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  1. #1

    Where is Blood's Identity?

    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
    Last edited by Aezral; 2014-10-23 at 06:11 PM.

  2. #2
    I have been trying to figure out why I am hating blood on the beta. After reading this I am starting to feel that this may be exactly what my issue with the spec is. It feels more like a petless unholy spec than what blood is, was, and should always be. I think the identity is completely lost with the 6.0 version of blood. the 5.x version of blood was great to me, Changing rune tap to what it is now with the 5.x kit I think would have been a great change. As well as obviously making it so DKs can tank every boss, the fact that bringing a blood DK for Ra-Den was basically considered exceptionally stupid, it was also something they should have used as a way to make it so it never happened again.

    The original revamp of blood actually sounded amazing. It sounded like it would keep it's identity as well as make us a solid choice for tanking. If that went through I would probably be happy with the spec. However the fact that blood has always been about heavy hitting physical abilities to now be turned into basically one main melee attack and a semi-melee attack sub 35% is actually horrible imo. I'm hoping the removal of things like rune strike and heart strike is due to them trying to bring back blood dps. However that is just wishful thinking. I know wow needed a sword and board dps class, but it should have gone to prot pallies instead(give them two options to dps with, since warriors already have two dps options). However I feel like it was exceptionally wrong to not include DKs back in that considering we were very unique in WotLK when we could tank and dps with every spec. Not saying every spec was viable, or good to do either with at every point of the expansion but we at least had choice which is something they should do with DKs. As I have said numerous times, the majority of DKs I personally know who play 2H frost only play it because they loved Blood DPS. It perfectly resembles blood of wotlk hard heavy hitting attacks. If they brought blood back I'd like to see frost turned into a spec that can use a 2H or two 1Hs but the rotation stays the same and it becomes a mix of both magical and physical spec(which is one of the reasons I loved frost in wotlk aside from the fast paced nature of playing it).

    I guess I'm just rambling, but overall I'm just saying I agree with you, and I feel like that is why I hate blood in 6.0/beta after reading this.

  3. #3
    I am Murloc! WskyDK's Avatar
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    What really bugs me about the changes, is that a silence is goddamn devastating. Hope you like to autoattack
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaerys View Post
    Gaze upon the field in which I grow my fucks, and see that it is barren.

  4. #4
    The Patient Ald's Avatar
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    While i may be a DK for life, there's just no denying how much more interesting and fun tanking is on warrior or paladin compared to us. We're just missing that "something". I still don't understand why they don't rework Death Grip to pull us to mobs that are immune. That along with one more attack would go a long way into spicing up the spec.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Totally agree, Blood is completely lacking any kind of flavour now.

    I made a thread a few days ago about adding another weapon attack to bloods rotation; I think that would be a simple way to bring back the "bloody" feel.

    I'd personally like some spec-specific talents as well, with a focus on the bloody, vampiric theme for blood dks. I'd also love to see bloodworms back, even if they did something other than healing. They just added a good feeling to the spec.

  6. #6
    Blood Coil - replaces Death Coil
    Same as Death Coil, but a red skull and steals health from enemies

    Glyph of Blood Shield
    The bones of your Bone Shield are replaced with Blood bubbles

    Glyph of Sanguine Fortitude
    Icebound Fortitude is now redder
    Quote Originally Posted by Gatsbybutters View Post
    This is actually favorite herb to farm. I'll hop in vent while the guild is running mythics and w/e and talk about me farming it.
    "How many fargenshlackle does it take to rank 3?"
    "I keep falling off these ledges farming this fragglerockenfargle"
    "I can't get this fargenfoliac to gather... is this fargenfurter node bugged" And so on until they mute me.

  7. #7
    it's one of the reasons why I'm going pala in wod
    blood DKs don't exist anymore, it's just an unholy DK that death strikes a bit more and doesn't have a pet

  8. #8
    Death Strike is now called Vampiric strike, and has fang animation dropping on your enemies.
    Obliterate looks like an axe smashing a piece of ice, (think devastate)
    (i haven't thought of anything for scourge strike yet)
    Blood boil animation should cause all affected targets explode blood, and use whirlwind animation.
    Nyaaaa~

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by JKinTMC View Post
    Blood Coil - replaces Death Coil
    Same as Death Coil, but a red skull and steals health from enemies

    Glyph of Blood Shield
    The bones of your Bone Shield are replaced with Blood bubbles

    Glyph of Sanguine Fortitude
    Icebound Fortitude is now redder
    Even something as simple and easily implemented as this would be greatly, truly, very much appreciated Blizzard! Things like this DO make a difference, even if it's only cosmetic.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by FiXThEPiEcEs View Post
    Even something as simple and easily implemented as this would be greatly, truly, very much appreciated Blizzard! Things like this DO make a difference, even if it's only cosmetic.
    I still feel we would need another physical strike for flavor. While those would help a TON...I still feel blood is lacking a reliable blood rune strike. By that I mean can be used anytime with no cooldown or added damage sub 35%.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by RuneDK View Post
    I still feel we would need another physical strike for flavor. While those would help a TON...I still feel blood is lacking a reliable blood rune strike. By that I mean can be used anytime with no cooldown or added damage sub 35%.
    indeed
    maybe it could also cleave!
    and for flavor it could have something with strike or hmm what's blood related, for example heart in it's name!


  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Enosh View Post
    indeed
    maybe it could also cleave!
    and for flavor it could have something with strike or hmm what's blood related, for example heart in it's name!

    See, the deal with Heart Strike vs Blood boil is they both technically cleave. I would be all for bringing heart strike back putting all it's cleave damage into single target(so it hit's pretty hard). This way we would have to choose between single target or AoE.

  13. #13
    Herald of the Titans Chain Chungus's Avatar
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    They need to give Blood the now removed Rune of Swordshattering (bleeding weapon enchant) and "Unholy" Frenzy (was originally Blood) animations.

  14. #14
    They need to do a total drastic visual overhaul for blood's abilities. Everything looks so dated when compared to, for an extreme example, a monk.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Aezral View Post
    They need to do a total drastic visual overhaul for blood's abilities. Everything looks so dated when compared to, for an extreme example, a monk.
    Try Retribution Paladin, HOLY SHIT, blinded by animation effects
    Nyaaaa~

  16. #16
    Something as simple as a Blood unique runeforge with a nice visual on your weapon would help a lot in my eyes. The weapon that I hold doesn't feel like a part of my class anymore. Dancing Rune Weapon isn't attacking with my weapon. Blood Boil, Death Coil. Still not attacking with my weapon. I feel like a spellcaster. And I suffer accordingly when I'm silenced. They should let me transmog into cloth sets at this point.

    I also completely feel you on the loss of the blood worms. They usually didn't contribute hardly anything but they gave me a bit more presence on and field.

    Currently playing Borderlands 1 remaster. Amped for Borderlands 3.
    Add me on the PSN for jolly-cooperation @ PuppetShoJustice

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by WskyDK View Post
    What really bugs me about the changes, is that a silence is goddamn devastating. Hope you like to autoattack
    This a thousand times. No other spec is punished the way blood is at the moment in this fashion.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by JKinTMC View Post
    Blood Coil - replaces Death Coil
    Same as Death Coil, but a red skull and steals health from enemies

    Glyph of Blood Shield
    The bones of your Bone Shield are replaced with Blood bubbles

    Glyph of Sanguine Fortitude
    Icebound Fortitude is now redder
    I also like these ideas.

    Overall blood feels very strange on live. I knew it was going to, but after playing it a bit more I feel weak and not like a tank. Having only one spell with melee range is super bizarre. I don't feel like a tank and I really don't feel like I need a weapon from the specs perspective. DS is the only attack that is really weapon based everything else is a spell. That is fine in idea, but so far its off putting, maybe after I keep playing I'll like it more, but blood was at one point my favorite spec in game. It has since fallen down a bit in that area, but I have hope. I think its interesting to be the caster tank, but it just doesn't feel right yet. I don't think we'll see anymore drastic change sadly, with Blizzard seemingly behind on production, so I fear it will be closer to 6.1 before we see any changes. Who knows maybe once we start gearing up and actually tanking a finished boss fight it won't be as awkward, but now Blood plays and looks like the oddest spec in the game.

    Also, did Blood Boil's animation change, it doesn't seem as visiaully distinct as I remember. Or maybe its just my graphics, it used to appear better as a red bubble pop, not it just looks like I"m taunting/shouting/etc
    Last edited by Zoldor; 2014-10-20 at 07:31 PM.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Zoldor View Post
    This a thousand times. No other spec is punished the way blood is at the moment in this fashion.

    - - - Updated - - -



    I also like these ideas.

    Overall blood feels very strange on live. I knew it was going to, but after playing it a bit more I feel weak and not like a tank. Having only one spell with melee range is super bizarre. I don't feel like a tank and I really don't feel like I need a weapon from the specs perspective. DS is the only attack that is really weapon based everything else is a spell. That is fine in idea, but so far its off putting, maybe after I keep playing I'll like it more, but blood was at one point my favorite spec in game. It has since fallen down a bit in that area, but I have hope. I think its interesting to be the caster tank, but it just doesn't feel right yet. I don't think we'll see anymore drastic change sadly, with Blizzard seemingly behind on production, so I fear it will be closer to 6.1 before we see any changes. Who knows maybe once we start gearing up and actually tanking a finished boss fight it won't be as awkward, but now Blood plays and looks like the oddest spec in the game.

    Also, did Blood Boil's animation change, it doesn't seem as visiaully distinct as I remember. Or maybe its just my graphics, it used to appear better as a red bubble pop, not it just looks like I"m taunting/shouting/etc
    BB's animation did indeed change, so did pestilence, I can bearly see my diseases spreading
    Nyaaaa~

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by blasterion View Post
    BB's animation did indeed change, so did pestilence, I can bearly see my diseases spreading
    Okay, glad it isn't just my insanity. I was thinking the same thing the other night that my diseases weren't spreading but as I looked at the mobs it showed them there, it just wasn't very convincing visually that it occurred.

  20. #20
    Soul reaper is so out of place and I wish they didn't scrap Rune Strike AND Heart Strike. It makes Blood feel very weak. If they at least kept one I could probably live with it.

    Kill Soul reaper.

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