You are right it is a minimum 30. This is what I get for trying to think before my coffee. I think that still only ends up being a 5.4k gain at the low end of things.

I've seen that happen to Paladin tanks on 25man normal even. He hits really hard, especially if you don't have any stacks yet. That's why you should prepot and use cooldowns early. Once you and your healers have some stacks, it's a lot easier to deal with all the incomming damage.

I could see getting to 9.5 if you are sacrificing application of diseases via runes, that will give you an extra 1.2 per minute (factoring in losing the death rune via DS as well). With regard to the value of mastery, I'm to the point on the sim that it validates what is considered commonly accepted knowledge. Columns are:

- line label
- total DS heals
- total DS aborbs
- total damage taken
- damage taken per second
- (damage taken - ds heals) per second

The first line is with 85K melee hits, and a naive DS algorithm that maximizes rune cycling. The second line is what happens when the DS is timed after damage spikes, defined as taking 40% of your max health in damage over last 5 seconds. As expected, both shield absorption totals and raw death strike healing go up. The third line maintains the "smart" ds usage, but swaps 1000 mastery for dodge. Finally, the last three lines repeat the sims, but there is a 100K magic damage spike every 45 seconds.

So, my sim confirms the conventional wisdom - timely death striking is more important at high damage levels than keeping runes cycling, dodge > mastery for physical damage fights, mastery > dodge as more magic damage appears, though in both cases the relative increase in value is somewhat marginal. For lower damage levels, DS on cooldown makes more sense as it is more difficult to get far beyond the 7% max health DS minimum

Blood DK tanking in 4.2

So the time has come. Now that Rag is finally dead, progression is over, and our small break was enjoyed I guessed it was time to sit down and give my input on this entire shitstorm that has become DK tanking. If this post doesn't cover some parts you are curious about, check my previous post following t11 content:
Blood | DK endgame tanking [4.x]

I am going to do my best to try and outline the current state of Blood tanking from the high end raiding perspective. To do so I am going to break down this post with everything from glyph/specs to itemization to professions to rune/cd management and finally give a quick rundown of each boss from a Blood DK POV.

Spec(s):

Here is the current spec that I am using and have been using for several weeks now:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The Blood spec is pretty baseline with only small variants of that being needed. Below are a list of optional places where you can/should spend talent points and a quick overview on 'why' for each of them:

Lichborne - The following links explain WHY you pick up this talent:
old Cataclysm DK endgame tanking [4.x]
Blood | DK endgame tanking [4.x]

Blood Caked Blade - I started running BCB a few weeks back when it was getting to the point dmg being a premium and not really running into a problem with Runic. It is anywhere from a 3-6% dmg gain depending on the fight and rng.

Crimson Scourge - I don't really ever find myself specing into this, but could see it being useful if you were add tanking.

Scent of Blood - 1/3 is a minimum requirement for this talent, and anymore than that is on a person by person basis. Add the points as you see fit.

Epidemic - If you are or are not in charge of keeping up tanking debuffs, keeping 2 or 3 points into this is a must. 3 points gives you a bit more overlap since your outbreak is up once per min, but 2 is enough to pay the bills. There are just too many times where the other tank will be doing something else (ie on a diff mob, resetting a debuff, range issues, etc) and you cannot reliably expect them to have 100% uptime on debuffs YOU can control. You don't want to be wasting runes early to avoid a gap in a 10% dmg reduc being on the boss, thus the 2/3 minimum.



Glyphs:

Prime
Heart Strike - Dmg/Threat gain.

Rune Strike - Dmg/Threat gain.

Death Coil - Surv gain. I tend to use this one quite often and switch it with the DS glyph when I do. If threat/dmg is not needed, then this is a mandatory choice.

Death Strike - Dmg/Threat gain. Least effective out of the 3 dmg/threat amp glyphs imo, mainly due to not sitting at much more than 30 rp at any given point (eg outside of pooling for LB / DRW / DP).

Major
Dancing Rune Weapon - A staple glyph as long as you are in a guild with dps even somewhat competent. Threat only matters during the first ~20 seconds in the encounter, during which this glyph is very very useful. The threat change will probably negate the need for this so hopefully the remodel the glyph.

Rune Tap - A common theme in most heroic encounters - crazy raid dmg. This is more or less a utility glyph that provides a decent gain on healing within your group. A lot of times during progression, any and all healing helps. In the hands of someone who is Rune Tapping on cd - or better yet, knowing they are going to dip into WotN range and getting a double Rune tap by using it just before you take that hit and right again when you do giving back to back 5% hp gains to your party. Trust me, it adds up.

Vamp Blood - The most amazing glyph in our arsenal. HP is to the point of being at a softcap. Anytime that you die, it is because of several seconds of shit that leads up to it (5-8 secs) and not really something that is going to 'global' you. Yes, a DK is at more of a risk than most tanks of dying very very quickly and I will address that later in the post, but I can promise you that if you're finding yourself in the position of needing more hp, you're doing something wrong or have messed up what your thought process with other cds/runes that have caused you to get to that point. Getting 40% increased healing instead of 25% and a 15% hp gain isn't even a contest. A tank with 220k hp will gain 33k hp from VB. The 33k hp during that time will not outweigh the amount of healing you will get from both yourself and healers in a 10 sec timeframe. It just synergies with our class too well to not glyph it. Everything from Death Pact, Lichborne, Rune Tap, Death Strike, to the Scales of Life trinket all benefit from this on top of the healers pumping heals into you. I'm not saying it will NEVER need to be unglyphed, but unless you're at risk of getting globaled, then you should be glyphing it.

Anti-Magic Shell - The amount of people I see that say this glyph is a necessity makes me wonder if they're playing the same game that I am. If you need 2 more seconds of time on your AMS, you're doing it wrong. AMS has a 5sec window and you should be able to use your cd to the point of it not needing to be longer. 9 times out of 10 the dmg you take from the breath / burst AE / magic attack / etc will consume your AMS to begin with. The only time you can justify having this over another Major Glyph is in a fight where you would NOT take the capped amount on your AMS from 1 event and would still somehow need it to be active for up to 7 seconds.

Bone Shield - I've been a fan of this glyph for quite some time, but it hasn't really been that useful this tier. Even when it would be, the way BS is weaved into our tanking 'rotation' keep you from having it up when you would need the speed boost most of the time anyway. Rest in peace.

Pest/Blood Boil - AE tanking only.



Gear/Itemization:

Profiler - Wowhead

Above is basically what a BiS DK tank should be. The 4pc is not a gamebreaker, but is worth picking up for the simple reason it is bonus survability gain at no loss. A DK should weigh stats as follows: Mastery > Dodge > Parry > Exp > Hit > Haste > Crit. I put dodge at a higher rating than parry since you will inherently gain more parry through str upgrades on gear and raid buffs (eg Horn of Winter / Mark of the Wild). I will elaborate a bit more on this a bit further down in the post.

Sure, you could go with offset pieces and gain some more dodge here or some more mastery there, but every defensive stat is needed (dodge/parry/mastery) and the only tier item that isn't defense loaded is the helm, and you can give me Expertise as a stat any day of the week if I can gain 15% parry for 12secs after using DRW. Like I said, it's not a gamebreaking 'must have' by any means, but there is just no point in not picking it up.

To highlight a bit more on several non tier items I wanted to go into the following:

Trinkets - The trinket slot is one that will change quite a bit from fight to fight. As a whole though you will find yourself using the same trinkets that are linked in my profile above more times than not. The only exception to that being a fight where avoidance takes precedence (eg Baelroc).:

[Scales of Life]- This trinket I already commented on and you can read a bit more indepth about it here: Blood | DK endgame tanking [4.x]
Basically a TLDR: Best used on a Blood DK due to it's synergy with VB (more so if glyphed!). Also, it can crit heal.


[Gift of the Greatfather]- This trinket is the best option for a DK by leaps and bounds. A 20k absorb on a 1min cd that you don't have to manage is not even comparable to any other option. Not to mention it is loaded with 433 mastery. This trinket is basically giving you 20k hp when you need it the most (when you're dropping below 35%). This greatly helps out with anyone experiencing 'spike dmg' deaths that I see referred to a lot in this thread.

[Mirror of Broken Images]- This trinket still has its place on any fight that has a lot of magic dmg. Fights that have significant magic dmg coming at a faster rate than your AMS is off cd, it is a must. I found great use from this trinket on Baelroc, Domo (orb soaking), and Rag (only -needed- during p4).

The value of Hit and Exp- I see this debate quite often as well. The bottom line is that you need to pick up only what is defaulted to the gear already. Do not reforge into it or gem/ench for it. No matter what you're not going to exp cap nor hit cap, and if you do, then you're wasting tons and TONS of viable mitigation and avoidance stats in the process. I have been < 2% hit and anywhere from 8-14 expertise since the start of this xpac and I can assure you that the amount of times we've either wiped or had things go wrong because my DS didn't land I can probably count on 1 hand. The odds of your DS getting parried/missed/dodged with enough times in a row for it to cause you to die is very slim, even with low threat stats (hit / exp). You are better suited putting all available points into survivability stats.

Weapon/Runeforge- Weapons are't too complicated in knowing what to go for. High wpn dmg and try and get Mastery and Haste if at all possible, but one of the two will suffice if the other stats outweigh the alternative (ie Rag 2h vs Skullstealer Greataxe). The wpn dmg and stm gain along w/ the 2 sockets make the Rag hammer the obvious BiS choice for Blood Tanking. As far as Runeforge, I personally choose to go with SSG for the consistency it provides due to the AC (armor) and HP being there for every single hit you take and helping buff all % hp based abilities (DS, DP, RT, and VB if you don't glyph it). If you can afford to, pick up a 2nd weapon and toss on Rune of the Fallen Crusader, keybind a weapon switch macro and swap back to your SSG wpn once threat is well established. With that being said I wanted to get into the meat of an important topic that I still get asked more than any other question (even though this was addressed last tier and hasn't really changed).

******MASTERY VS AVOIDANCE - ROUND 2 + DK TANK VIABILITY DEBATE*******

While at the end of the day, yes it comes down to personal preference on what you want to go for because BOTH are viable paths to pursue and both WILL work, I strongly believe that mastery is the better choice for a Blood tank in most every situation.

-Mastery gains value without DR being a factor and avoidance does not.
-Mastery is something you can rely on being there, avoidance is not.
-Mastery is something you can manipulate and control, avoidance is not (read: timing with dmg intake on your DS is huge).

If you're into end game raiding and are trying to press content at bleeding edge, one thing you want to provide is consistency. That is the main component in being able to kill bosses at a top level. Last tier and this one as well, mastery has been able to provide that variable more so than avoidance. I am sure that there is a point where one will over take the other, but with the dynamic that surrounds tanking as a whole in this game and how situational everything is (ie fights with tank swaps, debuffs, boss swing timers, phys dmg vs magic dmg intake, etc) I find it hard to believe that anyone will ever be able to put a definitive value on a 'magic number' as an absolute answer for every situation.

The only exception to this that I have found is Baelroc when trying to solo tank the Heroic version on week 1. Any faster hitting mob (read: Dual wield) will put avoidance at a higher weight than mastery due to the in ability to keep up with the dmg intake via Blood Shield. You find yourself taking too many un mitigated hits since they are coming in such quick succession. Yes, you could argue that the dmg intake should be equal on a grand scale, but it doesn't quite work that simple. A slower hitting boss allows for you to have more control over the situation as a Death Knight due to many variables (mainly rune regen and the way our class is balanced to combat dmg intake). This is the same reason a DK isn't as viable on adds in most fights. The fact that Paladins can 'block cap' and never take an non-avoided/unmitigated hit puts it as the obvious choice for someone rapid succession strings of hits. That choice is less obvious when the boss dmg is coming at a normal/reasonable pace (ie non dual wield / 1.2sec swing timer / etc).

To address some of the issues I see with people that talk about DK's being 'paper tanks' or that you keep finding yourselves in situations where you're taking so much spike dmg that you're unable to do anything about it, 90% of the time that does not have to be the case. A Death Knight is almost a completely 'manual-ized' class as far as tanking goes. I have one of each tank class and tank on them regularly and keep them all somewhat up to par (some more than others) and can tell you from experience tanking on all four that you're going to have to work a lot harder to achieve the same results on a Death Knight as compared to any of the other three classes, but if you are able to do so, a lot of times you are going to come out ahead in the end. That is the case because the other classes basically hit a cap with what they are able to do. List out the 'defensive' cds and compare them (may have forgot a few abilities, but just post and I will add them - main point I'm trying to illustrate is a DK has many more options):

DK
Anti-Magic Shell - 45sec
Will of the Necropolis - 45sec
Vamp Blood - 1min
Bone Shield - 1min
Rune Tap - 30sec
Dancing Rune Weapon - 90sec
Lichborne - 2min
Pet Sac - 2min (3min raise dead, but you can sac an army ghoul)
Icebound Fortitude - 3min
Empowered Rune Weapon - 5min
Army of the Dead - 10min

Warr
Shield Block - 30sec cd
Shield Wall - 2min
Enraged Regen -3min cd
Last Stand - 3min

Druid
Barkskin - 1 min cd
Surv Instincts - 3min cd
Frenzy Regen - 3min cd


Paladin
Word of Glory - 30sec cd
Holy Shield - 30sec cd
Divine Protection - 1min cd
Ardent Defender - 3min cd
Guardian of Ancient Kings - 3min cd
Lay on Hands - 7min cd (glyphed)

The problem with the 'spike dmg' that DK's have an issue with is mainly due to poor management of either your runes, cds, or both. Blizz is reluctant to change or modify how Death Knights work because they are able to see both ends of the spectrum. They can see DK's in top guilds being able to do things that allow them to both keep up and in some cases surpass the other three tank classes (fight dependent). If they make changes that buff our class just because people are playing it at a level that is far under what it is capable of then it becomes a hands down favorite and an 'overpowered' choice for top end guilds since they will have a significant advantage. The DK tank is an 'advanced' tank class and anyone that is playing it needs to understand that. You aren't going to be able to step into it and see results without being very intimate with the class and how everything about it works. No, I am not saying the class is perfect and some changes do not need to be made, but more so just stating that it is far from a huge crisis that people insist it has become.

With that being said I will try and explain a bit on what I'm talking about when I say the 'spike dmg' comes from mis management of runes or cds. If you are just standing there face tanking bosses with shit class management, sure, you're going to be getting wrecked whereas on any block tank class (warr / pally) you will still have your mitigation working for you because of how blocking works. Even on a druid, getting SD to proc off of crits is something you don't really have to time, but rather just allow to happen since it is based on RNG (crit) while doing dmg to the boss. These things just aren't the case with a Death Knight because of how much gain and penalty is put on the timing of your DS and usage of your arsenal of cds. I enjoy and relish that fact every time I log on it to raid. It provides a challenge and a great sense of accomplishment when you're able to just chain things together to make healers lives easier.

One of the hardest things about being a Blood tank is learning how to deal with the dmg intake and minimize the amount of times it occurs without you being able to react. This is accomplished by filling the gaps in your blood shield with your many options from other cds. You know if/when your blood shield is going to be active to be able to make decisions for when its not - such as getting up bone shield, getting your pet out well before you need it (ie knowing you don't really have a mitigating cooldown available and are about to take burst dmg) and have the runic pooled to sac it on demand, using ERW in a pinch, etc. Another pro tip that I mentioned before is knowing that you're about to dip low enough to proc WotN and using your Rune Tap before taking the dmg and then again right as the proc occurs.

Learning each boss fight and how the dmg intake will come is key to making this happen. You need to be very fluent in looking at parses and tracking your cd management. Use World of Logs to track things like this and make graphs like the one below to see where you can change things around and buy more uptime. Keep in mind that each fight is different and will yield different results. The below graph is from our Heroic Rag progression kill. You can attribute some of the downtime on buffs due to tank switching and such on the fight, but you can still get the overall picture of what I am trying to explain:





Professions:

While it used to be slightly more open to debate, right now I would say it is almost set in stone that Eng/LW are the best two options for tanking atm mainly due to their 'on demand' and utility benefits.

Eng- Every tank has a 'small' cd that they can pop once per min and being able to macro the gloves into that ability provides a substantial gain by boosting the effectiveness of the cd. Given that you will only be using a cd when you NEED mitigation, it outweighs the constant stats of ~80 mastery/stm/etc. Not to mention the effectiveness of the belt tinker. Rocket boosts, Cardboard Assassin, and the 20k absorb shield give you the ability to tailor your character to the fight.

Leatherworking- The lack of options for tanking bracer enchs inflates the value for LW, but it's true value lies within the utility of the profession. Being able to provide movement speed increases to you and your party via Drums of Speed is priceless on a lot of fights making any profession that is equal in stat gain sub-optimal when compared in its utility.

Blacksmithing/Alch/Inscp/Mining- Static stat gain.



Fight Quick Tips section:

I know I have read about some people saying my initial post was more of a "How to tank Heroic Rag on a DK" and "Rag is a gimmick fight because its the only 'true' tank swap in Firelands, that's the only reason he can say a DK is fine." etc. The point is:

Each and every fight has a specific class that will excel at it moreso than others (ie Pally excelling at Bael / DK on Rag and Sinestra / Warrior on Alys, Riplimb, and Nef add tanking). This is solid design in order to keep things from being stagnant and fresh and a lot of the time forcing people to think outside the box to make adjustments that normally would not be made (thus leading to a smarter and well developed player). As long as Blizz allows each tank to stay within the same realm of possibility on each other, I personally enjoy it and hope it stays. My main concern would be if a tank is basically UNABLE to complete the job on the encounter (ie prenerf Heroic Domo and AD). With that said, for the most part Blizz has done a pretty decent job imo and hopefully continues to do so.

Now, I am going to give a quick overveiw of each fight and how a DK tank should approach it. Some fights are a bit more detailed than others, but each covers enough to address most issues. There will be a summary at the bottom if there are any questions.



-Shannox-

This fight it is all about which role you will be filling (Shannox or Riplimb tank). Overall this fight is not that difficult and does not really require alot of theorycrafting for either role. Another important note - Make sure you have a solid understanding of the max distance you can put the mobs apart from either other and communicate with the other tank if you're moving and adjustments need to be made.

Quick notes for tanking Riplimb:

- Can take care of applying the slow on Riplimb by yourself.
- Needs to have a priest healer for Lifegrip and Body and Soul
- Leatherworking drums of speed shine really well for this role, as do the Eng Rocket boots. Also bring keep a stack of swiftness potions around just incase you end up tanking Riplimp.



-Beth'tilac-

Identify which role you will be taking, Top or Bottom tanking. If you find yourself on the bottom tanking drones, you really do not need more than probably a druid keeping hots on you. Between AMS, VB, Bone Shield, and all the other short cds, you can keep up with the amount of dmg intake for the most part and allow healers to pay more attention to other aspects of the raid. Save AMS for the magma spew breaths if you're not topped going into them. DRW will be up for every other Drone, as will Lichborne. If you are tanking Beth upstairs, just ensure that you have a good feel for the dmg intake and map out your cd usage accordingly.

As far as tanking goes, the fight really doesn't start until the burn phase (~4:30 into the fight). During this burn phase the boss hits very, very hard. It is best for you to pick the boss up second just so you can stack your Blood Shield while the other tank has it, but it is still doable with a DK going first. Basically understand that the debuff goes out about every 30 seconds and map your cds accordingly.


[20:06:46.562] Beth'tilac casts The Widow's Kiss on Absalom
[20:07:18.274] Beth'tilac casts The Widow's Kiss on Riggnaros
[20:07:50.078] Beth'tilac casts The Widow's Kiss on Absalom
[20:08:21.822] Beth'tilac casts The Widow's Kiss on Riggnaros

When you are able to manage cds correctly, the fight favors a DK immesely. Check the graph of the dmg intake below (Pally has boss for 3/5 and DK for 2/5):



As you can see in that pull in paticular, I didn't even maximize my cd usage. I didn't drop below 35% at any point, but even still I probably should have used VB during the first pickup I had on the boss. Each and every pull will be a bit diff, and you will have to adjust, but being able to know how many times you will have the boss on you during the last phase and how to fix your cds in there accordingly is a must.



-Lord Ryolith-

This fight is also broken down into two tanking roles: The Fragments tank and the Spark tank. A DK excels at either of these so its mainly on your guild and how they choose to use you. If you find yourself on Fragments, DnD is very good for that role and I would also recommend spec'ing into Crimson Scourge for higher BB dmg. As a whole, tanking fragments is not very demanding and requires little worry about your survival.

However, sparks on the other hand are a different story. To min/max your raid dps, it is best to leave them up until they get a certain number of stacks (varies on the guild - we switch to the around 6-7 stacks), but this leaves you at the point of getting wrecked since it increases their dmg done as well. You should be going through 4 sparks total and the 4th one should be despawning during the 25% boss transition. There are many ways to handle sparks, but I choose to use 1min cds on each one (VB/BS) and rotate major cds (>1min cds) between the 4 sparks (Spark 1=DRW+IBF / Spark 2=PS+LB / Spark 3=Army+PetSac+DRW+Pally Sac / Spark 4=IBF+LB). You can also tank swap and utitlize the other tanks major cds in the event you are short on priest cds (GS or PS).

Once in the last phase, it is an all out full burn. You want the tank that was on fragments the whole time tanking the boss since every cd they have should be active for the burn. If you were tanking sparks, you are basically there as a backup incase the tank picking the boss up either dies or needs you to taunt for some reason.



-Alysrazor-

One of the more unique tanking fights in the game. It is all about killing your mob before it kills you. This fight is very annoying early on if your gear isn't quite up to par. Doing this fight pre DS buff was extremely hard and annoying, but since the DS buff it has become more more fun and consistent.

First off, you want to gear more towards dmg. Have two weapons (one with a defensive rune and one with FC rune) macro'd onto a hotkey and swap them back and forth depending on if you're tanking a hatchling or the boss during her vuln stage. Basically you want to find a balance between not dying and being able to do enough dmg to your hatchling to kill it before having to worry about tanking it through a tantrum. If you've managed to pick up a decent weapon and toss on a bit of dps gear (trinkets/rings/wpn) you shouldn't have much trouble with killing your hatchling before the fire AE takes place. Having FC on your weapon will make a huge huge difference in the amount of dmg you are able to output for your hatchling. Also, I would reccomend picking up and using the 1min cd revered str trinket from the Firelands rep vendor. That will be active for each hatchling that you pick up and offers both mastery to help in dmg reduction and a nice punch to your dmg.

Quick notes for Alys:

The way I handle the hatchling/worms is to basically eat a worm the instant my hatchling becomes able to enrage. I have seen pretty much every class tank get nearly globaled by trying to react to the enrage instead of eating a worm prior to it enraging. With the amount of dmg you can output with the semi dps gear setup, you -should- be able to trim abotu 25% of the hatchling's hp before needing to eat the first worm, then another 25% before the second and that puts your mob ~25% for the last bit that it can enrage. If you are unable to kill your mob before it enrages, IBF or get a PS immediately upon seeing the debuff go active on the hatchling. You can die quicker than it takes a healer to swap to you if needed. Another helpful tidbit - Save your AMS in the event you have to run through a fire to have your mob eat the worm.




-Baelroc-

Fun fun fun. This fight is a very very demanding fight for both healers and tank cd management. You can fill one of two roles on this fight: Baelroc tank or the Decimation Blade tank. If you are a DK and find yourself on the boss fulltime, I would highly advise using a maximum avoidance build such as 4pt12 along with full dodge/parry gems and 'on use' avoidance trinket (Vial of Stolen Memories). Using AMS and the TB trinket for the Inferno Blade mitigation is a must as well.

While it is definately doable to have a DK tank the boss, but it definately not optimal. The reason being for this is thatother tanks are able to ensrue they do not take a single unmitigated / unavoided melee hit. With how fast the boss swings and such, a DK cannot keep up with the dmg intake without having moments of severe spike dmg. Even though the way Blood Shield scales with the % hp gain the boss applies to the tank, it ends up being more inconsistant than most healers would like to deal with.

However, again, it IS doable with a DK tank, check the graph below from our kill this past Tuesday:



I did spike quite often (as noted by the 6 WotN procs) and did die closer to the end of the fight this week as you can see from the spike dmg on the dmg taken graph however, the death was after taking 6 out of 8 hits consecutively half of which had DRW up (see below). With that said, anyone that has tanked this fight understands the massive amount of tank dmg intake regardless of which class is tanking. There have been times where our both me and our paladin tank have died 3 times on the same pull to tanking the boss. All it takes is a shitty enough string of RNG without avoiding any hits. There isn't really an 'iwin' situation by putting a prot warrior or paladin on the boss, but it does provide more consistency for healers and thus makes life easier with a non DK tank for this fight in specific.

[21:53:14.789] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +0 (O: 9215)
[21:53:14.789] Lawliepop Greater Heal Riggnaros +205030
[21:53:14.929] Affinity Regrowth Riggnaros +*13120*
-[21:53:15.076] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 290094
[21:53:15.190] Affinity Rejuvenation Riggnaros +20549
[21:53:15.190] Acrol Efflorescence Riggnaros +694
[21:53:15.288] Acrol Rejuvenation Riggnaros +11908
[21:53:15.288] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13954
[21:53:15.616] Affinity Swiftmend Riggnaros +*234550*
[21:53:16.000] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +12852
[21:53:16.000] Acrol Efflorescence Riggnaros +694
[21:53:16.166] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13954
[21:53:16.508] Affinity Regrowth Riggnaros +*13121*
-[21:53:16.849] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 637230
[21:53:16.849] Acrol Efflorescence Riggnaros +694
[21:53:16.930] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13954
[21:53:17.219] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:17.368] Riggnaros Death Strike Riggnaros +348635
[21:53:17.368] Affinity Rejuvenation Riggnaros +31450
-[21:53:17.483] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 17472 (A: 340327)
[21:53:17.653] Acrol Efflorescence Riggnaros +694
[21:53:17.653] Cj Divine Light Riggnaros +130736
[21:53:17.726] Acrol Rejuvenation Riggnaros +11908
[21:53:17.847] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13954
[21:53:18.062] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:18.175] Affinity Regrowth Riggnaros +6560
[21:53:18.563] Riggnaros summons Rune Weapon with Dancing Rune Weapon
[21:53:18.670] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13954
[21:53:18.845] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +9259
[21:53:18.845] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +13392 (O: 28631)
[21:53:18.990] Affinity Nourish Riggnaros +0 (O: 70048)
[21:53:18.990] Cj Holy Shock Riggnaros +0 (O: 39276)
-[21:53:19.314] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 636871 (A: 17210)
[21:53:19.426] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +0 (O: 13954)
[21:53:19.698] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:19.811] Affinity Rejuvenation Riggnaros +31451
[21:53:19.811] Affinity Regrowth Riggnaros +*13120*
-[21:53:19.874] Baleroc hits Riggnaros Parry
[21:53:20.078] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +9518
[21:53:20.199] Acrol Rejuvenation Riggnaros +11908
[21:53:20.299] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +*27908*
[21:53:20.478] Nodzz Beacon of Light Riggnaros +4586
[21:53:20.478] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:20.603] Riggnaros Rune Tap Riggnaros +109027
[21:53:20.915] Nodzz Beacon of Light Riggnaros +1357
[21:53:20.915] Affinity Nourish Riggnaros +64053
[21:53:21.017] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +*27069*
[21:53:21.283] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:21.689] Nodzz Beacon of Light Riggnaros +10523
-[21:53:21.721] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 849610
[21:53:21.917] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +*27069*
[21:53:22.121] Nodzz Beacon of Light Riggnaros +1303
[21:53:22.121] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:22.121] Cj Divine Light Riggnaros +134378
[21:53:22.121] Cj Word of Glory Riggnaros +109214
[21:53:22.262] Affinity Rejuvenation Riggnaros +31451
-[21:53:22.283] Baleroc hits Riggnaros Parry
[21:53:22.736] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13534
[21:53:22.919] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
[21:53:22.919] Affinity Nourish Riggnaros +*131851*
[21:53:23.325] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +9002
[21:53:23.325] Cj Beacon of Light Riggnaros +9763
[21:53:23.577] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +*27069*
[21:53:23.881] Affinity Efflorescence Riggnaros +42023
-[21:53:24.174] Baleroc hits Riggnaros 700273 (O: 142685, A: 14376)
[21:53:24.426] Affinity Lifebloom Riggnaros +13534
[21:53:24.931] Riggnaros dies

Quick notes for Bael:

-Lichborne is only really effective at the beginning of the fight before your HP gets amplified.
-If you are the Decimation tank, combine DRW and your 'on use' avoidance trinkets during Deci Blade along w/ Glyphed VB to maximize your chance to avoide the 90% hit and assist healers in getting you topped asap if you do take a hit.

-Remember the Deci blade CAN be absorbed, just not mitigated! (ie shields).



-Majordomo-

I cannot really offer any insight on this fight as a DK tank since all of our first 5 kills on this boss I was playing my Paladin, Riggalon, due to AD and DSac being mandatory for the encounter at the time. However, I would assume it falls into the same category as Baelroc due to his fast attack speed and thus favoring a tank who can CTC cap. However, the way we do Domo is a 2 tank strat so its never really a huge issue since we use the OT to soak orbs and tank cats and thus perfectly fine for a DK to do one job or the other.



-Ragnaros-
Blood Legion vs. Heroic Ragnaros 25 - Resto Druid POV - YouTube

Cd usage from this past week's kill:


Fav fight this xpac thus far, and definitely in the top overall for the game in general imo. This fight covers everything from tanking 101 to testing your advanced level of cd rotations, dmg output, and movement min/max. While I have heard/read a lot of people critisizing the effectiveness of a DK on this fight, I can promise you that if played optimally on this encounter a DK is hands down -the best tank for this fight-. While alot of this fight and what I am about to explain depends on your strat, I assume most guilds use some use a similar strat and if not, you can stil get a good understanding of how things work and modify for your own needs. With that being said I will go into a bit more detail in regards to HOW it actually works out that way:

P1
P1 is more or less your mundane 'avoid bad things and turret dps for several minutes just to get to the fun part of the encounter. For a DK tank on this fight just get a good feel for how often your tank swaps are occuring and map your cds accordingly. We try and swap every 3 stacks on each tank and it plays out pretty well.

-As always, ensure you have BS up prior to the pull so it is basically off cd when you engage the boss. It doesn't matter if you're starting or taunting the boss off the other tank. Your Bone Shield should be active throughout the entire time you are tanking thr u the first 3 stacks. If it does drop, toss up VB if you're unable to keep a Blood Shield active. Once the other tank taunts, get your Bone Shield back active asap to get it back on cd asap, thus giving you another 4 charges for when you pick up the tank again.

-AMS every trap explosion. While TB trinket isn't mandatory for this encounter, it does help. It's mainly used in p4, but can come in handy during p2 also (seeds exploding and traps).

-Basically you will have either BS or VB active for each and every time you have the boss in this fight throughout phases 1-3. Sometimes shit goes a bit sideways and you need to adjust, inwhich case you just need to make judgement calls on when to have out your pet and pool RP for LB and such. But again, between well timed Blood Shields, Bone Shield, Vamp Blood, and DRW you shouldn't have much of an issue staying more than comfortable and helping healers save mana.

P2 (this explaination is assuming you are popping 2-3 traps during this phase)
P2 is where it starts to get a bit trickier. Your cd rotation becomes very rigid and defined w/ little flexibility. You are going to be cycling cds while moving and keeping track of several other things on top of having exact moments where you need to pop exact cds. Detailed explanation below:

-You need to have the other tank pick the boss up going into this phase.

-Bone Shield the instant he comes out of the lava to begin p2. Do not do it earlier or the fire AE will eat your charges. You want to get Bone Shield active at that very instant to allow it to be up each time you pick the boss up after each set of seeds.

-During the first set of seed explosions, have up VB and AMS the AE from the seeds. Your DRW should also be up at this time as well. Keep your Death Strikes well timed to allow for maximum Blood Shield uptime and avoid stacking in this phase. With VB and DRW active, you should be fine and not even remotely be in danger at any point. Again, your pet sac is more or less a wild card cd to use at any point you feel like things may get a bit rough. Understand that, pull it out BEFORE you need it, and start pooling RP. The other tank will be taunting off of you during the dance portion following the seeds AE.

-TB trinket (or call for a priest shield if you don't have a TB trinket) during the trap explosion at this point to avoid taking a large amount of dmg since you're about to re-taunt the boss. Re apply Bone Shield, ensure you're topped, and then taunt the boss.

-During the second set of seed explosions, you need to be using IBF just before they explode so you don't have to waste AMS (which will be saved for the next trap pop) and your TB trinket is down. This also allows for IBF to be back active when you need it in p4. The other tank will be picking the boss back up very soon after your IBF falls.

-Upon picking the boss back up when the other tank gets 3 stacks, VB immediately since your Bone Shield will be down. A trap should be popped soon WHILE you are tanking at this point. AMS should be up and thus negate the dmg intake almost entirely. Bone Shield when it is active again just before the seeds explode. The other tank will be tanking during the seeds explosion. Remember to be putting a DnD down for each of the seeds if you're strapped for dmg, but if you're not stable, dont waste the UH rune.

-If you have another seeds phase, TB trinket the explosion and use DRW during your time on the boss. Pet Sac and LB are still open as well.

-As long as you can limit your P2 to 3 sets of seeds, you should be going into the 2nd intermission with DRW avaliable, LB, possibly your pet sac, and BS/VB should be coming off cd before p3. Obv, this is optimal and should be what you're shooting for.

2nd intermission
Decide which Scion you are going to pick up and make your way as close to that side as possbile while still attacking Rag. If you do it correctly, you can keep your Blood Shield stack from Rag active while you pick up the Scion. This is huge for dmg mitigation and helping out healers since they are going to be strapped healing the flame AE as it is. The last thing they need to do is try and heal two tanks getting rocket by Scions.

P3
This phase is much less intensive than p2 as far as cds go and falls back to your basic p1 cd strat. The only exception is to ensure you have AMS for anytime you are caught in a shitty position with the dance. Taking additional dmg from the dance is not a smart idea when taking up to 90k melee hits from Rag.

-Glyph DG and spam it on meteors near your side to allow for maximum dps/healing. You should be able to do this while tanking/dancing without much of an issue as long as your guild isn't bathing in engulfing flames and causing healers to pay more attention to them than the tank.

P4-Money Phase
This is basically the hardest part of the fight without being the hardest part of the fight :P. That is the case mainly because it takes 12 or so mins of near perfection to get here each and every pull, thus making the quality pulls in this phase quite limited. As a tank in this phase you need to be doing everything from min/max'ing cds to preplanning your movement, to quarterbacking threat management on Omen (lol threat cap ftL).

-Let the other tank pick the boss up going into the phase. Build your Blood Shield as much as possible to have a fat stack for the first melee upon picking up the boss.

-The instant the first Breadth of Frost spawns, run through it and reset your superheated stack then taunt the boss with IBF active. This allows you to use it again near the end of the fight and gives healers a much needed cushion trying to stabilze the transition into the breadth. This is the point and time where it is going to be the worst for you since the raid is taking the most dmg and there are 2 meteors active. You need to empty the gas tank here to ensure you do not die. When IBF falls, VB and DRW, during the VB and DRW start pooling RP for a pet sac. AMS when your superheated stacks get high, pet sac if you dip, TB trinket if needed, armor pot, ERW and Army if needed, also LB can save a death in a pinch. Do. Not. Die. Here. If you are able to stabalize here, things will ease up and your success for a kill increased dramatically.

-Another thing to note is to make sure you're close enough to a warrior/pally/priest if they're using Rallying Cry/DSac/Barrier.

-After this first trasition of the phase just use cds as you did in p1 and p3 with the only exception being AMS/TB trinket. Also, since you probably went balls out on the first pickup, alot of your cds are going to be down for a bit. In which case, remember you have healer cds that you can use if needed as well (GS/PS/Barrier/etc - utitilize anything you can that your raid comp allows).

-If you have to run far away to get to roots, this is where the TB trinket is very beneficial. Save it for when your stacks get resonably high and then pop it and go into an AMS if needed. Coordinate a Life Grip with your priests to get you back into the breadth asap if you've taken too many stacks.

-Once even one of the meteors are dead, things are much much easier on healers, thus allowing you more of a cushion. Pay attention to the Empowered Sufuras cast and ensure you have a path preplanned at any point it is possible (ie locate dreadflame, know which what you're moving out and back in to the breadth, etc). Ensure that no dps is close enough to the threat cap to mess up your taunts. There is nothing worse than having a kill in your sights and having a taunt fail because of threat cap and the entire raid being 1 shot as result

-Remember, Superheated removes Bone Shield stacks, but you can still milk out 1-2 mitigated melee's from it if you're in a pinch outside of a breadth. If possible, use Bone Shield while tanking inside of a breadth for maximum uptime.

-IBF will be back up for the near end of the fight. Be ready to use it pretty much the instant its active again. You healers can do one of two things when its up: Regen the much needed mana or help nuke the boss during the final few %.



Main concerns for DK tanks

As a whole, like I've said before, we're in a pretty good shape imo. While they have already stated some tweaks are coming and such, I really hope they do not change the class much and push it away from what it has become. While a bit more of passive mitigation would be understandable (ie BPres armor % buff) to combat the 'spike dmg' most people have issues with, lets hope they leave the DK mastery and cd usage intact. A change to keep other classes from reaching a CTC cap would basically even the field across the board. That would have those tanks also being able to take an unmitigated hit and relying on a reactive skill/ability to minimize it from taking place, thus putting them in the same boat as we are.

Another really annoying thing that comes into play with a DK tank over a Warrior or Paladin, and in some cases Druid is our lack of raid utility. Warriors having Rallying Cry, Paladins with DSac, and in some cases even the Druid tank popping Tranq all outweigh a DK tank's raid utility. Even our Bres is gimp mode and unable to be used on many fights due to the person coming up at such low % hp.

I know that Blizz can't accomodate every request that is put on forums and they're constantly bombarded by randoms who just want their class to have something addtional without really understand the impacts and ramifications of the request. However, when playing the game for several years at a top raiding level and seeing things like balance and raid utility being a very huge differnce in kill placement within the endgame raiding community, I can assure you that what I am saying holds water. Blood DK's need more raid utility.

If you're on a progression fight and things are more or less even across the board on tanking for the fight (ie any class tank is able to do the encounter effectively) you are 110% gimping yourself by not having an additonal raid cd (Rallying Cry / DSac). I don't need to beat a dead horse and I am sure anyone with enough knowledge of the game can agree to that fact. Hopefully it doesn't continue to be ignored and has some changes come down.

My suggestion and what I feel would be the most resonable change would be to move AMZ (or some variant of it) into Blood or leave it in Unholy but allow us the point to get it. They can even modify the ability to absorb 20% of magic dmg to everyone inside for 6 seconds so its basically like DSac but slightly worse and gives us some raid utility. If not that, then come up with something, please. It needs to happen.



Fight Overview Summary

I am going to do what I can do make a vid of Rag and some of the other Heroic modes and be able to put some visual aid to go along with this writeup. However, I need to upgrade my RAM and some other parts to my computer first Anyways, I hope this provided some insight or help to anyone who is looking to learn these fights or even refine what they are already doing. Please, if I left anything out, feel free to post and I can add it in. Also, if you disagree or have questions about any of this, feel free to PM me or post.



Vids:

I need to add a couple of upgrades to my computer and then I plan on releasing some tutorial vids on the heroic fights for this tier. Once I do I will make sure to edit this post and toss them in here. Below is a listing of random older DK pov vids from both PTR and such for this tier:

BloodLegionIllidan's Channel - YouTube
Blood Legion vs Baleroc - Firelands PTR - Tank POV - YouTube
Blood Legion vs Alysrazor Firelands PTR - YouTube
Blood Legion vs Beth'tilac Firelands PTR - YouTube
Blood Legion vs. Heroic Beth'tilac World First - YouTube

-Overall Summary-

I plan on editing this post quite a bit when time permits, but I think the goal to give an accurate rundown of DK tanking in its current form within an 'endgame' raiding environment was accomplished. I am sure there are grammar errors and formatting overlooks, but hopefully it makes enough sense to help out anyone who is looking for a proven and accurate reasoning behind their questions. If anyone disagrees or has any questions about anything posted above, feel free to post or PM me and I will do what I can to assist.

Death Knight tanking is it's own little niche atm and it does have its pros and cons, but personally I love almost every facet of it. Just remember that the most important thing the factor in is the player, not the class (with some exceptions lol).

Thanks

-Riggs

The part about "giving up tons of mitigation stats" isn't actually true. Not counting swordshattering, I'm giving up 3.2% avoidance, in exchange for 2.76% hit and 3.66% chance to not be dodged or parried. Increasing the chance to land death strike when used by 6.42%, is a fair gain over an additional 3.2% chance to avoid a hit.

In Firelands we can encounter situations where not being able to death strike on command "will" result in your death with out extreme healer intervention. There is no difference between an avoided death strike, and not hitting anything for a full gcd. Missing "one" death strike will have a negative impact on your surviability in Firelands, when avoidance's rng decdides to fight you. Beth', Shannox, Ryolith, and Baleroc hit to hard to be fine with missing a death strike. Sure you'd be fine on Domo or Rag, but only because their melee is weaker. Ignoring the vaule of exchanging avoidance for hit / exp, is the same as saying "It's fine if you miss a death strike at 25% hp."

The problem with the spike damage, is the inevitable string of unavoided hits while your 1 mins cds are on cooldown. If this happens right after you death strike, and your runes are on cooldown, you pretty much get smashed by the sudden intake of damage.

Healers can't keep up, because you've previously had cds and death strike avaliable to deal with damage. They aren't expecting you to take a hit because the boss isn't doing anything special. They start casting their mana efficent heal, raid healing, or popping mana regen because spamming you seems un-needed. When you take the string of 80-90k~ unavoided hits, in the situation with lower EH, you die.

The problem with engineering, is that the armor cd is terribly itemized. It's only 1500 armor on a 1 min cd. If you go from 37,500 armor (53.51% vs 88) to 39,000 armor (54.49% vs 88), you've only gained 0.98% damage reduction. Combined with the fact that it's worth "less" as your gear improves, 120 stamina (2.1k constant hp) is far more beneficial.

Riggins you make some good points but don't you think it's a stretch to say that blood DKs if buffed would be overpowered? I would say as a blood DK you have to play perfectly to match the passive mitigation that the other tanks have. And even under perfect play you're still going to be at a disadvantage if you're tanking multiple mobs (who will eat your shield very quickly) vs say block capped pallies... or if you have to do the kiting on riplimb.

The 11 "cooldowns" that you listed are all part of my arsenal except for army of the dead. I assumed (correct me if I'm wrong) that you cannot avoid hits while channeling (and you can't death strike)... so its use is very limited and lasts all of 4 seconds. Also keep in mind that word of glory (with 3 holy power) will actually out heal a rune tap.

I don't want to offend but it sounds like you made this post while wearing rose-colored glasses and still managed to be a bit condescending. Your healers might simply be superstars? the world class kind that are not available to all of us :P

I know it reduces damage By avoid I meant dodge/parry.

Probably not but for me using it would be a 29% damage reduction which is better than a hit with boneshield up.

AotD is a mitigation cooldown which combines your Parry/Dodge rating together (so it's like a 35-50% damage reduction cooldown). It's extremely situational though and probably shouldn't be on there. LB is also extremely situational as well and it was shown on Riggs last post that even he rarely uses it. It's useful to a point, but in the end you utilize too many GCDs and pool RP that could otherwise be spent on aggro (which is a joke with the hotfix, lulz @ 75-90k tps consistently all night with spikes in to the 200k range with DRW), or more importantly RE procs for DS. In addition going 6 deep in Frost prevents you from picking up abilities like Virulence (because as Riggs said, tank DPS is kind of a factor on some of these hard modes) and Morbidity (for AoE) as well as Crimson Scourge (which is pretty awesome for AoE again).

Most of Riggs points are accurate, but already well known by the DK community. It's straight up wrong to say that DKs are in a better spot than either of the 3 other tank classes. On the same note, however, Riggs was correct that a DK when properly played and after all is said and done is probably the most resourceful tank class with the most tools. Unfortunately our tools are in a lot of ways inferior to other tanks, and those that other tanks don't have and we do are entirely re-active and require us to first take damage before they are of any remote usefulness.

Anti-Magic Shell - No Comparison
No other tank has this, and every tank wants this, kudos to DKs.

Will of the Necropolis
Not really a cooldown, if you are really *trying* to use this as a CD then I really don't know what to tell you. Most fights don't have predictable burst that will drop you 150k+ health - not even Shannox's Melee/Arcing/Jagged Tear all at once. It's unreliable and shouldn't be on Riggs list.

The only thing really comparable to it from another tank's perspective is AD. AD is superior in nearly every way, because it's reliable and it saves you from death. Despite the longer CD it is more efficient than WotN.

Vamp Blood - Last Stand
This ability has a much shorter CD, but it has a major drawback of relying on healers to not be asleep, which is a problem for many guilds. It offers no real EH value or reduction, and is more of a 'cushion' for the healers which makes it work well when coordinated with BS.

Bone Shield - Shield Block - Holy Shield/Divine Protection
This is where DKs mitigation starts to show. Warriors are starting to touch the 60% block rate, which means Shield Block allows them to hit 80-85% block and each block is between 30 and 60% reduction. It has a shorter CD and a bigger benefit. Considering any Pally has CTC taken care of this effectively turns any hits they take in to an IBF level of reduction on a 30s CD. Not Cool.

Rune Tap
No real comparison from other tanks. Lets us heal for ~22,000 every 30s. Strong, but again no form of real mitigation or EH value.

Dancing Rune Weapon
Arguably our strongest CD, especially for multi-mob tanking

Lichborne
Easily compared with Frenzied/Enraged Regen. Clearly superior to both. The druids can expect a total of 30% over the course of 20 seconds, which equates to roughly 3k/s for 20s for 60k. This is about 3 DCs, so about right (a full runic bar). Warriors get about 72k over 10s, or about 7.2k/s. DKs get 3 casts of LB for ~24k each over 4.5s or about 16k/s, which is obviously superior.

Pet Sac - 2min (3min raise dead, but you can sac an army ghoul)
Another healing ability, no real mitigation, no real EH. Heals for ~55-60k, pretty solid, definitely nice for any amount of expected burst to quickly get yourself back up to a healable level.

Icebound Fortitude - Shield Wall - Guardian of Ancient Kings
3m CD kind of kills the race here. It makes us less effective at tanking things that alternate between tanks, a good example is Chimaeron's Feud tanking where I could use IBF once, then I'd be screwed on actual mitigation for the double hit during Feud where both warriors and pallies are capable of utilizing their CDs effectively there - not just necessarily Guardian because they have 2 20% reduction increasing abilities on a 1m CD or less.

Empowered Rune Weapon
This is only really needed because of the way we are forced to tank. No other tank sacrifices their survivability to maintain their threat rotation. Bears and Warriors have so much rage that utilizing a CD is hardly a detriment at all. Paladins only utilize a GCD. If our mitigation was not directly related to our threat, this wouldn't even be necessary to have.

Army of the Dead
I think I've made my point clear about AotD earlier.

Summarized from my original post - The only fights where AotD can be used to any real benefit it is only used as a DPS CD or it's not safe to utilize it. An example is Beth'tilac, where the only time you *really* need the mitigation over avoidance is late fight where I definitely don't want to be taking 150-180k hits guaranteed with the reduction.

TLDR - Our passive mitigation is inferior to other tanks. Our active mitigation is inferior to other tanks. The *only* thing we bring to the table is the ability to let healers slack off, our avoidance, and our ability to handle magic elements best (though druids arguably have this if there is a constant source considering we are comparable to warriors from a passive perspective and AMS is what really sets us apart).

It has been stated ten times over in this thread and previous threads that if a DK is not at risk of being gibbed they are typically the superior and preferred choice. It's no surprise whatsoever that DKs have a much higher representation in 10m than 25m.

If a guild has a choice between an equally skilled DK and a paladin/druid/warrior, the DK has no real chance unless the fights specific mechanics cater to us.

I think what Riggins is saying is that there are times in there to fit "something" in, in order to survive and you are never left out in the cold without some kind of cooldown to help keep you alive outside of your normal blood shield times. This really goes back to my earlier posts regarding this subject where you pointedly said that 25s are harder and that there are situations that I didn't and couldn't know about.

WotN is used as a cooldown is extremely useful. Knowing that it is available means that if you find yourself with a bloodshield and not at full health you can top yourself up in the fraction of a second between abilities lining up and then after taken another big hit that drops you bellow 30% you can then heal AGAIN and have reduced damage taken while you are being healed back up. The proper management of something like this will add to survivability.

Your biggest complaint seems to be more that we aren't paladins/warriors or even druids in our play style and passive mitigation and in essence too hard to play in comparison. You seem to think of tanking as a mutually exclusive part of raiding and it's really a dynamic between the two things. I personally run RSA so if WotN procs the healers know wtf is going on or you can tell them that you are out of runes and will need a little more healing if need be (odds are if you are raiding the healer knows) but saying a healer is asleep means you should probably find a new healer.

I must admit that I'm slighty surprised since I was expecting a negative post about DKs. (I haven't heard/written a good thing about DKs for a few weeks now)

I'm very interested in your rune management. Do you try to maximise the amount of DS you can squeeze out each minute, or are you trying to always have a DS read when you're in need of one, even if that means wasting a potential RE proc?

From the sound of your post I assume it's the latter.

Personally I still think DKs need a change (not a straight up buff mind you). Since the general tone is very negative on DKs and even if they are able to outperform other classes, you have to do so perfectly. And if so many people agree that DKs are a weak class that might be one of two things:
1. Mass hysteria (and I might be one of those who caused it)

2. The skill requirement being too high for average, or even above average players. While I do not like to admit it, but it's entirely possible that I and many other people who experienced those issues have not played DK tanks well enough and that's why we've experienced issues.
That would leave the question what Blizzard should do. Leave it as it is but risking that Blood DKs will come close to extinction?
Or change us, in the worst case with a change in playstyle, pissing those off that enjoyed DK tanking as it is.

PS: You mentioned the Belt tinker. Does it still malfunction? I know it did in T11, which is the main reason I did not recommend engineering. If they can still malfunction, isn't that like causing an instant wipe every 1/1000 uses, because the stun as well as the 100% increase in crit change taken are a death sentence to a tank. With the 40y taunt also having the potential to at least cause huge stress.

I don't know. It's an extremely complicated system and comparison and I feel like no matter how we look at things there is always a variable that we are leaving out.

I am inclined to agree with many of Riggin's points but honestly I'd ask your healers and see what they think. This might not be a mutually exclusive problem that the tank can solve on their own. If they "feel" like you are dying and their is nothing that they can do than probably move to more stamina. If they feel like it's fine and they are messing something up then fix them and maintain the mitigation. There is no "good" solution to make us in line with other tanks because of upcoming unknown changes. Just going to have to weather this storm and see what the PTR brings us.

For those doing 10 man and are reading this we need not change anything from last patch except maybe the spec if you are good at pooling a little RP for burnout phase.

For some of you who seem to think it is just amazing healing that allows me to think and say the things I am stating, I would just like to point out a few following tidbits of information:



That is taken from Heroic Rag, and as you can see the Prot Paladin dropped below 35% more times than I did. You cna also see the dmg taken graph and see that it is pretty even overall until the end where he dies and the boss stayed on me as superheated stacks got pretty insane as the boss died since we werent in a breath.

Any healers will tell you that a DK is easier to heal on that fight because of the tank switching and such. It translates perfectly for a DK and allows you to have a cd up basically every time you're tanking due to the debuff (eg VB or BS or DRW).

Again, it is situational and on a fight by fight basis for which fights a Death Knight out preforms other classes. Some fights, YES, other classes are better suited, but there is no one tank that is king in every situation and I'm pretty sure that is what Blizz is going for.

As far as army of the dead and Lichborne being 'overrated', I will just say that you obviously have a different value than I do on what is considered viable. Having anywhere from a 30% to 40% dmg mitigation the entire channel of AotD is a huge, huge cooldown. Who cares if you don't have a blood shield up when channeling it? It's a huge amount of dmg reduc the entire channel, not to mention you can immeidately DP one of the army ghouls if needed as well. Being able to machine gun 3-4 guaranteed~30k heals from Lichborne while letting runes come off cd is not really a debate either. Also, guess what, odds are all your runes will be avliable for almost chain usage if needed once you're done emptying deathcoils into yourself. I have posted quite a bit on the effectiveness of LB in previous posts and I'm sure if you go back and search for them you will see my stance hasn't changed.

Someone else asked about rune management, and that is something that is a very key concept. Basically I use runes whenever I have them up unless I know I am about to take dmg that won't be lethal, then I wait to buff the heal+shield from the DS. I also have a custom mod that allows me to track absorb amounts from Priests and Paladins and anytime I have a decent shield on me from there, I hesitate to use DS to keep from ever taking a completely unmitigated hit if at all possible. It isn't easy and is quite overwhelming at times to try and track so much shit all while doing your job, moving the boss, checking positioning, managing any other variables in a raid environment, but I can assure you that when you get comfortable with it and get to the point that you find a nice flow for each fight, it becomes quite effective.

Lastly the question about eng belt; Yes, it can still malfunction, but that consists of one of two things:
1. it does nothing and jsut goes on cd.
2. Rocket fuel leak (which you can AMS assuming it's active and you dont need it for burst dmg within the next 45secs.

I think the tone of Riggins' post is appropriate, considering he has completed current content while tanking as a DK. There is plenty of bad press on the WoW forums (lol) and on here about problems with DK tanking. We all agree our EH needs to be looked at as Paladins and Warriors block cap. It WILL be an issue eventually.

If you look at Riggins' cooldown management, it is almost a solid green line. That is phenomenal. It takes perfect knowledge of the DK class, AND of the fight you are involved in. I consider myself an above average player but will never be on that level. He is obviously a very skilled player, with a very skilled guild behind him. Point being, that might 'mask' some of the problems with DK's right now.

I've always considered us somewhat of a niche tank, we can do things no one else can. We stand out in fights with tank swaps (Chimeron was my favorite, tanking him from Phase2 --> kill with no healing).

Asphyx makes some very good additional points, I enjoyed the comparison of tank cooldowns, however I've yet to run into problems in fights compared to our paladin tank (I do realize heroic content is much different).

I'd just be happy if they upped the passive mitigation of blood presence and we'd all be able to just say case closed and go back to talking in circles about whether avoid or mastery is better for an entire patch.

I have also had it fire me directly up in the air and take a considerable amount of fall damage. Of course can be negated with a parachute but a tank slowly floating down to earth midfight is very far from ideal!

I don't think that is still an option. I think it was hotfixed a few months back or something, I haven't see it happen in a long long time.

The engineering belt enchants cannot launch you up in the air as a failure anymore when in combat, due to this occasionally letting people reach places they weren't intended to reach, or it causing massive bugs with certain encounters.

You can still get launched if you're not in combat with anything, it happened to me on conclave of wind a few weeks ago after anshal had died when I used the rocket belt to reach the zephyr faster to e-peen dps meters.

AFAIK the rocket fuel leak only occurs with the rocket belt, the belt shield's failure is a root/pacify sort of effect that lasts a few seconds.

The rocket fuel leak debuff can be prevented from being applied if AMS is up already when you use the boots, so I pre-AMS on fights like majordomo when I want to rocket out of the group with seeds just in case the belt fails (concentration buff affects the fuel leak damage resulting in it killing you very quickly). Since there's nothing else on that fight to use AMS for.
DW tanking will still be inferior due to it outputting less damage, a significant enough amount to make or break tight enrages on some encounters such as Baleroc - regardless of the arguments on whether it has approximately as much EH as 2H or not. Especially with the DS damage and crit buff.

Happened to me literally 2 weeks ago while running around like a retard during FL trash solo farms. Granted it does seem an extremely rare occurrence and doesn't stop me using it though.

[edit] I see above post clarifies as only happening not in combat, so please delete this if you want to save some space.

The viability of DK tanks greatly depends on the fight. We're really great tanks during encounters involving tank swaps or other mechanics that cause us to be only tanking part of the time (like changing levels during Beth'tilac phase 1). In those encounters, our cooldowns recharge in our time off duty and we can line them up or combine them very effectively during the periods we're tanking.

When tanking 100% of an encounter, there WILL be a moment you get hit without having a CD or a blood shield up, and that's when it's getting really dangerous because of our subpar armor.

Tanking Heroic Baleroc as a DK for example is creating a completely different experience for healers being used to healing other tanks. The blade phases are becoming a complete joke using CDs (DRW/VP for Decimation, AMS/Mirror for Inferno), but Baleroc's regular attacks are hitting like a truck.

I'd prefer a nerf to our cooldowns while getting more passive mitigation in exchange.

I have been wondering how people think about how to fix our EH woes. I see the suggestion of increasing the Blood Presence armor value often but rarely do I find someone who just wants our Sta modifiers to go up.

Personally, I would prefer an increase in our health over an armor buff. It just makes sense more sense since our self-heal abilities all benefit from having having higher health and it keeps the theme of being the tank that takes more damage but heals (part of) it back. It also leaves our survival more in our control since the passive mitigation remains the same.

Thoughts?

Getting more HP would only postponed the problem imo; yea it will be good for this tier, but what if next tier the boss hit even harder and that our increased HP is once again not enough to survive 3 hit?

I would rather have an increase in passive mitigation (and a decrease in self heal).

I think that the reason most people (or at least myself) have steered clear of recommending more health is because we know it would make us too strong against magic burst damage. Armor is only for physical attacks and [I think] more closely related to putting us more in line with the other tanks.