WOW, been i while since i read up on Dk tanking, thought i was doing well with my old "habbits"

Last i read up on them it was important to put your parry and dodge as close together as possable, leaving mastery around 15-16 rating, at the time it wasnt a huge difference to heal yourself or make your shield from 15 rating to "at the time high was 18-19" as it was important to get your avoidence close or over 30%.

I have read lots so far, but honestly going through 15 pages of replys is alot lol.
before today, my stats were as follows *10 man raid buffed* 14.7 dodge, 14.5 parry, 26 exp, 3 % hit, 192k health and 15.5 mastery ( was like 98-99%). I have always asked healers how iam to heal, do i take alot of damage that kinda thing, and they always say no iam pretty good. I always use my cd's as they are up...its why i have them. I find myself doing ALL the adds on boss fights, our pally tank does the boss, we do this cause of the range agro dk's have, for kiting and what not.

I have changed gems, reforged and tinkered around a little. i know have my stats a little closer to "everyone else i inspect". i spent my TB badges on the moutn cause i didnt think i needed the mirror so now i gotta save up badges again, but other than replacing that trinket (earthquake) and my JC one ( the damb trinket from the drakes or magmaw will NEVER drop) can anyone else let me know how iam doing in " the mastery" way of things, might not be new, but new to me i guess.

Only other question i have is, would it be worth it, to make me MT on add bosses and our pally do adds, i.e nef, maloriak, magamw (when we get there). We are starting on heroics this week, so i want us tanks to be up to par with everything.

Thanks
Apoc

I have not post in a long time, I'm been curious about Epic legging Off Half or Tier 11 legging, which are good? I know there is bunch of paladin with Halfus Legging but why not tier 11 if anyone can explain? Thanks.

I've always wondered on Dath'remar how guilds ended up getting to level 25 - especially when my active guild is barely level 10!

nice applet

It's just the fact that T11 is so badly itemised for paladins right now. The majority of paladins go for the 2 set, taking shoulders and head. Off chest, hands and legs go with haste which is a much more desirable stat to have. You could say "why don't take the T11 legs and head then,for example?". Then you would have [Burden of Mortality] at best on you taking up mastery which is utterly rubbish in most of the current Cata encounters. The best combination of T11 would be head and shoulders, stats wise.

When I go from solar to lunar eclipse my dots expire before I can reach the eclipse or they won't last enough to let me cast at least 2 eclipsed spells.

During a boss fight when would be better to refresh the dots? before leaving the solar eclipse, or when they expire ?
I always tought that if I have to use 2gcd it's bettere to use them while the dots still benefit from the solar eclipse especially if I have Mirror of Theralion active.

Using this rotation on the raider training dummy I'm at 20k sustained dps
But in a raid I'm not doing much more than that...I sit between 19k-23k (during maloriak Hm even something more)
I feel I'm doind something wrong because with owlkin frenzy +raid buffs (not Dark Intent) I'd expect something more than 2-3k dps difference.

My standard rotation at 0 energy is:

Place 3 mushrooms before starting the fight
Force of Nature -> Starfall (it will be ready for lunar eclipse) ->IS -> MF -> Detonate+Starfire -> Starfire untill solar eclipse
Starsurge as soon as I finish to cast the last Starfire -> Wrath -> Wrath if dots are up or refresh them if they faded both from more than 2 sec (often the third wrath doesn't even consume the last charge of astral alignment) -> Wrath and Starsurge on proc while in solar eclipse -> refresh IS and Sunfire while the last spell that cancel the solar eclipse is flying (i'm doing this because the dots would end before lunar eclipse and using 2gcd now that they still benefit from solar or later would be a dps increase, maybe i'm loosing the extra tick on both but they will deal 52% more damages all the time I need to cast 3 spell in lunar eclipse) -> if starsurge ends its cooldown while i'm still near the mid of the eclipse bar I cast it because I will probably get a proc before entering luanr eclipse -> wrath untill lunar eclipse -> while the last wrath flies I queue a starfire then 2 more starfires/starsurge depending on the starsurge cooldown (i've casted it near the mid of the eclipse bar usually I get a shooting star proc the very moment the eclipse procs) -> Starfall(before dot refreshing because i need this 1.5sec on dot duration that the starfall gcd would steal) -> IS -> MF -> Starfire and starsurge on cooldown while in lunar eclipse -> if I get a starsurge proc while not in eclipse then I hold it untill solar


The main difference between trainig dummy and raid is that during a raid i have to move, maybe it would be better to not refresh the dots before leaving the eclipse and cast as many nukes as I can before something makes me move?
Could that be the reason ? in a raid environment refreshing the dots, but then risking to lose a Nuke cast because of movement, lower so much my dps?

Berthold, so by that little Trinket chart you have there, I always thought Normal Heart was on par with normal mirror. But that chart is saying I should go with Hourglass over Normal Heart?

Movement does cost you a lot, because you would have been casting your nukes otherwise. In addition, when casting nukes back-to-back, you are benifitting from the spellqueue, i.e., if you are pausing in between due to movmeent you need to add your lag to the first cast. . Losing out 2-3k dps due to some movement is to be expected. However, in most fights you have multiple targets where you can refresh your dots during movement, resulting in no dps loss at all.

Take a look at Simulationcraft Results -> druid_balance->Action Priority List for a quite good working single target damage rotation. It isn't quite evolved for movement, but feel free to add suggestions :-)
Multi-target is still in flux (whether to refresh dots if you are close to the next eclipse or not, also depending on 4pc bonus). I tend to keep MF/SF up on secondary target anytime, and if I am in Solareclipse, I also add IS to that, but there could be little bit better priorities.


Hourglass is a great trinket :-)
Heart is 369SP + 268 Haste and Hourglass is 285 INT + 285 Haste. As INT is ~25% more valuable than SP, it is a close call. But often you might use the Haste bonus on Heart to move to solar eclipse for nuking adds, so I would prefer the flexibility of Heart's Use effect.

I wanted to know in the general arena what class and talent tree would be best to have as a partner in 2s and 3s arenas if I'm a frost death knight?

Do you think 3/3 Pathing is better than 1/3 Pathing, 2/2 Improved Serpent Sting (like your sample build in the OP)?

lolz cos there are sooo many tank n spank fights without movement in Cata...