Is blood DK really bad?

[TrinityX]

Hi all,

My main is a prot pally and recently I have a chance to level up another alt. I picked up blood dk and it looks like to me it's pretty strong actually (maybe it still not hit 110).

1. Bone shield can virtually up 100% of the time. That is 16% dmg reduction and 5%? haste buff.
2. Higher HP and great self heal.
3. Good utility. Death grip/mass grip for mythic+
4. AMS to cheat some mechanics.

Could anyone try to explain to me why people would think Blood DK is relatively "weak" compared with other tanks? The only drawback I could think of is lack of mobility. But I think it's not that bad. I watched some video guides (like the one from SCO) and he considered Blood DK as a lower tier. So really want to get some opinions especially the one who main a blood dk now. Thanks.

[Saverem]

There are several BDKs tanking Mythic progression. A good one that you can see is on Quin's twitch channel. He's like 7/10 or 8/10 Mythic right now and their main tank is a BDK that averages more HPS than most of their healers, pretty funny to watch.

The difference between the best tank (Dru) and worst tank (arguably BDK) is very small. The main thing is player skill followed by gear. I'd gladly take a skilled BDK over a mouth breather GDru any day and for any content.

If the hardest boss right now (M Gul'dan) was like a math test where you need a score of 65 to pass. Think of player skill and gear being the first 90 points and Gdru has like a 10 point advantage over a BDK. So the best Gdru possible will have a score of 100 and pass the test where as the best BDK possible will have a score of 90 and still pass the test.

[Moandar]

Blood DKs are solid tanks and definitely capable of tanking anything in the game, as long as you know what you're doing.

I personally find them a lot more fun in a dungeon setting where your utility (mass grip and a battle res) are useful more often. Blood DKs artifact spell is also much stronger in a dungeon setting since it does aoe damage and heals you for 100% of the damage done, which makes it quite strong when used on a group of mobs.

It's also fun topping the healing meters, although that's not really a fair comparison. No other tank has 100% of their non-dodge/parry mitigation listed in healing meters. Paladins and demon hunters have %reduction cds up frequently, druids have crazy armor, warriors have block, and monks have purified stagger and while none of these are counted on the healing meters a DK's reduction from Bone Shield counts as an absorb, and their main defensive CD Vampiric Blood makes them heal themselves for even more.

[Spryte]

Guardian can have about 40% baseline magic resistance with >90% uptime, and can also have like 70-80% physical damage reduction for the majority of a fight. When you compare these to BDK, with about 49% physical from armour combined 16% from boneshield for physical damage, and when it comes to magic damage, 16% damage resistance and a 1.8mil shield on a 60s cooldown.

In terms of mitigation, druids are just superior. However I still find that blood DKs to be ok, especially in mythic+ with Grip, Mass Grip, Umbilicus Eternus and Bonestorm all being rather op.

[Deliverer]

Guardian can have about 40% baseline magic resistance with >90% uptime, and can also have like 70-80% physical damage reduction for the majority of a fight. When you compare these to BDK, with about 49% physical from armour combined 16% from boneshield for physical damage, and when it comes to magic damage, 16% damage resistance and a 1.8mil shield on a 60s cooldown.

In terms of mitigation, druids are just superior. However I still find that blood DKs to be ok, especially in mythic+ with Grip, Mass Grip, Umbilicus Eternus and Bonestorm all being rather op.

This sums up very well why blood dk is far from being a good tank in raids compared to monk or druid. Also blood dk healing on the meters don't mean anything, those numbers are just inflated by your AM showing on the healing meter.

[Deleted]

The difference between the best tank (Dru) and worst tank (arguably BDK) is very small.

False, don't spread wrong informations.
The difference between a guardian and a blood with the same gear and skill is huge.

Druids have 90%+ uptime on Ironfur/Ursol (~70% physical reduction/ 30% +10% magic reduction with traits), highest stamina among tanks, more healing taken, 6% passive dr, 2x 60% dar with survival instintcs + 20% dr on ~50 sec cooldown with barskin, 9% dr with pulverize, 25%dr with artifact ability (the best tank artifact spell) and 2x Frenzied regenation on. They also have better utility with stampeding and intimidating roar, and better mobility, and their damage is comparable to ours.

Guardians and Blood are on two completely different grounds right now, saying there is a small difference between them is simply false.

[Saverem]

False, don't spread wrong informations.
The difference between a guardian and a blood with the same gear and skill is huge.

Druids have 90%+ uptime on Ironfur/Ursol (~70% physical reduction/ 30% +10% magic reduction with traits), highest stamina among tanks, more healing taken, 6% passive dr, 2x 60% dar with survival instintcs + 20% dr on ~50 sec cooldown with barskin, 9% dr with pulverize, 25%dr with artifact ability (the best tank artifact spell) and 2x Frenzied regenation on. They also have better utility with stampeding and intimidating roar, and better mobility, and their damage is comparable to ours.

Guardians and Blood are on two completely different grounds right now, saying there is a small difference between them is simply false.

You are comparing two VASTLY different tanking styles. Druids are mitigation tanks. Their mechanic is having more HP and taking less damage. BDKs are reactive tanks and are supposed to take more damage and then heal it back up. Listing Druid CDs and mastery isn't going to prove shit. I can throw BDKs cooldowns and mastery right back at you.

You making that retarded comment is akin to GDrus coming in here complaining that BDKs are doing 700k HPS in Mythic while they are only doing 250k HPS. So therefore BDKs are OP and Drus need buffs.

[Khiyone]

You are comparing two VASTLY different tanking styles. Druids are mitigation tanks. Their mechanic is having more HP and taking less damage. BDKs are reactive tanks and are supposed to take more damage and then heal it back up. Listing Druid CDs and mastery isn't going to prove shit. I can throw BDKs cooldowns and mastery right back at you.

You making that retarded comment is akin to GDrus coming in here complaining that BDKs are doing 700k HPS in Mythic while they are only doing 250k HPS. So therefore BDKs are OP and Drus need buffs.

HPS isn't particularly relevant; it can come from lots of different sources (keep in mind there is lots of passive overhealing via beacons/HoTs on tanks already) and DK HPS in M+ is inflated by leech mechanics like Consumption/UE that scale with target count. Moreover DKs essentially take more damage with CDs up than Guardians do normally, so of course it is natural that a DK will have more HPS.

Essentially, having a smooth damage intake pattern is infinitely more valuable than requiring 50k extra external HPS. Guardians are far, far ahead of DKs at the moment.

[Tehr]

I don't think Blood DKs are *that* bad. Monk and Druid are both considered the "best" because they have the ability to trivialize some mechanics due to how they work (especially magic damage mechanics). Apart from this, most of the tanks are relatively equal in a generic scenario in terms of survivability. I can actually make a case for DH/Warrior being the worst tanks currently due to their lack of sustainable magic damage mitigation.

There are some fundamental problems with Blood DKs, our artifact is extremely lackluster (both the ability and the traits, with a few exceptions), and I think that we can certainly use a buff (especially for damage), but to be fair, Blood isn't in a TERRIBLE spot all things considered.

Also the people saying that DKs don't have magic damage mitigation are being misleading. Our mitigation and healing do not care what kind of damage we take. We don't have as much passive mitigation as Monks or Druid have, granted, but that is not to say our magic mitigation is nonexistent.

The problem with BDKs (and other tanks) really comes down to "if you have a bear, why bring anything else?"

It's also fun topping the healing meters, although that's not really a fair comparison. No other tank has 100% of their non-dodge/parry mitigation listed in healing meters. Paladins and demon hunters have %reduction cds up frequently, druids have crazy armor, warriors have block, and monks have purified stagger and while none of these are counted on the healing meters a DK's reduction from Bone Shield counts as an absorb, and their main defensive CD Vampiric Blood makes them heal themselves for even more.

The bit about Bone Shield displaying on healing meters is demonstrably false. Since the release of 7.1.5, Bone Shield is not displayed on damage meters.

[Moandar]

The bit about Bone Shield displaying on healing meters is demonstrably false. Since the release of 7.1.5, Bone Shield is not displayed on damage meters.

Ah, good to know. That was around the time I started playing Frost full time.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

blood can do anything any other tank can do in terms of content but some other tanks have an easier job of it, while blood death knights might be said to be the last on the list of tanks it doesnt mean they are unable to tank at all

[Tojara]

Bloods not terrible, it's just not a monk, and it's especially not a druid.

Worst thing about blood, much like warriors is our artifact ability is generally terrible in raids. I can't speak of warrior artifact tree, but I know that most of our traits have zero impact, to the point that you really don't care what you get for traits, and mostly go for iLvL (that's also not a terrible problem to have on the flip side).

I don't generally advocate nerfs, but tanking would be in a sad state if everybody was buffed to have everything, which is basically the model druids are right now. They certainly need to be toned down in a few key areas, while some of the weaker tanks need to be bumped up some. Honestly most of my issue with blood DK is with talents, artifact tree and consumption.

Not really sure how people can defend guardian druids at all. They have been overpowered since pre-patch and have been receiving small nerfs throughout the entire expansion, but are still regarded as the best tanks despite that. Just goes to show you how the base design and the tools given to them were far too strong. There is no reason a class that since it's incarnation was designed to have a lot of health and take small hits (or avoid them completely) gets to have that, mobility, tons of CDs and also at dealing with magic damage all in the same tool kit. Mark of ursol compared to any of the other forms magic mitigation is an absolute joke, especially when you start adding up the passive flat DR for just rolling the class, or that exists through talents they commonly take.

[hasslehoof]

The people saying Blood is "Not that bad" have never played a Monk or Guardian Druid. You would shit your pants after you play them and go back to a Blood DK, esp in high M content.

[Tehr]

The people saying Blood is "Not that bad" have never played a Monk or Guardian Druid. You would shit your pants after you play them and go back to a Blood DK, esp in high M content.

The caveat is that druids and monks are just simply better than all the other tanks. Compared to the rest of the tanks, BDK really isn't that bad.

[PSYFITTA]

Our tank in the Guild is BDK, he is pretty strong. It always took a couple of minutes for him to die while everyone was already dead. I don't see any reason why BDK would be that bad, only mobility that is like..... Yeah you guys know.

[Blackheart87]

I'm BDK main.
BDK is not bad, but like Schlars says, BDK cannot compete with and same-skilled-Player Guardian Druid. Our class is too much gear dependent. We need ilvl for stamina to survive, we need haste, we need trinket that don't exist, 4 pc set of highest ilvl, at least one bis legendary to compete.
Guardian druid can compete with a mediocre BDK staying away from monitor, not only for the class but for the encounter you can find in this TIER.
Usually when our guild had tanking issue, we asked to our druid healer to switch tank.
With a good gear we can make the difference, but our good gear isn't in the Nighthold raid, only lucky based on mithic +, world boss o or Trial of Valor.

[Ald]

A "mitigation Tank" (taking less dmg) should not have the highest Healthpool. This is nonsense. Reactive/Selfhealing Tanks should have the highest Healthpool to actually have the possibility to heal up back again because obv. they take way more damage.

I'd like to quote this a thousand times.

[Deleted]

No, according to MMO-C with the 900 pages long thread, addressing how horrible the BDK is(even thou a BDK is the first tank to clear Mythic + 25 in the world).

Ive seen them viable ever since Legion launch, the community just voted for witchhunt and now people go like "Gdruid is the real evil - BDK's are Jeez".

Edit: No, there are still keyboard warriors left, whining about the BDK, while thier brethren is almost done with NH Mythic.

[Deleted]

Strifeload, one of the best Players in the world who knows everything about every class, is here for the rescue.

BDK is viable nothing to add. Pls close >_>

[TwentyTwelve]

BDKs aren't bad, people just play the other tanks because it's easier for them and their guild - top guilds will always use what has the advantage, everyone else will just follow in there footsteps.

BDKs are more than fine for mythic - Monk and Guardians just have a massive lead over every other tank, you can get away with many more mistakes and not kill your raid.