ive only begun doing keys/raiding on unholy and i’ve been enjoying my experience quite a bit. but for you, dear reader, who has likely been playing dk much longer than i have (my sum total is playing a bit of frost in bfa and liking it but never raiding/doing keys on it and raiding/m+ on unholy now), what drags down the experience and makes you want to reroll to something else?
I mean, I’m always going to play my DK to some extent. It was the first character I cared about enough to level and play to max level back when that took time.
But…
-
Legion saw changes to the core experience of the class itself and all three specs due to changes to the balance and pacing of Runes and Runic Power.
-
Utility value swings wildly in Death Grip. There are times where it feels overbearingly good and then times where it might as well not exist. For Blood it’s less of an issue due to reduced cooldown and doubled functionality as a taunt, but it’s still noticeable.
-
Utility kit as a whole is balanced around Death Grip. We provide okay-ish group magic defense in AMZ, we have some utility in debuff prevention and manipulation for ourselves, but we don’t have anything particularly insane we do in a PvE setting.
-
Noob trap/auto-firing abilities that can absolutely cause issues in ways they shouldn’t. Abomination Limb comes to mind as one example, and while it can be played around it’s still an annoyance.
-
Gameplay in general hasn’t swung wildly in any direction since Legion, partially because DK as a whole has not seen any reworking similar to some other classes or specs since Legion.
9 Likes
For me it’s just general class envy. I love the theming of Death Knight and their (albeit vague and now heavily nerfed) identity as “The big plate class that tanks through mechanics instead of avoiding them”, but when I compare my gameplay and kit to any other class, I feel nerfed and neglected.
I have to pop four cooldowns as Unholy to deal the same AoE damage as a Demon Hunter or Paladin does with one CD and then their base rotation. Outside of those windows? Less than tank damage. Are the peaks higher? Sure, depending on if your tank pulled 11+ mobs and didn’t die, Unholy can really pump uncapped AOE. But those moments aren’t worth playing a class for on their own.
I strongly feel like a class should feel strong on their own, and CD usage should lead to “high moments” that enhance the base gameplay of the class and let them surpass their designed limitations, or “go all out” for a small window of time. Death Knights, especially Unholy, basically do not exist outside of their cooldowns. They are tied to them in ways that merely make them functional as a class, and not to enhance gameplay or provide for additional exciting moments.
Take Retribution, another class with a cooldown that enhances their strength and base abilities. They are in many ways tied to wings for throughput. Unlike DK specs, however, they have multiple ways to enter “Wings” state, and it’s a single button press that immediately kicks up excitement and tempo to an otherwise simple rotation.
On the flip side, Unholy.
Abomination>Dark Transformation>Unholy Assault>Apocalypse
That was our base opener (without battle pots) and each of those requires a global cooldown. And after that, yes, playing festering wounds is your general game plan and does plenty of damage but after doing the opener the class will basically play itself. It doesn’t feel like something has breached my limitations, it feels like I was able to turn my class on and actually play the game.
That’s the general reason why I gave up on DK this season. They exist in a base state as an incomplete class and have to finish their list of GCD chores before becoming a complete class.
There are plenty of extra points that rub salt in that wound, such as no raid buff, low utility outside of grip scenarios (which is being chipped away at by other classes getting pull tools), our defensive ability is constantly getting nerfed+ low mobility, but the general broken state of our rotation is my main complaint.
I focused mostly on Unholy but Frost suffers from this as well, but to a lesser degree, being utterly tied to Pillar of Frost and Death and Decay.
All of this combined with seeing other classes getting MULTIPLE reworks before Death Knight is even so much as touched?
“Why would I put myself through playing Death Knight when every other classy gets more utility, attention, and is starting to be much more fun?”
Theming only carries it so far.
12 Likes
we get nerfed first and buffed last, we have spell animations left over from WoLK, we r the last tank spec in the game to get a raid buff, we have the weakest BR, we are slow by melee standards, class more often than not gets overlooked and forgotten by the devs. Even now we are the laughing stock of the RWF community, repeatedly on stream Dk was getting called a sh!t class. It was the only class not used at all during the race.
11 Likes
If you are doing 11’s, you should never be going into a pack without a cooldown. Even then, the point about Unholy doing less than tank damage is completely false outside of cooldowns.
San’Layn has much better consistent pack to pack damage. That’s just the way modern retail classes are designed. You don’t do damage on most classes outside of CDs and that includes Ret Paladin.
Play Rider and you aren’t slow. You have two different movement abilities. DK is also the tankiest class in the game, no comparison. My Unholy has 8,200k health, constant passive and active magic absorbs and multiple defensives.
Aside from maybe Ret Paladin, other dps specs are paper in comparison. I’ll take staying alive more than others over “movement” even though we get to ride a literal horse in combat.
The world first community brought 1-5 DK’s per boss last race outside of a few bosses.
Not to mention RWF is boring. Its a bunch of heroic splits, then bringing the best of the best classes and players, announcers repeating the same thing pull after pull. Its not a good representation of the game at all. You can make an argument that any spec that wasnt brought is garbage tier because they werent brought in the RWF.
Undermine looks to be the worst received raid tier in a long time as well.
When you look at the averages for DPS output, things are pretty well balanced.
My problem with riders is that it is extremely proc reliant.
I play frost, i have enough procs as it is. I prefer more skill expression, I have deathbringer to help for that, but unfortunatly i do not think unholy has a comparable thing to it with san’layn being weak.
(With speed we do have a early talent in our class tree to improve death’s advance which is pretty adequate for our needs.)
It’s not that proc reliant. You do a ton of damage in AoE regardless, just play Magus Cleave with the 4-set and make sure you have Doom Bidding and Sudden Doom. Shadowbolt Volley is a massive amount of your damage and works well in non-Cinderbrew dungeons with it being AoE capped.
1 Like
not in pvp its not xd
3 Likes
Hey, it’s me, the same guy. Enjoying the season much more now on a “worse” class. I can hit a 60 second on just about every pack but even when that cd isn’t up on chain pulls I’m hitting solid 2-3m just by doing the base AoE rotation. 21m has been my peak on big pulls.
My cooldowns make this class better, they don’t bring it to a level of bare functioning.
Unholy gameplay is just bad.
3 Likes
i listed so many other points besides just slow xD
I just want them to fix the abomination not applying DOTs bugs first… Maybe fix that bug where Unyielding Will fails to interact with Spellwarden pvp talent… Those are bugged since october last year.
1 Like
Sounds like a skill, gear or low key level issue because at the moment, Unholy is the #1 overall dps spec in m+, tied with Fire Mage and around the middle in raid.
I don’t know why everyone else is having better results but it’s not the class. Unholy pumps. But San’Layn made the spec no longer cooldown reliant. You don’t need Raise Abom to do big damage anymore, some builds choose not to run it.
I am going to guess you are doing low keys, because anything over a +5 and you will have your main CD up every pack, DT. Unholy isn’t great in lower keys, aside from Meadery.
I’m not saying Unholy doesn’t pump. I’m saying it’s dreadfully unfun to have to pop gcds to even get to the point where you deal that respectable damage when nearly every other class has at maximum two.
Festering > Apoc > DnD > UA > DT
During that whole time other classes are already ramped and having fun and also get to use stops if the pack calls for it. It’s a sequence of incredibly uninteresting button presses to get to the part where you can FINALLY dps. And god forbid the tank is pulling small packs, because you’ll get to have fun maybe only once every two pulls!
OH, or if blood beast decides to troll and then you’re just a regular DPS that isn’t particularly going nuts.
Nah. I’m good.
Edit: Also, the absolute audacity to try to flex skill when you have 500 score and 1 timed key over +5. Get bent.
3 Likes
Like I said, this is a common complaint from people in low keys. No offense at all, but Unholy just has never been a good spec to play in the key range where things are dying quicker and if you are, you should be playing Rider with Magus Cleave. Rider has better ST, mobility and more direct damage.
San’Layn is the opposite of cooldown reliant. You spam 2 buttons for 90% of the dungeon and are always top. Current Unholy has been trimmed down by 75% as the current “meta” and does similar damage inside and outside of major CDs.
That’s why UH is so good in every dungeon, all you need is Dark Transformation to get going. Wounds and Magus are so low on your overall it doesn’t matter, Bicep said that festering strike is a low priority due to how strong VS/DC spam is. You’re literally spamming DC on 6 targets or less lol.
If you can’t press a couple of cooldowns, I don’t know if you should be in mythic keys to be honest. This version of Unholy has drastically less ramp up and setup than pre-Dragonflight.
I have two accounts with like 12 (maybe more idk) 80’s. I stay logged into this one because my classic Cata account is tied to it but the only person who plays these retail chars is my wife and I do low keys and delves with her.
(she’s timed 3 6’s with me actually)
edit: not flexing skill, it doesn’t require skill to play a WoW class these days. Just debunking your claims about a spec you haven’t played or at least haven’t done any challenging content with.
It’s not a claim. It’s an opinion. Unholy isn’t fun to play. That’s what this entire thread is about. Why people have stopped playing or are dooming about DK.
You are the one making it about performance.
Performance is irrelevant.
It feels like dog@$$.
3 Likes
No, you also made the claim that Unholy doesn’t do any damage outside of cooldown windows, which why I explained that UH needs a key range around 6+ to do good damage. San’Layn only needs DT to do big damage. Every spec is cooldown reliant.
Yes, you have to press a couple of cooldowns, but your damage ramps up and laps other classes 7-target to uncapped pulls and you have the strongest 2-target cleave in the game.
Rider is fun but i’m trying sanlayn now because i was in a group with a boomkin and mage who did 5mil overall in priory 10 the other day. It was hard to keep up as rider. Do you just spam vs and dc on the same target without any wounds on them? I only tried sanlayn once in a 7 and it felt awful.