notebook

Hi Ghaash. I previously compared your most recent effort on PW with my own from this week and last week to see where the extra DPS/TPS was coming from. I'm nearly 100% certain I'd have done 9k TPS or more with a Sunder and an identical performance.

Here is a comparison from last Tuesday, and the Tuesday before:

Patchwerk: 01.27 vs 02.03

Differences:

01.27 - Sunder
01.27 - 20 second longer fight
01.27 - Elixir of Protection / Expertise
01.27 - Greatness / Monarch Crab

02.27 - No Sunder
02.27 - 20 second shorter fight
02.03 - Flask of Endless Rage
02.03 - Greatness / Mark of Norganon (allowing for Flask of Endless Rage)

In addition, on the second date, I also played slightly smarter with my RP (at least I felt as if I did). Definite room to improve here.

Direct Comparisons: 01.27 vs 02.03

Rune Strike did 220+ more dmg on average.
Obiterate did 200+ more dmg on average and +700 more on crit.
Melee did about +130 dmg on average and nearly +300 more on crit.
Blood Strike did about +60 dmg on average and +200 more on crit.
Howling Blast about -160 less on average and -1000 on crit.
Frost Strike did about -120 less on average and -500 on crit (this one makes no sense to me)


Sunder alone should make a drastic difference. As I noted before, I'm pretty sure I'd be well into 9k TPS with the same exact spec, rotation, and gear, but I have to test it in game to be 100% certain.

I did some tests on the training dummy (self buffed with Horn), 4 runs of 5 minutes each, 2 with Sunder, 2 without. The numbers below aveage both runs of each type (w/ Sunder and w/out Sunder): Here are my results:


No Sunder: DPS: 1565 DPS average
With Sunder: DPS: 1726 DPS average

Regular | Lowest | Average | Highest
Crit | Lowest | Average | Highest

Obliterate
1463 | 1602 | 1788
3632 | 3914 | 4323

Obliterate (Sunder)
1694 (14%) | 1850 (13%) | 2051 (13%)
4105 (12%) | 4517 (13%) | 4993 (13%)


Melee
772 | 870 | 985
536 | 645 | 752 (glancing)
1615 | 1698 | 1790

Melee (Sunder)
890 (13%) | 1002 (13%) | 1148 (14%)
601 (11%) | 711 (9%) | 875 (14%) (glancing)
1911 (15%) | 2068 (18%) | 2150 (17%)


Blood Strike
671 | 732 | 810
1714 | 1784 | 1827

Blood Strike (Sunder)
782 (14%) | 853 (14%) | 937 (14%)
2136 (20%) | 2136 (15%) | 2136 (14%) (one crit both times. skewed #'s a little)


Now, Sunder should be increasing the damage quite a bit more than 13%, but for the sake of argument, I'll keep it at 13% for the following theories.

Adding 13% on my melee abilities from the most recent PW kill, this is what I get:

Rune Strike
2586 -> 2922 (2586 * .13 + 2586)
6458 -> 7297 (6458 * .13 + 6458) crit

Obliterate
1984 -> 2241 (1984 * .13 + 1984)
5378 -> 6077 (5378 * .13 + 5378) crit

Melee
1135 -> 1283 (1135 * .13 + 1135)
2639 -> 3431 (2639 * .13 + 2639) crit

Blood Strike
1104 -> 1134 (1104 * .13 + 1104)
2461 -> 2780 (2461 * .13 + 2461) crit


I believe there would be a greater increase then 13% once in a full raid environment. That being said, I may take two points out of Frost to put it into 2HWS. If I find that I can do more DPS without Virulence (putting 3/3 Subversion or 3/5 DC) then I might switch to that as well. I do, however, use Howling Blast once per cycle, and I really don't want to miss it... especially as it does huge damage for me.

I'm not sure if it is worth giving up those 2% dodge (more RS opportunities), 10% bonus dmg (from TS), 6% sub 35% damage (from Merciless Combat), extra RP storage (more RS / FS), and 3% spell hit (Virulence). However, the 6% STR is very nice (gives me 400 AP at my unbuffed state). The 1800 HP boost (assuming 30k hp) makes no difference to me, as 5-heal PW is a joke. I think we will be trying 4 this next Tuesday. The benefits I really like are the increased Obliterate crit rate, the 2HWS, and the overall boost to crit from Dark Conviction.

I'll run some tests on a training dummy and see what sort of #'s I get. Might be enough to switch to that spec for one Naxx and see how it performs.

What sort of #'s do you get on the training dummy across 5 minute runs? This assumes Horn only.

Also, what sort of AP do you have raid-buffed. Wouldn't HB do even more with the amount of AP you have?

Definitely.

 

Ghaash

After having a second look at the TPS reports, i noticed how important it is to really get every RS there is. I thought having RS macroed to OB, HB and BS would be sufficient to get every proc, but there is a large hole in between rotations (namely after the last OB/BS while waiting for FU runes to become active). Since RS is the highest threat-per-strike ability and Patchwerk hits this fast, i really should get those procs. Having no BoSanc and fighting slower hitting bosses probably "hides" this mistake.
The other thing is that on my last Patchwerk fight, FS did higher average noncrit and crit damage. That would mean, delaying rune usage to cast further Frost Strikes is a good idea and thus makes RPM in a BoSanc environment a good choice. But then again, this was w/o the sigil which would put Obliterate slightly ahead if adding a straight 420 is not too far off (too lazy to run more tests).

My horn-buffed AP for bossdummy testing is 3677. I will have to wait for wednesday to post raidbuff numbers.
I did both tests on a 1hp dummy and full hp to see the effect of Merciless Combat 2/2.
On the dummies in Orgrimmar i left out every other rime proc to make up for HB hitting two dummies.
All tests with Sigil of Awareness.
2x 5min dummy, no sunder, horn buffed, monarch crab&greatness, HB on rime-proc

[With Merciless Combat effect/ 1hp dummy]
DPS: 1618 DPS average

Hit | Average | Highest
Crit | Average | Highest

Obliterate (30% crit)
Hit: 1851 | 2034
Crit: 4598 | 5105

Melee (10% crit)
Hit: 840 | 1058
Crit: 1810 | 2184

Blood Strike (17% crit)
Hit: 702 | 772
Crit: 1711 | 1945


[Without Merciless Combat effect/ max hp dummy]
DPS: 1485 DPS average

Hit | Average | Highest
Crit | Average | Highest

Obliterate (31% crit)
Hit: 1668 | 1830
Crit: 4072 | 4428

Melee (11% crit)
Hit: 835 | 1063
Crit: 1851 | 2035

Blood Strike (18% crit)
Hit: 700 | 775
Crit: 1712 | 1790


I further took 2x 5min tests with Mirror of Truth for the Monarch Crab on a 1 HP dummy:
Obliterate 37.5% crit
Avg. Hit: 2050
Avg Crit: 5045

Those numbers kind of surprised me.

What was the healthlevel of the bossdummy on your tests? Do you cast Runestrikes manually?


edit: I just reevaluated my gear/socket choices and asked myself when to stop looking for more TPS.
Since the content isn't that threatening to geared raids, one could get away with Fallen Crusader and Anvil of Titans to remain uncrittable. Next step would be to swap all stamina gems for str or expertise and further swap in dps gear (rings) etc.
While it sure is fun to get "maxTPS", one has to adapt to the other player's methods to stay competitive and each step towards more TPS feels like cheating until the others catch up. In the end i want to have a spec/gear setup that does great TPS on progression bosses and i just can't see me in that position with your HP level (gems/enchants) but eliminated parries/dodges/misses while dps classes are not even close to beeing threatcapped.
That beeing said, i won't stand in front of Patchwerk in max avoidance/EH gear and treat him like serious business, but i also won't change the way i pick/enchant/socket gear to achieve maxTPS on farmcontent.

But i guess it's not worth looking too far into the future (progression bosses), since Blizzard might probably discourage 1-disease tanking and change extra-disease modifiers on HB/OB and what the next tier of weapons will do to HB/OB is another question.

 

Shadownoob

Regarding 25 + 3D Sarth tank specs...which is generally better, Unholy or Blood? I was playing around with the Talent calculator, and came up with Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft for Unholy, but I'm just not sure which is better. Blood has Vampiric Blood + 10% off every breath with WotN (since Unholy has 5% off from MS), but Unholy has Bone Shield, AMZ, and a shorter CD AotD for learning the fight.

Trying to think about CD rotations, and I'm coming up with AMS -> BS + IBF -> AMZ (BS should still be up at this point, right?) -> AMS -> AotD -> BS +IBF etc if Shadron isn't dead. Does this sound right? I've yet to MT Sartharion as I'm normally dps, so forgive the somewhat noobish questions.

The World of Warcraft Armory Is my armory if gear affects anything. It may be showing my dps gear still though.

 

notebook

This is something I'm still trying to perfect. The question really becomes, how much TPS is gain or lost by waiting to cast FS until you have enough RP to do 2 or so, thus making sure you always have enough for RS? If you are sitting there with 75% RP and you don't get a RS proc, your threat is going to dip a bit. However, if you FS too early, you have a very high chance of missing RS procs (which happens to me a lot). If you cap out at 100 RS, and you then perform another rune-based ability, you are basically throwing RP down the drain. This is one of the reasons I always had a point or two into RPM, especially in a BOS environment.


Last night I tested your spec on the training dummy in Thunder Bluff (it's away from other dummies so that I can use HB in the rotation without skewing #'s). I tried multiple runs with and without Sunder, self-buffed only. In addition, another DK in guild came along to try his hand. He is currently on the WMO top TPS list as unholy (9th or 10th place) and he wanted to see how Frost would work for him, as he has the Sigil of Awareness.

I didn't write the #'s down, but I can tell you that we both did identical (within single and low double digit #'s of eachother) on the training dummy. My stats are better than his all around (slightly more AP, bit more crit) while he has Sigil. We both did between 1665-1675 DPS on a 1 HP dummy. Horn-buffed, I am 3712 AP.

While my IT did considerably more than his, his Obliterates more than made up for the loss (obviously). He would do anywhere from 450-500 more per non-crit obliterate, and well over 700+ on crits. My IT's would do about 250+ on non crits and about 400 or so on crits.

We are still at the mercy of the RNG, as sometimes I would get as high as 47% on Obliterate crits, and other times low to mid 30%'s.

RS is macro'ed to IT, PS (I don't use it, but I used to), BS, OB, HB, and FS. Once I get into my set rotation, I am constantly pressing the next button in my sequence. This is so that RS will always be queued assuming I have enough RP (I still need better RP management, however).

For example, once my rotation gets to:

HB/OB, OB, IT, BS ...

I press them like this:

OB,OB,OB (obliterate hits), OB,OB,OB (obliterate hits), IT,IT,IT, (IT hits), BS,BS,BS....

About halfway through a PW fight, my left wrist/hand starts to burn LOL.


As of right now, our locks are starting to hit 7k DPS, and our top mage is getting close as well (but we've been bringing him to alt-naxx so he hasn't been in our fast PW kills lately). At 8500 TPS or so, I can easily stay above them, so I'm not too worried just yet. That being said, sometimes our mage goes crazy and starts critting ridiculous amounts, and that burst can really put pressure on me in the first 15 seconds of the fight. However, it's really not a problem.

I currently feel that I have a good amount of HP, EXP, HIT, and avoidance, though with your spec, I definitely feel as if I have given up a bit of that for additional HP and a bit more personal DPS. I lose 2% dodge and 3% spell hit (might not be that bad if I'm not using HB any longer).

One option was to swap in Valor Medal for the Mirror. I'd lose 2% crit but gain that 2% dodge back I'm missing from Anticipation. Then my only real loss for the spec would be 3% spell hit and a couple points into RPM (well, and the 10% bonus dmg from TS, but that shouldn't matter too much).


Right now, heals are so strong and I have nearly every best in slot for mitigation available that it's really just about setting my own personal records (and helping the guild set their own personal bests). Our DPS is nice, I stay ahead of them, they can keep 2 tank PW alive with ease, so why not try to best yourself? I know that when progression comes, I have enough options to maximize surivability. That being said, I think gemming specifically for STR is a little bit too extreme. While it gives a marginal increase in mitigation, I feel it's somewhat cheating (yes contradictory to setting personal bests) when you are sacrificing hit and expertise to do so. I'm sure there is some math out there that can prove the sweet-spot for hit (both spell and melee) and expertise, which would allow you to gem even more for TPS... but is it worth it?

You said that you had 4.25% (17) expertise and 8.36% melee hit / 13.4 spell hit (274) w/ a SP available.

In the current speak and gear that I'm wearing, I have 10% (40) expertise, 8.94% melee hit / 14.17% spell hit (293) w/ a SP available.

Your expertise and hit was obviously enough to pump out very nice DPS and TPS, which makes me wonder... is spell hit even necessary? Well, it's obviously not necessary... maybe the question is, how much is enough. The same goes for expertise. From a personal view, I absolutely hate getting parried. One or two every once in a while might not hurt TPS, especially when your hits are striking that much harder, but it just frustrates me when things miss and I know I can prevent them from missing.

This brings up a good point. Will OB, OB, IT, BS be viable in the future? It is currently such an increase over PS, IT, OB, BS, BS > PS, IT, OB, OB. Maybe we will have to spec back into Epidemic. Who knows. I'm sort of impressed that the top Wars, DKs, and Druids all put out about the same TPS in their current state. I know for a fact that DK's can put out a bit more, but if they nerf our current rotation, where will that put us. Also, what happens if they nerf the warrior Deep Wound spec. Hrmm..

 

Taidaisher

This may sound like a very stupid question, but do you guys not use Plague Strike & Pestilance on single targets?
The OP posted rotations of
Single Target Rotation - IT-PS-BS-BS-SS SS-SS-SS RPDUMP = RS/UnholyBlight/Deathcoil
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest-UnholyBlight then TAB-OB/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil

My standard rotation is the same as above, except that I add a Pestilance after the PS, so it looks like

Single Target Rotation - IT-PS-Pestilance-BS-BS-SS SS-SS-SS RPDUMP = RS/UnholyBlight/Deathcoil
Multi Target Rotation - DnD-IT-PS-Pest-UnholyBlight then TAB-OB/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil

Am I gimping my DPS with Pestilance on single target mobs?

This is my current setup Armory Link Here. I know my gear sucks, I've mostly been grinding dailys for Knights of the Ebon Plague rep and gold for my epic riding skill.

Thank you for your responses and knowledge.

 

Aezoc

Er, what? This whole post is full of fail.

First off, your posted rotation isn't possible, you used three blood runes in the first half; I assume you meant to replace a BS with pestilence. Secondly, it's not possible to do the second half (3x SS) with pestilence since it doesn't convert to a death rune. And lastly, pest vs. BS on a single target is a dead-simple comparison that you ought to be able to do yourself with 30 seconds spent on a dummy.

 

notebook

Are you asking for DPS advice? This is the end-game tanking thread. There a plenty of solid posts concerning DK DPS.

However, if you are asking about single target DPS/TPS, no, I don't think anyone uses Pestilence.

 

notebook

I did some testing again on the training dummy. The goal was to see if and when Howling Blast was superior to Obliterate in single target DPS/TPS.

Each of these runs was approximately 3 minutes on the Thunder Bluff training dummy with 1 health.
I used Flask of Endless Rage, Indestructable Potion, and Dragonfin Fillet.

My stats before Indestructable Potion were:

29666 Armor
540 Defense
21.97% Dodge
19.12% Parry

3976 AP
14.95 % Melee Crit
7.22% Spell Crit

301 Hit (9.15% Melee / 11.47% Spell)
37 Expertise (9.25%)

Again, I used Sigil of the Frozen Conscience (no Awareness available).

I performed 2 test runs without Sunder to get a base. I had actually done about 5 or 6 runs prior (same gear and buff setup) on the Ebon Hold training dummy, and the numbers matched, so I didn't feel the need to do any more than 2 in Thunder Bluff.


I took the total damage of each attack divided by the number of hits that actually made contact (no misses/parries/dodges). This gave me the average damage per attack. Unfortunately I forgot to include the crit % on the non-Sundered runs, but the results are consistent (see the Summary at the bottom).

Without Sunder:

Run 1:
Obliterate x 23 (45% crit rate) Average Damage: 3065
Howling Blast x 18 (1 miss) Average Damage: 2713 (x17)

Run 2:
Obliterate x20 (? crit rate) Average Damage: 2590
Howling Blast x18 (1 miss) Average Damage: 2766


With Sunder:

Run 1 (OB+HB)
Obliterate x21 (19% crit, 1 miss) Average Damage: 2554
Howling Blast x17 (16.7% crit) Average Damage: 2762

Run 2 (OB+HB)
Obliterate x25 (36% crit) Average Damage: 3013
Howling Blast x20 (15% crit) Average Damage: 2737

Run 3 (OB+HB)
Obliterate x18 (27% crit) Average Damage: 2720
Howling Blast x19 (26.3% crit, 1 miss) Average Damage: 2968

Run 4 (OB only)
Obliterate x37 (47% crit) Average Damage: 3289

Run 5 (OB only)
Obliterate x43 (30% crit) Average Damage: 2833

Run 6 (OB only)
Obliterate x36 (27.8% crit) Average Damage 2739


Here are some things to note:

There is no case where Obliterate would do less damage than a Howling Blast if the DK had Sigil of Awareness.

With a poor crit rate on Obliterate, Howling Blast does more damage on average without Sigil of Awareness.

About half of the damage lost to Sigil of Awareness is made up with Sigil of the Frozen Conscience, assuming a HB/OB rotation. If you are using an OBx2 rotation, you are losing 420 (base)x2 on non-crit hits, and you are only gaining 203 (base) from using SotFC. Using a HB,OB rotation, I noticed that with a sub-par Obliterate crit rate, my HB's did about 200 damage more, so in conjunction with SotFC, I was losing about 420 base damge from the singular Obliterate.

Note, this isn't an exact science, but it basically says that if you have a poor crit rate on obliterate, and you do not have Sigil of Awareness, then a HB/OB cycle will perform slightly better.

If you have a "decent" crit rate on Obliterate (30% or more), then OB,OB rotation will do more damage without Sigil of Awareness.

If you have an excellent crit rate on Obliterate (40%), then OB,OB rotation will really start to outshine Howling Blast without Sigil of Awareness.

... and the most obvious:

If you have Sigil of Awareness, don't bother with HB except on Rime procs. This is most-likely common knowledge, but for anyone new that is concerned about Frost Rotations, now you know.

Hopefully Sigil of Awareness drops this week... (and not in the alt run!).

 

crd

Not to derail this weird TPS competition we have going here but Shadownoob brings up a good point. The OP's unholy Sarth 3D spec was all the rage previously but I believe the blood variation I will link below is the new 'Flavor of the Week'.

Blood Sarth3D Spec: Wowhead talent calc

Granted there are a few points you can move around for personal preference. I tanked Sarth 3D 10man tonight with this spec and it went very well (Duelist/Tortheldrin). Depending on gear and how much stam you can stack Vampiric Blood + a priest shield will usually keep you up assuming you are topped off and get more than a minimum resist. However, we generally stack our priest's Guardian Spirit cooldown with vamp blood (or nothing) depending on what CD's I had left at the time. Make sure you have the Vampiric Blood glyph and Stoneskin Gargoyle runeforged on your weapon. Some other advice would be to stop attacking when you have the twilight torment debuff and save your cooldowns until Vesperon's disciple has spawned inside the portal. Generally you will want to save rune tap (if possible) for two situations: You are about to get Flame Breath and you are using a cooldown which requires you to be topped off OR You just got Flame Breath and will not survive the next melee swing if you dont avoid it.

 

piken

That is all well and good, but if you seem to have healers with slow reactions or don't feel like heals land fast enough the unholy still seems to reign supreme because of more magical mitigation, perma bone shield with enough avoidance, and the ability to absorb a complete breath every 45 sec from anti-magic shell. I am not saying it can't be done as blood, just at a slightly lower gear level it seems to be easier with unholy.

 

Vlar

I messed (hopefully doing more tonight) around with disealess blood as well, and I agree with the statement, but I also don't know if it is just not being used to it.

Blood Spec 46/8/17

I realize that I have Imp Icy Touch there, but I can't recall off my head where I really put those points (hopefully not there), and I will update it when I do. Edit: yep I put those points there, so there isanother mistake on the side of the spec...

The benefits that I see are Necrosis threat being added as well as SoD. Additionally after the patch, Outbreak's BB damage buff and Being able to reach UB will be major buffs to the spec's aoe tanking ability.

You will notice that I didn't bother to trade out my glyphs, I also didn't have RS macro'ed for most of it. I was using the Naxx Relic.

Rotations:
ST: HS HS OB OB Dump HS HS HS HS HS HS Dump
AoE: DnD(With Death Grip on the kill target) OB, Pest, Dump HS HS HS OB Pest Dump

Ran Her AN and had a little trouble with the aoe packs, but coming from unholy that is expected. From glancing at omen, it looked like I was averaging 2500 - 3k threat without runestrike. Had little trouble keeping aggro, DPS was of varying gear averaging out to 10 man level (I believe, they were guild alts and armory is down for maintenance ><), but I had recount turned off due to lagging issues, so I don't know what kind of damage they were putting out.

The healer was 25 man geared and said renew was more than enough to keep me up, I used VB once during the run and Rune Tap 2x.

Summary: My totally out gearing the instance had a major impact I am sure, but with the multiple and obvious mistakes I made during the run make me not able to outright dismiss it yet.

 

rutiene

A quick question about Unholy Tanking Talents, from all the posts I've read (and I've read every post in this thread, the FAQ, the first 5 pages of the other tanking thread before I gave up) no one seems to make a mention of the best oh-shit button we have at our disposal, the ability to sac our ghoul for 40% health. It seems that none of the recommended Unholy builds have 'Master of Ghouls' which allows us to use this at any time instantly.

Now the only real reason I can think of is due to the fact that this one talent point would be wasted if you never had to sac the Ghoul in the fight, so circumstantial point not as good as stable point. Perhaps it would be different for tanks either not as well geared (irrelevant to this thread then) or for hard progression fights (may be coming in Ulduar).

 

Afabar

You don't have to spec for Master of gouls to use the sacrifice.
And as a tank, I don't have points for Ravenous dead and Night of the dead. That means that the goul will die in most fight. And in a fight where you need that kind of "hot shit" button, you will surely can't afford to keep an eye on it.

 

rutiene

I wouldn't call it an Oh-Shit button if it requires you to use a spell that requires runes first.

I'm not sure why the Ghoul would die? You could put it in a safe place if there's AoE damage in melee range, if not you can have it with you attacking the boss.

 

Afabar

Raise dead don't consume any rune. Only a corpse dust if you didn't glyphed for it. So you can have this macro :
/cast raise dead
/cast Death Pact

You have it available one every 5 minutes.

why the Ghoul would die ?
Except Patchwerk, there is not a lot of combat where your pet do not take damage and as you can't afford to take talent point supporting you pet or glyph, it haven't a lot of chance of surviving.
You may ask your healer to heal it, but those heal would be more useful on you or someone else.

I don't see the advantage of this talent point for your survival comparing to the macro above.

 

rutiene

That is my bad. I had originally searched up Raise Dead on WoWWiki (Raise Dead (death knight ability - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft)) and as you can see, it says that it costs 2 Unholy Runes. That makes sense now, thanks.

 

ZaoZao

Well, the sacrificing of the ghoul costs 40 RP which is quite high (especially in a fight where you would need it)

The only fight I was really able to use it was Sarth 3D after an unlucky Firebreath + Tsunami. But most of the time I'm eiterh 0% or 10% after a FB and I'm too busy timing the other cd/running out of voidzones/etc. to sacrifice my ghoul.

And I often forget to place it at the safe spot outside the flame wall range anyways.

Edit: By Unlucky Tsunami I mean a tsunami which causes my healer to get out of range for a short amount of time.

 

Ghaash

I prefer this spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Since threat is of no importance, this spec gets all the goodies to avoid/mitigate damage while having a huge hp pool.


That's the same for me, except for Frost Strike, since i wasn't sure how RP usage would happen with spamming FS while RS is "queued". I will see how FS+RS macro works out.

Concerning your efforts to evaluate HB vs OB:
I don't think those numbers are correct for a raid environment, since there is a plethora of buffs for each ability which need to be taken into consideration.
2% more physical dmg taken
13% more magical damage taken
5% spell/melee crit
2% spellcrit taken
3% spell+mele crit taken
minor and major armor reduction
and several stat-increasing buffs which mostly affect Attackpower but also Agility (=melee crit only)

and last but not least, those thumbrules you posted only apply to a set weapon-damage.

Maybe you noticed Tarask on WMO who did extreme TPS on almost every boss with Betrayer of Humanity in his hands.
The combatlog shows him using Mark of Norgannon, Greatness trinket and Fallen Crusader Rune.

 

Namuh

OK just to make it clear I have been searching for quite a bit now and have found nothing on my question.

Blood Tanking

Has anyone done a comparison of Blood Gorged vs Necrosis if @ dodge expertise cap?

I'm under the impression that Necrosis being a static damage increase would be greater vs a situational damage increase (that would of course be higher if above 75%)

And than of course there is the added 5 expertise pushing you into the parry reduction portion of expertise which increases your # of actual hits to the target.

What I'm getting at is I'm looking for a single target TPS monster spec that will help me to keep my warlocks, that are hitting for 18k crits, alive.

I've always been frost, though I've admittedly tried all 3 cookie cutters.

so for reiteration

1. Is necrosis more TPS than blood-gorged if @ expertise cap.
2. Would the addition of Shadow of Death to Necrosis help to push it beyond the Blood-Gorged +1 elsewhere?

Spec with Necrosis and SoD Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Spec with Blood Gorged +1 Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

And as far as the +1 is concerned (if we are trying to increase single target tps) I have NO IDEA where to put that last point for maxing out TPS.

Help?

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

Griefknight

The highest (in my opinion) single-target blood spec is Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft and that means you will be using a IT>PS>OB>HS>HS//OB>OB>HS>HS// rotation. The "situational" 8% damage is up more often then you think, if you have 40k raid buffed HP you just need to be above 30k to get the extra 8% damage and with decent gear/healers that shouldn't be a problem on most fights.

 

djt81185

We are just starting 2/3d sath in my guild I did 2d 25man yesterday as unholy with AMS and AMZ but AMZ didnt seem to absorb the breaths (as in disappear after the breath). But I had very little problems tanking it at all (was a pug and we completed it on the 2nd attempt)

How vital to u feel spell deflection is to your build and what kind of rotation are you lookin at doing it this way? I was thinking more this way but I don't know how much obliterate is used in the build.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The World of Warcraft Armory is my current tank

 

Suno

I'm not sure what's happening in your case, djt.

Regarding AMZ, I see numbers above the zone indicating how much was absorbed. It likely doesn't disappear because it's mitigation wasn't used up entirely. Were you taking damage AND it's not disappearing?

I believe that spell deflection, priests/pally shields and other mitigation abilities are discounted before the AMZ comes into effect, because quite often the shield remains after a S3D breath, which obviously hits for far more than the AMZ's capacity.

 

Kyrié

I had tried unholy tanking on Sarth with no success, the bone shield isnt enough to mitigate a breath on its own, untalented magic shell is however. So speccing anything passed shadow of death for the extra stamina seemed a waste.

I took the usual toughness and Imp Icy touch in the frost tree, then just grab everything that helps keep the hit pool up in the blood tree. With an Imp I was over 42k before the debuff.

Vampiric blood plus the repelling charge will save you from a breath. You still have IBF and AMS plus all the perks of blood hp regen , rune tap, blood aura and blood worms , lets not forget wotn and spell deflection.

2 in row successful sarth 25man 3d and 1 sarth 10 man 3d I have to say this spec definitely has an advantage.
As mentioned before turning off attack when drake 3 has landed helps the healers a lot and threat really isnt an issue so just wait to resume dps.

I guess its preference but I'd say give it a shot and ask your healers if it helped.

edited for american english v english english

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/wsig.php/8344033BphjX.png

 

djt81185

What kind of rotation are you looking at for these blood builds without annihilation?

 

Durzil

I had been using boneshield by its self for a single breath cooldown. I don't know if its because of spell deflection but it has been seeming to work for me. I sit at around 42K hps buffed as well but I am using the spell dmg reduction meta don't know if that is a difference or not.

Also when turning your auto attack off make sure you are still putting your blood runes on cd to get blade barrier up to increase your chance to spell deflect and lower over all inc dmg.