What i would like to see changed for Unholy Death Knight's talent tree for War Within

Classes Death Knight
1

Blizzard need to rework Unholy Death Knight’s talent tree, and to make it so we can fully tailor our spec for Diseases, or Undeads when we talent in to it. This wont require to split the spec at all, and Festering Wound, should no longer be a debuff on the enemy player. But, it should be changed to Necrotic Might, that stack up to 30 stacks, and it should last for 30 seconds, on the Death Knight as a buff that gets consumed by Scourge Strike/Death Coil.

Epidemic should be changed/baked in whit Outbreak when you talent in to it.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Epidemic. Enemies effected by Virulent Plague gets Marked By The Deathlord. When you hit them whit Epidemic, your Death Coils seeks out any target Marked By The Deathlord, at a reduced power past the first target. This last as long Virulent Plague is active on the enemies effected by Marked By The Deathlord.

Unholy Blight should be located where Epidemic used to be.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Unholy Blight. 1,5 minute CD. Unholy Blight stacks up to 5 stacks on the enemies, and when Unholy Blight is cast, it last for 10 seconds. Unholy Blight’s Disease last for 16 seconds.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Your Pet also emits Unholy Blight for 10 seconds. This effect counts as the Death Knight’s Unholy Blight.

Improved Festering Strike should be removed. Instead Sudden Doom should be located there, and it cost 1 talent point.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Harbinger of Doom, and Doomburst popping effect should be baked in to Sudden Doom. When Death Coil has been cast, consume 1 stack of Necrotic Might. When Sudden Doom has proced, consume 2 stacks of Necrotic Might instead.

  2. [SMAL CHANGE] Runic Mastery. Cost 1 talent point. Increase the damage of all your Runic Power abilities by 20%.

Lots of Death Coil/Scourge Strike passives should be moved to the first row, or be removed. We should not need to buy back our skills, and our Pet. That’s just filler talents, and it’s a bad talent tree design. Also, Plaguebringer/Clawing Shadow, and up to Coil of Devastation should be swapped with Unholy Command, and Eternal Agony location.

The second part of the talent row, and how the talent pathing is made there is perfect for talent building. But, it’s filled with useless passives that do the same thing. Move all of it to the first row, or remove them.

The left side of the middle talent row should be all about Plagues, and Defile. No Minions, no Pet, and no Dark Transformation. Only Dot&Rot.

Easy way for this, is by adding Diseases with secondary effects that do something unique to that said Disease. This is not hard to achieve. Here is an example.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Festering Plague. For every Necrotic Might you consumed, deal damage based on the current amount of Necrotic Might you have consumed in it’s 30 seconds duration.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Generate 1 Necrotic Might every 3 second, and every time Necrotic Might is consumed. Generate 2 Runic Power. Replenishing Wound should be baked in to Festering Plague.

Pestilence’s effect should be baked in to Defile.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] For every Necrotic Might you consume, increases Virulent Plagues damage by 1%, stacking up to 30%, for 30 seconds. In addition, Virulent Plague should last 3 seconds longer as well. This acts as a buff on the DK.

Improved Death Coil should be removed. This is mostly because of the change i want for Epidemic.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Nothing But Misery. Costs 2 talent points. Enemies effected by all your unique Plagues will have a 5-10% chance to suffer from each individual Diseases that are causing damage to the victim. Each unique Disease will individually have their duration extended by 0,25-0,5 seconds, when the effect has proced.

  2. [SMAL CHANGE] Coil of Devastation last for 30 second, and deals 30% of Death Coils damage. But, all Disease skills interact whit Coil of Devastation. Like Plaguebringer, and other effects that specifies to boost Plague damage on the enemy target.

Soul Reaper should be located after Pestilence, and in between Death Rot/Army of the Damned. This talent can only be taken, if Pestilence has been taken in the Disease side of the talent row. Soul Reaper should cost 30 Runic Power, instead of 1 Rune.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Enemies struck by Soul Reaper at 35%, or below, gets infected. When Soul Reaper detonates upon the victims death, it consumes 2 stacks of Necrotic Might. This counts as a Disease, and deals damage during it’s duration on the enemies afflicted by it.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] When the victim die. Their soul explode, spreading Soul Reaper. Enemies around the victim of Soul Reaper, gets infected regardless of the HP they have.

Defiler of This Land should be located were Vile Contagion used to be.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Defiler of This Land. Defile last for 20 seconds, and all it’s secondary effects, both debuffs/buffs are doubled in power.

Vile Contagion should be located were Unholy Blight used to be.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Vile Contagion. 3 minute CD. Vile Contagion causes all your unique Diseases to flare up. Vile Contagion deals 35% of the Dots damage every time the Diseases tics. Vile Contagion last for 15 seconds on the enemy target that are effected by it. Think of this like a mini multi striking effect.

Important thing to note. With Vile Contagions multi striking effect, it should trigger the stacking function of Necrotic Plagues damage, that causes it to stack up Necrotic Plague by 1 stack per tics on the enemy player, this also applies to Nothing But Misery as well.

{Now, for the Undead side of the middle talent row}

Feasting Strikes should be removed.

Raise Sludge Belcher should be located before Unholy Command.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Raise Sludge Belcher. Raise Sludge Belcher deals 10% more damage, and has 10% more health. Raise Sludge Belcher takes 10% less damage.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] When All Will Serve is taken, you raise 2 Nerubians instead of 1 Skulker.

Skulker/Nerubians will interact with all Pet related buffs.

{Sins i noted that a lot of the unnecessary passives we have in our talent tree that should be moved to the first talent row, or be removed. This will open up a lot of empty passive/talent slots to be filled}

Army at my Command should be placed were Sudden Doom used to be located.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Army at my Command. You control 4 Army of the Dead Ghouls. They follow, and attack your focused target.

  2. [NEW PASSIVE] You Will Serve Me in Death. Open a Death Gate from the Ebon Hold, when Raise Dead is cast. 1 Necromancer will come forth, and serve you, fighting alongside his master.

[ABILITIES]

  1. [Shadow Bolt] Necromancer casts Shadow Bolts.
  2. [Bone Fiends] Necromancer Raises up 2 Skeletons for 10 seconds, on a 30 second CD. Skeletons will use the Rattlegore model.
  3. [Ghoul Frenzy] Ghoul Frenzy increases the movement speed, and attack speed of the buffed Ghoul, and the Necromancer only targets one of the Army of the Dead Ghouls, Raised from Army at my Command.
  4. [Bone Shield] The Necromancer cast Bone Shield on the Death Knight. Bone Shield has 4 charges, and reduces the damage the Death Knight takes by 10%, this buff last for 30 minute.

Unholy Pact should be removed.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Plague Monstrosity. Raise Dead/Raise Sludge Belcher emits a Plague Cloud as an aura. Plague Cloud deals damage to enemies close to the Ghoul/Abomination.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Plague Cloud has a small chance to Raise Exploding Monstrosity. The Monstrosity walks towards the closest enemy target, and then detonates it’s Disease filled body. This Minion does not count towards Unholy Aura’s 1% damage increasing effect for it’s Minions. But, Exploding Monstrosity benefits from Unholy Aura’s damage increasing effect, when Minions increase Unholy Aura’s 1% + X amount damage.

Reaping should be a choice nod with Magus of the Dead, and Ruptured Viscera should be baked in to Army of the Dead talent.

  1. [NEW CD] Raise Crypt Lord. 3 min CD, and last for 30 seconds. The Death Knight points his Rune Blade at the enemy target, and a Crypt Lord will Burrow Charge the targeted enemy of the Death Knight. Enemies struck by the Crypt Lord are knocked up in the air, and any close to him are knocked aside.

[ABILITIES]

  1. [Burrow Spikes] The Crypt Lord slams the ground, causing a torrent of Burrow Spikes to fire in a frontal cone to hit the enemy targets.
  2. [Insect Swarm] Enemies close to the Crypt Lord are struck by infected insects. Insect Swarm deals damage, and applies Virulent Plague to the enemies struck by it.
  3. [Raise Beetles] The Crypt Lord Raises Beetles every 6 seconds. Raise Beetles fights alongside the Crypt Lord for 12 seconds.
  4. [Spiked Carapace] When the Crypt Lord have been struck by physical melee attacks, it deals a small portion of that damage back at the enemies close to the Crypt Lord.

Crypt Lord should also have a PVP talent that Cocoons the target. Cocoon locks them in place, and prevents them from using escape tools.

Vision of an Army should be placed were Harbinger of Doom used to be located.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Vision of an Army. When Necrotic Might is consumed, you have a chance based on every Necrotic Might you consume, to Raise 2 Army of the Dead Ghouls for 10 seconds. This effect is limited 1 proc per time when it procs, and when this effect goes of, it also is limited to a total of 4-8 procs per minute.

  2. [NEW EFFECT] Unholy Command no longer reduces the CD of your Dark Transformation. This effect should be baked in to the Dark Transformations CD. Unholy Command instead causes your Army of the Dead Ghouls to deal 5%-10% increased damage, as long Dark Transformations CD is active.

{Now, for the last part of the talent row}

Most of the talents/passives will remain mostly unchanged. But there should be new talent/passives added. It’s to create new play styles. All the 2 talent points in the last row should be set to 1 talent point, and from Death Rot, 2 new passives should be added.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Ebon Plague. Costs 2 talent points. For every unique Disease you have applied to the enemy target. Ebon Plague deals 15%-30% increased damage, for each unique Disease.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Death Rot stacks up to 15 stacks, and your Death Coil applies 2 stacks of Death Rot, up from 1 stack. Sudden Doom grants 3 stacks of Death Rot, up from 2 stacks.

The goal with Ebon Plague, and it enabling Death Rot to stack up even higher, is to make it so Ebon Plague feels like a strong talent point passive. It should open up both a pure Disease build, and a hybrid Minion/Disease build when you make your talent tree choices.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Necrotic Plague. For every Necrotic Might consumed, increases Necrotic Plague’s damage based on it’s stacks. Every time Necrotic Plague tics, it gains 1 stack as well. Necrotic Plague can’t be refreshed, and will run out in due time.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Death Coil extends it’s duration by 0,5 second, and 1 second, if Sudden Doom has been consumed. Enemies effected by Necrotic Plague will be harder to be Dispelled, and for every second Unholy Blight’s active CD tics. Necrotic Plague will ramp up 1 additional stack of Necrotic Plague on the enemy player.

Seeing the return of Necrotic Plague, is something many players including me have wished to see returned back, as a defining part of the Disease build.

  1. [SMAL CHANGE] Festermight. Cost 1 talent point. Festermight stacks 1% strength, up to 30% stacks of strength, when Necrotic Might has been consumed. It last for 20-30 seconds.

  2. [NEW CD] Unholy Assault should be changed back to Unholy Frenzy. Unholy Frenzy has the same CD. But, Unholy Frenzy only grants 10% increased damage, down from 20%, and instead of it applying Festering Wounds, it generate 8-12 stacks of Necrotic Might instead.

Ghoulish Frenzy, and Morbidity should swap location, and cost only 1 talent point. The effect’s should be as strong as if you have spent 2 talent points in to them.

  1. [SMAL CHANGE] Superstrain deals 100% of Frost Fever, and Blood Plagues damage, up from 80%.

Bursting Soars should be added as a choice nod with Superstrain.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Bursting Soars causes your Necrotic Might to pulse for X amount of damage on all enemies when they are struck inside Death and Decay/Defile, and based on every stacks of Necrotic Might consumed, the pulsing effect gets increased, and ramps up the damage the more Necrotic Might gets consumed.

Army of the Damned, and Army of the Dead should swap location.

  1. [CHANGED] Army of the Damned should reduce Army of the Dead’s CD, to a 3 minute CD. Instead of Death Coil reducing it by 5 seconds.

New choice nod should be added were Army of the Damned is located.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Unholy Bargain. Apocalypse has a 15 second CD. Apocalypse applies Crypt Fever to one target struck by Apocalypse, for 30 seconds. You no longer Raise Army of the Dead Ghouls.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Enemies effected by Crypt Fever takes increased damage from the Death Knight’s Plagues.

The goal with Unholy Bargain, is to create a way for the Disease build, to strengthen it’s single target damage, and to make it so Apocalypse feels like a cool button to press for the Undead/Disease build your going for.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Unholy Aura. cost 1 talent point. Unholy Aura starts at 0% increased damage. For every active Undead Minion you have out. Unholy Aura increases the damage of all active Undeads by 1%, stacking for unlimited stacks.

The intention behind the change to Unholy Aura, is to create a way for the Undead build to feel like it amounts to something, and to create this sugger rush feeling as you see your minions grow stronger the faster you consume Necrotic Might to raise them.

  1. [NEW EFFECT] Commander of the Dead should no longer increase the damage of your Undeads, after Dark Transformation have been used. Instead, your Gargoyle/Val’kyr has it’s CD reduced, down to 1,5 minute CD, and it last for 5 seconds longer. The other change this talent could have, is that Gargoyle/Val’kyr can be changed in to a passive that are always fighting alongside us. Tuning will be taken in to count as well.

From Gargoyle/Val’kyr, 2 new passives should be added.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Festering Dead. costs 2 talent points. For every Necrotic Might Consumed, at the primary target. You have 50%-100% chance, to Raise Skeletons fighting for you, for 10-20 seconds.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Festering Dead has a 7,5%-15% chance, to Raise Skeleton Archer instead. Skeleton Archer deals more damage than the Skeleton Warrior.

[ABILITIES] Skeleton Warrior.

  1. [Charge] Charge the enemy target.
  2. [Plague Strike] When the enemy are hit with Plague Strike, it applies Virulent Plague to 1 target.
  3. [Melee Attacks] Skeleton Warrior cleaves the target with it’s melee attacks.

[ABILITIES] Skeleton Archer.

  1. [Chain Dive] Skeleton Archer throws a chain spike to close the distance towards the enemy target. This is similar to Rogues Grappling Hook.
  2. [Plague Arrow] Skeleton Archer fires a Disease filled arrow, to apply Virulent Plague to 1 enemy target.
  3. [Arrow Cleaving] The Skeleton Archer’s ranged attack cleaves the target.

The goal with Festering Dead, is to enable Unholy Death Knight’s the ability to have a steady Undead generating skill, and to increase not only Necrotic Might’s value. But, also to ensure that the important damage are being done from our minions as a whole, and not to tune us around our CD as a result. With all the Pet talent/passives we can have our CD’s be more about enhancing our play style/Necromancer theme, and less about us playing the waiting game for our CD’s to be used to deal damage.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Festering Scythe. Festering Strike is replaced for Festering Scythe. Festering Scythe has 30 yard range, and deals shadow damage. It applies 3 more stacks of Necrotic Might [5-6 stacks], up from [2-3 stacks], when it’s used.
    [ADDITIONAL EFFECT] Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadow consumes 2 stacks of Necrotic Might, up from 1 stack. Death Coil Consumes 1 extra stack of Necrotic Might. Soul Reaper consumes 1 extra stack of Necrotic Might as well. Apocalypse consume 6 stacks of Necrotic Might, and Raises up 6 Ghouls, up from 4 Ghouls.

Important thing to note about Festering Scythe, and it’s goal as a talent. Unholy Death Knight’s at the moment have skills that turns us to a mid range fighter [Clawing Shadow/Death Coil]. But, we lack ways for our generator skills to fill that role as well, that being our melee swings for procs, or from Festering Strike to generate Necrotic Might from a ranged distance. I think by having access to talents like this, we can then have a more steady flow to our play style, and it helps making Unholy Death Knight feel distinct from other melee classes.

  1. [NEW PASSIVE] Blighted Rune Weapon. Melee attacks have a 30 yard range, and deals Shadowfrost damage.

For the small change were Soul Reaper used to be. I want a passive that lets Death Knight’s be able to keep attacking with our melee swings, at a ranged distance as an option. This can help us to proc our important buffs like Crimson Scourge/Killing Machine/Sudden Doom. This in my opinion should be a better talent alternative, instead of having to take Soul Reaper in the base talent tree.

  1. [SMAL CHANGE] Rune of Apocalypse Weapon Enchant. Rune of Apocalypse should no longer proc from the Pet Ghoul/Abomination’s abilities. But, instead, it should proc from our damage over time effects. The Rune Weapon Enchant debuffs should stack up to 5 stacks. I also think the debuff that deals Dot damage should be considered a Disease, and interact with Unholy Death Knight’s talents/passives.

Why i want to change Rune of Apocalypse a little bit, has to do with Death Knight’s only taking Rune of the Fallen Crusader over any other Weapon Rune Enchants. The goal behind this change, is to give Unholy Death Knight’s a Rune Weapon Enchant that favors the Disease build for more sustain Dot&Rot damage, over Rune of the Fallen Crusader which favor more a bursting play style.

33 Likes
2

Bro you mean, to make uhdks a hybrid range class?! xD I mean it’s a cool idea, but surely that’s a little OP?

Some cool ideas here for sure, I fully agree that tree needs to be better divided between between disease builds and minion builds, even though these two play style and fantasies could so different they should be a different spec to begin with.

On a different note, try more paragraphs, full stops and punctuation in general. Bit hard to read the content, which is a shame because you’ve got some cool ideas.

3

i don’t really think having our melee attacks and festering strike becoming ranged will be op this is mostly cause of death coil and clawing shadow being our primary source of direct burst damage when it comes to abilities we press more often, also we will still have to run in hit apoc/soul reaper, i also think this is a very fitting approach for unholy as it has always been a knight of darknes i kinda find it fitting when you don’t command armies of the living but the army of the dead it’s unorganized and they run all over the place, that’s kinda how i see why unholy having access to a full plethora of skills replacing our melee spell abilities makes sense.

i also have made it more readable when i tried to reread all that i have typed i just wanted to pull my eyes out :skull:

1 Like
4

Tbh the more I think about it, the more I think it also makes sense with not only how slow we are, but as theme. The commander of undead, strategist at the back. Also… Would potentially fit really well with having Lich theme hero talent instead of something like “Deathbringer” which is the most generic sounding thing ever.

Yeah much better now! :nerd_face:

1 Like
5

yeah that’s why i love the concept of dk defying the normal laws to what a knight is supposed to be, and also this would make the DK feel like the Warcraft 3 Death Knight Hero unit you could control, you have a large army of undeads and hopefully we will also whit the hero talent be able to talent in to skeleton warhorse and ride it in combat sins that will hit the theme of War 3 DK.

this is my hope that unholy’s talent tree will get reworked to what i suggested but it’s hard to see Blizzard doing it.

i agree this is so generic i’m worried we are going to end up whit a badly design hero talent there, and also this damn Deathbringer thing is more blood related than frost, this is not really looking good the more you think about it.

2 Likes
6

San’layn is already really blood related, and generally seems to add more to blood spec than it does to UH. If the pattern in their design carries on like that, it seems that every hero spec is firstly designed as a continuity of one main spec, then adapted to fit a second one.

So death bringer would be “the frost one” and rider of the apocalypse “the UH one”.

The hopeless optimist in me is thinking that they took a step back from showing DK hero talents because the class is in a mess, and can’t make things work until they fix the baseline. They went all out on Paladins as they’ve recently been overhauled and are actually quite well designed to begin with.

2 Likes
7

yeah i hope as well to, man i really copeing hard for Rider of the Apocalypse will finally grant us mounted combat whit it ofc being choice noded for those who don’t want to play it, i also lowkey hope Blizz will implement this suggestions for UH i made, i really want the UH DK to play and feel like the WC3 hero unit controlling waves upon waves of undeads.

1 Like
9

Seems our wish for Rider of the Apocalypse came true, this is amazing news for our hero talent tree, now i hope the things i have suggested in this thread will also come to a reality that would make Rider out right the most epic and thematic spec in wow.

1 Like
10

Yeah that choice nods that lets ride the death charger into battle is so awesome… Hope they give that mount a few new polygons as it’s starting to look dated.

I’m on the fence regarding the rest of the talent tree though. It will all depend on how rng the summoning of the riders will be. And will they be on a set rotation or completely random?

Wasn’t very keen on Deathbringer. I think the main reason being that blood and frost are just so different to each other, they had to come with something completely new to fit both.

One day we’ll be have more Lich powers…

1 Like
11

one thing i can’t be sleeping on tho is that Blood DK will now have Death Strikes that deals Magic damage instead of physical damage that might make Death Strike for Blood whit the Rune Weapon Enchant hella busted :sweat_smile:

12

Wait where’s that effect from? What did I miss?

13

Deathbringer.

Choice Nod: Dark Talon, While Icy Talons is active, your abilities that spend runic power deals shadowfrost damage.

1 Like
14

Hmmm that’s an interesting thought. Would make bdks use DS a little more aggressively too. Deathbringer in general seems more interesting for blood than it does for frost to me. Would be a nice damage increase for them.

1 Like
15

what makes it really scary is the fact i do have achieved 200k hits whit Death Strike in PVP as Blood DK and i do not run the weapon enchant if i had i would be 120% increased damage at 0% health but for more realistic one say 100% at 20% enemy health, now if you take in the fact it deals magic damage those numbers will hit so hard it might kill any thing whit the right cd and set up at 35% health mark.

16

That’s some very long post, and due to lack of punctuation very hard to read. :slight_smile:

However, there’s a lot of good ideas there. I am not sure Blizzard would be willing to make a complete overhaul, but I still think a cleanup is in order to make the tree better.

Firstly, completely agree about splitting the tree into diseases and minions sides. I think that down the middle we should have all things related to Death Coil, left side should be the Plaguebringer focused on, as you put it, Dot&Rot, so Diseases, DnD, Festering Wounds, etc., while the right side would be the Necromancer with undead minions.

Check this link to see how the reorganization could look like.

  • I would keep Festering Wounds as they are, since UDH have bigger problems. The only thing I’d add is that Festering Wounds burst when their duration ends, in addition to target’s death or using Scourge Strike, so that when we switch to priority targets the wounds don’t go to waste.
  • Not a bad idea on Epidemic, but why not keep it simpler - using Death Coil also causes enemies with your diseases within 12 yards to also deal Epidemic explosion damage.
  • Not sure I understand, but you want Unholy Blight to be separate from Virulent Plague? If yes, that would be a good chance. Currently it’s a glorified Outbreak with 45 sec CD, and I’d rather see it do separate damage.
  • Runic Mastery change you propose is too powerful, so I doubt it would be implemented. It would have to be either 2 points and extra damage, or 1 point and no extra damage.
  • Army at my Command (you now control 4 Army of the Dead Ghouls following and attacking your focused target) - not a bad idea, though having constant 4 pets is a bit overkill. How about each time you kill an enemy, you raise a ghoul to fight at your side for 30 seconds, max of 4 ghouls. Proper tuning makes it balanced enough to feel like a glorified DoT that stacks up to 4, but with proper Death Knight flavour.

While having an undead army following you is really cool, we gotta remember this is an MMO and not RTS, and cluttering the world with additional unit models does not do well to game performance when a lot of other players are involved. It’s probably the reason Army of the Dead is not a 2-3 min CD, too. Occassional minion summons are fine, but I would like to have an option to go more into a Plaguebringer version if I do not want to have an army - and likewise, people who want to live a Necromancer fantasy should have an option to lean further into that side too.

17

Reason as to why i want Necrotic Might over Festering Wounds has to do whit the mechanical change i want dk to have but also i find wounds to be an annoyance to maintain as it’s capped at 6 stack per target, but whit Necrotic Might this buff can be allowed to stack higher as a result, it does not deal any damage unless talented to Bursting Soars.

Reason as to why i don’t think that’s a good idea has allot to do whit Coil of Devastation being able to fill the aoe damage role when talented in to it, and sins there are already many Diseases in the talent tree it can result in an overinflated aoe damage.

yes that’s correct i want Blight to serve a more important purpose not only as a harder hitting dot but also as an enabler for Necrotic Plague.

this one really dosent matter in the grand scheme of the spec this acts more as a tuning knob for Death Coil/Soul Reaper/ Death Strike, if it’s 10%-20% will simply be tuned according to the spels them self, this is mostly to add value to this talent sins it’s not worth taking unless it provides some damage to our main damaging spell’s

i mostly want a talent like this to flatten out the minion damage DK has so we are not rendered in to 1,5 min and 3 min CD spec, this helps us having damage outside the CD but also adds a way to have damage pressure out side of it, and also this needs to stay as a passive so the Necromancer can cast Ghoul Frenzy on one of them it’s mostly to avoid bad rng from happening.

18

The problem your idea presents it significantly changes how the spec works and that’s why I doubt Blizz would consider such approach. Festering Strike’s role in the rotation is to apply a debuff that is used to deal damage as well as fuel certain other abilities (i.e., Apocalypse), and also as yet another damage tuning knob. Changing it to no longer deal damage affects 2 out of the 3 roles it has, plus removes the flavour of it being an undead-related debuff applied alongside a disease. There’s plenty of classes that work with self-buffs, and this puts UDK in unique spot.

Also, the cap of 6 is there for a reason. Imagine your Necrotic Might that can stack 10+ stacks on self. What prevents you from stacking it outside of boss fight and just going in using spenders without using builders? It’s just unbalanced if not outright overpowered.

Not sure what you mean, my idea was simply to make Epidemic work the same, but instead being a separate button it would proc when using Death Coil. DC would still hit only 1 target (2 if talented into Improved DC), and would erupt Epidemic on targets with Virulent Plague.

I see your point, and I would agree if the class was a spellcaster and not a melee-weapon wielding Death Knight. I am afraid the Necromancer dream will be limited to a handful of minions, otherwise the class would have to work like Demonology Warlock where we just summon tons of minions and buff them, with very little damage of our own.

19

it wont last for an hr by simply making last for 30 seconds you wont end up whit a degenerate game play.

i like the concept were enemies hit by Epidemic effected by virulent plague causes your death coil to hit every thing, think of it as a kill switch which activates your aoe rotation.

this is a fair point, but also there is the fact that death knight already has a burst spec in frost whit it’s weapon swings, i think turning unholy to a hybrid melee/mid range fighter who focus on roting the enemies down or running them down whit the army of the dead is more thematically fitting for unholy DK.

20

I get that the wound fantasy is unique to UHDK, but it’s hell’a clunky.

If this system is to stay, we need more ways to cause, and spread wounds.

Firstly like a few people have suggested in this forum, the RNG element of FS needs to go, period. Make it always 2 or always 3, but don’t gimp us with this 2-4 nonsense. FS is one of the least satisfying buttons to press in this class…

How can it be improved to feel more impactful? Since we’ve got so many boring and mandatory talents that need to be picked up, they should consider baking some of those effects in and create new talents that improve FS in particular instances; for example:

  • Whilst standing within DD, FS will also cleave onto secondary targets causing X amounts of wounds, and reduced damage. Something along those lines.
  • A talent which guarantees a higher number of wounds (let’s say if the baseline is 2, it will always do 3), and gives a chance to refund rune cost.
  • A talent that increases the passive damage from festering wounds, and creates a synergistic effect with virulent plague. So every stack of FW gives a damage coefficient boost to the one from virulent plague. This would give us an interesting play especially on boss fights where there is a lot of planned movement, forced on range and so on.

These are just some basic ideas, not married to any of it, I’m sure some competent class dev (if they were informed that DKs exist) could make something way more fun.

Finally, the festermight minigame is just such a… Don’t even know what to call it, lame min max mini-game? The fact that if you want to be super optimal you have to withhold from bursting wounds is so counter intuitive. We should be encourage to burst them, not stop using on of our 3 main buttons. On a slight tangent, how on earth are blizzard thinking we could be tracking this buff without a WA, in raid with 10s of short duration buffs on? They really need to be thinking how on earth their UIs interact with classes sometimes, this isn’t just a DK problem.

1 Like
21

personally i think festering wounds will always suffer from the combo point system as long it has limited stacking mechanic on 1 player at the time, and whit those rare dark transformation and pestilence aoe procs you end up whit a wonky mechanic, while the necrotic might acts the same as wounds, by having necrotic might be a buff on the dk it can allow the dk stacking way more might stacks than just 6 stacks of wounds on the enemy, and it consuming those stacks instead of dealing them as damage unless talented opens our damage to be centered around our diseases and minions.

now this is just my take but i do see also the merit in many of the suggestions i have made, but i do belive as long we have keep wounds up for unholy to work it will hold the spec back from working for the more average players long term.

1 Like