Obviously DKs need a complete rework in all of it specs, it’s a boring, slow-moving and nonrewarding gamestyle and there’s a blatant disconnect between class fantasy and gameplay. Like who in the their right mind feels rewarded to either Pop Army of the Dead and do decent damage on a short fight or mediocre/garbage damage on a long fight as Unholy? Frost is the most non-rewarding spec I have ever played, Breathe of Sindragosa is a garbage ability and should never seen the light of day in my opinion. No idea how they fare in PvP since I don’t really focus much on that aspect of the game. Let me break it down why (atleast in the PvE side of the game) they need a rework. Obviously these numbers and statistics available to the public aren’t a 100% honest representation of reality but it’s the best available to the playerbase and in the end there is bound to be some truth to it but let’s board the DK-Whine-Train boys:
Just check the logs on the first boss in Eternal Palace in mythic diffculty:
Druids - 15517 logs!
Priests - 12841 logs.
Paladins - 10525 logs.
Shamans - 9921 logs.
Rogues - 9233 logs.
Hunter - 9427 logs.
Mage - 8909 logs.
Monk - 8862 logs.
Demon Hunters - 8421 logs.
Warlocks - 8308 logs.
Warriors - 7589 logs.
and lastly Death Knights - 4510 logs in total, Blood - 2153, UH - 1450 and Frost 917.
There are 3 times more Druids who have killed the first boss than Death Knights and 1,5 times as many Warriors that has done the same feat than Death Knights aswell. I wonder if this has something to do with the lack of raid utility and damage Death Knights do or if people don’t really play Death Knights?
Well let’s check the class distribution of all the 12 classes on level 120:
Druid - 10.8%
Paladin - 10.8%
Hunter - 10%
Warrior - 9%
Demon Hunter - 8.6%
Mage - 8.4%
Priest - 7.5%
Warlock - 7.3%
Rogue - 7.3%
Shaman - 7.1%
Death Knight - 6.9%
Monk - 6.1%
So the least playable class has more representation on the first boss in Mythic than DKs.
Not sure how I feel about the class fantasy being reflected in the gameplay of the Death Knights either. This is what it says on wikipedia atleast for all specs:
Blood - “The blood specialization focuses on the manipulation of blood, using an enemy’s blood against them while using the death knights’ blood to benefit themselves.” and in-game it says “A Dark guardian who manipulates and corrupts life energy to sustain herself/himself in the face of an enemy onslaught.”
Death’s Caress and the Blood Plague debuff visually looks like DKs are manipulating blood. Death Strike + Blood Shield not really a “blood manipulating or a Bloody attack” and don’t get me started on Vampiric Blood the visual is a Rune above the head?!! Dancing Rune Weapon + Bonestorm feels out of place and our baseline defensive Icebound Fortitude looks kinda chilly. Anti-Magic Shell looks unholy. Blood Boil is an angry red circle around me not sure how I turned into Saturn with rings and all but all I can think of is what are the rings of saturn made out of? (apparently it’s made almost entirely of water ice).
Frost - “Frost specializes in control, counters and combination strikes using frost related abilities.” and in-game it says “An icy harbringer of Doom, channeling runic power and delivering vicious weapon strikes”.
Somehow we’ve been Transformed into Frozen’s main protagonist Queen Elsa during the scene were she sings “Let It Go” except instead of a snowman we summon icy skeleton dragons and we don’t do ice-bridges. 8/10 Class fantasy but it doesn’t change that the spec itself is really boring and where are the vicious weapon strikes? Shouldn’t obliterate do more damage if it’s supposed to be “vicious”? Why is a howling blast (not a weapon strike if my understanding of english translates those words in combination correctly) and a chilly breath doing more than my weapon strikes? Breath is literally a runic channel so atleast they got that right but wait… It’s not baseline? Shouldn’t it be if Frost DKs are supposed to channel runic power (but I secretly hope they remove that garbage ability).
Unholy - “Unholy specialization focuses on poisoning your opponent and sending the player’s permanent, controllable pet ghoul to attack the enemy.” and in-game it says “A master of death and decay, spreading infection and controlling undead minions to do her/his bidding.”
I really hate Unholy spec right now, boring,slow and class fantasy sucks. Why is Sylvanas more Unholy than Unholy DKs? She literally do sins against creation, kill her former sisters/brothers and all-around seem like a pretty wicked lady. Why do one of my attacks put on a festering wound that doesn’t do any damage except when I burst them? To me it sounds alot more like blisters. Army of the Dead is also a garbage ability, 8 minute cooldown and you summon 8 ghouls (1 for every minute?) and 1 skeleton Mage if you have the azerite trait. Rename it to “Band of the Dead” and make us summon a skeleton drummer instead since that’s no army it’s a small warband.
Also found this little nugget from an article from 2007 were Tom Chilton, one of the lead designers of WoW at the time (who stepped down 2017) said “We don’t want the Death Knight to be a sort of minion-based fighter. He’s focused towards bladed weapons and smashing your head in.” and today unholy is literally a “minion-based fighter”. as Unholy DK I know who’s the boss in my relationship with my ghoul, he’s the source to the big boy damage and his buddies do a significant amount of damage aswell. Is unholy just a undead beastmaster nowadays?
Unholy are pretty much the kid from Bubble Boy that is made fun of.
