Blade Barrier will, upon using your second blood rune, give you a 10s duration buff granting +10% parry. This buff, as of the last time I saw it, will refresh each time you put all your runes on cooldown, that is, "empty your rune bar", so to speak. If it drops, however, the only way to get it back is use both blood runes. It's pretty good.
As a frost tank, I had nearly 100% uptime on Blade Barrier once I got the first 2 Blood Strikes off. It is an essential DK tanking talent, as it's pretty much 10% passive physical avoidance assuming you're awake and at your keyboard.
It would be good if the crit rating section explained which of our spells and abilities can crit, which ones use melee or spell critical chance, and how wandering plague works. If you think this section would grow too large, you could make it a separate section.
If I got it right, all spells/abilities that can crit (i.e. not DoTs) crit for 200%. We have a passive that makes all our spells crit for 200%.
About the new DK threads, I would at least suggest a sticky DK FAQ, with all the basic to medium advanced questions. This would be from how to create a dk, how the starting zone works to quick specs explanations (i.e. Get unholy to lvl)
Base of the racials that effect DKs. I think it is either obvious when all in one place what is good for what, or you can add in short explanations of the benefits of each racial. I can't figure out how to post the code for a different thread, but just ask me and I can send it in a text file.
Obviously the expertise from Humans could help a tank as well but if you really are intent on min/maxing those are your options.
I, for one, am going to have a hard time not picking gnome. In the end I'll probably pick human...but it'll be tough.
Dwarves get more expertise for alliance DPS, so they're probably a slightly better choice. Since DKs don't have weap specs, being mace is not an issue, contrary to wars who will prefer being human due to having expertise on sword which is better than mace.
But I agree race choice is actually quite easy. If you only care about on aspect of pve, the choices are very limited. It's not too hard to see a class like BEs get absolutely nothing for DPS while orc gets a ton, and it's the basic knowledge from other classes too. The only part that's arguable is when you bring pvp into the mix, because stuff like wotf or arcane torrent become very valuable.
Obviously the expertise from Humans could help a tank as well but if you really are intent on min/maxing those are your options.
I, for one, am going to have a hard time not picking gnome. In the end I'll probably pick human...but it'll be tough.
No offense but humans are definitely not the best for DPS - on a pure percentile basis, the 1% hit of a draenei is superior in and of itself, the fact that it also affects your group, spellhit for yourself, and isn't weapon dependent is icing on the cake. The only case that isn't true in is if you've already got a draenei in your group (Which without stacking shaman is going to depend on your guild). Similarly, while you're counting your weapon selection already being just swords and maces as a human, you can simply go dwarf and cut it to just maces and gain more than you do as a human, and stoneform can be a (pretty small) ap boost with bladed armor as well.
Humans are definitely a solid choice dps-wise, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as you're making it.
No offense but humans are definitely not the best for DPS - on a pure percentile basis, the 1% hit of a draenei is superior in and of itself, the fact that it also affects your group, spellhit for yourself, and isn't weapon dependent is icing on the cake. The only case that isn't true in is if you've already got a draenei in your group (Which without stacking shaman is going to depend on your guild). Similarly, while you're counting your weapon selection already being just swords and maces as a human, you can simply go dwarf and cut it to just maces and gain more than you do as a human, and stoneform can be a (pretty small) ap boost with bladed armor as well.
Humans are definitely a solid choice dps-wise, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as you're making it.
Odds there won't be another Draenei somewhere in your raid: Extremely Low
As for Dwarves they do get the 2 more expertise but it's limited to only maces, and we all know Swords usually end up getting itemized better.
DKs are a new class, unlike all the other classes.
What would you want a leveling thread for? Leveling a DK is just as easy as any other class even though it's a "new" class. The three specs are all viable leveling specs, gearing is quite straightforward, just go for Strength, Crit and Hit and "rotations" while leveling don't really matter either, non-elites usually die before the first rotation is even finished.
I just can't see a need of a DK leveling thread that's not that useful currently and will be totally useless in a few weeks.
@PvE Races:
Alliance: Human - The expertise is averagely as good as Dwarf's expertise, having a free insignia may prove useful in quite a few encounters, the reputation boost is a nice additional benefit.
Horde: Orc - Expertise with axes and Bloodfury, best PvE race hands down.
That's if your DK is mainly a damage dealer of course, most guilds will probably stay with their MTs so I don't think there will be many DK MTs out there.
2 Things:
It would be good to have known numbers associated with DKs (spell coefficients for one). Hit/expertise caps for dps. Those could change and are long down the road but if we don't know them we should say so... people will ask anyway.
DK threads will prolly end up like the Hunter threads. One for New DKs who have no idea and need help and then other threads for tanking/dps. The goal of a TTT article is a sound one, though down the road. Don't want that one bloated with dumb questions either. When the expansion hits, I'd hope inexperienced folks would look elsewhere when asking their questions. Having threads per-role is wise (like the warrior threads), otherwise we'll get tanking discussion and dps discussion back to back in the Unholy thread, etc.
In regards to a leveling thread: If you're on this site, and reading it critically, you are probably somewhat intelligent. We're all here to find the tiny variances in what makes the 'best' and the highest end of raiding. If you can't figure out how to level or what talents are probably handy to do that, you're probably not even at this site to begin with.
Blade barrier is undervalued? It is one of the best tanking talents in the entire game. It triggers anytime you have 0 blood runes available. So if you go from 1 available to 0 it triggers, or if you go from 2 available to 0 it triggers(lets say your two blood runes were death runes and you obliterated).
Thanks for the info! I said that it's undervalued because I rarely see it on anyone's talent calcs, in fact, I've never seen it in anyone's talent build. The typical blood build has 2/2 Butchery, 3/3 Subersion, and then straight to 5/5 Bladed Armor. I suppose that's just strictly for a DPS build, rather than a tanking build.
Odds there won't be another Draenei somewhere in your raid: Extremely Low
As for Dwarves they do get the 2 more expertise but it's limited to only maces, and we all know Swords usually end up getting itemized better.
Heroic Presence is still group only, so to cover the raid you need 5 of them, and split into each group.
Gist of my original point, and the reason I still assert it as a valuable choice: Unless your guild has lots of rerolls already, or plans to continue stacking shaman, it's reasonable to guess that many guilds wont' have any other melee draenei, if you've got plenty, by all means don't choose one.
Heroic Presence is still group only, so to cover the raid you need 5 of them, and split into each group.
Gist of my original point, and the reason I still assert it as a valuable choice: Unless your guild has lots of rerolls already, or plans to continue stacking shaman, it's reasonable to guess that many guilds wont' have any other melee draenei, if you've got plenty, by all means don't choose one.
Healers and classes that are hitcapped by their gear without gearing towards hit anyway don't need the aura, so you'll need a maximum of 4 Draenei in a raid. It's also more efficient if healers/casters bring the aura rather than DKs because they don't lose Expertise for it and Gift of the Naaru scales with Spellpower (it's still like that, isn't it?).
Long time lurker, first time poster, glad to have that out of the way. Thanks to EJ for having the best theorycrafting I've ever read across any game.
My question is this: Raise Dead, when used on another player, still is based off of your stats, correct? That way you can Raise Dead say, a Mage (who obviously has bad melee stats) and s/he'll do melee damage just as a normal ghoul would, instead of having nothing for it. The only reason I ask this is because I've read the entire thread and see very little in the way of Raise Dead, except when it comes to trying to explode the ghoul as a pet.
Does anyone have any experience as a player raised as a Ghoul by a DK?
5% of base health isn't that interesting. BE's 2% magic resist could be useful, depending on the fight.
I agree. I think BEs and Orcs are the best horde races to a DK right now, since their racials are decent for tanking, arcane torrent is good for PvP (and PvE in rare ocasions) and expetise/BF are good for DPS.
The choices for ally races are correct though. I would probably prefer Human for diplomacy and the free trinket, but shadowmeld is quite good for a temporary feign death.
11/06/08, 5:35 PM
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