Death Knight Questions

Ayden

okay, so I've been fooling around with scimitar and limb breaking for fun and it seems to me that the ab for vivisect is a bit off

it says the time to channel is decreased for each limb that's broken. prepping just 2 legs it seems to take a long time, but for fun I had Lynyssa turn off autocuring and let me break all her limbs. My assumption was it should have been instant, but instead it seemed to take the same amount of time(to me anyways, I should get timestamps x.x) and is not instant. So the question is... am I wasting my time trying to do a limb offense? should I try to focus solely on affliction for one on one combat? Vivisect feels like even if I get all limbs broken, and prone them with opium, they still will be able to cure and stand up because it takes so long.

Caelya

Vivisect was severely nerfed. It used to be an instant if you could break their limbs, but now it literally just reduces the channel time, from 10 to maybe 6 at the least? You can probably still make some headway with minor limb stuff (I'd suggest talking to @Ozreas), but you probably won't be able to build an effective offense around vivisect.

Ayden

So that's somewhat sad to hear. I'd rather these skills be trimmed and replaced with something useful if that's the case. Its disheartening to me to be told I can't build an offense around one of the last skills in the skillset because its been nerfed, especially when its not exactly easy to break all 4 limbs if someone is parrying. Feel like Necromancy is almost completely useless if I'm not doing damage/trying to keep someone from running.

Zorantiz

You didn't need to break all 4 limbs to achieve a vivisect since it didn't require level 2 breaks just crippled limbs which could be delivered by toxin or kai cripple.

Building limb tracking into Deathknight is not necessary but doing so will give you more options such has hindering, ability to prone for battlecry and salve stack set ups.

Ozreas

If you really really really really really really want to use vivisect, breaking first both arms with hemotoxin/butisol followed by both legs with opium/opium might give you enough time for the 6s channel. Just be aware that a fair handful of professions can break channeled attacks even while prone/disabled with monks, all knights, and rangers/amazons being among them. Not to mention the fact that anyone can just tumble away.

The unfortunate truth is that not much is viable for Deathknight right now outside of either building bleed with a teeth enhanced longsword to capitalize on fleshburn damage or hammering away with axes. This means there really isn't a "long game" option and the class is now wholly momentum-based. There are a few fiddly gimmicks you can try with scimitars and toxins but they're unreliable. The good news is that both of these strategies are pretty viable and smart affliction stacking + bleeding will blow holes in almost anyone.

Ayden

I'll have to get up with you and see what afflictions I should be stacking/how to stack them for the longsword bleeding offense. I've been wanting to see if I can do that, but just haven't tested it out. thanks everyone for the answers so far!