I feel like every other thread on Tankspot is about deep wounds. And every other post in those threads it someone saying, ‘I don’t like putting dots on mobs’ or, ‘my crit is too low for it to work’, or ‘I don’t want to give up all my survivability’ or ‘I tried it and it wasn’t that good’. It is driving me crazy. Yes, you are putting dots on mobs but nobody uses CC anymore so it really doesn’t have a negative effect, it will however increase aoe threat. Yes, your crit looks low at a glance, but check your talents and consider raid buffs – you have plenty of crit. Yes, you lose 3% shield block but you probably won’t notice it because you aren’t reliant on blocks to save your bacon and because there are really only 3 bosses that kill tanks – enraged maexxna, patchwerk, and Sartharion while Shadron and Vesperon acolytes active.
The last point is really the only semi-valid argument because a lot of tanking is subjective and maybe your playstyle doesn’t fit with a high tps/dps spec. To that I would say: adjust your playstyle because deep wounds is quickly becoming THE cookie cutter tank spec for the expansion. If you look at the tanks in top end raiding guilds, they all use deep wounds and if you read through Tankspot, all the ‘opinion makers’ use deep wounds. Those guys aren’t using a deep wounds spec because it is the flavor of the month, they are using it because deep wounds is a very powerful tool and the spec is an amazing overall performer.
So give it a try. If you don’t like it, keep trying it until you do like it. If you just plain can’t stand it, then you can go back to whatever spec you like with full knowledge that for whatever reason, deep wounds doesn’t work for you. But know that all the math says that deep wounds gives you a ton of tps and dps for the very small sacrifice of 3% block.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LAM00fZhbZMItrx0zidIzsGo
Watching cool downs has always struck me as a bane of playing Warcraft. Why am I staring at a 64×64 pixel icon watching for the cool down indicator to pop, instead of the visually interesting aspects of the game, the visual cues to phase changes, or panic button timings?
Join the team!

