Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[mmimzie]

As the boneshield is an static constant % mitigation absorb... of course it's values willl be greater than DS..... this would be true if it was an absorb or some form of flat mitigations... or simple some kind of armor passive v.v. DS is still a meaningful point in mitigation and shows the highest active margin blizzard want tanks to have going into legion this far. I think its reasonable. It allows for most folks to play the case to a certain set level, but opens up a decent margin for players to really game thier DS's and try to be the best.

I also think it's pretty reasonable they make Bone shield an absorb otherwise you'll see folks gaming if they should use bone shield or not to get the best DS with a strong blood shield... bleh. Making it an absorb is a nice way of keeping anyfrom trying to calculator out a problem. It doesn't make being a better player more or less difficult. It just removes this pointless barrier to entry that requires you to go look up a video to tell you what to do. Now jsut the game tells you waht to do.

[Deleted]

I personally really like that BS is an absorb now, its awesome. You have your mitigation and self-healing, use it as you please. Its kind of a very interesting mechanic, I also think they should look into our blood plague-> shield during VB though, it will be INSANE for big pulls and kinda blergh for bosses. Perhaps make it 3x on Bosses? Don't know, I dislike the idea that a golden trait is adds only, not that its a problem - just an observation to make it better.

[Toxicant]

My tooltip says Marrowrend should be hitting for 130k, but instead hits for 30kish. Not sure which is the bug, the tooltip or the damage?

[Deleted]

What do you guys think about blood dk atm ? I don't have beta or something so I can't test but I'm really interested in your opinion about the spec.

[Murderdoll]

What do you guys think about blood dk atm ? I don't have beta or something so I can't test but I'm really interested in your opinion about the spec.

Survivability and the ability to tackle content perspective. It will be decent. As is the case currently you will have some movement issues when there are bosses that present that mechanic and there are some tuning issues like AoE, Death Strike etc that need to be sorted. But on a pure standpoint of "will my spec be able to do this" so far, the spec does well.

My biggest issue and the issue that is being repeated over and over is that the spec lacks any real depth. The rotation is very basic and a lot of testers jump on and find themselves wanting MORE after 30 minutes. I like to use current Blood as an example. Breath right now, keeps me interested because I like to challenge myself. I set myself a goal I set myself a benchmark and I look to improve. Right now, I dont feel that same challenge with blood (and no, im not saying bring BoS back by any means).

I think its perfectly fine that there is an entry level playstyle, however the upper level playstyle is not much more involved.

The talents offer a mediocre range of choices. Some rows are simply set and forget, the mediocrity continues when you realise that the passive talents are in some if not most cases the better choices. Theres a real lack of higher skill play with the DPS talents being quite easy to master.

Blood (as most tanks) has become a spec that is very easy to jump into and learn and then thats really it, Ive had guildies ask me if theyre missing something when playing it on beta, because, its literally taken 20 minutes to learn how to play the spec.

Im really hoping that the bosses offer some interesting mechanics because right now, the spec bores me to death.

[DeusX]

I like to use current Blood as an example. Breath right now, keeps me interested because I like to challenge myself. I set myself a goal I set myself a benchmark and I look to improve.

BoS for Blood was a stupid, stupid ability. Made all dk tanks go dps mode, gear fully into multiustrike, use dps trinkets and spam abilities while BoS was active (without regard to usefulness), at the same time hoping for the multistrikes to help keep BoS ON. That was only possible with invincible tanks, the kind of tanks we had for many months now.
In Legion, tanks will not be indestructible (and not only in the begining, or at least so they say). Different mechanics should encourage interesting play, something "tanky" oriented, not the shit button mashing race which BoS turned DK tanks into.

[Veiled Shadow]

BoS for Blood was a stupid, stupid ability. Made all dk tanks go dps mode, gear fully into multiustrike, use dps trinkets and spam abilities while BoS was active (without regard to usefulness), at the same time hoping for the multistrikes to help keep BoS ON. That was only possible with invincible tanks, the kind of tanks we had for many months now.
In Legion, tanks will not be indestructible (and not only in the begining, or at least so they say). Different mechanics should encourage interesting play, something "tanky" oriented, not the shit button mashing race which BoS turned DK tanks into.

What? BoS forced you to actually play better (being able to survive with less mitigation) - how exactly is AM to damage bad design?

[lordtoth523]

BoS for Blood was a stupid, stupid ability. Made all dk tanks go dps mode, gear fully into multiustrike, use dps trinkets and spam abilities while BoS was active (without regard to usefulness), at the same time hoping for the multistrikes to help keep BoS ON. That was only possible with invincible tanks, the kind of tanks we had for many months now.
In Legion, tanks will not be indestructible (and not only in the begining, or at least so they say). Different mechanics should encourage interesting play, something "tanky" oriented, not the shit button mashing race which BoS turned DK tanks into.

You could go double dps trinkets because your life was never really in danger anyway unless you didn't cooldown a mechanic. With no need to worry about survivability, the only other option is going dps mode. It wasn't exactly Bloods fault that alternatives were awful.

[Murderdoll]

BoS for Blood was a stupid, stupid ability. Made all dk tanks go dps mode, gear fully into multiustrike, use dps trinkets and spam abilities while BoS was active (without regard to usefulness), at the same time hoping for the multistrikes to help keep BoS ON. That was only possible with invincible tanks, the kind of tanks we had for many months now.
In Legion, tanks will not be indestructible (and not only in the begining, or at least so they say). Different mechanics should encourage interesting play, something "tanky" oriented, not the shit button mashing race which BoS turned DK tanks into.

Point went way over your head.

If you read my post instead of posting something that ignores the entire issue, you actually would have seen that I said BoS should not make a return and Im not advocating BoS at all. Im merely advocating a playstyle that promotes better and more involved play. Which is what BoS did. At medium levels of gear, it promoted better cooldown usage, better rune usage and better blood tap usage. At the current levels of 740 ilvl its kinda trivial and almost retarded to use it as an example.

Right now, there is a lack of interesting mechanics and it is much of the sameness for tanks as it is now in terms of encounters.

The aim for them is to remove the large barrier from Tanks getting into the class. Theyve done that by offering entry levels into tanks, but havent offered an alternative. If you think theyre going to fill mechanics with challenging, exciting, interesting mechanics for tanks in PVE encounters, youve missed the memo.

[Milocow]

Isit true that since they have now made bone shield absorb damage instead of flat mitigation (aka SoTR mechanic), DS heals include the damage absorbed by bone shield into the "damage taken in last 5sec" thus healing as though the 20% DR wasn't present?

[Xiaojin]

According to a blue post that was on MMOC front page recently, yes. That's part of why they reverted Death Strike healing to 20% of damage taken in the last 5sec (was 30% for a while).

[Milocow]

"The 'nerf' to Death Strike was mostly a misnomer. Bone Shield is an absorb now, so counts towards Death Strike. It also effectively stacks additively with self-healing from other sources, which there are much more of now, such as from the artifact "

What does the bolded part mean? Doesn't make any sense. also if the first part is true does it mean all absorbs don't decrease DS healing or is it just boneshield absorb is special cased?

[Blade Wolf]

What are the current best talent choices for blood on beta?

[Deleted]

This is what I'm tanking with;
http://beta.wowdb.com/talent-calculator#GXmZ

I'm having a hard time deciding if Mark of Blood beats Red Thirst, or how those two compete. Your relic can further boost VB so having it more often could also be nice, especially as that is our only defensive button (Outside of Consumption, which essentially is a full heal on more than 2-3 mobs). Tier 90 I can't decide either, I like the Bulwark cos I keep stacks high and my HP goes up a bit, I'm noticing healers are a bit slower most of the time, so I have a bit larger health pool before I enter danger zone, I like the buffer. Necropolis is far too reactive for my liking, and Rune Tap I always felt was a short duration mitigation, never really liked it - I use it, but I don't like it. I guess I'm oldschool and just genuinely enjoy the whole extra HP margin, as Blood DK tank has always been about that beefy health pool to me(General Vezax single blood tank anyone?)

I'm torn about spectral deflection, haven't really done raid testing, so would need to see how often it really would be used.

[Xiaojin]

"The 'nerf' to Death Strike was mostly a misnomer. Bone Shield is an absorb now, so counts towards Death Strike. It also effectively stacks additively with self-healing from other sources, which there are much more of now, such as from the artifact "

What does the bolded part mean? Doesn't make any sense. also if the first part is true does it mean all absorbs don't decrease DS healing or is it just boneshield absorb is special cased?

I'm not sure about the bolded part. But I think absorbs in general should not decrease DS' healing. At least that quote suggests it. I don't have beta access, so I can't verify.

[Murderdoll]

It means, the self healing from Death Strike needs to be taken into account with the other sources of self healing in our tool kit, which do not negatively affect the Death Strike self heal, like external absorbs and shields do.

A priest can put an absorb on you and it will affect Death Strike.

However, your internal healing effects will not, it will act additionally. So overall, its probably about the same. However the quote about Death Strike and being the strongest reactive tool is becoming more and more of a joke, #fantasy.

[psiko74]

whats the stat priority for blood dks on beta?

[Xiaojin]

It means, the self healing from Death Strike needs to be taken into account with the other sources of self healing in our tool kit, which do not negatively affect the Death Strike self heal, like external absorbs and shields do.

A priest can put an absorb on you and it will affect Death Strike.

However, your internal healing effects will not, it will act additionally. So overall, its probably about the same. However the quote about Death Strike and being the strongest reactive tool is becoming more and more of a joke, #fantasy.

Have you tested on Beta whether external absorbs affect DS healing (or seen data of someone else doing some testing)? Because judging by that quote ("Bone Shield is an absorb now, so counts towards Death Strike") no absorb should negatively affect DS healing. English is not my first language, but I read that quote as "absorbs do not negatively affect you, BS is an absorb now, so it's fine now" with the part before the first comma being implied.

I don't want to call you a liar, I'd just like to see some data to back up your statement to end this discussion once and for all (for me personally at least ).

[Murderdoll]

I have not tested since Overwatch came out but in keeping up with patch notes I havent see anything related to a healing design change. If you would like data, do yourself a favor and read the very first page of this thread. Because its all there, here is a link to the google doc for you. Read the Death Strike page.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...HuqxR54JE/edit

Bone Shield is an absorb now, so counts towards Death Strike.

Put it this way. Death Strike used to heal for X amount. Lets say you healed for 100k.

We have nerfed it and now it heals for Y amount. Lets say 70k

Bone Sheild absorbs for Z amount.Lets say 30k.

Y + Z = the former X amount. 70+30=100.

So OVERALL, the Death Strike nerf is a moot point because the overall heal from your total tool kit is the same.

[Deleted]

I read it that at least the absorb form boneshield doesn't count as mitigated for the damage taken component of deathstrike. Something that didn't worked with boneshield as a flat DR.

I will test the thing with external absorbs later this day.