Tanking as a Blood Spec.Follow

Blood is the weakest spec for tanking, especially multi-target tanking. It's getting a decent buff when the patch comes out, but seriously you should reconsider.

A lot of stuff will be changing when the patch is out, which the way blizz goes that might be 2 weeks.
At the very least, you probably should drop most of those points in unholy (keep anticipation). I'm not sure if its worth it to go that deep into blood as blood tank simply because blood gorged has very little benefit (yea i know its 5 expertise but still, you lose the majority of the effect), DRW also does nothing for your threat.
Maybe pick up more points in frost to get anticipate and lichborne. you wont have epidemic which kinda sucks.

You won't be a raid tank w/that spec. It's not you, its blood's fault.

Personally I would move those 5 points from necrosis over to epidemic and ravenous dead, but that's just my opinion. An increase in your overall strength, which is more damage to almost all spells and abilities, and an increase of time on your diseases, which in theory would mean less time refreshing diseases and more time spending those runes on Oblit, or using your death runes for Heart Strikes.

Alright, I tweaked my spec a bit, and this is what I came up with. What do you think? I've tanked a few heroics with this new spec, and I've found it to be much easier to handle now that I put some more points into frost. Oh yeah, and this is my armory.

Edited, Mar 4th 2009 2:34am by Miekyle

The only thing that screams 'change' in your build is the 1 point in Unholy Command should go and be put to max 2H Spec.

This is the build I use.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jcEMqI0IsbMzuAo0xZcxh

I have Glyphs of IBF, Vampiric Blood, and Rune Tap. Minors are raise dead, pest, and horn of winter.

With all due respect to everyone's opinion, Blood is not inferior at all. Not even a tiny tiny bit. I leveled 70-80 as frost. I have tanked all Heroics, 10/25 OS, 10/25 Vaults, 10/25 Naxx as BOTH frost and blood. I switch back and forth all the time. I prefer blood 10000000%. It is a completely different style of play. I focus on using my healing abilities. People very often underrate the healing abilities. Deathstrike and Mark of Blood are tied #1 on the underrated list.

My PUG healers have been getting bored with me. My standard guild healer is a druid who just drops HoTs on me and stops paying attention. I've gotten many many comments from healers saying "You don't even need a healer" when 10minutes before they would whisper me "I thought blood was no good" I flat out impressed a healadin in full T7.5 who immediately wanted me in his guild. I received the 2minute Loken kill achievement after my 2 rogues and fury warrior were dropped on 1st AoE, the pally (the previously mentioned one) that was the healer could DPS b/c he didn't have to worry about me. I do Patch 10/25 as Frost and as Blood, all my healers say they love the blood spec over my old frost spec. They d0dn't run out of mana or feel pressured as much. At this point we pretty much just use 2 tanks for Naxx 25 now (can't really do Patch that way though).

I have 0 hate issues (admittedly that might change w/pest damage being removed, but we'll see how BB holds up). I don't use obliterate ever. I tank multiple targets very often and lose very few against strong DPS (even careless ones at times). I never lose a boss. I have more HP from VoTW than in frost. From what I see, they nerfed Frost tree by improving frost pressence. Frost tree was about mitigation, but when they bumped up the armor gain in FP, they made blood that much stronger because the mitigation of the frost tree was not as necessary. So might as well heal yourself.

I know the responses already. "DS doesn't heal you that much, blood aura isn't that much, etc." But it all adds up. It is a situation that is hard to give concrete evidence.

Frost is cool, if you like it, use it. Honestly, I have yet to see a mildly competent unholy tank (that could be the players though, I've never tanked unholy), I don't even really see how the Unholy tree is a tanking tree outside of Bone Shield, but since people say that blood is weak and I'm great with it, I can see the reverse situation and bet Unholy is fine. Do not get discouraged by people saying blood is weak. It is not. And when it is learned to play properly, IMO, it is the best tanking spec for me.

I apologize how convaluted this has gotten. My stream of conciousness definitely went off tangent. I just want to demonstrate that blood is in no way weaker to frost. You just have to play it differently. It takes getting used to. It takes an appreciation for support skills, not just the stat sheets. I thought of ways on how to use it, and it's different, and I love it. If you want to tank as blood, you can do it.

Towards Gikkers, I agree 100% with what you said about using the healing in my rotations. I've always done that, and I've survived countless bosses after stupid dps wipes because of it. Most of the healers that I've run with have agreed with what your healer friends have said, that I rarely need to be healed. And actually, I was using almost exactly the build that you recommended, but I was having a bit of trouble at the beginning of the fight with keeping agro in larger pulls. I'm excellent with 1-2 mobs, good with 3, but it starts to get difficult with more than that. With my newest build, I've had a bit easier time keeping agro at the very beginning until I get into my rotations.

Usually, I open up a fight with IT, PS, Pestilence, D&D, then Death Coil. After that, I keep up a pretty regular IT, PS, Pestilence, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Rune Strike (if its up), then Death Coil. I just repeat that until they are dead, or I'll swap out a heart strike for a rune tap, if needed for myself or the others in the group look like they need it (I have glyph of rune tap). I know that the main reason I have a bit of trouble with holding agro right off the bat is cause I don't drop my D&D right off the bat, but for some reason, when I do that, it seems to throw off my rotation. *shrugs* Other than that little bit, though, I really must say that I have loved being a blood tank much more than playing as a frost tank.

I think that you have been looking at my original build. My new build is posted further down in the posts after I revised. I removed the blood worms since I hit 80, and I tweaked a few other things that seemed like they could use tweaking. And for the most part, after my dps realizes that if they are attacking right away it causes me problems with agro, they do give me a few seconds to get into a rhythm. I do tend to drop another D&D if it seems like it will be a prolonged fight, but for the most part, I only need the one.