On cooldowns and when they're used.

[heartless8604]

So I just recently started getting into tanking on my death knight. It's my only 80 other then my resto shaman. I have a few peices of 10 man naxx gear and some crafted epics. I was reading over the changes to 3.2 and noticed that death knights are getting hit very hard again. Which brings me to my question. Do you think it's justified?

Short back story:

My death knight is crit immune, about 28 to 29k health. I'm using some bad peices of gear but generally not too bad for starting into heroics and naxx 10. I'm done up to yogg attempts on my resto shaman so I know all the encounters. I'm not the greatest tank in the world but I'm not horrible either. I'm about average as far as tanking goes.

Play style as far as tanking:

Well in my current gear level I noticed that I tend to take quite a bit of random spikey damage as a death knight. I'm frost tank specd, from advice I got from reading a guide that one of ensidia's death knights posted. I try to use a different cooldown whenever possible to minimize damage. So as soon as Iceybound fortitude falls off I hit unbreakable armor, which is glyphed.

Onward to the question at hand:

So my question is how are cooldowns handled on other classes, not to make comparissons but to just get some information. Are they used whenever the cooldown comes up or saved for just in case? I was under the belief that all cooldowns should be saved for a time when they're really needed. If this is so the case then shouldn't death knights get a huge buff to baseline avoidance? They seem to be the only tank that needs to constantly be hitting cooldowns to stay afloat so to say. Am I doing something wrong and should I be saving cooldowns for when they're really needed? Is my gearing that bad? Should I be stacking all dodge/parry gems in red sockets instead of stam/dodge purple gems and pure stam in blues?

I'm trying to figure out if my spike damage is a result of my own wrong doings as a tank or if that is just the way death knights are?

[heartless8604]

So out of all the views not a single bit of advice or suggestion?

[Kerplah]

As a warrior, I use mine any time I recieve a damage spike or when I can reliably predict a spike (tantrum on Deconstructor).

I will also burn one when i know the healers might be occupied with something else (one gets potted on Ignis or eye-beamed on kologarn).

You asked 7 very general questions, only 1 or 2 having anything to do with your post's title. Its not really a huge suprise that people aren't responding. It also this sounds much more like the post belongs in the HALP forum.

Read through the site. You'll find your answers in numerous posts/discussions but you may have to do some searching and reading.

[heartless8604]

Screw it, I give up. No point in continuing the death knight. They'll only get nerfed more. They'll only get complained about and called overpowered so much they'll be nerfed into the point of the worst tank choice ever. If all things continue as they are so far in 3.2 it's go paladin or go home.

[Molohk]

I wouldn't be discouraged by the nerfs. Any DK that has objectively looked at their tanks knows that DKs are privileged among tanks. Part of it is because the devs had enough experience to avoid making the design mistakes they made with other classes (cough*rage*cough), part is because of the flaws of other tanking classes, part of it is because they underestimated the power of cooldowns, part is because they overestimated the power of blocking, part of it is that blizzard keeps designing encounters that highlight the strengths of the DKs. When you put all this together, it's pretty clear that balance isn't perfect, and there's quite a bit of room for re-balancing (i.e. nerfing and/or buffing).

Regarding cooldowns, chaining cooldowns is easier when the cooldowns are shorther. Back before they increased the tree-specific cooldowns, it was easy to chain the cooldowns for close to 100% uptime and there was little reason not to do it (arguably, even without their cooldowns DKs had better survuvability than other tanks, so there was a lot of controversy on whether chaining cooldowns should be a part of the class design). As they increase the cooldowns it becomes more important to time them right, IMO this could actually be a good chance for DK play-style.

I've tanked with a warrior and a DK and I can't deny that there's room for adjusting balance. I've seen many nerfs to DK tanks, and I still see room for adjustments. The changes in 3.2 may seem radical, and I'm pretty sure they won't solve all balancing issues because the are also big issues with other classes, but I also don't think that DKs will become the lesser tanks. Even with all the current balancing issues, the fact remains that all classes can tank all encounters (some more seamlessly, admitedly) and that should be enough to let you decide whether or not you want to play a tanking class based on your own enjoyment rather than how it compares to other classes.

[Kurtosis]

I love the DK mechanics and talent trees, never rolling another alt. Bliz can nerf everything else about the class to their heart's content, I can adapt - double the IBF cd, I don't care, make Frost Strike dodge/parryable, I don't care, etc. All I really want is my +80% armor from Frost Presence back.

[minrog]

Take heart. :P

Even with the nerfs coming in 3.2 DK's will probably still be the second best tank in the game. Any tanking class that uses a shield is going to be weak until they fix the mechanics involved. Look through the gear and if you see an item with the word "Shield" in it's stats replace it with the word "Spirit" and it will give you an idea of what we're getting from it. At least spirit helps me regen health when I go afk for 10 minutes hehe.

[uglybbtoo]

Ok heartless8604 you are part right and part wrong let me explain.

The balancing at the moment is for if you like ultimate end gear so if you like a DK in T8 versus other tanks in T8. What is happening is the DK is scaling well and as the gear gets better they are getting better by a margin from the other tanks. So with the next set of gear and from the new instances the DK's will be significantly ahead.

That's what is getting lost in this discussion it's not the here and now it's what happens next.

The problem you are arguing around is your tank now which (I haven't absolutely checked) but it is prob not in T8.

So in this reguard the balancing of tanks below the end level I agree is a bit hit and miss at the moment. Its a bit like arena they make changes to balance stuff up at the 2200 rating end but it has effects for those in the 1500 rating and changes stuff significantly.

I play pally/warrior tanks and my pally in blues felt stable and solid my warrior felt fragile as hell till it got significant epic gear.

This in a nutshell is the problem the balancing is done for those in ultimate gear not for us a level or two below. So come the new instance there will be new BOE stuff and epic gems and even after the nerf your tank will be significantly stronger than it is now and content you were struggling with will be easier because you and the rest of the raid will be stronger.

So the answer to your question about feeling fragile may be as simple as you are doing it all correct they haven't got the gearing right at your level and with a few higher pieces that may all change. There is no way they can make it completely linear as much as they try too.

So the sky isn't going to fall down because they are changing stuff and I am pretty sure you will find post release of 3.2 and you grab a few new pieces that are opened up to you that your tank is stronger not weaker.