Death Knights => The End of the 5-boxed Shaman viability?

[Rin]

All,

For those of you that have seen me around on the forums, I'm not usually one to predict doom and gloom, but I come here today after running numbers, looking through spell lists and talent trees, and I can only help but to think one thing: Will Death Knights (in and of themselves), be the end of the 5-boxed Shaman teams. I think the answer to this may be yes, and I would like to hold an intelligent discussion as to why this may be the case.

Death Knight Facts
- DK's are plate mail wearers, and could arguably be touted as Blizzards answer to spell-casters.
- DK's get a variety of talents, for a variety of different things, but the one line that truly shines is the Unholy line.
- DK's get Death Grip, a spell with a 30 yard radius that can pull a member of your team to them (haven't seen this resisted yet)
- DK's specialize in bursty damage, much like a post-nerfed Retribution Paladin, except they can also mitigate damage (especially spell damage), better than a Retri paladin.

Elemental Shaman Facts
- All caster, and shaman damage is largely based on their spell power (sp); recently blizzard has given shamans less crit chance and more SP damage (bigger end-game nukes)
- Shaman are mail wearers whom rely heavily on totems to help enhance them in battle
- Shaman are useful - a shaman can handle a variety of situations effectively (fear, tough bosses, etc.); but a lot of that viability comes from totems with long cooldowns (Elemental totems have a 20 minute cooldown)
- Shaman can easily be chopped up by plate classes (as we've seen in the case of the ret paladin or in the case of an arms warrior using whirlwind + rogue stunlocking you);

DK's going down the unholy tree will quickly realize that the tree is built for spell damage mitigtion. Literally, everything in the tree either helps to enhance spell damage, or reduces the spell damage that comes into the DK. There are two spells and an ability that I would like to point out:

Anti-Magic Zone: 10,000 + 2 * AP spell-damage barrier on all members within the zone (75% reduction, 2 minute cooldown).
Anti-Magic Shell: 100% reduction of all spell damage incoming to the DK (1 minute cooldown).
Magic Suppression (Passive): (Required to get AMZ and the 100% AMS) Reduces all magic damage taken by 5%
Also, if the DK spec'd Blood Elf, they will realize an additional 2% reduction in all magic damage taken.

What we have here is a base 7% magic damage reduction (your spells on a naked Death Knight, spec'd unholy will only be hitting for 93% of their 100% effective rate).

This is scary for Shaman, not only because realistically, our nukes will not be hitting for 10k per hit every single time at 80 (yes, even with talents, unless you burn your Elemental Mastery), but also because theres nothing we can do about the Anti-Magic Shell, and I believe the zone as well (need to verify). From the skill listing, it looks like Anti-Magic Shell can't be dispelled, spell-stolen, etc. I would envision the same thing for the Anti-Magic Zone, but I can't tell at this point. What this means for you in PVP is that unless you run up on an unholy death knight who's AFK, your first round of nukes wont do anything (provided the person sees you coming and knows how to hit 1 button on her keyboard). What's more devistating is that a team of boxed death knights can permanently keep you out of action. It is not unrealistic to say that a level 80 DK with blue gear should have an Anti-Magic Zone of at least 30k+. Are you going to be doing more than 30k+ damage per cast? That's doubtful; maybe with 10 shaman though.

On a roation, a Death Knight can keep up the Anti-Magic zone permanently ... (I'm doing this right now with my 4 DK's.. I have the zone up literally from the time I log on to the time I exit the game).

You might be thinking: Well, what if they run outside of the zone? they can't sit in the bubble forever.

You're correct to think that, but if you're in range to HIT a death knight with your spells, the DK team is in range to PULL your characters into the anti-magic zone 1 at a time (round robin). With this in mind, I ask the community - is this the end of the 5 box shaman team viability? I AM NOT saying that shamans arent useful, because they are; but with the recent nerfs and patches, shaman simply can not keep up with the damage and damage mitigation of current classes. Case in point, a 5 mage team may be able to get through the zone (5 mages x Mirror Image x nukes = at least 50k+ damage per tick); but the shamans do noth ave this luxury.

Thoughts?

Rin

[Hachoo]

Sure running up against 5 DKs with 5 shamans means you're probably going to lose - but other than this when will you run into a bunch of DKs at the same time? A single DK will still be an easy kill, even if he death grips, you are in range to nuke him down. Even if he uses his AM shield/zone, you should still be able to kill him before he can kill one of your guys.

A DK added to a team in the arena might make it more difficult to kill that team though, but I'm not an arena fan anyway.

I'm not sure...I don't think this makes 5x shamans any less viable. I might replace my "potential" pve pally tank with a DK now though, still not sure yet. Pally tanking still seems far easier but DKs are infinitely cooler than paladins.

I think it will be a couple months before things start to settle down and people have figured out strategies, plus now that DKs are live there is a good chance they'll be rebalanced by blizzard before long. I will wait to make any hard judgements until January probably. For now DKs are certainly fun to play!

[Rin]

That's the thing, if anything the Anti-Magic zone will be increased (see Death Knight complaints at 80); but I think 4 death knights + healer would be game over for the shaman team.

[Drizzit]

Well if blizzard would reply to this post they would probably say
"Shamans will not be in low in dps because we boosted lava bust" :P

lol blizzard is putting all there money in lava bust... watch this, the spell will suck.


But if you have 4 sham then you can hex some of the DK.

[Bigfish]

Am I the only person getting images in my head of arena teams playing Red Rover with Death Grip?

[Rin]

Am I the only person getting images in my head of arena teams playing Red Rover with Death Grip?

ROFL :thumbsup:

[emesis]

5x Shaman = EM + Thunderstorm rotation = Kiss that anti-magic shell goodbye, because your DK ass is getting the F thrown out of it while you get flame shocked to death /w a side of searing or nova totems.

GG DKs

That was my thought as well, won't Thunderstorm bump the DKs out of their cozy little shell?

I guess we'll see - it's a bit premature to predict the end of 5-boxed Shammies in any case. Though I do think they will be less OP.

[Ualaa]

The DK team might be the rock to the shaman's scissor team.

But this is not the end of the shaman team. Just because one particular composition of players has a huge advantage over your team does not mean your team is useless.
Your team has a huge advantage over another composition as well.
Most compositions can beat you and can be beaten by you, and it comes down to a combination of player skill, toon gearing and luck.

How does the all DK team compare to the other popular teams in arena?
Because the shaman x4 + healer team is viable against those other compositions. Will the 5x DK fare as well?

Arena is a small portion on the game anyway. Arena is only worthwhile, because they give the best rewards to small scale pvp.
Honestly I have a hundred times as much fun in Battlegrounds as Arena. If you could get equal gear in BG's, even if BG gear is only usable in BG's and Arena gear was only usable in Arena, with both unequipping at the end of the match/bg and neither even equippable in PvE, I'd BG a lot and in that case would never Arena.

You cannot have the best end-game PvE gear with 5 toons, you need 25 for that.
Why does Blizzard give the best PvP gear to those who 5-man PvP?

[Kromtor]

even if a 4 dk + something else team beats 5 shammies all the time - if they can't beat other groups ie a balanced group with warriors and priests then you're not going to be going up against them in arenas or anywhere else except once in a blue moon. round robin deathgrip is cool... the anti magic zone is cool... but they dont seem like game changers. there are far worse combos for shammies to go up against but since they're not common groups it's not an issue.

[Xzin]

It isn't like a DK can't run back.... 30 yards doesn't take long to move back to.