Ghostcrawler on DKs: "It is a melee class"
by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 29th 2010 at 6:00PM
"We don't intend for these forums to be the primary way the team communicates our vision for the game and upcoming changes to the community. You'll get a little of that on a few select subjects through the forums and sadly that's all you're ever going to get. It's not that we don't care. It's that forums are not a great medium for that kind of mass communication. I wish sometimes you guys could be satisfied with the fact that we used to not communicate at all and now are able to communicate a little."Moving on to the specific issue at hand in this thread, the discussion is the old shadow/frost spec that turned the death knight into a much more ranged caster, generating runic power quickly and then converting that runic power into Death Coils at range. It wasn't intended for the class. They have no problem with Death Coil itself being a popular attack, as long as the death knight has to put an effort into staying in melee with its attendant disadvantages to do so.
"The DK that runs around and does nothing but Icy Touch or Howling Blast or Death Coil feels like a rogue who forgoes combo points and openers and everything just to spam Fan of Knives and nothing else."It's interesting to see players managing to find ways to bend the class out of the original design intent and how Blizzard responds to that: specs like shadow/frost or diseaseless blood DPS were adjusted quickly to put the class back to where Blizzard intended it.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Djinn Jan 29th 2010 6:17PM
I guess I would like to see some numbers that show that you can effectively do meaningful damage being a "Caster" DK. I for one would certainly miss my white damage and Scourge Strike stuff, oh yeah Blood Plague can't be applied from range either. Are things like this really a big enough deal for the devs to be wasting their time thinking about? No wonder Elemental Shamans are still broken, the Devs all have ADD and get distracted by crap of little to no importance.
elstor Jan 29th 2010 7:30PM
Say, are you THE Djinn from Earthen Ring? Just curious
slythwolf Jan 29th 2010 9:48PM
Hey, buddy, I actually do have ADHD, and your using it as an insult isn't cool.
Hades Jan 31st 2010 11:16AM
hey Matt R.,
I am the person who put up the original post in that entire thread. I would encourage people reading GC's response about how not to post in the forums to go back and read the thread from the start...
My original post was (I believe) articulate and not trolling in any way at all, yet GC CHOSE to respond to the most blatantly flaming post in that thread instead of the op. If GC doesn't like posts like the one he replied to, then he should stop giving them so much attention.
To top it off.. he didn't really answer the questions about scourge strike. =/
Para Feb 1st 2010 11:58AM
@Djinn
Ok clearly some people are terrible at interpreting what he is saying, because what he is talking about with ranged dks is that for a mele class they have so many abilities that are ranged, causes them to not really feel like a mele class at all.
Dks in arenas when they first came out could do INSANE damage off chains of ice, death coil and whatever other ranged attacks they could practically spam back then, basically there was no way to escape their damage, sure they did more damage in mele but they could do equally impressive ranged crits. So correct me if im wrong but im pretty certain hes talking back in the first few seasons of arena.
Basically all he is trying to say is that mele classes should maybe have a few ways of hitting ranged people/creatures but they should be able to have a reliable way to deal damage to ranged characters.
(cutaia) Jan 29th 2010 6:18PM
"I wish sometimes you guys could be satisfied with the fact that we used to not communicate at all and now are able to communicate a little."
Interesting...I told my ex-girlfriend the same thing once the restraining order was lifted.
elvendude Jan 29th 2010 7:00PM
I have to admit, I lawled.
Thank you (cutaia).
Kerrigoth Jan 29th 2010 6:25PM
I've yet to see a DK that pulls off effective DPS whilst keeping themselves at arms length.
In all three speccs, blood/unholy/frost, a VAST quantity of damage is produced through melee damage. I understand where some people are coming from- runic power is generated on the most part from melee abilities (death strike/heart strike/scourge strike/obliterate, etc) and of the two funadmental diseases DKs have, one can only be applied at melee range.
DKs are firmly melee. Show me a specc that works with little reliance on melee abilties, and I'll give you a cookie.
lewilliams2 Jan 29th 2010 6:30PM
It was called Shadowfrost, this is about pvp.
basyourface Jan 29th 2010 6:30PM
gc is talking about sfrost from s5. dks arent anywhere near a ranged mele class nowadays.
meh dks have some of the least representation of all the classes in arena for being such a populated class. some minor buffs are in order i think.
or atleast fix ScS. PoS pvp skill if i have ever seen one.
BigBadGooz Jan 30th 2010 1:08AM
tanking on a dk is crap compaired to my warrior so guess which i play more. its all about my plethera of alts who need some frost badges for some good ole saronite anyways but ide like my dk to be less....whats the word tehsuck.
Thorie Jan 29th 2010 6:37PM
Developers claim that they want to try and remove the need for Cookie-cutter specs, yet they nerf the crap out of anyone who conforms out of the standard class playstyle.
MusedMoose Jan 29th 2010 6:55PM
First, you don't "conform out" of anything - you either conform or you don't. Conforming implies in-ness.
Second, can you imagine the sheer mess class balance would be if Blizzard tried to make every class viable for every single playstyle? I can hear the hunters QQing as they realize that warriors can now outdo them in ranged damage, right as warriors QQ because the mages' Mana Shields and mana regen now mean that mages tank better than them.
It would be enough of a nightmare to make Deathwing say "Screw this, I'm going to go blow up EverQuest instead."
mtsadowski Jan 29th 2010 6:58PM
This!!!
Cyanea Jan 29th 2010 7:02PM
Well...there's a difference between playing outside of the standard playstyle, and playing like a caster in plate. I do wish that sometimes there'd be more support for different specs, but then there's the problem of gear. How pissed are you when Caster Plate drops that no one can use? Well...what if that particular piece of caster plate was designed for a Shockadin specifically? I'd be even more annoyed.
Blizz lets players think outside the box. That's kinda how Discipline got so popular in Wrath. They tweaked it, players liked the tweaks, and started designing specs around them, and so Blizz buffed it to be even better. But as much as the playerbase pulls one way, the developers have to strike a balance between letting the players go in the name of fun, or pulling everyone back in the other direction.
BoomingEchoes Jan 29th 2010 6:50PM
I thought GC knew better about the forums.. For one thing he's pretty wrong, they are a great way for that kind of mass communication, that's why they exist in our lives at all, Blizzard just doesn't want to show all their cards at once. (though I'm sure he was just being vague about something he meant to explain)
But more so he should know by now that they should have never started to open up and talk about changes at all. They should have just kept their vague system of not telling us any thing and listening to us whine that we don't have a clue what they're doing till we whine that they changed something after the fact.. Honestly that system was much easier to stomach then the system as it is now where one mild QQ comment, like the one was written about earlier today, snakes out an answer from any of the team and then leads to bigger QQ's from even more people (as it usually goes, I didn't read much from that thread earlier)then the ones before any one knew at all.. Open discussion is great and all but they gave the community an inch and they're constantly whining that it takes a mile, frankly their forums are a mess because they (or maybe just GC) made it that, no ones EVER going to be satisfied.
As for the DK stuff: The players wouldn't be able to bend the class like that if more time went into testing the expansions and patches. I know they'll say they tested the hell out of it but I don't think they should be counting internal testing in that like I think they're doing. Way I see it is even if you tell someone who works for the company to think outside the box when testing a class/patch/whatever they're still going to try to play it as its intended and they'll never adequately find these issues sooner. Its really the same with any thing they end up squashing, they should never happen in the first place but they do because they don't put the time into finding it.
SamLowry Jan 30th 2010 2:28AM
It might actually be helpful if Blizzard set up a server or two to test changes before they apply them. Maybe invite players in to let them try it out, check for exploits, see how it might or might not work very well...
You think I should submit this idea to the Suggestions forum?
Al Jan 29th 2010 10:43PM
Of course he's weary of the forums, he spends most of his time replying to DPS'ers.
Bubsa Jan 29th 2010 11:36PM
Poorly
Matthew Jan 29th 2010 11:45PM
I just realized.
Poor GC. He must deal with . . . alot.
GC If you're reading and want a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, send me an ingame note.
You know how to find me.
I know you do.