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Little Help... Blood Tanking
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Post by
Ejikazuma
Howdy, I’m new to the tanking scene and just wanted to see if I could get some speccing advice on a few last choices. I’m currently level 78, making my way quickly through the last few Northrend regular instances, gearing up and preparing for Heroics soon. Here’s a link to my
Current Armory setup
. (I do have a full set of Tank Gear, and a full set of DPS gear)
So far, I haven’t really had much issue tanking, aside from in the AoE threat department, and that only seems to be when DPSers attack the wrong mob and decide to try and solo it. >_> Looking forward though, I just want to make sure I’m doing things right. I know that my current spec isn’t great for tanking, since I use it for DPS leveling as well. What I’m shooting for once I hit 80 is something like this
50/8/13
. However, I’m not 100% sure of my Glyph choices here, or the last 2 talents. I put them in Blood Gorged mainly for the 4% ArP. However, I could easily see putting them into Black Ice for 4% Frost and Shadow Damage, or into Necrosis for 8% additional Shadow Damage, possibly even Corpse explosion, if someone thinks it’s a worthy Choice.
In all honesty, I’m not really sure. I’m confident I’ll do okay, regardless of which way I go. I just wanted to see if I could get some Opinions. As far as the Glyphs go, I’m not sure if I should use DS, over Rune Strike? Or If I’ll need DnD at all… once again, any help is appreciated. ^^
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410715
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Post by
Ejikazuma
Thanks man, yeah I've already read a lot of the topics here. Just to put this out there, I've already read everything on the helpful threads list, pertaining to DK tanking... Well, I've skimmed it mostly, I skipped sections that seemed like they would be recaps. Thanks for the Advice though.
*EDIT*
Upon giving it a bit more thought, I came up with this
50/8/13 Variation
I just figured that if I felt I needed Rune tap that it would be more worthwhile with less of a cool down and more potency. (I did only take Rune Tap to begin with as a filler talent, but with my current setup I do occasionally find myself falling back on it whenever I hear that "low health" noise go off. It's a nice Oh !@#$ button...
I also swapped out Glyph of DnD for Rune Strike after all, seemed that adding more damage to DnD wasn't really going to accomplish much.
*EDIT AGAIN*
I suppose if I were going to go the way of not using Rune tap at all, I'd probably spec like this
49/8/14
. Once again though, I'm just really torn. It's all very subtle differences, I can understand why it's said to go with preference, but with my lacking of experience it's hard to tell what's useful and what isn't.
Post by
Ejikazuma
If anyone was interested or wondering, I've decided to go with the
50/8/13 Variation
as my tank spec for now. It seems like it will be more all around useful for PuGing Heroics and finishing out my last two levels. Still, not sure on the Glyphs, but I guess I'll just do like the others have and try things till it works for me.
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303016
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Post by
tomgc
The only thing i PERSONALLY disagree about is not getting spell deflection, but i am still very new to Dk tanking and would be glad to hear a good reason not to get it.
Most issues with this talent, I think, come from how you'd heal such hard spell hits. If a spell is so weak that if doesn't put you in much danger (like Frost Aura, although that doesn't get reduced, being AoE) the talent is worthless. Yet is the spell is so powerful that it must be prehealed, the talent still isn't going to much use. Also, people might find it the best place to pull points from since you have a lot to get when Blood tanking.
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120885
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303016
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Post by
Ejikazuma
Okay, gotta revive a dead thread instead of creating a new one for a continue of this discussion. I've finally hit 80 with my Blood-Knight and Tanking regular instances was a breeze with the
50/8/13
Spec. However... now that I've re-geared, re-attained defense cap, and have started Heroics I'm having trouble with AoE threat. I'm not sure if it's the DPS' I'm playing with who are creating more AoE threat then I am, the fact that they aren't attacking the targets I mark, or just that I'm not laying down enough AoE threat. I ran H-AN the other day and we wiped twice before the first boss because our Lock was pulling way too much hate on mobs I hadn't marked, (-_-) and then our healer was spamming heals on him trying to keep him up. We also had a Warrior who was either Whirl Winding non-stop or Blade Storming frequently (I didn't check to see if he was Fury or Arms.)
They were both ripping threat off of me on any of the targets that I was trying to hold with just Diseases and DnD Threat. I understand that these abilities are not causing much threat to begin with, so my real question is... what else can I do to really hold that threat in? or do I just need to switch to a Frost Tank spec? Just to note, Survivability as a Blood Tank has been FANTASTIC. I have around 29K HP in Frost Pres un-buffed, and around 32K with 5 man buffs. I do take some spiky damage, but between my CDs I can generally make it through the rough spots.
I was considering switching now to the
49/8/14
spec, but I'm wondering just how much the Glyph of DnD will help, vs. the Glyph of Dark Death. Same goes for the usefulness of Corpse Explosion as well. Any help or opinions would really be appreciated. Here's the armory link again, but I'm pretty sure I was in DPS gear/spec when I logged last LOL.
Armory Profile
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323314
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213594
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Post by
Ejikazuma
K... I had a great reply back but the browser decided to screw me over and killed it. -_-
In short... I'm using the normal Blood Rotations.
1-2 Targets:
Taunt, IT > PS > HS > DS > HS > etc...
3 or more:
Taunt, DnD > IT > PS > Pest > Blood Tap > Blood Boil > etc..
Samhein, you make some good points, but I really disagree with dropping Might of Mograine, I think that it's potential to add threat is much greater of that then Blood Gorged. Currently my issue is not with Single Target Threat, but with AoE threat. MoM adds 45% to Critical Damage of three of our most used abilities. Even if our critical chance is only around 10% before talents, it's still worth the proc if you ask me. Especially for procs on Blood Boil considering DK spell criticals already deal double damage.
Blood Gorged is only going to apply to that ArP to targets you are dealing physical damage to, so it won't help with DnD, Blood Boil, or Diseases which are the ways we hold AoE threat. Since I'm not suffering from Single target threat issues, it wouldn't make sense to 5/5 it. Maybe 2 or 3 depending, but not cap it.
IIT is nice because it reduces the attack speed of all targets afflicted with frost fever by 6%. Also, since it's one of the first parts of our rotation, it gives us an early threat boost with the added 15% damage. It may not be much, but it's a nice bonus. I suppose we could take those three points and move them to Blood Gorged though, if you think the added 6% ArP overall would be a better choice.
Glyph of Bloodtap is there simply as a filler, I use Bloodtap often, and I rarely summon a Ghoul in Blood Spec, so no real need for Raise Dead glyph. Dark Death glyph was taken because many people recommended it along with morbidity for a 30% increase in Deathcoil Damage. It's nice, but I agree it could be swapped out. I was thinking of changing it out for DnD glyph for the added 20% AoE Damage.
Post by
sushigaski
Summoning a ghoul + death pact is one of my "oh 5#!t" buttons. That can really save your life if your healer is stunned / otherwise unable to get a crucial heal off. That is why I keep the raise dead glyph even as a blood spec.
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213594
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Post by
Ejikazuma
Samhein, thanks so much for the input. You've made some good points and I'm going to re-evaluate my spec. I'll let you all know what I come up with, until then any other input would also be welcome.
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213594
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Post by
Ejikazuma
Alright, I went home last night and tried a few things out, I used the recount addon to track my hits, misses and crits against a raid dummy. I ran the tests several times judging what I could do with the disease duration of 1 set, and 3 sets. What I found is that you were exactly right Samhein, even with the talents, the critical rate was very low. I was generally pulling 1-2 criticals from 15 Heart Strikes. Also, the whole time I tested I was never able to score a critical with Blood Boil.
So I copied parts of your build and switched a few things around that I liked and I ended up with
50/5/16
. The Build is okay, I haven't tried tanking with it yet, I've only tested with the training dummy. In testing, I did notice that the add of Necrosis didn't really make much difference. The damage from Necrosis over the period of 1 disease duration was less then that of the diseases themselves. The Damage of Necrosis over 3 disease durations however was about the same as my Deathcoil damage. I'm wondering if it's going to help much at all in the long run, still not really sure.
Another concern for me was the usefulness of Ravenous Dead, considering my current stats, the talent is really only giving me about 28 Strength for 3 talent points. Personally, I'm thinking of amending the spec again and taking something more like this,
50/10/11
. I still haven't ever tested Corpse Explosion out, so it somewhat seems like it might be that golden AoE snap that I'm looking for. I also think that the addition of Black Ice could be more like that Steady Steam of Threat you were talking about.
Regardless, let me know what you folks think, this is really opening my eyes a bit more to the differences of the spec.
*Edit* I misread the effect of Improved Blood Pres and thus plan to drop it.
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303016
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