My feedback on the new trees (copied from my post in Get an Eye on an Even Dozen New Hero Talent Trees - #54 by Nygrael-aszune)
Death Knight - Rider of the Apocalypse (Rating: 1/5)
- There was a potential in the name that indicates a powerful individual. Instead, the tree reduces the DK into a “sidekick that calls in his friends to do stuff for them”. It looks like we’re “Friend of a Rider of the Apocalypse”, since we summon them, not become one of them.
- RNG chance to summon a Horseman, which can occur at a time that does not line up with our needs, with a 25% chance to get the one we actually wanted to summon. My situation needs to slow an add, I’d love Trollbane to pop, but instead I get Mograine with a free Death and Decay, and due to RNG he pops after the add is already dead. “Great success!”
- “Horsemen’s Aid” - somehow I can already see getting random AMS applied exactly between big hits. It’s an example of a toxic stockpiled RNG ability with an absolute zero player agency: RNG to summon a Horseman (outside long CD), which has RNG to cast AMS at RNG times?
- There is only one talent that looks like a proper Rider of the Apocalypse, and it raises a question, too: “On a Pale Horse” - it states it allows us to mount in combat, but does allow us to fight while mounted, or do we get dismounted upon pressing a damaging ability?
- I’m glad I play Blood most of the time, because even if this tree was overtuned I’d still hate to pick it.
- How come there is no tree that is related to the mastery of the Runeblades? Rider could have been such, having our weapon empowered with the powers of the Horsemen, rather than having them associated with a summoned NPC.
Death Knight - Deathbringer (Rating: 4/5)
- This is way better design than Rider of the Apocalypse, putting power into player and not random minions.
- Personal note: I much prefer having the tree interact with existing abilities (either by having abilities proc traits, or the ability to change into upgraded version of themselves like Vampiric Strike), adding new abilities can create a bit of a bloat or disrupt a rotation. In case of Reaper’s Mark, it adds another longish CD (1 min+) to a class that already has quite a bit of those.
- Reaper’s Mark creates a gameplay loop with a bit of player agency (timing using abilities that can speed up the explosion). The only downside here is that there is 3 minutes CD on the extra bit at the end - depends on damage tuning, but on a 1 min cooldown it feels unnecessarily excessive.
- Most talents are decent but interesting passives (Wave of Souls, Shuddering Soul) or give a meaningful twist (Dark Talons)
- There is a “fake choice” node at Death’s Bargain/Rune Carved Plates that looks very much like one is themed for DPS and other for Tank (Death Pact is not very tank friendly due to the downside it causes, and the small % damage reduction is only useful during constant damage intake really relevant to tanks only).
- Capstone Exterminate’s first scythe has 15% chance to apply Reaper’s Mark that is 1 min CD… I don’t like it, there is no agency and there is too much power in it. Imagine if there was a talent that said “After your Empower Rune Weapon ends, you have 10% chance for Empower Rune Weapon to be applied to you again at full power.” What I mean is that it is not OK to have 15% chance to reapply something that has longer cooldown. It is fine if something has 15% to reapply a disease that we can actively refresh anyway, so we just save resources, but this? I would rather have 15% chance to regain 3 Runes or something similarly less significant.
- “Blood Fever” talent makes irrelevant damage of a DoT still irrelevant (though adds interaction with Bind in Darkness talent). I would love to see the diseases be more, either do more damage or create some rotational interaction.