New Beta Patch: Death Knight Changes
Blood
Unholy
Observations
The Good: They boosted Frost a little here and there. And that's good because frost definitely needed a boost (and still does after this patch I'm sure).
The Bad:
Frost - They actually nerfed Obliterate? Obliterate is mostly used in Frost builds and frost is by far the weakest of all 3 talent trees, so why nerf it?
Blood - Several nerfs to the blood tree, and I don't get why. Blood was behind Unholy on all aspects, as has been shown in some of my previous articles and by many other beta testers. The change that boggles me the most is the increased cooldown on Dancing Rune Weapon. As the numbers have shown, DRW is really not that powerful for an ultimate talent, it's about the same damage as Summon Gargoyle from the Unholy Tree, besides... it's an ultimate talent and should be more powerful than Summon Gargoyle. Well now, not only is it not more powerful, but it also got the same cooldown. Sounds fair to you?
Unholy - The most puzzling part of those changes, they boosted Unholy, which was already the strongest of all 3 trees, in all aspects of the game. The change to reaping will allow Unholy DKs to replace Bloodboil with Bloodstrike in their rotation and this will increase their single target damage (which was already the highest). This is however a good change, because reaping is an important talent mechanic and it was wrong to have it only work when using AoE abilities, like pestilence and blood boil. However, the side effect is that it's still going to increase Unholy single target dps.
They also gave +5% damage to Blood-Caked Blade, sure, why not, it's not a big improvement but still, did the unholy tree need it?
Conclusion
Stop boosting Unholy, boost the other two trees. For now, I sure as hell am sticking to Unholy. :P
- Bloody Vengeance - No longer increases frost and shadow damage.
- Dancing Rune Weapon - Cooldown increased to 3 min. (old: 2 min)
- Bladed Armor - Now increases attack power by 1/2/3/4/5 for every 180 armor value. (Old 1/2/3/4/5 strength for every 400 armor)
- Obliterate Damage lowered. Now Rank 1 - 100% weapon damage plus 124, and an additional 62 bonus damage per disease. (Old Rank 1 - 100% weapon damage plus 167, and an additional 83.5 bonus damage per disease.)
- Tundra Stalker - Now also increases the damage of Icy Touch by 20% per rank. (20/40/60/80/100%)
- Guile of Gorefiend - No longer gives bonus to Rune Strike critical damage, but gives it to Howling Blast instead.
- Howling Blast - Damage increased on all ranks. (Now Rank 5 - 259 to 281) (Old Rank 5 - 192 to 208)
- Runic Focus - Description changed to : “Unlike most casters, a Death Knight’s spells cause double damage on critical hits.”
Unholy
- Death and Decay - Damage Increased (Now Rank 4 - 62 Damage) (Old Rank 4 - 52 Damage)
- Blood-Caked Blade - Damage increased to 25% of weapon damage. (Old 20% of weapon damage.)
- Blood Plague - Chance to remove a Heal over Time effect reduced to 25% (Old 50%)
- Reaping - Pestilence replaced by Blood Strike
Observations
The Good: They boosted Frost a little here and there. And that's good because frost definitely needed a boost (and still does after this patch I'm sure).
The Bad:
Frost - They actually nerfed Obliterate? Obliterate is mostly used in Frost builds and frost is by far the weakest of all 3 talent trees, so why nerf it?
Blood - Several nerfs to the blood tree, and I don't get why. Blood was behind Unholy on all aspects, as has been shown in some of my previous articles and by many other beta testers. The change that boggles me the most is the increased cooldown on Dancing Rune Weapon. As the numbers have shown, DRW is really not that powerful for an ultimate talent, it's about the same damage as Summon Gargoyle from the Unholy Tree, besides... it's an ultimate talent and should be more powerful than Summon Gargoyle. Well now, not only is it not more powerful, but it also got the same cooldown. Sounds fair to you?
Unholy - The most puzzling part of those changes, they boosted Unholy, which was already the strongest of all 3 trees, in all aspects of the game. The change to reaping will allow Unholy DKs to replace Bloodboil with Bloodstrike in their rotation and this will increase their single target damage (which was already the highest). This is however a good change, because reaping is an important talent mechanic and it was wrong to have it only work when using AoE abilities, like pestilence and blood boil. However, the side effect is that it's still going to increase Unholy single target dps.
They also gave +5% damage to Blood-Caked Blade, sure, why not, it's not a big improvement but still, did the unholy tree need it?
Conclusion
Stop boosting Unholy, boost the other two trees. For now, I sure as hell am sticking to Unholy. :P
Posts
I have to admit, I have been Blood and was going to stay Blood, but after this patch I respecced to Unholy and WOW!! I am staying with Unholy now! :)
Seems their intention is to boost Unholy to become the main lvling spec...
I don´t get it at all how can they nerf frost which needs MANY improvements to hold aggro.
Get a grip guys <.<
I guess the change to Bladed Armor is a slight buff for soloing (since you usually won't have any stat multipliers on you), but nerf for everything else. Heartstrike is still not fixed though in this build, so I wouldn't bother doing dps tests :)
But seems like Unholy it'll be for levelling *sigh*
And give honor reset back -.- Bad enough that the DK is 15 levels behind everyone else, not its also several thousand honor and therefore multiple items :/
I saw somewhere a while ago that the disease proc from Gift of Arthas counts as one of your diseases...do you know if this still works & is it useful enough to stock up on them for leveling?
Hi Jame I don't know how to contact you so I thought I would ask you here.
Is it worth levelling both horde and alliance to 70 soon to be 80 as I have only played alliance apart from my lvl 18 horde druid. Is it that different that you get a lot out of levelling both or shall i level another alliance charcter (my next charcter wil be a death knight like so many other peoples)
Pete
Well, horde is definitely another experience, you should at least level one character there, it's refreshing :)
OK thanks