Doing heroic LK attempts I am for the first time wondering if I should focus more on avoidance than effect health. Up until now, I have pretty much stacked as much armor as possibly (35.6k armor no buffs) with out sacrificing stamina. For the first time ever H LK25 hits so hard that reaching the point where surviving two hits in a row with no heals in between is likely not attainable until another stack or two of the buff. I'm sitting at about 76k hp raid buffed and the Lich King hits for around 41-44k (and higher in P1 when he gets stacks)

Obviously if I could reach the point where two consecutive hits wouldn't kill me, going the EH route would be superior but since this is not possible at the moment should I replace some of my bonus armor pieces with more avoidance?

Usually our healing is ok but when healers are having to move (shadowtrap/defile) and/or get picked up by valks we run into tanks getting 2shot.

that's what I figured. I realize its on the healers to not make errors (aka holyshock x2 and a swiftmend need to be ready every time they have to move) but reducing the consequences of healer error is always a good thing.
Well another 2 weeks (25% buff) and I might be able to eat 2 hits. well see.

Apologies if I missed it as this is a huge thread. I've been tanking a lot on my DK (Trelockex) with a fairly basic frost spec and have been hearing a lot about blood being a good tank spec. However, I have noticed a vast variety in spec builds. One of the more prevalent differences seems to be whether or not you spec into Dancing Rune Weapon, but I've also seen a few that don't even spec into Blood Gorged.

It seems weird to have so many clearly different builds for blood tanking. Is this inherent to the spec or are the different varieties just providing different utilities to their raid? I'm looking into a blood respec without DRW.

until recently dancing rune weapon's threat was separate from your own making it borederline useless for a tank. In the same patch that buffed IT threat they made DRW's threat part of your own making it useful as a threat cd but threat is mostly a non issue for dks now anyway.

The problem with DRW (at least for me) is the 60 Runic Power you need to use it, especially at the beginning of a fight.

DRW has been discussed already, with the conclusion being that it's useless as a TPS talent, but can contribute to tank DPS nicely (somewhere around 5% for a single point, if I'm not mistaken). This thanks to the fact that you do have free points to spare in a deep blood tanking build.

I know threat is a pretty big concern on the LK, but if you can manage your Death Strikes and, if you took the talent(s), Rune Taps well, that will go a long way with healers moving/getting picked up. Don't forget about Death Pact, and use your cooldowns generously in Phase 1 - you shouldn't really need IBF during the transition phase. If you do need a cooldown, VB and/or 4PC should be up before the transition phase is over.

I'm not sure how you could possibly be taking ~20% less damage per hit than me. I have more armor than you do (by about 600)

looking at WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay it appears the lich king's average melee hit against you was 44k. Am i missing something here?

edit: that number was being skewed by him hitting Negiva for 955,673? now its on the absurdly low side

4,031,042 damage in 215 hits. 18.7k average?

I change my gear up for the LK fight a bit. It's not what I am logged out in atm. I think I am sitting somewhere around 42k armor or something like that w/ raid buffs.

WoL was being buggy for me tonight so I had to go w/ WMO. Here is a list of every single melee hit that I took from our kill this week (again, its WMO so it just records the amount you were hit for post absorb):

Phase 1:
2010-06-15 23:52:50.156 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 36663 damage.
2010-06-15 23:52:51.910 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 37412 damage.
2010-06-15 23:52:57.365 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 25606 damage.
2010-06-15 23:53:38.041 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 33351 damage.
2010-06-15 23:53:44.256 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 42183 damage.
2010-06-15 23:53:46.086 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39803 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:09.732 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 47788 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:13.819 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 40413 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:15.603 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 40303 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:19.262 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 45235 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:21.104 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 43103 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:27.737 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32032 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:40.243 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32533 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:45.225 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 46978 damage.
2010-06-15 23:54:51.100 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 58336 damage.

As you can see in p1 the dmg increases due to the stacks from PS. Use IBF or VB accordingly. You should be phase changing at roughly the 2min mark of the encounter. I usually put up 4pc buff (12% dmg reduc) when he hits 10 PS stacks and (around 75% on LK) and go from that into VB (glyphed). That usually holds me over going into t1. Pre buff you had to add in IBF and a PS/GS to make the cutoff >< since you were in the phase much much longer ><.



Phase 2:
2010-06-15 23:56:10.141 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 37545 damage. < Val'nyr and or disc shield from coming out of transition prob.
2010-06-15 23:56:11.967 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 52082 damage. <No demo on LK yet.
2010-06-15 23:56:20.937 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 41331 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:24.567 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 19831 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:28.139 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 26892 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:31.771 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 23475 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:35.365 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38104 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:47.011 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 8897 damage. < IBF
2010-06-15 23:56:50.615 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 3283 damage. < rofl
2010-06-15 23:56:51.619 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 9415 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:53.439 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 14784 damage.
2010-06-15 23:56:58.537 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 22176 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:00.271 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38766 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:05.896 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38621 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:11.274 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32871 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:16.214 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32406 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:25.817 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 19796 damage. < PS
2010-06-15 23:57:32.238 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 28417 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:34.561 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39568 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:36.401 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 33416 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:38.214 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38425 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:41.814 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32661 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:43.554 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 31267 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:50.425 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 25602 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:54.641 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 31759 damage.
2010-06-15 23:57:56.427 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 36389 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:02.807 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 37013 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:04.604 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 30722 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:06.436 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38476 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:10.710 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 40293 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:12.447 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 28825 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:14.294 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32872 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:16.066 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 18374 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:37.709 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 40676 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:39.525 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39082 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:44.907 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38393 damage.
2010-06-15 23:58:49.176 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 14831 damage. <IBF
2010-06-15 23:58:55.256 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 13855 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:00.470 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 32806 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:02.311 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38931 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:40.141 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 34606 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:41.982 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38333 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:45.617 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39889 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:47.414 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 15821 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:52.496 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 30845 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:55.742 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 29533 damage.
2010-06-15 23:59:58.518 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 34129 damage.
2010-06-16 00:00:05.383 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 16852 damage.

As you can see, once demo is on the boss, there is only twice that I take over 40k dmg and both of those are 40.3 and 40.7 respectively. Also, the exremely low numbers are either from IBF / Pain Supp / army / val'nyr shield rng / disc shield / safeguard / corroded skeleton key / 4pct10 / etc.


Phase 3:
2010-06-16 00:02:29.792 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 54808 damage. <No demo up yet coming out of transition lol
2010-06-16 00:02:31.591 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 51759 damage.
2010-06-16 00:02:44.955 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 14621 damage. < IBF
2010-06-16 00:03:00.331 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 14379 damage.
2010-06-16 00:03:09.354 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 22470 damage.
2010-06-16 00:03:11.252 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39972 damage.
2010-06-16 00:03:12.981 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38573 damage.
2010-06-16 00:03:14.830 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 31816 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:14.469 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 52791 damage. <Demo was not active from this point on during p3 lol.
2010-06-16 00:04:23.658 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 39454 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:25.505 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 42685 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:26.923 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 42893 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:30.512 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 45770 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:34.047 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 36153 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:55.408 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 46953 damage.
2010-06-16 00:04:56.399 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 38116 damage.
2010-06-16 00:05:59.578 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 41657 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:10.239 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 47539 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:13.346 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 47345 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:15.167 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 29270 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:16.960 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 40570 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:22.376 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 24658 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:26.009 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 47017 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:33.912 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 13159 damage. < IBF
2010-06-16 00:06:40.217 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 15123 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:42.030 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 34815 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:43.911 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 47416 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:45.682 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 43250 damage.
2010-06-16 00:06:47.416 The Lich King's hit Riggnaros for 46754 damage.
2010-06-16 00:08:06.012 The Lich King's Fury of Frostmourne hit Riggnaros for 8019023 damage.

You can see in p3 demo fell off for the majority of the phase due to several reasons, but mainly its 20% buff and you can afford to be pretty sloppy w/ the encounter now. I can't stress enough how important demo shout is on this encounter. Its huge for tank dmg. I have a power aura setup to show when demo/vind/roar is on the boss and when its not and I would recommend fixing something like that or having an addon track it for you if you are still on progression for LK25hm and any other fight w/ hard hitting mechanics.

If you know how to use WoL good enough, use this link: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis and click on the # to the right of Demo Shout and it will show you at the top the gaps in the debuff being on the boss. That should line up near perfect w/ the times that I take excessive melee dmg.

By my calculations that is about 100 melees that actually connected during the entire fight. I don't have the patience to work out an avg from those, but lets hope it gives you some sort of direction in what you were looking for.

Its nearly 5 am and I am far from a math whiz lol so there may be some inaccuracies to this and if so, please just point them out and I can fix it. Hope this helps.

Sorry if this has already been covered: I have been debating with my GM about the use of AMS for Soul Reaper. My stance is that AMS works as a CD because it's all Shadow Damage. He says the damage is "Shadowstrike" and that it can be physical or shadow. So is AMS actually reliable as a CD for Soul Reaper?

It does not work like shadowstrike. AMS will absorb SR everytime when used correctly. Yes, I am aware you can see some logs posted on R/D and various other forums where the AMS was active and did not absorb any dmg, but that is not due to the dmg being taken as physical. I have also had this happen to me before and initially chalked it up to 'shadowstrike' dmg, but again that is not the case. Even with Shadow prot / iGotW / aegis of dalaran 268 resists and such, AMS will still absorb the 2nd tick of SR.

This was a hot topic on our guild forums during progression for LK lol. I have went through more logs than I can count trying to find out a reason for why sometimes AMS does not absorb correctly. What a few people in my guild came up with is that latency is the largest factor. I have seen some pretty insane shit for timestamps on this fight. Anything from Ragings being taunted and killing someone in the .3 seconds it took between the taunt to be cast and register to Holy Lights hitting for full overheal up to 1 second after taking a 38k melee. The times where I had AMS (5secs) not work I was casting it nearly immediately after receiving the SR debuff (5seconds). Anytime you are cutting it to w/in a second or so on that fight I learned it is nothing more than nearly a 50/50 diceroll on being effective. Once I started using AMS 1-2 seconds before the 2nd tick of SR I have yet to have it fail.

Anyways, people can say anything, but w/o logs it doesnt mean much. SO, here ya go


Totals for Soul Reaper from this week's kill:

Spell - Dmg total from 1st hit - #of hits - #of ticks - Dmg total from ticks - total absorb
Soul Reaper- 625423 - 11 - 11 - 317370 - 507688

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

As you can see, after absorbs I took 435105dmg. That is only 39555 total per Soul Reaper (this includes both initial and 2nd tick dmg). You can see a huge difference in the amount of dmg taken on the initial hit and the tick. Since I AMS+Sind Trinket+4pc+VB every other SR that is why the dmg intake from the ticks are almost half of the initial hits. AMS will absorb more than 45k every time it is used < 2 secs before the last tick from SR (dependent on the DK's hp pool obv)

Here is an segment from when AMS did NOT absorb correct, and as you can see from the timestamps, I cast it w/in the same second of taking the SR's initial hit:

[21:53:14.846] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Riggnaros
[21:53:14.919] Riggnaros afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[21:53:15.247] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 25764 (A: 3770, R: 8709)
[21:53:16.064] Riggnaros gains Anti-Magic Shell from Riggnaros
[21:53:16.064] Riggnaros casts Anti-Magic Shell
[21:53:19.500] Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell fades
[21:53:19.667] The Lich King hits Riggnaros 14647 (A: 8131)
[21:53:19.900] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 45513 (A: 8031)

Here are several segments of it working properly (again, I have yet to have it NOT absorb since waiting until < 2 seconds before the final tick of SR):

[21:58:02.949] Riggnaros gains Aegis of Dalaran from Riggnaros
[21:58:02.949] Riggnaros casts Aegis of Dalaran
[21:58:07.989] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Riggnaros
[21:58:08.128] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 22431 (A: 10137, R: 29102)
[21:58:08.128] Riggnaros afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[21:58:11.965] Riggnaros gains Anti-Magic Shell from Riggnaros
[21:58:11.965] Riggnaros casts Anti-Magic Shell
[21:58:12.964] Riggnaros's Aegis of Dalaran fades
[21:58:13.094] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 5034 (A: 47189)
[21:58:13.094] Riggnaros's Soul Reaper fades
[21:58:13.650] Riggnaros gains 495 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell
[21:58:16.992] Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell fades


[21:59:07.923] Riggnaros gains Aegis of Dalaran from Riggnaros
[21:59:07.923] Riggnaros casts Aegis of Dalaran
[21:59:10.994] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Riggnaros
[21:59:11.122] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros Absorb (43919)
[21:59:11.122] Riggnaros afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[21:59:14.481] Riggnaros gains Anti-Magic Shell from Riggnaros
[21:59:14.481] Riggnaros casts Anti-Magic Shell
[21:59:16.078] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros Absorb (52223)
[21:59:16.078] Riggnaros's Soul Reaper fades
[21:59:16.659] Riggnaros gains 495 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell
[21:59:17.925] Riggnaros's Aegis of Dalaran fades
[21:59:19.542] Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell fades


[22:02:01.165] Riggnaros gains Aegis of Dalaran from Riggnaros
[22:02:01.165] Riggnaros casts Aegis of Dalaran
[22:02:11.151] Riggnaros's Aegis of Dalaran fades
[22:03:21.008] Riggnaros gains Aegis of Dalaran from Riggnaros
[22:03:21.008] Riggnaros casts Aegis of Dalaran
[22:03:21.676] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Riggnaros
[22:03:21.744] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 41721 (R: 31167)
[22:03:21.744] Riggnaros afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[22:03:25.307] Riggnaros gains Anti-Magic Shell from Riggnaros
[22:03:25.307] Riggnaros casts Anti-Magic Shell
[22:03:25.795] Riggnaros gains 491 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell
[22:03:26.707] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 13275 (A: 49193)
[22:03:26.707] Riggnaros's Soul Reaper fades
[22:03:27.386] Riggnaros gains 503 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell
[22:03:30.323] Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell fades
[22:03:30.992] Riggnaros's Aegis of Dalaran fades


[22:05:06.598] Riggnaros gains Aegis of Dalaran from Riggnaros
[22:05:06.598] Riggnaros casts Aegis of Dalaran
[22:05:09.268] The Lich King casts Soul Reaper on Riggnaros
[22:05:09.378] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros 35119 (A: 6197, R: 30865)
[22:05:09.378] Riggnaros afflicted by Soul Reaper from The Lich King
[22:05:12.442] Riggnaros gains Anti-Magic Shell from Riggnaros
[22:05:12.442] Riggnaros casts Anti-Magic Shell
[22:05:14.295] The Lich King Soul Reaper Riggnaros Absorb (59345)
[22:05:14.295] Riggnaros's Soul Reaper fades
[22:05:14.868] Riggnaros gains 478 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell
[22:05:16.606] Riggnaros's Aegis of Dalaran fades
[22:05:17.474] Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell fades
[22:05:18.071] Riggnaros gains 416 runic power from Riggnaros's Anti-Magic Shell

As you can see, the ones where AMS is active (every other SR) and used correctly, the absorb amount is anywhere from 47 to almost 60k lol. I have VB up for each of these as well so that will amplify the amount which is absorbed. DK's are tailor made for this encounter due to our numerous cd's and short timers on things like AMS and VB. You just have to be able to juggle all of them. VB + 4pc + Sind + AMS on every other SR (all w/in a few seconds) while moving the boss and watching for defiles can get a bit hectic :P Also, going Imp Runetap is pretty huge for this fight. I recommend picking it up and using it after each SR since it can heal for ~20k - ish (depending on your hp).

I could go back and post dozens and dozens of more logs where it works each and every time you just wait to use it instead of popping it immediately after receiving SR. Latency on LK is so killer its insane. Again, I could be wrong and have the luckiest RNG out of any person in the world and somehow manage to take 100 SR's in a row as magic dmg while having Sind trinket (heroic), sometimes having shadow AM active, shadowprot, imp gift, etc. If I am missing something or just flat our wrong, let me know. There could be a reason behind all this that I am just missing, but either way it goes, this is working 100% of the time.

Source from these log segments: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Hope this helps