Adding Festering Wound, Bone Shield, or Razorice to Soul Reaper is minor, easy to implement, and focuses on improving play-style to make the class more fun without making them overpowered.
Unholy - Soul Reaper:
Strike an enemy for (44.88% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage and afflict the enemy with Soul Reaper, and applies 1 Festering Wound.
After 5 sec, applies 1 Festering Wound (or consume 1 wound if too strong), and if the target is below 35% health this effect will explode dealing an additional (205.92% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to the target. If the enemy that yields experience or honor dies while afflicted by Soul Reaper, gain Runic Corruption.
Blood - Soul Reaper:
Strike an enemy for (44.88% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage and afflict the enemy with Soul Reaper, and generates 1 charge of Bone Shield.
After 5 sec, generates 1 charge of Bone Shield, and if the target is below 35% health this effect will explode dealing an additional (205.92% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to the target. If the enemy that yields experience or honor dies while afflicted by Soul Reaper, gain Runic Corruption.
Frost - Soul Reaper:
Strike an enemy for (44.88% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage and afflict the enemy with Soul Reaper, and applies 1 Razorice.
After 5 sec, applies 1 Razorice, and if the target is below 35% health this effect will explode dealing an additional (205.92% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to the target. If the enemy that yields experience or honor dies while afflicted by Soul Reaper, gain Runic Corruption.
One of the issue of casting Soul Reaper is it feels like a deviation from upkeeping DK mechanics. This change fixes the play-style without overly buffing one ability. Youâre spending runes, but you are also getting the rune spender utility buffs/debuffs.
If 1 Razorice is too weak, we can make it 2 at the beginning or ending or both. If festering wound is too strong, we can make it consume 1 at the end. For balancing we can easily tweak the variables, but this mechanism will make DKâs gameplay flow better.
This would be a improvementâŚand i do agree with your statement of upkeeping in DK Mechanics. It feels terrible for PvP, kill windows in rated PVP are generally either âInstantâ or Terribly small and its just likely LUCK that soul reaper secures the kill. In PVE at this point in the expansion, runic corruption is not attractive even to âsnipeâ enemies in M+
Soul reaper at this point should be a base-line ability with talents that could change how it works per spec / heroic talents / mods.
Normally Iâm against soul reaper changes, but this one is okay by me. Coming from an unholy PoV festering wounds would be great.
I do wonder if 2 wounds for 1 rune would make it an ability you always use, though that may be the intent. Either way Iâm glad it keeps the essence of soul reaper with the delayed damage.
Agreed. I do PVP, M+ and raid. At no point do I enjoy using this ability, because it does nothing to interact with other upkeeps that DK needs to do, and all it does is to get you few percent extra dps at the aggregate. It feels like too little time to press too many buttons. If soul reaper can be more like warriorâs execute, where it âcomplimentsâ other abilities as opposed to ârivalsâ them, then it should be more satisfying to use. I donât see any warrior hates execute, but I donât know a single DK who loves Soul Reaper.
If 2 wounds for 1 rune is too much, they can do applies 1 wound up front, then consume 1 wound after 5 seconds.
Might be too strong in PVP given the recent buff to Soul Reaper in PVP. If this is allowed then they will have to nerf something else to make it balanced.
I donât think the devs wants execute for every class. I just want this ability to fit in better with the gameplay. War can complain about claw of shadow being ranged while mortal strike is not.
The point Iâm making is that this proposed soul reaper change wouldnât make the ability op - itâs not that good of an ability right now. Itâs useful, but it has a very serious drawback given itâs on GCD. Honestly soul reaper should do more damage than execute in pvp given how much harder it is to do the damage.
Clawing Shadows doesnât hit nearly as hard as MS or gives a healing debuff.
Iâd much rather we have our main damage ability be melee range since weâre a melee class as well. It also gives Blizz more excuses not to buff our terrible defenses.
Clawing shadow is spammable, and can burst wounds that absorbs healing. The point being not every class has to be the same. If you make Soul Reaper too strong, then something else has to give. In the end all classes will be balanced, the only improvement is playstyle.
While almost all DKs agree Soul Reaper doesnât feel quite right, Iâd be careful to make Soul Reaper too good, some of the Soul Reaper proposals out there basically mean major nerfs to our other abilities are needed to compensate. The point is to not have an extra button to push as part of the regular rotation.
To use a overly simplified example at the extreme: say that DK will be balanced to do max 1M DPS.
DK has 1 button rotation, and it does 1M DPS.
DK is now âbuffedâ to have 25 buttons in its rotation to do 1M DPS
Being forced to play keyboard piano is not a buff, but a major nerf. You need to do more just to do the same.
The issue of 1 button rotation is gameplay being boring, and so you add more buttons, until adding additional buttons becomes less fun to play. Soul Reaper is currently that one additional button that feels forced and unsatisfying to use. The trick is to slide that in while improving the overall gameplay, and not making it so good that it is just spammed like execute. If DK gets carbon copy of warrior execute, it doesnât make the gameplay better. It interacts with none of DKâs other mechanics, and it is now one odd thing that will cause the nerf of other core abilities.
Counterpoint. Overpower does as much if not more than a clawing shadows- and can be spammed especially if it helps you reset your mortal strike. Slam is no slouch either. You can only spam clawing shadows after you get two festering strikes on someone - thatâs four runes.
That leaves two clawing shadows within that timeframe until the the other four runes reset. Itâs not as spammable as you think.
Soul Reaper requires skill and timing to set up to get it to pop - if it does more damage than an execute it wonât be broken because itâs entire design is dependent on using it perfectly rather than spamming it at a set HP level.
I agree button bloat is a problem - but I donât think the solution is to just allow frost and unholy to freeze in the bottom tiers of PVP until we start get a modicum of creativity to fix the problem without creating said button bloat.
âIf DK gets carbon copy of warrior execute.â This presupposes that soul reaper is at all like execute - soul reaper requires perfect timing and set up to use effectively/cause pressure.
Overpower doesnât do as much as claw, and limited to 2 charges.
You can absolutely start spamming claw of shadows without 2 festering strikes on someone, you actually just need rotten touch to be on target. 1 festering strike and unholy assult will give you full stack of wounds as an opener. Though I think festering strike and the benefit of wound are comparably weak in some situations, so I just spam claw if the target is within kill window.
Soul Reaper does require some thinking ahead, the issue for me is it doesnât flow well with wounds. It also can do more damage than execute, though it depends on the warrior talent. Keep in mind pre-casting Soul Reaper could mean you have a 4M+ crit on top of a 2M+ claw crit all at the same time, whereas you cannot cast execute and mortal strike at the same time. I donât think claw is unsuable after the recent patch, but it doesnât flow well at all due to diverted attention from wounds.
Soul Reaper is not like execute, sometimes it is better, sometimes itâs just a waste of rune and GCD and wound upkeep. My issue again is with the gameplay. It is not fun to play, not that it is abysmally useless. This ability just doesnât fit well in DK playstyle in PVP or PVE. Itâs always this extra thing that is a bit beneficial but diverts from maintaining wounds or other things to spend GCDs on like diseases.
âOverpower doesnât do as much as claw.â I beg to differ.
Rotten touch requires sudden doom which is proc dependant. Unholy assault is on a 1.5 min cooldown. After those cool-downs end you hit like a wet noodle.
And if weâre going to say Soul reaper is a bad ability - then buff clawing shadows and/or reaping damage to compensate.
The whole spec really needs a revamp to be honest, festering wounds is an awful mechanic.
Ive made my thoughts on soulreaper known before but since this is another post about it heres what i think
Soulreaper, Should automatically detonate when the target reaches critical health (10%-15%)
simple reason, It keeps the unique design of the 5 second rule, But doesnt suffer from that same rule when used on low health targets in PvP
its an execute ability, that is actually the worst button you can press on a target in execute range. It does no upfront damage, and just wastes a global most times. 95% of the time you pressed soulreaper, it wouldve just been better to use obliterate lol
Hereâs an analogy, DKâs abilities are school lunch, death coil is the burger, claw is the fries, wounds is the ketchup, and Soul Reaper is steamed broccoli. Broccoli is beneficial to your health, so you eat some even though it doesnât taste good. Letâs say now Broccoli is buffed to make your D grow bigger, so you now are forced to eat a lot more steamed broccoli. Itâs a bad tasting food that doesnât fit the other items on you tray, giving it more benefit doesnât make the meal better tasting.
Automatic detonate is too OP, thatâs a touch of death on 6 sec cooldown that you can precast and use the next 5 seconds to focus on burst.
Between festering wounds, disease, runic power and runes, there are a lot of things going on with unholy. My proposal will enhance gameplay without breaking existing playstyle.
