In past xpacs Death and Decay (DnD) was always just kind of there. Blood only really cared about it because it helped with multi target threat and RP generation. But the CD got reset fairly often so it wasn’t much of an issue.
Now every spec needs it for aoe, and it provides major buffs that don’t work well when put into a 10 sec window.
Thematically I love that death knights have low mobility, but offset that by claiming an area for themselves and forcing others to fight in it.
But with a 30 CD, It means Deaths Echo is mandatory just to function properly. It feels unfairly punishing when we have to move out early.
Solutions:
Increase the duration -
If DnD lasted as long as it’s CD that would smooth out aoe rotation issues, but would still be just as punishing when you have to move out.
Reduce the damn CD-
If the CD was 10 sec like duration, it would be less punishing to mess up, but would mean we have a 10 sec maintenance ability we’re always having to keep up. It would also probably make Grip of the dead talent way too powerful.
Keep a buff even after you move out-
People have suggested to have 1 or all of the buffs DnD gives last 10+ sec and renew every time it ticks. This would mean even if you step out of it you still have a 10 sec window to set it up again.
Mechanically this is a very solid. Thematically, it means you just have to tap a foot into the area you’ve set up every so often which defeats a lot of the point of it.
Make it an aura
Since you’re in melee anyway, most just want it centered on them anyway. This would be more convenient for nearly all PvE content. But would hinder the effectiveness of Grip of dead talent.
What other problems or solutions do you guys see? Because I don’t want DnD to just get baked into something else and forgotten, but I don’t think it can keep working in it’s current form.
Perhaps a mix of things would be better. Increase the Duration to 15 or 18 seconds so it requires less maintenance, make it bigger so it’s much more difficult to waltz out in PvP, add in a short (1-3 seconds, preferably shorter end) grace period where you, and only you, keep relevant buffs so you must stay in your “Dead Zone” but can step out for a second or 2 to get one last global off…
…And maybe take it off the GCD so it can be macro’d to place directly under the DK alongside another relevant AoE ability.
But these are my thoughts. DnD is clunky, but it’s some small tweaks away from being perfectly usable to work around.
A solution would be to convert death and decay into consecration, in other words, that it be like that of the paladin, every approximately 7 seconds and thus the loss would be avoided when the tank is going to move
It would even have a theme (lore) since the dks are against part of the paladins
This would be just lowering the CD to 7sec. I mentioned that above. It would be a pain to keep renewing every 7 sec. And it could also mean we could do a 90% aoe slow every 7 sec.
Worse yet, said slow would only decay to at minimum 20% before we can just slap another DnD down. If the two slows stack, it could end up as a multiplicative 92% (10% speed × .2 = 2%) which means for a brief moment you’re even slower than intended. And even if they don’t stack, if you can never get out of the DnD (for example, Pallies who wasted their horse not including the upcoming 10.0.7) then you’re just permanently stuck being slowed until you die.
So it’s not only annoying for Death Knights, but for everyone they’re fighting against. We shouldn’t make DnD shorter, it should be longer so that we aren’t putting it down inside our go like we forgot about it and instead putting it down just before our go so we can use our go properly.
I would like to see a change to DnD. Outside of our Oblit cleave it is a waste of a rune. I would welcome the changes you offered above. I would welcome any change that made a positive impact.
DnD feels out of place in the frost tool kit. Absolutely great for blood. Crimson Scourge, although not on theme, would be nice for Frost. Then we could use our talent point on something other than grip of the dead. You wouldn’t need to mess with CDs because rune management would still be a thing. Unholy has defile as an option and it is getting some positive rework come 10.0.7.
A simple haste buff to help proc more KMs would be cool.
Make DnD give you frostreaper while you stand in it. That would be cool.
Make BoS replace DnD… Taking two iconic parts of the Frost Death Knight (2H Obliteration and BoS) and marrying them into something amazing?
ok so that last one was a little crazy but like another poster said, DnD is a few tweaks away from being great.
PS: Game devs feel free to contact me about the DnD/BoS ideas I have.
I posted an idea for a DnD spell replacement for Frost elsewhere, but I’ll post it here, too. Something thematic that helps shore up the usability issues it has (assuming DnD stays as “the cleave ability”):
"Finger of Death"
Increases duration to 15 sec, so that it can be pre-cast before an Obliteration window and have the full duration of Pillar of Frost last through it.
Area slowly spreads toward the caster from where it was placed (~20% speed?). Would address annoyances from tanks pulling mobs out of the area, to an extent.
Deals Shadowfrost damage so that the base DoT benefits from Mastery (more for flavor, since its damage is pretty pitiful).
A nice frosty aesthetic inspired by the “finger of death” phenomenon.
These would bridge the gap between uses, would integrate it into Frost’s burst windows better, and would make a buff “grace period” unnecessary. It would also retain its cast-at-cursor to avoid too much overlap with Remorseless Winter, and without Grip of the Dead becoming too strong, because 1) the slow effect would still decay at the same rate (10% per sec), and 2) the cooldown would be unmodified.
Yeah, I guess it’s pretty video game-y sounding, but it’s a real phenomenon that happens in arctic oceans. I was more inspired by the ability “Creeping Frost” from Path of Exile, anyway – probably a better name.
Death’s Due looks nice, but could probably lose the fairy aesthetic outside of SL.
I’d always thought Death’s Due was pretty much a Drust themed rather than Fae themed. But yea, the Fairy Theme is a bit weird. But since Ardenweald is a realm of Eternal Winter, it kinda works.
What didn’t work was the execution it had in Shadowlands and I really wish they did it more justice. I know this because this character was Night Fae for pretty much the majority of that expansion… It sucked. What’s worse is that it got good for artificial reasons.
Finger of Death sounds like a Warlock ability because it was a legit ability cast by Archimonde in WC3. The second bulletpoint is very reminiscent to my version of Withering Ground Augment for DD: A passive that increases damage and radius of it by 100% that shrinks in size for more concentrated damage (A Reverse Defile). I agree whatever the iteration of DnD we have as Frost should be Shadowfrost.
DD should be a completely different ability from DnD or Defile as well, something that is proposed in SL beta before they nerf the crud out of it. Branching off Everfrost.
It’s interesting that you compare it to Creeping Frost but I kinda look at it as a Cold Snap. Creeping Frost is a projectile after all.
Realistically they just need to extend the duration or remove the rune cost from it. It should not cost resources if they’re going to make it necessary to use in every scenario.
Blood is the only spec I can think of that can actually run out of resources during a pull this patch so it feels bad to be using runes on death and decay.
Extending the duration seems to be something almost everyone can agree on.
But since Unholy’s Defile is getting moved to a more accessible area and is also having a Mastery buff added to it, I don’t think it’s unfair to ask for a DnD replacement spell for Frost that’s a little more robust than just a duration increase. That’s why I suggested what I did a few days ago.
Any “you have to stand in this area” for tanks isn’t great. It would be cool if there was a talent that could make death and decay and aura around you.
It would be wonderful if death and decomposition followed you or it was an aura or something that doesn’t force you to stand up for a certain time, you can’t imagine how you suffer in a +20 and something, when the tank DOES NOT stop running
