Opening Screen to the Isle of Conquest

Alright so i’ve obviously have been out of the loop for a while. Just today I stumbled upon the latest patch notes on the test server and my first impression is that it looks good overall. What stands out the most to me obviously are the PvP changes and the NEW BATTLEGROUND! The isle of conquest!

Besides the new battleground other important big changes are:

• Shaman totem queuing system with a spell to stomp 4 totems at once
• Death Knight talents/abilities getting gutted (AGAIN, surprise surprise!!!)
• Profession buffs
• More mount changes (Level 20 normal mount, level 40 epic)
• Experience from PvP
• Arena Season 7
• New 5, 10, and 25 man Instance
• and the Argent Tournament of course (something I don’t really care for)

I’ll get into what I think about all the new changes during this week in an attempt to revive the blog a bit and shake the dust off.

Here’s the official thread by Blizzard on the Isle of Conquest:

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. But as insignificant as it may seem, this is no ordinary place. A sound of thunder as waves crash endlessly against rocky cliffs; a sound of fury as swords clash on the blood-stained fields of this island on the edge of forever.

Welcome to the Isle of Conquest.

The ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance has turned many once peaceful (and some not-so peaceful) places into theaters of constant war. The Isle of Conquest is the latest such place, set to be the location of a battle of epic proportions over the island’s precious resources.

An Alliance and a Horde general are fighting for dominance, overseeing the action from the safety of their keeps. Whichever side manages to eliminate the enemy general first will triumph on the island; failure to protect your leader will bring shame, dishonor, and defeat. There is no peace accord here, and it’s an all-out war between the factions.

Once More into the breach…

Isle of Conquest, a new battleground scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, will pitch teams of up to 40 players against each other in a massive battle over this small island off Northrend’s northern coast. To win, your team will need to make use of the island’s unique strategic locations including an oil derrick, a siege workshop, and a fully equipped airship hangar. You will deploy devastating siege weaponry on the field; Light have mercy on anyone caught between you and your ultimate target, the general holed up in the enemy keep.

There are five points of interest on the Isle of Conquest for the factions to battle over. Each one offers its own benefits and strategic value. Which one will you claim for your side, and will it be enough to ensure victory?

Capture Locations

Consider your options before storming out of your keep to confront the enemy head-on. Spread throughout the Isle of Conquest are several capturable locations (as seen on the map), each granting a unique strategic advantage to your team.

The Oil Derrick: Located on the northwestern end of the island, this smudge in the Frozen Sea produces enough black gold to run a thousand siege engines. Taking this resource garners precious reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Cobalt Mine: This snow-covered assembly, located on the southeastern end of the island, hides untapped supplies that must be harvested. Taking this resource grants reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Docks: The western shore’s docks will further expand your selection of siege weapons with the devastating new Glaive Thrower and the Catapult. Unleash the destruction of the Glaive Thrower upon the walls of the keep, or launch your invading party over the walls to assault the keep from within.

The Airship Hangar: This sturdy steel structure stands on the peak of Mt. Conquest overlooking the eastern side of the island, allowing players to board the airship docked there. This devastating weapon of war is capable of raining death upon the heads of your enemies and destroying enemy defenses. Once onboard the airship, players will find it comes equipped with parachutes enabling a strike team to drop into the enemy keep from above.

The Siege Workshop: Situated right between the Alliance base and the Horde base, this siege workshop occupies a strategic hot spot. Seizing it grants the controlling party the ability to utilize an arsenal of siege vehicles perfectly suited to reducing the enemy keep’s walls to dust and ashes.

Graveyards: There are five graveyards in the Isle of Conquest that are attached to different points of interest on the map: the Horde base, the Alliance base, an oil spill island in the center of the map (attached to the siege workshop), the northeast corner (attached to the airship hangar), and the southwest corner (attached to the docks).

Main Objectives

The Keeps: The Horde and Alliance keeps sit at opposite ends of the island. These citadels host four easily accessible defensive cannons set on the ramparts, capable of unleashing hot fury onto oncoming attackers. Additional explosives sit safely stowed in the base of the keep along the back wall. At least, they’re safe as long as they don’t fall into enemy hands. If they do, though, they can be employed to bring the stone walls down from within.

The General: Holed up behind the keeps’ massive walls, the generals command their forces from a position of relative safety. Should the keep fall and the general be slain, the Isle of Conquest will fall to the victor.

Reinforcements: Isle of Conquest uses a reinforcements system similar to that of Alterac Valley. The clock is ticking and every individual counts. If too many of your comrades fall to the enemy the battle will end in defeat. Killing enemy players will reduce their reinforcements by one for each kill, Once your faction’s reinforcements reach their limit, so too does your bid for control of the island and the wealth of resources you’ve fought so hard over.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. A test of strength. A chance to prove your might, to crush your enemies, to make a difference, a chance for endless glory and conquest.

Will you seize it?

No more nitro boosts in arena QQ (

My nitro boosts no longer work in Arena? Huh? We all might’ve heard this was being considered but it didn’t make it’s way into any of the patch notes, yet the change happened anyway… The loss of boots aren’t the only ninja changes that Blizzard pulls over our eyes, the ninja nerf to Mana Burn last month is also notable: “Mana Burn has been reduced to 10% mana burned (up to a maximum of 20% of the Priests mana), down from 13% (max 26%)”. For the most part however most of the ninja changes Blizz sneaks in aren’t nerfs or buffs but simple bug fixes with PvE encounters or abilities/spells that weren’t working properly.

So where are the ninja patch notes then? Right here. Of course! A totally visible and easy to find post on the US Forums -_-

What kills me about these changes isn’t getting nerfed for balance sake but that it doesn’t get documented into the proper patch notes. Sure, most of what’s in that forum post is just minor bug fixes but things like the nitro boosts nerf really should’ve been in a proper patch note. Why? Well unlike minor bug fixes a tiny little change to something like the nitro boosts causes this:

Top 2vs2 Combos (2009/05/31)

Compare this chart to the ones from my post earlier this month and it’s obvious something has changed. All the druids learned how to play? Of course not, what happened was that the overpowered combo that was rogue/priest has lost it’s advantage. All the higher rated rogue/priests where/are engineers. The general strategy for them was to burst someone down while CC another and thanks to engineering they where both able to do that and the nitro boosts gave priests what they lacked the most: mobility.

Now that using the nitro boosts is out of the picture the 2vs2 scene has gone back to it’s old-school days where druids kite and peel you to oblivion while they’re warrior friend wears one of you down. Despite the fact that plague strike has been nerfed pally/DK is still a strong combo and a force to reckon with and probably one of the few combos able to out-cheese the cheesy of all cheesy combos, warrior/druid.

It’s almost like Blizzard wants every season to have the same combinations dominate. I’ll admit that the nerf to the boots was necessary but it’s just ridiculous how druids come out on top when they’re given breathing room.

Arena Ranking at SK-gaming

After a couple of weeks of the new season SK-gaming’s famous arena ranking page shows us how the new season is molding and forming. The results are disturbing and comforting at the same time. Let me explain myself…

What’s disturbing is that I don’t even know what season it is anymore, according to the statistics it feels like we’re back in Season 3-4 where PMR (Priest, Mage, Rogue), Priest/Rogue, and Warrior/Druid all reigned supreme. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the new or rather *old* diversity over the joke that was Season 5 (DK/Paladin or fail) but it’s regretable how with just a few key class changes everything has turned upside down. Yet again Blizzard’s dream of “everyone being PvP viable” is thrown back into their face, this time with a nostalgic aftertaste to it.

The comforting part is with the return of the old-school comps a feeling of “everything is back to normal again” flows over me. All is zen once more in WoW PvP, ever since the cataclysmic asteroid that was the inclusion of Death Knights. What’s more despite the fact that the return of these old overpowered comps makes it even more difficult for alternative comps to rise up, the strategies to counter them are still similar to what they where before. So now, after finally having gotten used to having Death Knights into the mix we have to rethink our strategies back to 6 months ago where Druids would spam Cyclone while his Warrior Mortal Strike’s you in the face.

Speaking of Druid/Warrior, which I foresaw would make a comeback this season, here’s another chart of how the class representation has also taken a deep dive into retro-insanity.

Most popular classes

It almost gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see paladins and death knights fall back down and to my unexpected surprise Priests are the new arena champions. I only leveled a priest because I always wanted one, little did I know that my little twink project would become my main PvP monster today.

Currently I’m doing 2v2 as Disc with my Enhancement Shaman arena partner Luar. We finally hit 1500 and I bought some Deadly Shoulders. It’s an odd combo but we have high hopes to get into the 2k+ this season. That is unless we have no way to counter priest/rogues and druid/warriors in the upper brackets XD

]]> http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/05/11/season-6-out-of-the-fire-and-back-into-the-oven/feed/ 0 http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/04/18/preparing-for-arena-season-6/ http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/04/18/preparing-for-arena-season-6/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:08:00 +0000 Yiedra http://wow.60-fps.com/?p=893

The new Arena Season is just around the corner, besides sharpening your swords and stocking up on hot pockets here are a few things I think any rookie or seasoned player should be aware of. With the new changes done to Paladins and Death Knights in particular we should be seeing a change in class compositions with the new season. A huge relief since I personally think Season 5 was an imbalanced disaster where you either where a Paladin or a Death Knight (Survival Hunters and Resto Shamans also had some success) or you might as well just sat the season out on the benches.

What’s changed that’ll change the different kind of compositions we’ll be seeing?

1. First of all Plague Strike no longer removes HoTs (Heal over Time) effects. This is one little change but this ability turned the tables around in Season 5 for Resto Druids who previously reigned supreme in previous seasons. Because of this I’m predicting a revival in Druid representation this Season.
2. The next under represented class were Warriors, who simply didn’t have the face smashing simplicity of Death Knights to keep up with their dark plate wearing brethen. A couple changes have been seen to Warriors, particulary buffs to their Arms tree and most importantly a new ability:  Shattering Throw! *Insert sweet Paladin tears here* Warrior/Druid may very well be the ultimate anti-Holy Pally/DK combo now.

Many other changes have been done to other classes as well but these two changes should cause the most ripples in the Arena  class composition pool.

Besides expecting a slight paradigm shift of class combinations what else should we do to prepare?

• If you haven’t done so already, turn in all your Arena Points for Commendations of Bravery. Each Commendation of Bravery costs 100 Arena Points and grants 200 Honor Points. Why bother? Well, ALL ARENA POINTS WILL BE RESET WHEN SEASON 6 STARTS ON THE 21st! Yeah, a little part died in me as well when I found out but you might as well stock up on what honor that you can and buy any new gear you can before next maintenance. You can still buy Arena/Honor gear that requieres rating, keep in mind it will consider the rating you last had before Season 5 ended as your limit.
• Keep doing Wintergrasp every chance you get. With Patch 3.1.0 came new items to the Wintergrasp vendors including epic belts, chests, and some very attractive trinkets. There are 5 Titan Forged Rune trinkets that are like your basic “PvP Trinket” to remove CC effects but instead of resilience come with hit rating or spell power. Oh and all the new items are iLevel 213, which means they are compareable to Deadly gear.
• Expect to do more than just 10 games next week. Blizzard has decided that this season we’ll all start at 0 rating but retain our previous team ranking. Essentially if you play well you’ll be back up to your old rating in no time but if you’re horrible you’ll probably suffer more than usual and end up with a rating even further from 1500. Either way, everyone will have to do roughly 50+ games to get their rating back to where it “should be”.

Of course as with any sort of competitive game all the gear in the world won’t do you any good if you don’t get some solid practice in with your Arena partners so skirmish a bit, discuss strategies, and good luck next Wednesday! D

Honestly with the new changes they’re putting into Dancing Rune Weapon as well…

• Dancing Rune Weapon: Damage done by this pet is reduced by 50%, but the cooldown is reduced to 90 seconds.

Great change for PvE DPS since it should increase overall DPS since it’ll be available on pretty much every pull and should remain the same for long boss fights. However, blood seems to be less and less of a viable PvP build anymore. Last PTR build had DRW doing 50% damage but lasting twice as long, a shorter cooldown instead makes it horrible for PvP in my opinion. Sure, 50% more damage still is some burst but also considering Plague Strike will no longer remove HoTs (Heal over Time) anymore our burst is nil against HoT heavy healers (Shamans and Druids). Hopefully though the Plague Strike change should encourage a revival of Resto Druids, curious how the once most popular arena classes (Warrior and Resto Druid) are now the the most neglected.

What baffles me is that it almost seems Blizzard is biased towards Unholy, which I have nothing against, it’s a cool talent tree and I am currently using it for PvP due to it’s sheer utility… but this seems to go against their latest agenda to allow all talent trees be PvP viable. A cool idea on paper but a herculean task to accomplish in an MMO which frankly I can see it being possible for hybrid classes but not for core classes like Warrior or Priest (Prot/Holy PvP? Seriously?)

I personally think it’d be cool if they could pull it off, more diversity please, I’m tired of the same Arena match-ups (yeah I play a Holy/Unholy 2v2 comp setup as well). I recently dinged 80 with my little twink project priest and am going to try Disc/Enhancement Shaman just to spice things up and actually try a challenging comp.

Well considering these latest changes it seems Frost may be the 2nd viable PvP tree (Unholy will still be popular nonetheless) since it’s shaping up to have nice control and burst as well as survivability. Time to erase our whiteboards and theory-craft again.

So, what’s the deal with Presences? When should I use Blood, Frost, or Unholy?

I’ve been asked this quite a few times so I thought I’d give a shot at clearing it up. Unlike warrior stances, using presences is a lot simpler for two reasons: (1) regardless of the presence you’re in you can use all of your abilities and (2) there is very little need to “presence” dance. So which presences do you use and when? To answer this we have to look at what roles a DK has, DPS, Tanking, and PvP…

Simply put:

• DPS = Blood normally, Frost if you have to Off-Tank in a pinch, Unholy when you use DRW if you’re Blood specc
• Tanking = Frost – That’s it
• PvP = Unholy normally, Frost if you get focus fired

Now to explain my reasoning. Testing shows that Blood is the best for consistent DPS situations because 15% more damage outweighs 15% increased attack/movement speed because our DoTs (Damage over Time) aren’t affected by attack speed. This is the same reasoning why it’s argued Crit > Haste for Death Knights because our spells and abilities simply gain more benefit from crit than they do from haste. The switch to Unholy presence to use DRW is from personal experience, since you only get 10-22 (28 with Runic Power Mastery) the amount of attacks you get in is greater than the damage they do since the weapon copies your moves.

In PvP it should be obvious why Unholy is king. The main reason is the 0.5 second global cooldown reduction, this allows 7 abilities to be used in the time span of 6 seconds while in Blood you would only be able to use 5. To explain it simply let’s assume all our abilities do 100 damage (this isn’t realistic but the math is the same if applied on a larger scale), now in the time frame of 6 seconds we get the following:

The ticks from our DoTs isn’t taken into account here but our burst damage is superior. IF enemy players were to stand still and let us simply whack at them then Blood would be the ideal choice but anyone who’s stepped foot in arena knows that PvP is all about chasing column huggers and line-of-sight monkeys. So when we do get the chance to close into melee range (Unholy presence also helps us do this by providing the 15% movement buff) we need to deal as many attacks as possible.

Since Patch 3.1.0 is changing our presence specialization talents I’ll tackle this in my next post.

Patch 3.1.O-Rama at WoWHead

The boys over at WoWHead.com have recently released a calculator with all the Patch 3.1 changes done so far on the PTR realms. Some of the classes have been changed very little others (such as Death Knights) have had trees rearranged almost completely. Frost has been turned upside-down practically and as I feared the 0/32/39 Dual Wield specc for Death Knights will be gone forever. Paladins lost their Blessing of Kings in protection as it is becoming a base ability and are left with a very naked Tier 1 in their Protection Tree.

I’m still fiddling around with the calculator trying to figure out what the next best dual wield specc will be and to be honest from the looks of it, it can be any of the trees since all the key DW abilities except for Nerves of Cold Steel have been changed to favor Dual Wielding less and be equally as good for Two-Handers. At first I was thinking of trying out deep frost for PvP and PvE but after the changes done to Blood and Unholy I’m leaning towards using a modified Blood Specc for PvP and Deep Frost for PvE. I still haven’t done the math or any testing though.

For PvP i’ve grown fond of using Blood despite the overwhelming popularity Unholy speccs enjoy and with the new patch Blood will have even more utility. I’m currently torn between two:

1. 51-2-18 possibly putting points into Morbidity and Epidemic instead of Necrosis although I think Necrosis will give better burst results overwall with the use of DRW (Dancing Rune Weapon)
2. 51-17-3 which gives up having a zombie pet in exchange for more survivability and Obliterate not consuming diseases.

Considering diseases get dispelled all the time in PvP regardless of Virulence making the disease removing disadvantage of Obliterate moot I’m leaning more towards 51-2-18. Having a pet would provide me with another interrupt and stun I could use to ensure I’m positioned correctly to use DRW to full advantage. Both of these speccs have 2 points in the new Runic Power Mastery (down from 3 points) which if at full runic power (130) will allow DRW to last 6 seconds longer. I believe almost all speccs will be investing into this talent now due to it’s easy accessibility and usefulness, Unholy Gargoyles will be easier to maintain if used with 130 runic power for example.

As for my warrior I don’t see talents changing since her specc still seems solid and I’m still leveling my priest so I’ll theory craft that later since I haven’t decided whether what specc(s) I want to be at 80 anyway.

So what are you waiting for? Get down to the new talent calculator and start theory crafting away! Tell me what you think would be good speccs for PvE/PvP for your class after the patch.

]]> http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/03/06/310-talent-calculator-available-at-wowhead/feed/ 2 http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/03/04/movie-of-the-week-hysteria-unorthodox-pvp/ http://wow.60-fps.com/2009/03/04/movie-of-the-week-hysteria-unorthodox-pvp/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:57:54 +0000 Yiedra http://wow.60-fps.com/?p=496

The video for this week is made by another Blood Elf but instead of a Paladin the next most overpowered class, a Death Knight from Tortheldrin-USA. It’s short and has no instructional use to it other than perhaps to show how Blood Specced Death Knights can exploit a talent they have called Hysteria. I personally don’t think it’s download worthy but you can find download links for it here.

What can I say the video itself isn’t by any means a work of art but it got a couple laughs out of me watching players at low life after dueling die from having Hysteria applied. It’s cheap, it’s lame, it’s DK, but it’s funny. I won’t downrate it for not being an amazing video since it does it’s job at getting it’s point across quickly: Hysteria is Hysterical! However it has very little editing done to after the first minute to further exagerrate the joke. LOL at those who got upset and whispered complaints back to the author “Reported”. 3 out of 5 Stars

Deadlyblond

Alright so I’ve decided to share once every week a WoW movie I’ve seen that is either interesting, entertaining, or both. One day I’ll make my own, need to buy another 1T hard drive to fill up with Fraps recordings first. Anyway, I digress, the video I’d like to point out this week is called “Deadlyblond – Brutal janitor”. Unfortunately there isn’t a youtube video available or any other embedded format so you’ll have to go to www.warcraftmovies.com and check it out. I suggest downloading it if you got the bandwidth because the author made an awesome effort at making a high quality video, otherwise there are a couple HQ (High Quality) versions available for viewing. I recommend using Tortun, it can be a bit buggy but streams videos very nicely.

The Good:

• It’s an entertaining video filled with plenty of humor and the end is a nice nostalgic version of Pat PvP but with a retribution paladin instead.
• The 2v2 clips also contain a few moments that can be learned from
• Good editing, doesn’t feel to cluttered with “filler” effects
• Good choice in music for the most part

The Bad:

• The introduction is great but can disuade the watcher at first, don’t quit, the rest is great
• Too many of the clips where of the same shaman/druid team, although they where interesting matches nonetheless
• Dream Theater >.<

Summary:

The video is about a Norwegian player who plays a Retribution Blood Elf Paladin on Agamaggan-EU and showing off his “overpowered” pally as he states in the video in battlegrounds, arena, and other miscellaneous scenes. Good video overall. 4 Out of 5 Stars

(Insert Doctor Who or Twilight Zone music here)

For all of you who haven’t checked out the 3.1.0 patch notes that Blizzard has revealed, please do so now. There are quite a few upcoming class changes that are very easily going to turn the PvE and especially the PvP scenes upside down. I’m not going to get into all the nitty gritty details in this post because like all test realm patch notes they’re not definitive yet but I feel the need to discuss the changes that have been going on and what will happen to Death Knights, Blizzard’s experimental monstrosity.

As always my main class, Warrior, is the one less affected by the upcoming patch changes which makes me believe that Warriors truely are the center piece of the World of Warcraft classes. What I mean by this is that they tend to be the one class that all other classes are balanced around instead of the latter. Blizzard is content  with the design and mechanics that warriors are currently at so they change everyone else (drastically at times) to achieve WoW nirvana. Despite QQ done by warriors as a warrior myself I have to admit the class is very solid and no where near broken or in nead of ‘something’.

Death Knights on the other hand… this class has gone through some INSANE changes since their first appearence in WotLK 3.0.2. They’ve been molded and morphed in only a few months what the other 9 classes have gone through in the past 4 years. I honestly feel like my Death Knight is a pile of clay, easily moldable and plyable into any form, and no I don’t mean this because of their versatile and dynamic talent trees (although this is true). From the nerfs done to Unholy to the changing of Heart Strike and most importantly the changes done to our zombies I can’t say I feel like I’m playing the same class I was months ago.

After this next patch it will be even worst, it’s no wonder that there aren’t any real solid cookie cutter builds. Sure there are a few but if you look at the builds people have in general you see a bit of everything except perhaps the basic 17/0/54 Unholy Death Knights running around in PvP and PvE which remained popular even after the nerfs to Unholy in 3.0.8. With the switching of Unholy Blight and Gargoyle it’s dubious if this specc will still be the most popular. Other builds that have arisen in PvP inolve points in Frost to get Lichborne to help compensate for the drop in survivability from the Unholy nerf in the last patch.

The changes are too many to list here so I’ll detail the most important ones that’ll change the way we play our Death Knights or fight with/against them (Next to each I’ll write PvE and/or PvP to indicate what it will affect the most, my comments are in italics/underlined):

• Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented. Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented. PvE The change to BP and FF will render current rune cycles moot and we’ll have to come up with new ones
• Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical. PvP/PvE
• Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike’s damage increased quite a bit to compensate. PvP/PvE Druids will no crumble as quickly before our mighty visage and Resto Shamans will be even more impossible to kill (
• Raise Ally now has a cooldown greater than 15 min and can no longer be used in Arenas. PvP
• Rune of Razorfrost now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%. PvE

Talents

• Blood
  • Blood-Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise. PvP/PvE This should increase Blood DPS considerably since it relies heavily on melee damage
  • Bloody Strikes now increases Blood Boil damage instead of Pestilence. PvE This along with the changes to Blood Boil should help Blood DKs compete with Frost/Unholy AoE.
  • Sudden Doom now procs a free Death Coil instead of requiring you to push the button. Ranks reduced from 5 to 3. PvP/PvE More burst in PvP and no more worrying about throwing off rune cycles by using another global cooldown
• Frost
  • The following talents have moved in the Frost tree: Runic Power Mastery, Glacier Rot, Killing Machine, Chilblains, and Endless Winter. PvP/PvE This is going to be HUGE since up until now Frost has been the least mutilated tree. Hopefully this will increase it’s viability as a main specc and secondary tree
  • Black Ice: Frost Damage bonus lowered to 4/8/12/16/20% PvE Considering the buff to Rune of Razorfrost it almost equals out but still equates to a 5% nerf, the curren 0/32/39 Dual Wield speccs will have to change post patch
  • Blood of the North: Now also increases damage dealt by Frost Strike by 15%. PvP/PvE The earlier tier nerfs may be justified by this change, testing will have to be done to see if this talent is DW worthy
  • Chillblains: Now a 15/30/50% movement speed debuff (up from 30%). PvP Pure 100% awesome, enough said
  • Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the deathknight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence. PvP This will easily make Frost a force to be reckoned with in PvP since they can maintain Frost Presence survivability while in Unholy Presence. Is needed considering Frost has the least survivability in PvP out of the 3 trees
  • Howling Blast: Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree, and damage bonus to targets afflicted by Frost Fever reduced from 100% to 50%. PvE/PvP Goodbye 0/32/39 forever! Hello new PvP toy
• Unholy
  • Blood-caked Blade: Now has a 3 second cooldown on the effect. PvP/PvE This seems to make the talent favor 2H builds over Dual Wielding
  • Desecration: This talent now has a 100% chance to be triggered. Additional points in the talent increase the damage bonus and snare magnitude instead of increasing the chance. PvE/PvP The player can now choose how much bonus damage/snare they want without having to worry about procc values. This should free up some possible talent points to put elsewhere.
  • Magic Suppression: Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction. PvE/PvP Slight nerf for tanks and Unholy PvP but also frees up 2 talent points for those who invested in Magic Suppression to get Anti-Magic Zone
  • Necrosis: Can now only be triggered by main hand attacks. PvE Obvious nerf to Dual Wield speccs, it seems Blizzard wants to rip 0/32/39′s heart out and gloat over it’s death
  • Scourge Strike: Damage increased.
  • Unholy Aura: Replaced with Improved Unholy Presence. Allows the Deathknight to keep the movement speed bonus of Unholy Presence in any presence, and increases rune regeneration rate while in Unholy Presence. PvE/PvP Interesting… honestly I’m not sure what to think of this yet
  • Unholy Blight and Gargoyle have swapped places in the Unholy tree. Gargoyle is the new Unholy 51 talent. PvE Will give Blood/Frost builds access to a nice AoE ability, PvP isn’t affected as Unholy DKs who PvP already go this far down the tree. This is however the final nail on the coffin for 0/32/39.

So there you have it, my analysis of the current PTR patch notes for us followers of the dark faith clad in plate. Overall to sum this up for all you TLDR folks out there:

• 0/32/39 will be DEAD, gone forever into the abyss (Think HARP 2.3.2)
• Frost will be PvP/PvE viable
• Unholy will still be popular, it isn’t the specc it’s the concept people love
• Frost will be the new ‘flavor tree’ for Blood and Unholy PvP DKs to dip into (even moreso than before)
• Blood will be a force to be reckoned with in PvP and PvE equal  to Unholy and the newly revamped Frost
• Blood Worms will stuck suck a big can of jagons