San'layn Ideas

Classes Death Knight
1
  1. (Passive/Active)
  • Effect: Spending Runic Power heals all nearby party or raid members for a percentage of the healing received by the Death Knight. This passive allows the Death Knight to function as a secondary healer, converting their self-sustain into group sustain.
  • Synergy: The healing effect scales based on the amount of Runic Power spent and the ability used (Death Strike, for example).
  • Upgrade: Activating this ability causes the next three Runic Power expenditures to heal the Death Knight for additional HP, converting 50% of the healing into an area-of-effect (AOE) party heal.

2.(Active, 2-minute cooldown)

  • Effect: Sacrifices 10% of the Blood Death Knight’s maximum health to instantly generate 40 Runic Power and reduce rune cooldowns by 50% for 10 seconds. During this effect, any healing the Death Knight receives is shared with nearby party members, healing them for 30% of the Death Knight’s healing taken.
  • Benefit: This turns HP into a direct resource for stronger sustain and creates synergy with self-heal abilities like Death Strike and Vampiric Blood. You can sacrifice some survivability to boost damage and healing potential.
  1. (Active, 3-minute cooldown)
  • Effect: Sacrifice 15% of your HP and 30 Runic Power to empower yourself and your group for 15 seconds. Party members gain 20% of your Leech and Haste, while you regenerate 5% of your max health every 2 seconds during the effect.
  • Healing Component: Any excess healing received during this period is distributed among nearby allies, functioning as a healing redistribution effect.

4 (Passive)

  • Effect: Whenever you drop below 30% health, you gain a shield equal to 20% of your maximum HP, and 50% of your current Runic Power is instantly converted into a heal for nearby allies.
  • Rune Enhancement: If no allies are healed, your rune regeneration rate increases by 50% for 10 seconds.

5.(Active, 90-second cooldown)

Effect: The Death Knight sacrifices 5% of their max HP every 5 seconds for 15 seconds, generating Runic Power in return. During this effect, Runic Power spent on abilities also restores HP to nearby party members.
Bonus: If Vampiric Blood is active during this time, the healing done to allies is increased by an additional 25%.

  1. (Passive)

Effect: Spending Runic Power during Vampiric Blood causes an AoE healing pulse to your nearby allies, healing them for 20% of the damage mitigated or healed by the Blood Death Knight during this time.

  1. (Active, 2-minute cooldown)

Effect: Infuses nearby allies with vampiric energy, draining 5% of the Death Knight’s HP every 3 seconds for 15 seconds but regenerating their party members’ health by a percentage of the HP lost. Additionally, party members gain a Runic Power-based buff, increasing their damage and healing by 5% during the effect.
Extra: The Death Knight’s healing abilities, such as Death Strike, will convert part of the HP lost during the ability into health for the group.

I really like risk and reward

8(Active, 2-minute cooldown)

Effect: The Death Knight siphons a portion of health from all nearby party members, reducing their maximum HP by 5% for 20 seconds and transferring the total amount drained to itself as a heal.

  • Bonus: While the effect is active, the Death Knight gains an additional 10% Leech and Armor, but healing to party members is reduced by 15% during the debuff period.
  • Mechanic: This creates a tactical sacrifice, where the Death Knight empowers itself at the cost of group survivability, useful for moments when the tank needs an emergency heal.
2 Likes
2

I would like to point out that nearly none of this benefits Blood in the slightest.
For the DPS Spec side of this? Sure it is extra support.
But it offers nothing to Tank spec.
Tanks need health. Not to sacrifice it.
The Tank should be the one taking damage not the DPS. So the tank healing Others and not itself is not good for the tank.

Ultimately these are all support options and provide no personal survivability or notable damage increases. Almost no one would choose this. They’d all go with the other Hero talent tree as it has the better survivability and dps buffs.

3

Lets keep it simple.

How about start with: Blood beast spawns during the Fight and not the loot gathering.

Let’s get this fixed first eh.

4 Likes
4

you are looking at simple ideas. You have also lost sight of what could make a spec interesting.

5

I’m not saying they aren’t interesting or flavorful. They are.
But realistically, it offers nothing the playerbase would gravitate towards.

The players would look at this and go:
-This doesn’t increase DPS
-This doesn’t increase MY survivability
“…OMFG THIS IS TRASH! WHY U MAEK SUCH STOOPID IDEAS BLIZZ! THIS TRASH GAME DESIGN OMFGWTFBBQBURGERSAWSE!”

Like having a hero talent spec that offers strong group support is definitely not a bad idea. But we both know that WoW players are greedy and only look at numbers on the DPS meters.

Figuring out how to blend these ideas with… other ideas that improve personal performance, would make them go down much better.

6

I could go for something that converts a bdk’s overhealing into a group healing.

7

i want vampire wings with glide and double jump like DH

also vamp strike should heal for 1% HP per target hit, no cap on targets in cleaving strikes for vamp strike.

1 Like
8

As a follow up to this - I don’t mind more healing during Vampiric Blood, but it isn’t exactly something my heart has always yearned for. We already get juicy deathstrikes inside VB. Stacking the same type of mitigation on top of itself isn’t great, either, especially if it’s healing cause…Well, once you can go from 0-100 with VB + deathstrike, there isn’t really much point to more.

Stuff that’s thematic and enhances a certain area while also not being redundant is nice. I like deathbringer a lot cause it fills in what feels like gaps in certain places. I do want to keep the self healing theme of San’layn, but it’s hard to find gaps - thematic, mechanical, or otherwise - in bdk’s kit.

Except HoTs, I think! What if Essence of the Blood Queen provided a HoT that intensified with each stack, or an absorb? I like umbilicus because it provides stuff after the survival cooldown runs out. I don’t mind being extra beefy during VB, but having some flat defensive whatsit last after it ends would be nice, and make the vampiric strikes outside of VB feel more valuable.

This would nudge things towards more buff upkeep, though, which is…a thing that not everyone may like.

9

I love the idea of San’layn but overall its a fairly boring heroic power set for tanking.

Problems speaking from a tank perspective.
Until recently the damage of vampiric strike was very poor, but now its tolerable in an aoe environment but still pretty laughable in ST.

Using VB as its catalyst causes player to have new, less efficient builds to take advantage of a longer VB windows that might actually hurt your overall tanking ability.

The theme and idea of vampires is to DRAIN blood from your opponent which can be represented through many forms of life draw abilities, but vampiric strike will heal less overall than blood plague through a dungeon.

Defensive or simply damage reduction is lower and relies on the use of and standing in death and decay to operate, while Deathbringer offer more for just existing.

The question i would ask the DEVs would be: What is the Niche you’re trying to inhabit or create with San’layn for Blood Deathknights?

From I can tell it isn’t healing, it isn’t offensive ST or AOE and it isn’t damage reduction in its current form when compared to Deathbringer, so why should i play it? Hell it isn’t even worth it graphically relative deathbringer…

Upcoming changes:
We have only seen changes to San’layn based on its catalyst ability, being moved from Vampiric blood to Dancing Rune weapon as a “Fix”. But is it a Fix? In its current form i would have to argue no, because you are only changing the build side of the issues with San’layn blood but will still contain the same problems that currently exist.

How I would approach it:
I can only speak from a tanks point of view so sorry Unholy…

San’layn needs at least comparable damage reduction system through avoidance or straight damage reduction to Deathbringer. An advoidance based benefit would be more unique than what deathbriner offers. So i will attempt to make San’layn more of an AOE niche style Heroic build.

Essence of the Blood queen: Vampiric Strike you for 1.5% of your maximum health per target hit and increases your haste and parry or dodge by 1% up to 10% for 20 seconds.

Blood is Life: Critical strikes with vampiric strike against targets under 35% life will do more damage based on current HP %s capping at 75%

thats pretty much all the changes I would make to create a synergy with criticals and parry for build choices and use abilities such as bloodied blade to a higher degree. The numbers themselves can be adjust up or down depending on the results.

1 Like
10

Are we getting anything from it being moved to Dancing Rune Weapon? Vampiric Blood’s cooldown is a lot lower in comparison, iirc (I’ve never exactly timed them), even with bone shield charge consumption CDR and Tombstone/spinny bones consuming 10 bone charges right off for the burst of CDR. I can’t seem to find the list of changes that include swapping to DRW online o.o But that feels like a big nerf.

1 Like
11

Only thing that they could do to make it attractive to unholy would be to make the blood pet work, cause as it is never procs or rarely worth the proc. I’d suggest they add a new disease to the Sanlayn tree, and maybe add another mechanic that spawns mini pets to it. It’s a garbage tree as is, kinda sad.

12

Please no more pets. I’m so tired. Exhausted. Worn down. Just making the blood pet work would be nice.

1 Like
13

its more that it feels better tied to that gameplay wise. VB is a defensive ability, the last thing you want is to have to use VB defensively and then have your burst on cooldown for when you need it.

14

My question was because moving it to DRW means it’ll be on a longer cooldown compared to VB, so I was hoping to see some extra boosts elsewhere to compensate. San’layn is already behind deathbringer and this would very much be a nerf of sorts. Also, DRW helps a lot offensively, but it also still helps quite a bit defensively with the parry boost. I think I’d be less miffed if/when it’s moved to DRW, especially since VB is (or was, until it had San’layn attached to it which also added damage) a pure defensive cooldown, whereas DRW is not, plus the bone charge generation makes it much easier to use off cooldown without really worrying.

Still, it runs into the same - just lessened - issue. Also, it doesn’t…really fit thematically, imo. I like that Blizz is exploring this, but at least it did feel very thematically appropriate when attached to vampiric blood. I exaggerate for comedic effect, but I wouldn’t want to run up to an enemy, yell “BY THE LIGHT BE HEALED”, press Heal, and then get a red drain effect on an enemy. The mismatch makes my brain angy.

1 Like
15

Tbf, while that would fix what issues San’layn adds, it’s annoying that Blood as a whole still faces similar issues issue on Dancing Rune Weapon itself, if only because the Bone Shield stacks consumed by Bonestorm and Tombstone count towards DRW CDR, pushing your discrete AoE/overflow and burst mitigation tools towards being used on CD as well.

I honestly wish the only CDR for DRW came from Rune expenditure or Runic Corruption/Empowerment, or the like, with the base cooldown reduced to make up for lost TS/BS synergies.

That being said… it feels like San’layn should have offered enough, distinctly enough, that attaching such effects to VB wouldn’t have felt like an issue. For instance, imagine if the core effect of San’layn is that you have part of the effect of Vampiric Blood (i.e., the beastly vampiric strength, etc.) up constantly, including the max HP, but your core ability spends current and maximum HP to deal bonus damage and inflict a debuff that draws further healing (via Leech) and strength from the target. You therefore strike during lulls in coming damage in order to shore yourself over when incoming damage as high. (While a tank hurting itself may seem counterintuitive, consider the benefit bundled: in effect, it’s just banking HP/resource.) But, add to that the gamble of being able to burst something down or flex defensives to push your safety margins further… that can be an interesting take on things.

Hell, add to the supportive element, too, such that, say… nearby allies can Blood Draw from you and you from them, etc., or and you can feed your blood (actively and/or from damage taken) to your Blood Beast and can Sacrifice it, too, etc., and that’s going to be damn thematic.

1 Like
16

I am currently running San’layn in higher keys and to be honest I like it more than deathbringer. However, the blood beast is the biggest problem, it needs a higher chance to spawn. Secondly, there is really no reason essence of the blood queen needs 7 stacks for 7% haste, that needs to drop to 1-3 hits max. The tree overall is a cool idea, vampiric aura should be sharing a node with vampiric speed. Blood beast needs a flat 20% spawn chance increase, for it to even be close to being decent.

17

Now that the RWF is over, they will probably start doing more in terms of more balance and changes.

18

I hope so. This hero talent tree was the one I was most excited about. I’ve been tanking as blood since legion and absolutely love the spec. I am just sad to see this particular hero talent tree in shambles.

19

They should. The last 4 bosses are going to be nerfed 100%, and they usually dont do big balance changes during the race because they want to keep it somewhat fair. It would suck to have a certain comp and then 100 pulls in they buff something or nerf something else and then you have to do a completely new strat.

So you should see more balance. Key word is should (if its needed and if Blizzard cares).

20

Im with you, been running just to spite Deathbringer lol, and I find it fun to use VB on cooldown since if you build toward it, it will tend to last a long time and cooldown is very short. Nearly every pack its up and ready.

Just doesnt feel very vampiric AT ALL. I really wouldnt mind something like swarming mist type of ability instead of that damn blood beast. Even something like making my blooshield explode ( ie torghast power) for damage would be nice.

1 Like