Hello people!
I’ve been playing DK (dps) since MoP. It’s my favorite class and I’ve liked the multiple iterations it has gone through over the years.
In Dragonflight, the class remains awesome, a lot of the talents are really cool, but I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
So that’s what I will attempt to do here. Mostly for fun, or to give Blizzard some ideas.
Keep in mind that I am not a game designer obviously, and I welcome any (polite and constructive) criticism to my changes. I have put the reasons for the changes in [square brackets].
P.S. While reading these changes it would be useful to have the talent trees up to see all the spells and their effects and locations on the tree etc. if you don’t know them off the top of your head.
Okay here goes:
UNHOLY TALENT TREE
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Dark Transformation is now a 45 second cooldown by default. Unholy Command removed from the talent tree.
[I am forcing a 45-second and 1.5-minute cooldown window on all Unholy DKs regardless of talent selection. This is to remove the possibility of creating a build with mismatching cooldowns.] -
Unholy Blight removed from the talent tree. Replaced with a passive called Acute Infection: Outbreak deals (high amount) of shadow damage instantly to targets that are not infected with Virulent Plague or have 3 or less seconds remaining on an active Virulent Plague.
[Unholy already has a lot of buttons and cooldowns, and I feel Unholy Blight is a bit redundant. So, this is to do a little bit of pruning. Also, a common complaint with DK is that there’s a lot of setup and buildup before the damage starts coming in, which can set you behind quite a lot at the start of pack pulls compared to the other classes which often have more frontloaded damage profiles.] -
Defile: The mastery buff gained from Defile no longer builds up from 1% to 8% but is a fixed 5% mastery buff as long as the DK or an enemy is standing within the Defile.
[Again, less buildup, more immediate impact.] -
Vile Contagion reworked: Deals (medium) physical damage in a cone in front of you and applies 2 Festering Wounds to all targets struck (up to 7). Is now on a 45 second cooldown and has no cost.
[I think this fulfills the same purpose as the current Vile Contagion, but is just less awkward and hopefully more fun to use] -
Pestilence has an additional passive effect: Every 20 sec, your next Death and Decay / Defile will apply 1 Festering Wound on all targets struck. Stacks 2 times.
[This fulfills the same purpose but with less RNG and gives the talent some much needed power]
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Replenishing Wounds and Feasting Strikes have been removed from the talent tree. Their effects remain the same and are now combined with Runic Mastery. So, 2 points into Runic Mastery would give you the current Runic Mastery, Replenishing Wounds and Feasting Strikes altogether in the same talent node.
[Runic Mastery has been a dead talent since its introduction, rarely seen in any viable builds, and so has Feasting Strikes. Replenishing Wounds is picked in most builds only because it is a bridge node for the other talents and not for its own benefit. This change combines these underwhelming effects into one node, making it much more powerful and potentially viable. I also think these effects have great synergy with each other.] -
Plaguebringer is now a passive.
[The main purpose of Scourge Strike is to pop Festering Wounds. It’s awkward having to throw out empty Scourge Strikes just to maintain this buff. This will get rid of wasting GCDs on boring, limp Scourge Strikes.] -
All Will Serve reworked and now communicates its effect better. It reads: Your Raise Dead spell summons an additional minion to fight by your side, a skeletal archer that shoots at your enemies from afar. Shoots at one target at a time. Every third shot is a guaranteed critical strike and strikes 2 additional enemies near the target. While Dark Transformation is active, the archer has a 100% critical strike chance on all attacks.
Unholy Pact also creates a chain with the All Will Serve minion.
Ghoulish Frenzy also affects the All Will Serve minion.
[All Will Serve is another dead talent that could use a glow-up, and here it is!] -
Army of the Damned no longer reduces Apocalypse’s cooldown by 45 seconds.
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Apocalypse has the same functionality, but tooltip slightly changed: summons a ghoul (instead of Army of the Dead ghoul) for 20 sec for each Festering Wound you burst. Also gives brief description of ghouls: Ghouls attack one target at a time.
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Ruptured Viscera reworked: Reduces Apocalypse’s cooldown by 45 seconds. Ghoul attacks now strike 1 additional nearby enemy. Upon death, your ghouls will leap to your target or nearest enemy in combat and explode, dealing shadow damage. (The explosion no longer applies Festering Wounds).
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Magus of the Dead reworked: Increase the duration of Ghouls summoned by Apocalypse by 20 seconds. In addition, two of the Ghouls summoned will instead be skeletal mages who cast shadowbolts and frostbolts at your target and three nearby enemies. (yes, the season 3 Dragonflight tier effect).
[Ruptured Viscera is a really cool talent that has never been picked. To change this, I’m making the choice node after Apocalypse selection more powerful and appealing. If you go with Ruptured Viscera, you’ll be able to use Apocalypse twice as much! So, you will be summoning twice as many minions as base Apocalypse or Magus, and that means twice as many Ghoul explosions. On the other hand, with Magus you will be casting Apocalypse much more infrequently, but each cast will result in long-lasting, hard-hitting minions.] -
Unholy Assault has the same effect, but when talented is now combined with Apocalypse into one button (Unholy Assault turns into Apocalypse after use, then both go on cooldown once Apocalypse is used).
If talented into Ruptured Viscera, damage buff is reduced from 20% to 10%.
[Again, to reduce the amount of buttons to press, and combining abilities with synergy to have a smoother playstyle.]
And that’s it for Unholy. Now obviously I have removed some talent nodes, 4 talent points are now missing from the tree. The lazy option would be to simply distribute them (turn some 1-point nodes into 2-point nodes). The other, trickier option would be to create 3 or 4 more new talent nodes.
I will leave that to you guys to decide.
FROST
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Howling Blast now has a passive effect: Howling Blast always deals damage as if Rime is active when used on enemies that are not infected with Frost Fever or have 3 or less seconds remaining on an active Frost Fever.
[It would be nice to be able to instantly apply Frost Fever to enemies you start combat with, instead of throwing out an unbuffed Howling Blast or having to run up to them and cast a Remorseless Winter to activate a Rime, and then using that Rime to apply Frost Fever.] -
Remorseless Winter now replaces Death and Decay.
[It is awkward having to stand in such a limited area to be able to cleave. Interestingly, I haven’t experienced the same frustration as Unholy. Perhaps because Defile is often picked in M+ and has a larger radius and a shorter cooldown than D&D, so it’s much more manageable and much less punishing to use. This change frees Frost DKs to be able to roam freely! Also, it reduces the amount of buttons to press. I am aware that Cleaving Strikes exists in the base DK talent tree, and I am unsure what to do with it as I don’t think it should have the same effect while Remorseless Winter is active, nor will Grip of the Dead in the base DK talent tree. Oh well.] -
Biting Cold has two additional effects:
Causes Remorseless Winter to deal a (high amount) of frost damage instantly in an AOE when activated.
[An issue with Frost at the moment is that there is a lot of setup and buildup before the damage starts coming in, especially in pack pulls. This change allows Frost to start dealing damage faster.] -
Improved Frost Strike removed from the talent tree (Frost Strike base damage is increased by 20% by default.) Replaced with Glacial Advance, a 1-point node.
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Glacial Advance has the same functionality, but now deals damage in a cone in front of you instead of in a line in front of you (similar to Blinding Sleet).
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Unleashed Frenzy node detached from Glacial Advance node. Previous Glacial Advance node removed.
[I think Glacial Advance should be a staple in all Frost builds and putting it early in the tree and as a bridge node to other nodes is a good way to force it. Glacial Advance is essentially Frost’s version of Unholy’s Epidemic, an AOE runic power spender. It also serves as a way for 2h Frost to apply Razorice.] -
Runic Command removed from the talent tree. Replaced with Frostscythe, a 1-point node.
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Frostscythe has the same functionality, however, it removes the ability of Obliterate to benefit from Killing Machine.
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Biting Cold node detached from Frostscythe node. Previous Frostscythe node removed.
[I think Frostscythe should also be a staple in all Frost builds and putting it early in the tree and as a bridge node to other nodes is a good way to force it. The controversial change is obviously having Frostscythe replace Obliterate as the Killing Machine ability, but I think it works in both AOE and in single target (remember, Frostscythe costs 1 rune less than Obliterate, but does similar damage if it crits). -
Chill Streak can now bounce off the DK by default but prioritizes enemies. Also, if Obliteration is talented, Chill Streak extends the duration of Pillar of Frost by 1 second.
[I think Chill Streak still sucks. I don’t know whether to remove it entirely or add some of the season 3 Dragonflight tier set effects on it as a baseline. Regardless, this change is necessary as it was completely unusable in single target. The second effect is there to avoid the horrible feeling of having to interrupt an Obliteration window]. -
Frostwhelp’s Aid: The frostwhelp no longer flies 40 yards in front of you. Instead, it spawns above your head (similar to Breath of Sindragosa) for a brief moment, does a breath attack in a small cone in front of you (with a cute animation) and despawns.
[Do I have to explain this one?] -
Icecap node has been removed. Its effect remains the same but is now a passive on the Obliteration talent.
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Pillar of Frost now lasts 15 seconds instead of 12. It grants a flat 30% strength buff and no longer increases strength per runes used during its duration.
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Enduring Strength node is now a 3-point node, the third point providing an additional 1 second longer for each Obliterate/Frostscythe critical strike during Pillar of Frost.
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Enduring Strength node now connects to Shattering Blade.
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Frostwhelp’s Aid now connects to Avalanche.
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Breath of Sindragosa is now a 1-minute cooldown (plus whatever damage nerf it has to receive to balance this). If talented into Breath of Sindragosa, it replaces the Pillar of Frost button (but activates Pillar of Frost’s effect upon activation).
[At the moment Frost DK has two main builds – Obliteration and Breath of Sindragosa. I’m moving Icecap to Obliteration because I think Obliteration requires Icecap to function well, whereas Breath of Sindragosa doesn’t. Also, Icecap will cause Pillar of Frost and Breath of Sindragosa to be misaligned cooldowns, so coupling it with Obliteration avoids this.]
[I think an issue with the Breath of Sindragosa build is that there is a 2-minute gap between when your damage is awesome and when it’s garbage, that’s why I’m making it a 1-minute cooldown.]
That’s it for Frost. Honestly, I have less experience with Frost than with Unholy, and I don’t know if this is enough to fix Frost, but I feel like it is at least cleaning up the spec.
So, what do you guys think of these changes? Could you imagine playing them and how they would change the current playstyle? Do you think these changes fix more problems than they create? Have I missed something obvious? Etc etc.
Thanks and looking forward to the feedback.
Germ.