I love the changes to the DK general Tree, but I still believe there is a need for further changes, mostly in the last part of the Tree.
I feel that everything until the 20 Point gate is mostly fine, though I feel like some things should still be added to the baseline kit instead.
The second to last row being a 3 Point investment is too much. 3 point Nodes themselves seem to be issues in most Trees, but these Nodes have even further issues than the simple amount of Points that has to be spent.
Unholy Bond being at 3 Points is fine for the power it gives, but Icy Talons and improved Deathstrike are, in my opinion, problematic. Those Talents might need to be lowered in cost, or replaced with other Talents that are worth a 3 Point investment.
I think improved Deathstrike should be put somewhere else in the Tree as a 1 Point Talent, preferably before the 20 Point Gate. Could fit great where Death Strike is currently, while making Death Strike Baseline. Could also fit elsewhere in the Blood part, maybe right between Wraith Walk and Asphyxiate.
The first Point in this Talent is by far the strongest Point, since it instantly gives the full RP cost reduction. The only reason to ever put more points into it ,currently , is Abominations Limb.
Icy Talons is similar, but not to the same degree.
It’s alright for some Frost builds, since it increases the amount of Killing Machines that are generated. This is currently a ~4.5 % increase for Frost, in the context of our current Tierset.
For Unholy(and maybe Blood?) , it’s looking to be around a 1% increase, if we assume 100% uptime. That’s just horrible value for a 3 Point Talent.
There is nothing for Unholy that scales with melee attack speed, which might still be addressed though.
Would have some nice synergy with the old Unholy Frenzy generating Wounds on every hit, while active, or some other Talent that benefits from more Melee Attacks. A small chance to trigger the Ghouls Claw/Sweeping Claws maybe?
I think this needs to be replaced also, or something needs to be added to Unholy (and Blood, not sure how it looks there) to make Icy Talons worth it.
Might also be a good idea to rework it in some way, maybe make it a lower % in haste instead of attack speed? Would make it instantly work for all DK speccs.
Another issue with Icy Talons is it’s duration. Similar to the Problems mentioned in the DK Feedback thread about Death Rot, I feel Icy Talons needs a longer duration to work for all DK Speccs. It’s simply far to little Value for most Builds available for DK, similar to improved Deathstrike in the same row.
Maybe make it a Raid/Party Utility Node for one point instead? Similar to the Icy Talons of old.
I also want to mention the power of the Capstones. Abominations Limb without the Conduit or unity is a pretty weak Button, that’s more of a Utility than a throughput Node.
I would like to see more power in Abomination Limb baseline, or in the Node leading to it.
Might also be an Idea to remove most of the throughput and place it in a far more accesible place in the Tree, alongside Gorefiends Grasp maybe?
Soulreaper is looking to need some changes aswell, though those might mostly be tuning issues. There’s basically no world in which Frost or Blood want to pick this Node up, as it currently stands. Obliterate is far too involved in the Forst rotation, so much so that pressing Soul Reaper might even be a Damage loss.
Blood has a similar issue, where it’s currently doing less Damage than HeartStrike, while also not working with the DRW extension, or DRW itself for that matter.
It’s almost mendatory for Unholy DK, but pretty much unusable for Blood and Frost. Might be better placed in the Unholy Tree, with something else taking it’s place.
Army of the Dead for all speccs maybe?
As a final Node, I’m quite confused about the design descisions here. DK has to make hard choices in this last Gate, between Throughput, Defensives and Utility. This seems weird in the context of the other Class Trees that have been released.
No other Class seems to make these decisions in their general tree, as far as i can tell.
It’s either Throughput vs Throughput or Utility vs Utility.