Flash News

Just to show that this Blog has not been forgotten. I am currently working on something big, some kind of a clip season for showing different things to do with DW...

Also I am working on more calculations for Berserking and some other Talentbuilds that are crawling around the community.

You can still contact me here via comments or ingame on Antonidas!

KM - Bug or Feature?

There seems to be another hidden "nerf" for KM as some tests from a user on MMO and the US Forum showed.
Source: US Forums (page 3, posting #56)

44 minutes, only Slow Mainhand, no Offhand:

~ 5 PPM with over 200 procs

44 minutes, Slow / Fast as usual for DualWield:

~ 2 PPM and only around 130 procs

Something is going wrong there, KM is only possible to proc from the MH, so far so good, but if you are using 2 weapons like it is usual for DualWielding, KM procs get cut in half.

Why is that? Did anyone notice that?
You can check it for yourself when hitting the bossdummy to get a proof of that.

KM news

Ghostcrawler was talking about KM again... no good news for us:

"We originally talked about letting the MH and OH both proc but at different rates (Windfury does something like this). Then we became convinced that dual wielding by DKs would probably sitll be good even without the OH procs from Killing Machine. Now it is just main hand procs at a frequency of 5 per minute.

PPM is a statistical average, so you will see a lot of variation unless you test for a long time. But we'll keep an eye on this thread and the talent itself to make sure."
Source: Off. Forums

That is why KM is proccing so bad for us. No OH proccs. Imho one of the worst changes for us.

0/20/51

First test using 0/20/51 selfbuffed on a 60% hp bossdummy. It was really interesting.

Slow / Fast with Crusader / Berserking
Ghoul
HoW + BS
Blood Presence
Buff-Food and Elixier of Accuracy

Recount for this ~5 min Test:


1. Icy Touch
2. Melee
3. Unholy Blight
4. Frost Fever
5. Necrosis
6. Blood Plague
7. DeathCoil
8. BCB



At first it was very odd to play this new rotation, so in the first try I was only able to do about 2580 dps. Then I tried it again, more concentrating on the rotation, and I managed to push it to over 2750 dps.

Every KM that procced was used up for IT, I couldn't see any overwriting of KM, it really isn't proccing as good as it was before the patch. Because of this, IT is only about 55% critical. But you get so much RP that you can cast UB everytime you need to, and you even have enough RP to cast the Gargoyle and refresh UB or cast a DC between it.

Rotation I use consists of 2 cycles:

PS - IT - BS - BS - UB - DC
PS - IT - IT - IT - IT - DC - DC (or UB if needed)

I will test it tonight when going Naxx 10men... really excited how it will play there.

Berserking Theorycrafting

My Offhand is no longer having a Rune Enchantment. I got myself Berserking after I did some first calculations which I want to share with you:

Calculating Icy Touch - AP Coefficient is 0.1 - IT Tooltip Dmg 430-448
Lets take a app. dmg of 440 when used and do the calculation with 3000 AP.

440 + (3000*0.1) = 740 dmg
+ imp. Icy Touch 30% = 222
+ Glacier Rot 10% = 74
+ Black Ice 30% = 222

= 1258 dmg

Now lets calculate it with active Berserking:

440 + (3400*0.1) = 780 dmg
+ imp. Icy Touch 30% = 234
+ Glacier Rot 10% = 78
+ Black Ice 30% = 234

= 1326 dmg

And now instead of Berserking lets do it with full Razorice on Mob:

1258 dmg +5% from Razorice = 62,9

= 1320.9 dmg

Berserking is leading with ~6 more dmg only for IT in this scenario. If not having Razorice on it, Berserking leads with 68 more dmg per IT.

And now lets go further on, calculating the swingdamage, using my weapons:

MH: Angry Dread: 156.6 DPS having 2.5 speed (Weapondmg = 391.5)
OH: Avools Sword of Jin: 143.3 DPS having 1.5 speed (Weapondmg = 215)

Formula:

MH: (Weapon DPS + AP/14) * Weapon Speed
OH: [(Weapon DPS + AP/14) * Weapon Speed]/2

MH: (156.6 + 3000/14) *2.5 = 927.21 dmg per swing
OH: [(143.3 + 3000/14) * 1.5] / 2 = 268.19 dmg per swing

Taking a normal rotation of about 10 sec you have ~4 swings with your MH and ~6 swings with your OH. So this equals:

Mainhand 927.21 * 4 = 3708.84 dmg
Offhand 268.19 * 6 = 1609.14 dmg

= 5317.98 dmg in 10 sec

With Berserking and 400 additional AP you can put it like that after calculating the dmg per swing:

Mainhand 998.64 * 4 = 3994.56 dmg
Offhand 289.62 * 6 = 1737.72 dmg

= 5732.28 dmg in 10 sec

That is about 414 more dmg than without Berserking, just in 10 seconds doing a normal rotation, not counting Crits or Misses. I also did not count Impurity in that one, I will do that later when calculating some more and when I can show you some maths of different rotations using Berserking or Razorice / Cinderglacier.

Bossdummy Testing

I managed to get a bossdummy for me alone this morning with 100% HP and a bit of time to test some variations, using 0/32/39 as always.


Test 1:
Slow Mainhand with Crusader
Fast Offhand with Berserking
Selfbuffed HoW, BS and Ghoul active
Blood Presence
5 mins

DPS: ~2430





Test 2:
Fast Mainhand w Crusader
Fast Offhand w Berserking
Selfbuffed HoW, BS and Ghoul active
Blood Presence
5 mins

DPS: ~2540






Test 3 - Just 4 Fun:
Slow Mainhand w Crusader
Slow Offhand w Cinderglacier
Selfbuffed HoW, BS and Ghoul active
Unholy Presence
5 mins

DPS: ~2430




The KM nerf is really visible, IT and HB mostly not over 50% crit, sometimes only 30% or 40% crit. Also the unvisible CD on HB is really irritating and therefore I was not able to do an exact rotation.

I am now thinking of testing 0/20/51 in a raid-situation tomorrow...

First Test - Sartharion Heroic

I took the chance to do the first test after the patch-release in a raid and got to Sartharion Heroic.

0/32/39
HoW, BS, Ghoul
Blood Presence
Slow Mainhand (Crusader)
Fast Offhand (Berserking)
Raidbuffs

It was a strange experience, not seeing any CD on HB was kinda irritating. See the recount of the fight against Sartharion:


1. Melee
2. Howling Blast (~50% crit)
3. Icy Touch (~50% crit)
4. Frost Fever
5. Necrosis (nice surprise!)
6. DeathCoil
7. Blood Plague
8. BCB



KM proccs have gotten a bit rare, that is why IT and HB are not ~70% crit as before, only about 50% crit. The good thing is Necrosis, doing better damage than before. I really like it.

So far not much has changed, the KM nerf is hitting us as expected and the new Gargoyle is really weak in damage. The new Ghoul Glyph is cool and the new NotD really helps to keep him alive.

I also tried the weapon enchantment "Berserking" on my offhand, I was thinking about trying this since a long time. It seems a bit better to me in combination with Crusader, pushing the AP for a 400 more, increasing the damage of every skill you use. Cinderglacier and Razorice seemed a bit weak for me, not knowing which to choose.

For now I am thinking of trying something else, like 0/20/51 or 0/26/45, both without using HB, just pushing IT to the limit. But I am not quite sure about it...

Patch 3.0.8

The Patch is finally going live in Europe today. You can already download it, but you cannot login on your server.

For more patch details and a complete list you can visit mmo-champion here.

DeathKnight Changes:

• All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
• Anti-Magic Shell: The cooldown has been lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
• Anti-Magic Zone: This ability’s duration has been cut to 10 seconds.
• Blood Aura now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Blood Presence now grants 2/4% instead of 1/2% healing.
• Bloody Strikes will receive extra bonus damage from Pestilence.
• Bone Shield: The mitigation has been reduced from 40% to 20%.
• Corpse Explosion: Damage increased substantially, added 5 sec. cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
• Dark Command: Range increased to 30 yards.
• Death Pact now grants 40% instead of 20% healing.
• Frost Presence: The bonus armor has been increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%.
• Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets.
• Horn of Winter now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 20 second cooldown.
• Icebound Fortitude now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but can go higher).
• Killing Machine: Instead of a chance to be triggered on critical strike, this talent now has a chance to be triggered on each swing based on the swing time of the weapon (slow weapons more likely, fast weapons less likely).
• Mark of Blood: The total amount of healing this can grant is now capped based on a percentage of standard creature health at the target’s level.
• Night of the Dead now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
• Outbreak will no longer receive bonus damage from pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
• Pestilence no longer has a 10 seconds cooldown.
• Raise Dead has now been split into two spells:
• Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Requires corpse dust if no humanoid corpse is nearby.
• Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member as a ghoul and has no reagent. Available at level 72. This should now last for 4 minutes.
• Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
• Rune Strike: Damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
• Shadow of Death: The duration has been changed from 45 seconds to 25 secondsseconds and now has a 15 minute cooldown.
• Summon Gargoyle: Damage dealt by the Gargoyle reduced by approximately 20% and maximum duration cut to 30 seconds.
• Unholy Blight had had its cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
• Wandering Plague will now properly reset after being castand now considers the resilience of the target in determining its chance to be triggered.
• Vampiric Blood (DK) changed from 20% health / 50% healing to 15 % health / 35% healing.
• Will of the Necropolis will now reduce the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded. It no longer affects the cooldown of Anti-Magic Shell and retains the current damage reduction bonus.

DeathKnight BugFixes:

• Blood Aura Will now always do the correct amount of healing, based on the actual damage taken of the target.
• Blood Caked Blade: Now does the proper damage amount when triggered by an off-hand weapon.
• Bloody Strikes: The tooltip for this talent now has correct values.
• Butchery: Will now always grant 20 runic power, regardless of the creature type killed.
• Chains of Ice: This ability is no longer able to land on death knights who have Anti-Magic Shell active.
• Crypt Fever: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than the disease which caused it. Will also no longer incorrectly increase Death and Decay damage.
• Corpse Explosion: Fixed a bug where how much Runic Power the Death Knight had was affecting the damage done, and also increased the damage substantially.
• Dancing Rune Blade: The weapon no longer echoes the Raise Dead and Army of the Dead spells. In addition it will now more closely match the master’s damage and will cast Rune Strike when its master does.
• Death Chill: The effect from this talent will no longer be consumed if Killing Machine is active.
• Death Pact: This will no longer cause guards to attack the Death Knight.
• Desecration: will no longer break stealth.
• Ebon Plague: It is no longer possible to have a duration longer than the disease which caused it. It will no longer stack with Crypt Fever used by another character.
• Frost Fever: This talent now works properly when spell reflected.
• Gnaw: This ghoul ability is now able to be set on autocast.
• Icy Clutch: This will now be applied properly in all cases to targets that gain Frost Fever via the Pestilence ability.
• Mark of Blood now works correctly with periodic damage.
• Pestilence: The diseases will now spread correctly even when the damage from Pestilence kills the primary target.
• Raise Dead no longer puts you in combat when you cast this spell.
• Shadow of Death: This ability will no longer cause tracking abilities to become inactive when the death knight becomes a ghoul.
• Tundra Stalker (Rank 1) will now work properly on Death and Decay.
• Unholy Blight: Will no longer cause spell pushback

There still is a BUG on US servers where HB shows no CD in the tooltip, but triggers one. This will be fixed soon, so unfortunately HB will keep its new 5 sec CD:

"Howling Blast has a 5 sec cooldown. There is a tooltip error where it appears that the spell has no cooldown, but the game will still enforce one.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We plan on getting the tooltip corrected as soon as we can."

Source: Off. Forums

Hopefully I will be able to do some first testing tonight, and at the end of the week I will have my next raid in Naxxramas normal... so we will see how 0/32/39 will do for now.

Howling Blast Statement

New bluepost about HowlingBlast:

"Howling Blast was designed for AE dps, for which it was doing too much damage without a cooldown. We totally understand the concern about having a cooldown being awkward to work along with rune cooldowns, which is why we removed it. But that change made the spell too powerful, as we feared.

We will continue to iterate on the design and the ultimate goal is to remove the cooldown. There are some ways we can reign in the damage (such as a smaller AE cap or the damage falling off after the initial target) that will take some more time and testing to implement.

The DK is a new class, and while it is working well overall, you can expect to see some iteration on it compared to the classes that have been tested and upon which players have experimented for four years"

If somebody would be able to do 2 HBs (maybe critical) in a row without getting instant aggro... I would understand the additional Cooldown. But you cannot really do that. Just one critical HB when AoEing gives you a higher threat which can result in badass damage for you.

How the hell are those devs at Blizzard testing...

My suggestion - implement a deep frost talent or change a deep frost talent, so it reduces the CD of HB for x seconds. Or just make using HB give you a debuff that decreases the dmg of the next HB by xy% when used in the next x seconds...

What do u think??

Video - Loatheb

I took the chance to make another movie to show you my rotation and how the DualWield SpellKnight works in a raid. So I recorded a fight against Loatheb in 10men Naxxramas.

0/32/39
Fast / Fast weapons
Blood Presence with Ghoul activ for the whole encounter


High Quality Download (~200 MB)

http://files.filefront.com/Loatheb+DualWield+DK+PoV/;13003967;/fileinfo.html

Low Quality Stream:


Loatheb - DualWield DK PoV

I hope you like it, keep the feedback coming!

Stylepic

Between the testing and calculating and some other stuff, I finally was able to get new shoulders after nearly 2 months of hunting and rolling low numbers... so here you have the newest picture of SpellKnight Edurol:

Another slap in the face...

"Cooldown is intentional, but the tooltip hasn't been updated. This is a known issue"

Great, this seems to be the next hard hit for DualWield - HowlingBlast has got its CD back. No one knows why, only this lonely bluepost from Maaven which you can find here.

So now we got:

- KM only proccing from Mainhand with only 5 ppm
- HB with CD back on it
- Gargoyle decreased duration and lower DMG

3 main skills for the DualWield SpellKnight got nerfed to the ground. It seems sure to me that for now we are not equal with TwoHand, no way... we sure can be happy if some players will be able to keep up with other good DDs.

This really is a slap in the face Blizzard!

And another comment about the "new" KM only proccing from Mainhand:

"We'll investigate. Thanks."

Edit:

Ghostcrawler posted an answer here:

"I believe the cooldown is 5 seconds now, so at least it should mesh a little better with 10 second rune cooldown.

We knew there was a risk in taking the Howling Blast cooldown off. Unfortunately, we saw dual-wield DK numbers as high as ever even with the Killing Machine and Gargoyle nerfs. It typically only happened when the DK was fighting multiple targets, which suggests Howling Blast is the right thing to change.

We still agree that a cooldown makes rotations more awkward, and we will continue to look for an implementation that lets Howling Blast be off a cooldown without all death knights feel like they need to DW Frost or go home.

(And no, we can't buff other DK specs and other classes to 7000 dps or whatever to compensate.)"

Talking about players doing 7k DPS shows me that the Devs over there really don't have a clue about the DualWield Spellknight. I can only remember 1 or 2 people who were able to do that much DPS. And if they think we can do 3x HB when AoEing they fail... doing only 2 boosts the aggro so high that we would be killed instantly.

And furthermore, why are we forbidden to do good AoE damage? Shadowpriests can do, even Hunters can do now, and don't forget Warlocks... they are allowed to do, but we are not? Why?

A good posting in the topic from a player was, that AoE spikes are really not important, no one cares because they say nothing about the skill or the potential...

I am disappointed - I was hoping, Blizzard finally understands how to get things right. How to "balance" it... but with trying to get every talent tree on the same level for the DeathKnight and to make DW and 2hand equal, they made everything worse!

It will end up with DW being behind 2hand and other DDs.

PTR Informations

With the new PTR Patch comes a new KM correction, confirmed by some players in US:

It is not possible to procc KM on offhand hits.
For now, KM will only procc on hits with your mainhand.

This is the new fix for KM and it really hits DW hard. I tried it out this morning using the 0/44/27 again and I was able to notice that KM now proccs much less than before. Now there is no big difference between the two classic DualWield Talentbuilds, and I remembered that the decent amount of 2600 dps was because of "Merciless Combat" and the bossdummy being on 1% hp all the time. Sorry for that.

This morning I had the chance to test a bossdummy with over 6 million HP and no one else testing there...

0/44/27
Slow MH with Cinderglacier
Fast OH with Razorice
Blood Presence, HoW and Ghoul

DPS: 2100
HB, IT and FS only about 50% critical

0/32/39
Slow MH with Cinderglacier
Fast OH with Razorice
Blood Presence, HoW, BS and Ghoul

DPS: 2200

KM now proccs really bad... there are many gaps between the proccs, and sometimes it doesn't procc during a whole cycle of 2 rotations. The bug of HB lowers the DPS a bit, so I think you can do about 100 to 200 more DPS with each specc.

Only good news: Necrosis is doing pretty fine! Up to about 7% from 3% of the overall damage, surpassing BCB, this clearly is the only buff for now.

But this surely is a nerf for our beloved DualWield Spellknight, currently doing over 2700 dps on Live when soloing the bossdummy.

PTR Test II

It is impossible to have a bossdummy for you alone with enough HP to test... no matter where or when. So I guess we will have to wait until the patch goes live to see how good Necrosis works out.

As for now, I did some further tests to have some comparison... only selfbuffed with HoW and BS using Blood Presence and Ghoul.

Live Server:

Fast / Fast => ~2600 DPS
Slow / Fast => ~2400 DPS

PTR Test:

Fast / Fast => ~2500 DPS
Slow / Fast => ~2300 DPS
Slow / Slow => ~2300 DPS

I used Crusader on the Mainhand and Razorice on the Offhand, only the last test on the PTR with slow / slow was done with Cinderglacier and Razorice. Each fight lasted appr. 5 minutes and I did about 800,000 dmg each fight.

As I said before, the Gargoyle Nerf hits us more than anything else. It is interesting to see that two fast weapons on the PTR are still better than the slow / fast or slow / slow combination. I think this is what Blizzard meant in the last bluepost when they said, that for now KM isn't working like they wanted it to. There are still enough proccs, even if there are moments where nothing proccs and you loose DPS.

I am curious to see how it will work out in a raid using slow / fast or slow / slow. But as it is for now, it clearly is a nerf for DualWield.

Edit - Interesting Test

I specced 0/44/27 to see how it will turn out.
Using Slow / Fast - Blood Presence - Crusader + Razorice - Ghoul
Selfbuffed with HoW, no Desecration, no BS

And I was able to do ~2400 dps

Recount showed:
HB, followed by Melee, FS and IT.
HB was ~66% crit, FS 67% crit, IT 67% crit

I was able to use every single KM procc thanks to FS, which critted about 3,200 up to 3,800. I was a bit surprised because there was no Desecration and no BS to push the overall dmg, so I expected to do lesser damage than above.

Maybe I try out Cinderglacier to see if I can push it a bit more. But this talentspecc is becoming more interesting... I will watch it closely.

Second Edit:

With Cinderglacier on slow MH I was able to squeeze out ~2600 dps. KM is really proccing very well, I think there will be done some correction... 0/44/27 is working to good with it, having 3 different skills to use up KM.

PTR Test

Tonight I accessed the PTR to test my Spellknight with the 0/32/39 talentbuild and to see how the changes will effect the DPS. Unfortunately it was a bit full there, so I was not alone at the bossdummy, and due to the low HP of it, Necrosis wasn't recorded correctly, so the recount is a bit falsified.

I will try it again tomorrow moring, hopefully there wont be so many players around.

What I can tell after those first 5 minutes of fighting alone, only selfbuffed against the bossdummy is, that you are able to use the KM proccs more effectively.

I used a slow Mainhand with Crusader and a fast Offhand with Razorice, fighting in Blood Presence with my Ghoul and just selfbuffed with Horn of Winter and BoneShield. The proccs for KM were acceptable, sometimes there was a small gap where nothing procced, but then again it kept proccing really smooth. I was able to use HB better without the CD as you can see on the screenshot, nearly 90% critical hits with HB after 5 mins. It is really nice to use HB now without the CD. Nearly everytime KM proccs you can use HB and therefore controll the DPS a bit better.

Unfortunately I also experienced a loss in DPS of about 200 to 300 infight. The new Gargoyle really sucks... only 30 secs up and doing lesser damage. This will also hit 2h Unholy DKs as well. But I think the DPS loss was also because of the low HP of the dummy, not everything was working correctly. We will see when doing the next test.

The new IT Glyph helps generating more RP, the new Glyph for Horn of Winter helps keeping it up a bit better, also it is really cool that it's for free now and generating 10 RP when using.

Here you have the screenshot, infight after 5 minutes:


1. Howling Blast (nearly 90% crit !!)
2. Melee Hits
3. Icy Touch
4. DeathCoil
5. Frost Fever
6. BCB
7. Blood Plague

PPM

To clear some things up, here you have an explanation for PPM:

(PPM)/60*(WEAPONSPEED)

For example, if you have a weapon with speed 2.0 you can put that like this:

(5)/60*(2) = 0.16

This means you have a 16% chance to procc KM on hit (not crit anymore) when using a 2.0 weapon. So this means that you can procc something like 10 or more KM in a minute, or just 4 or less... and this is what PPM means. Not just 5 proccs in a minute - it means there is a certain percentage KM can procc on a hit.

Using slower weapons, the chance to procc KM on hit will increase. Also PPM is not related to Haste, so no matter how much Haste you stack, the percentage to procc KM on hit remains the same. So if using 2 slow weapons with a good amount of haste you could come up with enough KM proccs for decent amount of DPS.

Doesn't sound that bad now, DualWield Spellknights use 2 weapons, produce more hits and therefore can produce more proccs than a Twohand DeathKnight.

Furthemore this correction of KM to PPM is also erasing one problem we had - double or even triple KM proccs which could not be used. It happened very often that KM procced so fast that we were not able to use every procc due to the GCD or rune CD.

So for now it seems that Crit will become less important. Strength and Haste will be more important when the Patch goes live. And I think 2 slower weapons will be better... stronger BCB proccs, stronger Necrosis proccs, higher white hits - and don't forget HB without CD!

Now the Nerf sounds a bit softer... ^^

Nerf

And here it comes... unstoppable for everyone of us, Blizzard hits the DK with a Nerf:

"Killing Machine is a "ppm" now or a proc per minute. That means it will proc 5 times a minute with 5 ranks, depending on your weapon speed. We generally use ppm when we do not want players to gravitate towards faster weapons with the sole purpose of improving proc rates.

Killing Machine now is based on autoattack hits, not crits. Overall the random element will decrease, but it won't greatly benefit faster weapons. It will still benefit dual wield, just not as much."

Now Killing Machine will procc from our melee hits, not from crits any more. This sounds kinda good, but the new PPM mechanics is making this whole thing kinda bad for us. Now it also is useless to use 2 fast weapons any longer, because it will be impossible to procc KM more often.

Further changes that will hit the DualWield Spellknight will be:

• Necrosis will give your auto attacks an additional 4/8/12/16/20% shadow damage. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
• Summone Gargoyle now persists up to 30 seconds (Down from 1 minute). Damage from Gargoyles has been reduced from 64-86 to 51-69

KM is nerfed, Gargoyle is nerfed, Necrosis gets buffed... lets see how this will change our DPS. I am now thinking of going with 2 very slow weapons. BCB was corrected for the Offhand, Necrosis DMG will be doubled and KM can't proc more than a few times per minute... So it may be nice to have the slowest weapons possible to reach higher white hits and crits, more dmg with Necrosis and higher BCB proccs. Also when playing in a raid, having some decent buffs, this could turn out very good.

I will test that...

Another one...

I wrote something additional for the german community - discussion can be found here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7536454281&sid=3

"Ich möchte hiermit die Entwickler bei ihrer Arbeit unterstützen, da es ihnen anscheinend schwer zu fallen scheint den Überblick zu behalten bzw. sich intensiv genug mit den diversen Gegebenheiten und Situationen auseinander zu setzen.

Der DualWield Todesritter kann hohe DPS Spitzen erreichen und gehört momentan zu den Varianten die am höchsten Schaden fahren können. Das ist unbestreitbar.
Was aber festgehalten werden sollte ist, dass genau so andere Charakterklassen und Varianten selbige DPS Zahlen erreichen oder in manchen Begebenheiten oder Encountern sogar toppen.

Dies sollte und muss berücksichtigt werden. Der DW DK ist im Schaden nicht alleine an der Spitze.

Ich werde nun versuchen die Kernprobleme aufzugreifen und Lösungsvorschläge zu bringen und würde mich freuen, wenn sich Spieler aus der Community auf vernünftige Art und Weise konstruktiv einbringen.

Die Talentbäume

An sich eine tolle Idee der Entwickler, jeden Baum möglichst gleichwertig zu gestalten und ähnliche Möglichkeiten zu geben. Jeder Baum kann genutzt werden um DPS zu machen, um zu tanken oder im PvP genutzt zu werden. Eine gute Idee, aber auch die größte Schwäche aufgrund der Spielmechanik.

Durch diese Auslegung der Talentbäume können DualWield und Zweihand nie gleichwertig sein. Es gibt zu viele Möglichkeiten um nützliche Talente zu kombinieren und Synergien zu erreichen, die für eine der Varianten unbestreitbar potent sind.

Die zweite Schwierigkeit und somit auch der nächste wichtige Schwachpunkt ist die mangelnde Seperation zwischen Zweihand und DualWield. Es gibt nämlich keine! Wir haben im Blutbaum ein Talent für erhöhten Waffenschaden und im Frostbaum ein Talent für die Unterstützung von DualWield.

Das war es auch schon. Keine Spezialattacken nur für DualWield. Keine Spezialtalente nur für Zweihand oder DualWield. Nichts. Keine wirklichen Möglichkeiten sich abzugrenzen oder intensiv zu spezialisieren.

Dies macht es in meinen Augen unmöglich eine Gleichheit zu schaffen. Es ist keine Trennung vorhanden die es möglich machen würde, eine Balance zu schaffen.

Mangelhafte Talente

Mitarbeiter von Blizzard sind der Meinung dass ein Buff von "Necrosis" sich stark auf DualWield auswirken würde, und zwar zu sehr im positiven Sinne. Die Sache scheint nur die zu sein - besagte Mitarbeiter haben anscheinend nicht den mangelhaften Schaden dieses 5-Punkte-Talents wahrgenommen.

Necrosis liegt als DualWield Todesritter bei 2% bis maximal 3% des Gesamtschadens und damit meist an letzter Stelle. Für satte 5 Punkte hätte ich mir persönlich etwas mehr erwartet.

Wie würde sich also ein Buff dieses Talents auswirken? Wie könnte ein Buff aussehen? Das Naheliegendste wäre wohl eine Erhöhung des Schattenschadens bzw. der Skalierung. Die Frage wäre aber, inwiefern sich dies dann auf Zweihand auswirken würde. Vielleicht zu stark?

Eine andere Idee wäre, sollte Blizzard unbedingt die Streuung nützlicher Talente über alle Talentbäume beibehalten wollen, Necrosis zu einem reinen DualWield-Talent zu machen.

Blutverkrustete-Klinge wird momentan nur auf Basis der Waffenhand berechnet, auch wenn es von der Offhand geprocct wird. Hier ist eine Änderung gerechtfertigt da aufgrund einer schnellen Offhand öfters Proccs zu Stande kommen können, die aber stärker sind aufgrund der Mainhandwaffenberechnung. Hier ist eine Korrektur angebracht, kostet den DualWield Todesritter aber sicherlich DPS da sich BCB meist unter den Top 6 Schadensarten befindet mit 5% bis 8% verursachtem Schaden je nach Procchäufigkeit. Ein interessanter Fakt!

Ein weiterer Streitpunkt ist der Gargoyle. In den Augen von Blizzard zu stark, ist er in meingen Augen nur beschränkt nützlich und schwer einsetzbar. Die Bossencounter werden immer schwerer und Effektlastiger. Der Gargoyle überlebt selten seine ganze Minute, je nach Bosskampf. Er wird regelrecht vom Himmel geblasen. Im Gegensatz zur zusätzlichen Runenwaffe eines Blutritters, diese ist nicht anzukratzen und kann in Ruhe durchgehend volle DPS fahren. Eine Ungerechtigkeit? Kann sein und sollte angepasst werden.

Ein Nerf der DPS des Gargoyles ist dann plausibel und fair, wenn er unverwundbar wird oder mindestens genau so von dem neuen Effekt des Talents "Nacht der Toten" betroffen werden darf.

Der wohl größte Punkt ist nun Tötungsmaschine. Dieses Talent kann durch 2 schnelle Waffen und einem im Raid hohen Critwert nahezu alle paar Sekunden auftreten und steigert somit enorm die DPS. Dieses Talent ist eines der Kerntalente eines DualWield Todesritters und muss deshalb mit Vorsicht behandelt werden!!

Eine PPM Begrenzung ist in meinen Augen OK solange sie im Rahmen bleibt. Hierzu müsste eine Aufstellung stattfinden, wie hoch momentan die Procchäufigkeit in der Minute sein kann und wie sehr eine Beschneidung derer Einfluss auf den Schaden hätte. Hierbei müssen auch die Geschwindigkeiten und Procchäufigkeiten bei Zweihandwaffen in Betracht gezogen werden, da es eben, wie leider schon erwähnt, keine Seperation zu DualWield gibt.

Es benötigt auf jeden Fall Feingefühl!!

Lösungsvorschläge

Kurzum zusammengefasst:

- Überarbeitung von Necrosis da mangelhafter Schaden für 5 Punkte.
- Korrektur von BCB
- Überarbeitung des Gargoyles
- Überarbeitung von Tötungsmaschine als Kerntalent

[u][b]Ideen für DualWield[/b][/u]

Die bereits angesprochene, mangelhafte Seperation zwischen Zweihand und DualWield sollte in meinen Augen mit neuen Talenten / Fähigkeiten gelöst werden.

Es könnte spezielle Fähigkeiten geben die nur für DualWield gelten. Da der Todesritter nun bereits genug Skills hat die auf Waffenschaden basieren, sind nicht zwingend spezielle Zweihandfähigkeiten notwendig. In meinen Augen wäre es aber wichtig, bei diversen Nerfs von Kerntalenten für DualWield, weitere Optionen bzw. Ergänzungen und Möglichkeiten zu bieten um sich zu spezialisieren bzw. zu diversifizieren.

Dies könnte so aussehen, dass es eine neue Meleefähigkeit gibt die nur mit zwei Einhandwaffen einzusetzen ist. Ein Schlag mit beiden Waffen der einen Debuff auf den Mob zaubert. Ähnlich dem Sturmschlag des Schamanen.

Weiters könnte es eine Attacke geben die nur die Offhand benutzt, hier könnte wieder der Schamane als Beispiel dienen. Diese Attacke macht dann einen zusätzlichen Bonuseffekt der von der Runenverzauberung abhängig ist.

Es könnte aber auch eine Art "Klingenhagel" geben der für ein paar Sekunden den Todesritter in unheilige Raserei versetzt und ihn für kurze Zeit rasant schnell zuschlagen lässt, wobei je nach Seuche auf dem Ziel Bonusschaden verursacht wird.

Auch könnten Fähigkeiten eingeführt werden die nur eine der möglichen Seuchen konsumieren und dafür einen Bonuseffekt auslösen. Eine Art Schlag der beide Waffen einbezieht und dafür die Blutseuche aufsaugt um sie in einer neuerlichen Explosion gegen den Mob zu wenden.

Als letzten Einfall wäre für mich die naheliegendste Lösung, jede der Meleefertigkeiten als DualWield Todesritter mit beiden Waffen auszuführen bzw. für die Berechnung des Schadens beide Waffen einzuberechnen. Nutze ich den Blutschlag, so wird nicht der Schaden der Mainhandwaffe als Basis genommen sondern die Summe beider Waffen als Basis.

Soweit zu meinen Ideen. Ich freue mich nun auf eine hoffentlich ausgedehnten Diskussion und weitere Vorschläge, Meinungen und Ideen von eurer Seite - und ich hoffe dass dies hier nicht alles umsonst geschrieben wird!!"

Nerfing DualWield...

...is the wrong way. As always, Blizzard seems to just take the easiest path to reach their goal => absurd nerfing. You don't look at the whole picture. You just see that some players are able to do tremendous DPS. But that is only a small part of the community imho.

Players visiting my blog ask me very often how to reach 3k or even 4k DPS and many are wondering and asking me how to reach over 5k dps? How this could ever be possible using DW. And this is enough proof for me to see that not many players are able to make the DK look OP.

But it seems that the developers are not noticing that. They just see "ololol big numbers n33d nerf" and that is all.

Furthermore, we are not alone. Good 2hand DKs can do some brutal DPS too. Hunters can do. Even Retris, Furywarriors or Enhancers can do some immense amount of DPS. If the player is able to do so and has the knowledge, it is not a big problem. If a raid only consists of 2 very good players who pull off some insane DPS, what does that mean for the rest?

And that is being overlooked by the developers too.

And honestly... I don't think Blizzard does understand how DW works. Seriously, you guys programmed the DK, but oh well... You know that basically a DK is dependant of weapon damage? And that this is not very effective for DualWielding? So what will a DW DK do?

Yes, he will concentrate on spells, instants, no skills with weapondmg. That is simple logic.
So if you nerf the mainspells for the only way for a DW to do damage, you nerf the whole DW DK and make it useless, not even worth a choice.

Is that the path to go? No it is not!

My suggestion is to seperate the 2 choices some more, make the talent trees a bit different... put some DW talents in there, but deep enough to make it hard to decide which one to take, making it impossible to do a strong dualspecc that gets everything you need for ultimate DW DPS.

Change the mechanics, let DW use both weapons when striking with a melee ability. Using that, a nerf for KM or BCB could look ok.
And thinking about that, there is no real seperation at the moment. No special ability just for DW. No special ability just for twohand. Why not?

Why not implement one or two new abilities that use both weapons when striking, like we can see it at Enhancement Shamans. And those abilities could be dependant of what Rune-enchantement you have on your weapon...

Just some ideas...

And Necrosis surely needs some improvement... even with DW it is useless, doing about 2% to 3% of the overall dmg for 5 points. I am pretty sure that the devs didn't even know about that...

Sorry for being emotional guys - but it is hell to be that helpless when reading what Blizzard is thinking about DualWield DKs - and you cannot do anything about it.

New Design

Well... I am sure you kinda noticed that already.
Hope you like it - new design especially for my DualWield Spellknight!

Naxx Patchwork

Yesterday we did Naxx normal mode and I recorded the Patchwork fight with my recount... was a very clean and fast encounter, see for details:


- Melee
- Howling Blast (with about 61% crit)
- Icy Touch (with about 64% crit)
- BCB (big surprise - had good proccs!!)
- Frost Fever
- Blood Plague
- DeathCoil
- Necrosis



I really was surprised by BCB, I hade many proccs and it did some nice damage for 3 points. I wish Necrosis would be that viable for the 5 points... HB and IT were both above 60% crit. And finally Patchi dropped the fast 1.6 sword for my mainhand, now I have two fast weapons for further testing.

There can be more DPS, I was just missing some more raid buffs and stuff... lets wait for the next time in heroic mode :-)

Raids, raids, raids...

The 1st day in this new year and I started ahead, finishing Archavon and Sartharion in Heroic 25. Was really fun, Archavon really is the free-loot Bossmob in this game for now.

Sartharion with 25 players is also not really exciting, going down very fast. I was the only one who reached over 4000 dps in this encounter. Was much fun, but no drops for me :(

Recount for Sartharion Encounter:


- Melee
- Howling Blast
- Icy Touch
- Frost Fever
- Death & Decay
- Blood Plague
- Blood-Caked Blade
- Deathcoil



And on the following screenshot you can see how my stats look when I am near fully raidbuffed:

Happy new year!!

I wish everyone a happy new year, hopefully all your dreams and wishes will come true!!