New enchant won't beat SS rune because the wording on the enchant seems to imply that the buff stack will reset on next parry.

This means that it's unlikely it will stack very high and will actually provide less and less benefit as gear levels increase.

Also the 200 rating it adds is on DR.. another reason why it gets worse as gear increases.

It does affect all incoming damage, but it will be slightly weaker even for magic damage.

3.1 Frost presence knocks 10% off, and new Blade Barrier knocks 5% off. However, they are multiplicative, not additive, so...
Current (live today): 85% magic damage taken in frost presence
New: .9 (frost presence) * .95 (blade barrier) = .855 or 85.5% magic damage taken (so a slight magic damage increase of half a percent).

Someone above just did some math to show that it is a clear nerf for physical damage (I'd hope that would be obvious), so the overall combination of Blade Barrier + Frost Presence will be weaker in 3.1 than it is now.

At this point, I do not think Blade Barrier is powerful enough to justify the requirement it currently has to only be a 10 second buff when both blood runes are on CD. I would change it to be a pure passive 5% damage reduction talent, the buff/rune requirements are unnecessary. I recall from early beta when Blade Barrier required ALL your runes to be spent, I find it funny that it has changed so much that I'm suggesting we just call it a flat 5% damage reduction and be done with it.

The new Blade Barrier also still will never be active before the fight begins, so you are still at risk on the pull. Badly timed stun/incapacitate effects can still interrupt its uptime and leave you with a need to burn 2 sub-optimal GCD's to get it back up. At least with the decrease in effectiveness, I won't panic if it drops.

Deimoz,

Going through your Frost Tanking Spec I thought you missed quite a few things out that I would prefer to take as a Frost based tank come 3.1.

Honestly I am not that sure that Two-Handed Weapon Specialization is that good specially with some of the changes coming in 3.1 there are other talents which we would be better picking up.

Secondly Lichborne is not worth the point now it's a total waste as it only makes you immune to Sleep, Charm, and Fear mechanics and at this stage of the game there is no Boss Encounter or Trash that will actually Sleep or Charm a MT or OT provided they have agro. Also there are not very many bosses that fear and those that do can be countered with Tremor Totems, Fear Wards etc so it's a useless PvE talent and more of a PvP based Talent now.

With the changes to Blessing of Sanc in 3.1 (it only gives Mana now) I would suggest that all Tank Spec's seriously consider picking up 3 points in Scent of Blood for extra Runic power generation whilst tanking it's effectively a mini personal version of Blessing of Sanc

The build I would prefer to consider for 3.1 would be:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...4&version=9658

You could sub the 2 points in Subversion to Two Handed Weapon Specialization for those that prefer it. But I think the DPS from Subversion would be a better boost overall to TPS.

I don't really understand the Blood specs I'm seeing that skip Will of the Necropolis. Seems absolutely silly to go so deep into Blood and skip a relatively important tank talent. Yes it is nerfed compared to now (a mini-GS was way too overpowered) but in fights like 3D-Sarth (which we all seem to believe is indicative of what is too come) it is still extraordinarily useful for those big hits.

There's also the fact that you're skipping it (and thus mitigation) for TPS, something Blood has never had trouble with and will actually be having an easier time of come 3.1.

I'd argue the new Blood spec would be something like this. Between Morbidity and the new Blood Boil you should have no problem holding aoe aggro and you still have what is arguably the best single target tps.

There's still a few kinks to work out with the above spec. I'm not sold on Scent of Blood over Subversion and there's clearly some testing to be done to figure out exactly how to spec on the unholy side, but I'd certainly hazard to say it's going to do a better job of keeping you alive come Ulduar. Remember when advancing through content health and survival are going to be a bit better then a little oomph to TPS. Seems quite a few of the people in this thread forget that. :/

Why would you say that and then go into Blood Gorged (which is now ONLY a TPS talent - you don't even get expertise from it)?

My reasons for skipping WotN at the moment is because I am waiting for the math to be done to see if we are going to see a S3D hit in Uldar - and if WotN will be a saving talent. My current concerns are around holding groups to me - because Pest then BB will take another full CD from our current Pest (which hits decently hard without the extra CD).

Oddly enough - I could very easily see double specc'ing tank specs - one for trash and groups - and one for single target (TPS/EH). The days of working out the best compromised spec to give you all around abilities may be done at the moment - replaced by dual tank specs for the occasion at hand.

@Lanlaorn - it was reported earlier (I believe in this thread) that Scent of Blood was putting out a lot of RP (griefknight maybe?). I am not sold yet either on it - and am waiting to see how it does in my testing. Subversion's usefulness has been lowered a bit - as it is only working on HS now - (Oblit will be dropped as a disease eater on blood specs (now that lichborne is gutted - there is little reason to head 13/14 deep in frost)).

One thing I'm curious about, and haven't been able to get onto the PTR to test it:

The new version of the Icebound Fortitude glyph bumps the damage reduction up to at least 30% regardless of defense. Does that negate the unglyphed version's bonus defense scaling or does it just mean that the base percentage is going up and will still scale with your defense? If the latter is the case (which I hope it is), what would the resulting percent be with 540 defense? The wording is a tad too tricky for me to fully understand at 2am. Any insight would be fantastic.

Hi,

Not a great experience of blood tanking but i use to believe that as blood we were higly dependant of armor debuff like sunder or expose.
Isn't 3.1 BG now a mandatory talent giving a blood tank the possibility of self-assume it's build/tps ?

(And -very- eventually having 10% more dps when topped off but this is very rng)

Actually, it's been pretty definitively proven that 2H Spec easily beats Subversion point for point for all specs except DW (obviously). It's somewhere in the main DPS thread. A search should find it if you need proof.

A tank at 540 defense sees approximately a 41% reduction in damage using IBF. Since the wording on the glyph indicates 30% regardless, its taking the 20% to 30% and that's it. Now, if the wording was changed to "Increases the damage reduction of your IBF by 10%" then it would be a buff to tanks. Unfortunately this is ultimately a nerf, taking a perfectly good glyph for tanking and turning it into pure PVP fodder, just as they did to Lichborne (talent).

Personally I wish they'd just keep the glyph as is. Free IBF was far easier to plan around when RS'ing like mad so one didn't have to save 20 rp back. Especially now with the incoming BoSanc nerf.

Is Improved Death Strike really worth the replacement of Obliterate? It was my understanding that the new talent only affected damage and not health-gained, so I'm not seeing it outdoing the TPS coming from Obliterate. If it was a flat 20% across the board (damage and healing), I could maybe see it outdoing OB unglyphed...