Do you miss Heart Strike (as a concept)?

[dr_AllCOM3]

BB mechanics with a HS theme would be perfect. Simply throw a shadowy sword at every enemy in range in their hearts.

[Schizoide]

BB mechanics with a HS theme would be perfect. Simply throw a shadowy sword at every enemy in range in their hearts.

Note this is exactly what everybody was saying all throughout beta. This feedback was treated to the same careful consideration as all our other feedback in WoD beta, the home of the worst dev communication throughout the entire history of WoW. We never got a reply, it went directly to /dev/null.

[Rainec]

Bad comparison, Blood Strike still had a use after you got Heart Strike (at least in situations where you didn't want to hit more than one target).

"Had use", but HS was still used overall.

So the spell only one spec got is less iconic than the spell every spec got that was still overshadowed by other spells in those specs?

Icy Touch may be a frost spell, but it's practically never used over Howling Blast for the same reasons of not AoEing.

http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j
Look at the old WotLK talents. HS and DRW are at the end of the Blood tree. Same for Frost's FS and HB and Unholy's SS and Gargoyle. Most passives in the trees became built into the spec by default.

Frost has stayed practically the same: It's the only viable DW spec, it's bursty and has the spec unique spells are FS and HB

Unholy's talents have been mixed around since these trees were before Blood became the sole tank spec: Anyone can now get the AMZ and UB talents. On a Pale Horse is baseline for every spec and Blood took Bone Shield

Blood has suffered the most losses in the long run: Rune Tap has completely changed with the patch, Mark of Blood is long gone, Hysteria pretty much changed to Unholy Frenzy and now got removed, and Blood Worms and Rune Strike, which had been around just as long as HS, are gone.

[Deleted]

"Had use", but HS was still used overall.

So the spell only one spec got is less iconic than the spell every spec got that was still overshadowed by other spells in those specs?

Icy Touch may be a frost spell, but it's practically never used over Howling Blast for the same reasons of not AoEing.

http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j
Look at the old WotLK talents. HS and DRW are at the end of the Blood tree. Same for Frost's FS and HB and Unholy's SS and Gargoyle. Most passives in the trees became built into the spec by default.

Frost has stayed practically the same: It's the only viable DW spec, it's bursty and has the spec unique spells are FS and HB

Unholy's talents have been mixed around since these trees were before Blood became the sole tank spec: Anyone can now get the AMZ and UB talents. On a Pale Horse is baseline for every spec and Blood took Bone Shield

Blood has suffered the most losses in the long run: Rune Tap has completely changed with the patch, Mark of Blood is long gone, Hysteria pretty much changed to Unholy Frenzy and now got removed, and Blood Worms and Rune Strike, which had been around just as long as HS, are gone.

Such nostalgia playing wotlk release as blood dk... back in the days when it was still a viable dps spec

[Schizoide]

I never liked Blood DPS in WOTLK. Single-target was great with tons of ArP, but AE was terrible. Unholy was great at single-target and amazing AE.

Anyway, like I've been saying in these threads for many months now, Soul Reaper fills that single-target Blood rune spender niche.

[Sandrox]

While mechanically the class is better right now, the way it looks and feels seems off now. I miss spamming rune and heart strike simply for the animations.

[Mareeta]

I never liked Blood DPS in WOTLK. Single-target was great with tons of ArP, but AE was terrible. Unholy was great at single-target and amazing AE.

Anyway, like I've been saying in these threads for many months now, Soul Reaper fills that single-target Blood rune spender niche.

When they were first describing Necrotic Plague last year before alpha/beta released, Wandering Plague was the first thing that popped into my head. I was definitely disappointed.

[MagmyGeraith]

"Had use", but HS was still used overall.

http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j
Look at the old WotLK talents. HS and DRW are at the end of the Blood tree. Same for Frost's FS and HB and Unholy's SS and Gargoyle. Most passives in the trees became built into the spec by default.

Blood has suffered the most losses in the long run: Rune Tap has completely changed with the patch, Mark of Blood is long gone, Hysteria pretty much changed to Unholy Frenzy and now got removed, and Blood Worms and Rune Strike, which had been around just as long as HS, are gone.

I always laugh when people point out the old Blood talent tree. Look at it and compare it to old Ret talent trees. The two trees are incredibly similar, so much that Blood seemed more like a Dark Paladin than a Death Knight.


That being said, I don't miss Heart Strike in the slightest. There were many times I'd rather use Blood Boil to spread diseases and not have to worry about parries, but know I need to hit HS because it was better versus 2/3 targets. I'm glad they removed the button and got rid of that conflict. Though I also don't mind having a ton of spells as a melee class.

[Deleted]

'They feel Blood Death Knights are using their magic too much and aren’t using their weapon enough. They need to make them use their strikes again, but it likely won’t be in the immediate future.'

From the dev interview. And yes, I still feel awkward using BB in a ST scenario.

Lol, after all the feedback given by DKs during the beta period on this exact point that quote is just gold

[Irian]

I don't necessarily miss Heart Strike, but more just miss DKs being primarily melee and less caster.

When playing my blood DK, it really just doesn't fit right. The kit doesn't seem to invoke a theme or have much sense to it. Blood DKs have always been the least magical, and it makes sense; they're bulky, ironclad blood-infused undead warriors that suck the life out of their enemies with their runeblades. They do not sit around and throw death coils and use blood magic. Almost every ability in the death knight's arsenal is a spell now and that just seems really odd.

People brought this up in beta plenty of times but they never addressed it until now, which is really mystifying to me.

[Ratyrel]

I'd take heart strike over blood boil any day. It just feels wrong atm.

[cashballer]

I think Soul Reaper is out of place for Blood. Should just turn it into Heart Strike (with an Execute component, if desired) imo.

[Raiju]

Anyway, like I've been saying in these threads for many months now, Soul Reaper fills that single-target Blood rune spender niche.

Soul reaper does not fill that niche for the majority of a fight. The only reason it really even gets as much attention as it does is because it (and executes in general) are doing ridiculous amounts of damage.

6.5k vs 25k (single target)? Just using my dk's unbuffed values.

Heart strike would help a lot mechanically, and even blizzard have admitted a thematic problem with lack of strikes.

I don't mind soul reaper as a spell, it feels very over-all DK to me.

[Schizoide]

Nope. Soul Reaper hits for nearly exactly the same damage as Heart Strike on a single target at >35% health. Heart Strike was only 5% weapon damage higher than the Soul Reaper initial hit in 5.4.

Again, we need to separate talking about theme/kit from mechanics. Soul Reaper fills the mechanical requirement of spending a Blood rune with CC'd targets close by, and does perfectly fine damage for that rune on a single target. Theme/kit is another matter entirely.

[Gratlim]

I do but they would need to buff it a ton compared to its former version to bring it on par with blood boil.

But I miss my little worms more

[Raiju]

Nope. Soul Reaper hits for nearly exactly the same damage as Heart Strike on a single target at >35% health. Heart Strike was only 5% weapon damage higher than the Soul Reaper initial hit in 5.4.

Again, we need to separate talking about theme/kit from mechanics. Soul Reaper fills the mechanical requirement of spending a Blood rune with CC'd targets close by, and does perfectly fine damage for that rune on a single target. Theme/kit is another matter entirely.

Comparing to bloodboil obviously since this is 6.0. These are numbers ON LIVE so you can pretend they aren't real all you like.

Not being dogshit under a silence effect is something you seem to be missing, something that is important this tier.

Can't say I've had a single time in 6.0 where I had to stand next to a target I had to keep CC'd rather than (most of the time) aoeing everything, maybe using stuns - or just pulling away.

[Museigen]

I cannot for the life of me grasp the idea of having and AoE and a Single/Cleave pair of abilities being a bad thing or a "conflict." Having to decide which button to press when is pretty much the fundamental aspect of...games. It's "Stupid" to have to make a decision? The end of this thought process is going to be watching a movie with some quick time events that say "Press Any Key At Any Time."

To each their own, but holy crap batman.

[Schizoide]

Perhaps you could calm down your responses, just a bit.

What I said was that Soul Reaper is a perfectly fine alternative to Blood Boil for when you need to spend a blood rune but don't want to hit CC'd targets nearby. That's all.

Soul Reaper also cannot be silenced.

[ro9ue]

I agree with getting back the melee abilities. Maybe a glyph option?

Glyph of Heart Strike - turns your Blood Boil into Heart Strike. Heart Strike deals damage to 2 enemies only, but spreads diseases like Blood Boil.

Glyph of Rune Strike - turns your Death Coil into Rune Strike??

[blackblade]

I've been trying to get into making a tank offset now that my dps gear is decent and Blood's new priority system is fine, but I just can't stand how it "feels" since HS got replaced by Blood Boil. No, I didn't play the beta or tank much at all since the spell changes, so I didn't notice really till now..

I don't really miss heart strike specifically, but I don't really like how little blood uses it's weapon from an animations point of view (death strike and plague strike are basically all).

They probably also need a stronger visual on Blood Tap now that it's a flat mitigator, too.