First my credentials: 2380 RBG, 2444 Blitz, and 2k+ arena exp, with 16 years + on and off of playing wow.
I love this game, especially pvp, well… certain iterations of it. I play DK, War, Rogue, Mage, Sham, but I have main’d my DK most expac’s, including this one, ever since RBG’s were introduced.
I want to
(1) Assess this nerf,
(2) assess previous nerf’s,
(3) Give the possible reason for this nerf.
(4) give feedback and offer alternative options,
(5) predict the future.
It should be noted I am speaking strickly from a pvp point of view but will use PVE as an example at some points; I pvp ALOT, I prefer it over PVE, i’m not amazing, but I have played at higher than average ratings in most formats.
Was the unholy deathknight damage ‘OuT oF cOnTrol?’ not according to the data. There was 1 deathnight in the recent AWC, mesx, and he diddn’t even do well. Why? Becasue unholy dmg is not the problem.
Is unholy the best class by damage in pvp? No. It’s outclassed by mage’s, feral’s, devo evoker, and hunter, just to name a few.
Is it over represented in the 2400 bracket where players whom are the best skilled at making the most out of classes exist? No.
So what was the reason for this nerf?
Assessing this nerf:
To truly comprehend this nerf we have to understand HOW many talents buff deathcoil and disease’s and how much of the kit was nerfed.
So lets list the things that buff Death Coil, and diseases.
a) Mastery: Increase’s shadow damage.
b) Haste: increase dot ticks, and rune regen.
c) Strength: increases dmg
d) Deathcoil related talents:
- Sudden Doom, procs deathcoils
- Runic Mastery, increased runic power for coils
- Reaping, increases deathcoil dmg
- Defile, (adds wounds, wounds are popped from deathcoil)
- Harbringer of doom (Deathcoil procs and dmg)
- Improved Deathcoil, more deathcoil dmg and cleave on coil
- Gholish Frezey (increase attack speed, effects Sudden Doom proc chance)
- Bursting Sores (Bursting wounds with deathcoil
- Coil of devastation = more dmg
- Infected Claws (Applies wounds that are then burst with coil)
- Pestilence (Casues dnd to apply wounds, that can then be burst with deathcoil)
- Deathrot (increses dmg)
- Raise abomination (applies wounds, that are then burst with coil’s)
- Unholy Assault = increase’s dmg.
- Runic Attenuation = more rune power more deathcoils
- Unholy Ground = more haste
- Brittle = more dmg
- Unholy Bond= MOre runeforge effects increase’s dmg to Coil’s
- Mograins might = more dmg in dnd
- Mawsworn menance = more dnd more wounds
- A feast of Souls = Deathcoil dmg %20+
- Hungering thirst = more deathcoil and damage)
c) Dot related talents:
23) Plague Bringer = speeds up dot ticks.
24) Foul infections = increased dmg
25) Improved festering strike = increased dmg on plaguebringer
26) Unholy Blight = applies dieses
27) Ebon fever = increase diesies haste
28) Morbidity = increase strength
29) Superstrain = applies the 3 dieses.
d) Rune force = effects increase st and dmg.
So bliz just hit 3 main stats, and 29 talents and our runeforge enchants… um, why?
Improved deathcoil literally add’s %15 to deathcoil dmg. Just nerf that 1 talent. Simple. Or just keep the dmg and nerf the cleave effect. No one needs it. No one wants it, no one cares, it will achieve less overall dmg that you want, and deathknights in pve and pvp will be fine, no one is looking at the off target thinking ‘I cant wait to see how much dmg I do to that off target!’ They just want to do the rotation and kill things, it’s out of sight out of mind, and not good gameplay design, you may as well just remove an add from each pack and remove the cleave. It’s mindless fluff. to prove this, think about the opposite, would it be better to add 3 plus mobs to each pack and then add an effect that hits 3 plus more mobs to every ability, if its not, then the opposite is also true.
“Yeah, hit this thing and passively do dmg to that other thing, isnt passive dmg fun?”
“No.”
We can assume it’s due to data gathered at the end of bg’s, rbgs, blitz, shuffle etc, showing dots doing heavy dmg, hence why aff locks were nerfed too, the 3 dots, plus the dot from Deathcoil all cleave, and all tick on multiple characters.
Deathcoil hits 2x characters, can crit, and applies a ‘bleed effect’, AND burst’s wounds on every target hit, so if you drop dnd, and it stacks wounds and you ‘death coil’ with a ‘doom burst’ up, you can crit, and burst the wounds, on x2 targets, effectively doubling the dmg and applying the bleed effect, this is then increased when the target is below 35% hp. And remember all this ‘cleaves’ its doing x2 the dmg, but nothing is added to my target.
It seems like a lot, and it’s easy to accidentally do in a blitz, or a bg, with multiple targets around, but it’s essentially meaningless, RNG based, and a lot of it is not actively thought out by the player. It’s simply not dmg done to the kill target, it’s randomly and mindlessly hitting something you’re not targeting.
Aka, fluff.
x2 of that dmg needed the stars to align,
(a) the target needs to be next to the off target,
(b) I have to ‘fish’ for a doomburst proc’,
(c) a wound has to be RNG applied to the off target with dnd,
(d) and I have to face my character at both of them.
Again while in a blitz, or RBG this randomly occur’s often, never in my life have I ever counted that as good reliable dmg that required a nerf, nor have I been the victim of it and thought it was powerful. Nor have I read anyone ever say they were killed by dk dots while he killed someone else. BUT, again as mentioned, at the end of the BG, when looking strickly at ‘data’, aka ‘dmg done’, this seems big as its always ‘doubled on off targets’, aka fluff, x2 the dmg of anything else.
Do you think that bliz is looking at a sheet of data that says 'Damage from Deathcoil to main target hit 3638137 and off target hit 236823, or do you think the data simply says ‘damage done by deathcoil = xxxxxx’ … exactly.
This is the same as our ‘dots’, as it’s applied to multiple targets as an aoe when you
(a) ‘outbreak’, and then again when we
(b) ‘transform’ our pet (i) ‘if talented’,
and then again when we call
(c) ‘abomination’, (ii) ‘if talented’, and they spread ‘3’ dots to everything, (iii) ‘if talented’.
But this has nothing to do with my target, and it’s only applied ‘if talented’ to everything, that was never intentional by me. If I run into 1 player I do 100% of my dmg, however, if there is 10 players all stacked up, I just did 10x that dmg, this is why blizz nerfed this, they are looking at ‘data’ not gameplay, so the nerf makes sense ‘strickly’ from the eyes of the data gatherer. This is the reason for these nerfs.
(2) Previous nerfs are the same when it came to obliterate as frost. Why did they nerf Frost dmg? Because it ‘cleave’s’, when it hit for 75k it didn’t need a nerf, but if it his ‘2x’ targets, its now DOUBLING its damage on paper, when I read the dmg at the end of the arena, is says, ‘150k obliterate!’ WOW NERF THAT!!! and its nerfed, stricky from a ‘data gather’ point of view and not a gameplay one. Hence why bliz can’t explain the reasons for the nerf’s, the only reason being is ‘damage seems high’…
(3) Essentially the reason for the nerf’s are,… “CLEAVE IS THE ISSUE - NOT DAMAGE”:
If coil and obliterate did not cleave… they would have NEVER been nerfed. We simply dont do that much damage to single targets, never have I run down a healer solo and killed him, without extreme RNG and him misplaying.
(4) Feedback and possible solutions are: The damage from the dot based build seems high, only because it’s the only ‘viable spec’ and ‘cleaves’, and people have poured countless hours and gold making it so, even skipping tier pieces to ensure high haste and mastery, because its currently the ONLY VIABLE SPEC, Frost just can’t get to the target to do that dmg and has to wait for ‘windowns’ of 45’s a piece to do its burst rotation, and pet’s just dont hit hard enough to be viable or reliable. SO everyone built haste and dot builds and when it comes to pvp, we can’t sit on one target. as we cant kill it. so we apply spread pressure, and here we are. Reduce the ‘cleave’ potential, not the damage. As mentioned about ‘improved death coil’ adds 15% and allowing the coil to cleave… just hit that. Either remove the %15, which then nets you what you wanted, or hit the cleave effect, because its not fun or necessary. IMO just wait until everyone is fully geared, wars and rogues haven’t even got enough crit from items yet to REALLY see them shine, and hunter and devo evokers are not even fully flushed out in full epics, yet just wait until they are kek.
What was the point of improved deathcoil exactly? You made a talent to increase its dmg by 15% then nerf coil by 15%, are you even reading your own talent tree’s? Remove the talent, and we can place a point elsewhere, Whats next?
Veteran of the third war increase’s stam by 20%…
“We have decreased Deathknight Stamina by 20%”
Blood Scent increases’s leech by 3%…
“We have decreased leech by 3%”
Who is on the balance team?
At least wait until everyone is fully pvp geared in 1-2 weeks, once everyone has more ‘vers’ form gear the dmg will shrink by 15% anyway.
- Predict the future:
Everyone is going to reroll or talent out of anything to do with disease, it will be be gutted, and underrepresented, and eventually blizzard will revert this nerf.