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Once you get 2-piece T10, Bear AOE rotation pretty much turns into:

/cast Swipe - Bear
/cast !Maul

Spam that macro and Tab, and you'll win.

Warriors get Thunder Clap + Shockwave for initial aggro. Due to Shockwave's stun effect, it's possible to get in an additional Thunder Clap just before or just after the Shockwave stun fades. Not to mention a glyphed Cleave while the mobs are stunned adds some decent additional threat.

Of all the classes that can tank, Blood Death Knights are the bottom when it comes to AOE snap aggro.

Blood is amazing for raids, yes. For 5-man, where snap AOE aggro is key, it's overkill. I'm in scrub gear, with barely 35k health unbuffed, and my Death Strike returns something like 6k health. Great if I'm running with an under-geared healer, but that rarely happens. Most of the time I'm running with a healer who is bored enough to let me drop 6k health, but not bored enough to let my Death Strike heal it back.

Now, supposedly Blood is king on single target fights as well, though I tend to disagree, given that Blood is largely physical damage and dependent on armor reducing effects to really shine (as per EJ's tanking post as well, ref.: 'weaknesses'). I did a heroic run with a decently geared healer and switched from Frost to Blood halfway through. After the run, I then asked him which part of the heroic was easier to heal, to which he said the first part. The second part I took way too much damage.

Because I didn't have proactive mitigation talents. Blood is all about restoring lost health whereas Frost is all about preventing too much health from being lost. With your average healer doing lots of overhealing, who needs the 6k from the odd Death Strike? It just adds up as overhealing in the end. Maybe not on raid bosses where you're rarely at full health, but then again, we're discussing snap AOE aggro, not single target survivability.



I agree, except for the stuff in parentheses. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one having AOE issues with Blood. Especially since the current rotation is utterly broken in the sense that you run out of runes before you get to use any AOE abilities, except for DnD. Which again leads me to your first comment about being way over or just over the DPS threat level.

I've lost mobs to DPS while tanking in my Frost spec. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes. As Blood, it happens every single pull. It doesn't matter if I start with DnD and Blood Boil for some laughable attempt at snap aggro, or if I DnD and spread diseases. That Warrior, Mage, Warlock, Paladin, Druid, you name it, will pull aggro through that crap without even thinking.

I checked your gear and I see that you've got 2p T10, which increases DnD damage by 20% (similar to the Druid bonus which increases Swipe by 20%). No wonder you have no issues with DnD and Blood Boil alone. It reinforces my belief that I just need better gear, though.



Start learning? I leveled as Blood, tanking every instance from level 60 to 80 as Blood. I've currently got two specs: Blood and Frost. Frost is used for heroics, Blood for raiding. What you're saying is that I should learn to play, because once you have T10 and hOxheart, heroics are a breeze. Well duh. I once took a Frost Death Knight through a heroic with him tanking and me healing. It wasn't until the last boss I checked his gear and saw that he was in his DPS spec, with DPS gear and Frost Presence on.

There comes a point when the gear:skill scale just breaks completely. My Druid has done it, your Death Knight has done it, pretty much anyone with 5500 GS or above has done it.

Everyone below that threshold are still stuck under the massive hard-on people have for GearScore values and the fail of Blood AOE tanking.

So, this is one of those rare moments where I have to admit that I was wrong.

About the AOE tanking at least. While Frost is a lot easier than Blood, Blood isn't all too bad either. So long as the DPS are either mindful of what they're doing or not very over-geared.

Just ran two heroics as Blood and I only lost aggro on a pull twice, once because I forgot Blood Boil and the second time because I accidentally pulled a patrol mid-fight.

I do have Morbidity maxed out (15 second reduction on DnD cooldown) and I do run with the DnD glyph (20% buff to DnD), giving me a 10-second DnD on a 15-second cooldown, meaning it's ready every pull.

Still, it's awkwardly uncomfortable as there's a good 3-4 second gap after DnD > BB > IT > PS where you just stand around while you hope DnD will hold aggro until you can Pestilence and BB again.

Now, about the functionality of Blood, I stand by my earlier comments about Blood being severely overkill in the self-healing done. Most of the time in heroics, healers are bored out of the mind and will rarely let you sit at low health long enough for you to get any use out of Death Strike. On a Gundrak heroic run, I had 66k self-healed and 238k overhealed.

Still, if they've turned DnD into a UF or just Unholy ability, it would open up for a DnD > IT > PS > Pest > BB in the first rotation, making it slightly less awkward. Still would take too long, in my opinion, before the diseased Blood Boil kicks in, but it's a step in the right direction.

Here's hoping Blood Boil is changed via talents or glyphs to apply Blood Plague. That would just be sexy.

Edited, Jul 16th 2010 4:17pm by Mazra

Blood is getting bone armor.

If you hate blood tanking that much then you might start working on your dps skills.

I rerolled from warlock to paladin in BC... then mid-BC I rerolled from paladin to hunter, then LK beta came out. I had so much fun I sword I'd never have a different main again. Sure there are things that are really fun on other characters (I've had a ton of fun on my recently-80 rogue, for example), but I'm gonna try to stick out DK. I actually like the rune changes, I agree that we have become GCD locked and have no room for any "fun" skills in our rotation. If Blizzard does a good job giving us some freedom to do fun things while maintaining decent dps (even if it means I'm not top), I'll be happy with DK.

Some of the tanking choices I do wish were SLIGHTLY different... I disagree when people say that you can't AoE tank with blood, though I do wish blood had BETTER AoE (it's always been more of a single-target tank spec, but I prefer that anyway), but I 100% agreed with Blizzard's choice to make Blood a/the dedicated tree (actually I really liked the old unholy tanking specs with the old UB and the super short cooldowns, but that went away long ago), and I'm pretty excited for the new level 85 ability, I just hope DKs get a chance to use it often in PvE content.

I am going to likely change to a goblin, but overall I'm going to try to have my DK as my main through cata.

I've been tanking as Blood for a while now, and I just don't know threat problems. I'm not using Blood Boil either. It's all Dnd, IT, Pest.. and then HS whenever I get a rune. Nobody is pulling the mob I'm targeting off me. Nobody is pulling the mobs held through AOE off me with AOE damage. If people are dumb enough to focus-fire a mob that I am not actively tanking, its certainly not a problem with the spec, but the people... Blood is fine for tanking.

Dont think AOE tanking will become easier for anyone. What I take from various blue posts is that it is going to lose most of its significance.

Then again, Blizzard did it before... When they started Wrath just about every class got some form of CC, and it just wasn't used. So maybe it's not too far off to be getting AoE-tanking awesomeness but packs of mobs that beat you to shreds once you try to take more than one... They're good at that sort of thing.

The live realms are down because it is maintenance day, so I decided to get on beta. It has been over a week from the last time I logged into the beta servers, and they had an update the other day that I had to download.

In the notes it mentioned the new Talent system (if you don't know, the Talent trees have been cut down to 31 points).
So I wanted to check that out with my DK.
So at level 10 when you get your 1st talent to spend, you also have to pick a Tree.
Here is a pic
And here is a pic of the Trees
You have to stick with this tree until you have put in 31 points -.-

So I skimmed through them and picked what I figured I'd want to use, and this is my Spec.

Also in the updates notes it said something about the Rune System being changed. I made my way over the the dummies..for me to log out to my character screen and then have World Server Down pop up when I try to log in.
I did get 2 hits off, the system seems to be the same "new" system shown in my small video.

All the talents you see (that I picked) all are pretty much the same as they are now w/ 2 "new" ones. Brittle Bones isn't new (well it is, but it isn't in Live), but it was moved down the tree. The other is Pillar of Frost, it ups your STR by 20% for 20sec and does something else (I know, fail Sand on the info). It is pretty much Ice Bound fortitude (?) that we have now (shield icon).
I use it as a "trinket" for the 20%+ STR.

Actually, Sand, I have a request.

I guess you might not have access to it so readily, but...

How does Dark Simalucrum work?

We speculated about it earlier on, but nobody was really sure and no clarification was given. Is it a pure spell reflect? Does it allow you to 'absorb' a spell and then fire it whenever you choose to? Do you still take the damage/effect of the spell launched at you? If so and it's a pure spell reflect, what happens when a mage Polymorphs you when you have DaS up?

Yea I can look into it. But only if DS is within my abilities. I've not leveled yet lol..kind of slacking there (close to 81, but every time I go to PLAY beta I always pick bad times XD)

Yea, 83 was unlocked the other day.

Maybe when the cap is 85 I can just roll a premade DK

So looking into potential beta builds and the talent trees that follow them, this is what I've come up with so far for tanking:

http://www.wowtal.com/#k=YCe71bX.9q4.deathknight

I decided on a single point in BCB to get the extra threat from it (not sure if it will be necessary, otherwise it can be dropped). DRW seems pretty lackluster in its current form so I didn't pick it up (although points can pretty easily be transferred into there). And 2/3 SoB should be enough, at least by current standards - although with the new rune system having more runic power to do more runic abilities may be necessary /shrug.

The extra points were kind of weird, I figured 3/3 epidemic would be necessary to prevent more rune usage on diseases, and then filled out to get a couple points in morbidity. The last couple points had me stuck, but I threw them into imp icy touch for more threat, although it could go to more range/etc as well.

I think the most important question to be answered is whether or not DRW now gives threat to the tank. If it does, then it might be super useful in the Cata dungeon model (which, in theory, says we would benefit greatly from using DRW early in the fight and only care about the parry later on).

I find it funny that they kept it the 31 point talent when tanks never took it NOW.

As for Scarlet Fever, the tooltip for the DoT itself doesn't say it's a disease. I'm inclined to say it is NOT one.

Though, I also wouldn't be surprised if it became one by the end of beta.

Either way, you'll probably need to keep the debuff up, since -10% physical damage is a LOT.

Scarlet Fever does NOT currently count as a disease, btw.

And, at least with current gear levels, Blood Strike should do more damage to a single target than Heart strike.

BS is 80% MWD + 611, all multiplied by 25% with 2 diseases.
HS is 100% MWD + 368, all multiplied by 20% with 2 diseases.

I seriously doubt that 20% weapon damage is going to be a difference of 300.

So blood's signature strike is now an AoE ability. In a game where they said they wanted to limit AoE combat. Go figure.