Feedback: Death Knight Hero Talents in The War Within

Please check out the preview and let us know what you think in this thread.

6 Likes

Fix the base dps specs first with a proper rework then we’ll talk.

Slapping on self healing to unholy already seems incredibly strong in PvP; can’t wait to see another 30 aura nerfs for these abilities in PvP

Nothing for frost… nice.

Fix

The

Base

Specs

(And hire/promote someone with some sense to head of DK development).

70 Likes

You are going to lose a lot of people in here with the middle talent row revolving around dnd and having to stand in it---- really hope the other trees don’t have similar takes or people in here will be pretty upset. Vampiric seed giving group movement is awesome. Dks definitely need more to bring to group play. Blood is life is just bloodworms called something else.

Top right has a chart, seems like frost will be in deathbringer and rider of apocalypse

25 Likes

Raises hand

Why does the San’layan Themed tree have the Blood Beast power that was a core part of the DEATHBRINGER Saurfang Fight?

Why are you introducing a talent that will cause Unholy to have to reapply diseases randomly?

Why is Unholy getting a Hero Tree that is focused around Haste buffs, with a capstone that will give a stronger haste buff than Unholy Frenzy was during Dark Transformation when you just stated that “Having massive haste buffs during Cooldowns is a problem” and removed the haste buff from Unholy Frenzy because of it?

23 Likes

They have a habit of pruning to reintroduce it somewhere along the line under the guise of “new” stuff.

It’s more a jab at Frost getting tacked on at the end and their love of bandaide adjustments to the class as a whole.

You can’t keep layering new stuff on top of broken specs that no longer function well.

6 Likes

I really hope frost is seeing a big overhaul before you start building out its hero talents.

39 Likes

Overall pretty interesting looking abilities.

Infliction of Sorrow seems like it could be a headache to keep diseases up and hurt abilities that play off them, Plaguebringer, Epidemic etc…

I would say have it pop wounds instead, but honestly wish wounds would go away overall.

18 Likes

I sincerely hope that there is going to be a major overhaul to both frost AND unholy in this expansion. The same mechanics for almost half a decade is getting stale really quick. The zit popping and GCD bloat is awful. The clunky BoS build is rough to say the least in raids, and is extremely punishing for some fights. 2h frost is suffering from that same clunkiness and the whole dnd thing… please. We need a high level rework.

37 Likes

whats the point, has been so much feedback on DK’s in 10.0 10.1 10.2 …still not fixed

26 Likes

First initial concern I would have is that the Vampiric Strike proc rates feels low. Even with the increased proc chance (presuming it means to increase to 15% from 10%) and extended duration from further talents, it still has like a 20% chance to not refresh with 10 chances during the window. This feels like a remarkably high chance to lose a powerful buff through no fault in gameplay.

Second concern would be that it would force blood to use Vamp Blood on CD for offensive purposes. We’re using it a lot anyway, but holding it for defensive reasons shouldn’t feel like a gimp to damage output.

Third would be that consuming diseases on a random proc and having to reapply or lose further output feels clunky.

EDIT: Upon rereading some more, it sounds like Essence of the Blood Queen isn’t a buff that is meant to be permanently maintained. Just a 20 second initial window that can be extended slightly with stacks not refreshing the duration? This would make my first concern be less about upkeep and more about that feeling like a non-fun mechanic.

1 Like

I really like the concept of vampiric-like healing for unholy dk conceptually and gameplay-wise!

I think it will reward uptime in pvp which will be fun to play with. Thumbs up from me.

2 Likes

Looks like a bunch of boring passives. This in no way will make me ‘feel’ like a San’Layn.

No bite? What kind of vampire can’t bite?

It seems ridiculous to add a San’Layn hero spec when Blood DK should already thematically be the vampire spec.

10 Likes

Global cooldown bloat here we come!

2 Likes

Yeah right, just so you can ignore the same issues being explained to you for years.

Rework DK!

41 Likes

Frost doesnt even have an option to get it so anyone bringing up frost in this case, just go take a break.

Its all passives, and Blizzard never claimed that these trees would turn you into something completely different. Could have just increased the class talents and allowed more freedom for people to get stuff that they wanted.

5 Likes

Had a chance to read through San’layn, and it really seems to be designed very well, by someone who clearly knows Blood DK.

Already it all feeds very well together and has a clear gameplay loop that feeds into existing play. Looks super exciting honestly.

3 Likes

I’m begging you to stop making blood death knights use vampiric blood as an offensive cooldown like you did with the aberrus set and now with the capstone skill for san’layn, I shouldn’t have to cast my defensives on cooldown when I don’t need them to gain damage, throwing away your defensive skills this way feels awful

13 Likes

Thematically the tree seems pretty awesome, but lots of questions of how different talents will work.

Do abilities that affect heart strike and scourge strike affect vampiric strike?

If using superstrain, will infliction of sorrow affect both diseases?

For vampiric aura, does lichborne give all our leech to allies or just from vampiric aura?

Blood fortitude seems odd. Should be using dmg reduction CD’s to prevent dmg, not waiting till low health.

Does pact of San’layn store dmg from pets also? Would make terrible gameplay to wait to pop army, apoc, garg until you summon a blood beast to store the shadow damage.

Blood is life seems like it will be a lot of overhealing on the DK. Would be nice if it healed allies also so less was wasted.

Unholy frenzy haste was removed to flatten burst, but then haste added into dark transformation via Gift of Sanlayn.

Would be nice if Newly Turned removed RP cost for raise dead also (or bake that into the class tree somewhere instead)

All 3 DK base specs need a rework. The rotations/base kit are dated. Having to stand in ground effects is never a fun mechanic… i.e cleaving or dmg reduction for being in death and decay.

25 Likes

I’m also hoping for a frost/unholy rework, but this feedback is in the context of current blood, frost, and unholy.

I like many of the new nodes. I like the blood beast related nodes especially. The flavor of all of the nodes feels right on the money where Blood and Unholy really have that shared disease theme running.

Vampiric Strike not proccing off Epidemic feels like an oversight and I’m hoping we don’t have to deal with the implications of this being intended.

Infliction of Sorrow feels like a node that was designed for Blood and works for Unholy as an afterthought. Blood doesn’t mind having to reapply its disease as it does so often with Blood Boil anyway. Unholy on the other hand, has a GCD and Rune economy issue to consider with something that consumes its disease.

With a Vampiric Strike proc available, Unholy will have to make a decision to overwrite an existing, but low duration, Virulent Plague before consuming or to not. Imagine a scenario where a proc of Vampiric Strike requires a DK to Outbreak → Vampiric Strike → Outbreak because the damage gain from the disease consumption is high enough to justify the wasted GCD. Or imagine the alternative, where the damage consumption isn’t high enough and we ignore the mechanic and instead have to reapply our diseases much more often and more randomly. Both of these feel terrible. My request would be to look at a way to make the disease not be consumed, but instead just deal bonus damage.

On the flipside, the Gift of the San’layn interaction with Infliction of Sorrow is excellent. Spamming Vampiric Strike during Dark Transformation to stack a “super disease” and then consuming it after is a really exciting idea in principle and brings back memories of MOP Festermight unholy. :metal:

I have concerns with Essence of the Blood Queen. This talent adds additional ramp to Unholy’s damage that seems particularly prone to falling off with no fault to the player. Unholy already has Death Rot and Icy Talons to stack up when engaging into combat and while those stack up quickly in an ideal opener, in content like M+, stacking these up is tedious and a hamper on our ability to perform.

Finally, the choice nodes. Please change these. Both choice nodes are group utility vs personal survival and that feels like Pre-Dragonflight talent levels of non-choice.

The “group utility” talents are also exceptionally weak when compared to similar utility other classes offer as well as the utility other specs are already getting in their Hero Talents.
For example, Chronowarden gets something remarkably similar to Vampiric Speed, but with x6 the duration. Not to mention other specs have things like Stampeding Roar or Wind Rush Totem that do this effect better and for longer.

The wording of Vampiric Aura has caused some confusion where the amount of leech could be interpreted as 6% or 20% depending on what is increased by 100%. Either way, this effect is a weak one on such a long cooldown. I would rather have a Zephyr, Ancestral Guidance, or Mass Barrier than this.

Neither of these talents are exciting, nor are they a solution to DK’s lack of a raid buff. At best, they are inconsequential “nice to haves”. My hope is that the potency of these are increased substantially and are put in a single choice node against each other so we have to choose between two types of group utility and two types of personal survival rather than the current situation.

12 Likes

that will be funny for unholy, eat 2/3 diseases