Storm in the Beta - Doing what I can to help the Death Knights be Deadlier

[Storm 426]

Wildstar started to suck pretty quick, mostly because their patches keep breaking as many things as they fix. I dominated the economy long enough to have 8 months worth of Credd saved up to use when they fix some more issues, but the good news is WoW gets my full attention back! and I'm in the beta! so I can flood you guys with lots of info and first looks at cool stuff!

 

Woah, I finished that first paragraph with three exclamated sentences in a row, I need to put this redbull down.

 

I don't have a lot to report on right now because I'm really just starting out, and I'm rolling a horde for the first time ever in the 8 years I've been playing wow. (I've had 1 DK alt horde side, but now I'm maining horde for WoD) so even simple things like trying to figure out where I need to go to teleport to Draenor took like 10min (turns out there's a 20ft tall Kadghar standing in the middle of org that teleports you there).

 

If you guys have any particular question or things you'd like me to check out and report on let me know. In the mean time here are a couple screenshots of me riding mounts I'll never be able to get on a live server.

 

Storm on a green protodrake

 

Storm riding a Black Qiraji Battletank

[Storm 426]

Discovery #1, there's no fatigue in open water in the beta right now. I'm going to have some fun with this 

[Ceraius 34]

Which specs will you focus on in the beta? I personally would love to hear every single detail you can dish out regarding Blood and (2H) Frost. How they feel in general, which stats impact the performance more and how, etc etc.

 

Gief info! :D

[Storm 426]

I'm actually planning on focusing mostly on frost because I'll most likely be a primarily frost DK in WoD, but I'll get in some good blood theory too. Real tanks are tanks for life.

[Ceraius 34]

Amen, my unholy brother. :D

[Drtain 74]

Hey, storm DK looking fun? tanking and dps wise? Not really sure what class I wanna reroll for the upcoming xpac can't decide between my healers/dk 

[Cupidx 5]

DKs on beta are pretty different than they are on live. I don't tank, so I couldn't give my opinion on blood, but DPS is unfortunately a lot slower than it is on live. The playstyle has slightly changed for both 2H and DW Frost. On live, our DPS is based on getting rid of all of our resources as soon as they come up. On beta, we're "pooling" our resources and gaming for KM procs. This leads to slower gameplay, and more downtime. The final tuning hasn't been put out, but as of right now on beta, downtime for Frost is around 40%. On live, we're GCD capped, so our downtime is below 1%. It just feels a lot different than what most DKs are used to. As far as unholy goes, it really isn't good right now. I haven't been testing it since it's pretty far behind both DW and 2H frost, but it's having similar issues with downtime.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Cupidx

[Ceraius 34]

While I do like the spammy style of Frost on live, I'm also eager to see how the slower gameplay pulls through. I expect it to be easier to force KMs on Obliterate rather than have one happen right when youre spamming away RP with FS and have it wasted.

[Cupidx 5]

For me, the whole reason I play DK is because of it's fast paced playstyle. Having something meaningful to do every GCD is better than sitting there and watching a castbar or being energy starved. And as far as forcing KMs on Oblit, while it's easier to do with more downtime, the procs are still completely random since it's based off of white hits. On beta I still find KM proccing right as I'm pressing FS. Now the issue is that some KM procs go to waste because you can't press anything as soon as it procs, so another one procs and overrides it. I feel that the whole KM system needs a revamp. If they want Frost's damage to be based on KM, then they need to make it less random, or drop it all together. They want us to only use KM on FS or Oblit, depending on the frost sub-spec you're playing, but that's impossible when it is based off of white hits. I think if they gave Obliterate a similar system to Chaos Bolt and dropped KM, it would make both frost sub-specs use it, which is what they want. It would also increase the value of crit for DKs, which always devalues each tier when we get more haste.

[Ceraius 34]

Thats a very interesting idea. I wonder how it would play out in practise.