Player Main Class: Death Knight
Spec: Blood
Content: I primarily play M+, stuck in roughly +10-12 range but trying to push up, and I raid casually. I do this across multiple characters, mostly other tank specs
I am having fun this expansion but feel the need to provide some critical feedback back on blood, tanking, and this tier set.
Preface this is in the context that it currently feels to myself (and to many others which I don’t think is unreasonable to say) that tanks and healers are too weak. The ways in which they are weak are not fun and the consequences for them being so have heavy impact on fun or lack there of for role players of either, reduced incentive for players to put time in them and thus reduced role pool, more work, more pressure, more tension, more risk, less player power, less fun, no difference in reward.
As blood especially I feel in a low power state and have trouble advancing compared to other tank specs such as prot pally and prot war and continue to be disproportionately affected by class nerfs targeted at my classes often with no buffs (zero blood buffs in 11.1) or often non-meaningful minor buffs to help blood when it is already on the lower end of power or representation. Whether by actual power or perceived meta power (the consequence for me is the same regardless of cause) I have trouble both advancing and getting groups despite sufficient rating compared to other specs with less.
This tier set presents very little to help with my specs issues and stability against dmg (sustained, sudden, or timed busters) or have more fun, do more damage, or get to do anything really special/ interesting. Some of this depends on the set proc rate and internal cd but it’s either up not enough and weak, too much which is still preferable and more “fun” to be invincible so to speak but not that interesting as opposed to too weak, or in the middle and inconsistent/unreliable which might as well be weak.
Encounters are often designed at higher difficulties where if my defensives are not 1:1 with boss or trash busters I will die, if this procs at the right time I maybe can save one and not run out (big problem for my spec!) but if it procs are the wrong time its not that meaningful, now I have to do work and keep an extremely close eye on when it does or doesn’t proc because not clipping my actual buttons with the proc will be a big deal! That’s stress and work for me not fun! More make sure I don’t mess up gameplay is not gonna feel that great and when it goes wrong it will feel awful, when a tank dies it affects encounters and dungeons disproportionately to dps or even healers. If a dps dies it’s often a minor inconvenience if I die more often than not it’s a wipe and possibly a deplete on the spot at higher keys. Way more pressure and execution expectation on the tank and while I LOVE the flavor of the casino stuff the tank is the one person in the group who can’t really afford to gamble. Also if procs are based on hits and this occurs more in aoe it certainly helps less in single target where tanks universally depend even more on defensives on the right mechanics and do even less damage generally than usual.
The death strike change in the 4 set is peculiar as it also doesn’t reduce it’s cost much at all. It doesn’t do actual anything in single target where I am already at my weakest damage and doesn’t change my gameplay in any interesting way when I am going to hit that button the same amount.
I appreciate your work on this and understand this is a crazy complicated game is hard to get right but the tank sets are poor especially in context with the very poor state of tanking m+. Thanks for hearing players out