Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Marrilaife]

Am I missing something? But, even when Alliance races are brought up I don't see night elves mentioned as being overpowered. They get 2% dodge, 1% crit or haste, and 2% movement speed. No race for tanking comes close. Night elves have a ridiculous passive tanking stat line and I can't believe Blizzard hasn't balanced it.

I wish Horde had a race with tanking passives that strong.

Because it isn't even good.
Dodge? You like dodge roll a monk, they have plenty of dodge. Guess what. They're considered the worst tank class atm. How is dodge better than on demand 10% physical damage reduction from a dwarf? Or even draenei heal that scales with vampiric blood?

Movement speed? You want one, roll a worgen or a goblin, the on demand mobility is better than minuscule passive.

Haste? Roll a gnome, more reliable and you get extra 5% runic power on top. Or goblin again, you get it paired with nice mobility burst.

Blood elf for extra interrupt and on demand resource is already considered BIS racial for every class that uses a resource.

Passive racials are only better in one occasion. That is, when the player doesn't know how to optimally use actives, he'll be better off with passives he can't mess up or forget to use.

Tbh, you want a horde passive racial, roll an undead.

[Tehr]

Just because Monks have dodge and are not great doesn't mean that dodge is now a worthless stat. That's an absolutely ridiculous stance and holds no statistical significance whatsoever. Night Elves essentially get 2% damage reduction across the board, and while there is a case to be made about Stoneform being superior to Quickness, to dismiss the Night Elf racial outright is ludicrous.

However, @believesteve, I think there is a case to be made for the Human passive being better because it contributes more significantly to DPS (2% all secondary stats).

[Marrilaife]

Night Elves essentially get 2% damage reduction across the board,

That is plain wrong, 2% dodge doesn't equal to 2% damage reduction. Magic damage is not affected by dodge, neither are special boss abilities that are non dodgeable, generally it's only a good racial when you tank pure melee trash.

[Tehr]

That is plain wrong, 2% dodge doesn't equal to 2% damage reduction. Magic damage is not affected by dodge, neither are special boss abilities that are non dodgeable, generally it's only a good racial when you tank pure melee trash.

Sure, it doesn't work on everything, but the fact remains that dismissing it outright is just silly.

[believesteve]

That is plain wrong, 2% dodge doesn't equal to 2% damage reduction. Magic damage is not affected by dodge, neither are special boss abilities that are non dodgeable, generally it's only a good racial when you tank pure melee trash.

That's all fine and dandy, but that is viewing it in a vacuum because they also get 1% haste or crit (to put them on par with BEs and goblins) and the extra 2% movement speed slapped on. Now is arcane torrent nice? It is, especially in future 5 man content for the silence; and the runic power is nice for half a deathstrike every 1.5 mins, but I still think 2% dodge and movement speed is bullshit. It only increases in value the more geared you get.

Passive wise NEs outclass other races for tanking. It is similar to having a few artifact points for free.

[Highwhale]

Anyone tryed cap Haste/Versatility? I mean the only DR we have is bone shield (16%) and flat armor. Plus versatility increase damage/heal what good for VB absorb shield from artifact and DS heal.

[redfella]

Am I missing something? But, even when Alliance races are brought up I don't see night elves mentioned as being overpowered. They get 2% dodge, 1% crit or haste, and 2% movement speed. No race for tanking comes close. Night elves have a ridiculous passive tanking stat line and I can't believe Blizzard hasn't balanced it.

I wish Horde had a race with tanking passives that strong.

Nelfs are the best race for tanking for the Alliance if you want the best defensive benefit. As for Worgen, it's BiS (imho) for DK due it helps offset our awful mobility a bit and the 1% crit works well for us. For pure DPS, Humans take the cake.

[hashtags]

so given all the nerfs etc what is the most optimal artifact talent route?

[Deleted]

The same as before, nothing really changed.

[Deleted]

Am I missing something? But, even when Alliance races are brought up I don't see night elves mentioned as being overpowered. They get 2% dodge, 1% crit or haste, and 2% movement speed. No race for tanking comes close. Night elves have a ridiculous passive tanking stat line and I can't believe Blizzard hasn't balanced it.

I wish Horde had a race with tanking passives that strong.

The problem here is that DKs have no mobility and the great value brand sprint is great for them.

[Grishnok]

The same as before, nothing really changed.

Still dont understand why youd want to get that gold first. Blood shield is up for like 1/2 of a second before its gone and therefore the leech and mitigation from this talent are virtually non existent. Its only a DPS increase. I prefer going to get something to make me tankier first.

[Deleted]

Still dont understand why youd want to get that gold first. Blood shield is up for like 1/2 of a second before its gone and therefore the leech and mitigation from this talent are virtually non existent. Its only a DPS increase. I prefer going to get something to make me tankier first.

The leech part of UT always goes off, it's the damage that actually requires you to have blood shield up.
This is also the best path in order to take the best minor traits while "picking up" UT along the way.

[Hashcrypt]

Pro Pallies have better self healing than DK's now...just a heads up. As does VDH.

And better dps.

And more mobility.

Pretty much killed any chance of me rolling Blood in Legion. Lame.

[Milocow]

The leech part of UT always goes off, it's the damage that actually requires you to have blood shield up.
This is also the best path in order to take the best minor traits while "picking up" UT along the way.

wrong
they fixed it
you need bloodshield up both for leech and damage boost

[Lycanoth]

Still dont understand why youd want to get that gold first. Blood shield is up for like 1/2 of a second before its gone and therefore the leech and mitigation from this talent are virtually non existent. Its only a DPS increase. I prefer going to get something to make me tankier first.

Gold artifact traits for Blood aren't exactly that great to be honest. I think the idea behind going UT first is that op minor traits like Vampiric Fangs and Rattling bones are going that direction so it turns into a "Might as well pick it up" type of thing and going for UE first would require an insane amount of back tracking. I feel Skeletal Shattering isn't that good early on but rather decent with high crit values much later into the expansion so going for it after UT and UE makes more sense.

Unless something gets gutted tonight in the launch patch I plan on going something very similar to what Sugarlol posted. My only thing is blood feast vs coagulopathy. They are both terrible but I guess the argument is that a passive 25% leech heal off HS that you get all the time vs the bigger shield from UE that has downtime makes blood feast the better choice there.

[Spryte]

Still dont understand why youd want to get that gold first. Blood shield is up for like 1/2 of a second before its gone and therefore the leech and mitigation from this talent are virtually non existent. Its only a DPS increase. I prefer going to get something to make me tankier first.

Its not that we particularly want Unending Thirst, this is aiming for Umbilicus Eternus but we want Vampiric Fangs and Rattling Bones on the way which are very strong. Blood Feast is pretty bad so taking this path, the 1 point in Unending Thirst is good value.

[Freedom]

I tanked 2 Mythics in gear optimized for Frost, and had something like 33% crit 22% parry 12% haste baseline at the time. The heavy hitter 3rd boss in Blackrook Hold was wrecking my shit, even if we did kill him. I also have no legit tanking trinkets besides BoA... but I don't want to set my loot spec to Blood too much in case of a legendary drop.

Any suggestions? I'm starting to get a second gear set, and could regem Haste in my 2 sockets... I am already touching the point for Frost where I have too much crit. The Darkmoon card could help, but I'm sure I won't be able to afford that. It could be a L2P thing too - I am not used to banking DS yet because I never had to.

[Fokku]

Are there any statweights that are accurate?

[tonysniper]

I played both Blood and Prot Warrior and I see no reason to play my Blood DK now aside from better AoE DPS. My warrior barely takes any damage due to lolignorepain and is WAY more mobile.

I really liked the WoD Blood DK with its array of defensive cooldowns. Legion's blood dk is just abysmal for me. No mobility, bad mitigation, bad self healing, bad cooldowns, OK AoE DPS.

Now I can only hope they change the spec in the nighthold patch or even later...

[Deleted]

Okay so maybe you're preferring your warrior for the reasons you listed, sure thing, but...

bad self healing

I don't think you're playing the same expansion as me if you think this :/

At 840ilvl I can easily start fights and keep myself alive for quite some time in Heroic dungeons without needed much help from the healer, and in mythics I find myself healing near as much as the healer does most fights, my guildie even said he loves to heal when I'm tanking on the DK because he can pretty much forget about me and just aoe heal the rest of the group 90% of the time.

I just can't wait to get an orange, hoping it's a good one, to make things even more smooth!

Are there any others that are having a similar experience to me or are most people having a hard time?