Thursday, August 28, 2008

Blood Tap / Empower Rune Weapon:


As far as blood tap goes, Is this being used the way it was originally intended? It seems rather pointless and redundant with all the new death rune talents in each tree now.

Might be more useful if it was made into an emergency RP boost instead, sort of like blood rage.

Also, I kind of feel that empower rune weapon doesn't really cut it for a 5 min cooldown. I often have to do a double take to make sure I've actually got the rune setup that I want before I pop it (i.e. I have 2Death 2Frost 2Unholy for 3x death strike or oblit spam), and the 25 RP it gives, while nice, doesn't really help me pop off a 51 pointer on demand, which is what would be really nice.

Perhaps Blood tap needs to boost RP at the cost of some health on the 1 m cooldown it has (like blood rage), and then have Empower Rune Weapon activate all runes (as death runes?), lower the cooldown a bit (3 mins?), and take off the RP generation.

It would be nice to have one ability for RP on demand needs, and another for rune burst on demand needs.

Right now Empower Rune Weapon serves both roles on one cooldown, but you typically only need one boost or the other. Not both. That, and it pays the price for this dual role with a hefty 5 min cooldown, which I'm not fond of.



On an unrelated topic, I had to disable anonymous comments on this site because a couple individuals ruined the fun for everyone.

12 comments:

Wikt said...

Have to agree on Blood Tap being useless. I have never used it, ever.

By the way, what did I miss with anon comments being turned off?

Unknown said...

Sounds like a good idea to me. Blood tap = 1 min cooldown (perhaps an ability in blood to reduce this would be nice?? Maybe Improved Rune Tap reduces the cooldown as well??)

Generates 20 RP, plus 36 over 12 seconds or something to that effect.

Would empower rune weapon be too powerful to activate all runes (6) as death runes every 3 mins? It would allow the 1U1F attacks x3 as fast as possible based on your GCD.

Sounds great, but maybe too overboard. I dunno though..but I definitely do not like it on a 5 minute timer either.

Blutstorm said...

Why do morons insist on ruining posting for everyone? Btw, thanks a ton for these posts Jayde, being one that is not in beta, the info you give out is fantastic.

TomE said...

What if Empowered Rune Weapon were both a full Rune and Ruinic Power refresh on a 5+ minute CD and a Death Knight's Blood Tap was a version of a Warlock's Life Tap i.e -15% health for +1 Death Rune on no CD.

It'd be interesting for a Death Knight to be able to convert his life for Death Runes on demand, but it'd change the resource management in such a profound manner it could be going too far. Even still, I think Death Knight's should have more base interaction with their resources than talented abilities, because I find Death Rune Mastery, Reaping and Blood of the North lacking, and a "Life Tap" mechanic would just obviate the need for those jank talents.

Also, to compliment Death Pact, I'd like to see Dark Ritual so we get to choose between sacrificing our Ghoul for either health or Ruinic Power (50 or so)

Unknown said...

Interesting idea. Makes sense.

Thanks for all your work and feedback on the DKs. Gets me excited every time you post a video.

Oscabo said...

Thanks for all your feedback and videos. Looking forward to seeing some of Naxx or other raid instances as they're added (and any other 5 mans!)

Anonymous said...

Love your vids Jayde. If I could just make one request if you ever find the time or if you're curious. Could you make a farming/grinding video of DW Frost if you find the weapons for it? I'd love to see the damage capabilities of it at level 80.

Unknown said...

Im only level 70 so I dont have ERP yet, but as for blood tap I usually only use it on accident when im trying to press Icebound Fortitude. The health cost hasn't been a problem, and the extra rune is nice for threat (not that I have problems with that.) It is definetly nice for aoe tanking I found, when I accidently pressed it one time after using a DnD + IT + PS + Pestilence, I accidently used it, and then was able to do blood boil. Now I actually add it into my rotation for aoe tanking begining threat.

Edurol said...

Yeah nice idea... the first idea of you that I think is good ;)

Still just waiting for you to test DW, when will you stop ignoring the other side of the DK?

Maybe you can give some good feedback for DW. Who knows...

moop said...

Hi jayde i was wondering if at all you could give some feedback on the state of Affliction

also any thoughts on the new raid/debuffs announement ?

Sam said...

Hm, warlock feedback. I honestly wish I had the time. Maybe when I get back from new york on Monday.

Although I must say: At this point, I'm not really seeing anything that warlocks get that truly excites me. Chaos bolt has been a pretty big let down, since it's pretty weak. I hope it gets a lot of love in the upcoming balance and numbers pass before retail. I've also heard that warlocks still have a lot of changes slated to happen relatively soon, so we'll see.

I don't know if it's just class burnout or what, but I'm really bored with mine, even on beta. I've been a lot more excited and impressed with what hunters are getting this expansion than locks. I was hoping to see the Felguard get a lot more buffs than he did.

Sam said...

Oh, and if you're talking specifically about raid stacking issues for buffs/debuffs, I'm actually pretty excited about the changes. Coming from someone who doesn't like 25man raids (I hated 40 with a passion), I am pretty excited to see that there's going to be less emphasis on which class you actually bring, and more on letting more classes be swappable, letting you bring your friends.

I had a big problem with a buddy of mine, Cham, who played a mage and was always bitching about how useless he felt compared to my warlock. He had inferior damage, no summons or health stones, mana gems can't be passed out, and my lock had curse of shadows/elements. So what was he there for, then? Food? Heh.

I also remember a lot of times we'd have to pass up someone who was more deserving of the raid slot that night (hunter), just so we could take a class that we really needed instead (shadow priest). Now, we won't have to make that choice.

I like where they are taking things, but again (and this is key), this is coming from someone who prefers 10 mans over 25 mans. And to be honest, I think that's where the eventual focus of raiding is inevitably going to fall if wow progresses past Wrath of the Lich King. I predict a big exodus of people from 25man raids, simply because it's simply a much bigger headache to lead and organize and satisfy 25 people than it is 10. I really, honestly believe that 10man raiding is going to completely overshadow 25 mans, as far as popularity goes. That's what's going to please most raiding customers, and I have a feeling that Blizzard is going to cater to them even more in the future.