I have been trying out the beta version of Unholy Death knight, both when beta first lunched and during the resent changes.
Theme
I think thematically its done very well if not top notch and i will give my highest praise to the animation and visual designers. Every time i press one of my abilities (with few exceptions) i feel visually rewarded. Having an army of ghouls and skeleton mages is very awesome and makes me feel like a necromancer.
i do feel that “Festering strike” and the Diseases didn’t get as much love visually which is unfortunate but i think with how good the rest look its not that big of a deal.
Game-play (positive)
Lets start with the positives. All the abilities have a clear indication of what their purpose is and i think for the most part you can easily learn the basics of the spec with a decent enough room to expand your skill with it.
Summoning the ghouls and sending them off to their doom with Putrefy is a cool mechanic and i think the recent changes adding the talent “Necromancer’s Cunning” was a good fit, as it allows you to always have putrefy ready when you need it.
”Dark Transformation” and “Army of the Dead” also feel very impactful to press and visually stunning. I like the split between gargoyle and abominations and can see good uses for both.
The Apex talents are very interesting and i find myself wanting to use them.
Game-play (negative)
As much as i love the spec it does have some pain points i don’t really like and make the spec feel a bit awkward.
The abundance of abilities that uses runes in your kit is a bit to much with next to no way of getting runes back faster. i am aware that “Runic Corruption” exist but i find myself to often auto attacking waiting for my runes to be ready. I personally feel certain abilities such as “Army of the Dead” and “Soul Reaper” should be without rune cost. Or at least with “Soul Reaper” uses generated by the Talent “Reaping” should be without Rune cost.
Having to Spend runes on getting ghouls for “Scourge Strike”, applying/reapplying your diseases, “Putrefy”, “Soul Reaper” and “Death and Decay” feels very overwhelming. and can cause a negative playing experience (at least for me) with the shear amount of downtime.
The Disease side of the Spec also feel kinda odd, its mostly is a fire and forget thing until you need to reapply them. and the talents focusing on the Diseases feel very stale and boring in comparison to the summoning side of the talent tree. i also find “Death and Decay” very lack luster both in terms of Output and feel and it just didn’t feel right to ever cast, and with its Rune cost i frankly benched it.
Final Words
As it currently stands i am very positive about the spec and think its heading in the right direction. However as much as i like the feel and theme of the spec. The pain points of the Rune generation makes it so i wont be maining it in its current form. Adding some more Rune generation options or removing rune cost of a few abilities would make me wanna jump on the Unholy meat wagon.