Blood | DK endgame tanking [4.x] - Page 2

Seref · 12/03/10, 2:21 PM

Well lets say you have 1 Blood rune fully charged and one charging, and 1 unpaired Death Rune (from uneven RE procs/etc.):
Bb,xx,xD
And you Blood Tap, it'd then be: BD,xx,xD
You proceed to Death Strike (Bd,xx,xx)

My main concern is this; to keep forcing FU RE procs you'd have to use that 'B' right before the 'd' recharges thus wasting ~10sec of Death Rune use.
And then when it comes time to use the 'D' right before the 'b' recharges (bD,xx,xx), theres a chance for BT to run off thus only equaling to about 1-2 Death Rune uses from Blood Tap.

[edit] And given the minimal difference between HS/BB and the fact that BB debuffs SF, would/could it be viable to just use your Blood Runes to BB instead of HS/BBtodebuff? (Probably stupid, but I'm kind of lazy and don't want my bars clogged up with useless junk.)
Is rebuffing Bone Shield really worth losing half a Death Strike? Because I just pop Bone Shield before pulling and forget about it for the most part.

Tyvi · 12/03/10, 4:14 PM

It can happen that you Blood Tap and DS with an unpaired Death Rune and at some point look at at the scenario you described. To illustrate:

Since the game will not prioritize a Blood Tap'd Death Rune over normal DD or FU pairs you will sit on that Rune after the Death Runes at 3 secs are used for a DS.
But this situation can only happen once during one Blood Tap if you put the 2nd Blood Rune on CD before BTing. Now your point is that doing so puts the Death Rune on a longer CD than it needs to, which is correct. But if you let the the first Blood Rune fully cool down and then BT you will usually bug out your Runes (atleast that's what happens to me - might be addon related, not sure): not only do you get a Blood Rune converted to Death Rune but it also refreshes another random other Rune. And whenever that happens to me the game blocks me from doing anything for a while. Assuming that bug is fixed (or that it just affects me for some reason), I am not sure if your method is better - it's worth considering atleast. If there is a way to keep up Blade Barrier and still be able to RE without proccing a useless Blood Rune, that is. I just do it the other way because getting the top 3 D Runes on CD gives you 3 chances to proc RE and keeps up Blade Barrier much more easily.

As for your other questions:

Bone Shield vs half a Death Strike depends obviously. If you don't need to save the BS for a specific boss ability, you aren't exactly wasting it if your lone Death Rune is not doing anything.

HS vs BB: HS is always better than BB on single target. It should do nearly triple the damage of BB in 359 epic gear and you will still want to HS early in a pull for threat. Use BB for the debuff and only if you want to ensure that your Blade Barrier stays up.

Yörgle · 12/04/10, 3:29 PM

Originally Posted by ZaoZao

HoW will probably be used more often than every 2/3 minutes, and the "stronger debuff" can be solved through a /cancelaura macro, which you need for Battleshout anyway, even when glyphed.

Actually, you don't need the glyph anymore. If there's a stronger debuff, the spell will "only" grant you 10 PR.

dr_AllCOM3 · 12/05/10, 12:03 AM

I've added a Blood Shield display and a DS heal prediction to my rune addon. Maybe you can test it a little bit. It's very hard to get enough damage for a nice fat DS when you're soloing

.

I calculate the heal when a DS is successfully used, based on the incoming damage in exactly the last 5s.
I do not consider any heal buffs or debuffs so far.
The damage/5s is reset (is that correct?).
Maybe I should make the bar empty for the base heal and increase it from that point.

max( maxHealth*deathStrikeHealPercentBase, damage*deathStrikeHealPercent*( 1+( 3*0.15 ) ) )

I calculate the Blood Shield when a DS is successfully used. There should always proc one.

deathStrikeHeal*masteryRating*bloodShieldPerMasteryRating/100

Mericet · 12/05/10, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by dr_AllCOM3

The damage/5s is reset (is that correct?).

If I understand what you're asking, no it's not correct. I just tested by dueling a mage (this was done without improved death strike for simplicity): I took off gear until I had about 25000 health so he would be sure to deal enough damage to get the heal above the minimum amount, which was around 1800. He hit me with 1 fireball for 11000 damage and I immediately used death strike twice in succession. The first healed me for 2200, the second for 2600 (higher due to an ignite ticking in between the hits).

It's tougher to do more complicated tests, but at least it definitely shows using death strike once does not reset your 'damage taken over the last 5 seconds' to 0. It seems like it just uses a sliding sum of damage taken in the previous 5 seconds regardless of what else is going on.

dr_AllCOM3 · 12/05/10, 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by Mericet

It's tougher to do more complicated tests, but at least it definitely shows using death strike once does not reset your 'damage taken over the last 5 seconds' to 0. It seems like it just uses a sliding sum of damage taken in the previous 5 seconds regardless of what else is going on.

Thanks, that's what I wanted to know.
I've added some more options to my rune addon and it should now have everything you want.
There is a debug modus available (/ddr debug), where you get more data for BS and DS.

kelben · 12/05/10, 8:19 PM

Does the shield absorb itself count as dmg taken during the last 5 seconds?

Yakobo15 · 12/05/10, 9:16 PM

Not that I've been able to notice using bloodshield tracker, other absorbs don't seem to add to it either so it's actual damage taken.

Lichloathe · 12/06/10, 1:29 AM

If the question you're asking is:
"Does the absorb from Blood Shield reduce your Death Strike heal if it's within the 5 second window?"

The answer is yes.

grukthar · 12/13/10, 2:30 AM

A couple of quick questions I'd be interested in getting opinions on;

My current gemming scheme has been to socket stam in all blue sockets (obviously) then match red/yellow with stam hybrid gems. My question being would you value mastery/stam higher than parry/stam or vise versa? With the way healer mana is in the current game I'd almost lean toward all avoidance but mastery seems to be blizzards answer to our lack of block so it definitely has a pretty high mitigation value itself. Does anyone have math relating to the value of stats like mastery vs parry or dodge?

The other quick question for those of you progressing into the later bosses how do you feel you stack up to the other tanks? So far through the few raids ive done it seems that we take a pretty decent chunk more damage but in turn have miles more in the way of cool downs and heals (like usual). Question being are the CDs and heals enough to maintain a competitive spot against the other tank classes.

oneal13rru · 12/13/10, 10:35 AM

Is there consensus yet on an ideal spec for situations with no predictable damage spike? Seems Lichborne requires enough frontloaded RP to make it useless in situations where the damage is either consistent or less predictable spikes.

Or, is it just recomended to bank ~60 RP at all times?

Tyrielle · 12/13/10, 11:25 AM

I am wondering if the DRW glyph should be reconsidered? I don't have a wealth of experience theory crafting, but in the dozens of heroics ran and the few hours I spent in a raid with a warrior and paladin tanks, I far outstripped their TPS, and that's without any misdirects, tricks or the DRW glyph. Once I place my first Runestrike on the boss, no DPS get close to pulling aggro, at worst I am 50% ahead of them. I suspect Runestrike is just overpowered at the moment as a result of Vengeance.

nergal119 · 12/13/10, 11:35 AM

On the topic of > 7% deathstrikes and larger blood shields.

I am curious if there are currently any mods that will tally the damage taken (while purging all instances from >4-5 sec) and notify the user when a set percentage of total health is reached (say 35%), the threshold at which more powerful deathstrikes are available.

I ask this as I have not come across any and between negotiating fight mechanics and being healed it can be difficult on lower damage fights (not so much for large burst) to determine when you can get those larger shields (if even only slightly better).

Even if no such mod exists, thank you for your time.

MADMark · 12/13/10, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by grukthar

Does anyone have math relating to the value of stats like mastery vs parry or dodge?

What exactly are you looking for comparing avoidance to self shielding? Yes, the DS shield serves a similar function to block, but it works differently, AFTER the hit occurs; it doesn't replace the hit with a block. Yes, you can come up with some arbitrary conversion value, but DK's don't shoot for unhittable like the other plates. It wouldn't be any more meaningful than the old standard throughput/mana debate healers often return to.

Roop · 12/13/10, 11:52 AM

A lovely mod named “blood shield tracker” on curse at the moment, been using it since its release and its extremely stable and accurate. (Sorry at work atm so can not access the site to link it directly, will do some when at home) I strongly recommend it if you want a mod that shows the relative heal of you Death Strike, as well as showing the shield it produces and also how long that shield is active. Doc (a member of the EJ forums, who's mod can been seen in the DPS threads as a rune monitoring mod) also has incorporated it into his rune watch mod, however its implementation is crude at the moment and he is refining it. (Maths wise its spot on, appearance wise it’s not as pretty as the 1st I mentioned is what I mean by the crude comment.)