design is wonky and all over the place - not to mention the class balance itself and being very average in pvp.

The aesthetics and rp/lore around the class is great. Big undead knight, wearing plate, slow moving, rotting people down with diseases, big Scourge Strikes, and an army of undead minions.

But the gameplay itself leaves something to be desired. The “pimple popping” festering wound playstyle that’s been around since Legion iirc is really unfun. It’s just another builder-spender mechanic, but that’s already added on to the already two other resources you have to manage, runes and runic power. That’s three separate resources you have to manage.

Not only that, but the builder-spender playstyle in addition to the over-saturated amount of cooldowns leads to arguably the longest gcd damage buildup in the game. It takes forever and a lot of button presses to do meaningful damage. And even then, all your damage is in cooldown windows and you feel weak outside of it. You’re putting in a lot more work with tons of ramp of time and a convoluted rotation to do pretty mediocre damage output compared to other classes.

Compare this to ret, which is very strong, twice as easy to play, and has zero-ramp up time burst and great consistent damage. Not to mention the self-heals, multiple immunities, group utility, better mobility, dealing almost 100% dmg from 20 yd range - it’s a no-brainer why so many people would rather play Ret (a comparable spec) more in both pve and pvp.

I mean there’s a ton of issues with the class, not just unholy. PvEers hate all your damage being centered around DnD cleave. DKs in pvp have probably the most hidden pvp nerf modifiers in the game, all on their main abilities from past nerfs. With multiple pvp nerfed defensives you die way too easy as a plate wearing melee.

The class is cool thematically and pretty fun at a surface level. But as you get more involved in the class you really start to see the issues. The whole class needs a rework.

  • Unholy specifically needs to be simplified a lot and have it’s cooldowns condensed imo. Bring it’s damage back to diseases and big Scourge Strikes (it’s odd why death coil is so strong). Hot take but also maybe adding some more pet-flavor and making it a little more similar to Demo. Maybe something like Army of the Dead being a passive basically like demo’s imps - you’re always raising dead within your rotation and can build it up for more damage. Big cds based on improving your undead army/summoning big ones like Raise Abom. Just a thought.
  • Not a frost player but the spec needs a big redesign. Not sure what to do with it but obviously it’s been the red-headed stepchild to Unholy since forever. I’d say ditch the dual wield and focus on big Obliterates/Howling Blast. Double down on the frost theme. Honestly think it could actually use a little more complexity by added utility or something.
  • No comment on blood.
  • Remove all the pvp modifiers and then balance from there.

DK is a really cool class and it’s fun in wrath classic. But retail dk definitely feels very over convoluted while at the same time very underwhelming and needs some love! That is all.

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We aren’t getting a rework anytime soon. They’re going to try and address the DnD issues with the hero talents. They were stubborn about rune of power for mages too, so there is some hope they’ll relent eventually.

I still think the ret rework was a massive mistake. All of their CD’s are too low, their damage is too consistent, and they’re too easy to play. They need nerfs, even though the people who play that spec think it should be receiving huge buffs.

I’m not sure what they can even do for PvP. They made a lot of changes to help us in season 2 only to nerf us back to irrelevancy. It’s harsh but they just don’t want this spec to be good.

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The whole class needs a rework on that level frankly.

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If not a rework then a new damage profile.

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I agree. I love playing DK but feels more to be desired

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I play ret and dk, most don’t think it needs buffs. Ret (and all 2hand users with lego) are where they should be with a legendary. Legendary is like a 15% damage gain. All in the top 3rd in mythic (frost needs a very skilled pilot though as seen by looking below mythic)

Ret rework was almost perfect, before they got the legendary at end of season 2 they were not OP (launch rework season 1PVP was unforgiveable though, I didn’t play but saw the statistics). It plays fluidly, has snap damage, fixed all the issues the spec had and hero talents now need to add some more skill expression and its perfect.

DK on the other hand is EXACTLY like ret was pre rework. Reliant on ground AOE (even worse since you need to stand in it compared to cons). Only does damage in 1 min -45 second windows. Low mobility. Over reliance on 1 button doing all the damage (TV vs Oblit, all other spells on prerework ret felt HORRIBLE to press just like frost dk)

Ret went overboard on the “mobility” (who needs to move when you are 70% ranged) but dk could stand to benefit from many of the same design changes the devs went through on ret.

Frost dk needs that consistent damage playstyle that ret has as ONE of the options, thats how it was in the past and then over SL and DF we got this abomination that does less damage than a disc priest without using pillar.

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Having to stand in DND >>> having to have 2 Consecrates stack together. Definitely not worse for Frost but still relatively a problem. Less of a problem for Frost if they gut KM damage.

Big problem but that’s a Frost specific issue, not a DK issue overall. Still a huge problem but not tied to DK specifically.

I’m not sure what you believe “consistent” is but Ret is very much still a burst damage spec. Just about every time a spec changes to a consistent damage (think BM pre-10.2) profile, its players almost always complain because flat profiles generally don’t have any specific burst windows or CDs. Coincidentally (or not), Frost has had a consistent damage profile with both capstones through all of DF. I think Enhancement is probably the only consistent damage spec whose playerbase doesn’t hate the flat profile, but that’s what having a fantastic feedback loop and interesting talents do.

You mention the pre-SL/DF Frost so it seems to me like you want Frost to not have consistent damage but burst profiles instead like in Legion/BFA, which is definitely fine and valid to want, but that’s in stark contrast to what some the forums favorite talents and passives (Frostreaper, Icecap, Obliteration, Frigid Executioner) offer it. Hard to create burst opportunities when the talents that should encourage that instead heavily prioritize spamming a spammable builder over using spenders.

Which a rework of course could definitely address, it’s just if the vocal posters here are to be believed, anything that touches Obliterate/Obliteration to move damage around is the wrong move :person_shrugging:

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Your first point is exactly what I said, DND is even worse than cons was.

I generally talk about frost not unh, so yes it is a specifically frost obliteration issue.

3rd, Anything is more consistent than ret pre rework with full in burst and unh levels of 45 second cd stacking. The reason ret is consistent now (in ST where it has 30 second cycles) is that all its spells feel like they have impact, which is a large issue frost dk faces.

When I talk about past frost dk, I actually mean even before legion as well, in wrath frost is VERY consistent.

Moving damage into obliterate WHEN ITS NOT killing machine would be good to me but that means it needs WAY less damage with killing machine. The thing that is killing frost right now is that it has obscene amounts of stacking mods on only obliterate SPECIFICALLY during killing machine. You could double non killing machine obliterate damage right now and it would be like a 1 % damage increase according to sims but feel way better.

I feel that we need to go further though and nerf high end obliterate damage (read gut stacking mods and frostreaper) and push damage into other spells like frostscythe, frost strike (felt real good in wrath) glacial adv and more.

We definitely DO NOT need more high end damage on oblit.

Seems like we agree on most things but just had a misunderstanding!

I apologize if I made it seem like I wasn’t talking about oblit frost, unh is a spec I think is not made for me even if there are changes I would like.

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I think you’re misunderstanding what I said. Having to stand in DND is better gameplay than dealing with Consecration.

DND lets builders cleave and while it’s not that great or enjoyable to most, it’s far easier to place DND effectively to maximize value and stand inside the 8yd radius than it is to double stack Consecration and maintain a debuff so that you can do passable AoE damage.

Both have their issues but I don’t think the DND cleave issue is remotely as problematic as pre-rework Ret Consecration.

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I did misunderstand then, I respectfully disagree and detest DND gameplay personally even compared to the old cons.

I think the biggest issues are still the amount of mods oblit has though, it really frustrates me.

It is just crazy how much blizz squanders dk, in literally any other game dk would be like the noob attracting class with rule of cool and all but dk feels so bad to level because its all about cd stacking and early it has none of that in addition to the horrible tuning without cds. Unh is a bit better for leveling but still suffers from this. I feel bad for new players trying it out and bouncing off it.

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Ret is super fun. The rework has been amazing. Short cooldowns and consistent damage isn’t a bad thing.

The only mistake the ret rework has is the divide between aoe and st builds like many other specs have as well. There is a reason why classes that can aoe and st with a single build or with minor variations are soooo good right now.

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It really doesn’t, just a few improvements here and there. At least for frost.

The ret rework wasn’t even good, at least when it comes to actual gameplay. The rotation is not exactly mind blowingly fun. I don’t think ret is a good standard.

In fact ret is the definition of average gameplay.

A cd with no interactions other than some haste and damage only if you have crusade, otherwise it’s just crit and damage, no cdr, no cde mechanics. Crusade at least gives you a lot of haste, but base avenging wrath is one of the most boring cds in the game.

Art of war, but only works with boj since they removed the wake of ashes reset, which is such a massive mistake i cannot even put it to words.

Super polarized aoe and st builds the worst of them all.

Divine purpose only 10% proc.

The only cool thing from the rework is better defensives/utility, and crusading strikes. The removal of exorcism, and less emphasis on consecration. The removal of seraphim was also a bad idea since they just needed to remove the holy power cost. And removing the passive proc from art of war was literally nonsensical. No reason to do that, it’s literally a passive proc.

How is this a “successful rework”? What exactly is there to make this rotation satisfying? Maybe crusade? The occasional divine purpose proc chain?

It’s so unimpressive.

Id rather play just about any other melee dps.

For unholy though, i think unholy has more significant problems than frost.

And needs a better middle ground spec where you don’t sacrifice 20% of your st damage for aoe, and maybe some less cds, you have army of the dead, gargoyle, apocalypse, etc etc… setup gets a little too long, but at least making a mistake is not too punishing unlike arcane. Aside using garg at the wrong moment. So i don’t mind it that much, but they should probably unite gargoyle and army, and maybe aplocalypse and dark transformation.

But i’m not gonna talk about unholy much since i don’t really play it a lot compared to frost.

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Average game play isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

It created way too much variance and was a good thing it was removed. The 30s CD is likely what it was averaging near anyways and is far better to plan around than 45 with RNG on top of RNG resets.

You more or less answered it. Removing Crusader Strike from the bars, fixing defensives, and making utility & mobility easier to path through. The rework is a success because even if you & others find it boring, it fixed a majority of the pain points Ret plays had, such as:

  • Over reliance on lining up all of your CDs like Seraphim, Wake, Toll, and Wings to do any real damage
  • Spenders massively overshadowing builders in terms of damage
  • Being a plate wearing DPS with an immunity and dying the most in all forms of content by a large margin
  • Removing Consecration from the single target rotation
  • Removed filler talents like Righteous Command and that really trashy “TV can sometimes strike twice for 20% damage” talent with the super low proc chance
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Variance is frankly an overstated issue.

The proc was 50% in shadowlands, and 35% in dragon, frankly speaking the odds are stacked in your favor with such rates. We’re not talking about an ability that does 2 mill damage per press with a 5% or 10% proc rate.

If you look at it even specs that have pretty significant rng like outlaw or enhance don’t really have much more variance than other specs. Ultimately variance is only really an issue when you have a proc that does a lot of damage, but procs relatively few times, but enough times to get back to back procs, think like deeply rooted elements. Woa reset variance was frankly a non issue. Ret aoe was good enough even with conservative procs, and with average/good procs it could be good to excellent.

The removal of WoA reset literally damaged the spec gameplay, ironically right now it would work even better than before. Aside the storm build when you get lucky with ascendance procs, but the elementalist build is actually sustained in damage and pretty reliable, despite the rng.

As for builder spender, the damage was distributed pretty much the same way that it is right now.
Unless you were using radiant decree, then spenders would overshadow builders.
But honestly, this isn’t really an issue, just a preference.

The issue of cd stacking/proc stacking is also overstated, seraphim was like a 50% uptime buff, especially in shadowlands, there is an awful lot of overlap with other cds, the only issue was the holy power cost. Even outside of cds, your damage was not awful, and frankly if it is, that’s an issue of relying too much on burst damage. So honestly, you either make a sustained damage spec and then people complain about not enough burst, or you make a super burst oriented spec, and then people complain about low damage outside of cds.

The actual damage profile of ret though pre and after rework is pretty much unchanged. The damage profile before the rework was somewhat bursty oriented, and after the rework it’s the same, but you still do enough damage outside of your cds.

And yea, uninteresting gameplay is an issue. What exactly is cool about ret rotation right now?

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They didnt do Exorcism justice when they reintroduced it. Had to be in consecration to cleave an ability that didnt generate Holy Power which didnt feel good yet was a dps increase.

I just dont find the “rework” was as good as people are making it out to be or as big as it was.

Frost doesnt need much just like ret didnt need much. Just having the other abilities be more appealing could do a lot for Frost.

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Everyone’s been saying it’s fun but what they really mean is it does tons of damage with little effort. It’s fun because it’s OP. You could make apoc 30 seconds and unholy assault 1 minute CD’s and people would say that’s fun too. That doesn’t mean it’s good game design.

The second ret’s damage falls off and they fall out of the meta people won’t be saying it’s fun anymore.

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Yea, people were not so happy about ret when it was doing sub par damage.

But now that it’s the best st if you talent for it, and has good aoe, oh now it’s a “great spec”.

Yea sure they improved defensiveness, and utility, but the rotation itself is pretty much unimpressive. Nothing spectacular. Basically the definition of not good, not bad.

And also, it has significant problems with how polarized the aoe and st builds are. You lose LITERALLY 20 to 25% of your st damage for aoe. That is unacceptably high.

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Honestly I think that’s the biggest problem with the current talent system is how ST and AoE are entirely dependent on talent choice. With the way M+ is designed, that shouldn’t really be like that.

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I don’t really have a problem with that, most specs have a build that is versatile and can do good st and aoe at the same time.

Most specs lose between 5 to 10% of their st damage for speccing aoe. That is an acceptable loss.

It’s ret, unholy, and arms that lose more than average, and ret is the worst of them all.

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That’s a fair point.