[DK] The DK Tanking thread

[amh]

/runs off to respec

:(

However, you're missing out on Ravenous Dead. Point for point, which one would be better? (Blood Gorged vs Ravenous Dead).

Napkin-calculating how much parry-rating I would miss out on.. Yeah, not even going to mention the avoidance-loss, because it's near non-existant.

[discerpo]

Anyone check ou the new unholy blight yet? seems kinda lame at first, but the more i look at it it may not be that bad...

was just reduced to 20% from 30% but with UHB being added to deathcoil it makes DC my only dump(other then rune strike) meaning more single target threat. On top of that its a ranged effect and another placed dot.

I really liked UHB when runnung lowbie instances just run around using BB and keeoing UHB up o well.

[Falibard]

/runs off to respec



However, you're missing out on Ravenous Dead. Point for point, which one would be better? (Blood Gorged vs Ravenous Dead).

Napkin-calculating how much parry-rating I would miss out on.. Yeah, not even going to mention the avoidance-loss, because it's near non-existant.

My spec is not cookie cutter, but it's pretty close. Blood Gorged is still the better than Ravenous Dead. I'm not BiS but I have higher end gear and I have 1116 unbuffed str. RD would give me 33.5 str unbuffed... 1% str per point vs. 2% total dmg and 2% ArP per point (when above 75% health).

The link in your sig doesn't work so I don't know what kind of gear you're in but Blood is the most demanding gear spec. If you're a fresh 80 you may want to tank in another spec until your gear allows you to be at(near) hit/expertise cap.

[amh]

Fixed. And yeah, I realize that blood is more gear-demanding, but I personally love it. I'm not having threat-issues, and it's just my baby alt that I can play around with. My aoe-threat is absolutely dire, but it works :)


Picking up Blood Gorged, so thanks.

[KysenMurrin]

Falibard, I notice you take Death Rune Mastery in your builds, does this mean you're running a HS-heavy rotation rather than the DS-heavy alternative? Last I had heard the DS rotation without DRM was superior, so I'm curious.

[Splug]

I use DRM to make it easier to fire rune tap. It also allows for a more fluid transition to a dps role, as well as superior threat over multiple targets or while at full health. Basically, it provides options during combat instead of forcing the pre-planed rotation to be perpetuated mindlessly; they're not always better options, but the frequency at which they are is nontrivial.

-Splug

[Splug]

I'm curious about a few talents set up against each other for threat.

Sudden Doom 3/3 vs Blood Gorged 5/5 vs Morbidity 1,2,3/3 vs Ravenous Dead 3/3

Sudden Doom and Morbidity obviously becomes better when coupled to each other, but how about the rest? Would Blood Gorged be more threat per point than Morbidity?

Ravenous Dead provides a fairly low threat increase; it's a strong dps talent due to the ghoul contribution, but that's negligible for a tank. Sudden doom is in a similar spot - it's a low contributor normally, and only gets worse when heart strikes get squeezed out of the rotation by parries/dodges. I recall comparing the damage I'd gain from taking Subversion (and having a heart strike crit) versus the damage from a non-crit deathcoil, and the difference between an HS crit/noncrit was higher by a large enough factor to convince me not to bother with sudden doom. If I switch to the vengeful heart sigil, that math may change (and I may have not included raid buffs) but if you can't afford subversion, sudden doom isn't worthwhile either.

Blood gorged is pretty much a staple. Armor penetration applies to rune strike. The damage increase applies to rune strike when you're at or near full health, and with the current large hit sizes you almost always are either full, or about to die. Morbidity is an excellent way to compensate for blood's inherently low AE threat at least slightly, and I recommend the investment on that ground alone. The minor single target threat increase is probably comparable to sudden doom and better than Ravenous Dead anyway.

-Splug

[Falibard]

Falibard, I notice you take Death Rune Mastery in your builds, does this mean you're running a HS-heavy rotation rather than the DS-heavy alternative? Last I had heard the DS rotation without DRM was superior, so I'm curious.

Well right now I have a Blood Tank build and a Blood DPS build.

I like the flexibility of DRM. If I need to HS spam for threat, I can. If I need to go DS heavy DRM doesn't negatively affect me in anyway, but if I need a Blood rune on demand for Rune Tap or VB I have that option too. I also like the ability to BB spam for trash and still hold threat (unless someone is single targeting something).

I actually don't think I've seen a Blood build without DRM come to think of it. I'm pretty sure two HSs will always net more threat/damage than one DS. The only real benefit I could see to using a DS heavy rotation is to have more open GCDs which in Blood means... more Death Coils?

Two Vezax encounters I tanked:
5711 TPS/2256 DPSDS Heavy
5978 TPS/2449 DPSHS Heavy

I'm willing to attribute a little of that to RNG (higher avoidance = more rune strikes) but in all of my HS heavy rotations I always net more threat/dmg.

[KysenMurrin]

Well I haven't really been reading much about DKs since the 3.1 changes, but around the time the DS buffs were coming out I was reading that the 2xDS rotation was better than the 4xHS one. Things might have changed.

The flexibility is a good point, however. I just don't know where I would find points in a build to take DRM right now (wait, nevermind. I can easily drop Imp. Blood Presence, and can probably find one other somewhere).

[Falibard]

Link your build.

[KysenMurrin]

Right now my DK is only 74, so this is all me trying to learn a bit more to be ready for 80. The build I was heading towards was this one:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EGqc0IsbMbssxhxZ0gh
But there are a few things in there I'm not certain about (Imp. Blood Presence, Morbidity, Scent of Blood, and now DRM, heh).

[Falibard]

I'd probably say lose Imp Blood Presence and you probably won't notice a big difference between 2/3 & 3/3 Scent of Blood.

[amh]

So I changed my spec a bit, thanks for the input. Threat was a lot better :) Man this class is more fun and demanding than paladin.

[Falibard]

So I changed my spec a bit, thanks for the input. Threat was a lot better Man this class is more fun and demanding than paladin.

It's certainly different. I love/hate the resource system and really like managing my cooldowns.

[amh]

Just noticed how much worse my threat is when I'm lacking the buffs you take for granted in 25man - kings, might, leader of the pack, melee haste.. :(

Just did Heartbreaker, and for example having to save death runes for Death Strike instead of mindlessly spamming HS really had an impact on my threat. Not bad enough to hold anyone back, but it's a whole new world having to prioritize like that. Great fun. Did 220k healing to myself during the course of the fight, including numerous DS, Rune Tap, Death Pact, Gift of the Naaru and a healing potion :)

Oh and yeah, on-demand huge self-healing with Vampiric Blood -> DS-spam is overpowered

[Falibard]

Oh and yeah, on-demand huge self-healing with Vampiric Blood -> DS-spam is overpowered

True story.

I'm usually 2nd on healing for hard mode vezax.

[amh]

Got it :D

Took about two hours and a bajillion armor-pots, awesome hard-mode.



Had one attempt where I did around 900 hps, bit more overhealing this time. Falling more and more in love with this class, but I'll wait and see what 3.2 brings :|

Edit: Arr, Vezax. Forgot we were talking Heartbreaker up there!

[Falibard]

Grats amh!

Heart of Iron dropped for me this week! I'm now over 40k hp unbuffed in my lolstam set

[amh]

40k hp unbuffed

That's just wrong :D

[discerpo]

Yea one of our guys has like 41k in his normal gear set, its pretty sick. name is locodawg on gorefiend

[Falibard]

40k hp unbuffed

That's just wrong

And yet so right...

[Falibard]

Has anyone had a chance to play around on the PTR? I'm curious about hp/dual wield/unholy blight...

[discerpo]

i mean to but with the time im alloted to play between RL i just dont have the oppertunity. that and everytime i get on having to set up key binds makes me want to just get on the real server and just do dailies or something...

in other news my primary role has become dps/ot so best of both worlds but i have to keep both gears sets up to par with enchants and gems /cry glad i have a nice stock pile of stuff

[amh]

Anyone tried tanking as blood on the PTR? The upcoming nerfs seem very heavy for threat-output.

[amh]

Could Rune Tap crit before this patch? It crits all the bloody time now - very nice surprise.