Going to have to disagree with you here. Bladed armor is over 300 AP for me in leveling quest greens/blues at 80... in T7 level gear you're looking at 15k armor which would put it easily over 400 AP. The only way it would give you 125 ap is if you were low level (in which case for that level it's still very good) or wearing a ton of leather gear. Since it scales with armor, and armor scales with item level, it looks like it is going to be a very good investment of points. Plus, the 4% damage on a two hander doesn't affect abilities like death coil, icy touch, diseases, etc... while AP does through our innate spell damage conversion (especially so if you're unholy).
And killing machine isn't USELESS... first off most heavy frost dps specs are probably going to end up dual wielding anyway. Secondly, Rune Strikes are not usuable in a typical raiding situation... since YOU have to dodge or parry a MOB/BOSS's attack, you are probably doing something very wrong (or fighting an unusual boss) if you are using rune strike.
However, he's right about threat. Even mediocre tanks can easily hold aggro now in WOTLK.
Pretty sure this discussion was tanking specs, and as a tank you rune strike over half of attacks and your crit rate is low, so killing machine is generally pretty bad. 2H spec is alright, but generally even on single target HB > Obliterate so your general strike damage is going to be lower. In tanking gear your going to have 22000-30000 armor most of the expansion that is a lot of ap, and unlike 2h spec it benefits IT, HB, D&D, Bloodboil, and your diseases.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the spec I have been using lately for tanking... If acclimation switches to also giving a rune strike bonus of some sort I will probably swap to 11/52/8.
This is something that has been bugging me for a while, everytime the Desecration graphic pops up my FPS drops to about 10 fps. Considering I'm running a Q6600 OC'd at 3 ghz, 4 gigs of DDR2 and 2x8800GT I'm pretty sure it's not because of shitty computer specs. Anyone else have the same issue?
I prefer the Blood playstyle, but 15% faster movement speed and 20% faster mount speed is just so, so good for levelling.
I am experiencing the same performance hit when Desecration is on screen. E8600, 3 gigs DDR2, 9800 GTX. The game runs flawlessly with everything maxxed except when Desecration procs. There is a bug report thread on the official beta forums for it, so I would assume they area aware of it and it will be fixed sooner or later.
Going to have to disagree with you here. Bladed armor is over 300 AP for me in leveling quest greens/blues at 80... in T7 level gear you're looking at 15k armor which would put it easily over 400 AP. The only way it would give you 125 ap is if you were low level (in which case for that level it's still very good) or wearing a ton of leather gear. Since it scales with armor, and armor scales with item level, it looks like it is going to be a very good investment of points. Plus, the 4% damage on a two hander doesn't affect abilities like death coil, icy touch, diseases, etc... while AP does through our innate spell damage conversion (especially so if you're unholy).
And killing machine isn't USELESS... first off most heavy frost dps specs are probably going to end up dual wielding anyway. Secondly, Rune Strikes are not usuable in a typical raiding situation... since YOU have to dodge or parry a MOB/BOSS's attack, you are probably doing something very wrong (or fighting an unusual boss) if you are using rune strike.
However, he's right about threat. Even mediocre tanks can easily hold aggro now in WOTLK.
If you would take a moment reading start of the converstation instead of pulling false conclusion...
"Ginn - As a frost tank..."
We're talking about frost tank here, so mobs should be beating on you, unless You are doing something wrong *wink*
So Killing Machine is actually quite useless on frost tank.
With improvement in gear you will get more avoidance -> even more spam of Rune Strike, even less white hits, Killing Machine is very poor for tank, period.
With heroic/naxx10 gear you dont have enough avoidance to proc rune strike with fast 1h and as well you dont have enough crit to make using 1h and Killnig Machine worth it, cuz you are losing tons of dmg on Rune Strike while using 1h...
Maybe specific dual-wield build with good crit chance will make Killing Machine viable in the future, now it's really poor for tank.
If you are still claiming otherwise, please provide specific proofs because your statement without argumentation sound just silly...
About Blade Barrier, tbh I didint check how much it gives for real, just made a quick calculation according to the tooltip:
5AP - 180 armor
xAP - 22000 armor
x = 5*22000/180
x= 611,(1)
Sorry my bad, I guess i forgot to do *5 when doing quick calculations...
611AP makes it clearly superior to 2h Weapon Spec.
I am not sure why these unholy specs I am seeing have desecration over impurity. Impurity was last proven as around a 5.1% dps increase, which is obviously strictly superior to desecration since it does not have a 100% uptime. Unless you are interested in the slowing effect you should always get impurity over it.
Ah, sorry, I didn't realize it was for tanking (since so many concurrent discussions are occuring in this thread its probably best to be very explicit when making posts like that). I agree with you on killing machine, but as you seem to agree now my point about Bladed Armor still holds. That being said, given the extreme amount of threat generation on the WOTLK beta atm, I don't know if there would be a better defensive place to put those points.
I'll be perfectly honest, I have not even attempted to do any work around tanking.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
With the recent nerf on black ice, i've realized that i no longer want to invest sigifnicant point into frost tree as a subspec. Provided that they'll fix BCB and necrosis so it doesnt suck, i thought maybe trying to synergize with unholy tree as a subspec is the way to go.
To be honest, I don't really know how Blood DPS breaksdown in normal raid setting. This build probably squeezes more out of deathcoil (through morbidity and impurity) and the ghoul while losing out on 10% dmg 5 expertise. While I realize that gargoyle might not scale as well as dancing rune weapon, with its recent buff, found it to be a pretty good RP dump since im almost guaranteed to keep it up for 1 minute.
So the strong points of this build is :
1) Blood tree bonuses / morbidity / impurity synergize pretty well.
2) Physical dmg synergizes well with ravenous dead / shadow of death (and consequently ghouls get benefits from Blood's str talents)
Pretty sure this discussion was tanking specs, and as a tank you rune strike over half of attacks and your crit rate is low, so killing machine is generally pretty bad. 2H spec is alright, but generally even on single target HB > Obliterate so your general strike damage is going to be lower. In tanking gear your going to have 22000-30000 armor most of the expansion that is a lot of ap, and unlike 2h spec it benefits IT, HB, D&D, Bloodboil, and your diseases.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is the spec I have been using lately for tanking... If acclimation switches to also giving a rune strike bonus of some sort I will probably swap to 11/52/8.
Couldn't you just remove the points from Unholy Command and put them into 2H Weapon Spec to get the benefit of both 2H and Blade Barrier? Just not sure if the -10 seconds on death grip is better than the increased damage from a 2H weapon.
What are the reasons that going deep frost is preferred for tanking?
I see the need to get Frigid Dreadplate, but for every talent deeper in the frost tree there is an equivalent talent in the unholy or blood tree.
Yet there seems to be an agreement that deep frost is better for tanking.
Just not sure if the -10 seconds on death grip is better than the increased damage from a 2H weapon.
The death grip talent is best for leveling and PvP, so you are right that 2H spec would be better for a tank.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
What are the reasons that going deep frost is preferred for tanking?
I see the need to get Frigid Dreadplate, but for every talent deeper in the frost tree there is an equivalent talent in the unholy or blood tree.
Yet there seems to be an agreement that deep frost is better for tanking.
I seem to miss something that you all are seeing.
Why is deep frost preferred for tanking?
EDIT: Above specs are only examples. It's just that I want to understand the frost thing.
I can't speak for others, but by my own reasoning, damage/threat is still critically important for any tanking spec, and the trees are designed in such a way that any hybrid/tri-spec skips key talents deep in the tree. Scourge Strike, Frost Strike, Heart Strike, and 10% damage and expertise boosters-- you want one set of these. Having Frigid Dreadplate and Bone Armor at the same time would be nice, but in exchange, you have no clear primary threat-building attack.
I can't speak for others, but by my own reasoning, damage/threat is still critically important for any tanking spec, and the trees are designed in such a way that any hybrid/tri-spec skips key talents deep in the tree. Scourge Strike, Frost Strike, Heart Strike, and 10% damage and expertise boosters-- you want one set of these. Having Frigid Dreadplate and Bone Armor at the same time would be nice, but in exchange, you have no clear primary threat-building attack.
Yes, threat might be an issue. Might be.
But as a (main) tank I was always specing for the best mitigation, seldom for threat, and never for damage.
(Mainly because staying alive >>> all)
Has this changed with WotLK? Or at least for DKs?
I can't speak for others, but by my own reasoning, damage/threat is still critically important for any tanking spec, and the trees are designed in such a way that any hybrid/tri-spec skips key talents deep in the tree. Scourge Strike, Frost Strike, Heart Strike, and 10% damage and expertise boosters-- you want one set of these. Having Frigid Dreadplate and Bone Armor at the same time would be nice, but in exchange, you have no clear primary threat-building attack.
Pretty much this. I was asked to offtank in Naxx on a whim, so with haste I came up with a spec similar to the once he is referencing, forgoing most dps talents and picking up all the tanking/survivability talents I could in all 3 trees. The result was me keeping threat for 1 to 2 seconds and then losing it to the unholy DPS DK next to me on 99% of the pulls. DPS heavy talents are pretty key, even in a tanking build
With the recent nerf on black ice, i've realized that i no longer want to invest sigifnicant point into frost tree as a subspec. Provided that they'll fix BCB and necrosis so it doesnt suck, i thought maybe trying to synergize with unholy tree as a subspec is the way to go.
To be honest, I don't really know how Blood DPS breaksdown in normal raid setting. This build probably squeezes more out of deathcoil (through morbidity and impurity) and the ghoul while losing out on 10% dmg 5 expertise. While I realize that gargoyle might not scale as well as dancing rune weapon, with its recent buff, found it to be a pretty good RP dump since im almost guaranteed to keep it up for 1 minute.
So the strong points of this build is :
1) Blood tree bonuses / morbidity / impurity synergize pretty well.
2) Physical dmg synergizes well with ravenous dead / shadow of death (and consequently ghouls get benefits from Blood's str talents)
Any comments would be appreciated.
I and one other guy came to a similar conclusion a few pages back. Additionally, the fact that DRW can be parried while Gargoyle ignores armor is a pretty compelling reason to pick Gargoyle, at least at the current level of gear. They are both 3 min cooldowns, so I think at some point they could turn out to be pretty even.
Also, I just wanted to respond to the discussion about frost dps-- it was buffed because its performance for the last several builds has been really poor. And now, Icy Touch spam isn't really viable anymore, because Tundra Stalker only increases its damage by 25% now, instead of 100%. Obliterate, Howling Blast, and Frost Strike all significantly outstrip it in damage. With a normal dps rotation using PS, IT, BS, OB, and FS, I'm getting numbers pretty comparable to Blood and Unholy's dps. In fact, I've been pretty pleased to find they're all really starting to even out. With the same gear, I was able to do roughly the same dps in all three primary specs with a 2h.
The reason I was doing these tests was also to see how the 8 second rune cooldown was affecting rotations, and what the priority needed to be on abilities, which presence worked better between Blood and Unholy, etc. What I found was pretty interesting, and I think affects how we should be modeling the different rotations.
I did the most damage by dumping RP whenever available, even in Blood presence with the 1.5s GCD, rather than trying to first maximize the use of every rune cooldown. Since Unholy already has additional abilities and the 60 rp cost of Unholy Blight already built in, this is more applicable to Blood and Frost.
So, in other words, I followed the PS - IT - HS - HS - OB then PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS rotation for blood, but I always used a GCD for any Sudden Doom proc, and always used more GCDs on DC to avoid capping out on RP, even if the next rune was ready to go. The result was noticeably more damage than the other strategy-- only using GCDs for runic power abilities when all runes where down. I found similar results for Frost Strike in deep frost; not surprising considering it does even more damage than DC.
What does this mean? Using ALL of the runic power you generate should not be overlooked when evaluating how much dps a spec is capable of. When applying this principle in practice, I'm finding the three primary specs to be roughly equivalent in damage, which is encouraging.
What are the reasons that going deep frost is preferred for tanking?
I see the need to get Frigid Dreadplate, but for every talent deeper in the frost tree there is an equivalent talent in the unholy or blood tree.
Yet there seems to be an agreement that deep frost is better for tanking.
You've sort of already answered your own question. Frigid Dreadplate is a good tanking talent, and the rest of frost has talents equivalent to the other 2 trees. If you are intent on tanking, and you spend the 23 points in Frost, then you may as well continue up frost for the deeper talents. For 5/10 man content, I prefer a build such as Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Couldn't you just remove the points from Unholy Command and put them into 2H Weapon Spec to get the benefit of both 2H and Blade Barrier? Just not sure if the -10 seconds on death grip is better than the increased damage from a 2H weapon.
Haha I linked the wrong talent spec that was the one the other poster had that I changed...
I'm starting to get deeper into the Rawr module for DK DPS, and I was hoping for some help. Seeing as how I have only done a handful of raids on beta, and only as unholy (damn getting a key in the last wave!), I was hoping the more experienced DKs, as well as those who have spent a lot of time on the math, could help me with rotations.
My current plan is to have three sets of rotations... one for each tree, with the assumption that each DPS spec would most likely go heavily down one tree. I understand this isn't ideal, but for the moment assume user-input rotations are not possible. If you have other suggestions for pre-defined rotations, I'm all ears. I understand this isn't as flexible as spreadsheets, but the Rawr package will offer a comparison of gear, stats, DW vs 2h, and talents (and if things work out well, I'll even make it compare each type of rotation or spec).
So, to start with, I'd like an agreed-upon rotation for Blood, Frost, and Unholy. I have an idea of what unholy would be, but I'd rather leave it up to the "pros" for this. I also understand these things are always changing, so I'll probably be asking for updates every so often in this respect.
If you'd prefer to contact me via PM instead of posting here, feel free to do so.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
PS - IT - Obliterate - HS - HS - DC
PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS - DC
Repeat. It all depends though, since if you get Sudden Doom procs you'll use more than one Death Coil per "rotation" and I'm going to assume that'll be quite hard to model. Not to mention you'll use Dancing Rune Weapon ONLY when you have max Runic Power. And of course, keeping Hysteria on cooldown.
Well with a rotation, I'm going to have to break it down into average seconds between abilities anyway. Maybe the best way to do this is to have people report their patchwerk numbers, with the number of each ability used and how long the fight lasted. This wouldn't be 100% accurate but it would be a decent representation if you feel you did the cycles well, as it would take into account average human error + latency.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
Is the spec that I currently use for tanking. Don't think either of those talents are even close to cooldown reduction on d&d.
I have absolutely no idea why you have taken rune tap and 1% crit in Blood when you can get a 10 sec Death Grip cooldown reduction. That will save way more people in your raid and be generally far more useful on trash, bosses with adds, positioning, and general tanking. Rune tap will never save you, especially untalented, and 1% crit is a joke. If you want to heal yourself pop lichborne and DC away.
I have absolutely no idea why you have taken rune tap and 1% crit in Blood when you can get a 10 sec Death Grip cooldown reduction. That will save way more people in your raid and be generally far more useful on trash, bosses with adds, positioning, and general tanking. Rune tap will never save you, especially untalented, and 1% crit is a joke.
With 20 yd taunt every 8 seconds and deathgrip every 35 seconds I see no reason to trade rune tap for that. Rune tap can both save you in a 1-2 healer on you situation, and it can also allow you to instantly spend both blood runes to get blade barrier up. The 1% crit is the most debatable point and would be the first thing I get rid of if acclimation benefited rune strike. Bosses with adds and trash are the reason you get morbidity for 15 second d&d, if you are smart and always keep runes up when there are adds about to spawn you won't need death grip, as you already have taunt for emergencies.
As to your spec, I would not tank without morbidity, see no reason at all to get blood of the north and can't really think of a situation where you need/want more runic power.
Interesting points, but honestly you should never have a problem keeping Blade Barrier up, with or without Rune Tap, so I'd argue that point is moot. At worst you lose it for a GCD longer than normal but gain the threat from 2 Blood strikes, and thus 2 death runes for additional craziness. Rune tap is a waste. If DG doesn't float your boat, drop one from Scent of Blood, 2 from DG and get the 15 sec on D&D reduction. the 1% crit is just a flat out waste on its own, unfortunately.
Originally Posted by Flamingcloud
As to your spec, I would not tank without morbidity, see no reason at all to get blood of the north and can't really think of a situation where you need/want more runic power.
Then I suggest using more imagination. Frost Strike currently costs 40 RP am I correct? Apparently it also is a high threat, high damage, guarenteed to land attack....? With no Cooldown? Anti-magic shield is situational but still useful.
Blood Strike is a DK Heroic strike style attack, although happily instant and you use it for some standard threat, blood rune use, and death rune procs so that every other set of your rotation can be viciously high threat because you have 2 additional death runes. You will have both diseases up, plus Devouring plague. How is rune tap better than 2 blood strikes?
edit: Acclimation is better than Scent of Blood. Hands down, so upon a second thought I'd move 3 for 3 and go 10 / 54/ 7.
Going to have to disagree with you here. Bladed armor is over 300 AP for me in leveling quest greens/blues at 80... in T7 level gear you're looking at 15k armor which would put it easily over 400 AP. The only way it would give you 125 ap is if you were low level (in which case for that level it's still very good) or wearing a ton of leather gear. Since it scales with armor, and armor scales with item level, it looks like it is going to be a very good investment of points. Plus, the 4% damage on a two hander doesn't affect abilities like death coil, icy touch, diseases, etc... while AP does through our innate spell damage conversion (especially so if you're unholy).
And killing machine isn't USELESS... first off most heavy frost dps specs are probably going to end up dual wielding anyway. Secondly, Rune Strikes are not usuable in a typical raiding situation... since YOU have to dodge or parry a MOB/BOSS's attack, you are probably doing something very wrong (or fighting an unusual boss) if you are using rune strike.
However, he's right about threat. Even mediocre tanks can easily hold aggro now in WOTLK.
Heavy frost still should be 2h. KM should still work with the haste bonuses still, but at 5 points I guess its a deep sink. Frost Aura would stack with acclimation which has been noted to be really good. You will be hit often enough by a magic spell to keep it up in most situations, 54 resist there, with 45 from Frost Aura thats 99 resist base. Course, at 80, I believe the new cap would be 400 something.
Oh and yea, Rune Strike doesn't proc it, so yea, movable.
Also, I completely forgot to x5 for my bladed armor calculations, so if we're talking 16000 base armor, if I did the multiplicatives properly it would be 75% in armor (When frost presence properly gives 60%), or something in that ballpark. 775 AP at that point for 28000 armor. So 5/5 probably is worth it.
Rght 2h spec doesn't increase all damage by 4%, its all weapon damage by 4%. So only strikes count. I believe Oblit works a tad bit better if you grab subjugation, just cause it has a better crit rate than HB. Course, that's 3 points thats more dps than tanking.
Also I believe RP gen for some people was fine, so Chill of the Grave is possibly also optional.
It was suggested instead of "rotations" its more of a "priority queue" move choice when it comes to dps, considering the chance of procs.
As for DRW and Gargoyle, I believe DRW lasts at most 20 seconds (10 secs for the first 50, 10 for the next), does have the chance of parrying, but is based off your buffs and weapon skill, and should have basic pet behavior to attack from behind without aggro. That being said, it isn't perfect. Gargoyle lasts a minute if you can keep generating that RP, so its a bit more situational than DRW's fire and forget. I believe DRW ends up scaling better though, since it takes the benefit of your stats and your weapon, and your most of your moves as well.
Frost Aura would stack with acclimation which has been noted to be really good. You will be hit often enough by a magic spell to keep it up in most situations, 54 resist there, with 45 from Frost Aura thats 99 resist base.
Your numbers are off.
Frost Aura is a base of 80 at level 80, stacks with paladin aura (130) and probably totems for 210 resist to the raid in whatever school.
Acclimation is 50 resist per stack, didn't manage to check if it stacks with the school-specific aura/totems.
On occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. -- James Nicoll
Then I suggest using more imagination. Frost Strike currently costs 40 RP am I correct? Apparently it also is a high threat, high damage, guarenteed to land attack....? With no Cooldown? Anti-magic shield is situational but still useful.
Yes, it is 40 RP. I don't know that it has any threat modifiers associated with it, but I don't think it does. As a frost tank I get over 20% crit from it looking at my combat log parses - 1899 avg 4816 crit, 21.4% crit on one Gluth fight. It cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried, but you can still miss with it.
Originally Posted by Embar
Your numbers are off.
Frost Aura is a base of 80 at level 80, stacks with paladin aura (130) and probably totems for 210 resist to the raid in whatever school.
Acclimation is 50 resist per stack, didn't manage to check if it stacks with the school-specific aura/totems.
It stacks. I checked my character sheet while on Sapphiron and I was at 360 Frost Resist.
Edit: DK aura of 80 stacks with either FR totems or Paladin FR aura for 80+130 -- totem+paladin aura does not stack
10/07/08, 11:51 AM
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