Warlords of Draenor Death Knight Changes

By Wowhead Updated: 2016/07/17

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Last update: October 23(Note: This guide is intended to be an overview of changes between Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. Due to its popularity, we have included Patch Note updates for 6.1, but its main purpose is to compare the two expansions.) Highlights

For pruned Death Knight abilities, the reasons focused on removing abilities that were redundant, cooldown reduction, or abilities that were not used often.

As diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them, and having diseases act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities became extraneous and cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities, those multipliers have been removed, and consolidated their benefits into the corresponding base spell.

Merging Blood Boil into Pestilence effectively turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability, so it was replaced with a new talent, Plaguebearer.

Rune Strike was removed for Blood and the cost of Death Coil is adjusted so it can be used in place of Rune Strike.

In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights, the power of their passive Unholy Might ability was reduced, and a new passive ability was added to make Multistrike more effective.

Several changes were made to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat, such as making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power and be affected by the new Resolve passive.

The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced.

Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places, so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier.

Conversion was changed to cost different amounts by specialization, instead of reducing Runic Power generation differently by specialization.

For Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats in WoD, Riposte gives defensive value to Critical Strikes, and Scent of Blood gives defensive value to Multistrike

Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.

Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 20%.

Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).

Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.

Patch 6.1 Updates

Blizzard

Talents

Breath of Sindragosa no longer has an initial Runic Power cost, but only applies the Mark of Sindragosa for Blood Death Knights.
Death Siphon now heals the Death Knight for 400% of damage dealt (up from 335%).
Defile now only reduces damage taken for Blood Death Knights.
damage has been increased by 20% and now only grants Runic Power to Blood Death Knights.

Talents

Defile should no longer be incorrectly redirected by (Shaman).

Glyphs

now generates 2 Runic Power every second for 5 seconds when struck by a movement-impairing effect (down from 3 Runic Power).

Armor Sets

PvP 4-piece set bonus for Blood Death Knights (Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Blood 4P Bonus) now only applies Anti-Magic Shell to 1 additional ally within 15 yards (down from 2 allies).

New Spell EffectsDefileBreath of Sindragosa3D Armor ModelsWarlords of Draenor Transmog Guide

Set Bonuses

Item - Death Knight T17 Frost 2P Bonus: Activating Pillar of Frost refreshes all of your Runes as Death Runes and generates 30 Runic Power.

Item - Death Knight T17 Frost 4P Bonus: While Pillar of Frost is active, your special attacks trap a soul in your rune weapon, increasing Frost damage dealt by 30%. When Pillar of Frost fades, your rune weapon discharges the souls at your current target, dealing 60% damage per soul.

Item - Death Knight T17 Blood 2P Bonus: Each stack of Scent of Blood consumed reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Blood by 5 sec.

Item - Death Knight T17 Blood 4P Bonus: While Vampiric Blood is active, your Blood Shield cannot be reduced below 3% of your maximum health.

Item - Death Knight T17 Unholy 2P Bonus: When Soul Reaper deals its bonus damage to a target, you gain 5 stacks of Shadow Infusion.

Item - Death Knight T17 Unholy 4P Bonus: When you activate Dark Transformation, 1 of your runes are automatically refreshed as Death Runes.

Item - Death Knight WoD PvP 2P Bonus: Using Death Grip increases the damage of your next special attack by 25%.

Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Frost 4P Bonus: When you have Freezing Fog active, your next Howling Blast will increase Frost damage taken on all targets by 10% for 8 sec.

Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Unholy 4P Bonus: When you activate Dark Transformation, your Shadow damage dealt is increased by 20% for 15 sec.

Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Blood 4P Bonus: Anti-Magic Shell also applies to the 2 nearest allies.

TalentsClick here

Breath of Sindragosa: Continuously deals (100% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage every 1 sec to enemies in a cone in front of you within 12 yards, and affects them with Mark of Sindragosa for 6 sec. Deals reduced damage to secondary targets. You will continue breathing until canceled or Runic Power is exhausted. Mark of Sindragosa causes you to be healed for 5%10% of spell damage dealt by afflicted enemies.

Defile: Defiles the ground targeted by the Death Knight. Every 1 sec, if there are any enemies standing in the Defile, it deals (27.5% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to them, and grows in radius and damage by 2.5%. Enemies standing in your Defile deal 10% less damage to you. Replaces Death and Decay.

: A powerful disease that deals (2.25% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage per stack every 2 sec for 30 sec. Each time it deals damage, it gains 1 stack, and infects another nearby enemy within 8 yards if possible. You gain 2 Runic Power whenever a target infected with Necrotic Plague attempts to attack you.Replaces Blood Plague and Frost Fever, and is applied by any ability which applied either. This effect cannot be refreshed; it gains 1 stack instead.

: Your Death Coil and Frost Strike abilities also infect your target, adding 4 sec to the existing duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague, and adding an additional stack to existing Necrotic Plague.

Anti-Magic Zone: Places an Anti-Magic Zone for 3 sec that reduces spell damage taken by party or raid members by 40%20%.

: Death Coil, Frost Strike, and Rune Strike generate 2 Blood Charges, up to a maximum of 12 charges. BloodEvery 15 Runic Power you spend will generate a Blood Charge. Max 12 charges.Blood Tap consumes 5 Blood Charges to activate a random fully-depleted rune as a Death Rune.

Conversion: Continuously converts Runic Power to health, restoring 3%2% of maximum health per 1 sec. This effect lasts until canceled, or Runic Power is exhausted. Takes 20 Runic Power, up from 10, per tick.

Death Pact: Drain vitality from an undead minion, healingHeals the Death Knight for 50% of his maximum health and causing the minion to suffer damageof max health, and absorbs equal to 50%25% of maximum health for 15 sec.

Death Siphon: Deals 194 to 2250 (+ 60.2064% of Attack power) Shadowfrost damage to an enemy, healing the Death Knight for 150%335% of damage dealt.

Desecrated Ground: Corrupts the ground in a 8 yard radius beneath the Death Knight for 10 sec. While standing in this corruption, the Death Knight is immune to roots, snares, and effects that cause loss of control. This ability instantly removes such effects when activated.

Lichborne: Draw upon unholy energy to become undead for 10 sec. While undead, you areincrease your Leech by 10%, and make you immune to Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects for 10 sec. and Death Coil will heal you.

Runic Corruption: Hitting with Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike has a 45% chanceWhen you spend Runic Power, you have a 1.50% chance per Runic Power spent to increase your rune regeneration rate by 100% for 3 sec.

Runic Empowerment: Hitting with Death Coil, Frost Strike, or Rune Strike has a 45% chanceWhen you spend Runic Power, you have a 1.50% chance per Runic Power spent to activate a random fully-depleted rune.

Unholy Blight: Surrounds the Death Knight with a vile swarm of unholy insects for 10 sec, stinging all enemies within 10 yards every 1 sec, infecting them with Blood Plague and Frost Fever.

Roiling Blood: Your Blood Boil ability now also triggers Pestilence if it strikes a diseased target.

GlyphsClick here

: Increases the total damage absorbed by Anti-Magic Shell by 100%, but Anti-Magic Shell no longer generates Runic Power.

: The Runes you spend on Chains of Ice will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as any type of rune.

: You gain an additional 10 Runic Power when you use Chains of Ice.

: Your Empower Rune Weapon also heals you for 30% of your maximum health.

: 50% of all healing absorbed by Necrotic Strike heals you.

: Your Raise Ally ability no longer costs any Runic Power.

: Reduces the cooldown of Rune Tap by 10 sec but Rune Tap reduces damage taken by 20% less.

: Whenever you are struck by a movement-impairing effect, you will generate 3 Runic Power every 1 sec for 5 sec.

: Your Outbreak spell no longer has a cooldown, but now costs 30 Runic Power.

: Death Coil's damage formula has changed.

Glyph of the Geist: Now Unholy Only.

Glyph of the Skeleton: Now Unholy only.

: Increases the bonus healing received while your Vampiric Blood is active by an additional 15%10%, but your Vampiric Blood no longer grants you health.

Anti-Magic Shell: , ,

Chains of Ice: , , .

SpecializationsClick here

: You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources and your autoattack multistrikes have a chance with a two-handed weapon to generate 15 Runic Power.

: Dark energy eminates from the Death Knight, granting all nearby party and raid members 141 Mastery.

: Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 sec.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Anti-magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, Dancing Runeblade, Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield, and Outbreak abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes.

Riposte: You gain Parry equal to 100% of your Critical Strike from gear.

: Whenever you hit with Death Strike, the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.Additionally, your auto attack multistrikes have a chance to generate 15 Runic Power.

: You gain 5% more of the Haste stat from all sources.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Army of the Dead, Empower Runeblade, Anti-magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, Pillar of Frost, and Outbreak abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes.

: You gain 5% more of the Multistrike stat from all sources. Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, Plague Strike, Soul Reaper, and Pestilence multistrikes deal an additional (12% of Attack power) Shadow damage.

: Increases the cooldown recovery rate by 0% on your Army of the Dead, Anti-magic Shell, Icebound Fortitude, Unholy Frenzy, Summon Gargoyle, and Outbreak abilities. Affected spells are not yet final and reflect 5.4 spells instead of 6.0 changes.

Readiness has been removed.

Army of the Dead: Summons a legion of Ghouls over 4 sec who will fight for the Death Knight for 40 sec, swarming the area, taunting and fighting anything they can. While summoning Ghouls, the Death Knight takes less damage equal to his Dodge plus Parry chance.

Veteran of the Third War: You assume the presence of Blood, increasing Stamina by 25%20%, and base armor by 55%30%, and reducing damage taken by 10%. Threat generation is significantly increased.Activating a new Presence will cancel this one and consume any stored Runic Power.

: Whenever you hit with Death Strike, the Frost and Unholy Runes will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.Additionally, increases the damage of your Death Strike by 40%.your auto attack multistrikes have a chance to generate 15 Runic Power.

Dark Command: Now Blood Only.

Crimson Scourge: Increases the damage dealt by your Blood Boil by 10%, Your successful melee attacks on targets infected with your Blood Plague have a 10% chance to make your next PestilenceBlood Boil or Death and Decay cost no runes.

: Increases your rune regeneration by 20% andBlood Presence now increases all damage dealt by 15%, and reduces the chance that you will be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%.

Mastery: Blood Shield: Each time you heal yourself with Death Strike while in Blood Presence, you gain 50%16% of the amount healed as a Physical damage absorption shield.Each time you heal yourself with Death Strike while in Blood Presence, you gain 30% of the amount healed as a Physical damage absorption shield. Also increases your attack power by 8%.

Riposte: When you dodge or parry any attack, you gain 75% of your Parry and Dodge as additional Critical Strike for 20 sec.You gain Parry equal to 100% of your Critical Strike from gear.

: ConvertsConsumes 1 Blood Rune to into 10% of your maximum health. reduce all damage taken by 40% for 3 sec. Reduced from a 2.5s CD to a 1s CD.

: Your successful main-hand autoattacks, dodges and parries have a chance to Your Pestilence and Soul Reaper increase the healing and minimum healing done by your next Death Strike within 20 sec by 20%, and to generate 10 Runic Power. This effect stacks up to 5 times. Additionally, your Pestilence refreshes your diseases on targets it damages.

: Strikes an enemy for 130%65% weapon damage and afflicts the target with Soul Reaper , and increases the healing from your next Death Strike by 20%. After 5 sec, if the target is below 35% health, this effect will deal 1409 to 1637 additional Shadow0 (+ 417.6333.7% of Attack power) additional Shadowfrost damage. If the enemy dies before this effect triggers, the Death Knight gains 50% haste for 5 sec.

: Increases your total Stamina by 9%, increases Stamina, multistrike chance, and haste by 10%.haste and multistrike chance by 10%. Increases your chance to dodge by 2%, and reduces your chance to be parried by 3%. Increases the damage of Death Strike by 100%. While in combat, you generate 1 Runic Power per second.

: Damage taking you below 30% health will instantly grant you an immediate, free Rune Tap. reduce all damage taken by 25% for 8 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once every 45 sec.

Vampiric Blood: Increases maximum health by 15% and increases healing recieved by 25%15% for 10 sec.

Frost Strike: Now 40 Runic Power up from 30 Instantly strike the enemy, causing 115%X weapon damage as Frost damage.

Howling Blast: Howling Blast's damage formula has changed.

: Your melee attack speed is increased by 45%20%.

Obliterate: A brutal instant attack that deals 250% weapon damage. Total damage is increased by 12.5% for each of your diseases on the target.215% weapon damage and has a 45% chance to cause your next Howling Blast or Icy Touch to consume no runes. Additional 8% increase applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Might of the Frozen Wastes: Wielding a two-handed weapon increases Obliterate damage by 50%, and all melee attacks by 30%35%. Dual-wielding increases Frost Strike damage by 35%50% and causes your weapon damage strikes to also strike with your off-hand.

: Strikes an enemy for 130%115% weapon damage and afflicts the target with Soul Reaper. After 5 sec, if the target is below 35% health, this effect will deal 1409 to 1637 additional Shadow0 (+ 417.6333.7% of Attack power) additional Shadowfrost damage. If the enemy dies before this effect triggers, the Death Knight gains 50% haste for 5 sec.

Pillar of Frost: The power of Frost increases the Death Knight's Strength by 20%15%, and grants immunity to external movement effects such as knockbacks. Lasts 20 sec.

Dual Wield: is now Frost only.

: When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, and Frost Strikes also deal damage with your off-hand weapon, and your Frost Strike damage is increased by 35%50%.

: Increases the haste of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%, and their Versatility by 3%.

Killing Machine: Your autoattacks have a chance to increase the critical strike chance ofmake your next Obliterate or Frost Strike by 100000%.automatically critically strike.

: Increases the damage your diseases deal by 60% and causes your Plague Strike to also apply Frost Fever, and causes your Blood Plague to also apply the Physical Vulnerability effect. Physical Vulnerability Weakens the constitution of an enemy target, increasing their physical damage taken by 4% for 30 sec.

Festering Strike: An instant attack that deals 200% weapon damage plus 14225% weapon damage and increases the duration of your Blood Plague, Frost Fever, and Chains of Ice effects on the target by up to 6 sec. Additional 5% decrease applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

: Whenever you hit with Blood Strike Pestilence, Festering Strike, or Icy Touch, the Runes spent will become Death Runes when they activate. Death Runes count as a Blood, Frost or Unholy Rune.

Scourge Strike: An unholy strike that deals 135%78% of weapon damage as Physical damage, plus 15. In addition, for each of your diseases on your target, you deal an additional 25% of the Physical damage doneand 42% of weapon damage as Shadow damage. Additional 5% decrease applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Sudden Doom: Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 20%. Unholy Presence grants your main-hand autoattacks a chance to make your next Death Coil cost no Runic Power.

: Strikes an enemy for 85% Physical damage and afflicts the target with Soul Reaper. After 5 sec, if the target is below 35% health, this effect will deal (333.7% of Attack power) additional Shadowfrost damage. If the enemy dies before this effect triggers, the Death Knight gains 50% haste for 5 sec.

Raise Dead: Now has a 1 min cooldown, down from 2. Also Unholy only. You can have a maximum of one ghoul at a time. Lasts 1 min.

Summon Gargoyle: A Gargoyle flies into the area and bombards the target with Plague damage modified by the Death Knight's attack power. Persists for 30 sec.

: Increases the melee and ranged attack speedhaste of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%5%. Unholy Aura now also provides 3% Versatility.

Unholy Might: Dark power courses through your limbs, increasing your Strength by 35%10%.

Blood Parasites, Blood: Your melee attacks have a 10% chance to spawn a Bloodworm. The Bloodworm attacks your enemies, gorging itself with blood until it bursts to heal nearby allies. Lasts up to 20 sec.

Brittle Bones, Frost: Your Frost Fever also applies the Physical Vulnerability effect.

Dark Command, Blood: Now a class ability, not just Blood.

Heart Strike, Blood: Instantly strike the target and up to two additional nearby enemies, causing 105% weapon damage plus 545 on the primary target, with each additional enemy struck taking 50% less damage than the previous target. Damage dealt to each target is increased by an additional 15% for each of your diseases present.

Master of Ghouls, Unholy: The Ghoul summoned by your Raise Dead spell is considered a pet under your control. Unlike normal Death Knight Ghouls, your pet does not have a limited duration. Also reduces the cooldown of Raise Dead by 60 sec.

Rune Strike, Blood: Strike the target for 200% weapon damage. This attack cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried.

Scarlet Fever, Blood: This is removed and its effects are merged into Scent of Blood.

Unholy Frenzy: Incites a friendly party or raid member into a killing frenzy for 30 sec, increasing the target's melee and ranged haste by 20%, but causing them to lose health equal to 2% of their maximum health every 3 sec.

Vengeance: Each time you take damage, you gain 1.5% of the unmitigated damage taken as attack power for 20 sec.

MoP Abilities now Specializations

Dark Command: Now Blood only.

Class AbilitiesClick here

Dark Succor: Now an ability instead of a glyph.

Anti-Magic Shell: Surrounds the Death Knight in an Anti-Magic Shell, absorbing 75% of all magical damage (up to a maximum of 50% of the Death Knight's health) and preventing application of harmful magical effects. Damage absorbed generates Runic Power. Lasts 5 sec.

Control Undead: Dominates the target undead creature, forcing it to do your bidding. While controlled, the time between the undead minion's attacks is increased by 30% and its casting speed is slowed by 20%undead minion's haste is reduced by 30%. Lasts up to 5 min.

Death and Decay: Corrupts the ground targeted by the Death Knight, causing (10.4%10% of Attack power) * 10 Shadow damage over 10 sec to targets within the area.

Death Coil: Death Coil's damage formula has changed. Also now costs 40 Runic Power up from 30. Additional 5% decrease applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Icebound Fortitude: The Death Knight freezes his blood to become immune to Stun effects and reduce all damage taken by 20% for 128 sec.

Death Strike: Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 185% weapon damage plus 13114% weapon damage to an enemy and heals you for 20% of the damage you have sustained from non-player sources during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 7% of your maximum healthX. This attack cannot be parried. Additional 20% increase applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Frost Fever: A disease that deals Frost damage every 3 sec for 30 sec.

Horn of Winter: The Death Knight blows the Horn of Winter, generates 10 Runic Power and increasing attack power of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 10%. Lasts 5 min.1 hour. This is now Instant cast instead of a 20 sec cooldown.

: Icy Touch's damage formula has changed, mouseover the tooltip to compare old and new versions.

Blood Boil: Deals 1 (+ 48.2%60% of Attack power) Shadow damage to the target and all enemies within 10 yards, and spreads your existing diseases from your target to all other enemies within 10 yards.hit. Additional 20% increase applied via hotfix - not in tooltip

Rune of the Fallen Crusader: Affixes your rune weapon with a rune that has a chance to heal you for 3% and increase total Strength by 15%20% for 15 sec. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.

Strangulate: Shadowy tendrils constrict an enemy's throat, silencing them for 5 sec.Non-player victim spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec.

: A vicious strike that deals 65%50% weapon damage and infects the target with Blood Plague. Blood Plague A disease that deals Shadow damage every 3 sec for 30 sec.

Blood Boil: Boils the blood of all enemies within 10 yards, dealing 3473 to 4244 (+ 11% of Attack power) Shadow damage. Deals 50% additional damage to targets infected with Blood Plague or Frost Fever. Effects merged with Pestilence.

Blood Strike: Instantly strike the enemy, causing 40% weapon damage plus 942. Damage is increased by 12.5% for each of your diseases on the target.

Necrotic Strike: A vicious strike that deals 100% weapon damage, absorbs the next (100 / 100 * Attack power) healing received by the target, and clouds the target's mind, slowing their casting speed by 50% (10% on player targets). Lasts 10 sec.

Rune of Swordbreaking: Affixes your one-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Parry chance by 2% and reduces the duration of Disarm effects by 50%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.

Rune of Swordshattering: Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Parry chance by 4% and reduces the duration of Disarm effects by 50%. Modifying your rune weapon requires a Rune Forge in Ebon Hold.

Draenor Perks

: Reduces the recharge time on Rune Tap by 10 sec.

: Reduces the cooldown on Death Grip by 5 sec.

: Bone Shield has 2 additional charges.

: Your Death Coil also grants you Shadow of Death, increasing your maximum health by 3%5% for 30 sec. When refreshed, the remaining portion is added to the new effect.

: The target of your Death Grip will now automatically have Chains of Ice applied to them.

: Rune of Cinderglacier has 3 additional charges when it triggers. Rune of Razorice deals an additional 12% weapon damage when it triggers. Rune of the Fallen Crusader increases Strength by an additional 5%.

: Pillar of Frost provides an additional 5% Strength and no longer costs any runes.

: Obliterate also increases the damage done by Howling Blast and Icy Touch by 20% when it causes them to cost no runes.

: Dark Transformation no longer costs any runes.

: Rune of the Fallen Crusader heals for an additional 3%.

: Increases the duration of Summon Gargoyle by 10 sec.

: Your Soul Reaper ability now deals additional Shadow damage to targets below 45% instead of below 35%.

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Latest Patch Notes

Death Knight

A number of changes were made for Death Knights. Several cooldowns were made spec-specific. Frost and Unholy's rotations remain unchanged for the most part. Blood received revisions to their Active Mitigation design to bring them up to par with changes to other Tanking specializations. Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced.

Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for a discussion of why we're pruning class abilities. For Death Knights, this focused on removing abilities that were redundant, cooldown reduction, or abilities that were not used often.

Blood Parasites has been removed.
Blood Strike has been removed.
Dark Command is now only available to Blood Death Knights.
Dual Wield is now only available to Frost Death Knights.
Frost Strike replaces Death Coil for Frost Death Knights.
Obliterate replaces Blood Strike for Frost Death Knights.
Necrotic Strike has been removed.
Raise Dead is now only available to Unholy Death Knights.
Rune of Cinderglacier has been removed.
Rune of the Nerubian Carapace has been removed.
Unholy Frenzy has been removed.

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

The biggest change here is the merger of Blood Boil into Pestilence. This change effectively turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability; which we replaced with a new talent, . For Blood specialization, we removed Rune Strike and are adjusting the cost of Death Coil so that it can be used in Rune Strike's place.

Another change was to polish up the effect of diseases on the damage of other abilities. Diseases now do enough damage on their own to warrant using them. Having diseases act as multipliers on the damage of other abilities became extraneous and cluttered up the tooltips of those abilities. Those multipliers have been removed, and consolidated their benefits into the corresponding base spell. These changes also results in a slight reduction to ramp-up time.

Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour.
Blood Boil has been removed and its effects have been merged into Pestilence.

Pestilence now deals damage to all enemies within 10 yards, and spreads any diseases on targets hit to the other targets hit.

Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage.
Master of Ghouls has been removed and its effects have been merged into the baseline Raise Dead ability for Unholy Death Knights.
Threat of Thassarian has been removed and its effects have been merged into Might of the Frozen Wastes.
Rune Strike has been removed. Blood Death Knights should now use Death Coil in its place.
Dancing Rune Weapon now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
Death Coil now costs 30 Runic Power (down from 40 Runic Power) and has a 40 yard range for both hostiles and allies.

Sudden Doom no longer reduces the cost of Death Coil.

Icebound Fortitude now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
Roiling Blood has been removed and replaced with , a new Level-56 talent for Death Knights.

causes Death Coil and Frost Strike to extend the duration of Frost Fever and Blood Plague, or add a stack of .

Pestilence now deals 50% more damage, but no longer deals additional damage for diseases being present on the target.
Pillar of Frost now increases Strength by 15% (down from 20%).
Obliterate now deals 25% more damage on both main and off-hand weapons, but no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target.

Rune of the Fallen Crusader now increases Strength by 20% (up from 15%).
Scourge Strike no longer deals additional damage for each disease present on the target. The ability now deals 100% Physical weapon damage, and 50% Shadow weapon damage. These two effects can independently critically hit.

Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by 15% (down from 25%).

Glyph of Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by an additional 10% (down from 15%).

Frost Changes

In Mists of Pandaria, Frost Death Knights suffered from rotations that were designed to allow flexibility in ability usage, so that you could pool some resources in order to make decisions about which ones you spent and in which order. Dual Wield vs Two-Handed had different rotational priorities, with different strengths and weaknesses. However, tuning ended up such that you reached a point where you just had to spend all of your resources as fast as possible to avoid wasting any, and all of that depth went out the window. For Warlords, we've adjusted the tuning of several abilities and passives, to ensure that that doesn't happen again, and the rotational decisions and skill are maintained.

The goal is that Two-Handed Frost Death Knights favor their physical damage, slicing through their enemies with heavy Obliterates, whereas Dual-Wielders favor blasting their foes with frost damage, but both overlap considerably to maintain a cohesive specialization.

Frost Strike's damage has been increased by 100%, but its Runic Power cost has been increased by 5 (up to 25 Runic Power in , and 40 Runic Power in other Presences).
now increases attack speed by 20% (down from 45%), and haste by 5% (up from 0%).
Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases the damage of Obliterate by 50% (up from 40%) and melee damage by 35% (up from 30%) while wielding a two-handed weapon, and increases the damage of Frost Strike by 50% (up from 35%) while dual-wielding.
Razorice now deals 4% additional weapon damage (up from 2%), and increases Frost damage by 2% per stack (down from 3%).
Obliterate's damage has been increased by 30%.

Unholy Changes

In order to better balance the scaling rates and value of secondary stats for Unholy Death Knights, we reduced the power of their passive Unholy Might ability, and added a new passive ability to make Multistrike more effective.

is a new passive ability for Unholy Death Knights.

causes Multistrikes from Festering Strike, Pestilence, , Scourge Strike, and to also deal a burst of Shadow damage. The amount of burst damage is based on Attack Power, not the damage from the triggering Multistrike.

Unholy Might now increases Strength by 10% (down from 35%).

Blood Changes

Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights' tanking style. However, it went beyond that, and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard. We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat. This includes making Death Strike cause healing based on attack power, but be affected by the new passive (see Tank Vengeance and Resolve above), which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage. Plus, Rune Tap is being significantly improved, to become a strong Active Mitigation button.

Additionally, we removed Dodge and Parry from gear, and expect Blood Death Knights to value Haste and Crit as important secondary stats. In order to achieve that, we made Riposte give defensive value to Critical Strikes, and give defensive value to Multistrike. To solve GCD-capping issues and increase the value of Haste, we also removed the passive rune regeneration increase from . Finally,we tweaked the targeting AI of Dancing Rune Weapon, and fixed it up to properly copy most Talents that you know.

now also causes auto attack Multistrikes to generate 15 Runic Power. The Death Strike damage increase it provided has been moved to .
Blood Presence now increases Stamina by 20% (down from 25%), and armor by 30% (down from 55%).
Bone Shield charges can now be consumed at a rate of once per second (up from once every 2 seconds).
Crimson Scourge now increases the damage of Pestilence by 50% (up from 10%) and now also increases the damage of diseases by 30%.
Dancing Rune Weapon's summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight's target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight's current target.
Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This healing is affected by .
Heart Strike has been removed. Blood Death Knights should use Pestilence in its place.
now increases all damage dealt by 15%, instead of increasing rune regeneration rate.
has been redesigned. It now reduces all damage taken by 40% for 3 seconds. It also now has 2 charges, with a 40-second recharge time.

has been redesigned. It now automatically triggers an immediate, free when you take damage that reduces you below 30% health. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 seconds.
Charred Glyph has been redesigned. It now reduces Rune Tap’s recharge time by 10 seconds, but reduces the damage reduction it provides by 20%.

Scarlet Fever has been removed. Its effects have been merged into .

has been changed. It now causes Pestilence to refresh diseases, and increase the healing of your next Death Strike by 20%, stacking up to 5 times.

now increases your Multistrike chance and haste by 10% (instead of 9% to Stamina), reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%, and increases the damage of Death Strike by 100% and grants 1 Runic Power per second while in combat.

Death Pact

Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only, that presents a problem for Death Pact. We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion, but work a little differently. We left it at 50% heal, which is effectively a 33% buff to it from before (see Retuning Healing Spells and Player Health and Resilience above), and added a healing absorption shield for 50% of the amount healed instead. It should now be a more effective heal for staying alive immediately, but with the downside of needing to heal through the healing absorption shield before being healed any further.

Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a healing absorption shield on the Death Knight for 50% of the amount healed.

Miscellaneous

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced. Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places, so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier. Conversion was changed to cost different amounts by specialization, instead of reducing Runic Power generation differently by specialization. This way, Runic Power beyond what you spend on Conversion is not penalized.

Anti-Magic Shell now restores 2 Runic Power per 1% of max health absorbed.
Desecrated Ground now also makes the Death Knight immune to Roots and Snares.
Conversion no longer has an initial tick, and now costs 30 Runic Power/second for Blood, 10 Runic Power/sec for Frost, and 20 Runic Power/second for Unholy.
Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places.
Level-60 rune regeneration talents can now be triggered by all Runic Power spenders.
now generates one charge for every 15 Runic Power spent.
Runic Empowerment now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent.
Runic Corruption now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent.

Blue Posts

Hey DKs. I've responded to a lot of DK questions on Twitter, but finally am getting time to pop in here to the forums and respond on the forums. Frost in particular has has gotten some significant changes, and frustration from that is totally understandable.

-Why is Critical Strike deprecated by (at last calculation) around 20% for Frost DKs? In an expansion with bonus loot and no more reforging, it would seem that we are much more at the mercy of RNG when it comes to loot pieces.
While I am aware that we have some flexibility in the form of enchants and some consumables, is this deprecation really necessary in the first place?

-Continuing on the theme of stat valuation, Mastery's valuation for 2h Frost has also proven to be pitifully low in our early simulations.

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-Necrotic Plague is currently simming at a DPS loss for multiple DPS specs. Other Level-100 talents also show a very minimal gain. We realise that there is probably room for significant improvement in how we're coding them, but these results also appear to be reflected in actual tests.
Could you please tell us if there is a margin of gain which we should expect (both ST and multi target) with these talents? I'd particularly appreciate if you could comment on Festerblight and Unholy Death Knights.

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-Could you please comment on Unholy AoE and Frost Runes? As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is incredibly frustrating to transition in and out of AoE/Single-target priorities due to Frost Runes doing nothing for Unholy AoE. I realise that you intend for pre-planning to be reward, but the reality of the situation translates very differently in raid situations where we switch priorities frequently. It also pushes us quite strongly towards the Blood Tap talent.

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-Speaking of Blood Tap, there seems to be little to no reason for Unholy DKs to take Runic Empowerment thanks to the way in which it interacts with our Rune setup. Other specs are not much better, as they have to game it to get the most out of it. This talent has proven unpopular for a reason, not the least of which is that macroed Blood Tap can mimic its functionality, but provide even greater flexibility due to it generating Death Runes.

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-Runic Power generation for Blood Death Knights feels quite spiky. With Necrotic Plague for instance, it becomes overwhelming in any sort of AoE tanking situation- making the talent feel quite mandatory. With high levels of Multistrike, we appear to go from 0 to 50 Runic Power in barely a global. Is there no way to standardise the generation so that it doesn't feel quite as "Feast and Famine"-esque?

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Any thoughts on how necrosis is playing for unholy? So far it hasn't had much impact on stat weights, though it is a close second and I will be posting results in the theorycraft thread.

Adjusting the AP scaling provides great progress and it raises multi above anything else by as little or as much as desired.

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Overall, Unholy could really use some feedback on where its damage is supposed to be.

Necrotic Plague appears to do less damage than normal diseases, even for a Festerblight rotation.
Necrosis appears to be doing maybe 1% of Unholy's overall damage. Which feels very low.
Death Coil appears to be doing around 12-15% of overall damage, down from 20-25%.
The ghoul's damage seems about normal at 10%, if maybe a bit low.

Overall, it would just be nice to get some feedback on where Unholy damage is supposed to be. We all believed it was low and yet, it got nothing but nerfs today.

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Breath of Sindragosa makes out play our class the exact opposite we've been playing since day 1. It's weird, and even when pulled off correctly, doesn't give a decent payoff. Not good. I don't see anyone seriously using this talent for any spec.

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I've said this one a few times before, but I would like to see DnD be worth casting for Blood; right now it's less damage over the duration then Blood Boil, meaning it's almost never worth casting except in edge cases, since DnD competes directly with Blood Boil on Death Runes/Crimson Scourge. Would like to see a change to this in the next few builds.

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Lichborne is a sad, sad joke even with Resolve scaling. I legitimately tried to use this talent on a few bosses, and it heals for NOTHING and doesn't last long enough. Should really get buffed in the leech % or something. Right now this talent is only there to break/immune fears.

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Rune Tap plays very well, even outside of bosses with obvious 'Rune Tap here' burst mechanics. However it really should lose the Blood Rune cost; having it cost DPS is a little much, esp on AoE. It would still retain all of the current gameplay; it's main cost is the cooldown. The problem with picking between DPS and Mitigation is that either Blood will be OP on damage when picking DPS, which isn't fair to the other 4 tanks, or Blood will be too weak when it doesn't, which isn't fair to Blood. This also applies to BB vs DS, but that one isn't really easily fixable on aoe, only single target.

To elaborate more: RT works well because it is different from Death Strike AND does not share the same resource. Systems like Shield Block vs Barrier fail because you just pick the best one for the situation and spam it. RT + DS play well because they are both very different in functionality AND can be used in tandem, meaning you pick your moments to use each one independently. So generally speaking, good job on the new RT. Far better then the old RT which was basically DS on steroids, and actually adds something to the spec now.

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General comment on boss damage; feels tuned pretty well. Bosses hit hard enough to make DS timing matter about the same as on live (people way overstate how much you actually time DS on live on anything but the hardest hitting bosses). Would definitely rather see bosses that hit hard then bosses that hit so weak that nothing you do matters anyways. Also bosses hitting hard means that Shadow of Death extra HP actually matters, which is generally a good thing (if max HP doesn't matter because bosses don't hit hard enough, Multistrike loses much of it's defensive benefit outside of rune regen talent returns) But we will have to see post mythic testing; I am sure a lot of this stuff is getting retuned anyways.

@Celestation

- I still don't understand why you guys can't bake the rune regen tier into other options instead of taking up an entire talent row that is completely passive. How about making them glyphs, turning them into perks, baking them into frost strike & death coil. There are just so many other options that don't involve forcing us to choose three completely boring passive talents that could be replaced with more interesting and interactive ones.

When you compare a DK talent tree to another class' like a mage or priest there is just so much more interaction and satisfaction that comes with them. I mean for goodness sake Gorfiend's Grasp still doesn't even have a real animation.

Another oversight I've noticed is that DKs are the only class whos talents don't change based on spec; is there a reason for this? Gorfiend's Grasp could taunt while in blood spec, chillblains could gain a bonus effect while in frost, Purgatory could last 1 second longer in blood etc etc. There is just so much potential not being fulfilled with our class.

Posted by Celestalon
They shouldn't be boring and passive; they should matter, and be a gameplay choice.

I think that this is where there is a disconnect with some parts of the playerbase.

Gameplay choice, I think, is often interpreted by some to mean that there's big differences in numbers depending on the situation. As you've probably seen, DK theorycraft (at least for DPS) currently suggests that the talents sim within a very small margin of one another- leading some to claim that it doesn't matter which talent you choose.

Now personally, I could care less if there's a 0.5% difference between Runic Empowerment and Blood Tap for Unholy- taking one feels FAR better than the other. The same is true (probably to lesser degrees, but still true) of other specs/choices. Is this the ultimate goal with these talents- that they end up coming down to personal preference more than anything else?

Tuning

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The bold is a bit alarming for me as a DW frost DK. Simply because I will be wasting KM on Obliterate and with this most recent patch I have noticed Frost Strike being much more worth pooling resources for. The main problem I see of it is, if it doesn't consume the KM then we can't touch our FS even by accident. Then we end up wasting KM to a degree. I guess it will more so be a trade-off while it's running. The next issue is cost, with the way we are generating RP, we will be lucky to run it for ten seconds. While obviously that will change as we get less downtime over the expansion, I still feel as though the trade-off of making your rotation clunky while it's running for however long you can keep it up will make playing with it very awkward. I feel having a reliable(50-60RP) cost usable every 15-30 seconds could be a better trade off, we will still pool resources for it, however it will be a lot less awkward to use. Would love to hear feedback on this.

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