curious what ppl think, I am really interested in unholy and blood spec.
Blood looks to have a couple of its weaknesses addressed. Namely a small armor buff, and a dmg reduction (blood tap) to help when we fall behind. Blood tap being on the GCD worries me though, as what blood really needs is a small defensive off the GCD. We take that much damage that itâs likely weâll die straight through it quite often.
My guestimate so far is that itâll be âokâ to âgoodâ in m+, which is all I care about.
The biggest issue the very core of the spec has, is that it doesnât care about incomming damage at all, until suddenly it dies. This will always be impossible to completely balance, and I think Blizz will always be cautious with it now.
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What is your perception on blood in current content? in keys?
Blood on alpha is looking strong.
Watch finalboss tv on blood. Makes some very good points. I agree with the Gcd thing mentioned above.
Blood is looking strong imo, but does have some weaknesses
This is a bit reassuring to hear as someone who recently picked up the class and is having a blast tanking with it. Got a bit of grief and winced at DK being the squishiest/most health spiking tank for current content.
I donât want to be a detriment to my friends when running through Mythic+ in Shadowlands. Waiting with fingers crossed for when we get more information/hands on.
veng is just as squishy and spiking. VoP just helps it out even if itâs a 3 button rotation for the most part.
It always scares me, it hurts to love something and have it not perform, it makes me really hesitant to play certain classes because of it.
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It really does hurt, feeling the opposite with my warlock even if it was performing, the feel just isnât there anymore post Legion, and Iâve been playing her since 1/2 way through Wrath and in BFA picked up Druid.
I hadnât touched DK at all because I had a rough time trying to enjoy it from itâs launch. Just dived into it a couple weeks ago and fell in love with it especially Blood spec. So hereâs hoping!
Itâs âokâ would be how iâd summ it up currently in m+.
What do I mean by that? When played well, you pretty much donât need a healer. Usually iâll heal myself for 3-4x more than the healer and I just tell them to keep themselves and the dps up and ignore me. If the healer dies even in +15âs iâll just keep pulling. You legitimately donât need a healer most of the time. If the healer TRIES to heal you a lot, theyâll usually just oom, as youâll be sniping most of their heals, even rdruids.
That only works to a point though. Your health pool is so spiky that at certain damage levels you eventually just die with very little counter play. Healers have no control over keeping you alive, itâs too spiky, so as soon as you run out of tricks itâs game over.
Thatâs why you see Blood drop off a lot in higher keys, as this isnât true for pretty much any other tank.
Blood tap will help to resolve this, especially if taken off the GCD.
Edit - easiest way to think of it is that theyâre great for carrying a run (if youâre good). But once you reach a key lvl youâre struggling at, the reality is that most people would be able to tank about 2-3 key lvls higher as a warrior, monk, veng or even guardian. Prot pally runs into similar issues, just exploding when SoTR isnât up.
Too bad they arent cautious with Monks and DHs tanking abilities.
You mean in shadowlands?
DH isnât looking great, but thatâs just my opinion. My view (and iâve played it a lot this xpac) is that vengrance is currently propped up by having 30-40% meta uptime due to two ways to proc it. Vision major essence, and Gluttony talent.
Vengeance only started doing well after essences were introduced, as with that bandaid they can get enough mitigation uptime. They can weave demon spikes in between meta procs, allowing a couple of seconds mitigation downtime here and there, and have pretty good coverage. Veng is pretty much invincible with either of those up, as they have between 20-35k armor and a ton of self healing.
But thatâs all going away in Shadowlands. Replaced by one way to proc meta (other than using meta itself). Fel devastation is going to give 8 seconds of it. Even used on cooldown (which would be a bad idea) this maxes out at around 20% meta uptime, which is simply not enough if they donât change demon spikes.
Without further changes, iâm parking vengeance, as itâll be going back to the stupid âleap away and kiteâ while demon spikes recharges playstyle. Which is rarely necessary now. Itâll be back to doing that every pull in medium or high keys, or going splat.
Monks are looking very strong, which is interesting if they want to make any progress on them not always being the default raid tank.
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Blood is looking like the top tank spec in the SL alpha right now. things change fast in alpha but overall I think blood will be in a good place as it usually is.
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I was looking in to blood since I havent picked my main for shadow lands. You will be able to find many guys that are testing tanks on alpha now. From what I saw blood is looking good. It is up there for me.
Only just saw this when checking over the thread. Not true at all. I have both at the same ilvl.
Veng has the same base armor as a DK when neither has any mitigation up. Bone armor puts blood to like 12-13k armour. Demon spikes puts vengeance to like 20k armor. When meta procs as well, you hit the armor cap as vengeance.
With either demon spikes or meta up, you basically donât take damage, youâre at 75% or 80% reduction. Easiest to think of it as 20% of physical damage going through. When both are up, your health simply doesnât move, itâs ridiculous.
Blood with bone armor up is at around 65% reduction. So 35% of damage going through.
So with active mitigation up, Blood takes roughly 75% more damage than Vengeance. (20% x 1.75 = 35%). Itâs in that sort of ballpark anyway, might be 70%, but the point is - itâs an enormous difference.
Blood should have smaller active mitigation gaps, bone armor should basically always be up. But even when you compare vengeance with nothing up itâs still not pretty. They have 55% reduction, so 45% of damage going through. Blood with bone armor has 35% going through, so the DH is taking something like 28% more damage in those small windows. (35% x 1.28 = 45%).
This in no way makes up for the huge amount of extra damage taken when both specs are doing what they can to NOT take damage.
And the small gaps in mitigation that vengeance have with vision + gluttony build are basically not noticeable due to their healing being quite passively a part of their spammy rotation. Or you can just completely play around them with AOE stun, aoe grip, the passive slow essence, 40yd leaps etc.
Right now, veng is the only spec that gets to not need a healer AND be tanky.
Type in WoW 8.3 Twilight Devastation 800k, thatâs my look on Blood, as a player who mains Blood as well. 800k is a PvP based hit, so it is heavily scaled downâŚ
To add, SL blood is FAR superior to BFA blood.
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Same thing again though - Vengeance does it better. Higher average health, higher proc rates and also the ability to deal with high corruption better as well. Theyâre the only tank with the insane mobility required to continuously get out of very large eyes.
With decent gear as Vengeance (1.5mill health in meta), a single rank 3 TD will produce crits of around 700k. Once people are regularly wearing TD7-8, when they have the resist, Vengeance will be critting for around 1.3mill in meta, without any gimmicks or modifiers. Hits of 600k+.
Gunna be fun watching dps cry when every TD proc is dealing like 3.5-4 million damage on average, on a pack size of 5.
What will meta uptime be in SL?
You reference meta quite a bit in current BFA, but they wonât be able to stay in meta with any consisetency in SL, right?
Sure but who can actually be a DH and look themselves in the mirror.
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Correct, one of the reasons I rolled this character. I like playing heal-tanks, but they arenât fixing core vengeance issues in shadowlands.
In SL, meta uptime for vengeance will likely only be about 20% if you use fel devastation on cooldown (which would be dumb). With the new demonic talent coming, it gives 8 seconds of meta. With the actual meta ability, and proper usage of fel devastation, itâll probably cap out around 20% overall. Not enough.
So itâll be more controllable, but with about half the uptime. This wonât matter, as one of veng core problems before the current bandaids, is dieing when they donât have meta or demon spikes up. I donât want to play a tank that has to go back to leaping away and kiting while demon spikes recharges again like before 8.2. No thanks.
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