Death Knight Changes

Nothing too major for this morning’s death knight changes. The change with the largest impact is definitely rune regeneration on misses. Now, when one of your attacks is missed / dodged / parried your rune regenerates in 1 second as opposed to 2, similar to the way only a percentage of energy is consumed when a rogue misses a finishing move.

Should certainly help to further improve damage output for the class. It’s unclear yet if all of these changes will make it to the next PTR build, at least the black ice change has been confirmed for inclusion in the next PTR build. The others are still up the air.

Here is my standard caveat that if you read notes from other websites, take them with a grain of salt.

* Black Ice – Frost damage doubled (Now 6/12/18/24/30) (Old 3/6/9/12/15)

Black Ice no longer affects Shadow damage. Unholy was continuing to do too much damage, even if you ignore the fact that they get more dps from their Ghoul.

We had to buff Frost’s expertise to keep their threat per second up there with Blood and Unholy. Frost doesn’t get enough boosts to white damage, even with their haste, to compete with things like Bloody Vengeance and Ebon Plague. Their dps is pretty close when doing dps though. They were just falling down tanking a little. Expertise and Rune Strike should help them make up for it, without changing their dps that much. Unholy has the lowest expertise, but they get enough buffs to damage (especially damage that can’t be parried, like Death Coil and diseases) to make up for it.

Yeah, I can’t tell you how pleasant that is. I’m also sure a lot of it is that DKs have gotten a lot of presents the other classes never got (mounts and blues from quests etc.) and that nobody has a DK with 3 years of /played on it yet. Meet me back here next year and we’ll see if it lasts. :)

Yes, we test with and without Ebon Plague and with and without Sunder and other buffs and debuffs too. We test on dummies and Mr. Patchwerk, front and back. And a lot more.

The Black Ice tooltip may very well still be wrong. Sometimes text doesn’t get updated at the same time. But the spell effect should be that Black Ice only buffs Frost. Frost got some other buffs and Unholy got some other nerfs too. These might not all be in the build. I am also going off of memory here, so I may be mistaken.

• Tundra Stalker buffs Obliterate and Howling Blast. Adds double expertise.
• Acclimation buffs Rune Strike (in addition to its normal effects).
• Crypt Fever down to 10/20/30%.
• And the big one… when you miss, your runes activate in 1 sec instead of 2. This makes misses, dodges and parries a lot less painful.

We are also getting reports of Tundra Stalker not causing extra damage as it should. I can’t verify that, but keep it in mind. (source)

WotLK Death Knight Changes – Build 9038

Lots of solid changes in all 3 trees for death knights in this most recent build. I really like the way the class is headed for both its DPS and tanking roles. One of the most talked about issues with the class has been its inability to function at the same level as other tanks. At this point it’s hard to really tell if the class will reach that point, but it’s looking promising.

The frost presence armor increase is a great start. Based on these most recent changes in addition to several videos and sources I’ve seen of death knight tanks in action it’s looking like the class will be fine. Threat wise there don’t appear to be any major issues left, the largest complication will be finding the gray area of ideal avoidance, damage mitigation, and DPS.

This past week has been packed with loads of changes, especially for tanks. It’s a clear priority for Blizzard and one I’m confident will end in a solution which meets the needs of all 4 tanking classes.

Death Knight

Blood

• Blade Barrier – Changed to when you have no Blood runes. (Old No runes)
• Heart Strike – Damage increased. (Now Rank 6 60% weapon damage plus 220.8, and an additional 110.4 bonus damage per disease.) (Old Rank 6 50% weapon damage plus 184.0, and an additional 92.0 bonus damage per disease. )
• Dark Command – Range increased to 20yds (Old 5yds)

Frost

• Frost Presence – Armor contribution from items increased to 65%. (Old 45%)
• Frost Strike – Now cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried.
• Black Ice - Frost damage doubled (Now 6/12/18/24/30) (Old 3/6/9/12/15). It no longer affects Shadow damage.
• Tundra Stalker – Passive Icy Touch damage lowered by 25%, expertise increase doubled. (Now 5/10/15/20/25% increase to icy touch damage, and 2/4/6/8/10 expertise) (Old 20/40/60/80/100% increase to icy touch damage, and 1/2/3/4/5 expertise.)
• Rune Strike - Runic Power cost lowered to 10, and damage increased, now only useable after an attack is dodged or parried. Can’t be dodged, blocked or parried. (Damage Now – 200% weapon damage plus [200.0 * AP * 10.0 / 10000.0].) (Old 65% weapon damage, and only usable after a critical hit with an ability that causes a disease)

Unholy

• Blood-Caked Blade – Chance to proc doubled. (Now 10/20/30%) (Old 5/10/15%)
• Scourge Strike – Damage lowered. (Now Rank 4 60% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus ogx 190.5, and an additional 95.25 bonus damage per disease.) (Old Rank 4 60% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 226.8, and an additional 113.4 bonus damage per disease.)

Death Knight Runeforging

Earlier today a new ability was uncovered for the Death Knight, runeforging. Being some of the very first beta testers, the guys over at worldofraids.com were of the first to test out all the new changes to the beta client. Including this intesting change that allows the Death Knight to exchange the runes in his weapon, so long as he’s within Ebon Hold.

Runeforging Mechanic

• Rune of Lichbane – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to strike undead for extra Fire damage and stun them for 5 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of the Fallen Crusader – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to heal you for 3% and increase total Strength by 30% for 15 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Spellbreaking – Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that deflects 5% of all spell damage. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Frostfever – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to inflict a disease that causes Frost damage and lowers attack power by 10% for 20 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Cinderglacier – Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to increase your Frost and Shadow spell damage by 10% for 15 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.
• Rune of Swordbreaking – Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Parry chance by 3%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.