DKs in PVP - Blue Tracker

#0 - Feb. 11, 2010, 12:22 p.m.

The state of DKs in PVP has been a topic of a lot of discussion lately. I thought I'd add my perspective on the issue because on various teams in WotLK I've played with all 10 classes (9 of them as recently as S7) and played in every arena season to some extent. As everyone is no doubt aware, DK representation is bad in 3v3 (the most important bracket) as well as 2v2 and 5v5.

Ghostcrawler argued that though DKs are not good on most comps they seem to do fine on certain teams (presumably referring to TSG and PHD). The success of particular comps (rather than just the class) may be relevant some of the time, but it can be misleading, particularly if people don't consider the reasons for a comp's high representation. There are several reasons a comp can be well represented among the more successful teams.

1) The classes on it are powerful.
2) The classes on it have a lot of synergy.
3) The comp was very good in the past and the players did not want to switch comps.
4) It is a lot better than the other options for one class so that class gets pigeonholed into that comp.

Successful comps usually have a combination of these factors going for them, but how the success of these comps should influence balancing changes should depend on precisely which of these factors are in place.

The DK comps that are "successful" right now are TSG and PHD. TSG was great in S5 (and to a lesser extent S6) due to reasons 1 and 2. PHD is a newer comp (mainly because hunters are better than they were in late S5/S6). These two teams are played a lot now because of reasons 3 (TSG) and 4 (both TSG and PHD). Thus, these comps' success does not necessarily contradict the claims that DKs are a very weak PVP class right now.

The problem is that DKs fulfill a niche that is inferior to what other classes bring to the table. They're good at control (CoI, DG), anti-casting (Mind Freeze, Strangulate), and defenses (plate, AMS, AMZ). They also do a decent amount of sustained damage, but that's not very valuable in arenas because it's too easy to heal through. Burst damage, healing debuffs, or CC are what kills in 3v3 and DKs bring none of these. In short, (unlike S5) DKs are now a support class.

This isn't a good state because a support class needs their teammates more than the teammates need them. The DK's teammates can get another class (including one that actually does killing itself) and do just as well, if not better. If the DK tries to find another team he/she will be anywhere from terrible (if the partners can't fulfill those roles) to decent (if they can fulfill them).

Ultimately, I think this problem is bigger than an adjustment to Scourge Strike or disease protection can solve. DKs need to be altered to fulfill a niche that is more valuable to the team than just support (at least one or two of the following: healing debuff, burst damage, CC). When this occurs (or if it does at all) won't affect me much. My teammates and I have moved on and are not using our DKs for now. I do feel that DKs deserve more attention, though, and it would be a shame if it had to wait until Cataclysm.

Ghostcrawler

#51 - Feb. 14, 2010, 7:08 p.m.

So for those of you not happy with being paired with a warrior, what comps do you see yourself potentially fitting in and what changes would it take to make that comp workable? Are you looking for mage-DK-priest?

(Saying "I should be able to play with anyone" is a fine goal, but deficient enough in details so as to not be super useful.)

We're much more interested in discussions like that than we are "Buff Scourge Strike so I can hit harder" or "Change all these talents so I have more answers." We're looking for a bit more context.

Ghostcrawler

#261 - Feb. 15, 2010, 6:47 p.m.

Q u o t e:
GC my question with all this DK PVP non sense would be. Why does "bring the player not the class" not apply to Arenas? Why should I be forced to pair with people outside of friends, I don't have access to this comp that "works so they are fine for now" since my friends that pvp don't play the classes that "work" with DK's. Why should Anyone be forced to reroll an entire new class, gear them up to acceptable standards for arenas, just so they can play with who they choose too?

Class synergy matters a lot more in PvP than in PvE. As a very simple example, chaining crowd control with different diminishing returns is almost non-existent in PvE. Therefore, classes with different forms of crowd control play very well together in PvP. To break that (to make class synergy not matter), we'd have to make all CC's DR with each other. I think it would get worse than that though. I think you'd have to give just about every ability to every class for fear that you might be missing one if you just paired with 2 other random players. It takes a whole raid to get almost one of everything in PvE and that's with a lot of homogenization on our part. We like that class comp matters in Arenas. It really doesn't much in BGs.

I also understand that there is a component of players who liked the aspect of BC Arenas where you could pretty much go in with anything and eventually get good gear. Maybe there is a way to still have a place for that, but we backed off of it because too many players were opting for Arena over PvE content simply because the loot per unit effort was so generous. Adding a skill component to earn the best PvP loot pushed some players back into PvE to earn the best gear.

Q u o t e:
then why are you replying to a troll thread and not the ones with context?

For exactly the reasons I stated. There are many DK threads that are essentially just "buff me." DKs have a viable 3s comp, but some DKs just don't like their role in that comp. Therefore I was trying to direct the conversation in a more productive direction of what kind of comps are you expecting to be a part of in an ideal world, and what changes would DKs need to make that happen. There are a lot of "Make me hit hard, then I can pair with anyone and comp doesn't matter!" But there are some good suggestions too.