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

[Mtburn]

Great guide, helped me out a lot!

-You should try to channel it during the period of time with the most targets to hit. Just kidding they made this talent into a 2 target cleave instead of an AoE now.

You say this in the guide, but in the tooltip it says all enemies in a cone in front of the caster are hit, and that it deals reduced damage to secondary targets. It says nothing about only hitting two targets or am I understanding it wrong?

[Mareeta]

From my understanding, "reduced damage to secondary targets" gets translated to 100/n%, where n is the number of targets you're hitting, so that the maximum output of BoS will never exceed 200%, which is how much damage it would've originally done on the beta to 2 targets before they nerfed it. (Hence, Troxism calling it getting reduced from an AoE ability to a 2-target cleave one, since that's how much damage it's capped at)

[Jellospally]

sad days when blood boils receives a 33.3% nerf going back to my pally or monk inc lol

[Feali]

RIP Blood Boil

[Troxism]

The joke is that change kills Unholy completely, which boggles my mind that they would do that. There is no reason not to be a Frost DK anymore if you are DPS. The BB change isn't surprising for Blood (I was honestly sick of seeing people run a 3rd Blood Tank, it makes me vomit to see that shit, so I'm almost glad for the change), what is surprising is they didn't buff ST (this is a huge ST nerf to Blood, and Blood ST was already very middling among tanks outside of special cases), and they actually ended up buffing Prot Paladin a little (the glyph nerf does suck however for them), which is pretty crazy to think about, since Prot Paladin was already far far better on ST/slightly better on Cleave (at least the type of cleave where mobs hit you and you proc Avenger's Shield forever, not the type of cleave where there is just another target).

At least they finally fixed the abomination that was Prot Warrior DPS. I'm sure a lot of people are happy about that, I know I am (because I like seeing things more balanced then having some specs just be total garbage, which is why Unholy being killed off pisses me off a lot even if I don't play it).

[brunnor]

Pretty much. I really expected SOME buff with the BB nerf we all knew was coming. This is kind of annoying for people working on Mythic stuff right now too, in our case, margok. Hope the warrior buffs make up for my lack of damage.

[Tojara]

Warrior tanks needed a DPS boost. When we are essentially 3 buttons it's a nerf to our single target which I don't really think was bad at all.

Blood boil needed to be nerfed no doubt, but the targeted nerfs are pretty terrible. They obliterate unholy DKs in the process, nerf blood single target and AoE, and nerf the only thing guardian druids are good at (AoE) at the same time. Meanwhile protection paladins get buffed?

[Deleted]

Prot palas and brewmaster monks beat everyone so hard on ST its not even funny.

Edit: between tanks obv. (except for prot palas, theyll beat half your dps team on butcher)

[Simulacrum]

This just makes me miss heart strike even more.

[Ikrekot]

I tank together with druid now with this nerf I don't know what to say.

[Resurgo]

as a Blood DK, I sorta expected this coming to us.

So moving forward what should we be looking at? I mean, we don't have much in the way of choices thanks to losing stuff like Heart Strike, so just continue to blood boil? I can't think of any other way at the moment to utilize the runes. I mean, I'd push using stuff like BoS more, but I'm still blood boiling to fuel the runic power boost, so just continue like normal?

[Simulacrum]

So moving forward what should we be looking at? I mean, we don't have much in the way of choices thanks to losing stuff like Heart Strike, so just continue to blood boil? I can't think of any other way at the moment to utilize the runes. I mean, I'd push using stuff like BoS more, but I'm still blood boiling to fuel the runic power boost, so just continue like normal?

What are you even asking? If we should stop spending blood runes? There's nothing else to spend them on... so yeah, we keep using blood boil... obviously.

[Troxism]

Nerf changes nothing to playstyle/talent choices, everything that was true before is still true, with the exception that you want to avoid BB on ST as much as possible, but that barely changes anything as you will still cast it a lot just off CS procs and the fact that you don't want to overcap Blood runes.

For the record, I'm sick of seeing people say Blood DPS doesn't matter. To speak honestly, DPS for tanks is pretty much all that actually matters outside of mobility or ability to cheeze fight mechanics with a specific ability. It is not hard to survive on most fights even on early progression with shit gear, and so trivial with ANY kind of gear. The fact that an already weak ST tank (and ST matters a HELL OF A LOT more then AoE in most cases, case in point the only Boss that DPS actually really mattered in Highmaul was Butcher, AoE is usually just padding, or more accurately, something someone else could do anyways) got further nerfed on ST, while a tank who already was about 5-6k ahead on pure ST actually broke even or maybe even got buffed is completely insane to me.

BB needed a nerf for AoE, you can debate the % it should have been nerfed for that all day, but honestly in the grand scheme of things, Blood AoE wasn't that important; it only really hurts people who relied on 3 tanking (ie their tanks can't survive without someone else helping out), so honestly I'm kind of happy about it. But the fact that they managed to ding Blood ST for about 5-8% when it was already weak ST is extremely bad for the spec actually being worth a shit, because ST damage is actually insanely important for a tank, regardless of popular belief on the subject by people who have never even seen a good tank play, and fail to understand that 'survival' gameplay is too easy for anyone who is actually good in 95% of cases even on early progression. Tanks both need DPS to actually have something to do so they aren't bored out of their skull, and to actually contribute something, since staying alive is just a given in most cases.

[Resurgo]

totally totally agree Trox.

I'm just miffed without any way of properly expressing how mad I am that the devs couldn't see this coming with the pruning of our abilities like Heart Strike. Should have never been taken away to begin with.

[Tojara]

I'm just surprised they did pretty sweeping changes in the middle of their mini tier. I figured it would wait until foundry. Regardless of opinion, the changes to blood/guardian are pretty massive when Highmaul is probably going to last another 3+ weeks.

It's honestly perplexing how they go about these changes. They completely railroaded unholy in order to bring blood down. Tank AoE certainly needed some toning down, and blood isn't an exception, but the change to single target damage is really unwarranted. We will likely swap positions with warriors in single target damage, while we drop down the rankings in AoE damage completely. Because of the passive haste change and changes to ratings, protection paladins are shifting upwards in DPS when they really don't need it, while BrM are pretty much going unnoticed. Not saying BrM was completely overpowered, but it was solidly in the middle of both AoE/ST amongst tanks, and with the shifts going on they will naturally move upwards.

I tell you what though, they certainly made their promise of making blood feel more physical than magical. I just didn't think it would be giant nerf to blood boil without some changes or buffs to death strike damage.

[brunnor]

Well, UH DK's got their single target buffed to compensate for the nerfs. I was really hoping blood would be in the same notes, but we didn't get anything. I'm just thankful the tank I tank with us a warrior so his increase will counter my decrease.

[Resurgo]

meh, my group's will overall go down. My co-tank is a Druid and if I recall, he got nerfed too (not that his damage was even close to what I was putting out anyways)

[Deleted]

Tbh, these changes demoralized me as a blood tank. I felt that my ST dps was decent (parsing 94% on Brackenspore heroic, mind you) etc.
I really hope it will get "fixed" somewhat soon. IE: a small ST buff, while paladins get rekt. They are by far the better tanks atm. The only thing keeping warrs up there is their mobility. I don't see how DK's are chosen over other tanks (Warriors and Palas) atm. DK's need to have some fights where they shine.

[Satori]

I have a very stupid question: does bonus armor mitigate all damage taken (magic, physical, etc) or just physical damage like normal armor? Thanks in advance.

[Troxism]

I have a very stupid question: does bonus armor mitigate all damage taken (magic, physical, etc) or just physical damage like normal armor? Thanks in advance.

Its the same as normal armour.

- - - Updated - - -

Should have mentioned this btw, but DnD is actually worth casting now (yay) since BB is pretty bad now. Pretty much like MoP in that sense (only cast with CS procs on Single target, on AoE cast on CD, assuming in both cases targets will stay in for most of the duration).