LordVoid

Fury warriors can dual wield 2handers now, in WotLK, can't they?

 

Lamaros

Nothing at all like it. Not being able to change forms once you've left a city would be more like it.

The thing certainly has been blown out of proprotion though.

 

Feorthas

Eh, I don't think it's THAT horrible as you can probably do decently enough doing ~whatever~ with your tank set of runes on; it's more like having to wear my bear gear--sans weapon swap--while DPSing in cat form. Now, that would be annoying (miss miss miss miss miss... ugh) but not horribly debilitating if I absolutely HAD to do it. Additionally, I'm almost certain I could make some sort of 3rd set of gear, between Cat & Bear, that would work pretty well for both--say 80-95% of the focused sets--allowing me to sidestep my problems (a PvP set with some +Hit would probably work, for example). It's THIS that we should be worried about. If there is no 'third option' that works pretty well for everything--farming/questing/grinding, tanking, and DPSing--then I can see some issues arising; however, I'm almost certain that it'll exist (ex: for deep frost specs, it'll probably be 1b/3f/2u. Maybe even 2/2/2).

 

Azurai

Are you really comparing Druids not having an OOC res to deathknights making town runs to resocket for effectiveness? Not even Evel Knievel could make that leap. But let me elaborate: Most parties have a resser. Even if they don't, most good parties won't have more than 1 death every 20 minutes anyway, if that. Secondly, you're actually getting an OOC res so it doesn't really matter. And some sort of out of combat rune swapping isn't unbalancing, all its doing is saving the entire raid/party 5 minutes (well 15 with how long it takes some warlocks) for you to go back to town between bosses. It's not like people are asking for a hotkey that rerunes your blade instantly out of combat to a setup you picked earlier. Most people who will be playing DKs fully expect to not be able to say 'oh crap theres a warlock coming to stables, I better rerune so I can kill it' and instead just have to wing it. That's balance. Forcing people to TELEPORT somewhere else to do something thats time consuming and requires being OOC is not, its just a chore.

Even if its not confirmed what the method will be released as, this is one of those stubbornly stupid decisions that will either annoy DKs, warlocks and mages for a year until they redesign it or be changed due to discontent during alpha/beta. I'd much rather be safe and be a proponent for the latter. I really don't want to have to do a town rune to rerune for D&D, switch back for maximum threat, rerune for single target DPS, then do it again for AMS spam, then rerune for DPS again, etc. WoW PvE (and even PvP, at least in battlegrounds) is gimmicky. There is 0 chance a raider will not have to rerune in any raid dungeon that contains more than one boss, unless its a way overgeared 10 man.

 

Feorthas

Yes, I believe I did; however poor of a comparison it was, it's the best I've got considering that I've only seriously played a druid and paladin (dabbled in lock/mage/warrior/shaman but none really kept me long term) so I'm a little short on in-game comparisons and that was the first that came to mind. I think my later comparison--being forced to DPS in cat gear without hitting town to swap stuff around--is a bit more apt.

If that happens, that's great for druids; however, I've intended to reroll DK for WotLK for months now, along with at least a few of the other druids who've been posting here for a while. If Druids get an OOC rez, my alt will have one. If not, it really wont affect me.

If you're gonna do that, why not simply fill your raid roster with one person of every spec--plus additional healers--and have the extras sit outside the instance that you're running so you can just rotate them in and out to have the perfect raid at all times? *rolleyes*

I think most raids will make do just fine with a tank that is a sub-par dpser, or a dpser who can ~only~ offtank; not everyone is at the bleeding edge of the content curve and being at that point incurs some distinct advantages and disadvantages, one of which might be slightly inflexible Death Knights.

I'm going to wait until we see/hear more--or maybe even until I play the class!--before I draw any hard conclusions about how inconvenient it will be to hit either a town or the DK starter area to rerune. Now, what COULD be a cool option is to allow you to rerune outside of town with reagents--make each rune swap a 60 second channel or something to discourage both between-pull and complicated swaps--but, again, that might not be needed if the class works decently in the first place.

 

Draele

Thoughts on Unholy as a raid DPS spec? The idea would be to focus on getting several diseases up blood strike spam with varying uses for the runic power.

I could see four variations working.

20/0/51 would put more focus on Blood Strike damage. Would give added crit from Dark Conviction and more AP with Bladed armor. Also has access to Rune Tap.

8/0/63 could pick up a lot more utilitarian non DPS goodies like Anti-Magic Shell, as well as some of the less potent DPS talents like Vicious Strikes, etc.

8/11/51+1 would be a max disease damage spec since it picks up Black Ice. You also gain Frozen Rune weapon but if you want to put this to use will have to sport a Frost rune...which could cut into your Blood Strike damage. 1 more Blood Strike every 10 seconds *might* edge out Black Ice + Frozen Rune Weapon + Icy Touch. On the plus side with a Frost Rune available you can pick up Bone Armor for some added survivability.

11/10/52 This one gets Black Ice and just throws away 5 points in the first tier to get to it. Would not use a Frost rune.


Oh the joys of alpha speculation...

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

Draele

Thoughts on Unholy as a raid DPS spec? The idea would be to focus on getting several diseases up blood strike spam with varying uses for the runic power. Stat focus would be on Str/AP over crit since it effects both Blood Strike and Disease damage.

I could see four variations working.

20/0/51 would put more focus on Blood Strike damage. Would give added crit from Dark Conviction and more AP with maxed Bladed armor. Also has access to Rune Tap. BBBBUU?

8/0/63 could pick up a lot more utilitarian non DPS goodies like Anti-Magic Shell, as well as some of the less potent DPS talents like Vicious Strikes, etc. BBBUUU.

8/11/52 would be a max disease damage spec since it picks up Black Ice. You also gain Frozen Rune weapon but if you want to put this to use will have to sport a Frost rune...which could cut into your Blood Strike damage. 1 more Blood Strike every 10 seconds *might* edge out Black Ice + Frozen Rune Weapon + Icy Touch. On the plus side with a Frost Rune available you can pick up Bone Armor for some added survivability. Definitely the most interesting spec and versatile due to having 1 of every rune available. BBBFUU

11/10/52 This one gets Black Ice and just throws away 5 points in the first tier to get to it. Would not use a Frost rune. BBBBUU


Oh the joys of alpha speculation...

Rantings of the Afflicted, a Warlock blog: http://draele.blogspot.com/

 

What Do I Type Here?

So any comments about what is shaping up be the anti-DK (pvp) class? My early thoughts are disc priest (abolish disease and just general dispel most of the control effects), or paladin for the same reason really. I know it might be immature but I am really interested in being able to most efficiently kill the legions and legions of DK re-rollers, I just expect them to be the most common class to see in pvp for quite a while.

 

Lamaros

You're still getting the comparisons wrong. A druid in unoptimised gear can still use all their abilities, all their forms. Some things they won't have due to talents, but the same goes for a DK on that.

However a DK who doesn't have 2 Unholy Runes on their blade canonot cast D&D at all. Or Raise Dead, or Army of the Dead. One without 2F cannot cast Chains of Ice. One without 2B cannot use Obliterate. This is all before we get into combonations of abilities. We're not talking "slightly inflexible" we're talking completely unoptimised for anything but a few things. A druid might do 20% less damage in tank gear. A DK may well do 10% less damage in tank spec, 20% less damage in tank gear, and a further 10% less damage in tank runesetup. The first is a talent choice (applies to all classes), the second is dictated by the primary task the class serves (applies to all classes), the latter is just an unnecessary limit that applies only to the DK.

Many raids might well do with a tank that is a sub par DPSer or a DPSer who can only OT. But this reduced tanking/DPS ability will come from talents regardless of whether or not DKs can change runes outside combat. Again you are making a faulty comparison. What you want to compare it to is a MT or DPS/OT who is unable to switch between stances/skills based on whether or not they need to OT or DPS: ie maximise the function they are serving as best able to given their gear and talents. DKs should be allowed to maximise their performance when switching between the various tasks they might perform. We don't ask a feral Druid to OT in Cat form, or a Prot Warrior who can DPS to do so in Defensive stance, so why should a DK who can OT best if they switch to a different rune setup from their DPS optimisation not be allowed to?

Anyway, that is enough discussion on this topic for my part.

@WDITY: Given the DKs will be 15 levels behind the pack in WotLK I don't expect they will have a bit impact on PvP for at least a while, and may well move to a reasonable position by the time they catch up in terms of population.
In PvP it looks like casters will give them a bit more trouble. They have a few snares, some spell damage, and good armor, so I expect they will hold themselves well against melee. I think they might have a bit of trouble against anything that can heal too, as it doesn't look like they have a whole heap of burst DPS outside some combos. Really hard to make any guesses at this point; there's a long way to go.

 

NPC

Hmm, what do you guys think about a spell that summon a runeforge to the DK and have a cooldown like 15min and req a reagent; also of course require you to be out of combat to be able to use with with like 10 sec cast time.

That would prevent changing runes each pull (since there is a cooldown), adds a price to it (reagent) and you cant use it in combat.

This way you can change the runes with some limit without putting too much inflexibility

 

Valderen

The thing is, if you go adventuring without 2 unholy runes...you have "chosen" that setup, knowing full well that you cannot D&D, if being to use D&D is essential for you, then setup with 2 unholy runes. Whatever runes you have on your blade will be your decision, you'll be as limited as you chose to be...and you'll be optimized as much as you chose to be. It looks like the DK will be fairly versatile, that doesn't mean it will be optimized for everything all the time.

I think it bears repeating, all 3 trees for the DK can do essentially everything the DK can do as a class. No other class can claim that...it's like if the paladin had Ret, Prot and Holy skills in every tree and could switch with the flick of a switch be optimized for healer, dps or tanking.

 

PSGarak

Well, to be fair, for a DPS class all three trees (or at least two of them...) make the class optimized for DPS.

For something that's intended to be less restrictive than respecing, flat-out not being able to cast a non-talent spell without a port back home... seems to not be distinctively less restrictive than respecing. What you're saying about ability and choice is true, in isolation, but that sort of character permanence already exists in the talent system. If this is intended to be less restrictive than the talent system then the horizon for knowing you'll be wanting Death and Decay (or whatever) has to be noticeably shorter than the nearest quest node.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

uber

Not to completely de-rail the current topic, but I have some news on the talent Acclimation, which grants resistance to a school of magic on a chance based proc after being hit by that school.

The current resist values granted are 50/school, which stack to a maximum of three times for a total of 150 resistance.

 

PSGarak

Is that value of 50 level-dependent or in any way scaling?

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Lamaros

That's a significant boost to the talent (from 15% proc, for 15 resist, over 15 sec to 30/50/18) and makes Frost/Blood look even more like the raid tanking tree. And, incidentaly, illustrates just why

is just incorrect. Paladins can do everything the class can do in any spec, they just do much of it poorly. Likewise a DK will have strengths and weaknesses depending on their spec.

This "all DK builds will be great at everything" is silly: Compare Toughness and Black Ice: Both are second tier 5 point frost talents. One is for mitigation, one for DPS. Which would a tank prefer? Which would DPS?

Just because all trees might have tanking talents and DPS talents doesn't mean a spec in those trees will be able to get both of them. You will still have to optimise a Blood spec to a Blood Tanking spec or a Blood DPS spec, it is not the case that every talents works equally well for DPS and Tanking; not correct to suggest that any spec will not favour one over the other. There are 81 talent points to spend in the frost tree. You cannot get them all.

Just because there are talents in all three trees and Blizzard has said they want all three trees to be viable for both DPS and Tanking doesn't mean it will be the case. They could well get the balance wrong. If histroy indicates anything it is that they likely will.

 

uber

This was at level 80 on a private server, so I'm not sure at the moment. I'll go back tomorrow and run some more tests.

 

Azurai

I guess I could further summarize the entire crux of the argument to be that going to town to rerune under the current 'runeforge system' isn't less restrictive than respeccing, its just less expensive. There is a distinct difference...

Also, acclimation doesn't seem like a very good tank talent, as most primary boss abilities are either meant to be resisted (low enough for an aura to mitigate or requiring resist gear), unresistable or binary.. In fact the only fight I could even see it making a difference is something like Hexlord, and hes a joke anway... Most other fights it would never stack 3 times, or if it did it wouldn't matter. Now, if they made it proc off any hit (ala elementals) and made resists scale rather than have a hard cap, it would easily make DKs the best elemental boss tanks (unless they are frost elementals :P). Bleh pvp ability.

 

Lamaros

Amusing that we've got to the 'current' system now when we began with conjecture and havn't recieved any real information one way or the other.

Acclimation might be useful, it depends very much on encounter design and how it works exactly. Things that would make it more useful if they apply, less if they don't:

Stacks with totems/auras.
Procs off 'elemental melee hits'.
Procs of periodic damage (DoTs, Damage Auras).
Refreshes the cooldown of the buff each time it procs again.
Can have two or more school buffs up at the same time.

 

Zzbzq

Having to go to town to re-rune seems blatantly game-breaking to me. Every rune that isn't doing maximum DPS is lowering your group's threat ceiling. And that lower threat ceiling multiplied by the number of DPSers can be a large drop in group DPS. So now either DKs with utility rune set-ups won't be able to hold aggro, or max DPS-rune DKs will have overpowered threat generation.

Actually I think I could sit here all day and talk about how retarded it is to not let DKs re-rune outside of combat. I don't even want to get started, though. The more I think about it, the more I conclude that allowing DKs to change their runes at all is a bad idea. Talents have to be balanced around lopsided rune specs, or else, eg, frost DPS talents would become overpowered with 6 frost runes. It has to be balanced in the extremes or the extremes will be exploited. But since 6 frost runes will not be the norm, it just means a bunch of those talents are weaksauce and changing runes becomes a compound penalty.

 

Anedris

Blatantly game-breaking? Please, the only place where absolute optimization is necessary is progression raid content, and if you're doing that you can afford to go change your runes. If warriors can tank 5-person dungeons without a point in prot (I know your average PuG warrior likely can't but someone who knows what s/he's doing certainly can) a death knight can tank a 5-person dungeon with a suboptimal rune setup.

That said, I hope death knights do not have to go back to town to change runes. A 10-second cast usable outside of combat seems fine.

The ability to choose 1/3/2 or 2/2/2 or 0/6/0 is a large part of what makes the rune system interesting.

 

rhea

Comparing rune setup to talents... Yeah. So 4 runes in blood, talents in blood (dps) makes you able to tank 5 mans? (you can use 1-3 weak threat ability if yuo have 1/1 frost/unholy) I find it hardly likely.

 

Feorthas

Well then you'll have to say "Hey guys, I have to re-rune before I can tank, let me hit $TOWN and you can summon me with the stone" and the problem magically goes away!

This is not "game breaking"--it is "inconvenient".

While working on my new druid yesterday, I had to hearth to get my tanking gear to tank RFK because having small bags sucks; now, while at least a few people have pointed out that runes and gear are nothing alike, I still maintain that the inconvenience factor is extremely similar. It will, most likely, take no more time to re-rune your weapon than it would to run to the bank and grab $ITEM_X that you forgot to / couldn't put in your bags.

 

rhea

The town running goes for talents the same way, it just cost more.
Your gear comparison doesn't really work because you can just clean your bags..
Think of warrior OTing, he'll just swap some gear and goes defensive mode.. For one trashpack.
Now a DK doing that? Go back to town and rerune for one trashpack?

 

Amnesiac

This may have been mentioned already, but looking at it from a tanking perspective, it looks like 18 points in blood would be extremely helpful for tanking, kind of like how fury warriors spend 17 points in Arms for Impale.

Bladed Armor looks like it would be a great threat boost for tanks, same with the Parry Talent, which is a standard tanking talent for classes that can parry, and is always outside of the tank tree.

Am I correct in my interpretation that Rune Tap looks like it can be used a sort of Healthstone if you have at least one Blood Rune equipped? The other four points would go to crit...

The Spell Deflection talents looks like it is the goal though, and would go towards the "DK are caster tanks" meme. Blade Barrier looks like a Red Herring imo since it is more than 20 points and it seems like you should never have a rune not active while tanking?

 

Amnesiac

Looking at the talents and abilities more, it seems like Icy Talons would be great for PvE DPS.

I am thinking this might be a decent raid Dual Wield DPS spec? (53/18/0) None of the blood talents really seem to be reliant on 1h or 2h weapons for DPS, the way Imp Slam and Imp DW are for warriors.

War Pirate :: Deathknight WotLK Alpha Talent Tree

It looks like Nerves of Cold steel would be great for DW, and with Icy Talons, if the DK uses Icy Touch as an opener it gets a 15% attack speed increase for 20 of the 22 second duration. May want to keep that up on them. I just dumped the extra frost filler points in Frostbite for utility and the 2 points for increased frost damage, but the main DPS boosts outside of Blood look like they are in early frost through Icy Talons and Nerves of Cold Steel. Haste+Hit? Yes plz. For more utility one might even be able to take the 1 point I put into necropolis in blood and get Frozen Rune Weapon for the debuff.

Nerves of Cold Steel also specifically says that it is for DW though. Methinks that DK will be tanking with 2h weapons, and so the talent can and should be skipped by tanks, but great for DPS. A way to fill the lower tiers of the tree with talents that would benefit the different roles. IMO if Icy Talons and Cold Steel were in Blood they'd be top tier talents.