Tanking rotation idea?

[Burtoxulus]

Hello all,

I have been tanking since the release of WoTLK on a DK and lately I have been seeing everyone using blood to tank. Well I have been the guy that has stayed 2handed frost and am looking for some thoughts about the results I have been getting.

According to the link from tankspot: http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...-threat-values

It shows these values as threat generators:
Icy Touch - 1 frost rune - damage X7
Plague Strike - 1 unholy rune - damage
Obliterate - 1 unholy & 1 frost - damage

Now lets talk about some math of this. My icy touch usually hits for 2500 therefore the math tells me I will receive 17500 threat from one frost rune. If I use Obliterate then I will use 2 runes and do damage of the strike (usually about 7500 with glyph). That is a huge loss.

Everywhere you go tells you to use this standard rotation: Icy > PS > BS > BS > OB > OB

This doesnt make much sense to me. Today I tanked ICC 10 and wanted to just test it out by taking OB off my bar. I used 3 things on single targets from my glyphs IT > PS > BS then just rinse and repeat every time they refreshed (of course I used frost strike, rune strike etc, but I am referring to just glyphs). I was holding about 18500TPS according to omen which was about 4500 more than I usually hold with using Oblit in my rotations. Has anyone else seen this? Surely someone else has been seeing this? The obliterate is of course tasty due to the big number scrolling through but did I miss something?

Just looking to see who else has seen this.

Here is a link to my armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...&cn=Burtoxulus

thanks,
Burt

[Tengenstein]

Yes, ITspamfest is insane amounts of threat. However the argument about is whether that threat is useful for what it loses in DPS. Lets face it Threat is not the fun game. Its not hard to produce a high amount of threat and nor is it neccassary, and that is the key word; neccessity. Do you need to be pulling a continual 18.5ktps? if your threatiest DPS is only pulling 15k TPS, you only need to pull 15.1k tps to maintain aggro, the rest of 3.4k aggro is just showing off, it doesn't matter if you're ahead by a minute or a mile. Now for most DKs OB is a higher DPS than 2xIT, hower a DPS increase, even a small one, generally will finish fights faster, minimising time in combat, and thus time for a raid memeber to cock up catastrophicaly is also reduced.


Once you have aggro and are safe in keeping it, and doing so is not likely to get you killed you might aswell favour doing a little more DPS than TPS cos keeping aggro and pulling 6k as a tank is better than keeping aggro and pulling 2k, no matter how you slice it.

[Burtoxulus]

Thanks, I wanted some feedback. So in short your reply is DPS. I think what we missed out on for newer tanks is the fact that you do not have oblit in your rotation unless you are comfortably holding threat. The unexciting IT and PS spam will hold better threat if you are struggling to hold off those high dps guys and you are a new and upcoming DK tank. I just thought this would be good for some other people to see if they might be struggling with threat.

peace!

[Phanuel]

Once you have aggro and are safe in keeping it, and doing so is not likely to get you killed you might aswell favour doing a little more DPS than TPS cos keeping aggro and pulling 6k as a tank is better than keeping aggro and pulling 2k, no matter how you slice it.

No idea how you're doing 6K dps as a DK tank though. With the 30% buff and ~251 gear, I average around 2800-3000dps doing a normal blood HS spam rotation. Nothing I have really hits harder than 2500-3K outside of Runestrike. If I swith to IT spam I drop maybe 800dps. Is my 800 dps going to be the difference between a wipe and a kill? I sure hope not.

[TheYanger]

If you swap to IT spam you'll drop way more dps for not a lot more threat. What's the point? Should you do it if threat is genuinely becoming a concern? sure, that's part of knowing your class. It's also not going to work anymore in Cata so why bother getting used to failure?

Using it to 'learn' when you're new to tanking is a HORRIBLE idea. The only way you'll learn to actually hold threat (Which as a DK simply amounts to 'do your rotation' since there's nothing else you can do really), is to force yourself to learn it. While DKs have the most complex rotation of any tanks possibly, it's also incredibly static and it is NOT difficult to get used to, bears are probably the only ones who have an easier time. Just stick with it and you'll be fine, you can run the dk rotation blindfolded once you know it.

[Phanuel]

While DKs have the most complex rotation of any tanks possibly, it's also incredibly static and it is NOT difficult to get used to, bears are probably the only ones who have an easier time. Just stick with it and you'll be fine, you can run the dk rotation blindfolded once you know it.

We have a rotation? I may have used that word, but honestly, our rotation is a 'joke'. 1. Keep diseases up, 2. Spam HS and have Runestrike bound to everything 3. Can't spam HS? Use Deathstrike either on cooldown, or wait a second if you know a big hit is coming, or reburn 2 death runs on one to get a small heal back up. 4. Pop your 2-3 cooldowns when the boss says something (learning to use AMS is probably the biggest thing you can do regarding cooldowns).

We're lacking any real fun toys compared to warriors or paladins. And no, IT spam is a ton of aggro, not a little bit, a lot. HS generates what, 5-6k threat? IT is at least 18-20K, and if you subspec into Frost, 25k+. I can boost from 10K tps to 18K tps easily spamming it. And look, tank DPS means nothing. Please get off of this high horse and come to the reality of we're there to keep things angry at us. Our 2-3K dps is meaningless in the big picture (this total dps can be a simple RNG'd up and down by on 2-3 dps during a fight), doubly so since it hasn't really scaled at all from the Naxx days.

[TheYanger]

Did you honestly just try to claim that DKs don't have a rotation? That's patently WRONG. And if you're only doing 10k tps without spamming IT it's obvious that you're just mashing buttons. It cannot be more plainly said - you will do a LOT more damage without spamming IT, not just a little bit, and having 300% the next person's threat gives you absolutely nothing. TPS isn't exactly some kind of important epeen measurement. Just as a good tank would spam IT if they truly need the threat (Like a newly spawned add at range), a good tank knows they don't need to rely on it as a crutch either.

TPS difference as blood in ICC between spamming IT and normal rotation? Like 3k tps. DPS loss? 1500-2000 or so at least. If you think tank damage doesn't 'matter' I assume you've NEVER wiped on a boss at 1-2%. Never had anyone dropped on a valk on LK, etc. Ask your DPS if they'd like to have 2k more, they'd all say yes, use your head seriously.

[Phanuel]

Yes, because we don't have a fixed rotation by any stretch of the imagination. All of our cooldowns require resources to use and will break your precious rotation. We're not 6969 paladins. TPS does matter when your DPS is riding you and you don't have a rogue or a hunter boosting you. Do the heroic IT spam spec and your IT will hit for 2-2.3K, same as your HS single target, I fail to see how this is a significant DPS loss. Read any of the DK tank guides such as Satorri's guide here.

The Blood tree relies on a very simple set of moves to create a rotation from. You will always want both diseases active for the sake of buffing Heart Strike damage and Death Strike healing. After that, you will have two paths you can follow at any given time. Death Strike will be your tool to convert FU pairs into Death runes, but once they are Death runes you can choose to either us them for Heart Strike or Death Strike. Heavy use of Death Strike, even if glyphed, will generate a little less threat than Heart Strike unless you get high effective healing from its use. For this reason, in general, you will want to favor HS when you are at full health and only use DS on Death runes when you know you can get value from the heal.

That's not a fixed 'rotation' like a Paladin's 6969.

If DPS wants an extra 1500-2000 (raid wide total, not individual) and that actually matters, I think you need to tell the lower ones to pick it up instead. Good raid DPS will be riding your TPS and you will have rogues and hunters cycling cooldowns on you to keep you ahead, hence why the STARS DK's Icy Slam spec came about. If you're not in this situation, then you aren't way back pushing heroics and you're stuck in casual town where your dps, frankly, doesn't matter.

Your signature link doesn't work, so I can't determine how progressed you are. I'm stuck in casual town for your reference, so feel free to ignore me, I'll bow out of this now.

[TheYanger]

We DO have a fixed rotation. that's the whole point.
IT PS HS HS DS DS HS HS HS HS repeat. Do that, no threat problems.

[Tengenstein]

No idea how you're doing 6K dps as a DK tank though. With the 30% buff and ~251 gear, I average around 2800-3000dps doing a normal blood HS spam rotation. Nothing I have really hits harder than 2500-3K outside of Runestrike. If I swith to IT spam I drop maybe 800dps. Is my 800 dps going to be the difference between a wipe and a kill? I sure hope not.

oh no I'm not saying I pull 6k dps as a DK tank, that Pure Hyperbole. my point is Holding aggro, is not as good as holding aggro and an additional 800dps. Every little helps on that progression kill. just like a hunter doing 17k dps isn't as great as a hunter doing 17k dps and MDing the tanks on CD.

I'm a warrior, I'm mainly in 264s with a few 277s, i can quite easily spam my 3 buttons and produce enough threat to comfortable hold aggro without even looking at what i'm pressing. if i do pay attention then on fights like sindy the DPS have are all around the the 75% of my threat. I only need to produce enough threat to hold aggro, i don't need to have a 2.4mill threat lead, I just have to be ahead, so at that point i should be doing everything in my power to ensure victory, even if that is a mediocre increase in survivability or DPS