Blood tank having threat issues.

[Hateful]

Hey guys, Hateful here.

I've been tanking for about two months now, and I really love it. I've been playing a Deep Frost spec before 3.1 and quite well into it too. Recently, I was needed as a MT to some Ulduar 10-man runs, because the other tanks in my guild have work and stuff like that. Frost cuts it to a point but it doesn't work so well, so I decided to try out Blood. I fell in love almost instantly but yet my threat is still bad and warlocks and shamans have to down their dps because of that, also since I've been Blood for just a couple of days I really don't have a stable rotation going up, so any rotation that you can tell me will be great!

So any tips on improving my threat or tanking as a whole (regemming, gear replacement, build improvements, glyphs, enchants, whatnot) are greatly welcome.

Links & Info:
My Armory: Here.
Health: 33723 unbuffed (only FP).

[Caly]

Your spec looks ok, basically the same as i used while tanking in blood.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The only thing i can think of is wrong rotation. Are you including Rune Strike? Try come up with a dps rotation that includes Rune Strike-More dps=more tps. Also, shamans and warlocks have abilities to lower their threat, they should use them if they notice they go high on threat.

[Voodan]

/agree, your spec and gear look fine. What is your rotation? Are you using RS every time it is up? Are you having more of a problem with ST threat or AoE threat? Are you weaving in blood tap/ ERW into your rotation? Are you remembering to efficiently time your self-heals?

Also, what type of tps are you averaging? Peaking at? Are you getting tricks/MD?

[Inaara]

Not having Sudden Doom is pretty rough and I consider it a must have talent. After thoroughly testing Rune Tap I decided to completely remove it from my spec and put the points into Sudden Doom and WotN instead. I also don't have CE, Blood Boil works just fine.

As far as glyphs are concerned I use Disease to keep my diseases up. Maximizing the amount of Heart Strikes you cast is the best thing you can do to improve DPS/Threat. Also if you do not have Rune Strike macroed to every ability, I would suggest doing so. It would look like this.

#showtooltip
/cast Heart Strike
/cast !Rune Strike

Opening rotation would be IT-PS-DS-HS-HS-DS-HS-HS-HS-HS. Again prioritize Heart Strikes to get those extra Sudden Doom procs in.

[Voodan]

@ Inaara, at that point you're kind of trading survivability for more tps which is fine. Really a player choice imo. I have no tps issues (in general) and I'm only 1/3 points into Sudden Doom.

Regardless, the actual tps gained from Sudden Doom should not really be enough to make or break your general threat production. I think the OP's problems are more likely rooted in the rotation or a lack of RS.

That being said, I was just curious why you start with IT-PS-DS-HS-HS instead of using IT-PS-HS-HS-DS? The pro's I see to the latter are as follows (minimal but we all like to min/max ):

1. You put your blood runes on CD 1 GCD sooner which in this crucial first few seconds of a fight where you're more at risk for a series of bad hits with little to no heals, you put blade barrier up sooner. That 5% dmg reduction could save you in some situations

2. I'm not sure if you're glyphed into Imp-DS, but waiting to DS until after 2 HS's should give you more RP and therefore increase the dmg of your DS. This should remain true throughout your rotation in fact as an RP dump generally comes after the rotation (unless you had RS'ed a good amount) and therefore you're more likely to have higher RP at the end of your rotation than the middle.

Any pro's to using DS first?

[Molohk]

Not to state the obvious, but a bit more hit rating and expertise would be of great help to the OP.

I was trying a spec identical to the OP and I really hated having corpse explosion, it's never up when you need it the most, and it doesn't even work on most corpses in ulduar (although I do like exploding my guild mates). I don't really have any threat issues without sudden doom, but I gess every bit helps.

[Inaara]

@ Inaara, at that point you're kind of trading survivability for more tps which is fine. Really a player choice imo. I have no tps issues (in general) and I'm only 1/3 points into Sudden Doom.

Regardless, the actual tps gained from Sudden Doom should not really be enough to make or break your general threat production. I think the OP's problems are more likely rooted in the rotation or a lack of RS.

That being said, I was just curious why you start with IT-PS-DS-HS-HS instead of using IT-PS-HS-HS-DS? The pro's I see to the latter are as follows (minimal but we all like to min/max ):

1. You put your blood runes on CD 1 GCD sooner which in this crucial first few seconds of a fight where you're more at risk for a series of bad hits with little to no heals, you put blade barrier up sooner. That 5% dmg reduction could save you in some situations

2. I'm not sure if you're glyphed into Imp-DS, but waiting to DS until after 2 HS's should give you more RP and therefore increase the dmg of your DS. This should remain true throughout your rotation in fact as an RP dump generally comes after the rotation (unless you had RS'ed a good amount) and therefore you're more likely to have higher RP at the end of your rotation than the middle.

Any pro's to using DS first?

Since the change to Blood Boil (how you can cast it without a target now) I actually use my blood runes before I pull and time it so that they're back up by the time I go into my normal rotation So I actually start the fight with the 5% reduction.

[Rialév]

I do the same. The 5% reduction pre pull is nice. I don't have the Sudden Doom Talent in my blood build however... But I haven't had any trouble keeping threat.

Looking at your talents it's solid for keeping threat. My only suggestion, unless this is spec has a degree of focus in holding AoE, would be to swap 3/3 in morbidity to 3/3 in Ravenous Dead. Which will grant you more damage on all your abilities rather than just Death Coil. Your cooldown for DnD will be longer, but I've never needed to use it more than once in an AoE fight.

Here's the spec I'm currently using as blood. The World of Warcraft Armory
It's pretty similar to yours. I like the 5 points you spent in Blood Gorged which should up your TPS. And as others said, I don't see where the spec is falling short for threat.

I'd have to say it's an error in your rotation somewhere. And Runestriking of course. Although I like to use it liberally, i'll never agree to macroing it to all of my abilities. I prefer to macro it to a mousewheel, which is just as easy to turn off as it is to turn on

And Molohk, you dont like Corpse Explosion? I love that spell for Blood Tanking. If not for the threat and lack of corpses to explode in ulduar, then for the simple idea of exploding corpses... I laugh every time I do it

[Voodan]

Ah thanks I actually didn't know that it would activate BB while not in combat. I'll definitely start using that.

[Hateful]

Really thanks for all the feedback, I got myself a decent working rotation, and I'll test it out in U25 tonight and post results.