Feedback: Death Knights

#1 - June 5, 2024, 7:05 p.m.

In this thread, we’ll be testing and talking about Death Knights in The War Within. Look here for posts from the development team as adjustments and bugfixes are made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

The War Within Beta

All classes’ Hero Talent trees are available for testing. Please keep in mind that this is a Beta environment:

• There may be UI elements on the talent panel that are placeholder, including things like talent icons, text, or final UI art.
• Some talents may not be functioning yet, or may be marked as not yet implemented (NYI).
• Some new spell visuals and audio may still be a work in progress.
• There are some talents that are not fully tuned yet. This is expected, and we will implement tuning adjustments throughout testing.

The combat design team has two big areas of focus at this time:

• Finish work on changes to talents, especially wherever Hero Talents still need adjustments.
• Fix bugs that are blocking testing of new talents.

Working from Feedback

Alpha feedback thus far has been of great benefit to us.

Now that we are entering Beta, our focus on Hero Talent trees is shifting away from reworks and design changes and towards tuning and refining. We want to thank you so much for all the forum posts, videos, and discussions all over the internet. Your feedback and impressions have been invaluable for bringing their identities to life and making them fit into what you love about the classes you play.

We are looking forward to hearing from more of you as you get a chance to try Hero Talents for yourself. We are specifically interested in feedback or impressions on these topics:

• Hero Talents that you feel are “required” for your spec in a type of content, such as raiding or Mythic+, or that push you towards picking a specific tree. This could be due to damage profile, utility, defensives, or something else.
• Hero Talent trees that you feel are either too strong or too weak in power level compared to other options.
• Hero Talents whose functionality is confusing, unclear, or difficult to track during gameplay.
• Hero Talent choice nodes that you feel could offer more meaningful choices.

Again, Thank You

Feedback throughout the Alpha test was highly impactful on our design of the game, and we look forward to refining every class with you in the Beta. Thank you!

– The World of Warcraft Combat Design Team

#579 - July 17, 2024, 3:20 p.m.

We have a significant update for Blood Death Knights coming in today’s new Beta build.

Please read all about our overall philosophy here:

Blood Death Knight

Death Strike is a powerful ability that allows Blood Death Knights to mitigate a percentage of any form of damage taken in the last 5 seconds. In a way, Death Strike works like a retroactive shield block. Instead of reducing damage up front, it “mitigates” the damage you took from a hit by healing you. If used in succession, Death Strike can affect a single hit multiple times, which would be comparable to blocking a hit, then going back in time and blocking it again, in some cases restoring yourself to higher health than where you started. In The War Within, we’re changing Death Strike to only heal the death knight for a percentage of damage taken from a given damage event once, to make it scale more like other tank mitigation mechanics.

We’re also reducing Runic Power generation somewhat and reducing some of the mitigation death knights get from high-uptime cooldowns like Enfeeble and Dancing Rune Weapon, but increasing armor from Bone Shield. Overall, death knights should take damage more smoothly, and they will remain one of the strongest tanks for encounters with high magic or periodic damage.

• Death Strike can now only heal the Death Knight for a percentage of damage taken from a given damage event once. Death Strikes that heal the minimum health amount do not count as using damage events in this way.
• A new aura, Coagulating Blood, shows the amount of recently taken damage that will be used to calculate the value of your next Death Strike. The aura description lists the value as a flat amount and the number of stacks shows it as a percentage of your current health.
• Blood Shield’s cap is now 50% of the Death Knight’s maximum health (was 100%) and the cap is no longer temporarily increased by Vampiric Blood.
  • Developers’ notes: This should not affect how much Blood Shield Death Knights are able to generate while actively tanking, but will reduce how large a barrier they are able to accumulate while off-tanking.
• Rune of the Fallen Crusader now heals for 4% of your maximum health (was 6%).
• Runic Attenuation now generates 3 Runic Power (was 5).
• Enfeeble reduces damage dealt to you by 12% (was 15%).
• Null Magic reduces magic damage taken by 8% (was 10%).
• Bone Shield increases Armor by 100% of Strength (was 80%).
• Leeching Strike now heals for 0.25% maximum health for each target hit (was 0.5%).
• Dancing Rune Weapon increases Parry chance by 35% (was 40%).
• Each active Dancing Rune Weapons generate 3 Runic Power when mirroring Heart Strike (was 5).
• Everlasting Bond increases Dancing Rune Weapon’s duration by 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
• Blood Drinker reduces the damage the enemy deals to you by 15% (was 20%).
• Bonestorm heals you for 2% of your maximum health (was 3%), up to a maximum of 10% (was 15%). Bonestorm damage increased by 20%.

#682 - July 30, 2024, 10:24 p.m.

We’d like to call your attention to adjustments we’re making in the next Beta build.

• DEATH KNIGHT
  • Hero Talents
    • Deathbringer (Blood/Frost)
      • Frost
        • Exterminate first scythe damage increased by 50%.
        • Reaper’s Mark initial ability hit damage increased by 300%.
        • Reaper’s Mark stacking debuff damage increased by 35%.
    • Rider of the Apocalypse (Frost/Unholy)
      • Apocalyptic Conquest’s Strength reduced to 3% while Nazgrim is active (was 5%).
    • San’layn (Unholy/Blood)
      • Frenzied Bloodthirst now increases the damage of your Death Coil and Death Strike by 4% per stack (was 3%).
  • Blood
    • All damage increased by 10%.
    • Bonestorm now consumes up to 5 Bone Shield charges (was 10).
    • Bonestorm now lasts 2 seconds per Bone Shield charge spent (was 1 second).
  • Frost
    • Glacial Advance’s global cooldown is now properly reduced by Haste.
    • Frostsycthe’s global cooldown is now properly reduced by Haste.
    • Frost Strike damage increased by 8%.
    • Obliterate damage increased by 8%.
    • Breath of Sindragosa damage increased by 12%.
    • Shattered Frost now deals 60% of the damage to nearby enemies (was 65%).
  • Unholy
    • Raise Abomination now costs 1 Rune to summon.
    • An issue with Unholy Blight applying Virulent Plague to the player’s current target instead of enemies in proximity has been resolved.