PTR 3.3.3 - Death Knight - Tanks

[dotJEM]

Death Knight

• Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.
  
  Icy Touch threat bonus in 3.3.3
  We wanted Icy Touch to feel a little like Shield Slam -- the big hit you could launch when you need a lot of threat to say grab a recently spawned add. I don't think most DKs will mind having a little more single target threat overall, but we don't want to turn them into a rotation of all Icy Touch. If that happens, we might have to notch the threat down a little more.
  
• Rune of Razorice: Now stacks 5 stacks of 2% Frost Vulnerability instead of 10 stacks of 1% Frost Vulnerability. Proc chance changed to 100%.

Blood

• Abomination's Might: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc on certain strikes. Rank 1 is 5% attack power and Rank 2 is 10% attack power. The self strength buff remains unchanged.
• Will of the Necropolis: There is no longer a cooldown on the frequency at which this talent can be activated. In addition, this ability can now also be triggered by damage which deals less than 5% of your health.
  
  Will of the Necropolis Cooldown Removal
  I think attributing so much power to Will of the Necropolis is one of those consequences of trying to covert everything into effective health. In fact, the reason we took the cooldown off is because we don't think it will be that noticeable.
  
  In the theoretical case where the DK is ping-ponging between 40% and 20% health, it's crazy good (as is Ardent Defender), but those situations don't happen often. (They might happen more in Cataclysm, where it would be nice to see tanks at 50% health for more than a fraction of a second.) Most of the time, Will of the Necropolis is just extra health, which was the case before we removed the cooldown.
  
  We added the cooldown during PTR testing in which we had a Patchwerk who kept stacking his own damage. When he was hitting for 110% of the tank's entire bar, the DK with Will of the Necropolis could survive, and nobody else could. Duh. In retrospect we probably overreacted, since we don't actually make boss encounters like that. You have say Steelbreaker Fusion Punch, but those hits aren't so often that the 15 sec cooldown is the issue.
  
  [...] Seriously though, the only thing that changed on Will of the Necropolis was the cooldown. The health savings were always there. Tanks typically are at full health, avoid every other attack, get hit, and then get topped off. We typically don't hit tanks more often than 15 sec with really big attacks. It will perform as it always has against periodic attacks, including Soul Reaper (which is a 30 sec cooldown IIRC). If the pure melee hits from the Lich King allow DKs to literally take 15% less damage from him at all times, then we might put a 5 sec cooldown on it instead or make it work like Ardent Defender (which only reduces the damage that took you over the threshold). Against most bosses I'd be surprised if you even noticed the cooldown was gone.
  
  Remember, you're looking at current content with current gear and we are forecasting slightly into the future with changes like this.
  
  [...] But like I said, if it looks like it's going to be a problem, we'll add a small cooldown or something back on. I think it's too premature to do that yet.
  
  3.3.3 Will of the Necropolis in the Lich King Encounter
  We talked over the WotN change with Daelo and the guys who made Soul Reaper. They're not convinced it will be a problem. When someone trivializes the encounter with an undergeared DK, then we'll start worrying about it.
  

Frost

• Endless Winter: No longer causes Frost Fever to be applied by Chains of Ice, but instead grants 2/4% strength. The previous functionality of this talent can now be attained via the Glyph of Chains of Ice.
• Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged.
• Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.
• Unbreakable Armor: The amount of strength granted is now 20%, up from 10%.

Frost potential changes
We realize there are still some things that need to be fixed in the tree. The Icy Talons chain of talents feels pretty expensive. Killing Machine can be hard to use. Stuff like that. I can't promise we'll get all of that taken care of quickly, but we'll get it taken care of eventually.

I don't recall us buffing the Gylph of Obliterate from 20% to 25% as has been reported. It's possible I just forgot or there may be something else going on. I will investigate more next week. (Source)

Unholy

• Scourge Strike: Now deals 70% weapon damage, plus 12% of physical damage done as shadow damage for each of the death knight's diseases on the target. The net result should be larger strikes with no diseases present, while maximum damage with all diseases applied to the target should stay the same.

So fellow Death Knights... First thoughts about the changes?...
Personally i dislike it on 2 parts...

- Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.

The fact that they choose to do this for tanks on a specific ability which some frost tanks actually still does not use is just a failure to understand at best if you ask me.

Question is what could be done differently, putting the increased threat on the disease it self is a bad option since that would push us up on AoE threat, which i don't really think we lack overall. Not sure Blood Strike would be better either since I'm not sure how the usage is on that for all specs. But might be an Option? Putting it out on our Main attacks (OB, HS or BS?, SS) might buff us up to much, again that is of course relative to how much added threat they made. In a turn-around, putting it on main attacks would actually make more sense for the class in my opinion...

in order to make something real interesting for tanks would be to not just add a static multiplier on a single attack, or several attacks (in the OB, SS, HS or BS? case)... but to make it rely a bit on diseases on the target, but that would properly be scraped at the table because of the implementation difficulties.

Edit: Actually, using main attacks would already add an added threat bonus depending on the diseases up >.<

- Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.

Not sure for this, this must be a buff needed to our DPS counterparts?... because AFAIK DW frost tanks doesn't really need more Threat???... how much this would mean on that part is hard to figure, the fear is ofc. that it will put DW ahead in terms of Threat but to much for 2H frost to remain viable for the skilled... I'm saying skilled because I know that many already think that is the case...

Also, if DW is already capable of the threat needed, then what will it do in comparison to that situation in comparison with other tanks...

And finally, is it even significant, because that would obviously be the hopes.

____________

I have no real comments for the rest, since they seem to impact across the board... in a good way, and for the Unholy/Blood parts, im to disconnected for those since it is far to long since i have tanked as either of those specs.

[Acidbaron]

It will still make youre initial burst threat higher, i guess they could've added it to frost fever instead of icy touch but then it all depends how long it takes for the first dot tick to land and if it wouldn't be too hard to scale it correctly so doesn't become too good.

and it will have their use seeing if a mob would be further away you actually have a high threat ability that is ranged, so even if you don't use it in your rotation i wouldn't write it off as pointless but then again isn't dw frost higher then blood already regarding tps? Plus you also get another talent boost what you mention you aren't sure you need so :P

[dotJEM]

It will still make youre initial burst threat higher, i guess they could've added it to frost fever instead of icy touch but then it all depends how long it takes for the first dot tick to land and if it wouldn't be too hard to scale it correctly so doesn't become too good.

and it will have their use seeing if a mob would be further away you actually have a high threat ability that is ranged, so even if you don't use it in your rotation i wouldn't write it off as pointless but then again isn't dw frost higher then blood already regarding tps? Plus you also get another talent boost what you mention you aren't sure you need so :P

I'm guessing your referring to the IT threat buff, and my comment on that.

You disregarded the entire fact that some Frost Death Knights still never uses IT, not even initially on a pull because of the HB glyph that triggers Frost Fever on for HB...

Adding it to Frost Fever as i point out wouldn't only be a Single Target Threat boost, bot an AoE one as well, and that is surely not needed.

[Airowird]

Every decent DK tank has Imp IT, which is the bigger of the 2 talents buffing IT damage (the other one being 15% crit chance instead of damage).
Also, Frost tanks still use IT, as IT+PS still does equal or more overall damage than HB.
The reason for the second one is that with the DPS gear having enough stats now, the hit of the talent is less useful and the damage gain is too small to make the talent be appealing enough.

[Acidbaron]

What i ment to say was even not having IT you your rotation as you got other abilities to refresh frost fever, it doesn't render the change completely useless.

if it is a high threat ability and the fact that it is on 20 yd range is great, when picking up mobs or pulling mobs.

Also has more specific uses as for tanking rotface slimes (what makes me wonder if this change was made with that fight in mind)

[Satorri]

The change with IT will be balanced (I'm quite sure) not to make IT your spammable ability for threat, but to smooth out initial threat. I can guarantee you that if it is not handled well there *will* be a Frost spec to spam IT (off the top of my head, BotN, DRM, Imp IT and relevant damage increasing talents), but there will be plenty of DKs on their helping to see that doesn't happen, myself included.

Frost tanks who do not use IT will not need it to do strong opening threat as they are already using HB. This will revisit the design where some people replace it with glyphed HB, however. The jury is out, these are the initial patch notes, there is a long way before these changes go in.

For Blood and Unholy this just serves to give us a more generous lead-in on our threat compared to Avenger's Shields and Shield Slams.


We'll see how things actually shape up as this gets vetted.

[dotJEM]

What i ment to say was even not having IT you your rotation as you got other abilities to refresh frost fever, it doesn't render the change completely useless.

if it is a high threat ability and the fact that it is on 20 yd range is great, when picking up mobs or pulling mobs.

Also has more specific uses as for tanking rotface slimes (what makes me wonder if this change was made with that fight in mind)

HB is 20 yards as well... so makes no different to my initial argument, for slimes currently HB > IT for obvious reasons.

Every decent DK tank has Imp IT, which is the bigger of the 2 talents buffing IT damage (the other one being 15% crit chance instead of damage).
Also, Frost tanks still use IT, as IT+PS still does equal or more overall damage than HB.
The reason for the second one is that with the DPS gear having enough stats now, the hit of the talent is less useful and the damage gain is too small to make the talent be appealing enough.

From a small 100 hit sample, and no other than self inflicted buffs, With diseases up in my current gear and spec... this is what I'm at...
Granted that real numbers from raids ect. will look different, those numbers will boost IT+PS as well as HB, and the difference would properly not change greatly...

IT ~1.300 damage
PS ~700 damage
- Combined: 2.000 damage

HB ~2.400 damage

and yes for other reasons than the increased damage any DK tank should have Imp IT...
Rime talks a bit in IT's favor, but it is really far from the reality that IT+PS does more damage in a blanked statement... ill accept the statement that they would do equal damage. but that doesn't put the one in favor of the other, except for the fact that just using HB is convenient.

To factor in for a raid environment.

HB + IT are spell based attacks, so they will be boosted by anything that boosts that. (Spell damage, Spell hit, Won't be subjected to Parry or Dodge, but will be subjected to a higher miss rate depending on your hit)
PS is melee based attack and will factor in anything that boosts that. (Armor reduction, Armor penetration if you have, Will be subjected to Parry, Dodge and Miss depending on your hit and expertise)

And so on.

The change with IT will be balanced (I'm quite sure) not to make IT your spammable ability for threat, but to smooth out initial threat. I can guarantee you that if it is not handled well there *will* be a Frost spec to spam IT (off the top of my head, BotN, DRM, Imp IT and relevant damage increasing talents), but there will be plenty of DKs on their helping to see that doesn't happen, myself included.

Frost tanks who do not use IT will not need it to do strong opening threat as they are already using HB. This will revisit the design where some people replace it with glyphed HB, however. The jury is out, these are the initial patch notes, there is a long way before these changes go in.

For Blood and Unholy this just serves to give us a more generous lead-in on our threat compared to Avenger's Shields and Shield Slams.

We'll see how things actually shape up as this gets vetted.

The B/U part was actually what i was aiming at centralizing the IT part of the discussion about, the fear may be that it will remove the option for using HB as the attack you use to apply your FF because using IT would overall end up being a better solution for overall threat...
If the worst case scenario turns out to be IT spamming that would ofc. be worse, but i never considered that could happen at the beginning because as you put it your self, there will be plenty of data that will prevent that... well hopefully... But it can end up making a single currently by some unused attack more "mandatory"...

And IT just seems as such a pitiful and boring attack to make this buff apply to... My initial thought was something like "Really Blizzard, was that the best you could come up with?"... and then i had the other thoughts.

[Feanorr]

The change with IT will be balanced (I'm quite sure) not to make IT your spammable ability for threat, but to smooth out initial threat. I can guarantee you that if it is not handled well there *will* be a Frost spec to spam IT (off the top of my head, BotN, DRM, Imp IT and relevant damage increasing talents), but there will be plenty of DKs on their helping to see that doesn't happen, myself included.

Without spamming IT (I am quite sure they wont allow it), it may make short rotation (i.e. without epidemic) more appealing.

[Swam]

off of the icy touch issue and from a frost perspective I think that this is a very nice patch. I count 3 boosts to dps and moar dps means moar threat. while not much buffed in the way of survivability as I was hoping threat is never a bad thing

[Proletaria]

Blood = Tank.
Frost = DPS.
Unholy = PvP.

I've got a kidney that says this is their baseline for cataclysm.

Seriously, WOTN without an ICD is going to be rediculously good. I had a hard time justifying a frost spec to myself before. At this point it's just laughable.

[Edgewalker]

Blood = Tank.
Frost = DPS.
Unholy = PvP.

I've got a kidney that says this is their baseline for cataclysm.

Seriously, WOTN without an ICD is going to be rediculously good. I had a hard time justifying a frost spec to myself before. At this point it's just laughable.

And thank god for that if they do make the change.
The problem with trying to make 3 trees balanced for 3 things is that you simply can't.
Not possible.

[Aaediyen]

So fellow Death Knights... First thoughts about the changes?...Personally i dislike it on 2 parts...

- Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.

The fact that they choose to do this for tanks on a specific ability which some frost tanks actually still does not use is just a failure to understand at best if you ask me.

Question is what could be done differently, putting the increased threat on the disease it self is a bad option since that would push us up on AoE threat, which i don't really think we lack overall. Not sure Blood Strike would be better either since I'm not sure how the usage is on that for all specs. But might be an Option? Putting it out on our Main attacks (OB, HS or BS?, SS) might buff us up to much, again that is of course relative to how much added threat they made. In a turn-around, putting it on main attacks would actually make more sense for the class in my opinion...

in order to make something real interesting for tanks would be to not just add a static multiplier on a single attack, or several attacks (in the OB, SS, HS or BS? case)... but to make it rely a bit on diseases on the target, but that would properly be scraped at the table because of the implementation difficulties.

Edit: Actually, using main attacks would already add an added threat bonus depending on the diseases up >.<

- Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15%.

Not sure for this, this must be a buff needed to our DPS counterparts?... because AFAIK DW frost tanks doesn't really need more Threat???... how much this would mean on that part is hard to figure, the fear is ofc. that it will put DW ahead in terms of Threat but to much for 2H frost to remain viable for the skilled... I'm saying skilled because I know that many already think that is the case...

Also, if DW is already capable of the threat needed, then what will it do in comparison to that situation in comparison with other tanks...

Well, as far as Icy Touch is concerned I agree 100 percent. I tank with one disease and this is a bit of an annoyance. I spose I can use two on single targets to make use of this change, but it really messes with the style of the HB glyphed spec. Dual wielding 2 heavy weapons is already fantastic threat, but doing it with 2 fast tanking weapons is really quite terrible and it will help there. I fear though, that a DK dual wielding 2 heavy weapons will be able to pull down over 10k tps on a single target now. That's probably too much, but I'm not convinced Blizzard cares much about balancing single target agro. So that change isn't bad considering it might put frost DPS up where unholy and blood is at.

But that whole Icy Touch threat thing is really biting at me.

[Swam]

I highly doubt they are going to nerf dks to force people into roles based on spec. part of the classes flare is its ability to do all that it can and do it well. I think all three classes will still be able to do whatever job they do now.

[Swam]

And thank god for that if they do make the change.
The problem with trying to make 3 trees balanced for 3 things is that you simply can't.
Not possible.

kind of true, but having each able to do 2-3 things has worked well so far. you might not be able to be the tip top best at all three things, but we are a hybrid class.

[Prunetracy]

I'm a bit annoyed with the WotN change myself, because I feel required to be a Blood tank now. I just tried it last raid because I tend to enjoy swapping playstyles now and then, but I went back to frost immediately afterwards because I like how it plays better.

Blood was already on par with Frost for survivability, and tended to be the preferred spec for progression raiding due to higher EH and the best tanking cooldown. Now, I just can't see where Frost can compete.

[Tomehere321]

I'm a bit annoyed with the WotN change myself, because I feel required to be a Blood tank now. I just tried it last raid because I tend to enjoy swapping playstyles now and then, but I went back to frost immediately afterwards because I like how it plays better.

Blood was already on par with Frost for survivability, and tended to be the preferred spec for progression raiding due to higher EH and the best tanking cooldown. Now, I just can't see where Frost can compete.

You shouldnt feel like you need to change your spec, WotN needed a change, and im sure many blood dks that didnt take this talent before will probably think twice about it now before discarding it as a waste of points. But other then that, it wasnt a nerf to frost, that should do just as well as it was with survivabilty, and pull a lil more threat now too (not that frost needed more threat xD)

[Tomehere321]

Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence.[/B]

The fact that they choose to do this for tanks on a specific ability which some frost tanks actually still does not use is just a failure to understand at best if you ask me.

Question is what could be done differently, putting the increased threat on the disease it self is a bad option since that would push us up on AoE threat, which i don't really think we lack overall. Not sure Blood Strike would be better either since I'm not sure how the usage is on that for all specs. But might be an Option? Putting it out on our Main attacks (OB, HS or BS?, SS) might buff us up to much, again that is of course relative to how much added threat they made. In a turn-around, putting it on main attacks would actually make more sense for the class in my opinion...

in order to make something real interesting for tanks would be to not just add a static multiplier on a single attack, or several attacks (in the OB, SS, HS or BS? case)... but to make it rely a bit on diseases on the target, but that would properly be scraped at the table because of the implementation difficulties.

Edit: Actually, using main attacks would already add an added threat bonus depending on the diseases up >.<

When i first saw this buff to icy touch, my first thoughts were that it was mainly for a blood or unholy build, since frost uses howling blast. I'm thinking that most frost dks will still use HB over IT. However im sure its going to take some testing to see which rotation will acually come on top in terms of threat. I personally love the LOVE buffs to dk tanks all in all.

[Edgewalker]

kind of true, but having each able to do 2-3 things has worked well so far. you might not be able to be the tip top best at all three things, but we are a hybrid class.

Not being the best at anything hinders / greatly diminishes the class. We aren't a hybrid. We are tank OR dps, period.

[Nephelai]

When i first saw this buff to icy touch, my first thoughts were that it was mainly for a blood or unholy build, since frost uses howling blast. I'm thinking that most frost dks will still use HB over IT. However im sure its going to take some testing to see which rotation will acually come on top in terms of threat. I personally love the LOVE buffs to dk tanks all in all.

HB is the best "snap aggro" opener, perhaps, but the sustained threat you get from a single target opener that starts with HB is god awful compared to the alternatives. Try opening a boss fight with IT, PS, BS, BT, UA, BS, OB, ERW, OB, OB, OB(or refresh with IT, PS depending on diseases, which depends on how many gcds you filled with FS on KM, or HB on rime plus KM). Let the RS fly out as they proc (via macros of course). by the end of that opening, with MD and Tricks up, you can post 20K to 24K TPS easy. If your dpsers are aggro monkeys in the first three seconds, get them to hold off just once.. take a screen shot, and then show them all what giving you three seconds does to your sustained threat. Nothing you do with an HB opener will come close, and the IT buff is a wonderful thing for the above. With the IT buff giving my opener better snap, combined with all the other improvements to frost threat, my single target boss opener is about to get downright comical.

So yeah.. this frost tank loves the IT buff.

Edit: Just to note that my normal single target prioritization is almost identical to the preferred single target dps prioritization for frost, with the exception that I prioritize burning blood runes with BS to activate damage reduction, over burning FU pairs on OB. This amounts to a little less threat, but better survival, then I would get from a true max dps priority system.

[Archa]

Satorri[/B]]For Blood and Unholy this just serves to give us a more generous lead-in on our threat compared to Avenger's Shields and Shield Slams.

This


Also, how many people have opened a pull in an heroic with IT and seen the skull run past as your casters have been going full blast on it in the 10 yards before it gets to you. The IT buff should stop this.

Add to that the extra ease of use it gives for picking up adds as an OT and you're laughing :-)

One other thing that pops to mind is when you need to get some aggro on ICC weekly attached to the Deathwhisper encounter.... one IT with increased threat is better than 2 or 3 just adding more damage and giving you less breathing space with trigger happy DPS kicking about.

If my Frosty brothers don't want to use it, that’s fine but I for one am quite excited about this - my priorities/rotations won't change, but it'll be nice to have :-)