Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Milocow]

they still havent fixed the HS tooltip with heartbreaker
still lists 2 RP per target hit instead of 3 RP

[Philondra]

they still havent fixed the HS tooltip with heartbreaker
still lists 2 RP per target hit instead of 3 RP

I wouldn't worry too much about that. The tooltip for "Defile" read "Deflie" for the entirety of WoD.

[Tehr]

I wouldn't worry too much about that. The tooltip for "Defile" read "Deflie" for the entirety of WoD.

Not to mention the fact that almost every single buff I see nowadays says "Increases damage by 10% damage by 20%" or something lol.

[Deleted]

Legendary bracers now passively provide +6 RP if you manage the feat of Death Striking an enemy and the belt got nerfed to -2 secs on VB every Heart Strike.

Basically, just some number changes without fixing the underlying garbage that is redundant (Red Thirst) or frankly asinine triggers (it's really hard getting 10% hp heals after the min heal buff to Death Strike).

[Kaharon]

Does anyone else dislike the fact that Tauren as a race is pretty much BiS by a large margin for that spec? I calculated some stuff and came up with a conservative estimate of at least 5% increased self-heal as Tauren vs. Orc, more likely 6-7% (including mastery).

At 300k+ HPS those meager 6% amount to 18k hps which imo is substantial, especially since we so heavily rely on our self heal.

[Saybel]

Am I missing something here? I swear tauren racial is just crit damage/healing and a bit of stam

It seems to me that you are confusing something up here.

DS healing is based on damage taken in last x seconds, the minimal heal is only for situations when damage taken is less than x percent of health (whatever DS happens to be tuned to at the time). We don't min heal like, ever, so tauren racial barely does anything over say... goblin or belf. No race is substantially over another iirc. They are all really close, close enough for you to just play whatever you think is better.

Majority of top BDKs seem to be belf anyway.

[Habiby]

Does anyone else dislike the fact that Tauren as a race is pretty much BiS by a large margin for that spec? I calculated some stuff and came up with a conservative estimate of at least 5% increased self-heal as Tauren vs. Orc, more likely 6-7% (including mastery).

At 300k+ HPS those meager 6% amount to 18k hps which imo is substantial, especially since we so heavily rely on our self heal.

I thought belf was the race to go for bdk? 1% crit isnt bad since it increases our parry chance and therefore bigger uptime on boneshield. Also, dont forget about arcane torrent (20 runicpower, off gcd) for on-demand deathstrikes every 1.5min

[Kaharon]

Am I missing something here? I swear tauren racial is just crit damage/healing and a bit of stam

It seems to me that you are confusing something up here.

DS healing is based on damage taken in last x seconds, the minimal heal is only for situations when damage taken is less than x percent of health (whatever DS happens to be tuned to at the time). We don't min heal like, ever, so tauren racial barely does anything over say... goblin or belf. No race is substantially over another iirc. They are all really close, close enough for you to just play whatever you think is better.

Majority of top BDKs seem to be belf anyway.

Tauren racial is about 1300 stamina, which increases to 1950 with passive and to about 2500 with vamp blood up. It's 2500 stamina in important situations.

In addition to that, you would need to take about 50% of your total health within 5 seconds to actually get the same amount of heal from it as with the base amount of 10% hp.

[Saybel]

Tauren racial is about 1300 stamina, which increases to 1950 with passive and to about 2500 with vamp blood up. It's 2500 stamina in important situations.

Thats hardly ever important - if stamina was so important that having 1300 extra of it actually mattered we would be gemming it. Most people are taking racials and gear for DPS on BDK - shows you how unimportant stamina is (and realistically has always been since Cata)

In addition to that, you would need to take about 50% of your total health within 5 seconds to actually get the same amount of heal from it as with the base amount of 10% hp.

This is far from unusual. Most DS heals when actively tanking are not minimum.

Napkin math does not work as well as real world applications - stamina is not a good survivability stat, the amount you get from your gear is enough alone. Also tauren looks like ass anyway, dunno who would play that shit.

[redfella]

Tauren can be valuable on early progression. Otherwise Belf is better.

On alliance I prefer Worgen for the mobility, 1% crit is just icing on the cake. I do hate the models tho..

[Habiby]

What about goblin? 1% haste and Rocket-jump doesnt sound bad.

[Resurgo]

What about goblin? 1% haste and Rocket-jump doesnt sound bad.

It isn't.

Last two expacs, I generally kept two DK's geared. Belf, and Goblin. To be frank, on Mythic progression (for example), I tended to prefer bringing the Goblin on Reaver a lot more due to the extra movement burst the rocket jump provided. At that time, you could at least be able to ask for a roar or something similar if you were down a movement cooldown. A few other times where Mythic progression made the extra movement a "nice to have" option, but usually not mandatory.

For the .01% (<---exaggeration) difference, Goblin is a solid #2 behind a Belf for best horde race for a DK.

Legion however, has me at a crossroads...
From the fights I've seen so far, movement is going to be a big plus for tanks. Stuff where you're going to want to take a debuff out from your co-tank as well as the rest of the raid, and go blow up or let the debuff drop off somewhere away.

I'm less optimistic about DK's doing well in Legion compared to, redfella. So I'm personally hedging my bets by keeping up a War, DK, and DH as options till things shake out. The sheer amount of movement that War and DH bring may make a lot of the tank mechanics pretty trivial to handle that is going to feel like aids on a DK. I still remember what an annoyance Imperatore was to handle in Highmaul and at times, it really was easier to have the Warrior just taunt, and jump out. I see more mechanics of this nature in Legion.

Who knows? Maybe they'll nerf other tanks like they've been nerfing DKs left and right? However, for the moment, I personally can't ignore how much easier movement will make a tank's life on many of the upcoming raids. Even if I do stick with DK, I may be too time constrained to keep both Belf and Goblin DK's up, so I may just take the Goblin for the rocket jump.

[Oatz]

So from a mechanics/utility perspective (as survivability #s can change), any opinions on whether blood dk or veng dh would perform better in higher level mythic+? (as in 10-15). Love playstyle of both--can't pick!

[Resurgo]

Mythic+ dungeons, I think DH rules the roost. DK is pretty close.

Raids, the current numbers favor DK tanks to survive better over DH, though I personally question how well DK tanks will do with many of the encounter mechanics.

[redfella]

Oatz: We have it good in higher mythics with grips, DnD kiting, ranged interrupt and ranged stun.

[Habiby]

Could some1 explain to me how health affects deathstrike heals?

Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 258% Physical damage and heals you for 20% of all damage taken in the last 5 sec, minimum 10% of maximum health.

According to this, it enhances it only when you are not taking any dmg (ie not actively tanking).

Thanks

[redfella]

It will always heal you at least for 10% of your max health. If the damage you have taken inside the last 5 seconds exceeds 10%, then you will get more health back (based on that amount of damage you took).

The heal amount is also is affected by things such as activating Vampiric Blood, which is a 30% increase, further increased by artifact traits that affect Vampiric Blodo and a couple of short buffs from Priests.

[believesteve]

Tauren can be valuable on early progression. Otherwise Belf is better.

On alliance I prefer Worgen for the mobility, 1% crit is just icing on the cake. I do hate the models tho..

Am I missing something? But, even when Alliance races are brought up I don't see night elves mentioned as being overpowered. They get 2% dodge, 1% crit or haste, and 2% movement speed. No race for tanking comes close. Night elves have a ridiculous passive tanking stat line and I can't believe Blizzard hasn't balanced it.

I wish Horde had a race with tanking passives that strong.

[Saybel]

It's probably because nobody really cares about the dodge and most very serious raiding guilds are horde :/

[Spryte]

Sorry if this has been answered already but, Im going to assume that the RP refund from Shackles of Bryndaor are always calculated as if the DS cost the base 45 RP. So if Shackles of Bryndaor - Death Strike refunds 15% of Runic Power spent if it heals you for more than 10% of your maximum health, then you will always get 6.75 RP back if you meet the conditions?

Or is it affected by Ossuary, If the DS only costs 40 RP, will we only get 6 RP back?