Blood DK Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.2 Guide (Long but has TLDR Version)

[Deleted]

Butcher, Brackenspore and Margok (M) are fights where you can be white swinged from 100->10% and then dead just like that if youre not careful and really plan your/your healer's CDs.
On butcher I told the monk tank "Sorry mate I really need every healer cd, I can give you like 1 hand of sac during this timeframe, other than that I need everything". This was also with me letting him take as many cleaves as possible (his elusive brew uptime is just silly, he basically never got any dot stacks), taunting just in time so he never got the 3rd tenderizer.

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Currently progressing on Margok and if it werent for our retarded cleave (currently top1-3 on dmg every pull) I almost think my 640 warrior would be better on the fight overall by taking like half my dmg my DK does even though hes 30 ilvls lower. Blood shield is just a complete joke compared to shield block/SoR/stagger+guard, and both pala and monk do about the same healing death strike does...

[Life-Binder]

wait till you get full mythic BRF gear or something

[FurtyIRL]

Currently progressing on Margok and if it werent for our retarded cleave (currently top1-3 on dmg every pull) I almost think my 640 warrior would be better on the fight overall by taking like half my dmg my DK does even though hes 30 ilvls lower. Blood shield is just a complete joke compared to shield block/SoR/stagger+guard, and both pala and monk do about the same healing death strike does...

No offense but I think you must be doing something wrong if you're having that trouble. Absolutely your damage intake will be lower on a shield tank but no tank has as much control over their survivability as DKs do currently. If you're referencing Blood Shield that's part of the problem; you should never be DSing at full health or relying on the absorb component of DS. The main benefit is the active heal and you should be timing your DS to take maximum advantage of the heal. Anytime your damage intake is low enough that DS is wasted you should instead be spending deaths on blood boil/soul reaper.

[Jellospally]

Butcher, Brackenspore and Margok (M) are fights where you can be white swinged from 100->10% and then dead just like that if youre not careful and really plan your/your healer's CDs.
On butcher I told the monk tank "Sorry mate I really need every healer cd, I can give you like 1 hand of sac during this timeframe, other than that I need everything". This was also with me letting him take as many cleaves as possible (his elusive brew uptime is just silly, he basically never got any dot stacks), taunting just in time so he never got the 3rd tenderizer.

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Currently progressing on Margok and if it werent for our retarded cleave (currently top1-3 on dmg every pull) I almost think my 640 warrior would be better on the fight overall by taking like half my dmg my DK does even though hes 30 ilvls lower. Blood shield is just a complete joke compared to shield block/SoR/stagger+guard, and both pala and monk do about the same healing death strike does...

I don't see how you can die on brackenspore. The only thing that can do any dmg is the Fungal Flesh Eater with 5+ stacks and I can easily live with Vamp > Bone Shield > IBF(add usually dies before I need this). Sometimes I call for a single sac. Going without heals for 10 seconds was the bigger issue....

[Deleted]

No offense but I think you must be doing something wrong if you're having that trouble. Absolutely your damage intake will be lower on a shield tank but no tank has as much control over their survivability as DKs do currently. If you're referencing Blood Shield that's part of the problem; you should never be DSing at full health or relying on the absorb component of DS. The main benefit is the active heal and you should be timing your DS to take maximum advantage of the heal. Anytime your damage intake is low enough that DS is wasted you should instead be spending deaths on blood boil/soul reaper.

Have you tanked mythic margok? Butcher? As I said, if it wasnt for our crazy aoe it would be foolish to bring a DK tank to Margok, and on Butcher all other tanks except for maybe druid (barely seen any bears in mythic but they are probably in the same spot as us) take half the dmg with about the same healing as us.

Control of your own survivability doesnt matter if the damage is so high that after 2x DS youre still sub 50% (even with SoB stacks on the first one) while CDs are up. Sure we have way more hp than other tanks but it really just backfires because its just way harder to heal us.

[FurtyIRL]

Have you tanked mythic margok? Butcher? As I said, if it wasnt for our crazy aoe it would be foolish to bring a DK tank to Margok, and on Butcher all other tanks except for maybe druid (barely seen any bears in mythic but they are probably in the same spot as us) take half the dmg with about the same healing as us.

Control of your own survivability doesnt matter if the damage is so high that after 2x DS youre still sub 50% (even with SoB stacks on the first one) while CDs are up. Sure we have way more hp than other tanks but it really just backfires because its just way harder to heal us.

Well I play with the writer of said guide on a pretty regular basis, and he's tanked both without too much trouble. As Jellos mentioned Butcher is probably the worst example of the tier when comparing DKs because the damage input is so high and frequent that you do need a little more babysitting from the healers; Death Strike alone isn't going to be enough. That said, when we were doing pulls with our DK and Monk tanking neither of them required direct heals at all; double beacon from the paladins was enough.



That's an example of potential DK HPS on the Butcher. Sure, tanking on that fight isn't a walk in the park, but your example about a warrior 30 item levels lower is completely off base. This class just requires more active input to stay alive and if you're not doing that correctly you're going to run into problems.

[Troxism]

Brackenspore is a total joke to tank on a DK (I did it without a single external on our first kill, and our ilvl wasn't exactly the best as a guild since we did only 2 splits). So I don't really understand complaining about that fight; if you are dying there, you might be approaching the fight incorrectly.

Butcher is harder but A: I was still easier to heal then our other tanks according to healers, and B: a 30 ilvls less warrior would never ever ever ever ever compete with any other tank, because gear just matters too much. Either way, Monk/Paladin is probably better for Butcher then Warrior if I had to pick a 'best', but that is a whole other discussion. The problem DK has on Butcher is your avoidance is low, so if you get 3 cleaver stacks it sucks as you have no way to smooth damage intake like a Paladin does. But again, you can do that fight without any externals above 30% pretty easily as a DK (I had a whole rotation for sub 30%, but honestly Armour pot will pretty much carry you through that phase, you only need like a Sac into IBF for after the pot runs out; he will hard enrage before you can actually use all the externals). I actually gave all the externals to the other tank above 30% on that fight (a warrior for the record, and he was still getting destroyed compared to me, with only 1 less ilvl), and even sub 30% you barely need much.

If it matters, ilvl was 667 for both week 1 (obviously I have higher now, and it made Brackenspore laughably easy on the repeat kill, I literally solo tanked part of the figth since the other tank died, and it again, didn't even require externals).

As for Margok, again he doesn't hit very hard himself, only the adds do. One of the few fights so far this tier where externals actually matter. Yeah if he double hits you without any absorbs/avoids, he can take you to 10%, but honestly, he rarely attacks uninterrupted (he casts so much, and you taunt back and forth so often), and getting to 10% doesn't kill you, getting to 0% does; you usually have time to recover after that string of hits. And if you are tanking other things as well as the boss, well that is what all those externals that weren't getting used on other bosses are for. I expected this boss to be hard as fuck for a DK to tank from beta, but they nerfed his melee damage so much (he used to hit harder then he does now on Mythic on HEROIC in beta), and then just buffed his adds, and called it a day.

DKs do take absolutely retarded amounts of damage, but you can heal some of it back. Are they numerically weaker then other tanks in this ilvl? Yeah probably (and even that is up for debate honestly). But it's not like they are unplayable. It's basically the same thing as MoP: yeah you kinda suck as a tank class, but it's doable, and you won't automatically be useless if you play well.

Idk, wait till you get more Ilvl, and the fights will be trivialized. All the people doing this content months from now, DKs will be horribly OP for it, like I said would happen back on beta to Blizzard like 3 times in detail. So Blizzard won't change anything, so don't hold your breath for that. If anything I think DK will get nerfed for next tier, because of gear scaling being so good on it.

I'll be completely honest, I think this Highmaul tier is undertuned in terms of tank damage. Almost every fight could use a 10-20% bump in tank damage; it's already getting super easy week 2, and I can't even imagine in real gear how easy it will be. I am actually disappointed in Blizzard for making the content this way; feels like tanking is just becoming a total joke role where how well you play doesn't matter at all, and it makes me not want to play this game anymore.

Having said that, I do like to hear different perspectives; sometimes it's hard when you only live in your own head to see other points of view. But I'll be honest I'm actually not having fun because I don't think tanking is hard enough any more, and there is no more reward for being a really good tank; as long as you don't die, who really cares if you are 20% easier to heal or whatever? Not like tank damage is that good outside of niches like Blood/BRM AoE/Prot Paladin ST, and that will get fixed at some point so that tanks are just irrelevant.

Also as an anecdote: I have heard that 'warriors are the worst tank for butcher', that 'monks are the worst tank in the game right now', and 'paladins are complete shit tanks ATM they need buffs' from different guilds. I've also heard people say 'DK's cant even tank Brackenspore/Butcher/Tectus/Imperator', which is clearly not even close to true from my experience. My guild thinks DK is very solid, you obviously don't agree with that assessment. The point of these anecdotes is, that clearly there is more going on here then just a few tanks being weaker, because I have heard that every tank in the game is 'shit' so far, and that obviously can't all be true at the same time.

Anyways, rant over. Sorry if any of it comes off as 'mean' or 'rude', as it isn't intended to be, I am just trying to share my experiences, and I suck at communicating intent in writing as I have found out over the last few months. I do hope you find more success schleimhaut in the rest of the tier.

[Saiyoran]

Crit vs MS for pure damage output (obviously multi is way better for survivability)? Curious about offpieces being crit/BA or multi/BA for raw damage output.

EDIT: Just reread the extended stat section of the guide. MS is better for damage due to the attunement. Do diminishing returns tilt this in favor of crit at an attainable level or will we not hit that level until later in the expac?

[Troxism]

Crit vs MS for pure damage output (obviously multi is way better for survivability)? Curious about offpieces being crit/BA or multi/BA for raw damage output.

MS is way more DPS then crit. Crit is more survivability then MS, MS is more 'smoothness' (although I don't really put much value in that metric personally, as I have never really had issues with smoothness ever in my time tanking as Blood as your rotation/cds give you so much control over that). If you only want DPS, you should be looking for as much MS/BA as possible, then Crit if you cant' get those. Other stats are pretty close to each other in DPS value, so it's not that important, but Haste is generally the worst DPS stat.

Honestly though, with no reforging/limited itemization, good luck actually getting the 'right stats' that you want. In reality you will just use whatever you get, outside of CMs where you can actually be picky with itemization since almost any item is viable due to scaling down. I mean look at my current gear, I have like all Mastery and 0 MS, and a bunch of Crit/Vers, just because I have no alternatives.

[Life-Binder]

I've been meaning to ask - how does crit increase blood DK (or all tanks in general ?) mitigation/tankiness/survivability ? always seemed like a pure dps stat to me

[Saiyendra]

I've been meaning to ask - how does crit increase blood DK (or all tanks in general ?) mitigation/tankiness/survivability ? always seemed like a pure dps stat to me

It gives parry via Riposte.

[Life-Binder]

is Riposte a passive skill ? is it in the spellbook ?

[Cryopathy]

is Riposte a passive skill ? is it in the spellbook ?

It is a passive, but it's not in the spellbook. They forgot a few things in the spellbook, and they do client patches very infrequently (this is why tooltips stay wrong forever), so I wouldn't expect to see it in the spellbook for awhile.

Here is the skill: http://www.wowhead.com/spell=161797

[Saiyoran]

MS is way more DPS then crit. Crit is more survivability then MS, MS is more 'smoothness' (although I don't really put much value in that metric personally, as I have never really had issues with smoothness ever in my time tanking as Blood as your rotation/cds give you so much control over that). If you only want DPS, you should be looking for as much MS/BA as possible, then Crit if you cant' get those. Other stats are pretty close to each other in DPS value, so it's not that important, but Haste is generally the worst DPS stat.

Honestly though, with no reforging/limited itemization, good luck actually getting the 'right stats' that you want. In reality you will just use whatever you get, outside of CMs where you can actually be picky with itemization since almost any item is viable due to scaling down. I mean look at my current gear, I have like all Mastery and 0 MS, and a bunch of Crit/Vers, just because I have no alternatives.

Funny you mention that last part, I was actually asking with CM time runs in mind :P Thank you for the info, I was under the impression the RP generation with Blood Tap outweighed passive parry for mitigation, and that damage was relatively close. Guess I just didn't read in depth enough.

Looks like I'll be going BA/MS in available slots then MS/crit in everything else, still unsure about trinkets because of the way the scaling of Highmaul trinkets and Knight's Badge works in CMs (they are currently overbudgeted compared to heroic dungeon trinkets and LFR trinkets, but don't have optimal stats as far as I can tell).

[FurtyIRL]

Funny you mention that last part, I was actually asking with CM time runs in mind :P Thank you for the info, I was under the impression the RP generation with Blood Tap outweighed passive parry for mitigation, and that damage was relatively close. Guess I just didn't read in depth enough.

Looks like I'll be going BA/MS in available slots then MS/crit in everything else, still unsure about trinkets because of the way the scaling of Highmaul trinkets and Knight's Badge works in CMs (they are currently overbudgeted compared to heroic dungeon trinkets and LFR trinkets, but don't have optimal stats as far as I can tell).

You want to be MS/Mastery for CMs, not MS/Crit.

[Satori]

Kinda depressing reading Troxism complaints about low tank damage, when half of our Brackenspore attempts end with either tank getting wrecked by add or boss.

[Troxism]

You want to be MS/Mastery for CMs, not MS/Crit.

Yeah pretty much. You will do like 5% more damage with Crit over Mastery and have like 20% less survivability (numbers may be slightly exaggerated for comedic effect). It's not worth it in 99.9% of cases, as just doing bigger pulls can be better then slightly increasing just your own DPS.

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Kinda depressing reading Troxism complaints about low tank damage, when half of our Brackenspore attempts end with either tank getting wrecked by add or boss.

Like I said in the big post, it's just my point of view; others have different points of view on tank balance/tuning, and there isn't anything fundamentally wrong with that. I am not joking when I say the bosses could easily hit harder however, as it would still be doable by at least a DK for sure. However I don't really expect anyone to take me at my word (there is always some guy claiming X is easy, and it's because they are looking at it from a different situation). I just wish I was happier about the tanking role in WoD; as it is there is 0 reward for being a good tank, as long as you dont die it doesn't really matter at all past that, and it will be a total joke to live in a few more weeks of gear, so it's just gonna be insanely boring. Gained a lotta ilvl this week (a LOT, seriously like 11 ilvls), and it's really easy to tank every boss already and it makes me really depressed

To actually be helpful rather then whine about my own problems: They shouldn't be dying to the boss however, he does little damage. The dangerous part is 4 stacks on you + tanking add with many stacks on it (it does more DPS the longer it is alive) + boss channelling infesting spores. You need to use personal or external cds there or you probably will die unless some crazy shit happens.

[FurtyIRL]

Yeah pretty much. You will do like 5% more damage with Crit over Mastery and have like 20% less survivability (numbers may be slightly exaggerated for comedic effect). It's not worth it in 99.9% of cases, as just doing bigger pulls can be better then slightly increasing just your own DPS

This + letting your healer DPS more is generally more of an increase than itemizing crit would, especially on bosses (and during heart).

[Deleted]

Guys, one question.

Atm I'm running w/o the Outbreak Glyph, and so, I can just Plague Leech once every minute instead of every 25s.

So I have here to questions for you guys:

1) How do I start a fight with Outbreak Glyph? I mean, I'll need 30 RP to use it, and at the start of the fight I'll have 0 RP. Do I just DSx2 and BB x 2 and then Outbreak or is better to use IT+PS -> BB x 2 -> DS?

2) I'm going with the Inscription tank trinket, the one with Bonus Armor and Critical Strike proc. I know our stats are Multistrike>Mastery, so my doubt is, the critical strike proc, increases our chance to parry for the proc duration? Or with that trinket I just have a little more dps for the duration?

Thanks!

[Troxism]

Guys, one question.

Atm I'm running w/o the Outbreak Glyph, and so, I can just Plague Leech once every minute instead of every 25s.

So I have here to questions for you guys:

1) How do I start a fight with Outbreak Glyph? I mean, I'll need 30 RP to use it, and at the start of the fight I'll have 0 RP. Do I just DSx2 and BB x 2 and then Outbreak or is better to use IT+PS -> BB x 2 -> DS?

2) I'm going with the Inscription tank trinket, the one with Bonus Armor and Critical Strike proc. I know our stats are Multistrike>Mastery, so my doubt is, the critical strike proc, increases our chance to parry for the proc duration? Or with that trinket I just have a little more dps for the duration?

Thanks!

You should never pull with Outbreak anyways (unless it's an AoE Pack and you BB as your next action); it does 0 threat and there isn't really a reason to have diseases up right away, as they don't do much damage over the span of 2-3 seconds it will take you to put them up. Pull with Taunt into Blood Boil (if you can get in range fast enough), or if you cant, Taunt into Icy Touch + PS. Then DS then Outbreak (if you pulled with BB originally).

They fixed crit procs to give parry properly now so yes it should give you parry during the proc, so it's not a bad trinket anymore.