Questions about Suno's Blood DK Tank spec

[Pylae]

Ok here's the question I forgot to ask...for the build I currently have (you'll have to armory me I'm at work and don't have enough time to link it) should I spec glyph of disease?

What should my rotation be for maximum sustained threat, but more importantly WHY?

Also, does a death strike do more threat than two heart strikes, or am I doing my napkin math of CDs wrong and can afford to burn the extra runes?

And in some rotations (frost actually) I've seen icy touch, blood strike, plague strike, obliterate, which always confused me. I usually do IT, PS, Oblit, BS, BS when I'm on a single target as frost. Although recently I've realized I'm just better off opening with Howling Blast and Blood Boil on easy trash....waiting for IT PS Pestilence and then a disease tick is just way too long.

[Satorri]

As Blood, your best active threat tool without * is Heart Strike. You want to use DRM with DS to turn over runes and spam the heck out of it while maintaining diseases.

That said, it is possible for DS to do more threat on a single target than HS, but it requires certain criteria to be met. Your only listed character is your warrior (epic t2 set by the way), but I'll throw out some of my numbers to give you an idea of what I mean.

My HS hits for about 2400, my DS for about 2600 both non-crit. For the moment we'll ignore that HS has a 3% higher crit chance which will bring their average threat per swing about even. That means if I am at full health, the damage threat only of the two, HS will always win. However, if you are on a single target, DS heals for 15% of your total health, and that healing causes threat, which is unsplit on that single target. With my total raid buffed health, without Vamp Blood, DS heals for about 6900. So, to find the total threat done, here's the math:

HSx2 = 2400 x 2.0735 x 2 = 9953
DS = (2600 + (6900/2)) x 2.0735 = 12545

But bear in mind that: only effective healing counts, overhealing will reduce the heal portion threat, and healing threat will be split over all available targets.

So, the answer is, to get best threat:
1.) Use DRM to spam HS as much as you can
2.) Use DS whenever you can make most use of its heal, even if it's using Death runes.

Using Death runes to cast DS will not spend them, it will just refresh them as Death runes.

[Pylae]

Sorry, check Dylae. I'm going to respec out of the point in necrosis, one out of epidemic, and one out of subversion for 3/3 Scent of Blood though. And then glyph disease, I'm too used to having it and terrible about letting my diseases fall off otherwise.

I was trying this spec out on normal mode Hodir-10 last night and I felt runic power starved. Granted I was focusing on like 12 different things, including trying to help the mage get some of those singed stacks going with death coil.

However, Algalon 10 was killed for the first time on my server last night, and as I congratulated the people that did it, I realized one was a blood DK...and sure enough he had Scent of Blood. And I'm thinking, hey, even if it's not the best on paper, chances are if it's good enough for Algalon it's good enough for me!!!

(Online of Halcyon...he chose Ravenous Dead over necrosis because he wanted the strength for DCs, AoEs, and maybe mitigation.)

Also Satorri, have you cleared the keepers on any of your toons, or do you have another toon not in your sig?

[Insahnity]

Using Death runes to cast DS will not spend them, it will just refresh them as Death runes.

Apologies in advance if this is considered a derailment of the thread...

Satorri, I'm an unholy DK, when I use my DR from reaping to bloodboil (get a wee bit more aoe goodness with an odd one left out (probably refreshed Bone armor or something with the other DR), I didn't get back a DR for it. Is my recollection incorrect, or perhaps this is something they changed in a patch somewhere along the way? Sorry I have no documented evidences like a log to prove it.

[Saent]

Apologies in advance if this is considered a derailment of the thread...

Satorri, I'm an unholy DK, when I use my DR from reaping to bloodboil (get a wee bit more aoe goodness with an odd one left out (probably refreshed Bone armor or something with the other DR), I didn't get back a DR for it. Is my recollection incorrect, or perhaps this is something they changed in a patch somewhere along the way? Sorry I have no documented evidences like a log to prove it.

I haven't done unholy tanking in an extremely long time, so the mechanics there may be different....but I can confirm decisively that DRM in the blood tree does keep refreshing them as death runes when you use 2 death runes to perform a Death Strike.

I chain these along for trach clearing or general utility anytime I have a decent threat lead on the DPS in the raid. One of the key tenets I freaking love about blood tanking(and blood dps for that matter) is the extreme flexibility of rune usage due to the way death runes function. It unlocks the single most constraining element in the DK class....rune/gcd management.

[dhthomps]

As Blood, your best active threat tool without * is Heart Strike. You want to use DRM with DS to turn over runes and spam the heck out of it while maintaining diseases.

That said, it is possible for DS to do more threat on a single target than HS, but it requires certain criteria to be met. Your only listed character is your warrior (epic t2 set by the way), but I'll throw out some of my numbers to give you an idea of what I mean.

My HS hits for about 2400, my DS for about 2600 both non-crit. For the moment we'll ignore that HS has a 3% higher crit chance which will bring their average threat per swing about even. That means if I am at full health, the damage threat only of the two, HS will always win. However, if you are on a single target, DS heals for 15% of your total health, and that healing causes threat, which is unsplit on that single target. With my total raid buffed health, without Vamp Blood, DS heals for about 6900. So, to find the total threat done, here's the math:

HSx2 = 2400 x 2.0735 x 2 = 9953
DS = (2600 + (6900/2)) x 2.0735 = 12545

But bear in mind that: only effective healing counts, overhealing will reduce the heal portion threat, and healing threat will be split over all available targets.

So, the answer is, to get best threat:
1.) Use DRM to spam HS as much as you can
2.) Use DS whenever you can make most use of its heal, even if it's using Death runes.

Using Death runes to cast DS will not spend them, it will just refresh them as Death runes.

Where does the 2.0735 come from?
Also could I get some feedback on my heart strike numbers from the first post in this thread?

[Satorri]

2.0735 is the threat multiplier applied by Frost Presence. I'm going to refrain from posting on your original question here as I have an epic Blood breakdown in the works (for a couple weeks now...) that I hope to have posted in the next week. Short answer is it's not that easy to gauge, but there is a way for you to figure out for yourself based on your actual numbers (since the value will change with play style and player skill).

Insahnity, BB does not refresh a death rune because BB doesn't make Death runes with Reaping (only BS and Pest). DS DOES re-create the Death rune when you use it, even on a pair of Death runes, because it DOES convert the FU pair to Death runes otherwise.