Zerath

Iirc, our gemming should go Def (until cap) -> Dodge -> Parry. Naturally, at the same time Hit and Stam are mingled in there but we're strictly speaking of avoidance.

There's not large "difference" in stat gearing from Frost to Unholy. The main difference is Unholy creeps ahead once reaching ~45+ avoidance due to Bone Shield's ability to last upwards to 1minute. Gearing will remain the same - try not to get confused by that.

With Parry-hasting confirmed - that leaves BCB at a large disadvantage (again) and, indeed, puts Necrosis over it for the additional damage/threat buffer. Now, take in to account - several of us have looked at WWS logs and we have yet to see the Parry-haste mechanic implemented on bosses. Maybe (small one) we haven't been looking at the *correct* logs - we know Patchwerk is flagged, though.

 

• Lanky

Some stuff.

1. If you are going to take Ebon Plague, you MAX Ebon Plague. 2/3 Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

2. Veteran of the Third War is a solid talent, but you are screwing with a large number of other potential tanking talents just to get it. Gemming for a little bit more stamina past 45% pure mitigation from Dodge and Parry effective removes any incentive to get this talent, even though it obviously scales.

3. Try This Spec instead.. You may not like the long cooldown on Lichborne, but it is an absolutely fantastic Oh-Crap button for a mimal investment in solid frost tanking talents that you should consider anyways. Improved Icy touch gives you the full 20% attack speed reduction. 30 Yards on it and Chains of Ice makes it easy to stop some trash, or gain some agro on trash that is heading for healers when your grip and command are down. Those two points can be reassigned as you see fit though.

4. I am going to Assume your Glyphs are: IBF, Boneshield, and Anti-Magic Shield? If they aren't, consider that setup. With AMS absorbing 100% of all incoming magic damage, you can basically flat out ignore certain mob-abilities, including enraged Sarth Lava burst madness at the end of that encounter.

5. Anti-Magic Field is fantastic to drop over a healing cluster, or again on Sarth. It appears to scale with attack power, and it absorbs about 19k total damage. It is unclear whether or not it uses the total damage dealt or the reduced damage dealt, since it always drops quickly.

Conclusion: Pushing to Veteran of the Third War is not worth it over Lichborne, and not maxing Ebon Plague is silly.

 

Zerath

Towards Lanky and Effket(Effkey?): TLDR post incoming... I apologize.

Lanky is correct with what he posted about not maxing Ebon, along with Veteran is a solid talent but not worth giving up some of our best Unholy talents. The talents in both builds are some what thrown about from what I'm looking at. If you're going for more threat/dps you should both look in to this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Let's break this down:

Blood Tree - the obvious are taken, by now, none of us have to explain this. The saddest part is we can't max BA.

Frost Tree - Toughness is a given. Armor. Etc.
Imp IT - reduced attack speed, more threat.
Black Ice - 2 pts. You're getting a larger net gain from this talent increasing your IT then you are the extra 10 yards. When you're pulling - that extra 10 yards is pointless because you still won't be able to do anything until the mob gets to you. Most of the time, you run in to the pack anyways. This optimizes talents spent for dmg/threat.
Lichborne - OH SNAP! button. Love it. Make a funny macro that spams your healers. >_> (Do that with IBF but spam your warriors, they get a little angry.)

Unholy - Here's where the differences come in to play.

All first tier - Increased Crit/Threat, lower DnD cooldown = threat savior, Dodge.

Second tier:
Epidemic - longer diseases let us differ our rotation. It lets me add more SS until I have to refresh on single targets, on multi - we have more BB, etc.
**Here's where it's going to differ, I'm under the impression that Virulence only effects IT for Unholy builds. If this is true, the point cost lowers significantly. This was read some where in this topic, btw. But, if it effects UB + Necrosis + our diseases, it becomes a much stronger ability. Currently, I am specced in to it but that's because I messed up.**
Ravenous Dead - increased STR synergies to increased Parry. The extra DPS from your ghoul is *very* nice.

--Let's face it, the chances of us MTing a progression raid is slim. We will be able to MT 10man content and OT in 25mans while "content push" is in effect, once instances are on farm - we'll start seeing more DKs MT, I believe. So, having a ghoul out is optimal since we will be DPSing 90% boss fights. Thus Ravenous Dead and the upcoming talent choices.--


Tier Three:
Outbreak - AoE Threat Godzilla.
Necrosis - We have reports of this adding 500+dmg to Rune Strike crits. This is an amazing 5pt Dmg + Threat talent.

Tier Four:
Shadow of Death - It *will* down that boss that everyone just wiped on. Just give it time. Just give it time.
(We also take 0 dura hit with this talent.)

Tier Five:
Impurity and Dirge - more damage + more RP for your main attack.

Tier Six:
Reaping - This is invaluable for us seeing as the chances of us using BB is...ehhh...roughly about 100% each pull.
Master of Ghouls - Logic is above for this talent.

Tier Seven:
Unholy Aura - You need to bring some thing to the raid since you're not the "WF Guy" anymore. While some people will go "2 points for that?" The breakdown for this talent is difficult. What were doing is letting all DPS enchant their boots for pure DPS now, instead of "run + whatever". We've seen numbers of it increasing raid DPS by 500. I'm curious if that's on the low side.

Tier Eight on:
These are all givens. You finish out the tree - all those "cool" damage increasing talents we just got are buffed even more by Rage of Rivendare, plus we get some expertise out of it.
Unholy Blight - equals a DC crit but hits multiple mobs - well worth the talent pt and RP.

Now, the obvious - why didn't I pick up certain talents?
Unholy Command - if I need Death Grip back up 10 seconds sooner, I've FUBAR'd some where. Our taunt is on 8 second cd. If it's for a caster we have Mind Freeze + Strangulate. This could be argued it's a great "OH SNAP!" 2 pointer but not worth it for the other talents you have to spec out of.

On a Pale Horse - Sexy, yes, more of a solo talent + PvP talent. I do miss it, though.

BCB - Parry-hasting is in effect, this has the ability to insta-gib us. Granted, I do hate my healers some times....

Summon Gargoyle - No. Continuing RP cost leads to no UB. Situational at best.

AMS/AMZ - I have yet to see an instance that I can use this every cooldown. Yes, this is nice for Obsidian and Saph but the cooldown with the 6 pts spent in to it leaves some thing to be desired. These 6 points can be put elsewhere and we'll have a larger benefit with them.

Desceration - Only the mobs in the effect when it procs gets threat for this. If they walk in to Desceration after it procs, they do not gain threat for this ability. For that reason - it's a waste of 5 points. For the people that will argue - caster groups (they are every where), chances are you use DG or Strangulate to pull (usually DG) - by the time the rest of the group is on you, the mob has IT/PS already applied and ready to Pest for the BB or DnD following. Only the caster was effect by this talent.

Now, if you pull a Leeroy every pull - this has *some* merit but not a lot for 5 points even then. It's a flat 2500 threat that isn't effected by Frost Presence. You've already made that threat with our other talent choices (and some).

Wandering Plague - I'm still debating about this. Assuming our crit pushes 10% in T7 (too hopeful?) We're looking at a proc per disease every 10 seconds given RNG is showing us some love. Multiply that by 3 diseases. You're getting extra dmg/threat, yes, but how often do we have large packs up for longer than 20 seconds? Usually, the first mob is dropped in 10 seconds, this continues until we're down to the sole survivor where these 3 pts are useless on.

I'm going to go with a resounding "No" for this talent. If there is a pack of 3+ mobs, chances of us tanking each one is low. Most will have their own tanks making this talent useless.

Mind you - I'm speaking raid content. 5man content differs slightly due to our ability to tank all mobs at once.

Frost Tree - spoke about reasoning above.

Blood Tree - I find the talents in Unholy worth more than to give them up for the ability to spec in to Veteran. There's just wasted talent points, imo, getting there. I have to spend 3 points, no matter what, on a talent that is useless to me in order to get to Veteran.

Blood Tap - I have healers. They are pro.

Spell Deflection? Unreliable. Vendetta - leads back to pro healers.

Scent of Blood - 5 RP on a 20 second cooldown is "meh" at best. I get that through talents in Unholy.

Subversion - we don't use OB, most of our Blood Runes are used on BB, so, this talent lacks.

Death Rune Mastery - I don't use DS or OB, there is talk about DS out threating SS but it's glyphed meaning I have to give up one of my current Glyphs...which I don't see happening.

Dark Conviction - Crit doesn't really make me go giddy. Our threat comes from diseases, DnD, and UB. Not our white hits.

If you want me to break these down more - just ask.

 

Feverdreams

Couple of things about your build I think warrant further consideration/investigation.

I really don't understand the deal with 2/3 Ebon Plague. To me it seams perfectly fine as an increase to overall raid DPS, and a good sink for those last 2 points in Effekt's build. Since it doesn't stack if you have another unholy DK in your raid there's no reason to spec into this talent at all, but if you don't it I would think that 2/3 is better then nothing. 2/3 in Wandering plague I understand as dumb, but Ebon Plague? I just don't understand.... Now whether or not Effekt's build is viable is another question. (personally I think it looks decent and definitely is worth a shot)

This is worth highlighting because I definitely think this needs to be nailed down. Again I'm not a fan of Ravenous Dead, because the 3% increased STR is so minimal unless you have a TON of strength, and my ghoul never manages to stay up enough to add any significant DPS. (this could just be a lack of my ability to keep him up, but when I'm tanking he is my very last priority) I agree that in 25-man progression content we will largely be OTs and that DPS output is important and of course our Ghoul adds a nice amount of DPS, I'm just not sure where that weighs in.

Again, the confirmation as to exactly what is effected by Virulence and whether the 3% hit is worth the points should be figured out ASAP. (I'd under take this myself just not sure my math skills are up to the task)

 

Rejju

For those of you who are interested in going back to page 12, I have posted some very good tanking specs. I highly recommend that you take a look at those. As far as frost dps, at level 75 I pull in 1k dps, how are you doing that at 80?

The biggest difference between unholy and frost is personal preference. I cannot stress enough to play what you are comfortable with. I recommend trying both unholy and frost, but it makes me sad to see people pick up dps talents in a supposed tanking spec.

From what people in the beta and experienced raiders are saying is that frost is great to start, but once you get close to 50% avoidance you can keep bone armor up longer. Until then it falls off too fast.

 

Effekt

Ebonplague can't be maxxed in this build. Putting 2/3 into it is the lesser of two evils... like putting 2/3 in wandering plague or something. I figured this is going to be the best DPS/Aggro builder I can get for 2 talent points.

The only tanking talent we really lose is Rage of Rivendare. I've also actually gained DPS with this build, so that's already offset. If anyone is having trouble tanking without UB then I think they need to re-evaluate hot they play. Also, at this point in time you can't just gem for stamina. We lose defense putting on heroes, and a couple of pieces of valorous gear. The common consensus between all plate tanking classes is gem/enchant for defense.

That was my spec previously. There is nothing wrong with it but I've so far found this to come out ahead with the obtainable defense and avoidance levels. Like I stated before, I don't mind Lichborne but I found the long cooldown too make it almost pointless for the style DK's tank. We're built around not getting hit. If i'm about to die and I use that, I can't say for sure, but I'm almost positive you don't get the full 25% benefit from it. Reason being, with our avoidance so high (hopefully someone good at the math can model this) you probably only receive 10%-15%, or maybe i'm just blowing smoke out the tail pipe. In either case, this is what my dodge trinket is fore which I also rarely have to use. Imp ice touch is the only thing I regret losing but we also take blood DK's to our 25 mans with Imp Icy touch. I get and pull aggro just fine without the ranged talents and this doesn't help my survivability.

I haven't changed them yet. I don't really even have to for naxx. But you are right, this is optimal. (This still doesn't say anything about the spec :P )

It's really not. Like I explained, there are 2 major fights that may take advantage this... but that's all. There are too many running fights (which those '2' fights also require at some point) to utilize any part of anti-magic zone. If anyone NEEDS this for Sartharion... again I urge they rethink their position on their class!

I still don't believe I've been provided significant proof. You provided a lot of text but no real numbers. According to your conclusion, just losing Lichborne is reason enough to lose 5% crit, 2k+ health and 2% parry(re-checked it and I actually gained 2 not 1) which is also scalable.

On the matter of Ravenous dead. I'm just trying to min/max. At this point in time I don't exactly need the DPS and I hold aggro just fine without Outbreak. So then we are left with Unholy Command. I have yet to be in a position were this has come in hand, partly because I don't let myself get into this position by knowing what happens around me. That being said, it's not a useless talent but it's not one that I think is imperative to be taken.

 

Effekt

Are we talking Multiple mob tanking or are we talking single target dps? I don't know what my dps was for multi-mob tanking. But for single target I was lucky to be at 1k.


I'm a stickler and don't really agree with the "play what you are comfortable with" because at some point there will be a spec that is good at just hitting 80 or when they are at 15% avoidance, or even when they are at 99% avoidance. There will always be an optimal spec and I've always know this site in particular to be motivated to find that optimal spec for whatever the situation.

 

jacclark

Glyph of Death and Decay
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Targets of your Death and Decay have a 20% chance to cower in fear for 2 sec.

Glyph of Icebound Fortitude
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Your Icebound Fortitude costs no runic power.

Glyph of Death Strike
Major Glyph
Classes: Death Knight
Requires Level 55
Use: Your Death Strike's damage and healing increase by 2% for every 5 runic power you currently have. The runic power is not consumed by this effect.

Hi,

I don't use the Icebound Fortitude IBF glyph because I usually have more than enough rune power RP to use -- and I *manually* hit runestrike. I like to control my Rune Power RP for Death Coil DC or Unholy Blight UB or IBF or other RP abilties.

I am still in the process of a. figuring out my comfortable build, b. improving gear and c. testing the DnD Glyph.

That said, please consider this when choosing IBF Glyph over Death and Decay DnD Glyph (Or the Death Strike Glyph):

I find Death Knights a pain to heal -- I do whatever I can to maximize my self-healing and keep my health topped up at all times. I do everything I can to ensure to make my healers life easier. I will sacrifice some dps to do this -- although I am consistently at middle to top dps (proportional to mob size).



Furthermore, my Area Effect AE rotation is usually this (I hope this helps any new DK player - I think this is the most effective Unholy Rotation):

Runes -- B - Blood F - Frost U - Unholy D - Death --

*** Tali's Rule -- Death Runes save Lives! Blood Strike BS your Blood Runes ASAP.***

a. Death and Decay DnD - using BFU (leaving B F U up with D refreshing)

b. Plague Strike PS - U (Old habit of having PS cause that nice ground effect, I use IT first when target at range)
Icy Touch IT - F
Pestilence - B

Now you have 3 secs (or ? 4.5 secs) with DFU runes coming up and 65 Rune Power RP.

c. Blood boil BB - using D (leaving FU) and giving ?10 RP (Total 75 RP)
d. Death Strike DS - using FU (and having D then 1.5 sec U then 1.5 F refreshing) --> Big self heal! And more RP, have to confirm but I'm sure it's 80+ RP by now)

or

Scourge Strike SS - using FU - more dmg, more threat, especially at beginning of fight - same pool of RP


Now you have 60+ RP and DFU up... (think of the Matrix movie and Tetris -- you and have these runes moving up in a predictable orderly fashion)

..... D....F....U....
........................
........B..............
................... U..
.............F..........
........................


e. You have choices now...

1. DnD -- repeat rotation
2. Unholy Blight - more AOE dmg and threat.. back to choices
3. Death strike -- for healing
etc..

**I really like how DS can crit heal you for 4-5K Heals. This can easy be done up to 2-4 times in a row before having to refresh PS, IT. **

f. This is where it gets a little complicated.

If you go DnD --> start rotation from a. over again

If you go Death Strike, you will be left with a B. So I dump it asap with Blood Strike BS --> to get my parry up and a death rune to respawn. Now you have to wait for BFU --> DS with Death Rune coming up --> DS. (3 DS healing you! or.... go SS x 3 for more dps.)

If you go Unholy blight --> then you can decide on step 2. or 3.

And voila, you now have a fresh set of runes freshing with the option of repeating the whole AOE roation.



So to continue, my single target / boss rotation is:

a. PS IT BS BS with RP 50 - 60 (Have to verify) leaving FU with F U D D runes coming
b. SS or DS x 2 depending on health vs damage desire
c. Use RP --> UB DC IBF Horn etc.
or
SS / DS x 1 then PS IT BS BS rotation.


Lastly: guaranteed, you will messed up the rotation at some point and will need to reset the rotation - it takes practice. But please, when you freeze and your brain goes Omphf!, remember Tali's Rule -- Death Runes save Lives! Blood Strike BS your Blood Runes B ASAP.

Don't be an organ donor.


To conclude:

As you can see I have an abundance of RP. If at any time I use an RP ability, my rotations are 1.5 seconds off and a Global Cool Down (1.5 seconds) away from rebuilding RP. If I start at 100 RP and use 2 DCs, this leaves 20 RP --> IBF. Where I have caught myself is going UB DC --> 0 RP. But I trained myself not to DC after UB. And Tali's Rule means that I am BS'ing and / or / will have a good chance of DS to heal and get RP so I can IBF. Can I be much more efficient than what I am doing to maximize DS / healing or RP ability usage? I hope so, but I can't see how now. When I run out of RP and thus can't IBF, it's because I screwed up my rotations.

If I play well, I don't need I don't need IBF Glyph to correct my Unholy playstyle and furthermore, the benefit of DnD Glyph I believe is great for AE avoidance (yes avoidance because they aren't hitting you for 2 seconds - damage avoided!). What quantitative amount of avoidance can we give to a target that isn't hitting you for 2 seconds? It's significant, isn't it?

Now, I'm going to get to work on DnD 2s Fear and see if it works well on a single target -- in particular, a boss. Wow -- 20% chance over time of a 2 second interrupt? May I pray to the WoW Nerd Gods that this glyph may turn out to be the best damn glyph in the game aka OP! - Nerf to the Ground, Baby!!! glyph.

Sincerely,

Tali

PS: I'm having a hard enough time perfectly positioning my DK against *big* mobs so I don't get hit up the yahoo because they're behind me and I can't parry.

PPS: I did choose NE to address the very serious concern of cosmetic appeasement. (And the 2% avoidance makes non-NE frost DKs look like poor fashion accessories.)


============

Added Nov 30:

DnD Glyph is fantastic for mobs in Naxx. I'm now torn as to whether or not to keep the DS Glyph or use the Anti Magic Shield Glyph.

DPS Rotation for Pathwerk dps was: PS, IT, BS, BS, SS, Unholy Blight, SS, Obliterate (to use dots at 4s mark before they expired), PS, IT, Unholy Blight, SS, SS, SS, Obliterate etc..

Will update my new gear later this weekend...

 

Rejju

Single target dps.


I agree to a point, but in reality, most people need to learn to tank in raids in their comfort zone. After they know what they are doing, they need to play with different specs. I honestly do not feel that the dps talents you have in your spec are worth picking up at the cost of other pure threat talents like ebon plague and UB. UB is essentially free threat pulsing for 20s and very easy to keep up. Basically for the cost of one global cool down you get 20s duration threat vs just spamming other attacks.

 

Effekt

Then it's a gear/content thing. At the time I still wasn't hit capped in DPS gear so that may have played a role. We'll just have to see once you hit 80 :P



I don't know about you, but I am much more comfortable when I know I have the best chance to survive hehe. Again unholy blight is nice for the dump but it's still not going to give you that much more threat that is becomes a necessary talent. Like I said in my post, in 10-25 mans it's easy to hold aggro with PS,IT,Pestilence,Bloodboil and let everyone wale on them. I would think i gained all that UB dps/single target threat loss back with 5% crit, maxed bladed armor, and 2hand specialization. And most likely more.

 

Arakai

Hey guys,

I've look all over and the only hint I can see for +def cap (uncrit?) is base +140 = 540. Is this right?

Also, for "avoidance" that everone talks about, what's the formula for this? Something like:

Base % miss (what is is now?) + Dodge % + Parry % + some base of def (# here?). Is this right?

 

Effekt

The defense cap is 540 yes, but it still helps to go past for a DK from what I've gathered.

I don't know the base% miss, but it also depends on if it's a dual wield boss or not. Your defense parry/dodge is already calculated into your actual parry/dodge.

 

crimsonsentinel

In terms of avoidance stats, it's good to keep a moderate amount of balance between them all due to diminishing returns. Dodge is the best but only up to a certain point. Defense rating is good because it gives almost as much avoidance as dodge per itemization point, but splits it between dodge, oarry, and miss, thereby reducing the rate at which diminishing returns are applied (if that makes sense; don't know if that's explaining it correctly). This is true of all tanks (with the exception of druids).

 

Rejju

Ok, with the discussion turning to tanking stats, I'd like to hear opinions on stats like strength vs agility. Assuming bladed armor, Agility will give dodge, crit, armor and attack power due to the armor gain, albeit small gains. Strength gives attack power and parry.

Personally, I don't see agility being bad, I just don't see myself gemming or enchanting it. Defense rating, stamina and strength seem to be the stats to go for when considering gems and enchants.

 

Deadkiwi

Do we have some sort of Idea at what point we will really see diminishing returns for stats such as Dodge and Parry kicking in. Gemming for Agility just seems to spread the stats a little thin for not much gain. If you gem directly for avoidance stats such as dodge and parry you will see a direct reward in your survivability until the diminishing returns really kick in.

Even strength early I see as being better due to it having a direct effect on your threat as well as a small conversion to parry.

I personally can't see a point where diminishing returns would have that much of an effect that gemming for Agility becomes desirable. Of course I am far from a mathematician so there may be something I am missing.


On builds. This is the build I am looking at.

9/11/51

Very similar to one posted earlier however I swapped the master of ghouls out for 1 point in night of the dead. I will be doing a reasonable amount of MTing for my 10 man guild so master of ghouls seems to be a pretty low value. However lowering the cooldown on raise dead to be the same as dark pact means that the quick summon sac is available at the same time. Although it is not that great a tool due to requiring at least two global cooldowns.

 

Raspyn

Note: I have edited my post due to new information presented by Urotas below (DK Tanking Discussion)

Using the combat ratings page found at Combat Ratings at level 80

I did a quick comparison between the mitigation benefits and damage benefits between agility and strength, using the ratings for a level 80 character.


The mitigation benefit that 1 agi gives is:
0.0136% dodge (0.535 dodge rating)
2 armor

The damage benefit that 1 agi gives is
0.016 critical strike
0.0556 AP (from 5/5 Bladed Armor talent)


The mitigation benefit that 1 str gives is
0.25 parry rating (DK only ability)

Damage benefit that 1 str gives is
2 AP

This comparative analysis is ignoring strength enhancing talents commonly found in the Death Knight trees, which would increase the valuue of strenght in this analysis, however, the effect of the talents is larely negligible.

From a mititigation standpoint, the agility clearly is a better statistic than strength. Dodge rating is worth more avoidance per point than parry rating, and one agility gives 0.535 dodge rating vs 0.25 parry rating achieved from strength. Further strengthinging agility vs strenght as a mitigation statistic is the fact that armor is gained from agility. While the armor gain is somewhat minimal, it should be worth noting in a comparitive analysis.

From a damage benefit perspective, strength pulls out way ahead, and is described in much greater analysis in the DPS Compendium thread.

My initial analysis mistakenly confused dodge percentage with dodge rating, and I hope my edited post helps clear the air of any confusion.

 

Rejju

Great info on stats there, just bored working on Turkey Day!!

 

Geims

I'm reading from some day all yours opinions and I'm trying to do one UnholyTank spec.
Now I'm using a leveling/tanking spec and I'm using some talents that a lot of you don't take like Lichborne.
It's like "shiedl wall" of warriors and in my opinion, it's important to have it. Why you don't like it?
By tha way... I just created this spec.

I don't take Necrosis because plus damage only on auto attack can't be better of other talent like Impurity or Rage of Rivendare.

I would like to take desecration but I can live without it.
Wandering Plague is very nice AoE tanking talents but there aren't other point. =/

What do you think about this talent tree?
We are waiting leveling of guild members and we have protection warrior... I'll be Off-tank/AoE-tank.
I told you this for better analyze of my spec.

 

Ghaash

/edit: seen too late, was too slow

Parry-haste is still in. Confirmend on 2008-11-26 13:37:30 by Daelo, Lead Encounter Designer

 

urotas

1 agi gives 0.0136% dodge per point or the equivalent of 0.535 dodge rating per point of agility. Agility is a better tanking stat than strength.

 

Flopi

I've been reading a couple of posts about Glyphs here. In my opinion the glyph of dark command is pretty much a must have when raiding high-end content. Taunt failing at trash is usually nothing to worry about but taunt failing on encounters like 4 horseman usually ends with raid wipe.

Do correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Tel

If you're leaving it late enough for a resisted taunt to wipe you on 4hm then you're doing it wrong. Besides which you always have the option of death grip if taunt fails.

 

Khana

urotas>> hm, from the stats table linked I see...
73.52941176 points of agi for 1% dodge and 1,17 Crit%. The improve of AP through Bladed Armor is... irrelevant (4).
with the same points of Strength we gain (73.53*0.25)/49.18 = 0,37 parry%. We also gain 107+ AP.
Now, the issue comes when you compare this calculation to actual itemization available, and scrolling Atlas Loot I noticed that under the "plate" list we find gear with 70 or 100+ Str but it's hard to have items with more than 50 Agility.

Wowhead returns this list for a search of "armor, plate" - "required level 78-80" - "agility above 50" - Plate Armor - Items - World of Warcraft that's 4 items. Four in the whole WotLK.
While search of "armor, plate" - "required level 78-80" - "strength above 50" - return 147 items Plate Armor - Items - World of Warcraft

This means Strength for Death Knights is a cheaper stat and something you can scale a lot faster.

 

gorsameth

The issue of strength or agility isnt something that applies to armor. The discussion is about gems and to a certain extent weapons. With no real tanking 2-hands there is also the option of hunter polearms and there agility.

 

Zerath

Page 16, my LONG post. Read it for a breakdown of abilities and my thoughts, why I would/wouldn't get certain abilities and Lichborne is in the talent build. I would cut/paste but it's the same page. And really long.