Ghostcrawler defends Death Knight Howling Blast nerf
Ghostcrawler is on the forums today getting feedback on all of the patch 3.1 notes we saw yesterday, and the conversation has turned to the Death Knight's Howling Blast nerf, which some players are complaining has "dismantled" the DK's dual wield chances. Our own Daniel Whitcomb agrees -- he says that the 0/32/39 build will pretty much be out with 3.1 on the live realms.
But Ghostcrawler responds with an insight that all classes might benefit from hearing: Players will find a way. First, he says that if Blizzard didn't want Death Knights to dual wield, they wouldn't be able to. He says that the damage needed to be nerfed, if only so other classes didn't think they were going to start being able to do that kind of DPS. And then had adds that just because one build is being quashed, it doesn't mean other builds won't eventually appear -- Blizzard predicts what players might do with their talents, but GC says they're almost always surprised by what players come up with, and that he expects Death Knights will come up with another way (some already known by Blizzard) to make two weapons more than viable.
Which some players don't appreciate (they accuse GC of designing by breaking first and letting player fix later), but I kind of like that idea. As Ghostcrawler says in his followup, if there was just one way to play a class, everyone would play it that way. It's Blizzard's (and his team's) job to put the challenge not just in the dragons we fight, but in the tough choices in the talent trees. Everyone knew DKs were getting nerfed (and GC even says that players always say "but I didn't know they were getting nerfed that much!"), and it's interesting that Blizzard is already looking forward to Death Knight players re-finding their grooves, even with the nerfs.
