Lichborne: Notes from the Twitter developer chat
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jul 20th 2010 at 3:00PM
While paladins got some of the biggest bombshells in last week's big developer Twitter chat, there was still quite a bit of juicy information for death knights. Reading between the lines, it's pretty obvious we're getting some major tree revamps, especially in the frost tree, what with On a Pale Horse being added and Runic Empowerment being made baseline. The answers also bought some interesting insights into some of the various decisions being made as our class takes shape in Cataclysm. A few of the answers definitely merit some deeper discussion, so let's get to it.
Scourge Strike strikes again
With the all the difficulty the developers have had getting Scourge Strike worked out and balanced to a point where it was worth using over Obliterate without being straight-up overpowered, you'd think the developers would be content to let it alone. Instead, they've officially confirmed that they do plan to make it cost a single unholy rune. Their rationale is that they felt it seemed a little bit too like Obliterate, and they want the unholy rotation to have its own feel. They've also confirmed that they do not want said rotation to be as simple as casting an Icy Touch alongside each Scourge Strike.
Of course, while you can argue that Scourge Strike (with its large physical damage contingent) is pretty much Obliterate with a little bit of shadow damage added on right now, does switching it down to one rune help? One could argue it just leaves us as inheritors to the old blood DPS rotation, complete with the aim of converting death runes to spam a single-rune physical strike. That said, I'm game to give it a try -- but the question is how to juggle that extra frost rune?
The easiest way to solve it would be presumably to make Reaping cause Icy Touch to turn frost runes into death runes. You'd still have to cast an extra Icy Touch every so often, but in theory you'd have everything converted to let off six Scourge Strikes in a row most of the time. Still, that leaves you with only one extra Icy Touch every other round. On the other hand, diseases are slated to last between 30 and 48 seconds in Cataclysm, so you'd still be refreshing Frost Fever an awful lot that way.
So the other option would be give us some sort of frost-based nuke or weapon strike, which would handily take care of the extra frost rune but would also add a weird quasi-frost duality to unholy, which is thematically pretty focused on shadow damage. Also, if the frost-rune-based strike isn't specifically locked to the unholy tree, you have the possibility of creating weird, unforeseen synergies in the frost tree too. Then again, with this super-frost-attack, you have a perfect opportunity to entice unholy to take up a frost secondary spec by adding a frost damage buff to the first tier to replace Runic Empowerment -- you know, beside the one that already exists there with Improved Icy Touch.
Essentially, though, my initial feeling on this change is pretty close to my feeling on the new rune system: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It seems weird that they're tinkering with such a huge base part of the unholy playstyle when it's working just fine. I'm not against trying out a new style, but I can't help but wonder if they really needed to divert so many resources to change the old one.
The death of dual-wield tanking?
With the coming switch to blood as the sole tank tree in Cataclysm, one of the concerns I've seen voiced often comes from the dual-wield tanking contingent, wondering if they'll get any support in Cataclysm. The official answer came with the latest Twitter chat, and can be summed up thus: "Kind of. Sort of. Maybe. OK, not really, but you can sort of pretend I guess." OK, the actual answer was, "It will be technically possible to dual wield and tank, but it will not be optimal threat-wise." That, to me, says about the same thing.
In other words, what it sounds like is that if you want to dual-wield tank, you should be able to put aside enough points to grab Nerves of Cold Steel in the second tier of frost, and they won't outright remove the Rune of the Nerubian Carapace -- but other than that, you're on your own. That certainly not great news for dual-wield tanks, especially in Cataclysm, where Blizzard is making a deliberate effort to scale back the dominance of the AoE tank style, which in turn suggests a need for high single-target threat.
Without Threat of Thassarian, a dual-wielding tank's single-target threat is going to be through the floor. The best you can hope for is to grab a couple of high-damage, slow one-handers (that means DPS weapons; dual-wielding tank weapons is officially dead unless you severely out-gear the content) and hope either your spell damage causes enough threat or your DPS is really good at throttling their damage. It seems like Blizzard could have been a little kinder and just taken old dual wield out behind the shed -- but hey, I guess a crappy option is better than no option. Still, if you want to do bleeding-edge content, chances are you'll need to tank with a two-handed weapon.
Another interesting note comes from another question about tank cooldowns. The developers come right out and say that "[they] like the cooldown aspect of death knight tanking and would like to preserve it." I think my main concern here is that we don't backslide to the early days of death knight tanking, when the complaint became that we were too weak when we weren't burning a cooldown. It's still a bit murky as to whether or not this complaint is legitimate, but there's sometimes something to be said for good, solid, passive tanking ability. When you're working to keep threat, it's nice to be able to stay alive even if you slip up a bit and miss a button. Still, it's sort of fun juggling cooldowns too, and we're going to have a lot of them in Cataclysm by all accounts, between Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, Anti-Magic Shell and Icebound Fortitude. Between all that, we should be able to get a pretty decent defense rotation going regardless.
Overall, we're probably going to need a few more beta patches to get a good idea of where we're going and to see what happens with all the changes in the frost tree, but it should be an interesting ride. Where we'll be as a class on the other side is almost anyone's guess right now, but we'll keep you posted as the details emerge.
We have advice for everything from PUG etiquette and buttons you should push more often to Icecrown loot and gear stat weights. Check out WoW.com's DK leveling guides, and visit Lichborne every week for more death knight strategies and tips.Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Peter aka Feanor Jul 20th 2010 3:10PM
Maintenance has been extended until Cataclysm enjoy
Prances in Underpantss Jul 20th 2010 3:16PM
Oh, so Cataclysm will be out later today or tomorrow? Damn, that was quick! I better get to Best Buy soon!
Elmouth Jul 20th 2010 4:48PM
Would it kill them to just put Threat of Thassarian on the goddamn first tier?
Is it that hard really?
Sithril Jul 20th 2010 7:58PM
It would.
Treath of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes were designed for Frost-only specs. While Nerves of cold Steel could be moved into the 1st tier, other talent trees would require their own talents to enable dual-wielded instant strikes to do damage on par with 2handers (ToT), and give 2handers the general strenght buff to scale on level with dual wield(MotFW).
It's a very,very old design 'flaw' that makes DW vs. 2H hard to balance. If they decided to support DW for all 3 trees, it'd be better to do it some time now, while they are re-shaping the game as such.
Bob Dewane Jul 20th 2010 3:21PM
I'm truly saddened by the death of DW tanking. I know that, as far as raid tanking goes, it has been "dead" for some time now but I only tank heroics with my DK and I really enjoyed swinging away with two weapons and Howing Blasting everything in sight. Ah well....nothing lasts forever, eh?
I'd be worried about trying to scroung up a 2 hander for tanking right away in Cata if it weren't for the fact that I'll probably be able to grab a quest reward that will fit the bill nicely. =P
Kolenka Jul 20th 2010 4:11PM
It's still completely possible to tank ICC10/25 while DW Frost. The threat is not a problem, and the nature of Frost tanking makes up for the 1-2k HP you lose over 2H tanking (less damage intake, ability to push really close to the armor cap via UBA, etc). The problem is that you don't give up a ton of threat to go 2H Frost (not enough to matter anyways), and it is easier to gear 2H Frost if you need more threat or stamina.
It's not that Frost can't tank the endgame stuff, but that because it /is/ behind 2H Frost and Blood in EH that nobody really uses it anymore. When you are working on hardmodes, you take whatever advantages you can get.
Jawn Jul 20th 2010 3:34PM
Right now. I have a 2H blood DK, DPS. I hope i can still do 2H as frost, and be just as viable as DWing. I just prefer a nice 2H. I'm not a fan of unholy.
Prances in Underpantss Jul 20th 2010 5:44PM
I believe they still want us to be able to choose between 2h and DW. There is a talent deep in the Frost tree:
http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=81333/might-of-the-frozen-wastes
Brian Jul 20th 2010 11:19PM
Just because there is a talent for it doesn't mean it'll be viable... NoCS was there before ToT, but DW wasn't viable until ToT came into the picture. From what i understand 2H Frost will be the low man on the pole because blizz wants frost to be a DW tree.
Lanrathiel Jul 20th 2010 3:56PM
"I'm not against trying out a new style, but I can't help but wonder if they really needed to divert so many resources to change the old one."
If it ain't broke, don't fix it - unless it's a DK. A new patch meant a new playstyle for DKs this expansion (except maybe the last one?). Cata being the biggest "patch", I guess they feel compelled to implement the biggest changes. New rune system needs a lot of work as it is right now. I really don't understand the reasoning behind the gameplay change. Not pushing buttons is not fun.
Balancing the new rune system is also going to make people hate DKs for hitting like trucks in PVP and spamming Chains of Ice all day long (Resilient Infection lol)....or it'll make them annoyed as they are unable to land a kill but don't actually feel threatened by his damage and have to watch every fight become a mana war. Every fight. I don't see any other options unless RP generation is increased hugely and we're balanced around always having RP.
Enor Jul 20th 2010 6:52PM
Welcome to the Class Overhaul club. You can have a seat next to the paladins, who are permanent club members and club leaders. Enjoy.
jordan Jul 20th 2010 4:14PM
About the death of d/w frost tanking... the crit immunity will be on improved blood presence... so what they mean about d/w tanking is blood tanking with two weapons. Thus the threat is not optimal.
prenden2 Jul 20th 2010 4:20PM
I found a nice video of a DK tanking the new instance, Throne of Tides; it's pretty good to get a feel for how the class is shaping up in beta.
http://www.youtube.com/user/pwnwear#p/c/451CE9810EFC84B9/0/JiDM2fGZt1Q
thebitterfig Jul 20th 2010 4:47PM
"Without Threat of Thassarian, a dual-wielding tank's single-target threat is going to be through the floor. The best you can hope for is to grab a couple of high-damage, slow one-handers (that means DPS weapons[.]"
Without ToT, the offhand weapon's damage will play no part in your instant strikes, and its speed will thus be irrelevant. A rogue-type fast 1h and a shaman/dk/warrior-type slow 1h with the same stats would be exactly the same in terms of dps and ultimately threat, before factoring in PPM and flat chance-on-hit mechanics. In that case, the only downside to using a 1-h tank weapon in the offhand is its lower offensive stats, and only the MH will be mandatory slow. In fact, it is specifically BECAUSE of ToT that offhand weapon speed matters at all for live and future Frost DK.
In a related note, and I'll be cross-posting on The Queue when I'm done typing this, but is much known about the speed of tanking weapons in Cataclysm? Off the top of my head, the only mathematical benefit to a fast tanking weapon is the increased threat from heroic strikes for warriors due to next-swing mechanics. Given the heroic strike revamp with cataclysm, it seems that the only benefit to a fast weapon would be "smoother" aggro generation, which might just be a subjective thing, and it occurs to me that a slowed-down tanking weapon would be preferable (warriors and paladins both use or will use weapon-based instant cast strikes, in the form of devastate and crusader strike).
Elvtyrr Jul 21st 2010 9:24AM
Currently, fast tanking weapons affect paladins as well as it can give them more chances to proc their seals and judgments. This is assuming that the above mentioned are not affected by an internal cooldown. I know that seal of Vengeance / Corruption isn't and the faster the weapon the faster it will hit it's full stack. And that does actually affect threat gen more than you would think.
thebitterfig Jul 20th 2010 7:12PM
well, i guess that's true for threat if you're using seal of righteousness, but most tanks use seal of corruption/vengeance. while true that a fast weapon will stack SoV a little bit faster, once it's stacked, the damage comes from a dot not affected by weapon speed, and a proc using 33% of the weapon's damage, also not affected by weapon speed (faster means more, smaller procs so it's a wash). seal of wisdom is on a PPM system, and presumably seal of light is too, so that too doesn't really favor fast over slow.
Boobah Jul 21st 2010 1:17PM
About the only thing 'fast' does for a paladin is speed up the SoV stacks (although that's mitigated, too, since Hammer of Righteousness stacks SoV, too). Otherwise, slow is better, threatwise. All because of seal procs; everything else that a prot paladin does (currently) doesn't use weapon damage or speed; it uses attack and/or spellpower, block value, or Weapon DPS. But seals are normalized by weapon speed, one way or another. Back when they were only procced by auto attacks, this meant that speed didn't enter into it. Now, they proc off instant attacks, too, and weapon speed doesn't affect how many of those you get. Slower weapons = bigger seal hits on instant attacks, too.
It's probably worth pointing out, too, that Hammer of Righteousness demonstrates that Blizzard has the technology to make weapon speed largely irrelevant for instant attacks if they want to; when it first appeared it did the more common "x% of weapon damage," but was changed so tankadins wouldn't avoid fast tanking weapons.
Coldhearth Jul 20th 2010 6:19PM
This is my opinion on it, feel free to love me or hate me. :)
DKs have been through so many changes since WoTLK was released, that it feels like every few weeks we have to learn an entirely new playstyle just to keep up with everyone else. I realize DKs are a newer class in the grand scope of wow and have been tweaked as such, but it's kind of getting old. Really old. I don't think any class has changed more (an endless array of buffs and nerfs) over the course of this expansion than DKs. I realize that class balance is a delicate balancing act, but let me please learn how to play my class/spec before you change it every few weeks.
I feel right now DKs are in a good spot overall. We have good damage output, tank efficiently, and are competitive in PvP -- without being overpowered. For a hybrid class, I feel we are pretty well balanced at this point in time. It feels as if the developers are now saying, "Nope. Let's start over with them."
My Dk is my main. I have 4 other 80s and I play them all, but my DK will always be my favorite. However, after reading all these changes over the past few weeks, I might ditch my DK in Cataclysm... which is a shame because I absolutely love the class.
I just don't want to be taken for another wild rollercoaster ride all over again for the next year and a half. The developers really need to sit down and decide what to do with this class because I don't think they know where they want the class to be (cough, scourge strike, cough). I realize all the classes are being changed dramatically, but for death knights, this is just the bitter icing on a spoiled cake.
We have never had any stability as a class and it looks like we won't anytime in the near (or distant) future.
/rant
Thanks for reading my wall of text haha.
Darky Jul 20th 2010 6:29PM
imo the instability makes it fun, thats just me who spends 90% of his gold on respecs because he was bored of a particular spec
thebitterfig Jul 20th 2010 7:28PM
the big problem with DK right now is the total GCD lock they have. basically, you have next to no downtime in your rotation, plus a very tight rotation based on disease durations barely long enough for your runes to go through two reset cycles. as such, there is very little time for delay or time for other stray abilities.
the new system of fewer natural runes, hasted rune regeneration, longer diseases, and stronger rune-based attacks should help all that. before haste, it should be roughly the same for damage, as your strikes are roughly doubled in potency, but doubled in cost. you'll use fewer, freeing up GCDs and generally allowing some downtime, which is a good thing. the longer diseases will be less tight to keep up, and once you add in haste, that'll add even more slack to the rotations, which is a good thing.
as far as changes to the ultimate play style, it'll be a little less of a super-tight rotation, a little more loose, with the same basic feel, though. use runes on cooldown, use RP when you can spare it. the addition of free-rune procs which will just add fun. i don't think it'll really feel incredibly different.
as to scourge strike, there has been one and only one reason it's changed at all through the expansion. damage tuning. first, the damage was too high, since it totally ignored armor, so they nerfed it. nerf was probably a little too hard, particularly since it didn't scale with armor penetration at all. lastly, they've come up with a method which half-scales with arpen, plus puts the damage at about the right place for any two-rune strike.