Legion Death Knight Changes

By Wowhead Updated: 2017/08/27

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The rune system has been overhauled--there are now 6 Runes, 3 recharging maximum at any given time. No more Blood, Frost, Unholy rune types.

Abilities now cost death runes and there is no restriction on the abilities you can cast.

Presences are now removed as well--Blood Presence, Frost Presence, and Unholy Presence.

Blood Death Knights retain core abilities, but emphasize fantasy of Blood and Bone more.
Blood has undergone a significant overhaul in Legion. The most noticeable change, applying to the whole of the Death Knight class, is the removal of unique Rune types. All runes now are the same type, and abilities simply require “generic” runes.

Additionally, our active mitigation has been changed significantly. Bone Shield is now a form of active mitigation, generated through Marrowrend. It functions much how it used to, reducing incoming damage by 20%, with stacks being consumed on damage instances. Death Strike, instead of costing Runes, now costs 45 Runic Power, and uses the old Mists of Pandaria system - the value of the heal is based off the damage taken in the last 5 seconds, with a minimum value of 7% max HP.

Diseases were also changed. Instead of having two distinct diseases, we now simply have Blood Plague. Blood Plague deals damage and heals based on the damage dealt, as well as enabling auto attacks to proc Crimson Scourge.

Blood Boil is now on a 2 charge system, no longer requiring Runes. It also applies Blood Plague to everything it hits.

Heart Strike makes a return. It is a frontal cleave that hits two targets, costing one rune. When standing in Death and Decay, it may hit up to 3 additional targets.

Our cooldowns have been largely pruned. We no longer have Icebound Fortitude, Empower Rune Weapon, or Death Pact, and the cooldown on the remaining cooldowns has been increased by various amounts.

Frost Death Knights in Legion are designed to use 2 1H swords due to the artifact pair Blades of the Fallen Prince.

Killing Machine's passive now only affects Obliterate.

With the removal of raid-wide buffs, Horn of Winter is overhauled. It is now a talent, Horn of Winter, which generates runes and runic power.

Festering Wound is a new and very important mechanic being introduced. When you Festering Strike, you now apply 2-4 Festering Wounds with a maximum of 8 on the target. You pop these by using Scourge Strike, and when you get it, your artifact ability Apocalypse.

Out with the old and in with the new we have a new disease. Applied by Outbreak only, Virulent Plague is a 33 second dot that ticks every 1.5 seconds. It also has a chance to erupt and do damage to everything around the target it exploded on every time it ticks.

WIth the removal of Blood Boil for Frost and Unholy, you have a new way to AoE. When you place Death and Decay and stand in it, you gain a buff that allows your Scourge Strike to hit everything in an 8 yard radius around your target.

Legion brings in a lot of new changes, one of them being the talent trees. With this rework, you no longer have the option to select your rune regeneration talent and get Runic Corruption baseline.

Instead of having to cast 5 Death Coils to be able to use Dark Transformation, it is now a 60 second cooldown with a talent that is able to reduce the cooldown.

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Plaguebearer

Plague Leech

Unholy Blight

Lichborne

Anti-Magic Zone - now PvP Talent

Death's Advance

Chilblains

Blood Tap

Death Siphon

Conversion

Spellbreaker

Desecrated Ground

Necrotic Plague

Death Pact

Asphyxiate - Unholy Only Talent

Soul Reaper - Unholy Only Talent & Changed

Breath of Sindragosa - Frost Only Talent

Runic Corruption now baseline Unholy

Runic Empowerment now baseline Frost

Gorefiend's Grasp now baseline Blood

Remorseless Winter now baseline Frost

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Necrotic Strike - former ability

Dark Simulacrum - former ability

Glyph of Unholy Command - former glyph

Anti-Magic Zone - former talent

AbilitiesNew

Gorefiend's Grasp: Now Blood ability, not Talent. 3 min cooldown, up from 1 min.

Death's Caress: Reach out with necrotic tendrils, dealing (100% of Attack power) Shadow damage and applying Blood Plague to your target.

Heart Strike: Instantly strike the target and 1 other nearby enemy, causing 225% Physical damage, and reducing enemies' movement speed by 50% for 8 sec. - It's back!

Marrowrend: Smash the target, dealing 350% Physical damage and generating 3 charges of Bone Shield.

Wraith Walk: Sidestep into the Shadowlands, breaking Root effects and increasing your movement speed by 70% for 3 sec. During this time all movement-impairing effects are suppressed but any action will cancel the effect.

Former Core Abilities

Blood Boil

Veteran of the Third War

Death and Decay

Existing Blood Abilities with Changes

Blood Strike

Crimson Scourge

Dancing Rune Weapon

Mastery: Blood Shield

Vampiric Blood

Removed

Rune Tap - now Talent

New

Remorseless Winter:
Drain the warmth of life from all nearby enemies, dealing Frost damage over 8 sec and reducing their movement speed by 50%.

Death's Caress: Reach out with necrotic tendrils, dealing (100% of Attack power) Shadow damage and applying Blood Plague to your target..

Former Core Abilities

Chains of Ice

Dark Succor

Empower Rune Weapon

Frost Fever

Icebound Fortitude

Existing Frost Abilities with Changes

Frost Strike

Howling Blast

Killing Machine

Mastery: Frozen Heart

Obliterate

Pillar of Frost

Rime

Removed

Icy Talons - now Talent

New

Death's Advance: Increases movement speed by 15%.

Festering Wound: A pustulent lesion that will burst on death or when damaged by Scourge Strike, dealing (100% of Attack power) Shadow damage and generating 3 Runic Power..

Former Core Abilities

Army of the Dead

Chains of Ice

Dark Succor

Death and Decay

Death Coil

Icebound Fortitude

Outbreak

Existing Unholy Abilities with Changes

Dark Transformation

Festering Strike

Mastery: Dreadblade

Raise Dead

Scourge Strike

Sudden Doom

Summon Gargoyle

New

Wraith Walk: Sidestep in to the Shadowlands, breaking Root effects and increasing your movement speed by 70% for 2 sec. During this time all movement-impairing effects are suppressed but you may not attack.

Corpse Exploder: Former Glyph

Changes

Anti-Magic Shell

Death Grip

Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle

Death Strike

Frost Fever

Mind Freeze

On a Pale Horse

Rune of Razorice

Rune of the Fallen Crusader

Removed

Army of the Dead - now Unholy

Blood Boil - now Blood

Blood Presence - now gone

Chains of Ice - now Frost and Unholy

Dark Simulacrum - now PvP talent

Dark Succor - now Frost and Unholy

Death and Decay - now Blood and Unholy

Death Coil - now Unholy

Empower Rune Weapon - now Frost

Frost Presence - now gone

Horn of Winter - Changed and now Frost Only Talent

Icebound Fortitude - now Frost and Unholy

Icy Touch - now gone

Outbreak - now Unholy

Plague Strike - now gone

Soul Reaper - Changed and now Unholy Only Talent

Unholy Presence - now gone

Artifact Weapons and Traits

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Artifact Lore, Wowhead's Art Interview on Artifacts, and FAQ.

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Necrophile Tome: Corpse Exploder: teaches Corpse Explosion. Sold by Dread Commander Thalanor in Acherus for .

Fantasy and Gameplay BlogLegion Class Preview Series: Death KnightIn undeath, some death knights find a special affinity for the blood and bone of the living. They carve into their enemies, sustaining themselves with deadly sanguine strikes, while using the bloody, shattered remains of the dead to fortify their own defenses. These crimson-soaked knights bend the very rules of mortality to control the frontlines of the battlefield.GameplayCombining martial prowess with supernatural cold, frost death knights leave their enemies chilled to the bone—and broken of the will to fight. Unlike mages who learn to harness frost magic to great effect, these death knights are born of it, rime gripping their decaying hearts. These frozen undead warriors wield dual blades to strike with ferocity and inflict deathly cold upon anyone who would stand against them.
GameplayWhile free from the Lich King’s grasp, some death knights still embody the ever-corrupting nature of the Scourge plague that once threatened to consume Azeroth. No matter their allegiance or cause, they remain defilers of life; and nowhere is their callousness more on display than when threatened. Inflictors of the most aggressive of diseases—and masters of raising unhallowed minions from the ground—these unholy death knights are vicious melee combatants, capable of striking with the force of an undead legion and unleashing pestilence that would bring their foes to ruin.
GameplayBlue TweetsBloodFrostUnholyGeneralBlue Posts

Celestalon

In the latest Legion Alpha build, tanks and healers will notice significant changes to the tuning on many of their defensive abilities. These may appear to be “nerfs” at first glance, but are actually part of a widespread adjustment to improve overall tank (and tank healer) gameplay, that includes reducing the strength/frequency of defensive cooldowns, and adjusting creature tuning to compensate.

Over the course of Warlords of Draenor, tanks have been mostly self-sufficient, providing the vast majority of their own survival, with only minor direct assistance required from healers. Encounter design has unfortunately reinforced this, focusing tank damage into more and more bursty moments in an attempt to challenge tanks. This has made long-cooldown defensive ability usage more and more important, while also further trivializing direct healing requirements.

For Legion, we want to return the overall tank gameplay to a more stable environment. In that, we have laid out some specific goals that we aim to hit:

Tanks will require more direct healing. This will also improve on healer gameplay, as it’s more engaging when there’s a mixture of the types of healing that need to be used on any single encounter.
Active Mitigation abilities for tanks (such as Shield Block or Death Strike) should feel rewarding, allowing an experienced tank to meaningfully reduce damage taken.
Healers should care about the time and mana required to heal tanks, so that taking less damage as a tank is considered valuable.
Tanks and healers’ long-cooldown defensive abilities (such as Barkskin or Shield Wall) should feel like a valuable resource. These abilities should be strong, but not necessarily available for every danger during a specific encounter.
Tanks should have much more survivability than a non-tank. However, they don’t necessarily need to be extremely more sturdy. If the difference in ‘tankiness’ between tanks and non-tanks becomes too much of a gap, we then risk having situations such that if any one add gets loose, it’s likely to instantly kill any poor healer or damage dealer they hit–as the damage that these creatures deal would need to be exponentially higher to offset the sturdiness of the tank. This also brings a risk that tanks would opt to ignore enemy abilities that are designed to be dangerous to non-tanks, just taking those relatively minor blows rather than trying to avoid them as intended.
In raid encounters, tanks should spend more time tanking, and less time waiting for their turn to tank.
Tanks should be able to handle solo content quite effectively. They need to do less damage than dedicated damage dealers, but that difference can be moderate. It doesn’t have to be a massive difference.

Looking at these goals, we’ve made the following changes for tanking in Legion. We hope that these explanations will help you understand the bigger picture, in that these should be viewed as an overall improvement to the style of tank gameplay, rather than nerfs.

In order to ensure that tanks require direct healing from healers, we’re increasing the amount of damage that makes it past a tank’s mitigation. This will include reducing or removing passive defensive abilities, along with the below changes.
We’re toning down how frequently you’re able to use Active Mitigation abilities. This change will generally affect the length of their cooldowns, and not necessarily the strength of the ability. We believe these abilities are important to tank survival; but, when the uptime on these abilities gets too high, skill in knowing when to use them strategically matters less.
EDIT: Passive healing from healers (such as Beacon of Light) will be toned down, and other tank heals adjusted to compensate.
There are many long-cooldown defensive abilities that will be able to be used less frequently, and, in some cases, these abilities may be weaker. Many of these abilities are currently either too numerous or usable too frequently, resulting in a strong cooldown for almost every threatening moment of every encounter.
Encounter design will be adjusted to account for these changes. Overwhelming burst damage will be toned down, in favor of more steady and consistent damage on tanks.
The damage of creatures that are intended to be tanked in group content will be reduced overall, in order to ensure that tanks can still perform their role just as well as before.
Damage output by tanks will be increased, and their scaling with gear will be improved. This is being done so that tanks can stay in-line with damage dealers as a group gears up together.

Please note that many of these changes are preliminary, and we’ll be tweaking our changes based on testing and feedback. We’ll continue making adjustments as the Alpha moves along, until classes are in a more balanced state, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts throughout this process.

For more info on the latest Legion Alpha changes, see our summary thread: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20420212939

A lot of great discussion here, and we share a lot of the concerns (even the cynical ones), and will be doing our best to actually meet the stated goals.

Tanks will indeed have much more health than DPS; apologies if that was unclear. It's just that their total effective health can safely be in the 5-15x of a DPS range, doesn't need to be 50x. 50x is kinda silly. Raid bosses will still 1-shot DPS, and that's fine.

Healers are being adjusted with tank healing in mind.

The comments about tanks spending less time waiting for their turn to tank isn't an indication that they'll be expected to run around more, just that they'll have more engaging encounter gameplay.

We especially look forward to more feedback based on playtesting; thanks for what you've given so far! This is going to be an iterative process, and we'll keep adjusting based on it. It surely isn't perfect yet, but we'll keep reading, responding, and tweaking!

Are encounters going to be tuned to have longer time-to-kill for tanks as well?

I ask because in a world where tanks need to be actively healed, dying so quickly that they must be spammed all of the time (read: less than 3 or 4 seconds for 100-0) just leads to a WotLK situation where one person gets to spam the tank forever and everyone else ignores it and nothing is really any different.

I'd like to note that "use Active Mitigation to avoid X ability" isn't usually engaging gameplay. How about I use AM because it helps me survive a powerful attack, not because I get a debuff if I don't.

In regards to tank healing, I am very much a fan of "Many hits to be killed, many heals to be healed." This adds variety and allows the engaging task of healing prioritization (i.e. what makes healing fun).

Most of the posts on here have pretty much already spelled out the problem which is scaling. Once you start scaling these heals more than you scale the HP pools, you run into near instant top offs. Then this begins the slippery slope of competitive (raids) top offs, and the trivialization of mechanics. Then the mechanics become more bursty to make healing more engaging and the cycles repeat.

More attention needs to be paid to ensuring that the gear scaling doesn't lead to instant topping off, so that encounter design no longer needs to keep ratcheting damage to extremely bursty levels. Exponential gear curves work great for DPS, but terrible for healing and tanking. We are of a symbiotic relationship in this regard.

I echo the sentiments of other tanks in this thread regarding the removal of active mitigation abilities. Being responsible for accurately recognizing and appropriately responding to potential threats is fun, is engaging, and does not need to be changed. Requiring active responses to incoming damage increases the skill cap, and is one of the things that allows good tanks to outshine other more mediocre players.