Feb 23
Corpse Explosion: That was Now, This is Then
Posted on February 23, 2009 under Death Knights, Game Mechanics, Thoughts | 1 CommentWorld of Warcraft is an ever-changing game. While reading this post, keep the date it was written in mind—changes may have occurred since then!
Corpse Explosion is a talent in the death knight Unholy tree. It didn’t used to look like this, it used to say something to the fact of:
Corpse Explosion
1 Unholy
Cause a corpse to explode for craptastic Shadow damage to all enemies within 20 yards. Will use a nearby corpse if the target is not a corpse. Does not affect mechanical or elemental corpses.
I feel certain that if the WoW tooltip system supported italics, that “craptastic” would indeed have been italicized.
The reason Corpse Explosion sucked so badly was two-fold: first, its cost was an unholy rune. I have so, so many better things to do with an unholy rune, like say for instance, casting Scourge Strike? The second reason it was a horrible talent is because it did very little damage. Put those two things on the fact that you needed a corpse to even use it and you’ve got yourself a truly worthless talent.
My guess is almost nobody took it, because a little while back it was changed. Now, it costs 40 runic power and does significantly more damage. How much more damage? Well, I wasn’t sure, so as I respecced last weekend to pick up Anti-Magic Zone, I decided to nab Corpse Explosion too, and take it for a test drive.
Short version: I like it. A lot.
Long version: In my current tank gear, Corpse Explosion does approximately 1000 damage to affected mobs. That’s not as much as a Death Coil, but it’s AoE, and unlike Unholy Blight it does not take time to do its damage. It’s really good for quick bursts of AoE damage or threat (assuming there is a corpse around). Violet Hold comes to mind, as does the hallway between Noth and Heigan (the one with all the bats and stuff). And in AoE situations, if Unhoy Blight is already ticking, or if the mobs won’t live long, I’d rather toss out a Corpse Explosion than a Death Coil.
Furthermore, if you cast it on your ghoul, he will explode! This includes both pet ghouls and Risen Ally ghouls. I’m not sure if it actually explodes them per the spell or if it makes them cast the “Explode” spell, but either way they do indeed explode.
It also helps that the spell is insanely fun to use anyway. I mean, just look at that picture at the top of the article! Furthermore, it can be cast on player corpses. Raid member die to Heigan’s dance? Take THAT! Completely owned that ganker on a PvP server? Forget /spit, just explode their corpse! Nothing quite as humiliating.
In case your wondering, after a corpse is exploded you’re left with either a pile of bones or a hunk of meat with bones sticking out–both of which can be looted, skinned, mined, and so forth as normal. As an added bonus, the pile of whatever is always the same size, from a gnome death knight (kill it!) to Gruul.
All in all, my test drive is pretty much complete–Corpse Explosion is staying on my action bar.
Related posts:
- So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: DPS
- So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Unholy Tree
- So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Tanking
- Tanking as an Unholy Death Knight
- This Just In: 2.4 Hits the PTR!
by blab355, on March 4 2009 @ 6:05 pm
just a note, the corpse explosion forces the ghoul to cast “explode,” which was originally on the petbar, that deals 1/4 of his hp to all surrounding enemies. it really helps when you have glyph of the ghoul, night of the dead, and ravenous dead. crazy dps.