Hello! Back in january this year, i made a topic, about current state of DK and my ways to fix it (“A new way to experience a Death Knight Class” was the title). I logged into forums recently, and saw alot of rework/buff demands everywhere, most topics literally state, that DK is no longer enjoyable to play, and outdated. I’m not sure if developers are reading EU forums, but i’m gonna jump on this “hype train” and give even more feedback.
Let’s begin with the good stuff:
- new UI design for runes/spending runes, is cool, i like it.
- It’s nice to have both DoT spec and single target/pet spec in an unholy tree.
- Overall DK is well preserved, almost all of our iconic abilities are present.
- And i kind of liked the amount of cool transmog sets SL provided.
- Blood is ok for PvE i believe, well designed, and obv we don’t want a tank PvP spec (at least i don’t).
The following “problems”, in my opinion, require attention of devs:
-
Unholy and Frost gameplay feels dated, predictable. And our self-healing also has been nerfed quite alot, devs don’t want DK to be too tanky i suppose. Whenever DK is too strong, we get a nerf (no1 likes to get killed by OP evil hero class i guess), and whenever we are mediocre (we usually are), we are just too predictable to be viable, we don’t have many ways to unleash our “skillcap”. Because of this issue, DK became a class with niche playerbase, this is sad, because DK was actually very popular in the past, during its “glory days”.
-
Overall, class feels like a WOTLK Relic, it felt almost untouched until SL, and even during “death themed” expansion, we rarely felt good in combat, our only reward was cosmetics and mounts.
-
We need more pet customizations, and FTLOG update old WOTLK frostwyrm 3D models already, instead of adding new 8-bit frostwyrms in 10.1.5 Naxx event.
My way to fix the issue:
Here comes “unpopular” opinion, but i really believe it is the only correct one.
Obviously, PvE side of DK seems ok, at least from my perspective (i rarely do PvE so i might be wrong). Blood is fine, frost and unholy should be preserved with some minor changes. Rotation and gameplay of these specs feels comical at some point in 2023, but i do believe they are not that bad, just require some tweaks, it will be hard to redesign those to work, without ruining their integrity and class fantasy in general.
What we really need is 4th spec. Many people thought fire DK is coming before SL launch, but i don’t really believe we need a fiery, infernal DK.
Remember when druids got their 4th spec? It was basically separation of feral tree into tank (bear), and cat (dps) specs.
We can do a same with DKs, but this time we go wraith/bony theme. This class fantasy exists in DK lore, but in a really undeveloped state.
Imagine a 4th spec, with high mobility, bone shields, teleports, and fast phased gameplay that is capable to unleash high skill ceiling. Maybe a new unique weapon, some kind of skeletal claymore or spectral blade, that can turn into a spectral bow for certain abilities, would be cool to play hybrid melee/ranged spec. As a cherry on top, we could get some warhammer chaos warrior/marauder influence in there too.
Long story short, i do believe that it is wiser to introduce a 4th spec by amplifying unexplored themes within DK class, because DK specs and abilities are way too canon to revamp/rework them, and it is really hard to do.
<3 you all, hope my wall of text inspires some bright ideas within community 