It's not easy to find because it's posted under devomorph.Originally Posted by Satorri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHP5rbOqbI
What you say makes sense. Berserk gives the Lacerate DoT a 30% chance to proc a free Mangle, so yeah I'm not questioning the fact that a visual indicator is more important there. I think the main issue is that Blizzard is just terrible at explaining details about many of the new features they add (or they are just Lazy because they know hundreds of theorycrafters are lurking around to fill in the blanks for them).
However, your explanation actually disturbs me even more than mine did. Crimson Scourge 1/2 only gives a 50% chance to pop Blood Swarm. Does it give you a visual cue if you only take 1 point in it but drops the visual if you take 2 points in it?
Are there other good examples of temporary free-strike buffs that do not get a visual indicator?
I need to do some further testing on it to be sure, but in my limited experimentation it felt like I wasn't getting Blood Swarm every time it should have popped. Is there an ICD on the proc?
Of course. And thank goodness for such great addons, I say! :-)
I completely agree about the sheep. There's no substitute for smart placement and this is a big part of why tanking is fun. Even though I'm the MT, I often choose to take on the OT role whenever it involves a lot of movement, kiting, etc., because I find it more fun and challenging than simply holding one guy in place for the whole fight.
I just think it would be more interesting if Blizzard actually gave us a good use for BS instead of relegating it to the dung heap. Using the right tool in the right situation is fun and I think the current design is wasting a great opportunity to create more fun in this regard. That's all.
If we had been using the 4.0.1 design for HS back when ICC was still new, a few of the fights would have presented issues for HS. For example, even though it's now possible to simply zerg Saurfang, back in the days before the 30% buff it was necessary to avoid cleaves hitting the Blood Beasts. Might still be necessary on hardmode I guess, but I can't say since I haven't tried it.
Not much you can do to alter placement in a case like that, is there? I think it's a fun fight and I'd hate to think that Blizzard will have to either avoid creating any more fights like that or force us to use a limp noodle just to avoid cleaves, which would be really irritating.
It's not easy to find because it's posted under devomorph.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QHP5rbOqbI
IMO, the biggest Death Strike change is that it now heals you regardless of any diseases you have on the target.
Previously:
Now:heals the Death Knight for 5% of his maximum health for each of his diseases on the target.
This is really huge, because the times you need the healing most are the times you can't waste U+F runes and GCDs on making sure the diseases are up. It means that when you have new adds joining a fight, you want to spread diseases for damage and debuffs, but if your health is dipping dangerously, you can use death strike immediately.healing you for 30% of the damage you have sustained during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 10% of your maximum health).
I think this should be added to the summary of differences.
The problem with DS comes when runes are converted to death runes (mostly used for HS). Incoming damage spikes are somewhat random, rune regeneration is generally slow, so that 5 second window to squeeze a DS in at the right time looks quite harsh compared to getting overall 30% melee damage reduction with the right amount of mastery. Please note this is not a veiled attempt to QQ, I just find that the mechanics in question puts an excessive burden on the tank.
Maybe we would need smart addons that measure incoming damage in the last 5 seconds to time DS? I still play in a world where total rune blackouts happen often and RS refuses to proc so I have to fall back to DC.
I wouldn't have believed this a few weeks ago but when I tanked a bit on my warrior it felt a lot smoother and more streamlined. (Regardless of the threat issues I had. :])
Moving on, I wouldn't mind BB lighting up when it is free. On a warrior Execute does when the mob is under 20%, and it's neither a proc nor something unpredictable.
I think idea is to save FU for just it+ps that way you have one FU @ all times for DS. The main dps for threat should be Heart or BB/Runestrike or DC when you can.
And I agree, I'm sure there will be addons that popup for free BB, RS. But for DS I think you just have to watch your health, be nice if a little countdown bar popped up for a given threshold of damage taken.
I'd like to get some more opinions on 3pts in blood-caked strike vs 3 points in epidemic. I've ran with 2 almost identical specs with the only difference being those 3 points. Here are http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jchr0sbrusdZM . On quick heroics I don't notice any difference, but this isn't my area of concern. My thinking is that on a raid boss using epidemic will allow you to get in more HS or DS between disease refreshes. So my question to a better theorycrafter than I is, Which gives more aggro/ damage done, the extra HS and DS for the 12 extra seconds with epidemic or the blood-caked strikes?
Does Pestilence reset the duration of diseases on the target automatically now?
No.. and no glyph for it either.
Hi,
I want to add another angle of view on the blood shield vs. avoidance matter:
1. In any dungeon/raid situation a tank will have his (dedicated) healers. They can easily produce constant hps. Having a tank with random heavy dmg spikes makes healing more difficult. -> A healer will prefer a slightly higher incoming constant dps on the tank over less incoming dps with huge spikes.
2. I totally agree with your approach to compare average incoming dps scenarios to get a feeling how the different options perform "absolute". It needs to be done.
3. Avoidance is not controllable. When it procs, the tank avoids the incoming dmg completely. When it doesn't, the tank is hit by the full amount of dmg.
4. Blood shield is controllable to some degree depending on free runes. It is possible to use DS in a regular way, that every blood shield is used and none is wasted (as you pointed out, this depends on the skill of the player).
5. Blood shield reduces the variance of incoming dps and incoming dps (less than avoidance). Avoidance reduces incoming dps, but does not affect the variance.
What do you think? Pls correct me, if I am wrong somewhere.
Btw, I want to thank you for your great guides!
Rev
He has a point. If Blizzard continues to make unavoidable attacks (and we know they probably will, as it'd make some encounters unbalanced if you could dodge major attacks), Blood Shield will come in handy. It does only stop physical strikes, though, so that could make DKs hurt against magical bosses, depending how they flag the damage.
I still don't see how Blizzard is going to balance DKs to take more damage. I guess they could remove avoidance, but the intelligent use of healing seems like SUCH a better draw, assuming a good player. That said, I don't know how many people have tested this.
I was curious what about a dual wielding DK Tank. 31/3/2, Using blood caked blades and nerves of cold steel as a base for threat. This is a great way to stack avoidance since there are no 2h tanking weapons. However with 2 1h tanking weapons you are hitting twice as fast with BCB on both weapons. What are your guys thoughts?
DW tanking is dead. You can technically DW but you'll be lacking threat since you won't be able to reach http://www.wowhead.com/spell=66192 which pre-patch was absolutely vital to keeping threat. 2H is the only way to be viable in a raid and keep threat.
im looking for a macro that will use Rune Strike as a priority but if its not available use DC. any ideas how that macro would look?
CD 1,5 minDancing Rune Weapon = what was formerly a DPS-oriented ability at our 51-point talent, with very late expansion tanking applications in WotLK, is now a cool new tank tool. DRW now offers 20% Parry in addition to a 50% mirror to our damage while it is active for 12 sec on a 1 min CD. With the matching glyph, this also will boost our threat by 50%. The spell still costs 60 RP which can be a bit steep (compared to three RS, each of which has a chance to regenerate runes), but it is definitely a fun tool in the arsenal. For more math on the breakdown, see the Advanced Skills and Concepts section below *still coming soon*.
To be clear, we are balanced to take *slightly* more damage and make or break the counter-balance with self-healing. Translating from Blue, that means if you do not heal yourself (go ahead, try not hitting DS, I dare you) you will take more damage than other tanks. If you do make use of your self-healing you may appear to take less (as far as the healers are concerned you *are* taking less, they do not have to heal you more).
This is *not* to balance against our CDs, and to be fair, we don't actually have far more CDs in overall effect than other tanks. Consider:
Basic Protection = IBF (DK), Shield Wall (Warr), Divine Protection (Pally), Barkskin (Bear)
Health/Healing Bump = Vamp Blood (DK), Last Stand (Warr), ~Ardent Defender (Pally), Survival Instincts (Bear)
General/Special Self-Heal = Death Strike (DK), Blood Craze/Victory Rush (Warr), Word of Glory (Pally), Leader of the Pack (Bear)
Major Self-Heal = Rune Tap (DK), Enraged Regen (Warr), Lay on Hands (Pally), Frenzied Regen (Bear)
*Note: just because I list them together does NOT mean they are balanced to match each other, they're just some what analogous in capacity offered.
DKs also get Bone Shield, AMS, and DRW.
Warriors also get Spell Reflect, Shield Block,Vigilance, and Intervene.
Pallies also get Divine Guardian, Hand of Protection, Hand of Sacrifice, etc.
Bears get less survival buttons to press.
Everyone gets fundamental coverage of key sorts of abilities, and extra tools that make them distinct and different.There are always ways around. =) In my group we stunned the beasts and so even the tanks were helping to take them down. The only real risk on threat against DPS focus was if the tanks actually focused. Mostly we were cautious just to cleave (HS was golden) and watch our threat. Over the time of the stun it was easy to do that. Pallies may have had to be more careful since they could off-target heavily and passively, but you can work around that as well, like leaving off Conscrate for a spell wouldn't kill you. =)
There are *always* creative solutions, not that there is anything wrong with using BS, I just wouldn't extend that to mean that Blizz should fix it so BS is an appealing choice as well, and I want to be sure that people understand that it is not currently designed to be the single target counterpart to HS.
Note here that the balance in the design does not put the burden on the tank. If you use the ability well you benefit, if your timing isn't perfect, that is closer to where the balance is aimed at.
In short, if you play poorly you will suffer a little. If you play very well you can benefit above the aimed balance. If you are just unlucky, you probably won't really suffer.
There are addon developers working on this right now. =)
And avoidance is delicious.
Would not be bad, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did, eventually. Mind you that a lot of this stuff is still being cleaned up and the shiny, interactive UI is actually quite new to implementation on player clients, even on the beta. It'll take time for them to round it all out.
Heroics right now will be a totally different game from raids or even instances above 80. Heroic stuff is dying so fast it can test the value even of applying diseases...
My first instinct, though without doing the math yet, is that Epidemic's value will surpass BCB on any fight where the fight will last more than 30 sec. The increased window is not as easy to measure as added damage to auto-attacks, but it is definitely there.
Nope
In theory that sounds right, but in practice neither produces "huge dmg spikes." This is one of the major faulty perceptive issues with avoidance. People think that it actually produces such spikes. In reality it simply spaces the normal damage incidence out. Blood Shield by comparison softens those hits nearly imperceptibly.
Though it has its own weaknesses which are the same reasons why there is no good way to really evaluate the distinction between avoidance and other mechanics. Avoidance can have a wide distribution of effect in localized situations (more or less than the average expectation). The classic fault here, though, is assuming that if you cannot predict which side, above or below, you will stand on, that it is always better to take an inferior overall average value just because it is predictable.
See previous.
Quite the contrary. Avoidance reduces the *incidence* of hits. Blood Shield softens the *size* of hits. But I would contend that as imperceptible as the effect of either will be without huge swings in % value, the value of Blood Shield will still be smaller even between the two.
The trick is to measure the incidence of unavoidable damage that *is* soaked by Blood Shield. It is entirely possible that it will make up the difference, but not in every fight, and I'd go so far as to say maybe not in most fights.
I would expect the likelihood to be a dialing back of armor value relatively. That means that a shield would offer slightly more armor than the Blood Pres armor bonus. A small change, and not to our values, *and* easy to miss, but it would easily dial up our damage taken slightly. Don't expect the difference to be huge and obvious, doubly so since they designed that to be actual damage taken, not *apparent* damage taken, which is what DS significantly blunts.
You can just make a macro that says:
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Death Coil
And it will always try to cast RS first and give an error message saying there is not enough RP or "another action is in progress," unless you look up the suppress error script which I am forgetting. *Personally* I'd favor pressing the moves smartly since it will benefit you more as a player to get used making that discernment.
Unless there was a stealth change in the hotfix over the weekend, that is a carryover typo on WoWhead. The cooldown was reduced on the beta, and last I checked, carried to live.
The (Old) Book on Death Knight Tanking
The New Testament on Death Knight Tanking
-----------------------------------------
The short answer?I was curious what about a dual wielding DK Tank. 31/3/2, Using blood caked blades and nerves of cold steel as a base for threat. This is a great way to stack avoidance since there are no 2h tanking weapons. However with 2 1h tanking weapons you are hitting twice as fast with BCB on both weapons. What are your guys thoughts?
You will lost 25-30% of your threat capacity with slow weapons, more if you use two tank weapons which will also lose a small margin of health, but gain a small margin of avoidance.
It is not really worth doing for any other merit than being different or enjoying doing something silly and awesome like tanking with two weapons. =)
The (Old) Book on Death Knight Tanking
The New Testament on Death Knight Tanking
-----------------------------------------
Some DW animations look pretty awesome, but it's not really...working. Just use your two-hand, maybe Blizzard will toss something in the top tier of Blood that's similar to Threat of Thalrissian. They kept the 1-H enchants, so it doesn't strike me as that bad of an idea.
The only place where I use bloodstrike is when I'm tanking Keleseth in the Blood Princes fight. Killing of shadow orbs with cleaves is not a good idea.
I'm not holding my breath. They took the initiative not to, so I wouldn't expect that major an about-face until at least a major patch or more down the road (i.e. 4.1, 4.2 or later). I think they're happy with DK tanks favoring 2-handers.
If for some reason they float in front of you, take a few steps away and run back in, voila! Orbs behind you. =) HS will not cleave a target behind you. (I had the same consideration.)
The (Old) Book on Death Knight Tanking
The New Testament on Death Knight Tanking
-----------------------------------------
Been Reading this thread over and over for a few days, great guide, thank you! But no matter what I try (and i'm pretty sure my rotation is working well, and my stats are properly reforged) I lose aggro to these new OP dps classes. On group pulls when one mob takes off and I turn to taunt it, another goes in the opposite direction! This is on predictable pulls in 5man heroics. But I found last night that if I attempt an UNPREDICTABLE pull (like 2 seperate mobs in HoL where tanks usually pull just one mob at a time), throwing the dps off thier game for a few extra seconds I end up having no aggro issues at all despite the larger number of mobs. So what i'm thinking is perhaps a huge change to threat has been that the DPS needs to give us MORE time to establish aggro. Coming from DW frost tanking before the patch, where glyphed HB established major threat right off the bat and rarely having had threat issues, it seems that our opening attacks as blood do not generate the threat I am used to and therefore I have a hard time holding.
My main is a hunter, and I have made it a point to give the tank more time to get aggro, which equals less pulls off the tank, whereas the other DPS will just fire off as soon as the tank goes in and I watch mobs head straight for them, so i'm pretty sure this is a serious issue. Can anyone else confirm that we need more time before the DPS unleashes? Granted i'm still learning to tank as Blood, but would it be unfounded to simply ask the DPS to give us say a 5 count before they let loose? Are the DPS not giving us a chance, or am I really just that bad at blood? lol
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