Obliterate needs a glyph (IT, FS, IBF, and RS glyphs are all very strong competition)
I don't believe his napkin-math was assuming an OB glyph. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Yes, it was assuming a glyphed OB. Edited the post for clarity, sorry.
and so on, I'm not sure why you had a second PS>IT in your rotation immediately after the previous disease application. It's actually a fairly clean rotation I however still use the SS glyph to that keeps things interesting and can add a level of complexity in managing it.
That rotation makes more sense than what I posted. The reason I redid the disease rotation was to keep Ebon Plaguebringer up becasue with your rotation there is a 75% chance (with SS glyph) that your diseases will fall off for a couple of seconds.
It's a better rotation than what I posted but I still don't think its going to be better than the standard rotation, especiallly if you consider the fact that because the standard rotation is doing more strikes it is generating more RP than a DnD rotation.
Besides a DnD rotation only works on fights where the boss doesn't move around at all.
And to address makotospeaks question, it is not a 5% increase in damage. If you want to go off the compendium it's about a 2.77% increase on patchwerk type fights(no movement) without using the SS glyph which would further lower its contribution. Especially now with necrosis's buff there are better places to spend those points for a PvE tank.
ah your talking about its overall contribution throughout a fight due to the 12 second duration and delay until your next PS.
That make a bit of sense, i still dont see those points being more worth it in Dirge or UA, Tuskarr's Vitality takes care of my run speed and as a tank i would rather not spend points to help others move a little faster when nearly every class has that same option available through enchants or talents or already has skills to do it. Dirge just gives more RP to burn every now and then on an extra SB...which again doesnt really seem worth it, maybe if i had RP issues it would. Not to mention dirge doesnt help D&D gain more.
I also really enjoy the benefit of the slow, it makes kiting slowable mobs really easy when combined with a movement increase on yourself. I know some people dont want slows on Sarth adds, but if the add tank is in the right place it should be a non-issue and will actually provide benefit for when you need to reposition.
While the base dmg is roughly the same, with a slight advantage for HB, due to subversion giving tons of crit rate, your crit rate on both is about equal so it ends up being a comparison of knowing if HB hits for more than oblit crit, but due to bugs, it's not. The crit % of HB is only 222.5%(the bonus from GoG is applied using the 150%spell crit formula, which is then added to a basic 200%crit) while OB is 245%, which usually gives it an advantage, unless you use a low dps weapon for example.
The end result might vary depending on various debuffs and buffs you get though, but usually, you use KM procs on Frost Strike, Obliterate single target and HB otherwise, unless there's range issues where obviously HBing instead of waiting for the mob to get here is probably a better usage of runes. As for the req of having to glyph, yeah I guess it depends on people, due to FS being good with KM procs and glyph, I don't bother glyphing RS(because a decent amount of RP goes into FS instead, but with BoSanct I guess it's really good), and I've never understood the point of the IBF glyph. I glyph OB IT FS, which is nice when I'm not tanking since it's the basic DPS glyphing.
I don't like that new spec. I think we need to do some testing to see if threat is any better with Annihilation and the multiple OB rotation, because as it stands I see my current spec as superior. In particular, it vastly improves Blood's only real weakness - AOE threat.
I've found that the Annihilation and OBx2 rotation generates more threat then the HSx4 or HSx6 rotations in my personal experience of tanking each encounter as deep blood (excluding Sarth 2/3D)(I know I haven't killed Malygos either, P3 is "hard").
IT>PS>OB>HS>HS//OB>OB>HS>HS// or OB>IT>PS>HS>HS//OB>OB>HS>HS//
I realize that both of them are basically the same rotation but I use them based on the situation of the fight, like Patchwerk where I have to pull him from a distance or Loatheb where I need to keep him in one spot.
To get back on topic- I would imagine that you spec is superior if you were tanking trash mobs or adds on a boss or weren't tanking a boss where the threat you generate is critical. The rotations that have HSx4 or HSx6 increase the chance of you getting a dodge/parry/miss and the rotation may end up being a HSx8 if you just spam HS. Then there are the OB rotations that have a less chance of you getting a dodge/parry/miss streak and even if you do the rotation won't mess up because you can only use the D, F, or U runes so even if your attack is avoided 3 times in a row and the other runes come back up you could simply restart the rotation. I mean sure you could do the same with blood and restart the rotation but there is a lower chance of that happening with the OB rotations which I find easier to manage. I think you would have to wait a few seconds as well if the HSx4/6/8 rotation did run into an avoidance streak (depending on which HS you are at).
I would imagine that a HSx4/6/8 rotation would do more threat if you had very high expertise and hit cap so that you would minimize the chance of an avoidance streak. They could very well generate near the same amount of threat if you used the proper glyphs and sigil as well. I think at this point there isn't really a way to tell how much sustained threat you are truly generating. I could say I did up to 8k TPS on my last 25man Sartharion but that doesn't mean anything and you can't take a screen picture of omen because the amount of TPS shown may be a huge spike. I'm sure there may be a few ways to see very closely how much sustained TPS you are generating, though I don't know what those methods are.
I realize I have no math proving these statements but I would assume its simple logic for most people (6 hits have a higher chance to be avoided then 2). I also realize I went off topic but there are a lot of people who read these forums without posting and will assume a HS spam rotation is better because not many talk about OB rotations being better or try to disprove the other, I wanted to attempt at doing that but we will need math to really prove which is better but even then they are most likely close to equal.
TL;DR The OB rotations are better until you have enough expertise and hit so that the large amounts of Heart Strikes won't be avoided because the more Heart Strikes avoided the longer the rotation is and the less TPS you end up doing. This is based on simple logic not math, I would love it if someone could provide math proving or disproving me so we can end this discussion and move on.
Last edited by Griefknight : 02/02/09 at 4:46 PM.
Reason: Typo
It's a better rotation than what I posted but I still don't think its going to be better than the standard rotation, especiallly if you consider the fact that because the standard rotation is doing more strikes it is generating more RP than a DnD rotation.
Besides a DnD rotation only works on fights where the boss doesn't move around at all.
Personally I'm not completely sold on either one but there are certain situations where knowing how and being able to use a DnD rotation effectivly are important like when I was doing a 2 tank strat for sarth 10+3 and had to handle both adds and drakes. I flip between both depending on the fight, how I feel my threat is, and latency(Mal'Ganis is not making this easy). A DnD rotation is perfectly usable on movable bosses it just requires a bit more planning and intelligent placement of your DnD's to get the full use out of it. If you find it too much trouble than it's just as simple to roll back into the DPS rotation and you can continue to think what you wish but the DnD proponents have come up with some interesting numbers.
Can somone link me or explain to me, why the general consesus is that 5% bonus damage(and thus threat), a free mini frost trap, and some free Threat on application is a waste of talent points?
Im talking about Desecration of course, sure....on fights where u move around constantly its not as good, but as a tank that isnt as common.
Gladly!
First: Most, if not all, bosses are immune to the slowing effect.
Second: Even if they were not, what are you trying to escape from as a tank?
Lastly: 5% bonus damage would be great, if it didn't cost 5pts. You can get 4% more damage for 2pts from 2H weapon specialization. There are many better places to put those points.
Tastes like Awesome, because it's made of Awesome(TM)
Blood
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HS/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil
Oddly, I don't believe Bloodboil is a good AoE option for Blood tanks. Both Bloodboil and Pestilence scale at .04 AP, but Pestilence has an additional +60% damage modifier for Blood tanks, meaning it actually scales at .064 AP. The difference in base damage between the two is 58, so at ~2.4k AP Pestilence does equivalent damage.
In addition to equivalent/more damage Pestilence also spreads diseases and doesn't require diseases to do damage. The notable disadvantages are the smaller range and the prevention of disease ticking when spamming. The range seems a largely inconsequential issue as the only mobs you can count on having diseases are those within your Pestilence range.
Bloodboil only seems useful if you've already lost aggro and the mobs are running wild, or if you have 4-6 Blood/Death Runes lined up and you don't want to use HS as a buffer between Pestilences (to avoid preventing disease ticks).
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity. Monte's LoL Blog
You don't get 4% to overall damage from 2h weapon spec.
Additionally, if we were to get 5% for 5 points, that's Blizzard's yardstick in evaluating DPS talents (and therefore not that bad). However desecration, as mentioned no more than a page ago, offers just over half of that measurement.
Has someone done a math to calculate the benefit one get from expertise and hit?
i.e. prior to exp hit cap, expertise gives double the benefit.
For Warriors, expertise is always better than hit due to all their attacks being physical and can be parried/dodged (with the exception of demo shout/thunderclap/shockwave/revenge).
As DK's (let's talk Frost now), we have Frost Strike, Rune Strike, Icy Touch and Howling Blast - all of which are critical to us and are not affected by Expertise. Icy Touch and Howling Blast still gain more benefit until spell hit cap, however we typically only use Howling Blast in AoE situation, and there's no AoE situation that consists of 'skull' level bosses, so the benefit of spell hit is probably limited to Icy Touch on single boss tanking.
Would you gear a Frost Tank differently from other tanks? What is the typical damage spread of Frost tanking? I imagine Melee/Oblit/Blood Strike making ~60% of their dps?
When I was frost, HB seemed to hit about 20-30% harder than OB on non-crits. I tried my hardest to figure out where the claims of OB superiority came from, but I never found any evidence.
Given how often this issue has come up, I would much enjoy seeing it resolved and put in the ground (and edited into the original post so that we can just refer people to it instead of repeating a discussion from before). My anecdotal experience is similar, but I could certainly see situations where one was superior to the other (especially with Glyphs/sigils, etc).
Given this is supposed to be the "endgame" thread, I would like to see a bit of discussion regarding gear choices. Two examples off the top of my head regarding threat vs. survivability are sigil choice (unfaltering vs awareness) and weapon choice (Inevitable vs Betrayer). The former in each case is the generally better "tank" item, however as far as trade-offs for threat go, the latter are good alternatives (maybe not awareness if your rotation doesn't use obliterate). Honestly, there is hardly anything in the game that seems to push our tank stats (3D might be it), so perhaps a threat-centric approach is better for the current endgame (granted it may change with Ulduar).
When you reach 25m gear level you will have way more expertise than hit.
Thats correct plus did you factor in OB gets raid buffs aswell not just HB, Sunders being a major one. Also [Sigil of Awareness] needs to be factored in because this is considered for endgame. Thought if we can find a bench mark for people to know when to use HB over OB it would be good. For example with limited buffs in a 5 man heroic no Sigil of awareness and 186 dps weapon, would HB be better to use once per rotation, or is the average damage of OB still higher ? *note* there is a difference between average damage and the numbers you see and compare strait out.
A side note aswell HB is a spell and follows the ~16% spell hit rule ( correct me if i am wrong ) So whether or not you were factoring in a shadow priest or not would matter.
Please post the spec you would like us to consider if you're going to claim it's superiority. We don't want to re-enter it into a talent calc and armory isn't always up (like now).
I would have to disagree that Blood has any true problems with AoE threat. Yes it is obviously lower than Frost and Unholy specs but all that matters is we maintain enough TPS so that no DPS breaks the 110/130% mark, anything else is completely acceptable.
I've never had anyone pull entire groups off me because I spread around HS cleaves. If random mobs run off we have two ranged taunts, one with a tiny CD, to work with and usually an offtank. Plus we have a totally viable DnD Glyph and if it still feels like a problem, a hunter or rogue can MD as much AoE threat as possible to you.
If you use the tools available to you, I don't see any need to waste valuable talent points on AoE threat.
Your statements about VB don't make any sense. As a Tank or Healer you should love any talents that increase healing done, especially by 35% for 30 seconds. It can/should have 50% uptime so 17.5% extra healing done to you for the entire encounter, this creates a ton of mana efficiency. Having more HP makes you less likely to die from burst damage because healers have that much more time to heal you, especially combined with Will of the Necropolis. Additionally, intelligent healers will know the average damage output of the boss (and when it can/will spike) so with an increased HP pool, those healers can spend more time regenerating mana or healing the raid before you get to a dangerous level.
Also, I usually follow VB with IBF so that's another 12-15 sec of very healer friendly buff time.
Howling Blast lower GCD from haste
What? I must be misunderstanding that statement. GCD from Haste would be reduced by the same amount skill-independent. Where was this statement going?
Howling Blast eating a KM proc instead of an IT
You use Frost Strike for KM procs, never IT. On multi-mob pulls, of course you prioritize HB.
GCD is only reduced on spells. IE haste affects howling blast not obliterate.
Sorry but there are many many situations where IT will consume a KM proc. When you are tanking watching your procs is about 5th most important thing. For every 1 KM that goes to an HB instead of an IT, you made up for like 10 KMs going to HB instead of FS.
Originally Posted by Tabrab
I pushed the napkin math a bit further, to see what AP would be needed for HB to catch up on let's say 25% more crit rate on OB.
Assuming (same as earlier post) + :
-30%crit OB
-8% melee hit
-still having 10% parry from boss
-5% crit HB
-11% spell hit
To catch up, 5930AP (2094 more) would be needed:
averages: 2218
This is pretty far off still.
First of all if you had 8% melee hit, after you factor in misery and spell hit getting more from rating you are looking at 13% spell hit not 11%.
Realistically however OB is not even in close to 25% more crit. Even if you had subversion, there is 10% more critical strike for spells from raid buffs/debuff than melee. So in a subversion scenario you are looking at 17% more, and in a non-subversion(which is more common imo) you are looking at just an 8% advantage.
Also there is partial resists which hurts HB.
The math really should be ran without the OB glyph, or the advantage of gaining the IT glyph(as FS and RS are way better) should be added. You will not add the OB glyph just to bring it even with HB.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is my build at the moment. The major difference is, no annihilation, hence a different rotation, and it does have Morbidity. It also fills out Blood a bit thanks to the lack of "wasted" points in frost. I don't know if Blood has problems, per se, but I find it hard to believe that no one has ever got a couple of crits on their AOE and pulled the adds off of you. I actually don't have a hunter or rogue in my raid, so maybe that is a large difference. And yes, taunts can be used, but that shouldn't strictly be necessary. Regarding the talent point cost, the alternative is to improve your single target threat, which is already very good. Your point is taken, however, and you may very well be correct.
As for VB, I am speaking from annecdotal experience to a degree about people disparaging +healing abilities in particular, and my statements are true. +healing is not as good as mitigation because it will not help with burst, and +hp is not as good as mitigation because it will not help with sustained damage (healer mana). However, both together are exactly as good as mitigation in a general sense, and better or worse depending on the exact numbers involved. I certainly wasn't arguing that VB isn't good. I was arguing that stating that blood "lacks proactive mitigation" actually sells it short, because it has something just as good.
So, I'm really confused as to why people are still arguing about issues we've come to the conclusion about weeks ago? Sadly, I won't quote them but I will mention them in the order I remember.
Expertise is worth more than Hit until you reach Dodge cap [~26] seeing as 1point of Expertise is worth 2% (1% Dodge ; 1% Parry) and then Hit becomes more important to cap.
OB VS. HB: This is different for every single person. There were tests of people in similar gear and HB had higher averages for one while OB was greater on the other player. You can napkin math all you want, there will always be a group of people that have better RNG on HB than they do OB. (Chances are, they are running with caster-centric raids w/o warriors sundering.)
DnD Single Target Rotation - I posted numbers weeks (if not a month or greater) ago about how this was superior to any other Unholy Rotation. Base numbers agree that this is a higher threat module and should be woven in to your rotations as soon as it is off cool down. The "jury isn't out" anymore and hasn't been for awhile. :p
Blood - OBx2 > HSx4 on single target threat as I posted in the other thread, I agree. HSx4 will win if you get crit lucky, though.
I had plans this past week when our group ran 10man naxx so, my Frost spec was unable to be tested. And by the sounds of it, next week it won't happen since we're going for 8man achievements. Soon. It will happen soon.
(Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, been busy with concerts, friends, and work.)
The math really should be ran without the OB glyph, or the advantage of gaining the IT glyph(as FS and RS are way better) should be added. You will not add the OB glyph just to bring it even with HB.
More to the point, IMO, is that if you're assuming the Obliterate glyph in measuring Obliterate vs. HB, you HAVE to consider the effect that free glyph slot is going to have on the general HB build.
Another factor we may be overlooking is where the DPS are sitting, threat-wise, assuming comparable gear levels. If an HB build is still comfortably above the DPS on single-target threat, then does it make sense to glyph and spec for what will probably amount to a very small threat increase that only applies to single-target fights? I don't have the numbers from endgame tanking, but if DPS are peaking at 6k TPS, and an HB build puts out 7k TPS, to an Obliterate-focused 7.1k, then I think it's a waste of a glyph slot and possibly talent points (talking about Subversion).
I may be off base there, though, I don't know how closely DPS are riding on the threat coattails of frost tanks in endgame, but I hadn't heard that Frost tanks were having real single-target threat problems.
More to the point, IMO, is that if you're assuming the Obliterate glyph in measuring Obliterate vs. HB, you HAVE to consider the effect that free glyph slot is going to have on the general HB build.
Another factor we may be overlooking is where the DPS are sitting, threat-wise, assuming comparable gear levels. If an HB build is still comfortably above the DPS on single-target threat, then does it make sense to glyph and spec for what will probably amount to a very small threat increase that only applies to single-target fights? I don't have the numbers from endgame tanking, but if DPS are peaking at 6k TPS, and an HB build puts out 7k TPS, to an Obliterate-focused 7.1k, then I think it's a waste of a glyph slot and possibly talent points (talking about Subversion).
I may be off base there, though, I don't know how closely DPS are riding on the threat coattails of frost tanks in endgame, but I hadn't heard that Frost tanks were having real single-target threat problems.
The HB vs. Ob comparison is difficult, just because there are so many factors to consider - the fact that they benefit from different stats and raid buffs, glyphs, etc. In general though, frost tanks are going to be glyphing for threat regardless. The only survivability glyph is UA, which is arguably not an end-game glyph at all for someone with decent armor + ancestral fortitude. That leaves, worst case, two slots for some combination of frost strike, rune strike, icy touch, and obliterate - all threat glyphs. I suppose you could make a case for IBF, but I feel like its unnecessary with 25 RP ITs and/or BoSanc. Also, keep in mind there's nice synergy between the IT and FS glyphs.
It would be interesting to see the breakdown of how the various threat glyphs stack up, but that's probably the domain of a full-blown spreadsheet rather than napkin math.
With Icy touch consuming KM, have to say i can't see it happening very often atleast with a standard OB rotation.
Is it possible ? yes but it only has a 1.5 second window. *depending on runic power*
With BoSanc and at least 50% avoidance with parry and dodge and a boss attack speed of 2.0, thats ~5 returns from BoS every rune CD ( every 10 seconds ) 100 runic power on average of course. Lets say your attack speed is 3.4 ( 0 haste effects ) thats 3 attacks every 10 seconds. So lets say you use runic power for all 3 attacks on runestrikes. For a total of 60 runic power spent on runestrikes leaving 40 left.
Now with the cycle of BloodTap IT-BS-OB OB ( RD - Frost strike ) repeat
25+10+20+20 = 75 runic power every cycle + 40 from BoS is a total of 115 runic power on average every cycle after runestrikes. Your frost strikes cost 32 for a total of 3 every cycle for 96 runic power with 19 left over.
So its reason to believe on average your cycle with consist of 3-4 froststrikes. 1.5 per global CD = between 10.5 and 12 seconds for a full cycle assuming you use as many froststrikes as possible before starting another cycle. The window for Icy touch to be used on a KM proc is 1.5 seconds or a global CD. which is in between the last froststrike and the start of the new cycle with icy touch. So chances are KM procs are going to your froststrikes at least 90% of the time.
You may even want to weave in a FS after a BS just so you don't cap your runic power and spread out KM procs.
BloodTap IT-BS-FS-OB-OB ( runic dump )
*note* i am really not good with math this is more or less the logic behind what i believe. Please correct anything thats false.
and so on, I'm not sure why you had a second PS>IT in your rotation immediately after the previous disease application. It's actually a fairly clean rotation I however still use the SS glyph to that keeps things interesting and can add a level of complexity in managing it.
And to address makotospeaks question, it is not a 5% increase in damage. If you want to go off the compendium it's about a 2.77% increase on patchwerk type fights(no movement) without using the SS glyph which would further lower its contribution. Especially now with necrosis's buff there are better places to spend those points for a PvE tank.
I made a quick table (which hopefully formats nicely) of the two rotations including Rune CD's and Disease Times: (This does not account for SS glyph)
From what I can tell, there is more down time with the DnD rotation for both strikes and diseases.
Am I incorrect in this?
I looked everywhere but didn't see why runetap ends up in every blood tanking build I see. I would think those points are better spent somewhere else. Is it somehow generatating more threat then a heart strike in your rotation? Or is it simply another heal?
02/02/09, 2:57 PM
