Blood is only playable as a dps-spec in Wrath. It’s never accessible outside of this iteration ever again. It’s an engaging spec, and very approachable for a beginner Death Knight. However, the spec is currently riddled with bugs, keeping it from reaching its true potential as one of the top single target DPS specs in the game.
To be clear, I do not believe the class needs a BUFF in any way shape or form. Fixing these bugs will be more than enough to bring Blood dps in line with the other DK specs without having to buff anything.
Here is a list of the main issues currently known with DRW
Dancing Rune Weapon Special Attack Scaling Bug
- Current Behavior
The special attacks of the ‘Dancing Rune Weapon’ ability are not scaling properly.
1.1. Description
According to the tooltip, Dancing Rune Weapon should duplicate any ability you cast for 50% of the damage. However, in reality, it’s closer to 25%.
1.2. How to Reproduce
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Have a Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon on a target.
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Go inside your log or damage meter and take a look at the damage breakdown of your Dancing Rune Weapon.
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Notice that abilities such as ‘Heart Strike’, ‘Death Strike’ and ‘Death Coil’ are doing nowhere near the 50% promised by the tooltip.
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Expected behavior.
Dancing Rune Weapon’s Special Attacks should scale in the same way as its autos. They should gain benefit from Blood Presence, which they currently do not. They should gain benefit from Unholy Frenzy, which they currently do not. At this time, the specials only get benefit from Attack Power, as well as a few select talents. If things are left as they are, the Dancing Rune Weapon Specials will be doing less than 20% of the main ability by the end of the expansion. In addition, it’s already doing less than 20% on any fight with a damage modifier. (Such as Iron Council). Another solution to this problem would be to simply make it 50% of the damage of your ability, as the tooltip suggests. This would solve all the problems with scaling, especially regarding Armor Pen, which it currently cannot scale with in any way.
Dancing Rune Weapon Initial Hit Bug
- Current Behavior
If you spawn Dancing Rune Weapon on a target you’re currently engaged with, its first auto attack will do significantly less damage than expected.
1.1. Description
The damage of your Dancing Rune Weapon auto attacks are based on a snapshot of your stats. However, if the Dancing Rune Weapon is cast while engaged with a target, the first auto attack seems unaffected by this.
1.2. How to Reproduce
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Have a Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon on a target while being out of combat/away from the target.
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Go inside your log or damage meter and take a look at the damage from the first auto attack of your Dancing Rune Weapon.
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Have a Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon while being in combat and auto-attacking the target.
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Go inside your log or damage meter and take a look at the damage from the first auto attack of your Dancing Rune Weapon.
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Notice that the first auto attack of the Dancing Rune Weapon you cast while engaged with the target has done significantly less damage.
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Expected behavior.
Dancing Rune Weapon’s auto attacks should always hit for their fully scaled damage, regardless of the situation.
Death Coil Scaling Bug
- Current Behavior
When Death Coil is cast manually by the player, the duplicate Death Coil cast by your Dancing Rune Weapon does not gain benefit from any of your stats.
1.1. Description
Currently, the Death Coil cast by your Dancing Rune Weapon (when duplicated from a manual cast by the player) does around 300-600 damage. This damage is essentially static. You can be naked, or in full Ulduar BiS, or even level 60, and it will still hit for the same amount. (The only thing it seems to gain damage from is Orc Racial and Curse of the Elements/Earth and Moon).
1.2. How to Reproduce
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Have a fully geared Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon on a target and then proceed to cast a Death Coil.
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Go inside your log or damage meter and take a look at the damage of your Dancing Rune Weapon’s Death Coil.
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Have a naked Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon on a target and then proceed to cast a Death Coil.
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Go inside your log or damage meter and take a look at the damage of your Dancing Rune Weapon’s Death Coil.
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Notice that the two Death Coils have done the exact same damage.
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Expected behavior.
Dancing Rune Weapon’s Death Coil should scale with your stats. As a player gets more gear, Death Coil should do more damage.
Dancing Rune Weapon Healing Aggro Bug
- Current Behavior
If there is a target nearby that’s healing, Dancing Rune Weapon will immediately run over and attack it, even if you purposefully spawn it on another target.
1.1. Description
This happens in both PvE and PvP. Dancing Rune Weapon will attack bosses like Freya, regardless of what target you spawn it on. If you face a Healer + Dps in 2v2, your Dancing Rune Weapon will attack the healer, regardless of what target you spawn it on.
1.2. How to Reproduce in PvP
- Have two targets stand next to each other in a PvP Situation.
- Have one of the targets be a damage dealer and one a healer.
- Spawn your Dancing Rune Weapon on the DPS.
- Have the healer do some healing.
- Notice that your Dancing Rune Weapon will run over to the healer.
1.3. How to Reproduce in PvE
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Have a Death Knight spawn Dancing Rune Weapon on any target that isn’t Freya during her boss fight.
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Notice that Dancing Rune Weapon will attack Freya anyway.
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Go into your log, or into your damage meter, and look at damage breakdown and realize Dancing Rune Weapon has done 99% of its damage on Freya, even though you didn’t spawn it on her once.
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Expected behavior.
Dancing Rune Weapon should attack the target you are attacking at all times. Fixing this would fundamentally change Blood Dk PvP for the better. Currently, you’re pretty much forced to go healers in Arena, because whatever you do, the Dancing Rune Weapon will always attack the healer, regardless of what target you want it to attack.
Dancing Rune Weapon Diseases Resisting
- Current Behavior
When Dancing Rune Weapon despawns, its diseases starts resisting, doing significantly less damage.
1.1. Description
You can use Dancing Rune Weapon to apply an extra set of diseases. However, when your Dancing Rune Weapon duration ends, these diseases starts resisting, reducing in damage significantly.
1.2. How to Reproduce
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Have a Death Knight cast Dancing Rune Weapon on a target and then use Plague Strike + Icy Touch to apply an extra set of diseases.
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Watch the damage of these diseases while Dancing Rune Weapon is up.
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Notice that when Dancing Rune Weapon fades, the damage is significantly reduced, and isn’t even visible on screen.
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Go into your log/damage meter notice that the extra diseases starts doing about ¼ of the damage after Dancing Rune Weapon fades.
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Expected behavior.
Your extra diseases should still be doing full damage when your Dancing Rune Weapon fades.