Well, I spend some time making a spreadsheet to work out the rotation and see how I could make it work without blood runes. Since I have no blood runes, I will have less free global cooldowns as I need 2 blood strikes every time for blood runes, instead of 1 obliterate for half of them with death runes. It would be fairly basic though:

Single Target: Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Blood Strike > Blood Strike > Obliterate > Frost Strike (possibly x2 depending on RP) > Obliterate > Start Again

My only worry with this is in losing the extra cooldown, I may end up with extra RP since I have so much RP generation in my build. My hope is with the extra melee haste that rune strikes would make good use of it.

Multi Target: DnD > Howling Blast > Blood Boil > Howling Blast > Blood Boil > Blood Boil

From here, I should have plenty of aggro and I can just work Howling Blast in when it fits or after any Rime procs and keep using Blood Boil to keep my blood runes on CD.

Anybody have any better ideas to go with this build?


I also came up with an alternative if not having Blood of the North just won't work, although I think personally I like the first better. Here I took both points out of Chill of the Grave, 2 points out of Bladed Armor, and 1 point out of Scent of Blood to fill up Blood of the North.

I had a look at the build that Suno made and tried to see if VotW could be worked in there somehow. This is what I came up with...

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9767

You'd lose 15% armor but gain another 6% stam / str and a handful of expertise. Do you think this would be viable?

Can you account for why you would take considerably more damage as Blood than Frost when tanking multiple mobs? Do 3% miss and 2% mitigation for some reason have a more profound effect in multimob situations?

At the risk of sounding like a smartass, and I apologize if I am... You answered your own question. Yes, getting hit 3% more often fo 2% more damage has a more profound effect when you are being attacked by multiple mobs.

Because WoTN is absolute failure in multiple mob situations and does little to nothing whereas 3% more avoidance, a 2% overall damage reduction, and UBA which is amazing for multiple/fast hitting mobs actually does quite a bit. Think!

One of the reasons I stuck with desecration was to cover the loss of 2h weapon spec and wandering plague. In my mind, desecration should even out the lack of 2h weapon spec (5% to all damage vs 4% to only 2h melee), while helping to cover for the loss of periodic aoe damage ticks from WP by boosting BB and D&D damage.

To be honest, though, I'd be using a frost build if I weren't currently the only person who could lay down EP for my guild.

I just think you're exaggerating the difference between the specs outside of UA being up against low-hitting mobs. I find it a little hard to believe that you are taking noticeably more or less damage because of 2% mitigation (and isn't this tacked on after armor is calculated so that it is really more like 2% of 35%? I could be wrong here.) and 3% avoidance.

56/5/10

Update to the build I posted before, someone asked what rotation I used so here it goes.

Open:

IT PS HS HS DS Horn DS HS HS HS HS DC

Rotation much the same:

IT PS HS HS DS DC DS HS HS HS HS DC

Basically I plug a horn into the middle of the Death Strikes to open to give me more runic for DS glyph, and then I plug a horn in later same spot if I need the buff. Generally I don't use horn after the opener because the dps takes care of it for me.

I"m really liking blood, AOE seems to be fine and single target threat is supper.

Did any Unholy noticed the incredible tps gain ? I went with a Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (armory isnt showing all the talents for some reason) and my TPS just went through the roof.
We didnt get pass Razorscale as we kept hitting the enrage but it was fairly obvious to me when myself and another prot pally went for the same sentinel. Snap aggro was always crap but out of nowhere i found myself easily getting over the pally which i simply couldnt do before the patch.

As for AoE threat it was too greatly improved. We went with a 3 groups approach and even with one or 2 not hitting my current target the aggro lead was so great that soon after i just stopped tabbing to check if there were any in danger of overaggroing.

Before Ulduar we tried a quick VoA 10 and went on add duty. Went in first to grab the adds and started my normal AoE rotation. Soon after we wiped on our 1st pull because i had overaggroed on the boss . I dont believe anyone was prepared, myself included ...

As for Scent of Blood, its no BoSanct but its not slouch either. At no time did i felt i had too much or too little, just the right amount to just not worry about it.

BTW, on the trash to the new VoA boss i hit 13.5k tps easily staying at about ~10k.

No idea about the sort of damage i took compared to pre-3.1 as i was still surprised by this.

Have you asked what the other tanks were doing? You might not be generating a bunch more threat as much as the other tank might not be generating enough threat since 3.1.

Your spec looks good and I think it's going to be my alternate spec compared to the Blood one I am using (here. What rotations are you using for single target? IT PS BS BS SS SS SS SS? What's with the DRW glyph as well? I also thought if you were hit capped, the Dark Command glyph is basically useless.

Have you noticed any problems with the new Bone Shield cooldown on multi-mob packs? That extra minute really seems like it would have a major effect if you're dodge isn't approaching 28-30%. My tanking career has always been Unholy spec and I would love to get back to a familiar spec again.

A DND/Pest/UB/BB pull is a lot of threat really fast, especially with the new BB damage increase. That is still a lot of TPS. Do you have a WWS/WMO?

This is the link I clicked on:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It shows:
DRW/Dark Command/IBF major glyphs
Deaths Embrace/HoW/Raise Dead for minors

I'm definitely gonna try this build on Saturday (first day in Ulduar) but I may go on a few Naxx 25 runs with it to test. I am curious about my TPS now against the new blood spec.