Lichborne: PvP, grinding, the Unholy tree, and you
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Aug 10th 2008 at 9:00AM
Every weekend in Lichborne, Daniel Whitcomb will take you through the ever-changing (Beta) world of World of Warcraft's first hero class, the Death Knight.
With a new Beta Build on the test servers, Death Knights have received a massive amount of talent changes. Many of them have been hinted at on the test servers for eons, and I've covered much of them in last week's Lichborne. The new disease changes are in, as is the changing of Chains of Ice's Snare component to an undispellable physical effect. You can check out the full list of changes here.
Among the new changes is a very extensive revamp of the Unholy tree, which features quite a bit of talent consolidation and quite a few new and interesting mechanics and abilities. In fact, I'd have to say that the current build may very well mark the rise of the Unholy Tree, with the changes making it an amazing tree for grinding and PvP.
As a disclaimer, there's still lot of bugs in this build. Many abilities don't seem to be working quite right, especially Blood Caked Blade (which only hits for 1-4 damage based on the number of diseases instead of 60% weapon damage per disease), Raise Dead, and Night of the Dead. Because of that, it's often hard to say how or if an ability would be better or worse if it actually worked. Therefore, I'll be discussing the abilities based on if they actually did work, backed with some feel for them from Death Knight play on the Beta Servers.
The PvP Basics
So far, for Death Knights, the biggest PvP problem can be summed up in one word: mobility. Most of a Death Knight's major damage moves require that a person be in melee range. In part, this can be fixed with a quick application of Death Grip. However, Death Grip has a somewhat restrictive cooldown (which is probably needed), and after a Death Grip, the victim is not snared or stunned, making it easy for them to run back out to range and beyond the Death Knight's reach.
Chains of Ice helps in this matter too, applying a short freeze to allow the Death Knight to catch up, then a snare which, as of this build, has been made physical, making it harder to dispel. In this case, the problem is the cost and cool down, which give more than enough chance for the target to escape simply by waiting out the Death Knight's Frost runes.
What a Death Knight really needs is a more dependable snare, one that's baseline or in the first few talent tiers, if possible. The suggestion that seems to come up the most regarding this is around the Frost talent Chilblains, which applies a 6 second snare on victims of the new Frost Fever disease. If it were converted a two-point talent and switched with Glacier Rot, a 1st tier Frost talent that mostly boosts the damage of deep Frost talented abilities, it could be easily picked up by any PvP build. There, it could provide the dependable snare that we need.
On Unholy PvP
The nice thing about Unholy as it stands is that it makes Ghouls viable in PvP and it shores up some of the primary weaknesses of a Death Knight in PvP by providing superior mobility and protection from dispelling. Consider the following Unholy/Frost PvP build.
Mobility
Superior Mobility is provided from Unholy Aura and Desecration talents. Consider Desecration a bit like a reverse Frost Trap. Cast Icy Touch on a person, Death Grip them over to you, and if you can keep them in range long enough to apply Scourge Strike and follow them up with an Obliterate, you've suddenly done a while lot of damage to them and stuck them in the middle of a nice patch of ground that they'll be hard pressed to get out of. Likewise, Unholy Presence combined with Unholy Aura will give you and your teammates an even greater edge against anyone who decides to run.
If there's one complaint I have, it seems like the radius of Desecration could stand to be a little wider, or attached to me as a sort of temporary aura. But then again, that might prove a little overpowered. Still, I'd like to see it tested. In addition, I'd sort of like to see Desecrate available off of Scourge Strike as well, for those times when my Frost runes aren't ready or I really need a bit of slowing power right off the bat.
Ghouls and Guys
Ghouls, as a pet, are a little bit more disposable and hard to control than most pets. Used in PvP without supervision, they'd probably just get dragged behind a pillar and killed within seconds.
However, when you take Master of Ghouls, a whole new world is open to you. Not only are they controllable, but a leap followed by a stun or a well-timed spell interruption could end up as the different between victory and death, and this is possible only with Master of Ghouls. This alone may end up being why Unholy takes the honor of top PvP tree.
Of course, this Death Knight still think that they should just give every Ghoul a pet bar. It's not quite right that one talent can make the difference between usefulness and uselessness for a class feature. Of all our features, Ghouls to me feel the most in flux, and it'd be nice to know how central to our class they're really supposed to be. They certainly do seem central to Unholy Death Knights.
Protection and Devastation through Diseases
One thing that promises to be a weakness for Death Knights is the ability to abolish diseases. While Blood and Frost Death Knights only have 2 diseases to worry about, that in itself could be a weakness. 2 diseases are very easy for a good abolish disease to chew through. In that case, it's very nice to have not only the extra 30% resistance to dispel that Virulence brings, but also the 2 extra diseases offered by Unholy Blight and Ebon Plague. I think I'll still be watching closely to see if Death Knights do have adequate dispel protection, but the tree that's strongest in that regard is certainly Unholy.
In addition, these same diseases offer Unholy some amazing damage stacking and synergy for taking down targets. The fact that we can put down 4 diseases, and keep them up longer, means that we can get more use out of the stacking damage from Obliterate, Death Strike, and the like. Adding talents like Blood Caked Blade that give a chance to throw out something similar to a free scaling Blood Strike when they trigger only sweetens the deal. And if you need to apply some emergency crowd control, you can still wipe the slate clean with Blood Boil.
Scourge Strike is shaping up to be the crowning damage achievement in the tree. It's a straight up replacement for Plague Strike, but it relies on Shadow damage, giving the power to break through any heavily armored opponent and continue to administer pain.
In addition, the effect of Ebon Plaguebringer could very well make Unholy Death Knights very desirable members of a good caster heavy group. It's a very easy disease to apply, and makes me think that Unholy Death Knight/Affliction Warlock may be a very viable 2v2 combo come season 5, with the Death Knight adding some nice damage for the Warlock and the Warlock providing an extra level of protection for the Death Knight's diseases.
On Versatility: Unholy Grinding
With only a minimal amount of change, we switch from the above Unholy PvP build to the following Unholy grind build. By shedding a few survival and ranged attack talents, we've created a very nice pure PvE AE attack build that provides massive amounts of disease damage and plenty of area attacks.
With this, you can open with an application of Bone Shield, gather a bunch of mobs by body aggro or Death Grip, and cast Death and Decay to let it all lose. Add a Frost Fever via Icy Touch and turn on Unholy Blight, which, when it works as advertised, should do the job of applying Blood Plague for you. By then, you should probably be able to throw out a pestilence to spread the disease love around and an Obliterate to activate a nice bit of desecrated ground. If you're lucky, you'll have a few corpses to explode by then, assuming you have the spare Unholy rune or assuming the mobs aren't already dead.
There's lots of variations to this strategy, of course. You may need to Death Strike a bit to heal up, or use Lichborne or Bone Shield to prevent the need for Death Strike, or you may choose to forgo Death and Decay at first and simply use Scourge Strike and Icy Touch to get your diseases up and Pestilence to spread them, activating Unholy Blight once you have the runic power and adding Death and Decay on the next Rune cooldown.
If there's one weakness to this build, it's probably that it's very easy to become runic power starved. Unholy Blight and Gargoyle will both demand their share of runic power, and to be frank I think I'd prefer they be some flat amount of runic power with a set duration rather than constantly draining runic power. It'd also be nice to see them go down a bit in runic power cost so you could have them both out at once, since it seems a bit off that one's 51 point talent should so directly clash with the use of their 21 point talent.
I'm also honestly a bit unsure that it's so wise to put Corpse Explosion on an unholy rune, too, and would rather like to see it back on runic power. Between Bone Shield, Scourge Strike, Death and Decay, and Death Strike, I'm already rather pressed for unholy runes as it is. I'd much rather have a bit of a bump to runic power regeneration (maybe a de-nerf of Dirge) and a low Runic Power cost for Corpse Explosion, Gargoyle, and Unholy Blight.
Final Thoughts
Of course, this preview of the Unholy tree must come with the disclaimer that this is Beta, and lot will change before the whole thing goes live, especially once we all hit 80 and figure out how over or underpowered we really are. At the least, this build won't be making it intact to the live servers, as the laundry list of bugs is still growing.
Still, Unholy is looking like an amazing tree, and with a few more tweaks, it will solidify its place in my heart as my favorite tree. At the least, it's good to see that Blood isn't the only game in town.
Did this week's Lichborne leave you hungry for more Death Knight news? If you haven't already, be sure to check out last week's issue, as well as our report on Death Knight tanking talents and our Death Knight galleries!Filed under: (Death Knight) Lichborne, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, PvP, Leveling, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kabshiel Aug 10th 2008 9:38AM
At the moment, my biggest concerns with the Unholy tree are Corpse Explosion and runic power. CE just feels way too situational to justify spending a talent point on.
And unholy has three damage abilities (Death Coil, Gargoyle, and Unholy Blight) all vying for your nerfed about of runic power. At the moment, it seems best to just choose UB and forget about the others. It'd be nice if Gargoyle were removed and if they made Anti-Magic Shell a runic power ability instead. That way you'd at least have to choose between damage and survivability, as opposed to just choosing between damage and similar damage.
Wyn Aug 10th 2008 9:49AM
I don't think I understand how Unstable Affliction will protect a Death Knight's diseases.
Unstable Affliction is a magic effect, while diseases are obviously disease effects, both of which are dispelled via different abilities. Using Abolish Disease to dispel the Death Knight diseases won't put the dispeller at risk of dispelling Unstable Affliction and suffering its damage/silence.
Wyn Aug 10th 2008 10:10AM
Now that I think about it, I assume you mean due to a Paladin's cleanse removing both a disease and a magic effect (and poisons), which is valid. However, Paladins can get around this by using Purify, which removes only poisons and diseases.
So while I can see the point that Unstable Affliction provides some level of protection for Death Knight diseases, it's a fairly flimsy layer.
DurWrathi Aug 10th 2008 10:30AM
Unless they are a paladin spamming Cleanse, in which case they would hit both. But smart paladins will just use Purify as a counter to this.
Daniel Whitcomb Aug 10th 2008 11:21AM
The purify comment is certainly fair. I honestly probably wasn't thinking! But hey, even switching to purify at least gives the Warlock's spells more time to tick.
Chris Anthony Aug 11th 2008 9:10AM
Not to mention that priests can Cure/Abolish Disease and Dispel Magic separately...!
dacheatbot Aug 10th 2008 2:24PM
Does anyone notice there hardly any abilities that use runes anymore? They all seem to be using runic power.
ScorchHellfire Aug 10th 2008 3:37PM
one talent meaning the difference between usefulness or uselessness for a class feature... yeah um... that's the case for every class dude... thats why we have different specs for hybrids and such... if death knights don't have that then no one should...
MasterInsan0 Aug 10th 2008 10:27PM
I'm not lucky enough to be in the beta, but it sounds to me like they're making death knights too fun to play. I know that sounds stupid, but if one class is vastly more fun to play than the others, everyone will want to play it. Especially given the fact that they start at level 55, we're pretty much going to see nothing but death knights for quite some time after the release of WotLK. Seriously, the starting area for death knights is going to be overflowing with them.
I think Blizzard might be going a little crazy with the idea of their "hero class". I mean, when you're trying to achieve game balance so desperately, making a class that is separated from the others so openly seems counter-productive. It's true that there's no point in calling them a "hero class" if they're not different from the other classes, but by making them different from the others you are intentionally ruining the balance you've worked so hard to achieve, even if gameplay-wise they're balanced. Even having them start at level 55 makes them better (although the players might be noobs for far too late into the game).
You know what I think they should do to balance this? Once you have a character at 70, all of your alts should start at 55 with half-way decent (soulbound and valueless, of course) gear. That way, the only special things about Death Knights are their unique mechanic--which is awesome, but warriors and rogues also have unique mechanics so it's fair--and their unique place in the lore. This would let them have a special class without making all of the other classes seem somehow inferior.
Chris Anthony Aug 11th 2008 9:07AM
With all due respect, I disagree. Yes, we're going to see a deluge of Death Knights immediately after the release, but I expect that it'll die down significantly even a week later, and that the boom will be largely over a month after the release. It's roughly the same situation that happened with the Draenei and Blood Elves; you could just as easily say that with the D/BE racials making them more useful than other races (especially back when Fear Ward was useful), they shouldn't get their own starting areas, because everybody's done all the other starting areas a million times but the D/BE areas are brand new and so everybody will want to see them and flood the areas with new alts.
Your argument actually sounds more like you want your alts to start at 55 than that you have an actual problem with Death Knights. I don't foresee any lasting problem with DKs (especially not one stemming from players saying "I'd like a new alt, but none of the other classes start at level 55; I guess it's a DK for me"). In fact, once DKs start hitting 80 and existing 80s realize that these characters have the proportional experience of someone going through Gnomer for the first time, the DK craze is going to slow a *lot*.
Chris Anthony Aug 11th 2008 9:08AM
(To be fair, you did point out the noob issue that I addressed in my last paragraph. But I think you're not giving it enough weight.)
MasterInsan0 Aug 11th 2008 2:58PM
Yeah, the noob issue is something I probably should give more weight to, but I think this far into the game's life, most people playing the game are either as experienced as they're willing to get, or have friends willing to help them get better. True noobs won't really be a problem, since you have to have a level 55 to make a DK anyway.
My argument is based more on a fairness point of view. Every race has a racial, and some are inherently better than others. However, not every class gets to start out at level 55 and gets called a "hero class". Blizzard didn't announce the BC races and call them "epic races" or something, they just said "new races". That's the problem: Blizzard is making Death Knights out to be better than the other classes. They're too powerful to even be lower than level 55...so how is that fair to all of the other classes? Because I picked a Paladin/Rogue/Shaman/whatever, I am now inferior to this new "hero class" that is so awesome, they can't even fit it into the lower levels.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to play a DK and experience the new mechanic and the (from what I've read) amazing starting experience, but it just feels to me like Blizzard is intentionally making one class better than the others. In a game where balance is of the utmost importance, that is extremely counter-intuitive.
Jaynitan Aug 28th 2008 4:22PM
Seems like most people haven't seen any of the polls about which class people plan to lvl and play the most in the expac. . .
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/08/17/breakfast-topic-what-will-you-play-in-wrath/
right now Dk is at 18%. . . . a slight majority.
Most of the classes are about 8-10% and as the OmgDK!!!! slows down I'll bet you that the numbers even out a little more nad every class is represented by about 10% each
So this whole "there will be a world flooded with death knights is bogus"
Gridneo Aug 11th 2008 1:56PM
Someone can verify, but Pestilence was broken for me this weekend. No diseases ended up on the other targets I was fighting. I have a decent Blood build, but I'm sick of it... I'm going Unholy tonight.
Daniel Whitcomb Aug 11th 2008 2:19PM
Pestilience does indeed seem to be broken at the moment. The diseases do not spread unless the mobs in question are within a yard or so of each other. It's been confirmed that this is a bug that they plan to fix in a future build.
Gridneo Aug 11th 2008 4:09PM
Another thing about Unholy that is a biggie in my book is the Master talent, i.e being able to control your ghoul... I remember the starting area, and my ghoul went crazy since I'm blood, and aggro everything he could find. At one point, (bugged?) Raise Dead actually summoned 10-15 ghouls... Now that was good stuff.
outforprophets Aug 16th 2008 4:00AM
Daniel would you mind posting a new link or e-mailing the Unholy PVP build you had? The link doesn't work anymore for whatever reason.
Daniel Whitcomb Aug 16th 2008 4:11AM
Hm. Sorry about that, Outforprophets. Of course, the talents have changed up a bit, so it'd be impossible to use that build anyway. Here's a similar build that I have been looking at lately. I'll update the article itself tomorrow.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=20000000000000000000000000003022300130000000000000000000230232330023100250151213103151