Did you had full raid buffs/debuffs on both your self and the dummy?

Also that 0.4k dps difference is well within the margin of player error and bad rng.

Considering you spend 2 talents points and can get a maximum 0.67% DPS increase (according to his math) I don't think it's worth it at all.

I've never been a fan of this argument as even though the hots may tick 'faster' the HPS increase of them is 0. So I have a hard time seeing the benefit of haste when for like 60% of your total healing done on every fight, the pure hps throughput contribution can be summed up as a grant total of 0 increase from haste. In a world of overhealing, ya ticking .1 seconds faster might make it a real world hps increase, but I think I would rather take my chances on healing smartly with other stats that will increase the throughput on the bulk of my healing rather than ~40% of it.

To answer an earlier post, I tried virulence out last night in heroic dungeons, and for Halfus and Magmaw. (I run DW)
I actually noticed a consistent dps loss. My spec showed 3 points in Bladed Armor in the blood tree, three in virulence, and three in epidemic with the remainder in Butchery. With these instead of the cookie cutter spec, I was constantly finding myself exposed to downtime. Reason being that I use BT to give me a rune when I have nothing else to do. This allows me to take most of the haste out of my gear, replace it with crit and mastery, and profit. Without haste though, I, again, had downtime.
When we tried (unsuccessfully) to do Magmaw, I took one point from butchery and epidemic and put them into Chillblains for the slow. While i noticed a very small increase to damage on the worms (less than 1% since they die quickly) I found myself longing for the extra runic power Butchery grants from their deaths, and occasionally didn't have the frost rune for the slow, and no BT to give me a quick rune. My dps on the boss was laughable, i was missing a full 5% off of what I normally did due to rune starvation at critical points in refreshing diseases.
While not a full test and not in BiS gear, carrying normal stat weightings of mastery > crit > haste, virulence failed me. To be honest, I don't think changing that stat weight would help, as a lower mastery would lower the damage of frost fever, and lowered crit would result in the obvious.
On a good fight, diseases account for less than 5% of my damage, and while virulence's 1.5% consistent gain assuming you do 5% with your diseases sounds good on paper, it's just suboptimal when compared to the added flexibility of a free rune.

First of all LOVE your work this post has improved my play style and my toon 10 fold.

Now for my point as far as the "[Mandala of Stirring Patterns] looks good, but is questionable in practice because it doesn't seem to proc from HoT's." I just got this tonight and tested it just using Rejuvenation and it procced quite a few times. I dunno if they fixed it recently or not but it does now work on HoT's.

That is all I wanted to say and paired with my 301 int alchemist trinket this IMO is an amazing pair.

Useeria the Hallowed Dawnbringer 85 Resto/Feral(bear) Tauren Druid

I have read through some of the posts and discussions, yet I may be too stuck on the rules of the past to notice what may have been clear. But just to make sure, I'm asking for direct help in my search.

In WOTLK, I had "HITCAP" and "EXPERTISE CAP" drilled into my head. Lets be honest, how can i hold threat against DPS aggro monsters, if I miss all my attacks and have them dodged and parried. As I page through the many skilled warrior tanks that are so far beyond me, I cannot even use myself to compair, I see one common flaw ( I'm useing 'flaw' loosely because I may just be smacked and called a noob once I find out my answer ). I see "HIT" and "EXPERTISE" far far under what I was convinced it should be.

I'll stop beating around the bush here. What should my soft caps be, at a raid ready level. I'm used to 8% hit, and 26 expertise, but I'm seeing hit as low as 2%, and expertise @ 11 with some much further accomplished warrior tanks than myself.

Help me,.....please?

Please look my warrior up, and I'm greatful before hand to any tips or help you may be able to provide.

Callmerock lvl85 warrior tank.

I'm afraid this might be a very stupid question, but I'm going to plunge in and take the risk anyway...

When dpsing a boss with no adds, is there any value in using Fire Blast on Impact?

The only thing I can think of is that it's a quick chance for a crit, but it might not be worth the mana cost. Is there something else I might be missing?

I realize there are lots of factors that go into determining why one item is better than another based on available gear, but I'm anxious about the new Volatile Alchemist Stone and wondering why Rawr (v4.0.19) doesn't recommend it for me over Stump of Time. (I also have Darkmoon Card: Volcano, but I'm not concerned about that one).

I'm not asking here for an analysis of my gear. I'm just wondering if perhaps the latest version doesn't fully take 4.0.6 changes into consideration and if I can expect the next version to value the VAS more, or if I should be confident that if Rawr says Stump of Time is better, it really is.

Should I be patient and wait for the next version, or should I just relax and forget about the VAS?

Because of Careful Aim, I usually do 4 Cobra Shot whenever the boss in that health range. I'd rather push back ES for 1-2 second for almost guaranteed Cobra crit. And because my hunter is troll, I'd use Berserking in those phase and saving RF for later weakened phase (in there's any).

Aggro is not much of a problem right now. Soon after start (especially when vengeance is up) you should be able to get a nice lead on the aggro-table.

There is no parry-haste anymore.

Hit and expertise are just responsible for more aggro, except if you are in a 10-man raid and have to kick (8% hit in that case; personally I'm not hit-capped but I got 2 hit-trinkets in my back if I'm needed to kick on a fight).

So stack hit and expertise if you are in aggro-trouble, but that shouldn't be the case right now. It's up to you what you think you need.

Of course this is subject to change with higher tiers, but for now those stats are not really needed.

We are actually trying our fourth HM in 10 player-mode (we are a 10 player guild) so I sure have not the level of many person here - and not yours -, but I have to agree with nearly everything you just said. That's the best resume I've seen about cata DK tank since the cata ship.

A few comments :

Sadly (because they are obviously better pieces than the tier ones) this is SO true. The 4pc bonus is just OP on a LOT of fights. Before I had the 4pc normal, we wiped sometimes SIX TIMES in a night because of I not having it.


Ironically, it is true in a lot of class/spec. Especially if you are playing full mastery, LOTS of items Agi/Mast/Exp or Agi/Mast/Hit are SO much better than casual tanking one, even on the same ilevel.


I should actually disagree on this. Though you do not lose any runes on missing or being paried/dodged, the GCD lost is often way more important than the runes, because a Death Strike has not always the same efficiency a GCD later.
Two reasons :
- You lose a 5-second windows and you lose like 20k heal 30k absorb, which is just desperating.
- You need the death strike RIGHT NOW because you are at 10k HP, and then you fail, and then you die.

I don't know if it's the same in 25-mode (meaning: certainly not), but in 10-mode my auto-healing represents sometimes 90% of my survivability. Missing 2 DS in a row often means a wipe. We wiped SO many times because 2 or 3 DS missed or were parried/dodged... And I lost so many 50k heal windows because of that...

I am not capped though, but I prioritize expertise and hit over mastery.


- Actually, this is less a problem in 10 than in 25
- In 10 I just switch to double stamina (use dodge) trinkets on fights that requires it (Chimaeron HM for example)
- Burst of dmg are what reactive cooldowns are for. (amphasizing again the importance of expertise on DS)


Yeah, I cry everyday because my work doesn't let me enough time to farm it. =_= (you rotate way less in a 10-man when you are MT, and when you work 12hours a day, you just can't do the quests *_*)

Sad that the best tanking trinket is a daily reputation-only.


If you play avoidance, you would eventually skip this one, as the cooldown is less reactive glyphed. (though it is WAY better glyphed on paper)


I am surprised that you say so. I always felt it was totally OP for destacking on a lot of Fight, also often allowing way more survivability by absorbing two magical strike instead of one.

Here again, in 25-mode you maybe just can't absorb two magical strike with a AMS, while in 10 you can absorb a Nefarian breath + a great % of an electrocute.


Yeah, it's nearly impossible to be skill-capped while playing a DK-tank. The cooldown optimization alone is a pain in the ass. Playing a DK tank without any knowledge or skill is like trying to tank with a holy pal. Maybe Argaloth will fall, but you'll never down a HM.

But being able to react optimalisticaly to ANY situation at ANY time or so is really great and OP.