Feedback: Death Knights

#1 - July 14, 2022, 6:37 p.m.

Please use this thread to post feedback on the Death Knight class, once you’ve tested it in the Dragonflight Alpha.

Thank you!

#3 - July 15, 2022, 12:51 a.m.

Hello Death Knights!

We’d like to kick things off here with a talk about some future plans for both the Core and Unholy Death Knight trees. While all specs can expect iteration as we navigate through alpha and beyond, this update will focus on the two trees mentioned.

Core Tree

In next week’s Alpha, you can expect to see an updated layout to the Core tree. In its current iteration, the tree feels a little too linear, with lower variance in customization as you progressed down one of the branches of the trees. To alleviate this, we’ve added connecting nodes to Blood’s branch from both the Frost and the Unholy sides of the core tree before the 1st gate, and one after the second gate. We’re also adding more nodes above the first gate, to add some more flexibility when picking up utility options.

We’re also doing some talent re-arrangements to fix dependency issues (preventing players from picking up talents with 0 value based on their prior picks). Here’s a work-in-progress picture that might give a better idea of what that means.

In the core tree, we’re going to move forward with some known bugs. While most things that aren’t actually working should be marked as NYI (Not Yet Implemented), we missed one with Empower Rune Weapon adding charges (for Frost). It’s currently not giving a charge if you learn it in both the Core and Frost tree. This will be fixed in a future alpha build.

Rune Strike is intended to only be available prior to choosing a spec. Each of the specs first talent choices should replace Rune Strike. This will be fixed in a future build.

Unholy

As we move into future builds, we want to tackle two main issues we’ve heard about from the community. The first is the issue of cooldown desyncs which is caused by a few different talents and some oddly timed base cooldowns. This will be our first priority. Secondly, after these changes make it to the alpha, we will want to tackle the overall structure of Unholy’s talent layout. The tree layout changing will take some time but we want to give an early heads up that we are actively looking at it and you can expect changes in the future.

Our initial goals with this include:

• Update the cooldowns of Unholy to better sync with each other and prevent the dreaded desync issues the spec has seen. Generally we should expect 45/90/180 second cooldowns for Unholy.
• Reduce the number of “RNG” mechanics the spec has to deal with.
• Restructure the tree layout to include removing some talents, updating existing talents, and adding new talents. We’ll mention some of these changes below, but this will not be a comprehensive of all changes coming.

Some changes to expect in a future alpha build:

• Deadly Coil: Reduces the Runic Power cost of Death Coil by 5/10.
  • This talent will be removed as a talent and wrapped into Death Coil baseline.
    • Developers’ notes: Deadly Coil has become quite important to how smooth the Unholy spec rotation feels and at this point is better served baseline than as a talent that can be opt-in or out of.
• Unholy Command: Damage Dealt by Death Coil reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation.
  • This talent will now read “Dark Transformation’s cooldown is reduced by 8/15 seconds.”
    • Developers’ notes: This should help Dark Transformation’s cooldown feel less RNG (or punishing for players who don’t manage Death Coil perfectly) and also align with the rest of their talents.
• Infectious Wound: Festering Strike has a 20% increased chance of applying 1/2/3 additional Festering Wounds.
  • This talent will be cut or reworked.
    • Developers’ notes: While this talent may be repurposed rather than cut, we plan to cut the current randomness and rework it to provide a more consistent benefit, with the goal of better helping players play around the talent rather than hope it happens at the right moment.
• Epidemic
  • Damage to be buffed.
    • Developers’ notes: With the new talent that allows Death Coil to cleave, the line on when to Epidemic and when not to Epidemic has been widened. This is not ideal. With the changes to Unholy Command and the damage increase to Epidemic, this should help cement Epidemic’s position at ~4 targets.
• Army of the Damned: Death Coil reduces the cooldown of Apocalypse by 1 second and Army of the Dead by 5 seconds (and summons a Magus of the Dead).
  • This will be updated to reduce the cooldown of Apocalypse by a flat 45 seconds (and no longer be reduced by Death Coil/Epidemic).
    • Developers’ notes: This change will smooth out the cooldowns of Unholy to match our initial 45/90/180 sec cooldown windows. We are considering what to do with the Army of the Dead portion of the talent. Having the mastery of maximizing you’re your Death Coil casts to give you a chance at another Army of the Dead in an encounter feels like a great skill and mechanical hook for the talent while not completely harming your rotational impact the way Apocalypse did.
• Summon Gargoyle
  • Developers’ notes: Currently, Summon Gargoyle does not feel like it rises to a capstone talent, and we have a few ideas in mind to better to solve that. First we plan to buff Gargoyle to better perform and shine in single target scenarios and also move it higher into the tree to be a little more accessible when the situation calls for its need. Secondly, we want to introduce a new and more powerful ability in this capstone position. As an example, “Dark Transformation empowers your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead for 20 seconds, increasing their damage by 50%." A talent such as this does a better job of “capping” a build that heavily focuses on Dark Transformation and your pets.
• Tree Structure
  • The current tree has a few less than ideal dependency issues that we are looking to solve to prevent “trap” talent builds where we can.
  • The tree could also be a little more connected to allow for a bit more flexibility as you spec out your Unholy DK. As an example, Clawing Shadows’ current positioning feels a bit too restrictive at the moment.

Thank you all for the ongoing feedback! It’s greatly appreciated, and we look forward to more as we iterate throughout the testing period.

#34 - Aug. 19, 2022, 9:14 p.m.

Hello Death Knights,

We’ve got an info drop for you. Here’s what we’ve been working on, and what you can expect to see in the next Alpha build for both the Class and Unholy trees.

Class Talents

In an effort to further increase choice, we’ve updated some talent positions, added two additional connections from Might of Thassarian and Merciless Strikes toward the center section of the class tree, reduced 3 rank talents to 2, and updated the lead-in talent to Abomination Limb with a throughput talent.

The following changes are not everything you’re going to see in the next build. Rather, these are highlights of the bigger changes (and a few more-subtle position changes with existing talent nodes).

Rune Mastery

• Max ranks increased to 2, up from 1.
• Now leads into Abomination Limb (replacing Improved Death Strike).

Icy Talons

• Max ranks reduced to 2, down from 3.

Unholy Bond

• Max ranks reduced to 2, down from 3.

Unholy Endurance

• New talent: Increases Lichborne duration by 2 sec and while active damage taken is reduced by 15%.

Death Pact

• Now has a new connection from Might of Thassarian

Asphyxiate

• Now has a new connection from Merciless Strikes.

Clenching Grasp

• New talent: Death Grip slows enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.

Improved Death Strike

• Max ranks reduced to 1, down from 3.
• Now available much earlier in the tree.

Here is a look at the updated tree with the new structure:

Unholy

As we mentioned previously, we have updates to both the baseline and talent tree for Unholy. These will be available in the next Alpha update. The baseline changes focus on helping reduce the cooldown desync as well as baking in existing talents to help the flow and feel of the spec. Additionally, the Unholy tree itself experienced substantial iteration and has been mostly redesigned and restructured with 11 new talents.

Below is a list of changes previously mentioned, as well as new talents. The below list does not document each individual restructuring of existing talents, as that’s quite substantial, but we do have a screenshot of the tree below to help contextualize what can be expected.

Abilities

Death Coil

• Runic Power cost reduced to 30, down from 40.

Epidemic

• Damage increased by 20%

Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows

• Damage increased 20%

Talents

General

• All 3 max rank talents have been reduced to max 2 rank (where applicable)

Deadly Coil

• Cut

Unholy Command

• No longer reduces the CD of Dark Transformation when dealing damage with Death Coil
• Now reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation by 8/15 seconds.

Army of the Damned

• Now reduces the cooldown of Apocalypse by 45 seconds (No longer reduced by Death Coil)
  • Death Coil still reduces the cooldown of Army of the Dead
• No longer summons a Magus of the Dead when Apocalypse or Army of the Dead are cast

Summon Gargoyle

• Duration reduced to 30s, down from 35s
• Now gains 1% damage per 1 runic power spent (down from 1% per 2 runic power)
  • At first read this can be confusing but it is a buff to the damage ramp for Gargoyle.

Improved Scourge Strike – Increases the damage of Scourge Strike by 10/20%

• Cut

New Talent – Feasting Strikes: Festering Strike and Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows have 15% chance to generate 1 Rune.

New Talent – Runic Mastery: Increases Maximum Runic Power by 10/20.

New Talent – Plaguebringer: Scourge Strike causes your disease damage to occur 150% more quickly for 5 sec.

New Talent – Magus of the Dead: Apocalypse and Army of the Dead also summon a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at your foes.

• Magus of the Dead’s Shadow Bolt damage increased by 20%.
• Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt damage increased by 10%
• Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt slow duration increased to 6 sec and 60% slow (up from 4 seconds and 50%)

New Talent – Ruptured Viscera: When your ghouls expire, they explode in viscera dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies.

New Talent – Commander of the Dead: Dark Transformation also empowers your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead for 30 seconds, increasing their damage by 40%.

New Talent – Eternal Agony: Death Coil increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 sec.

New Talent – Coil of Devastation: Death Coil causes the target to take an additional 35% of the direct damage dealt over 4 sec.

New Talent – Rotten Touch: Sudden Doom causes your next Death Coil to also increase your Scourge Strike damage against the target by 30% for 6 sec.

[NYI] New Talent - Plaguebearer: Inflict disease upon your enemies spreading Festering Wounds equal to the amount currently active on your target to 8 nearby enemies (45s cooldown, 30 Runic Power).

• This ability may not make it into the next Alpha build.

New Talent – Superstrain: Your Virulent Plague also applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague.

• Currently grants full effectiveness for the other diseases. Tuning is always likely to change in future builds.
• Please note: Morbidity will now also scale damage from FF and BP because of this the damage per rank has been reduced.

The new and updated Unholy tree looks like this:

Thank you very much for all of your discussion and feedback.

We look forward to hearing more from you about the updated trees.

#49 - Aug. 25, 2022, 1:13 a.m.

Complete notes for today’s update:

• Class Tree
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • Rune Mastery increased to 2 ranks. Duration increased to 8 seconds (was 6 seconds) and now grants 3% Strength per rank.
  • Icy Talons reduced to 2 ranks (was 3). Melee attack speed per rank increased to 3% (was 2%).
  • Unholy Bond reduced to 2 ranks (was 3).
  • Will of the Necropolis increased to 2 ranks (was 1). Damage reduction below 30% health is now 20/35% (was previously 30%).
  • Blood Draw increased to 2 ranks (was 1). Cooldown now reduced by 60 seconds at rank 2.
  • New Talent: Unholy Endurance – Increases Lichborne duration by 2 seconds and while active damage taken is reduced by 15%. Located directly below Lichborne.
  • New Talent: Clenching Grasp – Death Grip slows enemy movement speed by 50% for 6 seconds. Located directly below Brittle.
  • Improved Death Strike max ranks reduced to 1 (was 3).
• Unholy
  • Rearranged various talents and created new pathways and choices.
  • New
    • Feasting Strikes – Festering Strike and Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows have 15% chance to generate 1 Rune.
    • Runic Mastery – Increases Maximum Runic Power by 10/20.
    • Plaguebringer – Scourge Strike causes your disease damage to occur 150% more quickly for 5 seconds.
    • Magus of the Dead – Apocalypse and Army of the Dead also summon a Magus of the Dead who hurls Frostbolts and Shadow Bolts at your foes.
      • Magus of the Dead’s Shadow Bolt damage increased by 20%.
      • Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt damage increased by 10%.
      • Magus of the Dead’s Frostbolt slow duration increased to 6 seconds and 60% slow (was 4 seconds and 50%).
    • Ruptured Viscera – When your ghouls expire, they explode in viscera dealing Shadow damage to nearby enemies.
    • Commander of the Dead – Dark Transformation also empowers your Gargoyle and Army of the Dead for 30 seconds, increasing their damage by 40%.
    • Eternal Agony – Death Coil increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1 second.
    • Coil of Devastation – Death Coil causes the target to take an additional 35% of the direct damage dealt over 4 seconds.
    • Rotten Touch – Sudden Doom causes your next Death Coil to also increase your Scourge Strike damage against the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
    • Superstrain – Your Virulent Plague also applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague.
    • Plaguebearer – Inflict disease upon your enemies spreading Festering Wounds equal to the amount currently active on your target to 8 nearby enemies (45 second cooldown, 30 Runic Power). Not yet implemented, but coming in a future build!
  • Removed
    • Deadly Coil
    • Improved Scourge Strike
  • Changes
    • Death Coil – Runic Power cost reduced to 30 (was 40).
    • Unholy Command – Now reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation by 8/15 seconds (was reduces the cooldown of Dark Transformation when dealing damage with Death Coil. ).
    • Epidemic – Damage increased by 20%.
    • Army of the Damned – Now reduces the cooldown of Apocalypse by 45 seconds (no longer reduced by Dark Transformation). No longer summons a Magus of the Dead when Apocalypse or Army of the Dead are cast.
    • Summon Gargoyle – Duration reduced to 25 seconds (was 35 seconds). Now gains 1% damage per 1 runic power spent (was per 2 runic power).
    • Scourge Strike/Clawing Shadows – Damage increased 20%.
    • Morbidity – Damage per rank reduced to 1/3% (was 3/6%). Festering Wound no longer increases the damage of Morbidity and now also increases damage from Blood Plague and Frost Fever if Superstrain is talented.

#61 - Aug. 26, 2022, 10:31 p.m.

In the next alpha build the Death Knight core tree is being updated to better increase talent choice. In order to do this, we’ve made several abilities baseline and cut talents that were proving to be problematic for the overall health of the resource economy for the specs. The left side of the class tree had 4 talents all dedicated to resources, which felt a little excessive. This has been reduced 2 (specifics noted below). In addition to the resource talents being shifted around, we’ve also made Death’s Advance and Lichborne baseline.*

Death’s Advance

• This has moved baseline and is now learned at level 9.

Lichborne

• This has moved baseline and is now learned at level 9.

Unholy Endurance

• Now positioned where Lichborne was previously located in the talent tree.

New Talent – March of Darkness: Death’s Advance grants additional movement speed.

• Now positioned where Death’s Advance was previously located in the talent tree.

Horn of Winter

• Cut from the class tree.
• This will return as a Frost talent in a future build.

New Talent – Insidious Chill: Your auto-attacks reduce the target’s auto-attack speed by 5% for 30 seconds, stacking up to 4 times.

• Positioned where Horn of Winter was located

Runic Corruption and Runic Empowerment

• This choice node has been cut.
• These two talents will be returning to their respective specs baseline (Unholy – Runic Corruption and Frost - Runic Empowerment)

Runic Attenuation

• Now positioned where the Runic Corruption/Runic Empowerment node was located.

New Talent – Gloom Ward: Absorbs are 15% more effective on you.

Blood

In the next alpha build, Blood tree has undergone significant changes including updates to pathing, new connections, 6 new talents, updated existing talents, and 3 max rank talents have been reduced to 2 max ranks. Due to the sheer amount of changes to the talent tree we will just highlight some of the bigger changes to the tree below.

Blood Boil

• Now has 2 charges, up from 1.

Improved Blood Boil

• Cut

Rune Tap

• Now has 2 charges, up from 1.

Improved Heart Strike

• Reduced to 2 max ranks, down from 3.
• Damage per rank increased to 15%, up from 10%.

Blood Fortification

• Cut from the talent tree
• Now learned at level 11.

Everlasting Bond

• Death Strike and Heart Strike no longer increase the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon while its active.
• Now increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 8 seconds.
  • While the act of extending your Dancing Rune Weapon with Heart Strike and Death Strike can be fun, it quickly can overshadow the rest of Blood’s gameplay decisions. In order to address this, we will change Everlasting Bond to be a flat duration increase in addition to its existing mechanic of summoning one extra copy of Dancing Rune Weapon. Our goal here is to open up more options throughout the tree as well as avoid making one style of gameplay feel mandatory permanently moving forward.

Improved Boneshield

• Reduced to 1 max rank, down from 2.
• Now increases Haste by 10% while Bone Shield is active.

Vampiric Blood

• Now available above the first gate, directly below Marrowrend.

Dancing Rune Weapon

• This has moved higher into the tree and is available immediately after unlocking the 1st gate.

Hemostasis

• Max ranks reduced to 1, down from 2.

Hasty Bargain

• Renamed to Perseverance of the Ebon Blade
• Now grants 3/6% Versatility instead of Haste when Crimson Scourge is consumed.

Voracious

• No longer a choice node with Blood Worms

Bloodworms

• No longer a choice node with Voracious

Gorefiend’s Grasp

• Now centrally located within the tree with multiple pathing options to reach it.

Tightening Grasp

• Can now only be obtained directly after Gorefiend’s Grasp
• Max ranks reduced to 1, down from 2.

Heartrend

• Max ranks reduced to 1, down from 2.

New Talent - Blood Feast: Anti-Magic Shell heals you for 100% of the damage it absorbs.

New Talent – Iron Heart: Blood Shield’s duration is increased by 2 seconds and it absorbs 20% more damage.

New Talent – Bloodshot: While Blood Shield is active, you deal 25% increased Physical damage.

New Talent – Sanguine Ground: You deal 5% more damage and receive 5% more healing while standing in your Death and Decay.

New Talent – Coagulopathy: Enemies affected by Blood Plague take 5% increased damage from you and Death Strike increases the damage of your Blood Plague by 25% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

New Talent – Umbilicus Eternus: After Vampiric Blood expires, you absorb damage equal to 5 times the damage your Blood Plague dealt during Vampiric Blood.

Unquenchable Thirst

• This has been cut.
• Dev Commentary: This talent has been cut and replaced with Umbilicus Eternus. Unquenchable Thirst had a bit of design overlap with both Bonestorm and Shattering Bone on the opposite side of the tree. The choice to replace it was done to add what we hope is a more interesting decision point as you navigate toward the capstones especially factoring in the synergy of the new Blood Plague talents and existing Vampiric Blood talents.

Updated Blood Tree

Unholy

In addition to Unholy’s latest changes we have a few updates we’d like to make to their talents that affect resource generation. The changes to the class tree should be a step in the right direction for better balancing Unholy’s resource economy, but we also want to target a few Unholy specific talents as well. Unholy has been a class with a higher downtime and while we think some downtime can be okay, it’s important to find a balance between too high and too low. The current alpha version swung that pendulum too far in one direction and we are looking to find a better middle ground that both feels fun and rewarding to play. Resource tuning will continue to be on going as we head into Dragonflight. As mentioned last week we are making efforts to prepare for tuning in Dragonflight as such Unholy will be receiving a few tuning tweaks to their talents.

Plaguebringer

• Disease damage now ticks 100% more quickly, down from 150%.

Feasting Strikes

• Removed Scourge Strike’s chance to refund 1 rune
• Chance to proc increased to 20%
  • Having both Festering Strike and Scourge Strike trigger a Rune refund left us very little room to tune around and also made this something that just always happened. In an effort to give us more ways to tune this and also add a little more gameplay thought we are changing this to only work on Festering Strike.

Replenishing Wound

• Reduce Runic Power gained from popping a Festering Wound to 2, down from 3.

Improved Death Coil

• Damage increase reduced to 15/30%, down from 20/40%.

Plaguebearer

• Cooldown increased to 90s, up from 45s
• Status changed to implemented

Unholy Assault

• Buff duration increased to 20 seconds, up from 12 seconds.

Ghoulish Frenzy

• Attack speed and damage increased to 6/12% up from 4/8%.

Morbidity

• Damage per disease reduced to 2% down from 3% at rank 2.

Death Rot

• Reduced to 1% per stack up to 10%, down from 2/20%.
• Increased the duration to 10 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
• Fixed a bug preventing this from being applied by multiple Death Knights.

Commander of the Dead

• Damage to Gargoyle and Army Ghouls reduced to 30%, down from 40%.

#72 - Sept. 1, 2022, 7:06 p.m.

Today’s complete DK notes:

• General
  • Death’s Advance is now learned at level 9.
  • Lichborne is now learned at level 9.
• Class Tree
  • Developers’ note: The Death Knight core tree is being updated to better increase talent choice. In order to do this, we’ve made several abilities baseline and cut talents that were proving to be problematic for the overall health of the resource economy for the specs. The left side of the class tree had 4 talents all dedicated to resources, which felt a little excessive. This has been reduced 2 (specifics noted below). In addition to the resource talents being shifted around, we’ve also made Death’s Advance and Lichborne baseline.
  • Unholy Endurance – Now positioned where Lichborne was previously located in the talent tree.
  • New Talent: March of Darkness – Death’s Advance grants additional movement speed over the first 3 seconds. Now positioned where Death’s Advance was previously located in the talent tree.
  • Horn of Winter – Cut from the class tree. This will return as a Frost talent.
  • New Talent: Insidious Chill – Your auto-attacks reduce the target’s auto-attack speed by 5% for 30 seconds, stacking up to 4 times. Positioned where Horn of Winter was located.
  • Runic Corruption and Runic Empowerment – This choice node has been removed. These two talents will be returning to their respective specs baseline (Unholy – Runic Corruption and Frost - Runic Empowerment).
  • Runic Attenuation – Now positioned where the Runic Corruption/Runic Empowerment node was located.
  • New Talent: Gloom Ward – Absorbs are 15% more effective on you.
• Blood
  • The talent tree for Blood has undergone significant updates to its pathing and connections.
  • Blood Boil – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
  • Improved Blood Boil removed.
  • Rune Tap – Now has 2 charges baseline (was 1).
  • Improved Heart Strike – Reduced to 2 max ranks (was 3). Damage per rank increased to 15% (was 10%).
  • Blood Fortification – Removed from the talent tree. Now learned at level 11.
  • Everlasting Bond – Death Strike and Heart Strike no longer increase the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon. Now increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 1 second.
    • Developers’ note: While the act of extending your Dancing Rune Weapon with Heart Strike and Death Strike can be fun it quickly can overshadow the rest of Blood’s kit making any other abilities used within that window the wrong choice. In an order to address this we will be changing Everlasting Bond to be a flat duration increase in addition to its existing mechanic of summoning one extra copy of Dancing Rune Weapon. Our goal here is to open up more options throughout the tree as well as not make one style of gameplay feel mandatory permanently moving forward.
  • Improved Boneshield – Reduced to 1 max rank (was 2). Now increases Haste by 10% while Bone Shield is active.
  • Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Marrowrend.
  • Improved Vampiric Blood – Now available above the first gate. Directly below Vampiric Blood
  • Death’s Caress – Now available above the first gate.
  • Dancing Rune Weapon – This has moved higher into the tree and is available immediately after unlocking the 1st gate.
  • Hemostasis – Max ranks reduced to 1(was 2).
  • Hasty Bargain – Renamed to Perseverance of the Ebon Blade. Now grants 3/6% Versatility when Crimson Scourge is consumed (was Haste).
  • Voracious and Bloodworms are no longer a choice node.
  • Gorefiend’s Grasp – Now centrally located within the tree with multiple pathing options to reach it.
  • Tightening Grasp – Can now only be obtained directly after Gorefiend’s Grasp. Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
  • Heartrend – Max ranks reduced to 1 (was 2).
  • Shatterning Bone – Damage now correctly scales with rank upgrades.
  • New Talent: Blood Feast – Anti-Magic Shell heals you for 100% of the damage it absorbs.
  • New Talent: Iron Heart – Blood Shield’s duration is increased by 2 seconds and it absorbs 20% more damage.
  • New Talent: Bloodshot – While Blood Shield is active, you deal 25% increased Physical damage.
  • New Talent: Sanguine Ground – You deal 5% more damage and receive 5% more healing while standing in your Death and Decay.
  • New Talent: Coagulopathy – Enemies affected by Blood Plague take 5% increased damage from you and Death Strike increases the damage of your Blood Plague by 25% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
  • New Talent: Umbilicus Eternus – After Vampiric Blood expires, you absorb damage equal to 5 times the damage your Blood Plague dealt during Vampiric Blood.
  • Unquenchable Thirst has been removed.
    • Developers’ note: This talent has been cut and replaced with Umbilicus Eternus. Unquenchable Thirst had a bit of design overlap with both Bonestorm and Shattering Bone on the opposite side of the tree. The choice to replace it was done to add what we hope is a more interesting decision point as you navigate toward the capstones especially factoring in the synergy of the new Blood Plague talents and existing Vampiric Blood talents.
• Unholy
  • Developers’ note: In addition to Unholy’s latest changes we have a few updates we’d like to make to their talents that affect resource generation. The changes to the class tree should be a step in the right direction for better balancing Unholy’s resource economy, but we also want to target a few Unholy specific talents as well. Unholy has been a class with a higher downtime and while we think some downtime can be okay, it’s important to find a balance between too high and too low. The current alpha version swung that pendulum too far in one direction and we are looking to find a better middle ground that both feels fun and rewarding to play. Resource tuning will continue to be on going as we head into Dragonflight. As mentioned last week we are making efforts to prepare for tuning in Dragonflight as such Unholy will be receiving a few tuning tweaks to their talents.
  • Plaguebringer – Disease damage now ticks 100% more quickly (was 150%).
  • Feasting Strikes – Removed Scourge Strike’s chance to refund 1 rune, and now chance to trigger increased to 20%.
    • Developers’ note: Having both Festering Strike and Scourge Strike trigger a Rune refund left us very little room to tune around and also made this something that just always happened. In an effort to give us more ways to tune this and also add a little more gameplay thought we are changing this to only work on Festering Strike.
  • Replenishing Wound – Reduce Runic Power gained from popping a Festering Wound to 2 (was 3).
  • Improved Death Coil – Damage increase reduced to 15/30% (was 20/40%).
  • Plaguebearer – Cooldown increased to 90 seconds (was 45 seconds). Status changed to implemented.
  • Unholy Assault – Buff duration increased to 20 seconds (was 12 seconds).
  • Ghoulish Frenzy – Attack speed and damage increased to 6/12% (was 4/8%).
  • Morbidity – Damage per disease reduced to 2% at rank 2 (was 3%).
  • Death Rot – Reduced to 1% per stack up to 10% (was 2% per stack, up to 20%). Increased the duration to 10 seconds (was 8 seconds).
  • Fixed an issue preventing Death Rot from being applied by multiple Death Knights.
  • Commander of the Dead – Damage to Gargoyle and Army Ghouls reduced to 30% (was 40%).

#103 - Sept. 9, 2022, 9:32 p.m.

Hello Death Knights,

We want to share some of the upcoming changes we have planned for the Frost spec tree in the next Beta build. While we were generally happy with the Frost tree and what it had to offer, we also recognize that there were some improvements that could be made based on our learnings over Dragonflight’s Alpha development.

The existing Frost tree suffered a bit from a lack of choice once a player locked into a specific build (often choosing between Obliteration or BoS, then making 1 or 2 choices with what talent points remained). To help alleviate this issue, the upcoming tree has received new talents, reworked talents, existing talents moved to more accessible spaces, updated pathing connections, and lastly several selection node talents have been decoupled and moved elsewhere within the tree (most notably Icecap).

This is what it looks like:

Below, you can find the new and updated talents. This doesn’t cover all of the positional and pathing changes for talents, but it does highlight some of the more notable ones.

Unleashed Frenzy

• Now grants the strength buff when any Runic Power ability damages an enemiy

Improved Frost Strike and Runic Command

• Swapped positions on the tree

Glacial Advance

• Removed the cooldown
• Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.

Frostscythe

• Moved higher into the tree and is now unlocked after the 1st gate.

Horn of Winter

• Now Frost only and placed directly after Improved Obliterate

Improved Killing Machine

• Renamed to Frostreaper

Enduring Strength

• Now available directly after Pillar of Frost
• New Icon

Frostwhelp’s Aid

• Now available directly after Pillar of Frost

Coldheart

• No longer a choice node with Inexorable Assault
• Moved to the right side of the tree below Improved Rime

Inexorable Assault

• No longer a choice node with Cold Heart
• Moved below Frostreaper on the left side of the tree

Icecap

• No longer a choice node with Obliteration
• Now available directly after Frostwhelp’s Aid or Enduring Strength

Empower Rune Weapon

• Now properly grants +1 charge if you already know the spell from the core tree

Everfrost

• Now directly available after Gathering Storm and should no longer be able to be taken without knowing Remorseless Winter
• Reduced to a 1 max rank, down from 2.

New Talent – Shattering Strike

• When Frost Strike damages an enemy with 5 stacks of Razorice it will consume them to deal an additional 60% damage.
• Available directly after Icecap

Avalanche

• This has been updated to also apply Razorice to your targets if Howling Blast is empowered by Rime.
• No longer a choice node with Frozen Pulse
• Now available directly after Icecap

Frozen Pulse

• Cut
• Developers’ notes: After reworking the tree and making room for the new talents we felt like Frozen Pulse didn’t offer anything unique to the Frost and rather than forcing it within the tree we decided it best to cut it for now to make room for what we hope are more interesting options.

New Talent - Icebreaker

• When empowered by Rime, Howling Blast deals 30/60% increased damage to your primary target.
• Available directly after Empowered Rune Weapon and Gathering Storm

#273 - Oct. 6, 2022, 12:11 a.m.

Today’s complete Death Knight tuning changes in the Beta:

• Blood
  • Heart Strike now generates 15 runic power (was 10).
• Frost
  • Obliterate – Damage increased by 15%.
  • Howling Blast – Damage increased by 12%.
  • Breath of Sindragosa – Damage increased by 15%.
  • Remorseless Winter – Damage increased by 10%.
  • Frost Strike – Damage increased by 20%.
  • Unleashed Frenzy – Strength per stack increased to 2% (was 1%).
  • Pillar of Frost – Strength increased to 25% (was 20%) and Strength per rune spent increased to 2% (was 1%).
  • Frostscythe – Damage increased by 15%.
  • Frigid Executioner – Obliterate damage increased to 15% (was 10%) and chance to refund 2 runes increased to 15% (was 12%).
  • Piercing Chill – Damage taken per bounce of Chill Streak increased to 10% (was 5%).
  • Shattering Blade – Bonus Frost Strike damage increased to 100% (was 60%).
  • Enduring Strength – Strength increased to 10/20% per rank (was 5/10%).
• Unholy
  • Superstrain – Now applies Frost Fever and Blood Plague at 80% effectiveness. This includes runic power generated from Frost Fever which is now 4 (was 5).
  • Summon Gargoyle – Damage of Gargoyle Strike increased by 25%. Now properly scales with Mastery.
  • Commander of the Dead – Damage buff for your Army of the Dead Ghouls and Gargoyle increased to 35% (was 30%). Commander of the Dead will now apply to ghouls who were still being summoned in by Army of the Dead when Dark Transformation was pressed.
  • Death Coil – Damage reduced by 15%.
  • Raise Dead – All Pet ghoul damage reduced by 10%.
  • Death Rot – Now applies to all enemies damaged by Epidemic or Death Coil (was only your primary target).
  • Scourge Strike – Damage reduced by 8%.
  • Clawing Shadows – Damage reduced by 8%.
  • Festering Wound – Damage reduced by 10%.
  • Magus of the Dead – Frostbolt and Shadowbolt damage increased by 100%.
  • Unholy Pact – No longer grants 5% Strength.
  • Rotten Touch – Increases Scourge Strike damage by 50% for 6 seconds (was 30%).
  • Ghoulish Frenzy – Attack Speed and Damage gained decreased to 5/10% (was 6/12%).
  • Coil of Devastation – Now deals 30% of Death Coil damage over 4 seconds (was 35%).