Now whats bugg'n'ya

[Xaices]

Avair's back behind the DevDesk after some needed vacation, this means that Dreads will be getting another pass over in the not so distant future (Assumption). I wanted to get a head start on the next round of fixes/changes/tweeks.

This threads intent is not of any real focus such as the ones in the past either focusing on top 5 bugs issues etc. No this post is a more general I am not looking for anything realy specific, just trying to get community feed back on what is bothering them the most in reguards to the Dread Knight.

So with out further a due.

List your top 5 things that bugs you the most. Could be an actual bug, could be an issue with an ability, could be the fact that another class has something similar. What ever it is post it here.

Don't hold back, as I am sure most of you won't.

[Vladamier]

What bothers me is we do not have a definate role. Yes we are tanks but what seperates us from the others? The Paladin has buffs, heals and excels against undead. The Warrior is a DPS tank. What are DK's? Utility tanks? I hope not because we only have a few nice utility spells and they are all selfish. How about allowing us to shadow meld our group so we as a tank can lead them into the depths of a dungeon? Not necessary but its an idea of what I think a utility tank should do.

I've also heard of the idea of us being a Debuff class. Of all the ideas I like this one the most. Leave the group buffs and utilities for Paladins and the other classes, thats fine. I can't think of one class that realy excells at debuffing, so why not give it to us? Increase the power of drain spells to original form pre-nerf. While we're at it, increase the drain line of spells. Allow us to drain just about anything. We're already on the right path with Ravaging Darkness and the newly added (although I haven't tested) drain energy from out Vile Strike chain. Why not just isolate those abilities and put them on the same line with drain str etc. Hell even our class speciality, DC is on the same page.

Well thats my 2 cents, time to get back to work heh.

[Blackfaith]

Bane, Bane , Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane, Bane.


Also one thing that is bothering me is Bane, and Bane. I dont think i need to explain why this ability is pretty much worthless.


P.S Bane needs work.

[velzevul]

1 - Bane sucks

2 - Backlash doesnt have sufficient effects to it

3 -Vile Howl requires all mobs to have DC3 or higher... that is just lame, one example of where DC ties are NOT needed and they inhibit spell's usefullness.

4 - Aphotic Shield doesn't block falling damage, doesnt block spell damage, and has 1 hr cooldown

5 - (and most important) DC doesnt stay on all mobs in combat properly

6 - AOE rescue doesnt work crap

7 - Retaliate doesnt work reaction autocounter

8 - Slay - many mobs are immune to it from the killer move time, when in fact nothing should be immune to it from the moment it was changed

9 - torture does not scale well post 30s level range

10 - Shadow Meld has incorrect %s


11 - our debuffs are not on par. Disciple (OxIII) -100 Con/str/dex, Shaman (-100 str/con hammer of crigus), Pal (-75% heals), DRK - 45 AND cast time.... wtf?

[Mortezzah]

#1 DK's have no auto-crit ability -- which both the Warrior and Paladin have.

#2 significantly increase hate in defensive stance -- I don't like it when tanks steal aggro without trying to -- 2 guys, same gear, same level, one in defensive one in offensive -- the defensive should always win (even with crits on offensive).

#3 DK's need another snap-aggro tool -- or decrease the refresh to 30 seconds. Warriors in essence have 3 -- we have 1 (we both have a couple rescues).

#4 Fundamentally change DC so that you build it up overtime and lose it gradually while out of battle -- not reset per battle.

#5 Bane/Doom/etc. These need to be significantly boosted.

#6 Overall -- more debuffing options to really make DK the "debuff" defensive tank.

#7 I'd like to see upgrades to our Invis/Speed buff.

#8 FD?

[DrK]

1. DC. Dreadful Countenance needs to be fixed so that it works as advertised. Back in Beta I recall reading several times that Dreadful Countenance would be something that would build up and stay up as long as the DK remains in combat and then would slowly drop off.

Well, it's obviously not working anything like that. Currently it builds up EXTREMELY slowly, such that in a group you will rarely get up to/above DC 3, and it does not remain up as long as the DK is in combat - it instantly drops as soon as whatever mob you are fighting dies.

Given how many of our skills, even our stances, are built around DC this really hurts the class' performance.


DC also does not seem to be applying itself properly.

The increased incoming critical % on mobs is definitely not working.

Also the +15% damage for the Dreadknight will intermittently not work.



There are also mobs in various places which are immune to DC - the debuff does not stick on them at all.


2. Stances. Dreadknight Offensive and Definsive stances seem to be a bit sub-par and Shadowmeld still needs a little work.

Shadowmeld would actually be a good stance if the parry and block bonuses are fixed to start at their proper 5%, as it originally did, and scale up with DC from there With the stance starting out at a 1% bonus per it takes what should be a really great stance and makes it weak.







3. COOLDOWN TIMERS!!! if you were to make a slogan for the current state of Dreadknights it would have to be 'The Cooldown Class'. It's frigging ridiculous! We have abilities of similar function/power to the other defensive fighters yet theirs are on timers of merely minutes and ours are on timers of HOURS?!?

Lets go over some:


Terror Incarnate - level 38 ability, maxes DC, cooldown THIRTY MINUTES. When I first saw the description for this ability i was thinking it would have a refresh of like 5-10 minutes. So let me get this straight, a Paladin can max a dreadknight's DC, what, every two minutes? While a dk can do it once an hour? So Paladins know how to use my DC better than me? Meh?

The refresh on this ability should be no more than 5-10 minutes.


Aphotic Shield - level 42 ability - blocks 100% of incoming damage for 10 seconds, refresh ONE HOUR.

First of all this ability is broken. It either does nothing or acts as a 250dmg rune. Please fix this.

Now, paladins can go invuln for 5 seconds every two minutes I believe, warriors' something like 15 seconds every ten minutes, so what's up with the huge cooldown on our 10 second invuln?

This is going to really hurt us come raid time.

Averaging between the Warrior and Paladin invulnerabilities ours should be on about a 7 minute refresh.


Hatred Incarnate: level 50 ability, *Buff* Increases damage by 100% and reduces END costs by 75% for 30 seconds. Cooldown - TWO HOURS.

TWO FREAKING HOURS!?!?!?!?!

The refresh on this should be no more than 20-30 minutes.



Incantation of Hate - level 50 dot - TEN MINUTES (why do all of our level 50 abilities have big cooldowns?). In addition to the long cooldown on this it is constantly resisted, in full or partially.

The refresh on this ability should be about one minute. I don't understand the ten minute refresh at all.

Also, the 480 energy cost on this ability is right out. It's out of line with what the ability does and no Dreadknight has the energy or energy regen to be able to cast this thing and still use any of our other abilities and not immediately go OOE.



And last but not least : Bane. - THIRTY MINUTES - With this one I will segue into my next topic:




4.BANE. PLEASE MAKE THIS ABILITY NOT SUCK. Honestly, and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this ability blows harder than hurricane Katrina.


Level 50 ability. Requires DC 5 to use. Consumes all DC. Has a six second cast time. THIRTY MINUTE cooldown. Does a whopping 3-4k damage.

You know what 4k damage does to a level 50 mob? Nothing.

In the amount of time it takes to try and use Bane i can do more damage with my weapon.

For one the six second cast time has to go. A tank can not use an ability with a long cast time, it's impossible.

Secondly this ability needs to do way more than it does now. I don't care if it can be used right after word of doom etc, it just has to do more.

In it's current state I would delete Bane from my spell book if I could.




5. Debuffs. I thought Dk's were supposed to be the debuffing tank? Right now it seems like the other two tanks have equal/better debuffs than dk's (don't even get me started on Paladins and Deny Life, them having this ability makes me feel like someone peed in my cheerios).


Our stat debuffs used to be pretty good but at this point they've been nerfed so bad their basically a stat buff for the DK to be used only every 5 minutes when they run out.

The cast time/mana cost of these need to be lowered so that we can actually use them every fight and they need to debuff the mob more. If it would be overpowering for them to buff the dreadknight more just increase the debuff portion, not the buff portion.

How about adding a third line for con/dex? That way we could debuff all a mob's stats and possibly eventually in an expansion or something could get an uber combo version that debuffs all in one spell (like the new group buffs that are dropping for casters).


Despoil needs to be increased in effectiveness - right now you have to cast it too many times for it to work and then the mob just rebuffs itself. it's not currently efficient to use.


I think that we need to have some more debuffing options available to us - One suggestion would be something like paladin's Deny Life (lowering healing effectiveness on the target), which seems perfect for dreadknights.


I think that an energy drain/debuff would be a good addition to the class as well as an AC drain/debuff.

[Valamir]

was going to post a long and confusing post then saw DrK one and it contains most of the things i was going to complain about (and in same order too :P)

so to not repeat look at his post :P

only thing that i disagree with is to remove shadow meld and boost other stances... this imo is not that good, let's boost offensive and defensive stances to be on par of other classes and give a bit more love on shadow meld too (that is actually not that bad)

- off stance: add a secondary offensive bonus as for fighter stance, i'd say give it a +crit something around 10% and keep the higher end costs, considering that our class can't force crits it should be quite helpfull and also is something different than +acc that war alredy get

- def stance: it is worse than other def fighers stance, maybe a bit more hate or a +block could be nice

- shadow meld: is not a bad as it seem but imo should be more effective as spell dmg reduction... a straight +20% spell damage reduction chould be nice


want to spend also a word on debuffs... we where supposed to be heavy debuffers but that is not happening, when grouping with shammies i notice a big difference in damage i take when he debuff a mob, a thing that doesn't happen with my debuffs... not speaking only of drain lines but by DC5 debuff component too

we have many useless or extremely inefficent skills, will be nice to see them revamped with some debuff component


and last thing... we are crap against healers, warriors can stun pretty well, pallies got (our) heal debuff spell (no comment here) we should get something too as this is a huge difference between def fighters (counterspell can be ok or something else... mob that hurt himself or we "steal" his spell... just a pair of owerpowered ideas :P)

[Meldryn]

1. Stances Scaling with DC

This is by far the most crippling problem with our class. Our stances will always be less effective than other tanks because we can't have stances as good as theirs when ours will eventually scale higher, leaving us overpowered. The best thing you could do for us in this department is take off the scaling.

2. Our Role is Non-Existant

We were supposed to be a debuff tank. What are we now that our debuffs have been watered down and Paladins and Warriors now have comparable if not better debuffs?

3. Feign Death

A spell that fits our class description, and everyone who ever played a DK is dying to have. Give it a cast time, put it on the same timer as Disciples, whatever. I would see it as a fun utility spell for pulling as well as adding sorely lacking flavor to the class.

4. Symbols are Underpowered

60 point damage shield at level 50? Wow. Almost as pathetic as the 75 extra damage at DC 5. The only one worth using is Despair, and even then, 100hp is nothing at 50.

5. Ridiculous Cooldowns

Two hours on Hatred Incarnate. One hour on Aphotic Shield. Thirty minutes on Bane. Thirty minutes on Terror Incarnate. Ten minutes on Incantation of Hate. The list goes on. These are the kinds of cooldowns that belong on Harm Touch, which we do not, and will never have.

[Ralfazar]

I agree with everything everyone is saying but, I gotta say, you all forgot 1 majorly annoying addition to our arsenal that seriously needs to be done away with.

GET RID OF THE DC CASTING ANIMATION!!!!!!


Thank you

[Avangarok]

Originally Posted by Ralfazar

I agree with everything everyone is saying but, I gotta say, you all forgot 1 majorly annoying addition to our arsenal that seriously needs to be done away with.

GET RID OF THE DC CASTING ANIMATION!!!!!!


Thank you

DC animation to be fixed soon