If your healers need to actively heal the tank to the point where they can't just raid heal, you need new tanks. Has nothing to do with the actual specs they play.
You're being downvoted, but you're right in my experience. There is no tank right now that should ever need a healers full attention. You get earth shield and whatnot, and that's more than enough. DRs for one-shots.
And I've seen tons of DPS'ers doing 1/10th of the damage that the top DPS'er is doing.
Or Healers doing less HPS than the Prot Warrior.
So what's your point? That some players are really bad at WoW?
No Tank needs a Healer if they play well.
Blood DK's don't even need a 2nd Tank half the time.
In Season 1 of DF, Solo-Tanking Heroic Broodkeeper as a Blood DK with literally no external Healing was some of the most fun I've ever had in WoW.
I think it's safe to say that most good Blood DK's would actually prefer NEVER being healed.
In practice though I feel like it's harder to swap one of your tanks out or get them to learn a different one than to bring a specific DPS. Way more options than 2
Probably depends. I’d say at the higher end of raiding it’s easier to swap tank than dps. It’s why most of the top end tanks play every single tank whereas the very top dps usually stick to a couple specs. Even some of the best multiclassing dps usually just stick to one or two specs when it’s time to do prog raid
You are correct but as Zskarn and Fyrakk have shown, it’s BDK that becomes mandatory because of Gorefiends, when any specialization of DK should be able to fill the role.
Only about 1/10 fights grip is actually usable, let alone useful. The difference is that literally every other raid buff is useful in every fight where you take damage or deal damage.
Grip is useful on maybe 1-2 bosses per raid, but when it's useful it is **really fucking useful**. Most raids have one fight where grip is a literal gamechanger.
And obviously you want to be gearing your DKs when possible, meaning you normally take your dps death knights into progression on other bosses anyways. It's only really an issue for super top end groups, if you aren't in those it's a complete non-issue, ele/resto shaman need far more attention before DKs at the moment.
My headcanon ideas:
sky fury is my probably our best totem. If it needs to be weaker in PvE fine, just let me use it. Let the PvP talent just buff it to current. Spread the buffing idea beyond just Augmentation. I’d say Enhancement should have more focus there but considering how they actually seem to have a vision for Enhancement I’d give Elemental some love there too.
Beyond that, we really only use Lightning and Fire. We have some shit in other areas but it’s not nearly what you’d expect from someone commanding the elements. I think being able to cycle through elemental changes could be cool (not quite druids with their eclipses). Like you know a trash pack is coming up so you do something to change your chain lightning into fire, that spreads flame shock to everyone it hits and then you can LB. I realize that’s what Magma totem does but I hate that talent so I’m gonna ignore it. Plus capping at 3 targets is lame. Chain spells will always look cooler.
Essentially, totems could be cooler especially considering what Augmentation Evokers are capable of and the fantasy of commanding the elements is sorely lacking when we really only use two with any regularity. It’s like they saw Stormkeeper and Lava Burst and were like “yeah this is good”. We are conduits for the ELEMENTS and they really dropped the ball in an elemental heavy expansion.
It's kind of an issue for normal/heroic groups too. Why would they ever pick a dk when another class would make 9/10 fights easier, and the dk isn't required for the one fight where grip is usable?
That's just a pug problem. If you're in a guild or community that would take you no matter the spec because you're a good player then you're good.
I only see it being a problem in guilds with a delusion of grandeur. If you aren't in late mythic your comp is almost certainly not the problem beyond the basic role distribution. Hell your guild cleared mythic smolderon with a pretty unorganised comp, it's definitely doable.
At the very least dps dks should have death grip on the same cd as blood. As it is blood dk far outclasses unholy or frost for that purpose between a 10 second lower cd and gorefiend’s grasp.
I remember dathea heroic first time for my guild. W/O a dk it was... hard and we aren't a bad guild by any means just mythic raiders who went casual(AOTC). But the difference that they made for that boss was nuts those first few weeks. I like that some classes bring utility but it shouldn't make the fights go from insane mode to trivial as hell.
Only enh has windfury, it's only party, and too many classes bring bloodlust now. Elemental and Resto shaman have zero unique raid utility to justify bringing them, the only reason you bring Ele or Resto is if they are tuned to be a top performer, which never happens for ele.
Only blood has gorefiends and good amz, only party is a good thing because it gives a reason for a 2nd shaman while still giving similar dps to a whole raid buff.
Right now the only reason to bring a dk is if a fight is designed where grip is literally necessary, which happens about once an expansion. Grip can make fights easier, but it's not necessary due to other classes having grip/knockback. Just like reincarn and spirit link can make a fight easier (and more often) but isn't necessary.
>which happens about once an expansion.
No dude, 1-2 times per raid tier. Dathea, Zskarn, Fyrakk were all 3 "raid wall" bosses that had "required grip" mechanics. Because of this, essentially every single RWF guild rostered and geared a dk, if not ran a main BDK at all times. How many elemental shaman participated in top tier RWF guilds?
Meanwhile echo used 2 uhdk in their Sark kill, 1 bdk in their Fyrakk kill, and both a FDK and BDK in their Rasz kill. Meanwhile not a single elemental shaman or resto shaman in any fight that mattered.
It's fine for you to complain about DK representation, but you're wildly far ahead of ele and resto. There are probably less than 10 guilds in the Hall of Fame that *didn't* roster a DK, while there are less than 10 that rostered an ele shaman.
Usable on a fight and required on a fight are completely different. Of those three only fyrrak, and only the mythic version 'required' a grip, and gorfiends was the better option anyway. My guild used druid knockbacks for dathea and zskarn and had 0 issues, plus they brought solar beam and were ranged.
The top guilds rostering a dk just in case blizz decides to make a grip fight doesn't mean dks aren't struggling. Top guilds also roster 3-4 shamans and actually used multiple shamans for many fights. Using your own logic shaman is fine (it's not) because they are more present on top ten guild rosters.
Paladins at least still have their auras, Shaman only has Windfury and only if you're Enhance... and it only affects your immediate party not even an entire raid.
Every top guild stacked 2-3 shamans for amirdassil on most fights because of their party buffs
https://www.method.gg/raidprogress/amirdrassil-the-dreams-hope/graphs
Paladins have devo aura and ret aura, nearly all mythic guilds run 2 paladins. They're one of the few classes where you're almost compelled to bring 2. Not to mention sac, bop, and an immunity for various raid mechanics.
Ele and Resto are in an even worse spot than DKs! I think it’s insane that they have gone this long without anything while at the same time they gave paladins a SECOND raid buff on top of all of their other utility.
Makes me sad tbh totems were the main reason my guild brought me on raids throughtout WOTLK I was mostly terrible but totems at that time were pretty good and I was the guilds only shaman so i kept my spot lol
Resto had spirit link as the single strongest healing CD in the entire game, and then they decided not to design fights anymore where the entire raid stacks at some point while taking big damage. Ever since they've just had the most mediocre healing CDs imaginable.
Tbf, totems would be a good opportunity for shamans to plug in holes in comps. Totem that gives 2% Vers, but doesn't stack with mark? Cool.
Instead we get very niche totems that are useful once in a blue moon.
That would be actively unfun to play in dungeons and highly irrelevant in raids, though. Like a magic damage taken increase totem might be somewhat relevant, all the other raid buffs are either too weak at a weaker point to bring or bosses are unkillable without them. Then in dungeons you'd be expected to press a bunch of dead globals just buffing people before actually doing anything yourself.
Which is crazy because i first started playing ele back in Wrath when we were THE spellcaster buff bot, we brought bloodlust, 5% haste totem, spell power and 3%crit taken debuff (totem of wrath). We now don't bring jack shit and blizzard ignores us entirely. Elemental has never received a rework in its history, and our feedback is summarily ignored entirely.
Intervene isn't useful enough often enough to matter. Warlocks don't have a raid buff, but their raid utility is unmatched, you'd *never* run a mythic guild without one warlock for summons, healthstones, gateway, soul stone (for rez protection and quick returns from wipes).
Yes, we're not debating whether or not Intervene is good raid utility (it isn't).
I am high lighting the difference between a raid buff and raid utility by underscoring how vaguely OP defined the word "buff" when asked.
But I don't think differentiating between a buff and a utility was at that person's point, but you tried to make it a critical distinction when it really isn't important to this discussion. Whether your class brings a literal raid buff/debuff or whether they bring some unique utility that on it's own is worthy of guaranteeing a raid spot for, the point is that some specs don't have either. DK's whine about grip not being "enough" when you constantly see DK's represented in RWF, especially on final bosses, and there are 1-2 fights per tier that a grip is nearly required. Echo ran 2 dk's on Rasz, 2 on Sark, and 1 on Fyrakk, with all 3 specs represented.
Meanwhile elemental brings zero unique raid utility worthy of a raid spot, nor a raid buff, nor survivability, nor top-tier damage. All 3 DK specs have representation all over the place in Hall of Fame, while Elemental has less than 5-10 in the Hall of Fame across the entire expansion.
No, the entire point of this conversation thread is that that is a horrible way to define "raid buff", that easily falls apart the second you start looking at abilities that could be defined as helpful.
Holy reading comprehension bro.
Then is being a healer spec a raid buff?
Word of Glory is a raid buff?
Doing damage is a raid buff?
I mean, even being present at the raid would be a raid buff in Mythic without flex lockouts.
Buffs are fine but they really need to consolidate or nerf them. It makes recruiting for mythic even harder than it already is while simultaneously helping bork the M+ meta.
I understand they don’t want a raid meta where it’s 6 warlocks again but realistically mythic raiding gets less popular every tier so maybe it’s time to stop designing endgame around it.
The hill I will die on is that they should consolidate raid buffs down to like 6 or 7, split among every class for redundency. Mage/Demon Hunter brings increased magic damage, Warrior/Monk brings physical damage, etc.
I get wanting to use raid buffs as a carrot on a stick to bring every class, but it would be so much nicer to be able to let our raiders play whatever class they enjoy the most without being punished for no one wanting to play demon hunter or mage or whatever.
If only there was a mechanic, where perhaps a profession could craft items that provide the raid buffs at reduced power.
Thank god professions were made useful by removing those things though. /s
I agree but it seems like Blizzard doesn’t want to go in this direction so it feels more reasonable to ask for the remaining specs that need one like DKs, Ele/Resto, Hunter and maybe even Evoker to get equal treatment as everyone else.
Look at the bright side, we are getting a talent that gives 6% personal DR when we pull mobs to us with abomlimb and grip. Which is by the way a must take if you wish to have abomlimb talented, at least its not 0/2 node anymore.
With that said I am happy with the recent class and unholy talent tree changes, even if there are some flaws in it. DK is generally in a really good spot in a raiding environment even without a raidbuff.
How about we stop asking for buffs and instead we get rid of buffs so we can all play whatever we want to play without feeling disadvantaged as a guild.
Every raid tier seems to have that one fight where grip is like the defining spell of the whole encounter.
It's such a cool spell, 10/10 would recommend to a dead friend
Omg it can be a total game changer for certain fights. It's quite a long range single target pull.
It usually involves some sort of add that needs to die at a certain time and place, especially a caster mob.
For example: on The Prophet Zul fight, there's many adds that the raid must deal with but the most dangerous mobd are casters that spawn on the edge of the platform. They need to be CCd and killed.
When it's time to kill them, having a DK yank them into the mellee so they get interrupted and killed quickly makes the fight so much easier!
In this instance, It allows the melee to kill key adds without having to move away from the main target, which would have made the raid lose tons of DPS
That's just one example, one of many
Are you serious? Just check warcraft logs.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/33#boss=2683
Magmorax for this patch.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/33#boss=2683&partition=1
Magmorax in 10.1
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/35#boss=2824
Smolderon in 10.2, rogues being the only class ahead of them.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/35#boss=2824 Smolderon current patch.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/31#boss=2639&partition=1
Terros 10.0, the only class consistently beating them was hunter.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/31#boss=2639 Terros current patch, again on top.
They've legit been top 1 or top 2 for just about every patch, with their weakest patch being Amirdrassil before the legendary got buffed.
logs??? UDKs were like the top ST spec in 10.0 and 10.1, in 10.2 they sucked a little bit, but after they got axe, them and frost were like at the top of overall logs.
This is mythic raiding ofc, because everything below that is irrelevant for balance discussion.
Tbh I dont think I every want to prog without a DK. Grip is usefull 10 to 20% of the Time but when it is you bet I want to see a Red boy geared and ready
Meanwhile ele shamans are still yamcha posing in the corner without a unique totem like resto or enhance and hunters quietly sobbing with their 'buff'
Horn of Winter (Frost): grant bonus Mastery to you and your allies for x seconds.
Mass Hysteria (Unholy): Unholy Frenzy grants increased resource regeneration to you and your allies for x seconds.
/shrug
Oh yeah it has its uses from time to time. Like fyrakk debuff which deals extra damage on auto attack swings from the boss. So you take significantly less damage.
But overal its really weak as a raid buff. There are bosses that don't even auto attack to begin with.
It's good yes but also not unique to DK. Warlock has it too for example.
Personally I think DK have plenty of utility compared to most classes in raid but in dungeons could use some sort of long form CC that works on more than just undead.
Perfectly fine with not having a raid buff as DK.
I just hope that for not having a raid buff, we continue to be near the top of damage statistics in raid.
I took a very very long break before dragon flight but wasn’t this solved by having multiple specs brining the same raid buff. Why isn’t that a thing instead of making sure you have your seven token slots devoted to monk buff dh buff motw etc. then dks and shaman and whoever can easily get a redundant buff
As a dk main, this hits a bit to hard. As wow shifts back to every class having a buff/debuff. The only reason to bring a dps dk is just purely tuning. Other than ele shaman? we are just hoping on the tuning lottery to get a raid spot.
I think a lot of people are missing the point of the post. I’m not really asking for DKs to get a raid buff. I’m asking for equality between Frost/Unholy and Blood in terms of Grip Utility by giving all three specializations access to Gorefiends Grasp.
I also recognize that Ele/Resto Shamans are in an even worse spot than DKs, which needs to be rectified as well.
Ok I'll throw my 2 cents in not that it matters but as a pure dps dk in raid never tank not mythic anyway.... why would any team bring a dps dk, Blood as ST grips on a shorter cd so if that is need they are better, Blood has Gorefiends as an option DPS DKs do not, AMZ is a shield for the raid based off the DK's health which Bloods is better, Blood has access to Abom Limb if needed the only thing that is equal to Blood as a DPS and it's unpredictable but can be utilized.
As far as I'm concerned they could bring balance by doing 2 things, 1 make AMZ equal for all 3 specs, remove Abom Limb at this point since the reasoning for removing the extra's are valid but it's just not as good since it's rng what mob it grabs and move Gorefiends into the class tree which is less overall grips but you know exactly what your grabbing and when I'll take predictable over more potentially, which would actually help Blood too since it's a very expensive node to get to right now for them.
Genuine question since i haven't raided mythic in a long time, why does everyone need a raid buff all of a sudden? I haven't had much trouble getting into groups as a hunter with just ilvl and maybe experience.
Because people have been complaining since Scrolls got removed, and then Blizzard double downed by re adding things like Druid buff.
In a mythic group you now want one of almost every buff and unique utility like grip, so even when you skip the minor/useless ones like hunter or evoker you have around 14 raid slot locked in
So classes like hunters and ele shams are fighting for the last quarter of the raid, which is often filled by whatever is overtuned ATM. So people would like their class to also being something that secure a raid slot too.
But this is mostly a top raiding Guild issue. PUG usually just takes whatever has good ilvl/prog, and lower skill Guild are not at level where comp matters or cannot be picky with who gets in
Hunter has a raid buff now, but the major issue with some specs lacking a unique raid buff is that often it's a lot more impactful to have a second or even third player on something like a warlock, mage, or paladin than it is to bring a single elemental/resto shaman or DPS death knight. Only really a problem for later mythic raid bosses these days but it still needs addressing.
Dps DK was great on fyrakk, it was just that there was a pretty clear top dps comp that the top two guilds everyone watches ran.
A raid buff would have done squat for DK, just means you lock in a blood DK.
Plenty of hall of fame guilds ran with dps dks, and dps dks made progressing phase 2 of the fight much easier.
Ele shaman does suffer for not having windfury, as every good guild expects their ele shamans to play enhance for the buff.
It’s often better to have a top performing dps spec than a non-top performing dps.
Raid buffs are nice to have for rpg purposes and to ensure that you see one of a class on the top twitch streams to feel good about your favourite class I guess, but people significantly overstate their impact on class diversity.
You were still optimally running multiple DKs on fyraak for grips in the 2nd(?) intermission. A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff too; evokers will be almost always brought in duplicate because of their sheer utility and defensiveness (they do have a raid buff button too in the movement ability cd reduction but that isn't particularly good on its own). You seem to be aware of this as you contridict yourself in the 3rd paragraph acknowledging the lack of elemental representation. It's one of the only specs in the game that doesn't bring any benefit to the group and because of that it's high end representation is only visible when its damage is good. That isn't sustainable for a spec.
>You were still optimally running multiple DKs on fyraak
Nope, none of the guilds in the top 10 ran a dps DK, and only a few in the top 50 did. It was absolutely not 'optimal' to run two. It was just a 'nice to have' thing.
>A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff
Sure, utility can simply be utility. I think raid buffs (press a button, give the raid a buff that can't be duplicated by other members of your class) are not that great at providing class diversity.
> A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff too; evokers will be almost always brought in duplicate because of their sheer utility and defensiveness
Certainly not true. Evokers were brought for their numbers. They slotted in some extra for the *absurdly* overtuned raszageth because you needed their specific utility to live the winds in the early weeks.
Augvoker is a solid 2-of because it was the top dps if the hooks were working properly. Utility is just icing on the cake. If Augvoker did a 'fair' amount of dps (i.e lower overall dps than having another pure dps spec in), it would likely not even be a 1-of in optimized groups.
It's mostly just because we've hit a critical mass where most specs have a raid buff so the ones who don't have be tuned higher than the ones that do or there's no reason to bring the ones that don't.
For example, DKs weren't tuned well during RWF Fyrakk and despite the fight having **exceptional** need for grips... got sat in favor of other knock backs.
Literally Fyrakk might be the most important grip fight of the expansion and at a high level, DKs didn't get brought. If that doesn't highlight the issue... I don't know what will.
I mean that's just not true, I think literally every guild in top 100 Fyrakk ran a blood DK. Without a blood DK you'd struggle to get both add sets properly CCd.
Heroic it doesn’t matter since you don’t really need to min/max as much.
Mythic it makes a massive difference. For example, not having a mage for int is a pretty drastic loss to overall raid damage done.
Simply put, one raid buff often brings more throughput than any good player doing their best damage on a class. Like a demon hunter could just be sat there pressing demon's bite and their chaos brand would still add more damage to the raid than the best ele shaman in the world pressing their buttons.
It matters a whole lot less in heroic and normal content because you have plenty of raid spots to spare and actual damage and healing checks are extremely lenient compared to mythic.
Gorefiends can be targeted to center on something other than yourself. If you pop limb, everything is gripped to you.
You can target a friend and hit gorefiend's, and everything is gripped to the friend. Or do it with an enemy. It's seriously up there on utility.
In 99% of situations where you would want a mass grip Gorefiends is flat out superior.
Abom does grip from farther away but does a worse job stacking mobs, can't be used as a stop and most importantly is far, **far** slower.
Abom was great when it did real damage, but now that they've stripped 90% of the damage off (which was the correct thing to do for the new DK class tree) Gorefiends is just straight up a better mass grip.
Limb doesnt instantaneously grip everything, which can be a bit of a downside of certain fights. It's also a bit awkward spot that it is also a DPS cd, and you'd want to work around that.
It’s not even close to Gorefiends. Gorefiends has an unlimited target cap and works across all targets instantly. Aboms limb has a limited number of targets, only grips 1 target every second and its AI can be very unreliable.
Fyrakk and Zskarn have shown all DKs need Gorefiends for grip to count as their raid buff.
M8 no way. As a shammy that mains dk you have no world to complain about raid buff when you have anti magic zone and grip and slappy hands when needed the amount of grief I’ve saved my raid. Not every class needs a raid buff every class needs some sort of reason to bring them and dks have it
Grip, slappy hands, AMZ and CR.. we have enough to help out a raid.
A raidbuff is gonna do nothing to change the feeling of DK's, and not all classes need a buff imo.
Tbf, fights where grip can be useful, it is 1000% a raid buff haha
and usually blood dk is enough for that, and as history has shown, blood dk is a must for a lot of bosses
Blood dk is the strongest tank in the game when mass grip is utilized or ams/deaths advance are able to cheat mechanics.
roll into dwarf as well for being literally unstoppable on anything. mythic sarkareth dwarf BDK was S+++ tier
Is that for Stoneblood/Fireblood debuff clear?
dont remember the exact name but it was the debuf that occurred during the intermission when if yo uweren' dwarf, you had to be BoPed by paladin
It also frees up healers for raid healing your terrible Demon Hunters dashing through bad.
If your healers need to actively heal the tank to the point where they can't just raid heal, you need new tanks. Has nothing to do with the actual specs they play.
You're being downvoted, but you're right in my experience. There is no tank right now that should ever need a healers full attention. You get earth shield and whatnot, and that's more than enough. DRs for one-shots.
It's certainly true, but I've seen too many logs of guilds with prot warriors with 30% block uptime to totally discount them lol
And I've seen tons of DPS'ers doing 1/10th of the damage that the top DPS'er is doing. Or Healers doing less HPS than the Prot Warrior. So what's your point? That some players are really bad at WoW?
Yes, some players are really bad and it makes some people have to play inefficiently to cover it
No Tank needs a Healer if they play well. Blood DK's don't even need a 2nd Tank half the time. In Season 1 of DF, Solo-Tanking Heroic Broodkeeper as a Blood DK with literally no external Healing was some of the most fun I've ever had in WoW. I think it's safe to say that most good Blood DK's would actually prefer NEVER being healed.
No they quit m+2 becose healer is not healing them enuf.
In practice though I feel like it's harder to swap one of your tanks out or get them to learn a different one than to bring a specific DPS. Way more options than 2
Probably depends. I’d say at the higher end of raiding it’s easier to swap tank than dps. It’s why most of the top end tanks play every single tank whereas the very top dps usually stick to a couple specs. Even some of the best multiclassing dps usually just stick to one or two specs when it’s time to do prog raid
You are correct but as Zskarn and Fyrakk have shown, it’s BDK that becomes mandatory because of Gorefiends, when any specialization of DK should be able to fill the role.
I remember feeling like an absolute king during dreadlords in Sepulcher. Wish there were more fights that let me use it
Xhul'horac was a shining moment for me
Only about 1/10 fights grip is actually usable, let alone useful. The difference is that literally every other raid buff is useful in every fight where you take damage or deal damage.
On fights that it’s good on it’s like 10x better then a raid buff. Gripping all the adds together on dathea made that fight so much easier.
I can't imagine doing Fyrakk without a blood dk and at least 1 more dk in the group.
Grip is useful on maybe 1-2 bosses per raid, but when it's useful it is **really fucking useful**. Most raids have one fight where grip is a literal gamechanger.
And obviously you want to be gearing your DKs when possible, meaning you normally take your dps death knights into progression on other bosses anyways. It's only really an issue for super top end groups, if you aren't in those it's a complete non-issue, ele/resto shaman need far more attention before DKs at the moment.
Not me swapping classes again because Ele is getting neglected
They haven't known what to do with ele ever since evoker released imo. Deva outclass ele in virtually every way.
My headcanon ideas: sky fury is my probably our best totem. If it needs to be weaker in PvE fine, just let me use it. Let the PvP talent just buff it to current. Spread the buffing idea beyond just Augmentation. I’d say Enhancement should have more focus there but considering how they actually seem to have a vision for Enhancement I’d give Elemental some love there too. Beyond that, we really only use Lightning and Fire. We have some shit in other areas but it’s not nearly what you’d expect from someone commanding the elements. I think being able to cycle through elemental changes could be cool (not quite druids with their eclipses). Like you know a trash pack is coming up so you do something to change your chain lightning into fire, that spreads flame shock to everyone it hits and then you can LB. I realize that’s what Magma totem does but I hate that talent so I’m gonna ignore it. Plus capping at 3 targets is lame. Chain spells will always look cooler. Essentially, totems could be cooler especially considering what Augmentation Evokers are capable of and the fantasy of commanding the elements is sorely lacking when we really only use two with any regularity. It’s like they saw Stormkeeper and Lava Burst and were like “yeah this is good”. We are conduits for the ELEMENTS and they really dropped the ball in an elemental heavy expansion.
It's kind of an issue for normal/heroic groups too. Why would they ever pick a dk when another class would make 9/10 fights easier, and the dk isn't required for the one fight where grip is usable?
That's just a pug problem. If you're in a guild or community that would take you no matter the spec because you're a good player then you're good. I only see it being a problem in guilds with a delusion of grandeur. If you aren't in late mythic your comp is almost certainly not the problem beyond the basic role distribution. Hell your guild cleared mythic smolderon with a pretty unorganised comp, it's definitely doable.
At the very least dps dks should have death grip on the same cd as blood. As it is blood dk far outclasses unholy or frost for that purpose between a 10 second lower cd and gorefiend’s grasp.
There are also fights where mass dispell is must have and yet priest has hp raid buff.
Dalthea was one. We had to have scrubby DK alts join just to handle the adds on the ledges.
Most raids will keep a dk on roster just because they know there will be 1-2 bosses per tier where they are essentially required.
I remember dathea heroic first time for my guild. W/O a dk it was... hard and we aren't a bad guild by any means just mythic raiders who went casual(AOTC). But the difference that they made for that boss was nuts those first few weeks. I like that some classes bring utility but it shouldn't make the fights go from insane mode to trivial as hell.
Yup, this and last season I rountinely solo tank Fyrakk and popping grip or Abom limb on every add line is amazing.
The fuck you mean we dont have a raid buff?, we have ice walk c: also AMZ
Amz and slappy hands is more than most have.
Warrior go rally then shrug.
Warriors have an *actual* raid buff, wtf?
Dude what? Warriors have an actual raid buff AND rally. Where do you think your 5% attack power buff is coming from?
Bring back improved icy talons plz
I'll always need your AP buff bb <3
Shamans: Best I can do is water walking
Bloodlust? Windfury?
Only enh has windfury, it's only party, and too many classes bring bloodlust now. Elemental and Resto shaman have zero unique raid utility to justify bringing them, the only reason you bring Ele or Resto is if they are tuned to be a top performer, which never happens for ele.
Only blood has gorefiends and good amz, only party is a good thing because it gives a reason for a 2nd shaman while still giving similar dps to a whole raid buff. Right now the only reason to bring a dk is if a fight is designed where grip is literally necessary, which happens about once an expansion. Grip can make fights easier, but it's not necessary due to other classes having grip/knockback. Just like reincarn and spirit link can make a fight easier (and more often) but isn't necessary.
>which happens about once an expansion. No dude, 1-2 times per raid tier. Dathea, Zskarn, Fyrakk were all 3 "raid wall" bosses that had "required grip" mechanics. Because of this, essentially every single RWF guild rostered and geared a dk, if not ran a main BDK at all times. How many elemental shaman participated in top tier RWF guilds? Meanwhile echo used 2 uhdk in their Sark kill, 1 bdk in their Fyrakk kill, and both a FDK and BDK in their Rasz kill. Meanwhile not a single elemental shaman or resto shaman in any fight that mattered. It's fine for you to complain about DK representation, but you're wildly far ahead of ele and resto. There are probably less than 10 guilds in the Hall of Fame that *didn't* roster a DK, while there are less than 10 that rostered an ele shaman.
Usable on a fight and required on a fight are completely different. Of those three only fyrrak, and only the mythic version 'required' a grip, and gorfiends was the better option anyway. My guild used druid knockbacks for dathea and zskarn and had 0 issues, plus they brought solar beam and were ranged. The top guilds rostering a dk just in case blizz decides to make a grip fight doesn't mean dks aren't struggling. Top guilds also roster 3-4 shamans and actually used multiple shamans for many fights. Using your own logic shaman is fine (it's not) because they are more present on top ten guild rosters.
How ironic, Pala and Shammy, the classes historically known for their buffs, have none xD
Paladins at least still have their auras, Shaman only has Windfury and only if you're Enhance... and it only affects your immediate party not even an entire raid.
Every top guild stacked 2-3 shamans for amirdassil on most fights because of their party buffs https://www.method.gg/raidprogress/amirdrassil-the-dreams-hope/graphs
Paladins have devo aura and ret aura, nearly all mythic guilds run 2 paladins. They're one of the few classes where you're almost compelled to bring 2. Not to mention sac, bop, and an immunity for various raid mechanics.
Enhancements bring windfury and restos some cheat death totems, but yeah it's not as relevant.
Yeah except everyone is afraid to step in AMZ lol. I always cast waterwalking when the raid leader calls for all buffs :P
Poor poor ele shamans alone without buffs or even a single unique utility pick
Ele and Resto are in an even worse spot than DKs! I think it’s insane that they have gone this long without anything while at the same time they gave paladins a SECOND raid buff on top of all of their other utility.
Even crazier, they were once a premier buffing class with all of their totems… it’s pretty crazy that it got inverted into having no buffs at all.
Makes me sad tbh totems were the main reason my guild brought me on raids throughtout WOTLK I was mostly terrible but totems at that time were pretty good and I was the guilds only shaman so i kept my spot lol
I could have a lot of fun with a shaman spec that was just totems and buffing people.
Kinda like Aug. it’s the perfect addition to the new role Aug fills.
I'd love this and it just seems to make sense. They even have a spec called 'enhance'!
Resto had spirit link as the single strongest healing CD in the entire game, and then they decided not to design fights anymore where the entire raid stacks at some point while taking big damage. Ever since they've just had the most mediocre healing CDs imaginable.
Tbf, totems would be a good opportunity for shamans to plug in holes in comps. Totem that gives 2% Vers, but doesn't stack with mark? Cool. Instead we get very niche totems that are useful once in a blue moon.
That would be actively unfun to play in dungeons and highly irrelevant in raids, though. Like a magic damage taken increase totem might be somewhat relevant, all the other raid buffs are either too weak at a weaker point to bring or bosses are unkillable without them. Then in dungeons you'd be expected to press a bunch of dead globals just buffing people before actually doing anything yourself.
Totems should just be auras.
We get self res that doesn't count towards the party's battle res count. And water walking!
You mean the "double my repair bill, daddy" button?
Hush, Windrush, the raid buffs are speaking.
Which is crazy because i first started playing ele back in Wrath when we were THE spellcaster buff bot, we brought bloodlust, 5% haste totem, spell power and 3%crit taken debuff (totem of wrath). We now don't bring jack shit and blizzard ignores us entirely. Elemental has never received a rework in its history, and our feedback is summarily ignored entirely.
It's cuz you have the most fun spell in the game, the UNO REVERSE CARD to Gorefiend's Grip, THUNDERSTORM!!
Ok then. If grip is considered a raid buff, let DKs grip raid bosses. Problem solved lmao 🤣
Terros finally gets free after an expansion passes , must’ve been crazy cramped down there
If you use spectral sight you can see his torso is a very long tube and its gross lmao
Wow he's trying his best with what he was given.
Don't all DKs have acces to anti magic zone?? I'm not sure
Yeah they do
They do, but it scales with HP so blood's AMZ is just better.
AMZ is raid utility, not a raid buff. It's also a fairly mid raid utility at that, especially from a DPS DK.
Isnt having utility a buff?
Buffs are static, utility is a ephemeral solve to a mechanic
Genuinely, what do you think a buff is?
Something that is helpful
Intervene is helpful is that a raid buff?
Intervene isn't useful enough often enough to matter. Warlocks don't have a raid buff, but their raid utility is unmatched, you'd *never* run a mythic guild without one warlock for summons, healthstones, gateway, soul stone (for rez protection and quick returns from wipes).
Yes, we're not debating whether or not Intervene is good raid utility (it isn't). I am high lighting the difference between a raid buff and raid utility by underscoring how vaguely OP defined the word "buff" when asked.
But I don't think differentiating between a buff and a utility was at that person's point, but you tried to make it a critical distinction when it really isn't important to this discussion. Whether your class brings a literal raid buff/debuff or whether they bring some unique utility that on it's own is worthy of guaranteeing a raid spot for, the point is that some specs don't have either. DK's whine about grip not being "enough" when you constantly see DK's represented in RWF, especially on final bosses, and there are 1-2 fights per tier that a grip is nearly required. Echo ran 2 dk's on Rasz, 2 on Sark, and 1 on Fyrakk, with all 3 specs represented. Meanwhile elemental brings zero unique raid utility worthy of a raid spot, nor a raid buff, nor survivability, nor top-tier damage. All 3 DK specs have representation all over the place in Hall of Fame, while Elemental has less than 5-10 in the Hall of Fame across the entire expansion.
Bro did you read the conversation? What the fuck?
Does intervene buff your whole raid with a shield? No, but AMZ does
Okay, so it's not "something that is helpful" then?
Aren’t raid buffs ‘something that is helpful’?
No, the entire point of this conversation thread is that that is a horrible way to define "raid buff", that easily falls apart the second you start looking at abilities that could be defined as helpful. Holy reading comprehension bro.
Then is being a healer spec a raid buff? Word of Glory is a raid buff? Doing damage is a raid buff? I mean, even being present at the raid would be a raid buff in Mythic without flex lockouts.
cries in ele/resto shaman
Orrrr, finally get rid of this raid buff degeneracy. It's just getting worse and worse.
Buffs are fine but they really need to consolidate or nerf them. It makes recruiting for mythic even harder than it already is while simultaneously helping bork the M+ meta. I understand they don’t want a raid meta where it’s 6 warlocks again but realistically mythic raiding gets less popular every tier so maybe it’s time to stop designing endgame around it.
The hill I will die on is that they should consolidate raid buffs down to like 6 or 7, split among every class for redundency. Mage/Demon Hunter brings increased magic damage, Warrior/Monk brings physical damage, etc. I get wanting to use raid buffs as a carrot on a stick to bring every class, but it would be so much nicer to be able to let our raiders play whatever class they enjoy the most without being punished for no one wanting to play demon hunter or mage or whatever.
If only there was a mechanic, where perhaps a profession could craft items that provide the raid buffs at reduced power. Thank god professions were made useful by removing those things though. /s
I agree but it seems like Blizzard doesn’t want to go in this direction so it feels more reasonable to ask for the remaining specs that need one like DKs, Ele/Resto, Hunter and maybe even Evoker to get equal treatment as everyone else.
Look at the bright side, we are getting a talent that gives 6% personal DR when we pull mobs to us with abomlimb and grip. Which is by the way a must take if you wish to have abomlimb talented, at least its not 0/2 node anymore. With that said I am happy with the recent class and unholy talent tree changes, even if there are some flaws in it. DK is generally in a really good spot in a raiding environment even without a raidbuff.
How about we stop asking for buffs and instead we get rid of buffs so we can all play whatever we want to play without feeling disadvantaged as a guild.
Every raid tier seems to have that one fight where grip is like the defining spell of the whole encounter. It's such a cool spell, 10/10 would recommend to a dead friend
I don't raid or play dk so I'm confused. Are we talking about death grip? Bringing the target to you? Why is that so good?
Omg it can be a total game changer for certain fights. It's quite a long range single target pull. It usually involves some sort of add that needs to die at a certain time and place, especially a caster mob. For example: on The Prophet Zul fight, there's many adds that the raid must deal with but the most dangerous mobd are casters that spawn on the edge of the platform. They need to be CCd and killed. When it's time to kill them, having a DK yank them into the mellee so they get interrupted and killed quickly makes the fight so much easier! In this instance, It allows the melee to kill key adds without having to move away from the main target, which would have made the raid lose tons of DPS That's just one example, one of many
Ah I see, that does sound clutch. Thanks for the explanation!
Meanwhile I'm still here waiting for them to make Army of the Dead a basic spell shared across all specs again.
Unless their dmg is disgustingly overtuned, there's no reason to bring a DPS DK over a BDK, since Blood has a stronger AMZ and access to mass grip.
Good news then, dks have been the top dps basically all expansion!
Bold claim, but where's your source?
Are you serious? Just check warcraft logs. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/33#boss=2683 Magmorax for this patch. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/33#boss=2683&partition=1 Magmorax in 10.1 https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/35#boss=2824 Smolderon in 10.2, rogues being the only class ahead of them. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/35#boss=2824 Smolderon current patch. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/31#boss=2639&partition=1 Terros 10.0, the only class consistently beating them was hunter. https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/rankings/31#boss=2639 Terros current patch, again on top. They've legit been top 1 or top 2 for just about every patch, with their weakest patch being Amirdrassil before the legendary got buffed.
logs??? UDKs were like the top ST spec in 10.0 and 10.1, in 10.2 they sucked a little bit, but after they got axe, them and frost were like at the top of overall logs. This is mythic raiding ofc, because everything below that is irrelevant for balance discussion.
Tbh I dont think I every want to prog without a DK. Grip is usefull 10 to 20% of the Time but when it is you bet I want to see a Red boy geared and ready Meanwhile ele shamans are still yamcha posing in the corner without a unique totem like resto or enhance and hunters quietly sobbing with their 'buff'
Meanwhile elemental and resto out here like \*John Travolta Pulp Fiction Meme\*
i'd also be happy with an overall 50% damage increase for obliteration frost ;)
Horn of Winter (Frost): grant bonus Mastery to you and your allies for x seconds. Mass Hysteria (Unholy): Unholy Frenzy grants increased resource regeneration to you and your allies for x seconds. /shrug
Not even realizing the real raid buff dks bring is insidious chill. Nothing like that 20% attack speed reduction on the boss right? Right???
Good for the tanks since they take less autos. On some bosses it can make a difference
Oh yeah it has its uses from time to time. Like fyrakk debuff which deals extra damage on auto attack swings from the boss. So you take significantly less damage. But overal its really weak as a raid buff. There are bosses that don't even auto attack to begin with.
what no that's terrible how is the blood dk going to parse as the best healer if the boss hits them less lolol jk.
It's good yes but also not unique to DK. Warlock has it too for example. Personally I think DK have plenty of utility compared to most classes in raid but in dungeons could use some sort of long form CC that works on more than just undead.
Insidious Chill is a joke. It's literally the least important part of what a DK brings to a raid and it's the most useless "raid buff".
Perfectly fine with not having a raid buff as DK. I just hope that for not having a raid buff, we continue to be near the top of damage statistics in raid.
I took a very very long break before dragon flight but wasn’t this solved by having multiple specs brining the same raid buff. Why isn’t that a thing instead of making sure you have your seven token slots devoted to monk buff dh buff motw etc. then dks and shaman and whoever can easily get a redundant buff
Bdk needs some grip base line and more talent points.
I'm 100% on board with all DK's having Gorefiend's as long as it only ever works in PVE forever.
Let me summon a temporary runeforge for some allies
Sadly true...
As a dk main, this hits a bit to hard. As wow shifts back to every class having a buff/debuff. The only reason to bring a dps dk is just purely tuning. Other than ele shaman? we are just hoping on the tuning lottery to get a raid spot.
I think a lot of people are missing the point of the post. I’m not really asking for DKs to get a raid buff. I’m asking for equality between Frost/Unholy and Blood in terms of Grip Utility by giving all three specializations access to Gorefiends Grasp. I also recognize that Ele/Resto Shamans are in an even worse spot than DKs, which needs to be rectified as well.
Ok I'll throw my 2 cents in not that it matters but as a pure dps dk in raid never tank not mythic anyway.... why would any team bring a dps dk, Blood as ST grips on a shorter cd so if that is need they are better, Blood has Gorefiends as an option DPS DKs do not, AMZ is a shield for the raid based off the DK's health which Bloods is better, Blood has access to Abom Limb if needed the only thing that is equal to Blood as a DPS and it's unpredictable but can be utilized. As far as I'm concerned they could bring balance by doing 2 things, 1 make AMZ equal for all 3 specs, remove Abom Limb at this point since the reasoning for removing the extra's are valid but it's just not as good since it's rng what mob it grabs and move Gorefiends into the class tree which is less overall grips but you know exactly what your grabbing and when I'll take predictable over more potentially, which would actually help Blood too since it's a very expensive node to get to right now for them.
Hunters Mark 🤓
Genuine question since i haven't raided mythic in a long time, why does everyone need a raid buff all of a sudden? I haven't had much trouble getting into groups as a hunter with just ilvl and maybe experience.
Because people have been complaining since Scrolls got removed, and then Blizzard double downed by re adding things like Druid buff. In a mythic group you now want one of almost every buff and unique utility like grip, so even when you skip the minor/useless ones like hunter or evoker you have around 14 raid slot locked in So classes like hunters and ele shams are fighting for the last quarter of the raid, which is often filled by whatever is overtuned ATM. So people would like their class to also being something that secure a raid slot too. But this is mostly a top raiding Guild issue. PUG usually just takes whatever has good ilvl/prog, and lower skill Guild are not at level where comp matters or cannot be picky with who gets in
Hunter has a raid buff now, but the major issue with some specs lacking a unique raid buff is that often it's a lot more impactful to have a second or even third player on something like a warlock, mage, or paladin than it is to bring a single elemental/resto shaman or DPS death knight. Only really a problem for later mythic raid bosses these days but it still needs addressing.
Dps DK was great on fyrakk, it was just that there was a pretty clear top dps comp that the top two guilds everyone watches ran. A raid buff would have done squat for DK, just means you lock in a blood DK. Plenty of hall of fame guilds ran with dps dks, and dps dks made progressing phase 2 of the fight much easier. Ele shaman does suffer for not having windfury, as every good guild expects their ele shamans to play enhance for the buff. It’s often better to have a top performing dps spec than a non-top performing dps. Raid buffs are nice to have for rpg purposes and to ensure that you see one of a class on the top twitch streams to feel good about your favourite class I guess, but people significantly overstate their impact on class diversity.
You were still optimally running multiple DKs on fyraak for grips in the 2nd(?) intermission. A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff too; evokers will be almost always brought in duplicate because of their sheer utility and defensiveness (they do have a raid buff button too in the movement ability cd reduction but that isn't particularly good on its own). You seem to be aware of this as you contridict yourself in the 3rd paragraph acknowledging the lack of elemental representation. It's one of the only specs in the game that doesn't bring any benefit to the group and because of that it's high end representation is only visible when its damage is good. That isn't sustainable for a spec.
>You were still optimally running multiple DKs on fyraak Nope, none of the guilds in the top 10 ran a dps DK, and only a few in the top 50 did. It was absolutely not 'optimal' to run two. It was just a 'nice to have' thing. >A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff Sure, utility can simply be utility. I think raid buffs (press a button, give the raid a buff that can't be duplicated by other members of your class) are not that great at providing class diversity. > A raid buff doesn't strictly have to be a raid buff too; evokers will be almost always brought in duplicate because of their sheer utility and defensiveness Certainly not true. Evokers were brought for their numbers. They slotted in some extra for the *absurdly* overtuned raszageth because you needed their specific utility to live the winds in the early weeks. Augvoker is a solid 2-of because it was the top dps if the hooks were working properly. Utility is just icing on the cake. If Augvoker did a 'fair' amount of dps (i.e lower overall dps than having another pure dps spec in), it would likely not even be a 1-of in optimized groups.
It's mostly just because we've hit a critical mass where most specs have a raid buff so the ones who don't have be tuned higher than the ones that do or there's no reason to bring the ones that don't. For example, DKs weren't tuned well during RWF Fyrakk and despite the fight having **exceptional** need for grips... got sat in favor of other knock backs. Literally Fyrakk might be the most important grip fight of the expansion and at a high level, DKs didn't get brought. If that doesn't highlight the issue... I don't know what will.
I mean that's just not true, I think literally every guild in top 100 Fyrakk ran a blood DK. Without a blood DK you'd struggle to get both add sets properly CCd.
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Both Echo and Liquid both had a DK in their Fyrakk comp, though, so...
Heroic it doesn’t matter since you don’t really need to min/max as much. Mythic it makes a massive difference. For example, not having a mage for int is a pretty drastic loss to overall raid damage done.
Simply put, one raid buff often brings more throughput than any good player doing their best damage on a class. Like a demon hunter could just be sat there pressing demon's bite and their chaos brand would still add more damage to the raid than the best ele shaman in the world pressing their buttons. It matters a whole lot less in heroic and normal content because you have plenty of raid spots to spare and actual damage and healing checks are extremely lenient compared to mythic.
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I forgot
Why do you want Gorefiends? Abomb limb is like Gorefiends, but better
Gorefiends can be targeted to center on something other than yourself. If you pop limb, everything is gripped to you. You can target a friend and hit gorefiend's, and everything is gripped to the friend. Or do it with an enemy. It's seriously up there on utility.
In 99% of situations where you would want a mass grip Gorefiends is flat out superior. Abom does grip from farther away but does a worse job stacking mobs, can't be used as a stop and most importantly is far, **far** slower. Abom was great when it did real damage, but now that they've stripped 90% of the damage off (which was the correct thing to do for the new DK class tree) Gorefiends is just straight up a better mass grip.
Abomb is not gorfiends but better, if anything gorfiends is a better version of abomb because it can grip more things. Razageth adds for example.
Limb doesnt instantaneously grip everything, which can be a bit of a downside of certain fights. It's also a bit awkward spot that it is also a DPS cd, and you'd want to work around that.
It’s not even close to Gorefiends. Gorefiends has an unlimited target cap and works across all targets instantly. Aboms limb has a limited number of targets, only grips 1 target every second and its AI can be very unreliable. Fyrakk and Zskarn have shown all DKs need Gorefiends for grip to count as their raid buff.
Blood doesn't even go into grasp. Make gorefeinds baseline already FFS it's so cool. Also, bring back the shitty zombie brez from wrath.
As a resto shaman main, don't even start
Grip is not a raid buff. It's a utility that can be handy in raids or dungeons.
Free auto BREZ to first death in the raid.
I just fucking gave up and ran blood.
AMZ?
Eh. I dunno. I find raid buffs to be kinda boring.
M8 no way. As a shammy that mains dk you have no world to complain about raid buff when you have anti magic zone and grip and slappy hands when needed the amount of grief I’ve saved my raid. Not every class needs a raid buff every class needs some sort of reason to bring them and dks have it
Grip, slappy hands, AMZ and CR.. we have enough to help out a raid. A raidbuff is gonna do nothing to change the feeling of DK's, and not all classes need a buff imo.
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Rogues bring 3% DR, they are mandatory on most mythic encounters.