Blood - Active Mitigation

[Shells 64]

Hey

 

So, DS provides a blood shield which counts as an active mitigation. 

Marrowrend provides bone shield which counts as an active mitigation and a passive 16% DR along with 10% more haste. 

However in instances, I have 5+ stacks of Bone shield up and when a boss fight calls for AM my Bone shield doesnt seem to work to act as a AM. 

Lets give an example, other night in Neltharian Lair, on the Dargrul fight, he casts Molten Crash

"Molten Crash deals moderate damage, and will deal double damage as well as knock the tank back if the tank's Active Mitigation is not active at the time"

I get knocked back and take heavy damage. Bone shield was at 5+ stacks. Does it have to be freshly applied to count as a AM? Same with Blood Shield, I had a remaining shield for one of his molten crashes. (It was not big enough to soak all the damage but it was there).

Am I missing something simple or is this a bug?

[Mistmoore 9]

I may be wrong but I think only Death Strike applies the "Active Mitigation" buff which is separate from Blood Shield. On that fight you basically want to keep at least one DS worth of RP available and watch the timer for Molten Crash. As soon as he starts casting hit Death Strike so you get the AM buff and you won't get knocked back and take huge damage.

[Shells 64]

Cheers, probably makes sense alright.

[demonardvark 556]

death strike and bone shield to me are more passive imo. death strike heals and gives a little shield, and bone shield is just a passive. for huge damage spikes they frankly don't cut the cheese. Our big defensive CD's are DRW and Vampiric Blood. I have those handy for big spikes. In addition I really like Tombstone, you can basically ignore some mechanics and tank breaker abilities. So, conserving rp for a planned death strike spam can be a good idea for huge bursts, we have other stronger CDs available. For every other basic ability i just keep full stacks of bone shield and spam death strike frankly whenever. Again its not the highest dps way to do it, but as a tank I care more about staying alive than dps :)

[Mistmoore 9]

2 hours ago, demonardvark said:

death strike and bone shield to me are more passive imo. death strike heals and gives a little shield, and bone shield is just a passive. for huge damage spikes they frankly don't cut the cheese. Our big defensive CD's are DRW and Vampiric Blood. I have those handy for big spikes. In addition I really like Tombstone, you can basically ignore some mechanics and tank breaker abilities. So, conserving rp for a planned death strike spam can be a good idea for huge bursts, we have other stronger CDs available. For every other basic ability i just keep full stacks of bone shield and spam death strike frankly whenever. Again its not the highest dps way to do it, but as a tank I care more about staying alive than dps :)

There is a specific mechanic called "Active Mitigation" I can't find the spell on wowhead but if you look after you cast Death Strike you'll have two buffs, Active Mitigation (I may be wrong on the exact name) and Blood Shield. The Active Mitigation buff prevents certain boss effects like Molten Charge and Pierce Armor from Rukhran or Shredded Armor from Kilrogg Deadeye back in Warlords. These effects won't apply or do any damage if Active Mitigation is up, I believe it gets consumed by the hit but I'm actually not sure about that, so your Bone Shield or Blood Shield status is completely irrelevant. You don't need to save up for DS spam you just need one well timed DS to prevent a huge amount of damage or a crippling debuff.

[demonardvark 556]

22 hours ago, Mistmoore said:

There is a specific mechanic called "Active Mitigation" I can't find the spell on wowhead but if you look after you cast Death Strike you'll have two buffs, Active Mitigation (I may be wrong on the exact name) and Blood Shield. The Active Mitigation buff prevents certain boss effects like Molten Charge and Pierce Armor from Rukhran or Shredded Armor from Kilrogg Deadeye back in Warlords. These effects won't apply or do any damage if Active Mitigation is up, I believe it gets consumed by the hit but I'm actually not sure about that, so your Bone Shield or Blood Shield status is completely irrelevant. You don't need to save up for DS spam you just need one well timed DS to prevent a huge amount of damage or a crippling debuff.

no, you are correct, I frankly misread what shells question was. I do a lot of things and try to answer questions as fast as possible, as seen clearly I can miss some things. In this case, it was what shells real question was , and also the ability he had listed specifically in question.

I do not believe you actually see the active mitigation buff appear. Death Strikes blood shield is the form of DK's active mitigation, it is one in the same. So, Kilroggs debuff for instance would not apply to DK's who had their blood shield up. This remains (in general) the same in legion now. So, for Drags molten crash, you want to time the death strike right before it's cast to prevent getting knocked around and massive damage. What I thought he was asking about was magma wave, which you either follow the mechanics for, or you can blow your strong CD's to take it to the face and keep pressure on the boss. 

So, your initial response was 100% accurate , you want timed death strikes for specific tank buster mechanics. However, as one progresses into higher end content, the damage increases and becomes more frequent. In these cases for pure survival I like to maintain my blood shields more frequently and rely heavier on my defensive CD's for certain mechanics, you can also bypass some through creative usage. In, addition, the self heal is needed more frequently. So while one doesn't necessarily need the mitigation itself the healing portion can be desired. I didn't eloquate that very well in my primary response :)

[Goblinn 0]

I never see the active mitigation buff. Any chance someone could link a screen shoot of it? 

[Mistmoore 9]

I will get a screenshot later. The buff is applied by Death Strike and Marrowrend and it's called something like "recently used death strike" and lasts 2 seconds.

[Mistmoore 9]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=180612/recently-used-death-strike

This is the spell in question, it actually lasts 3 seconds. I'm not sure if it only shows up in certain zones or certain encounters because I just tried a dummy in Acherus and wasn't getting it. Later tonight when I have time to actually play I'll pay attention and get a screenshot.

[Valks 2,373]

13 hours ago, Mistmoore said:

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=180612/recently-used-death-strike

This is the spell in question, it actually lasts 3 seconds. I'm not sure if it only shows up in certain zones or certain encounters because I just tried a dummy in Acherus and wasn't getting it. Later tonight when I have time to actually play I'll pay attention and get a screenshot.

It could be possible that this is intended for bosses such as in Vault of the Wardens or Black Rook Hold, where you need to have recently used an AM spell to avoid the extra debuff from the boss' attacks. Even if you have the shield removed immediately, you still have a window in which you won't receive the extra debuff from the boss since you did actually use your AM.

Most likely helps a lot in high M+ where your shield can disappear very quickly.

[Shells 64]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

It could be possible that this is intended for bosses such as in Vault of the Wardens or Black Rook Hold, where you need to have recently used an AM spell to avoid the extra debuff from the boss' attacks. Even if you have the shield removed immediately, you still have a window in which you won't receive the extra debuff from the boss since you did actually use your AM.

Most likely helps a lot in high M+ where your shield can disappear very quickly.

That would be good if it works that way as the shield is quite small and it would be depressing if you shield, the boss or an add sneezes at you, knocks off the shield and AM and bang boss hits you with the big attack of doom! and you have taken it all despite using your AM correctly. 3 second window is pretty small though. 

[Valks 2,373]

3 minutes ago, Shells said:

That would be good if it works that way as the shield is quite small and it would be depressing if you shield, the boss or an add sneezes at you, knocks off the shield and AM and bang boss hits you with the big attack of doom! and you have taken it all despite using your AM correctly. 3 second window is pretty small though. 

It is small, but it should give you enough time to generate the RP to refresh your mitigation. Hopefully!

[demonardvark 556]

Your timing needs to be pretty good. So using Dragur as a benchmark I fought him a few times and played around. When he began casting molten crash I used death strike. By the time he finished the AM part of it expired but the blood shield did not. So, he smacked me, I went flying, and it did damage but not much. I had him smack me again with the same ability without using death strike at all, I went flying and it hurt bad. Time three, I waited until he was almost done casting molten crash, hit death strike, had the am part up when hit, and.... nothing happened really, didn't go flying, didn't take ugly damage, was fine.

So, the timing of the AM part is critical for boss debuff avoidance. I believe the blood shield part baked in is for it to work properly, specifically at higher lvls and that. You get the time where there are adds or boss aoe attack leftovers on you and you need the am part. Blood shield helps mitigate the aoe crap and add crap damage while the AM part seems to prioritize the boss debuff (not 100% on that). So, in those scenarios, I just use another death strike for the blood shield and then some other cd like AMS or DRW, and then cast death strike again right before boss attack to mitigate the debuff.

So basically it seems that deathstrike is actually a couple mitigations built into one. So, at mythic it does behoove you to keep up your blood shields with some frequency, however, you always want to reserve enough RP for the mitigation part. I think this is largely what is meant to be the DK play style if you will. It still has the "take every other attack to the face" vibe. You need to know, when its worth the rp to get your bloodshield up to keep aoe or trash damage down vs taking that damage in order to block the tank buster damage. Hence, why vampiric blood is such a heavy focus of the artifact. Basically, you need to let so much damage hit you, so that you can use AM at the proper time. 

So proper blood dk usage at higher content lvl is balancing when to take damage and heal it vs blocking the damage completely. Hence, consumption and vampiric blood and how marrowend and bone shield works now too. You can death strike more to keep up blood shield and AM more, however, you always need to have enough rp to properly deal with boss debuff

[Valks 2,373]

As always, a beautiful explanation that contains far more information than mine from @demonardvark

[Shells 64]

Really loving the discussion on this thread here.  All good stuff, lots more for me to think on. 

Thanks guys. 

[Valks 2,373]

1 hour ago, Shells said:

Really loving the discussion on this thread here.  All good stuff, lots more for me to think on. 

Thanks guys. 

We do our best! Never hesitate to ask a question if you have one, we'll always do our best to answer, or at least try to if we don't know the exact answer.

[demonardvark 556]

1 hour ago, Blainie said:

We do our best! Never hesitate to ask a question if you have one, we'll always do our best to answer, or at least try to if we don't know the exact answer.

I was an RA in college (dorm room student baby sitter) and we had a saying.

Never get upset when someone asks you a question. You may have heard it 1000 times but its the first time for them. Same deal here, we all have jobs because of you guys, this is your board, your website, so dont' hesitate at all to ask anything, no matter how trivial. if there are no posts on the forums then I get bored :(

[Valks 2,373]

9 hours ago, demonardvark said:

I was an RA in college (dorm room student baby sitter) and we had a saying.

Never get upset when someone asks you a question. You may have heard it 1000 times but its the first time for them. Same deal here, we all have jobs because of you guys, this is your board, your website, so dont' hesitate at all to ask anything, no matter how trivial. if there are no posts on the forums then I get bored :(

Couldn't agree more. 

[Oro 4]

Hi. Long time reader firt time writer.

Both Marrowrend and DS gives you the 3s AM buff "reasently death striked" it is hard to see (so many buffs to monitor) so I would recomend building a weak aura to monitor it. I can post my weak aura here later if anyone is interested.

And pardon my poor spelling and grammar.

[demonardvark 556]

2 hours ago, Oro said:

Hi. Long time reader firt time writer.

Both Marrowrend and DS gives you the 3s AM buff "reasently death striked" it is hard to see (so many buffs to monitor) so I would recomend building a weak aura to monitor it. I can post my weak aura here later if anyone is interested.

And pardon my poor spelling and grammar.

Really?

well friend you might have just blown a thousand minds. I'm definetly going to derp around with this. If this is the case then it will give blood dks unparalleled boss mitigation. tank buster coming up? no runic power? just marrowrend. very very interesting and exciting news.

also a good point though, certainly blood has quite a few buffs to monitor so some addon would likely be beneficial :)

[Hamarr 0]

I've been tanking for years and this is the first time I've heard of abilities where you need to use AM to not get destroyed. Guess you learn something new every day! :)

Quick question - would Rune Tap also count towards this? I know most people prefer Foul Bulwark so it might be a moot point, but I'm just curious.

[Valks 2,373]

10 minutes ago, Hamarr said:

I've been tanking for years and this is the first time I've heard of abilities where you need to use AM to not get destroyed. Guess you learn something new every day! :)

Quick question - would Rune Tap also count towards this? I know most people prefer Foul Bulwark so it might be a moot point, but I'm just curious.

It's new in Legion, I love it as a mechanic.

I don't think Rune Tap counts as an AM ability, no. It is instead considered a cooldown.

[nexalacer 2]

2 hours ago, Blainie said:

It's new in Legion, I love it as a mechanic.

I don't think Rune Tap counts as an AM ability, no. It is instead considered a cooldown.

It was in HFC, too. Mannoroth had an attack that required using AM combined with tank switching. It was very fun fight.

Rune Tap WAS an AM ability in WoD, but it's hard to say now. The AM abilities used to say they were AM in the spell book. Now they don't.

[Hamarr 0]

Did a bit of digging, there's a link to a blue response here which suggests that Marrowrend and Death Strike both count, nothing else does.

http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17613382261

[Oro 4]

Yes it is true that only the prock from Death Strikw and Marrowrend counts as activ mitigation in legion, nothing else. But played right a blood DK is able to have near 100% up time on the "reasently Death Striked" buff, so allmost constant activ mitigation.

Here is the weak aura I use to track the buff, Remember it will only prock when in combat with someting that can be mitigatet, to test it trye it on (was incorreckt about it working on the tanking dummys) a dungeon boss.

Spoiler

d0Z5caGALO6LkjTlkrBta3MKMRe1Sf1PrCtkHlt13qk)vPQDsI9c7wk7xfnkLinmjXVvLXPuPHQeLbRsgoLQdQsDkLahtHZPcTqkjlvPulgjA5c9zj8uILjONlYefOPsXKv00rDrLGUQsHNHKUUuTrLuoPsQ2ms12LiFujKVQeQPjj9DLsgPsrpwvnAkLXRuXLuI4wusDnj15rchMuFsjXRvbJbmqiqjKkT6bnijiHwgAzflPcrfYeYegirVG8AgkS7qyFhUhDiuM920I30HChmie9NjLCtKuu4rlEthkwpQaH9D4E0HSEJ9iD93lFpNVwQ8ID9H7EuNkVS3wE8Uh1jl8jrx(Uh1PY39OoCa5)YVimqjeRrlq4XaH0cuPALr9Xkdq36AQqHkwR6UupocmowhwxL2ySlOBDnvOufkdWq4iPOWJWaPPv99p7EuZVie6K2CPRSK0klastR6jyGYaY2(3BCMIZRns(88kORzBNxchjhCWq0D(9ZVMdkH00QoKPRzBjoso4GHqMqcU6519NjL8Zlvctk0m51G06QMiPOWJjOmGSfzY2GsyDai2CsHngkH1bGKF6jmqyD2Bmmqu7zMadyWqs29pmqsKwr2HYamKFwNsWajrAfzhsWfEB2CvL1x0MgWq6jFFYU)Hvq6jF)pRtjyfKO(7WarTNzcmGbdzsOtN87zMcyGO2ZmbgWGHqx)zYRbde1EMjWagmK4l7WarTNzcmGbdPN89)NkLAgwbXEj7So7nggiQ9mtGbmyWqMK0Y7Tptk5q05myiAyGST)9gNP48AJKppVc6A225LWrYbhkHuPvpObgsjOmQgoada

 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Oro
I was wrong regarding the tanking dummys