Blood Death Knight 6.2

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Blood Death Knight guide.

[Guest Halaa]

On the page here, there is an issue with potions:

 

3.3. Potion

During the encounter, your best choice for a potion will be  Potion of Mogu Power for physical damage and  Master Healing Potion for magic damage.

 

I'm sure the Master Healing Potion should be a Potion of the Jade Serpent in order to increase Magic Damage

[Guest Banksys]

The potion is to deal with/decrease magical damage, not increase it.

[Vlad 411]

On the page here, there is an issue with potions:

 

3.3. Potion

During the encounter, your best choice for a potion will be  Potion of Mogu Power for physical damage and  Master Healing Potion for magic damage.

 

I'm sure the Master Healing Potion should be a Potion of the Jade Serpent in order to increase Magic Damage

The idea is that the Healing Potion heals you up (after you have taken magical damage), while the Potion of Mogu Power gives you strength, which in turns increases your attack power. This in turn increases the self-healing from Death Strike... which means higher Mastery shields that protect against physical damage!

[Guest Soter]

Hi and thanks for summon up the new thanking guide and making an effort to extend the en-depth knowledge of the subject. However I came across the section on minor glyph saying "there are no interesting or relevant minor glyph"

 

Please consider the enter minor glyph:

Glyph of resilient grip

Glyph of Army of the dead

 

as these are pretty vital for blood tanking

 

 

 

[Vlad 411]

Hi and thanks for summon up the new thanking guide and making an effort to extend the en-depth knowledge of the subject. However I came across the section on minor glyph saying "there are no interesting or relevant minor glyph"

 

Please consider the enter minor glyph:

Glyph of resilient grip

Glyph of Army of the dead

 

as these are pretty vital for blood tanking

Thank you! I'm going to include them in the guide, that's a great idea.

[Khel 0]

I realize that with the various tuning passes, stat weights are changing.  But I felt compelled to point out that the optimal enchants, gems, and stat weights given here for Blood DK's aren't even close to a match for Ask Mr. Robot.  Main reason I mention it is the Ask Mr. Robot link directly in the guide is bound to lead to some confused people.

 

Beyond that, thanks so much for putting the guide together.

[Guest Bear]

I realize that with the various tuning passes, stat weights are changing.  But I felt compelled to point out that the optimal enchants, gems, and stat weights given here for Blood DK's aren't even close to a match for Ask Mr. Robot.  Main reason I mention it is the Ask Mr. Robot link directly in the guide is bound to lead to some confused people.

 

Beyond that, thanks so much for putting the guide together.

 

Agree - and the Str>Mastery>Haste seems very light/brief. What about Crit, Multistrike and Bonus armour?

[Vlad 411]

 

Agree - and the Str>Mastery>Haste seems very light/brief. What about Crit, Multistrike and Bonus armour?

 

I've fixed the issue (though not much has necessarily changed in practice until we get real access to the new stats). Thank you for pointing it out :)

[Flesh 1]

Just one question

 

If I have Glyph of outbreak, how can I start the rotation if I don't have runic power?

[Guest Nïghtmares]

Hello, I think you've forgotten about crit when you made the stat priority

[Storm 426]

Just one question

 

If I have Glyph of outbreak, how can I start the rotation if I don't have runic power?

 

There's no need for glyph of outbreak as a tank. Once you outbreak the boss on pull you should easily keep all of your diseases refreshed and spread onto every target with blood boil, especially since it's the only thing we can use blood runes on now, other than a couple of cooldowns. As long as your diseases don't drop of more than once per minute (which they shouldn't if you're blood boiling) you can refresh again with outbreak if they happen to drop for some reason.

 

really the glyph is just a waste of 30rp.

[Storm 426]

Hello, I think you've forgotten about crit when you made the stat priority

 

He did. for right now priority on stats you can actually get should be:

 

Str > Bonus Armor > Mastery > Crit > Haste

 

Str is 1:1 the best stat, but for gemming you would want either mastery for purely more survival, or crit if you want some hybrid dps+avoidance.

[Narkasur 0]

 

Just one question

 

If I have Glyph of outbreak, how can I start the rotation if I don't have runic power?

 

There's no need for glyph of outbreak as a tank. Once you outbreak the boss on pull you should easily keep all of your diseases refreshed and spread onto every target with blood boil, especially since it's the only thing we can use blood runes on now, other than a couple of cooldowns. As long as your diseases don't drop of more than once per minute (which they shouldn't if you're blood boiling) you can refresh again with outbreak if they happen to drop for some reason.

 

really the glyph is just a waste of 30rp.

 

I believe Flesh was talking about taking PL and glyph of Outbreak. I would taunt to get aggro before ranged pull on me while I get in melee range. I would BB next because it can be done from range and then DS. This will get all your runes to start recharging and also have enough RP to Outbreak. 

 

If you don't want to wait on the RP, you can IT while running in and then PS. However, getting the 30 RP shouldn't take too long and is not going to hurt waiting for it. 

[Flesh 1]

Thanks for the advices. I got used to tank with a runic power based build, not the standard rune based one. Now there's no way to tank like that with the new DK  

[Guest Chaz]

Why has everything changed to multistrike?

[Vlad 411]

Why has everything changed to multistrike?

Because it's very good :)

[Guest Baynn]

I think there is a new useful macro for when you take the Glyph of Death Coil.

 

/cast [mod:alt, @mouseover, help] Death Coil

/cast [@target, harm] Death Coil.

 

It allows you to cast death coil at your target, but if you hold alt and cast the spell, you can hit an ally to place the shield on them.

 

[Guest Chaz]

Because it's very good

 

Thanks a lot!  I can understand the chance to do a little more damage might be "very good" but I cannot see how it is better than other stats like Stanima for a tank build?  Surely doing extra 30% damage hits is nice for questing or for dps, but this is a guide to tanking during raids? Why would I build a tank and then stack multistrike?  Sorry, I am new to WoW so this might be a stupid question, I am just a little confused and was hoping you could offer more explanation, I think the guide could be fluffed up a bit in this section

[briala 6]

Does multistrike (highly rated stat) have some different mechanics re: say Death Strike than crit (didn't even make the list) does? Intuitively they seem similar to me.  Or is the reason that Multistrike allows for multiple heals & absorb shields while crit doesn't?  

[Vlad 411]

Multistrike gives you more Runic Power thanks to Runic Strikes (passive). That means more stuff you can do in the fight and less downtime. It also means you get off more Death Coils, so you get a better Shadow of Death and you get more Blood Tap charges.

 

Stamina stacking, as we explain, is not ideal. It's good rarely, and it's always good "to an extent" (until you're comfortable with the health pool), but otherwise it turns you into a big sponge. For pure survival, you might be better off stacking something like Mastery, but the difference won't be that great, and Multistrike does also give you lots of extra DPS. Once the raids hit and we see exactly what works and what doesn't, we'll be sure to update.

[Guest Aebrams]

Multistrike gives you more Runic Power thanks to Runic Strikes (passive). That means more stuff you can do in the fight and less downtime. It also means you get off more Death Coils, so you get a better Shadow of Death and you get more Blood Tap charges.

 

Stamina stacking, as we explain, is not ideal. It's good rarely, and it's always good "to an extent" (until you're comfortable with the health pool), but otherwise it turns you into a big sponge. For pure survival, you might be better off stacking something like Mastery, but the difference won't be that great, and Multistrike does also give you lots of extra DPS. Once the raids hit and we see exactly what works and what doesn't, we'll be sure to update.

 

I understand that Multistrike is very good with the RP generation which leads to more runes, %HP stacking and potential healing/absorbs via deathstrike MS'n... but I am still debating if it is better than Mastery for enchants.

 

Granted, we're only talking about ~270Mastery vs 284MStrike (5% bonus) if you're to fully enchant one way or the other... I'm just wondering since Mastery is a catch'all kind of stat that smooths things out and is reliable versus something that is more prone to spiking. 

 

Does Mastery hit some caps that make it not as good or do you think that the MStrike benefits really outweigh Mastery?

 

Any numbers backing this explanation would be awesome too... I like numbers. 

[Guest Teun]

Unless I'm misunderstanding how the "Enhanced Death Coil" buff works, I would argue that "Glyph of Outbreak" and "Breath of Sindragosa" are no longer worth taking (or at least, more complicated of a choice) because of the buff from "Enhanced Death Coil".  

 

"Enhanced Death Coil" gives you 3% more health for 30s and the effect stacks each time you cast a new Death Coil.  However, each "buff" is on an individual timer; i.e. 30s after you cast the first Death Coil, the health gain (3%) from that would disappear and your max health would drop, but you would still have the health buff from any other Death Coils you'd previously cast.  This results in a multiplicative health gain the more Death Coils you cast until your health eventually starts to drop as the buffs fall off (so we'd likely see a quick rise to a certain plateau which would then stabilize).  

 

Because of the above, "Glyph of Outbreak" and "Breath of Sindragosa" now having the negative side-effect of causing a Blood DK to cast fewer Death Coils and thus the buff from "Enhanced Death Coil" will not stack as high/will not be refreshed as often.  The net effect of this would be that you'd be trading the utility of (1) having an extra Death Strike (assuming you needed more than one within the 30s cd of Outbreak and couldn't get it through Blood Tap), or (2) the additional AoE damage spell for more overall health.  

 

I could see why "Glyph of Outbreak" or "Breath of Sindragosa" could be more useful due to easier situational manipulation, but overall I would imagine that the additional health (alleged to plateau at as much as 20-25%) provided by the "Enhanced Death Coil" buff means Blood DKs should really use their RP on Death Coil as often as possible rather than to spend RP on getting more Outbreaks (even with the added utility of getting an extra death strike) or adding yet another AoE damage spell to our arsenal.  

 

That being said, if the buff from "Enhanced Death Coil" adds to your max health while not increasing your current health, everything I said above would be rendered moot unless you were being topped off (and, according to Blizzard, healers shouldn't have to do that as much in WoD raids).  

 

At the very least, I would think all of the above would add an extra wrench into the "optimal" talents & glyphs for Blood DK such that you should refer to your particular raid situation a bit more (e.g. if you tend to receive a lot of overhealing, then even if the Enhanced Death Coil buff applies only to max health and not current health, the extra max health would still probably be more useful since you'd actually be using some of those overheals).  

[SkuulzonVelen 2]

It took me a few hours to get used to the new rotation, but overall Blood seems to play just like before.

 

Having Death Coil as a mana dump just seems like gravy as I wasn't using death coil at all before.

 

I don't mind have less buttons to put in the rotation and with the new health pools I'm not having any trouble keeping my head above water.

 

Now just to get to 100.

Edited November 21, 2014 by SkuulzonVelen

[Guest Tolvald@Proudmoore]

At the moment it doesn't look like Bladed Armor is mentioned anywhere in this guide, so I suggest you elaborate on Strength vs Bonus Armor in more depth. Here is my take, feel free to correct me if I am misinterpreting something.

Bonus Armor should be considered the most valuable stat for Blood. Bladed Armor (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=161608/bladed-armor) provides the same amount of attack power per point as strength and also increases physical damage reduction. 

This complies with your guide when it comes down to choosing rings, capes, and neck pieces. Attack Power outweighs the amount of physical damage reduction provided by Bonus Armor point for point, so it should never be optimal to equip an item with bonus armor and agility due to primary vs secondary stat budgets on these items.

Trinkets are a little different though since primary and secondary stat budgets are almost always 1:1 at the same item level. Procs aside, a trinket with bonus armor should always be valued higher than a trinket with an equal amount of strength.

The editors of this site are surely better than I when it comes to wording and structuring these guides for easier reading by the masses, but you could present this information simply by explaining Bladed Armor in the stat priority section. You may also consider adding a note about bonus armor trinkets being preferable to strength trinkets in your "gearing up" section.

Side note, it may be worth mentioning in your guide that the bonus armor potion is the best option for pre-potting since it provides 500 more attack power than the strength alternative.

Thanks for reading. Again, please let me know if I am misunderstanding something and everything I know about my Blood DK is a lie!