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Old 01/19/09, 1:57 AM   #16
Asari
Von Kaiser
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Dawnbringer
In regards to the whole 2% stam vs. 3% avoidance, that's really a much bigger question that as far as I know, there's no real answer to. You might as well ask, "is it better to gem for stam or avoidance? - do I use 3 41 stam gems for 1200 HP, or 3 27 dodge gems for for about 1.5% dodge (with diminishing returns)?"

In top notch gear, gemmed for full avoidance, you can get about 75% dodge/parry/miss as frost with blade barrier and horn up. On the other hand, if you gem for full stam, you can get near 40k HP raid buffed. Which one is better if you're getting hit for 10k?

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Old 01/19/09, 5:14 AM   #17
Septus
Piston Honda
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Ravenholdt
Ok, my confusion was that I thought in theory, you're at 540 defense in the live game, and then post patch you drop 25 defense from gear, add it on through the rune, and after dropping defense from armor, you could gain 4% parry so that the net effect would be neutral, or rather positive because of the health bonus(or maybe you don't get quite 4% parry back but you calculate the health value to be equal to the value lost).

I think it would be more helpful to point out that you won't actually find an equivalent ilevel swap, so that when you drop the defense from your gear and replace it with parry, ilevel budget will keep you from making an equivalent swap.

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Old 01/19/09, 9:47 AM   #18
Izha
Glass Joe
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Hellscream
One thing I've read a little bit about here and there but would like a good answer on is: Can Army of the Dead be used effectively in in raids or even groups for DPS without creating havoc because of the taunt factor?

Thanks

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Old 01/19/09, 9:55 AM   #19
Pyros
Bald Bull
 
Pyros's Avatar
 
Undead Death Knight
 
Twisting Nether (EU)
Originally Posted by Izha View Post
One thing I've read a little bit about here and there but would like a good answer on is: Can Army of the Dead be used effectively in in raids or even groups for DPS without creating havoc because of the taunt factor?

Thanks
It'd really help if there was any kind of information about that, like a dedicated thread or something. Oh wait Raid Tested uses of Army of the Dead

Seriously, I understand it's the DK FAQ, but looking at the titles of other threads before asking questions won't kill you.

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Old 01/19/09, 10:13 AM   #20
Roywyn
Bald Bull
 
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Roywyn
Gnome Mage
 
No WoW Account (EU)
dodge > parry
You might change that to "1 dodge rating > 1 parry rating", because 1% parry is (very slightly) better than 1% dodge.
Or you might add that it is that way because parry is more expensive for 1%

Swordshattering vs. Gargoyle
I stand corrected, neither enchant is subject to diminishing returns.
It might be worth mentioning that though, before others make the same mistake.

Last edited by Roywyn : 01/19/09 at 11:54 AM.

Chaotic Meta Gems in Cataclysm: http://elitistjerks.com/f75/t106009-...2/#post1794256

DPS spec and class comparison in Naxxramas gear: http://code.google.com/p/simulationc...i/SampleOutput
The Blue Bar and you - the complete Fire Mage 2.4 mana compendium: http://elitistjerks.com/658230-post3191.html

And [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] doesn't proc on AM.
Neither does [The Egg of Mortal Essence] since 3.1.

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Old 01/19/09, 10:42 AM   #21
Flamingcloud
Great Tiger
 
Goblin Warlock
 
Cho'gall
Originally Posted by Roywyn View Post
You might change that to "1 dodge rating > 1 parry rating", because 1% parry is (very slightly) better than 1% dodge.
Or you might add that it is that way because parry is more expensive for 1%

Swordshattering vs. Gargoyle
If I'm not mistaken, Swordshattering offers a direct 4% parry buff which then is *NOT* affected by diminishing returns.
Gargoyle increases defense skill, which means that the 1% miss/parry/dodge/noncrit gained are effected by diminishing returns.

That means that Swordshattering will always be 4% avoidance, while Gargoyle will be around 2% avoidance or less.
The better your gear, the more dodge/parry/defense rating you have, the less avoidance Gargoyle will give.


Source and info:
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-c...gs_level_80_a/
Swordshattering should count as parry buff, hence not be affected by diminishing returns.
Gargoyle is also not affected by diminishing returns. This conversation never would have come up if it was. It would have been a long the lines of "Gargogyle is good if you need the defense to be uncrittable but useless aside from that".

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Old 01/19/09, 11:25 AM   #22
Feorthas
King Hippo
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Blackrock
Will post more detailed frost DPS verbage later if I feel a bit better (sick; bleh) but here are some high/key points:


-Use the following ability priorities for single target:
--IT every 10-11.5 (keep Frost Fever up!)
--BS if Blood Rune Exists
--Dump RP if you have enough to FS
--Obliterate
--Burn Rime procs

-Use the following for multi-target:
--IT (for FF)
--Pest.
--HB spam
--Dump RP / Blood Strike

-Prioritize Hit until capped
-Prioritize a balance between stats gained and weapon DPS / speed (H HoS sword > H HoL axe due to speed/socket/stats!)
-Speaking of stats, avoid haste on gear if possible but the IIT line is actually an OK place to put extra points. I personally prefer filling out IIT before Toughness.
-Hungering Cold works on some encounters in Naxx; Gluth's adds come to mind, as do the Plague Wing's first boss' adds and Gothik (dead/live side guy--I memorize fights rather than names :p). While it doesn't directly increase your dps, it certainly can help in other situations if you're having issues with multi target dps but single is OK (rogue/enh sham heavy, for example).
-Tundra Stalker is superior to Vot3W on a point-for-point basis.
-The two accepted specs are 17/54 or 21/50; the latter is slightly higher DPS but the former tends to have HC and can be a bit more flexible with the last 4 points (whereas 21/50 must waste 3pts in blood to get 1pt in Vot3W).
-Do not prioritize tier gear over alternative pieces in the short run; however, target 4pc T7 if at all possible.
-Best T7 piece is the sholder slot, hands are a slight downgrade from the same-ilevel non-set, as is the chest. The helm is a downgrade until 7.5 (you ARE wearing the BS helm, right?), and I'm not certain about the pants.
-It cannot be emphasized enough: haste on gear is FAIL.
-Try to gear for Str, then AP/Crit, and finally Exp (to 5.6%) while maintaining hitcap.

I'm sure I've skipped something but that's all I can think of right now.

Last edited by Feorthas : 01/19/09 at 11:30 AM.

I am not your personal Frost Deathknight knowledge base. If you have a simple question, ask in the simple questions thread; if you have a more esoteric, specific, or complicated question, ask in the spec-appropriate thread.

My PM, WoWmail, and, especially, chat boxes are NOT the appropriate places for these questions.

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Old 01/19/09, 10:42 PM   #23
Shadai
Von Kaiser
 
Shadai's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Rivendare
Okay edits.

* Added the DPS section! Whoo! Not my work tho, so if anything is wrong please let me know and I'll fix it straight away.

* Fixed some of the wording in the Rune of Swordshattering/SG part. Added that both are not effected by Diminishing Returns (which I just forgot to put in the first time around).

* Added the dodge, parry and miss caps. Cleaned up some wording in the DR part.

* Still praying for a sticky so its the first thing new posters see when they come here.

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Old 01/19/09, 11:18 PM   #24
Morbis
Glass Joe
 
Draenei Death Knight
 
Dath'Remar
Regarding DW tanking.
(note that this is obviously pre patch 3.0.8 and could change)

Currently the only reasons I have been able to as to why DW tanking would be less viable then 2h tanking is that DW does not create enough threat, this is defintely not true.

ATM with the spec and gear I have (see Armory) in 10mans I can main tank or off tank with the only problem being if our mage pops his trinkets at the start of a fight.

In 25 mans our guild partners with another guild whos main tank is a 2h unholy DK (Armory) (who also MTs in the 25mans), on trash mobs he will usually always hold aggro, however on bosses where I'm required to hold secondary threat I usually have to just auto-attack and every now and again throw an IT and HB for risk of overtaking the MT in threat.

As for stats, unbuffed my stats compared to the 2h tank is:
AP -86
Dodge -3.22%
Parry -0.22%
Expertise +10
Hit Rating +47
Stamina +128
Armour -10

And when fully raid buffed I sit around 37k health and he sits around 34k
Looking at these stats and how my threat generation performs in 25mans I would say that overall DW threat generation is just as good, if not better than 2h tanking whilst the differences in tanking stats remains comparable.

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Old 01/19/09, 11:45 PM   #25
grayrest
Piston Honda
 
grayrest's Avatar
 
Troll Shaman
 
Chromaggus
You may want to make the Tanking and DPS headers larger and note next to the tanking header that the DPS section is further down. It's nit-picky but I jumped into this thread and wondered if I hadn't run into a tanking how-to thread and I can see other people just looking at the first post in this thread and then making dumb posts elsewhere.

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Old 01/19/09, 11:52 PM   #26
foolish_fool
unique snowflake
 
foolish_fool's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Frostmourne
I would be inclined to say that the DPS section is somewhat redundant given that the TTT exists: if people are too stupid to find that, they probably won't read this thread before asking their questions.

That being said, there is no "DK Tanking" TTT post, hence the content in this thread could be polished with a view towards creating one.

Last edited by foolish_fool : 01/19/09 at 11:55 PM. Reason: Added link to TTT

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Old 01/21/09, 9:57 AM   #27
crd
Glass Joe
 
Undead Warlock
 
Tortheldrin
As long as we are beating the Runeforging dead horse i'd like to bounce my views off someone, let me know if i'm way off base:

I looked at it like this (SG=25def/2%stam, SS=4%parry):

SG nets 3% 'avoidance' and somewhere around 40 stam unbuffed and 50 stam raid buffed
SS nets 4% 'avoidance'

Basically when I was doing the math on paper I split off 1% avoidance from SS and lets call it 'X' or an unknown amount of stats to equal a vague 2% stamina

well 2% stamina from my calculations on current gear turns out to be 40-50 depending on buffs and gear

now, if I want to remove 1% avoidance from my gear and replace it with an equivalent stamina value I would need to look for 41 defense rating, 39.35 dodge rating, or 49.19 parry rating. lets say we had some leftover defense gems, 41 defense rating is worth 41/16=2.5625 gemslots

lets take our ~2.5gemslots theory and change them to stam (those come in 24's), 24*2.5625=61.5 stamina. this means if I remove 1% avoidance from my gear via defense gems I could probably gain 61.5 stamina.

going back to my first point, the 2% stamina that I get from SG (by sacrificing 1% avoid) only gives me about 40-50 stamina.

at this point, im thinking SG is slightly inferior or almost a wash (personal preference) but I want to see how DR factors in and check live 'character sheet' stats. I remove about 60 defense rating and 27 str from my armor and lose 1.2% 'avoidance'. this makes me think at my current item levels 1% avoidance is closer to 50 or 60 instead of my calculated napkin math '41' value.

TLDR
TLDR
In conclusion, I believe if you want more stamina/versatility and you can afford to switch old gems while staying capped (JC gems, high endgame gear, etc) you will have more benefit by keeping Swordshattering and matching it's equivalent benefit with gems or trinkets
/TLDR
/TLDR

Notes:

I'm assuming you are able to be defense capped without Runeforging therefore negating the benefit of crit avoidance
I'm assuming you are able to regem your gear without much trouble
My DR assumptions and calculations at the bottom part are very rough

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Old 01/21/09, 5:17 PM   #28
slant
Don Flamenco
 
Draenei Shaman
 
Drenden
You're absolutely right, the new runeforge is great for starting deathknight tanks and those of us (like me) who hate having to regem/enchant with every single upgrade to stay uncrittable. It's a real convenience factor. Mathematically the parry runeforge is slightly superior, and I expect to see serious progression maintanks (if such a thing exists in WOTLK) using it.

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Old 01/22/09, 1:10 PM   #29
lxsli
Glass Joe
 
Night Elf Druid
 
Argent Dawn (EU)
Really great post.

I loved the first-posts on the old class threads. The old warlock thread was especially nice imho, it laid out the recommended roles for each tree and a few sample builds. Maybe some of the TL;DR and numbers could be split out from the discussion, to make this simpler to reference quickly?

I applaud your diligence in describing what expertise/hitrating etc are, but there's wowwiki for that, imho this would benefit from concentrating on DK specific information.

A mention of Icy Talons vs Windfury could be worthwhile.


WRT the runeforge, I'm sticking with the EH > avoidance philosophy. Maybe one day crazy avoidance will be possible enabling a very high boneshield uptime, afaik we're not there yet.

Last edited by lxsli : 01/22/09 at 1:15 PM. Reason: addendum

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Old 01/22/09, 2:48 PM   #30
Mindaika
Piston Honda
 
Mindaika's Avatar
 
Tauren Death Knight
 
Frostwolf
Originally Posted by lxsli View Post
WRT the runeforge, I'm sticking with the EH > avoidance philosophy. Maybe one day crazy avoidance will be possible enabling a very high boneshield uptime, afaik we're not there yet.
EDIT: Changed my mind.

Tastes like Awesome, because it's made of Awesome(TM)

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