also posted on the wow dk forum
"Anything I can do they can do better"
Let's analyze the total lack of spec identity for blood. If we can keep our non-mechanical issues into one thread, then maybe we can get some sort of response. Mechanics wise, I think we're good enough for myself to continue to find the spec enjoyable, but taking a look at the front page of this generally quiet subforum, It seems half of it regards to Blood in some sort of mechanical/aesthetic way.
For starters, let's talk about our main attacks. Death Coil, Death Strike, Blood Boil. If you were to unlearn a spec on a Death Knight right now, all 3 of those abilities are usable without a spec. The only thing we would lose that is visually defining is Dancing Rune Weapon, which isn't very noticeable for those 8 or so seconds now that it's down to every minute and a half. What else do we have that visually is impacting?
-Bone shield was originally unholy, and while Blood has had it for the vast majority now of the spec's lifespan, it still visually more unholy, much like how Icebound fortitude is visually a frost ability.
-Death and Decay is available for each spec
-Army of the Dead, thanks to a huge vocal riot, is still available for each spec.
-Our talent system is shared with the other specs as well.
One problem Blood suffers from right now, that no other tank, (possibly even class/spec) suffers from is the total lack of anything unique to our offensive moveset. From the get-go it doomed us to have no offensive identity. Not that it was strong to begin with, but it was miles better than what we are given This was bolstered by our ability prune.
We lost Heart Strike, Blood Worms, and Rune Strike (let's exclude raise dead for the sake of keeping this about blood identity).
With Heart Strike and Rune Strike, we lost what made our rotation look different on our bars from other specs. Heart Strike had been there since the class was given to us in Wrath, and Rune Strike has been our runic dump since Cata, now the majority of Death Knight's lifespan.
Blood Worms also feel like a loss. I hated them mechanically 99% of the time, the exception was on Malkorak and being top healer lol, but now that they're gone it really bums me out.
We lost everything that made our spec look different. Death Coil was a welcome change, as it gave our attack animations a bit of variation, using the 1h attack animation, but trading Heart Strike for Blood Boil, a spell, feels like it weakens the "fantasy."
What Blood is left with that make it mechanically different, is the assortment of cooldowns. 2 of which being blood themed. Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap. Both of them create a little rune over your head and small, red and purple particles very close to your character. That is it folks. That's what differentiates us from unspecced, frost and unholy. Tiny purple and red spell effects. When new players are looking at how cool class abilities are visually, they're going to look at blood and say "gosh look at those red and purple flame things. Look at that squiggle over their heads! I need to play a Blood Death knight."
We have no visual flair. Our ONLY remaining original blood ability that had any sort of visual impact is Dancing Rune Weapon. We have no blood worms gorging on the toes of our enemies and exploding into a bloody pulp. There is no visual representation of the life we are stealing from the boss we're protecting our allies from. What does Rune Tap do to you that makes you look like you're protecting yourself from that incoming damage? Why are 80% of my abilities spells when my spec has been about smacking things with my 2 hander violently for 6-7 years?
These are concerns that were expressed by players for months of the beta cycle. For weeks of PTR testing. It continues with a larger voice now that our "unique" spec is released to the masses. Visual impact is extremely important to a majority of players. Players roll Shadow Priests because Shadowform is awesome. Players want to turn into a Demon as a demo lock. Arcane Orb has the mage community excited to play with. The problem is NOT that Death Knights are melee. If you go and play a fury warrior, you're smacking things with your dual wielded two handers. If you play a Prot warrior you're going to look like you're protecting yourself and bashing things in the face with your shield. If you play an enhancement shaman, you're attacks have lightning and lava shooting out of your weapons. They have been totally silent on the situation, except for renaming pestilence to Blood Boil again. yay
Enhancement shamans lost Storm Blast, the Ascendance replacement for Stormstrike, in exchange for Windstrike,"because the lightning didnt fit the theme" https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...36693054599168
So please Blizzard, tell me. What is the theme of blood? Why can't we see it?
I would personally like to see Blood Boil visually reworked and renamed, but function the same. We'll call it Heart Strike. The Death Knight swings their weapon in front of them, angling the swing towards the ground to hit their weapon abruptly at their side ending of the swing. (so a curve). Preserve the new red blood boil effect, but make the pestilence effect red. To make everyone happy, give Blood a minor glyph to replace the above heart strike with the current live blood boil. DKs are in need of some minor glyph love anyway.
I would like to see some sort of effect signifying the draining of the life of you death strike target.
Also, Rune tap coild be given the shield proc effect from the tank meta, but red.
Blood worms that spawn on multistrikes that do trivial, ignorable damage. Purely aesthetic.
plx blizz halp
For those of you who wish to help consolidate feedback on the dk class forums to hopefully get some sort of acknowledgement on this ever-growing issue, a link if you are interested: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...12989?page=1#0