Blood Tanks, how to get the most out of Vampiric Blood

[eint]

Just got done writing up a post for WorldofDeathKnightCraft.com regarding how you can get the most out of your Vampiric Blood ability if you are a DK Blood Tank. Figured I would post it up here to help out the community.

http://www.worldofdeathknightcraft.c...ampiric-blood/

Today we will cover a handy tip for managing trinkets with Vampiric Blood when tanking as a Blood Death Knight. For more information regarding Blood Death Knight tanks, please refer to our forums or the Blood Tank Guide. As with all things related to WoW and life, there are many times and situations that might not always fit into a given strategy 100% of the time. IF you have other recommendations or rules by which you use Vampiric Blood post your thoughts in the comments section and help your fellow Death Knights out!

Overview

As a Blood Tank, one of the most powerful abilities at your disposal comes in the form of the 36-point talent, Vampiric Blood. With it’s short 60-second cooldown (assuming you are not using Tier 9), Vampiric Blood is a fantastic way to help survive a big attack or help out your healing crew if they are a bit over stressed with raid healing. For starters, lets break down what Vampiric Blood does and link the buffs to applications and scenarios where it will help.

Vampiric Blood (hover over for stats)

Healing Improved by 35%: This is one of the primary aspects of the ability which makes it such a great “oh shit” button. Not only will you have 15% more health, but the 35% improved healing makes it much easier for your healing team to keep you alive.

Maximum Health Improved by 15%: It’s pretty obvious to see that this aspect of the ability is why most all Blood Tanks will be waiting to use Vampiric Blood to counter those special abilities that cause bosses to hit like freight trains. A great example of when to use this trinket would be when tanking Festergut’s third inhale (for those tanking current content).

It’s all about Synergy

Glyph of Vampiric Blood: This is one of the bread and butter glyphs for a Blood Tank. While a 5-second improvement doesn’t sound like a lot at first, taking into account that normally Vampiric Blood only lasts for 10-seconds makes this a 50% improvement!

Another great thing to keep in mind is stacking Vampiric Blood with other trinket cool-downs which increase your hit points. This is particularly important if you have trinkets like Juggernaut’s Vitality that increase your HP by a set amount. Why is this important you ask? Since Vampiric Blood reads as 15% increase to your HP that means it will scale even better if you use your raw HP increase trinket first and follow it up with Vampiric Blood. It also just so happens that this buff will last 15-seconds which will perfectly match your Vampiric Blood assuming you followed our advice and glyphed for it.

Examples (using rounded numbers just for sake of easy math):

Using Vampiric Blood Followed by Juggernaut’s Vitality (the WRONG way)

Base Tank HP = 50,000
Vampiric Blood Bonus HP = 7500 HP
Tank HP + Vampiric Blood = 57,500 HP
Final HP after Juggernaut’s Vitality = 62,110 HP

Using Juggernaut’s Vitality Followed by Vampiric Blood (the RIGHT way)

Base Tank HP = 50,000
Juggernaut’s Vitality Bonus = +4610 HP
Tank HP + Juggernaut’s Vitality = 54,610 HP
Final HP after Vampiric Blood = 62,801 HP (rounded the .5 decimal down)

After taking a look at this you can clearly see a gain of roughly 700 HP based on the numbers in the example, simply by making sure that you use your trinket before your Vampiric Blood. While 700 HP isn’t a whole lot, there simply is no reason not to gain the extra hit points if you are planning on stacking your Vampiric Blood with your Juggernaut’s Vitality.

[Vodamn]

I think this could be summed up with "Use health trinkets prior to Vamp Blood."

[Sarasyn]

Vampiric Blood only requires 36 points in Blood. Dancing Rune Weapon is the 51 point talent for the blood tree,

[Shornaal]

As a Blood Tank, one of the most powerful abilities at your disposal comes in the form of the 51-point talent, Vampiric Blood.

Ehm, it's not the 51. It's the "36" being it between the 31 and the 41-point.
EDIT: Sarasyn got it before me, yay @ opening a dozen threads and then answer after a lot ^^