We voom in on a body sprawled on the ground in Icecrown. It's a human. He's not dead...well maybe....he's a death knight. But he's covering his nether regions and moaning in pain.
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Yep. Matheo knew was going to happen. The DK got hit in the nads with the nerf bat, hard, in WoW patch 3.1.So my DK, Thereddeath, as a Blood specced tank just got mangled by the recent patch. You should have seen it. He was at the top of the world on Monday! He had his 4-piece tier bonus not all T7.5 but still quite up there. On Tuesday he was found in Icecrown clutching his nethers in the fetal position surrounded by ghouls of every size, laughing at him.Shards! That nerf bat can really hurt. Our parry was nerfed with Blade Barrier moving to damage reduction from parry increase with Blood Runes on cooldown. Expertise in the Blood tree was nerfed to Armor Penetration in the Blood Gorged talent. Blood tanks are starting to look a lot like Druid bear tanks with all the dodge and damage mitigation. WTH happened to our parry and expertise? I know people were whining and complaining about OP DKs but why mess with tanking abilities and stats?! Granted it's the defense mechanisms that causing all the problems but I guess the only way to cut out these problems is to turn us into Warriors with one tree for tanking and two for DPS. I wouldn't like that. I tend to play the underdog when it comes to playing my toons. Blood tree tanks are ranked 3rd in tanking compared to Frost and Unholy, Combat specs for rogues are ranked 3rd with Assasin/Mut spec leading followed closely by Subt/HaT rogues and at the moment Affliction locks are also ranked 3rd against Demon and Destro specs but I don't sharding care. I can still top DPS charts with each of these and out do most tanks be they warrior, druid, the pally rangers or the other DKs. Knowledge of your class makes the different of whether you will be good or not. Also to all the QQ'ers out there, knowledge of other classes and their abilities can be really helpful in killing them in PvP. For instance as a combat spec rogue with all cooldowns available I can take out a DK, and an Unholy one at that. I know rogues but I also know DKs and their weaknesses. I now when to Kidney Shot, when to Blind, when to Gouge when to switch weapons and when to run!
Anyway back the DK nerf at hand. So with nerfs firmly in place, I had more research and more Talent calculationg to do to reaffirm my Blood tank awesome-ness. Here's what I came up with: Talent Link. I still opted for Blood. Come on and face it. By the First Egg, there was no way on the Red Star I would have chosen Frost and Unholy for tanking specs. Blood is for the Elites of the Elites and baby, I'm the bloody god of the Elites. /flex and /pose! In the words of .... well me.....
/ResDog flex
/grr
I still took the Blade Barrier. 5% damage reduction is at least something to shake a stick at or whatever Bosses want to shake at the tank. Dammit Jim, I'm a tank, not a bloody lifeless sack of meat! I kept Blood Gorged. The extra ArmorPen just creates more threat for me. I also kept Spell Deflection. Now here is where I got mad at myself for not writing down some of my notes. I believe this talent used to be any magic damage and also based on Parry and Dodge, while the Dodge being taken out of this, is an apparent nerf, the damage reduction was increased.Now the Blood tree does have a new talent that came in the patch 3.1. Improved Death Strike was added as a rank 2 in tier 8 of the tree. The way I see it, is the more damage and the more crit that Death Strike packs, bigger the heals are going to be from it. Now I also happen to have the Sigil of Awareness that I have been testing in my DPS spec and is working out great for my dual spec. Since I am already defense capped and the Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight is just adding extra defense for dodge and to fortify Icebound Fortitude and I'm glyphed for the extra IbF damage reduction, I am planning on trying and replacing that Sigil with the Awareness to help with extra heals and damage.I did switch out glyphs for Heart Strike to gain that movement reduction to keep mobs from running away and one shotting healers and such. Will of the Necropolis is a definite nerf. The cooldown was added and the 5% triggers are gone. No more last second stands with Bosses.Now I'm pretty sure I have worked out the new talent tank spec for Blood enough to survive even the toughest Boss. ;)One other thing that I seem to have found has to do with Pestilence. I know Blizz took out the damage, which sucks, and added extra damage to Blood Boil, both of these I have macro'd together, but since the patch I keep getting error messages about 'Paths not Found' when trying to use Pestilence. I could be fighting the mob face on with nothing between us and still get that message. I remember seeing a note somewhere about a pathing change to Pestilence but can't seem to find it now. I will post it later when I find it.Well it looks to be that my awesome-ness has once again saved my fav'd Blood spec tank from extinction.
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*Camera vooms out and the music swells ominously in the background*
The once fallen knight is now standing again, on a pile of ghoul corpses, commanding his own Ghoul Army, awaiting the day he too can face the Lich King and offer his wickedly sharp blade the chance to meet Arthas' neck. But for now he has conquered the dreaded 3.1 patch.
/ResDog flex
/grr
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