Blood Death Knight Review of Deathbringer Hero Talents - Burgeoning Reaper of Death

Live Posted 2024/03/23 at 4:38 PM by Mandl

12 new Hero Talent Trees

Hero Talents are an extension of the Talent system designed to explore class fantasy with a third talent tree, separate from your class and specialization. Blizzard has revealed an early preview of Hero Talents coming in the next expansion, The War Within.
The War Within Hero Talents Overview

Our Guide Writers have provided initial first impressions on the Hero Talent Trees revealed so far. Check out all of our released Hero Talent reviews in our new Editorial Section.

Wowhead Editorials

Reaper's MarkWave of SoulsBlood FeverBind in DarknessShuddering SoulGrim ReaperDeath's BargainRune Carved PlatesSwift EndPainful DeathDark TalonsWither AwayDeath's MessengerExpelling ShieldExterminateDeathbringer Blood Death Knight ReviewDeathbringerDeathbringerDeathbringerRune of BloodMark of the Fallen ChampionDeathbringer’s are the emissaries of death. Empowered by the Shadowlands, their physical strikes and abilities aim for their enemies' souls and vanquish them without mercy.Core Conceptslotper target hitBlood Boilanyevents

Since this is every minute, you will be able to sync Tombstone with this 100% of the time for a total of one stack

Blood Boil will grant you one stack per cast - two if you have selected - and at its base recharging rate of 7.5 second before haste, this means that with proper timing and a smidge of optimization, this can net you a minimum of two stacks. This is also our first interesting highlight: a relatively minor haste breakpoint! You ideally will want to reduce Blood Boil's recharge duration to below 5.5 seconds in order to be able to fit three Blood Boil in a single . This sounds like a lot, but in reality it is only around 20% haste before Bone Shield, and is just a somewhat minor damage gain that also feeds back off Critical Strike (by providing double stacks on crit thanks to ) and Versatility.

The periodic ticks from Death and Decay and Blood Plague will also contribute, up to 14 stacks and up to 5 stacks (10 with ) respectively.

Every two minutes, Abomination Limb (if talented) will grant you another 13 stacks

Finally, every tick of Shattering Bone from losing Bone Shield charges will contribute a stack.

Soul Reaper

A minor amount of bonus stacks can be gained completely passively through . With this talent picked, Blood Plague occasional ticking a second time for 30% additional Shadowfrost damage. We'll assume for now that this also feeds back in the same way Blood Plague does - providing healing leeched for 100% of the damage it deals.

will grant you a number of stacks - likely 4 at minimum as the wave returning deals Shadowfrost damage and is a guaranteed critical strike, 6 (way there + way back) potentially depending on how the stacking behavior works instantly after application, and with a gigantic undefined behavior aspect for enemies with large hitboxes.

, if picked, additionally causes Death Strike to deal Shadowfrost damage - and in turn, generate stacks on your currently active . This in turn could, depending on tuning, slightly emphasize pooling some Runic Power before casting .

changes the school of Blood Boil and causes any Shadowfrost-schooled damage event to grant double stacks, and doubles this further if it crits

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will effectively apply to anything close to the target you marked, and reduce all of the physical damage they deal by 5% for 10 seconds after ends. Combined with all of the other talents, this is effectively 33% uptime on everything nearby, assuming you cast on cooldown. 5% is perhaps a bit low, but this is just a tuning point.

is another playstyle-dependent defensive gain - up to 10% physical and magical damage reduction as a reward for spending runes optimally. It is not clear whether these stacks refresh the way Coagulopathy and Icy Talons stacks do, and judging by both the short duration and the relatively large gain, it would make sense for this to work in a similar way to Ironfur - each "charge" of the buff having an independent, overlapping duration. If it simply refreshes the entire stack, playing optimally will simply net you 10% physical and magic damage reduction as long as you do not lose uptime on your targets. Neat! If instead, they function as independent stacks, you will simply walk around with 4-6% of each at all times.

turns Lichborne into a 90 second cooldown. This is perhaps the weakest of the nodes defensively, but is absolutely not without its uses.

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By picking , they would predictably gain all of the effects of the talent tree every 30 seconds, with a small chance to echo them 12 seconds later

By picking , they would instead predictably gain a slightly stronger wave every minute, with all other effects of Mark being repeated 12 seconds later every minute instead of every 30 seconds

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Whether both the healing amount and healing absorb of Death Pact are reduced by 50% when Death Pact is automatically cast

Whether this 25% maximum HP in damage is effective damage or not. If it is not effective damage - if, for instance, you can fully absorb a tankbuster then get fully overhealed by this talent while also picking up a 15% healing absorbption as an added bonus - then this is a trap talent that will literally harm you more often than it helps you, and further reinforces what I have been saying all along: Death Pact's healing should be an Absorb.

Whether a maximum of 15 second reduction on Death Pact (which, reminder, we never pick because it is frighteningly expensive in terms of talent pathing while being massively lackluster) even makes sense

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Comment by SciencebirdThis is probably just a phrasing issue, but Mandl it currently sounds like you think a bunch of the baseline talents that every maxlevel character will have are choice nodes, which the otherwise in-depth article indicates you know better.

Also, glad you pointed at the thematic HotS overlap.Comment by MandlThis is probably just a phrasing issue, but Mandl it currently sounds like you think a bunch of the baseline talents that every maxlevel character will have are choice nodes, which the otherwise in-depth article indicates you know better.

Also, glad you pointed at the thematic HotS overlap.Comment by SciencebirdThen - and I mean this as a miniscule amount of critical feedback, you've seen the other threads immediately derailing probably - as a reader I would have stumbled less if the phrasing of sentences like "if you have selected" had been with "when" or "once" instead. Otherwise glad about what's here!Comment by Dylanx63Deathbringer is an awful name. Soul Reaper would be better if it wasn’t already an ability. Soul Reaver maybe? Idk but anything has to be bette than “Deathbringer Death Knight”Comment by UnowhatAs much as Deathbringer seems like the way to go for most people as the most optimal. To me, Optimal =/= Fun playstyle.

I'm not a fan of a playstyle just equates to "Apply dot and watch the numbers explode" which is why I lean more to the San'layn playstyle because there is a bit more interaction and theme to it. Even though it is huge mess in terms of actual use for a tank spec.

So to me, my view of it is this.
Deathbringer for Blood is more suited to group oriented content like Dungeons and Raids. (Being Optimal)
San'layn only for Solo Content like Open World or Delves when I don't have to worry about other players but my own. (Having Fun)

Least until they decide to change San'layn to something else.Comment by BloodmythThey could really go all-in with the "death" theme for this hero talent. Reaper's mark is applied via a modified Frostscythe animation (just recolored).

Have Lichborne play a bigger part in the tree. Perhaps reduce the cd, have abilities that become modified upon entering lichborne that are flavorful. For instance, death grip becomes death's door and teleports your target to you. It still the same yoink but marginally improved could add a slow to it or something.

All death abilities could be modified. Just like in Rider of the apocalypse all ppl really care about is the four horsemen and the DK riding a horse in combat, I would like for "Deathbringer" to be more death themed. Also, please give it a mobility. I want to become he who brings death.Comment by xepaNone of this matters until Blood gets a rework. Blizzard needs to baseline many talents and prune the tree of useless talents like ..bonestorm.. that are never taken no matter what. Blood will use 2 piece, 2 piece until they nerf the S3 tier.Comment by CorpselanceWe don't want new active abilities Blizzard. Make the ones we have better.Comment by otopsy13give all dk's a summon deathcharger! like the pallys haveComment by ParadoxCGIm a bit sad that Deathbringer death knight doesn't have a node that interacts with movement speed like the other two hero trees. But I am excited to see how all 3 hero talents go.Comment by KalrumIm a bit sad that Deathbringer death knight doesn't have a node that interacts with movement speed like the other two hero trees. But I am excited to see how all 3 hero talents go.