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  1. #1

    Blood DK question(s) PVE

    At 487 iLvl at the moment, but progressing slowly in normal mode HoF. My guild wont be downing normal Sha in a while, so the normal axe is out of the question. I tried to go back like 20 pages to find an answer, but seems that the weapons have only been discussed for DPS and not tanking.

    That said, for a DK tank is it better to have Normal Starshatter or LFR Shin Ka? Shinka comes with shedloads of mastery and with gem it's str rating is good also. The DPS shouldn't matter that much right? I have the normal starshatter atm. and thinking about should I upgrade it, or wait for Shin ka to drop, cause it has to drop some day right?

    There's also two schools on the subject I know, but vampiric blood usage is still a mystery to me somewhat. I use it glyphed and on CD on most fights to help healers, but I was wondering if I could get more use of it without glyphing? Atleast now, when my guild is having trouble with normal Wind Lord (the tornado alley phase is just not going weel) the unglyphed VB might actually be better? Also conversion feels like the right way to go as a self heal, since I can stack 100 RP and just pop conversion when I have to dodge the whirlwinds. And when I get to boss, again stack 100 RP to pop it when he moves to the other end?

    Long time lurker, almost the first time poster so bare with me! Still learning this class!

  2. #2
    The Lightbringer Zethras's Avatar
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    LFR Shin'ka is better because of the mastery and the Sha Gem socket.

    On Vampiric blood, 40% extra healing taken is far superior to having a slightly larger health pool and less healing taken.

    On conversion, 99% of people will agree with me that Death Pact is the superior talent, because when you pair it with vampiric blood, you basically have a lay on hands every 2 minutes.

    The conversion heal is really quite minuscule, and while it does somewhat work during Blade Lord Ta'yaks tornado phase, due to lack of being able to death strike, the sheer amount of instant healing death pact gives just trumps it, and outside of that 1 phase of 1 fight, conversion is truly a useless talent for blood.
    Last edited by Zethras; 2013-01-23 at 07:14 PM.
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  3. #3
    weapon:
    DPS does matter, but it's not your top priority. For survivability LFR shinka would be better than normal starshatter, but for DPS it's the other way around. You can use either, depending what you feel you need the most. For example, if you are never dying and are completely stable and easy to heal but your raids dps is low, then it would be a good idea to consider going for the DPS of starshatter. If you are not completely easy to heal, then don't make survivability -> dps transitions.

    Vampiric Blood:
    I think you are talking about Blade Lord Ta'yak, not Wind Lord Mel'Jarak. Wind lord doesn't have a tornado alley phase

    Anyway, I do recommend leaving VB unglyphed for that fight, since the only thing the tanks really need to worry about is the Overwhelming Assault and the EH (health boost) from VB is worth more than the extra healing from the glyph.
    also using conversion like that is fine, just don't use it while tanking. You can't gain rp from SoB while it's active, so it's not ideal to use if you are meleeing something. Death Pact will probably be a better choice, but if you plan your death strikes right you really don't need it.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Troolari View Post
    There's also two schools on the subject I know, but vampiric blood usage is still a mystery to me somewhat. I use it glyphed and on CD on most fights to help healers, but I was wondering if I could get more use of it without glyphing
    I'd day unglyphed. The major threat in this fight while tanking, is to get killed by the overwhelming assault (which hits very hard when you already have a debuff). Having lots of health helps with that even if that's temporary, as long as you time it right.

  5. #5
    Thanks for the replies all! I will try the VB unglyphed the next time were there, since even with 650k EH raidbuffed I sometimes die to assault + instantly striking melee. So the more EH might help there, when I don't have IB up.

    Conversion feels underrated, but maybe it's just me! Just that its a heal I can use in the tornado phase always, but the Death Pact needs to have the ghoul up, so I can't use it both times I run. And it's the tornado phase that keeps wiping us Maybe I am wrong in that regard too, gotta try the DP next time were there.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Troolari View Post
    Thanks for the replies all! I will try the VB unglyphed the next time were there, since even with 650k EH raidbuffed I sometimes die to assault + instantly striking melee. So the more EH might help there, when I don't have IB up.

    Conversion feels underrated, but maybe it's just me! Just that its a heal I can use in the tornado phase always, but the Death Pact needs to have the ghoul up, so I can't use it both times I run. And it's the tornado phase that keeps wiping us Maybe I am wrong in that regard too, gotta try the DP next time were there.
    #showtooltip Death Pact
    /cast Raise Dead
    /cast Death Pact
    That macro will help you out to heal yourself with Death Pact the instant you use it, no need to worry about if the ghoul is out or not.

    And I think in general I prefer VB unglyphed, glyphed only really shines in 25 man when you have a lot more healers watching you.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Hellkung View Post
    glyphed only really shines in 25 man when you have a lot more healers watching you.
    Tank dmg is also higher in 25m, making the EH from unglyphed VB also more useful. It comes down to the fight regardless of size.

  8. #8
    Actually, if you want to hold on on your 500 str gem for the normal mode Shin'Ka; the polearm from 4-kings is pretty damn good. I used it till I got my Shin'Ka.

  9. #9
    If you can get it, the polearm from kings is pretty epic for tanking.
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  10. #10
    Deleted
    The matter regarding your choice of weapon was already cleared up quite correctly by Reniat. If your doing 10m normal with an Ilvl of 487 you shouldn't be having any survival problems at all though. 10m normal damage is ridiculously low, so you should consider going with Sharshatter and obviously you should be using Fallen Crusader.

    The way conversion works sucks. The heal is slow und you waste a lot of RP, RP equals rune procs and rune procs result in more death strikes. Even on Tayak HC you don't need heal at all when changing sides, you can even use LB/DC heal which is even stronger dann DP if you find it necessary.

    And as for Glyphing VP, generelly speaking it can only outdo the unglyphed version in a fight without tank switches, burst magic damage and without burst special hits. In other words a boss without dangerous specials. This is simply because your min DS heal is higher with the unglyphed version. Also, bosses that require tank switches allow you to stack a BS higher than your max. Life by use of VP and of course it allows you to absorb more dmg when lined up with AMS.

    And as already mentioned above, the same applies to physical based burst damage. A good example would be Empress HC. When tanking the windblades 15% more life might save your life when used at the right moment, whereas 40% more heal aint do shit. Healers gotta flash you, the only instance of death would be a spike that kills you within one GCD. Another example would be Sha, glyphed VP is utterly useless when soaking dread thrashes.

    In short: theres no boss that justifies the use of glyphed VP in this particular content.

  11. #11
    The Patient
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    I'm confused. We never have to eat a second overwhelming strike when we do Bladelord

    Ontopic of glyphed VB, Using it to boost AMS or boosting shields while off-tanking is just a waste of a good cooldown. There's few things that can even break AMS without VB, and blowing 2 CD's for one special hit is silly. Nor is relying on boosted min DS's any worth while, it just means you's spamming them instead of actually putting the damage taken effect to good use.

    Unglyphed is decent for known burst, and there's not really alot of it during this tier, one or two fights maybe. The fight so far I actaully found burst to suprise me was HC windlord, and that's just out of the blue random burst, not timed or anything.

    And either way, not looking forward going back to 1min VB's Q_Q

  12. #12
    You should get a second overwhelming strike 50% of the time in normal. But in heroic, you generally only take one due to the long duration on blade tempest.

    As to tornado alley, you can use death pact on the way down, and you should be taking the tram back with your raid on the way back.

  13. #13
    Once again, thank you! Been a great help all! Will spec out of conversion asap, since actually everyone seems to think its underpowered. It heals like 20+k per tick, so I thought it to be worth it, noobish mistake it seems. So I will try death pact next raid!


    Quote Originally Posted by Iso View Post
    I'm confused. We never have to eat a second overwhelming strike when we do Bladelord
    Let's continue with the offtopic then. Whaddya mean not two? I guess we are doing something fundamentally wrong, since we are always changing tanks when one has 2 stacks of overwhelming debuff. Might have to bring that up with the raidleader, if people genereally say you should be switching after each overwhelming! And remember, its only normal mode

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Troolari View Post
    Let's continue with the offtopic then. Whaddya mean not two? I guess we are doing something fundamentally wrong, since we are always changing tanks when one has 2 stacks of overwhelming debuff. Might have to bring that up with the raidleader, if people genereally say you should be switching after each overwhelming! And remember, its only normal mode
    He uses it more frequently on normal mode than on heroic mode => you only get 1 stack on heroic.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Zethras View Post
    On conversion, 99% of people will agree with me that Death Pact is the superior talent, because when you pair it with vampiric blood, you basically have a lay on hands every 2 minutes.
    is there macro to use summon ghoul>VB>DP in one button?
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by kittycovox View Post
    is there macro to use summon ghoul>VB>DP in one button?
    /cast Vampiric Blood
    /cast Raise Dead
    /cast Death Pact


    Something as easy as that should be enough. You can use "#showtooltip Death Pact" as the first line if you want to see on the icon when it's on cd and the tooltip for any reason.

    #showtooltip Death Pact
    /cast Vampiric Blood
    /cast Raise Dead
    /cast Death Pact
    Last edited by fassan; 2013-01-25 at 11:00 AM.

  17. #17
    pretty sure you'd need to change the order to vb => dp => ghoul and hit the macro twice.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    pretty sure you'd need to change the order to vb => dp => ghoul and hit the macro twice.
    And if the ghoul is not up ?

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    pretty sure you'd need to change the order to vb => dp => ghoul and hit the macro twice.
    Nah that macro works fine, no need to hit it twice. Only DP triggers gcd

  20. #20
    Thanks for the replies to all! First raid after this information and Blade Lord died in 3 attempts. Now off to Garalon which seems like a totally different business...

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