Frost Death Knight Feedback
First thing, the two point nodes need to go. Many other class redesigns for War Within are purging the 2 point talent nodes altogether and we should follow suit.
In regards to Hero talents, Deathbringer is bang on point, so much so that I doubt any Frost player would ever touch Rider of the Apocalypse. It is just mechanically and visually impressive whereas Rider of the Apocalypse if you’re not riding the horse (and On A Paler Horse) doesn’t work everywhere then you could be forgiven to even thinking you have a hero tree selected, as all your minions will be on the back end of that boss along with the multitude of minions everyone else has stacked in a big pile.
Killing Machine
Having this convert Obliterate into entirely Frost damage is very problematic, causing it to deal next to nothing when not empowered by Killing Machine.
I’d like to suggest perhaps having Killing Machine cause Obliterate to deal X% of its Physical damage done as Frost damage. Perhaps return the lotto strike feel of Scourge Strike of old where both components could crit independently for chunky damage.
Runic Command
Costing 2 points aside as mentioned above, this talent really needs to do something else it is only useful for Breath of Sindragosa.
Off the top of my head if this made Runic Power spenders either apply some kind of DoT effect based on damage dealt or maybe increasing Runic Power cost and damage by X% it might actually get a look in outside of extending the accursed Breath of Sindragosa playstyle.
Glacial Advance
This ability is very underwhelming, visually and damage wise. The damage can always be fixed, but whenever I press this I feel like I take 10% of my happiness in damage.
In an effort to combat button bloat this should just replace Frost Strike, damage tuned accordingly. We would also love for the animation to be a little more awesome, if you could slap Jaina’s Freezing Blast animation, maybe scaled down a little that would be great.
Pillar of Frost/Icecap
I’ve included both these talents here because they are both problematic.
- The Strength scaling based on runes spent from Pillar of Frost incentivizes holding off on using other cooldowns until the very last second of Pillar of Frost and this feels terrible in practice.
- Icecap desyncs Pillar of Frost from your other cooldowns and this absolutely sucks when it happens. Even in the gear on the beta I can have this generate a 15+sec gap between Pillar of Frost and Frostwyrms Fury and that will only increase as secondary stats increase.
Solutions for these issues:
- Pillar of Frost: Reduce cooldown to 45 sec baseline, remove rune Strength scaling and buff baseline Strength or add in a secondary modifier such as Critical Strike/Critical Strike Damage Bonus.
- Icecap: Critical Strikes dealt during Pillar of Frost activate Remorseless Winter for 2 sec. This duration stacks and you can have up to two Remorseless Winter effects active at once.
Frostscythe
This ability is absolutely excellent now and hits so hard you’ll still be using it in single target, so I guess that means knowing when to use it will be part of its learning curve in dungeon pulls/bosses etc. So harm in that! Also there’s no additional complaints I have for it, just wanted to put it out there that this ability is excellent as is.
Cold Heart
I don’t like this being tied to a utility spell, it punishes the DK for using said ability for its intended purpose, you could also accidently root an enemy inside a sanguine pool and really annoying your team.
I think Cold Heart could be replaced with the old Crystalline Weapons from Legion. Have Obliterate crits impale your target with said weapons, that would give Obliterate some Mastery scaling outside of Killing Machine without directly modifying Obliterate itself.
Horn of Winter
Not a single soul on this earth or anywhere else enjoys pressing a button that does nothing that grants resources, especially resources that are not even special or unique.
I’d like to suggest having this function as some kind of Battle Shout group buff for us. I am not sure on what buffs aren’t covered currently but if it did that, our group synergy would go up and thats nice.
Chill Streak
This is a great ability, however it is in a terrible location on the tree and its hard to justify points in picking it up, perhaps once the 2 point nodes are knocked down a point we will have the necessary points remaining to pick it up. I would also like to see its visuals knocked up a few style points, its very hard to see what is happening with it.
Murderous Efficiency
The primary instigator of our Obliterate spam. I am not sure what can be done, but I would really like our damage to not just be an overwhelming amount of Obliterate damage.
Inexorable Assault
If you don’t have a damage meter, you wouldn’t even notice this talent working and it is also another ability tacked onto Obliterate. We have other abilities I swear!
I think the ability should be changed to consuming all available charges on use in addition to also applying RAZORICE per charge. This will allow Two-handed users the ability to possibly use Shattering Blade and its capstone much easier.
Cryogenic Chamber
Cool ability, if it could have a stack count so I can know at a glance that it is no longer absorbing any more Frost Fever damage to better time Remorseless Winter that would be great.
Icy Death Torrent
This seems to heavily favor dual wield over Two-handed weapon users unless it is based on the PPM formula, but even then its an RNG damage proc you have no control over, not very exciting for a Row 9 talent IMO.
This would be far better if it activated off Frost Strike critical strikes instead of being a random chance.
Shattering Blade/Shattered Frost
These are cool, but there needs to be a better way for Two-handed users to get Razorice stacks up faster.
If Unholy Bond allowed main hand weapons (one and two handers) to have an additional rune forge applied to them then this talent is suddenly usable for both types of play. Failing that, my suggestion of having Inexorable Assault also apply Razorice would also be a win on that front.
Hyperpyrexia
Will this be a good choice for Frost Strike, hard to say at this point although I hope it will be.
The Long Winter
Two-handed players will probably never see the full extension of Pillar of Frost outside of some very large haste numbers. I asked Chatgpt to run the numbers on it with 5 stacks of Icy Talons granting a 30% attack speed increase on your two hander giving you a swing speed of 2.52, you will need around 87% critical strike chance with a two-hander to see a 17 sec Pillar of Frost routinely.
If the math chatgpt put out is accurate this talent has indeed endured the longest winter, because its dead AF. Even the numbers for dual wielding had it at something like 43% crit chance at 0% haste. You won’t be seeing that kind of secondaries until the end of the expansion usually.
Shattered Frost
Seems pretty good, if the Two-hander functionality for Razorice is addressed, this will be a good choice I think.
Breath of Sindragosa
I don’t like this talent, but I think that mostly draws from the fact that it looks completely stupid. If an actual Frostwyrm turned up to blast my targets, I think I could definitely get on board with this talent. It would make the talent work a bit better as you wouldn’t be punished so heavily for having to run out of range if the dragon flew above breathing minty fresh goodness over your target and nearby foes.