Frost DK War Within Change Concerns

Classes Death Knight
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Just here to give my opinion on the War Within Frost changes that the Devs posted.

First, lets not call this a rework, its more talent tree changes than anything and while, I hope they make good changes, the spec needs a rework!

Second, neither build, BoS or Oblit, feels all that great right now. BoS is a garbage ability in its current iteration. Its literally focusing purely on generating as much RP as possible while ignoring all of your other abilities. It doesnt feel good and its far too punishing if you jack it up in any way. Oblit on the other hand feels better to play and is far more forgiving but it has some issues too. In AoE, it feels bad because your ability to cleave your meaningful and impactful skills revolves entirely around Death and Decay. Move out of D&D and your entire AoE is screwed. It also sucks when you are about to smack a big Oblit on a group of mobs but your D&D expires right as you hit it. Its just lame to have to rely purely on D&D to do AoE damage.

What I would like to see change:
BoS not be a channel that requires you to ignore all other abilities except your generator for its duration. Cooldown needs to be shorter too and the ability as a whole needs to be far less punishing if you get interrupted or mess up your rotation. Maybe make it a choice node with FWF and change it around to be a competitive option with FWF. Maybe make it another shorter cooldown that you press on CD. Maybe turn it into a toggle that you can turn on or off at will, it still consume RP but at a slower pace so that you dont have to ignore your other abilities, give it a shorter cooldown if you toggle it off without running out of RP and adjust damage accordingly.

Get rid of the idea that cleaving your damaging abilities requires you to be in D&D. You have an entire ability, Frostscythe, that gets completely ignored. I would like to see Frostscythe become a free cast and baseline and I think it should act a lot like Fury Warrior’s Whirlwind ability that lets them cleave their next 2/4 single target abilities. That gives Frostscythe an actual use, a filler if needed, and makes our AoE rotation feel so much better.

An unpopular opinion, but I would like dual wield to become competitive with 2H again. I like 2H, I like the big crits but I am also tired of playing a plate melee spec that has to use a 2H weapon. Every single plate melee spec uses 2H and I would like just one to be a bit different for once! I got some great 1H transmog that I would like to use and on all my favorite classes but, I cant because they all use the same weapon type.

Those are the biggest gripes I have right now and I hope the devs get these changes right and listen to players feedback.

6 Likes
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we’ve been down this road before, at least you’re not alone.

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I agree, but people called the Havoc changes a rework, so the DK changes will 100% be a rework off that metric alone since they will 100% be larger than the Havoc changes.

Except it isn’t and this is a super common misconception.

BoS punishes big mistakes hard. Obliteration punishes small mistakes hard. You’re far more likely to have multiple small mistakes before you have a big mistake, and big mistakes normally come from small mistakes to begin with.

There’s a reason Breath consistently ends up better in raids even when Obliteration has outsimmed it for 2 expansions straight now and it’s entirely an Obliteration issue.

Won’t happen but you don’t ignore any abilities with BoS except RP spenders. Which is basically how Obliteration plays anyways so I don’t see why you think this is a Breath problem and not FDK problem in general.

Also won’t happen but they are looking into making the cleave more forgiving.

It already is though? Unless you’re specifically referring to DW Obliteration & 2h Obliteration, in which case it can’t unless DW gets an RP only damage boost or 2h loses the 30% Obliterate damage and gets a 2nd runeforge passively applied.

You’re not pushing into 20s, not raiding Mythic, not doing 2k+ PvP, and don’t have the Legendary. There’s nothing stopping you from playing DW Frost at all other than you.

But you’re also in luck since SMF Fury should be relatively decent/competitive in TWW.

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Almost everyone on warrior want SMF to just be a transmog option. The amount of time they have spent trying to get these extra weapon could have been used elsewhere while they just updated the transmog system.

They have basically ignored SMF entirely this expansion, but just think if they made 2h a transmog option and spent all this time on Frost overall.

I mean Frost is a meme at this point with other classes whenever weapon options come up. “NO! Look at what happened with frost with the reintroduction of 2h, it ruined the spec”.

Off to play some more Valheim, the Ashlands is coming.

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good. stay there.

meanwhile concerning blizz’s statements: nothing at all about redistributing the damage profile. i expect to be disappointed. it’s a safe bet.

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Nah BOS required you to fully utilize all of your abilities to generate RP like using anti-magic shield, kick and so on. True it is very punishing when you made a mistake, but it was high payback. And that’s why BOS build is challenging and made every single raid/dungeon experience new. The problem is, since 10.0 BOS build simply lost its high payback. Even if you can fully utilize your abilities, generating RP and BOS on the boss while dodging abilities, calculate the length of each fight to perfectly save your BOS for big waves/fights, you still do no dmg.

2H oblit build is pure boring, no skill no fun no peak dmg no design in it, at least for me. I cant find the fun part of it.

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It’s interesting how if you ask an Obliteration player the issue with Frost DK, they’ll list everything that’s directly a problem because of Obliteration and then attribute it to Breath.

I also find this interesting because it’s the same as Breath except your trading extra HBs for Frost Strikes. There’s really not much of a difference between the two builds rotationally. I suppose you could argue Breath is more skillful but Obliteration has outperformed Breath in sims for 4+ tiers now, so I don’t think that’s entirely true either.

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You mean, Blatently disreguard the actual design intention of all your abilities?

Waste defensives meant to help you mitigate damage, to fuel a garbage fight the bar mechanic

Oh ya bro, spamming obliterate on BoS is the pinnacle of fun

Peak fun pressing horn of winter so i can fight the bar harder

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No, it required the usage of specifically RP-generating abilities, unless that’s what you meant.

Waste an entire talent point on the possibility of scoring 10 RP during BoS window? Am I supposed to line myself up to get hit by something or simply stand in the fire so I can use AMS and AMZ for the RP generation? Dude, I love you as a fellow Belf, but that is so bababooey ridiculous I actually burst out laughing when I read it.

BoS design is so atrociously bad that it actually incentivizes some players to pop defensives in order to possibly extend it a moment longer? I mean what’s next, Warriors using Die by the Sword, Commanding Shout, and Enraged Regeneration to extend Bladestorm by 0.3 seconds? Paladins using Lay On Hands to extend Avenging Wrath by 1 second? You just proved our point.

Yes, because the entire spec is boring, no skill, and no fun. THEY NEED TO CHANGE THAT.

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I think frost scythe should just modify obliterate to do square root scaling past x targets and does shadow frost damage(to fit with that new tree). I think it should start at three as that’s what it currently does now

The thing that frost dk has that other classes don’t is an amazingly wonderful rotation that isn’t bloated, is predictable, and the small variation with procs is just enough to keep you engaged. Adding extra abilities via glacial advance or frost scythe has always felt terrible to me

I kinda think dw needs to go in the bin and be a tmog only option. Frost is a frozen juggernaut. Not a rogue

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The problem with frost is that it is trying to be too many things at the same time. This causes all of them to be diluted.

Compare it to ret. All ret paladins work around the same basic gameplay loop. There are a few options like 2 charges of BoJ vs having BoJ give 2 holy power, but none of those options change the theme or how it plays.

With frost the different choices drastically change how the spec functions. This may sound good at first, but it creates the need for drastically different things to play nice with the same tool kit and shared talents and it just isn’t working.

If frost is ever going to be fixed they need to buckle down and stick to one consistent vision and move forward with that. This will create a situation where some people are mad that their preferred playstyle is no longer supported, but that is the only way out of the hole the devs have dug frost DK into.

Dps DKs used to be one of the most popular- if not the most popular- in the game and now they are dead last. Regardless of how any individual feels currently about frost and/or unholy, the playerbase at large has decided they don’t like them.

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Not really. Whether you’re Breath or Obliteration you still focus entirely on keeping RW on CD and mashing Obliterate. The only difference is you press FS to keep your maintenance buffs up vs passively keeping them up with Breath, which substitutes FS for more Rimes.

They’re fundamentally the same and basically function the same for the metrics that matter.

They don’t need to and there’s solutions, but they’ve already clearly stated that the one they would be moving with is Breath, for better or worse.

Frost has been on a major decline since the return of 2h which coincided with the over emphasis on Obliterate.

Do with that information what you will.

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Weapon choice is absolutely one of the decisions they need to make and stick to it. I always preferred DW myself.

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the dw echo chamber is real am i right boys

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That’s what they did in Legion when they relegated Frost to a DW caster role, and it got us this boring, bland, three-button spec that drove people away. What devs need to do is remove DW and BoS, and rework the talents so we can choose between combinations of melee, magic, single-target, and aoe damage without worrying about weapon type balance.

As of right now, 2H/Obliteration is superior in both pve and pvp. Obliteration itself can be changed, but so long as there are talents to give melee cleaving and increased KM procs, 2H dominates wholesale. You might get slightly better DPS at best in raids (the least popular game mode) with Breath if your uptime is maximized, but 2H is better in Mythic+ (the most popular game mode by far), and just try running it in pvp.

This. DW Frost is just a slow Outlaw Rogue with magic damage when you look at the mechanics.

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Anyone have a link to a blue post about DK changes? I saw the Alpha development notes, but it didn’t say anything about DK’s or half the other classes.

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False. Legion and BFA had a much higher Frost DK representation than SL and DF, the expansions where the spec catered to the “big Oblits at any cost” crowd that turned Frost into the “three-buton spec that drove people away”.

The actual data backs up that the “DW caster role Frost” is something players like more than this version. The Legion & BFA gameplay loops were far better than what we have now, specifically because Obliterate didn’t do everything for the spec.

Popularity went down when 2h was added because it coincided with the spec putting too much power and focus on Obliterate & KM, and MoTFW negatively contributes to this as well, even though it’s not the root cause of the problem.

And even if the Legion redesign resulted in this “boring, bland, three button spec”, it’s completely disingenuous to say that a 2h Legion Frost wouldn’t have resulted in the same, or worst, design.

Neither will happen and it’s more likely - and the better option - to remove Obliteration and put something else in its place. The only thing that can save Obliteration is being a separate button again or removing Icecap CDR, and one of those two changes needs to happen and either will essentially “kill” the talent, meaning it shouldn’t even exist at this point.

It’s sad how these forums have gone from “Add back 2h even if it’s bad, please Blizzard” to “Remove DW now” in less than 2 expansions.

I would wonder how gung ho you’d all be if the roles were reversed, but seeing how most of the louder 2h proponents have quit, I think that answers that question.

It’s purely numerically better because of the Legendary and Breath being tuned around infinite. Outside of that it’s strictly worse - both design wise and in practicality - than a 30s Breath.

Mechanically it’s closer to Enhancement; Elementalist specifically. Flat damage profile, requires 100% uptime, hard target capped on AoE, has a proc that makes the builder hit hard.

It’s basically Elementalist Enhancement but worse in every way.

They said in future builds; don’t expect anything for them - or other classes like Shamans and Rogues - for another 3~4 weeks. Changes could come next week but don’t be waiting around expecting them to. Blizzard’s “coming/future builds” usually means 2-3 builds out.

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Obliteration has been THE focus for the past two expansions… We’ve literally had our talents changed to accommodate obliterations horrible design. And right now, BoS is the easiest its been to maintain it. We’ve been given SO MUCH resource generating abilities from SL to DF, that you have to be trolling OR horrible at the game, to have breath fall off early.

And you complain about BoS “ignoring all other abilities” when Obliteration does the same exact thing… You only press froststrike once every 10sec to keep minor buffs up, but other than that, you just press obliterate cuz HURDUR

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People of my echo chamber come and back me up as I accuse another group of being… an echo chamber.

If you were going for irony then 10/10. You nailed it.

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It was just a couple quick sentences “in passing” in one of their blue posts. It said that unholy’s festering wounds were staying. It also said that Breath of Sindy was staying but they were going to try to tone it back down to 30 second windows instead of close to 100%.

Any info beyond that they couldn’t give us and we’d have to wait for a future build.

1 Like