MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

NuclearPath wrote: »

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

Templars I now share in your pain over the Jabs animation change.

Oh please, that TMNT cosplay is far worse than my jabs.

I have quite a big thread on this alone I don’t think I can play dk without my spikes or something that resembles them I don’t get why it’s a plate or why they’re so small they’re not an attachment really poor choice on what was such an iconic skill

Maybe a little more spiky as opposed to looking slicked back would be best, but arguably I'd say it looks more like what I'd expect from dragon spikes. Despite this, I will say I can't for the life of me understand why something that looks like that is called Earthspike Mantle and is within Earthen Heart as opposed to Draconic Power. If you want them to look like "Earth Spikes" they need to be sharp spikes of stone protruding from the back.

My thoughts lie with this being down to subclassing chucking too much in too many trees skills and passive etc it’s not designed around the lines but to make each one good for a pure build but not necessarily overpowered on a subclass build with other lines, not sure I’ve communicated that too well hope you get what I mean

I get what you mean and I think they designed it that way too, but they either need to design all of the other classes that way and implement them right now alongside DK, or they need to toss that notion out entirely. DK is going to fall behind anywhere besides casual play. I get 99% of the community does that casual play, but as someone who doesn't only do casual play I'd really love for DK to be a solid pick against arcanist for DDs.

Visually, I love the direction of these updated visuals. They definitely feel more impactful than previously and I’m excited for how future class refreshes will look.

That being said, some skills have effects that are too similar to each other. There’s at least three skills that create a fiery AOE and they look very similar to each other, which makes it hard to distinguish. Incinerate is fine, it makes sense given the skill does damage around you. But I’m perplexed why the Talons and its morphs have this similar effect as well. I would suggest bigger emphasis on the actual claws, and tone down slightly the visual lighting effects for some skills, I can definitely see them being distracting especially in group content.

Molten Weapons I assume was meant to be in a similar vein to Inspired Scholarship from the arcanist skill line. Major Brutality and Sorcery while also giving a little bit extra. I like the direction, but you can definitely give it more oomph. It shouldn’t be a skill that every dps wants to run, that would negate the purpose of its supportive nature, but it should still do more than grant the caster essentially 2000 damage per light attack. As it is right now it’s a bit boring.

The change to Eruption to be a support skill I think needs to be re evaluated. I don’t see a use case for Hearth and Home over the other morph, and since they’re both supportive skills, Hearth and Home is just left on the wayside. Major protection alone doesn’t seem to be particularly enticing from a PVE perspective.

The flame breath skill and morphs look fantastic. No notes.

The avalanche passive might need some work. The restrictions don’t make me want to run that skill line as a DPS, especially when there’s not much else in there. I would suggest a quicker stack buildup, and even a higher cap, so make this feel more impactful.

There is one passive I forget the name of that only gives 8% healing received. There is definitely more that can and should’ve done with this passive make it more exciting to play with.

I had hoped that we would be introduced to a class mastery passive, or something akin, that gives you bonus passives for using two of the DK skill lines or even three. Some tangible encouragement to pure class. In the absence of this, I hoped that we would get passives within the skill lines that encourage the use of each skill line. Avalanch, for example, would have been a good opportunity to add a bit more complexity and perhaps add increased damage or healing or block mitigation when using skills from two/three different DK skill lines within quick succession. Or maybe repurpose the boring 8% healing received passive I mentioned before to include bonuses that encourage players to use all of theDK skill lines.

Eurymachos wrote: »

I just compared the old Spiked Armor animation to the new X Mantle animations.

The old animation did need a bit of a glow up, but this really isn't it. It would have been fine to keep the old spikes model and just throw a nice new shader on it with some fire effects.

The new animation also disappears with no transition back to normal. The old animation had a short transition and the transition (along with its sound effect) is important for reasons I can go into if anyone cares.

Ngā mihi,
Eurymachos

Please. No more effects, it doesn't fit the games artstyle and it's just very unpleasant to look at. I personally get migranes from watching things flash every second and I wish there was a way to tone down every new effect since these visuals are forced to us.

Right now when fighting other dks on pts you can't see anything. Everything just spews everywhere and you can't even tell which morphs the opponent uses, because they all share the same visual.

I want to start by saying that the visuals and sound design are excellent. Even just running a rotation on a dummy feels great. There are a few minor issues on that front though.

• Magma Fist and Shatterspike Mantle do not feel as impactful as other abilities and could use a bit more punch in their visuals or sound.
• For both Flame Lash and Molten Whip, the empowered versions do not sound distinct enough from the base versions. They need more weight to better communicate their empowered state.
• Incinerate and Core of Flame are too similar in both visuals and audio.

Regarding performance, the rework currently feels undertuned, and here's my thoughts on this.

• Losing Eruption (now Hearth and Home) as a damage option feels not great. Eruption was a strong and satisfying damage skill, and having one damage morph and one healing morph would be better.
• The reworked DoTs, Claw and Breath, are quite weak with their shorter durations. The patch notes said that these skills were getting a ~50% buff to their DPS, but right now, they do the exact same DPS on PTS as on live. Which means they just got nerfed, both skills in their current version need to be cast 3 times to match the damage of 1 cast before. They really need to be adjusted. I would suggest to have these skills tick once every 1s since they have such short durations now, and only slightly lowering the damage per tick. Shorter, burstier dots like this would be great for the game.
• Standard of Might providing only raw Weapon and Spell Damage feels bad, especially in organized groups where that stat has diminishing value. A percentage damage bonus for the caster, or retaining some of its previous flame damage, would feel much better. Ideally, Standard of Might should be reverted, with Shifting Standard becoming the support-focused morph. The ability to reposition the banner fits a support role very well.
• Engulfing Dragonfire significantly outperforms other rotation options. There should be stronger incentives to use Whip and or Magma Fist. One possible solution would be for a reverted Standard of Might to grant fully empowered Molten Whip and Flame Lash for the duration of the ultimate.
• Burning Talons isn't terrible, just needs a little more help to stay relevant. This point also sort of connects to my previous point, since this skill doesn't fit well with the 4.8s channel time of Engulfing Dragonfire.
• Magma Fist could use a small damage increase, either through a higher base tooltip or a guaranteed status effect. Sundered would fit thematically, given the ability involves throwing a rock. Stagger (now Heat Shock) should be reverted to its previous higher value.

The passives could also use another look. Things like 8% Healing Taken feel uninspired, and the damage passives are not particularly strong or interactive. Avalanche in particular takes too long to matter and largely functions as a passive background bonus.

Overall, this rework feels very close to being genuinely good. With a few targeted adjustments, it could be amazing

Will the Companions receive the updated animations as well? From my initial testing, it seems that Bastian and Tanlorin still have the old Dragonknight animations.

Eurymachos wrote: »

I just compared the old Spiked Armor animation to the new X Mantle animations.

The old animation did need a bit of a glow up, but this really isn't it. It would have been fine to keep the old spikes model and just throw a nice new shader on it with some fire effects.

The new animation also disappears with no transition back to normal. The old animation had a short transition and the transition (along with its sound effect) is important for reasons I can go into if anyone cares.

Ngā mihi,
Eurymachos

Yeah a bit of an annoyance to me I’ve made a huge post of it new dk spikes got great feedback for getting it looked at potentially changes by the devs

pluvioisaplanet wrote: »

Yeah, so there it is. Coming soon to every class. Even Arcanist should see some adjustments based on their new methodology. It's going to be seriously depressing watch every class except Arcanist lose something to facilitate this kind of gameplay.

Radiate77 wrote: »

Do you have any gameplay footage? It would be helpful in determining what our new standard DPS will be when these reworks are done.

I mean DPS is shown in the screenshots I posted, parses aren't my own. Not sure what you could gain from gameplay footage in this context. And I think it's way too early to make any solid predictions

Are there any key DK changes that you enjoyed?

The new Corrosive is cool. It might be OP but we'll see.

I like what you're trying to do with Hearthfire. I'm not sure it's there yet but it's progress

The buff to spiked armor damage was a good move.

Are there any key DK changes that did not feel great?

1. The sounds. I don't like the sounds at all. They sound wet and don't make sense with fire abilities. It sounds more like an Arcanist.

2. I do not, at all, like how the skill lines and passives feel random. The theme of each line feels off. No line seems to have dedicated primary role. Passives ended up on skill lines where they don't seem to belong. It all fees like a blob of random fire skills.

For example:
Fiery breath on Draconic needs to go back to ardent flame where it better synergizes with whip.

The Soul Ablaze passive on Ardent Flame makes no sense to me. It's a healing buff and isn't on the same line as the primary burst heal

Spike Armor just feels wrong on Earthen Heart instead of Draconic

3. I don't like the new Inferno AOE. It's too expensive and feels bland now. We have AOE bursts already. Flames Of Oblivion is one of the more unique and cool looking abilities. It wasn't broken and shouldn't have been "fixed".

4. I don't like the delay on Petrify. Another skill that wasn't broken and didn't need this change.

5. Obsidian shield and Stonefirst are both just not good. They are throw away skills that probably won't see much use at all. Just start from scratch and create something more useful

Is there anything else you would like to share about the DK changes?

I really want to see the skill lines have an identity that works synergistically from ability to ability.

I've ALWAYS thought leap made way more sense on Ardent flame, DK Standard should be on Earthen Heart, and Magma Armor should be on Draconic. If a pure class is meant to compete with subclassing, you really should give an extra bonus for each skill line used within a class. As DK sits on PTS, it's not better than subclassing and still falls short of other pure classes that haven't been touch. Templar, for example, is still better than the new DK.

Some specific other feedback, I noticed some additional flavor text while I was reading the passive abilities on PTS. Personally I'm pretty neutral on adding this text but I could see some people really enjoying it. I would like to request that it get something to set it apart from mechanics text though (maybe putting it in italics or a different color), so that when people are skimming for ability info they can gloss over it more easily.

Overall I think the rework is a good direction and I'm interested to see more of the classes to compare it against.

Pure DK is so fun to play. they did a great job with the rework from that perspective. I really enjoyed the channeled flame breath. I really don't think they will achieve what they are hoping to balance wise and I have no idea what to even suggest with the mess they created with subclasses.

One thing I didn't like is the new molten weapons visuals. it should apply an effect to your equipped weapons instead of replacing them with a new model. I can't see everyone loving those huge weapons models.

Do the refreshed abilities correctly portray the mechanics of the ability?
The English version is correct; most Chinese translations are outdated or incorrect.

Are there any key DK changes that you enjoyed?
The new Engulfing Dragonfire and Magma Fist feel great to use.

Are there any key DK changes that didn't feel great?
1.World in Ruin shouldn't provide both area-of-effect and damage-over-time buffs simultaneously. Don't forget the lesson of how Arcane Laser became too powerful in the early game of U46 due to the Necromancer's active and passive skills! I suggest changing the area-of-effect buff to 10% critical damage or 3000 penetration, as both have caps in PvE, so there's no need to worry about excessive stacking.

2.Molten Weapons are too similar to Sorc's Overload and are unaffected by Velothi Ur-Mage's Amulet. It's easy to imagine the impact of Molten Weapons + Overload + Crystal Weapon + Elemental Weapon in PvP.

Is there anything else you'd like to share about the DK changes?
Elder Dragon is still not attractive enough because only one person in the team needs to carry it to get Minor Brutality, and its skill line has relatively few attack skills. It needs more appeal to convince DPS to carry this line. Therefore, I think Elder Dragon should perhaps be similar to NB's Hemorrhage, providing some penetration or critical damage, or even removing the less useful Health Recovery.




*Correcting translation errors

xAlucardx92 wrote: »

Do the refreshed abilities correctly portray the mechanics of the ability?

• In English Yes, In German No.

Are there any key DK changes that you enjoyed?

• Soul of Flame, I loved it, but the Dmg still feels weak compared to Blighted Blastbones or Deep Fissure
• That every DK Skill makes a Molten Whip Stack.
• Most new animations!

Are there any key DK changes that did not feel great?

• Blood of the Elder Dragon, The Heart above my Head.
• Earthspike animations
• Molten Weapons, the sound is the same or too close to the esound off Molten Whip and thats sounds wrong.

Is there anything else you would like to share about the DK changes?

• Heart of Stone, Increase the duration from 20 seconds to 25 or 30 seconds. After the Shield is it a simple "Major Resolve" Buff that does nothing.
• Molten Weapons, the additional hit of Flame Damage feels a littel weak. Let the Dmg scaling to offensive stats.
• Corrosive Armor, Way too strong in PVP, remove the damage limit completely and reduce duration to 6 sec. SO you have a small combo windows and that its.
• Blood of the Elder Dragon, the heals for allies ist way to strong turn it down to 40% or 33%.
• Blood of the Green Dragon,change the heal scaling to offensive stats, Nothing good comes from scales off your Max Health.
• Earthen Heart Passive SKills, give one of them "Increase your Physical and Spell Penetration by 620 per DK ability slotted.", or
  "Increase your Physical and Spell Penetration by 1240 per DK Skill Lines." Each class has a buff for either critical damage or penetration. Critical damage isn't really a DK thing, so go for penetration.

There HAS to be a bonus the more DK skill lines are used.I totally agree. This should just become a standard. These pure classes just wont be able to compete with subclassing without it.

Radiate77 wrote: »

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

Is there anything else you'd like to share about the Death Knight changes?

Death Knight? Where?
I want that.

That annoying Google keeps automatically changing the abbreviation for DK to Death Knight.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Another question: is the interrupt delay on Soul of Flame (original Deep Breath) appropriate?

The patch notes say "for better visual syncing and counterplay," but an interrupt is usually something that you don't want a delay for. Many channels in the game don't last long, so having a delay before your interrupt activates essentially means your reaction time needs to be that much quicker.

It would really help if the interrupt stayed instant.

What exactly is the use case of a melee ability interrupt (as 8-meters is essentially melee)? When I'm that close to a target that needs interrupting I just bash them. I think that your point still stands but if I were a DK tank I think that I'd want a ranged interrupt more than a costly melee ability that interrupts.