Blood DPS Compared to Other Tanks

[ATron52]

Hello ladies and gents!

I've been tanking normal ToT (my guild doesn't run heroic) as Blood lately, and it seems that my DPS compared to other tanks is on the low side. I have a 520 equipped with a 516 Heroic Scen. weapon that has not been upgraded. I routinely tank alongside a Warrior, but I've also ran with a Guardian and Prot Pally - all of which are pretty equally geared to myself.

I've noticed that in comparison to them, my DPS as a tank seems to be on the low end. I think that a lot of it stems from myself not wanting to sacrifice "tank" stats for DPS stats for a couple of reasons: A) I'm not well enough geared to feel comfortable doing so, and B) I feel like I'm losing DPS by holding off on DS on occasion for mitigation purposes. I normally offtank and generally have the boss less than the main tank, meaning I won't have as much vengeance, but it still just feels a little on the low side. The only fights where I can routinely out-damage the other tank are Tortos when I'm on bats and Primordius from being able to disease the bloods.

The warrior I normally tank with received a 528 TF 1h a few weeks back that he's upgraded 2/2, so I expected him to out damage me, but the differences seem huge. My 45k on Lei Shen to his 64K. 71k to his 85k on Twins. 42k to 60k on Qon. Is this normal for the gear difference? Is holding off on DS every now and then for a boss ability that much of a DPS hit, or would it be mostly a gear issue?

Just looking for any opinions you guys may have, thanks!

[Nillo]

I really can't find a nice way to say it so here it goes:
You're doing it completely wrong since 40-70k is in the area of autohit afk dps and well idk if you're talking post or pre patch but pre patch warriors were by far the worst tanks dps wise so eh...
Only hold onto DS if you really have to and unless there's something really massive incoming always use DS if you have 2 pair of FU (or they are close to coming off cd). Usually you should have about 8-10 DS/min, less HS used than DS used and most of your damage should be coming from RS (around 20%), then DS(around 15%) with HS being next to nothing (~5%) and SR at 10%.... oh yes you absolutely have to use Soul Reaper since it's a massive dps gain over HS.

[Deleted]

are you getting equal vengeance though? DKs sure are on the lower end of the tank dps spectrum, but on lei shen for example one of the tanks is likely to take the decap's, the other tanking the boss in between. DKs usually get put on decap duty because they can just absorb the entire hit with blood shield. the other tank will have way more average vengeance throughout the first phase and do more damage. i guess you tank about the same amount of time in the 2nd and last phase but it can make a difference.
there's a similar thing on twins, where the DK usually gets put on the "beast of nightmare" duty just because they can heal themselves while killing the mob without any issues. your dps seems low even for offtanking though...

[ATron52]

@Ongu - The way our guild does most of the fights means that I rarely ever have the boss, giving the warrior much higher vengeance. I'm also going through the guild's WoL parses and on bosses where I actually tank half the time (Ji-Kun and Durumu for example) I'm much more competitive - around 65k to 75k.

@Nillo - I find it hard to believe that I'm doing it "completely" wrong and that my damage values are in the "autohit afk" range. I definitely feel that your statement is an over exaggeration for someone in 520 gear, a 516 non-upgraded weapon, 1116 haste, and 606 crit. The haste and crit are from a couple pieces of 522 DPS gear that has dropped, that I haven't replaced wit "tank" gear. On my most recent twins kill for example, I did 71k DPS.
Rune Strike - 25.1% @ 100 Casts
Death Strike - 16.4 @ 46 Casts
Melee - 15.8% 95 Casts
Heart Strike - 11.3% @ 69 Casts
Blood Boil - 4% @ 41 Casts
Death and Decay - 2% at 62 ticks (I'm not sure how to see total number of casts)

Right off the bat (this is the first time I've ever really looked at my logs) I can tell I'm using WAAAY too many blood boils for a mainly single target encounter. I feel like I should most likely only use it to refresh diseases and the spread them to the Nightmare when it pops. I try to drop D&D on cooldown when the boss will be in it for the full duration, and my Death Strike usage seems a little low for the 8-10 you mentioned per minute - the fight lasted 6:34, so ideally I should see 52-64 DS. Since I didn't use DS as much as I could have, those extra runes most likely went into my really high Heart Strike / Blood Boil count, so that seems like it would be a noticeable DPS drop. The last thing I'm thinking that could be a big deal is my lack of using DPS cds. The Twins fight above, I never once used Raise Dead, DRW, or AotD. I feel like as a tank, I need to save them as defensive cooldowns. I imagine that using them all on CD would end up being a pretty big increase overall.

As of this moment, it looks like I need to practice my rotation some. I don't remember using Blood Boil so much, but on a single target it's nowhere near as effective as Heart Strike. Even then, it looks like my Heart Strikes are cutting into potential Death Strikes which not only hits harder than two Heart Strikes, but it's active mitigation. It absolutely looks like I have some l2p issues going on right now, though it's not quite as extreme as the "autohit afk" difference.

[chibichibiko]

The weapon being 516 hurts, of course, but it's not going to provoke the difference in the kinds of damage dps-focused dk tanks are used to seeing, but you also, in your post, indicate one reason why you're not seeing big numbers: you have no dps stats. As a dk tank, every stat is viable, and I'd suggest you work on boosting your haste% to 15-25%, even if that means dropping your mastery down to ~10k. You'll feel a bit squishier, but you'll have more threat/dps.

To correct some assumptions:
-only use death and decay when you can cast it for free due to a proc. Otherwise spend bloodboils when they're free from procs. It's not outside of the realm of possibilities that you'll get plenty of BB casts in, and keep in mind that if you cast it and it hits two targets, it might be registering as 2 bloodboils in your log.
-Do not save DRW for a rainy day. It's preventative mitigation, not recovery mitigation. Pop it when you get a bit of vengeance and will hold the boss for the whole duration. Use outbreak after a few melee hits into DRW to get double diseases.
-unless a fight has a one-shot mechanic that you're looking to game for vengeance, there's not a lot of mitigation that army of the dead provides. Use it every fight when they'll be useful and you'll have vengeance.

[Deleted]

unless a fight has a one-shot mechanic that you're looking to game for vengeance, there's not a lot of mitigation that army of the dead provides. Use it every fight when they'll be useful and you'll have vengeance.

I've wondered about this, normally I pop AotD before the pull, so I dont lose GCDs on the boss. Does army keep the AP you had when you cast it, or is it dynamic?
And is it worth popping while you're tanking the boss, or rather right after a tank switch?

[chibichibiko]

I've wondered about this, normally I pop AotD before the pull, so I dont lose GCDs on the boss. Does army keep the AP you had when you cast it, or is it dynamic?
And is it worth popping while you're tanking the boss, or rather right after a tank switch?

It dynamically updates based on your stats. That tends to mean it's better after/while you have hefty vengeance. So if you aren't the tank that's pulling, don't pre-army.
I personally tend to pop it just before the thing I'm capitalizing upon happens. (just before hero, just before I taunt a boss, just before a burn phase, etc) that way I'm able to use death strike to level out the damage as it's coming in from army. I've used it as a one-shot reduction before in order to take a bigger hit (from an extra stack of talon rake, or standing closer to leishen for decapitate) as well.

If you want some easy advice: pop army any time in the fight when it'll have full uptime on the boss and you'll have vengeance for that whole time. If there's a bunch of adds and you want to use army's taunting to help mitigate damage on everyone by having them tank it, that's also an ideal use for them.

[Deleted]

I've wondered about this, normally I pop AotD before the pull, so I dont lose GCDs on the boss. Does army keep the AP you had when you cast it, or is it dynamic?
And is it worth popping while you're tanking the boss, or rather right after a tank switch?

As blood army is a survivability CD, you should treat it as such.
However, if you're trying to purely maximise dps on farm content all pets scale with current stats so using it when you start taking a point where you will have high vengeance for more than 40 seconds will net you the most dps from it.

Again, if you're desperate to maximise dps you can make sure you're using timmy on CD and also, using DRW for double diseases (DRW -> manually apply diseases -> outbreak on last second of DRW) are all decent increases without actually sacrificing survivability to any major extent which doing something like reforging/gemming for crit will do.

[chibichibiko]

As blood army is a survivability CD, you should treat it as such.
However, if you're trying to purely maximise dps on farm content all pets scale with current stats so using it when you start taking a point where you will have high vengeance for more than 40 seconds will net you the most dps from it.

Again, if you're desperate to maximise dps you can make sure you're using timmy on CD and also, using DRW for double diseases (DRW -> manually apply diseases -> outbreak on last second of DRW) are all decent increases without actually sacrificing survivability to any major extent which doing something like reforging/gemming for crit will do.

It's not usually a mitigation cooldown though. You cannot dodge/parry while you channel it, so it's just converting the chance to avoid to flat reduction in damage received, which is generally only important if you'll be one-shot or when you are targetted by an unavoidable mechanic that you can anticipate.

It's even arguable whether it is even a mitigation talent from a resource perspective, since it costs FUB runes to cast it, and you could potentially death strike instead to get 20% of the damage you just took in the last 5 seconds as healing and twice that as a blood shield to further mitigate physical damage. By the very nature of it those %'s (where death strike effectively mitigates 60% of the damage over the last 5 seconds), Army only ends up outperforming a death strike in fights where blood shield is wasted.

Use it to prevent a one-shot if you can, as you'll have high vengeance after that anyway. Barring that, use it when you aren't actually in as much need of the runes for death strike if you are worried about survivability. If you don't think you'll die anyway, optimize dps.

[Cryopathy]

Army should only ever be used defensively as a pre-planned CD to negate a certain mechanic (Impale on Heroic Madness was a prime example). It is not a "save in case of emergency" CD. If you don't have something that need to use it for in advance, then it should be used for DPS (which is 95% of the time).

[Wrathnruin]

I typically use AotD on the pull. Never really gave it much thought. Gonna have to rethink it now.

[Boneshatter]

After looking at the damage breakdown I have a few tips for you Atron-
(note this is for single target)

Make sure you're using a rune addon. All death runes should go to deathstrike. Sitting on a deathstrike is a good habit if there is a big hit coming like talon rake, if not just keep spamming it.

Go into the default interphase and set it to show target health % and use soul reaper. Soul reaper is generally #3 or #4 in damage for me.

If you are saving erw, drw, aotd for a specific purpose fine- if you aren't you should use them offensively. Remember that army also benefits from bloodlust/hero.

Managing your crimson scourge procs is also very important. It is very easy to see blood boil light up and jump to hit it, but this will hurt you. Blood boil does very little damage single target and cs procs give no runic power. Use your cs procs for death and decay first as it does pretty good damage. Only use cs on blood boil if you need to refresh your diseases or if you have nothing else to press.

Hope this helps.

EDIT to add- you don't have diseases on your list- make sure you have 100% uptime on diseases with no exceptions.

[kiblermission]

Last night we did sha again, which is pretty tank and spankish, and is pretty even for tanks as far as tank timing. Our prot pala has a lot of troubles doing damage (as reflected), but as blood I have 0 issues doing decent damage and mitigating damage (95% up-time on blood shield).
I did 141k dps, which was just above our enhance shammy at 139k.
Our prot pala was doing 68k, again he's been having difficulty with keeping up on damage not sure why, he's full hit/exp to cap + haste build.
I also have the TF normal weapon off of council. I can't leave links yet (new poster) so can't leave my log or anything, but you get the point.

Mind you I was in 539 IL gear last night, with heroic Jin chest, I got the tier chest last night, so my chest will be different, but overall the weapon you have will probably be the biggest upgrade for you. I'm also using the haste trinket off of Horridon just for the str proc. It's so very nice.

[ATron52]

Thanks for all the ideas and advice, everyone. I'd just like to update everyone on how things are going now.

I've upgraded my 516 weapon to 2/2 and gotten a couple of 535s off of the isle since I made this thread. I haven't had any luck whatsoever in LFR this week or flex for the past two weeks, and I was out of town for our raid this weekend, so in normal I've only downed Immerseus. With all of that said, I've been working mainly on improving my performance to maximize DPS without sacrificing my "tankiness" by going Crit or spamming DPS abilities (DRW, Raise Dead, AotD) without regard to mechanics that may need them.

Mainly I've been working on getting as many Death Strikes as I can, and never using a Death Rune on anything other than Death Strike. That was one of my biggest issues, I believe - If I wasn't paying full attention I'd inadvertently used Heart Strike and eat a Death Rune, either pushing my next Death Strike back some, or making me use another Heart Strike to even the rune pairs. When Crimson Scourge procs, I prioritize D&D and the only use the free Blood Boils if there's nothing else I could be doing. That also happened to be a large problem - I was using my Blood Boil + D&D than I had Crimson Scourge procs, effectively eating into my other abilities.

The last big change that I feel is very noticeable to my performance is using DRW, Raise Dead, and AotD as often as I can if I do not believe I'll need to save them for any particular event. With DRW being free now thankfully, I normally wait until I have a set or two of Death Runes and a good supply of Runic Power built up for the burst potential that offers, and I make sure to get an Outbreak in during the uptime for the dual diseases. AotD I normally lead the pull with, especially in LFR since it's always such a cluster F anyways, otherwise I try to save it for Hero or use it right before a downtime/transition phase ends.

Raise Dead is my biggest worry, since it's really one of our only reactive abilities while most other are proactive. Without the ghoul dieing in fire or some other lame mechanic, using it on CD gives me a 50% availability on Death Pact (a bit more if I can time it and AotD to be separate) but that still has me worried that I'll need it at some point during the other 50% of the fight. The reality though, is that since I've been tanking I rarely die without us calling it a wipe beforehand, and Death Pact is very seldom used. It's most likely because during *MY* ToT progression, our guild / healers were already 525-535 and were most likely carrying me. For SoO, the tables may turn with the majority of the raid group no longer overgearing it.

We didn't log the Immerseus kill that I was in, and my recount was turned off after the patch dropped so I have no DPS logs for it. I did however, have recount for the Flex and LFRs I've ran so far and I seem to be doing quite a bit better than previously. Now, I know that Flex and especially LFR aren't going to be great metrics for comparing performance, but it works to give me a rough idea of how I'm doing. I know that Riposte gives 75% of your dodge and parry rating as crit, giving me a hair over 11% crit right now. Since it's really only active when I have the boss / adds on me though, it's difficult to keep 100% uptime on it on some fights. Adding that damage bonus into my 8pt higher ilevel weapon and my (hopefully) better play, I'm very happy with how I've been doing this first week and a half compared to 5.3.

Also, I did end up using Blood Shield Tracker and I really like it so far. It make it so much easier to see the the uptime and amount of your Blood Shield since I use the standard Blizz UI. Does anyone know of a good Rune addon? I would really like to continue using the default UI, but if there's a good positionable addon that shows your runes, recharge time, and possibly runic power that is highly recommended, I may give it a try. I really do NOT want to switch UIs, either - I've used the basic Blizz one since I started many, many years ago. I've tried numerous different ones over the years (ElvUI, TukUI, SpartanUI, IceHUD with Bartender, and a handful of others) and I always come back to the default Blizz UI. So as I mentioned, if there's a good Rune bar that I could move to a more central location to keep me from glancing to the top left corner of my screen to check their status.

One last request / question for you all - I'm currently using Roiling Blood (a relic from when I was farming 5-mans that I just haven't changed since it's beneficial on a handful of fights) and Runic Corruption. With the changes to Plague Leech it seems like the best choice in most situations when coupled with the glyph of Outbreak, since it can not only increase your Death Strikes by 2 every minute, but it also gives you one on demand if SHTF. I am going to switch to Plague Leech for *most* encounters. I've been running Runic Corruption instead of Blood Tap to help my rune regen since I'm not gearing for haste at all. Would it be overkill to spec into Blood Tap and Plague Leech both? For survivability it can give great benefits with two on demand Death Strikes for a clutch moment, but it just doesn't seem like it's all that often where I have enough free globals to take advantage of both - especially if I'm holding back on Death Strike every now and then for an ability. I know that if I switch to BT, everything will be slower without Runic Corruption so that may ease the issue somewhat, but what do you all think? Is there enough of a reason to run both Plague Leech and Blood Tap? Do you have enough free GCDs to use both effectively?

Once again, thanks for your help and suggestions so far. How have you all be doing since the patch dropped? Is Riposte proving to be a decent increase for you?

TL;DR - My performance is better since patch. I've upped my game, upgraded my weapon, and have riposte giving me 11% crit - I'm very happy with my DK right now. Is there a good rune tracker addon you recommend so I don't have to keep looking to the default Blizz tracker? Is it worth taking both Plague Leech AND Blood Tap? Are there enough globals to use them effectively for you guys? All of your help so far has been very appreciated, thank you.

[Boneshatter]

Glad to hear the tips are helping Atron. As far as raise dead I just make sure to only use it when I have threat. This buffs the ghoulie with vengeance attack power, riposte crit, and makes sure not to waste death pact availability when I'm not getting beat on.

My favorite rune tracker is CLCDK from Curse.com. It tracks runes as filling bars (much quicker to read at a glance), disease timers, and runic power positionable where ever you like. It also has a rotation helper (turn this off as blood, but can be handy if you're trying to learn one of the dps specs). It also allows you to track a host of other stuff if you want including cooldowns, uptime on cooldowns, bloodshield size- all kinds of good stuff. All of these other tracker boxes can be positioned where ever you like too. It plays nice with the default UI. It has a little setup time, but not near as much as similar addons.

As far as the BT and PL/GoOB that is up for you to decide. I do strongly recommend that you do one or the other and not both at the same time. The reason being that both require micromanaging and it could be easy to get overwhelmed trying to learn both at once.

[Forgettable]

I main a Blood DK in a raiding guild, so let me offer some advice.

You said you're looking for a rune addon - I would recommend MagicRunes. I've tried most rune addons, but this one is my personal favorite.

A few things regarding talents and glyphs - Two glyphs that will massively increase your survivability on almost every fight are Glyph of Vampiric Blood and Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell. Make sure you use these.

Talents - Plague Leech used 100% optimally will give you a minor increase in runes, but used less than 100% optimally it is not a very good talent. If you can micromanage it perfectly, feel free to use it. Otherwise, stick to Unholy Blight. And on that note, any fight that has adds, Unholy Blight will typically be your best choice.

What is your 2nd tier talent choice? Lichborne and Anti-Magic Zone both give great damage reduction which will help your healers more than Purgatory if you use them correctly.

Your level 75 talent choice should be Blood Tap. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It is the only talent that will give you more death runes, which in turn gives more death strikes for increased dps and survivability. Take it, take it now. Macro it to Rune Strike if you want to make sure you don't waste it, but take it. Example:

/cast Death Strike
/cast Blood Tap

And now since you've increased your survivability some, you should be less worried about dying and able to focus a few more things on your dps. Regarding your original post, make sure that you are prioritizing death strike. It looks like you are doing this already based on your second post, but keep at it. Regarding DPS cooldowns...

Army of the Dead: Yes, this can be used as a cooldown. No, it's not a very good cooldown. 4 second of ~30% damage reduction is not the best thing ever, although still useful. Keep in mind you sacrifice a little over one Death Strike for this ability. I always use it on the pull, as you can regen those runes before the boss. I recommend you do the same. It is a huge DPS boost.

Empower Rune Weapon - Use this on the pull. Here is an example of my pull:

1. Army of the Dead
2. Wait for runes to regen to full. Run toward the boss such that you will agro as the runes reach full
3. Use Potion of Mogu Power immediately before you engage so you don't induce the cooldown
4. Dark Command
5. Dancing Rune Weapon
6. Outbreak
7. Death Strike
8. Heart Strike
9. Death Strike
10. Heart Strike
11. Rune Strike
12. Empower Rune Weapon
13. Go from there

Mind you steps 2-6 happen all within 1 second. Also you will have this cooldown ready 5 minutes later, which is during the last few minutes of the fight, which is typically when you'll need this cooldown for survivability, so don't be afraid to use it on the pull for extra DPS.

Raise Dead: Use it on cooldown. Find a space to use Death Pact on it. Within the span of 1 minute, there should be at least one occasion to use it. It's best to have the ally ready so you can Death Pact, rather than scrambling for an open global cooldown and using it reactively.

Dancing Rune Weapon: This is a damage reduction cooldown, not a reactive cooldown. As such, you will get the most of it using it on cooldown. There are very few phases in boss fights currently where the boss deals higher physical damage for a few moments than during other phases of the fight. Just make sure you're tanking the boss and he's hitting you when you use it.

Also one more thing that you may or may not be doing - Make sure you use a flask and food and potions on every fight. I would recommend the STR flask as it will provide minor avoidance and a big DPS increase. And with the noodle carts, 300 food should be easy to come by. And you should get two potions per fight. One can be STR for DPS on the pull, and the other can be armor for survival during the fight if you need it. Otherwise use another STR one for more damage.

Also consider using the Rune of the Fallen Crusader. It will provide another big DPS boost along with some avoidance.

[Boneshatter]

Glyph of vampiric blood is situational. Sometimes the extra health is better- especially in 10s. Glyph of AMS can actually hurt you if you're using AMS to drop stacks on something.

Macroing blood tap as blood defeats the prupose of taking blood tap. If you absolutely must macro blood tap do not macro it to a 2 rune ability- you will waste charges like crazy.

Be careful using dps flask, food, pots, and enchants- using these lowers your effective health. If you outgear the content you are running they are fine, but if you don't you need to keep in mind the content is balanced around a certain level of effective health and you don't want to be that tank that brags about his dps then gets trucked.


EDIT to add- purgatory is an amazing talent for progression. It keeps you from getting killed when that heal was .5 seconds from going off or any situation similar. It would be very difficult to find a progression blood dk that doesn't use it except on the rare occasion they can gimmick something with AMZ.

[Halland]

TL;DR - My performance is better since patch. I've upped my game, upgraded my weapon, and have riposte giving me 11% crit - I'm very happy with my DK right now. Is there a good rune tracker addon you recommend so I don't have to keep looking to the default Blizz tracker? Is it worth taking both Plague Leech AND Blood Tap? Are there enough globals to use them effectively for you guys? All of your help so far has been very appreciated, thank you.

DocsDebugRunes (DDR) is pretty awesome; you can also use WeakAuras2.