#1 - Sept. 28, 2016, 3:39 p.m.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10
That's right. Unholy and Frost are now both bottom of the DPS charts, one after the other. Not even Warlocks had it this bad. It'd be one thing if this meant our Tank spec was the top of the charts, but unfortunately it's down in the dumps with Brewmaster. We're now officially the worst class in the game.
Brothers and Sisters of the Ebon Blade, unite to fight this injustice! Rally here and explain to Blizzard what it is that needs to change!
Thank you to Ornyx for the acknowledgment!
09/30/2016 11:15 AMPosted by OrnyxI'm extending the thread cap here, and I recognize that many players have taken issue with the current state of Death Knights since the balance changes earlier this week.
I've seen the sims and logs showing Blood DKs and Brewmaster Monks at the bottom of the heap, and I recognize the comments made about Unholy as well. I'll take the feedback from this thread and various others and pass it along to the development team.
Appreciate the feedback guys.
EDIT: After scouring the thread for the long, summarized posts about these specs, I'll slowly be adding them to the OP. First and foremost, Phaaze's post on Death Knight in General:
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749137726
09/14/2016 11:34 PMPosted by PhaazeEdited and updated on 10/28/2016
My issues (and many others who will agree) with the current state of DK's are the following (and please everyone Tweet this thread to Blizzard's Twitters to raise the awareness they said they wanted. Said Twitters are located at the bottom of the post):
FROST SPECIALIZATIONStat Priority shifted from Mastery focus which allowed DW Frost to be great is now the Crit/Haste focus that killed Two-handed Frost but without the big meaty crits. Crystalline Swords is negligible damage and doesn't fit the "class fantasy", they aren't even a dancing rune weapon and have no association with anything Frostmourne ever did. On top of it looking bad, the graphic for Crystalline Swords is heavily bugged in that when it procs the skull face side of the swords always face to the right. In other words the Crystalline Sword on my left hand always faces the same way as the right handed one, making it look very weird and out of place. In addition everyone on Beta and on Beta feedback posts and videos thought this was just some sort of placeholder talent until you put something amazing in, none of us wanted or expected this to go live, that's how much this passive ability is detested (you can only ever rarely see the "stabbing" graphic due to it being too fast, and that's when the graphic itself doesn't just bug out like they do the majority of the time. Having said low damage Crystalline Swords as a passive ability as our first and primary point of the Artifact kills the fun of the spec and makes you feel disconnected from the spec and playstyle. Would rather get a second active (something like a Fury of Frostmourne or ripping the soul from an enemy for a slight damage boost) or a passive boost to stats or Frost damage bonus as a replacement than seeing what we've dubbed as the "Swords of Do Nothing". Sindragosa's Fury is on way too long of a cooldown given her damage, which is equal to about Demon Hunter's "Fury of the Illidari", the only difference is there's a small 3 second duration for "Fury of the Illidari" whereas Sindragosa is instant if you don't move out of the way. A cooldown reduction on her is needed, anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes, ideally 1 to 2 minutes though. Obliterate. Much like the Stat Priority bullet point, this ability suffers from scaling issues and always has. The reason Two Handed Frost fell behind in addition to not focusing on Mastery (because it couldn't due to Obliterate) is that Obliterate does not scale well with gear. As the primary rune spending ability it should either do a portion of it's damage as Frost damage to have synergy with Mastery, or have the offhand strike do pure Frost damage. Howling Blast feels a bit over-nerfed even with the damage bonuses that will be unlocked later in the Blades of the Fallen Prince. Consider revising their AoE damage. Hypothermia is a completely garbage golden trait and rarely procs, neat design and would be welcome but increase it's proc chance or damage to compensate. Glacial Advance gets stuck and has major pathing issues that often makes it risky to use it sometimes. In addition if you are fighting mobs while swimming in the water, it will auto path down below you first to the floor of the spot you are fighting, then travel forward, completely ignoring the mobs. Lack of a proper Frostmourne skin. Now this is just me and a few of the people I've talked with, but since we are wielding the shards of Frostmourne itself, perhaps find a way to give us an updated, HD version, of Frostmourne to dual-wield? It wasn't even a proper Two-handed sword but technically was a Hand-and-a-half sword since Arthas could use it one handed very proficiently when riding on horseback, or could chose to swing it with both hands due to an extended grip on the weapon for a heavier strike.
Perhaps make a fun event after a certain level of Artifact knowledge where we can go back to Arthas' beginnings and follow in chronological order the events that led him to Frostmourne (and creatively revisit old content or make it into scenarios) and his travel to becoming the Lich King, complete with Arthas voice-overs or Memories of Arthas (like how we got Artifact Power boosts) along the way until the very end. The skin name could be something clever like "Path of Arthas" or "Hail to the King".
A lot of the skins are decent but the lack of actually showing off the look of the most notable weapon in all of Warcraft really kills the feel of the spec when others are wielding notable lore weapons, sure we couldn't have the actual Frostmourne but no reason it's graphic cannot be unlocked to use as a dual-wield ultimate weapon showcase.
BLOOD SPECIALIZATIONLoss of Icebound Fortitude for Blood has given the spec a lack of being able to survive or clutch things. We get we are supposed to be more reliant on a healer but a lack of defensive cooldowns really hurts the spec. Maw of the Damned's "Consumption" ability is nice but feels like it should also proc a Blood Shield like Death Strike does, at least a fraction of the damage as a shield to help with some mitigation issues. Some of the talents that are things we lost in some form or another (examples like Rune Tap and Bloodworms) used to be baseline and their loss has created a bland feeling spec, other talents are just not worth taking period. For the spec that's about self-healing and leeching blood, we have a notable lack of self healing outside of Death Strike and Consumption, Rogues even feel like they self-heal for more. Death Strike as Blood spec feels like it costs a little too much runic power for too little mitigation return. Please consider lowering the cost. Marrowrend / Bone Shield. Now that the Emerald Nightmare is out, it seems a lot of Blood tanks are noting the pain of keeping Marrowrend or Bone Shield up on a fight like Cenarius or Xavius. Consider investigating this please.
UNHOLY SPECIALIZATIONYes it's a pet/minion spec but the ghoul has no way of being healed and is a huge chunk of Unholy's damage. Castigator playstyle feels like it's the only proper current playstyle period ever since Clawing Shadows nerf. Necrotic Strike doesn't have synergy with pretty much any ability and feels useless. Death Coil feels really weak for the runic power that must be spent on it to avoid capping, especially since it is used for synergy with other talents and abilities.
ALL SPECSThe 1.5 second Global Cooldown is really killing the flow and feel of some specs. Frost especially suffers from this due to how it's playstyle works, Unholy to a good extent also gets this feeling. Wraith Walk. This entire ability is universally loathed by all DKs. This ability is not "Class Fantasy" of Death Knights, it is Diablo 3 / Heroes of the Storm Leoric fantasy. Leoric is not associated with Warcraft, he is not a Death Knight. This also is an ability that actually requires a still expensive glyph (Wraith Walker) to be functional as the default Wraith Walk removes jumping and gets snagged on the environment for every little obstruction. Death's Advance was at least a movement speed aura that fit the fantasy as Death Knights were about having Aura's that increase things like movement speed, which Deaths Advance did. Bring back Death's Advance and remove Wraith Walk. Runeforging appears to be nonfunctional in PvP. Given that some of our base specs / artifact talents revolve around a runeforge, such as Unholy with Fallen Crusader or Razorice not working properly for Frost, this is a serious issue. Some clarification at minimum is needed.Please Tweet this thread to Blizzard and let us raise awareness for these issues!The Blizzard Twitters that matter are:
https://twitter.com/WatcherDev or @WatcherDev (this is Ion Hazzikostas)
https://twitter.com/holinka or @Holinka (this is Brian Holinka)
https://twitter.com/Celestalon or @Celestalon (this is Celestalon)
https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs or @WarcraftDevs (this seems to be an anyone can reply Twitter)
Second, the summary of Blood, taken from; http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749316508?page=1#detail
Video Credit to Raziel
09/27/2016 07:51 PMPosted by DeathroweBliz, Blood DK's have joined up to summarize the major issues affecting Blood DK Tanking. The below is a bullet point breakdown of Raziel's video as it was requested a lot. This is a transcript of the video, which outlines all concerns facing Blood DK's.
Video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3hV_CeGQI
Current Blood Death Knight Issues
1. Cooldowns.
No baseline physical damage reduction cooldown abilities. All other classes (except for Rogues who have an AOE damage reduction) have a baseline damage reduction cooldown.
For example;
Damage Dealer & Healer damage reduction cooldowns
- Warriors - Die by the sword
- Warlock - Unending Resolve
- Shaman - Astral Shift
- Rogue - Feint (doesn’t count)
- Priest - Power Word: Barrier, Pain Suppression, Dispersion
- Paladin - Block, Blessing of Protection, Divine Protection, Shield of Vengeance
- Monk - Life Cocoon
- Mage - Ice Block, Ice Barrier
- Hunter - Aspect of the Turtle
- Druid - Barkskin, Survival, Iron Bark
- Demon Hunter - Blur
- Death Knight - Icebound Fortitude
Tank Specs
- Warriors - Shield Block, Passive Block, Critical Block, Ignore Pain, Shield Wall, Demoralizing Shout
- Paladin - Divine Shield, Divine Protection, Shield of Righteousness, Blessing of Protection, Ardent Defender, Guardian of Ancient Kings, passive and critical block
- Monk - Zen Meditation, Ironskin Brew, Fortifying Brew
- Druid - Ironfur, Survival Instincts, Barkskin
- Demon Hunter - Demon Spikes, Fiery Brand
- Blood Death Knight - Bone Shield as a Block?
a. Doesn't count because it doesn't give more armor
b. Similar as if we were maintaining equipping a shield
c. Active mitigation is done with a buff that happens after Death Strike to say that active mitigation happened even though there is no mitigation
Why does every class in the game except for Blood Death Knight have a damage cooldown except for a tank?
2. Mastery is completely Gutted.
- The scaling of mastery is awful. Blood Shield is barely producing a shield large enough to absorb even one normal melee hit.
- Mastery Scaling needs to doubled or tripled to be effective.
-
Blood Death Knight abilities
- Healing is too tied to the damage we deal the Tank DPS Nerf hurt DK's.
- Blizzard doesn't understand that the reason Death Knights do so much AOE damage is because we are stacking haste and crit because mastery is so broken
Nerfing Damage also nerfs our mitigation which is contradictory in design
4. Death Knight Rotation
Don't really have one
1. Do you have 5 stacks of boneshield
2. Hearth Strike and Death Strike, dump runic power
3. Death Strike is spammed rather than being gamed to produce a bigger shield. This is especially true in AOE
4. Rotation is not engaging or fun
5. Talent Tree
Row 1
a. Bloodworms
1. Useless talent - low damage, low proc rate
2. Should be baseline because it makes no meaningful contribution
b. Heartbreaker
1. Overly useful because of the need for Runic Power Generation
c. Blood Drinker
1. Useless talent
2. Doesn't make sense on this row
3. A buff might make this ok
Row 2
a. Runic Decomposition
1. Overly Useful
2. Runic Power generation again trumps all other talents in this row
b. Soulgorge
1. Useless Talent
2. Promotes Tab Diseasing and wasting runes to get optimal usage out of it
3. Removes the ability to disease aoe mobs with blood boil
4. Clunky usage all around
5. Removal of the passive that disables blood boil not spreading diseases is the only way to make this talent a choice
c. Spectral Deflection
1. A good talent that cannot be chosen because Runic Decomposition must be chosen.
Row 3
a. Ossuary
1. Have to take this talent because it increases the number of Death Strikes possible within a full runic power bar
b. Blood Tap
1. Doesn't compete with Ossuary because its charges do not recharge fast enough to compete with Ossuary
c. Anti-magic Shell
1. More health is not useful and removes the reason Death Knights need AMS for the reasons of magic mitigation.
2. Might be compete if it gave physical damage reduction instead of more health
Row 4
a. Mark of Blood
1. Useless talent
2. Reveals issues with the class that this is one of the few runic power spenders for Blood, shows a lack of choice or decision to make for runic power
b. Red Thirst
1. The best talent of the row
2. Only time you can't choose this is if you have the legendary belt
c. Tombstone
1. Short Cooldown
2. Counters itself by losing the boneshield stacks because you have to have enough runes to get boneshield back immediately after usage
3. The only way to choose blood tap or tombstone would be to have legendary bracers and belt but that is contingent on RNG
Row 5
a. Tightening Grasp
1. Have to take because on mythic+ kiting is necessary
b. Tremble Before Me
1. Messes with interrupts because it doesn't cause the interrupt cast block
c. March of the Damned
1. Only useful in pvp or long run situations
Row 6
a. Will of the Necropolis
1. If you are ever below 35% this talent is not going to solve your issue
b. Rune Tap
1. Should be baseline and our choice cooldown. Could cost Runic power to make it an even better choice
c. Foul Bulwark
1. Best in row, effective only because we have no baseline CD
Row 7
a. Bonestorm
1. Good if you are looking for damage or speed pulls
b. Blood Mirror
1. Best choice for raiding because this is a 20% damage reduction
c. Purgatory
1. Healing being the way it is it is nearly impossible to get you over the purgatory threshold and make you live through the next few hits
6. Number of Targets affects survival
-. Heart Strike - artifact trait that heals for heart strike damage does a lot less single target
-. Blood Plague - more targets grant more healing
-. Umbilicus Eternus - way less effective single target
7. Artifact Weapon & Traits
a. Consumption
1. Worst artifact ability for tanks
2. Provides healing and no damage reduction in comparison to other Tanks
Examples;
1. Warriors - Does DPS + 100% block for 3 seconds not affected by number of targets on you
2. Druids - Does DPS + 25% damage reduction for 10 seconds longer cooldown and not effected by number of targets on you
3. Monks - Does DPS + complete melee attack immunity for 3 seconds not effected by the number of targets
4. Demon Hunter - Second worst, Does DPS guaranteed 5 soul shards which gives a heal and damage reduction based on soul shards absorbed, not effected by number of targets
5. Paladin - Does damage + 25% damage reduction for 9 seconds not effected by the number of targets on you
6. Death Knights - Does NO damage on single target and provides a smaller heal than Death Strike and no damage reduction. Useless on single target. Needs to provide some form of damage reduction.
b. Too many DPS artifact traits
1. Warriors - 4 DPS traits 6 pure damage reduction
2. Druids - 2 DPS traits 5 pure damage reduction
3. Monks - 4 DPS traits 4 pure damage reduction
4. Demon Hunter - 6 DPS traits 1 pure damage reduction but has more healing traits
5. Paladin - 5 DPS traits 5 pure damage reduction
6. Death knight - 6 DPS traits 3 pure damage reduction
c. Unending Thirst
1. Only useful during off tanking because the mastery scaling is so awful you will literally never see it.
d. Skeletal Shattering
1. Have to have it because we have no other reliable source of damage reduction
e. Umbilicus Eternus
1. Only great if you have a lot of mobs, 1/5 as effective on single target
Only useful traits in single target boss fights
1. Skeletal Shattering
2. Dance of Darkness
3. Maw of Hell
f. Maw of Hell in general
1. Designed poorly because it is very designed around DPS which is being nerfed by blizzard
8. Raid Mechanics eating Bone Shield charges
a. Cenarius
1. Damage aura removes stacks of bone shield
2. Spike debuff in 3rd phase requires external cooldowns that other tank classes do not need to use
b. Bone shield needs redesign
1. Charges don't fall of because of certain attacks but still reduce damage
2. Damage limit to remove a bone charge
As this is a thread about Death Knights as a whole, I feel it appropriate to also include feedback based on the Unholy PvP thread that can be found here;
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749277331#detail
10/02/2016 01:24 AMPosted by KhonesI posted this in the GD post concerning DK's as a whole, but felt that it would be better suited here and more open to feedback. (Wall of text inc.)
Just wanted to put in a bit of feedback concerning DK's in PvP, specifically Unholy.
I have been gladiator only once, but I do feel that I have some respectable input and feedback to how DK's feel this expansion compared to the past.
- There is no reason to bring a DK to 3v3 over any other melee. They have no niche to fill in arena. They do less damage, have less CC, and less utility than any other melee class. There is no role that DK's provide in PvP that can't be fulfilled by another class. You have no Mortal Strike effect, one CC that really counts on a 45s CD, and so little damage that Crypt Fever is always the number one source of damage every game.
- Our mobility is still horrendous, and there is nothing to offset this. Before you freak out, mobility always been bad for DK's, but they had a lot of ranged damage, and even more damage in melee to check this. I've only played competitive PVP in MoP and WoD, but DK's were notorious for being healer-killers, or at least have some meaty damage to heal through it left unchecked during those expansions. As of now, our burst and non-burst damage is lower than most classes (the nerfed Apocalypse is our biggest burst of damage on a 1.5 minute CD).
- Our PVP talents have little to no impact on how you play in PVP. One row of the non-generic talents are straight up passives and the last tier (supposed to be the game-changing talents) are so weak that it's as if you could play without them and have the same impact. Necrotic Strike is a shell of its former self, Unholy Mutation is basically a 20s CD on a 50% slow, and Reanimation is a waste of runes and takes 5+ seconds to reach its target. There feels as if there is no talents diversity since the only real choice you make is whether to take AMZ or Dark Sim, your only two utility spells.
- Our "class fantasy" is pretty much nonexistent. I will say that the "ghoul summoning necromancer" vibe is there, UHDKs can summon upwards of seven undead minions, but the "anti-caster melee" idea has been whittled down to shreds over the years. Having abilities like Dark Sim, Necrotic Strike, AMS/AMZ, and the old version of Desecrated Ground (the one that spawned big, slowing patches on the ground) used to make DK's feel like they could be a big hassle for casters/ranged. Now, DK's are lucky to only be CCed for almost half the game, rather than most of it due to the removal of Lichborne, Deaths Advance, and Desecrated Ground. Sure, these abilities were used to "mongo trinket" CC, but with such little mobility, it was pretty much necessary, as you can't really position well as a melee with no mobility -- you're stuck wherever your target is in the arena.
Essentially, with how much change every class besides DK's has undergone over the years, DK's have just felt like an afterthought. Abilities like a 45 second CD stun and a 1.5 minute cd pet stun (for 2 seconds with transform, 1 second without) compared to Warriors, Rogues, DH's, and Monks, who all have 2+ separate CC's with different DR categories just feels completely irrelevant. A 3 minute CD on our damage reduction defensive wall (that only gives 20% reduction) is just silly at this point.
At the end of the day, DK's feel outdated, slow, not engaging to play, clunky (with that long GCD and Death Coil being weak), and unrewarding. Why should you play (or why would anyone else play with), a class that has half the tools of other classes as well as half the damage?
A summary of how Frost feels, taken from page 60;
10/05/2016 06:08 PMPosted by WarpäthThoughts on Frost, and how it feels, and makes me feel.
I no longer feel like a Death Knight, but something a bit more ambiguous. "Ice Melee" would be a more apt name. I wield the fragments of Frostmourne, yet I don't feel like it. Where is the "soul stealing" theme? We are supposed to be a Frost Death Knight. It's pure ice and nothing else.
For the sake of "Class Fantasy," I am forced to wield two near-dagger sized swords that are sheathed on my hips. I feel closer to a rogue, than a DK. Please give us a cosmetic option that allows us to wield a two-hander. Similar to WW Monks prior to legion that could decide between two one-handers or a staff/polearm but the mechanics remained the same. Player options and choices create a stronger emotional attachment to our characters.
Obliterate - With a name like that, it should feel satisfying to press. It doesn't. People have given multiple ideas on how to improve it. Like Killing Machine having it do frost damage, or Crit rating increasing its damage. Those are fantastic ideas. However, in its current iteration, the spell description should simply read: "False Advertising." Or, "Slap the target with a fish."
Crystalline Swords - What even is this? Just scrap it. I can't even muster some constructive criticism for it. This honestly feels uninspiring and lazy to the point I feel insulted that you(the developers) couldn't come up with something fun and exciting for the people that play this spec.
Syndragosa's Fury - 5 minute CD that does the same amount of damage as the WW Monk artifact equip ability that is on a 40 second CD. The CD needs to be cut down substantially.
