That was actually pre-BC, and the setup was 9 stormstrikes on a warrior in Zerker, both he and another shaman grab Bezerking, he blows Death Wish, then Elemental Mastery -> Chain Lightning for 36k, I think. Blizz proceeded to promptly fix the bug that let stormstrikes stack.
I might be mistaken, or there might be more than one video out there, I thought I remembered the crit being more outrageous than that.
Originally Posted by PsyBomb
What they will probably do is, if it becomes a problem, they'll make Blood Strike only use debuffs that you yourself put up, much like the Blood Elf Priest spell (can't remember what it's called).
I dont see it happening like that, or at least I hope not, I see at least one WOTLK gimmic fight involving one DK diseasing and one spamming obliterate to eat the diseases and give him massive threat.
YouTube - Earthmonk 25kcrit is the video that made stormstrike not stack. Which was fairly outrageous at 60.
Blood strike will probably get a disease "cap" (like "only benefits from a max of 5 diseases), so you cant stack 16 deathknights and just destroy bosses.
From reading the IGN interview, it seems that it will not be something that can be done between fights. I agree that it will probably require a trip to a city to make changes to your rune setup. It will either be free or cost very little.
I think they want the rune setup to be semi-permanent, so that there is some strategy behind the choices you make when leaving a city to go out adventuring for the day. Allowing them to be changed too easily would eseentially remove any sort of decision making about what setup to use as it would at most be changed for each fights. You might as well remove the different runes and just have 6 generic runes if you can do it between fights.
Lamaros said:
IIRC, and I have not played a druid so I might be wrong, Druids had issues with feral because you couldn't really tank without certain talents and you didn't go tank spec because it just wasn't that great a spec. Druids were not great MTs and pretty shoddy DPS as a bear so people would always spec for cat if they went feral because you could at least do one thing kind of well then. The fixed it up because Druids were not working that well just by themselves; a cat couldn't tank well and a bear couldn't dps, and neither were groundbreaking with what they speced to do either. Now they can do both better and in addition have the much desired flexibility to do both, making up for the limitations of their ability as a pure class in either.
Look at Warriors and Paladins though, a much closer comparison. You have dps and taking trees, even more clearly defined than the DK talents.
DKs are loking for a middle-ground of sorts, and combined with the way DKs will gain threat (and Warriors tanks in looks like) will mean that the talent spec will not as clearly define what you can and cannot do as in the past. DKs can be a pure dps class and a pure tanking class, supposedly, so it makes no sense to make us as flexibile in one spec as the Feral. That would put us ahead of them, Warriors, and Paladins.
I was at Blizzcon for the discussion of Blood Knights. Jeffrey Kaplan and Tom Chilton were two of the panelists, I forget who the other guy was. They said that they considered several hero classes for Wrath of the Lich King, and the felt that the Death Knight was the best one to introduce. They mentioned that one of their considerations was the availability of tanks for 5 man instances. They did not mention any concerns about tanks for raids. They also mentioned that they wanted the new class to be flexible between tanking and DPS.
My perception was that their overriding priority in creating the new class was to alleviate class mix problems. If my interpretation of their comments is correct, I expect that the role of the Death Knight will be much like that of a feral druid, who can easily switch between cat and bear form as the needs of the group/raid shift. With that philosophy in mind, it would make the most sense for runes to be something that can be inscribed when out of combat.
Or is totaly static. Imagine you are always 2/2/2 and they function like some shared CD for your abilities.
This would be a good combination with there new runic power system (fix costs intead of % effects).
Blizzard has already stated that you can "carve" runes into your weapon(s), it isnt static.
Any speculation on what frost effects bosses will be susceptible to? I'm starting to like the frost tree more, attach schedules seem more complicated and lots of utility abilities besides "make em really sick!"
Any speculation on what frost effects bosses will be susceptible to? I'm starting to like the frost tree more, attach schedules seem more complicated and lots of utility abilities besides "make em really sick!"
Bosses probably won't be susceptible to freezes/snares, however, Mages are getting Winter's Grasp, so that's the one source of Frozen status that I know of that bosses should be affected by.
Bosses probably won't be susceptible to freezes/snares, however, Mages are getting Winter's Grasp, so that's the one source of Frozen status that I know of that bosses should be affected by.
Winter's Grasp (Mage, Frost) and Hungering Cold (Death Knight, Frost) will both apply the 'Frozen' status to bosses for a certain duration.
I wonder what a DK's inate threat will be? Of course, the talents and abilities we've seen so far might not be complete and I'm sure they'll change a bit during the beta, but all I've seen is 3/3 Subversion giving -25% threat in blood/unholy presence and Frost presence gives +25% threat. Given these numbers I would think a DK's inate threat would be 1. Aside from that I don't see any abilities saying "lowers/clears threat" or "causes a high amount of threat".
That means in Frost presence they'll only have a 1.25 threat modifier while a bear has 1.3 and a WotLK warrior has 1.45. Will they hold threat purely through their damage *1.25?
That also means while DPSing they'll have a 0.75 threat modifier. Rogues/Cats have 0.71 and threat reducing moves while a WotLK fury warrior will have 0.648.
At this stage it looks like DKs will have fairly low threat while tanking compared to the other melee tanks while having high threat while DPSing compared to other melee DPS.
I wonder what a DK's inate threat will be? Of course, the talents and abilities we've seen so far might not be complete and I'm sure they'll change a bit during the beta, but all I've seen is 3/3 Subversion giving -25% threat in blood/unholy presence and Frost presence gives +25% threat. Given these numbers I would think a DK's inate threat would be 1. Aside from that I don't see any abilities saying "lowers/clears threat" or "causes a high amount of threat".
That means in Frost presence they'll only have a 1.25 threat modifier while a bear has 1.3 and a WotLK warrior has 1.45. Will they hold threat purely through their damage *1.25?
That also means while DPSing they'll have a 0.75 threat modifier. Rogues/Cats have 0.71 and threat reducing moves while a WotLK fury warrior will have 0.648.
At this stage it looks like DKs will have fairly low threat while tanking compared to the other melee tanks while having high threat while DPSing compared to other melee DPS.
It's really hard to tell, game is still in alpha, and assuming there's still leakers in it, there's been no patch in like a month or more. That probably means blizzard is going to release a huge patch(and probably beta) soon. DK had almost no feedback currently I guess from the fact they start at 55 and have to lvl all the way to 75(current cap) to provide decent insight. That means blizzard probably hasn't touched much the abilities by themselves, tweaking numbers and such, and are only throwing ideas around currently(see mage wotlk thread quotes for their alpha/beta philosophy).
In the current state, yeah they're be weird both as tank and dps, because of threat issues. Then again, they'd be very weak from a PvP point of view too, from what we know. They're melees, but only have a long cooldown snare/root dispellable ability and a pretty damn long reverse-charge effect. Meaning, they're in the enhance/ret category in terms of melee, which isn't a very good category because it limits compositions a lot. No MS effect, no teleports to get out of melee range if focused(intervene/intercept someone else, for rogues it's shadowstep on a healer farther away, or vanish/sprint), no anti snares or root(blessing of freedom for rets), so really they're on the enhance shaman level, which is quite scary currently.
I think the class is still vastly untuned. Abilities will probably stay as is in their general form, but you'll see heavy tweaking on numbers and possibly whole stuff scraped and reworked from the grounds. Can't really discuss numbers/efficiency before they start a more "polished" beta phase, with lvl 80s, all spells/talents until 80 for everyone, and start balancing from there. Can't compare how DK does against protadins for example currently, since paladins don't have talents or abilities pas 70. And no point in making DKs balanced on the 70 content.
Can't really discuss numbers/efficiency before they start a more "polished" beta phase, with lvl 80s, all spells/talents until 80 for everyone, and start balancing from there. Can't compare how DK does against protadins for example currently, since paladins don't have talents or abilities pas 70. And no point in making DKs balanced on the 70 content.
Actually, I would be very surprised if Death Knights weren't getting some test runs in level-70 raids before the level 80 content is done. Now, this wouldn't be anything big--basically, none of the long 25 mans--but definitely Kara & maybe ZA as well. By putting a DK in a raid group, you get to see how well they interact with other classes on a larger scale and how they contribute as a replacement for some other class. Doing this would allow you to see if there are any glaring holes in the DK's ability list, see how well the rune system holds up during 'real' use, and helps balance vs similar classes simply by giving everyone the same (basic) gear on a dev server and watching threat/damage/survivability through the run(s). This way, you have a solid guess at what's going to happen at 80 and can tweak the DK abilities--and their overall power curve--to make up for any weaknesses or re-balance any overpowered abilities before everyone hits the new cap, starts raiding, and realizes that bringing either 0 or 10 Death Knights make the raid the easiest.
I wonder what a DK's inate threat will be? Of course, the talents and abilities we've seen so far might not be complete and I'm sure they'll change a bit during the beta, but all I've seen is 3/3 Subversion giving -25% threat in blood/unholy presence and Frost presence gives +25% threat. Given these numbers I would think a DK's inate threat would be 1. Aside from that I don't see any abilities saying "lowers/clears threat" or "causes a high amount of threat".
That means in Frost presence they'll only have a 1.25 threat modifier while a bear has 1.3 and a WotLK warrior has 1.45. Will they hold threat purely through their damage *1.25?
That also means while DPSing they'll have a 0.75 threat modifier. Rogues/Cats have 0.71 and threat reducing moves while a WotLK fury warrior will have 0.648.
At this stage it looks like DKs will have fairly low threat while tanking compared to the other melee tanks while having high threat while DPSing compared to other melee DPS.
One other thing to consider is global aggro from their abilities. I would Imagine that Raise dead would have very high global aggro. Degeneration cancels heals over time on the target and may have more aggro than just the damage it does, and may have global aggro effects as well.
Then again, they'd be very weak from a PvP point of view too, from what we know. They're melees, but only have a long cooldown snare/root dispellable ability and a pretty damn long reverse-charge effect. Meaning, they're in the enhance/ret category in terms of melee, which isn't a very good category because it limits compositions a lot. No MS effect, no teleports to get out of melee range if focused(intervene/intercept someone else, for rogues it's shadowstep on a healer farther away, or vanish/sprint), no anti snares or root(blessing of freedom for rets), so really they're on the enhance shaman level, which is quite scary currently.
For the "tank" tree, there's an awful lot of stuff in frost that looks pretty tempting. You get to add a 30% snare to icy touch and pretty much completely remove the cooldown (30% isn't great, but better than nothing), but also... hungering cold -> howling blast looks pretty damn scary, especially with a gauranteed crit from killing machine or death chill..
Also the current heartstrike in the blood tree, while not a MS effect, is a pretty big decrease in max hp for the target, and for a long duration... that should make it easier to burst people down. Degeneration also looks good for countering hots on a target (possibly a druid hard counter ?)... so its not like they have no pvp utility. Its just spread out a bit.
I've updated Hex to v0.3.0. The new version adds a 'Raid Tanking' section which allows you to test raid tanking rotations and view statistics about your threat, mitigation and avoidance. There is also now an 'Import from Wowhead' feature on the Talents screen which enables you to create a talent build using the Wowhead tool, or get a copy of someone else's build, then import it directly into Hex.
Winter's Grasp (Mage, Frost) and Hungering Cold (Death Knight, Frost) will both apply the 'Frozen' status to bosses for a certain duration.
Thats what I was thinking
The possible synergy of a death knight giving his target vulnerability to frost, a frost mages debuffs, and elemental vulnerability seems like frost may be the most viable raid spec, even if you aren't taking it for tanking.
Frost strike turning your weapon damage to ice, along with all those debuffs and vulnerability brings the idea of some very brutal 2H crits being thrown around.
The possible synergy of a death knight giving his target vulnerability to frost, a frost mages debuffs, and elemental vulnerability seems like frost may be the most viable raid spec, even if you aren't taking it for tanking.
Frost strike turning your weapon damage to ice, along with all those debuffs and vulnerability brings the idea of some very brutal 2H crits being thrown around.
An overall 9% bonus to all magical sources against the target from Unholy is going to be more desired for raids than a toon who boosts frost dmg only. Shadow, Fire, Frost, Nature, etc...
15% personal dps, 4% str aura and 4% of damage done returned as health is SUPER weak compared to 9% damage for all caster DPS.
9% caster DPS on our brutallus kills is almost 1000 dps. Ebon plague is therefore 1000 dps if you can keep it up at all times, and there's nothing stopping you using blood presence while specced unholy.
Also, Presences only affect the deathknight, not the whole group to my knowledge, and 10% increase on 4% healing returns = 4.4%, not 14%.
Granted these are numbers based on a 70 boss, and it's alpha, blah blah blah, the sky is purple, but it should give you some idea how much of a difference there is.
Poor Blood-DKs, having only a medicore aura (+4%str) and a weak debuff (haertstrike is caped at 3k)
Hysteria is a non-trivial buff when you give it to 2500+ dps rogues (particularly when it gets stacked with bladefury (also a 2 min cooldown), 2 min trinkets, drums, bloodlust and a haste potion).
Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I really don't see how their personal dps won't be ridiculously high. You can set up a bloodknight build that does 125% physical damage + 5% more shadow damage per white hit from necrosis + 15% more damage from bloody vengeance if you have a high enough crit rate (crit once every 30 seconds to maintain it). That's a 145% damage modifier on your white swings. They can double their damage output every minute with a dancing rune weapon for a max of 20 seconds. The same build also gets a 16% bonus to strength from veteran of the third war, ravenous dead, shadow of death and their aura (before raid buffs). They have -1.5% to enemy dodge and parry.
If I'm looking at it right, their blood strikes will do a lot of damage. It adds up to about 84% of weapon damage + 436 per disease or 218% of weapon damage + 1134 per disease on a crit (multiply all that by 2 if you have a dancing rune weapon up, add 20% if you gave hysteria to yourself). Heartstrike might come close when the mob isn't fully debuffed, but bloodstrike is what you'd likely use later in the fight.
Oh yea, they can also add a small amount of healing to their party (particularly in add-heavy encounters like M'uru p1).
Oh yea, they can also add a small amount of healing to their party (particularly in add-heavy encounters like M'uru p1).
If you're referring to Blood Presence, that effect is self only and Mark of Blood that was changed to be enemy only. Group life leech of some sort would amount to a fairly decent utility combined with Judgement of Light, especially since smart/aoe healing seems to be receiving a double tap of nerf darts to the head in wotlk.
Interesting things there are the comments about Blood and tanking.
I'm not buying the whole "there are tanking abilities in all three trees and none are mandatory", though I know they will try.
Blood does look a bit soloish at the moment, so it's good to see the attention will be spent to making it a decent raid tree also. I'm also not entirely sure where the reference to frost's burst damage is comming from, unless it's a reference to howling blast.
Interesting things there are the comments about Blood and tanking.
I'm not buying the whole "there are tanking abilities in all three trees and none are mandatory", though I know they will try.
Blood does look a bit soloish at the moment, so it's good to see the attention will be spent to making it a decent raid tree also. I'm also not entirely sure where the reference to frost's burst damage is comming from, unless it's a reference to howling blast.
I believe it's the crit synergy stuff. Death chill which forces a crit on next frost spell, Killing machine which forces a frost spell crit after you melee crit, Guild of Gorefiend which increases crit bonus on frost spells. Those, combined with Unholy stance for reduced GCD, would lead to some pretty good unmitigated burst, along with decent melee attacks. If the info on dk.info is exact, you can actually match any of the other tree sustained dps with a full frost build, but a lot of it is magical and the spell attacks are quite bursty compared to disease ticking or melee attacks with lower cooldowns.
That's where it comes from it seems, and not having played a DK, I was actually eyeing those talents since frost seems very interesting for PvP with all the additional CC, to compensate for the total lack of mobility/cc/anti CC of the base DK. The grip thing is on a long cooldown, and they only have a medium cooldown root/snare probably dispellable effect, which make them easily kitable.
07/10/08, 2:11 PM
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