Cataclysm Death Knight Changes - Page 3

Bingeljell · 04/09/10, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Fyrestryke

I think there may be quite a few people jumping into some conclusions based off dangerous/incorrect assumptions here. We don't have nearly enough info on some of the new mechanics to make any kind of judgement on most of this stuff. Haste's affect on GCDs and Runes for one is going to greatly effect how this plays out. I doubt very much that we'll end up with terribly much more in the way of empty GCDs than we currently have. A LITTLE more space to use proc based stuff wouldn't be amiss for some specs (i.e. frost), but I don't think they will put us in a situation where half our GCDs aren't filled. They're already looking for ways to push that playstyle out of the rogue class.

^ This. I currently really like the changes so far. But the 'sneak peak' is probably not even half the story.

The rune system seems exciting and will really make for more stress free game play, at least for us HPBs. Additionally, we haven't even looked at the fact that since so many changes are being made to so many different classes one can very easily expect a complete revamp of the content as well. While some of these changes look like PvP changes at the moment you can't overlook the fact that with a new expansion and one as dramatically different as this you can expect to see some new gameplay mechanics. You won't really get a good idea of how each ability will fit in untill we know more about the content as well. Additionally with all the changes to the stats I'm pretty sure a lot of things will change.

They've already mentioned that they're not very keen on actually having too many passive talents and want to make it more action oriented. (I think this may have to do with a lot of new MMO's being more action oriented and somewhat interesting (new at least).

I, for one, am happy that Frost will remain the DW tree. I like the whole reactive, proc-based play style. I would prefer a slightly higher margin for error, which the rune system will provide. The Ruinic power mastery while not being the best idea of the century will actually allow for a lot more runinic power based action. Also having blood as the main tanking tree means blood tanks will probably get some nice AoE ability (I hope).

All in all a fairly exciting set of previews so far. (For me at least.. and this goes for pretty much all the classes). But we're still missing a LOT of information at this point.

Neddie · 04/09/10, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Consider

Yes, you don't have to use Runes as soon as they come up any longer, but aside from cases of runic overcapping via AMS (which will certainly jump up in value), why wouldn't you? There might not be the urgency there is now to use a rune as soon as possible, but there's also nothing to gain by holding off on it. If you can do it, in the vast majority of situations, you're still going to use runes immediately once they come off cooldown, for lack of alternatives if nothing else.

Not capping your runes/runic won't really be a game in the sense that you can win or lose. You just can't mess it up, short of afking. A ten second grace period is that generous. That's not to say the class will be too easy to play or any such thing. Who knows. It's simply to say that whatever challenges the class presents, it won't be resource management.

Why wouldn't you use them all as soon as possible? You're almost at the burn phase on a boss, so you slow down your rotation to the point where your runes are almost capping, and then when the burn phase starts, speed things up and blow a bunch of runes at once.

Alternatively, of you're tanking or PvPing and want to keep runes available in case you need a cooldown, you can delay as long as possible before using a rune, and know the other one is about to come up.

In PVE DPS, you'll probably mostly want to use them ASAP in most cases, because the types of events that happen for DPS tend to make you unable to attack for a bit, rather than wanting to use a rune and not having it available, but maybe not always. For example, you might delay using a blood rune until desolation is about to fall off, instead of simply refreshing it. You might hold off on a blood rune because you know adds are about to spawn (Saurfang for instance).

And although it's a 10s grace period, that's 10s per rune. If you're waiting on a multi-rune ability the grace period (between when all the runes become available and when you're wasting runes by not using them) will probably be significantly less than 10s. I imagine that how this will *feel* will be a lot like a rogue. Instead of managing 1 energy bar and 1 combo points "bar", we'll be managing 3 "energy" bars and 1 runic power "bar". AFAIK, it takes 10s for a rogue's energy bar to go from 0 to 100 and most of their abilities use between 40 and 60 energy. You might think this would lead to a lot of downtime, but between managing combo points, buffs (S&D), cooldowns, and energy, they're kept pretty busy. I imagine the same will be true for DKs who have to manage diseases, buffs (desolation, horn of winter), cooldowns, runic power, and runes.

It's true that if our rotations are unchanged in Cataclysm, there will suddenly be a lot more time spent doing nothing. I imagine that our rotations will change, however. The fact we have stable, predictable rotations is partially based on the need to use a rune as soon as it comes up. With that requirement lifted, I could see things changing a lot. As a simple example, if nothing else changes, right now we only refresh HoW when all our runes are on CD and we don't have enough RP to use Death Coil. It's basically our lowest priority move. Now we might end up using HoW every time it's off CD to generate the RP we can then use for more Death Coils. HoW would become a very high priority move, and we'd delay using rune-based moves to make sure to hit it as soon as it was available so we never miss a chance to generate RP. (Having said this, I'm sure Blizzard doesn't want us spamming HoW, so I wouldn't be surprised if this changes).

Drakkan · 04/09/10, 11:21 AM

No one is talking about the fact that there is no mention of DW tanking... I for one hate dual weild tanking but ONLY because I feel 2H Blood tanking is so much more effective than Frost tanking of any kind (I much prefer the Blood rotation and cooldowns).

I do love the idea of DW tanking though and think that it would be very cool, if effective enough. Why can we not have dual talents like a lot of the Druid feral talents? IE: "XX causes heart strike to deal 15% more damage and increases chance to hit with off hand by 3%" or "Damage and Healing of Deathstrike increased by 20% and damage of off hand Deathstrike increased by 40%".

From what I can remember the only dual spec type talents are feral druids and hybrid casters who have talents that increase damage done by X and healing done by Y. Seems like with the merging of specs for DKs it could be valuable to give this flexiability.

Amroo · 04/09/10, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Neddie

Rune change stuff

You shouldn't forget that the 10 seconds refresh is just the baseline and will be affected by haste and possibly talents. As things stand, the change might turn out really exciting or not changing much at all, but there isn't a point to too much theorizing before the open beta starts.
The change to the rune system is definitely the cleanest way to make rune refresh times scale with haste, as otherwise there would be certain points where runes refresh exactly 1.5 seconds earlier, making the marignal value of haste at these points significantly higher than everywhere else. The change completely circumvents this problem.

Woeful · 04/09/10, 11:47 AM

When I look closely at the table Consider provides in post #18. The most notable difference I see, is that the old runic power dump cycle would go away. Instead you will have empty gcd at 10.5, 15.5, 17.0 and 19.5 secs, with more less a repeating cycle thereafter. What we can do in the empty cooldowns is not fully know, our current class would use a runic power ability, however, all we received is a preview with a cautionary statement that more changes are coming and we may not know all the abilities.

Because the death knight is pushing buttons constantly, it can be difficult to add new mechanics to the class because the player doesn't have any free global cooldowns to use them. We can't grant extra resources or reduced cost, because there is no time to spend them. Missing an attack is devastating, and it's impossible to save resources for when they're most useful

Blizzard looks like they are trying to loosen the cycles in order to provide more abilities and more dynamic game play. They recognized that DK's filled every available cooldown with an ability with the goal never to miss a global cooldown. Frankly that is a little more like playing the piano than it is a video game. Hastening the old system would not have helped the situation because the global cooldowns were not available to make use of faster refreshing runes.

By slowing down the runes refresh rate, they are making the runic power dump cycle more a part of the "rotation" (if that word even fits) and you now have a choice to use some of the other abilities like the ones they mentioned. Also by slowing down the cycles, they stated they intend to make the abilities hit a little harder. This means they have an easier job tuning the class because fewer abilities will be involved.

In response to what some one above said about the boring mastery system for Unholy; I don't think we have any idea really what they have in store. Blowing a FU ability is a pretty big deal, as it puts two runes into a cooldown phase. Under the current mechanic for Scourge Strike, the placement of the disease, directly affects the damage. I can totally see them moving towards a percentage of the disease damage, instead of being tied to the number of diseases on the target. The passive buff, then becomes an active component. Especially if we are potentially changing presences to maximize disease damage and changing presences to maximize our strike damage.

Womba · 04/09/10, 12:41 PM

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

I bolded the last part. I played a warrior tank in TBC, and while there were some boss abilities that were reflectable, the vast majority were not (which made Spell Reflect pretty lackluster in raids). I haven't played a warrior tank in Lich King ... does anyone know if Spell Reflect is useful for raiding current content?

rh8452 · 04/09/10, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Womba

I bolded the last part. I played a warrior tank in TBC, and while there were some boss abilities that were reflectable, the vast majority were not (which made Spell Reflect pretty lackluster in raids). I haven't played a warrior tank in Lich King ... does anyone know if Spell Reflect is useful for raiding current content?

Not particularly, it's useable on mimiron's head in P3/P4, on the darkfallen advisor trash in ICC, on lady deathwhisper... and that's pretty much it off the top of my head. It's probably going to be more useful in PVP. There may be more spells ingame that become reflectable in the expansion, making the talent more useful.

Hogkar · 04/09/10, 1:33 PM

Dark simulacrum could be a hell of fun if you could cast it Also on a party member.
Being able to sheep, bolt, fear, cyclone etc time to time ! (but it doesn't seem to be the case)

NeuroMedivh · 04/09/10, 1:46 PM

I feel like Death Knights will be an entirely new class in Cataclysm (the warlocks in my guild have the same issue, feeling they are just turning into Shadow Mages). The current rune system underpins the mechanics of the whole class, so this change (while I can see it's advantage) has some very unusual implications.

Since our runes will take longer to refresh (overall), they will have to make our strikes hit a bit harder to compensate. However, this will give DKs a much higher burst capability, especially in pvp when combined with Outbreak. It also greatly increases the usefulness of Empower Rune Weapon (assuming it works as now); instead of saving 4-5 seconds (due to GCD and how we are limited on how quickly we can dump our runes) it can jump us 12-14 seconds ahead. I can easily see pvp starting with Outbreak, 2 FU strikes, 2 B strikes, Empower for 2 more FU strikes, etc etc. With each strike being more powerful than current, that's a heck of a lot of burst.

As for the presences, I suspect they will simply shuffle the presences one to the left. Frost becomes Blood, Blood becomes Unholy, and Unholy becomes Frost. Haste is much more of a DW thing, and frost already has the haste talents, so it makes sense, except in the whole "Frost should slow things down" way.

Overall, this has me looking forward to beta, which should begin by the end of the month.

Kaejin · 04/09/10, 1:48 PM

On the other hand, one would hope that since they're introducing another ability that acts in a similar manner, they would try to create more situations where it can be useful outside of PvP. Bosses may start to carry reflectable spells in their repertoire more often now; things that are more frequent and lower damage than the kind of stuff that you usually pop cooldowns on.

Of course, almost every new class ability revealed so far has been more PvP-oriented than not, so maybe it's just to make the snaring of DK's by casters a little more risky, or making it more punishing to burst them down if they're not almost dead.

Legnar · 04/09/10, 2:04 PM

Outbreak:
I think they are designing Outbreak just to be another utility ability like RT or ERW, using that we are not consuming our rune resource. Would be awesome with 20s or 30s CD, still good with 45s CD but with 1min CD or more I don’t think will make much difference for an 81 level ability.

Necrotic Strike:
Seems a PvP ability unless we have Boss encounters on that purpose. What we have nowadays like Deathbringer, but it is not much common encounter. By the way that will be pretty cool in some encounters PvP like. I am wondering how our damage meters will add that extra avoided heal. The goal here will be make an 83 level ability more usable on PvE.

Dark Simulacrum:
I am trying to figure out if we will able to replicate a boss strike, spell or ability.

Mindaika · 04/09/10, 2:39 PM

Originally Posted by Legnar

Outbreak:
I think they are designing Outbreak just to be another utility ability like RT or ERW, using that we are not consuming our rune resource. Would be awesome with 20s or 30s CD, still good with 45s CD but with 1min CD or more I don’t think will make much difference for an 81 level ability.

Necrotic Strike:
Seems a PvP ability unless we have Boss encounters on that purpose. What we have nowadays like Deathbringer, but it is not much common encounter. By the way that will be pretty cool in some encounters PvP like. I am wondering how our damage meters will add that extra avoided heal. The goal here will be make an 83 level ability more usable on PvE.

Dark Simulacrum:
I am trying to figure out if we will able to replicate a boss strike, spell or ability.

The descriptor says "[Dark Simulacrum] won't work on abilities that can't be reflected" so generally, no. I really don't think what they have in mind is us reflecting Frost Breaths and the like. It seems to me like it's intended to be a PvP thing, i.e. capture a nice polymorph and use it on the mage that cast it.

Raivious · 04/09/10, 3:09 PM

One question I have about the rune system change is whether or not they will be able to implement death runes again. With how we think the rune system is supposed to currently work (like Consider had described in his post) I don't see a way that the entire blood rune "bar" could become a death rune "bar" if the blood runes are already paired together. The only possibility is converting the entire bar into death runes and then having to wait until its at 100% before unleashing a FU strike and consuming the entire bar, however that seems to contradict the point of their changes.

It may still work for the blood tree due to it converting a frost/unholy rune pair instead of just blood runes, but I can't think of a way Reaping or BotN will work with these changes.

Bingeljell · 04/09/10, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by Mindaika

The descriptor says "[Dark Simulacrum] won't work on abilities that can't be reflected" so generally, no. I really don't think what they have in mind is us reflecting Frost Breaths and the like. It seems to me like it's intended to be a PvP thing, i.e. capture a nice polymorph and use it on the mage that cast it.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

I could be wrong, but it's possibly one of those things where you get smacked in the face but then reply with a smack to the face as well. Eye for an eye maybe?

@NeuroMedivh: Blizz is already addressing the burst issue in PvP. They don't want it to be the only way to PvP.
The new larger health pools and changes to healing will probably even out the burst aspect. Additionally the armor contribution from items is going up for all classes as well.
Also it might be good for DK's to have the kind of burst that mages currently have. I'm not sure if it's the right place for me to while about current DK burst damage but I'd like to see some epic numbers right off the bat and then have them even out over the course of the fight. Will make for more fun on add heavy encounters.
It will also be awesome fun to burst down players in BGs where PvP gear is not as the same level as it is in Arena.

Gort · 04/09/10, 5:00 PM

Originally Posted by Raivious

One question I have about the rune system change is whether or not they will be able to implement death runes again. With how we think the rune system is supposed to currently work (like Consider had described in his post) I don't see a way that the entire blood rune "bar" could become a death rune "bar" if the blood runes are already paired together. The only possibility is converting the entire bar into death runes and then having to wait until its at 100% before unleashing a FU strike and consuming the entire bar, however that seems to contradict the point of their changes.

It may still work for the blood tree due to it converting a frost/unholy rune pair instead of just blood runes, but I can't think of a way Reaping or BotN will work with these changes.

Death runes are currently planned, just like all the other rune-related business we currently have. Only the recharge model/costs are planned to change.

Ref: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Cataclysm Class Preview: Death Knight