[Antemortem]

Source: Ðeathshot Im just getting use to tanking since my main is a mage but im not sure what all of the completely needed talants are like subversion. After reading some posts my tree idea shaped into this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I like to tank with a double hander. I thought that on a single boss or double my dancing rune weapon might help my damage and threat by doubling it. ill take suggestions were their needed but i had an extra point anyhow. Is will of necro polis needed since ima tank im not under 35% health i stay near 75%. I see how it could be usefull but haveing it just means your heals are bad you'd only be hit once and then fully heald so i thought it was more of a heroic tanking talant. p.s. im tanking raids not heroics 10mans mostly but some 25mans

Don't pick up dancing rune weapon, it's just...bad. Drop necrosis and finish subversion and deathrune mastery. Two-handed weapon specialization is really worth it, should pick that up as well. I would drop imp rune tap simply because self heals are nice, but that's 3 points invested when your healers will be keeping you up. I would drop mark of blood as well. Being a blood tank, you'll be pounding HS, so sudden doom is a very nice threat increase. In Ulduar, the bosses hit HARD, so WotN could save you from that killing blow from a boss, have it just in case.

My current build is:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I'm happy with the self heals, and I've been pushing 6-6.5k TPS.

If you wanted an all out threat build, this is what I would use:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Antemortem]

Oh, and for the glyphs. I'm using RS, DnD and DS. I wouldn't use RT glyph, VB is a nice survival glyph though.

[Ðeathshot]

i tried the spec out it works great but i seem to be having defencive problems my health is going down to quick and im not sure but my aggro seems a little low.
please advise.

[Qhorin]

I tried picking up Rune tap and Improved rune tap for my raid last night. At first I was thinking that I might change my stance on it, it seemed like it might make a great addition to my spec and my threat didnt seem to change that much. However as the night progressed it became more and more obvious that it was going to be very difficult to find places to slip them in. As soon as I took damage I had heals landing, and when I did use rune tap I am almost positive they were wasted to overheal the majority of the time. Even if the runetap landed first, my healers almost certainly had wasted heals. I think if I coud spend just the single point and get the full healing but the longer cooldown it would probably be worth it. However spending 4 points to get it to a 30 second cooldown when I could effectively use it so little seemed like a waste. I will be moving some points around again.

[Antemortem]

Only thing I can think of is that your undergeared Death.

[Littlepower]

Morning or evening all. First time poster, long time reader.

My gear looks like:

The World of Warcraft Armory

my current blood spec is:

The World of Warcraft Armory

I have recently changed to a blood spec for main tanking role in my guild. Was running a frost build and a dps frost build but I have found myself tanking almost every fight in Ulduar one way or the other. So I thought I would go with a Blood build for single target tps and a frost build for aoe tps. Anyhow here are the questions i have.

I am currently 5/5 Blood Gorged - Spell - World of Warcraft and I am feeling that this is honestly a waist of points. I main tanked Emalon last night and watched as my health bar would go from 100% to like 50% constantly during the fight. Honestly I do see how much threat can be generated from this but is it worth spending the points into it when most bosses and even the trash in Ulduar just make this talent lose its luster?

I am also running with Improved Rune Tap - Spell - World of Warcraft and I am not totally sold on it either. My healing squad is one of the best I have ever run with. That being said is this just wasted points again?

Abomination's Might - Spell - World of Warcraft if I am constantly running with a Blood Dps Dk is the 2% of strength worth getting for the cost of 2 talent points if there is someone already bringing the buff to the raid?

As far as rotations go I'm working with IT>PS>HS>HS>DS to PES>DS>HS>DS>HS...i seem to have a dead spot between the starting rotation and when i pick up into the PES one. Is this where i just tap or am I missing something?

Finally as blood are we attempting to reach the expertise cap for parry or just get to the soft cap for dodge the stack stam and avoidance gems?

Thank you all and have a nice day.

[Vanthus]

Source: Littlepower Morning or evening all. First time poster, long time reader. My gear looks like: The World of Warcraft Armory my current blood spec is: The World of Warcraft Armory I have recently changed to a blood spec for main tanking role in my guild. Was running a frost build and a dps frost build but I have found myself tanking almost every fight in Ulduar one way or the other. So I thought I would go with a Blood build for single target tps and a frost build for aoe tps. Anyhow here are the questions i have. I am currently 5/5 Blood Gorged - Spell - World of Warcraft and I am feeling that this is honestly a waist of points. I main tanked Emalon last night and watched as my health bar would go from 100% to like 50% constantly during the fight. Honestly I do see how much threat can be generated from this but is it worth spending the points into it when most bosses and even the trash in Ulduar just make this talent lose its luster? I am also running with Improved Rune Tap - Spell - World of Warcraft and I am not totally sold on it either. My healing squad is one of the best I have ever run with. That being said is this just wasted points again? Abomination's Might - Spell - World of Warcraft if I am constantly running with a Blood Dps Dk is the 2% of strength worth getting for the cost of 2 talent points if there is someone already bringing the buff to the raid? As far as rotations go I'm working with IT>PS>HS>HS>DS to PES>DS>HS>DS>HS...i seem to have a dead spot between the starting rotation and when i pick up into the PES one. Is this where i just tap or am I missing something? Finally as blood are we attempting to reach the expertise cap for parry or just get to the soft cap for dodge the stack stam and avoidance gems? Thank you all and have a nice day.

I guess the question is...what are you trying to accomplish?
Are you trying for more threat or more survivability?

I found Blood Gorged to be a fairly significant DPS increase. Above all it has 10% armor penetration which goes well with having almost all melee based attacks.

Rune Tap I avoid personally. I don't see spending 4 talent points on it, but I certainly cannot fault anyone who chooses to take it. I just decided to maximize DPS.

I could see avoiding AB Might if someone else always has it. You could move those points into something with more threat such as Sudden Doom, or more survivability such as Spell Deflection.

As far as your rotation goes, I think you are wasting 3 talent point into Death Rune Mastery. The rotation is fine if you are trying to have maximum healing from DS, but for DPS/threat you are holding yourself back. Personally I use IT/PS each rotation rather than using Disease glyph or the 2 points in Epedemic, and maximize every other rotation by using 4 HS.
IT-PS-HS-HS-DS IT-PS-HS-HS-HS-HS


Now you might find higher DPS by doing something like

PES-HS-HS-HS-DS HS-HS-DS-HS-HS then repeat. I don't know if rune timing or diseases would carry long enough for that.

[Holyoke]

My blood tanking spec, is a combo of healing and damage threat through death strike. It has been pretty successful in ulduar and I would like to share it with you guys.

Armory
The World of Warcraft Armory

Talents
The World of Warcraft Armory

Rotations: IT, PS, DS, HS, HS ------- DS, DS, HS, HS -------

For any kind of rune dump I usually use one DC, because having high runic power is great for the DS glyph. Standard macros to keep rune strike going.

#showtooltip
/cast heart strike
/cast rune strike

#showtooltip
/cast death strike
/cast rune strike


This spec is amazing for burst threat I have hit up to 15k tps for 3-4 seconds in an initiation of a fight.
Use vampiric blood, get both diseases up, pop ERW and double DS with 2 HS's

with standard rotation im usually at 5-9k TPS depending on crits.

[Littlepower]

Ty for replying holy and van. After looking at everything you guys posted a came up with another question...

How viable is Spell Deflection - Spell - World of Warcraft in Ulduar? What bosses are we going to benefit having this? I am under the impression that it only works on targeted spells not aoe effects. Most of the Ulduar bosses I have gone against seem to do mostly aoe abilities and this talent would be some what useless or am I completely wrong?

[Holyoke]

I find that it procs pretty frequently, even though it says direct spells only I have found that it will go off of AoE abilitys. Its a great addidtion because gear is not up to scale with some of the high damage abilitys in ulduar.

[Satorri]

Note: Spell deflection works on direct damage as opposed to periodic damage, not as opposed to aoe damage.

[Holyoke]

Yah, but it does go off a lot more then I expected it to in ulduar. Its saved me multiple times on Iron council, when stonebreaker uses fushion punch. Thats just one example.

[Littlepower]

Awsome night in ulduar last night. Mt Ignis, XT, Kologarn, and Hodir as the blood spec it was fun as hell. Couple more questions. Currently I am running with a frost tanking for my dual spec. Is the blood spec viable for aoe tanking on like Thorim's arena? What would a rotation look like for aoe blood tanking at this point? I really don't want to run two dual spec tanking builds less I have to for full versatility. I am currently running with a prot warrior, prot pally and druid. But I don't want to say "hey I am tanking every encounter", cause I do like to share the spot light.

[Feanorr]

I did thorim arena with both blood and unholy spec and it wasnt great. My opinion is that a pally tank or even a druid tank is better for this event. The reasons is the constant flowing of mobs, and the low HP of the mobs. We dont have time to put our diseases on and spread them (mobs are dead before), and we cant use our abilities whenever we want (because of the runes mechanic). Compared to us, a Pally can keep consecration up all the time, and a druid can spam his aoe ability (we didnt have any warrior tank on this fight so I dont know for them).

I prefer to let another tank do the arena and go in the hall (where my AOE abilities are better used).

In general, my AOE threat as blood is more than enough, and better than our druid, but our mechanic simply dont work great with this particular fight imo.

[Holyoke]

During thorum I usually just tank the Champions, and have a pally deal with the larger sums of adds. But yes you can AOE with this spec.

IT>PS>PEST>BB>DS------- BB>BB>BB>BB
that's on 5+ mobs

IT>PS>PEST>HS>DS------- HS>HS>HS>HS (For this just tab target through and HS different mobs for the best effect)
5 or less

[Feanorr]

Note: I was talking about Ulduar 10, so only one tank in arena ^^

[Janana]

Source: Satorri Note: Spell deflection works on direct damage as opposed to periodic damage, not as opposed to aoe damage.

yep it's great when it goes off during mimiron. during well any phase or if i step on a mine.

[Mufuti]

I read most comments here but still I am not sure how or if to change my spec at all.
I am using this one since I started as a blood tank(with 3.1)
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I would really like to get Spell Deflection, Mark of blood or at least 5/5 Blood Gorged but I am at a point where I dont see one single spare point. Any suggestions?
Some seem to like Cadaver Explosion too, just as a cheap rp dump for 1 talent point or is there more to it?

Also I saw some specs not taking Will of the Necropolis and Vampiric Blood... what is up with that, why would anyone do that, am I missing something?

[Qhorin]

No idea why you wouldnt take WotN or VB...as far as your spec goes it looks pretty good. Runetap seems to be personal choice, some people really like it, some cant find a place for it. By no means is it necessary, I tried it last week and couldnt get enough use out of it to justify the points (it was constantly wasted to overheal or forcing my healers to land overheals). Mark of blood isn't really needed either...its use is kind of limited, but I like it for certain situations. If you want to pick up spell deflection I would drop Subversion, I am sure you will generate plenty of threat without it. I actually havent put subversion in my blood tanking build yet and have never come close to a threat issue. There seem to be a lot of different builds that work well in the blood tree, we are really lucky to have such a rich tree. Here is the build I am currently using which I am very happy with.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I stack stamina like its my job. Survivability is great, single target threat is great, AoE threat takes a bit of work but is definitely doable.

[Satorri]

Everyone takes their own particular slant on what they value. None of the talents are unequivocable, though certain ones are so good that it's hard to justify not taking them.

The 1 pt tanking CD from each tree fall into that category. It's a small investment for a major survival coverage. Bladed Armor and the 5/5/5 are all too good to pass up. Much of the rest of the trees though can be waffled on a bit, though you can min/max the value of each talent depending on the other talents you take (synergy is the key to DK spec'ing).

I don't use WotN, I've expressed my reasons elsewhere. I use Imp Rune Tap to great effect. I don't have Spell Reflection, though it does look so delectable. Mark of Blood is even more beautiful (it doesn't overheal unless the target hits you for less than 4% of your health).

The class trees are rich indeed. =)