This is a bit of a followup to my previous feedback post, where i went over every ability, their interactions and how i feel about them individually. This time, i’ve given myself days to play with the trees, contemplate specific builds, the pathing of each tree and how each specs builds can/will flow, and feel from a gameplay perspective. As well as the issues that crop up as you’re moving through them. Its also going to be a very long post as a warning, but is just filled to the brim with my thoughts on everything.
Once again, we are going to start with the “General” class tree.
Frost Column
As we follow the left side of the tree, the frost side, this flows down fairly naturally. Required utility near the top, and slowly making its way towards the resource haven that is the bottom of this tree. Stuff like Runic Attenuation, Runic Empowerment/Corruption, Horn of Winter, and Empower Rune Weapon all come near the bottom here, and allow every spec to be fed resources like frost has throughout Shadowlands. While on this side of the tree, no matter what spec you play, every point you spend after about the half way point will let you smooth out your rotation, add more resources to it, allow things to flow better. Overall, i like this decision, although it feels like a bit too much power is placed near the bottom here in the form of resources. Stuff like Runic Attenuation and Horn of Winter arent super potent resource buffs, although they allow for much smoother play, i feel if they are moved up in the tree, will allow for a more consistent growth feeling to happen for those leveling up. Allowing every few levels to start to feed them more resources, allow them to stretch their legs a bit more, and really feel how a spec will evolve and flow at the end game. While almost everything in this column will feel great to get, it also limits choices in the rest of the tree to start. As you will see when we move onto the middle row, Blood.
Blood Column
Bloods section of the tree here, its very full of utility, access to defensives, and self healing. Its major issue right now is just, the utter lack of throughput here. This section, well, it gives players very little reason to want to go down it from a damage perspective, while defensive minded players are stuck trying to figure out what they want to get rid of to go deeper into this section. Overall, it just doesn’t feel great. Id love to see some of these defensives and utility nodes shuffled around with throughput nodes, so players going for a defensive build aren’t struggling to get access to stuff like the resources in the bottom of the frost tree. Stuff like Deaths Echo is a great candidate for this center section, as it adds both utility, and throughput for situations where AoE is needed, and youll want that charge of DnD, or for a fast paced fight, an extra charge of deaths advance can be a godsend to keep the dk where they need to be. Final thoughts on this section of the tree is, its just a bit lackluster, with little incentive to get access to this stuff, other than being required to spend points to unlock the final 3 rows. This tree, really doesnt change the feel of any of the specs, doesn’t change how they play. And its a real shame to see when the first column was so full of gameplay evolving nodes. Capping this off, is abomination limb, something every dk wants to have access to at any given time, but, the sacrifices needed to grab it are just… well, its too much. Leading to DPS dks never really being allowed to get deep enough into this column to grab.
Unholy Column
And finally, the right side of the tree, the Unholy section. Starting off, this path starts to conflict with itself fairly fast. Starting off with a pure single target ghoul that lasts for 1 minute, which, in itself is fine, but then moving onto a strictly AoE focused death and decay improvement, and then a balanced node between the two in disease procs, before branching off to an AoE focused haste buff in DnD. Id really like to see the option to go for either AoE, or single target focused paths here, as sometimes you just dont need the death and decay cleave, it feels bad that you are forced to spend a point here to grab the disease procs, or the following strength increase. Which is followed by probably the worst utility choices in the tree, Control Undead, very situational if youll even be fighting undead, Death’s Reach, very situational if youll even be able to death grip enemies, Grip of the Dead, super situational in that some enemies just cant be slowed, and Enfeeble, which just feels really strange to have, a slow and DR proc on ghoul attacks. For most situations, none of these really do anything for the DK, while every one has its use, none of them really feel good to pick, as the most general use one, Enfeeble, is just an RNG proc. All of this is followed up by Lichborne, which really, really doesnt feel like it belongs here in its current state. While its fine utility for removing charm/fear/sleep, it once again, doesnt really feel good to be forced to pick up to get into the final section of the tree, at least with Frosts, the reduced IBF cooldown will always be useful in defensive nature, this just isnt. You wont always be in a situation where charm/fear/sleep are used, and the death coil healing of lichborne was basically never used in shadowlands, and likely wont be here in dragonflight either, as death strike just does it better. Id like to see a lot of these switched out for stuff near the top of the tree, Wraith Walk, Sacrificial Pact, and Death Pact are all situational as well, but they are always useful buttons to have, where these just aren’t. Moving into the final section of the tree, we get the 2nd most potent talent on this tree, Unholy Bond. This placement honestly just feels terrible, as every spec is always going to want to grab this, it forces every spec to go deep into the unholy side of the tree, where it doesnt evolve the play of the class at all, its just passive buffs up to this point, or utility you just dont want most of the time. It doesnt really feel like its impactful until this point, where it then rockets up to being one of the most important nodes to take, second only to Runic Empowerment. And even then, its still just a passive increase. Id love to see more gameplay evolution over here, stuff that changes the way the class feels, changes the way you can utilize the class to do really cool things with undead or plagues as unholys theme has been. Stuff like Superstrain would feel amazing over here as an example, giving DKs access to more diseases, one of which flows resources in to allow for smoother gameplay, and actual evolution of the class. Something like All Will Serve giving a skeleton bro to all specs to lean more into that fantasy, and a permanent ghoul option over here for those who really like our buddy timmy. Are all of these still passive? Yes, but, they all make the player feel like the class is evolving as they spend points, giving them access to cooler stuff, and synergies that just were not possible before, such as a pet focused Icecap Frost DK would be an interesting option for instance. Would it be good? probably not, but, for a player who wants to do that, its a really cool addition. And finally, soul reaper capping this tree off, it almost feels wrong to be here with all its gameplay conflicts, when something like Army of the Dead would be perfect as a capstone here, letting any DK summon hordes of ghouls as arthas did, but without all the conflicts that come with soul reaper.
General Tree Overall Thoughts
My overall thoughts on the general tree structure and pathing options available to us boils down to, the frost side feels great to progress down, always feels like youre evolving the class to go down here. The blood section feels lackluster in throughput and gives very little incentive to want to progress down it, and the unholy side just feels like passive after passive that doesnt improve or change the way the class plays, instead just buffs random things that players already have. is it more damage? yes, but, its very boring damage.
As all this comes together, we get a very clear path for DPS dks to follow, and ends up being a fairly cookie cutter build, with a couple (2) extra points as leway for you to choose whats important to you at that time. And that setup, you can find it right here
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_ak7ec5_858uo&c251=0_0_0
This leads to a situation where a player leveling up really wants to follow the frost path of the tree, getting those resources, letting the class stretch its legs but also never really getting a chance to play with the utility DK can bring, and if they do want to play with those, they have to sacrifice a lot of how the class plays and the smoother feeling those resources bring.
The structure of the general class tree, while its fine enough currently, theres a major lack of utility nodes that can be taken for most DK players, as we have to trade those out for throughput… exactly what blizzard said we wouldn’t have to do.
Now then, we move onto each specific tree.
Frost Tree
Structure wise, this tree makes the most sense out of all of them. Single target focused abilities on the left, AoE/Cleave focused abilities on the right. While the AoE stuff dominates a bit more of the tree than the single target focused stuff, the pathing here really gives players a lot of freedom of choice to focus on one, or the other. Will you have to make sacrifices? absolutely. Everything in this tree is something the players want, something that improves the spec as a whole, or gives it options that it didnt have before. With very few nodes that miss that mark, such as Runic Command, which feels just a bit out of place compared to the goliaths in this tree. Theres a few questionable placements, such as Improved Frost Strike occupying the AoE and Cleave section of the tree, when its very clearly aimed at single target, non breath focused setups. Where as Glacial Advance being off in the single target section, i somewhat understand, as breath setups will avoid this talent, while Icecap and Obliteration focused talent builds will want it, but, its placement also forces people to go deep into the single target branch of the tree in order to grab this more AoE focused talent, id much rather see this over in the AoE section, so that Icecap and Obliteration players arent forced to grab some stuff they may never use in an AoE scenario, such as Improved Killing Machine or Frigid Executioner, which directly conflict with a Frostscythe Glacial Advance Icecap AoE setup. Will these talents increase their single target proficiency? absolutely, but, sometimes people just want to go full AoE minded, and thats fine too.
The number of unique builds that can come out of this tree though, is wonderful to see. You could have an amazingly single target focused Obliteration setup, ignoring most of the AoE section of the tree. You could have a purely AoE Breath setup, ignoring the entire single target section of the tree. You could even have an Icecap/Breath AoE setup that leans a bit single target to balance them out. This diversity (tuning aside) is great. If tuning can be hit properly to allow each path to shine in its own niche, or balance between the two if the player so wishes, this could very well be the best talent tree in the game. Is it perfect? absolutely not, but, for a first draft, its an amazing start.
some examples of builds that can come of this are, Single Target Icecap
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_ak8swh_858wh&c251=no989l_j1o7c0_w
Single target 2h Obliteration
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_ak8swh_858wg&c251=no989l_jaexpc_g
AoE Breath of Sindragosa
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_amuwy9_85c0g&c251=nnv095_hxpu86_5
Single Target Breath Icecap
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_amuwy9_85c0g&c251=nohaqh_1a76ea_x
and this is just a small taste of whats possible.
Unholy Tree
To start, the pathing on this tree itself, sadly doesn’t see the same clear pathing, or structure that Frost has, nor the same build diversity. Theres no clear AoE path, theres no clear Single Target path, no clear Festering Wound path, no clear Disease path, no clear Pet path. Its just… a bit jumbled up. It feels like its trying to be too many things, and failing at every single one of them since the paths dont make a whole lot of sense for them. It very well could work with some shuffling to present like frosts tree, left side being single target focused, right side being AoE focused for example, and allow some build variety in there. As it is right now though, no matter what path you take, you end up taking things you just don’t want in order to get to the stuff you do. For a single target execute focused build, youre forced to take Epidemic and Infected Claws. For an AoE focused Bursting Sores setup, youre forced to grab a reduced Death Coil cost talent. For a Single target Pet focused setup, you’re forced once again into taking Epidemic. If you want to pick up Clawing Shadows to get some ranged play utility, youre forced down a path with incredibly lackluster talents, such as Pestilence and Pestilent Pustules.
The whole thing is just… lacking cohesion, or direction i think. It feels a bit slapped together, with no real flow to the tree placement, the pathing or the playstyles that will stem from the tree. Talents youre forced to take, conflict directly with other talents youre also forced to take. An example of this, for a Pure AoE, bursting Sores setup, youll be grabbing Epidemic and Deadly Coil to grab Infected Claws. Then to top this build off, youll want Festermight and Unholy Assault, but youre forced to grab Death Rot as well. Now, death rot is interesting, because it heavily devalues Epidemic AND Deadly Coil at the same time, as bursting 4 wounds (if you grab Improved Death Coil) in AoE with a Sudden doom proc deals an incredible amount more damage than Epidemic ever would, but, also gets 0 benefit from the reduced Death Coil cost provided by Deadly Coil. Basically this makes all the points required to get to what makes builds work feel like fodder, unimpactful, or downright useless for whatever build youre trying to create.
This all contrasts so heavily with frosts tree, with its clear pathing, great cohesion and build diversity. No talent over there feels useless, or like another talent youre forced to take devalues another that youre also forced to take. My perspective on this isn’t just trying to bash it, though to prove a point a bit id like to bring up one build potential in particular. A single target, pet focused setup very much like we are playing right now in shadowlands. The playstyle should be the same, or at least very similar… right? Well, no.
As we follow the tree down, in order to get to one of our biggest pet cooldowns, Dark Transformation, we are forced to choose between 2 nodes to progress. One, increases festering strike damage, and the other increases festering strikes wound generation. Neither of these really contribute to a pet focused build, but, we have to take one. If we go with improved festering strike damage, our weakest ability gets buffed a little bit. If we grab the improved festering wound generation, we get some more wounds to play with, so that one is an easy gimme for the increased generation. We continue to move down the tree, grabbing unholy pact, army of the dead, unholy command, and we hit a stop. we cant progress further with our pet build unless we start moving down another part of the tree. Looking at the left side, we have some improved festering strike damage, clawing shadows, pestilence and pestilent pustues, none of which really help this pet build get going. On the right, we have Epidemic, Deadly Coil, Infected Claws, All Will Serve, and Reaping. I see All Will serve over there! great pet to have on hand, so we go down that side of the tree just to spend the points to move onto the next section, grabbing all will serve. But, well… we still dont have enough points spent. Back to the middle, we have Ebon Fever, Bursting Sores and Improved Death Coil. Well, Improved Death Coil is the best of the bunch, i guess, since it helps reduce our dark transformations cooldown the free damage cant hurt. But, between Ebon Fever or Bursting sores, gotta pick one to get to it! Well, Ebon Fever hinders our pet build more than helping, since it reduces Virulent Plagues duration, and we want Morbidity during Unholy Blight to buff our pets like it does now. So, Bursting Sores it is… i guess? doesn’t really feel like it adds much, but, at least it doesn’t take away from the playstyle. We grab our points in improved death coil, grab ourselves Unholy Blight, Morbidity, and Unholy Aura to cap off our pet centric setup. With 4 points to spare no less! Lets look at what we can grab. Festermight, Frenzied Monstrosity, Army of the Damned, Apocalypse, and Gargoyle make the most sense to grab for a pet centered build. Apocalypse is the most attractive… but, wait. I grabbed Infectious Wound earlier, increasing my Festering Strike wound generation, if i grab apocalypse, that means that i both want to keep low wounds, and high wounds at the same time. Low wounds to be able to use Infectious Wound well, reducing my Festering Strike casts, and High Wounds to ensure that i can use apocalypse when it comes off cooldown. Now, the playstyle has shifted. I want apocalypse for my pet build, but, it makes my earlier choice feel less valuable, since if i get some bad RNG, it might take 2 globals, 4 runes to setup apocalypse. If i get Good luck, it might just take 1, but, that also means later in the fight when i already have wounds active i could also be wasting wounds whenever i need to build them up for apocalypse. Its a conundrum, theres no winning. Gotta give up Apocalypse, or Infectious Wound to make things feel smooth and not a gamble. Before i make the decision on what one to give up, lets look at the other options, Army of the Damned, well… if i dont take apocalypse, this talent is pretty useless. Death Rot… Sudden Doom bursts Festering Wounds… well, that works incredibly well with Infectious Wound, but, once again, conflicts with Apocalypse, since if i get a sudden doom proc just before apocalypse comes off cooldown, well, there go my wounds that i setup for it. In this case, it becomes a bit of a RNG mess of Festering Wounds, just like the beginning of legion. Will you have to festering strike 1, 2, 3 times to get to use apocalypse? who knows, depends on rng in Festering Strike, and sudden doom. Even if you play properly, setup wounds 3ish seconds before apocalypse comes off cooldown, you start at 0, get bad FS rng, generate 3. Still need 1 more, FS again, generate 6. Well, RIP. Youre forced to spend back to 0, and play the lottery again if you dont want to waste them. So apocalypse is just sitting there off cooldown waiting for you to press it. if you get a sudden doom proc, well, youre forced to either use it, and use another festering strike before apocalypse, or hold it, and use another festering strike after apocalypse to be able to use your sudden doom proc. But, which choice is right? well, no matter what you choose, things just don’t feel right. either ignore sudden doom to use apocalypse, use sudden doom and risk RNG overcapping on wounds.
so the easiest solution? just… dont take apocalypse. If you dont take this, none of these hypothetical situations matter. But, your pet build is now missing some of the most iconic pets, and one of its most iconic cooldowns. It feels bad to hear. Will you make the spec feel worse to get your pets? or will you drop the other cool stuff you got in order to get them and make the spec feel proper? it sucks this is even a choice we have to make. Its a direct conflict between how a specs rotation flows, and the stuff in the talent tree. In the end? the best option is to forgo apocalypse, grab gargoyle, Infectious Wound, Death Rot and Festermight.
So, your pet build ends up looking like this
https://mythictrap.com/dragonflights-talents?c254=noc7b4_ak7ec5_85c0h&c252=noaflt_j16a7c_1
specifically avoiding apocalypse, since grabbing it would mean longer setup in the opener. grabbing it would mean de-synchronizing your cooldowns. grabbing it would mean that your earlier choice of Infectious Wounds becomes a wildcard, and Improved Festering Strike just really doesnt feel like a comparable option. You could drop Infectious Wounds, sure, but, then youre also reducing your runic power generation substantially, increasing the cooldown of dark transformation, apocalypse and army of the dead if you take Army of the Damned since youll have to use Festering Strike more, generating less wounds, which also generates less RP than the same rune cost in scourge strikes + festering wounds. Less RP, means less death coils, devaluing your choice in Improved Death Coil. Less RP means less ability to feed into Gargoyle, if you wanted to go this route, making this talent less appealing for a pet build.
So… Apocalypse ends up being the problem child. Not of any fault of its own, but because the rest of the tree wants to make it hard to use properly, punishing players for getting both good and bad luck.
Now, this was an incredibly long section. But, unholys tree has a lot of issues with structure, pathing, and the playstyles that it creates with these pathing and structure options. This tree really should be looked at again, reshuffled, and rethought how the spec will play. I know i havent gotten a chance to get into alpha, actually play with these builds in game, but, my experience in mapping out playstyle choices by writing the simulationcraft action priority list is more than enough to say with 100% confidence that the playstyles people will want to make with these trees just… dont work. The only one that does partially work is an AoE Bursting Sores setup, but even that is filled with fodder, and contradictions.
Ill be skipping blood for this post, as without hands on experience, i don’t believe i can properly map out the rotation, abilities and builds in my head, how they play and how they feel like i can for Frost and Unholy.
Conclusion time.
Frost/Unholy Overall Thoughts
These two trees contrast different design choices massively. One is well structured, with plenty of choice in pathing, options and seems to be entirely coherent in its choices of placement.
The other, becomes a bit of a convoluted mess with contradictions on what the player should do, what path they should take to accomplish a build they would like. Getting to the final rows, and having to step back, realizing your earlier choices directly interfere playstyle wise with what you want now feels bad.
Theres a lot of cool stuff in both of these trees, a lot of cool interactions that can be made and a lot of stuff thats just never been possible before. But, in Unholys case, those new cool things also contradict themselves, becoming less cool and more of a headache to play with.