The DK class mechanics questions thread

[Armstrong]

Edit: I now have access to the beta, so I can now do my own testing. Additional questions are welcome and will be added to the list.

This is a list of questions I've been compiling about Death Knights. I've recently cleaned out many questions that were made irrelevant by the last few months of frequent changes made to the class. I've also omitting a good number of question to which the answer has already been researched and answered elsewhere.

If you feel like helping clarify class mechanics, take your pick from the list below and post your findings. I will add the answer to this post.

If you have no beta access and post a question I will add it to the list. The goal is mainly to gather info on class mechanics, not so much stuff like spec suggestions and ability rotations.

This will help put together a more thorough document on DK mechanics for the Tankspot library.


Thanks in advance!


In no particular order:


What is the untalented critical damage on a DK special ability? 150%, or 200% damage?

• 200% (Runic Focus - Spell - World of Warcraft)

Can you use Death Pact on the Ghoul of a Raised player?


Do armor increasing effect stack off each other (Toughness, Frost Aura, Unbreakable Armor, Will of the Necropolis) or do any of them strictly multiply off the base armor value?

Toughness and Frost Aura augment "armor from gear" and won't stack, I'm not sure about Unbreakable Armor or Will of the Necropolis, but I'm fairly certain they will work on total armor. (Incidentally, last I checked Bladed Armor factor Toughness in =( but that may have been the character screen failing to update properly).

Do you get kill / quest credit while playing as a ghoul? (either other player Raised from the Dead or Death Knight under Shadow of Death). What happens if a Raised player (ghoul) is last standing and finishes off a 5-man or raid boss? Does the player still get credit and loot? Honorable kill in PvP?

Yes. I died and Arazzius died while I was a ghoul and I got credit.

You now properly get credit for quest objectives, you can loot, and you get successful boss kills if you are a ghoul by any means. In PvP, Shadow of Death makes it so your death doesn't count as a kill, only the death of your ghoul reincarnation. Raising a player as a ghoul in pvp, last I checked, didn't register as a kill when destroyed, nor does it get the player or the DK credit for killing a player (the latter part should be confirmed by someone else though since I haven't pvp'd in the last few builds).

What's the Runic Power return rate on damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell?

At last check, it was giving me 10 RP per absorbtion, but that might have been retooled as they've also since changed its CD.

Are DK magic damage based melee specials (Frost Strike / Scourge Strike) affected by spell miss chance (should be 17% with 0 hit rating) and magic resistances? The existence of the Virulence talent suggests that the spell miss rate is indeed involved... or is the talent there only for ranged spells?

Frost Strike and Scourge Strike count as melee attacks, though they ignore armor (and now Frost Strike cannot be dodged/parried/blocked). They are governed by melee hit ratings. Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Death Coil, Death and Decay, Blood Boil, Pestilence, Dark Command, and Death Grip all key off of Spell Hit.

Does Ebon Plaguebringer count as a disease for abilities that deal "x damage per disease on the target"?

Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague count as a disease (only one of course, since EP replaces CF) in the "per disease" moves. Unholy Blight's effect is also counted properly as a disease. That means an Unholy knight with UB up can stack a total of 4 diseases for Blood Strike, Blood Boil, Scourge Strike, Death Strike (or I suppose Obliterate, but not much reason to use that).

Is Blood Boil damage multiplied by the number of diseases? Does it remove the diseases?

Blood Boil does not remove diseases. I believe it's a dmg per disease, can't tell ya, it's not really in my rotation.

Blood Boil's current (and slightly sad) state, is that it does a static amount per disease. It does not consume the diseases, it does not taunt any more. I say it's sad because at the moment, as Unholy spec with 4 diseases up, I was still only hitting with it for 200-300 damage at best, meaning I need to hit at least 3-4 targets for it to pass Blood Strike in damage for rune cost.

Which abilities still have a "modified by attack power" component? How much?

They've removed this from the description of every spell. It's on my list to test, though, so I'll update when I get a chance to do so. For obvious reasons I want to bolt down where that is a factor, not the least of which for those who want to weigh Impurity's value. Most spells seemed to key between 20-40% of your AP, most on the lower end, especially for the ones that had a heavy per-disease buff. (I assume Impurity's increase is like a change in a spell damage coefficient, "10% more spell power," not 25% more of the 20%. Maybe that's just wishful thinking)

Does the new Rune Strike have a cooldown?

Currently Rune Strike does NOT have a CD. It now only procs after a dodge or parry, but it has no CD (most DK's will have more than a little Expertise just from talents so it won't be up that often).

Does Pestilence refresh disease duration on secondary targets? (i.e. can it maintain diseases on all mobs indefinitely by using on a different target every 10s?)

You got it exactly! It will refresh the duration on everybody but your current target you just used it on. So with your 'ie' you got it exactly right.

Pestilence puts a full 12/15/18 second disease duration on every new target. It's a technique I call disease juggling to use Pestilence to maintain all your diseases. Stack on target A and spread them and switch to target B, I try to not stay on the first target after I spread them after the first target, this keeps me on fresh diseases. Depending on the situation it can get a little messed up (especially since pestilence now has a CD and you can fumble easily enough), but otherwise it's a very handy tool for efficiency, especially as Frost since that keeps your Blood Runes as Death Runes.

Can Scourge Strike be blocked? (Magic-based melee attacks from mobs typically can't be blocked. Never checked on Paladin holy melee damage though) How about the shadow damage from Necrosis?

I haven't actually been in a position for it to be blocked, I haven't tanked as Unholy since ScS existed as it does now. My suspicion is that it can be (Frost Strike lists specifically being unblockable). Necrosis is delivered as an on hit damage buff. A block does count as a hit, so the damage from that should not be blocked or reduced.

How much threat does DK self-healing generate?

This is a point of sadness for me as well. Not the healing threat so much as the healing. I'm not 100% sure that the healing isn't threat free, but let's look at the healing moves. Blood Presence and Blood Aura are very tiny. Let's say you're kicking hard DPS in Naxx and pulling a whopping 3k dps. That's 60 hps that you're putting out. If you hit 10 people with that, and they all can be healed by it, that's 600 hps, or 300 tps. In that extraordinarily unlikely situation that'd only be a 10% threat buff. Blood Worms will only heal you consistantly if you're tanking, and their healing for a tanking is pretty negligible (though probably more than Blood Presence, not that you would tank in it), but the threat might add a small amount to your total. Rune Tap reads like a potion with a shorter CD. You might get a small 2k-3k threat spike once a minute, but again, if you aren't the tank (or sporting a Glyph to buff it, even then probably) you won't be popping it regularly. Blood knights can add some to their survival where it matters, but their healing is not terribly significant or reliable as threat buffing or liability. This is more speculation than tested and true, so please take with a grain of salt.

How much threat from RP generation? (Passive, Empower Rune Weapon, anything else?)

I've seen no threat from these abilities, at all, but then none of them are in a sensitive enough situation where I could register it, and really in the grand scheme of things, they'll come no where near the major TPS you'll be seeing from 80 tanks.

Is there a cap on the number of Bloodworms that can be up, per target or altogether?

I really expected there to be an internal CD so you could only have 4 up every 20 seconds, but every now and then I've seen 2 procs in the same span that had 6-8 up. That being said, if you're wielding a big 2-hander, chances are that'll be a very uncommon occurance.

Threat from Bloodworms damage / healing? How much, who gets it?

(I'll ammend from above) At last check, Blood Worms function like Treants or Ghouls, they register as their own entity with their own threat, but neither their damage nor their healing is anywhere near that of a level 80 DK, tank or DPS. They also don't aggro at silly range like they used to (ADD little mofos, they'd run across the room and pull a boss)

What effects does Vampiric Blood exactly? The wording sounds like it might only affect self-healing.


What other resistance buffs and consumables does Frost Aura stack with?

[heffalump]

>>What is the untalented critical damage on a DK special ability? 150%, or 200% damage?

Runic Focus, the passive ability they introduced, means that their special ability crits are 200%

>> Do you get kill / quest credit while playing as a ghoul?

Yes. I died and Arazzius died while I was a ghoul and I got credit. Funny thing was, I didn't realize it. I asked my group, "how the heck did I live through that?" "Uhh... you didn't. Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

>> Is Blood Boil damage multiplied by the number of diseases? Does it remove the diseases?

Blood Boil does not remove diseases. I believe it's a dmg per disease, can't tell ya, it's not really in my rotation.

>> Does Pestilence refresh disease duration on secondary targets? (i.e. can it maintain diseases on all mobs indefinitely by using on a different target every 10s?)

You got it exactly! It will refresh the duration on everybody but your current target you just used it on. So with your 'ie' you got it exactly right.

Sorry I can't answer more. I'm just having a lot of fun with it so far and I'm still getting used to it all, haven't done any drilling down into anything yet. I can tell you which spec is more fun to play, not which one is necessarily "better". (that'd be frost, with blood being a distant ugly last place)

--H.

[Satorri]

Hiya =) I've been in the beta since the beginning of July and I've been avidly testing and refining the DK class. Some of these things I haven't had the opportunity to test, but I'll share on what I can.

Do armor increasing effect stack off each other (Toughness, Frost Aura, Unbreakable Armor, Will of the Necropolis) or do any of them strictly multiply off the base armor value?

Toughness and Frost Aura augment "armor from gear" and won't stack, I'm not sure about Unbreakable Armor or Will of the Necropolis, but I'm fairly certain they will work on total armor. (Incidentally, last I checked Bladed Armor factor Toughness in =( but that may have been the character screen failing to update properly).

Do you get kill / quest credit while playing as a ghoul? (either other player Raised from the Dead or Death Knight under Shadow of Death). What happens if a Raised player (ghoul) is last standing and finishes off a 5-man or raid boss? Does the player still get credit and loot? Honorable kill in PvP?

You now properly get credit for quest objectives, you can loot, and you get successful boss kills if you are a ghoul by any means. In PvP, Shadow of Death makes it so your death doesn't count as a kill, only the death of your ghoul reincarnation. Raising a player as a ghoul in pvp, last I checked, didn't register as a kill when destroyed, nor does it get the player or the DK credit for killing a player (the latter part should be confirmed by someone else though since I haven't pvp'd in the last few builds).

What's the Runic Power return rate on damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell?

At last check, it was giving me 10 RP per absorbtion, but that might have been retooled as they've also since changed its CD.

Are DK magic damage based melee specials (Frost Strike / Scourge Strike) affected by spell miss chance (should be 17% with 0 hit rating) and magic resistances? The existence of the Virulence talent suggests that the spell miss rate is indeed involved... or is the talent there only for ranged spells?

Frost Strike and Scourge Strike count as melee attacks, though they ignore armor (and now Frost Strike cannot be dodged/parried/blocked). They are governed by melee hit ratings. Icy Touch, Howling Blast, Death Coil, Death and Decay, Blood Boil, Pestilence, Dark Command, and Death Grip all key off of Spell Hit.

Does Ebon Plaguebringer count as a disease for abilities that deal "x damage per disease on the target"?

Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague count as a disease (only one of course, since EP replaces CF) in the "per disease" moves. Unholy Blight's effect is also counted properly as a disease. That means an Unholy knight with UB up can stack a total of 4 diseases for Blood Strike, Blood Boil, Scourge Strike, Death Strike (or I suppose Obliterate, but not much reason to use that).

Is Blood Boil damage multiplied by the number of diseases? Does it remove the diseases?

Blood Boil's current (and slightly sad) state, is that it does a static amount per disease. It does not consume the diseases, it does not taunt any more. I say it's sad because at the moment, as Unholy spec with 4 diseases up, I was still only hitting with it for 200-300 damage at best, meaning I need to hit at least 3-4 targets for it to pass Blood Strike in damage for rune cost.

Which abilities still have a "modified by attack power" component? How much?

They've removed this from the description of every spell. It's on my list to test, though, so I'll update when I get a chance to do so. For obvious reasons I want to bolt down where that is a factor, not the least of which for those who want to weigh Impurity's value. Most spells seemed to key between 20-40% of your AP, most on the lower end, especially for the ones that had a heavy per-disease buff. (I assume Impurity's increase is like a change in a spell damage coefficient, "10% more spell power," not 25% more of the 20%. Maybe that's just wishful thinking)

Does the new Rune Strike have a cooldown? - Never mind, Wowhead tooltip was updated, 5sec cooldown.

Currently Rune Strike does NOT have a CD. It now only procs after a dodge or parry, but it has no CD (most DK's will have more than a little Expertise just from talents so it won't be up that often).

Does Pestilence refresh disease duration on secondary targets? (i.e. can it maintain diseases on all mobs indefinitely by using on a different target every 10s?)

Pestilence puts a full 12/15/18 second disease duration on every new target. It's a technique I call disease juggling to use Pestilence to maintain all your diseases. Stack on target A and spread them and switch to target B, I try to not stay on the first target after I spread them after the first target, this keeps me on fresh diseases. Depending on the situation it can get a little messed up (especially since pestilence now has a CD and you can fumble easily enough), but otherwise it's a very handy tool for efficiency, especially as Frost since that keeps your Blood Runes as Death Runes.

Can Scourge Strike be blocked? (Magic-based melee attacks from mobs typically can't be blocked. Never checked on Paladin holy melee damage though) How about the shadow damage from Necrosis?

I haven't actually been in a position for it to be blocked, I haven't tanked as Unholy since ScS existed as it does now. My suspicion is that it can be (Frost Strike lists specifically being unblockable). Necrosis is delivered as an on hit damage buff. A block does count as a hit, so the damage from that should not be blocked or reduced.

How much threat does DK self-healing generate?

This is a point of sadness for me as well. Not the healing threat so much as the healing. I'm not 100% sure that the healing isn't threat free, but let's look at the healing moves. Blood Presence and Blood Aura are very tiny. Let's say you're kicking hard DPS in Naxx and pulling a whopping 3k dps. That's 60 hps that you're putting out. If you hit 10 people with that, and they all can be healed by it, that's 600 hps, or 300 tps. In that extraordinarily unlikely situation that'd only be a 10% threat buff. Blood Worms will only heal you consistantly if you're tanking, and their healing for a tanking is pretty negligible (though probably more than Blood Presence, not that you would tank in it), but the threat might add a small amount to your total. Rune Tap reads like a potion with a shorter CD. You might get a small 2k-3k threat spike once a minute, but again, if you aren't the tank (or sporting a Glyph to buff it, even then probably) you won't be popping it regularly. Blood knights can add some to their survival where it matters, but their healing is not terribly significant or reliable as threat buffing or liability. This is more speculation than tested and true, so please take with a grain of salt.

How much threat from RP generation? (Passive, Empower Rune Weapon, anything else?)

I've seen no threat from these abilities, at all, but then none of them are in a sensitive enough situation where I could register it, and really in the grand scheme of things, they'll come no where near the major TPS you'll be seeing from 80 tanks.

Is there a cap on the number of Bloodworms that can be up, per target or altogether?

I really expected there to be an internal CD so you could only have 4 up every 20 seconds, but every now and then I've seen 2 procs in the same span that had 6-8 up. That being said, if you're wielding a big 2-hander, chances are that'll be a very uncommon occurance.

Threat from Bloodworms damage / healing? How much, who gets it?

(I'll ammend from above) At last check, Blood Worms function like Treants or Ghouls, they register as their own entity with their own threat, but neither their damage nor their healing is anywhere near that of a level 80 DK, tank or DPS. They also don't aggro at silly range like they used to (ADD little mofos, they'd run across the room and pull a boss)


Hope this helps, and feel free to keep the questions coming. =) This is a terribly fun class, and very deep for those who take the time to really hone the art of Death Knightery.

[Silentslayer]

Welcome to the site Satorri, thanks for the well thought out and informative post.

[Armstrong]

Thanks Heff and Satorri, that was very helpful.

I just recently got a beta key, so I'll be able to help clarify some of this soon.

Currently Rune Strike does NOT have a CD. It now only procs after a dodge or parry, but it has no CD (most DK's will have more than a little Expertise just from talents so it won't be up that often).

I suspect that the goal is for the ability to become available when the Death Knight dodges or parries an incoming attack, not the other way around. Ghostcrawler has stated that the new Rune Strike is supposed to function as a RP dump while tanking. I'll test it tonight though just to be sure.

[Satorri]

Thanks for the welcome, Silent =)

I hope to be more present around these forums, since my current plan is to be one of the main tanks for my guild (with my DK) once 80 raiding gets rolling.

I'm a big fan of the class and an avid theory crafter, so I love the opportunity to share and discuss these theories.



Rune Strike as it is now is a bit patchy, it'll get less and less play the better your gear gets, so I wouldn't be surprised if it were still to get another overhaul or two. Of course, if it only triggers on your own avoidance it'd be worthless to non-tank DK's.

[Armstrong]

Testing Rune Strike right now and it definitely triggers when you dodge / parry an incoming attack. Just make sure you start out with 10 RP, aggro a mob, make sure you are facing it and just stand there without attacking. You'll see Rune Strike light up when you dodge or parry.

[Azrella]

If Death Knights can dual wield, is there any advantage in taking 2 weapons with defense bonuses to tank to help reach uncrittable? Or is tanking with a Death Knight better with a big 2-hander?

[Armstrong]

If Death Knights can dual wield, is there any advantage in taking 2 weapons with defense bonuses to tank to help reach uncrittable?

Seems like you answered your own question. So far no two-handed weapon with defensive stats have been seen in beta, so making use of weapon slots with one-handers is one way to stack more defense or avoidance if that's what you're after at any given point.

Or is tanking with a Death Knight better with a big 2-hander?

That's a debate all by itself. So far there's no clear indication that one is better than the other, each having its own strengths and weaknesses. Like many other things DK-related, this is something that will become clearer once more people start hitting level 80 content on live.

[Satorri]

The one major set back to dual wielding, which has been spotted by most tanks is that you're increasing your vulnerability to parry-hasting the boss.

Personally I think this is a bit less of a setback than it used to be since the extra hits cannot be crushing blows, and expertise is far easier to come by on gear. On the other side of the balance "tanking" one-handers are always very fast swing speeds, so you have two weapons that swing at ~1.5 secs each without haste, which would otherwise benefit threat for dual wielding. Looking at it from that side having a 2-hander is almost a mitigation buff, since other tanks (ferals included) will have an attack rate twice as fast.

Another set back comes in with gearing. For DK's two important benefits in the balance of taking 2 weapons over one is the increase in white damage and the increased number of hits for procs. In order to get the hits in though you need a lot more hit rating. In tank gear you'll get a lot less hit, and what's more you'll be wanting a lot of expertise, not hit, to limit the survival liability of the fast attacks.

Will the tanking weapons make it easier to meet the needed uncrittable defense? Yes. In the process though, especially with newer tanks, it will really increase your vulnerability. I'd go so far as to say I'd sooner fall a bit below uncrittability and take a 2-hander with a lot of strength and stam, than take the two tanking swords as a new tank, but if someone can make a good argument with real numbers I could be swayed. =)

So long as I'm thinking about it, the parry-haste liability would make the tanks get varying survival value out of expertise. I'm thinking the following order:

1.) Death Knights with 2 fast weapons (lots of melee swings, plus melee specials)
2.) Prot Warriors (single fast weapon and lots of melee threat abilities)
3.) Prot Pallies (single fast weapon, fewer parry-able melee threat abilities)
4.) Bear Tanks (bear attack speed is slightly slower, but lots of melee make this maybe on par with Pallies)
5.) Death Knights + 2-hander (Slow swing speed with parry-able threat moves depending on spec)

I would imagine 2-5 would actually not be too much of a spread, but that's just off the top of my head. (and of course the improved hit chance is always still valuable)

[byouki]

if you have say 2 x 2.6 speed weaps like infantry assault blade, are you really melee hitting that much more in real terms than a prot warrior has always done? Spamming dev every cd (or replaced with revenge), auto attacking/hs with a 1.6 speed weap is a lot of melee hits (and you wont get misses in moderate gear). DK off hand will miss a fair bit if you aim for strict special hit cap (ie miss by design).

I've been very "DW'ing is rediculous and there's no way I'll start off doing that" to my guild, but now I'm wondering if I was too hasty to be honest.

[dwite]

For the purpose of discussion, lets assume the tanking stats are ordered as such for importance.

Defense
Avoidance
Stam
Hit/Expertise.

Obviously, at 540 Defense, you would move on to Avoidance.

At what Total Avoidance % [Boss Miss, Boss Miss attributed to Defense, Chance to Dodge, Chance to Parry] does diminishing returns begin to kick in?

I'm looking for a rough number to try to attain before i stack more expertise/hit/stam, etc.

[Kazeyonoma]

DR's kick in... at 0% avoidance, well from rating anyways.

it doesn't wait to hit say... 15% then magically start costing more rating.

From the very first rating you pick up in any avoidance stat (defense included) it begins calculating your DR'd avoidance for that stat. Check out Satrina's Diminishing Returns on Avoidance in the Library for the exact way to calculate.

And I'd argue that after Defense, Stam is more important than Avoidance, at least until you reach a minimum EH.

[dwite]

Well isn't there a breaking point? there's gotta be a value on the exponential curve. A soft cap. i'll read the post you mentioned. Off hand it looks exactly like what i was looking for.

[Kazeyonoma]

there probably is a breaking point, but the rate at which it diminishes is static, I believe it is 5% at all levels. now it is up to the user to determine when paying 5% more rating to get 1% avoidance is worth it or not.

Edit: I was wrong, the DR rate is supposed to be static, but since each avoidance DRs towards a cap dodge will DR slower than Parry.

[ksnos]

what is a best status for up in dk taking?
dodge? parry? stam?
and dk no need block? i see some item for dk w/out block status

[GravityDK]

what is a best status for up in dk taking?
dodge? parry? stam?
and dk no need block? i see some item for dk w/out block status

I think you might want to do a bit more reading about DKs. They cannot equip a shield, therefore they do not need blocking stats at all. A good order of stats is a few posts up, defence, stamina, avoidance (parry/dodge are fine), etc.

[Malvat]

Thank you for the info. i actually registered to post a Question on the importance of Stats! /woot
i have read a lot about DK's while the servers were down this morning! everyone here seems pretty smart and there is not a lot of flaming noobs. while i'm not a noob, per se, I don't like to see others attack ppl who are.

[xKhellendrosx]

Do armor increasing effect stack off each other (Toughness, Frost Aura, Unbreakable Armor, Will of the Necropolis) or do any of them strictly multiply off the base armor value?

Toughness and Frost Aura augment "armor from gear" and won't stack, I'm not sure about Unbreakable Armor or Will of the Necropolis, but I'm fairly certain they will work on total armor. (Incidentally, last I checked Bladed Armor factor Toughness in =( but that may have been the character screen failing to update properly).

Hmm... If Toughness and Frost Presence do not stack is toughness just a waste of 5 points? Or is the 30% reduction in movement impairing effect durations still enough reason to keep the putting in the points?

[ttocs]

That post is actually old, some of the mechanics are different.

Frost Aura used to give Armor instead of Health (in Frost Presence). That's what they're referring to.

It's also worth mentioning that Unholy Blight is no longer considered a disease and hasn't been for some time, so Unholy gets one bonus disease, not two.