Hi guys.
Over the past few weeks I've been gearing my DK tank up, but over the few days I've had a kind of dramatic increase in gear and for some reason it's been affecting my TPS.
In HC's I have noticed a pretty big drop, it just seems to take me alot longer to build up threat and the DPS aren't far behind me.
Here is a link to my armory - The World of Warcraft Armory
My rotations are -
For single target - IT>BS>OB>OB>RP DUMP
Multi target - DND>IT>PS>PEST>HB
These rotations have worked 100% fine before I got 'geared' up and I was always able to generate quite alot of theat.
I am not very clued up with all the tank mechanics at the moment I do admit, so any advice would be greatly appreciated as losing this threat has gone over my head!
Kind regards,
Denix.
Last edited by Denix; 06-27-2009 at 07:04 AM.
On single target threat, even as frost. You should still keep up Blood Plague with a PS at the start of your rotation.
Also if you have the RP for a FS between your OB, and you have a Killing Machine proc, don't be afraid to pop a FS to make immediate use of the KM.
Though some might disagree, I've always considered epidemic as a must have for almost any dk spec. Lets your rotation be slightly longer, allowing for an extra OB or 2.
Hello,Originally Posted by Ieatpugs
But the thing is I've never had to do what you suggested before. I've always been able to generate more than enough threat.
Could it be possibly that I'm overgeared for heroics? I think my threat is OK in raids.
Armory link The World of Warcraft Armory
Last edited by Denix; 06-27-2009 at 07:04 AM.
Well, you're not a warrior or druid, so I don't understand how you could be overgeared
Hmmm true. It's just realy baffling me atm.
Well in boss fights in HC's, I'm about 100K over DPS at the end, is this about right?
You don't mention using Rune Strike at all. Are you even using it?
Yeah I use RS at the end of my rotation as an RP dump. I've had ALOT of upgrades in the past 2-3 days and some one said it can happen if I've lost alot of AP/Hit/expertise, well my current stats are -
2840 AP
207 Hit Rating
5.45% Crit
Expertise 5
:/
Ok, my mate says it's because I've got such a low HR. I can afford to drop the dodge gems and go for 3 of these Vivid Forest Emerald - Item - World of Warcraft to help me with the extra HR.
Are you seeing the mobs dodge alot of your attacks? Your expertise is really low.
My HR atm is 215 = 6.56% and yeah I think I've been dodging alot.
Up to 7% HR now and everything seems back to normal... Is this conincidence or does 0.50% HR really help? :S
I'd look at this thread http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f175/...t-dk-tank.html since this question is asked often. More specifically I'd look at the Rune Strike macro in the macro forum. If your "dumping" your RP at the end of your rotation but you have full RP then, that's not really effectively using Rune Strike.
I think the .5% increase in hit rating could make a small difference but not as much as the correct use of Rune Strike and more expertise first.
The correct use of RS is basically dumping it at the end of your rotation, there's not really anything technical about it tbh.
Correct or not; that is not the best way of using it. If your rotation builds up more than maximium 100/130 runic power before you hit a rune blackout, any of the runic power generated once the bar is full is wasted.
you really want to be using runestrike everytime it procs (while maintaining sufficient rp to interupt casts), and using Frost Strike at the end of your rotation to tide you over until the runes are off CD
Thanks you for the reply, I appreciate the info!
I've replaced some +dodge and +stam gems with some +HR +Stam gems now and everything seems to be OK, however I did slightly struggle with a hunter doing 3.2K DPS in an HC... I got MD spammed though so it was ok.
Is expertise really a big help with threat building? Because I could start to build some expertise gear IF it was going to be a help.
Last edited by Denix; 06-27-2009 at 03:00 PM.
From the Info I aquired of late Exp lowers the chance of a strike being dodge/blocked or parried. every time you get dodged etc u miss the threat gen from what you could be getting. so I would say yes. exp will help threat building.
I am sure someone else with more experence will respond here as well if I am wrong
Not sure about expertise pushing block off the hit table, I think it only works for dodge and parry(but could be wrong). You're right however you don't produce threat if your attacks ar dodged, parried or miss entitrely, assuming mob blocking works like player blocking, blocked attacks should still produce some threat.
The thing about expertise lowering the chance to get parried is that each time an attack is parried by the Mob, it's swing time on its next attack is dropped by 40%(to a maximum of 20% swing times). So getting parried actually increases the incoming damage, which is not something any tank likes.
This is one reason why the tank should face the mobs away from his raid; A raid boss has a 6.5% chance to parry attacks from the front and a 0.0% chance to parry attacks coming from behind him. With ~20 peeps beating on him from in front you're near gauarnteed that the boss can parry one of them in between each of his swings, and maintain an artificailly fast swing time and thus increase his DPS by on avarage about 24%. Thats a fair amount so make sure your postitioning the boss so your DPS has to attack the boss from behind.
From a threat perspective, if you swing, you want it to land *EVERY* time. This is a bigger issue with DKs wielding a big slow weapon (or a bear with its lumbering paw), as opposed to paladins with 1.6 speed swords/axes/mace, the odd miss for them won't absolutely kill their threat. Consequently, dipping below the hit/expertise caps will have a huge impact for tank threat right away, whereas a paladin will take some time to notice it.
For a mechanics perspective, the +hit pushes misses off the table. The boss can still dodge/parry. Expertise is the mechanic to push off dodge/parry, but it doesnt push off misses. That's why you need both. The OP can read up on soft/hard caps on this site.
The reason for your new threat issues is probably not your new gear, but your dps' new gear.
One issue we have in this thread is a problem of misunderstanding an abbreviation.
RS is Rune Strike. It works on your next melee swing. This is *NOT* an RP dump and is not on the GCD. This is an ability triggered when you dodge or parry.
Frost Strike, or FS, is the Runic Power dump and should be used at the end of rotations or for RP bleed off.
Macro Rune Strike into all of your strikes(PS, IT, BS, DS, OB, SS, HS) so it will get weaved in.
Regem everything you have from hit and defense to exp/stam due to the double benefit exp gives you. If your defense is still 540, change your sigil to something like Sigil of Deflection or Sigil of Awareness, because your sigil currently isn't as big of a benefit as it could be.
Once you are capped expertise, get your hit up, but you should be fine with whatever you get form gear and can stack more dodge.
Last edited by Jaeden; 06-29-2009 at 11:16 AM. Reason: First sentence added.
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