DK Tank - Hit / Expertise / Avoid or Stam?

TL;DR - Need advice on improvements to make to get into a good guild for 3.1

Hi Tankspot,

Well I'm completely new here so thanks for making this great site!

Anyway, I have been playing wow since MC 1.0 days in various roles, starting as a Prot Warrior, and then a Holy Priest, then a DPS Warlock in TBC and a reroll to a Resto Shaman. I have cleared all content over these various characters and stopped playing after Sunwell was cleared. And so after a very extended break I decided to see what WotLK was like about a month or so ago, so I rolled up a DK and decided to full-circle it back to tanking.

So I thought I would have to try and track down some good raiding guilds but in my absence it seems the game has become completely puggable. After hitting 80 I was clearing Naxx OTing in a random pug, and a few weeks later I now have finished all the raids as MT in pick up groups. But with Ulduar coming out soon I figure its about time to shape up this toon a little and apply for a decent guild ready for progression!

So my question is what should I realistically be looking at to improve my chances of getting a spot in a top guild (nothing world-stage, just server top 5)? I think I have enough experience to qualify but this toon is awfully green still and its been about 3-4 years since I last filled a MTing role. Im running about 41-42k hps raid buffed and it seems like its excessive. Should I be working on softcapping expertise / hit first? Or is dodge still the tanking stat to stack?


Thanks for your help!

The World of Warcraft Armory

I would say that you need them all, BUT the best thing to have is Avoidance, since your main tanking aggrowise spell would be your runestrike, and that is undodgeable and unparryable, only useable after you dodge or parry your self, so i would say that avoidance first, then stamina, then hit rating and last expertise.

Well it all depends on your spec bjoli if your frost with frost strike you dont need the dodge.. id say get at about 55% avoidance then go for Expertise > Hit > health

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Originally Posted by bjoli198

I would say that you need them all, BUT the best thing to have is Avoidance, since your main tanking aggrowise spell would be your runestrike, and that is undodgeable and unparryable, only useable after you dodge or parry your self, so i would say that avoidance first, then stamina, then hit rating and last expertise.

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I have to disagree with the last couple parts. Avoidance is definitely important as stated because you get Rune Strikes (which are your main threat producer) based on your avoids. However, hit is definitely not better than expertise. For every 1% of expertise, you get 1% to not be dodged AND 1% to not be parried. With hit, it's just 1% not to miss. Basically, you are getting double value for expertise up until the expertise soft cap where dodges are off the table. I can't remember what this point is exactly, but I think it's around 6% (please correct me if I'm wrong)

In addition to that, parry is worse than a miss because of parry haste. When a boss parries your attack, his next attack is hasted and comes quicker. If you simply miss a boss, this does not happen. Because of both of these reasons, expertise is better than hit up until the soft cap, at which point they are close, but I would usually go with hit to avoid diminishing returns.

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Originally Posted by bjoli198

I would say that you need them all, BUT the best thing to have is Avoidance, since your main tanking aggrowise spell would be your runestrike, and that is undodgeable and unparryable, only useable after you dodge or parry your self, so i would say that avoidance first, then stamina, then hit rating and last expertise.

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I concur lol. Sorry Jimbo, but hit > exp. Expertise is useless is you cannot hit the mob. Plus hit is ALOT easier to get that expertise.

Otherwise bjoli hit it on the head. DKs are avoidance tanks since our bread and butter works off of dodge/parry. But when gearing for avoidance, I would take dodge> parry. Parry diminishes at a MUCH faster rate than dodge, so dodge per point has more value than parry per point.

DK tanks build threat with dps. So hit capping, naturally, is helpful. Honestly it really isn't hard to hit cap once you get epics.

Expertise after hit cap. Couple of items that are nice for exp are 2h trash mace in 25man naxx, gloves from H gundrak, 25embem ring, 10Sarth ring (boe, so might be on ah if you are rich) and our t7 helm.

U must not forget we lost 10%parry; we gained 1min on our 36 cds, besides the fact that old unbreakable was better, especially coupled with its glyph, at least bone stayed the same, but looses much of it usefullnes due to cd. U can also drop lichborne, as it doesnt increase migitation anymore. So stats are the new mistresses of dks, all the way.

We can aknowledge the fact that dk tanks were imba to some extent be4 31, as cds could practically keep u rockhard for prolonged periods if used right. On the other hand though, thats kinda all we had, besides good stats, specially the 10% parry. To summ up, not saying that shield tanks (drood tanking based on different approach) werent good, dks were able to avoid more dmg when the increased avoidance was needed, as they could pop cds at leisure. Ofc dks are still good tanks, its just gotten more stressfull, as one has less aces up his sleeves, while taking more dmg at the same time. Avoidance ftw.

Myb the nerf was needed (the parry loss is only1 i cant forgive) as 18s ibf + breakable + lich + 2 trinket pops, keept u "too" tough for too long. Blizz wants u to wipe in ulduar)

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Originally Posted by Varucard

I concur lol. Sorry Jimbo, but hit > exp. Expertise is useless is you cannot hit the mob. Plus hit is ALOT easier to get that expertise.

Otherwise bjoli hit it on the head. DKs are avoidance tanks since our bread and butter works off of dodge/parry. But when gearing for avoidance, I would take dodge> parry. Parry diminishes at a MUCH faster rate than dodge, so dodge per point has more value than parry per point.

DK tanks build threat with dps. So hit capping, naturally, is helpful. Honestly it really isn't hard to hit cap once you get epics.

Expertise after hit cap. Couple of items that are nice for exp are 2h trash mace in 25man naxx, gloves from H gundrak, 25embem ring, 10Sarth ring (boe, so might be on ah if you are rich) and our t7 helm.

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Simply because expertise is harder to get than hit does not make it less useful, just more difficult to obtain. However, most epics for DK tanks as well as Inevitable Defeat have hefty amount of EXP so it has not been an issue for me.

Also, your assertion that EXP doesn't matter if you can't hit the mob is way off base and I think you sound confused about how hit checks happen in game. There is simply one check when you perform a move and that is to determine whether the attack does one of the following things: hit, miss, dodged, parried. You seem to think that things first have to hit and then it is determined if they are dodged/parried and this is not the case. The four things I listed are the four possibilities and they are all determined based on one roll. When you grab EXP it lowers the chance for two of those to happen, both dodge and parry. If you get HIT, it only lowers the chance to miss, so it is half as effective. Secondly, it takes more HIT rating to get to 1% miss than it takes EXP to get to 1% dodge and parry.

There is also another reason why EXP is more preferred for tanks and that is parry gibbing. This means that every time a boss parries your attack, his next melee hit is hasted significantly. Because of this, every time you are parried, you take more damage as a result. This is why less chance to be parried not only helps you build threat, but also avoid damage. As I said earlier though, this only holds true until you push dodges off the table, which I believe occurrs at appx 6.5%. At this point, you can't be dodged, so any extra EXP is only going to parry. Now, hit does become a better investment of points.

Unless you're in a top raiding guild that is farming 25 man Naxx regularly, you probably won't have to choose often between good EXP gear and good HIT gear as usually things willl be a clear upgrade and you take what you can get. However, if you are in that position, or you are picking gems for threat, this is the proven information by all the theorycrafters at Elitistjerks.

Just to update the original poster's question regarding EH versus Avoidance/Threat, we have to look at Ulduar encounters. From my experience, with how hard Ulduar bosses hit up to a certain point it makes sense to stack EH itemization. I would say if you're sitting at less than 42k hp raid buffed, you are in danger of getting "insta-gibbed" on certain boss fights (Ignis, even after hotfix comes to mind). Past that its kind of a matter of preference. But keep in mind that part of the reason DK tank's avoidance was so good pre-3.1 was BB, which offered essentially 99% uptime of 10% avoidance not affected by diminishing returns. Since pure avoidance actually becomes more useful at higher levels (i.e. 1% dodge is a greater incremental increase from 50% avoidance than it is from 40% avoidance). Imo this makes stacking avoidance for boss fights less effective than it used to be pre-3.1. That being said, I generally strive to maintain a base dodge/parry of at least 40-42% to minimize strain to my healers at least somewhat. Also, avoidance is still useful for larger AoE packs imo.

With regards to exp/hit, I would say that stacking these is generally less necessary than in pre-3.1 content (and probably less doable) since in Ulduar I cannot truly think of a tank/spank fight where dps does not get diverted or at least stop at some point or another.

I was just reading through in hopes to find out what a tank's typical hit rating and expertise rating should be, but instead read an arguement between hit and expertise, i just wanted to input my opinion on this.

Hit > Expertise for DPS, because they are usually standing behind a target where the mob cannot dodge/parry(much, if at all).

For tanks, they are always in front of the mob, therefore being Parried/Dodge is possible, that's where the Expertise comes in, it just makes sense to me, at least. I would much agree with Jimbo as he makes a good point as weighing out the probability of not causing damage to raise threat. However, it does not mean neither hit rating nor expertise should be ignored.

I am, and always have been, a blood DK(Tank or dps). Even pre-3.1 I would use a single spec to do both DPS(2.5k+ at the time) and successfully main tank raids (obviously would use different sets of gear). but this is rather off subject.

still on the off subject, bosses cant parry from behind. but can still dodge

as far as stam being greater than avoidance, well

stams advantage: healer window. the more health u have the more hits you can take before a healer has to pop a heal on you.

avoidances advantage: if you dont take damage you dont need heals.

well, some fights require higher amounts of avoidance and some require higher amounts of health. most of the time i run around with rune of repulsion and my valor medal of first war, this nets me 26.1% dodge and 20.2% parry with 30.9 k ub hp
collect the gear for both stam and avoidance set's, once you have an instance on farm you can dedicate a set of items to your avoidance gear, wear it all and see what u need to gem/enchant for to keep it on par (defence, expertise, hit) any thing you dont need to gem/enchant for those should be gemmed with the gem that corresponds with that set. both avoidance and stam are neither greater than each other. ur set while collecting should have an even amount of both, dk's stack stam quite well though due to our runeforging, frost presence and talent stam modifiers.

as far as what you should realisticly aim for.

27k hp ub, 23% dodge, about 17% parry are a good starting point for naxx 25, thats just a rough guess but please anyone feel free to add their view that is on the "original" topic.



also, 30expertise is dodge/parry cap, 26 is soft cap iirc.
i have found for my stam set anything thats not a blue socket is either exp/stam for reds and def/stam for blues, with inevitable defeat sovereigns legplates and the gems i am on 29 expertise. with the change to t8 shoulders and getting all my epic jc 41 stam gems i have lost a little bit of hit, however, if u have a consistent boomkin or shadowpriest raider, you should only need about 6% hit, (they have a proc that inc's chance to hit target by 3% or so ive been told) also there is a food buff you can get that gives u an extra 1% hit,
id like to see what other have to say cos im not 100% confident what im doing is the imba or watever but it is always good to see what others have to say

I think avoidance has its place in general, and it makes sense to try and maintain a minimum level of avoidance for end game content (t8). I generally try to stay above 40-42% avoidance UB. As for EH, especailly for ulduar it becomes more and more preferrable to stack. Even at ridiculous (and not really achievable) levels of avoidance, your HP pool ideally wants to afford at least 2 hits from the boss to get through without gibbing you. I generally put this at about 45k + raid buffed.

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Originally Posted by Kyoukan

I was just reading through in hopes to find out what a tank's typical hit rating and expertise rating should be, but instead read an arguement between hit and expertise, i just wanted to input my opinion on this.

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Unless I'm badly mistaken the hit cap is 263 and expertize soft cap to make dodge impossible is 26.

Hit > Expertise for DPS, because they are usually standing behind a target where the mob cannot dodge/parry(much, if at all).

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Originally Posted by Kyoukan

I would much agree with Jimbo as he makes a good point as weighing out the probability of not causing damage to raise threat. However, it does not mean neither hit rating nor expertise should be ignored.

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The hit vs exp discussion also depends a bit based on spec you have. I'm an unholy tank and there is no shortage of GCDs. Missing is thus not that big a deal than other specs might have, I just simple strike again. Due to my current gear set I sit at 24 exp and 273 hit ==> Should propably enchant / gem to get the exp to soft cap too...