Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Deleted]

Let's hope...

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

[xpire]

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

One which most DKs seem familiar with, sadly.

[Milocow]

Stay tuned for the next build, which has some significant changes for Blood. GCD utilization in the build currently on alpha is way too low, and we'll be significantly increasing it (aka, making the rotation 'faster').

Hopefully they fix marrowrend too cuz its dogshit

[Krazzorx]

Btw, what was posted above was a Celestalon response.

[Ampere]

I think Marrowrend could work with the right tuning on the DR%, but it is awkward the way it works with the 6 second DS window. Maybe like Mione was saying if it takes the unmitigated damage it'd work.

If they do axe it there needs to be something else, Heart Strike x2 -> Death Strike -> repeat doesn't seem particularly engaging.

[Deleted]

I think Marrowrend could work with the right tuning on the DR%, but it is awkward the way it works with the 6 second DS window. Maybe like Mione was saying if it takes the unmitigated damage it'd work.

If they do axe it there needs to be something else, Heart Strike x2 -> Death Strike -> repeat doesn't seem particularly engaging.

The issue with Marrowrend boils down to Bone Shield being a shitty DR mechanic in the first place. Automatically worthless on any add fight, among other things, unless you somehow hardcode charges to only be consumed by damage above a certain, relatively high, threshold.

They just need to nuke the entire initial concept from orbit and start over from scratch. They've got time. It's still Alpha.

[Boneshatter]

If they want to give the option for a rotation with higher dps but lower survivability that's fine, but adding bonus runic power to blood strike is the wrong way to do it. The additional deathstrikes provided by the increased runic power adds too much survivability. The better way would be to have blood strike and marrowrend award the same amount of runic per rune, but have blood strike do a bit more damage per rune. Then the choice is more situational.

Deathstrike returning to a damage window is a change I loathe. Any mechanic that causes interference between a healer's abilities and our mitigation/healing potential is just bad. It was never fun knowing my heals would suck if we had a disc priest in the raid.

[Artosas]

Stay tuned for the next build, which has some significant changes for Blood. GCD utilization in the build currently on alpha is way too low, and we'll be significantly increasing it (aka, making the rotation 'faster').

Hopefully they fix marrowrend too cuz its dogshit

Yeah I hope by GCD utilization, they mean rune regen and not just filler abilites (via runic power) with no rune regen interaction.

I also feel like they should make Marrowrend interact with runic power instead of runes. That way both of the mitigation abilties utilizes the same resource, and it's up to the player whether or not they want to heal with it or reduce damage. Then on top of all of that have Blood Tap baseline. Then in place of Marrowrend an abilitiy that cost maybe 1 rune or 2, with a semi-short CD, like 10secs, that will make the next Death Strike we cast cost half the runic power it normally would....or some sort of rune for runic power tradeoff.

If that isn't balanced, ok, just give us legitimate choices as a DK instead of spam 1 button for runes (Blood/Heart Strike) and 1 button for runic power dumps (DS), and a 6 second wait in between.

[Sinzaram]

I also feel like they should make Marrowrend interact with runic power instead of runes. That way both of the mitigation abilties utilizes the same resource, and it's up to the player whether or not they want to heal with it or reduce damage.

But that wouldn't work because its Death Strike VS Marrowrend is not

heal with it or reduce damage.

It's Deathstrike Heal AND Reduce damage or Marrowrend reduce damage.

That's the whole problem. Blood Strike spam vs Marrowrend spam, Blood Strike gives more Deathstrikes which are both heals and damage reductions. Marrowrend gives less damage reduction because of less deathstrikes.

Wouldn't matter what it cost, Rune or RP, it can't compare with Deathstrike.

[Artosas]

But that wouldn't work because its Death Strike VS Marrowrend is not

It's Deathstrike Heal AND Reduce damage or Marrowrend reduce damage.

That's the whole problem. Blood Strike spam vs Marrowrend spam, Blood Strike gives more Deathstrikes which are both heals and damage reductions. Marrowrend gives less damage reduction because of less deathstrikes.

Wouldn't matter what it cost, Rune or RP, it can't compare with Deathstrike.

Very true, maybe scrap Marrowrend altogether then lol ug this is frustrating. I like the name, but that's about it.

[Xeoshades]

At the Point, rather have Blood: Death Strike back on Runes, Marrowrend as the RP Dump. Let Blood Strike (Heart Strike) be are dps rune usage, while Death Strike usage for when we need it.


Let me put it this way. Why NOT.

All Specs:
Death Siphon: 40 Rp.

Blood: Only
Death Strike: 2 Runes
Blood Strike: 1 Rune
Marrowrend: 40 Rp.

Let Death Siphon be the RP Heal for all specs. Its range, helps for PvE and PvP and is a Damage/heal ability.
Death Strike will be Blood only.

[Deleted]

At the Point, rather have Blood: Death Strike back on Runes, Marrowrend as the RP Dump. Let Blood Strike (Heart Strike) be are dps rune usage, while Death Strike usage for when we need it.

That either leads to far too frequent Death Strike casts or basically no RP to work with - unless you want DS to give an absurd amount of RP. They're clearly committed to "slowing down" tank rotations, particularly in terms of how often you cast your AM, so anything that retains DS cast frequencies remotely close to live is probably a non-starter for them.

[Xeoshades]

Take a look above, I edited my post

[Troxism]

A lot of these ideas being thrown around are completely unrealistic, in the sense that they would never happen, biggest reason being is the changes required would be considered too big to be worth the time and effort. Devs have to deal with 36 specs, and at this point basic abilities are most likely locked in barring absolutely required changes. As much as I'd like to see a lot of stuff reverted to WoD systems (even for all my complaints about those), there is literally 0% chance of that happening.

Next build is going to be telling as they will likely make Marrowrend useful (since I don't see them scrapping it and the current situation is too stupid to not address), but the exact way they do this will be pretty important and my fear is it won't be a good way, but instead a hamfisted 'force you to use it' way. Which won't fix any of the issues I mention about actually making choices, but still make it really obvious what to do in every single situation, just with one extra button now (which would be only barely an improvement).

[Deleted]

Regarding the speed of blood's rotation, changes to it will be coming in the next alpha build, which should make it faster:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...3829?page=2#27

[longxia]

...my fear is it won't be a good way, but instead a hamfisted 'force you to use it' way. .

The good old "Ashran" technique? Maybe that could become a new verb, "Ashran, verb, to attempt to force someone to like something, regardless of how much they hate it". Example: "My mom used to ashran mushrooms at me when I was a kid, even though I spewed them right back up again."

By the way Trox, amazing clarity of thought in your original post. I have been playing WoW for years and have never read such in-depth analysis of the fundamentals of why and how we tank.

For myself the class fantasy of being the slowest guy in the raid does not appeal, I would die in fires and my raid would whisper to each other that I am just a bad player. Instead I will play Vengeance DH every day until I am great again.

[Troxism]

Regarding the speed of blood's rotation, changes to it will be coming in the next alpha build, which should make it faster:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...3829?page=2#27

Faster relative to actually using Marrowrend as intended (it's obviously not intended to never use it like is currently optimal), not the current HS > DS rotation (which is still pretty slow). Keep in mind the Marrowrend rotation atm is quite literally 2-3 GCDs into 5-6 seconds of downtime (at 20% haste). So 'faster' is relative. It might end up being 'fast enough', but it depends what you want exactly.

- - - Updated - - -

By the way Trox, amazing clarity of thought in your original post. I have been playing WoW for years and have never read such in-depth analysis of the fundamentals of why and how we tank.

I appreciate the kind words.

[Artosas]

Faster relative to actually using Marrowrend as intended

Do you think if they added a passive that did something like; When a bone shield is consumed you gain "X"(maybe 15) runic power, would help Marrowrends situation? Obviously this would affect our talents as well.

It would definitely help during aoe situations when bone shield is consumed much faster, becuase it would allow you to DS more often, but hopefully not too often that it goes outside their 60% mitigation uptime thing they want to do.

Still not optimal during single target, but at least it allows those bone shield charges that are generated to contribute to something other than straight damage reduction. Also it wouldn't speed the spec up much because we are still missing rune regen but it does make it "faster" in that you will get more runic power to DS a bit more.

[Shaddam IV]

Going from having rune tap, IBF, AMS and Boneshield just to Boneshield and AMS sounds really terrifying.
What kind of "option" and "choices" are we talking about, when the oly choice we have so far is - Do i DS or Marrowrend?

[Rubim]

Going from having rune tap, IBF, AMS and Boneshield just to Boneshield and AMS sounds really terrifying.
What kind of "option" and "choices" are we talking about, when the oly choice we have so far is - Do i DS or Marrowrend?

I'm super used to forget some mechanics because of the AMS or IBF + Blood Tap.

For some dungeons on Mythic, like Bloodmaul Slag Mines i usually eat pretty much every boss skill.