Elitist Jerks
Register
Blogs
Forums


Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Death Knights

Closed Thread
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 08/11/09, 12:19 PM   #1501
Stealthah
Glass Joe
 
Gnome Death Knight
 
Bonechewer
[quote=dhthomps;1345708]I'll take a preliminary crack at this since searching the thread turned up only sparse comments. Main tank perspective only included below.

Spell Deflection Rank 3
You have a chance equal to your Parry chance of taking 45% less damage from a direct damage spell.

To add to this list, would this also work for Algalons Big Bang? My guild downed him for 10man and I was generally absorbing the Big Bangs, first w/ ibf + ams , 2nd with ams + VB + PS, 3rd was same as the first. But a few points into that instead of one of the UH talents since threat isnt really an issue might make healing a little easier after the portals. Was just curious on that.

Also, about the standard spec on the front page. For a lot of fights with aoe (mim hard), ive found it pretty advantageous to get rune tap + glyph for it. It provides pretty significant heals over the duration of the fight. I just dont see how you can pick up some of those threat talents such as imp IT, and not get runetap + Mark of Blood for tanking. Those seem like pretty standard cooldowns in terms of tanking.

Im also curious as to the 4p t9 bonus. With glyph for vamp and the 4p bonus, VB will last a pretty significant time. Much longer than any "burst" a boss may have. With this bonus, does anyone else thing bilzz is definitly pushing for blood to be the main tanking spec?

Final question, Im not sure if I missed this or not but does the new sigil for dodge outweight the Sigil of Deflection?

Last edited by Stealthah : 08/11/09 at 12:30 PM.

Offline
Old 08/11/09, 12:35 PM   #1502
Lyssa
Von Kaiser
 
Pandaren Monk
 
Al'Akir (EU)
Originally Posted by Stealthah View Post
Spell Deflection Rank 3
You have a chance equal to your Parry chance of taking 45% less damage from a direct damage spell.
To add to this list, would this also work for Algalons Big Bang? ...
Bolded the important part. Big Bang is an aoe effect - he doesn't target you and cast it on you; it just affects anyone who's not in a black hole - and since Spell Deflection doesn't work on any other such (as far as I'm aware) it shouldn't work for BB either.

Sweden Offline
Old 08/11/09, 1:36 PM   #1503
bluedragon
Glass Joe
 
bluedragon's Avatar
 
Draenei Death Knight
 
Frostwolf
Originally Posted by Lyssa View Post
Bolded the important part. Big Bang is an aoe effect - he doesn't target you and cast it on you; it just affects anyone who's not in a black hole - and since Spell Deflection doesn't work on any other such (as far as I'm aware) it shouldn't work for BB either.
Big Bang is also Physical, which means AMS is useless unless you have 4pc T8.
Originally Posted by http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64443
Big Bang
8 sec cast 4 sec cooldown
Inflicts 76313 to 88687 Physical damage to nearby enemies.
I can say it works on Sartharion's flame breath. So, "direct damage" should say something like "targetted".

Offline
Old 08/11/09, 6:50 PM   #1504
Manito
Von Kaiser
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Kilrogg
Originally Posted by bluedragon View Post
Big Bang is also Physical, which means AMS is useless unless you have 4pc T8.


I can say it works on Sartharion's flame breath. So, "direct damage" should say something like "targetted".
I would look at it in a less broad way. You are all trying to discount it on AOEs. The description reads "direct damage" - this doesn't necessarily mean all AOE. Direct damage to me, means (1) it isn't indirect, so for example, damage from other players who are charged with a debuff like say, Ionar's static charge - the spell isn't directly cast by the enemy, it is supplemental damage from another player who was debuffed. (2) it has to be instantaneous, non-periodic damage - you can't deflect damage over time spells, or spells that have that component.

Previous to 3.2, I had spell deflection on my hybrid build. It worked amazingly well against nearly any caster type mob I tanked, reducing the amount of direct damage I took considerably. After 3.2, I did not spec into this, in favor of a slightly different build, and have noticed that in fights where spell damage against me is coming into play, my health drops far more quickly in the first few seconds of the fight than before. I'm going to try speccing back into it and will check my recount results and see what I get.

Also, if memory serves me right, most AOE's for bosses have physical damage component as the damage factor (with some exceptions), with individual resist checks if the AOE is resistable, right? Ones that do not, like Sartharion, are frost damage but can be reduced by resistance.


Offline
Old 08/12/09, 6:10 AM   #1505
leladax
Von Kaiser
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Ясеневый лес (EU)
Originally Posted by frmorrison View Post
Black Heart is pretty awesome. 120 stamina is nice, but the armor proc is outstanding. It is 7000 armor on what seems like a short ICD.
I'm comparing that to my current Trinkets. Furnace Stone will give an on demand 5152 armor which is sweet for my UA use. I will not replace that with Black Heart in any scenario (even if big hits aren't optimal for UA, it is a main tool in frost tanking). I'm more concerned about Rune of Repulsion. I was about to replace it in 3.1 but then I heard of the buf given to parry. I'm not convinced yet to replace it but I'm tending to.

It's possibly a better idea to replace Rune of Repulsion with Repelling Charge so that SG rune has a base 540 defense to work on for extra undiminished avoidance.

Originally Posted by frmorrison View Post
the proper healing style is spam heals.
Isn't that open to interpretation? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Last edited by leladax : 08/12/09 at 7:02 AM.

Offline
Old 08/12/09, 11:15 AM   #1506
Pyrius
Von Kaiser
 
Troll Druid
 
Proudmoore
Rune of Repulsion is bad for DKs Always has been.

All of the following are better: Valor Medal of the First War, the Black Heart, the Furnace Stone, heck, the last time I checked, Repelling Charge even delivered more avoidance (the added damage mitigation boost to IBF ain't bad either).

United States Offline
Old 08/12/09, 3:17 PM   #1507
Randywatson
Glass Joe
 
Human Warrior
 
Muradin
"Rune of Repulsion is bad for DKs Always has been.

All of the following are better: Valor Medal of the First War, the Black Heart, the Furnace Stone, heck, the last time I checked, Repelling Charge even delivered more avoidance (the added damage mitigation boost to IBF ain't bad either). "


The Furnace stone is ilevel 219 so I would hope that it's better than something from Naxx. The Black heart is a completely different trinket from RoR. On encounters will not that much physical damage, the Black Heart is obviously better. High physical damage encounters might give you a different result. And how, with the recent changes to dodge and parry rating, is RoR not better than the Valor Medal? Before those changes, yes, I can see that. But now, RoR gives superior avoidance when compared to the Valor Medal.

Offline
Old 08/12/09, 5:20 PM   #1508
Zurai
Bald Bull
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Whisperwind
Originally Posted by Randywatson View Post
But now, RoR gives superior avoidance when compared to the Valor Medal.
Only if you don't consider diminishing returns. DKs have roughly 250-300 built in parry rating, which, combined with parry's significantly lower DR cap, means that parry is still much less valuable, point-for-point, for DKs than dodge is.

Offline
Old 08/12/09, 8:49 PM   #1509
leladax
Von Kaiser
 
Blood Elf Paladin
 
Ясеневый лес (EU)
At the moment I followed an approach on Rune of Repulsion that may sound Heretic to most but it's surprisingly on par with the FAQ. I replaced it with Repelling Charge and not a stamina trinket so the defense on base stats before a Rune is 540. With SG Rune total defense reaches 565 but the extra 25 of the Rune are undiminished taking full advantage of the Rune. I see that rarely - surprisingly - on Armories of high end guild players.

I played a few bosses today on toc10 and uld10 and avoidance seemed smooth even on lower stamina. Being an OT seemed to also be a right role for such high mitigation setups.

Offline
Old 08/12/09, 10:11 PM   #1510
Kaldr
Glass Joe
 
Kaldr's Avatar
 
Blood Elf Death Knight
 
Uther
Here's a parse of last night's raid for those interested in my build's performance - WWS / WMO

It's not ideal, there really isn't an example of me tanking solo or all the way through a fight. I'm DPSing on XT and Auriya I'm only briefly picking up the adds. I'll post some more as the week goes on. We ran a solid 10man AC, which no one caught a log of. And for anyone interested in the multiple deaths on Beasts, we had a pretty frightening healing situation that fight, and I was more or less sacrificed. One healer in tank gear, one dc'd, and I think one or two might have died as the fight progressed. A pretty sad testament to the ease of the encounters that we still downed them.

There is a point I'd like to make though, especially to anyone testing the build - it relies heavily on cooldown management and proactive mitigation. Gormok's killed me fairly regularly and consistently late into the fight because of his ramping damage, knockdown (which, I think, prevents dodge or parry), and impales. While I'm tempted to blame healers, I should have survived through like our other tank, but didn't save IBF for the right time.

Edit: It's not WWS, but here's the breakdown and DPS data from recount after the AC10 that I tanked.
Northrend Beasts:

Jaraxxus:

Last edited by Kaldr : 08/13/09 at 2:04 PM.

Offline
Old 08/13/09, 4:04 PM   #1511
Pyrius
Von Kaiser
 
Troll Druid
 
Proudmoore
Sadly, I don't think the WWS had any fights appropriate for threat evaluation. The high avoidance leads to more Rune Strikes, but considering Frigid Dreadplate doesn't contribute to procs, I'm still unsure if it the loss of other talents is reducing your threat.

United States Offline
Old 08/13/09, 4:52 PM   #1512
Carnerro
Glass Joe
 
Human Death Knight
 
Gilneas
I am trying to work out a blood aoe rotation. The one posted at the start of the thread does not really do the job to well and requires shifting targets pretty often.

I noticed that a BB on a fully deseased target hits for 2k-3k for me and wanted to try and work out a BB spam rotation.

Would the following work?

IT, PS, Pest, BB
Blood Tap
BB, DS, BBx4

Offline
Old 08/13/09, 5:30 PM   #1513
Loathed
Glass Joe
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Darkspear
For AoE i would still start out with a DnD first. So i would say start off-

DnD, IT, PS, Pest

BB, DS, DS, BB

BBx? until you need another pest.

Offline
Old 08/13/09, 9:17 PM   #1514
Manito
Von Kaiser
 
Orc Death Knight
 
Kilrogg
Originally Posted by Carnerro View Post
I am trying to work out a blood aoe rotation. The one posted at the start of the thread does not really do the job to well and requires shifting targets pretty often.

I noticed that a BB on a fully deseased target hits for 2k-3k for me and wanted to try and work out a BB spam rotation.

Would the following work?

IT, PS, Pest, BB
Blood Tap
BB, DS, BBx4
DnD is higher threat per second than anything you're going to get from an extra blood tap.

For me, on large AOE pulls, I do DND, IT, PS, Pest, Blood Tap, BB, and then start into my normal rotation (DS, HS, HS, DS, DS, HS, HS) since I do not use DRM. I have Morbidity 3/3, so shortly after, I can cast another DND if it is really needed, and my threat never gets beat. What is your hit rating at? Maybe you're just missing spell hits too much and not getting the threat you need out there.

Your spec seems a little off. Why Blood Worms - they give you no threat, and you shouldn't need the healing from them. Mark of Blood is very situational, and seems like a wasted point as well. DRW got nerfed hard this patch, and if I remember right, also doesn't give it's threat to you, not to mention it is more of a DPS talent. You also don't really need 3/3 in Scent of Blood - you generate more than enough RP with 2/3 in it. So that's 6 points you can reassign elsewhere for better threat and AOE abilities. Personally I have 3/3 in Spell Deflection (testing it's effectiveness with the Parry normalization numbers, so far, very promising) and 3/3 in Morbidity to help with AOE tanking so my threat never is an issue on large groups of targets.

Right now, I average about 2300 DPS on any given heroic, including heroic ToC. As a tank. Never have threat issues. Every healer I've had has said that "healing you was a snooze". So might want to look at tweaking your spec some?

Last edited by Manito : 08/13/09 at 9:28 PM.


Offline
Old 08/13/09, 9:55 PM   #1515
Deathnotes
Glass Joe
 
Human Warlock
 
Eredar
Just recently made a DK for tanking and I'm confused as to why this Single Target rotation for frost is even effective...?

A rotation I'm using includes the following

HB (Glyphed for it) > PS > BS > BS (to keep blood runes on CD) > DS > HB (KM/Rime procs only)

With Rune Strike bound to each of those skills...With this rotation, I have yet to see a DPS pull off of me while helping the healers out a decent amount getting 3-4k heals each DS...

Offline
Closed Thread

Go Back   Elitist Jerks » Class Mechanics » Death Knights

Thread Tools