Theo's Death Knight Beta thread.Follow

I still think Rogue/DK + Healer might work. Granted, Wound Poison isn't that awesome, but with the new Assassination talents, it might work a lot better then it used to. Doubling up on poison/disease + EA + big DK burst damage might be all you need. Not having Shadowstep might not be that big of a deal with a snare happy DK + that 'get over here!' move they have.

Too much conjucture at this point.


So how is the Unholy tree? That gargoyle? etc :P

Obviously I'm not in the beta like most people, and I'm not as strong in theorycraft numbers and math (most of my ideas come from my own messed up logic :P), but I have noticed a lot of people mentioning the lack of a MS effect. To my knowledge, this shouldn't be a make or break ability, seeing as only hunters and warriors have it (maybe rouges, my main is a druid so I dont know that much), and that doesn't make any other class less viable in an arena situation. Also, as per my odd brand of non-logic, I've been treating the blood tree like an arms warrior tree. I know it's not the same, obviously, but it is a tree focusing on swinging a two hander and not as much on range, and also with a constant life stealing effect. I've also noticed the 41 point talent, Heart Strike, works a lot like a bizzaro MS, not decreasing the healing done, but decreasing the life available to be healed. Also, it kinda looks like it could work like an execute, if you see a target with 20% or less health, Heart Strike, and it takes away that 20%, wouldn't they die? Or does it take 20% off the top?

Regardless of my ramblings, I've noticed another thing that's bugging me, people treat Blood like a leveling spec only, but I think it will be rather useful in PvP and endgame as well. Like I said, Arms warrior with constant lifesteal (if blood presence is up), plus if you nab blood aura farther in the tree, all your party members (and maybe even raid?) get healed for the same amount you do. Yea, there is a kiting issue, but if you have at least a little skill, that shouldn't stop you, especially with all the self healing you get in the blood tree.

Anyway, essay time, laters.

Oh my, where to start?

The only viable dpser in Arena are Rogue, Warrior, Warlock and to a certain degree hunter. Pretty much every team composition out there is based around the idea of supporting one of those 4 classes.

Yes, I know they are exceptions, but for the most part, that's how it goes.

Why? Because in order to beat someone, you essentially need to outdamage their healing. The problem with that is that the Healing:Mana ratio is a lot better then the Damage:Mana ratio. So in otherword, it's mathematically extremely unlikely. Yes, team that rely on locking down on target and bursting down another (2 dps teams) can work, but they do not dominate the field.

This is where MS/Wound Poison/Aimed Shot come in... it isn't so much that it reduce healing (and thus allow you to burst the target down)... as much as it forces the healer to heal twice as much, burning through his mana and making his Healing:Mana ratio like crap.

So what about Warlock?

Warlocks are (Much like Warrior and Rogue) essentially playing with endless mana thanks to lifetap. They can also drain mana. That's why Warlock are able to stick around in Arena, because they never run out of mana and make you run out of mana (Except, in different way).

Hunters are a mix of both... they have a MS effect (But it's hard to setup), however with Viper Sting and the Aspect of Viper, they are pretty mana efficient while in turn draining your mana.

That's why Ret Pld + Healer sucks in 2v2 - the Pld has more burst damage then pretty much any other class out there, but the lack of a 'MS effect' mean his side will run out of mana first. That's further compounded by the fact that ret pld are pretty mana innefficient themselves.


So yes, the lack of a MS or mana drain of somekind is pretty damn worrisome from an Arena point of view - at least tho, he's mana less. That is also why Blood is not being considered a pvp tree - Frost and Unholy are giving control to the DK, which he's going to need plenty of if he wants to make up for his lack of a MS debuff.




The point of that quote tho, is that I think Theo is comparing the DK to the Rogue and going 'He's too easy to control'... when a Rogue, short of a Frost Mage, is the most slippery class in the game. The DK sound much harder to control then say... Paladin, Shaman or even Warlock (who can be totally shut down by 1 rogue). Weither he's actually easier or harder to control then a Warrior doesn't really matter, I was just tossing the class as an example.



You forget the tactical use of Death Grip. Gripping a healer that's pillar humping in Nagrand for example and thus bringing him in the middle of the area (and right beside your other melee partner maybe?) is a hell of a lot more powerful then Intercepting said Druid.

I also wonder how it works with different level of elevation... it might be interesting to see if you can drag people up/down the bridge in Blade's Edge Arena.



I'm more refering to Icy Touch, which is a 15% snare (weak, I admit, but it can be increase to 30% if you go Frost) but that can proc Frostbite (And we all know how annoying that is)... considering it's 3 point in Frost to get Frosbite, it's a no brainer for any pvp build.

Icy Chain also has a 20 yard range, which also increase its tactical value, despite the cooldown.

The reverse version on a 35 secodn CD. Now, I haven't got a PhD in mathematics (yet, anyway) but I'm fairly sure that 35 is 233.33~ % of 15. This is quite a large difference.

P.S Warriors are harder to control than Rogues in several comps.

/sigh.

Can we get over the Warrior comparaison or do I need to go back and edit it so it says Shaman or something? :P

As I mentionned, yeah, it is on longer cooldown then Intercept. It doesn't stun. But it has great tactical application nonetheless.



You can play BG with green gear, no talent points spent, smashing your keyboard with your fist and get 10k honor a day...

Hell, with a bot, you can get 10k honor a day without ever engaging anybody in pvp.

A spec being good for BG is largely irrelevant.

Edited, Jul 30th 2008 9:34pm by Tyrandor

Paladins are actually a lot harder to control than DKs will be. They don't have BoF, they don't have BoSac, they don't have a bubble getting them out of most CC that they can get into. Ret paladins have a hard time staying on target, even with a rogue and BoF; how hard do you think it will be for a DK?

And all of a DKs damage comes from melee range--you can't generate enough RP from range for it to make a difference. Yes, Death Grip is neat. Yes, it is on an extremely long cooldown for a reconnect. ShS is long enough given how much mobility rogues have and how well we can apply snares (no other class has a 70% snare). With a DK, you have Death Grip, then nothing. While yes, it'll work well to pull a druid back to a rogue (and actually, rogue/DK will be nasty Tyr, thinking about how well they'll shut down a fleeing druid), without that snare from their teammate, they're basically worthless unless they can follow up with an Icy Touch or a Chains of Ice.

Is it possible for ghouls/DK pets to cause daze on the target? I assume not but it could make a pretty noticable difference if it's really such an 'on the edge' situation.

Glad we agree.

My DK was Unholy btw Tyr with about 800AP (not much :S) and Gargoyle doesnt do that much to be honest. It's basically an uncleansable DoT that will keep running if you keep using Rune abilities to recharge it, so in theory it's very powerful, but it doesnt seem to win any battles and just encourages you to burn up all your Runes.

In essence and execution, it's a Shadow damage version of Dancing Runeblade but doing less overall damage but not requiring you to be actively meleeing. Good for (ironically) use against Rogues as it is a substantial ranged damage source that they cant just get rid of with CloS.

It was 6% at the time I wrote that.

That said, yes, it's still very good.

new DK talents have been implemtented:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/deathknight/talents2.html

ghostcrawler (or was it koraa? one of those two) stated how they wanted one good tanking talent at the top of each tree, and another at the bottom, thus giving each tree its own unique tanking power while also giving DKs a lot of necessary tank-oriented boosts. the changes specifically in mind in this build are:

blade barrier to tier 1 blood, functionality unchanged.
toughness to tier 1 frost, also unchanged.
anticipation added to tier 1 unholy.

frost strike was buffed significantly being made instant, full weapon damage + some extra, and costing 50 runic power. heart strike was changed to be a higher-damage replacement to blood strike for a deep blood DK, and the -health debuff was replaced with a haste negation debuff, meaning any haste effects on the target (flurry, SnD, hero/blood, icy veins etc.) are rendered ineffective.

degeneration was apparently removed and turned into a deep unholy talent called scourge strike, and gargoyle was moved to a 21-pt talent and modified slightly (initial cost added, but upkeep cost reduced i think).

overall, blood is looking very sexy. negating haste effects on a target is pretty sweet, and at the cost of one blood rune and with a 10s duration a blood DK could potentially keep two heart strikes up on separate targets at the same time (helped along by the odd death rune proc). deep frost is looking way better too, and unholy....doesnt look too bad either, altho not nearly as nice as frost or blood.

also, lichborne was moved out of unholy into frost (same position) and the rune masteries were improved some too.

Those are the next planned changes to DK talents.

With the change to Frost Strike, but build is getting a lot more power. It felt wimpy before with all your frost runes being eaten by Frost Strike and Icy Touch (with none left for Oblit), but I think the changes to the frost tree are very interesting. Should be fun to try.

Hmm... I can get the talents to come up now, but it won't let me sink points into Icy Talons. Ah, well...