Feedback: Death Knight

Got some general feedback about the talent Soul Reaper.

Currently it feels very underwhelming to use and its main use is only in raids and high M+ keys. Why dont you redesign the talent a bit?

I was thinking that it would feel a lot better if the damage portion of SR was a tick dot instead of waiting 5 seconds. That will make the talent usefil in PVP and M+.

On top of that i would also change the bit where it say that you gain Runic Corrpution if the target dies while affected with SR. What if you gain 15% Mastery or Haste when your target dies while being afflicted with your SR?

One of Unholy tier sets had a similar mechanic in Shadowlands, it was VERY satisfying to trigger the tier set by applying soul reaper right before your target dies.

Raid Buff

Yes i still firmly believe that DKs need a raid buff similar to shamans’s. AMZ + Death grip is OFTEN not enough to justify DK’s raid spot when you can bring something better…

Some kind of 5-10% leech raid buff would be great.

12 Likes

Can we buff Frost 2h for make it viable again, when in Season 1 it was far behind other builds. Buffing Might of the Frozen Wastes to increase Frostscythe damage and lowering it’s cooldown every Killing Machine consumed.

Example:

Might of the Frozen Wastes
Requires Death Knight
Requires level 25
Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Obliterate and Frostscythe damage by 45%, and your auto attack critical strikes always grant Killing Machine.

Consuming Killing Machine reduces the cooldown of Frostscythe by 2.0 sec.

Edit:
Also, why Rime only gives 22,5% chance to Howling Blast to be free? This should be buffed, when Frostscythe has long cooldown.

10 Likes

I also would like to see some work being done to Unholy’s talent tree.
We currently have 3 dead passives on the middle part right side of the talent row. We are currently avoiding All Will Serve/Unholy Pact/Ruptured Viscera.

This 3 passives have no synergy with the rest of our talent tree leaving them in a spot were we will never talent in to them which is a bad game design on Blizzards part and a showcase that Unholy needed way more work on Beta than we ended up getting.

My suggestion would be to change this passives so we have something that might be more worth taking.

  1. All Will Serve can still stay as is, but it will require actual talents that follow up after this is taken to push the reason as to why we took this talent in the first place.
  2. Unholy Pact is just simply a worse Unholy Blight in it’s own way, i would rather replace this passive for Raise Sludge Belcher, it can simply improve our main pet’s utility and overall strength, what it used to do in Legion was it caused the pet to cleave outside Dark Transformation, and when it was transformed it would aoe instead, other things it did was it gave us a physical Death Grip which was a massive quality of life improvement and a way for us to pet manage our abom in a unique way with how we chose to utilize his grip ability.
  3. As for Ruptured Viscera this passive will never be worth taking as we have no way to raise undeads all the time to attack the enemy which leaves this passive in a wonky state. I would rather replace this passive until Blizzard adds a talent that lets us raise undeads every time we burst a wound on the target, right now this passive just can’t work when we don’t have the passives to make it work.
  4. That’s why i would love to see something unique added in it’s place, my suggestion, add a passive that makes it so when we Dark Transformation our pet, our All Will Serve Skulker will also be transformed in to a much more powerfull undead, this is how i think this passive should work, [1] When transformed, all pet passive effects in the talent tree will now work on the skulker as long he’s in Dark Transformation, [2] Turn our skulker in to a Bone Lord same model as Lord Marrowgar, what this empowered state should do is that when Dark Transformation is used, and the Skulker is turned in to a Bone Lord, it should use Bone Storm and charge in to the focused enemy target, when this attack is done, it will use Bone Cleave and melee cleaving attacks in melee range, and when targets move out of melee range it should switch to using Bone Spikes as a ranged attack instead, as for it’s regular melee attacks it instead shots blue fire like Lord Marrowgar does in ICC raid to hit things out of melee range.

This is in my opinion the only way i can see this part of the talent tree ever be considered to be talented in to.

13 Likes

I actually forgot that we still had this talent. Shame…

10 Likes

Hopefully our 4 set is not bugged this week so that we can actually test it. At the moment dark transformation does not stop the buff from falling off.

Also in regards to talents it would also be nice to see some work or rework done on the following talents :
-Decomposition sadly deals no damage and is never picked even though the idea is cool
-Menacing magus I really like the idea however it doesn’t work in practice, maybe making it spawn something else than a magus + changing how many ennemies are targeted either more or less would help this talent in a way ?
-Runic mastery this one is straight up useless and worst of all a 2 point talent
-summon gargoyle I like the gargoyle but I think now it’s a bit dated. I would to keep the ability to summon gargoyles but maybe in a other way ? Give us a flock of gargoyles that melee ennemies or something

I would also add that both unholy aura and commander of the dead are really only ever used in pure single target scenarios and even then they’re not really that much stronger compared to playing super strain. Maybe there is a way to get some help there aswell.

12 Likes

Currently, our rotation is so full that there is no time to even include Soul Reaper.
Soul Reaper deals damage on par with Dragonflight. This hasn’t been buffed in any way. It’s pathetic. Same with Summon Gargoyle.
With Gargoyle’s current state it should be a 2 min CD instead of a 3 min CD…
Why were the ghouls from Apocalypse buffed in the new patch and released immediately, but for Army of the Dead everything is the same?
Army of the Dead should follow the exact same path of changes, i.e. buff and instant ghoul summoning.

San’layn should be reworked and Raider should be fixed.

The beast for San’layn should summon more often and we should have more control over the damage it does (from its explosion).

I suggest the explosion be directed and triggered by the player for better positioning, since the beast often misses anything.

The explosion itself should have a larger radius.

Pact of the San’layn should be fixed in a nutshell.

It might be worth considering increasing the impact of this explosion by spending runic power or runes, since it’s currently a big unknown.

The damage from the beast is very weak against a single target.
Fix all of this.

Infliction of Sorrow should be reworked or work like it did in Beta.

PS. AMZ or Grip is not a raid buff. Please get a raid buff for DK.

12 Likes

At this point i think Unholy Assault should be removed for Gargoyle to be located in it’s spot.

What they could do with this change is to make Val’kyr and Gargoyle a choice nod with their own functions.

This is how i think they could work.

  1. [Val’kyr] 3 min CD last for 20 seconds. When Val’kyr is summoned it buffs the Death Knight with Unholy Frenzy buffing it self and the Death Knight with 20% damage and haste, this buff will not effect undead minions. In addition, Sudden Doom procs extends Val’kyr and Unholy Frenzy duration for 1 second up to 10 seconds for each Sudden Doom proc that has been consumed.
  2. [Gargoyle] 3 min CD last for 20 seconds. Summon 3 Gargoyles to bombard the enemy target, the Gargoyle has a chance to apply a Festering Wound on the target. For each Festering Wound bursted, extend it’s duration for 0,5 second up to 10 seconds.

The difference in this 2 CD would be that one focuses more on the Dot and spell damage of the DK player while the other focus more on the undead build continuing the trend of raising an army to overwhelm the enemy whit a legion of undeads.

13 Likes

Looking at UH DK talent tree we still got allot of bad passives in it, Blizzard should absolutely fix or even replace some as they are simply not taken, one of them that sticks out being Decomposition.

10 Likes

Totally agree about raid buff. Not only its important for raids but also for m+.

11 Likes

Thank you to the developers for being lazy in the context of working on DK.

We were only slightly reworked once in beta.

Since then, for example, Hunter or Shaman will be fully reworked twice, and in the middle of the patch they received a few smaller changes.

Unholy in the PTR received a FIX for the set bonus, and Frost received a balance for the set bonus.

From the player’s perspective - DK received no changes. Absolutely nothing.

PS. What is the difference between my money and Hunter’s or Shaman’s money? Why is my money worse than other players’?

9 Likes

Give DK usefull raid buff. When m+ groups are forming everybody looks what class can bring to the table. Lack of utility doesnt help DK. Next season its gonna be pain for UH, frost and blood DK getting in groups.

9 Likes

i’m getting a bit worried with Blizzards focus on buffing Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadow and Death Coil. We are getting to a point now were they are doing most of your damage in our tool kit during fights, and the new tier set hammers that down with the Death coil buff. I think the difference between Frost and Unholy is getting more blurry by each buffs they make to UH DK’s direct damaging spells. What Unholy should [ALWAYS] be about first and foremost is Undeads and Diseases, but now we are now to a point were our primary theme is caught lacking, and that seems to be a negative trend Blizzard has slowly been moving towards sins Dragonflight.

We are in a dire need of a reshuffle of our damage tuning to our spec for UH DK, we can’t end up in a situation were our main themed abilities are dictated by a completely different playstyle theme. Blizzard if you see this, then you need to start looking at our talents in the talent tree and change and fix them for the fact they are not doing what they are designed to be supposed to fulfill as a role in UH DK’s design.

Some thing you can start with is to locate Gargoyle where Unholy Assault is and bake them together and make it a strong 3 min CD where we summon 3 gargoyle to apply wounds on the target with each of them striking them. Another thing you should look at is Unholy Pact, this passive is a worse Unholy Blight, and quite frankly it should be removed, just add back Raise Sludge Belcher in it’s location, just make it work like it did in Legion and just slap some more damage and health on our minion so our focus for minion damage is not lost in all the clutter of the tuning. other things that could take a look at is our last talent row, do we really need all those 2 talent point nods there, can we not just trim most of them down to 1 talent point and add some more interesting things there, like we have a talent called Ruptured Viscera, but this passive has no ground to stand on as we lack the ability to raise a undead to attack the enemy all the time. So why not add something like passive that lets us raise skeleton warriors every time we burst a Festering Wound on the primary target, use the Plagueland model as it is only used when we have applied the Glyph of Foul Menagerie.

Another passive that could take a look at is Pestilence talent we got, at this moment having a passive that make us have a 10% chance to apply a Festering Wound from D&D/Defile seems just a tad bit boring and if not simply bad in it’s design. So why not instead replace this for something that pushes the Disease build further like adding a Disease that generate a Festering Wound every 3 second to spice the build up a bit and give it a bit more steady flow to it’s wound generations, then your keeping more in line with it’s theme and helping for those who love to play the Disease build to have more to work with and not feel like you must take Infested Claw to move to the final talent row.

Last thing i’d like to recommend taking a look at is our por All Will Serve Skulker, this guy can not catch a break with how under tuned and the lack of interaction this skeleton has with the talent tree we got. I have already made a suggestion to add a passive that makes it also be Dark Transformation when the CD is used, but that will be all up to you Blizzard to actually give us a reason to talent in to this mistreated Skulker.

I would like to her every ones opinion on this whether you agree or disagree with this, and mostly, i would love to her from Blizzard on what vision they have for Unholy Death Knight’s talent design and damage profile.

15 Likes

BTW
Ruptured Viscera

for my DK this talent deals about 13k damage x4:

  • if it hits the target
  • every 65s
  • even if it hits 5 targets it is marginal damage.

This is so horrible I’m shocked it still exists.
This talent and its tuning only reminds me of the level of BALANCE TEAM - at the same level.

Of course, some developer will feel offended, but the same developer does not understand the players’ frustration with such things that are implemented by him or his colleague.

I think it’s exactly the opposite - in fact, players are offended by such crap that is served on a plate that every player paid for.

Shaman who won the whole 1st season in TWW is being reworked, while Unholy has so many problems, so many frustrations, so many unresolved issues that I am shocked that nothing has been done about it or is not even planned (no announcements of changes) or taken into account.

We only get simple buffs for a few skills.

Did any of the developers realize why almost no one picked Apocalypse?

Not only because of the low damage of ghouls.
It was also another unnecessary GCD. It is a time waster that caused our burst to be delayed.

However, the balance was adjusted so that the first-come, first-served did more damage.
Why did no one pick Vile Contagion but Pestilence?
For the same reasons. In addition, VC has requirements:

  • 30 RP,
  • 45s CD,
  • 2x Festering Strike
  • max 7 targets
  • targets must be nearby
  • 3 seconds of wasted time instead of max 1s.
  • no skill animations

Festering Scythe eats up this talent in every way and deals decent damage and overall damage. AND VERY GOOD, but why is VC still in such shape in the talent tree? Delete it or change it (Vile Contagion)…

The designed talents are simply pathetically weak in relation to how much time you have to spend on them to make a difference (but they don’t anyway), time that you don’t have during combat.

PS.
Scourge Strike or Death Coil in Wotlk does more damage than Ruptured Viscera a few expansions later.
This is incredibly ridiculous.

10 Likes

Ok Blizzard WTF. Why buff Gargoyle when the design of this talent is crap all worth, and you even nerfed Doomed Bidding Maguses duration down to 6 second, overall bad change here the buff in damage offsets it but it really did not need the duration nerf to begin with. This just comes across as Blizzard trying to shove the Current Gargoyle design down our throats.

As for Gargoyle this buffs need to be reverted and thrown right back to hell were it came from, because Gargoyles design currently conflicts with our current game play style design, this is not Gargoyles fault, but Blizzards lack of redesigning requested talents to be fixed. Just bake it in with Unholy Assault or make it a choice nod in it’s location with Val’kyr, the suggestions are here Blizzard, now do it and stop lagging behind player request’s.

Now some positives, Blizzard nerfed Death Coil which was the right call, i would have gone even further and nerfed both Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadow and Death Coil by 35%-40%ish, and then put that power back into our Diseases and undeads.

12 Likes

I’m struggling to understand what the play is here Blizzard.

Why buff Gargoyle, AND nerf Doomed Bidding? What’s the point of talents if you’re going to always create a clear winner?

Personally I never liked Gargoyle’s playstyle and Doomed Bidding was welcomed alternative. Consider reverting this change.

And quite honestly, when are you going to stop tweaking nobs, and realise that DK, all 3 specs, but especially UH, needs a complete overhaul from the ground up?

Meanwhile the following issues still stand:

  • Raise Abomination still RP walks to targets and has wacky AI.
  • All the Riders have even worse and wacky AI.
  • Overall talent tree doesn’t have a logical structure
  • Decomposition is an absolutely terrible talent especially for the position it holds.
  • Why does Ruptured Viscera still exist?!
  • Balance All Will Serve and create more synergy for this talent.
  • Runic Mastery is still a dead talent.
  • Festering Scythe still doesn’t have a unique animation. Just recolour Frostcythe at this point and we’ll be happy.

Where is our Raid buff?
Already pointed out many times above, niche utility that is very rarely useful isn’t an argument for not having a proper raid buff. Very simple ideas can be found through the old aura system we used to have.

Unholy Aura: Boosts all ticking dot damage on the target.
Frost Aura: Increases critical strike damage.
Blood Aura: Increases Leech and/or absorb shields.

I’m sure you can be more creative than me, just make something useful.

PS: The new Defile animation, although slightly better, still sucks.

9 Likes

Blood DK again ignored this patch… Raid buff for all DK specs are needed so much. I just dont understand how blizz doesnt understand in pug environment, when groups are created everybody is invited by how much class can bring to table. You inv shammy because they have good damage, awsome utility and very good party buff. You inv prot pally for damage, tankiness, damage reduction, bops, infinite kicks.
What bring DK ??? amz ? amz sometimes are so useless because you need get out of swirlies. Grips ? Give gorefiend’s gasp as baseline for every DK spec with 1min cd and silence effect (prot pally has divine toll…) All dk kit is so underwhelming it makes all DK cry…

6 Likes

btw,
why am I still forced to play with Abomination Limb? Why is there no other talent to choose from? Why were other covenant skills removed?

I also don’t understand why Summon Gargoyle with a 3-minute cooldown is so pitifully weak, similarly to Army of the Dead - the iconic skills of DK Unholy,
One or the other should always, but that should always be the best option for single target damage.

Even if it had a 2 min CD or 1.5 min CD - it’s still very weak.

So I ask the developers - where is the diversity?
Why do we need this new talent tree if half of them are completely useless to us?

4 Likes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jFDi-ZFzok

Bicepumps’ take… I’m feeling a little more optimistic for Frost dk, but if San’layn becomes the play I’m really not looking forward to UH S2.

There couldn’t be a more boring hero spec if they tried to make one.

5 Likes

As it stands, we will end up going San’layn and talent in to Gargoyle.
Unfortunately with the tier set bonus heavily focusing on turning UH DK to a Frost DK, we are now ending up with it’s degenerate Death Coil spam build, the only thing now is that you must press Vampiric Strike to maintain the haste buff. The focus has heavily shifted from a rotation type of build to how can i press as many Death Coils inn a span of 25 seconds.

And the worst with Magus only lasting for 6 second, it runs in to the problem where it has now gotten worse in a movement type of fights, and talents like Menacing Magus has been nerfed also as a result although we never took this talent in the first place because of Blizzard not giving an F about our talent tree design and it’s issues it has.

But we have been going with this sins all the way back in BFA, but there is a class designer for our class whom must have some serious issues in his mind as he think designing things like the current Gargoyle and breath, and as well the bad passives in our talent tree.

7 Likes

Overall the Magus stuff is still a buff on doomed bidding, even if you only take the latest round of tuning in account (we can hope to receive another round of tuning tonight btw, hopefully). The 35% buff is strong enough that even with the reduced 2 secs it deals more damages, and to that you add the 15% from last week.

I agree with the DC nerf we got, and moving its power elsewhere is good, and need tuning, but at least, when that DC nerfs offsets by itselfs all the others buffs received, hopefully it shows the devs how problematic it was and they keep going in the right direction. While they didn’t fix much, props to them as they are now aware that no, you can’t tune us by buffing DC and Scourge strike lol.

That said, I wouldn’t want DC to keep being nerfed to the ground. It’s a primary RP spender, you want it to feel good. It felt very lackluster in DF, now with the buffs and doomed bidding imo it feels good enough. What’s problematic are the multipliers it gets from the San’layn tree imo. Moving power from that part of the tree to sorrow or blood beast would allow for DC tuning to not be as much of a nightmare it is currently.

If devs continue to go the way they have started going, I’m pretty hopeful to where we are going.

Oh and side note, I’m currently playing Frost and UH on Cata and… sometimes we really do overrate the past. It wasn’t the peak of DK but their gameplay has much less depth. Same for Fire mage. Overall despite the gloomy mood of the forums, you notice that some things have evolved positively over the years.