PTR 3.3.3 - Death Knight - Tanks

[Nephelai]

One question that popped into my head just now is actually for my off spec. I am currently running frost there also, so that I can provide the melee haste buff when I dps, since it just so happens that my going dps tends to correlate with their not being an enhancement shamman available.... but I am wondering where best to get those two points for endless winter.. which will become a must. I am thinking that pulling them out of blood caked blade will be best, but not really certain yet.

[Edgewalker]

What's your offspec?

[Nephelai]

Seriously, WOTN without an ICD is going to be rediculously good. I had a hard time justifying a frost spec to myself before. At this point it's just laughable.

Meh, I would still rather have improved frost presence. At least I don't have to be close to redline for that damage reduction to be useful.

[Edgewalker]

Meh, I would still rather have improved frost presence. At least I don't have to be close to redline for that damage reduction to be useful.

If your tanking harder content you will ALWAYS be close to redline :\

[Nephelai]

lol.. its all in the odds, there will allways be times you are close to redline, but the frequency of those times will vary, and a blanket 2 percent damage reduction reduces that frequency. I haven't started hardmodes yet, but so far up to LK 10 and Sin 25, if I am below 35 percent something else has already gone wrong.

[Edgewalker]

lol.. its all in the odds, there will allways be times you are close to redline, but the frequency of those times will vary, and a blanket 2 percent damage reduction reduces that frequency. I haven't started hardmodes yet, but so far up to LK 10 and Sin 25, if I am below 35 percent something else has already gone wrong.

That's just not accurate. Sindragosa, Fester, LK 25 all hit the tank hard. In heroic mode almost everything will hit you to 35% ranges nonstop.

[Nephelai]

proper CD chaining in Fester and you should almost never be below 35 percent, Sin, only right after an unmitigated frost breath and only for very short periods unless healers are tied up/out of range for some reason. LK is an admittedly different story, and I already aknowledged I hadn't experienced ICC hard modes yet, so not in a position to judge them.

[Edgewalker]

proper CD chaining in Fester and you should almost never be below 35 percent, Sin, only right after an unmitigated frost breath and only for very short periods unless healers are tied up/out of range for some reason. LK is an admittedly different story, and I already aknowledged I hadn't experienced ICC hard modes yet, so not in a position to judge them.

Are you really going to try to argue this?

[dotJEM]

HB is the best "snap aggro" opener, perhaps, but the sustained threat you get from a single target opener that starts with HB is god awful compared to the alternatives. Try opening a boss fight with IT, PS, BS, BT, UA, BS, OB, ERW, OB, OB, OB(or refresh with IT, PS depending on diseases, which depends on how many gcds you filled with FS on KM, or HB on rime plus KM). Let the RS fly out as they proc (via macros of course). by the end of that opening, with MD and Tricks up, you can post 20K to 24K TPS easy. If your dpsers are aggro monkeys in the first three seconds, get them to hold off just once.. take a screen shot, and then show them all what giving you three seconds does to your sustained threat. Nothing you do with an HB opener will come close, and the IT buff is a wonderful thing for the above. With the IT buff giving my opener better snap, combined with all the other improvements to frost threat, my single target boss opener is about to get downright comical.

So yeah.. this frost tank loves the IT buff.

Edit: Just to note that my normal single target prioritization is almost identical to the preferred single target dps prioritization for frost, with the exception that I prioritize burning blood runes with BS to activate damage reduction, over burning FU pairs on OB. This amounts to a little less threat, but better survival, then I would get from a true max dps priority system.

20-24k tps... that made me think that your exadurating... highest TPS Ive ever seen on a tank for a short period lies around 16k. regardless of class and situation...
So unless you have a stupid high amount of rouges and hunters in the raid i find those numbers hard to belive... we normally run wit 2 of each in 25 man max.

My opener is DnD, HB, (BT), PS -> OB, BS, OB, OB... and that is a more than sufficient opener for our 10k DPS'ers to go Wacky at the time I'm at the boss, and at the time I reach the boss if done right, my first 3 used runes from DnD are of CD (or very close to depending on boss movement) again so it does not break my rotation, and it is not a waste to DnD.
I see UA as a bad way of spending a rune on an initial pull with it's limited 10% STR...

After the initial pull i use BS whenever a Blood Rune is off CD (to convert it), PS whenever needed, HB on all rimes, OB for the rest, and any periods where Runes are on CD's i fill with FS.
RS is bundled with HB and OB.

And I'm not even close to threat issues after i have gotten my Hit and Exp in check...

Well, as far as Icy Touch is concerned I agree 100 percent. I tank with one disease and this is a bit of an annoyance. I spose I can use two on single targets to make use of this change, but it really messes with the style of the HB glyphed spec. Dual wielding 2 heavy weapons is already fantastic threat, but doing it with 2 fast tanking weapons is really quite terrible and it will help there. I fear though, that a DK dual wielding 2 heavy weapons will be able to pull down over 10k tps on a single target now. That's probably too much, but I'm not convinced Blizzard cares much about balancing single target agro. So that change isn't bad considering it might put frost DPS up where unholy and blood is at.

But that whole Icy Touch threat thing is really biting at me.

Well as for the DW part, what you outline is close to what I said or meant.

I Have no clue to DK DPS, but as far as i knew DW tanks had no thread issues (you confirm that very well)... And my thinking is exactly what you outline, that this was a needed buff for our DPS counterparts so they can compete, while it sadly ends up maybe making DW Frost a bit to good on the TPS, and god knows other tanks will wine about that if it ends up being to significant.

Im not sure I like your comment on 2 fast tanking weapons... I kinda like the fact that we are meant to use Slow Wielding weapons for that, and letting the Paladins and Warriors having there Tanking weapons to them self...
Or maybe i just like to roll my eyes every time i see a DW DK with 2 tanking weapons, and then even more when he fails to produce threat what so ever >.<


Edit: I have added some additional info from MMO to the main post. Apparently they seem to wan't IT to be our Shield Slam o.O... and making it so significant is exactly what i feared ... But that gotta fail because Shield Slam has a CD for a reason. That also got me to think...

Great, if the above becomes what it is, so much for being skilled to juggle your disease uptime as a tank, ultimately you would wan't to use IT way more than needed to manage that... Removing any required thought about FF uptime what so ever... HB Glyph can be argued to do kind of the same thing, but at least that is not a 100% deal.

[KnThrak]

And thank god for that if they do make the change.
The problem with trying to make 3 trees balanced for 3 things is that you simply can't.
Not possible.

Uuuuh.
Last I checked, we have all 3 trees viable for DPS (the decision maker is which utility your raid needs), and 2,5 trees viable for Tanking (Unholy can be if you lack access to CoE).
So where exactly is it "not possible"?

[dotJEM]

Uuuuh.
Last I checked, we have all 3 trees viable for DPS (the decision maker is which utility your raid needs), and 2,5 trees viable for Tanking (Unholy can be if you lack access to CoE).
So where exactly is it "not possible"?

They are not "balanced" however.

So he is correct, but the only thing they can balance if they completely remove everything that is called Classes, Talent Trees, Gear and leave us with The same tools, the same stats, the same everything...
Then we are balanced... and only then... Perfect balance is by it self impossible as soon as you add choice to a game... But what is wrong with Paper beats Rock beats Scissor beats Paper?...

But eagerness to find perfect balance keeps leaving Underdogs...

[KnThrak]

Well ofc the specs aren't balanced, much like the other three "tankspecs" (Prot Warrior, Prot Paladin, Feral Druid) are not balanced to any smallscale enough degree.

But is it necessary? From personal experience, no. From reading blue comments, neither is it wanted.
From watching cutting-edge guilds, no.

From a math POV? Maybe.

Though I feel like math shows a difference which is not perceivable ingame. Math makes the perception, if someone were to hide all the numbers no one could ever tell which tank was more squishy or not. Threat differences are easier to see ofc but 3.3.3 may fix quite a bit there.

Ultimately the DK's tree-utility is strong enough that if they make it easier for tanks to buy IIT, the utility will trump the tree-differences even if you're going for minmaxing instead of the playstyle you like most.


As such, what does "balanced" mean?
I challenge whether it should mean "mathmatically balanced"; such balance is not perceivable ingame and hence is of superficial importance only.
It should mean "realistically viable". Given enough datasets, it is viable in a non-trivial amount of them. This is what players see and experience ingame. Ofc it's more complicated than that because of the doomsingers harping "EJ said it sucks!" off top of every house and the FOTM-rerollish nature of MMO playerbases.

[Vah]

Please don't complain about buffs to our class. The idea behind the IT buff was stated already, it's for snap threat (Ie shield slam). Howling blast is sufficient for snap aggro.

Lets be honest here, frost is a decent tanking build. It has some advantages, but in end-game tanking you will be blood. UA, the only other major CD is useless as armor caps are just about being reached. The developers know this, and i challenge anyone to find a frost DK Main Tank in a top progression guild. Buffs/nerfs aren't always about casuals.

[dotJEM]

Please don't complain about buffs to our class. The idea behind the IT buff was stated already, it's for snap threat (Ie shield slam). Howling blast is sufficient for snap aggro.

Lets be honest here, frost is a decent tanking build. It has some advantages, but in end-game tanking you will be blood. UA, the only other major CD is useless as armor caps are just about being reached. The developers know this, and i challenge anyone to find a frost DK Main Tank in a top progression guild. Buffs/nerfs aren't always about casuals.

Could People in General just keep to The original Intention of the Topic...
If you LIKE the IT change... then state WHY you like it... don't stay why you think others should not dislike it with "I think your playing wrong"... "You won't ever be frost anyways"... and so on...

I Dislike if for the reasons I've already put up...
If you like it put your reasons up for that... this discussion has now escalated into how people should tank, and what spec they should tank like... THAT WAS NEVER the intention...
Ive been Dumb enough my self to comment on people who went in that direction... but i think we should get back to the actual topic now...

WHAT DO you like about the changes...
WHAT DON'T you like about the changes...
(Tank perspectives, REGARDLESS of spec).

[Nephelai]

20-24k tps... that made me think that your exadurating... highest TPS Ive ever seen on a tank for a short period lies around 16k. regardless of class and situation...
So unless you have a stupid high amount of rouges and hunters in the raid i find those numbers hard to belive... we normally run wit 2 of each in 25 man max.

Not exaggerating at all, this ss is with three tricks and one m/d, but the numbers I get from two tricks and two m'd's are similar, and easily over 16k. Also.. a UBA's 10 percent strength buff, plus attack power buff from armor = a massive short term threat buff. Just pop it with your paper doll and look at your attack power increase... and in the SS below the big opener isn't over... KM proced right when I hit print screen with Rime up.. joy, more threat.



Edit: No, I just looked closer, strangely we had four rogues in that run, but that guild usually ran with three, but my point still stands... here is 18K TPS in a ten man with one rogue and one hunter. Edit again: grrrr Im being careless today, two hunters, but apparently only one md.

[Nephelai]

What's your offspec?

It's the popular 0/54/17, I have actually taken a closer look at this, and I am thinking black ice will be a better place to steal the points from, in order to pick up the strength buff, assuming the tree's look otherwise like they do now.

[swelt]

All the screenshots serve to illustrate is how poor in game TPS meters are, and little else. Realtime calculations of TPS/DPS/HPS are pretty meaningless, as they are just a point in time measurement (average over last X seconds normally) and should be treated as such.

[Nephelai]

All the screenshots serve to illustrate is how poor in game TPS meters are, and little else. Realtime calculations of TPS/DPS/HPS are pretty meaningless, as they are just a point in time measurement (average over last X seconds normally) and should be treated as such.

The discussion was only about the threat produced by the different openers, you can see my total threat generated as well as judge how far into the fight we are, in both screen shots.

[Jedd]

Are you really going to try to argue this?

GC on the forums:

"In the theoretical case where the DK is ping-ponging between 40% and 20% health, it's crazy good (as is Ardent Defender), but those situations don't happen often. (They might happen more in Cataclysm, where it would be nice to see tanks at 50% health for more than a fraction of a second.) Most of the time, Will of the Necropolis is just extra health, which was the case before we removed the cooldown. "

And then again in the same thread

"We changed Will of the Necropolis for the simple reason that one of the designers took a look at how often the cooldown made the difference between the DK living and dying. The answer was very rarely."

Also in the same thread
"Tanks typically are at full health, avoid every other attack, get hit, and then get topped off."

So yes. It is worth the argument. On one hand we have GC saying the Devs have analyzed the numbers that they have available internally to them and found that tanks do not spend a significant portion in the redline and that WoTN would rarely ever keeping proccing consecutively. On the other hand we have you saying that on hard modes tanks are constantly on the redline without any proof to support your opinion and certainly without the data the developors have available to them.

So actually it's not worth arguing. Unless you're calling GC a liar, he already outright told us based on actual data analysis tanks are not spending time on the redline

[Nephelai]

GC on the forums:
So actually it's not worth arguing. Unless you're calling GC a liar, he already outright told us based on actual data analysis tanks are not spending time on the redline

Thanks, I think that summed up what I was trying to say there better then anything else I could have posted.