Do you miss Heart Strike (as a concept)?

[Rainec]

I've been trying to get into making a tank offset now that my dps gear is decent and Blood's new priority system is fine, but I just can't stand how it "feels" since HS got replaced by Blood Boil. No, I didn't play the beta or tank much at all since the spell changes, so I didn't notice really till now.

I guess I've just imagined Blood as "the mighty two-handed weapon tank, cleaving foes with high physical damage". Now it feels like I'm spamming this lame little red Horn of Winter recolor that does shadow damage in every direction, but I've main'd Frost for years, so Howling Blast has always painted a cooler picture.

Yea, having the enemy's blood actually boil sounds powerful, but for most of its past, BB was that weak little AoE ability Frost never used, Unholy used a little bit with diseases still doing the huge majority of damage, and Blood used because, well, it was that much weaker AoE than HS, but hit every direction and didn't have a target limit, and D&D was slower and more expensive.

Probably doesn't help I've been spoiled so long by DW Frost's AoE dmg.

I'd pay big gold for a glyph just to get the sounds and visual to change back good ol' Heart Strike. Wouldn't even be hard, just make the tooltip say the DK quickly sweeps his weapon in every direction and spreads/prolongs his existing diseases on the nearby targets.

[dr_AllCOM3]

I don't want two buttons for the same effect.

[Rainec]

I don't want two buttons for the same effect.

That's not what I asked. I didn't like using both either, but it shocks me they got rid of the more iconic spell for the spec.

[barrsftw]

Seems legit. Just make heartstrike spread diseases and remove BB from blood.

[Kraeth]

'They feel Blood Death Knights are using their magic too much and aren’t using their weapon enough. They need to make them use their strikes again, but it likely won’t be in the immediate future.'

From the dev interview. And yes, I still feel awkward using BB in a ST scenario.

[Rawfury]

blood dk dps were the days man. I missed the hell out of that and heart strike
BLIZZARD PLS

[Aezral]

My suggestion was to give blood boil a new unique animation, akin to a huge frontal cleave and the heartstrike sound, name and icon. I don't miss prioritizing ST vs AoE damage anymore nearly as much as I did. I'm focusing on mitigating and tracking runes. I got SO happy when I saw they are acknowledging the shift to being magic vs physical aesthetically. They said in the interview it may require some more class rework rather than animation changes.

[Evida]

I found it very much boring to use mostly only two abilities in blood rotation...not cause they are more effective - cause there are just only 2 of them I wake up at nights sometimes cause of that hard void sound of bloodboil in me head

[Deleted]

Blood boil being a spell, and thus affected by silence, becomes especially rage inducing on ko'ragh if you're assigned to dragging adds into the silencing pools so they don't blow up when they die.

[Museigen]

In the interview the devs reply to people not liking blood boil from a mechanic standpoint, as in spamming an AoE on single target, their answer was "We had some feedback before WoD that people just used blood boil over heart strike anyway." Can someone explain the benefit to me of designing the game around people intentionally "wrong?" That answer just boggles my mind, well we got some feedback that people wanted to hammer one button regardless of what was happening on screen so we made it work like that. It makes me wonder about future design when they also mentioned after cutting so many abilities it proved that they could cut even more earlier in the interview. Where is the line drawn, one button specs in the next xpac?

At least they finally noticed Blood only has on melee ability, two if you include our magical damage execute as a "Melee Ability."

[Always]

No I don't miss it. It was worthless. I don't get everyone's hangup on this topic. Like my grandparents refusing to get a cordless phone. And then when I finally replace it with a much better version that gives them freedom and does everything better and for the same cost they bitch about wanting their ball and chain back.

[Murderdoll]

I dont miss Heart Strike specifically. Although I think I could certainly do with one more ability. I know Im supposed to be a tank and this may be a low gearing issue, but it feels like theres a very large gap for something to be in.

[Always]

In the interview the devs reply to people not liking blood boil from a mechanic standpoint, as in spamming an AoE on single target, their answer was "We had some feedback before WoD that people just used blood boil over heart strike anyway." Can someone explain the benefit to me of designing the game around people intentionally "wrong?" That answer just boggles my mind, well we got some feedback that people wanted to hammer one button regardless of what was happening on screen so we made it work like that. It makes me wonder about future design when they also mentioned after cutting so many abilities it proved that they could cut even more earlier in the interview. Where is the line drawn, one button specs in the next xpac?

At least they finally noticed Blood only has on melee ability, two if you include our magical damage execute as a "Melee Ability."

Go look at old logs from top guilds in MOP and you will find their blood tanks were not using HS. They were using BB because it hit more targets and could be glyphed to give them snap aggro by hitting targets like the diseases were already present. And I know you are going to argue that just because top guilds do it doesn't mean everyone else did, but the truth is you are wrong and they should have been.

[Deztru]

Might aswell start using staves for the spellpower these days

[Museigen]

Go look at old logs from top guilds in MOP and you will find their blood tanks were not using HS. They were using BB because it hit more targets and could be glyphed to give them snap aggro by hitting targets like the diseases were already present. And I know you are going to argue that just because top guilds do it doesn't mean everyone else did, but the truth is you are wrong and they should have been.

No, I'm going to argue that you fail at reading comprehension. The feedback was about blood boil on single target, it was specifically stated as such. Let me break it down for you, I said "I don't like hitting an AoE ability on single target" You replied, "But it hits more targets." As far as the snap aggro thing, if someone is losing aggro to DPS/Heals then they couldn't change the game enough to help. Even with glyphed blood boil the "Snap aggro" of blood was a drop in the ocean compared to warriors/monks.

Cordless phone, really? Mashing one button no matter whats happening on the screen is freedom with more features? I can't even begin to explain where the wrong is in that thought process. Step one remove any options, step two make it brain dead step three...call it freedom so people will like it.

[Tradu]

The thing is I can't see how it is remotely "iconic", the iconic attack of a blood DK is Blood Strike.

Also this has been discussed before.

The iconic spell that Blood never actually used because Heart Strike was better?

[Raiju]

That doesn't change that that one was the iconic one.

That's exactly what it means. You got heart strike before leaving the starting zone as blood originally. It was THE replacement to blood strike.

Your argument is akin to saying primal strike is iconic to enhancement, because they use it for a few low levels before getting their actual ability stormstrike.

OT: I miss heart strike, I'd like it back in some form but the focus on physical sounds promising.

Echo that koragh is awful.

[Krisppo]

Only thing I'm missing in regards to HS is that we are completely useless if silenced. Same goes for DC replacing RS.

[Dasani]

I think DK's are in a very good place right now.

My one and only complaint is that if you get silenced, you can't do anything but death strike, but that doesn't occur too often or the silence mechanics in highmaul all seem to pacify as well making this kind of irrelevant.

I really hope they don't muck with them too much.

Honestly one of the reasons I despise playing a paladin tank is the Crusader Strike/Hammer of the Righteous difference. You gotta constantly spam one or the other based on the number of adds and it just feels wonky and stupid. For some reason, I never really felt this way about Heart Strike/Blood Boil choice, I guess it's because of the nature of runes you don't have to use them immediately. However, i'd still rather not see that dynamic come back at all. Blood boil feels good to me, as does death coil.

Maybe they could just change Death Coil to BE Rune strike while in melee range with the same icon, animation, effect, etc but once moved out of melee then it becomes a death coil. Because the whole strikes vs spells thing is just an illusion anyway, it makes no mechanical difference. I suppose course they'd have to make it still do shadow damage to avoid people trying to game it to alternate physical/shadow but still. Seems like that would solve a lot of problems without creating new ones.

[bergmann620]

They should have re-created Heart Strike (keeping the name) as 'Poisoned Fan of Knives'... Then, get rid of Outbreak and Bloodboil for Blood. Soul Reaper extends diseases if it expires on a target above execute range.

Boom. AoE flexibility. Secondary physical strike. Seperate AoE and Single Target moves. 'Bloodboil' no longer feels terrible.

At the very least, can I get a less subtle graphic for the disease spread from bloodboil?