In the latest PTR build, Howling Blast's cooldown was reimplemented at it's original 6 seconds. However, the cooldown is unnecessary for any reason besides a nerf to dual wield, which admitedly has gotten out of hand.

For 2H specs, Howling Blast is inferior to Obliterate at all gear levels. My only use for it going into the next patch was against about half the cast of characters(mail+) and guaranteed crits with deathchill since it hits harder than Frost Strike. I enjoyed the challenge of knowing when to switch between Obliterate and Howling Blast in PvP, but unfortunately this change will put it back on the sidelines.

As a tank, Howling Blast off cooldown would help match up with Unholy's aoe tanking prowess with Wandering Plague and Unholy Blight.

Moving Howling blast out of the reach of dual wield spec, or nerfing unholy's autoattack procs are both options instead of reinstating the cooldown.


*Edited the title- Nethaera

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Q u o t e:
However, the cooldown is unnecessary for any reason besides a nerf to dual wield, which admitedly has gotten out of hand.

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uh, yeah, why did you even need to type anything else?

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Q u o t e:


uh, yeah, why did you even need to type anything else?

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I figured one sentence wasn't long enough. Hang on, I'll try to make it more like other posts:

THIS IS AN OBVIOUS SLAP IN THE FACE AND YOU MADE MY GRANDMOTHER CRY AND YOU ARE RUINING THIS GAME AND CASUALS GET EVERYTHING.

it is a nerf to dw dps, nothing more, just like the nerf to gargoyle hurt 2h unholy. The hybrid spec doing 7k dps is the problem, they are addressing it.

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Q u o t e:
it is a nerf to dw dps, nothing more, just like the nerf to gargoyle hurt 2h unholy. The hybrid spec doing 7k dps is the problem, they are addressing it.

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There are better ways to do it.

The difference is that reinstating the cooldown doesnt nerf DW dps. It makes the rotations more hectic and the need for /cancelaura macros necessary, but it does not change dps, especially given the changes to KM.

I personally dont think this change is necessary. HB without cooldown just allowed for clean rotations in that you could use Rime procs and then hit the normal attack in your sequence, costing you one GCD, instead of doing a /cancelaura macro so that you didnt lose just one GCD but 2 (IT and PS) if you were maximizing your rune usage.

In regards to nerfing DW dps, I honestly think that changing gargoyle and bringing down proc rate of KM will fix this problem. Most of the obscene numbers DW DKs brag about are seen in very short fights where all cooldowns can be used easily and chained together for massive multiplicative effects. Whats that? Having a full AoTD, gargoyle, and permaghoul all get heroism while stacked with AP bonuses is putting out ungodly DPS, hmmmmmmm who would have figured. For the most part this problem has been fixed and short term DPS is possibly still a bit high with all cooldowns burnt, but over a long fight (Ulduar for the first of those) it will be in line with all of the other DK specs and with other classes as well.

Because of this I ask that the Dev team please please look over this again and allow Howling Blast to be a cooldown free attack, whether thru base or possibly a glyph added in, so that DW DKs have a stable rotation without negating a talent's bonus completely (Rime).

I was really looking forward to the cooldown removal from HB to help my frost AoE tanking, especially being able to take advantage of my Rime procs.


What about making Rime also reset the CD for Howling Blast? This would be a tremendous help to tanking (in case you armory me, I'm tank specced but logged out in dps gear).

The problem with Rime resetting the cooldown on HB is that it effectively does nothing in that situation. Freezing Fog will always apply first thus triggering the free HB that puts the planned rotational one on cooldown. Were it to not trigger the CD that would be a different story as it would help tremendously in that regard. That is also another option I hadnt thought of until you suggest that. Thanks for the idea trigger. :^D

*edit because GC posted already*

You couldn't just wait and put in the KM nerf and see how it affected the overall before deciding to reenable the CD on HB. Stupid testing is stupid.

You got zero numbers.

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Q u o t e:
I believe the cooldown is 5 seconds now, so at least it should mesh a little better with 10 second rune cooldown.

We knew there was a risk in taking the Howling Blast cooldown off. Unfortunately, we saw dual-wield DK numbers as high as ever even with the Killing Machine and Gargoyle nerfs. It typically only happened when the DK was fighting multiple targets, which suggests Howling Blast is the right thing to change.

We still agree that a cooldown makes rotations more awkward, and we will continue to look for an implementation that lets Howling Blast be off a cooldown without all death knights feel like they need to DW Frost or go home.

(And no, we can't buff other DK specs and other classes to 7000 dps or whatever to compensate.)

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The Killing-Machine change would have been enough to steer people away, don't you think?

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Q u o t e:
I believe the cooldown is 5 seconds now, so at least it should mesh a little better with 10 second rune cooldown.

We knew there was a risk in taking the Howling Blast cooldown off. Unfortunately, we saw dual-wield DK numbers as high as ever even with the Killing Machine and Gargoyle nerfs. It typically only happened when the DK was fighting multiple targets, which suggests Howling Blast is the right thing to change.

We still agree that a cooldown makes rotations more awkward, and we will continue to look for an implementation that lets Howling Blast be off a cooldown without all death knights feel like they need to DW Frost or go home.

(And no, we can't buff other DK specs and other classes to 7000 dps or whatever to compensate.)

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There's still the old, old suggestion of switching Howling Blast and Hungering Cold's locations in the talent trees. It'd also have the added bonus of giving unholy a different direction to go after they fill out their tree in pvp and allow them to spec less damage for more utility.

I do think that Frost DW's problems lie more in the huge buffs from unholy, while frost merely provides the tools to take advantage of some of the more powerful of them. Particularly Impurity.

quick edit:

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Q u o t e:
*edit because GC posted already*

You couldn't just wait and put in the KM nerf and see how it affected the overall before deciding to reenable the CD on HB. Stupid testing is stupid.

You got zero numbers.

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His post clearly indicates they ran numbers on the change, and for a big a change as the cooldown on HB, do you truly and honestly believe they were just throwing changes about without examining them?

The problem being GC is that several other specs do more damage when fighting multiple targets and they are not nerfed or restricted with Cooldowns. The problem in a DW Dks eyes isnt the ability to HB a ton to get a lot of aoe damage, but to get our rotations meshing well. Several other options exist without instating a cooldown.

A lot of DW Dks hopefully understand that us pulling the type of DPS we were was a bit ridiculous. We understand we'll probably be brought down to the level of other DK specs, and we are fine with that. What we want tho is to be able to annex the talents that are given to us. At the moment Rime is a hindrance and not a buff which it seems the Devs were intending it to be. The cooldown on HB is the reason for this.

Several other options are:
1. Making HB a single target OB replacement and making Hungering cold a multi target attack not an AoE
2. Making Freezing Fog HBs not trigger the cooldown
3. Making a glyph that reduces target number (3 or w/e devs were happy with) and removing cooldown

I realize the concerns of Devs, but I'm sure these concerns are not accurately tackled via the cooldown on HB.

A simple fix would be to not have the Rime Proc trigger the cooldown.

Let me Bold the point words here:

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Q u o t e:
We knew there was a risk in taking the Howling Blast cooldown off. Unfortunately, we saw dual-wield DK numbers as high as ever even with the Killing Machine and Gargoyle nerfs. It typically only happened when the DK was fighting multiple targets, which suggests Howling Blast is the right thing to change.

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Wow amazing. So when I am AoEing down trash with the Hunters, Mages and Warlocks... I can do compareable numbers to them!!?

Is it really so wrong that a melee class can be a useful AoE trash pack provider? Its not like we aren't in the middle of that trash pack anyways might as well be more useful than a single target pee-shooter.

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Q u o t e:

There's still the old, old suggestion of switching Howling Blast and Hungering Cold's locations in the talent trees. It'd also have the added bonus of giving unholy a different direction to go after they fill out their tree in pvp and allow them to spec less damage for more utility.

I do think that Frost DW's problems lie more in the huge buffs from unholy, while frost merely provides the tools to take advantage of some of the more powerful of them. Particularly Impurity.

quick edit:

His post clearly indicates they ran numbers on the change, and for a big a change as the cooldown on HB, do you truly and honestly believe they were just throwing changes about without examining them?

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Believe you will still be able to frost PvP after the patch... stop qqing... DK's will never be gimped

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Q u o t e:
...And no, we can't buff other DK specs and other classes to 7000 dps or whatever to compensate

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Yeah you can, you know you can... and you wanna don't you you naughty crab you....... go on, do it. Doooooooo it.

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Q u o t e:
We still agree that a cooldown makes rotations more awkward, and we will continue to look for an implementation that lets Howling Blast be off a cooldown without all death knights feel like they need to DW Frost or go home.

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“Blast the target with a frigid wind dealing <Weapon damage + X> Frost damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Deals double damage to targets infected with Frost Fever.”

Just implement a swipe animation and change the tooltip a bit to make it clear that the blast comes from the rune weapon. (to conceptually make sense)

You’re welcome.

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Q u o t e:
A simple fix would be to not have the Rime Proc trigger the cooldown.

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I agree with this.

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Q u o t e:

His post clearly indicates they ran numbers on the change, and for a big a change as the cooldown on HB, do you truly and honestly believe they were just throwing changes about without examining them?

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Yes actually they have done it before, Also his post indicates that they were going off numbers from the Previous PTR version where DKs were pewpewing it up on multiple mobs. With the first iteration of the KM nurf.

It such a horrid thing to beable to do some effective AoE. Z O M G.