In-Depth Reasons Why DKs Will Suffer in Solo Shuffle. (Real feedback fed by many players)

PVP Arenas
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(TLDR at the end)

Before I say anything, Death Knights deserved the nerfs they received. They were near literally being unkillable. All of the changes were great besides the 50% reduction to Death Strikes healing based on player damage. This makes Death Strike heal 12.2% of damage over the last 5 seconds even though the tooltip says 24%. This ability costs 35 runic power and causes you to sacrifice damage if used during your burst. Death strike heals for 6.89% of your health at the minimum. You would need to take 55% of your health in the last 5 seconds in order to heal past that minimum threshold. This heal is still only roughly 33k.

One of the biggest reasons why DKs were unkillable was because of Will of The Necropolis. Will of the Necropolis does not work like you think it does. It states, “Damage taken below 30% Health is reduced by 17.5%.” This is not correct. This ability absorbs 17.5% of damage while you are below 30% hp. While it does not seem like there is a difference, this absorption is boosted by their talent Gloom Ward which increases absorption effects by 15%. Will of the necropolis is also impacted by Dampening. In solo shuffle, Dampening starts at 10% and is ramped up by 25% every minute. Every defensive that DKs have will be reduced by that amount besides Ice Bound Fortitude which is only 30%.

Death Strikes healing is increased by all damage you take, which includes Absorption effects. Previously, if you took 100k damage from players within 5 seconds you would be healed for 30% of that amount. Now that number is 12.2%. All damage done to your shields (AMS / Spellwarden / Will of The Necropolis) will count towards your next Death Strike.

In the context of Will of The Necropolis pre-nerf (Death Strike healing was 30% and Will of The Necropolis being 35%), if you took 100k damage while below 30% hp (135k raw damage before the reduction) your 30% heal from death strike will be based off the 135k damage. This would heal DKs for 40,500 instead of the normal 30,000.

This is very toxic in Battle Grounds since you can be hit by many people at once while healing more than you should due to Will of The Necropolis absorption. This is why DKs were beating healers on the BG Scoreboards. (Along with every DK defensive besides IBF showing on the healing charts while dodges and real damage reductions do not.)

Will of the Necropolis for Frost and Unholy need to be real damage reductions, not an absorb so it is not increasing Death Strikes healing while reducing its effect because of Dampening.

Currently, Rune of Spellwarden heals overall more than Death Strike (while actively pressing it) while it is a passive talent that how no counterplay or interaction with the DK at all. Rune of Spellwarden is boosted by 15% (Gloom Ward) and 20% (Unholy Bond’s 20% increase to rune forges). This creates unhealthy gameplay against Magic damage and no help against physical damage.

Again, with the changes to Death Strike, you would need to take 55% of your health in 5 seconds to heal more than ~33k (the minimum healing), which will be reduced by Dampening.

TLDR: Remove Spellwarden and make Death Strike heal 24% of damage from players (up from 12.2%) (it was 30% in Shadowlands)

19 Likes
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i think dks are just suppose to be kinda hard to kill and really good into magic. that’s their whole class thing. slow, tanky, consistent, silence those who kneel to their magic.

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While I agree with you, Spellwarden is not the way it should happen. We already have AMS and AMZ while having no real defense against Physical damage besides IBF and Death Strike. Spellwarden has no counterplay and is topping the DK healing meters against casters while also reducing their casting speed.

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I really don’t think it is that much of an advantage anymore. The haste debuff is 10% I think and most wizards are mostly doing instants anyways. :wink: Its nerfing dot damage a bit but that’s it.

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That 10% is increased by 25% (The PvP talent) and 20% (Unholy bond talent in the class tree). These also increase its healing against magic damage.

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True, then it is 12.5%.

Not sure if it’s really affected by the Unholy Bond talent and quite a few dks wouldn’t take it, as they prefer to play with Gloom Ward and you can’t have both.

But even with Unholy bond it is 15% in total then.

I know, but it is also affected by MS and dampening then, no? But yes, they should make it a damage reduction instead of a damage absorption. Less healing on the scoreboard = less people crying.

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Idk what bozo at blizzard thinks spellwarden was a good idea, but to bring it into the next xpac, and triple down on it is absurd. Then for it to go unnerfed, and death strike to be gutted, is so stupid it’s funny. Unreal.

21 Likes
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You can take both, you just have spend your points differently. Unholy bond empowers Razorice and Fallen Crusader along with Spellwarden. While Gloom Ward effects all absorbs on you including Will of the Necropolis / AMS / all shields put on you by healers which almost makes it required.

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They were gods in solo shuffle.

Now they are mortals, along with the rest of us.

Nerfs were good. Dks are fine.

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Did you not read the post? I explained why they were gods in solo shuffle and how the nerfs were good, besides Death Strike. I even proposed a potential change that is overall a nerf to DKs against casters. Death Strikes healing is abysmal now, you have to take 55% of your health in the past 5 seconds to heal more than the minimum heal. Which is only 6.89% of your HP for 35 runic power. There are so many ways you can counter Death Strike; Disarms, knockbacks, CC, using a leap/blink, and dodges/immunities/parries. There are 0 ways to counter Spellwarden other than using physical abilities. It is an RNG proc that heals more than Death Strike and the DK does even have to think about it.

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Remove Rune of Spellwarden and replace it with Transfusion for all specializations. It would make us worse against casters but better against melee - without removing our theme.

Please.

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dw u can always reroll rouge

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I love this.

The wrong ability gets nerfed into uselessness while the toxic stuff stays

1700 feral player that’s been playing the game terribly for years.

“Yeah nerf good get over it”

Can’t read can’t think can’t play the game can’t make a decent post

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lmfao this killed me hahahhahahaha

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Game shouldnt be tuned around the lowest common denomenator which is exactly the solo shuffle crowd.

Trash game mode, trash balace decisions logically follow if thats your point of balance.

Ams:4-6% recuction, DS nerfs reverted, amz nerfs reverted.

Not going to say we were op with no conquest gear testing and all ply centered around random game mode designed for people that cant hit 1500 legit.

3 Likes
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Can only say someone, who has no clue what he is talking about!

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I would not mind this, but I do see why it was removed in the first place though.

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Yeah but that’s stupid. Why would you willingly do auto win / auto lose matchups. Just buff their baseline damage.

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I agree with the main points of your post. Spellwarding is in large one of the culprits when it comes to our “healing”. While it did help with casters melting through our ams at it’s time, the sad reality of it all is there are a lot of absorbs in the game and that’s wall Spellwarding is; another uninspiring passive that proccs and proccs with really not too much counter-play.

Deathstrike is more well-rounded as it’s healing is based off damage taken so even vs casters it helps out. Death Strike having been nerfed to complete irrelevancy certainly doesn’t help what our class is supposed to be in any possible way. I get it, nerfs are not supposed to help, but that nerf was quite heavy handed considering they went and also nerfed other things. Now we are left bare against melee, we can’t really keep up against the classes who rely less on their healing, and more on their defensives.

Sure we have IBF but 30% damage reduction is a joke to the classes that dish out immense amounts of damage, we’re talking “one shot” type damage here, and funnily enough, when at some time those same “one shot” classes were squishier to compensate for their damage, I don’t see that now. 15% Damage reduction from Lichborne doesn’t do anything either.

To top it all off, the defensives that we do have left, absorbs, being vastly reduced along with the progression of time with dampening really only makes things worse for us as you say, in things like solo shuffle where dampening begins at 10%. Even though it is also affected by dampening, Deathstrike is supposed to bethe ability that keeps us afloat, the price to pay for that is sacrificing damage, while other classes do not have to, with their healing being passive, and their defensives being vastly superior. With the current state of things, us Death Knights are really a joke when it comes to survivability, and when it comes to the fantasy that being a plate wearer is supposed to embody to begin with.

All I have to say is, if our healing is going to be butchered this bad, at the very least compensate by having our damage increase. Death coils hit for 8k-12k when people already have 350k health pools. The same goes for Frost, Froststrike is a joke when it comes to the damage it does.

We rely heavily on offensive cooldowns, our damage outside of that is poor, how are we supposed to stay alive until our next offensive window if our healers are getting cced to hell and back, and we alone do not have the means to survive a go with the tools we have been given. That’s a lie, there is one alternative, but I am sure I speak for everyone who has PvP at a reasonably competitive level as a dk when I say that we do not want to simply be chains of icing and kiting around a pillar like a clothwearer or leather wearer. It’s not the fantasy for a plate wearer to playing ring around the rosey.

So one of two things needs to be done if we are to survive the PvP season, either our damage needs to be buffed to compensate for the lack of survivability, or our survivability needs to be buffed, so that we can stay alive long enough to see our next burst window.

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I agree with the main points of your post. Spellwarding is in large one of the culprits when it comes to our “healing”. While it did help with casters melting through our ams at it’s time, the sad reality of it all is there are a lot of absorbs in the game and that’s wall Spellwarding is; another uninspiring passive that proccs and proccs with really not too much counter-play.

Deathstrike is more well-rounded as it’s healing is based off damage taken so even vs casters it helps out. Death Strike having been nerfed to complete irrelevancy certainly doesn’t help what our class is supposed to be in any possible way. I get it, nerfs are not supposed to help, but that nerf was quite heavy handed considering they went and also nerfed other things. Now we are left bare against melee, we can’t really keep up against the classes who rely less on their healing, and more on their defensives.

Sure we have IBF but 30% damage reduction is a joke to the classes that dish out immense amounts of damage, we’re talking “one shot” type damage here, and funnily enough, when at some time those same “one shot” classes were squishier to compensate for their damage, I don’t see that now. 15% Damage reduction from Lichborne doesn’t do anything either.

To top it all off, the defensives that we do have left, absorbs, being vastly reduced along with the progression of time with dampening really only makes things worse for us as you say, in things like solo shuffle where dampening begins at 10%. Even though it is also affected by dampening, Deathstrike is supposed to bethe ability that keeps us afloat, the price to pay for that is sacrificing damage, while other classes do not have to, with their healing being passive, and their defensives being vastly superior. With the current state of things, us Death Knights are really a joke when it comes to survivability, and when it comes to the fantasy that being a plate wearer is supposed to embody to begin with.

All I have to say is, if our healing is going to be butchered this bad, at the very least compensate by having our damage increase. Death coils hit for 8k-12k when people already have 350k health pools. The same goes for Frost, Froststrike is a joke when it comes to the damage it does.

We rely heavily on offensive cooldowns, our damage outside of that is poor, how are we supposed to stay alive until our next offensive window if our healers are getting cced to hell and back, and we alone do not have the means to survive a go with the tools we have been given. That’s a lie, there is one alternative, but I am sure I speak for everyone who has PvP at a reasonably competitive level as a dk when I say that we do not want to simply be chains of icing and kiting around a pillar like a clothwearer or leather wearer. It’s not the fantasy for a plate wearer to playing ring around the rosey.

So one of two things needs to be done if we are to survive the PvP season, either our damage needs to be buffed to compensate for the lack of survivability, or our survivability needs to be buffed, so that we can stay alive long enough to see our next burst window.