I recently did a ret paladin class trial to mess around and see how good they are and it’s really, really made me see just how BAD Frost DK (And to an extent Blood/Unholy) talents are.
Especially the last few talents… In Legion you had THREE abilities to chose from, Hungering Rune Weapon, which was a suped of Empower Rune Weapon, Obliteration, which made your Obliterates cost one rune among other things, and Breath of Sindragosa.
Now we have Icecap, something noone uses and is borderline useless because without the new Obliteration talent PoF especially in pvp doesn’t really do much for you.
Breath of Sindragosa, something I wish would die already. In PvP it’s useless, not only is it nerfed by 66% in pvp you might get one or two ticks of it off before the person you’re trying to hit with it is out of range.
And Obliteration, the only talent that is useful, (literally the only talent you can pick for pvp, anything else and you’re throwing) It’s the only thing with some modicom of interesting mechanics while also being useful.
Everything else is so weak and boring compared to the Ret talent tree where you have SO MANY choices for defensives, offensives, damage reductions, healing increases you name it. They have all these interesting talents that are really useful and either change an ability, add a totally new one that is actually worth it, or add a very powerful effect (like healing hands, zeal, etc)
The first row of talents for Frost DK are honestly a meme, Coldheart nerfed by 66% in pvp is useless, Ice Talons is mediocre, meaning Inexorable assault is the only real choice. And all it does is slighty buff the mediocre damage of Obliterate.
The level 35 talents are a huge meme. Frostscythe might be useful in pvp but does almost no damage, and is also literally useless in pvp. “Frozen Pulse” is probably the worst talent for Frost, dealing minimum stupid low damage with your auto attacks only half the time, and avalanch, while being the only good talent, literally does nothing but slightly increase the damage of your Howling Blast with Rime procced.
None of the talents really feel good, your “”“defensives”"" talents are awful. Permafrost: Literally useless, 40% auto attack damage as a shield lol what? Like you’d ever be able to keep that up.
Death Pact, while being somewhat strong, can literally be more hurtful than helpful in arenas because dampening while literally cause the healing aborption shield to be MORE than the amount it healed you for.
And wraith walk is hardly a defensive, used to be baseline in Legion, it’s a simple root breaker.
Probably the most interesting bracket is the level 45 one. Gathering Storm is actually pretty interesting and can provide some good damage in both pvp and pve, while Hypothermic Prescene is dissapointing but still provides a cool CD effect of reducing Runic Power cost that is up to you what you do with it (Maybe combine it with BoS, or more Frost Strike, or use it as a defense for more Death Strikes/Death Coil) and Glacial Advance, an actual decent ability that although does medicore damage, is aoe and also applies the Razoeice effect.
Other than that, everything else is mediocre. While most talents (Frozen Pulse, Frostscythe, Permafrost) are literally useless in pvp, the other “only good options” like Avalanch are simply minor damage increases for certain abilities.
Meanwhile rets get so much more intersting and powerful stuff like Healing Hands increaseing the healing of WoD by up to 100% based off of health missing, Final Reckoning which does damage and increases all holy damage dealt, an effect that decreases cast time on flash of light, effects that stack judgement damage etc etc
It’s sadly been this way for a while too, after stuff like the old Obliteration and Hungering Rune Weapon from Legion were gutted it seems like the talent tree has A LOT left to be desired. And in SL we literally got one new talent/ability talent, Hypothermic Prescense, which is mediocre at best for using one extra Death Coil in arena and that’s about it
