Well, I must say that I am very disappointed in the upcoming DK tank changes not because bone shield is going to be bad, but because Vampiric Blood is going to be overpowered. I am super excited to move into tanking blood, but I wish this wasn't why.

Why am I upset with a move being overpowered? Because its going to get nerfed shortly after for the same reason Bone Shield and IBF were nerfed, PvP.

Vampiric Blood is going to give 50% Bonus Healing AND 20% bonus health for 20 seconds (30 SECONDS GLYPHED!!!) People say if its to good to be true it probably is, and this is what we are being given, something way to good to be true.

So blues say "We want moves like IBF to be more like shield wall" yet now you give us even more reason to NOT use the moves like that. Why? Because we can have a move up for Half of a minute. 30 seconds is a long time, and when timed properly only gives 15 seconds of wait time where you don't have either this or IBF up and running. So do you die in those 15 seconds? Not if you have trinkets such as monarch crab or other 1 to 2 minute cooldown trinkets. Your good to go, and you have an OP tank.

This is imbalanced in both PvE and PvP. I'm addressing this now because if this goes live, people will QQ, and it will get nerfed. I'd rather skip that whole episode, and either change the 10 second extra duration glyph or make Vampiric Blood a little less attractive... maybe 15% bonus health. I'm not very good at balancing numbers, but I do see when things are going to be imbalanced, and this is something that will cause problems.

QUICK AND EASY VERSION: Vampiric Blood will be the new bone shield, Nerf it now or Don't Nerf it EVER!

I don't think it's bonus healing from other players. It's healther generated via your own abilities.

You're not going to see Pallies hitting 30k crits on you with Vampiric Blood active. Your little self heals will heal you for 4.5%, instead of 3% (or whatever the hell they do now).

Oh, and grats. You guys are the new Droods.

False, its 50% bonus to ALL healing.

Think of it like a 30 second guardian spirit mixed in with a 30 second last stand.

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Q u o t e:
I don't think it's bonus healing from other players. It's healther generated via your own abilities.

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Nope, heals we receive. Source doesn't matter.

That said, I don't think it'll make that big of a difference. People aren't exactly worried about the +50% healing bit now. Yeah, we'll have 20% more hp half the time. Are people worried about Rune Tap now? That's a 20% heal.

Compared to BS, well, BS would need about a 31 second duration to match VB, assuming healing to equal incoming damage. Since BS has an actual duration of 5 minutes (or bone loss, whichever comes first), it can be pre-cast and ready to cast in combat, making that duration for burst damage type situations pretty attainable. If VB is a problem, BS will still be as well.

*shrug*

But who knows. Things do get nerfed for PvP reasons.

Yeah I'll be switching from unholy tanking to blood after patch. Mostly the pvp viability of bone shield destroyed it as a cornerstone tanking talent.

Vamp blood with Will of the Necropolis assuming they fix it and it works as worded are just amazing combined with the buff to frost presence.

And to the poster above it works on all healing, I've gotten 13k rune taps with vamp blood active.

As for it dominating pvp as well, I would disagree. VB as a save me cd it lacks because you usually need to be saved when your healer is CC'd in which case you aren't getting heals. I think Unholy will still dominate as the main arena spec.

On the other hand it might be worth going blood for cleaving heart strike in pvp so this of course would be used as well.

The main problem I see with this is it is a 30 second last stand and you get 50% bonus healing for half of a minute. +you have it up 50% of the time, if you macro it to blood tap you can always use it regardless if you have the a rune up, so its almost better than bone shield in terms of "oh crap". That being said most DK tanks will see this change and jump on Blood, and most arena DKs will stay unholy for Scourge Strike + the other awesome talents, but I just don't want to keep switching the "best" DK tank spec constantly. While I like mixing it up, it would be very unfortunate if I had to... spec... frost... *shivers* (pun intended)

I've been thinking this ever since I saw it. It's just insane, and the fact it can be kept up half the time you're tanking is even worse.

I think we'll see it's cooldown changed to 2 or 3 minutes.

So .. unholy is going from probably OP to virtually nonviable

and blood is giong from virtually nonviable to probably OP?

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I've been thinking this ever since I saw it. It's just insane, and the fact it can be kept up half the time you're tanking is even worse.

I think we'll see it's cooldown changed to 2 or 3 minutes.

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Yeah Id rather see it stay 1 Minute but not have the glyph be so OP, maybe add 10% extra healing something like that.

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So .. unholy is going from probably OP to virtually nonviable

and blood is giong from virtually nonviable to probably OP?

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Every 3 mths the devs can rotate the OP to a different presence for variety sake
Just a pity the words "over powered" have to appear anywhere really

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Yeah Id rather see it stay 1 Minute but not have the glyph be so OP, maybe add 10% extra healing something like that.

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I don't know, i think i prefer a time nerf so it's still useful in emergency situations as opposed to a buff that is barely useful but is on most of the time.

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So .. unholy is going from probably OP to virtually nonviable

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Unholy got a slight bump in today's PTR patch, actually. The BS glyph now gives 2 extra bones, instead of 1. It will still be quite a bit better than Blood is currently.

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and blood is giong from virtually nonviable to probably OP?

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I expect it'll still be weaker than Frost. 6 seconds of extra 35% damage reduction, plus Unbreakable Armor with a 20 second duration.

Of course, I think most of the people here (me included) haven't tried it on the PTR. Without any real experience, we're all just guessing.

*shrug*

If the devs do find it overpowered, they'll probably just lower the bonus hp by 5%.

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I expect it'll still be weaker than Frost. 6 seconds of extra 35% damage reduction, plus Unbreakable Armor with a 20 second duration.

Of course, I think most of the people here (me included) haven't tried it on the PTR. Without any real experience, we're all just guessing.

*shrug*

If the devs do find it overpowered, they'll probably just lower the bonus hp by 5%.

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the only place I see blood lacking is AE, and maybe pest spamming will cover that =/

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the only place I see blood lacking is AE, and maybe pest spamming will cover that =/

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Aye, don't think we'll lack post patch. I'd suggest rotating HSs old school warrior style over spamming pestilence though.

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the only place I see blood lacking is AE, and maybe pest spamming will cover that =/

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HS hits 2 targets
BB- rotate with HS's

DnD it pl pest RP dump DS(or OB) BB
DS(or OB) BB HS BB HS

io think that is right for max blood aoe threat. off the top of my head, though it might just be easier to do as Waracle says and tab rotate hs for the cleave.

Vampiric Blood has 1 drawback though: you have to rely on your healers to keep you from dropping dead in the eventuality that you get hit. Vamp Blood + Rune Tap macro is sweet, but spamming DS (for the small amount of times you can use it in your rotation) won't be enough.

I just wish I could grab Blood Aura too, with the buff to it, but Lichborne is still a lifesaver with my current avoidance.

^nope

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HS hits 2 targets
BB- rotate with HS's

DnD it pl pest RP dump DS(or OB) BB
DS(or OB) BB HS BB HS

io think that is right for max blood aoe threat. off the top of my head, though it might just be easier to do as Waracle says and tab rotate hs for the cleave.

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You don't use blood boil as blood in 3.0.8

you use pestilence.


edit: FI111RRST!1one

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Q u o t e:
Vampiric Blood is 15% health and 35% healing in 3.0.8.

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Damn :P Oh well, its still great.

Is it still under the same effect of 35% healing from spells? or just 35% healing ( like quick recovery )?

personally id rather have the mitigation of bone shield than some extra healing for tanking.


i mean i realize its really nice, its just think of the healers standpoint.

ok you have IBF up and you arnt taking much dmg so he isnt having to heal you 'that' much.

then it drops and you hit vampiric blood, all of a sudden you start taking alot more damage and they have to switch up to healing you more.


even though the heals hitting you will be bigger, its going to freak most healers out.

they will be more comfortable with consistency like IBF+BS.