Blood Aura, the interesting multiboxing mechanics

[Ellay]

So I'm sitting in my raid tonight, quite bored due to the fact I single box it... ( ya not going to talk about it!) and I notice Blood Aura is stacking... but not just group stacking no no, it's raid stacking.

So.. let's say your average decently geared Blood Spec'd DK is pumping out 3k+ dps, if you threw in 20 Deathknights on that raid, shoot even go for 25, because Blood is a viable tanking spec. That's 100% healing for damage done, every DK in that raid is healing themselves for 3,000+ damage a second. Now to make it more realistic, let's say we do 20, and throw in 5 of whatever. I can totally see that as being an amazingly synergistic combo that is able to pump out insane amounts of damage because you can drop so many healers in the process and replace with DPS.

It's gotta be done!!

[Shaitan256]

there are so gonna be changes for that, because DK's are everywhere and can almost do everything. I guess they'll nerf it to Goup only, I mean it's like the Spriest thing (got nerfed too)

Hm, I kinda hate the management blizzard has with the Classes, since they removed the Tank abilities from the shaman, (I tanked Strat and Scholo with no Problems back then and tanked to dmg warries through lvling in instances - that was fun^^ btw with resto specc) then DK comes and is DD-Tank @ the same time + Support and all that shit. It's not the synergy that's annoying me, it's that they are rly loving this class. btw everyone with Improved runetap + glyph, means enough heal for everyone.

Only con would be the loot, and maybe missing some Buffs, but if you get +5 different classes this is just a minor con.

[Zaelar]

The biggest problem is probably all of the fights that are mean to melee heavy raids. You can take close to 20 of any class that dishes out 3k+ dps, and taking a ranged class would be so much better.

[Bigfish]

My concern would be single target incoming damage. Seems to me a boss would methodically squash the DKs one by one.

Come to think of it though, anyone got a meter that tracks incoming damage? It occurs to me I have no idea how much healing is needed for any particular encounter. For all I know 3-6k HPS might be enough for 25 mans. (Again, i have no idea)

I guess if you want to get really fancy, you could rotate groups to get 8% max HP/sec with rune tap, add that on to 3k HPS from Blood Aura, that's anywhere from 18-23% max health restored every second on a central tank character, while maintaing aproximately 10-15% HPS for the rest of the raid.

Edit: Dammit, now I've got to Theorycraft this again.

[Mooni]

Hm, I kinda hate the management blizzard has with the Classes, since they removed the Tank abilities from the shaman, (I tanked Strat and Scholo with no Problems back then and tanked to dmg warries through lvling in instances - that was fun^^ btw with resto specc) then DK comes and is DD-Tank @ the same time + Support and all that shit. It's not the synergy that's annoying me, it's that they are rly loving this class. btw everyone with Improved runetap + glyph, means enough heal for everyone.
THEY MADE ME TANK STRAT TOO! This was patch 1.8, so no earth shield yet, so I was enhancement with "Improved Shield Block" and everything. At baron I told the mage to put Dampen Magic on me and the priest to put shadow protection on the group, and it actually worked; the aura was doing 1-600 instead of 1500 damage. Tanked with Earth Shield a few times too when that came out, and it was a beauty.
Aside from how those two used to abuse my shaman (the shaman is still around as part of my 1 pally 4 shaman group; she's the only one with an old PvP title) I get really heated when we talk about how shamans were supposed to be our version of the paladin, but with more offense and less defense. Then they announced Blood Elves and Blood Knights and Spacegoat and Holo-totems, which began about 24 months of total crap for us shamans.
So I too hate their class management - how for some reason rogues and warlocks are whining about whatever, all the time, but they all have these cool stories about how they solo heroic ______ or overpulled 5 guys and killed them all or .... screw this.
Hey OP! You right though. Too bad they're all lone wolf coolguys who can't be bothered to get together for something like this.
It's funny the things you have time to think about and do when you're single-boxing. (I single boxed military wing 25 last night and I swear I thought it took 3 hours)

[Bigfish]

Ok, just for kicks, this is what I came up with:

Ten man raid, nine 45/0/26 DKS, one 40/26/5. 10 Blood Auras, 9 Ghouls, 1 Improved Icy Talons. DKs spam disease, Heart Strike/Blood Strike, and DS when it's available. Working a round robin Rune Tap, the Main Tank DK gets 40% of their DPS +3.66% of their Max Health/second, + whatever Death Strike generates, + Whatever they get from blood worms, +4%/hit if Mark of Blood is applicable. Now this does rely on some pretty intensive timing and group swapping of the MT, but it should theoretically work.

Same thing more or less applies to 25 man raids, except you can rotate in more rune taps and you get a higher % of stacking Blood Auras.

[Maxion]

I'm just glad they didn't make blood aura stop stacking when they doubled its bonus as was said they would.
Still remains to be tested if glyphed rune taps heal the raid or just the party (which i think is the case), since you cant move people around in the groups during combat.

[Ellay]

The Glyph only heals the group, pooey I know :)

[Bigfish]

Rune tap would, otherwise, be way too powerful. In the 25 SK case, 8.33% max HPS from Rune Tap alone, not to mention all the other recovery abilities they have at their disposal.

That and the healers would cry bloody murder (no pun intended) for a raid wide heal every 30 seconds.

[Maxion]

As i thought, was just wondering from the calculations presented above.

[Bigfish]

Just a thought - 25 Army of the Dead.

[Ellay]

Lol, zone crash.

[glo]

Sounds like a job for prepared. With that kind of setup you could brute force a lot of the 25 man content.

[Zaelar]

I'm assuming you'd want one unholy DK for 30% extra damage from diseases. Also unholy aura is always nice.

[Bigfish]

Good Point, so going with the 10 man set up, Eight 45/0/26, one 40/26/5, and one 32/0/38(+1), so that's 18000-20000 DPS for a normal raid. If you throw in Army of the dead, you're talking 30-32k DPS for 45 seconds.

[Souca]

Good Point, so going with the 10 man set up, Eight 45/0/26, one 40/26/5, and one 32/0/38(+1), so that's 18000-20000 DPS for a normal raid. If you throw in Army of the dead, you're talking 30-32k DPS for 45 seconds.Damn you. I'm already busy enough with getting 5 DKs to 80. Now I have to go and level 5 more.

Don't forget if you have Draenei you would also have the Gift of Naaru heal, which can be put on the tank ;)

One thing to be mindful of is that you won't see the high end of dps numbers. Tank gear would lower your dps some not to mention all the buffs that normally boost your dps would be missing.

When my first batch of 5 are at 80, I'd be willing to join you in this experiment Ellay.

- Souca -

[Bigfish]

Good Point, so going with the 10 man set up, Eight 45/0/26, one 40/26/5, and one 32/0/38(+1), so that's 18000-20000 DPS for a normal raid. If you throw in Army of the dead, you're talking 30-32k DPS for 45 seconds.Damn you. I'm already busy enough with getting 5 DKs to 80. Now I have to go and level 5 more.

Don't forget if you have Draenei you would also have the Gift of Naaru heal, which can be put on the tank ;)

One thing to be mindful of is that you won't see the high end of dps numbers. Tank gear would lower your dps some not to mention all the buffs that normally boost your dps would be missing.

When my first batch of 5 are at 80, I'd be willing to join you in this experiment Ellay.

- Souca -

Ooh, Draenei, hadn't thought of that. Rolling Gift of the Naaru! Brilliant!

Anywho, I figure with 1 or 2 tank geared DKs and the rest DPS geared, the non-tanks should be able to pull 2k on their own, and the tank(s) 1k, although that raises the issue of whether it is better to gear them all as tanks, DPS, a combination, or a hybrid.