Not really. BFA made most specs feel a lot slower to play, largely due to secondary stats scaling a lot worse, and just removing a lot of the powerful artifact talents.
I enjoy the playstyle of blood but I am worried about our dps when we lose corruption and essences, since I find alot of my dps comes from those things. Mobility can be an issue as well since death’s advance has a long cd to be relied on solely. Wraithwalk for raid and pvp isn’t bad but in dungeons the control from grip is more useful imo.
I feel like rune strike is weak rn and could use a buff as well. One charge does = or less than one tick of blooddrinker which also heals you and allows cds to be used without interrupting the channel. RS, even with 2 charges and the cd reduction from HS is still weak in comparison. Wish it was baseline. Haven’t really tried it in pvp which may perform better since it can’t be kicked, but I’d rather just go unholy and do real dps.
Yeah, we need that good lovin from blizz in SL
Blood is okay but it feels like it’s lost a lot, and some of the fun with it.
I do wish that it had a bit more base mitigation or more HP so that getting chunked wasn’t as threatening. The damage is not that great either, though that’s currently masked by everyone running TD corruptions. Thankfully the removal of azerite won’t have much of an effect in SL though, since all of the blood traits are pure garbage.
The spec could definitely use some base movement speed. It’s also missing something in the flavor department. Pulling off a good grip/gorefiend’s is about the only thing that makes me feel like I did something cool when I’m playing as Blood. I think it could use a new layer of interaction with parry and DRW.
Getting chunked isn’t threatening if you are playing the spec correctly. The only threatening scenarios are going into a large pull without any rp or bone shield charges and you can plan ahead so that doesn’t happen after the first pull in a dungeon
Even with proper planning, Blood is still behind most other tanks (outside of heavy magic damage situations) and needs something to close the gap.
They are not behind other tanks. Check out the progress rankings for mythic Nzoth and other progress kills. Go down the list and see how many teams use blood tanks. This isn’t the be all end all but it just shows that blood is definitely not behind other tanks. The play style is fine and engaging. Blood has a higher skill floor and ceiling than other tanks. Tanks balance is pretty good in the current patch.
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The fights in the new raid certainly favor Blood, but also feel free to go and check out the Raider IO leaderboards for tanks. There is a reason that you don’t see a Blood DK until the third page, even though every other tank is represented on the first page.
Blood DKs fell off after their armor got nerfed and are only popular now in 8.3 because streamers popularized them with Sk’shuul Vaz on the PTR (before it was nerfed), corruption covers their weak damage, and as previously mentioned Nyalotha fights favor them.
I never said they’re not viable, but they certainly are behind other tanks in m+ due to their weaker physical mitigation.
As far as playstyle, I find them pretty bland/simple but to each their own.
As far as survivability they don’t fall behind other tanks in keys. The biggest factor in team composition for the low to mid 20s in M+ is utility. The spikey nature of a Dk (which your post was about) is a non factor to a good BDK. It’s the lack of utility such as AoE stuns on a short cd, ring of peace, aoe fear, paralysis, etc that are bigger factors in what tank you’d bring depending on your composition.
Damage is also a factor and outside good corruption and I agree bdk damage is lacking. But with it it’s just fine. Try tanking some keys as opposed to only dpsing yours to see what I’m talking about survival wise.
Raider IO has the most comprehensive data set for M+. If comparing tank rankings in S1 vs S4 (plenty of DKs in top 20 vs none) doesn’t convince you, then that’s on you.
I originally cited Blood’s mitigation nerfs, lack of mobility, and lack of damage (without corruption) as reasons for this. The utility kit is otherwise pretty good. You can argue with anecdotal experiences and personal jabs all you want, but at the end of the day if Blood DKs were on par with the other tanks you’d see them higher up the rankings.
Darkmech, who is a pretty great Blood DK, also mentioned in this very thread that other tanks do pull ahead of Blood DKs. Even Trellsky, who is a pretty high rated tank, ranked Blood as the worst tank for 8.3.
IMO consumption should be baseline and damage should at least hit as hard as warrior’s dragon roar. Prot warrior’s Dragon Roar hits for 170% AP and Consumption hits only 40% AP… Dragon Roar is not prot warrior’s favored talent but it still hits harder then Consumption.
Bring back presences. Buff our mastery blood shield like it was in MoP.
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This is a late reply but I believe vet is 30% stamina, while bone shield received a slight armor buff. I haven’t played Alpha yet so I don’t know myself, just going off this: https://www.wowhead.com/shadowlands-death-knight-class-changes
vet has a rank 2 at 49 for blood that takes it to 60 in shadowlands