Some Dk Blood Questions

[scratchie 0]

So i wanted to ask the community about some blood dk questions, as i am new to the whole tanking bizz, as i usually heal. 

Death knight Runeforging. 
What runeforge should i be using? i see StoneSkin Gargoyle mostly, Although fallen crusader and swordshattering seem to be popular.

Plague Leech
Plague leech i love, but without roiling blood i seem to have problems with holding aggro, Am i doing something wrong or is it just better in most situations to use roiling blood? 

Lichborne Vs Anti Magic Shell.
Anti magic shell seems good for alot of fights (immersius) however lichborne seems a good way to go, if you need purgatory it usually seems like its a wipe anyway. Which one is best?

 

Outbreak Macro's 
Out Break glyph seems almost mandatory with plague leech, if its viable (see above) what would be a macro to use for it? since you would need immediate re-issuing of the diseases.

I wanted this because it seems like i cannot find straight answers to these questions, (i did finally find macros for Death pact that worked correctly and lichborne). hopefully this thread will help not only myself, but the other new dks.

[scratchie 0]

I fogot also, 2h Vs 1h For tanks.

[Elro 47]

Runeforging is a matter of preference, I think, and the particular fight you're trying to set up for. I use Fallen Crusader all the time, and I love it.

 

Plague Leech is only optimal for single target fights like IJ or Malk, for most others Roiling Blood is much more convenient.

 

Lichborne vs AMZ entirely depends on what you want. Lichborne can be a very useful defensive cd for yourself, when partnered with Death Coil. AMZ is nice because it benefits the entire group.

 

I've never used a macro for Plague Leech+Outbreak, I just cast Plague Leech, and then cast Outbreak.

[Drtain 74]

Runereforging to me 100% Fallen, Purgatory >Amz>lichborne. SOME fights you could consider AMZ like sha of pride/protectors/galakras the rest of the fights don't have enough benefit to it as in like garrosh it could be good but sometimes you get rekt or this or that and purgatory is way more safe, lichborne is almost useless you have to have runic power and chances are you won't have enough runic to get the full benefit from it and it can be i'll say RNG when u actually need to use it which you may or may not have enough runic to actually heal. Plague leech i would have to say isn't very good i mean consider it maybe but i don't think it's very good (use it only in single target tho) (no macro will work i believe they are both on the GCD so you would have to make a cast sequence macro i guess)

[Ceraius 34]

For my runeforge I'm using Swordshatter as my default choice. Stoneskin and Fallen Crusader are both also viable, but the answer to which one is correct is dependant on you. Do you feel you need more defensive power or offensive power? All of the runeforges have defensive capabilities but only Fallen Crusader has offensive benefits even if minor.

SS will reduce basic melee damage the most but is tied to RNG, SSG is essentially a small EH boost, and FC gives you a minor selfheal and some attack power and parry through a proc.

 

I haven't experiemnted with Plague Leech as blood so can't say much about that one. I can however say that I love Roiling Blood in the first tier. It's just way too handy in many fights not to take it. The PL+Outbreak glyph sounds like an interesting way to make runes out of runic power, but it'll cost you GCDs to do that, and tbh I very very rarely find myself with less than enough runes so I don't see it as being very universally useful as Roiling Blood. (plus you get to ignore pestilence with RB)

 

I don't really ever use Lichborne anymore these days. I feel the runic cost for it to heal significant amounts is too high. The other two I frequently switch around though. AMZ for anything where there's magic damage and the boss hits aren't too spiky, and Purgatory for hard hitting bosses. And no, Purgatory proccing isn't necessarily the mark for a wipe. It has saved me out of some tight situations many times especially on heroic progress.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Ceraius

[Storm 426]

What everyones else has said is correct:

 

Runeforges:

Fallen Crusader - Provides the most all around of everything. the proc gives you about 2-2.5% parry through strength, a little bit extra dps from strength, and a 3% heal. and it's uptime is about 50-75% usually.

 

Sword Shattering - 4% parry provides the highest overall damage reduction of all choices, but is somewhat rng dependent. Most useful if you're playing a parry build since higher parry% means slightly less rng.

 

Stoneskin Gargoyle - the armor is just slightly better than useless when compared to other option. you get less than 1% damage reduction, it's most useful for the 2% stam if you happen to have low HP, but DK's can easily break 1mil HP by 550 ilvl. It's probably the most niche of all the choices, and that niche is when you're tanking something way above your ilvl.

 

L56 Talents:

Rolling blood is the easiest choice in most situations, and the best choice in many situations also. since you'll proc a lot of free blood boils anyways, you can use them to both refresh diseases and spread them. That way you'll rarely ever have to worry about diseases other than putting them on the boss on the pull.

 

Plague Leech can provide a small dps boost, but only once every minute if you use it, and then use outbreak immediately afterwards. Also either your disease uptimes will suffer, which is a dps loss, or you'll need to use icy touch and plague strike more often to keep diseases up, which means you'll be wasting runes which could be used to death strike, which is a survivability loss.

 

Overall plague leech will give you more control over your runes, since you can generate extra runes for an extra death strike when you need it, but it's fairly advanced and I'm not sure if the benefit would really be that great. I'd recommend sticking with rolling blood if you're just starting tanking.

 

L57 Talents:

Purgatory: should be your default choice here. it's passive so you don't have to manage anything, and it'll save you from time to time.

 

AMZ: is useful on certain fights. it's most useful if you're using it as a raid cooldown on a fight where everyone is stacked up and there is a predictable burst of magic damage incoming (like swelling pride on Sha). from an individual perspective I like Purgatory better, I only take AMZ if the group needs me in a CD rotation with it.

 

Lichborne: No. There aren't many charm fear and sleep effects in SoO that it can be used on, and the heal you get from death coiling yourself is so small you'd be better off just runestriking the boss to increase your rune regen from your L75 talent, and then death striking.

[Ceraius 34]

 

Lichborne: No. There aren't many charm fear and sleep effects in SoO that it can be used on, and the heal you get from death coiling yourself is so small you'd be better off just runestriking the boss to increase your rune regen from your L75 talent, and then death striking.

 

Its been ages since i've used the LB+DC selfheal, but I don't recall it being that small. The amount healed scales with AP so depending on the fight it can heal for a very sizable amount. (I'm not 100% sure, im assuming it scales based on the DC glyph scaling with Vengeance.)

 

In the end it's still the worst choice performance wise in my books too, but if you've never tried it, give it a go. Its not very efficient but it has a certain fun factor to it.

[Storm 426]

I haven't used it in PVE in a while, so maybe it does scale well with vengeance. It's my default choice for PVP usually, so that's the only real experience I have with it, but the healing I get there makes it seem like it wouldn't be worth it in PVE.

 

but the other big thing is, how often are you dying, out of other cooldowns, and have nearly full RP all at the same time? the only consistent use would be if you're planning on saving Lichborne for a phase with steady incoming damage, like say a Garrosh whirl, but just AMS takes care of 90% of that damage.

[Ceraius 34]

Yeah. Basically wherever you would want to use that, there are better options for it. Us DKs have a massive cooldown arsenal as we are so there's really no place barring PvP for Lichborne.

[Drtain 74]

Um i mean i haven't used lichborne in a while but i've remembered using a lot when i was starting SoO (idk wise) but i remember sometimes with like 180k vengeance it healing me for like 450k but that said it's not like i could spam 450ks into my self it'd be like 1 hit deathcoil

 

Might have been more vengeance then that i forget not the best memory :P

Edited June 7, 2014 by Drtain

[Reniat 23]

With vengeance lichborne is pretty powerful as a raw healing cooldown, however it takes GCDs. This means you have to choose between healing yourself and using Death Strike, not to mention the damage output loss of using GCDs and Death Coils on healing. It's very potent if you just need more actual healing, but for most content going with purgatory is a better choice.