DK bullet points

[Amanitou 0]

I saw something similar to this combing through the battle.net forums and thought it'd be a good idea for the Icy Veins crowd to add their voices. The idea is to make a short list of things that you think are crucial to improving/fixing the class' existing flaws. Keep it as concise and short as possible (i.e. bullet points, as the title says) and only post if you have put enough hours of gameplay in with the relevant specs to be a good judge. Objectivity is a must also. This way, if by some blessing of RNGesus a Blizz dev reads this, they at least won't have the excuse of TLDR.

Having said that, let's go! My own two cents:

UNHOLY

- Mobility: Wraith Walk is a pain. Channeling, long cooldown, and inability to jump often make it next to useless, and I'm trailing a good twenty yards behind my group in dungeons on average.

- Pet survivability: the blow to my DPS when my abomination dies is horrendous and the cooldown to resummon unless I take All Shall Serve cripples me.

- Death Coil: as our RP dump in 99% of situations, it feels lacklustre in terms of damage. I often find myself having to spam this spell just so that I don't overcap RP, at the cost of better, harder-hitting abilities which I still have the resources for.

[demonardvark 556]

21 hours ago, Amanitou said:

I saw something similar to this combing through the battle.net forums and thought it'd be a good idea for the Icy Veins crowd to add their voices. The idea is to make a short list of things that you think are crucial to improving/fixing the class' existing flaws. Keep it as concise and short as possible (i.e. bullet points, as the title says) and only post if you have put enough hours of gameplay in with the relevant specs to be a good judge. Objectivity is a must also. This way, if by some blessing of RNGesus a Blizz dev reads this, they at least won't have the excuse of TLDR.

Having said that, let's go! My own two cents:

UNHOLY

- Mobility: Wraith Walk is a pain. Channeling, long cooldown, and inability to jump often make it next to useless, and I'm trailing a good twenty yards behind my group in dungeons on average.

- Pet survivability: the blow to my DPS when my abomination dies is horrendous and the cooldown to resummon unless I take All Shall Serve cripples me.

- Death Coil: as our RP dump in 99% of situations, it feels lacklustre in terms of damage. I often find myself having to spam this spell just so that I don't overcap RP, at the cost of better, harder-hitting abilities which I still have the resources for.

I mean two of the three are easily enough dealt with. For your pet you have a defensive CD specifically for him, so I'd recommend that. Death Coil needs to stay the way it is damage wise. If they buffed it unholy would become too strong and a different part of our toolkit would get nerfed. With death coil yes it is a resource dump however, it has an very important part of the rotation, scourge of the world procs. That 30% buff is no joke. So, honestly the best way to do the rotation (imo) is to festering strike a couple times to build up 4-6 wounds, death coil fish for scourge procs, then scourge strike your heart out. That methodology makes death coil not only valuable but imperative to high dps. Even then, once we get the double proc chance, and runic tattoos it makes Dark Arbiter able to get a ton of fuel. So on its own it may not seem like much, but Death coil has a very important place in our rotation. 

Now to your list :D

Unholy: Mobility problem

Frost: mobility problem

Blood: mobility problem XD

[Shells 64]

Unholy - Lack of self healing as part of your rotation, DS doesnt heal for much. Makes it difficult to survive a few hits in day to day questing or WQ. Slow slow slow.

Frost.  Its probably slow too. Needs more dps adjustment to make it move viable.  Might be better at higher ilvls.

Blood - Slower than a glacier. Can be left with no buttons to press in an oh crap moment. Could do with Rune Tap being a baseline skill and give you the option of less damage or some healing. Give me back my army, ever so useful.  

 

[Valks 2,375]

41 minutes ago, Shells said:

Frost.  Its probably slow too. Needs more dps adjustment to make it move viable.  Might be better at higher ilvls.

The sad reality is that, at the moment, it looks like Frost will scale as it has in previous expansions and get absolutely nailed by higher gear levels. It sucks.

[Amanitou 0]

6 hours ago, demonardvark said:

I mean two of the three are easily enough dealt with. For your pet you have a defensive CD specifically for him, so I'd recommend that. Death Coil needs to stay the way it is damage wise. If they buffed it unholy would become too strong and a different part of our toolkit would get nerfed. With death coil yes it is a resource dump however, it has an very important part of the rotation, scourge of the world procs. That 30% buff is no joke. So, honestly the best way to do the rotation (imo) is to festering strike a couple times to build up 4-6 wounds, death coil fish for scourge procs, then scourge strike your heart out. That methodology makes death coil not only valuable but imperative to high dps. Even then, once we get the double proc chance, and runic tattoos it makes Dark Arbiter able to get a ton of fuel. So on its own it may not seem like much, but Death coil has a very important place in our rotation. 

5

Oh, I know about the pet's defensive cooldown, don't get me wrong. I just find that it gets overwhelmed really, really easily >.< I didn't mention it on the list for brevity's sake is all. And it would be lovely to get back Death Coil's pet heal function in at least some small capacity, but knowing Blizz that's hardly likely... Still, I'll accept that Death Coil may well scale very nicely later with the fully upgraded Apocalypse.

That still leaves a huge lack of mobility as the heaviest blow to gameplay, IMO T-T

[demonardvark 556]

2 minutes ago, Amanitou said:

Oh, I know about the pet's defensive cooldown, don't get me wrong. I just find that it gets overwhelmed really, really easily >.< I didn't mention it on the list for brevity's sake is all. And it would be lovely to get back Death Coil's pet heal function in at least some small capacity, but knowing Blizz that's hardly likely... Still, I'll accept that Death Coil may well scale very nicely later with the fully upgraded Apocalypse.

That still leaves a huge lack of mobility as the heaviest blow to gameplay, IMO T-T

Oh you don't know the half of it. Most of the fights in emerald nightmare are super movement heavy which sucks for DK. There are also several instances where you can get double stuck with movement mechanics. So tanking as blood for a couple fights is going to be a wee bit of a pain, and some of the mechanics are going to require DK's to get good fast and have near perfect positioning.

i mean maybe not so much on norm or heroic, but come mythic god help us all. 

 

[demonardvark 556]

3 hours ago, Blainie said:

The sad reality is that, at the moment, it looks like Frost will scale as it has in previous expansions and get absolutely nailed by higher gear levels. It sucks.

Obliterate is certainly going to get hit hard. However, there's a lot of interesting things floating around Frost right now. So, i'm not giving up on the spec yet. I freely name Zefryk and say he's made me aware of a lot of things. I think frost might surprise us yet.

[chrnocross 2]

Welp I saw this thread and I feel inclined to share some really important news regarded Mobility, or rather Wraith Walk.

There is a Glyph called Glyph of the Wraith Walker that is absolutely essential for every single DK. It allows you to move/run normally with wraith walk( Getting over nasty terrain ) and more importantly it allows you to.... JUMP. Yes, with this glyph you can jump with wraith walk. I'm sure you find this as mind blowing as much as I do.

TL;DR Get glyph of the wraith walker. Tell your friends.

[Amanitou 0]

It's a step in the right direction, but why in god's name is this not baked into the ability itself? And does it negate the channeled status of the spell?

[demonardvark 556]

2 hours ago, chrnocross said:

Welp I saw this thread and I feel inclined to share some really important news regarded Mobility, or rather Wraith Walk.

There is a Glyph called Glyph of the Wraith Walker that is absolutely essential for every single DK. It allows you to move/run normally with wraith walk( Getting over nasty terrain ) and more importantly it allows you to.... JUMP. Yes, with this glyph you can jump with wraith walk. I'm sure you find this as mind blowing as much as I do.

TL;DR Get glyph of the wraith walker. Tell your friends.

WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS!!!!!!

this is going into raid guide and you are getting a shoutout my friend :)

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/17/2016 at 11:39 AM, demonardvark said:

WHY DID I NOT KNOW THIS!!!!!!

this is going into raid guide and you are getting a shoutout my friend :)

EVEN I KNEW IT OMG

[demonardvark 556]

4 hours ago, Blainie said:

EVEN I KNEW IT OMG

I have shamed Bolvar :(

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/20/2016 at 0:17 PM, demonardvark said:

I have shamed Bolvar :(

Stripped of mod status. But I'm instantly re-instating you for that fishing post. Awesome work.

[demonardvark 556]

6 hours ago, Blainie said:

Stripped of mod status. But I'm instantly re-instating you for that fishing post. Awesome work.

i literally lol'd in a dark room at 5 am while eating my breakfast, nearly choked on rice XD

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/22/2016 at 10:25 AM, demonardvark said:

i literally lol'd in a dark room at 5 am while eating my breakfast, nearly choked on rice XD

Who eats rice for breakfast

[demonardvark 556]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

Who eats rice for breakfast

Me :D, I don't wake well, I wake like a zombie rising from dead, so i premake meals, and I've found i like a fried rice thing i make, good carbs to fuel day, tasty, easy to make, cheap, all good things. 

[Valks 2,375]

16 minutes ago, demonardvark said:

Me :D, I don't wake well, I wake like a zombie rising from dead, so i premake meals, and I've found i like a fried rice thing i make, good carbs to fuel day, tasty, easy to make, cheap, all good things. 

Damn. That's fair enough I guess, I plan to premake them in the future. I could eat steamed rice, plain chicken and broccoli/cauliflower every day of the week.