Patch 3.3.3 PTR: Death knight changes
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Feb 20th 2010 at 12:00AM
General Changes
Icy Touch: This ability now causes a very high amount of threat while the death knight is in Frost Presence - In a perfect world, the DPS would hold off for a bit while you grabbed aggro. In reality, they're generally going full blast while you're still trying to position the boss so it doesn't cleave the healers. Any change that allows for a chance to overcome that little issue, especially with PuGs becoming more and more common even for raid content, is more than welcome.
Rune of Razorice: Now stacks 5 stacks of 2% Frost Vulnerability instead of 10 stacks of 1% Frost Vulnerability. Proc chance changed to 100% -- This gives frost DPSers a chance to get to their full damage potential a bit faster on fights where they need to move or switch targets a lot. It's a minor but certainly far from unwelcome change.
Talents
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 -- I can't say I have ever heard of a blood death knight being kicked for a marksman hunter because his AP buff is more dependable, but this is still certainly not an unwelcome change. If nothing else it should help keep the buff going on fights with lots of movement or if the blood death knight messes up his rotation for some reason.
Will of the Necropolis: There is no longer a cool down 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 - One of Blood's main weaknesses as a tank tree is the lack of truly preventative cool downs or abilities. Even Vampiric Blood requires incoming healing to be truly effective. Will of the Necropolis is one of the few ways blood tanks have to outright absorb or deflect damage that other trees don't have. Given that it only absorbs 15% of a single hit's damage at a specific level of health, I don't think its too overpowered to remove a few other restrictions.
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 -- This patch is definitely the patch of frost DPS buffing, and strength buffing is a nice solid path to take, since it does affect all damage done.
Improved Icy Talons: This effect is now passive instead of being a proc. The self haste buff remains unchanged - See my notes on Abomination's Might. This is certainly not an unwelcome change at all, and makes a needlessly complicated mechanic a bit simpler.
Nerves of Cold Steel: Now increases off-hand damage by 8/16/25%, up from 5/10/15% -- Here's yet another frost DPS buff, this one on the side of weapons strikes. This should lead to higher damage on Obliterates, Plague Strikes, and Blood Strikes, thus buffing damage while leading to less chance that frost will accidentally veer off into spam Icy Touch and Howling Blast territory once more.
Unbreakable Armor: The amount of strength granted is now 20%, up from 10% -- Since you need a frost rune to activate Unbreakable Armor, I'm not completely sure whether or not it will find a regular place in frost damage rotations even with the extra burst damage, but it's definitely a welcome threat and parry boost for frost tanks, if nothing else.
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 -- Believe it or not, preliminary math suggests that this is exactly what it says on the tin. It should be a bit of a buff for more frantic, dispel-prone PvP battles, while leaving unholy PvE DPS relatively unscathed. There may be a slight DPS drop in PvE, but nothing to worry about. Unless PTR testing proves otherwise, Unholy DPSers can feel free to continue gearing, gemming, speccing, and attacking as they always have been. And no, I don't think there's much danger of anyone making a successful diseaseless unholy build.
Glyphs
Glyphs
Glyph of Chains of Ice: Now causes Chains of Ice to apply Frost Fever instead of dealing damage -- Given that the glyph currently just does a rather small amount of frost damage, I don't see too many people mourning this change either way.
Glyph of Disease: When this glyph causes Frost Fever to be refreshed, it will now also trigger a refresh of Icy Talons -- This will be a nice change that may make the glyph viable for Frost DPSers who use Icy Talons. Of course, testing will probably be needed to see if this makes it better than other glyphs, and it what situations. Either way though, it feels like a pretty solid no-brainer fix. If there is one question here though, one would sort of wonder why normal Icy Talons wasn't just passive alongside Improved Icy Talons. It seems unnecessarily punitive toward the death knight.
Patch 3.3.3 is up on the PTR and as with every new patch there's a flurry of new information. Check out the official patch notes, changes to battlegrounds, new achievements that hint at future content, new models (and more new models) in the game files, things to do with those pesky frozen orbs, UI updates, and perhaps more to come before it hits the live realms.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sqtsquish Feb 20th 2010 12:12AM
YAY my dw frost dk just got buffed for being fun to play anyway :D
Hëx Feb 20th 2010 9:53PM
I love my DW Frost, and play it as both Tank and DPS. Of course that one is also an undead female, and the DW animations are just insane and fun to watch. 2H is extremely boring compared to DW.
Nipo Feb 20th 2010 12:20AM
It's a fair short but good change. A question would be: When you apply pestilence is it considered applying IT too?
Kal Feb 20th 2010 12:34AM
Same thing I'm wondering, especially when it comes to big groups of adds that everyone is already unloading every AoE dps they have the second you dropped a Death and Decay.
ragnos Feb 20th 2010 1:23AM
i dont think so, in a standard [blood] tanking rotation that uses GoD, once you have astablished enough threat, using it isnt going to be a problem, however thanks highly on our dependancy on rune strike for threat, if we havent been given the chance to dodge, parry, or miss a mob's attack our threat generation lingers for a split second while the mob eats the idiot bladestorming warrior/diving storming pali's face. instead when we start a new rotation which for most specs is with IT before you arrive at the target, we should already have about 8-15k+ threat upon arrival, even more if a D&D is dropped shortly before. if something does get away from us from the moronic mage attacking the creature 15 yds from you while you attack the other 3 mobs, a IT might prevent that mage from becoming a pretty floor decoration if dark command/DG are on cd or to make a pre-emptive taunt prior to silencing it thus assuring it comes to you...
so in essence its basicly a buff to inital burst aggro generation. how ever if we do happen to get into a situation where we need to generate more threat constantly, replacing your heart strikes/SS/oblit for IT when using death runes might end up with with a rotation that has a higher threat generation for single target... this might also be a good idea to when preparing to taunt off another tank, saving some runes to spam up to 4 IT to prevent the other tank from regrabing aggro if he is generating too much...
most of the above accounts for particular situations but overall it is a massive help, now if they would only add that effect to blood boil or howling blast i would be in heaven.
Thanory Feb 21st 2010 9:48AM
You are not spreading Icy Touch. Your spreading Frost Fever. Icy Touch is just the initial application.
Aakesh Feb 20th 2010 12:31AM
Being a experienced blood and unholy dps, i have to say the abominations might increase is most welcome, and will hopfully allow more Death Strike's to be thrown into my rotation. The buff to Scourge Strike is nice too, since armor penetration will be more effective for the remainder of Wrath.
Yltharion Feb 21st 2010 6:26PM
ArP benefit doesn't change. Since the shadow portition of SS is based on physical damage, ArP won't get any better. Actually the change could be seen as a slight nerf. The shadow portition benefits from magic buffs, and if the shadow portition will decrease we will get less benefit from buffs.
dyre42 Feb 20th 2010 12:34AM
"In a perfect world, the DPS would hold off for a bit while you grabbed aggro. "
Yeah If I had a nickel for everytime DPS starts AOEing before my first GCD is over I'd have my own personal army of robots by now.
Randomize Feb 20th 2010 4:44AM
And then you wouldn't need those silly dpsers anymore.
LiaG Feb 20th 2010 4:50PM
Druids and warriors feel this way more since they need to get hit to get more rage and nothing can be worst than trying to tank and a dps pull every single mob because of a powerful aoe attack.
Captn Obvious Mar 9th 2010 9:31AM
DPSrs that pull in my group - I tell the healers to not heal them and let them die.
As the mob makes a beeline for the healer now the DPS is dead, well, I remember where my taunt button is.
Moral: Don't pull aggro - you won't die.
dkhar Feb 20th 2010 1:07AM
I'm wondering if this will do anything to bring back unholy dual wield builds, the damage increase for it was definitely needed IMO. I haven't duel wield frost dps before, I leveled my DK as frost dps though, but with a 2 hander, might be interesting to test it out.
Sterb Feb 20th 2010 6:48AM
The NoCS buff will slightly improve DW Unholy, but understand that Blizzard doesn't want DW Unholy to be a viable spec. Truly.
Imapieceofgoo Feb 20th 2010 1:12AM
Since Icy Touch does a lot more threat, when I use the new Glyph of Pest, will it reapply Icy Touch with the + threat bonus as if I was recasting it on every mob? I foresee some awesome if so.
ragnos Feb 20th 2010 1:31AM
its the 2nd time this was asked, but pest doesnt reapply IT or PS, it applys/reapplies frost fever and blood plague... niether of which were mentioned to have an increased threat bonus.
Nehru Feb 20th 2010 1:58AM
Another quickie- Glyph of Oblit has been upped by 5% as well. Go Team Frost!
my mourningangel Feb 20th 2010 2:00AM
(may double post. If so, sorry)
Undocumented PTR change: Glyph of Oblit upped by 5%
Go team Frost!
Clown Feb 20th 2010 3:41AM
wait wait lemme get this right.. 6 weeks or so ago "death knight tanks" were fine.. last few weeks we get stam buff + other buffs and now this.. common yes thank you blizz my dk tank will love you for this. even tho there was "nothing wrong and we were on par with other tanks."
shamman22 Feb 20th 2010 6:36AM
I remember them saying that they "seemed fine," but that they would keep an eye them to see how things went in ICC and buff/nerf as needed. It appears that they are keeping their word....