WotLK Discussion - Talents and abilities. - Page 101

Caggy · 10/07/08, 3:56 PM

Blood strike is more like Sinister strike than heroic. with BOTN its an extra Oblit every other rune cycle, like DRM is an extra 2 heart strikes for blood.

• Lanky · 10/07/08, 3:57 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

Blood strike is more like Sinister strike than heroic. with BOTN its an extra Oblit every other rune cycle, like DRM is an extra 2 heart strikes for blood.

Yes, and I really fail to see how Rune tap even remotely compares to altering your entire rotation / priority set for the better and doing additional damage, threat.

Caggy · 10/07/08, 3:59 PM

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.

Oh yea, shoot. But I don't think Totems and aura stack though. Totems just covered nature and auras had shadow. I also remember it didn't stack with MOTW. This should be double checked though.

jaxdahl · 10/07/08, 4:11 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

Oh yea, shoot. But I don't think Totems and aura stack though. Totems just covered nature and auras had shadow. I also remember it didn't stack with MOTW. This should be double checked though.

Frost Resistance Totem - Spell - World of Warcraft and Frost Resistance Aura - Spell - World of Warcraft do not stack, nor does MOTW. The mega buff post (World of Warcraft (English) Forums -> Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking) does not mention them for some reason but do say that Frost Aura - Spell - World of Warcraft "Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs."

Illundai · 10/07/08, 4:24 PM

I was messing around with the calculator and I started trying out different Blood DPS specs. Considering that you can use this rotation:

PS - IT - HS - HS - Obliterate - DC - PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS - DC

Which ultimately means you won't need Annihilation; freeing up a lot of points. I was wondering how 3% crit and extra Icy Touch damage fairs against more points in Unholy, for example:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

I'm not a math genius, so I'm having a hard time comparing these talent builds and I have no clue how useful BCB & Necrosis are, but they seem somewhat tempting considering a lot of DK damage at the moment is coming from autoattacks.

• Zurm · 10/07/08, 4:29 PM

The oblit would make the diseases fade early and they wouldn't keep ticking.... you'd probably miss at least one tick which would be a good 600 dmg every cycle. And from my experience DKs still do more yellow damage than any other physical dps class except dagger rogues.

Saliik · 10/07/08, 4:31 PM

I've got a question about Death Runes. I don't have beta access, but have been theorizing about DKs on my own for some time now. However, I'm running into a lot of walls because I don't know how certain mechanics work, and can't test them out for myself. I've been able to find a lot of answers here, but this one eludes me.

I'm thinking in terms of unholy spec with Reaping, but the concept applies anywhere. What happens when you have a Death Rune up use an ability that also has it's regular rune up?

For example: I use Blood Strike twice and the runes return as Death Runes giving me DDUUFF. Assume I didn't use any other runes, so they are all up. If I use Icy Touch, will it consume one of my frost runes, or one of the Death Runes?

So far, I've only worked with rotations that avoid this situation, but I expect in reality a perfect rotation won't be possible, and I wanted to know if it would vastly throw off the rotation if your frost rune cooled down before you could IT on a Death Rune.

• Zurm · 10/07/08, 4:33 PM

Originally Posted by Saliik

What happens when you have a Death Rune up use an ability that also has it's regular rune up?

It uses regular runes first, death runes only if they are the only ones left.

Illundai · 10/07/08, 4:37 PM

I suppose, but would waiting for the 7s marker( just before your first runes repop) before using that Obliterate be such a bad idea?

(Bah too slow, this is responding to Obliterate knocking off your diseases)

Leaflock · 10/07/08, 4:49 PM

Originally Posted by Illundai

I've been using this for Blood with success:

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.

This spec is what I'm using by the way:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000

I swap points to Icy Talons if there's no Enhance or Frost DK around.

Edit: you already pointed out what I'm saying here, slow post.

The only issue I'd point out is that since Black Ice no longer gives a bonus to shadow damage (not yet reflected in the tooltip, but confirmed by blue), a Frost subspec is spending a significant number of points that only improve Icy Touch. Assuming you already have an Enh shaman/Frost DK, I'd probably go with something closer to this spec, since the unholy talents are going to give you more bang for your buck. It also opens up the option for Gargoyle vs. DRW, which could be a viable alternative, as we've been speculating. Without Annihilation, there's no real reason for Epidemic either in a blood dps spec, so I'm opting for a little more strength and some spell hit.

The rotation is basically the same, but with the one Obliterate being after the HS and DC, to keep disease uptime higher.

Illundai · 10/07/08, 4:55 PM

Yeah, that's what I was aiming at with my previous posts.

It seems like a viable alternative if math proves its worth either sacrificing a few ticks of diseases OR waiting with obliterate until your diseases are about to fade.

Caggy · 10/07/08, 5:01 PM

Actually one interesting thing I found while running my blood build is that with Annihilation and epidemic I can oblit twice before the disease falls off. Course, that ends up with 4 death runes that 2 will still be used on IT/PS. But if I used pestilence for multiple targets, I can end up with 6 HS on the second target.

Also Death Strike has a MoM and Vicious Strike for crit mods.

Interesting thought about Gargoyle. Blood has a very strong RP gen and very few RP dumps. This would mean keeping gargoyle up a lot easier.

Leaflock · 10/07/08, 5:09 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

Actually one interesting thing I found while running my blood build is that with Annihilation and epidemic I can oblit twice before the disease falls off. Course, that ends up with 4 death runes that 2 will still be used on IT/PS. But if I used pestilence for multiple targets, I can end up with 6 HS on the second target.

That's true about Pestilence-- one of the things I really enjoy about the DK is how much you can change things up depending on the situation. For single target sustained dps, though, two Oblits in that rotation isn't as beneficial as it seems, because two HSes will do more damage. I don't think you'll be able to fit in the 6 HSes before your diseases need to be refreshed, either.

Deathwing · 10/07/08, 5:15 PM

Originally Posted by Zurm

It uses regular runes first, death runes only if they are the only ones left.

What about certain abilities that key off certain runes being on cooldown? Ok, I only know of one that does that. If you have Blade Barrier and Blood of the North, would Blade Barrier be refreshed when you used up the death runes in the second cycle?

• Zurm · 10/07/08, 5:24 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

Interesting thought about Gargoyle. Blood has a very strong RP gen and very few RP dumps. This would mean keeping gargoyle up a lot easier.

But that would mean you couldn't get DRW, which is another RP dump. Both have the same CD.

Originally Posted by Deathwing

What about certain abilities that key off certain runes being on cooldown? Ok, I only know of one that does that. If you have Blade Barrier and Blood of the North, would Blade Barrier be refreshed when you used up the death runes in the second cycle?

I have no clue, I'll let one of the tanking DKs answer that... I've never specced into Blade Barrier.

Tafsis · 10/07/08, 5:50 PM

I noticed when I was goofing around a bit that Rune Strikes would hit around the same time as a normal swing, so I went and did some testing, giving me the following results:

10/7 22:35:54.656  SWING_MISSED,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,PARRY
10/7 22:35:56.578  SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,40,0,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
10/7 22:35:56.984  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,56815,"Rune Strike",0x1
10/7 22:35:56.984  SWING_DAMAGE,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,1384,1383,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
10/7 22:35:56.984  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,56815,"Rune Strike",0x1,3864,3863,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

There were several examples of this, showing that a Rune Strike will hit at the same time as the swing it supposedly replaces. I presume this is a bug, but if it isn't, it's some nice extra damage, and it might give KM some more viability for a tanking spec (although I don't know if I'd go for it personally still).

Caggy · 10/07/08, 5:52 PM

The idea is grabbing the stronger RP dump, gargoyle or DRW. One thing to note is DRW is a flat drop, fire and forget, while

And Death Runes still count as the runes they replace. So an Oblit off two Death Runes from BotN would put up blade barrier.

Flamingcloud · 10/07/08, 6:25 PM

Originally Posted by Lanky

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.

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.

On the dark conviction vs scent of blood issue, I am fairly certain 1% crit would be a greater bonus to threat in all circumstances than 5-10 runic power every minute on average(per rank, depending on luck of that 15% and luck of your evasion).

3% on blood strike is really not comparable in my opinion with 1% crit that annihilation grants for threat. So you are basically trading threat for death runes, and the advantage of death runes while tanking is very limited. I very much doubt there is much threat difference between an obliterate or two blood strikes every second rotation. Glacier Rot + Annihilation (missing from your spec in place of blood of the north) would defintely be higher threat. Additionally you can't even obliterate if you don't have annihilation or you remove your thunderclap debuff which is a massive no-no for tanking.

If you really think rune tap is that bad for tanking you could get an extra 1% crit, as stated before its definitely better threat than 3% on blood strike.

Of course the 1% for crit is completely null & void if acclimation has any reasonable boost to rune strike next patch as it will be superior for threat and for survivability. I think I would drop hungering cold before rune tap however. Rune tap will probably lose some punch when I stop running 5/10mans and am only doing 25 mans, but I think initially it is very good. Improved rune tap is absolutely ridiculous for 5 man tanking, if your only going to be doing heroics for a while I would highly recommend a 24/44/3 spec, or a 36/26/9 spec as it is just monstrous to throw yourself a 7k heal every 30 seconds.

Nymph' · 10/07/08, 6:36 PM

Actually I'm wondering if the change of Blade Barrier is a up or a nerf. With a rune template like FR FR FR FR UR BR (which is common, I suppose), you have to use your BR every time it goes up if you don't want to lose the buff. Okay, that's not really hard, but I suppose that sometimes, you'll have maybe 0.5, 1 or 1.5 sec. without blade barrier up. A little dangerous.

Precedently you needed to get all your runes on cooldown (something you do pretty often, anyway), but that was allowing you to refresh blade barrier every 2 seconds, maybe more. So you never had an unstable blank spot in your mitigation.

I'm not against blank spot at all. On the contrary, I think it's way funnier with blank spots. (so you have to take decisions - like using trinkets or special abilities - if you judge that the coming of the blank spot is too risky in some situation) I already said this on the rogue tanking topic (where I explained a method playing on cooldowns and reactivity), but in my opinion, mitigation should be a more ACTIVE play for a tank and the biggest part of his concern, and not a passive stuffing. "Failing" for a tank would be IMHO more designed to be "failing to mitigate" than "failing to generate aggro". At least it has to be 50/50 minimum. Actually, failing is more like "failing to keep aggro". My pride as a tank is not that I can keep the aggro, but that I can take huge amount of damages and still dodge or mitigate them well ; that I can be reactive and use different cycles of mitigation for mitigate differently or better in different situations ; etc. This way of thinking (tank skilled = tank that generates aggro well / tank stuffed : tank that mitigates well) is NOT giving diversity to the gameplay ; on the contrary, it's asking tanks to have some DPS skill (basically, between tanking and DPS for a warrior, I feel the same difference in terms of gameplay as between Affliction DPS and Destruction DPS for a warlock), instead of a different skill, tanking (that would feel as different as healing <-> DPS for a druid). If a least 50% of tank abilities (if not 75 or 90%) were mitigation abilities and cooldowns or mechanics needed to be watched carefully like blade barrier, I feel it would be more logical and enjoyable. I would enjoy a lot spamming mitigation abilities, rather than "DPS" or "DPS that generates aggro" abilities. I would venture to say that this would maybe resolve more cutely (... here you'll sense what's my passion in this world :]) or properly (maybe not more efficiently) the problem of lacking tanks than adding a new hero class will.

About this blankspot, again : the problem is that currently it's not a designed blank spot, but a "borderline" blank spot. Difficult to play with, and not equal to all players eventually. The minimum would be to up the duration from 10 to 12 seconds. That would solve the blankspot problem... But not the quality of the design. (if not 15 - I think the design of this talent will be poor at 15, but it is already poor at 12, and it is very poor at 10 : I'm not fond of talents doing stricly the same thing with different words on the tooltips. Let's give the DK a 2/4/6/8/10% parry chance, if it is for a proc up 100% of the time without skill needed to keep it up. Actually the talent is more fun at 2/5, 3/5 or 4/5, but not efficient at all at this ranks.)

Maybe I'm missing something, as I'm not on the beta server. Do I misunderstand the mechanic of this talent ? (Maybe is this a +10% up all the time when the DK as no rune active, and the 10 sec remaining duration activates only when a rune goes up ?)

If not, I think this talent would be more interesting, gameplay speaking, if it has a longer duration, and a more difficult proc. So you have to think carefully how and when activate it, so that it is always up, or down when you choose to sacrify it for some other benefit.

Gaborn · 10/07/08, 6:43 PM

Originally Posted by Tafsis

I noticed when I was goofing around a bit that Rune Strikes would hit around the same time as a normal swing, so I went and did some testing, giving me the following results:

10/7 22:35:54.656  SWING_MISSED,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,PARRY
10/7 22:35:56.578  SWING_DAMAGE,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,40,0,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
10/7 22:35:56.984  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,56815,"Rune Strike",0x1
10/7 22:35:56.984  SWING_DAMAGE,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,1384,1383,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
10/7 22:35:56.984  SPELL_DAMAGE,0x00000000000E3C64,"Phrog",0x511,0xF130001DF4001F37,"Servant of Razelikh",0x10a48,56815,"Rune Strike",0x1,3864,3863,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil

There were several examples of this, showing that a Rune Strike will hit at the same time as the swing it supposedly replaces. I presume this is a bug, but if it isn't, it's some nice extra damage, and it might give KM some more viability for a tanking spec (although I don't know if I'd go for it personally still).

I've noticed that too.

It has to be a bug. GC said that it hits for 200% weapon damage because 100% of weapon damage is what you lose from converting that swing into yellow. So the net gain is 100% weapon damage (+20% AP)

Caggy · 10/07/08, 7:19 PM

Originally Posted by Nymph'

Actually I'm wondering if the change of Blade Barrier is a up or a nerf. With a rune template like FR FR FR FR UR BR (which is common, I suppose), you have to use your BR every time it goes up if you don't want to lose the buff. Okay, that's not really hard, but I suppose that sometimes, you'll have maybe 0.5, 1 or 1.5 sec. without blade barrier up. A little dangerous.

Precedently you needed to get all your runes on cooldown (something you do pretty often, anyway), but that was allowing you to refresh blade barrier every 2 seconds, maybe more. So you never had an unstable blank spot in your mitigation.

I'm not against blank spot at all. On the contrary, I think it's way funnier with blank spots. (so you have to take decisions - like using trinkets or special abilities - if you judge that the coming of the blank spot is too risky in some situation) I already said this on the rogue tanking topic (where I explained a method playing on cooldowns and reactivity), but in my opinion, mitigation should be a more ACTIVE play for a tank and the biggest part of his concern, and not a passive stuffing. "Failing" for a tank would be IMHO more designed to be "failing to mitigate" than "failing to generate aggro". At least it has to be 50/50 minimum. Actually, failing is more like "failing to keep aggro". My pride as a tank is not that I can keep the aggro, but that I can take huge amount of damages and still dodge or mitigate them well ; that I can be reactive and use different cycles of mitigation for mitigate differently or better in different situations ; etc. This way of thinking (tank skilled = tank that generates aggro well / tank stuffed : tank that mitigates well) is NOT giving diversity to the gameplay ; on the contrary, it's asking tanks to have some DPS skill (basically, between tanking and DPS for a warrior, I feel the same difference in terms of gameplay as between Affliction DPS and Destruction DPS for a warlock), instead of a different skill, tanking (that would feel as different as healing <-> DPS for a druid). If a least 50% of tank abilities (if not 75 or 90%) were mitigation abilities and cooldowns or mechanics needed to be watched carefully like blade barrier, I feel it would be more logical and enjoyable. I would enjoy a lot spamming mitigation abilities, rather than "DPS" or "DPS that generates aggro" abilities. I would venture to say that this would maybe resolve more cutely (... here you'll sense what's my passion in this world :]) or properly (maybe not more efficiently) the problem of lacking tanks than adding a new hero class will.

About this blankspot, again : the problem is that currently it's not a designed blank spot, but a "borderline" blank spot. Difficult to play with, and not equal to all players eventually. The minimum would be to up the duration from 10 to 12 seconds. That would solve the blankspot problem... But not the quality of the design. (if not 15 - I think the design of this talent will be poor at 15, but it is already poor at 12, and it is very poor at 10 : I'm not fond of talents doing stricly the same thing with different words on the tooltips. Let's give the DK a 2/4/6/8/10% parry chance, if it is for a proc up 100% of the time without skill needed to keep it up. Actually the talent is more fun at 2/5, 3/5 or 4/5, but not efficient at all at this ranks.)

Maybe I'm missing something, as I'm not on the beta server. Do I misunderstand the mechanic of this talent ? (Maybe is this a +10% up all the time when the DK as no rune active, and the 10 sec remaining duration activates only when a rune goes up ?)

If not, I think this talent would be more interesting, gameplay speaking, if it has a longer duration, and a more difficult proc. So you have to think carefully how and when activate it, so that it is always up, or down when you choose to sacrify it for some other benefit.

1) Runes are no longer configurable. You are stuck with BBUUFF setup.
2) With that, BotN makes refreshing it easier by using both Blood death runes on an extra oblit, 1.5 earlier than using 2 blood strikes.
3)Its been noticed that rune cooldowns seem to be on an 8 second rather than 10, but its speculative.
4) Also this means leaving your F and U runes open for extra rune moves.
5) Also missed a move forces the rune to a 2 second cooldown which counts towards rune usage, and refreshes Blade Barrier.

A few pages back someone mentioned a 93% uptime with the new Blade barrier.

Nymph' · 10/07/08, 8:01 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

1) Runes are no longer configurable. You are stuck with BBUUFF setup.

Good lord, that's... stupid. Could you link me the page where this subject has been debated ? I'm interesting in reading the differents opinions about it. I didn't follow this thread during a few monthes, so I'm a little lost. Seems like even if I read carefully the changes, I missed some very important things here.

2) With that, BotN makes refreshing it easier by using both Blood death runes on an extra oblit, 1.5 earlier than using 2 blood strikes.

I don't want to enter in a "cycle" way of thinking, I'm more "case per case". But yeah, if blood death rune do work on blade barrier, then it's of course a good thing. I did not plan to take Blood of the North (I think there are talents way more useful), but if I'm not mistaking, 1/5 BotN is sufficient.

Sad thing is, DK tanks will sometimes end up having 6 death runes on long battles (death rune mastery). Bad design, IMO. But there's a lot of PvP issues behind all these things, I suppose.

3)Its been noticed that rune cooldowns seem to be on an 8 second rather than 10, but its speculative.

Okay. Is haste reducing the cooldown on runes ?

4) Also this means leaving your F and U runes open for extra rune moves.

This is the thing I was actually critisising at the beginning. The fact that you were forced to use all your runes was killing the gameplay. You can't afford waiting for a UR cooldown when you have a big spell damage coming and need to cast AM shield immediatly. Good thing that was changed, but that's not the way I would have done it.

5) Also missed a move forces the rune to a 2 second cooldown which counts towards rune usage, and refreshes Blade Barrier.

I don't know if it is really useful actually, but that's good to know too. DK tank misses a lot. (I guess what you say is true about being parried, blocked or dodged too ?)

Zaroua · 10/07/08, 8:09 PM

I'll touch on a lot of things said in the last few pages.

1) Killing Machine is amazing for deep Frost tanks. The extra threat you get on trash is simply amazing, and the extra threat on bosses is also nothing to scoff at. I'm also a little under 20% chance to crit on melee attacks raid unbuffed and it procs a decent amount even when tanking normal bosses. But the most important thing is how useful it is when you're NOT tanking - it's a great DPS talent.

2) Obliterate hits really, really hard now. IT spam is a thing of the past now that Obliterate hits harder than even Howling Blast for single targets. Of course that assumes Tundra Stalker and the glyph. Just as reference: 7k Obliterate crits in DPS gear against a target dummy with glyph, 7k crits in tanking gear and Frost Presence with raid buffs/debuffs without glyph.

3) Without Hit/Expertise, your rotation becomes chaotic and you either lose disease uptime or you're forced to restarted your rotation and put up diseases while they're still active. Think of it this way: if your Blood Strikes fail to land with Reaping/BotN then you either have to recast it and push back your diseases which means losing ticks, or you ignore it and you can't land an extra SS/Oblit on your next rotation and you're forced to use low damage Blood Strikes again to proc your Death Runes. The same basic idea goes for every spec, except for DW where your raw white damage might outshine a bad rotation.

4) Frost Aura currently stacks with other Frost Auras and other resistances. Twice in a row that I've ran Naxx25 with everyone in the raid sitting at 395 to all resists because of 4 Frost Auras and GotW. It's most likely a bug.

5) Right now the main reasons to go Frost are these: Blood is a joke compared to the other specs and can barely generate enough AoE threat to keep healing aggro. And as Unholy you'll have a harder time picking up every needed talent (Dark Conviction, Lichborne and UB conflict with each other, and you'll want 55+ points in Unholy anyways. Not only that but as Unholy you'll miss out on Frigid Dreadplate. You're also very dependent on RP due to UB being such a big tool for that spec - which directly conflicts with Rune Strike spam. Frost also has ridiculous burst threat with IT > Deathchill > Howling Blast: with that combo bosses stick to you like glue and AoE packs don't even notice that there are other people around you.

6) Last time I checked, DRW did about 450dps while it was up and it proc'd Parries. Gargoyle was doing over 950dps while it was up and it lasted longer - meaning a lot more damage every 3 minute coming from Gargoyle compared to DRW.

7) Blade Barrier is good but it's not amazing. Its biggest downfall is on pulls where you'll be most likely starting with IT > PS > Pest. That means it takes a while to get it to proc and trying to proc it right as the pull starts means you're likely to lose aggro - unless you start with DnD. On bosses the uptime is very good and it only gets better as your hit and expertise go up.

Aeryn · 10/07/08, 8:16 PM

Originally Posted by Nymph'

Okay. Is haste reducing the cooldown on runes ?

Interesting theory. If that's true, Icy Talons would certainly account for those two seconds (20% haste). So, you cast Icy Touch - 10 seconds cooldown, Icy Talons' haste kicks in, 8 seconds cooldown for the rest? Can anyone test? I'm not in beta, unfortunately.

Of course, if Deathknights without Icy Talons see the 8 seconds cooldown too, it must be something else.

tzenes · 10/07/08, 8:35 PM

Originally Posted by Caggy

5) Also missed a move forces the rune to a 2 second cooldown which counts towards rune usage, and refreshes Blade Barrier.

Its down to 1 second Cooldown on miss, however it does still refresh Blade Barrier (assuming you don't have another blood rune up)

It seem that Blade Barrier is refreshed whenever you use your Last blood rune. So if you are ever in a situation with 1 blood rune and you use it, it refreshes.

Originally Posted by Zaroua

5) Right now the main reasons to go Frost are these: Blood is a joke compared to the other specs and can barely generate enough AoE threat to keep healing aggro. And as Unholy you'll have a harder time picking up every needed talent (Dark Conviction, Lichborne and UB conflict with each other, and you'll want 55+ points in Unholy anyways. Not only that but as Unholy you'll miss out on Frigid Dreadplate. You're also very dependent on RP due to UB being such a big tool for that spec - which directly conflicts with Rune Strike spam. Frost also has ridiculous burst threat with IT > Deathchill > Howling Blast: with that combo bosses stick to you like glue and AoE packs don't even notice that there are other people around you.

6) Last time I checked, DRW did about 450dps while it was up and it proc'd Parries. Gargoyle was doing over 950dps while it was up and it lasted longer - meaning a lot more damage every 3 minute coming from Gargoyle compared to DRW.

First off, I agree with you on all points (especially the ones I didn't quote).

I've found Gargoyle to do a little less (650dps), but still much higher than DRW

I did try (for a while) an unholy tank spec with 23 points in frost for Frigid Dreadplate. The dps is less (though not by much) and threat felt about the same. The biggest difference I noticed was that you could have Bone Shield up twice in a row at the beginning of a fight. With the glyph giving you an extra charge, this made short fights, SIGNIFICANTLY easier. However, the lower duration on Ice Bound Fortitude meant that for any fights longer than 2 minutes, you were putting a lot of pressure on your healers.

While I would not recommend it for new tanks it is viable (certainly for offtanking if nothing else). Personally, I have started a love affair with Frost.

Originally Posted by Aeryn

Interesting theory. If that's true, Icy Talons would certainly account for those two seconds (20% haste). So, you cast Icy Touch - 10 seconds cooldown, Icy Talons' haste kicks in, 8 seconds cooldown for the rest? Can anyone test? I'm not in beta, unfortunately.

Of course, if Deathknights without Icy Talons see the 8 seconds cooldown too, it must be something else.

Are you sure it is 8 seconds? not 8.5 seconds (10 - 1GCD)?