Notes of Worth: Blood In MOP

[Samsarathedk]

There are currently several issues with blood on the beta which several blood dks and myself find alarming and worthy of some dev attention. I intend to use this thread to compile a list of known issues and possible solutions.

1. Excessive downtime for blood on beta compared to live which makes the rotation fill slightly clunky, this was caused by the 1 second gcd being made baseline. However, this has resulted in a rather high downtime for us as tanks (I believe the exact number is 34%) which leaves us to twiddling our thumbs a fair bit. Many have suggested that the reintroduction of crimson scourge as well as reducing the cost of rune strike from 30 rp to 20 rp can and will fix our downtime issue and should be added, there are of course other options and we would gladly welcome them. Point being of course, is it is a known issue and we would like our downtime to shrink back to something normal like it is on live (I believe the number is around 14%).

2. Currently on the beta dnd and blood boil are a complete joke for aoe threat. I feel that our aoe threat issues can be fixed by making current tools we use on live to improve our aoe threat baseline, these are as follows: the dnd portion of morbidity (buffed of course to compensate for the amount which has already been taken from us on the beta), the increased dnd duration glyph, and crimson scourge (to make blood boil worthwhile on add fights again).

3. Blood dks like myself have repeatedly asked for a raid cd and our requests have fallen on deaf ears, I strongly feel Blizz should finally sort this out for us. The following is a lore based exampled for a raid cd:
Pact of the Dark Fallen: corrupts the ground around the death knight and his allies placing an absorption shield which protects them for 20% of all incoming damage, lasts 10 seconds. 3 minute cd (Note this ability does not benefit the user, only the raid)

The reason I have chosen the name 'Pact of the Dark Fallen' is because it's roots lay in ICC just as many of the new dk abilities from cata do. I have chosen to borrow the name from the Blood-Queen Lana'thel encounter because it fits perfectly with the current blood dk lore. Just as she was a vampire who drained the life force of her targets to sustained her self, we too do the same. We drain the very life essence from our targets to both heal and shield ourselves from further damage. Furthermore, the name fits into the lore of dks as a whole because, we are in fact, the dark fallen and made a pact to defend Azeroth the moment we broke free from the Lich King's grasp at Light's Hope Chapel.

4. I feel that purgatory should be made baseline as it IS a tanking cd and belongs with the tank. Making it baseline for blood will free us up to choose a useful skill from the utility tree, say perhaps AMZ. That being said it would only be fair to NOT penalize blood dks a utility talent for taking a tasty survivability cd that should be already be blood exclusive. The early dk talent trees on the beta allowed all dks to select boneshield and vampiric blood which would ultimately led to op/nerfs of the dk class a whole and severely limited blood dks in their talent options. The ideas were of course scrapped and the abilities were once again made blood exclusive just as purgatory needs the same treatment. Furthermore, I believe by not making purgatory a blood exclusive ability Blizz are setting themselves up for needless headaches caused by class imbalance in pvp settings which ultimately lead to purgatory being nerfed.

5. Blood damage output is quite a bit lower than it is on live, a fair bit of this is due to the damage portion of improved death strike not being added back to death strike in the form of a buff. Seeing as death strike is not only our healing/shielding move, but is also our main threat move it needs to hit harder instead of like a limp noodle. I feel that adding a buff to death strike's damage to make it once again hit for 330% weapon damage would do wonders for increasing our damage (tank dps is important on progression fights) as well as threat output. Well, Blizz are addressing this one so far. Glad to see this thread is actually working. I would like to extend a special thank you to SSHA778 for taking the time to sim blood's damage. This guy has really busted his butt for us and doesn't even have a beta key.

6. Return abomination's might to us. I know that might has been converted to provide 5% mastery instead of an ap boost with mana regen, that being said, paladins and monks should not be the only tanking class to provide the buff. I would like to see abomination's might returned to blood dks so that we too can provide the mastery buff in mists.

7. The current dk talent tree caused us to feel 'left out in the cold' no pun intended (or is it?). Anyway, we would like to see some passive buff effects added to our utility spells so they are actually on par with the damage boosting talents numerous other classes gained. Below is a rough consensus of ideas floating around on the forum:

Desecrated ground: reduces damage taken from AoE by 10/15/20%.

Gorefiend’s Grasp: Death Grip now useable on friendly targets, when used in this manor the Death Knight and Target split all incoming damage and/or healing for the next 3 sec. (the hit should be softened by the armor of whoever the original hit was taken on)

Remorseless Winter: Frost Fever and Blood Plague ticks generate 3 runic power. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 secs.

Desecrated ground: reduces damage taken while stunned by 10/15/20%.

Remorseless Winter: chillbains.

Gorefiend’s Grasp: Reduces Spell damage taken by 10%.

Remorseless Winter: Chains of Ice now effects all enemy targets within 8 yards of the current enemy target.

Gorefiend’s Grasp: Frost Fever and Blood Plague ticks reduce the CD of Outbreak by 1.5sec. (so if you cast Outbreak on a target, after 30sec the CD is reset.)

Desecrated ground: reduces the CD of Death and Decay by 15sec.

Gorefiend’s Grasp: spending Death Runes grants Gorefiend’s Boon for 8sec. Gorefiend’s boon grants a different buff depending on current active presence:
Blood – 5% dodge
Frost – 5% haste
Unholy – 5% shadowfrost Damage

Remorseless Winter: spending Death Runes grants double Runic Power.

8. We are currently missing 5% added armor due to the removal of toughness. Paladins and Protection Warriors get 10% passive armor buffs. We would like for our to be balanced and the 5% armor added back as well as our 4% damage reduction perhaps in the form of a buff to blood presence.

9. Seeing as paladins gain charges of holy power from the use of both crusader strike and hammer of the righteous, we dks should gain scent of of blood stacks from death strike and heart strike. This would allow for more synergy and over all tanking class balance by giving a purpose to heart strike aside from mere threat.

10. Several people have voiced concerns over the current cost of dancing rune weapon. Many feel that the cost of 60 rp is a detriment not only to damage output but our ability to generate blood charges for blood tap. Some feel that the rp cost should be removed entirely because other tanks do not have to 'pay' resources to use their cds so why should we? Furthermore, the 60 rp cost can leave us resource starved for several seconds. Others feel the rp cost should be reduced to 30 rp to at least give us a small bit of wiggle room. Either way, we would like to see the rp cost changed for the better.

The aforementioned are known issues I feel need to be addressed, if anyone else has concerns or comments feel free to leave them below.

(Edited to include viewer suggestions and to illustrate viewer-based reflections)


Here's the link to our official forum post. Please show your support and help us get our current concerns addressed.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/5960196483

[Asheriah]

I have to say I'm glad that someone finally decided to make a thread about blood. It's not that I don't care about frost or unholy, it's just that lately, we've been hearing a lot about these while blood isn't so great either on beta right now, to be honest.

I wish for old blood tap to come back. (Yeah, I've been saying this since like ... forever) It would definitely help with the downtime. This, or make rune strike cost 20 rp.

Also ... I really think they should tweak blood's damage. It feels so ... so .. SO low.

[SSHA778]

If someone goes and tells me whether Vengeance is still bugged on Beta or not (never decays/fades while actively tanking), I can figure out Blood's simmed DPS within a few days. Since I've already got the simmed DPS for Frost/Unholy, I can compare that TPS needed.

Most of the AoE complaints that I hear about Blood stem from people thinking that their only AoE tools are DnD and BB. BB is complete garbage, and you shouldn't be using it other than to get mobs to you, and it's certainly terrible for getting mobs to stay on you. You should be tabbing HS/DS/RS.

[Samsarathedk]

I have to say I'm glad that someone finally decided to make a thread about blood. It's not that I don't care about frost or unholy, it's just that lately, we've been hearing a lot about these while blood isn't so great either on beta right now, to be honest.

I wish for old blood tap to come back. (Yeah, I've been saying this since like ... forever) It would definitely help with the downtime. This, or make rune strike cost 20 rp.


Also ... I really think they should tweak blood's damage. It feels so ... so .. SO low.

Thanks for your post! I forgot to mention the rp reduction to rune strike. Also, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who feels blood's overall damage output is a little low. I refrained from adding it to the list before because, I felt I was being a little to nit-picky. I'll edit my list and add your additions.

[Axethor]

And this is one of the reasons I haven't been playing Beta. DKs just feel left out in the cold (no pun intended). Nothing seems to work right, all three specs have major issues that GC calls flavor or just plain ignores, and our level 90 talents are a little less awesome compared to other classes since they have little use in PvE outside of add fights or no use at all (I'm looking at you desecrated ground).

I'm glad I leveled my Warlock so I can play something in Mists, but I really love my DK and would hate to drop it because Blizzard can't pull their shit together and actually listen to us.

[Samsarathedk]

If someone goes and tells me whether Vengeance is still bugged on Beta or not (never decays/fades while actively tanking), I can figure out Blood's simmed DPS within a few days. Since I've already got the simmed DPS for Frost/Unholy, I can compare that TPS needed.

Most of the AoE complaints that I hear about Blood stem from people thinking that their only AoE tools are DnD and BB. BB is complete garbage, and you shouldn't be using it other than to get mobs to you, and it's certainly terrible for getting mobs to stay on you. You should be tabbing HS/DS/RS.

I'll see if I can get on the beta in a bit and get you the info on vengeance; if not I'll definitely get it for you asap.
As for your comments about blood boil I do agree to extent; I do agree that it shouldn't use it to keep mobs as it currently stands but, it can be used for snap threat (just as dnd can) on them just as a warrior uses thunderclap and shockwave. Also, with the reintroduction of crimson scourge we will occasionally get a free blood boil which will help aid us with added aoe threat.

[Mionelol]

If someone goes and tells me whether Vengeance is still bugged on Beta or not (never decays/fades while actively tanking)

?

What bug?

[Samsarathedk]

?

What bug?

I just checked on the beta, veng stacked properly and then faded properly after leaving combat.

[SSHA778]

What bug?

Well, it's been behaving like that on Live ever since they announced that they planned to increase how fast Vengeance was gained (but they didn't, yet). Somewhere around 4.2 I think.

Vengeance is supposed to decay at something around like 5% Max_Vengeance_AP_Reached every 2 seconds if you are swung at, and 10% Max_Vengeance_AP_Reached every 2 seconds if you are not being swung at.

Currently, that decay function is broken. As long as you are swung at, Vengeance never decays. If you walk away from the mob (triggering the 10% decay), the decay starts to function again (not sure if normally).

That decay is supposed to ensure that when you're fighting level 10 mobs, you never reach max Vengeance, but stay at some lower level instead.

[Mionelol]

I haven't noticed anything wrong with Vengeance on live. It behaves like it says normally in the blog post about the 4.3 changes on Vengeance.

It definitely decays, because you don't end up at max vengeance when fighting level 40 bears, even after an infinite amount of time. If you aggro the whole map, yes, you'll end up at max vengeance, but by then you're taking "a lot of damage" (relatively speaking, but enough to trigger that vengeance at least).
Here is the 4.3 mechanic:

As Vengeance updates during the fight, it is always set to at least a third of the damage taken in the last two seconds

Considering a single boss melee swing is enough to completely cap out vengeance, as long as you don't dodge 43 hits in a row it feels fairly normal that vengeance doesn't decay at all in reality, but that's the intended behavior. It mght actually be bugged on level 40 bears and not decay as it should but even if it decayed it should go back up to the cap instantly on any fight that deals any reasonable amount of damage, so... I'm not sure where the bug is.

[SSHA778]

I'll have to re-test it on Live when I have access again, but it shouldn't be possible for you to get full Vengeance against really small hits (unless you're tanking tons, and I mean tons, of them).

In any event, I can still at least set the structure up for abilities in the sim.

edit: The "bug" I'm referring to is that the 5% decreases every 2s while actively tanking that I described aren't happening like they should be. This is how you're Vengeance capping (after a long period of time) against trivial damage.

---------- Post added 2012-06-21 at 05:10 AM ----------

What abilities are copied by DRW?

[Samsarathedk]

I'll have to re-test it on Live when I have access again, but it shouldn't be possible for you to get full Vengeance against really small hits (unless you're tanking tons, and I mean tons, of them).

In any event, I can still at least set the structure up for abilities in the sim.

edit: The "bug" I'm referring to is that the 5% decreases every 2s while actively tanking that I described aren't happening like they should be. This is how you're Vengeance capping (after a long period of time) against trivial damage.

---------- Post added 2012-06-21 at 05:10 AM ----------

What abilities are copied by DRW?

From what I have observed when looking at my damage breakdown after each raid, DRW appears to mimic all of my damage abilities while active.

[Keiyra]

3. Blood dks like myself have repeatedly asked for a raid cd and our requests have fallen on deaf ears, I strongly feel that purgatory should be made baseline so we do not have to pick between a personal cd or a raid cd as no other tanks are currently faced with the predicament. Making it baseline will allow ALL THREE specs to provide AMZ in raid as it frees up blood to actually choose a utility talent, that being said it would only be fair to NOT penalize blood dks a raid cd for taking a tasty survivability cd that should be already be blood exclusive.

Well considering that in MoP, the raid cd's you speak of (Tranq, Devotion, Zen Med, and Banner) are not in the tank specs, but as baseline for all the specs available to that class - then what they should do if you want parity is make AMZ baseline for all specs of DK, and leave purgatory as a talent choice - not the other way around.

[Mionelol]

Everything should be copied by DRW. Soul Reaper currently isn't copied, probably not Death Siphon or other MoP abilities either if had a wild guess. They'll be added later, same thing happened during Cata beta with Necrotic Strike etc.

(It also copies at 100% dmg, unlike Cata's 50%, no idea if you implemented it)

[Samsarathedk]

Well considering that in MoP, the raid cd's you speak of (Tranq, Devotion, Zen Med, and Banner) are not in the tank specs, but as baseline for all the specs available to that class - then what they should do if you want parity is make AMZ baseline for all specs of DK, and leave purgatory as a talent choice - not the other way around.

Actually if I had it my way AMZ would be baseline for all dks and purgatory would be blood exclusive because the ability is best utilized by a tank and would add some flavor to the class. Do frost or arcane mages get cauterize? Do ret and holy pallies get ardent defender? The answers of course are no and no. So why should Blizz implement something which will provide class imbalance in pvp settings and will ultimately result in a nerf? Fix the problem now and put tanking abilities where they belong: with tanks. Remember how overpowered dks were shaping up to be when all dks could talent into bone shield and vampiric blood on the beta? This is yet another case where an ability needs to be removed from the choice talent tree and made blood exclusive.

[Keiyra]

Actually if I had it my way AMZ would be baseline for all dks and purgatory would be blood exclusive because the ability is best utilized by a tank and would add some flavor to the class. Do frost or arcane mages get cauterize?

Actually yes they can in MoP, its a talent option, any spec mage can choose to take Cauterize.

Edit:<this just an fyi so you can use correct facts in your arguments>

[Samsarathedk]

Actually yes they can in MoP, its a talent option, any spec mage can choose to take Cauterize.

Cool! Ignore the rest of my post which validates my point. Nice attempt at a straw man/red herring!

I'm trying to make a constructive thread to help address known issues with blood on the beta, IF you do not have any constructive to say please refrain from posting and junking up the thread. Thanks.

[Mazinger-Z]

Honestly it sounds like Blizzard's mucking up DK in MoP. The 'rune regeneration' talents at 75 are picked directly from the Cataclysm specs, but wasn't it decided that one was more obviously superior to the others? I forget which. But anyway, its not a choice if one option is more viable than the other.

Secondly, I've been hearing issues with the way things are laid out in MoP resulting in clumsy and clunky due to rune regeneration/what abilities use what runes, with a lot of down time waiting for runes to come back up.

...Bugs aside, if MoP released next month (I'm not saying it will, I'm saying as a hypothetical given the state of things), how badly would we be hosed across all specs?

[Asheriah]

Actually, AMZ is pretty weak in a raid environment and situationnal. (Especially true in 25 mans, where damage is BIG)

They should add a brand new raid CD that would be in line with what other tanks can provide.

Heck, scrapping that awful 75 tier and bringing more utility would be a nice thing... But GC seems to avoid every DK-related concern on forums right now, despite all the sims, numbers and proofs. I'm slowly losing faith.

[Zao]

The only thing I noticed so far are the same things you noted. More downtime and problematic AoE threat (on more than 3 targets)

I can't comment on AoE threat much because I'm waiting for the raids for that, but the longer downtime didn't strike me as that bad. If anything I enjoy it because it allows for better planning and the addition of the 1s GCD allowed for higher bursthealing in times of distress.

Having a baseline RaidCD would be very nice to have, it adds some flavour to our class and brings us back up on par with other classes in terms of utility.