Credentials: 5x Gladiator on Rogue and DK, 2750 in 2s 2730 in 3s (highest rating) 9th US guild during Ulduar. I've been in the top ten of BG brackets many times and I've raided hardcore until I wanted to claw out my eyes.
That said, I have a few ideas on how to fix the current DK situation. It's clear the blizzard wants to alleviate some of our mobility issues. Our powerful utility coupled with constant pressure makes us a danger in any pvp or arena situation. However, until recently our mobility has been so abysmal (one gap closer on a 25 second CD) that the best strategy for many teams was to ride the DK, forcing him to play defensively and effectively keeping him where he is. This is the main reason that many DKs have been stacking resilience, as it scales extremely well and we're targeted enough to make it worth it.
The recent implementation of Death's Advance was blizzard's attempt at remedying our mobility problems. Despite multiple weeks of PTR, they seem to have grossly undervalued what having a near-100% uptime ghostwolf style ability would do to a class and to balance as a whole. It was now extremely difficult to peel a DK off of anyone, and the first damage nerfs (5% str, 20% pet damage, 15% DC damage) weren't enough to cull the strength of DKs.
So they quickly hotfixed in some more nerfs. Another 15% damage taken from DC and another 20% taken off our pets. In my opinion, this is one place where the nerfing could have stopped. I played about 30 games last night, when death's advance was still 100%, and while my damage was high, my pressure was very very low. It felt similar to s8 DKs, who were glorified slow-bots, tagging along with a hunter or warrior and letting them do all the damage. The difference is there were a lot more skill-based abilities, like Dark Simulacrum and the new pet abilities, which allowed me to make some pretty awesome plays that affected the outcome of the match. I couldn't really kill anything by myself, but I could influence the arena enough that I felt I was worth bringing.
Then came today's newest fix, nerfing death's advance down to 75%. The big difference between 75% and 100%, other than the obvious, is that anyone who can suppress or disable slowing abilities (hand of freedom, master's call, priest shield, ghost wolf) can now get away from us, if not as easily as before, equally as effectively. We will be following someone at 75% and they will be running at 100%, getting around corners or just generally kiting us so that our damage and utility becomes negligible.
I like the idea of a 75% death's advance, because it helps our mobility without making us too overpowered. The problem comes from the fact that they've nerfed us multiple times, trying to compensate for a crazy-powerful 100% death's advance, and then finally seemed to say "alright, lets just do it" and brought it down to 75%. In light of this most recent nerf, I feel we need to have some changes reverted or otherwise compensated in damage.
Continued...
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