Frost DK : Over-nerfed?

Classes Death Knight
1

Before jumping to conclusions, let me start by saying I didn’t come here to complain right after the nerf. I took time to test things, adapt, and give it a fair shot for at least a week. But honestly, since this nerf, it feels almost impossible to finish first on overall damage, no matter how hard I try or the level of the key.

I’ve tested in both medium and high keys, and the results are the same. I’m seeing paladins and hunters with 4-6 ilvls lower than me consistently outperforming me by around 5-10% overall. It’s frustrating, especially after several weeks where Frost DK was finally fun to play, with solid variety and potential.

Previously, we had two viable builds, allowing us to adjust playstyle to the group’s needs or the key level. Now? Only the Breath build is still viable—and even then, if we have to deal with any mechanics during a fight, we risk losing Breath and a significant chunk of our DPS. So, we’re left with a single, rigid, and punishing build.

I understand that Frost DK might have been a bit strong. But really, why apply such a massive nerf (-22% on our main spells) without even testing it on the PTR? The impact is huge for a regular player. Yes, DKs looked powerful in high keys with an augmentation and well-set pulls, but in a standard pickup, we just can’t keep up anymore.

In my opinion, a 10% reduction to main spell damage or perhaps a reduction in our tankiness would have been a more balanced approach. But as it stands, this is a nerf that kills motivation. At this point, my only motivation is using my score to do dungeon boosts.

Is this really the direction Blizzard wants to take? Give us a fun class with potential, then break it after a few complaints on the forum and in LFG? In short, Frost DK is far from competitive right now, and this mythic season is becoming a bit strange (not to mention some other aspects I won’t go into here).

I’m not against tuning, but nerfing this hard, all at once, without testing or compromise—it’s just demoralizing.

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2

The starting paragraph is precisely why this class keep getting nerfed and pushed around, while others get their nerfs overturned in a timely manner or they never happen at all.Dk mains needs to rise up and complain as much if not harder than all others, being reasonable isnt the way,you just have to look at the other class forums.

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Have a quick look at this class forum, there’s a handful of regulars and the same complaints have been going around for literal years. Been playing DK on and off since WotLK, basically main this dude since Legion, and been lurking on this forum since late BfA…

I promise you, I read the same things over and over. We accidentally go on top, get nerfed to the ground. We complain about deeper mechanical things (ie DnD cleave being the most spoken subject on this forum), about how uh essentially has 3 resources because of how wounds work, and how frost always gets coerced into playing one build.

The general mood is that nobody seems to play DK up there, and that there seems to be a big disconnect between devs and this particular class with its player base. Other classes get regular tunings and even overhauls when they’re not doing that badly.

DK is just such strange class man. It feels old, and there seems to be a lot of denial around it, because it can work and it does work. But honestly sometimes it feels like we’re riding an old wooden wagon and other classes feel like Teslas. Sure the old wagon works, and probably will always work, but the game has changed and DKs just don’t seem to fit well in the current paradigm.

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