Death Grip Animation 7.2

#1 - Feb. 25, 2017, 3:30 p.m.

Just a PSA for those who don't know; Death Grip is getting a rework in 7.2 that dramatically changes its visual and slightly changes its functionality.

The animation is being swapped to the survival hunter's grapple, except lower res and with a glow effect. The iconic purple energy grip that we currently have is completely scrapped.

Likewise, because of the new slightly glowing chain animation, there will now be projectile travel time in addition to the pull time, so Death Grip is now noticeably slower than it is in Live.

The old animation is not going to have a glyph. We are forced to use this new animation.

I've been asking on the PTR Class and General forums for a while for communication about this - in my opinion - rather painful change, but to no avail. A twitter post from a month ago asking for a glyph for the old animation was met with

"Is there something about the old Death Grip animation that you feel is missing from the new Death Grip animation?"

and no further communication since. At this point, it looks like it will be affecting Live, and I figured that asking General is the last ditch effort we have on getting the old one added as a glyph...(Or better yet; The new ones being the glyph, but we all know that won't happen).

Link to the PTR Forum post:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753100383

Link to the Death Knight Discussion post:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20753515756

I've been showing this animation out to my friend group who does not look at the WoW forums. They are very upset with this change as well, so its not just the forum community up in arms.

Solanis

Class Designer

#134 - March 2, 2017, 9:54 p.m.

Thank you for creating a discussion around Death Grip; it has helped steer our final implementation for 7.2 immensely. Legion has seen many improvements to the feel and style of combat for WoW, and it is an initiative that we are continuing to pursue.

The goal for all of these improvements is to maintain as much of the mechanical feel of abilities as possible (as they have existed for many years) while delivering an intuitive, consistent, and modern visual experience. For example, a hammer should deal damage when it slams into a murloc, not before. In some cases, we can bend the rules to allow clutch mechanical interactions to win, such as Death Strike providing its heal instantly while the damage occurs when your weapon connects.

We will be following similar rules for our final implementation of Death Grip, which will stop the target’s spellcast instantly but start the pull a fraction of a second later when the spell connects with its target (even faster than it was for much of 7.2 PTR). This should feel consistent with all of the other attacks Death Knights currently have. We are also adding a few more elements to the visual of Death Grip to bring the vibe closer to the original. The overarching goal of harmonizing mechanics and aesthetics is a very fine needle to thread, but it is one worth fighting for.

Thank you again for your feedback. See you in Acherus.