New Alpha Patch Notes Released

Last night, Blizzard released a new version of its alpha client to the public. Along with the further expansion of Northrend and the inclusion of many more game models, the patch includes many updates to the Death Knight class. An external summary of these changes can be found here or here. Additionally, other classes have received changes (apparently Shield Slam is trainable now, wtf?) but I won't be discussing those here.

 The most important change (or at least the change that most people will talk about) seems to be the HUGE (but well deserved) nerf to Degeneration. As you probably have heard, this attack placed a disease on your target, preventing any HoT's from working on them. Naturally, this upset druids everywhere, as it would essentially make them obsolete in any form of competitive PvP. The attack has been changed to apply a disease that will now stack up to three times, but with no HoT killing power. 

 Switching our focus to PvE, Heart Strike, which has been giving the theorycrafters migraines over how it should be utilized in a group setting, has been changed substantially. Before, it dealt weapon damage +300 and additional damage for each disease on the target while consuming all diseases. Now it appears to be a trainable spell that will reduce your target's health by 20% (capped at 3000) and lasts 30 sec. The time limit on this will grant it use in PvP and solo PvE, but in raid dungeons it will be largely useless. The Heart Strike Talent has been replaced with a new ability called Obliterate which deals 150% weapon damage +300 per disease on the target (it is understood to still remove all disease effects). It remains to be seen whether or not this will have any raid usage, as consuming ALL diseases on a target will spike your threat enormously and force all other DK's to begin reapplying their diseases. 

 Several previously useless talents have been made much more desirable, Butcher and On a Pale Horse among them. Previously, Butcher rewarded you with Runic Power (RP) whenever you killed an enemy, an effect that is mildly useful while soloing but completely worthless in any group setting. The talent now retains its original description, but now has the added benefit of granting 1 RP every 3 seconds, essentially a DK version of Anger Management. On a Pale Horse was formerly the DK's most useless talent, decreasing mount summoning time and increasing mount speed. The talent has now been changed to two ranks, which now reducea the duration of all Stun and Fear effects used on the Death Knight by 10/20% and increase mounted speed by 10/20% (Any mounts) making it a very viable PvP talent. 

 Additionally, Icy Talons, a new 11pt. Frost talent, has been added. It reads: “requires Improved Icy Touch. You leech heat from targets of your Icy Touch, so that when their melee, ranged and casting speed are reduced, yours speed up by 3/6/9/12/15% for the next 20 sec.” An extremely useful talent for all DK's, I can imagine nearly everyone will end up putting 11 points in Frost to get this.

 Overall, Blizz seems to be consolidating the DK's talents. There were many complaints before of tanking talents being spread unevenly amongst the three trees, with things such as Will of the Necropolis in blood T9 (Increases your armor when are below 35% health) and Bone Armor (which seems to me like it would be a VITAL tanking talent) in Unholy T7. Two new frost talents bring clarity to the DK's Frost tree, with Frigid Dreadplate (replacing Frozen Dreadplate) giving a 5/10/15% to slow your attacker's attack speed by 50% for 3 swings and Unbreakable Armor giving you a 5/10/15% upon using a Frost Rune to increase your armor and Parry chance by 30% 10 sec. 

 Finally, the DK mount has received a visual upgrade, changing it to a hybrid of the Deathcharger and the Huntsman's Mount:

It is unknown whether this is the final skin for the 100% speed mount or merely the first rank.

-Over and out.

Edit: It would appear that Degeneration still consumes a HoT upon application (sorry Druids). It does NOT remove the effectiveness of HoT's on you target completely.