Blood DK Tank Discussion

[Maelstrom]

DnD IS frontloaded threat, the only talent unholy gets for DnD that blood doesn't is impurity. Also, despite what you may think, that rotation works fine, You have like one spare GCD in there, which I use to swap mobs and death coil. If blood tap isn't up, you get one less initial blood boil (Which does harm initial aggro some).
You can go try it out if you disbelieve.

D&D on its own is not sufficient, aside from having my own DK tank alt to play with for the past year, even Blizzard admitted that when Blood boil got tacked onto Bloody Strikes in 3.1 (I think it was 3.1, possibly at the same time WoTN got nerfed).

It's kind of hard to killing machine Howling Blast the opening second of a pull as well, and a non-crit HB isn't really that fantastic, along the same lines.

Deathchill does the job (Which is easily spec'ed into even with a dual wield build), and non-crit howling blast is still quite a lot more than a few ticks of D&D. Especially considering frost can open with D&D and a Howling blast and still have a rune left over for Bloodboil before tap. I personally use glyph of howling blast as well, which means I don't need to use pestilence and have an extra GCD spare (Usually for HoW as frost strike is hungry for RP, or tap + bloodboil).

Nobody is saying that Blood has the best AE threat, but to say it has none is ridiculous. After over a year of DK tanking, the only fight I ever found to be annoying to tank as any spec is add duty on 3D, everything else is perfectly fine even as blood - people that can't hold aggro just need to play better, not respec. Along those lines, the rotation I listed works perfectly well, just keep target swapping (Which is true for ANY tank AE tanking. If you're not you're screwing up).

To quote you:

DND, Diseases, Pest, Bloodboil, Tap Bloodboil, Death Strike, DND, spam blood boil as runes refresh. Done.

You can not blood boil right after pestilence, because you used your 2 blood runes with 1 in D&D and 1 in pestilence. You can tap for one extra, but again that wont be every trash pack. I personally find frost's proc mechanics more enjoyable than relying on bloodtap half the time, thats why I respec'ed after months of blood tanking. Each to their own though.

Now for single target, blood is more than fine. Although I do wish they'd give sunder armour to more classes so it was a reliable debuff, but that's a different matter altogether

[Proletaria]

I have to agree, blood doesn't hold a candle to frost if the competition is over quickly obtaining aoe threat and holding onto it, however, that isn't much in terms of raid tanking.

In my opinon, and i'll try to type this so it doesn't look like pure qq, a frost dk basically adds up to a very gimped prot pally in terms of handling aoe. It's not something I enjoy admitting. I tank along side a prot pally, and have done so since 3.1. We're both very familiar with our strengths and weaknesses. I won't go into the laundry list of encounters he currently has an edge on me for, but the MOST obvious trump card of the paladin in current (ICC) raid content is threat, and aoe is no diffirent. Our paladin can dump more burst threat on 3 targets than i can on one with tricks or md in a blood spec.

I've stuck with blood because it plays to the one relative strong point that I think we have as DKs. That strength is being a self-sustaining health sponge. I have given frost (and unholy) a more than fair shake in ICC and TOGC since 3.3. Both specs show some real promise, and I would never accuse either of being obsolete, non-viable, or without use. With that being said, I believe blood offers us more options for current and upcoming encounters.

The first wing of ICC doesn't really have anything for us. We're relatively sub-par tanks against fast physical damage (yes, even as frost) without a block mechanic. Death strike helps to level off your heath losses, and makes healing on the dk more predictable than a frost or unholy dk who is relying more on avoidance or pre-emptive cooldowns to redux the damage before it happens. Against steady hitters like overlord, airship captain, and marrowgar I see blood as the superior spec because of this, not to mention wotn that has saved my butt on several occasions.

So, just to recap where i'm goin with this post: Blood has a weakness in aoe threat, that much cannot be denied. Snap threat in particular here is probably the weakest in the game. But, that is something you have to live with, learn to adjust to, or have a co-tank assist you with if you want to be the most effective in other tanking duties (namely tanking those big nasty raid bosses). Frost might look very appealing right now with a bit more passive mitigation, but when push comes to shove blood is still going to be standard issue for progression. There just isn't another spec that offers universally high eh, cooldowns, and (magic and physical) capability in terms of soaking damage, plenty of single target threat, and a bit of protection from overkill (wotn).

So as I stated from the beginning, let your warriors, paladins, or druids get the aoe packs that call for snap threat (unless you really must do that job, then spec frost), and perform roles that work to your (relative) strengths. DK's may well be a tad sub-par across the board, but there is no reason for the underdog to do the job he is the least suited for just because the other tank doesn't want the inglorious job of tanking adds.

[Dracu]

I used to manage tanking as frost at lower levels,but now alot of unexpected stuff happens(accidental hunter pulls etc.) and while AoE tanking I sometimes find myself in heroics with all runes on CD(hard to agro with a 6k mage..)..and it's pretty hard with no thunderclap.I dinged 80 about 3 days ago and I now use a 53/8/10 build with Toughness and Nerves of Cold Steel talents in frost.If you have some hit rating(I had about 120 at start) 1H melee weapons work just as fine, plus you can equip two 1H tank weapons(a great bonus to sta,def,dodge,hit, very helpful at start)

Glyphs I use:
1.Glyph of Disease(prestillence is the ultimate aggro generator imo-on multiple targets ofc)
2.Glyph of Vampiric Blood(a bonus to HP is always welcome)
3.Glyph of Death and Decay(to help our thunderclap-wannabe spell)
4.Glyph of Prestillence(amazingly helpful in spread caster situations)
5.Glyph of Raise dead(just for the hell of it)
6.Glyph of Horn of Winter(a bonus to damage is a bonus to agro)

I don't have a standard rotation but I have this things in mind:

1.AoE pulls: D&D is a must and Diseases must be on ALL mobs.if so some blood boils and disease refresh(prestillence+glyph) WILL do the trick
2.Single Target:easiest thing.inflict diseases,runestrikes and hearth strikes.if however you loose agro for 1sec(which shouldn't normally happen) you can always use Dark Command and Death Grip.

______________________

[Lapras]

hey yall, im having some difficulties deciding on a couple of blood talents:

will of the necropolis
hysteria
rune tap
mark of blood

how important are these talents and which will be most useful to me at my level?

The World of Warcraft Armory

[Banterloft]

hey yall, im having some difficulties deciding on a couple of blood talents:

will of the necropolis
hysteria
rune tap
mark of blood

I have NEVER runed tapped. lol. I think its a waste of talents that can be better applied in say subversion.

Mark of blood is great, I know, I don't have it. But I did, and I will again. It gives you an extra soaking ability, coupled with VB and RD-DP gives you the time to survive when your healer falls, gets Brez, mana's up, goes for a smoke, then decides to heal you up again.

I love Hysteria. I don't know why. I like to hit harder I guess.

[Proletaria]

I have used rune tap on a few encounters (vezax hm and a couple others), but i've never been overly impressed with it. It's just another blood-rune soaking cooldown and when you already dedicate 1 blood rune a minute to VB, breaking your rotation for rune tap is just that much more annoying, and since you can't blood-tap both of those, you'll have about half your in-between cooldowns time vulnerable (no blood runes) with no rune-tap option.

Long story short: it's highly situational, and most dk's won't pick it up, even as blood.

[Wintermoon]

My dk tank just hit 79, so I am 1 level away from starting real tanking. I was leveling as a dps until 65-ish when i teamed up with a healer to instance and i respeced tank. I had a tought about what spec I should pick (no dual spec) so I chose blood tank. Now ofc I know that tanking at max lvl is very different from the leveling tanking but I do believe it is similar.

I have to say Blood tanks are unreachable aggro wise, on single target. The only issue you might find urself with is the aoe aggro on very big aoe aggroer dpsers. The D&D combined with the IT PS Pestilenced can hold up to most of the aoe aggro.

Blood specs for tanking are as many as the grass, and I do think that It has to suit your playstyle. I love the rune wep and the bloodworms but I don't know if it is a viable spec. I was thinking of speccing to >Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft when I hit 80 any suggestions for change or help? =)
I know I'm missing a gglyph, there are too many to choose lol
And also the last 6 points in blood might seem overkill, but they give you a ****load of threath.

-Winter

[Proletaria]

My dk tank just hit 79, so I am 1 level away from starting real tanking. I was leveling as a dps until 65-ish when i teamed up with a healer to instance and i respeced tank. I had a tought about what spec I should pick (no dual spec) so I chose blood tank. Now ofc I know that tanking at max lvl is very different from the leveling tanking but I do believe it is similar.

I have to say Blood tanks are unreachable aggro wise, on single target. The only issue you might find urself with is the aoe aggro on very big aoe aggroer dpsers. The D&D combined with the IT PS Pestilenced can hold up to most of the aoe aggro.

Blood specs for tanking are as many as the grass, and I do think that It has to suit your playstyle. I love the rune wep and the bloodworms but I don't know if it is a viable spec. I was thinking of speccing to >Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft when I hit 80 any suggestions for change or help? =)
I know I'm missing a gglyph, there are too many to choose lol
And also the last 6 points in blood might seem overkill, but they give you a ****load of threath.

-Winter

I just hit 80 on my hunter. Man, there is so much I do not know about the class. Let me tell you though, I think that any spec probably works well. I like to use steady-shot spam with a sporebat pet for raids.

So now that it's obvious i'm really clueless and haven't read an FAQ: suggest to me a spec. You'll probably have to fill me in on all the back-ground information that i'm clearly unfamiliar with. More than likely i'm going to argue that my sporebat is awsome dispite whatever other silly pet you suggest for me.

-Summer of threath

[Grifieth]

id like to post here cuz i have a lvl 80 dk <baal farstriders> look him up and flame away, but i have frost and blood as my MS and OS. Ive tank with him for long time thru the nerfs and changes, and basically ive seen it coem down to this. My forst spec i use for heroicsn cuz its more aoe friendly, and yes it has snap threat on multiple mobs at once BUT when it coems down to single target threat, my opionion is blood has it. each threat has snap agro, frost has snap on multiple targets, BUt reading my meters, if u compare it to the threat that blood has off the bat its higher against the single target. i know people will chim in a say that frost can threat just as much as blood against single target, but its situational. U give frost 2 sick slow 1hander weapons and blood with an equally 2hander weapon blood will still be more threat but not by much against single target but at the end u will be able to see the diff in the threat that is generated by frost against blood. Now i end this by saying that frost is still viable tankign even against single target, doable and good at it, but i believe blood has it beat by a far margin as far as performace and survivability against a raid boss, cuz right with the low amount of trash, isnt the raid boss encounter what we mostly focus on?

[Proletaria]

I agree blood is a safer tanking spec across ICC, but it's anecdotal and difficult to prove.

[Banterloft]

So now that it's obvious i'm really clueless and haven't read an FAQ: suggest to me a spec. You'll probably have to fill me in on all the back-ground information that i'm clearly unfamiliar with. More than likely i'm going to argue that my sporebat is awsome dispite whatever other silly pet you suggest for me.

Nice way to get your point across man. lol