The Gaming Lizard

With the Deathknight preview being released, the forums are buzzing with excitement over the spells and changes coming. At one quick look, the changes seem to focus more on the PVP aspect of Deathknights, with several new tools given to aid them when fighting Hordies. So let us sneak a peek into the DK preview.

List of changes can be found here

New Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

An interesting ability no doubt. With it being on a 1 min CD (as mentioned by GC) it will certainly not replace the combination of IT+PS. It will also be a double rune spell for sure.


Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike -- the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

A PVP focused ability, NS helps the DK to survive even longer. A Blood DK using this is a master at health regeneration, making them formidable foes in arena. By the looks of it, the debuff simply redirects an amount of healing that the target is receiving to the DK. In short, this is more powerful than Mortal Strike.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

Yet another PVP ability since boss do not cast spells often. It's a gimmick at best although it'll be fun for a DK to return a pyroblast to that nasty mage.

Rune Mechanic

The new rune system will change how runes regenerate, from filling simultaneously to filling sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. Essentially, you have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. (Haste will cause runes to fill faster.) Another way to think of this is having three runes that go up to 200% each (allowing extra "storage"), rather than six runes that go up to 100% each

The most complex of all DK changes seen so far, there are many analogies to explain how it works, with GC referring it to a rogue energy system. So let's look at Unholy DK rotation using a Reaping Build [which gives you death runes]

Current: PS IT SS BS BS (DC dump) SS SS SS[using Death Runes] (DC dump)> Repeat again

New: PS IT SS BS BS (DC dump) SS (DC dump) SS (DC dump) SS[using DR] (DC dump) > Repeat again

The main difference is that the rotation will be slower with more waiting time, thus giving us opportunities to Runic Power dump inbetween waiting for the runes to respawn. There are hints of reducing cost for some abilities which i believe will be affecting Runic power dumps. For example, a Death Coil cos 40 RP. After tweaking, it'll cost 20 RP maybe so we can use Runic Dumps more often instead of twiddling our thumbs to wait for our runes to refresh.

Mastery Bonus

Frost

• Melee damage
• Melee Haste
• Runic Power Generation

Runic Power Generation: This will function as the name implies, and the new rune system will make generating Runic Power more appealing.

For a DW [and soon to be 2h] DK, haste helps to increase the frequency of our melee white hits, making Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade even more valuable since they are linked to their white hits. RP Regeneration will help us churn out even more Frost strikes during Rune Refreshment time.

Unholy

• Melee damage
• Melee and spell critical damage
• Disease Damage

Disease Damage: Unholy death knights will be able to get more out of their diseases, which are integral to the tree's play style.

As Unholy, their diseases deals deadly amount of damage. With the increase to Disease damage, it'll make them even more powerful. The merits of increase in spell critical damage is lacking since Unholy only have DC, IT and DnD as their spells.

Overall, the changes are exciting and help generate more buzz for Cataclysm. Do note that they are subjected to change.