Shattering Blade line Bug

Classes Death Knight
1

The smart people of the Archerus Discord have found out, that the Shattering Blade talent
is completely bugged and doesnt work correctly. It’s actually a DPS loss to talent this and thus completely dead in any situation.

I hope this gets forwarded to the Devs so that they see and fix this.

Original Post:
I bring dire news, tipped off by a poster who goes by “Ben”, who shared an odd Riders build in Acherus today.

It is a DPS loss to talent Shattering Blade in any situation. You should drop Shattering Blade and Avalanche if you are a dual-wield Frost build. If you don’t want to play Breath of Sindragosa, redirect your points to Inexorable Assault, Horn of Winter, Chill Streak, or Enduring Chill. Even Runic Command. Just take the point out of Shattering Blade.

Riders? Yep https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/ebSeMRknADaD6rmsSRyVJt
AoE Riders? Yep https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/bXDM4U6CRC9Gv5ryvQyfpZ
Deathbringer? Also yep https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/u3LWGQXrPB8fqfiLaq9EDM

How did this happen?
Fundamentally, this happens because too much damage is lost from other abilities hitting without full Razorice stacks, and empowered Frost Strikes are not compensating enough.

Razorice, with Unholy Bond, gives 3.6% Frost damage per stack for a total bonus of 18% at max stacks. Stoneskin Gargoyle, with Unholy Bond, gives 6% Strength.

When I compare the builds in the results, the bonus damage to Frost Strike cannot overcome this large bonus in free damage. Although Razorice stacks rapidly, most of the time in single-target is spent below five stacks (5 stacks has an uptime of about 40%). If SSG were unavailable, we would still want to talent into the Shattering line as expected.

A key reason why empowered Frost Strikes cannot bridge the gap comes from a long-standing bug that plagues this talent. Currently, Razorice is consumed before the empowered Frost Strike hits. This means that Shattering Blade is cannibalizing its own damage and isn’t reaching its full potential.

Example from a log https://i.imgur.com/FKrTURR.png

Is there a quick fix?
I think there is at least one simple solution. Buff Shattering Blade back up to 125%, and fix how the talent consumes Razorice.

I tweaked the Frost Strike implementation in SimulationCraft to explore what would happen if Razorice expired after the main hand Frost Strike hit instead of before. I also overrode the spell data to return Shattering Blade to 125% bonus damage.

Bingo https://i.imgur.com/ighUeJM.png

Shattering Blade is now slightly better than dropping the talent to play an easier, more passive option. I’m unsure if this is the best solution, as I do not know what it would take to affect the order of consuming Razorice. However, it does illustrate that this can be fixed with targeted tuning for the talent without buffing or nerfing every build in the spec.

New builds are up on wowhead, we don’t use Razorice anymore but Stonegargoyle instead as runeforges.
What a sad day this is.

3 Likes
2

Something not working correctly on DK class, the evidently most played class at Blizzard HQ? What? Unheard of.

Thanks for posting, I hadn’t realised. I thought something was odd, I was doing a few dungeons and delves and noticed that Frost strikes damage was weirdly low even though I rotated through all the targets and consumed the 5 stacks of razorice.

1 Like
3

im tired brothers and sisters.

4

Hold on tight, in 2028 we will have the WotLK 20th anniversary, and potentially The Last Titan expansion which meant to take place in a revamped Northrend. They might look into to DK properly then…

5

i’ts really tiring to see WW monk revamp wrecking stuff PvE and PvP.
while we’re basically still stuck in legion prepatch design with half an artifact weapon now due to hero talents.

I’ve been dipping my toes into Arms warrior PvP aswell and hoo boy there’s nice design in the warrior class, but its built with teamplay in mind,you got a healer/dispeller it’s a super strong team, and you have power in pressuring enemy healers atleast somewhat.

But what does warrior got to do with my passion for DK’s? the design, how much love has gotten into the design of a class, both fair and unbalanced, because humans cannot be unbiased, not all classes are made with mindsets of super balance. i’ll even admit thatwe as death knights have good sides, a sleek exterior and four wheels and the mass to ram things for effect, but the engine is uncared for, and rusting.

I see the design of warrior, and actually prefer the gameplay of arms and slayer hero talent, it flows, and it fits, and shows a work of love and care. Even when i meet a frost mage or a devastator evoker that i know i cannot win, due to how the classes are designed.

and here is my point, despite my knowledge that classes have weaknesses and strenghts, especially warrior VS frost mage. it shows that some classes are made to just not have any worries, example one: Reworked WW monk, what weaknessess does it have? can a frostmage beat it as easily as vs a warrior? my experience and witnessed accounts say no.
Same with how evoker is designed, its like the designer of it really like dragon power fantasies, much like our old OLD designer that made Wrath deah knight design before it was nerfed, on the same manner how the guy that made wrath retri pala, works of love AND bias.

im getting off tangent again but the “balance” thatis applied on some classes are not applied on certain ones, the PvP talents for Drachtyrs are downright insane,20 something duration sprint hover ability makes them immune to every slow in the game, alongside mobility that rivals or even greater than mages and hunters,alongside a self buff that makes them immune to the next three CC abilities applied, 1.5 m CD, 30 second duration. a 6 second duration buff that heals back ALL damage they take after it runs out.

the last ability i listed is not a PvP talent, but you get my point, these abilities are not PvP talents, they are God powers in an ecosystem against nearly all melee classes, especially warrior. I will admit that us DK’s have better tools to deal with drachtrys than warriors, thanks to our anti magic toolkit, but the fine print is still that many PvP talents, many of ours included still comes with great downsides, while other classes gets no “balance tax” on their abilities in the same manner.

this is a bit of an inhinged rant, but i have to let it outto atleast share both pain and perspective, even if i know that the smug dev that thought of these insane abilities will never nerf them unless something truly dramatic happens at blizz.

1 Like
6

PvP is definitely a hard task to balance, way harder than pve.

Now I have not partaken in it for quite some time, but generally whenever I do it’s not with DK.

From my understanding, DK are meant to be a huge nuisance to all spell casters. AMS isn’t enough, and AMZ is mostly useless in pvp context. So it definitely feels like we need more of that anti magic tool kit for pvp purposes.

Monk seems to be blasting on all fronts currently.

Minus the DnD cleave gimmick aside, I’m currently enjoying how Frost plays in dungeons. They need to look into how haste affects rune regeneration, so we don’t get this disgusting feeling of the class being dragged through mud every time we’re under 20% haste.

UH is just boring, but I use it in raids currently, as it’s less punishing when you get targeted by mechanics.

1 Like
7

Thanks, didn’t know about it, and I was wondering why I do low dmg in raid, when it was my first content to try FDK besides delves

8

This was apparently hotfixed now.

9

Dont get your hopes up. This bug here has been in the game for 2 years Female Night Elf Death Knight Obliterate bug is still in the game

1 Like
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I want to say “surprised pikachu face” but in the same time, why am I not surprised?!

Myself and a few others that lurk around this forum ('sup Deinhardt) often speak about a strange kind of input lag sensation that seem to… Plague the whole class. I feel like there’s something fundamentally laggy around how haste, rune regeneration and the triggering of abilities works in this class.

My ret paladin and arms warrior play much faster even at lower haste values, and again not in a thematic way, the ret paladin feels just as fast as a rogue or enh shaman. It’s very DK specific, I don’t know if any other players can notice that but I invite you all to test this for yourselves.

Wouldn’t be surprised if there was something buggy in there, considering how, for UH specifically, high amounts of haste use to bug out the pets (Gargoyle in particular).

1 Like
11

My brother

i’ve noticed something else aswell now, i’ve mentioned it before but it bears repeating.
the exterminate charges you get as buffs that shows you have one ready to spend used to be infinite, so you could keep them forever between fights, now they are…15-20 seconds duration, and will fall of if not used. i searched for some hotfixes or patch notes with my limited skills but found nothing mentioning this change.

and yeah the 0.5 sec GCD delay that seems to be with us is still thereat certain haste levels