Frostscythe should be made of pure ice that shatters on impact. Wake of Ashes lite deserves a new animation.
3 Likes
Dear Team,
I hope this message finds you well. I’m writing to discuss some aspects of Death Knight & game playability, particularly for new and returning players. I believe there’s room for improvement in making abilities feel more impactful.
Recently, I played the Obliteration build on my Death Knight (DK) during a live raid. I found the experience less than satisfactory. Despite its reputation as a simple spec, I was surprised by its complexity. Managing auras, buffs, Runic Power and intricate openers like rolling Remorseless Winter (RW) into each other for buffs felt overwhelming and detracted from the fun.
I also tested the game on Beta, hoping for improvements in the “feel” and “weightiness” of abilities. However, I didn’t notice significant changes. For instance, using Obliterate should feel powerful and impactful, but it currently falls short.
Comparatively, playing a Retribution Paladin feels intuitive and rewarding. The visual feedback is satisfying, and achieving decent performance is relatively straightforward. I believe we could benefit from extending this intuitive gameplay across all specs, including the DK. This would make the game more alt-friendly and prevent players from feeling limited to certain classes, like Paladin and Beast Mastery Hunters.
Lastly, I’d like to express my frustration with the requirements of research and training dummy gameplay. It’s an area that could use some attention.
Thank you for considering my feedback. I look forward to seeing how the game evolves.
Best regards,
B.
12 Likes
Elf death knights need scourge strike and frost strike animations on the Death Charger revised.
It looks absolutely horrible, because their strikes are spinning animations, so on your death charges your character does this awful Torso spinning around the waist, Exorcist style.
Just standardize scourge strike for void elves and night elves to do the side sweep animation that happens when you use scourge strike on death and decay.
This is a huge turn off, visually it looks really dumb.
I wish my Unholy DK had access to Deathbringer instead of San’layn, because San’layn only fits blood thematically.
Consider leaving San’layn a blood only spec, give Blood Rider of the Apocalypse, and give Unholy DK a choice between Rider and Deathbringer.
It feels really bad that soul magic from Deathbringer are only available to frost.
5 Likes
I’d actually prefer San’layn for Frost, Riders for Blood and Deathbringer for Unholy. They make more sense thematically.
Also add to other comments about Death and Decay, the ground place skill will always be awful if you are using that to trigger sweeping blows, even with shorter cooldowns. Can we just make it an aura like Consecration used to be? Like creeping decay tendrils coming out of the DK?
Or at the very least, bake it into other skills used often like they did with Ret consecration.
8 Likes
Hi, i’d just like to give my feedback on the various playstyles of Frost Death Knight going into the war within.
Firstly i wanted to cover the class changes and my feedback on each significant point while keeping each brief.
Class:
Soul Reaper:
I really like that this ability is now something we can take in all situations, but my biggest critique with this skill is that it has nearly no interaction with the frost spec tree which makes it really strange to press. for a rotational button it should be interacting with spec talents like Icecap, Enduring Strength, and maybe even Frigid Executioner but it does none of these things. but my biggest complaint is that during obliteration pillar of frost, if it doesn’t give back a rune, it feels genuinely awful and like a wasted press. I actually think this ability should be free during pillar of frost when specced into obliteration just so that it won’t negitively impact killing machine consumption.
Frost Spec Tree:
Shattering Blade/Shattering Frost:
I enjoy the gameplay that these 2 nodes promote, my only issue is it can be hard to track when you can optimally shatter your razorice stacks unless you have a weakaura or specifically track down the razorice symbol. it would help if the ability had a highlight in the base ui when targeting an enemy with 5 stacks of razorice. but thats a minor nitpick. i found it interesting that shattering frost only gets value in sustained aoe fights, so theres definitely freedom to swap back between talents. I probably wouldn’t use it in delves.
Smothering Offense/Icy Death Torrent/The Long Winter:
i really like smothering offense, however the other 2 currently feel rather underwhelming even with a dual wield settup. icy death torrent’s damage feels very negligible for being so far down the tree, though i acknowledge that it will scale up a lot more with windfury and higher crit scaling. These talents also unfortunately don’t alleviate any issues that frost faces with uptime and sort of double down on it. i kind of wish the long winter also increased melee range by 3 yards to help alleviate some of our uptime issues.
Arctic Assault:
Having this return as the new capstone under obliteration is wonderful. it feels very impactful and gives a good sense of feedback on when you’ve used a killing machine obliterate. this helps killing machine stand out even more in aoe while also helping with razorice application. this is awesome. it would be neat if we could get the glacial advance animation and models updated to feel a bit more modern though.
Hyperpyrexia:
i don’t like this talent at all. it feels needlessly complex for what amounts to an awful amount of damage. over my 3 minute long breath of sindragosa parse it was only 1.1% of my damage which was just barely beaten by icy death torrent at 1.2% of my damage. for the position of this talent, it should not feel this bad. i genuinely feel as if it might be better to move breath of sindragosa up to this position and add a new one in the capstone level that uniquely amps up the power of the breath of sindragosa build or to uniquely help it when breath isn’t up, since it feels really really lacking outside of breath. i think Hyperpyrexia as it stands is a talent that should go back to the drawing board entirely.
Frostscythe:
this feels awesome. the rework is just what this skill needed and it thankfully feels impactful in aoe and single target, however to justify its cost, i feel as if it should add stacks of razorice to the target to help kickstart breath or to lead into a shattered frost rotation.
Deathbringer Hero Spec:
Reaper’s Mark+Upgrades:
Wow, this is genuinely such a fun hero specialisation. the power fantasy is incredibly strong and i feel like a master of death playing with this stuff. exterminate procs feel incredibly awesome and they’re very frequent and powerful looking. the sound design is a big plus.
Death’s Bargain: we don’t take death pact because it feels horrible with such a big downside, this could legitimately get us killed. as it stands, rune carved plates is just way better.
Expelling Shield: this is just so bad i don’t even know why this exists. i wish deathbringer provided some group utility so that frost might be able to contribute something. only San’layn offers group utility.
Rider of The Apocalypse:
Mounted Combat via On a Paler Horse/ Death Charge:
This is the single best reason to take rider of the apocalypse for the mounted combat alone. speed is so helpful to a frost death knight and this just feels incredible. however, in the future if we could have the option to change which deathcharger we use, that would be incredible. things like Midnight and Invincible would be awesome, if we could select them through the barbershop.
Rider’s Champion+ Upgrades:
I really like the riders. they feel like a strong presense in a fight and they do a lot of damage. Summoning them via Frostwyrm’s Fury is one of the best feelings when playing rider. though sacrificing 4 nodes to upgrade each horsemen feels kinda cheap even if they do good damage.
Hungering Thirst:
This is definitely added throughput but man is it boring.
Mawsworn Menace:
i’m not really a fan of Horn of Winter cooldown reduction especially for obliteration builds since we really don’t need it and it seems like it pushes breath builds towards rider of the apocalypse simply because it allows them to extend breath more than what Deathbringer would allow.
These are the playstyles i playtested and my feedback on the feel of them:
- Dual Wield Obliteration (Deathbringer):
By far my favourite. it feels like a genuinely high skill ceiling build. even if it felt like it didn’t perform numerically as well as the other builds. - 2 Handed Obliteration (Deathbringer):
This feels like the perfect build for “big ooga booga sword=big damdam” type guys. i definitely like it, but not as much as the shattering blade dual wield version. it definitely feels more simple and it seems to get results. though i imagine that 2h Oblit Rider is even more easy to understand. - Dual Wield Obliteration (Rider of the Apocalypse)
I was mostly using this in overland when i could get a lot of benefit out of On a Paler Horse, sacrificing Reaper’s Mark to go swoosh with my scythe and swords on a horse. - Dual Wield Breath of Sindragosa (Rider of the Apocalypse)
Breath feels pretty nuclear when you pop everything for about 20 seconds and then it rapidly seems to fall off. the damage seemed to be alright from limited laggy testing, but breath costing 18 runic power feels utterly awful, you just can’t maintain the damn thing long enough unless you get hit with magic damage for ams. Outside of breath, it feels pretty crap since you don’t have Arctic Assault procs on killing machines. you just kind of exist until your next nuclear window. if this and hyperpyrexia stay the same going into the war within, i’m probably gonna stop playing this build all together even though its not as toxic because its just not as fun. i think breath needs more time to cook in the oven and it needs something UNIQUE to do outside of breath so that when it drops you don’t feel like you might as well go AFK for a minute and 30 seconds. maybe it could tie in the frostwyrms fury tier set from season 2 of dragonflight somehow.
1 Like
Sorry, they’re too busy doing VFX for the new store mounts.
1 Like
This would make total sense and I bet they won’t do it.
1 Like
Please change UNHOLY BOND talent to the following:
Your main hand equipped weapon has Rune of the Fallen Crusader applied at all times. This stacks with any other main hand runeforge except for itself.
7 Likes
Can we please change the Hell Chains to the actual fire hell chains effect from Shadowlands mobs instead of this ugly low rez beam of fire?
The baseline ghoul model also needs a serious update.
Why not bring in a glyph for DKs that replaces the ghoul with Dredgers and the dark transformation into Sludgefist model?
11 Likes
The way the talent is worded it doesn’t change the damage type from Physical to Shadowfrost, it makes it give credit for Shadowfrost damage for the purposes of stacking Reaper’s Mark faster. The tooltip states it “counts as” not “converts”.
And testing it Death Strike is adding to the stacks of Reaper’s Mark, so I believe the talent is functioning correctly.
2 Likes
My biggest complaints is that using Abomination and having it just spawn on top of you rather than being able to cast it where you want takes away from the skillcap of the spec, I used to love using it in Shadowlands to get rogues out of stealth in arenas.
I am still not at home at having to use Mograine and the 4 horsemen, and seeing them smaller in other dks, feels like “my little pony dks” as Supatease calls them. I’d rather have skeletons riding skeletal horses option as a glyph.
Just for the aesthetics alone I am more likely to just focus on San’layn.
1 Like
This is primarily for Unholy, with Rider of the Apocalypse:
Overall, very good. Most of the choices feel like a straight up improvement. If anything the majority of the struggle is I wish I could select more talents. Which is a good place to be, so long as all the choice end up close in balance.
There are a few pain points though:
Festering Scythe
This talent ends up feeling basically random. You want this kind of thing on the pull, but you rarely will. It will depend on how many targets are pulled, how often you get extra procs adding wounds, how long things live, etc. On any given dungeon or raid you will never really know when it is going to be up, if it will happen when you want it to or near the end when it doesn’t matter. As it stands it ends up being effectively just a random extra damage proc.
Recommendation: Move it to a player trigger. Not a new button, DKs don’t need more buttons, but attached to an existing ability. Personally, I think the best option would be to add it to Dark Transformation. So, when DT is activated the next Festering Strike becomes Festering Scythe. That give player agency and the ability to have it during the times it will matter. This would fit in well with the Ghoulish Frenzy talent directly below it.
Raise Abomination
The positioning and function are, well odd. Spending a talent to get Army, then another to replace Army is both counter intuitive and feels bad. Switching between the two will be switching Abomination with a separate, unrelated talent.
Recommendation: Just make it a choice node. Take Army or Raise Abomination.
Festermight vs Decomposition: (very minor issue)
These talents just need switched places. If you are going for a heavy disease build and reaching for the Superstrain telent, then naturally you will want Decomposition. But its positioning will limit choice options more.
Commander of the Dead:
The talent is down the direct chain from the choice node between Gargoyle and Doomed Bidding. But it only provides benefit to one of them. Making that choice node not really a choice is you are going for Commander of the Dead.
Recommendation:
Change Commander of the Dead a flat increase to pets and minions at all times.
~Or~
Add increase Magus of the Dead’s damage by X% to the Commander of the Dead talent.
On a Paler Horse:
I love the idea. And it feels VERY good when you can use it. But that when is also very limited. The requirement to be outdoors basically makes it completely worthless in almost all content. Out of raids/dungeons/etc you will be flying as much or more than you will ever us a ground mount. In raids/dungeons/etc you will be considered indoor almost all the time. And even outdoor ones (such as The Rookery Landing) do not allow the talent to function. Meaning the talent is not just weak, but rather completely useless (does not function) in nearly all content. Which is exceedingly sad for such a potentially fun talent.
Recommendation:
Remove the limitation and allow it to be used indoors. IF full mount speed is deemed to strong in raid content it could have the speed limited while indoors to 50% of the mount speed increase.
Small additional suggestion: Add choice of which Charger model to use. Could be selected in barber shop or just have several summon options in a cast menu similar to Hunter/Warlock pet summon or Mage portal summon menu casts. That would let the player choose which death charger they wanted to use.
Death and Decay:
The constant frustration non-AE bonuses being tied to a single, static placed ability is a fairly long standing issue. But, it really stands out as an issue when factoring in the Rider or the Apocalypse hero talents. Basically we end up with a hero talent tree that is saying move around both functionally and aesthetically. Death and Decay stands out as the opposite of the Rider tree.
Recommendation:
Allow Death and Decay to become an aura. My personal feeling is that given the Rider of the Apocalypse tree focusing on Riders (generally riding is not standing still) that should have the added effect of allowing the aura to replace normal Death and Decay.
Examples:
Assuming On a Paler Horse was changed to allow use indoors, it could have the added effect of also making Death and Decay an aura if cast while mounted. This option would require On a Paler Horse to be usable indoors. But it has the added benefit of adding agency in how Death and Decay is used. Mounted it is an Aura. Not mounted it is a static, targetable effect.
Or, it could be added to the Mograine’s Might talent. Just adding ‘You Death and Decay is now cast as an Aura around you for X meters.’ Basically make it work for the DK player exactly how it works for Mograine.
9 Likes
I agree. Could we just get both options in one node?
1 Like
From my observation, they did take steps to change animations while mounted, but didnt account for the racial attack animations. The example below is how Obliterate looks while mounted right now.
https://i.imgur.com/YMuNOhM.mp4
Best solution would be to blanket change all racial attack animations while mounted as well.
4 Likes
Agree 100%. The fact that this mechanic is still in the game is the only thing preventing me from rerolling DK for The War Within. So many great DK changes so far, why must we still deal with the infuriating minigame that is figuring out when & where to drop DnD??
12 Likes
So much this. Think about defile too. Theoretically defile is often the strongest build single target according to sims, but this is rarely the case if there’s a lot of movement on a boss fight where you can’t get its full 8% benefit.
Not to mention defile in m+ is horrible with the current dungeon design of having ground vomit everywhere every 5 seconds. It still covers up the void zones and can end up getting you killed.
Wow has been moving into the modern era for a while now with mechanic changes and QOL increases. Please get rid of DnD’s archaic design from 16 years ago. Turn it into an aura make it a red mist when activated, defile can be a swarming mist of black insects or something. Cleaving strikes can be active while it’s up. Balance it around these changes and so many DK players will be much happier.
Blizz also deleted rune of power from mages and look at how much more fun mage is to play now.
11 Likes
That’s the most pragmatic solution. I would prefer the elven animation be changed altogether to reflect the lumbering, heavy strikes, instead of twirling like a ballerina. DKs are hulking death, their attacks should express weight. The elf twirl attacks are bad.
Changing scourge strike and frost strike to use the side swing from scourge strike when on death and decay or even use the obliterate lunge is so much better.
Any solution however is better than seeing my void elf literally rotate his torso around his waist while mounted as if he were some cheap Ken doll.
4 Likes
Why did BDK lose Empower Rune Weapon? It feels bad losing on demand Haste/rune power.
1 Like
LOL YES THIS! Blizzard read this!^
I completely agree that icy talons stacking is now a problem however i think in keys, you’ll opt for wither away on deathbringer. It actually does really surprising damage in aoe. I think it would be neat if frostscythe stacked razorice and icy talons to help kickstart the rotation.
1 Like