Analysis on why endgame DK is as overpowered if not more than that Valdun melee Piercing build

They want game become boring as hell

+infinite to papaboy

Nah, DK was and still is among the worst mastery combos in the game, rivaled only by Trickster and Saboteur. One set making the combo playable does not suddenly make the combo good, when there are a thousand ways to build every other combo.

I disagree that Aether Krieg DK is overpowered, and definitely not to the point of the old Pierce Tactician. In fact, the Pierce Tactician is probably STILL more powerful than Aether DK. If it must be nerfed, I agree with Norzan; Krieg set getting Necro bonuses was unnecessary at best when the set was already being used by Necros without said-bonuses.

If they intend to remove bonuses I’m perfectly fine as it’d mean Spectral Binding and other necro skills remain unaffected. Those skills aren’t exclusive to Krieg DK
But it also means they need to design a new set for DK. And personally I wish they take this approach even if it means having no exclusive DK set for a few patches

And Ceno, even before Krieg Set Aether DK was pretty good it’s Aether Melee potential was unrivaled before they added AS to Reckless Power
And how is Sabo a bad class combination? Do you mean w/o item support Sabo doesn’t work well? Is that what you’re comment is insinuating?

Please for the love of God turn this skill into another trap skill and don’t let it remain a useless shit skill it is right now. Even OFF has use against trash due to wide area of effect but BT isn’t good in overly crowded situations. If anything turn it into something similar to Rune of Kalastor but add some sort of CC effect like Petrify so that people who were using it for CC purposes aren’t disappointed

The most disappointing thing is that i was expecting a brand new, made from the ground up, legendary set for Death Knight. But then Necro skills were added to Krieg’s set, basically making it into a legendary Death Knight set.

But hey, if Death Knight is still getting an actual new legendary set, then my disappointment will evaporate. if it doesn’t suck

Im surprised you didn’t put Defiler before Trickster and Sabo.
Not only it has barely any item support neither a set in game, the current items are completely confused and out of place.

Looking at you Mythical Myrmidon set

And yes I agree here even I was excited when I heard about new DK set but was let down a little when I saw Necro bonuses simply getting added on Krieg. So, simple solution

  1. Remove Necro bonuses from Krieg
  2. Make brand new DK set that is good but more importantly looks badass (I mean no offense but I am sure I’m not the only one who thinks Krieg set looks like BDSM attire)

With the current item support there are exact 3-4 defiler concepts (I’ll post one of those in a few days) that’ll work against end game, that class combo has a serious identity crisis.

On paper the 2 classes have nothing except pierce as synergy and it has been like for quite some time. If you stack the flat damage bonuses on both classes and abuse the % total speed both masteries provide you can obviously make it work but Ceno’s post is on point.

On topic -

  • LEAVE BLITZ ALONE - It’s the only worthwhile shield skill in the entire game. Why anyone would even consider nerfing this is beyond comprehension.

  • I agree that both Spectral Binding & Spectral Wrath are at the wrong spot in the mastery bar. I would probably lower some of the bonuses but increase the amount of OA/HP gained past level 12 etc. So that it’s still a worthwhile skill for overcappers.

Actualy Krieg set is good not only for DK/BM, but aslo for anyone that want Heavy armored Aether based build. Ive used it for my Temporal archblade Spellbinder and it worked good enough to clear 100-150 glad in 20 minutes. With dual decree it should work with aether Reaper etc. MB even defiler, lol.

So is Defiler the new Battlemage, now that Battlemage got neat toys?

EDIT: I mean in regards to lack of synergy/presence of anti-synergy.

I’m aware of this and yes it does even works on defiler :p, I didn’t mention this part as I didn’t think it was necessary. My point is if they’re going to nerf anything then just remove bonuses from Krieg set and tune down some aether potential (if it’s necessary) I think the changes should be restricted to items and shouldn’t extend to skills like Spectral Binding.

So he was indeed talking about the mastery w/o taking gear into consideration. I agree it’s not exactly in-accurate

Well if you want to make it work it will work well even now but it could use some support from the game itself. Currently making it work is more of a chore than anything

I’m ininsuating that sabo doesn’t scale well to 100 because half the items for it are low level greens and the mythicals of its relevant legendaries are unequivocally trash.

Just curious, is this 4 pages of grimtools speculation? Or has someone tried it live yet?

Well I can see how just slapping necro on kriegs to make it “the DK set” isn’t the best choice- kriegs is a very powerful set due to its uniqueness (and it won’t drop in crucible) so not really fair for it to be DK when everyone else gets the vanilla sets.

But yes this is a TON of speculation going on and we can pause to appreciate the vast majority of players probably don’t even use aether toons lol. That’s one damage type out of quite a few.

Few things:

  1. As said in the OP, I’m not looking at all for the build to be completely wrecked. It should just have a few small adjustments.
    Currently Krieg set can get 16% PDR, that could easily be lowered to 12% for example.

Spectral Binding’s values are simply too high, especially for a first tier skill and need to be lowered slightly. The 112 flat damage is literally like an extra weapon.
Even at 12/12 it’s already very good and rivals some exclusive skills, overcapped it’s bonkers.

  1. I knew before the post that not actually having played the build would cause some credibility issues but the grimtools char building feature is very robust nowadays and when you’ve played 30+ chars to endgame, it’s easy to spot an outlier like this.
    If you’ve got the set and most of those items already, feel free to give it a try and you’d see this build would wreck everything.

  2. As for affecting other class combos, I feel the issue is mostly with DKs because of how powerful Soldier is. With all the boons listed in the OP, those 400% weapon damage modifiers on Blitz and Cadence become absolutely crazy.
    That’s why I think the Blitz / flat damage bonuses should be lowered a bit.

Note that even if it was nerfed slightly, it would still be a very solid class combo simply because the set is good and those few Necro skills give almost everything you need for a good build: HP, OA, RR, damage, AS, leech, etc.

But outside of Mindwarp/Spectral Binding I agree that a nerf shouldn’t affect other class combos too much.

And thus another FOTM build ready for the dumpster. GJ guys after Cold spellbreaker, Lightning pets, Dracarris, Belgothian, Cablist etc etc.

Are we Diablo 3 yet? because you all sure would love to make balacing like that where every end game player needs a minimum of 10 minutes to kite a single nemesis or the game is no “fun” :rolleyes:

Stop this nonsense in my single player fucking game.

Why would you nerf an item so extremely rare that i manage to farm for 150 hours in crucible, completely farming multiple mythical set items/recipes including deathmarks before even seeing 1 non-optimal stat version drop?

Isnt the point of the game finding powerful items and be POWERFUL!? It isnt a moba or anything, it is a gear grinding game, and Mindwarp is exactly that reward :rolleyes:

Yeah but before Krieg set with DK bonuses this wasn’t that much of an issue, sure it was T-1 but wasn’t really something that needed looking into. The core of the problem is that set
It did facetank an incarnation of Ravager but that incarnation wasn’t an Anti-Tank ravager but it was only possible due to Krieg Set, so minor adjustment to bonuses and removal of Necro bonuses should solve the issue w/o causing too much problem

I have personally tried it, as have many others even before DK bonuses were added. I agree on removal of DK bonuses and slight adjustment on set bonuses but don’t agree on adjustment to values on Spectral Binding if need be then fix the scaling in Ultimate levels and not in base levels.
And when I say adjust the scaling I mean the flat damage and not the flat OA/HP. Those are important to all necro builds, that flat damage is only important to a certain necro builds and won’t penalize every Necro in existence

Build wrecking everything isn’t exactly an issue but I can see what you mean

Remove Necro bonuses and adjust flat damage a little so that it doesn’t punish Battlemages too much should be fine
As for the issue being restricted to DKs, this is only true as long as they don’t touch stuff like OA and HP bonuses on Necromancer. The problem is Aether Deathknight, so what ever changes are made should be restricted to Aether Damage bonuses and Krieg’s Set. They shouldn’t touch OA and HP on Spectral binding or Master of Death

Really, those builds don’t work anymore? Did they become not viable to the point they can’t kill any Nemesis in a respectable time? Because they’re still Top Tier last time I checked. I am not a fan of threads like this but if something like this pops up then the best thing to do is share your thoughts and knowledge of things so that balancing is done properly than saying “throw everything into a dumpster”

As for the builds you listed the only nerf I dislike is Belgothian and the general treatment of Blademasters in this game

Krieg’s set impact over killing the Ravager of Souls on a DK accounts for maybe 25-33% of the success variance. The reason it did (…and does) so well has more to do with:

  1. The enormous amount of Life Leech reduction easily available on Haunt - it was “-30%” until 1.0.0.3.
  2. The way ADctH operates as both a defensive and an offensive strategy for a character, more so when block, % absorption and high armour are used + the high amount of WD component on Cadence and Blitz.

So…let me give all a breakdown to why this is so by analysing the defensive strategies ppl employ in this game in order to survive Ultimate. Bare in mind that the primary difficulty of this game - which is actually not that difficult to begin with - is finding a balance between offence and defence such that DPS does not plummet when you engage the hardest content. Ergo, it is a min-max game.

We have:
General defensive strategies: Overcapping resistances; Leech; Block; Flat absorption; %absorption; Dodge/Deflect.
vs DoTs: Overcapping resistances; Hp regeneration; Leech; %absorption.
vs High DPS: Overcapping resistances; Leech; Circuit-breakers; Block; specific flat absorption (e.g. Crab, Runeguard, etc.); Dodge/Deflect.
vs High physical damage : Physical resistance; Armour; Block; Circuit-breakers; Dodge/Deflect.
vs Shotguns : Dodge/Deflect; Circuit-breakers; Block; flat absorption, %absorption.
vs resistance reduction : Overcapping resistances; Leech; Block; Dodge/Deflect.

Good scaling defensive strategies: Overcapping resistances; Leech; %absorption; Dodge/Deflect; Physical resistance; Circuit-breakers.
Moderate scaling defensive strategies: Block; flat absorption.
Bad scaling defensive strategies: HP regeneration.

As you can see from this list, ADctH (Leech) is the 2nd most powerful defensive strategy in the game right after Overcapping. Make a checklist to see how many of the above defensive strategies are simultaneously employed by Krieg set DK and you will arrive to the right answer of why it is (borderline?) OP.

My initial suggestion was simple: nerf Haunt to -10% LL reduction. The value on that relic is too high, viz. 2x a T3 proc. Life Leech is the only defensive strategy that is simultaneously also offensive in nature. More precisely, the more damage you do, the longer you survive - providing, ofc, your target has reasonably low LL resistance.

My second suggestion was also simple: nerf the RR on Mindwarp. This item is also borderline OP on a high attack speed S&B DK. Perhaps, it is even more powerful than the Master’s Spellblade.

My last suggestion - DO NOT over-nerf DK set. As I previously pointed out, the set in itself is not OP. At most, spectral binding bonuses could be reduced along with armour values or, even better, the high amount of physical resistance it provides.

As much as I don’t want to admit (Not the battlemage, noooo), Haunt is a big part of success. People already tanked Mogdrogen with it, sometime before expansion, I think, but with Aether-melee getting much better in expac, it really took off in usage (and for its intended damage type!).

However the Mindwarp RR nerf will hit battlemages harder, than it will DKs. Luckily we got skill mods, -aether rr in Krieg set for some arcanist skill? That would be a solution, if you want to nerf specifically Death Knights.

Mindwarp’s RR is FAR stronger than spellblades post 1.0.3.0 nerf. Max roll on spellblades is 37 type A; max roll on Mindwarp is 36 type A AND 36 type C. Mindwarp also has far, far better non-RR bonuses than spellblade.

Krieg’s set is also OP IMO but in a different way than most people think: utility. The CDR bonus (set already contains reduced cooldown skill mods), 9m skill radius (same size as skill on Mythical Herald of Apocalypse), and possibly the flat RR are all fairly gratuituous for a melee-centric set - these are the types of bonuses more appropriate on caster sets, and are part of reason why reason why Krieg builds are super well-rounded. IMO the CDR bonus should be removed, the proc should be reduced to a more melee-appropriate AOE, and the RR should be significantly reduced, replaced with physical RR, or removed outright given that Mindwarp synergizes so well with the set anyway.

It’s one thing to have a strong melee set; it’s another thing to have a strong super-defense, CDR, AOE, and RR melee set. If a pet set also had super-defense, CDR, AOE, and RR on top of pet damage, everyone would be crying foul. Krieg’s bonuses aren’t necessarily too strong, they’re simply too broad.

In fact, those aforementioned bonuses (CDR, AOE, RR) are a far better fit for the Spellscourge set, and that set can use a lot more help than Krieg. Compare the bonuses between the two sets and Krieg looks simply ridiculous, especially given how easily it’s farmed compared to other legendary sets.