Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Deleted]

DTPS is gonna me more important than ever this xpac(and i agree to this point). However you can't argue that with the current numbers we have on the beta the way to achieve the lowest DTPS is with haste build(until a break point we yet have to find) so we can keep 100% bone shield uptime. The issue with this is as you said that bosses are diffrent, some bosses will hit you in rapid succession(such as Botanist) while you might also find bosses like Krosus which hit more rarily. I did raid testing with Kanj. And as he said we got demolished by the boss(and keep in mind we did 3 tank and stood back with the boss together with a pocket healer and still got destroyed).

[Deleted]

Even if you want only reliable damage reduction I wouldn't choose mastery. Instead I'd probably go for haste>vers.
DS heals for less, while mastery still has the same conversion rate, directly reducing its value. On the other hand, DS now double dips from haste, as more haste does not only equal more Runes, but also more opportunities for HS, which gives you even more RP. On top of that, haste is very valuable as it helps you keep up Bone Shield (your #1 priority), lowers your gcd for faster reactions, whereas mastery does nothing for you.

@Kanj This extremely worries me. The amount of Bone Shields consumed per second is constant, independent of how hard the boss hits, and if Blood DKs need a certain amount of haste to even perform their rotation this is simply a brick wall. Sounds a lot like defense rating back in the day, where you were unable to tank anything until you stacked enough to be crit immune. Whats even worse is that this point is the same for everything (dungeons, raids, world quests, ...) and you make it sounds like that amount of haste is fairly unreachable without good gear.

[Deleted]

That's because he is using Spectral Deflection which is essentially similar to the block cap of Paladins in Cataclysm which you will more comfortably keep up the next tier instead of the first.

Bone Shield by itself is trivial to keep up because of the 2 sec ICD, however Spectral Deflection does not care about ICDs at all which makes Haste and Parry so much more valuable. If you cannot reliably keep up SD, you shouldn't spec it because 20% DR and more Death Strikes via extra RP from Heart Strike is going to be better than 40% DR which sometimes drops down to 0% (unless those gaps are so small that you feel like you can use CDs to bridge them I guess?).

[Nayami]

That's because he is using Spectral Deflection which is essentially similar to the block cap of Paladins in Cataclysm which you will more comfortably keep up the next tier instead of the first.

So should Soulgorge be used instead if we can't keep BS up near 100% on a ST boss fight? How is Soulgorge doing anyways nowadays? Or would the RP gain from Rapid Decomp be better?

[Museigen]

I'm stuck between Blood and off Unholy/Frost (my main forever), a prot/ret paladin or a bear/boomkin druid. Plan to spend most of my time in 5+'s, so which combo do you think fits/feels best? I'll probably tank 3/4ths of the time to be fair, so dps is kind of a second worry.

For blood I'm liking the look of bone shield offering smooth damage intake and SD offering some big DR but the lack of cooldowns worries and annoys me. Without IBF to take a huge hit it just doesn't feel right, let alone as blood I used to have lots of CDs. Unholy being ignore wounds and go clawing shadows makes me ew. I don't know enough about frost.

For prot paladin I'm loving the CDs and utility from bubble+raid damage reduction CD but I do not like the looks of SotR's up time. It seems like it would create such a spikey damage intake situation that would be easily noticeable by healers. I actually like the look of ret, some group buffs with good single target and AoE talent choices to swap on the fly between packs and bosses.

For Bear it was kind of middle of the road, they seemed to have decent AM up time while still having some cooldowns. I like the notion of saving up enough rage to do two ironfurs then survival instincts and laugh at a psychical boss attack that's supposed to be scary. Boomkin initially looked fun to me, but the more I see fury of elune the less I like. I didn't particularly enjoy BoS and using it because it was clearly better kind of turned of off to the notion.

Any thoughts would help, I haven't really played since Mists so I'm a good bit out of touch.

[Deleted]

That's because he is using Spectral Deflection which is essentially similar to the block cap of Paladins in Cataclysm which you will more comfortably keep up the next tier instead of the first.

Bone Shield by itself is trivial to keep up because of the 2 sec ICD, however Spectral Deflection does not care about ICDs at all which makes Haste and Parry so much more valuable. If you cannot reliably keep up SD, you shouldn't spec it because 20% DR and more Death Strikes via extra RP from Heart Strike is going to be better than 40% DR which sometimes drops down to 0% (unless those gaps are so small that you feel like you can use CDs to bridge them I guess?).

Ah that's good to hear, I was really worried for a second.
That puts the talent in a weird spot though: it's only useful against hard-hitting bosses, where you can't use it until you have enough gear, where it will be less useful because less attacks cross the 25% threshold. Plus it reduces the amount of DS you can use. Could potentially be a trap talent.
Then again, there's a lot of weirdness for blood in legion, and SD is one of the minor issues.

[Deleted]

That's because he is using Spectral Deflection which is essentially similar to the block cap of Paladins in Cataclysm which you will more comfortably keep up the next tier instead of the first.

Bone Shield by itself is trivial to keep up because of the 2 sec ICD, however Spectral Deflection does not care about ICDs at all which makes Haste and Parry so much more valuable. If you cannot reliably keep up SD, you shouldn't spec it because 20% DR and more Death Strikes via extra RP from Heart Strike is going to be better than 40% DR which sometimes drops down to 0% (unless those gaps are so small that you feel like you can use CDs to bridge them I guess?).

I'm guessing Rapid Decomposition is a better choice in the early stages of the expansion then? D&D should be trivial to keep up thanks to crimson scourge, granting us extra rp and damage.

So Tyvi, since you're probably the one with the most experience in beta, what would you say about stats priority for blood when we start the progress?
Also, what artifact traits should we buff via relics? I was thinking the best choice would be to get 6 points on Vampiric Fangs, since VB uptime is so high with Red Thirst, and a total boost of 35% does indeed sound tasty.

[Deleted]

Has to be Vampiric Fangs.

[Deleted]

Sorry, trying to catch up a little.

- I dislike Soulgorge so I would definitely go with Rapid Decomp and train yourself to only use Rune abilities while DnD is up if possible.

- Vampiric Fangs, indeed.

- I am personally going for Haste and Crit. Haste for obvious reasons (GCD and more HS) and Crit for the avoidance and extra DPS. Extra DPS is always great and hey, if a bunch of our AM is now supposedly Leech, it also becomes useful there though not by much. It's just that the alternatives are also bad. Mastery? Only useful if double Death Strike can actually provide a big enough Blood Shield that absorbs a full hit since partial hits still will remove a Bone Shield charge or break Unending's Thirst bonus.
Mastery also adds AP% so it might become useful in terms of DPS later on when you have high enough Crit and Haste. Versatility isn't bad either but I don't think it offers the same DPS gains nor avoidance that Crit does.

EDIT: This is actually something that can be simmed if all you want to know is how much a stat affects DPS. Would be interested to see those values as well.

[Deleted]

HS will be a dungeons thing, high end raiding is a lot more bone shield(marrowrend) is what I'm understanding from Kanj (Haven't tanked anything other than dungeons myself). Taking haste for HS if you can't cast it won't help much

[Deleted]

In those situations you need the haste, so that you don't drop bone shield. Also as was said above, if you don't spec SD, then you are losing 1 Bone Shield charge every 2 seconds maximum, which means you can calculate exactly how much haste you need to keep bone shield up 100% of the time.

[Deleted]

HS will be a dungeons thing, high end raiding is a lot more bone shield(marrowrend) is what I'm understanding from Kanj (Haven't tanked anything other than dungeons myself). Taking haste for HS if you can't cast it won't help much

Haste is still required to get more marrowrend out, and generating more rp.
I think there is no doubt at this point that haste takes priority over everything else.

[Deleted]

Probably, but we also get 10% from the Bone Shield it self, I'm not sure how much that devalues haste, if at all

[Philondra]

Probably, but we also get 10% from the Bone Shield it self, I'm not sure how much that devalues haste, if at all

If you're interested in getting a feel for it, head over to the PTR and queue for a heroic dungeon. Try to play the "right" way of keeping Bone Shield up and you'll see just how quickly they fall off and how few Heart Strikes you'll be able to get in, even at the high level gear we have this late into the expansion.

If only our artifact had haste on it...

[Deleted]

I don't really have a problem with bone shield keeping it up in dungeons, problem only occurs with spectral deflection where it often eats 2 stacks and doesn't have an internal CD (Again, how I understand it, cant play raid testing to check out what's said). I do miss standing in D&D and hitting everything with HS...that was fun but was so obvious it wouldn't last. We got BB for massive aoe

Even though people say Blood Feast isn't that hot, I found it quite smooth to self-sustain on big packs, it was still a good 25ish thousand per mob healing.

[Deleted]

Today build:

Veteran of the Third War Increases Stamina by 25% 50% and armor by 15%. Death Knight - Blood Spec.
Death Strike 40 > 45 Runic Power.

Well, that buff to VotTW is indeed huge, finally providing the large health pool dks need to handle damage.
But that increased cost to DS makes no sense. It's already weak as it is, I wonder what drove them to increase the cost without compesating the heal.

[Deleted]

Well, that buff to VotTW is indeed huge, finally providing the large health pool dks need to handle damage.
But that increased cost to DS makes no sense. It's already weak as it is, I wonder what drove them to increase the cost without compesating the heal.

That's a 20% buff to our maximum health, not bad at all. That's exactly what we've been asking for, a larger health pool so our reactive mitigation can work.
And, to be fair, less DS is also what we've been asking for. I assume this build doesn't show the whole picture, and a buff to DS healing is yet to come.

Also the changes to our rune forges probably mean we'll actually use stoneskin gargoyle this time.

[Deleted]

In the Notes is a "small" Buff to VotTW missing. It now also increases the total RP by 15. So that Blood has 115 max.

[Deleted]

And, to be fair, less DS is also what we've been asking for. I assume this build doesn't show the whole picture, and a buff to DS healing is yet to come.

I hope so. At this Point, I would just go for a 50rp cost for a 30/35% heal.

Also the changes to our rune forges probably mean we'll actually use stoneskin gargoyle this time.

I doubt Fallen Crusader can actually be replaced, considering it provides heals, dps and defense (strenght > party conversion).

[Deleted]

Today build:


Well, that buff to VotTW is indeed huge, finally providing the large health pool dks need to handle damage.
But that increased cost to DS makes no sense. It's already weak as it is, I wonder what drove them to increase the cost without compesating the heal.

Death Strike in itself is strong enough, it's just our mastery the blood shield that goes pretty much unnoticed. It delivers the big heals when needed.