I don't know if this is going to become an eleven-part series, but for now, I thought I'd talk about what concerns and hopes I have for WoW's sole hero class.
Death Knights are not really the young pups of the game anymore. Having lived through three expansions, Blizzard has pretty much figured out the Death Knight's niche and themes.
But no class is perfect, and Death Knights, despite joining the big-kids table, have their own oddities. In fact, DKs have been around long enough that some of their original idiosyncrasies are beginning to show a bit of wear and tear.
Diseases:
First and foremost, I will say that you can't get rid of the concept of diseases for Death Knights. DKs are pretty much the last remnant of the Scourge that we still get to deal with, and disease is the main theme of undeath in World of Warcraft.
Though I don't remember reading a blue post about it, apparently the plan in WoD is that Death Knight abilities will no longer be boosted by diseases. I don't quite understand the logic of this, as it reduces what has been a core mechanic to the class to a couple of run-of-the-mill DoTs. I predict that, without other changes, Frost Death Knights won't even bother with Blood Plague.
Admittedly, I think that ever since Cataclysm, the two major diseases, Frost Fever and Blood Plague, have become harder to distinguish. With Outbreak, Unholy Blight, and the Unholy version of Plague Strike, we're often just applying both diseases with a single attack, which almost makes it seem as if they should just be one, harder-hitting disease.
Now, I like Outbreak and its ilk, because it makes gameplay a little smoother. In Wrath, regardless of spec, you had to weave in an Icy Touch and a Plague Strike every thirty seconds, and that meant you got to use your other attacks less frequently (though with the old rune system, you'd still probably be hitting your abilities more than you do now.)
Making disease-spreading easier would certainly be welcome (I love Roiling Blood, though it's useless for Frost.) Pestilence was always kind of a funny ability, and given that they're trying to cut down on rotational abilities for everyone, I'd put this one in the crosshairs, perhaps making Roiling Blood baseline.
The de-coupling of diseases from strikes is actually a little disappointing to me, as I think it eliminates one of the defining aspects of the class, and makes the whole idea of DK diseases seem vestigial. But rather than just chucking the diseases out, I might distinguish them a bit between specs. I think Frost could probably just stick with Frost Fever, maybe even having Blood Plague change into something radically different (this probably means that they'd have to change the level 100 talents, but they probably will anyway.) I could even see Frost Fever in general being a shorter-term disease that is more easily reapplied. Currently, the two diseases have the same duration and I believe do the same base damage (though with the two DPS specs' masteries, they'll naturally differ in ultimate value.) Unholy could get a different secondary disease that could be applied by Death Coil. And meanwhile, Blood could get some kind of life-leeching disease, in addition to one that applies Weakened Blows.
Soul Reaper:
I get what they were going for with Soul Reaper, but between Blood's total disregard for it and Frost's rotation getting totally thrown off by it, I think this could maybe become a spec-specific ability for Unholy. Yes, I get that it's cool to have one of the Lich King's abilities (Defile, man. Hope that makes it to live,) and I like that it's not just a clone of execute, but I think variations could be made for Frost (and tanks probably don't need an execute.)
Frost Mastery:
Frost is one of two specs (along with Fury) that is really two specs. Depending on which kind of weapons you use, Frost becomes a totally different animal. Dual-wield Frost is in this funny place where they (apparently - I play 2h) just spam Frost Strike and Howling Blast. Obviously, this makes Mastery pretty darn good for them, though there are some obvious issues with the rotation.
2H is in this funny place where Mastery is ok, but it fails to buff their single biggest ability, Obliterate, and ironically, Frost start stacking crit, despite the fact that Killing Machine ought to really de-value it.
So is the problem with Obliterate, Killing Machine, or the Mastery? I don't really know, but it does seem to me that Obliterate ought to have some kind of Frost component (maybe Killing Machine makes it do Frost Damage?)
I don't quite know how Single-Minded Fury and Titan's Grip differ in terms of rotation and gearing, but I would argue that while these play styles should feel a little different from one another, it would be nice if they could use the same gear (minus weapons of course.)
Leveling:
I realize that Blizzard is de-emphasizing leveling with the 90 boost (yes, you'll still have to level through Draenor,) but one of the consequences of the Mists revamp is that Death Knights are really awkward while leveling up.
In Wrath and Cataclysm, one would be able to catch up in talents and abilities with other classes pretty much by the time one finished the starting experience. The downside to this was that you had to make a lot of talent choices at once (you used to get one or two talent points for each quest in the chain) but it also meant that by the time you were in Outland, you were really a fully-formed class.
Now, however, you tend to be missing key components that make your spec work, like Might of the Frozen Wastes and Threat of Thassarian (which seem to me like things you should get as soon as you pick the spec.)
Key culprit amongst these? That's my next section:
The Rune-Regeneration Talent Tier:
I really don't understand why this is the second-to-last talent tier, when it's pretty clear to me that it should be the very first one (ok, maybe the second.) As soon as Cataclysm changed the way runes regenerate, Runic Empowerment/Corruption became absolutely necessary to keep gameplay fun. Without them, the pace is very, very slow.
It also might be worth looking into how these various talent work. Runic Corruption is pretty straightforward, but Runic Empowerment is kind of wacky. Personally, I like a little unpredictability in my classes (procs for the win!) so I treat RE as something to keep me on my toes, but there's also a lot of weird ways you're "supposed" to play that involve gaming which runes will pop. The same is true for Blood Tap.
If they're going to change these, I might humbly suggest a talent that restores the old constantly-regenerating rune system from Wrath, maybe nerfing the base regeneration rate if that proved too powerful.
Plague Leech:
Beyond the fact that I simply don't like how this talent works, I think the biggest problem is that in a tier with talents oriented more around convenience, Plague Leech can provide significant DPS when used properly. Basically, this is one of those "right choice, wrong choice" talent tiers. Maybe there's room for this as a talent (though "removing diseases" from a target feels so wrong to a sower of death and decay,) but certainly not among its fellows and certainly, certainly not in the first tier.
Runeforges:
Not much here. Clearly they can't just add more and more Runeforges, as you can only have one per weapon, and you aren't going to be switching between fights. But I'd just hope that there could be a little more variety between specs.
"Scaling:"
I realize that Scaling is the buzzword for "I'm not doing as well as my guild mates." I don't know if DKs really suffer that much from scaling (that's not to say they aren't) but one thing I will say is that there must be something funny going on when, despite the guaranteed critical strikes from Killing Machine, I'm still expected to stack as much Crit as I humanly can.
For the Ebon Blade!
These are really just the issues I've come up with off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others that I have not thought of (and I'll admit a certain unfamiliarity with Unholy.) We've been in a bit of a dry spell in terms of information on Warlords of Draenor. With any luck, we'll soon get a better picture of just what's going to happen to our beloved masters of frozen death.
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