The World of Warcraft: Shadowlands beta was given a considerably large new build today, with plenty of changes arriving. These changes come mostly to balance the expansion out, focusing in on a variety of areas.
One of the main areas is tuning towards classes, with some classes getting a much larger batch of changes than others. Death Knights especially have been targeted again, with a huge number of alterations already in the books.
Recently, for example, we discussed the Off-Balance passive that’s being added to Frost Death Knights to help keep their dual-wielding in line. With 2h-Frost returning, Blizzard is already focused on keeping the specialization in line.
With that in mind, let’s get started on the changes to the Frost specialization first. Players should expect the following changes for the Legendary Item Effects of their gear:
- Biting Cold – Remorseless Winter damage is increased by 30% now, buffed from 25%
- Koltira’s Favor – Obliterate deals 10% increased damage, double the previous 5% buff
- Rage of the Frozen Champion – Obliterate has a 15% increased chance (buffed from 10%) to trigger Rime. Howling Blast generates 8 (buffed from 6) Runic Power while Rime is active.
In #Shadowlands, you can no longer change raid difficulties when inside a raid.
This change has a negative impact on mount farmers, as this breaks a popular lockout saving method. #Warcrafthttps://t.co/JbS3d4XsVp pic.twitter.com/uhpt7x5TSw
— Wowhead💙 (@Wowhead) October 15, 2020
The Unholy Death Knights are seeing some changes as well, focused on bringing in some buffs. The two effects changed are as follows:
- Death’s Certainty – Death Strike and Death Coil deal 35% increased damage, buffed from the previous 20%
- Reanimated Shambler – Super Zombies now deal 150% of Attack Power as damage when exploding, an upgrade from the previous 124%
There are no changes specific to the Blood specialization for Death Knights. However, the following two changes were made for Legendary Items that are usable by all three Death Knight specializations:
- Death’s Embrace – Now increases the duration of Anti-Magic Shell by 140%, buffed from 100%
- Phearomones – Death Knights and their minions gain 15% Haste while inside Death and Decay, buffed from 10%. For Blood Death Knights, the Haste buff is now 8%, increased from 5%
And those are the changes hitting Death Knight legendary item effects! The buffs are quite universal across all three specs, causing each to see a good surge of power that Death Knight mains will be happy to see.
Most interesting is the changes for the Frost Death Knight, with all eyes already on the specialization because of the return of the two-handed option for the class. Seeing Unholy buffed is also interesting, given that the specialization was incredibly powerful as an AoE option in endgame content for the Battle for Azeroth expansion that just ended.
Regardless of future changes, Death Knights are in a powerful spot with the upcoming expansion. As class tuning continues, Death Knight mains can only hope it stays that way.
