A Look Back at Blood Death Knight in Dragonflight & War Within Wishlist - Editorial

Posted 2024/02/01 at 3:28 AM by Mandl

Our Guide Writers have reviewed their specs throughout Dragonflight and share wishlists of what they'd like to see in the War Within. Check out all of our released editorials below.

Dragonflight Retrospectives & War Within Wishlists

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian Druid
Restoration Druid

Augmentation EvokerDevastation EvokerPreservation Evoker

BM HunterMM HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage
Brewmaster Monk
Mistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline Priest
Holy PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement Shaman
Restoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Blood Retrospective & War Within WishlistreallyThe GoodA Functional, Good, Useful But Shallow SpecDeath StrikeDeath StrikeBroodkeeper DiurnaSarkarethworksCoagulopathyDeath GripDeath's EchoDeath GripstillGraveyardmassiveMarrowrendThe BadBreadth of an Ocean, Depth of a Puddle

Mandatory (Everlasting Bond, Coagulopathy, Sanguine Ground, Tombstone, to name a few): you either take it because it unlocks a massive amount of player power, or path through it to reach another mandatory talent as there is no other choice. The best example is Crimson Scourge. In regular gameplay, you rarely, if ever, see a Crimson Scourge proc, however, in order to reach Coagulopathy, the only path you can take involves picking Crimson Scourge and one of the two talents that increase the value of a proc you don't even get to proc until 40 seconds into a fight.

A highly situational pick, such as Gorefiend's Grasp on Mythic Fyrakk.

Filler, passive, non-impactful talents that you triage by raw power and pick the most impactful, not because it is good, but because it is the least bad. Shattering Bone being the poster child for this; it's a massive amount of damage over the course of most encounters, but it has zero gameplay value. It's a lot of damage, and that's it.

completely unchangedRed ThirstBloodwormsVoraciousBlood TapLeeching StrikeBonestormpreventBalancing WoesBonestormImproved Death StrikeDeath StrikeCoagulopathystrictlyDeath StrikeBonestormThe UglyThe Elephant in the Room: Spec Identity Bankruptcyyet againBone ShieldDeath StrikePlague LeechBone ShieldDeath StrikeDeath StrikesingleBone Shieldother thingsCrimson ScourgeRelish in BloodDeath and DecayBone ShieldCrimson Rune WeaponGraveyardDeath's CaressHeart StrikeDeath StrikeBone ShieldShattering BoneBone ShieldDeath and Decayinteract with each otherTooth and ClawVicious CycleRazeDream of CenariusAnger ManagementViolent OutburstimpossibleTombstoneInsatiable BladeShattering Bonezerocompletely passiveDeath and Decay, The Swiss Army Knife of Blood Death KnightDeath and DecayDeath's DueDeath and Decay

Unholy Momentum causes you to gain 5% haste while in your own Death and Decay

Sanguine Ground grants you 6% damage and 5% healing received while in your own Death and Decay

Shattering Bone's damage is tripled while you are in your own Death and Decay

Death and Decayon the enemiesfor yourselfdeliberately pickCrimson ScourgeDeath and DecaySan'layn hero talentsDeath and DecayyouDeath and DecayGrip of the DeadDeath and DecayTombstone, The Other Swiss Army Knife of Blood Death KnightEndless Rune WaltzTombstoneEndless Rune WaltzDancing Rune WeaponDancing Rune WeaponHeart StrikeTombstoneBlooddrinkerHeartbreakerTombstoneTombstone

Shattering Bone causes Tombstone to deal 207.9% AP damage before spec aura to every target within range

Insatiable Blade causes Tombstone to grant 25 seconds of cooldown reduction on Dancing Rune Weapon

The Season 1 tier set caused Tombstone to refund a Rune on use

Death and Decaygood by itselfTombstoneMark of BloodTombstoneun-designedNo Friendly InteractionsAnti-Magic ZoneSpellwardenBlood FeastConclusion, and The Way ForwardBone ShieldDeath StrikeDeath and DecaySwarming Miston pointBlood Plagueone timeit just worksAcherus Death Knight community

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Comments

Comment by Lazerz

writer is right. all tanks have become bland and tanks have been smoothed out too hard.

talents managed to load up some many interactions into base kit themes that playstyle diversity is worse than its ever been.

pepehands.

Comment by zynklu

Do you think that the fact that all tanks self-heal is a problem for BDK? BDK core rotation is about getting smacked, and healing back up. When I picked up healer role I was told to not worry about BDK because he 'heals himself'. But the truth is I always ignore tanks, they all heal themselves. But this is the only thing BDK has, while other have some cool s**t to go along (like sigils, spell reflect etc.). Other tanks get to play some minigames, while all BDK does is watch for runic power and DnD. There is nothing distinct in BDK.

Comment by Rysky

the spec was once again kept on life-support from a gameplay and design perspective - likely because it just works, and when it works, it works extremely well thanks to this simplicity.

I understood all these words. Separately.

I can understand/am hopeful for tweaks to make other things useable or more friendly/competitive (Consumption? DKs as a whole in regards to aoe with DnD?) for more options but the spec as is performs really well and has a nice rotation that people enjoy. That's not "on life support". The simplicity is a boon, not a hindrance.

Blood doesn't need a fundamental design change, it needs to tweaks and care, the same as other classes/specs (Monks and Hunters on the other hand...), this post feels like asking for change for the sake of change honestly.

Comment by Hyrican

i could say i miss my three tank specializations blood, frost and unholy... boom. there you have 3 different versions how to tank... howling blast parry machine, heartstrike cleave healer, disease+dnd.

But even if you have 3 options... it will resolve to one raid and one mplus build still.

What i miss in mplus is the group interaction... helping out or controlling better. As it stands the most dangerous thing to a group are casts and boss abilities. This season shows what happeens when all tanks can mostly survive everything the game throws at them until the group is not able to survive the group damage any more...

Comment by Schattensang

Yeah, that's a gripe I have with the situation as well. And as a healer all other tanks look a lot smoother. They just aren't pummeled the same while still being able to get back from basically everything without a healer helping them. So now BDK is just the tank that gives newer healers panic attacks.
In the past I always liked BDK as a tank in groups, because that was one player I didn't have to look after. But now I look at all tanks like that. Just ignore them, they are fine.

Comment by astleyt07

I always love reading things the bdk spec writer says, they despise playing the spec so much😂. Any time theres a buff or change to blood its “bad”, i dont think ive read a single positive thing from this person in the last 5 years.

Comment by Cycore21955

We need an entire rework of both the class and spec tree so badly. There has been so much feedback since beta, yet we saw absolutely no changes for the entire expansion; it's heartbreaking.
There are so many fundamental design flaws with the talents that can not be justified by anything other than utter incompetence. Unfortunately, from what we have seen of the Hero Talent preview, this trend is to continue in War Within.
At least our class fantasy is echoed by our broken souls and anguished screams...

Comment by Trollfat

I see Blood DK consistently ranked #1 on “most fun to play” tank tier lists. The agency Blood gives the player to be able to survive most situations is unmatched.

Like yeah of course your talent tree sucks. Everyone’s does.

I’m surprised at the negative tone coming from most of these WoWhead retrospectives. Do these writers play other specs at all?

Comment by Drakknfyre

It seems like 80% of the article is "You don't have ten different ways to spec Blood so therefore it's bad."

Does it have a bunch of alternate spec pathing? No. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No. We don't need every class and spec to be reinvented every expansion. My first tank was a Prot Warrior, my second is Blood DK. And I've had FAR more fun on the DK than the Warrior. That's not saying I didn't enjoy Prot, I had a blast, but going back to it now feels so bland and slow. My biggest issues with Blood are the DnD requirement and the still lackluster DPS. I like DnD as a concept and an offensive spell, but having to stand in it makes high-movement fights annoying. I would honestly prefer a self-buff component that wasn't dependent on positioning. I'd even compromise if it was done like Faeline Stomp for Monks, which stays with them for ~12 seconds when they move off it but can refresh it by walking over it again.

Give us some buff like "Lingering Decay" that functions the same. It's not ideal but at least we're not nailed down to that 10x10 patch until we can afford a reapplication and hope we don't have to move immediately again.

As for DPS, the buffs were nice but still not enough. It's depressing seeing other tanks deleting things in a fraction of the time it takes us. I'm not asking to be competitive to a DPS spec but at least get us up to baseline of other tanks.

Comment by AlexanderKrizak

As a tank, I don't want a complicated spec. I want things to be nice and simple so I can focus on the mechanics of the fight and what I have to do (and also call things out for my raid). Leave complexity to the DPS specs, since that's what they're focused on.

Comment by Arkthugal

"likely because it just works, and when it works, it works extremely well thanks to this simplicity."

Yeah, so piss off and stop trying to add complexity for the sake of complexity. You want complexity, go play Brewmaster with it's eleven jillion cooldowns and leave my boring easy rotation alone.

Comment by quotey

I deeply miss Blood with real runes.

Comment by Schattensang

To be fair, there really isn't a whole lot in the past 5 years that changed for BDK at all. The "best" change was the Shadowlands Season 3/4 tier set. A set which made us ignore even more buttons, because pressing anything not Heartstrike was kinda bad.

And concerning buffs... Well... We did get quite a few of them. All of them aura buffs that didn't change anything really and still had BDK firmly behind other tanks when looking at damage.

So there really wasn't a whole lot of good to report on the spec. It exists. Which isn't a bad thing in itself, but also not really exciting. I just like how ridiculous some of the stuff is that you can survive with BDK, but that usually doesn't help a lot either, considering the whole raid is well dead at that point.

Comment by Masonnn

Should BDK get rework ? YES! Should BDK got rework before vdh ? YES!
There is many problems with BDK in m+ (low tankiness in high forti keys, NO PARTY BUFF, almost no CC, terrible ST, low mobility). With rotation its stupid that i need press death strike not to heal me but to keep coagulopathy. So many dead talents like blood tap, bonestorm, blooddrinker, consumption.. Gorefiend gasp and rune tape should be baseline spell.. even that i would give gorefiend gasp two charges because if vdh could have grip sigil with two charges why not BDK ?

All above who are writing that BDK dont need changes.. go play with your vdh or palla. I know that ou like to be a top tier list but this must end espacialy for paladin... Whole expansion they are always top tier list

Comment by LuxaDK

I disagree. Blood is in a great place.

It isn't perfect. I especially agree with your comments about DND having lost its impact as a damage ability due to the buffs it provides to the player.

However, this review seems to be manufacturing problems out of nothing. The spec is far from broken or without identity. Blood is the self-heal tank. Even compared to other tanks' modern self-healing, Blood is unique. I regularly account for 95% of my own healing received. It's fun to play ping-pong with my health, and it feels rewarding to manage resources, including bone shield, in the best way possible.

Tombstone feels great, both in its damage and DRW cool down reduction, but also as a potential massive loss of damage, cool down reduction, and absorb if used incorrectly. It interacts with four other abilities in a way that requires proper decision-making. It's useless when used incorrectly and incredible when used well.

I do agree that the talent tree needs some attention, particularly to give players more choice, but the core of Blood is in a strong, fun place right now.

Comment by sesoni

I played this class for over 10 yrs and eventually fell out of love with it. You want to know what the biggest joke ever was? I ended up moving to a DH because it had more depth and complexity. The intentional 1 button class was more in-depth and complex than a class that used to juggle cd's, procs,4 different kinds of runes, 3 different presences, a resource bar, and the freedom to tank or dps on any of the 3 specs. What a f*cking joke.

Comment by Zephos

blood just needs more utility to compete with othjer tanks in m+

Comment by cordrann

Saying prot warrior has more depth than blood is an absolute meme.

Comment by Rainy27

Nerf Dark Strike

I don’t like being outhealed by Blood DK on my weekly LFRs

Comment by atherenzethere

Other than D&D being overloaded (if i wanted to be rooted to a ground AOE I would play paladin) this entire article is full of made up problems LMAO.

Not every spec needs to be super complicated, it's fine for there to be a simple "DPS, but with a taunt" play style tank class. Personally I think it's great how I can set and forget my talents, and haven't needed to worry about them most of the expansion.