Should be interesting to see how they plan to balance this.
Probably a little too harsh of a nerf. Relatively, in about the same level gear, DKs should have about 1500 more armor post nerf than a warrior or a paladin. In most cases, even against heavier hitting bosses, block will beat 1500 armor.
This is the problem with block, when mitigation is a % game through and through, block becomes that outlier which screws up all the numbers.
This has got to be a joke of some kind. The problem between DKs and warriors/paladins is not armor mitigation. Block is too RNG of a mechanic to be easily healable. Getting hit with a constant 30k damage instead of random 27-34k critical block streaks is the problem. I don't see why blizzard doesn't just change shieldblock back to it original state with an increased block chance percentage. This would make incoming hit damage more predictable, and combining this with Shield Slam in a macro with the glyph of blocking (if they don't already) would be a powerful Mitigation tool. It would be up to blizzard to figure out what numbers would be balanced. The only problems I could see for going back to the 2 charge sb would be for aoe tanking, but who has trouble with survivability on trash or kologarn adds?
Not only that, but IBF plays a role in this too. I'm surpised that blizz hasn't nerfed the bejeezus out of it yet. It would have been a better all-around nerf than knocking the cd for Vampiric Blood/UBA/Bone Shield because it would impact a core ability, rather than a ability I don't necesarily have to spec into (but I'd be stupid not to). I would have much rather taken a 2min IBF to 20% less bonus armor.
(excuse any wierdness in this post, typing on an iPhone is hard.)
Frost Presence was boosted to 80% when our baseline mitigation was too streaky. We were fine with cooldowns up, and too vulnerable without them. Armour was boosted to smooth out those peaks and troughs.
Since then however, Blade Barrier was changed to a flat damage reduction instead of avoidance, Frost Presence was changed to a flat damage reduction against all damage, and Improved Frost Presence was reworked to include more baseline damage reduction. We were too good compared to Warriors and Paladins, at 80% modifier. Our armour value will now be in line with theirs, and we have a reasonable mitigation baseline from the changes that brought us -dmg % modifiers. We're likely where we should be on this front.
For PvP, it's a no brainer. Frost Presence in full PvP spec and gear made you very tough versus melee based opponents.
IBF however remains overly powerful. It needs changes to bring it's power back down, either in value or cooldown.
Instead of nerfing our cooldowns, they decided to nerf mitigation? I think we all knew a nerf was coming, but IBF seemed the obvious candidate for both PvP and PvE.
This seems to promote the idea that certain tanks are better for certain encounters, something which I think they should be trying to remove rather than encourage.
Frost Presence was boosted to 80% when our baseline mitigation was too streaky. We were fine with cooldowns up, and too vulnerable without them. Armour was boosted to smooth out those peaks and troughs.
Since then however, Blade Barrier was changed to a flat damage reduction instead of avoidance, Frost Presence was changed to a flat damage reduction against all damage, and Improved Frost Presence was reworked to include more baseline damage reduction. We were too good compared to Warriors and Paladins, at 80% modifier. Our armour value will now be in line with theirs, and we have a reasonable mitigation baseline from the changes that brought us -dmg % modifiers. We're likely where we should be on this front.
For PvP, it's a no brainer. Frost Presence in full PvP spec and gear made you very tough versus melee based opponents.
IBF however remains overly powerful. It needs changes to bring it's power back down, either in value or cooldown.
I can see the problems with too many flat damage modifiers adding up. It's just that nerfing armor isn't just a nerf to mitigation, it's a nerf to UBA to make it even more poopy than it is. Not only that, but we are losing a good chunk of ap from bladed armor, so it is a threat nerf as well.
I also don't think the frost presence in pvp argument is valid because people tend to forget that we have to use a rescourse to switch to frost presence (a rescourse used for our main slowing ability), and we lose either 15% damage or 15% movement speed and 1 sec gcds in the process. A warrior also gains a bunch of spell survivabilty by switching to a shield to reflect with. I could see a legit argument from paladins, but then again they can heal themselves without going into melee.
I'm new to DK end game tanking, can someone point me to the link that shows that Frost tanks should not be using PS? I've been searching and can't seem to find it. Wanted to see if it was true.
I'm new to DK end game tanking, can someone point me to the link that shows that Frost tanks should not be using PS? I've been searching and can't seem to find it. Wanted to see if it was true.
Look at the rotation posted in the OP.
I find that PS-less rotation is better for tanking. If you come from a DPS stand point there are 2-diseases rotations - they are practically not applicable to tanking as they require too many GCDs.
I've found that I generate more threat with PS included in my rotation for single target threat. I'll skip Plague Strike for aoe and short fights, but use it for longer fights. Assuming the following rotations, it comes down to something like this:
IT PS OB BS BS
OB OB OB
or
HB OB BS BS
HB OB OB
+ Damage of 1 Icy Touch + 1 Plague Strike + 1 Obliterate
+ Damage done by Blood Plague
+ Damage to Obliterate and Blood Strike through extra disease scaling
- Damage of 2 Howling Blasts
- One less free global cooldown per 2 sets of runes
- One less talent point for other talents
Dps frost builds mostly use Howling Blast rotations to free up that one global cooldown in the rotation, and because they can't pick up the one talent point in Epidemic very easily. All tanking builds should already have 5 points in unholy, so Epidemic is only a one point talent investment.
I don't raid with a discipline priest, and usually have only 0-1 resto druids with Revitalize in a raid with me. Without that external source of RP I always end up having dead global cooldowns in the middle of a Howling Blast rotation due to RP-starvation as a tank. Even with Scent of Blood I don't have enough runic power to Frost Strike on every free GCD. The damage of that one Howling Blast can't compare to the combined damage of IT, PS, BP and extra scaling to OB and BS, so you will need to be able to utilize that free global cooldown for a HB rotation to be worth it.
For single target rotation I've found that the most stable threat as a frost tank and the HB glyph is using IT and PS unless you get a rime proc. For Rime procs I'll skip putting up the PS and use another obliterate.
Just roughly comparing/contrasting between warriors, DK armor is around 3-4K higher, but D-stance being a passive 10% redux and the shield block seemed to even that out. Just rough numbers, most DKs probably have ~15K+ base armor, at +80% that works out to 27K armor at 80% and 24K armor at 60%. That probably brings our armor more inline with wars/pals, but the shield aspect and passive damage reduction would be the differences. I'm still of the opinion Blade Barrier should just be a passive damage reduction now, there is really nothing interesting about having to maintain a damage reduction buff, especially when some situations don't allow us to readily spend those blood runes and we might get hit with something before we can.
Instead of 10% Damage reduction we have 10% more HP which more or less is the same.
And as stated quite a few times we have superior cooldowns, which makes us DKs a lot better than warriors or Paladins in tanking.
On a side note: I'm not too scared about the nerf of our armor. It's around 3% more damage taken from physical attacks, which probably won't push us off our space at the top of tanking classes.
I'm more concerned about the Threat loss through Bladed Armor.
I didn't follow the thread for some weeks now, but I have some questions / things about Blood Tanking.
The Specc in the first Post looks quite nice but I'm tanking Ulduar and it's hardmodes for some time now and I would make some adjustments:
I'd not take Runetap / Impr. Runetap because you will not get many chances on using it in the right moments. It'll work on some Hardmodes like Vezax (pretty good) and Iron Council. On most of the Encounter you will have problems having the Bloodrune ready when you need it (problem of using Tap or activate VB). On Fights like Hodir where Aggro is a Problem you can't even depend on having the time to look out for your own health to tap.
Spell Deflection: 3 Points on a Talent that still feels squishy to me. It won't procc when needed and in "oh my god" cases doesn't help a bit. So I skipped that and took those 3 points in Morbidity to may have a bit more AE Threat (which is really really low).
Last thing: Death Rune Mastery and Glyphe of Disease. DRM gives you more Heartstrikes and thus more Proccs of Sudden Doom. I don't take Glyph of Death Strike because I always felt that I have to save my RP to get more powerfull DS. In some situations I'd just blow of DC's and dump all of the RP but then got 2 Frost and 2 Unholy Runes -> DS without the Glyph benefit. So I tried the Disease Glyph and it makes tanking a lot easier for me. You save one rune and can refresh your diseases (and the FF effect) whenever you want. It's really a nice thing on encounter where you have to move (early Vezax) or get some bad parry/dodge/miss rotations.
I'm using PS IT HS HS (for Blade Barrier) DS DS HS HS HS/pest HS DS DS [...] as rotation putting pest on the Boss whenever Diseases seem to drop or I know I have to move and won't refresh them in time.
The question I got is which Sigil are the other Blood Tanks using? The Tankspot Gear guide will take the RS or FS/DC Sigil although I thought the Sigi of Awareness is still pretty good?!
- the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed -
Thing I find weird in your propositions is you seem to want more threat, yet you don't glyph Death Strike, take DRM but use the Pestilence glyph. Those seem extremely contradictory. I can understand not taking Spell Deflection(it's still a passive 9%magic reduction on average, not working on a few specific abilities) or Rune Tap(can always blood tap a rune if needed, never found it to be an issue to be honest, and it's worth it on the few fights I want to tank as blood anyway). Also for Hodir if you want threat, you don't spec blood, you spec Frost or Unholy to abuse the Singed debuff on him. Blood has very little magic damage and as such is arguably the worst threat on this fight.
As for sigils, obviously if you want threat Awareness is better, I'm not sure how the DPS sigil ends up in your list considering we don't get to spam DC that much to begin with. The RS glyph is the best choice for defensive purpose however.
Just roughly comparing/contrasting between warriors, DK armor is around 3-4K higher, but D-stance being a passive 10% redux and the shield block seemed to even that out. Just rough numbers, most DKs probably have ~15K+ base armor, at +80% that works out to 27K armor at 80% and 24K armor at 60%. That probably brings our armor more inline with wars/pals, but the shield aspect and passive damage reduction would be the differences. I'm still of the opinion Blade Barrier should just be a passive damage reduction now, there is really nothing interesting about having to maintain a damage reduction buff, especially when some situations don't allow us to readily spend those blood runes and we might get hit with something before we can.
I have over 31k armor unbuffed right now. Leviathan's Coil will put me over 32k. My Paladin with the same gear would barely break 27k armor. The gap is closer to 4500-5000 armor right now.
Thing I find weird in your propositions is you seem to want more threat, yet you don't glyph Death Strike, take DRM but use the Pestilence glyph. Those seem extremely contradictory. I can understand not taking Spell Deflection(it's still a passive 9%magic reduction on average, not working on a few specific abilities) or Rune Tap(can always blood tap a rune if needed, never found it to be an issue to be honest, and it's worth it on the few fights I want to tank as blood anyway). Also for Hodir if you want threat, you don't spec blood, you spec Frost or Unholy to abuse the Singed debuff on him. Blood has very little magic damage and as such is arguably the worst threat on this fight.
As for sigils, obviously if you want threat Awareness is better, I'm not sure how the DPS sigil ends up in your list considering we don't get to spam DC that much to begin with. The RS glyph is the best choice for defensive purpose however.
I'm rather curious as to which abilities proc Singed? Does Death and Decay proc it? On-cast or on every tick? Same thing with Unholy Blight, does it proc Singed? As Blood spec you could probably abuse Singed by just using Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike, plus Death and Decay if that procs it every tick.
The regular Frost single-target rotation doesn't even use Howling Blast, leaving IT as the only thing that will proc Singed, same as Blood. Even if you add in HB to proc Singed, you for sure lose a lot more Singed procs compared to Blood by switching from Death Coil to Frost Strike than you gain from using HB. Do melee attacks that do magic damage (Frost Strike, Scourge Strike) proc Singed?
It's around 3% more damage taken from physical attacks, which probably won't push us off our space at the top of tanking classes.
On the absolute scale, yes, it's around 3%. On the relative scale it's closer to 10%. Going from ~30900 armor (67.01% reduction) to ~27500 armor (64.44% reduction), as I would, is an ~8% damage reduction nerf.
It's also a threat (Bladed Armor) and cooldown (Unbreakable Armor) nerf.
I'm not too worried about it with the damage reduction from Blade Barrier and Frost Presence, which they added after the buff to +80% armor, but let's not overly de-emphasize the nerf, eh?
Thing I find weird in your propositions is you seem to want more threat, yet you don't glyph Death Strike, take DRM but use the Pestilence glyph. Those seem extremely contradictory...
I use both DRM and the Pestilence glyph. Even though they seem counter-intuitive, I feel they give me the ability for a more flexible rotation - and usually more threat through HS spam.
DRM also has the added benefit of better AoE threat, which I use all the time.
I consider Vampiric Blood and Rune Strike to be mandatory glyphs, especially with the 2pc T8 bonus. That leaves the decision for the last glyph to Death Strike or Disease. Frankly I didn't feel that I used Death Strike enough to warrant the glyph spot. With Heart Strike hitting for almost as hard with half the rune cost, I felt refreshing diseases for one rune and using the other to HS provided a better benefit.
I use both DRM and the Pestilence glyph. Even though they seem counter-intuitive, I feel they give me the ability for a more flexible rotation - and usually more threat through HS spam.
DRM also has the added benefit of better AoE threat, which I use all the time.
I consider Vampiric Blood and Rune Strike to be mandatory glyphs, especially with the 2pc T8 bonus. That leaves the decision for the last glyph to Death Strike or Disease. Frankly I didn't feel that I used Death Strike enough to warrant the glyph spot. With Heart Strike hitting for almost as hard with half the rune cost, I felt refreshing diseases for one rune and using the other to HS provided a better benefit.
I really don't get Glyph of Disease for Blood. When you're AoE tanking it really doesn't do anything, and when you're single-target tanking Icy Touch + Plague Strike are going to generate similar threat to Pestilence + Heart Strike. The gap certainly isn't large enough to make up for the loss by dropping Glyph of Death Strike. If you don't like Glyph of DS, take Death and Decay or even Antimagic Shell. Disease really doesn't do anything.
I use both DRM and the Pestilence glyph. Even though they seem counter-intuitive, I feel they give me the ability for a more flexible rotation - and usually more threat through HS spam.
If you're using Glyph of Disease in this fashion you're trading PS+IT for Pes+HS. The damage difference between the two is fairly small, particularly for tanks. I'd recommend you observe your WWS/WMO reports and check the difference for yourself to see the margin. Whatever the gap between them is, that's the additional threat you gain from Glyph of Disease every 20 second rotation.
It can be very convenient, but realize that's almost the whole of it.
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
I do not see a lot of theory crafting on including the 4 piece tier 8 bonus of 10% Damage reduction for AMS.
Although it does not add up to huge numbers I often pair it with IBF for the really clutch moments.
I am hoping the nerf ends with just an armor reduction, honestly I have seen the numbers and they are simply bringing us more in line with the other 3 tanking classes.
Also as an after thought -
I see many posts averaging out damage but in fact many fights in Ulduar are very cyclical with medium damage and heavy damage spikes.
As example :
Every 65 Seconds Boss enrages and damage output increased 300% for 8 seconds.(Physical)
The extra damage taken through the regular 100% attacks versus spike damage fights
During the 300% phase a DK could have IBF and AMS up.
At the easy achieved number of 540 defense that is around 60% damage reduction.
The healing through regular phase is not the hardest part of the fights usually (if it is then a close examination of healers and tanks equipment might provide the answers) its the enrage / frozen blows / plasma cannon / fusion punch.
You could average this number out but the increased damage taken for those parts of the fight might change the overall data.
I think overall blizzard will build fights that are easier for certain classes and more difficult for others.
Last edited by Okuno : 05/28/09 at 6:44 PM.
Reason: Clarifying
I'm rather curious as to which abilities proc Singed? Does Death and Decay proc it? On-cast or on every tick? Same thing with Unholy Blight, does it proc Singed? As Blood spec you could probably abuse Singed by just using Blood Boil instead of Heart Strike, plus Death and Decay if that procs it every tick.
The regular Frost single-target rotation doesn't even use Howling Blast, leaving IT as the only thing that will proc Singed, same as Blood. Even if you add in HB to proc Singed, you for sure lose a lot more Singed procs compared to Blood by switching from Death Coil to Frost Strike than you gain from using HB. Do melee attacks that do magic damage (Frost Strike, Scourge Strike) proc Singed?
I wasn't actually talking about sitting in a fire and procing it, there's just too many melees who would come stand in it too and then it'd get bombed anyway, but Singed is also a debuff applied on the boss which is up pretty much permanently as long as at least one person is DPSing from near a fire, and icnreases magic dmg taken by the boss by 50%.
Meaning, a spec like frost or unholy which have more reliance on magic damage than blood which is mostly physical get more threat on it. I guess if you could sit in a fire, there would be ways to increase it but I haven't run any specific tests. I suppose anything you can't cast while silenced procs it, but probably not DnD because it's a ground AE so it's unlinked from you once you drop it. UB would probably proc it every tick though. I usually leave the fires for DPS though, I only stand in beams for faster runestrikes and sometimes melee dps give me the storm buff.
I wasn't actually talking about sitting in a fire and procing it, there's just too many melees who would come stand in it too and then it'd get bombed anyway, but Singed is also a debuff applied on the boss which is up pretty much permanently as long as at least one person is DPSing from near a fire, and icnreases magic dmg taken by the boss by 50%.
Meaning, a spec like frost or unholy which have more reliance on magic damage than blood which is mostly physical get more threat on it. I guess if you could sit in a fire, there would be ways to increase it but I haven't run any specific tests. I suppose anything you can't cast while silenced procs it, but probably not DnD because it's a ground AE so it's unlinked from you once you drop it. UB would probably proc it every tick though. I usually leave the fires for DPS though, I only stand in beams for faster runestrikes and sometimes melee dps give me the storm buff.
I know about the magic damage buff, but that's 50% when fully stacked and Singed does like 5000 damage every proc at that point. If you were to spam single-rune abilities like Blood Boil you'd get a lot of procs for a lot of threat. Frost Strike and Scourge Strike are magic damage but they don't proc Singed so you wouldn't get the bonus.
The main reason I'd try to make Blood work is Frost only has one cooldown, UBA sucks and if IBF is down when he does Frozen Blows and you have minimal healers to make the dps check, you're probably gonna die.
The main reason I'd try to make Blood work is Frost only has one cooldown, UBA sucks and if IBF is down when he does Frozen Blows and you have minimal healers to make the dps check, you're probably gonna die.
Actually, I think someone pointed out earlier that UA is actually quite effective for Frozen Blows. It reduces the melee hit, the Frozen Blows hit, and the Frozen Blows aura separately so you're getting triple the value that you normally would. I think it's easily on par with VB for Hodir.
Actually, I think someone pointed out earlier that UA is actually quite effective for Frozen Blows. It reduces the melee hit, the Frozen Blows hit, and the Frozen Blows aura separately so you're getting triple the value that you normally would. I think it's easily on par with VB for Hodir.
Not really, VB is insane for hard mode because usually during frozen blows, you pretty much only have one healer, and 15% more efficiency on his and your heals is very very very good. Runetapping for 12k can easily save your life during frozen blows. The good point of frost is IBF lasts the whole phase, instead of half of it, but UA, even though it performs 3times better during frozen blows, is still crap at that point. That's how I felt about it at least, however it also boosts threat, so overall, I think frost is pretty good for this. I just don't rely on UA too much, I ask for guardian spirit when I pop it and pop AMS in the middle too and healthstone/pot if needed.
Xequecal, the problem is Singed is a 30%chance to proc, at least from what I've read(again haven't tested much). Which means wasting blood runes on bloodboil when it won't proc all the time is a huge waste. But as I said, I haven't done real comparison to see which is the best while standing in a fire. I'm not standing in one, because all the melees tend to stack up on me anyway, to benefit from whatever I'm standing in(usually a beam) so we get bombed a lot and icicles falling on a fire extinguish it. I could probably get the melee to not stand on it, but then it'd be a DPS loss compared to them standing in the light with me, and quite frankly, threat hasn't be an issue. I mean yeah, mages are pushing it pretty hard but Hodir also moves like an old man, you have like 4secs to taunt him back when he aggros a mage. The only people in danger are our DKs because they don't spec subversion and generate shitloads of threat, so they go and break some iceblocks after Flash Freeze.
Could tank it as Unholy though, Bone Shield is good for Frozen blows since it probably reduces the AE without losing charges, and good magical threat, and tricks to increase your DPS(spec gargoyle and pop it while in a light beam+bloodlust).
05/26/09, 10:39 PM
