Blood BoilFollow

What exactly is the point of this ability?

I've been p*ssing with it now and then, but I can't really find out an actual use for this.

The tooltip says "Causes the Death Knight's Diseases within the Target to Painfully erupt, inflicting 80-90 damage." (paraphrased)

I blink at that and shake my head, wondering "um, okay, 80-90 damage. woo."

So I think "there's got to be something more to it than just that."

So I try it in a few fights, and use the logs to back it up and see what it really did. About 100 damage. That's all. At level 74.

So I'm sitting here, scratching my head, wondering just why I would ever use this, when any of my other attacks do at minimum, 500 damage (some doing 2000+ with crits), and my WHITE hits are in the 700s as well.

What am I missing?

To do AoE damage. It IS more than Pestilence, but not much. I never use it because I can't turn it into a DR.



If you are Unholy or Blood pre 3.1, Pest doesn't give you a Death Rune. So, you can BB for more damage (and a DR if Unholy). Frost generally just Pests a second time. And it is phenomenal glyphed in PvP.



You are missing the fact that it causes damage to every mob in range with a disease, which should be all of them because it is best used right after a Pest. So, it may only cause 100 damage at 74 (it will do more with Blood talents), that is 100 damage to EVERY MOB. Yeah, if you only have 2 Blood Strike/Heart Strike is a better option, but with a ton you should be maximizing your AoE damage (ESPECIALLY if you play Blood).

But, in reality, the ability isn't THAT good. As a Frost DK, I don't even have it on my Toolbar (well, I have it on my alternate toolbar, because I use it when kiting elites), I just use Pest twice for the DR and slightly lower damage.

Come 3.1, BB is getting buffed and Pest will no longer do damage. When that time comes, considering HB will have a 10 second timer, I may use it in my Multi-target rotations, sacrificing an Oblit for three BBs of damage. I'll have to think about it.

But it isn't WORTHLESS. It just isn't OMFG good. Most of the DK's battle abilities are class-defining (which makes sense, because we don't have all the extraneous, crappy abilities other classes either started with and replaced or received over time). BB isn't one of them. That doesn't mean it is bad...

I guess if you've got a bunch of mobs gathered and you have an excess of Blood runes. I'd probably hit Pestilence and Howling Blast twice myself, being Frost specced and all, but for a Blood/Unholy Knight, sure, I can see its use.

Ah, like Blood of the North.

Meh, I don't use Blood Boil much anyways. I rarely take one 10+ mobs and survive. At least not of a level that matters.

In 3.1, Blood Boil will do damage regardless of disease status (Rank 4 is 180-220), but will do more when the target has a disease (the tooltip makes it seem like it only matters that you have 1, there is no bonus for more diseases). The bonus damage is not specified on WoWHead.

The range is now 10 yards instead of 30 (for VERY good reason). Pestilence meant that only mobs near you would get the hit. If it had a diameter of 60 yards and hit EVERYTHING, you would have a ton of adds and it would be massively OP in WG and many BGs. 40 people, some with diseases, getting hit for 300-400 damage, twice, is pure win. That is almost 30K of damage for 2 Runes, in 2-3 seconds, every 10 seconds.

[EDIT]

And could you imagine if there was still the snare effect glyph? My God... This ability would have been AMAZING.

Edited, Apr 13th 2009 12:36pm by idiggory

If you have to attack something from range then IT and BB will load your runic power, and you can use your runic power on Death Coils.

For now with spec and glyph you can also use it to snare and to produce death runes for even more ITs for your ranged attacks. But that's getting removed.

Edited, Apr 13th 2009 6:58pm by xorq