Blood DK Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.2 Guide (Long but has TLDR Version)

[Arborus]

I just recently started tanking for my guild.
Can someone give me some specific boss tips for BRF? I have logs, if it helps, I don't know when to really use cooldowns or so, on some fights, I don't even use them.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/a36Ktz1qGmM9dH2y

Enchant/gem your stuff for Multistrike.

Use Plague Leech + Blood Tap + Breath of Sindragosa on everything.

Your Soul Reaper usage looks low. Make sure you've got something to remind you to use it on anything below 35%.

With 2pc tier you can be a lot more liberal with Vamp Blood usage, basically just press it whenever.

You could drop 4pc for better offset stuff, if you wanted. Blast Furnace helm, Blackhand shoulders, H&F gloves.



Beastlord: Gorefiend's pack beasts. AMS soak breaths, fire puddles, etc.

Oregorger: Rune Tap every Torrent. Use AMS to soak Explosive Shards whenever you can.

Operator: Just reactionary CD usage should be fine. You can AMS trains/bombs/other stuff for RP if you want.

Maidens: Rune Tap Blood Rituals. AMS bombs for RP.

H&F: Rune Tap suplex. AMS soak plates for RP. If you keep up Breath on this fight you should need basically zero outside healing.

Flamebender: Rune Tap/AMS/etc. Dog Breaths. AMS soak everything you can for RP.

Kromog: Rune Tap slam. AMS Stone Breath.

Gruul: You can solo at least 3 slices in Heroic with Rune Tap -> Vamp + AMS -> Rune Tap + IBF

Blast Furance: AMS everything. Breath in phase 3 makes you basically unkillable.

Blackhand: Rune Tap smash. AMS bombs for RP.

[Saiyendra]

^
Not sure if that's the greatest advice for someone that has rotational issues. Those need to be addressed first.

[Arborus]

As someone who is awful at Blood DK in regards to rotation, you can maintain Breath just fine and only die sometimes

[Deleted]

^
Not sure if that's the greatest advice for someone that has rotational issues. Those need to be addressed first.

I use blood boil and death strike when the first set of runes are about to come off cooldown, and use death coil when I'm above 50 RP, what am I doing wrong?

Also, can I really take 3 slices solo from Gruul? We usually raid with 20+ people, and I don't think just rune tap will be enough for the first one. Is that because I should be using BoS?

[Saybel]

No, BoS won't save you, you'll still proc Purg

If you want to solo 3, you'll need some kind of healer external for one because you're in 20man, glyphed IBF for one, and AMS for another. We run 2x DK tank in HC and it looks like this for us;

1st - both tanks share, I use rune tap, offtank AMS
2nd - AMS + Rune Tap
3rd - Glyphed IBF + Rune Tap
4th - offtank AMS + Rune Tap
5th - offtank glyphed IBF + Rune Tap
6th - both tanks share, I use AMS, off tank Rune Tap

The reason we share them is because the DoT falls off by the time one of us needs to take our next one, it's the same as having an external more or less, but I wouldn't recommend your tank doing this unless he's confident he can take a 400k+ magic damage hit with no troubles.

And yes, we could and probably can solo a Slash in mythic in case of emergencies, but I wouldn't recommend it at all due to the energy regen. Maybe if the boss is literally about to die and people in stack groups are dead? Really niche situation.

[Accurate]

And yes, we could and probably can solo a Slash in mythic in case of emergencies, but I wouldn't recommend it at all due to the energy regen. Maybe if the boss is literally about to die and people in stack groups are dead? Really niche situation.

You can solo soak all the slices in mythic if you really want to. Just requires 3 tanks and a disc priest. It sometimes breaks the fight also and he never casts petrify which is really odd. Definitely wouldn't recommend or say you have to by any means though as it's a bit less forgiving of mistakes when each slice is like 2mil+.

[Saiyendra]

Do any of you tank Siegemakers on Blackhand? Anything to note in particular?

[Jellospally]

I haven't on my dk done it on my monk many times, but its not hard just be ready to call external as you get slagged.

Know where to position them and your good.

Once you get the 3rd tank(reinforced) you can use breath and keep it up till phase change(you will basically be able to solo heal yourself at this point). Just don't use breath beforehand it wont be off CD and it will fall off between tanks until you get the 3rd one on you because it doesn't die.

[Deleted]

For those of you who have been on the PTR testing HFC, in which order would you rank each tank class and why? Just post your opinion

I'll be posting this to every tanking class' forum.

[Deleted]

For those of you who have been on the PTR testing HFC, in which order would you rank each tank class and why? Just post your opinion

I'll be posting this to every tanking class' forum.

Something like DK >= Guardian >= Monk > Warrior >>>>>>>>>>> Paladin seems to be the state of things on the PTR currently. Blood actually makes me want to strangle kittens to play on PTR though since Breath is still optimal but now 100% completely, utterly and retardedly random.

The top 2-3 tanking spots sort of swap around based on fight because DKs lack of mobility is pretty exposed on a fight like Iron Reaver, but on the other hand there are lots of fights that AMS just completely trivializes.

[Veiled Shadow]

So, does anyone have any new information for 6.2? Trinkets, BiS lists, etc.? For trinkets, the obvious pick is Anzu's Cursed Plume but I'm not sure of the second one. Possibly Warlord's Unseeing Eye (horrendously OP) or a DPS trinket?

Also, Troxism, is there any chance we might see some guide updates soon?


Finally, is anyone as upset by the design of our class trinket as I am? They made up a horrendously useless trinket, solely to try to further nail in BoS' coffin. Since BoS is the only talent in the tier that even adds gameplay to the spec (less so in 6.2 as it's completely random) and is my favorite talent, I absolutely abhor the design of this trinket.

[brunnor]

So, does anyone have any new information for 6.2? Trinkets, BiS lists, etc.? For trinkets, the obvious pick is Anzu's Cursed Plume but I'm not sure of the second one. Possibly Warlord's Unseeing Eye (horrendously OP) or a DPS trinket?

Also, Troxism, is there any chance we might see some guide updates soon?


Finally, is anyone as upset by the design of our class trinket as I am? They made up a horrendously useless trinket, solely to try to further nail in BoS' coffin. Since BoS is the only talent in the tier that even adds gameplay to the spec (less so in 6.2 as it's completely random) and is my favorite talent, I absolutely abhor the design of this trinket.

Our bonuses suck, as usual, so why would our trinket be any different?

[Troxism]

So, does anyone have any new information for 6.2? Trinkets, BiS lists, etc.? For trinkets, the obvious pick is Anzu's Cursed Plume but I'm not sure of the second one. Possibly Warlord's Unseeing Eye (horrendously OP) or a DPS trinket?

Also, Troxism, is there any chance we might see some guide updates soon?


Finally, is anyone as upset by the design of our class trinket as I am? They made up a horrendously useless trinket, solely to try to further nail in BoS' coffin. Since BoS is the only talent in the tier that even adds gameplay to the spec (less so in 6.2 as it's completely random) and is my favorite talent, I absolutely abhor the design of this trinket.

I'll probably update the guide if I don't quit the game.

Reaper's btw isn't as bad as I said in my article, and I don't know where it gets THIS MUCH bad rap. It's actually okay, I just exaggerated to make my point in the article (politics). It existing doesn't really screw BoS over anymore then it already has been, people are still married to 100% uptime for some reason, which currently doesn't appear even remotely practical to even have 50% uptime consistently without insane gear, esp with many fights having mechanics that basically give the middle finger to BoS (I think some of them were done on purpose too), and lacking CoI to bridge those mechanics. However this will require further experimentation to say for sure down the line.

Anzu's is okay but I have some other ideas on what are the best trinkets, but it + warlords are the best 'tanking' trinkets yes. Reapers is actually a decent hybrid trinket on pure single target (since BoS is not so practical any more on basically any fight until full BiS + tons of sockets, for another non-obvious reason I will talk about later).

Also I have no idea why everyone says T18 4p is useless, it's basically SoB stack every Death Strike (1 stack, BB, 2 stack, DS, 1 Stack since it rounds up, rinse and repeat). Not AMAZING, but it is definitely better then the T17 4p.

BiS list is mostly irrelevant. If not using BoS stats don't matter that much (seriously the differences aren't that big and usually ilvl wins), and even if using BoS, it's not exactly hard to stack MS. On top of this the 5 ilvl jumps kind of make everything awkward. Realistically you just use the highest ilvl pieces because of strength/stam/armour (nothing wrong with stamina when it's free). Probably make something, but frankly it has never been less important, and I almost didn't bother last tier because it wasn't very important there either. Trinkets section would probably be even bigger for 6.2 however since there is more to talk about.

[Khiyone]

At what point does crit become better than multistrike when using Defile?

(I've been playing around with the talent a bit in preparation for 6.2).

[Jellospally]

At what point does crit become better than multistrike when using Defile?

(I've been playing around with the talent a bit in preparation for 6.2).

There really won't be a boss where defile itself is better most likely. I mean I can't be 100% but even with breath at 20rp with scaled up gear breath was still doing quite a bit of damage still.

The first 20 seconds of breath is so massive. The whole 100% uptime doesn't mean much. Like looking at my gruul rank. first 20 sec my breath did 800k of its 5m in a 3m 55s fight. Thats almost 1/5 of its dmg in less than 1/10th of the fight.

Breath will be strong due to 2 target cleave and burst phases on bosses next tier. Some bosses it will be near useless... but so will the tanks actual damage due to what tanks have to do.

[AanvilGT]

My understanding, and I am just attempting to repeat what i read here, is that Crit and Multistrike both proc on all of the same abilities and math out identically. The difference is that we get 5% bonus multistrike, so multistrike will always provide more dps than crit. On top of this, Multistrike also provides bonus runic power and bonus health while crit gives parry.

[Troxism]

Due to the how the math works, if you have a ton of MS and a little crit, Crit becomes better not including additional effects. Just think about it.

Also 'bonus RP' and 'bonus health' are contingent on actually being able to spend that RP, which isn't always the case (not even close).

But either way realistically it's not like you have many alternatives. People often love to look at stats in a vacuum but then you actually look at the gear and realize, that frankly even if you 'don't want' X stat, you will get it anyways, and the actual amount of 'choice' in your stats is VERY small, esp in a tier like this where ilvls vary so much meaning ilvl will often just be king regardless of any other consideration.

It's kind of why I keep saying stats don't matter that much. In reality the biggest choices you make in gear is what to enchant/gem and what trinkets to wear, and if you wear 4p or not. In everything else there is either no choice at all, or the choices are basically meaningless because the difference is not even noticeable in practice.

[Piwielle]

Ahoy. We're currently having a tank apply, and I feel like he's having some issues with his survivability. Thing is, I suck terribly at DK, and can't really pinpoint what he's doing wrong.
Except for overcapping blood charges, that seems like a recurring thing. Also, let's not talk about BoS yet, I have a feeling that won't work for him.

9/10 MM, and Blackhand

Destroy him pretty please.

[Jellospally]

1. If you are spec'd defile. Use Defile on fucking CD.
2. Holy shit sitting at 12 blood charges for over 2 minutes?!@?#!"<:/1@?#!?@#>!@#<>!?@#>!>?@#
3. Not using Soul Reaper instead of Blood Boil if anything is under 35%.
4. HAS FUCKING GLYPH OF VAMP BLOOD?!?!@?!@?#?!?@#?
5. HAS THE WRONG AMS GLYPH?!?@?!@? (the fully absorb one is FUCKING AWFUL)
6. Has Plague Leech not sure I have seen a single fucking use in any fight yet on these logs.... yep nope.
7. Using Defile, doesn't use Glyph of Outbreak and Plague Leech on CD?!?!?!?!?!?
little break: this guy is actually awful at this game why is he 10/10m hes so carried.
8. Army of the Dead mid fight on maidens?!?!?! This does nothing not 1 thing at all. If you don't use it on the pull DONT USE IT.
9. He basically never uses vamp blood even though its avg cd is like 40sec on most fights or less....for someone who takes a lot of damage they really should use it more.

That was just what I found really fast. Pretty sure I could find more, but don't have time atm to look through them more than quick glances at the very bad things.

Please please relay this to him or the officers in that guild asap... like this guy is really bad >.<

[Aldmeris]

Awesome guide, thanks a lot for this job ! I never seen such detailed and interesting guides like this one.
I have a question about stat weights, not for raiding but for proving grounds. I did around 80-90 waves in my raiding gear but it seems that to do more I have to optimize my stuff. Certainly it's not really necessary but it can help me So, the stats - personally I think that I have to stack ton of mastery but the one-stat items are locked for me due to high item level of my followers (except crafted items). So I will farm 2-stat gear. Which stat will be the second one? It's seems that my dps isn't really important in PG, so I thought about haste or versatility but I'm not sure. Another question is about overall item level. PG creatures health and damage depend of highest ilvl of my gear so I will stack the items with same itemlevel. There are two options : 630-640 with some one-stat items or something else higher like brf hm/mythic stuff. Which option is more viable for DK ? We are better in the poor stuff against weak creatures or in the perfect against significally stronger enemies ?

Thank for your help, brothers-in-death.