Suno

DK threat is already inferior* against enemies that don't melee constantly. I feels just right otherwise. Eliminating a big chunk of Rune Strikes creates additional need for a boost to threat generation.


*At high gear levels. It's no secret that Death Knight threat scales poorly.

 

urotas

10-12% or so of that avoidance is miss which doesn't proc rune strike, so it's closer to 40% of rune strikes away on most fights. I am very worried about the effect it has on threat. On a fight like Algalon or Twins you probably wouldn't notice much due to their fast attack speed, but the vast majority of bosses don't hit that fast. On typical bosses you'll get 1 swing between melee attacks, so removing dodges removes rune strikes directly.

Simply buffing Frost Presence threat would make our threat sky high in other instances though, so I doubt they'll do that to compensate for the Icecrown Radiance.

 

elfatto

I've decided to do some napkin math to get a rough idea of how much Chill of the Throne will impact our threat. I'm too lazy to see if there's parses for actual Icecrown bosses, so I've applied the -20% dodge modifier to data from a Jaraxxus parse I had, as this fight is pretty much straight tanking with no quirky mechanics from a MT perspective. If my reasoning or math is wrong please feel free to correct it/mock me.

Even though I am a blood spec in this parse, for simplicity I'm only considering threat from damage done and not from any self-healing through deathstrike.

Damage/threat breakdown, split into runestrike, as this is what we're interested in, and everything else.
Damage from runestrike: 170743 dmg, from 32 hits
Damage from everything else: 714273 dmg

Threat from runestrike: 170743 x 1.5 (runestrike modifier) x 2.0735 (frost pres.) ~= 521053 threat, with a mean of 16282.9 threat per runestrike.
Threat from everything else: 714273 x 2.0735 (frost pres.) ~= 1481045 threat

So a total threat of 2002098, over a fight duration of 304 seconds gives approx. 6586 TPS, with 35.8% of the total threat coming from runestrike.

During this fight Jaraxxus melees at me 86 times with 56 hits being avoided.
Avoidance breakdown into dodge and parry, as these proc runestrike.
Dodged: 32 hits
Parried: 15 hits
Thus, off the runestrike procs, 32/47 = 68.1% of them should have procced from dodges.
Also, runestrike was procced 47 times but only 32 actually got off due to overlap between my swing timer and the boss'. So we assume that only approx. 68% of avoided hits will translate into actual runestrikes.

Now let's apply the Icecrown -20% dodge modifier.
My dodge % for that fight was roughly 37.2%, making it 17.2% in Icecrown.
So my dodged hits in Icecrown are now 86 x 0.172 = 14.79, so approx. 15.
Assuming parries stay the same, I now proc runestrike 30 times. But not all avoided hits will translate to runestrikes, so we have to modify that by 68%. Thus, 30 x 0.68 = 20.4, so approx. 20 actual runestrikes will hit.
Multiply that by the average of 16282.9 threat per runestrike, and you get 325658 total threat from runestrike.
So total threat with the -20% dodge modifier is, 325658 threat + 1481045 threat = 1806703 threat, over 304 seconds is 5943.1 TPS. From this example this is about a 10% reduction in TPS relative to the scenario without Icecrown radiance.

So this change does not seem like it is as huge a reduction in threat as I initially thought it would be. However, depending on the encounters in Icecrown, a roughly 10% drop in threat may be significant enough for DK tanks to worry about their tanking spots.
EDIT: Forgot to substitute in a melee hit for a reduced runestrike. That just means that the reduction in threat would be even less.

 

Panzerkin

Ghostcrawler confirmed the dodge will be deducted after diminishing returns so the dodge/parry weights we have should not be affected.

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich von Schiller

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
- George F. Will

 

Jeges

The -20% also has a bigger impact on overall damage taken by DKs (at least, Frost and Unholy) than it does on other tanks. Unholy because Bone Shield won't last as long. Frost... well, I'm sitting at about 70% avoidance as Frost without even trying. Going from 70% to 50% is an increase in overall damage taken of 66.7%. Going from 60% to 40% avoidance is an increase of only 50%. Granted, this isn't proper effective health, but it makes you more likely not to wipe when something little goes wrong and diminishes healing load on you overall, and helps to compensate for Frost's deficiencies in other departments.

All of these concerns obviously have potential solutions, but it's good for people to be thinking of the problems that might crop up during testing so they can be properly identified, reported, and fixed before they go live.

 

Wakez

The result of this "Icecrown Radiance" is Blood being even more effective, making the differance between the trees even greater and putting Unholy at the very bottom with Bone Shield losing a great deal of its uptime.

I'm eagerly awaiting how Blizzard will balance this out for all tanking classes.
Then there is also the threat loss from Rune Strike, no matter how small it may be we're already at the low end TPS wise, and with a new tier of gear the threat differance between tanks and DPSers will be even worse.

 

guoren

Hey guys, im a first time poster here but have been reading for ages, the reason why i didnt really post was because i found the answers i was looking for in general. well now i have a problem and would like your help.
this is my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

My guild is on Anub`Arak HC25, i am the main tank. I usually tank him in Blood spec since i have largest hp, and best TPS. Now my problem is that as soon as we go in to p3 on the fight and anub starts leeching my health, the 2 paladin healers that are healing me find it almost impossible to keep me alive. Thus i have tried some "alternative" frost builds for more mitigation since avoidance does not seem to be helping me at all when im frozen by the boss.

Any tip or advice is welcome since i really dont know what my problem is, i`we tried swapping some gear around aswell but well it did not solve my problem.

 

Wakez

Stack up on armor and nature resistance. Your HP doesn't matter that much at all, since the only real problem tanking Anub is when you get slash + leech tick + melee swing at once. Time your CDs well for those moments.
I've successfully tanked him several times in heroic25 mode as Frost.

 

Keruen

Regarding Sunwell Radiance 2.0:

Let's assume for a moment that both Rune Strike and Frost Presence remain untouched in 3.3. Could this possibly make Unholy the best single-target DK tanking tree? I say this because of two things: SS changes and T10 2pc. Since DnD for Unholy is already very strong, could another 20% increase coupled with Blood/Frost taking a bigger hit from the -20% dodge push Unholy ahead?

I'm not saying Unholy will be the best all-around tree in 3.3, because obviously you have to take into account that Bone Shield's uptime is going to drop significantly. But if we're only talking about threat gen, could Sunwell Radiance 2.0 + SS changes + T10 2pc shift the balance to Unholy?

 

guoren

well i have over 30k armor buffed but i dont have any gear that would improve my armor greatly. i`m just hoping that somehow ill manage not to die. maybe if they keep a sort of rotation on me, altough that might be tricky.

 

Vinci

I'm having trouble tanking, don't know why, idk if it is my rotation, but on almost all fights I have trouble holding aggro for the first 30 sec before the same druid pulls off of me. I've tried multiple solutions from new gear to changing my rotation around. I've come to a conclusion that it is the weapon I'm currently using. Can somebody help me out on this, I would be thankful if u did

 

Ghaash

On the one hand, your weapon definitly is the biggest factor. On the other hand, you should change your sigil to a dodge-sigil and try to maximize your Rune Strike usage. That means, keeping 20 RP in your bar at "all times". Seeing that you switched to a Deathcoil sigil with your blood build suggests that you try to get more aggro by spamming Deathcoils more aggressively what actually harms your threat more than it helps, since you will be RP starved for some Rune Strike opportunities.
Change your hands-enchant to armsman. Get a weapon and ring with strength. On a side note, put a buckle on your belt and get the pve shoulder enchant. Drink an Indestructible Potion before the pull. Start off with Hysteria on yourself and request Tricks of the trade and Misdirection.

 

Luckton

Not sure if this has been brought up before in the 84 pages here, but with regards to Blood AoE rotation in the OP, it doesn't seem to work as advertised with the second half. Unless I'm missing something you don't have the Blood/Death runes needed to pull off the Pest and BB after the DS/HS. I propose the following, as it's been working for me:

D&D->IT->PS->DC
TAB
BB->DC->DS->DS->Pest

Using !Rune Strike macro for all abilitlies.

Thoughts?

 

• frmorrison

Use Blood Tap to get an extra rune to do Pest/BB. Anyway, if you can hold aggro fine keep doing whatever you are doing.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

frotes

I assume besides just the 2 pallys you also have someone giving you inspiration. Anyways mainly just cd every frost strike and you should be fine. Since you have 4p, you should be able to ams -> vb -> ams -> vb etc every frost strike. Use IBF/trinkets as needed, especially if he delays a froststrike pass your ams. You shouldn't take any frost strike without a cd.

Also armor pot after the initial lust going into p3 (gets a bit more millage out of it if you do it after since you'll be spammed healed hard during lust). You should have enough threat going into p3 to allow you to wait on your f/u runes and use them for timely DS healing.

If you feel you want even more, re-enchant cloak/helm with NR resist and get LW resist on bracer.

Druid - Frotes

Hunter - Washte

 

Muscle

Yep, you should use blood tap in this rotation so it will look something like this...

Death and Decay --> Icy Touch --> Plague Strike --> Pestilence (I use my death coil here if runic power permits, to keep dps's main target on me)--> Blood Tap --> Blood Boil -> Runes will be refreshing, Death strike for blood runes, bloodboil or heart strike depending on multitude of mobs.

Personally, I like to keep control over my use of Rune Strike -- I keep it bound to R and so do not bind it to spells.

Death coil before hitting 100 runic power, remember you will always be able to spot a good tank in their good use of rune/rage dumps.

 

duhwhat

Note that in the OP the second portion is separated by slashes and not dashes (like the more rigid single target rotation, and the setup of the AE [DnD followed by IT and PS]). I don't think that there is a specific intended sequence, rather that you should tab around and death strike and heart strike, BB early and often, and pestilence when needed. That being said, I would Pestilence immediately after the PS followed by target switching to DC and rune strike around until the first blood rune is available, rather saving tap for Vampiric Blood.

 

Ageous

I believe comparing to Jaraxxus obscures the extent of the threat reduction Chill of the Throne could cause. Jaraxxus spends a lot of time casting, which means fewer Runestrike possibilities. I struggle holding threat on Jaraxxus from destro locks and good spell stealing mages already. My TPS numbers are considerably lower on Jaraxxus than on Twins for example and it's my opinion this is directly due to fewer Runestrikes.

I'm very worried about Chill of the Throne and DK tanking, does anyone else share my concern? Or have to many DKs already given up tanking? I worry about that too with such decreased activity on this thread.

No, I don't trust Blizzard to get it right the first time, infact I expect them to really screw up certain aspects. I don't see how any DK could trust them to get it right the first time considering the number of tanking nerfs we have endured.

In addition to reduced threat for DKs, how is this also not a direct buff to Shield block tanks? In the beginning DKs were avoidance tanks, DKs used to have significantly higher avoidance than shield block tanks, but that was before several rounds of DK tanking nerfs. From my experience DKs don't have significantly higher avoidance numbers than shield tanks anymore. Since all tanks will be getting hit more, doesn't this now value shield block even higher? How does this not reduce DK tank desirability even more?

I'll admit it, I already have pally envy. I look at our recent ToC 25 log and see Adent Defender proc'd 7 times on my co-tank. Granted some of those could have been on intentional wipe it out situation (it was a messy run) but it still contributes to my inferior to pally tanks complex.

No, I don't like Chill of the Throne at all.

 

• GravityDK

I have just completed a fairly comprehensive set of simulations on Unholy in 3.3. I was looking at threat using Kahorie's sim. The best yet balanced threat spec I found, after pretty extensive testing is 12/8/50, with one point free.

I tested using Bluedragon's and my own character gear stats (Coliseum-25 and Ulduar 10/25 respectively), results were fairly linear across both.

In terms of threat per talent point, I found:
* wandering plague (ST, 0.7% per talent point.)
* scent of blood (ST threat, about 1% but not sure)
* necrosis (1.1% per).
* bladed armour is worth about 2.36% TPS per.
* Impurity is 1.65% per.
* Blood-caked blade 1.36% per.

One result which needs further study is that Frost and Blood generated about 10% more threat than the best I could get out of Unholy (with even numbers, 5500 TPS vs 5000). I would have expected less of a gap. You're able to use my files to reproduce the results if curious.

Glyphs I found IT and RS to be the best. Disease didn't generate more threat, and BS is always going to be my third glyph.

For AMS/AMZ I'd probably spec something like this, but didn't focus as much on that derivation because I don't have enough information to say whether it'd help in Icecrown, or not. It had 3.5% less threat than the first spec.

I also did an EP calculation with Bluedragon's Coliseum gear:

Strength	2.21
ExpertiseRating	1.93
BeforeMeleeHitCap<8%	1.86
CritRating	1.79
ArmorPenetrationRating	1.38
Agility	1.24
ExpertiseRating After Dodge Cap	0.76
HasteRating	0.55
SpellHitRating	0.53
AttackPower	1

FILES
You can download my Excel file with every simulation I ran from this page, and the character files from here. You can also read the caveats on the sim and settings used.

As always, a sim isn't Truth, but a great point of reference to check against traditional theorycrafting.

Update: 1.1.7.4 now lets you keep 20 RP for RS! Wonderful change.

 

• frmorrison

The issue with Unholy is that with ICC taking 20% dodge away Bone Shield will have a even lower uptime. Unless BS gets more bones (doubtful), its damage mitigation will go lower than it is on live.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Fortris

I've searched as best I know how for the answer to this and come up blank, so please bare with me if it's been answered elsewhere.

I primarily DPS in guild raids as Frost DW, and do so reasonably competently. I recently switched my secondary spec from Unholy DPS to Unholy tanking, to allow for more flexibility when wanting to organise non-scheduled runs etc. The current listed Unholy tanking seems to be focused around using Scourge Strike 4 times per rotation (in fact, it's quite similar to a Frost rune rotation but subbing SS for OB).

I know that the current Unholy DPS build however is a very simple single target rotation with no Epidemic or Reaping, of PS->IT->BS->BS->SS->dump, as the DPS proves superior to a SS focused rotation. Is there any reason that this is not the current situation for tanking (at least according to the front post)? And is [Glyph of Scourge Strike] really worth taking over, say, [Glyph of Death and Decay], given I use D&D a lot due to primarily add/off tanking?

Oh, and while i'm at it : Why do none of the Unholy tank specs i've seen take Scent of Blood? Are Unholy RP dumps that underwhelming as a tank that a near constant stream of extra RP is so unwelcome? I know that when i was Frost tanking it was a near to a mandatory talent as you could get...

 

• GravityDK

No-reaping tank in 3.22 does more threat than one with reaping. We had a good chat about that some pages ago (look for my posts, I wrote some). I PM'd you some links too.

As for SoB, I think it's very good too, just had trouble turning it into a % TPS per talent point. I do like to have at least 1/3. I read an EJ poster earlier saying it had been determined that 2/3 is optimal, but didn't see their workings.

 

Xequecal

I would still be far more worried about DK EH than threat output. The main problem with DKs is you can have good threat or good EH but not both. Full DW Frost (13/51/7 or 10/51/10 and 2-pc T10) with slow DPS weapons is amazing threat, but your EH is really bad. You end up with 20% less EH than Paladins and your cooldown doesn't even work on magic damage. Conversely, you can do 23/44/4 and dual-wield tanking weapons, giving you EH very close to Paladins, but your threat is abysmal. The best medium right now is probably full DW Frost with Relentless Gladiator weapons as these have a lot of STA, but of course that requires you to PvP and get a high rating.

 

Velthore

I am fairly sure all DK tanks that tank at a high level of endgame content are worried about Chill of the Throne. I dont believe that its going to be some major class breaking nerf to DK tanks and I dont believe that a DK will have a problem tanking anything in IC. What I dont think blizzard understands is that high level end game guilds min/max their raid and class setup so much that any situation where a DK is inferior to any of the other tanking classes we will sit. We are already the worst choice in many fights right now, if this negativly effects us even in the least it will just push us farther to the back of the tanking roster. If chill of the throne was going to effect all tanks evenly I would have no problem with it. The fact that its going to push warriors, druids and pallies ahead in either threat/mitigation or both while possibly harming DK's is quite frustraiting.

 

piken

I would disagree with this. In the last 3 weeks clearing up to anub h25 we have rotated tanks to view the differences between our druid, warrior, pally, and dk. Believe it or not (once I can grab up to date logs from guild totgc 25 to show), all 4 tanks took very simillar damage. Depending on the fight and the situation, we each were bouncing around the 10-12k dtps with the higher end of this on any of the tanks that had 2 burrowers on them.

Yes, the dodge nerf is harsh, but I think it will affect Druids more then anything just as Sunwell radience did. Druids are pure dodge tanks and as of right now, the best geared tank in guild is a duird (1 more 258 then me as we have given most 258's to healers and dps so far), and he has started to worry a lot about this. He looses almost 40% of his avoidance because of a 20% hit while me, the warrior, and pally all take a loss of about 37%.

Remember druids go on dodge alone as all other tanks get dodge, parry, and the increase to each of these with def as druids dont stack def any more.


Oh, and here is a link to my dk while I try to get the WWS.

The World of Warcraft Armory