I am very, very skeptical about the Unholy changes.
We don’t have to track Festering Wounds, but now, we have to track a renamed version of Festering Wounds, Putrefy.
Instead of bursting Wounds, we are bursting Ghouls. We will have to use Weak Auras again to track the expiration of all the Ghouls to make sure Putrefy is used optimally (ie. Cast Putrefy a split second before the Ghoul expires, so they last for 4 more seconds since they don’t expire while Putrefy is going on),
So the mechanic/timing might be vastly more strict compared to Festering Wounds.
The other changes seems really bland compared to the recent Frost changes. Everything is pretty much the same except Scourge Strike interacts with diseases.
So hold your celebrations for now until experienced Unholy players get their hands on it.
A lot depends on things we don’t really know yet, and wont till release (or after).
We are looking at things that we need actual balance numbers for.
For example:
Lost damage from early death of ghoul vs lost damage from CD refresh time waiting for ideal ghoul expiration.
My guess: Absolute perfect rotation will probably be timing Putrefy at the very end of ghouls timer. But the damage difference will be small enough that it wont really be worth tracking.
My concern with Putrefy is the radius. I haven’t seen anything about how big it is. Depending on radius, pathing and AI positioning could wreck its value. But that is also a wait and see question.
And to your comparison to Festering Wounds, no it absolutely is not the same. Festering wounds biggest issue was target switching. Even if everything else played the same, this would be 100 times better just by fixing target switches. And that is not the only issue with Festering Wounds this corrects.
Yes, there are potential issues. But it is already much better than we had.
I look at Putrefy as Implosion rather than Wuunds. Wuunds needed to go and the fact that Unholy can raise ghouls en masse is a step towards a massive direction.
I noticed DT doesn’t need Apoc anymore but also missing Unholy Blight. So TAKE THAT ARKTHUGAL. I suppose that’s a half a win for me since I will not be beefing up Timmy in hopes of finding a Rogue but Petkick (Not the DK player) lives in Midnight in range! So yay!
RIP Soul Reaper. Let’s be real, Blizzard is too incompetent to save this ability.
And Dread Plague is… interesting. It’s like Unstable Affliction for Unholy. So… Unholy is a child of Affliction Warlock and a Demonology Warlock who uses Ghouls as Imps that can be exploded with a lot more emphasis on rot.
This will be very interesting. Although I get a haunch that this is far from over from being done. The Class Tree is still… extremely bland.
The updated U.I. on alpha pretty much makes the use of weak aura obsolete.
You can track them a whole lot better there. I’m sure they’ll keep improving on it, but as of right now, being afraid of tracking is basically fearmongering.
Best not to doom and gloom until we get our hands on it. Blizzard noted they felt that Unholy had to much to track and that addons were essential for the spec in so many words. I have to believe they are smart, capable people and what we get will be better than it looks.
I too am nervous about dots in general without hekili or weak auras, but let’s just wait and see. Blizzard has been cooking a lot recently and they may surprise us all.
You can have one host at a time affected by Dread Plague.
Although UA can have up to 5 targets which is… odd. Currently, you can have one target be affected by UA at a time unless you have the PvP talent that affects 3.
Honestly, as a lock player, the unholy changes look insanely good. Your tree has become a true necromancer rather than a gimmick. Plus all of your abilities, even scourge strike, are now ranged. Only festering strike remains as a melee exclusive.
You’ve basically gone into proper caster territory as a spec that blends demonology and affliction into a single playstyle and it honestly looks so good. I might play it over lock if it feels smooth to play.
If you don’t like ghouls and don’t like managing resources, why are you playing unholy?
Also yeah, like everyone else said, WAs aren’t gonna be able to track that sort of thing anymore, and I’d imagine once you get the rotation rolling you’re always gonna have a ghoul around 1-2 seconds left.
I couldn’t be happier about the unholy changes. I loathed festering wounds, and havent played unholy entirely because of that mechanic, i’m more than happy to see it go.
What i will miss is having all 3 diseases. I liked having Frost fever, Blood plague, and UH Plague on one target.
Yes, the gameplay can be the same but in a different form. Just like BoS is the same BoS as before. You still have to use Obliterate to keep it going just with KM activated instead of any Obliterate. Same crap, different coat of paint = same crap.
The same dungeons that are a large part of content people do.
Also every raid encounter with adds and/or target switches. For example, all but two bosses in the current raid tier.
And everyone is happy. Which should tell you that tracking was never anyone’s issue.
The thing is, the rotation was never the issue with wounds. People were not asking for a rotational change. They were asking for fixes to the problems wounds caused. This does it, with limited (though present) changes to the rotation.
The change addresses multiple issues with wounds. Target switching may be the biggest complaint of wounds, but it was not the only one. A big one, for sure. But, there were others. For example, the quadradic scaling that caused all kinds of balance issues and caused dramatic damage swings that were heavily dependent on factors outside the DK players control. It also helps address ramp time to be effective, particularly in AoE situations.
And that is all before we even talk about the class fantasy aspect.
This is a very good change. It is partially good because the rotation doesn’t change a ton, though it does change. And while keeping a fairly similar feeling to the rotation it fixes a bunch of issues.
