Presumption – DKs Are Done

Edit: Since there was some confusion in comments, to be clear, this is just a “what if we really are done” sort of post, hence the added emphasis to assume. It’s not me actually thinking we are or losing confidence in Blizzard. I still believe we’ll be just fine in due time and that there’s no cause for worry but, if I turn out to be wrong and this is it, then this post is basically my sentiments on the matter.

Let’s just go ahead and assume that, yes, Death Knights are essentially finished in the eyes of the developers. Sure, they’re all but guaranteed to pass through our trees at least once more to eliminate or otherwise condense talents such as Improved Icy Touch and Virulence but, at this point, such talents aren’t even our largest, more demanding issues. And, yes, of course they’re certain to do a number tweak patch (consisting of more than a 5% nerf to Blood Strike) at some point between now and the end of beta. Then… nothing.

So, let us say that’s it – and what indications (few and far between they may be) we’ve received would say that, yeah, that is it!

That means we would go live with Runic Empowerment as is, with the Frost Presence/Unholy Presence discrepency as is, the AoE rotations (if one can call it that) as is, the contradictory nature of DRM and the Blood Mastery as is, and so on.

What would that mean for us?

It wouldn’t mean our dps/tps/survivability would be behind. That’s a number issue, and is thus independent of everything else. Yes, our dps might end up being too low (or too high) regardless, but it won’t be because of any thing else but the number pass itself. Think of it this way: you could have a rotation which consisted of nothing but spamming Blood Boil every single GCD, and although that would be horrible in a million different ways, the numbers could still be just fine, potentially.

It wouldn’t mean our class would be unplayable. Mechanically, we function. Some things aren’t very user intuitive (AoE rotation for Frost/Unholy? Runic Empowerment?) or convenient (Tank CDs costing runes?), but that doesn’t mean that, at the end of the day, we couldn’t do our job. Of course we could – it just hearkens back to the numbers.

It wouldn’t mean that the class would be ruined for life. Of all classes, we know how much can change patch-to-patch. Just look at all the different stages Unholy DPS has gone through during Wrath: 0/32/39, Blood Subspec, Obliterate, 10-second Epidemicless, Reapingless variants, Frost Subspec, and so on. A patch can change a ton, so even if Cataclysm were to go live with us being in a less-than-desirable shape, there’s nothing to say 4.1 couldn’t turn it all around in a complete one-eighty.

But, obviously, there are some very real implications to us being “finished” as is, otherwise we wouldn’t be making such a big deal out of it. The question is, what are those actual consequences?

First off, if they don’t touch many of these issues now, then that’s likely because they don’t see anything wrong – which means they’ll never fix them. It’s possible that they’ll wake up in a couple months and see that, due to Pestilence and Blood Boil’s single Blood rune cost tanks can’t manage streaming adds the same way other classes can and that Unholy’s AoE rotation involves using Icy Touch as often as, say, Scourge Strike itself, but if they don’t notice such things now (or don’t see the problem in them), then it’s likely to just stay as is indefinitely.

Secondly, if they do realize our problems later on, there’s the “roller coaster” threat. Like I said, even if we start off behind, a patch can turn everything around, but no one wants to level and start raiding playing a class which functions in a certain manner only for it to be completely different the next patch. We’ve done that, many times, and it’s not the best design from the players’ or developers’ perspective. If we start off without a dozen glaring issues, we’re that much less likely to be put through the wringer time and time again. Best to get things right the first time whenever possible.

Third, there’s the whole fact that if really are done as is, there’s apparently a huge disconnect between a sizable portion of the testing community and the developers. We were told you didn’t like this, wanted so and so to accomplish that, and that these things were good/bad for a class – and thus we based all of our feedback on it. But then it goes live as is anyways? Did you simply disagree with what we were/are saying, and don’t see all of these things as problems, or did you change your mind? Or what? It’s a mind-boggling situation. Not to mention it invalidates so much of the testing done.

Fourth is the fun factor. This is heavily a matter of perspective, so I won’t delve deeply into it except to say the tanks plain not being able to do what they need when they need unless they can see the future (or a fight has no rng) and dpsers essentially playing Guitar Hero with whatever runes randomly light up thanks to Runic Empowerment isn’t my idea of my fun. To each their own, perhaps.

Suffice is to say it would be a huge letdown for the community if we were to go live in our present state, not to mention it wouldn’t bode well for the future of the class  in any probable scenario.

But, really, it’s not the end of the world, and certainly not of the class. We’re not broken. We won’t be baggage in raids (numbers pending). We’ll be much less than we could or should be, sure, and although that’s a shame, it’s always the case anyways as we’re never going to be perfect – largely because how there’s so many different perspective of the class (I’m sure there’s someone out there who likes the current form of Runic Empowerment and sees no flaw with it!). Life will go on.

Where am I going with this post? I don’t really know, to be honest. I lost myself a dozen times, so who even knows if this final product makes sense! The point is, that yeah, we might be done, and if so, we just have to accept that truth, and also realize the the fact that it’s not all that bad, potentially. Make lemonade out of lemons, as they say. Or, rather, lemonade out of rotten, round items which you’re told are supposed to be lemons. View it how you will!

Honestly though, I will say, as is, I would be awfully tempted to switch classes (although I likely never would, due to all the outside factors). Even if we’re far from broken, we’re certainly not improved from our present day state, while many other classes undoubtedly are. Some are shaping up so nicely!

132 Responses to Presumption – DKs Are Done

  1. Azerius says:

    Here is the big thing though, as everything sits, are we Fun to play?
    whack-a-mole isn’t fun, and RE in its current implementation makes it just that.

    The very fact that they haven’t stuck to their own design philosophies in regards to the DK class is the largest concern i believe the DK-community has, as such it makes us all feel rudderless with the cataclysm on the horizon and nobody likes to have no idea where they are heading.

  2. Fahar says:

    If it stays as is… Bye Bye DK! I’m going to play either my pally or my rogue! No fun to play a class that has a stupid rotation and can’t make sense of why to cast certain spells (like spamming IT on a AoE scenario, just cause we cant use that resource for anything else). Too bad, but if Blizzard don’t do anything about DK’s I can see a huge disband of DKs in all servers!

  3. Concerned says:

    If it does go live as is, Im pretty much in the same boat, Im disappointed with the design and I really dont want to go through a roller coaster of patches. Ill drop my DK too. Which is sad with all the time, effort and achievements I have with him, regardless it just doesnt sound remotely fun to play. I guess its time to play my lock.

  4. Roth says:

    If we go live like this…were going to see MAJOR changes in 4.1 Blizzard is basically promoting things they dont want.

    Shadowfrost (via Dirge and RE).
    DW Unholy.
    Blood tanks incapable of performing certain roles due to rune/resource issues.
    Being GCD capped.

    These arent subjective problems with the class. The fact of the matter is, the only way Blizzard can think we are ok is because they simply arent paying any attention to us.

    • Sag says:

      I’m curious, as I am not in beta right now, but with unholy if you subspec into frost with nerves of could steel, is it better to grab annihilation and just use OB, and only use SS on death runes? I’m just curious because well, the buff to make frost choose OB over DS is there, and I thought it could work, plus OB with 3 diseases and annihilation might really hit hard. That might stop a shadowfrost build, but probably not in the way blizz wants.

      I’ve mentioned before that really right now unholy in pvp just kites several other melee classes. How is that actually any different from a shadowfrost build anyway?

      As I don’t currently play blood (a little scared to in the current AoE fest that is wrath), I don’t know what to say. As it stands right now I don’t really know how that many other classes manage their resources in pvp or pve, I take that back actually, I probably know more than most, but I don’t necessarily know how the defensive CDs work. Basically I feel hamstrung as unholy in pvp because all of my CDs require either a rune or runic power, which I start out with none of, and as a frost tank when I always feel the need to keep 20 RP incase I need a CD, which means less FS, or even skipping a RS, if my runes are all on CD. I think more things either need to have a lower runic power cost (as it is there are only 3 costs, 60, 40, and 20 unless talented) or be just free, or talented free like saguine fortitude and endless winter (which that talent needs a buff, seriously).

      I also may have missed this, but I know that idea of taking abilities away from on the next swing went away, but I know blizz changed maul and heroic strike. So has anything changed with RS, or how does that function currently?

  5. Skaarrj says:

    DK does not look fun at all. Some of the idea’s are great. Necrotic Strike and Dark Simulacrum. But everything sounds horrible because of the current rune system + cooldown runecosts.

  6. Zeran says:

    I have to point out that we’re not “done,” we’re still GCD capped and GC said we wouldn’t be a few hours ago. So either, he’s off his pony or they have not yet “tweaked” us to their liking.

    That being said, I think it might be time for me to find a new class. 1) blood taking more damage due to self healing sounds iffy at best. 2) I have never liked the procyness of frost. 3) unholy seems all out of sorts but from what I gather it will play much like blood does now, won’t be as versatile (no more swapping ss for ds since you’re low on hp cause F or U is on cooldown and if you still need heals in 10s you’re proper.), and seems genuinely no fun.

  7. Madarame says:

    they should make hungering cold a baseline spell trainable at your local classmaster

    this would kinda buff dks in pvp

    but still – i am in hope of a dk revamp. if not i havesome near/80s to reroll on cata ;D

    what will you reroll? should be a new poll on blizz forums =)

    • Scuzoid says:

      Couldn’t agree more. Hungering cold as a prereq for howling blast makes no sense. Hungering Cold as our only viable CC stuck deep in the frost tree makes not sense. At least with the current CoI, it is nearly as good as a stun when used on melee mobs. I’ve used CoI on Enraged Shamblers a number of times. Can’t even get away with that anymore in 4.0…..

      Anyway:
      Prot Paladin
      Rogue

      • Sag says:

        Damn I can’t believe someone else grabbed prot pally already. That being said mine is at 69. I actually have an 80 resto druid and an 80 disc priest. I’m actually looking at disc priest or prot pally if DKs stay crappy, though I will still level my DK to 80 first if possible.

    • Andeus says:

      That could be the turning point for Unholy to go kinda OP though. Not to mention that Frost will need a replacement with an additional PVP talent. Hungering Cold down there is both a PVE CC and a PVP utility talent.

      Up to now Hungering Cold has been an unpopular talent, maybe them forcing you to take it for HB is their way of making it everyone have it without the need to change it. Maybe they think its balanced as it is now, so that’s the only way for people to accept it.

      • Madarame says:

        i’m leveling my warlock – may be my new main
        or my warrior, who will get a pretty neat 5sec stun on top of ms

      • Sag says:

        The only part of hungering cold that would even possibly make it OP is that diseases do their damage while HC is still on targets. Give that HC only happens once a minute I don’t think that this would be game breaking.

        I also you HC a lot as a tank. There are plenty of times I outrun my healer and that gives him plenty of time to catch up, as long as DnD isn’t down already, and even then it gives a half second break in damage for the healer to catch up if I was taking too much damage. Also, nothing like an AoE interrupt to stop some casts from multiple sources. You’d think the spell would cause more aggro though.

      • Madarame says:

        i would be satisfied if HC just freezes one target but this cyclone like, so dispelling curses and make the frozen immune to all.

        it sucks without viable CC

        take away ghul stun, its more than shitty =)

      • Sag says:

        I am well aware of how the lack of CC and stuns are a fault to us. With a pally partner in 2s I depend on her stun, then my silence, then either my stun or mind freeze, followed by whatever one wasn’t used in order to kill a healer, and generally that doesn’t even work. Healer teams are horrible for us to face in 2s. In days of a long arena matches being 6 min (which is probably our average) we get at least 2-3 15 min matches, or longer each week. Do I think HC would change this much, probably not. It’d at least make the other team use their trinkets though, and maybe I get a full 9 seconds of pressure on one of them.

  8. Raxx says:

    Nothing to add really Consider, you are right, we are all done bar the balancing, or Blizz are staying very quiet and they will change us before launch.

    Biggest diasppointment is the fact that on the face of it, they are ignoring our feedback, very poor show from Blizz. GC seems more interested in feedback from the US wow forums than he does from us in Europe or Cata forums.

    Pretty poor show from Blizz imho.

  9. Insolence says:

    How could anyone thats tried it like the current Runic Empowerment? No viable way to track it up until now is just pathetic, and its RNG sucks.

    Dont want to have to level my TBC Warrior…. /Sigh.

  10. Rebellion says:

    Hopefully there will be a pair of nice slow 1h maces with a wooden hammer style come cata. If I play whack-a-mole I want it at least to look appropiatly.

  11. Zumal says:

    Consider, just promise me you will consider(lol) doing theorycrafting/blogging on the shadow priest! I don’t want the death of the DK (also lol) to mean the end of great reads from you!

  12. Rodalpho says:

    If the DK goes live essentially as it is right now in beta (with your caveats) I will be switching to a paladin main.

    That’s not unusual; I tend to switch mains every expansion. I’m not wed to any one class. It’s a gear reset, it’s the right time to switch.

  13. Nahela says:

    I’m pretty jaded at this point, but I get the feeling you’re trying too hard to be objective in a posting like this. It’s pretty clear you’re frustrated (as are the rest of us) and trying to find the upside, but let’s face it: There really isn’t a whole lot of upside to the Cataclysm DK right now.

    The whole issue with GC/DKs/Beta is just.. painful. It’s seems like it’st he elephant in the room that Blizzard just hopes will go away because they tried to change the rune system / add RE and nobody likes it so far. Thus, maybe if they just leave it eventually we’ll stop complaining and they won’t have to redo everything again?

    It’s a shame because if the trees/rune system were just left in their live state and nothing was added but new abilities, I’d enjoy playing the class for another expansion. As things stand now, I really don’t know what I’ll be doing.

    • Sag says:

      Well, you have to admit GC has a lot on his plate, or is at least given that responsibility by us regardless of who actually has the responsibility at blizz. And there are still other things that blizz is looking at fixing for other classes, or even implimenting (spirit link for shaman comes to mind actually).

      btw, any thoughts on RE making the next DS, OB, SS, or FsS free, but unable to crit? There are a few talents like that in caster trees, but I don’t know if it would work for DKs.

  14. Exxile87 says:

    I will say that, at this point in the beta, my mage is the most likely candidate to be the first toon I raid with when Cataclysm goes live. I have both my DK and mage at 83 currently, and the mage is so far ahead of the DK in both the fun and numbers department that it isn’t really even a competition anymore. I hope they fix a lot of the things you’ve pointed out, specifically the tanking cooldown issues ( my DK is a tank first and foremost) because until that gets ironed out, I’m not comfortable tanking with him. There is so much dead time waiting on runes to come back up (even more so than on live) and the DRM/Blood Shield clusterfuck is just annoying.

    My precious arcane spec, on the other hand… 😀

  15. Branith says:

    Well If I plan to stick with Cata, and WoW, which I sure I will until at least Rift or GW2 releases and If I plan on sticking with my DK, which I doubt since my Warrior is looking so much more fun with more self healing (go figure) Then I agree with Consider and we make the shitiest flavor of lemon-aid there is. By god i’ll play shadowfrost version 4.0 and spam the *&%$ out of Icy Touches in my DW UH setup.

  16. Branith says:

    Consider on your tweet you said: Alright, Ill admit, the DKs not being GCD capped post has me cracking up. Even better than Dirge! Oh, man. Not GC’s best day =p

    Anyone want to point me to that post I cant find it and I need a good laugh this morning.

    • Insolence says:

      Check bottom comments on the previous blog post or search @Consider on Twitter, you’ll find the links there.

  17. Aram says:

    I still find the whole thing incredibly hard to believe. How can they be this lost? The fact they don’t know about GCD lock tells you everything you need to know about their PoV.

    Because of achievements, I think I’ll stick with my DK. And if I suddenly change my mind, Holy Priest here I come!

  18. Nahela says:

    By the way, anybody else getting the feeling that the new rune system / RE might have been one of GC’s personal projects? The tone of his posts towards DKs recently, the dreamworld he’s living in (in regards to GCDs, Dirge, etc.), and the complete avoidance of responding to any feedback we have directly makes me think he’s legitimately personally frustrated at us for not liking the new systems.

    • Sag says:

      That is possible, and you have to admit the idea sounds good on paper. The problem is that the implimentation is poor. If DKs actually had more 1 rune strikes that actually did good DPS it would be awesome. Something like each spec has a strike for 1 rune, and a strike that depends on the diseases on the target. Granted would mean DKs would need a disease for each tree, but it would mean BS (which applies a disease now), IT, PS, then DS (or HS depending on if it got made baseline), OB (or HB), SS (or DS if SS is not baseline). Then anytime a rune refreshed either a disease could be reapplied or the disease dependant strike could be struck. The two rune strikes will mess up any ability that only uses/regenerates one rune.

      I’ve actually put out ideas fro two “fixes” in these comments. I’m curious if anyone else likes or has already thought of those ideas. Also I release 3 diseases makes DKs very vulnerable to dispells, but that is why disease protection is important and should probably be in every tree, not just UH.

      • Andeus says:

        No disease protection in every tree would mean bloat and we already have enough.

        If you are gonna PVP, your sub-spec probably won’t be Blood since it’s weak PVP-wise on its first tiers. You will go for Unholy and get Virulence and Resilient Infection since both are useful for PVP. Also they are high enough so that you can take them regardless of spec and still have some points left in case you want Blade Barrier from Blood (for some weird reason 😛 ).

      • Sag says:

        Actually as unholy I would think butchery would be good to get, possibly bladed armor and even scent of blood (anything to keep DCs streaming) but the main point was thatt if I am going to pvp I have to put 7 points in unholy as either frost or blood. Which sucks, it means I can’t get lichborne, or free mind freezes. There is a lot blood could bring with survivability, and it could be a beast in that area, but I already see holes.

        And disease protection doesn’t mean it has to add bloat, it could get wrapped up into another talent.

      • Andeus says:

        Sag, yes, these are all valid options I think (ok, not really sure about Butchery but each to his own 😛 ) but isn’t that what this is all about?

        Choices.

        I bet the devs if they read your post would be happy that they made talents that you want to get, but since you can’t have all of them you have to make a personal choice. If anything that shows that they succeeded.

        Besides maybe, Lichborne which is a 1-point PVP wonder I don’t think any of the others you mentioned are mandatory. Yes, it would be pro if we could get all of them but that’s not the point.

        Now if they added the effects you said in some other existing talent then the main effect of that talent would probably have to get reduced since it would make it go overbudget. And that would be a nerf for that talent.

      • Sag says:

        I think the thing that actually gets to me the most is the linking of resilient infection and virulence.

        I do agree that choices are a good thing, and I will do a lot of reading from several different sources to find the spec that works the best. I’m actually very interested in seeing how dispells work in Cat. If it’s a viable way to run a healer out of mana than believe me I’d find a way to make them dispell the diseases, even if I drop points in mastery for it or something.

        Everyone here knows some talents are better than others already. If they combined IIT and icy reach would anyone notice? Would that really make the talent any better? PvPers would be happier because icy reach was probably something they were looking at anyway. Overall though it’s still not a great talent. Even for 3 points.

        Aside from lichborne currently the way on a pale horse is written it still reduces movement impairing affects. This was supposed to go away. It’s still pretty nifty for pvp. As well as Endless Winter. Nothing like starting a fight mindfreezing an arcane mage casting arcane blast. Seriously did he not see the blue glowing DK riding into his face. So there is more to frost than just lichborne. Sadly I think that is going to lead to every frost or blood DK sub speccing unholy just for the diseases and unholy only subspeccing into frost for lichborne. This will not end up being a case of choices, because there will most likely not be a choice. Disease protection is pretty much a must against any healer the way DKs are built.

  19. WaffleDK says:

    I dumped my 4.5 year main during the Wrath beta in favor of the DK and I’ve been playing as Unholy since then. I’ve put a lot into this character and, although it’s sad to think about, if DKs go live as is I will probably switch to a new main. Saying nothing about the other two trees since I really don’t play them, the current form and playstyle of the unholy tree is simply not fun, and the fact that it’s favoring dual wield so strongly is just depressing. I don’t want to dual wield on my DK, but if the current state went live, I would feel I was doing my raid group a disservice by NOT doing it.

    That being said, there are a lot of things that they can change to fix the current issues. The question at this point is just whether they will. I’ll continue to hold out a small amount of hope up until release, but it’s slowly being beaten down by a lack of changes, some of what we have gotten seeming completely nonsensical, and a lack of actual feedback from the devs other than stop QQing or stating things that are completely not true in the current beta build.

    I want to say that people should feel that it’s always darkest before the light, but I’m not even sure I can make myself take that stance right now 😦

  20. Zaronic says:

    I agree that the numbers will be balanced. However, why play a class if the quality of life “fun” is less than playing another class. I also have a warrior and a paladin as tank options. I like to tank and plan to play a tank that is fun. At this point it looks like both the warrior and paladin will have smoother mechanics and a better flow to their play styles than the current DK mechanics. I feel neither the warrior nor paladin are as resource constained as the DK is. I really hope they do some more changes to our class in beta but I am reading all the recent GC posts to mean were nearly done and don’t expect much more. So I fear the DK will be left with awkward mechanics.

  21. Karesh says:

    Game Over!
    Well not for me 🙂 With the amount of time I have invested into my Death Knight toon I shall be staying with it in Cata, why do I always pick the class that gets screwed around 😦
    Also Consider hope stay with the DK as I need someone wise in the ways of theorycraft to tell me how to play and spec in Cata 🙂

  22. Theldonn says:

    Consider,

    I don’t like the tone of this last post. You give the impression that Death Knights are a lost cause because Blizzard isn’t going to update the class any more (for now). Perhaps they want more testing before making further changes. Most of the other classes are getting this same treatment so DKs are not the only ones getting this treatment.

    Reading most of the responses from the readers here are humorous at best. It looks like the comments are coming from the usual crowd from the WoW.com forums. Do most of the posters here have the beta? Or are they just overreacting to the recent comments by Consider.

    I hate to break it to many of the posters here, but DKs have always been a wack-a-mole class with the the Guitar Hero style rune system. It made the class different than the others.

    I forgot to mention that there has been no testing (level 85 ability) on Dark Similicrum(sp). I’m looking forward to see how that ability plays out.

    For those re-rolling, enjoy your new class. But you will be back.

    • Consider says:

      I’m not sure what my tone came across as, but it really wasn’t meant to be negative, per se, simply acceptance of the fact that yeah, we might not get all of our perceived issues fixed before the end of beta. It’s not the end of the world, or any such thing, and I certainly didn’t give the impression DKs are a lost cause – in the long run, no, although perhaps in the short run (i.e, until something else happens in beta). Like I said, a patch could change everything, and besides, we’re all but guaranteed at least one more pass through our talents, so perhaps that will lead to other matters being solved.

      The claim that perhaps they want more testing is a bit… silly. It’s been about three months with minimal change. What hasn’t been tested to death by the community!? What aspect of the class hasn’t been analyzed and theorycrafted and posted about, time and time again? I ask this honestly, because I will gladly jump right on it! I can understand that they might not have made up their mind as to what to do, possible. I can understand that they might have made internal changes we just haven’t been privy to yet. But whatever the answer may be, more testing of our current state likely won’t yield any sudden revelations which haven’t been had since the start of beta. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll do it anyways – partially because there’s nothing else to do and partially because it couldn’t hurt. But there really is little left to test on beta (which, by the way, many commenters here are in).

      DKs have not always been a whack-a-mole class, and if you honestly believe so, then you’re solely mistaken about how we currently function. Without going into much length here, when people say “whack a mole” or “Guitar Hero”, they mean there’s a certain type of RNG involved, and the current rune system doesn’t have that – our runes come up in a 100% predictable manner with, quite literally, no exceptions.

      Although it will be nice to finally be able to use Dark Simulacrum, there really isn’t a ton to test about it (aside from what raid abilities you can and cannot copy, but even that we won’t be able to do until the raids themselves are open). We know the cooldown. We know the cost. We know the duration of the debuff. So on. Dark Sim should be a cool spell, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be a game-changer for us, and there’s not really many questions about how it will function which can’t already be answered via data-mining or which won’t be answerable until we face specific encounters.

      Look, I’m very lenient with the moderation of comments. In fact, I approve literally every single one (unless Akimet labels it as spam or someone asked for it to be deleted). But please, be polite. If you think others are overreacting, that’s fine to say so, but do so with respect and with an actual reasoning aside from “lolol, you must be from WoW.com” or what have you. I expect the same from every one – the difference between your comment and others is that the others, even if they’re overreacting, don’t attack anyone, which is what particularly bothered me about your comment. In short “be nice”, whatever your view point is. Opposing perspectives are going to happen on each and every issue, and I personally welcome seeing back and forth discussion, but keep it cordial.

      For that matter, although you all are more than welcome to joke and such, no serious GC bashing. He didn’t kill our dads and run off with our moms. Keep it in perspective, and keep in mind that he’s simply a guy trying to do his job. Don’t get me wrong – question his posts, analyze them, joke around, and so on, but don’t outright attack him. I don’t think anyone’s really crossed any sort of line yet, so no worries, just saying.

      • Futhark says:

        How could you play Guitar Hero with random notes? I guess I don’t get the meme.

      • frozenblows says:

        Guitar hero or any music game generally will not use a repeating pattern outside of a chorus or baselines. So if you did not have that scrolling bar to see the notes and you only saw the buttons lite up it would appear random and you would just push whichever one first lights up.

        Thats the comparison as RE would cause you to push the rune as soon as it lights up in most cases without any other thought, and if you use a deathcoil/frost strike and it pops again you’ll use it again. Basically wasting the proc if not used where as another comparison Rime can be set on or ignored as its not always a dps increase to use.

      • Insolence says:

        Runic Empowerment Runes are still RNG 😛

    • Branith says:

      I will enjoy my new class, well actually my old class. The Warrior is in a much better position then the DK that it isnt even an argument and if any idication on how broken the class is wont change that. DK’s although not unplayable are vastly inferior to msot other classes when it comes to Blizzards new core game play philosophy. Hell go read the core tennents of the class writeups from the very first previews months ago, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to see they failed.

  23. Andeus says:

    Maybe the best thing for now would be to let it go. Like stop posting altogether on the forums, not out of spite, but because all that’s left to discuss will only lead to dead-ends, angst and forum-depression 😛

    Who knows it might give the devs some space to breathe and eventually come out on their own to offer a post with info. They might even notice the lack of QQ and get curious 😛

  24. Noin says:

    I like how when DKs do get a few minor posts from GC over the weekend–after embarrassing whining from the DK community–, suddenly the world really *is* ending.

    I also like how when GC says they don’t want DKs to be GCD-capped in Cataclysm, somehow that’s cause for ridicule. Hmm, you’d think that’d be a good thing to hear from the developers. I guess not. Maybe I missed something.

    I don’t mean to be curt or rude, but I’m not buying it, Consider. 😉 The tone of your posts has fluctuated very wildly over the past week or so. A few days ago you were saying everyone needs to calm down and that “one patch is all we need,” and you were criticizing the immense angst in the DK Beta topic. Now you seem to have joined in or acquiesced somewhat to that angst, posting with a heavy heart and saying “We’ll be fine. Just gotta deal. Oh well.”

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s your prerogative, but I’m just not convinced by the tone of your written voice and what you profess it to be. Perhaps I’m the one being presumptuous.

    Regardless, I’ve little to say about this collective sentiment. It may very well be correct; there might not be any changes from here to November or however long the Beta takes, but I really just don’t see how that’s possible given PVP and PVE balancing and the fact that we haven’t even seen the classes at the level cap yet. There’s an equal chance that we will get changes, if not more so, before the Beta. Not gigantic overhauls, but certainly enough to fix the majority of our issues. Why exactly are people so eager to jump ship and abandon the class? It seems so many are *looking* for a reason to leave.

    If the class is unplayable or unfixed at the end of Beta, have at it. In that light, you’d have every right to leave. Until Beta is finished, however, I see no legitimate reason to presume everything’s going down the drain and that nothing will change. At all. It’s entirely presumptuous and self-serving, simply Internet-sentiment at its “best.”

    I will believe the despair and doom and gloom when I see it. Until it is set in stone, I will wait and see without jumping to any conclusions.

    • Sag says:

      Well, there are reasons to be upset and a reason to be hopeful, which are reflected in Consider’s blogs. Upset because it seems that we, the community, are the only ones seeing any potential issues, and the Dev’s are not seeing them or ignoring them. It’s probably unrealistic to say they are not seeing them, more than likely they do see the issues, they are just not addressing them at this time. What he is correct about is that we are not so broken rotationwise that it won’t take more than a patch to fix and balance. It’s worth noting this is an MMO changes happen all of the time, in this case just hope that the changes happen fast.

    • Consider says:

      I have a place to be in fifteen minutes, and I’m already running late, but you seem to be skipping over the first seven or so words of this article! This whole thing is *assuming* that we won’t get one patch to fix it all, and nothing but some number and talent tweaks – and if that ends up being the case, then my reaction would indeed be regretful acceptance (“We’ll be fine. Just gotta deal. Oh well.” would sum me up quite well, in that scenario, actually!). But it’s just a hypothetical assumption, nothing more.

      I do still believe that most of our issues will be fixed, and I stand by everything I’ve been saying the rest of the week. There isn’t any cause for all the doom and gloom in my book, although others are open to their own opinion. This post is just a “what if things are done”, not me actually believing that they are. I still have confidence in Blizzard, GC’s verbal/logical follies included!

      But, yeah, there’s no turn about or what have you of my sentiments, and I apologize for any confusion to the contrary.

      • Vuvuzela says:

        Consider with all due respect to your work and your experience,i really want to ask you this.Where in the world you find that optimism that things “will” be fixed?I understand its a game and all and schould not get worked up but damn i am pulling hairs till next patch that will introduce new content and perharps lvl 85 so maybe then blizzard can evaluate for real how “incomplete” we are,but i sure as hell dont trust them at all
        /vent off

      • Andeus says:

        Vuvuzela, I’ve tried to answer that in a previous comment when someone said the same about me. I don’t know how long you’ve been into pc gaming but its Blizzard we are talking about here.

        They have never ever released something until they believe it’s in release state, they have never ever left intentionally anything broken to go live. The only thing that has happened in the past in WoW is for class changes to go live that proved to be wrong by the “mass testing” of 11 million players. And these problems are not like that.

        To think that they, the guys who release stuff “when its done”, won’t even take a look at the class till the end of the beta is ignorant.

        I know the tone in this post seems a bit erm..off but no offense or anything eh. I’m pretty calm 😛

      • Andeus,

        That’s actually incorrect. Blizzard released WOTLK with a broken Survival tree. It was obvious it wasn’t finished and they didn’t finish until some time after. During WOTLK beta, they were working on a new ability called, Bear Trap, that they scrapped because they decided that functionality should be added instead to Freeze trap. When it didn’t work, they remarked that they’d fix it in a patch. Does Freezing Trap function like Bear Trap was supposed to, even today?

        No.

        Blizzard USED to not release things until they were done, but that’s no longer true. Those are just two examples off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more.

      • Andeus says:

        HisDivineOrder

        Nope, its you who is actually incorrect. I’m not aware of Survival’s condition on WotLK release, but I’ll take your word for it. Still the explanation remains the same:

        Class≠Spec

        The game never stops to change, that’s how MMO design works. In WotLK since everything was pretty much playable they decided to release it and go on from there. Now if what you say is true then Hunters had only 2 viable specs out of 3, but both of them were viable.
        What we have here is a different situation, this is a Class problem and Blizzard has never released a Class having so many problems that plague all of it’s specs (early vanilla warlock comes to mind but even then both Drakedog destro and SM/Ruin were viable so not even that).

        In retrospect I think they made the right choice. Hunters had viable specs and stalling a game just for 1 spec out of 30 is not really a good idea. Here its a Class and it’s core mechanics we are talking about.

      • Sag says:

        HisDivineOrder,

        It’s possible the bear trap idea was scrapped for numerous reasons. One being that having a trap like that for hunters who also have several other traps may have been considered OP. Blizz took out Heroic Leap last expansion, and are still working on spirit link for shaman. I know that Heroic Leap allowed for exploits that blizz couldn’t fix at the time, and I believe spirit link they were working on both coding and a way to use it without griefing other raiders (and you know there was some hunter who was misdirecting to other DPSers).

        I believe that there has been at least one ability that the Devs have tabled for this expansion already from the ideas they released many months ago. I don’t think you can really hold that against them. It’s not like bear trap went live was deemed to be OP and removed from the game (that only happens to DKs :p). Even in the case of DKs I don’t think any base abilities got removed, just talents.

    • Aram says:

      We question what GC says because he doesn’t say much when it comes to DKs. Since April, they haven’t said much about the class at all. When he does post something about DKs, we are going to analyze every word simply because we are not the Paladins of this expansion. We aren’t getting post after post with feedback and discussion. A post about how were not supposed to be GCD locked come Catacylsm, is going to get extra scrutiny when we compare what that one line says to what actually is happening in game and the theorycraft about end-game PvE rotations. It is not matching up.

      I also noticed you mentioned that we should be patient because “this is beta.” That is exactly why we should speak up now. There is no guarantee that they will fix us in 4.0.8 or 4.1. They might have other stuff on their plate that they might deem more important. Its important for us to make our points now instead of just waiting for Blizzard to fix the problem. If you want to count on Blizzard figuring it out on their own, I have bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

      And finally, were not asking for a Holy Power style overhaul. They made a change to our resource system, which is causing a lot of the issues imo. For some builds, it has done nothing to fix the GCD lock. For other builds that might have a few free global cooldowns, it won’t matter in the end. Once we get enough haste, those builds will be back to GCD lock rendering said resource changes irrelevant.

      • Insolence says:

        What about Tanks? Tanks get no haste and we have Free GCDs which is bad for Tanks because Rune Strike needs Avoidance to proc, so for us its either fill GCDs or stack up Vengeance when it comes to gemming, because haste is not an option. The new System does not work for Tanks, not even with Runic Empowerment which is way too RNG. Runes are not even around often enough to uphold Cooldown Costs, Tanks really, really need change, no matter what they had in mind for DPS or not.

      • Aram says:

        @Insolence

        I don’t disagree that Blood need serious resource changes. Tanks need to be able to access resources on the fly which Blood can’t do in the current beta build.

        But one concern is that how do you give Blood more buttons to press without making the issue worse for the other 2 specs.

        I think they could do it by moving Dirge to Blood and making the appropriate changes e.g. affecting Heart Strike etc.

        One idea that I like is making Empower Rune Weapon affect resource generation instead of a straight rune reset. E.g. You regenerate your runes faster for 15 seconds. (With proper changes, this would be appealing to DPS spec)

        There are more but I don’t get paid to think of these ideas!

      • Insolence says:

        Well we have SoB, they could change that. Easiest change would be to make Rune Strike free of cost I think, lets us fill all non Rune GCDs with Rune Strikes, even if it deals less damage, and even remove/revamp Runic Empowerment, way too RNG for my taste.

      • Seamus says:

        @Insolence Many DK’s are tanking just fine in the beta, some are calling the best tank in the game at the moment and they’re are playing all the tanks in the beta. Here is a 3 part series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgQn3cB6HUw

        In part 3 I ask how he feels about tanking and you have to read his answer. I’ve heard the same from a couple other DK tanks I TRUST.

        Many people are making suppositions without data. Its obvious pacing usage of Runes is going to be important, we’re not going to be spamming abilities. ERW and BT should provide for any emergencies, if you need more then one BT a minute you’ve got bigger problems.

        In light of GC’s initial posts to Consider’s new thread I think we all need to sit back and think in new ways. Bottom line is, haste is a goofy replacement stat and not to be used unless you want to gimp yourself.

        Now, will this new play style turn off to some folks? Sure and I’m going to reserve judgement, (lol the spell check wants to use judgment), until I get to play. Keep in mind Paladins are facing a similar situation, they are going to want to build up HP and not necessarily spam abilities.

      • Insolence says:

        Threat matters more than ever in Cataclysm with Threat Reduction gone, Tricks and Misdirect providing only temporary Threat and Icy Slam trashed. Tanks don’t have free GCDs, that’s just not right. I’m in Beta, I played a Warrior in every Beta from Vanilla until WotLK went launch, this setup will not work out for Tanking. Not effectively anyway. We have so many Cooldowns to chain to Blood Tap and there’s only 1 BT. Its not good, its insecure, and very unstable. Tanks should be able to hit a Cooldown pretty easily when we need one, every other class has theirs free/next to free, we have to pay 1/6th of our Main Resource System if it can even be called as such to use one, not to mention we have to pray that the rune we need is there, which we can’t keep there for when its necessary since thats Threat gimping. Having free GCDs just isnt our thing. Its not right. DPS shouldn’t be GCD Capped, Tanks should always be able to hit a button and expect it to do some decent Threat, having to fill GCDs with Death Coils depending on how much RNG RS gives you is bad design. Not to mention threat gimping.

        Rune Strike’s design is counter productive to Vengeance, it’ll make Tanks think twice about gemming hybrid Avoidance Gems. RS or Vengeance topics will start. Not good.

      • Aram says:

        @Insolence

        Don’t forget that decaying threat mechanic that they’re adding.

        Also I think Blood Tap is going to change. GC has posted in the past that macroing Blood Tap + Cooldown is a bad mechanic that they don’t like. So they could do something with that.

      • Insolence says:

        I thought Threat Decay was still just an idea, didn’t know it got implemented, if it already did/is going to be though yes, another reason not to have free GCDs/have to waste them on shitty attacks like DC.

  25. Bifrons says:

    Shamefully, I’m not in the beta, but from everything I’ve read (here, the beta forums), if we go live as is, I have the feeling that we might switch over to frost, not because it’s less problematic, but I feel that the spec has a bit more “fun” to it (YMMV, but the procs at least keep us engaged) and we pick up a little bit more utility (free mind freezes, hungering cold, Improved Icy Talons). At least the Chillblains + Hungering Cold make for an interesting combination (not sure if it’s actually useful, though – does Chillblains start to tick after HC or during HC?). At lvl 83, with a spread like 8/31/0 we have at least a couple of points left over to choose from (assuming that our runic generation is so overflowing that there’s no need for Chill of the Grave).

    Of course, not that any of that solves the GCD lock issue we have (and definitely, Icy Reach and Improved Icy Touch are boring as ever), but at least we can do our job (even if it does feel weird) and bring some additional CC utility to boot.

    It’s totally useless to say, at least right now, one spec is better than another (we may get that surprise patch change that revolutionizes us), but, at least where I sit, we have a bit more of choice with frost. Sure, I’ll miss my ghoul as a pet and the pretty gargoyle DoT, but, echoing Consider, we aren’t completely broken. I’ll still sit tight and have some hope, and keep practicing my piano play style (even if RE does some funky stuff to our “chords”)

  26. Insolence says:

    To all who are happy with the current state of the class, this is how much attention DKs have received;

    Live:
    Stoneskin Gargoyle provides 25 Defense 2% Stamina.

    Beta:
    Stoneskin Gargoyle provides 25 Defense 2% Stamina.

    Stoneskin Gargoyle does NOT provide 2% Stamina 1% Dodge 1% Parry.

    Nuff said.

  27. frostfright says:

    HE POSTED HE POSTED HE POSTED

    “There are a lot of questions in this thread, and I can’t answer them all, but I can hit a few.

    Is 2H Frost viability still intended? — yes.
    Is DW Unholy viability intended? — no.

    Pestilence has been nerfed too much — Pestilence was always intended as a convenient way to spread diseases in anticipation for things like Blood Boil. It was not ever supposed to be the way DKs AE, and in fact that is the job of abilities like Blood Boil. If there was a way to make Pestilence cause no damage, we’d probably do it.

    There are too many passive damage talents — yes, we’d agree with that. It’s still something we’re working on. There will still be a few, especially high in the trees, but DKs are also slightly exempt (if such a thing exists) from our making sure that early talents are easy to understand for level 10 players.

    DKs being GCD locked — this is not something we see for DKs above level 80. We do see it for DKs who are converted at level 80 in Icecrown gear to the Cataclysm rules, for one simple reason — a lot of your stats got converted to haste and you have no mastery. The equivalent would be a level 85 DK who decides to eschew all mastery on gear and stack haste to a ridiculous degree. Sure it might GCD lock you, but it’s such a dps loss, why would you ever do that? This is actually a problem with many specs and skews feedback quite a bit. Be very careful in your feedback to distinguish between whether the character you are testing is wearing Lich King gear or Cataclysm gear. If we had to do it all again, maybe we would have converted some existing gear to mastery, just to avoid the situation we’re in now where players are missing one of the big secondary stats. ”

    YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS They acknowledged the Pestilence thing! SO HAPPY

    • Insolence says:

      Got link plox?

      • Insolence says:

        Cheers 😀

      • Decrypted says:

        I really wish I could reply in that thread, but I canceled my WoW account and am probably gonna wait until Cataclysm. Things I would like to see mentioned in that thread:

        – Why was Corpse Explosion removed? This was a near-perfect talent: high in fun factor and situational utility. Exactly the type of talent that would cause players to make a decision and one that was clearly not mandatory. I can’t imagine they removed it because they thought it was overpowered, given that everything in Cata is still subject to a numbers pass.

        – The superiority of a Runic Empowerment which works similarly to the one Branith describes in that thread to the current implementation. I was imagining a RE which would make all single-rune abilities cost no runes (and maybe generate no Runic Power if necessary). You could argue that if they changed the current RE implementation to refresh a random depleted rune as a Death Rune it would be equivalent to this new idea, but it should be fairly easy to see that that’s not the case. The only scenario where it would be equivalent would be one in which the random refreshed rune could be spent BEFORE it would otherwise have begun recharging, and it should be clear that in certain situations (especially in PvP, but probably also in PvE) the optimal usage of runes could force you to use other runes first. I hope this made sense.

      • poiso says:

        It is official: good feedback is useless, whining gets results. Just read between the lines:

        [quote]P.S. I will continue to delete posts in this thread that are on how you feel ignored and not about DK mechanics specifically. Sorry to sound like a jerk, but I don’t have the time to play forum police in a nice way. [/quote]

      • Sag says:

        Creating posts just so the CMs can delete them is not a great way to go about things. What Consider did is. I realize not everyone is in beta (I am not either), but instead of whining most posts like his would probably help more. Also don’t feed the trolls that pop up, and foster good communication. One would hope that there is little trolling in beta posts, but that isn’t always the case. All of this should be easier in the next beta patch with add-ons will be allowed. I’m sure that many will do this, and hopefully changes will get made. Yes I am taking my stay positive pills.

    • Pugnus says:

      Yeah, it was good to see GC chime in … and a few comments give me reason to be optimistic. Thanks for the well done post Consider!

    • Aram says:

      I’m not sure about this GCD lock explanation.

      If you think about our rotation in terms of runes and how many gcds we actually use then the problem is pretty simple. Before we can spend more runes, with 0 haste, you get 4-5 GCDs (depends on how you spent your Runes) before your runes reset. They want us to fit in Procs (IE Rime or RE) and RP Dumps in that time. But they should know that we aren’t starting with 0 haste. They want us to be semi-geared before raiding this time. Once we get enough haste to reduce that from 4-5 globals to 3-4, which might be easier than he thinks given we can get 10-15% for free, then we have what we have today on live: Too many resources, not enough globals to spend them.

      There is at least one way for them to make the GCD thing a non-issue forever but I don’t many people will like it.

    • Roth says:

      I dont think hes ‘acknowledging’ the Pestilence thing. I think he was posing and then answering the question about Pestilence. To better show you what I mean:

      Statement – Pestilence has been nerfed too much.
      Answer – Pestilence was always intended as a convenient way to spread diseases in anticipation for things like Blood Boil. It was not ever supposed to be the way DKs AE, and in fact that is the job of abilities like Blood Boil. If there was a way to make Pestilence cause no damage, we’d probably do it.

      Essentially, hes saying the 50% Pestilence reduction is intended.

    • He said his remark about Pestilence was from him typing too fast. They do not want Pestilence to work as an AOE at all. I wonder how he expects an Unholy DK to do AOE then. Frost has access to everything Unholy has (Morbidity, D&D, Pestilence, BB), not having enhanced Blood Plague and Ebon Plague. Meanwhile, they also have Howling Blast, Hungering Cold (though its usefulness is mediocre), and frost-damage enhanced Frost Fever. Mind you, currently mastery gives Frost as much of an improvement in damage as disease damage gets for Unholy. That means Unholy’s Frost Fever is enhanced as much as Frost’s. So Frost gets access to nearly every AOE improvement Unholy has. This leads to Frost destroying Unholy in AOE. The nerf to Pestilence not even being enough to satisfy GC who’d rather Pestilenced diseases do no damage at all, its very unlikely anything will be done to remedy this.

      It would seem Unholy’s just not meant to AOE very well at all. What a turnabout for the spec that used to be the defacto leader at it.

      Yeah, I was excited that he was reconsidering the Pestilence change, then I read a bit more and in a later post, he confirmed. Pestilence is the way they want it and that change ain’t going anywhere.

  28. Rebellion says:

    Umm, the last part just shows how much he does not get the issue again, while I’m at least happy that they still do not intent gcd lock and dualwield unholy, I have to point out that easy calculations already prove frost and unholy to be gcd locked w/o even factoring in gear in any way (1 gcd every 20-30 seconds is still pretty much gcd locked). Well maybe he talks about an internal build where they nurfed SD proccs, RE and the infernal RP increase.

    And he did not adress the worst of all … RE

    Still, at least we now know they finally acknowleged our concerns.

    • Scuzoid says:

      No he didn’t…. all he said was “DK’s will be fine at 85. We’ll probably get rid of necrosis. The end.”

    • Scuzoid says:

      The Ret paladin thread is far more telling than the DK thread. For instance. RE is the perfect addition to DK’s in the developer’s opinions. Expect no changes from it. They love that RNG no matter how much their player base doesn’t.

      And of course, still absolutely nothing on just how horrible blood is going to be and how awkward every change to blood tanking is in respect to live vs beta.

      • poiso says:

        The sad reality is, that RE is dysfunctional on more then just PvE level. It’s going to be an utter nightmare for THEM as developers in PvP. Just think of it – if a DK gets a streak of RE procs with right runes, the target will literally implode from pressure that will come from spammed SS.

        People will never remember the 99% of the time it didn’t happen during the match, and will always cry, bitch and moan about the one time it did happen. And they’ll be right, it’s never fun to be killed by pure RNG, when you outplayed the other guy, but he got his awesome streak and facerolled you.

        We’ll be just as hated as early wotlk rets and their retarded “kill inside hammer stun if crits happen” gameplay.

    • He acknowledged that there are still concerns, but did you see anything about RE in there? Did you see him acknowlededge the GCD lock except to discount it? His argument is, “People who don’t have Cata gear are prone to have that problem, but if you’re 83 and you got some mastery that’s no longer a problem.” Basically, I translate that as L2P. Perhaps that’s kneejerk. Remember, earlier this weekend he told dk’s that they complain about neglect too much (even though he cherrypicked one post out of a lot that were on point to use to do that). That sounded somewhat like (and confirmed today in one of his other posts), “DK QQ.” Then dk’s were already pretty close to great before they redid the trees. You know, because they worked on DK’s two years ago. (Which sounds suspiciously a lot like, “DK’s are fine.”)

      For all the talk about how dk’s need to focus on what’s wrong and mechanics and gameplay, he sure does seem to be hitting all the archetypes of a troll. He’s not as aggressive and I’ll give him that, but even in a thread about Q&A, a thread that politely asks for just more info on their intentions, he won’t do that. Not even in general, broad terms. He hit a couple of points, ignoring the most severe, and spent MOST of his time complaining about all the QQ’ing. Perhaps if he had not wasted his time deleting threads and posting diatribes on how he hates QQ, he might have found the time to type up some answers to the very specific issues brought up by Consider.

      Instead, he went the other way. You really have to question his sincerity when all he does is complain about the way in which dk’s present their point and only after a LOT of struggle addresses even a couple of points. Meanwhile, druids, pallies, and warriors are routinely getting Q&A threads answered every day. Pallies had their resource system changed. Warriors had rage normalized. DK’s had their runes redone, their tanking talents rearranged, their AOE torn up via a Pestilence nerf (that he now says was never intended to be a main source of AOE despite the obviousness of Wandering Plague serving to absolutely make disease damage an intended AOE), and their rotations completely altered. This is easily enough to warrant at least as much effort in reconciling these changes to the class as warriors and pallies get, yet he’s very adamant that the class is done.

      This is a disparity that doesn’t make sense to me.

      • Andeus says:

        Mate, take a breath and relax 😛

        Stop misinterpreting what he says just to vent. It’s not a L2P issue, what he said is that from what he sees with Cata gear (which we don’t have available) things look better. Especially since right now we have a placeholder stat conversion. There is nothing wrong with that. Yes, he might end up a bit wrong, but that’s a number knob which they haven’t started turning yet.

        I think it’s a fair assumption. We’ll see.

  29. Roth says:

    Well, its a certifiable answer that Blizzard isnt done with us yet. It doesnt mean we will necessarily like the cahnges, but were not done yet. Thats nice to see at least.

  30. Fahar says:

    Request:

    It seems like we, DKs, are not getting any changes for now. So I would like to ask you Consider to, recommend or post yourself info on other classes, if possible, of course. At this point I’m starting to shop for a new main. I currently have 5 80s, Uh DK, Hl Pally, As Rogue, Surv Hunter and Frl Druid), but I’m willing to level a new toon for cata if need be. Reliable info on the other classes would be greatly appreciated and I cant think of anyone better for the task than you.

  31. Anaroth says:

    He also answered my question in the ret thread about being GCD locked.

    I don’t want to turn this into a DK thread, but this point is relevant to other classes as well.

    The DK GCD lock you are describing does not happen to level 83-85 characters as far as we can tell. It does happen to players who copy over their level 80 characters and find themselves with very large amounts of haste as a result of the stat conversion. Think about it. Your character (through no actual decision you made) has only haste and crit instead of haste, crit and mastery as you will when you’re higher level. Similar mechanics affect other specs. Feral druids at level 80 have insane crit levels because all of that armor pen became crit.

    If you’re in greens in Deepholm at 83 and can’t spend your GCDs fast enough (for any class), please let us know.

    While I’ll respond in general terms in that thread, if people could post theoretical calculation and beta testing observations in consider’s thread I’d appreciate it.

    • Insolence says:

      @Anaroth; Replied as far as Tanking on Pwnwear, for DPS Consider has some older blogs (@Level 83) that speaks of GCD Capping I think, just need to search backwards a bit.

    • Ashe says:

      I already took my premade DK who has replaced all his i251 gear with Deepholm quest greens (so lots of mastery, normal amount of haste), and beat on a lvl 80 dummy (not enough hit/exp for boss dummy) with all of the available playstyles and left my comments on the amount of free GCDs. I posted it in the thread on page 5 (post #80). 2h frost=no GCDs, 2h Unholy in UP=no GCDs, 2h unholy in FP=a few GCDs, DW frost=a reasonable amount of GCDs.
      I don’t think the blues will care that much until testing is done at 85 in a raid atmosphere wearing heroic dungeon blues.

      • Scuzoid says:

        Needs a “TLDR” post further on in the thread imo. There are a number of people beyond your post that completely missed it and just took the “It’s the ICC gear’s fault” as gospel.

      • Anaroth says:

        Cheers.

        I agree that the real issue is what the raid experience is like.
        I just replied on the general issue in the paladin thread.

        For unholy right now, I’m not sure what to theorycraft, I presume they want us to use basically the Festering Strike SS / SSx3 rotation in UP with a 2Her, but I have severe doubts about the practicality of that build, especially if they free up more GCDs :P.

      • Aram says:

        They want 5 man level 85 instances and 5 man heroics to be serious content, as in they are required to gear for raids, so I imagine any data you give them on rotation or GCD lock is useful when you’re in full Cata gear regardless of how it was acquired.

  32. Rebellion says:

    Could someone just point out in the DK thread that their awsome new feature, namely RE, directly contradicts their design goal that they previously stated ? As the procs are impossible to guess in any way and the warning is at best a gcd before you have to react to these procs, it makes you stare at the ui even more. Not to mention that it suggests BS,IT,PS spamm..

    In a not qq-y manner if possible :).

  33. Roth says:

    The GCD problem will present itself soon enough. Its not something they can really deny for much longer. Although maybe theyre working with a different internal build than we are.

    • Anaroth says:

      It’s more insidious than that though.
      With our present mechanics the GCD issue is pretty much unable to be adequately balanced. For a given haste value and spec you might be able to get a nice “normal” rotation where you have a few free gcds. However add in bloodlust and suddenly you’re back to being gcd capped for 40 seconds at a time. Basically DK dps has no way of handling dynamic haste and the excess resources it generates.

      • Roth says:

        Im sure with adjustments to Unholy Presence/ImpUP, Sudden Doom and possibly even RE…our GCD problems would go away. Just remains to be seen what they do with out talents.

  34. Raxx says:

    Yeah I have masses of haste on my copied DK, all of 8.74%, I think we can safely say that is a huge number, no where near what I expect at level 85 in full tier 11 decked out with gems.

    Oh wait, doesnt haste reduce my GCD’s as well?

    /facepalm

    • Anaroth says:

      Actually at most gear levels the haste you get on gear pretty much pales with the haste buffs. On live haste is a good stat for single target unholy, but that’s only because of the 20% buffs from IIT and WF.

      AFAIK general haste does in fact reduce some of your GCDs, specifically your spell gcds, so things might not be quite as bad as I suggest.

      • Aram says:

        Haste will eat up your free GCDs first. Then it will start eating up your filler e.g procs. Although I doubt that we’ll ever just be using rune based abilities, its possible that by the time we hit ilvl 450 (Normal Mode of Deathwing’s Raid) level gear, we might be ignoring all filler all together.

        I think my ilvl calculation is off. But you should get my drift!

      • Sag says:

        Also GC says that people will take mastery over haste. Obviously this is a numbers balance, but take frosts mastery of 20% more frost damage. This affects HB, IT, FF, and FS. It doesn’t affect OB, BS, PS or blood plague. Haste will affect all of them though. Either by runes refreshing faster, faster disease ticks, and just faster melee swings and KM procs. So the question ends up being how well does mastery scale, and at what point does stacking haste (even to an extreme) become more beneficial? I’m willing to bet that it happens sometime after the first raid, but it probably happens somewhere.

  35. Vuvuzela says:

    I just checked mmo-champion’s new ” ninja beta build” despite them saying that its not in the beta yet and things could change drastically.I kept refreshing and refreshing till this life changing change appeared:
    * Blood Boil now deals [ 8% of AP + 297 ] damage, up from [ 6% of AP + 223 ].
    I feel like I’ve been trolled by Blizzard

    • Insolence says:

      I just see it as an insult.

    • Rebellion says:

      No it makes perfect sense. They want BB to be our main AE dmg source. While a +33% scaling (like most other classes recieved as well) is better than nothing, they just have to increase it futher to make it acutally woth it. BB never worked as the main souce of aoe dmg so far, and thats because 3-5k dmg crits at best are nothing compared to the 10-12k crits a seed of corruption does (while spammable, at ranged, with corruption beeing applied now through soulburn). If they want to make up for the huge amout of dmg we lost by pestilence they have to increase BB alot more.

      • Rebellion says:

        That these are the only changes of course shows that the problems just reached them and they haven#t come up with a solution yet.

      • Sag says:

        The issue I see with the corruption is that if a warlock is going to AoE with Seed he is usually going to cast seed on multiple targets, which he can’t actually do with Soulburn: Seed of Corruption, because only one corruption affect is allowed to be on the target at a time. Though it’s been a while since I was casting seed on my warlock, so maybe I am wrong and people just focus one target with seed these days.

      • Rebellion says:

        Thats not an issue at all. I played a warlock for over 4 years as my main, with melees focusing at least one target – not even mentioning other AEs – there is always enought dmg in a raid that lets you proc your SoC almost instantly on the target. Especially with DKs and their dieases on all enemies this became even less of an issue.

      • Sag says:

        Lots of people have complained at how poor AoE is in Beta, so it’s not like this is a DK only issue. I haven’t seen numbers, but I’ve read that AoEing things is worthless and just burning things down single targetting is much better. Actually that is kind of awesome for my ranged dps:
        /target assist and 5,4,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 = win?

      • Sag says:

        Yeah I really miss BC Seed everything in sight and if the counter didn’t set off Seed a little rain of fire did the trick and there were cascading seed explosions. So awesome. Too bad that is gone 😦

      • poiso says:

        It makes no sense at all, because to compensate for massive AoE nerfs our class took over 3 months ago on beta + rune system change, BB needs to be buffed to heavens and then some.

        They slightly adjusted it upwards. It’s a classic example of trolling, which is to pretend to understand the issue, and insult with the actual delivery.

      • Sag says:

        Blizz has a history of massively buffing the hell out of things and then nerfing them (sometimes into oblivion). In a few cases they have done several minor buffs to “bring things in line”. Personally I think that has worked out better for them. It’s possible that is what they are trying to do, it also avoids making everyone feel like they are getting nerfed. At least it is baby steps.

      • Andeus says:

        @Sag, But they said on this beta they’d prefer to keep you underpowered and then buff you since it will make it look cooler for the player to see his class getting buffed, while Blizz will be getting the same balance as if it was the other way around. Only with less forum QQ.

        Also, on the change:

        I don’t understand why you all get riled up so easily over a change that happened like >1 week ago (maybe 2 weeks since we didn’t get a beta build last week).

        We know that they focus to around 3 classes at a time and from the last couple of week’s Blue posts we know that they are working on Priests, Druids, Hunters (Paladins don’t count..due to their major overhaul they are working on them regardless of everyone else). Warlocks, Warriors, Mages got their love couple of weeks back so now all we see in their changes are Blizz fine-tuning since theres obviously more feedback now on said changes.

        They haven’t started talking on us regarding the numbers etc. Isn’t it then normal that we don’t have any changes yet? Yes, someone went in and increased BB damage, but that’s probably just to make it in line with their vision of AOE. They said that the numbers are just placeholders but they still have to be realistic in what data they yield when used.

      • Insolence says:

        We got a major overhaul some crappy tuning and Crabby was calling us done. Druids got Lunar/Solar Eclipse thingy they aren’t the center of the universe though. Every Class got changes, again, and they were all more than 1 line tiny buffs. DKs yet again got a 1 liner.

      • Andeus says:

        And mechanics wise, yes we are probably done. Even Consider has made blogposts here on how everything can be fixed by turning number knobs. We are not there yet, and the class isn’t even on Designer meeting discussions yet.

        Apart from the 3 classes I mentioned above that we know (not assume, know) they are working on, the rest got changes either to spell ranges or costs. And most of them are mostly on the aftermath of their class revisions 2 weeks back (Warrior, Mage, Warlock).

        Since they are not focusing on us right now why do you expect to see something more? You would like to see as many changes as the Rogues got? Fine

        Blood Strike now does 12,5% additional damage for each disease on the target.
        blabla.

        But the question is would we be happier that way? No, we would still be angry. You want more changes? Stop having high expectations now and wait for when they get around DKs on their meetings.

        Be patient, there’s still enough time for them to fix everything and still enough time for you to panic if you feel like it.

      • Andeus,

        More of your optimism. Your argument presupposes that they’ve not begun work on us. This post by Consider is about the increasingly likely possibility that they are 99% done. You can’t argue, “They’ve not gotten to us” in the, “It’s very possible they’re done,” post unless you’re arguing he’s wrong to consider it. Yet you’re not.

        You can’t have it both ways. Either you argue that they’re close to done and just a few knobs need to be turned; or you can argue that they haven’t gotten to us. Logically, one of these is in contradiction to the other because, if not, then why would you be saying, “Since they aren’t focusing on us yet.” The idea only a few knobs need to be turned assumes they ARE done.

        If they’re done, then they already focused on us, found DK’s done (evidenced by GC saying DK’s were done because their trees were the newest), tweaked some things (evidenced by GC saying few changes were needed and that GCD was not a problem in their tests, having removed the problem abilities they found annoying (pestilence), redid D&D, SS, added FeStr, Outbreak), and now they don’t know why dk’s are complaining (evidenced by his post from weeks ago asking if dk’s thing they need something, they need to list it (because dk’s have been given a lot to test in the meantime), stop qq’ing (“Neglect is such a bad word,” “DK’s hijacked the other thread,” etc.).

        Personally, based on the tone of GC’s latests posts to DK’s, I suspect he’d already checked DK’s as done in a Word docx recently and the uptick in complaints has him baffled.

      • Ashe says:

        I was hoping this week’s patch which opened Uldum and TwH would also have the DK fixes to make leveling better. Oh well. I’m still confident we will get some fixing eventually.

      • Consider says:

        This isn’t this week’s patch.

      • Aram says:

        You have no idea what they have or haven’t discussed.

        You want to know why other classes are getting more work than us? Here is a basic list.

        They have to worry about new players picking the wrong specialization at level 10.

        They have to make sure early talents are understandable and aren’t too “mathy.”

        They’re refining the leveling experience for every class by making sure skills are acquired at the right level.

        This just the tip of the iceberg. They are spending so much time on this because 70% of new players don’t make it past level 10.

        All of these changes don’t apply to us. So yes, our to do list is a lot smaller but that doesn’t make it any less important for us to speak out and make them aware of our concerns and issues.

      • Andeus says:

        @Aram

        Yes we do (not just me, all of us). They are saying it themselves. Read the latest Druid threads for example he said himself that they were “discussing X and Y in their latest meetings”, go read Kalgan’s Mage post and his mini-update on what they were working on, go read the Warrior threads on their meeting discussions for rage, etc etc. When they are working on something you can tell because they say it themselves.

        @HisDivineOrder

        By the way I think I made a reply on one of your comments on higher up on this pillar of comments 😛

        Let me clarify a bit cause maybe I wasn’t clear enough and got you confused. GC himself has stated that there are essentially 2 phases in the beta: First one is the mechanics pass and Second is the numbers pass.

        As I said in my previous post we are done mechanics-wise, thats what GC probably stated and that’s what Consider said in his “99% done” post. I’m not contradicting anything, it’s just that you got confused between the 2 phases (maybe my wording was a bit wrong there, dunno).
        What I’m saying is that everything about us could be fixed with number knobs. Consider and several other Beta posters have said that the new systems have great potential if tuned right. That tuning is all about numbers, from stat scaling and internal cooldowns to costs and whatnot. It’s not a couple of nobs, more like a couple of dozen to be honest, but still we could function just fine with no mechanics alterations.
        Since some classes are still on the 1st phase where they need mechanics fixed, it’s only logical that our time hasn’t come yet. And since we are not being discussed in the meeting panels how can you expect anything more than one liner changes?

        That’s why I don’t have high expectations for now. They can fix everything up in just one patch with loads of number tuning and there is still time for that.

      • Sag says:

        After some talking at home it’s become apparent that I sympathize with GC’s job. He may indeed have checked DKs off of his list of classes that are finished, he probably thinks he (and his group) did a great job, and in restrospect considering all that they are tackling I think they are doing/have done a pretty good job. Now he is being told by a class that his group failed horribly. It’s a tough pill to swallow, esp when he knows (and hopefully those in beta agree) that his group has done a lot of good.

        There could be several problems that are happening.
        1.) Consider has already suggested that they are seeing something in a different beta build that we are not seeing.
        2.) It’s possible that blizz does not see getting only 1 rune back as a bad thing. We are in a Wrath mindset which is that if a rune appears use the ability. Waiting for the other UH rune, or frost rune to refresh isn’t an option. If we have 1 UH up and 0 frost we messed up our rotation badly. I don’t really see how sitting and waiting for the paired rune is not a DPS loss, but maybe that isn’t something they are seeing.
        3.) Haste is actually has horrible scaling. A noted problem currently is the way that haste scales, esp in pvp. I’m sure even a blue posted that 1 second polymorphs were never intended. Currently for casters haste has a value of greater than 1 SP, so that 1 haste > 1 SP=> stack haste until haste capped. If that is changed so that 1 haste stack SP. For us as Melee if 1 Haste Stack Str. This is assuming that mastery is as great as billed. One assumes that mastery trumps everything (except maybe hit). Abilities are made to scale with haste, but haste’s actual value is low.
        4.) I do call BS on not being GCD locked, but changed runic empowerment proc rates and prove beyond a doubt that actually waiting on the rune refresh is worth it as opposed to using runes right away. How could that be done? Well, the largest concern is two rune strikes. So buff those so that someone isn’t going to want to use IT or PS just because a frost or unholy rune refreshed early. Basically OB, FsS and DS really, really, really have to be worth it, while IT, and PS, and maybe even BS have to be crap relative to them. That seems to make talents like Imp IT even worse because it would be counter to design. On that note IIT already sucks so…

      • Sag says:

        wow I really messed up a line there in my last post for 3.). Instead of: Currently for casters haste has a value of greater than 1 SP, so that 1 haste > 1 SP=> stack haste until haste capped. If that is changed so that 1 haste stack SP. For us as Melee if 1 Haste Stack Str.

        This should say: Currently for casters haste has a value of greater than 1 SP, so that 1 haste > 1 SP=> stack haste until capped. If that is changed so that 1 haste stack SP. For Melee this could be if 1 haste < 1 Str (maybe even 1 AP) stack Str.

        Basically I am saying that our stat priority for gemming could end up being:
        hit
        mastery
        Str
        haste/crit

        and make haste values more like crit. So instead of 26 haste rating = 1% haste make it 45 haste rating = 1% haste. That pushes haste very far down on our list, but still allows for haste scaling.

      • Aram says:

        Just because they mention one thing. doesn’t mean we know their whole meeting schedule.

        Ghostcrawler is involved in dozens of meetings each week. We have no idea what class they discuss, what spell they discuss or what talent they discuss. Its also possible that they didn’t discuss any of these things.

        And yes, they have had some discussions about us. They don’t make changes without discussing them The game is too large and one change, however minor as it might seem, can have unintended consequences.

      • Andeus says:

        Yes Aram, but he’s said that they only focus on 3 classes tops at a time. And you can confirm that by looking at the posts I mentioned, like a pattern. They release tons of info via Blue posts for 3 classes at a time too. There’s the odd other-class post too from time to time but it’s almost never to discuss something new, mostly clarifications on established changes.

      • Aram says:

        I read every blue post about everything and I don’t recall such a post. So if you can link it, I’d love to see it.

      • Andeus says:

        Aram

        I found this one

        http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=24262388046&pageNo=2

        I believe he has mentioned it again with more detail (aka couple-3 at a time) in some whine-neglect-answer of his but I’m having a hard time finding it. To be honest it’s hard finding a generic comment like that in that sea of GC posts. If I have time later on I might give it another try, wouldn’t have my hopes up though.

    • Aram says:

      I think we should for an official build before we say anything. There is a reason internal builds are internal. They want to do some experimenting, testing, etc away from the public view. For all we know, its already been undone.

    • Nahela says:

      How about giving us Pestilence back instead of giving a better version that does damage to Warlocks, Mages, and Hunters. Serpent Spread + new Multi-shot is the most ridiculous thing ever. I guess we’re not allowed to have fun toys anymore.

      • Andeus says:

        Well at least the new Multi-Shot still has a cooldown….

        …I think. 😛

      • Aram says:

        They’ll never do that. Pestilence has been overpowered at least since Ulduar if not earlier.

        They’re more likely to redesign Blood Boil or add a new AE ability.

      • Sag says:

        I am sure that it doesn’t because of how hunter’s focus will work. It will probably be possible for a hunter to max out focus then multishot away (I do not know multishots focus cost, but I’ll assume about 15-20). This means that hunters get 5-6 multishots in a row, which sounds awesome, but they are then at 0 focus and can’t do much of anything until they get focus, plus they had to build all of that focus in the first place. Admittedly I have yet to see it at work, i’m just saying it has built in issues to using it, as opposed to trying to weave it into an AoE rotation.

      • Andeus says:

        It’s 40 Focus and it seems there’s no cooldown anymore so its 2 Multi-Shots with a full Focus bar.

        Maybe they will do Steady Shot first (forgive me if I’m wrong since i’m not that into hunters but doesn’t Steady Shot now increase your focus regeneration? ) and go with Multi-Shots from there.

      • Sag says:

        Possibly, I’ve looked over the talent trees for hunters some and, just like every other class, there are extra ways to get their resources, but it seems that steady shot and autoshot will build focus. Aspect of the fox increases focus generation, but like aspect of viper, at the cost of DPS. I imagine that hunters will not like being at 0 focus since there is little they can do at that point. Imagine being a hunter in a group with a priest and three DKs. You have 0 focus and there is an add going for the healer that the tank missed. No CCing that add, you have to hope your pet can get there, or that if the priest fears the add happens to run directly to the tank and not into one of the other groups in the instance.

      • Scuzoid says:

        @Aram. There isn’t anything impressive about pestilence. Period. Look at Tank AoE damage across on the classes (Blood, Prot, Prot, Feral) and you’ll see disease damage (On DWer for instance) is pretty pathetic in comparison to blood boil, DnD, shockwave, ect. ect.

        What IS impressive is AoE CoE + 100% crit rate diseases once you have 3 targets near each other. I’m not so sure most people understand how ridiculous Wandering Plague really is. Wandering plague itself is a VERY well made mechanic, and can amount to as much as 50% of our “disease” damage on valks and other constant multi target encounters.

      • Aram says:

        Blood does need some help in the AE department with this change. I don’t disagree. Blood has always been a bit weak in the AE department. But I think Pestilence was partly a crutch that made a bad design more palatable. I think there are more fun ways to handle AE threat.

        But for DPS specs, Pestilence was overpowered pure and simple. Hitting 1 button and getting all that damage is mindless and bad design. I don’t think Blizzard liked it that one ability can do all this damage with no serious decision making or interaction.

        You mention Wandering Plague. Why was that a powerful talent? Because you had your diseases up on every mob. Why did you have your diseases up on ever mob? Because you used Pestilence.

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