With the rework to Unholy Death Knight, we can finally play out as a master of undead and diseases, but, i can see that we still have some bad passives in the talent tree, i think this needs to be changed, and some talents needs to be relocated.
- Menacing Magus. This passive is still in the talent tree, this should just be baked in to our Magus of the Dead, it feels bad taking a passive that strictly is AOE and does not provide any dps upgrade on single target, i would rather see the return of Raise Sludge Belcher in this location.
(1) Raise Sludge Belcher back in Legion improved our pet Ghoul by turning it to an Abomination, which cleaved out side of Dark Transformation, and AOE’d when transformed.
(2) Why i think this is better to add here over Menacing Magus, has to do with flavor, and to give us the feeling that we are getting better at fleshcrafting our meat bag undead constructs, simple thing you can add to Raise Sludge Belcher is a 10% damage and health buff and call it at that. This will achieve so our primary pet has some interaction, and choices in the talent tree to make us be able to pick more choices in it. Also, Raise Sludge Belcher gives a physical Death Grip, and makes it so when you use your defensive pet CD out side Dark Transformation, it won’t stop attacking while it’s active.
- Ghoulish Frenzy is an incredibly boring passive, which is a discount Commander of the Dead buff. My suggestion is to relocate All Will Serve in this spot, and add a new follow up passive where the Skulker is located.
- As for where the All Will Serve was located, i would love to see a passive that makes Dark Transformation work with the Skulker as well. Here are what i think it should do. Dark Transformation now has a 1,5 minute CD, and last for 20 seconds up from 15 seconds. The All Will Serve Skulker will be transformed to a Bone Lord. The Bone Lord has several skills it uses during Dark Transformation.
(1) When Dark Transformation is cast, it uses Bone Storm, charging in to the focused enemy target to deal damage, Bone Storm last for 4 seconds and can be extended by Death Coil.
(2) When Bone Storms duration expires, the Bone Lord will use Bone Cleave, to cleave the enemy target.
(3) For each time the Bone Lord deals damage, it has a chance to raise a Lesser Ghoul, when Sudden Doom is used to trigger Bone Cleave/Bone Storm, it will also have a chance to raise a Lesser Ghoul but at the half of it’s chance, something like, if it had 30%, then it would be a 15% chance when it’s at reduced effectiveness.
- I’m sad to see Soul Reaper being removed, on live it kinda started to feel good to press as Unholy Death Knight, because it provided damage buff to our minions during execute phases. That’s why i think Soul Reaper should be brought back on Alpha, and have Reaping apply that buff effect again. The only thing i think they could change with Soul Reaper is like this.
(1) Soul Reaper is now a Disease that deals damage for the next 6 seconds it’s active on the enemy target. Each time you press Soul Reaper on the target, it triggers Reaping, to buff minion damage by 10%. This only works on enemies at or below 35% health.
(2) It would add some needed flavor for both the Minion and Disease play style. In addition, Soul Reaper could also raise a Lesser Ghoul, both when you have pressed Soul Reaper, and after 6 seconds, it also raises another Lesser Ghoul, when it’s dot duration on the enemy target has expired.
- Next talent that needs to be removed, is Ancient Runes. Ancient Runes is the same as Festermight, an incredibly boring passive, which now with the new design will conflict with the new play style. That’s why i think Blighted should be relocated here. Blighted is strictly a Disease talent which pet builds are forced to take to gain access to Ancient Runes.
- What they could add in Blighted’s current location, is a choice nod with Summon Gargoyle, and Unholy Blight. Here is what i think they can do with them.
(1) Summon Gargoyle still has it’s terrible Runic Power ramp up mechanic, this is a relic of the past which just like Ancient Runes=Festermight conflicts with Unholy’s rotation, both on live, and now on Alpha. What they should do with Summon Gargoyle, is to give it the Demonic Tyrant treatment by baking Commander of the Dead in to Summon Gargoyle. If Army of the Dead is talented it will just get summoned by it. This is to save us from having to many CD to press at the same time, or that we need to macro them in. Why i think this is a better approach to this talent, is that, then we have an undead commander unit, to give damage buff to our undead minions.
(2) Another thing they could do with Summon Gargoyle, is to make it Summon 3 Gargoyles, to attack the enemy target, if they did it this way, they could add in an effect that for each attack they do, they will increase both Critical Strike, and Critical damage by 0,3% to undead minions, for each attack they do to the enemy target, and stacking as high as all the attacks they can do in a span of 30 seconds. This is a buff on the Death Knight, and not a debuff on the enemy.
(3) Unholy Blight. This should work like it does on live where our Dark Transformation pet emits Unholy Blight. Why make this a choice nod with Summon Gargoyle?. I think it’s good location to have a choice nod between undead focused CD, vs a Disease focused CD. Unholy Blight could do several things to spice up the Disease build. One thing it can do is to increase the Disease damage the enemy take during Unholy Blight, next is to make Unholy Blight deal respectable damage during Dark Transformation’s duration, also by making it last as long the Dark Transformation CD is up, it could give us a way to maintain it to keep the Disease damage pressure up. Maybe Unholy Blight should also apply both Virulent Plague, and Dread Plague to all targets hit by it. But that would require some work to Dread Plague if so.
- With the change i suggested for Summon Gargoyle, i think Unholy Aura can be located back to where Commander of the Dead is located on Alpha. In Unholy Auras location we could get 2 new passives added.
(1) Justice of the Grave. Every 10 seconds when you use Putrefy, your other undead minions have their duration extended by 1-2 seconds.
(2) The next passive will be located between Reanimation and Raise Abomination. The name of the skill should be called like this. Defiler. Defiler, each time a Ghoul is detonated by Putrefy, they will drop a smal pool under the enemy target, this pool is Defile, like we have on live, but a little smaler in size, but with ability to Putrefy your minion, i think it would be cool if they drop Defile to deal damage on the enemies. Maybe while standing in the Defile, the enemy can take increased damage from all undead minions as well, and both the Death Knight and his undead minions have increased movement speed while standing on Defile.
- As for the Apex talent, i hope Blizzard will change our Apex talent, to fit better with our new Unholy design. Why i think it needs a change has to do with how boring the Death Coil/Epidemic morphing in to Necrotic Coil/Graveyard. Now they aren’t boring per say, but, i feel like this would be better, if they were their own talents in the talent tree, instead of it being tied to the Apex passives. At the moment, one of the Apex passives has a picture of a Lich on it, i’m really sad to see Blizzard not taking advantage on us gaining access to a Lich minion we could raise from a certain way we play. For example, we are raising a ton of undeads now, so why not make the Apex talent revolve around a reward structure for raising so many undeads as fast we can during the fight. Here is an example i think would make alot of sense to do in the Apex talent. When you have raised 30-50 Lesser Ghouls for example, your next Undead minion will be raised up as a Lich, that fights for you for 10-15 seconds, the Lich’s duration can be extended by passives, or talents in the talent tree. The Lich has several abilities it uses. The Lich benefits from talents that interact with the Magus of the Dead minion.
(1) Deathchill Bolt. Deathchill Bolt deals shadowfrost damage. This skill slows the enemy target by 50%, while also increasing the damage they take by 1% up to 5%-10%.
(2) Shadow Fissure. The Lich drops a Shadow Fissure underneath the enemy target to deal big damage, Shadow Fissure also roots the enemy in place for 1 second when hit.
(3) Unholy Empowerment. When the Lich has been raised, it will buff the Death Knight, and all his undead minions with 10% damage and haste, the buff last for 15 seconds.
(4) Another thing the Lich could do is that it also raises 1-2 Lesser Ghouls while active, it could have a 10-15 second CD, that would just further the theme, and hammer down that this is an Apex talent. It sort of needs to feel special, it is half way there, but by adding a Lich over the Death Coil effect instead, i think you can achieve a more thematic, and a fulfilling feeling to the Apex talent.
- With all the undead we raise on Alpha, i think it would be cool to bring back Ruptured Viscera. This used to detonate our Ghouls when their duration expired, it had a chance to generate Festering Wounds, they could just tweak this passive a bit and make it more interactive.
(1) Each time a Lesser Ghoul explode, they have a chance to make your next Scourge Strike to raise an additional Lesser Ghoul alongside Festering Strikes effect. So 2 Lesser Ghouls, instead of 1.
(2) When 1 Lesser Ghoul gets Putrefy, Ruptured Viscera’s Corpse Explosion effect has a chance to chain of to another Lesser Ghoul, causing it to enter a state of Unholy Frenzy from the effect of Putrefy. This can only chain of one time per Lesser Ghoul.
- I am also going to address the elephant in the rom. Where is our Necrotic Plague?. With the new rework to Unholy Death Knight, bringing back Necrotic Plague would make so much sense, i think with how we raise Lesser Ghouls, and have a more focused Disease play style, it would be smart to have it located as talent path along side Festering Scythe.
(1) Necrotic Plague when talented, replaces Dread Plague. When you press Outbreak, you’ll only be able to apply Necrotic Plague to one target. Necrotic Plague each time it deals damage, will bounce over to the closest enemy target, starting at 1 stack of Necrotic Plague. In addition, each time Necrotic Plague deals damage it gains 1 stack.
(2) Each time your Lesser Ghouls duration expires, you’ll gain 1 additional stack of Necrotic Plague.
(3) For each stack of Necrotic Plague, both your Necrotic Plague, and Death Coil deals 0,3% increased damage, stacking for as many stack you can build up. At some point the Necrotic Plague’s duration will start to decay faster than the normal duration a Disease has. This is to make sure you have to re apply it, and start over again from time to time, this will also help making sure Necrotic Plague feels like a power full Disease.
(4) Unholy Blight will also generate 1 stack of Necrotic Plague each time it deals damage to the enemy target, this effect only generate 1 stack of Necrotic Plague, regardless how many are effected by Unholy Blight. This is to limit it from making it shoot up to 1000 stacks, as that can be a bit to crazy if it worked that way.
- The next passive Unholy Death Knight could have in it’s talent tree, could revolve around our melee attack’s, and how it can have additional effect’s added to it. The name of this passive could be called Blighted Rune Weapon. Here is an example how it will work.
(1) When Blighted Rune Weapon is talented, you gain a 15 yard range to your melee attacks.
(2) Your melee attacks deal shadow damage, and also deals AOE damage around the primary target, when you hit with your melee attacks.
(3) Each time you strike the enemy with your melee attacks, you have a 10% chance to raise a Lesser Ghoul. In addition, you also extend the duration of all your Diseases, and Minions by 0,5 seconds, when the effect is triggered.
(4) If Rune of the Apocalypse is enchanted on the weapon, it will always add 3 random debuffs to the enemy target, up from 1.
