Suno's Fireside Chat - DK Endgame Tanking - Page 115

• frmorrison · 09/10/09, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Silarn

I don't know if it's true or not, but you have to take into consideration that UA also functions as Frost DPS's only actual damage cooldown. The way it works now makes it extremely limiting as to when you can pop it without throwing off your rotation, which also makes it very difficult to use during a burn phase.

If it is true then I can fully understand the slight nerf to the strength gain.

That is why many Frost dps DKs don't take UA. However, Blood tap can help you use UA and the cooldowns are the same. The strength was reduced because before it was 2 min/25% str, now it is 1 min/10% str. Removing the rune would be too good and against the design of the class (even Mark of Blood, which is considered weak still costs a Rune).

The macro to use UA is something like
/cast blood tap
/cast Unbreakable Armor
/cancelaura blood tap

nergal119 · 09/10/09, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Sogron

Nergal,

In s5 I played a feral/resto hybrid with my druid as a healer role in PvP.
The bear form armor, the -dmg while stunned talent, the -dmg taken while in bear form talent, the -dmg from natural perfection and Barkskin would have resulted in a higher than 100% damage reduction if they were additive. I did, howver, take damage, so, my guess is that you reduce incoming damage by the first reduction percent, than you reduce the remaining damage by your second reduction percent, etc.

We checked it with a rogue friend, I had 20% DR from leather armor, he did something like a 4k doublecrit mutilate on it
That I went into bear (~65% DR from armor, -8% dmg because it's bear form, -30% dmg taken while stunned, -12% dmg taken because of natural perfection, and -20% dmg taken because of barkskin) and he hit me with a ~550 doublecrit mutilate. Talents changed a lot since than, but you can get a good guess from this.

Sry for not having a strainght answer, I don't know the exact answer myself, hope my example helps you till someone more informed comes along.

I am leaning towards the first example as well, just considering that the second would be a bit of a ridiculous buff.
However, I have always considered abilities such as IBF, Barkskin, and other active-ish reductions (like Primal Tenacity) to follow example 1, just applied after base DR and armor DR have been.

Thanks for helping to straighten things out in my head.

Kaldr · 09/10/09, 12:19 PM

Sogron: I was using this version of the build through most of Ulduar up until the health pool nerf. There's a more complete post on it back further, but it does work. Ghoul pet was talented for because it made death pact more accessible as a cooldown, and AMZ was very useful in Uld; I was not having threat problems either, though our DPS was getting closer and closer, and I think that the build does need an overhaul for threat for next patch.

The points in crypt fever are there to buff the self healing for Death Strike (assuming the full heal goes off, it's more threat than anything regardless), which puts it even to blood's DS's. I was using a standard unholy rotation, subbing Death Strikes in whenever health was low enough to allow it.

I do really like the D&D idea, and it does free up some points to play around with. I'll definitely play around with that when I get a chance.

Switching to Obliterate is a little bit sketchy, especially considering the way they're changing things next patch.

Silarn · 09/10/09, 12:44 PM

Yes, I know all that. I said it was extremely limiting, which it still is, even with the macro, which makes using it during a burn arduous at best.

And my point about a slight nerf still stands, as 25% str 1/6th of the time > 10% str 1/3 of the time.

Previously it was a little over an average 4.2% increase to your strength, and now it's an average 3.3% increase.

Sogron · 09/10/09, 7:38 PM

Kaldr,

Point taken about Crypt Fever and Death Strike, I'd like to add that it also helps with BCB

My final build at the end of the day is:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Using the above mentioned DnD rotation on single targets. Because of my gear, I could only test it in 5-mans, but the TPS looks nice so far. I have to add that RP generation is kind of crap, I'm using nearly zero Deathcoils, all my RP goes in Rune Strikes, and that's with a 3.60 speeded weapon...

Would love to test it raidbuffed :S

Melchior · 09/10/09, 8:41 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

That is why many Frost dps DKs don't take UA. However, Blood tap can help you use UA and the cooldowns are the same. The strength was reduced because before it was 2 min/25% str, now it is 1 min/10% str. Removing the rune would be too good and against the design of the class (even Mark of Blood, which is considered weak still costs a Rune).

The macro to use UA is something like
/cast blood tap
/cast Unbreakable Armor
/cancelaura blood tap

Using BT to fire UA (or BS/VB) works fine, but probably diminishes the usefulness of 4pc T9 pretty heavily considering BT will still be on a 60 sec cooldown. I would really rather see them attach RP costs to these CDs or just remove the cost entirely given what kind of resource cost other tanks pay to use their defensive CDs.

piranhi · 09/10/09, 10:04 PM

Had a play around on the PTR's for a bit today, still hard to get groups, glyphs, gems etc on there, but I tried Unholy with both Obliterate and Scourge Strike and still single target threat seems to low.

Thx_138 · 09/10/09, 10:09 PM

Originally Posted by Sogron

Kaldr,

Point taken about Crypt Fever and Death Strike, I'd like to add that it also helps with BCB

My final build at the end of the day is:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Using the above mentioned DnD rotation on single targets. Because of my gear, I could only test it in 5-mans, but the TPS looks nice so far. I have to add that RP generation is kind of crap, I'm using nearly zero Deathcoils, all my RP goes in Rune Strikes, and that's with a 3.60 speeded weapon...

Would love to test it raidbuffed :S

I was looking at a similar spec, however I was thinking about 2 points in Scent of Blood and only 3 in Bladed armor to help with RP generation. Not sure how that will affect threat, 3/3 Scent of Blood and 2/2 2hand spec is also a possability

Kaldr · 09/11/09, 3:27 AM

If we're focusing on Death and Decay, 2handed spec isn't going to be a good talent, unless I'm mistaken on the way that works. The AP buff will benefit everything, especially with impurity.

BCB is something I usually avoid because of parry hasting concerns. Worse, the build sacrifices any native expertise and is seriously disadvantaged by faster swings from the boss. I haven't got any math on it, just conjecture at the moment.

Switching some points into SoB is a good idea for the D&D rotation, assuming the RP gen is really that low. Also, Obliterate is double dipping from Dirge/Chill right now, but it won't be next patch. Switching out glyph of RS for IT could also help, though that's more of an extreme measure if you're limiting your rune strikes by RP gen.

I'd like to emphasize, too - Single Target, Death Strike will always be better threat, provided it does a certain amount of healing. And, you know, it's probably in your best interests to heal yourself anyway. It's also better RP generation with dirge, so it should certainly be used whenever justifiable, which requires a bit of flexibility in rotations.

piranhi · 09/11/09, 7:14 AM

New changes state that all three CD's are down to 1 minute

Death Knight

* Frost Presence: The damage reduction granted by this ability has been increased from 5% to 8%.

Pets

* Gnaw: This death knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown.

Blood

* Heart Strike: Secondary targets of Heart Strike now take half as much damage.
* Subversion: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Scourge Strike by 3/6/9%.
* Vampiric Blood: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and duration reduced to 10 seconds.

Frost

* Threat of Thassarian now also causes Rune Strike to use both weapons when dual-wielding.
* Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and changed back to granting 25% additional armor while active instead of flat damage reduction based on armor. The amount of strength granted has been reduced to 10%.

Unholy

* Bone Shield: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
* Dirge: This talent no longer grants additional runic power from using Obliterate.

SpoonfulOfMacheath · 09/13/09, 11:25 AM

Death Knight

* Frost Presence: The damage reduction granted by this ability has been increased from 5% to 8%.

Pets

* Gnaw: This death knight ghoul ability now has a 1-minute cooldown.

Blood

* Heart Strike: Secondary targets of Heart Strike now take half as much damage.
* Subversion: Now also increases the critical strike chance of Scourge Strike by 3/6/9%.
* Vampiric Blood: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and duration reduced to 10 seconds.

Frost

* Threat of Thassarian now also causes Rune Strike to use both weapons when dual-wielding.
* Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute and changed back to granting 25% additional armor while active instead of flat damage reduction based on armor. The amount of strength granted has been reduced to 10%.

Unholy

* Bone Shield: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute.
* Dirge: This talent no longer grants additional runic power from using Obliterate.

It feels like Blizzard is just throwing a band-aid fix at us with the cooldown changes. Once more it will be back to rotating between CDs to stay alive, holding on to that one beefy CD for that special point in the fight.

Happy to see the Frost Presence buff though.

What I want to see is some numbers on the ToT change. I've never really considered DW tanking viable (tried it once back in early wrath with mixed results) I know the parry-haste is a non-issue nowadays, the hit is a little outlandish but the issue to me always seemed to be threat generation. It just could not keep up with a 2H build. What are the odds that this change will make it "more" viable to DW?

Goldengiff · 09/14/09, 3:32 PM

They changed BS from 4 charges to 3 and the Glyph of Bone Shield only adds 1 now instead of 2. So 4 charges now on a 1min CD instead of 6 charges on a 2min CD.

Thx_138 · 09/14/09, 6:23 PM

The BiS boots [Dawnbreaker Sabatons] are questionable compared to [Greaves of the Lingering Vortex]

+79 armor, +52 parry rating (Dawnbreaker) VS. +5 Stam, +25 dodge rating, +47 hit rating (Vortex)

In my opinion the EH health is very close and even if the 79 armor wins out on physical damage over the 5 stam. I will take the hit rating.

Also [Band of the Twin Val'kyr] is better than Band of the Traitor King. There is no wowhead for the heroic version of Band of the Traitor King yet but if you take advantage of the blue socket on the Valk'yr ring you will gain 4 Stamina and 532 armor over Band of the Traitor King. Here is a link to the stats on the heroic version of Band of the Traitor King

Amroo · 09/14/09, 8:22 PM

Originally Posted by Thx_138

The BiS boots [Dawnbreaker Sabatons] are questionable compared to [Greaves of the Lingering Vortex]

+79 armor, +52 parry rating (Dawnbreaker) VS. +5 Stam, +25 dodge rating, +47 hit rating (Vortex)

In my opinion the EH health is very close and even if the 79 armor wins out on physical damage over the 5 stam. I will take the hit rating.

[Dawnbreaker Sabatons] also has 50 more strength, which translates into an additional 13 parry rating, as well as a threat boost on par with the gained hit (although additional hit below cap makes threat more reliable). The additional defense yields almost half a percent of avoidance even above cap (or might allow to switch out defense in other slots). Also, the fact that avoidance is split onto dodge and parry, instead of just dodge makes [Dawnbreaker Sabatons] less susceptible to DR.
As far as I can see it, [Dawnbreaker Sabatons] is clearly better survivability-wise and on par threat-wise.

Mongia · 09/15/09, 3:39 AM

I have main spec blood tank and thinking about playing with my offspec to try out a nice aoe threat UH tank build.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Not really much else to say. It's using DS for my U+F runes, boosted damage of my D&D and diseases as much as possible, corpse explosion for that extra little AoE kick.

As far as mitigation goes, the only thing I'm really losing from Blood Tanking is perhaps the heals from DS (although CF should help to make up for this), VB (which im kind of replacing with Bone Shield - still not a match imo though) and WotN which is hard to tell exactly how good this is anyway. I also gain 6% spell dmg taken reduction, AMZ and stronger AMS.

I think this, coupled with my current build should give me a lot of versatility to switch between "normal mode" and "anti magic mode". I think I will save up for another T8.5 helm and throw a 2% magic reduction Meta in it too to wear while I'm in this build.

Can anyone give any other advice I might be missing?