I'm here looking for a bit of assistance on behalf of a guildmate. He's having a terrible time maintaining even adequate threat levels, to the point that it's awfully difficult for me to assign him tanking roles. I try to maintain some semblance of balance in the tanking team for my guild and everyone gets thier opportunities to stare at boss-crotch. In tank-and-spanks, he's just putting out barely passable threat to stay ahead of the dps, ~2500-3500 tps depending on the boss. In fights where the dps has gimmicks, or extra time on target (Heigan, Malygos, Sapphiron), he just cannot stay ahead, whereas our prot warrior and bears are consistently in the 5k tps range, and I'm generally around 6500-7k.
I've read back in the thread, and pretty much the only thing I've seen touching threat is a consensus that it doesn't matter anymore.
Here is our WWS from Tuesday night's Naxx25 clear: Wow Web Stats
Relevant fights: Blassreiter tanked Faerlina, Gluth, OT'd Patchwerk. He started MTing Heigan, but DPS was pulling off, so I ripped it off and tanked it myself. Horrible tanking ettiquette, I know. He tanked Sapphiron until he died about halfway through, I was maintaining 2nd threat, so we saved it. That fight in particular, I spent most of the time nearly stopped on producing threat, so as not to overaggro.
I'm hoping someone has some tips, Blassreiter is a player I respect a lot, on his bear he was essentially our guilds progression MT through Sunwell. Thanks in advance.
The biggest issue that I see with the WWS and looking at his armory is the complete and utter lack of hit. He's get 3.9% chance to hit. You really, really need to get 9% and if you look at his stats, he has a very high miss percent for just about everything. I would highly recommend him looking at getting a new weapon with hit rating as haste doesn't do jack. Titansteel Destroyer is a pretty awesome tanking weapon if you can afford the mats for it. But there are also a few others.
Unless Frost presence gains a flat -10% to all incoming damage to bring it in line with other tanking "stances" like defensive stance and mother bear
Mother bear (now called Protector of the Pack) is actually 12%, and warriors who spec into Improved Defensive Stance take an additional 6% less spell damage and with Improved Spell Reflection are missed 4% of the time. With paladins it's Improved Righteous Fury that reduces incoming damage by 6% when RF is up (basically their defensive stance), then they add Blessing of Sancutary (-3% damage taken) on top of that.
I think frost presence needs a flat reduction on incoming damage to make it similar to these other base stances / presences / etc. It might be ok to add it to a talent, afterall PotP is a talent for druids and IRF is a talent for paladins, only warriors get the flat 10% reduction untalented. If it were a talent it would have to be one that was accessible to an unholy, frost or blood tanking build.
You really, really need to get 9% and if you look at his stats, he has a very high miss percent for just about everything.
I have a hard time believing that you need the full 9% to produce effective TPS. Of course it's helpful, but to call it required can really skew someone's perspective if they're just getting started on tanking and have other things to worry about like crit immunity, effective health, etc. None of the other classes truly need to be hit capped to allow their DPS to unload, and I don't see why death knights should be any different.
I'm more inclined to believe this specific person's problem was low weapon skill. If someone's miss rate is higher than the base amount before gear, something else is going on.
Granted this is a tanking section, but does anyone here feel the way i do about our tree's? Whats wrong with letting each one be somewhat more specific? I mean, really do you guys all want to tank in blood so you don't have bone shield/UA that you get in the other trees? i doubt it, the only thing tanking in blood with allow you to do is be the best/highest dmg OT in the game. I mean really, is blizzard trying to even out all the priest trees so that they are are able to heal the same, or provide the same amount of DPS?
I say, make your changes to frost presence* so that its less spiky, because i do notice when my CDs are down im taking considerably more dmg (obvious statement) but they can make it more smooth for both frost and unholy. I think everyone that doesn't play a DK or know shit about them assumes, Blood=pure dps, Frost= tank, Unholy= Hybrid. So since they are trying to level the tanking-field within all three tress, does that mean they are going to do the same for dps in each tree? Making them within same ball park no matter what your spec is...however, this will all hopefully be irrelevant when dual spec is implemented. What im taking from their "future" buffs to blood tanking, is that the only thing that will really define what spec you are is your filler talents.
You don't see titan grip warriors MTing through end game content, actually they probably could right now, but that shit wouldn't fly in pre-nerf sunwell.
I have a hard time believing that you need the full 9% to produce effective TPS. Of course it's helpful, but to call it required can really skew someone's perspective if they're just getting started on tanking and have other things to worry about like crit immunity, effective health, etc. None of the other classes truly need to be hit capped to allow their DPS to unload, and I don't see why death knights should be any different.
I'm more inclined to believe this specific person's problem was low weapon skill. If someone's miss rate is higher than the base amount before gear, something else is going on.
You are probably right there. If you aren't tanking with max weapon skill, you should be shot, but more +hit will definitely help.
Originally Posted by phixx
Granted this is a tanking section, but does anyone here feel the way i do about our tree's? Whats wrong with letting each one be somewhat more specific? I mean, really do you guys all want to tank in blood so you don't have bone shield/UA that you get in the other trees? i doubt it, the only thing tanking in blood with allow you to do is be the best/highest dmg OT in the game. I mean really, is blizzard trying to even out all the priest trees so that they are are able to heal the same, or provide the same amount of DPS?
I say, make your changes to frost so that its less spiky, because i do notice when my CDs are down im taking considerably more dmg (obvious statement) but they can make it more smooth for both frost and unholy. I think everyone that doesn't play a DK or know shit about them assumes, Blood=pure dps, Frost= tank, Unholy= Hybrid. So since they are trying to level the tanking-field within all three tress, does that mean they are going to do the same for dps in each tree? Making them within same ball park no matter what your spec is...however, this will all hopefully be irrelevant when dual spec is implemented. What im taking from their "future" buffs to blood tanking, is that the only thing that will really define what spec you are is your filler talents.
You don't see titan grip warriors MTing through end game content, actually they probably could right now, but that shit wouldn't fly in pre-nerf sunwell.
See my pattern here...let the trees define your class, i hate when blizz does shit like this, they did the same thing with rogues.
I agree with that. Blood should be our pure melee dps tree. I've had fury and ms wars tank heroics in BC and as long as they had the gear it was fine. They tried to make the trees too viable for everything and it makes some trees suck.
I mean really, is blizzard trying to even out all the priest trees so that they are are able to heal the same, or provide the same amount of DPS?
In a word, yes.
Blizzard wants both the Disc and Holy priest trees to be useful end-game PvE healing trees, but with different playstyles. The Disc priest is better at single-target healing and has a different set of buffs to offer than the holy priest, but holy priests have better AoE heals.
Both fury and arms warriors are supposed to be equivalent raid DPS trees, if specced right, as are all 3 mage trees, all 3 hunter trees, etc. Sure, some builds might trade a bit of personal DPS for more raid utility, but overall Blizzard is doing away with "arms is for pvp, fury is for pve, prot is for tanking, disc is for pvp, holy is for pve, etc."
What they've said they wanted to do with Death Knights is to take this a step farther and not have a "Protection" tree. All 3 trees are supposed to be able to tank or to DPS, depending on the build. They've said that one of their goals is to prevent tanks from burning out by offering them choices -- if a DK tank gets tired of the Frost playstyle they don't have to give up tanking, but can instead switch to a Blood tank build for variety.
The penultimate talents in all 3 trees are a testament to the lazy/rushed design they took to Death Knights.
Blood - 10% more damage (if you're at 75%+ health) and 5 expertise
Frost - 10% more damage (on Frost Fever targets) and 5 expertise
Unholy - 10% more damage (on Blood Plague targets) and 5 expertise
Then there's the anti-penultimate 1-point talents
Blood - Replace your Blood Strike with this slightly harder hitting ability!
Frost - Replace your Death Coil with this slightly harder hitting ability!
Unholy - Replace your Obliterate with this slightly harder hitting ability!
Not very imaginative, to say the least. Its obvious how it was all crammed together at the last minute.
Either way, we end up having to respec between jobs. You can't really be expected to keep up in DPS with 15 talent points spent in Blade Barrier, Anticipation and Toughness. At least, not to the calibre of those who post here would expect.
Last edited by Bibdy : 12/05/08 at 3:47 PM.
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
Blizzard wants both the Disc and Holy priest trees to be useful end-game PvE healing trees, but with different playstyles. The Disc priest is better at single-target healing and has a different set of buffs to offer than the holy priest, but holy priests have better AoE heals.
Both fury and arms warriors are supposed to be equivalent raid DPS trees, if specced right, as are all 3 mage trees, all 3 hunter trees, etc. Sure, some builds might trade a bit of personal DPS for more raid utility, but overall Blizzard is doing away with "arms is for pvp, fury is for pve, prot is for tanking, disc is for pvp, holy is for pve, etc."
What they've said they wanted to do with Death Knights is to take this a step farther and not have a "Protection" tree. All 3 trees are supposed to be able to tank or to DPS, depending on the build. They've said that one of their goals is to prevent tanks from burning out by offering them choices -- if a DK tank gets tired of the Frost playstyle they don't have to give up tanking, but can instead switch to a Blood tank build for variety.
I think it a great approach, personally.
I understand what you are getting at, i should understand that the game has become World of Casualcraft....but really, if your tired of tanking in frost, your not really tired of the tree (i would think) you'd prolly be tired of tanking all together, or getting your ass handed to you when you are chain questing or something along those lines. I think people that switch from Shadow ---> Holy do it to heal, not because they can kill faster and more efficiently. We don't really need a "prot" tree per say, we have frost presence to take care of that for us. I dont agree with buffing Blood so that they are able to tank just as well if specced properly, pretty soon its going to come down to what your raid wants and not what you want to play, at least with Blood=DPS and Frost= Tanking you know what your roll is.
If your a tank and you have no enhancement shaman, your going to be going Frost for that raid, if you have lazy ass warlocks your going to be Unholy and so on. (these are just examples) Thats what i mean about raids being able to ultimately control what tree you are based on your buffs vs. what you enjoy playing. My 2cents.
I understand what you are getting at, i should understand that the game has become World of Casualcraft....but really, if your tired of tanking in frost, your not really tired of the tree (i would think) you'd prolly be tired of tanking all together, or getting your ass handed to you when you are chain questing or something along those lines. I think people that switch from Shadow ---> Holy do it to heal, not because they can kill faster and more efficiently. We don't really need a "prot" tree per say, we have frost presence to take care of that for us. I dont agree with buffing Blood so that they are able to tank just as well if specced properly, pretty soon its going to come down to what your raid wants and not what you want to play, at least with Blood=DPS and Frost= Tanking you know what your roll is.
If your a tank and you have no enhancement shaman, your going to be going Frost for that raid, if you have lazy ass warlocks your going to be Unholy and so on. (these are just examples) Thats what i mean about raids being able to ultimately control what tree you are based on your buffs vs. what you enjoy playing. My 2cents.
That cuts both ways, though. If you're specced Frost, you could make one of your warlocks spec into Malediction. Or, if you don't have an Enhancement Shaman or Marksmanship Hunter, you could spec Blood to pick up the 10% AP boost. But only if Blood is made a viable tank tree. (Note: I'm assuming that the 10% AP is better than the extra 4% haste your melee gets from your Improved Icy Touch)
What you gain and lose when all of the trees are viable MTs is going to depend on your raid, both in how you decide who respecs to cover the necessary buffs and what classes and specs you have available to fill out the raid.
Personally, I prefer having more options rather than having fewer, but you are right. It doesn't necessarily help with tank burnout, though it certainly helps with spec burnout. (Especially if you dislike the Howling Blast animation as much as I do.)
Hey guys, this is all well and good, but please remember that this is a tanking discussion thread and not a discuss blizz development thread. Some are good points but ultimately off-topic.
I'll just make a note, it actually refresh on any action. This includes mining, mounting, drinking a pot, etc. This obviously means in combat, it'll also proc off RP using abilities, not just strikes. And really the only thing that can make it drop is a really bad string of parries/dodges on bloodstrikes, preventing you to spend the runes. Patchwerk did that to me earlier, had blade barrier down for like 10secs straight ^^.
I'm sorry for coming back to this again, just want to make sure I'm clear on it. So your saying that once you've used 2 blood runes you technically never have to use another blood rune to keep Blade Barrier up, any other attack, be it a U, F or runic ability will refresh the duration? I had thought that you had to use the 2 blood runes again to refresh the duration. If I've understood you correctly, I'm a happy camper
I think Pyros was wrong. The talent clearly states that whenever your blood runes (Also Death/blood runes) are on CD the proc triggers. So you would in fact have to use the runes to keep them on CD to keep the proc at 100% uptime.
I know many specs have been linked here and there about frost tank spec and unholy tank spec and personally I have tried many of them out and I am currently testing variations of my own tank specs out but my problem is this.
When I spec into full tank talents and loose some of my dps ones I go from doing 5500+ in frost presence to doing 2800 to 3500. I am not sure if it is my rotation or my spec or what but I have found that as I have seen some mention that when our cooldowns on aoe abilities are down or we are waiting on rune generation it starts to suck for us.
Like the last frost spec I used for dps was the one in the DPS Compendium with Icy Talons spec. The 17/54/0 spec - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
It is probably not a great tank spec but hit several of the essentials I was lacking at the time.
At this point I hate the spec because my TPS sucks for it and I have wanted to go back to unholy unless I can find a way to increase my tps in frost to a respectible level. I do like frost don't get me wrong but for my personal play style it sucks as a full tank spec compared to unholy and that may just be the issue for me.
I think Pyros was wrong. The talent clearly states that whenever your blood runes (Also Death/blood runes) are on CD the proc triggers. So you would in fact have to use the runes to keep them on CD to keep the proc at 100% uptime.
I think you both just misunderstood what Pyros was saying. He's saying any action refreshes the BB as long as your blood runes are still on CD. So you use both, then you SS (still on CD, refresh to 10), then you DC (refresh to 10). When your blood runes are available again, you will have to use them again to keep BB up, but since all your actions have been keeping the duration at 10s, you should have enough time barring a lot of movement or really unlucky strings of misses.
And most notably, many Frost DKs are skipping the Icy Talons line due to lack of stacking with shaman buffs.
I didn't see anyone address this so I want to add that:
Imp IT adds 5% haste to you overall, and while buffing your raid's melee DPS, the enhancement shaman can drop a wrath of air totem, thus further increasing overall raid caster DPS.
vs.
Speccing out of Imp IT and getting... what? 5-10% extra dmg here or there.
I guess if threat is an issue, then yes, don't get Imp IT. But I haven't experienced threat as an issue, even tanking instances while leveling up in a Blood spec.
So I've been reading the hell out of DK tanking forums and constantly keep hearing about 'parry gibbing' as well as many other parry scenarios. I've played every class but a tanking one since WOW released and now I'm giving tanking a run. So could someone please give me more insight into the role that parry plays from a tanking perspective. As in when I get parried as well as when I parry. The extent of my parry knowledge is not much more than its a chance to complete make a melee attack not hit you(similar to dodge). So how does parry haste, and diminishing returns, and gibbing play a role in all of this? I haven't found enough info yet to put all of these pieces together.
I didn't see anyone address this so I want to add that:
Imp IT adds 5% haste to you overall, and while buffing your raid's melee DPS, the enhancement shaman can drop a wrath of air totem, thus further increasing overall raid caster DPS.
vs.
Speccing out of Imp IT and getting... what? 5-10% extra dmg here or there.
I guess if threat is an issue, then yes, don't get Imp IT. But I haven't experienced threat as an issue, even tanking instances while leveling up in a Blood spec.
If you have a shaman providing 20% windfury, then there is no point putting 6 points into imp icy talons. I would prefer killing machine in that situation. Other wise you are spending 6 talent points on 5% haste.
Yes, threat isn't an issue, but it's no reason to not have decent dps even when tanking.
Your frost tanking spec is fundamentally flawless. You should consider, however, getting out of Improved Icy touch and into Killing machine if you'll be doing any 25-man raids (or smaller, but with an enhancement shaman present). You should also be aware that Frost Aura does not stack with Imp-MotW (Last I checked), and you may consider grabbing Merciless Combat, Icy reach, or Deathchill instead.
Is anyone else finding it difficult to stay at the defense cap when "upgrading" to new epics. I'm having to gem defense or a combination defense to drop the 65 defense trinket. I'm worried, as per a previous tank poster, that I won't have enough gem spots to push hit and expertise for when our dps gear catches up. (I'm sticking with a lot of blues to mantain defense cap.)
If you have a shaman providing 20% windfury, then there is no point putting 6 points into imp icy talons. I would prefer killing machine in that situation. Other wise you are spending 6 talent points on 5% haste.
Yes, threat isn't an issue, but it's no reason to not have decent dps even when tanking.
I looked up the WF totem spell and even with improved it should be 20% but still only applies to your party, where IIT tree applies to the entire raid. Can someone explain to me how shaman totem is better? Especially when that frees up shamans to drop agility totem or spell haste totem.
As far as Frost Aura goes, there is no buff that provides arcane damage. In addition to that, per wowhead, auras still only affect your party and not the entire raid. So having a blanket buff that does resist all 80 to everyone in your raid is still very good and 80 resist all, improved GotW isn't quite 80 resist. Improved GotW is only 75.6 resist all. Thats a talent choice that you have to make based on your raid make up and if you want that 5 resist to make a difference. In reality it probably won't.
I looked up the WF totem spell and even with improved it should be 20% but still only applies to your party.
Windfury is raid-wide and has been since 3.0.
Originally Posted by Rejju
As far as Frost Aura goes, there is no buff that provides arcane damage. In addition to that, per wowhead, auras still only affect your party and not the entire raid.
Frost Aura and GoTW do. They're the only ones that do, and paladin auras are raid wide. Do you play the game or just read outdated information?
2 points for +4 resist all to the raid is bad point spending.
I know many specs have been linked here and there about frost tank spec and unholy tank spec and personally I have tried many of them out and I am currently testing variations of my own tank specs out but my problem is this.
When I spec into full tank talents and loose some of my dps ones I go from doing 5500+ in frost presence to doing 2800 to 3500. I am not sure if it is my rotation or my spec or what but I have found that as I have seen some mention that when our cooldowns on aoe abilities are down or we are waiting on rune generation it starts to suck for us.
Like the last frost spec I used for dps was the one in the DPS Compendium with Icy Talons spec. The 17/54/0 spec - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
It is probably not a great tank spec but hit several of the essentials I was lacking at the time.
At this point I hate the spec because my TPS sucks for it and I have wanted to go back to unholy unless I can find a way to increase my tps in frost to a respectible level. I do like frost don't get me wrong but for my personal play style it sucks as a full tank spec compared to unholy and that may just be the issue for me.
I wrote a post a few pages back about a frost spec, funny how fast this thread moves. You can find it here. In it I discuss frost and some ways to increase your TPS.
You spec looks good but I feel your missing a few points. Deathchill is a mainstay of the "snap" aggro frost style you should have. You also should drop the 3 extra points in blood for 3 in improved DnD. If threat is that much of a deal, those two changes should have you back on top, theoretically. Take a look and give it a shot.
As far as Frost Aura goes, there is no buff that provides arcane damage. In addition to that, per wowhead, auras still only affect your party and not the entire raid. So having a blanket buff that does resist all 80 to everyone in your raid is still very good and 80 resist all, improved GotW isn't quite 80 resist. Improved GotW is only 75.6 resist all. Thats a talent choice that you have to make based on your raid make up and if you want that 5 resist to make a difference. In reality it probably won't.
Aura's effect entire raid. Don't rely on wowhead for answers as I am finding more and more mistakes there that is giving alot of people incorrect information.
I had frost aura effecting non party members in Naxx recently so unless it was some bug it is raid wide.
Originally Posted by Shadai
I wrote a post a few pages back about a frost spec, funny how fast this thread moves. You can find it here. In it I discuss frost and some ways to increase your TPS.
You spec looks good but I feel your missing a few points. Deathchill is a mainstay of the "snap" aggro frost style you should have. You also should drop the 3 extra points in blood for 3 in improved DnD. If threat is that much of a deal, those two changes should have you back on top, theoretically. Take a look and give it a shot.
thanks it was something I was looking for as well. Will have to look that up once I get off work here in next few minutes got to love work where I can surf the internet all day and still help stupid people find the on switch on their computers.
If you have a shaman providing 20% windfury, then there is no point putting 6 points into imp icy talons. I would prefer killing machine in that situation. Other wise you are spending 6 talent points on 5% haste.
Yes, threat isn't an issue, but it's no reason to not have decent dps even when tanking.
While I agree, I don't find redundancy to be entirely bad and it is helpful in 10's so that the shaman can drop WoA.
I'm using a different spec then the frost knight standard for tanking.
And I am curious how threat is not an issue with the points dumped into IT? Or more I am curious if I am doing something wrong.
I'm sitting at around 2.8 to 3.2k tps with bursts of up to 4.2 on single targets. Multiple targets are not an issue for me.
My usual rotation is
PS > IT > BS > BS > OB/HB (rime) > FS > OB/HB (rime) > HB/OB (if rime proced previously) > OB and then repeat the cycle.
I'm poping Death Chill before an HB in my rotation.
My HB hits harder then my OB atm. I'm not sure if that is strictly because I don't have a really good weapon yet, or if it is because I am not currently using the OB glyph as it hasn't popped up on my server yet?
I am also using Rune Strike every time it pops up. This sometimes leaves me with a lull between the first OB/HB and the next (Where the FS is in my rotation). This is a period of time where my TPS drops obviously.
Is the 9% crit from subversion to BS and OB that much greater then 4% dmg from 2hweapon spec for PS, BS, OB, FS, and RS?
I can usually hold aggro ok, but dps has to hold back quite a bit sometimes. Especially on Malygos/Sartherion, and some of the slower hitting mobs in 10/25's
This hurt me very bad on Pwerk the other night as I was not able to keep aggro from my Feral Druid OT =/
What am I missing?
I used to think I was perfect. Then I realized that thinking ones self perfect is conceit and conceit is a character flaw. I have no character flaws.
12/05/08, 2:05 PM
got to love work where I can surf the internet all day and still help stupid people find the on switch on their computers.
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