Thoughts on Tanking and Blood going into Legion (LONG)

[Necropotence]

I would imagine DPS specs level faster, but not by that much during the leveling experience, as you keep gaining Artifact Power your weapon does 1% more dmg per trait as well, whereas dps only gain the stamina. Well, DPS kills single mobs faster than you do as a tank, but the second you pull like, the entire quest quantity of mobs in a single pull, Tanks shine

The big benefit is if you level as Blood, once you unlock heroics you literally jump right in with a weapon on par, and level up the second weapon quickly with the Suramar AP items / drops / research kicking in. It would be my bet for the smartest way of gearing/playing. You can always select another loot spec to get relics for that weapon, whilst tanking as Blood and rushing into Heroics&Mythics all the time whilst your secondary artifact is beeing pimped up.

Could you provide some more information (time investment/how far behind/etc) on leveling as blood when intending to main another DK spec? While I don't enjoy raiding as a tank, I enjoy tanking in dungeons with friends...both while leveling and after max level to get ready for raids. With mythic dungeons being another source of powering the artifact, I will probably look to tank some of these as well.

I know that the xp needed to power up your weapon increases drastically after the first 13(?) levels, but is there any info on obtaining a couple of weapon talents to enable dungeon tanking (maybe not optimal but sufficient), and then focusing on a main spec?

[Deleted]

yeah, your first 13 are essentially enough for quite a while, take a few more later as your knowledge goes up and you gain a lot more AP. You can get 2 weapons to 13, or 1 weapon to 14 with whats available from Suramar & Leveling, basically. Its been that way across all the characters I've leveled.

2 Weapons are not a real problem, however it becomes a problem when you need all 3. Third has to wait until a a few months of AP knowledge goes up. 5days per research. Youre looking at 50/60 days before its at a very good pace, by that time your main weapons are more or less done. Your choice will be either fully commit to one of the two, or take up a third real fast to an acceptable level.

The problem lies in the fact taht after 34 weapons are done, you need another 20points and all those cost a lot, and significantly boost your characters power. However, I don't see blood needing more than 24/26 or so until you literally are at the very bleeding edge. Most other artifacts are complete after their 2 gold traits, which is easily doable even the first weeks, I would wager.

[Snuffleupagus]

Blood leveling is ezmode. Pull everything, pop dnd, cleave, loot, next. My only death between 100-110 was because I alt-tabbed and ran off a cliff.

Cliff boss confirmed to return for Legion

[redfella]

I struggle to choose between Bloodworms and Heartbreaker.

You shouldn't struggle, Heartbreaker for all intents and purposes, is stronger.

[Jellospally]

I struggle to choose between Bloodworms and Heartbreaker.

Struggle? There is no choice. Heartbreaker destroys that tier.

[Saracens]

HUA, got it.

[Tojara]

Bloodworms could be an option if their damage was higher and the health they could return wasn't a complete joke. If it was based off your total health pool it would probably help.

The other talent would need to heal more, have a shorter CD or just allow you to cast rotational abilities to even be considered.

Tombstone might be an attractive option if it only considered how many boneshield charges you had, and didn't actually consume them. That, or something along the lines of the shield it provides absorbing damage up to that amount for every hit received during those 8 seconds (that would be pretty strong though, and would likely cause it to have a longer CD).

[Resurgo]

Tombstone might be an attractive option if it only considered how many boneshield charges you had, and didn't actually consume them. That, or something along the lines of the shield it provides absorbing damage up to that amount for every hit received during those 8 seconds (that would be pretty strong though, and would likely cause it to have a longer CD).

I can't see it being used well in PvE or PvP.
To get maximum effect out of it, you'd have to be near empty of runes. Even using dancing rune weapon to get max boneshields, you'd still be left with only 2 runes, no boneshields, so you're either using up those runes for more boneshields, or take 20% more damage that we all know Death Strike isn't going to keep up with that kind of trucking.

[Tojara]

The problem with it right now is you lose upwards of 6 runes worth of boneshield (depending on RnG, or whether or not you used DRW), for an absorb that's equal to 30% of your health, and a paltry 30 runic power. If it was a shield that just flat out absorbed 30% of your health for every single hit for those 8 seconds, it might be a far more attractive option. Even still, you don't have boneshield which innately a 20% reduction (plus you lose max health if you took foul bulwark, which 99% of the time you will be).

I just don't think Blizzard realizes the massive opportunity cost it takes to use some of these active talents, and how the trade offs just aren't worth it for the effect. 30 runic power and an 8 second shield that absorbs 30% of your max health isn't very much. Now you have to spend upwards of 6 runes (again depending on RnG) to get your boneshield stacks back, which you could have used on heart strikes to get more RP, which equates to more damage and more death strikes.

I'm not saying it's easy, but tombstone could be an attractive option if the numbers were tuned correctly and the cost for using it wasn't so great.

[Highwhale]

i would take tombstone if its gives atleast 5% for each BS stack - it would help to soak really big hits

[Jellospally]

i would take tombstone if its gives atleast 5% for each BS stack - it would help to soak really big hits

5% is about 10x too low for its CD. You have to think that now you need to not use Foul Bulwark which dominates that tier of talents and you can't use it when you are eating your stacks all the time and having to Marrow to get stacks back which is then losing lots of Death Strikes because you aren't Heart Striking.

Also you could potentially eat a hit without Boneshield when you tombstone which makes it worse. Its literally just a poorly designed talent.

You also are looking at a talent that competes with Red Thirst which makes Vamp Blood less than a 1m cd ALWAYS and the more haste you get and more crit the more often its up. This makes Tombstone even worse... even if it was buffed. It just doesn't work with how BDK works atm.

[Zeromus]

I came back to see what the changes were like for Blood. I am unimpressed. It feels like half of my kit is either missing or gimped. I especially hate death strike being based on RP.

[Bobby1291]

Jello (or anybody for that matter), I see you have 24% crit on your dk, which gives parry. I have 17%, is having that much more parry letting you keep your bone shield charges up more than mine? Like I know having more is obviously helping but I just feel like I'm using Marrowrend a hell of a lot more than heart strike and I barely ever have enough Runic power to death strike cause my charges fall of so fast. I just feel like I'm getting trucked even when I just run an lfr. I don't know if I'm just doing something plain wrong or not, I'd like to think not because there isn't many buttons to use anymore so I don't think I could screw it up that bad haha.

Edit: obviously jello you also have way more item level than me which gives you more haste, mastery, and versatility than me but still.

Here's my armory just for s's and g's

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Kiranis/simple

[Jellospally]

Jello (or anybody for that matter), I see you have 24% crit on your dk, which gives parry. I have 17%, is having that much more parry letting you keep your bone shield charges up more than mine? Like I know having more is obviously helping but I just feel like I'm using Marrowrend a hell of a lot more than heart strike and I barely ever have enough Runic power to death strike cause my charges fall of so fast. I just feel like I'm getting trucked even when I just run an lfr. I don't know if I'm just doing something plain wrong or not, I'd like to think not because there isn't many buttons to use anymore so I don't think I could screw it up that bad haha.

Crit is not better than Haste. I just prefer it for leveling. Haste > Crit > Others. It is good for it, but not better than just having haste. Atm I am spending more of my runes on Marrowrend on bosses I actually tank a lot like Tyrant. 16 Marrow to 24 HS.

The more rune regen you have the better it gets. You also get a good start with DRW since 2 Marrow = 10 stacks.

[Bobby1291]

Crit is not better than Haste. I just prefer it for leveling. Haste > Crit > Others. It is good for it, but not better than just having haste. Atm I am spending more of my runes on Marrowrend on bosses I actually tank a lot like Tyrant. 16 Marrow to 24 HS.

The more rune regen you have the better it gets. You also get a good start with DRW since 2 Marrow = 10 stacks.

Oh I know that haste is much better than crit by far, I'm just talking about crit in terms of Marrowrend usage since more parry helps keep bone charges more.

I was in the process of editing my post to show my armory but it doesn't load so whatever lol. Guess I just need better gear that's all.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Kiranis/simple

[Jellospally]

Oh I know that haste is much better than crit by far, I'm just talking about crit in terms of Marrowrend usage since more parry helps keep bone charges more.

I was in the process of editing my post to show my armory but it doesn't load so whatever lol. Guess I just need better gear that's all.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...Kiranis/simple

You have 6% less parry. That really won't add up to THAT many marrowrend differences. Most of it is getting the most out of DnD RP gains and RP off HS cleaves etc etc.

[Bobby1291]

You have 6% less parry. That really won't add up to THAT many marrowrend differences. Most of it is getting the most out of DnD RP gains and RP off HS cleaves etc etc.

Ok, thanks for the quick replies Jello, basically what you're saying is I just gotta play better?

Maybe I just don't play it enough to really get used to how this new Blood style works, just gotta keep practicing I guess. Of course when legion gets here too I'll have more gear to work with and maybe it will get better for me.

[Jellospally]

Ok, thanks for the quick replies Jello, basically what you're saying is I just gotta play better?

Maybe I just don't play it enough to really get used to how this new Blood style works, just gotta keep practicing I guess. Of course when legion gets here too I'll have more gear to work with and maybe it will get better for me.

You gotta marrow a lot. Just make sure you basically DnD on CD but try to have runes going into it as well otherwise Rapid Decomp is just being wasted. You will marrow a lot. Even at 27% haste and 22% crit as long as you are getting hit constantly on single target will still only get ~9 death strikes per minute and still have to marrow a lot.

[Bobby1291]

You gotta marrow a lot. Just make sure you basically DnD on CD but try to have runes going into it as well otherwise Rapid Decomp is just being wasted. You will marrow a lot. Even at 27% haste and 22% crit as long as you are getting hit constantly on single target will still only get ~9 death strikes per minute and still have to marrow a lot.

Ah ok that could also be a problem of mine, I do pretty much DnD on cooldown but maybe I'm not taking full advantage of Rapid Decomposition since I might not have many runes. I'm gonna play it tonight some more, run a log or two and see how I'm doing.

Also one thing I know I don't do is use DRW on the pull, I've been saving it for moments where I think I'll need defensive help, which means sometimes I'd only use it once per fight or something. Guess I gotta make more use of that for sure.

[Jellospally]

Ah ok that could also be a problem of mine, I do pretty much DnD on cooldown but maybe I'm not taking full advantage of Rapid Decomposition since I might not have many runes. I'm gonna play it tonight some more, run a log or two and see how I'm doing.

Also one thing I know I don't do is use DRW on the pull, I've been saving it for moments where I think I'll need defensive help, which means sometimes I'd only use it once per fight or something. Guess I gotta make more use of that for sure.

Ya tbh you really should at least in raids just use it on pull otherwise you will just be behind the whole time. Its a pretty bad CD outside tanking a shit load of mobs.