RSS feed2008-10-29 14:39:55
With the possible exception of Dancing Rune Weapon, the 51-point talents for Death Knight are barely worth the investment of 1 point. 51-point talents are supposed to be iconic, game-changing abilities that are both the culmination of a talent tree and the best talent in the tree. If this is not what they are, why have them so deep in the tree?
Dancing Rune Blade
This is actually still a decent talent but is rather underpowered currently. Its DPS right now is about on par with Gargoyle, which is only 21 points into Unholy. I realize that it scales slightly better than Gargoyle but for the vast majority of players, this will never be an amazing ability, at all.
Some changes that could be made to up the "Do Want" factor without making the ability incredibly overpowered.
Possible Change
When DRB is activated, all runes become Death runes and regenerate as Death Runes for the Duration of the ability.
Doing this would allow you to use DRB in two ways. First, you could use it exactly like you do now in PvE, as a DPS-increasing cooldown. But it would add flexibility in several ways. For instance, if you just botched a rotation, you could use to quickly recover and make up for lost DPS. This would come in especially handy in PvP where you must often intentionally break up your rotations to use Chains of Ice.
In fact, Blood is the only spec that MUST break up a rotation to snare a target. Frost has Chillblains/Endless Winter and Unholy has Desecration. Blood has nothing. While all specs have the potential to use Glyph of Bloodboil, this hurts blood the most because Blood is the only spec that values Blood runes.
Hungering Cold
Easily the weakest of the 51-pointers, because of the extremely limited situations in which it is even worth the button press. The only thing this is really useful for is CC in PvP and putting Frost Fever on all mobs in AOE situations. In both scenarios, the very high RP usage gives this a high opportunity cost and prevents its use as a reactive ability unless you are RP hording (and thus wasting RP and GCDs).
Possible Change
Remove the RP cost.
Hang on, just think about that. Does that make the talent overpowered? It actually wouldn't. In fact, even removing the RP cost entirely would still leave this talent as somewhat lackluster, but it would do 2 things.
First, it would allow it to be used at the start of pulls in AOE situations, at the time when it is most useful (the tank pulls, all mobs are on him). In its current state, it could only be used in these situations if you were chain pulling and conserving RP.
Second, it would allow it to be used reactively in PvP. Remember, this is a 51-point talent. It doesn't need a "downside" unless it was so good in one area that it required a tradeoff in another area. It certainly is not that.
Possible Change
Rework the talent entirely.
One idea that plays into the design of the Frost tree would be some type of passive offensive aura that increases the DKs damage against affected targets by a small percent (maybe 3%). It could also have an unique snare-type effect, like anyone who is in the aura and stops moving for 3 seconds becomes rooted for 3 seconds, subject to diminishing returns. Or maybe if they stop moving for 3 seconds in the aura, Frost Fever is applied (complete with Chillblains if you have it).
Another idea is to have Hungering Cold give the DK a movement speed and frost damage bonus for 10 seconds after Frost Fever was applied (similar in function to Icy Talons) to a target.
Unholy Blight
This talent was once very solid but has since been nerfed (and maybe rightly so) to the point where it is no longer an ability worthy of being 51-points in. It is no longer considered a disease, which takes away its greatest use and its DPS is hardly better than Death Coil. That said, lore-wise it is an iconic ability that definitely needs to be preserved in some form.
Possible Change
Leave it as is, but add a passive function that increases dispel resist of all diseases by an additional 35% per disease on the target when Unholy Blight is active and on the target. In other words, if you have UB and both diseases on a target, your diseases essentially can't be dispelled unless it wears off or they get out of range of it.
Possible Change
If its too powerful to make this a disease, then instead have it apply Frost Fever AND Blood Plague (and adjust the damage if necessary) when cast, so that this talent allows DKs to increase their DPS by using more efficient rotations, by not having to waste runes to apply diseases.
Possible Change
Give this a mortal strike effect, but remove the damage component, or have a glyph do it. I know, I know. Just a thought.
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Live: Dunsparrow Andorhal
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Andorhal&n=Dunsparrow
Dancing Rune Blade
This is actually still a decent talent but is rather underpowered currently. Its DPS right now is about on par with Gargoyle, which is only 21 points into Unholy. I realize that it scales slightly better than Gargoyle but for the vast majority of players, this will never be an amazing ability, at all.
Some changes that could be made to up the "Do Want" factor without making the ability incredibly overpowered.
Possible Change
When DRB is activated, all runes become Death runes and regenerate as Death Runes for the Duration of the ability.
Doing this would allow you to use DRB in two ways. First, you could use it exactly like you do now in PvE, as a DPS-increasing cooldown. But it would add flexibility in several ways. For instance, if you just botched a rotation, you could use to quickly recover and make up for lost DPS. This would come in especially handy in PvP where you must often intentionally break up your rotations to use Chains of Ice.
In fact, Blood is the only spec that MUST break up a rotation to snare a target. Frost has Chillblains/Endless Winter and Unholy has Desecration. Blood has nothing. While all specs have the potential to use Glyph of Bloodboil, this hurts blood the most because Blood is the only spec that values Blood runes.
Hungering Cold
Easily the weakest of the 51-pointers, because of the extremely limited situations in which it is even worth the button press. The only thing this is really useful for is CC in PvP and putting Frost Fever on all mobs in AOE situations. In both scenarios, the very high RP usage gives this a high opportunity cost and prevents its use as a reactive ability unless you are RP hording (and thus wasting RP and GCDs).
Possible Change
Remove the RP cost.
Hang on, just think about that. Does that make the talent overpowered? It actually wouldn't. In fact, even removing the RP cost entirely would still leave this talent as somewhat lackluster, but it would do 2 things.
First, it would allow it to be used at the start of pulls in AOE situations, at the time when it is most useful (the tank pulls, all mobs are on him). In its current state, it could only be used in these situations if you were chain pulling and conserving RP.
Second, it would allow it to be used reactively in PvP. Remember, this is a 51-point talent. It doesn't need a "downside" unless it was so good in one area that it required a tradeoff in another area. It certainly is not that.
Possible Change
Rework the talent entirely.
One idea that plays into the design of the Frost tree would be some type of passive offensive aura that increases the DKs damage against affected targets by a small percent (maybe 3%). It could also have an unique snare-type effect, like anyone who is in the aura and stops moving for 3 seconds becomes rooted for 3 seconds, subject to diminishing returns. Or maybe if they stop moving for 3 seconds in the aura, Frost Fever is applied (complete with Chillblains if you have it).
Another idea is to have Hungering Cold give the DK a movement speed and frost damage bonus for 10 seconds after Frost Fever was applied (similar in function to Icy Talons) to a target.
Unholy Blight
This talent was once very solid but has since been nerfed (and maybe rightly so) to the point where it is no longer an ability worthy of being 51-points in. It is no longer considered a disease, which takes away its greatest use and its DPS is hardly better than Death Coil. That said, lore-wise it is an iconic ability that definitely needs to be preserved in some form.
Possible Change
Leave it as is, but add a passive function that increases dispel resist of all diseases by an additional 35% per disease on the target when Unholy Blight is active and on the target. In other words, if you have UB and both diseases on a target, your diseases essentially can't be dispelled unless it wears off or they get out of range of it.
Possible Change
If its too powerful to make this a disease, then instead have it apply Frost Fever AND Blood Plague (and adjust the damage if necessary) when cast, so that this talent allows DKs to increase their DPS by using more efficient rotations, by not having to waste runes to apply diseases.
Possible Change
Give this a mortal strike effect, but remove the damage component, or have a glyph do it. I know, I know. Just a thought.
[ Post edited by Emosparrow ]
The Preeminent Death Knight Blog -http://dunsparrow.blogspot.com/
Live: Dunsparrow
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Andorhal&n=Dunsparrow
Emosparrow
