Ghostcrawler defends Death Knight Howling Blast nerf
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 25th 2009 at 6:00PM
Ghostcrawler is on the forums today getting feedback on all of the patch 3.1 notes we saw yesterday, and the conversation has turned to the Death Knight's Howling Blast nerf, which some players are complaining has "dismantled" the DK's dual wield chances. Our own Daniel Whitcomb agrees -- he says that the 0/32/39 build will pretty much be out with 3.1 on the live realms.But Ghostcrawler responds with an insight that all classes might benefit from hearing: Players will find a way. First, he says that if Blizzard didn't want Death Knights to dual wield, they wouldn't be able to. He says that the damage needed to be nerfed, if only so other classes didn't think they were going to start being able to do that kind of DPS. And then had adds that just because one build is being quashed, it doesn't mean other builds won't eventually appear -- Blizzard predicts what players might do with their talents, but GC says they're almost always surprised by what players come up with, and that he expects Death Knights will come up with another way (some already known by Blizzard) to make two weapons more than viable.
Which some players don't appreciate (they accuse GC of designing by breaking first and letting player fix later), but I kind of like that idea. As Ghostcrawler says in his followup, if there was just one way to play a class, everyone would play it that way. It's Blizzard's (and his team's) job to put the challenge not just in the dragons we fight, but in the tough choices in the talent trees. Everyone knew DKs were getting nerfed (and GC even says that players always say "but I didn't know they were getting nerfed that much!"), and it's interesting that Blizzard is already looking forward to Death Knight players re-finding their grooves, even with the nerfs.
Filed under: Patches, Classes, Talents, Death Knight, Forums
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
037 Feb 25th 2009 6:04PM
"First, he says that if Blizzard didn't want Death Knights to dual wield, they wouldn't be able to."
Sort of like Enhancement Shamans using 2H weapons...
Oh wait.
You can use them. However, you shouldn't.
JALbert Feb 25th 2009 6:11PM
Great job WoWInsider, for also failing to understand the thread.
The thread was not about Howling Blast or 32/39 getting nerfed. The thread is about the fact that for every spec, DW is at a disadvantage. Tons of logical arguments and now some testing evidence has been posted. Nerfing DW isn't the solution to DW builds being OP, because the DW part of them wasn't causing a problem, the spellcasting part was.
There is now no spec where DW is an advantage over just using a 2H build. Caster specs are still viable.
-Shahrazad, Ravenholdt-US
Lusi Feb 25th 2009 6:23PM
Dude, you knew, you *knew* Death Knights were going to be based on 2hers. From the lore to the concept sketches to the starting area gear...
Frankly, I think the crying is pretty funny. Shamans should start crying because we have nothing except Windfury Weapon that works with 2hers. Or maybe arms warriors should start up about how neglected polearm spec is. Sheesh.
Shisho2k Feb 25th 2009 7:29PM
When did they start balancing things completely around lore and previous warcraft designs?
Shouldn't DK death coils also heal the DK? All death coils before should have been.
DKs were never meant to Dual Wield, then who is this guy?! http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=32312
Ghostcrawler, let's face it, he doesn't know what he's talking about most the time. He tries to make comparisons, and their fundamentals are usually disjointed. He's just satisfied when his reasoning sounds logical enough to sell.
Oh... they'll find a way. Then we'll nerf that too!!! He's making dual wield sound like an exploit. Why the hell aren't they actually taking some designer responsibilities here and actually etching out dual wield talents in the way they find acceptable.
Unless these clever players find a way to get 10 or 20 more talent points than everyone else, dual wield is going to wither up and eventually just be removed when they get around to consolidating talent trees.
Dual wield was better dps in aoe situations, and 2H was superior single target dps.
I suspect what's really happening here is that there are a lot of whiners and haters that see a dual wield DK take the lead on Recount in a pug or in their less than stellar clumsy Naxx guild runs. They look at their mediocre DPS then naturally say: Man dual wield is OP, it's so unfair!
Dual wield DK specs were never intuitive or flat out obvious. When I started my DK I wasn't having any of it. I liked my big Scourge Strike crits, oh boy!
It took a lot of experimentation by a lot of people to figure out a viable build. So your typical dual wield DK probably did his/her homework, and knows a thing or two about what optimal dps rotations matter to their class.
There's a ton of people that don't even know what language you're speaking when you ask them about their dps rotation. I see countless people doing only 50-70% of the DPS they could be doing with the gear that they have, occasionally worse.
Most DKs fall into the obvious model they laid out for the class. Pick up two hander, rune forge, roll face on keyboard. If dual wield was the natural spec, and two handers were this niche hybrid spec, you'd see the same bias and the same lalalala reasons being blathered out from people that never even geared or spec'd hybrid.
I've play both, and honestly, I enjoy the dual wield and aoe ice damage play style a lot better. I do more single target DPS with my 2hander spec, but I like the aoe melee style just from personal preference.
Now it's not getting a fair nerf, because it was never like super uber or anything like that.
Well, it seems we were naive after all to think a lot of these talents in unholy and frost were actually designed with dual wield in mind. Blizzard is doing a full speed backpedal for 3.1, so it was clearly unintended that they wanted dual wield to be viable raid DPS.
It's just another class novelty / gimmick.
Cheers!
machoflaco Feb 25th 2009 6:16PM
Ya, I'm confused, what's this gotta do with howling blast?
Taladan Feb 25th 2009 6:31PM
Same thing I was asking myself. Howling Blast is a AoE-like cast. Dual-wield is not related at all with Howling Blast (you have a dual-wield specialization in the Frost tree, but that's not related with Howling Blast...)
Angelofwar Feb 25th 2009 7:06PM
Actually, they are VERY related. Howling Blast is the main attack for the DW spec due to the fact that it does not scale off of weapon damage and hence provides the same or more amount of damage for the same runes, even though your individual weapon DPS is a lot lower.
Basically: It's central to DW'ing, and this nerf nearly kills the idea altogether.
Ikarus Feb 25th 2009 7:14PM
The irritating this is that this effects 2H frost DPS builds too. I'm don't if they changes to Glacier Rot and BoTN will compensate or not. Guess only time will tell
Ikarus Feb 25th 2009 7:15PM
WTB edit feature:
* the irritating thing is....
Shot Feb 25th 2009 7:22PM
I disagree - this doesn't really hurt 2h frost builds much at all. I only ever use howling blast on trash and in specific boss fights where i can use it to kill extra adds quickly (the spiderlings on maexxna ring any bells?).
With talents giving so much to Obliterate, you'd really be silly to not use it for single target dps imo.
Want higher dps on trash/aoe fights? Dual-spec to some aoe unholy build - problem solved.
Kakistocracy Feb 25th 2009 6:21PM
So blizzard doesn't want me to lead in damage as a frost death knight while tanking for raids on the lower end of the gear spectrum?
Taladan Feb 25th 2009 6:29PM
Are you DPS or tanking?
Your task as tank is to hold a lot of aggro while staying alive.
Your task as DPS is, well, to make damage.
Trying to make both at the same time means you'd probably do half a job on both.
Kassu Feb 25th 2009 6:29PM
Enjoy your 13K Oblliterate crits and stop whining.
Tiny nerf to trash AOE DPS doesnt make a spec worthless..
Angelofwar Feb 25th 2009 7:05PM
He's clearly being sarcastic.
WOOSH
Kakistocracy Feb 25th 2009 7:13PM
Thank you so much, Angelofwar, I was trying to think of the right way to explain that to them, but fortunately you beat me to it.
I use a pretty conventional frost tanking spec (nothing creative yet) and have reasonably nice tanking gear, but can, in some OS and Nax runs lead (or at place above a fair number of dps) in damage meters on boss fights (while enjoying a very high degree of survivability).
My point was that blizz may not have intended DK tanks to do so much damage, and while this particular nerf is not going to have much of an impact on single target fights, it is indicative of other changes across the board in this direction.
I certainly could have explained everything in a detailed manner, but you're old enough to think for yourself, so make those conclusions and, when necessary, you can even infer from time to time.
Angelofwar Feb 25th 2009 7:26PM
I know exactly what you mean. I've found that as a DK, you can tank DPS just about as effectively as you can normal DPS, and in a lot of cases it's not hard to imagine destroying the damage meters even as a dedicated tank.
Howling Blast as it was was probably OP in some regards, I think the main problem came from the fact that it is ultimately an AOE, and one that did comparably damage to Single Target attacks, didn't scale off of weapon damage, and, well, it was a god damn AOE for christ sake. I do not think blizz intended it to be the DW powerhouse that it turned out to be, and hence when they nerfed it so dramatically. It is now what it was always intended to be, a simple AOE that procced off Rime and was used very situationally. However in the process blizz completely disregarded DW'ing and possibly destroyed the spec beyond repair. So go figure.
That "surgical precision" they have is looking more and more like a nuke to me.
Kakistocracy Feb 25th 2009 7:30PM
It also helped make up for no aoe taunt with it's high damage, decent range, and short cd, DnD works to a degree, but having one of each rune up requires planing ahead, and the cd is much longer, not to mention it takes more time to target (though it can be used in advance).
jbodar Feb 25th 2009 7:59PM
Shouldn't they just compensate Frost tanks by upping the threat component of HB?
Taladan Feb 25th 2009 9:08PM
Oh, oops. Sorry not getting the sarcasm.
It's just that it sounded a lot like a normal wow complain...
sephirah Feb 25th 2009 6:23PM
Frankly, I'm quite annoyed by the way GC is doing his work.
Since he started to post on the forums (when he became lead class designer?), blizzard changed every class each patch, with a good percentage of changes either totally OP or huge nerfs.
It really seems that the team has no idea of what they're doing: they implement stuff not listening to valid complain on the forums, and after they see those changes are broken, try to fix them with hotfixes on in following patches.
Changes have always been a part of wow, but previously they were much more gradual.