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

[Milocow]

Heads up, Blood Tap seems to be bugged. Death Runes you get on Blood Runes stay as Death Runes when using Death Strike. You'll basically be playing with 6 Death Runes in a boss fight.

Defile also hits Kromog now.

feels like 2h frost with obliterate... blood 2h with deathstrike

[Ikrekot]

Heads up, Blood Tap seems to be bugged. Death Runes you get on Blood Runes stay as Death Runes when using Death Strike. You'll basically be playing with 6 Death Runes in a boss fight.

Defile also hits Kromog now.

I suppose this is bug but I love it

- - - Updated - - -

Someone could confirm if it's bug or intended with Blood Runes?

[Deleted]

Thank you very much for this awesome guide and all your time and help, Troxism. I am always trying to get better at what I am doing (especially when people tell me that a DK is not a good tank for any form of progression) and detailed information like this (and looking at looks from Jellos and the other crazy DPS nuts) has helped me a lot.

We are currently still finishing up BRF HC (Looking to kill Blackhand this ID) and maybe you (and/or others, always welcome) could take a look at my log from yesterday and let me know where I can continue to improve (The log has all kills besides BF, Kromog and BH):

https www warcraftlogs com/reports/apFWPM89LA7Z2YJD#spell=106&fight=21

Further to this, I do have some related questions:


1) Is there any worth in looking at the Tank Rankings?
2) How do you get these amazing uptimes on BoS, i.e. on the Maidens fight? I guess as a DK Tank you never go to a boat and stay on the bosses all time instead?
3) I tries to use NP in some fights yesterday but it really does not seem to be of any good use.

[Drunkenvalley]

I suppose this is bug but I love it

- - - Updated - - -

Someone could confirm if it's bug or intended with Blood Runes?

Hard to tell. After all, Death Strike simply converts the used runes into Death Runes. It might not be intentional, but it might not be a bug either... I mean, it does add its own interesting sort of depth in resource management, similar to how people would game the random rune regen to get desired runes.

[MagmyGeraith]

Hard to tell. After all, Death Strike simply converts the used runes into Death Runes. It might not be intentional, but it might not be a bug either... I mean, it does add its own interesting sort of depth in resource management, similar to how people would game the random rune regen to get desired runes.

Yeah, I really can't say for sure. I immediately presumed bug because it didn't work this way before. I'd also think Blizzard wouldn't want Blood DKs playing with 6 Death Runes, but who knows. This change also makes Blood Tap even more "mandatory" which seems to be something Blizzard is against.

/shrug

Enjoy it for now (and possibly forever?)

[Troxism]

Thank you very much for this awesome guide and all your time and help, Troxism. I am always trying to get better at what I am doing (especially when people tell me that a DK is not a good tank for any form of progression) and detailed information like this (and looking at looks from Jellos and the other crazy DPS nuts) has helped me a lot.

We are currently still finishing up BRF HC (Looking to kill Blackhand this ID) and maybe you (and/or others, always welcome) could take a look at my log from yesterday and let me know where I can continue to improve (The log has all kills besides BF, Kromog and BH):

https www warcraftlogs com/reports/apFWPM89LA7Z2YJD#spell=106&fight=21

Further to this, I do have some related questions:


1) Is there any worth in looking at the Tank Rankings?
2) How do you get these amazing uptimes on BoS, i.e. on the Maidens fight? I guess as a DK Tank you never go to a boat and stay on the bosses all time instead?
3) I tries to use NP in some fights yesterday but it really does not seem to be of any good use.

Tank ranks are beyond useless, they are just misleading. Tanking isn't about taking the least damage over the entire fight, it's about NOT DYING, which isn't even close to the same thing. You can 'rank' lower on tanking and still be a worse tank that is more unstable and dies more often. Most fights only about 10-20% of the fight you have any risk of dying in, and it's about how you handle that, not how you handle the other 80% (where you can pretty much do anything and your raid won't even notice the difference).

AMS soaking, yes staying on the boat, and a lot of other little things. Honestly however Iron Maidens is a stupid fight to look at: 80% of the fight DPS is irrelevant (because how fast you drop them to 20% is REALLY not important; on mythic you just SIT THERE AND DO ZERO DAMAGE to wait out boat 3), and sub 20% it gets 100 times messier (making stuff like BoS way less effective). But people just look at overall meters and not at what is important; same thing on Kromog: people think being #1 damage by padding on hands = being effective, when Boss damage (and pillar damage in Mythic) is WAY more important.

And yes those targets 'need to die' but you don't need your entire raid aoeing or whatever to kill them, and trying to do the lion's share of damage on them just indicates you aren't focusing enough on the actually hard parts (Pillars on Mythic Kormog in that example, boss damage in general) (seriously most raids have problems with killing hands too FAST).

Sorry for going off on a tangent but it really irks me to see this among DPS players (and it bleeds into tank players); this idea that doing tons of AoE and being high on overall meters means you 'did better' then the guy who saved his CDs for the important burns and to do boss damage instead. People look WAY WAY WAY WAY too much at the overall meter and not enough at breakdowns. And that goes for pretty much everyone. If I had a penny for every time I heard a DPS DK talk about 'how much damage they did to hands omfg' I would be a rich man, and it's funny because they aren't the most useful person in their raid even if they are top on meters.

NP sucks, I pretty much say as such in the guide.

Also I think you look at public logs too much to look at how to do DPS. I think if you played in my raid you would have a good idea that A: I don't really play like my guide says, because the guide is written for the average player, and B: That I pull off some crazy stuff on progression that nobody else does until late into farm. I have a grand total of one pull on ONE fight publically logged. Reason I keep them private is actually to the benefit of everyone else, but I guess people won't ever see it that way (and people will never know the full story behind that, because after a few weeks things will change).

I'll probably look at your logs later but I'm going to sleep now. Sorry for the disjointed and rambling answers, but honestly it's related to what is making me want to quit playing forever. Just slowly unravelling, and half the problem is I guess I just can't deal with people being wrong about certain things :/

[cRawmode]

Thanks Troxism,

I do enjoy reading your opinions and "ramblings" if you want to call them that way. I'd be especially interested in hearing more about the "crazy stuff on progression that nobody else does until late into farm". You won't post logs as you described for various reasons but I'd be really curious what you mean with that? Seeing that Blood DKs do not have that many different options to DPS stuff down. You can decide to trade damage for survability (BB vs. DS during Cleave / AoE) but I'd be just really interested in hearing from you what you are doing so differently (without going into too much detail if you can not share this stuff with us). That would be great.

[Deleted]

I'll probably look at your logs later but I'm going to sleep now. Sorry for the disjointed and rambling answers, but honestly it's related to what is making me want to quit playing forever. Just slowly unravelling, and half the problem is I guess I just can't deal with people being wrong about certain things :/

Thanks for your swift reply, hopefully my post is not the reason why you want to quit playing When we are progressing, I do not really care about ranks, I just want to play my Blood DK as good as possible, which means not dying and putting out as much DPS as possible, where it is needed. But when there are bosses on farm, I always try to find a new challenge, even if this includes "random" bombing to get higher overall DPS.

Also I think you look at public logs too much to look at how to do DPS. I think if you played in my raid you would have a good idea that A: I don't really play like my guide says, because the guide is written for the average player, and B: That I pull off some crazy stuff on progression that nobody else does until late into farm.

Would love to see you in a proper raid

[Bamboozles]

having issues keeping threat away from my Warrior off tank with their buffs.

normal or just being bad?

[Deleted]

having issues keeping threat away from my Warrior off tank with their buffs.

normal or just being bad?

Depends: AoE or ST? If you are talking about AoE, this happens to me as well, ST I often need to be careful and not overaggro.

[Bamboozles]

Depends: AoE or ST? If you are talking about AoE, this happens to me as well, ST I often need to be careful and not overaggro.

I'm the reverse. On fights like Darmac I'm consistently higher than he is and need to be careful not to get smacked by adds. All AoE is like that. ST I'm struggling to keep up with him, especially early in the fight.

Huh. I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

[arisoh]

Depends on their talents tbh.

If AOE, I pull aggro (my warrior is my main), Bladestorm is usually enough, especially with high resolve, then add in a Dragon Roar and Ravager, and it's gg.

On ST, especially on the pull and crit stacking, Armor Pot + Bloodbath and Sudden Death execute procs, I can pull aggro off my monk co-tank.

[Bamboozles]

Depends on their talents tbh.

If AOE, I pull aggro (my warrior is my main), Bladestorm is usually enough, especially with high resolve, then add in a Dragon Roar and Ravager, and it's gg.

On ST, especially on the pull and crit stacking, Armor Pot + Bloodbath and Sudden Death execute procs, I can pull aggro off my monk co-tank.

Ah, fair enough.

I'm also only 677 and he's 682 stacking crit. So, that makes a little bit more sense.

Still, I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

[hunten]

Great guide thanks for the write up!!

[Xarganthos]

how much can i trust the simcraft sheet on their Website? according to simcraft we are way below other tanks in Terms of dps, take way more damage (as usual) and healing is more or less balanced except for warriors.

if this is true, i'm not sure how i should feel about that..

[Saiyendra]

how much can i trust the simcraft sheet on their Website? according to simcraft we are way below other tanks in Terms of dps, take way more damage (as usual) and healing is more or less balanced except for warriors.

if this is true, i'm not sure how i should feel about that..

The default Simcraft APL for Blood is utterly awful.

(This is why you should never use sims to compare tanks).

[Tojara]

Simcraft is terrible for tanks, I wouldn't put any weight in it at all.

[Xarganthos]

i still feel weak compared to our other tanks (druid, warrior). threat generation has also decreased by a lot :/

[Drunkenvalley]

You feel weak? I'd like to see your logs then. I feel immortal.

[dr_AllCOM3]

You feel weak? I'd like to see your logs then. I feel immortal.

Me too. I don't really need heals on some HC bosses and my ilvl is under 680. I even did the first place on Flamebender.
The DK is a lot about timing stuff right. It makes one hell of a difference. It's almost OP if you can play correctly, but the DK has to be balanced for the average player. I wouldn't be surprised if the rune system gets simplified in the future and skill would mean a lot less.