http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIXYMY4dOmI&fmt=22
DEATHKNIGHT HELL
Some more in the patch notes:
- Death Strike: The amount of healing per damage done has been reduced by 20%.
- Raise Ally now has a cooldown greater than 15 minutes and can no longer be used in Arenas.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=835
I ain't leaving without your soul and I am sober this time.
for me dk
w proc
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xZhgxz ... 0gh:kTaM0m
w/o proc
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xMZhgx ... 0gh:kTaM0m
w proc
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xZhgxz ... 0gh:kTaM0m
w/o proc
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xMZhgx ... 0gh:kTaM0m
Frost/Blood tanking specc.
Including 10% AP and 20% haste buffs
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xGVhhc ... 0xh:omwMmV
Unholy dps specc to try
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMcZZf ... sut:bArMVm
(edit: added glyphs)
Including 10% AP and 20% haste buffs
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xGVhhc ... 0xh:omwMmV
Unholy dps specc to try
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jfVMcZZf ... sut:bArMVm
(edit: added glyphs)
it did not take them long *cry*
Scourge Strike can now crit only once. The Shadow portion of the damage cannot separately crit. We wanted to keep the double crit mechanic as a way of making Scourge Strike do more than just being an attack that hits for equal part physical and Shadow damage. The change just proved to be too bursty in PvP and provide too much sustained damage in raids. The Shadow portion Scourge Strike will continue to be increased by effects that currently boost Shadow damage.
Mains through the ages: Asharak -> Liandrin -> Shaidar -> Albeo
Sneek: So much, so fast. It's hard not to OD
Sneek: So much, so fast. It's hard not to OD
Players have made several requests for more explanation on the Scourge Strike nerf. I tried to find a post to respond to, but the ones I found were very angry and I didn't feel like a response in there was going to do anything to discourage more angry posts. So I'll just do it here.
We initially started mucking around with Scourge Strike based on numerous requests and complaints from Unholy DKs that their talented strike wasn't very appealing. At the time a lot of Unholy DKs were just using Obliterate instead, especially in PvE. Their logic made a lot of sense. It's obvious that the tree is built around Scourge Strike to some extent. There are many talents that are less interesting without Scourge Strike.
Side note 1: *You* personally may have been happy with Scourge Strike as it was. We don't take a public vote on these things. When players make a lot of sense, the designers sit down and discuss whether we agree with them and whether than warrants any changes. In this case we thought it did.
Side note 2: We have a design law around the office, named for one of the designers here, that anything overpowered is fun. There was a time when Scourge Strike hit for silly numbers. Many DKs knew it did too much damage. Others were nostalgic for that day, perhaps even subconsciously. I've read several times before something else that makes a lot of sense: too many DKs want a class that hits as often as a rogue but hits as hard as a warrior. You can see the problem there. As long as DKs do so much spell and disease damage, their strikes can't hit for really big numbers. (If you don't care about spells and disease damage, then you're probably playing the wrong class.)
In any event, we tried a lot of different things with the talent. You can probably find my old posts. There were many, which makes these claims that DKs were ignored ring a little hollow. We couldn't make it just hit as hard as a physical swing since it completely ignored armor. The problem was that in a raid environment in which armor was routinely sundered / exposed or otherwise bypassed, Scourge Strike's smaller base damage fell short. Again, you can find more detail in older posts.
That's why we came upon the answer of letting Scourge Strike do half physical damage. Half of the attack would respect armor (and therefore sundered armor as well) but the other half could still benefit from all of the DK abilities that improve Shadow damage. As a side bonus, this made the armor penetration on so much of the dps plate slightly more attractive to Unholy DKs. Players argued that this made the ability less interesting or even compromised. We understood the logic there, so we tried to let the physical and Shadow portions crit separately. We knew there was a risk of it feeling too RNG, and some players brought up that risk. But remember we were still trying to solve two other problems (SS needs to hit hard and not be boring) so we decided to try it anyway.
The parses that came out of the PTR weren't too bad. There were some big hits of course, but they didn't happen too often and in PvP the damage didn't seem out of control. Remember though, our PTRs are voluntary. We get some great players trying things out and sending feedback, which is awesome and much appreciated. We have great internal testers who beat on the raid encounters over and over again before they're ready to go public. But none of that testing compares to the flood of data we get the day something goes live. The handful of Icecrown raid parses grew by thousands over night, and many of those had Unholy DKs doing much higher damage than was warranted. Go check out any parse by a decent guild for the Icecrown raid. Once you skip over all the Mutilate rogues, there are all the Unholy DKs.
Maybe in retrospect we made a mistake messing with Scourge Strike at all. Maybe a superior solution would have been to let some Unholy DKs just migrate over to Obliterate or whatever. Just remember as passionately as you feel about things now, many DKs felt just as passionately back then when they urged us to reconsider Scourge Strike. As another designer commented recently "You rarely see indifferent players come to the forums to post their indifference."
Will it stay this way for long? It's too early to tell. This implementation has a chance of working out, but we also want to see the Icecrown hard modes start up as well as the new Arena season kick in.
I ain't leaving without your soul and I am sober this time.
are you kidding me? take a look here:Asharak wrote:it did not take them long *cry*Scourge Strike can now crit only once. The Shadow portion of the damage cannot separately crit. We wanted to keep the double crit mechanic as a way of making Scourge Strike do more than just being an attack that hits for equal part physical and Shadow damage. The change just proved to be too bursty in PvP and provide too much sustained damage in raids. The Shadow portion Scourge Strike will continue to be increased by effects that currently boost Shadow damage.
pre patch: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/wx9r ... 26&e=11305
after patch: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/qtiv ... 14&e=12121
and look at the timespan
Some impressions from a DK point of view since patch 4.0.1.
First off, all three dps specs (Unholy, 2H frost and DW frost) are performing pretty much neck to neck compared to eachother - give or take 2-3% difference depending on fight. Also there are no big boosts or nerfs planned on beta so far (except for 5% str nerf to unholy might) which should indicate that we are close to par on where we should be i.e. theoretically tied with other hybrid melee classes such as warriors, shamans, druids and palas.
Though we seem to be a bit ahead of druids, palas and shamans atm, DK:s cant expect as much upscaling (aside from gear) at lvl 85 as other classes might do. Simply because we dont have any valuable choices for talents for the remaining 5 talentpoints and no new dps increasing keyabilities waiting for us at higher lvl (aside from outbreak which is rather weak).
A common believe is that DK dmg has blown through the roof with the latest patch, but that is not really the case.
We have a lot more burst dmg post patch, so for 5 man hc dungeons (or even 10 mans), we can actually put out some dmg nowadays before the mob dies. Ramp up time is shortened drastically, which was a problem DK had pre patch.
A second aspect is the fact that Blizz has gone bananas with the nerf bat on buffs, so as compensation for the weaker buffs we are not as depending on buffs from other classes as before. Likewise, we dont gain as much in a full raidbuff environment as before either.
Pre patch Id say that a full 25 man raidbuff gave us as much as 40-60% dps increase, while post patch its around 20-40%. That ofc excludes the ridiculous 30% ICC imba buff.
So to conclude it, while you can easily squeeze out 10k+ on the dummy these days, you cant expect that much of dps increase in a raidenvironment as before.
In my current gear, Im looking at about 800-1000 dps increase depending on luck of RNG, max buffed.
Gearwise, the gap between "less good geared" compared to "BiS geared" have been shortened. Simply because of the fact that reforging allows you to easily reach the softcap for haste. That goes especially for Unholy and 2H frost.
Once hit capped and haste capped there are really no other viable options for unholy for reforge into (no, exp cap is of little to none importance for UH DK:s) and with gear at around 264ilvl, that cap is pretty much reachable with no reforging at all.
Story is a bit different for frost though where mastery is strong.
First off, all three dps specs (Unholy, 2H frost and DW frost) are performing pretty much neck to neck compared to eachother - give or take 2-3% difference depending on fight. Also there are no big boosts or nerfs planned on beta so far (except for 5% str nerf to unholy might) which should indicate that we are close to par on where we should be i.e. theoretically tied with other hybrid melee classes such as warriors, shamans, druids and palas.
Though we seem to be a bit ahead of druids, palas and shamans atm, DK:s cant expect as much upscaling (aside from gear) at lvl 85 as other classes might do. Simply because we dont have any valuable choices for talents for the remaining 5 talentpoints and no new dps increasing keyabilities waiting for us at higher lvl (aside from outbreak which is rather weak).
A common believe is that DK dmg has blown through the roof with the latest patch, but that is not really the case.
We have a lot more burst dmg post patch, so for 5 man hc dungeons (or even 10 mans), we can actually put out some dmg nowadays before the mob dies. Ramp up time is shortened drastically, which was a problem DK had pre patch.
A second aspect is the fact that Blizz has gone bananas with the nerf bat on buffs, so as compensation for the weaker buffs we are not as depending on buffs from other classes as before. Likewise, we dont gain as much in a full raidbuff environment as before either.
Pre patch Id say that a full 25 man raidbuff gave us as much as 40-60% dps increase, while post patch its around 20-40%. That ofc excludes the ridiculous 30% ICC imba buff.
So to conclude it, while you can easily squeeze out 10k+ on the dummy these days, you cant expect that much of dps increase in a raidenvironment as before.
In my current gear, Im looking at about 800-1000 dps increase depending on luck of RNG, max buffed.
Gearwise, the gap between "less good geared" compared to "BiS geared" have been shortened. Simply because of the fact that reforging allows you to easily reach the softcap for haste. That goes especially for Unholy and 2H frost.
Once hit capped and haste capped there are really no other viable options for unholy for reforge into (no, exp cap is of little to none importance for UH DK:s) and with gear at around 264ilvl, that cap is pretty much reachable with no reforging at all.
Story is a bit different for frost though where mastery is strong.
Thought Id share some of my DK macros. If they are useful to you depends on playstyle, spec and purpose I guess. Ive only posted the macros I use for Unholy spec since you can easily convert them into Frost spec macros by just changing Unholy Frenzy to Pillar of Frost; or Scourge Strike to Obliterate for example. Also some are very PvP specific, which ones I think is quite obvious.
UNHOLY MACROS
DPS MACRO
/cast Blood Fury
/cast Empower Rune Weapon
/cast Unholy Frenzy
/cast Summon Gargoyle
This macro basically pops all my dps cools except for potion of speed, which I have binded seperatly since Im cheap and dont always want to blow a expensive pot
and Dark Transformation since its depending on having 5 stacks of DC buffs up.
GNAW FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Leap
/cast [@focus] Gnaw
The ghoul leaps and gnaws my focustarget.
LICHBORNE
/cast !Lichborne;
/cast [target=player] Death Coil
Cast Lichborne on first press and automatically casts Death Coil on yourself if you keep spamming the button for some insane selfheal.
PvP stance
/cast Unholy Presence
/cast Blood Presence
Switches between offensive and defensive stance with one button press.
PvE stance
/cast Unholy Presence
/cast Frost Presence
Switches between the offensive presences depending on spec and fight i.e. Unholy presence for single target and Frost presence for AoE (for Unholy spec).
STRANGULATE FOCUS
/cast Blood Tap
/cast [@focus] Strangulate
/cancelaura Blood Tap
SCOURGE STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Scourge Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Starts autoattack, and pops Rune Strike whenenver that procs (and spams it if Im in Blood presence). Also removes the annoying red text that says �Ability is not ready yet� if I dont have a RS proc ready when using SS.
FESTERING STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Festering Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Same as above, just with FS instead.
PLAGUE STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Plague Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Same as above, just with PS instead.
DEATH STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Death Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
...And the DS version of it.
CHAINS OF ICE FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Chains of Ice
Casts Chains of Ice on my focustarget without untargetting my current target.
DEATH GRIP FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Death Grip
Death Grips my focustarget without untargetting my current target.
DEATH COIL PET
/cast [target=pet] Death Coil
Heals my ghoul without untargetting my current target.
PET
/cast [@pet,exists,nodead] Death Pact; Raise Dead
/use Fel Healthstone
Raises my ghoul if he is dead, sacs him if he is alive and pops a Healthstone if available.
TOTEM KNOCKDOWN
/petattack [@mouseover]
ANTI TRAP/SAP/SHEEP ON YOUR HEALER
/cast [@name of healer] Unholy Frenzy
CANCELAURA
/cancelaura Blood Tap
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cancelaura Lichborne
/cancelaura Ice block
UNHOLY MACROS
DPS MACRO
/cast Blood Fury
/cast Empower Rune Weapon
/cast Unholy Frenzy
/cast Summon Gargoyle
This macro basically pops all my dps cools except for potion of speed, which I have binded seperatly since Im cheap and dont always want to blow a expensive pot
and Dark Transformation since its depending on having 5 stacks of DC buffs up.GNAW FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Leap
/cast [@focus] Gnaw
The ghoul leaps and gnaws my focustarget.
LICHBORNE
/cast !Lichborne;
/cast [target=player] Death Coil
Cast Lichborne on first press and automatically casts Death Coil on yourself if you keep spamming the button for some insane selfheal.
PvP stance
/cast Unholy Presence
/cast Blood Presence
Switches between offensive and defensive stance with one button press.
PvE stance
/cast Unholy Presence
/cast Frost Presence
Switches between the offensive presences depending on spec and fight i.e. Unholy presence for single target and Frost presence for AoE (for Unholy spec).
STRANGULATE FOCUS
/cast Blood Tap
/cast [@focus] Strangulate
/cancelaura Blood Tap
SCOURGE STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Scourge Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Starts autoattack, and pops Rune Strike whenenver that procs (and spams it if Im in Blood presence). Also removes the annoying red text that says �Ability is not ready yet� if I dont have a RS proc ready when using SS.
FESTERING STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Festering Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Same as above, just with FS instead.
PLAGUE STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Plague Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
Same as above, just with PS instead.
DEATH STRIKE
/startattack
/cast Death Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
...And the DS version of it.
CHAINS OF ICE FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Chains of Ice
Casts Chains of Ice on my focustarget without untargetting my current target.
DEATH GRIP FOCUS
/cast [@focus] Death Grip
Death Grips my focustarget without untargetting my current target.
DEATH COIL PET
/cast [target=pet] Death Coil
Heals my ghoul without untargetting my current target.
PET
/cast [@pet,exists,nodead] Death Pact; Raise Dead
/use Fel Healthstone
Raises my ghoul if he is dead, sacs him if he is alive and pops a Healthstone if available.
TOTEM KNOCKDOWN
/petattack [@mouseover]
ANTI TRAP/SAP/SHEEP ON YOUR HEALER
/cast [@name of healer] Unholy Frenzy
CANCELAURA
/cancelaura Blood Tap
/cancelaura Hand of Protection
/cancelaura Lichborne
/cancelaura Ice block
Last edited by Sar on 19 Mar 2011, 18:58, edited 1 time in total.
"Dont try to argue with idiots. They will only dumb it down to their level and beat you with experience."