MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Ghostcrawler - A couple quick answers needed

2008-10-21 10:37:47

Ghostcrawler - A couple quick answers needed

I know your super busy and such, and that's totally understandble, but we need to know what is going on with our class...

So if you have a minute... just a minute or two... could you throw a quick reply our way to some of the questions in this thread please?

- What is the deal with the recent nerfs, we seem to be doing too little damage now. What is going on with damage tuning for deathknights? I say too little because we could compete for high dps, not even as a dps specs people are getting far outpaced by other classes dpsing, by a margin larger than what you eluded to.

- Nothing was ever mentioned about frost doing too MUCH dmg, in fact you told us it was doing too little, then it was nerfed. Why? What is the future of frost?

- What are the plans for pvp issues for the DK? (ie. Chains, Strangulate, etc).

- Are you guys aware of the popular hybrid spec (Blood to Mark of Blood, Unholy to Bone Shield w/ Gargoyle)? This spec seems to be very very powerful in pvp yet from what I understand you guys really want these all-powerful half-specs to not exist. What are the plans for this?

- It seems more and more specs are avoiding end-tree talents now due to how "situational" they are, or because there are other abilities to use in their place that are more beneficial, how are you handling this? (ie. Frost 61 point = Situational CC, Unholy = without adding a disease, a wimpy aoe that doesn't even match consecrate isn't very useful).

That's all I got, other people add questions but please.... NO LONG POSTS!... keep your posts focused on direct questions you have, if he has time to come here, it won't be much so short and sweet.

[ Post edited by Grendahlia ]

Grendahlia (The one and only!)
Frost PvP / Unholy Tank
ETA: < 1 month

2008-10-22 09:34:34

Re: Ghostcrawler - A couple quick answers nee

Q u o t e:
- What is the deal with the recent nerfs, we seem to be doing too little damage now. What is going on with damage tuning for deathknights? I say too little because we could compete for high dps, not even as a dps specs people are getting far outpaced by other classes dpsing, by a margin larger than what you eluded to.

You are only doing too little damage compared to specs which were overpowered. I know it's hard to know whether you are too high, too low or just right.

Q u o t e:
- Nothing was ever mentioned about frost doing too MUCH dmg, in fact you told us it was doing too little, then it was nerfed. Why? What is the future of frost?

There was a long-standing bug in Tundra Stalker that kept it from granting its 10% damage. Once we caught that bug and fixed it, we ended up not needing a lot of those buffs to Frost. Frost's dps will be slightly lower since it does have more debuffs and control than Blood and Unholy. Unholy's dps will be slightly lower than Blood's if you don't count the ghoul.

Q u o t e:
- What are the plans for pvp issues for the DK? (ie. Chains, Strangulate, etc).

We're keeping an eye on it for now. We need to see more PvP without quite so much burstiness. We have discussed lowering Anti-Magic Shell's cooldown, but we aren't ready to do that (and may not end up doing it at all).

Q u o t e:
- Are you guys aware of the popular hybrid spec (Blood to Mark of Blood, Unholy to Bone Shield w/ Gargoyle)? This spec seems to be very very powerful in pvp yet from what I understand you guys really want these all-powerful half-specs to not exist. What are the plans for this?

We have no problem with hybrid specs. In fact, I wish there were a few more of them. Now if that becomes the only way to play a death knight, then there is probably something wrong. But as an option, it's fine.

Q u o t e:
- It seems more and more specs are avoiding end-tree talents now due to how "situational" they are, or because there are other abilities to use in their place that are more beneficial, how are you handling this? (ie. Frost 61 point = Situational CC, Unholy = without adding a disease, a wimpy aoe that doesn't even match consecrate isn't very useful).

I would be very surprised to see a strong Blood or Unholy spec without their 51 ability. Those both provide a lot of damage. But it's possible someone can make it work. Frost's ability is more situational, so we don't expect every death knight to take it. Many classes have situational abilities for their 51-point talent (see Dispersion, Deep Freeze or Typhoon). This goes counter to the desires of some players, but the truth is we didn't want a lot of classes to have to work yet another attack or heal into rotations that can already be complicated. Talents can also be more powerful if they have longer cooldowns. Things you hit a lot can't hit for that hard. We also wouldn't want to see the Dancing Rune Weapon out 100% of the time. But when it is out, it can hit pretty hard.