DK tanking spec question

[lyd]

what i was getting more specifically is it creates a redundancy, specifically in extreme, high-end raid content. take the Algalon video that Aliena just posted. she recommends 2-3 full-time tank healers. it seems to me that if at any point you go without a heal long enough to make blood tap useful, it means there was a gap in the spam healing that the heal team shouldn't have allowed to occur.

I'm by no means advocating that high-end progression tanks should "say no to bloodtap." there are no absolutes where human response-time and interaction are involved, and that means that inevitably, even in the types of fights im' talking about, there will be a situation where a well-placed blood tap could save the tank. But in bleeding-edge content that involves boss fights where the tank is literally getting spam-healed by more than one healer, I think that this situation would occur rarely enough to justify being able to go without it at extreme levels of progression in favor of threat talents to increase your threat ceiling.

[Satorri]

There really is little waiting around for a blood rune. Blood with DRM means I have 4-6 runes rolling over Death/Blood constantly. On top of that I don't often use Blood Tap as Blood since I don't have a lot of rune blackouts already. It's off the GCD so it's really easy to use Rune Tap and I pop it the second my health drops and my warning chimes. I'm faster than the healers because there's no delay in seeing a health bar drop.

I average 5-10% overhealing on Rune Tap, and it averages about 20-30% of my total self-healing, where I'm usually doing about 20-40% of my total healing depending on the fight.

I keep saying. The only limiter on the value of Rune Tap is the user. If you use it well, it has loads of value and it is anything but wasted, regardless of content. To someone who never uses it, or never tries, it is easily wasted.

[Edgewalker]

I keep saying. The only limiter on the value of Rune Tap is the user. If you use it well, it has loads of value and it is anything but wasted, regardless of content. To someone who never uses it, or never tries, it is easily wasted.

Again, I doubt you have tanked much heroic or hard mode higher end content then. You die in the stun, or you die in the space of 1 GCD.
You can't make a blanket statement like that.
It has it's place, but just not in a high end / heroic raiding build.

[Esch]

Again, I doubt you have tanked much heroic or hard mode higher end content then. You die in the stun, or you die in the space of 1 GCD.
You can't make a blanket statement like that.
It has it's place, but just not in a high end / heroic raiding build.

Pot. Kettle. Blanket statement about blanket statment.

Satorri's point is IRT is as valuable as you can make it. Does this mean on some fights, you need lightning reflexes to us it? Prolly. However, it doesn't become a bad talent. If you're going to get a Gormok instagib death, the only question is whether you picked up WotN or not, rather than if you spent points into IRT/Imp Blood Aura over Spell Deflection or Ravenous Dead (random examples).

At the same time, if you're getting hit and can mitigate some damage in support of your healers, it's never truly overhealing. You can't overheal a corpse. If you opt to rely completely on your healers and focus on threat/DPS, that doesn't mean IRT is bad, you simple made a playstyle choice.

[Salidus]

Sorry been working on a new spec I picked up from another the top end raiding DK tanks on mys server.

Atm my guild is full clearing ToC 25 and starting to soon work on possible 25 hard modes.
Also tanking hard mode 10 man groups where there even less room to screw up as some of you can agree.

If you wish to look at my DK his name is lifeblade and he is on Scarlet Crusade in iniquitas (the first i has some funny crap over it)

[Edgewalker]

[19:22:25.105] Anub'arak hits Fattycop 25675 (A: 2172)
[19:22:25.186] Anub'arak Leeching Swarm Fattycop 10564 (R: 2641)
[19:22:25.296] Anub'arak Freezing Slash Fattycop 23948 (O: 1039)
[19:22:25.561] Fattycop dies.

That's all I'm saying.
WoTN is simply better the harder it gets

[lyd]

holy mother of god. you took 60,187 damage in less than .2 seconds.

hard content is hard

[Salidus]

Lol wow that is a crap ton of damage to tank in that short of a time lol. Atm knowing when I pop vamp blood and Scarab trink I feel my health at 62k raid buffed just isn't enough lol.

[Insahnity]

I view RT as a blood DK specfic cookie. I know this isn't QUITE the same thing, but it's another way to look at things.

As a tank, many times I don't pop a health pot or snack on my cookie. This is because
1) My healers are generally keeping me topped off at all times (as they should), anything I add will generally either screw them up or cause an overheal.
2) The amounts healed by a pot/cookie are less than an boss hit. In higher content, this is also true for RT. Assuming I lost a healer or two, it OCCASIONALLY allows me to survive one more hit, and it MAY be enough to carry me through until we down those last few percentage points of boss health.

The only way one could consider it to be useful would be have the same effective use as paladin LoH. Extending the cooldown but giving it more health would make it more viable. Otherwise, as I said earlier, it's just another cookie, and doesn't change things much in day to day situations.

[dhthomps]

I view RT as a blood DK specfic cookie. I know this isn't QUITE the same thing, but it's another way to look at things.

As a tank, many times I don't pop a health pot or snack on my cookie. This is because
1) My healers are generally keeping me topped off at all times (as they should), anything I add will generally either screw them up or cause an overheal.
2) The amounts healed by a pot/cookie are less than an boss hit. In higher content, this is also true for RT. Assuming I lost a healer or two, it OCCASIONALLY allows me to survive one more hit, and it MAY be enough to carry me through until we down those last few percentage points of boss health.

The only way one could consider it to be useful would be have the same effective use as paladin LoH. Extending the cooldown but giving it more health would make it more viable. Otherwise, as I said earlier, it's just another cookie, and doesn't change things much in day to day situations.

RT scales with how well you pay attention to RT.

If you use RT on cooldown it is a worthwhile talent. As edgewalker has mentioned, in 25 mans where 2-3 healers are paying attention to you it MAY lose some value (depending on player/healers) because you may not have a chance to use it often.

RT is personal preference and/or player "skill" (READ: how much you pay attention to rune tap).