Blood Dk Tanking (advanced!) questions. WotLK

Hello Lynea!
Whilst you may disagree with my points, there are elaborate explanations that I did not make regarding that.
First of all, I based off my points for a DK that is mainly going to tank Lich King - which means that my points suggest about tanking the encounter more rather than any other. Whilst I may be wrong about hit rating (I may be wrong, but I heard some things were pretty buggy atleast in DW), glyph of disease IS a preference. My glyphs are: command, vampiric blood and disease. Here's why:
I used to be in a guild that had always made DKs off tanks, no matter what. They are more likely preferred to off tank, especially if they know what they are doing, and we lacked tanks that knew what they're doing. As an off-tank, trying this glyph was not a disappointment as it increased my range I can put diseases on ghouls that are near the main tank, and therefore gave me bigger chances of being able to pull them towards me with Icy Touch, as it gave me more threat no matter how much cleaves, starfalls and divine storms are all over the place. Whilst you may think this is completely useless, but atleast for a geared tank this could be a preference and not mandatory, more like the third choice you can make.
Regardless with AoE, don't bother! Don't worry if you can't hold multiple targets at once, but definitely don't pull whole ICC unless you have a hunter/rogue, because you are more likely to kill everyone. Otherwise, spreading your diseases, DnD and ocassional BB (as long as you have your diseases up) is the way to go.
Regarding Heart Strike, I don't think it gives threat as much as Icy Touch and your other main abilities that I included, which doesn't make it that useful, also with the point you made in your detailed post. Many tanks are able to tank without it as it doesn't provide you much - whilst it may do multiple target damage, so does DnD and BB, and on single target, trust me you would rather stick to IT+RS and save your blood runes. I assume it would just depend on how well geared you are.

Regarding the second question,
I think that what you should do depends on your damage intake or boss - you may want to use those runes on something like Lady fight but wait for the hit on LK due to the amount of damage he does (but then again you are rarely at 100% on LK as MT). It could also depend on your healers - if your raid has a holy paladin for example, to keep you up at all times.

Can some of u guys test something for me. Regarding Bboil. Am talking about lordaeron realm first to be clear. I was a blood tank for few years back on old FW when it was wotlk and i never had problems like this back then. I feel as my bboil is not making enough threat on this realm. In encounters where mobs spawn randomly or more often and u cant menage to have all runes for that often DnD i usualy do bboil> pestilance> and another bboil...that was enough before for me to hold agro on any amount of mobs. But now on lordaeron am having alot problems with it. I do all that same way but way to often i lose agro to some large aoe dps or even to healer thats putin hots or overhealing a bit. Am not saying bboil does less dmg it looks fine to me am just asking if some of u can test its threat..pls couse am allready conaidering to swich to frost tanking just couse of this horrible aoe threat problem.

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Originally Posted by Khyron

Can some of u guys test something for me. Regarding Bboil. Am talking about lordaeron realm first to be clear. I was a blood tank for few years back on old FW when it was wotlk and i never had problems like this back then. I feel as my bboil is not making enough threat on this realm. In encounters where mobs spawn randomly or more often and u cant menage to have all runes for that often DnD i usualy do bboil> pestilance> and another bboil...that was enough before for me to hold agro on any amount of mobs. But now on lordaeron am having alot problems with it. I do all that same way but way to often i lose agro to some large aoe dps or even to healer thats putin hots or overhealing a bit. Am not saying bboil does less dmg it looks fine to me am just asking if some of u can test its threat..pls couse am allready conaidering to swich to frost tanking just couse of this horrible aoe threat problem.

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Back when Frostwolf was still wotlk there is no way you haven't had problems tanking aoe on a dk. DnD is getting the correct threat bonus from Frost Presence for less then a year. However, Blood Boil does poor aggro, ever did and ever will be doing. This skill is not designed as your main threat ability, it's just a filler spell.

pls dont tell me what i did or did not have problems with with my own char that i played for years. i have tanked every single raid and dungeon many many times on old FW and NEVER had problems with tanking AOE on my DK back then. i dont know how u spec ur char and i dont care tbh but with the spec am playing i never used 2 have problems with agro back then.
and that is why am asking if someone can test if its correct as it is now on Lordaeron i dont need some troll response like urs is, if u cant test it and gime some correct info dont bother responding at all.

Why such a buthurt reply when his post was legit. D&D threat was never working pre moltdown and blood boil is just meh when there's rets, wars, mages and druids AoEing like mad. With crap AoE threat that DKs had, there's no way you didn't have AoE threat problems (on more than 2-3 mobs) with those classes unless: a) you had awesome hunts with awesome MDs or b) your DPSers sakwed balls or c) you're full of bullcrap. And since you didn't test anything yourself, you could also be told to stay quiet if you dont have anything to contribute cause in any case, your aggro and threat premoltdown don't interest no one. Cheerios.

Khyron, that's quite an aggressive response in case the guy was absolutely right about everything he said...

D&D's threat multiplier didn't even exist on Molten so you can't tell me you kept that sweet tight juicy AoE aggro all by yourself. Blood Boil is not made to be a main AoE threat ability. Maybe you saw it that way pre-Moltdown because back then DKs simply had no other choice, but that doesn't change the facts.

The reason you had no AoE threat issues pre-Moltdown was bugged MD/TotT and crap DPSers. I've never had any problems aggroing mobs from the tanks with my Retadin, Mage, Combat Rogue or Demo Lock, doesn't matter what class or spec the tank was. And let's not even talk about UDKs and Feral Druids' broken Swipe (Cat). Blood Boil works fine.

Also, Blood is the spec with the poorest AoE threat from all DK specs. That's why you have Bloody Strikes to help you a little bit, but that's far from enough considering the above classes & specs I mentioned. I recommend getting Glyph of Death and Decay to help you with AoE threat and use 3/3 Morbidity. Death and Decay has a x1.9 threat multiplier in addition to the 2.0735 threat multiplier from Frost Presence. Also, it doesn't suffer from AoE-diminishing. Blood Boil has no threat multiplier.

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Threat - the information here is valid for WotLK.

At 4941 attack power unbuffed, my Blood tank DK's D&D ticks for 392 dmg with Morbidity and without Glyph of D&D, which is (x2.0735 x1.9 =) 1544 TPS per target and doesn't need to be managed in any way - just drop it on the ground for 10 seconds and you get 15440 threat per target. My Blood Boil hits for approx. 980 dmg with Bloody Strikes, which is (x2.0735 x2/3 [because of GCD]) 1341 TPS per target in case I keep spamming Blood Boil all the time. I can spam maximum 4 Blood Boils during my second rune cycle, but at that time my DnD will be almost off cooldown (with Morbidity, which you should have for general-purpose AoE tanking), so it is far better if I do just 1-2 Blood Boils, save the runes and drop another DnD. I think the TPS winner is clear here.

Keep in mind, with 1544 TPS I am talking ONLY about D&D threat here, I am not even mentioning diseases, mixed in Blood Boils, parry threat, Rune Strike, Death Strike and Heart Strike threat. As with any tank class, it is best if you switch targets and focus on those which are closest to run off to another DPS - [Tab] between them, watch your Omen and if you see a DPS is getting dangerously high on threat on a specific target, hit a couple of Heart Strikes and Rune Strikes and keep tabbing until everything is clear.

now thats a response i was looking for, tyvm Taralej.

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Originally Posted by Khyron

now thats a response i was looking for, tyvm Taralej.

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You're welcome at any time :)

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Originally Posted by Khyron

now thats a response i was looking for, tyvm Taralej.

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After you've been so offensive for no reason may I ask: Why this is the answer you were looking for?

His calculations are based on a WoWWiki article accurate for retail and aren't based on any ingame testing on Lordaeron. If it's working like this on Lordaeron is not subject of any post here. The summary of his answer is practically just: BB sucks, use the skills intended to AoE-tanking.

I shouldn't feed the troll, but I guess nobody's perfect, huh?

I thanked him moslty couse he took time to actually try to help and gime some info that i never checked so much. You on the other hand took an arrogant aproach from the begining assuming u know anything about how i did in my past game expiriance. Would smack u over the head but hey its just forums for wow so i can only respond in same lame way u did.

Hush both of you, please... Let's just discuss like normal people and not fight on the Internet over a video game.

Testing BB's threat is as simple as typing /omen show, aggroing an NPC (does not work on dummies as they have no aggro table), then doing one BB in Unholy Presence, and another BB in Frost Presence. The reason why I'm choosing Unholy and not Blood presence is because of the 15% damage boost from Blood Presence. OK, let's continue...

Say, your BB does 500 dmg. This means that in Unholy presence you will do 400 threat because of the innate 0.8 multiplier from Unholy and Blood presence (THAT'S NOT A REASON TO SKIP SUBVERSION, FROST DKS!!!). In Frost Presence you will do 500 x 2.0735 = 1036.75 threat. Try it, then do the calculations based on your own DK's Blood Boil and you can see if things work OK.

But in my opinion everything has to be OK with Blood Boil - it's just a simple self-centered AoE spell with no further threat multipliers - just take the damage and multiply it by 2.0735 and that's your threat. This is why spells with increased threat are so important, like D&D's x1.9, Rune Strike's x1.75 or Icy Touch's x7. They are made to compensate for the low damage of tanks.

Not being 80 yet I won't put my experience down as gospel yet (only 71 atm). But I have been having some trouble with DnD threat not being what I would expect it to be (and this is as UH). The biggest problem for me is the initial pull. If people start aoe'ing before my diseases are spread, it just turns into a mess. Eventually all the mobs will be on me, but that doesn't help the annoyance of having the pull go pearshaped.

As I said, I'm not 80 yet, so obviously there are many other factors that influence this, but I still get the nagging feeling that especially DnD has a faulty threat multiplier. At least comparing it to what I remember from retail.

As for Blood Boil, it obviously isn't your prime threat generator (it's great for picking up adds in the middle of a fight, though, to keep them off the healer), but in terms of your total aoe threat it's a very handy filler (at least in sustained aoe situations, which there aren't very many of).

i've never expirienced this after moltdown. example - on that cow event i tanked as 4.5kgs uh dk with 490 defence, and never had a aoe tps problem. all i did - put deseases on on target/spread around/dnd/afk till dnd on cd