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Blood Tap

Blood Tap
Instant
Requires Death Knight
Requires level 60

Every 15 Runic Power you spend will generate a Blood Charge. Max 12 charges.

Blood Tap consumes 5 Blood Charges to activate a random fully-depleted rune as a Death Rune.

Spell Details

Duration

n/a

School

Physical

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

None

Range

0 yards (Self)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

n/a

GCD

0 seconds

Effect

Dummy
Value: 15
Server-side script

Flags

Generates no threat

Guides

Blood Death Knight Guide

Death Knight DPS Guide
(Frost/Unholy)

Unholy Death Knight
PvP Guide (Gearing
up, Pressure and Utility)

Comments

Comment by echowa

for any spec apart blood spec this provly gona be a good start of agro since you can have basicly 3 of your chosen rune of probly need be carfull dont use this up with as a diffrent rune

Comment by barak0

you know you can have more than 2 frost or unholy runes, right?

Comment by Kasonic

Is this on the GCD? If not, it's pretty cool, if so, relatively useless.

Comment by Janettie

Keep in mind it not only converts a blood rune into a death rune, but it also activates one.

Comment by silkfire

A very useless spell if you're specced Unholy. Blood Strike or Blood Boil cost 1 Blood (which gives you a death rune with Reaping), so does this one, but also has a 1 min cooldown. What's the point of this?

Comment by Tyufox

Unfortunately, if you have one blood rune on cooldown and one blood rune active when you use blood tap, it will allways use the blood rune that is already active, leaving the other one in cooldown...

So, for maximum effect, use this skill when both blood runes are on cooldown

Comment by ShiroRX

Amazing skill for frost and unholy. Glyph that bitch up too.

Comment by greymana

Question:
If you make a macro that looks like:
/cast blood tap
/cast rune tap
like the one that flassk mentioned "oh crap heal me" button. This basically activates a rune and uses a blood rune.

If you have both blood runes on cd, does this macro still heal?
As far as I understand, macro executes both casts at the same time. If you have no blood runes at the time you execute the macro, does it still heal even if it simultaneously gives a rune to use?

Thanks.

Comment by tomgc

~~Blood Tap also generates 10 Runic Power.~~

Blood Tap no longer generates 10 Runic Power.

Comment by Heartofearth

Would this break damage-based CC's on you, like polymorph or the frost trap in the swamplord fight in UB?

Comment by Saeljfkklhen

This is one of those abilities that finds more use, and has more hidden functionality than you'd think at first glance. A few things I've noticed that the tooltip doesn't quite mention, or I think are worth taking note of:

Health cost is base (like virtually ever other ability), so it won't cost any more in Frost Presence. This is sort of moot, as the cost is rather small anyways.
It activates a (Blood, usually, read on) Rune. This is not part of the cost. This means you do not have to have a Blood Rune currently active in order to use this ability.
It grants 10 Runic Power, even though, technically it doesn't use a Rune (As it requires none, puts none on cooldown and is usable if all your Runes are on cooldown.)
It grants a buff, Blood Tap, for 20 seconds that means whichever Rune it picked is considered a Death Rune for that 20 seconds. Even if you use the Death Rune for an ability, it will refresh normally, and assuming there is still time on the Blood Tap buff, it can be used as a Death Rune again.
(If anything is unintended/bugged, this would most likely be it. Then again, we are Death Knights, so we get to have our cake and eat it too.)

The Rune activation is a bit wonky. It obeys "Convert a Blood Rune to a Death Rune and activate it.", for the most part. However, it doesn't choose the Blood Rune with the longest cooldown like we'd hope, nor does it simply choose the leftmost Blood Rune, either. Once Death Runes get added to the mix as a result of Reaping or some other talent/ability, everything gets mixed up. Here are my findings so far:

If you have 2 Blood Runes, both active or both inactive, it will convert one to a Death Rune and activate it.
If you have 1 Blood Rune active, and 1 inactive, it will convert the active rune to a Death Rune, and leave the other inactive.
If you have 2 Death Runes, and 1 or both are inactive, it will activate a Death Rune. (Least desirable, second only to using Blood Tap while you have two active Death Runes.)
If you have 1 Death Rune and 1 Blood Rune, and 1 or both are active, it will convert the Blood Rune to a Death Rune and activate whichever is inactive, leaving you with 2 Active Death Runes, regardless of whichever was inactive. (Most desirable, in my opinion.)
If you have 1 Death Rune and 1 Blood Rune, and both are inactive, it will activate one and convert the Blood Rune to a Death Rune. This will leave you with 1 usable Death Rune, and one inactive.

I'll leave you with two more things. First, I can't say, nor forecast on what functionality is intended. I'm aware that some Rune functionality is a bit wonky currently, so I expect a few of these points are subject to change as a result of functioning in an unintended manner. Second, I can't say for sure how this functions with Death Runes generated by Death Rune Mastery, though I imagine it functions by polling the Blood Rune slots, and Death Runes generated by Death Rune Mastery would have no effect. I'm not 100% sure of this, though. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything, as I'm slightly sleep deprived at the moment.

Blood for the Blood God!

Comment by Genericusername

Here's a great macro I use for passive DPS boost:

#showtooltip (skill)
/cast (skill)
/cast !Rune Strike
/cast Blood Tap

since both these are off the GCD, this macro works VERY well. I have the minor glyph for blood tap, so no loss there. Blood Tap is included in every skill I have (besides DnD), Rune Strike is only included in my melee range skills.

Can someone help me with the rest of this macro? I got the idea to use UIerrorframe hide, clear and show in it, but I don't know the exact wording for them. I've been looking for a while, but haven't found it.

EDIT: also, if there are any other DK skills off the GCD that I don't know about, please tell me, I love these kind of massive utility macroes ;)

EDIT2: just realized, put an ! before rune strike, so that spamming buttons won't turn it off and on.

Comment by Rightousway

With 4 pc T10 tank set, you get12% damage reduction from all sources for 10 seconds when you use this ability.

Edit: Yeah, No, this is completely wrong, downrank me some more.

Comment by Astray

I think this is awesome for tank-dks because every specc has its own 1-rune-cost, 1-min-cd survival ability. As a tank, i dont like the idea that my 'oh sh#%'-buttons share the ressource (runes) with my thread abilties. This ability counters that weakness.

Here's the three combinations:
Blood Tap +

And here's a macro you can use for binding that:
#showtooltip (ability) or Blood Tap
/cast Blood Tap
/cast (ability)

How to use:
To use this, just click it, since Blood Tap is not bound to the global cooldown it will only need 1 click to activate.

Memo:
dont forget to 'translate' that macro into your language. /cast works in every language but you have to change the ability-names. Shift-Klick on an ability in your skillbook to copy the abilities' namestring into an open macro window.

Comment by Ensley03

This ability along with the glyph Glyph of the Geist is arguably the best bonus anyone can get from a minor glyph.

Comment by mzygi

This is very useful in PvP for an instant Strangulate, you can safely use your blood runes on other abilities and still be able to silence opponents.

Comment by poompt

This ability's effect is hit and miss for me when both blood runes (death as frost) are inactive. Sometimes it will add one full rune, resulting in one full rune and the second one partially filled to the same amount that the first one was filled when I used blood tap; sometimes it will simply set the total number of active blood runes to 1 and leave the second rune empty. I've tried and tried but I can't find a pattern to when it will give me credit for the partially filled first blood rune, so I try to use it when both blood runes are nearly fully depleted.

Comment by Emberblood

Is this useable wile stunned (sapped) if yes will the damage break you out of sap

Comment by Rattja

Okey, so I changed my spec here the other day to get more blood taps.
After a while I started to notice something odd which I had not really thought about untill I started to use it more.
Sometimes I seemed to get two active death runes instead of just the one it converted.
After some testing I figured out how it worked, but it seemes like a bug and might get fixed soon.

Aaaanyhow this is how it works.
First of all it does not work as frost, as both your blood runes are already death runes I suppose, and only guessing it works for unholy.

If you have a active blood rune, and any inactive death runes, and you then use blood tap, it will convert your current blood rune to a death rune, and activate one of the death runes. Leaving you with 2 active death runes. (free DS)
It does not activate frost or unholy runes.
It happens every time, and only when you have at least one active blood rune with at least one inactive death rune.

Comment by Bogdanov89

As a Blood Tank i have this Glyphed and Talented to a 30 seconds cooldown, and i macroed it into Bone Shield, Rune Tap and similar cooldown spells that require a Rune to be cast.

This way i can be sure that i will be able to cast my cooldown, and i will have plenty of Death Runes for a short time afterwards.

Comment by Grabovsky

Anyone else notice the unglyphed tooltip isnt showing the health cost. I know all DKs use the glyph, but my dk's tooltip isnt showing the health cost.

Comment by iamleejn

Which is best in MoP, Blood Tap, Runic Empowerment, or Runic Corruption? This post will give a simple break down of Blood Tap to let you see if it's the best choice for you.

Blood Tap requires 5 charges to use and each use of an applicable ability generates 2 charge. This will yield an average of 40% of a rune per Death Coil/Frost Strike/Rune Strike.

Blood Tap has the highest control over rune regen and always provides a death rune, but is the least efficient for regenerating runes.

Comment by rodalpho

Rune Regeneration Talents
Blood Tap is worth 40% of a Death Rune.
Runic Corruption is worth 40.5% of a rune, or really 13.5% of all three refreshing runes.
Runic Empowerment is worth 45% of a fully depleted rune.

Comparison
Blood Tap is just as efficient as Runic Corruption but gives a Death Rune. It is slightly less efficient than Runic Empowerment, but does not need to be gamed.

All three talents offer nearly identical performance, to very small tolerances. DPS specs can best use all three talents passively. Active use through gamed Runic Empowerment or manual Blood Tap is not rewarded with extra performance. These talents should only be actively used if you personally enjoy doing so.

Recommendations
Unholy spec should use macroed Blood Tap. Unholy can't game Runic Empowerment since it relies on Festering Strike to extend disease durations and trigger Death runes via Reaping. Blood Tap also allows much higher Soul Reaper uptime and smooths transition to and from AE by masking orphan Frost runes. Macroing is a <0.6% DPS loss for normal and Festerblight Unholy assuming perfect execution.

2H Frost spec should use macroed Blood Tap. It can use Runic Empowerment, but Blood Tap offers additional flexibility and identical performance. Any rune can be used to Obliterate, so it does not need to game Runic Empowerment and could use Runic Corruption or Blood Tap on single-targets. Frost can game Runic Empowerment against Unholy runes in AE scenarios, and Runic Empowerment is technically slightly more efficient than the alternatives, but in practice it is not worth doing.

DW Frost spec should use macroed Blood Tap. Macroing is a <1% DPS loss, again with perfect execution.

Blood spec should use Blood Tap. Ideally this should not macroed so you can pool runes for a clutch Death Strike, but macroing is not the wrong answer here either. Runic Corruption is also a completely valid and popular choice trading off control for more consistent damage mitigation and consistently paired runes. Runic Empowerment is also valid and offers the most Death Strikes over time, but most tanks prefer the alternatives for control/flexibility or consistency.

Runic Corruption Duration
Runic Corruption buff duration is calculated as follows.

* 0.3

This means it no longer double-dips on haste. The real duration shows up in the tooltip in your talent panel as well.

The Blood Tap Macro
Death Knights can macro Blood Tap into their spec's runic power ability. This is a tiny performance loss, but that assumes perfect execution so using the macro makes sense for most players. Replace Death Coil with your spec's preferred ability.

#showtooltip
/startattack
/use Death Coil
/use Blood Tap

Comment by Otore

Although the MoP version of Blood Tap says it activates a, "random depleted rune" it actually has a set priority for each spec.

If you're Frost, it prefers depleted Unholy Runes.
If you're Unholy, it tries to avoid depleted Unholy Runes.
If you're Blood, it prefers depleted Blood Runes.

Blood Tap basically tries to fit each spec's rotation, by turning their least important rune type into a Death Rune.

Comment by Corq

Awesome talent for frost! You can macro this to all of your spells and spam death siphon. It's great.

#showtooltip (spell name here)
/cast Blood Tap
/cast Frost Strike and Howling Blast (2 separate macros)

You can honestly use this macro with all of your abilities for frost, and you will gain a death rune once every few seconds. Very nice for dps, although does feel a bit like button mashing at times.

Comment by HarlWindwolf

As I haven't seen this being mentioned anywhere on here:

"Fully-depleted" in terms of DK runes means both runes of a type are not full (not available to be used).
This can be either the two frost runes or the two unholy runes or the two blood runes.
It doesn't matter whether they have just been used up or are short of becoming available again.

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