Feedback on San'layn Hero Talents

Classes Death Knight
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Long detailed post ahead.
I feel the current iteration of the San’layn tree promotes degenerate gameplay and exacerbates issues within both specs. If this tree continues with its current design I desperately hope the other two trees with be stronger so I don’t have to consider playing with it.
UH, and blood to a lesser extent, suffer from weak rotational damage and a reliance on cooldowns/Trinkets to do big damage… I don’t understand why this isn’t a tree that promotes a strong increase in rotational damage outside of CDs.

If I was to offer feedback on this tree I’d say to lean away from a haste buff and make talents that synergize with and remove pain points associated with death and decay.
Put down the pitchforks DK community and hear me out…

Vampiric strike: Instead of procing essence of the blood queen have Vampiric strike reduce the cooldown of death and by 1 seconds.

Blood-Soaked Ground: Add a component that Death and decay is now centered at the players feat and moves with them.
(Move with us like Remorseless Winter not like ravager, but as long as it moves quickly ravager gameplay would be fine.)

Frenzied Bloodthirst: Remove the Essence of the Blood Queen component.

Incite Terror: Rename it ‘Font of Blood’ and Rework the effect to extend the duration of Death and Decay.

Upper Choice Nodes: Both of these look like interesting and viable utility choices that I’m fine with.

Infliction of Sorrow: Rework this talent so Vampiric strike always causes diseases on the target to deal a single instance of damage and extend their duration by 3 seconds.
(having it deal damage based on remaining time will mean reapplying disease before every Vamp strike. No Ty.)

Visceral Regeneration: Replace with a passive that cause vamp strike to apply a disease that deals minor shadow damage. Rename the Talent to ‘Blood Tax’.

The Blood is Life: Most importantly this should not interact with UH mastery or talents that boost pet damage, otherwise it will scale poorly for blood or be too strong for UH or both. I would personally remove its AOE component and have it charge your current target before exploding for single target damage as this is significantly easier to balance and wont cause a significant swing in damage if it doesn’t proc during specific pack in M+ or add fazes in Raids.

Sanguine Scent/Pact of the San’layn: Remove Pact keep scent. (Potentially waiting to pop CDs till you see a blood beast or not getting a beast during the right part of the Gargoyle window sounds incredibly unfun.

Gift of the San’layn: Complete Rework. Have this talent increase the radius of death and decay by 5 yards and while death and decay is active you gain 10% speed and your auto attacks deal X% additional damage as shadow damage.
(The auto attack damage is meant to provide an increase to single target damage as my proposed changes drastically increase AOE damage with almost no boost to single target, and also vampires are quick and its thematic without causing gameplay issues.)

If it isn’t clear from what I outlined above the gameplay I am aiming for with these suggested changes is to aim for 100% uptime on a Death and Decay that will move with you, there by removing the pain point of being forced out of the area by mechanics and increasing its size to compensate for potentially not being able to get as many enemies within its areas as would be possible if it remained ground targeted.
The secondary goal of my suggestion was to remove an additional minor buff to track and almost all non deterministic damage from the tree. DK as a class has enough RNG and complexity in the base talents trees.
The trinary goal was to make it easy to balance. As this proposed tree has very little scaling and random damage it should be easy to buff or nerf as needed to accommodate the other 2 trees and the overall DK damage profile.
The quaternary goal was to synergize with the disease build for UH and dancing rune weapons ability to apply multiple diseases.
The quinary goal was to keep the Theme set out by the idea of a Vampire Knight completely intact without compromising on gameplay.

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Was this posted in the actual feedback forum? I like a lot of your ideas.

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Was hoping for feedback myself before posting it so its as polished as I cant get it before then.

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Ah gotcha. Here are my thoughts on it.

With this in mind, why not just change DND to an aura, Vampiric aura, same effects as dnd ect, but is coming from the player directly. I feel it would fit the vampire theme as well. *also have it work with defile if taken and the aura increases in size. This will also fix issues with players not being able to see things on the ground.

I like this alot.

I also like this a lot, assuming this disease will also be affected by other dk talents in the UH tree.

I like this idea in theory, assuming it is balanced correctly.

Overall I really enjoy your ideas.

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I like a lot of your takes on the talents. My opinion is that this spec should allow (blood at least) to drain more life, add shadow damage, add a disease or two. If we’re really trying to embody the idea of the San’layn. I would like it if DnD/defile moved with us. I think it makes more sense from a fantasy/lore POV anyway. As a DK, I spread death and decay or leave it in my wake. As a DK, I defile the ground I walk on. I am the source. Whenever I go, it follows.

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This is pretty much exactly what my changes aim to do, D&D moving with the players similar to Remorseless Winter. Ill edit my post to make that more obvious.

I don’t think its necessary to change it to an aura but it would look sick to see a pool of blood around your feat. As long as it remains a button you have to press so that proper play to avoid down time is incentivized I’m down for a cool new spell effect.
As for defile I intended for it work with the talents as well and it covering up mechanics is an issue that needs fixed in the basic ability itself more than replacing it so it doesn’t suck since UH may still take Defile when playing Rider of the Apocalypse tree.

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I like dnd traveling with the DK train of thought, but it’s less of an issue for blood than it is for cleaving for the dps specs. A slight reduction to the current timer, or bump up in crimson scourge procs would essentially give me strong uptime on dnd as blood as it is. If the uptime is super strong and you are required to cleave, you start forcing the dps specs into a specific hero build for m+. Maybe that’s the intent for these trees, I dunno.

Hero talents would be a good place for us to get some sort of group utility or buff as well instead of just AMZ. Concerned they would become too bloated though. The san’layn talents don’t really address any immediate BDK concerns for me:

  • we can get instantly deleted in high keys if we aren’t watching CDs correctly.

  • the start of a pull is typically our weakest.

  • we being zero group buff, our utility is AMZ (useless for m+) and BR (now 1 of 4 classes that bring it).

  • we pull around our offensive CDs, rarely our defensive CDs. It’s not exactly go time when lichborn or IBF is up. DRW still feels like my most impactful button press.

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UH is already forced to take a specific build for M+, that being the disease build and I very specifically catered to that with adding in points that reduce pain points for the disease build.

I agree with everything you said about issues with blood, but feel these concerns should be addressed by changes to the base specs not the incorporated into the hero talents as they may go away at the end of the expac, and then well have another end of legion scenario.

Personally I think that blood dk should have higher baseline armor and less armor on bone shield, as well as a talent that causes them to take 1.5% less damage per enemy within 10yards stacking up to 10%. This reduces the problems of running out of bone shield with no way to reup them before the next pack as well as getting deleted by melee hits from large packs without directly removing these weaknesses from the spec so they still have a similar niche. As for a buff I agree that for 5 man content not bringing a raid buff makes us less viable.

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I would rather this be baseline. If not, and since we don’t know what Rider’s of the apocalypse talents are, Death and decay baseline would just feel bad because it would still be stationary. Now, you have one hero talent that fixes and issue players have been asking to be fixed for ages. However, now Unholy players either choose San’layn, or forego having DnD be functional.

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D&D is still functional for UH and blood without this change. Blood has much higher uptime and resets on D&D and UH has defile when used correctly will always get big enough that you can find a safe spot to stand in it. (Other than when it obscures the swirly, but that’s a different issue.)
I don’t think its bad for you to want to use D&D/Defile strategically to avoid having to move out of it for UH as not that much damage is tied to it in single target and in AOE you have defile which has a much shorter CD so you can usually keep a charge in reserve.
The reason I have it attached to the player as part of these talents is because being forced out would be a much bigger issue due to attaching most of the power the tree give to the ability.

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A lot of the backlash for the current San’layn talents come from the players base disdain to how much of DnD is being used, which derives from their dislike of how DnD currently works now. Saying that DnD works fine for Blood is one thing, but for Unholy Death Knights, especially in highly mobile fights, the necessity to add a cleave mechanic only while standing on it can be infuriating to some.

Making one hero talent, San’layn, fix an issue that should be fixed baseline will only lead to more issues.

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I’ve heard no one complain about D&D in reference to the hero talents, everyone is complaining about making a defensive for blood a dps cooldown and having an additional upkeep buff that adds haste which will increase unholys burst as well as making it hit 100% haste at some point next expac which they changed UH assult to not give haste to avoid doing this expac. This will undo the changes the made with the current patch to make UH less bursty.

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Currently reading a reddit post in which people are complaining/providing feedback for a new DnD model where it is converted into an aura.

Another post mentioned people having issues with the middle row of the San’layn hero talents, for which I agree.

There’s no shortage of people complaining/disliking DnD and how it is not good on mobile fights or M+.

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Oof, I’m sorry.

Everyone who remotely understands the specs should Have issues with every talent but the upper choice nodes.

Everything I’ve seen is about frost or defile covering mechanics, not about blood or UH being hard/frustrating to play around D&D. UH having defile be moved to a place where they can always take it for AOE builds fixed the majority of their issues because its CD is much shorter and it expands over time giving you more room to move within.
Personally any time defile has been hard to play around have been a user error of placing it at the wrong times and losing value, or having tanks that move unnecessarily which is a problem for all specs. So my view is that the only issue with D&D for the two specs the San’layn tree is attached to is that defile covers mechanics and outside of that its a player knowledge issue. I dont mean this in an elitest way, I mess up my D&D placements like anyone else but I appreciate the skill expression on UH.

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There’s obviously no changing your mind that there are players out there that strongly dislike DnD, aside from defile’s visual issues, and that it should be fixed in some way shape or form.

It’s really coming off that way. You’re basically telling people to “git gud” and “Skill issue” as a reason why they would want something that they find egregious to be fixed.

Listen, I’m just letting you know this is not true. There are plenty of post/comments all over the place that would disagree with this comment. Yes, the visuals are a bane for players, but that’s not their only gripe with DnD. Frost Dk’s lose a ton of dps if not standing on their DnD for cleave, and so does Unholy—and there are times when it is out of a players control. Simply telling them that it is a “skill issue” and part of the “complexity” is a fallacy.

I won’t bother responding to anymore of your replies since you’re so set on your ways, so I wish you a good day and good luck with everything.

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My whole argument is that for UH and blood specifically it isn’t egregious and you are telling me rather than arguing a point, or even linking the posts you’ve seen so I can evaluate those points. Yes I am telling people its a skill issue if they cant play around Defile, other than it covering mechanics, this doesn’t make me elitist.

You can find anyone saying anything on the internet, that doesn’t make them right, but feel free to link me these posts so I can potentially change my mind since you have failed to argue anything beyond. That a group of people said a thing at some point.

The amount of dps frost loses compare to UH is night and day and as I’ve stated before, with no rebuttal from you, I believe that defiles shorter cooldown and increasing area compensates for UH’s Issues.

I am happy to change my mind if presented with good arguments.

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Those are few and far between on these forums. 90% are just statements. There is nothing backing them up and they dont like to be told they are doing something wrong.

I havent been having any trouble with DnD placement as Frost. Havent been having issues with movement either.

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LOL. Kelliste, you’re notoriously known as someone who trolls the dk forums. A few people have blocked you as well. I don’t b/c anything you say is a form of entertainment.

You both keep ignoring the feedback and suggestions about making Death Knights better. Instead, you just keep saying “I havent been having any trouble,” or this does not happen to me and seems like a skill issue, as a way to argue back—as if that’s enough to settle the argument. It’s not. Just denying the issues doesn’t fix the real problems being discussed here on the forums, reddit, Wowhead, etc.

It takes maybe one minute to find post on how much players want DnD turned into some type of aura, or changed to cater/adjust better to mobile situations.

But, hey, the amazing Kelliste and Nevermore don’t experience these issues so we all must be experiencing skill issues. I’m sorry my parses are not as great and mighty as yours, Kelliste.

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I see you dont have any integrity to look into things yourself and just follow others ideals.

I dont ignore the feedback or suggestions, but if i find a problem with a suggestion you guys go to the only word in your vocabulary. like troll. And yes, im not having trouble with DnD, Just like the people that triedsaying Eonar mythic solo is impossible… so why was i able to do it without Wraitjh Walk that they said was mandatory? People arent as good as they think they are and instead of getting better they blame the game.

There are things you can do to get the most out of your DnD because its only you that has to be in it.

Let me ask you a serious question about mobile situations, should casters lose all of their cast times because of mobile situations in lower keys? Heroic dungeons are probably the worst case scenario since tanks are CONSTANTLY moving and pulling more even pulling bosses with the rest of the trash. What are casters suppossed to do?

Oh, and who said anything about parses? I think that entire parse nonsense is just a toxic cesspit used to try to shut down others. Doesnt change the fact you can place your DnD towards the direction the tank is going to move. This game doesnt promote good play like it used to which is sad.

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personally I find that due to Oblit builds tight window to do the majority of its damage having any interruptions like those common in M+ plummets your damage by denying you the max possible strength stack on PoF. On top of that D&D is sizable but often cut off by tank movement frontals from mobs or general ground targeted mechanics and usually youll be using remorsless which makes these all harder to see.
Those three factors for me have caused a large negative cognitive load that I don’t like and suspect makes the spec very hard to pick up, particularly when piled on top of the sometimes massive conative load of M+.

Your feed back is that if you get moved out of it then you do less dps. I responded to this by saying that Defile being a shorter CD makes it so if know the dungeons or boss you are doing you will most likely have an extra charge ready for that eventuality and its increasing size makes it so you have room for moving wile maintaining uptime.
You haven’t given this argument a rebuttal, and have just resorted to restating that its bad and calling me an elitist which is untrue as I have made no comments about you being bad at the game.

I did experience these issues in season one with UH and then they made defile an easy to obtain talent and my issues were soothed.