I thought people meant that they couldn’t breathe because they were never mashing their buttons fast enough when they said “GCD locked”; but you say the haste is low after. Are you saying it’s too much or too slow?
Mostly means that you’re overflowing with ressources and procs and can’t really spend them, moreover when you’d want to use vampiric strike with san’layn, and that it feels bad as a blood dk when you’re expected to also keep your life up with deathstrikes. This was a problem to a certain point still in DF as using utility or trying to pick multiple adds often means losing survivability which you can’t always afford easily but this feels way worse with low haste, having faster gcds mean being able to weave in more other abilities.
1 Like
Depends on alot of things I think.
For example.
How would that go about for Death Knight of races pre Allied races that still have to go though the OG .
Say for example a Blood Elf DK. They wouldn’t be going to same spot now at ICC for Allied races DKs.
I think there would have to be some implimentation done to be able to have all DKs jsut go to the same new start at ICC instead.
I have been playing DK for ages, especially during MoP, which in my opinion was the last time that Frost DK felt good. I’m sick of Frost being neglected, I know this might be unpopular to Breath of Sindragosa die hards, but I genuinely think you need to do away with this annoying and limiting ability entirely. Start over, create a new ability to replace it. You do this all the time with other classes but for some reason Frost DK is stuck with this carbuncle of a skill being forced on us forever.
Frost has been horrible all of DF. I don’t really feel like doing a full rework for you guys because I know it’ll be completely ignored because the devs don’t seem to like taking ideas directly from the community for whatever reason (maybe they feel like it’s not their own idea therefor they can’t use it? I dunno).
But please Rework frost from the ground up. Give it a new spec specific resource that lowers your body temperature until you reach Absolute Zero, at which point you can do some special attacks that do big dmg, one AoE, maybe making one single target. NOT something like Breath of Sindragosa where you need to maintain runic power or whatever that crap is so annoying it’s not even funny. Also maybe make it the lower your body temperature the more dmg your remorseless winter does and increasing the range of it. That would be cool too.
I’m just spit ballin’ here but please… Be imaginative, go crazy with it. Make it fun, make it better than what it is now. The hero talents thing is such a huge opportunity to fix Frost. All that ever gets love is Blood and Unholy. Frost is the forgotten spec…
6 Likes
I’ve been doing a lot of dungeons on the Beta and have a couple of observations / suggestions with DnD cleaving.
- The addition of a 4 second buffer time for leaving DnD is nice - however it’s actually pretty hard to track. In typical dungeons, there’s so much clutter on the ground it can be difficult to judge if you’re standing in it. We shouldn’t have to, but we can look towards solutions like weak auras to highlight it a bit better. Unfortunately the fall-off buff shares the same ID as the regular one, so even if you’re looking at the buff timer, it’s awkward to know if you’re going to get an extra 4 seconds or not.
. - Having to stand inside DnD for a bulk of AoE DPS is especially punishing in lower/mid level pugs. For example, when playing DPS with mobile tanks (you know the ones) that enjoy flying around, it’s extremely annoying having your primary AOE taken away because they won’t stop moving. I assume this won’t be as much of an issue in high-level play, but it does nothing except for to punish every other player.
tl;dr
There’s already enough to track across both Unholy and Frost. Having cleave tied to physically standing in DnD feels unfun and punishing. It’s difficult to judge DnD position with so much ground clutter, it’s a mechanic that borderline requires addons to track, and can be heavily affected by other players doing things out of your control.
16 Likes
Lots of the issues frost has can be solved by separating obliteration and pillar from icecap cdr, like its been before DF. Really dont get why people cry and complain about breath when they dont even play it. Obliteration has been on par with it or better all of DF… Not everyone wants to turn their brain off and play obliteration or find it fun spamming 1 button all the time…
2 Likes
I’ll sing it until the last star falls from the night, the class was more engaging and our abilities felt better when we had Blood, Frost and Unholy runes. The endless spam of the same abilities is really quite bad. You can’t have Obliterate or Scourge Strike hit hard because it’s balanced against being spammable 3/6+ times in a row.
With universal runes you might as well just remove them and have ability cooldowns, at least then ability damage tuning could be better.
7 Likes
Have you seen a Vampiric Strike proc outside using a cooldown to trigger it manually? Because I haven’t and I’m wondering if it’s bugged. I have been playing Sanlayn Unholy DK now for a few days doing delves and dungeons and I haven’t seen a single proc outside of DT windows.
I reported it just in case but also wanted to see if others are running into the same thing.
2 Likes
It procs but the scourge strike icon and animation don’t change so it’s difficult to notice.
Wanted to come back and mention two skills/talents that I think need some love.
Starting with Death Pact:
Why does this ability have such a huge negative aspect? In pvp, this is rarely taken, if at all due to the absorb sometimes being larger than the healing in general when you take into account healing reduction ect. PVE wise it has its uses, but doesn’t really feel fun to press.
Soul Reaper:
It is in a much better spot in the tree overall. I think soul reaper should be a RP spender compared to runes, but maybe I am biased. It just feels like it would flow better if it was.
Secondly, can this skill actually change how it functions? PVE wise, it works fine, but doesn’t really feel fun to use. PVP wise, it is so bad to use with how pingpong hp bars go up and down. Getting this to actually explode for the execute damage is a little challenging. But maybe it is meant to be. I think this abitility would function better and feel better to use if it was direct damage. (Maybe add a CD so it is balanced)
4 Likes
It procs so abysmally rarely it distracts from doing anything else, on top of having no visual indication that you have the buff
I really hate maintenance buffs in hero talents, really bad idea.
I thought rune regen also increased so it didnt reduce gcd lock
or does it reduce GCD at a faster rate?
honestly haste is confusing as hell anyone know this? as a warr main I mostly low prioritize haste but I would like to know
It does. More haste = quicker GCD and quicker rune regeneration for DKs. More haste doesn’t really reduce downtime for classes without a filler like DKs, it just spreads it out better.
1 Like
I’m not saying that it was non-viable. I said REMAIN viable. As in do not take away from 2H in order to bring Dual Wield back into focus. I don’t care if Dual Wield suddenly cones back as this op Frost path, I care if it becomes the ONLY path because of a set bonus that made 2H an incredibly competitive version of the spec. Also, for a large portion of Season 3, Frost was in the lower end of DPS. I am fine with this, but this is not the case for everyone else as they want to be top 5. What you are mistaking for complaint that 2H is being robbed, which it isn’t is that the entire class is being boiled down to Obliterate, which is FINE, but what made it so good was the Chill Streak bonus %damage on top of Pillar of Frost, plus mastery stacking. If you make nodes like frost whelp only reachable by removing the other half of the tree, where Chill Streak is, you lose talents that go towards Obliterate and THAT is the problem.
4 Likes
There is still the problem of the Ebon Knights stacking on top of each other…
And the issue with DW. DW and Two-handed should have the same type of damage scaling, or at least have a similarity to be balanced… and unholy should be able to have DW (personal opinion).
Class Tree
The Class Tree is much improved, but there are still a few issues.
Control Undead: This should be a straight up baseline ability, without the Incorporeal affix the uses of it will vary from season to season and something that is worthwhile in 1 out of 10 Dungeons shouldn’t have to require a talent point.
Also this ability has been in the game since 2012 from what I can find (The earliest Instance of it’s existence i can see is from 2014) and Unholy Death Knights still can not make use of it without giving up their main pet.
Wraith Walk - With Death’s Echo in a much more practical place this ability has no value in existing. It has always been a trash ability that nobody has ever liked to the point where even You (The Developers) have left it with a placeholder animation for 8 years at this point.
Soul Reaper - I still don’t think this should be in the Class Tree and should instead be one of the 20 Point + Unholy Capstone lines. If you want to make wounds a bit more of a Fun mechanic give us the 2 set from Season 3 and 4 of Shadowlands as a talent.
Runic Protection - I am not sure why this power exists and why it sits where it does in the tree. It is a minor boost for Blood Death Knights and outside of PVP not much use for DPS Death Knights, I would switch this and Blood Draw so that it is available for Blood but not smack dab in the middle of the path.
Subduing Grip – I am not sure the point of this talent, its a very low damage debuff for a very short period, Abomination Limb and Gore fiends have long cool downs so 6 seconds off those are a pretty low uptime.
Instead of a damage debuff why not place Clenching Grasp into this node and expand it work with Abomination Limb and Gorefiend’s Grasp, having a slow attached to grips will allow players to use Grips to keep NPCs that explode upon contact(Example: Raging Embers on Warlord Sargha in Neltharus) with Players locked down for a moment without spending runes on Icy Chains.
Null Magic – My main worry about this ability is shortening Debuffs, as many have noted there are sometimes debuffs that have penalties for dispelling them early, often those effects are incredibly deadly if done improperly, If this stays as is I am hoping that The Developers are careful with making sure that effects that have penalties for dispelling are not affected by this talent.
Unyielding Will – Having a talent that increases the Cooldown on Anti-Magic Shell is somewhat at odds with also having a talent that reduces the Cooldown on Anti-Magic Shell. (Anti-Magic Barrier)
Perhaps both of those Cooldown changes could be removed and Unyielding Will could have the Mists of Pandaria Glyph effect that would return some of the cooldown on Anti-Magic Shell of the entire Absorb were not consumed. This would allow Death Knights to use Anti-Magic Shell as a self cleanse without wasting the Absorb during lower magic damage spikes.
Vestigial Shell – This is another talent I have the worry about ending effects early, but I like being able to pass Anti-Magic Shell to party members. I wish this affected the Horsemen of the Apocalypse Talent “Horseman’s Aid” as well as the player’s own Anti-magic Shell.
Sudden Doom – Only Reducing the Cost of Death Coil makes this feel pretty awkward to consume, you can have the big glowing sudden doom effect on your bar and have the ability grayed out because you don’t have 10 runic.
Causing Death Coil to consume a Festering Wound is absolutely awful as well, if Unholy is producing too many Festering Wounds in certain circumstances then remove of the extra Wound Generation, Casting Death Coil does not need to be made more interactive. Currently Death Coil has several effects attached to it.
Icy Veins
Eternal Agony
Gargoyle Damage Buff
Vampiric Strike Procs
Fury of the Horsemen
Runic Corruption
Another extra effect is completely unnecessary.
Runic Mastery – Worthless Talent, shouldn’t have made it through another expansion. 10 More max Runic Power means nothing, More Rune recharge becomes worth less and less as you get more haste. There is no reason for this talent to exist.
Unholy Blight – This should not have a cool down, and the disease should deal it’s damage over 30 seconds to match the rest of the diseases in the toolkit. There is no reason that Unholy Death Knights, which are said to be “masters of disease” have such an awkward set of ways to apply our diseases compared to Frost and Blood who do it automatically through normal gameplay.
Festering Scythe - What is the use case for this talent? It won’t ever be active on pull so it’s not to apply wounds as an opener. I think this effect would be much stronger as a timed effect, put it on a 15 second timer so that the player Scythes every 15 second, or even remove the fact that the Scythe effect does more damage so it just is an AOE Wound Application every 10 seconds.
Clawing Shadows/Plague Bringer – I do not think these talents need to be a choice node with each other, they do two very different things. Plaguebringer would fit more of an enhancement capstone for a line of disease oriented talents.
Clawing Shadows is an enhancement for Scourge Strike, it should be in a choice node with something else that enhances Scourge Strike. In the olden days The Second Strike of Scourge Strike’s damage would be based on how much damage the first hit dealt so that if the first half critically struck, the second hit’s damage was doubled and had a chance to Critically Strike on it’s own so you could potentially hit for very large amounts of damage if both halves were Critical Strikes.
I understand that is never returning in that way, but perhaps bringing back a Modified version of the Warlords of Draenor Necrosis ability that works off of Critical Strikes instead of Multistrikes could be an effect that could emulate the feel of Casino Strike while making Critical Strike more valuable as a stat.
All Will Serve – I will give the same feedback I gave last beta. Why is this still a generic archer after this many expansions? This should be a Nerubian caster of some sort, I know you remember they exist given we are going into an expansion full of them.
Ebon Fever - A worse version of Plaguebringer, You have begun to move away from reducing the duration of Damage over time effects with the removal of it from Affliction, it’s time to go all in on that and get rid of it across the board.
Menacing Magus – This is the sort of thing that should be done moving forwards, taking Tier sets that have worked out really well and making them a part of the permanent toolkit. My only complaint is that it does not enhance the Frostbolt side of the Magus. I do not think Both should cleave but perhaps this talent replacing Frostbolt with a more powerful Single Target spell would make the Frost Bolts, which already do less damage than the Shadow Bolts more relevant, or have it make the Frost Bolts deal damage over time to the target.
Harbinger of Doom – This is another talent that becomes worse the longer an expansion goes on and the more the player gets geared, The more haste one has the more Runes, Runic and Sudden Doom triggers happen so a boost to the rate of the triggers doesn’t help.
Originally Sudden Doom used to fire automatically when it triggered, perhaps this talent could bring back that functionality so that if something were to happen that Unholy ends up being so resource flooded that it becomes impossible to spend them all we can adjust talents to remove Sudden Doom triggers as a button press.
Vile Contagion – I’ve never liked this ability, it is award to set up and use, casting 4 spells before you start proper damage (2X Festering Strike, Vile Contagion, Death and Decay) isn’t great, especially if Festering Scythe is able to be used on pull.
Pestilence – This power has existed for years and has never been remotely good, It is time for it to go away.
Morbidity – This needs to affect our pet’s damage as well if it does not already.
Raise Abomination – I don’t know why this is in the Spec tree, It constantly applying diseases isn’t really useful in PVE as disease cleansing does not happen all that often and Unholy Death Knight already has a cooldown that applies a large amount of Festering Wounds on a Minute and a Half Cooldown, and frankly I think 30 seconds of a pet applying Festering Wounds sounds like a way to end up with a massive resource glut.
Decomposition – This should be much higher in the tree, Virulent Plague is the only Death Knight disease without a real secondary effect, The Virulent Explosion doesn’t do all that much damage and is effectively worthless in single target fights. This should be in spot where it can be more actively taken without a massive cost because Unholy is supposed to be the master of disease and It’s spec specific disease not having a real secondary effect harms that Spec Fantasy.
Gargoyle/Doomed Bidding – This node should be where Summon Abomination is, The Runic Buff off Gargoyle needs to be removed and it just needs to do flat damage per cast. The Runic buff has warped Unholy around it’s effect since it’s inception in Legion.
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but not every single Cooldown in the game needs to be “Interactive” in some fashion. Runic Power will already Interact with the rest of the Toolkit in many ways come Hero Talents.
Doomed Bidding – I like this idea in theory, but I very much doubt that it will ever really be competitive given that Gargoyle is a massively powerful cool down that gets stacked with 5 other Cool downs lined up together.
Unholy Aura/Commander of the Dead – This might as well be removed and base Minion Damage increased by 50%. Unholy Aura is basically always on because unless the Player is dealing with a Mechanic they will be in Melee Range and Command of the Dead is always active when it needs to be because Apocalypse and Army of the Dead are always used in concert with Dark Transformation so it is basically always active.
Superstrain – I think this could be moved to the class tree in place of Soul Reaper, Giving Blood and Frost access to all 3 diseases and then allowing Unholy to enhance the diseases gives Unholy the ability to get all 3 diseases easily while maintaining the “Master of Disease” fantasy with Morbidity and Plaguebringer.
Hero Talents – I gave my feedback in the Death Knight Hero talent thread and in the Blizzard Research Survey
The Four Horsemen are still largely losers that came from the worst written storyline in the game and I have zero hype summoning them except Nazgrim which is the only one of the 4 who isn’t a laughably lame character.
Death Charge - needs to be in a choice node with a mechanically same effect that doesn’t have the awful horse summon, On a Paler Horse is functionally worthless and Divine Charger is the worse animated movement ability in the game, having that shoved on the class is a terrible choice.
Infliction of Sorrow - Randomly having to cast Outbreak will be awful.
See you all in the next Open Beta.
5 Likes
Been mostly testing Frost DK and playing obliteration builds.
From my experience…
What I love:
- Love the fantasy of Deathbringer and Rider of the Apocalypse.
- Love the changes to
Frostscythe, it feels meaty and impactful.- Could make the animation flashier though
What needs some refinement IMO:
-
The QoL changes to
Cleaving Strikesare nice, but they don’t seem to go far enough. For example, it’s nice when you need to leave DnD for a moment for a mechanic and can dip back into it all the while cleaving attacks. It STILL feels really bad when mobs are moved far away from DND as 4 sec is not much time to getCleaving Strikesvalue as you chase the mobs. -
I really like the theme of
Shattered Frostbut it seems to encourage frequent target swapping to press frost strike, which is not fun. -
At lower levels of haste getting the
Bonegrinderfrost damage buff feels a bit tight.
It would be a really good QoL to lower the stack count required by 1. -
Damage outside of
Pillar of Froststill feels like it could be tuned up a bit.
11 Likes
Can you please update Glacial Advance’s animation already? Especially since the new animation has been in the game’s files for years.
9 Likes
I agree with you for dual wield Unholy. In season 3, the set bonus was that for every bounce of Chill Streak, you gained a stacking damags bonus. This damage bonus was huge and to pair it with the other part of the set that reset cooldowns faster, it meant 2H Frost was able to pump harder for the longer and hit that interval faster if played well, repeatedly. I was beating classes that were top 5 as a 2H frost DK wothout my legendary because of specific talents and mastery stacking. Both of those set bonuses wwnt away and the damage from 2H Frost not only fell hard, but it is less potent far less frequently to the point where dual wield with breath will last longer and scale harder as the expansion goes on. The center diamond nodes for Pillar should be baked in already or at least higher up. Rime damage is irrelevant, but in order to get to where I want the razorice explosion, I HAVE to take oncreased rime damage but as 2H thata a wasted talent with zero purpose. The more optimal aoe rotation was drop death and decay, pop pillar and trinkets and unload KM procs into it so ot spread like wildfire. If I want the razorice explosion, I lose the Pillar nodes AND Frostwhelp.
In other words, they tweaked the talent tree and made it objectively worse for 2H frost players but not for dual wield as the aoe talents are higher up the list. I fully understand we can not have everything we want, but acting like this isn’t just a way to perpetuate dual wield and cater to it while 2H has to waste its time and points to get to nodsa that actually matter is plain out stupid. Chill Streak needs to be in the middle diamond near Frostwhelps, any Pillar nodes should be automatically learned, and gathering storm and any of the winter skills need to be more middle of the tree, not in the dual wield side
1 Like
For frost; Remove the active Glacial Advance button, its just bloat at this point, keeping the passive proc through Obliterate works fine enough for it.
Just flat out remove chill streak, that button is also bloat and incredibly boring, it doesn’t serve much a purpose.
I do really like the updates to Frostscythe, it covers a lot of the aoe deadzones, and just works really well with the flow of the spec.
Yeah pathing and nodes merging could use some additional work, fully agree there that there are paths that have questionable in-between connections.
6 Likes