Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Deleted]

considering most guilds can do 6 bloods on the Brewmaster with their health barely moving at all. When we tried that with me, I exploded or had to use so many CDs that it would be a burden later in the fight.

The 6 blood strat on Tichondrius can be only really done with a Brewmasters, due to stagger. Doing it on other tanks is either a futile risk or a waste of healing/dr cds.

[Deleted]

I feel really frustrated with Legion looting so far, being at 5 legendaries (belt, sephuz, prydaz, legs & boots) is really feeling like a punch in the face. I'm a mythic raider and not having the wrist/shoulders is hampering my survival AND DPS by a lot. I have 15 Mythic EN clears, 7x mythic ToV clears, and 7/10 mythic NH and I feel like not getting rewarded for anything this expansion. 546 mythic+ clears, I guess 5 leges is low for me. The weekly chests have NEVER gave me anything usable. Same with raid missions, everything is full of shitty rng. If I yet get a shitty legendary it will be hard to continue. Can't enjoy Legion in any way as blood so far. Oh and Brewmaster too is beating me in AoE when I use all AoE cd's, DRW&bonestorm included, great!

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Funny note:
While every tank spec gets the 10% dmg, armor and 25% Stamina. DKs are the only ones that dont get ANY dmg from the new traits. Every other tank has at least one new trait which is a dps increase.

I really hope we will see some buffs to our dmg, if not we fall even more behind

Yes beat the dead horse more, I like it!

[Xeoshades]

I am running with the Belt and Neck atm, still think they are the best Legs for Blood.

The Shoulders are temping, but the 2 piece set of (Shoulders and Chest: Vers proc) seem to be way better then then giving up the Neck or Belt for the Leg Shoulders.

[Tojara]

I'm not a fan of the neck for tanks simply because you don't have any control of it, beyond equipping it and removing it before pull to potentially game the timing of the shield coming up right before a major nuke. Otherwise it's just a damage smoothing legendary that for the most part, you have very little control over.

The set bonuses from Arcway/Court are nice, but the chest and shoulders from NH are some of our better itemized pieces of tier and are likely, at least for most going to have a more consistent iLvL. Yeah, a 25% uptime on that set bonus is nice, but the set bonus from those dungeons remains static (value wise) meaning that iLvL matters more and more when deciding whether or not you want to forgo other pieces of gear for it as the expansion rolls forward.

Belt is nice, I've rolled with it most of the expansion and it's certainly one of our top ones, but I would never use it over the bracers or the shoulders. Bracers are something you would never not use, and personally I would probably use the shoulders 100% of the time too, unless there were encounters with giant nukes that the tank trinket could help on. Shoulders are just more healing/damage, which is exactly what the bracers do and because they fulfill both purposes they, to me, are the best ones in most situations.

[figuratively]

Are the shoulders really that good? I've seen some conflicting reports. (Though, looking at icyveins again now, it's ranked #3.) I've got the wrist, legs, and boots, with the legs banked because I really enjoy the QoL increase from faster movement. I suppose I should have dual gear sets and use legs on stationary fights. But if the shoulders are really the cat's meow, I'll set my loot spec back to blood.

[Extremity]

Anyone else than me hasn't got ANYTHING from mythic+ weekly chest during all of legion? And yea since start I always had max ilvl coming from it. Already got screwed up twice by shitty 900ilvl loot, gotta love the Rng legion shit. Only managed to get 5 legendaries so far and the only good one is belt + sephuz for dungs mostly. Feels also good to be doing kinda same AoE dmg in almost 900ilvl gear as I did at the start of legion with bad gear, before nerfing our dmg to shit.

I'm at three legendaries, and am pretty far past due for a fourth. One is terrible, another is the neck (which isn't so bad after the change, but before that felt terrible to get). Luckily my first was one of my BiS ones, otherwise I'd have been screwed this entire time. I still have other Demon Hunters keeping up with me or sometimes beating me purely because of legendaries; for instance, if they beat me on a fight by 2 million damage, 18 million of their damage came from those legendaries. It's a bad feeling, but feel lucky you've gotten 5 so far; that's a pretty damn good amount and at least you know there's less chance to get a bad one for each new one that drops for you.

By the time I got my first, most had two. By the time I got my third, most were working on number 5 or 6. It sucks, but it happens. You should feel lucky to have 5, regardless of which ones they are.

[Xeoshades]

snip

That is an understandable view point, I just see the Neck as a 15% max health heal during fights, and an safety bubble before battle. Scaling well with VB and FB. Only thing I wish to make it even better, if the Neck absorb would get used first before Blood Shield. =/

Shoulders I see being very strong purely for Mastery Builds (since the +% DS heals in turn buffs our mastery). Getting up to 5 stacks tho.... possible, but most likely not going to happen. 2-3 (4 if your RP gen sucks).

Lastly, the rare stats you get from the Neck seem to be very strong with how jewelry goes compared to stat gains with Armor Equipment.

heh, lastly lastly...... with the new Blood artifact talents. Blood will be getting even more Max Health further buffing the Neck. (shoulder wise, will only buff the Min Heal of Death Strike)


Now only if the Leg cap was set to 3 in 7.2+ XD

[Tehr]

That is an understandable view point, I just see the Neck as a 15% max health heal during fights, and an safety bubble before battle. Scaling well with VB and FB. Only thing I wish to make it even better, if the Neck absorb would get used first before Blood Shield. =/

Shoulders I see being very strong purely for Mastery Builds (since the +% DS heals in turn buffs our mastery). Getting up to 5 stacks tho.... possible, but most likely not going to happen. 2-3 (4 if your RP gen sucks).

Lastly, the rare stats you get from the Neck seem to be very strong with how jewelry goes compared to stat gains with Armor Equipment.

heh, lastly lastly...... with the new Blood artifact talents. Blood will be getting even more Max Health further buffing the Neck. (shoulder wise, will only buff the Min Heal of Death Strike)


Now only if the Leg cap was set to 3 in 7.2+ XD

Shoulders are the best overall legendary afaik, and they don't make Mastery any less shit. Haste is still king no matter what.

[Deleted]

What I can understand from the new blue post is that nothing will change for blood apart from getting new artifact traits and those are shitty anyway, the increased max hp gets removed as soon as u take damage right?

[Tojara]

I believe so, but it's still strong. 30% health buffer on tank swaps at the very least.

We won't have it consistently, but with the new death strike healing traits and for those that have the shoulders, it won't be that uncommon. Also, vamp blood does cause a giant amount of over healing usually, meaning that our max health threshold will be incredibly high with the new trait and VB up at the same time. Not useful all the time, but depends entirely on the values of an incoming nuke.

I would presume that the 30% max health on over heal also scales with VB, so our health pools could be absolutely giant with just VB up. There are a few encounters right now where I can soak something with VB, but typically have to supplement it with an AMS (like Tichondrius seeker swarm on Mythic), with a potential ~3+ million more HP during VB with the new trait that might not needed.

I'm a little bit more optimistic for 7.2 solely because of our artifact tree. When comparing to other tanks we, at least seemingly get the strongest new talents compared to others? I mean increasing death strike healing is nice, the consumption leech to 5 people is nice, and the health buffer thing isn't exactly terrible.

I don't think DKs need a lot of mechanical changes beyond a couple of the garbage talents we have (soulgorger is awful). Other than that anything could be solved with some passive damage or defensive buffs, if they think it's needed (damage is def needed).

[Deleted]

...

Shoulders the best legendary. You rouhgly have 1 BB per DS (this may vary on different Encounters) so you can look at it as a 20% DS DPS/HPS boost. The Shoulders are even better than our Tier set boni.

And the shoulders dont change your playstyle. You wont get to 3-5 stacks to build some kind of super DS. you will get max. 2 stack otherwise you will overcap ressources.

What I can understand from the new blue post is that nothing will change for blood apart from getting new artifact traits and those are shitty anyway, the increased max hp gets removed as soon as u take damage right?

I really hope its a X-Second buff that refreshes every time you overheal...otherwise it would be useless af. Going to test it when im home.

We def need a damage buff.

[chaos61988]

There's a new animation for blood boil on the PTR right now. It feels....extreme. Maybe that's just me.

Part of me likes how visually explosive it is, but at the same time, it feels like a lot for a move that's basically just our filler spell lol
There was also an update to death and decay its area of effect very clear and noticeable; overall, I like the changes so far

saw your comment and instantly logged into the PTR to see the changes; personally im totally in love with the new blood boil animation, its high time blood got some updates, and even better something flashy! love the explosion and even better theres a very subtle air warping effect going on in there as well. very nice addition. im not totally sure but i do believe the effects of death and decay and blood plague on enemies were also updated!

[gegalfo]

saw your comment and instantly logged into the PTR to see the changes; personally im totally in love with the new blood boil animation, its high time blood got some updates, and even better something flashy! love the explosion and even better theres a very subtle air warping effect going on in there as well. very nice addition. im not totally sure but i do believe the effects of death and decay and blood plague on enemies were also updated!

yeah was jsut one very quick last night, it looks awesome

[Deleted]

It seems for now you have to grind AP on the PTR to actually test the new traits. I completed the quest to unlock the new traits but with the refunden AP (54 traits) i only can put 1 point in the 10% armor/dps/25stamind trait and 3/4 points in the DS Healing trait. im left with 6 mil ap and the next point costs 20... so no testing of vampiric aura or spuldrinker for now ;(

ok found a way
If you walk into a dungeon all traits are available. Vampiric aura is a 15 second buff. sound very op for 5man content :O

Souldrinker is a 15 second buff which is refresh every time you overheal, this is pretty good.

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I would presume that the 30% max health on over heal also scales with VB, so our health pools could be absolutely giant with just VB up.

This is sadly not the case.

[TrueAbstract]

Please make a video of new animations I would love to see new blood boil.

[RoninChaos]

Botanist is fine for me. I hate to sound rude by saying this, but to be completely honest with you, you're playing BDK somewhat poorly.

• You're using Marrowrend at 9 and 10 stacks at some points during your kill
  
• You're letting Bone Shield fall off during periods of high damage
• You have a 77% uptime on Ossuary
• You used Vampiric Blood 4 times in a 6:21 fight (I used it 7 times during a 4:55 fight)
• You had a Sac available when you died
• You're overlapping your CDs, which means you won't have any CDs when you need them

It's a pretty poor ability. Encounters are designed in such a way that Purgatory should only ever pop if you make a catastrophic mistake or your healers die/outrange you, and you can never plan for those scenarios. In almost all circumstances you'd be better off researching mechanics timings more in-depth and then properly mitigating when they arise.

I'm not the person you're replying to but I had a few questions if you don't mind. When should you be popping vampiric blood? On those spike damage moments? I've tried to figure out how to get it into my rotation more and it just isn't happening that much. Also, when do you hit marrowrend? I tend to try to pop it at 6-7 so I can keep it as high as possible. What do you do?

Thanks!

[figuratively]

I'm not the person you're replying to but I had a few questions if you don't mind. When should you be popping vampiric blood? On those spike damage moments? I've tried to figure out how to get it into my rotation more and it just isn't happening that much. Also, when do you hit marrowrend? I tend to try to pop it at 6-7 so I can keep it as high as possible. What do you do?

Thanks!

Some people will tell you to hit VB regularly. I use it when I know there's a spike coming or to cover for a healer that's falling behind, or distracted, or dead. (Or I want to show off a fuck-off big health pool.)

Marrowrend, hit it at 6 stacks or below, 7 if you don't have the Rattling Bones trait in your weapon yet.

[Tehr]

I'm not the person you're replying to but I had a few questions if you don't mind. When should you be popping vampiric blood? On those spike damage moments? I've tried to figure out how to get it into my rotation more and it just isn't happening that much. Also, when do you hit marrowrend? I tend to try to pop it at 6-7 so I can keep it as high as possible. What do you do?

Thanks!

Marrowrend should ideally only be used if you need to refresh Bone Shield to prevent it from falling off, and when at 6 stacks of Bone Shield. Napkin math indicates that refreshing at 6 stacks instead of 7 stacks means you can use 10% fewer Marrowrends, which means you can use more Heart Strikes, generate more RP, heal for more, etc.

Vampiric Blood usage varies depending on the fight. If there are certain times when you will need VB up (Fel Bonds on Gul'dan and Annihilate on Spellblade, for example), then you should save it for those times. However, if there's a constant stream of damage and no major damage spikes (Trilliax, Krosus, Tichondrius, Botanist, and Elisande come to mind) then I would argue that it should be used on cooldown (that being said, most fights do have specific mechanics that are made easier with VB, so knowing the fight's mechanic timings is important). The reasons for this are pretty simple: you require fewer Death Strikes (assuming you're doing your best to minimize overhealing) and less external healing during the VB window, which means that you will have more RP during times when you do not have VB up. Because you can get ~25% uptime on VB if you use it on cooldown (between 15% and 20% in actual practice), modified by haste, legendaries, etc., and because it's likely you're NOT tanking more than 50% of the time, this allows you to smooth your damage considerably.

This tactic relies heavily on the player's ability to anticipate damage and hold or use VB accordingly, so keep in mind that this flies out the window as soon as there is an anticipate-able damage spike window.

[Deleted]

Please make a video of new animations I would love to see new blood boil.

Someone already did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doPdC-GGm2o

[Morca]

hi guys i have a doubt.
is the item level also more valuable than tier?

thanks