Kind of odd that San’layn includes a bunch of stuff from the Deathbringer Saurfang fight and Deathbringer uh… doesn’t.
That said I do appreciate it basically being the Malthael spec.
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This looks like a really strong damage buff from BDK’s perspective. Converting the physical damage of death strike into shadowfrost is a big power on its own. Funnily Runed Carved Plates talent is more appealing than San’layn’s additional healing because bdk already has that.
Thematically it could be more defined. Reaping feels unholy when the ability could be around freezing the target’s blood to death.
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I think mark would end up feeling better to manage if it were on a charge system, 1 minute cd or 30s talented feels incredibly low considering the 3 minute explosion cd.
If it were left to a 60s cd and talented 2 charge system you could then replace swift end (30s cd 1 rune cost) with a talent that makes it so when you cast empower rune weapon you gain a charge of mark.
This would give 1 mark cd every 60s and an additional charge every 2 minutes from ERW, averaging a mark every 40 seconds. Slightly worse than swift death at 30s, but being able to pool two charges and also pool two charges from ERW could open up some interesting gameplay where you put out two marks at once, pop rune weapon throw a third mark and then go to town exploding them together… or maybe that’s what you’re trying to avoid by leaving it as a singular charge? Single charge “short” cooldowns feel underwhelming to play around as they typically just become a fire and forget thing as numerically its rarely worth holding onto it for more than 10 seconds, if the spec already does that with pillar adding another cd into the mix will just make the whole rotation feel like a drain when you are doing fights that don’t line up properly.
Deathbringer looks pretty cool overall, but I think the lack of movement utility as compared to Rider will make me favor Rider - just for the fun of the ability.
Lack of movement utility in the tree. San’Layn and Rider both add some flair to movement for DK where San’Layn might be a little lackluster. Will Death Charge make my DPS go up? In many cases, no, but man will it be fun to use, and I think that’s important to consider. If we can have Wraith Walk move a little in the tree to be easier to take, I think it could be fun to tie Deathbringer into Wraith Walk - it surely fits the theme.
Death’s Messenger v. Expelling Shield
I’m not sure what these choices are trying to accomplish. In PvP and if a DK uses AMS - do people keep casting on the DK? I would be surprised to find out they do.
PvE wise, Expelling is DoA. There is no way we take this talent ever, 15% DR on Lichborne with a shorter CD is just way more powerful on top of getting a shorter ghoul CD, which helps DPS.
I don’t really have any criticism for the rest of the tree - it all seems like it can be fine and could be fun to play with scythes fighting alongside you.
That is (very) specifically for the last part, not every explosion. It’s specifically so you don’t throw it on an add that’s about to die, have said add die and “explode” and pass to another add and repeat.
I really like this tree quite a lot. i think that its pretty thematic, however the biggest problem i have with it is the lack of utility as people have stated before.
I think that this tree should contain a choice node option that increases your melee range by 3-5 yards, as well as a passive aura that increases the melee range of your group members by 2-3 yards. i think this would help to both offset not having death charge on deathbringer as well as providing some new and unique group utility to your melee range group members.
if the damage outputs of the trees are similar, then the thing that the tree will be taken for is utility, and deathbringer doesn’t bring anything to a group, unlike san’layn. this is something that frost struggles with, blood and unholy get all of the unique utility and it is stuck with nothing that they can’t already do better.
Thematically, strong, 8/10? I’m a little bit worried about so many of the talents focusing on Reaper’s Mark, is it just going to feel too strong and core to your spec? It also adds a new button to your kit; would feel a lot better if this replaced Soul Reaper or if Soul Reaper just didn’t exist anymore and this was the new version. 100% we cannot be in a situation where you’d have to be using both, it conflicts.
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Definitely would not mind it as a soul reaper replacement considering the similarity between the spells.
How would that work with SR on our class tree though? Would we get an extra charge of Mark if we take both, or would SR be replaced with a new talent?
Entirely the point of Hero trees.
Also the point.
There’s no conflict with the two buttons though? One exists to augment the spec and has an execute function attached to it, while the other is purely an execute. Actually, since Soulreaper does Shadowfrost damage, it has synergy with Reaper’s Mark.
I dont immediately hate it, which despite how it sounds is the most positive I have felt about any Dk annoucements in a very long time, I dont really find any of the hero talent trees for Dk offensive, like Trickster or Oracle, but they do feel a bit bland mayb? Honestly I would like to see bliz fix the base class, it would make it ezier to judge these, b/c if Dk goes into WWI and all they have changed in cleaving strikes we are going to have some much larger issues than bland hero talents.
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This is going to be insane for Blood in PvP.
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I like this one quite a bit.
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Sr should be replaced by Death’s Due(night fae) in the general tree then replace something in the unholy tree with soul reaper. There’s plenty of talents in unholy that synchronize and could either be baked together or just removed entirely and rebalanced around to give room for SR, plaguebringer could be removed/shifted into other effects and replaced with SR for example.
Deaths due is somewhat underwhelming considering its just another str modifier, but they could justify it being shadowfrost damage which would further affect deathbringer
After giving it a day to sink in, I don’t really have many negative things to say about Deathbringer itself, other than Rider hogging all of the mobility talents.
Any issues I have are core DK issues that can’t be (and shouldn’t be) fixed by a Hero Tree, so here’s hoping DKs get the rework they need in TWW.
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You say that with such conviction, good for you, but other hero talents don’t all work like this, there’s more variety in the other trees than this one I feel. Their stated goal was to emphasize a particular class fantasy; not to introduce whole new abilities that would now be the core part of your playstyle. I’m not saying it’s bad but just that the tree isn’t as diverse, focusing almost entirely on that new ability. Anyway, no need to bicker on this, give your feedback, I’ll give mine. Cheers!
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So I really like deathbringer, I can’t wait to see the visual on a Shadowfrost blood boil
I do lament that rider gets the insane movement flexibility, but as I am primarily interested in Blood, I feel this tree does nail the inexorable bringer of death feel.
It further highlights how much of a miss san’layn was, it seems way more fun to me to have a tree like this one here that doesn’t introduce buff management mini games.
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Quick question about how this is supposed to work exactly:
Reaper’s Mark travels to an unmarked enemy nearby if the target dies or explodes below 35% health when there are no enemies to travel to. This explosion cannot occur again on a target for 3 minutes.
How does that interact with the normal explosion based on stack of Reaper’s mark?
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That whole section reads as if it is trying to counteract the situation of your marks not doing any damage to a target that is dead or is about to shortly die (so, imagine that you are leveling doing world content and anything you attack would die in 10 seconds). The debuff will swap targets if that is an option, or, if no valid targets are nearby, the mark stacks are going to pre-emptively explode once you get that enemy below 35%, so they actually do meaningful damage to the enemy instead of you killing it a few second later with a bunch of stacks that now do no damage.
I presume they just slapped a 3 minute cooldown onto the single target preemptive explosion so the marks don’t chain explode in execute range when fighting a solo target that will be living for awhile (like a raid boss). It doesn’t look like the most elegant mechanic in the world, but I see what it is trying to do. As long as you can still generate stacks for the full duration of the debuff when something dips below 35% health, it shouldn’t be a problem; just a little weird.
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