Why the MoP Death Knight is unacceptable.

I think one that is pretty clear over the last several weeks; the MoP version of the Death Knight is turning out to be unacceptable to many long time Death Knights. The changes being made aren't what we talked about for months during Cataclysm.

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.

1. It doesn't generate enough resources outside of Frost Presence. 
2. 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).

What's Wrong With MoP Shaman Talents?

Like I've written in the past, I know some of you are waiting for some serious and well thought out comments on Death Knights.  We all know Death Knights multiple issues across the board but I wanted to do a blog on Shamans because I think they are much worse off than other classes.  Death Knights in the grand scheme aren't really that bad off because their problems are mostly because of the conversion from Catacylsm talents to MoP talents and overall they still match how the class is designed. The Shaman MoP talent design doesn't even match the class design.

When I study the Shaman talents, I look at them specifically from a Restoration point of view. I've been raiding on a Restoration Shaman since mid June of last year.  I've done most of the heroic modes during Catacylsm and I have experienced why Ragnaros or Baleroc are considered the bane of Restoration Shamans while a fight like Chimeron is the shining moment.

This expansion was rather weird for Restoration.  During Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, Shamans shined as Chain Heal provided many advantages on several encounters.

With the addition of Healing Rain, Shamans became even more dependent on positional healing.  Shamans are great healing targets that are relatively close together. But most boss mechanics discourage players from clumping up. This can force Shamans into what I have called "Paladin-mode."  We try to heal like Paladins without any of the bonuses and benefits of being a Paladin, such as Beacon of Light.

I have also spent time playing as Elemental on many heroic modes. I'm not the best Elemental Shaman but I think I can speak from that point of view as well.

With this in mind, lets take a look at Shaman talents and we can start by discussing the "must have" talents.

On Tier 45, 75, and 90, there are easy to pick must have talents. Here is a break down of each tier and why.

On Tier 45, Shamans will by default take Call of the Elements:

Totemic Restoration/Totemic Projection - These would be useful for only for group of players: bad, if they could be considered useful at all.  Given the long cooldowns on totems, its much harder to waste a totem. You would have to be pretty bad if you were to drop a Mana Tide Totem then to suddenly drop Healing Stream

Now that totems are more strategic, the talents that supplement them, need to also play into that strategic design. These two talents play on the convenience design where they were fire and forget. These talents are a relic of the Catacylsm Shaman.

On Tier 75, Shamans will take Healing Tide Totem.

Ancestral Guidance is an ineffective cooldown. It turns your abilities into smart heals for ten seconds every two minutes. It only works on direct heals (or damage) so you would only be able to get three to six heals out during the duration of the cooldown. In a six minute encounter, with three uses and optimal rotation, you'll get ~18 smart heals. During that encounter, those 18 smart heals will not really make the difference between success and failure. They'll also be hard to notice with all heals from being cast during the encounter. They will really be no different than Ancestral Awakening is today.

Conductivity is also flawed but for  two reasons. First, Elemental and Enhancement aren't going to stop DPS just to cast Healing Rain. Its to much of a DPS loss. For Restoration, it continues to build on the proximity healing that Shamans have in Catacylsm, which has proven to be mostly ineffective with boss and encounter design.

On Tier 90, Restoration Shamans will take Unleashing Fury but this tier is really garbage.

Unleashing Fury is the only talent that affects healing and the other talents aren't really that appealing for DPS. Narrow talents that add to the Elemental Totems or a damage abiltiy that gives a minimal secondary stats should not be level 90 talents.

Now lets get to the tiers with more difficult choices.

Tier 15: Nature's Guardian is a PvP Talent; Its value in PvE will be what it is today: none. Stone Bulwark and Astral Shift will be based on situation and math of individual encounters. The later part is problematic because that shouldn't be a factor in picking talents.

Tier 30: All PvP. Nothing of value for PvE. If they go live as is, I'll just randomly pick one because odds are it wouldn't make a difference.

Tier: 60: This is a math problem tier. People are already parsing out Echo of Elements to a 7% proc rate, while the other two tiers provide 5% haste.That will be put in context of all three specs and one will be picked as optimal.

Now what does this all mean? In my view it adds up to Shamans having pretty bad talents. Unlike other classes, (like Death Knights) these talents don't even have potential to be good. I would just start over with them because they are really bad, don't match the MoP design changes or are math problems.