DW Frost - Question about using Blood Tap correctly

[Val]

Okay so firstly, I'm having some DPS issues. I went over logs and it looks like I'm just having too much downtime which stems from my improper usage of my tier 5 talent. Previously It was RE and after learning how to game it correctly I saw a slight dps increase but that leads me to my question;

I want to learn to use Blood Tap for maximum DPS, but Im having a hard time figuring out when to use it. I'm sitting at a dummy right now practicing and my opening is decent I think. Self-bugged (no food or flask) I can get up to 80-84k and sustain it for a minute or two. But after that something just blows up and I fall to 77k if I'm trying and 71-75k if I start to slack.

tl;dr What's the ideal way to use Blood Tap mid fight? my DPS tends to fall then and I can't get it back up due to bad usage of BT/resource starvation. In a typical fight situation, should I be using it as it gets to 5 or bank it and then use it at 10?

[Xene]

i just macro it to my fs.

you using ur unholy runes? beuaty of BT is itl always give you a death rune, so you should only have have 1 unholy rune on cooldown, and popping it on either Oblit with a frost rune, dnd, or just PS.

[Wiizper]

I macro it to Howling Blast.

[Deleted]

i recommend to not bind it on abilities. the main reason (beside converting unholy runes to death runes) is the control you get due it. you loose it this way.
if you have trouble not capping the charges, you just have to practice. dont use weak auras or something, it will only cost attention you need for other things. you will get a feeling for it after some time

[Reanimateddk]

Binding blood tap to other abilities will result in less than optimal usage. When blood tap is used 5 blood charges are consumed and a random fully depleted rune is restored as a death rune, the important thing to note here is that the depleted rune is restored as a death rune this means that there is no need to keep one unholy rune of cd as you do with runic empowerment. Blood tap should be used when both unholy runes are on cd as this will allow them to be converted to death runes and in turn used for howling blast.

[SSHA778]

Blood tap should be used when both unholy runes are on cd as this will allow them to be converted to death runes and in turn used for howling blast.

This doesn't matter. If Blood Tap picked a fully depleted Unholy rune as opposed to a fully depleted blood(death) rune, how is the end result any different?

It picks a rune that wasn't recharging, converts it to a death rune, which you immediately burn, so it returns to the pure form and is also still not recharging yet. Since for Frost, there is no possibility to gain an unholy(death) via regeneration, only via procs, you can't waste an unholy(death) rune in this manner by having it be converted back to the pure state with BT. The rune type Blood Tap picks is irrelevant.

[Deleted]

the difference is a hb using a unholy rune converted to death deals more dmg than an dnd

[Deleted]

Don't bind blood tap to abilities that's the last thing you want to do if you want to play it optimally, it's just a matter of getting your UI set-up so you can track it easily and getting used to it over a period of time. There's no real set priority so to speak of when to use and when not to, sometimes you may want to save charges a few seconds prio to bursts of AoE or extra damage phases for example. But generally your first priority is to get your unholy runes off CD using D&D > Obli and using charges to replace those unh runes for death runes. Apart from that you just want to try and keep things rolling all the time by keeping your runes off CD and using BT when available.

[SSHA778]

the difference is a hb using a unholy rune converted to death deals more dmg than an dnd

And? HB does more damage than DnD; I agree. I don't agree that that justifies your claim, however.

Let's say your rune state looks like this:

State 1:
dd / ff / uu
[4.00s][-.--s] / [-.--s][6.00s] / [-.--s][2.00s], where

Upper case - ready
Lower case - recharging
Underlined - fully depleted
[4.00s] - time until rune finishes recharging (4.00 seconds)

We'll look at what you're proposing first--that having BT restore the unholy rune is most optimal. Now it looks like this:

State 2:
dd / ff / Du
[4.00s][-.--s] / [-.--s][6.00s] / [0.00s][2.00s]

Since this is a death rune, you'll immediately spend it on HB, bringing you to this state:

State 3:
dd / ff / uu
[3.00s][-.--s] / [-.--s][5.00s] / [-.--s][1.00s]

I'll remind you that this is identical to simply having waited 1.00s and not having done anything from a regeneration perspective. I hope this is apparent.

Let's say it picked the Frost rune instead:

State 4:
dd / Df / uu
[4.00s][-.--s] / [0.00s][6.00s] / [-.--s][2.00s]

Again, since this is a death rune, you're going to spend it on HB, returning you to this familiar state:

State 5:
dd / ff / uu
[3.00s][-.--s] / [-.--s][5.00s] / [-.--s][1.00s]

This is the exact same state as if it had picked an unholy rune! Since the end state is the same and both result in an additional HB, there is no benefit in picking an unholy rune over a frost rune (or any other rune for that matter) for DW Frost. Having BT pick an Unholy rune is not saving you from having to cast DnD, because it isn't even disturbing your natural rune regeneration at all. States 3 and 5 are the same as if you had simply waited a GCD.

I understand that people like to say BT is RE without the randomness, but the fact that BT restores the rune as a death rune makes it very different from RE because it removes the importance of the particular rune slot that is chosen.

[Deleted]

the difference comes when the unholy rune is about to start to refresh and you must dnd or, if its on cd, use obli

[broodax]

You know, I have been thinking about this lately, and I think SSHA778 is right - there is really no difference. Either way you get a death rune, you use it on a HB, and you're exactly back where you would have been if you'd never used Blood Tap.

[SSHA778]

the difference comes when the unholy rune is about to start to refresh and you must dnd or, if its on cd, use obli

Interpreting "about to start to refresh" as just about to finish recharging (as opposed to just about to start recharging), there are 2 cases that I see.

Case 1. You have 2 unholy runes that are cooling down. The first is about to be ready, meaning the second will lose its fully depleted state. If this is the case you're referring to, then this doesn't have anything to do with BT--it has to do with losing a potential BT candidate. By triggering BT at this point, I'm assuming you're trying to refresh this second unholy rune before it loses its fully depleted status, which you will then burn on an OB (although I'd wager HB would be a better use for DW). If that interpretation is correct, how is this any different if BT picks a blood(death) rune to refresh instead? In both cases, you end up with a single unholy rune that is still recharging, a fully recharged unholy rune, and your other fully depleted runes remain intact. If you were in fact going to use that rune on HB, then I've already covered this case.

E.g. (assume u2 has 0.50s left to fully recharge, and all else are longer than 1.00s):
My interpretation of your case: dd / Ff / uu ==> BT ==> dd / Ff / Du ==> OB ==> dd / ff / uU
Blood(death) case: dd / Ff / uu ==> BT ==> Dd / Ff / uu ==> OB ==> dd / ff / uU

dd / ff / uU = dd / ff / uU (q.e.d.)

The ends states are the same. d2 and f2 will have the same regeneration time left in either case (not coincidentally, the same time left as if you had not done anything at all), and d1 and f1 return to being fully depleted. I've left out recharge times because it's universal. To further prove my point that the chosen rune doesn't matter, this is the same as the case I have already done, but time is shifted forward by 0.50s so that a rune finishes recharging. The fact that you burned 2 runes is irrelevant. The fact that I allowed a rune to finish recharging is also irrelevant. BT does not affect your natural regeneration rate any in way--it simply adds a rune. Think of it like a Rime proc that generates RP. That being said, you can certainly force BT to affect your natural rune regeneration rate by sitting on the rune that BT restores, but there's absolutely no reason to do that as a DPS. In this particular case, popping BT and sitting there for 0.50s would accomplish this.

Case 2. You have just 1 unholy rune cooling down, which is about to finish recharging. I mention this case only because it's another possibility from your statement, although it doesn't make sense to me as BT is incapable of picking an unholy rune in this case. Regardless of the rune picked, you will be able to use OB, and your runes will end up in the same state again.

If neither of these interpretations is correct, then you'll need to be clearer. I assure you that I'm not trying to be dense. I would also point out that your argument has shifted from using that unholy rune on an HB to using that unholy rune on OB, assuming I'm interpreting you correctly.

Just draw out random rune states for yourself and test your theory. After enough of them, even if it still doesn't make sense to you, you'll find it to be the universal outcome for Frost. The only similarity between RE and BT is that they both use fully depleted runes.

[Deleted]

It takes a bit of practise, but keep spamming those LFR's and you'll get the hang of it eventually, i recommend creating a weakaura or similar and place it in a convinient place so you dont have to stare at your AB all the time.

[Deleted]

While euliat is likely right (I don't have the maths/patience to refute his explanations while sitting on a train to work) when using DW I always "feel" most benefit from returning an unholy rune as a death rune.

It likely has more to do with the fact I'm virtually GCD capped as DW and weaving between having one unholy rune depleted and another as a death rune effectively turns your rune layout into DD/FF/DU for the majority of the fight. Being so close to GCD cap you don't always end up converting an unholy rune and using it straight away seeing as BT naturally favours converting unholy runes anyway.

[Nyanmaru]

For the majority of the fight. It doesn't matter. If you have a ~14s DpS downtime, yes the FF/UD/DD setup would be preferred when starting after the break, but the logistics needed to force this state is not worth the possible DpS loss for setting it up.

Because if I'm virtually GCD capped, the first thing I'd drop would be using the 2nd unholy rune.