Many very smart Death Knights provided lots of good feedback for Blizzard on the class. Most of these were backed with sims, math and logic to justify the argument used and in most cases were correct predictions or feedback, even if Blizzard didn't use it at the time.
But where does that leave us for MoP? Its easy to talk about the past and rail against that. But we need to focus on the future. That is still something that we could have a glimmer of hope influencing.
While I'm mostly speculating here, I don't think many people would stay Death Knight if it went live today. I know, I won't. This is very something difficult for me to say because I like the class a lot. I have a lot of fun playing my Death Knight on a daily basis. I'm sure there are many other Death Knights out there who feel the same way.
While Death Knights were cool and new once, and got special treatment, they aren't anymore. They are just another class and must be treated as such.
So why won't I be playing a Death Knight?
Resource Design:
This is an issue that I've been talking about for a while. Our resource system is too complicated and unfun. Everytime they make a change or give us something to manage, they add layers of complexity that ruin the original appeal of the system..
I plan on talking more about the resource design problems as time goes on.
Presence Design:
The current design for Presences is less than appealing.
Blizzard has attempted to use them as band-aids to solve our mechanical problems but they haven't even done that correctly. The way 2H Frost and Unholy currently play, the 1 second global cooldown is required for each spec. This is based on resource generation, stat weights and individual spec mechanics.
For these two specs, the higher the stat weight is for Haste; the more important the reduction gets. Given our current resources mechanics, Haste serves as a multiplier on the whole system and we need those extra global cooldowns to spend our resources.
DW Frost is in the same boat for the most part. It started out in Frost Presence in Cataclysm but eventually went to Unholy Presence as the spec required more global cooldowns.
The problem with Presences as they are on the MoP beta is that DW Frost is required to be in Frost Presence.
- It doesn't generate enough resources outside of Frost Presence.
- The damage buff passive for Frost Strike could encourage heavy Frost Strike usage/priority (and therefore higher Mastery stat weighting).
But DW Frost in Frost Presence plays slow, clunky and downright boring.
Frost is supposed to be the opposite of this. Its supposed to feel faster, more frenetic, and on your toes and react to your procs and how your current rotation and flow.. You can't be on your toes if the spec is slow.
Rotation Design:
There isn't a lot to say here. But....
Currently the only rotation that actually works is 2H Frost.
Unholy: Death Coil changing to 35 RP did nothing to fix the rotational problems is has. It will still struggle to stack Shadow Infusion. This will lead to poor ramp up time and ultimately less DPS because Unholy's DPS is so strongly related to the DPS added by the ghoul.
DW Frost: This is sort of related to the Presence problem. I won't go on and on anymore.
Where's the sexy?
Finally, where's the sexy? We don't have anything that's really cool coming for Death Knights. We get talent tiers dedicated to resource generation and rehashed abilities from other classes while they are getting some really cool stuff.
I look at our talents and think "meh." I look at Paladin or Druid talents and I think "awesome."
I haven't seen one ability that Death Knights are getting that scream, "You have to try me." Are there nice talents and abilities? Yes. But nothing really that hot.
This is only the tip of the iceberg and there are a bunch of other things that make the class unappealing as far as I'm concerned.
What do you think? Will you play the class if it stays as is? Respond in the comments or on Twitter. (@PennyRush).
