YA Blood DK tank thread: Build, Annihilation, DRW

[mindflayer]

I created my DK alt as a tank for heroics to give our normal raid tanks a break and allow them to play DPS toons more often. I am now tanking heroics and have done OT/MT for Obsidian Sanctum and Vault of Archavon 10 man. The current build works but I believe as I run more raids a change may be in order.

My current build was designed with these thoughts:

• Rune Tap and Improved Rune Tap were chosen since we often PUG healers on these really late night runs. I don't know how many times I've been in the middle of a boss fight, not getting heals, and see the priest casting Smite.
• Hysteria is an awesome buff for the melee DPS we bring.
• Blood Aura was taken for the ambient heals.
• Blood Gorged is more damage as long as I am healthy - that is, if we bring a guild healer - which means more threat. The expertise is nice as well.
• Will of the Necropolis - I see a lot of Blood DK tanks without it, but the benefits are wicked. Coupled with Vampiric Blood, the Blood tank has nice coverage during those "Oh, noes!" events.
• Dancing Rune Weapon was suggested to me by a Blood tank in another guild. He is their MT, and they've done all of the 25 man content. He claims the DRW adds to his threat. I am unsure since I have read mixed reports. I do find it to be a nice runic power dump.
• Morbidity was taken for the reduced cooldown of Death and Decay.
• Epidemic is nice for the increased duration. I am unsure about this talent since I do not spam Obliterate.

Since I have started running more raids, I am considering this build. It is very similar, but with Improved Rune Tap and Dancing Rune Weapon dropped from Blood, and Morbidity dropped from Unholy.

• If in a raid setting, I should expect better healing, making Improved Rune Tap less important. That said, any self healing helps ease the pressure on the healers.
• Dancing Rune Weapon and Death Coil are the only real runic power dumps for a Blood tank. As an OT, I am often called to DPS, so that potential dump for more damage is not present. That said, I don't think the loss of DRW is a big deal.
• In this build, I took Annihilation. It was part of my standard Blood DPS build. It is more involved now that I have to watch disease timers and ensure I can pop Obliterate and then reapply Frost Fever and Blood Plague.

Questions:

• Is Obliterate as part of the normal rotation, rather than at the end of a cycle, as huge a boost in TPS and DPS as some claim?
• Does Dancing Rune Weapon add to threat?
• Any other comments?

[Merko]

Dancing Rune Weapon does not contribute to your personal threat. I would probably be very careful about who you listen to about DK tanking as there are a lot of people who are not informed about the classes mechanics.

*there are lots of topics in the theory tab that should get you the information you are looking for

[Krovacs]

I've been tanking as Blood since the 3.0.8 patch came out, and I really like it. My TPS is much higher than when I play as Frost. I linked this build in another thread about 3.0.8 tanking but I'll link it again here.

I call it my Bloody Annihilation Spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Basically, the main purpose of this spec is high threat. I do sacrifice some survivability by going Blood instead of Frost or Unholy. But I've found that my gear is good enough that I can do just fine without Unbreakable Armor or Boneshield.

This Spec takes Lichborne as an extra tanking cooldown. The 25% chance to be missed is nice on hard hitting fights like Maexxna when she is enraged, or Patchwerk when he frenzies at the end.

As far as rotations go, I start with a fairly standard rotation:
IT > PS > HS > HS
Starting like that gets my blood runes on cooldown so that Blade Barrier is up. After my 2 Heartstrikes, I tend to play it a bit more situationally. If either of my Heartstrikes proc a crit Death Coil, I will opt to take a crit DC. Otherwise I go for an Obliterate. Actually, I am oftentimes able to get two Obliterates in a row if my runes refresh at the right times, plus getting Death Rune procs from Obliterate is nice.

[bloodangels]

As for rotations as blood it all depends on if you want Glacial Rot or not. If you went GR then its best to go PS->IT. AS well if you went into Annihilation. My general rotation is PS-IT-HS-HS-DC-HS-HS-HS-HS-Dc-DC-OB. AS for spec I kept Imp Rune Tap w/ the Glyph that gives a nice little splash heal to the melee around you as well it should give you healing threat(not proven but it seems to inc my threat on omen) As for DRW, if you went that far down the tree i figured i minus well get it. I general use if about a minute in on boss fights to help do a bit more dps plus when i do Dps it helps out as well.

[mindflayer]

Dancing Rune Weapon does not contribute to your personal threat. I would probably be very careful about who you listen to about DK tanking as there are a lot of people who are not informed about the classes mechanics.

*there are lots of topics in the theory tab that should get you the information you are looking for

Aye, and I have read through the posts as much as I can stomach. As you mention, there are quite a few players who are theorycrafting sans experience. I'm looking for some more empirical data to back up the numbers.

As of last night, I will drop Morbidity no matter what my final spec. The disconnects due to the talent (tried everything else) in a raid make keeping it untenable.