3.2 Death Knight Changes
3.2 information is flooding out of the gates at a rapid pace, makes me think that a PTR will be up soon. Here are the DK changes and/or nerfs. You can see the full patch notes HERE.
Death Knight Changes
General
- Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.
- Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.
- Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
- Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
- Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
- Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
Blood
- Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
- Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
Frost
- Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
- Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
- Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
- Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
Unholy
- Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
- Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
- Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
- Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
- Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.
Definately not impressed with being nerfed every patch. This is starting to get ridiculous…
are you fcking kidding me? THIS IS TERRIBLE! The only thing is Unholy blight but besides that I really am gonna focus on my mage,
I’m not sure Blizzard are actually doing any kind of low or mid level testing when it comes to the re-balancing they’re doing. As a healer, I am getting to the point of saying no to DK tanks due to their terribility (new word, trademark!). Every single patch has seen the death knight PvE tanking role become weaker. I do not comment on pvp or dps DK’s as they are not my business to know about. Healing and knowing the abilities of my heal target however is.
Death knights lack the mitigation or bonuses other classes get for a minor bonus to armor. It just isn’t enough to keep them viable. DK tanks are spikey on damage, unreliable on mobile fights and will have even more problems now with the unholy blight change, though most DK’s seem to be cookie cutter blood now for the cooldowns which previously were not a must have.
If the intention was to force them into blood, then for goodness sakes, rework one of the talent trees to be an actual tanking tree, don’t continually “rebalance” them like you are because as it stands, I’m almost ready to say no to the next DK that pst’s me to heal.
OK, Blizz I hate you, you have NO idea what the hell you are doing. You have had NO time what so ever to test the 20% armor reduction that you have us last patch and not you are nerfing another 5%. WTH is wrong with you? Nothing in this world would make me happier then to see you go bankrupt even though that means that I would lose a game that I enjoy playing. Although you are ruining my favorite class to play. If these changes stick, then come 3.2 I will be retiring the DK along with about half of the DKs in this game from that I can estimate. No one is happy about this except Prot Pallys because now they get to be the only tank to turn to for AoE threat. Next thing you know they are going to tell us that we have to wear mail and we have no DnD. Screw you blizzard burn in hell!
Well in the new patch they are making it easier for all the classes to get the better armor. They are changing what emblems we get. So maybe after we get the new gear the nerfs won’t hurt so bad.
@Robbert, i already have that gear, and still DK’s are spicky mana sponges…I thought DK tanks where build on cooldowns (wich already got nerfed) and IBF nerf isn’t helping. And now there also punching a hole in our armor (Again) and giving us less HP. I thought this game was going to be easier with every gear upgrade you can get, but if you nerf our class with every patch then this sucks and isn’t fun anymore. I think i’ll start a pala tank…
The first Nerf made since, but this is getting out of hand, just cause the people who can,t make a DK are calling them too unfair
First – let me give a vicarious “OUCH” for the pain dealt to DK Tanks if these changes make it to the live servers!
Persnally, as DK DPS I’m just getting less and less enamored of the homogenization my toon is having to endure.
My opinion: Classes/specs should not be 100% equal and that is a good thing!
There should be variation. There should be a class that does better on a certain encounter or in a certain situation – that adds to the ‘use the right tool for the job’ aspect of the raid equation. That same class would be less effective at another place in the game. Isn’t that part of the mechanics?
I’m UH and I’m okay with the fact that in most cases Blood has the ability to do better single targets DPS than me. I’m assuming that a Blood DK is okay with the fact that sometimes I could AOE trash mobs easier than he could cleave them.
It just feels like in the act of ‘balancing’ everyone we are all being made the same. I know this is not a new problem, but I thought that since we were a ‘clean slate’ class some of this could have been worked out in the design phase.
I know Blizz is working under the ‘bring the player not the class’ design philosophy but there is a point where you wonder if we’re all going to be the same toon underneath with different graphics laid on top?
It’s starting to feel like NASCAR where underneath the barely different bodies the engine/chassis/suspension/etc. are all regulated and restricted so tightly as to perform exactly the same no matter what manufacturer’s emblem is stamped on the pieces.
Okay, pointless venting done. I’m not going anywhere or canceling my subscription any time soon so I’ll just suck it up and take the cards that Blizz deals us. /sigh
As a healer and a frost tank, I can’t agree that DK’s take spikey damage or are any worse than any other tank, CURRENTLY. I would put them at about par; I know I can handle all the sorts of situations you listed without any problems and I’ve healed all sorts of specs of DK tanks without any problems either. There is something to be said for the person moving the puppet oppossed to the puppet itself.
However, if these nerfs do go through, it is most certain that DKs will cease to be nearly as viable as other tanks, especially since they want to buff block as well…
I don’t want to spec blood. I’ve never wanted to spec blood. I like the idea of being a frost tank, and since the design philosophy of the DK was suppossed to be “choose the tree you want to be” oppossed to “be pigeonholed into one spec” the attempt to even move me towards blood spec I find abhorrent.
DKs aren’t underpowered or overpowered where they are now. If they are played correctly, they can easily take the same amount of damage as any other tank… However, nerfing one of our most useful abilities, IBF… AGAIN… FOR THE FOURTH TIME… is completely unreasonable. There is no excuse for doing so.
I don’t see how I could possibly need a nerf to my health pool when I’m in mostly naxx25/uld10 gear and I still haven’t broken 30k hp unbuffed while in frost presence…
Granted, I’m not stacking stam as much as some idiot tanks who think blue trinkets with a lot of stam are more useful than purple avoidance trinkets, but whatever… (To put it in perspective, my total avoidance, that is, dodge + parry, is about 45%)
I don’t like QQing, but I think it is plainly obvious that these nerfs are unneccessary, and I don’t like the idea of laying down and taking it without a fight, either. I respect the fact that Blizz has a design team with a shit-ton of data from all sorts of situations to inform their decisions, but, as any statitician will tell you, sometimes numbers can be horribly misleading. It feels like, from my experience, something like that is going on here.
What seems the most bizarre to me is that rogues are constantly getting buffed and anything that helps make a rogue a less of a threat is immediately nerfed. Considering rogues always have been and seem to continue to be the most powerful PVP class (and the most annoying to be ganked by… “I CAN’T MOVE I CAN’T MOVE I CAN’T MOVE I’M DEAD.”) I still can’t understand how they could justify buffing them and nerfing other classes.
Case and point? They removed the stun immunity from IBF within the first patch after WoTLK and they nerfed Disc priest’s shield reflection because “it did too much damage to people attacking with 2 1 handed weapons”…
But they buffed rogues.
And rogue/priest is widely considered one of the most feared 2’s teams.
Mathematically and logically, I can’t understand what Blizz is doing. Only if I assume they just want people to play their game until their lives are in shambles, constantly rerolling other classes, leveling and gearing them so that they can stay competitive despite the imbalances in the game exacerbated by “balancing” in patches does this sort of action make any sense what-so-ever… and, really, when has a “screw your customer” business model ever worked?
I can only assume that most of what is in these preliminary patch notes will not make it onto live servers, but the fact that Blizz was even considering this sort of stuff makes me wonder… Perhaps they just included this sort of stuff to see what sort of conversation it would spark?
It’s hard to say.
Oh and also…
I really, REALLY hope they don’t nerf Frost Strike that much… besides being a 41 point talent, it is a bread and butter attack for both DPS and tanks in frost spec…
By removing the ability that made it special and worthy of its place as a 41 point talent instead of just a trainable ability, and then nerfing its damage even more…
…Seriously, wtf? Why am I being punished for selecting one tree over another?
It isn’t like frost dps dks do insane amounts of damage… Or that frost strike takes up a large portion of my overall damage, moreso than any other ability… For a 41 point talent that is a runic power dump, it is right where it should be…
I understand that Blizz wants their game to be balanced, but if that is actually their motive, then buffing a class that is already one of the most powerful and nerfing almost everyone else (with the exception of shaman, who needed a buff anyways) is totally non-sensical.
I can only hope that the test realm proves what I feel to be true and these horrible ideas are banished back to whatever hellish dimension spawned them.
I have to say, I’m beginning to get mildly irritated with Blizzard’s constant nerfing of DK tanks.
I tend to just go along with whatever nerfs or buffs Blizzard dishes out…like when Frost Presence’s armor was nerfed, a lot of people complained, but I looked at the numbers. Before patch, I was at 29.2k armor…66% damage reduction. Afterward I was at like 25.4k. 62% damage reduction. So I take 4% more physical damage. I’ll deal with it. Touch up my rotation, especially with cooldowns, and I’ll manage.
But nerfing Icebound Fortitude to have a longer cooldown is unfair, ESPECIALLY in conjunction with nerfing stamina. I feel like I’m starting to run out of things I can depend on while tanking, especially in raids.
I currently play a DK tank, one that I’m very proud of. I’ve built a name for myself on my server and am a go-to guy when someone needs a good tank for anything…and it sucks that I’m no longer gonna be as effective as I was.
Truth be told, the DK tank nerfs are likely being done because blizzard feels “There are too many DK tanks out there” It’s akin the the Design Philosophy they followed in BC where they nerfed classes that had too many players.
Yet another DK tanking nerf? Come on now I don’t see you going “oh well priests have to much mana, I know lets make int on priests only give 2.5mana rather then every other casters normal 15 mana”… yes in “end game” gear they might (not sure since I don’t raid) be a bit strong, but for the casual players the game is about 1(well 55) to 80 normal instances and not raids…
Quite simply my health in my 78-80blues is already less then priests and mages health in similar gear… Sure my gear is not pure tanking gear, but its not pure dps gear either its a hybrid between the two for best soloing…
At least when druid tanking got a slight nerf it also got a slight bump with the “1 hit PW:S” passive skill (which in retro spec is the same as say a pali or warrior blocking with a shield)… I can see nerfing DK tanking if you where doing the same thing with DKs as you did druids with the nerfing the milgation but adding a ghetto form of a shield block, but I am not seeing anything like that.
Though I know this is not DK related (hence the posting in a separate post) I am glade to see that they are finaly making a way to separate twink/wanna be twinks from people who are just PvPing for honor/gear/fun by adding the XP for completing BG achievements yet giving people the option to turn off the XP in exchange for being in a separate que so that the twinks and wanna be’s will be in 1 BG while the people doing it more casually (or atleast not to gear up for 19/29/39/etc) get to play against those who do not “fear” leveling.
the nerfing of frost tanking must stop. Blizzard seems to zero in on the spec’s and classes I like to play and nerf them. Now my tank the toon I had every intention of actually being able to raid with is going to be nerfed even further. All tanks classes / trees should be very close to equal. Either make it so we can use shields like protection Pally’s and warriors (which would be fine with me)or stop nerfing our cooldowns and talents that help us mitigate the damage the shield would otherwise block. I also want to point one other thing out Death Knights are supposed to be a “Hero” class, you get one of em to play on your server, hero implies something more then your average joe adventurer, they should be a bit tougher. As far as the amount of them on my server there seems to be an even distribution of classes. Yes there are gonna be alot of people playing them some people have been playing this game since release and the class isn’t even a year old yet.
Personally, I don’t mind being nerfed, because I understand and accept that other classes have been nerfed (balanced) for 4 years and still arent perfect, while we have only had 6-7 months? What I dislike is when Blizzard redesigns the playstyle of the tree I like and I have to troll the forums for days, finding a new spec and rotation. The Frost Strike Nerf was uncalled for. That’s all I’m gonna say, these nerfs were kind of a let down Blizzard, like you picked out 10 abilities you should nerf out of a hat. Really dumb balancing imo.
dk is supposed to be a hero class. no longer.
Blizzard have created another normal class and is no longer viable.
at least duel wield tanking will be somewhat viable now, letting us use two tanking weapons. That should make up a little bit.
This is very sad… Blizz should fire whoever came up with these nerfs, because obviously they have no clue what the hell they are doing.
I am going to make a anti dk nerf guild
Ok, I been watching dk.info for a wile and now im finally putting in my first comment.
I been watching nerf after nerf for too long, I think blizzard is starting to make mistakes, not balacing…
Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
I thought they lowered it by 20% armor to prevent this, now they increase the cooldown of our tanking buffs? That is just unacceptable, if they start to nerf cooldowns then they have to give us our 20% armor back.
Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
This is the problem right here, we are NOT like other classes, we NEED better talents to make up for the lack of shield, if our talents are eto be on par with everyone else then they mine as well just slap a dress on us and give us shields. (Which is very stupid).
In short I see all these nerfs coming from pvp, not pve, but they are making pve way worse now. If they are to make a shieldless tanking class then they have to accept the fact that they are op in pvp, dont nerf the skills we need in raids!!!
I’ve been an Unholy Tank since the beginning. I’m currently tanking in Uluar/10/25. As it stands right now we are at best extremely spikey and Healers need to be on the ball healing a DK TANK. Many Nerfs in the past that were understandable. I consider myselfa decent tank, no where near perfect nor will I ever be. Now I’m a GM of a guild and if these Nerfs stand. I would have to move on to other classes to tank. Just to spikey for the helaers to handle. I will retire my DK until they make them a viable tank again..but nerf after nerf after nerf on a class you love to play…….you tend to get ticked off after all the time you have invested into the character. Bad move by Blizzard. Very bad
Ok, srsly blizz? the tress were alrdy messed up where DEEp in the blood tree was the will of necroplis where pallys get it in there tank tree. There getting buffed AGAIN, were getting nerfed AGAIN,I am the #1 frost DK tank on my realm on horde side, and I have made the decision to stop takning because of this.Our top healers even say with these changes they dont wanna heal me anymore in uld 10 and 25.I’m having to go dps and then wtf thats getting nerfed r u kidding me blizz, nerf pallys some will ya.
You people are a joke. You are all completely ignorant of the class you are bitching about. Currently DK tanks are in fact OP! Zomg, blizzard wanted to make them unique with a CD based tanking system. But that system itself is inherently more effective then they intended. So it must be reworked. And for all of you who seem to think this patch will make you useless as a tank and you are going to quit. Well, good riddance to you because you must not be that good anyway. Currently DK tanks are the only real option for Ulduar hard modes, doable with others but all the best high end raiding guilds rely on them for it because they are the most effective. Scaling them back especially with this? These changes are incredibly minimal, and if they do overdo it well then it can be fixed. But I don’t see that as likely. Putting them on par with other tanking classes is necessary. Try playing a class that has gotten 4 nerf patches for every buffed one since inception. Instead of a couple of patches to rework how a class plays because its current system cannot be reconciled to be equal to its peers, on a class that has only existed for a short time and started out being far more powerful than any other class so far. Blizzard didn’t want DKs to be able to do THAT much more AoE dmg then other melee classes. Hence unholy blight change. These changes come from all high end raid guilds using DK tanks for hard modes because they function better. Not from PvP. Too many CDs make bosses that are primarily dangerous because of predictable spikes of dmg obsolete. Hence a change from a CD based tank to something more akin to the others. Perhaps this patch goes a bit too far when stacked with the last one. But its not near the drama being displayed here. And if that turns out to be the case, we will likely see a buff to their longevity tanking abilities.
First off – I love corpsicles comment about idiot DKs that take blue trinkets for stam instead of epic avoidance trinkets. So the fact that in a mix of Naxx10/OS 10/Naxx 25/Valor badge gear and running 2 blue trinkets I have 35K health unbuffed and 43% avoidance compared to his 30K and 45% in better gear makes me an idiot . . . hmmm, did I miss something? If I was in all Naxx25 and Uld 10 gear I’d match your avoidance and have more health on top of it so you must be doing something wrong.
DKs are in the same situation druids were a little while back – we have huge health pools compared other tanks, and whether or not blizz likes to admit it, health pool is the core for tanking. The ability to take two big hits and still have enough health that one decent heal heal puts you over another hit is huge. If a boss is hitting for 10K, 5K health can be the difference between being 4 and 5 shottable, work in average swing timers and 5K health can buy casters an extra 1-4 seconds of cast time to heal you. On top of that, timers are innately powerful, so it follows that a class with short timers is at an advantage compared to classes with longer timers – you want a simple example? Let’s use Emalon (I know he’s a joke, but he illustrates the concept perfectly) – Emalon hits my tank for an average of around 10K, so pretty minimal when any tank raid buffed breaks 35K (like I said, my DK sits at 43K in non optimal gear), however every minute he casts a lightning nova for around 20-25K. This means a warrior tank with 35K is at basically 10-15K after nova meaning depending on the swing timer he is potentially killable just as nova hits. Anti-magic shield syncs perfectly with nova and for my DK absorbs all but maybe 2K of a nova. My cooldown turns a 20K+ hit into a 2K hit and means it still takes 4+ hits to kill me compared to 1-2. Another example – Vezax. Surge of Darkness is on a 1 minute cd, IBF is on a 1 min CD – using a DK tank you don’t have to kite Vezax at all, meaning the encounter takes less skill/coordination and allows your dps to stand and maximize rotations making the fight faster. No other tanking class can do this relying only on personal cooldowns. So combining health pool and cooldowns DKs were overpowered for tanking.
Now, that being said, DK tanking has some weaknesses – we have no block, and because we lack shields we innately have less armor than other classes. A shield is 6-8K armor, so to have our armor match that of other classes our frost presence + armor should put us on par with an equally geared shielded tank. I haven’t looked at the math yet, but I think the currently proposed armor changes will take us under that. Since our cds are also taking a hit, we need some sort of passive mitigation to counteract that. Since we don’t have block (which is being buffed) we need either more avoidance (dodge/parry/miss) from talents or we need a talent that provides passive damage reduction/shielding similar to what they gave druids when they nerfed druid health. Buffing bladewarding would do it, or adding a new talent that gives us mitigation passively (rune shield maybe?) would also cover this. Either that or give us fights against caster bosses where antimagic shield/zone and all our magic damage reducing talents are worth while.
I realize a huge number of DKs are going to whine about our changes, but a huge number of DKs open world pvp fights with Death Grip, so honestly I can’t give what most of them say much weight. Everyone knew DK tanking was going to take a hit, just like everyone knew DK dps was going to take a hit – just because you enjoy it doesn’t mean you aren’t overpowered, so if you didn’t see the nerfs coming I envy you your rose colored glasses. For those of you who lack the skill to play a non OP class, I’m sure there will be a class to reroll to (Paladin looks good), for those of you who are skilled, the nerfs will hurt and you might be relegated to OT duties, but eventually you’ll get buffed again if you stick it out (just ask rogues and pallies, or the rollercoaster which is the warrior).
I like how no-one says anything about “Threat of Thassarian”. Although Unholy got NERFED AND BEAT TO DEATH PAINFULLY (yes!! i hate unholy), and blood got a small tap with the nerfbat, frost got a MAJOR boost with this talent. This makes every ability a “Mutilate” for all of you rogues out there. Frost was already the PVP king for all of you that dont depend on a ghoul to stun and immobilize your target (yes you Unholy). DPS will shoot through the roof when this patch hits. I’m excited.
And to all you QQers…..you have a reason to be upset, Blizzard calls the DK a “hero” class, but they are making them equal to other classes, hopefully this talent when used properly will get things going
GIVE DEATH KNIGHTS SHIELDS, ENOUGH SAID
Just throwing this out there, dont know if it was posted above already, was too lazy to read it all.
Would it be more beneficial in patch 3.2 to be 50/0/21 to have unholy blight? You would be giving up the extra runic power you would get from the 2 points in frost, and also losing DRW. But, with the sigil of the vengeful heart, off of 25 man deconstructor, and sudden doom, which launches the free death coil, would it be more beneficial long-term to have that extra damage coming from the possible 3-9 death coils in your rotation?
This is just p**sing me off now. The main reason why they made death knights in the first place was that there was a shortage of tanks and look at what they have been doing to them, f**king nerfing them for no seemingly adequate reason. They have enough trouble tanking at the moment as it is and if this patch does go forward then I dont know what im going to do as its hard enough to find a tank as it is without removing the death knight tanking option altogether. And for those people who think dks are way too OP in pvp and should all just die in hell, rogues are by far imo they most OP class in pvp that exists today, especially with world pvp. And the fact that they are continually buffing this class sickens me. Anyways if anybody at blizzard has any sense then the (Presumably stoned) worker who made this excuse for a talent tree update should get the sack.
Well shit…. I liked Tanking it’s all I’ve done patch afer patch nerf I hated the increase in bonesheild CD but the fact that icebound was still 1 min. it wasent so bad with trinkets and what not… but now… well I’m gonna just take my Resto drood to 80 and just say fuck it to Tanking anymore… got a feeling if another patch come’s out DK’s are just gonna become DPS and not even high DPS we’ll be average at best in that department and I myself Like at least being the best in something…
So Elite HoT’s here I come Mana Regen got a boost and I’ll prolly love it… So long Deathknights Hello Tree
OMG, I came back from almost half a year of not playing becoz I missed playing the DK and then this nerf on Frost Presence. I may as well stop my subscription again if that’s the case.
Yup. Thats it for my DK. I was working my way up to tanking for raids but with this nerf to DK tanking, that is now out. Nobody in their right mind is going to take a DK over a Pally imo.
C’est la Vie but still a bummer to have the class I found fun, reduced to uselessness.
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yes its true they should nerf the DKs definatly, but THIS is rediculous. Blizzard were trying to keep people happy by taking the suggestions from players, and they complained to blizz which made them change death knights talents and spells. Players were only complaining about pvp being hard against Death knights and not only are death knights worse in pvp they suck at pve. I blame the players for complaining about death knights being OP -.-
Just get a increase buff for pve instances that increases stats with 50% and take it of on Arena.
[...] 3.2 Death Knight Changes | DeathKnight.info [...]
[...] 3.2 Death Knight Changes | DeathKnight.info [...]
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