Why Was The Original 12.1 Tier Set So Disliked?
Well, there are a lot of people and opinions out there, so it is hard to say I can fully explain this, but, after seeing a lot of discourse on the subject I think it boils down to a combination of three factors:
- The tier set did nothing to address existing pain points with BDK in higher M+ (no defensive value)
- The tier set wasn’t overly impactful in any case from a power-level perspective
- The tier set actively encouraged the player to play more passively with DnD (waiting for Crimson Scourge), while also indirectly punishing them if they used DnD without a proc for whatever reason.
For point one, it is my personal interpretation that Blizzard is a bit wary of putting significant defensive bonuses on tier sets ever since Dragonflight ended, since these have, at times, led to certain tanks becoming oppressively strong in certain seasons due to strong tier set tuning (balancing defensive benefits is also a trickier ordeal than balancing offensive benefits). That being said, it is very hard to make tier sets interesting on tanks if they completely ignore the defensive side of their kit. There are pros and cons to this design decision.
For point two, people will always want high-performing tier set bonuses on the specs they are playing, so there is neither much to speak on this point nor is there anything to explicitly do about it. The only small caveat I would add in here is that if a spec is thought to be doing well in raid relative to M+, there is certainly potential to skew tier set performance to multiple target situations even if it is only a damage benefit.
For point three, I think this was probably the main point of discontent even if people had a hard time putting their finger on it. We have had times in BDK’s history where they played more deliberately around Crimson Scourge, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, though it is a more passive playstyle over dropping DnD whenever your baseline DnD buffs fade. That being said, it is a little different when a tier set itself is altering gameplay to become a more passive playstyle. Plus, there are plenty of situations where you would potentially want to use DnD regardless even if you don’t have Crimson Scourge (as a ranged filler or for the snare) and the way the old tier set was designed would mean that these types of DnD casts would delay the next Crimson Scourge proc and, by happenstance, delay the associated benefits. As such, the tier set operating around Crimson Scourge just seemed to play poorly from what people generally are looking for out of tier sets, which is some “cool” or “nifty” effect that may or may not come along with gameplay changes (hopefully ones that feel good such as TWW S3 giving Deathbringer for Blood a higher rate of Exterminate casts).
What About The New Prototype Tier Set Bonus for 12.1?
If there is one thing that we can say about the new tier set, is that it seemingly does not push the player into a more passive gameplay loop. It is very Bloodied Blade-esque in its benefit scheme for one reason or another. Since it ramps based on Death Strike cast frequency, it is a bonus that benefits from higher player haste (since more haste is more Death Strike casts per minute) and, for Blood, that means it is biased towards San’layn. There is some possibility that you gain multiple Blood Debt stacks per target hit via Deadly Reach, which would give it better AoE scaling, but I would assume otherwise. Instead of an automatic triggering of the capstone effect (like Bloodied Blade), it, instead, seems to trigger from the next Marrowrend cast; giving that Marrowrend a Shadow damage explosion effect and 3 extra stacks of Bone Shield.
Honestly, the choice of Marrowrend for a triggering effect is a little odd and so is the 3 extra stacks of Bone Shield. This effect is likely to work in three ways:
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If you have 10 stacks of Blood Debt, the next Marrowrend cast on this 10 stack is empowered and transforms the buff.
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If you have 10 stacks of Blood Debt, it will, after a few seconds, convert to a new buff for the empowered Marrowrend, with new Blood Debt stacks having the ability to generate in the meantime.
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If you have 10 stacks of Blood Debt, it will, after a few seconds, convert to a new buff for the empowered Marrowrend, with new Blood Debt stacks NOT having the ability to generate in the meantime (and potentially not during the 10% Strength capstone buff as well).
So, in case 1, you have the option of indefinitely sustaining the 5% strength buff as long as you want, maybe even going so far as to use Death’s Caress to generate Bone Shield in the meantime if it is mathematically beneficial to do so. Granted, tuning would likely come down in the other direction and encourage you to Marrowrend as soon as possible.
Case 2 would be much more relaxed with the timing of the empowered Marrowrend, giving you more leeway to use that Marrowrend under normal rotational circumstances (for more efficient Bone Shield generation) without losing potential benefits (a playstyle that already occurs with Deathbringer to some extent with Exterminate).
Case 3 would very much encourage you to spend Marrowrend as soon as possible so you would not waste potential tier set benefits, similar to the likely outcome to Case 1.
Unless we got the flexible-use case of case 2, it is most likely the case that we would want to spend this capstone proc as soon as possible and, as such, we wouldn’t put too much consideration into our current Bone Shield levels when we do so. As such, giving Marrowrend 3 extra Bone Shield generation on this proc probably just means a lot of that extra Bone Shield generation is wasted (which is especially the case, regardless, if any amount of DRWs are active from the apex talent or a manual cast).
So, I find the use of Marrowrend here for triggering the capstone a little bit goofy. Honestly, just having it proc from Death Strike, just like the previous stacks, would probably make more sense without having it open the door to either weird degenerate behavior (you simply don’t have the ability to game Death Strike timings to a significant degree) or the case where you are using a 2 rune Marrowrend that feels kind of bad to press (at least without added rune cost discounts). If I was being pedantic, “Blood Debt” could probably be changed to something that makes a little more sense, but that really doesn’t matter all that much.
In either case, gameplay impacts are relatively minor, seemingly, but exactly how it would play out would come down to final mechanics/tuning.
Final Thoughts
Just by virtue of moving away from Crimson Scourge, I think this ends up being an improvement over the previous tier set from a gameplay perspective. It does raise some new questions, yes, but those can’t fully be evaluated at this time given the tentative information that was provided.
the cooldowns feel great to play, assuming they tune them so that we actually take those talents