UPDATE: I tweeted @warcraftdevs with this video. if you agree with the contents at all, it could be worth a retweet. https://twitter.com/FlarknessTV/status/1439711154310455304
if not, please please tell your ideas here and we can add more/less info to the summaries.
Yo. I made a too long video highlighting a lot of things that I believe could help DK compete in the “MoP-esque” power crept meta that we have on our hands. With the vast amount of covenants, conduits, soulbinds, legendaries… for every spec & class, there’s many things that are just tremendously powerful in a PVP environment.
Unfortunately, DK has the problem of having 3 unusable covenants in PVP (no matter how much I’ve tried, sheesh) and being locked into 1 legendary, 2 if we’re lucky. Therefore it’s seeming to be tough to compete with the unbelievable power creep that took over the arena meta and caused clips I’m sure you’re all familiar with. (ww deletes a healer in .1 seconds, anyone?)
I think there’s a lot of things that people here would actually agree with, such as Frost’s PVE talents being boring, uninspired, and extremely low power. (frozen pulse, icy talons, death’s reach…?) As well as Gargoyle being trash for too long, ebon fever not providing enough rot, and a potential necro bargain rework. If any of those things sound like things that you’ve been asking for, perhaps I’ve provided us a medium to describe those things to Blizzard.
much love fellow dks, stay strong
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your point about Frost strike is super accurate, and very relevant for PvE too. Feels bad to press, and for a spender it just seems super underwhelming.
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You seem sad on the video, better days will come and the sun will shine to the bottom of the pvp ladder too.
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As a matter of fact, Runic Power feels absolutely lackluster for Frost in PvE. It still has its uses in PvP as a filler, as Death Strike is just better than Frost Strike in pretty much every way possible along with it being much being more reliable to recharge your runes.
Frost Strike is currently just a strike that does little dammie that recharges your rune every successful coinflip. That has NO synergy with the rest of your kit unlike Unholy.
You could say BoS is a good RP spender in a PvE standpoint and you’re right. The problem is that BoS is currently the only viable way to increase the value of Runic Power as well as it has a 2 minute cooldown. Cripping your own dammies in M+ during its downtime.
I also would like to see a duration buff to Unleashed Frenzy Conduit to maybe 24 seconds instead of 6 seconds as well as rework towards Eradicating Blows Conduit.
EDIT: I find it interesting that Flarkness is proposing Hungering Cold to be an AoE stun rather than an AoE incapacitate. Something that Sleet already does and have its legacy.
EDIT2: Okay, not an AoE stun. But having a 2 second additional incap compared to Sleet with a cast time… leaves the good ol’ HC to be more desired. But hey, that’s just a PvP discussion that I won’t be getting into. Flarkness is creative with what it seems like he would like to see with HC.
As for Unholy, I’m glad that you’d also like to see Gary a light of day again.
I actually would like to see two MAJOR changes for Unholy.
- Make Gary Spec Baseline for Unholy and place that talent slot with Necrotic Plague.
- Merge Pestilence with Defile.
I tried Death’s Due with Rampant Transference in PvE standpoint and I couldn’t come up with the better than the word “clunky”. It hilariously feels bad. You have a strength/DR debuff that you have to spend a total of THREE RUNES just to keep them both up and FIVE to ramp up vs ST: one to use SS from start to retain the stacks, one to cast DD, one at the end to retain all the stacks.
Lv. 45 Unholy Talent has two talents that buffs the same ability which, to me, seems like an incredibly boring row and have Unholy Pact being the most interesting of the three AND the most powerful. I’m a fan of merging Pestilence with Defile as well as making a completely new ability for that row that isn’t like Hypothermic Presence.
Everything else, I agree. PvP talents are Flarkness’ jurisdiction and I simply don’t pvp enough to put any insight to the proposed changes for both specs. But I do resonate with Istealheals, that I hope that Debilitating Malady’s absurd number of buffs would be enough to remedy Blood Dk Damage.
Flarkness, do you think reanimation could get more play in arena if it was immune to AoE and had to be directly targeted like a shaman totem?
also, what do you think of this idea for necromancer’s bargain:
removes all wounds from target, puts a stack of crypt fever on per wound consumed, up to 6. combined with necrowounds that could give us a scary nuke that really punishes healing and would be reminiscent almost of legion’s frost where simply letting them get near you at all was scary.
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the wound stacking crypt fever is not a bad idea at all. I like it a lot.
reanimation, like I mentioned probably shouldnt be competitive, because I don’t want to press reanimation every global instead of actual unholy rotation. if it’s not competitive in dmg, but more competitive in the stun, I’m pretty sure there are better ways to add an aoe stun to unholy’s toolkit than reanimation.
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Inemia and her Reanimating Shenanigans. 
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In my opinion DK’s biggest weakness is that it doesn’t have a good way to deal with physical damage other than healing it back with Death Strike or kiting with CoI. And when the best specs in the game are primarily dealing physical damage, have healing debuffs, and high mobility, then this becomes a major problem.
On the other hand if, big ‘If’, DKs are buffed to the point where they can compete with the top tier specs (or the physical dps specs are nerfed significantly) then I’m concerned that Spellwarden may become especially oppressive for casters to deal with – even if the bug is fixed.
I feel like Chains of Ice is also in that category of “If DKs were good then this ability would be really really oppressive/toxic.” It definitely has been in the past when DKs were strong.
Anyway, some feedback for your video:
I think the best change for Death Pact is just to make the heal absorb portion based on the healing done by Death Pact instead of max HP. I.e. “Death Pact heals for 50% of maximum HP, and also applies a Healing Absorb for 60% of the amount healed.” This means it would never absorb more than it heals.
Frost:
- I would love to see Hungering Cold return.
- My biggest gripe with frost is how it feels outside of pillar of frost. Every attack just feels lackluster without a KM proc. Your suggestions may address this, but I don’t know enough about the spec to say for sure.
As for Unholy:
- I’m not really sure the changes you are suggesting would make much difference. I don’t see how they’d allow Unholy to compete with the omega specs.
- I’m not a fan of your Necromancer’s Bargain suggestion because I like how the cooldown reduction affects Unholy’s playstyle. Although I would like some option for a dangerous dot that requires some maintenance for Unholy and promotes a rot based playstyle. Maybe Necromancer’s Bargain/Crypt Fever could fulfill that desire (sort of as you were suggesting) or maybe brining back Necrotic Plague in some capacity could work – many DKs have been asking for this.
- I don’t think you mentioned any option for replacing Death’s Reach on Unholy?
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i’ve had to cut back on them, they got nerfed and no longer damage elites, bosses, cannons or vehicles. the major reason i like them is they let you play like a ranged caster, you can hit a few off as you are approaching someone, then transition to melee and start stacking up necrotic wounds. the massive strength to this is the constantly switching playstyles makes it hard for people to counter, they go melee, you go ranged, they go ranged, you go melee, etc.
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Unholy’s output is very high single target, just clunky. The changes I propose give it less clunky output, more rot pressure, and more sources of damage which is what makes unholy traditionally good. That + haste at end of season into next should round out unholy. It also would have another burst option in garg (assuming it’s competitive!) and all of that combined with its fairly solid utility should make for a good spec.
I can’t change your mind on necro bargain because that’s opinionated.
Love the video, even watched the whole hour in 360p quality when it was unlisted 
Although I can see mirrorball being somewhat of an issue in pve? I feel like it would be too strong in blizzards eyes today.
I would much much prefer more rot damage over pet damage in pve AND pvp, it just feels like a single mage root can just kill your entire opener with all your pets and it sucks. One thing that I’ve always wanted in SL was superstrain to be baseline for unholy but I am hoping that could be a thing for 10.0 
One thing I wouldn’t mind is having Wraithwalk being baseline across all specs and whitewalker back as a talent.
Another one for PVE is the option of having mass grip back to all specs as an option.
More wants as I’m just bored and listing things would be to have presences return as they were before being removed.
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yeah I really like these ideas as well. I think my suggestions and yours do well together.
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Great vid! A few responses.
FDK Glacial Advance:
Flarkness solution is to make it a cone. It would be an improvement but the talent would still be worthless. Maybe making it a cone and having it apply 5 stack of razorice immediately if using 2h would make it useful.
Earlier in the video Flark states Frozen Pulse should be tied to PoF. This would increase the power of Ice Cap. Going along with this sentiment… I think removing GA and replacing it with Frostwhelps would be better. Restores two dead talents with one fix.
Or best of both worlds… Have Frostwhelps replace hypothermic presence and buff GA.
UHDK Necromancers bargain:
Flark said he would nerf the CD reduction but add back the summoned ghouls. I do not like that. Currently, Army of the damned + Necromancers bargain + Harbinger of doom makes it so you can keep 6 stacks of necrotic wounds and Magus of the Dead up almost full time. It is a pretty rewarding playstyle.
UHDK needs a baseline nuke button. Apocalypse should be as scary as it sounds! Either buff its initial damage by a ton. Or have it buff Festering strike, scourge strike, and death coil while active making the above build dangerous.
UHDK Pestilence:
I would replace Pestilence with Cankerous Wounds. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel like we are using a 2h weapon again?
EDIT:
Removed stupid BoS comment.
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Uhh, hmm.
With Glacial Advance I said a cone and a slight damage buff. I don’t think it’d be worthless at all as an AoE frost strike but stronger with a razorice application. I’m pretty sure having an aoe 5 stack of razorice app on a short cd might be a bit too powerful tho.
With breath of sindragosa, you cannot kick it. Not exactly sure where you got that from? It’s clearly not a casted channel that would be insane lmao.
With necro it’s all preference, some people like it either way, so I wouldn’t try to change your opinion.
LMAO yeah, I don’t know why my brain was picturing a channeled BoS cast in pvp. Brain Fart. Happens. Thanks for catching that.
2h FDK really struggles with AoE compared to DW and UHDK in pve. GA applying 5 stacks of RI immediately if 2h is equipped would really help that. It would also defacto un-nerf chill streak a little for pvp and provide better overall throughput. I don’t think it would be too strong.
In the end I’d rather have frostwhelps anyway.
Appreciate the vids and insight! Cheers.
As an aside, have you tried survival hunter? If so, did you like it?
Edit: also, congrats to all. This is one of the most mature and civil threads I’ve ever read on these forums.
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no, but i’ve heard its similar. if we get another korraks this year i might try leveling my hunter, but its on a shelf atm.
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sometimes it is time to win
and this is one of those times
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