Cataclysm Death Knight Changes - Page 11

Larisroth · 06/14/10, 12:37 AM

In current high-end gear, DW unholy is actually pretty close to being viable. The main things that stop it from being so are itemisation (Shadowmourne is an insane boost), and the ability to roll disease multipliers negating part of the benefit of DW (the ability to have two different enchants)

DW strength itemisation will be improved in the expansion, so that's not likely to make much difference. I'm pretty sure they're going to fix the ability to roll damage buffs (and crit buffs) on all debuffs, because with the other changes to the way DoT spells work, most debuffs will be rolled, and are affected by crit and haste.

You might be right about the strike damage, it's pretty hard to tells what the damage balance would be. I think it's pretty clear that the proportions of disease and pet damage will go up, especially if we're in unholy presence. So that leaves autoattack damage, strike damage and spell damage. DW does more autoattack damage and less strike damage, although scourge strike has one of the larger static values, meaning it suffers less from using a 1H weapon than some of the other strikes. My statement is a little bit meaningless as it's quite likely that DW and 2H builds would use different priorities. (At present DW usually prefers to use a BB over a BS for instance)

Obviously we don't know how hard the different abilities will hit in cataclysm, but as it stands DC is usually the second hardest hitting ability unholy has and if we're getting non-RP death coils then there's more reasons to take the boosting talents. It is quite likely that despite their stated intend that unholy in high-end gear could essentially become GCD capped even in the new frost presence. That would deflate the value of the talent, but it wouldn't change the fact that it'd proc about 3 times as frequent for a DW build than a 2H build as written.

With a single rune SS and the goal to use unholy presence, the DK changes don't really work. Until they work out how to resolve that, the differences between DW and 2H aren't such an issue. Oddly enough I think it's actually easier to balance DW vs 2H unholy, than DW vs 2H frost.

Malkiah · 06/14/10, 7:08 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

Morbidity is definitely a concern, although the devs might have felt that DND wouldn't need it anymore if they also made it significantly cheaper to cast. After all, Avenger's Shield is on a 30 second cooldown as well, and the Blood is going to Blood Swarm to force free BBs without having to wait for explicit Death runes.

well, yes - but that essentially converts DK multi-tanking into war/druid multi-tanking, which is spamming small damage AE abilities.
i mean obviously, it's personal preference talking here, but i've always liked that DKs and paladins operated on the ground-pulse mechanic (DnD and consecrate) and thought it worked well for us in particular, being double hit by both ability CDs and rune management.

IMO either DnD should have its CD lowered to ~0-5 seconds of its duration base, and morbidity should be DC damage + UB damage (scaling, 3% per rank) and let what is now the single UB point talent alter UB to prevent diseases being dispelled.
or, you know, just drop the DnD CD... that would work too. i just don't want to see DK AE tanking turning into button-mash-and-pray like druid and war ae tanking often ends up being (talking dungeon runs here, not necessarily raiding).

I think moving BCB to Blood is an overall okay choice - its a purely physical damage proc, which fits with Blood's emphasis on physical damage.

and this would be the absolute personification of my concern: blood will no longer have an emphasis on physical damage, as such, it's just the Tanking tree - it shouldn't have *anything* in it strictly on the basis of melee damage, IMO.
am i the only person who looks at BCB being deepish in blood and thinks "okay presuming they don't dork up the rune system change and post-revamp a theoretical unholy build does about the same dps as one does now, is the lack of BCB being taken into account?"
perhaps i'm simply green about the ears because this will be my first WoW expansion cycle, but it's just one of those issues that sends up a red flag for me because it's the kind of thing devs manage to forget about.

Griefpb · 06/14/10, 2:57 PM

If they fix the first tier of blood, it could be a pretty viable tree to dip into from a dps standpoint. I play as Frost, so its either Blood or Unholy both look pretty viable, especially excited about Unholy Frenzy.

In Blood the first tier is garbage, the second is decent but then it gets pretty legitamite. BA, 2h wep, then BCB, Bone Shield, Might of Morgraine, and then Abom's Might at 20 if you can get to it. Abom's gives the buff and then 2% str as well.

In Unholy really only Ravenous dead and Unholy Frenzy, and necrosis of course look to be that great of a benefit.

Mild Confusion · 06/15/10, 12:18 AM

Bone Armor is the biggest draw in blood subspec. It's just such a useful talent. The 20% damage reduction does help out a lot on many encounters. Sindragosa is a prime example of it.

But yeah, they have to put at least something on the first tier of blood to make it worth it, especially for 2h frost.

Kaejin · 06/15/10, 11:07 AM

The first tier of Unholy isn't really that much more pleasing. It's just that it's a minor DPS increase compared to zilch. Looking past the first tier on both trees, it seems to me like Blood has the best offerings, at least depending on how rune consumption ends up feeling with the new disease lengths.

It's hard to guess the value of Unholy Frenzy given how little we know about haste's scaling after the changes, but Bone Shield is still a flat 2% DPS boost that doubles as damage reduction. BCB remains a good investment since it hasn't really changed much itself, maybe better now that we're likely to end up with more haste than we currently run with.

Nighthavk · 06/16/10, 7:42 AM

Tank Discussion:

I tried to come up with a 51 pointed choosing what really seemed to me the *necessities* to get the DRW. Here it is.

It's got 25 free points now, let's look at possibilites:

[8] Scent of Blood & Runic Empowerment: I personally love Scent. The funny synergy here is, Scent of Blood gives a steady supply of Runic Power, spending 'em refreshing your runes, spending 'em filling your runic bar. Even with the slower rune fill-ups, these two can ensure we're almost GCD capped, which is some good threat.

[8] Crimson Scourge & Blood Swarm: Blood Boil boosters, definitely nice for AoE situations. With new Outbreak, you can pull with it, PT, BB, PS, BB, PS, BB, RT, BB. However, this is really only useful for pure AoE situations, with new HS being a three way cleave. Not sure you'll need a free Blood Rune for single target, as Scent & Runic example above can proove to be enough to keep us busy, so you won't mind using a Blood Rune every now and then to keep debuff up.

[3] Blood Parasite: The problem with this talent wasn't just that the healing was negligible (it certainly was) but it made AoE heals a lot worse. If it prooves to be the same way, we can just gladly skip it as usual.

[3] DRM: I was one of the tanks that didn't really pick it up, as I actually enjoyed DSing myself up. Remember that DS healing also causes some threat, and with the bubble that comes with it, if we don't have a threat problem either way, I don't see why I wouldn't like to DS more often.

[8] Epidemic & Ravenous Dead: The only thing in Unholy that remotely interests me. Epidemic might prove to be useful, either as an additional DS per "rotation" or two more HS with DRM.

Lichborne: Another thing that might remotely interest me in Frost besides Runic Empowerment. DK tanks don't always handle Fear as well as their Warrior counterparts, so a fear breaker is always welcome.

Spell Deflection: I never really liked it before, don't like it now. It's too gimmicky and might be useful for certain fights, but then again if you need it that bad, you'll keep it on spare spec and change it for one fight and then change back.

To be perfectly honest, browsing over trees, lack of anything really interesting in either deep frost or deep unholy to spend the remaining 25 points means I'll be likely to pick up a tree like this.

Any other thoughts?

Nyth_ · 06/16/10, 9:30 AM

Pretty accurate.

I think for most part it's too early to tell. Not really because it's still alpha, but because you need to know a bit about the flow of the game.
The new mechanics with only 3 runes and the fact disease are now handled a bit differently (using 66% of your runes to apply, lasting 30 seconds etc) might give a lot of favoritism to a certain Quality of Life talents.

For example the extra disease length might make our rotation more enjoyable. DRM which i currently ain't a huge fan of either when i spec blood tank, might be a lot more interesting when you're working with 3 runes instead of 6.

I'd probably toss 8 points in the bloodboil talents though (CSc and BSw) mostly because I still can't see blood performing well on AoE fights without them. AoE will likely reduce, but it still seems like it'll play a part.
HS might be a nice replacement though, but for that you'd ideally need DRW to be able to pump out enough of them.

Griefpb · 06/16/10, 1:27 PM

Unholy builds will most likely go Frost still for their off tree,

Black Ice is still a pretty good synergy, as well as Icy Talons and Runic Empowerment. Filling those to max will get you to Brittle Bones, 4% str inc and physical dmg debuff, but Pillar of Frost is a massive talent for DPS.

That kind of c/d that high up in the tree seems dangerous to me.

The Unholy and Frost trees are still way too bloated right now, but I know Blizz isn't even close to done with them yet. Hopefully they clean them up some and move the talents around, but all around I'm excited about the new trees and talents.

Maybe another wish would be to move Unholy Blight up in the Unholy tree and convert it so Frost Strike is used as well, so Frost, Blood, and Unholy could be arena viable.

Disargeria · 06/17/10, 9:49 PM

Originally Posted by Nighthavk

Tank Discussion:
[3] DRM: I was one of the tanks that didn't really pick it up, as I actually enjoyed DSing myself up. Remember that DS healing also causes some threat, and with the bubble that comes with it, if we don't have a threat problem either way, I don't see why I wouldn't like to DS more often.

Lichborne: Another thing that might remotely interest me in Frost besides Runic Empowerment. DK tanks don't always handle Fear as well as their Warrior counterparts, so a fear breaker is always welcome.

DRM is useful outside of normal situations. It provides greater rune flexibility should anything go wrong, and allows greater usage of Blood Boils when you need them.

Lichborne is just not worth it, fears simply don't cause tanks problems anymore and we've already got AMS for them.

Nighthavk · 06/20/10, 1:11 AM

I've posted on my blog concerning the Blood-Tank abilities and possibility of them being just over the top to compensate the fact that Blizz just killed 3 specs (2 tank and 1 dps spec) in Cataclysm. Notably, DK tanks will have access to these:

Icebound Fortitude [2M]: %50-70 Damage Reduction for 12 seconds. The talent that boosts it boosts it by %30, and with the current glyph it can go up from 20% to %40.
Bone Shield [1M]: %20 Damage Reduction, 3.4 charges. Interesting this with this ability is, it's not removed with things like Mimiron's Blast, AoE or Dots.
Vampiric Embrace [1M]: 15% Health, %35 Increased Healing taken for 10/15 seconds.
Dancing Rune Weapon [1.5M]: %20 Parry for 12/17 seconds
Rune Tap [60/30S]: %20 Self-heal.
Death Strike: %17.5 health gain per strike and creates a shields that absorbs the same amount.
Will of the Necropolis [15S]: Below 30%, Blood Rune/Rune Tap is refreshed and DK takes %8 less damage for 8 seconds.

Is anyone else concerned with if these changes are indeed op and make it to live, that we'll see the nerf-bat that hit us severely again later in the expansion?

Illu · 06/20/10, 5:30 PM

I think it's the sort of thing they will monitor really closely in the beta; I don't think they want to ship DK as strong as they appeared to be (and to an extent definitely was) in early wrath. GC has made several postings on this fact, although i bet there will be a time of imbalances as the game systems attune to the greatly increased stat levels as per usual anyway.

As to the rating of abilities I much agree with DRM being more than just adding 2 HS for singletarget threat; for me it's more a insurance I will always have a blood rune to use vampiric blood, and blood boil when i need to pick something up.

Missgunst · 07/01/10, 9:51 AM

Is it confirmed that the improved IT will not improve the "Thunder Clap" effect anymore? I don't see why we should get a "demo shout" but got taken our TC effect.
I also think that we may have to many cooldowns for tanking situations like a Sartharion in Cataclysm (starting raid progress not much gear etc). I also dislike where they put morbidity since I just love the short cooldown on DnD for 5-mans and trash, but it looks like blood boil should become our AE skill for Cata.

What I really love about the blood tree is that you still will be able to level with that to 85, I didn't think that that was possible after Blizz told it would become THE tanking tree.

All in all I'm very satisfied with the tree so far although things will definetely change until live.

diospadre · 07/01/10, 11:11 AM

You won't be able to level with blood since IUP and Pale Horse are still in unholy.

dr_AllCOM3 · 07/01/10, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Missgunst

Is it confirmed that the improved IT will not improve the "Thunder Clap" effect anymore? I don't see why we should get a "demo shout" but got taken our TC effect.

The slow effect is on FF, like it has always been. All those tank debuffs now have one and the same value for every tank class.

Fyrestryke · 07/01/10, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by diospadre

You won't be able to level with blood since IUP and Pale Horse are still in unholy.

While very helpful for speedier travel, they aren't exactly "must have" talents. They're more of a "quality of life" thing. Lots of people levelled in Blood or Frost for WotLK, they didn't have either of those talents then either. Blood excelled at high level elite killing, whereas Unholy was king of AoE packs. It was all about preference of method. I don't see much of a change with blood being a pure tank tree. They will have a lot easier time soloing harder mobs than Frost or Unholy.