Since Deaths Knights are supposed to be ex-paladins they will probably have similarities. Death&Decay f.e. could be an aoe spell like consecration dealing shadow damage to cause threat.
Since Death Knights won't wear shields, their damage reduction won't be as good as the reduction of a druid, warrior or pally. The DK will probably recieve vampiric abilities in the blood tree to stay alive or frost abilities to absorb damage and slow the enemies (some kind of Thunder Clap - nova etc.).
Since the delay till your next melee attack is reduced by 50% each time you parry an attack, a high parry rating would be essential for tanking with slow 2h weapons to reduce the time between the swings.
Anyway, theres only dodge, parry or block to avoid or reduce damage. Dodging doesn't sound easy with a huge, heavy 2h weapon, blocking is for pallys with shields, so there's only parrying left. Some kind of counterstrike might be a deep talent in one of the trees.
Judging by the names of the talent trees, Blood might be the right tree for vampiric abilities (melee shadow priest), Unholy the retribution tree for DKs - perhaps with skills like Seal of Command which deal shadow damage in addition to normal melee damage and the Frost tree, which would be meant for survivability. Frost will probably reduce or absorb damage, slow enemies etc.
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If the Unholy tree turns into some kind of ranged-damage spec I'd expect it to be like the Shaman's Shock mechanic but Shadow-based with associated on-hit debuffs. I'd expect to see instant spells with cooldowns requiring some kind of rotation, and a max of 20 yards range.
Lore be damned, you can not have a class that can stand back and slug Shadowbolts at 30yds while wearing plate. Either the range will be reduced to support melee, or the damage will be reduced to force melee to be the primary damage source.
I bet 1000g Death Knights arent 30yds ranged damage dealers, it isnt happening, ever.
~sins
Lore be damned, you can not have a class that can stand back and slug Shadowbolts at 30yds while wearing plate. Either the range will be reduced to support melee, or the damage will be reduced to force melee to be the primary damage source.
I bet 1000g Death Knights arent 30yds ranged damage dealers, it isnt happening, ever.
~sins
Sinstralis wrote:
Lore be damned, you can not have a class that can stand back and slug Shadowbolts at 30yds while wearing plate.
I bet 1000g Death Knights arent 30yds ranged damage dealers, it isnt happening, ever.
I bet 1000g Death Knights arent 30yds ranged damage dealers, it isnt happening, ever.
"Moonkin"
Proving more armor than Plate isn't everything!
Edited, Apr 28th 2008 6:33pm by RPZip
Not to mention that Elemental Shaman are wearing mail and using shield, putting their armor close enough to plate for it to not really matter.
You're right that the flavor of the WC2 DK is definitly a range dps/caster deal. WC3, isn't. Then again, Blizzard has said they're going to be a mix of both. So yeah, like I said earlier... you might be on to something. I don't personally like it (I like the idea of them being melee dps), but that doesn`t mean much.
Edited, Apr 29th 2008 1:54pm by Tyrandor
You're right that the flavor of the WC2 DK is definitly a range dps/caster deal. WC3, isn't. Then again, Blizzard has said they're going to be a mix of both. So yeah, like I said earlier... you might be on to something. I don't personally like it (I like the idea of them being melee dps), but that doesn`t mean much.
Edited, Apr 29th 2008 1:54pm by Tyrandor
You're quite correct RP, Boomkin do indeed cast with plate-level armour, but I've never heard of Boomkin Druids reliably having great success in raids or Arena. I say reliably because there are always people out there with particular ability or gear that makes it work, but in general I don't see them as much cop.
Therefore I suppose I cannot rule out entirely the possibility of a ranged damage tree, I just feel it goes against everything Blizzard has said or intimated so far about Death Knights, all of their presentations have portrayed the melee and tanking aspects of the class. There isn't one single piece of concept art showing a DK in a casting role. I imagine they will have a limited, restricted range Shadow-damage spellbook simply because there isnt the Plate/Big Sword/Tank/Shadowy Stuff combination in the game yet, but as a selectable primary role I find it deeply unlikely. But hey, that's just me.
Besides, look at it this way. If Blizzard produce a tree that can allow a Death Knight to cast at range on par with another ranged casting class, like a Warlock for instance, Warlock populations will vanish. I know I'd sure trade in my silly, poorly-scaling pet for a bloody great Runeblade and plate armour.
Therefore I suppose I cannot rule out entirely the possibility of a ranged damage tree, I just feel it goes against everything Blizzard has said or intimated so far about Death Knights, all of their presentations have portrayed the melee and tanking aspects of the class. There isn't one single piece of concept art showing a DK in a casting role. I imagine they will have a limited, restricted range Shadow-damage spellbook simply because there isnt the Plate/Big Sword/Tank/Shadowy Stuff combination in the game yet, but as a selectable primary role I find it deeply unlikely. But hey, that's just me.
Besides, look at it this way. If Blizzard produce a tree that can allow a Death Knight to cast at range on par with another ranged casting class, like a Warlock for instance, Warlock populations will vanish. I know I'd sure trade in my silly, poorly-scaling pet for a bloody great Runeblade and plate armour.
Sinstralis wrote:
You're quite correct RP, Boomkin do indeed cast with plate-level armour, but I've never heard of Boomkin Druids reliably having great success in raids or Arena. I say reliably because there are always people out there with particular ability or gear that makes it work, but in general I don't see them as much cop.
Yes, that was the entire point. Having plate doesn't inherently make you overpowered; it's nice, but even for a class you'd expect to do fairly well (See: Boomkin) they just can't really cut it. This means that a caster in plate isn't inherently overpowered, and there's simply no reason to assume that they couldn't implement a casting tree for Death Knights.
Quote:
Besides, look at it this way. If Blizzard produce a tree that can allow a Death Knight to cast at range on par with another ranged casting class, like a Warlock for instance, Warlock populations will vanish. I know I'd sure trade in my silly, poorly-scaling pet for a bloody great Runeblade and plate armour.
If Retadins become popular Arms Warriors will vanish. If Enhance Shaman/Feral Druids/insert-class-here become popular Rogues will vanish.
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLLLLLLLLLING.
MyByte wrote:
Since Deaths Knights are supposed to be ex-paladins they will probably have similarities. Death&Decay f.e. could be an aoe spell like consecration dealing shadow damage to cause threat.
While your post includes quite a bit of well thought out reasoning, it is based on the supposition that death knights are ex-paladins.
They are not. This is one of the few things Blizzard has said with regards to the class. This is also why (as of the most recent information) the race choices will not be limited to only those who could be paladins.
Quote:
THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLLLLLLLLLING.
There is no call for sarcasm in a well-natured discussion.
I accept the point that plate armour is not a deciding factor, simply because Boomkin Druids barely factor into my consciousness when talking about a ranged DPS class, so I neglected their presence from my argument.
This interacts pleasingly with the second comment that the Unholy tree will end up being 'meh'; just as you say, significantly 'off-spec' trees generally end up sucking. In scenario one, DKs are not granted any significant casting abilities beyond 20yds/heavy cooldowns. In scenario two, they are, but to appease inter-class politics the Unholy tree (or whichever) will be forced to be the little ginger-haired-kid tree like Warlock Demonology back in the day.
Death Knights cannot be granted competetive ranged DPS capability unless playtesting forces a complete U-turn on behalf of the dev team. Either the option won't exist or it'll suck so much it might as well not.
I'm not quite sure why plate matters so much here.
In pve, plate doesn't save you from being 1 shotted by boss if you over aggro. A mage with iceblock is in fact, a lot more survivable in pve then a moonkin is.
As for pvp, if the ranged dps tree (unholy, frost, whatever) is designed so that the DK is purposefully lacking any type of CC or escape ability, then plate will not mean much. Moonkins are easy enough to shut down/lock down in pvp, imagine if they didn't have root or cyclone. In other words, give them some weakness to make up for plate, and voila.
I still hope they won't have a range dps tree, it doesn't work in my view of what DK are... but can it be done? For sure.
There is a very real possibility that DKs will be similar to Moonkin/Elemental Shaman for range dps... or even close to Enhancement Shaman/Feral Druid for melee. I.e. The kind of class you bring one of 'for the buff' and then fill the rest of the raid with 'real' dps.
On the other hand, giving DK 'real' dps, both for melee or range, won't necessary make other class disapear.
To give you an example (This may change deeper in T6, I don't know) - pretty much ever since I can remember in TBC, Warlocks have destroyed Mages in pve dps. Not only that, but they also have a lot more gimmick fights where you 'need' Warlocks then Mages.
About the only time you'd choose a Mage over a Warlock are some of those very specific fights where the mage's ability are need to win (And I can only think of High King Maulgar and Archimonde among the fights I did).
Yet, there's still plenty of raiding mages. My guild alone has 5.
In pve, plate doesn't save you from being 1 shotted by boss if you over aggro. A mage with iceblock is in fact, a lot more survivable in pve then a moonkin is.
As for pvp, if the ranged dps tree (unholy, frost, whatever) is designed so that the DK is purposefully lacking any type of CC or escape ability, then plate will not mean much. Moonkins are easy enough to shut down/lock down in pvp, imagine if they didn't have root or cyclone. In other words, give them some weakness to make up for plate, and voila.
I still hope they won't have a range dps tree, it doesn't work in my view of what DK are... but can it be done? For sure.
Quote:
Death Knights cannot be granted competetive ranged DPS capability unless playtesting forces a complete U-turn on behalf of the dev team. Either the option won't exist or it'll suck so much it might as well not.
There is a very real possibility that DKs will be similar to Moonkin/Elemental Shaman for range dps... or even close to Enhancement Shaman/Feral Druid for melee. I.e. The kind of class you bring one of 'for the buff' and then fill the rest of the raid with 'real' dps.
On the other hand, giving DK 'real' dps, both for melee or range, won't necessary make other class disapear.
To give you an example (This may change deeper in T6, I don't know) - pretty much ever since I can remember in TBC, Warlocks have destroyed Mages in pve dps. Not only that, but they also have a lot more gimmick fights where you 'need' Warlocks then Mages.
About the only time you'd choose a Mage over a Warlock are some of those very specific fights where the mage's ability are need to win (And I can only think of High King Maulgar and Archimonde among the fights I did).
Yet, there's still plenty of raiding mages. My guild alone has 5.
Well, in light of the new DK information presented today, where even Death & Decay went from being a channeled AE to being a 'AE around the DK like a paladin's concecrate'...
I've gotta say I'm getting more and more confident they won't have a ranged dps tree.
I've gotta say I'm getting more and more confident they won't have a ranged dps tree.
Worldofraids is quoting it as a 'targeted' AoE spell, making it a cross between Shadowfury and Consecrate, with a chance to cause Fear with every pulse (!).
At the risk of seeming a bit glib at this point, I would agree ranged damage it out. It hasnt been mentioned in any way, shape or form.
Oh, and evil Auras like a Paladin, just called Presences instead. I called it, oh yes.
At the risk of seeming a bit glib at this point, I would agree ranged damage it out. It hasnt been mentioned in any way, shape or form.
Oh, and evil Auras like a Paladin, just called Presences instead. I called it, oh yes.
and tyr nails it! at least for now (subject to change and all that)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/deathknight/gameplay.xml
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wrath/features/deathknight/gameplay.xml
Sweet!
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Hmmm... Unholy tree = "PvP focused abilities". I can only assume this is debuffing, more anti-caster stuff and crowd control/anti-crowd control.
I am really praying they give the Death Knight some reliable way to get into melee combat and stay there, either a good snare like Hamstring or a Frost-based immobilize. 'Grip of Death' is an intriguing mechanic, pulling players around will be fun (goodbye Shamans in Arena), I just hope they dont suffer the fate of Enhance Shamans and be too easily crowd-controlled.
Since we've moved off 'Talent Speculations' for some reason, anyone want to guess what the 31,41,51 talents will be?
Personally I'm hoping for some limited CC defense/immunity in the Unholy Tree, it would suck if your character had been face-to-face with death itself but could just be stunlocked to zero :(
~sin
I am really praying they give the Death Knight some reliable way to get into melee combat and stay there, either a good snare like Hamstring or a Frost-based immobilize. 'Grip of Death' is an intriguing mechanic, pulling players around will be fun (goodbye Shamans in Arena), I just hope they dont suffer the fate of Enhance Shamans and be too easily crowd-controlled.
Since we've moved off 'Talent Speculations' for some reason, anyone want to guess what the 31,41,51 talents will be?
Personally I'm hoping for some limited CC defense/immunity in the Unholy Tree, it would suck if your character had been face-to-face with death itself but could just be stunlocked to zero :(
~sin
Warchief Tyrandor wrote:
Sweet!
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That looks about right. Still, I was wrong this time.
For more specific DK information, bling. More specifically, bling-bling.
The Unholy Tree looks to be pretty disease (plague) reliant. There's some abilities to knock off your cooldowns on raise dead-style abilities, a Corpse Explosion talent, a few talents that improve your Anti-Magic Shell by making it absorb all magic damage and benefit nearby party members as well as some that spread diseases when you or your ghouls attack enemies (and also make it so that these diseases do a variety of unpleasant things, like a stacking 6% stat reduction per disease).
There's also an auto-soulstone for 15s after death where you come back as a Ghoul, a damage shield (next 4 attacks do 60% damage), an AoE DoT and the ability to summon a Gargoyle (think "really cool DoT on a single target that drains your mana really quickly"). There's also a AP->SD conversion talent.
Blood has some neat effects... beyond the obvious "make Presence stronger" stuff, there's some obvious cross-speccing abilities (Deflection), a self-heal, some neat things that trigger off parries (heals, reducing magic damage taken by the whole group) plus the normal stuff in a melee DPS tree - increases crit%, crit damage bonus, threat reduction. One of the most interesting ones is one that makes you do more damage when you're above 75% HP, which plays in nicely with the healing abilities it has... especially since I think a lot of the Blood Strike abilities drain your HP (Think Seal of Blood), so there's a real incentive to use it. Blood DKs look to have some fairly strong melee combat abilities plus the equivalent of Vampiric Embrace for their group, which should be nice.
Blood also has an Armor->AP conversion, which may be the nail in the coffin for picking up Rogue gear. We'll see, though.
Frost has the basic tanking talents (increases threat, increases armor) plus a Shaman-style weapon enchantment that gives them Frost damage on every attack, a high-threat AoE move, Chill/Freezing effects (think "Frost Mages"), a combined version of Frost Trap w/ Entrapment plus Consecrate and a few anti-magic abilities.
All in all, it looks pretty solid, but not really much casting focus (except potentially with Frost, and that's more in the line of Protadin casting focus than, oh, a Mage).
Dang RPZip, good find indeed.
Even if they are unofficial information and may be false, I think I just wet myself.
The Death Knight class seems to have some real nice abilities.
Also Warrior seems to have gotten some nice abilities as well.
This should tide us over until some more info/leak comes in on the expansion.
Even if they are unofficial information and may be false, I think I just wet myself.
The Death Knight class seems to have some real nice abilities.
Also Warrior seems to have gotten some nice abilities as well.
This should tide us over until some more info/leak comes in on the expansion.
Lists of Talents from the alpha wiki
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Blood
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Frost
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Unholy
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Blood
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Frost
Death Knight - 0 to 50 pts invested - Unholy
Quick Observation -
Unholy is supposed to be the pvp tree and it focus around Diseases... and that's fairly big change, considering how useless anti-disease ability used to be.
Paladin, Shaman and Priest can cure disease.
Druids, cannot.
How bad this will hurt Druids (or even if it will hurt them at all) in the 2v2 format remains to be seen.
Shaman very rarely use cure disease/poison, preferring to use their totems. However, both poison and disease cleansing totem are Water totem, which means that a team that has both a DK and a Rogue on it might make for a very difficult choice for the Shaman.
Also, quite a few ability seem to work off Corpse, after a killing blow or even the DK himself dying... that's going to be great fun in world pvp and BG, but pretty much useless in Arena, where corpse and killing blow usually imply the fight is already won/lost anyway.
Then again, it's hard to really draw any conclusion since we don't have a describtion of the DK's basic ability nor how powerful his undead minions are.
Edited, May 21st 2008 4:56pm by Tyrandor
Unholy is supposed to be the pvp tree and it focus around Diseases... and that's fairly big change, considering how useless anti-disease ability used to be.
Paladin, Shaman and Priest can cure disease.
Druids, cannot.
How bad this will hurt Druids (or even if it will hurt them at all) in the 2v2 format remains to be seen.
Shaman very rarely use cure disease/poison, preferring to use their totems. However, both poison and disease cleansing totem are Water totem, which means that a team that has both a DK and a Rogue on it might make for a very difficult choice for the Shaman.
Also, quite a few ability seem to work off Corpse, after a killing blow or even the DK himself dying... that's going to be great fun in world pvp and BG, but pretty much useless in Arena, where corpse and killing blow usually imply the fight is already won/lost anyway.
Then again, it's hard to really draw any conclusion since we don't have a describtion of the DK's basic ability nor how powerful his undead minions are.
Edited, May 21st 2008 4:56pm by Tyrandor
More in dept look.
Blood
Blood's supposed to be the pve dps tree, and honestly, a lot of the talents in there seem weird for the purpose. >_>
Of course this is an alpha and we only have a small part of the puzzle (no core abilities as mentionned earlier), so this is all speculation, but here's what the talents are telling me.
Butcher - Good leveling ability. Might not be that good at level cap depending on how important the reduction of Runic Power lost is.
Blood Aura - No brainer, must have ability. This is the DK's group dps buff.
Improved Blood Strike - Not knowing how important Blood Strike is, it's hard to put a value on this. Either awesome or terrible, depending on the value of blood strike and how easy/hard it is to put disease on a target.
Blade Armor - Despite having no shield, it's easy to assume plate armor will give around 10k Armor at level 80. That's +200atk power. Pretty solid.
Deflection - Parry? >_> It's low enough in the Tree that a Frost DK can go pick it up, but it seems like an odd choice anyway...
Rune Tap - 300 Health seems weak, especially when you consider the new level 80 cap. I'm assuming however, that they'll be several rank to this ability. Sounds like your typical solid 11 point talent.
Dark Conviction - +crit % is a no brainer for any melee dps. A shame it's this deep in the talent tree (Warrior, Rogues and Hunter's similar talent are first Tier in).
Subversion - Increase crit on core ability and reduced threat sound solid.
Improved Rune Tap - This depend on how powerful Rune Tap is to being with. Since this is a pve dps tree however, you probably shouldn't be taking damage in the first place. Might be good for soloing.
Spell Deflection - Er... what is this doing in a dps tree? It's getting pretty deep for a tank to grab it as well, but still possible.
Vendetta - Great grinding/leveling talent, pretty much useless otherwise. Surprisingly high in the talent tree. Sadly it's a pre-req for blood mark :(
Scent of Blood - Typical 'You crit me, I kill you!' talent. Good for pvp and grinding/leveling, not so much for pve dps. Pretty high in the tree, if you want this, you cannot get the 51 point talent in another tree.
Blade Barrier - More increased parry, this time to high in the tree for a 51 Frost DK to get it... seems kinda dumb to even be there.
Mark of Blood - Sounds like an awesome ability all around like any 21 point talent should be. Put this on the MT in a raid and watch the melee group be kept top off with no effort. Could also be used in pvp if put on the focus target or flag carrier or what not.
Bloody Vengeance - Stacking melee self-buff. Seems solid.
Pestilence - Sounds fun and unique if nothing else. I predict this being awesome for all type of 'lawlpvp' (world pvp, BGs, etc) as well as grinding/leveling, but rather useless in more 'professional' settings (Arena and Raids).
Hysteria - The Melee Power Infusion. Sounds like a powerful ability and possibly a chief reason to bring a Blood DK to your raid. The earlier Mark of Blood ability should more or less cover the damage caused by this. Has the potential of being extremely powerful depending on how long the cooldown is (Who's to say it's in minutes...)
Veteran of the Third War - Well, it's boring, but you can't really complain about it. Sounds solid.
Sudden Death - Gives one of your core ability a chance to make another core ability be free. Seems quite solid for sustained dps, similar to Relentless Strike in concept.
Blood Rune Mastery - Another solid sustained dps ability, making me think of Combat Potency in concept. Again it depends on how easy/hard it is to disease a target. Note that this mean your Rune regenerate faster, making the already dubious Blade Barrier seem even weaker.
At this point I'd like to note that Blizz is obviously not interested in repeating the 'You need 20 point in Assination for any build' rogue mentality... all the 'sustainted dps' talent are pretty high in the tree.
Will of the Necropolis - Uh? And the point of this is? I suppose it kinda plays off Blade Armor earlier, but even a 15% increase Armor isn't that impressive of an AP conversion. Seems rather dumb. After all, as a melee dps, you shouldn't be taking enough damage to make this worthwhile.
Vicious Strike - Pretty typical dps abilities, every class has something like that. Once again it's shocking to see it so high in the tree.
Heart Strike - DK's Mortal Strike? A bit weary here, since it seems similar in concept to Envenom, and in most case, removing the poisons (disease here) for damage was simply not worth the trade off.
Blood Gorged - Now you're talking! With Rune Tap and Mark of Blood and not playing like an idiot, you should be at over 75% health pretty much at all time in raids and 5 man. This translate in a near permanent +15% dmg. Will probably suck for leveling/grinding/pvp however.
Dancing Runeblade - At the very least, this doubles your damage for a short period of time... and at best, it might be usable against a different target then yours, opponing some interesting strategy. Seems very solid. Again, the power of this ability will be closely linked to its cooldown.
Edited, May 21st 2008 5:31pm by Tyrandor
Edited, May 21st 2008 6:45pm by Tyrandor
Blood
Blood's supposed to be the pve dps tree, and honestly, a lot of the talents in there seem weird for the purpose. >_>
Of course this is an alpha and we only have a small part of the puzzle (no core abilities as mentionned earlier), so this is all speculation, but here's what the talents are telling me.
Butcher - Good leveling ability. Might not be that good at level cap depending on how important the reduction of Runic Power lost is.
Blood Aura - No brainer, must have ability. This is the DK's group dps buff.
Improved Blood Strike - Not knowing how important Blood Strike is, it's hard to put a value on this. Either awesome or terrible, depending on the value of blood strike and how easy/hard it is to put disease on a target.
Blade Armor - Despite having no shield, it's easy to assume plate armor will give around 10k Armor at level 80. That's +200atk power. Pretty solid.
Deflection - Parry? >_> It's low enough in the Tree that a Frost DK can go pick it up, but it seems like an odd choice anyway...
Rune Tap - 300 Health seems weak, especially when you consider the new level 80 cap. I'm assuming however, that they'll be several rank to this ability. Sounds like your typical solid 11 point talent.
Dark Conviction - +crit % is a no brainer for any melee dps. A shame it's this deep in the talent tree (Warrior, Rogues and Hunter's similar talent are first Tier in).
Subversion - Increase crit on core ability and reduced threat sound solid.
Improved Rune Tap - This depend on how powerful Rune Tap is to being with. Since this is a pve dps tree however, you probably shouldn't be taking damage in the first place. Might be good for soloing.
Spell Deflection - Er... what is this doing in a dps tree? It's getting pretty deep for a tank to grab it as well, but still possible.
Vendetta - Great grinding/leveling talent, pretty much useless otherwise. Surprisingly high in the talent tree. Sadly it's a pre-req for blood mark :(
Scent of Blood - Typical 'You crit me, I kill you!' talent. Good for pvp and grinding/leveling, not so much for pve dps. Pretty high in the tree, if you want this, you cannot get the 51 point talent in another tree.
Blade Barrier - More increased parry, this time to high in the tree for a 51 Frost DK to get it... seems kinda dumb to even be there.
Mark of Blood - Sounds like an awesome ability all around like any 21 point talent should be. Put this on the MT in a raid and watch the melee group be kept top off with no effort. Could also be used in pvp if put on the focus target or flag carrier or what not.
Bloody Vengeance - Stacking melee self-buff. Seems solid.
Pestilence - Sounds fun and unique if nothing else. I predict this being awesome for all type of 'lawlpvp' (world pvp, BGs, etc) as well as grinding/leveling, but rather useless in more 'professional' settings (Arena and Raids).
Hysteria - The Melee Power Infusion. Sounds like a powerful ability and possibly a chief reason to bring a Blood DK to your raid. The earlier Mark of Blood ability should more or less cover the damage caused by this. Has the potential of being extremely powerful depending on how long the cooldown is (Who's to say it's in minutes...)
Veteran of the Third War - Well, it's boring, but you can't really complain about it. Sounds solid.
Sudden Death - Gives one of your core ability a chance to make another core ability be free. Seems quite solid for sustained dps, similar to Relentless Strike in concept.
Blood Rune Mastery - Another solid sustained dps ability, making me think of Combat Potency in concept. Again it depends on how easy/hard it is to disease a target. Note that this mean your Rune regenerate faster, making the already dubious Blade Barrier seem even weaker.
At this point I'd like to note that Blizz is obviously not interested in repeating the 'You need 20 point in Assination for any build' rogue mentality... all the 'sustainted dps' talent are pretty high in the tree.
Will of the Necropolis - Uh? And the point of this is? I suppose it kinda plays off Blade Armor earlier, but even a 15% increase Armor isn't that impressive of an AP conversion. Seems rather dumb. After all, as a melee dps, you shouldn't be taking enough damage to make this worthwhile.
Vicious Strike - Pretty typical dps abilities, every class has something like that. Once again it's shocking to see it so high in the tree.
Heart Strike - DK's Mortal Strike? A bit weary here, since it seems similar in concept to Envenom, and in most case, removing the poisons (disease here) for damage was simply not worth the trade off.
Blood Gorged - Now you're talking! With Rune Tap and Mark of Blood and not playing like an idiot, you should be at over 75% health pretty much at all time in raids and 5 man. This translate in a near permanent +15% dmg. Will probably suck for leveling/grinding/pvp however.
Dancing Runeblade - At the very least, this doubles your damage for a short period of time... and at best, it might be usable against a different target then yours, opponing some interesting strategy. Seems very solid. Again, the power of this ability will be closely linked to its cooldown.
Edited, May 21st 2008 5:31pm by Tyrandor
Edited, May 21st 2008 6:45pm by Tyrandor
Here's a visual representation:
http://www.war-tools.com/t52524.html
http://www.war-tools.com/t52524.html
Quote:
Here's a visual representation:
http://www.war-tools.com/t52524.html
http://www.war-tools.com/t52524.html
I lol'd at the icon for Acclimation in the Frost tree.
I guess every time I get a proc for Acclimation I'll be making a smiley face like that.
Warchief Tyrandor wrote:
More in depth look.
...and there will be modifiers to the trees, depending on inscriptions (that we don't have much information on yet).
Okay, there's a full set of screenshots for DK abilities on the Wiki site. Some highlights;
Unholy Presence reduces the GCD to 1.0s (think "Rogues") and increases attack speed by 15%. Anti-Magic Shell only absorbs a single spell (at base 75% damage reduction) and will last 5s, no word on the cooldown but given the way it's set up I'm thinking 10 seconds, a la Spell Reflect. DK Death Coil does ~1300 damage at max rank or heals a friendly Undead target for a bit under 2000 HP, so you have a way to heal your Ghouls; there is no Horrify effect like Warlocks get.
DKs get a single-target Icy Touch attack that does a good bit of Frost damage and reduces the target's ranged, melee and casting speed by 15%; it's a bit of a poor-man's Thunderclap/Curse of Tongues, and should give them a nice tanking boost (plus casting speed reduction is casting speed reduction in PvP, even if it's not as extreme as CoT). They also get a frost nuke that interrupts casting for 3s, no cooldown information provided but I'd be willing to bet it's 10 seconds.
DKs also get an ability that sucks up all of their Runic Fortitude and gives them stun immunity for 12s, but you have to use preemptively (think "The Beast Within", not Bubble). There's also an ability that gives you an active rune (one of each type), which presumably has a decent-sized cooldown. Chains of Ice is a root that lasts for four seconds, but snares them after the root expires (they regain 10% of their movement every second, so over 10 seconds you go from 10% movement to full speed again).
They seem to have three strike abilities; Plague Strike does Weapon Damage and a bit plus 576 Shadow Damage plague over 12s, Death Strike does Weapon Damage but if they die in the next few seconds heals you for ~1.3k, and Blood Strike does 60% weapon damage plus 164 per disease on the target. Finally, a use for Devouring Plague! (No, not really). There's also a nifty Strangulate ability that Silences the target for a few seconds but takes all your Runic Power, an AoE taunt that consumes all diseases on targets within 30 yards for extra damage.
All in all... pretty solid, really.
EDIT: Having said that, looking over the ability list it looks like the Scorpion ("COME HERE!") taunt/intercept move isn't yet implemented.
Edited, May 22nd 2008 10:18am by RPZip
Unholy Presence reduces the GCD to 1.0s (think "Rogues") and increases attack speed by 15%. Anti-Magic Shell only absorbs a single spell (at base 75% damage reduction) and will last 5s, no word on the cooldown but given the way it's set up I'm thinking 10 seconds, a la Spell Reflect. DK Death Coil does ~1300 damage at max rank or heals a friendly Undead target for a bit under 2000 HP, so you have a way to heal your Ghouls; there is no Horrify effect like Warlocks get.
DKs get a single-target Icy Touch attack that does a good bit of Frost damage and reduces the target's ranged, melee and casting speed by 15%; it's a bit of a poor-man's Thunderclap/Curse of Tongues, and should give them a nice tanking boost (plus casting speed reduction is casting speed reduction in PvP, even if it's not as extreme as CoT). They also get a frost nuke that interrupts casting for 3s, no cooldown information provided but I'd be willing to bet it's 10 seconds.
DKs also get an ability that sucks up all of their Runic Fortitude and gives them stun immunity for 12s, but you have to use preemptively (think "The Beast Within", not Bubble). There's also an ability that gives you an active rune (one of each type), which presumably has a decent-sized cooldown. Chains of Ice is a root that lasts for four seconds, but snares them after the root expires (they regain 10% of their movement every second, so over 10 seconds you go from 10% movement to full speed again).
They seem to have three strike abilities; Plague Strike does Weapon Damage and a bit plus 576 Shadow Damage plague over 12s, Death Strike does Weapon Damage but if they die in the next few seconds heals you for ~1.3k, and Blood Strike does 60% weapon damage plus 164 per disease on the target. Finally, a use for Devouring Plague! (No, not really). There's also a nifty Strangulate ability that Silences the target for a few seconds but takes all your Runic Power, an AoE taunt that consumes all diseases on targets within 30 yards for extra damage.
All in all... pretty solid, really.
EDIT: Having said that, looking over the ability list it looks like the Scorpion ("COME HERE!") taunt/intercept move isn't yet implemented.
Edited, May 22nd 2008 10:18am by RPZip
On PVP front, am I the only who noticed they have 'Frostbite' at Tier 1 of the Frost tree?
Seems like instant synergy with a Frost Mage.
I really can't wait to learn more about their 'disease' ability and how it'll affect their dps rotation.
Edited, May 22nd 2008 11:51am by Tyrandor
Seems like instant synergy with a Frost Mage.
I really can't wait to learn more about their 'disease' ability and how it'll affect their dps rotation.
Edited, May 22nd 2008 11:51am by Tyrandor
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