It'd be cool if

Classes Death Knight
1

Blood

  • If there is a passive way to get Bone Shields or find better ways to maintain Bone Shield stacks. Right now, I feel like this buff is a maintenance as a requirement to be tanky as most of the runes and globals are reserved for Marrowrend.

  • If Blooddrinker is reworked into an AoE RP spender in range that drains health of enemies affected by Blood Plague that works with Blood Shield.

  • If Blood Tap is baseline? I mean RC and RE are baseline for other specs, why not Blood Tap?

  • If Rune Tap not cost a rune. That sounds too good. Paired with Blood Tap being baseline? It can remain to have a cost.

  • If Blood dealt respectable damage compared to a Prot Pally, Bear Tank and Veng DH. Debilitating Malady 600% buff or a passive damage from Blood Plague or Death and Decay are doubtfully enough.

Frost

  • If 2h portion of MotFW 30% damage increase for Obliterate also affects other fundamentals of Frost’s toolkit such as…
    – Frost Strike: Frost Strike is at the weakest as PvE 2h Frost. It does 30% increased damage in PvP and from that alone warrant using Eradicating Blows Conduit. Moving that 30% damage increase by also including Frost Strike would make this ability very nice to spend.
    – Frostscythe: Obliterate and Frostscythe are mutually exclusive when it comes to Killing Machine. One clearly does more damage than the other overall and when FScy comes in its niche application, it is doubtful that it keeps up with Obliterate’s Scaling.
    – Glacial Advance: An AoE RP spender that probably should be baseline with no CD, but remove the Razorice application. Making RI application a talent from GA would make sense to have so there are definitely a trade off between a Runeforge and a Talent.
    – In a nutshell: The more damage increase the abilities MotFW it applies, the more abilities can compete with Obliterate as well as 2h Frost can have more applications other than just mashing Obliterates. We don’t have unlimited amount of runes to do so.

  • If Chill Streak can be used in PvE. Seriously, it’s a neat ability.

  • If UNLEASHED FRENZY CONDUIT LASTED FOR 18 SECONDS INSTEAD OF 6. SERIOUSLY. Why is this conduit last so short!? For a conduit that improves Frost Strike and Frost Strike only, it gives runic power a value in an inconvenient way possible. I don’t want to use Frost Strike every 4 globals.

  • If Avalanche works like an AoE execute. Couple that with Shadowfrost Soul Reaper and Merciless Combat. The former two would scale well with DW anyway.

  • If Icecap is good… Somehow. Remember Icy Citadel?

Unholy

  • If Summon Gargoyle was baseline… Seriously, Gary has been sitting in the Ebon Hold ever since this has become a talent. Sobbing. Weeping. Waiting for its competitive days to see the light of day. Not only Gary should be baseline, it also should be integrated with Army of the Damned cooldown reduction as an identity of a minion raising Necromancer that Unholy Death Knights are.

  • If Necrotic Plague returns to reidentify Unholy Death Knight’s integrated playstyle. Because not only an Unholy Death Knight raises the dead, they wrought diseases to bring suffering to enemies in a morbid way possible. If Gary becomes baseline, this ability is the perfect replacement and bring back rot damage (not minion damage!) that Unholy has lost.

  • If Defile was merged with Pestilence… because Pestilence is an absolutely pointless talent. People are forming shenanigans with Defile in 9.2 and even then, while it does have potential, still requires globals and resources to make it worth using. If Death’s Due is referenced, go to the Covenant section below.

  • If our DoTs WORKED with Haste. Because it flipping doesn’t for SOME REASON. Yet another reason why Unholy is having an identity crisis throughout years from a melee aff lock to a demo lock with its scaling nerfed.

  • Lastly if Unholy Assault would instead apply Festering Wounds in an area around your target if Festering Wounds is part of your jam.

  • Why is Bone Shield exclusive to Blood? Why not Unholy have it as a different ability that’s not a buff that they don’t maintain.

  • Honorable Mention that Dark Transformation should not be on GCD. Or keep the GCD and make it worth using it somehow. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of this one as DT is a strong ability with FM and UP. But the GCD tax for Unholy is absolutely unreal. I could mention about presences (Unholy Presence) but that’s another can of worms that I won’t open on this post.

Covenants

  • If Gorefiend’s Grasp was baseline for all Death Knights and it is replaced with Abomination’s Limb should Necrolord is chosen. Blood gets to keep both GG and Abom while Frost and Unholy get Abom’s limb to replace GG. Giving Non-NL Dks a utility that NL Dks have. Abeit weaker but better than not having no GG for deeps DK, right?

  • If Kyrian DK has a ST application. Because StU, while the 100% spread is nice now, suffers a relative nerf compared to other covenants as other covenants get stronger in terms of a second legendary in multiple applications while the StU Leggo gets jack diddly against ST. Remember that StU is used for Pelageese and that would only take you far compared to other covenant choices.

  • If Death’s Due has gone back to the beta state where a tick applies a debuff that grants DR/Strength, making it not too demanding from Globals and Runes from usage of a specific ability. It’s about to get stronger in 9.2 with Death’s Certainty for Unholy NF Players. It is unfortunately unchanged for Frost as Havoc for Obliterate has niche application. It’s nice to have, don’t get me wrong. But this is one of the things why people are cringing over our second legendaries are tied to covenant powers.

  • Since Covenants are going to be done away with after 9.2. These are just short term things that would make the covenant abilities cool that I probably won’t cover over. Baseline GG won’t happen in that case but one can dream right?

  • You are wondering why I have not mentioned about Swarming Mist. That’s because Swarming Mist is fine for the most part. It generates a lot of RP for a DK. Making Venthyr Blood Dk very sustainable. Swarming Mist so far is serving its purpose very well!

What are your thoughts?

8 Likes
2

It would be cool if DW got 2h’s 30% Obliterate damage. Make it happen.

3

I don’t think this is true. At the start of a pull, I usually generate Bone Shields with DRW and slappy clappy, moving into the main rotation then is like one marrowrend every 2 rune cycles.

That could be neat, but I’m not sure it really helps us damage wise. Spending RP to do damage is already a talent, but it’s almost not worth it outside of pairing with cooldowns because RP is life.

It’s just not that impactful. It adds a very uninteresting button, too. I think they should just scrap it and make something more engaging.

This one I don’t like on live. Rune Tap is super niche use case, I think having it generate the same amount of RP as a heatstrike would be better, then you’re choosing between damage and tanking as, instead of damage and tanking as or wasting a global.

Yeah. I struggle to do 5k and my DH buddy finishes the same keys at 7K+. Damage could certainly come up about 15-20%.

I’ll defer to you on frost, I hate it. BoS is the worst playstyle, to me.

Agreed.

I don’t get why? Defile is neat, but ground based AoE is a liability in so many facets of the game. I’d give up DND for unholy before I gave up epidemic.

They are part of everyone’s jam. Unholy Assault just isn’t competitive, and I don’t think it can be with some major rework.

It’s part of their kit? I know, BoneShield used to a class ability, but DKs had too many answers to too many situations. I think DKs have more defensives than most dps already, just let this one go.

I disagree. But I would like to see it combined with apoc, so it’s one button press. I’m generally against OGCD abilities, with the exception of defensives.

I think overall this just leads to more homogenization between specs. It’s fine as it is.

Shouldn’t even exist.

Again, this shouldn’t be a thing. Grounded based AoE is bad. And faeries wings for a dk? Blech.

1 Like
4

You dont have to play BoS.

I was just in a group with 3 Death Knights. Nothing actually real hard, but there was a blood dk, a BoS DK (dont know the ilvl) and me using Obliteration and Frostscythe. I was constantly in front of the BoS player because it just wasnt up often enough even in AoE Frostscythe was doing work. I ended up about 900dps ahead of the BoS player at the end of the run.

1 Like
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I wouldn’t take that as something to off of as a good example.

At one point in a sanctum run my 226 necrolord fury warrior was trailing a kyrian fury warrior in dps on 3 fights by a small margin with that warrior being over 240 (can’t rememberthe exact lvl). And in another run as arms, I either out dps by a wide margin or just head and shoulders with a night fae arms warrior that was 246 itemlvl with me being necrolord. It says more about the others than the build you’re using. You wouldn’t even be a blip on a dps meter compared to a competent player using bos even at your item lvl.

6

DW can scale well with everything else that isn’t Obliterate, Frost Strike, Frostscythe and Glacial Advance. They all scale with Strength already so there is that.

I mean good for you, I suppose. But that doesn’t change the fact that Bone Shield feels like a maintainence.

Blooddrinker drains health. TO EVERYONE AFFECTED BY BLOOD PLAGUE.

I should also probably mention that it should be baseline and also has no CD with the cost of 30 RP each use.

It has similar functionality to Death Strike where you get healed from staggering hits. This one however, consistently heals you and allows you to generate threat from distance after getting personal with mobs thanks to Blood Boil.

It being affected by Blood Shield also shouldn’t be overlooked.

If Blood Tap is not part of Blood’s baseline toolkit. Blood will be the spec that doesn’t have a Rune Restoring ability based on RP use. Even now, it’s based on Bone Shield consumption rather than RP that it is supposed to be.

It’s a Rune Restoring ability. It may not be an interesting button. But it’s a pretty critical ability that also shouldn’t be overlooked. I for one think that if Frost can restore runes through RE and Unholy can restore runes through RC, it makes sense that Blood SHOULD restore runes through Blood Tap without consuming a talent slot.

If I recall correctly, rune tap does not consume GCD. I might be wrong on this though but if it does, it should lead to my next point.

You really shouldn’t underestimate this ability. It’s basically a Shield Wall. Damage Mitigation is a very powerful thing even if it lasts for 4 seconds that cost a rune.

Defile itself is alright. It’s Pestilence that is the main culprit of this talent row and 9 times out of 10, Unholy Pact is used because of that strength increase. It will outclass Defile in many ways even if Death’s Due with Withered Ground is a thing. Death’s Due has its own problems.

Defile is alright. UP is good. Pestilence is trash as both Defile and Pestilence affects the same ability.

I do agree that it is not competitive in its current state. But you don’t think applying Festering Wound to everyone affected by your target area isn’t competitive?

Have you seen Druids?

I mean it’s a thematic ability. But saying that they removed it because Dks having many answers to too many situations while classes like Druid exist seems like an exaggeration.

I’ve seen a lot of topic around DT merging with Apoc. But if you really wanna combine it with Apoc, just make a macro for it.

There definitely should be an option for this or the other.

Just because you think Kyrian or Night Fae DK shouldn’t be a thing, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

I’ve been a Night Fae DK since SL released as a Harbinger of Eternal Winter. Only to be reduced to a Grabby Hand Bot against Soulrender Dormazain. Slappy Hands gatekept DPS Death Knights that aren’t Necrolord due to how important that ability was for fights such as Soulrender or Sun King. Even with fights in Mordretha in Theatre of Pain, Slappy Hands has a really good utility that Non-NL DK will never have and it has more synergy with other classes that require mobs to be clumped up.

Homogenization is just a moot excuse for something every class shouldn’t have something that other class do. I’m not asking a Time Warp/Heroism/Bloodlust for a Death Knight.

Plus, this is Covenant we’re talking about. Not specs. But since Covenant are done with, I believe Slappy Hands will be gone for good along with other abominable abilities that they failed to balance.

1 Like
7

This doesnt surprise me at all. BoS is so heavily weighted into the talent doing its damage, so if you have smaller encounters which is common in anything like heroic dungeons or < +10 keys, the fights end very quickly making the CD really not worth the 2min cost when you get a 15second breath. That coupled with the fact a lot of people just don’t know how to play BoS and its easy to scuff if you don’t know what you are doing makes a lot of BoS players very underwhelming in lower-tier content.

Obliteration excels in this content because 1min CD cycle means you can pop CDs nearly every pull. Its also much more forgiving for less experienced players.

2 Likes
8

Not to knock low level play, but in low level content or super low keys basically anything “works”.

It’s no more a maintenance than any other AM think like SotR or Iron Fur.

You’ve described it as basically an AoE deathstrike. I dislike having 2 buttons that do the same thing. Is much rather just allow DS to cleave.

Which you get from spending runes on Marrowrend.

Rune tap has 2, maybe 3, uses: when under the effect of a mortal strike (like Dessia or Varruth), when the next hit would kill your otherwise (high tyrannical tank buster), or when kiting and rune capped and not in range to heart strike. Otherwise, the RP generated by heart strike is worth more mitigation in the form of healing than that rune tap. You liken it to shield wall, but it’s more like a 4 second bark skin.

It also does more damage than any other talent in that row by a large margin and is ALSO easier to play with. I’m not arguing against buffing the other options per se, but I’d personally much rather play chain-dancing than deal with ground based aoe.

Compared to AotD? No. Not even close.

Yeah, I play one. Dk has more defensives, quantitively and qualitatively.

That’s what they tried to break by making the change. Also, because of the variable length of Apoc, this wouldn’t work very well. You’d never use them separately anyways.

The DK is very strong and versatile at the moment. There are a few QoL issues for unholy ramp and I’d love a little more blood damage, but that’s about it.

1 Like
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I suppose we can agree to disagree.

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no issue with anything you mentioned, other than making DS an aoe… I really like DS as a single target ability. I mean I would be open to changing it and having my mind changed, but my initial reaction is a no to making it AoE.

I also don’t mind the boneshield maintenance, it adds some depth of skill to playing the class. But I think they need to give us something to get some stacks before entering a pull (maybe Rune tap could also provide some boneshield stacks?)…because running into a pack with no stacks and DRW on CD is horrible. feels like there are like 1 or 2 too many GCDs you need to press at once.

1 Like
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It’s not fun, for sure, but also pretty rare.

On the DS thing, I don’t want RP spend to be anything but healing tbh. I’d much rather buff HS for better AoE. I was just giving an example.

12

And I prefaced it with I dont know what his ilvl was. I dont know what you are trying to say other than players can do better with different builds as others… congrats you pointed something out that has been known since at least wrath.

13

Something to keep in mind that when I’m proposing Blooddrinker to be an AoE health drain, which Kaemane describes to be an AoE DS, I actually want every spec to have an AoE RP dump for more options of using RP as a resource.

Personally, I think it’s going to be useful in something like Necrotic Weeks to start stacking Blood Shield… If that’s any relevant. Also it allows the DK to continue generate threat when not in melee range and not relying on passive threat generation from Blood Plague.

That… could be nice, right?

It’s entirely different from DS where DS requires you to stagger hits to get healed. Blooddrinker in this version don’t do that and just constantly drain life as the Death Knight stays distant for some reason (I’m looking at Necrotic).

2 Likes
14

Seems well enough :thinking:

15

Why not do something a little more interesting with something like… Consumption? Its almost like DS anyways, so you could make it either replace DS, or it be a passive for DS. Does everything that DS does but instead of 30% damage taken within the last 5 seconds its 23% and it heals for 2% of max health for every target hit with Blood Plague. For ST you would still want to use DS and Hemostasis, but for AoE there is an option.

If its a passive for DS (gets the Consumpsion animation) then Death’s Certainty can be used to increase its damage.

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I always thought Consumption was an odd ability during Legion. Interesting idea, Kell! :smiley:

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the devs tried to merge them and backtracked after massive outcry, people do in fact use them separately, and quite often. in pvp DT is used for an extra interrupt/root and a 2 second stun.

taking DT off the GCD and allowing you to macro it is the best solution as it reduces the ramp up while also still allowing granular control. granular control of our abilities is important for pvp.

1 Like
18

I remember the days of using bone shield as unholy… very fondly

19

Just remove boneshield and give us more hate/armor baseline.

Threat on pull is the issue. Buff blood boil’s instant damage maybe?

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In Legion Consumption was baseline however, its just not used now because of better options. Why wasnt it made baseline in BFA or even SL? Apoc was, Sindragosa’s Fury was in the form of Frostwyrm’s Fury, but they didnt with Consumption… why?