Blood Death Knight Tank Affix Information for M+ (Dragonflight)

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Affix Information

In this section, we will review how to approach each dungeon affix, if any specific information applies. Affixes are not mentioned if they involve no specific counterplay or useful information.

+7 Weekly Affixes

[Volcanic] – Each enemy will periodically spawn a volcanic eruption in the area of a player beyond a certain minimum range from that enemy. The eruptions will explode after a second, dealing a base of 20% HP fire damage to the player and knocking them into the air. In particular, BDK’s are able to use [Death’s Advance] to immune the knockback if you know you are going to take a hit and [Anti-Magic Shell] can be used to absorb the damage [Volcanic] does. Like everyone else, our main defense against this affix is to not stand in the [Volcanic] spawns. However, it is important to keep in mind that certain position-specific strategies may be harder to execute on these weeks and that some dungeon abilities can make [Volcanic] spawns unavoidable, at times.

[Incorporeal] – Given changes that have occurred during patch 10.0, BDK’s are now able to use [Control Undead] for this affix; this can be somewhat costly during dangerous situations, especially since you cannot dodge or parry while casting this spell, but it does give us a meaningful way to interact with the affix if needed and also has the potential to reduce enemy damage and healing by up to 10% for a period of time. [Mind Freeze] and, if talented, [Asphyxiate], should only be used as desperation measures since both of those abilities are immediately useful in most trash encounters and have limited ability to disrupt the affix enemies. And, if the cast is going to go through regardless, [Anti-Magic Shell] can immune the penalty debuff application.

[Afflicted] – We have no method of meaningfully interacting with this affix besides [Death Coil], which is inefficient and disruptive to our RP economy to the point where it is not advisable. But, if the rest of your group is dropping the ball you can use [Anti-Magic Shell] to immune the penalty debuff application.

[Storming] – Each enemy will periodically spawn a forming tornado in the area around that enemy’s location. After a few seconds, the full tornado will form and will spiral into a clockwise path with the spawn point as its center. The tornado disappears after 10 seconds or when colliding with players. If they hit a player they will deal damage and apply a knockback. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. [Anti-Magic Shell] and [Death’s Advance] can be used to mitigate the damage and knockback from a tornado, respectively, if they are, for whatever reason, not going to be avoidable.
2. Since tornadoes rotate around their spawn and spawns are based on enemy locations when they are created, constantly moving a pack can help you and your party more easily avoid them.
3. You can’t use [Death Grip] while in midair, which can become very relevant during [Storming] weeks if you are relying on [Death Grip] for an important stop.

[Entangled] – [Death’s Advance] can be used to counter the snare, if necessary, and either [Anti-Magic Shell] or [Icebound Fortitude] can be used to immune the stun penalty if breaking the vine is undesirable for whatever reason.

+14 Weekly Affixes

[Bolstering] – Bolstering damage bonuses are applied multiplicatively. The biggest impact we have on this affix is by designing routes so that they are not heavily impacted by this affix. This involves:

1. Designing pulls where all enemies have similarly sized health pools and will die at around the same time (to minimize the amount of health added to enemies).
2. Making use of “out of combat” CC, such as [Sap] and [Imprison], or 30+ yard range to avoid giving [Bolstering] stacks to high health mobs in groups with large health disparities where low health enemies *WILL* die long before high health enemies.
3. Limiting the use of chain-pulling.

Within the pull itself, all we can do are two things:

1. Attempt to focus down high health enemies in individual pulls to minimize the effect of [Bolstering].
2. Anticipate ahead of time if kiting will be necessary once some [Bolstering] stacks start going out, since incoming damage can significantly increase.

[Bursting] – The general counterplay to this affix is to either kill all enemies at the same time or to kill them with enough time in between for [Bursting] not to stack excessively; both of these strategies minimize the damage done by the affix. The *application* of [Bursting] stacks can be immuned with [Anti-Magic Shell].

[Raging] – As a tank, the main thing to be mindful of with [Raging] is knowing when kiting might be necessary to stay alive. A 50% damage increase on enemies needs to be respected and it can very easily make abilities extremely dangerous. Using soothes and staggering the health of enemies so that they don’t all hit 30% health at the same time can mitigate the effects of the affix, but you’ll need to rely on your group members to do both of these things.

[Sanguine] – The normal counterplay to [Sanguine] is to either kill all enemies at the same time or to make sure that you move enemies away from fresh corpses before they can be healed by the resulting [Sanguine] pools. Complications only arise when enemies are stunned, strongly snared, casting/ranged attacking in place, and/or “fleeing” in sanguine pools, as well as when players don’t leave themselves enough floor space to properly manage the abilities of existing mobs. Engage in the following behavior to mitigate potential issues:

1. Attempt to fight enemies in areas where there is enough space to drop sanguine pools *and* deal with their mechanics.
2. Avoid stunning and snaring enemies when other enemies are about to die.
3. Use knockback abilities such as [Death Grip] and [Gorefiend’s Grasp] to either move enemies out of sanguine or to knock low-health enemies away from higher health knockback-immune targets.
4. Use stuns and snares to isolate low-health targets away from other enemies.
5. Use line of sight, if needed, to move ranged attackers and casters.
6. Attempt to kill relatively immobile enemies first, when possible.
7. Again, killing enemies at roughly the same time can prevent [Sanguine] healing, even if some enemies are stacked on top of each other.

[Spiteful] – Defeating enemies spawn a Spiteful Shade that fixate random non-tank party members and attempt to hit them with *HIGH* damage melee attacks. They lose 8% max health every second they are alive. They spawn in an area around the defeated enemy and they are capable of melee attacking nearby targets, on spawn, before their fixate begins. This affix can be mitigated as follows:

1. Killing enemies evenly so every Spiteful Shade spawns at the same time and there is nothing left to attack can simplify management, since the party won’t need to worry about performing other actions.
2. In general, the tank can help all party members more efficiently deal with this affix by kiting the pack away from any Spiteful Shade.
3. Snares, stuns, and knockbacks, can keep any Spiteful Shade away from its target. As a BDK, this means [Death and Decay] with [Grip of the Dead], [Asphyxiate], and possibly [Chains of Ice] can be used to suppress them, when warranted.
4. After all enemies are dead, actively damaging any remaining Spiteful Shade can help the group drop combat faster if you are in a dungeon where mounting is possible.