Blood Beast talent ruins San’Layn class fantasy

Classes Death Knight
1

The big mass of flesh just single-handedly sidelines the whole vampirism aesthetic of the tree and changes the whole feel of the spec for me.

If you’re going to keep the talent please turn it into a vampire bat or something. Maybe a gargoyle.

Otherwise just figure out a different talent that amplifies the blood magic angle in a refined way

8 Likes
2

Vampiric strike should be its own ability IMHO

Get rid of the blood beast for a super powered Ghoul

5 Likes
3

I don’t even mind the beast’s appearance so much as him popping up at the worst possible time

2 Likes
4

You manage to get one to spawn? :astonished:

4 Likes
5

San’Layn should replace death and decay with Swarming Mists, for both specs. This would follow you around and add cleave and life steal.

12 Likes
6

Agree and I think when people heard San’layn would be a hero spec, people envisioned something like that, not a big ball of bloody flesh flopping around. That is exactly what I didn’t want them to do.

2 Likes
7

*sometimes

**and when you don’t need it anymore

1 Like
8

Ya they flopped big time with blood dk san layn. Sucks cuz the theme is really cool.

5 Likes
9

Blood beast doesn’t ruin San’layn for me because I still never see it proc.

10

i get blood beast procs all the time(pvp), its neat to see big numbers in the combat log, but overall its hard to capitalize on him when he does proc. either you don’t have the resources to stack his damage, or the target dies before he explodes.

the stuff i want to see:

vampiric strike heal for 1-5% HP per target struck and apply blood shield like deathstrike does for blood. this should help keep you from having to abandon vamp strike spam in order to hit a DS so you can maintain your burst window.

vampire wings with double jump and glide like DH, i know it sounds silly, but this would be huge for the thematic RP.

swarming mists replacing DND is a very good idea

4 Likes
11

Simple changes I’d like to see:

To Blood itself:

  1. Free up ~2 talent pre-capstone points and slightly improve mid-tier pathing.
    • Remove the need for Improved Bone Shield by baselining it into Bone Collector and then cleaning up the talent order thereafter. Have Bone Collector apply from Death Grip, Death’s Caress, and Death Coil and grant 2% Haste per Bone Shield, to a max of 10%.
      • Move Bone Collector into the place of Marrowrend, Marrowrend to the place of Vampiric Blood, Improved Heart Strike to the place of Improved Vampiric Blood. Move Vampiric Blood into the place formerly occupied by Bone Collector and Improved Vampiric Blood into the place formerly occupied by Improved Heart Strike. This then places the Haste from Bone Shield before the way to get yet more Haste via Bone Shield.
      • Now that Improved Bone Shield is no longer needed, move Heartbreaker into its former position and allow Ossuary to path directly to Gorefiend’s Grasp as well.
    • Remove Perseverance of the Ebon Blade outright, allowing pathing directly to Rapid Decomposition.
  1. Allow Tomestone and Bonestorm to be tuned individually, rather than so largely per their impact via Insatiable Blade.
    • Dancing Rune Weapon base cooldown reduced to 90 seconds.
    • Insatiable Blood replaced with Harvester’s Blade:

      Harvester’s Blade
      Passive

      Dancing Rune Weapon cooldown reduced by 30 seconds and a further 5 seconds per Bone Shield consumed by enemy attacks. Additionally, you now passively generate one Bone Shield every 10 seconds, and 5 Bone Shield charges upon activating Dancing Rune Weapon.

      • At present, logs show that one can re-ready a Dancing Rune Weapon in as little as 25 seconds, though the average in continuous uptime is nearer to 50 seconds. Tomestone and Bonestorm presently provide 50 seconds’ CDR per minute if used on CD, so the remaining 20-45 seconds’ cooldown reduction per 70 seconds (roughly 17-38s CDR/min) must come from enemy attacks. The effect should still allow similar cooldown reduction to its previous version without being so reliant on Tomestone and Bonestorm.

To Sanlayn:

  1. Give better control over the timing of Blood Beast as to make it actually of use.
    • The Blood is Life has been reworked into a simple active cooldown upgrade, Blood Beast:

  • Blood:

    Blood Beast
    Instant. 45-second cooldown.

    Replaces Raise Dead.

    Summons a Blood Beast that attacks nearby enemies for 10 seconds, favoring the one you’ve most recently struck. Each time it strikes, it stores a portion of damage dealt. When the Blood Beast dies or its duration elapses, it explodes, dealing that stored damage to all enemies nearby.

    The Blood Beast can be exploded early by re-casting Blood Beast while it is active, and each Vampiric Strike while the Blood Beast is active or readied increases its duration or that of its next use by 1 second. While the Blood Beast is neither active nor readied, each Vampiric Strike reduces its remaining cooldown by 5 seconds.

  • Unholy:

    Blood Beast
    Passive.

    Dark Transformation now now turns your ghoul into a Blood Beast instead of a monstrosity, causing them to, atop all previous benefits, store a portion of their damage dealt. When Dark Transformation ends, the Blood Beast will erupt, dealing the stored damage to nearby enemies.

    Dark Transformation can be ended early by re-casting the ability while active, dealing up to 50% more damage based on duration thereby lost. Each Vampiric Strike made while the Dark Transformation is active or readied increases its duration or that of its next use by 1 second. While the Dark Transformation is neither active nor readied, each Vampiric Strike reduces its remaining cooldown by 5 seconds.

Ideally, I’d make a choice node out of Blood Beast itself and allow one to go far further with each if they opt into Blood Beasts at all, adding some visual spectacle via Pact of the San’layn (leading up to really big blood beasts, with tendrils going from you or your victims to it as you contribute shadow damage to its explosive potential), but something of this sort would already be enough to at least offer real control.

3 Likes
12

works for blood but not unholy.

13

Not really a fan of this suggestion. I’d prefer they fix it’s spawn rate first, before they go and just add it to dark transformation before I make final judgments on these kinda changes. Also wouldn’t really play nicely with the current tier bonus compared to RotA.

14

along with this, imagine if we had hover like evokers while gift of the sanlayn is active, you could hover around floating on vampire wings destroying everything around.

2 Likes
15

That would definitely make the San’layn feel more like a San’layn. And there is already precedent for DK to hover with wraith walk.

16

DK also had boney wings during certain parts of legion :smiley: