I would like to see both 2-Hand combat and Duel-Wield combat style return for all 3 Death Knight specs.
It could be simply given baseline or it might also be good as a talent.
Edit: As a poster mentioned below, perhaps it is a better idea to make 2-Hand the default and Duel-Wield something you can talent into? I like this idea and Im sure could be tuned and introduced in such a way as to benifit not just Frost but Blood and Unholy as well.
My original idea, was to implement a talent with an “either/or” 1 pointer, where you would chose if to go into 2-hand or duel-wield, however after thinking a bit more and reading some feedback here, that could be harder/more convoluted to balance and would likely br needlessly complicated.
Just an idea, as I always thought it felt very good and was interesting that Death Knight could choose the style they want for combat.
Is this something that other Death Knights miss or newer ones would like to experience?
And what would this talent do exactly? Is it going to give Blood and Unholy the Threat of Thassarian passive that frost has which is basically hidden at this point? Why would anyone use a 2h instead of DW? Same damage output + 2 runeforges are better than 1 runeforge. Are they going to have to make an incentive to pick a 2h then and having a motfw talent somewhere in these trees to give some value back to 2h weapons?
Unholy and Blood werent designed for the use of DW. It would be a trap talent if it was just “here you can DW now as blood or unholy”. Yeah you might get 2 runeforges but you are missing a lot of damage since your offhand would be doing nothing if not addressed.
It would run into the same problems with 2h for frost. Frost was designed for DW and you have issues that need to be worked on for that and it would just be the opposite for Unholy and Blood both being designed with a 2h.
There is already room for people to royally screw up their class with not picking things like Runic Empowerment / Runic Corruption I dont think its wise to throw in trap talents as well.
Im not a game designer, I just love to play. I really thought it felt amazing back in the day when I could choose to Duel-Wield or 2-Hander in any DK spec.
I wouldn’t care how it implemented as long as it felt good.
I dont mind people having access to DW if they like it, but there needs to be a proper balance between 2h and dw. If dw/2h were just baseline and dw by default only hit with MH when using abilities then they have a talent that allows 2h to use a second runeforge, but also allowed dw to hit with the OH when using abilities.
currently having frost 2h hidden behind a talent means that 2h frost loses a talent point with no gain in output. The 30% obliterate damage and increased KM chance is to compensate the lack of 2 runeforges and not a dps bonus, so there is really no gain for spending a talent point when you take it.
also a lot of frost is based on number of attacks, like icecap and KM procs, which gives dw an advantage. I think if they changed this to proccing off certain abilities that are uniform (like froststrike or FF ticks) for both 2h and dw it would help.
What would be done with DW blood and unholy? There would be no reason to take it unless you want to tank your DPS. You would be losing damage, and not really gaining anything. A second runeforge while strong, isnt just going to magically make DW good on these specs.
Its the same thing with 2h for frost. When they just implemented 2h in the beta without MotFW it was absolute garbage. It wasnt worth it what so ever. Less KM procs, the damage was lower because no 2 runeforges doesnt work well with some talents and there are more going into DF like Cold-Blooded Rage.
This is all the same stuff I was saying back in BFA and SL beta that people interpreted as “anti-2h” well does this also make me “anti-DW” since I am pointing out the problems with DW and the other specs because they werent designed with DW in mind and that something would have to be done to compensate for it?
Want to 2h pick up the talent. 1 talent point should not make or break the build. It is a DW spec at the end of the day, just like Blood and Unholy are 2h specs.
Slightly off-topic but Blizzard completely screwed the pooch on DK specs at the end of Wrath into Cata. In my head the specs should’ve been laid out differently:
I dont know what Unholy people were playing back then, but I seen 0 DW Unholy Dk’s and the only time I seen DW Unholy was in cata with a Sudden Doom bug.
Otherwise Frost was DW, Blood was 2h, and Unholy was 2h.
DW Frost was hitting almost as hard or as hard as Blood was in Wrath so it was the extra runeforge as well as KM procs.
DW got somewhere around 9 KM procs per minute before Icy Talons and any haste while 2h got somewhere around 4. Even with tanking, DW tanking even with a lot of parries and parry hasting stuff was still a good tank. Blood on the other hand made an impression on Blizzard because someone was solo tanking Heroic Lich King as Blood.
Yeah, Im not so much concerned about the “how”, as Blizz would balance it however they would want anyways, hypothetically speaking.
Im just trying to get it out and into the world as potential feedback as its something I sould personally love. Also, its how Death Knight were originally to begin with.
I do member duel-wield Unholy and Blood being very popular.
Regardless of the arguments, I have absolute certainty that there is a way to re-implement the two combat styles for all 3 specs that could be both fun and rewarding(and worth the talent point or choice or whatever).
DW isnt just for Breath builds. It has more KM procs, Icecap is basically a DW talent as is Frost Strike critical hits giving KM procs which DW is like 2 Frost Strikes in 1 where it gives 2 chances to give a KM proc. You also have 2 chances for Obliterate and Frost Strike to lower PoF through Icecap.
Frost is still designed for DW, so a talent giving it the ability to DW is like making arms or ret to pick up a talent giving them the ability to wield a 2h.
If you want to throw away DW and pick up a 2h, you have the ability to do so.
I am not sure when you first started playing Kelliste but, during WotLK and Cata, Dual Wield blood and unholy were common. Even though they “lost” dps per ability hit, about 1/3 dps in that area, they made up for with more ability procs. Those procs easily out did the damage they lost per button push. A blood DK dual wielding, would easily have 2-3 times more blood worms out than 2-hand, which meant way more heals per second. If you put points down into the Unholy tree to get Blood-Caked Blade, you became a whirling death machine that saw your dps easily double 2-hand. In the older expacs when it was possible to dual wield, Blood and Unholy became very overpowered too quickly. That is the reason why they took it away from them. It wasn’t because they were weak by dual wielding, it was because it gave them too much power. Threat of Thassarian wasn’t even needed for those two specs to way out perform frost. Dual wield was taken away to reduce their power enough for frost to be viable.
No, no they werent. If you were playing DW Blood or Unholy you were losing a lot of damage and or threat and wasnt worth it.
Blood Caked Blade was a 5% chance and only did 25% weapon damage which made a higher base weapon damage more valuable, not to mention you lost damage on basically everything else for a low weapon strike.
If you were doubling your dps as DW in Blood or Unholy because of Blood Caked blade then you had to be sitting on your hands. That statement is just untrue.
The only time that Unholy did any type of meaningful damage with DW was when Sudden Doom was proccing off of your offhand as well which wasnt intended and they made it proc just off of your main hand.
You are actually quite wrong in this post. Frost was not designed for Dual Wield in mind. Threat of Thassarian was a deep talent to grab in WotLK and beyond when it was a talent. When the old talent tree got scrapped, Threat of Thassarian was removed all together and wasn’t re-added until Legion. Threat of Thassarian was needed just to make Duel Wield frost viable in any sense.
And again, you obviously don’t know how broken dual wielding was when it was a thing. Death Knight dual wielding has been in high contention due to balancing issues yes, but not in the way you are thinking. Unholy DKs wouldn’t see a nerf to damage due to the fact that the majority of their damage comes from shadow damage, which is from Virulent Plague, Festering Wounds, Death and Decay, Defile, and Death Coil / Epidemic. The other major portion of Unholy’s damage is from pets. Which again, would not be affected by what weapon type you are using. You are also flat out dismissing more Sudden Doom procs and the fact that you can get a second rune forge, which potentially can really help round out the down times while you are waiting for Runes or Runepower.
Blood DKs also would see very little loss to dps. More auto attacks would mean more Blood Worms and more Crimson Scourge procs. Being able to put Rune of Hysteria on off hand would allow for much greater rune power generation which would in turn mean more Bonestorms and Death strikes. Blood’s major damage isn’t from Heart Strike or Marrowrend, it’s from the shadow damage / procs / cleave. Since you would only lose at worst, about 20% of your physical damage, you would instead gain a lot more procs and another runeforge.
It’s quite interesting how you flat out dismiss the fact that dual wield would bring a lot to the table for blood and unholy. Dual Wield would just bring too much to the table to discard.
Also, Blood-Caked Blade had a 30% proc rate. Which procced much more often than 30% in reality. There is a reason why some talents were removed. It wasn’t just, “lacking” of flavor.
No, im not. Frost was designed for DW in mind. ToT didnt come out until 3.2, but it still had Nerves of Cold Steel, and used mostly spells so weapon strikes werent as important. In fact you didnt really go past Howling Blast in builds prior to 3.2 and would get Howling Blast and Gargoyle.
This is just completely wrong. MoP is when the talent system changed and ToT was absolutely in the game. It was then merged with Might of the Frozen Wastes in WoD.
Incorrect as well. ToT was added in when frost was changed around in 3.2 to include more strikes.
What expansion are you talking about exactly? Wounds? That wasnt until Legion. Virulent Plague? Legion again. Defile? Wasnt added until WoD. Epidemic? Again wasnt added until Legion. So… what are you talking about here? A lot of the damage came from Scourge Strike with having 3 diseases on the target to increase its damage increasing its damage by 36% which would be increased more with a 2h weapon. Even with Plague Strike, Blood-Caked Blade which was also a weapon strike, and Blood Strike for reaping, you wanted a 2h weapon.
Unholy didnt have Sudden Doom in Wrath. That was Blood and it was triggered by Blood Strike and Heart Strikes which those abilities wanted a 2h weapon for. I dont know why you would want to reduce your damage by 25% and not gain it back anywhere else. Not only that, but in Cata where Unholy got Sudden Doom, it wasnt intended for it to proc off of your off hand and was changed to only proc off of your main hand.
The only second Runeforge that you would get as Blood or Unholy in terms of DPS was cinderglacier. Not real benefit in anything else and Cinderglacier didnt proc all that often and wouldnt make up for the loss of 25% of your damage just disappearing from your weapon strikes.
Blood Dk’s… Hysteria… that was added in Shadowlands. So its clear you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about and didnt actually play in the past. Or are you talking about DW now? and you still wouldnt want to lose out on 25% of your weapon strike damage. People already complained about the lack of threat early on, and even with the 4pc, you would want a 2h weapon.
30% chance per weapon swing, but you are still losing out on 25% of that damage for no real gain. You might see DW blood caked blade and 2h blood caked blade turn out to be even, but then you lose out on all the damage everywhere else. Sorry, but its Blood and Unholy would lose out severely with DW.
Agreed. As happy as I am that 2H made a comeback in SL, they definitely got the implementation backwards. 2H is doing okay right now but still weaker than breath in most scenarios, even though it’s being propped up by 4set + Jailer weapon.
The main problem is the discrepancies in runeforges, KM procs, and RP generation so it’s not an impossible thing to balance.
I’m not against making it a cosmetic choice either. In that case though, I think 2H should be default and we mog into DW. That way we don’t have to hunt down 2 1H weapons anymore.
I was going to rebut you but it’s a waste of time. If people want to duel wield let them. If it’s a nerf, who cares? You are purely looking for ways to shoot it down without trying to be constructive. Which makes it a waste of time of having a discussion with you.
The people who want to DW care. Just look at 2h frost for an answer to the “who cares” question. They said they wouldnt care if it was 20% behind they just wanted to be able to use it, they were able to use it and what were the first complaints about it? Its not balanced. But if someone wants to nerf all their strike damage by 25% without anything to compensate for it, by all means let them DW.
Entirely false. You are making claims and im saying those claims are false. Blood-Caked Blade did not and would not, as you say
That is a bs statement. Again these specs were doing 14k on average by the end of the expansion. By your logic they should be doing 28k. That never happened. I say again to that, if you were doubling your damage due to Blood-Caked Blade, you were sitting on your hands and watching the fight play out.
You aren looking to be constructive either. That wasnt the point of your posts at all.
You also just said the exact same reasoning I gave for Blood and Unholy in your own response on how they “fixed” frost before Threat of Thassarian came back into the game… How ironic… “No, im not. Frost was designed for DW in mind. ToT didnt come out until 3.2, but it still had Nerves of Cold Steel, and used mostly spells so weapon strikes werent as important. In fact you didnt really go past Howling Blast in builds prior to 3.2 and would get Howling Blast and Gargoyle.” How weird that the way to get around DW not doing as much damage with weapon skills was to use Howling blast spam… It’s almost as if Blood and Unholy have similar mechanics already.