How do you use runes as blood DK?

[drubibu]

I have question about play style and UI. I have been playing DK tank more serious since MOP and I want to improve my 'raid awareness'. But I am too focused on the buttons on the bars and not on mechanics of the encounter. I have been checking out other peoples UI's and I find people have their runes very prominently placed on their screen. But I never use runes while playing, so I figure must be doing something wrong.

Basically this is how I play:
Put diseases up and refresh with bloodboil procs.
Use deathstrike when health drops or prior to high damage if stack is 5.
runestrike when I have enough runic power
hartstrike when available
when no abilities available bloodtap

I build up bloodtap to 12 stacks to be sure I have a deathstrike on demand if health drops, than two bloodtaps give me a guaranteed deathstrike to give me a self heal.

I don't consider runes in my decision making. The downside is that I have tunnel vision on my bars instead of on what is going on in the raid. I figure that if my runes could give me enough information on what ability is available, I could be more aware of what is going on. How do you use runes in your decision making?

[Deleted]

Good that you realize that you arent playing at the level you should (mainly due to your tunnel vision), first step.

First of all, I recommend getting the docs debug runes addon. Its a very nice configurable addon that shows your runes as a 3x2 block.
I put this runeblock in the middle of my screen, below my character (about the same position as the blizz ui cast bar) with my personal player frame on the left side on it and with my target+target of target on thr left side of the block. This way I can without barely moving my eyes see my own hp, the runes I have available, my rp and the hp of my target.

Now, instead of watching your bars you only watch this block. A great but maybe a little harsh way to get used to this is to get an action bar addon like bartender, and then just disable the visability on the bar you have all your rune abilities on (make sure to put abilities with cds on different bars). This of course requires you to have full knowledge of your hotkeys and takes some time practice, dont expect to be able to use this method perfectly after just 10min.

Ill write some more tips when I got the time. Glhf

[Deleted]

Blood tap is meh if you are going to waste some stacks. Ok you are 100% sure you'll got a DS whenever you need but basically you are gimping your survivability by doing so. You should use it whenever available and you should never overcap BT charges otherwise RE or RC would be better talents (I consider them better anyway).

After this you are doing not so badly.

1) Diseases up, refresh them with blood boil proc
2) DS whenever possible and preferably after a big hit/when you are not at full health/when you are low on health. If you are full health and/or the damage incoming is low you should probably DS less often and sit a bit on runes (I don't mean you have to cap all of them of course) if you know a big hit/high damage incoming phase is coming. Otherwise you could stack blood shield when you swap the boss with another tank and in the meanwhile he takes care about boss you can DS to stack BS so when the boss will be back to you the damage incoming will be reduced a bit (gara'jal or wind lord for example).
3) Runestrike whenever possible and only with at least 1 fully depleted rune (NOT on CD)
4) Heart strike whenever possible ONLY with blood runes
5) HoW if you have nothing else to do

[Nillo]

My full prio list: (using RC for rune regeneration, but it also works with BT)

1) DS if it's worth using (plenty of stuff to consider)(
2) Refresh diseases with Crimson blood (<3 sec remaining)
3) Refresh diseases with Outbreak/Unholy Blight/Shrooms unless you need them somewhere else
4) Refresh diseases with Blood Boil (<3 sec remaining)
5) DS to keep at least 1 pair of FU runes on cd
6) Use RS if at 90+ RP
7) Keep 1 Blood rune on cd
8) Crimson Scourge proc if it's about to fall off
9) RS
10) Blood Rune
11) Crimson Scourge
12) HoW

This priority can mostly be done by watching your runes, health bar and rp bar.