Blood tanking is it viable in raids/heroics?

[Cirayne24]

Blood tanking is by far the best until you can get enough effective health and avoidance to go unholy. The extra armor from UA doesn't help against magic based attacks, which a lot of bosses have. Once you get 4pt9 you can have it up for 15 seconds then only have to wait ~35 seconds til its back up. I find that far more beneficial and verasital then the extra armor.


http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...yxia&n=Cirayne

EDIT: I have no problem holding threat on Single Target or AoE Targets. DnD, Heart Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, and ZOMG being a smart tank and hitting tab to white hit other targets never fails.

[TheBearkin]

Blood TPS on single-targets is excellent and improves further the more melee buffs/debuffs you get (sunders, faerie fire). If you're seeing blood dk's getting aggro ripped off of them, you're seeing blood dk's that don't know how to play, no matter how much they may be protesting to the contrary. Blood also has the highest EH of any spec (UA does not match Vampiric blood & necro especially when a good portion of today's tank damage is not even physical).

That being said, I do not recommend blood for heroic marathons; blood's ae options pale compared to frost/unholy and you fill find yourself being more frustrated than anything else.

[Nillo]

mister nillo, you don't have a dk tank at all? =(

I used to play one before 3.1, but since frost got messed up in that patch and blood is just incredibly boring I gave up on that toon.
Was just stating that DKs do have threat issues - do I need to play a dk tank for that? And no it's not just those 2 dk tanks that have threat issues.

[jai151]

I used to play one before 3.1, but since frost got messed up in that patch and blood is just incredibly boring I gave up on that toon.
Was just stating that DKs do have threat issues - do I need to play a dk tank for that? And no it's not just those 2 dk tanks that have threat issues.

Then you have played with some shitty DK tanks.

[Chokaa]

I used to play one before 3.1, but since frost got messed up in that patch and blood is just incredibly boring I gave up on that toon.
Was just stating that DKs do have threat issues - do I need to play a dk tank for that? And no it's not just those 2 dk tanks that have threat issues.

As a frost tank, I pulled threat off my paladin other tank on 25 heroic gormok - I had to straight up STOP hitting him.

As blood, I really did rely on sunders / FF / expose armor. If you don't have those, aggro does kinda of sink, down belopw a regular frost tank build.
@ The guy who was like "OMG ANUB <30% TAKES YOR HELTH SO VB IS BAYAD: the extra 1k or so that he leeches is far outweighed by the extra healing you're getting from his frost slash/melee hits.

I still like frost better, healers like it cause I don't have the spikey damage (in regs. In heroic modes it's ALL spike damage lol)

I do miss unholy's OP bone shield, but really, with %50-ish avoidance, and 40% dmg reduction for 6 bones? They HAD to nerf that guy.

[Nillo]

As blood, I really did rely on sunders / FF / expose armor. If you don't have those, aggro does kinda of sink, down belopw a regular frost tank build.

So blood does have threat problems after all? ;P

@ The guy who was like "OMG ANUB <30% TAKES YOR HELTH SO VB IS BAYAD: the extra 1k or so that he leeches is far outweighed by the extra healing you're getting from his frost slash/melee hits.

VB does what it always does and is decent enough, but UA combined with any kind of damage absorption (priest/paladin shield) will show better results and lead to less healing taken for him.

[jai151]

VB does what it always does and is decent enough, but UA combined with any kind of damage absorption (priest/paladin shield) will show better results and lead to less healing taken for him.

So VB on its own is fine but UA requires a second buff to function?

[Nillo]

So VB on its own is fine but UA requires a second buff to function?

... I said they're pretty much equal in this situation , BUT any type of shield, that is present in most 10 mans and all 25 mans (unless your raid comp is bad) will make UA better.

[jai151]

... I said they're pretty much equal in this situation , BUT any type of shield, that is present in most 10 mans and all 25 mans (unless your raid comp is bad) will make UA better.

Which is pretty much what was said about blood threat, just replace shield with sunder. Sunders, of course, being just as present as shields.

[Nillo]

Which is pretty much what was said about blood threat, just replace shield with sunder. Sunders, of course, being just as present as shields.

Shield is present if you tank the worms @ Nortrend beasts , Sunder Armor is not.

[jai151]

Shield is present if you tank the worms @ Nortrend beasts , Sunder Armor is not.

Yes it is. At least on the only worm that would have even a chance of being pulled off you.

Edit: And regardless, someone else said that sunders were needed for blood threat, not me. I have never once had an issue with threat in a boss encounter. In fact the only time I lose threat it's another tank taunting off or a boss who resets aggro (Faction champs or, going old school, Kel'Thuzad before they nerfed him)

[tranq717]

you know, maybe instead of debating about blood and frost we should just agree that pally tanks should be nerfed, yeah? woot!

[_Cin]

Just my opinion...

Yes, Blood tanks are viable... but that doesn't make it right. I see self-healing tanks to be quite... well... pathetic. Now don't get me wrong, blood tanks are good, but they shouldn't be THAT good. This isn't me having a go at players who spec blood to tank (heck, i think it's great they are using whats available to them), but i don't think it's right that blizzard allowed this to happen in the first place. It's bad enough having almost every dps DK out there as blood these days, but to have all the tank DK's blood too?

As i said, self-healing tanks just seem wrong to me... call me old fashioned, but they just do.

WTB viable Unholy specs as tank and dps so i don't have to use Curse of Elements anymore

[jai151]

Just my opinion...

Yes, Blood tanks are viable... but that doesn't make it right. I see self-healing tanks to be quite... well... pathetic. Now don't get me wrong, blood tanks are good, but they shouldn't be THAT good. This isn't me having a go at players who spec blood to tank (heck, i think it's great they are using whats available to them), but i don't think it's right that blizzard allowed this to happen in the first place. It's bad enough having almost every dps DK out there as blood these days, but to have all the tank DK's blood too?

As i said, self-healing tanks just seem wrong to me... call me old fashioned, but they just do.

WTB viable Unholy specs as tank and dps so i don't have to use Curse of Elements anymore

There are only so many ways tank can work. They can either mitigate the greater portion of damage dealt to them or avoid it.

Most tanks are going to have to be mitigation based, else healers find themselves useless. That's a large part of why you see avoidance numbers continually nerfed, because a pure avoidance tank becomes unhittable. Healers also tend to hate avoidance tanks because of damage spikiness.

Mitigation tanks, therefore, must have a way to make the big hits not so big. There are a few ways to do this as well, straight armor, magically shield themselves from it, or heal a portion back, sort of reactive mitigation.

So while it might seem "wrong" to you, it's adding more variety to the tanks. And more variety is a good thing.