Is Death Siphon finally worth considering in WoD?

[Deleted]

So it seems to be buffed:
- does dmg equal to 60% AP (up from 35%)
- heals for 335% of the damage (up from 150%)
And since there is no longer necrotic strike, you'll have more spare death runes to use it with. Seems quite good to me, anyone tried it on beta?

Also, for Frost spec's Mind Freeze is buffed with 20y range, which makes it equal to Wind Shear! This should increase frost survivability by quite a bit against casters. Anyone got any impressions how this change plays out?

[Deleted]

From what i understood, the self heal talents in the tier now differ in "intended performance". So, Death Pact would be burst healing, Conversion sustained healing with DPS loss and Death Siphon DPS neutral self healing, less consistant than Conv, less bursty than DP. Though you could argue if Conversion with 10-20 RP/s cost can still be considered "sustained".

AP numbers shouldn't be considered before number tuning, really, but the intention for it to be able to be used without a resulting loss in DPS alone makes it more or less attractive. It serves far less healing than Conv, though because of it costing runes which we could spend on Death Strike. DS heals for around 10% of health which now scales with AP just as DSi does. So for Unholy this would mean it'd deal about as much damage as a Scourge Strike and two of them would heal equally as much or slightly more than a DS would. It also has the advantage of being a ranged rune spender and dealing more damage than DS while also gaining effectiveness on targets that take additional damage (or the opposite, like in PvP against targets with -% damage taken).

[Raikh]

Stat relations are way different on beta than now. It doesn't heal that much currently and is solely based on how much % it heals of your hp way weaker than on live. Its still a good option though.

But for PvE this talent is atm on live extremely powerful with trinke procs I've seen ~500k heals and depending on mastery and trinket procs it is dps neutral or even a slight gain, it surpasses death pact by leagues in term sof survivability and the damage loss is pretty insignifcant overall. For frost its a bit worse than for uh but still extremely powerful and useful.
So there is no finally worth its currently as good as it can get without being completely overpowered.

For PvP (as you referred to necrotic strike) it is a whole other story, if I'm not mistaken, never really tested it, it would kinda double dip with reslience and battle fatigue which reduces its damage therefore its healing and the healing is again reduced by battle fatigue. I'm not sure if the healing intelligently circumvents reslience for calculation, might be possible which makes it the same as all other heals where it is simply is outclassed by conversion as it is incredibly cheap currently and not too much a damage loss while DSi interferes with necrotic usage.

In either case, yes it is getting better for PvP with WoD, but that is for current number tuning rather because of as you said necrotics removal and both alternatvies getting kind of weaker, especially conversion with way higher cost which gives it way lower uptime for higher cost.
But as tuning is still nowhere done I would wait before giving a final judgement. DS gets for example buffed and DP might end up best again due to having a neat little heal with DS so we have better use for burst healing via DP.

[Deleted]

Right, and the 150% --> 335% damage to healing buff is mainly an adjustment to effectively doubled health pools.

Conversion is so strong in PvP on live because it's our only reliable source of consistent healing (something DS will deliver in WoD which could make Death Pact a viable PvP talent) and Death Siphon is extremely strong due to it's scaling and the fact that trinkets are insanely powerful.

On a sidenote: Death Siphon no longer double dips on resilience & battle fatigue. It's healing against PvP targets ignores resilience based reduction (it's damage still gets reduced) and only gets affected by battle fatigue since 5.3 I believe. But macroed Conversion still is far superior.

[Monoliith]

Nope, not likely honestly. Which makes me sad in the face.

[Coalbane]

I play dw frost on live, and personally, I already prefer Death Siphon for raiding, as I find it is much more versatile and ultimately useful than the other two options. I like having burst healing on demand, and I'm willing to trade dps for it when I need that healing.

There are two problems with Death Pact. First, it's only available 50% of the time (2m CD, and our ghoul is up for 1m) if you're using it on CD (just holding on to the ghoul in case I need healing doesn't appeal to me as dw frost). I'm not a gambler when it comes to survival, so 50% just isn't good enough for me. Second, and arguably worse, is that you can only use this talent once every 2 minutes. If you're taking sustained damage, you're just shit out of luck with Death Pact.

Setting the dps loss aside, my biggest problem with Conversion is that it's just too slow. Any sustained damage serious enough to force you to use this is probably going to be too serious for this talent to heal through anyway. The RP cost is just an additional con.

Now with Death Siphon, dw frost dks have plenty of death runes available and can generate more without breaking a sweat, especially with Blood Tap, which most of us are using anyway. Light damage? Ok, siphon once. Sustained damage? No problem, just pop them off as needed. Didn't get the damage reduction buff in the Realm of Y'shaarj on heroic Garrosh? No worries, just cast a siphon right before or after each annihilate and the heal gets you back to full. That Empowered Whirling Corruption bringing the pain? No worries, you don't want to be casting HB anyway because adds are spawning, so just fire off siphons. These are just a few examples.

[Rorke]

I play dw frost on live, and personally, I already prefer Death Siphon for raiding, as I find it is much more versatile and ultimately useful than the other two options. I like having burst healing on demand, and I'm willing to trade dps for it when I need that healing.

There are two problems with Death Pact. First, it's only available 50% of the time (2m CD, and our ghoul is up for 1m) if you're using it on CD (just holding on to the ghoul in case I need healing doesn't appeal to me as dw frost). I'm not a gambler when it comes to survival, so 50% just isn't good enough for me. Second, and arguably worse, is that you can only use this talent once every 2 minutes. If you're taking sustained damage, you're just shit out of luck with Death Pact.

Setting the dps loss aside, my biggest problem with Conversion is that it's just too slow. Any sustained damage serious enough to force you to use this is probably going to be too serious for this talent to heal through anyway. The RP cost is just an additional con.

Now with Death Siphon, dw frost dks have plenty of death runes available and can generate more without breaking a sweat, especially with Blood Tap, which most of us are using anyway. Light damage? Ok, siphon once. Sustained damage? No problem, just pop them off as needed. Didn't get the damage reduction buff in the Realm of Y'shaarj on heroic Garrosh? No worries, just cast a siphon right before or after each annihilate and the heal gets you back to full. That Empowered Whirling Corruption bringing the pain? No worries, you don't want to be casting HB anyway because adds are spawning, so just fire off siphons. These are just a few examples.

This guy gets it. Death Siphon is extremely powerful when it comes to pve, especially for solo content like leveling and questing. When you pair it with Plague Leech and Blood Tap, its so good because you have so many on demand death runes to use it on. It even generates runic power and does a decent amount of damage. I never understood why people waste their time leveling/questing as Blood when you can just spec Frost and use Death Siphon/Dark Succor. You can't die and it's so much fun.

Unfortunately for me, I don't PvE so I have to use Conversion once I get done leveling. It's a real shame too because Conversion just sucks and I love Death Siphon. Would really like it if they made it viable in PvP. Conversion is just so "uhhhh" like everything just feels so slow because it just eats your resources away without any return.

[Dnusha]

Death siphon on beta is kinda meh.

[alex wolf]

Death siphon on beta is kinda meh.

Unless you are soloing old content in which case it is amazing

[Darkfriend]

This guy gets it. Death Siphon is extremely powerful when it comes to pve, especially for solo content like leveling and questing. When you pair it with Plague Leech and Blood Tap, its so good because you have so many on demand death runes to use it on. It even generates runic power and does a decent amount of damage. I never understood why people waste their time leveling/questing as Blood when you can just spec Frost and use Death Siphon/Dark Succor. You can't die and it's so much fun.

Unfortunately for me, I don't PvE so I have to use Conversion once I get done leveling. It's a real shame too because Conversion just sucks and I love Death Siphon. Would really like it if they made it viable in PvP. Conversion is just so "uhhhh" like everything just feels so slow because it just eats your resources away without any return.

"its good for PVE"

"I don't PVE"

so you basically don't know what you are talking about.

The issue with it in relevant PVE currently is it's high opportunity cost, and the value of a higher instant heal being much greater than fewer small ones, due to the way damage and risk of death occurs in SoO.

[Powell]

Death Pact is still the best choice for any spec, unless you're just questing and soloing old raids.

Sacrificing damage for sustained damage is not an option for Unholy or Frost for PvE. I could potentially see the healing absorb shield being a big no-no for PvP/Arena.
And for Blood, Death Pact is the only reasonable alternative, even with the healing absorb.

The sustain healing from Conversion and Death Siphon will never be usable by Blood DKs, because they use the same resources you need for your active mitigation.
When it comes to the point where Conversion and Death Siphon become better for survivability than Death Strike, then it becomes a problem. Theres just no good that can come from that talent tier for Blood DKs.

[chibichibiko]

In a world where healers will take care of you no matter what or you only have a 'heal me' moment every 2 minutes, there's no reason for death siphon. In a world where you being able to spot heal yourself is enough to keep you from dying to a mechanic that happens more often than every 2 minutes, it's necessary. It's silly to consider these in terms of your own dps... they're the healing talents; you take the one you need to stay alive (and that's never conversion).

Also, in a stat build that dumps mastery for blood spec, death siphon has a strong place, especially if there are damage amplification mechanics in a fight. It is a spikier tanking style, though. That said, the absorb shield of pact adds depth to the ability: it's an extremely useful talent to use just before you're done taking damage, or as a fast repair before a CD.

Pact is an emergency button for when someone's done something stupid. The absorb shield isn't an obstacle, because this ability is a screw-up correction, not a necessary part of your healing rotation. If the healers could normally cover your healing needs in the other 2 minutes of the fight, they'll be able to cover you after DP.

[Dnusha]

Unless you are soloing old content in which case it is amazing

you can oneshot old content in wod anyway, and no it's not amazing at all if you are comparing it with conversion and dp.

[zoomgpally]

Right, and the 150% --> 335% damage to healing buff is mainly an adjustment to effectively doubled health pools.

Conversion is so strong in PvP on live because it's our only reliable source of consistent healing (something DS will deliver in WoD which could make Death Pact a viable PvP talent) and Death Siphon is extremely strong due to it's scaling and the fact that trinkets are insanely powerful.

On a sidenote: Death Siphon no longer double dips on resilience & battle fatigue. It's healing against PvP targets ignores resilience based reduction (it's damage still gets reduced) and only gets affected by battle fatigue since 5.3 I believe. But macroed Conversion still is far superior.

The healing change may keep it at the same % of max health, but it will be a pvp buff as damage isn't doubled.

However, it will forever be useless for blood unless they make it proc mastery

[Deleted]

just get the glyph of empower rune weapon and yo u can get death pact with that o na 5 min CD and still take death siphon thats what i use an d im in a wpvp guild and slap most classes around

[Keyboard Champion]

I know this is the dk forum where necromancy is not really a big deal, but did you really have to dig it up instead of making a new thread?

On topic. Death Syphon is THE healing talent for Unholy. Frost still works better with Conversion as it comes cheaper for frost.

[ro9ue]

I know this is the dk forum where necromancy is not really a big deal, but did you really have to dig it up instead of making a new thread?

On topic. Death Syphon is THE healing talent for Unholy. Frost still works better with Conversion as it comes cheaper for frost.

LOL we're all glad he did just to hear that comment.

[Deleted]

we dk's pride ourselfs in necromancy what are u a ret pally :P

[Helgrim]

I heave read through the forum and basically what i need to know is this. Is it viable for Unholy DK in PvP has anyone tested it ? Does it smoothly sinergy with our rotation ?

[RuneDK]

I use death siphon and im dropping it, I would rather the burst healing from DP than DSi. I don't hate DSi, I just prefer to get a big burst of healing...Maybe things will change when raids start, which im still so far from being ready for. But that's not really the point.