WotLK Discussion - Talents and abilities. - Page 102

Leaflock · 10/07/08, 9:04 PM

Originally Posted by Nymph'

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.

...

I don't want to enter in a "cycle" way of thinking, I'm more "case per case".

...

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.

...

Okay. Is haste reducing the cooldown on runes ?

...

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.

Runes haven't been configurable for a very long time. I doubt you'll find a reason in this thread, because the change may pre-date it. In short, it's because of the difficulty in balancing all the possible damage combinations, and also actually keeping the gameplay varied, to be honest. It seems more customizable to choose runes, but the end result would be anything but. If you could choose your own runes, DKs would all pick one spec and only use the best-damage ability available, which is boring.

The BBFFUU rune setup, and cooldowns on abilities, encourages cycles or rotations. I agree with you that I don't like to just rigidly follow one formula, but there is flexibility to be found in using your different abilities in different combinations. Apart from that, you're simply underperforming if you're not using all your runes and runic power in a given period of time.

DKs don't typically end up with six death runes, because our abilities have been balanced to the point where it's preferable to rotate in more than one ability-- keeping up diseases does more overall damage/threat.

Haste doesn't lower the rune cooldown-- you can test the rune timing yourself by only hitting plague strike. The first one in combat will be 10 seconds. Every one after it will be 8. That's not how haste works, anyway-- 20% haste doesn't shave 20% off the time, it gives you 20% more attacks per second in melee, for example. Otherwise, 100% haste would be 0 time, when it's actually 1/2.

Anti-Magic Shield, like most other reactive abilities, consumes Runic Power, not runes. You should never have to wait to use it. There's even a glyph that makes Icebound Fortitude free.

Katsira · 10/07/08, 9:44 PM

Someone a few pages ago had asked for spec/rotation vs DPS.

Premade DK on Murmur - PvP starter gear only. Test done prior to the patch on Oct 7.

Spec: 15/0/56 Unholy Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
2147 DPS on Patchwerk
Rotation: IT > PS > SS > BB > BB > SS > SS > UB
IT > PS > SS > BB > DC > SS > SS > SS

Illundai · 10/07/08, 9:59 PM

I tried the 50/00/21 build just now until the server went down and did significantly more DPS. Sad imo, hope they buff DRW a little bit. That said, I was using this rotation

PS - IT - HS - HS - OB - SG - PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - HS - PS - IT - HS - HS - HS - OB

SG = Summon Gargoyle

The trick here is that you wait 6 seconds after your second HS before you OB. That'll make you lose out of one tick of FF & BP, but that loss is minimal. After that the 8 sec cooldown will do the rest, you'll be able to Obliterate just before your first set of FU runes comes back up, not a moment before. You DC when possible ofcourse, but you should try and feed your Gargoyle the max amount of Runic Power, so it lasts 1 minute.

Caggy · 10/07/08, 10:44 PM

Hum, Have you tried doing DRW with Hysteria up? One of the benefits of DRW was it carries over more of your melee stats than Gargoyle, which I believe is just AP.

Deathwing · 10/07/08, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by tzenes

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.

Are you suggesting that IBF be used as an average mitigation tool? I was planning on using Unbreakable Armor/Bone Shield for known periods of high damage. If the fight doesn't have that, just use it on cooldown. Lichborne to stop unlucky hit streaks. And IBF as sort of a backup for both those categories

Daedalix · 10/08/08, 12:36 AM

A combination of IBF, Blade Barrier, Unbreakable Armor, and Frigid Deathplate (or Boneshield if you are Unholy) are almost necessary in order to match the mitigation that the other tanking classes can provide. IT gives Thunderclap. There's no Demo Shout equivalent. We have significant Armor multipliers but that just about makes up for not having a shield. Our magic-mitigation makes us shine (something other classes have no equivalent of). But aside from wisely chaining mitigation cooldowns, we're rather susceptible to damage when you compare talents and abilities that warriors and other tanks have access to.

Conceptually, I'm looking at our mitigation cooldowns as our "Shield Block"/"Holy Shield" button.

Deathwing · 10/08/08, 1:04 AM

I would put Unbreakable Armor/Bone Shield as equivalent to Shield Block and Barkskin. Kinda hard to find another ability on any class that operates quite like Holy Shield.

Demo shout/Demo Roar/CoW should be provided if the tank cannot, it's too important of a debuff and it really shouldn't be considered in a raiding mitigation conversation as a comparison point.

As for matching the mitigation of other tanks, I don't think people realize a DK's avoidance advantage at least puts them on par with other tanks. And whether you use all your short cooldowns ON cooldown or not, there's still going to be periods where you're not under AU/BS or IBF or Lichborne, and you'll be more susceptible to spike damage then.

Now, because DK's have relatively high avoidance, their chance at getting killed from spike damage at any given time is actually lower than other classes, even a bear. However, paladins and warriors take a bit longer to kill, and bears noticeably longer, but the point still stands, chance of 100% -> 0% is actually lowest on a DK. That's why I thought it best to at least hold Lichborne in reserve for those types of situations. IBF, you could probably use as both since it's only a minute cooldown.

• Lanky · 10/08/08, 1:04 AM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

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).
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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.
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I think I would drop hungering cold before rune tap however.

Some points:

1. Blood Strike gains 15%, not 3%. from the 5/5 talent, so referencing 3% gains over 1% crit is a misnomer, since no one in their right mind would ever take less than 5/5 Blood of the North. Its maxed or bust.

2. I could see dropping Hungering cold for Rune Tap, except it applies Frost Fever...

3. Removing Frost Fever is not necessarily removing your TC debuff, especially since you may have a warrior specced imp. TC. That said, points into annihilation would absolutely be worthwhile if we discover that to be a concern. Als a nice place to grab 3% crit as you mentioned.

4. You are probably right about Scent of Blood, but not about it proc %. It would probably be much closer to 45 RP a minute as a guess, but even 45 RP é min does not really compare to Acclimation's possible spell mitigation or the solid nature of the annihilation talent, as I have come to see.

5. Rune Tap, fully talented, would be worth it. Otherwise, honestly... it really really is not. Not for tanking. I am not sure how to convey this beyond comparing it to a potion. You don't spec into potions or alchemy to gain better benefits from pots. You can't rely on your own abilities to heal you when tanking. Just no. Far too much incoming damage. Healers want you to mitigate first, avoid next, and then out threat them. That's it.

Janraea · 10/08/08, 1:22 AM

I haven't seen much discussion of the 8s cooldowns - I assume we're all just waiting to see if they're a bug before getting too happy? If they're not, I have a new favorite spec.

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

I'll be sitting in unholy presence, with an 8s rotation like PS, IT, IT, FS, BS, Oblit, FS, [HB/FS]. That last gcd is empty unless we have some spare rune power built up (there's a net gain of 5 rp per 8s, and you get an extra 20 any time rime procs) or rime just procced (HB is left off the rotation so rime procs are all gravy).

All the theorycraft that says that blood presence > unholy depends on the fact that, even in our spammiest spec (deep frost), we can't gain enough dps from the extra gcds to make losing 15% damage on specials worthwhile - with 8s rune cooldowns, this is no longer true.

Flamingcloud · 10/08/08, 1:22 AM

Originally Posted by Lanky

Some points:

1. Blood Strike gains 15%, not 3%. from the 5/5 talent, so referencing 3% gains over 1% crit is a misnomer, since no one in their right mind would ever take less than 5/5 Blood of the North. Its maxed or bust.

2. I could see dropping Hungering cold for Rune Tap, except it applies Frost Fever...

3. Removing Frost Fever is not necessarily removing your TC debuff, especially since you may have a warrior specced imp. TC. That said, points into annihilation would absolutely be worthwhile if we discover that to be a concern. Als a nice place to grab 3% crit as you mentioned.

4. You are probably right about Scent of Blood, but not about it proc %. It would probably be much closer to 45 RP a minute as a guess, but even 45 RP é min does not really compare to Acclimation's possible spell mitigation or the solid nature of the annihilation talent, as I have come to see.

5. Rune Tap, fully talented, would be worth it. Otherwise, honestly... it really really is not. Not for tanking. I am not sure how to convey this beyond comparing it to a potion. You don't spec into potions or alchemy to gain better benefits from pots. You can't rely on your own abilities to heal you when tanking. Just no. Far too much incoming damage. Healers want you to mitigate first, avoid next, and then out threat them. That's it.

I don't see what your talking about. 1 rank of blood of the north = 3% dmg for blood strike, if you don't want to compare that vs 1% crit than compare 15% bloodstrike vs 5% crit, or even 15% blood strike vs 3% crit and 10% froststrike, howlingblast, and icy touch. Even ignoring the 1% crit from blood talent, annihilation & glacier rot are both far superior within frost. +5% froststrike, howlingblast, icy touch is way better than 3% bloodstrike.

There will be plenty of circumstances where a warrior won't be able to keep tclap up for you, especially when you could be doing it at no loss.

Scent of Blood will never give you 45RP a minute, thats the perfect best case scenario, which would require you to get hit hundreds of times a minute, and thats for 3/3. One rank of scent will most likely give you either 5 or 10 in a minute. A boss probably connects with you 10-15 times in a minute with attacks/abiltities when you are over 60% evasion. I think 5-10 runic power per minute per rank is a fair estimate.

Hungercold isn't worth 60rp just to put up frost fever. Only fights I an see any value for this talent are gothik, and gluth.. to a lesser extent kt and noth. It is really nice on gluth if you are kiting. It is probably impossible to know how many times runetap might help you more than that. It is like vampiric blood, it is deceptively good because you can't ever really tell when it saves you from dying. I am pretty sure I will drop it when I am completely done with 5/10man as it becomes a lot worse.

tzenes · 10/08/08, 1:24 AM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

Are you suggesting that IBF be used as an average mitigation tool? I was planning on using Unbreakable Armor/Bone Shield for known periods of high damage. If the fight doesn't have that, just use it on cooldown. Lichborne to stop unlucky hit streaks. And IBF as sort of a backup for both those categories

I've found the best use is:

IBF or UA/BS every 30 seconds and Lichbourne as an "Oh Shit!" button

Leaflock · 10/08/08, 1:56 AM

Originally Posted by Janraea

I haven't seen much discussion of the 8s cooldowns - I assume we're all just waiting to see if they're a bug before getting too happy? If they're not, I have a new favorite spec.

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

I'll be sitting in unholy presence, with an 8s rotation like PS, IT, IT, FS, BS, Oblit, FS, [HB/FS]. That last gcd is empty unless we have some spare rune power built up (there's a net gain of 5 rp per 8s, and you get an extra 20 any time rime procs) or rime just procced (HB is left off the rotation so rime procs are all gravy).

All the theorycraft that says that blood presence > unholy depends on the fact that, even in our spammiest spec (deep frost), we can't gain enough dps from the extra gcds to make losing 15% damage on specials worthwhile - with 8s rune cooldowns, this is no longer true.

I thought this might be true, which is why I tested it with Blood spec a page or two back. Here's a better summary of what I decided:

The idea that 8 second rune cooldown makes Unholy presence the better presence is based on the assumption that, to do max dps, we need to burn every rune ability at the precise moment the rune pops up. This is a reasonable assumption, since rogue energy mechanics require you to avoid capping out on energy, warriors try not to waste rage, etc.

Death Knights, however, have two resources to manage, both of which return at steady and predictable rates. Our runic power abilities (particularly DC, FS) have been buffed to the point where they can do a significant portion of our dps, and so they shouldn't be considered secondary to rune-using abilities. Max dps has to be a balance of spending both resources appropriately. Any rune attack you use that caps you out on runic power is wasting potential dps.

I think Unholy presence and Blood presence come out pretty close. The key point, though, is that freeing up GCDs inside the 8 second rune cooldown window is not the huge advantage it might seem. 15% more damage and spending GCDs on runic power abilities despite rune cooldowns actually did more dps overall for me.

Katsira · 10/08/08, 3:25 AM

If you stay in Unholy Presence, you'll be rune-starved as far as I've experienced. Blood Presence allows for smoother rotations unless you're under a hard enrage timer (30 seconds until Patchwerk or Thaddius enrage, for example), then Unholy Presence appears to be more beneficial when popping Empowered Rune Weapon to switch stance and then dump everything you have at it for a final burn.

The absolute worst thing is seeing "No more runes." popping up on my screen, and this happens in Unholy Presence far too often in PvE situations.

Ultimate · 10/08/08, 5:25 AM

A lot of people seem to forget that haste doesn't effect a ton of DK dmg. I mean for one it doesn't effect dot tick speed or dmg. Our game play pretty much revolves around diseases. Unholy Presence wont effect UB, death and decay, and a few other things. Blood is superior for dps.

Randyll · 10/08/08, 6:22 AM

Originally Posted by Ultimate

A lot of people seem to forget that haste doesn't effect a ton of DK dmg. I mean for one it doesn't effect dot tick speed or dmg. Our game play pretty much revolves around diseases. Unholy Presence wont effect UB, death and decay, and a few other things. Blood is superior for dps.

Unless I'm mistaken the majority of Death Knight dps comes from melee. As a result, haste is not so worthless as you point it out to be.

Looks like the recent change hasn't been discussed here yet:

Originally Posted by mmo-champion.com

Ebon Plague now increases damage done by diseases by 30%. (Down from 60%)

Might have a significant effect on unholy DPS. Has anyone tested it yet with an Unholy DPS build?

Leitwolf · 10/08/08, 6:27 AM

Tested a lot of skilltrees and combinations on betaservers and me going to be maintank of a 10 man raidgroup in LK i thaught using a build like this ->

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

Actually i am not sure if DW will be a nice way for a tanking DK, but if thats going to be true i think something like this

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

would do.

What do you guys think about this specs (as tanking spec) and how much damage potential do i lose compare to a true dps spec ???

btw: howling blast kicks ass, specially because if it crits, it crits on every mob in damagerange (bug? ^^). With level 61 my HB crits for about 1.9K damage per mob on frost feaver infected mobs, damn nice and i´m pretty sure a ton of agro for multi mob tanking purposes

.

With unholy getting nerfed and blood beeing a nice single target dps tree i think frost fits best for balanced single and aoe tanking threat, plus a lot of optimal talents and tools for tanking survivability.

Ah ... and talking about group composition for 10 man raid, i think something like this MMO-Champion RaidComp will be our raidgroup.

Xequecal · 10/08/08, 6:41 AM

What do you guys think of this spec for a straight-up tank spec (not worried about DPS)

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

I tried to pack in as much mitigation, stamina, and healing as possible. It's lacking some threat talents, but threat seems high enough that this doesn't seem like it will be an issue.

On a single target, just put up IT and then spam Obliterate and Blood Strike, occasionally replacing a Blood Strike with an IT to keep up the disease. Obviously use Rune Strike when it lights up. If you get far ahead in threat you can start spamming Death Strike instead to help heal yourself. Nothing besides Rune Strike uses Runic Power, so you can take Glyph of Death Strike for +60% to its healing/damage because you'll sit around at 120-130 RP all the time. With a Minor Glyph you can also heal yourself with Death Coil for 20 RP, which combined with Death Strike spam could probably save you from a bad situation.

Tanking multiple targets is easy, just cast IT, Pestilence, Howling Blast. Can Pestilence be used to sustain IT on multiple targets indefinitely, without ever recasting it? I think it can, but I'm not sure.

Kharnator · 10/08/08, 6:55 AM

"Death Knight tanking seems really broken to me - it worked for a while but now it either lacks damage reduction or TPS. Death Knight AoE tanking is poor at best, Blood Boil and Pestilence don't work as well as you'd think and to really get the most out of disease tanking, you need to spec into unholy but recent talent changes have made this worthless in my eyes - diseases require insane amounts of AP and the talent which would be best for AoE tanking requires melee crit-rating. Death Knights are limitted to tanking trash and 10-mans now, unless they get some serious changes in the next couple of weeks, warriors will be better caster tanks.
For a tank designed to tank casters, it seems -really- stupid to give them the worst reduction to magical damage of any tank (And the restiance talents they have are pitiful to personal magical damage reduction)."

This is what somebody said on realm forums about Death Knight tanking, stating that they have played in beta. Is this true? I have stated previously that I have no access to the beta 10 or 25man tanking in Naxxramas etc, so I am just wondering if Death Knights are as gimped as this man states - I have so far gotten the imperssion that the Death Knights are maybe even the second best AOE tanks at the moment in the game.
How is DK tanking? Are DK's able to maintank raids?

Illundai · 10/08/08, 7:22 AM

Originally Posted by Caggy

Hum, Have you tried doing DRW with Hysteria up? One of the benefits of DRW was it carries over more of your melee stats than Gargoyle, which I believe is just AP.

Doesn't matter all too much, 50/00/21 still comes out on top for me. Perhaps it's different in a raid setting and DRW comes out on top with all the raid buffs? I suppose some math wizz can figure that out.

Nymph' · 10/08/08, 7:33 AM

Originally Posted by Leaflock

Runes haven't been configurable for a very long time. I doubt you'll find a reason in this thread, because the change may pre-date it. In short, it's because of the difficulty in balancing all the possible damage combinations, and also actually keeping the gameplay varied, to be honest. It seems more customizable to choose runes, but the end result would be anything but. If you could choose your own runes, DKs would all pick one spec and only use the best-damage ability available, which is boring.

I see your point. It's true that I keep focusing on DK tanking, where this is IMO not an issue (you pay the price if you go for FR FR FR FR FR FR...) ; but DK DPS is another thing.

I recall we were talking about rune template here a few monthes ago, so it's not that old ; but whatever. I don't like changes that look like a defeat ("that was a little too complicated to balanced so we prefered some simplification") but sometimes it's better not lose time on certain mechanics or ideas too risky, I suppose.

However, there is abilities or cooldowns (procs like blade barrier for example) that would have solve the problem more cutely I think, forcing to use different abilities to refresh proc, or because some others are on cooldowns. One way or another, I admit that the result is the same ; but I prefer going for FR FR BR BR UR UR because it is better for me than being forced to use it. Or chose FR FR FR UR UR BR because in this fight, I think it's actually better.

The problem with rune template is the classical one : while you can never balance a spec (there will always be one more efficient, event if it's for 0.1%), you could design the global thing so that the most efficient is not always the same - ideally, the most efficient would be equally different for each battle, and would give different possibilities in the rest of the game, without restricting too much each character to one type of battle. I think it's actually well done for tanks, for example (all are specific, different and useful in all situations, but more in certain ones).

That's damn hard to design. I think there is improvements to do on the PvP vs PvE gestion ; a lot of issues are coming from the lack of flexibility of the conversion system. The more you distance PvP and PvE mechanics (= the more you fail to create, originally, a flexible system), the more you will encounter problems when dealing with balance specs.

Feral Tree is a good example of a non-cute but efficient system. There was no way to create a cute system (Druid can do too much things unrelated with each others ; that's good, but that's the inverse of wisard for example, and you totally feel it when you open the talent tree), by the way, so it's okay. You can create talents that have different effects in PvE and in PvP, like they are talents that do different effects in Bear and Cat form. That's not cute at all, but that would be way more efficient/interesting than simply destroy part of gameplay because some interesting talent in PvE is just outpowered in PvP.

That already exists : Curse of Doom that doesn't work on PCs, for exemple.

Anti-Magic Shield, like most other reactive abilities, consumes Runic Power, not runes. You should never have to wait to use it. There's even a glyph that makes Icebound Fortitude free.

There was a time when AM shield costed 1 UR, I think. Another thing that changed, I suppose... The idea of keeping runes for too long was actually not better than having to use them immediatly.

5. Rune Tap, fully talented, would be worth it. Otherwise, honestly...

For 1 pt talent, I won't think one second of not taking it. Another "oh shit" button is largely worth 1 pt.

( Edit : actually my tank spec is the following one : http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...00000000000000 )

Zaroua · 10/08/08, 7:58 AM

As usual, making some points for people asking for them:

1) Haste is pretty terrible for DKs. Outside of helping a DK's melee attack and slightly increasing the proc chance of Killing Machine (which in itself isn't too big of a deal unless you're DW Frost, which I believe to be inferior to 2H Frost at the moment), it does absolutely nothing. Now I'm sure it'll be very easy to model how haste plays as a stats depending on the builds used - anything with Necrosis/BCB getting far better results than any other spec - but in the end, haste won't affect the vast majority of your damage for single target fights on which your melee damage can vary from low 20% to mid 30%. And let's not forget that it doesn't do squat anytime you need to do AoE damage - which is almost all the time in Naxx/CoA.

2) For Xequecal's spec - the self healing gimmick that people seem to take for granted when it comes to DK tank has only really applied to one fight so far: a DK soloing Baron Rivendare on the 4H encounter in Naxx10 for 6-7 marks. But that's only possible when you "overgear" or "outskill" the instance - and it's doable as Frost or Unholy spec too. Same goes for Lichborne self healing.
For Blood Tap to be useful for a 4 point talent, you need to have a Blood/Death Rune active - and you will never, ever pick up Death Rune Mastery in a tank spec (I'll cover this below). If your Blood Runes aren't cooling down, you lose 10% avoidance. Losing 10% avoidance isn't worth relying on things to go wrong or having a healer related problem. Other than that, most if not all of your RP goes into Rune Strike spam, unless you have Blessing of Sanctuary on you, in which case you'd want to use Frost Strike/Death Coil. The problem is that Death Coil is pretty bad when you're in Frost Presence and when you have absolutely no modifiers attached to it. And Runic Power Mastery is also a waste in a tank spec because all you lose is a tiny bit of threat if you're buffed with Sanctuary and if you get an amazing string of both incoming and ougoing avoidance where you won't be able to dump your RP because your rotation was shot to hell.

3) As for switching Presences in combat - no matter how you look at it, you still lose DPS from swapping. There's also the problem that DK tanks are the only tanking class with a truly prohibitive "start tanking stuff in combat" system with their tanking "buff" can be put on cooldown - a cooldown that can only be breached through use of other long cooldowns.

4) The Crypt Fever change also nerfs the DPS of non-Unholy specs and doesn't pressure a raid with more than 1 DK to bring Ebon Plaguebringer over. Although Pestilence and AoE packs make the ability almost a requirement still.

5) And for Kharnator: the guy who typed that out is clueless and an alarmist, potentially a whiner too. The problem seems to be that he tried to tank as Blood with all the nerfs the tree suffered in the past 5-6 weeks. The Blood tree is in a pathetic shape right now when it comes to tanking because it lacks AoE as the guy you quoted mentioned. But lacking AoE means they're pitiful trash tanks. So not a very reliable person to listen to.
In any case, the deep Blood tree is clearly inferior to deep Frost or Unholy right now, especially for tanking. Not only that, but DRW doesn't help tanking in any way, shape or form - to the point where the parries the DRW generates and the loss of threat (I'm assuming that the weapon doesn't generate threat for you - something to test) and survivability from using your RP on it makes it a terrible talent. Not that it's any good compared to Gargoyle anyways.

6) For DRM in a tank build (and deep Blood in general). With Frost and Unholy you won't have the talents to spare on it. Even if you did, Frost and Unholy don't need their FU runes to be converted to Death Runes since both specs are quite efficient at converting them to good, reliable DPS/TPS. In a Blood build, well Blood build as I've said in my previous point, is a joke right now. First things first: with a Blood tanking build you're forced to spend at least 11 points in Frost for Lichborne and 10 points in Unholy for Epidemic, Morbidity and Anticipation - though you could technically cut back on Anticipation. While tanking you just cannot allow yourself to re-apply diseases every rotation. So you'll end up with something like this with only a few points to spare.
Will of the Necropolis is completely laughable now that they removed the expertise from it. The only talent that compares with it is Ardent Defender from Paladins, a talent that most Paladins will consider borderline pointless outside of trivial content. And DKs get WotN which is a true "slap to the face" talent - it doesn't synergize with any of the other talents in the tree, especially with Blood Gorged - it's completely inferior to Ardent Defender in every way shape or form except 1: you only have to waste 3 points in it to max it out. And that's only with the armor buff in mind - the AMS cooldown reduction is almost a joke in PvE because any source of magic damage that would so hard hitting and dangerous would either ignore AMS or would be badly designed if AMS were required to beat. It's a nice little addition to the talent but completely futile since you don't even have the points to spare for it. Your rotation would end up being IT > PS > Oblit > HS > HS > Oblit > Oblit > HS > HS and the less GCDs you need to use while tanking the better, so changing the rotation for more HS spam would only cause more parries and put extra strain on your GCD usage, which is always under pressure while tanking.

Xequecal · 10/08/08, 8:21 AM

Originally Posted by Zaroua

2) For Xequecal's spec - the self healing gimmick that people seem to take for granted when it comes to DK tank has only really applied to one fight so far: a DK soloing Baron Rivendare on the 4H encounter in Naxx10 for 6-7 marks. But that's only possible when you "overgear" or "outskill" the instance - and it's doable as Frost or Unholy spec too. Same goes for Lichborne self healing.
For Blood Tap to be useful for a 4 point talent, you need to have a Blood/Death Rune active - and you will never, ever pick up Death Rune Mastery in a tank spec (I'll cover this below). If your Blood Runes aren't cooling down, you lose 10% avoidance. Losing 10% avoidance isn't worth relying on things to go wrong or having a healer related problem. Other than that, most if not all of your RP goes into Rune Strike spam, unless you have Blessing of Sanctuary on you, in which case you'd want to use Frost Strike/Death Coil. The problem is that Death Coil is pretty bad when you're in Frost Presence and when you have absolutely no modifiers attached to it. And Runic Power Mastery is also a waste in a tank spec because all you lose is a tiny bit of threat if you're buffed with Sanctuary and if you get an amazing string of both incoming and ougoing avoidance where you won't be able to dump your RP because your rotation was shot to hell.

Does Blade Barrier not proc if you have any Death Runes active? I thought it would still proc even if you had a Death Rune up, as long as all your "regular" Blood Runes were on CD. This blue post seems to imply that it will work even with Death Runes up:

1) Blade Barrier now procs when your Blood Runes are inactive. While the initial implementation of this ability was fun, as we added Death Rune mechanics it became harder to use, and the fast recharge on missed attacks made it even harder. Now it should be up almost all the time.

And why would you need to use Frost Strike/Death Coil? I don't understand. Yes, it's more DPS. But if you're the tank, your DPS doesn't matter much. If you can hold aggro without blowing FS/DC, why not just sit on your maxxed Runic Power and use it to heal yourself when needed? Your job is to hold aggro and stay alive, not do DPS.

Originally Posted by Zaroua

6) For DRM in a tank build (and deep Blood in general). With Frost and Unholy you won't have the talents to spare on it. Even if you did, Frost and Unholy don't need their FU runes to be converted to Death Runes since both specs are quite efficient at converting them to good, reliable DPS/TPS. In a Blood build, well Blood build as I've said in my previous point, is a joke right now. First things first: with a Blood tanking build you're forced to spend at least 11 points in Frost for Lichborne and 10 points in Unholy for Epidemic, Morbidity and Anticipation - though you could technically cut back on Anticipation. While tanking you just cannot allow yourself to re-apply diseases every rotation. So you'll end up with something like this with only a few points to spare.
Will of the Necropolis is completely laughable now that they removed the expertise from it. The only talent that compares with it is Ardent Defender from Paladins, a talent that most Paladins will consider borderline pointless outside of trivial content. And DKs get WotN which is a true "slap to the face" talent - it doesn't synergize with any of the other talents in the tree, especially with Blood Gorged - it's completely inferior to Ardent Defender in every way shape or form except 1: you only have to waste 3 points in it to max it out. And that's only with the armor buff in mind - the AMS cooldown reduction is almost a joke in PvE because any source of magic damage that would so hard hitting and dangerous would either ignore AMS or would be badly designed if AMS were required to beat. It's a nice little addition to the talent but completely futile since you don't even have the points to spare for it. Your rotation would end up being IT > PS > Oblit > HS > HS > Oblit > Oblit > HS > HS and the less GCDs you need to use while tanking the better, so changing the rotation for more HS spam would only cause more parries and put extra strain on your GCD usage, which is always under pressure while tanking.

The build I linked was 23/44/4. It's not "deep blood." If Death Rune Mastery is infeasible, you can just drop it for 3/5 Dark Conviction. I don't understand why Epidemic and Morbidity are required. You have Howling Blast for AE threat, you don't need the reduced D&D cooldown. When tanking a single target, Obliterate/Death Strike and Blood Strike are your main attacks, so you don't need Epidemic either, as you can use a Death Rune from Blood of the North to refresh Icy Touch. If you're tanking multiple targets you can keep Icy Touch up with Pestilence alone.

Kharnator · 10/08/08, 8:21 AM

TL;DR version - Death Knights scale terribly with gear.

Q u o t e:
One of the reasons Bladed Armor was changed to atk was because strength was increasing warrior mitigation relative to DKs too much by increasing block value. Yet DKs also gain defense from strength. It shouldn't matter to relative mitigation how much strength is added as long as it is the same for both classes, yet it does (and of course the talent was too good for warriors, but not DKs). Perhaps we should take a look at exactly how much defense tank classes are getting from strength.

Item Value from Strength
Warriors and paladins gain 0.5 block amount for every point of strength (2 strength = 1 block amount). DKs gain 0.25 parry rating per point of strength. 1 parry rating is 1 item point. The item value of block is amount*0.65. Thus we get this:

Warrior/Paladin: 1 strength = 0.5 block amount = 0.5*0.65 = 0.325 item points of defense per point of strength
DK: 1 strength = 0.25 parry rating = 0.25 item points = 0.25 item points of defense per point of strength

It appears at first glance that warriors and paladins are gaining roughly 1/3 more defensive value per point of strength compared to DKs.

However, both warriors and paladins have talents that increase block amount by 30% (Shield Mastery - Thottbot: World of Warcraft Redoubt - Thottbot: World of Warcraft). Additionally, parry rating is more costly per point of avoidance than any other defensive stat because it includes a psuedo haste effect. When talking pure defense it's better to compare to dodge rating, which is 80% as costly as parry rating (especially considering how questionable in value haste is for DKs, even more so for tanking DKs). Thus a more real world comparison of defensive scaling is:

Warrior/Paladin: 1 strength = 0.5 block amount = 0.5*0.65 = 0.325 * 1.3 = 0.4225 item points
DK: 1 strength = 0.25 parry = 0.2 dodge = 0.2 item points

Which brings warrior/paladin defense scaling from strength to a level 2x higher than a DK. Warriors, however, have the new Shield Block (Shield Block - Thottbot: World of Warcraft) which is +100% block amount for 10 seconds every 40 seconds (protection spec), which averages out to an increase in block amount of 25%:

Warrior: 1 strength = 0.4225*1.25 = 0.528 item points
DK: 1 strength = 0.2 item points

Or to put it another way, Warriors gain 2.5x as much defensive item value per point of strength than a DK.

Let's look at other stats to see if maybe DKs get some extra boost someplace else to make up the difference.

Defense
Defense as a stat includes block rating, but block rating does not work on DKs. The end result of this is defense, per point, provides 11% less item value on a DK than it provides to a warrior or paladin.

Parry - Diminishing Returns
A new feature in wotlk is avoidance stat diminishing returns. Every 100 dodge/parry rating is roughly 95% as effective as the last, i.e. 95%, 90%, 86%, 81%, etc. This is applied to the DK parry rating given by Forceful Deflection (Forceful Deflection - Thottbot: World of Warcraft). Assuming 800 strength and thus 200 parry rating, all parry rating gear worn by a DK is 90% as effective as it is for other tanks.

Overall Item Scaling
Even if DKs are tweaked and balanced for Naxx, they will inevitably lose tanking ability with every item tier as they lose 62% of each strength point, 11% of each defense rating and 10% of each parry rating. It's an ever-widening gap.

Given how competitive end game raiding is, just one of these stat reductions is enough for most guilds to sit their DK until the gimmick fight. The content doesn't care about a few percentage points here or there, but people do. To put it another way, would you want to be tanking for your guild when you know you're not the best choice to do it? That you're making it harder for them to progress? I bet you also kick puppies. You mean bastard.

Block Balance
Block as a mechanic works better on faster/weaker/multiple attackers but worse on slower/harder/fewer attackers. Starting from the point tanks are balanced, harder hitting mobs are better tanked by non-block classes, while weaker or multiple mobs are better tanked by block classes.

The current balance point for all tanks is the 25 man boss mob, hence why druids were found to be mitigating too much. Anything that hits harder than a 25 man boss mob is best tanked by a DK or druid, a class of opponents that is currently empty, and even if it did exist, would eat tanks like popcorn. Everything else, including 10 man bosses, 5 man bosses, typical multi-mob group pulls and large scale multi-mob AE pulls are all better tanked by a block class.

EDIT: Source WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> Block

jaxdahl · 10/08/08, 8:50 AM

Originally Posted by Xequecal

Does Blade Barrier not proc if you have any Death Runes active? I thought it would still proc even if you had a Death Rune up, as long as all your "regular" Blood Runes were on CD. This blue post seems to imply that it will work even with Death Runes up:

I just tested Blade Barrier with Blood of the North and Death Rune Mastery. The only situations Blade Barrier becomes active or refreshes are when:

1) Both blood runes are on cooldown (A blood rune that is ready to use as a death rune from BotN will not allow BB to become active or be refreshed)
2) A rune is used when #1 is true (Using Icy Touch when both blood runes are on cooldown will refresh BB)

A Unholy or Frost rune as a Death Rune will not prevent Blade Barrier from activating.

They boosted frost presence from 45% to 60% so DKs now get 1.15*1.6=1.84x multiplier on their armor from items. I'm currently sitting at 27626 armor, 64.46% damage reduction.

Darkrenown · 10/08/08, 8:55 AM

Couldn't a Blood tank with DRM do something like this on an AoE pack: Put up diseases, Pest, Bloodboil, Blood tap, Bloodboil, Oblit. Then on the 2nd rotation you've got 4 Bloodboils. Or just D&D, put up diseases, Pest, Blood tap, BB.

It might be nice if Blood had an easier AoE though, maybe something like WotN could add a "Blood explosion" effect to D&D. As well as the normal effect of D&D casting it hits all enemies in it's area for ~1000 dmg (idealy a lower base dmg and some scaling from AP) for a bit more snap aggro.

@tzenes: It might be 8.5 secs, but it's hard to tell. Runewatch only shows whole numbers and with the lag on the beta it'd be really hard to notice 0.5 secs either way.

Edit: @ Kharnator: Someone here earlier said The parry from forceful deflection is NOT affected by diminishing returns, whoever your quoting says it is. He's also not counting that FP makes DKs scale better with HP and armour. I don't know if that's enough to make up for the loss of block, but it shouldn't be ignored.