Prelate

Are you taking the new +def Sigil into account ? That will skew how you decide to gear.

 

Lerciolas

On the previous page I've deleted a post, since it seems that what I've written on it was wrong.

Regarding DR for tank stats afaik:
1. Defense skill has no DR
2. Defense rating has no DR
3. Effects of defense skill on dodge/parry/miss has DR
4. Dodge and parry rating have DR (and also forceful deflection since it gives parry rating)
5. Direct increase on avoidance stat (from talents, NE racial, swordshattering ...) has no DR.
6. Agility has DR

But from what I can read on the latest posts of this thread, point 3 seems to be wrong.

 

Crax

The thing is, we didn't have a complete answer to #3 prior to this patch, because there *was* no source of straight Defense skill, other than what's built in for our level. They had removed the talents from Pallys/Warriors that added straight Defense. Defense skill having no DR is actually very consistent with what we *did* no, though. Here's the list as the evidence to date has shown (using Alpha for less confusion with quoted post):

A. Base Defense Skill has no DR
B. Straight Defense/Parry/Dodge/Miss from any source (talent, enchant, racial) does not have DR.
C. Dodge/Parry/Miss from Defense Rating have DR - Defense Skill from Defense Rating does not (effectively only Crit removal)
D. Dodge/Parry Rating from any source (e.g. Forceful Deflection) have DR
E. Dodge from Agility has DR.

The question I haven't seen an answer to yet is this:

The formula for DR includes a "Cap" for each avoidance stat. Do sources of non-diminishing avoidance effectively raise this "Cap"?

 

Psykhe

It's a bit more than 1% difference if you calculate it with real values. Mainly because the parry of DKs is already rather high.

Lets take a well geared DK tank before weapon rune with 22% dodge, 28% parry (with blade barrier), 7% miss. With those an attack has a chance of 0.78 * 0.72 * 0.93 -> 52.2% of hitting you.

With +1% to all these values thats 0.77 * 0.71 * 0.92 -> 50.3%. This means you are taking on average 3.7% less damage.

With 4% to parry its 0.78 * 0.68 * 0.93-> 49.3%. You take 5.6% less damage than without rune enchant.


In other words, with gargoyle you take about 1,97% more damage on average.


However, you also get 2% more stam with gargoyle. And that stam is also useful against magic damage or attacks against your back where parry does not do anything.

On the other hand, on fights like patchwerk 2% more avoidance is IMO > 2% more stam. And there is also the question of diminishing returns of the 1% dodge, parry, miss from the defence - if I use a 0.9% instead 1% reduction for gargoyle it jumps from 1.97% more damage to 2.35% more damage. 2.74% with 0.8% instead 1%.

 

Lerciolas

It's true that prior to 3.0.8 there was no direct source of def skill, my bad on not considering this.

However for defense it should be like this (DEF rating didn't give directly parry/dodge/miss):

DEF RATING -----(no DR)------>DEF SKILL------(DR)------>dodge/parry/miss CHANCE

E.G.

If I have 400 def skill or 600 def skill and I wear a piece with def rating, in both cases I get the same amount in DEF SKILL (no DR from rating to skill).

If I have 200 dodge rating or 500 dodge rating, putting gargoyle on my weapon will increase my dodge change less in the second case (DR from def skill to dodge rating).

If I have 200 dodge rating or 500 dodge rating, putting a piece with def rating will increase my dodge change less in the second case (a mix of the above).


As for the cap raised, that is a good question, sadly I don't have the answer

 

gamer88

Ah I've seen a couple of pieces that are like 20-30 less def rating than my blues and purples, but I had hoped that it was just a few and not everything O_o. I didn't realize that it was that hard to be def capped in almost full t7 since I would hope it would be cake.

to Lazare: I know it's avoidance and not mitigation, I have no clue why I put that there, and sorry for the typos in the words I really can't spell to save my life : P

oh and if there is in fact nothing wrong with stacking def when the hell do I know to stop and use stam gems?

edit: just changed the wording a bit

 

Namuh

As far as Epidemic is concerned I think you may be on to something. It's nice to be able to let those tick longer but I don't think it's necessary at all for a tanking rotation.

On the other side of that - The SECOND Morbidity is fixed I'll be looking for something to drop in order to get it.
I find that I need it and it's not ready all the damn time.
It's always Almost ready and perhaps that tells me only 2 points are necessary instead of all 3.

VotTW is a fantastic talent and I'd love to be able to pick up GoG - but the added damage that GoG provides is not > the Blood talents that are in this build. I have not dropped a single bit in TPS from dropping GoG and my damage is still up there even as a tank.

Using CureFC's Idea here is My Spec - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

To those that were giving me crap on Endless Winter - please find a spot other than KM for those filler points - EW isn't necessary but at least it has it's uses.

Icy Reach
Nerves of Cold Steel
Icy Talons
Killing Machine
Runic Power Mastery
Frost Aura
Endless Winter

Those are my options - -

Reach is useless

Nerves is for DW(useless)

IT = more haste = Haste is not good for tanks IMO(perhaps I'm old school)

KM = marginally useful if you can put 5 points in it(too expensive and based on auto attacks = useless) AND would seem to benefit from IT and IIT - but again too expensive and Haste is not that great for a MT.

Runic Power Mastery = bigger pool of RP = not useless - especially BEFORE the Patch with Death Strike glyph (5k heals aren't something to dismiss)

Frost Aura = Doesn't stack with GotW or Pally Auras = useless.

Endless Winter = Free silence - Free disease when you Chain something.
------------------------

so far the only Idea I've seen for improving on my spec are to start removing points from other areas to fill in more of the lower tiers but really we don't have allot of fantastic options for the middle tiers.

I'm always open for suggestions.

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

Carminax

1)Yeah sorry i should have said "after the patch"

I came up with THIS. Wasn't sure wether to take subversion or DRM adn teh general consensus seems to say that Spell deflection isn't much use (unless i've got my wires crossed). Also i figure bloodworms would last as long as a month in a blow torch in boss fights. Am i far off?

2)Yeah it's only on damage delt isn't it? I'd stick it on the boss right at teh beggining of a fight mebby whilst healers are getting in position. Plus the extra healing never hurts really ^_^

3)I guess its a a "wait and see whats in Uladar" talent

4)I did read teh previous posts but I'm confused as to which is best for when

5)Fairy nuff i shall cast it aside! *casts aside Virulence* Ha!

6)Certainly the most surreal answer I've had to that one

 

Asmadai

Heh, what I think he meant to say was '42'. Unless '49' has another connotation i'm not privy to.

In many of my Frost builds, it's coming down to throwing filler points into Icy Reach or Runic Power Mastery. Icy Reach is obviously the better bet for these points is it not? Although I could understand how RPM could help in some situations, I never really see my RP going over 80 or 90 too often to make it worthwhile.

 

Namuh

I find myself getting to the 90+ when I have BoSanc and it builds up very fast.
When I have the points in RPM it actually allows me a little breathing room as I get to max very quickly without it.

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

Rathore

I notice a lot of frost builds skipping tundra stalker, is it really that worthless? or are points just better spent elsewhere?

 

Fatedtolive

Namuh,

Windfury totem is raid wide.

Are you including the 5% personal haste IIT gives in addition to the 20% raid wide in your considerations?

 

Pyros

1) There's a few things I wouldn't do, but again since it's not been tested yet, it's hard to say. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is my base. Subversion is VERY good for threat in a blood build, so I wouldn't skip it. DRM isn't necessary, but it brings you flexibility when you need more Blood runes for whatever you need to do. Skipping Hysteria is a bit of a waste, much more than Mark of Blood in my opinion. I can't really think of a time where mark of blood would really be useful, but Hysteria is useful on every single fight, be it for your own threat if you actually need it, or on a fury war to increases his DPS by a decent boost during bloodlust.

There's floating points in my build so I can get both. You somewhat want to take annihilation if you're taking epidemic imo, and it's a good talent and you go down lichborne anyway so might as well. Outbreak however is pretty much crap in a blood build, since they're moving the pestilence bonus dmg to deep blood, so you'll have the outbreak effect on pestilence, meaning you don't need to waste 3points to bloodboil(they're removing the CD on pestilence too).

Bloodworms can be used on spare points, they're not that good though, they die to AEs and don't heal all that much in tanking gear. Spell Deflection is excelent, but currently bugged(and buggd on PTR too) and conflicts with AMS. If it procs while you have AMS up, it will overwrite the AMS absorb, which means instead of absorbing 75%magic dmg, you'll only absorb 30% from deflection, and gain no RP. Makes it very weak in my opinion but once they fix it, it'll be pretty nice, it procs a lot.

4) You want the runeforge gargoyle like, pretty much anytime you can't reach def softcap with the sigil+your gear and no enchants/gem pretty much. It lets you regem/reenchant on stam/expertise/hit/dodge which is very nice. It's also very close to 4% parry in terms of melee mitigation. You might want to build another set of gear for pure melee mitigation though, especially fights where you get hit a lot, but threat might not be an issue. For this set, you'll craft a Titansteel Defender and put 4% parry on it, giving you the highest melee mitigation currently achievable on weapon. You might need to switch in a def trinket depending on your gear to still be crit immune, that's case by case stuff. So you want to use both for different situations.

You can also mix match it depending on your tastes, there's no absolute ways to gear, but I think this should give the best results overall, normal weap+gargoyle+no enchants/gem def and another set with defender+parry+one piece of high def like a 10man T7 gemmed for def, or a def trinket.



Yeah 42, it was the most random answer I could get but couldn't be bothered to double check wikipedia to find out what number it was.


It is raidwide. Like iIT. It's mostly useless unless you don't have an enhance shaman AND a lot of melee so you actually need the 4 more percents.

 

Namuh

well...damnit - too much misinformation on my part than. - I went to Thottbot and pulled the spell and of course the thing says group.

Summons a windfury totem with 5 health at the feet of the caster - the toem provides 16% melee haste to all party members within 30 yards - lasts 5 minutes.

My girl has an enhanc shaman - I just made her log in and yes it's freaking raid wide...
so the Mana Spring totem is group wide though....I hate you blizz sometimes.

As far as the 5% melee haste consideration - haste is haste and if I don't need to provide it to the raid I would rather do without it completely on my DK - the rest of the melee I'm sure would love it.

I'm going to edit my previous posts as my information was incorrect.

Tundra Stalker is being replaced by Vetran of the Third War - otherwise it's a great talent if you are going further south in the tree.

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

phixx

Is there a better spot for Unholy Tanking, thread wise...no offense to the rest of you, but for like the past 15 pages all i have been reading is frost, and i really don't plan on going that route even after the new patch.

Outside of tankspot, i'm not finding a whole lot of other people that are interested in theory crafting about Unholy.

 

Raedix

Interested, sure, but I just can't see how Unholy can possibly compare to Frost given the changes.

Unholy is at an inherent threat disadvantage due to the high contribution of the Ghoul and the Gargoyle to Unholy's DPS (which obviously do not translate to threat). The thing that made (and still makes) Unholy so attractive is Bone Shield... but at the 20% mitigation level, when it comes to melee, Frigid Dreadplate alone nearly provides as much damage reduction (3% miss on top of ~60% avoidance is 7.5% DR to Bone Shield's 10% DR assuming 50% uptime)... combine that with the longer IBF, and the now-pretty-good UA, and you start to see Frost pull ahead very significantly when it comes to physical damage mitigation.

Now, Unholy has a lot of great tricks, especially in the anti-magic realm. Chances are that Unholy or Unholy/Blood will still be better for MTing Sarth+3. I don't even think that Unholy was nerfed terribly hard (if at all)... but it is clear that Frost and Blood have received some huge buffs.

What I find interesting is that Blizzard is giving each DK-tank a combination of it's own "flavor" and the "flavors" of each of the other classes.

-Blood tanks will function much like TBC Druids, with huge effective health pools, plenty of armor, great single-target threat, but a weaker "cleave" AoE mechanic.
-Frost tanks will function much like TBC Warriors, relatively moderate in all aspects.
-Unholy tanks will function much like TBC Paladins, kings of AoE, getting a bit of a natural HP boost to make up for the fact that they need to gear more for avoidance to maximize their skillset.

Obviously the comparison is not perfect, but it is pretty decent, especially given how they chose to evolve the Blood tank in 3.0.8...

 

Pyros

Probably the first 30pages or so, since everyone is unholy currently(or almost everyone). If you have specific questions I guess you can just ask, but most of unholy tanking has already been covered I guess.

 

• CureFC

Keep in mind that at that point HB will likely have no cooldown. I might still want Morbidity too, but it will definitely feel like less of an absolute necessity.

 

Gort

Yeah, I am, and honestly, I'm not currently planning on using it as a means to break 540. I do NOT like reliance on a proc for crit immunity. I may use it as a sort of "bonus" Defense proc, but I will be ensuring I'm above 540 even if the proc drops.

 

Disargeria

In any situation that you need the proc, which is pretty much just bosses, it's always going to be up.

 

Max

I only have one fear and that's on the pull. Since I'm not hit-capped for spells I worry that I might get RNG'd due to a few resisted ITs.

 

Gort

That's the thing, I'm not casting IT every 30s on a guaranteed basis when I'm using a glyphed SS. I could alter my rotation to allow an IT every 30s guaranteed, but then I'm losing potential benefit of the glyph.

As well, it isn't "always" going to be up, as there IS a boundary condition where I could be engaging/reengaging the boss--Heigan, Noth, etc, that kind of thing--and IT will miss, and I will then be crit in the face. (As I am not under the impression that "spell hit cap" is a tank gearing priority necessarily.) This is unlikely, certainly, but I prefer to minimise the influence of the RNG on my/the raid's survival.

 

Ilmatar

Re: Unholy tanking

This may be kind of special case, but I'm pretty happy with this build: Unholy/Blood

I'm OT to a Pally tank for Naxx10, and I haven't really had many problems with threat or mitigation. The nerf to bone shield will hurt, but as the only DK in the raid, with a lot of magic damage, me bringing Ebon Plagebringer and Unholy Aura is a significant advantage, and I'll probably be sticking with it post-patch.

 

phixx

i have read basically every post in this thread, im just saying it seems as if people are heading back to frost because the see Bone shield getting a *nerf* but its still pretty close to what it is now taking in defense and buffed Frost Presence correct?

Im just wondering is there is a better way to spend my points in unholy, since i notice a lot of people not taking Outbreak, which i find to be pretty useful on trash/aoe/boss fights with multiple mobs. I have MT'ed basically every boss in 10/25 mans - outside of Malygos 25 and haven't really noticed a problem with threat generation, unless i get a couple misses to start and mages are critting. Im wondering if people who are unholy take the important talents of the tree (Bone Shield, Unholy Blight) and basically fill the points around them into what they use in raids based on their roll. I guess what a better question would be is, where can i find a break down of talents that build TPS vs talents that are lack luster for the amount of points that must be spent to cap that talent. (2/2, 3/3, 5/5)

For example, is 2points in 2hand specialization(blood tree) better than spending 2-3points to increase my strength 2-3%(respectively) in the Unholy tree. Since i don't have perma-ghoul, the talent itself is pretty worthless in that aspect.

Another thing is, i have Rune Strike bound to almost all of my strikes/abilities, and i find myself unable to squeeze in Unholy Blight as much as i would like to, or need to. Any suggestions on that? Maybe un-macro Blood and Scourge Strike from casting Rune Strike to free up the rune power that i build from them?

 

Pyros

Yeah I guess there's still lots of room for point by point TPS calculations in unholy, but it's the same in every build pretty much, there's not that much that has been theorycrafted in detail yet. For example in your comparison, I'd say 4% 2H damage is higher than 2%str, but I'm way too lazy to check the math. 2%str AP would roughly add 40AP to all your abilities, while 4% to 2h dmg would increase half of your damage by 4%, so roughly a 2% total increase. I'd say 2% is higher than 40AP, but there's way too many calculations to make sure, and afaik they haven't been done yet. If anything they're close enough that it shouldn't matter.

As for the threat issues, it's highly dependant on external factors. Do you have all the melee buffs? If you do, your threat should be topnotch. If you're missing battleshout/BoM or windfury/iIT, you're gonna lose a decent bunch, and some more as you go through the list, which makes 10man threat much more of a pain. Then there's Blessing of Sanctuary alone which makes a difference of like 1k TPS for me. Without it, I spend all my RP on Rune Strike or close to, and only pop UB like every minute or so. With it, I have to deathcoil between UBs and still runestrike every time it's up, since it basically make runestrike free. The number of rogues in your raid also makes a diff, same for hunters. I know when I have 2 rogues chain tricking me and 2hunters doing a misdirect chain at the start, even in the shitty situations I'll be way ahead on threat anyway. And finally your gear, especially your weapon makes a big difference. If you're a BS/JC(like me), you can gem for hit/expertise/strength already, which massively cut into the threat losses due to missed hits pushing you back in your rotations and such.

Overall, I find unholy nice, and I think it's a very balanced tree, even accounting for the boneshield nerf. I'll still be switching because I feel like changing. And just like I did with unholy, I'll guesstimate TPS/point on blood and frost talents because there's no other way to do it accurately currently(the spreadsheets are often for DPS, or miss a lot of factors like rune strike).

As for not casting UB enough, I'd unmacro RS if you want to, but as far as I'm concerned Rune Strike is a better RP dump than UB for single target. For AE I always keep UB up. I have Rune Strike macroed to mousewheel down, so it's easy to spam the whole fight without losing the usage of my hand, and also lets me choose when to use it, but it's personal tastes.



And about the def sigil, I'll use it and build my set around having the buff. To be honest the situations where it could go wrong are so rare it's almost a non factor. It is however not that great in an unholy build due to SS glyph. Most other fights, you won't have 30secs of not fighting anything, and on pull I always use a defensive cooldown while the healer position anyway, a crit wouldn't make a difference. If it happens to make a difference, I'll just start the fight with my Titansteel Defender+gargoyle enchant on, and switch weapons after IT is up and during the GCD.