Blood needs Heart Strike.

[Aezral]

EDIT

Seems a pretty divided opinion. People want to keep the 'iconicness' of having Heart Strike, but agree (to an extent) that the prune was warranted because of the "overlap" of having a cleave vs. AoE that cost the same resource. While I personally think it's silly to remove either of them, lets focus on whether Blood needs something else to make it more enjoyable through rotational depth.


Lets say we get a single target Heart Strike that will, for 3 seconds after use, heal us for x% of damage taken. Think of it like an anti-stagger that we have to activate. Make Heart Strike usable during Crimson Scourge, give it the 20% death strike healing buff that Blood Boil and Soul Reaper give, and remove said buff from BB.

Would something like that be desirable? For those of us that want to keep Heart Strike for iconicness and such, and those who want more offensive rotational depth. Tuned correctly I think I personally would prefer that as a over the new Rune Tap. Problems would probably come from making sure there is synergy in all this mitigation.


Edit Edit: To clarify, many people are complaining about how they cannot find the depth that the devs are insisting is there. The devs are insisting simple rotations make for complex and deep gameplay. As I mentioned below, bigger named DKs like Renitat have gone back and forth with Celestalon with very similar concerns and nothing has changed.

Do you feel that Blood's problems would be fixed with an ability used rotationally offensively and defensively would solve most problems, or do you think it would create unnecessary complication in an age of excessive streamlining?






-original post-

An attempt at using a concise overlook on the positives and negatives of blood in beta, right now, as of 8/14/14, to hopefully provide a thought out reason to arrive at my final point (being thread title).


I'm going to totally disregard numbers, as they're still tuning them. I'm sure everything will tune out fine. (Hopefully )



Changes to Active Mitigation
After toying around with other tanking classes in MoP, prior to the initial WoD alpha notes, I realized how significantly more fleshed out other classes active mitigation has become. For example, Paladins having to make meaningful choice on when and what to spend holy power on, and monks having total control over mitigation by keeping buffs up; elusive brew and purifying brew, etc.

When comparing the interactivity with other classes, it became apparent that Death Strike did too much for one keybind. It functioned fine though, it being a heal, an absorb, and having to game it to make the most of it, but a single ability can only be so interesting before it gets dull, even if it is the button you press the most to keep yourself alive.

So to the WoW forums I went, providing the same rationale I just did: that DS did too much for one keybind, and needed some other ability to interact with it more for gameplay that was on par in depth as other tanks. I have never seen so many people bash anyone on a forum for an idea. "Blood's mitigation is better than paladins." "Death strike is fine, Timing DSs will be more compelling than any other gameplay you can come up with scrub" Etc etc.

The only thing I stated was that Blood needs something else to interact with DS other than timing, to keep the AM interactivity on par with other tanks in MoP. So they added that.


Current design with rune tap is a 50% damage reduction with a 3 second duration, 2 charges, 40 second recharge time. This is huge. It promotes better DS timing to assist with mitigation, since we lost a heal. Timing before large spikes of damage make us less spikey, and with the 30 second cd on will of the necropolis, I could see that being gamed to get extra rune taps off.

We're gaining more AM depth by expanding on an ability that does too much for one keybind. Death strike will be tuned to encourage you to make use of rune tap. All in all I'm very happy from a defensive point of view so far. However,

The effects of ability pruning

We're losing abilities that really negate the changes to mitigation. Raise Dead and Heart Strike.

Raise dead I am not upset about at all. It is a purely offensive cooldown which blood doesn't need, especially with DRW which functions as both offensive and defensive. It also weakens Death Pact, with the added healing absorption mechanic. Might give that talent tier more of a choice (but probably not.)

Heart Strike is a huge issue though, because Blizzard has created a familiar problem. Blood boil does too much for one button. It's boring, which has been expressed as feedback far more than the opposite. Even bigger named DKs like Raegwynn and Renitat are crying out to Celestalon on the forums over how uninteresting BB is.

Got blood runes and won't need to rune tap any time soon? Blood boil

AoE and need to do damage? Blood boil

Single target and need to do damage? Blood boil

Tanking 3 mobs and crimson scourge isn't proccing? Blood boil, because you can't heart strike.


Blizz removed HS because it's overlap with BB. There are plenty of ways to spread this overlap out, so there would need to be meaningful choice in which button to hit.

-Let crimson scourge give a damage buff to BB to make it's damage >HS in single target-3 target situations.
-Have BB and HS interact with SoB, and assuming a 5 stack system of 20% per stack, have BB give 1 stack regardless, and HS give 1-3 stacks based on how many targets it hits, which would make for a trade off for AoE tanking, the damage/threat vs. the healing bonus.
-Have HS an ability only useable when you dodge, or parry, and give it a CD.

It just pains me to see potential for gameplay dropped for such an arbitrary reason of "overlap of abilities," especially when Prot Pallys still have Crusader Strike/Hammer of the Righteous. Why not get rid of Crusader strike? Outside of Defense, offense is a part of the fight as well. It's almost like being told in WoD, half of your fight as a blood DK is being expanded on, so long as you're limited to a 3 button rotation with very little depth. It also pains me to see many others voicing the same concerns to Celestalon, who is just retorting about how it will be okay, and the sky is not falling, and 3 button rotations can still be full of depth. Blood needs HS,

[Wondercrab]

I totally agree. Heart Strike is a really flavourful, fun, interesting button to hit compared to Blood Boil, and I do not see why this change was necessary at all. Certainly one of the cases of ability pruning missing the mark.

[truevalon]

When DK was released each spec had their iconic ability. Frost had frost strike, unholy had scourge strike and blood had heartstrike. Bring HS back where it belongs!

[Raugnaut]

How is Heart Strike more "interestining" "flavorful", ect? Its a crap-ass cleave that barely hits more then Soul Reaper single-target, and Blood Boil currently already BEATS it in damage at high vengeance. Sure, Heart Strike was a decent ability back when it was a powerful cleave with a slow attached, but now it was trash.

In terms of look, it was just a slightly, barely noticable red gushing cleave. Blood Boil is much more interesting in terms of visual effect.

Tuning the damage to where HS is better ST+2, BB is better 4 or more is fairly pointless. Both of those are used with multiple targets, why have multiple abilities? Soul Reaper will fill the single target hole (Soul Reaper, from what I've seen, does more single-target damage then BB) and while it does have a CD, 10% haste next expansion means that you will always be able to spend BRs on SR without capping, outside of 10 seconds of continual RC recharging.

For SoB interaction, having it proc multiple times on cleave hits would defeat the current theme of SoB. You can either have a 20-40% buffed DS all the time, OR skip a DS, and have it 100% buffed with proper planning for abilties such as Execute and Static Shock, giving you a very good sized blood shield (Although, with the freaking huge mastery nerf, that may not be worth it anymore, unless blizz just nerfed the baseline mastery and left mastery scaling alone)

Heart Strike. Possibly add as a glyph that changes visual/name for Blood Boil to Heart Strike, and it otherwise preforms the same.

[Aezral]

I disagree, this has been brought up before and Blizzard even replied to the complaint and explained why the removed it which was enough for me.

But it feels too streamlined, and has become boring and less engaging in instances where mitigating isn't a priority.

[DakonBlackblade]

Blood needs to be included in the skill prunning, it seens blood got more buttons while every other class/spec lost like 4 or 5.

Ps: I dont main a Dk, barely even play one this is based on a fast observation from creating lv 100 pre mades of every class on beta.

[Schizoide]

I disagree, I'm satisfied with this prune.

They could rename Blood Boil to Heart Strike and give it a whirlwind-type animation. That would satisfy a lot (but not all) of the unhappy people.

[Dead_MAX]

(No beta club)

I also agree that Heart Strike should stay. I do like the animation, I do like its small cleave purpose and I really don't like blood boiling all the time. Plus DK's don't have that many buttons as other classes (Since it's still a "new" class compared to others).

[Aezral]

Blood needs to be included in the skill prunning, it seens blood got more buttons while every other class/spec lost like 4 or 5.

Ps: I dont main a Dk, barely even play one this is based on a fast observation from creating lv 100 pre mades of every class on beta.

Blood hasn't gained any keybinds. Unless you spec BoS at 100.

HS was removed for unnecessary streamlining. If they didn't want the overlap, they could have reworked how either of them functioned, rather than removing the only rotational ability blood has that the other specs don't have.

[Schizoide]

Blood has a couple rotational abilities the other specs don't. Death Strike is the most obvious one, other specs don't use it rotationally. Blood Boil is used on single-targets; Frost doesn't have it and Unholy only uses it to AE. Other specs don't have Rune Tap, that's a 30s cooldown which counts in my book.

They could have reworked either of the abilities not to overlap, you're right. They chose not to do that, and "feel" aside (which is valid, don't get me wrong) nobody has come up with a mechanical reason why that was the wrong choice.

[Raugnaut]

Blood has a couple rotational abilities the other specs don't. Death Strike is the most obvious one, other specs don't use it rotationally. Blood Boil is used on single-targets; Frost doesn't have it and Unholy only uses it to AE. Other specs don't have Rune Tap, that's a 30s cooldown which counts in my book.

They could have reworked either of the abilities not to overlap, you're right. They chose not to do that, and "feel" aside (which is valid, don't get me wrong) nobody has come up with a mechanical reason why that was the wrong choice.

Rune tap is 20-10 sec CD, depending on glyph usage.

[zorkuus]

Blood needs to be included in the skill prunning, it seens blood got more buttons while every other class/spec lost like 4 or 5.

Blood didn't get more buttons, so I don't know what you're talking about?

[Deleted]

The name and the icon, yes. Not sure about the ability.

[Schizoide]

Rune tap is 20-10 sec CD, depending on glyph usage.

I thought it was 30s with the perk, so 20s glyphed? Might have changed since I last checked.

[DarkStarUndead]

How is Heart Strike more "interestining" "flavorful", ect? Its a crap-ass cleave that barely hits more then Soul Reaper single-target, and Blood Boil currently already BEATS it in damage at high vengeance. Sure, Heart Strike was a decent ability back when it was a powerful cleave with a slow attached, but now it was trash.

So, come WoD-time when we're losing HS, we're also losing Vengeance. To say that under high Vengeance BB does more damage is pointless for this argument.

The only problem I see with losing HS is that it is a blood rune dump. If you're questing in Blood come WoD (not all that unlikely considering the damage buffs all the tank classes are getting to compensate lack of Vengeance), in order to be some what effective with your runes you would have to use BB and risk pulling extra mobs depending on how close Blizz nests packs and patrols. I'd rather keep HS for single target encounters.

[Schizoide]

to be some what effective with your runes you would have to use BB and risk pulling extra mobs depending on how close Blizz nests packs and patrols. I'd rather keep HS for single target encounters.

People keep saying this.

Just use Soul Reaper. It does the same single-target damage as Heart Strike on enemies >35% health.

[Drunkenfurry]

HS is an AoE, so is blood boil or pest. I'm fine with not having HS it's really not an issue.

[DarkStarUndead]

HS is an AoE, so is blood boil or pest. I'm fine with not having HS it's really not an issue.

Two enemies beside your target (implying that they are already attacking you) doesn't mean AoE, not in the same sense BBs 10 yard range does.

[blasterion]

Blood needs Heart Strike so much that I don't even keep it on my bar anymore.

[brookllyn]

Did they leave in that annoying noise whenever you blood boil? I don't really want to get that BWUMMPHH every time I need to spend a blood rune.