PTR Blood & Frost -vs- Live Blood: makes me consider respec

[Gravity]

I have exactly the same gear and buffs.
Exception: PTR I lose socket stamina bonuses of 15 stam in total (due no prismatic effect), which I didn't factor into my maths because that is a real loss for me (I can't make it up by regemming).

PTR Blood HP: 32136, Armour: 25855  (2.2% more than PTR frost, and 5.8% less than Live blood)
PTR Frost HP: 31436, Armour 25855
Live Blood HP: 34118, Armour 26944   (6.1% more than PTR frost)

For some reason I can't work out there is a 0.12% avoidance loss on PTR too.

That's 1982 less HP on PTR blood than Live blood, which is a lot.
If I'm going to lose that much, why not reconsider whether I want blood anymore?
VB, Death Strike and WotN are the reasons to keep it, since Vot3W is meh now; Frost and Unholy have nice options too, so hmm do I stay blood?

Do I maybe try Frett's trick of blood and frost tank specs, and dps in frost-tank spec. Tempting.

PTR Blood:           Live blood:      PTR Frost:
           

[Zookz25]

Well, the large reason I like playing blood over frost are:

• 1) Being able to time death strikes after big hits for the healing.
  
  2) Vampiric blood vs Unbreakable armor (love UB for AoE, but not on single target at all really)
  
  3) Damage is nice on single target (2200 dps self-buffed, and about 1500-1800 as frost or unholy)
  
  4) Things like hysteria and mark of blood are nice minor things I can throw in for fun (and to help a little bit of course)
  
  5) And of course, the higher HP (though frost has higher avoidance so they kind of counter each other anyways)

But, I will most likely always have two tank specs, and I could see my-self not going blood if I only had one spec since I would want to my-self tanking anything other then single-target.

I love it for single target more then the other two, more things involved that I can use to deal with incoming damage that I just can't really use in the other two trees. (death strikes, rune taps, mark of blood, DRW+Hysteria+popping blood presence for dps times in some fights)

Though I'm really excited that my new AoE spec will be going to frost, AoE utility there keeps things fun fun compared to my old unholy build which was basically keep up unholy blight and DoTs and you win at life. (more control over things now)

[Gravity]

Aye, with two tank specs, one has to be blood.
With one tank spec (which is what I have at the moment, for flexibility in 10-man raids), I'm hesitating a tiny bit now. Hive is frost spec and hits more serious content than I do, but I also like unholy... I wish I had FOUR specs!

[Mouse]

I tank everything Frost and Thorim arena as UH.  For some hardmodes I have been going BLood, but with its upcoming nerf, I have tried to get away from that.

[masterkiller]

Gravity I've been dealing with the same dilemma. For me, Blood is so much more fun then the other specs, but that's just personal choice. However with the nerf to blood health and upcoming new content I have to think about what is best for guild progression. I am finding it hard to argue for blood at this point especially with all the early analysis on DW frost builds.

I'm crunching some numbers to guesstimate what we'll look like in next content's gear and to see how much VoTW bonus will give us.

[Gravity]

I like blood too, but I don't love it. I do enjoy self-healing though.
Just posted an idea you'll like, Masterkiller, Unholy dreadplate.

[masterkiller]

So I crunched some numbers and the hit to VoTW isn't as bad as I thought. The real pain is actually coming from the Frost Presence changes.

My base stam is 2420.

VoTW differences
Bonus health from VoTW on 3.1 (Live) is 1597.
Bonus health from VoTW on 3.2 (PTR) is 769. (difference of 828)
While someone with my stamina would have received 1597 additional health, they are now receiving 769 additional health. An additional 769 health still is a nice bonus.

Frost Presence differences
Difference between 3.1 (Live) and 3.2 (PTR) without VoTW is 1762. Meaning, the Frost Presence reduction hurt a great deal more then the 6% to 3% VoTW change did.

Looking forward
Now these numbers don't mean nearly as much as what our numbers will look like after we are in 3.2 (Tier9) gear. Completely roughing it, I came up that we would receive an additional 225 stam from gear, and that is on the low side. (+15 stam per slot for 13 slots plus 30 stam from upgrading to epic gems)

Giving the above example we would have a total of 2645 stam and receive a 841 VoTW health bonus. This would put me at 36,819. My current LIVE 3.1 health is 36,952 with VoTW.

Rough Summary
So with VoTW and Tier9 gear we will be returning roughly to our previous 3.1 live VoTW/FP health. Most likely Tier9 will receive more additional stam then that but it was a rough number looking at whats already available.

Anyone know what a war/druid/paly would like like with 2645 stamina?


 

[Gravity]

Useful, thanks for the reminder of the Frost Pres nerf, I hadn't accounted for that in my head.