Death Knight Changes for Cataclysm

[Falaenx]

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will bring with it several changes to class talents and abilities. In this preview, you'll get a glimpse at some of the new abilities, spells, and talents in store for the death knight class, along with an early look at some improvements we plan to make to the rune resource system.

New Death Knight Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike -- the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

Rune System Changes

While we're satisfied with the way the rune system works overall, we're making a few major changes to the mechanics that will ultimately help death knight players feel less constrained. Here's the rationale behind the changes, followed by an explanation of how the new system will work.

In the current rune system, any time a rune is sitting idle, death knights are losing out on potential damage output. By comparison, rogues spend most of their time at low energy levels, and if they're unable to use their skills for a few seconds, that energy builds up and can be spent later, minimizing the net loss from the interruption.
A death knight's runes, on the other hand, cannot be used until they are fully active. If a death knight ever goes more than a few seconds without spending an available rune, that resource is essentially wasted. Because the death knight is pushing buttons constantly, it can be difficult to add new mechanics to the class because the player doesn't have any free global cooldowns to use them. We can't grant extra resources or reduced cost, because there is no time to spend them. Missing an attack is devastating, and it's impossible to save resources for when they're most useful.
Additionally, each individual death knight ability has a fairly low impact on its own, making it feel like most of the death knight's attacks are weak. The death knight's rotations are also more easily affected by latency or a player's timing being just a little off. At times, it feels like death knights aren't able to take advantage of their unique resource mechanic, which can diminish the fun.
The new rune system will change how runes regenerate, from filling simultaneously to filling sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. Essentially, you have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. (Haste will cause runes to fill faster.) Another way to think of this is having three runes that go up to 200% each (allowing extra "storage"), rather than six runes that go up to 100% each.
As this is a major change to the death knight's mechanics, it will of course require us to retune many of the class's current abilities. For example, each ability needs to hit harder or otherwise be more meaningful since the death knight is getting fewer resources per unit of time. Some abilities will need to have their costs reduced as a result.


Talent Changes

Next we'll outline some of the death knight talent-tree changes we're planning in Cataclysm. This list is by no means comprehensive, but it should give you a sense of how we're intending each death knight spec to perform.

One of the biggest changes we're making is converting Blood into a dedicated tanking tree. While we feel that having three tanking trees was successful overall, it's less necessary in a world with dual-specialization. In addition, the current breakdown isn't as compatible with the Mastery-based passive talent-tree bonuses we want to add (see below). We'd rather spend time tweaking and balancing one good tanking tree rather than having a tank always wondering if they picked the "correct" tree out of three possibilities.
Blood seemed like the best fit for tanking. Unholy has always had a strong niche with diseases, magic, and command over pets. Frost now feels like a solid dual-wield tree with Frost magic damage and decent crowd control. Blood's niche was self-healing -- fitting for a tank -- as well as strong weapon swings, which could easily be migrated to Frost and Unholy.
Our plan is to move the most interesting and fun tanking talents and abilities to Blood. For example, you will likely see Vampiric Blood and Will of the Necropolis remain, while Bone Shield will move over from Unholy.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Blood
Damage reduction
Vengeance
Healing Absorption

Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, you'll receive an additional effect that absorbs incoming damage.

Vengeance: This new mechanic is designed to ensure that tank damage output (and therefore threat) doesn't fall behind as damage-dealing classes improve their gear during the course of the expansion. All tanking specs will have Vengeance as their second talent tree passive bonus. Whenever a tank gets hit, Vengeance will grant a stacking Attack Power buff equal to 5% of the damage done, up to a maximum of 10% of the character's unbuffed health. For boss encounters, we expect that tanks will always have an Attack Power bonus equal to 10% of their health. The 5% and 10% bonuses assume 51 talent points have been put into the Blood tree; these values will be smaller at lower levels.

You only get the Vengeance bonus if you have spent the most talent points in the Blood tree, so you won't see Frost or Unholy death knights running around with it. Vengeance will let us continue to design tank gear more or less the way we do today; there will be some damage-dealing stats, but mostly survival-oriented stats. Druids typically have more damage-dealing stats even on their tanking gear, so their Vengeance benefit may be smaller, but the goal is that all four tanks will do about the same damage when tanking.

Frost
Melee damage
Melee Haste
Runic Power Generation

Runic Power Generation: This will function as the name implies, and the new rune system will make generating Runic Power more appealing.

Unholy
Melee damage
Melee and spell critical damage
Disease Damage

Disease Damage: Unholy death knights will be able to get more out of their diseases, which are integral to the tree's play style.

We hope you enjoyed this preview, and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on these additions and changes. Please keep in mind that this information represents a work in progress and is subject to change as development on Cataclysm continues.

[...]

Here are a few points of clarification:

We want to provide a 2-handed style for Frost since we recognize that pets are an acquired taste. We think we have the design space to do that now that we don’t need to support Frost tanking. We’re definitely committed to making Frost work as a dual-wield tree though -- that isn’t going away.
Outbreak is free with a 1-minute cooldown. It’s not supposed to completely replace Plague Strike and Icy Touch.
We’re not sure how we’re going to handle presences yet. We recognize the oddness of Blood death knights playing in Frost Presence and Frost death knights not playing in Frost Presences. We might rename the presences or take some other action.

[Dooffuss]

Maybe they should add the ability to use shields also. xQQx

[Falaenx]

Get a job you Hippie!

[Falaenx]

A great post from a dude that analyzed the rune system and how it has particularly boned blood tanks


What's great is you can't even decide not to get death runes now because it is hardbaked into the smaller talent tree.  But you see by making something "easier" they have made it way more complex.  A new WoW player will understand this BS?  I think not.

The first half of this post gives better insight to the new DK rune system and how it solves the problem of a sitting rune by changing the rules of rune requirements. In actuality, this is WORSE than the current system. However, if the abilities are balanced around the new system, it opens up more options and reduces UI confusion in stressed gameplay.

This creates a penalty for double-dipping into a core rune type. Any rune bar sitting below 100% (the first rune is recharged) has to wait longer for both runes than before. Thus it penalizes the use of death runes. Now, if you recharge them sequentially, this helps how? It doesn't unless you balance the class around it. A classed balanced against this system will benefit in allowing haste to apply to rune recharge without becoming overpowered.

I have a solution for this problem.
The solution is in the second half of this post.


1. Explanation of the new Rune system:

For those really suffering for an explanation on how the change in rune system even solves any of the problems they listed.

If a rune is available, but there isn't an ability available that can use it, that resource is wasted. Rogues energy can't be wasted because it is compounded over time.

The first rune is still sitting there until it can be used. Ok, so you have a two rune bar that's 150% full. The first rune (100%) isn't wasted because it's recharge is compounded with the additional 50%. Then when you use it, the 'second' rune (currently at 50%) moves to the first slot and continues to recharge. Meaning it's charge is useful because it's holding up the recharge of the second rune.

Now, this becomes a penalty if the recharge bar is below 100%. This is because the first 100% has to fill for the second rune to begin recharging.

Previously, both 'halves' would recharge simultaneously.

This points to a rune system that benefits those that maintain at least 100% a "2-rune" bar. The penalty becomes more apparent when you introduce multiple resource reserves. Three rune types makes it complex. However, the real problem is when an ability requires two of the same rune, or two of the same ability is used in a row consuming both runes. Since there isn't an ability that uses two of the same rune, we're led to a penalty only if two of the same rune are used simultaneously.

To maximize the system, one might want to distribute rune consumption such that the second of a type of rune is only consumed unless the bar is close to 100% full (close to the one rune mark). Meaning, it allows double dipping into a rune type, but the timing will become the most important. Use a rune when the bar is at 180%, but not when it's at 120%, because the wait time for the next rune is too long.

How is this any different from letting the rune bar become empty then waiting until 100% to use it?

It allows one to use the bottom or first rune at a variable time, instead of a fixed downtime.

!!!WARNING!!!
This HEAVILY PENALIZES the button mashing DKer that hits buttons until an ability has the rune requirement met.

This is what a lot of players complain about DKs. Trying to kill two birds with one stone, eh?

However, I forsee a huge.... problem.... in the form of death runes. Death runes now penalize the player instead of benefiting. Which leads to a problem with the new home for DK tanks.


2. The BLOOD tree problem

Now how do we handle death runes. Simply converting the used 100% portion of a rune bar to a death 100% wouldn't ONLY be confusing, it would also lead to problems with recharging. How does the system know the death rune represents the blood rune and to continue charging the blood rune stopping at 100% because a death rune exists.

This will penalize blood builds really bad, unless blood mechanics allow for more even distribution among rune types. Having two death runes and spamming heart strike six times will be a super huge penalty on the player, because now we're below 100% on EVERY RUNE TYPE.

Previously, there was no penalty to spending the blood runes, because one could simply heart strike all the way and have both on recharge. Which leads us to a little balance issue.

Actually this leads us to a wonderful opportunity.


3. The Death Rune solution

I have a solution that will soften this blow, balance blood against unholy and frost in the new rune system, and benefit all three trees at the same time.

Here's our bar, with runes represented by four characters each representing ~2.5 seconds recharge.

[ BBBB | BBBB ] [ UUUU | UUUU ] [ FFFF | FFFF ]

Let's say I use an unholy rune and it converts to a death rune.

[ BBBB | BBBB ] [ UUUU | DDDD ] [ FFFF | FFFF ]

If I use both the unholy and death rune, with the 'unenhanced' suggested system by the devs, you'd be stuck without any unholy runes for 10 whole seconds and only have both unholy runes after 20 seconds....

OUCH

However, in comes my 'ENHANCED' system.

After a few seconds the unholy rune begins to recharge

[ BBBB | BBBB ] [ UUUU | UDDD ] [ FFFF | FFFF ]

As long as there's a portion of the D bar left, it counts as a death rune. So if an U rune is used

[ BBBB | BBBB ] [ UUDD | ____ ] [ FFFF | FFFF ]

I can still use the D rune, and a UU rune is halfway recharged, so I use it.

[ BBBB | BBBB ] [ UUU_ | ____ ] [ FFFF | FFFF ]

Instead of waiting a full ten seconds till I can use unholy again, there's only a few seconds wait. Plus there's only ~12.5 seconds left until I have two unholy runes. This balances the double-dip penalty against a more flexible death rune system.

So the death rune degrades as it's replaced rune recharges, but any portion of remaining death rune counts as a full death rune.

This keeps the timer on the death rune, but allows the user to not care if a death rune is present or not. This keeps them from being penalized by the double-dip penalty by using a death rune, by allowing the replaced rune type to continue recharging even in the presence of a death rune.

This shortens the timer on a death rune however.

One might represent the death rune by moving it below the replaced rune, and having it blink before it expires so there's less UI confusion.

Also it benefits a double down death rune in a single rune type because the second death rune lasts 20 seconds.

Now there's a huge bonus to creating and using death runes, instead of a huge penalty.

[MaximusDeath]

I feel like they took a rune system that was very easy to understand and made it rocket science for some reason.

[Djfurball]

I feel like they took a rune system that was very easy to understand and made it rocket science for some reason.

They're on record as saying they want DPS'ers to have a free GCD every once in awhile. So putting your runes on CD more often, and not letting them regen simultaneously, gives you more leeway in your rotation to do stuff like not push DPS buttons.

And, yes, this sucks for DK tanks who are already the least capable of any tank class of automatically having something to hit a new mob with. But it will make Unholy/Frost DPS more interesting to play.

[Falaenx]

I feel like they took a rune system that was very easy to understand and made it rocket science for some reason.

They're on record as saying they want DPS'ers to have a free GCD every once in awhile. So putting your runes on CD more often, and not letting them regen simultaneously, gives you more leeway in your rotation to do stuff like not push DPS buttons.

And, yes, this sucks for DK tanks who are already the least capable of any tank class of automatically having something to hit a new mob with. But it will make Unholy/Frost DPS more interesting to play.

Yeah they're pretty well killing dk tanking for me, but that's ok because I wasn't sure I wanted to be around for cata anyway.

[MaximusDeath]

your quiting wow? where you planning on going?

[Falaenx]

your quiting wow? where you planning on going?

I'm getting you a jump to conclusions mat.  Like any addict I am pretty sure I cannot quit cold turkey.  Not without a methadone clinic.

[MaximusDeath]

your quiting wow? where you planning on going?

I'm getting you a jump to conclusions mat.  Like any addict I am pretty sure I cannot quit cold turkey.  Not without a methadone clinic.

lol I love that movie anyway dude fucking frontier keeps changing my flight i need to call them today they have tweaked my flight times like 5 times this time they leave a message saying i need to call because there has been a drastic change to my flight FUN TIMES!

Edit- Just noticed i used the word "Time" one too many times lol