That's more or less how I feel. Why are people spending SO much time and effort trying to avoid using what is, arguably, the core concept of the the class? Are or were there rogues determined to eschew combo points and finishers? Druids trying to melee DPS in caster form? Melee mages?

honestly, the reason why many people like diseaseless tanking on a DK is because it does offer some substantial bonuses, especially in aoe situations. The faster you can pick up a mob, the quicker your dps can start aoeing them down. Or conversely, since dps are so used to aoe dpsing right off the bat, not using diseases will make you look like a pro since you won't have 4 out of the 5 mobs peeling off of you to go chomp on your mage's face.

TL;DR version: not only is it much easier to not use diseases, but it's also much more effective in aoe environments. If you want to switch to using diseases for long boss fights, like festergut, that would be a good idea as that's what I do.

I've had that thought about some DPSers, but most tanks I've talked with have adopted this sincerely out of desire to speed up their threat. This was simply a great way to do so, to them.

I'm actually a huge fan of alternative specs, and this article makes me very intrigued and happy.

Shockadin Forever!

In a game with 12 million subscribers and only 30 specs, someone is bound to push the envelope. So, we see things like the Frostfire mage, the Discipline DPS priest, the Shockadin (which, for now, appears to be back), the Protribution paladin, Titan's Grip/Single-minded Fury warriors, Dual-wield/Two-handed Frost DKs, the Bleed/No-bleed Subtlety rogue, Single-target/AOE tank builds, and Feral Cat/Feral Bear druids.

The truth is, as long as there is flexibility in how we spec, there will be people who try to max out that flexibility. Some of us do it to max our output, some do it for lore reasons, some do it just to have fun. If Blizzard doesn't like the path that one spec is taking, they'll change it (as Holy paladins can attest... over, and over, and over...). Until then, let us play the game we pay cash for every month.

In the case of diseaseless Blood tanks... they're not hurting you by doing their job better.

Also, warriors don't self-heal or tank with two-handers.

I get the snap threat part. It makes a lot of sense in the pre-cata-post-4.0 world where DPS are still in ZOMGZERGAOELOLHAHA!!!!111 mode but tank threat is significantly more challenging to create and maintain, but diseaseless Blood is not a new concept. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm fairly sure that I've always seen at least one person over at EJ ask "So is diseaseless Blood viable again?" after every major content patch or talent reset.

Temporarily ignoring diseases when things are already wonky and in flux is understandable. Looking at every tweak or talent change as an opportunity to drop the core mechanic of the class is silly.

@JKwood

Warriors can via Enraged Regeneration, Field Dressing if specced for it, and victory rush, which can get pretty beastly. And for some lower instances, a fury warrior running around in tank gear is pretty amusing, and they get bloodthirst as well

It's actually the exact opposite. People look for the path of least resistance. In the current situation, tanking without diseases generates more threat in less time amongst packs of trash (and possibly bosses as well); since that is the easier way, that is what people gravitate towards.

For the devs, they need to make sure that they're not fighting human nature in their design choices - that is always a losing battle. Outbreak is one great tool; another would be to find a way to boost early threat for DKs so they can keep pace with DPS. If we can hold onto aggro long enough to put up the diseases, I believe most players would do so. As it currently stands, however, I am getting aggro ripped from me before I can Pestilence the group. DnD > BB > RS/DS eliminates that. Why wouldn't I go that way?

If they do truly want diseases to be at the core of Death Knight play style, they need to find a way to make diseases matter to tanks. The damage it does and the effects they have just aren't enough. Perhaps a tank-only disease that has an increasing threat-over-time effect, or one that siphons health to the tank.

@feniks9174: That's what it looks like to you but the guy who does the death knight posts knows his stuff, he devotes a lot of time to researching death knight mechanics.

Elitist Jerks look at all possible methods, they will have looked at diseaseblood in previous patches as well (possibly every single one since the death knight's release) because they want to see what is the absolute best for the purpose.

Elitist Jerks are min-maxers at heart, that's what the guides are designed for: To help you reach your maximum potential. If this potential can be reached with no diseases, then don't do diseases. You're not really gimping yourself if you go diseaseless blood but your healers will love you for the extra Blood Shield.

"Why are people spending SO much time and effort trying to avoid using what is, arguably, the core concept of the the class?"

Why do you care what a "core design concept" is anyways? Design != Reality in a lot of cases. The "Tanks" job is to ... well ... TANK. If they can do a better job tanking without using diseases then for the love of God don't try to discourage them.

So yea, nobody but the Dev's care about "core concept" ... the only "core concept" that players really care about are the main goals of the game: Kill Shit, Don't Die ... nuff said.

I mostly tank using this method not because I hate/avoid diseases but because:
1- Im undergeared so trying to maintain aggro with 4 guys in icc25 gear isnt exactly the easiest thing.
2- It saves time, instead of waiting to pop diseases and then spreading I can just use Blood Boil twice, then Death Strike twice, and keep aggro while at the same time I keep myself alive.

However once i have established a 'good' aggro with mobs I try to spread at least Frost Plague, due to the attack speed reduction and higher damage of Blood boil. So most tanks out there not using diseases just because they dont like them, but instead just find it more 'practical'.

Funny, whenever I see this, I tend to think the exact opposite. The main reason for coming up with working diseaseless builds is to demonstrate how badly diseases need buffing. If you can show that they've been nerfed to the point that they're more trouble than they're worth, you give Blizzard a strong incentive to make diseases more powerful and/or useful. If you love diseases, you should go out of your way to *demonstrate* to Blizzard that diseases seriously need some love...

We had a great discusion on diseaseless blood at pwnwear, for those who want to continue the chat. Consensus is that it's fine for 5-mans, and very workable even in raids.
http://pwnwear.com/forum/diseaseless-blood-t710.html

The really big issue in favour of diseaseless at the moment is snap threat and GCD.

In most heroics at the moment, I swear DK tanks are only having issues because DnD used to stick the mobs to us like glue and we could drop it every pull. Now we can't, because the cooldown's been turned into a half-hour (slight exaggeration) and asking ANY dpser to hold off for the four full GCDs you need to get multi-threat WITHOUT DnD provokes a reaction similar to as if you just told them you're about to kill their dog. ("WHAT?! Wait? WHY!? OMG, you monster! Who is this noob? Make him go away!")

After all, as another poster said on the hunter threat thread: agroing the first mob in a pack is currently akin to screaming, "On my mark... UNLEASH HELL!"

Right now with disease-tanking, the only way to go is save DnD for packs of 3+ and hit any 2-mob pulls (3 if there's a weak one or caster you can DG) with the diseases, rune/heart strikes and so forth staight up, then taunt the one that inevitably peels off to kill the DPSers.

@ Shane "Perhaps a tank-only disease that has an increasing threat-over-time effect, or one that siphons health to the tank."

Great idea. The disease itself could even be a proc off another attack like DS. That, or have a talent that can proc from the new disease being on your current target. Or just have talents that function better with diseases to begin with.