Sadly, there are 3 classes that have no mandatory spot in raid for DF. DKs are among those spots. Yes, grip will be useful for one or two fights, but other than that, why bring a DK?
Warriors have shout, DH have 5% magic damage ect.
What can the devs do for DK utility? We were given insidious chill, as a talent which really if you compare it to other classes, is really not cutting it. Rogues already can apply the same debuff with numbing poison (Sin rogues if talented can have that plus their new atrophic poison as well, and with shiv increase its affect even more for big burst phases).
I suggested this idea in another thread, but wanted to see everyone’s thoughts on what they devs could do for DKs and raid utility.
My idea is the following, Give all DKs a new baseline Presence, Shadowfrost Presence. Passively increases haste crit and mastery by 2% for the DK. Activate it to empower the entire raid, granting an effect. Ideas could be a large leech effect. Maybe have it be a dps skill that adds additional shadowfrost damage to all attacks by an additional X percent. Maybe even a large crit buff, like a crit version of bloodlust for the raid.
They could then remove insidious chill and replace it with improved shadowfrost presence for a 1 pt talent still. (Gives the passive to your party as well, and increases the passive to 3% haste crit and mastery).
What are your thoughts on what they could do to increase raid utility?
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It’s looking grim for cutting edge but most raiding guilds just care about numbers once the mandatory utilities are covered. With any luck, they’ll either add an overt utility for DK, or crank up our damage to S tier.
Hopefully it will be good luck, rather than bad.
I can’t help but think that Blizz feels DK brings utility through a collective of abilities already. We have a BR(so do lots of others), grip(unique), AMZ(which is a shell of it’s former self and weaker then other raid cd’s) & the ability to cheese certain mechanics through AMS. Like most of the DK community I agree that we actually bring very little to raid unless we are over tuned(which UH usually is at the beginning of an xpac).
As for possible solutions I believe I heard biceps talking about possibly giving leech to 1 of the 3 classes that don’t yet have a raid buff(DK, shaman & hunter). It seems that Monk has this in their class talent tree currently as a 2 pt talent which give 4% leech.
After seeing Mark of the wild return for DF I feel that they may be able to modify this to solve the problem that they created. Mark of the Wild: Increases the target’s Speed and critical strike chance by 3% and reduces their magic damage taken by 3% for 60 minutes. If the target is in your party or raid, all party and raid members will be affected. What if they just gave the 3 remaining classes an aura that gave 3% of the other secondaries and something from their class.
For example DK gives 3% mastery raid wide and Icy talons applies to their party(since I doubt they’d let it be raid wide). This would give the DK and a good % of the raid a secondary buff that is useful and make it so a melee centric party would benefit form having a DK in it.
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We have AMZ which was also bonkers powerful. 20% Magic DR doesn’t seem to be comparable to 20% Increased Health. DR in this sense is stupid strong and AMZ will mitigate a lot more damage than raw amount of health warriors will ever give. This seems to be the reason behind putting a cap on the AMZ which nerfed it to oblivion.
We also have an Instant Brez which costs 30 RP. I don’t think people realize how intrusive this cost is. 30 RP means it’s at least 2 globals since we can generate at most 20 RP from one global from a specific ability that costs 2 runes. A global lasts for 1.5 seconds with 0 haste which translates to 3 second cast time.
We have insidious chill which is Curse of Weakness on a passive. Both are stackable.
We also have grip and an AoE grip over time which is not going to be useful all the time and if it is useful, it’s incredibly strong.
I’ve thought about unique ways to have the DK class bring utilities to the table. Initially, when Presence return I’d like them to be different from the stat stick that they grant to the DK much like Unholy Presence did with reducing global cooldowns. When I made Frost Presence make global costs from Runes and RP not interacting with each other, it was bonkers powerful.
But then I wondered, why not make Presences an aura? We’re kind of Anti-Paladins after all and do have auras our own. What if instead of a flat 3% DR, 35% Kick Resist and other auras that have fringe use, what if ours grant Secondary Stats that we all gain and share half of that to other raid members?
Blood Presence
Assumes Presence of Blood, granting X% Versatility and Y% Increased Healing Taken.
Frost Presence
Assumes Presence of Frost, granting X% Critical Strike and Y% Increased Critical Strike Damage.
Unholy Presence
Assumes Presence of Unholy, granting X% Haste and deals extra Y% damage as Shadow Damage.
There can be a node that shares half of X and Y values to other members in a group. Of course, Shifting Presence is an obsolete concept so these presences can be tied to whatever the Death Knight specializes in unless desired. I think that’s what talent choices are for but whatever.
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Didn’t they remove curse of weakness from locks and give it to DKs? Insidious chill.
That on top of grip, Slappy hands, amz, instant brez and AMS cheese will put us in a good spot. Not to mention how tanky we are and self healing ability.
I would like to see purgatory come back though for all specs. That would be some nice utility but not over the top.
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Nope, Curse of Weakness is baseline for Warlocks now.
Did it recently get added back?
It was definitely removed from the beta at some point.
I seems to recall max talking about that alone would make bringing one DK mandatory.
Probably, chances are they’ve always had it. Warlocks learn Curse of Weakness when they’re level 6.
It’s kind of like us with Dark Succor for Frost and Unholy.
It’s subtle but they always have it. It wouldn’t make much sense if they removed the curse they brought back in Shadowlands anyway.
Hmmm. I’ll check the beta when I get home.
No talents, fresh 70, can confirm, it does have Curse of Weakness.
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Not only do locks have it baseline, but rogues can have numbing poison at 18% (and if sin have their atrophic poison at the same time, with shiv that will give it even greater utlilty for burst moments)
i like the presense ideas but it would have to be 1 presense for all specs or 3 presenses unlocked for all specs because we dont want to be forced to play a spec we dont like. How about as an effect something unique like “The death Knights presense enhances near by allies enchantments by x% with runic power.” (every xx runic power spent in a fight increases the affect by 1%)
Just think somethings fun and unique, maybe just weapon enchants like our runeforging. or even shared runeforge affect might of the unholy crusader where they get a little heal + main stat
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Max just posted a video today talking about utility and said it was just added back in the recent beta update. Previously it had been removed.
My hopes is they plan to give us something different as it’s kinda weird for warlocks and dks to bring the same debuff.
My thoughts would be that CoW, IC and Mind-Numbing would stack.
Either additively or multiplicatively, I’m not entirely sure.