Just don’t press it unless you are in danger? Aggressive play imo should be rewarded.
Yes, that is how defensive abilities are supposed to work, but by adding a DPS gain to the defensive ability, you are incentivized to use it as such, rather than a defensive ability. It is exactly like the Aberrus tier set, which most Blood DK players did not enjoy.
It’s an incentive, no one pulled a gun on you and said press it.
And always more options for different type of players is a good thing
And if you want to play the class in the most effective manner, you would be using it as an offensive cooldown like they are incentivizing and pushing towards.
That wont be an issue for 99% of players, game should not be designed around them.
That does not justify turning your best defensive ability into an offensive ability. The game should be designed based on feedback from players, right? Well, then what about the overwhelmingly negative feedback on this idea? Vision of Perfection for tanks in BFA? The Aberrus tier set last season? These are the two most prevalent examples of them doing this, and both times the community responded very negatively, as it promotes defensiveness being tied to either RNG or offensive capability.
It’s both offensive and defensive now, which is a massive buff.
This change makes blood dk even more viable in both pvp and pve, at the same time increases the skill cap, Besides you are the first person i see that complains about a spec getting a huge buff like this.
You do not need to worry about this change if you are not top 1% of players who min max everything, press it whenever you like it and get both of the benefits.
1.please move away from forcing all DKs specs to play in death and decay - that’s feels absolutely terrible
2. Blood beast seems a bit meh - any way to control the explosion?
3 Bit surprised vampiric theme is for unholy rather than frost - would assume it might fit better with frost spec to have vampiric taste
4 From unholy point of view generating more resources through those talents - not sure it the right move - already there are three resources for unholy and some always overcap.
In general I would say quick class rework would be great to have before those talents as your just amplifying already very outdated playstyle.
1 Like
But the argument is not viability, is it? The problem, fundamentally, is the gameplay design. It doesn’t matter if it makes the class better, it makes the class less fun if you are, by design, incentivized to use your defensive cooldown as an offensive cooldown.
Says you, how is it a bad thing to be both tanky and pump insane damage with the press of 1 button, blood dk has many other defensive cds.
Not forced.
There is difference between having it be “a” defensive cooldown, and being your “best” defensive cooldown. Of course it is not forced, that is not what I am saying. It is incentivized, which is fundamentally the problem because sacrificing defensive capabilities at inopportune times in favor for damage is not what you want as a tank.
The biggest worry for me so far is the disease consumption component, please don’t.
I think we are going little far with that VB offensive CD. It has offensive power but so does DRW.
I have to side with Aryash here saying that aggressive play can be rewarded by changing VB from purely defensive into semi buff, that we still should play aggresively if we consider cooldown reduction. We should do that even now I believe.
Maybe tie in offensive buff that retains defensive value - versa, haste?
i really hope your going to rework unholy dk blizz,
we really need to remove this damn combo point festering wound nonsense,
our talent tree should be all about A. Plagues B. Undead/Minions C. striking ability’s,
also turn Necromancer Bargain in to a choice nod whit Army of the Damned we should be allowed to tailor our Apocalypse in to Undead or Disease cd ability.
4 Likes
Bro wtf
Unholy dk is better than ever no need to change anything.
No one liked desease build or pet build dmg is to slow and fake with that builds.
Current state of dmg dealing is perfect
I could even say its better than dh in arena.
I mainly play Blood Death Knight, but played the other specs at least for a bit, and I have to say that the talent tree doesn’t really excite me.
The keystone talent is just a stat buff that, together with Gift of the San’layn, will put more power into cooldowns. Especially for Unholy this is another buff you stack on all your other cooldowns and your abilities end up doing nothing without all these multipliers. I prefer it when your actual attacks feel impactful.
Something else that i see brought up a lot is the gameplay around Death and Decay. I personally dont mind it that much on BDK, because it has a sufficiently short cooldown, two charges and leaving it usually isn’t the end of the world (unlike Prot Paladin). As a DPS though, I have to agree. Beeing forced out of your DnD, for example during Pillar of Frost, feels really frustrating.
The problem for Blood for me is, that there is no build variety. You pick up all the DnD talents, Shattering Bone and Coagulopathy and there are no real alternatives for the whole expansion. It’s not that I hate standing inside my DnD, but it gets stale if that’s all you do.
Another talent that seems unnecessary is the rune refund from Heart Strike/Scourge Strike. Both specs in their current state aren’t exactly short on resources. Unholy in aoe is drowning in resources, and a Blood DK doesn’t really die from a lack of healing throughput, they eventually just explode.
This is even a problem outside of hero talents. BDK right now heals, overheals and absorbs so much through Death Strike and Blood Shield, that beeing greedy with your runic power becomes secondary. Beeing full life oftentimes means very little and you depend on your absorb shields as an extension of your heal bar, which is very awkward to play around without weakauras. Maybe Blood Shield right now is just too impactful with talents like Gloom Ward and Iron Heart. Blood Death Knight is most fun when you see your health dip low and shoot back up. Not when your entire healthbar disappears in less than a GCD because you didn’t have a 600k absorb on top of it.
I’m not too concerned with an offensive component tied to Vampiric Blood, just because the cooldown is so low and you tend to send it on CD anyways.
The Positives:
There are some ideas I like in the talent tree draft. Vampiric Aura and Bloody Fortitude both seem nice and fitting. Infliction of Sorrow might not be perfect, but I like the emphasis it puts on diseases.
My favourite effect in the talent tree is the Blood Beast, but I’m not fond of the random proc chance. It’s thematic and in my mind more exciting than pure stats. I would like to see it turned into the keystone talent linked to some sort of Blood Gauge. You fill it by leeching blood from your enemies and once filled, the blood manifests into a Blood Beast. Other talents could add other means to fill the Blood Gauge, like maybe Vampiric Blood adding a flat amount or increasing the rate at which you fill it.
Reading through talents, i got another idea for something useful and thematic. The talent Sanguine Ground in the BDK tree curently just gives a buff when standing in DnD. But what if damaging an enemy with certain abilities would actualy soak the ground in blood and create an area of Death and Decay.
I hope to see further iterations and improvements to the hero talents in the future.
1 Like
Hello, I play Blood in m+ so my feedback will revolve around that.
Another haste buff sounds nice, but it would depend on how easily we can keep it up. Having the buff fall off in between packs in m+ and having to stack it up 7 times every time will not feel good. Hopefully, we can extend it long enough to not have it drop too often during a run.
Having another maintenance buff doesn’t sound too appealing to me. We already have Coagulopathy to keep up, and while you will usually not go for more than 8 seconds without Death Striking, it still feels bad having to think about something like that.
Newly Turned and Vampiric Speed both sound great, however Newly Turned doesn’t really stand a chance as the node is now.
Vampiric Speed will be taken just because of the 10% increased speed, the bonus speed it would give allies doesn’t mean much for the party as almost every other class is faster than the DK.
What would make the ability cool, and more useful for the party, would be that instead of the X% speed the party would gain immunity for forced movement and knockbacks like the DK does. This, though, might be better suited for the Rider of the Apocalypse as you would lead the charge (albeit probably the slowest in the group still 
)
Bloody Fortitude could maybe be better on the Deathbringer Tree, as Icebound Fortitude is a frost spell, rather then Blood or Unholy, so to me it seems a bit out of place.
Standing in DnD is not a huge deal for Blood, as you have lower CD, and you get a proc for a free one refreshing a charge, however that is very much the case for Unholy and Frost.
Infected Sorrow looks like it would work well with Umbilicus Eternus, and the shield it gives. Even without the new talents that would increase the Blood Plague damage, the shield that talent gives is huge. Didn’t use that talent this season, however last season that shield was so big that it would usually expire before it would get depleted.
Personally, I don’t enjoy pets, or pet summons, so Blood Beast is not something I’d be happy about. Having it be completely random is also a downside.
Having the Blood Beast heal on expiration just seem like a better version of Bloodworms.
We also have the Sacrificial Pact ability, so this would make it a third talent where you get healed when a pet dies.
Some have already mentioned, but Vampiric Speed could be a good choice node with Vampiric Aura. Making a choice of how you want to help your party, swapping between the talents based on the encounter you’ll face.
There are also a few things that might need a look at in the spec tree itself.
I would not be opposed to Coagulopathy taking a step back (or out) of the tree, however there are other talents that need more attention.
Not being able to take Gorefiend’s Grasp does not feel good. Abomination Limb does kinds work as a mass grip as well, however it is not very effective in doing so.
DH got it’s Sigil of Chains, and two of them on a 1min cd, so Blood having both Abom and Gorefiend’s Grasp would be walking on an already paved road.
Bonestorm is also a talent that could use some love. I have never seen anyone pick that talent, but it is always open as Shattering Bone is taken. Maybe it can consume Bone Shield stacks rather than RP. That would make it more in line with the talents above it.
Similarly, Blooddrinker and Consumption are talents that are simply never even considered. They’re just placeholders at this point, maybe those could be used for a different kind of build or something, as Blood did not really change anything in the terms of how it plays for quite some time now.
Thanks for the effort you put into enhancing our gameplay.
However, checking on the San’layn tree so far didn’t really excite me. All talent tree is used to modify a newly introduced spell called Vampiric Strike.
These hero talents should not just improve existing mechanics but also introduce better mechanics to us. At the moment these changes are so incremental instead of being disruptive.
I hope you get what I mean.
please please please give us unholy dececrated grounds back please we don’t want to use chains of ice anymore since cataclysm we all cringe hard using chains of ice as a unholy deathknight it makes no sence even just thematically
2 Likes
Something that I always say in order for these hero specs to be fully successful is the visual/flavor part. One really cool suggestion for San’layn’s improved talent of Wratith Walk, could be to change the animation to that of Carrion Swarm of Mal’ganis of Hots (a swirling bat of clouds) and maybe make it heal you a little bit when it goes through enemies.
This makes sense from a mechanical point of view since they both basically make you an intangible entity with free movement but this one better reflects the flavor and theme of the spec.
Let me know of your thoughts!