Telona with the longer diseases from Virulence, I (at least now) have time to use the 2 Blood runes, then the 2 Death Runes and then the 2 Blood runes again (refreshed from the first 2 I used), before OB to get rid of diseases (which at tha point should be going off in a few seconds anyway), then do IT-PS and then start again same rotation.
It can at times get a little tight, with diseases sometimes going off before the 2nd OB, if I get a lot of procs from Sudden Doom, but with the free DC from SD procs in new patch this rotation should have a few (1-3 I think) spare GCD's
Quite changes here... DW on paper looks buried until someone finds creative build again. Tad hard to spec for g'old 17blood/54unholy since outbreak is kinda mandatory and cant pass point or 2 from virulence anymore. Desecration is still crap even plaguestrike being buffed due diseases lasting even longer. If SS glyph stays as it is you will mainly use BS and SS only as deep unholy not to mention that grabbing those 5points from somewhere will be quite tough.
Improved unholy presence looks interesting. Might even make unholy presence better than blood presence, too early to tell. However extra haste from unholy presence + BCB 3sec CD + haste from raid buffs and gear is not well though. Looks like no one will take BCB anymore unless you have 3.8sec speed 2 hander. This gives 3 more talent points for desecration or dark conviction however. Some might think that this talent can be skipped but fastest boot runspeed enchant is still 8% (?) and will have low dps stats. Compared to 15% run speed in all presences + ice walker or 32ap enchant.
All strikes seem to have now % based extra damage modifier from diseases so looks that you will be more or less using least 1 most likely 2 diseases in all rotations/specs. Frost might still manage with 1 only but I doubt that other specs will.
Some are looking forward 51blood 20unholy with perma ghoul but have to remember that ghoul still won't have aoe protection and will have quite high CD if it dies, in my eyes it will be pretty crap against lots of bosses barring Patchwerk (dunno what kind of Ulduar bosses and encounters are).
I managed to get on the PTR, couple notes about things I've noticed thus far.
-MMO-Champion's talent calculator is accurately portraying what is currently in game, overall
-Ghoul Frenzy is *not* channelled, but it does cost 1U
-Scourge Strike is indeed being affected by Outbreak and it's making it do pretty ludicrous amounts of damage (8.5-9.5k self buffed with only Greatness procced), there's no way its intended to be this strong again.
-Blood Boil has a 20 yard AoE and it does about 500 damage with 3/3 Outbreak and no diseases, about 1000 damage with 3/3 Outbreak, Ebon Plague, Blood Plague, and Rage of Rivendare. Currently, the Glyph of Blood Boil snares all targets within 20 yards, regardless of whether or not they are diseased.
-A couple Glyphs got changed. Glyph of Strangulate is now a 60 second cooldown reduction. Glyph of Icebound Fortitude now reads: "Your Icebound Fortitude now always grants at least 30% damage reduction, regardless of your defense skill."
-All Strikes now scale off of diseases with percentages of total damage dealt. With 2 diseases, most Strikes do about as much damage as in live, but it feels like Strikes are now a bit better for Unholy with 3 diseases.
-Deadly Gladiator's Dreadplate Helm was apparently overbudget. The resilience on it was reduced from 66 to 50. The other stats remain the same.
-Presences are now visible as buffs.
All spec's should be broken except blood tanking perhaps. With the changes (especially the reshuffling of the frost tree) we will all be scrambling to fix our specs. With this latest announcement, several spec's just bit the dust. The worst part is anything with alot of frost is broken but as of now we don't know exactly how to fix it. At least until Blizzard puts out a tenetive yet firm talent tree. I truely hope this means Blizzard is going to refund our talent points.
My concern mainly is for HB. Yes, I feel that for 21 points HB is a bit OP. I don't mind the shift from a 21 point talent to a 51 point talent. Reason being is that HB defines the frost tree. For the most part, it was why people got into the tree in the first place. Now as a 51 pointer it ensures that only dedicated frosties will have access to it, instead of every blood, unholy, dw DK out there. I actually welcome this part of the change.
The part I'm concerned with is the nerf. Lets get this straight. Blizzards moving a slightly OP 21 point talent to a 51 pointer AND nerfing the damage by 30%? Are you kidding? What is slightly OP for 21 points is NOT OP for 51 points. Feels like Blizzard just wants to continue their time honored tradition of making the end talent in trees suck. Its been their historic way of things.
The only way I see Blizzard pulling this nerf out of the fire to make it somewhat acceptable is by removing the CD on HB. Hopefully they do this. At 51 points it should do something good, and an extra aoe attack without a cooldown (granted it does less damage) is a good thing. This talent has always kinda of struck me as intended for tanks, as its an aoe threat generator that they never intended to do as much or more damage in some cases then OB. They needed someway to fix this, and moving it deeper into the tree insures it will stay in the hands of the tanks (and Heavy Frost DPS) and not every DPS DK. If they decide to remove the CD, it will help Frost tanks keep that AOE threat they just lost by the damage nerf. Because 2 HBs in a row will give more threat to the tank then 1 HB that does 30% more damage with a cooldown.
I'm interested in the change in UA, but I have concerns. Mainly, how does this absorb effect work? And how long? I fear this may be a sneaky nerf in disguise until we know the particulars on A) how this new version works, and B) How much does it absorb and how long? Is it like priest shield that absorbs one hit then gone? If so, 60 second CD makes this suck pretty hard. Or does it last a specified time and absorbs only partial damage from the hit (like an increased Essence of Gossimir effect). That would be okay provided it still lasts 20 seconds. (EDIT: nvm, I scrolled up and read the edited post that listed its effect. The loss of the avoidance is a bit of a concern but the effect looks pretty good.)
I not concerned about the loss of DW specs. Personally I never liked them anyway, but I'm sure with all the very smart people we have on these forums, we will have viable DW specs again once we get set talent trees.
I like that diseases have moved up to 15 secs. I've thought that 18 seconds was a bit long, but 12 was a bit too short. I don't think this will make Epidemic a broken talent but I do think it will be skipped a bit more.
This reshuffling of the frost tree completely breaks my Frost VotTW build..... and that makes me sad inside. It will be upsetting to see it go but looking forward to coming up with something new. Hopefully we can get the particulars on these talents soon so I can start thinking about how this changes DK tanking.
As far as i know UA blocks damage = to 6% of your armor while glyphed. So about 1800 damage at 30k armor. It lasts 20 seconds. so every hit that hits you with in that 20 seconds will be reduced by 1800 damage. (physical only)
All spec's should be broken except blood tanking perhaps. With the changes (especially the reshuffling of the frost tree) we will all be scrambling to fix our specs. With this latest announcement, several spec's just bit the dust. The worst part is anything with alot of frost is broken but as of now we don't know exactly how to fix it. At least until Blizzard puts out a tenetive yet firm talent tree. I truely hope this means Blizzard is going to refund our talent points.
.......
Why are you so pessimistic? DW got killed but that doesn't automatically kill every spec. Deep Blood/Frost/Unholy look fine to me still.
I've been using Imta's 2-hander 20/51/0 Frost build, and it doesn't look like it's going to change out of that 20/51. In fact, aside from HB being slapped down a hair, it doesn't seem to have changed at all.
It's somewhat (alright, VERY) disturbing that HB is getting moved to 51 (sensible) and having it's FF bonus damage knocked down 50%, but I'm not exactly clear on the math after talent bonuses. I've read that in the end, it's a 30% damage reduction.
On the plus side, we DO get a 15% boost on Frost Strike out of BotN, and I've been running just about even on damage output from the two abilities, so maybe a little tweaking on PTR will keep us where we're at.
Also, the official notes show Razorice (Razorfrost? heh) being worked over, too. I'm aware that Frost damage isn't particularly common in raiding, but this seems unnecessary. Is the base 2% Frost damage still the same and the vulnerability is just boosted?
I enjoy the Death Rune Mastery in Blood simply for fixing a bad rotation with some Death Runes, and there are a LOT of hard numbers being lost by switching to BCB (AP and Crit out the wazoo), so I'm sure it won't compare much, but I thought it might be interesting to see how BCB fares with a Deep Frost 2H.
Last edited by Worldmaker09 : 02/24/09 at 9:27 AM.
In my opinion, the frost dps tree is broken and dual wield dps is broken. I guess that just means I'll be putting away my onehanders and taking out Demise . However, blood and unholy both seem to have been buffed, and the fact that you can have a perma-ghoul with 51 points in blood makes the 51/0/20 http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...=&version=9614 blood spec even better than before. Pre 3.1 51/0/20 is mainly a diseaseless spec. However, with a buff to plague strike, it might be a good idea to fit an icy touch and plague strike in you rotation. I think a good rotation would be:
HS-HS-OB-PS-IT
HS-HS-HS-HS-OB
Then just rinse and repeat with some death coils mixed in whenever your runes are on cooldown and you have runic power. Also, the ghoul will add ALOT more dps, making this spec even better. This rotation would work well because even though there are no diseases for the first two heart strikes and obliterate, there will be diseases ticking for the second half of the rotation, adding to the damage done by the heart strikes and obliterate. Any feedback on this spec would be great.
DW looks dead, but I was wondering if due to changes in Oblit and HS ( less upfront damage more bonus disease damage ) and with the 15% crit damage loss from Might of Morgaine if the Disease-less 51/0/20 spec will see a significant dps drop to the point where It may not be worth while. And if so will a standard 51/13/7 or something then be better? At first glance it looks that way.
So did i get that right, Blood (deep blood) recieved so many nerfs while Unholy was buffed into oblivion?
- Might of Mograine down to 30%
- Bloody Strikes down to 45%
- Sudden Doom down to 15% AND no longer 100% crit (but GCD free)
- The changes to the strikes sound like they scale a lot worse now (no math yet) because of a much lower weapondmg part
- -5 Expertise but +10% Armorpiercing (i don't know whether this is good or bad, i don't like it because now i have to regem in order to get 5 expertise losing strength/crit)
- No more Shadow of Death -> 2% less strength
And at the same time the ability of a blood tank DK to grab some adds (snap aggro) is even worse because you once again have to do a IT > Pest > BB first instead of just spaming Pest twice?
I don't know what you think about it, but i really hate what is comming (from a deep blood point of view).
Frost doesn't change that much from a DPS point of view (as long as you use a 2h weapon).
But unholy.... Well, they said they want more people to NOT spec unholy, but currently I see no reason to NOT spec unholy, because it simply is superior to all other trees in terms of DPS and maybe even Tanking or did i miss something?
Last edited by Tharvos : 02/24/09 at 10:15 AM.
My english isn't perfect, but i hope you can understand it.
In regard to blood specs, Runic Power Mastery is sitting there in the first tier of the frost tree as well. Obviously not that worthwhile overall but two points in it would get you 6 more seconds on DRW. I can't really see a way to easily get 2 points into it though, you can drop a point from Morbidity and get 1 pretty easily, but I doubt 3 more seconds on DRW is worth giving up 5% Death Coil damage.
It would be small buff to the older 51/13/7 spec, but on first glance I doubt that spec is going to be able to keep up with 51/20 since that means perma-ghoul now.
Glyphs
- IBF, your icebound fortitude now always grants at least 30% damage reduction regardless of defense skill.
- Strangulate, cooldown reduced by 60s.
- PS, your Plague Strike does 60% additional damage (that + outbreak seems a bit unreal, but who knows)
The new improved death strike talent adds +30% to death strike, the glyph is still 2%/5RP (+40% at full RP), and the Runic Mastery talent is now only 2 ranks at frost Tier 1 which equates to +6% damage on death strike at full RP.
I also dislike the change (swap places) of Morbidity and Virulence.
Now as a 51 Blood dk i can NOT get Corpse explosion, without sacreficing 1 point in either BCB, Necrosis, Morbidity or Master of Ghouls.
In addition to that Epidemic has the same issue (but i guess with 15 sec baseline diseases you no longer need it).
All in all it some how just doesn't "feel" right the way the subtree is now.
My english isn't perfect, but i hope you can understand it.
2h Frost looks pretty strong to me now. Everybody had the kneejerk reaction to 20% Black Ice, of course, but that 10% is simply transferred to Glacier Rot with the tiny omission of FF and Razorice ticks (if the latter ever even worked with Black Ice). The HB change is a bummer, but I'll take the 15% on Frost Strike over that any day. UA is far more attractive as a clicky. Razorice is possibly a real alternative now. Free 10% extra health? Yes please!
I can't tell what the hell they were thinking with the Unholy changes, but they're pretty obviously way out of line and don't seem worth exploding over considering this is the first PTR push.
* Glyph of Strangulate -- Reduces the cooldown of your Strangulate by 60 sec. (Old: Inceases the range of your Strangulate by 20 yards.)
* Glyph of Icebound Fortitude -- Your Icebound Fortitude now always grants at least 30% damage reduction, regardless of your defense skill. (Old: Your Icebound Fortitude costs no runic power)
* Glyph of Unbreakable Armor -- Increases the amount of damage absorbed by Unbreakable Armor by 1%. (Old: Unbreakable Armor grants an additional 15% armor)
* Glyph of Plague Strike -- Your Plague Strike does 60% additional damage. (Old: 20% additional damage if a disease was on the target)
* Glyph of Death Strike -- Increases your Death Strike's damage by 2% for every 5 runic power you currently have. The runic power is not consumed by this effect. (Old: 2% regardless of runic power)
* Glyph of Hungering Cold *new* -- Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.
* Glyph of Unholy Blight *new* -- Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.
* Glyph of Death Coil *new* -- Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.
* Glyph of Pestilence *new* -- Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
* Glyph of Howling Blast *new* -- Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.
Especially the new Pestilence Glyph and the changes to the Death Coil Glyph are sure to have severe impacts on current Blood/Unholy rotations.
Glyph of Pestilence + deep frost will be very potent if you ask me.
Instead of 2 BS you could do 1 BS and 1 Pest in order to refresh both diseases after the "initial" IT > PS rotation, which frees up another Oblit.
Sounds awesome!
But i don't see the impact you stated for Blood DKs, because without Annihilation its rather worthless to spend 1 Blood rune (Heartstrike) in order to refresh the diseases, because you can't use more than 1 Obliterate in a row anyway.
I still hope they remove the "consumes all diseases on the target" part from Obliterate because the only spec that realy uses this skill doesn't have direct access to Annihilation.
Edit: Nevermind, i forgot about frost relying on Obliterate as well
Last edited by Tharvos : 02/24/09 at 10:47 AM.
My english isn't perfect, but i hope you can understand it.
The Pestilence glyph I cannot see remaining in its updated form...that's just such a *massive* change to the way you'd play from one glyph.
Unless I'm missing something, with the Pestilence glyph you would never have to use Plague Strike or Icy Touch more than once per fight (obviously not counting situations involving movement where your diseases might fall off). That means, as an Unholy tank (which my DK is), those extra frost and unholy runes that I would've been using to refresh my diseases can now be used for extra Scourge Strikes.
Which means that once my diseases are up, my rotation would be simply spamming Scourge Strike, using Blood Strike to convert the blood runes to death runes (via Reaping), and hitting Pestilence every time my diseases are about to run out. That's *it*.
Aside from the convenience factor, it should also be a dps upgrade, using those runes on SS instead (especially with the huge boost in damage SS seems to be getting).
But I don't quite get the glyph - here they go buffing Plague Strike (which I'm assuming is still not going to touch SS for damage), but then they go and introduce a glyph which makes using PS more than once per fight pointless. Doesn't seem to make sense considering the direction they seemed to be going.
Ghoul Frenzy is nice idea but with same error as previous version of CE. It needs either to cost FU, B or RP, otherwise it will feel wrong.
BCB change should not affect 2h, it is simply same as WF CD - targeted against DW. However combined with Garg and especially HB changes it seems that DW will be as good as dead.
PS seems overdone, buff itself plus 45% outbreak plus 60% (!) from glyph? This won't make it to live for sure tho it may open some nice opportunities like dropping SS glyph and Epidemic for Unholy.
UA change seems reasonable, it was too powerful and unique. EP itself is "best in slot" from 13% magic damage debuffs.
Pet ghoul for 16 talents in Unholy making it mandatory for all specs. That is something I really dislike, especially that it won't have AoE reduction.
EDIT: Glyph of Pestilence - no way this will make it to live because it would made PS/IT pretty much useless, not like I wouldn't mind.
But I don't quite get the glyph - here they go buffing Plague Strike (which I'm assuming is still not going to touch SS for damage), but then they go and introduce a glyph which makes using PS more than once per fight pointless. Doesn't seem to make sense considering the direction they seemed to be going.
It's the same kind of (non?)sense they told us when they said they want more people to spec something different than Unholy.
The upcomming 3.1 changes in ther current form will only encourage people to spec unholy...
BCB change should not affect 2h, it is simply same as WF CD - targeted against DW. However combined with Garg and especially HB changes it seems that DW will be as good as dead.
Well it could/will affect 2h weapons as well. I am already down to 3.1 attackspeed with my 2h weapon because of hasterating.
So as soon as i get 1-2% more haste from gear, i would drop below that 3 second threshold which would nerf the BCB dmg because from now on, it would only proc in 30% once every 6 seconds.
Assuming that the last hit procced it and the next one would as well (i know this will not happen all the time but you got the picture).
My english isn't perfect, but i hope you can understand it.
02/24/09, 7:22 AM
