[Beta] Current Concerns With Blood DKs

[Samsarathedk]

Instead of reviving my old thread, I've decided to make a new one to reflect fixes/tweaks to blood as well as reiterate current concerns with blood in general.

1. Excessive downtime for blood on beta compared to live which makes the rotation fill slightly clunky, this was caused by the 1 second gcd being made baseline. However, this has resulted in a rather high downtime for us as tanks (I believe the exact number is 34%) which leaves us to twiddling our thumbs a fair bit. Many have suggested that the reintroduction of crimson scourge as well as reducing the cost of rune strike from 30 to 20 rp can and will fix our downtime issue and should be added, there are of course other options and we would gladly welcome them. Point being of course, is it is a known issue and we would like our downtime to shrink back to something normal like it is on live (I believe the number is around 16%). - While we wish for our downtime to drastically decrease we do NOT want a band aid fix via returning us to the 1.5 gcd. What we want is a reduced rp cost cost to rune strike and the return of our original blood tap so we can continue our game play as it is on live a la gaming runes and then using bt to fill in the gap.

2. Blood dks like myself have repeatedly asked for a raid cd and our requests have fallen on deaf ears, I strongly feel Blizz should finally sort this out for us. The following is a lore based exampled for a raid cd:
Pact of the Dark Fallen: corrupts the ground around the death knight and his allies placing an absorption shield which protects them for 20% of all incoming damage, lasts 10 seconds. 3 minute cd (Note this ability does not benefit the user, only the raid)

The reason I have chosen the name 'Pact of the Dark Fallen' is because it's roots lay in ICC just as many of the new dk abilities from cata do. I have chosen to borrow the name from the Blood-Queen Lana'thel encounter because it fits perfectly with the current blood dk lore. Just as she was a vampire who drained the life force of her targets to sustained her self, we too do the same. We drain the very life essence from our targets to both heal and shield ourselves from further damage. Furthermore, the name fits into the lore of dks as a whole because, we are in fact, the dark fallen and made a pact to defend Azeroth the moment we broke free from the Lich King's grasp at Light's Hope Chapel.

3. Return abomination's might to us. I know that might has been converted to provide 5% mastery instead of an ap boost with mana regen, that being said, paladins should not be the only tanking class to provide the buff. I would like to see abomination's might returned to blood dks so that we too can provide the mastery buff in mists.

- In regards to both 2 and 3, the reason we have continuously asked for both a raid cd as well as a buff is because we are currently the ONLY tanks who provide neither. If it is in fact the dev's intention to balance all tanks on the active mitigation scale and make them as equal as possible blood dks will be sat for tanks who DO provide the aforementioned types of utility. This is why we insist you be given both a competitive raid cd as well as an updated might buff for the raid.

4. We are currently missing 10% added armor due to the removal of toughness. Paladins and Protection Warriors get 10% passive armor buffs. We would like for our to be balanced and the 10% armor added back as well as our 6% damage reduction perhaps in the form of a buff to blood presence. - The armor buff was given at the beginning of Dragon Soul to finally solve our spike damage issues. Its removal along with the 6% damage reduction from blade barrier leave us susceptible to spike damage. Please return these abilities to us.

5. Seeing as paladins gain charges of holy power from the use of both crusader strike and hammer of the righteous, we dks should gain scent of of blood stacks from heart strike. This would allow for more synergy and over all tanking class balance by giving a purpose to heart strike aside from mere threat.


List of issues that have been or will be fixed in the next beta build:

1. Scarlet Fever now also causes your Blood Boil to refresh your diseases on targets it damages.

2. Blood Boil base damage has been increased by 80% and AP Scaling increased to 19.2% from 9.6%.

3. Death Strike weapon damage increased by 33% and additional damage increased by 79%.

4. Soul Reaper is now a Blood Specialization spell, costs 1 Blood.

I would like to thank the devs for the current fixes to blood. We are all most appreciative and look forward to further fixes and tweaks to blood.

[Deleted]

Thanks Samsara !

1) I've been doing some testing, instancing with my DK, paladin and warrior on beta. I'm not that much concerned about downtime anymore to be honest, I even think a little bit of it is actually great since it help us to time our active mitigation moves. What I feel is bad though, is our complete inability to react to unexpected things on demand, adds, spike damage and so on. I don't expect us to be impossible to surprise, but it would be great to let us have a way to be reactive from time to time. (Which is basically what blood tap used to give us) Giving us a way to do this, like ... say a cooldown that would refresh runes (shorter then ERW, ofc.) or give us a free AoE of some sort would not only help our ability to be reactive, but also fill these "holes" in our gameplay.

2) Also, I'm a bit concerned about our AoE aggro. (Please follow me on this. I'm not asking to buff blood boil to 30000% or anything like that.) When playing on my paladin or on my warrior, I don't even have to alt-tab targets to keep mobs on me. Now I'm perfectly fine with this whole bring the player not the class, and honestly, when I have all my runes, I'm doing a pretty good job at keeping aggro when alt-tabbing here and there to RS/HS them. (Current blood boil + Roiling blood is also amazing for snap aggro)
What I however think will lead to some serious annoyances and could actually be related to my point 1, is that if you don't have all your runes, you're screwed. There's no way you're gonna keep aggro on all those mobs if players decide to focus different targets. (While I perfectly can on my other plate tanks, because their ressource are working smoothly when it comes to chain pulling) This isn't game breaking, but it's just annoying and I can see it become troublesome if you intend to do speed-runs, timers and challenge modes.

3) Our utility. We have almost none. We're just that guy that will handle a few seconds with no healing from time to time or b-rez somone and it's cool, but we don't bring anything that useful to our raid. Druids could seriously get some love about this too, even though they can already Tranq.

4) Passive mitigation. We definitely won't be death striking as much as we used to do in the past, and especially not on demand. I don't understand why we've lost these 10% armor and 4% damage mitigation. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it'll become annoying on heroic boss testing. (25-man) Firelands anyone ?

[Samsarathedk]

Thanks Samsara !

Yw bud! Just trying to keep our current issues up-to-date both on the official forums as well as on mmochamp.

- An interesting note, if they will fix our downtime issues without taking away our 1 second gcd I could honestly see dks being fine without our armor buff being added back. If they increase our ability to rune strike more we will in turn game runes at a quicker pace thereby allowing us to gain a death strike or two per minute. Granted, while we would possibly gain more death strikes I do not feel a nerf to death strike healing would be needed due to the rng which is tied to our use of RE.

Edit: Also, if the cd of death and decay is reduced to say 15 seconds and the ability itself is buffed a bit further for blood (basically give us the dnd portion of morbidity which several blood dks talented into for fights like Rhyolith) we will not have any aoe threat issues.

[Deleted]

Yw bud! Just trying to keep our current issues up-to-date both on the official forums as well as on mmochamp.

- An interesting note, if they will fix our downtime issues without taking away our 1 second gcd I could honestly see dks being fine without our armor buff being added back. If they increase our ability to rune strike more we will in turn game runes at a quicker pace thereby allowing us to gain a death strike or two per minute. Granted, while we would possibly gain more death strikes I do not feel a nerf to death strike healing would be needed due to the rng which is tied to our use of RE.

Edit: Also, if the cd of death and decay is reduced to say 15 seconds and the ability itself is buffed a bit further for blood (basically give us the dnd portion of morbidity which several blood dks talented into for fights like Rhyolith) we will not have any aoe threat issues.

Yeah, it will help our overall healing but it won't really help for spikes or unexpected adds coming in the way. It will just lessen the time where you don't have any ressource. (Which is good, don't get me wrong. But being a few seconds off the right specific moment is still not enough.) Right now, all I'm craving for is some kind of live BT...

[Samsarathedk]

Yeah, it will help our overall healing but it won't really help for spikes or unexpected adds coming in the way. It will just lessen the time where you don't have any ressource. (Which is good, don't get me wrong. But being a few seconds off the right specific moment is still not enough.) Right now, all I'm craving for is some kind of live BT...

I'm still hoping for live blood tap to be added back along with a reduced rp cost to rune strike as a fix for our downtime issues.

[Deleted]

I've been doing some instances. Just did the Shado-pan monasteries and hell... I have to say, everytime I go there, things get hard after you kill the Sha of Violence. Towards the end of the dungeon, there are packs with a lot of adds randomly popping here and there. I had a really hard time to grab them when death and decay was on CD. I played with the usual alt-tab + runestrike, diseases on everyone and of course death gripping + taunting everytime I could. I even had to use my death runes to blood boil a little more (heart strike was no use, there was just so many of them) and give up on every drop of active mitigation I could possibly sacrifice. Even with that, I was still unable to get all the adds. (And I'm not talking about 1 or 2 loose mobs, I'm talking about 3 to 5 guys wandering off.)

I didn't have the chance to do it on my paladin yet so I can't compare, but damn, that felt quite frustrating to see all these mobs going everywhere and killing dps while I was getting completely hammered by the mobs I managed to keep on me. (because no death strike) I have no idea if we're intended to establish a focus order on every trash pack... especially when blizzard said 5-mans would be more like Wotlk ones. I'm not complaining because it's hard. I'm complaining because I feel my arsenal has been completely cut down to the point I just can't keep aggro on everything while I perfectly can on live with absolutely no issue.

There is also no way to chain pull trash packs and keeping STD without gimping yourself. The blood boil fix is nice, but it doesn't help when you need to go fast. I can definitely see a problem here if you intend to do timers, or challenge modes. Having to wait on outbreak is lame. Always was, always will be. (Waiting on dnd is also quite annoying.)

We need a way to get runes on demand for this kind of situations and for spike damage. I just hate to look at things getting messy and being completely unable to do shit about it. :/

[KieraDK]

After levelling my Priest to 90 I've just started on my [Blood] Death Knight.
I understand the difficulty in balancing our rune system because, at times, we will need to sacrifice mitigation for AoE threat (Either one or two globals on BB or a death rune for D&D)
For this purpose I think a modified version of Crimson Scourge should return. One that increases the threat of the next BB by x% instead of, or including, the damage modifier. It would work nicely with Reaping (or whichever passive refreshes diseases) but may work too well with Roiling Blood.

Or they could implement a new AoE ability that uses RP instead of free spell procs to let us get AoE threat without losing death runes and mitigation.

[Samsarathedk]

After levelling my Priest to 90 I've just started on my [Blood] Death Knight.
I understand the difficulty in balancing our rune system because, at times, we will need to sacrifice mitigation for AoE threat (Either one or two globals on BB or a death rune for D&D)
For this purpose I think a modified version of Crimson Scourge should return. One that increases the threat of the next BB by x% instead of, or including, the damage modifier. It would work nicely with Reaping (or whichever passive refreshes diseases) but may work too well with Roiling Blood.

Or they could implement a new AoE ability that uses RP instead of free spell procs to let us get AoE threat without losing death runes and mitigation.

Wouldn't a reduction to the cd timer of DnD plus a threat buff work better? Say knock it down to a 6 second cd like pally consecrate and then double the threat output? Also, giving us an rp based aoe move would cost us active mitigation because we would not be able to rune strike and game runes effectively when dealing with large packs.

[Deleted]

Wouldn't a reduction to the cd timer of DnD plus a threat buff work better? Say knock it down to a 6 second cd like pally consecrate and then double the threat output? Also, giving us an rp based aoe move would cost us active mitigation because we would not be able to rune strike and game runes effectively when dealing with large packs.

Unless that specific aoe RP move is made to trigger rune regeneration talents.

[KieraDK]

Wouldn't a reduction to the cd timer of DnD plus a threat buff work better? Say knock it down to a 6 second cd like pally consecrate and then double the threat output? Also, giving us an rp based aoe move would cost us active mitigation because we would not be able to rune strike and game runes effectively when dealing with large packs.

Gasp, an oversight. I suppose if they made it work with the rune refresh tier it would work, but then many complications with the RE/RP's 45% chance on hit. Scrap that.
Reducing the D&D CD would still require you to spend an unholy/death rune which would be better spent on on a DS.

[Samsarathedk]

Gasp, an oversight. I suppose if they made it work with the rune refresh tier it would work, but then many complications with the RE/RP's 45% chance on hit. Scrap that.
Reducing the D&D CD would still require you to spend an unholy/death rune which would be better spent on on a DS.

True we still spend an unholy rune to drop dnd which a little annoying but many blood dks like myself have become accustomed to this play style. In a perfect world DnD wouldn't cost any runes but I highly doubt the devs will ever give it to us for free. However, the price we pay for it in its current state is laughable. If we are going to give up an active mitigation resource the ability had best give us snap threat and not have a 30 second cd so we can use it on every pack; not every other pack. So my vote is to give blood a buffed version of DnD that ticks like a truck and has a reduced cd say maybe 10 seconds? That way we are prepared to handle large mobs like the ones in Shadow Pan Monastery that Ash mentioned earlier.

The reason I feel these changes are needed tie solely into our active mitigation, mainly the mitigation we have to give up in order to obtain threat on large mobs when outbreak is on cd: 1. 1 Unholy rune to place DnD (which as I have mentioned doesn't tick hard enough for blood to give snap threat on a 30 second cd) 2. Either 1 unholy rune for blood plague to apply weakened blows (when push comes to shove most blood dks will neglect frost fever when outbreak is on cd in favor of keeping the frost rune for death strike) or 40 RP (1 1/3 rune strikes as well as a 45% chance to fill a depleted rune) to use outbreak. 3. Any and all blood runes (and as others have experienced some death runes) must be used to fire off blood boils to keep generating aoe threat as well as keep weakened blows up on all targets. Well the blood runes are not a big deal as they are serving their purpose, the issue of blood dks giving up one or both unholy runes as well as rp to establish and maintain aoe threat (not including the amount of tab target rune striking we have to do) is not acceptable as long as the abilities we sacrifice our mitigation for do not provide sufficient damage and threat.

So to reiterate, blood dks would like the threat modifier as well as the cd of DnD to buffed to help us better handle aoe threat. The best solution for rectifying the situation is to simply double the threat output of DnD on beta and reduce the cd 10 seconds so we are not forced to stand around waiting for it to come off cd while noobs yell "Gooo!!!!!!!!!" while you're stuck waiting for your threat cd.

Edit: Also, to make DnD more beneficial to blood dks (especially during moments of aoe tanking) the ability could apply a debuff to all targets which reduces melee and casting speed by 20% (old frost fever) thereby making it vital ability for us to use. I feel this buff is warrant to compensate us for the unholy rune we have to use every time we place it.

[Keile]

Wouldn't a reduction to the cd timer of DnD plus a threat buff work better? Say knock it down to a 6 second cd like pally consecrate and then double the threat output? Also, giving us an rp based aoe move would cost us active mitigation because we would not be able to rune strike and game runes effectively when dealing with large packs.

A possible solution to the AoE RP-based threat: Add splash damage to Rune Strike. Make it hit the current target fairly hard, and do maybe 20%-30% of that damage to all enemies nearby.

If they lower the damage of the primary target to compensate for this, they can always just increase its threat modifier so that there is no threat loss.

[Samsarathedk]

A possible solution to the AoE RP-based threat: Add splash damage to Rune Strike. Make it hit the current target fairly hard, and do maybe 20%-30% of that damage to all enemies nearby.

If they lower the damage of the primary target to compensate for this, they can always just increase its threat modifier so that there is no threat loss.

That could definitely work, give it the avenger shield/ thunderclap treatment and make it hit all of its targets.

[blackblade]

For aoe threat, they could probably improve diseases TPS. With blood-boil refreshing diseases by default (and not needing the pestilence talent to do so) the other two talents can become somewhat viable

In an aoe-tanking situation, you could plague leech in place of old blood tap. having one target you're already targeting and heart striking not diseased is not the end of the world, and that frees up a rune to D&D new adds. alternatively, you could have unholy blight, acting as a sort of secondary aoe-tanking mechanic (the long cooldown is a major turnoff, though, for what it provides.)

On a boss, Plague leech would roll together nicely if you have an unglyphed outbreak. essentally consuming your diseases for a free rune, then redotting with outbreak every min to gain a free death rune.

Realistically, most tanking classes don't get the big ass raid buffs. A secondary "Mainstream" buff, like what warriors/paladins have would be nice, but DK's, Monks, Druids still only bring one buff to the table, and I don't think they'll suffer too much for it.

[Samsarathedk]

For aoe threat, they could probably improve diseases TPS. With blood-boil refreshing diseases by default (and not needing the pestilence talent to do so) the other two talents can become somewhat viable

In an aoe-tanking situation, you could plague leech in place of old blood tap. having one target you're already targeting and heart striking not diseased is not the end of the world, and that frees up a rune to D&D new adds. alternatively, you could have unholy blight, acting as a sort of secondary aoe-tanking mechanic (the long cooldown is a major turnoff, though, for what it provides.)

On a boss, Plague leech would roll together nicely if you have an unglyphed outbreak. essentally consuming your diseases for a free rune, then redotting with outbreak every min to gain a free death rune.

Realistically, most tanking classes don't get the big ass raid buffs. A secondary "Mainstream" buff, like what warriors/paladins have would be nice, but DK's, Monks, Druids still only bring one buff to the table, and I don't think they'll suffer too much for it.

1. In order to obtain unholy blight we have to give up roiling blood which is the new pest for blood which is vital for current aoe snap threat along with dnd, blood boil spam, and tab targeting with rune strike while weaving in death strikes for mitigation.

2. Plague Leech would only be viable every 1 minute unlike live blood tap which is a 30 second cd (when talented) for blood. Blood dks would better benefit from the return of improved blood tap than they would from plague leech.

3. Every tanking class (except for blood dks) provide pretty sweet buffs/raid cds.

A. Prot paladins provide Kings (5% to stats), Might (3,500 mastery), devotion aura (reduces magic damage by 20%), hand of salvation (threat reduction), hand of sacrifice (30% of damage taken by the active target is transferred to the caster), and hand of protection (a targeted party or raid member is protected from all physical attacks for 10 sec, but during that time they cannot attack or use physical abilities).

B. Prot warriors provide 10% AP, rallying cry (temporarily grants you and all party or raid members within 30 yards 20% of maximum health for 10 sec), shattering throw (throws your weapon at the enemy causing 12 damage (based on attack power), reducing the armor on the target by 20% for 10 sec or removing any invulnerabilities), and commanding shout (generates 20 Rage and increases the Stamina of all party and raid members within 30 yards by 584), and mass spell reflection (reflects the next spell cast on you and on all party and raid members within 20 yards for 5 sec).

C. Guardian druids provide mark of the wild (5% to stats), leader of the pack (increases the crit chance of all party and raid members by 5%), battle rez, innervate, tranquility (usable when they are not the active aggro target), and stampeding roar (increases the movement speed of all party and raid members by 60% for 8 seconds).

D. Brewmaster monks provide legacy of the emperor (5% stats), healing sphere (You form a Healing Sphere out of healing mists at the target location for 2 min. If allies walk through it, they consume the sphere, healing themselves for cond($gt((($SP * 1.005) * 1 + 9986, AP * 0.5025) * 1 + 9986, (($SP * 1.005) * 1) + 9986, AP * 0.5025) * 1 + 9986). A maximum of 3 Healing Spheres can be active by the Monk at any given time.), summon black ox statue (passive) (Sanctuary of the Ox: every time the Monk deals AP*16) damage, the Black Ox statue will cast Guard on an injured party or raid member within 40 yards absorbing ((AP * 1.971) + 14232 * 1 damage lasting 30 sec. This effect cannot be cast onto the Monk.), Avert harm (reduces the damage taken by all nearby party and raid members within 10 yards by 50%, and cause half of all remaining damage they take to be re-directed to you. Lasts for 15 sec), And meditation (reduces all damage taken by 90% and redirects to you up to 5 harmful spells cast against party and raid members within 30 yards. Lasts 8 sec.)

E. Blood death knights provide 10% AP (technically all dks provide this), blood parasites (your melee attacks have a 10% chance to spawn a Bloodworm. The Bloodworm attacks your enemies, gorging itself with blood until it bursts to heal nearby allies. Lasts up to 20 sec.), A battle rez (again, all dks provide this), and the raid cd anti-magic zone IF the tank talents into it thereby giving up either lichborne (draw upon unholy energy to become undead for 10 sec. While undead, you are immune to Charm, Fear and Sleep effects and death coil will heal you.) Or purgatory (An unholy pacts grants you the ability to fight on through damage that would kill mere mortals. When you would sustain fatal damage, you instead are wrapped in a Shroud of Purgatory, absorbing incoming healing equal to the amount of damage prevented, lasting 3 sec. If any healing absorption remains when Shroud of Purgatory expires, you die. Otherwise, you survive. This effect may only occur every 3 min.) Thereby making the tank choose to either sacrifice a personal cd for a raid cd or vice versa.

Therefore, your statement about tanking buffs and raid cds and who brings what to the table is incorrect. Prot paladins bring a combination of 6 buffs and raid cds. Prot warriors bring a combination of 4 buffs and raid cds. Guardian druids bring a combination of 6 buffs and raid cds. Brewmaster monks bring a combination of 5 buffs and raid cds. While blood death knights bring 4 buffs and raid cds to the table, 2 of which all dks bring and 1 which must be talented into at the cost of a person cd. Death knight tanks provide the least amount of utility which will make us one of the least viable tanks in MOP if all tanks are indeed balanced under the new active mitigation standard. As you will merely take the tanks which provide the most utility to your progression raid team.

[KieraDK]

True we still spend an unholy rune to drop dnd which a little annoying but many blood dks like myself have become accustomed to this play style.

On live D&D is often free because Blood Tap will give you the rune you just spent for 2xDS to start with, that is the only reason I don't mind it.
After tanking a few Normal MoP dungeons, the base threat of D&D could be upped just so there's time to Outbreak (Or manually put up diseases) before BB spam.

If it also reduced attack/cast speeds then it would almost become mandatory to cast it on CD

For aoe threat, they could probably improve diseases TPS. With blood-boil refreshing diseases by default (and not needing the pestilence talent to do so) the other two talents can become somewhat viable

Improving Diseases threat would still mean that instant threat is hard to acquire. They could increase threat done to diseased targets by X% per disease. May cause issue with the Outbreak CD though
Alternatively, make D&D apply diseases via talent/glyph and increase the threat caused

[Samsarathedk]

I'm bringing this thread to the official forums once more in hopes that we can rally one final push for changes before Mists drops on Sept 25th. We need the support of the dk community now more than ever if we do not want to be forced to deal with a half complete tanking set for the majority of T14. So please come out and show some support: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...97459?page=1#2

[Kraeth]

Thanks for posting it to US forums Samsa. I really see zero reasons to continue as blood in MoP if we get no raid utility; all tanks supposedly take the same damage (except one of them is spiky /shrug) yet that spiky guy brings no raid utility. There's literally no reason to bring a Blood DK into a raid with all that magic mitigation going on with other tanks. If T14 was heavy on unavoidable phys damage it would be another story, this isn't the case though. Far from it. Back to T11 'suckedness' it is I guess.

[Samsarathedk]

Thanks for posting it to US forums Samsa. I really see zero reasons to continue as blood in MoP if we get no raid utility; all tanks supposedly take the same damage (except one of them is spiky /shrug) yet that spiky guy brings no raid utility. There's literally no reason to bring a Blood DK into a raid with all that magic mitigation going on with other tanks. If T14 was heavy on unavoidable phys damage it would be another story, this isn't the case though. Far from it. Back to T11 'suckedness' it is I guess.

Yw bud, here's to hoping the devs aren't done tweaking blood just yet.

[hyperionx]

The downtime sounds like it might be bad.

I wish I had beta access so I can see the portion of the fight your using to justify why our aoe threat is bad. Honestly though I just don't think you know what your doing.

As for raid utility, while it would be nice to have, it's a case of if your a noob, baddie, or asshole, then bring the player not the class works against you. The only utility i've ever seen matter on a tank is whether HOP or DS can reset a debuff, whether ams is OP for a fight, or if adds need heavy kiting, then leap or stampede is great. Though as raid leader for a 10m, I try and keep things balanced across the board and if we have more than 2 of a certain class, it's a bad raid group. I also play a blood dk, but I keep my pally around in case HOP or DS cheeses a mechanic on a progression boss.

So yea, worrying about whether we have enough raid utility just seems like a waste of time. Would be better if they fixed the downtime issue.