Concerning tanking, considering the mandatory base talent points 5/5/7 (BB, Thoughness, Dodge, Epidemic), I'm wondering how blood tanking can be as effective than Frost/Unholy.

Both Frost and Unholy have really potent mitigation/aviodance tools (only speaking of physical defence):

Lichborn (that is not a Frost only ability because it's a 11 point talent but let's consider it as Frost)
Frigid Dreadplate
Unbreakable Armor
GoG improving Icebound Fortitude's duration by 50%

Bone Shield

On the other hand while I can discern what should be Blood talents for mitigation/avoidance, I have difficulties to evaluate them.

Mark of Blood a 3 min CD for a 30s duration that "lowers" each attack by 4% of max health. It is not totally true because a lethal strike won't let you gain the life back. Is it working for all kind of damages ? Is an AoE damage ability affected once per target damaged ? When do you use it ? (a 3min CD is not a no brainer as Bone Shield or Icebound Fortitude)

Vampiric Blood 1min CD for a 20s duration. Here is the counterpart of Bone Shield. Where Bone Shield is flat damage reduction, we have here a more Blood tasty mechanism. No avoidance/mitigation improvement but increase of healing. Considering the Blood Tank as Blood Aura, does it means that the 2% of damage into heal becomes a 3% damage into heal for 20s ? Or is this ability existing only for getting huge Death Strike healing amounts ?

Bloodworms is not a PvE ability, is it ?

Finally the only true mitigation talent, Will of Necropolis. 30% armor increase (before Frost/Toughness calculation ?) when at 35% life or less. I've already tanked and offtanked several bosses in Naxx10 and I have the feeling that going below 35% percent is something you really want to not happen, because most of the time it means that next strike can be lethal except if you use an additionnal CD. Is this ability a big improvement in the mitigation/avoidance of the Blood tank ?

Finally is it worth going Blood Tanking instead of Frost or Unholy (I enjoy both other branches of tanking) ?

Regards,

Désespoir, aka Gorefiend on Coldarra-EU Beta

Earlier in this thread there were reports that the target aquisition for the Blood Worms was indiscriminate and long-ranged, so they'd run into new packs of mobs and get you into trouble.

A guildie in beta told me today that he's only ever had that happen once, so it might not be quite so bad. Still, I would think that it's definitely not an instance/dungeon ability.

Does anyone know what this would do:

I have 2 RAF accounts. What if I create 2 DKS, and play one UNGROUPED, and before turning in a quest, group my second one, turn in quest and ungroup again.

Would this give triple xp per turnin? And how would it affect the above post?

Unholy Aura should be worth it for raids, it might not seem like it but 15% movement is huge on movement fights like Felmyst and Kiljaeden for example.
And just the amount of time you save on corpse runs or running to mobs will save you a bunch in the long run. Although a hunter should address this as well, I still have a huge dislike for 4 Horseman since making a ton of corpse runs back in the day when World First and Second for 4 Horseman where still to be had.

Runspeed Enchants on Boots only give 8% that's what I thought anyway so they are no alternative really, also you would lose a possible DPS increasing Enchant.

Feral druid tanks and warrior tanks both have an AP reduction (Demo shout / Demo roar). At 60 the feral version was better. At 70 the warrior version was better. At 80 they're supposed to be equivalent.

The main difference is that if a feral druid isn't tanking they can't apply demo roar (cat form doesn't have the option) but a non-tanking warrior can apply demo shout, as well as sunder armor (one of the two major armor reduction options). It hurts their DPS since they're spending rage to debuff rather than to attack, but it's possible to have a sundered AP-debuffed mob without a warrior or druid tank.

True, but in virtually all fights the MELEE are within those 45 yds. Let's do some napkin math, shall we? In a 25-man, let's assume we have 7 melee DPS. Now lets assume we are on a fight like KT, with approximately 10% running time with no run speed enchant, and let's also assume a personal sunstained dps of all melee to be 4k. These are all fair numbers from what we have seen on beta, shifted slightly to make the math easier to follow.

Now, without any runspeed enchant, we could expect each individual member to do:

4000 * (1-.1) = 3600 dps, and combined:

3600 * 7 = 25200

Now, if we increase running speed by 15%, we increase the (1-.1) = .9 multiplier to 1-.087 = .913. Re-doing this:

4000 * .913 = 3652 dps, and combined:
3652 * 7 = 25564

Or a net raid dps increase on this fight of 364. This is also just purely the DPS benefit from a running fight. This doesn't factor in the ability to hit your WHOLE raid with a 15% boost on fights like Heigan to make it easier (while it's not needed to have this speed boost on heigen, it certainly helps, especially with the achievement where no one can die t his bursts). Also, you will most likely be near to the tanks at all times, and allowing the tanks to grab targets more easily is extremely helpful.

If you are going to skimp points from unholy aura, you are hurting the raid more than if you were to take those points from impurity or necrosis, for example.

Actually, from my discussions with a few fury warriors they could easily apply demo should without interrupting the dps of their rotations. Sunder is a different story, of course. They also could all be wrong, but I tend to trust them as they are avid readers of EJ.

I like it. I currently use Runehero with a little of my own code. Yours looks a little more subtle.

If I could turn off the background on yours and get a flash option instead of just full opacity when the rune recharges I'd download it. Are you considering anything like a runic power bar or activated ability tracking like sudden doom?

Just watched the video again. What's up with the funny bar order? Looks like F-U-F-U-B-B ? Is that to group your blood and Death runes together? If so I hope you have some configuration options for non-blood DKs.

Missing my runes is why I switched to Runehero from Runemaster. I love the little didn't quite make it bounce that Runehero uses when you miss.

I don't blame you on the procs thing I prefer that information appear somewhere else anyway.

For Disease tracking I've been very happy with Classtimer I keep a little stack of timer bars right above my Runehero sword. As long as its 3 icons high I'm good to go.


The thing I like the best about your design vs Runehero has got to be the opacity changes. Runehero is a little overwhelming and I've been looking at reducing the opacity lately, especially when OOC.

As frost view, what you guys think about drop Obliterate and use Death strike instead ?

Heal will make threat and if you had runic power mastery ( Max RP +30 ) and death strike glyph ( +2% damage and +2% heal by 5 RP store ), you will make 52% more damage and also 52% more heal from this strike.

Damage out from Death Strike will be still less than Obliterate but in term of threat i really think Death Strike will be higher, the synergie is really interesting.

On a non-ui related note; as deep unholy why am I taking Scourge Strike again? I'm looking at Thott and Wowhead today and can't figure out why I should be using Scourge Strike over Obliterate. Is it purely for the shadow damage? With 13 points in Frost and 3 diseases Obliterate should be badly out damaging Scourge Strike. Yet when I occasionally lace an Oblit into my rotation out of boredom it doesn't seem to hit as hard. Even with recount and target dummies I can't get Obliterate to reliably do more damage than Scourge Strike. When is my Math going out the window?

1000 ave weapon damage.

Obliterate:
1000 + 292 + 146 + 146 + 146 = 1730

Scourge Strike:
600 + 190.5 + 95.25 + 95.25 + 95.25 = 1076.25

It doesn't even seem close. Is there really just 40% mitigation on the dummies?

SS gets +13% from ebon plaguebringer, and has +6% crit & 30% crit damage. Additionally obliterate removes your diseases unless you spec 13+ frost, and the frost subspec isn't anywhere near as good as the blood subspec.