panny

What's the massive survivability nerf besides Bone Armor from 40 to 20 percent? Glyphed AMS coupled with stun immunity along with Shadow of Death really make them one of the most difficult classes to kill or even control.

I think Traj really nailed it. The classes with the most survivability are also doing the most damage, which doesn't really seem right. Most of the top tier classes at the moment all have some sort of immunity (to damage and CC) along with a ton of burst.

 

thevidon

Bone armor 40 to 20 as well as huge IBF nerf. The AMS glyph was nerfed, and is probably not worth taking anymore. Shadow of Death was nerfed and lasts half as long. Everything you mentioned was nerfed except for stun immunity during IBF 20 second uptime, but we cant use IBF to break out of stuns like paladins can with HOF so even that is subpar.

I agree that Unholy is overboard right now, but I think the changes they are putting in are probably enough to even it out. Well.....I think they should move gargoyle to the 51 pt talent also - but thats another story.

 

Duilliath

Ghostcrawler did mention the Gargoyle was possibly too good, so it'd not be completely out of line to expect an upcoming nerf there as well.

And Panny, I suspects it's not even the survivability that's completely to blame. Rogues still die fast if you catch them. Problem is they kill someone from stealth first.

An thenn tehy wuz al ded. Srsly. (Exodus 1)

 

• Lanky

Gargoyle is paradoxically insane burst and ridiculously fragile simultaneously. If they fixed the bugged health that it spawns with, and lowered the AP scaling slightly, that would do the trick. That said, if they are going to chain nerf DKs then I expect them to at least fix large chunks of our talents while they are at it. Unholy has some crazy bloat deep in the tree,

 

panny

Is it even possible for melee to kill Gargs? I've always been too busy trying to heal myself to try. A bit part of what's wrong with it is that it's essentially an instant DoT that scales to your current AP when casted that's undispellable (like how the old HoTs/DoTs used to work).

I don't see the stun immunity of IBF as worse than talented BoF at all, considering you can stun a Paladin immediately afterwards. IBF is more along the lines of offensive bubble. Part of the reason why stun immunity is so good is that stuns are too good. They're (mostly instant cast) CC that negates all your melee avoidance that's not broken by damage, perfect for this era of high dps relative to mana pools.

AMS (especially coupled with AMZ) is still extremely good. Bone Armour is still extremely good. Let's not forget Frost Presence got buffed and doesn't require a shield (are they even on the GCD?).

The changes are a start, but I'd really like to see some of those defensive abilities share a cooldown. AMZ->AMS->IBF->etc is almost like the inverse of the Sheep->Blind->Sap->CS->etc. And with how short the cooldowns are on some you have a pretty small window to kill them.

Duilliath, the difficulty in catching a Rogue is part of their defense. I started PvPing on my Rogue alt: The World of Warcraft Armory in my levelling gear and I feel more durable than on my Shaman with assorted 25 man/PvP epics with ~400-500 resilence.

 

thevidon

I changed your quote a bit to emphasize where I see the problem lying. Also, I can't believe you just said that 20 second stun immunity was equal to a full on invincibility bubble.

 

Mearis

Videon, you have a 1600 rating after 75+ games as a DK in 2 vs 2, with Naxx 25 gear and a shitload of honor pieces.

This is a guildmate of mine:

The World of Warcraft Armory

He started PvP'ing 10 minutes after hitting level 80. He has no PvP trinket, no honor gear to speak of, no PvE gear and is still using levelling greens/blues and he has 200 more rating than you - he pvp'd after not sleeping for 36 hours, and it was the first time he ever PvP'd as a DK.

May I suggest that you with-hold any thoughts you have on DK PvP because you might not have sufficient expertise on the subject?

 

Mearis

Ok, if a 1500 rated resto druid tried posting in season 3 that 'cyclone was not that overpowered at all' and 'lifebloom needs to extremly mana-efficient' after failing to break the 1500 rating barrier, I'd simply think that the reason why he holds those beliefs is because he is not very good at the game and is failing at arenas even when playing a blatantly overpowered class.

You repeatedly tried to claim that the really mild nerfs that DKs received are sufficient to reign in DKs, and that statement is so obviously out of wack with reality that the options are two:

1- You know that DKs will stay overpowered after those changes, but you think your message board advocacy will mean nerfs get dodged for longer.

2- You genuinly believe that nerfing boneshield/icebound fortitude will be sufficient to bring DKs to the level of 'regular' PvP classes.

Given your (lack of) success as an extremly overpowered class in arena, my personal opinion is that choice number 2 is correct.

 

Tel

May I suggest that you with-hold any thoughts you have on DK PvP as you're not a DK. That makes as much sense as what you posted, which is to say none. Lets leave the WoW forum discussion on the WoW forums shall we?

IBF is a powerful ability, I think we're all agreed on that, however it's main use is as an offensive CD, rather than a defensive one like the paladin bubble. I personally don't PvP as a DK, but having played one for more than 10 minutes, I can immediately see there are going to be some major issues for certain classes when fighting us.

Firstly, IBF against any stun reliant class. Not only does it dramatically lower their damage output itself but it means our physical avoidance is still active so is even more effective as these classes are all melee (rogues/ret). To combat this it's getting its damage reduction reduced next patch, making the DK chasing a rogue round a pillar a much more attractive targt to burst while he has it up.

Secondly AMS against any caster. Completely ridiculous glyphed at the moment. Comparing that to an immunity bubble I can understand a lot more, as against any caster dps team you're effectively an unstoppable juggernaught for the 10 seconds out of every 75s that its up. Thats 13% of the time. Quite alot I think you'll agree However, next patch the glyph is being nerfed to reduce this, again meaning you have a much higher % of time where you can pressure the DK.

Finally BS/BA (Bone Armor) is again another shield wall. With the internal CD on charge removal it's effectively another 10 seconds out of every 60 that you're taking half damage. Again getting a hefty nerf.

I'd suggest waiting to see how much of an impact these changes/fixes will have on DK survivability before crying out for even more nerfs to them. I think any sensible Unholy DK will agree they're overpowered at the moment. I'd suggest we wait and see how the changes work out before demanding anything else.

 

thevidon

Unholy DK's might still need some nerfing.....I don't want to see base skills nerfed which will affect the other trees. I don't think anyone will be arguing that frost DK's are overpowered after the patch.

I'm done responding to the personal attack crap. Get over it.

 

Tel

And I'd argue that you're doing the opposite. Everyone is aware that these boards get read by people with influence at Blizzard, but shouting down anyone that disagrees with you with personal attacks isn't really a fair way to try and push your side of the arguement.

The fact of the matter is that you don't know how much of an impact the DK (needed) nerfs will have on their superiority at the moment. Why not accept that possibly Blizzard might have looked at it, taken a reasoned approach and decided to take it one step at a time rather than doing the 'nerf them into the floor' approach that you seem to be in favor of?

UH DK's are overpowered at the moment, we all agree on that. Stuff is being done to change it. Why not leave it at that rather than attacking anyone who disagrees?

 

Cthalupa

I'm not sure I agree it's really a personal attack. As has been stated by several people previous to me, in a PVP discussion, arena ranking is what you have to go on when judging a person's skill.

If someone was crying about needing to nerf Illidan when they had yet to kill Shade of Akama in a PvE discussion, this would surely be pointed out by people arguing against that position, I believe rightly so.

I'm terrible at PvP, and haven't played against DK enough to form a truly valid opinion on this subject, so I can't really side one way or the other - but I don't believe he's meaning to press an attack simply to shout down the opposition, but instead call into question the quality of the information that is being used as a counterargument to his own.

 

Mearis

Because the stuff that is done is well below the minimum that is requried to even begin to balance the class. Ret paladins got 3 or 4 distinct round of nerfs after the PTR, and there were massive recrimination after each round of nerfs - and guess what, GC still thinks they are problematic and have too much burst.

In this case anyone familiar with DKs and arena knows that those changes won't really adress the problem - DKs are like cheat-death rogues pre-nerf on steroids. Some mild nerfs to their abilities won't really impact the issue that nobody realistically targets DKs until everyone else on their team is dead.

I mean honestly, who here who is playing in arena thinks - ok, we will start on the DK, get him to pop a cooldown, then switch to someone else, then pop back to the DK, get him to use another cooldown, switch again, then go back on the DK, get him to use a final cooldown, and now we can finally kill him? Is that a realistic plan at all?

In arena matches that last under 1 minute, do you really want to try using this strategy? Do any of you really believe that once those nerfs come in any team will make a 'switch to the DK and blow him up' part of their strategy?

 

doogless

Yes, you can. They actually have very little health, but because they start out in the air and above the angle you normally will see with your camera it's rather awkward to kill them.

 

• Juice

Having to stop by and throw away a lot of garbage posts sucks. Keep your discussion about the topics at-hand. Yes, it's reasonable to point to someone's experience in pvp as an indicator of their (lack of) experience. If, however, its the only point you're able to make, then shut the fuck up. The next time I see some jackasses jumping in, where they previously weren't in the discussion, simply to pile on someone I'm giving you a break from our forums.

Keep the discussion professional and about the topic.

 

• Lanky

I'll try to offer some perspectives from 1750 (BG9 though, so I can at least pretend I fight good people), which isn't really all that high, but still is far enough up to find many of the trends we are discussing here, especially concerning the prominence of U DK/ H Paladin.

1. Mearis has some vaild points about DK cooldowns, but frankly they would have to flat out remove AMS, AMZ, AND Boneshield for us to be on par with warriors. Nevermind Lichborne. So, whinging about DK cooldowns is like whining about the paladin bubble. Stuff it and talk about something more productive.

Here I'll give you some tips on how to deal with an unholy DK.

1. Kill the ghoul.
2. Have a macro, kill the gargoyle.
3. Snare him, preferably with crippling poison or hamstring. Wing clip sort of works in your case Mearis. Use traps.
4. Banking on fear to remove him will fail you.
5. Polymorph is at best something you would need to spam to get it to stick.

Look, I am not going to complain about the nerfs coming down the pipe. Being able to mitigate 90% of incoming damage using 1minute cooldowns is too strong. I understand that. I am almost positive that you can heal through a single Unholy DK sans gargoyle Mearis. Don't tell me you can't, you'd be lying. DK plus Hand of Justice, that's another story.

No, they won't but they don't do that to mages or paladins either, unless it is post immunity. Comps aim to force those kinds of cooldowns, so force the DK to IBF and then snare him. If you have a rogue in threes, use dismantle if he gets too close. DK's don't have any defenses against physical CC outside of Lichborne, which currently most unholy builds do not run with.

I am not sure what else to contribute here. DK burst is heavily reliant on a pet with 5k HP, or a lucky white swing crit. I could go frost for a great deal of additional burst, but the trade off is I become a viable focus target. Slamdance nerfing DKs won't happen, just like similar procedures against ret paladins are unlikely.

 

Amera

Suffice to say Serennia is the #1 player in the world at the moment on his DK, ranked #1 in every bracket, and he is also advocating additional death knight nerfs here. A class has to be targetable to be balanced. One of the biggest reasons rogues dominated is because they were such awful focus targets due to their ridiculous cooldowns (and that they could do nearly full damage/control while focused anyway), which in turn allowed them to use more PvE gear and do more damage. Right now Serennia is using like 2 pieces of PvP gear tops because it is irrelevant for a class with the kind of survivability DKs have.

He also has a few interesting suggestions for other classes, like moving down some talents for paladins to make Holy and Ret have to miss some juicy things. It's also funny how much everyone knew all good arena players would despise the new Org arena (and gave feedback accordingly), but it still made it into the game.

 

• Lanky

Most of those recommendations are spot on. I am not sure I agree about a DK version of forbearance, I'd rather see one or two cooldowns removed for other interesting abilities if that path was chosen. I think AMS will remain core to the class, and I don't see lichborne leaving any time soon, but we could stand to lose Boneshield easily at 20% reduction, assuming that mitigation was baked into other formats for tanks.

One of the issues with DK cooldowns is that if you nerf them too much or leave them too crappy, players won't take them (see Vampiric blood in 3.0.1), but if you remove them, you need to add something else that is activated to compensate.

 

Humbaba

Bad players despise Org, too.

I just asked in IRC and no one seemed to know, but does an Unholy DK enter arenas with the ghoul up or do they have to summon it and start the 5 min timer? If I kill the ghoul can I expect it to stay dead for a few minutes or should I expect it back immediately?

 

thevidon

If the AMS glyph is perceived as overpowered by the devs, I like his suggestion of having it remove harmful effects instead of giving a duration boost. Both IBF and AMS are cooldowns that would be a lot better if we didn't have to guess and pop them before we think we might need them.

I agree with most of what he said actually, except for wanting to add a shared cooldown between the defensive skills, or adding a flat damage reduction while cooldowns are being used. When would it even be worth popping IBF if you are taking 20% less damage but dealing 50% less? It would be very situational at best.

His posts for other classes were dead accurate as far as I can tell.

 

thevidon

DKs must summon it every game. If you kill it then it will typically be dead for quite a while.

 

Emeraude

Not that long, assuming it's summoned as soon as the DK enters the arena it'll be on a 4 min CD by the time the match starts, and if they have Night of the Dead, 8 Scourge or Plague Strikes later a new one can be summoned.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CX81UJZ8
For the lurking Phoenix Wright faithful.
What is the most important thing to you? Won't you grant me the pleasure of taking it away.

 

thevidon

Night of the Dead appears in almost no pvp builds. It is also not a talent that either blood or frost DKs have access to. I said typically the pet wont be back for a while. If you happen to be playing an unholy DK with the NOTD talent then you will see the pet again in another minute or so.

 

Lithose

The trade off in damage for damage reduction is something almost every other class must pay for. This is one of the core reasons why DK's are so overpowered at the moment. Heck, this is one of the core reasons the "big 4" have such strong representation.

Most classes trade their offensive potency for a defensive gain. Take, for example Dispersion..90% damage reduction, but you can't do anything for that duration, the skill is only there to stop an assist train and allow for your healer to react. Or take bear form, defensive stance, shield wall..All of these skills require a huge amount of offensive potency to be relegated toward defense. These choices also happen on a micro level, to, for example, warlocks must gear and select survival talents because their class doesn't have many innate to it, they just don't get it for free, so they need to design their character around it. A pure offensively based lock does *a lot* more, but you won't see them because they dump so much into living.

DKs don't make this choice. Every defensive measure they have is at most a resource expenditure. They lose nothing by becoming immune to stuns and reducing all damage by 20%..Now, other skills also reduce damage without damage losses (barkskin) but they don't *also* have a CC immunity.

The CC immunity is one of the reasons why other class, Paladins, Mages and Rogues do so well now. Their "damage" reduction is also tied to immunities and while for Paladins and Mages said reductions may limit offense or stop, it still doesn't change the fact that *one* ability provides *two* or three benefits. This is why these skills aren't even used for defense anymore, but only to set up the next offensive burst.

When a warrior shield walls, for example, he pillars, because despite taking much less damage, he can still be CCd, he can still be killed and his damage is crap..All the shield wall did is prevent death. When a warrior zerk rages, he is immune to fear, but his damage doesn't go down..he doesn't gain the second effect.

This is pretty core as to why some classes are doing so well..A rogue ripping someone apart while inside of a defensive cool down, is not balanced, nor is it for a DK. Offensive potency should be linked to how offensive your playing, the second you hit that "oh shit" button, it shouldn't mean "HA now I come at you HARDER", it should mean "Damn, now I have a chance to get to the pillar".

 

panny

Uhhh, I didn't say that at all, I said it was along the lines of. And it is pretty damn good considering stuns are one of the best forms of peels in the game.

And yeah, I've tried killing Ghouls, they tend to come back very quickly.