Here is a brief list of some of the things I came up with, sort of as a "wish list" of changes I'd like to see happen:
Blood:
Baseline changes:
Blood strike now acts as a method to congeal or coagulate the victims blood, and melds any diseases currently afflicting the target to their flesh, making them (the diseases) temporarily undispellable until worn out or renewed.
Reason: It's easy to see why a change like this will probably be need to be made, by following this thread: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.
This wouldn't make ALL diseases that the death knight spreads undispelable. You still have a chance to do so in pvp before blood strikes hit. In addition, diseases spread via pestilence would not be "sealed in" and undispelable until they are struck with a blood strike. This let's the DK focus on keeping a single target debuffed for the purpose of disease synergy, while not making diseases completely uncounterable.
Finally, this would actually make blood strike feel like it has an actual purpose (and one that makes sense), and be more fun and engaging to use. Abilities that have a clearly defined purpose always make for more interesting gameplay. In addition, it would give epidemic actual value in a PvP environment, as extra duration on dispelable diseases is rather underwhelming to say the least.
Edit: Perhaps the disease/blood strike change is too strong, and perhaps it isn't.
Perhaps the diseases should get harder and harder to dispel with each blood strike applied to the diseased target. Say, 35%/70% for every 1/2 blood strikes. This, combined with virulence, would give 100% undispelable, but ONLY on targets that you've performed blood strike on twice.
I really like the idea of blood strike causing the targets' blood to coagulate when diseased, though.
Talent changes:
Scent of blood: In adition to it's current effects, it now also reduces the RP cost of all offensive RP abilities by 5/10/15%.
Reason: Many people do not like this talent simply because it's only useful for tanking, where RP abilities aren't as huge of a concern as maintaining rune rotations. This would allow people to get use out of the talent even when not taking hits, while at the same time making things like hungering cold, DRW, gargoyle, death coil, and unholy blight easier to squeeze in for any situation.
Vendetta: In additon to it's current effects, Vendetta now also gives the DK a 10% damage boost for 20 seconds if their ghoul is prematurely slain in battle.
Reason: The idea here is to spice up this talent a bit, while at the same time encouraging players to bust the ghoul out even in environments where it might get killed off via AOE pretty easily, as blood DKs have no way of resummoning a ghoul very quickly. You must avenge poor Brainsnatcher. :)
Frost:
Baseline changes:
Horn of winter now lasts 5 minutes, but now costs 30 RP. Please.
Talent changes:
Glacier rot and Endless winter have swapped places.
Reason: This one is pretty obvious. Glacier rot does nothing for deep blood and deep unholy specs. Endless winter, on the other hand, would be a great talent that any sub-spec would be interested in picking up, including any build interested in PvP. This, combined with the blood strike baseline change would go to solve a lot of mechanical issues players are having with fighting the DK resource system. Chains of ice is still dispelable, so I don't see this as being OP.
Killing Machine: KM procs now also automatically refresh the duration of Horn of Winter.
Reason: Quality of life issue that would be a perk to frost. Frost is more RP hungry than any other tree, and would benefit more from this change than blood or unholy.
Unholy:
Talent changes:
Anticipation: Now also reduces the RP cost of your Rune Strike by 25/50%.
Reason: This is the only early tanking talent that we get that doesn't offer an ancillary effect that's beneficial in PvP. Blade barrier has the side effect of not only providing 10% physical mitigation, but also increases the proc chance of rune strike by 10%. Tougness increases armor, but also reduces snare effects. Anticipation is just a flat 5% dodge. Useful, but not exciting. This change would allow DKs who enjoy both PvE and PvP a reason to be excited about picking up a tanking talent, and not feeling "bad" about it when not tanking.
Corpse Explosion: Additional effect: Targets affected by corpse explosion are now dazed for 8 seconds, and take an additional 10% shadow damage while dazed. In addition, all diseases on affected targets are now refreshed to their maximum duration.
Reason: The idea here is that players don't like weaving CE into their rotations, not because of the damage it does or doesn't do, but because it costs players an unholy rune that could/should be used to refresh desecration instead. It simply doesn't "do" enough or warrant enough reason for use. If CE dazed targets and increased the shadow damage they take, you'd somewhat make up for the loss of a desecration on your next rotation, feel rewarded for using CE (which is VERY situational at best anyways), and would make players actually look forward to using the ability. In addition, refreshing the diseases on affected targets means that using CE creates the opportunity of using blood boil more, which encourages picking up talents such as outbreak and reaping. This would be a great synergy change, and rightfully so, as again it's a very situational ability at best.
Unholy Blight: Additional Effect: Now heals the Death knight for 50% of the damage done.
Reason: Simply put? Flavor.
If you want more reasons, follow these posts: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.
20 comments:
Unholy changes seem fine as none are too big. Horn of Winter change seems obvious with the change to totem durations. I don't think Scent of Blood change is neccessary simply because you have dps options available should you not want it, and it would probably become a required talent for every build.
I have to disagree on the Blood Strike change though. I agree with Zeckks about the diseases situation. The only spec that cannot easily get 30% protection is 18/53/0. Frost doesn't have the dependence that other specs do on diseases so this is fine imo. (You can even reduce the disease dependence of Oblit with the glyph.) 30% protection is good enough for every other class, so I don't see why DKs suddenly need near-undispellable debuffs.
Its very simple why they need much more protection on the diseases. loosing the diseases screws up the dknights rotations as all your subsequent attacks will do less dmg. if you compare this to a shadow priest or a warlock, when their dots are dispelled they do not suddenly have to accept that there main attacks like shadowbolt or mind blast will do substantially less dmg. so why should we?
My wishlist
Because of lack cc -->goundimmunity to all cc effects in the game. 30% or something
diseases are undisppelable. like blleding from the warrior.
higher burst with the endtalents(scourge,heart)
cd deathgrip reduced to 15sec.
51 unholy back to like it was
@2nd comment:
The problem with that comparison is that spriest/lock dots are a much larger portion of their damage, so while you may not be reducing their nuke damage directly, dispelling dots takes away just as much damage as dispelling diseases.
(Sorry deleted previous comment, was on the wrong account :P, so repost)
Some very good suggestion Jayde.
Or at least material to play with.
I personally don't fully agree with the bloodstrike change you suggested. Not that i disapprove of the concept, but i think that immunity to cleansing diseases is too strong.
Maybe something like a 50% dispel resistance (maybe a bit lower and make it stack with Virulence) after blood strike is used. You keep the dispel resistance high, but not make it impossible to remove them.
About Corpse Explosion.
I personally wish they would buff the hell out of this talent.
Im a huge fan of the Diablo 2 Necromancer's Corpse Explosion. And i find the Death Knight one very very lackluster.
Even in AoE situations id most likely rather use the unholy runes on Death and Decay and IT>PS>Pestilence.
I think your suggestion is good, but i think it can use something more. The problem i think with Corpse Explosion is that when you copy a skill from a Hack and Slash, where you're knee deep in corpses over to an MMO, where those are limited (save for extreme aoe fights), you have to alter it to work.
I think your idea goes the right way, some kind of debuff after you use CE.
Although im very sure this ability could use something extra.
Maybe even something tied to the ghoul, like having it explode if no corpse is present. That way it synergizes well with your idea of Vendetta, as well as Night of the Dead.
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About the rest, i think your idea of Scent of Blood is a bit on the strong side, although you are absolutely right that it needs something to help it out.
Same for Vendetta, and i actually like this idea.
Horn of Winter buff to its duration would be nice as well yea, atm its a bit annoying to use.
I can come into your reasoning about Glacier Rot and Endless Winter, although I'm a bit afraid that Endless Winter is a bit too strong for a first tier talent
Cant really comment on the Killing Machine talent, haven't played around with it enough yet on Beta.
The anticipation change you mention, while its true that its a bit lacking, compared to other tanking talents i dont neccesarily see that as a bad thing.
Another option is to perhaps reduce the disarm time, much like other classes' anticipation does (look at enh shaman anticipation).
Some good ideas in general though.
It seems like most people that complain about possible changes to diseases simply haven't played with them.
If SW:P gets dispelled on my priest and I'm mid mind blast, I finish the mind blast, then re-sw:p.
If frost fever falls off my target and I'm about to oblit I *STOP* the oblit (sometimes) and other times by refreshing frost fever I lose the ability to oblit for 10(ish) seconds.
Diseases are a compounding issue that represent compounding opportunity costs to DKs. In a pve environment where their control is almost entirely on the DK it's an acceptable and originally a somewhat refreshing approach.
In pvp it's an insane issue against anyone with a clue. What people need to understand is that dk damage isn't "too high" when the diseases are there. When they aren't it's even lower, and you lose the disease dmg, etc.
If you want to make the comparison to other resource based classes then DKs need an "Unquenchable hunger" type of ability/talent that says "When your frost fever ends early a frost rune immediately refreshes, when your blood plague ends early an unholy rune immediately refreshes".
That ability/talent would make it closer to a shadow priest or a warrior or any other class. Removing the disease still has the immediate benefits that removing damage based debuffs does, but doesn't completely bork what the DK was attempting to do for 10(ish) seconds. I swear dispell at times feels like a mini-stasis or a "plow under" that is just WAYYYYYY too strong against the current dk model in pvp.
Obviously it shouldn't work when diseases simply run duration, or when oblit removes them (though that'd be kind of hot and might be worth at least playtesting).
For those that haven't experienced DK pvp against reasonably skilled players though you honestly have no idea how frustrating it is at times. Having to spend 10(ish) seconds at times to setup anything and have only a 30% dispell resist at your disposal to preserve that work is insane.
The simple truth is that dk pvp needs attention at the concept level. That is something that *SHOULD* be addressed in a beta and that is something that is being overlooked right now. The changes needed aren't huge, but they represent an understanding on blizzards' part about how DKs funcation and how pvp works. Right now the current situation simply doesn't "work".
How would people feel then about dispel removing the dmg component of the disease but leaving the disease there as a multiplier for the attacks. this way the dmg can be removed like a warlock or a shadow priests dots but the dknight could still keep up his melee dmg.
Violencé Eu
I do agree with almost all the recommendations. I do think that simply a ranged 8 sec daze from corpse explosion would work great.
I do see Corpse explosion as more of a pvp talent then pve.
I think a innate 25% resist to snares or something like that would be good. something to make us that much harder to kite. Maybe have one of the diseases be undispellable like a warriors bleed. Like say...Blood plague...since it doesn't have any secondary effects like frost fever does.
I do think switching glacier rot and endless winter wasnt it? whichever that does the 30% snare on frost fever.
I do also like the idea of the damage part being removed but not the disease.
If they were willing to add a secondary debuff to diseases, "weakened" or whatever that could work.
Simply have blood plague and frost fever apply the other debuff, make that debuff stay and simply have abilities check on the existence of that debuff instead of the actual disease.
I think there are a few ways that the pvp issues could be addressed without affecting pve at all. Again though, it's going to take blizzard acknowledging there is an issue with the current DK pvp dynamic. Once that happens there are a lot of easy changes that could fix things.
The 'getting the rune back on dispel' idea seems the best so far. Doesn't add any extra debuffs, keeps dispels on diseases good, and softens the blow of a dispelled disease at the same time.
Innate snare resist is a ridiculous suggestion. Spec toughness and/or get a snare reduce meta.
I dig these changes, esp the Blood Strike change. It makes Blood Strike so important, on par with IT and PS. Right now I use it mainly to get death runes and some quick dps when the other runes are on CD.
Actually skills witch could be buffed without changing something big in pve, but helps in pvp.
Mark of blood: cd reduced to 1,5min. reason. 3min are far to long if you watch for example cloak of shadows with has 1,5min. just as an example.
lichbone: cd reduced to 1 min. reason: also here you can list the rogue again as an example. dismantle (for absolutly overpowerd) just has 1min cd, put everything away from you. has a little little energy costs. Vansih 2min coolddown, to keep you in stunlock etc.
virulence: buffed to, 70% and a new effect, maxes you immunity for every cc effect i the game for 30%.
Hungering cold: not dispelable and not breakable with insignia or something els, like druid whirlwind.
death crip: down to 25 sec, skilled 15 sec.
Dancing rune weapon: down to 2min and holds min 30sec up to 1min.
obliterate dosen´t remove diseases anymore.
Why all those changes? in my eyes the dk has fight with toe highest cd in the hole game.
3min and more everywhere. the rogue moves between nothing and 2min, for really heavy spells like cloak or dismantle an vanish.
hunter same. just 2min for the
immunity of the beastmaster.
warrior bladestrom 1,5min
and so on and so on.
Arena nowadays: MS to break heal, leeching mana, cc are the 3 words too sucsess.
the deathknight should be the class who mix this up. no ms,no mana, poor cc abilitys, BUT extrem hard to kill, and nearly not to stop with cc,disarm and other effects, so that the other classes have to think al little bit.
and from this point, blizzard is far away. Instead to think about the mass of cc and maybe cut them of, blizz but more of those effects in wotlk. Those cc effects occure massivly problems to the pvp game.
Mages, rogues and retpalas are the best examples here.
1. Pala: ret is now nerfed hard. For me the dmg of the ret was not the the problem. But, stun stun stun and if you keep out of them and kickhis ass--->bubble and than he kicks you. simple way to fix. In bubble just 10% dmg is outgoing. So he can prevend opponents to you badges or restealths. Heal is 100% like it was. In and out. Stun time reduced about 30%. Dmg like it was.
Rogues: Dismantle--->outpached. No need in the game for something like that. They had riposte. If they don´t skill it, their problem.
Every class like to skill more but can´t. Rogue is the only one witch gets everything for free. thanks to blizz at this point. In combination with dismatle, cloak, stuns etc. and the poor cd times, rogue is just overpowerd. Like ret was. dismantle 10min cd, and you will see, rogue again is on a normal lvl.
frostmage: one class with is 100% nerfed until the release. too much cc (you just have to touch him to be freezed), iceblock etc. everyone knows what i mean.
all those talents are making balance problems. espacially for the dk. blizz says, hmm if we boost dmg ---> too strong in pve.
simpelst way. let everything like it is, give the deathknight immunity for poisions, frost tab and harmstring and a chance to 30-40% to resist iceeffects stuns and fears and the problems are gone. effect to pve?! Nearly nothing.
To the poster above me, I hope that you're joking. These recommendations will make DKs absolutely stupidly OP.
On-demand dazes are extremely dangerous, primarily because they dismount people. Imagine the corpse camping that would be possible, or the amount a DK could do in a battleground. Kill one person and dismount their entire team?
It requires.... a Corpse...
Dazes caused by players don't dismount people unless I missed something in the Wotlk patch notes. Piercing Howl, Concussive Shot etc. don't cause people on mounts to be dismounted.
I'm not sure if this would help as much with the disease cleansing problems but I think that when a disease is cleansed it should have a 25% or so chance to leave a debuff that causes the next healing affect to cause damage instead of curing it. A HoT would probably have to become a DoT for its duration to prevent it from being such a easy way around it. The chance to happen and maximum damage it could do would probably have to be tweaked a bit to keep it from being to powerful. It just seems fitting to me for some reason that the Dk would have something like this.
One would think that to remove a form of bondage forcibly would cause a terribly violent reaction. I'd like to see something implemented into Chain of Ice that would cause whom ever is dispelling to consider it.
Something like: Chain of Ice is dispelled. The icy chains shatter. Shards are sent flying in many directions. A small chance for a random proc of a random debuff in an area of effect or a larger chance to proc the random debuff on the dispeller. I'm for the latter of the two. Less RNG is nice.
I.E. Chance for a large chunk of ice to crash upon the head of a player, inflicting physicak damage and stunning them for 2-4 seconds. Chance for a jagged sliver of ice to slice the throat of a player, inflicting 2/3 seconds silence and a small bleed DoT that doesn't go away until healed or a medium damage bleed DoT with a finite duration -- 6 to 8 seconds maybe -- or chance for a sharp blade of ice to stab/slice the leg of a player, causing them to become hamstrung for X amount of seconds.
That's probably too overpowering to be baked into the the baseline skill. So, maybe it could be implemented as a new glyph and they could remove the current one, that is pretty lackluster. Alternatively, it could be baked into one of the early talents in the frost tree.
The anticipation change seems out of line for other versions of Anticipation. It should probably just have the added effect of reducing disarm duration like the Shaman one.
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