Anyone else certain they aren't returning to WoW with the Blood DK changes?

[Dastreus]

That list for DKs on the official patch notes certainly makes it a 100% chance I'll never return to WoW, that's for sure. Almost nothing I like, lots of "meh" and even more things that I utterly loathe.

- Blood Parasites has been removed.
Why? It's a passive ability. Thought Blizz was pruning active ones.

- Dual Wield is now only available to Frost Death Knights.
Lame. I don't care about it on a gameplay level because frost only DWs anyway. But DK RPers will now be required to have a frost spec if they dual wield any melee weapons on their RP sets. Of course, why would I expect anything RP friendly from Blizzard - a company that might as well shit all over the RP community with it's 'lore' lately.

- Necrotic Strike has been removed.
Thought Blizz was looking to make it a spell slow, instead. Sure, Blizzard, while you're at it, make DKs take 100% more damage in PVP. You seem to not want them PVPing, anyway, coupled with the Runic Power regeneration nerfs.

- Raise Dead is now only available to Unholy Death Knights.
I was going to complain that this kills my preferred option of Death Pact over Death Siphon, but I see Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion. Still, I rarely used ghouls in RP, but heh, again, need a specific spec for it. Sucks for those who RPd with their minions often. Then again, they were usually Unholy to begin with. Not mad about this one, just disappointed. Ghouls were also a good way to at least deal some damage when getting kited and Death Grab was on cooldown. More on my issue with this tier in the talent tree below.*

- Rune of Cinderglacier has been removed.
Ehh... I am again screwed on this one. I used Cinderglacier's effect in RP. Damn. At least this'll prevent new players from being confused on what Rune to use.

- Rune of the Nerubian Carapace has been removed.
Not mad about this one. I just wanted to point it out. It's visual effect is still acquired through enchants, so that's no issue. It does suck for those very select few bosses that needed this Rune in raid solos, but eh, that's probably fixed.

- Unholy Frenzy has been removed.
I liked it, but I am one person. :T

- Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour.
Way to reduce utility.

- Army of the Dead now deals 75% less damage.
Long-ish cooldown, and nerfed damage output? /eyeroll

- Icebound Fortitude now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
Dem Blood DK nerfs. (My favorite Spec since WotLK day 1.)

- Pestilence now deals 50% more damage, but no longer deals additional damage for diseases being present on the target.
Just a note of neutrality. Concerned the damage gain won't be enough to counter the loss of Blood Parasites.

- Pillar of Frost now increases Strength by 15% (down from 20%).
Frost is my second favorite spec. Why Blizz, why?

- Rune of the Fallen Crusader now increases Strength by 20% (up from 15%).
Just thought I'd point out SOMEthing I like. Will probably make up for the loss of dps the blood parasites gave (I know it wasn't THAT much dps, but it's still dps).

- Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by 15% (down from 25%).
-----Glyph of Vampiric Blood now increases the amount of healing received by an additional 10% (down from 15%).
Double lame. Dear god, why so much Blood hate? Before anyone mentions "Well Blood is OP in pvp anyway", need I mention that all tanks now take 25% more damage in PVP and the lack of CC for Blood compared to many, many other classes and specs (especially Frost Mages).

- Icy Talons now increases attack speed by 20% (down from 45%), and haste by 5% (up from 0%).
That could be interesting on Rune regen, at least.

- Blood Rites now also causes auto attack Multistrikes to generate 15 Runic Power. The Death Strike damage increase it provided has been moved to Veteran of the Third War.
Mixed reaction. Good on the runic power.

- Blood Presence now increases Stamina by 20% (down from 25%), and armor by 30% (down from 55%).
More mitigation, please, if you do this.

- Bone Shield charges can now be consumed at a rate of once per second (up from once every 2 seconds).
Confused. How is that up? Once per second vs once per 2 seconds. This looks like a nerf.

- Dancing Rune Weapon’s summoned Rune Weapon now remains fixated on the Death Knight’s target at the time of summoning, and copies the effects of Talents that are tied to the Death Knight, such as Blood Boil, Frost Fever, or Asphyxiate. Should the original target be dead or otherwise unavailable, the Rune Weapon will switch to assist with the Death Knight’s current target.
Meh. Just a fix on an annoying, but not game breaking issue.

- Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This healing is affected by Resolve.
Probably evens out to current numbers, but uncertain. As a side note: "For plate-wearing Tank specializations, Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry, a defensive stat. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them." Why did they ever decide this? Tanks will just be rolling on DPS plate, now. I know I would. Especially because of: "To solve GCD- capping issues and increase the value of Haste, we also removed the passive rune regeneration increase from Improved Blood Presence." So you nerfed improved blood presence, and killed rune regen, so more Blood tanks will roll on DPS Plate??? Are you out of your fucking MIND, Blizzard?? Oh, and I bet Tanks won't even get DPS plate (crit and haste stats) in LFRs.

- Heart Strike has been removed. Blood Death Knights should use Pestilence in its place.
Could you at least rename Pestilence to Blood Boil since that's what it is for Blood? My god, you removed an iconic Blood ability and tell us to use an unholy ability in primary rotations, instead. Feels less "Blood" and more "generic DK" to me.

- Improved Blood Presence now increases all damage dealt by 15%, instead of increasing rune regeneration rate.
You get a pass on this. It's good, but cherries on top a pile of shit are just shitty cherries.

- Rune Tap has been redesigned. It now reduces all damage taken by 40% for 3 seconds. It also now has 2 charges, with a 40-second recharge time.
Okay... not bad. What else?

- Will of the Necropolis has been redesigned. It now automatically triggers an immediate, free Rune Tap when you take damage that reduces you below 30% health. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 30 seconds.
Still basically the same net gain as before. Alright.

- Glyph of Rune Tap has been redesigned. It now reduces Rune Tap’s recharge time by 10 seconds, but reduces the damage reduction it provides by 20%.
Why even bother, then? Makes Rune Tap pretty shitty. 30 second recharge rate, with half the effectiveness as if it was 40 seconds. Reconsider this glyph. I get that some have a drawback, but this is too great of a drawback. Worthless Glyph is worthless.

- Veteran of the Third War now increases Multistrike chance, and haste by 10% (instead of 9% to Stamina), reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%, increases the damage of Death Strike by 100%, and grants 1 Runic Power per second while in combat.
Seems good. Iffy on the stamina reduction, but the Death Strike boost and Rune Tap charge fixes that. Props on this change.

Yes, I ignored most changes I was okay with, covered in some degree (like all the stuff being rolled into Pestilence/Blood Boil and Scented Blood change), and ignored most "meh" things. As I mentioned above, I have issues with the tier of the talent tree with Conversion, Death Pact, and Death Siphon, and this below, makes it harder.

*
----
Since the Ghoul pet is now Unholy only, that presents a problem for Death Pact. We revised Death Pact to not require an undead minion, but work a little differently. We left it at 50% heal, which is effectively a 33% buff to it from before (see Retuning Healing Spells and Player Health and Resilience above), and added a healing absorption shield for 50% of the amount healed instead. It should now be a more effective heal for staying alive immediately, but with the downside of needing to heal through the healing absorption shield before being healed any further.

-Death Pact no longer requires an undead minion, and instead places a healing absorption shield on the Death Knight for 50% of the amount healed.
----

The issue here is that healing absorb shield. "But it heals you more" some will say, but that is a huge healing absorb shield, and effectively, a nerf. Why not reduce the healing gained from it, and kill the healing absorb shield? Death Siphon is a shitty choice because rune regen's going to be garbage without Improved Blood Presence and relying so heavily on Haste, a DPS stat. Conversion sucks because they increased the cost of using it and if memory serves correct, nerfed it's health regain per tic.
- Conversion no longer has an initial tick, and now costs 30 Runic Power/second for Blood, 10 Runic Power/second for Frost, and 20 Runic Power/second for Unholy.
That cost is extreme.

Finally, this. I have some confusion, here.

Level-60 rune regeneration talents can now be triggered by all Runic Power spenders
-Blood Tap now generates one charge for every 15 Runic Power spent.
-Runic Empowerment now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent.
-Runic Corruption now has a 1.5% chance to trigger per Runic Power spent.

Runic Empowerment and Runic Corruption question I'd like an answer to. Is that 1.5% chance per Runic Power period, or does it stack up to higher percentages the more Runic Power you spend? Say I use 30 Runic Power on a Death Coil. Does that give me a 45% chance to get RE or RC to happen, or still just a 1.5% chance for every Runic Power, essentially giving me a 1.5% chance?

[ezekiel graves]

Well even though I believe these things you have mentioned are surely nerfs, these nerfs have hit all of the other tanking classes. To be honest we were the most relaxing and chilling tank in this world and also, other tanks were just pushing for their limits to solo tank some tough bosses or conditions. This, I believe have been an issue on the tank community as it was too out of control that every tank was roflstomp tanking everything. With the new stat distribution and combat system, and due to people's suggestions about making the game hard this is what we have. And with that, all of other classes are getting some different or nerfing hits to their abilities, gameplays etc. As the whole game itself is changing into a challenging game, these things should be done in order to harden the gameplay wholly. Less mitigation, less avoidance etc. will cause a chain hard gameplay to raids which have to be actually this way. You still have some points on your post like removing some polishing stuff from specs etc are extremely unneccesary indeed. And to be honest, I have never seen blizzard taking a serious and right step. And this seems like it is in their nature. And we cant blame them about this, it's just the way blizzard are. "It's a Jersey thing man"

[Dastreus]

I get that a lot of classes were nerfed. Just, the resource nerf hurts, and needing to get DPS gear for tanking just... so, so wrong.

[Resurgo]

I'm not sure of my future as a blood DK. I'm leveling a warrior for now just in case.

Might try tanking as a Paladin, who knows?

[arnoldr45]

My blood DK is forever retired.

He feels more like a caster than a wielder of a 2h sword. Who the fuck decided it was cool to be casting more spells than using the iconic DK weapon?!

[Deleted]

I hate that they removed Heart Strike. I know it was becomming useless but they should of included it, it is so iconic for Blood.

[Deleted]

While I agree with you one some things, like the Ghoul being Unholy-only, I have to point out a few things.

- Horn of Winter no longer generates Runic Power, has no cooldown, and lasts 1 hour.
Way to reduce utility.

How is it "reducing utility"? This is just pruning active abilities; HoW offered close to zero depth rotationally.

- Death Strike now causes healing that scales in effectiveness with attack power, instead of based on damage taken in the last 5 seconds. This healing is affected by Resolve.
Probably evens out to current numbers, but uncertain. As a side note: "For plate-wearing Tank specializations, Riposte has been redesigned to convert Critical Strike into Parry, a defensive stat. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them." Why did they ever decide this? Tanks will just be rolling on DPS plate, now. I know I would. Especially because of: "To solve GCD- capping issues and increase the value of Haste, we also removed the passive rune regeneration increase from Improved Blood Presence." So you nerfed improved blood presence, and killed rune regen, so more Blood tanks will roll on DPS Plate??? Are you out of your fucking MIND, Blizzard?? Oh, and I bet Tanks won't even get DPS plate (crit and haste stats) in LFRs.

There will be no more Tank-only armor pieces, since Dodge and Parry are removed from gear past MoP, so of course they'll be rolling on items with Crit/Haste/Multistrike.

Also, some abilities (e.g. Pillar of Frost) have a Draenor perk to make it the same as before (actually slightly better in case of PoF) and Icebound Fortitude is not specifically a Blood-only nerf, they also nerfed Warriors' Shield Wall and Prot Paladins' Guardian of Ancient Kings, for example, by the same amount (-4sec duration).

[PuppetShowJustice]

Heart Strike and Blood Worms going away are the ones that really irk me. Especially the worms since they were probably the biggest visual flair piece not named Dancing Rune Weapon that we had. Were they good? No. But they were iconic.

[Deleted]

"My 90 DK with over 118 days /played is now my bank alt." - This is what I said when i first saw the changes to DK's. I am now enjoying a monk.

[Cryopathy]

All of these "nerfs" are to make every single class, not just Blood DK's, fit Blizzard's new ideas for game design. Every single class has been "nerfed" and had "iconic abilities" removed or merged in a similar way. They want every single tank to be more dependent on healers, not just Blood DKs. Thus they lowered the duration and power of all tank cooldowns, not just Blood DKs. They want all tanks to do less damage in comparison to DPS players, not just Blood DKs.

The abilities they removed were abilities that either no longer fit their new idea for design, didn't provide interesting gameplay choices (Blood Parasites are completely passive, you have no control over them). Read the rest of the patch notes and the reasons for these changes instead of just the Blood DK changes.

Regarding your RP issues, I can understand, but Blizzard's priority is gameplay first and foremost, not the small minority of players who RP.

[Stacie]

No one stays away long :P. Already been said everyone was nerfed (well all tanks anyways) We always will be the random tank thats amazing at 1-2 fights and not so amazing for the rest anyway. Just normal mobility issues and our raid cooldowns.. or should i say cooldown sucks.

[Digory Kirke]

Half of your complaints are about Roleplaying your DK. Maybe use the Dual Spec and Equipment Manager feature when you want to RP? :\

[Dristereau]

I will be playing my DK for 6.0 as it is my Main Tank regarding Mists of Pandaria and needed for my Guild. As of Warlords going Live I will drop it and play my Paladin or Warrior for Tanking.

[Begrudge]

I am glad about the ability pruning, there was literally no downtime as a blood DK, you could literally faceroll the keyboard, i got gold tank for blood and ltierrally did not look at what I was pushing except to interupt. It needed some pruning everything was just too useful and made it so that there was no real wrong moves unless you were doing heroic modes.

[Dastreus]

How is it "reducing utility"? This is just pruning active abilities; HoW offered close to zero depth rotationally.


There will be no more Tank-only armor pieces, since Dodge and Parry are removed from gear past MoP, so of course they'll be rolling on items with Crit/Haste/Multistrike.

Having optional 10 Runic Power on command was nice, but not too big a gripe. Just kind of a :/ reaction.

Thanks for the intel on the no more tank-only gear. Did not know this. Gonna suck for plate DPS classes.

[Deleted]

Blood Parasites were removed because they'd be hilariously overpowered in their current state with all the healing changes, all tanks were nerfed, Heart Strike was a shit ability, don't personally care that it was removed. I would rather have that removed than BB for AoE purposes. Oh, and 'dps' plate doesn't exist anymore, it's just as good for tanking as it is for dps. OP, maybe you should take your head out of your ass before making stupid comments and whining just because a vocal minority are hopping on a band wagon.

Not even gonna bother commenting on other stuff. If you actually read all the changes going in to WoD you'd know why the majority of these changes are happening and the logic behind them, the only somewhat one I agree with is the pruning of almost all the blood abilities, but I'd rather have a spec that is good than one that plays below sub-par compared to other tanks and has unnecessary buttons.

[OneTripleZero]

- Icebound Fortitude now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
Dem Blood DK nerfs. (My favorite Spec since WotLK day 1.)

Apparently not, seeing as it hasn't even been the same spec the whole time.

[Dastreus]

Apparently not, seeing as it hasn't even been the same spec the whole time.

It still had it's core playstyle all that time. Health drains and good dps. Mark of Blood was amusing against would-be gankers.

[Keile]

It still had it's core playstyle all that time. Health drains and good dps. Mark of Blood was amusing against would-be gankers.

I loved using MoB on the first boss in The Nexus during WotLK. On heroic, if you hit her with it before she did her aoe that flung your entire group around the room she would heal them for more than she hurt them.


Anyway:
All the listed tank CD "nerfs" are also across the board to ALL tanks. They balanced incoming damage to compensate, so the spell may be "weaker" but so are the attacks you are mitigating. They did similar changes to every single tank. This includes Blood Presence changes, they did similar changes to defensive stance. THEY TUNED MOB DAMAGE TO COMPENSATE. You don't need the extra mitigation since the incoming damage was scaled down to match the scaled down abilities.

They also increased tank dps overall, so keep that in mind when you see abilities damage being tuned down.
Army of the Dead is no longer channeled, which is a huge advantage. The downside to this is it is also no longer a mitigation CD (which is mainly what I used it for anyway, not for damage).

Duel wield is only viable as frost anyway, so why does it matter?

Raise Dead did minimal damage, as blood it should have been macroed to Death Pact anyway. Basically they did us a favor and simply made Death Pact work on its own.

Rune trimming: There were really only 4 runes every used. Stoneskin Gargoyle (for Pre-WoD heroic raid progression), Swordshattering (for 5mans->Pre-Wod Normal progression), Razorice (for frost offhands), Fallen Crusader (Frost Mainhands, Frost 2h, Unholy). The others were really just worthless.

Overall playing my Blood DK felt absolutely no different, save for using Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike and Rune Tap as a "Shield Block" tactic when large physical hits are coming.

[Jackkernaut]

After Firelands i don't think Blood is in a barrel.
Personally the only annoying things are the Blood Boil sound/animation and the fact i need to pick Death Siphon/conv. for soloing stuff.
Can't find RETARDERLY upside down change for the play style. Bring back old SoB(BB casting brings D-headachez >< ).
I love the new Rune Tap BTW.