Blood Death Knight 7.3

[Guest Fallenlight]

Is gargoyle really better than crusader for tanking? 5% stats/armor seems pretty underwhelming for me, especially with the bonus armor enchant for necks. Was first run Heroic this monday and we killed nythendra and tried ysondre and her gang. Got overall 16 trys and crusader did 10% of my healing, which isnt too bad imo. And the 15% increase in strength gives you a bit parry and a decent dmg increase. Also increases passively the blood plague and consumption heal, also its not very much ST, but still something. With a few nice procs, its value is even greater, while vamp blood is active.

[TalonShadowsong 5]

20 hours ago, Guest Fallenlight said:

Is gargoyle really better than crusader for tanking? 5% stats/armor seems pretty underwhelming for me, especially with the bonus armor enchant for necks. Was first run Heroic this monday and we killed nythendra and tried ysondre and her gang. Got overall 16 trys and crusader did 10% of my healing, which isnt too bad imo. And the 15% increase in strength gives you a bit parry and a decent dmg increase. Also increases passively the blood plague and consumption heal, also its not very much ST, but still something. With a few nice procs, its value is even greater, while vamp blood is active.

Yeah, i think somewhere in my 2 walls of text I outlined how little Stoneskin Gargoyle actually did for you in terms of mitigation.

Found the post:

Iron Heart: Provides 2% Armor per trait for a nice +6% armor, which is just more than Stoneskin Gargoyle gives as is.
   Now, armor is a really powerful stat (so says the mighty Ask Mr. Robot), more so since we are dealing with very high numbers in this expansion. In my current set up, I have 5 points in Iron Heart (2 from relics, obviously) giving my an additional 10% armor + Stoneskin Gargoyle and i848, putting me 5314 Armor for a 41.83% reduction in physical damage.
   Now, doing some shoddy napkin numbers we divide the % reduction by the Armor value to get the rough reduction per point at lvl110 (assuming it doesn't start strong and level out later) I am getting 0.00787% reduction per point of armor. At my current Armor rating, this means that Stoneskin Gargoyle itself is worth: (5314*0.95 = 5048.3 = 265.7 Armor = 2.091059% physical reduction) Furthermore, all my points in Iron Heart work out to double that, which equals: (531.4 = 4.182118% physical reduction).
   Now, if I remove Stoneskin Gargoyle, my Armor is reduced to 5061 for a 40.65% physical reduction (in-game). This, however, alters the formula for how much armor is worth per point to 0.0080, which means there is some decimal skimming, etc. working on the in-game value, somewhere which is only slightly altering these numbers, but not to a major degree. Anyway, the difference here, with my current Armor value is 1.18% physical damage taken. Now, that may not seem like a lot, but a painful ability from a boss, lets use Mythic Smashspite the Hateful (Black Rook Hold) as an example. His Brutal Uppercut deals 1,892,000 damage. 1.18% of that is 22,325.6 which clearly doesn't really matter to us overall (but seriously, this is lolMythic numbers we are talking about and in high-level raiding 1-2% is valuable). Note: In addition to the 5% armor, we also get 5% Strength (idk how this meshing into the overall formulas for damage return, but this also grants us Parry Chance = FC Parry(passive): 16.70% -> SSG Parry: 17.17% = 0.47% [FC Proc Parry: 18.09% = 0.92% difference from SSG]) and 5% Stamina (which is about FC HP: 2,829,540 -> SSG HP: 2,971,020 = 141,480) from Stoneskin Gargoyle. In my current gear, Fallen Crusader is healing my for 215k per proc, which is a fair bit.
   Based on what was said here, I don't really see a reason to be taking Stoneskin Gargoyle at all, unless perhaps Mythic Raids, but it would appear that the proc from Fallen Crusader still outweights the 5% armor and 5% Stamina/Strength. Of course I have no data for this :(

Basically, yeah, your feelings on Fallen Crusader vs. Stoneskin Gargoyle do seem to pan out in the mathz

[Valks 2,373]

50 minutes ago, TalonShadowsong said:

Basically, yeah, your feelings on Fallen Crusader vs. Stoneskin Gargoyle do seem to pan out in the mathz

Yeah, we were hoping to get an analysis of your comment done by our reviewer, unfortunately raiding has started and everything is pretty crazy busy right now! It's on the list for sure, but I would tend to agree that FC is better, yes.

[Guest Fallenlight]

Thx for the fast reply. Glad its not only me, who thinks FC>SSC.

 

Another question i have, how does Blood Shield exactly scale? Does it only scale with the 10% minimum heal from DS or a % of the total heal from DS? I tested it against the tank puppet in archerus and got always the same amount of shield.

[Bishop 0]

On 9/29/2016 at 5:38 AM, Guest Fallenlight said:

Another question i have, how does Blood Shield exactly scale? Does it only scale with the 10% minimum heal from DS or a % of the total heal from DS? I tested it against the tank puppet in archerus and got always the same amount of shield.

It scales off of the 20% of all Damage Taken (min 10% of max health), without any other modifiers. The shield is unaffected by vampiric blood, or anything else that increases healing done. 

[Valks 2,373]

On 9/30/2016 at 3:07 PM, Bishop said:

It scales off of the 20% of all Damage Taken (min 10% of max health), without any other modifiers. The shield is unaffected by vampiric blood, or anything else that increases healing done. 

Thanks for picking that up, not sure how I missed it!

[Guest A DK]

I am wondering why Tremble Before Me is so easily dismissed?

 

I did some testing in some mythic+ dungeons, and it is actually quite strong. In most dungeons, the trash is already grouped quite well or can be grouped well with only death grip, making s shorter CD on Gorefiends Grasp unnecessary. The slow also isn't that desirable - if you kite, you ain't doing damage.

March of the damned is quite weak, too.

 

Tremble before Me on the other hand proccs extremely often. If disrupts casters, it stops otherwise unkickable casts. And even with multiple DDS aeing at 600k+ dps each, the fear still holds a significant amount of time. To me, its an excellent choice for higher-level Mythic+ dungeons.

I agree that its a bit unpredictable, but the other talents are basically useless or very weak for Mythic+ dungeons, while Tremble Before Me makes certain trash packs significantly easier.

[Valks 2,373]

5 hours ago, Guest A DK said:

I am wondering why Tremble Before Me is so easily dismissed?

The key problem with it is that it is random. It can't be used as an interrupt because you can't rely on it, there's no guarantee it will stop anything. Instead, it could proc as soon as they finish their cast. It's also worth nothing that it doesn't even lock casters, it just delays the spell for at least a fraction of a second, at most 3 or so seconds.

As for kiting, it most certainly is desirable. There are mobs in M10+ that you will be kiting and that slow can become insanely useful to give your healer some form of respite. Just as you use stuns to give yourself some kind of respite (Warriors with Shockwave, Monks with Leg Sweep etc.), you also will need to kite. The reduced cooldown on GG can also be crazy useful if you're doing high M+ due to the need for chain pulling and stacking. You can't Death Grip everything. You'll Gorefiend's, let your DPS mass-CC and then go ham on the damage. 

MoTD fixes what can be a serious problem for DKs in some fights: mobility. There are mobs out there that are immune to DG and you don't have another means of getting to them.

[Toha 0]

Two minor questions, I noticed on the stat priority it says try to get 20% haste unbuffed at least.does that mean we should use a 5ilvl lower main stat piece to get to the 21percent or higher or should we use the 5ilvl higher piece and take the loss in this case, 18percent haste vs 21percent haste.

Also secondary with question rune forging it says to use Stoneskin Gargoyle if you need to desperately haste cap however I noticed when switching my rune forging on my weapon I noticed my haste value didn't change at all when using Stoneskin vs Crusader. Wouldn't that make Stoneskin completely undesirable then?

[Guest Lycoris]

I keep  seeing differing opinions on if using a 200 str gem over a 150 haste gem is worth it or not. Thoughts?

[Guest Papitto]

Hi ... have a HUGE question about stats priority ... in here, u guys say that Haste and Crit it's better because the faster regain of runes and better pair chance.. but in Ask Mr. Robot, they say Mastery and Versa its better because larger shield and dmg reduced ... i was wondering wich one is better for Raid and wich is better for mitic+ ... i guys can help me?? and explain me why that choice is better?? 

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/8/2016 at 6:28 AM, Toha said:

Two minor questions, I noticed on the stat priority it says try to get 20% haste unbuffed at least.does that mean we should use a 5ilvl lower main stat piece to get to the 21percent or higher or should we use the 5ilvl higher piece and take the loss in this case, 18percent haste vs 21percent haste.

Also secondary with question rune forging it says to use Stoneskin Gargoyle if you need to desperately haste cap however I noticed when switching my rune forging on my weapon I noticed my haste value didn't change at all when using Stoneskin vs Crusader. Wouldn't that make Stoneskin completely undesirable then?

Yes, you should to achieve the 20% Haste mark.

As for the enchant, I'll ask the writer and let you know!

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/8/2016 at 7:13 AM, Guest Lycoris said:

I keep  seeing differing opinions on if using a 200 str gem over a 150 haste gem is worth it or not. Thoughts?

It depends on where your Haste level is at. If it is stopping you from hitting 20% Haste, don't use the Str gem. If you've cleared that benchmark of Haste, then use the Str gem.

[Valks 2,373]

On 10/8/2016 at 3:05 PM, Guest Papitto said:

Hi ... have a HUGE question about stats priority ... in here, u guys say that Haste and Crit it's better because the faster regain of runes and better pair chance.. but in Ask Mr. Robot, they say Mastery and Versa its better because larger shield and dmg reduced ... i was wondering wich one is better for Raid and wich is better for mitic+ ... i guys can help me?? and explain me why that choice is better?? 

You push for Haste to a point between 20-30% due to the need to generate Bone Shield charges. Without enough Haste, you won't have the rune regeneration to put up enough shield charges. This breakpoint is far more important than simply gaining a slightly bigger shield.

It's also worth noting that if you compare Haste to Mastery/Vers, you're looking at either bigger Death Strikes or more usages of every ability in the same amount of time. 

[Toha 0]

6 hours ago, Blainie said:

Yes, you should to achieve the 20% Haste mark.

As for the enchant, I'll ask the writer and let you know!

Awesome thanks for the answer, I hope it wasn't a dumb question just wasn't sure since it costs main stats.

[Valks 2,373]

21 hours ago, Toha said:

Awesome thanks for the answer, I hope it wasn't a dumb question just wasn't sure since it costs main stats.

It's absolutely fine :) You only sacrifice them if you can definitely hit that cap. If not, then you don't. 

For example:

If you can get to 18% Haste, it isn't beneficial enough to sacrifice them. If you can get to 20.2% Haste, it is.

[Brodie 0]

So following up on the stat question, I use AskMrRobot to help with gear choices but they really have me confused right now with their gearing strat for stat weights.  They rank them as follows: Armor > Leech > Versatility > Stam > Mastery  > Haste > Avoidance > Crit > Str.  This seems to contradict what Icy and Noxxic are saying about the ranking.  I guess I have two questions, one - does AMR know something about this you don't know? And two, am I reading the way these weights work correctly?  The higher the number in the weighting simulator the more the sim prefers that stat? Also, I am no where near the haste cap you are suggesting and AMR is showing my haste at the correct % so I am just wondering where I need to go from here.

Edited October 12, 2016 by Brody

[Valks 2,373]

10 hours ago, Brody said:

Does AMR know something about this you don't know?

I can't really speak for AMR unfortunately, but I would always trust SimCraft over their simulation tool. SimCraft is used for the writing of pretty much every guide out there. As for why you have that stat ranking, I'm not sure. 

You will still be trying to get 20% haste, but do not sacrifice item level to get it. You're in a position where you can;t hit 20% yet, so str/stamina and raw stats are most important to you until you can break that cap.

[Brodie 0]

21 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I can't really speak for AMR unfortunately, but I would always trust SimCraft over their simulation tool. SimCraft is used for the writing of pretty much every guide out there. As for why you have that stat ranking, I'm not sure. 

You will still be trying to get 20% haste, but do not sacrifice item level to get it. You're in a position where you can;t hit 20% yet, so str/stamina and raw stats are most important to you until you can break that cap.

 

So yea, I went ahead and through in the stat weights that Noxxic showed into AMR and reran my gearing and it basically contradicted everything the tool had been saying before.  Just running some normal instances and I can tell a huge difference in GCD as well as boneshield applications.  Thanks!

[Valks 2,373]

17 minutes ago, Brody said:

So yea, I went ahead and through in the stat weights that Noxxic showed into AMR and reran my gearing and it basically contradicted everything the tool had been saying before.  Just running some normal instances and I can tell a huge difference in GCD as well as boneshield applications.  Thanks!

Glad to hear that it's working better now. Enjoy and good luck! :)

[TalonShadowsong 5]

I have a few additional notes about the Blood DK guide now that a new user has taken over.

 

It seems that the Talent section hasn't truly been updated too much.

Tier 1 talents: Nothing needs changing here.

Tier 2 talents: While Rapid Decomposition is a good default, Spectral Deflection should be considered in Cenarius and even Xavius (seems to be a popular choice for Blood DKs doing Mythic Xavius) on higher tiers of content. I personally handle adds in Cenarius and am only tanking the boss for short bursts in Stage 2 of the fight. Having both Rune Tap(-25%=0.75) and Spectral Deflection(-16%=0.84) allows for a Spear of Nightmare to produce a more manageable puddle, I found, than just having Rune Tap. The math works out to look like this:
Using Heroic Spear of Nightmares as a baseline: 5,494,513 damage
     Bone Shield Only = 0.84 = 4,615,390.92 damage taken
     Bone Shield + Rune Tap = 0.84*0.75 = 3,461,543.19 damage taken
     Bone Shield + Rune Tap + Spectral Deflection = 0.68*0.75 = 2,802,201.63 damage taken (this scenario occurs if Spectral Deflection modifies the original Bone Shield absorb to x2 the normal value and removes too charges)
     Bone Shield + Rune Tap + Spectral Deflection = 0.84*0.75*0.84 = 2,907,696.28 damage taken (this scenario occurs if Spectral Deflect adds another baseline Bone Shield to the mitigation table for each individual attack. More likely scenario)
Note: This math doesn't factor armor also reducing damage or outside mitigation.
Mathematically speaking, Spectral Deflection provides an additional ~550k ish damage reduction on something like this, which frankly, is a big deal.

Tier 3 talents: Nothing needs changing here.

Tier 4 talents: Nothing needs changing here.

Tier 5 talents: While nothing truly needs to be changed, I would suggest adding a bit more meat to this section. Suggesting that Tightening Grasp is strictly good in content when Gorefiend's Grasp is used often is fine, but you're cutting out 1/2 of what the talent actually does. 70% slow is amazing for kiting aspects in Mythic+ dungeons with deadly affixes such as Necrotic and will outperform Tremble Before Me in such a scenario. May also consider mentioning that aside from Il'gynoth, Tightened Grasp has no real use in Emerald Nightmare (on Il'gynoth, Tightening Grasp offers game changing control over the Ichors, allowing you to grip all and then slow them in place allowing for them to die swiftly in the desired location).

Tier 6 talents: I'm glad Cenarius was mention here. Nothing needs changing here.

Tier 7 talents: Nothing needs changing here.

I see the Artifact Progression was updated, but not to the best of accuracy.

Consumption -> Sanguinary Affinity(1) -> Vampiric Fangs (4) -> Rattling Bones(5) -> Dance of Darkness(8) -> Maw of Hell(9) -> Iron Heart(12) -> All-Consuming Rot(15) -> Unending Thirst(16) -> Veinrender(19) -> Umbilicus Eternus(20)* -> Grim Perseverance(23) -> Skeletal Shattering(24) -> Coagulopathy(27) -> Blood Feast(28) -> Meat Shield(31) -> Bonebreaker(34)

This build provides the highest defensive capabilities in the shortest amount of time. Reaching all Golden Traits by rank 24 while also providing you with an 6s on your Dancing Rune Weapon, which is very useful in almost any scenario fathomable, for both DPS and mitigation.

The Relic choice section, outside of mass-selecting Vampiric Fangs suggests aiming for DPS oriented relics in the form of Bonebreaker+ or All-Consuming Rot+, which provides zero defensive benefit.
More realistic goals, for a BiS scenario, would be to obtain the highest ilvl versions (that being the mythic 880) of Nightmarish Elm Branch, Tuft of Ironfur and Bloodied Bear Fang.
There are currently no high 880 relics that provide Vampiric Fangs or Bonebreaker.

In the Rotation and Cooldown section of the guide is implies we can only have a maximum of 115 Runic Power, when we can have a maximum of 125 runic Power with the use of the suggested talents previously in the guide.
In the section about Death Strike, it speaks about how the Active Mitigation aspect of it works incorrectly. Your Mastery has nothing to due with your Active Mitigation, at all. Instead, 3s after using either Death Strike of Marrowrend you will gain a buff called Recently Used Death Strike. This is your Active Mitigation flag against abilities that check for such things. Regardless of whether or not you actually have a Blood Shield, as long as this flag is present, you are safe from the additional effects of attacks that check for Active Mitigation.

In the Stat Priority section, slotting for uncapped haste is a little weird, as it certainly diminishes in value past about 25% (35% with Bone Shield active). I would suggest that once you are at the 25% mark for Haste, you should instead begin itemizing for Critical/Haste equipment to maximize the effects of your Skeletal Shattering trait. Endless seeking Haste will leave you with a sub 20% Critical Strike rating, making an entire gold trait limited, reducing the ceiling of your 2nd goal traits effectiveness and nerfing your overall potential.
This section also speaks little about how each stat does for you in terms of synergy with your Artifact weapon and abilities, etc. Broad statements don't allow for readers to get much 'take-away' aspect from the guide and are instead left spamming with questions. IE simply adding some notes related to Skeletal Shattering the Critical Strike section would be much more beneficial for readers looking to start playing the class.

In the Gems and Enchants section, Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle incorrect states it improves your Haste rating. SSG only increases your Strength and Stamina by 5%, not everything. This is actually a huge bit of misleading information.

In the Gear, Legendaries and Best In Slot section, the Best in Slot itself is filled strictly with EN gear, which makes sense yes, but a true Best In Slot would be hosting the Legendaries as well (nitpicking here a bit, sure). The Best in slot suggested has the following stats:
9,396 Haste, which is about 31% (41% with Bone Shield), which is pretty crazy.
7,182 Master, which is about 45%, which is way high for our lowest priority stat.
2,103 Critical Strike, which is about 10%, which is downright awful.
Furthermore, ontop of that BiS, the recommendation is to gem and enchant for Haste, which adds at least 300 Haste via the cheapest ring enchants, pushing us closer to 32% Haste before sockets on lucky rolls. For example, in my current gear I have 5 sockets available. 1 is dedicated to Saber's Eye of Strength the other 4 would had an additional 600 haste. So, 900-1000 additional haste in Gems and Enchants, barring luck, means we are sitting closer to 35-36% Haste (45-46% with Bone Shield).

I would suggest something more along the lines of this: http://imgur.com/Zl1DFxp

There are only one set of 880+ pants and boots for plate apparently, so we kind of get stuck with those. People should be at or nearing the double legendary wearable level now, so it would just be a matter of obtaining them.
As you can see in the image, all gear here is a flat 880, nothing special all from EN Mythic.
26.28% Critical
22.32% Haste
35.96% Mastery (although I believe the Il'gynoth trinket would prove better)
1.03% Versatility
3.8M health
20.08% Parry
Note: Forgot to put 880 ilvl in my mrrobot weapon. rip.

I would like to mention that Phantasmal Echo is by far our BiS trinket. Dipping below 50% is easy for us, and fairly normal. So when we get a free 30% damage reduction for the next  900k damage, thats pretty handy.
I'm pretty on the fence when it comes to Grotesque Statuette as I believe the Goblet of Nightmarish Ichor will end up performing better due to the internal cooldown on the stacking of Statuette.

 

That's all I have for now.

[Valks 2,373]

22 hours ago, TalonShadowsong said:

That's all I have for now.

Forwarded the entire comment on, thanks for the in-depth analysis. Stuff like this really helps us hone our guides, honestly, so thank you for that!

Our reviewer will look through it all and update as required! If there's anything to say back to it, I'll post it back here.

[Volstatsz 3]

Hey, thanks for commenting and offering your thoughts!  Let me try to run down these in something like a sensible order:

Tier 2 Talents: The rate at which SD consumes additional charges significantly reduces your available RP (by requiring higher MR usage, which has a much lower RP/rune than HS,) in any situation where the effect will be meaningful. In any situation where it only procs a couple of times in a fight (i.e. Cenarius, where it should only trigger from Spear of Nightmares,) you sacrifice all of the additional RP generated by Rapid Decomposition - a good target for DnD uptime is > 30%, so taking SD represents a base loss (before considering loss from less HS,) of ~5% RP. If it's proccing more often than that, good luck keeping BS up. Ultimately, either it breaks the rotation if it happens enough to be used, or else it's not worth the loss of RP over time (to say nothing of the damage,) if it doesn't.  As for DKs using it on M Xavius - the handful of public logs on WCL suggest exactly what I described about the significant impact to RP generation, as well as BS viability - all of them struggle to keep BS up at all (much less above 5 stacks, thus eliminating the value of Ossuary, which all but one also took,) during the final phase.

Tier 5 Talents: Your note about TG vs. MotD in specifically EN is correct.  As for using TG in M+: note that Heart Strike applies an 8-second, 50% snare as well.  The TG snare drops when they leave the circle, which limits its usefulness in M+, especially when you should have a HS snare on them already (plus any other snares from other teammates.)  TBM, conversely, can break casts and actually hold enemies in place momentarily.  For kiting trash in M+, I still recommend TBM over TG unless you need the GGs for add grouping.

Artifact Tree: Ultimately, this is a recommendation to delay your gold traits by 3 traits to also pick up Dance of Darkness. 6 sec of additional duration on a 3 min cooldown isn't useless, but I don't see the point in delaying everything else to pick it up. It's not a bad path, just not what I would recommend.

Relics: The guide does specifically note to pursue ilvl over traits.  The discussion of traits is there to allow for players to understand what the best trait bonuses are when deciding between two relics of similar level.  Regardless, your comment about 880 relics discounts M+ drops, which provide meaningful ilvls for most players just at the base ilvl, and can wf/tf as well.

Blood Shield: Recently Used Death Strike is covered at the top of the rotations section, though it may be valuable to reiterate elsewhere.  Blood Shield is still actually an AM buff as well - it rarely matters, especially with current mastery tuning, since a Blood Shield is unlikely to last longer than 3 seconds at a point where you need an AM check anyway.  Still, it remains true information.

Stats: I'm not sure what you mean with your comment about Haste diminishing in value past 25%.  Haste provides full benefit up to 100% haste, with a 0.75sec GCD.  Because our resource regen scales with the GCD, more haste does very little to cause you to approach a GCD cap until that point. For reference, you'll reach 100% haste with 40% base + Bone Shield + Bloodlust, and 82% base outside of Bloodlust.  Even then haste is still excellent, because it provides you more agency and flexibility.  The more haste you have, the more you will mitigate during high-intake scenarios, and the more damage you will output during low-intake periods.  Versatility is better for mitigation than crit; however, under most situations where you are able to directly choose between the two, you're starting to overgear content, which is why the "general" priority suggests crit >= vers, rather than vers > crit.

Stoneskin Gargoyle: That was 100% incorrect on my part.  I got stupid, apparently.  That needs to be fixed and I've communicated that.  Thank you for the catch (to everyone who noted it; I saw a couple.)  FC should be your default choice in all situations.

Gear: This section hadn't been updated yet to match the stat priority; I only combed through to put together a "BiS" list very recently and submitted it to be updated.  Most (read: all) of the gear recommendations come from M+ and world bosses - EN is terribly, terribly itemized for us.  I also update the trinket recommendations; I won't go into a deep-dive on trinket recommendations here, but the tanking-specific trinkets so far in Legion have been quite underwhelming.

[TalonShadowsong 5]

Quote

Artifact Tree: Ultimately, this is a recommendation to delay your gold traits by 3 traits to also pick up Dance of Darkness. 6 sec of additional duration on a 3 min cooldown isn't useless, but I don't see the point in delaying everything else to pick it up. It's not a bad path, just not what I would recommend.

You suggested Artifact Route to gold traits

http://www.wowhead.com/artifact-calc/death-knight/blood/I7o5IPARADESAxEwMRUDEWAxGAMRkBEbARHAER0BEeARIQFTMBA

My suggested Artifact Route to gold traits

http://www.wowhead.com/artifact-calc/death-knight/blood/I6Y4IPARADESAxEwMRUDEWAxFwMRkBEbARHAER0BEeARIQFTMBA

Both reach all 3 gold traits at rank 24. I don't see how this is a 3 trait delay. I think you thought I still went through and took Bonebreaker, which is not the case. Hopefully these links will clarify.

 

Quote

Tier 2 Talents: The rate at which SD consumes additional charges significantly reduces your available RP (by requiring higher MR usage, which has a much lower RP/rune than HS,) in any situation where the effect will be meaningful. In any situation where it only procs a couple of times in a fight (i.e. Cenarius, where it should only trigger from Spear of Nightmares,) you sacrifice all of the additional RP generated by Rapid Decomposition - a good target for DnD uptime is > 30%, so taking SD represents a base loss (before considering loss from less HS,) of ~5% RP. If it's proccing more often than that, good luck keeping BS up. Ultimately, either it breaks the rotation if it happens enough to be used, or else it's not worth the loss of RP over time (to say nothing of the damage,) if it doesn't.  As for DKs using it on M Xavius - the handful of public logs on WCL suggest exactly what I described about the significant impact to RP generation, as well as BS viability - all of them struggle to keep BS up at all (much less above 5 stacks, thus eliminating the value of Ossuary, which all but one also took,) during the final phase.

The only real thing I have to say to this is, if you wipe your raid due to your inability to keep the puddle dropped from Spear of Nightmares to a manageable level, its game over. This was simply a suggestion for those Blood DKs out there who are maybe producing puddles that are a little out of the scope of their raids capabilities for this situation. Personally, I only end up taking 2 Spears and the other tank takes 2 as well. If those 4 puddles end up filling the room, for whatever reason, it will result in a wipe, needless to say. You can maximize RP generation and stable damage intake vs. healing as long as you want for the rest of the encounter, but if you blow it on a mechanic such as Spear of Nightmare, then it really doesn't matter. I was simply shedding light on a tool that Blood DKs can use to MITIGATE damage, which is something we are heavily missing in our every day kit.
 

Quote

Tier 5 Talents: Your note about TG vs. MotD in specifically EN is correct.  As for using TG in M+: note that Heart Strike applies an 8-second, 50% snare as well.  The TG snare drops when they leave the circle, which limits its usefulness in M+, especially when you should have a HS snare on them already (plus any other snares from other teammates.)  TBM, conversely, can break casts and actually hold enemies in place momentarily.  For kiting trash in M+, I still recommend TBM over TG unless you need the GGs for add grouping.

Have you tried any Necrotic Mythic+ runs yet? Not sure if you are on NA severs or not, but we currently have Raging and Necrotic. While Blood DKs natively handle this mechanic well, there are times where we will be unable to reset our stacks in combat. When those times occurring, we need to have a solution before we die, resulting in a wipe and therefore likely resulting in either a depleted key or a less than optimal scenario none-the-less.
From my experience this week, I found that having the random aspect of the fear from Tremble Before Me to be less than useful. Interrupting casts is something that is already being handled if they are important, so relying on a random, 10s internal cd, to manage that isn't ideal to begin with and shouldn't be banked on. Back to my point however, laying down a DnD with a 70% snare on it, with or without the mobs having the Heart Strike snare attached, will provide you with an escape route via Wraith Walk to get to a range where your stacks can reset all while having the mobs still grouped and able to be cleaved down. To do this effectively, simply through down a DnD right behind you and Wraith Walk through it. Tremble Before Me will, in no way, provide you with a scenario which can allow you to reset your stacks, not as efficiently or as safely as this method in this scenario.

Changing talents is a niche thing, generally and since this affix exists and we now have experience with it on live, it should be noted as an option for DKs who are struggling to manage their Necrotic stages in Mythic+ dungeons.

 

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Relics: The guide does specifically note to pursue ilvl over traits.  The discussion of traits is there to allow for players to understand what the best trait bonuses are when deciding between two relics of similar level.  Regardless, your comment about 880 relics discounts M+ drops, which provide meaningful ilvls for most players just at the base ilvl, and can wf/tf as well.

Please note that I was talking about a BiS scenario, not a gearing scenario. Additional, as Heart Strike is used more frequently than Marrowrend and the fact that Blood Feast heals based off of 25% of the damage dealt by Heart Strike, Veinrender Relics should be valued in AoE (<5 mob scenarios) and single target for survivability, even if it is the slightest of values.

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Blood Shield: Recently Used Death Strike is covered at the top of the rotations section, though it may be valuable to reiterate elsewhere.  Blood Shield is still actually an AM buff as well - it rarely matters, especially with current mastery tuning, since a Blood Shield is unlikely to last longer than 3 seconds at a point where you need an AM check anyway.  Still, it remains true information.

For this, I more just wanted you to make sure it was re-iterated here to ensure people were aware the Recently Used Death Strike buff existed on the guide, there was a couple page thread, somewhere here, where people we asking about such things.

 

As for the Stats section. I just really felt not game changing difference when I dropped from 31% haste to 25% haste, whereas I have seen a noticeable bit of stability from going up to 25% crit with Skeletal Shattering.
I'm not going to argue with the sims. If it says its better, I'll go with it.
Something that should be pointed out is that there is 0 Emerald Nightmare Plate equipment or jewelry that have Haste/Versatility on it, so I guess settling for Crit will have to do at top ilvls until ToV or Nighthold.

 

Again, I don't really want to argue, I just want to share my thoughts about things that were said. At the end of the day, its your guide, do as you will with it.

[Vlad 411]

TalonShadowsong, I will let Volstatsz reply to your reply, but I wanted to make sure you know I appreciate all your feedback greatly. I wouldn't consider any of this "arguing". We're all just trying to make sure the guide is as good as it can be. Thank you.