Blizzard, the Death Knight changes are terrible!
I’m not one to complain from the outset. I’ve tested the Death Knight extensively in M0 dungeons and I have to say, the changes are a huge disappointment.
Starting with the removal of Abomination Limbs to make the Death Grip more important, there are still plenty of trash mobs that can’t be pulled. Therefore, this argument makes no sense to me.
The Exterminate nerf and the loss of Abomination Limbs have led to a significant DPS drop.
When pulling larger groups, the lack of a mobile AOE ability repeatedly leads to aggro losses. In S2, the rotation between Abomination Limbs and other AOE abilities, such as the combination of Gorefiend’s Grasp, Death and Decay, and the Dancing Rune Weapon, were able to maintain aggro between successive groups. In Shadowlands, for example, I enjoyed playing with the Ventir Covenant ability. It has a relatively short cooldown, and the AOE effect is great for tying up trash mobs.
San’layn is good if you have the Dancing Rune Weapon available for a big pull, but if you don’t, the damage you deal is too low, and strong DPSs can draw aggro.
I wonder why these changes were necessary. The way things were before, it was fine, and no one complained. Now the DK is no longer fun and will probably become even less popular for Mythic+.
Blizzard, I see an urgent need for action.
7 Likes
The short answer to this is incompetence, short-sightedness and delibirate neglect of blood DKs tanks.
Here is the recent interview with Blizz dev
you tube. com/watch?v=eWZlPweLotU&t=2109s
At around 23:30 you can see Dev talking how they made “Grips more impactful this season and thus increased their viability in raids” and how “we also buffed AMZ”, yeah that moron dev literally said that they buffed AMZ.
From a DPS DK perspective in raid enviroment it could be considered a buff (but with a lot of trade offs - it costs now 2 talent points than 1, has longer cooldown and damage reduction), it is pretty obvious that in m+ it was a flat big nerf even for DPS DK.
For blood DK perspective it was a nerf both in raid but especially in m+, because they don’t give a damn about us.
Like all youtubers (Yoda, Rupi and others) have been saying how weak blood DK is in m+ and that it needs buffs in utility and survivability and people across both Eu and US forums kept saying how bad blood DK is that heavy damage and utility nerf to an already struggling tank spec is dumb and disrespectful idea.
They don’t care, and because of world first and other garbage events like this no tuning to be expected.
1 Like
After BDK was a living god in DF, especially with the Fyralath, seems they have decided to let him be unworthy spec this expention… As i said before, they have to at least give us an easy access to 1.5(even 1)min cd Gorefiend’s grasp with silence for be playable in m+. Even then it won’t be good, but at least you could pull more properly
it’s absolutely miserable to play right now. The spec has been gutted to the point where it barely feels functional.
They said this rework would improve things. That it would focus the toolkit or whatever. But honestly this is just another example of Blizzard saying one thing and doing the complete opposite.
3 Likes
Totally trashed the spec, it was such a joy to play, now it’s just sheer hard work. I’m likely going to switch and try paly.
This is surprise for me, because I was planning to stubbornly play Deathbringer this season. It somehow feels more thematic to me. And since I’m not going to World First, it doesn’t really matter that much.
However, during gameplay, this spec feels so strange compared to last season. Before, I’d have a ton of Bone Shield because I’d periodically press Marrowrend, which gave me extra scythes. Now, it seems to pop up every so often. I feel like I have to use it so rarely that I have to use it just to avoid accidentally losing Bone Shield, even if I don’t get an extra scythe attack. I’m wasting two runes on this for no reason, and I feel like this season’s rotation is so strange for this spec that even though I wanted to stubbornly play it, it’s really throwing me off.
I think the whole problem with Blood is the whole bone shield mechanic. If you pull a big pack with 0 bone shield you gonna get wrecked if they healer isn’t focused. In general, the bone shield mechanic seems inconsistent to me.
It’s kind of impossible to pull the pack without bone shield, since you have the ranged skill that gives you bone shield and it has low CD.
1 Like
BDK was middle of the Pack in DF, since the introduction of the new Talent trees in Dragonflight pre Patch BDK got Punished for it’s dominance in Shadowlands Season 3/4 since then our Talent tree had major issues that weren’t Adressed in TWW.
Yeah for Most Part BDK was finde in DF unless u wanted 2 Push Keys ( the random oneshots were insane)
The introduction of TWW shifted Most of Tank DMG to their Hero Talents ( yeah Hero Talents should feel Impactfull but Not to the extent that they do almost all of your DMG)
The 11.2 class Changes were clearly focused on Frost and Unholy and Not a single thought was wasted on Blood, in the end they Just tried to Offset the Abolimb remvole with a 8% Aura buff in all DMG done without even trying to understand how we are using this spell in different types of content
3 Likes
First of all i read all your comments and i totally agree .
I played BDK season 1 of TWW i almost hit 3k rating, on season 2 i hit 3k before the belt patch. I start s3 playing BDK with the last patch tier set.
From day 1 the spec feels broken in a bad way. I dont know San’layn feels unplayable , i dont know if it will be smoother with higher ilvl(current ilvl 690). I even manage to proc cheat death at m0 doing the first pull on floodgate. I used to do that pull too often when i was pushing keys and i was able to do execute the pull without using icebound Fortitude and sometimes without healer (dancing blades + vampiric blood was enough). I havent tested the deathbringer but i believe it will not work also. Also Abomination Limbs had the benefit of giving boneshield stack. Blizzard took away that resource generating ability and replace it with nothing. 8% damage buff it is irrelevant.
Did only 1 key on BDK (Dawnbreaker +10). It wasnt super bad it was just meh. Feeling worse then S2. Hero talents are adjusted to Tier set when it should be otherwise (Deathbringer was nerfed because of tier set). No abonimation limbs, still many dead talents, no rework when frost and unholy got multiply reworks, no usefull utility compared to other tanks, NO RAID buff. Please somebody at Microsoft change this blizz devs.
3 Likes
Well, let me tell you, DB has been completely changed this season, and playing him feels a bit different. Because of the tier set they make him so strange that it took me a moment to adjust, as it felt completely different than in Season 2. And of course, it’s weaker when we talking about numbers, so nothing has changed in that regard. This spec is only for fans.
Blood is fun, but threat generation can be annoying sometimes. Definitely needs a rework.
Sanlayn is kinda fun, but is visually lackluster.
I agree. How is that is 2025 and when I play my DK I feel I’m on a key with Skittish.
The spec is already underwhelming, at least don’t make it struggle to aggro @Blizzard
1 Like
when you guys whine about BDK its about doing keys 10 and higher or in general?
No problem at all, i did not even play, but reading notes… DK is best solo boss slayer, best aggro holder in boss fights, forget your instant caves
Agreed, no more fun in Battle Field once you taunt whole team of 10 to aggro you and team slay them 1 in 1
Every tank in the game can do +10 keys without problems. It’s just not great in comparison with many other tanks. I personally find it much less enjoyable to play this season. Abomination Limb was such an amazing ability to set up larger pulls without worrying about threat, and to some extent, Bone Shield management.
This should never have been done in the middle of an expansion.
2 Likes
I don’t mind removal of the Abomination Limbs, but dear Lord the dps and consequently aggro is pathetic.
Did some M1s (‘M0’) with people of similar ilvl aka nobody was overgeared and i was constantly struggling with aggro and had to taunt with grip like some wimp.
Death and decay 150k dmg over 10 seconds. 15k dps 
doesn’t even do anything.
Back in BFA there was an Azerite trait which made death and decay super strong. Yeah, bring it back.
As a Blood Death Knight Main with 3k Io and pushing 14+. Most things are easy to get around.
But the damage, no actual utility beside grips sucks. And our tree is garbage.
I would agree, Death Knight as a Class needs to complete reworked/redone.
As of right now going into 14+ with a 3.2k score from last season and a 3k score rn. Starting to get declined a lot. Sucks but will keep trucking.