Without going into how much I disagree with the math was on your previous post, you're goinmg to have to prove this statement. Replacing a 1h with dps stats with a 1h with a proc can be debateable in DPS terms depending on what the relative damage of the proc is compared to the increase you'd get from the stats.

Replacing a 2h with two 1h, when RS, HS and DS are % of MH weapon damage and suggesting the pathetic proc (which is debateably less in DPS value than raw stats to begin without taking the 2h-1h difference into account) will "compensate" is a suggestion that needs to be backed with numbers, because I for one am pretty certain it'll be several thousand dps off.

You should include melee haste raidbuff in that calculation. I'm also not aware of any effect having historically -not- required a melee attack to connect. There are many effects that are based off spellcast and only require spell -completion- which is not the same as the spell actually connecting with the target. For white attacks I do not know of any instances where it has been possible not to connect and trigger an effect. That may just be me and my failing memory, though.

About the armor buff and the "unmissable DS heal", did some of you had the chance to see how this goes for us on the PTR ?
I didn't have the chance to do some serious raiding there, so I'd love to know how do you feel about it. Not seeing Rigg posting makes me think that this might do the trick (Pas de nouvelles, bonne nouvelle. as we say in french) but I'm still worried. ^^

As Illundai said, it's very frustrating to hold your guild back because of a suboptimal spec, so I'm pretty interested to wether or not I should prepare myself using my pal on 4.3, as much as I love my DK gameplay. (Again, not QQing, just not knowing where we stand in term of spike-exposition after the 4.3 changes.)

In the end: It is a very rough estimation, just to show how much heal you are about to expect. I could calculate exactly and I might do when those swords go live. Haste is a +, Misses are - (in the end it will be lower), running away and a boss sleeping in his lava pool is not proccing anything neither etc. Its not going to be Up/down more then 20-30%.

I posted because prior posts expected > 12k hps which I didn' believe... Its not nothing, but its not great neither. Maybe it ends up to be usefull for some specific fights.

And for the Blood tanking in 4.3: I can only hope its viable and when it ends up to be critical but possible, I like to hear from you guys to learn how to do it...

So many people commenting on things they are unaware about. It would be quite beneficial for the DK tanking community as a whole if people didn't say things that are nothing but unfounded assumptions. You will just end up misleading people and causing people to believe false information. Only post if you know about something and/or have math and practical experience to back it up.

ie

Several comments in regards to itemization theories pertaining to 4.3.

and things like:

This is not true. No, I'm not saying Pally will be bad, nor am I saying DK will be best or worst. Just wait and see how it unfolds. There will be a lot of feedback incoming.

Tbh, most (if not all) of the people who will be raiding 'progression' (read: Top 20000000 World) probably aren't saying things about much of the heroic encounters until after progression is over (for obvious reasons).

So basically you make a useless post telling people not to make useless posts?

Paladins are still the dominate tank, at least from a normals perspective (which was said in my initial post) from the PTR kills I've done on my warrior, dk, and my paladin. The heroic schedule was complete crap for me against my work schedule so I wasn't able to log in to raid. Paladins still have greater utility (and a 4pc that doesn't force you to sacrifice a tank CD for a raid CD), better passive mitigation, and comparable cooldowns, that hasn't changed at all.

Regarding progression posting it is obvious that people in high ranked guilds (conveniently calling out rank 15 which is the rank you are) would not want to share information about progression. However there are numerous logs and videos of the heroic bosses as they appeared on the PTR (obviously with all the bugs and tuning you would expect of the PTR) where you can easily review death knight, paladin, druid, and warrior numbers. Of course this is the PTR and the numbers can (and most likely will) change when the real patch rolls around with more tuning, etc. however preliminary numbers is all we have to go on (and it's worth speculating about).

As far as DKs posting information there are only 2 DK tanks in top 15 world guilds who are active main tanks (you and Wakez). Wakez rarely posts, and the posts you typically make are little more than information we already know condensed in to a single post and with your personal opinion about things with rarely any numbers to back it up (which is fine, you're entitled to your opinion just as much as anyone else on these forums is).

DKs are in a much better position now than they were, which has been said, but when it breaks down to progression paladins are going to be the tank you want in the raid if you have a choice for the majority of the fights, and you certainly wouldn't be gimping your raid on fights where another tank may be preferred. Considering so many of us have already rolled, geared, and have experience on a paladin it makes sense to advise that they are still the preferred tank based off the numbers which are currently available from the current incarnation of the PTR.

By all means, I would love to continue using my DK. I still prefer to play it over any other class, so if you have numbers to back up claims then feel free to post them. I would love to be able to tell my raid that I can continue to MT on my DK over my pally or my warrior.

Your mindset and logic is just the type of problem that I am referring to.

Nothing about my post was useless. The post is telling people like you that you're uneducated and need to stop posting about things you're uninformed/inexperienced on. No one cares that you couldn't make PTR testing for whatever reason. You weren't there and didn't see it, so why comment like you were?

I used the 'Top 15' range because I know that the only 2 DK tanks that raid in top guilds are myself and Wakez, thus the reason I used that number, nothing else. I can change it to say Top 25 or Top 50 if it would make you feel better, it makes zero difference to me.

My posts contain information from someone that isn't just being an armchair theory-crafter and giving input on something they haven't seen or have seen it once it has been nerfed into the ground (something you should be familiar with). People don't have to post complex math to have creditable information to help others out or offer insight on something.

So again, yeah...Paladins aren't the strongest tank (as I said above), and referencing how strong they are on normals doesn't help anyone whatsoever. This isn't a thread for talking about normal modes.

There are plenty of heroic fights where a DK is going to be not only a -capable- tank, but in some cases, will be the -optimal- tank. Revisit this in a month or so and it will all be much more clear.

Thanks for your answers, guys.
Just to be clear, if I'm not going to have the progression some of you guys have, my guild and I expect to advance quite early in the heroic content. And when I see that two days ago, I took two 80k melee hiits in like 3 sec (by Ragnaros) while having my first DS missing and the second one parried, added with burning wound etc., leading to an early death while the try was very nice until then, I'm a bit puzzled.
Don't get me wrong : I know this two matters (physical burst and DS not-landing) will be fixed in a few days, but my point was that's typically the kind of situation where you really feel like holding your friends back. And I don't want to go that road for months anymore.


Long story short : thanks to both of you. I'll basically wait and see and gearing my pal', just in case.

Some time ago (before the Heroic nerfs) the discussion here leaned towards gearing for stamina first and foremost, to survive the big hits, and then hit/expertise cap to make sure DS's land, and then mastery after that point.

With the changes coming in 4.3, are we still going to be preferring stamina > mastery > * or do we think mastery will become our top stat? I guess a lot will depend on how hard 4.3 bosses will hit us.

Even now, I notice that riggins obviously thinks he has enough stamina on his gear to survive any burst damage and has stacked mastery while on the other hand Onslaught has gone for stam stacking still (with similiar gear to riggins). Would like to hear both your thoughts on which you think you'll be going in 4.3 guys.

It varies on a few things Sokaris. Riggnaros is backed by 24 of the best players in the world and with healers who reaction times allows him to stack mastery. For some of us the extra leeway that another 20-30k health gives us allows us to survive just that much longer while a heal lands. It's really something you and your healers need to decide.

For the purpose of Ragnaros heroic we ended up 3 healing it with a Disc priest on tanks (we didn't have a pally at the time) and no support (not even in P4... for w/e reason) so I found my ability to self heal and provide shields made me the preferred tank over our warrior, whom she has trouble keeping up. I tried as Stamina, but I wasn't getting the kinds of shields I wanted, however I was in the 3 shot range. I swapped to mastery again and was put solidly in the same boat Riggnaros is in where I can take 2 back to back 80-100k melee swings, but I need a snappy heal to get myself back in to the safe zone, and frequently could be killed by the third melee, even with a heal if it wasn't a crit.

Back in previous expansions both warriors and paladins did tens of hundreds of pages of theorycraft basically stating that you should have the EH to survive long enough for your healers to get you back up. Riggnaros in his response to a developer asking 'How long do you think you should be able to live without before receiving a heal?' even replied with 5-6 seconds is enough. This is roughly the 3 shot range. I'd be inclined to agree. Even currently when a paladin has hit CTC cap the general consensus is the EH of stamina is superior to the random avoidance (while still being CTC capped) you gain.

I, Otou, Cleve, and Etain (all 7/7h) currently gem stamina with an emphasis on exp soft cap and hit cap between spell hit and melee hit, then mastery > dodge > parry. There are other DKs such as Amiye and Brownprobe are mastery stacking with an emphasis on expertise and not hit. Other DKs are like Riggs where they go all out survival stats. All of them are 7/7h, all of them are capable of dealing with the fight mechanics. It largely depends on you and your healers to decide what works best.

I've recently just finished 7/7H, but I swapped to DPS for a favourable raid comp. However during the time I was tanking, I was the second tank behind a pally so I was tanking for a shorter period of time. I prefer AV > Stam for Rag because it can give me a higher uptime on Bone Shield especially when you're not tanking and the CD of it is ticking down.

I'm not sure about the 25 man damage values, but on 10H the highest melee hit I've noticed that I could take was like, 85k. That's not too bad considering you have VB/Scales/RT to back you up and more than likely some other CD you can pop. At best, I was in 4 shot range. Not to mention that every attack you avoid makes BS a lot better on this fight because it has a higher uptime than most fights.


I don't see what the problem is here, the problem with DKs is the 3rd or even 4th hit.

Going forward into DS, should I ever tank, I'll be keeping my AV/Mastery setup. I feel that the reason Stam was even brought up as a viable gemming alternative was because that DS was unpredictable and you needed some "insurance" to your survival. With Death Strike always giving the shield/heal, I don't believe that extra Stam will actually be needed to keep you alive.

Also I haven't been on the PTR for 4.3, when your DS gets parried/dodged, do the runes still not get put on CD?