Blood DK Racials. [Horde]

[Deleted]

Was wondering what horde racial would benefit a blood DK tank the most.


Undead having the Touch of the Grave for a slight DPS/self-heal increase.

Taurens for the increased health.

Orc for the AP CD allowing more DPS/bigger burst.

Troll for Berserking as a possible defensive CD? (Rune-regen)

Goblin/BE is imo not as beneficial as the other 4. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

I am currently Undead but thinking about going tauren or troll. Worth race changing or not? And which one if so?

[Lafdet]

The undead racial, from what I have noticed is kind of bad and nothing really worth it's name, sadly. Sure it could be a life saver if you are at low hp and healers fail to get a heal in for any reason.

You are right about Goblin at least, their racial is haste which is pretty useless for a blood dk, unless in a solo situation.

Blood elves have an extra interrupt that could come in handy if you have an encoutner that require such, otherwise meh.

Orcs have reduces stun duration and expertise with certain weapons, so if you are going for a hit/expertise>Mastery build, orc could be a good option, actually it'd be the one I would pick regardless of weapon due to increased pet damage (Yeah, your ghoul isn't up that much [Not even certain actually if the nonpermanent ghoul benefits from it] ) and stun duration reduction mixed with more dps to those encounters where you struggle to beat enrage timers.

[Terridon]

Not everything is interrupted by the belf interrupt, sadly.
But that interrupt was the reason i took belf for my DK, since i came from feral druid tanking, and was sick and tired of how annoying it was to place mobs in cataclysm HCs, so i went with the class with 2 interrupts, and added an extra through race.
It's still very nice to get a pack gathered up. Be it in instances, or raidtrash.

[Lafdet]

No, not everything is but it does work in most cases and thus giving you potentially another interrupt, plus it also tends to silence trash in heroics and dungeons for that sake, if only for a short duration (not sure on how often that works)

[Rixarius]

None of them are spectacular. Tauren would probably be the best bet, even if the bonus HP is barely noticeable. I would probably go Goblin myself, bonus haste is definitely not bad, and DKs have the worst mobility of all the tanks, so the 2 minute rocket jump might have its uses.

[Terridon]

No, not everything is but it does work in most cases and thus giving you potentially another interrupt, plus it also tends to silence trash in heroics and dungeons for that sake, if only for a short duration (not sure on how often that works)

Yeah indeed.
If i should pick another one it would be Tauren, for the warstomp. Nice way to stop high damageincome on you, for long enough to make healers get to you.

Goblins rocketjump is fun, and give you an option to not die from falling. If you want more speed you should really get engineering though.

[Deleted]

Just made a fresh tauren to get updated on the actual stat on the racial (Had the old mindset of 5% total stamina) and saw it is only 5% base health.
Therefore as you say it must barely be noticable. Seeing as we're at looking at around 1M unbuffed health in current content tauren was my dream race with my stupid old mindset but now I stand between orc or troll I think.
Played with BE silence enough and hate the looks. Haha

[Deleted]

Arcane Torrent (BE racial) is also 15 free runic power, which is pretty great when pulling if you're using glyph of outbreak. It used to be even better when DRW was 60 RP, but hey.

It's also quite amazing when you need to move an entire pack of casters. Just AoE silence them, and wooo. You shouldn't underestimate it.

The orc racial doesn't bring much in terms of survival, because our mitigation tools don't care about AP or anything that isn't damage taken. If you're playing 10 man and you need an extra bit of dps, then sure, go ahead. (I do believe the pet racial also affects our ghoul, too) But if you don't really care about damage, then you'd probably better off playing tauren for the extra health (5k or something at lvl 90 ?), goblin for the extra mobility (which we suck at, as a reminder), or BE for the free RP/silence.

[Deleted]

Hmm. Very true.

Would still like to hear response on how useful Berserking from Troll is? if at all? Thinking it can be used at any time as a mini BL allowing a couple of fast runes to come back? Or am wrong on this?

[Lafdet]

Yes, the tauren 5% doesn't scale with gear or anything, it's to base health, between troll and orc I would most likely go orc for the reasons mentioned above.

If you dislike belves for their looks then clearly it's not an option

[Deleted]

If you dislike belves for their looks then clearly it's not an option

Well, they just seem so puny and non-tanky. Haha.

Though if the actual benefits is bigger than the other classes I will have to reconsider and just start playing one.

[Lafdet]

Arcane Torrent (BE racial) is also 15 free runic power, which is pretty great when pulling if you're using glyph of outbreak. It used to be even better when DRW was 60 RP, but hey.

It's also quite amazing when you need to move an entire pack of casters. Just AoE silence them, and wooo. You shouldn't underestimate it.

This is pretty much the best reasoning to go for a belf, however other than that there isn't much to them.

I am currently playing my DK as a orc female (dislike males for several reasons) :3 Used to be a belf before that, and frankly even if I like arcane torrent I didn't find it as useful as what orcs provide, especially as I also play frost.

[Deleted]

Well, they just seem so puny and non-tanky. Haha.

Though if the actual benefits is bigger than the other classes I will have to reconsider and just start playing one.

Playing something that you find visually amazing is also quite important though.

You could get bored of your toon if it didn't match your perception of coolness.

On another note, I frankly have no idea about trolls. I'm not even sure their racial affects our runes. (It probably does.)

[Deleted]

I just want to start this up now so I might reach the SoO level of gear and just walk around with 1M HP unbuffed and be a huge meat wall.

I always have these strange goals when I make a character and sometimes just stop playing them after reaching that goal.
(Like having a tauren paladin with CM gear, I literally quit playing that paladin 2 days after CM gold.)

But orc is also very badass looking, especially in the T16.

[Lafdet]

Also you shouldn't completely ignore the fact that orcs do get reduced stun duration as their racial, sure it's not always useful, but can be proven to be in trash or further expansions.

Troll racial gives 20% haste for melee/spell/ranged, also affecting GCD of course
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=26297/berserking

[Rixarius]

Playing something that you find visually amazing is also quite important though.

You could get bored of your toon if it didn't match your perception of coolness.

On another note, I frankly have no idea about trolls. I'm not even sure their racial affects our runes. (It probably does.)

I would like to highlight this. More than once I've had a toon that I wanted to play, but the race killed it for me. I personally don't like Tauren too much so I don't care for playing my Paladin much anymore. Unless you plan on min-maxing heroic progression, the race shouldn't matter at all. Pick what you like.

And yes, Berserking does increase Haste by 20% which increases rune regen.

[Lafdet]

I would like to highlight this. More than once I've had a toon that I wanted to play, but the race killed it for me. I personally don't like Tauren too much so I don't care for playing my Paladin much anymore. Unless you plan on min-maxing heroic progression, the race shouldn't matter at all. Pick what you like.

This so much, did stop playing several characters before doing a faction/race change due to making them appear boring or using a race I dislike.

[Deleted]

Don't underestimate the trolls. I'm a 10man HC blood dk, was BELF during throne of thunder and changed to troll now simply because of the berserk ability.

The additional interrupt from the belf racial is not really that good. It gives you an additional kick on a high cooldown and during some trashpacks it helps a little bit due to the AoE silence. The reason I used it was for the 15 runic power. Unlike the horn of winter, you don't have to waste a GCD for the 15 RP. In most situations your 2 kicks are more than enough, I very very rarely used it for the additional interrupt and if I remember correctly, I never used it during a single bossfight in terms of interrupting an ability. It simply wasn't necessary.

The troll racial is one that you can feel. 20% Haste for 10sec can be HUGE, especially if you're going full mastery / avoidance and don't have more than 2-3k haste on your gear. More runes means more damage / survivability / utility. Pick what you need, the racial gives you the runes.

All other racials are more or less crap for a blood dk. The undead racial is a joke, the tauren bonus to stamina is something like 30k or 40k which isn't a lot. Depending on your build you will be somewhere around 750k (very offensive) up to over 1.1mil (very defensive). You won't even notice the tauren racial with that huge lifepool. You won't really notice an improvement when going goblin (seriously why the hell do people think that crappy goblinjump gives you mobility? you slow as a brick or what?) and orc only gives you racials that help your offensive but don't give you anything for the survivabilty. That CC reduction is nice in PvP but of absolutely no use in PvE. Tell me one encounter where you need it.

In my opinion, either go belf if you think the interrupt is what your raidcomp needs or troll for the berserk.

[Deleted]

the tauren bonus to stamina is something like 30k or 40k which isn't a lot.

That's actually quite a lot if you ask me. Are you sure it gives that much?
Edit: Yeah, there's no way it gives that much. It's more like, 6/7k or something. Else you'd see everyone go Tauren.

You won't really notice an improvement when going goblin (seriously why the hell do people think that crappy goblinjump gives you mobility? you slow as a brick or what?)

Because it does. Death Knights are the least mobile tank, meaning that they are the slowest to reach point B from point A. The jump does help, honestly.

We use this strategy on heroic Juggernaut where the off-tank detonates every single mine, and sometime, when the mines are too spreaded, I can't do my job because I simply can't move fast enough. Granted they shouldn't be too spreaded to begin with, no other tank will ever have this problem. It was also VERY useful on heroic Lei Shen and will be on every single boss that requires you to move a lot and/or rapidly.

Until something is done with that, Goblin/Worgen are viable choices for PvE.