Gear
Tier Sets
Blood’s tier set from Vault of the Incarnates is both strong and weak. How can it be both you ask? Well the set provides you with a ton of extra runes and a 10% damage and haste increase triggered from your Bone Shield loss. The effects are incredibly strong. Extra runes means more runic power generation and more damage and healing, 10% damage is a strong increase, and 10% haste is nothing to scoff at. However, the trigger is what makes the tierset weak. Because it is tied to Bone Shield loss, you must be actively tanking to get the full benefit of the tierset. If you are not tanking the only way to trigger the tier set is with Tombstone, which has a 1 minute cooldown.
This makes the tierset incredible in mythic+ where you are constantly taking tons of melees and losing Bone Shield nearly as fast as you can. In raid however, the tier set loses a ton of value on bosses that you don’t have a lot of uptime on or don’t melee often. Despite all of this, it’s still an incredibly good tier set, despite its simplicity.
Trinkets
Manic Grieftorch
The Manic Grieftorch is your absolute BiS trinket. The amount of damage it deals for how short the cooldown is makes it incredible. The two second channel is something to watch out for, especially as a tank. Be smart when you use it because you cannot parry or dodge while channeling it. The ninety second cooldown reduction when an allied player dies makes it even more potent in M+. Be sure you’re in a safe location when you use it because movement will cancel the channel. Additionally, any on-GCD abilities will also cancel the channel. Also, the damage from this trinket can trigger the rings from Ernog and Broodkeeper’s Diurna.
Eye of Skovald
With the recent buffs to the amount of damage the Eye of Skovald trinket deals, it is now your BiS trinket alongside Grieftorch for single target only. This trinket is a bit weird for Blood because it drops for ranged players only so you'll have to get it traded to you. You’re able to trigger it with Blood Boil, Death and Decay, and Death’s Caress. Also, the damage from this trinket can trigger the rings from Ernog and Broodkeeper’s Diurna.
Windscar Whetstone
Windscar Whetstone is your AoE BiS trinket alongside Grieftorch. Currently, the trinket is bugged and puts other on-use trinkets on the shared trinket CD each time it deals damage meaning that you won’t be able to use other on-use trinkets for an additional six seconds after you use Whetstone. To get around this, just use your other on-use trinkets first.
All-Totem of the Master
The All-Totem of the Master trinket is one of your best defensive trinkets, especially on 2+ targets. The tooltip is a bit convoluted so we will go over it here. Whenever you parry or dodge, you enter one of four Elemental Stances. This can only happen once every thirty seconds. Each stance lasts ten seconds and they are:
- Elemental Stance: Earth - This grants you additional bonus armor bringing you close to the armor cap.
- Elemental Stance: Fire - This applies an AoE fire dot and grants bonus crit damage.
- Elemental Stance: Air - This gives a lot of haste.
- Elemental Stance: Ice - This is a ~15K HPS heal over time.
You might think that Blood does not parry enough to trigger this on ICD, but you will, especially with the additional bonus parry that Dancing Rune Weapon provides and the high base parry that Blood has. Also, the damage from Elemental Stance: Fire can trigger the rings from Ernog and Broodkeeper’s Diurna.
Storm-Eater’s Boon
This trinket is an incredible amount of AoE damage. There is nothing in the game currently that deals as much damage as it in AoE. However, caution is advised when using it because it roots you in place and limits your max move speed to 1%, and you’re not able to cancel the buff. Additionally, the game treats it as a disorient, so mobs will wander away from you but you will still keep aggro.
Whispering Incarnate Icon
If you are the only one in your party or raid using this, it’s just a versatility stat stick. However, if a DPS or healer also have one equipped, you will get additional haste from healers, mastery from ranged DPS, and crit from melee DPS. These additional stats make it a bit stronger but not better than the other options.
Decoration of Flame
This trinket is a decent offensive and defensive option. The shield it provides is mediocre on single target and decent once you get to five targets. Similarly, the damage it deals isn’t too great but it does trigger the rings from Ernog and Broodkeeper’s Diurna so its value increases from that.
Embellishments
Elemental Lariat
This is one of your two BiS embellishments. The extra stats it provides put it slightly above other well-statted necks. The way the proc interacts with the gems you have slotted is a bit confusing. The stat you get depends upon the elemental type of the gems. Air gems give haste, frost gems give vers, fire gems give crit, and earth gems give mastery. You can tell which gems are which by looking at the tooltip or in the case of multi-stat gems it gives the lower value stat. The primary stat diamonds are not taken into account for Lariat. If you have multiple elemental type gems socketed, you have a chance to proc different stats, but you can only have one stat proc at a time.
Unstable Frostfire Belt
This belt has a chance to apply a dot that deals a good amount of damage to your targets. It can proc from anything including dots like Blood Plague, so it triggers quite often. Additionally, it is Blood’s main way of triggering the fire rings from Ernog and Broodkeeper Diurna.
Alchemical Flavor Pocket
This is a “fake” embellishment; it does not count towards your limit of two embellishments. The Flavor Pocket doubles the duration of your Well Fed buff from Dragon Isles meals and makes them persist through death. This effect may seem minor but since it is essentially free, it is worth having. Additionally, it allows you to keep a semi-potent buff in the off chance that you die in a key or raid fight.
Rings
A special mention needs to be made for the rings that drop from Ernog and Broodkeeper Diurna.
Seal of Diurna’s Chosen, the ring from Ernog, has a chance to apply a large fire dot whenever you deal fire damage. This DoT does a lot of damage. Seal of Filial Duty, the ring from Broodkeeper Diurna, has a chance to apply a large absorb shield on you whenever you deal fire damage. This absorb is incredibly powerful and provides a substantial amount of survivability. Both of these rings only work if you have some way of dealing fire damage which makes the Unstable Frostfire Belt all the more powerful.