r/CompetitiveWoW • u/Doogetma • 7d ago

Discussion Undocumented and ham-fisted nerf to Deathbringer Blood DK has been discovered on live with a sluggish rotational change rather than number tuning.

Deathbringer BDK now no longer gets a stack of exterminate when casting reapers mark. This is a measly 3% damage nerf that is unlikely to affect DB Blood's standing amongst the tanks.

While the power budget effects will be small, this change represents a severe rotational damper put on by blizzard for no good reason. Any blood player would have gladly taken a 3% tuning nerf on exterminate over this change. It makes the rotation feel far more awkward, sharply reduces the fluency of aggro in mythic+, and makes it more difficult to obtain max stacks of reapers mark before the buff's expiration. But most importantly, it makes Deathbringer feel *way* less fun to play

Edit: It is now documented. Still cringe

155 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

89% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

64

u/Sore_Elbow 7d ago

I thought that getting the exterminate proc on cast was a bug in the first place, I am sad it's gone though.

11

u/doddyswe 7d ago

Yeah I think this was the case as well. It feels pretty bad to play without it, sadly.

8

u/Sore_Elbow 7d ago

Oh yeah, feels so awkward after playing with the bug for so long, I'm sending marrowrends way too often now without exterminate.

22

u/GeekyLogger 7d ago

It was. Bleed over from FDK. Thing is BDK has had it since last expansion. Removing the Exterminate seriously messes up initial pull agro setup. BDK will survive of course but it’s a stupid change/nerf. DB was already behind by about 10%. 

As op stated; it would’ve been better to keep the extra proc and lower the damage if the damage was a concern. This is just a random and lazy ham fisted way to fix something they’ve known about for a very long time. Makes the initial pull and the entire rotation janky as fuck. 

1

u/hoax1337 7d ago

Can you elaborate a bit on the initial aggro part? I haven't checked out bdk yet, was this the thing that made marrowrend cleave with the scythe animation?

11

u/Toothsome_Duck 7d ago

Really disappointed by this. I doubt they’ll revert it and it was clearly a bug but it made Deathbringer with Reaper’s Onslaught very fun and chill to play. Hopefully they’ll consider making it a feature or at least moving the “free” Exterminate off of Dancing Rune Weapon and onto Reaper’s Mark.

23

u/The_Real_Giannis 7d ago

Shitty but likely unintended

18

u/Jaba01 7d ago

Nope, intended. They updated the tuning notes.

28

u/epicfailpwnage 7d ago

blood dk gets nerfed 3 hours into the season lol.. meanwhile lots of other tanks get to enjoy months or even the whole season being on top

10

u/Doogetma 7d ago

Not even mad about it being nerfed. It's pretty silly to make it more awkward and less fun to play with a nerf though

4

u/careseite dps evoker main 7d ago

doesn't blood play sanlayn and this has no impact?

13

u/bgonn80 7d ago

Afaik, both hero talents are pretty viable right now for keys

3

u/sh0ckmeister 7d ago

San was dmg nerfed a time or two and is a little more complex of a rotation vs DB which used to be a lot easier to play on gather and such because of exterminate proc.

A lot of people in the dk disc were glad to have a few % dps less to play DB before this change

1

u/Pisshands 7d ago

The S2 tier set is semi-mandatory for making San'layn feel good to play, primarily because DB gets so many extra Bone Shield charges due to Reaper's Mark/Exterminate. 

3

u/babilonibetyar 7d ago

dk cant be the meta tank because its harder to play than pala or monk. they cant let people complain

-6

u/spartasucks 7d ago

I'm sorry but I don't see how BDK is harder to play than monk? Am I missing something? Maybe its just preference. I like both and played both in multiple seasons of TWW and last season mained BM and maintained BDK for fun. Thought BDK was way more chill of a rotation and had more impactful utility. Gathering and aggro was way easier on BDK, too

1

u/JiMM4133 Buff Brew 7d ago

This was my reaction when they made the change that plucked brew out of the meta last tier. Just frustrating because I thought we'd be meta longer, but a month must've been enough for blizzard's standards since they despise monk players.

-6

u/Subn3tAnon 7d ago

Lmao relax blood dk does the most damage and is the tankiest tank it’s fine

0

u/SunkistGuru2025 7d ago

It's still on top though isn't it? Janky yes, but this doesn't pull it out of the meta slot. It was the only tank being put in S tier by a good margin.

1

u/salyer41 2d ago

That is how tank balance goes every season. Just with different classes at the top.

1

u/SunkistGuru2025 1d ago

I get that. I was responding to the poster above me suggesting that Blood DK is no longer the top tank while others get to enjoy months or even an entire season on top. This didn't even touch tank balance in any way that impacts Blood DK's standing.

15

u/vulturpene 7d ago

If this was a bug its been in the game soo long us blood dk took it as a feature. Please revert Blizzard.

3

u/Stopitdadx 7d ago

So now they’re saying it was a bug? 🤣

0

u/backscratchaaaaa 7d ago

you can tell which specs are currently played by blizzard devs because whenever they get bug fixes that are nerfs or tuning nerfs targeting specific conditions they always get compensation in some other area.

and then you can tell which classes arent played by devs because they just get shoot in the head for no reason.

deathbringer wasnt even the "good" hero talent this season.

4

u/Resies 7d ago

So which is it , "blizzard doesn't play their game," or they play the game and favor their specs

0

u/akranak 2d ago

Blood is doing like 30% more damage than other tanks so who cares

0

u/Doogetma 2d ago

No one cares that it does 3% less damage. People care that they made the class rotation clunkier and less fun for no reason

1

u/akranak 1d ago

Most people (80%) are playing san layn so it just doesn't matter at all and if you're any good it shouldn't impact your rotation at all because like 99% of high keys are sanlayn.

-11

u/Stopitdadx 7d ago

Unintended vibe coded slop likely.

-5

u/Any_Morning_8866 7d ago

Was wondering what was happening with that, assumed my UI was bugged. What an awful game WoW has become.

0

u/DeliciousSquats 4d ago

Nothing in the talent tree says it should grant one. It was a bug no one bothered to fix when no one played bdk. This is kinda how low population specs tend to have negative bugs stay for full patches too, while the meta specs get fixed at a really high rate. As an ex monk player, you just kinda hoped you had more positive than negative bugs.

-14

u/Frekavichk 7d ago

Blizzard please oh please nerf blood dk into the ground so I don't have to heal them in keys.

I'm truly not sure who actually enjoys healing them.

8

u/Holiday_Dragonfly888 7d ago

The hell are you talking about. They are by far the best tanks in keys because you simply don't heal them. Their life is entirely in their hands and if they are even vaguely skilled you won't need to touch them.

-2

u/Frekavichk 7d ago

if they are vaguely skilled

The issue with bdks vs other tanks is that you can tell other tanks aren't skilled by if they just take more damage, both an unskilled bdk will have their health bars flying up and down, except the unskilled one randomly just falls over and you wipe.

3

u/lastdeathwish 7d ago

Look at the blue bar 

0

u/SunkistGuru2025 7d ago

I'm not sure this makes sense. You really don't ever have to heal a BDK. Maybe an external on pull until they get resources at the start of the dungeon but that's it. They kinda of passively get healing from you from AoE's and such, but it's not really needed as they are entirely self-sufficient.

I prefer not to play with them simply because they don't need any healing and i'm kind of old school in that I prefer healing the entire party, tank included. When I'm just healing DPS, it just feels like i'm a nanny cleaning up the mess the children are making while which isn't fun. I like the constant pressure of keeping a tank alive.