4.3 Patch Today

It looks like patch 4.3 will be hitting live servers today, which means a handful of changes for us Death Knights and lots of additions for everyone.  By now I'm sure you have heard of the 3 new 5-man dungeons, not to mention the new raid content. But, don't forget, if you did the WoW Annual pass you will also get your special mount, Tyrael's Charger.

Tyrael's Charger

4.3 Patch Changes for Death Knights


Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.

Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.

Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.

Blood
Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.

Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.

Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.

Unholy
Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.

The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Tier 13 Death Knight Armor

This tier of Death Knight armor has not been making DK fans very happy.

Only component I am a fan of on the Tier 13 set is the horns, which protrude up and out.  Actually feels demonic, unfortunately the rest of the set just seems very uninspired.

Preparing for Transmogrify DK Guide

Oh wait, we don't have any retro gear to worry about.

4.3 Death Knight Balance Explained

Blizzard has stated why they felt the buff to Blood Presence was necessary.

We decided not to prevent or discourage block capping for paladins and warriors, because it would have required several corresponding changes to compensate for such severe nerfs and the risk of getting things wrong or asking players to change gear was just too great. Instead, we decided to buff DK and druid tanks to improve their ability to handle streaks of bad luck. In the DK’s case, we increased the armor bonus of Blood Presence.

I feel what that will mean for PVP, especially that Druids are getting a similar buff.  The last thing I would imagine DK's need in PVP would be increased survivability in Blood Presence.

4.3 Patch Notes for Death Knight

Death Strike now heals the death knight whether or not the attack misses, or is dodged/parried. As a result of this change, Death Strike no longer refunds its rune cost if it fails to hit the target, as the death knight will still receive the healing effect.

Blood Presence now provides an armor bonus of 55%, up from 30%.

Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.

Talent Specializations

Blood
Blade Barrier has been redesigned. It now passively reduces damage taken.
Bone Shield now has 6 charges, up from 4.
Veteran of the Third War now reduces the cooldown of Outbreak by 30 seconds.

Unholy
Unholy Might now increases Strength by 25%, up from 20%.
The gargoyle called by Summon Gargoyle should exclusively use its ranged attack regardless of range to the target.

Official Battle.net Blog Post with latest updates to the 4.3 patch.  The update released today was marked as a release client, so expect the 4.3 patch to go live this coming Tuesday or the Tuesday after.

4.0.6 Death Knight Live Patch Notes

4.0.6 Death Knight Patch Notes

The official 4.0.6 patch went live yesterday and even most servers came up on time.  By now you've probably had an opportunity to see the previous PTR notes affecting Death Knights, but here is the list that is now officially in game.

Death Knight

• Death Coil damage has been reduced by roughly 10%.
• Icebound Fortitude now breaks stuns when used, in addition to providing immunity to them.
• Necrotic Strike’s absorption effect is now reduced by the target’s resilience. In addition, its debuff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds, down from 15.
• The spell hit bonus previously given by Virulence (Unholy) has been rolled into the Runic Focus passive effect that all death knights possess.

Talent Specializations


Blood

• Bone Shield now has 4 charges, up from 3.
• Crimson Scourge has been redesigned slightly. Instead of a 50/100% chance to make the next Blood Boil free when Plague Strike is used on a target with Blood Plague, the talent now gives a 5/10% chance to provide a free Blood Boil when the death knight lands any melee attack on a Blood Plagued target.
• If Death Strike is used while a Blood Shield is already active, the new absorb will stack with the old one instead of replacing it.
• Heart Strike now deals 175% weapon damage plus 15% per disease, up from 120% plus 10% per disease.
• Improved Death Strike now increases the damage of Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%.
• Scarlet Fever now applies via Blood Plague, rather than Blood Boil.
• Will of the Necropolis no longer refunds a Blood Rune when it resets Rune Tap’s cooldown. Instead it makes the next Rune Tap free while Will of the Necropolis is active.

Frost

• Chilblains now also causes Chains of Ice to root the target for 1.5/3 seconds.
• Howling Blast now deals 40% less damage to all targets other than the primary target of the spell.
• Hungering Cold now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds.
• Might of the Frozen Wastes now also increases all melee damage by 4/8/12% while wielding a two-handed weapon.

Unholy

• Blightcaller (Mastery) has been redesigned and renamed Dreadblade. It increases all Shadow damage by 2.5% per point of mastery.
• Dark Transformation now increases pet damage by 80%, down from 100%.
• Death’s Advance (new talent): While both Unholy Runes are depleted, movement-impairing effects cannot reduce the death knight below 75/100% of normal movement speed.
• Desecration is now also triggered by Necrotic Strike.
• The ratio of runic power return from Magic Suppression has been reduced by roughly one third.
• Rage of Rivendare now increases strike damage by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
• Runic Corruption procs while the aura is already active now add 3 seconds to the existing aura duration, instead of simply refreshing/overwriting the existing aura.
• Shadow Infusion now increases pet damage by 8% per stack, down from 10%.
• Sudden Doom is now triggered only from main-hand auto attacks, and is normalized according to weapon speed rather than having a fixed percentage chance.
• Unholy Might (passive) has been reduced to a 5% Strength increase, down from 10%.
• Virulence has been redesigned. It now grants 10/20/30% additional disease damage.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Dark Succor (new glyph) raises the minimum healing done by Death Strike from 7% to 15% of maximum health, but only while in Unholy or Frost Presence.
• Glyph of Death’s Embrace no longer refunds Runic Power when self-healing via Lichborne.

Runeforging

• Swordbreaking and Swordshattering now reduce disarm duration by 60%, up from 50%.

Death Knight Bug Fixes

• Blood of the North is no longer incorrectly increasing Blood Strike damage by 10%.
• The tooltip for Blood Presence was giving an incorrect value and has been corrected.
• The amount of bonus damage Blood Strike was receiving per disease was inconsistent with its tooltip and has been amended.
• Crimson Scourge will no longer proc if Blood Plague is not present on the target.
• Death Grip has a minimum range requirement of 8 yards against players, but this was not stated in the tooltip. The tooltip has been updated.
• Desecration should stay in place while on the Alliance Gunship in Deepholm.
• When a character is raised as a ghoul with Raise Ally, there is no longer a considerable pause after losing control of the ghoul before being returned to the corpse or graveyard.
• The Scourge Strike tooltip is now correctly augmented by Rage of Rivendare.
• The shadow portion of Scourge Strike was receiving more than 10% increased damage from Frost Presence and has been corrected.
• The shadow portion of Scourge Strike no longer incorrectly still receives a 13% spell damage increase from Earth and Moon.

Glyph Fixes

• The Chains of Ice tooltip is now correctly augmented by Glyph of Chains of Ice.
• Glyph of Raise Ally now correctly affects the risen ally's health.
• The Vampiric Blood tooltip became awkwardly worded after applying Glyph of Vampiric Blood. We made the words less awkward.

Latest 4.0.6 PTR Notes for Death Knights

The latest round of 4.0.6 PTR patch notes have been placed, which will be affecting all Death Knight talents and a single glyph.  Despite all the beta, it sure seems like we are having more changes and hotfixes than any other expansion I can remember.  Perhaps it's just the newness of it, but I'll be very thankful when things start remaining consistent for longer than a week at a time.


Blood

• Heart Strike now causes 175% weapon damage, up from 120%. Deals an additional 15% for each of your diseases present on the target, up from 10%.
• Improved Death Strike now increases the damage done by Death Strike by 30/60/90%, up from 15/30/45%. Still increases critical strike chance by 3/6/9% and amount healed by 15/30/45%.
• Scarlet Fever (Rank 2) now procs from Blood Plague. (Tooltip bugfix)

Frost

• Chilblains now also causes your Chains of Ice to immobilize targets for 1/3 sec.

Unholy

• Rage of Rivendare now increases damage of Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and Festering Strike by 12/24/36%, down from 15/30/45%.
• Shadow Infusion now increases the damage dealt by your Ghoul by 8%, down from 10%.

Glyphs

• Inscription: Glyph of Dark Succor now causes your Death Strike ability to always restore at least 15% (down from 20%) of your maximum health when used while in Frost or Unholy Presence.

Again, these patch changes are not on live servers yet and are still undergoing testing on the Public Test Realm.  Looks like the Blood buffs will help with some aggro, Frost gets a barely noticable CC buff and Unholy is left to be nerfed.

See ya in Azeroth!