Necrotic Wound will be nerfed

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]

@Margraive-garrosh

shouldnt you be post some more misinformation about the dk class?

like what? nobody even commented on what i said about the class, you are all just upset that a casual said it. not my problem your self worth is tied to your pvp rating.

[Locûtus-kelthuzad]

@Inemia-wyrmrest-accord

you are all just upset that a casual said it. not my problem your self worth is tied to your pvp rating.

Y’know

I just wish people would be more open instead of saying “you don’t have 1400 rating, be quiet” kind of attitude

Sometimes I really wonder if my own pvp experience is worth anything with that in regard

I always say something like “I could be wrong” because it is literally that, I am admitting that I can be wrong if it is bonkers in upper echelon of rated pvp since with the friends I have, it is impossible for me to reach there by myself

I could buy a boost but I want to earn it. That’s just… not something I do.

Humility is severely undervalued in society.

[Petkick-tichondrius]

The only people who should rating shame are the best of the best not duelist dks who play cheese comps just ignore people like neth

[Jholagian-bleeding-hollow]

This is generally why I never post here, you got certain s who think they know what they are saying. I’m certainly not the best but I’m not the worst either.

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]

here’s the stuff from Discord, some has direct questions, some is just a response to conversation:

@RmZ

Realz says that Sudden Doom has 3 procs per min, 20 sec CD or something, which I find strange because I know Sudden Doom proccing one after another A LOT from my testings

@Realz

It’s not literally a cooldown, just mathing out the rate to an equivalent cooldown value to help people compare it to other effects

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@RmZ

@Realz so do you guys think that these changes are overtuned, are you planing on nerfing them soon or give them some time?

@Realz

I do think that’s probably the case, my sense of tuning for DK is weaker than some other classes so my initial aim probably overshot in at least a couple spots. I stand by the general designs though, and I don’t think anything will get deleted outright. High on my list are the haste reduction value on Bitter Chill, the effectiveness value on Spellwarden, and the duration and/or CD of Strang with it now available to all. Nothing set in stone, will give it some time before finalizing values – there are plenty of non-DK things that might get adjusted up/down too, fwiw

@Realz

I’m not too worried about NW values of heal reduction, though I’m slightly worried i may need to cap the heal value to the Dk - uncertain

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@Nethx

oh no, a possible bitter chill nerf huh?

@Realz

it technically doesn’t exist yet so call it a nerf if you want but yes, as with anything on PTR, tuning not final. Keeping my eye on it =p

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@RmZ

Oh yeah Realz one more thing, Rune of the Apocalypse, have you guys even thought about changing something about it? It is very thematic but quite meme at this point compared to other Runeforges

@Realz

i LOVE rune of the apocalypse thematically but in the context of PvP talent changes, I did not come to a good conclusion on a way to speak to it within that space

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@Mograine

Anyway we can address being able to switch runeforges before an arena starts? As it is right now you either farm out an entire other weapon and put a different runeforge on it. I only ask this question regarding the spellwarding pvp talent

@Realz

I’ve heard this concern before and will be sure to raise it with others, can’t promise anything though, runeforging sits in a weird spot between feeling like an actual enchant (cant change) and a customizable talent/class effect (can change)

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@zen

Realz, is there any chance that you guys are also looking into replacing Reanimation with another talent or how do you see that?

@Realz

I considered some revisions or replacements but nothing I loved enough to pull the trigger. It’s a novel talent that more casual BG type players sometimes pick and have fun with, so it wasn’t high enough priority and I ran out of time to spend on Dk without having a good replacement/change. So it gets to stay, it does get used//is fun, just not aimed at competitive focus, not the end of the world

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@Keator

When you balance do consider the classes potential when played at the highest level or do you consider the “average” players skill ? @Realz just curious

@Realz

both

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@Realz

pvp mults will be reviewed before 9.1 release, and yeah we’re aware frost has its fair share of negative mults

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@Flarkness

@Realz is there any information you can give me on the pvp specific nerfs to the 2 abilities: cold heart and breath of sindy

@Realz

if i’m allowed to spitball my personal opinion a bit, I’d say that cold heart isn’t my favorite thing to encourage in the pvp space. Often, chains goes unused//less used in pve, and the talent lets people feel clever about turning that into a damage effect. In pvp, making people not use chains comes at a much higher cost, I almost don’t even want to encourage the behaviour because the opportunity cost of ‘losing’ chains utility would have to be paid out in an unreasonably large damage burst to make it worthwhile… “fair” perhaps but maybe not “fun”. that said, that’s my opinion, who knows what will or won’t happen with it at the end of the day =p

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@Nethx

When designing these PvP talents, in what role is Frost looked at to fill? Up front these changes appear to be utility/support additions. Will we possibly see any additional pvp talents, maybe something to address Frosts damage outside of pillar windows?

@Realz

I can’t say with certainty, but I think for Dk what you see now is what you get. Tuning is something of a separate concern and will be addressed before 9.1 release. I don’t know what the outcome of that will be, but there are multiple pvp mults tuning down effects for Dk/Frost, which are knobs we can turn if needed. Fwiw, frost damage on live is not that far off, but there are tons of moving parts going into 9.1… soulbinds… new legos… pvp talents… gear scaling… tons to consider and account for

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@Rixin

With necrotic wounds was the goal to make its peak potential ( higher uptime on high stacks) solely dependent on apoc or is that a knob that you expect will be tuned ( stacks/ size of debuff/ duration) throughout the feedback cycle? just so we can give pointed feedback that is actionable/ usefull

@Realz

feedback appreciated, yeah. Nothing set in stone. I had 15 sec duration pencil’d in at one point, but thought it might make for overwhelming durations of 30%… I will say it’s not intended to feel like a perma-uptime thing, more a “pick your moment” type of thing for the Dk to figure out how to use to best effectiveness. Fwiw, shorter duration also means more frequent heals… but yeah, nothing set in stone // all actionable // feedback appreciated

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@Realz

yeah my hope is to help nudge specs in a direction that has its own feel, identity, most natural comps/synergies

@Realz

i did the same with rogue (idk how successfully) and that was important to me for dk as well

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@Realz

unholy for example - there’s no significant level-up of raw damage, because i don’t buy the feedback you sometimes hear, “the game is all about burst right now, i need to 2-shot ppl like X/Y/Z classes or else i’m useless” … instead, unholy is nudged more towards the enabling of building, maintaining, and capitalizing on pressure. NW is hopefully a skill-testing way to help build and maintain pressure, Strang a way to capitalize on it, etc… better sustain than Frost, cuz Unholy = hold W (in spirit)

RmZ:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/351394535189774347/842114670827274280/unknown.png

@Realz

frost is more utility and burst, enabling teammates and contributing to strategic wins

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@Amatox

Yeah but realz can you end the age old debate here. What’s the more Chad big brain dk spec

@Realz

Dk players are a special breed, why argue over whether a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon is more bigbrain

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@Realz

like, i love playing rogue as well, and when i play outlaw, i want to mash buttons like a kid in an arcade, and get paid
but i dont think either dk spec is like that

@Realz

ok fair maybe blood lol

@Realz

but even blood has some cooldown management going on that’s really interesting
but core rotation… yeah u right

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@Amatox

I think unholy should have necrotic baked into their rotation so that the skill cap just fades sway

@Realz

It surprises me that you think there’s no way to mess it up, and that there’s no room for skill expression. The stacks do not refresh, so management of generating/bursting wounds will be important, based on when you think you can burst multiple quickly and when you think the absorb will be the most impactful. It’s far from a perma-uptime effect like war MS or rog wound poison. If you derp it will do more than nothing, sure, but very far from at its best as when managed well

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@Narali

One thing on Strangulate if it ever comes to tuning which was brought up in Flarks stream that it may be a good idea to to increase the range at some point (alongside the cooldown increase or duration nerf which we will most likely need) so that you dont just ‘hold W’ but also have the option to sit on someone thats not a healer and follow up on a CC chain
like say you’re hitting a mage and the enemy priest healer is coming out a stormbolt/cyclone and you strang to secure kill. With the current range its somewhat discouraged and encourages running at healers all the time or saving it for grip->stun->strang healer every time

@Realz

reasonable concern but for the moment the range reduction is intentional. Instant cast healer cc/disruption at long range is very especially powerful, even troublesome at times, and is generally more healthy when it requires pushing in. Those that have it are probably better off being restricted, instead of such effects proliferated. Range was set to match Mind Freeze to have consistent proximity play/counterplay around those similar effects when playing against Dk, Grip is Dk’s method of manipulating that circumstance in your favor, but yeah, intentional restriction for now

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@Wilbyman

Hey realz I hope I’m not wrong about this but I heard you are a dev for wow? I’m not sure to what extent, but I heard you were answering some questions on mes’s stream yesterday. Do you think that the -12% haste from bitterchill will be as effective as people think? Will stats scale enough to the point where it won’t be as strong as what it is now? -12% is obviously strong but maybe not to the extent of which people are putting it out to be

@Realz

@Wilbyman – Yep! // yeah, i’m keeping a close eye on it and 12% might be a bit high, tuning on anything/everything (not just Dk stuff) is not final, take with a grain of salt // enemy haste values have a very small relative value influence, it’s non-zero but i don’t think it’s enough to worry about

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@Amatox

@Realz my primary concern is low mmr games when you have a unholy dk that pops every offensive CD and kills unskilled healers in an 11 sec cc chain

@Realz

reasonable concern

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@Narali

The point with mind freeze + strang range is very reasonable to me and you can see other instant CC balanced in short range/projectile delay like stormbolt, mortal coil

@Realz

Do you mean to say that reducing the range makes enemy healers more unhappy than increasing it? I imagine you don’t mean to say that it’s more powerful by somehow guiding players into a more correct strategy or anything

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more about strangulate:

@Realz

That said, I’m definitely keeping an eye on duration and CD, to some extent I may have been better off flipping a coin and nerfing one of those values in the first pass to set expectations, even if I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. We’ll see, as i said before, tuning not final, but I do stand by the principle//concept of Strang being an acceptable tool in the all-spec toolbox, Dk is a disruptive class by nature

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@Amatox

i don’t mean to sound confrontational that’s just my initial reaction for honest feedback

@Realz

np Amatox, for me personally, acceptable: “This is stupid” – not acceptable: “You are stupid”

@Realz

I don’t care how much you believe I may or may not be stupid, if you make it personal, I won’t talk to you. If you want to critique ideas, critique away, but as passionate as we all are about WoW I simply will not interact with you if you make it personal

@Realz

so yeah, be as honest as you want about anything you have an opinion on @Amatox , debate is good, it’s okay to disagree, i’m not perfect, i / we need feedback obviously

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@Aethros

@Realz can’t appreciate the honest feedback enough! Thanks for coming in and sharing the insight. Any thoughts on returning Dark Simulacrum to the base kit? As it is, there’s practically no room to squeeze it in as a PvP talent for either Frost or Unholy, and it’s a really unique/skill-expressive ability that separates the good from the great DKs.

@Realz

it’s super unique, agree, but definitely not in 9.1. I’m not familiar with all of the history. Agree about the tension as a pvp talent, right now it’s rarely used because of power//competitiveness, most of the time when it gets used it’s more for fun, more as a toy. Hard to speculate on the future, but I hear you, fwiw it’s not the only pvp skill in this position, there are more on other classes, it’s not perfect but it is what it is for the moment at least

@Aethros

Thanks for the reply - overall, personally I’m ecstatic about the direction of the changes. They feel like they’re really cementing each spec in a particular gameplay niche, catering to different types of win conditions. Necrotic Wounds in particular really fits the juggernaut-ish momentum-y gameplay Unholy has embodied at its best (and what made me fall in love with the spec). Thriving (self-healing) off the suffering (healing absorbtion) of your enemies is particularly thematic.

I’ve also really come to love Frost for its setup ability this season, and along those lines, Shroud of Winter seems like an ability that’s hard to find an effective sweet spot between negligible impact and oppressiveness. What do you see as its intended role in the DK disruption toolkit, and do you think the current tuning meets that goal?

@Realz

Shroud is pretty new, the effect type hasn’t ever spent time getting lots of play on live so it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly how powerful it is, how powerful/impactful it’s perceived to be, or how confusing or frustrating it is (for comparison’s sake, Heartstop was very high on the Confusion Meter in terms of, “What is happening, why don’t my buttons work?” type of reactions). As far as its role, it’s one of many “soft-cc” spaces being explored (other examples being mage frost wall, warlock teleport trap, shaman cage totem), and was felt to fit DK and Frost especially well. So yeah, it’s very possible the tuning’s soft but we’re not going to knee-jerk yo-yo the value wildly until we get a better sense of it for the reasons stated

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@Pizzadawg

@Realz i really like the new pvp talents that have been added to frost on the ptr, i think on the utility side of things and choice especially frost is looking amazing and really fun to play in the future. personally my only gripe with the spec is the way in which we deal damage, compared to the past at least i think the pre legion design where we didn’t have chill streak and our obliterates and frost strikes did more damage was really fun. any chance you guys are looking into doing something to chill streak or removing it to free up some power in the kit to bump up elsewhere? thanks for answering all the questions btw its been interesting reading the previously mentioned stuff today

@Realz

i almost dread answering the question because there are people who really like chill streak. If i were making the game for myself and dismissing all of the audience, I’d remove chill streak completely. PvP talents do a lot of great things, but raw, almost rotational, damage abilities that take the focus away from the main spec kit are not my favorite. I don’t know the entirety of the history, maybe it was created to fix a problem that no longer exists… regardless, I think it’s currently in a position where it’s not must-pick, mostly at its best against melee cleaves or similar circumstances, and some people like playing with it. It’s hard to take it away without compensating… and I didn’t have a good enough plan to go through with it this time. Maybe Chill Streak will get reimagined in some future world~

@Realz

I considered a bunch of ways to make Chill Streak a passive that triggers off of your existing abilities (kind of like I did with Necrotic Strike // Necrotic Wounds) and turn up the volume on them, instead of being a separate button that takes away from the spotlight from your main abilities… but didn’t have time to come up with anything particularly elegant

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@Frosst

passive oblit cleave xd

@Realz

literally considered it, though not necessarily literally “passive” more like, gameplay-triggered or circumstance-specific

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@Amatox

if anything frost needs more buttons not less

@Realz

i just need death grip and oblit ok

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@Amatox

@Realz if i had the chance to say anything to the dev team it would simply boil down to waiting this long to give unholy love is really awful to the players who care about one spec and don’t fotm reroll. The idea that frost dk is fine so we can take our time with unholy is really bad in my opinion. I spent all of shadowlands playing a D tier spec and struggling to have fun. rapid changes are good even if they aren’t perfect

@Realz

It’s a big game, and Unholy is gladiator capable. Yes, the community rallies around meta, but Unholy on live is not un-viable, just on the lower end of the meta. I can understand frustration from players who only care about one spec, and one very specific game activity… but unholy is pretty fun to play, great in pve, and decent-but-not-great in pvp… I imagine pug pvp’ing as non-meta is probably frustrating, though, I know I had some of that experience on some alts for sure.

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@Nethx

Slightly off-topic for everyone here as far as DKs, but Realz what classes do you work with? All or a select portion? Last I heard a few months back there were no PvP devs (unless that info was wrong) so curious to how things are shaping up over there

@Realz

My role and range is still being defined tbh, I’m relatively new to the team. I’ve made DK Torghast powers, Kyrian 9.1 soulbind traits, and 9.1 pvp talents for Rogue/Paladin/DK… and a few individual for other classes that aren’t on PTR yet. As far as classes… basically just Rogue is ‘mine’ for now or will be, I adjusted Serrated Bone Spike in 9.0.5 and have made baseline balance changes there for assassin(9.0.5) and sub(9.1). There are two designers whose main role is pvp, I got added to help the 9.1 pvp talent stuff, but I’d be lying if i said exactly what the future holds. Exciting

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@Frosst

dk torghast powers are pretty damn awesome, thank you for making the soul ash farm not a self-hating content

@Realz

I didn’t make all of them fwiw, I did all the revisions in 9.0.5 though. There are STILL bugs with synergy bonuses though, it’s on my list to fix in 9.1 as soon as i get time for it =x
i do the Ret sometimes, hit me Bean

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[Locûtus-kelthuzad]

Uhm

WTF DID I JUST READ AND SEE?

[Margraive-garrosh]

Who knows my smol gnome friend…who knows

[Xinove-turalyon]

It is not a private thing. The discord is open to anyone so it’s public. I saw it and everyone there saw it.

[Xinove-turalyon]

The one thing that I wish I did during that time was asking about the kyrian soulbinds that he mentioned he worked on.

I’d really love it if the kyrian ability was more reliable with aoe and cleave and not this rng thing or at least refunding a resources type.

[Nethx-illidan]

Quick, close your eyes

[Locûtus-kelthuzad]

IT TAKES A COINFLIP TO SPREAD THAT THING

like... WHY!?

Everytime I use it and use Scourge Strike on it… I get Tails… I get Tails again… and I get Tails again… and it’s now no longer worth spreading and the affected mob dies.

-sigh-

[Jholagian-bleeding-hollow]

This thread is going places.

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]

@Exalter-malganis

Sorry but that is complete bs and really unprofessional.

thinking about this, you have a point. we dont have confirmation that Realz is a real dev nor was this Q&A announced or generally fair to the public. a surprise visit to the pvp section of acherus discord, a place known for toxic elitism and good old boys clubs driving anyone who doesn’t fall in line away.

the Q&A was a good idea, but doing on the acherus discord with no official announcement, moderation, or neutral site was a bad idea, it basically just validated that toxic good old boys club with a blue blessing. meanwhile the pvp forums, reddit, and basically everyone else is wondering why the blues are silent.

[Exalter-malganis (Exalter)]

On one hand I get it as it’s probably nice for them to be able to drop in and get some impromptu feedback on a smaller scale without being overwhelmed with responses like they’d get from a pre-planned discussion or blue post tag here, but at the same time it leaves me wondering what these forums and the 9.1 PTR feedback section are even for.

[Althamon-tanaris (Althamon)]

it started about nerfs to necro wounds and now it’s about erp?

[Raziael-moonrunner (Raziael)]

@Inemia-wyrmrest-accord

the Q&A was a good idea, but doing on the acherus discord with no official announcement, moderation, or neutral site was a bad idea, it basically just validated that toxic good old boys club with a blue blessing. meanwhile the pvp forums, reddit, and basically everyone else is wondering why the blues are silent.

You’d think after 5 years of horrid advice from those people the devs would learn not to listen. Especially after the Obliterate/Necrotic Strike/Death Strike troupes and how that affected the class, not to mention the damage they were responsible for re Legion/BFA Unholy.

Not sure that’s an actual dev either but if it is you are bang on, and we’re in trouble again for S2 if they actually listen to that echo chamber of idiocy.

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]

case in point:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/800696408448565311/843887150201438228/unknown.png

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]

yo dawg, i screenshotted your screenshot of my screenshot

[Margraive-garrosh]

realz is confirmed a real dev, he used to be a WoW/hearthstone pro hired by blizzard, its only recent hes started working on class stuff though.

[Inemia-wyrmrest-accord]