taking a look back at BLOOD DPS

[obscurede]

I was always unholy to start with. Ever since I started on my DK in 3.3.3, I have been Unholy. Dont care about its viability, its my favourite spec. I hated blood dps and loved the DW Frost tanking. Come Cata - I started loving blood tanking. Hated the whack-a-mole version of frost dps (still do).

[Totle]

I miss hysteria...

[cabbageloins]

I was blood DPS from the start of Wrath until they took it away. It was always my favorite. Frost has some fun moments, like when I almost DC'd my raid by HB spamming the worms on H Magmaw while on kiting duty and flooding their recounts (pre HB nerfs). But I loved the rhythm of the blood rotation. It was precise and graceful, and I guess I can see why some people wouldn't like it because it doesn't have any proc whack-a-mole nonsense, but it felt like a good song -- you know every lyric and note, but it's still satisfying.

[Deleted]

I loved the really old blood spec, way back in 3.0. Diseaseless blood. You just spammed obliterate and heart strike, and focused on armor pen and you did sick, sick, sick dps. Was the most fun i have ver had as a dk. Please bring it back in some form

[Powell]

How are people saying Blood DPS in wotlk was fun?
Rotationally, theres little different from the current DK DPS specs. Just abilities with different names.

The Rune regeneration system was different back then, they all regenerated at the same time.
Unlike now, where only one per type regenerates at any one time. The old system was faar too unforgiving.
Runes generating at such a rate couldn't spend them fast enough, while RP was slow.
Now Runes and RP is balanced better, while runes generate slower, RP is more abundant and, unlike WotlK, actually impacts your Runes regen itself.

I miss hysteria...

Whats there to miss? Its still ingame as Unholy Frenzy.

[Zargul]

I liked the old blood DPS spec. I liked that you could tank with all three specs (even though you rarely saw unholy tanks).

I remember when WOTLK launched, the majority of tanks that I saw were Unholy. I think that this was in large part due to people thinking that bone shield was better than vampiric blood and improved icebound fortitude/whatever we frost DKs had that upped our armor/strength before it became Pillar of Frost. (Frozen Armor?)

[Migrin]

anyone else play and loved blood dps back in wotlk before it was changed to a tank spec? i think this is the only spec in the game that completely changed roles (LIKE EVER). i'm still kinda bitter they removed blood dps, i really enjoyed playing it a lot.

i don't remember but was there any type of outcry of blood dps dks when they changed the spec? i don't remember

Survival used to be a melee spec for hunters and Enhancement used to be 2 Hand based. But agreed, that is not a role change. What they tried when they initially released dks was to have a class which can tank and dps in all three specs. They admitted that this was sort of an experiment which could have effected other classes as well if it had worked out. Adding a 4. spec would be a possibility. But I guess there are other things they would rather try out first like smite priest for example.

How ever, I think we already have two very cool specs and not necessarily need blood as a dps spec again.

[hpa]

I played Blood dps back then and i am so happy they changed it. Really do ppl even remember "Disease less" blood dps spec? -.- It wasnt even fun it was waaay to easy to do high dps with probably the easiest spec ever.

[Lights]

I really really enjoyed playing Blood DPS. There was a time where it seemed no one was playing it :/ Still remember trolling people in BGs cleaving the down without they realised what they were dealing with

[Schizoide]

I never liked blood DPS' very simple gameplay. It was only really competitive near the end with stacked armor penetration. You could play blood DPS in other patches, but it offered essentially the same single-target performance as unholy with effectively zero AE.

It's always difficult to create three DPS specs for the same class and role. I would have preferred to transform unholy into a ranged DPS spec in Cataclysm.

[Skarssen]

You do know Unholy's way of spending runes nowadays is exactly the same a blood spent there's in WotLK right?

Scourge Strike = Heart Strike
Festering Strike = Death Strike
Death Coil = Death Coil
Unholy Frenzy = Hysteria

We just gained a pet, more damage via diseases. So all though you are mashing keys the same way the specc feels different (no big crits from your two hard hitters, heart strike and death strike). However this feel of the Death Knight specc that hits very hard with melee attacks was given to frost two hand anyway so...what is there to miss other than the negligible self healing you did as blood DPS?

But that's just my personal opinion.

True, but it is pretty depressing watching a 2-rune ability hit for 80k as unholy.

[Nyanmaru]

Out of all DpS specs we had, blood was the worst.

- Build in loss of rune recharge due to un-synchronicity of rune usage
- Built in GCD cap
- RP dump that doesn't scale with ArP/Weapon Damage
- ~30% of rune tetris was a waste of procs

I'm not glad that they got rid of the "can tank or DpS in all specs" thing, but I don't miss the old blood dps implementation at all.
(But I still weep that there's no unholy avoidance tanking anymore *sniff*)

[Pickwickman]

What game were you playing then? It completely wrecked for the first half of the expansion.

First half? What?

First half was weird 20/21/x builds types of things with Icy Touch and Death Coil spammage and other shenanigans.

Blood only REALLY became a proper DPS spec after we could combine quite a load of ARP (ToC / ICC levels).

[Stylezyó]

RIP diseaseless ArP blood and shadowfrost dual wield.

Shadowfrost was the most fun I ever had as a DK.