Patch 7.3: Kommende Änderungen am Frost-Todesritter
Der direkt an der Entwicklung von World of Warcraft beteiligte Game Designer Sigma verkündete in der vergangenen Nacht in den offiziellen Foren dieses Titels, dass der in der nächsten Woche erscheinende neue Build für den aktuell laufenden PTR von Patch 7.3 unter anderem eine Vielzahl von Spielbalanceänderungen für den Frost-Todesritter beinhalten wird. Um sicherzustellen, dass die Tester und Vertreter dieser Klasse sich bereits im Vorfeld auf diese geplanten Anpassungen vorbereiten können, listete der Beitrag dieses Mitarbeiters von Blizzard Entertainment sowohl alle im Moment geplanten Veränderungen an dieser Klasse als auch die Gründe des Entwicklerteams auf. Solltet ihr euch den weiter unten eingebauten Bluepost zu diesen Klassenänderungen nicht selbst durchlesen wollen, dann findet ihr folgend auch noch eine übersetzte Zusammenfassung dieser Anpassungen am Frost-Todesritter.
(Hinweis: Die folgenden Änderungen sind erst einmal nur für den PTR bestimmt und könnten sich im Verlauf der Testphase von Patch 7.3 noch einmal verändern.)
Die geplanten Änderungen:
- Der Schaden aller Fähigkeiten der Frost-Todesritter soll um 27% erhöht werden.
Hungernde Runenwaffe (L58) und 
Unaufhaltbarer Gletscher tauschen ihre Positionen im Talentbaum.
- Der verursachte Schaden von
Sindragosas Hauch wird um 10% erhöht. 
Mörderische Effizienz (L56->L57), 
Gefrorener Impuls (L57->L90) und 
Runischer Kreislauf erhalten andere Positionen im Talentbaum. - Die Dauer von Hungernde Runenwaffe wird auf 12 Sekunden (vorher 15) verringert. Als Ausgleich dafür gewährt dieser Effekt den Todesrittern dann 20% Tempo.
- Fehlerbehebung: Hungernde Runenwaffe wird in der Zukunft nur noch alle 1.5 Sekunden eine Rune erzeugen. Aktuell erzeugt diese Fähigkeit fälschlicherweise jede Sekunde eine Rune.
- Die Proc-Chance von Mörderische Effizienz wird von 65% auf 50% verringert.
- Die Abklingzeit von
Horn des Winters wird auf 45 Sekunden erhöht (vorher 30). 
Koltiras neugefundener Wille: Der Effekt dieses Items erzeugt in der Zukunft nur noch 1 Rune (vorher 2) und erhöht den verursachten Schaden von 
Auslöschung um 10%.- Der von
Eisige Klauen gewährte Bonus steigt von 10% auf 15%. - Der von
Zerschmetternde Stöße gewährte Bonus steigt von 40% auf 60%. - Der Effekt von
Gefrierender Nebel wird auf 20% reduziert (vorher 30%). - In der Zukunft hält Auslöschung insgesamt 10 Sekunden lang an (vorher 8).
- Der verursachte Schaden von
Gefrorener Impuls wird um 39% reduziert.
Frost Death Knight in 7.3
The next PTR build should have a round of changes aimed at addressing various concerns with Frost. The major issues we’re focused on are:
- The spec is too dominated by Breath of Sindragosa (which has knock-on effects on talent choice throughout the tree).
- Breath of Sindragosa, when you do use it, can be maintained for far too long. In addition to causing the talent/legendary lock-in around it, it means the demand for continuous time on target is very strict for extended periods of time.
- The spec has many talents/legendaries that (individually or taken together) flood it with resources. Breath contributes to this by encouraging you to take all of them, but it’s also a problem on its own.
- Talent balance generally has to be reviewed, especially after addressing all of the time.
- We’re trying to limit the scope of the changes in the patch, to address the above without opening up the core rotation for changes.
- All damage abilities increased by 27%
- Hungering Rune Weapon (L58) and Glacial Advance (L100) swapped positions
- Breath of Sindragosa damage increased by 10%
We want to preserve the identity of Breath of Sindragosa, including the steady resource drain being the main limiting factor, and the expression of skill in optimizing around that. So in trying to avoid less natural solutions like capping the duration or redesigning how it works, we’re trying to limit the talent/legendary synergies that cause huge variance in how long Breath can be maintained. And breaking the Breath of Sindragosa/Hungering Rune Weapon interaction, on its own, goes a very long way toward making Breath’s duration more reasonable again. DPS adjustment for the change is being put mostly into the baseline spec rather than into the power of Breath, because it’s currently so far ahead of other setups.
- Murderous Efficiency (L56->L57), Frozen Pulse (L57->L90), and Runic Attenuation (L90->L56) swapped positions
- Hungering Rune Weapon duration 12s (from 15s) and additionally grants 20% haste
- Bugfix: Hungering Rune Weapon correctly generates a Rune every 1.5s instead of every 1s
- Murderous Efficiency chance 50% (from 65%)
- Horn of Winter cooldown 45s (from 30s)
- Koltira’s Newfound Will generates 1 Rune (from 2) and now causes Obliterate to deal 10% extra damage
Using even a small subset of all of the above effects causes the rotation to be quite flooded. They are all being either weakened in power (with compensation to the baseline spec), or given non-resource-granting effects for part of their value. In addition, the two most egregious offenders (Murderous Efficiency and Horn of Winter) can no longer be taken together.
Overall, there should now be a much broader set of talent combinations that produce a good-feeling rotation in which there are resources to do something on most GCDs, but you’re still able to spend them down. Including, for example, during Hungering Rune Weapon, which is overly hectic or frustrating right now when you can’t spend all of its resources.
In addition, the talent rearrangement puts Frozen Pulse on a row with two predominantly AoE talents, which is a better home for it. The Frozen Pulse/Icy Talons („machinegun“) synergy is preserved, but can no longer be taken alongside Runic Attenuation as well.
NB: The Hungering Rune Weapon bug may be fixed on live shortly as well, after we test the fix and analyze the impact.
- Icy Talons bonus 15% (from 10%)
- Shattering Strikes bonus 60% (from 40%)
- Freezing Fog effect 20% (from 30%)
- Obliteration duration 10s (from 8s)
- Frozen Pulse damage reduced by 39%
Minor talent rebalancing to match the above rearrangements and talent changes; numbers are likely to be updated as the rest of the changes settle into place.
EDIT: Added Frozen Pulse change which was missed when I copied changes into the post earlier. As with the other changes, this is meant to make Frozen Pulse balanced within its new row, and meant to be accounted for in the overall DPS increase above.
Breath can retain its role as a talent that encourages building around it to some degree (and its synergies with things like Runic Attenuation, Koltira’s Newfound Will, and Seal of Necrofantasia are preserved). But without the overpowering Hungering Rune Weapon interaction, there is a lot more room for other builds to compete, and we’ve buffed the spec’s baseline damage a great deal to shift the landscape towards all talents being closer together in DPS. As always, we’ll continue to examine all of these changes based after people can start to test them on PTR.
