Topic
(Sticky)
The Blood Thread
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Edited by Communism on 5/18/11 2:51 PM (PDT)
Look, we've got too many threads about Blood. We don't need a new thread every time someone comes up with an idea to fix Blood. We don't want to become the new mages or paladins.
This thread is here for all of your questions, suggestions and complaints. So, at risk of adding yet another thread to the pool, I present: The Blood Thread. Lichloathe's guide to Blood: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/968396860 Elitist Jerks thread: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t110102-blood_dk_endgame_tanking_4_x/ Bloodsim: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t112231-bloodsim_death_knight_tanks/ Blue posts addressing Blood problems: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=1#20 http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=2#21 http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=17#338 http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=17#339 Blue on DRW's cost: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522434404?page=22#433 Dosvidaniya calculates mastery's scaling value: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2456479535 Dosvidaniya posts the math behind it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2456728652 |
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Edited by Rauth on 5/18/11 2:38 PM (PDT)
My core issue with DK design is this: Numerical issues caused by poor mechanical design are fixed by numerical buffs. Rather than fixing the issue with how we have no mitigation without striking something, they just nudge the coefficients on DS and call it a day.
I personally am frustrated at how other classes *cough Paladins* get a blue post, along with a promise to keep them informed, over a single (if significant) nerf. It is worth noting the holy shield nerf will not make it to live without another change to offset the loss. As for blood, I break it down into three areas: -Debuffs. Diseases need to be refreshed by something that uses a blood rune. -Avoidance negating Mastery. Could it be possible to count what avoided hits would have hit for when DS takes a DTPS screenshot? Not sure on the technical side. -Runic Empowerment. Remove it from the game, make RC baseline. |
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Important blue links (read, the only blue responses we've had in a year or so):
The semi-infamous Daxx talk: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140511400?page=2 Current opinion on DRW: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522434404?page=22#433 |
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Blue on DRW's cost: Heartbreaking. |
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more that they feel so limited because of all the suggestions. It makes me wonder if suggesting things anymore is a good idea. I think I'll stay constructive but giving suggestions is out of the picture for a while. |
I suppose staying positive is good, but it feels like assuming the Cold War was the U.S.S.R. and the United States having too much trouble deciding what to do with all their stockpiled nuclear weapons. |
as jaded as this is.... /agree let them fix it themselves. when people mass-exodus a class because it sucks, and they have no feedback, we can point here and say "you have over 1000 pages of feedback that you never listened to, or listened to and said 'L2P' - so we're done, fix it yourselves." |
There's no evidence of a mass-exodus. Tank populations seem pretty steady at 35% for each shield tank and 15% for each non-shield tank. |
I think what we were really hoping to address is the perception that a death knight tank must use every single Unholy and Frost rune on Death Strike, and game Runic Empowerment procs to generate even more Death Strikes. If you had to do all that to be successful at all, then that would be a problem. The spec isn't designed with that necessity in mind, though. Blood is expected to use (as an estimate, and assuming effective usage) around 6-7 Death Strikes a minute; any additional Death Strikes are helpful of course, but they shouldn't be mandatory. Blood is balanced against the other tanking specs with this assumption in mind. That whole Daxx quote is at odds with Dos' thread on BS's scaling, as the assumptions there showed a deficiency even assuming the DK is playing quite above what Daxx says they are balancing DKs around here (~6-7 DS/min vs. 8.6 DS/min). I think there's definitely some sort of disconnect w/ how powerful DS is looked upon by devs vs. raiding blood DKs. To me, squeezing out 1-2 extra DS a min would have an amazing impact on staving off burst dmg-related tank deaths throughout a 5-8min boss fight, but to the devs I guess they merely view it as a 'perk'? Gee, I know other tank classes that would KILL to get extra survival they aren't balanced around merely as extra gifts (/waves at WoG). To me, not having to outsource 1-2 diseases isn't just a perk, it could mean the diff between Nef chomping me down to 10% health while I'm waiting for runes after manually reapplying diseases, vs. never dipping below 30% in the same scenario cause I had an extra DS handy. Its all too easy to step back and look at such things as 'oh you only lose 1 DS a min, that's not a large %age boost overall' when its burst damage, not consistent damage, that usually kills tanks in raids.. and there's no better burst mitigation than Blood's DS! You damn right I cherish that extra DS/min beyond a marginal overall fight statistic. -- Also, because I dun feel like re-posting, most my other posts in a nutshell: bone shield mastery+++, pls tie the 4-set to VB instead of DRW so we have the bonus w/ an on-demand cd like the other tanks, for the luv of god make disease management less taxing, being the magic tank and blowing up on add duty sucks, and /drink. I won't spam more suggestions, I promise! |
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Edited by Kalle on 5/18/11 3:52 PM (PDT)
when people mass-exodus a class because it sucks, I think that is a problem in itself. Even if there was a "mass exodus" by bears and DKs, it would only be a shift of 5-7%, well within a second deviation. Meaning that there is still no warning flags. |
Not sure what standard deviations have to do with this. But keep in mind that they have much better data then we do, so they can detect even miniscule changes. |
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Edited by Kalle on 5/18/11 4:01 PM (PDT)
I think that is a problem in itself. Even if there was a "mass exodus" by bears and DKs, it would only be a shift of 5-7%, well within a second deviation. Meaning that it is within their realm of an acceptable change if there was a "large" drop off of DKs or Bears, in that they can explain it off like you are prone to do. Them having more data than us has nothing to do with that. |
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Reading many of the complaints about blood DK tanking, I thought of a possible fix to at least one issue and figured I might as well share. I've seen it mentioned that healers need to heal as they see fit and this often puts Blood DKs at near-100% health, at which point using a death strike is considered a waste because of the loss of the heal although you still need to death strike to get the blood shield for important mitigation.
What if DKs had a blood talent, 2 or 3 points (tiered percentage of HP each point), that, fully talented, gave blood shield a boost in exactly the amount of overhealed HP death strike ever causes? In case this is overpowered if it occurs on every death strike, this could be limited to an ICD of how often it could proc basically to limit the amount of boosts this would give to only one boost. Obviously, actually healing HP would be more effective so even though it becomes ridiculously complicated, it could proc a second type of blood shield that actually does mitigate magic damage, or simply raise max/current HP as if you actually did heal damage. Thoughts? P.S.: I figured I'd mention that this wasn't meant as a fix to the entire blood spec, just something I had thought about when reading about....all of blood's issues, like I said in the first sentence. Fixing one problem, even if its not the most important thing on the agenda, might still help. |
Meaning that it is within their realm of an acceptable change if there was a "large" drop off of DKs or Bears, in that they can explain it off like you are prone to do. Them having more data then us has nothing to do with that. I doubt a 33% drop from 15% to 10% representation would be an acceptable change for them. It would probably be grounds for an emergency meeting followed by quick hotfixes. |
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In this, we will disagree (nothing new). BTW, even if I don't agree with you most of the time, I thank-you for your posts. |
