Hey everyone,
Just getting back into the game and wanted to do some Blood DK tanking again. (I missed all but 1-2 weeks of S4).
I tanked a Mythic (Not mythic+) last night and noticed my health kept yo-yoing pretty quickly.
That said, I am trying to find some good resources for Talent Setups, Rotation Breakdown with the new changes, and stat priority. (I have no idea why people want crit for tanking)
Any links, information ect… that you all can provide would be helpful trying to jump back into this.
I would start with the patch notes from a week or so ago. Bdk - like most tanks - got some rather major changes that affect the overall mitigation and self healing regardless of talent choices.
This point is arguable, but the general takeaway I got from playing beta was that bdk is either going to feel unkillable for players with a high functioning understanding of the spec and content - or it’s going to feel punishing to you and your healer. I myself have almost 600 days played on dk, most of that in a tank role - and have seen countless reworks to both the class and how tanking works in general - so I’m rather adept at adapting quickly. To me it felt perfectly fine.
Keep also in mind that the specs are NOT tuned for level 70 content anymore. The hero talents which you don’t have access to are likely going to help mitigate the issues you’ve encountered in retail content.
I’d probably suggest reading or watching reviews and feedback on bdk, finding class or community discords, and really taking the time to review the talents and patch notes because things are not the same. Changes to death strike being key to understand.
Thanks for the quick reply. Any recommendations on who to watch? I don’t see anything updated recently on YT for BDK so trying to find something. And for wowhead/icy most of the info still seems to reflect S3 or they just didn’t update the title.
What I would suggest is checking out either raider. io or murlok. io and finding the leaders in m+ that have twitch or socials posted. Then you can have direct contact with the people at the forefront. Bookmark their profiles and review them as the expansion goes on so that you can see how their builds and gear evolves as well.
I don’t personally know any creators for bdk specifically, I’m more a pure numbers guy who likes to sort these things out and have like 10 different m+ setups saved for specific runs.
I haven’t looked, but I know guys like signs of kalani (sp) used to do decent expansion previews if you just want an overall comparison between where bdk ends in DF and where it’s starting in WW.
The big thing to keep in mind with every single class and spec is that there will be tuning for raid and m+ for the first 6 weeks that could completely upend any current takes or tier rankings.
Having been here since vanilla, my advice would be to lock down the role you want - in this case tank - and level multiple classes you like doing that role with. If bdk isn’t it, you’ve got a veng and a bear as back up. Levelling looks rather painless and with everything being warbound, having alts is not nearly as time consuming as it has in the past.
crit = parry chance and output. it is all around strong in Mythic + dungeons and numerically has been tested to provide the most defense of all other stats.
I am not a huge fan of it myself and focus more so on mastery for more ap and healing as well as haste to help bring runes back around faster.
I honestly think blood scales well with a bit of all stats as they all in the end provide good bonus to defense and offense. I have heard some people say aim for 30% haste but that is too high considering you have many buffs to get you there without needing to build around it. Versatility is all around good for defense, damage, and healing. Mastery creates big shields when you deathstrike.
I think the biggest thing to do is focus on properly rotating your defensive cooldowns and timing your death strikes accordingly. You will have a bit of bouncing in your HP but that is just the name of the game as you instantly refill your life with DS after taking damage.
Also in DF retail, A lot of the sustainability for blood is hidden within trinkets. Check out the trinkets the bronze dragons offer you. there is a few really good ones for blood that act as fillers in your defensive rotation.
Currently it looks like Crit and mastery (crit as highest priority) will be the stats you go for. And depending on how high you push, vers as well.
The wowhead guides can give a good spot about rotation/builds. Even after the nerfs, from my own testing, Blood dk felt fine.
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