No they aren't. The armour will still be there. They are changing the way Dire Bear Form multiplies the armour, in that it will no longer multiply what is considered bonus armour on items.
The armour will still be present on these items. Whether it is affected by Frost Prescence or not I do not know, I only rolled my DK yesterday as an alt tank so still swotting up on everything.
We do get extra armor from the trinkets/rings... I will have to check on the cloak but I would be willing to assume that it applies to that as well.
My mainspec isn't tanking, but I've been finding myself tanking quite a lot, be it Naxx 10 or Patchwerk in 25 man (bone shield ftw) or even Heroics. My main problem is mitigation, as it's for everyone right now I suppose. I can't help but see the upside of DW tanking while threat is such a nonissue most of the time. Adding two onehanders instead of my DPS twohander, I gain 57 Defense, 26 hit and 14 parry for the cost of 10 Stamina and 52 strength. It allows me to wear less defense heavy items too, gaining even more mitigation.
Clearly, there are also downsides to dual wielding, but now that the parry hasting seems to have gone (I seem to remember a post WAY back confirming they wanted to get rid of the mechanic and from all the WWS lags I've seen so far, there doesn't seem to be any hasting going on) the major one has disappeared really. Alright, you have a lot more hit to go for and your missrate will be annoying, but most of your threat comes from your specials anyway, which is the same for both 2H and DW... Threat might be an issue, it might not be. I'll definitely be trying DW in Naxx 10 this reset to get a feel for it.
I was looking at the following spec to try it out:
The biggest problem with DW tanking is not the parry haste. It is nerfing your threat, your rotations, and/or your rotations by needing to stack excessive values of Hit Rating. Every time you miss on a Strike, it throws your TPS and tanking abilities into disarray. The lower Strike damage certainly doesn't help matters any.
With the Defense out there, you should have no need of DW tank weapons. You can hit the 540 defense floor with crafted gear, nonheroic instances, and Honored rep rewards. You can hit 550+ defense once you are in ilvl 200+ gear (heroics and higher) without a problem. You simply need to gem and enchant for Defense.
AFTER I hit Defense cap, I'm kind of confused as to my stat priority. HP, Parry, Dodge, more defense, Hit, Expertise? What should be my PRIORITY after defense cap?
The biggest problem with DW tanking is not the parry haste. It is nerfing your threat, your rotations, and/or your rotations by needing to stack excessive values of Hit Rating. Every time you miss on a Strike, it throws your TPS and tanking abilities into disarray. The lower Strike damage certainly doesn't help matters any.
With the Defense out there, you should have no need of DW tank weapons. You can hit the 540 defense floor with crafted gear, nonheroic instances, and Honored rep rewards. You can hit 550+ defense once you are in ilvl 200+ gear (heroics and higher) without a problem. You simply need to gem and enchant for Defense.
I'm well aware, but it is just easier to hit the def cap full stop. And for your information, the special cap is the same for DW as it is for 2H, so you're going to miss your strikes just as much as you would with 2h... you just hit less with whites.
Having been a bear tank since 1.7, I find the challenge of getting a death knight to work as a tank an enjoyable one. Thus far I'm using a heavily frost spec for leveling and tanking dungeon runs. I like it, but it's by no means reliable information. I plan to try all the tanking specs once I hit 80. I will say I vastly prefer Deathchill over Killing Machine, due to the fact that KM was never up when I needed it. Also, opening with a crit howling blast has nothing on noob unholy DK's spamming D&D. Holding agro on targets has not been my problem.
No, as a dedicated bear tank, my concerns for DK's are mitigation. My guild only mastered Kara, but the basics remained the same: If I couldn't take damage as well as a warrior or a pally, I got plastered. Just stacking armor and hp doesn't do the trick. Only when I regeared with massive amounts of dodge from agility did I match up.
What gearing are we assuming for the average DK tank? One stat that I haven't seen anywhere is what sort of dodge chance DK's get from agility. Is it the same as warriors, druids, or did Blizzard go out of their way to make up new numbers? We get improved armor and hp, but it's nowhere near what a druid has to work with, so I assume it doesn't overcome a DK's complete inability to block. Or are we expected to fill the gap by massively stacking parry and well timed talent cooldowns?
When I've been looking at 2h drops I'd like to get my hands on I can't help but feel the "Hunter" Polearms are looking like the best bet. Sure your going to lose a bit of TPS but you get far more avoidance out of them.
BI has a very nice 3.60% dodge (before DR's) compared to DB's 0.52% parry, looking at the threat stats on each weapon as well they have almost the same amount of crit and BI has slightly more hit.
BI's main drawback, aside from looking like a twat using it, is of course AP, Its got a pretty hefty 77 less than DB.
Originally Posted by Lecoto
What gearing are we assuming for the average DK tank? One stat that I haven't seen anywhere is what sort of dodge chance DK's get from agility. Is it the same as warriors, druids, or did Blizzard go out of their way to make up new numbers?
This Post is your friend. It takes ~73.5 Agility to get 1% dodge before DR. This puts [Black Ice] at a fairly respectable 1.49%, but nowhere near 3.60%.
I like the spec, Illundai, and I'm anxious to hear your results. I believe Unholy to have more TPS than frost as a whole, so DWing in unholy just might generate enough threat. It will be less than with a 2h however, so I'll be surprised if the current state of DW tanking lasts once defense caps are comfortably exceeded.
Since our attacks are mostly being converted into special attacks, and the first post backs it up by saying to avoid the auto-attack talents.
The OP needs to be updated. This was the case in Beta, but no longer. Necrosis, KM and BcB all can proc off Rune Strikes. BcB seems to be the most exciting talent to pick up from this change, I only see Necrosis doing about 3% of a unholy DPS DK's damage. Granted, this talent will scale well and that percentage should improve.
I was having a good chat with a friend who's in a quite high end guild last night on Vent regarding Tanking with my Death Knight, and I found it quite enlightening. I thought I'd share and see what people thought about the points he raised with me.
Basically the conversation started with a chat about the defence stat and the effect of having the ability to block on tanking.
Warriors & Paladins he mentioned obvoiusly get a full benifit from all three elements of the defence stat (+dodge/parry and Block) and can block. That leaves DK's with the same issue as Druids in that without Block from a shield what we have to do is make the difference up with avoidance and/or something else.
A druids "something else" is a huge health pool (some people reporting 35K in Naxx gear now on their bears) + the avoidence.
For a Death Knight their "something else" is lots and lots of "clicky" abilities, usually on a 1 minute cooldown which and/or have a rune/runic power requirement. Icebound Fortitude/Bone Shield etc.
His point being that he agree's that a Death Knight can be a good tank at endgame, but Warriors, Paladins & Druids basic ability to mitigate and avoid damage (as all classes usually have their clicky abilities) is passive, while a Death Knight, even a good one, will have to constantly be aware to keep their "clicky" abilities going. Effectively, his point was that a good DK player has to actively stay on top of all his cooldowns to be as effective as another class is who passively mitigating or avoiding about the same (or just absorbing it in their ludicious health pool).
This wasn't/isn't a swipe at the class btw, just really an observation that a good Death Knight Tank possibly/probably be just as capable as the other tanking classes, however it may require the player to be a little more on the ball and "clicky", with possibly greater relience on Mod's & add-on's etc to give downtimes on abilities.
Ho-hum, sounds like that makes the class more *interesting* to me ;-)
I think it's important for DK tanks to understand how and when to use their clicky mitigating abilities. I played a warrior up until wrath expansion and I had to kick a bad habit of being reactive with my clicky abilities than proactive about them.
Because when playing a warrior and you go low, you react and press shield wall. While i guess you could do the same with IBF, i typically never use my clicky abilities like that. Since i have so many and they are only on a 1 minute cooldown. I typically like to use them one after another, and cycle them throughout a boss fight. If you are not doing this then try it, i have found it to be better about being proactive with my abilities than reactive.
Having been a bear tank since 1.7, I find the challenge of getting a death knight to work as a tank an enjoyable one. Thus far I'm using a heavily frost spec for leveling and tanking dungeon runs. I like it, but it's by no means reliable information. I plan to try all the tanking specs once I hit 80. I will say I vastly prefer Deathchill over Killing Machine, due to the fact that KM was never up when I needed it. Also, opening with a crit howling blast has nothing on noob unholy DK's spamming D&D. Holding agro on targets has not been my problem.
No, as a dedicated bear tank, my concerns for DK's are mitigation. My guild only mastered Kara, but the basics remained the same: If I couldn't take damage as well as a warrior or a pally, I got plastered. Just stacking armor and hp doesn't do the trick. Only when I regeared with massive amounts of dodge from agility did I match up.
What gearing are we assuming for the average DK tank? One stat that I haven't seen anywhere is what sort of dodge chance DK's get from agility. Is it the same as warriors, druids, or did Blizzard go out of their way to make up new numbers? We get improved armor and hp, but it's nowhere near what a druid has to work with, so I assume it doesn't overcome a DK's complete inability to block. Or are we expected to fill the gap by massively stacking parry and well timed talent cooldowns?
With end game raiding, regardless of class, most tanks had multiple sets of gear. Generally, and avoidance set and an "effective health set." That is, a set with more parry and dodge, but less HP and a set with mostly HP and block. DKs, unfortunately, probably will not be able to be effective health tanks. Damage mitigation will always be are achilles heel.
That being said, the consensus seems to be a good dps weapon with stamina for threat and all defensive stats on your gear. When I say defensive stats, thats gemming and enchanting for stamina and avoidance. One of the best abilities that DKs have is Icebound Fortitude. I LOVE it for tanking. All in all, DKs are avoidance tanks, there really isn't another way around it.
Originally Posted by Griefknight
Oh I see what I misread, I haven't eaten all day so yeah.
Would you say 3/3 Morbidity and 2/5 Bladed Armor is better or worse then 5/5 Bladed Armor? I noticed your specs don't have Morbidity.
I don't like morbidity except for unholy tanks. There are just too many other things to get. As a frost tank, you don't use death coil and you don't use DnD more than once every 30s because you have Howling Blast. It just isn't worth the point investment in my opinion. It might be for a blood tank, but honestly, I don't like blood for tanking. I just don't feel blood has the tools to be a viable end game tank.
Warriors & Paladins he mentioned obvoiusly get a full benifit from all three elements of the defence stat (+dodge/parry and Block) and can block. That leaves DK's with the same issue as Druids in that without Block from a shield what we have to do is make the difference up with avoidance and/or something else.
While the point certainly stands that yes, DKs need to get their clicky on, Defense is still a great, if not the best avoidance stat for us even post-cap.
For starters, Defense has four elements, not three. Dodge, Parry, Block, and Miss.
Math:
It takes 39.348 points of Dodge Rating to be 1% dodge, or 1% Avoidance. This values dodge at .0254 avoidance per rating point.
Defense gives 0.04% Dodge, Parry, and Miss chance per Defense point, so 8.33 Defense points per 1% Avoidance.
It takes 4.918 Defense rating to get a Defense point. It therefore takes 40.971 points of Defense Rating to achieve 1% avoidance, valuing defense at .0244 avoidance per point.
Dodge: .0254 per rating point
Defense: 0.244 per rating point
However given diminishing returns, completely stacking one avoidance over another is discouraged, so ultimately Defense may end up superior at high numbers. Either way, defense is a fine stat post cap.
One thing i wanted to note, which a lot of people who are saying that DW is not viable due to hit rating are missing, is that Nerves of Cold Steel gives +3% hit, in addition to upping the damage of the OH. However, with the ridiculous amounts of hit on tanking gear, at least blue tanking gear, this may not matter much.
I am curious if this applies purely to melee attacks or, if like some other effects, would apply to all hit-based attacks when wielding 1hs, so it'd benefit DK spells too. If so, this could be great with DWing.
One thing i wanted to note, which a lot of people who are saying that DW is not viable due to hit rating are missing, is that Nerves of Cold Steel gives +3% hit, in addition to upping the damage of the OH. However, with the ridiculous amounts of hit on tanking gear, at least blue tanking gear, this may not matter much.
I am curious if this applies purely to melee attacks or, if like some other effects, would apply to all hit-based attacks when wielding 1hs, so it'd benefit DK spells too. If so, this could be great with DWing.
There are only a few Dk spells that even use spell hit. the +3% hit talent means you only need 25% chance to hit instead of the normal 28%. To get hit capped in tank gear for dw you just have to sacrifice too many tanking stats and I just can't see it being worth it.
I do not think you need to hit cap your white hits as DW, just yellow. You will generate less threat than a 2h tank, but you gain mitigation for it. This is probably a good idea when first gearing up, but a bad one later on when threat (apparently) becomes far more important. It's hard to say for sure. More testing will probably be done before we can rule anything out. I think the biggest barrier to DW tanking isn't the white hit miss chance but the fact that strikes are weapon damage percents.
Also, even though there are only a handful of spells that use spellhit, if this talent contributes to it, that would be important to know.
I would also like to note that Blizzard has stated that threat is currently a non-factor, but this will not hold true throughout the rest of the expansion. These initial dungeons are meant to be easier than entry level raids in BC.
I feel that by the time we reach the gear levels at which a dual wielding tank can hit cap, threat will no longer be a non-factor and we will be a lot less carefree about losing threat related stats.
Along this same line of thought, I feel that blood specced tanks will be held in higher regard once mobs can no longer be AoE'd with the ease that we currently notice. Blood offers more viable self healing options, and from what I understand Vampiric Blood affects heals received from all sources.
In addition, the fact that DRW mimics everything that you do can probably be very useful for grabbing snap agro (not at the start of a fight but perhaps in situations where new mobs pop up, or boss threat resets) and for establishing a lot of threat under a very short time frame.
I would also like to note that Blizzard has stated that threat is currently a non-factor, but this will not hold true throughout the rest of the expansion. These initial dungeons are meant to be easier than entry level raids in BC.
I feel that by the time we reach the gear levels at which a dual wielding tank can hit cap, threat will no longer be a non-factor and we will be a lot less carefree about losing threat related stats.
Along this same line of thought, I feel that blood specced tanks will be held in higher regard once mobs can no longer be AoE'd with the ease that we currently notice. Blood offers more viable self healing options, and from what I understand Vampiric Blood affects heals received from all sources.
In addition, the fact that DRW mimics everything that you do can probably be very useful for grabbing snap agro (not at the start of a fight but perhaps in situations where new mobs pop up, or boss threat resets) and for establishing a lot of threat under a very short time frame.
Blood spec does not have the mitigation that frost or unholy offers and you cannot gain "snap agro" with a talent that requires 60 runic power. End game blood just doesn't offer what the other specs do and I have also heard the exact opposite about vampiric blood. Frost is FAR superior for burst agro than blood or unholy. My TPS at level 74 doing 5 mans is 2200+ as frost and I've tried blood and it just doesn't compete.
Has anybody else been having an issue with PuGs accepting that you can tank as unholy?
The last group I was in was led by a fury warrior. The first couple pulls went fine, then we came 2 a three pull where we sapped one mob. Shortly after engaging, the warrior whirlwinded and broke the sap. I picked the mob up perfectly, but the healer in level 70 gear couldn't keep me up through the lightning bolts which I couldn't prevent without a kick to assist me when mind freeze was on cooldown(blood runes used to grab aggro).
Obviously they blamed this on me being unholy specced, and kicked me from the group. While this is the worst I've gotten so far, most groups ask me, "you're unholy? I thought you were a tank."
I have to remind people in my own guild on a daily basis that Frost Presence is needed to tank, not a Frost Spec. Of course I probably just confuse them by being Frost spec.
I'm just a freedom fighter, no remorse, raging on in holy war. Soon there'll come a day when you're face to face with me.
So far tanked Abomination / Death Knight / Spider wings of naxx 10 man, and Sarth 10 man, both as frost and unholy. Unholy is easily superior in my eyes, and while not exactly timed, I estimate I've been able to keep bone shield up for above 30 seconds at times with a disc priest healing me (although at times fell off under 15, thats the price of avoidance tanking I suppose). Threat increased by about 500ish tps on respec, and aoe tanking went from OK to phenomenal. I miss howling blast, but the faster cooldown on D&D at least partially makes up for it. I'm nearing in on 50% raid buffed avoidance, and I'm sure that helps with bone shield.
While frost might be a good starter spec, bone shield just seems to blow everything out of the water, no contest.
I've read through this thread now, and there are some strong arguments for Unholy's ability to survive as a tank, most notably the avoidance benefit mentioned here in this quote. So far nobody's played devil's advocate regarding the subject, so what the hell, I'll put myself out there.
The largest benefit of Bone Shield is also it's largest drawback. It might last 40 seconds, but it might only last 15. With a 60s cooldown, you're extremely likely to run into times where you're out of options and left in "squishy" mode for extended periods of time. Consider a shield that lasts 18 seconds and you pop Icebound Fortitude to help make up the difference, that still leaves 30 seconds where your survival cooldowns are unavailable, which is ample time for a progression boss to destroy you. Lichborne helps a ton in this regard, but there will be times when you need it but you're waiting for it to come back up. Now, compare this to frost and you trade potential greatness for reliability. I totally agree that Bone Shield beats Unbreakable Armor while it's active, but (and this is pure opinion) UA gives you "good enough" survival for a guaranteed 20s chunk of time. On top of this, Icebound Fortitude lasts 6s longer for Frost. Comparing the amount of "squishy" time of the two specs when looking at worst-case senarios, you have 50% of the time for Unholy compared to 37% for Frost. Granted, Unholy can use clicky trinkets and consumables to lower this number, but all of these benefit Frost more (i.e. 30s - 15s is less pronounced than 22s - 15s... same concept as each point of avoidance being better than the last). And on top of that, Frost has better passive survival than Unholy, though I admit the difference is pretty small.
Against AoE pulls, there is no contest in terms of survival, and Frost wins hands down. Bone Shield simply disappears 15 seconds after you cast it. Granted, most AoE pulls at this point in the game have near-zero survival issues, but if they ever introduce a Hyjal 2.0 this might be a problem.
So basically, as a raid leader, why would I want my tank to have the spec that is more likely to fail? I'm not here to say Unholy cannot tank, because I know the opposite to be quite true. But if we're working on a progression boss, I don't see much reason to pick Unholy over Frost, regardless of how well it performs when all its cooldowns are active. And please don't refer to 5-mans or farmed content, because spec issues disappear fast when you outgear your opponents. I'm concerned with progression kills here.
And before anyone starts aiming missile silos at my house, I want to state that I'm actually pushing for our DK tank to be Unholy, mostly because of all the other benefits of the spec. Even though it looks l am in love with Frost tanking, I'm really not, and I just want to be as unbiased as possible when I make my decisions.
By the way, whoever it was that claimed the 6s gain from Guile of Gorefiend is useless by citing how warriors used to skip the Shield Wall duration extension should probably look at the difference between 30 minutes and 60 seconds when it comes to cooldowns. Boosting a 12s duration up to 18s is pretty massive, even though it doesn't really sound like it would be. Now, if you want to compare its merit vs. other competing talents, that's totally valid.
And totally off topic, to clear up the question posted on page 10: both paladin and druid spell interrupts are tied to the GCD, and both have been recently fixed to work on stun-immune mobs. Warrior and DK tanks clearly dominate where interrupts are required.
I've read through this thread now, and there are some strong arguments for Unholy's ability to survive as a tank, most notably the avoidance benefit mentioned here in this quote. So far nobody's played devil's advocate regarding the subject, so what the hell, I'll put myself out there.
The largest benefit of Bone Shield is also it's largest drawback. It might last 40 seconds, but it might only last 15. With a 60s cooldown, you're extremely likely to run into times where you're out of options and left in "squishy" mode for extended periods of time. Consider a shield that lasts 18 seconds and you pop Icebound Fortitude to help make up the difference, that still leaves 30 seconds where your survival cooldowns are unavailable, which is ample time for a progression boss to destroy you. Lichborne helps a ton in this regard, but there will be times when you need it but you're waiting for it to come back up. Now, compare this to frost and you trade potential greatness for reliability. I totally agree that Bone Shield beats Unbreakable Armor while it's active, but (and this is pure opinion) UA gives you "good enough" survival for a guaranteed 20s chunk of time. On top of this, Icebound Fortitude lasts 6s longer for Frost. Comparing the amount of "squishy" time of the two specs when looking at worst-case senarios, you have 50% of the time for Unholy compared to 37% for Frost. Granted, Unholy can use clicky trinkets and consumables to lower this number, but all of these benefit Frost more (i.e. 30s - 15s is less pronounced than 22s - 15s... same concept as each point of avoidance being better than the last). And on top of that, Frost has better passive survival than Unholy, though I admit the difference is pretty small.
Against AoE pulls, there is no contest in terms of survival, and Frost wins hands down. Bone Shield simply disappears 15 seconds after you cast it. Granted, most AoE pulls at this point in the game have near-zero survival issues, but if they ever introduce a Hyjal 2.0 this might be a problem.
So basically, as a raid leader, why would I want my tank to have the spec that is more likely to fail? I'm not here to say Unholy cannot tank, because I know the opposite to be quite true. But if we're working on a progression boss, I don't see much reason to pick Unholy over Frost, regardless of how well it performs when all its cooldowns are active. And please don't refer to 5-mans or farmed content, because spec issues disappear fast when you outgear your opponents. I'm concerned with progression kills here.
And before anyone starts aiming missile silos at my house, I want to state that I'm actually pushing for our DK tank to be Unholy, mostly because of all the other benefits of the spec. Even though it looks l am in love with Frost tanking, I'm really not, and I just want to be as unbiased as possible when I make my decisions.
By the way, whoever it was that claimed the 6s gain from Guile of Gorefiend is useless by citing how warriors used to skip the Shield Wall duration extension should probably look at the difference between 30 minutes and 60 seconds when it comes to cooldowns. Boosting a 12s duration up to 18s is pretty massive, even though it doesn't really sound like it would be. Now, if you want to compare its merit vs. other competing talents, that's totally valid.
And totally off topic, to clear up the question posted on page 10: both paladin and druid spell interrupts are tied to the GCD, and both have been recently fixed to work on stun-immune mobs. Warrior and DK tanks clearly dominate where interrupts are required.
When talking from a purely progression stand point, you need your best survivability tanks, and I still feel those are warriors. Can DKs do the job? Yes, I think we've beat that horse to a pulp, but I'd still like to try a warrior first since they are traditionally the MT.
As far as unholy vs frost. Frost is the best starter, but unholy gets better with 50% avoidance because bone armor stays up longer. Honestly that might be personal preference anyway. I love frost and will probably stay frost.
The differences in DK tanking specs are so minor as to be almost laughable. A full out dps spec might have trouble tanking, but any tank oriented spec of any tree will do just fine for most content.
Now, being the min-maxer that I am, I've been looking at ways to maximize survivability against physical dps for an MT role. What I came up with was this comparison of threat values:
as a near-optimal solution for a main tank. The magegraf simulations are still dps oriented so they miss two details (rune strike and scent of blood) which are largely irrelevant for the comparison, but otherwise give a pretty solid picture of TPS. A dual-spec can pick up a maximum amount of passive melee mitigation while still delivering 97% of the TPS of a 51+ build.
I also avoided the haste from Icy Talons because haste would increase the frequency of enemy parries. Instead I moved those points into Killing Machine, which actually boosted TPS anyway.
How bone shield, or the lack thereof, plays into this is up for debate.
The differences in DK tanking specs are so minor as to be almost laughable. A full out dps spec might have trouble tanking, but any tank oriented spec of any tree will do just fine for most content.
Now, being the min-maxer that I am, I've been looking at ways to maximize survivability against physical dps for an MT role. What I came up with was this comparison of threat values:
as a near-optimal solution for a main tank. The magegraf simulations are still dps oriented so they miss two details (rune strike and scent of blood) which are largely irrelevant for the comparison, but otherwise give a pretty solid picture of TPS. A dual-spec can pick up a maximum amount of passive melee mitigation while still delivering 97% of the TPS of a 51+ build.
I also avoided the haste from Icy Talons because haste would increase the frequency of enemy parries. Instead I moved those points into Killing Machine, which actually boosted TPS anyway.
How bone shield, or the lack thereof, plays into this is up for debate.
The biggest issue that I have with this spec is killing machine. In tank gear you have low crit anyways due to the need for other stats. So lets assume, with talents, 20% crit. That means that every 3.6 (depending on weapon speed) seconds you have a 20% chance to crit. If you crit, you have a 50% chance that crit makes 1 of 3 abilities an auto crit. I'm sorry, I cannot justify spending 5 points on a talent for such a small gain in potential TPS. DKs, currently, have no issues generating threat, mitigation is more important going into Naxx.
In addition, Tundra Stalker is a must for Frost tanks. Flat increase in damage will always be better than extra crit damage.
11/26/08, 12:01 PM
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