Ahh, so UB is affected by Crypt Fever still, even though it's no longer a disease. Didn't know that, and it's a bit counter-intuitive, but still, I'll take your word for it.

Regardless, this is all moot on many bosses since you're using nearly all your RP on Rune Strikes unless you've got a Tankadin giving you BoSanc. I don't, and me throwing a Death Coil is quite rare (except, say, after kiting Anub, or while running to an Ice Block on Sapph).

That said, when it becomes 40RP, it should do better damage per RP than even Rune Strike, so it should be a relative no-brainer then. Until that point, though, it's not such a given.

One of the most interesting things to me among the changes is the removal of the Pestilence cooldown. This is huge, for two reasons.

First, it helps with the "constant stream of adds" multi-mob tanking scenario that's been mentioned so much in the last few pages.

Second, is it's impact on a phenomenon I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread, but which I've observed multiple times now: Pestilence does not spread the current "state" of diseases, it spreads the initial disease. I'm not sure I'm being clear there, so let me try to be.

Pestilence applies the diseases with their full duration. This means that with Epidemic, in a multi-mob tanking situation, I never have to reapply PS/IT. I simply make sure I hit Pestilence every time it's up, and the diseases are refreshed on every target except the current one. If you tab regularly, then you'll keep it up on even more. Now, the removal of the cooldown makes this even easier to do, and actually makes it possible to do with a non-Epidemic build (say a Blood/Frost spec, possibly?)

It's not the damage/RP that I'm concerned with (at least not entirely) to merit the inclusion of UB in a tank build. It's the fact that I have a newly aggroed pack that saw my priest land a big heal. DnD's on cooldown. Even considering no CD on pestilence, you'll need to burn gcds stacking disease and pest that might not even pull enough. Having an RP dump AOE is monstrous. Compare your tools at this point: Deathcoil vs. UB.

If you're in a situation where you're getting hit quickly and often, and RS is up every time, I still personally have enough RP for a DC at least every full rotation (~20s). This gives nearly full uptime on UB (with the reduced cost). If you're getting hit by Saph or Maly, you'll have moar than enough RP for full UB uptime.

The only way I see RP starvation being so poor that you never have it up would be if you were DW tanking or tanking with a 2.5 speed weapon. I can't unfortunately follow up on that as your profile still links to your old pally alt.

Hmm, why is that crypt fever multiplier, 60%? I know it was 60% sometime in the beta, but it's 30% now right?

Whoops, you're right, sorry. I'll go back and edit the numbers, though the conclusion is the same.

I also always max out Morbidity to handle steady streams of adds and chain pulling better. Additionally, Howling Blast coupled with Pestilence/Blood Boil contribute greatly to my AoE threat.

I think ur build sucks. i dont see why getting the stats a little boosted is better then skilling talents like bone armor, frigid dreadplate or unbrk. armor

Also the build lacks of good dmg boosting talents like froststrike, scourge strike or heart strike. Ur Idea of making most damage from Obliterate may be interessing, but why u spend 2 points in blood aura instead of subversion.

Some of the points could definitely be moved around, I'm talking strictly from a concept standpoint (next patch obviously, not currently). The buffs to str/ap would apply to the abilities which do not benefit from impurity (which get a straight ap to sp conversion, instead of being based on weapon dmg which is buffed by the str/ap bonuses in this build) along with all of the other spells using pure coefficients; so I'm not exactly sure how threat would stack up (the new obliterate glyph would be an obvious choice). It definitely requires thinking outside the box, I certainly don't maintain that this may be better than current builds it does seem interesting from an effective health standpoint (though pure mitigation/avoidance may do better for certain fights).

You put lots of points into blood, but don't take vampiric blood.
You put some points in frost, but don't have any in frigid dreadplate or UA.
You put points into unholy but not far enough to take anything in magic suppression or bone shield.
You have no talent that converts regular runes to death runes.

By attempting to spec so far into each, you've neutered yourself and totally watered down your builds. Sure, you could conceivably tank with that build, but it is far far far from optimal. You trade off too much tanking utility for a few stat increases. Grated, I do think spell deflection is a great talent that gives blood tanks a unique edge in tanking that very few people have discussed in this thread, but I'm not sure if those stat increases outweigh what you potentially gain from the short cooldown oh shit buttons you don't end up getting.

I don't disagree with your other points, but the more I look at deflection, the more I question its usefulness. The number of fights that it would actually be useful on are too few to justify three points that could be better spent elsewhere. The poison bolts on Faerlina, shadow bolts on Gothik, the frostbolts on Kel'Thuzad and I suppose the arcane shocks from the adds on Malygos. So four fights out of the entire game, and fairly minor parts of the fight, except perhaps KT. I just can't see a justification for spending the points into Spell Deflection over, say, Subversion, Imp Rune Tap, Morbidity, or any of the other three-point talents that you would have to skip for it. That being said, it's possible that there will be a fight at some point that will make it invaluable. I simply have yet to see one where it is worth what you would have to give up.

I tried a build similar to this:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I specced this to tank a 2/3 drake Sartharion, in order to get as much health and magic reduction as possible, because holding threat on Sarth isn't a problem when you're the only one hitting him.

Now here's the problem with this. You don't have the 41 point strike, and your main attack is Blood Strike. I took Death Rune Mastery for this (there was nowhere else to put the points).

You have jack all for single target threat. Death and Decay spamming just won't keep up with furious dps if you're tanking a one mob add, although a good head start could be fine.

It looked good on paper (at least it did to me), but it was too much trouble to play it.

I tried thinking outside the box and this is what I came up with, although I'm just going to stay 13/51/7 frost pretty much forever (until the patch).

With the new patch changes in mind, I tried to make a blood tanking spec and came up with something like this:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The problems I'm having are not having points to spend in Blood Gorged. So long as healers can keep you over 75% health (I imagine they would be trying pretty hard to do this), it's a TPS increase, so I'd really love to get it.

I could shift some things around and create a 52/11/8 build, but that defaults me to a rotation where I have to apply diseases again after every time I use Oblit, and also shortens to time on diseases. These are both things I'm really not fond of. An alternative to short diseases is taking points out of Morbidity and putting those into Epidemic and then filling in the last WotN point. The only advantage to this is AoE threat, however. Turns out, that's exactly what I sacrificed to get Epidemic (lower cooldown on D&D).

I'm not sure if DRW is of any use TPS-wise, either. Does the Weapon's threat get transferred to the DK?

I suppose I could always go for something like this:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I'm not sure if the loss of a 15 second D&D and two points out of WotN is going to be a good thing, though.

tldr: Making a blood tanking spec is tricky.


In hindsight, I'm not sure why I have Hysteria in any of these builds instead of putting the point into 2h weapon spec. I blame global warming. Though, perhaps I could use Hysteria for threat while Vampiric Blood is up. I wonder if that'll be noticable to healers, or deadly to myself on a boss fight.

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but we get a new "tanking" sigil finally.

Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight;
Chance to proc +53 defense rating on Icy Touch usage.

Unknown length of time, though I thought I heard someone say 30 seconds.

Unfaltering Knight might as well say "equip: +53 defense rating". It's a 100% proc chance for a 30 second buff with no internal cooldown.

my blood build

i agree with what your saying on forceful deflection and am looking and getting rid of DRW that would free up 4 points problem is i would need 5 points to get to SoD drop a point in BA maybe, then again if your MTing Kel forceful deflection would be huge cause you get that to proc and WotN so hmmm

also am not seeing Lichborne worth it yeah 25% chance to miss on a CD but i would have to sacrifice points in Unholy to reach it and i can't justify taking point outta anything but CE,FD,and DRW 5 point and i would need 6 to get there hmm

Edit: only 2 things i can think off would be this
SoD

Lichborne

and btw how is Corpse Explosion is it worth i know it got buff in the next patch

Here is what I'm looking at post-patch. I'll have to jump on test and play around with it a bit to see how it works.

Like you, I don't think it's possible to build a decent Blood tanking spec and still pick up Lichborne. It's simply too many points in Frost. The main differences between mine and yours are I skipped Bloodworms because I feel the health won't be worth the point investment, and their survivability on any fight with AE's is questionable. Likewise, I don't feel that epidemic is necessary in this build. We won't be using Obliterate because the build lacks Annihilation, so there isn't much else to use the runes for except refreshing diseases. I suppose you could Death Strike.

Subversion, Sudden Doom, and Might of Mograine are essential TPS talents, in my opinion, and cannot afford to be left out. That is 9% crit to BS/HS, 45% crit damage bonus to BB/BS/HS/DS, and rp-free DCs that are guaranteed crits. All three of those are huge for single-target TPS, which is something DK's struggle with in my opinion.

Those are my initial impressions. I'll try and test it this evening if I have the chance so I can give more than just suppositions.

The lack of Epidemic might be a problem, I agree. If it gives me too much trouble I can drop two points from Sudden Doom and pick it up. The reason I favor Sudden Doom is that I run without a prot Pally, so I find myself rp starved with RS macro'd to all of my attacks. Resource-free threat would be a god-send.

i have HS on 1 Runic on 2 and Deathstrike on 3

usually unless i need to blow a cooldown i could wave my index middle and ring finger over those 3 buttons

HS,RS,DS,PS,IT

that by 1-5 i usually don't macro attack cause i like to have control of my abilitys on attacks i really marco was for shock weaving on my enhancement shaman pre-wrath even then i have storm strik on 1 shock marco on 2 and fire lash on 3 and i just click when ever else i needed

i also don't run with a prot paly but i never really have RP problems mainly cause i try to save Runic power on Aoe pulls for DC's to pick up stragglers cause i fine i don't need the extra threat on them

With the upcoming changes I've been playing with the talent trees for a couple of days now. I've been frost the entire time and I swear by my current frost build of 10/51/13. However, to sate my own curiosity I've been playing with the blood tree to see if there is something viable (on paper anyway) that could do an adequate job on a comparable scale to frost and unholy.

Not sure if its comparable, but it looks good on paper anyway: 48/13/10

Blood has always kinda struck me as a reactive build. Frost and Unholy are very much proactive builds in that we pop one cooldown after another to slow that incoming damage. This is what currently makes blood a bad choice for tanking, as they don't have that same ability unless they spec crazy and lose too much by reaching too far. However, with the current changes down the pipe, its clear that Blizzard wants to slow that incoming damage across all trees by the one change in Frost Presence.

So, about the build.

Things I like:
- I like the synergy it has with the various talents that buff Obliterate. It is after all our hardest hiting single strike, so keeping threat while STT should not be problematic.
- The only "proactive" spell it has is Mark of Blood. Which doesn't completely leave you out in the cold when that Oh Shit moment happens.
- With the extra health from veteran, this reminds me of 'lock builds that just have a massive amount of stam to run with. I really thing as long as your def capped you should gem for stam. Every little bit will help you soak those strikes which makes me really think this is a true "bear in plate"
- There are alot of stat buffs in this build. Several of which are extremely useful, like the one from Abomination's Might which will not only increase dps/tps, but parry as well. 2% may not be alot, but anything is better then nothing.
- I really like Will of the Necropolis. Not for the shorter cooldown, but for the armor increase. Granted, it seems it only works when your actually below 35% but that just makes you harder to kill at the very end, especially with the buff to Frost Presence.

Things I don't like/points I would be okay with moving:
- Is the loss of several key "clicky" abilities really going to hurt this build?
- I put three points into Spell Deflection just cause it helps reduce that incoming damage, but I would be okay with moving those three to Subversion to help Obliterate.
- With the changes to Pestilence (thank god!) I would be okay with losing the two points of Epidemic to put those elsewhere. Like one point into Lichborne. Or something else. My problem with that is Pestilence takes blood runes, and I think they are spoken for between BS, HS, or DnD/Bloodboil.
- Hysteria. I get I can cast it on one of my DPS guys, but I feel its a wasted point in a tank build. But I needed a point somewhere.... so.....
- Actually, now that I'm thinking about how much I hate Hysteria, I could drop that and the 2 points in Epidemic for 3 points into Death Rune Mastery. That would give me a bit more freedom to tank and adjust to changing conditions. Not to mention blow off DnD when I really need it. Ah, the wonders of the wildcard.

So actually, taking some of those changes in mind... 50/13/8

Testing would have to be done, of course. But I think (on paper anyway) this is at least doable. What do you think?

Couple of things about the new PTR Blood that really caught my eye.
1) Glyph of Vampiric Blood now gives extra 10s to Vampiric Blood.
So a true 50% up time for a spec specific cooldown. This seems very strong.
2) Increased stamina pools for Blood combined with a very functional Will of the Necropolis.
As we increase our hp values with Vampiric Blood and VotW 35% of our hp is much more hp then people think. Consider a 32k hp raid buffed tank 35% is 11,200. A Vampiric Blood'd tank will have roughly 40k hp or 14,000 hp floor when Will of the Necropolis kicks in and begins providing 15% mitigation. In comparison as a Unholy/Frost 32k hp tank, imagine 15% less damage taken whenever your hp drops below 43%. The EH being provided in a blood spec is miles above frost/unholy. Also consider all this extra stamina works on magical dmg.
3) HP control.
Lets face it that most of the time we know when we are going to get close to dying. We take a hit and maybe a second and then get a small chunk of healing back up to the 50-60% mark. Then you get about 2s of a showdown at the ok corral stand off with the boss. You can even see a tumble weed roll by. Your hp is 'floating' and then the boss knocks your block off. Maybe you don't die or maybe you do but taking a float is something I want to be able to handle. 20% more hp on demand in a Blood Rune drenched spec with the option for massive self healing is important to me.

The past few builds are run of the mill VotW/unholy specs or attempts to build a true blood tanking build.

Some things to remember with a Blood spec.
1) Increased crit rate makes Bloody Vengance replace your 45-50pt agro talent. VotW replaces your need for expertise.
2) Flexiblity is king. You need to be able to put death runes in the pipe. Any spec without Annhillation and Epidemic reduces your ability to be flexible and get yourself out of a jam.
3) Remember that on live our standard Unholy builds have a 60% physical damage mix. Runestrike/Normal Hit/Special Strike. Blood is even more physically focused. Spec accordingly.

With these things in mind I would likely go with 48/14/9

Everything is negotiable and I have skipped on Spell Deflection and pulled 1 point from Anticipation for Mark of Blood. I would strongly encourage tanking specs to skip on Blood Gorge and DRW. They just don't make sense over keeping your flexibility.

you can always drop annhillation and use Deathstrikes also Blood gorge had me ont eh fence for a longtime but whenever your over 75% which for me is alot of the time am doing 10% more damage which is more threat is how i look at it again MoM just seem like a waste with how low are crit is in tank gear made even bloody too

I had been toying with blood builds for next patch and thought of a different approach. The example im gonna post is more of an utility type for heroics.

The basic idea is "Asuming this generates enough threat, just put 31 points into blood".

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=092015010506

This one gets the bare essentials for tanking, some points can be moved but thats the general idea. Can swap glyph of rune strike for the obliterate one too.

Some major facelift would be needed for raids but keeping the idea of just 31 points into blood might produce some interesting talent setups.