Wipus Frequentus

Today I want to give some insight in the new DK mechanics. Are they good or bad? We'll see....

Deathknights 4.0

At the moment DK's have 3 types of runes:

You have 2 of each type, so you'll have 6 runes in total.

Without haste the cooldown of each rune is 10 seconds. If you use Bloodstrike, 1 Blood rune is used and its cooldown will start to tick. If you bloodstrike again, the second blood rune is used and will also start its cooldown. You cannot use abilities with Bloodrunes untill the cooldown is over. But once the cooldown of the first is over, the second rune will be available 1 global cooldown later.

One of the current problems is that most rotations are so tight, that you dont have any global cooldowns left for things like Deathcoil, interupts etc, without losing significant DPS.

 So far so good, and this is no news to anyone with a DK Main/Alt.

 So..what is changing, and why. Basically, the new system is going to be based on the way rogues work. With one major difference: Instead of 1 energy bar, DK's get 3 bars (1 Blood, 1 Frost and 1 Unholy) and each bar is represented by 2 runes. In the beta the runes are still displayed as in the portrait above, at least for now, because there's a good chance it will be changed to 3 bars to make things clearer.

To give an example, I will use some pics I stole from some site.

At the start all runes are full, so in 4.0 its best to think of your runes like this:

If you use a hard-hitting attack like Obliterate, which costs 1 Frost and 1 Unholy the bars go to 50% (because each bar is represented by 2 runes).

The "energy" change makes it recharge now over time like a rogue's energy does. The cooldown for 1 rune is still 10 seconds, so its 10 seconds for 50% of the bar to recharge. After 2 seconds your bars will look like this:

If you Obliterate again, you will again use 1 Frost and 1 Unholy Rune (or 50% of each type of bar), making the bars look like:

Now you will have to wait untill both the Frost and Unholy bars have recharged to 50% untill you can use an ability again which require one such rune. This does mean, that once in combat, and you keep a tight rotation you will never have 2 runes (or 100% bars) of one particular type up. Every time a bar hits 50%, you will probably use it to do an attack. It will also mean you will do less attacks in the same amount of time, compared to the current system. Less attacks mean more global cooldowns are available for other things, like interupts, using Runic power for Deathcoil/Froststrike or summoning the Army of the Dead without losing DPS time. And before you ask...less attacks = less DPS...well, very true. The answer is simple though, since Blizzard will up the damage of each attack.

So, with these changes a DK has a more forgiving rotation, but best of all, if you are forced to move, or are stunned the power will continue to recharge. You wont lose DPS-time, because since it works like energy you can spend it a few seconds later. Unless ofcourse you let your bars sit at 100% :)

Is it good or bad? I think these changes are great. It doesnt mean I get to press less buttons...it means I can press different buttons and have variety in my play-style. So for me personally, I cant wait for these changes to happen.

 Hope it makes any sense to anyone  If you have questions about the mechanic changes, feel free to leave a comment.

Next time I will discuss the changes to the talent trees, especially the implementing of a dedicated tanking tree.

 -Wildstorm

P.s. Random piece of scenery: