3.2 Dk Tank Huge nerf ?

[Drayz]

Hi,

Long time reader, first time poster (sry for my bad english i'm french )

So 3.2 :

Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.

Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.

Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.

Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.

i don't understand why they nerfed our stamina bonus ?
So now droodtank > dk tank ?
prot pal > all ?

[Rialév]

if that is your outlook on the 4 tanking classes, then you are already beyond help. A dogmatic view of which tank is better is either a way to avoid trying to do better, or a way of simply whining.

Let me ask you something.

Have you struggled thus far?

If you answered yes, then you can stop reading and continue practicing.

If you answered no, then you can continue reading and I can say that you probably know what you are doing, and I can tell you now that... no this is not a huge nerf.

Mathematically the change in frost presence does not do much to your EH.

IBF's Cooldown was increased by a minute. Fine, that's a change I'm willing to take due to the array of other cooldowns we already have.

The change in toughness is something that I expected to happen. 5% less armor is less of a nerf than our previous frost presence nerf which ALSO contributed more damage... but very little. This one is fractions of that.

If it's a nerf to you, then you are lost.

It's a class change... Death Knights, regardless of how long this game has been out, are the newest class to WoW, if you did not expect class changes, then you haven't been playing long.

And I apologize for the caustic nature of this response, but as a lot of people know, I hate hearing the word "nerf"

Aside from that, it's not a big change to the Death Knight as far as those mechanics are concerned... I'm not exactly thrilled about having to spec yet again... i hate it when I do that, because I always end up paying 50 gold anyway for that one stupid talent point I accidentally spent in the wrong place.

But if you're a tank, do what the other tanks do, rather than say, "yep we're nerfed... that tank is better than me..." Try to work around the changes... which are small anyway, granted I'm not particularly thrilled about losing 3% of my stamina, but it's not major. The other trees don't even get a stamina bonus, so you should be happy that you get one at all.

[Broly]

I agree those nerfs suck, but then again all nerfs do. If you look at the actual amount of hp and armor loss it's just to bring us more in line with other tanks. Compared to a warrior, druid and paladin of around equal gear, I either have more health, armor or avoidance. The ot in my guild is very similarly geared yet I have over 6k more health, not to mention more armor, avoidance and better cooldowns.

They're just trying to make tanks interchangeable, it's understandable, Besides if they're that bad we can all QQ like the other tanks did till we get buffs =).

[Madoxx]

Nerfs suck big time for any class , but tbh ive played a warrior tank since wow began and now i am a DK ,nerfs come and go if you tank you tank and live with it and find a way to work with them some don't and move on .

[Vlad]

if that is your outlook on the 4 tanking classes, then you are already beyond help. A dogmatic view of which tank is better is either a way to avoid trying to do better, or a way of simply whining.

Let me ask you something.

Have you struggled thus far?

If you answered yes, then you can stop reading and continue practicing.

If you answered no, then you can continue reading and I can say that you probably know what you are doing, and I can tell you now that... no this is not a huge nerf.

Mathematically the change in frost presence does not do much to your EH.

IBF's Cooldown was increased by a minute. Fine, that's a change I'm willing to take due to the array of other cooldowns we already have.

The change in toughness is something that I expected to happen. 5% less armor is less of a nerf than our previous frost presence nerf which ALSO contributed more damage... but very little. This one is fractions of that.

If it's a nerf to you, then you are lost.

It's a class change... Death Knights, regardless of how long this game has been out, are the newest class to WoW, if you did not expect class changes, then you haven't been playing long.

And I apologize for the caustic nature of this response, but as a lot of people know, I hate hearing the word "nerf"

Aside from that, it's not a big change to the Death Knight as far as those mechanics are concerned... I'm not exactly thrilled about having to spec yet again... i hate it when I do that, because I always end up paying 50 gold anyway for that one stupid talent point I accidentally spent in the wrong place.

But if you're a tank, do what the other tanks do, rather than say, "yep we're nerfed... that tank is better than me..." Try to work around the changes... which are small anyway, granted I'm not particularly thrilled about losing 3% of my stamina, but it's not major. The other trees don't even get a stamina bonus, so you should be happy that you get one at all.

Err just a couple of things.. first off the guy didn't seem to be whining to me, merely stated some facts then expressed he didn't understand why the changes were so great. He's not alone.
Yes you are being caustic when it's not required, yes it's a nerf.. Don't apologise for being caustic, just exercise your ability to edit uninformed remarks before you post... then you won't have to apologise.

I have, and I'm sure a number of other people have noticed quite a difference to the incoming damage changes from the last armour nerf (20 - 22k shot were suddenly hitting for 25's), now since I'll lose 3k+ health and another 1k armour I'm sure we will notice quite a significant change if 3.2 goes live with these changes... something you'll find out when you eventually get to tank 25 Uld on your DK.

Personally I'm happy with the changes to the other tanking classes, it seems pallies have done well and Warriors are still waiting for a meaningful change, but to be honest there doesn't seem to be an argument to have a DK tank a really hard hitting boss since Pally block will provide excellent mitigation, Warriors will also but to a lesser extent, Druids have a great 1 min mitigation CD and DK's will be pretty horrible to heal by comparision.

The biggest problem at the moment is there seems to be a drive to nerf the tanking classes down to whatever is the lowest common denominator at the time. Look out Druids
It's possible that this is happening because content is being cleared faster than the new content development roadmap? I don't know..

[Satorri]

Wait, Rialev, maybe I'm missing something, how does the Frost Pres not come out as a big drop in EH? It's 4% of your health, basically, lopped off.

We're getting nerfed, though to be fair I don't think it is from a point of parity. We're going to be weaker survival tanks than we are currently, but not probably any weaker than the other classes. My most frequent tanking partner is a prot warrior who's been generally unhappy with the fact that in comparable gear I have more health, more armor, and stronger CDs. Now he gets a suped up blocking gear and I'm losing a big chunk of health and armor, and the ability to use IBF as often as I do.

[Chamenas]

As has been said. We're losing 4% health. It's not HUGE, but it will be a noticeable difference. In addition, the change to Icebound Fortitude is really the only change that worries me. While the other changes suck (Frost Strike and its threat potential), they are things I can work around. However, without a shield, Icebound Fortitude has been what has saved me in many situations during high damage fights. It seems to me that the only message being sent out with that particular change is that DKs are not meant to tank certain fights. If so, then where does our role lie? I'm not going to give up my DK tanking, but I'm worried about my survivability after 3.2

[Squirrelnut]

They're just trying to make tanks interchangeable, it's understandable, Besides if they're that bad we can all QQ like the other tanks did till we get buffs =).

Not really the case, warriors have been QQing about our DPS, AOE, Rage mechanics, Heroic Strike carpal tunnel, etc for some time now and once again the devs have decided to change.... armored to the teeth slightly.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sigh

They don't listen to QQing much

[Nez]

The longer cooldown on IBF is the most concerning for me, its the CD's that keep us DKS alive when we get pasted hard. So we will just have to be a bit more careful with their use. Our safety cushion will be a bit smaller with the reduced HP and armor loss. Our guild has pretty much tanked everything with every tank class, they all have their special benefits and tricks.

[Chamenas]

More than anything, the CD on Icebound Fortitude is what worries me too.

[Moomofo]

Well I think the reason DK's had such a large advantage at the start was to get guilds using them as tanks. Now that they're geared up and some are main tanks it's fine to bring them in line with other tanks.

I don't 'think' you'll be under other tanks in viability after 3.2 though we'll have to see with the block changes also. If you are under other tanks it'll be first time in wotlk so you can always whine a bit like we all did and eventually it'll get fixed.
I think in similar gear warriors and DK's should be fairly even after patch.

[Chamenas]

Well I think the reason DK's had such a large advantage at the start was to get guilds using them as tanks. Now that they're geared up and some are main tanks it's fine to bring them in line with other tanks.

I don't 'think' you'll be under other tanks in viability after 3.2 though we'll have to see with the block changes also. If you are under other tanks it'll be first time in wotlk so you can always whine a bit like we all did and eventually it'll get fixed.
I think in similar gear warriors and DK's should be fairly even after patch.

Thing is, even before 3.2, we found that our Paladin tank, who was -not- better geared than either DK tank, was far better for tanking someone like XT simply because he took far less damage. By changing our mitigation cooldowns to be longer, DK tanks will take far more damage than they did before, which was already quite a bit. :/

[Basridire]

So. After all the nerfs, I am going to guess DKs will have roughly 2k more HP if not just even with War/Pal, and only about 1k more armor than they do.

And they have a shield and buffed SBV.

Best tank to worst tank in one fell swoop.

-Edit. I'm now going to create a comic strip portraying a factory with four conveyors. Each for the tanking classes, and each one of those lines is going to be spitting out an exact copy of all the rest.

/thumbsup

[Theotherone]

Just curious, as math has never been a strong suit, is it just a 4% difference or on a point for point basis is it larger? Right now the bonus is a straight 10% of health; the bonus will change to 6% of stamina? Seems it would be greater than 4%, since the bonus will no longer be on ground up health, but only take into account that portion of the health increased by stamina and increase that lower base number by a lower percentage.

In the end, the nerfing is getting tiresome; at least for me, I get used to what my toon can do, and how certain things interact, then they change it requiring a readjustment. Why have 4 tanking classes, if all Blizz wants is parity - it's like socialism.

[Squirrelnut]

So. After all the nerfs, I am going to guess DKs will have roughly 2k more HP if not just even with War/Pal, and only about 1k more armor than they do.

And they have a shield and buffed SBV.

Best tank to worst tank in one fell swoop.

SBV is garbage and most War tanks don't use it for fights other then trash. You likely still have more HP, you still have more armor, you still have more aoe potential, why r u QQing again? DK's will simply have to improve at their class/rotation/gear like everyone else instead of relying on mechanics giving them unfair advantages.

[Chamenas]

Just curious, as math has never been a strong suit, is it just a 4% difference or on a point for point basis is it larger? Right now the bonus is a straight 10% of health; the bonus will change to 6% of stamina? Seems it would be greater than 4%, since the bonus will no longer be on ground up health, but only take into account that portion of the health increased by stamina and increase that lower base number by a lower percentage.

In the end, the nerfing is getting tiresome; at least for me, I get used to what my toon can do, and how certain things interact, then they change it requiring a readjustment. Why have 4 tanking classes, if all Blizz wants is parity - it's like socialism.

It is actually more than 4%, but not so much more than 4% to consider 4% a wrong estimate. It will reduce hp from base hp and from flasks, but those contribute to a much smaller portion of your hp than your stamina anyways.

@ Squirrelnut - Mechanical advantage? If you mean cooldown management, then fine. But we couldn't face roll as tanks, we had to effectively manage our cooldowns on fights or risk dying in particularly tricky situations. After all is said and done, we will not end up as the best tanks, though I wouldn't go so far as to say we are the worst. How can you possibly say that SBV is junk when it is getting DOUBLED, have you done the math? show me the evidence that doubling SBV will do next to nothing for you guys. Cooldowns were the DK compensation for not having a shield. If anything, it made tanking for DKs a bit trickier since we couldnt rely on our shield which has 100% uptime.

[Stengel]

show me the evidence that doubling SBV will do next to nothing for you guys.

In total, I have 77 bonus block value from gear on my warrior.
I also have 13% chance to block, after subtracting block rating from my less-than-optimal-gear.
In raid buffed I block around 1300-1500.
With talents I'll gain 100 block value from the patch. That isn't going to change anything.

With Shield Block + Glyph of Blocking both active, about 168 more.

Satisfied?

[Squirrelnut]

Yes I was mainly referring to previous mechanical advantage from cooldown possibilities however 6k more health for equal or slightly lesser gear, higher armor and aoe threat were also advantages. The issue with SBV is that it simply does not provide a level of mitigation to make it worthwhile to switch gear pieces and lose our other important tanking stats to take advantage of the SBV change. Discussion of the topic has begun at: http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/5...ock-value.html

If SBV were on the gear which we already use then perhaps it would be more of a change however many tanks to not use gear with SBV on it for progression content thus the change has no effect unless we switch gear pieces at far too high of a cost to other avoidance/health/threat stats

[Chamenas]

In total, I have 70 bonus block value from gear on my warrior.
I also have 13% chance to block.
In raid buffed I block around 1300-1500.

Blocking 70*1.3 = 91 more isn't going to change anything.

For the same item budget that was spent on that block rating, I could have more avoidance which would actually matter.

Where is the 1.3 coming from? That doesn't look like double to me, but my math skills are iffy at best so I'd like to know why it's 1.3 instead of 2.

[Basridire]

SBV is garbage and most War tanks don't use it for fights other then trash. You likely still have more HP, you still have more armor, you still have more aoe potential, why r u QQing again? DK's will simply have to improve at their class/rotation/gear like everyone else instead of relying on mechanics giving them unfair advantages.

Likely is not certainty, and if I do have more, its laughable. 1k armor is NOT better than having a shield. Even if you dont stack SBV and you avoid it like the plague. The SBV of a warrior was generally what? 1K? Make that 2k now. You cant tell me 2k off any given hit is worse than 1k armor, thats what? 2% less damage if that? And finally, I'd like you to redirect your attention to the UB change. Better AoE huh?... Blood DKs now have what. Blood Boil and Pestilence. Frost doesn't take that big of a hit but who is speccing frost anymore? Unholy now has. Blood Boil Pestilence and Wandering Plague, something easily scoffed at.