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Bring back the old Death Strike please

Armstrong — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:04:34 GMT

Quote:

Originally, this ability was something you would use only situationally to heal yourself at a cost of damage. Since then we have redesigned the death knight class sufficiently to where Death Strike was a major rotational ability for Blood. Given how much the attack is hitting for, we think the amount of healing it provided was too much.

Source: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...73608683&sid=1

Some numbers:

Prior to 3.1, Death Strike healed as follows:

0 diseases : 0 healing

1 disease : 150% of damage dealt

2 diseases : 200% of damage dealt

3 diseases : 250% of damage dealt

Now with 3.1 Blizz has decided to give Blood DKs the option of speccing for harder-hitting Death Strikes but has nerfed the healing ratio to keep things balanced. Now Death Strike heals as follows:

0 diseases : 0 healing

1 disease : 20% of damage dealt

2 diseases : 40% of damage dealt

3 diseases : 40% of damage dealt (probably bugged and intended to be 60%)

Ultimately, Death Strike went from being a low-hitting melee attack used for decent self-healing to hitting almost as hard as Obliterate but with anemic healing utility.

The problem with that change is not so much that DK self-healing gets nerfed, but rather is a more fundamental mistake in class design. Death Strike is now so close to being the same as Obliterate that it pretty much lost its reason for existing in the first place. You don't give the player two buttons that do almost the same thing. There needs to be a reason for an ability to exist, or at least a different enough mechanic behind it that gives the player reason to decide to use one ability instead of another. Death Knights used to have a reason to choose to hit Death Strike instead of Obliterate or Scourge Strike. Right now that choice is pretty much non-existent. Blood DKs have no reason to hit Obliterate because it longer provides significant damage over Death Strike, and Frost and Unholy DKs have no reason to hit Death Strike because it no longer heals for any kind of useful amount.

On top of that, I wouldn't be surprised to see Blood DPS becoming the new overpowered spec before long. Armor Penetration just got a buff, and the Heart Strike spam provided by Death Rune Mastery was previously kept in check either by how speccing Annihilation kept the good Unholy talents out of reach or by how having to hit Death Strike to generate Death runes was a DPS loss. No longer the case now.

Anyway, the old situational-use Death Strike was just more fun I think. I wonder what made Blizz think that the change was necessary.

Beta is over, things I'm left wondering about

Armstrong — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:46:57 GMT

The Beta is over

and I've only had time to test about 5% of what I would have liked to test. Well it was fun while it lasted, and the expansion is only a week away.

Here are the top three things on my mind at the moment:

Resource system

With a full set of level 80 abilities the Rune + Runic Power system becomes a mini-game all by itself. The system allows for a wide variety of fairly convoluted rotations but at the same time creates unique limitations by putting abilities on a "soft" cooldown after they have been used a certain number of time. In order to reach their highest potential DKs require more advance planning than most classes since in many cases using one ability will put a number of others on cooldown.

A good number of players will likely decide that the play style is too complex for them after a while. Many others will stick with their DK, but the gap between the good and the bad DK might end up being particularly large, not unlike how it has long been the case for Hunters. The main concern then is that DKs may have a hard time getting group and raid invites if the class itself gets a bad rap early on.
Avoidance

While their health pool and armor have been brought closer to the other two plate classes, DK mechanics still heavily favor avoidance. Not only it is easy to get from talents (up to 18% "always on" and two avoidance-based "panic buttons") but a few key abilities (RS & BS) actually scale with the DK's avoidance. In addition, strength provides both DK's main damage and threat scaling and increases parry in the process.

It will be interesting to see how this all develops on live, since until now tank classes have all worked with a resource system that scales up with damage taken, which had the effect of turning avoidance into a necessary evil at best. Death Knights on the other hand not only see no negative effect from avoidance but actually benefit from it in the form of more Rune Strike procs and longer Bone Shield duration.

On the surface this looks like a good thing for DKs, but it remains to be seen whether it will be too good and the nerf bat gets called in.
PvP

This isn't something I've had the chance to test much. A few random 1v1 outdoor "incidents" went fairly well for me, but I suspect that was mainly due to most people still being largely unfamiliar with DK abilities. After a few weeks at level 80, everyone will know the DK tricks and how to counter them. This is expected and normal.

Pretty soon though, death knights' dependence on diseases will likely become the top issue in group PvP. The system works fine for sustained DPS in PvE. In PvP the implication is that a DK needs to apply at least one and often two diseases in order to get the full potential out of their burst abilities.

Having to use your first two global cooldowns to apply debuffs before you can hit an enemy with significant burst damage is obviously counter-intuitive in PvP. Imagine if Mortal Strike did only half damage unless both rend and sunder armor were present on the target. DKs don't have it that bad, but it's not too far from it.

Between snares, CC and 3 out of 4 healing classes able to remove diseases, keeping the diseases up will be a challenge at best, and DKs will likely find themselves having to settle for suboptimal burst during the short windows of opportunity they get.

You can read a much more thorough article on this subject here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still very excited about the class. I'm looking forward to the 13th and the months to follow. There's a long and fun journey ahead, I'm sure of it.

AP coefficients

Armstrong — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:12:52 GMT

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/...fficients.html

Attack Power coefficients

Death Knight abilities that are not based on weapon damage generate a base amount of damage plus a percentage of the Death Knight's attack power. These abilities are generally considered "spells". They generate magic damage and are affected by spell resistance mechanics and spell hit / miss chance.

The Attack Power coefficient allows Attack Power to act like Spell Power. For example:

Death Coil (Rank 5) causes 443 base damage, plus 15% of attack power.

A Death Knight with 2000 AP will do 443 + (2000 � 0.15) = 743 damage with Death Coil.

Keep in mind that talents and effects which increase damage by a percentage also increase the AP contribution for the spells they affect by that percentage. As such, the coefficients listed below represent the very minimum players will see for each ability, and in most cases the contribution will be higher.

Death Knight spells are listed below with their AP coefficients as of patch 3.0.3.9155.

Code:

Blood Boil _________  0.04
Blood Plague _______  0.055
Bloodworms _________  0.006 *
Corpse Explosion ___  0.0475 **
Death and Decay ____  0.0475
Death Coil _________  0.15
Frost Fever ________  0.055
Howling Blast ______  0.1
Summon Gargoyle ____  0.42 (Gargoyle Strike) ***
Icy Touch __________  0.1
Pestilence _________  0.04
Strangulate ________  0.06
Unholy Blight ______  0.013

* Bloodworms' base damage at level 80 appears to be 50 average (2.0 attack speed) before armor mitigation, assuming the formula is D = base + C � AP where C is the AP coefficient.

** Currently Corpse Explosion is bugged and the AP coefficient itself scales with Runic Power. On an empty RP bar the ability deals the base damage (220), and at 100 RP you get extra damage equal to 0.0475 � AP.

*** Gargoyle Strike is the Gargoyle's only ability, which it spams continuously until it gets killed or the summon duration ends. The spell's base damage at level 80 appears to be 150, assuming the formula is D = base + C � AP where C is the AP coefficient.

Threat values (work in progress)

Armstrong — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:03:33 GMT

This entry has been reposted on the forums. Please see THIS THREAD for updates and to leave further comments.

==========================

This an extensive list of DK mechanics and their associated threat. Because we are dealing with a completly new class, I decided to look for threat in every possible buff, proc etc. As expected the vast majority DK threat will come directly from damage, with innate threat values being the exception rather than the rule.

Let me know if you find any errors or have any questions or suggestions.

Important: See Satrina's 3.0 Threat Values post for threat basics and method used to find values in-game.

Modifiers

Code:

Frost Presence _______________________  � 207.35
Blood / Unholy Presence ______________  �  80
Blood / Unholy with 3/3 Subversion ___  �  55

Abilities (presence modifiers apply unless otherwise noted)

Code:

Anti-Magic Shell ___________________  0
Anti-Magic Shell RP gain ___________  500 per RP (approx), unaffected by presence.  See * below.
Anti-Magic Zone ____________________  0
Abomination's Might ________________  0
Blood Boil _________________________  damage
Blood Caked Blade __________________  damage
Blood Plague _______________________  damage
Blood Presence reactive healing ____  0
Blood Strike _______________________  damage
Blood Tap __________________________  0
Bloody Vengeance ___________________  0
Bloodworms _________________________  0 The DK gains no threat from BW's damage or healing.  See ** below.
Butchery RP gains on kills _________  500 per RP, unaffected by presence
Chains of Ice ______________________  226
Chilblains (all ranks) _____________  2
Chill of the Grave RP gains ________  500 per RP, unaffected by presence
Corpse Explosion ___________________  damage
Crypt Fever ________________________  0
Death and Decay ____________________  damage � 1.90
Deathchill _________________________  55, split between all mobs
Death Coil _________________________  damage
Death Coil healing _________________  0
Death Grip _________________________  110
Death Pact _________________________  healing � 0.5 � presence, split between all mobs
Death Strike _______________________  damage
Death Strike healing _______________  healing � 0.5 � presence, split between all mobs
Desecration ________________________  2500 unaffected by presence modifiers.  See *** below
Dirge RP gains _____________________  500 per RP, unaffected by presence
Ebon Plaguebringer _________________  0
Empower Rune Weapon ________________  0
Frost Fever ________________________  damage
Frost Strike _______________________  damage
Heart Strike _______________________  damage
Horn of Winter _____________________  75 � number of units buffed, split between mobs
Howling Blast ______________________  damage
Hungering Cold _____________________  112, split between all mobs affected
Hysteria ___________________________  55
Icebound Fortitude _________________  0
Icy Talons _________________________  0
Improved Icy Talons ________________  0
Icy Touch __________________________  damage
Lichborne __________________________  110, split between all mobs
Mark of Blood ______________________  0
Mind Freeze ________________________  0
Obliterate _________________________  damage
Pestilence _________________________  damage + (100 split between all mobs hit)
Plague Strike ______________________  damage
Raise Dead _________________________  57, split between mobs
Rime _______________________________  0
Rune Strike ________________________  damage
Rune Tap ___________________________  0
Scent of Blood _____________________  0
Scent of Blood RP gains ____________  0
Scourge Strike _____________________  damage + 120
Strangulate ________________________  158 on application, damage at the end
Unholy Blight ______________________  damage
Unholy Strength ____________________  healing � 0.5, ignores presence
Unbreakable Armor __________________  0
Vampiric Blood _____________________  0
Vendetta healing ___________________  0
Wandering Plague ___________________  damage

*
I'm still not clear exactly how Anti-Magic Shell threat is calculated. It definitely seems to be based on the standard RP gain rule, but always ends up being a tiny bit above that by different amounts. If you can figure it out please let me know.

**
Bloodworms generate threat for themselves from the damage they deal. Their damage is really low, but they will aggro and get killed if you let them attack a target that you haven't built threat on. Their healing on the other hand generates no threat for themselves, so they will not aggro an add that they are not attacking.

***
Desecration only generates threat on initial application. Mobs moved into an existing Desecration gain the debuff but no associated threat. Threat is split between mobs affected, and therefore quickly becomes rather insignificant when dealing with large groups.

Power gains

Runic Power gained from Butchery, Chill of the Grave and Dirge generates 500 threat per point of RP gained. This threat is divided between all mobs who have you on their threat list.

RP gained from normal use of rune abilities generates no threat, neither does passive RP gains from Butchery.

Healing

Threat from DK heal effects is all over the place right now. Self healing from Blood Presence generates no threat, so don't count on Blood tanks getting an edge on threat. Some on-demand heals generate threat (Death Pact), others don't (Rune Tap). Fallen Crusader not being affected by presences is probably a bug.

A few notable finds

Rune Strike is possibly the only ability of any tank class that generates less threat than it does damage. I've reported this as a bug on the beta forums. - Edit: as of build 9095 Rune Strike damage and threat have been fixed. The "white" swing is now replaced by the Rune Strike (same mechanic as Heroic Strike) and threat now equals damage dealt modified by presence.
Scourge Strike and Pestilence have flat innate threat modifiers. I'm not sure if this is intended.

To-do list

Blood Aura
Clarify Anti-Magic Shell mechanics
Dancing Rune Weapon

Got a beta key!

Armstrong — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:10:37 GMT

I finally got my hands on a beta key a couple of days ago. I've been working pretty long days so after the long download & install process I've only had the chance to spend about an hour in game last night.

I've decided to save the fun of the starting area for when Wrath goes live. For now I intend to focus on finding answers to the many "technical" questions I have about the class first, so I copied a premade level DK (aptly named ArmstrongDK) to the Murmur server. You may also find me there on Armstrongbl, warrior.

So far I've:

traveled from Ironforge to Dalaran and set my hearthstone there
ported to Ebon Hold and confirmed with the class trainer that the pre-made already "knew" all trainable ranks of all abilities and talents
confirmed that respecs are fixed at 1 gold (the pre-made starts with 5000 gold)
setup keybinds and action bars
setup Satrina's Threat addon
whacked a few mobs just to get a quick feel for the abilities

I was able to confirm that Frost Presence multiplies threat by ~207, no big surprise here, same as Defensive Stance. Blood Presence with 3/3 Subversion multiplies threat by 55, so presumably 80 untalented but I'll confirm that next time I'm on.

Also, Death and Decay, Death Knights' only ability advertized as having innate threat, appeared to do roughly twice its damage in total threat (189 damage was ~369 threat before multipliers). I haven't tried varying my AP to get different damage values though, so I can't tell for sure whether it's really a multiplier or a flat amount. More on that later.

I don't expect I'll get a lot of tanking opportunities on a server full of people in PvP gear, but now that the class is mostly stabilized I'm more interested in digging up numbers on anyway.

If you have any questions about the class either post below or in the DK mechanics thread.

Defense on level 80 starter tank gear

Armstrong — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:31:26 GMT

Just a very rough post to show that the gear is indeed out there to achieve 540 defense pre-Naxx.

1 Def skill @80 = 4.918498039 Def rating

Rating required for 540 Def (140 skill) = 689

77 Ley-Guardian's Legguards

76 Breastplate of the Solemn Council

71 Daunting Handguards

65 Seal of the Pantheon

61 Ground Tremor Helm

58 Sabatons of Draconic Vigor

42 Cloak of the Enemy

42 Waistguard of the Risen Knight

38 Dragonflight Great-Ring

33 Shadowseeker's Pendant

29 Crusader's Square Pauldrons

28 Band of Torture

27 Bindings of Dark Will

22 Enchant Chest - Greater Defense

16 Enchant Cloak - Titanweave

12 Enchant Bracer - Major Defense

697 total without any weapon, shield, glyph, armor kit or defense gems, and only one trinket.

Edit: lol, apparently this blog entry is 1337. :)

DK armor comparison (part 2, level 80)

Armstrong — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:53:14 GMT

So it's been a month since I posted a comparison of armor values between the plate-wearing classes. Level 80 entry level raid gear is now on the database sites, so it's time for one more armor comparison post, this time with actual level 80 values.

ilevel 200 Epic items
(Naxx 10-man / level 80 heroic 5-mans)

Heroes' Scourgeborne Helmet 1821
Heroes' Scourgeborne Shoulderplates 1681
Cloak of Armed Strife 486
Heroes' Scourgeborne Chestguard 2241
Minion Bracers 980
Heroes' Scourgeborne Handguards 1401
Waistguard of Living Iron 1261
Heroes' Scourgeborne Legplates 1961
Plague-Impervious Boots 1541
Total: 13373

Royal Crest of Lordaeron 7530
100 / 13373 * 7530 = 56.3
Shield provides an additional 56.3% of armor value from other items combined.

Warrior/Paladin w/ 5/5 Thoughness: (13373 + 7530) * 1.1 =
22993 armor (60.15% mitigation vs. L80)
With Defensive Stance: 64.14%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 62.54%

Death Knight w/ 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: 13373 * 1.15 * 1.45 =
22299 armor (59.41% mitigation vs. L80)

This is all very similar to the level 70 mitigation values. Shields still provide the same percentage of a tank's armor, and Frost Presence still falls a bit short. Big deal? Still early to tell. Abilities and talents are still being tweaked on the beta realms, and other forms of damage reduction may actually warrant the different mitigation values.

Damage taken

One thing I left out of my last entry is a comparison of damage taken after mitigation. But first, let's add an arbitrary 750 armor to factor in agility and a few armor enchants. New mitigation values are as follows:

Warrior: 65.05%
Paladin: 63.50%
Death Knight: 60.47%

Damage taken is effectively 1 - mitigation.

Damage taken for each class (includes D-stance / F-presence / RF / Toughness):

Warrior: 34.95%
Paladin: 36.50%
Death Knight: 39.53%

When comparing Paladin and Warrior mitigation with Death Knight mitigation, we find the following:

The Paladin takes 7.66% less damage per successful hit than the Death Knight.

The Warrior takes 11.59% less damage per successful hit than the Death Knight.

At the time of this writing, Death Knight in the beta still have the best "active" defenses of all three classes. I will be doing some more math soon, but I also suspect that DKs have significantly better passive avoidance as well, at least based on Naxx-25 gear. If that remains the trend, it may be that the damage intake will even out between classes, albeit DK's will probably have the most spiky version.

Death Knight mitigation vs. warrior/paladin

Armstrong — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:31:27 GMT

Today is 8/14/08. WotLK is in beta. By the time the expansion is released much may have changed regarding the post below.

I've been running into a lot of discussions mentionning how DKs have the worst survivability of the three tank classes, much of which is tied to them having lower armor. I was curious to figure out exactly how big the difference was, and decided to approach the issue using familiar examples of gear available at level 70.

Below is a breakdown of armor values using same-level (except where noted) items with comparison between Warrior (or paladin) and Death Knight. I've also included separate comparisons when using items with extra armor, as DKs will benefit slightly more from those and I felt it would be useful to see how much so.

All three classes have other options to increase their armor, such as agility and armor enchants. However I've decided not to incluse those since they are not affected by armor multipliers, providing the same flat amount of armor (~600-700 at best) regardless of class.

What we find is that Death Knights' Frost Aura (+45% armor) doesn't quite bridge the armor gap caused from the inability to equip a shield. This even after factoring in DKs Toughness talent which provides a slightly higher armor increase than the warrior / paladin version.

However, the high armor modifiers do allow DKs to lead the pack when wearing items with added armor such as rings, cloak, trinket and weapons. At lower levels of progression in classic WoW and in TBC some plate items with added armor value have been available also, and are included in the first example below.

Ultimately though, Defensive Stance and Imp. Righteous Fury put the warriors and pallies back on top by a significant margin. To top it off, the use of a shield gives both classes a chance to further reduce incoming physical damage after all percentage modifiers have been applied.

Are Death Knights truly at a disadvantage? Difficult to say in their current state. Their "active" defenses are easily the most powerful of all tank classes at the moment, and assuming they don't get nerfed, may provide enough "on demand" mitigation to compensate for the lack of Defensive Stance / Imp RF, something that encounter design will play a large part in determining.

This only covers mitigation. Avoidance is also being adjusted and the lastest changes lead me to beleive that Death Knights may very well have the highest pure avoidance of all three plate classes given equal stats. If this is by design, then lower mitigation may end up being an acceptable compromise.

WTB beta key. :P

---------------------------------

ilevel 115 Rare items

Warhelm of the Bold 946
Shoulderguards of the Bold 873
Devilshark Cape 78
Breastplate of the Bold 1164
Vambraces of Daring 509
Gauntlets of the Bold 728
Sha'tari vindicator's Waistguard 655
Legplates of the Bold 1019
Obsidian Clodstompers 800
Total: 6772

Aegis of the Sunbird 3806
100 / 6772 * 3806 = 56.2
Shield provides an additional 56.2% of armor value from other items combined.

Warrior/Paladin, 5/5 Thoughness: (6772 + 3806) * 1.1 =
11636 armor (52.43% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 57.19%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 55.28%

Death Knight, 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: 6772 * 1.15 * 1.45 =
11292 armor (51.68% mitigation vs. L70)

Add ilevel 115 Rare cloak, rings and trinket
Substitute items with high armor values

Felsteel Helm 338
Thoriumweave Cloak (390) +312
Felsteel Gloves 215
Felsteel Leggings 238
Violet Signet 294
Band of Determination 252
Badge of Tenacity 308
Total: 1957

Warrior/Paladin, 5/5 Thoughness: (6772 + 3806 + 1957) * 1.1 =
13789 armor (56.64% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 60.98%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 59.24%

Death Knight, 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: (6772 + 1957) * 1.15 * 1.45 =
14556 armor (57.96% mitigation vs. L70)

---------------------------------

ilevel 115 Epic items

Eternium Greathelm 1178
Mantle of Abrahmis 1087
Royal Cloak of Arathi Kings 97
Panzar'thar Breastplate 1450
Vambraces of Courage 634
Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden 906
Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable 816
Wrynn Dynasty Greaves 1269
Battlescar Boots 997
Total: 8434

Shield of Impenetrable Darkness 4872
100 / 8434 * 4872 = 57.8
Shield provides an additional 57.8% of armor value from other items combined.

Warrior/Paladin, 5/5 Thoughness: (8434 + 4872) * 1.1 =
14637 armor (58.10% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 62.29%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 60.61%

Death Knight, 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: 8434 * 1.15 * 1.45 =
14064 armor (57.12% mitigation vs. L70)

Add ilevel 115 Epic cloak, rings and weapons

Gilded Thorium Cloak (385) 288
Shermanar Great-Ring 223
Violet Signet 350 (ilevel 110)
King's Defender 182
Total: 1043

Warrior/Paladin, 5/5 Thoughness: (8434 + 4872 + 1043) * 1.1 =
15784 armor (59.92% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 63.93%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 62.32%

Death Knight DWing a second King's Defender, 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: (8434 + 1043 + 182) * 1.15 * 1.45 =
16106 armor (60.41% mitigation vs. L70)

---------------------------------

ilevel 141 (Hyjal / BT) Epic items

Helm of the Illidari Shatterer 1434
Pauldrons of Abyssal Fury 1324
Pepe's Shroud of Pacification 118
Chestplate of Stoicism 1765
Eternium Shell Bracers 772
Gauntlets of Enforcement 1103
Girdle of Stability 993
Sunguard Legplates 1544
Myrmidon's Treads 1213
Total: 10266

Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart 5930
100 / 10266 * 5930 = 57.8
Shield provides an additional 57.8% of armor value from other items combined.

Warrior/Paladin w/ 5/5 Thoughness: (10266 + 5930) * 1.1 =
17816 armor (62.79% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 67.54%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 65.02%

Death Knight w/ 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: 10266 * 1.15 * 1.45 =
17119 armor (61.85% mitigation vs. L70)

Add ilevel 141 Epic (mostly) cloak, rings and weapons

Gilded Thorium Cloak (385) 267 (ilevel 115)
Violet Signet of the Great Protector 392 (ilevel 130)
Ring of the Stalwart Protector 392
The Unbreakable Will 308
Total: 1359

Warrior/Paladin, 5/5 Thoughness: (10266 + 5930 + 1359) * 1.1 =
19311 armor (64.65% mitigation vs. L70)
With Defensive Stance: 68.19%
With Imp Righteous Fury: 66.77%

Death Knight DWing a second The Unbreakable Will, 5/5 Toughness and Frost Aura: (10266 + 1359 + 308) * 1.15 * 1.45 =
19898 armor (65.34% mitigation vs. L70)

Blizz clarifies philosophy behind DK talents

Armstrong — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:45:56 GMT

Ghostcrawler made this post yesterday which reiterates Blizzard's design philosophy behind Death Knights as tanks and why their tanking talents are spread across three talent trees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

Part of the reason we chose to add the death knight to Wrath of the Lich King was because groups seemed to have trouble getting tanks. We think tanking in general will be more popular if it's more fun. Improving the dps of tanks will certainly help, which is something we're trying to do to the 3 existing tanking classes through talents and gear changes.

With death knights, we are taking that a step further and trying to allow death knight with different specs to still be viable tanks. Maybe a death knight tank won't burn out if they can try a completely different tree without giving up their tanking role. Maybe death knight off-tanks can still contribute decent dps and utility when not tanking. Maybe it will just be more fun for everyone if you see different abilities getting used depending on who you bring along as a tank.

We admire the valiant attempts to come up with specs that cherry-pick every single tanking talent, but really that's not what you should have to do to tank. If Frost Presence reduced all damage by 95% and generated 200% more threat, it's pretty clear that a death knight could tank any boss in the game, probably trivially, with no talents spent at all. That is clearly a silly example, but my point is that there are lots of ways we can adjust the base class to be an exceptional tank without you having to be dependent on keeping Blade Barrier or Bone Armor up 100% of the time.

Should you get talents that help you tank? Absolutely. Will a paladin be a better Ulduar tank because she spent 20 talents on tanking and you only spent 6? There is no reason that has to be the case. Is that fair? I think it can be. The paladin will still be a better tank for some encounters and as long as she doesn't totally gimp her dps or healing abilities in order to take those tanking talents, we think the design can work.

His comments echo my earlier "guesses" at the end of this blog entry.

It remains to be seen how this will play out. Personally I remain fairly optimistic for the long-term. I'm fully expecting the first few months of WotLK to be full of nerfs and ability changes. DKs will probably have to re-learn how to spec and how to play the class multiple times before Blizzard settles on a "balanced" version. Deah Knights will undoubtedly face the same challenges and stigmas that paladins (and druids to some extent) had to face when vying for a raid MT spot.

I'm personally looking forward to that challenge though, having played the last two end-games as the "default" tank class. Not to say that warriors don't earn their MT slot, but getting to do so on a less established and still-evolving class feels much more exciting to me than simply learning new boss fights behind an already-familiar tank interface.

The rest of that thread is worth reading btw, and includes some follow-up comments by the same GC.

Justifying a raid slot

Armstrong — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:55:51 GMT

This is a list of the different ways Death Knights can bring utility to a raid beyond their own DPS and tanking ability.

At the moment it's difficult to tell exactly how valuable any of the buffs will be. I'm mostly concerned with having them listed together, and anyone who is already involved in raid leading should be able to get at least a rough idea of what these buffs imply in a raid setting.

I'm also including debuffs that can be applied on a boss which another tank could benefit from.

Lastly, due to the nature of that talent point system, some of the talents listed below will never co-exist in the same spec. Some belong in specs best used for DPS and others in specs geared towards tanking. The idea is to cover the whole spectrum of what DKs can bring to a raid from a raid composition standpoint.

Base abilities

Icy Touch

Rune of Frostfever
Works like a permanent weapon enchant and can only be removed by applying a new enchant or Rune.

Blood talents

Mark of Blood - 21 point

Abomination's Strength - 26-27 point

Hysteria - 31 point

Blood Aura - 36-37 point

Heart Strike - 41 point

Frost talents

Frozen Rune Weapon - 11 point

Frost Aura - 36-37 point

Acclimation - 41-43 point

Unholy talents

Anti-Magic zone - 31 point

Unholy Aura - 36-37 point

Crypt Fever - 36-40 point

Ebon Plaguebringer - 41-43 point

The effect of a 30% armor increase

Armstrong — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:15:13 GMT

Examining the effect of Will of the Necropolis (3/3, Blood tree) and Unbreakable Armor (3/3, Frost tree).

For the sake of familiarity, let's use a level 70 attacker vs. level 70 target example: (based on the mitigation formula found here)

60% mitigation is 15836 armor. This is the equivalent of a mix of Tier 4 and Tier 5 / ZA / patch 2.3 BoJ gear.

15836 * 1.3 = 20587 armor, or 66% mitigation.

100 - (100 / 66 * 60) = 9.1% increase in damage reduction.

Comparisons will inevitably be made with Ardent Defender, which is a 31-35 point paladin talent (Protection tree). When below 35% health, reduces ALL damage by 30% (6% per point).

Will of the Necropolis is a 41-42 point DK talent.
Reduces physical damage by ~9% (~3% per point) when below 35% health. Also provides 4 Expertise per point, up to 12.

To me this talent seems too far down the Blood tree (or too weak) to pickup for it's survivability aspect alone. The expertise however could be a nice threat increase assuming that the majority of Death Knight abilities can be dodged or parried.

It could also be argued that the talent is near the bottom of DK's strongest DPS tree, and that the armor proc is just a hand-out for deep-Blood DKs who can't access tanking talents very far down the other trees. I'll assume that's Blizzard's idea behind the talent, and just pretent it isn't there... ;)

Unbreakable Armor doesn't seem much better, mainly because it procs on a random chance. By keeping both Frost runes on cooldown it should proc once every 33 seconds on average. So at best it can be seen as an overall ~3% damage reduction. Am I missing something here?

8/04/08 Update

So after a lot of talk on the beta forums and a few different incarnations, Unbreakable armor is now activated manually:

Unbreakable Armor
One Rank
1 Frost, Instant (no GCD), 2 min cooldown
Increases your armor by 25% and your total Strength by 5% for 20 sec

So the cooldown remains 2 minutes. The armor increase has gone from 30% to 25%. Who cares, garbage vs. garbage... The Strength boost only makes the talent look good. The one noticeable improvement is the 20 sec duration, up from 10.

Now while I agree that such a weak ability being changed from being a random proc with cooldown to being activated by the player is a good thing, the Rune cost effectively means that it often will not be available right when needed. Death Knights have two Frost Runes, which take 10 seconds to refresh after they have been used, and which are the main ressource for many abilities, particularly tanking related abilities.

Again, assuming that Unbreakable armor is supposed to be a panic button, this means that if both Frost runes have recently been used for other abilities, popping Unbreakable Armor may be impossible for up to 8.5 seconds.

Add to it that we're talking about roughly 8% reduction to physical damage only.

Then there's the added issue of how Blade Barrier gives a constant 10% parry increase for as long as all your Runes are on cooldown. So in order to "save" a Frost Rune in anticipation of using UA at the right moment, you have to sacrifice 10% avoidance.

The blue post decribing the changes doesn't mention if the talent has moved up in the tree, but I can't imagine how it could be any more than an 11-point talent.

Btw, Will of the Necropolis is just as bad as it was.

It annoys me to no end that no one posting on the DK forums seems to have a good grasp on tanking mechanics. I need to make a friend on the inside... :P

DK tanking, basic information

Armstrong — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:13:33 GMT

The basics
(this list assumes you are already familiar with current tanking mechanics and tanking classes)

Presences

Death Knights may take on three different Presences: Blood, Frost and Unholy. A Presence works like a warrior stance in that it is active until the DK chages to a different Presence, and it cannot be dispelled. Unlike with stances, all DK abilities can be used in any Presence.

Threat

Death knight abilities (presumably) have no innate threat values. Their threat generation is directly proportionate to their damage output and further increased by percentage modifiers, such as Frost Presence.

With trained abilities like Death and Decay and Blood Boil, Death Knights of any spec will likely be able to AoE tank as effectively as paladins. DKs can improve their AoE tanking potential further with talents.

No shield?

The 45% armor increase of Frost Presence effectively provides the equivalent of a shield in terms of armor value, so DKs are not at a disadvantage there.

Other damage reduction tools in DKs' arsenal include:
- Icy Touch (talented) (talented)
- Icebound Fortitude (talented)
- Anti-Magic Shell (talented)
- Anti-Magic Zone 31 point Unholy talent
- Bone Armor 26 point Unholy talent
- and more

Group and raid buffs

While Death Knights don't have traditional buff spell to cast on other, they have access to a large variety of proc-based group buffs (think BM hunters), damage vulnerability debuffs (think Blood Frenzy) and other auras.

Stats & gear

Death Knights can spec into Spell Deflection (16-18 points into Blood tree) that reduces incoming magic damage based on their Parry chance, turning parry rating into a magic-tanking stat.

Death Knights have no crit reduction talents, meaning they will want to strive for 540 Defense skill to reduce their chance to be crit by level 83 mobs to 0%. Beyond 540 Defense, DKs gain the same amount of avoidance as warriors and paladins, minus the chance to block.

Death Knight spells and special abilities scale with attack power. I don't know that they don't benefit from spell damage too, but Blizzard's goal is that DKs will be able to get full benefit out of their abilities by wearing the same gear as warriors.

Many Death Knight abilities deal damage based on "weapon damage". This leads to the assumption that a slow 2Her is a better choice over dual-wielding. That remains to be seen however, as many DK talents seem to lend themselves to dual-wielding. The main question for tanking will be whether higher damage can be achieved while DW without the haste benefit of Unholy Aura.

Many Death Knight abilities apply DoTs in the form of diseases. Other abilities deal direct damage based on the condition of the target being already afflicted by one or more disease (Example). For the purpose of tanking, this means that DKs will have to be careful with their use of DoTs in situations where crowd control is used.

Control

Death Knights get a single-target taunt (Death Grip) on a 35 sec cooldown (can be reduced to 25 sec with two points in Unholy Command).

Death Knights get an AoE taunt in the form of Blood Boil. Its cooldown can be reduced to 11 seconds with two points in Unholy Command). The taunt component presumably relies on a disease being present on the targets in order to work. Death and Decay can fill that need every 30 seconds, but diseases will have to be applied via other methods the rest of the time. With 41 points in the Unholy tree, a DK can apply diseases in AoE form using Unholy Blight.

All Death Knights also have access to a melee range interrupt, a 30yd range silence and a 20yd range snare.

The Frost tree is often refered to as "the tanking tree". While it does provide some great damage reduction talents, its strength lies in all the slows, snares, cooldown reductions on interrupts, much of which will probably be irrelevant for raid tanking.

Hero class?

Possibly the one thing by which Death Knights still hangs onto the qualification of being a Hero Class in my mind is that their tanking talents are spread across all three talent trees. There are (arguably) no 31-point or 41-point talents that look like they will be required in order for a DK to be able to generate decent threat or reach a certain level of survivability. Instead, the talent trees provide the DK with the ability to choose certain perks or style withing the realm of tanking.

While Death Knights will have their strengths and weaknesses as tanks, they are the only class for which Blizzard has done a great job of providing the tools necessary to tank reasonably well pretty much regardless of how they spec.

Ghouls are awesome!

Armstrong — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:02:55 GMT

Death Knights gain access to Raise Dead at level 56.

The talents Ravenous Dead and Ferocious Dead can reduce Raise Dead's cooldown to 2.5 minutes and increase its duration to 3.5 minutes.

The Shadow of Death talents lets the Death Knight play as a Ghoul when he/she dies, and the talent Master of Ghouls allow the Death Knight to control his/her Ghoul as a pet.

Ghoul abilities

Claw

Explode (old?)

Gnaw

Huddle

Infect

Leap

Thrash

Best pet evar?

DKs' most fundamental disadvantage as tanks?

Armstrong — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:06:15 GMT

Ironic that I would start a blog about Death Knight tanks by highlighting what feels like could be their main weakness... and no it's not the lack of a shield.

Death Knights are the only tank class whose ressource system doesn't scale with damage dealt or damage taken.

Particularly damage taken. As a comparison, warriors and druids gain rage directly proportionate to the damage they take and paladins gain mana in a similar way via Spiritual Attunement. This design has always been a keystone of raid tanking and much that we take for granted about raid DPS would be radically different if it wasn't for that scaling.

This means DKs could potentially be less desirable for "burn" fights or "DPS races", where other tank class can find a sweet-spot in avoidance and benefit from the extra rage / mana.

On the flip side this does mean that DKs should be able to sustan higher threat in avoidance gear (rogue tanks anyone?) or at the very least won't be subject to the issues caused by avoidance streaks.

It's obviously too early to tell how this will pan out in the raid game, but definitely something to think about.

Possible workarounds?

Applying and refreshing multiple diseases may end up being the answer on boss fights. DoTs probably won't be worth worrying about on mobs that die in 30 seconds. But it's conceivable that a DK's highest sustained threat potential may lie in proper disease management (and speccing and gearing accordingly).
A relic (range slot item) could be made available that gives runic power or procs a rune refresh on incoming damage.

A Death Knight theorycrafting blog

Armstrong — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:51:42 GMT

I've decided (a while back now) that I'll be playing a Death Knight as my main toon in WotLK. I will be focused on tanking because it's the role I enjoy the most.

I was not in the Alpha and I do not have a Beta key, so for the moment I'm in the same situation as most of you where I can only learn about DKs via what's on the web. Fortunately there's a lot of information available already, making it possible to at the very least make some educated guesses as to what stats, talents and abilities will work well to achieve particular goals.

So for a while that's mostly what I'll be doing here. I will be using this blog to organize lists of questions I have, questions you or others have, and the answers to them as they are found or provided by lucky Beta testers. When I start to feel familiar enough with certain topics, I will post mini-guides/FAQs/compendiums on the forums.

In short, this blog will be an ongoing exercice of researching Death Knights. I initially was going to use draft entries only, as a way to keep my notes in a centralized location. But then I decided that that with enough paricipation, it could become a bit of a group effort, and the blog format allows that to happen withough flooding the actual forums with guess work and speculation.

Ultimately, I plan on putting together some Death Knight reference guides for TankSpot based on what is compiled here.