Consider this my take 2 on this topic, picking up where I left off after my last 75 DK was deleted.

First let me just go ahead and say this flat out: Our mobility in pvp sucks. Bad. There's not a lot more to be said on this topic that hasn't already been covered.

Unholy presence, however, is living up to be an amazing pvp presence. I can dump so many runes into my opponent once I can get on him. The problem, however, is that getting on him is nearly impossible against a lot of classes.

Anti-Magic Shell: This ability is still nothing more than a cool-sounding gimmick that's a completely watered down version of the old warlock version from the original alpha. This ability really, really, REALLY needs some work.

Here are a few facts about Anti-Magic Shell, as it currently stands in the push available for beta testers:

A) It's dispelable. This includes auto-devour from felhunters, purge, dispel, and arcane shot.
B) It does nothing against dot damage for the pitifully short 3 second duration.
C) It does nothing against AOE damage or effects (frost nova, shadowflame, etc etc)
D) It does not absorb incoming CC spells that are even single target.
E) It does not absorb DoT spells at all. They simple go right through no problem
F) It cannot be cast while silenced. Yep, all a warlock has to do is spell lock you before you can pop it, to make sure his soulfire or whatever big spell will hit.
G) For all of these disadvantages, it eats an unholy rune, meaning to use it as a reactionary ability, it requires at least one unholy rune at-the-ready at all times, every 15 seconds.
H) It seems to be returning a very, very minimal amount of runic power per spell. It also seems to be scaling the amount of RP returned based on how much it absorbs. I.e. an absorbed searing pain will yield roughly 4 runic power, while a soul fire will yield about 16 or so. Considering that you have to leave an unholy rune unused for lengths of time so that you can actually use AMS when needed, this is an extremely poor return system.


Now, before I really delve down into some more specifics of our mobility aspects in pvp, and lack of anti-spellcasting abilities, let me just go ahead and link this video first from some duels and tests with an affliction warlock and resto shaman.

Video: http://files.filefront.com/AMSkitingwmv/;11233312;/fileinfo.html

Here was my build: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jZxzEohsGzsZbIMzTc0pVoo

I wanted a nice mix of effective tanking + pvp abilities. It's very similar to what I used on the alpha, except the nerfed unbreakable armor really, really hurts vs melee classes and pve tanking in general. Notice, I also have chillblains to supplement my snares between chains of ice cooldowns (which is again, easily trinketed or spell-stoned out of). This illustrates a perfect example of why I wish 5/5 imp icy touch yielded a no rune-cost icy touch, in addition to increasing chillblains' effectiveness, as I would at least stand some hope and chance of not getting kited so severely.

Anti-magic shell is still incredibly weak right now. I sincerely hope this ability gets some extremely good love before this goes live.

Take it for what it's worth, although I am happy to say that it's remarkably easy to kill a resto shaman with all the interrupts we get. I think we just don't have nearly enough counters to DoT classes. WTB Improved icebound fortitude again. :(

Also keep in mind, icebound fortitude doesn't the way it should right now, as that would help some.

Another thing to note is the fact that I don't like how long of a cooldown lichborne is. I would gladly take a reduced cooldown for a reduced (say, 15s) duration.

Finally, one more thing I thought I should point out:

Rune masteries, as of right now, are dispelable. You can see this when I try to kill the felhunter. It simply auto-devours off my rune-masteries right as they pop.

[ Post edited by Jayde ]

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aka Leiah
/cast Slap to the Face
http://jadefury.blogspot.com

AMS hasn't got a lot of attention since it's a high-level spell and we haven't had a number of high-level DKs yet. It should not be dispelled and it should affect dots and AEs. Silence preventing it is by design (at least for now).

DK kitability is something we're keeping a close eye on. We don't want them to be charging around the battlefield -- that's the warrior kit. We gave the DK a number of ranged abilities for a reason, but I'm not going to argue that they are 100% effective yet.