/agree

I've toyed with DK's off and on as I'm sure most people have, but just started leveling my first 'serious' one a few weeks ago. He's Blood/DPS and I just hit 77 with him.

There are a couple of things that make the DK class cool and interesting, at least to me, to play. One is the lore of course, at least they're not changing that. But the other thing is that DK's are "HEROIC" and function differently from pretty much every other class in the game. Now they're going to function exactly like every other class in the game. Wheeeee. How will DK's be different from warriors now? The glowing blue eyes?

Of course they haven't even made any of the changes yet, just talking about them, and maybe come PTR time it won't seem so bad or play so differently than it does now.

But right now I find the changes to be a bit depressing.

You really think that Blizzard makes decisions because they are lazy? Really?

Their rationale is pretty clearly spelled out in the blue post, and makes sense. Yet instead of discussing what was actually written, you choose an ad hominem attack on Blizzard's work ethic.

Bad form, Cabbageloins.

"How will DK's be different from warriors now? The glowing blue eyes?"

Yes. That will be the only difference. The glowing blue eyes.



/rolls glowing blue eyes

While I agree that your whole first paragraph is what made my DK so much fun to play, I think it's incorrect to label this as "lazy Blizz". Now before I get jumped on, let me announce that I am just as bummed out as everyone else, despite the fact I've been tanking in blood in every major content patch, and was hoping to see some neat way to make this work with the mastery system.

One of the prime reasons Blizz cited as why they decided to make this change is that it wasn't fair to all the other classes. Yes DKs are supposed to be special, but in the end it comes down to Dev Team resource management and fairness to everyone who doesn't play a DK.

On top of this, the new mastery system was the death of this lovely and enjoyable experiment to begin with. How does the system distinguish between tanking and dpsing? Tie it presence you say? Watch me spec completely for frost dps then hop into frost presence and we all go back to Wrath Beta, where DKs did the damage of rouges with the survivability of a prot warrior. Blizz worked so hard (to their credit, I think) to balance out DKs, and I don't want to see me getting my talent points refunded every patch in Cata due to major balancing issues.

Again, I was hoping this would be the future of hybrid classes as much as anyone else, but I think its fair to point out the massive logistical issues that would have plagued the system, and we shouldn't be too hasty to judge the Dev Team here until we see an actual 4.0 talent tree (remember, they're trying to get rid of "ideal" and "cookie-cutter" specs).

"Yes. That will be the only difference. The glowing blue eyes."

That's exactly what I thought, thanks for confirming it. A tank tree, a 2-hand dps tree and a dual wield dps tree.

The problem with you deciding that Blizzard is making this change out of pure laziness is that this POV depends on Blizzard wanting DKs to be "just like every other class" when death knights -aren't- like every other class and, even with this change, won't be. Is Blizzard making this change because it'll make DKs easier to design? Yes, but that's not a value judgement. I don't see any point in them sticking with the "every tree can tank" experiment at the expense of making the class better and more fun to play.

While every tree may be balanced now, in Cataclysm everything will change so drastically that, just by way of game mechanics, that probably won't be the case. Basic things that we take for granted now are going away completely. The talent trees are getting a complete overhaul; how could things possibly stay as they are? Blizzard is looking ahead, realizing that the cost of maintaining the gimmick outweighs the benefits to the class, and going with the most efficient route. Your personal disappointment is talking when you say that this isn't about the players and all about laziness on Blizzard's part, since anyone speaking from an objective point of view can see that they work very, very hard on getting this shit right. They don't always succeed, but the fact that they're on the forums daily talking about it and asking for feedback and actually, constantly balancing instead of letting classes languish at near-unplayable states for years the way some companies do should tell you something.

OMFG, when will people learn? They are doing this to make it easier on not only themselves, but the player base. People who isolated frost tanking were doing it all wrong in the first place. They ASSUMED that Frost was the only way to go. Well now Blood WILL be the only way to go, and they ANNOUNCED it.

Another note: I hated dual wield tanking, the mechanic of holding two toothpicks in your hands trying to hold off a giant fist is just too demeaning. I can say for all of the Death Knights that two DINNER KNIVES cannot be used to hold the Lich King. Rogues in plate we are not!

TL;DR, go blood, and see how superior it is to Frost in tanking and why this change is worth it!