It does seem like the Frost tree is very much fun and has a shit-load of various CC, but as pointed out by another poster, it's unlikely the later talents work due to boss frost-immunity. Frost from where I'm standing looks solidly like the DK's AoE tanking tree if there ever was one.
I'm not sure about that. 1 minute cooldowns on their AoEs are pretty harsh.
Sure, one could supplement that with Death and Decay, but that'd only leave 3 frost runes.
Spell reflect is about as relevant to anti-magic shell as owning a cow is to eating a slice of cheese. 80% magic absorbption on AM shield is much much more powerful than "the next spell is reflected" once every 10sec, for 25 rage.
Thats 75% Anti-Magic Shell, untalented, or 100% if fully talented. that's self-buff iirc.
Anti-Magic Zone is entirely different spell, only available if specced unholy that deep. And it is only 75%, and cannot be talented further.
If you have a chain-casting boss, I'd be far more excited about passively parrying spells than a long-cooldown bubble like AM or SR (even though I think SR got taken down to 15 rage?). And yeah, if AM works against AoEs the DK has even further advantages.
Bone Armor does look nice, but at this moment the Blood tree seems way to valuable to pass up with all the +parry it provides. Blade Barrier looks to be a phenomenal talent assuming you can dump your runes fast enough, and I can't imagine a tank passing up on it unless there is some gimmick where a boss becomes unparryable.
Thats 75% Anti-Magic Shell, untalented, or 100% if fully talented. that's self-buff iirc.
Anti-Magic Zone is entirely different spell, only available if specced unholy that deep. And it is only 75%, and cannot be talented further.
They are in my understanding on a separate CDs
They will most likely be on the same cooldown in the same way that Dragon's Breath/Cone of Cold are on the same cooldown.
The problem I have with Blade Barrier is that atm it is to good. I highly doubt Blizzard is going to let us get away with what is in essence a permanent 30% parry.
Ofc if it doesnt have an internal cooldown it will be a no brain talent for every single tanking DK.
An internal cooldown on Blade Barrier would, in my mind, severely gimp the talent. It is my understanding that tanks need to rely on passive (or at least quasi-passive) talents and abilities in order reduce the randomness and volatility of an encounter and a talent that provides +30% parry for 8 sec. every 30 seconds or so is not going to do that. Especially if you don't have absolute direct control over its activation.
It would gimp the talent compared to it's current form, but that's probably because it's just not that well designed a talent. 30% permanent parry is far too strong for 3 talent points (just look at Deflection) so it's safe to assume it won't be permanent come release. If it has a cooldown you may find yourself keeping one Rune up at all times and dropping it as a mini-evasion, or during parts of a boss fight that have extreme damage (during a Stomp, for example).
I don't like that idea really, but 30% passive parry is far, far too much for 3 talent points.
A lot of DK tanking abilities seem a little volatile right now, it's the main issue I have personally, but it remains to be seen how it will work.
Also when it comes to spell damage tanking all of the DK damage reducing abilities are untyped, so it allows for bosses that have lots of spell damage from different schools.
It would gimp the talent compared to it's current form, but that's probably because it's just not that well designed a talent. 30% permanent parry is far too strong for 3 talent points (just look at Deflection) so it's safe to assume it won't be permanent come release. If it has a cooldown you may find yourself keeping one Rune up at all times and dropping it as a mini-evasion, or during parts of a boss fight that have extreme damage (during a Stomp, for example).
I don't like that idea really, but 30% passive parry is far, far too much for 3 talent points.
If they tone it done to 5/10/15% then I think the talent has a chance of lasting all the way until the live release. But we'll have to see, they may choose to scrap the entire ability and replace it with something that accomplishes the same thing, but in a different style.
Think because its Alpha, so these things keep changing. I heard that now there is a new obliterate that is similar to the old heartstrike in effect, but heart strike still exists. So, some more info about the rune costs, and cooldown of this new obliterate would be good. Because it apparently does 150% melee damage plus 300 which is really good.
Thought I'd post some questions/thoughts about some of the talents. If anyone knows answers please let me know.
Butchery: How will this work in regards to the 1 "runic power per 3 seconds". Does this mean you will lose runic power out of combat at 1 runic power less per 3 seconds and gain 1 runic power more per three seconds in combat? Or will you gain 1 runic power per three seconds out of combat also, effectively meaning you don't lose runic power out of combat?
Blood Rune Mastery: Does this apply to all hits, abilities only, or blood abilities only?
Are Blood Gorged and Bloody Vengeance applicable to melee hits and abilities or only one or the other?
Merciless Combat: Does this apply to Frost abilities or abilities that deal frost damage?
Is Frost Strike considered a spell or not? Will it crit for 300% with Chill of the Grave?
Wandering Plague: Does this cause threat?
What do the diseases of Blood-Caked Blade and Unholy Blight do? Are they unique from other disease and do they also have a DoT effect? Does Unholy Blight cause 120 damage per second, or does it just damage on first hitting a target and simply stack diseases afterwards?
Why would anyone bother getting the following talents:
Will of the Necropolis
Death Rune Mastery
Shadow of Death
The point is dual wielding with fast weapons, Unholy Presence and Icy Talons (30% faster!) to take advantage of blood-caked blade, lots of diseases and boosts to spell damage. It might be better to drop Unholy Blight and Wandering Plague for Imp. Blood Strike. Lots of good AoE fun with Unholy Blight, Corpse Explosion and Wandering Plague, though.
Can anyone confirm that Degeneration Stacks, and does plague strike stack too. Also, I assume that dancing runeblade applies diseases also, so if in fact both of those abilities stack then it might be good to use dancing runeblade at the start of the fight (if the threat ceiling is high enough to allow it) to get as many diseases up as possible before the first blood strike.
It's a guess, but seeing as Butchery has a very similar description to Anger Management it'll probably work in the same manner.
Frost Strike is considered a spell and crits for 150% untalented, 200 talented.
Shadow of Death is a PvP talent. It lasts 45 seconds and Ghouls have decent abilites (a stun, a shadowstep, a spell interupt).
Your build needs Dirge, and you'd do more damage in Blood Presence with 15% haste because Blood Presence adds 15% to all abilities, rather than just increasing white damage.
I read somewhere the Blood Caked Blade would stack up to 3 times, but can't find it anywhere now, so haste isn't that important unless you're Obliterating a lot.
Would probably be inclined to go something more like this for a DW Unholy/Frost build. One of the points in Imp. Corpse Explosion or the point from Lichborne may end up in Frozen Rune weapon for off hand use if there's a Frost mage about.
Corpse Explosion looks like fun, but it remains to be seen just how useful it will be.
Degeneration stacks three times.
Last edited by Baern : 06/05/08 at 12:42 PM.
Reason: degen
This is the dps rotation I came up with. It assumes that using abilities that require Runes generates Runic Power (10 currently) as it says here. It also assumes that Degeneration stacks, although it wouldn't change the rotation if it did due to the runic power generation mechanic. I also added a couple lines at the top to show butchery tics (assuming u specced into it) and your runic power.
I have one big issue with unholy's style of play right now. The disease part is ok. All the other talents and spells relying on ghouls and corpses are not. The problem is that even though unholy seems to have more pvp applications, this reliance on having a convenient corpse nearby is just too iffy.
In arena, just when you need to use some of your nifty unholy abilities, you can't cos nobody is dead yet, so no corpse. And in pve, there's no gaurantee there will be a convenient corpse nearby for you to utilise. Same for pvp. Say you are guarding a tower or a flag, no corpse nearby, then half your unholy abilities are unusable.
Either they need to give deathknights a way to generate corpses. Like for one unholy rune, 2 corpses will appear bearby. Or raise dead will just cause a ghoul to crawl its way out of the earth without having to have a corpse on hand. And when the ghoul dies, it will conveniently leave a corpse. Make the spells treat ghouls as corpses as well, so that once the ghoul is raised, it can be used rather than waiting for it to die.
So, for example. Say you want to use corpse explosion. And there just isn't any corpses nearby. So, you cast raise dead and a ghoul crawls its way out of the earth. Then you target it and case corpse explosion and it goes off immediately. This is still noticably combersome and places the unholy deathknight at a disadvantage compared to other aoes which can go off immediately rather than this "two state" process. But at least, the unholy DK can now use his corpse explosion ability as and when he wishes to.
Right now, I don't believe the corpse using abilities are so overpowered given the huge limitations of requiring a corpse on hand.
So, I am hoping Blizzard allows deathknights to generate corpses, or like use ghoul like I suggested, otherwise, all the nifty abilities right now like corpse explosion that uses corpses are just too iffy and restrictive, whether in pve or even in pvp.
Corpses in the Arena should not be a problem. There are multiple skeletons in the staging areas, as well as a few scattered around the arenas proper. They just need to tag these as actual corpses, and make sure they can't despawn (except maybe due to DK abilities), and you're set. Battlegrounds could just start with a few corpses from "previous battles" in certain locations, and then corpses pretty much happen from there. Maybe Blizzard will allow ghouls from the bones that are left after a player resurrects?
In grinding, 5-mans, etc, there should always be a trail of corpses behind you, so that's not much of a concern.
In raids, well, unless the boss has OCD (Kael'Thas, maybe?), it would not hurt, and could possibly help flavor by having some corpses lying around the fight area. How could the lair of a giant frostwyrm not have the bones of a few foolhardy adventurers who got there before you did? How could the laboratory of an evil necromancer not have a few of his "work supplies" lying around? So long as your guild isn't raiding the CEO of the Lysol company, corpses, bones, etc. would be easy to put in.
Plague Strike doesn't stack.
The build is pretty much identicle to the one I came up with, and almost everyone else from a dps perspective. My build drops all the utility stuff in early Blood for parry talents, but that's just because early blood is crap for dps.
Might turn out to be more dps to drop 3 in Shadow of Death and one from elsewhere and get Dirge (1 Degen and PS per rotation is 90 RP per 30 seconds, 5/5 Shadow of Death is effectively one free DC every 25 seconds, 2/5 would be every 60-70ish seconds, although with 2/5 you run a good chance of going several minutes without a proc). The main selling point for Dirge is that it can be used on any RP dump, rather than just DC.
It could be a Blood/Frost build does more damage. Changes things though, seeing as you'd need a Frost rune. Either works though.
Unless I am reading it wrong, which is more than possible, your rotation doesn't work as there is a 5 second cooldown on Blood Strike.
Yeah, but which is easier, just allowing the deathknight to be able to self generate corpses, or having to have the developers now and in future always have to remember to put in non-disappearing corpses in every single convenient part of instances, arenas and even BGs.
BGs are pretty big. And its really not possible to ensure every strategic area has some corpse around because a fight may erupt anywhere. Take inside a tower at the flag area. Will they have to now put a corpse inside each and every tower?
If an ability just can't be relied on, after a while, it will automatically get used much less in favour of abilities that are 100% reliable.
Corpse Explosion seems like a good fun in theory, a bit crap in practice type of talent. It should probably be reworked.
I'm assuming the balance is worked around you needing a corpse, so perhaps if you instead summoned a Ghoul at your feet, who would then run to a targetted location and explode.
For PvP you now allow people to run away/avoid the blast to counter balance no longer needing a corpse. Even give the ghoul a limited number of hit points to allow the possibilty of it being killed (and exploding) before it reaches the target.
I don't think Ghouls should require a corpse either, unless you want to "resurect" a player. The places we are fighting have usually been the staging grounds for large battles, it's not unreasonable that there'd be some dead people under your feet at any time.
Frost Strike is considered a spell and crits for 150% untalented, 200 talented.
So does it use +hit, +spell hit, +crit, +spell crit, and/or +spell damage talents?
Rather confusing at this point as to whether or not it will benifit from Dark Conviction (+crit), Black Ice (+frost spell damage), Nerves of Cold Steel (+1H hit), Blood of Icewater (+spell crit), Deathchill (+100% frost spell crit), Virulence (+spell hit), and Impurity (+20% from spell damage).
None of the Death Knight abilities use +spell damage as a stat; instead, they all take advantage of attack power. For more information see Wotlk Wiki :: Death Knight.
It is unclear yet as what stats are actually used when calculating DK hits/crits. Currently I belive that some of them use spellhit, some melee hit and the same with spellcrit vs. crit. There are rumours that Blizz plans to consolodate the hit, crit and haste stats so as to remove many issues with melee/spellcaster hybrids (Shammy, DK and Palladins).
06/04/08, 10:26 AM
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