DK QQ -- 3.2 and beyond

[Edgewalker]

I for one noticed a much more TPS loss then a mitigation loss. Yeah, I take more hits and have fewer hit points, but that's fine, I just have to rotate cool downs again, that actually makes me enjoy the game more, gives me more to do.

However, my only DK QQ is my TPS is rough, especially at the begining of fights. Once I can throw in a corpse explosion or two, it's no prob, but the begining of pulls, it's SO much harder to do "burst threat", and I don't quite know where or how it's different, as I'm using the same rotation, but I definitly have to have DPS give me a full rotation now instead of a half of rotation before going all crazy. Which doesn't seem like much, that's only a 4-5 second difference, but when our DPS is already naturally low, it's a HUGE difference.

What rotation do you use? DK threat is still very much untouchable by DPS with the right rotation in every situation.

[Feanorr]

Um, please go look at the real numbers (everyone) as in terms of survivability DK's most certainly were fine in all of Premonitions tests: 3.2 Tank Tests - Premonition - Sen'jin (US).

What about some test with a real DK spec? cause I dont know any serious DK that use the spec listed there. Yes he got all the damage reduction and avoidance of frost and the health increase of blood, but good luck keeping agro from some serious DPS with this spec.

On another point of view, if we need to gimp our agro with this kind of spec just to be on par with others tanks for health/damage taken, then there is a problem.

As GBF said, the only way to be competitive actually is to spec blood; with it we got a good single target agro (still worst than pally), a medium AOE agro (less than pal and druid), same HP/Armor/avoidance than the lowest of the tanks (war) and some self healing to compensate.

[Edgewalker]

Edge, you should scope out Xav's Patchwerk test. His tanks/values put DK, Warrior, and Bear threat roughly even, and Paladin threat a head above.

Ugh. After looking at Devium's spec and gear used for the encounter, it's no wonder. Terrible gear, terrible spec... bad benchmark.

[Esch]

Ugh. After looking at Devium's spec and gear used for the encounter, it's no wonder. Terrible gear, terrible spec... bad benchmark.

Devium was focused on the patchwerk testing for survial, and caught hell for it on the wow forums as a result. The following Faerlina tests are a shorter, but probably more realistic, snap shot of each spec.

I find that a paladin tanking two patchwerks, however, to be a testament to how fundamentally overpowered AD is currently. WotN was a weaker version of AD, and got nerfed by the 15 second ICD. Now, paladins are running around with a better version without the ICD, and it's balanced? Looks more like a fast band aid before Blizzcon until 3.3 arrives.

[Edgewalker]

Devium was focused on the patchwerk testing for survial, and caught hell for it on the wow forums as a result. The following Faerlina tests are a shorter, but probably more realistic, snap shot of each spec.

Which is the problem. His live build even leaves something to desire.
People are basing too many statements off of tests that frankly aren't thorough enough.

[Lore]

WotN was a weaker version of AD, and got nerfed by the 15 second ICD. Now, paladins are running around with a better version without the ICD, and it's balanced?

The portion of AD that isn't restricted by cooldown is far worse than pre-nerf WotN.

I agree AD is overpowered, but "WotN got nerfed so AD needs to be nerfed, OMG SO OBVIOUS" is flawed logic.

[Edgewalker]

I agree AD is overpowered, but "WotN got nerfed so AD needs to be nerfed, OMG SO OBVIOUS" is flawed logic.

Agreed. I also find it odd how many DK's are complaining that paladins are overpowered after months of being so ridiculously ahead of other tanks...
Of course, after years of playing a warrior I can't be too shocked at how idiotic people can be concerning the state of their own class.

[GBF]

Agreed. I also find it odd how many DK's are complaining that paladins are overpowered after months of being so ridiculously ahead of other tanks...
Of course, after years of playing a warrior I can't be too shocked at how idiotic people can be concerning the state of their own class.

Why do people think that having been overpowered in the past is justification for being underpowered in the present?

[Esch]

I agree AD is overpowered, but "WotN got nerfed so AD needs to be nerfed, OMG SO OBVIOUS" is flawed logic.

It was demostrated that WotN was too powerful and was nerfed accordingly. I'm puzzled by the decision by the Devs to implement AD, PTR it, and let it go live after seeing a very similar ability require being nerfed in a previous content patch. How WotN impacted tank balanced is what AD is doing now. However, Paladins need something to avoid being rostered as BoSanc bots.

The alternate logic is AD is balanced and the WotN ICD isn't necessary. Let's remove that ICD. Following logic is Last Stand needs to be innate, passive and baseline to bring warriors up to 'snuff. Sure, done, grats warriors. Balance achieved until bosses get a ~15% damage increase to offset player EH increases, negating the series of buffs.*Esch's train of thought derails upon reality, spilling sarcasm and delusions across the tracks*

Either way, AD is out of whack. The question is, how to adjust it or continue to ensure paladins remain viable by an alternate talent/skill change. Even with my experience with my protadin, I can't give a good suggestion.

Why do people think that having been overpowered in the past is justification for being underpowered in the present?

DKs have been out of whack until 3.2 hit. There's a lot of enmity towards DKs as a result, even in my raidgroup. No one likes being sidelined. I wager most of the issue is DKs went from #1 to #4 on the tank list, largely from the health reductions, while paladins got Improved WotN, err, AD. Obviously the DKs aren't happy, but it's viewed as QQ rather than 'how is this balanced?'

[Mofotrey]

I haven't touched my DK alt since the patch, but I don't play it very often anyway so that's nothing new. But, from the standpoint of my druid alt healing my gf's DK alt pre and post patch... DK's got nerfed a bit TOO hard.

We actually almost died several times in heroic CoT: Strat which was absolutely unheard of before the patch... Both our alts are in Naxx 25 and Ulduar 10 and 25 gear, so it's not like a heroic is on an equal gear level with us, and yet she was taking tons more damage than pre-patch. Given how easy it is for me to heal lesser geared tanks of other classes I think DK's were nerfed a bit too much... I usually toss HOT's on warriors or paladins and then spam hurricane during heroics, and I'm having to spam heals now for DKs.

Since my main is a warrior tank I was happy to see that *something* was being done to DK's but Blizzard is quite frankly stupid in how they handle Death Knights, and many scenarios in general. They always contradict themselves when it comes to changes...

"DK's are supposed to be a cooldown tanking class"
"Oh wait... no, these cooldowns are good, they need to be nerfed."



"Druids' lifebloom is supposed to be based around the bloom... Lets raise the mana cost when you don't let it bloom so that people will ultilize the bloom."
"Oh wait, lets nerf that bloom by 20% because now people are actually using it like we want them to."


"DK's are meant to have slightly more health and armor than other tanking classes to balance out the lack of block."
"Oh wait, it's not fair if they have more health and armor, that needs to change."



etc. etc. basically Blizzard plays around with Death Knights making MAJOR changes EVERY single patch... They do the same with other classes too, but nowhere near this extremely. Blizz needs to step back and look at classes and figure out what to do instead of just throwing major changes in there and then fixing them with another unthought out major change when they don't work.

They nearly did the same to warriors by removing the added block value of shield block, but instead of just throwing out a stupid change to balance out a stupid buff to SBV on items they actually thought about it, listened to the community, and came up with a solution (diminishing returns) which I think actually is pretty good.

Instead of destroying DK's armor and health with every single patch maybe Blizzard should look at balancing them by other means?? At this point, from a healer's perspective (well, an alt character healer, but I play it pretty freqeuently on the weekends), DK's are very noticeably weaker than other tanks. I know the parses from Northrend Beasts, Patchwerk, etc. say different in raids but I believe in experience over numbers.


Basically, if you're going to reduce DK's health and armor totals to being less than warriors, paladins, and druids, then buff their CD's back up to what they were a few patches ago. If you don't want them to be a CD-based class that's OP with CD's up and weak with them down then leave the CD's where they are and buff the health and armor up a bit more. When you're constantly nerfing both you're making DK's ineffective.

[Zivh]

OK here's the verdict.

After a week-ish of raiding, I am not QQing as much.

Yes, I lost 3k hp unbuffed. I got some new gear this week and am now only about 1.5k under what I was at unbuffed. Would have been nice though, to have 36k unbuffed health pre-3.2.

Yes, I lost 2k armor. Negligible. I haven't noticed a difference in the amount of damage I am taking per hit nor have my healers (so they say).

Yes, I lost about 3% dodge, but gained about 2.5% parry. Oddly enough, this boosted my parry to just over 20% and I have noticed a lot more of them.

TPS seems to have gone up, somehow. I don't know if its slight changes to the spec (I'm rolling with pretty much the same blood spec I had pre-3.2), or maybe even an undisclosed threat boost, but even my AoE seems to be better. Also, I just noticed my DnD critting...maybe I'm smoking crack, but has it always done that???

All in all...I was whining at first but with the new gems, the boost to my ring enchants, maybe some new gear, hidden added mechanics or threat or something, I haven't really noticed a negative hit to my tanking abilities.

I don't hit 40k as easily though takes kings and Fort to get there now.

Just thought I would post back as I started the QQ, maybe some others feel differently but hell, I don't think its as big a nerf as I thought it was.

The only thing I really don't like...is the IBF cooldown doubling!!!!! argghhh!!

[Edgewalker]

Why do people think that having been overpowered in the past is justification for being underpowered in the present?

Because we are barely untuned now, versus being extremely out of whack before?
It will get fixed. I promise Blizzard knows that there is an issue.

[Xav]

I think it's pretty obvious every class has sufficient threat. However, one of the most important types of threat is "snap threat", something like Shield Slam or Holy Shield Slam or Maul, blah blah.

DK's don't really have much in that regard, but that's not really something you can statistically test, aside from showing the burst threat caused by various class abilities.

[GBF]

I think it's pretty obvious every class has sufficient threat. However, one of the most important types of threat is "snap threat", something like Shield Slam or Holy Shield Slam or Maul, blah blah.

DK's don't really have much in that regard, but that's not really something you can statistically test, aside from showing the burst threat caused by various class abilities.

DEATH GRIP RAWR

Yeah, our snap threat sucks because most of our threat abilities require diseases to do their full potential, and disease-applying abilities don't have much snap threat at all. Personally, I use Death and Decay because I can drop it before I even pull the boss, and it has pretty decent threat, even against a single target (Best threat-per-rune?)

The Paladin's new taunt mechanic copied onto Dark Command would actually be really nice.

[DesT.]

So, after a weeks worth of tanking Ulduar and the various hardmodes, I haven't really seen that much of a difference other then the obvious drop in HP.
Still sitting at ~40066 unbuffed in frost presence after regemming, about a 2k drop from my prepatch unbuffed. 2.1k armor that i lost seems pretty negligible at this point. TPS has actually gone up by a decent amount, probably because of the 15% more damage done by diseases (lol) ?
Heck i even managed to tank Vezax through 2 surges with just Vamp blood up while the healers spammed me. Only thing I can actually QQ about now is how much HP I could have had with epic gems.

[Edgewalker]

I think it's pretty obvious every class has sufficient threat. However, one of the most important types of threat is "snap threat", something like Shield Slam or Holy Shield Slam or Maul, blah blah.

DK's don't really have much in that regard, but that's not really something you can statistically test, aside from showing the burst threat caused by various class abilities.

I really disagree, unless you are trying to apply a disease rotation before your initial threat cycle, especially with Rune Tap / Empower Rune Weapon. Even for rapidly spawning adds you can build up RP near the end of the previous mob and still have excellent burst.

[Edgewalker]

So, after a weeks worth of tanking Ulduar and the various hardmodes, I haven't really seen that much of a difference other then the obvious drop in HP.
Still sitting at ~40066 unbuffed in frost presence after regemming, about a 2k drop from my prepatch unbuffed. 2.1k armor that i lost seems pretty negligible at this point. TPS has actually gone up by a decent amount, probably because of the 15% more damage done by diseases (lol) ?
Heck i even managed to tank Vezax through 2 surges with just Vamp blood up while the healers spammed me. Only thing I can actually QQ about now is how much HP I could have had with epic gems.

42000 unbuffed prepatch seems like a little bit of an exaggeration...

[DesT.]

The World of Warcraft Armory

Gotta remember, Frost Pres gave 10% HP not stam pre patch.

[Edgewalker]

The World of Warcraft Armory

Gotta remember, Frost Pres gave 10% HP not stam pre patch.

Well, I believe it now! Was just going off my own health at 41000~ pre-patch in almost all BIS, but you are purely stamina oriented in basically 100% all BIS. Nice set.

[uglybbtoo]

After a solid week I can't say I really noticed any real diff on pally wouldn't say I am any better or worse off. Mild annoyance at the 1.5 sec excorcism cast and yah for not having to rebuff Righteous fury and the BOSANC change.

My warrior tank is heaps better with rage regen which is nice but AOE tank threat is still problematic with heavy dps.

All the DK tanks I run with on my dps toons having no real trouble there HP bar moves now but nothing more than any other tank.

All in all everything looks about right.