Oblit without KM hits less than frost strike, I think both need to be looked at imo.
Unholy 100% suffers from this as well, but I was mainly focused on frost. I would love to see some of the 45 sec cds unh rolled together and damage shuffled into core spells.
DK is also top performing melee on that graph.
Something about these forums that people should be warned about which probably feeds more into why people dont play DK than anything else, they lie. DK top performer but if you talked to many people on these forums they say they are garbage and at the bottom in terms of performance.
The same stuff was happening throughout SL. People come in and ask about DK because they were interested in it, and then people here just say “it sucks”. Negativity spreads faster than anything positive.
The data is not complete and it has extremely few parses on the fights where it’s top parsing. Look at wow logs, compare it’s performance on the mythic bosses, look at the parse numbers and then look at it’s performance on heroic and normal.
For Frost, I’m not sure its necessarily that the buttons feel stale and old, more that they feel unrewarding. Frost strike doesn’t feel good to press, Oblit outside KM doesn’t feel good to press and even rimed HBs don’t feel that strong. In Legion, those buttons felt much more impactful than they do now. I liked a lot of the simplicity of Legion Frost. Frostscythe was an AoE talent and it excelled in that roll. Breath of Sindragosa was a strong cooldown but only required about 30-40 seconds of uptime to be good and you still did solid damage outside of it. Remorseless Winter was a button you used in AoE but didn’t need to use in single target and was fire and forget without a bunch of talents empowering it. It was simple, intuitive and effective.
Unholy right now is just something of a clunky beast. Wounds still suck, there are too many separate CDs. Your buff durations do not all line up cleanly making the opener clunky and the tracking of maintenance buffs and debuffs is annoying (moreso in M+). Army’s variable CD is also really annoying and needs to be standardized at 3 minutes. Unholy Assault having the wound strike just so it can be on the GCD and cannot be used outside of melee range is irritating when I liked the old Unholy Frenzy better. I still like playing Unholy in raid but it feels pretty lackluster everywhere else.
The class talent tree also has some things I would love to change. Can they swap Blood Draw and Will of the Necropolis’s position on the tree? I would love to not have to give up a point in empowered runeforges or death’s echo to take Will of the Necropolis.
Its funny. I quit at the end of mop because i mained dk. Frost dk rbgs were my whole game. And when i really felt i had to play unholy, i started to play less. Coming back i cant say i enjoy the class. Ill probably main warrior for now. But the fact is it is a boring class right now. Frost is just spamming obliterate to see yourself bottom of the charts, and unholy is just building runic power to keep my monster big. So basically rotation is just low dps making something else decent dps. I miss early mop frost and unholy where they felt so distant from each other. Runic power wasnt just damage or heals. It had some nuance. It was fun. Now… it feels slow and stale
Because Legion was peak Frost design over the last 4 expansions. Every button felt meaningful to press specifically because Frostreaper + guaranteed crit didn’t exist; the implementation of Frostreaper (with the guaranteed crit) absolutely destroyed baseline damage for Frost abilities, and with everything then hitting that low, BoS & Obliteration had to become more powerful to offset that.
Frostreaper with the guaranteed crit suffocates Frost’s design and devolves it into a 1 button spec.
If there’s any work being done for the spec, I’d really hope they’d use Legion’s design as a baseline and work from there: FS/HB doing good damage and are the larger focus of the spec, KM being a guaranteed crit or 100% Frost damage and not both, larger emphasis on having AoE & ST damage not being tied to burst windows & positional abilities, etc.
Not playing dk long enough to say how stale it is, and with honesty, devs were trying to do changes to the class, but as many noted, the core idea of the class didn’t change a bit. All 3 specs are revolving around spending wet noddle presses to try and generate some procs to bring down cd on some real buttons.
Dps specs suffer more since they do mostly nothing when forced out of range and can’t catch up on cd reduction. Especially army.
Why people love the new Ret? Including me, I confess. It’s light, not overdone with procs, it’s pressed are mostly at a range (or can be done as such), it doesn’t punish downtime as much. Rets things are either on a target or a Ret self, not on a ground.
Dk, has to stay rooted in dnd, most things to press are a melee range, desyncing things is punishable by forever low dps, if boss timers don’t align with 3min cd, bye unholy.
Pity to say, but dk feels boring and if opener is screwed or not, next ~3min is a chore to cd reduction. M+ boss wipe is a cluster duck, because army won’t be back for another 8 minutes give or take.
Class is made clunky and punished for being bursty, able to stack some external buffs and ability to cheese some things. No idea why fun=bad and has to be tuned down to the abyss.
Unholy’s model also isnt sustainable. The spec literally has like 6 cooldowns to rotate.
Dark Transformation
Apocalypse
Army of the Dead
Gargoyle
Unholy Assault
Empower Rune Weapon
How in the world can we possibly do any damage with rotational abilities when we literally have 6 cooldowns?
The answer is we cant.
Also, look at that graph and then realize that we also take Reaping. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=377514/reaping
You can barely tell Reaping has any effect on the graph because the only dps that matters is the Ghoul/Army of the Dead/Apoc/Garg. Reaping should be a really big contributor to our damage. And it certainly is not.
The specs identity is supposed to be diseases and pets. In reality, its identity is:
Find a strong 3 minute cooldown stat trinket
Army of the Dead
Gargoyle
Thats really it.
Edit:
Also, the spec just has too much redundancy.
Apocalypse/Army of the Dead/Gargoyle:
Army of the Dead is clearly the iconic ability. Why not ditch the others and lean into Army of the Dead more, allowing us to cast it more often? And if they like the gameplay of spending runic power to buff pets…then just add that to Army of the Dead.
Unholy Aura/Commander of the Dead:
Theyre the same thing. Literally. Unholy Aura is just 2 points instead of 1 and gives 20% instead of 35%. Otherwise…theyre identical.
Unholy Assault/Empower Rune Weapon:
Why cant Empower Rune Weapon just make Unholy Assault be 35% haste instead of 20%? Everyone just macros them together anyway.
Honestly this part can just go away.
I brought this up at the start of the expansion in regards to Gargoyle and was told “but then it’s just a dot with bad AI!”
I counter that it’s still a dot with bad AI, it’s just a dot with bad AI that you have to stack.
I have an idea! Let’s remove the bad AI part and just make it a stacking dot. Oh, and to give it some AOE power, let’s make it spread each time it deals damage!
Its pretty clear that what we think only matters within certain parameters. Blizzard is going to do what they want. So me making suggestions is probably a waste of my own time anyway. But Unholy needs a lot of cleanup. Thematically the spec is awesome. Diseases and pets is a very unique niche and theme.
But thats not its identity. Its identity is 3 min on-use stat trinket and 2 big cooldowns. And it could be so much more.
yes, I don’t get it why dk has to be that class that no one wants in the pug because he brings no beneficial buffs to the party. AMZ is joke now too. our damage profile is so bad that any other reworked class can easily pass us on damage meter with little efforts on a lot of fights in either mythic + or raid contents. frost is surpassing unholy in mythic+ because unholy’s tier sets is joke when compare to last season and. (to be honest, frost is not as exciting too, just to bring back the old icecap style back from 8.3, frost still suffers from boss mechanic that requires them to walk away and watch boss does whatever they does and go back in and continue dps.
Regarding Unholy!
What also contributes to that issue is the massive bloat of offensive modifiers.
These are…
… Festermight
… RotFC
… Rune Mastery
… Death Rot
… Improved Death Coil
… Frenzied Monstrosity
… Morbidity
… Unholy Bond
… Brittle
… Unholy Aura
… Commander of the Dead
… Reaping
… Rotten Touch
Any questions left?
BTW: I’m not saying that all of these should be removed, but this sheer amount is ridicolous.
I agree with a lot of the fundamental argument regarding DK being a bit stale, but the numbers on the DPS Representation sheet are way off for the non-Aberrus raids, as I noticed that Aberrus has 10x the numbers of the previous tiers, and the SL Population sheet looks similarly off with only ~7k DKs in all of heroic Sanctum vs. ~90k in the second week on my data set. I think WCL is only showing the final two weeks of the selected segment on each (e.g. the Sepulcher data in your source link is data from the last two weeks of patch 9.2). I ran my own numbers using the 2nd/3rd week WCL heroic data from the weekly wowhead log dumps to get a snapshot of what should be some of the highest heroic participation weeks of each tier, and I went all the way back to Nathria.
Unsurprisingly, Frost and Unholy are pretty much inverted on participation rates–when Unholy is high, Frost is low, and vice versa. However, my take on this data set is that people just really don’t like Frost DK that much in raid and it only spikes in participation when it’s powerful (e.g. Sepulcher). This spike for Frost DK in Sepulcher (from ~1% to ~3%) actually destroyed overall DK participation compared to the opening of Sanctum and Nathria (~8% down to ~5%) and it has not recovered. As a biased Unholy DK raid enjoyer, I would rather switch classes than main Frost DK in raid, which the data vaguely suggests to be true 
.
Let me know if I’m missing something, but I definitely agree that at the very least, Frost DK is in need of some changes/rework (I’m still a fan of Unholy but would welcome changes, especially to our damage profile).
Disclaimers on the data sets used & links:
Relies on WCL data pulled by WoWHead to snapshot the opening few weeks’ statistics of each tier; any balance/mechanical class changes occurring after the first few weeks of heroic that might impact participation would not be reflected in the data.
Nathria Data
Sanctum Data
Sepulcher Data
Vault Data
Aberrus Data (taken directly on 5/29/23)
I know this isn’t specifically towards blood but man, I totally see myself in what you wrote.
I got to think the other day that Blood also feels super dated and like we so bound to a specific thing that we can’t really get buffed in other areas, for example are suffering from the perception of our super survivability so our damage has to be so bottom, but the reality is we aren’t even the tankiest tank.
Blood really needs a new philosophy. Our talent tree is also super tied to the same playstyle. Pick the core fantasies tied to Blood and expand on it (Rune weapons, Bones and Blood).
I would love for the entire DK class to get some freshened up icons as well.
That’s what DK have the best imo, the Theme/Fantasy. Probably the main reason some of the players still play either of the 3 specs.
One of the best posts I have ever seen regarding DK, especially DPS DK’s issues right now. I pray blizzard sees this post and heeds it for 10.2 and gives DK, especially Unholy and Frost, a rework. I love both UH and Frost but they are really awkward and clunky to play and entirely to punishing when you mess even one thing up.
And something regarding specifically Unholy, I HATE the fact that ALL of my dmg as UH comes from Gary, the high burst at the start of a fight is decently satisfying but dropping off as hard as you do after the burst just isn’t fun at all and kills any type of satisfaction you get from the burst, and the ramp up to get the high burst is extremely awkward to execute and takes entirely to long. And as you said in the post, the reliance on trinkets as Unholy is absolutely stupid, the fact that a 415 trinket from the previous season was going to be bis over any other 447 trinket till it was nerfed should have been the wake up call for them to realize something isn’t right when a spec relies so heavily on just one item.
Please Blizzard, please, I beg you, help us. I think I can safely speak for every DK when I say that we need desperately need a rework.
I’m a long time DK player…since release…and haven’t really stopped outside of Sepulcher (both times) where I gave DH a spin and I’m now back on DK.
I can’t really say if its because we’re not “fun” or for other reasons. I would say its because getting invited to groups as a DK is pretty much…just cringe. You addressed the utility issue. We bring…well…nothing to any group.
Our utility is niche at best and useless at its worst.
Death Grip - Niche
AMZ - Weak, and used a DPS CD for both Unholy and Frost.
Tanky? - So what…we have healers…although it is a nice benefit…to the DK, not the group.
AMS - Its a persona…doesn’t help the group.
You mentioned Ret/Evoker/Hunters.
Evokers bring a buff and lust…besides being new.
Hunters bring tons of utility - lust, cc, an immunity.
Ret - reworked, cc, an aura, bres.
I’m sure a re-work and making us “new” would help garner interest in the class, but there are more issues than our class being “boring”.
Look at the affixes this week…can’t even participate. I switched to blood to be useful this week.
I guess all I’m saying is that DK requires more than just a rotational refresh to draw people back to the class. Everything nowadays is about the meta and what do you bring to the group. DK doesn’t bring much so we won’t be around at least in less organized groups which is the majority of the base.
I know you’re basing a lot of your info off of raid, but lets not forget that the game is increasingly favoring 5 man content over raid and in that game if you don’t bring utility you’re left out in the cold and since a lot of people play the same class for both M+ and raid…many if not most are going to seek a class that is useful for both forms of content.
Yeah, for sure. The dungeon design doesn’t help either, it’s not just the affixes, the amount of carry a poison/disease dispell, a freedom/tigers lust, Blessing of protection/sacrifice can do is insane.
I hope we get to see a rework this expansion for all 3 specs and I hope we get Attack Power back so it’s not only Warriors doing it.
Shouldn’t this post also be in the PTR forum?
First off I agree with most things, and that both specs could use an overhaul for different reasons, but why do people keep saying grip is a niche ability or not as good as it seems?
It functions as an interrupt, has synergy with affixes and mechanics, can be a dps increase for your entire group by repositioning adds, can absolutely save pulls (frontal prevention in dungeons like AV or UR for example), can also prevent butt pulls on roaming ads. Yea it sucks when certain ads are immune, but you learn that it doesn’t and that’s it. Grip is very underrated.
As a side note I’d also argue DK has the second best interrupt in the game next to shaman.
If there’s an important area where DK lacks utility it’s that it’s basically the only class to not bring some form of RW/group buff; brez can also be massively detrimental to dps (frost/unh) and staying alive if you’re blood.
The easiest ways to fix this are revert horn of winter to an AP buff, or bring back presences as a form of passive group wide buff.
The 6 second cooldown of soul reaper is obstructing for all 3 dk specs rotations. Using resources and a gcd every 6 seconds for soul reaper means less resources to maintain everything else in the spec’s rotation. Even if this results in a minor single-target dps increase, it feels awful and many DKs drop the ability purely because of the maintenance required.
The 5 second delay also adds little to the spell other than the opportunity to estimate group dps to ensure the first soul triggers at 34.9% so that with perfect play you can fit in another soul reaper before the target dies. This can feel random and unrewarding when the first soul reaper triggers >35.1%, or when the target dies with <1 sec of soul reaper left to tick.
The 5 second delay also ensures that the ability will never be usable in pvp. Healthbars in pvp change drastically within seconds, guaranteeing a target will be >35% for longer than a couple seconds is quite literally impossible and it wastes resources if cannot be guaranteed.
My suggestion is to change soul reaper to guarantee the 2nd hit, and make it only usable below 35%. This maintains the execute niche of soul reaper as well as make it usable in pvp. Soul reaper should also have its cooldown increased so as to not be as obstructive to all 3 dk spec’s rotation’s.
Finally, soul reaper should be swapped with either army of the dead, or superstrain in the unholy tree. Either of these spells would be easier to balance, and would fit into rotations infinitely easier.