WoW 4.3 Death Knight Blood Tanking
4.3 has made a few minor, but significant changes to the way tanking works.
Firstly tanking Threat has been increased to 500% (yes, this technically happened a while before 4.3).
Predominantly, Vengance now applies immediately as soon as the tank is hit.
Basically, we don't need to worry about Threat any more.
As such, I'm updating my spec to http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jfMr0srruszG0oZ0h:
Details on why below.
I'll also be updating my single target "spell" priority:
It's worth occasionally holding Death Strike for a second or two, if you know a big hit is incoming, but generally you want to get them off as fast as possible. You want your F and U runes on cooldown, to trigger them with Rune Strikes, to get more Death Strikes in.
I still use Heart Strike, if I'm low on runic power and need to generate some more. However, I also want to avoid setting a B rune on cooldown, so I use Horn of Winter as a priority before doing the second Heart Strike.
I still do the second Heart Strike if I'm that short, because if all my runes are down at that point, the chance of refresh from a Rune Strike still favours getting more for another Death Strike.
It's possibly worth using Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike, since it's guarenteed to go off, whereas you might miss/be dodged/parried with Heart Strike.
Spec Discussion
Most of this spec is the standard expected Blood Tank spec.
The few changes are:
On the basis of not needing to worry about Threat, I've dropped the following Bladed Armor compared to EJ and/or WoW forums builds. Instead I've taken Butchery, for increased gain of 2 Runic Power every 5s.
I've gone for 3/3 Epidemic. With the new 30s on outbreak, you could theoritically go 2/3, and have only a 1s gap between diseases wearing off an a new application. I prefer having the 3s overlap, to allow for a potential GCD wait, lag, or other small delays.
I've put 1/2 into Abomination's Might. Although many other talent would improve DPS, this is the only one that provides any increase in survivability, however marginal (1 point is a 0.03% increase in parry for me).
I've gone 3/3 Scent of Blood for the increase in Runic Power. Posts here show it's an increase of about one extra Death Strike every 3 min. But it works out better still than a 0.03% parry gain from Abomination's Might.
Firstly tanking Threat has been increased to 500% (yes, this technically happened a while before 4.3).
Predominantly, Vengance now applies immediately as soon as the tank is hit.
Basically, we don't need to worry about Threat any more.
As such, I'm updating my spec to http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jfMr0srruszG0oZ0h:
Details on why below.
I'll also be updating my single target "spell" priority:
- Outbreak
- Dancing Rune Weapon
- Death Strike
- Rune Strike
- Heart Strike, if both B rune up
- Horn of Winter
- Heart Strike
It's worth occasionally holding Death Strike for a second or two, if you know a big hit is incoming, but generally you want to get them off as fast as possible. You want your F and U runes on cooldown, to trigger them with Rune Strikes, to get more Death Strikes in.
I still use Heart Strike, if I'm low on runic power and need to generate some more. However, I also want to avoid setting a B rune on cooldown, so I use Horn of Winter as a priority before doing the second Heart Strike.
I still do the second Heart Strike if I'm that short, because if all my runes are down at that point, the chance of refresh from a Rune Strike still favours getting more for another Death Strike.
It's possibly worth using Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike, since it's guarenteed to go off, whereas you might miss/be dodged/parried with Heart Strike.
Spec Discussion
Most of this spec is the standard expected Blood Tank spec.
The few changes are:
On the basis of not needing to worry about Threat, I've dropped the following Bladed Armor compared to EJ and/or WoW forums builds. Instead I've taken Butchery, for increased gain of 2 Runic Power every 5s.
I've gone for 3/3 Epidemic. With the new 30s on outbreak, you could theoritically go 2/3, and have only a 1s gap between diseases wearing off an a new application. I prefer having the 3s overlap, to allow for a potential GCD wait, lag, or other small delays.
I've put 1/2 into Abomination's Might. Although many other talent would improve DPS, this is the only one that provides any increase in survivability, however marginal (1 point is a 0.03% increase in parry for me).
I've gone 3/3 Scent of Blood for the increase in Runic Power. Posts here show it's an increase of about one extra Death Strike every 3 min. But it works out better still than a 0.03% parry gain from Abomination's Might.