Blood Tanking - Actively Mitigating since before it was cool - Page 10

Tyvi · 03/04/13, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by ac90b671

The T15 4p could make Lichborne a more interesting talent. It could let you time every other bone shield with lichbone to dump the RP. It's not amazing but it's something to think about.

I am not convinced that this makes it worth it. Usually you will Death Coil once to get out of the red area and possibly a second time a little later to stabilize your health and give your Runes time to refresh and the 40 RP is not all that hard to come by in most cases (SoB helps nicely with that). I am also not sure if it is worth having to combine the two CDsto actually get a proper use out of our 4 piece, in addition to the fact that you need to plan to use LB and BS together in advance (so you know you will get some RP out of it to Death Coil in time. Because unlike unlike AMS, which gives you a ton of RP all at once, you get 15 RP at most every 2 seconds).

And lastly, let's not forget that the other offset items have better itemization and can drop as Thunderforged with increased item level - something that is not true for tier items.

Are there are any other agreements/disagreements with my previous post by the way? I am planning to update the OP in a couple of hours so it's ready for tomorrow's patch so if people disagree with assessment, speak quickly. :P

Reniat · 03/04/13, 11:51 AM

For those of you who use Mastery>avoidance>accuracy builds (im in this group) and aren't convinced to pass up the on the first few vanq legs/chest/hands, take a look at a couple of your non-tier options:

Rot-Proof Greatplate vs Legguards of the All-Consuming Maw
Legplates of Whipping Ionization vs Chestguard of the All-Consuming Maw

You gain about 1k mastery (after reforging/gems) from using the non-tier options, and I guarantee no one else in your raid that uses vanq tokens will compete with you for those. So even if you plan on eventually going for your 4 set for whatever reason, there is little reason not to pass on the token at least for the first few drops.

Vaxum · 03/04/13, 6:40 PM

Not strictly 5.2 gear, but IMO a 517 (2/2 upgraded) Stuff of Nightmares would be better than a 522 Steadfast Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault for total average avoidance. The upgraded 517 has 1400 mastery vs the 522's 1467 mastery, but it's avoidance proc is a lot better. Napkin math is that Stuff of Nightmares has a 15% proc on hits, with a (45?) sec ICD; logs seem to show about 20% uptime, i.e. around 1700 dodge on average - versus the rep trinket's 1333 dodge on average (from the 16k -> 0 dodge averaging at 8k dodge over the 20sec use: effect with a 2 minute CD).

I do agree that folk should still pick up the VP tank trinket, for avoiding specific short-term burst damage or combining with DRW/AoTD for a more powerful 2nd major CD.

Considering average avoidance, the rep DPS trinket - Brutal Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault - is arguably better than the tank one - it's proc averages to 1550-1650 strength, which is >1333 dodge from the tank one. Yes, the tank one has mastery rather than expertise, but if you are going for accuracy, the passive stats on this are effectively mastery (since there is not enough expertise on all our items to hard-cap or even soft-cap - so you end up reforging something else to expertise that could otherwise go to mastery).

Ji-Kun's Rising Winds improves on tank swap fights since you will likely start each tank swap with it available to proc. And it has the same argument for expertise, if you are prioritizing accuracy over mastery.

Reniat · 03/04/13, 8:03 PM

remember the talisman has more mastery AND is on use. It may be statically weaker, but the fact that it's on use does matter.

hilltopperpete · 03/05/13, 4:08 AM

Originally Posted by Vaxum

"it's avoidance proc is a lot better."

Strongly Disagree.

If you track your trinket procs closely, you see that a lot of them are almost completely wasted on bosses that require tank swaps or during significant downtimes. It's not particularly useful for your avoidance trinket to go off when the boss is hammering on the other tank. "Average avoidance" from a proc trinket is significantly devalued if you're already getting 100% avoidance for half the encounter. Dancing Rune Weapon + Avoidance On-Use Trinket + absurdly gigantic reactive heals made Blood DKs the perfect tanks to handle things like Baleroc's Decimation Blade and Chimaeron's Double Strike. I stopped tracking the t14 mastery trinkets' buffs for most fights because the avoidance was so inconsequential and it so rarely contributed to my personal survival. Having anything useful added to a mastery or EH trinket is better than 5% extra dodge at random times during the fight. And being able to stack strong avoidance cooldowns allows you to predictably negate more boss swings at opportune moments during the fight, which is more valuable than the random couple boss swings you'd avoid if you had threat and if you happened to need it at the time.

One quick argument against even equipping Ji'Kun's Rising Winds unless it's some crazy emergency to replace Dragon Soul gear (and really, every other tank class is going to be pretty interested in this one because of the premium put on accuracy stats-- don't take it)- if the tiny heal you get clears the shroud of purgatory buff (instead of something like a 500k Death Pact heal) and you take any inconsequential packet of damage, you instantly die.

Otou · 03/07/13, 8:59 PM

Tips and Tricks for the first 6 bosses!

Jin'rokh the Breaker

The stun from Thundering Throw can be broken with Desecrated Ground (or IBF, but that's wasteful). This is pretty good, since being stunned will interfere with taunt swapping for Static Wound.
Fluidity means that Death Siphon is double dipping into the damage and healing bonus.

Horridon

All of the adds spawned from the tribal doors are susceptible to slows and stuns. This means Chilblains and Remorseless Winter can be used if the raid is ever falling behind on adds.
There are multiple adds to interrupt in this encounter, so it can also be useful to have Asphyxiate.

Council of Elders

You only get stacks of Frigid Assault on melee attacks that land, so Dancing Rune Weapon will reduce the rate you gain stacks and your damage taken.
The Blessed and Shadow Loa summoned by High Priestess Mar'li can be slowed, stunned, and knocked back. So Gorefiend's Grasp can be cast on Mar'li, or another player, to grip it back. Asphyxiate / Chilblains can be used as well.

Tortos

The Vampiric Cave Bats are susceptible to slows, stuns, and knock backs. This means you can kite them indefinitely with Chilblains, and stun them with Remorseless Winter.
Most of Tortos' tank damage is concentrated into Snapping Bite, a casted melee swing (dodge/parry/block able). This makes it a good fight for the IBF glyph, since he doesn't do any other significant damage.
You can pre-cast Desecrated Ground, and avoid the stun from Quake Stomp. IBF will also prevent/break it.

Megaera

Nothing particularity amazing, but all of her heads do a dragon breath style attack for us to AMS. (you still get the de-buff)

Ji-Kun

Most of his damage is concentrated into Talon Rake, so glyphed IBF is good here.
His Infected Talons de-buff is nature damage, not Bleed. So AMS will stop damage (and blood shield won't).
Tanks will stand in Feed Pools on the main platform, to absorb them and clear room. The damage is again nature, so AMS is good here. AMS will make you immune to the Feed Pools de-buff, preventing you from absorbing the pool. Only AMS after you are soaking the pool, or the Slimed de-buff.

Terryteeps · 03/07/13, 11:32 PM

Originally Posted by Otou

Tortos

The Vampiric Cave Bats are susceptible to slows, stuns, and knock backs. This means you can kite them indefinitely with Chilblains, and stun them with Remorseless Winter.
Most of Tortos' tank damage is concentrated into Snapping Bite, a casted melee swing (dodge/parry/block able). This makes it a good fight for the IBF glyph, since he doesn't do any other significant damage.
You can pre-cast Desecrated Ground, and avoid the stun from Quake Stomp. IBF will also prevent/break it.

While tanking Tortos, you can spread diseases to the three turtles coming under him, this can help your raid group quite a bit on 10 man, as damage taken for tanks isn't high and if your group is meele heavy(as mine was) you can ease up the encounter alot for your ranged dps and healers.

With the recent diseases buff and high vengance, you can do quite high damage doing this, and with rolling blood, it doesn't require much effort either.

Collision · 03/11/13, 5:59 AM

Originally Posted by Otou

Tips and Tricks for the first 6 bosses!

Jin'rokh the Breaker

The stun from Thundering Throw can be broken with Desecrated Ground (or IBF, but that's wasteful). This is pretty good, since being stunned will interfere with taunt swapping for Static Wound.
Fluidity means that Death Siphon is double dipping into the damage and healing bonus.

You can also AMS the application of Static Burst, which means no static wound debuff. Not that it's a game-changer or anything.

Source: -- Excuse the shittastic logs, I pugged this with one truly awful group on my deathknight.
Log query - 06-03 20:22 - yupyuppurplecup - World of Logs

[{"spellNames": ["Static Burst"], "actorNames": ["Externality"]}, {"spellNames": ["Anti-Magic Shell"], "actorNames": ["Externality"]}]

[21:27:37.776] Externality gains Anti-Magic Shell from Externality (Remaining: 337241)
[21:27:37.776] Externality casts Anti-Magic Shell
[21:27:39.615] Jin'rokh the Breaker casts Static Burst on Externality
[21:27:39.631] Jin'rokh the Breaker Static Burst Externality 17584 (A: 52751)
[21:27:40.008] Externality gains 46 runic power from Externality's Anti-Magic Shell
[21:27:42.785] Externality's Anti-Magic Shell fades from Externality (Remaining: 284490)

(I never was "Afflicted" by the static burst debuff, I only took damage from the ability striking.)

Unfortunately DBM timers were only semi-accurate at best when I did this, so I wasn't able to time my AMS with it perfectly every time.

Tyvi · 03/11/13, 10:09 AM

I have updated the Tier 15 bosses up to Ji-Kun so far. I do need two confirmations if anyone is able to:

- Does AMS prevent the Infected Talons debuff from stacking up? I am reasonably sure it does but confirmation would be great.
- I have also added that Hand of Protection clears the Talon Rake debuff due to the fact that it works on Horridon and Divine Shield clears both Infected Talons and Talon Rake according to my co-tank. But again, confirmation would be great just to be sure.

A few random thoughts:
I am still not happy with AMZ from what I have seen so far. The one fight where I would have loved to add a raid CD was Megaera but AMZ barely stays up for a second there and healers didn't notice a difference one way or another. Lichborne also proved incredibly useful for the latter portion of the fight where you have Ignite Flesh at 3 or 4 stacks on you. AMZ just feels incredibly weak still, does anyone have any better experiences with it?

I have used Asphyxiate more in the last raiding week than I have in 5.1 combined, I think. Good to see it finally getting some love - though this is really more because of all the casting mobs in the new encounters, but still.

The other thing that worries me quite a bit is that 3 out of the 6 bosses I have experienced have quite a bit of burst damage with Triple Puncture, Talon Rake and Snapping Bite. While we can try to alleviate them by using AMS to prevent the secondary damage on stuff like Talon Rake and glyphing IBF, I have a feeling that on heroic these mechanics will be problematic. All three of these abilities either have reliable timers/cues or cast times which makes them very easy for Warriors or Paladins to survive since they can just use ShotR on each of them without every taking a fully unmitigated hit. We, however, cannot do this. The best we can try to do is get a Blood Shield up just before they happen which is not always possible (Ji-Kun's timers weren't really very exact but the cast time is enough time to hit that ShotR button for example). Anyway, where I am going with this is: These tank threatening abilities are not equally dangerous to all tanks. The tanks that have proactive damage reduction are much, much safer against them which feels reminiscient of 4.1 where DKs had to take the hits, then heal it back up (and hope they didn't die from it) whereas Block tanks never took the full hits to begin with.

tl;dr Huge tank damage in casted hits feels tailor made for Warriors/Paladins and disadvantages tanks that need to take the hit first then shield/heal up.
Thoughts?

KiqJaq · 03/11/13, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Otou

Council of Elders

You only get stacks of Frigid Assault on melee attacks that land, so Dancing Rune Weapon will reduce the rate you gain stacks and your damage taken.

Are we certain that Dancing Rune Weapon works for this mechanic? What I've experienced is that only dodges will avoid stack applications, while he'll still Frigid Assault you even if you parry.
(do note when looking at logs that he dual wields, and both attacks strike at once, with 0, 1, or 2 Frigid Assaults following shortly after as appropriate)

Log of me taking a round of Frigid Assault

← Click Here

And here's one of a Druid/Warrior with the same, to better show the dynamic of Dodge/Parry

We're inherently weaker against this mechanic than Agi tanks. It's not likely we'll be able to tank him the whole Frigid Assault without getting stunned.
That said, Stamina trinkets seem like an obvious choice for this fight, so their procs/on-use effects can be helpful since, stacks aside, the applications do nontrivial damage.

Terryteeps · 03/11/13, 7:25 PM

Quick update as i killed durumu + primordius tonight. 10m

Durumu can be solo tanked, given that you have 2 protection paladins (both with clemency talent) to rotate hand of protections on you. This is a huge gain as you can roll with 1 more dpser/healer. Dont know how usefull this will be for 25 mans, but its a big gain for 10 man as it can be tight.

How to: Get your friendly paladin to give you the first hand of protection when you enter the first lightbeam phase. After this you have 1 minute where you can not get a reset on your healing decrease, this is a good time to use IBF, Bone shield etc. The beam damage can be mitigated by AMS

When your forberance runs off, get the other paladin to give you a new hand, next up is disintegration beam, no need to reset stacks before this as you shouldn't take damage. (Follow the purple lightning snakes at the start and use your brain)

Rinse and repeat untill boss is dead.

Primordius, this boss just died, not much to say really, can hit hard but it went down in 3 tries so didn't get any chance to get any good tricks on him. May change for heroic. Some of the adds give a buff to your mastery rating, which can be extremely helpfull but i can't confirm if these slimes that give mastery only come from a certain spawnpoint.

Otou · 03/12/13, 7:03 AM

Last 6 bosses:

Durumu the Forgotten

Damage is once again concentrated into a single attack, Hard Stare. Glyph of IBF. Unlike the others, this attack is not on the melee hit table, and will always land (tough love for bears).

Primordius

Nothing particularly interesting tank wise. Worth noting that Malformed Blood only procs from melee attacks and not spells.

Dark Animus

Interesting fight, but the only thing to take advantage of is AMS on Explosive Slam from the Massive Anima Golem. It does protect you from the de-buff. Also keep in mind that Explosive Slam is ground targeted aoe. It will hit everyone within 10~ yards.

Iron Qon

If you soak Unleashed Flame with melee, the Scorched de-buff will be blocked by AMS. Dam'ren's Dead Zone buff can also be preemptively blocked by AMS, for better or worse.

Twin Consorts

The Slumber Spores during night phase can be blocked with AMS, and broken with Lichborne / Desecreated Ground. Technically you can dodge them, but there is no reason to give up Desecrated Ground.
Beast of Nightmares' Corrupted Healing doesn't stack from our self heals. The beast itself doesn't hit hard either, so you can tell healers to ignore you.
Suen's Fan of Flames can be blocked by AMS. It prevents the de-buff application. Suen also casts Fan on cd, regardless of whether her current target is in melee range. This means pets and melee can be hit instead, if you out range her.

Lei Shen

Static Shock damage can be soaked with the help of AMZ. Note that any extra damage will probably break the absorb early, so it's as dubious as ever.
The stun from Overcharge can be blocked with AMS, and broken with Desecrated Ground / IBF. (don't waste IBF on this)
The tank swap de-buff in P3, Overwhelming Power, can be blocked with AMS. Since the de-buff is only 8 seconds, it can be used to reset your stacks.

Originally Posted by Tyvi

I have updated the Tier 15 bosses up to Ji-Kun so far. I do need two confirmations if anyone is able to:

- Does AMS prevent the Infected Talons debuff from stacking up? I am reasonably sure it does but confirmation would be great.
- I have also added that Hand of Protection clears the Talon Rake debuff due to the fact that it works on Horridon and Divine Shield clears both Infected Talons and Talon Rake according to my co-tank. But again, confirmation would be great just to be sure.

tl;dr Huge tank damage in casted hits feels tailor made for Warriors/Paladins and disadvantages tanks that need to take the hit first then shield/heal up.
Thoughts?

← Click Here

Yep, forgot to post that it blocks Infected Talons stacks.

I'm definitely ready to replace AMZ with a real raid cooldown. The cap makes it undependable in most situations. Even on high burst magic damage, it gets eaten by random aoe ticks. It needs to be a flat 20-30% damage reduction, with no cap. Being the only tank w/o raid cool downs is pretty bad news.

Also Bloodworms are still weak, in most situations. They work alright when everyone is stacked for raid aoe, but thats it. Outside of "stack up for raid aoe", they're like really bad Resto Shamans. They see the tank is taking damage, and try to heal him by chain healing a melee. That's basically what Bloodworms are doing with Blood Burst. They see you take damage, and try to heal you by Blood Bursting in melee. All they're doing is over healing. They don't really need more +healing, they need their AI adjusted. Bloodworms should either be a mechanic that supports the tank, or a mechanic that supports the raid. Right now they're attempting to do both, and failing.

The "Casted Physical Damage" mechanics, don't really play nice with DKs and Bears. It's one thing if they're once every 30-60 seconds. Then we just have to rotate our cds for them. However these are closer to every 10-15 seconds. They're too often to handle with just class cool downs. Obviously the abilities were meant to be handled with Active Mitigation. But DKs and Bears don't have flat damage reduction. Which means "Active Mitigation Challenges", based on burst, are bad for us. If if its meant to burst a warrior who blocks 30-60% of the damage, anyone without serious amounts of EH is done for.

For the future, "Active Mitigation Challenges" that are channeled would work far better. If the burst damage is spread across 3-6 seconds, it gives every form of Active Mitigation a chance to be used. For instance, an abiltiy that deals 150% of the tanks health as melee, over 3 seconds. That works with Shield Block, SotR, Stagger, SD + Frenzied Regen, and Death Strike. At the same time, it keeps the sense of urgency, because the second tick is almost lethal.

I'm a little sad because there are no bosses to use Dark Simulacrum on.
If I haven't missed any spells, this is the first raid tier with 0 encounters to Dark Sim.

krekot · 03/12/13, 7:09 AM

Originally Posted by KiqJaq

Are we certain that Dancing Rune Weapon works for this mechanic? What I've experienced is that only dodges will avoid stack applications, while he'll still Frigid Assault you even if you parry.

Log of me taking a round of Frigid Assault

← Click Here

And here's one of a Druid/Warrior with the same, to better show the dynamic of Dodge/Parry

We're inherently weaker against this mechanic than Agi tanks. It's not likely we'll be able to tank him the whole Frigid Assault without getting stunned.
That said, Stamina trinkets seem like an obvious choice for this fight, so their procs/on-use effects can be helpful since, stacks aside, the applications do nontrivial damage.

Parry work on avoiding debuff

← Click Here

When I parry I didn't get Frigid Assault

Otou · 03/12/13, 9:04 AM

Originally Posted by krekot

Parry work on avoiding debuff

← Click Here

When I parry I didn't get Frigid Assault

I think KiqJaq is right, I hadn't examined the log in detail for this one, and just assumed all "avoidance" worked. The lag in updating the combat log makes it look weird, but the parries still gave you stacks.

When you get hit by his first two dual weild melee swings:
[22:31:43.546] Frost King Malakk hits Ikrekot 41256
[22:31:43.546] Frost King Malakk hits Ikrekot 62382

Those two melee hits give you two stacks:
[22:31:44.382] Frost King Malakk Frigid Assault Ikrekot 54000
[22:31:44.382] Ikrekot afflicted by Frigid Assault (2) from Frost King Malakk
[22:31:44.382] Frost King Malakk Frigid Assault Ikrekot 54000

When you absorb one melee hit, and parry the other:
[22:31:45.570] Frost King Malakk hits Ikrekot Absorb (55780)
[22:31:45.570] Frost King Malakk hits Ikrekot Parry
You get a stack from both hits:
[22:31:46.381] Ikrekot afflicted by Frigid Assault (3) from Frost King Malakk
[22:31:46.381] Frost King Malakk Frigid Assault Ikrekot 60750
[22:31:46.381] Ikrekot afflicted by Frigid Assault (4) from Frost King Malakk
[22:31:46.381] Frost King Malakk Frigid Assault Ikrekot 60750

By comparison, when Kiqjaq takes one dual weild swing, and dodges the second:
[23:10:21.803] Frost King Malakk hits Kiqjaq 40786
[23:10:21.803] Frost King Malakk hits Kiqjaq Dodge
He only gets one Frigid Assault hit:
[23:10:22.638] Kiqjaq afflicted by Frigid Assault (3) from Frost King Malakk
[23:10:22.646] Frost King Malakk Frigid Assault Kiqjaq 54000

So I think it's safe to assume only dodge/miss/immune, count as not being hit.

krekot · 03/12/13, 10:08 AM

When I use DRW debuff grow slower. When I don't use DRW it grow faster. I'll check logs again, maybe I dodge many times.

EDIT

When you write parry and absorb I get only 1 stack not 2. I had 2 on start and later only 1 more to 3 stack and not 4.