* Gargoyle and Unholy Blight have swapped talent positions. Gargoyle's damage has increased and runic power cost per time has decreased.
* Pestilence – this spell no longer causes damage but just spreads diseases. Blood Boil is intended to be the general area attack, and has been changed to be castable on targets with no diseases on them, but does extra damage if diseases are present.
* Unbreakable Armor now absorbs a flat amount of damage that increases as your armor increases. It no longer boosts armor.
* The Frost tree has been shuffled. Among other things, PvP talents such as Endless Winter are closer to the top of the tree where Blood and Unholy death knights can access them.
* Sudden Doom – this talent now procs a Death Coil rather than requiring an additional button click. It works similarly to shamans' Lightning Overload.
* Magic Suppression and Blood of the North have been reduced to 3 ranks for the same benefit.
* Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.
The changes in Sudden Doom will likely see people opt for that in lieu of the changed Blood Gorged unless they really fix ArP.
Updated:
Death Knight- Blood Boil's damage increased to make up for Pestilence no longer doing damage.
- Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its radius has been decreased.
- Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
- Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical.
- Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
- Pestilence does no damage and has only one rank.
- Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.
- Raise Ally has a >15 min cooldown to keep it out of Arena.
- Raise Dead: Duration lowered to 60 sec. and cooldown lowered to 3 min. The cooldown on this ability now begins when the pet dies rather than when it is summoned.
- Rune of Cinderglacier now procs per minute instead of a 5% chance.
- Rune of Razorfrost now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%.
- Strangulate no longer does damage and has been reduced to 1 rank.
TalentsBlood- Blood Aura: Replaced with Improved Blood Presence. This allows the deathknight to keep the healing from damage done bonus of Blood Presence in any presence, and increases healing received while in Blood Presence.
- Blood-Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.
- Bloody Strikes now increases Blood Boil damage instead of Pestilence.
- Bloodworms now heal more.
- Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.
- Scent of Blood will now proc on a dodge, parry or taking damage, and internal cooldown lowered to 10 from 20 sec.
- Sudden Doom now procs a free Death Coil instead of requiring you to push the button. Ranks reduced from 5 to 3.
Frost- The following talents have moved in the Frost tree: Runic Power Mastery, Glacier Rot, Killing Machine, Chilblains, and Endless Winter.
- Black Ice now grants 2/4/6/8/10% Shadow damage in addition to the Frost damage.
- Black Ice: Frost Damage bonus lowered to 4/8/12/16/20%
- Blood of the North is 3 ranks instead of 5 for the same effect.
- Chillblains: Now a 15/30/50% movement speed debuff (up from 30%). Moved to position currently occupied by Glacier Rot.
- Endless Winter: Moved to position currently occupied by Chillblains.
- Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the deathknight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence.
- Glacier Rot: Third rank added, and damage bonus increased to 7/13/20. Moved to position currently occupied by Endless Winter.
- Howling Blast: Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree (HB is now at 51, and HC is now at 31). In addition, the damage bonus for targets with Frost Fever is now only 20%.
- Icy Talons - This talent how has a new icon.
- Runic Power Mastery down to 2 ranks.
Unholy- Blood-caked Blade: Now has a 3 second cooldown on the effect.
- Desecration: This talent now has a 100% chance to be triggered. Additional points in the talent increase the damage bonus and snare magnitude instead of increasing the chance.
- Epidemic: Epidemic now has 3 ranks (adding an additional 3 sec of disease duration). Magic Suppression is 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.
- Master of Ghouls: Now also reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 60 sec.
- Necrosis: Can now only be triggered by main hand attacks.
- New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.
- Night of the Dead: Redesigned to grant a flat reduction on cooldown to Raise Dead and Army of the Dead instead of a reduction from using abilities.
- Outbreak bonus for Scourge Strike lowered to 10/20/30%.
- Scourge Strike: Damage increased.
- Unholy Aura: Replaced with Improved Unholy Presence. Allows the Deathknight to keep the movement speed bonus of Unholy Presence in any presence, and increases rune regeneration rate while in Unholy Presence.
- Unholy Blight and Gargoyle have swapped places in the Unholy tree. Gargoyle is the new Unholy 51 talent.
Mixed feelings on this. The changes to the aura/presences means Blood DKs will receive 4% of damage done as healing and increased healing when in Blood presence; Frost DKs will get a 10% boost to total health, and a further reduction in spell damage taken by 15% when in Frost presence; Unholy DKs will get a 15% increase in movement speed, and more runic power when in Unholy presence. I can see that they wanted to counter their own mechanics, where Unholy DKs are better served in Blood presence and Blood DKs are best in Unholy.
The developers have said time and again they want more Frost and Blood tanks. Frost has a nice change, and Frost DKs will continue to be awesome tanks for magic-heavy bosses. I am curious to see if 4% of return on health will balance out 10% more hitpoints. If the damage to Blood Boil stacked with the change to Bloody Strikes results in a boost in DPS for Blood, then I can see a balance. We'll see what happens.
The change to Hungering Cold swapping with Howling Blast took them longer than I thought. Stack that with the change to Necrosis, and the split build Frost/Unholy dual wield is suddenly not just easy win.
It's late, so I have not played with the numbers, but it looks like Blood-heavy tank builds may be able to pick up Annihilation. Pair this with the increased duration, and my above concern about more damage may be mitigated. Something to examine tomorrow.
- Glyph of Strangulate -- Reduces the cooldown of your Strangulate by 60 sec. (Old: Inceases the range of your Strangulate by 20 yards.)
- Glyph of Icebound Fortitude -- Your Icebound Fortitude now always grants at least 30% damage reduction, regardless of your defense skill. (Old: Your Icebound Fortitude costs no runic power)
- Glyph of Unbreakable Armor -- Increases the amount of damage absorbed by Unbreakable Armor by 1%. (Old: Unbreakable Armor grants an additional 15% armor)
- Glyph of Plague Strike -- Your Plague Strike does 60% additional damage. (Old: 20% additional damage if a disease was on the target)
- Glyph of Death Strike -- Increases your Death Strike's damage by 2% for every 5 runic power you currently have. The runic power is not consumed by this effect. (Old: 2% regardless of runic power)
- Glyph of Hungering Cold *new* -- Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.
- Glyph of Unholy Blight *new* -- Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.
- Glyph of Death Coil *new*& -- Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.
- Glyph of Pestilence *new* -- Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
- Glyph of Howling Blast *new* -- Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.
Undocumented changes:
BloodSkills- Pestilence is now 1 rank. It now spreads existing Blood Plague and Frost Fever infections from your target to all other enemies within 10 yards. (Previously dealt damage)
- Strangulate no longer deals damage.
- Blood Boil damage increased, but its range has been reduced.
- Death Pact's heal can no longer crit.
- Blood Strike now instantly strikes the enemy, causing 40% weapon damage plus 305.6, increased by 12.5% per disease on the target at rank 6. (Previously caused 50% weapon damage plus 191, and an additional 95.5 bonus damage per disease)
- Heart Strike now
- instantly strikes the target and his nearest ally, causing 50% weapon damage plus 368, increased by 10% per disease on the target at rank 6. (Previously caused 60% weapon damage plus 220.8, and an additional 110.4 bonus damage per disease)
Talents- Blood Gorged (Tier 10) no longer grants expertise. Instead your attacks ignore up to 2/4/6/8/10% of the targets armor.
- Heart Strike (Tier 9) now strikes the target and his nearest ally, causing 50% weapon damage plus 125, increased by 10% per disease on the target.
- Might of Morgraine (Tier 9) now increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Blood Boil, Blood Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, and Obliterate abilities by 10/20/30%. (Previously was 15/30/45%)
- Sudden Doom (Tier 8 ) is now a 3 point talent and now has a 5/10/15% chance to launch a free Death Coil at your target. (Previously gave a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to make the next death coil cost no runic power and guaranteed it to crit)
- Blood Aura (Tier 7) renamed Improved Blood Presence and now while in Frost Presence or Unholy Presence, you retain 4% healing from Blood Presence, and healing done to you is increased by 10% in Blood Presence.
- Bloody Strikes (Tier 5) now increases the damage of Blood Strike and Heart Strike by 15/30/45%, and increases the damage of Blood Boil by 20/40/60%.
- Scent of Blood (Tier 2) now can proc off dodging, parrying or taking direct damage.
- *New Talent* Improved Death Strike, Tier 8, 2 talent points - Increases the damage of your Death Strike by 15/30%.
FrostSkills- Icy Touch now causes Frost Fever to last 15 secs.
Talents- Hungering Cold and Howling Blast have switched places in the talent tree.
- Howling Blast (Tier 11) now deals 50% additional damage to targets infected with Frost Fever. (Previously dealt double damage)
- Unbreakable Armor (Tier 8 ) now Reinforces your armor with a thick coat of ice, reducing physical damage from all attacks by 0.05 and increasing your strength by 25% for 20 sec. The amount of damage reduced increases as your armor increases. (Previously just increased armor by 25%, strength by 10%, and parry by 5%)
- Blood of the North (Tier 8 ) now affects Frost Strike as well as Blood Strike.
- Chillblains (Tier 7) now reduces movement speed by 15/30/45%. (Previously 10/20/30%)
- Endless Winter moved from Tier 6 to Tier 4.
- Chill of the Grave moved from Tier 5 to Tier 4.
- Runic Power Mastery moved to Tier 1 and is now a 2 point talent. Increases your maximum Runic Power by 15/30. (Previously 3 point talent that increased runic power by 10/20/30)
- Black Ice (Tier 2) increases your frost damage by 4/8/12/16/20%. (Previously 6/12/18/24/30%)
- Glacier Rot moved from Tier 1 to Tier 5 and is now a 3 point talent. Now diseased enemies take 7/13/20% more damage from your Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike. (Previously 5/10%)
UnholySkills- Plague Strike now deals 50% weapon damage plus 189 and infects the target with Blood Plague, a disease dealing Shadow damage over time. (No longer removes a HoT)
- Raise Dead cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes. The ghoul now only lasts for 1 minute.
Talents- Unholy Blight moved from Tier 11 to Tier 5.
- Scourge Strike (Tier 9) now deals 55% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 185.63, increased 9% per each of your diseases on the target. (Previously dealt 60% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 81, and an additional 40.5 bonus damage per disease.)
- Night of the Dead (Tier 8 ) now reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 45/90 sec and Army of the Deat by 5/10 min. (Previously reduced cooldown when you hit the target)
- Desecration (Tier 7) now causes all Plague Strikes to cause the desecrated ground effect. Targets in the area are slowed by 10/20/30/40/50% by the grasping arms of the dead while you cause 1/2/3/4/5% additional damage while standing on the unholy ground. Lasts 12 sec.
- Anti-Magic Zone (Tier 7) no longer requires a rune to activate.
- Unholy Aura (Tier 7) renamed Improved Unholy Presence and changed to: While in Blood Presence or Frost Presence, you retain 8/15% increased movement speed from Unholy Presence, and your runes finish their cooldowns 5/10% faster in Unholy Presence.
- Magic Supression (Tier 6) is now a 3 point talent and You take 2/4/6% less damage from all magic. In addition, your Anti-Magic Shell absorbs an additional 8/16/25% of spell damage. (Previously a 5 point talent)
- Master of Ghouls moved from Tier 6 to Tier 4. It now also reduces the cooldown of your Raise Dead spell by 60 sec.
- Summon Gargoyle moved from Tier 5 to Tier 11.
- Blood-Caked Blade (Tier 4) now has a 3 sec internal cooldown.
- Shadow of Death removed from the game.
- Outbreak (Tier 3) no longer affects Blood Boil. It now affects Plague Strike and Scourge Strike.
- Necrosis (Tier 3) now only affects main hand auto attacks. (Previously affected all auto-attacks)
- Virulence moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1.
- Morbidity moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
- *New Talent* Ghoul Frenzy, Tier 6, 1 point talent - Grants your pet 25% haste for 15 sec and heals it for 30% of its health over the duration. 1 Unholy Rune. 45 Yard range. Channeled. 30 sec cooldown.
Why the changes in auras, from Ghostcrawler (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=15234890918&pageNo=1#4):
Unholy Aura was becoming mandatory as a raid buff. We considered giving it to other classes, but realized we would just be accepting all players moving faster all the time (which subsequently also makes some boot enchants look bad). Frost Aura was kind of lame, but I'm sure we could have come up with something better. Mostly, the mechanic was just a little awkward and hard to explain. We like the new one better.
Players often wish for a buff so awesome that it guarantees them a raid slot. But that is exactly the mentality we were trying to prevent with our big buff and debuff overhaul. In the Sunwell era, raid slots were already so precious that there is a good chance a DK might not have even earned a spot, and having more than one would be a total waste... unless we gave them two mandatory buffs, in which case the Retadin, Boomkin or dps warrior might have gotten the heave ho.
The new model is designed to let you get as many buffs as you want through several different configurations of classes and specs and still have some slots left over to bring who you want.
Death Knight (
3.1 Skills List (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=650) / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc. (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight))
- Anti-magic Shell: The amount of damage this ability can absorb is now limited to 50% of the death knight's health.
- Death Strike: The
weapon damage percent on this ability has been increased from 60% to 75%, but the amount of healing per damage done has been reduced by 20%.
Blood- Dancing Rune Weapon: Damage done by, and duration of this pet is reduced by 50%, but the cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds.
- Heart Strike: Bonus damage for diseases is now a multiplier rather than a flat bonus. No longer affected by Glyph of Blood Strike.
- Spell Deflection: This talent has been increased to 15/30/45% damage reduction from a direct damage spell.
Frost- Black Ice: This talent now provides a 2/4/6/8/10% bonus to Frost and Shadow damage instead of 4/8/12/16/20% to Frost.
- Howling Blast: Base damage and scaling doubled. This doubled.This ability no longer deals bonus damage to targets with Frost Fever. Cooldown increased to 8 seconds. Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree.
- Improved Icy Touch: Now increases Icy Touch damage by 5/10/15% instead of by 10/20/30%.
- Rime: When this talent triggers, it also resets the cooldown on Howling Blast.
- Tundra Stalker: Now increases the damage on abilities by 3/6/9/12/15% instead of 2/4/6/8/10%.
Unholy- New Talent: Ghoul Frenzy: Grants 25% melee haste to your pet and heals it for 30% of its maximum health. Costs 1 Unholy Rune. Requires at least 30 points in the Unholy tree.
- Impurity: This talent is reduced to 4/8/12/16/20% bonus to attack power scaling.
- Master of Ghouls: Now also reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 60 seconds. This talent now requires at least 25 points in the Unholy tree, and has Night of the Dead as a prerequisite.
- Night of the Dead: Redesigned to grant a flat reduction on cooldown to Raise Dead and Army of the Dead instead of a reduction from using abilities. Requires at least 15 points in the Unholy tree; prerequisite for Master of Ghouls.
nerfbat ftw
Blizzard has stated repeatedly they want less people playing Unholy for tanking and Frost for DPS. Let's take a look at what they've done....
They increased damage for Death Strike, which is intended to supplement Heart Strike for Blood DKs and act as a substitute for Obliterate. Oh, wait, no they just nerfed it.
Dancing Rune Weapon, the penultimate Blood talent, got a significant boost to make it more attractive. Oh, wait, no, that's a nerf. True, it can be used twice in any normal boss fight now, so maybe it'll balance.
Heart Strike is now a multiplier of 10% based on # of diseases. Where it's now 110points. So, last night I (tank) did 1397 on average with a Heart Strike. Assuming you keep diseases up (ie, no Obliterates until your cycle is done!), that's a boost in DPS.
Spell Deflection? We'll see in Ulduar. Massive magic damage now is not direct (like Dragon breath).
Howling Blast, the DPS talent for Frost, got a boost. Hmm, yes, more damage is less attractive.
Improved Icy Touch - one of the base talents for which players dipped into Frost - is now nerfed. But wait, didn't Blizzard want people spreading out their points more?
Rime: cooldown on Howling Blast is reset. Phew, good thing! Need to reset and lower cooldown.
Unholy - ghoul changes galore. But wait - didn't Ghostcrawler say that they wanted to scale down damage of the Ghoul, but scale up the survivability?
- Anti-magic Shell: The amount of damage this ability can absorb is now limited to 100% (Up from 50%) of the death knight's health.
- Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its damage radius has been decreased to 10 yards.
- Death Strike: The amount of healing per damage done has been reduced by 20%. Now deals 75% weapon damage, up from 60%.
Blood- Dancing Rune Weapon: Damage done by, and duration of this pet is reduced by 50%, but the cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds. Attack speed of pet increased from 2.0 to 3.5.
- Will of the Necropolis: This ability now has a 15-second cooldown on how often it can occur. No longer triggers from damage amounts less than 5% of the player's health.
Frost- Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the death knight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence.
- Rime: This talent is now triggered by Obliterate instead of Icy Touch. When this talent triggers, it also resets the cooldown on Howling Blast.
Unholy- New Talent: Ghoul Frenzy: Grants 25% melee haste to your pet and heals it for 30% of its maximum health. Costs 1 Unholy Rune and lasts 30 seconds. Requires at least 30 points in the Unholy tree.
* Death Knight Tier 7 DPS Sets: Death Strike has been added to both the 2-piece and 4-piece bonuses.