Consumption’s Blood Plague damage occurs 30% more quickly (was 50%) and duration reduced to 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Rapid Decomposition’s Blood Plague and Death and Decay now deal damage 15% faster (was 18%).
Coagulopathy now increases Blood Plague damage by 25% per stack (was 30%).
Developer’s note: In The War Within, all character Stamina has been increased by 60% as part of an overall adjustment to the pace of healing gameplay. This increases the relative value of abilities that heal a percentage of a character’s maximum health. Many of these ability changes are to counteract that relative change. For instance, the percentage health that Frenzied Regeneration restores has been reduced by about a third, but the amount of health it restores has remained the same.
Death Strike is a powerful ability that allows Blood Death Knights to mitigate a percentage of any form of damage taken in the last 5 seconds. In a way, Death Strike works like a retroactive shield block. Instead of reducing damage up front, it “mitigates” the damage you took from a hit by healing you. If used in succession, Death Strike can affect a single hit multiple times, which would be comparable to blocking a hit, then going back in time and blocking it again, in some cases restoring yourself to higher health than where you started. In The War Within, we are changing Death Strike to only heal the death knight for a percentage of damage taken from a given damage event once, to make it scale more like other tank mitigation mechanics.
We are also reducing Runic Power generation somewhat and reducing some of the mitigation death knights get from high-uptime cooldowns like Enfeeble and Dancing Rune Weapon, but increasing armor from Bone Shield. Overall, death knights should take damage more smoothly, and they will remain one of the strongest tanks for encounters with high magic or periodic damage
A new aura, Coagulating Blood, shows the amount of recently taken damage that will be used to calculate the value of your next Death Strike. The aura description lists the value as a flat amount and the number of stacks shows it as a percentage of your current health.
Blood Shield’s cap is now 50% of the Death Knight’s maximum health (was 100%) and the cap is no longer temporarily increased by Vampiric Blood.
Bone Shield increases Armor by 100% of Strength (was 80%).
Leeching Strike now heals for 0.25% maximum health for each target hit (was 0.5%).
Dancing Rune Weapon increases Parry chance by 35% (was 40%).
Each active Dancing Rune Weapon generates 3 Runic Power when mirroring Heart Strike (was 5).
Everlasting Bond increases Dancing Rune Weapon’s duration by 6 seconds (was 8 seconds).
Blood Drinker reduces the damage the enemy deals to you by 15% (was 20%).
Bonestorm heals you for 2% of your maximum health (was 3%), up to a maximum of 10% (was 15%).
Bonestorm damage increased by 20%.