WoW: The Death Knight in Shadowlands - new runes, talents and spells

Shadowlands is once again focused on class fantasy. The developers want to remove the strict boundaries between individual specializations and make some iconic spells such as Dead Raise, Death and Decay, and Death Mantle available to all Death Knights once again. On the following two pages, we take a look at the biggest changes to the Dark Knight for Shadowlands. Keep in mind that this information is from the Alpha phase. So there may be some changes before the release of the next expansion!

Table of Contents1

General Adjustments

Most of the adjustments affect all three Death Knight playstyles. Many classic spells that have disappeared from the Dark Knight's Zaber book in recent years make their comeback in Shadowlands.

• Each playstyle gets an undead as a permanent companion.
• Free choice of weapons for Frost Death Knights
• The spells Antimagic Zone, Ice Chains, Death and Decay, Necrotic Strike, Death Mantle, Lich Knight, and Dead Raise are available for all three specializations.
• Sacrificial Pact is the new ability for all Death Knights. You sacrifice your ghoul at the touch of a button, which instantly deals Shadow damage to eight nearby enemies and heals you by 25 percent of your maximum health.

The Death Knights return to their roots as true necromancers with Shadowlands. All play styles will be able to summon a servant to their side via necromancy. The undead provides extra damage and serves as life insurance in case of emergency. A good complement to Sacrificial Pact is Death Pact. This spell can also be found in all three talent trees. With this combination, all Death Knights get solid protection and can arm themselves against all types of damage. Strengthening the Dark Knight's defense is definitely the first step in the right direction. However, one problem remains - the tiresome issue of mobility. For the time being, everything remains the same for Death Knights. Unstoppable Death (skill) and Ghost Walk (talent) remain your only options to specifically increase your mobility.

New Rune Enchantments

In the next expansion, Death Knights will again get significantly more weapon runes to forge. We have already discovered the first rune enchantments on the alpha server. The new runes are extremely versatile and there is a helpful weapon enchantment for just about every challenge. These five new runes are currently available in the alpha. You will still need to visit the Acherus Necropolis for runecrafting.

• Rune of Hysteria increases your rune power bar by 20 points and grants you a chance to increase your rune power regeneration by 20 percent for eight seconds.
• Rune of Sanguination increases the damage of Deathblow. When your Health drops below 35 percent, you heal yourself by 48 percent of your maximum health in eight seconds.
• Rune of Spellwarding reflects three percent of incoming magic damage. The rune also grants you a chance at a shield that absorbs additional magic damage equal to ten percent of your maximum health. When an enemy hits the shield, its spell speed is reduced by ten percent for six seconds.
• Rune of Unending Thirst increases your speed and movement by ten percent. The weapon rune also heals you by five percent of your maximum health when you kill an enemy that grants experience or honor. Rune of Unending Thirst also increases your movement speed by ten percent when you are dead.
• Rune of the Apocalypse infects your ghoul's claws. Your minion's attacks have a chance to apply the following debuffs: Death: One percent less healing; War: Increases damage taken by the Death Knight by one percent; Famine: Reduces damage taken by Death Knight by two percent; Pestilence: Slows target by 15 percent and deals moderate damage over time.

Blood in Shadowlands

Blood Death Knights will enjoy the most changes in Shadowlands. The tank specialization gets new talents and protection cooldowns.

• The Blood Transformation spell makes a comeback as a base ability.
• Runic Transformation returns from the talent tree to the Blood Death Knight spellbook as a protection cooldown. The global cooldown on Runic Transformation has been removed, so the cooldown will once again function as it did in Battle for Azeroth.
• Relish in Blood is a new talent
• Redistribution and adjustment of the remaining talents

The ghoul companion also becomes more versatile in Shadowlands.Your new companion deals a lot of damage, interrupts your opponents and serves as a lifesaver in case of emergency. Source: buffed Blood Death Knights upgrade nicely with numerous protection cooldowns in Shadowlands. In addition to Antimagic Shell, Icy Resistance, Dancing Rune Weapon, and Vampire Blood, Blood Tanks get Runic Transformation as their base protection cooldown. The spell has two charges and reduces your damage by 30 percent for four seconds, as it once did. Ideal for absorbing large damage spikes. Sacrificial Pact (ability) and Death Pact (talent) give you more ways to protect yourself from magical and physical attacks, or heal yourself instantly in an emergency. Blood Transformation is another relic from ancient times. The original version of Blood Transformation made it easier to play with runes, in Shadowlands the spell gets a similar function and gives you more flexibility. Relish in Blood is the new talent that increases your self-healing and provides you with regular rune power. While Scarlet Scourge is active, your next death and decay will heal you and you will immediately receive ten points of Runic Power. The amount of healing is based on the amount of attack power you have and the number of charges of Bone Shield. This talent even rivals Ossuarium, the previous talent favorite of the third tier, in terms of self-healing in the field test. We're curious to see if it stays that way.

Unholy in Shadowlands

Blizzard's class designers seem quite happy with the Unholy Death Knight. Therefore, there are only a few adjustments for the Plague Knight in Shadowlands. We present them to you in brief:

• Summon Gargoyle moves back into the spellbook as a damage cooldown (was a talent in BfA).
• In Shadowlands, the Ghoul also benefits from Mastery: Dread Blade
• The effect of the azerite perk Magus of the Dead has been implemented in the talent Army of the Damned
• Unholy Pact is a new talent
• The duration of Virulent Plague spread by Outbreak has been increased from 21 seconds to 28 seconds.
• The range of Outbreak has been increased from 8 to 10 meters.

Good News. As an Unholy Death Knight, you will regain your Gargoyle damage cooldown. You may now summon the undead creature every three minutes. Instead of Summon Gargoyle, the Plague Knight in the last row gets a new talent called Unholy Pact. The cooldown works as follows: Dark Transformation creates an Unholy Pact between you and your Servant, igniting burning chains that deal Shadow damage to enemies between you every second for 15 seconds. While the chains are active, your strength is increased by eight percent. The pact provides a real damage fireworks especially in the fight against several enemies (keyword mastery: Dread Blade!), provided that you catch as many enemies as possible with it. However, caution is advised with this talent as well, since the damage numbers are not yet final in the alpha and can change at any time.

Frost in Shadowlands

The developers are finally paying a lot of attention to the Frost Death Knight in Shadowlands again. The damage of iconic Frost abilities like Extinguish will be increased and Blizzard is giving you a strong damage cooldown.

• Frost Death Knights will once again be able to choose between two one-handed weapons and one two-handed weapon.
• The damage of Extinguish has been increased from 60 to 120 percent
• Frostwyrm's Furor cooldown is your new damage cooldown (was previously a talent)
• Frost Sickle now hits up to five enemies
• New talent in the penultimate row called Hypothermic Presence

Frost Death Knights will benefit the most from the planned changes in Shadowlands. The gameplay has been hopelessly behind the Unholy Death Knight for the last few years. One of the reasons why the Frost specialization is so unpopular in BfA is that it forces you to play with two one-handed weapons. The rigid talent selection and the bumpy gameplay are further reasons why you rarely encounter a Frost Death Knight at the moment. The latest adjustments bring the old gameplay feeling back, at least partially. The free choice of weapons is the first step in the right direction. Fighting with the slow two-handed weapon was just as easy for us as with two one-handed weapons. There was no trace of rotation gaps during our first outing in Torghast! Frostwyrm's Furor also combines well with the powerful Pillar of Frost cooldown at the moment. The new talent Hypothermic Presence will replace Frostwyrm in the future, saving you plenty of Runic Power on a regular basis. This fills the gaps in the rotation and speeds up your play. However, the complex talent Sindragosa's Breeze remains the problem child. Icy Dragon's Breath remains the strongest talent in the back row. However, some players don't get along with the handling of this spell. At this point, the Frost Death Knight definitely needs a useful talent alternative to catch up with his Unholy peers on the DpS meter.

Death Knight

Detail

In Shadowlands, you can join a pact and unlock another ability

Bastion - Kyrian

Shackles of the Unworthy: Punishes your target for their past misdeeds, reducing the damage they deal to you and dealing regular arcane damage themselves. The cooldown of Shackles of the Unworthy is reduced when you consume a rune to deal damage to the enemy affected by the effect with an ability.

Revendreth - Venthyr

Swarming Mist: A dense mist surrounds you, increasing your chance to dodge attacks. Deals regular shadow damage to enemies within range. Each time the ability deals damage, you gain additional rune power, up to a maximum value.

Maldraxxus - Necrolords

Monstrous Limb: Creates an additional limb for a short time that deals Shadow damage to nearby enemies. If an enemy is at a greater distance, it will be pulled towards you.

Ardenwald - Night Fae

Right of Death: Replaces Death and Decay. Corrupts the ground at the target location and deals regular Shadow damage to targets within the area of effect. Affected enemies deal reduced damage to you (up to a maximum), and their power is transferred to you as a corresponding amount of Strength. While in this area, you hit additional targets with Necrotic Strike and Heart Strike. Scourge Strike and Tearing Shadows hit all enemies near the target.

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