I think many of us will welcome a slightly more varied Blood DK rotation with the removal of Sepulchre’s BDK tier set (as strong as it was), where haste stacking and annihiliating our respective Heart Strike keybinds to quickly reach the full strength buff and then keeping Dancing Rune Weapon up will be replaced.
However, I feel that the change to Death’s Caress in our talent tree is undermining this new hope for a more fluid rotation. It feels like having to press DC on cooldown, every 6 seconds, regardless of the situation/content in order to manage Bone Shield stacks efficiently is hamstringing Dragonflight rotational improvements.
I’m a fan of our new talents and playstyles on offer overall and feel that many choices are compelling, especially at the bottom of the spec tree, for various scenarios. That being said, the need to neglect Marrowrend outside of DRW in favour of pressing DC every 6 seconds is currently quite jarring. Whilst I appreciate the concept of making DC a more useful ability, the current implementation of it generating bone shield stacks more efficiently that Marrowrend means that it’s simultaenously losing it’s niche of a ranged ability to tag mobs and apply our plague.
It of course can do this, but I feel it’s too strongly overshadowing Marrowrend as a historically vital part of our rotation to manage Bone Shield and feels intrusive in it’s requirement of having to be pressed every 6 seconds in pretty much any scenario. I found this felt particularly odd during raids where I’m pressing a 30 yard ranged ability that’s largely been used for tagging mobs at range when fighting one big mob in front of me.
I’m curious how other people feel this change to Death’s Caress is currently affecting how we manage our Bone Shield stacks - a very important flow for the BDK rotation management. Perhaps people feel that this change is actually providing more variation in the rotation by making a previously less common ability more involved? I think DC can have a useful role as a ranged tagging ability of some sort, relating to plague application especially, but I’m unsure that the current design isn’t actually making the BDK rotation worse.