It's been a while now i'm struggling with "best tanking spec research" (Search in which EJ has been as usual a great source of data) still i feel like i need and advice and a strong challenging of different specs i think about using for next patch.
I'm in a guild with an average progression (we're 4% on Thadius with the best geared members -unflasked- in raid), my role is mainly MT2 (so Ot and Dps).
We choose a DK because we had initialy noone so i ended up with the role and we've been doing quite well.
At the beginning i was frost because i had less than 40% mitigation (before DR), althought i didn't especially liked the gameplay of Unholy i respecced as soon as the 40% cap was obtained and i got use to it and now hope to not have to get back to frost. (only 25s without any mitigation timer on a 6m fight like PW helped us a lot to kill him even though we 'd lost an OT @74%).
I recently grow concerned about threat generation althought i always had some Expertise on my stuff and never felt too much problem here i expect that with a raid getting better stuff each days this might be a problem, after all if as an Unholy Dk my Ghoul is part of the balance of dps between dk spec but does not generate threat ain't we definitely the worst builder of all spec ?
(i repeat: never had any problem yet and i don't even own SoAw but concern is here)
My goal is to be as reliable as any MT, optimizing every last point i have in a) Mitigation b) Dps/threat c) Raid utility.
Here's My unholy spec for the next patch (after all BS even "nerfed" is still a very very good mitigation skill)
Yes i always take DnD glyph -i'm totally addict since beta to the fear effect- it allow me to take huge pack of trash even in Naxx25 =) and i feel like bone shield and scourge are mandatory, maybe i'm wrong ?
I was thinking of putting my floating point in CE since it debugged to see how it work now and i find NotD to be an interesting talent althought as a tank maybe less than dps ...
master of ghoul feel really useless ( as a tank) apart ghetto taunting on Gothik. and i was wondering how ravenous dead will affect players (especially now that both Ghoul Rez spells are separated).
I find gargoyle to be invaluable as an assist dps while tanking (-once threat is established) and as a dps.
In this spec i really like the fact that i spread the Ebonplague on a whole pack 6s after pulling to help dps down huge pack and the time i can stay under some sort of mitigation effect.
I pull whole rooms of trashs in Naxx dnd,it,ps,pes,bt,bb,ub,if and watch averything get blizzarded down meanwhile spamming ss/pes/bb.
I droped Epidemic because more IT equal more Rime proc (and Morbidity is really a great build talent or so i believe) althought just 1 point in it would be usefull (maybe it's better to get 4/5 bladed armor and 1 pt epidemic for smoother rotations ?), put 1 point in frost aura because i needed a filer althought it is useless (probably Deathchill would prove way more usefull ?)
Here i feel very concerned about glyphes: i choose DnD, Obli and Runestrike for obvious reasons but i also feel like Froststrike or UA might be good choices.
Althought i tend to believe UA is crappy the glyphed version seems crazy, if anyone have information on armor (above normal ) importance (or fight where it does matter a lot) please share.
Heard also of smoother frost tanking build using scent of blood to generate the missing RP you have in your rotation. any advices from someone who has tested such build in raid condition ?
If Will of the Necropolis seems clumsy (assuming it work like Rogue and not like Pala-tin) i tend to believe used in cunjunction with glyphed vampiric blood it might get very interesting (any theorycraft on this ?)
Glyphe of runestrike seemed more usefull than obli (tanking priority) but reading recent reflexion on Blood strike glyphe i wonder how pertinent this one might be (assuming frosfire debuff is always up).
I feel like a lack not having lichborne and am also seriously wondering about DRW, i've noticed 10% supplementary miss on DRW attack (compare to a DK) and i'm not sure about the threat allocation of it (if anyone has explanations on those 10% miss and threat i'd take it gladly).
Same thing about Sudden Doom not sure it need to be maxed if your not a full dps and i tend to believe a non-maxed Runetap is useless, same about blood aura even buffed to 4% (again advice here are very welcome)
Please comment, the lack of stuff on our raiders probably is cause of my absence of problem toward threat generation and i sure don't want to have aggro problem before respecing, any help on all my interrogation will be warmly welcomed =)
I can't speak as much to Frost, as I haven't done much serious tanking with it, but I can speak to unholy (my current spec) and give some thoughts about blood (what I'm switching to when the patch drops)
Unholy: I think you pretty much have the right idea for the spec. One point in CE is interesting and probably a good investment now (especially with the minor glyph). I don't know about gargoyle, as you'll be using as much RP as possible with RS and DC, so you won't have ideal uptime. On the other hand, there aren't too many other places to put that point. I currently have those two floater points in outbreak, but would probably move one to CE next patch just to see how it works.
Blood: The build I'm going with is fairly similar to what others are doing here. I've made a few different choices but at least I like what I've seen on the PTR so far.
I didn't take Sudden Doom because I'm not sold on the value of the proc for five points. If DC gives oodles of threat like some people say it would, I'd reconsider, but I'm not sure where I'd pull the points from. My bigger question is the value of the free DC against using using other global cooldowns.
I got full Rune Tap. I like the lowered cooldown, as I can use it during VB and also use it outside of VB if need be.
I didn't grab abomination's might because the 10% AP increase is easy to get in a raid setting from another class. By not putting those points there (it was between that and blood aura, and the aura brings something different to the table for the raid) I was able to max out morbidity.
I sacrificed the points in blood gorged to pick up annihilation. Getting lichborne is a bonus (if you're putting the 3 points in that tier already, might as well make it four). I found being able to HS HS OB OB was much better for my threat than having to get death runes through DSing. The reason I was going for Blood was its potential for excellent single target threat and single target survivability. For threat, OB > DS.
Your build is good and justifiable too. I just thought you might want a different perspective.
Last edited by Coriolanus : 12/17/08 at 8:29 AM.
Reason: Spelling and adding fluff
About frost build. Drop the 2 points from Merc Combat and put them in Glacier Rot, and 1 point from Frost Aura to Deatchill. It helps a lot in aoe situation, one Deathchilled HB makes wonders for threat , and you also replace OB with HB when cd allows, each time you tank 2+ mobs.
The points in Subversion and Morbidity i consider them personal preference. I do use Subversion to boost mys single target OB threat, but i replaced Morbidity with Epidemic, mostly because DnD kills my FPS, and doubling DnD casts is something of a FPS nightmare, and so far i found no reason to use more than 1 DnD/pull as opener.
About Glyphs, i went all out on defensive. IF and UA glyphs, with RS for threat, because from checking reports after runs, RS is the main source of dmg/threat (i have it macroed on every other strikes). After patch i will drop UA glyph and go for OB rune. FS glyph is a second good candidate, still not decided because i never have enough RP to FS as much as i like.
Last edited by Darmon : 12/17/08 at 9:02 AM.
Reason: glyph selection
thnks a lot for your input, your definitely right about abo might and i'm quite sure you're also good on sudden doom.
Is your annihilation/OB,OB advice is based on possessing Sigil of Awareness ?
or just Obli is totally out-threating HS ? (considering that Sigil of Hauted dream will give us about 3.5%~ crit i had a strong hesitation on this, on the beta as a blood dk haunted buff seemed perma-up..)
Gotta macro RS in a few key ve'been lazy on this (and as i didn't felt threat problem spamming it asa up became less frequent, something i expect to change at the patch -definitely)
oops i had forgotten glacier rot from my build, i'd of course take it in a frost build (now i gotta find one last point )
toward glyph i was very interested in IF one but since i couldn't find it on my server i had to go around it, and now well, it seems like broken, in comparaison of what a FS or UA glyph could bring in a frosty, Obli and RS both feel mandatory.
BS is still higher after +15% damage vs +20% damage you say, and you are correct; however, you have forgotten that obliterate will crit 15% more often and even with a 30%-after-talents critrate on blood strike, there remains only a 9% chance that BOTH will crit. Whereas Oblit still has a 45% chance of doing double damage.... In half the time.
Additionally, GCDs are more precious than you seem to realize, as is flexibility. Most Frost rotations are pretty tightly GCD limited and, while they all have time to 'dump' RP and procs, there really aren't any more GCDs to spare on swapping one Oblit for two BSes. Not to mention, tanks usually want some flex with their GCDs so they can react to a changing situation; having no spare GCDs means that your maximum threat generation must stop and finally get rolling again as runes become available, which can also be unnacceptable.
I don't want to come off as elitist nor a jerk, but your understanding of probability and expected value are severely lacking. What does it matter that you have a lower probability of both Blood Strikes critting? We aren't talking about which is burstier, and thus better for PvP or better for getting some quick snap aggro on a mob. Obliterate will crit 15% more often, and for 245% damage (if it wasn't for the talented increased crit damage a 15% damage buff and 15% increased crit chance would result in the same exact increase in expected value).
My point was not that glyphed and fully talented Obliterate wasn't as good as two Blood Strikes. My point was that the difference in expected values between the two is about 10%... and a 10% difference of a sequence that accounts for maybe 20% of your damage (and probably much less) results in a difference in maybe 2% DPS. For five talent points and a major glyph, you're clearly not getting much value for your 'dollar'.
To the gentleman that posted the Recount logs of training dummies... thanks, but most of us understand quite well that the dummies really don't reflect real-world performance. Namely, the dummies don't hit back, which means Rune Strike (the most important tanking skill we have, it seems) is unusable. So, instead of dumping RP "for free", on the dummies, you need to Frost Strike more, using more GCDs, and obviously influencing the argument in favor of fewer Blood Strikes and more Obliterates. The dummies are there for practice, to let us tighten our rotations, and only rarely can be used to see which tanking spec provides more TPS.
If you're missing, or getting parried/dodged more than, say, once every 2 rotations (~2% from hitcap, at dodge expertise softcap), then you need more hit/exp... and that is why we assume 6 GCDs per rotation, when in reality there are ~6.66... that extra time is for getting back on track. Either way, even with two blood strikes, your rotation has 3 free GCDs out of every 2 rotations... plus that "bonus" GCD. If you really feel GCD starved, you're probably overusing Frost Strike or underusing Rune Strike... and this all started as a discussion as to whether dropping DnD was worth giving up your Death Runes... and the answer is yes, because dropping DnD will do better things for your threat than having death runes in the first place!
Gotta macro RS in a few key ve'been lazy on this (and as i didn't felt threat problem spamming it asa up became less frequent, something i expect to change at the patch -definitely)
Macroed in my racial and trinket, turns the sound off for those abilities so it's not annoying when it's spammed, uses Rune Strike when it can, Death Strikes with any modifier held down and suppresses all ability errors.
I don't want to come off as elitist nor a jerk, but your understanding of probability and expected value are severely lacking. What does it matter that you have a lower probability of both Blood Strikes critting? We aren't talking about which is burstier, and thus better for PvP or better for getting some quick snap aggro on a mob. Obliterate will crit 15% more often, and for 245% damage (if it wasn't for the talented increased crit damage a 15% damage buff and 15% increased crit chance would result in the same exact increase in expected value).
My point was not that glyphed and fully talented Obliterate wasn't as good as two Blood Strikes. My point was that the difference in expected values between the two is about 10%... and a 10% difference of a sequence that accounts for maybe 20% of your damage (and probably much less) results in a difference in maybe 2% DPS. For five talent points and a major glyph, you're clearly not getting much value for your 'dollar'.
To the gentleman that posted the Recount logs of training dummies... thanks, but most of us understand quite well that the dummies really don't reflect real-world performance. Namely, the dummies don't hit back, which means Rune Strike (the most important tanking skill we have, it seems) is unusable. So, instead of dumping RP "for free", on the dummies, you need to Frost Strike more, using more GCDs, and obviously influencing the argument in favor of fewer Blood Strikes and more Obliterates. The dummies are there for practice, to let us tighten our rotations, and only rarely can be used to see which tanking spec provides more TPS.
If you're missing, or getting parried/dodged more than, say, once every 2 rotations (~2% from hitcap, at dodge expertise softcap), then you need more hit/exp... and that is why we assume 6 GCDs per rotation, when in reality there are ~6.66... that extra time is for getting back on track. Either way, even with two blood strikes, your rotation has 3 free GCDs out of every 2 rotations... plus that "bonus" GCD. If you really feel GCD starved, you're probably overusing Frost Strike or underusing Rune Strike... and this all started as a discussion as to whether dropping DnD was worth giving up your Death Runes... and the answer is yes, because dropping DnD will do better things for your threat than having death runes in the first place!
Firstly, I understand exactly what expected value and probability are; I kinda had to in order to pass real Prob Stat when the professor was one of the Math department's Four Horsemen (of the Apocalypse, yes. Their exiting class GPAs were retardedly low but they got kept at Georgia Tech because they could do research)). Anyway, I'll stand by my claim that two blood strikes will never be as good, or as bad, as a single Oblit; why? Because they have a much higher chance to do average damage and a vastly reduced chance to BOTH crit or BOTH miss. Oblit will spike around more but does about 18% more scaling damage when glyphed, offset by about 100 less bonus damage than the double blood strike. At 1250 average weapon damage, this means your 10% holds true; however, even crappily geared me registers higher than 1350 average, so I think your numbers are a bit low for discussing raiding damage or TPS output.
Furthermore, before making claims in a vacuum, you really should do at least the symbolic math with just the weapon damage and scalars OR consult a spreadsheet. There are a few frost sheets in the spreadsheets thread, one of them is mine, and it lives on google docs (publicly viewable) so there's literally no reason to not bring backup with your claims. And yes, my sheet says two BSes is better than an oblit 'in practice' (after DR, etc etc); HOWEVER, it's running on the old assumed oblit glyph math (1.2 scalar on Weapon only rather than on the end result with + damage and diseases added in) and I'm going to figure out how to get a rawr module written rather than invest more time in a spreadsheet--partly because the relative worth numbers for the current max-damage frost rotation make me nervous... but the math checks out, so......
Finally, using two GCDs each rotation for BS is counterproductive; it steals time that could be used to do a Frost Strike or Howling blast and will literally generate too much RP to burn, which would necessitate dropping the BS to dump RP (or drop +RP talents/glyphs to boost something else... But 1 FS > 1 BS so that's a bad call). So, while you might be correct at the lowest possible level--Glyphing Oblit is only resulting in a 10% increase (2% overall) at low gear levels--you totally neglect the fact that not glyphing Obliterate is counterproductive as replacing OB with two BS is counterproductive, which was what I was trying to suggest originally, but failed at miserably. At any rate, this thread is totally the wrong place to discuss Frost DPS (although TPS results directly from DPS so maybe it is in some tangential way?) and there is a thread with plenty of dscussion on that already.
My point was that the difference in expected values between the two is about 10%... and a 10% difference of a sequence that accounts for maybe 20% of your damage (and probably much less) results in a difference in maybe 2% DPS. For five talent points and a major glyph, you're clearly not getting much value for your 'dollar'.
That's clarity? This presumptive "math" shows nothing. I love the uses of the word "maybe". I appreciate the argument that BSx2 > OB in a vacuum, and you're right. But you're intentionally dismissing any effort to quantify the flexibility gained by BoTN, and static, immobile tank fights where your proof is most applicable is also the most rare.
First of all, let it be clear that any time a BoSanc pally is nearby, OB>BSx2 by a long shot. It's not even close. You need every available gcd to hit FS again, even on slow-hitting bosses like dragons. If there's not one around, BoTN is less valuable, but is quite solid on any mobile encounter where you have smaller windows to get in your damage. Heigan, Grobb, Noth, GWF, or really anytime you're tanking a mobile boss that may move and/or cast I find OB to be much better. I see your 25-man DK tanking experience is limited, so I'll illustrate what others may be seeing. On fights like Grob, I kite the big guy around the room. If I pull back to move him out of a puddle, and he stops to cast Mutating Injection or to Slime Spray (or both), I can potentially miss 2 GCDS waiting on him to catch up to me. With guys like Mnevis and Bogatyr beating on the boss non-stop, you need to make the most of your smaller TPS windows and the value of OB is higher than on say, Patch.
I think it's worth noting that BSx2 has situations where it's value is close enough to OB to make BoTN less valuable, but that's certainly the exception, not the rule. Feel free to speculate about Uludar and how many Patchwerk/Brutallus fights we'll see versus dynamic, moving encounters, not to mention more options about DnD/HB casting which does mean something. No tank encounter or rotation goes flawlessly.
TLDR: It's very difficult to quantify BoTN's contribution as so many circumstances where it will vary exist. It is true that it's lackluster at worst, invaluable at best. It is absolutely true that if your 25-man raid has a prot pally in it, BoTN is a no-brainer frost tanking talent.
I'd like to retouch on an issue I brought up earlier about a Frost tank I know.
I brought up the issue to him that he spams Icy Touch too much (for the record, he will frequently use it 4-6 times in a row). He proceeded to attempt to explain to me that "two ITs do more damage than one Obliterate." He pointed to his logs where his IT is dealing around 1.5k and his OBs are only doing 2k. His explained that his rotation only uses Obliterate to use Unholy Runes, and that he uses all his death runes to pop IT.
Admittedly, two of his ITs ARE in fact dealing more damage than one OB. However the problems I see with this theory (and correct me if I'm wrong) are 1) that's a LOT of GCDs he's wasting, 2) as a result he has less time to dump all the RP he just collected (he uses the IT glyph), and 3) he doesn't use the Obliterate glyph which would probably help in buffing the damage.
An IT focused rotation seems incredibly awkward to me and with spamming it more than twice you're going to leave Unholy runes sitting out doing nothing. With all the GCDs he's wasting he has no time to cast any other abilities, and from what you'll see on his WWS his diseases do a MUCH higher percentage of his total damage then they should as a result. So even though his ITs beat his un-glyphed OB, in the end it's actually hurting his overall damage.
Am I correct? The results seem to confirm this, because his auto-attacks will frequently out-damage his Frost Strikes, and his Frost Fever is usually in his top 5 damaging abilities.
Has there been any math presented that compares different tanking talents by how much threat they generate? In my guild we have a DK-tank that generates alot lower threat compared to what he probably should do and I'm fairly certain that some of it comes from him using what I see as "bad" talents but I'm not sure how I can convince him that they are "bad". Talents that I would be interested in include but are not limited to:
Early blood (butchery, subversion, bladed armor, two-handed spec, scent of blood and dark conviction)
where he likes to take scent of blood and subversion but not bladed armor.
Mid unholy (mostly how good desecration is compared to impurity and necrosis) where he swears by desecration.
Let's not get into a pissing contest about academic credentials. It's silly and pointless. I reacted to your comment involving the chance that both BS would crit... which was tangential, and I thus assumed a significant lack of understanding. Given the normal state of discourse on the internet, who could blame me?
The reason I wasn't bringing numbers to back up the claims that I (relatively accurately) eyeballed, is because I am trying to argue an untenable position. Of course a glyphed, fully talented Obliterate is better than two Blood Strikes, Blizzard doesn't mess things up so much that spending 5 talent points and a Major Glyph on something doesn't make it better. I was simply making a general claim that, if you're not overfull of RP from BoSanc, the two skills are roughly equivalent. That said, I have been using the tanking spreadsheet while making these general claims.
But you're right, this isn't the place to discuss Frost DPS. The reason this all started was a simple question of whether using Death and Decay in your single-target rotation was worth it, due to the fact that it limits one's production of Death Runes, and thus, decreases your total number of Obliterates. The thing that we (seem to) all agree on is that the main thing that Death Runes buy you are extra GCDs... well, mister, if you want a way to use fewer GCDs, weaving Death and Decay into your rotation is a pretty sure-fire way to do it. If you consult the tanking spreadsheet, chances are you'll see that DD-PS-IT-BS|HB-BS-DD|PS-IT-BS-HB-BS is the top TPS rotation. If you don't see that when solo and unbuffed (and the weapon damage of Obliterate wins out over your lower AP) you'll almost always see it when you add consumables and raid buffs.
As bucknasty pointed out (albeit rudely... no, I haven't DK-MTed most of the 25man stuff since beta... yes, I have DK-MTed every 10man encounter... yes, the issues of mobility are exactly the same, especially when your DPS is geared out in ilvl213s... I guess I need to apologize for my friends joining a guild run by an only-warriors-can-tank fossil... but, back on topic...) talking about rotations as max TPS really is oversimplifying things, as most fights require a significant amount of mobility. Again, this is another argument for using DnD... if you look at the rotation above, the great fact is that many of the skills used are ranged. Even on a fight where you're constantly moving, with a bit of practice on positioning the boss and the DnD, you'll be able to get the full duration out of it.
So, if you really want the flexibility that Death Runes give, of course, go ahead and grab BotN. Just don't drop Bladed Armor or Morbidity to get it, or you're really cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I'd like to retouch on an issue I brought up earlier about a Frost tank I know.
I brought up the issue to him that he spams Icy Touch too much (for the record, he will frequently use it 4-6 times in a row). He proceeded to attempt to explain to me that "two ITs do more damage than one Obliterate." He pointed to his logs where his IT is dealing around 1.5k and his OBs are only doing 2k. His explained that his rotation only uses Obliterate to use Unholy Runes, and that he uses all his death runes to pop IT.
Admittedly, two of his ITs ARE in fact dealing more damage than one OB. However the problems I see with this theory (and correct me if I'm wrong) are 1) that's a LOT of GCDs he's wasting, 2) as a result he has less time to dump all the RP he just collected (he uses the IT glyph), and 3) he doesn't use the Obliterate glyph which would probably help in buffing the damage.
An IT focused rotation seems incredibly awkward to me and with spamming it more than twice you're going to leave Unholy runes sitting out doing nothing. With all the GCDs he's wasting he has no time to cast any other abilities, and from what you'll see on his WWS his diseases do a MUCH higher percentage of his total damage then they should as a result. So even though his ITs beat his un-glyphed OB, in the end it's actually hurting his overall damage.
Am I correct? The results seem to confirm this, because his auto-attacks will frequently out-damage his Frost Strikes, and his Frost Fever is usually in his top 5 damaging abilities.
I'm not sure why he would want to use Icy Touch to generate his threat and then use the Icy Touch glyph, which reduces the damage that it deals. He's being counter-productive to his own proposed tanking "rotation." As you've pointed out, if all he does it spam Icy Touch at every chance, he's probably wasting a lot of Runic Power as well. Are those 1.5k Icy touches crits? It's been a while since I was frost, but I don't remember consistently getting Icy Touches that high unless they crit, and Oblit should be critting a whole lot more often than Icy Touch for less GCDs.
I would ask him to humor you and compare his normal Icy Touch heavy rotation against a more standard Frost rotation that included regular use of Oblit and dumping Runic Power on a regular basis.
I'd like to retouch on an issue I brought up earlier about a Frost tank I know.
I brought up the issue to him that he spams Icy Touch too much (for the record, he will frequently use it 4-6 times in a row). He proceeded to attempt to explain to me that "two ITs do more damage than one Obliterate." He pointed to his logs where his IT is dealing around 1.5k and his OBs are only doing 2k. His explained that his rotation only uses Obliterate to use Unholy Runes, and that he uses all his death runes to pop IT.
Admittedly, two of his ITs ARE in fact dealing more damage than one OB. However the problems I see with this theory (and correct me if I'm wrong) are 1) that's a LOT of GCDs he's wasting, 2) as a result he has less time to dump all the RP he just collected (he uses the IT glyph), and 3) he doesn't use the Obliterate glyph which would probably help in buffing the damage.
An IT focused rotation seems incredibly awkward to me and with spamming it more than twice you're going to leave Unholy runes sitting out doing nothing. With all the GCDs he's wasting he has no time to cast any other abilities, and from what you'll see on his WWS his diseases do a MUCH higher percentage of his total damage then they should as a result. So even though his ITs beat his un-glyphed OB, in the end it's actually hurting his overall damage.
Am I correct? The results seem to confirm this, because his auto-attacks will frequently out-damage his Frost Strikes, and his Frost Fever is usually in his top 5 damaging abilities.
Could you point us toward his armory or, in the interests of protecting the guilty/uninformed, the weapon and talent spec he's using?
While two Icy Touches will, noncrit, do nearly as much as an Oblit, obliterate's average/expected damage is way higher because it will crit more often and for 245% rather than 200%. At the very least, point him toward a spreadsheet and have him enter his stats/gear and see what it spits out at you/him; I know mine can swap between 4 possible, sane frost rotations based on max output in current gear/spec (although I assumed non-DW and taking useful, deep frost talents so it may not fit his spec) and the others may be able to do similar things, if not more.
This is entirely unnecessary. All you need is the :Clear as in the original version. Hide/Show doesn't do anything except possibly costing extra CPU time for no benefit.
Let's not get into a pissing contest about academic credentials. It's silly and pointless. I reacted to your comment involving the chance that both BS would crit... which was tangential, and I thus assumed a significant lack of understanding. Given the normal state of discourse on the internet, who could blame me?
The reason I wasn't bringing numbers to back up the claims that I (relatively accurately) eyeballed, is because I am trying to argue an untenable position. Of course a glyphed, fully talented Obliterate is better than two Blood Strikes, Blizzard doesn't mess things up so much that spending 5 talent points and a Major Glyph on something doesn't make it better. I was simply making a general claim that, if you're not overfull of RP from BoSanc, the two skills are roughly equivalent. That said, I have been using the tanking spreadsheet while making these general claims.
But you're right, this isn't the place to discuss Frost DPS. The reason this all started was a simple question of whether using Death and Decay in your single-target rotation was worth it, due to the fact that it limits one's production of Death Runes, and thus, decreases your total number of Obliterates. The thing that we (seem to) all agree on is that the main thing that Death Runes buy you are extra GCDs... well, mister, if you want a way to use fewer GCDs, weaving Death and Decay into your rotation is a pretty sure-fire way to do it. If you consult the tanking spreadsheet, chances are you'll see that DD-PS-IT-BS|HB-BS-DD|PS-IT-BS-HB-BS is the top TPS rotation. If you don't see that when solo and unbuffed (and the weapon damage of Obliterate wins out over your lower AP) you'll almost always see it when you add consumables and raid buffs.
As bucknasty pointed out (albeit rudely... no, I haven't DK-MTed most of the 25man stuff since beta... yes, I have DK-MTed every 10man encounter... yes, the issues of mobility are exactly the same, especially when your DPS is geared out in ilvl213s... I guess I need to apologize for my friends joining a guild run by an only-warriors-can-tank fossil... but, back on topic...) talking about rotations as max TPS really is oversimplifying things, as most fights require a significant amount of mobility. Again, this is another argument for using DnD... if you look at the rotation above, the great fact is that many of the skills used are ranged. Even on a fight where you're constantly moving, with a bit of practice on positioning the boss and the DnD, you'll be able to get the full duration out of it.
So, if you really want the flexibility that Death Runes give, of course, go ahead and grab BotN. Just don't drop Bladed Armor or Morbidity to get it, or you're really cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Fortunately, EJ isn't nearly as bad as most of the Internet. Sure, there are tons of egoes here, including my gynormous one, but at least people usually know about what they're talking about .
Regarding DnD, I honestly hate--and I mean HATE--the cost to use it. For the same 3 runes, I could generate 10+ more RP and com close in threat (I think). Correct me if I'm wrong, but DnD in Frost presence gives somewhere between 3.66-4.0 Threat per point of damage, right? How hard are the average DnDs ticking for in a 25m?
In DPS gear in my current spec with a bit over 3k AP (unbuffed) and in Blood Presence, I get around 500 ticks, 1k crits (raid buffed). Frost Presence shouldn't be too far off because of Bladed Armor boosting AP. The only difference I can think of is Blood Presence's 15% damage. Either way it still hits fairly hard.
Last edited by Kaejin : 12/17/08 at 5:34 PM.
Reason: clarifying
Fortunately, EJ isn't nearly as bad as most of the Internet. Sure, there are tons of egoes here, including my gynormous one, but at least people usually know about what they're talking about .
Regarding DnD, I honestly hate--and I mean HATE--the cost to use it. For the same 3 runes, I could generate 10+ more RP and com close in threat (I think). Correct me if I'm wrong, but DnD in Frost presence gives somewhere between 3.66-4.0 Threat per point of damage, right? How hard are the average DnDs ticking for in a 25m?
Looking at my past WWS, Death and Decay for me as unholy usually ticks for around 500-600 with occasional 700 ticks. It ticks 10 times in 10 seconds for 90% extra threat, so I'd need to do around 10-13k damage per target with those three runes on other abilities to match it's threat generation. You also free a global cooldown for another death coil if you have the runic power to spare. DnD isn't nearly as powerful for frost or blood, but it's still among our best threat generation abilities.
WWS from last night's Naxx shows DnD average of 428, max 1009, 7% crit rate. Armory shows me at 2700 AP buffless, but it can peak to close to 5k raid buffed and CD's up.
I'm pretty disappointed that there's no reliable AOE RP ability (Corpse Explosion is great on trash, useless on bosses where any adds despawn) short of UB. I think that the dynamic rotations required to AOE tank effectively will only increase in complexity by demanding more Pestilences (which I'm actually quite excited about). I get frustrated on the steady-stream-of-adds DK problem as any spec but unholy (where it's a cinch). I was frost for much of the beta and would love to go back to it after 3.0.8 but the AOE dominance of Unholy will still be there.
Regarding our threat, I feel I have as good a grasp of DK tanking as anyone (there goes the ego again, but what do you except from a guy with a forum/toon/guild name like mine) and I'm truly bothered by our single-target threat versus a paladin's. AE threat is very comparable; with a perfect rotation I consistently piss off my highly-competitive pally co-tank (he gives up and goes and grabs the next group for a head start :P). However on single target he embarrasses me and our warrior counterpart. He has to MT things that we cotank, otherwise he will certainly overtake both the warrior and myself.
The problem that I have with this:
To my understanding, the DK requirement of first having a different higher level character was because of the class' complexity, and having tanked with all of the classes it feels more complex or "harder" to me. That's not to say it's not manageable, but it takes a bit more attention and management to success as a DK tank in my unhumble opinion. It's very frustrating to have taken the time to master those complex and dynamic mechanics to get a free moment to glace at Omen and see my threat at 70% of the paladin MT's, who is using (again, in my opinion) an easier class to tank with.
More work, more complexity, more required attention = fewer results? I wouldn't mind if our threat was pound-for-pound and I had to work harder for the same results, that's fine. I'm not looking for an easier game to play. I am, however, looking for a way to match paladin threat, and we don't have the tools right now. They have the best threat in the game versus single target and at least tied for AOE. I hope the devs reevaluate the grey-hair-spawning traits of DK single-target-tanking and considers granting to (at least the skilled) tanks the tools to create a comfortable lead over the zealous damage classes.
Judgement of Light may be the problem in this case. From what I understand, any fight where JoL is providing threat for the paladin gives them a very large threat advantage.
So to rephrase my earlier post since I think it may have not come across correctly, is epidemic worth points for a deep frost build to avoid having to reapply diseases often, or are points better spent elsewhere. One of the things I was thinking about is whether or not it might actually be beneficial to reapply IT more often for potential rime procs.
What's even worse about our threat is that it goes down a considerable ammount when not taking damage because of lack of runestrikes. What annoys me about this is, that I remember that back in beta it was stated that DKs would be much better at staying second on threat than for example warriors because of how our resource system worked. Now however, we are so dependant on getting hit for runestrikes that I can't stay second on threat when not getting hit no matter what.
Anyway I think they should probably nerf runestrike even further and make up for the TPS loss elsewhere. Its not a fun ability and I find it terrible design that it ends up being where most of my damage comes from in a lot of fights. Often times when tanking a boss I find myself getting annoyed when the boss misses me even though I just avoided the hit, because I won't be able to runestrike until he swings again and my TPS just went down because of that.
I mean on Sapphiron for example I have to stay there hitting him when he goes flying and inmune the breath instead of go hide like the other tanks just because if not DPS will be way to close for comfort and probably pull aggro. Also, if I don't open up a boss fight using ERW, and the DPS goes all out at the start just like they would when our warrior tanks, they're very likely to pull aggro.
Has there been any math presented that compares different tanking talents by how much threat they generate? In my guild we have a DK-tank that generates alot lower threat compared to what he probably should do and I'm fairly certain that some of it comes from him using what I see as "bad" talents but I'm not sure how I can convince him that they are "bad". Talents that I would be interested in include but are not limited to:
Early blood (butchery, subversion, bladed armor, two-handed spec, scent of blood and dark conviction)
where he likes to take scent of blood and subversion but not bladed armor.
Mid unholy (mostly how good desecration is compared to impurity and necrosis) where he swears by desecration.
From what I have gathered from this post, butchery is not bad, but Bladed Armor is superior to it and to 2H spec. I do not recall if I have seen a comparison of 2H spec and butchery. There *may* have been a comparison between Scent of Blood and Butchery earlier on. I get my threads all mixed up. So many!
What kind of tank spec is he that he has points to throw into Dark Convinction? Sounds like he's going into Blood to pick up VoTW, but if his threat i s an issue, he should go deep down Unholy instead, assuming the "main" tree he's using is Unholy.
Desecration is unreliable at best, due to how often bosses move. I would highly recommend Necrosis, as it increases Rune Strike damage. I also <3 Impurity as Unholy.
Honestly, it may not be talents, because in my experience my TPS is so far ahead of DPS (which, granted, are not t7 geared yet) I can't imagine struggling on single target threat. =\
Does anyone know if an IT > OB > BS > OB > FS rotation would be viable in a single target tanking scenario? You have to start with a death rune to pull it off (which is easily acquired), but I'm not sure if the loss of a disease in Plague Strike is worth the benefit of being able to trade two Plague Strikes for an Obliterate across two rotations.
How much extra damage does the single disease give Blood Strike and Obliterate?
First, I apologize if this is already known or discussed elsewhere (haven't seen anything about it though), but there seems to be an odd bug. I got [Rune of Repulsion] tonight and I noticed something weird: if I equip it then use it, my parry actually drops after the use effect expires (~23% before Use, down to ~22% after the effect expires). My first guess is that the amount of parry chance that my parry rating gives diminishes due to the increased rating from the Use on the trinket, and somehow gets "stuck" after the effect expires. It goes back to normal if i unequip and re-equip the trinket, but obviously mid-combat this isn't an option and really makes the trinket seem near worthless. It could be, however, that the stats displayed on the character screen do not accurately reflect the true numbers, but I waited nearly 10 min to see if it would "update" itself and no luck.
This seems similar to the way that re-gemming does not provide the set bonus on the character screen until I unequip and re-equip the piece?
On that note, my other two trinkets are [Repelling Charge] and [Figurine - Monarch Crab]. I'm sitting at nearly 40k buffed HP so I was thinking that the [Rune of Repulsion] would be better than [Figurine - Monarch Crab] for extra mitigation and threat, though also considering dropping a lot of stam for def gems and replacing the repelling charge because I like the Use effect of the monarch crab... Any thoughts?
My final question is in regards to threat: while I very rarely have serious threat issues (only EoE which is understandable), my threat is significantly lower than the other tank classes and it comes close at times. My current spec is:
A few pts here might seem odd, I played a bit with a template to pick up some of the ones I personally like (such as Morbidity). I'm wondering if there are some other talents that are much better for threat, and perhaps that's where my problem lies. I considered dropping Icy Talons and using those 6 pts for various dmg boosts such as dark conviction, 2hd weapon spec, or other dmg talents in frost. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
12/17/08, 7:43 AM
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