New DK changes inc

[Multibocks]

We have talked about making some of these changes and wanted to provide more details. You should be able to try these out yourselves on the PTR before they go live.

Our reason for most of these changes should be obvious, but some common themes are:

Making tanking still rely on cooldowns, but rely on them a little less.
Make Blood a more attractive spec, and particularly for tanking.
Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP.
Avoid having to use Death and Decay as an out-of-combat runic power generator.

General

All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
New runeforge rune -- Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
Many death knight glyphs have been changed. In many cases the negative consequences were removed.
New death knight sigils are now available, primarily from vendors, including a tanking-oriented sigil.

Blood

Rune Strike -- damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
The healing of Blood Aura, Blood Presence and Death Pact has been doubled.
Heart Strike – we overhauled this ability. It no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets like a cleave. It still hits for more than Blood Strike, but you can still use Blood Strike if e.g. you don’t want to break CC.
Bloody Strikes – the bonus damage from Pestilence has been moved here to help Blood AE slightly.
Vampiric Blood -- in addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
Will of the Necropolis -- now reduces the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded,
Dancing Rune Weapon – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.

Frost

Icebound Fortitude – now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but it can go higher). The stun immunity is intended to be its primary role in PvP.
Frost Presence -- bonus armor increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%. We wanted to reduce the effectiveness of cooldowns but bring up base mitigation to reduce damage spikiness.
Horn of Winter -- now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.
Hungering Cold – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.

Unholy

Anti-Magic Shell -- cooldown lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
Bone Shield -- mitigation reduced from 40% to 20%.
Corpse Explosion -- damage increased substantially, added 5 sec cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
Night of the Dead -- now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
Outbreak – this talent no longer receive bonus damage from Pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
Pestilence -- no longer has a 10 sec cooldown.
Raise Dead -- now split into two spells: Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member (at no reagent cost).
Shadow of Death -- duration reduced from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.
Unholy Blight – cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.


So I don't run a DK tank currently and I'm curious to how this will affect DK MBers. Is unholy still the MBers first choice?

[Ifalna]

It puts a little less emphasis on using the Oh shit! abilities just to keep damage under control, all in all it looks like less damage will be taken in general, with the cooldown abilities helping a bit less, which imo is a lot better then taking more damage, but having to constantly blow your cooldowns to keep it all under control.

Not that much bad to say about the changes at all really.

[Bigfish]

Horn of Winter and Frost Presence got buffed? Nice.

[Hachoo]

Yeah actually this whole thing looks more like a tanking buff for the entire class. Might be a SLIGHT pvp nerf but the tanking buffs are awesome. Will make MB tanking even easier with a DK.

[FIra]

BAH! Big drop in pvp with the 20% from 40 and 50%. The frost presence might make it worth it though. Can't wait to find out how well it works.

[Dominian]

"Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP."

It was pretty obviouse that the DK class would be very good from the start in order to secure a decent DK population and now the nerfs will come.

[Redbeard]

Wow im excited about a couple things there:

Unholy blight cost dropped 1/3 (awesome)
Corpse explosion taken off of a rune and uses power now (i need to work wtih corpse explosion some more but i think this will be a good change) and the damage increased.
Pestilence - Cooldown removed.


I wish they wouldve put an eta on when the changes were going in... if these are for 3.1 then it will likely be a while.

[Siaea]

A lot of the PvE stuff looks good, my DK is super spiky at taking damage in instances. Looks good. Bone shield nerf sucks, but I guess it had to happen.

[Hachoo]

I'm pretty sure these changes were confirmed for 3.0.4 which will be the next patch - could be a month away though since its not even on the PTR yet.

I'm not that concerned with any of the nerfs...hell I haven't even used bone shield or icebound fortitude yet at all and I'm almost 75 lol.

[TheBigBB]

"Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP."

It was pretty obviouse that the DK class would be very good from the start in order to secure a decent DK population and now the nerfs will come.These changes are not all nerfs. There are some nice buffs in there, especially for PVE.

[jettzypher]

some awesome lookin changes. especially for frost presence and some of the blood stuff.

[pinotnoir]

How much damage can the magic bubble protect them from? Many times I have shot at a Dk with that up and their health never drops. 30 min ago I launched 5 chain lightnings at t his guy and his health never dropped. I dont play a dk but is that ability like the cloak of shadows of DK?

[Rowdysattva]

I see these changes as "tweaks" or even "buffs" to pve tanking for Dk and especially for MB'ers using a DK as it will make their damage more smooth and less "spiky". I see them as an all around NERF to Dk's in regular single player pvp. As we never really got to see them perform in the new arena season i am not sure how to say if the pvp nerf's were warrented or not. Hopefully the DK will still be competitive in single player pvp. Perhaps these nerfs where needed to "balance" the class... idk.

The Dk anit-magic spells are two. Anti-magic Shell... which they all get. Anti-magic Shell lasts 5 sec (10 sec with glyph) and reduces all magic damage by 75% while it lasts. It also prevents the application of harmful spells and effects while it lasts. So x5 CL would be hugely reduced by this. 1 min CD. The big magic bubble they put up is an uholy talent called Anti-magic Zone. AMZ reduces all damage to everyone inside it by 75% and lasts for 30 sec or until it has absorbed 200% AP +10000 damage. NOTE: To get AMZ as a talent you must take a pre-talent that gives you a boost to your AMS +25% damage reduction meaning that then the AMS is at 100% damage reduction while it lasts. 2 min CD.

[Mosg2]

These changes make DK's even more MB'ing friendly due to more steady damage instead of spiky jumps.

However, they're a huge nerf in pvp. When this goes live, the only unique thing that a DK brings is Deathgrip, which is admittedly powerful in 5's but in 2's and 3's is much weaker. They have no spammable snare, no MS effect, no CC, are very susceptible to CC, require diseases for damage, and do not bring considerable burst damage. The only thing that DK's really had was incredibly survivability, even more so than a Rogue. A DK on your team basically forces the opponent to choose another target to work down. When your partner(s) are also hard targets...

The only upswing to this is that Frost became just a smidge more viable due to only needing 40rp for their AE CC. The problem is, you're giving up a lot of goodies to get it.

[Basilikos]

I caught that post by Ghostcrawler just before I started my workout this morning. Overall, I'm pretty excited about this. I'm not at all interested in PvP, so this is nothing but a buff for my new mixed group. My armor is jumping more and my Unholy Blight is more easily cast. In fact, disease application and Death and Decay should be the trick (maybe add in a little pestilence or something like that) to being able to cast Unholy Blight almost immediately.

[Dominian]

"Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP."

It was pretty obviouse that the DK class would be very good from the start in order to secure a decent DK population and now the nerfs will come.These changes are not all nerfs. There are some nice buffs in there, especially for PVE.

Did i mention pve?

I quoted the pvp part of it.

[Hachoo]

I caught that post by Ghostcrawler just before I started my workout this morning. Overall, I'm pretty excited about this. I'm not at all interested in PvP, so this is nothing but a buff for my new mixed group. My armor is jumping more and my Unholy Blight is more easily cast. In fact, disease application and Death and Decay should be the trick (maybe add in a little pestilence or something like that) to being able to cast Unholy Blight almost immediately.Exactly - with the change to runic power generation and the drop in RP needed for unholy blight, you can put out MASSIVE aoe damage now on every pull... drop a death and decay, icy touch, plaguestrike, pestilence, unholy blight - now you have 4 abilities aoeing everything in the pull. Nothing will ever pull aggro off you and most likely you'll get the highest DPS in the group as well. Best part is with death grip and strangulate we can pull casters into the aoe also so that most every pull we can be hitting everything at once, always.

As far as PvP nerfs, I don't think its NEARLY as much of a nerf as the poster a couple posts up thinks. Really we had 2 "oh shit" abilities nerfed somewhat, boneshield dropped by 20% (sorry but this was mega overpowered anyway with the low cooldown, long lasting time before you had to use it, and high % - if I dropped this before entering a boss fight along with anti magic shield on magic bosses I could take down some bosses without healing myself at all or 1 heal :P This is without even using icebound fortitude.

Also for PvP it'll really be hard to tell how some of the changes affect us. Like corpse explosion - this could become viable for PvP if the damage is upped enough, some of the blood changes are good for PvP also. Even frost presence could become more viable in PvP with the extra magic damage reduction and armor.

So bone shield is dropped 20%.. so what? Now we have basically ~10% less damage taken from all sources PERMANENTLY (10% more magic reduction and 20% more armor from items which probably comes out to something like 5-10% physical damage reduction as well.

Bottom line is these are huge buffs for PvE and if it is a nerf for pvp its a small one, not a large one.

[ghonosyph and the moocrew]

all in all these changes seem really exciting... as someone who never really "conforms to the norm" so to speak i never made a multi shaman group... i started with a pally and 3 mages(no fifth account) ... this made aoe tanking /grinding fun and if i instanced i only need a healer and i'm set so /shrug easy times

i dropped this group at lvl 59... when wrath came out. I have a lvl 70 druid that's been my "main" since release and tried levleing him up... all the while my alt accounts lay dormant... it irritated me so i decided, hmm why not try out dk's, so i did ! 4 at once was outrageous, and since i still had raf i got them to almost 61 before i even left the starter zone! tried out all specs... unholy was fun but i couldn't stand that using death and decay was so hard(due to how it is cast and me without mouse broadcasting) so i said screw it and specced them all blood.... truly an underrated MB spec... especially for pve!

runetap(the self heal for 10 % ... 20 if imp talented, glyphed makes this spell hit the party for 10% hps heal) 3 dk's hits for 30 % hps every 30 seconds with a blood rune... deathstrike(an unholy ability) will heal for a crap ton as well already, and its getting doubled YAY!... WIN! doubling the heal bonus of blood aura(multiple dk's makes the aura stack so it will be with 3 dk's heals 12 % of the damage you deal !) and deathstrike just makes this gravy sauce for my group... every time we hit we heal.... on top of all this vampiric blood glyphed will heal you for 3% of your hps on each of your dk's and the changes to that.... well if you macro all your other heals(ie casting vamp blood first, then rune tap, then deathstrike and perhaps this affects totems and potions too, not sure) and you pretty much every minute or so heal your entire health bar over and over, you never need heals, perhaps your tank will need a heal here and there, just over gear him first!...

okay all this taken into account, drop in a feral druid tank for 5% crit... and improved leader of the pack... more heal on hit for 4%hps every 10 seconds or so(if you crit... and you're bound to crit lol) so much passive healing so there's no real need for a healer! i can see a need for heals in heroics however, havign the druid tank seems logical, the way aoe packs are designed and their threat being very viable...

maybe adding a fifth team member as a shaman (enhance/resto hybrid spec perhaps? chain heals every cooldown, the rest of the time melee might work hehe) with a shaman in the mix you get your tank a needed heal every now and again, plus you get totems for your group too, since melee totems dont stack you need only one and chainheal just adds insult to injury for the melee healing monster that is dk/feral....

come to think of it, dks also get the runcrafting rune of fallen crusader that occasionally procs a heal and strength increase... plus you could farm for the warlords trinket( heals you for 100-180 on melee hits), lets add in the new meta gem that adds 42 ap and heals on hit, and i think there's perhaps another upgrade in enchanting somewhere if you wanted, you could use battlemaster enchant on all of them for a few hundred extra hps from that proc for the whole party.... hmmm zomg fun

I see the dk's changes as largely a pvp nerf... and rightly so, since playing one on one and in group with them they can get a lil crazy, but for pve these crazy melee dk box groups win hardcore in my book! 8)



ps- REALLY sorry for the offtangent rant there, my main reason for posting was this "why many multibox dk' groups dont go blood spec for the healing and survivability in pve is beyond me! try it and see!!! <3 rawr! i checked out the elitistjerks website for their dk info, following their dk's blood spec i'm doing really well so far halfway or more into lvl 74... bleh i'm ranting again! >.< have fun!

[Redbeard]

Sorry to bring up a couple weeks old thread.

I have been getting into blood spec a bit on the dk in my current team and wanted to talk a bit about blood aura. Namely, that it stacks.

Now, considering that no other auras stack in the game, do you guys think its a reasonable assumption that this is going to get nerfed? I ask because I am seriously considering rolling a multi-dk team and multiple blood auras is certainly something to take into consideration.

Do you guys think this will get nerfed or what? It seems crazy that this couldve been "missed" all through beta and through live and not been fixed by now, but who knows.

Anyways, interested in your thoughts.

[Hachoo]

I would bet at sometime in the future it will get nerfed. None of the other auras stack. It might take awhile, but its almost a certainty.