Is blood DK really bad?

[Snuffleupagus]

I play both.

Druid is far better in raids.

BDK is a little bit better in 5 mans.

Neither has any issues with any of the content, they just have an easier time of it in various areas of the game.

[PraisCthulhu]

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.

No one is denying that BDK is on tier with Monk or Bear. The only argument that is being made is that there is no content that someone who plays a blood DK can't do that they would be able to do if they were on a Monk or Druid. A Heroic tank isn't suddenly going to be able to tank mythics because of a reroll. Same with normal up to Heroic. You may have an easier time in the same tier of content you're doing if you rerolled onto a Druid or Monk, but if someone thinks being a Blood DK is what is preventing them from doing harder content, they are wrong.

I honestly think that DH and Warrior are in worse spots in NH than Blood DK is. My guild had a DH/Warrior combo and both decided to switch to alts because of how shit they are in NH. The DH even switched to a DK and he and the healers all notice how much easier it is for him to stay alive (Warrior rerolled S Priest and a ret pally who tanks a ton of M+13-15 became a raid tank).

[madlad]

What are you talking about. Mlnideath is quite literally one of their biggest weak spots. He dies all the time to stuff other tanks wouldn't die to, even if they were mouth breathing druids.

[Crevan]

This debate has been raging since Cataclysm's launch, only pausing briefly whenever blood shield or the old BoS build would become stupidly strong. There are definitely issues we have to overcome that other tanks don't notice, but there's no Warmaster Blackhorn, Garajal, Sha of Fear or Paragons of the Klaxxi this tier. The overall tank balance right now is arguably the best it's ever been, given that what the community perceives as the worst tank is still perfectly fine in all current content.

[Super Kami Dende]

my only thing I dislike about DK's is Bone shield gives 16% dmg reduction. The fact it isn't a round number like 20 just triggers my OCD.

[Deliverer]

Blood DK pretty goddamn strong on Spellblade, the annihilate is physical and you can solo self heal it.
Mass grip and grips for adds in general

Monk and druid can solo soak a couple of stacks and go up to 4 stacks and I dubt a dk can do the same.

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m+ =/= mythic raiding...

in M+ every tank have it's strenght and weakness, warrior can reflect some abilities and do insane damage, monk can kite 24/7 on necrotic, DK and DH can AoE grip (and interupt) trashpacks... druid for example is THE WORST tank for skittish. In m+ tanks ar very well balanced


now in mythic raiding, you often face mechanics that deals large hits like cenarius/odyn spear or solo soaking bonds on gul'dan or heavy magic damage fight

the thing making druids and monks ahead of the rest is, that they have high health pool and means to deal with burst damage:

monk have stagger and with propper use, barely takes a massive hit
Druid have ironfur and ursol that they can keep almost 100% AND 2x (3x with legendary ring) 60% damage reduction CD AND Barkskin that is another 20% on top of very high health pool

Now if we compare it to warr for example: 40% Shield wall with one charge, overnerfed ignore pain and Shield block that strangely does work for cenarius spear and doesn't work on odyn spear

Thing with Bdk is, it's allways better to reduce damage taken from big hit, than healing it up (if you survive it) This is where the tank design fails miserably (except monk and druid and pally a bit)

also all that it takes to fix bear, is to put CD on mark of ursol and give survival instincts one less charge...

To sum it all up:
Every tanks have ups and downs in m+, no clear winners or losers

every tank is viable for mythic raiding, monk and druid are just ahead of the pack

Druid is not the worst tank for skittish their sustained aoe dps is higher than any other tank even paladin probably.

There is no mechanic on any boss in NH where a dk is better than a druid or a monk. There is no fight where mass grip is game breaking either. Even AMS in its current state is a joke compared to what it used to be.

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This debate has been raging since Cataclysm's launch, only pausing briefly whenever blood shield or the old BoS build would become stupidly strong. There are definitely issues we have to overcome that other tanks don't notice, but there's no Warmaster Blackhorn, Garajal, Sha of Fear or Paragons of the Klaxxi this tier. The overall tank balance right now is arguably the best it's ever been, given that what the community perceives as the worst tank is still perfectly fine in all current content.

In my opinion tank balance is bad right now or most guilds wouldn't avoid dk, dh and warrior tanks. I will never consider tank balance to be good when 1 or 2 classes vastly dominate every fight in a tier.

[Deleted]

Druid is not the worst tank for skittish their sustained aoe dps is higher than any other tank even paladin probably.

There is no mechanic on any boss in NH where a dk is better than a druid or a monk. There is no fight where mass grip is game breaking either. Even AMS in its current state is a joke compared to what it used to be.

In my opinion tank balance is bad right now or most guilds wouldn't avoid dk, dh and warrior tanks. I will never consider tank balance to be good when 1 or 2 classes vastly dominate every fight in a tier.

1. DK can soak spores on botanist, Monk and druid can soak too... and then die... horribly. They could probably mass grip adds on Krosus (not sure at all about this, never tried or seen). If they can soak 4 stacks doesn't mean they should...

2. warrior have THE best sustained AoE dmg and threat for m+, our druid couldn't keep aggro at all in skittish m+ (and he's not a bad player) while I was losing aggro only when dps heavy focused add that I was not focusing

3. Not true, I'm progressing Krosus mythic with warrior and my dtps and damage taken is the same as my druid co-tank (at least when I'm checking in skada ) The only issue is, I lack 1.5 mil HP and Ignore Pain is not as consistant as Mark of Ursol (I can get spike damage from the dot)

I'll say it again:

for m+, tank balance is as good as it can be

for raiding: every tank is viable, just monk and druid are ahead (not THAT much as people portrait it) because of theirs toolkit

[Tehr]

Monk and druid can solo soak a couple of stacks and go up to 4 stacks and I dubt a dk can do the same.

Going to 4 stacks on Mythic is extremely risky and I see no good reason of doing so. In any normal scenario (swapping at 2 stacks, usually solo-soaking a 0-stack), BDK is also quite good at dealing with Annihilate considering we can get Rune Tap for every Annihilate (VB too, if you have the belt).

Druid is not the worst tank for skittish their sustained aoe dps is higher than any other tank even paladin probably.

If you're not kidding, then you are sorely mistaken. If Druids are not the worst tank for Skittish, then they're near the bottom.

There is no mechanic on any boss in NH where a dk is better than a druid or a monk.

I don't think anyone is arguing that fact. Druids and Monks are objectively the best tanks. What people are arguing is that BDK is a viable tank, or rather that it's not the weakest as everyone loves to meme about.

There is no fight where mass grip is game breaking either. Even AMS in its current state is a joke compared to what it used to be.

Except for maybe Mythic Gul'dan, there is no situation where Stampeding Roar is gamebreaking, either.

While I do bemoan the loss of the 24 second CD (glyphed) AMS of WoD, that does not mean that AMS is a joke now.

In my opinion tank balance is bad right now or most guilds wouldn't avoid dk, dh and warrior tanks. I will never consider tank balance to be good when 1 or 2 classes vastly dominate every fight in a tier.

Guilds are not avoiding DK tanks. DKs are the #3 most played tank according to WarcraftLogs.

1. DK can soak spores on botanist, Monk and druid can soak too... and then die... horribly. They could probably mass grip adds on Krosus (not sure at all about this, never tried or seen). If they can soak 4 stacks doesn't mean they should...

2. warrior have THE best sustained AoE dmg and threat for m+, our druid couldn't keep aggro at all in skittish m+ (and he's not a bad player) while I was losing aggro only when dps heavy focused add that I was not focusing

3. Not true, I'm progressing Krosus mythic with warrior and my dtps and damage taken is the same as my druid co-tank (at least when I'm checking in skada ) The only issue is, I lack 1.5 mil HP and Ignore Pain is not as consistant as Mark of Ursol (I can get spike damage from the dot)

You cannot grip Krosus adds.

Skada is a terrible measure for tank damage intake even if only for the fact that it doesn't take into account absorbs.

[Deleted]

Skada is a terrible measure for tank damage intake even if only for the fact that it doesn't take into account absorbs.

Well it shows raw damage taken. Absorbs counts as healing. If absorbs were taken as damage taken, flat % damage reductions would be too :P

[Skullknight157]

9/10M Blood DK here and I tank alongside a Guardian Druid. Do I used more externals than our Guardian...yes. Does Blood take more effort to makeup for the separation gap...yes. Are we not viable at all for all M:NH bosses...no. Blizz would not make a tank completely unplayable. Blood DK is completely viable for every boss in NH. Other tanking classes just have a much easier time doing it. People who are arguing that Guardian isn't OP are just dumb. Of course they are. But every tanking class has their time in the spotlight and right now it's Monk and Druid. B*tching about it isn't going to do a thing about it. So to the OP, no Blood DK is not really bad. A skilled player can tackle any content.

They could probably mass grip adds on Krosus (not sure at all about this, never tried or seen).

Sadly no the adds cannot be Death Gripped or Mass Gripped.

[Deleted]

Going to 4 stacks on Mythic is extremely risky and I see no good reason of doing so. In any normal scenario (swapping at 2 stacks, usually solo-soaking a 0-stack), BDK is also quite good at dealing with Annihilate considering we can get Rune Tap for every Annihilate (VB too, if you have the belt).



If you're not kidding, then you are sorely mistaken. If Druids are not the worst tank for Skittish, then they're near the bottom.



I don't think anyone is arguing that fact. Druids and Monks are objectively the best tanks. What people are arguing is that BDK is a viable tank, or rather that it's not the weakest as everyone loves to meme about.



Except for maybe Mythic Gul'dan, there is no situation where Stampeding Roar is gamebreaking, either.

While I do bemoan the loss of the 24 second CD (glyphed) AMS of WoD, that does not mean that AMS is a joke now.



Guilds are not avoiding DK tanks. DKs are the #3 most played tank according to WarcraftLogs.





You cannot grip Krosus adds.

Skada is a terrible measure for tank damage intake even if only for the fact that it doesn't take into account absorbs.

Check Numbers of Tank parses after the first 3 free loot bosses. The harder the bosses are, the more druids you will find.

If you exclude the first 3 Bosses, after which Bosses are hard, its Druid > monk > pala > rest. With Warriros falling behind from week to week.

[Hilaw]

Our main tank is blood DK and we had no problems with NH mythic bosses, 9/10 M so far. He even solo tanked augur

[Tehr]

Check Numbers of Tank parses after the first 3 free loot bosses. The harder the bosses are, the more druids you will find.

If you exclude the first 3 Bosses, after which Bosses are hard, its Druid > monk > pala > rest. With Warriros falling behind from week to week.

Druids and DHs are the only outliers even in those scenarios though, as the number of Monks, Paladins, Warriors, and DKs are very similar. As such, I think my point that guilds are not avoiding DKs still stands.

[madlad]

[QUOTE=Zendhal

2. warrior have THE best sustained AoE dmg and threat for m+, our druid couldn't keep aggro at all in skittish m+ (and he's not a bad player) while I was losing aggro only when dps heavy focused add that I was not focusing

[/QUOTE]

Not even remotely true.

Druid do the most aoe dmg in m+...by far.

[Deliverer]

1. DK can soak spores on botanist, Monk and druid can soak too... and then die... horribly. They could probably mass grip adds on Krosus (not sure at all about this, never tried or seen). If they can soak 4 stacks doesn't mean they should...

2. warrior have THE best sustained AoE dmg and threat for m+, our druid couldn't keep aggro at all in skittish m+ (and he's not a bad player) while I was losing aggro only when dps heavy focused add that I was not focusing

3. Not true, I'm progressing Krosus mythic with warrior and my dtps and damage taken is the same as my druid co-tank (at least when I'm checking in skada ) The only issue is, I lack 1.5 mil HP and Ignore Pain is not as consistant as Mark of Ursol (I can get spike damage from the dot)

I'll say it again:

for m+, tank balance is as good as it can be

for raiding: every tank is viable, just monk and druid are ahead (not THAT much as people portrait it) because of theirs toolkit

You are right about warrior being the highest dps on aoe now I forgot they turned warrior prot into a dps spec this patch from
both a survivability and dps stand point. But the only situation i see a Druid losing aggro during skittish is on ST if your friend is struggling on aoe threat there is something wrong.
Adds on Krosus can't be gripped or everyone would run a blood dk there trivializing the fight, and there is no reason a tank should soak spores on botanist when you have rogs and hunters. Druid and monk can soak seekers without dieing though on tich.

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Going to 4 stacks on Mythic is extremely risky and I see no good reason of doing so. In any normal scenario (swapping at 2 stacks, usually solo-soaking a 0-stack), BDK is also quite good at dealing with Annihilate considering we can get Rune Tap for every Annihilate (VB too, if you have the belt).



If you're not kidding, then you are sorely mistaken. If Druids are not the worst tank for Skittish, then they're near the bottom.



I don't think anyone is arguing that fact. Druids and Monks are objectively the best tanks. What people are arguing is that BDK is a viable tank, or rather that it's not the weakest as everyone loves to meme about.



Except for maybe Mythic Gul'dan, there is no situation where Stampeding Roar is gamebreaking, either.

While I do bemoan the loss of the 24 second CD (glyphed) AMS of WoD, that does not mean that AMS is a joke now.



Guilds are not avoiding DK tanks. DKs are the #3 most played tank according to WarcraftLogs.





You cannot grip Krosus adds.

Skada is a terrible measure for tank damage intake even if only for the fact that it doesn't take into account absorbs.

Stampeding roar might not be game breaking but having a Druid guardian or a monk in raid is gamebreaking. When they soak seekers on tich or solo tank augur.
You can tank mythic on any class specially when your co tank plays an op tank and carry you, that doesn't mean tanking is balanced.
And I'm sure if you look at last boss parses the tanking situation is very different than the one you linked.

My co tank gets 4 stacks on spellblade so I can get away with fel soul and do the second part of the fight after arcane phase same as the first half.

[Deleted]

Druids and DHs are the only outliers even in those scenarios though, as the number of Monks, Paladins, Warriors, and DKs are very similar. As such, I think my point that guilds are not avoiding DKs still stands.

Druid 6182 43,11%
Paladin 2224 15,51%
Monk 1955 13,63%
Death Knight 1702 11,87%
Warrior 1501 10,47%
Demon Hunter 777 5,42%

Numbers for the last 7 Bosses. The % of Druids and Monks gets higher from week to week. Warrior which has always been one of the popular tanks falls behind from week to week. And keep in mind how few ppl have a Monk rdy for mythic raiding because they were so bad at launch. Monks had ~6,7% of parses in Mythic EN.

And of course most of the guilds cant 'avoid' Dks/warriors or even DHs. As long as they are not complete assholes they will let players play whatever they want. And most ppl still progressing mythic NH just dont have the time to get another tank geared / grinded for mythic NH not to speak of legendary RNG once again.

So yes, BDK is ok for NH, Warr and DH are worse imho. But Guardian slowly hitting the 50% mark for the hardest content is just ridiculous. And ppl who still defend Guardian as not being op (not referring to you here ) are ignorant.

[Deleted]

Blood DK's can complete Nighthold. Although just because then can do it doesn't mean they are good. Just because some really good blood dk's have done 25+ Mythic or solo tanked Star Augur doesn't mean the class is in a good spot.

Every Dk that has killed Augur is using either the belt or bracers if you don't have at least one of them you can't even hope to compete.

Bears are super strong. Anyone who wants to say otherwise is delusional. Let's just compare cooldowns.

Empower Wards for DH, 30% magic DR for 6 seconds, 20 second cd. Mark of Ursol of Bear, 30% magical DR for 6 seconds, can trigger a proc to get another 10% DR, has no CD can have 90%-100% uptime.

Ancient kings for Prot Paladin, 50% DR, 8 second duration, 5 minute CD, 1 charge. Survival Instincts for Bear, 50% DR, 6 second duration, 3 minute CD, 2 charges. Since it has a 3 minute CD it should have comparable strength to Icebound Fortitude which is 30% DR on a 3 minute CD.

Not to mention they have frenzied regeneration which heals 50% of all damage taken in the preceding 5 seconds compared to death strikes pitiful 20%.

The only "weak" cooldown they have is Barkskin but that is still on par with or better than Paladins Argent Defender, because it has half the CD.

That isn't even comparing the Artifact ability of which Druids have the strongest one. It has the same DR as the paladin one but the paladin applies to the enemy and the druid one is a buff so it's just outright superior AND it has 25% leech so if you're having a bad pull and doing 300k DPS you still get 750k healing from it. WAY more than consumption. AAANNNNDD when Blood DK's get the leech bonus on consumption next patch it's only 20% leech so it's still weaker hahahaha.

It's laughably pathetic how strong druids are and the fact that blizzard hasn't done anything to bring druids back in line or buff the other tanks.

[Tojara]

The above numbers are a bit more reflective.

Keep in mind I'm not really arguing that blood DKs are really bad, they just aren't druids, which I think most sane people are trying to argue here. It has problems for sure, but as stated multiple times guardian druids are just massively more powerful than anything else.

What's startling, and I'd have to look at historical data, but since our inception DK has been one of, or the second most popular tank outside of warriors. When you look at stats past the first 3 bosses and you witness things like warriors being one of the least used tanks, you start to see problems arise.

Monks would certainly be more popular but a few things hold it back. For one, Monk was pretty shit at the start of the expansion so nobody played it. Just now are you starting to see BrM rising in population for raiding. Are they as strong as Druids? No, but they are certainly strong right now. DH was popular at the start of the expansion but was simply mediocre at best in EN/ToV, so most people started gravitating towards the 'overpowered' tanks, which is why you don't see many of them anymore. Paladins are sort of an anomaly, and kinda just float by, honestly I think when people have discussions about tanks they forget that they even exist.

The difference between the middle four tanks really isn't that large, so some people would immediately shift their focus to thinking that it's pretty balanced. Truthfully though if you were to leave things as they are you would see Monk shifting upwards more at the expense of pretty much everything else, and the numbers from every other tank being removed in favor of Druids. This is exactly what has been happening since the beginning of the expansion.

The toolkits have been gone over a hundred times in threads like these so I don't think I need to explain why some tanks are too good, and why some tanks aren't very good in Nighthold. I'm not really of the mindset that they should hold off on balance in the middle of the tier because they don't want to disrupt progression. Honestly that's a load of bullshit, because what are the guilds who don't run 'easier' tanking compositions suppose to do, just wait until things get fixed (or don't get fixed). In the end though it's kinda worrying if they don't address tanking in some regard because as illustrated, people are just slowly going to gravitate towards something like Druid if they don't get adjusted, or the other tanks get some buffs in some fashion.

[Tehr]

You are right about warrior being the highest dps on aoe now I forgot they turned warrior prot into a dps spec this patch from
both a survivability and dps stand point. But the only situation i see a Druid losing aggro during skittish is on ST if your friend is struggling on aoe threat there is something wrong.
Adds on Krosus can't be gripped or everyone would run a blood dk there trivializing the fight, and there is no reason a tank should soak spores on botanist when you have rogs and hunters. Druid and monk can soak seekers without dieing though on tich.

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Stampeding roar might not be game breaking but having a Druid guardian or a monk in raid is gamebreaking. When they soak seekers on tich or solo tank augur.
You can tank mythic on any class specially when your co tank plays an op tank and carry you, that doesn't mean tanking is balanced.
And I'm sure if you look at last boss parses the tanking situation is very different than the one you linked.

My co tank gets 4 stacks on spellblade so I can get away with fel soul and do the second part of the fight after arcane phase same as the first half.

My comment about Stampeding Roar was intended to compare the most important utiliy cooldowns to show that just because any given utility CD isn't gamebreaking doesn't mean that the tank class itself is weak.

Also, I solo soak Seeker Swarm on Tich, too. It's admittedly painful without having the belt to give me VB every 25 seconds, but it's certainly doable as a non-Druid/Monk.

The numbers I linked showing the number of parses was just to show that guilds aren't avoiding DKs as you said they are. Certainly there is a great disparity between Druids and everyone else, but that doesn't necessarily equate to tanks avoiding one class or the other. It's more of a situation like I mentioned in my first post, "if you have a Druid, why bring anything else?"

Regarding Spellblade, there are some interesting strats now where DPS taunt before annihilate and soak with one tank so the other tank can hold Fel Soul the entire time. This strat also allows for much better parsing potential. If your objective is to keep your jobs the same in each half, you might consider looking into that strategy.

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This is just...hilarous.
Thanks for the laugh.

I like you, Sugar, but he does have a point. Good > Viable > Bad, and both of you are saying BDK is viable (if I understand your stance correctly).