The problem with that, it's that it creates a system quite complicated to balance. Does the mastery increases the size of the shield (in which cas you might see mastery becoming less desirable when you stack it like a virtual DR) ? Or does it increase the % "blocked" ? (In which case too much mastery makes us too spiky again) Or both ? Etc...
I don't say it's not a good solution, but maybe quite complicated to set, especially if it's only usefull as, hopefully, in 5.0 block cap won't exist and we'll be in a situation similar than in T11 in term of bosses and spike damages.

54.83% mitigation to 59,10% mitigation it's something like 10,44% EH gained.
(1-0.5483) / (1-0.591) = 0,4517/0.409 = 1.1044

The formula works :þ

Well the only way we will ever be truly balanced is if we were as similar as possible.

I dont no if anyone from the US is interested im trying to push an idea across to the dev's on EU forums but be nice if someone could do it on the US forums also.

The idea is create an icon on the raid frames for healers that will show when a Death Knight has a blood shield. The icon could look something like this battery sign.


The idea of it is every time a set % of Blood shield is used then a charge of the icon would go away. When Blood shield is gone the icon is gone. It does not have to be a battery style sign it could be a circle that chucks get eaten out of (like a pie chart) You could even go as far as putting the % left in the centre of the icon. Example a battery with only 2 bars out of 4 means half a shield left and you could stick the text 50% in the centre of the icon.

If you want a way for healers and tanks to be able to track Blood shield this is defiantly the way togo IMO!

If the above idea is to much for the devs to put time into how about this:
Something like the priest bubble animation but make it red possibly dripping with blood when we have a Blood shield active, again so its more easy for the healers to know we have a shield for the next hit. Trouble with this is we wont no how much of a blood shield we have left still without an addon. But its very simple to implement just copy/past priest bubble code.

I actually wondered if anyone ever wrote an addon similar to this. It shouldn't be hard to do because the game already tracks your Blood Shield size through a buff so all it would have to do is read the buff and show the number somewhere for healers who would have that addon (basically like Blood Shield Tracker - Death Knight - World of Warcraft Addons - Curse, except for healers).

Personally I doubt Blizz will go ahead and implement such an addon but someone who can code addons should be able to whip out something like this pretty quickly.

I personally use Ingela's Absorb Tracker to track other absorbs on me. It can be set up to track your target's absorbs as well and some of our healers use a modified version which tracks multiple targets at once.

If you set the colors correctly, BST is great to track our Blood Shields :




I don't know, they seemed to have created an HUD for the monk's ressources.

I will agree that an absorb mod is mandatory if you're going to be serious about tanking on a DK. There are many diff ones out there from what I have heard/read. You can see the one I use in the screenshot below (below my rune mod):

I will try give Ingelas Absorb Tracker ago. Its more of something i want for the healers than myself. I currently use Blood shield tracker. I just feel something to track shields for the healers would be beneficial.

Here is my UI on the Current live PTR. I normally use SCT and have Absorbs/dodge/parry/resists displayed on my right like riggs has with his healing, and I have my healing and others healing on me displayed the other side. Usually things look a little more polished and i have Recount/omen on the bottom right also but they were broken at the time of video.

Blood Shield Tracker - YouTube

Sorry for rubbish video was messing about in LFR. Keybinds a little messed up on PTR toon so hit lich instead of bone shield >.<

Here is what i mean i want to see for Blood shield.
VuhDo Demo - YouTube

Its an old video but if you put it on 720p and look close at VuhDo your see a shield icon with a orange ring around it. When part of the shield is used part of the ring goes away. This is a fantastic way to track how much of a blood shield is left for healers.

It doesn't have to be just for Blood shields. it could be a universal thing. Blizzard could turn the current tank icon into a clone of the thing in the video above. Only the ring around the tank icon would track everything that's going to be absorbed. So if a priest shield / blood shield / etc is on you then the healer will know same can be done for DPS icons as well stick a ring around it.

It would appear with the latest blog post (Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two - World of Warcraft) that we can expect the armor buff to be the only thing to happen for us in P4.3. This still leaves Pallies, Warriors, and even Druids (with their fairly large health buff) still well ahead of DKs in terms of handling spike damage.

I'm certainly happy I have both a pally and warrior raid geared for next tier, but I'm pretty sad that I won't be able to play my main in a tanking role without feeling I'm holding the group back.

Well I know we are suppose to post constructively but there is little to post that's constructive right now so I will just say the below.

What I have done for 4.3 is gear my paladin and swapped it to my main temporarily until 5.0. But paladins in 5.0 look to be awesome fun see below.

Paladin changes in 5.0:
Word of Glory does not need a cooldown in 5.0. Prot can choose whether to use it for healing, Holy Shield for absorption, or Shield of the Righteous for block.

It looks like my Paladin "could" be more fun/complex than my DK in 5.0. This for me would be amazing. Having to work as hard as a DK with grate pay-offs and nice raid cooldowns would be awesome, what's not to like about that you even get shiny hair, gear, and a healing spec!

The whole reason I play my DK is for the complexity and the fact it gives me more to-do than stand still and mash 4-6 buttons (I am sure this is the reason most people play a DK right?).

In 5.0 Other classes will be just as complex it not more complex, with better cool-downs (for raid and self), hair, beards, and possible healing spec maybe, etc etc basically having all the advantages but none of the disadvantages of the DK tank. So it could be in 5.0 I dont swap back.

Blizzard just put two nails in the coffin for me with the paladin 5.0 changes announced and the fact they wont be doing any-more to DK's in 4.3.

Sorry I am just appalled by blizzard at the moment but I look forward to trying my CTC paladin out and not gimping the raid, but supporting it.


p.s feel free to ban/delete wont be needing to seek/give advice on DK's in 4.3. Also in 5.0 all classes will be face-roll to spec/glyph/gem anyway. (6 point talent tree >.< / Priority rotations) so will be nothing for anyone to contribute other than class tactics/gems/reforges. Not trying to troll or anything, maybe its the medication, maybe its blizzard, maybe I am right? Blizzard has just taken everything good about a DK and given it to other tanks leaving us in the dark.

I definitely wouldn't say its time to grab the pitch forks and torches for 4.3.

Sure it'd be nice if we got a little more in the anti-spike department with wotn. However, thanks to the armor buff, its not going to be worse than Firelands was in the early weeks. The level of damage intake will be smiliar, but we'll have 2 extra charges on bone shield, easy disease up keep, and "never miss a heal" death strike in our arsenal. It won't be "the perfect balance", but we'll pull through.

Also if you need something to look forward to for 4.3, go do Ultraxion on the ptr.

Hint: Last Defender of Azeroth x Blood DK = possibilities