Second, Degeneration on Lifebloom does not make the LB bloom. What I mean is usually if you purge a bloom, it'll heal the target anyway by forcing the bloom. Degenerating it will simply remove it, and apply the dot. Also Degenerate dot after eating a hot is about 8times stronger than base. You might think that's a lot, but base degenration ticks for 15 on my build, so well that's only 120 a tick. Nothing to get crazy about.
More good replies, you're keeping this thread useful, many thanks.
I believe I read in places that Degen actually does damaged based on the strength and/or number of HoTs a target has, can you confirm this? Does Degen do more damage if the HoT is more powerful, and does it do more damage, or apply multipule debuffs, if the target has a number of HoTs on them?
(Also, I believe the level cap in Beta is 77 atm, so we probably won't see much about Army of the Dead for a while yet).
One of the greatest issues for DK's atm for pve content appears to be their threat issues, which are being largely ignored due to the lack of grouping for pre-70+ content. Based upon the fact that Frost Presence adds 45% threat, bringing it in line with Defesive Stance for warriors if assuming a base of 100%, you will be required to purchase Subversion 3/3 in every pve dps build available. Considering that Nerves of Cold Steel (considered a basis of any DW build) is a 13 point talent investment, this automatically forces any 51 Unholy DW dps build into a very tiny and narrow niche.
Ignoring that particular spec, you are still looking at a forced investment of 8 points into Blood to have a base 0.75% base threat. Which quite frankly, with not 1 agro dump and being forced to be in melee range (lower % to steal agro from a tank required) is not acceptable. Warriors for example start at 0.8% and can spec that down. Also, keep in mind that Salvation and Tranquil Air no longer exist. Whatever your threat reduction is, is all you've got. The same applies to other specs/classes, such as Enhancement Shaman, where you pick up your threat reduction easily in the tree you spec into. DK's have options to be a raid dps spec through more than one talent tree, yet are forced to pick up threat reduction from only Blood. This is unacceptable really.
The counter point would be to compare tank threat generation, but this still does not address the inherent conflicts due to the entire basis of DK's being a Heroic class with a new style of talent tree. A Fury warrior is going to pick up the threat reduction talents easy. They are in the Fury tree, their only tree dedicated to pve dps. While for a DK, with arguably 2 trees dedicated to pve DPS at least, these talents may quite well be either out of reach or force/require you to spec in a manner that is not helpful, but required due to threat issues.
DK's should be a base 0.8% threat class like a warrior, with Frost Presence simply changing their threat generation to 145%. Doing so would make the current threat talents a non-issue with placement. The other option would be to pick other talents in Frost/Unholy that would reduce threat generation as well. Simply making these talents unstackable would fix any balance issues.
Side questions applied to corpses:
1) Once you use Corpse Explosion on a corpse, can you use Corpse Explosion again on the same corpse? Can you use Raise Dead on that same corpse that has already had Corpse Explosion used on it? Make sure there are no new corpses nearby.
2) The same as number 1, but if Raid Dead was first used. Can CE/RD be used on the same corpse after RD was originally used upon it?
3) Confirm please that no matter where you are (Arenas/Instances/World) that you can use RD without a corpse present if you have the reagents in bag.
4) If you use Death Pact upon a Ghoul, does the Ghoul create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
5) If a Ghoul dies due to duration/time, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
6) If a Ghoul dies to damage other than DP, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
7) If you are ressed or Bressed while uder the effects of Shadow of Death, is there no effect? IE, will BRez be wasted, making it imperative for druids to know if they can or cannot do it? Also, must a rezzer wait until the effect wears off to rezz you?
8) If your Shadow of Death wears off, does the Ghoul that you became count as corpse? Can you CE/RD it if you get rezzed? Or can another DK use it? Also, can you be rezzed at all by any method after the effect?
9) Do Bloodworms count as corpses once dead? Does the Gargoyle leave behind a body once done, or fly away? Ie do these fuel CE/RD at all?
Ignoring that particular spec, you are still looking at a forced investment of 8 points into Blood to have a base 0.75% base threat. Which quite frankly, with not 1 agro dump and being forced to be in melee range (lower % to steal agro from a tank required) is not acceptable. Warriors for example start at 0.8% and can spec that down. Also, keep in mind that Salvation and Tranquil Air no longer exist. Whatever your threat reduction is, is all you've got. The same applies to other specs/classes, such as Enhancement Shaman, where you pick up your threat reduction easily in the tree you spec into. DK's have options to be a raid dps spec through more than one talent tree, yet are forced to pick up threat reduction from only Blood. This is unacceptable really.
Another example of why having three separate trees be viable for Tanking, DPS and PvP is just a bad idea.
One of the greatest issues for DK's atm for pve content appears to be their threat issues, which are being largely ignored due to the lack of grouping for pre-70+ content. Based upon the fact that Frost Presence adds 45% threat, bringing it in line with Defesive Stance for warriors if assuming a base of 100%, you will be required to purchase Subversion 3/3 in every pve dps build available.
Ignoring that particular spec, you are still looking at a forced investment of 8 points into Blood to have a base 0.75% base threat. Which quite frankly, with not 1 agro dump and being forced to be in melee range (lower % to steal agro from a tank required) is not acceptable. Warriors for example start at 0.8% and can spec that down.
I said pretty much the same thing earlier in this thread, to which the response was "DKs are new, it's a beta, stuff will likely change". And it probably will. For example, maybe blood/unholy presense will have intate threat reduction like battle/zerk stance. Maybe they already do, I've not seen anyone test a DK's threat.
One of the greatest issues for DK's atm for pve content appears to be their threat issues, which are being largely ignored due to the lack of grouping for pre-70+ content. Based upon the fact that Frost Presence adds 45% threat, bringing it in line with Defesive Stance for warriors if assuming a base of 100%, you will be required to purchase Subversion 3/3 in every pve dps build available. Considering that Nerves of Cold Steel (considered a basis of any DW build) is a 13 point talent investment, this automatically forces any 51 Unholy DW dps build into a very tiny and narrow niche.
I was considering this the other day and I agree, I think it is a leftover from when they were considering the trees as DPS/Tank/PvP. I expect it will be fixed in the future; as you said, there's no raid testing going on yet, once threat issues crop up they will be addressed.
I think the boosts to Tank DPS are things that should be remembered, along with things like the Paladin's 'Hand' spell, when looking at this. Blizzard looks to have changed the threat issues accross the board pretty heavily, so they are probably waiting to see how things play out under the new system and not just guess at fixing it now; no point doing that when their will be a push to fix threat for all classes in the future.
The best place for other -threat talents would be in the Frost tree at the moment, given that it has the least synergy with Blood. But as said recently they are looking to make changes to the Frost tree and DWing, so that may change.
Contributing some suggestions on how the Frost tree could be changed:
Give deep frost a PvE CC. Now that many other classes are getting CC for WotLK I don't see why one DK spec shouldn't also get it. Of course I suppose that Hungering Cold is a CC of sorts, but given its mechanics it seems best used for CC in PvP or grinding, not pre-pull conventional cc.
One way of doing this might be to combine Chillbains, Aneurysm and Endless Winter. Aneurysm is a bit of 'meh' as anything other than a PvP talent given the new Runic Power Mastrey, so if you split Endless Winter it becomes more useful. Perhaps to:
Chillbains: Adds a chill effect to you Icy Touch and Mind Freeze, reducing movement speed by 10/20/30% for 2/4/6 seconds, and increases the freezing effect of your Chains of Ice by an additional 2/4/6 seconds.
Aneurysm: Mind Freeze consumes 50/100% less runic power, in addition Chains of Ice now lasts 14/20 seconds against non player humaniods, beasts, and dragonkin.
I figure this would not change the balance of the spell overly, as it would still be subject to diminishing retuns in PvP and an extra 3 seconds there is not huge, while it would give Frost DKs some somewhat more controlable CC in PvE, though one that requires a little more micromanagment than Sheep/Sap and the like; more along the lines of the Hunter Frost trap.
5) If a Ghoul dies due to duration/time, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
6) If a Ghoul dies to damage other than DP, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
7) If you are ressed or Bressed while uder the effects of Shadow of Death, is there no effect? IE, will BRez be wasted, making it imperative for druids to know if they can or cannot do it? Also, must a rezzer wait until the effect wears off to rezz you?
9) Do Bloodworms count as corpses once dead? Does the Gargoyle leave behind a body once done, or fly away? Ie do these fuel CE/RD at all?
Well, I can only answer these off the top of my head, I can check out the others later.
5) Yes, if you're quick. Just like pet corpses though they despawn rather quick.
6) Same as the above.
9) Gargoyles fly away and Bloodworms dispawn near-instantaneously once their duration is up.
Last edited by Eishara : 07/23/08 at 10:56 PM.
Reason: I wasn't too sure about 7, actually.
1) Once you use Corpse Explosion on a corpse, can you use Corpse Explosion again on the same corpse? Can you use Raise Dead on that same corpse that has already had Corpse Explosion used on it? Make sure there are no new corpses nearby.
2) The same as number 1, but if Raid Dead was first used. Can CE/RD be used on the same corpse after RD was originally used upon it?
3) Confirm please that no matter where you are (Arenas/Instances/World) that you can use RD without a corpse present if you have the reagents in bag.
4) If you use Death Pact upon a Ghoul, does the Ghoul create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
5) If a Ghoul dies due to duration/time, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
6) If a Ghoul dies to damage other than DP, does it create a corpse that is usable by RD/CE?
7) If you are ressed or Bressed while uder the effects of Shadow of Death, is there no effect? IE, will BRez be wasted, making it imperative for druids to know if they can or cannot do it? Also, must a rezzer wait until the effect wears off to rezz you?
8) If your Shadow of Death wears off, does the Ghoul that you became count as corpse? Can you CE/RD it if you get rezzed? Or can another DK use it? Also, can you be rezzed at all by any method after the effect?
9) Do Bloodworms count as corpses once dead? Does the Gargoyle leave behind a body once done, or fly away? Ie do these fuel CE/RD at all?
1) No, it becomes bones/meat and it can't be reused.
2) The corpse disapear when it's resurected as a ghoul, so no again
3) I can't confirm arenas for obvious reasons. Instances I haven't checked but see no reason why it wouldn't work. It works everywhere in the world, at least in town and out of town, so yeah.
4) 5) and 6) Yes it kills the ghoul which leaves a corpse, which can be reused by corpse explosion. The corpse being undead, it can't be reused for ghoul summons though.
7) The rezzer must wait, it's pretty much like the spirit of redemption from priests, only that it lasts longer and you can move around.
8) You revert back to human form and die. So yeah I guess it could be used.
9) I don't think bloodworms are usable, they instantly dpeop once they die. Gargoyle goes back flying so that's a definitive no.
Other than that, Degen doesn't do more damage based on the number of hots. It actually only eat one hot per use. It seems it might be power related, but I'd need to run more complicated tests since healers and moonkins somewhat have the same spellpower now. However it seems the degen I got on a resto druid were higher than on a moonkin(maybe due to talents increasing the heal strength). Might have been external factors, I'll test it again if a druid is willing to spend time getting naked and stuff, but since I'm still leveling I test stuff quickly when I have an idea, after that I just go back to leveling.
And the threat issue I totally agree with, DKs need some kind of active threat dump as a base skill if they're ever going to be considered a dps class. Or they need to get their priorities right with the trees so one tree has a threat reducing talent at the bottom and is the best dps tree(I guess blood). It'd give the same situation as warriors, were arms war have to skip the threat stuff(or part of it at least) for debuffs, and fury warrior get the most threat talents because they only bring dps. However since blood also has utility, I don't see them doing that, so yeah, a base skill. Make it linked to ghoul or something. Like Shifting Aura, gives 30-50% of your total threat to your ghoul. Slap a cooldown on it, and heavy rune usage to add a bit of tactical planning to it.
Just posting this to give general idea of what a typical combat log looks like for a death knight at 70. This is 61 point in blood.
This was done mostly dual wielding, but has some 2handed as I was keeping both skill up.
My usual rotation is Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Degenaration, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Death Strike...Death Coil whenever I can. This is not all the time, Death Rune Mastery, and Blood Rune Mastery will some effect on this as what runes are available at any point can vary a lot.
Also, I don't generally go out of my way to AOE but don't avoid it either. I use DnD whenever I am fight more then 1.
This is interesting stuff, if imprecise. We had speculated earlier in the thread that a DKs white damage would probably only be as high as 30% of their damage, so the numbers you have given make it a fair bit stronger than that. However I expect the fact that you are DWing and have 61 points in blood has probably pushed it a fair bit higher than many other players might find. It would be interesting to see the breakdowns for others with different specs at the same level.
How are you parsing this information? Perhaps some general method would be useful to share if other DKs in the beta want to follow it to put up comparison information.
An interesting side note for PvP/Arenas then, it seems like you have a guaranteed corpse for burst damage then when you need it with Death Pact/Raise Dead. Bring a Ghoul out at the start, and when it's time to burts down a target you can DP for a heal, which is always a bonus in Arena, and CE it.
Damage meters work? Since I had quit WoW before this beta, I don't have most of my addons anymore, and since it's beta I assumed most stuff were broken so haven't redownloaded anything but beql for bigger quest log. And that Guitar Hero rune addon stuff. It's the old damage meters, the one that's on Curse and hasn't been updated in 2months? I'd like to do some on-the-fly parsing so could be useful.
As for your results, can see there's a lot of DWing in there for sure. For example Scent of Blood heals for crap when dualwielding, while it's very strong with 2h. DW will deplete the charge with low autoattacks while 2h you'll land some special attacks on it, and obliterating for 2600 with scent on sure works good for hps ^^. You have quite a lot of white damage though, with 61blood that means you don't even have DW spec in frost either, or necrosis. What's your hit% at?
As for the ghoul arena stuff, I have to double check, but I think when you explode your ghoul, it leaves a corpse too. Would be better than death pacting it if you don't need the healing, making it explode does quite a bunch of AE damage.
I've been leveling as DW Blood from 62 (currently 71, total time played 2 days 15 hrs to 70 from 55).
I managed to get two green 43 dps swords one from hellfire the other from zangarmarsh which lasted me up until blades edge. At 70 got an 84 dps sword/axe from the Borean Tundra quests. I leveled quickly so my gear isn't great:
1120 AP
18.4% crit
49 hit rating
200 ArP
Fallen Crusader Runechant on both weapons (bugged, only giving 30 STR instead of 30% - same procrate as mongoose)
Unholy Presence 15% haste
Icy Talons 15% haste (Additive = 30%)
1 sec GCD
Just wanted to show how much fun DW-Blood is and how good that blood rune mastery talent is (effectively 4 blood runes).
The icon looks like Blessing of Righteousness - Spell - World of Warcraft incase you cant read the text. Watch the uptime on this buff.
The rotation was ICY, PS, DG, BS, DC till empty and throw in any spare BS from blood rune mastery.
DW Setup is slow MH (2.9) fast OH (1.6)
My reasoning is that no attacks use both weapons at the moment only the main hand is considered for strikes and Blood rune mastery is a flat 10% chance for both weapons.
The scene where there are loads of skellies being summoned and DnD granting me infinite RP from kills is from the butchery talent.
The mob I was hitting has high shadow resistance which explains the low damage.
My last version of this build had scent of blood but as talent points are tight till I hit 80 I decided to go for veteran of the 3rd war instead.
Does a Blood Rune Mastery procs from a special-melee abilities such as degeneration, plague strike, blood strike etc.? Or it procs only from normal melee attacks?
How does BRM work exactly?
Is it (actual Rune CD/2) or (actual Rune CD -5sec.)
After BRM fades is the CD set back to normal (*2) or(+5sec), or did it stay the short duration till the runes are refreshed?
Blood Rune Mastery (and probably frost/unholy as well) just seem poorly implemented. The way BRM works is when it procs, you get a buff that reduces the cd of your blood runes to 5s when they're used. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to have a blood rune active at that point in time to use, then the proc is essentially wasted.
Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but I seem to be in that situation quite a bit, making the talent which while seemingly good, feels like a bit of a waste. More often than not I'll get a BRM proc right after my plaguestrike->bloodstrike in my rotation, leaving me with 4 seconds remaining of BRM active, but my first blood rune still needing 7-8 seconds before it becomes active again.
Those three talents would probably be much more effective and useful if when they procced, they took 5s off the remaining cd of that rune.
Actually the runeforging "Rune of the fallen crusader" seems to be wrong in all tooltips. The tooltip for the actual runeforgeskill says 30%, the buff icon says 30. But at the moment I get 50 (im lvl 73). 469str base and 519str when it procss. It might also be that it scales with level. I will have to check when I get to 74.
Im full blood, using twohanded axe, I havent really used any addons yet but I heard that recount works so I guess I try and parse some info if people want and need it.
Blood Rune Mastery (and probably frost/unholy as well) just seem poorly implemented. The way BRM works is when it procs, you get a buff that reduces the cd of your blood runes to 5s when they're used. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to have a blood rune active at that point in time to use, then the proc is essentially wasted.
Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but I seem to be in that situation quite a bit, making the talent which while seemingly good, feels like a bit of a waste. More often than not I'll get a BRM proc right after my plaguestrike->bloodstrike in my rotation, leaving me with 4 seconds remaining of BRM active, but my first blood rune still needing 7-8 seconds before it becomes active again.
Those three talents would probably be much more effective and useful if when they procced, they took 5s off the remaining cd of that rune.
That's not how they work. When you proc a mastery, you gain a "haste" on the speed at which the runes cooldown. They cooldown twice as fast, for the duration. It works fine even if you have runes already on cooldown and stuff.
However what's not good is how blood is so much better than the other 2 in terms of proc chance, and how unholy is mostly worthless because of the lack of a good unholy rune damage dump(60% with no modifiers vs bloodstrike 60%+x per disease and frost with froststrike).
Regarding Haste vs Str/AP - how is Haste looking at the moment?
For Warriors, Haste wasn't as beneficial as stacking ArP/Crit/Str and too much could ruin a 2H Slam rotation.
Would Haste be a good stat to use as a 2H Deathknight? Or would it mess with rotations a bit?
1. Can other players see what Runes you have active/inactive, especially enemy players?
2. I've seen 2 conflicting answers on the "Can you Death Coil heal yourself while under the effect of Lichborne". Which one is correct?
3. Is Mark of Blood dispelable? Wowhead says "school: physical", but "dispel type: magic"
4. The way Bone Armor is worded, it seems like it uses up a bone not only when you are attacked, but also when you attack. Is this how it actually works?
5. How much Runic Power do you get per damage point absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell?
6. Does Unbreakable Armor proc off of Death Runes used for abilities that use Frost Runes? Does Unbreakable Armor proc off of Death Runes used for abilities that don't use Frost Runes?
7. Death Pact:
a. Can it crit?
b. Is it affected by your AP at all?
c. Does it heal for more if you have Runic Power Mastery?
8. Has anyone tried dueling a mage with a macro that casts Anti-Magic shell (with 5/5 Magic Suppression), then bandages? I image that you could get off atleast 3 ticks of a Dense Frostweave Bandage and all 4 if the mage doesn't time their attack perfectly.
07/23/08, 8:53 PM
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