Feedback: Death Knight Hero Talents in The War Within

Classes Death Knight
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My main concern about Vampiric Strike is the part where it can consume your blood plague. This feels like it would negatively affect the Umbilicus Eternus talent which relies on blood plague damage in a small window.

Now the current incarnation has Gift of the Sanlyan prevent that and it is currently tied to Vampiric Blood, but the dev interview indicated they might move it to dancing rune weapon instead of vampiric blood. So I really hope some thought goes into making sure we don’t juke Umbilicus Eternus. It’s just a fun talent.

42

For the love of god, please stop making us stand in ground effects for buffs it is horrendous, outdated and not a single player enjoys being forced into this.

You 100% need to rework the DK class before moving any further ahead with hero talent design as the class as a whole is bloated, outdated and in need of serious help.

19 Likes
44

Amoncaco posted this feedback on the EU side of the forums, and he and I think it should be mirrored here for he makes a lot of great points. I to am a high end Mythic Raider and avid Mythic + player and some of these talents are concerning.

I’m going to give feedback from the PoV of a DPS dk main, who mostly raids and plays at a fairly competitive level.

First of all, I do quite like the idea of the tree. Vampiric strike as a concept, doing damage based on disease damage and these effects being amplified during our 45 second cooldown are all good ideas.

However, I think there are missteps being made in how these ideas are implemented.

Vampiric Strike
Like I said, it’s an interesting concept. However, a 10% proc rate on DC is just not really it. I’d much rather see this be increase threefold, or it will just be far to rare an occurance. As it stands this will proc around one in thirty of our casts (assuming DC is about 33% of casts), which just feels very underwhelming, especially considering how long stacking the haste buff would take w/o taking Gif into consideration.

Blood-Soaked Ground
I think I speak for probably every single DK in the world here, please stop putting so much power behind Defile. I would say DND but if this talent goes live as it is, nobody would ever use DND anymore because you’d be pigeonholed into played defile on every fight. On top of that, the effect is pretty underwhelming, this would proc once every 20 DC cast on average, while inside of DND/defile (so, probably more like every 40 DC casts on average).

Infliction of Sorrow
Probably one of the most requested DK changes/builds is in regards to disease gameplay. This sort of does that, however it has a few big issues in it. First of all, as it stands, pressing outbreak is just not it. It’s already barely worth it and we only maintain it because of brittle. Now sure, this would make pressing outbreak more worth it again, however as outbreak is not a very fun button to press even with this change, it will just lead to frustration.
Second issue with this is that it could potentially lead to use wanting to refresh our disease right before pressing Vampiric Strike, and then pressing outbreak again right after, leading to even worse gameplay.
In my opinion, the effect during gift (20% of the remaining damage, not really the extension part), should be what this talent does baseline. Less annoying gameplay (still the possibility of outbreak before VS) and you could keep the extension for during DT.

The Blood of Life
This feels like a very strange and mismatched talent, essentially a proc on a proc. I personally don’t think procs on top of procs ever feel good. These beasts will also be uncontrollable and would be prone to proccing at the worst possible times.

Incite Terror
I genuinely do not understand the point of this talent. It makes it seem like you expect the Essence of the Blood Queen to drop off (which it might, considering my earlier comment on proc rate), which just seems like terrible gameplay in general. To then have this talent only for that not to happen, seems like a bit of missed potential to me personally.

Sanguine Scent
This is a cool talent in my opinion, I love some more execute. Assuming VS works with all SS modifiers, it will also hit super hard. However, does this talent then also consume your diseases? I think that would feel awful. You’d end up potentially having to re-apply diseases a crazy amount during execute which, for aforementioned reasons, will lead to unfun gameplay.

Pact of the San’layn
As I don’t think the blood beast itself is very interesting, I also don’t think this talent is very interesting.

Overall, as I said at the start of my post, I do really like the idea and vibe of this tree. VS has potential and imo it does play into unholy quite well with the strong 45s window (especially if 2x magus ends up being a talent, which is should, btw). I also really dig the execute aspect of the tree. I hope you take my feedback to heart and we get to play a cool vampire DK on the beta without having to re-apply diseases an excessive amount of time.

3 Likes
45

Mages since, what, Cata/MoP?: “Blizzard this sucks please stop”

Blizzard in DF with mages: “hmm, maybe you’re right”

Blizzard in DF with DKs: “no, the kids must be wrong”

It’s like they haven’t learned from, what, a decade of being told things like Rune of Power suck?

20 Likes
46

This 100% would be so sick. I would like of it made vampiric blood change blood in some form as well. (Having a vampire form would be sick)

1 Like
47

are we really married to the San’layn name?

3 Likes
48

Played since Vanilla. Do not normally post a lot on the forums, however, the current state of Frost DK is cause for serious concern, and I feel that the announcement of hero talents is where Blizzard can make amends for the class as a whole. However, if the current path continues, Death Knight shall be in an even worse place.

The Death Knight class fantasy is largely rooted in different aspects of Arthas, both as a Death Knight and Lich King. Our specs tap into that considerably, but our hero talents do not to tap into that at all. Whilst I appreciate that the San’layn talents are true to lore, Rider of the Apocalypse and Deathbringer offer little to draw upon in regards to class fantasy and thematically.

The Lich King and Arthas are relevant to both specs, so why do we get Deathbringer? There is no lore to even suggest what that means thematically besides being a title for Saurfang, who thematically utilises blood. Logically we should therefore be getting two blood focused hero trees, unless something changes.

The player is the Deathlord of the Ebon Blade - so why do we have Rider of the Apocalypse instead? Will there be lore to explain what this actually even is? Without it there is literally no class fantasy other than it being ‘Generic Death Knight+’. The same could be argued for San’layn - how does the player actually reach that point? If these things do not fit the class fantasy and are not explained then they will feel stupid to play regardless of mechanics and balance.

This would be a good opportunity to branch out and include aspects that reference the different Lich Kings, the player as the Deathlord and leader of the Four Horsemen, and potentially more Scourge based elements. Hopefully someone will have fun with a blank canvas and help progress the class fantasy beyond where it was left in Shadowlands, as it was building up quite nicely up until that point.

Death Knights deserve to be as equally thematic as other specs. The lore is literally right there. Hunter is getting Dark Ranger, Druid is getting Keeper of The Grove. It would be an absolute failure to not give Death Knights iconic hero talents for this expansion. We had that level of class fantasy until the end of Legion, and now it should be given back through hero talents.

And, seriously, I am very disappointed in the attitude throughout the recent Death Knight hero talents interview regarding Death and Decay. We should not have to stand in it to cleave. At all. Doing so is a negative aspect of playing the class - it does not feel good to have to do this. As it stands the class feels utterly bad to play. It is therefore logical to NOT reinforce negative aspects of play that people do NOT like. A good hero talent would REMOVE the need to stand in Death and Decay. Doubling down on things that people do not like doing in the game is literally asking for people to quit.

Finally, please make Frost feel impactful and live up to the class fantasy. Right now Unholy feels like a Death Knight, Blood feels vampiric, and Frost… The statistics are there for all to see. Frost hits like a wet noodle, has the lowest mobility in the game, and has terrible survivability. Beyond all of that, what is it supposed to be? In Legion we had the Blades of The Fallen Prince - we embodied the Lich King. What are we now? There is no Lich King. There is no Arthas. Frost is bad mechanically, poor in balance, and void of class fantasy, all of which is set to continue unless something is actually done.

6 Likes
49

I understand san’layn is “half” blood dk and unholy but adding more defensive properties to a class that is already top 3 if not top 2 in terms of beef is very weird. Half our current class talent nodes are defensives.

I also get that you HAVE to start working on these trees as they are an expansion feature and it is imperative they are in working order but… Unholy and Frost need a ground up rework. If they get the rework they DESPERATELY need I promise you half, if not more, of this tree is going to look different. It just seems like a waste of dev time. Its not like both dps dk specs needing a rework was a secret.

My thoughts as a PvE focused DK on the tree in slightly more detailed thought.

  1. The choice node of Newly Turned and Vampiric Speed is rather weird as I do not see a dk ever taking Newly Turned when one of the big cruxes of the class is its mobility.
    I do hope DK is getting some other better kind of mobility than WALKING FASTER. The Aug/Pres tree makes hover (an already GOOD mobility button) now have a blink which if it works like mage blink in any capacity will allow them to literally avoid mechanics. Meanwhile we keep on walking faster and faster…

  2. The choice node of Vampiric Aura and Bloody Fortitude seems to be a good node. I can actually see people changing between the two depending on the situation which is a rare thing that is actually achieved with choice nodes.

  3. Blood-Soaked Ground BAD. BAD. BAD. Stop this death and decay nonsense. You guys caved to the mages and let them break free of their rune of power chains. Let us break free of our death and decay chains. Either delete the button, rework it to be around us or something, or if you really must just remove the cooldown on death and decay.

  4. Infliction of Sorrow is a very confusing node. As it stands, unholy wishes to press outbreak as little as possible due to how bad the button is. Infact in single target the only reason we press it is for brittle. The second half of the node is fine but the first half of the node either confirms theres a rework coming or the person that made the node does not understand how the class is currently working.

  5. The proc chance overall for the unholy side of things to get a vamp strike seems low.

  6. You guys quite literally JUST removed haste from unholy frenzy. You’re now adding it back but to a button we press EVEN MORE in dark transformation. This is blizzards biggest fault when they remove things that are unhealthy than reintroduce them (like re-adding a 2nd type of weapon style for frost and attempting to tune it and being unsuccessful after you guys removed it before.)

  7. I do hope the Essence haste buff is either just flat buff you forget about or works like ironfur (like festermight should) rather than working like festermight.
1 Like
50

I really like the San’layn tree for Blood Death Knight and I look forward to them aesthetically. I will say I am sad there is no “Turn into a swarm of bats and leech everything” Like the Mal’Ganis ultimate in HotS or “Turn into a vampire queen/lord for x seconds” I want more Vampire aesthetic from San’layn, if you’re going to call it San’layn. It adds a lot of defensive options in my opinion that boost its defensive nature but in terms of specs:

Frost needed San’layn more than Unholy did.
Frost has no healing outside of Death Strike while Unholy still gets some outside with being able to apply every plague. It isn’t doing better damage than Unholy to compete with the sustain nor is it capable of such burst like Unholy. At this point Frost needs a rework, a damage buff or something else to put it on par with the utility/survivability Unholy has.

In terms of abilities:

  • Vampiric Speed: Death’s Advance and Wraith Walk movement speed bonuses are increased by 10%. Activating Death’s Advance or Wraith Walk increases 4 nearby allies movement speed by 20% for 5 sec.

Alright, as stated before I wish it gave others the anti-knockback instead maybe. Wraith Walk is in the wrong part of the tree to ever be taken as an ability.

  • Bloody Fortitude: Icebound Fortitude reduces all damage you take by up to an additional 30% based on your missing health. Killing enemies that grant honor or experience reduces the cooldown of Icebound Fortitude by 3 sec.

A question for someone more knowledgeable than I, so this just stops working in high end content because they don’t grant XP or Honor? Or has that changed? My brain is muddled from playing classic lately.

  • Infliction of Sorrow: When Vampiric Strike damages an enemy affected by Blood Plague or Virulent Plague it consumes the disease dealing 200% of the remaining damage. While Gift of the San’layn is active, Vampiric Strike no longer consumes your disease and instead extends the duration of your disease by 3 sec and deals 20% of the remaining damage to the enemy.

Is Unholy going to double dip here? See point above about Frost.

1 Like
51

No. It would apply for all endgame content, as pve mobs in dungeons are max level +2. This would have great application in M+ and probably battlegrounds, and limited utility in raid, but that’s why there’s an alternative.

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just wanted to second this.

6 Likes
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Thinking about it further, the disease interaction in this hero spec is much more of a bonus/non-issue for Blood DK, which rotationally reactivates its disease as part of using Blood Boil, generally a great button to hit. This sort of interaction would indeed work better for Frost than UH.

1 Like
54

Fix the main trees first.

Stop giving us abilities that require us to stand in DnD. I don’t know how many times we stress it but you guys are for some ridiculous reason OBSESSED with making sure the most annoying(stop thinking this is interchangeable with skillful) playstyles are the most optimal/powerful. Its like you guys go “Oh hey this is fun and makes the class flow well, it has to suck then. This ability is really frustrating and a major PITA, make it meta”. Cut this crap out already.

9 Likes
55

First off, I am happy anyone can post in this forum to provide feedback. Hopefully it will go a long way. Before I give my thoughts and breakdown, I want to say the hero talents have me very excited; however, I do think DKs as a whole need a rework overall. The talents feel outdated compared to other classes (look at new ret, rogue, DH for example). Between the wound system imo that should be completely replaced with some type of disease rework, to frost needing an entire rework to blood needing some changes as well.

Okay that being said, here are my thoughts after listening to the interview. I encourage everyone to listen as it provides some additional info.

*Vampiric Strike From the way this was explained in the video and in the tooltip is a passive way for you to gain some extra haste while self healing and a new attack, which will hopefully do extra damge since it is a proc(which I assume will be affected by other talents, clawing shadows come to mind here). And during your Cool downs (Dark transform for example) is when you would be able to stack it consistently to gain a lot of haste. Even more so if you take the dark transform talents. This feels fun imo to make dark transform feel better as a CD, but it also feels like maybe step back if you look at the change to Unholy Assault.
I think it would be cool if during dark transform if made our pet into a vampire. And, based off the interview it seems this is going to change to dancing rune weapon for blood, if so, it be cool if the rune weapon had a really fun vampire aesthetic as well.

Blood Soaked Ground I am happy to hear the devs are looking at DND in general for cleave as a whole during the interview. I personally think the DND interaction needs to change and every DK as a whole thinks the same.

Vampiric aura imo needs to change. Give the 3% leech at all times to you and the raid. And during the active have it increase by 100%. On a second note, this makes me feel like Presences should come back in general in a reworked way. (I personally think the general talent trees need a rework, and if so you could have a presences with a passive and active effect could be cap stones maybe, but that could be a conversation for another time.)

Blood Fortitude sounds great for mythic+, but meh else where, but I guess that is why it is a choice node.

Blood is Life This has me excited. I like the idea of new summons. I am curious on how much damage it will do, the attacks it will have and proc rate. Assuming this will be affected by UH mastery.

Sanguine Scent I need clarification on this. Does this mean the Vampric Strike will always crit when enemies are at 35% hp? Or only when it is procced by DS and Dc? If it is whenever in execute phase, this has me very excited as I assume this will also be affected by soul reaper talent in the UH tree.

Pact of San’Layn This sounds okay for blood, but for Unholy sounds like this could be a ton of damage. Would this double dip with UH mastery? And be affected by commander of dead? If so this could be some incredible aoe damage.

Gift of San’Layn I commented on this earlier in my post.

Frenzied bloodthurst This just means more passive haste, but the damage boost also means Dark Transform is even more of a damage amp (and likewise for blood assuming it changes to dancing rune weapon). I like it, but also fear it will pigeon whole certain builds, at least for Unholy. For blood, if tied to dancing rune weapon would just add some extra damage.

Newly Turned This is interesting. IMO add making our Brez not cost runic power.

Vampiric Speed Make the knockback effect spread to our allies as well, at least for a 5 man party. Not sure if it needs to be raid wide.

Infliction of Sorrow based off the interview, it seems disease play for UH is something they are really looking at. Please make our terrible pimple pop mechanic changed to somehow deal with disease. (but that would need some rework in general).
I like the concept of this, but feel it could have some degenerative gameplay loops. I think if the “wounds” were replaced by a new disease, this talent would work so much better. Imagine if festering strike applied a stacking dot on the enemy. Think like curse of agony, it ramps up in damage. scourge strike instead of popping wound, would instead make the dot flare up, doing a portion of the damage in an aoe. So with that mindset, it wouldn’t feel really cool to extend the duration of this dot since it would do more damage the longer it is applied. I do think the interaction of consuming diseases should be changed to something else, but not sure how to explain it.

Visceral regeneration Do we really need this? With the extra haste we will have, this seems like a waste maybe. Not sure.

Overall I like the idea of hero talents and this has me excited, but I do think dks need a rework. Our talents feel outdated compared to all the other classes overall.
I think Unholy needs changes. My suggestion is to make the pimples be replaced by a new disease that ramps in damage like curse of agony. Frost needs a lot of work, and blood needs help too. Overall though, I am very excited.

Thanks for reading.

2 Likes
56

What interview are you referencing?

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58

I assume that since they announced these hero talents for DK, meant to enhance current gameplay, that there is no significant rework coming.

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I do think there is going to be some changes, they hinted at it in the interview, but sadly does not seem to be the rework we are hoping for >_<

61

Ive mained SP since BC and weve always had Vamp Embrace, always had offhealing from vampirism effects, them taking that away would be a final nail in the coffin for SP taking away a key part of their class and playstyle that made them fun to play. My humble opinion.

62

Seems like a fun bit of flavor that fits the vampiric theme.

Only feedback is please do not make DnD a single target button for UH, we have enough stuff to do.

Also changing the effects to “While DnD is active” is preferable if you are going to add more aoe stuff with DnD (like how SS hot multiple targets if your DnD).

1 Like