It is actually worse than live. Now when you DS a second shield, not only doesn't it stack, it doesn't refresh the timer. So even if you do minimum shields, and refresh 9 seconds into a shield, on the 10th tick, the shield drops, losing the new shield.

When you refresh when taking damage its the same, except each tick of absorb says the shield is refreshed and gives the value remaining, so possibly they're still tweaking it. I can't see them making this the official version or its a once every 10 second move at best.

For the first I'd guess the caster trash mobs in AK, their spell hits for a percentage of total health (70 iirc). You will need a healer and take 2 hits within the shield period to reach a minimum of 33% total health shield. The damage is magical so the shield itself should not interfere with the data. Once the shield is applied just refresh it as normal while tanking the physical adds. Subtract min DS value for each hit you did to maintain the shield to breaking point (so the duration doesnt drop). If you're not dpsing the adds this method should be fine. Only problem I foresee is the stacking debuff from one of the adds and unaccounted-for magic damage interfering, though it should be accurate enough to give a qualitative result.

If that fails just use the invincible mobs in Blasted Lands. They hit regular enough that at least 1 damage goes to shield every hit. You have to take a physical dps along with you though to test the shield size.

The shield is still broke today, but slightly different. It still doesn't stack and doesn't refresh the timer. It resets the shield, but since the timer remains from the first shield.

I know in the previous build it did stack, so they must be tweaking it. I posted on the PTR forums, but who knows how many pages its dropped now. Hopefully its acknowledged soon in patch notes or a hotfix to the servers. I'll probably jump on a few times over the weekend and /bug it.

Once the stacking is fixed, I don't even need a big hitting mob to get a huge shield on the initial swing. Smaller shields stacking over 33% will be just as good as one large hit putting us at or over 33%. And it requires fewer people and less risk. But to be safe, I'll try to jump in a raid if one happens after its fixed.

So if I understand this correctly, you were Deathstriking while at full health? Perhaps your damage/healing meter was not separating "overheals" while the blood shield simply wont stack if there is no health deficit and won't take the overheals into consideration?

I was wondering how everyone else's DPS is doing as a blood tank. I cannot tell if keeping my diseases up makes a difference but I believe it does. I only see between 4-6k though on bosses with expertise cap and near hit yellow cap. I only ask cause I see paladins around 8-9k and warrior from 10-12k. While DK's are useful for their number of cooldowns and high avoidance it seems like the difference in some Cata fights can literally be that 4-6k DPS extra.

We definitly are behind the other tanks regarding the DPS. I assume the increased values on HS and DS in 4.0.6 will help filling the gap.

And yes, having diseases up make a noticeable (but not huge ^^) difference. This also will be kind of fixed in 4.0.6 as you will need Blood Plague applied to cause Scarlet Fever. So basically, both of your diseases will be up 100% of the time, as it doesn't make much sens to only apply BP even if there is a DK DPSing the boss / add you tank. (Even if you can, to save half a DS while waiting a RE proc on a frost rune or by using Blood tap)

Not really true. If another DK is bringing FF, there is no reason whatsoever for you to apply it yourself. Throwing away a DS to get a negligible and meaningless threat/dps bonus is a poor choice no matter how you look at it. It's probably not even going to be optimal to maintain 100% uptime on both Diseases anyway, given the massive damage burst from dropping the DS.

Your paladin is doing something wrong. I've tried to pull off a paladin without vengeance and it was marginally possible if I started with a full RP bar and dumped it all with DRW open. Rune strike may have a high enough threat modifier that our threat isn't significantly sub-standard but our DPS absolutely is. It is not related to you using some GCDs up, it's simply a case of abilities not hitting hard enough.

I was interested how people keep blade barrier up with such low hit/exp? I try to be hit capped, near 20exp and still sometimes struggle to refresh it in time.

What I was saying had nothing to do with "worrying about diseases to gain some DPS", it was about the fact that as BP will be mandatory (to apply the -10% phys. dmg.), we'll see a slight increase of DPS.

About providing FF, I assume that you may be right as it's not worth sacrifying a frost rune free in case of a RE proc on an UH rune (or just using blood tap).

As described on the first page under Priority I try to always have one Blood Rune on cooldown so Blade Barrier keeps rolling. I look at the time it takes to have my second Blood Rune refresh:
- more than one GCD: try to HS (if no DS is possible)
- less than one GCD: Blood Boil
- less than one GCD and GCD on Cooldown: Rune Tap

This also has the added benefit that Rune Strike will always refresh a F/U rune, increasing the number of DS/minute.

EDIT:
It still happens quite often that I'm getting thrown out of this "rotation" by mistake or choice. In that case I use Blood Tap to activate one of the blood runes to be able to refresh F/U runes with RE again.