I'm not sure I'd call it an over-nerf. Zarko's numbers:
A response for the Prot Warrior community? - Forums - World of Warcraft
Show us still taking less damage than Warriors and Druids with only 50% DS overheal. Paladins are the outliers now.

With Healer mana being an issue now, my guess is that your cooldown management is more based on chaining them and keeping the overall damage intake low to conserve healer mana, besides the "Ooh sh** situations now and then that might require everything you got...

So for physical damage intake, (not considering AMS or buffs/debuffs you need to keep up) you got:
- IBF (3min cd)
- Vampiric Blood (1min CD),
- Lichborne (2min cd)
- Dancing Rune Weapon (1,5min CD).
With IBF being the 'major' CD. Obviously you will use VB about each minute (or save it for certain recurring high damage phases). But how do you time LB and DRW? At the moment my Runestrike-finger is still very triggerhappy, wich often leaves me with much less RP than the pre 4.0.3 RS change. I used to always have near max RP and had to spend some RP on Death Coils to avoid overcapping. Now I'm having problems with saving enough RP to activate DRW this way, but this will probably change with some practise and get used to pooling my RP more. Glyph of DS it pretty much worthless now though..

When LB becomes avaible to spec in, you will have another big source to spend your RP on. You will kinda want to save as much RP as possible for your Death Coils, but that isn't so easy with constantly RS'ing and the huge 60 RP cost on DRW. Would it not be wise to spec into Butchery to gain more RP instead of taking lets say Abdomination's might?
It seems possible to grab a point in CotG, but that would require you to drop DRW and Epidemic, wich is a no go and you probably wouldn't use IT anyway when Outbreak becomes avaible.

It appears that the armor nerf was indeed intentional:

"Death Strike now properly heals for 20% of the damage taken within the last 5 seconds, and Blood Presence now increases armor contribution from items by 30%, down from 60%."

Patch 4.0.3a Hotfixes - World of Warcraft

I'm not sure that I'd agree that this cements SSG as the runeforge though, since the diminished amount of armor decreases the value of the armor multiplier from the the forge.

I'd think that having less Armor will make every amount of extra that we can get that much more important. SS is still RNG, SSG is still a guaranteed reduction.

Also, I keep seeing Lichborne specs mentioned but I'm just not sold on it. Is Lichborne really worth throwing away 5 talent points?

I mean, I guess all you're really giving up is Epidemic (which isn't that big a deal when Diseaseless is better anyway) and Morbidity but at least those two talents do something. Icy Reach as a tank just makes me want to vomit.

What would you be putting those 5pts into? Look at your options:

Blood Caked blade / Crimson Scourge / max epidemic (which you still have 2/3 in the spec I listed) / Virulence / Morbidity.

None of those give you much, if any, survivability increase. I don't really see how its even debatable w/ the reasons and numbers shown in my post on the previous page. Not to mention epidemic will be required on several fights in Cata.



CD usage will always be fight dependent and situational. Don't get into a habit of saying you 'always' need to do anything in regards to cooldown management.

As far as your RP issues, thats just something you will get better at managing in time. Both DRW and LB are on a decent cooldown which means you only have to worry about your RP ever 90 or 120secs. The rest of your time can be spent spamming RS to your heart's content.

It takes less than one set of runes for DRW (the cost of 2 Runestrikes) and less than two to fill up your 130rp max for LB (even less for both depending on SoB procs).

I'd be going with 3/3 Virulence, 3/3 Epidemic and 3/3 Morbidity. They don't increase survivability, but they do something. Icy Reach does nothing. Runic Power Mastery, even though it interacts with Lichborne, is not much better. Virulence, Epidemic and Morbidity at least increase your threat. Abomination's Might for the (laughable) Parry bonus is also a choice that does more than Icy Reach.

Pooling the RP to fill up for a Lichborne dump will make our downtime go through the roof as well as hit our threat very hard. Ignoring Scent of Blood, if you're not spending RP to proc RE you're getting a maximum of 30 RP every 8.3 seconds and it would take around 41 seconds to build from 0 to 130. You'd be spending (guesstimating SoB) 25% of every period of downtime between Lichbornes using 3 abilities every 8.3 seconds. To me, this is a horrifying prospect.

The other problem I have with Lichborne is that it is impossible to use as an Oh Shit. You have to build up to it, and that takes quite a bit of time. It feels like trying to maneuver a Battleship.

When I get home I'm going to try to add some things to BloodSim to allow for simulating a Lichborne build for comparisons. I should be able to write some logic intelligent enough to mimic an actual person with a reasonable level of skill.

Hi Tyds, didn't realize that was you.

I'd be concerned that Blood Shields might get unreasonably high if they didn't count against each other anymore. I also think it's a good area for skill to shine that would get taken away.

This is where you are off base completely.

Every one of those above options aren't giving you much, if any, survivability gain and even a horrible threat/dmg gain from the pts spent. Lets look at what you're saying:

+ hit on spells (taunt is phsy now so its pointless outside of IT/SF/MF)
+ 4 secs on diseases
+ 15% dmg on Death Coil and DnD. (DC is only used as a ranged dmg/threat tool with the new 30rp RS)

So you're telling me that those above options outweigh the ability to have a 2min cd to heal you for 6 GCDs of 30k+ ? No way possible. I don't understand how you can even DEBATE that.

-Yes, pooling RP for LB adds 'downtime', but you know its coming (ie when you don't have other cd's up).
-Yes, it requires foresight and finesse to fit it into your flow.
-No, its not really an 'oh shit' cd like IBF or AMS (not necessarily a bad thing).



This is a good thing imo and I'm a huge fan. Anything that can separate the skill gap from a newbie tank and a skilled one, I'm all for it.

I just know for a fact, w/o question, no debate, no grey area, no hesitation, no second guessing. The cd will be mandatory on Cata raid bosses where tanks are getting worked.

Wondered if you would realize. :P

Anyway, the absorb argument was more about Disc Priests and Holy Paladins not playing well with the DK mastery. Atleast that needs to get looked into so you don't feel punished for using those 2 healers.

And I have to agree on Lichborne as well (as I did a few pages ago): It's really great. Morbidity is really not such a big deal since AoE threat is good enough without it (if you save Runes, if not Morbidity isn't going to help anyway).
The only drawback LB has is that it needs a setup time but then again it has a great pay off if done well.

EDIT:

Don't forget Mind Freeze. If you have to keep up your own debuffs because the raid is moving from boss to boss (i.e. council fights) then chances are you are also going to be the person who needs to handle the interrupts. Mind Freeze is unfortunately still counted as a spell.
So my spec is probably going to be a 31/6/4 one with the points in Unholy split into 2/3 Virulence and 2/3 Epidemic.

Actually, I think that Virulence is also very useful for Blood Boil as well as Mind Freeze.

Usually, you'll have several DPS (which better be hit capped !) to CS if necessary, but as you mention, you should be able to rely on you Mind Freeze if necessary. If there's a DK DPS, you'll have FF on the boss.
But if there's no tank attacking the boss with you (which is likely), you'll have to apply Scarlet Fever yourself and you don't want to waste several GCD on applying it because you are low on hit.

Yes, that is a variable I forgot to include, but even adding Mind Freeze to the list doesn't even come close to outweighing the survival gained thru having Lichborne in your spec.

In that same regard, you're still not going to be spell hit capped w/ Virulence so its still going to be an issue. You're still going to have the chance for misses either way (with or w/o the talent) unless you're sacrificing mitigation/avoidance/stm stats to compensate. I personally am never close to being hit capped for progression content unless it is an absolute necessity. I am probably going to be sitting around 3% melee hit and as close to soft cap as I can get w/ expertise then focusing all other stats on mastery / dodge / parry / stm.

This means if you're responsible for a critical interrupt role (ie Maloriak / Tron Council / Nef / etc) you're going to have someone else doing it with you so you won't be relying on rng. In the event you ARE the sole one responsible for interrupts (extreme situation), by all means, drop 2/2 AM and 1pt in Epidemic and go 3/3 spell hit.


*updated for clarification.

Never said that any of those give you survivability increase. They still give you something. Yeah, Virulence is retarded, but would you rather miss a BB and be without SF? D&D is still good for anything that requires AoE. You'll never use Lichborne on trash or in the 5 mans you run, but all three of those talents you can use get at least some use out of in every situation.
Maybe I just don't want to believe that I have to literally piss away 5 talent points just to get one good one, and I'm angry that we have to make such a stupid fucking choice at all. The more I consider it, the more I think you are not who I should be arguing with, but rather the Developers. Every time I think about putting points in Icy Reach I just want to rage.

Even still, I don't know if you can argue that Lichborne is going to be a mandatory spec choice outside of Heroic modes. Maybe that's what you're already saying and I'm just not reading you right. Also, I don't know if I'd say setting it up requires "foresight and finesse" so much as the ability to tolerate spending 80% of the time doing nothing for the 30 seconds it takes to build that RP.

I think you may be in the wrong thread.

I don't give a shit about 5 mans, trash, or anything that isn't heroic mode.

I think trash still counts as part of the endgame unless you plan on having a spec specifically for when you're tanking trash (or are fine with being sub-par for it), but point taken.

Are you certain that the threat loss from pooling RP isn't going to cause issues? (Putting together some numbers, one moment)

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta - (English) Forums -> Vengeance and why it's broken

^Best sums up Vengeance and all that is involved.

TLDR: Threat is a joke after the start of an encounter atm due to vengeance and it needs to be fixed.

I think that when you are in a situation where you being alive is such a concern that LB-self healing is worth the investment, your DPS will be asked to watch their threat.
The philosophy is the same than ignoring your Death Rune to use DS (instead of using them for HS which does more threat) or playing diseasless to gain a DS / min.

What I could see as a viable way to do is to gain as much threat as possible in the cool phases (giving there are some) by applying diseases, using Death runes to HS and using DRW as much as possible, to give your DPS some room when things are getting hardcore and you have to max you survivability.
This is assuming there are some phases you can afford to do that, and that it doesn't drain to much mana from your healers.

Thanks. Because of some fairly severe computer issues, I never had the opportunity to get in on the Raid testing and see what threat actually looks like in the middle of a fight.

Some rough estimations anyway:
In a 10 minute fight, you'll average around 118 Rune Strikes. Pooling RP for Lichborne loses (assuming you're using it on cooldown or close to) 4 Rune Strikes every 2 minutes, 20 total - a 17% loss. With Rune Strike making up about 45% of our total threat, a 17% reduction is about a 7-8% threat loss.

Even if Vengeance is changed that probably won't actually matter. Looks like you're right.

I'm not sure what to tell you. I don't like saying things are a 'must' as far a talents go anymore than someone else. Flexibility and such are important and healthy for the game. At the same time, I know what I've seen and done with the talent. I know that its not really an 'option' when you're talking about most Cata bosses and the amount of dmg tanks take, its a must. If people refuse to believe the validity of it due to its 'unfriendly' nature, so be it.

The results will speak for themselves over the course of the next month once new content gets underway (especially heroics).

Which happens even faster now that they cut the BP armor bonus in half and we're taking around 20% more damage than we used to be.

Since Beta is over I can't log an 85 Character so I'll take the values from my Live DK. Going by the Tooltip, on Live my Death Coil will heal me for 8639 with 0 Vengeance. With my Health (57026) Vengeance will currently cap out at 5702 Attack Power (with no Raid Buffs). Then there's obviously other possibilities to factor in such as Glyph of Death Coil. With Lichborne being in Tier 2 Frost there's no chance of reaching Morbidity so that's out of the equation. At 85 with Vengeance the numbers it heals for are good, true. Assuming you get every possible bit of healing from each Death Coil.

The numbers it heals for are good, however, its highly impractical. You need to save up Runic Power in advance, you need timing, you need communication. You basically need to ask your Healers to hold back a lot to get a full effect out of it, and even then it'll be limited effect. It takes longer than Lichborne lasts to generate 130 Runic Power, and by the time you even have it all the situation where Lichborne was going to be used is probably already long gone. Sure, you can say "Ah its about to come off Cooldown, time to stack up Runic Power." Yet you still spend about 3 Rune Cycles without pressing any Runic Power ability, no Rune Strike, no Dancing Rune Weapon, meaning for the initial part of an encounter its obsolete since you need to build up Threat, especially since Vengeance is still low. Sometimes if you know a Boss Phase is coming like say Soul Reaper or Festergut +3 you know you can save Lichborne for then, sure.

It'll start to shine around lets say 120 seconds in the fight then. You still need timing. If you don't pre-stock Runic Power then you won't get a lot out of it. Without Rune Strike that's a lot of dead time, not to mention the 5 useless points in Tier 1 Frost you had to spend just to reach Lichborne.

Sure, there's gain. The gain is minimal and situational however. When the stars align correctly if you've pre-stocked Runic Power you might get X Healing done to you in those 10 seconds. Then again, seeing as Bosses don't 2-3 shot Tanks anymore a large amount of the Healing you actually get out of it could just become Over-Healing, so you basically just spent 3 Rune Cycles to get lets say 20K Healing while the rest of it all ends up being Over-Healing.

The stronger you make each Death Coil, the more Over-Healing. Time it for exactly when you'll be able to get full-effect? Lichborne lasts 10 seconds. How many times in those 10 seconds are you going to get full-effect from Death Coil Healing in the Cataclysm Healing Design where Bosses killing Tanks in 2-3 blows is long dead? 1, maybe 2. The second possibly at the end. There's also Death's Embrace which basically means you're topped off faster, meaning more Death Coil Healing down the drain.

Looks like a big waste of 6 points, and it only gets bigger if you're going 25 Player Raiding. More Healers, more AoE Healing, more Healing done to you.

More importantly; When will you find yourself that low as to get the full effect of a Death Coil Heal where you've also planned ahead the use of 130 Runic Power but didn't already use a Cooldown to avoid getting to that point?

Wall of text inc. This is a surprising debate tbh, and I'm hoping this squashes it completely:

What? At no point do you need to say 'stop healing me, im going to heal myself'. Thats pretty stupid logic and I could think of maybe 1-2 situations where I have ever said that in a raid. The whole point of the talent is to pool up as much rp as you can (up to your max of 130) and just machine gun them while the cd is active. You don't hear healers saying 'Don't heal him, I have one casting right now, wait until he takes another hit." Thats just not how it works.

Its basically a 10 second timeframe of 'I can't die' as long as you aren't getting 1 shot. I don't see how this is complicated. 10 seconds is huge. 10 seconds is a lifetime when it comes to raiding and tank cds. Also, tanks will have over 200k hp in first teir of Cata content. That should put into perspective the relevance of 30k heals.



I don't think you really understand what you're saying.

• No one is saying you're going to lead with this as a cooldown.
• No one is saying it fits into a rotation without adjustment.
• No one is saying that it doesn't have negative side effects (loss of threat thru pooling RP)
• No one is saying any of that or anything near that.
• What I am saying is this:

It gives - you - another - viable - tank - cooldown - when - managed - properly.

Have you ever made a cd map or lined up a way to chain cds to beast through a certain mechanic in a fight? (ie boss amp'd dmg phase / Soul Reaper type mechanics / etc) I've tanked everything in this game and every fight in beta, all on heroic. I'm not just making this up to sound cool or anything of that nature. I'm posting here because its proven information that will be relevant to DK endgame tanking. There are PLENTY of fights in beta where this talent comes in very handy and will save lives. Use it if you want, I don't really care. It just blows my mind to see the type of resistance to something that is being shown w/ numbers and practical application experiences referenced.

The strong point of a DK is the amount of cooldowns available. That being said, after almost any fight where tank dmg is moderate or severe I try and look at what I can do to maximize my survivability as much as possible. Sometimes this entails having a cd 'map' (or w/e you want to call it) that spreads out your cds over as much time as possible for maximum uptime (see diagram below).

Yes, sometimes there will be situations where you need to double them up, not have predetermined slots for them at all, or any combination you like. That's the good and bad side to it. Some people aren't fluent enough to manage all these cds optimally throughout an entire fight, some are. Its a double edged sword. Hell, Death Pact is almost just as clunky and follows the same principle (pooling rp / more than one ability involved / etc), yet its a game breaking ability. Death Pact is a life saver, and LB is no diff.

Btw, the 3 pts into higher RP pool aren't wasted. They benefit the talent youre spending them on to pick up. Also, its been referenced 10x over in the past page and I'm not going to beat a dead horse with that debate here, just click the link below if you're trying to compare the pts spent in frost to the other options:

http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t105485-...4/#post1805921
http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t105485-...4/#post1805938

I've read through all your posts on here and pwnware. You come across as someone who seems to know a lot about progression tanking, Cata, and the raids involved for someone who doesn't really have an amazing resume (unless I'm missing something from your armory link). Do you have some inside source for this information, raid in a top guild on a diff char or what? Because its entirely different from what I have actually seen and did pulls on for the past few months. Just because Blizz said tanks aren't getting one or two shot anymore doesn't mean tank dmg is trivial and you're just floating on a mash-mellow bus down the cruise lane while healers are keeping you up. There are bosses that will 3 shot you. There are bosses where you will need to chain cds to stay alive. This is the entire basis behind my logic and the reason I have made these posts.

A lot of your theorycrafting seems to be based in a 'vacuum' type environment (ie. you will get this many DS per minute and at 'X' RP gain will yeild 'Y' amount of Runestrikes). Maybe I'm missing something here, but things like that aren't as accurate in real time and healing isn't accounted for to an exact number. There are a ton of other variables to toss into the mix as well. Sure its a good basis for getting base values and direction, but when you're in the middle of a fight on progression (ie prenerf encounters) shits going to be hitting the fan, things are going to be hectic, tanks are going to need to stay alive. Those static values you're listing such as DS per minute / RP gain per min etc aren't going to be accurate due to the amount of things going on.

ie: dodges / parries / threat / boss movement / boss positioning - current / boss positioning - future phases / your current hp level / boss' hp level / boss ability timers / cooldown management / timing of your own abilities (ie DS / RT / DP / etc) / adjusting to variables such as healers getting ranged / healers dying / having to pop more cds than you wanted thus leaving you vulnerable for a stage you were planning on having that cd active / healers mana level / heavy raid dmg taking focus away from the tank / another tank dying and having to pick up his slack until he gets rez'd and rebuffed / etc. I could go on all day, but I'm sure you can get the picture.

My point is: It isn't in black and white at all times. There are plenty of times where every ounce of self healing / mitigation / etc is going to be needed. I don't think there is ever a situation where the tank has 'too much healing' as long as the raid is being kept up.

The stronger you make your self heals, the better, especially if you aren't losing survivability anywhere else. It doesn't matter if you have a 60% overheal on your Death Coil. What matters is the two that land in 2 gcds that heal you for over 60k and allow you to not die to the subsequent hit that would have killed you if you didn't have LB active spamming yourself w/ 30k+ DC's. Clunky, unfriendly, annoying or however you want to label it. It saves lives on a large scale, not minor.


I'm not sure if you've even read every thing that has been posted here, and if you did you you clearly don't understand it. This is addressed above, but I wanted to throw this in again for visual reference. See this chart for a PRIME example of how it fits amazingly into the mix of being able to chain cds if needed:



No one is sittiing on cds just pooling RP just becasue they can. There are plenty of times (or at least should be) where you should be using something similar to the following thought process:

"Hey, I'm going to pop IBF after this Bone Shield falls off, then go into Vamp Blood + DRW and have my pet out incase shit gets really nasty since there is no mitigation on that cd combo (VB+DRW). I'll need something after those fall off".

It's called thinking ahead and being proactive when you are allowed and not being reactive and getting your face melted by the boss. Bosses still hit hard. Tanks still get wrecked, especially in heroic modes. At this point you run into the issue of needing cds as active as possible. Hopefully that clears things up a bit.


TLDR: Lichborne. Spec it.

If you idiots can't keep your parts in your pants I'm going to perma-ban each of you. Consider this post fair warning. I don't give a shit who you are or how special you think you are. On our forums you're all the same. If you don't knock it off the definition of "same" will be "no longer posting here". I hope this is quite clear.