Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Deleted]

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.

Hm, haven't thought of it like that.
Still, I'd welcome an mechanic that rewards saving runes besides something on a 2min cd, as that has always been core to the blood gameplay, and probably the reason many find the new gameplay so dull (storing DS now is trivial, like you pointed out in your post on the alpha forums). Since I'm not on the alpha I unfortunately can't test for myself whether or not I find keeping up Bone Shield an acceptable replacement for it in our rotation.

[Nayami]

@Tyvi what are your thoughts about the cooldown increase on Anti-Magic Shell and Gorefiend's Grasp and maybe even other spells you think have too long a cooldown? These long cooldowns are honestly my largest annoyance with the spec right now, because I want to be able to use my abilities on a frequent basis. I can't believe that I won't be able to use GG every minute like we do now, and to top it all of the Demon Hunter AoE Grip is already at 2mins CD baseline and it applies a 70% slow. Regarding AMS, we've been spoiled on live with the regenerative magic glyph and it makes it difficult to accept AMS being turned into a 1 min CD. Not saying that the CD should be similar to our previous CD with the glyph, but I'd love to see it back to 45 seconds.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, I also think a bunch of CDs could stand to be shorter, first and foremost AMS and Dancing Rune Weapon (3 minutes for a 40% parry buff just isn't that great when you look at Ravager from Prot Warriors which has a 1 min CD). Rune Tap and Blood Beasts (5 min CD for a really weak effect) are also among the list.

Gorefiend's Grasp? That depends. If it is allowed to work on more mobs than it does now, I could justify the increased CD by that but 3 would probably still be a bit long and 2 would be more preferable. If most raid mobs are immune to it anyway, then it's just a 5 man/CM nerf which we didn't really need.
On the other hand, I do prefer our version over the Demon Hunter version because we have slightly longer range on the grip effect and it's instant. Some more differentiation would be welcome though like increasing the size of the grip a little more and letting it work without facing the target. Heck, it could allso go back to doing damage again like it was proposed in the MoP (?) Beta now that only the tanks have it.

EDIT: Though now that I logged on the DH, the range difference can't be that much. It looks like 15 yards radius if not more compared to our 20 but I am just eyeballing it.

[Kapaya]

@Tyvi I mean, the Paladins are pretty mad already which is quite funny, if only they knew how good they have it.

But I like your view on RT's use, but again it comes back to the point that it forces you to bank runes. Sure, that's a mechanic that could reward you, but it means you get to do nothing which is my biggest concern with both RT and Blood come Legion. We can't dump RP since we need it for DS now and we can't get runes back without PL, so we sit there waiting which no one can think is fun. A filler ability would make things smoother, but honestly, I'm not expecting anything other than some tuning here and there.

[Xeoshades]

What would you think if the old blood dk ability: Hysteria was brought back?

Hysteria
30 yd range
3 mins cooldown
Instant
Induces a friendly unit into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, which increases their physical damage by 20%, but causes them to lose health equal to 1% of their maximum health every second.

This would be purely as an unity choice to pump out more damage. Could replace talents such as: Spectral Deflection, Rapid Decomposition, Ossuary, Soulgorge, idk something.

This would be useful as defensive and offensive:
Use on self for stronger attacks and more healing from Blood Strike/Death Strike/Leech.
Use on allies for stronger burst periods and maybe with other class abilities that benefit them taking damage.

[Saiyendra]

What would you think if the old blood dk ability: Hysteria was brought back?

Hysteria
30 yd range
3 mins cooldown
Instant
Induces a friendly unit into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, which increases their physical damage by 20%, but causes them to lose health equal to 1% of their maximum health every second.

This would be purely as an unity choice to pump out more damage. Could replace talents such as: Spectral Deflection, Rapid Decomposition, Ossuary, Soulgorge, idk something.

This would be useful as defensive and offensive:
Use on self for stronger attacks and more healing from Blood Strike/Death Strike/Leech.
Use on allies for stronger burst periods and maybe with other class abilities that benefit them taking damage.

You'll never be allowed to use something like that on yourself as a tank (not because of survival being hard or anything, but because there will be DPS specs that benefit far more from that). So, no, unless it only works on the DK.

[Deleted]

You challenge one Acherus DK to a duel...

[Kraeth]

You challenge one Acherus DK to a duel...

Is that 2,400ish hit a bloodworm? Have you had a chance to try out how often they proc from crits?

[Deleted]

It's been data mined to be a 4 PPM proc chance.

[Kraeth]

It's been data mined to be a 4 PPM proc chance.

Just thinking what's the dps they put out. Obviously that's not the focus of them worms, but still. They're up relatively often then I guess.

[Deleted]

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.

Turns out this got changed this build.
Heart Strike under the effect of Death and Decay and Rapid Decomp generates 45 (!) RP per use. I honestly don't expect this to stay for long though.

[Ikrekot]

...
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.

I suppose you miss smth.

Will of the Necropolis Passive Talent
Requires level 90
Reduce all damage taken by 20% while your health is below 35% or from any attack which would reduce you below 35%.

[Deleted]

Nah, I meant exactly what I said if you check the context. WotN will reduce less damage if the damage is split in tiny hits instead of one big hit at 120% and its burst damage protection becomes considerably less compared to Foul Bulwark the more the damage is split up.

Twelve 10% hits: 100% - 6*10% - 6*10%*0.8 = -8% hp left (you are dead). Before you reach 40%, WotN doesn't kick in so you take half of the damage without any reduction.
One 120% hit: 100% - 120% * 0.8 = 4% hp left. A killing blow was nullified, barely.

WotN is basically for stuff you aren't meant to be doing (or if stuff is overtuned and we are undertuned) because you shouldn't be getting hit for that much damage to begin with.

[Deleted]

Before you reach 40%, WotN doesn't kick in

Conversely, Foul Bulwark does nothing for you while you're below 100% of your base health (that's about 77% of your health with 10 charges).
That means that when you most need it (when you're at low health), Foul Bulwark is useless, where WotN could save your life.
Of course, this 30% of your base health you'd have to take to drop below your base health you'd also applies take with WotN, but hear me out:

Let's say you have 100 health baseline, you take 75 damage (so WotN barely doesn't proc, also let's assume you somehow are permanently at 10 stacks(unrealistic)):
WotN: 35 health
FB: 65 health

Now let's assume you take 10 damage per second, and get healed by 5. How long until you die?
WotN: 35-8+5-8+5... -> 35-3x <=5 -> x>=10
So with WotN you survive 10s
FB
65-10+5-10+5... -> 65-5x<=5 -> x>=11
So FB let's you live 1 more second in this scenario, but if we remember that you won't be at permanently 10 charges (so you're taking that little bit of "phantom damage", 3% of your current health, every time a charge gets consumed), I'd say they're about equal.

In this scenario, you take twice as much damage as you're being healed for, if this ratio gets smaller (say you take 50% more damage than healing), this result shifts to WotN being better. At a ratio of 1.2, WotN lets you survive where you'd die with FB.

Also, regarding your "120% hit" scenario, WotN lets you survive that with 4% HP, while FB lets you survive it with up to 10% (you don't take more damage just because you have more health), as would it with twelve hits. So FB is more beneficial when it comes to burst damage, not WotN.

So now we've had a number of abstract and unrealistic scenarios, here's the point I'm trying to get at:
FB increases the time you can go without healing, while WotN reduces the total amount of healing you need. Which one's better depends on the situation, as well as your healers. If your raid takes short bursts of damage, or your healers are trying to always heal you to full, FB is the better choice. If your raid takes constant damage (and requires constant attention from your healers), or your healers are fine with letting you stay at 30% health for a while, WotN becomes the better choice.
Also, on fights that actually affect your health by percentages (Velhaari, Ra'den and such), FB is almost useless, and more likely even detrimental compared to WotN, because you have to be healed for more.
WotN might be undertuned right now, but even now it's not useless. In fact, it's useful in every situation where FB is useless, and vice versa.

Mark of Blood however has only one situation where it's useful, and that's when a single target takes a lot of small hits from the same enemy for a short time, but that's probably too niche to ever be useful. It would probably work better as just granting everyone 10% leech when hitting the target.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, with Bone Shield now being a maintenance buff, is our active mitigation once again limited to preemptively using DS? If so, that really sucks.

[Deleted]

Also, regarding your "120% hit" scenario, WotN lets you survive that with 4% HP, while FB lets you survive it with up to 10% (you don't take more damage just because you have more health), as would it with twelve hits. So FB is more beneficial when it comes to burst damage, not WotN.

I picked 120% specifically because it's not realistic to keep Bone Shield at 10 charges (the average of 5-10 charges being 7, so rounded to 20% extra health - I am pretty sure I mentioned this in the thread and on alpha forums before so I don't want to keep including it as disclaimer into every single post ). If you are expecting the burst, then sure, you can get the max bonus but if you know this, why wouldn't you just pop a CD preemptively? It's the unexpected burst that I was comparing them both to (hence my conclusion of how unrealistic it is to be hit for 120% for your health as best case burst prevention for WotN) and how that's just unlikely to happen unless things are tuned badly.

Conversely, Foul Bulwark does nothing for you while you're below 100% of your base health (that's about 77% of your health with 10 charges).
That means that when you most need it (when you're at low health), Foul Bulwark is useless, where WotN could save your life.

I'm not sure I understand this. Foul Bulwark's bonus is always there but weakens the lower you drop. At 100% you get the full 20% extra health bonus, at 50% half at 10% and at 35% it's still 7%. Clearly the effect weakens but only looking at these small windows is half the story; you had to have taken the extra damage that brought you that low and used up your Foul Bulwark bonus first. You acknowledge that so I don't think we are in disagreement but I just want to restate this fact.

Lets switch to some more realistic scenarios:

If your raid takes constant damage (and requires constant attention from your healers), or your healers are fine with letting you stay at 30% health for a while, WotN becomes the better choice.

The more you do a boss, the easier it becomes to learn the damage patterns. Should you fall below a given health threshhold and you know that you risk death by staying there for too long, my gut reaction would be to use a CD (that treshhold being 100% health at something like Baleroc HM :V). Same thing with a scenario where I drop slowly (or rather: especially then since you can see it coming) instead of waiting for the inevitable and slow death if I picked FB. And if I know it's not threatening? See below.

The second issue is: If you can stay at 30% without risk of dying for prolonged periods, are you really doing gear appropriate encounters? I'm saying this because staying so low sounds like a really bad idea if the boss has an form of burst (auto attack, special) or whatever. And if it's safe, then chances are you are doing content easy enough that you could have without either WotN or FB to begin with.

Also, on fights that actually affect your health by percentages (Velhaari, Ra'den and such), FB is almost useless, and more likely even detrimental compared to WotN, because you have to be healed for more.

This is true but I am not sure we should be content with a talent that might be superior to FB due to specific mechanics once or twice an expansion instead of having a better carved out niche. Like how FB can be a strong talent without having to wait for bosses that included external heals based on max health just to prop it up.

WotN might be undertuned right now, but even now it's not useless. In fact, it's useful in every situation where FB is useless, and vice versa.

Again though, the situations where WotN is better are pretty artificial (like waiting for more Tyrants) or unrealistic (the 120% damage burst I had to come up with just to make WotN look better). I simply disagree with the notion that you will stay below 35% health for long enough periods to make this worthwhile because the chances you or your healers will use a CD to get you out of it or you just dying from being overwhelmed are much more likely than your being bled to death slowly.

I mean, yeah. We can come up with scenarios where WotN does well. I just don't think they are particularly realistic or common.

Also, with Bone Shield now being a maintenance buff, is our active mitigation once again limited to preemptively using DS? If so, that really sucks.

Pretty much, though using DS pre-emptively if you are at full health is a pretty bad idea considering how weak Blood Shield is compared to the heal so I am hoping they move away from these kinds of AM checks. AM checks that debuff you and you need to heal on the next GCD with Death Strike could work just as well.

[Raiju]

@Tyvi I mean, the Paladins are pretty mad already which is quite funny, if only they knew how good they have it.

Paladins are upset because there's 0 complexity left to their spec with holy power gone, moreso than their options. If anything their coverage exasperates the problem.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure I understand this. Foul Bulwark's bonus is always there but weakens the lower you drop. At 100% you get the full 20% extra health bonus, at 50% half at 10% and at 35% it's still 7%. Clearly the effect weakens but only looking at these small windows is half the story; you had to have taken the extra damage that brought you that low and used up your Foul Bulwark bonus first. You acknowledge that so I don't think we are in disagreement but I just want to restate this fact.

What I meant by that is that FB (as you pointed out) is basically an absorb on you, on top of your base health. So your effective health is 100%+0..30%. Just as an absorb does nothing if it's not up, FB has no impact while you're below these 100% base health. You then are at exactly the same health values you would be if you didn't pick a talent at all.
The difference is that you'd also take the damage to drop below 100% base health with WotN, meaning with WotN you'd (which is a point in favor of FB)

Again though, the situations where WotN is better are pretty artificial (like waiting for more Tyrants) or unrealistic (the 120% damage burst I had to come up with just to make WotN look better). I simply disagree with the notion that you will stay below 35% health for long enough periods to make this worthwhile because the chances you or your healers will use a CD to get you out of it or you just dying from being overwhelmed are much more likely than your being bled to death slowly.

Sure, those situations aren't very likely, and obviously we shouldn't have a talent specifically to combat them.
And you have a good point that staying below 35% for a long time is a bad idea. I think a good way to address that would be to change WotN to last a few seconds after being healed past 35%.

-----------------------------

OK, I think it's a good point to stop the discussion whether FB will always be better than WotN, because I thought some more about it and I'd rather ask a question regarding the bigger picture:

Talents are supposed to enhance your abilities to fulfill your role. But, at least in my opinion, they shouldn't be required in the sense that it's impossible to fulfill your role without them. In the case of FB however, that is the case. A max health increase only does anything for you if you'd actually die without it. In all other cases it does nothing. WotN, the way it's currently on alpha, also effectively grant's you increased max health.
Both of them only really do something for you if you'd die without them (besides misusing them to cheese mechanics). Also, they are entirely passive (again, except if you misuse them). And we already have a talent that does exactly that, which is Purgatory.
In all other cases, all they do is simplify our gameplay be reducing the impact of bad play.

I don't know how others feel about this, but I'd rather they'd replace at least one of them with something more interesting. (and replace Mark of Blood with something competitive)

Pretty much, though using DS pre-emptively if you are at full health is a pretty bad idea considering how weak Blood Shield is compared to the heal so I am hoping they move away from these kinds of AM checks. AM checks that debuff you and you need to heal on the next GCD with Death Strike could work just as well.

That's exactly why having DS as our only AM is bad, as you are forced to misuse it to heal before taking a big hit. Of course, if no such AM checks existed in Legion, that wouldn't be a problem. I just doubt that they'll really do that, and at least on some bosses we'll be forced to waste our DS.

[Murderdoll]

Paladins are upset because there's 0 complexity left to their spec with holy power gone, moreso than their options. If anything their coverage exasperates the problem.

Which is an underlying theme with EVERY tank spec this expansion.

All the specs have been absolutely gutted of anything remotely challenging or exciting. There was a discussion which reached Twitter the other day between Mione and Magdalena where both were discussing between themselves that there is nothing that makes them want to play Blood and that there appears to be a disconnect between what the Tank community wants (and that is the option to have a fairly relaxed rotation with the ability to reach this high skill capped rotation) and Celestalon quickly came in and shat all over it.

[Raiju]

Granted, I've already stepped out of any tank role next expansion :P

Druids/warriors don't seem too upset - a lot of druids feel their rotation actually has something to it now, however minor. DH is extremely dull & spammy but I couldn't care too much right now.

Not sure on BrM

[Deleted]

Which is an underlying theme with EVERY tank spec this expansion.

Yeah pretty much.
Don't know about warriors but druids aren't too upset as we were one of the simplest before this anyway so not much change - also we are scaling well at the moment - though thats subject to change.
BrM are hurting atm as, along with the simplification, everying is random - no control just random dodges, random heals - quite painful AND it's scaling badly.