unused blood tanking talents?

[Athael]

I thought Improved Death Strike only increased it by 30%?

If it's additive, that would make it heal for 13%, not 15%. But then again, like I said, I'm not a blood tank, so I don't know what I'm talking about.

[DAST]

I thought Improved Death Strike only increased it by 30%?

If it's additive, that would make it heal for 13%, not 15%. But then again, like I said, I'm not a blood tank, so I don't know what I'm talking about.

go read the whole tooltip

[Shawaam]

As far as I know, bloodworms eat AoE heal charges like Chain Heal, CoH etc. which makes them very bad. Why waste a 6k heal on a 20 dps pet?

[Aevelan]

Improved blood pres - increases healing recieved. Have you seen the amount of overheals that paladins do in high end content? Is not worth it.

You guys need to stop thinking that this talent works in frost presence. If it did I'm sure it would be part of the cookie cutter spec. The reason no tank would take this is because you have to be in blood presence to receive any benefit at all.

**edit** I fail at using quotes correctly.

[Sápphh]

You guys need to stop thinking that this talent works in frost presence. If it did I'm sure it would be part of the cookie cutter spec. The reason no tank would take this is because you have to be in blood presence to receive any benefit at all.

This, although the 4% healing bonus you get in Frost presence is worthless, but is a 'benefit' so to speak.

[Omedon]

Honestly, having recently given blood tanking a second look... I'd like to see just how you get further than halfway down the tree while "dodging" all these "crap" talents...

Seriously... I can't picture the "cookie cutter" you speak of, and I'd like to think I know what I'm doing.

[Zao]

Just to clarify this:
RT will heal a fully buffed ICC 25 tank for more than 10k. This is undoubtetly useful. The question is if you use it regularly or not. It's like Healthstones, better have one and not use it than needing one and don't have it. Personally I've specced into it, but I've only really used it once or twice where it actually made a difference.

Bloodowrms: While I haven't specced into those since my leveling days, I'm pretty sure that 600 health per hit is way above their actual heal. And even if it isn't: they die so fast, that they probably won't even hit the boss once.

MoB: I don't like it. on 80% of the bosses it will simply heal the whole raid for 4% and then disappear. And on the 20% that don't do heavy aoe damage the 4% health back won't make a difference.
Your comparison with the gem doesn't really cut it, because a: you didn't factor EH in and b) stamina actually prevents you from dying, while the 4% heal will not.

imp BP: an ICC geared tank does what? 3k dps? That's a whooping 120 HPS you get out of it. A 10k RS crit (which is rather high and won't happen often) will heal you for 400 HP. Doesn't matter.
If they would change it into something a bit more reactive, like an activated life leech I'd take it. But in it's current form its useless. (and if you read the talent again, you should see that the additional healing only works in BP)

[Lockycheese]

omg these links are ugly...

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...00000000000000

but anyways... this ^

[rabbimojo]

Going to half-repeat what's been said, but a lot of these abilities ended up being overly situational, so they aren't typically taken. I'm going to riff a bit on it because I'm bored.

The typical serious tank mindset is: "Given we've taken all the coarse-grained survival upgrades, we have choices. We know that tank DPS can contribute somewhat meaningfully, and it's easy to quantify how much. It's also nice to have additional threat when adds appear, to smooth encounters out."

Beyond that, it's very difficult for most players to quantify the usefulness of miniscule effects. A good point was made above that we do minor things like choose pure stam over a hybrid stam gem+stamsocket, because 4-6 stamina can mean something. We don't have the tools, generally, to know whether a given talent would make a difference when it's small.

So, I'm going to respond with two views. One, a lot of these abilities are too situational. Two, a lot of these abilities seem ambiguous in potency to most players. Disclaimer: I'm still in the ToC/Uld mindset on my DK, as I haven't been raiding regularly lately. So, my examples will discuss those sorts of encounters. I realize these have no bearing on currently interesting content, mostly just discussing.

1) Spell deflection: At any given point, only a small set of spells can be affected by this. Supposing you've got 30% parry (probably high, but my old DK tank has about 25% parry), you're looking at on average a 13.5% reduction to damage taken from applicable spells. Unfortunately, that list is small and never applied to the things we wanted it (sarth breath, fusion punch, etc. traditionally). Whether to use this should be on a case-by-case basis. If you're having trouble with tank deaths on a fight which uses a lot of deflectable spells, it could make a difference. For most tanks, not worth that effort.

2) Rune tap: This is much-maligned, but it is actually an ok ability. Blood tanks tend to have available blood or death runes at any given point, so it's a fairly easy-to-use ability. The problem? You need to know whether your healers are having a situation, or if you just haven't received a heal in longer than you'd expect. That's not an easy decision to make, so typically RT is just going to be overheal. However, if you know there's an encounter your healers are struggling on, this can definitely help bridge gaps in healer uptime (which 4 out of 5 raid leaders agree is one of the leading causes of tank death! ;P)

3) Mark of Blood: Few fights this is particularly useful on, and like the previous two abilities needs to be weighed case-by-case. MOB tends to be consumed by AOE, which is rarely useful (4% of a mage's HP is.. not a lot). If there's no AOE, MOB tends to be wasted, as bosses don't attack quickly enough. That said, I found this fairly useful on Algalon, and occasionally when our healer lineup was weak on XT HM, especially when taking 10m groups in. (Decent heals on tantrum, basically). It was also useful on Vezax before he was made into a guaranteed kill, for obvious reasons.

4) Bloodworms: Not sure whether the above-mentioned "600 per hit" heal is realistic in ICC gear. Maybe? If so, I would say that's actually not a bad amount. Sure, there's a ton of overhealing out there, but tanks still die, and smoothing the big incoming spikes can make a difference. Not much of one, but likely more of one than a couple hundred DPS from a tank. Mostly these are pretty weak, though. :P

5) IBP: Same as bloodworms. As Zao said, if you're doing 3k dps, that's about 120 healing/sec from this. Unlikely to turn the tide, but I've seen fights won by a thinner margin than that.

So, long story short: It's hard to really appreciate minor effects when the numbers hitting you are so huge. However, anyone who has played WoW for long knows that sometimes you win by the skin of your teeth. Sometimes you lose by that tiny amount, too. These abilities might make the difference there, but it's a lot of talent points for very little significant gain.

[Omedon]

omg these links are ugly...

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...00000000000000

but anyways... this ^

Thanks for the link!

Hmmm... alright... now... I am quite purposely not a theorycrafting, EJ-riding, spreadsheet flying son of a gun, but... a few off the cuff observations based on actual themes I've read here and there...

-Morbidity but no sudden doom: So... Half of your morbidity oppurtunity cost is useless... that seems counter to other themes expressed on these forums.

-Crit based talents: I thought threat wasn't a huge issue at this time...? And isn't your talent-granted crit then the only crit you'll get? Why the Bloody Vengeance and Might of Mograine? Or are these blood tanks also... gearing crit...? I got nuthin. Don't we hate RNG?

I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious. If you have two other points on the triangle to consider, why lean so heavily toward giving the DPS more room to breathe (threatwise), and leave your healers only with your default abilities to help them with their job?

really, I'm not trolling, you guys are breaking my brain here. ???

[Syah]

It's really all a matter of preference.
I take Rune Tap + Imp Rune Tap, Mark of Blood and Spell Deflection, but not Blood Worms or Imp Blood Pres.

My reasoning behind each is:
Rune Tap - On many fights, I know when I'm gonna get a big hit. I can react quickly and heal myself immediately with RT. (One more cd to help me out)

Mark of Blood - Highly situational (BQL air phase, Stinky decimate, Festergut after Pungent Blight, etc...). I like to feel like I'm helping.

Spell Deflection - Why not? I like the idea of avoidance being tied to spells (other than just resists).

No Blood Worms - I don't like them. They're ugly. Also, when soloing Hakkar they would get me MC'd.

No Imp Blood Pres - The 4% healing isn't worth it.

So where do those 8 points I spent come from?
3 - Imp Icy Touch - In my raids the slow is provided by multiple other players. (There will be cases where I am tanking something off to the side, so this would be something that is still beneficial to pick up.)
2 - Epidemic - I like to use Glyph of Disease
3 - Subversion - I'm fine on threat

[Omedon]

No Blood Worms - I don't like them. They're ugly.

I had to pause a moment here to hug you. Seriously.

My ONLY trepidation with blood being the tank tree is that BW's will become "undeniably cookie cutter", and I will cry.

I am a cold blooded killer, not a garbage scow. I will stick to this mantra as long as viability will permit.

Thankfully I am a 5-man devotee, whose appreciative healers trust my judgement, so I should get that wiggle room, if needed.

But yes, Amen a thousand times over, and suffer well!

[rabbimojo]

...
MoB: I don't like it. on 80% of the bosses it will simply heal the whole raid for 4% and then disappear. And on the 20% that don't do heavy aoe damage the 4% health back won't make a difference.
Your comparison with the gem doesn't really cut it, because a: you didn't factor EH in and b) stamina actually prevents you from dying, while the 4% heal will not.
...

I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation of EH. Apologies in advance for the tl;dr. I'm quoting Zao here but not really replying directly to him.

As I understand the math behind it, EH is responding specifically to two very related types of "tank death scenarios".
1) Healers are unable to heal for any of many reasons (DC'd, fight mechanics, out of range, healing someone else, lag, misclick, whatever). In this circumstance, it gives your healers longer to recover from whatever reason is interfering.
2) Heals do not arrive in time to repair damage taken. In this case, it's perhaps more related to the healing "pulses" (IE, HL spams hitting you). Many healers stack haste for this reason, because more SP won't save anyone if the heal doesn't land at the right time.

In terms of these two views, EH does help immensely. However, ultimately tanking/healing vs. boss damage is a probability experiment. MoB's usefulness, when it does apply, is that it is a reduction in the boss's damage equal to 4% of the tank's health, while it's up. Not being passive doesn't make it pointless, for sure.

It's that second view above that makes me suggest that all of these self-heals, while miniscule, do actually contribute materially to tank survival. This is also why avoidance is still useful, even though it isn't EH.

Put in other terms, it's generally understood that at a certain point you have "enough" stamina. Especially with ICC's x% buff coming into play, tanks are getting to where the healers would have to have dozed off for the additional EH to make a difference.

Trying to find the right way to express this idea... Suppose we could assign probabilities that each of the things I listed above for healer distraction. If none of those occur, chances are very good that the raid isn't going to wipe due to tank death, since holydin throughput is so high.

Now, if the probability of occurence is non-zero, then EH factors in heavily on whether or not an occurrence leads to tank death. Beyond that, though, so does avoidance!

Let's take a hypothetical fight where the boss will kill the tank in 3 hits. Supposing that your primary tank healer has a one percent chance in a given fight that he will have a lag spike for the duration of 3 boss hits. (Roomies downloading porn on BT or whatever). If you have 0% avoidance, let's say that that lag spike is going to be tank death. So, that's a one percent chance every encounter that your tank will die. If you've got 50% avoidance, the chance that all three of those hits land is just 12.5%. Thus, you've reduced your chance per encounter of tank death (for that reason) by 87.5%.

In a real encounter, this is a much more chaotic function. You've got other healers who might pick up the slack in time, you've got all kinds of heals and buffs and debuffs and mechanics to deal with. However, you're still fundamentally looking at a complicated function: "Given the players do this, the boss does this, and these external factors occur, does the tank live?" In that function, minor self heals actually do have an impact. Whether it's enough to warrant taking the abilities is a thick discussion, and one that most tanks choose to ignore.

[Omedon]

I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation of EH. Apologies in advance for the tl;dr. I'm quoting Zao here but not really replying directly to him.

As I understand the math behind it, EH is responding specifically to two very related types of "tank death scenarios".
1) Healers are unable to heal for any of many reasons (DC'd, fight mechanics, out of range, healing someone else, lag, misclick, whatever). In this circumstance, it gives your healers longer to recover from whatever reason is interfering.
2) Heals do not arrive in time to repair damage taken. In this case, it's perhaps more related to the healing "pulses" (IE, HL spams hitting you). Many healers stack haste for this reason, because more SP won't save anyone if the heal doesn't land at the right time.

In terms of these two views, EH does help immensely. However, ultimately tanking/healing vs. boss damage is a probability experiment. MoB's usefulness, when it does apply, is that it is a reduction in the boss's damage equal to 4% of the tank's health, while it's up. Not being passive doesn't make it pointless, for sure.

It's that second view above that makes me suggest that all of these self-heals, while miniscule, do actually contribute materially to tank survival. This is also why avoidance is still useful, even though it isn't EH.

Put in other terms, it's generally understood that at a certain point you have "enough" stamina. Especially with ICC's x% buff coming into play, tanks are getting to where the healers would have to have dozed off for the additional EH to make a difference.

Trying to find the right way to express this idea... Suppose we could assign probabilities that each of the things I listed above for healer distraction. If none of those occur, chances are very good that the raid isn't going to wipe due to tank death, since holydin throughput is so high.

Now, if the probability of occurence is non-zero, then EH factors in heavily on whether or not an occurrence leads to tank death. Beyond that, though, so does avoidance!

Let's take a hypothetical fight where the boss will kill the tank in 3 hits. Supposing that your primary tank healer has a one percent chance in a given fight that he will have a lag spike for the duration of 3 boss hits. (Roomies downloading porn on BT or whatever). If you have 0% avoidance, let's say that that lag spike is going to be tank death. So, that's a one percent chance every encounter that your tank will die. If you've got 50% avoidance, the chance that all three of those hits land is just 12.5%. Thus, you've reduced your chance per encounter of tank death (for that reason) by 87.5%.

In a real encounter, this is a much more chaotic function. You've got other healers who might pick up the slack in time, you've got all kinds of heals and buffs and debuffs and mechanics to deal with. However, you're still fundamentally looking at a complicated function: "Given the players do this, the boss does this, and these external factors occur, does the tank live?" In that function, minor self heals actually do have an impact. Whether it's enough to warrant taking the abilities is a thick discussion, and one that most tanks choose to ignore.

I follow you entirely, and I agree (even through my hatred of BW's hehe)

"That's why we have healers" just sounds so... I dunno... imposing on the healers, to be frank. Why not help them when you have the chance? Heck, I could say "that's why we have DPS" in response to the above cookie cutter's many DPS talents, again taking into account that "threat isn't an issue anymore" is something I hear a lot of these days.

[jai151]

Spell deflection's negatives extend beyond the RNG. The big problem with it is that it doesn't work on most spells.

It has to be a direct damage spell. Not an AoE (though it does work on Sindragosa's breath attack, that's the exception, not the rule), not a void zone, direct damage. Blizzard's design decision in Wrath so far has been that direct damage spells are made to be countered (EG - Jarraxus's Fel Firebolt, Lady Deathwhisperer's Frostbolt, etc), so the spell should never be getting through to you to be deflected. And then you have the fact that you aren't avoiding the spell, you're still taking 60% damage. Then it's the RNG component.

[Albert the fish]

I've been looking at blood tanking specs, and I'm curious why some of these talents aren't taken by many high end tanks?

Spell Deflection

the basic reason for not taking this is that we assume that all dd spells that we really care about should be interrupted. any spell that is not interruptable is either doing negligable damage or isn't affected by SD anyway

Rune tap (and improved)

cool spell, but with DS and a healer corp most people would rather use the points for more passive abilities that do not cost runes. this may change in Cata

Mark of Blood

personally i really like this but it costs runes and you still have a lot of DS and the healer corp that make this not as desirable..again, this may change in cata..i really hope so

Bloodworms

blood worms are just unimpressive as a whole. not a lot of dmg not a lot of healing. they can pull shit and get you in trouble. the talent needs tweaking. it's a neat idea though and i'd love to see it get some Cata love

Improved Blood Presence

again this is a talent i particularly love....on paper. the extreme overpowering of your healers, especially with being able to DS yourself at the same time, makes it far less attractive. most of the self heal things in blood suffer from this. it's simply too damn easy to heal in wrath, making the self healing abilities in blood drop in value.

Seems like some might not be that great, but I don't get taking dps talents over them. Are DK's that aggro starved?

it's not that they are starved so much as they are getting more for their money by taking them.

you have 1 point to spend, would you rather take a +2 survival talent or a +6 threat talent.(obviously those numbers are bogus and just meant to give a relative idea)

[Omedon]

you have 1 point to spend, would you rather take a +2 survival talent or a +6 threat talent.(obviously those numbers are bogus and just meant to give a relative idea)

If threat's "no longer an issue" (paraphrasing... well... everywhere), why not help in the "If I die, we all die" department?

[Floreon]

Thanks for the link!

Hmmm... alright... now... I am quite purposely not a theorycrafting, EJ-riding, spreadsheet flying son of a gun, but... a few off the cuff observations based on actual themes I've read here and there...

-Morbidity but no sudden doom: So... Half of your morbidity oppurtunity cost is useless... that seems counter to other themes expressed on these forums.

-Crit based talents: I thought threat wasn't a huge issue at this time...? And isn't your talent-granted crit then the only crit you'll get? Why the Bloody Vengeance and Might of Mograine? Or are these blood tanks also... gearing crit...? I got nuthin. Don't we hate RNG?

I'm not being snarky, I'm genuinely curious. If you have two other points on the triangle to consider, why lean so heavily toward giving the DPS more room to breathe (threatwise), and leave your healers only with your default abilities to help them with their job?

really, I'm not trolling, you guys are breaking my brain here. ???

Morbidity is taken largely for the DND cooldown redux, whatever death coils you get off just naturally are gravy. Sudden Doom is worth less threat than other talents, and is thus not taken.

Bloody Vengeance is a 30 second duration, even only having like 20% or so crit, you'll still be critting more than once every 30 seconds. Its buff will still be up 100% of the time in most realistic situations. Might of Mograine I'm not sure what you're actually getting at.

Also, Threat isn't a non issue, it's just that most of the time it decreases in relevance as a fight goes on. There are still those DPS that manage to be right behind you on threat and actually still threat cap too. See: Blizzard's thoughts on tank damage scaling.

Feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

[Omedon]

Might of Mograine I'm not sure what you're actually getting at.

I meant that it's a crit-size augmentation in a role that, gearwise, isn't set up to crit that often.

Thanks for the response

[Friskydingos]

Has everybody forgotten that Improved Blood Presence's 10% Healing bonus to you is while you're in Blood Presence and not Frost? If you're tanking in Blood Presence, I don't think deciding on which talents to pick is the least of your problems. I haven't seen it mentioned yet so I thought I should toss this in here.