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

[Eetabee]

From testing, are there any foundry fights that DKs excel on more than other tanks? We have a warrior, monk and myself so just trying to get a game plan of who will be best on a boss by boss basis.

[Saiyendra]

Also some possibly interesting stuff related to NP (basically it's still kinda shit in 6.1, and the reason why is kind of funny actually).

Could you give a brief summary as to why this is the case?

(Sorry about the impatience ~)

[Milocow]

All rings, neck, cloak, and trinket items that can be acquired in Nagrand (A level 98+ zone) or later should now be better suited for the character's loot specialization. This means tanks should no longer receive items with no bonus Armor and healers should no longer receive items with no Spirit from quests or Personal loot mode for those item slots.

Does this include bonus rolls?

EDIT
Ryan Scuderi@RyanScuderiJan 31
@WarcraftDevs Does the patch note change wrt amulets/rings for tanks/healers apply to raids or just quests in Nagrand + Garrison missions?

WarcraftDevs@WarcraftDevsJan 31
@RyanScuderi Yes, it applies to all Garrison mission tokens, as well as raids and dungeons.

[Troxism]

From testing, are there any foundry fights that DKs excel on more than other tanks? We have a warrior, monk and myself so just trying to get a game plan of who will be best on a boss by boss basis.

Not enough data on all 5 tanks from testing to say for sure who is the best for whatever. But for the sake of saying something, I think DK is good on Gruul (but much less so since they fixed solo soaking finally, which made DK/Druid/Monk completely fucking insane for it, too bad it's a joke fight anyways), good on Oregorger, slightly shitty on Beastlord (but honestly I think good play on that fight >>>>> tank spec), good on Flamebender (lolbreath, too bad it's an easy fight anyways at least from beta), average on Hans'gar (I don't think tank spec even matters there), average on Thogar (but has grip utility), slightly above average on Blast Furnace (just easier grabbing all the spread out adds), bad on Kromog (but honestly that is heavily based on some beta tuning), pretty bad on Iron Maidens (Sanguine Strikes), either really good or really bad on Blackhand depending on how p3 and secrat p4 looks (HEAVILY depends on timings of some spells and how ST heavy that fight is, and it looks very ST heavy, so probably bad).

But I'll be honest, seeing the fights on live with the final tuning will likely change some of these evaluations, so I'm ready to eat my words. I prefer to just do fights and see for sure rather then theorycraft too much about them, so I am bad at this kind of stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

All rings, neck, cloak, and trinket items that can be acquired in Nagrand (A level 98+ zone) or later should now be better suited for the character's loot specialization. This means tanks should no longer receive items with no bonus Armor and healers should no longer receive items with no Spirit from quests or Personal loot mode for those item slots.

Does this include bonus rolls?

Says in Nagrand, so no, I think you can still get useless DPS garbage as a tank on bonus rolls. Why this is the case is fucking beyond me, if I want a DPS cloak, I'll change my loot spec to DPS.

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Could you give a brief summary as to why this is the case?

(Sorry about the impatience ~)

To put it simply, even a perma 15 stack NP barely outdamages Blood Plague + Frost Fever + Defile on CD. And it's a lot more reasonable to cast Defile on CD and have 100% uptime on BP/FF then to have 100% 15 stack NP (which literally isn't possible for Blood).

And the RP gains are wasted, because on AoE (where you would be using NP), you are already gcd locked even at a modest gear level, much less BRF Mythic ilvls. And even if you aren't GCD locked, RP is so bad for AoE, since Death Coil is your weakest attack and is only single target.

Now the reason NP isn't totally useless, is there are other factors that can make it work a little better. But it's definitely not that great as it has other issues I didn't even mention here.

As for the 'interesting' part, well the fact why NP is actually good for UH/Frost is because their mastery gives a large bonus to only ONE of the two diseases + defile + NP. So the difference between normal diseases and NP is inflated for the DPS specs compared to Blood, who's Mastery boosts all spells equally. Which means it's literally not possible to balance NP to have the same AP coefficient for all 3 specs, and Blizzard is just wasting their time until they split it by spec.

There is actually the same problem with BoS, but that is a huge topic that I don't really have time to go into now. And for the record while you may think you know what I would say about that, I think a few things I would have to say would be pretty surprising and make people laugh/cry at how broken the design of Blood actually is (and I use both definitions of the word here by the way, both the fun and stupid/shitty way). But that is a topic for another day. Teaser: it's quite possible Crit might become Blood's overall best stat down the line, even with no special effects from it, if things pan out the way I expect.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay it's finally here. This isn't actually all I wanted to get done (I swear there will be fight tips for Highmaul before 6.2!), but I already spent to long on this and I don't really have more time.


Feb 3rd BRF RELEASE Update:

MAJOR CHANGES:

-Rewrote Trinket section completely. About 100x more detailed now, MUST READ.

-Basic Guide: DS/RT sections shortened.

-Advanced Guide: DS Section added strikethrough and clarification on why not to play around Resolve.

-Rewrote both basic/adv rotation sections quite a bit for clarity (nothing really changed however).

-changed stat weights, added more notes about DPS stat weights in different situations in both basic/advanced guide.

-Added Tier Bonuses section to Gear, talking about the T17 2/4p. Worth a read.

-Added my massive cooldown tracking WeakAura group to the Cooldowns section. Use at own risk.

-Additions to the Challenge Mode section: added gearing advice, and a note about BoS

-Rewrote NP section completely to account for 6.1. Worth a read.



MINOR CHANGES:

-Slightly edited Mastery, Haste, Crit stat sections, flipped BA/STR sections (there is a reason).

-Strength section now mentions it gives parry, since people often seem to think it doesn't for some reason.

-Added link to the giant post about TMI in the stats section since it's pretty relevant.

-Removed crossouts in 75 talents (very old).

-Added Empowered Rune Weapon to cooldowns section (since it's not really talked about anywhere in the guide otherwise).

-Modified intro to make more sense in a post beta world.

-Tweaked Crafted/CM Daily gear section a little.

-Removed note at start of Highmaul BiS.

-Made it more strongly clear that you should never use Glyph of Vampiric Blood.

-Gave the basic 3 glyph recommendations in the glyph sections

-Talked more about Glyphed vs Unglyphed Outbreak in the Advanced Guide Glyphs section

-Reworded 56 talents section slightly

-Reworded BoS section some more, removed some parts (old strikethrough)

-Made Plague Leech a stronger recommendation for talents

-Added note to talents recomendations that NP will sometimes be worth taking in 6.1


TO DO LIST:


-fix level 60 talents

-Fight tips for Highmaul (plz)

-Fight tips for BRF (won't be till after progression however, so don't hold your breath yet)

-Table of contents

-Appendix section?

[Alastorr]

So u made all of us curious about all that things and u just want to leave all that suspence? That's unfair! ;( :P
Jokes aside, i want to thank u very much for all the hard work and your precious councils.
I know u probably won't even remind of me but since we spoken i continued to do my best to improve myself to become a better tank, dk and player. I still often read your guide and the thread. And even if i can't find a great guild for progress i became a better player and tank overall. And that's also thanks to u.
I know u would be busy with progress from now on but i would ask if u will write your thoughts on all that matter. Specifically: BoS, NP, crit stats for dk and overall dk concept (which will make us cry/laugh) from your PoV.

[Aebrams]

So... I know the general thinking is probably still Defile / PL with MS > Mastery... but what if NP can give you all the RP generation you need to not worry about having downtime... would NP / PL with Mastery > MS be a thing?

Just throwing it out there.... Mastery increases AP, which makes your NP tick harder.

Defile/PL and MS>Mastery is still probably better, but I thought it may be worth theorycrafting around the other options.

[Mareeta]

Not needing Runic Strikes while running NP would bring MS closer to Crit, (Still above it since we get 1.05x from our attunement) but not put it below Mastery. The bulk of Multistrike's DPS value isn't the Runic Power you gain from it.

[Troxism]

So... I know the general thinking is probably still Defile / PL with MS > Mastery... but what if NP can give you all the RP generation you need to not worry about having downtime... would NP / PL with Mastery > MS be a thing?

Just throwing it out there.... Mastery increases AP, which makes your NP tick harder.

Defile/PL and MS>Mastery is still probably better, but I thought it may be worth theorycrafting around the other options.

I already talk about MS vs Crit in RP capped situations in the guide, Crit only beats MS for DPS if you have a LOT of MS and almost no Crit, and even then it barely wins out (the reason why is pretty much basic math).

- - - Updated - - -

So u made all of us curious about all that things and u just want to leave all that suspence? That's unfair! ;( :P
Jokes aside, i want to thank u very much for all the hard work and your precious councils.
I know u probably won't even remind of me but since we spoken i continued to do my best to improve myself to become a better tank, dk and player. I still often read your guide and the thread. And even if i can't find a great guild for progress i became a better player and tank overall. And that's also thanks to u.
I know u would be busy with progress from now on but i would ask if u will write your thoughts on all that matter. Specifically: BoS, NP, crit stats for dk and overall dk concept (which will make us cry/laugh) from your PoV.

Maybe I oversold it a little. Also I already discussed NP in the guide updates.

[Saiyendra]

How do you use BoS with Forgemaster's Insignia and Vial of Convulsive Shadows? Firstly, I'd imagine Forgemaster's would tend to proc at the start of a fight, so it can't be used together with your first BoS.

You'd want to use Vial as soon as you BoS, and then 'carry over' the flood of RP to the Forgemaster's proc, correct?

[Troxism]

How do you use BoS with Forgemaster's Insignia and Vial of Convulsive Shadows? Firstly, I'd imagine Forgemaster's would tend to proc at the start of a fight, so it can't be used together with your first BoS.

You'd want to use Vial as soon as you BoS, and then 'carry over' the flood of RP to the Forgemaster's proc, correct?

New trinket section (Vial section) talks about this, but honestly like I talk about later, it's a stupid trinket combination anyways.

[Milocow]

About Gruul's Inferno strike, if you used AMS will it redistribute more damage to other people?

[Troxism]

About Gruul's Inferno strike, if you used AMS will it redistribute more damage to other people?

No it doesn't.

[Saiyendra]

New trinket section (Vial section) talks about this, but honestly like I talk about later, it's a stupid trinket combination anyways.

I had read that section, and to be fair it doesn't discuss their use with BoS but rather admonishes the combination. I also disagree with that to some extent, considering that the only caveat here is you don't want to overlap Vial with Forgemaster's procs, and this combination has the potential to greatly increase BoS duration (to possibly 100% uptime) which would amount to far more than a 100-200 DPS gain.

Basically, as I see it, there is no anti-synergy as long as you don't overlap the effects. When you don't overlap them, you are extending the sizable multistrike gains over a longer period of time, which helps in carrying over the resource generation to other periods; this greatly increases BoS uptime.

[Troxism]

I had read that section, and to be fair it doesn't discuss their use with BoS but rather admonishes the combination. I also disagree with that to some extent, considering that the only caveat here is you don't want to overlap Vial with Forgemaster's procs, and this combination has the potential to greatly increase BoS duration (to possibly 100% uptime) which would amount to far more than a 100-200 DPS gain.

Basically, as I see it, there is no anti-synergy as long as you don't overlap the effects. When you don't overlap them, you are extending the sizable multistrike gains over a longer period of time, which helps in carrying over the resource generation to other periods; this greatly increases BoS uptime.

Edit: To answer your original question I guess: I mean what I said there about not overlapping is pretty much all you need to know about using them with BoS, but past that, I mean use them when BoS is up, and you aren't already resource flooded (but not so late that you are starved and it ends before the effect of the trinket has any impact). But don't hold them too long either, which honestly in practice kind of means you just use Vial on CD about 5-10 seconds into Breath... and Forgemasters can fuck with this, forcing a delay on Vial usage next time around, which can be really annoying (and again, having to delay Vial like this is wasting uptime = wasted DPS = anti-synergy, obviously Forgemasters doesn't DECREASE your DPS with Vial, but it doesn't give as much as it does by itself on paper, which is why I keep saying it's a weak combination even for DPS). But just play around Forgemasters in the way I described (if it procs, hold Vial).

I should clarify then, the reason that combination sucks is you basically give up all survivability from trinkets, and trinkets are by far and away the best place to get survivability. It's always about tradeoffs, and the tradeoff there sucks. You will get more BoS uptime, but 100% will still be 100% about RNG. Your actual DPS won't go up as much as you might think, for how much survivability you are just tossing away. To put it another way, Blast Furnace Door increases the damage of every second of your Breath, which actually can have almost as much impact as extending it by a bit more. People way overemphasize BoS uptime and forget that it's damage per tick is actually pretty damn low, and you do still care about your other damage sources, and about increasing it's damage per tick as well. A strong active or even proc on a trinket is better then actual tanking CDs, which like I have discussed earlier matters way more then actual survivability stats on gear.

Fundamental fact is on actual progression you can't toss away all vestiges of survivability (unless you do everything outgeared I guess, which most people do TBH, or they just 3 tank and lose raid DPS). You may be able to on easy bosses, but anything actually challenging you will want to have useful trinkets for, why, because it's about tradeoffs, and the DPS gain from pure DPS trinkets is just too low compared to how much survivability you lose. To put it another way, trading Mastery for MS is about 1 to 1 Survival to DPS tradeoff. Trading for example Blast Furnace Door/Tablet of Turnbuckle Teamwork for the Forgemaster's Insignia is like a 1 DPS to 5 Survivability ratio. Obviously these are somewhat arbitrary numbers, but it does pan out in reality. Which is why I advocate using defensive trinkets, offensive gearing, same reason I advocated DPS Cloak and Tank Meta in SoO for progression: the tradeoffs respectively were much more favourable in either direction.

The other problem with Forgemasters is the stacking nature + 10 seconds durations means you don't even get autoattacks sometimes during the higher stacks; your swing timer is about 2+ seconds, the proc only lasts 10 and stacks every 0.5 seconds. While the MS from it gives good raw damage, the resource gen aspect is much weaker due to the short proc and stacking nature, while you only get a few autoattacks off during the proc on average. I think you may be a little surprised by it's actual effect on BoS uptime, which is again why I say if you want to use a DPS trinket, use Vial.

And of course lastly, why the hell would you steal DPS trinkets from DPS, if they don't have a sizable gain attached. Forgemasters is a small DPS gain, huge survivability loss, and a large gain for some DPS specs. To take this item on actual progression is pretty much just trolling your raid. Esp since Mythic Forgemasters isn't going to drop on progression, and Heroic is not that great anyways DPS wise compared to other Mythic Trinkets (seriously just use Blast Furnace Door instead).

On pure farm, I mean you can do whatever you want. Wear double DPS trinkets for a tiny gain, obviously it doesn't matter after you outgear every boss by 10 ilvls and survival is beyond trivial. But my guide isn't written for how to farm optimally, it's written for people currently in progression, and considerations like DPS gearing, and the fact that there will be a few bosses where you will want a good trinket active on can't just be ignored, and yes, that colours my recommendations quite a lot. So that is why I don't like that trinket combination and don't recommend it: all of the above. It's something you do on farm, not something you do on progression, and nobody needs a guide for farm for obvious reasons.

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Btw tiny update: with the new 3.2% instead of 3.7% NP on the PTR, it's back to just being totally fucking useless again, so I'll have to update the guide with that soon. 10/10 Blizz.

Also sorry if the above sounds 'harsh', it's not intended to be aggressive, I just try to make all the relevant points at once if I can remember them.

[Raiju]

As someone who values breath abuse much higher than troxism, I have to agree that forgemaster's insignia just looks completely inappropriate for us. DPS gain? Sure, but given vial runs a lot better with breath I'd expect a lot better dps as a result of it. Running both also agreed is risking proc starvation or overkill when you need it.

And that is before the survivability gains other trinkets get. Personally I would've liked a proc bonus armor and passive mastery (Such as eidolon), but given the ilvl difference I was honestly expecting to run Blast furnace + Vial for general use with a defensive on use if i can get my hands on one for super tough hits, on the condition that I coin the vial since once again even with more focus on dps from breath, it's not fair to steal the dps trinkets who WILL get more out of it than you.

[Troxism]

I think you should be careful to assume anything about how much I value DPS or not, as I don't have any public logs. There is a difference between caring about DPS and making shitty trade-offs that cost your raid more then they gain on progression. There are definitely bosses in Foundry where it's about 90% likely more DPS won't be worth a survivability loss, due to the nature of the encounter (again till you outgear it... which to be fair most people outgear encounters when they do them, for example if you had over 670 for Mythic Highmaul you outgeared it). But what I will say is people overvalue uptime on breath far too much to the exclusion of other things, both in respect to DPS and other aspects of play.

Honestly I just wish people kept balance/moderation in mind. You keep the minimum you need for the fight in mind, and you never cross that line in regards to survival; while on most fights you can get away with very little, forgetting about basic requirements can screw you over in a few cases.

[Milocow]

any way to use defile on kromog?

[Troxism]

any way to use defile on kromog?

Not that I know of. I'm sure it will be fixed in a week or so.

[TyrantWave]

Just a quick question:

I've got the 670 Imperator weapon (Vers/Mast) and the 665 Flamebender weapon (Mast/MS) - which would be better to use?

Do the extra Str/Stam and slightly higher Mast outweigh the large amount of MS I'm getting, or shall I just go for the higher ilvl?

Edit: I run with BoS, for what that's worth.

[Troxism]

Just a quick question:

I've got the 670 Imperator weapon (Vers/Mast) and the 665 Flamebender weapon (Mast/MS) - which would be better to use?

Do the extra Str/Stam and slightly higher Mast outweigh the large amount of MS I'm getting, or shall I just go for the higher ilvl?

Edit: I run with BoS, for what that's worth.

Very close because weapon damage is still really important. Gut feeling tells me go with ilvl on weapons however, even if it's only 5.

Edit: Actually use the Flamebender Sword. It's very close, and on AoE/Cleave weapon damage is devalued somewhat, so it inches ahead there.