Feedback: Death Knights

[Malchior-frostmourne (Malchior)]

Unholy Feedback

Glad to see Unholy Blight added as a passive for Dark Transformation that will reduce our burst opener by 14%. Now we just need to eliminate/merge a few more cooldowns and we’ll be good as gold.

1. Vile Contagion and Festering Scythe both do the same thing, I’d rather lose the uninteresting Vile Contagion and have Festering Scythe as the sole AoE wound applicator. I think everyone would be happy with Festering Scythe adopting the Frostscythe mechanic of having a fixed cooldown reduced by bursting wounds over its current implementation.

2. Unholy Assault should be a passive that modifies Apocalypse, you never use them separately so it makes sense to save a keybind and another GCD. I would appreciate keeping Unholy Assaults strike animation over Apocalypse though.

3. Runic Mastery still seems like it will never be chosen, its a very boring talent and I would love to see something else replace it, probably something minion related.

4. Pestilence is weak and RNG and if Festering Scythe is to become our main AoE wound generator then I would like to see this add some interaction with our diseases. I’ve had this talent not proc any wounds in AoE situations which is just ridiculous.

5. All Will Serve can this please do something cool? A skeletal archer is definitely not it. Hell even a skeletal magus that benefits from some of the magus talents would be better.

6. Visuals. Bringing this up again, our melee strikes need alternating animations when used back to back to become less visually jarring. Also our spell effects could definitely use a going over, the cool Drust visuals from BFA are sitting there ready to be used. Off the top of my head abilities that need some additional effects:

• Unholy Pact ignites flaming chains but deals Shadow damage…
• Defile should be an actual effect instead of a ground texture so important ground effects in PvE aren’t obscured.
• Death Coil needs more shadowy stuff.
• Epidemic very visually underwhelming, usually because it drowns your screen in numbers.
• Clawing Shadows needs its own animation and it can’t be the death coil one because we’d be machine gunning shadow bolts when alternating between Clawing Shadows and Death Coil, although if we held our rune weapon like a gun…pew pew pew perhaps.

7. We still have 6 two-point nodes which I think is the highest of any spec, some having them removed entirely. I would really like the additional build variants having these reduced to 1 pointers would provide.

Frost Feedback

Just a quick word. Why are we baking more power into Obliteration? I don’t think this will do anything other than make Obliteration windows even more important and consequently when you can’t maintain uptime during those windows feels absolutely punishing.

[Ashanu-stormrage]

Bdk talent tree reshuffle is really good. Only thing I would like is bettter pathing options for rapid decomp or purg. Otherwise great change.

[Bloodronin-sargeras]

@Malchior-frostmourne

Vile Contagion and Festering Scythe both do the same thing, I’d rather lose the uninteresting Vile Contagion and have Festering Scythe as the sole AoE wound applicator. I think everyone would be happy with Festering Scythe adopting the Frostscythe mechanic of having a fixed cooldown reduced by bursting wounds over its current implementation.

I would like that a lot. Sadly, I doubt Blizz will change it since they want Festering strike to feel more impactful (Which this talent still doesn’t resolve imo). While we are at it, can blood have a cool scythe? Mayke make Consumption animation into a bloody one.

@Malchior-frostmourne

Unholy Assault should be a passive that modifies Apocalypse, you never use them separately so it makes sense to save a keybind and another GCD. I would appreciate keeping Unholy Assaults strike animation over Apocalypse though.

I would be okay with this, but it would need to be updated. 20% damage every 45 sec would be a little too strong.

@Malchior-frostmourne

Runic Mastery still seems like it will never be chosen, its a very boring talent and I would love to see something else replace it, probably something minion related.

Imo, this talent and improved festering should just be 1 talent nodes a piece. I’d like to see runic master changed to minion as well, though I am not sure how to go about it without it being another boring X damage increase node. Maybe make it so your minions have a chance to apply a new disease? Not sure though.

@Malchior-frostmourne

Pestilence is weak and RNG and if Festering Scythe is to become our main AoE wound generator then I would like to see this add some interaction with our diseases. I’ve had this talent not proc any wounds in AoE situations which is just ridiculous.

If they made this talent into a disease one, I’d like to see a way for disease to apply wounds (Which would then make festering strike even less desirable) but I also am not a fan of the wound mechanic in general, so I am biased and want it more passive anyhow.

@Malchior-frostmourne

All Will Serve can this please do something cool? A skeletal archer is definitely not it. Hell even a skeletal magus that benefits from some of the magus talents would be better.

I think the archer should be a choice node between a skeletal archer or skeletal assassin/zerker. I think it would be fun to have something new here. But in general, the archer needs some new skills/updates.

I agree completely with the updated animations and looks. SO many of the DK skills are beyond outdated. A visual update alone would make the class way more appealing.

[Bloodronin-sargeras]

This was requested already, but for those who completed the shadowmourne quest, can we please have a red version the rider mount when using rider? I think that would be so damn cool.

Also, as mentioned before by others, but can Unholy Bond be reworked to simply give your main hand weapons Fallen crusader? Even with the change to other rune forges, you will still use FC regardless. It has been the go to pick forever. We need a chance to actually use the other runeforges.

[Malchior-frostmourne (Malchior)]

If Unholy Bond allowed main hand weapons (two-hander and main hand dual wield) to have two rune forges on it, I definitely could see runeforges having some interesting combos. As you stated though I cannot see myself ever not using Fallen Crusader, because Rune of the Apocalypse does not work in AoE scenarios. Also add in the fact that if Rune of the Apocalypse becomes the go to single target runeforge, will I have to deathgate back everytime I want to swap between Fallen Crusader and Rune of the Apocalypse based on the content I am currently doing?

[Frostingale-frostmourne]

@Linxy

Frost

• Obliteration now has an additional effect – While Pillar of Frost is active it will now also increase the cost of your Frost Strike by up to 15 Runic Power to deal up to 52.5% additional damage.

After testing this on the Beta, i’m not a fan. However, i do like this effect as its actually a solid bonus, but i don’t like that its tied to Obliteration builds AND specifically pillar. This effect would work far better if added to hyperpyrexia as something specifically tailored for Breath Of Sindragosa. i found that this effect felt like it significantly slowed down obliteration pillar windows instead of feeling good. however it would work really nicely with the insane runic power generation that breath builds have. This is because they feel as if they currently do close to nothing outside of breath’s (now very short) window which is not fun. The breath build would be genuinely healthier when able to take advantage of its incredible runic power generation at all times rather than only within breath. this type of bonus could really help to keep the rotations more varied. In addition. this bonus should also apply to glacial advance.

[Bloodronin-sargeras]

Wanted to comment on cleaving strikes.

The community is clearly against it. I also think it is an outdated mechanic. If you look at pretty much all melee dps, all of them have an aoe ability they can spend with a short CD. I think that is the root cause of frustration for dk aoe.

What aoe spender do we have? Unholy has aoe RP with epidemic, frost has (imo a very underwhelming) aoe rp spender with glacial advance. But we don’t have a rune spender, which then causes us to have cleaving strikes required. This issue is even greater for frost due to all the power behind obliterate.

Warriors have whirlwind or cleave. Both on short cds. Paladins have divine storm, DH have blade dance, rogues have aoe combo point spenders as well (unless outlaw, which is just aoe regardless). I could go on, but I think you get the point.

The other issue, is the fact we have more power tied into the way DKs cleave. We are using single target abilities to hit multiple enemies. For Unholy, this provides mass aoe with exploding wounds, while for frost it causes insane cleave with obliteration. (Frost specifically already has too much power into obliterate in general). On top of this, we also have dnd causing other buffs like extra haste. No one likes cleaving strikes. Even with the 4 sec buff it still feels bad to play and causing too many issues (looking at your obliterate builds)

Can we please just have dedicated aoe spenders that costs runes? This would allow for better tuning overall for all the specs.
Even blood imo should have a new rune spender for aoe. But maybe that is just by opinion.

In cleaving strikes place, you could instead have a choice node with defile, or maybe (Heartstrike, Scourge Strike, Obliterate) automatically proc dnd at the targets location with a cd baked in.

Then add the RUNE spending aoe abilities that I am sure can easily be cooked up and you’re set.

For blood specifically, if they don’t want to make a new aoe rune spender, just make cleaving strikes baseline for blood.

[Markulo-sargeras]

The changes to the Blood tree are nice, but some of the San’layn changes have me scratching my head. Visceral Regeneration was overtuned, but Visceral Strength is just a copy & paste of Perseverance of of the Ebon Blade. Further, it revolves around use of DnD for a buff, but we already have a DnD buff in the San’layn tree with Blood Soaked Ground. In total, we now have 6 buffs tied to DnD: Blood Soak Ground & Visceral Strength in Sanlayn, Perseverance of the Ebon Blade & Sanguine Ground in the Blood tree, and Cleaving Strikes & Unholy Ground in the general tree.

Circling back to Visceral Regeneration for a moment, the change still misses the issue - we pop a defensive CD to acquire Gift of San’layn and then proceed to spam Vampiric Strike. In my opinion, this is not engaging gameplay and will be a balance headache for the expansion. I see the problem as arising from Gift of San’layn and Vampiric Strike being linked.

My feedback would still be to: (i) buff the proc chance of Vampiric Strike outside of Gift of San’layn; (ii) Gift of San’layn no longer replaces Heartstrike with Vampiric Strike for the duration; (iii) turn Gift of San’layn into an active ability that grants a cool buff with a duration based off the stacks of Essence of the Blood Queen; and (iv) have a trait where Vampiric Blood or Dancing Rune Weapon increases the proc chance for Vampiric Strike for the duration. I believe this setup would be easier to tune than the current iteration and further wouldn’t completely disrupt the rotation.

To elaborate on “cool buff” above (so technical, I know), it could be a strong, albeit temporary, buff to haste, leach, movement/attack speed, etc. I just wouldn’t have it buff Vampiric Strike further. Alternatively, you could go in the opposite direction and instead make Gift of San’layn into a damage ability, where you “gift” your curse to one or more targets (i.e., a nasty DOT/debuff). Regardless, not to belabor the point, but please reconsider the link between Gift and Vampiric Strike.

[Àtreyu-area-52]

@Malchior-frostmourne

Unholy Feedback

I love all your points, Blizz, please look it over!

[Derpstrïke-malganis]

The most recent Blood tree changes dont really feel like they met the goal of making it feel less like we are locked in to. There does seem to be a little more freedom then before, but so much is still locked in no matter what. It feels like there is no way to get all the stuff you need and the stuff you want because there is too much stuff you need.
Having Rapid Decomposition and Coagulopathy locked behind two talents that do functionally nothing (Perseverance of the Ebon Blade and Relish in blood) feels terrible. Reduce the power of RD and put that strength into blood plague by default, make crimson scourge worth caring that it even exists, or move RD/Coag up the tree.
I would be very happy if Coag just stop being a thing. its not hard to maintain, but the duration is too short to where it constantly drops between pulls in m+ and any time you have to do anything that’s not hitting the boss in raid. You loss a big chunk of stuff because the game forced you to. It feels bad. Increase the duration to 12 seconds, reduce the stack count and increase the power per stack, or just remove it completely.
Sanguine Ground should just be passive and not tied to D&D. Please stop making things tied to D&D. It feels bad and makes movement feel even worse.
Heartrend’s proc rate feels way to low for where its located
Please swap Purgatory and Bloodshot. Then make a connection from Red Thirst and Shattering Bone to them.
Leeching Strike and Blood Feast seem all but useless given where they are in the tree and what you have to give up to get them. Make them much more powerful to make the trade worth it, or move then to be more accessible and optional
Rune Tap should be baseline and generate the same runic power as heartstrike
2 talents buffing Dancing Rune Weapon isnt really a choice. They are required.
Mark for Blood needs to be looked at. Tombstone is too powerful to ever take MfB as it currently exists. I would solve this and the previous point like this: remove Insatiable Blade. Make DRW generate 5 bone shield charge by default. Move Everlasting Bond up to where IB was. Move Tombstone to where EB was. Add the DRW cdr per bone shield to the effet of tombstone. Change Mark for Blood to: Increases the damage of heart strike by 30% for 15 seconds. For the duration, Heart Strike will also cast a free Death Strike on all targets hit. Cap the total healing you can get to 1.5 death strikes if thats too powerful

[Pembroke-dethecus]

Really enjoyed reading this feedback. BIG ups with defile drowning out visual mechanics and you cant see things on the ground, this does not feel good whatsoever. would like to add itd be nice to see defile reworked a bit, changed to an aura (off gcd preferably) that does what it currently does but isnt so visually impairing and lets you move with it.

would also like to see something with popping wounds being able to lower cd on defile/dnd. maybe this replaces pestilence?

[Khazak-zuljin]

@Linxy

Frost

• Obliteration now has an additional effect – While Pillar of Frost is active it will now also increase the cost of your Frost Strike by up to 15 Runic Power to deal up to 52.5% additional damage.

This is the first Frost change I don’t like or understand.

• Obliteration is becoming an overloaded talent node. It triggers Killing Machines and refunds Runes and now makes Frost Strike consume more Runic Power.

• The decision to use Glacial Advance or Frost Strike is muddied. Using GA in AoE and FS in ST is no longer simple. If I have 2 targets and 30 RP, I probably want to use GA, but what if I have 80 RP? It cannot be reduced to simple damage done either, as consuming more Runic Power will lead to more Runes through Runic Empowerment. This leads to more Obliterate casts, which bring their own knock-on effects.

• Howling Blast will be pushed out of the rotation for Obliteration. Consuming Rime was already a lower priority for Obliteration builds. This is mainly because every other button available has additional effects. Obliterate also buffs Gathering Storm. Frost Strike gives Runes and maintains Icy Talons. Remorseless Winter is our strongest rotational button through all the talents that buff it. Meanwhile, HB with Rime is just there to fill gaps and stack Razorice. Most Obliteration builds don’t look to pick Icebreaker to buff it, so it falls down the list as one of our least potent buttons. Avalanche’s damage is nothing special, and with Arctic Assault, the Razorice stacking is no longer that special. Juicing our Frost Strikes will further encourage us to ignore Rime unless we have nothing else to press.

• Cranking up Frost Strike damage inside Pillar of Frost feels counter to this statement from the patch notes:
  “We’ve also created a variety of new talents and added 2 new capstones that focus on your auto-attacks, which should help provide better-sustained damage outside of Pillar of Frost windows.”
  My very early TC indicates that without the bug causing every Frost Strike to be fully buffed, we wouldn’t see the needle a lot on damage in PoF vs out of PoF with this change. However, that is all down to tuning. When it comes to how I feel about Frost as a player, this feels like it’s pushing my damage back into Pillar of Frost.

If the goal is to reduce Runic Power waste in Obliteration builds, then Frost’s resources should be nerfed. Attacking the problem by consuming more resources does not work. It was done in 10.0.7, and those changes left the spec in a state where both builds continued to deal with resource flood. Murderous Efficiency accounts for up to 22% of Frost’s Rune generation, outpacing Runic Empowerment in some situations. This feels like a critical area contributing to Frost’s resource flood.

Nerfing resources would also make Breath of Sindragosa healthier and allow it to return to its original 16 RP/second cost. I put together some examples using SimC’s spell data overrides to illustrate:

SimC override input

override.spell_data=power.9067.cost_per_tick=160
override.spell_data=effect.306243.base_value=25

	Average Breath of Sindragosa Duration
Current (fully raid buffed with Bloodlust)	32.1
Murderous Efficiency nerfed by 50%	30.7
16 RP/second BoS	43.3
Combined	41.0

41 seconds is at the high end of the desired 30-40 seconds, and keep in mind this is an average accounting for a longer BoS on pull followed by shorter ones. I think Frost players would enjoy a comfortable 30 seconds on every BoS, with a longer one pushing past 40 seconds when overlapping with Bloodlust and all resource cooldowns.

Crucially, reducing BoS’s cost would make it feel much smoother. Everyone I’ve talked to about BoS on beta mentions how quickly it reaches a frantic point where a single missed GCD will end it without a chance to recover.

How would this affect Obliteration? If we keep the latest change, it would be a medium nerf between 2-3%. However, reverting the latest changes reduces it to a 1-1.5% nerf. This difference would be easy to make up elsewhere with a different tuning knob if desired.

Of course, there are other ways resources could be reigned in for Frost. The above is just one potential avenue. I aim to convey that Frost needs fewer resources coming in, not more resources going out so that the rotation feels smoother.

[Rulord-wyrmrest-accord (Rulord)]

Another odd interaction, this time while mounted and when using Wraith Walk.

https://imgur.com/a/vl5yhGN

[Valerrie-thrall]

I dont know what theyre thinking by overloading obliteration with even more effects… you could have added this to literally anything else, and it couldve been fine…

the whole purpose was to reduce our resources… now youve given obliteration even more ways to generate runes, through runic empowerment, meaning more resources overall.

Breath feels horrible to play right now at 18rp/sec. You mess up and it falls off immediately. Khazak brings up some very good points. Change the cost back to 16rp/sec…

I cant in good faith, continue playing this spec when all you do is buff obliteration from SL to TWW… im glad i will be tanking in tww…

[Hmang-area-52]

Frost honestly just feels so divisive since developers started listening to the 2h big oblit crowd in SL beta/ DF beta. While I do get it listening to the bigger side of the spec player base, the spec quality has just gone so far down. Cleaving strikes surviving past nightfae was a huge mistake that we’ve paid for a year and a half. Obliterate was never supposed to be this big trucking machine that also hits OTHER targets. Thats what frostscythe was designed for. What I personally would have wanted was to buff FSc to 2 runes and call it a day but this current iteration is fun so we’ll take it (WOULD LOVE TO SEE FSc moved into a mandatory take and talents that modify it to be introduced)

This frost strike RP increase during SPECIFICALLY obliteration (obliteration/pillar do 90 things now) feels so half hearted and tone deaf.

• Gut Murderous Efficiency (remove). Remove Frigid Exec AND Rage of the FC. Retune our base resources.
• Make icecap a flat 15s reduction
• Delete this entire auto attack + pillar capstone branch line.
• In its place I would love to see either talents that modify rime/howling blast (echoing howl maybe…) or FSc to facilitate it as a ST nuke or more AoE perhaps.
• or hear me out, replace it with Blood of the Enemy from BFA, move Coldheart and chillstreak down to the capstone as a choice node (probably bake in one chillstreak augment node) (retune cold heart so its always up for the last pillar global in a STATIC CD pillar icecap).
• Fix soul reaper for frost. It feels disgusting to play as both breath AND oblit. Maybe 2 rune cost? Free during pillar if specced into oblit (but this just gives oblit yet another thing it does…)
  

The way the design is going right now it honestly might just be worth it to let the 2h oblit crowd keep frost(2h) and give the breath crowd a fire dk(dw) spec… not even kidding… The more you cater to the degeneracy that is current obliterate/icecap/obliteration the worse this spec becomes. This class was at its best when it was a BURST class with actual static Burst timings.


I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE WEAPON TYPE I LITERALLY BARELY TMOG MY CHARACTER, I JUST WANT A FUNCTIONING SPEC THAT IS DESIREABLE

P.S: GIVE DK A RAID BUFF

[Madnaar-sargeras]

@Pembroke-dethecus

BIG ups with defile drowning out visual mechanics and you cant see things on the ground, this does not feel good whatsoever.

I appreciate them trying (saying they’re trying…) to make harmful effects more readable, but yeah… Defile and DnD add so much visual bloat right now.

Anyways +1 to making them aura based

[Leliel-alleria]

Please stop baking more power into Pillar of Frost/Obliteration. This will only make damage outside of Pillar even worse, as stated by many others here. Power needs to be removed from Obliteration/Pillar or the two need to be separated again.

[Gorkroth-area-52]

@Hmang-area-52

The way the design is going right now it honestly might just be worth it to let the 2h oblit crowd keep frost(2h) and give the breath crowd a fire dk(dw) spec… not even kidding…

The way the design is going right now is that FDK will go from 60% of its damage in Pillar to 70%+. That’s not even a “2h oblit/big oblit” crowd request; that’s something even that subsection of Frost’s playerbase wants less of.

I really don’t understand what they’re trying to achieve - both with this change and a majority of the new talents. And from my M+ & Raid testing this weekend, I felt like I had too many buttons to press and too many things that “needed” to be used during the last GCD of Pillar for the huge damage amp.

Frost has quickly become a convoluted mess of a rotation and design and the people posting consistent feedback aren’t much help. They would rather make petitions about DND cleave and cry endlessly about it existing than about actual issues like the toxic Pillar-Icecap-Obliteration loop, 5/7 stack Icy Talons compounding the uptime requirement, Scythe/FWF/Cold Heart all fighting for the last GCD of Pillar, and Obliterate having a 3.34x (at the minimum) modifier with KM which suppresses its base damage and the damage outside of Pillar.

And all of the new changes have effectively made Rime something you just ignore in a majority of optimal gameplay. And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that I, and most Frost DKs, don’t want their damage outside of Pillar to come purely from a free GA, a 2x damage Frost Strike, or some special auto attack effect. Obliterate, Frost Strike, and very much Howling Blast should just do reasonable damage baseline. If that means Shattered Blade has to be nerfed to 50% that’s fine. If that means Frostreaper has to be nerfed to 50% that’s fine.

But really I’m just tired at this point. I admire the people that’ll still take the time to give good feedback but unless they somehow reverse course hard with 5~ weeks left, I’ll just take the L on this one and play something else.

[Bloodronin-sargeras]

@Gorkroth-area-52

Obliterate, Frost Strike, and very much Howling Blast should just do reasonable damage baseline. If that means Shattered Blade has to be nerfed to 50% that’s fine. If that means Frostreaper has to be nerfed to 50% that’s fine.

This 100%. At this point though, I am not sure there is enough time.

[Mordirhar-tichondrius]

I know we have disagreed in the past, and while I do overall agree with what blizzard changed. I do agree that there is too much “cooldown” in FDK. I Don’t want that either. I would rather change the scaling of pillar, cdr, extensions, and enduring strength rather than change the way oblit feels and functions. But as we have fundamental disagreements about the spec. but I do agree that pillar has too much power and it overrides the kit i just think the solution is to have less access to pillar via removing the things that make it available more frequently… and the weird scaling.