Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Deleted]

Made a short recording of Blood multi target for people to get a feel about how it's going to look like. Judge for yourself whether this is something you would like or not. And as always - but more importantly regarding the tank survival balance stuff - alpha is alpha.

Thanks for that video, that's really helpful to us who aren't on the alpha and can't try it ourselves.

It seems DnD is still bugged where it procs instantly without resetting the CD (or doesn't get consumed, can't really tell), prevents it from proccing again and runs out before the CD is over. I think this exaggerates the problem of being tied to a location as a blood DK. Considering how much we gain from DnD a 15s cd seems really long in any kind of movement scenario. I don't know how long the effective CD would be without that bug, but I think at this point they should just remove the CD from DnD for blood entirely, as it doesn't really serve a purpose anymore and is just annoying.

Tremble Before me breaking on damage makes this talent about useless in group content. I understand it was too strong before, but now it seems rather lackluster. It's basically a random interrupt at that point, which is almost never useful. A better solution would be to give it a reduced duration (not a reduced proc chance though, it could become unreliable).

I think they went a bit overboard when pruning bloods mob control. We're already losing a ton of mobilty, and have a more dangerous AM than other classes. Now we're also at the bottom regarding mob control. I think that's a way too high price to pay for having the most sustainability of all tanks. We're now left with DG/GG(which has a way too long CD), and a 30% slow on BS.

(Opinion warning:
I'd like it if blood DKs niche was to be the "group control" tank. Stuff like Tremble Before Me and GG already fit that very well (although both are too weak currently).
DnD should slow enemies inside it, instead of having our slow tied to BS. Alternatively I'd like CoI back. GG CD reduced to 1/1.5min. Strangulate was extremely useful on occasions, but very situational and a bit redundant so I'm not too fussed about it being gone.)

I sadly can't test the 1.5s gcd for myself, but it didn't seem that extreme in the video, and from playing a bit with other tank classes, it really isn't that bad. It's probably just a bit jarring at the moment, but nothing you can't get used to. I agree that it doesn't exactly help with our reactive AM model, but it's too early to tell whether or not that will be a problem in legion. DS off the gcd would be amazing though.

[Deleted]

I apologize, because I don't intend nor want to derail this thread, but what was Skullflower's purpose in joining up with Blizzard? Was he even going to be looking at Death Knights at all? Or was he in a completely unrelated position?

Back on topic:
Tyvi, thanks again for the video and info!

From what I remember, he's working for them in their QA department, so he's testing internal builds, trying to find bugs and whatever else Quality Assurance handles at blizzard, but he's definitely not a developer. He might be able to provide feedback to the developers and thus get them to change something, but that's not really any different from what we can do through the forums, twitter etc.

[Deleted]

I didn't play on alpha for long time but didn't consuption scale with dmg taken? Maybe they changed it :/ What stats have you haste% etc... and talents. Aaaaand it look so boring like before :/ I would like to Purgatory be baseline for b dk because others 2 will always suck.

Stats: http://i.imgur.com/YKoT3Hp.png
Due to downscaling this is actually even less than 5% Haste and the closest you can get to a pure a 1.5 sec GCD.
Talents: Heart Strike, Rapid Decomp, Anti-Magic Barrier, Rune Tap, Foul Bulwark, Bonestorm
I later transitioned to Purgatory because getting in Rune Taps was annoying and burst was too high.

I think they went a bit overboard when pruning bloods mob control. We're already losing a ton of mobilty, and have a more dangerous AM than other classes. Now we're also at the bottom regarding mob control. I think that's a way too high price to pay for having the most sustainability of all tanks. We're now left with DG/GG(which has a way too long CD), and a 30% slow on BS.

Absolutely true and probably caused by PvP issues, as well. In honesty though, I understood the dev's point of view and supported it when it was supposed to be a global disarmarment of CC, snares etc.
But in reality, this is simply not the case. 16 yard ranged Thunder Clap exists. 25 yard range Keg Smash (15 sec CD 50% snare really?) exists. Heroic Leap, Transcedence, Divine Steed (talented at 30 sec cd, 100% speed, 4 sec duration, 20% DR), Infernal Strike etc. also still exist. Plus the various hard CC abilities.

If Blood were to regain Chilblains, Chains of Ice and -15 secs on Wraith Walk they would still not be overpowered and fit right into the middle of tanks. Still no hard CC but amazing snares and average to below average mobility.

[Lord Havik]

Getting flashbacks to crapaclysm and the shenanigans that was trying to tank Heroic Firelands as a BDK.

/shudder

[Resurgo]

Sadly, most of these changes make me simply want to level/learn another class.

For the moment, I've decided to use the pre-order's instant 100 to boost a monk. Guess I'll start there.

[figuratively]

Sadly, most of these changes make me simply want to level/learn another class.

For the moment, I've decided to use the pre-order's instant 100 to boost a monk. Guess I'll start there.

I'm not there, yet. I'm very wary about everything going on, but I haven't had a chance to actually try it yet. If I decide I don't like what they've done, I'll have to decide if I'll level a different tank or play Unholy instead.

[Ikrekot]

How works Foul Bulwark. I was running before with Exhume and WotN. This 1min cd confuse me and didn't test it on alpha.

[Deleted]

Exhume is plain bad, never spec this (it's Ossuary levels of bad). It mathes out to ~2 extra Blood Strikes every minute over a Marrowrend so it's 10 RP/min.

WotN is a good passive option in that it always works and increases your effective health by 20% when you are below 35% or get taken below 35% but does nothing else if you are above that treshhold.

Foul Bulwark gives you 15% to 30% max health at any given time considering the ideal play is to Marrowrend when you have 5 Bone Shield charges or less (Marrowrend gives 4 charges with artifact plus 1 charge can proc from auto attacks).

[Deleted]

Exhume is plain bad, never spec this (it's Ossuary levels of bad). It mathes out to ~2 extra Blood Strikes every minute over a Marrowrend so it's 10 RP/min.

That makes it slightly better than Ossuary (still extremely bad), which gives you 1/2 extra Blood Strike (=2.5RP) IF you stand in DnD AND you hit multiple targets AND it procs.

Worth noting however is that Ossuary and Exhume being so terrible is not them having bad design (although that many conditions on Ossuary are at least questionable). It's that we currently gain no defensive benefit from generating extra Bone Shield charges, except for not having to use MR as frequently. This issue also means we should only use MR every X seconds, and there is no situation where it would be beneficial to use it more often. Personally, I think they should fix this root issue, instead of fixing the symptoms (Ossuary and Exhume being bad).

BTW, this problem exists for the same reason other issues exist, which is that there were a number of design changes to bloods core mechanics during alpha, but other abilities that depended on them are now left hanging in midair. Stuff like Ossuary or Exhume, Bloodworms and HS, and even simple things like Crimson Scourge or Bone Shield giving rune regen are pointless because of this. Blood has a lot of garbage lying around, and is in dire need of some clean up where these remains of previous iterations should be removed, leaving a more consistent core gameplay.
Hopefully we'll see some of that with the announced changes.

[Nayami]

Hopefully both of those talents will be gone by tonight

[Resurgo]

I can't help but wonder...

I didn't pay this much attention to WoD Alpha during MoP. Given a lot of the negativity I'm seeing surrounding tanks in general, plus a few random negative posts I see from a few dps classes here and there; Was there this much overall negativity surrounding WoD during Alpha/Beta? I would think that it would be worrisome if your playerbase isn't enthused. I even see folk already underwhelmed by Demonhunters and that's supposed to be a key thing...

[Deleted]

First glance over our talent changes: Pretty awesome.

[Ikrekot]

Gonna ask my friend to gain access in alpha. New build is pretty.

I was using Exhume when it was still great.

[Deleted]

Bloodworms: This change makes them immediately more useful, and allows for a range of gaming options. Absolutely fantastic change.
Exsanguinate: Clearly a good change, but nothing to get really excited about. Was hoping they'd do a bit more with it.
Rapid Decomposition/Ossuary: Now we're getting somewhere. This entire tier can be useful, and each talent changes our gameplay at least slightly. Also Soulgorge is no longer mandatory on ST. Very awesome change compared to the previous version.
Red Thirst: Love it, it's now on the same level compared to AMB. Nice Synergies with some of our other talents.
Tombstone: Exactly what I asked for: A way to manually consume Bone Shield charges. Looks really strong, considering you can just MR immediately after. 60s is too long for it to impact how we use MR most of the time, but it's clearly a really good addition to our toolkit.
Tightening Grasp: A slow on our DnD is amazing, works well with the reduced GG cooldown. It's now a really useful talent, might even be enough so I can accept a longer baseline GG cooldown.
March of the Damned: Not quite what we asked for. A longer duration isn't always desirable, considering it also prevents you from attacking for longer. It breaking CC is a very welcome change. Still, WW should baseline break on using abilities, instead of preventing their use, so we're not forced to use a /cancleaura macro.
Mark of Blood replaces Exhume: As stated before, Exhume was garbage, so I'm glad to see it's gone. Personally, I think Mark of Blood should have been moved to our lvl 100 row, replacing Blood Beasts which should be in our lvl 90 row, as it's too similar to the other two options.

Overall: Extremely nice changes, allows for at least slight changes to our gameplay where previously there were none, and it also adds some nice synergies to some of our talents.
There's still things that could be done with our spec, but it looks like we're in a pretty good spot now (except for Blood Beasts, they still don't do anything).

[Murderdoll]

Bloodworms wont be taken over Heartstrike or Exsanguinate. Sure its better than before. But thats not saying much. Its still not a good talent and the others offer far more in terms of sheer numbers and gameplay.

Soul Gorge has been rendered a non choice - good it was shit. Other talents seem interesting (Ossuary isnt working on Alpha).

Bulwark is still by far the strongest talent in that row.

Couple of changes here. Couple have really missed the mark. Some are good.

Still, its not the groundbreaking changes we need to keep the spec interesting and fun. Some nice interaction with Death and Decay and Runic Power Generation as well as Damage, but if Blood Boil is still useless for AoE and Threat we wont be using Death and Decay as it appears to be intended so the intention to have these abilities feed into others is kinda lost there if we are relying on it for AoE Damage/Threat. Happy that Soul Gorge has essentially been given the arse, it was terrible to use.

[Deleted]

Bloodworms wont be taken over Heartstrike or Exsanguinate. Sure its better than before. But thats not saying much. Its still not a good talent and the others offer far more in terms of sheer numbers and gameplay.

Soul Gorge has been rendered a non choice - good it was shit. Other talents seem interesting (Ossuary isnt working on Alpha).

Bulwark is still by far the strongest talent in that row.

Couple of changes here. Couple have really missed the mark. Some are good.

Still, its not the groundbreaking changes we need to keep the spec interesting and fun. Some nice interaction with Death and Decay and Runic Power Generation as well as Damage, but if Blood Boil is still useless for AoE and Threat we wont be using Death and Decay as it appears to be intended so the intention to have these abilities feed into others is kinda lost there if we are relying on it for AoE Damage/Threat. Happy that Soul Gorge has essentially been given the arse, it was terrible to use.

I gotta test once I get home after work Tombstone + Bulwark.

Since Tombstone gives you a shield based on your maximum health, and Foul Bulwark increments your maxmimum health, if you stack 10 stacks of Bone Shield and then use Tombstone, would you get that 40% maximum health shiled based on the modified max health from Bulwark or the base?

Gotta try it but I'm finally hyped for the Blood DK, last time I tried it it made me soo sad, but now, with worms being decent, with Exsanguinate reduced to 1 rune and 3s duration but same health, and changes to Rapid Decomposition and Red Thirst...I'm willing to try it again.

Still, I'd like to see AMS cooldown reduced to 45s...still feels too long that 1 minute, even more being used to the glyph nowadays that reduces cd based on absortion left.

Red Thirst is amazing by the way, 8s cooldown reduction for each Death Strike...

HYPU >.<

Gonna try today Blood DK again and this time with Mythic + Halls of Valor.

[Deleted]

Nice changes, except for March of the Damned, that's actually worse and male WW even more horrible.
Exanguinate seems really good now. Tombstone and Red Thrist are interesting.

To those who are in Alpha, pls let us know if the rotation is more intersting now that we can actually choose talents.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

Made a short recording of Blood multi target for people to get a feel about how it's going to look like. Judge for yourself whether this is something you would like or not. And as always - but more importantly regarding the tank survival balance stuff - alpha is alpha.

Looked like typical tank play for the most part. Grab everything you can and gradually AoE it all down. Biggest difference I saw was that you health bar was actually going up and down significantly. On live the only bar that moves for me is my Blood Shield tracker.

- - - Updated - - -

Bloodworms: This change makes them immediately more useful, and allows for a range of gaming options. Absolutely fantastic change.
Exsanguinate: Clearly a good change, but nothing to get really excited about. Was hoping they'd do a bit more with it.
Rapid Decomposition/Ossuary: Now we're getting somewhere. This entire tier can be useful, and each talent changes our gameplay at least slightly. Also Soulgorge is no longer mandatory on ST. Very awesome change compared to the previous version.
Red Thirst: Love it, it's now on the same level compared to AMB. Nice Synergies with some of our other talents.
Tombstone: Exactly what I asked for: A way to manually consume Bone Shield charges. Looks really strong, considering you can just MR immediately after. 60s is too long for it to impact how we use MR most of the time, but it's clearly a really good addition to our toolkit.
Tightening Grasp: A slow on our DnD is amazing, works well with the reduced GG cooldown. It's now a really useful talent, might even be enough so I can accept a longer baseline GG cooldown.
March of the Damned: Not quite what we asked for. A longer duration isn't always desirable, considering it also prevents you from attacking for longer. It breaking CC is a very welcome change. Still, WW should baseline break on using abilities, instead of preventing their use, so we're not forced to use a /cancleaura macro.
Mark of Blood replaces Exhume: As stated before, Exhume was garbage, so I'm glad to see it's gone. Personally, I think it should have been moved to our lvl 100 row, replacing Blood Beasts which should be in our lvl 90 row, as it's too similar to the other two options.

Overall: Extremely nice changes, allows for at least slight changes to our gameplay where previously there were none, and it also adds some nice synergies to some of our talents.
There's still things that could be done with our spec, but it looks like we're in a pretty good spot now (except for Blood Beasts, they still don't do anything).

I'm not on alpha to try these out, but looking at the talent tree it feels like there are real choices to make. Buff your health with Foul Bulwark or limit the burst spikes with Will of the Necropolis? Mark of Blood could be strong single-target, but would be limited if you pulled a nasty trash pack. I'm excited to try it.

[Deleted]

Have at it, another copy pasta from the Alpha forums. Lets get some discussion rolling!
---

Talents
Bloodworms: I like this change for the most part and I do not mind the RNG spawn condition even if it took me ages at times to proc it on a dummy with a 3.5 swing timer and 15% crit. Would it make sense to include special attacks in the calculations and adjusting the proc rate accordingly?
Anyway, without any changes the ideal way to play would be to get an external tracker for when Bloodworms will despawn and potentially delay your controlled healing to get more out of the BW burst.
That said, I would really appreciate if there was a trackable buff on us even though I have a feeling I know why it's not there: You don't want us to cancelaura macro it, do you? :P
Which is actually the other thing I wanted to ask about: Letting us /cancelaura them to proc the burst would be amazing.

Exsanguinate: Thanks for the buffs here, it is much easier to use in the rotation now. Numbers are still tuned a little low compared to the alternatives and it could probably stand to get its CD reduced to 20 seconds to be available more often, but really nice changes all around.

Rapid Decomposition: This is worse than the previous version in terms of RP. Old version was 40 RP/min without Crimson Scourge procs, this one is ~20 RP assuming 6 sec Rune cycles and full DnD uptime (not realistic).
Rotation being:
Cycle 1: Marrowrend, Blood Strike
Cycle 2: Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike
Alternate until 10 cycles have been achieved.

Ossuary: 5 Bone Shield charges is when we should Marrowrend so that condition should be lowered by one charge. In terms of how much RP you save, assuming the same ideal conditions from above: 30 RP. Once again worse than the old Rapid Decomposition and even that one was pretty bland.

Neither Rapid Decomposition nor Ossuary are tuned well right now nor should they be worse than old Rapid Decomposition considering the latter already didn't feel all that great to play with.

Red Thirst: Liking this new version. For one, it decreases our CDs making the theme of CD tank more obvious and it also ties into how well you are managing your rotation. Both good things.

Rune Tap: No longer broken and now goes on CD after 3 seconds. While it still allows us to use it 6 times in a row in theory (but not really in actual gameplay besides running back from a wipe and healing up which is a really nice bonus) but nothing ridiculous like extending it over 20 seconds. So all in all, if you plan ahead you can get up to 3 uses of it or just one before it goes on CD. Very sweet change.

Tombstone: Loving the idea of tying more abilities into Bone Shield charges. It is a very competitive spot with Rune Tap however so let us look at some numbers and how we would use the talents in actual play first (The comparison will be between Rune Tap + Foul Bulwark and Tombstone + Foul Bulwark.):

We are very rarely at exactly 10 Bone Shield charges and instead somewhere between 5-10 so for the full 40% max health absorb you will require a Marrowrend before using it and a Marrowrend after using to get the damage reduction back. As a net result we gain a 40% max health absorb, retain the 20% DR, 12% max health (4 Bone Shield charges) and 30 RP.

If we use Rune Tap and Foul Bulwark, we retain a 30% max health buff, 40% max health healing via Rune Tap and retain our 20% DR. (Remember, the 2 Runes you have to use for Marrowrend after using Tombstones are being used for Rune Tap here.)

Conclusion: +30 RP and -18% max health for the Tombstone combo. However Tombstone's value is not diminished by your current health and only has a 1 min CD compared to Rune Tap. On the other hand, Rune Tap is very strong regardless of how many Bone Shield charges you have stacked up so it does not require as rigid a setup that Tombstone does because getting the 20% DR up after you use it is extremely critical for the comparison in addition to maximing BS charges before using Tombstone.

Ideally, Tombstone would make your next Marrowrend free instead of granting RP or not consume all stacks of Bone Shield while still counting all stacks for its absorb shield just to ensure the damage reduction portion remains for the next damage that hits your absorb bubble.

Tightening Grasp: Still not there yet. Mobs take around 4 seconds to pass from one end of DnD to the other so you effectively gain a 4 sec 50% snare which is not even close to what other tanks can do (again, look at Thunder Clap, Thrash with artifact, Keg Smash (!) all from classes with better mobility and hard CC than us). So DnD either needs to have a much, much higher snare (90% or the like) or apply a seperate 8 - 10 sec 50% snare debuff on the mobs every time they take damage.

Tremble Before Me: Same issue as last build, instantly breaks on any direct damage which diminishes it's value greatly for any form of group content.

March of the Damned: I think this was supposed to alleviate our mobility issues but this feels like a huge step backwards because it merges abilities that should not have been merged. If I know a mob is going to stun me, I want to press the old March of the Damned button to immune it and keep fighting. What I don't want is to put my sprint on CD and stop attacking.
Please revert this change and put the adjustments to Wraith Walk somewhere else like in the baseline or even making it a passive bonus to the old March of the Damned (i.e. like how Tightening Grasp makes DnD snare without affecting Gorefiend's Grasp usage). On that note, I much prefer a shorter Wraith Walk CD than increased duration since there is already a boss in the first raid tier that has the Iron Reaver's artillery mechanic (Nythrendra's Volatile Rot from Emerald Nightmare) so please don't make us suffer through this again.

Will of the Necropolis: Likely undertuned, please see below where I talk about Foul Bulwark.

Mark of Blood: I have tried to come up with situations where I would use this in it's current form over the alternatives but I struggle to do so. The charge system is terrible for anything with low damage pulse auras and yet the 20 second duration seems high when it only hits the tank(s). I have thought about using it on Zakuun when he enrages and hits both tanks at once but even then, is that worth a 3 min CD? I'd really like to know or figure out what this talent is supposed to be doing. Is it supposed to be a raid utility? If so, the charges makes and healing amount make no sense. Is it meant for myself? If so, the other talents are better. Is it meant for my co-tank and myself? If so, it should only proc in a way not be used by raid and heal us both more.

Blood Beasts: This breaks Wraith Walk still, is on the GCD and the beasts are very slow to attack your target still.

A note on Foul Bulwark:
You can think of it as a pseudo absorb shield that reaches its full/tooltip value only whenever you lose 100% of your health (be it from 100% to 0% or 100% to 50% twice because you get healed up inbetween). So if you have 20% extra health constantly (a more reasonabl number than 30% due to fluctuating Bone Shield charge levels), you would absorb 20% of your health. The beauty of this is that the "absorb" is always there and refreshes in value the more you get healed up.

But how does it stack up to it's competitor WotN? Extremely well, actually. If you are halfway competent in keeping up Bone Shield, then I cannot think of a reason you should ever spec WotN for legitimate use.

Example 1: Take 60% of baseline (=non-Foul Bulwark buffed health) damage in a single swing while at 80% health. We will also be using actual health numbers since that makes things clearer.

WotN: 80/100 hp - 60 hp *0.8 = 32/100 hp (32%). It would take another 40 hp to kill you due to WotN's 20% damage reduction still being active (=11% bigger buffer than FW).
FW: 96/120 hp - 60 hp = 36/120 hp (30%). It would take another 36 hp to kill you.
So while the % number of FW is smaller, the absolute number of health points remaining is higher since you start higher. WotN is better if you do not get any healing so you can remain in WotN's protection bubble. You will have to judge for yourself how likely that is.

Example 2: 100% of baseline damage from full health.
WotN: 100/100 hp - 100*0.8 hp = 20 hp. It would take another 25 hp to kill you (25% bigger buffer than FW)
FW: 120/120 hp - 100 = 20 hp

Example 3: 120% of baseline damage from full health, we are now firmly in the realm of You Are Doing It Wrong.
WotN: 4 hp remaining.
FW: 0 hp remaining.

So where does this leave WotN? Clearly it's better than Foul Bulwark occasionally, right? So why did I say it's not worth speccing earlier? The keyword is legitimate use. If you are doing things properly and not trying to exploit encounter mechanics you were clearly meant to share as a group or not taking them with that many debuffs, then you will not take this much burst damage (we are talking 60% to 100% of your health here in a single hit, think about that for a moment) anyway which makes Foul Bulwark the better choice. Foul Bulwark also has a minor advantage in that you can get its bonus health up to 30% if you know the damage is incoming so there is some slush.

The only situation where I see WotN being recommended is when you can combo it with Tombstone and maybe Vampiric Blood/Anti-Magic Barrier to solo tank something you weren't meant to. Basically not a situation that is going to happen often if at all so I'd like to see a buff to WotN somewhere to make it more competitive even if the option is purely passive.

Misc
- Are we sure that the snares on Blood Strike and Heart Strike are working properly? It feels like mobs still run as fast as I do or close to that so you get hit mutiple times while trying to run away even though they are supposedly snared. Maybe 30% just isn't enough?
- Blood Strike and Heart Strike have a 1 sec GCD (Death Strike and Marrowrend do not so it's not a global thing) which quite frankly feels amazing. This better not be a bug. <_<
- Blood Feast: Good change but uncertain how this will work for AoE or even just cleave (Heart Strike). Healing might get a lot stronger for AoE like with Consumption but I cannot test it since it doesn't seem to be implemented yet.
- Necrotic Challenge Mode modifier worries me greatly. As a tank whose strengths clearly lie in self healing and health increases over damage reduction, this will hit us harder than any other tank. Will Blood be able to ignore/partially mitigate Mortal Strike effects to avoid things like Necrotic affect Blood disproportionally compared to other tanks?
Like how Mortal Strike does reduce Death Strike healing now but Blood Shield is still calculated from the full Death Strike heal except we need to flip things a bit around considering the healing portion became much, much more important. And on that note, what are the odds of lettting Blood Shield finally benefit from Vampiric Blood buffed Death Strikes considering VB's increased importance in Legion?

Bugs
- Tombstone always absorbs for 0 and provides 0 RP regardless of how many Bone Shield charges it consumes. The game also lets you use it at 0 stacks and go on CD which it probably shouldn't.
- Feast of Blood is not working.
- Ossuary is not working.

[Deleted]

A note on Foul Bulwark:

There's a tiny oversight in your analysis, which is that this "30% absorb" you gain from a higher max health actually has to be fueled by your healers, whereas the damage reduction from WotN is present regardless.
Basically what this amounts to is that WotN will be more mana-friendly for your healers (which is supposed to be important in legion), as well as allowing you to essentially take more damage per second than your healers can heal against, unlike Foul Bulwark.
Of course, this is extremely dependent on the fight and your healers, but I can see WotN occasionally being better. Basically, whenever sustained damage is a higher threat than burst damage, WotN is clearly the way to go.

As an aside, when you gain or lose Bone Shield charges with Foul Bulwark, does your current health or your health percentage stay the same? I'd assume the latter.