Heya guys!!  Today we’re taking a glance at an oldie, but a goodie.  Blood Tap.  It seems straight forward really, but it’s not.  Most look at this ability and think, “Hey, I can fire off an attack/ability if my runes are on CD.”  But it’s really much more than that.

Abbreviations

• BR – Blood Rune
• UR – Unholy Rune
• FU – Frost Rune
• DR – Death Rune
• lower case letter – rune is on CD
• UPPER CASE LETTER – rune is available (off of CD)
• BBUUFF – represents your 6 available runes (all caps means they are all available)
• BBuUfF – represents your 6 available runes (1 unholy and 1 frost are both on CD in this example leaving 2 blood, 1 frost, and 1 unholy available for use)

Blood Tap

OK, most people think that this just turns a Blood Rune on CD into an active/ready Death Rune.  This isn’t the whole truth.  Rune Tap applies a buff to you for 20 seconds which converts a BR into a DR.  The reason this is important is that the buff, if left on you, can and will mess up your next DR dependent rotation.

So lets jump right into an example.  First we fire off one Blood Strike (BR) leaving 1 BR available and 1 DR coming up from a CD giving you dBUUFF.

Next we use Blood Tap to turn a BR into an active DR.  If you look at the pic however you will see that instead of having dDUUFF, we now have DDUUFF.  Assume at this point that you use all 6 runes for whatever you like to where the result is the DR’s would come back as 2 BR’s.

Now below you can see that the Blood Tap buff is still on me (middle right side of screen).  Because of this, instead of getting back 2 BR’s I now get 1 BR and 1 DR, BDUUFF.  No big deal right?  I would normally be doing BSx2 at this point because I blew the 2xDR last rotation on a SS/OB (for example).  Wrong.

Why is that wrong you ask?  Because of the way the RT buff interacts with the runes, after you fire off 2 BS’s (using 1 BR and 1 DR for 2x BS) you get back DBUUFF.  This is the point in the rotation you should be firing off a 3rd OB/SS with DR’s, but you can’t because you have a BR instead of a DR.

So from this example we can take a few lessons away:

• Blood Tap can give you a Rune usage when you would normally be denied one due to CD’s.
• Blood Tap can give you an extra free Death Rune when you should have gotten only one.
• Blood Tap can mess up your rotation by forcing you to use BSx2 two rotations in a row.

So how do we take all of this information and use it wisely?  Glad you asked!!

Special Abilities

There are a few key class abilities that should be used on boss fights, but would throw off your entire rotation.  How to fix said problem without losing dps or messing up your rotations?  Use Blood Tap!!

Let’s say you want to fire off Vampiric Blood, Unbreakable Armor, Bone Shield, or Ghoul Frenzy.  Using a  rune to activate any of them is going to be a dps/tps loss, and also throw off your rotation.  So we’re going to use BT to ensure we don’t lose anything.

Method 1:

1. UR’s and FR’s are on CD, BR’s are off of CD and *are* DR’s currently (DDuuff)
2. Ghoul Frenzy (bDuuff)
3. Blood Tap (DDuuff)
4. SS/OB (bbuuff)

Method 2:

1. UR’s and FR’s are on CD, BR’s are off of CD and *are* DR’s currently (DDuuff)
2. SS/OB (bbuuff)
3. Blood Tap (Dbuuff)
4. Ghoul Frenzy (bbuuff)

These 2 methods ensure that your rotation will not be messed up, while still giving you a free use of a special ability (free rune cost essentially).

Blood Tap Macro

/cast Blood Tap
/cancelaura Blood Tap

This macro will work with either Method 1 or 2.  Be aware that to use this macro properly you need to tap it once, then fire off whatever ability you wish to use (using the DR), and then tap the macro again to remove the BT buff from your character.  This will stop BT from messing up your rotation as I explained in the picture examples above.

Upgrading BS into OB/SS/DS

Because the special abilities all have 2 minute CD’s (excepting GF) you can once a minute upgrade one BS into a SS/OB/DS if you want to.

Method:

1. UR’s and FR’s are on CD, BR’s are off of CD and are *not* DR’s currently (BBuuff)
2. Blood Strike (bBuuff)
3. Blood Tap (DDuuff)
4. SS/OB/DS (bbuuff)

You just spent 2 BR’s and 1 BT and got 1 BS and 1 SS/OB/DS in return.  Basically this means that out of one 20 second rotation (assuming IT and PS once for diseases), you will:

PS – IT – OB – BS – BT – OB – RP Dump // OB – OB – BS – BS – RP Dump

In essence it’s a high burst rotation, or a small dps addition.  Overall it’s not going to have that massive of an impact in a PvE environment, but it could be devastating if used properly in PvP.

So yeah, that’s basically the ins and out of Blood Tap.  It’s a pretty pimp ability when you really get down to it.  It allows you to do quite a bit of things.  I’m not 100% sure if the double DR trick is technically a bug since it applies a buff.  It could be an inadvertent result however, meaning it may not last forever.  Hope you enjoyed!! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters.

Tags: Things you didn't know about WoW