old Cataclysm DK endgame tanking [4.x] - Page 2

Yörgle · 10/07/10, 5:35 AM

I think some points in Virulence might be mandatory (even if you don't take the 3 points) or at least, quite useful !

The main reason is that there are no hit debuff provided by other classes anymore. That means that if you are hit caped, you have 8(%) x 120.1 = 960.8 hit score. As the ratio for spells is 102.4 you get 960.8 / 102.4 = 9.38% spell hit. However, the cap is still (as far as i know) 17%, leaving you with 7.62% miss chance on spells.
Eventhough our aggro is now mainly related to melee attacks (as IT is no longer our "shield slam"), I guess it might be painful to have nearly 8% miss chance on spells (especially when it comes to outbreak, IT -refresh FF before it drops, blood boil -same reason, and mind freeze).
Edit : Sorry, I did the maths with the 85 ratings, but the percents (and therefore the issue) stay the same.

Originally Posted by Disargeria

Resilient Grip - This now resets Death Grip's cooldown when the target is immune to it. Bosses are immune to Death Grip, but are still affected by the taunt. Basically unlimited taunting.

Did you actually tested that ? :-O (Otherwise I'll do it asap on the beta !)
Because it obviously seem broken (I doubt devs want us not to care about CD on our taunts) and if it works, we can expect a fix before it's released. A detail that bothers me is the "if DG fails because the target is immune" ; I assume that it refers to both mechanic (taunt & grip). If one of those works, no CD reset, which means that in PvP it will reset if the player can't be griped and in PvE, if the boss can't be taunted.
It's just an assumption, though, I'll try to check that asap if nobody answers before.

Cleve · 10/08/10, 11:14 AM

Why are posters overlooking the value of the AMS major glyph?

Given it's tiny uptime, I really don't see a signficiant value in the DRW glyph. You still need 60 rp to activate the skill, you can't use it to burst threat at the start of a fight. Given the most recent threat modifiers and the unrestricted rune strike, I simply don't see single target threat being a significant issue after my experiences on the latest build of the ptr.

The AMS glyph however extends the duration of one of our most powerful timers. Yes, it is still removed once the damage taken exceeds 50% of the user's hp, but even on live I can use it on H LK25 in conjunction with a flawless fang on the apply to reduce both the apply and the tick of soul reaper significantly. It is also useful as a bonus two seconds of causing a significant number of debuffs to not apply at all.

irongnome · 10/08/10, 1:04 PM

It may be useful to have a bit of math in the OP at least to show what talents are worse and why.
The following was avg out using the simulator downloaded frombloodsim.codeplex.com
This was using BloodSim - 10 04 2010
The following settings were used:
40% avoidance
65k health
6k attack power
954 weapon min
1592 weapon max
3.7 weapon speed
10% haste (accounting for raid buffs)
3 simulations run
1000 minutes run
All other settings were default and results were avg of the 3 runs.

Butchery:
Valued at 1 Rune Strike every 100 seconds per point. It has no other effect on a single target boss fight.
DPS without Butchery: 5417
DPS with 1pt Butchery: 5525
DPS difference: 108

Working it out by hand assuming there are free GCDs to spend every single runic power on a Rune Strike:
Rune Strike hit for 8322 at the end of the sim. This should be fairly representative of a mid fight Rune Strike even with vengeance decay. Crit rate is 15% (Glyph + Raid Buff) giving an avg dps of 9570. Divide that by 100 for a gain of 96 dps. It would be fair to say that the talent is a 1.7% DPS increase. With the inflated threat on Rune Strike that becomes a 2.6% TPS increase per point.

Blood Caked Blade:
Valued at 5% auto attack damage per point.
DPS from auto attacks: 840
DPS per point of BCB: 42

Should Blood Caked Blade be able to proc Scent of Blood (something that I can not test but will keep trying), in the [unrealistic] best case scenario it will be a 10% chance every 3.3 seconds to proc 10 runic power. Simplifying the math that comes out to 1 runic power every 3.3 seconds. This means that in addition to the base DPS it would also be the value of 1 and a half points of butchery or somewhere in the range of 150 additional DPS. If BCB does not interact with SoB it is a .7% TPS increase, however if it does it is a theoretical maximum 4.5% TPS increase.

Crimson Scourge:
The talent is valued at 50% heart strike every 30 seconds and 20% of a blood boil's damage every 30 seconds per talent point. There is no bonus runic power generated. Blood boil hits for roughly 1250 so thats 250 damage every 30 seconds or 8.3 dps. I'm going to round up to 10 for now to account for early refreshes and crits. Heart Strike hits for 4500 or so and crits roughly 5% of the time making it 4725 on avg. 50% of that is 2363 and thats once every 30 seconds for a DPS bonus of 79. This brings the talent to roughly 90 DPS per point or a 1.6% DPS increase

Abominations Might:
Simple at 1% strength. taking a strength of 2150 + 5% stats to get 2257. An additional 1% is 23 strength or 46 attack power per point. With the 10% ap raid buff it is worth roughly 50 dps per point. This places it at about 1% TPS increase.

Kahorie's DK simulator does not want to play nice with my computer but over the weekend I will have access to one that can run it. As well I do not have a beta key and the ptr will not let me log on for some reason but when it does I will test to see if Blood Caked Blade swings can proc a charge on Scent of Blood as well as if there is an ICD on Blood Caked Blade. Also does the free Blood Boil from the talent Crimson Scourge generate any runic power? If someone already has this information that saves quite a bit of time.

Disargeria · 10/08/10, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by Gort

-20% attack speed from Frost Fever is, I think, what we should call "non-trivial".

We will want to keep diseases up. If we find we do not, they'll change things so we do.

And if the attack speed slow is provided by anyone else? We need to be prepared for Blizzard overlooking it and not underestimate this "diseaseless" Blood ourselves. I'm still collecting numbers at this time, but it's still leaning heavily to ignoring diseases outside of Outbreak.

Sahlia · 10/08/10, 1:39 PM

Originally Posted by Disargeria

And if the attack speed slow is provided by anyone else? We need to be prepared for Blizzard overlooking it and not underestimate this "diseaseless" Blood ourselves. I'm still collecting numbers at this time, but it's still leaning heavily to ignoring diseases outside of Outbreak.

Well, always repeating this can ONLY lead to Nerfs. What do you think is going to happen? I suppose, they are going to make our DS again rely on Diseases. Thats just going to be a nerf because you can't always apply two diseases when you need that extra heal. Singletarget, it's no problem, of course.

I hope they aren't trying to always force us applying diseases. I hope, they could simply buff disease dmg and nerf all other damage (like HS, RS and so on) and not change the mechanic.

sacred_potato · 10/08/10, 2:13 PM

I was looking into a spec like this

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It looks to me like Blizz wants to move DK tanks to dual wielding tanking 1Hs so we can stack more avoidance stats. If our survivability is going to be as low as it is in the Beta this might be needed. with the 2H tallent being moved low in the frost tree and the 1H tallent at the first teir of frost this seems to point to Blizz hinting that this is what they intended. Also if you create a premade DK on Cata beta or in PTR you start out wearing tank gear and dual wielding tanking 1Hs so again I think they are hinting at this.

Mindstain75 · 10/08/10, 3:01 PM

This isn't the first place I've heard that it seems like blizz wants Dk's to DW tank as blood in cata. It will most likely come down to a balance between the need for more threat or avoidance. What blizz "seems to want DK's to do" is purely speculation unless it is derived from a blue post. My curiosity is peaked as to whether or not threat generation for Dk tanks will be sufficient DWing 1handers. From what limited feedback I've received from ptr testers, RS hits like a wet noodle. Furthermore, our rotation has turned into a priority in which we will be focusing more on properly preparing and responding to incoming dmg moreso than maintaining a rotation for threat. I can't help but feel like establishing adequate threat through gearing and spec, while focusing on our priority tanking abilities for survivability will be the best approach. Of course I have no hard numbers to support that yet.

/edit for clarity

When I say gearing for threat I mean weapon only. Obviously, favoring str over stam or avoidance wouldn't be wise.

Suesse · 10/08/10, 3:08 PM

Originally Posted by sacred_potato

It looks to me like Blizz wants to move DK tanks to dual wielding tanking 1Hs.

I guess I'm curious if this "common wisdom" about avoidance being so much better in cataclysm actually turns out to the be the case. The item databases seem pretty weak right now, but here are some numbers for 333 itemlevel blue weapons:

Wild Hammer - Items - Sigrie
Seliza's Spear - Items - Sigrie
Mace of Transformed Bone - Items - Sigrie

1h mace: 172 stamina, 115 dodge, 87 strength, 58 hit
2h mace: 401 stamina, 178 mastery, 268 strength, 178 haste
2h polearm: 401 stamina, 203 mastery, 268 agility, 136 critical strike rating
2x (1h mace): 344 stamina, 230 dodge, 174 strength, 116 hit

I see there is some advantage in dw, but there is some in 2 handed weapons also. It may depend on itemization. If 2 handed weapons have mastery and hit on them where tanking weapons have dodge and hit, it may not be as simple as tanking stats vs non-tanking stats -- because mastery is a tanking stat of sorts.

I'd like to see more examples of tanking weapons, and I'm curious how common they are.

In terms of damage or threat, I think not having Threat of Thassarian (the thing that allows frost spec's abilities to hit with both weapons) will prove to limit dw's usefulness.

sacred_potato · 10/08/10, 4:03 PM

I think you are correct it will come down to how much benefit to do you get from the mastery on the 2H vs the avoidance stats from 2x 1H and is there going to be a reduced amount of threat from 2x 1H ... I have been playing with both for some time now and I don't currently have threat issues in either setup on live, but I will try to do some more testing in the ptr this week.

Kaeth · 10/08/10, 4:44 PM

Originally Posted by Yörgle

Did you actually tested that ? :-O (Otherwise I'll do it asap on the beta !)
Because it obviously seem broken (I doubt devs want us not to care about CD on our taunts) and if it works, we can expect a fix before it's released. A detail that bothers me is the "if DG fails because the target is immune" ; I assume that it refers to both mechanic (taunt & grip). If one of those works, no CD reset, which means that in PvP it will reset if the player can't be griped and in PvE, if the boss can't be taunted.
It's just an assumption, though, I'll try to check that asap if nobody answers before.

I suppose diminishing returns will prevent you from abusing the mechanic in the way you are describing.

Bloodworms:
I've had a bloodworm heal me for 9k on the PTR. this seemed to be a rare occurance as most of them healed for around 5k and some as low as 3k. I'd like to know how this intelligent healing works exactly because current health seems to make a big diffirence in when the worm bursts and how much its heals for. Also, is the heal a static amount based on the amount of stacks the worm and the players level? Has max hp have to do something with it? Questions, questions...

Epidemic:
I could see no reason to spend points in this talent. If you spend 3 your disease timer will be 33 seconds, which is 3 seconds longer then the scarlet fever debuff (30 seconds). I found my life to be much easier to know i refreshed my diseases at the 21 second mark, get my free BB and never ever have to worry about scarlet fever falling off. Probably just a quality of life thing though.

Virulence:
this may very well be a good candidate as one of the previous posters suggested. What other things could you do with the points anyway? Again, personally, i get really annoyed if i IT and it misses and sometimes even misses again when lacking large amounts of hit. Somebody else is very likely to bring the 10% AP buff. I guess the 2% strength is better for threat then virulence but why make things annoying for ourselfs? It's not like we are struggeling with threat anyway. probably not mandatory but a quality of life thing aswell.

And yes, I do like making things easy for myself if i get the chance too

Zure · 10/08/10, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by Nosajtpno

Now that Death Strike's healing no longer scales with the number of diseases, there doesn't seem to be any reason (from a survivability standpoint) to keep diseases up. Not keeping diseases up allows for an additional Death Strike every half-minute or so.

From a threat standpoint, you're trading the (20% damage bonus to Heart Strike + disease damage + 1 Icy Touch + 1 Plague Strike) for the damage of 1 Death Strike. Almost certainly going to be a threat loss, but how much of one depends on how the numbers end up looking. Besides, Outbreak every minute or at fight points that require good threat can still give you the disease bonuses some of the time.

I think the crucial issue would be whether freeing up the talent points invested in diseases and PS/IT (epidemic/crimson scourge) is helpful. If you are just getting threat talents like BCB, I can't see the talent points adding much value.

milowen · 10/08/10, 6:07 PM

Quote from BlizzChat Developer Chat on Twitter -- 7.16

Q. Is there a plan to support dual-wield tanking for death knights (something like Threat of Thassarian versus Might of Frozen Wastes)?
A. It will be technically possible to dual wield and tank, but it will not be optimal threat-wise.

It's 3 months old but I don't really see DW as an option. Without Threat of Thassarian, it is a big lose of threat.

irongnome · 10/08/10, 6:58 PM

Originally Posted by milowen

Quote from BlizzChat Developer Chat on Twitter -- 7.16

It's 3 months old but I don't really see DW as an option. Without Threat of Thassarian, it is a big lose of threat.

Using my own character as a model in Kahorie's simulator with this spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
I got the following TPS:
Using Shadowmourne -
Threat Per Second 12725

Using 2x Heroic Havocs Call as well as adding NoCS, BCB, Virulence, 1 more point in SoB -
Threat Per Second 9201

Its fairly safe to say that DW tanking is dead and gone and least from a TPS standpoint.

riggins · 10/08/10, 7:08 PM

Originally Posted by Cleve

Why are posters overlooking the value of the AMS major glyph?

Given it's tiny uptime, I really don't see a signficiant value in the DRW glyph. You still need 60 rp to activate the skill, you can't use it to burst threat at the start of a fight. Given the most recent threat modifiers and the unrestricted rune strike, I simply don't see single target threat being a significant issue after my experiences on the latest build of the ptr.

The AMS glyph however extends the duration of one of our most powerful timers. Yes, it is still removed once the damage taken exceeds 50% of the user's hp, but even on live I can use it on H LK25 in conjunction with a flawless fang on the apply to reduce both the apply and the tick of soul reaper significantly. It is also useful as a bonus two seconds of causing a significant number of debuffs to not apply at all.

If you can't time your AMS w/in a 5 second window, then your issues lie deeper than glyph choices. DRW is a mandatory Major glyph. It also isn't that hard to reach 60 rp w/in the first 10 seconds of a fight.

Originally Posted by sacred_potato

I was looking into a spec like this

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

It looks to me like Blizz wants to move DK tanks to dual wielding tanking 1Hs so we can stack more avoidance stats. If our survivability is going to be as low as it is in the Beta this might be needed. with the 2H tallent being moved low in the frost tree and the 1H tallent at the first teir of frost this seems to point to Blizz hinting that this is what they intended. Also if you create a premade DK on Cata beta or in PTR you start out wearing tank gear and dual wielding tanking 1Hs so again I think they are hinting at this.

DW will have its place, yes, but it won't ever be a 'fulltime' thing. Sole reason: Threat.

I DW Blood tanked HLK from pre ICC buff through to our progression kill @ 15% ICC buff (Last Word/Crusaders Glory) to maximize my mitigation, avoidance, and gain the +340 healing buff that had 100% uptime. It will always be fight dependant, so just make sure you have those two 1h's laying around just incase.

YouTube - Forlorn Legacy Presents...The Lich King (25 Heroic, Part 1) <-- Vid of HLK25 with a DW Blood tank

Originally Posted by Kaeth

Bloodworms:
I've had a bloodworm heal me for 9k on the PTR. this seemed to be a rare occurance as most of them healed for around 5k and some as low as 3k. I'd like to know how this intelligent healing works exactly because current health seems to make a big diffirence in when the worm bursts and how much its heals for. Also, is the heal a static amount based on the amount of stacks the worm and the players level? Has max hp have to do something with it? Questions, questions...

Epidemic:
I could see no reason to spend points in this talent. If you spend 3 your disease timer will be 33 seconds, which is 3 seconds longer then the scarlet fever debuff (30 seconds). I found my life to be much easier to know i refreshed my diseases at the 21 second mark, get my free BB and never ever have to worry about scarlet fever falling off. Probably just a quality of life thing though.

Virulence:
this may very well be a good candidate as one of the previous posters suggested. What other things could you do with the points anyway? Again, personally, i get really annoyed if i IT and it misses and sometimes even misses again when lacking large amounts of hit. Somebody else is very likely to bring the 10% AP buff. I guess the 2% strength is better for threat then virulence but why make things annoying for ourselfs? It's not like we are struggeling with threat anyway. probably not mandatory but a quality of life thing aswell.

And yes, I do like making things easy for myself if i get the chance too

The Bloodworm talent seems to have a ton of potential. This all depends on how it functions though. I mentioned earlier:

Originally Posted by riggins

Also, I played around a bit more on PTR with Bloodworms and they seem to be a substantial amount of healing (5k+). On top of that, you can have multiple worms active at one time. However, this is just me testing it out during 5mans which is much much different than 25s. I know people have said the worms are a smart heal and the tooltip indicates they heal 'nearby allies'. With that being said, would they be able to consistently rely on for healing yourself at any point or would you be competing for the heals over other melee? That would be a huge factor.

I really hope there is some way the heals from them can be focused onto us as a tank, then it would be a no brainer pickup.

There is a lot of talk about the 'diseaseless' rotation, but I'm near 100% certain it won't stick. Blizz will find a way to penalize us for that, as they should imo. Based off some of the numbers thrown around in this thread so far, I would hope they change up BCB asap. Other people are suggesting altering the CS talent, but I like it due to the flexibility it allows in your rotation to fill GCDs with the new rune system. If anything, they should just buff the threat provided by BB, PS, or IT (without making things unrealistic like the current IT threat values) or give more incentive to use them since there is too much feedback saying they hit like a wet noodle. Another option would be to increase the threat bonus to HS for each disease present. In any case, we'll see soon enough.

Last thing I wanted to address is relying on other tanks/players to keep up essential debuffs on the boss (ie attack slow and demo). I can assure you that anytime you are tanking a boss in any endgame situation, you'll want to be the one responsible for keeping up your own debuffs. Having to rely on someone else to do that isn't worth the tradeoff of the small gain you would get from saving 3 or so talent points (especially since there isn't any other defensive options in talents).

Thanks.

Disargeria · 10/08/10, 7:14 PM

Originally Posted by Kaeth

Epidemic:
I could see no reason to spend points in this talent. If you spend 3 your disease timer will be 33 seconds, which is 3 seconds longer then the scarlet fever debuff (30 seconds). I found my life to be much easier to know i refreshed my diseases at the 21 second mark, get my free BB and never ever have to worry about scarlet fever falling off. Probably just a quality of life thing though.

The runes that you're using to reapply diseases are the ones you use for Death Strike.