#0 - March 3, 2009, 11:01 a.m.
TLDR: Obliterate is inherently flawed. It is time that the skill either gets redesigned or simply sidelined/removed.
Looking at Obliterate, without taking into consideration Glyphs, Sigils or Set Bonus', I find it hard to image a theorycrafter out there that would consider Obliterate to be even moderately useful at this point in time. Only after you take into consideration the immense number of modifiers that have been thrown at the ability does it even compare to the alternatives. But beyond a numbers game, I have yet to encounter a single person, Death Knight or otherwise, who actually LIKES Obliterate...not one.
The following is a breakdown on why I feel Obliterate is essentially wasted space at this point:
BLOOD: No use for Obliterate
-Diseaseless builds are no longer viable due to strike scaling based on diseases
-In order to use Obliterate you would have to sink 13 points into Frost, just to make your rotation function properly without immense babysitting
-Death Strike synergizes with the entire theme of the tree (self-healing) making the ability feel more appropriate
-With the improvements to Death Strike (glyph + talents), there are serious questions as to whether Obliterate would EVER be the better DPS option
Unholy: Never had a use for Obliterate
-Scourge Strike since day 1 (exluding Beta) have been a direct replacement ability for Obliterate in terms of damage
-Scourge Strike (pre 3.1) did more damage in nearly every situation, without the threat of wiping diseases, now (post 3.1) the gap has widened even further
-As a primarily shadow damage based tree, using Obliterate when spec'd Unholy just feels...wrong
Frost: Never wanted Obliterate
-The Frost tree has always revolved around its focus on frost damage...why was Obliterate designed as a Frost ability when it does physical damage?
-Up till now (pre-3.1) the baseline ability, in-and-of-itself, did vastly inferior damage when compared to the Frost "replacement" FU ability: Howling Blast
-(pre-3.1) For Obliterate to be competative in damage, the ability required 6 Talent Points, 1 Major Glyph, a Sigil, and BOTH of the set bonus' on our T7...and after all that, it was STILL debated as to whether Obliterate was superior to Howling Blast (I can only assume that the reason Obliterate was used at all was due to Howling Blast having a cooldown)
-Even now (post 3.1) with Howling Blast nerfed into the ground the theorycrafting is edging away from Obliterate and trying to take advantage of the new and improved Plague Strike. Due to the fact that it is likely the T7 set bonus' will not be carried over to T8, the value of Obliterate will plummet once again
(For those wondering, last I looked, the build was 0/50/19 with two "excess" points...rotation looking something like: IT,PS,FS, IT,PS,FS, IT,BS,FS...while in Unholy pressence)
Leveling Experience: Learning that Obliterate is better DPS at raiding level makes people cry, it's true
***The following statements hold no baring on Unholy, due to the fact that they have never had to deal with the lame-ass ability otherwise known as Obliterate***
-When leveling your Death Knight up, "no-one" uses Obliterate...ever. Death Strike is awesome for Blood, "Yay! I can kill elites 3 levels higher then me and never go below 90% health". Howling Blast does both MASSIVELY more damage then Obliterate and is ranged/AoE "Hey look, I can kill 10 targets at once before they even get to me." (Now obviously I exaggerated both situations, but the sentiment is still true.)
-Upon reaching max level, people start to read up on how to best maximize their DPS cycles. At this point, they are forced to make a decision: Use a slightly better ability that is both boring and punative or continue using my fun/interesting ability and have slightly less DPS. I think every Death Knight cried a little when they finally let go of their tree-specific "replacement" ability.
(continued)
