There is one but it doesn't play nice with server lag so you will still end up having to monitor incoming swings. I mostly use the addon now for the Blood Shield tracker, it just isn't reliable enough for the estimated heal.

Hello,

I have been following these forums for very long time now. I am an altoholic so I have utilized this site in its entirety. I rolled a DK at the start of wrath, fell in love with him, and made him my main. While I don't do anymore than the basic in game math (that's why I have you guys ) I do find that sometimes the math cannot be applied to real life situations (real life meaning in game :P). Especially when it comes to a priority system while tanking with the current DK mechanics.

The Change to deathstrike and the addition of Blood Shield has really thrown a stick in the mathematical spokes of DK Tank theory crafting imo. I, generally, am a liberal DSer depending on the encounters mechanics. Fights like H-Half where you've got massive amounts of incoming damage continuously (I am tanking the whelps + Scion) DS on CD, so to speak, seems to be the only route. Whereas fights like H-Chim (We have a frost DK break tanking), while tanking the feud, DSing only after taking a hit is my preferred method as I have a pure avoid set for that fight and use DRW + on use avoid trink causing me to often go entire feuds with only 1-2 hits landing.

I also have to make snap decisions whether or not to DS after spikes based on our healers mana and throughput, what runes i have available and/or coming up, as well as based on the fight mechanics having to do with raid dmg. For example - Nef just hit me with a breath as well as a melee or 2 and I have had Blood Shield down for approx. 4 sec.. I get a free rune tap and Our pally has just hit me with a massive HS + DL Crit. Now Im hovering above 80% Health with a crackle on the way. Do I DS and waist My pally's next incoming heal (as i know he is winding one up), or The healing from my strike if the heal lands first, for the blood shield? Do I wait for the heal to land and DS after crackle? You can say "Well the healer should KNOW you are going to be DSing after a big spike." For the most part that is true. But sometimes things happen and you just don't have the runes. Healers know this as well. They can't assume anything since things have become reactive on the healing end.

I have comments on Hit/Expertise as well. I know this subject has been beaten to death but I have to put in my 2 cents. While threat is nothing short of stupid to worry about Having a DS there when you REALLY need it is not. I've seen comments along the lines of "Well me missing a DS has never wiped us". You can't be sure of that. Maybe YOU haven't died due to that. But, it is likely that missing a few DS when you realy needed the heal/shield caused your healers to have to pump you a few more than they would have had to otherwise. Cause them to either spend more mana than is required or not be able to cross heal a bit and save a dps or another healer. Even if it has never cause a wipe, it sure as hell takes some stress off the healers. When you miss out on 3-4 DS in a row and loose out on a MASSIVE shield/heal and end up with a minimum one ... well lets just say i would much rather have a tiny bit less "pure survivability" stats to ensure the one thing i have complete control over on a moment to moment basis is almost always there when i need it. Am I saying get hit/xprts capped? No! But, I am saying That having those stats tow low is no worse than have low avoidance or mastery in my eyes. Our armor is in the gutter. We depend on our self healing and the shield it yields just as much as other tanks depend on their block. Do you see pallys or wars forging out of mastery? No way ... forging out of to much hit/xpertise is no different. Our ability to hit the mob is essentially our block chance but on a much grander scale.

Now on to the current discussion -
As far as a priority system is concerned you honestly can't put anything more than an extremely basic one together as our priorities change continuously depending on multiple factors. Runes available, RE Procs, Buffs (Blade Barrier, Bone Shield, ect..), Debufs (Frost Fever, Scarlet fever), Fight mechanics, Raid Comp, How you choose to gear (avoid vs. mastery vs. mixed), recent damage intake ... just to name a few. And I think linking to this discussion from the OP is the best possible way for people to decide how they wish to prioritize.

Why not just attack some of the rules I suggested directly in a way that states what is wrong with it instead of hiding behind abstract problems which may or may not be relevant in reality? In what raidcomp does rule x not work? What fight mechanic will screw rule y? In what way do the priorities change when Bone Shield is up? Which rule changes by choosing avoidance over mastery? I think that would be a much more interesting and helpful discussion because it would deal directly with the way a DK tanks optimally and thus seems to be much more relevant in the context of this thread.

Anyone having serious issues with Death and Decay threat after the patch? I used to be able to pick up Nefarian adds in phase 3 with ease, but now I barely get above my healers with it. It's kind of crippling to say the least to pick them up.

Now, on to my real reason for posting, On heroic maloriak, does anyone have a good rotation of cooldowns that they use in black phases to mitigate as much dmg taken as possible?

Mine looks something like this for each breath.

IBF, then Baradin Hold trinket, AMS, VB, one breath without one, in which i summon my ghoul and have my finger on the sac button for the 2 seconds i'm healable, then BH trinket again, then AMS, then VB, and then i'm out.

Anyone have any tips or pointers? I try to use IBF asap so that it will be back up for the green phase, and then rotate my 1 minute cooldowns throughout the rest of the fight during damage spikes. Obviously since you take zero melee damage during this, Bone shield's mitigation will be up the whole time, assuming you refresh right at the beginning of black phase.

TB Trink -> AMS -> IBF breath 1 -> IBF breath 2 > Outside CD -> TB -> AMS will get you through a full cycle. The external CD is kind of optional if you're remotely decent geared. Even in my full mastery setup I had enough health to go through a full breath. IBF is used 1-2s into the cast to make sure it stays up through most of 2 breaths with 4pc. I tend to use Ghoul Sac, LB, and 2x DS weaving (2x DS -> LB -> 2x DS -> Ghoul Sac -> 2x DS, etc.) between breaths to help out healers, but even when I miss one healers have 0 issues topping me off.

Keep in mind that AMS prevents the application of the debuff and allows you to still be healed if for some reason they bombed a late heal or something on you.

I've recently switched to a 34-6-1 build focused on massive RP generation with 2 points in Butchery and 2 in SoB. I love it. I can spam DS, HS, and RS almost constantly without worrying about conserving RP for the LB/DC heal. I hardly need to use BT because I'm generating RP as fast as I can use it on RS, activating runes all the time. Constant skill use also gives me 2-4 bloodworms almost all the time. I still macro RT at the end of all my tanking CDs so I always have a spare rune ready for an emergency DS, but with the near constant ability to use RS, DRW threat glyph for single targets can be replaced with RT for party heal (in 25-man, you can party heal well over 150k for free combined with WotN talent). Also, since the DE minor glyph is now useless, Resilient Grip gives DK tanks one of the best boss taunts possible, as it resets every time you use it. DRW glyph isn't needed for boss threat with all the taunts at the DK's disposal, and DG is one of the best with the reset.

I skipped Bladed Armor because I like providing the Abomination's Might raid buff, because it isn't a massive AP drop-off from BA if you're the only one providing the AP buff (with the new Call to Arms feature, I'm going to be doing a lot more PUGs), I like the miniscule added Parry from the 2% strength, and it saves a point. I love Crimson Scourge, as it helps keep AOE threat so mages, hunters, and warlocks can nuke groups at their heart's content without worrying about pulling threat (in PUGs, they almost never worry), and the free BBs help keep you full of RP and give you more than enough AOE threat without DRW, saving a major glyph. HS gives you a 27% chance to proc CS when attacking at least 3 mobs, and in larger groups, this translates to massive AOE threat generation-- you can use 15 offensive skills in a row (including plenty of DS's without breaking a sweat). For heroic PUG groups, I open with OB-Pest-D&D-DS-HS-RS.... By that point, CS, RE, or SoB has procced giving me another HS or DS, and I can swap between free BB, DS, HS, and RS almost constantly (with priority in that order as CS doesn't stack).

For raids with numerous adds and dungeons (since Blizz is trying so hard to get tanks interested in PUGs again), this can be a fun and effective change of pace from the cookie cutter rotation that allows you to keep up threat even when the Demo Lock is running around with Metamorphosis/HoG/Felguard/Infernal/Immolation Aura/Hellfire and nuking everything into oblivion.

Here's the talent spec.

Was wondering if anyone else has noticed incoming damage changes after 4.1.

I will admit my DK tank is not raiding this expansion, as my work has gotten in the way. However i always stay on top of whats going on in the class by reading the posts here. This is my first post after being a lurker for quite sometime.

Today a full guild group went to knock out just some easy 5-man heroics, I got ran over, to say the least. These are all instances I have ran numerous times. The damage was even spikier than normal, and on more than one 2 mob trash pull I went to 50% health in one GCD, and was dead before the next GCD. I am geared for heroics easily, and always keep my damage mitigation procs going. I have been tanking on this toon from the start of Wolk, and feel i know what i need to do to make it work correctly. The healer i was with has healed me many times, and he was shocked, he even inspected me to make sure i wasn't in my dps gear. I went back and reread the patch notes, and the OP here looking for a change to our class, and couldn't find anything. Was i just really off my game? Or was there a change to our mitigation that i missed?

I know this is an end game tanking fourm, but i didn't see anyother place to post this question. Thank you for the years of great information, all my alts have benefited greatly from the information here.

Wouldnt a macro for using Blood tap be good?
EX: /cast Heartstrike
/cast Blood tap
so that you can max the usage of Blood Tap?

I personally do not actually see the point of this macro. This would give you situations where you need a rune for something else, e.g. Rune Tap or even a DnD.

If you were going to set up macros for some of your abilities and blood tap it may be useful to have it attached to a modifier like shift/control/alt. (e.g. You press '2' and use Heartstrike, Shift-2 and use blood tap and Heartstrike.)

Bug regarding Death Strike / Runes since 4.1

I don't know if this is happening to anyone else, but a lot of the time - ALL of my runes are Death Runes when swapping from Frost to Blood, and I can't use death strike, I have to "burn off" all the runes to get them back to their normal color before I can use them.

Its damn weird. I'll try to fraps it next time it happens.