Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Death strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate:

"I'm not digging obliterate at all anymore, for any spec.

It's just very much overshadowed by the other things every other tree offers as a replacement for that spot in the rotation.

And to be honest, I'd rather see obliterate become something other than a 'super blood strike that removes diseases' at this point.

DRM rotations as blood won't/don't use it because there aren't enough supporting talents in blood for it anymore, now that MoM doesn't affect it. Blood has an overabundance of blood runes via DRM, and this directly translates into wonderful synergy of sudden doom, bloody vengeance, abom's strength procs, along with better RP generation, as well as more attacks from DRW while it's up.

Frost will never use oblit if HB is ready to go, and even if I can't use HB, i'd rather use icy touch for 20 RP and similar damage for one rune. Not only does howling blast do more damage, but it only requires frost fever to do max damage, ignores armor, can AOE, and doesn't remove the disease. It's just a no-brainer.

Unholy has Scourge strike, which is also a no-brainer to use over oblit in every single way.

Without blood talents (read: DRM and MoM) supporting Obliterate, it's simply a bad skill that doesn't fit in anywhere, for any spec right now."


Now, with all that being said, I'd like to bring something up that I've brought up in the past:

I'd like to see death strike reworked a bit and make it cost 1 blood rune instead, and tweak it's effectiveness to go with it.

Reasons:
1) It feels clunky as a 1U1F cost. I like my finisher being HB or SS as frost/unholy as is. Death strike with a 1U1F cost as frost, which is very disease independent (outside of frost fever) always feels incredibly weak. The choice should really be between obliterate and the tree-specific finishers. Thus, obliterate needs to be reworked a bit to be a more universally powerful and useful ability that is independent on spec.

2) As Frost: Using blood strike as frost for blood of the north feels like a chore and isn't fun. There are many times I'd rather sneak death strikes into the rotation instead of blood strikes to catch up on healing a bit rather than do a bit of extra damage (again, if it cost 1B instead). I'd rather have the choice in the rotation be between blood strike and death strike. In a group scenario with a healer? Blood strike for more damage. Healer CC'd or solo and need a bit of extra healing? Death strike instead for that part of the rotation. Then, use a finisher. Ideally, blood of the north would cover blood strike, death strike, and pestilence.

3) As Unholy: Using blood boil and pestilence for reaping is fun and all, but again I'd rather see options for single target "combo" abilities to build up those death runes to make combat more fun and engaging. I'd like more choice in the build-up process for working towards those death runes/finisher moves. Again, it would be nice to see DS use a blood rune for unholy rotations just the same. You want to do AOE damage? Blood boil. Need a bit of extra healing? Death strike. Ideally, reaping would cover all of these abilities as well.

4) More choices = More fun. I think it's been made quite clear by several parties at this point that spending 33% of our runes on blood strikes half of the time (especially as frost) is not fun.

5) Death strike heal amount is very underwhelming unless it crits. This plays very well with deep blood specs that A) Have lots of blood runes, B) has a higher crit chance than other specs, and C) includes both vicious strikes and MoM. Blood would be a lot more fun if you had the choice of doing a lot of damage via heart strike in DRM rotations, or by using DS to heal yourself with those blood runes, which would further lend itself to blood being the self-healing tree. To go along with this point >

6) Obliterate would then need to be reworked into Death Rune Mastery, and have death strike removed.

7) Make Obliterate more friendly to use. 125% weapon damage and doesn't remove diseases? Generates 15 or even 20 RP per use? Obviously blood would want to use it with these changes over the other specs due to DRM, but why would the other specs want to? Shadow-resistant target? Don't SS, but oblit instead. Can't AOE? Use oblit instead, but make the damage worth it, and remove the disease-removing penalty.

8) Rework annihilation to have your blood strikes have a chance to refresh the diseases on the target, making the choice between death strike and blood strike tougher. Blood strike is simply boring right now, and this talent would really make things more fun and interesting. I'd also probably have it refresh the disease on the current target when pestilence is used as well. Right now you have a half-assed way of getting around this, by applying diseases on a target, then using pestilence, then tabbing to another target and using pestilence again (refreshing the diseases on the initial target). It just feels clunky to do it this way.
Edit: (I forgot to clarify this part) Then, I'd move annihilation to the blood tree, and give us a reason to sneak in 1 blood strike during the rotations with those overabundance of blood runes so that you don't have to use icy touch + PS again (which are just awful damage by themselves as blood spec). The idea here is to give you an abundance of blood runes via DRM working off oblit, and using one blood rune per rotation for a blood strike (or pestilence if AOEing) to refresh diseases. This essentially frees up the need for epidemic as blood, as well as lets you get off another oblit than you normally would, solidifying obliterate as our finisher move for blood.

9) Rework Death strike healing amount if it being a 1 rune cost is too much. 50% healing per disease? 75%? 1%? 1000%? The numbers are easy to play with, but I'd probably reduce it to 50-75% or so.

17 comments:

Oscabo said...

Nice post, agree totally -especially death strike feeling worthless, especially as frost =\

welcome back!

Sam said...

Thanks! I had a great time in NY with the lady friend. =]

Veok said...

I have to say -- Deathknights are probably the single reason I'm renewing my account. I just want a chance to test them out, they seem like fun.

And, hey Leiah, quick question -- I've got a lot of suggestions and reasonings I've collected from the non-beta forums. Would you be interested in reading and/or reposting it? Or are you still mostly focused on doing feedback for Deathknights?

Sam said...

For which class? I'd be more than happy to take a look. Just leave a link here.

Alanos said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alanos said...

Very nice suggestions on Death Strike indeed. Especially as a Frosty.

Offtopic: Is there any possibility you'll post more things about tanking? I'm a little concerned about Death Knights, I mean... I hope they make both a viable DPS unit as well as a good tank if specced correctly. Are there any major problems right now aside from tanking gear? Rotation problems perhaps?

Unknown said...

Hello Jayde, great feedback as always. I love your idea for deathstrike and feel it would fit in so well with the other strikes. There are way to many strikes that use 1F 1U and it's actually kind've annoying. However, I think a quick fix would be to make it use 1B 1U. Afterall, it is an Unholy skill, having it only use 1B seems kind've... funky. I guess they could change it to a blood skill but I still want to see a blood combo with other runes. Unholy Frost combo is just so overused, I wish there was a faster way to spend my blood runes besides spamming bloodstrike. I feel like I'm always in need of Unholy/Frost runes and just spamming to get rid of blood runes.

Especially in PvP, I find myself (I am deep unholy spec) almost forgetting I have a blood rune up and usually end up just spamming the blood strike key to get rid of them. Blood boil is NOT a good conversion for unholy getting death runes, which is why I LOVE your suggestion of adding a new costing death strike onto it.

What I would love to see is Heart Strike we worked for blood. Give it a 2B cost, and make it more of a unique move with a cooldown. I don't like "replacing" BS with HS because as unholy 4 Disease BS is better than 2 disease HS. I would love to see heart strike re-worked into a new move, to keep it on par with Frost/Scourge Strike.

And now Obliterate. I never liked this move, deathstrike was always more fun to me, especially since I used to spam it to get blood worms. Obliterate sounds and I believe should feel like a finisher, hence the removes diseases. I really really really would like to see this skill reworked into something different, a runic power based finisher that does weapon damage and explodes your diseases for whatever ammount. That would make me feel like I am "obliterating" them! Make it up to ~60 runic power and only useable when targets have less than 20% health. Its a similar "finish him" move that the other classes have, with a death knight diseases twist onto it.

Anyway, thanks for reading my feedback, and as always I had fun reading yours.

Spooner said...

On Northrend server and I imagine yours, I see 99% of the DKs around as either Frost or Unholy. Am I the only person left that actually really likes Blood and am deep in the tree?

I agree Oblit should have some kind of use because right now my rotation is pretty manic with Unholy presence. It's usually IT>PS>DS>HS>HS>Deathcoil>DS and through crits (there are so so many) and sudden doom procs I find myself ending a fight with 40+ runic power, spammed death coil 2-3 times and runestrike everytime it's up since it doesn't tpa the GCD.

So I feel VERY efficient in killing things, leveling and in an instance, even tanking I had no problems so far having tanked quite a few times. Why still the obvious lack of blood spec DKs?

Destrado said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

@ Spooner: I'm specced blood (unretrofied, horde side on Lich King) atm and I absolutely love it. The damage is consistent, yet not overwhelming like the other two trees. On top of that, I can maintain myself and chain pull forever. Vampiric Blood works with everything too, it's easily my favorite "tanking" talent of all the trees. VB + FW bandage = 7200 heal, VB + Death Pact = 40% instant heal.

That being said, I completely agree with Obliterate, but I have to say that I like Death Strike where it is. Blood runes are in seriously short supply as blood spec (especially with a broken DRM), and even moreso in PvP when you add strangulate into the equation. If you want Death Strike to be changed to be 1B for a rune cost I feel it should be a talent in deep frost, possibly tied into Blood of the North.

Spooner said...

@monte

yeah see I feel the same way with oblit being pretty much just... useless, but I actually get some REALLY nice crits and crit often with death strike. if DRM used obliterate instead of death strike, for the same affect I'd be happy. if obliterate did NOT consume the diseases I'd be happier. and if death strike was indeed a 1blood rune cost then that'd be incredible (with the previously listed changes of course)

That way you would always have enough blood runes to either DPS well/self heal OR tank well/self heal. That keeps the theme of the blood tree intact and maintains the utility of it as well.

Heart strike though would be nicer if perhaps it had an armor penetration aspect based off the number of diseases on the target. Something like in addition to the extra dmg per disease, heart strike ignores 10/20/30/40% of the targets armor. That is if it works with all diseases not just your own :)

Unknown said...

I agree about Death Strike. It does feel awkward as 1F1U. I almost never use it as Unholy, granted with the current state of Scourge Strike a lot of the time it isn't needed. However, once that is fixed I can see choosing between DS and SS being extremely annoying.

Unknown said...

I like your idea to make DS useful...because right now i wouldn't use it or want to use it as ANY spec...

So it is pretty much a wasted skill. It costs too much, and doesn't heal much.

But i really like reaping with BB...especially because you can use BB ahead of time to get 2 death runes, so it doesn't cut into your initial rotation(and most of the time thats all i need).

But if Death Strike was useful and worked off of reaping(and only costed 1 blood)... I "might" consider using it, IF it did better damage in certain situations than BB...otherwise the only time i'd need it would be for heals(granted thats what it is meant for)

-Sherifu

Veok said...

Whoops, Warlock. You're still one of the more well-known warlocks, haha.

Um, okay. I need to upload it somewhere. Prolly drop a link in your next post.

En kräftas memoarer said...

Personally I like the idea of having to choose between DS and SS/HB. Sure, you do say that the 1B cost could be justified by nerfing the healing it does a bit, but that would make it less effective for the "full healing rotations" that are possible right now (as unholy spec, anyway), meaning having UB up, throwing off an IT and then Rune Tap -> DS -> DS. I like being able to (with some luck involved, sure) heal myself for like 5-6k at level 70. It's not too easy, since it does require some preparations and a cooldown, but that's what makes it fun - the fact that you actually have to think some to be able to do it.

I do agree on most of your other points, though, especially that rotating blood runes as frost/unholy right now is a big bore (unless you're aoe'ing as unholy, in which case I guess it's alright.)

ColdFire said...

No DS is a fine cost were it is making it Bloos would tak away from my heart strikes. Obliterate just need to be reworked in someway and maybe DS have its healing upped a wee bit. I agree with Monte that we have enough stuff to use our Blood runes with (HS more specifily) with is the blood trees "big" hitter. I am happy they have not listened to you on changing DS rune cost Jayde and i hope they never do on this issue.

____ said...

obliterate well talented = 2 death runes + no desease loss

DMG goes like
2 deseases, then obliterate, then howling blast = best dmg output

u could use death strike instead for hp regen when need it.


please coment ;)