BDKs seemingly having a bad time:

[Funkykittiey-ravencrest]

Is it just me, or are BDKs having a rough time out there? I am basing this on two things I’ve noticed.

Firstly, I play with a raid tank BDK often, he tanks mythic and is usually solid like a rock. Yet he struggles to have a smooth experience in 10s, we get it done - but it is a struggle. Worst part is, after he jumped on his 580 warrior, he laughed - “this is so much easier!” Grips aside, the 10 key farm was done so more smoothly when the tank wasnt constantly in danger of just getting oneshot or simply being unable to keep himself up in heavy melee packs.

Secondly, when I PuG keys, 7-8 range only too. I noticed that random BDKs I play with simply just flop over all the time. They got decent gear, 610-620 area, yet they get smacked down into the dirt 100 to 0 close to instantly. Basically, I see them drop DRW, DND, splat - gone. Mid pull, splat gone. A lot of splats coming seemingly randomly. When a tank goes 100 to 0 with vamp blood up I do get worried.

I cant talk about my experience on my own BDK, it being 580, so I expect to be slapped around. Yet - I have noticed that my survival is no longer really in my hands. I got my CDs, then I am dead or alive based on what the healer do to me as Death Strike doesn’t even move my healthbar. So, to do 7-8 area, I simply kite a lot. A lot a lot. On my warrior, I didnt even know these mobs did damage. DK, it is DRW and pray parry holds up.

The problem, I thought, was just that BDK needs now to overgear the content to have a semi-decent experience of being a powerful tank. Now I am not so sure. As by overgearing, I dont mean having to be 639 to do a 10, but 620 for a 10 should be far beyond the requirement - as it drops 613 gear after all. As I see 620 tanks go down like so many rocks in a bag thrown into a river, yeah - I get worried.

What are your experiences? Perhaps I am simply just unlucky with the tanks I see around and BDK is in a really good spot

[Odiprofanum-golemagg]

As 612 bdk trying to time 7+ I can relate. I’m not pulling anything without icebound fortitude off CD and still some packs (even of 3 mobs) are pounding me into the ground with few up to 2mil dmg hits in 2 secs. I can’t see how this can be playable on proper high keys. Some monk-style kiting as slow DK is out of table, even engi speedups won’t help. the only chance for us is packs being constantly stunned/ccd by dpss. My boneshield uptime is close to 95%, I use all CDs in right moments, kite whenever possible, can solo bosses, can solo delves, dying from trashpacks even staring at me. FRUSTRATING!

[Eluvia-terokkar]

I just did my 2k for the token, so haven’t done very hard dungeons. But my feeling is that the big culprit is that haste has been so devalued. Getting yourself going on pulls is so much slower now with low haste, where you previously would pump haste stat now you’ll stay at 5%.
So on pull the gcd is so much more a factor, takes a while to build rp for your first death strike.
If there is one wish i could have granted it would be some kind of rp burst when entering combat. Or like first death strike on entering combat is free. If a hero tree had that and nothing else I’d always play it in dungeons.

[Grisecouette-elune]

I’ve had the same experience.

BDK main is a chore to do keys, I don’t even want to do my weeklies anymore because of the amount of effort and constant concentration required to not instantly die. My War with 10 lower ilvl can tank so much more smoothly it’s a joke.

At this point I have no motivation to do keys, because I refuse to pug them, and my guildies mostly can’t push 10s, so why bother doing m+ when I can get the same ilvl chaining ZekVir for 30 minutes…

S3 of DF was so much fun, I’ve never played so much M+. I would run 3-4 characters through 20s each week, full clear heroic raid and get showered with cool Mythic loot at the end of the week for my efforts, but now it’s just massively gatekept and I just can’t be bothered.

[Petergrippín-stormscale]

I played BDK, Guardian and a little bit of Prot warrior this season. DK has been my main since Legion, so I’m somewhat used to constant drops from 100-30% HP, but in TWW this has been extreme. The main weakness, just like always, have been the first 3-5 seconds of a pull where you have to spend several GCDs on your setup. Making sure that DnD is down, hitting mobs at least once with Blood Boil to gain some threat, getting DrW, Bonestorm and Tombstone off so their CD can start regenerating…
Meanwhile on warrior I just charge>shield block>avatar>thunderclap/shield slam spam. Guardian druid just pre-pop Barkskin if I’m worried about the pack thrash>mangle>ironfur>drop lunarbeam>repeat thrash>mangle>ironfur spam.

For the content I am doing, I don’t find BDK to be weak, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t take twice the effort of playing a warrior or druid atm for the same content. The reason DK works so well for raid bosses is you get infrequent, predictable large hits, which works great for how Death Strike is designed.
But in M+ the damage is so unpredictable. Sometimes you’ll straight up just die or proc purgatory from melee swings just syncing up, typically after any AoE CC expires. That’s why I never used Gorefiend’s Grasp. All you’re doing is gripping 8 mobs on top of you and perfectly syncing up their melee swing timers…

[Ilylia-outland]

I would say BDK needs some old nerfs taking off again. You see we have a lot lower HP than most the other tanks with paper armor going in before the windup. They nerfed our Veteran sometime back before or after the stat squish to make us level 60’s. Now that our HP is going back to the days of level 120 with now over 4-5million HP this time around. I think we need 5-10% more hp, something that was taken away from Veteran passive or now talent choice. I’ve felt I’ve specifically needed to opt for Gargole just to have some HP room to live. Things like Crush from Erudax in GB, even with DR or something to sponge it into are basically dropping our HP down to 15-30%. It’s rapid fire yoyoing HP. They need a buff somewhere in my opinion.