Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Troxism]

People have asked me to write about this topic for a while now (as I have expressed my concerns pretty often in various places), so finally here it is, 18000 words on Blood DK and Tanking going into Legion. I am putting this on google docs because it is so long and because it makes it easier to edit or update it as time goes on rather then having it be in a forum post.

This document is LONG. I still haven't said everything there is to say, but yeah, it's already too damn long.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Anyways, if you wish to discuss it, use this thread. I'm sure people will have plenty to nitpick about in such a long document; it is pretty hard for a single person to actually write something this long and keep it coherent without a lot of outside help.

I am also sure many people will complain about it being 'negative' but the fact is I actually back up my complaints with reasoning as much as possible. At the end of the day I wouldn't bother to write this if I didn't care, or if I wanted to see the game be bad (why would I give feedback if I wanted the game to suck?). I would like to be 'wrong' about everything I said; it doesn't come out of malice. But both actual alpha testing and theorycraft is currently showing me otherwise, and I can't sit there and pretend everything is fine.

[Rockford]

Thanks for your input, as I'm quite keen to read on solid/educated feedback on the spec. After seeing changes to AMS (and the loss of the glyph), Death's Advance and our mitigation in general, I'm looking forward to the read.

Appreciated ♥

[Aei89]

Well, that was quite a read. I can only imagine how long it must have taken for you to get all that down in a manner that was satisfactory to you, so for that you have both my thanks and my sympathy.

As to the content of it, I hadn't realized so many things were as bad they are. Personally, after seeing the initial talent changes I was quite excited. I love the idea that Blood might have some new sense of identity as a spec, rather than just being "Death Knight with a better Death Strike than the other two specs." However, focused feedback on Blood is rather scarce(most people are more concerned with Frost and Unholy, particularly Frost and they always have been), so this post was basically a breath of fresh air. The majority of the information available to me was from talent trees and sifting through build notes, but maybe I just haven't been looking hard enough. Seeing an in-depth summary of exactly what all these shiny "new" abilities are and the problems they can present is concerning, which is adds to the already large pile of problems I had with the vision talked about in the state of tanking going forward blue post from a few days ago. Yikes.

Anyway, I don't really have any opinions that run contrary to the ones you've shown, so there isn't much else to say other than keep shouting for us until they hear you. All the work you've put in over the past year or two and that you continue to put in does not go unappreciated and we're lucky to have you.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I appreciate the read, but sadly it confirms most of the things I've been piecing together from youtube footage and adds more concerns on top of it. Especially the part where blood feels even slower now disturbs me greatly.

[Aergwyn]

Now the weird feeling at Ursoc Raidtesting makes sense. It felt so bad being so slow and sometimes getting slowly starved of resources to survive any further attacks from the boss. Other times you could heal yourself from near-death to full with DS and that 45s Pseudo-DS Artifact Trait. At least when you weren't getting globaled from boss melees.^^

[Deleted]

A good read. It's clear that a lot of thought and work went into it and I recognized a lot of points from my own experiences, which I always found hard to put in words when someone asked me for input about tanking with their DK alts.
The worst thing about all of this is probably: they'll do it anyway. You can write nearly 40 pages of well-argued, in-depth analysis about the class and the problems it has, showing detailed knowledge about the underlying mechanics, but at the end of the day they will still go through with their blatantly stupid ideas. No amount of arguing is ever going to make them go back on their own designs, especially when they feel that the majority of players, who don't care about all this, will resubscribe anyway.

[Isadora]

Been waiting for your input and now that I've read it, I really don't know what to feel. I've never had as much fun in PvE as with my blood DK the last two expansions and I will definitely stick with it. But while I am overall hyped for Legion, it really makes me kind of sad to see my concerns confirmed. Here's hoping that Blizzard will find some way to stop the class being so slow and pruned.

[nathrizarri]

People have asked me to write about this topic for a while now (as I have expressed my concerns pretty often in various places), so finally here it is, 18000 words on Blood DK and Tanking going into Legion. I am putting this on google docs because it is so long and because it makes it easier to edit or update it as time goes on rather then having it be in a forum post.

This document is LONG. I still haven't said everything there is to say, but yeah, it's already too damn long.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Anyways, if you wish to discuss it, use this thread. I'm sure people will have plenty to nitpick about in such a long document; it is pretty hard for a single person to actually write something this long and keep it coherent without a lot of outside help.

I am also sure many people will complain about it being 'negative' but the fact is I actually back up my complaints with reasoning as much as possible. At the end of the day I wouldn't bother to write this if I didn't care, or if I wanted to see the game be bad (why would I give feedback if I wanted the game to suck?). I would like to be 'wrong' about everything I said; it doesn't come out of malice. But both actual alpha testing and theorycraft is currently showing me otherwise, and I can't sit there and pretend everything is fine.

Read all. Your WoD tanking stuff were very clear and instructive. Can't say the same about this one. There were multiple parts made me cringe, wanted to just scroll down to pass your inner dialogue but I sticked with it, can't say that I am pleased of doing it.

Denial-Anger-Bargain-Depression-Acceptence.

Your strong bias against the changes in general felt like you haven't reached to the aceptence phase yet. Stuck in denial/bargain for the most part. As a person who follows your previous work, you seem like you are in a tunnel at the moment. Your claims sound like an angry self righteous person, which I try to avoid IRL.

My feedback for your post:

Downtime

I am GCD locked atm even though I do not take plague leech as you and most other suggest(and it is one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD). Your opinion towards downtime doesnt feel right to me, I prefer having 1.5 sec GCd with downtime, so that my choices can have impact. Bringing up previous tiers as a backing point is irrelevant, especially meta is shifting.

Tanking

Burst was never fun to me. Choice was so obvious, leaving you without options. Should I press rune tap or AMS? Not fun. I always had more fun during basic melee swings, especially when my DS was making impact with high effective healing. Now from what Blizz told, we need to manage our survival in a long run, I like it. You sound like pressing an Active mitigation sets good tanks apart from the rest however, I believe presenting the choice so obvious does exact opposite.

--

I think you need to digest the change a little bit. I dissed everyone here who makes claims based on Current/Past metas for Legion. BTW not everyone thinks challenge is the best way to enjoy a game. Again, self righteous.

[enak101]

I understand quite well that many players play this game for other reasons; social aspects, acquiring power (loot, levels, etc), ‘spectacle’ (a good story, good cinematic, pretty vista, etc). But gameplay for players like me does not need to be cannibalized for those other groups of players. There is a reason difficulty modes exist, and there is a reason WoW is not purely raiding; because it tries to cater to many groups and tastes. Having advanced mechanics in the game, that are either ‘opt-in’ such as Breath of Sindragosa, or via not being required on lower difficulty levels, does not hurt other types of players. So why remove these things just to hurt mechanically focused players?

Directly pulled from the article, this covers your "Not everyone thinks challenge is the best way to enjoy a game" 100%.


He also talks about a bursty tank meta (are you implying a non-bursty tank meta has less obvious choice involved, among other issues like how close together AM becomes in effectiveness which he also talks about)


He also talks about downtime and why it doesn't leave more impactful choices, at least try and refute his argument or give a reason as to why you think your thinking is a better take?

[Isadora]

Read all. Your WoD tanking stuff were very clear and instructive. Can't say the same about this one. There were multiple parts made me cringe, wanted to just scroll down to pass your inner dialogue but I sticked with it, can't say that I am pleased of doing it.

Denial-Anger-Bargain-Depression-Acceptence.

Your strong bias against the changes in general felt like you haven't reached to the aceptence phase yet. Stuck in denial/bargain for the most part. As a person who follows your previous work, you seem like you are in a tunnel at the moment. Your claims sound like an angry self righteous person, which I try to avoid IRL.

My feedback for your post:

Downtime

I am GCD locked atm even though I do not take plague leech as you and most other suggest(and it is one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD). Your opinion towards downtime doesnt feel right to me, I prefer having 1.5 sec GCd with downtime, so that my choices can have impact. Bringing up previous tiers as a backing point is irrelevant, especially meta is shifting.

Tanking

Burst was never fun to me. Choice was so obvious, leaving you without options. Should I press rune tap or AMS? Not fun. I always had more fun during basic melee swings, especially when my DS was making impact with high effective healing. Now from what Blizz told, we need to manage our survival in a long run, I like it. You sound like pressing an Active mitigation sets good tanks apart from the rest however, I believe presenting the choice so obvious does exact opposite.

--

I think you need to digest the change a little bit. I dissed everyone here who makes claims based on Current/Past metas for Legion. BTW not everyone thinks challenge is the best way to enjoy a game. Again, self righteous.

Could you maybe elaborate a bit more? You didn't really bring any counterarguments to the "slower gameplay does not mean your choice is more meaningful"-argument, instead you pretty much focused on ad hominem arguments blaming him for being self righteous. I would very much love to hear why exactly you think the changes would make tanking more fun.

Also, why did you not take Plague Leech? How could Plaguebringer possibly be better? You save blood runes, but you lose the ability to go for some extra Death Strikes and you lose one "oh shit"-button. How would that be "one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD"?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much interested in a discussion about these topics, but my spider senses are tingling when somebody just states his opinion without backing it up.

[Magdalena]

Just getting this out of the way as a starting point, but it's hypocritical of you to post about someone being self-righteous when you entire post reeks of the same sentiment, not to mention a hefty amount of condescension that you have no basis for.

Your opinion towards downtime doesnt feel right to me

Great, glad to hear it doesn't "feel" right. Do you have evidence to back up why it doesn't feel right? Math? Logs? Heck, a conversation with a fellow Tank about what they find fun?

I prefer having 1.5 sec GCd with downtime, so that my choices can have impact

The fact that you can write something like this casts pretty strong doubt over your claim that you read the document in its entirety. Troxism explicitly states why slowing down the spec in such a fashion does not make for more impactful choices on Page 10 of the googledoc.
If the only thing you have to say to that is "Well, I disagree", you have no argument.

Bringing up previous tiers as a backing point is irrelevant, especially meta is shifting.

Seeing as Trox doesn't explicitly mention previous tiers in the downtime section of the document, I will assume you're referring to gameplay choices like CD management that he talks about on this page. If so, you'd be wrong- a massive part of the document deals with why the Tank meta shifting in this way is bad for the game. So claiming that referring to existing game is irrelevant is patently false. When someone disagrees with the very premise behind the Legion Tanking meta, referring to the way in which previous Tanking metas have operated doesn't just make for something to compare with but also harkens back to examples of stronger design. That is literally the very basis for a large section of this document.

Burst was never fun to me. Choice was so obvious, leaving you without options. Should I press rune tap or AMS? Not fun.

Again, I have to ask- did you really read the entire document? Because if you had, this is a point Troxism explicitly addresses. You claim that choice is obvious right now- this is doubly true in a Legion paradigm when the very ability to make choices does not exist. If AMS vs Rune Tap is a false choice as you imply it is right now, then imagine a world where the choice simply does not exist or matters even less than it currently does due to that level of danger not existing.

"Should I press rune tap or AMS? Not fun."
"You sound like pressing an Active mitigation sets good tanks apart from the rest however, I believe presenting the choice so obvious does exact opposite."

So there's "no choice" but you explicitly make reference to a choice? Moreover, what on Earth do these cooldowns have to do with Active Mitigation which you explicitly write about? Are you claiming that there's always a "right cooldown" to use, therefore there is no choice? Because if that's your argument, it's literally shooting itself in the foot- choosing to use the wrong cooldown IS a choice- a bad one that should punish Mythic level Tanks. You are arguing for a world where the ability to make such a mistake doesn't exist, yet somehow claim this will make your choices more impactful?

I dissed everyone here who makes claims based on Current/Past metas for Legion.

So you admit your purpose in coming on here was to be rude/troll, and then proceed to write about self-righteousness in the next sentence.
k

BTW not everyone thinks challenge is the best way to enjoy a game.

Let me direct you to:

There is a reason difficulty modes exist, and there is a reason WoW is not purely raiding; because it tries to cater to many groups and tastes. Having advanced mechanics in the game, that are either ‘opt-in’ such as Breath of Sindragosa, or via not being required on lower difficulty levels, does not hurt other types of players. So why remove these things just to hurt mechanically focused players?

[Khiyone]

A very well-thought out, detailed post. I agreed with everything said, and am particularly worried about large, infrequent spikes of damage (Inferno Slice on Gruul, for example) as it seems that with Marrowrend replacing Rune Tap (and changing to a weak CD of higher frequency) Blood's ability to deal with such mechanics will be more limited.

Also, why did you not take Plague Leech? How could Plaguebringer possibly be better? You save blood runes, but you lose the ability to go for some extra Death Strikes and you lose one "oh shit"-button. How would that be "one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD"?

Plaguebearer doesn't save blood runes; it does absolutely nothing for Blood. You naturally cast Blood Boil more than once every 30s, and each cast adds 30 seconds to your diseases. It makes that poster's argument even more silly.

[Deleted]

I answered you on the alpha forum directly.

tl;dr is that I genuinely hope you can be proven wrong, because I know very well you won't be listened to. I also know very well you're right, so I don't have a whole lot of hope.

[Zoldor]

Is there currently a Tank spec in the right place with all these design and meta changes going around?

I'm not real keen on the meta changes thus far as it seems as a tank we are a lot more reliant on healers again, which isn't that much fun as a class, basically the DPS that stands in front of the boss who has a couple cds.

[Dreyen]

I am GCD locked atm even though I do not take plague leech as you and most other suggest(and it is one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD).

Why not at least use unholy blight if you dislike plague leech? Plaguebearer does absolutely nothing for blood, bloodboil already resets diseases to 30sec. Unholy blight can at least help you put diseases up if outbreak is on cd. You might as well say not picking any tier1 talent was the best choice you ever made.

[Drekmar]

Why not at least use unholy blight if you dislike plague leech? Plaguebearer does absolutely nothing for blood, bloodboil already resets diseases to 30sec. Unholy blight can at least help you put diseases up if outbreak is on cd. You might as well say not picking any tier1 talent was the best choice you ever made.

Because hes terrible at his job.

[Aughyssul]

I do not take plague leech as you and most other suggest(and it is one of the best things that I did as blood in WoD).

The exact instant I knew the rest of this post would contain nothing of value

[Deleted]

The exact instant I knew the rest of this post would contain nothing of value

Unfortunately, it's far more likely that his boundless ignorance will be used by Blizzard as a cherry-picked example of support for their ridiculous designs than it's likely that the vast amounts of ridicule it's receiving from actual knowledgeable players will provoke them to change said designs.

One wonders why we bother any more.

[Kib]

One wonders why we bother any more.

Because min-maxing poorly designed classes / talent is still min-maxing

[vulena]

The new system, on paper, isn't about healers saving you through bad choices. Yes, not having burst means healers can top you back up, but at a very large price - with spirit being removed, the number of times that can happen in a fight will be limited.

The whole point of getting rid of burst to tanks is that your choices are supposed to be much more cumulative. In a bursty system, if you survive a burst, that's it. Prep for the next burst. If you consistently miss your active mitigation in the new system, you put mana strain on the healers, and at a certain point in the fight, they're out of ways to keep the raid alive.

Not to mention, burst mechanics make additional mechanics harder to put in. If you're burst down at certain points, it's difficult to have a fight where other mechanics can meaningfully interact with the tank directly before or afterwards. The new system allows for the juggling of multiple mechanics at once - no single one will kill you, all three definitely will.

Plus you'll still get your burst. Just overpull in a dungeon and see your health drop immediately! Nostalgia!

And yeah, seriously, you're not taking Plague Leach? Embarrassing.