Satorri's Big Build Shop: Blood Tanking!

[Madoxx]

Satorri how do you find your blood build tanking Anub in totgc hardmodes ? . I tanked him the other night for the first time i normally heal on my druid these days, but for my DK blood build I am now thinking to add back in Mark of blood and also Rune Tap for the extra healing and survivability.

[Satorri]

For sillypuddy, all % Stamina increases are applied multiplicatively, to your current total stamina. That means that once a buff increases your stamina, the % buffs apply.

Essentially, you could just say that every 1 stamina from buffs and gear actually equals 1.XX stamina for you.


Madoxx. I'm a bit torn. It works fine, and the healing is very helpful for the healers counterbalancing healing up the huge health pool. Generally, I'm not happy with doing things as usual because I have other options. The smaller my health pool (to a point of course) the easier I am to keep alive, but as Blood I hurt my self-healing which is a part of my functional survival. I've been using an alternate gear setup that trades a fair amount of health and picks up a generous amount of avoidance and a bit more armor. I've also been using my Unholy spec a fair amount as it allows for more pure mitigation and some nice anti-magic tools.

If you're a traditional Blood tank, I think you may find Anub may test your healers and dps a bit more, though maybe not quite enough to really notice unless you're really walking the edge of success.

[Madoxx]

I wouldn't call my self a Blood tank was frost for along time , was also thinking frost might be better for anub i might try it one night. Your avoidance set what does it entail ? as i tend to have allot of gear and like to mix and match gear every now and again if it is easier on the healers to use an avoidance set id use that instead of high sta.

[Edgewalker]

Frost is a much better spec overall for ToGC Anub between Blood and Frost. Vampiric Blood during Leeching Swarm is actually more dangerous than helpful during the latency drop off (where leeching swarm will tick for an amount greater than it should), and Acclimation is at it's best. You get a high damage ability for the adds and anub himself, more direct melee mitigation, and Merciless Combat actually becomes a quite helpful talent.

The BEST add tank is still a Warrior or Paladin, and the best DPS class for Anub period is an Unholy DK, so if you can swing that, that's the best option.

[Lórwen]

Hi

I did some "TPS test" with Tankadin TPS, soloing Thrym at Zul Drak, and I admit the result seem a little strange.

I do more TPS and total threat with a cycle without DRW (based on spam DS), than a spam-HS cycle. However, HS scale with Sudden Doom, has more crit chance (9% from Subversion), and do almost same damage than DS.
Is the heal effect from DS can explain that? Is Tankadin TPS reliable? And, most of all, should I have to really switch to a "spam DS" rotation?

Furthermore, I think to switch 3/3 in WotN to 3/5 Necrosis, 'cause Necrosis increases RS damage if I have understood, and I rarely go below 35% health. I think 3/3 in Improved Icy TOuch can't be removed, since 6% dehaste on a high damage boss is absolutely imba (and because there is not always other tank to apply a similar debuff).

Thanks for your answers

[Madoxx]

Frost is a much better spec overall for ToGC Anub between Blood and Frost. Vampiric Blood during Leeching Swarm is actually more dangerous than helpful during the latency drop off (where leeching swarm will tick for an amount greater than it should), and Acclimation is at it's best. You get a high damage ability for the adds and anub himself, more direct melee mitigation, and Merciless Combat actually becomes a quite helpful talent.

The BEST add tank is still a Warrior or Paladin, and the best DPS class for Anub period is an Unholy DK, so if you can swing that, that's the best option.

Edgewalker what frost spec would you use i was thinking along the lines of Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft as i said this is more for just totgc more then anything else.

[Satorri]

Lorwen, can I assume you mean DRM rather than DRW?

The total threat from DS when the heal is 100% effective is actually quite respectable, and it's not a bad idea. The reason DRM is my preference is for the option. If you're receiving no healing from DS, or less, which is often enough the case when you're in a raid with plenty of healing (the overhealing jumps up to 60-70% usually for me), then the ability to spam HS will get you a lot more threat. In addition when you're tanking two targets, or can hit two targets, even post-nerf, HS will outperform in net effect.

On top of that, the potential the Death runes open up is very important for Blood's utility. It allows you to comfortably use Rune Tap, Mark of Blood, and Vamp Blood at most any time, and makes it easier to slip in DnD's if you need. The versatility of the talent is the key, not just the ability to use HS more.

WotN is weaker in value when you're a newer tank and/or running content that you and/or your healers out gear. The place it will shine most is in ToC/ToGC and presumably in ICC, where there are things that can hit you for 50%+ of your health. In overall damage reduction WotN is a little weak, but when it procs it could very well save your life in those instances. Necrosis is a threat talent (and yes it adds on RS), so it's not a universal to make the switch, just a decision of whether you want more threat or more survival.

Imp Icy Touch, I agree. Unless you have someone else covering it, the extra 8% de-hasting is well worth the investment. And at that, no one can apply the buff as easily, efficiently, or universally as a DK.

[Edgewalker]

Edgewalker what frost spec would you use i was thinking along the lines of Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft as i said this is more for just totgc more then anything else.

I use Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft with a floater point, obviously just for Anub. Threat isn't really an issue, I prefer Glyph of Disease since I use a 2 disease rotation and Death Strike intermingled with Obliterate depending on the situation.
Most of it is probably not needed, but if you are really pushing maximum damage and survivability, or right on the bubble of success, might as well go for it.

[Chamenas]

So, I'm a bad tank and never really watched my TPS before (I looked at the Omen meter, if no one was almost past me, I was fine). However, recently I've looked at it so I can compare my threat to that of other tanks. Something I've found odd is that I rarely break 6k, and, more importantly, my threat is spiky, going as low as 1-2k very often before hopping back up to 4k (seems to be the average) and then up to 6 or 7k on occasion. I don't really have threat issues, but I'm not tanking ToGC with extremely high dps. Not sure what more I could be doing to keep it up. I keep my diseases on the target, spam HS for threat and hit DS when it's up and HS isn't. I hit rune strike as often as I see it (I refuse to macro it) and if there's absolutely nothing else, I death coil.

[Satorri]

Most people just cite their 'average' tps. If you run a combat log through a threat parser (we have one on the site last I checked) you can see your average and it may be higher than you think.

If you watch the real-time tps, it's actually kind of funny, and highly subject to the nuances of your spec and choice of supporting talents/glyphs. For example, when I tank as Frost I rely so heavily on few massive bursts that my average will jump up to 12k and drop to 1-2k if I make the averaging window short enough. As Blood I don't glyph or over-buff Death Coil (only Morbidity), so whenever I hit a rune blackout my tps drops a little, but then if I get a chain of crits on HS it jumps up a bunch.

I tanked a ToGC and I wanted to see how hard I could push it, so, without Hysteria, Heroism, TotT, or MD, I used my ERW cycle to spam lots of HS's back to back with a couple DS's, and I managed to get it to hover around 14k for a good 8 seconds. Usually when I glance at it though, I see something like what you're talking about. I usually average around 5-6k, jump up to 8-9k regularly if I have any sort of procs or a couple crits, and I dip as low as 2-3k if I'm focusing on survival, or not drilling Blood Tap etc to power through rune blackouts.

It's fun to watch, but not wildly meaningful.

What *is* meaningful is that no one is riding your tail or pulling threat off you without doing something stupid.

[Chamenas]

I do need to start doing parses. Any good guides on here for that?

[vine]

I hit rune strike as often as I see it (I refuse to macro it

Any particular reason?

[Edgewalker]

Any particular reason?

I personally don't. After years of playing a warrior, it makes me feel like I am hitting HS again. Also it gives you a much greater sense of your overall TPS in burst scenarios.

[Chamenas]

Any particular reason?

I would rather work on my personal awareness and reactions than a macro. When I do UI modifications, I try to things that allow me to be more aware and pro-active, but don't actually do things for me. Thus it comes to be the same thing for macros. The only time I use macros that do extra steps for me are when I simply cannot react fast enough. Sarth 3D Zerg, I hysteria the top melee dps. Rather than typing /tar <name> *hit H* /tar Sarth, I have it all macroed to H because anything less than that speed could mean a DPS pulls threat off of me and wipes the raid.

It's a personal preference thing, there's little logic behind it. I doubt I miss many rune strikes though.

[Satorri]

It's funny, I fill both methods of thought.

I macro it to several specific abilities, but I pay close attention to the procs, I have a big button up to display when it lights up. I used the other keys I usually press to toggle it on so that I have one fewer button to press.

If you think about it, most of your procs happen in the space between when you have to hit buttons (most do, but then again, most people just spam keys, I've been trying to take a step away from that, if only for the sake of my tendons...).

[Chamenas]

I've found a direct correlation between spamming keys and disconnects...

[Satorri]

Really? That's odd. The system is designed, via the GCD, to throttle your actual network input. It *shouldn't* have anything to do with disconnects unless your computer is somehow misbehaving.

Always makes me laugh when a healer or tank pushes their push-to-talk key and you hear click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click under their voice.

[Chamenas]

Maybe they aren't related, I was sort of making a joking comment about something I've noticed, but I haven't objectively taken the data down. And, as a psych major, I know all about the fallacies that humans are prone to in that sort of thing.

[Swam]

Hehe, I finally broke my clicking habit. Took about a week of sucking but since then I haven't looked back. Maybe ill try pvp again...

[Satorri]

Getting to that level of direct character control (keybinds allow for your character moves to be near-muscle memory/non-reflective actions) definitely opens doors on your level of play. I find it is essential in pvp, not required for pve, but pve really benefits from it.