LF blood dk specific guides for heroic and "tougher" normal raid encounters

[SteelBalls]

My guild may need me to start tanking and we're currently 5/16HC and I'd be expected to tank 5/16 HC with not so great tanking gear. So I need all the help I can get in preparing how I'll use my CDs and talents/glyphs for these encounters. Does anyone know of some guides out there that are geared specifically toward blood dks?

Also the HCs we have down are stone guard, feng, gara'jal, elegon, blade lord, and we almost have wind lord down.

[Reniat]

I've got the normal/heroic MSV blood stuff on the other version of the sticky (on battlenet). I could have sworn i put it here too, but i guess I completely forgot :s

I'll upload those 6 as well as the HoF ones when I get home tonight.


edit:
I can copy what i've got here now and then put it in the guide when I get home.


Stone Guard:
This fight is fairly straight forward. There is no burst damage (assuming you don't hit a cobalt mine), so there is no reason to sit on cooldowns. Your blood shield doesn't do a lot here, as ~75% of the dog's damage is in the form of a shieldable DoT, so consider running with 2 stamina trinkets for this fight. I recommended glyphing AMS since you can mitigate the cobalt mine damage with AMS should you absolutely need to hit a mine without Cobalt petrification. Lastly if you are the one tanking two dogs, I highly recommend speccing into Rolling Blood so you can always apply diseases on every dog swap, and if you are having threat issues on both dogs at the beginning of the fight consider glyphing DRW. There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Heroic Stone Guard:
no DK specific changes from normal mode. just more damage.

Feng the Accursed:
Assuming you are tank swapping at 2 stacks of the DoT, you should be placing CDs when you have 1 stack of each phases DoT since you won't be actively tanking with 2 stacks. I wouldn't recommend glyphing AMS, as each tick is going to be less than half your HP (so you mitigate more hits for less as opposed to less hits for more. More hits for less mitigation is preferred here.) There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Heroic Feng the Accursed:
You should spec into Gorefiend's Grasp for the heroic only phase (the shadow/shield phase), as being able to grip the adds together for more efficient AoE is very valuble and is a utility that can only be brought by DKs.

Gara'jal the Spiritbinder:
This is a very.....touchy fight for DK tanks. This fight revolves around raid members taking damage equal to the damage we take, which is a problem since DK tanks naturally take more damage than any other class, and the method we use to overcome this (self heals) don't
get sent to the voodoo doll damage. What results is a lot more damage going out on the raid through us than any other tanking class. That said, this shouldn't be too much of an issue in normal mode.

You can still mitigate the normal melee attacks from Gara'jal, but you cannot absorb his Shadowy Attacks. Because of this, try to place your death strikes before and after each shadowy attack so that you don't get a melee attack on the raid immediately before or after a shadowy attack, which could be fatal. Also, effective health means very little on this fight as it doesn't help the voodoo dolls in any way, so avoid stam trinkets here. I recommend Blood Tap here so you can better place Death Strike around shadowy attacks.

Heroic Gara'jal the Spiritbinder:
No changes from normal mode, except the voodoo doll damage is a lot more of an issue. So much so that it could get in the way of progression. You may want to consider going with a warrior/monk/pally alt tank if you can, or just going DPS for this fight. The DK is just not built for this encounter.

Spirit Kings:
The only time that absolutely requires cooldowns is when Meng reaches high insanity during Crazed and does considerably more damage. Make sure you have some form of cooldown active from about 70% insanity until he transitions to Cowardice, and consider stacking multiple CDs when he reaches 90+ insanity. Make sure you are not spreading diseases in any way during Maddening shout, as your raid WILL be affected by your Weakened Blows. This includes Rolling Blood. I recommend not using RB for this fight for that reason. On the same token, consider grabbing Gorefiend's Grasp so you can grab all your teammates together for AoE for that mechanic. There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Heroic Spirit Kings:
No changes from normal mode except more damage. Cooldown use becomes more important around Meng's high insanity damage. In heroic mode you will have to active bosses at one time, so if you are solo tanking and are having threat issues consider using glyphing DRW for burst threat right before each new king becomes active.

Elegon:
You take more damage with higher stacks of Overcharged, so save cooldowns for high stacks. AMS should be used on breaths you take at higher stacks as well. Pick up glyph of pestilence here, as it will make it easier to apply diseases on all targets during phase 2. Finally add control abilities such as Remorseless Winter are really useful for the beginning of each phase 1 repeat for stunning the adds while they are AoEd down, as they do a lot of melee damage and tanking them all of them at once isn't recommended. There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Heroic Elegon:
On heroic mode you can't interact with anything on the other side of the inner circle (out or in), and raid members need to soak Total Annihilation (like Ultraxion). AMZ is a great raid CD here, and should be used after the add starts casting Total Annihilation (so he doesn't break AMZ with a pulse) and before you go back into the inner ring (since you can't place it outside if you're inside).

Will of the Emperor:
This fight is really simple for tanks. Simply take normal boss swings and then dodge his devastating arc mechanics. The bosses don't do any damage to you while they're doing their large arc mechanics (unless you get hit), so don't use any cooldowns while they're in that phase. Save them for when they are actually doing damage. They do have quite a large swing range and can be a bit bursty, so consider 2 stam trinkets if you are under geared for this fight as well as leaving Vampiric Blood unlgyphed for the effective health. There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Heroic Will of the Emperor:
Nothing new except they make you dodge their arcs for twice as long, as well as increased damage all around. This is a blessing in disguise, as them doing their dance longer means they also spending less time actually hitting you. Try to build up a max blood shield while dodging, and then chain CDs when the shield wears off. It shouldn't be long after the shield wears off that they start dancing again, and you can start over.

---------- Post added 2013-01-10 at 07:52 PM ----------

Just finished the HoF version. Will add to the sticky as well.

Imperial Vizier Zor'lok:
The only DK specific thing here is save larger CDs (IBF for example) for when you take an
Exhale when the boss has 3 ore more stacks of Inhale. You can use Dark Simulacrum on raid members who are about to be free from
mind controlled and get their first used ability after they get control back, though this isn't necessarly game breaking.

Heroic Imperial Vizier Zor'lok:
no DK specific differences outside of more damage.


Blade Lord Ta'yak:
This fight is all about handling the Overwhelming Assault. On normal you have to take 2 consecutive stacks,
so save your CDs for the 2nd one. Vampiric Blood is great for this, just make sure it's left unglyphed for the 15% EH gain.
I highly recommend Blood Tap for this fight so you can place multiple Death Strikes in front of each Overwhelming Assault. Just make sure
you have at least 10 stacks of BT and then dump themp in front of each Overwhelming Assault (after burning all your remaining FU pairs on Death Strike)
I also recommend glyphing IBF for this fight, as you can use it twice as often and the 4s duration of glyphed IBF is enough to
easily time with an overwhelming assault

Heroic Blade Lord Ta'yak:
On heroic you only take one Overwhelming Assault at a time, and the attacks come ~60 seconds apart. This means you can use Vampiric blood on every single
Overwhelming Assault. Just make sure you use it ~5 seconds before each Assault. Don't use the normal timer however, since it is off due to either Unseen
Strike or Blade Tempest. He will use Overwhelming assault ~3-4 seconds after he is finished with these abilities, so use your CDs when he is done casting them.


Garalon:
There's not a whole lot of DK tricks to this fight. simply make sure you are building shields before each Furious Swipe and that if you are kiting
the Pheromones (and not able to death strike) that you have a CD up for Furious Swipes. If needed you can AMS through pheromone trails should you need to
get through one to stay in front of the boss. I recommend Rolling Blood for this fight, as you can use BB to spread your diseases on Garalon to any leg that's active.

Heroic Garalon:
Not much change other than tank&spank final phase. Furious Swipe hits much harder, so making sure you survive them if you can't death strike (when you're kiting)
is important. Leave VB unglyphed here, as the EH is worth more than the healing for Furious Swipes.

The final heroic only phase on this fight is relatively simple. He hits as hard as a standard heroic boss, so just use CDs around Furious Swipes (he still does this in addition to his normal melee)
You can't control which tank he decides to target, and taunts don't work. If he targets the other tank try to use Glyphed Death Coil on your other tank before each Furious Swipe
if you can, but don't do it so much that you are RP starved and can't use death strike enough to mitigate the furious swipes for yourself.


Wind Lord Mel'jarak:
This is the first tank check for HoF, especially if you are solo tanking it. The trick to this fight is making sure you have a CD up whenever Quickening goes out on the adds. Ideally it will be dispelled soon
by your raid, but even if it's up for a short time it can still hurt.

Heroic Wind Lord Mel'jarak:
Same as the normal, only the damage is high enough here that you will want to micro manage even external CDs. If there is any stacks of quickening out you need to be rolling in CDs, and feel free to use CDs
when their are all types of adds active as well. Don't use CDs if one of the add types is already dead unless quickening is out though, as the damage will be lighter with less adds up.


Amber-Shaper Un'Sok:
There aren't really any DK tricks to this. You can Dark Simulacrum raid members who get targeted by Reshape Life similar to in the Vizier encounter.

Heroic Amber-Shaper Un'Sok:
No changes from Normal mode.


Grand Empress Shek'Zeer:
For tanks this fight is all about the 2nd phase and how you handle the adds. If you are two tanking it, make sure the large add (the Gorram Reavers) is facing away from the raid. Either way, get ready for some serious tank damage.
Make sure you have some form of CD up whenever 3 of the smaller adds are actively on you. They'll hit hard.
You can use Remorseless Winter here to stun them, and I recommend doing so if there are three on you. Remember that Remorseless takes 5 seconds to stun them, so use it about 4 seconds before another cooldown expires.
Once they start fixating on the raid and breaking off you the damage will be lessened considerably, but be ready with the CDs as they will come back periodically and you can get 3 at a time again.


Heroic Grand Empress Shek'Zeer:
This fight has to be one of my absolute favorites this tier. Just like in normal mode, the real fight (for tanks) happens in ph2 with the adds.
How you handle them is the same in heroic, only failing to have a CD (if not multiple CDs) up while you have 3 adds on you will
likely result in a quick (<1 second if all their attack are unavoided) and painful death. Making it through this phase alive will likely require
calling out for externals, so I recommend getting an addon such as Hermes (what i use) so you can see what externals are available. If you have 3 adds on you
and just popped your last CD, make you know which external CD you are calling for next and let them know you'll want it in ~5 seconds.

[Nillo]

Since I really don't think reniat's "guide" applies to 10 man I'll just write up one:

prequel:
In general I recommend using this spec (use Blood Tap if you prefer that over Runic Corruption)
Spec: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/tal...!020021!aghSjk
DRW Usage: Best used in combination with Outbreak (don't press outbreak immediately after summoning the DRW since it appears to have some delay until it reacts to commands)
Bone Shield: Should generally be used on cooldown.

Mogu'Shan:

Stone Guard:
In general: Since most of the damage taken comes from a physical non stacking dot damage taken doesn't really depend on the number of dogs you tank and avoidance becomes almost completely useless for that fight (consider SSG or FC weapon enchants for that fight)
How to taunt: I personally found the easiest way was to NOT cross taunt meaning the only time you taunt is if the single dog becomes active - in that case the one with the single dog taunts the one that most recently exploded (and thus has about 15-25 energy). This way you only need to worry about taunting right after an explosion.
DK specific tips: glyphed AMS is amazing against the frost traps since it absorbs most of the damage and protects you from being frozen.

Feng:
Note about talents: If no one else can provide it get gorefiend's grasp instead of remorseless winter to make sure adds are in one place
Chillblains can be useful on heroic to slow the adds (you don't need the movementspeed here anyway)

This is for when you're the one actively tanking (the one with the spell steal thingie doesn't get to tank much here)
Generally use the Bubble Shield crystal as often as possible. (first and third arcane aoe, destroy as many shields as possible, use it against the earthquake if the other tank didn't manage to steal the stun.
DK specific tips:
Use AMS when you have high stacks (for me that would be 4 for arcane , 3 for shield, 3-4 for lightning, 5-6 for fire) to get lots of RP and reduce damage taken.
Use Army for the second arcane aoe (to reduce damage taken and since they'll do a shitload of damage with 4-5 stacks of the arcane dot)
Delay DRW usage if it allows you to use it against the shadow clones since double diseases and blood boil spam is amazing against them.

Gara'Jal:
Note about talents:
Runic Empowerment may actually be a good idea here since getting more DS out here is much more important than timing DS (see hints below)
Unholy Blight is great here - refresh diseases with BB on the boss right before you get teleported away and use Unholy Blight in the shadow realm:
for normal: just use Unholy Blight to spread diseases in the shadow realm then kill your add
for heroic: No time to kill small adds => get your add to about 40% hp, pop UB, hit it with soul reaper , run to the next add get that to 40% use SR , run to the last add and pray that by then you still have time to kill it or for your raid to help you kill them. Like this you should be able to deal plenty of damage in the shadow realm, get 2 adds down yourself and still have time to refresh your diseases on the boss once you get out.

DK specific tips:
DKs are certainly not the best tanks for this fight but you should be able to handle it if you keep the following hints in mind:
1) The other tank has to start tanking - this way you won't have to tank as much and you get plenty of time to get a full blood shield stack
2) If done well you can keep up Blood Shield + Bone Shield for about 40-50 seconds per tanking period (which lasts for about 60-70 seconds iirc) just spam the hell out of Death Strike.
3) Use IBF right after the other tank gets teleported away - like this it will be up again for the end of your second tanking period
4) Use glyphed AMS on cooldown to protect your Bone Shield charges from being consumed (priest shields are also great for this)
5) refresh Bone Shield right before you start tanking (using it while you're not tanking the boss results in wasted charges) and refresh it within the last few seconds you're still tanking
6) once your Blood Shield is down to <150k hp yell for tank and/or raid cooldowns

Spirit Kings:
Note about talents: Strangulate allows you to stun Subetai on heroic it's also nice as a backup interrupt for the other bosses

Notes here are mostly about heroic because normal is a piece of cake:
There are lots of annoying shields you must not attack - unfortunately they also trigger on some cleave/aoe effects so be careful if any boss with a shield is nearby.
Otherwise:

The only time that absolutely requires cooldowns is when Meng reaches high insanity during Crazed and does considerably more damage. Make sure you have some form of cooldown active from about 70% insanity until he transitions to Cowardice, and consider stacking multiple CDs when he reaches 90+ insanity. Make sure you are not spreading diseases in any way during Maddening shout, as your raid WILL be affected by your Weakened Blows. This includes Rolling Blood. I recommend not using RB for this fight for that reason. On the same token, consider grabbing Gorefiend's Grasp so you can grab all your teammates together for AoE for that mechanic. There are no preferred t75 options for this fight, so pick the rune regen talent you prefer.

Elegon:
Note about talents: Death Siphon is awesome for the last phase dealing lots of damage and healing (300k+ easily) and since most of the damage in that phase is magical losing blood shield isn't that much of an issue. Also Roiling Blood + Pest Glyph are a must here since it will allow you to easily spread diseases to all the energy charges in P2.

Normal: P1: While you're on boss duty save ams for when the add starts it's aoe pulse or when it's about to cast the explosion shortly after.
Heroic: P1: with AMS + IBF you can completely soak the add explosion allowing you to get back to business without needing heals as long as you were at full health before
P3: those small elementals hit for a shitload of damage 1-2 of them are tankable anything more than that can get you killed. Chillblains and Remorseless Winter may help with kiting them

Will:
Note about talents: Once again Runic Empowerment can be useleful since the number of DS is more important than timing DS here.
Death's Advance is a must have here since it makes dodging the combos a lot easier.

General tanking:
About dodging the combos: For the first few times I recommend to increase the camera distance ( /console cameradistancemaxfactor 10 ) and to always watch the blue arcs that indicate the area where the boss will strike. If the boss uses a stomp run out sideways (don't backpaddle!) and activate Death's advance since you may need to dodge quickly if the boss strikes in your direction.

Cooldowns:
Normal: The Titan gas appears about once every 2:30 meaning you won't have a big cd up each time so I recommend using IBF for those phases as often as possible and while it's not make sure to have DRW + Death Pact ready.

Heroic: The combos come about once every 45-50 seconds which means quite a few things:
1) t14 2pc is amazing since it allows you to use VB each time you're under attack
2) DRW will be up for every second time you're under attack
resulting from 2) you can make a rotation like this : DRW, IBF, DRW, Death Pact.
Bone Shield doesn't seem to get consumed by the raid wide aoe so best use it on cooldown. (on heroic you can pretty much have 100% uptime on this)