Being a melee class, it made sense for Blizzard to give Demon Hunters a tanking option - frankly, I think that if they could do it all again, they'd give Rogues one as well. Demon Hunters will be the third Leather-wearing tank class - which is kind of crazy when you reflect on it. Tanks are really the only people who actually care about armor, and so it always made sense that Warriors and Paladins, and later Death Knights, would tank. Druids were the kind of funny exception, but got around the weirdness of it by turning into freaking bears. But now, with Monks and Demon Hunters, there will actually be just as many Leather-based tanks as Plate ones, and still not a single Mail-wearing tank specialization, despite the fact that Mail is a step up in armor from Leather.
I'm not complaining - it's just kind of weird when you think about it.
With the Havoc DPS spec, they'll have a lot more flexibility on style - DPS is a role that can be performed in many very different ways, and while there are subtleties like making sure that single-target and AoE are balanced and that you can have some burst but not be built entirely around burst damage, essentially as long as you're putting out the same average damage per second as other classes, you're golden.
Tanking is a narrower role to fill - one's damage style can vary basically as much as DPS (though all tanks need solid AoE skills) but the way that one increases one's survival requires some clever invention, and it's here that I think distinguishing Vengeance as a spec will be the most challenging.
Blizzard did give themselves a new outlet for distinguishing specs in Mists by introducing the idea of Active Mitigation - something that I was very worried about at first but quickly grew to like, even if I still haven't been able to feel comfortable with Rage-based tanks since then. But even active mitigation abilities kind of fall into the same categories:
Flat Percentage Mitigation
Avoidance
Absorbs
Self-Heals
Now, there are some ambiguities here - the block mechanic is somewhere between Flat Percentage Mitigation and Avoidance, and Brewmasters' Shuffle is a pretty novel mechanic that maybe defies categorization - but it's a good place to start when thinking about how tanks work.
Generally, you'll need more than one of these to make a solid tank. While FPM (yep, it's already abbreviated) works basically in any situation, it's also kind of boring - it's basically Armor, which is a stat that all tanks like.
Focusing on the others too much can lead to big problems. A tank who is entirely based on avoidance runs the risk of getting an unlucky string of hits and going down like a lead balloon. Self-heals are potent, but you need a lot of health to guard against dry spells. Absorbs are great until they're gone.
To go through the existing tanks:
Death Knights use Self-Heals and Absorbs (the absorb mainly being from Blood Shield, the mastery.) Death Knights, I believe, actually do wind up taking more damage than other tanks, but they heal themselves significantly and also boost their HP, giving them more margin for error. DKs were kind of the first real active mitigation tanks (sort of - Shield Block and the old version of Holy Shield were around before them.)
Paladins have significant FPM (both Shield tanks do) but Paladins supplement this with self-healing, and depending on talents, absorbs as well (Sacred Shield is my default talent - an Eternal Flame build would be more focused on self-healing.)
Warriors, as I alluded to earlier, get a lot of FPM and quasi-Avoidance out of their shields, but while Paladins focus more on self-heals, Warriors really focus on boosting the power of their blocks, kind of doubling down on the FPM/Avoidance mechanics, plus some Absorption through Shield Barrier.
Druids historically relied almost entirely on strong FPM with super-high armor rating thanks to the multiplier for Bear Form. These days it actually looks like they get a decent amount from all categories. They can choose between Savage Defense for avoidance and FPM or get self-heals out of Frenzied Regeneration, and their mastery as well as Tooth and Claw procs give them some absorption.
Monks are, I think, built the most as an avoidance tank - they have very high parry and dodge, and that dodge can pretty easily be pushed over 50% with Elusive Brew. They also have a strong absorb in Guard and decent self-heals through Expel Harm and Gift of the Ox. Oddly, the one thing they don't really have is very strong FPM. They manage to achieve this thanks to the Stagger, mechanic, which functions as a quasi-FPM, smoothing out damage that would otherwise be incredibly spiky.
So what about Demon Hunters?
Well, it looks like most tanks pretty much get to use all of these survival techniques. I do think that Monks (who are both the newest tanks and the only ones build from the ground up to use Active Mitigation) have the strongest identity as the "avoidance" focused tank.
Much like the Monk, Demon Hunters are not just mechanically, but flavorfully based on agility. Demon Hunters are going to be leaping around and dashing all over the place, which could suggest more of an avoidance-based tank.
Clearly, actually forcing a tank to jump around everywhere would be freaking terrible (especially for your melee DPS, but also any boss where positioning was important.) You also run the risk of stepping on Monks' toes - not that there aren't big overlaps between, say, Paladins and Warriors, but with a new class, you want it to feel pretty new.
We still really don't know what role Metamorphosis is going to play for either Demon Hunter spec, but while I expect it will be somewhat similar to current Demonology for Havoc, it's a really big question how it will work for Vengeance.
The Vengeance Demon form, at least in these pre-Alpha days, looks very bulky, which could actually imply that Demon Hunters do wind up getting some strong armor boost (which to be fair, every tank other than Monks gets, either through a passive or a shield on the off-hand.)
Drawing from the flavor of the class, it would make sense for Demon Hunters to draw upon their enemies for survival (though perhaps it's more that DHs draw upon their inner demon instead.) One could imagine building their kit around absorption shields - perhaps they use demonic energy to create Fel Bulwarks around them, or slashing away with their glaives in such a dizzying display that they create some kind of Blade Barrier around themselves.
Starting with this idea of strong absorbs (and I vaguely recall some talk about that being a focus for DH tanks - though I really can't remember if that was speculation on some website or something an actual Blizzard person said,) you could supplement this with high avoidance - essentially, the few hits that do land get absorbed.
Self-healing doesn't really seem like the DH kit (if anything, they're more likely to harm themselves, the poor guys,) but I think a combination of absorbs and avoidance might be the direction to go.
The key, though, is to emphasize the former over the latter, as Monks already kind of do the opposite. So what this means is that they wouldn't have the insane avoidance of a Monk chugging Elusive Brew, but in return, they'd be tossing up absorption shields almost as often as Monks refresh Shuffle with their Blackout Kicks.
The point is that there are a lot of dials to turn here, and some might just be left off. I wouldn't be surprised, and in fact I kind of expect that Blizzard will come up with some new, inventive mechanic like Stagger to further distinguish the tank style - just off the top of my head, you could have some kind of evolving scale of partial absorbs - build it up big to absorb a greater percentage of the damage you take, but at the cost of resources so that you can't always maintain that level.
I'm excited for the Legion beta to begin for many reasons, but maybe the biggest is getting my hands (assuming I'm invited) on the Demon Hunters to see how they play. Given my typical predilections (and my hatred of long dungeon queues,) I fully expect that my Demon Hunter will be Vengeance main-spec, but I'll need to see how they play and whether I'll find it fun before I can be sure.
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
6.2.2 Coming Sept. 1st
The (likely) final minor patch of Warlords now has an official release date.
6.2.2 is mainly notable as the Flying patch - finally, flight will be enabled in Draenor for those who have complete or have completed the Draenor Pathfinding achievement.
Draenor Pathfinding unlocks flight across the account in Draenor, and I believe extends to everyone from level 90 to 100 - the exception (and this is a guess, but a logical one) being those who are still doing the Tanaan/Dark Portal intro quests, as that phase of that area will presumably be a no-fly zone.
I understand the arguments against flight, but I think that Blizzard would be well-advised to make Legion's flying achievement achievable within the first patch. New zones added later could perhaps restrict flight, but one of the joys of WoW since BC (meaning the vast majority of the game's lifetime) has been hitting that level where you're high enough to fly (personally I thought Wrath did it the best, giving it to you in the middle of the leveling process right as you got high enough to go to two zones that required flight.)
But while the long-awaited flight feature is finally coming, 6.2.2 is also bringing some other interesting features.
For PvPers, there will be a new thing called "mercenary mode," which will activate if there's a significant imbalance between the factions on Ashran. There will be some thinly-disguised NPCs of the other faction in the bases at Warspear and Stormshield who will allow you to fight for the other faction, getting an illusion to look like a member of one of their races. The hope is that this will help with queue times on imbalanced servers.
Likewise, mostly for PvP, several Horde racial abilities are getting buffed. Apparently they've fallen behind and the hardcore PvPers have been playing Alliance (once again, PvP feels like this other game that I know very little about. I've literally never done an Arena.)
Likewise, mostly for PvP, several Horde racial abilities are getting buffed. Apparently they've fallen behind and the hardcore PvPers have been playing Alliance (once again, PvP feels like this other game that I know very little about. I've literally never done an Arena.)
Finally, there will be lots of new Timewalker rewards, including BoA reputation tokens and I believe a new currency that can be used to purchase cosmetic rewards like mounts and pets.
6.2.2 is, of course, a minor patch, but it's one of the bigger minor patches (practically on par with 6.1, though that says more about 6.1 than 6.2.2.)
From there, we'll be waiting for the Legion beta to begin. There has been no word of an Alpha yet (though I think the days of Friends and Family Alpha might be behind us, as these tended to be leakier than a submarine with screen doors,) but I'm sure that Blizzard wants to get the Beta out as soon as they can. They have said that the beta will be out this year, and the sooner it is, the better.
But once this patch is out, development can focus on Legion. We know that there will actually be a world-wide launch event this time - something we really haven't gotten since Cataclysm, so while the Legion beta is going on, they'll also be prepping the 7.0 patch (though I expect this won't happen until relatively later in the Beta process.)
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Pre-Legion Class Review: Paladins
I think I might not wind up doing every class for this review series - rather than kind of guess at those classes I don't play all that much, I figure I should focus on the classes that I really know, and there's no class I've played more than the Paladin.
Silver Soldier Fighting For Tomorrow:
Even though Paladins pair really well with the undead, and played a big role in Wrath of the Lich King, there's really no better foe for Paladins to face than the Burning Legion. As far as we know, the oldest Paladin order is the Vindicators, who, of course, had the Legion as their primary foe for 25,000 years.
Unlike most other classes, we have a very strong sense of what our class order and class hall will be. There will be a secret vault beneath Light's Hope Chapel that will serve as the headquarters of the newly reformed Knights of the Silver Hand - the original human paladin order created to counter the warlock magic of the Old Horde.
While the two original Paladin races, Humans and Dwarves, have always been connected to the Silver Hand, essentially every additional race to the class has had its own, fairly unique order. The Blood Knights were originally very different - drawing their power from a Naaru in a manner that made them more like Warlocks than Paladins. But after they revolted against Kael'thas' betrayal and with the re-ignition of the Sunwell, the Blood Elf paladins are actually quite similar to their Alliance counterparts.
But while the Knights of the Silver Hand was founded only about thirty years earlier, the Draenei Vindicators have been around for twenty-five millennia, and they're probably some of the most experienced demon-fighters in the universe. I think the main justification for not having a primarily Draenei-themed class order is that the Draenei remain a fairly small minority on Azeroth (lore-wise,) after suffering through the genocide at the hands of the Horde.
If the Blood Knights used to be more akin to Warlocks, the Tauren Sunwalkers derive their path to Paladin-hood through druidism - building upon the Night Elf style of druidism with its emphasis on the moon, and balancing that with a reverence for the sun.
I don't think any other class has its racial variations quite so delineated as Paladins, so it stands to reason that there should be some effort to consolidate the various strains into this new Silver Hand. My human paladin is going to have no problem running a version that is essentially just like the old one, but if I get my tauren alt paladin up to that level, it would be a little strange if there weren't at least some reference to An'she in the Chapel.
We haven't gotten any confirmation of the Protection and Holy artifacts beyond a single, un-marked screenshot of a one-handed mace. It seems likely that both of these artifact sets will be a one-handed weapon and a shield, though Blizzard might make the bold decision to have Holy use a two-handed mace, similar to the war-hammers that Uther and Arthas used in Warcraft III. Protection obviously needs a shield to function, but for Holy, it's just a convenient off-hand item. There have been two-handed intellect maces before, and this would fit with the class look, though I do imagine that most healadins are used to using a shield.
The fact that Ashbringer is the Retribution artifact does not bode well for Tirion Fordring. While they said that some of these weapons would be lost by their current owners because of death or despair, I just don't see Tirion giving in to despair - this is the guy who called upon the power of the light to escape a magical ice prison after Arthas instantly killed everyone he had been fighting.
We know for a fact that Lady Liadrin will be one of the Paladin champion NPCs. There are plenty of human paladins to choose from - from bigger lore figures like Turalyon to less famous but still recognizable figures like Duthorian Rall and Gryan Stoutmantle. Oddly, despite having been in-game from the beginning, there aren't a lot of good dwarf paladin NPCs to choose from. There's a good pairing of Gidwin Goldbraids and Taerenar Sunstrike - the likable young dwarf and blood elf childhood friends with whom you quest through Eastern Plaguelands. Vindicator Maraad had been the iconic Draenei Paladin, but he's dead. However, in his place we have Yrel - a popular figure, but the question there is whether she'd be willing to leave her home universe to come fight for us (though it'd only be equitable.) On the tauren side, we have Sunwalker Dezco, a big figure in Pandaria, or possibly the founder of the Sunwalkers, Aponi Brightmane.
Phew. On to the specs.
Holy Rollers:
Right, here's my big Paladin blindspot. I've tried out Holy once or twice - recently doing a Blackrock Depths run on a low-level alt - but I've really never done much healing in general, and always had a kind of special distaste for healing on a Paladin (in the early days, Paladin players had to kind of fight to be taken seriously as anything other than a healer, so I kind of resented people assuming I'd heal. Obviously that's not much of an issue these days, basically since Wrath.)
Protecting the Innocent:
Right, now here's my strong suit. Honestly, I think Protection plays about as well as it ever has. I don't quite know where the balance issues are at the moment, but gameplay-wise, protection is in great shape - we're tough enough that we don't have to panic in the early part of the pull before we get our first Shield of the Righteous up, and there's enough of a choice when dealing with Shield versus Word of Glory that you do have interesting decisions to make while tanking.
Earlier in Warlords I did find that my threat was always being outstripped by Warrior tanks, but that could have been a combination of having a less powerful weapon or overtuned Warrior damage. There are certainly some talent tiers where there's a clear winner or a clear loser, and so it might be good to tweak those a bit, but overall, I'm pretty happy with Protection Paladins, and have been... well, basically since Burning Crusade, when they worked almost entirely differently. This is my comfort zone, so I guess all I can say: don't fix what ain't broke.
Retributing 'dem Demons:
Actually, though I risk turning this into a big paladin love-fest, I've got to say I also love Retribution at the moment. To be fair, I might love it less if I discovered that Final Verdict was no longer a viable talent (I haven't actually paid much attention to Ret balancing, as I really only play the spec solo.) Replacing Inqusition with a Divine Storm proc totally speaks to my tastes in a rotation (I also always hated the name Inquisition, as it makes my Paladin out to an intolerant fundamentalist, not the superman-like Lawful Good with an emphasis on the "good" hero that he is.)
The one thing I might throw in there is allowing Ret to have Consecration back. It'd be nice for them to get an un-targeted AoE ability - though I realize that they already have a lot of good AoE tools.
Bringing the Light:
Paladins have, I think, been in pretty good shape. I know there are some who are nostalgic for a time before Holy Power, but we're now at a point where that's been a core to the class gameplay for about as long as it wasn't. Those who really remember how things were before Holy Power remember how amorphous the class felt. Anyway, I think that we can safely assume that it's staying. Let's hope for some really cool-looking tier gear and look forward to battling an endless army of demons - show them the power of the Light!
Silver Soldier Fighting For Tomorrow:
Even though Paladins pair really well with the undead, and played a big role in Wrath of the Lich King, there's really no better foe for Paladins to face than the Burning Legion. As far as we know, the oldest Paladin order is the Vindicators, who, of course, had the Legion as their primary foe for 25,000 years.
Unlike most other classes, we have a very strong sense of what our class order and class hall will be. There will be a secret vault beneath Light's Hope Chapel that will serve as the headquarters of the newly reformed Knights of the Silver Hand - the original human paladin order created to counter the warlock magic of the Old Horde.
While the two original Paladin races, Humans and Dwarves, have always been connected to the Silver Hand, essentially every additional race to the class has had its own, fairly unique order. The Blood Knights were originally very different - drawing their power from a Naaru in a manner that made them more like Warlocks than Paladins. But after they revolted against Kael'thas' betrayal and with the re-ignition of the Sunwell, the Blood Elf paladins are actually quite similar to their Alliance counterparts.
But while the Knights of the Silver Hand was founded only about thirty years earlier, the Draenei Vindicators have been around for twenty-five millennia, and they're probably some of the most experienced demon-fighters in the universe. I think the main justification for not having a primarily Draenei-themed class order is that the Draenei remain a fairly small minority on Azeroth (lore-wise,) after suffering through the genocide at the hands of the Horde.
If the Blood Knights used to be more akin to Warlocks, the Tauren Sunwalkers derive their path to Paladin-hood through druidism - building upon the Night Elf style of druidism with its emphasis on the moon, and balancing that with a reverence for the sun.
I don't think any other class has its racial variations quite so delineated as Paladins, so it stands to reason that there should be some effort to consolidate the various strains into this new Silver Hand. My human paladin is going to have no problem running a version that is essentially just like the old one, but if I get my tauren alt paladin up to that level, it would be a little strange if there weren't at least some reference to An'she in the Chapel.
We haven't gotten any confirmation of the Protection and Holy artifacts beyond a single, un-marked screenshot of a one-handed mace. It seems likely that both of these artifact sets will be a one-handed weapon and a shield, though Blizzard might make the bold decision to have Holy use a two-handed mace, similar to the war-hammers that Uther and Arthas used in Warcraft III. Protection obviously needs a shield to function, but for Holy, it's just a convenient off-hand item. There have been two-handed intellect maces before, and this would fit with the class look, though I do imagine that most healadins are used to using a shield.
The fact that Ashbringer is the Retribution artifact does not bode well for Tirion Fordring. While they said that some of these weapons would be lost by their current owners because of death or despair, I just don't see Tirion giving in to despair - this is the guy who called upon the power of the light to escape a magical ice prison after Arthas instantly killed everyone he had been fighting.
We know for a fact that Lady Liadrin will be one of the Paladin champion NPCs. There are plenty of human paladins to choose from - from bigger lore figures like Turalyon to less famous but still recognizable figures like Duthorian Rall and Gryan Stoutmantle. Oddly, despite having been in-game from the beginning, there aren't a lot of good dwarf paladin NPCs to choose from. There's a good pairing of Gidwin Goldbraids and Taerenar Sunstrike - the likable young dwarf and blood elf childhood friends with whom you quest through Eastern Plaguelands. Vindicator Maraad had been the iconic Draenei Paladin, but he's dead. However, in his place we have Yrel - a popular figure, but the question there is whether she'd be willing to leave her home universe to come fight for us (though it'd only be equitable.) On the tauren side, we have Sunwalker Dezco, a big figure in Pandaria, or possibly the founder of the Sunwalkers, Aponi Brightmane.
Phew. On to the specs.
Holy Rollers:
Right, here's my big Paladin blindspot. I've tried out Holy once or twice - recently doing a Blackrock Depths run on a low-level alt - but I've really never done much healing in general, and always had a kind of special distaste for healing on a Paladin (in the early days, Paladin players had to kind of fight to be taken seriously as anything other than a healer, so I kind of resented people assuming I'd heal. Obviously that's not much of an issue these days, basically since Wrath.)
Protecting the Innocent:
Right, now here's my strong suit. Honestly, I think Protection plays about as well as it ever has. I don't quite know where the balance issues are at the moment, but gameplay-wise, protection is in great shape - we're tough enough that we don't have to panic in the early part of the pull before we get our first Shield of the Righteous up, and there's enough of a choice when dealing with Shield versus Word of Glory that you do have interesting decisions to make while tanking.
Earlier in Warlords I did find that my threat was always being outstripped by Warrior tanks, but that could have been a combination of having a less powerful weapon or overtuned Warrior damage. There are certainly some talent tiers where there's a clear winner or a clear loser, and so it might be good to tweak those a bit, but overall, I'm pretty happy with Protection Paladins, and have been... well, basically since Burning Crusade, when they worked almost entirely differently. This is my comfort zone, so I guess all I can say: don't fix what ain't broke.
Retributing 'dem Demons:
Actually, though I risk turning this into a big paladin love-fest, I've got to say I also love Retribution at the moment. To be fair, I might love it less if I discovered that Final Verdict was no longer a viable talent (I haven't actually paid much attention to Ret balancing, as I really only play the spec solo.) Replacing Inqusition with a Divine Storm proc totally speaks to my tastes in a rotation (I also always hated the name Inquisition, as it makes my Paladin out to an intolerant fundamentalist, not the superman-like Lawful Good with an emphasis on the "good" hero that he is.)
The one thing I might throw in there is allowing Ret to have Consecration back. It'd be nice for them to get an un-targeted AoE ability - though I realize that they already have a lot of good AoE tools.
Bringing the Light:
Paladins have, I think, been in pretty good shape. I know there are some who are nostalgic for a time before Holy Power, but we're now at a point where that's been a core to the class gameplay for about as long as it wasn't. Those who really remember how things were before Holy Power remember how amorphous the class felt. Anyway, I think that we can safely assume that it's staying. Let's hope for some really cool-looking tier gear and look forward to battling an endless army of demons - show them the power of the Light!
Monday, August 17, 2015
Pre-Legion Class Review: Death Knight
I'm thinking I'll do an article about each of the classes to talk about what we can expect to see and what we'd like to see for the various classes when Legion comes out. We're still pre-Alpha at this point, but that's the best point to think about the direction the class should be going. Some of these articles are going to be in much greater detail than others. I've been somewhat less alt-heavy in Warlords than previous expansions, so some of the guys are going to be a little bit light. But this isn't purely about mechanics, it's also about lore and how that relates to the new class-centric features of the upcoming expansion.
The Knights of Death:
There's a good chance that Acherus will be moving to the Broken Isles - in all likelihood, this will be just like Dalaran, in that the old Acherus will still hover over Eastern Plaguelands, but there will be a new one that truly serves as the class hall. We can expect a re-textured and possibly re-structured version of the Ebon Hold - at the very least, we'll have some facility for dealing with Champions and customizing our weapons. Obviously, Death Knights have always had Runeforges, so we might just get an extra special one for the artifacts.
Given the class-centric nature of the expansion and this feature, it seems like the perfect opportunity to rescue Koltira Deathweaver from the bowels of the Undercity. Still, this should present some interesting problems for Horde Death Knights, especially Forsaken ones - if, as one might expect, you have to fight through Sylvanas' forces to get there, how to you reconcile that with the fact that Sylvanas is one of your faction leaders? While you'll certainly not be able to break away from the Horde, this does seem like a case of split loyalties.
Thassarian and Koltira seem like obvious choices for champions. Darion Mograine's fate is unknown - if you manage to found a new Death Knight order, he might simply step aside and let you lead, but if it's the true Knights of the Ebon Blade that you come to lead, one might worry about him (to the extent that Death Knights worry about each other - well, those who aren't Thassarian.)
While they're quite different sorts of things, it might be kind of interesting to look into the Gorefiend-class Death Knights - perhaps we could recruit some old Orc Warlock in the body of a Human Knight.
Unfortunately, there really hasn't been a ton of Death Knight lore since Cataclysm's Western Plaguelands, and there's not a huge cast of recognizable characters. There is that one Tauren guy whose name I forget, and Crok Scourgebane, but Thassarian and Koltira are clearly the biggest names the class has.
It's likely we've seen all three artifact weapon sets - only the Unholy one, Souleater, remains unconfirmed, though the art for it has been displayed, and it seems highly likely that it's the one. The real question is whether Blood and Unholy will have satisfying backstories for theirs - clearly Frost gets the most enviable one (even if some of us really wish that we could reforge Frostmourne into its old, two-handed version.)
Bloody Fel!
Blood has been a bit weird in Warlords of Draenor, and I think the main culprit is the lack of melee strikes. With both Rune Strike and Heart Strike no longer part of the spec, Death Strike has become literally the only physical ability the spec has - everything else being some kind of shadow-damage burst. While being able to spam Blood Boil is a nice way to keep AoE threat everywhere, it just seems unnatural for a Death Knight not to hit things with their weapon. Giving back Heart Strike as a Keg-Smash-like AoE melee strike (though presumably not as big a portion of our damage) might be a way to fix this.
Diseases are also a bit funny for Blood - being able to maintain them constantly through our regular rotation (unless one goes for Necrotic Plague) is certainly convenient, but it almost makes them feel passive. I honestly don't know what I'd change here - it might just be the perk of playing Blood that you don't really have to think too much about diseases so that you can concentrate on survival.
DKs are pretty solid on the active mitigation front. The change to Rune Tap as a kind of mini-Icebound Fortitude gives us a frequently-available oh-crap button that isn't a regular part of our rotation the way that Death Strike is (you could compare it with Monks' Elusive Brew or Paladins' Word of Glory - to be used liberally, but not regularly.) And of course, ever since Wrath, we've had a wide selection of more serious cooldowns: IBF, Vampiric Blood, Dancing Rune Weapon, kind of Bone Shield, Anti-Magic Shell. Things have to be going pretty badly for you to feel like you don't have any options, though one could make the argument that with so many cooldowns, they're all kind of watered down - when the feces hits the propeller, as it were, sometimes it doesn't really feel like enough to just hit one of these. Perhaps slimming down the options but buffing their power would help (and certainly clear up some space on action bars.)
Finally, ever since 4.0, many (myself included,) have sorely missed Blood DPS. Given the relative success (I think) of Gladiator's Resolve, plus the fact that with the changes coming to Frost (see below) we won't have a two-handed pet-less DPS spec, it seems like an obvious choice to me to give us an option for Blood DPS. Indeed, focusing on big physical strikes, you could give a lot of old-schoolers who miss Blood DPS and potentially less old-schoolers who love the current version of Two-handed Frost a great new gameplay option.
Staying Frosty:
Frost is obviously going through big changes - or at least it is for the portion of players who use two-handed weapons. The real question is whether we're going to get any significant changes to the dual-wielding playstyle. On one hand, I'd prefer the spec to play more like 2H frost, even if I do so with two weapons, but there are also a lot of players who are just used to the dual-wield style. The real question is which style Blizzard prefers - do they like Obliterate to be the massive strike at the core of the spec, or do they want it to be a filler ability to use in between Howling Blasts and Frost Strikes. I'd argue that the 2H rotation makes better use of the available runes, and that once there's only one style for the spec, it'll be much easier to balance it around its Mastery and such so that it doesn't fall behind in AoE like 2H does currently.
In truth, I think Blizzard should have never made the two sub-specs play differently. Fury, as the obvious point of comparison, might have a different rhythm to it, but fundamentally, the same abilities take the same priority.
But given that they're now slimming it down to a single style, they've got to make the right choice for the spec.
Unholy Terror:
With Frost going pure-dual-wield, Unholy will be the DPS spec that uses a big old weapon (unless Blood gets its Gladiator equivalent.) First, as a disclaimer, I don't play Unholy regularly (I have an UH DK Horde-side who's been sitting at level 90 for several months,) but as I recall, Scourge Strike used to be a two-rune strike, and is now a single-rune one. That means that it naturally has to do less damage. Unholy already splits damage with its ghoul, so re-imagining the spec as the "big numbers" style for DKs might not make all that much sense.
Given that Unholy is the only spec that deals with undead minions regularly anymore, it might be fun to lean into that identity - right now there's the Ghoul and the Gargoyle as a cool-down, but I wonder if it would be fun for the spec, and if it would be a direction Unholy players would enjoy, if more minions were worked into the gameplay.
Death Knights don't really have differentiated talents right now, but I think a cool one for Unholy would be to either have something like multiple minions constantly or perhaps to replace the Ghoul with an Abomination.
Suffering, Well:
The thing that's exciting about Legion is that every class is going to get a bit of lore by necessity. But probably the most important absent player - Lich King Bolvar Fordragon - has not made a peep since the end of Wrath. This would be a great time for him to use the Scourge against the invasion, but we really don't know whether the Scourge can be used as a force for good, or if ultimately it's just a matter of time before Bolvar loses control (over them or himself) and we find ourselves battling the army of the dead once more.
The Knights of Death:
There's a good chance that Acherus will be moving to the Broken Isles - in all likelihood, this will be just like Dalaran, in that the old Acherus will still hover over Eastern Plaguelands, but there will be a new one that truly serves as the class hall. We can expect a re-textured and possibly re-structured version of the Ebon Hold - at the very least, we'll have some facility for dealing with Champions and customizing our weapons. Obviously, Death Knights have always had Runeforges, so we might just get an extra special one for the artifacts.
Given the class-centric nature of the expansion and this feature, it seems like the perfect opportunity to rescue Koltira Deathweaver from the bowels of the Undercity. Still, this should present some interesting problems for Horde Death Knights, especially Forsaken ones - if, as one might expect, you have to fight through Sylvanas' forces to get there, how to you reconcile that with the fact that Sylvanas is one of your faction leaders? While you'll certainly not be able to break away from the Horde, this does seem like a case of split loyalties.
Thassarian and Koltira seem like obvious choices for champions. Darion Mograine's fate is unknown - if you manage to found a new Death Knight order, he might simply step aside and let you lead, but if it's the true Knights of the Ebon Blade that you come to lead, one might worry about him (to the extent that Death Knights worry about each other - well, those who aren't Thassarian.)
While they're quite different sorts of things, it might be kind of interesting to look into the Gorefiend-class Death Knights - perhaps we could recruit some old Orc Warlock in the body of a Human Knight.
Unfortunately, there really hasn't been a ton of Death Knight lore since Cataclysm's Western Plaguelands, and there's not a huge cast of recognizable characters. There is that one Tauren guy whose name I forget, and Crok Scourgebane, but Thassarian and Koltira are clearly the biggest names the class has.
It's likely we've seen all three artifact weapon sets - only the Unholy one, Souleater, remains unconfirmed, though the art for it has been displayed, and it seems highly likely that it's the one. The real question is whether Blood and Unholy will have satisfying backstories for theirs - clearly Frost gets the most enviable one (even if some of us really wish that we could reforge Frostmourne into its old, two-handed version.)
Bloody Fel!
Blood has been a bit weird in Warlords of Draenor, and I think the main culprit is the lack of melee strikes. With both Rune Strike and Heart Strike no longer part of the spec, Death Strike has become literally the only physical ability the spec has - everything else being some kind of shadow-damage burst. While being able to spam Blood Boil is a nice way to keep AoE threat everywhere, it just seems unnatural for a Death Knight not to hit things with their weapon. Giving back Heart Strike as a Keg-Smash-like AoE melee strike (though presumably not as big a portion of our damage) might be a way to fix this.
Diseases are also a bit funny for Blood - being able to maintain them constantly through our regular rotation (unless one goes for Necrotic Plague) is certainly convenient, but it almost makes them feel passive. I honestly don't know what I'd change here - it might just be the perk of playing Blood that you don't really have to think too much about diseases so that you can concentrate on survival.
DKs are pretty solid on the active mitigation front. The change to Rune Tap as a kind of mini-Icebound Fortitude gives us a frequently-available oh-crap button that isn't a regular part of our rotation the way that Death Strike is (you could compare it with Monks' Elusive Brew or Paladins' Word of Glory - to be used liberally, but not regularly.) And of course, ever since Wrath, we've had a wide selection of more serious cooldowns: IBF, Vampiric Blood, Dancing Rune Weapon, kind of Bone Shield, Anti-Magic Shell. Things have to be going pretty badly for you to feel like you don't have any options, though one could make the argument that with so many cooldowns, they're all kind of watered down - when the feces hits the propeller, as it were, sometimes it doesn't really feel like enough to just hit one of these. Perhaps slimming down the options but buffing their power would help (and certainly clear up some space on action bars.)
Finally, ever since 4.0, many (myself included,) have sorely missed Blood DPS. Given the relative success (I think) of Gladiator's Resolve, plus the fact that with the changes coming to Frost (see below) we won't have a two-handed pet-less DPS spec, it seems like an obvious choice to me to give us an option for Blood DPS. Indeed, focusing on big physical strikes, you could give a lot of old-schoolers who miss Blood DPS and potentially less old-schoolers who love the current version of Two-handed Frost a great new gameplay option.
Staying Frosty:
Frost is obviously going through big changes - or at least it is for the portion of players who use two-handed weapons. The real question is whether we're going to get any significant changes to the dual-wielding playstyle. On one hand, I'd prefer the spec to play more like 2H frost, even if I do so with two weapons, but there are also a lot of players who are just used to the dual-wield style. The real question is which style Blizzard prefers - do they like Obliterate to be the massive strike at the core of the spec, or do they want it to be a filler ability to use in between Howling Blasts and Frost Strikes. I'd argue that the 2H rotation makes better use of the available runes, and that once there's only one style for the spec, it'll be much easier to balance it around its Mastery and such so that it doesn't fall behind in AoE like 2H does currently.
In truth, I think Blizzard should have never made the two sub-specs play differently. Fury, as the obvious point of comparison, might have a different rhythm to it, but fundamentally, the same abilities take the same priority.
But given that they're now slimming it down to a single style, they've got to make the right choice for the spec.
Unholy Terror:
With Frost going pure-dual-wield, Unholy will be the DPS spec that uses a big old weapon (unless Blood gets its Gladiator equivalent.) First, as a disclaimer, I don't play Unholy regularly (I have an UH DK Horde-side who's been sitting at level 90 for several months,) but as I recall, Scourge Strike used to be a two-rune strike, and is now a single-rune one. That means that it naturally has to do less damage. Unholy already splits damage with its ghoul, so re-imagining the spec as the "big numbers" style for DKs might not make all that much sense.
Given that Unholy is the only spec that deals with undead minions regularly anymore, it might be fun to lean into that identity - right now there's the Ghoul and the Gargoyle as a cool-down, but I wonder if it would be fun for the spec, and if it would be a direction Unholy players would enjoy, if more minions were worked into the gameplay.
Death Knights don't really have differentiated talents right now, but I think a cool one for Unholy would be to either have something like multiple minions constantly or perhaps to replace the Ghoul with an Abomination.
Suffering, Well:
The thing that's exciting about Legion is that every class is going to get a bit of lore by necessity. But probably the most important absent player - Lich King Bolvar Fordragon - has not made a peep since the end of Wrath. This would be a great time for him to use the Scourge against the invasion, but we really don't know whether the Scourge can be used as a force for good, or if ultimately it's just a matter of time before Bolvar loses control (over them or himself) and we find ourselves battling the army of the dead once more.
Hopes for Timewalking
Timewalker weekend events are definitely my favorite - it's such a joy to be able to go back into these old dungeons I used to run years ago and play them in a way that, though perhaps not a serious challenge, still requires you to do more than just auto-attack each enemy once.
This is a feature in its infancy, and Blizzard has indicated that this is really the trial run for an expansion of the feature. What might we see in the future?
More Dungeons from More Eras:
BC and Wrath are the expansions people most often think back on as the "golden age" of WoW, which is I'm sure why they chose to make the first timewalker dungeons a selection from these expansions. While there are some (mainly Oculus) that they might hold back on due to a lack of popularity, I do hope they open up more of these dungeons as time goes on.
Beyond these, though, I'd hope that they could open up later-expansion dungeons like Magister's Terrace and Forge of Souls. This would be somewhat trickier to do - you have to take into account that people will have secondary stats that are allowing for much higher crit, haste, and such than the "you just hit the level cap" level that they lower us to for the existing ones. People would be more greatly incentivized to put together a dedicated timewalking set for these dungeons to maximize their best stats, but those late-expansion dungeons are among my favorites in the game.
Obviously, the next step is to open up Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria dungeons for Timewalking. The former were tuned to be quite difficult at the time, but considering how the Burning Crusade ones don't seem too hard now, I imagine that the Cataclysm ones won't need too much tweaking. The Mists ones I think will just need some time for them to feel truly old-school. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if they hold off on making timewalker Warlords dungeons until after Legion - to give us some distance to allow us to develop nostalgia for them.
And then there's vanilla, of course. This one's tricker, as someone expecting a 20-40 minute 5-boss instance when they queue is probably not going to be happy if they get Blackrock Depths. Still, you can definitely find some more modern-style dungeons among the 1.0 dungeons. Of course, some of these were revamped for Cataclysm and other expansions - though it might be cool to have the older versions of them available for Timewalking. Still, scaling would be tricker here, as there wasn't a standardized heroic mode at the level cap, so each dungeon from vanilla would have to scale us down to different levels and item levels. Also, given that we keep all our abilities, I don't even know if you could scale anyone down low enough for a place like Blackfathom Deeps to still be challenging.
Availability:
This one's tricky. On one hand, I'd love to be able to do Timewalkers all the time, but on the other, it's actually probably for the best that it's a limited, periodic thing. The current expansion's dungeons are meant to be the ones you're more incentivized to run, and it would be bad if Timewalkers totally took over the place of contemporary dungeons.
Instead, I'd extend the "weekend event" to be a "week-long event." Some players can only play certain days of the week, and it's annoying that they would be locked out of these.
Given that Legion will not have Apexis Crystals (though they could have something similar,) it's clear that there's going to be some kind of shake-up for weekend events. Adding a few segments to the rotation shouldn't be too hard, so you could even set it up that there's always a Timewalker event going on, it's just the era that changes.
Lasting Rewards:
As a feature that came in at the end of Warlords, it was pretty easy for them to put the rewards for Timewalkers in a kind of useful catch-up position. The 660/675 loot is fantastic for someone who just hit the level cap, and really blows the 630 stuff from heroics out of the water, allowing you to jump into Tanaan Jungle, raid finder, and even Mythic dungeons (if you get a lot of drops) fairly quickly.
But as a feature that will presumably exist at the launch of Legion, there's a real question of where the loot should fit on the scale.
This would all be a lot easier if we still had something like Justice and Valor points - you could simply have Legion heroics reward more than Timewalkers, but have it scale up as there were new tiers of content.
The other option, and something that will be coming in 6.2.2, the patch formerly known as 6.2.1, is to add a bunch of cosmetic rewards. I think this is a great idea, and one that is easily expandable. Timewalkers are primarily there for the fun of running those old dungeons and getting your nostalgia kicks, so they don't really need to be tied so tightly to progression.
The key, however, is to ensure that there are compelling cosmetic rewards that people can continue to work toward for a long time - really it means that they have to keep coming up with more rewards. This of course will overlap a bit with the Darkmoon Faire - the ultimate "not for power, just for fun" feature of the game, but I think you can come up with enough thematic differences to make them feel different enough.
This is a feature in its infancy, and Blizzard has indicated that this is really the trial run for an expansion of the feature. What might we see in the future?
More Dungeons from More Eras:
BC and Wrath are the expansions people most often think back on as the "golden age" of WoW, which is I'm sure why they chose to make the first timewalker dungeons a selection from these expansions. While there are some (mainly Oculus) that they might hold back on due to a lack of popularity, I do hope they open up more of these dungeons as time goes on.
Beyond these, though, I'd hope that they could open up later-expansion dungeons like Magister's Terrace and Forge of Souls. This would be somewhat trickier to do - you have to take into account that people will have secondary stats that are allowing for much higher crit, haste, and such than the "you just hit the level cap" level that they lower us to for the existing ones. People would be more greatly incentivized to put together a dedicated timewalking set for these dungeons to maximize their best stats, but those late-expansion dungeons are among my favorites in the game.
Obviously, the next step is to open up Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria dungeons for Timewalking. The former were tuned to be quite difficult at the time, but considering how the Burning Crusade ones don't seem too hard now, I imagine that the Cataclysm ones won't need too much tweaking. The Mists ones I think will just need some time for them to feel truly old-school. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if they hold off on making timewalker Warlords dungeons until after Legion - to give us some distance to allow us to develop nostalgia for them.
And then there's vanilla, of course. This one's tricker, as someone expecting a 20-40 minute 5-boss instance when they queue is probably not going to be happy if they get Blackrock Depths. Still, you can definitely find some more modern-style dungeons among the 1.0 dungeons. Of course, some of these were revamped for Cataclysm and other expansions - though it might be cool to have the older versions of them available for Timewalking. Still, scaling would be tricker here, as there wasn't a standardized heroic mode at the level cap, so each dungeon from vanilla would have to scale us down to different levels and item levels. Also, given that we keep all our abilities, I don't even know if you could scale anyone down low enough for a place like Blackfathom Deeps to still be challenging.
Availability:
This one's tricky. On one hand, I'd love to be able to do Timewalkers all the time, but on the other, it's actually probably for the best that it's a limited, periodic thing. The current expansion's dungeons are meant to be the ones you're more incentivized to run, and it would be bad if Timewalkers totally took over the place of contemporary dungeons.
Instead, I'd extend the "weekend event" to be a "week-long event." Some players can only play certain days of the week, and it's annoying that they would be locked out of these.
Given that Legion will not have Apexis Crystals (though they could have something similar,) it's clear that there's going to be some kind of shake-up for weekend events. Adding a few segments to the rotation shouldn't be too hard, so you could even set it up that there's always a Timewalker event going on, it's just the era that changes.
Lasting Rewards:
As a feature that came in at the end of Warlords, it was pretty easy for them to put the rewards for Timewalkers in a kind of useful catch-up position. The 660/675 loot is fantastic for someone who just hit the level cap, and really blows the 630 stuff from heroics out of the water, allowing you to jump into Tanaan Jungle, raid finder, and even Mythic dungeons (if you get a lot of drops) fairly quickly.
But as a feature that will presumably exist at the launch of Legion, there's a real question of where the loot should fit on the scale.
This would all be a lot easier if we still had something like Justice and Valor points - you could simply have Legion heroics reward more than Timewalkers, but have it scale up as there were new tiers of content.
The other option, and something that will be coming in 6.2.2, the patch formerly known as 6.2.1, is to add a bunch of cosmetic rewards. I think this is a great idea, and one that is easily expandable. Timewalkers are primarily there for the fun of running those old dungeons and getting your nostalgia kicks, so they don't really need to be tied so tightly to progression.
The key, however, is to ensure that there are compelling cosmetic rewards that people can continue to work toward for a long time - really it means that they have to keep coming up with more rewards. This of course will overlap a bit with the Darkmoon Faire - the ultimate "not for power, just for fun" feature of the game, but I think you can come up with enough thematic differences to make them feel different enough.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
The Frost Death Knight Subspec Problem
Frost Death Knights are going to be dual-wielders in Legion, and probably moving forward. My Death Knight, who is kind of my Prime Alt or Vice Main - the number 2 character I play - has been a two-handed Frost DK for two expansions now. He was originally Blood DPS, but then they got rid of that spec - that version of the spec, I should say - and so I switched to Frost, as it seemed like the closest analogue. In time, I actually grew to really like the rhythm of Frost - timing things around Killing Machine, for example.
Frost has this odd mechanic that is meant to distinguish between dual-wielders and those using two-handed weapons. This has actually always been a problem, and in retrospect, it's probably a decision that Blizzard regrets. Notably, Monks barely see a difference between dual-wielding or using two-handed weapons, and Fury still plays essentially the same way with its two weapon style choices. Only Frost has a totally different priority/rotation based on which kind of weapon you prefer to wield. I believe it Cataclysm it was flipped from its current form, but regarding the current model, wielding a two-handed weapon will buff the damage of Obliterate, a heavy-hitting all-physical melee strike that costs one Frost and one Unholy rune. Dual-wielding two weapons instead buffs the damage of Frost Strike, an all-Frost damage strike that costs Runic Power.
One of the most important passives for Frost is Killing Machine. It gives your (main hand) auto attacks a chance to make your next Obliterate or Frost Strike guaranteed to get a critical strike.
The idea, then, is that those with one-handed weapons will try to time it so that they use Frost Strike when they get their Killing Machine proc, whereas those using two-handed weapons will try to use Obliterate.
On the surface, this doesn't seem like much of a big deal. But in practice, it makes a massive difference that essentially ensures that the two styles can't really be balanced, and generally means that two-hander players will inevitably fall behind.
The missing piece is Frost's mastery, Frozen Heart, which increases the frost damage they do.
Because DW Frost's biggest attack is a pure-Frost damage ability, they are incentivized to stack a bunch of mastery with their gear. Mastery then buffs Howling Blast and Frost Fever (which is applied by the former,) making DW's splash/aoe damage very good.
2H Frost, however, doesn't really like Mastery so much because their biggest strike is the pure-physical Obliterate. But they're still weighed down by having the same Mastery - it's just that for one style, the benefit of Mastery is quite large, while for the other it's a much more minor effect.
So, you may then ask: why keep 2H Frost around? Clearly it's always going to scale worse than DW, and indeed these days the more serious raiders will overwhelmingly go DW, it just puts out better numbers.
We can answer that question two ways. The first is: We won't. Blizzard is getting rid of the sub-spec and making Frost a dedicated dual-wielding spec.
But to answer, rather than dismiss the question, here's why I'll be sad to see the subspec go. I won't give this as a reason that it should stay, because I don't think there's any practical chance that it will.
The Fantasy of Frostmourne:
It's true that there will still be Unholy for those who like fighting with a big old two-handed weapon (and of course, Blood tanks will continue to use one,) but Frost is kind of about purity. Unholy's sources of damage are far more diverse. You have Scourge Strike, which is split into Shadow and Physical portions, plus your ghoul, who needs to be managed. 2H really feels powerful to play - you hit things, and you hit them really, really hard with your Obliterates. Unholy plays more of the necromancer/undead commander role, whereas Frost feels more like a Champion of the Scourge - Unholy summons the monsters, while Frost is the monster. Dual-wield breaks up the damage of its strikes between two weapons, and they don't get to carry a big, looming sword, but must make their weapons kind of share the spotlight with each other (though admittedly, having a pair forged from Frostmourne's shards might make me overlook this.)
The Spamminess of Dual-Wielding:
It's totally possible that this has been fixed and I just haven't seen it yet, but toward the end of Mists of Pandaria, Dual-Wield Frost didn't really have a use for Obliterate anymore. Because they were stacking up Mastery to buff Frost Strike and Howling Blast, it got to a point where being able to hit Howling Blast twice more became a better option than hitting Obliterate at all. So, what should have been "Obliterate when there's no Killing Machine, Frost Strike when there is or you're capping your Runic Power, and then Howling Blast when it procs," became "Spam Howling Blast, Spam Frost Strike." It was less interesting, and Killing Machine lost its interactivity.
Diagnosing the Problem:
I don't really think that weapon choice is totally to blame here.
The problems I see are with Frozen Heart and Killing Machine, or looking at it from another angle, the passives formerly known as Threat of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes.
Killing Machine itself has the problem that it devalues Critical Strike as a stat. But that's not too bad - other specs and classes have to deal with stuff like that. But the proc loses all of its meaning if the player is able to drop the "lesser" attack from their rotation.
Frozen Heart is not a terribly interesting Mastery - but that's not always such a bad thing. The real problem with it is how it benefits one subspec so phenomenally more than the other.
From a pure power perspective, Frost is built to dual-wield (having two weapons even allows you to use Rune of Razorice, which further buffs Frost damage.) Yet from the point of view of designing the spec to be fun and interesting to play, two-handers have the edge, as they don't risk falling into two-button mode, no matter how well geared they get.
Prescribing a Solution:
I don't think it'll be enough to just make dual-wielders (which will be everyone) favor Obliterate. But it would be better, as you could balance the spec around its physical/magic ratio being set, rather than changing based on a weapon choice that will no longer be part of the game.
Still, I think that a greater revamp of the spec might be the best way to improve things. I don't have terribly specific ideas about such a revamp, but I definitely think that Obliterate needs to be a compelling part of the rotation, regardless of how much Mastery you stack up. That might mean designing a new mastery, or changing the way that Obliterate works.
Clearly, the spec should still be based on melee strikes. Blood currently suffers from the fact that Death Strike is the only melee strike they have left (after Heart Strike and Rune Strike disappeared.) Death Knights are all about their weapons, which is why it's weird that Blood is so focused on casting spells. Frost is ok here - Howling Blast is the right kind of quick-burst spell that allows you to get right back to your melee attacks.
I'd also argue that, to be frank, Frost needs to be the "big numbers" Death Knight spec. I know that it's ultimately not a big deal - Affliction Warlocks can do fantastic DPS even if the individual numbers on the screen are small - but with Unholy going more the "death of a thousand cuts" route, Frost really ought to be able to get those nice big crits (or whatevers, if they wind up changing Killing Machine.) Honestly this might be as simple as just changing the UI so that two-weapon strikes show the sum total damage of the strike, rather than showing two numbers pop up, but I also think there needs to be this sense that while Unholy is rattling on a snare drum, Frost is banging a gong.
We're still not even in alpha for Legion (at least not in any public capacity,) and Blizzard hasn't done any in-depth class reviews for the expansion (something they might be saving for Blizzcon.) But I hope that we'll soon see what they have in store for Frost Death Knights. I've grown quite fond of this playstyle over the last few years, and I hope that I'll have something familiar or at least similar moving forward.
Frost has this odd mechanic that is meant to distinguish between dual-wielders and those using two-handed weapons. This has actually always been a problem, and in retrospect, it's probably a decision that Blizzard regrets. Notably, Monks barely see a difference between dual-wielding or using two-handed weapons, and Fury still plays essentially the same way with its two weapon style choices. Only Frost has a totally different priority/rotation based on which kind of weapon you prefer to wield. I believe it Cataclysm it was flipped from its current form, but regarding the current model, wielding a two-handed weapon will buff the damage of Obliterate, a heavy-hitting all-physical melee strike that costs one Frost and one Unholy rune. Dual-wielding two weapons instead buffs the damage of Frost Strike, an all-Frost damage strike that costs Runic Power.
One of the most important passives for Frost is Killing Machine. It gives your (main hand) auto attacks a chance to make your next Obliterate or Frost Strike guaranteed to get a critical strike.
The idea, then, is that those with one-handed weapons will try to time it so that they use Frost Strike when they get their Killing Machine proc, whereas those using two-handed weapons will try to use Obliterate.
On the surface, this doesn't seem like much of a big deal. But in practice, it makes a massive difference that essentially ensures that the two styles can't really be balanced, and generally means that two-hander players will inevitably fall behind.
The missing piece is Frost's mastery, Frozen Heart, which increases the frost damage they do.
Because DW Frost's biggest attack is a pure-Frost damage ability, they are incentivized to stack a bunch of mastery with their gear. Mastery then buffs Howling Blast and Frost Fever (which is applied by the former,) making DW's splash/aoe damage very good.
2H Frost, however, doesn't really like Mastery so much because their biggest strike is the pure-physical Obliterate. But they're still weighed down by having the same Mastery - it's just that for one style, the benefit of Mastery is quite large, while for the other it's a much more minor effect.
So, you may then ask: why keep 2H Frost around? Clearly it's always going to scale worse than DW, and indeed these days the more serious raiders will overwhelmingly go DW, it just puts out better numbers.
We can answer that question two ways. The first is: We won't. Blizzard is getting rid of the sub-spec and making Frost a dedicated dual-wielding spec.
But to answer, rather than dismiss the question, here's why I'll be sad to see the subspec go. I won't give this as a reason that it should stay, because I don't think there's any practical chance that it will.
The Fantasy of Frostmourne:
It's true that there will still be Unholy for those who like fighting with a big old two-handed weapon (and of course, Blood tanks will continue to use one,) but Frost is kind of about purity. Unholy's sources of damage are far more diverse. You have Scourge Strike, which is split into Shadow and Physical portions, plus your ghoul, who needs to be managed. 2H really feels powerful to play - you hit things, and you hit them really, really hard with your Obliterates. Unholy plays more of the necromancer/undead commander role, whereas Frost feels more like a Champion of the Scourge - Unholy summons the monsters, while Frost is the monster. Dual-wield breaks up the damage of its strikes between two weapons, and they don't get to carry a big, looming sword, but must make their weapons kind of share the spotlight with each other (though admittedly, having a pair forged from Frostmourne's shards might make me overlook this.)
The Spamminess of Dual-Wielding:
It's totally possible that this has been fixed and I just haven't seen it yet, but toward the end of Mists of Pandaria, Dual-Wield Frost didn't really have a use for Obliterate anymore. Because they were stacking up Mastery to buff Frost Strike and Howling Blast, it got to a point where being able to hit Howling Blast twice more became a better option than hitting Obliterate at all. So, what should have been "Obliterate when there's no Killing Machine, Frost Strike when there is or you're capping your Runic Power, and then Howling Blast when it procs," became "Spam Howling Blast, Spam Frost Strike." It was less interesting, and Killing Machine lost its interactivity.
Diagnosing the Problem:
I don't really think that weapon choice is totally to blame here.
The problems I see are with Frozen Heart and Killing Machine, or looking at it from another angle, the passives formerly known as Threat of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes.
Killing Machine itself has the problem that it devalues Critical Strike as a stat. But that's not too bad - other specs and classes have to deal with stuff like that. But the proc loses all of its meaning if the player is able to drop the "lesser" attack from their rotation.
Frozen Heart is not a terribly interesting Mastery - but that's not always such a bad thing. The real problem with it is how it benefits one subspec so phenomenally more than the other.
From a pure power perspective, Frost is built to dual-wield (having two weapons even allows you to use Rune of Razorice, which further buffs Frost damage.) Yet from the point of view of designing the spec to be fun and interesting to play, two-handers have the edge, as they don't risk falling into two-button mode, no matter how well geared they get.
Prescribing a Solution:
I don't think it'll be enough to just make dual-wielders (which will be everyone) favor Obliterate. But it would be better, as you could balance the spec around its physical/magic ratio being set, rather than changing based on a weapon choice that will no longer be part of the game.
Still, I think that a greater revamp of the spec might be the best way to improve things. I don't have terribly specific ideas about such a revamp, but I definitely think that Obliterate needs to be a compelling part of the rotation, regardless of how much Mastery you stack up. That might mean designing a new mastery, or changing the way that Obliterate works.
Clearly, the spec should still be based on melee strikes. Blood currently suffers from the fact that Death Strike is the only melee strike they have left (after Heart Strike and Rune Strike disappeared.) Death Knights are all about their weapons, which is why it's weird that Blood is so focused on casting spells. Frost is ok here - Howling Blast is the right kind of quick-burst spell that allows you to get right back to your melee attacks.
I'd also argue that, to be frank, Frost needs to be the "big numbers" Death Knight spec. I know that it's ultimately not a big deal - Affliction Warlocks can do fantastic DPS even if the individual numbers on the screen are small - but with Unholy going more the "death of a thousand cuts" route, Frost really ought to be able to get those nice big crits (or whatevers, if they wind up changing Killing Machine.) Honestly this might be as simple as just changing the UI so that two-weapon strikes show the sum total damage of the strike, rather than showing two numbers pop up, but I also think there needs to be this sense that while Unholy is rattling on a snare drum, Frost is banging a gong.
We're still not even in alpha for Legion (at least not in any public capacity,) and Blizzard hasn't done any in-depth class reviews for the expansion (something they might be saving for Blizzcon.) But I hope that we'll soon see what they have in store for Frost Death Knights. I've grown quite fond of this playstyle over the last few years, and I hope that I'll have something familiar or at least similar moving forward.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Should Have Looked At This Map More Closely
There was a map shown at Gamescom that I think bears a look:
Two huge things:
First off: what the hell is Thal'dranath? They didn't mention it when talking about the zones of the Broken Isles. It could easily be confused with Val'sharah, but one of them is definitely the area where Malfurion learned to druid and the other...
Well, the name seems very elvish. It's connected to the Broken Shore, but I don't think we know the backstory really at all.
Now, here's the grain of salt time - Farahlon was clearly present on the map of Draenor, and we never got that zone, so this could wind up being nothing. But I hope that Blizzard has learned the lesson that anything that's even hinted at better show up or you'll risk disappointing a lot of people.
I also hope they learned the lesson in Warlords that players really, really don't like these "small scale" expansions, and we want them to expand the world significantly over the course of our time there.
Second big thing:
Acherus! The Ebon Hold is apparently heading to the Broken Isles. So it seems likely that there won't be a new order, but that Death Knight players will go on to lead the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Acherus obviously has the same advantage that Dalaran does that it can go to where the action is - in fact, it's probably a lot easier to do so, as Acherus was built specifically to float and move, whereas Dalaran was an (relatively) ordinary city torn out of the ground with arcane magic.
It looks like Acherus is on its own tiny archipelago, which, if there's any justice in this world, is a blighted land crawling with skeletons and ghouls.
(From MMO-Champion)
Two huge things:
First off: what the hell is Thal'dranath? They didn't mention it when talking about the zones of the Broken Isles. It could easily be confused with Val'sharah, but one of them is definitely the area where Malfurion learned to druid and the other...
Well, the name seems very elvish. It's connected to the Broken Shore, but I don't think we know the backstory really at all.
Now, here's the grain of salt time - Farahlon was clearly present on the map of Draenor, and we never got that zone, so this could wind up being nothing. But I hope that Blizzard has learned the lesson that anything that's even hinted at better show up or you'll risk disappointing a lot of people.
I also hope they learned the lesson in Warlords that players really, really don't like these "small scale" expansions, and we want them to expand the world significantly over the course of our time there.
Second big thing:
Acherus! The Ebon Hold is apparently heading to the Broken Isles. So it seems likely that there won't be a new order, but that Death Knight players will go on to lead the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Acherus obviously has the same advantage that Dalaran does that it can go to where the action is - in fact, it's probably a lot easier to do so, as Acherus was built specifically to float and move, whereas Dalaran was an (relatively) ordinary city torn out of the ground with arcane magic.
It looks like Acherus is on its own tiny archipelago, which, if there's any justice in this world, is a blighted land crawling with skeletons and ghouls.
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