Originally Posted by
Philondra
Timewalking dungeons are definitely harder than Mythics at the moment, so there's nothing to be ashamed about if you're struggling more than you did pre-patch. I have no gems and no enchants on my character, yet I'm able to get along just fine, so it's certainly doable. So instead of offering you gearing advice, I'd instead like to give some playstyle thoughts. Maybe you're already doing some of this stuff and maybe not--just consider it food for thought.
1. Start off each dungeon with the following: Death and Decay at the very edge of the pack to grab aggro, make them run through the slow field (with Tremble Before Me), and pop Dancing Rune Weapon as you run towards them. Marrowrends with Dancing Rune Weapon active will grant you 6 charges instead of 3, so spending 4 runes on 2 Marrowrends will bring you to 10 charges right off the bat. You'll have one rune left for a Heart Strike, giving you enough Runic Power for about 1.5 Death Strikes. You'll have started the dungeon off on the right foot.
2. When you go from one pack to another, do your best to ensure that Bone Shield charges don't fall off. This can get a little tricky after bosses, but I generally find that if I save 2 runes for a Marrowrend right as the pack is about to die, I can keep up Bone Shield charges from start to finish--with the exception of Black Morass, where nothing hits hard enough to be worried about anyway, and certain areas of Arcatraz, where for the most part the huge gaps between pulls are filled by those corpses that explode into non-threatening worms that you can replenish charges on. This goes hand in hand with number 1 above: you've started the dungeon off with capped Bone Shield charges, so the only Marrowrends you will need to use will be for maintaining charges rather than building yourself up from zero. This might seem very small, but it is critical in helping you not fall behind in a five man.
3. Be careful about dropping Death and Decay in the middle of a pull. You ALWAYS want to be able to have it available for the start of a new pack. There are two reasons for this: a. You want to be able to generate Runic Power quickly, and Death and Decay facilitates that, and b. If you're not confident about a pull, you can kite them around a little bit if it looks like you're about to struggle. There's nothing wrong with admitting that you need to kite--your job is to hold aggro and survive, and kiting is one tool you have in your kit.
4. Don't burn all your Runic Power at the end of a pull. The most dangerous time in a five man--be it timewalking, mythic, or otherwise--is the beginning of the pull, when all the mobs are present. If you have some Runic Power saved up from the previous pull, you have a head start on keeping yourself alive in the next one.
5. In timewalking dungeons, the hard part is the trash, not the bosses. Therefore, your personal cooldowns should be used on trash, not on bosses. With Red Thirst, Vampiric Blood will be up every 2-4 pulls, depending on the speed of your group. Dancing Rune Weapon will be available less often, but it's even stronger than Vampiric Blood on pulls with high numbers of mobs. Most dungeons have pulls where you can use Anti-Magic Shell. Note that even the hardest of trash will not 100-0 you in one global; you will generally be hit for ~30% of your life every couple seconds until some of the mobs have fallen. As such, don't use your cooldowns *on the pull*--wait until you have taken the first batch of hits and are sitting at around ~70% so that you can get the most use out of them.
6. Ask for interrupts on casters, and also interrupt casters yourself. You are the only tank that can interrupt from 15 yards away, so use that to your advantage if there's a caster that's not cooperating with pulls and Death Grip is on cooldown.
7. This is more general tanking advice than anything specific to Blood, but in timewalking dungeons it's crucial that you know the dungeon well. Which mobs can fear unsuspecting DPS into another pack? Where is the hunter's Barrage 100% going to pull the next pack, and how can I position this current pull to prevent it? How can I use line of sight to gather the mobs up properly? In WoD heroics, these things basically don't matter, but in timewalking, you have to think about them.