T's guide to Blood Death knight PvE

[Twilightdawn]

Hey! Are you a DK dps stuck waiting in 50 min Qs?
Maybe your currently doing PvP..., and not happy with how it's turning out
Want to be the star of your heroic or raid?
The envy of your fellow tanks? Then this guide is for you!
TALENTS : : Tier one : Blade Barrier is a MUST have for DK tanks, Whenever your blood runes are on cooldown, bladebarrier will give you 6% reduced Damage! put all 3 (3/3) points in Blade barrier, Next up in teir one; Butchery, Butchery is great so you don't get rune starved, which can lead to loss of aggro and death in some cases, 2/2 in this one.
Teir 2 : Scarlet fever : Scarlet fever is a GREAT talent for dk tanks, when you blood boil ( one of your main forms of Aoe threat) Scarlet fever will put a diasese on your enemies that will reduce the physical damage they deal by 10%, which is GREAT! 2/2 in this one: : Scent of blood : SoB is another way to keep you from getting rune starved, 3/3 in this one, you don't want to be caught without the runic power you need
Teir 3: Boneshield : Boneshield is great for a bit of reduced damage coming in, which makes your healers job A LOT easier, 1/1 in this one guys and girls.. 1/1
: Toughness : This is another great talent, 3/3 in this one, with toughness 3/3 you get 10 % EXTRA armor from all Plate items, which in turn, increases your total armor by 10%, Which reduces the physical damage taken.: Abominations Might: 2/2 While this talent isn't exactly for tanking, it helps you bring something to the raid that you might not have otherwise, good place to drop 2 points.
Teir 4 : Improved blood presence : 2/2 in this one, Rune regen is great to have , without it you'll find your runes on cooldown more which can lead to you standing there helplessly, and with the 6% chance to be critically hit, this proves to be a no brainer : Blood Parasite 2/2 in this one friends, Blood parasite has a chance to spawn a blood worm which will attack your enemies and slowly feed itself, when it becomes full, it explodes, Healing you and anyone nearby, this is great, and mine are clocking around 7k heals so far : Sanguine Fortitude : Reduces the amount of runic power it takes to cast icebound fortitude and decreases damage taken by 30% when used, this is a WONDERFUL Talent to take, Since Icebound fortitude is one of your main defensive cooldowns.
Teir 5 : Vampric blood : Vampric blood increases your total health by 15% and increases the effect of Health you get from spells by 25%, this is great for when your in a tight spot, pop it and your health zooms up, and your easier to heal, healers must LOVE this talent : Rune Tap : This takes one of your blood runes and turns it into 15% of your health, Which is also great for getting you out of tight spots, which is what Teir 5 is all about , as you'll see in a second : Will of the necropolis : 3/3 in this one , no doubt.
What this does is when your hit and that hit takes you below 30%, your cooldown on rune tap is refreshed, and you get 25% Damage reduction for 8 seconds, this is a GREAT boss fight / hard pull saver, and has saved me many times when i've dropped to around 8k .
Teir 6 Teir 6 is pretty linear, the 2 talents here are Improved death strike ( 3/3 ) and Crimson Scourge ( 2/2 ) : Improved DS just increases the Damage and healing done by 45%, and increases its chance to critically hit by 9%, This is awesome to keep your HP up , and the extra dmg will keep aggro on you. : Crimson Scourge : This increases the damage done by your blood boil by 40%, And when you blood boil a target that already is affected by your blood plague, your next blood boil will cost no runes, This helps A LOT on AoE packs and AoE aggro in general
Teir 7 Dancing rune weapon : Once a talent shunned by Dks blizz fixed this one to provide some defence, what it does is it summons an EXACT copy ( Pretty cool huh) of the weapon or weapons your using, then copys every attack you do a 50% dmg, while active it increases your parry by 20% this is great for boss fights and trash pulls alike, one instance i can think of where it is awesome is Grim Batol, when Forgemaster Throngus pulls out his dual wield blades, pull out your Dancing Rune weapon and parry those double hits.
Extras Right, so by now we've filled out all the important tanking talents and we're at the bottom of the blood tree, now, we should have 8 more talent points to go. Nerves of cold steel (FOR DUAL WEILDING DKS ONLY!! 3/3 In here, increase chance to hit with 1h weapons by 3% and increases offhand dmg by 25%
Unholy Command: 2/2 Reduces the CD of Death grip by 10 seconds, and when you kill an enemy that gives xp/honor ( anything not grey at level 85 ) the CD is refreshed, This is an awesome one, with CC now a factor, its good to death grip a caster away from CCed mobs to avoid you Death and Decay aggroing the CCed
Virulence: Increases your chance to hit with spells by 9%, this is a great one for all DKs, Missing on a blood boil or Icy touch isnt good.
If you didn't take Nerves of cold steel, your using a 2her, then you'll want Morbidity 3/3, This will increase the damage and healing of Death coil by 15% and Death and Decay by 30%, this one is Awesome for AoE, the extra damage will pulls those mobs right on in.
Glyphs Prime: Death and Decay increases the duration of DaD by 50%, the longer mobs sit in it, the more damage you can do to them, more dmg, more aggro , aggro = good : Rune Strike : Increases the crit strike of Rune strike by 10%, this is great since rune strike helps to bring in aggro and is your main runic power dump : Heart strike : Increases the damage of heart strike by 30%, also one of your main abilitys, more damage will bring in more aggro for you.
Major Major glyphs have a lot of good ones for tanking, personally, i'd go with : Rune tap: This makes it so rune tap also heals your party members for 5% of their HP, this is great to help the healers save someones life or to make up for dropping aggro, have the main or off tank in your group with you in raids and you can splash heal them : Dancing rune weapon : increases your threat generation when DRW is up by 50%, this is just great for trying to regain aggro/hold aggro on leet deeps.
: Blood Boil : This increases the radius of blood boil by 50%, trust me, doing blood boil BEFORE a mob is actually in range is not nice
Minor Minors are always easy to pick.. just throw in one here and one there, there are 2 that stand out to me as most useful for tanks
: Resilient Grip : Ever tried to death grip something.. something REALLY REALLY big, and it popped up immune, or tried to DG something thats untauntable and get immune flashing above it? with resilient grip if that happens, your CD is auto-refreshed
: Blood Tap : Blood tap will no longer do damage to you, this is good, while BT didn't do much dmg to you it did some, and so its nice to have it not do dmg to you when you need a rune FAST
For the last slot, pick whichever glyph suits you, i personally like Horn of winter, but it isn't required
GeneralWeapons : While it is possible to dual wield tank ( See talents if you skipped ahead) its easier to use a 2her, any 2her will work.
if you do choose to dual wield tank Make sure that A: you have Nerves of cold steel ( See talents> Extra ) and B Your expertice capped, if your not capped on expertise then everytime you get parried your weapon swing will reset and you will lose some dmg and aggro, with a 2her this is NOT the case, sure, you still need to be Expertise capped, but its not as much of an issue * Remember ANY 2H Wep with stats better than yours ( Mainly Stam ) Should be needed on, despite what dps say, Unless it has Intel,Spir,spell or is in any way a caster or healer 2her, take it. Melee dps 2h = Dk tank 2h
: Gems : For gems i'd finish up capping things like Expertise and hit then move on to Stamina , dodge and parry, improving those as needed
: Enchanting : You might be saying to your self " Enchanting? why not just go pick up a rune at my local rune forge! " Most of the runes aren't as good as enchants, just like most free things in life, they are second class. i'd Go mending or Windwalk on a 2h weapons ( After you get a decent one, mending can be pricey depending on server ) and for 1hers i'd go Mending and Windwalk, Mending helps your healers a lot, and windwalk is great for the extra dodge
: Reforging : This depends mostly on the gear you have, but for 2h weapons , take off states you don't need ( if your capped on hit remove that yada yada) And put on some dodge or parry, depending on what your low on, this carrys on to most other items, tinker around with the stats to find a balance.
: Roooooooooooootation : Right, So you've read to this point, You know about talents, you know about glyphs, You understand how to reforge and how to gem, but the thing you don't know how to do yet : Fight.
( Keep in mind this guide is designed for level 81+ )
Single Target : Death grip for initial threat, open with outbreak and then go with a deathstrike, keeping your diaseses up and deathstriking when able to, Blood strike to fill in the gaps and Rune strike to dump rune power
AoE/Multiple targets ( BE MINDFUL OF CCS) No CC : Charge. Run right in there. pop outbreak on one mob then hit pestilance, drop death and decay and blood boil, continuously tab-target and stirke each mob once or twice before moving to the next, keep your DoTs up and keep blood boiling, remember to keep death strike up and use any defensive cooldowns needed
CC : This is more likely the case, if there is a caster unCCed Either death grip or strangulate to pull, if there is 2, strangulate one DG the other, then continue from step 1 of the No-CC guide, Real difficult, i know.
Bosses: For bosses your mostly going to be using the single target method, just make sure that you watch your health and your healers mana, and pop your Defensive CDs when you need to, don't hesitate if you think your going down, Also, Remember Death pact, if your getting low on health, summon your ghoul to you and right away sacrifice it for your own good, a real life saver Imo

Thank you all for your time and dedication, hope you have some good tanking days , good luck to you all, and have fun, Don't worry if you struggle at first, You'll get it,
~T~