Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Nayami]

Bloodworms is finally back to being useful. Would be nice as Tyvi said to make it proc from 'yellow damage' as well while adjusting the proc chance accordingly. (I also hope that 1 sec GCD for HS/BS is intended not bugged, thanks for telling us about it)

Would be nice to have Exsanguinate scale with our max HP again. Since the tooltip states that it deals 0 damage then I guess can safely assume that it still scales with AP. It would make this talent much more fun to use since we have so many ways of gaining extra HP but nothing to use that HP with other than for survivability.

I still don't like Ossuary unfortunately. Not saying it's bad but I honestly expected something with a little more 'oomph'. Something like Tombstone that interacts with our Bone Shield stacks but as a part of our rotation instead of on a CD.

Red Thirst is fantastic. We'll be able to make much more use of VB. Tombstone sounds pretty damn awesome as well, and another short defensive CD to our toolkit.

Tightening Grasp is still a kick in the nuts. GG should at least already be on 2min baseline (preferably back to 1min but not expecting that to happen). The 50% slow on DnD doesn't make it any more attractive for me. The least they can do with this talent is to give us 1min GG and give it an additional effect such as a 70% slow to all gripped targets.

Overall I like the changes and it's an obvious improvement. Can't wait to see what's next.

Also a quick question to alpha testers. Since Heart Strike gives us 2 extra RP for each additional target hit, does this also work with DnD cleave? So if 10 targets are hit with HS + DnD, then I would gain an additional 20 rp (2*10) ? Thanks.

[Saiyendra]

Bloodworms is finally back to being useful. Would be nice as Tyvi said to make it proc from 'yellow damage' as well while adjusting the proc chance accordingly.

How exactly are Bloodworms useful? They do mediocre healing and no damage, and the proc chance is horrible. It's as bad as ever - Exsanguinate is the only talent to use in that tier it would seem.

[Deleted]

Basically what this amounts to is that WotN will be more mana-friendly for your healers (which is supposed to be important in legion), as well as allowing you to essentially take more damage per second than your healers can heal against, unlike Foul Bulwark.

That's really not a problem though. Tank healing is not what is going to strain healers, it's raid damage so that hasn't changed. I mean even when I was doing 10 man Blackwing Descent raiding with everyone in blue gear and where healers did struggle for mana, it was still the raid healing which drained them. 30% more health (at the max, mind) is not going to change things either way and if you really want to go down that route, you'd have to include Rune Tap, Fallen Crusader etc which all scale with max health - I didn't though because it's a non-issue.

Another thing is that WotN isn't actually doing anything until you drop below 35%. So that extra health healers have to heal? It's buffer and no less than keeping you at 80% of max health before healing you which would allow them to use their more efficient heals and avoid overheals from either side. Again though, mana isn't really much of an argument either way.

As an aside, when you gain or lose Bone Shield charges with Foul Bulwark, does your current health or your health percentage stay the same? I'd assume the latter.

You lose both current and max health so it's the latter: the health percentage remains the same.

Also a quick question to alpha testers. Since Heart Strike gives us 2 extra RP for each additional target hit, does this also work with DnD cleave? So if 10 targets are hit with HS + DnD, then I would gain an additional 20 rp (2*10) ? Thanks.

DnD doesn't affect any RP generation and Heart Strike will generate a maximum of 21 RP whether you are hitting 3 or 300 targets (and yes, it counts the first target as well so it's 17 RP on single target) which is already pretty amazing considering thats 2 Runes for a single Death Strike.

How exactly are Bloodworms useful? They do mediocre healing and no damage, and the proc chance is horrible. It's as bad as ever - Exsanguinate is the only talent to use in that tier it would seem.

I don't like the proc chance either but I wouldn't say they do mediocre healing. They do essentially what unmodified Light of the Protector does for Paladins, and that is part of their actual AM. Now don't get me wrong, their version is clearly superior post talents and such but 20% of missing health isn't going to be that bad if we can time our heals around it (hence my suggestion for adding a buff to track or even click off when we want to).

[Nayami]

How exactly are Bloodworms useful? They do mediocre healing and no damage, and the proc chance is horrible. It's as bad as ever - Exsanguinate is the only talent to use in that tier it would seem.

Yes it's useful. The previous iteration was useless. Useful is also not the same as 'good' or 'great'. It can be made 'good' by taking yellow hits into account for the proc other than just white hits. And we can't say shit about the healing amount since this may easily be adjusted in the future.

DnD doesn't affect any RP generation and Heart Strike will generate a maximum of 21 RP whether you are hitting 3 or 300 targets (and yes, it counts the first target as well so it's 17 RP on single target) which is already pretty amazing considering thats 2 Runes for a single Death Strike.

Thanks for answering

[Deleted]

You lose both current and max health so it's the latter: the health percentage remains the same.

Thanks for clarifying. In that case it's optimal if you MR at high health percentages, because it means every Bone Shield charge generated effectively heals you for 3% of your current health. It also means that if you add charges at low health and lose them at high health you're effectively generating extra damage on you. Not sure whether that would be worth gaming though.

[Deleted]

I'm interested in how Unending Thirst interacts with Hearth Strike. Does it heal For 25% of the cleave damage too?

[Veiled Shadow]

I'm interested in how Unending Thirst interacts with Hearth Strike. Does it heal For 25% of the cleave damage too?

Unending Thirst gives Leech, which applies to all damage/healing events, so yes. It's also completely useless.

[Deleted]

Unending Thirst gives Leech, which applies to all damage/healing events, so yes. It's also completely useless.

Sorry, I meant the new "feast of Blood" artifact trait, wich makes Your Blood strike heal for 25% of the damage it deals.

[Deleted]

We don't know because Feast of Blood doesn't actually do anything yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Made a pure single target version of our rotation to complement from the multi target one I did a few days ago. I am quite interested in what you guys think about it, does it still look unfun to you?

Now with 100% more Runeforges and FOR THE HORDE yells.

Stats: http://i.imgur.com/dUBMkFG.png
Talents: http://legion.wowhead.com/talent-cal...ght/blood/M6Uz (Exsanguinate, Soulgorge, Anti-Magic Barrier, Rune Tap, Foul Bulwark, Blood Mirror)

I picked these talents because these are the ones I would also pick against proper raid bosses that feature only single target.
While Tombstone might have been a good alternative instead of Rune Tap, it's non-functional at the moment.

This build also features Exsanguinate instead of Bloodworms because it's fun to use (and I need to train myself more to use it). In my opinion, the additional button Exsanguinate offers fits well into the rotation and I hope it might even get it's CD reduced to 20 secs or made more powerful instead.

And finally, I picked up Soulgorge. As I understand it, not many people are fond of it but in my opinion it's a pretty nice talent because it rewards you for using it well and this is pure single target, mind.

So, what do I think of our rotation? Is it as boring as people make it out to be?
Actually, I quite enoyed it. I did not feel like it was slow or that I had very little buttons to press or even that it was mind numbingly dull. Even Bone Shield maintainance was not as rigid as it could have been on paper because at some points you want that extra RP from Blood Strike more to get off a Death Strike than you want to deviate from the "Marrowrend at 5 stacks" rule so there was some surprising fluidity to add.

But as always, be the judge yourself. What did you think?

(Also, having a ranged interrupt is kind of awesome.)

[Deleted]

Is Blood DPS currently really bad? I've never played Blood before (playing Brm on live) and I'm averaging about 50-60k dps on singletarget (did the Mythic Dungeon w/ Level 3 Keystone today). I have no problems surviving. Then I saw this log from a 6 Keystone - the Guardian is doing 200k dps & the Prot Pally 150k (I think Level 3 was ilvl 810 or sth, no idea about Level 6). So, is Blood just undertuned or am I doing something fundamentally wrong :s

[lilgayatlas]

Is Blood DPS currently really bad? I've never played Blood before (playing Brm on live) and I'm averaging about 50-60k dps on singletarget (did the Mythic Dungeon w/ Level 3 Keystone today). I have no problems surviving. Then I saw this log from a 6 Keystone - the Guardian is doing 200k dps & the Prot Pally 150k (I think Level 3 was ilvl 810 or sth, no idea about Level 6). So, is Blood just undertuned or am I doing something fundamentally wrong :s

Blood does disgustingly undertuned damage on Alpha.

[Kapaya]

We don't know because Feast of Blood doesn't actually do anything yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Made a pure single target version of our rotation to complement from the multi target one I did a few days ago. I am quite interested in what you guys think about it, does it still look unfun to you?



(Also, having a ranged interrupt is kind of awesome.)

Not sure how Exsanguinite works, but if you can't use other abilities while channeling it's completly trash. You're locked out for three seconds and only aquire ten RP, where you could go with HS and Rapid Decompression to get 21 RP/HS which would lead to one DS at the cost of two runes instead of four. Having the new, weaker Death Pact known as Rune Tap cost a rune is bullshit and would never talent that over Purgatory, if you need to use two globals to heal yourself and only build RP from one is again not something that is fun or compelling to do when Paladins have a 25% heal at a 14.7sec CD with a premade character. Personally I think that the Rune Tap talent should get deleted since it just complicates things, especially if you've used all your runes for that oh shit moment when you actually need to use Rune Tap. Purgatory is probably the best tank ability in the game for when shit hits the fan, and many tries are saved cause of it. Tombstone is a cool ability and I could see that be picked over Purgatory if you expect high damage at certain points, but I would never touch Rune Tap. Mark of blood is nice but it's on a 3 min CD, and I'd prefer Will of the Necropolice in that talent tree simply cause any hit that would dip you below 35% is reduced by 20% which is actually really strong and prevents most oneshots if you aren't completly topped off.

Now, if only they'd do something about the disgusting low damage of Blood DK's so you could do some dungeon testing, but again, why would you tank on anything else other than a Paladin who actually have great choices and actual mitigation and cooldowns. I am honestly hoping for some serious changes to Blood, cause at the current moment it is a bore to play and I feel more of a meat shield than a tank. I am simply hoping that healers manage to top me off inbetween every hit while I'm trying to help out with runes I have to sit on to build RP for when I need it.

[Deleted]

Not sure how Exsanguinite works, but if you can't use other abilities while channeling it's completly trash. You're locked out for three seconds and only aquire ten RP, where you could go with HS and Rapid Decompression to get 21 RP/HS which would lead to one DS at the cost of two runes instead of four.

Exsanguinate doesn't lock you out of doing your normal stuff though and I don't know how you got to 21 RP with a single Heart Strike even with Rapid Decomposition (which is still a bad talent)? Rapid Decomposition affects all Rune generation usage equally so you can't just add it to one ability but count it for another. And if 7 bonus RP beats out the Exsanguinate heal, then this is clearly a tuning issue because Exsanguinate doesn't do enough damage (though it already hits nearly 4 times as hard as Heart Strike).

Having the new, weaker Death Pact known as Rune Tap cost a rune is bullshit and would never talent that over Purgatory, if you need to use two globals to heal yourself and only build RP from one is again not something that is fun or compelling to do when Paladins have a 25% heal at a 14.7sec CD with a premade character. Personally I think that the Rune Tap talent should get deleted since it just complicates things, especially if you've used all your runes for that oh shit moment when you actually need to use Rune Tap.

Rune Tap is off the GCD and generates RP for each use so not sure why you say you need to use two globals and only generate RP once? Sure, if you don't have Runes to react to burst damage then it doesn't heal for anything because you can't use it but how is that different from WoD Rune Tap or Death Strike? It may not be part of our active mitigation but if you can plan ahead you can get a massive 60% health heal out of it which beats Death Pact quite easily, especially when you remember that under the new model tank sustain has been significantly nerfed.
Rune Tap is an amazing ability, it really is. But if you don't want to use it - no one tells you to. We have alternative talents for that reason and you seem to prefer the others, so all is cool. But asking for it to be deleted just because you personally do not like it? Not cool. That "honor" should be reserved to trap talents like Exhume or old Ossuary only, in my opinion.

Another note is that you still seem to think Legion will be as bursty as WoD which is not going to be the case. Will the occasional boss still be able to burst kill you? Almost certainly, for encounter variation if nothing else. But it's not the norm so while things like Spectral Deflection and Purgatory will have their use they are definitely not going to be the default for every situation.
I already said what I wanted to say about WotN earlier in the thread but if you expect to get hit for 120% of your health regularly in a single hit (this is important; has to be one hit and not a bunch of swings that hit you in a short time frame because then WotN only reduces the one that takes you below 35%) then you are probably ignoring some encounter mechanic or tuning is realy off somewhere.

[Kapaya]

It's not that I think it will bursty, it's the fact that it is. I've tested almost every boss and it's literally burst fiesta on every boss, most recent being Spellblade Aluriel. You pretty much have to sit there and save your RP so you can get off DS durring her channeled ability. Could be tuning, could not, but you're misstaken if you think that the burst is gone in Legion. My thoughts are simply on the tuning for the encounters on Alpha right now. It's obvious some of them are overtuned, especially for Heroic, but again, my biggest concern in the way I speak negativly on the DK tanking tree is how bland and weak overall it is compared to other tank classes, especially Paladins. DK's have always been about self healing, and yet, it's such an effort to actually get some now compared to Paladin who pretty much get their Rune Tap for free (actually better on a, again, 14,7 sec CD with premade crap gear). My concern with Rune Tap is that is should be a base ability and not a talent, it's not worth the slot for what it does, especially when we used to have it as a base ability back in Cata/MoP before they changed it to what it is today. You trade out DK's already abyssmal dmg for an ability that does 0 dmg and not that much healing while you'll have to spend two runes on it to actually get the full use of it.

Also, if Exsanguinate does what you're saying, then yes, it sounds good on paper as long as it actually heals more than one DS, gonna try it out tonight during the test at least. When it comes to WotN, it was great on say Spellblade simply cause how her mechanic worked, and a lot more uesful then a CD I can use once every 2 minutes. You would heal up between each hit, and never really dropped below 50% until she decided to crit you or whatever the bugged mechanic was (sometimes she could hit you for 3m+ without tanking her), but again, Tombstone was not an ability yet, and for FBW, it depends if you're using HS or not. Atm I use HS simply cause it gives me more RP and does the same dmg/rune, but these are all talents that were changed before the previous test, but again, burst is not gone from Legion, it will always be there, especially early when your gear is not completly optimized. Some might find DK fun right now, but that's probably cause you haven't tried out the other tank classes yet. Atm I can't justify bringing a DK tank over another class, not just cause of the undertuned damage, but their ability to keep themselves alive is not what it was and the other tanks do it a lot better.

[longxia]

It's not that I think it will bursty, it's the fact that it is. I've tested almost every boss and it's literally burst fiesta on every boss, most recent being Spellblade Aluriel.

I knew Blizzard was full of crap saying they would stop using burst damage as a means to threaten tanks. They said the exact same thing during the Cataclysm beta, after late-WotLK had devolved into every healer HAM spam-casting everything on tanks non-stop in case they got randomly globalled. (And Disc bubbles were mandatory to give people the health pool to not randomly drop dead). In the end nothing much changed, and its been the same talk of testing mana conservation and then the same burst damage anyway, every expansion since.

I suspect its too hard to closely match total healer output over 10min versus total raid damage taken. Either the raid gets destroyed because theres just not enough mana, or there is enough mana and then its a cruise to victory while easily dealing with smooth, consistent damage taken.

[Kapaya]

I must mention that I'm not sure how the scaling is, but there is no doubt in my mind that some of these bosses are a bit overtuned for testing when it comes to Heroic content and the gear/scaling you're given. The burst damage is not gone, it is still there in the mechanics and abilities the bosses use. Heck even in Mythic + dungeons, while I completly understand that it's new and still in testing, the bosses are hitting like trucks, and their tank abilities are even worse. Yes it's meant to be a challenge, but the challenge is not in dealing with the mechanic, it's the burst of damage. So again, burst in Legion is not gone and DK's don't have a good answer to it.

[Deleted]

Regarding burst:
We need to seperate what's clearly overtuned and what is meant to be an AM check. As you say, Spellblade does seem overtuned but I do not disagree that occasionally bosses will have special abilities that will test you (and I think that's fine) but getting one shot is obviously not one of these things.
It's also rather clear that DK's baseline is somewhat undertuned just looking at their health. They need to have the highest health pools of all classes with Bears but even Brewmasters have more which is nonsensical. But all of this doesn't make Rune Tap a bad ability, it just shows that tuning hasn't happened.

And FWIW, Rune Tap can easily outpace Death Strike at a 60% max health heal. It uses 3 Runes so if you used triple Heart Strike instead you would lose 21 RP or half a Death Strike. Since it is clearly better healing than even a full Death Strike unless you took 300% (!) of your health in damage within the last 5 seconds, it's a non-issue.

Regarding Paladin and Light of the Protector:
Rune Tap and Light of the Protector are completely different abilities. Rune Tap is not active mitigation whereas for Paladins it's literally their main source of healing and it heals a % of missing health. We have the same thing with Bloodworms but no one is going to say they are totally equal because one is a talent and is AM and used on demand.
I would also be incredibly surprised if Paladins - or any other tank - outhealed Blood in any form of content due to not just Death Strike but also Exsanguinate/Bloodworms, various Leech effects from the artifact, Fallen Crusader, Blood Plague, Consumption and Rune Tap/Tombstone (not counting things like Mark of Blood or Bonestorm which generally have no place in single target atm or are just bad). We are still the self-heal tank, nothing changed. We just need the higher health to go with it (or bosses need to stop being tuned against 6 million hp mastery Bears).

Regarding Exsanguinate:
It is not going to outheal a DS, and unrelatedly, my math earlier was wrong. It is not just competing against 7 extra RP but against the difference between Heart Strike and Blood Strike RP generation in a 30 sec window. Assuming a ~7 sec Rune cycle you will get in 8 Heart Strikes normally and 7 Blood Strikes + 1 Exsanguinate otherwise for a net loss of 21 RP on single target.
So in the end, Sanguinate needs to heal at least that much to be worth it and clearly the tuning is not there yet. It also needs to be added to Feast of Blood.

[Deleted]

Rune Tap is an interesting concept, but I fear it might feel like you're not using the ability to it's full potential if you don't use it multiple times, like you're wasting a cooldown (because you essentially are), so I don't really understand why that's even an option. I think the ability, although unique the way it works now, would be a lot better if it were on a charge system.
That would have the added benefit that it would impact your gameplay for longer, whereas the current version has zero impact once it's on cooldown, but it's the only option to add some of the gameplay (keeping runes off cd to use them immediately when you need them) that has always been part of the blood dk but has been removed entirely in legion, and I'd like the option to get that back in some form.

[Kapaya]

Thing is, when it comes to the Rune Tap tree, you gotta count in the fact that it's a 2 minute CD. If you're not choosing Purgatory in that tree, with the new ability Tombstone, I doubt you will choose anything over it when it comes to ST bosses. Bone Shield is so easy to stack up, and the fact that Tombstone is on a 1 min CD it basically means, in a perfect scenario, you'd get 80% effective health with no overheal AND 60 RP which is 1½ DS. Again, the biggest issue I have with Rune Tap is the 2 min CD, it is WAY too long for that, and at most, if you really sit on your runes doing nothing, you can get a total of 6 out, which would be more than Tombstone, yes, but there is no way you can sit there doing nothing banking up 6 runes nor is it a fun gameplay. Again though, this would be a perfect scenario, and I doubt you'll get out a lot more than 2-3 Rune Taps before you actually overheal. The idea behind the fact that it has no CD is interesting, but you can't use it to it's fullest potential simply cause it costs runes, and should be on some kind of charge system.

Regarding Light of the Protector, even if it's 25% of the missing health, there's both an ability and artifact traits that increase the ammount of healing from it, which in the end, even if RT is a flat 20% heal, the ammount of healing it does is still more than one RT if you actually get low enough to be forced to use a heal. If both tanks have 3m HP, while the RT would heal for 20% HP, if the LotP is scaled additive from the artifact traits, would be 55% heal which in case the Paladin missed 1m HP, it would still heal over 500k, and that's only if the Paladin was missing 1/3rd of his HP. Sure, it's not as powerful as a bunch of Rune Taps, but this ability doesn't have a 2m CD or lock you out of other abilities.

You mention Active Mitigation, but as Blood DK's, we have none except Death Strike to heal us up and Bone Shield. Our defensive CD's are locked behind talents instead of being baseline abilities and while tuning is completly off on DK's, more HP is not gonna make it that much better, there is no on demand mitigation like other classes, especially since we have no way of getting runes back other than wait for the CD to come off or sit there doing nothing. I mean call me spoiled from playing Breath of Sindragosa, but Blood is really boring at the moment and too passive and if anything really needs a filler ability in my oppinion if the playstyle is to sit around and wait for the right moment.


Speaking of math being wrong, I forgot to mention that it's obviously when you hit HS on three enemies and not just one. It's not the choice on ST fights, that's for sure.

[Deleted]

Rune Tap is an interesting concept, but I fear it might feel like you're not using the ability to it's full potential if you don't use it multiple times, like you're wasting a cooldown (because you essentially are), so I don't really understand why that's even an option. I think the ability, although unique the way it works now, would be a lot better if it were on a charge system.
That would have the added benefit that it would impact your gameplay for longer, whereas the current version has zero impact once it's on cooldown, but it's the only option to add some of the gameplay (keeping runes off cd to use them immediately when you need them) that has always been part of the blood dk but has been removed entirely in legion, and I'd like the option to get that back in some form.

Here is the thing though, what exactly do we as a community want? Do we want an easy rotation like a lot of people complaining about how easy and mindnumbingly dull our rotation is (even if I disagree) or do we want some added depth? Depth as in: You have potential to do things badly but also do it well. The current Rune Tap allows you to pull of 60% heals if you plan for it and 20% if you use it as emergency. In my opinion, this is perfect.

Thing is, when it comes to the Rune Tap tree, you gotta count in the fact that it's a 2 minute CD. If you're not choosing Purgatory in that tree, with the new ability Tombstone, I doubt you will choose anything over it when it comes to ST bosses. Bone Shield is so easy to stack up, and the fact that Tombstone is on a 1 min CD it basically means, in a perfect scenario, you'd get 80% effective health with no overheal AND 60 RP which is 1½ DS. Again, the biggest issue I have with Rune Tap is the 2 min CD, it is WAY too long for that, and at most, if you really sit on your runes doing nothing, you can get a total of 6 out, which would be more than Tombstone, yes, but there is no way you can sit there doing nothing banking up 6 runes nor is it a fun gameplay. Again though, this would be a perfect scenario, and I doubt you'll get out a lot more than 2-3 Rune Taps before you actually overheal. The idea behind the fact that it has no CD is interesting, but you can't use it to it's fullest potential simply cause it costs runes, and should be on some kind of charge system.

It's certainly possible that 2 mins is too long a CD for Rune Tap but you guys make Tombstone out to be better or easier to use than it is. Tombstone, just like Rune Tap, requires setup to do well so Rune Tap requiring 2 Runes is not an argument at all.
Think about how this works in practice: We need to ensure we are at 10 Bone Shield charges to get the 40% Tombstone absorb and then immediately use two more Runes to Bone Shield up again for the damage reduction, Rune regen speed and health increase if Foul Bulwark exists. This is 4 Runes in total in preparation of Tombstone whereas Rune Tap requires 2 at most to pull even in healing done.
(Yes, 4. While Bone Shield is easy enough to keep up, staying at 10 Bone Shield charges when you expect the burst damage is not. You need to prepare for this or just live with the fact that you may just get a 20% absorb shield in which case it's pretty similar to how you can get off a Rune Tap once without preparing.)

Regarding Light of the Protector, even if it's 25% of the missing health, there's both an ability and artifact traits that increase the ammount of healing from it, which in the end, even if RT is a flat 20% heal, the ammount of healing it does is still more than one RT if you actually get low enough to be forced to use a heal. If both tanks have 3m HP, while the RT would heal for 20% HP, if the LotP is scaled additive from the artifact traits, would be 55% heal which in case the Paladin missed 1m HP, it would still heal over 500k, and that's only if the Paladin was missing 1/3rd of his HP. Sure, it's not as powerful as a bunch of Rune Taps, but this ability doesn't have a 2m CD or lock you out of other abilities.

Well of course LotP is better due to increased frequency (we can still heal more than them with preparation but only once every 2 mins) because LotP is a core active mitigation ability. Could you imagine the outrage if this wasn't true? Paladins would be pretty mad. :P

You mention Active Mitigation, but as Blood DK's, we have none except Death Strike to heal us up and Bone Shield. Our defensive CD's are locked behind talents instead of being baseline abilities and while tuning is completly off on DK's, more HP is not gonna make it that much better, there is no on demand mitigation like other classes, especially since we have no way of getting runes back other than wait for the CD to come off or sit there doing nothing. I mean call me spoiled from playing Breath of Sindragosa, but Blood is really boring at the moment and too passive and if anything really needs a filler ability in my oppinion if the playstyle is to sit around and wait for the right moment.

The extra health would help quite a bit though since that is our mitigation. We don't have things like Shield of the Righteous where we prevent damage so we need a big enough health pool for the damage to land then heal it back. And while I would prefer a stronger Death Strike as well (again tuning things though) the frequency isn't all that bad right now.

In an ideal world, we'd have a really large health pool, strong Death Strikes and plenty of CDs (not just amount but also frequency) to pull even with tanks who have less health, more baseline mitigation and less frequent CDs. We are obviously not there yet (still waiting for the health boost and CD reductions) but if you look at how Bears are being handled - that is, not all - devs probably don't care about inter-tank balance all that much at this stage so it's not super alarming.

It's not the choice on ST fights, that's for sure.

It could actually be, depending on how Exsanguinate and Bloodworm tuning pans out. It's around 30-40 RP extra RP per minute over Blood Strike, i.e. already twice as good as Rapid Decomposition and a little bit better than Ossuary.