Please check out our new Hero Talents preview and let us know what you think in this thread.
4 Likes
Please leave rune carved plates as it is and don’t nerf it (if the refunding of runes counts from obliterate this will add some serious defensive ability to dk). This tree looks great.
4 Likes
The tree is very flavorful and thematically on point, but there’s definitely some immediate issues.
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Does Death’s Bargain give the whol effect of Death Pact (heal + absorb) or just the heal? The downside of the absorb, even at 50%, seems like it’d just always lose out to the 10% DR option. If it does do the heal + absorb, perhaps remove the absorb portion and tune down the heal accordingly?
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Does Painful Death and Exterminate actually do anything together? It says it applies Reaper’s Mark but the explosion can only occur every 3min~, unless that’s specifically for the 35% one, in which case…
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Does Painful Death and Exterminate just go infinite if the target is above 35% HP and the explosion restriction is only on the 35% portion?
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There’s a very obvious lack of utility in this tree compared to San’layn which can give groupwide Leech and a max HP battle res with shield, and that feels pretty bad.
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To build off the above, it’s very much a class issue and not something that should be fixed with Hero talents specifically, but it does feel sour to see the best utility option is “Expelling” which is lackluster. Maybe Death’s Messenger could make the first Raise Ally cast in a 10min~ window free, or just make it half cost always? Just some ideas.
Again, the tree looks very solid and having very little reference to Obliterate & KM is absolutely wonderful… but it still looks like Frost will have the Rune/RP overgeneration and hyper focus on Obliterate. Frost really needs Obliterate’s damage portion, and resource generation, to be addressed. Obliterate doing 35%~+ damage and having a priority over every other ability and only having about 15% of Obliterates cast not being KMs is very problematic.
The overemphasis on Obliterate for Frost makes it difficult to judge this tree fairly since Shadowfrost Rime, Frost Fever, and Frost Strike should be nice to make Reaper’s Mark explosion stack up, but this overemphasis on Obliterate makes it hard to see a world where we’d forgo pressing it or KM for any other ability, and since about 85% of Obliterate’s used are KM, that means you’re just about always not wanting to press something else.
And the resource generation is a huge problem as well, since we’re just overcapping RP and rarely running out of runes. Have you thought about changing Frigid Exectuioner to not refund the runes and instead have RP spender implications when it procs, such as making the next RP spender hit X% harder/be cast alongside your next builder? Just something to change it from “You can just Obliterate endlessly” to “Your Obliterates will make your next RP spender worthy”.
Again, the tree looks very solid overall, but if the resource generation issues and heavy Obliterate emphasis stay, then most of the tree is just superfluous bonuses that have no real impact since you still won’t be wanting to cast Rime/FS/GA outside of very specific conditions, like keeping the RP/Razorice buffs up.
4 Likes
This spec (and San’layn) aren’t approaching anywhere near the hype I’m feeling for Rider. They are not close at all. Also, Deathbringer seems to have zero talents affecting movement abilities, which is a downer.
I am looking for strong themes that enhance abilities. I am 1000% not interested in any new short CDs to add to my bars on trees with apparently no additional flavor for the spec. A rebounding shadow wave, really? Giant yawn.
If I could choose Rider of the Apocalypse for Blood DK, I would. Frankly not enthused about the options for Blood at all.
11 Likes
It sounds like the execute explosion can only happen once per 3 mins (per target?), but the “normal” explosion is not restricted.
Exterminate gives a 15% chance to chain Reaper’s Mark, so Painful Death’s 100% increase would bump that to 30%. Not infinite, but a reasonable chance get a free reset.
Deathbringer seems to be AWESOME! Thematically sound, cool gameplay loop that ties in with the kit, the extra defensive power, and at first glance will be very fun to play around the new ability. This tree represents the “death” element vibes in the best of ways; the inspiration taken from Shadowlands is a big W. I hope the spell effect visuals are just as epic-looking. Between this and the Rider’s tree I’m off to preorder!
5 Likes
I actually feel the opposite. I didn’t see anything about Rider that really appealed to me.
Sounds like you’re coming from a Blood perspective which I can’t really comment on, but as a Frost player I like what I see.
Getting one new button to play with and a pretty cohesive talent tree built around it seems great to me. Worst case it just gets macro’d into Pillar or something.
The “charge and explode” playstyle seems fun, like our own version of kingsbane. Since its a 2 rune cost we’ll probably want to to a little pooling before we send it, since runes are not the resource we generally overcap on.
The shadow wave boomerang is kinda whatever, but I’m not gonna say no to more aoe and crit.
6 Likes
That’s funny, because Rider feels like the most bland and generic thing they could do for DKs, and tying it with the mounted combat gimmick just solidifies that.
The lack of movement in Deathbringer is a downer but everything else, to me, is far ahead of Rider.
4 Likes
Yeah, I have high hopes for how the shadowfrost spells look.
3 Likes
What do you mean by a “counted combat gimmick”?
It doesn’t seem bland to me from a thematic visuals standpoint. Having whole horsemen appear and engage along with all my ghouls or while I’m in the midst of a whirlwind of frost seems pretty neat, and ties in with the lore.
There is certainly less interaction with any other abilities, which I get how that can seem bland. I’m okay though with having a fun looking option that does not require me to think more about how I’m performing, but I’m a basic that way.
Most of my concerns for this and the other hero specs have a lot more to do with underlying base spec problems. All DK specs could use some serious work. That they went to the trouble to add that extra note on the rider mock up is promising.
3 Likes
Looks thematically pretty decent, straightforward, and not too much to juggle apart from new active ability.
1 Like
This is probably the best tree for the DK so far. I would go so far as to say San’layn needs to be reworked and so does Rider.
I feel bad for Unholy players. They got the short stick.
3 Likes
For Frost, I prefer this to Rider. They need more active abilities, and to do more outside of their burst windows. Giving them what is essentially a cooler execute is great. Love this tree.
5 Likes
Mounted.
Like I implied it’s subjective. To me, having the 4 horsemen join you is the safest thing they could’ve done for the class. It’s grabbing the surface level of the class’s theme and not going any further.
I’m not against having more minions for DK in general but I don’t think it’s Hero tree worthy.
Again, it’s entirely subjective. The difference in gameplay is very obvious though. Rider just ups your 3min CD burst, which DKs do NOT need help with, while Deathbringer will boost the execute phase and phases where you’re outside of CDs, something DKs do need help with.
1 Like
Nothing to write home about here, this all looks incredibly bland with nowhere near the flavour of rider. Some shadowfrost damage and a glorified soul reaper? Where was the shadowfrost damage we asked for years ago with Abom limb?
2 Likes
Annoyed to see all the trees double down on the nature of dk being only for people that like doing obscene damage in cds and less damage than healers out of cds. I would really like to see some flattened damage profiles for at least ONE style of dk, please just get the ret rework people on the obliteration part of frost.
At least rider has good flavor to it.
7 Likes
I’m usually part of the silent majority/minority? Not sure which one I fall under. However, I wanted to comment that this hero tree looks really neat! Both thematically, and mechanically. I hope that if tweaks are made to it that they aren’t too drastic! I know there is mixed opinion about this hero spec, but I think it has great potential!
’ Deathbringer’s are the emissaries of death. Empowered by the Shadowlands, their physical strikes and abilities aim for their enemies’ souls and vanquish them without mercy.’
Two short sentences.
That’s it.
That’s all the reasoning provided behind why a title from ICC got turned into a hero spec. Thematically, it is absolutely the worse theme out of all the hero specs shown so far, because lore wise it is as shallow as possible.
Shallow lore provides the designer with the opportunity to use this to fix Frost, and make new lore - but that hasn’t been done here.
Look at the excitement about RoTA, then look at this. I just fundamentally do not see the point in commenting on playing this as Frost without Frost receiving a total rework first.
I don’t feel that feedback deserves to be given until a comment is presented on Frost, what is going to happen to it, and the reasons behind its design.
Withholding said details and opinions, it’s pretty clear that the tree offers more to Blood than it does to Frost. I mean… that is great for matching up with the ICC title and boss fight, but… Frost is pretty much double dead in the water. Tripple dead for PvP, due to some of the talents only being useful in PvE, which is somewhat concerning given the low number of people playing Frost in PvP already.
I would imagine people would be more willing to take Deathbringer seriously if Blizz breaks its radio silence on Frost, otherwise this is absolutely the worst designed hero spec so far by a very, very long margin.
9 Likes
I dont know how anyone can be excited for rider. Its just passives capitalizing on some people obsessed with mounted combat which is just for outside.
All 3 specs are uninspired through lore because there is literally nothing there to draw from.
I wouldnt play Rider (its name doesnt fir the design at all) if someone paid me to do it.
2 Likes
I think we really do need a statement on the state of oblieration, it is at the point of pre rework ret where people are just starting to lose hope that blizzard cares at all.
It has almost all the same issues as pre rework ret as well, abilities feel awful outside of cds, all damage comes during cycles, need ground aoe to be on enemies for damage (except even worse because you need to be in it and STAY in it and ramp str buff).
But as all the hero talents show us, dk is clearly not the spec for people that like dks theme, it is the spec for people who like very high highs and very low lows, because EVERY playstyle is that way on the dps specs. They have only doubled down on this with each spec.
1 Like