http://media.mmo-champion.com/images...tober/ct14.jpg

Wow... any thoughts on this new RE/RC debate? I can't imagine why anyone would take Blood Tap over the other two. Does RC look potent enough to overtake RE?

Fair enough. I just thought it interesting that they would make a CHOICE on the core of how the Frost rotation works.

To be fair, it's likely easy to theorycraft between:

- 1 depleted rune refreshes every 3 FS (guaranteed) via new blood tap
- 1.35 depleted runes refresh every 3 FS (average) via runic empowerment
- the 100% additional rune regen rate provided by runic corruption if one uses FS every 3 seconds minimum to ensure 100% uptime

In most scenarios we'd pick the latter as frost is a very RNG plagued spec and RC solves the "rune casino" we currently play around. I'm sure blood tap will get buffed as it's vastly inferior for DPS purposes even as a passive.

On the RE/RC/BT debate (which shouldnt even happen yet, its beta, numbers change).

Its not even a competition.

BT still has a 1min cooldown. So one free rune every minute.
RE like on live. RNG machine. 45% chance on fully depleted.
RC on the other hand is AMAZING and extremely overpowered compared to the other two. 100% chance instead of 45% on live AND it works for frost, (which already generates more RP thanks to CotG on live, could be scrapped from MoP obviously).

I really like the new model though, like being able to get AMZ for all specs if needed.

Incorrect, rh8452, with that talent, you will be able to stack up to three "blood charges." Once at three charges, you're able to activate a blood rune into an instant death rune. This death rune activation will have a one minute cooldown.

I'm fairly certain (like 100% certain), that he knows how to read and what Blizzard put on the screen in terms of 1 min c/d. The reason he's saying it's obviously going to be a passive ability (i.e. once you get 3 charges, you can activate it - no c/d), is because if it WERE to be a 1 min c/d, it would be so vastly inferior to the other 2 choices that it wouldn't even be an option. Therefore, the only way to make it even remotely close is by making it a no c/d (passive) ability.

Exactly. This is a case where you have to read in-between the lines. All talent tiers have abilities that are similar in power and use. Tier 5 for DKs are all rune regeneration effects meant to fill the role RE/RC currently do. RE and RC are there are mostly the same as they are now, with Blood Tap being the new skill. Take into account that RE and RC have no CDs, add some dynamic elements to our resource generation, and have similar values as talents, and you can see that Blood Tap is nothing like them if you take it at face value, no one would EVER take it. However, remove the cooldown and assume that it automatically activates once you get three charges, and you have what equates to RE with a reliable activation rate instead of a random chance to occur.

We have no way of knowing for sure, but it's a pretty logical conclusion.

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Seems like the talents you would always pick up as a DPS are:

15Outbreak (Roiling Blood is basically pestilence that does a bit more damage? And I can't see CE being useful)

30AMZ - raidwall > personal CD

45Chilblains - this is a PvP tree so there's nothing too gamebreaking here

60VB or Death Siphon depending on the fight - if there is ranged downtime then Death Siphon could be pretty useful. VB on a Patchwerk fight.

75 Runic Corruption > other two talents? It's the least RNG mechanic compared to RE, and BT seems pretty lackluster for a DPS because you'd run into huge periods of downtime. Please tell me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure RC > RE. With 2H frost (assuming that still exists in MoP) you could pretty much have 100% uptime on RC due to the absurd amounts of RP you generate.

90 Remorseless Winter does more damage than Desecrated Ground. If there's some add fight where stunning them messes things up you could take DG.


As a tank you'd probably pick up stuff like this, except you'd take Gorefiend's Grasp. Wonder how they will balance tanking if they make you choose between LB/AMZ/BS.

CE has some use in scenarios like Lady Deathwhisper, Valithria, and Gunship.

AMZ and Boneshield are much better than Lichborne (especially when you have the choice of taking Desecrated Ground later in the tree).

Chilblains is probably a good standby for Frost, but snares often have as limited use in raid encounters as stuns do. Asphyxiate will be valuable on trash and certain add fights for sure. Imagine being able to channel the stun on a Son during the second transition on H Ragnaros.

RC is going to be the best bet in PvE content in pretty much all situations. Blood Tap is interesting in that they attempted to make a version of RE that was more predictable and versatile, but the low amount of procs it gets as a tradeoff probably won't make it worth it (especially when RC is leagues better than RE anyway).

Tier six is extremely subjective, which is probably the best thing about it. There's something here for just about any situation, bar Patchwerk. I wouldn't judge any of these talents based on damage yet so I judge based on utility. Gorefiend's Grasp has amazing potential for assisting tanks and gathering adds for AoE. Once again, think of Sons phase on Rag. Remorseless Winter has similar utility, but not all adds are able to be stunned or slowed. It would provide some good kiting assistance and good CC for whichever you need. A great tool for Blood tanks to finally obtain a method of group mob control. Desecrated Ground, as mentioned earlier, will be great for any fight involving CC against the raid. Drop it down whenever you can expect CC to go out and continue with business as usual.

We received one of the most impressive final tiers, and our tree overall feels great. The only exception is t5 since RE is such a terrible mechanic.

As a tank I wouldn't consider anything but Runic Corruption. BT risks not giving you a DS and RE only gives you half a DE if you juggle it correctly. Tanks don't have nearly as much turnover rate of runic power as either FR or UH and as such the 100% reliability and the fact that it cleanly gives you both U and F runes makes it vastly superior. Provided they don't do something funky and leave DS being our mitigation tool and costing UF, there's never a scenario when you wouldn't prefer Corruption. It's like straight-up raw haste.

Frost works with rune pairs but has the uniqueness that the DD runes fill-in the gaps. Successive RE procs can't -not- give you an OB, as it's impossible to proc any two runes and not be able to obliterate with them. Frost has an incredibly high rate of burn of runic power and the RE procs are not an issue. Blood on the other hand doesn't get nearly as many RE procs over time and has to set everything up specifically to take advantage of them, which is annoying at the best of times as. Corruption on the other hand is smooth and non-intrusive.