Blood | DK endgame tanking [4.x] - Page 51

Panthros · 07/19/11, 1:33 PM

I don't want to break the VB discussion, but I have a big doubt about threat ratings and don't think it should go to the q/a threat.

Why is it recommended to go for expertise instead of hit for more threat? Isn't the hit table the very fist stat that the system "rolls" when you try to land a special attack?

Trajectory · 07/19/11, 3:12 PM

After searching this thread, I am not finding any talk about the 2pc and 4pc T12 discussion except for PTR discussion back when 4.2 was obviously still on there.

It seems to me, that the 2pc is really only viable as the Legs/Hands seem to have the best itemization. If you add in the 4pc (bringing in the shoulders and chest as the helm itemization is beyond horrid at least for me), it just seems that you can get better stats by moving away from the 4pc with shoulders/chest and grabbing off-tier. Is that what people are planning on or going to go for the 4pc?

Cambogian · 07/19/11, 6:22 PM

Originally Posted by Taiyoken

You should just reforge SSG to Swordshattering. Mastery is still the same because your health increases and prevents gibs during the normal melee phase.

I've been redoing the runeforge for different fights, for Alysrazor I've been using FC, for Beth Spellshattering, and for Balerok Swordshattering. The question was whether to increase my mastery by dumping some other stat, such as avoidance, so as to create a larger bloodshield (amt healed stays the same, mastery increases, resulting in a larger % of the heal as a shield) or to reduce mastery in favor of avoidance (aka the RNG game).

Originally Posted by Liar

For Decimation Blade soaking, glyphed VB is obviously the better choice once you pass 250k health and don't need the health increase to survive a DB.

Yes, this was my thought as well, although when DB happened twice in the first minute, it was a bit of a moot point (not that having a different glyph at the time would've saved my bacon).

Fránk the Tank · 07/19/11, 6:25 PM

Originally Posted by Panthros

I don't want to break the VB discussion, but I have a big doubt about threat ratings and don't think it should go to the q/a threat.

Why is it recommended to go for expertise instead of hit for more threat? Isn't the hit table the very fist stat that the system "rolls" when you try to land a special attack?

Hit only affects misses, while expertise affects both dodge and parry up to 26. So it is essentially double double dipping for lack of a better term. Not only that, runes are refunded for misses, while dodged/parried attacks eat runes.

Tyvi · 07/20/11, 12:54 AM

Death Knights

Improved Death Strike now provides 40/80/120% bonus damage, up from 30/60/90%, and a 10/20/30% critical strike bonus, up from 3/6/9%.

New DK hotfix, probably prompted by the awful damage DKs were doing on Alysrazor.

Still nothing about the whole EH issue, though. Shame they didn't add some bonus expertise/hit on that talent either.

pindle · 07/20/11, 3:14 AM

Originally Posted by Fránk the Tank

Hit only affects misses, while expertise affects both dodge and parry up to 26. So it is essentially double double dipping for lack of a better term. Not only that, runes are refunded for misses, while dodged/parried attacks eat runes.

Hit does affect Outbreak and Runestrike whereas expertise don't though, so I would advise against 0 hit/26 exp for example (rather sacrificing a little exp for hit in that case).

New DK hotfix, probably prompted by the awful damage DKs were doing on Alysrazor.

Still nothing about the whole EH issue, though. Shame they didn't add some bonus expertise/hit on that talent either.

That would solve alot of problems, however, I would expect balancing issues around PvP if they implemented something like that into the talent, don't think that's the approach of Blizzards choice. However, if possible, it would be neat if DS couldn't be dodge/parried, much like RS.

Sokaris84 · 07/20/11, 9:13 AM

Originally Posted by Cambogian

The problem I see, or rather saw the other night on Baleroc, is that I am not avoiding enough of the physical attacks and in the case of that specific fight becoming a burden to the healers at the onset. While I usually MT most fights it was decided that, because DKs are so heal-friendly, I should be taking the decimation blade which I would normally have no problem with except that the attack seems to be completely random (didn't get one for the first 3 mins on one attempt, the next attempt we got 2 in the first minute which left me w/out VB and obviously I died on the second).

If you are using a 2 tank strategy for this fight and you're the decimation tank and you are dieing, then the last thing you need to be here talking to us about is petty things like avoidance vs mastery dude. Firstly, glyph AMS and pop it 2ish seconds after Decimation Blade begins that will reduce a lot of the stress for your healers. Even if you dodge the first, it will still be up for the second. (Talking 10man swing times here)

Secondly, your healers need a rocket, because if they can't heal ~220k to get you back up above 90% health then they are doing it wrong, not you.

Thirdly, absolutely under no circumstances should any DK tank that's taking decimation strikes ever use an unglyphed VB on this fight. Increasing your total HP is the last thing you want to do on this fight, all that does is make it harder for your healers to top you up after a Decimation hit.

Finally, yes avoidance is best for Baleroc. The only thing that can realistically kill you on this fight (given that healers are doing the fight correctly) are Decimation hits, and those reduce your healing done afterwards by a substantial amount making mastery for this fight utterly useless. But again let me stress that there are other things going on causing your deaths, completely reforging your gear for this fight specifically would obviously be a pain if you prefer the mastery get up.

Tyvi · 07/20/11, 9:48 AM

Originally Posted by Sokaris84

Finally, yes avoidance is best for Baleroc. The only thing that can realistically kill you on this fight are Decimation hits, and those reduce your healing done afterwards by a substantial amount making mastery for this fight utterly useless.

Yes, avoidance is really good for Decimation Blades but that does not make "mastery utterly useless". The fact that Decimation Blade reduces your healing has also no effect on the value of mastery whatsoever since the Blood Shield would be the same with or without the 90% healing reduction.

On a related note, does anyone have an idea why it's there to begin with? I am pretty sure Decimation Blade does not count for your DS healing anyway since every time I tried Death Striking just after the debuff ended I got a min heal (I am pretty sure I didn't mess up the timing since I went through some ingame logs, but you can never exclude that chance completely).

Mastery in this fight also has one more plus: You can build a Blood Shield for when Decimation Blade ends. We usually have a Druid taunt the 2nd Decimation Blade when we do him but he wasn't available last kill so I solo tanked by taking the first Decimation Blade, AMSing to cover the next 2 swings and relying on the Blood Shield to give healers some time to heal me up in case the 3rd Decimation Blade connects. It worked pretty well, all things considering (2 new healers for the fight and I had them 2 heal :P).

Yörgle · 07/20/11, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Liar

On a related note, does anyone have an idea why it's there to begin with? I am pretty sure Decimation Blade does not count for your DS healing anyway since every time I tried Death Striking just after the debuff ended I got a min heal (I am pretty sure I didn't mess up the timing since I went through some ingame logs, but you can never exclude that chance completely).

Really ? Oo

Then I assume that the debuff is here to prevent LoH from palprots, druids healing themselves (I assume only possible on 10m due to the swing timings), every kind of self healing (LB, DP, even health stone or option,...).
... In one word, they don't want us helping in any way. All the work should be done by the healers. -_-'

Sokaris84 · 07/20/11, 10:31 AM

Utterly useless was probably a poor choice of words on my part, but nontheless Decimation is the only thing that should kill a tank on this fight and avoidance is the best choice for reducing damage from that mechanic.

The fact that Decimation Blade reduces your healing has also no effect on the value of mastery whatsoever since the Blood Shield would be the same with or without the 90% healing reduction.

What makes you say that? Blood Shield - The shield is a percentage of the heal you do with the Death Strike.

I would say the debuff is there to stop us being incredibly OP for this fight, though they seem to have overlooked AMS! Also to stop Paladin tanks for LoHing themselves >.>

Imperarx · 07/20/11, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by Sokaris84

What makes you say that? Blood Shield - The shield is a percentage of the heal you do with the Death Strike.

The shield from Death Strike is based on what your heal would have been before any healing buffs or debuffs. If you'd like to test it yourself, find a warrior and DS with and without MS on you. You'll find the shields are the same, even though the amount of the heal is different. I assume that it is setup this way to prevent us from doubling dipping on healing buffs.

Asphyxialol · 07/20/11, 11:25 AM

Originally Posted by Imperarx

The shield from Death Strike is based on what your heal would have been before any healing buffs or debuffs. If you'd like to test it yourself, find a warrior and DS with and without MS on you. You'll find the shields are the same, even though the amount of the heal is different. I assume that it is setup this way to prevent us from doubling dipping on healing buffs.

Alternatively you could just look a log and find it out.

[21:24:14.966] Baleroc Decimating Strike Onslaughtx 314300
[21:24:17.373] Baleroc Decimating Strike Onslaughtx 314300
[21:24:17.650] Onslaughtx gains Blood Shield from Onslaughtx (Remaining: 46227)
[21:24:17.650] Onslaughtx Death Strike Onslaughtx +3056
[21:24:19.252] Onslaughtx's Blood Shield is refreshed by Onslaughtx (Remaining: 92454)
[21:24:19.363] Onslaughtx Death Strike Onslaughtx +3055

With 206,700 health (roughly) without Blaze of Glory and 5 stacks I'm at roughly 415,000 health.
415,000 * .07 = 29050 * .1 = 2905, which after talents and such looks like the DS heal above.
415,000 * .07 = 29050 * 1.51 = 43865.5, which after talents and such would be roughly accurate to the above death strike.

It's safe to say that your blood shields will always be at least the minimum on Baleroc, but your actual healing itself will be greatly reduced and as a result you will not be getting over min shields during Decimation Blade phases.

ZaoZao · 07/20/11, 3:11 PM

Percentage based damage does not count towards DS heal as far as I'm aware. Not 100% sure about the Bloodshield however.

Ohdamn · 07/20/11, 8:40 PM

Originally Posted by Trajectory

After searching this thread, I am not finding any talk about the 2pc and 4pc T12 discussion except for PTR discussion back when 4.2 was obviously still on there.

It seems to me, that the 2pc is really only viable as the Legs/Hands seem to have the best itemization. If you add in the 4pc (bringing in the shoulders and chest as the helm itemization is beyond horrid at least for me), it just seems that you can get better stats by moving away from the 4pc with shoulders/chest and grabbing off-tier. Is that what people are planning on or going to go for the 4pc?

Yes, Legs and Hands are the best way to go for the 2p bonus.
For 4p however Shoulders and Head are better together with the Beth'tilac Chest.

Trajectory · 07/21/11, 1:19 AM

Originally Posted by Ohdamn

Yes, Legs and Hands are the best way to go for the 2p bonus.
For 4p however Shoulders and Head are better together with the Beth'tilac Chest.

Well, given the off-tier pieces seem to have better secondary stat weights (IE not having Hit/Expertise on them) and having Mastery/Dodge/Parry instead, is the 4pc honestly worth it (as I am operating under the assumption that you are blowing DRW 12 seconds prior to a big damage spike so that you get the 4pc uptime and the best use for it)? It seems that going with the 2pc (Legs + Gloves) and then going off-tier for everything else, would be much more pragmatic insofar as getting more constant stats versus some avoidance chance for a certain timeframe.

Thoughts?

Also, anyone have an idea as to what the ICD is on the DRW 4pc? I presume it is available for each DRW CD making this question quite pointless.