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

[Numiro]

Mh, I haven't thought about that. If you're resource capped and at full health, using your death runes for BB should net in better mitigation/healing overall if your prime goal is surviving.

Does mastery shield scale with SoB doubledip? Can't imagine it does, that'd be broken. Haven't considered it before tbh.

Assuming it doesn't, the scenario is much more favourable for blood boil if the next death strike contains less overhealing: Assuming we're looking at 0% overhealing on the next death strike these are the numbers:

## Note, there's some asumptions here because I don't know exactly how everything scales:
## 1. SoB does not double dip.
## 2. Death strike shield is calculated as follows: (mastery * SoB * deathstrike) (So no double dipping).
## 2. DS shield for 40% mastery and two SoB stacks: (0,4 * 1,4 * deathstrike)
## 3. Resolve remains exactly the same, which isn't exact, but it simplifies my math to prove my point, IIRC you still gain resolve if you parry, which should mean you can game it in your favour after a parry.

So:

20% mastery ->
2 DS:
0,2 (only shield, overhealing from DS = 0) + 1,2 (deathstrike (1) + shield (0,2)) = 1,4
1 DS + 2 BB:
1,4 (40% increased healing) * 1,2 (deathstrike (1) + shield (0,2)) = 1,82

40% mastery ->
2 DS => 0,4 + 1,4 = 1,8
1 DS 2 BB => 1,4 * 1,4 = 1,96

50% mastery ->
2 DS => 0,5 + 1,5 = 2,0
1 DS 2 BB => 1,4 * 1,5 = 2,1

60% mastery ->
2 DS => 0,6 + 1,6 = 2,2
1 DS 2 BB => 1,4 * 1,6 = 2,24

70% mastery ->
2 DS => 0,7 + 1,7 = 2,4
1 DS 2 BB => 1,4 * 1,7 2,38

So any value below ~68% mastery, double blood boil is better.

This is all assuming you don't heal _anything_ with the first death strike and your second death strike contains 0 overhealing, which should be fairly common in mythic raiding, but nowhere else.

If you heal as little as 20% of a total deathstrike with your first one, death strike suddenly turns in to a slight winner (at 0,04% more healing) at 40% mastery.

Blood boil should also be the winner when it comes to single target DPS, as blood boil is slightly superior assuming your weapon and gear is equally strong. (due to death strike scaling with weapon damage and blood boil scaling with AP)

[Drunkenvalley]

Don't shields still stack between death strikes?

[Numiro]

Don't shields still stack between death strikes?

It does, that's why 2 DS has 0,(mastery) + 1,(mastery) as its total healing output:

2 DS => 0,4 + 1,4 = 1,8

so 40% mastery + 1 deathstrike + 40% mastery = 1,8.

or am I missunderstanding the question?

[dr_AllCOM3]

Problem with BB and deathrunes is that the blood runes get used first and you always want to have one blood rune ready for Rune Tap, proper Blood Tap and proper Plague Leech. You especially want to have that blood rune in reserve when things get hairy and that's also when you want that additional healing. It's probably never wise to spend death runes on BB for SoB.

[Deleted]

Problem with BB and deathrunes is that the blood runes get used first and you always want to have one blood rune ready for Rune Tap, proper Blood Tap and proper Plague Leech. You especially want to have that blood rune in reserve when things get hairy and that's also when you want that additional healing. It's probably never wise to spend death runes on BB for SoB.

No need to sit on a blood rune all day if you just remember to save 5-6 blood tap charges, in case of a big breath from a boss or something. Sitting on a rune also means that if you ever let your 2nd blood rune refresh without spending it asap, rune regen will be lost.

[Chicks dig my axe]

After reading multiple posts about pre-raid headgear would an Heroic Warforged Rivet-sealed casque + socket be in the top choices? Or should I keep looking?

[Numiro]

After reading multiple posts about pre-raid headgear would an Heroic Warforged Rivet-sealed casque + socket be in the top choices? Or should I keep looking?

Top choices I've found so far are the epic head from apexis crystals (ugpraded to ilvl 645 or w/e first level is), or crafted one. I went for crafted one.

[Troxism]

There are multiple pulls where we've had to CC because of tank damage, where all five in my group agreed we'd save time if I could kite them for a couple of seconds every 15~ seconds (due to debuffs often). One that comes to mind is UBRS, first groups apply bleed that does a metric shit ton of dmg, can't reset without stuns / kiting, auchindoun, the 5 pack with the watcher, where the watcher alone melees me for ~70k.

If you are only pulling 1 pack at a time, I don't see why you would be having a problem in that those instances. You can pull literally 3-4 packs in the first room in URBS if you have a strong healer, and I'm sure it's possible to do even more. I feel like your issue is you aren't doing something right, but it's really hard to say what the issue may be. The only pulls I really notice insanely high tank damage is Slag Mines CM.

More specifically, it's 'normal' in CMs to be getting destroyed. CMs are all about burst healing/survival. You should generally be chaining CDs every pack (not spamming them all, but chaining them over time), and interpersing with AoE CC like Remorseless winter, since obviously you dont need CDs vs stunned mobs.

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If I'm at full health and I have Blood/Death runes I normally spam Blood Boil till my hp drops to get SoB stacks to boost the next DS. Is that better than using DS at full health?

Also, is crit that terrible for us?
I recently got a 646 crit mastery belt, not sure if it replacing my 630 haste multistrike belt is worth it...

Crit is not that bad. It's 'the worst' but mostly because most dangerous things/combos can't be parried. Mathematically against just autoattacks it's okay. And even if it was, IlvL for base armour/str is insanely important, so thats not even a choice; the 646 item easily wins out.

Edit for Clarity:

Honestly the reason I say crit is the worst isn't because it's terrible mathematically, it's just that almost everything worth worrying about can't be parried.

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No need to sit on a blood rune all day if you just remember to save 5-6 blood tap charges, in case of a big breath from a boss or something. Sitting on a rune also means that if you ever let your 2nd blood rune refresh without spending it asap, rune regen will be lost.

Only rarely need to sit on blood runes, and it's something you should be planning in advance. Using RT reactively is completely pointless for obvious reasons, it's like using IBF at 10% HP.

On the whole SoB/2P Discussion, yeah it's worth using BB at full hp, but keep in mind, dumping all your runes like that is still silly; runes take a while to recharge, and you want to keep your DS pair in reserve. But yeah esp with 2p, I would use BB as long as I still kept my DS pair in reserve.

On the topic of all that math, honestly in practice it doesn't really play out that way or matter that much.

But yes, SoB DOES NOT Double Dip. Mastery shield is based on the amount healed (but includes overhealing), so if you had 40% mastery, you would get a shield for 40% of the healing done, counting overhealing. Nothing double dips the shield. The only exception is I think Vampiric Blood/GS healing buff only buffs the healing part of DS, but has no impact on the shield. However in reverse, Mortal Strike effects reduce the healing, but NOT the shield. This MAY have changed in WoD, but it was definitely like that in MoP.

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Very rough estimates:
T17 2p increases the uptime of Vampiric Blood by 50% (10s every 60s vs. 10s every ~40s). That's not bad.
T17 4p decreases damage taken by 7-9% (~400k hp and ~150k dmg). The interesting part is that the effectiveness increases a lot the smaller the damage is. Not terribly OP, but you have it active together with VB (remember the increased uptime) and reduced damage taken is exactly what we need.



Mh, I haven't thought about that. If you're resource capped and at full health, using your death runes for BB should net in better mitigation/healing overall if your prime goal is surviving.

Honestly 4p is complete trash on Mythic content. It's better then not having it, but I would never pick it over higher ilvl pieces. 2p is okay, as yeah, it puts you around 40% uptime if doing a DS heavy rotation (because you are trying not to die).

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After reading multiple posts about pre-raid headgear would an Heroic Warforged Rivet-sealed casque + socket be in the top choices? Or should I keep looking?

Try to get a CM helm, but yeah that is a pretty good choice. However since the odds if you getting that item are about 1 in 1000, I generally recommend the MC helm because it's actually possible to realistically get. Or craft a helm if it has great itemization, but that is a bit of a dice roll and maybe not the best idea if you have other slots with 630 gear you can replace with crafts.

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Top choices I've found so far are the epic head from apexis crystals (ugpraded to ilvl 645 or w/e first level is), or crafted one. I went for crafted one.

I didn't really include apexis gear, since unless you farm them all day, you will only have enough for 1 item, so you should just use it a 'filler' for whatever slot you don't have CM gear for.

[Chicks dig my axe]

Top choices I've found so far are the epic head from apexis crystals (ugpraded to ilvl 645 or w/e first level is), or crafted one. I went for crafted one.

Thank you very much.

[FurtyIRL]

There are multiple pulls where we've had to CC because of tank damage, where all five in my group agreed we'd save time if I could kite them for a couple of seconds every 15~ seconds (due to debuffs often). One that comes to mind is UBRS, first groups apply bleed that does a metric shit ton of dmg, can't reset without stuns / kiting, auchindoun, the 5 pack with the watcher, where the watcher alone melees me for ~70k.

We've literally pulled every single mob in the first area of UBRS in a single pull and AoE'd it down. If you're struggling it's a problem with the player not the class

[Numiro]

We've literally pulled every single mob in the first area of UBRS in a single pull and AoE'd it down. If you're struggling it's a problem with the player not the class

Could you please explain how you did it instead rather then just say stuff like that? Doesn't contribute that much to a discussion forum.
Yes, pulling every mob and aoe it is the way to go, however, I had to run out of melee range to reset the debuff, because it'd stack up to the point of one shotting me, if I didn't have to do that, we'd have saved time since I could've DPS'd more. It'd also give me more space to use blood boil over death strike (since DS compared to some 20 target BB is laughable when it comes to DPS), that would've helped us more.

[FurtyIRL]

Could you please explain how you did it instead rather then just say stuff like that? Doesn't contribute that much to a discussion forum.
Yes, pulling every mob and aoe it is the way to go, however, I had to run out of melee range to reset the debuff, because it'd stack up to the point of one shotting me, if I didn't have to do that, we'd have saved time since I could've DPS'd more. It'd also give me more space to use blood boil over death strike (since DS compared to some 20 target BB is laughable when it comes to DPS), that would've helped us more.

More or the less the same way you would approach any big pull in Challenge Modes; stuns if you need them, although we only use binding shot (to stop the leadbelchers), alongside the rotation of your own personal cooldowns and the healer's externals. Army of the Dead is also an option although it will die very quickly on said pack. Most importantly things need to die relatively quickly so that when your out of cooldowns and stuns you're not left with all the mobs still alive.

All that said, this applies to any pull in general, big or small. If you're taking a lot of damage on a single pack you need to be rotating cooldowns more efficiently and possibly pay more attention to your DS timings. Don't waste cooldowns right before you're about to AoE stun and don't be afraid to use IBF if you get in danger. A lot of tanks sit on their CDs way too long because they're waiting for the 'perfect' danger moment that never really comes.

[dr_AllCOM3]

A lot of tanks sit on their CDs way too long because they're waiting for the 'perfect' danger moment that never really comes.

That's the important part about tanking trash. You have to use a CD at the beginning, not at the end.

[FurtyIRL]

That's the important part about tanking trash. You have to use a CD at the beginning, not at the end.

If you struggle pulling lots of trash in cms, pop an armor pot and become virtually immortal. Armor pots (and pots in general) are stupidly op.

Right. It's about predicting damage intake and rotating CDs proactively, not reactively. Pre-potting trash packs give you a good amount of reduction for a full 25s. Look for synergy between your own CDs and externals; for instance Ironbark makes a Druid's HoT's tick 20% stronger. Combine this with Vampiric Blood for a very strong cooldown for 10s. Use Rune Tap if you ever fall behind on healing and need some breathing room. If you're popping your big CDs when you get chunked to low health, chances are the next swing knocks you out anyways.

[dr_AllCOM3]

Where can I find some information about the (TMI) standard bosses Simcraft uses for the charts they publish? I don't think they're very well done and I would like to try different variations.

[Troxism]

Where can I find some information about the (TMI) standard bosses Simcraft uses for the charts they publish? I don't think they're very well done and I would like to try different variations.

I dont know exact numbers used in the default bosses, but I do know they are GROSS underestimates of 'real' bosses for that level in terms of damage output (the Mythic TMI boss is a joke for example, you can actually make a DK profile that can stay at full HP vs it with 0 outside healing, which is nowhere near the case from my Mythic testing). That is one of the reasons I advise against just blindly simming. For all my sims I used custom, much harder hitting bosses (using estimated values from what I saw on beta) to get a better feel for things.

Having said that, I heavily dislike TMI as a metric for Blood, as Blood's 'smoothness' is so heavily based on exact rotation/play that trying to sim it accurately is very challenging; writing an APL that perfectly captures how a real, very skilled player would play is insanely difficult; I had to settle for a half-assed version even with my rewrites that I wasn't 100% happy with but at least was closer to reality. There are just a lot of little things you do in real fights that are hard to write APL for (not impossible of course, but good luck remembering/finding them out and then implementing them all 100% correctly in the APL). As a very simple example, predicting if you will die in the next GCD, and deciding if you will DS then or not. The Simcraft APL can't really support that sort of predicting behaviour, so you have to just ballpark it with HP thresholds ect. But the thing is, doing that sort of thing perfectly will lower your 'real' TMI significantly. Which is why I don't like simming for TMI; it's basically impossible to get numbers that actually mean anything.

[dr_AllCOM3]

Yeah, they use the same boss for every different profile they publish. You may not use the same boss for different ilvls, TMI doesn't work that way. For ilvl 630 the boss hits way too hard and for ilvl 695 is doesn't hit hard enough (hello absorb shields and overhealing screwing everything up). As long as there isn't a way to implement the proactive use of cooldowns we can't sim tanks anyway.

That said, the boss is under every report and I did a simulation myself based on the Butcher (Highmaul):

enemy=fluffy_pillow
 actions=auto_attack,damage=75000,attack_speed=1.5,aoe_tanks=1
 actions+=/melee_nuke,damage=24990,cooldown=1,attack_speed=0.1,type=physical
 actions+=/spell_aoe,damage=125000,cooldown=20,attack_speed=0.1

enemy=fluffy_pillow
 actions=auto_attack,damage=202521,attack_speed=1.5,aoe_tanks=1
 actions+=/melee_nuke,damage=67480,cooldown=1,attack_speed=0.1,type=physical
 actions+=/spell_aoe,damage=405042,cooldown=20,attack_speed=0.1

I took the melee hits from Golemagg reports (60-65k) and added a little bit. Maybe it's still too low, but it's close to the current reality we're going to face next week. I'm not sure about the attack speed, but it didn't change the result by a lot. The dot is averaged out, but for an attackspeed of 2. The damage for mythic is scaled up based on the skill damage scaling from the abilities (LFR->mythic is 2.7). Raidsize is 20. Added a hefty nuke every 20s just to make it more interesting.
This gives us a boss that does almost constant damage and it fits the profiles that just chain cooldowns. The results are far more realistic. The tanks are very close by and in reality it will come down to pure skill (and items).

TL;DR: (Skill + Items) >> Class

eTMI Scaling for ilvl 630
Strength 1.00
BonusArmor 1.76
Stamina 1.72
Armor 1.53
Mastery 0.61
Multistrike 0.62
Haste 0.50
Versatility 0.55
CriticalStrike 0.38

[Milocow]

Yeah, they use the same boss for every different profile they publish. You may not use the same boss for different ilvls, TMI doesn't work that way. For ilvl 630 the boss hits way too hard and for ilvl 695 is doesn't hit hard enough (hello absorb shields and overhealing screwing everything up). As long as there isn't a way to implement the proactive use of cooldowns we can't sim tanks anyway.

That said, the boss is under every report and I did a simulation myself based on the Butcher (Highmaul):

enemy=fluffy_pillow
 actions=auto_attack,damage=75000,attack_speed=1.5,aoe_tanks=1
 actions+=/melee_nuke,damage=24990,cooldown=1,attack_speed=0.1,type=physical
 actions+=/spell_aoe,damage=125000,cooldown=20,attack_speed=0.1

enemy=fluffy_pillow
 actions=auto_attack,damage=202521,attack_speed=1.5,aoe_tanks=1
 actions+=/melee_nuke,damage=67480,cooldown=1,attack_speed=0.1,type=physical
 actions+=/spell_aoe,damage=405042,cooldown=20,attack_speed=0.1

I took the melee hits from Golemagg reports (60-65k) and added a little bit. Maybe it's still too low, but it's close to the current reality we're going to face next week. I'm not sure about the attack speed, but it didn't change the result by a lot. The dot is averaged out, but for an attackspeed of 2. The damage for mythic is scaled up based on the skill damage scaling from the abilities (LFR->mythic is 2.7). Raidsize is 20. Added a hefty nuke every 20s just to make it more interesting.
This gives us a boss that does almost constant damage and it fits the profiles that just chain cooldowns. The results are far more realistic. The tanks are very close by and in reality it will come down to pure skill (and items).

TL;DR: (Skill + Items) >> Class

Scaling for ilvl 630
Strength 1.00
BonusArmor 1.76
Stamina 1.72
Armor 1.53
Mastery 0.61
Multistrike 0.62
Haste 0.50
Versatility 0.55
CriticalStrike 0.38

the scale factors are for dps or TMI or some other index?

[dr_AllCOM3]

the scale factors are for dps or TMI or some other index?

eTMI, sorry.

Here's an interesting scaling for higher ilvls and a slightly optimized DS usage:
eTMI Scaling for ilvl 695
Strength 1.00
BonusArmor 1.62
Stamina 1.25
Armor 1.65
Mastery 0.75
Multistrike 1.00
Haste 1.05
Versatility 0.73
CriticalStrike 0.51

Increasing the frequency of DSs seems to be better than increasing the strength.

[Troxism]

eTMI, sorry.

Here's an interesting scaling for higher ilvls and a slightly optimized DS usage:
eTMI Scaling for ilvl 695
Strength 1.00
BonusArmor 1.62
Stamina 1.25
Armor 1.65
Mastery 0.75
Multistrike 1.00
Haste 1.05
Versatility 0.73
CriticalStrike 0.51

Increasing the frequency of DSs seems to be better than increasing the strength.

It's because like I said, it's almost impossible to write an APL that actually plays right; it will always be spammy as hell, and that always favours spam stats. Ultimately like I said, simming TMI is a waste of time. TMI was a poor metric last expac for Blood, it's far far worse now due to how damage patterns have changed.

For the record I ran Mythic sims with a base boss damage of 400k, which is probably still too low.