i have ~ 23% parry buffed. It reduces dmg by 45%, 23% of the time so it's effectively the same as reducing all magic damage taken by 10.3% which is not to be sniffed at imo. Yes it's pointless when you are only being hit with physical but from my experience, they are good talents to have.
It's not that simple. Spell Deflection doesn't work on "all magic damage". In Ulduar it tends not to work on things that you really wish it would work on (Rune Punch, Plasma Blast, direct portion of Frozen Blows). Now they seemed to have all but gotten rid of that type of mechanic in ToC, but we'll have wait and see if Heroic ToC is worthy of the name... though I am interested as to what attacks Spell Deflection does and doesn't work on at this point in ToC.
Originally Posted by Mongia
Additionally they raise the value of Parry when deciding which gear to use. 1% parry is now also 0.45% magic reduction as well.
On magic heavy bosses, whose attacks are most/all subject to Spell Deflection, this could make parry worth consideration. However, even with the re-balancing of Dodge/Parry Forceful Deflection's affect on Parry's Diminishing Returns still strongly discourage Parry as a physical avoidance stat.
I've been paying close attention to Deflection procs in ToC and, unfortunately, I've only seen it go off during the Faction Champs fight. It's too bad, really.
It would be interesting to have the talent changed so that it was a bit more viable than it presently is. Even if it were 15% reduction to all magic with the same % to proc based on parry.
It's not that simple. Spell Deflection doesn't work on "all magic damage". In Ulduar it tends not to work on things that you really wish it would work on (Rune Punch, Plasma Blast, direct portion of Frozen Blows). Now they seemed to have all but gotten rid of that type of mechanic in ToC, but we'll have wait and see if Heroic ToC is worthy of the name... though I am interested as to what attacks Spell Deflection does and doesn't work on at this point in ToC.
On magic heavy bosses, whose attacks are most/all subject to Spell Deflection, this could make parry worth consideration. However, even with the re-balancing of Dodge/Parry Forceful Deflection's affect on Parry's Diminishing Returns still strongly discourage Parry as a physical avoidance stat.
Per the logs linked a page or two earlier, on the first three ToC bosses the only thing that Spell Deflection works on is the Faction Champions, and I don't think it works on Twins either. It seems the talent only works on some single targeted spells. The talent needs to change.
The change to parry made it so Parry gear is better than lower item level dodge gear.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I decided to figure out whether the [Glyph of Indomitability] is worth using and I put together a spreadsheet to compare it to some of the available stamina trinkets. I plan to keep using [The Black Heart] (126 Stam) so I compared it to [Royal Seal of King Llane](155 Stam)--which I hope to get soon--and the[Figurine - Monarch Crab] (123 Stam, max). I took the armor values and damage reduction percentages from my character tab with and without the armor trinket. I had HoW, Blessing of Kings, and a food buff. My armor without the trinket was 25,112 (62.24%) and with the trinket it was 26,904 (63.85%).
For the purpose of calculating the increase to my effective health provided by the stamina trinkets, I calculated the HP increase to be Stam x FP Bonus x VotTW * Kings * 10 = Stam x 1.06 * 1.03 * 1.1 * 10. My effective health was calculated as Total HP / % Dmg Reduction. In my spreadsheet, I calculated my effective health for HP values of 38k to 60k in 2k increments. For each value, I calculated what my effective health would be with either an additional stamina trinket or the armor trinket. The following list a series of raid-buffed HP values (assume 1 trinket slot is empty), the % gain in total effective health to be had by using the [Glyph of Indomitability] instead of a stam trinket, and relative performance of the [Glyph of Indomitability]. As an example, if you have 40k HP (raid-buffed) and equip the armor trinket, you'll gain .47% more total EH than if you equipped the [Figurine - Monarch Crab]; this is a relative increase of 12.37%.
If your armor is similar to mine, and your raid-buffed HP is already higher than 42k, you'll see a slightly bigger increase in effective health from the additional armor as opposed to the stamina available from these trinkets (assuming all damage is physical). The increase is small enough, however, that the stamina trinkets (even [Figurine - Monarch Crab]) are probably going to be better if there is more than a trivial amount of non-physical damage. After running the numbers, I returned my trinket to the vendor and will be holding out for [Royal Seal of King Llane] (I only run 10 mans). I may pick-up the trinket later on as a purely situational piece.
I'd appreciate if someone would send me a PM explaining how to create a properly formatted table using these forums.
Edit: Changed the max stam on Monarch Crab to 123 instead of 132.
I'd like to address the matter of Improved Blood Presence after it came up n the questions thread. This thread correctly identifies it as a weak talent; however that identification comes with several parameters in place: 1) You have to assume there is healing 2) You have to assume there are HOTs constantly 3) You have to assume HP is relatively full at most times. This means there is a minority of cases it may be helpful: 1) In 10-mans overhealing is more rare and HOTs are less. 2) In encounters like Vezax overhealing will be purposely limited. As a bonus I'd add that in AOE tanking of 5000+ DPS by the tank the healing will be considerably higher by it.
Therefore I'd agree that in your regular 25-man MT tanking of a hard-hitting boss it will be weak but, in 10-mans, in cases overhealing is limited or overhealing is purposely limited (e.g. Vezax), in AOE tanking, its merits may be enough to not be dismissed without question.
PS. In addition healing threat is a minor improvement; primarily in AOE offtanking.
I recently purchased dual spec to have a tank spec, and I was reading the information presented in this thread. Eventually, I decided to go with the Frost 15/51/5 build because it's an all-around great build. I am aware that some people do not see the benefit of Scent of Blood. What do you guys think of pushing the 3 points of Scent in Blood over to "Acclimation" so it can increase our viability for bosses. It seems Blood has got the viability for boss tanking, so if we as Frost tanks move those said 3 points into acclimation, would it make us even better all-around tanks? I read that Frost tanks have to deal with the immense magic damage on top of the melee hits from bosses (Fusion Punch, Freezing Blows, etc.) and we don't have that great of a way to mitigate that besides Anti-Magic Shield, so those 3 points can help us out when we want to MT or even OT a boss. It's pretty much the same deal as Spell Deflection, but that's out of the question for that build since it's too deep in Blood. Plus, we can offset the loss of Scent of Blood's runic power with our Obliterate/HB generating an additional 5 RP.
It seems Blood has got the viability for boss tanking, so if we as Frost tanks move those said 3 points into acclimation, would it make us even better all-around tanks?
Blood is bar-none the "best" boss tanking tree due to the best cooldown and better passive tanking talents. Frost and Unholy are slightly better at AoE though.
Acclimation is very situational talent, since most bosses don't spam magic attacks. It does work on Frozen Blows (Hodir) which helps a lot.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Therefore I'd agree that in your regular 25-man MT tanking of a hard-hitting boss it will be weak but, in 10-mans, in cases overhealing is limited or overhealing is purposely limited (e.g. Vezax), in AOE tanking, its merits may be enough to not be dismissed without question.
Setting the average tank dps at about 2000 dps it provides 100 HPS with zero overhealing. That's an absolutely pitiful return for two talent points and can be easily dismissed with no need to question. Even using more generous and even ridiculous figures for tank DPS it doesn't become beneficial to take.
Per the logs linked a page or two earlier, on the first three ToC bosses the only thing that Spell Deflection works on is the Faction Champions, and I don't think it works on Twins either. It seems the talent only works on some single targeted spells. The talent needs to change.
The change to parry made it so Parry gear is better than lower item level dodge gear.
Are you sure it only works on Faction Champions? I had it trigger off of Lord Jaraxxus, both off the chain lightning type attack he casts, and the fire cast by the infernal adds.
Are you sure it only works on Faction Champions? I had it trigger off of Lord Jaraxxus, both off the chain lightning type attack he casts, and the fire cast by the infernal adds.
Just one log isn't enough data to confirm a behavior, but at least it is some information. In that log, the spell deflection DK did get hit by the lighting and fire, but I don't recall the number of each. So I would concede it is possible for it to trigger.
Anyway, the normal mode fights are easy enough as is, perhaps on Heroic Mode that extra damage absorption is useful.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I recently purchased dual spec to have a tank spec, and I was reading the information presented in this thread. Eventually, I decided to go with the Frost 15/51/5 build because it's an all-around great build. I am aware that some people do not see the benefit of Scent of Blood. What do you guys think of pushing the 3 points of Scent in Blood over to "Acclimation" so it can increase our viability for bosses. It seems Blood has got the viability for boss tanking, so if we as Frost tanks move those said 3 points into acclimation, would it make us even better all-around tanks? I read that Frost tanks have to deal with the immense magic damage on top of the melee hits from bosses (Fusion Punch, Freezing Blows, etc.) and we don't have that great of a way to mitigate that besides Anti-Magic Shield, so those 3 points can help us out when we want to MT or even OT a boss. It's pretty much the same deal as Spell Deflection, but that's out of the question for that build since it's too deep in Blood. Plus, we can offset the loss of Scent of Blood's runic power with our Obliterate/HB generating an additional 5 RP.
I am in a similar situation in that I am dual specced tank now but complete nublar trying to pick a spec. Based on reading here and also on the tanking WoW forums, is Blood really the only viable end-game MT spec? And which of the Blood specs is the best? Frost just looks so sexy with ubreakable armor and imp frost presence etc. From what I've been reading it sounds like frost and unholy are viable for 5 man//10 man content maybe but not on 25 man and not MTing hard hitting bosses.
Blood is for single targets. (Will of the Necropolis is clearly for hard hitting bosses and Vampiric Blood is an excellent 'oh shit' button.)
Frost is for AOE (Unbreakable Armor can only shine with multiple targets (it's really nothing against a hard-hitting boss but it reduces dmg "from all sources"), plus Howling Blast is AOE and can spread the main disease needed to all targets). UA may be more effective towards a fast hitting boss.
Unholy looks like forced in there but it can be considered to be primarily for spell damage reduction. It also has a CD that can act as a 2nd 'weak IBF'.
PS. +3% stamina of blood and +2% dmg reduction of frost are equivalent. I wonder how easy it is to calculate the level of that equivalence. A problem with that is that if they are equally viable few wouldn't go with HP when most outsiders seem to ask for it 1st before any other tank stat.
PPS. A problem is that Vampiric Blood can be better than UA even for AOE. Perhaps a stamina buf is needed for UA too (e.g. 'reduces dmg and increases HP (but not healing)). It can be safely assumed though that after a number of multiple ads tanked, UA should be definitely more powerful so it can be argued that it is a different mechanic with its uses.
and so on, or to keep them, as you say, as 'oh shit' buttons?
I'd think that a rotation is nice for bosses without particular damage rush (like XT) and that keeping CDs is better for fights like Hodir, HM Council last phase.
IMO, it depends on the person and situation. In my current 10mans we don't have the luxury of 100 healers and we seem to survive in tanking most of the time so I usually keep cooldowns when they are really needed, i.e. threat cooldowns when dpses may really steal agro and dmg reduction/healing cooldowns when there is really a threat to survivability.
Blood is for single targets. (Will of the Necropolis is clearly for hard hitting bosses and Vampiric Blood is an excellent 'oh shit' button.)
Frost is for AOE (Unbreakable Armor can only shine with multiple targets (it's really nothing against a hard-hitting boss but it reduces dmg "from all sources"), plus Howling Blast is AOE and can spread the main disease needed to all targets).
Unholy looks like forced in there but it can be considered to be primarily for spell damage reduction. It also has a CD that can act as a 2nd 'weak IBF'.
PS. +3% stamina of blood and +2% dmg reduction of frost are equivalent. I wonder how easy it is to calculate the level of that equivalence. A problem with that is that if they are equally viable few wouldn't go with HP when most outsiders seem to ask for it 1st before any other tank stat.
PPS. A problem is that Vampiric Blood can be better than UA even for AOE. Perhaps a stamina buf is needed for UA too (e.g. 'reduces dmg and increases HP (but not healing)). It can be safely assumed though that after a number of multiple ads tanked, UA should be definitely more powerful so it can be argued that it is a different mechanic with its uses.
As simple as that explanation was, that was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.
Is the deep blood build cookie cutter now or are there "free" points? Seems like that might be the topic of discussion right now but I'm extrapolating that without knowing what the "cookie cutter" build is. And you are totally right about Sta; it is the easy to see, apples for apples, I need a tank with that stat stat.
Core tree choices have reached a relative consensus with some talents open to interpretation, e.g. Rune Tap is often considered by some seriously. It is clear though that it is more open to interpretation than DPS choices, where effectiveness can be simulated more easily.
This forum and thread, being primarily for end-game tanking is biased towards single-target tanking (though rarely end-game requires multi-target tanking). In that case the 1st standard blood tree offered is quite effective but even there I notice some may optimize it towards their individual needs.
I've been wondering, about CDs like Vampiric Blood, is it better to use them whenever they are up and make a rotation such <snip>
I generally don't waste my cool downs unless I need them. The exception to that is Anti-magic Shield which I use to generate runic power in fights where I don't expect to need it. Otherwise, I use my cool downs when the fight dictates it (Mim's Plasma Blast, General's Surge of Darkness) or when something bad happens (i.e. healer or OT dies). On some encounters, like Thorim hard mode, it may be necessary to chain cool downs at the end of the fight to stay alive.
I was looking at the builds and I have a couple of questions:
1) why take hysteria? Does the dot it place not matter? Do you use it on other party members?
2) what sucks about spell deflection, mark of blood, and imp blood presence? These seem like they would be big benefits to tanking.
I was looking at the builds and I have a couple of questions:
1) why take hysteria? Does the dot it place not matter? Do you use it on other party members?
2) what sucks about spell deflection, mark of blood, and imp blood presence? These seem like they would be big benefits to tanking.
Hysteria is an outstanding buff for physical dps classes, and you can use it on yourself if you want more threat for some self-damage.
Spell Deflection doesn't work on most boss spell attacks.
Mark of Blood heals too little, too slow to be worth using for one Blood Rune, and the healing it does is mostly overheal.
Imp Blood Presence heals too little, too slow and is mostly overheal.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I post as a 10ppl only raider, my experiences are based on raids here you have 2-3 healers and 2 raid groups.
Most of build dont consider imp Rune Tap talent. Personally I spend those 4 points to get 9k extra HS every 30 seconds. The biggest disadvantage of it is rune cost. I thinks its not hard to use while every 1 min we have Blood tap for emergency situations, aditional Death Rune Mastery provides me many death runes. Ofcourse I plan also when i`ll use it for example mimiron phase 1 laser atack, when its starts i track my hp and use it on low, its great to chain when VB and IBF are on cd- AMS->RT->Death Pact. Its also usefull when freya casts grounding aoe, ignis jet, hodir frosen blows, general his + dmg buff.... etc.
I experienced that its great on algalon 10 when boss can heavy hit You, to cover star explo or healer is forced to move(smash too close).
I think that Rune Tap is great utility tool for tanking in 10ppl raids, for me its worth to sacrifice Subversion and 1 point from Morbidity. I use it with glyph. Its always help little healers - xt002 earthquake, hodir frosen blows, mimiron phase 2, freya grounding aoe attack, algalon star explosion.
Hysteria is an outstanding buff for physical dps classes, and you can use it on yourself if you want more threat for some self-damage.
Spell Deflection doesn't work on most boss spell attacks.
Mark of Blood heals too little, too slow to be worth using for one Blood Rune, and the healing it does is mostly overheal.
Imp Blood Presence heals too little, too slow and is mostly overheal.
Mark of Blood heals too little? 4% of your max health, free heal, after every time you or anyone else takes damage. It's rarely overheal (since it heals at the same time as the damage) so in reality, it behaves like damage reduction by essentially taking 4% of your max health off of every hit you take.
Definitely situational use, but extremely viable.
So, the real reason I came to post - had a chance to test out Spell Deflection more tonight on Trial of the Crusader 10 man. I had it trigger a few times on the Jormungar - it triggered off the damage from the poison spray, and from the poison cloud when I got knocked into it once, and off the fire damage I was hit with by another person. It definitely went off a lot more than I expected.
I also MT'd Jaraxxus, and it triggered off of Chain Lightning, Fel Fireball (rogue let one through), and off the Infernal's stationary AOE.
Mark of Blood heals too little, too slow to be worth using for one Blood Rune, and the healing it does is mostly overheal.
Mark of Blood is no "oh shit" button for the tank, that's right. But it has its uses and situations where it is worth the cost in talents/blood rune. Algalon is a nice (and unique) example where all 20 charges get used on the tank and where the effect is nearly that of an Unbreakable Armor. ( World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis )
The overhealing is part of every cooldown and hardly a factor, i.e. IBF reduces a 20k hit to 10k and a 20k heal lands shortly after. You wouldn't say that IBF causes too much overhealing because the important thing about cooldowns is to provide health/reduced damage when there is not enough healing available between several hits.
So there is the tank-heal component which admittedly is sub-par on many bosses because of their slow swing timers, but Mark of Blood does procc on more than just melee swings on the tank. In most raidwide damage situations you can use Mark of Blood as an oh-shit button for raid healing, i.e. XT trample+spark, Mimiron heat wave+clumped raid+rapid burst, Hodir frozen blows, Freya ground stomp. 20 targets getting healed for 4% hp can make the difference for those nasty combos where we told our mages to wear some pvp/frost resist/stamina gear.
There has to be put more thought in clever Mark of Blood usage and it must not be reduced to "the boss does only 8 hits in 20sec of which 5 get avoided which leaves 3 Mark of Blood healsl => useless".
Mark of Blood heals too little? 4% of your max health, free heal, after every time you or anyone else takes damage. It's rarely overheal (since it heals at the same time as the damage) so in reality, it behaves like damage reduction by essentially taking 4% of your max health off of every hit you take.
Definitely situational use, but extremely viable.
Assuming ideal conditions with 45k HP raidbuffed, use MoB in combination with VB:
45000*1.15 = 51750 HP
51750 * 0.04 = 2070 HP per tick
now we take 20 hits in 20 seconds (very unlikely) so MoB heals for 2070*1.35(VB)*20 = 55890
Dividet by its 180 second CD results in a mere 310.5 HPS
When i look at last weeks general vezax parse i recieved only 78 hits over 363 seconds, resulting in 0.22 hits/second or 1 hit every 4.65 seconds. this means i get only 4 ticks of MoB resulting in some 11178 heal per use or 62.1 HPS.
Compare this with a well timed Death Strike, wich will heal you for 10479 when VB is active.
There has to be put more thought in clever Mark of Blood usage and it must not be reduced
So a heal for 800 on a 20k HP mage will save him from life-threatening aoe? A well timed wild growth will heal more than our mighty three minute CD...
Every on-demand talent has an inherent disadvantage: It will take away points from talents that are passive and potentially help constantly, it requires proper methodology in timing of use, and it requires proper execution of that methodology (decreasing its value with the probability of suboptimal use rising). This is the reason Mark of Blood may be not worth it for me, however I understand that it's only 1 point for 80% HP healing over time, not counting Vampiric Blood. It is however - unlike Vampiric Blood - not a life savior for the majority of cases a tank may be in threat of dying since it is ultimately a HOT, slow. I do however understand it may be considerably more useful in cases overhealing is purposely limited, e.g. in Vezax (the only case Improved Blood Presence may be remotely useful too, or to stretch it, even Blood Worms, but that probably pushes it). This notion regarding on-demand talents finds me quite reluctant to take Rune Tap, considerably more than Mark of Blood, since not only it's on demand but it needs not 1, but 4 talent points.
08/28/09, 10:32 AM
