I wasn’t there when these changes were implemented to the spec, but let’s say that you are right.
That every single problem with the current FDK implementation lies solely with the minor portion of the playerbase that is vocal about the game and complains on the forums. That the devs really did everything they could to help improve the playstyle, flow, balance and viability of the spec, but were thwarted in their goals by a playerbase that would not let them, instead asking for horrible ideas that the devs were forced against their will to implement.
Now that we can agree that the playerbase is entirely responsible of the current state of the spec, now what? We go back to Legion? Or are we allowed a reword to try to fix the issues that the spec had, even back then?
Then dont assume they were implemented in a different way than what was suggested. I was there as was so many others that seen this whole thing play out since BFA.
They are a loud minor portion, that I suspect Blizzard just wanted to give them what they wanted so they would stop having a tantrum.
They werent trying to impreove the playstyle, flow or balance or anything else. They were just giving the kid an Oreo who is having a tantrum in the middle of the cookie isle at walmart. Thats all these changes actually did, and what happened? The tantrum stopped, but most of those people quit because what they suggested didnt actually play out the way they thought it would.
If things continue I feel another WoD Demo lock situation will happen, or we will just be back at where Frost was in WoD with the spec split in half there. Battling it out with Gladiator Stance warriors for the 4th from the bottom position.
You have to start at some sort of stable base. I said Legion because thats when things shifted a little bit to at least be familiar to what we have now. We can go back farther with different rune types, Pillar (Unbreakable Armor) was a Frost rune, Howling Blast having a CD and rune cost, Frost Strike being included with KM but the best bet would be to go back to something with a mix of Wrath and Cata and change the mastery to not be strength 2.0.
You also have to be able to diagnose the root cause of the issues. if you cant do that then you are just spinning your wheels wasting everyones time which is what the people in these forums have done.
Yeah the fight was over until other classes also got even stronger changes. Thats sort of the issue here every time FDK gets anything good, Warrior Ret or X class gets something twice as strong and good
Implementing a few specific points of feedback and ignoring all the other feedback is why the spec is still the way it is, They took a couple good steps forward but wont take the other steps necessary to keep the ball rolling, FDK defensively speaking is still gutted because Unholy pre season was pretty tanky and a lot of defensives got overnerfed all at the same time because of it. Talents like short AMS and its absorbtion effect got nerfed because of Spellwarden which doesnt exist anymore, Deathstrike got nerfed because of the interaction it had with unnerfed WOTN and Spellwarden, One of which is gone and the other of which is heavily nerfed
Its interesting though that you would cherry pick a few points of feedback i made months ago in a different season with a different state of PvP and try to use it as an argument as to why FDK is bad currently, As if you forgot that they nerfed the Crit modifier from 175% to 150%. Are you going to pretend like S1 FDK isnt stronger than current FDK?
Also worth noting that what you posted here isnt the entire list of all the feedback ive given, If you really want to deep dive into my previous posts im absolutely certain youll find plenty of posts of me talking about how our sustain DPS is absolute trash, How theres no meaningful choice on how to spend runic power because of how weak froststrike and deathstrike are, Youd find plenty of posts talking about how i dislike how powerful our talents are that affect rotational abilities other than obliterate and how i want damage to be shifted out of those talents into the core
Not all the feedback i suggested was implemented yet. And its not my fault blizzard doesnt implement more of it so its not really fair to cherry pick a few things and then blame me for the state of FDK
If i had complete and total control over this spec and could rule its balance with an iron fist all the compounding changes id implement from this point forward would look like this
PoF returned to its 15s duration
Icebreaker nerfed by 50% per point and Rime buffed by an Equal %
Uncapped howling blast damage up to 5 targets
All remorseless winter talents nerfed by 50% and all damage baked into the base ability
Gathering Storm changed to increase duration by 1s per rune and radius by 0.3 yards every 2 stacks up to 10
Shattering blade returned back to its original 60% value with froststrike being buffed another 40%
Might of the Frozen wastes removed and 2h/duel wield totally equalized so theres 0 difference between the 2 weapon types. All class mechanics related to weapon type changed to support that such as proc rate on KM, Double runeforging, etc.
Fallen crusader runeforged baked into all dk specs as a normal proc (to allow unholy to play rune of apoc or X runeforge, and to allow FDK to freely play razorice/X runeforge
Soulreaper changed to cost runic power instead of runes, And automatically detonate at 10% health regardless of the time remaining. Soulreaper also changed to always critically strike
Horn of Winter taken off the GCD
Glacial Advance baseline
Icecap changed to reduce PoF’s cooldown by 4s on froststrike critical strikes, and 2s on obliterate critical strikes
Frostwelps aid changed to increase mastery by 4% per stack, 5 stacks maximum
Enduring Strength base duration buffed by 2 seconds and per critical obliterate adds 2.5s duration
Coldheart changed to become its own button, Seperating it from chains of ice to become useable in PvP. Slightly unnerfed maybe by 15%ish
Inexorable Assault to increase froststrikes damage by 10% per obliterate up to 2 stacks, and to increase obliterates damage per froststrike by 10% up to 2 stacks
Rot and Wither replaced with Tundra Stalker
Bitterchill now is a haste steal, as opposed to a flat reduction. Now functions with Proliferating chill
Deathchill to no longer consume chains of ice when the root effect is applied
Shroud of Winter increases remorseless winters slow effect to 50% and increases its damage and radius by 30% and all targets affected by its slow can be cleaved with froststrikes
Deathstrike completely unnerfed in PvP
Bloodforged armor reworked to lower lichbornes cooldown by 1 minute, and add 15% universal damage reduction and 75% more Deathcoil self healing at the cost of its CC immunities (Will stack with Unholy endurance, And will still make you undead so you can still pre immune hex and polymorph, But cant break fears and charms)
Spellwarden changed to also make AMZ move with the deathknights current position and remove the ability to use it at range
Deathpacts healing absorption effect now directly scales depending on how much % health was received, So instead of 30% maximum health, it would be 30% of the total healing received when the ability was used
Chillstreaks cost changed from runes to runic power
BoS changed to a 1 minute cooldown with a higher runic power cost. Upscales per target affected so its bad in single target and light cleave and stronger in AoE
Cold blooded rage buffed to 100% on froststrike critical strikes
Obliteration becomes its own button again with a 1.5m cooldown and lowers the current cooldown of PoF by 25s when activated (essentially always allowing you to use PoF with obliteration incase icecap timing becomes awkward. The exact tuning would have to be determined through testing)
Empower rune weapon changed to a 1.5m cooldown (to always align with Obliteration)
After those changes are made, Numbers would be up in the air and tuning would have to be done. The basic idea is that Frost DK should play like a melee spec, And should be rewarded for staying in melee and fighting
I mean if we wanna “Save Cleaving Strikes” And “Make Frostscythe good”
How about Cleaving strikes makes Obliterate hit 5 targets, but only 25% damage to secondary targets.
Frostscythe damage buffed 60-90% AND Frostscythe makes your next cleaving strikes Obliterate deal 100% damage to ALL targets. Thus to do BIG CLEAVING OBLITERATE you would want/have to frostscythe first to unlock that big damage.
We could also make it that Hitting X targets with remorseless winter lower the CD of DnD by X sec per target struck or something.
So RW would Feed keeping DnD up which allows cleaving strikes and to do the big damage with cleaving strikes we would be using frostscythe between obliterates to enable that max damage.
Oh my look at that I made an entire AoE rotation in less than 5 minutes… omg.
No Obliterate cleave. Just no, people need to stop with this nonsense idea because Warriors have Sweeping Strikes. People should just go play warrior if they want Sweeping Strikes.
It wouldnt even play well into the spec at all.
Outside of Obliteration windows you would have to just sit there and wait for a KM proc if this happened. You would want to KM with both Frostscythe and Obliterate because both of their baselines are low. Frostscythes is low because of the x4 crit modifier, Obliterates are low because of Frostreaper. What do you do in between so neither feel like garbage to press? Its just bad design.
What an ignorant statement. Having specs that do good damage dual wielding 1hs shouldn’t be restricted to non-plate classes, and having specs that do good damage using a 2h shouldn’t be restricted to plate classes.
