[Guide] Active Mitigation Hipsters - 5.4 DK Tanking

[Reniat]

his gear and talents are not really "wrong". There is a a bit of room for more mastery from reforging (chest) and I don't agree with the pure stam gem in his chest, but 1 stam gem is definitely not going to lead to the issues you're describing. The only thing I could say based on his armory is pick up Purgatory. If he's coming close to death or dying, that 2nd chance might turn a wipe into a kill. Now, that's only something to lessen the chance of a wipe, not a solution to the problem. I'm willing to bet large sums of money it's just how is he using Death Strike and how he is using his CDs. Unfortunately without logs I can't effectively diagnose either of those things. The sooner you can get some logs the faster we can give you more precise help.

without log data, the only thing I can really recommend is find out when he is using CDs and make sure he is using them when it's best to do so. For example, make sure he is using CDs when the adds get Quickening on the Wind Lord encounter and make sure he is chaining CDs when he has three adds on him during ph2 of Shek'zeer, as those are the most likely places where he will get wrecked. For Sha he probably isn't saving his Death Strike for thrash. Just have him put at least 1 death strike (preferably two) before each thrash, and have a cooldown up if that doesn't happen.

[Deleted]

As stated he's definitely not using death strike/cds properly, for sha normal my dk can pretty much tank it without any actual heals (just the smart aoe healing flying around), and my gear isn't that much better than his. Just have him read this or EJ's (http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t130560-...e_before_cool/ ) guide, specifically the parts about death strike usage. Apart from getting purgatory I'd also recommend that he removes the icebound fortitude glyph (especially if he's already struggling to use his cds well).

[Syri277]

Hello,
thanks for the great guide! i have a question though. i have read your ideas about hit/exp vs avoidance and i think ill reforge out of hit/exp into avoidance now since hit/exp doesn't give me any survivability (or so i understand).
my question is how low am i allowed to go in hit/exp? my dk is only 477ilvl (link to armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/character/auchindoun/Safad/) and im gonna start on hof and terrace normal, my main concern is survival, so is there a breaking point if i go under in Hit/Exp ill start losing survivability?
thank you.

[Deleted]

Nope. The only survivability you actually get from hit is scent of blood stacks (+outbreak), this is so minor that parry/dodge always will be far superior for survivability purposes. Excluding your gems (exp+hit) your gearing looks consistent and good, I would advice you to spec out of RE though (it's a quite big survivability loss compared to RC and especially blood tap).

[Syri277]

thanks for your response!
i forgot about the exp/hit gems, gonna replace them asap (i equipped them when i was trying to cap exp/hit xD), also i respeced out of RE (chose RC for now since i don't want an extra button right now since i'm new to this^^).

[Reniat]

The only reason you should ever go for hit/exp is for DPS. now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever get them. If your raid's dps is low and your survivability is fine, adding a bit of hit/exp is a good way of helping the raid's weakest point. There is nothing wrong with ignoring them altogether either. the value of them changes on your raid, its size, its dps, and your healers. Like Cookie said, RE is never a great option unless you are simply trying to rank and are going for the most throughput. RC is a fine option, though i'd recommend going to BT for Blade Lord and Sha of Fear.

How to use BT on those fights:
with BT you are going to sit on resources a bit until you need them. Get at least 10 charges of blood tap before Overwhelming assault (balde lord) or thrash (sha) and then dump all your FU runes for 1-2 death strikes then use BTx2 to get an extra DS. Theres more room to optimize on sha, but it won't matter for normal mode. Just make sure there is at least 1-2 death strikes before each thrash.

BT is off the gcd, so you can make a macro like this:
/cast Blood Tap
/cast Blood Tap
which will do BTx2 on one button push

[Deleted]

Haven't even thought about making a macro like that, really handy, thanks (though I lose another excuse for playing wow with 300 apm:P)! Just read on EJ (haven't actually tried that, but it does make sense) that blood worms are affected by your hit/exp, this isn't really relevant right now but might be something to keep in mind once 5.2 hits (hardly enough to make hit anywhere close to avoidance stats, but another tiny bonus).

[Dracodraco]

The only reason you should ever go for hit/exp is for DPS. now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever get them. If your raid's dps is low and your survivability is fine, adding a bit of hit/exp is a good way of helping the raid's weakest point. There is nothing wrong with ignoring them altogether either. the value of them changes on your raid, its size, its dps, and your healers. Like Cookie said, RE is never a great option unless you are simply trying to rank and are going for the most throughput. RC is a fine option, though i'd recommend going to BT for Blade Lord and Sha of Fear.

How to use BT on those fights:
with BT you are going to sit on resources a bit until you need them. Get at least 10 charges of blood tap before Overwhelming assault (balde lord) or thrash (sha) and then dump all your FU runes for 1-2 death strikes then use BTx2 to get an extra DS. Theres more room to optimize on sha, but it won't matter for normal mode. Just make sure there is at least 1-2 death strikes before each thrash.

BT is off the gcd, so you can make a macro like this:
/cast Blood Tap
/cast Blood Tap
which will do BTx2 on one button push

Do remember that hit+expertise caps will help a great deal for SoB stacks, giving your DS a higher average healing amount, leading to more runic power, leading to more runes and death strikes. It's not stronger than mastery for avoidance, but on the other hand, it does serve its purpose as a "defensive" stat. And it's far superior on fights with heavy amounts of magic damage like Lei Shi, because blood shield is useless on that fight, along with being great for fights where you have tank switches, as it allows you to more easily build a fuill blood shield while not taking damage.

[Reniat]

Do remember that hit+expertise caps will help a great deal for SoB stacks, giving your DS a higher average healing amount, leading to more runic power, leading to more runes and death strikes. It's not stronger than mastery for avoidance, but on the other hand, it does serve its purpose as a "defensive" stat. And it's far superior on fights with heavy amounts of magic damage like Lei Shi, because blood shield is useless on that fight, along with being great for fights where you have tank switches, as it allows you to more easily build a fuill blood shield while not taking damage.

Just because you never want to use hit/exp as a priority for defense, doesn't mean they don't have value as a defensive stat. The reason you don't use them defensively is because there are better stats to prioritize strictly for defense. As far as hit/exp being superior for magic fights, take another look at stamina and haste. If blood shield is truly useless, then SoB loses a lot of it's value as well. Haste on the other hand, will increase the rate you can heal yourself with DS. Mastery may not mean anything, but your raw heal from DS still scales with magic damage making haste just a proportionally potent as it was when compared to all the other stats for defense, which sets it apart when all other stats stop being valuable or have some of their value stripped (like SoB and your shield).

As far as the tank swap thing goes, there are no fights this tier that involve a tank swap so quick that you need more hit/exp to build a full shield. It should only take ~20-25 seconds to build up a shield from nothing with no dmg taken at all going into it, when in reality you will usually be able to land a DS right as you are done tanking, using some of the dmg you took in the past 5 seconds to give you a good head start into the full shield.

[Vorret]

Our guild will be trying our first raid tonight, starting with Stone Guard, here's my armory :

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...drick/advanced

Anything I should fix/change?
Any pointers that will help me do as good as possible on that fight?

Thanks

[Deleted]

I just looked through your armory quickly but here are a few things I noticed: Enchant your legs. Get two glyphs (I'd suggest ams and vb for stone guards). I'd get lichborne/purgatory over amz for stone guards. Reforge your waist to mastery. At your gear level I'd value defensive stats over hit/exp, so I'd reforge away into avoidance stats on your back and wep.

Tanking stone guards is pretty much just taunting properly, there are a few different strats to this. We prefer to have the other tank keep the dog with the highest energy (that isn't overloading) while I take the two others, after the overload is done I'm ready to instantly take his dog if it's the one that overloads (and he takes the one that I had that didn't overload), otherwise there's no need to change them.

To illustrate. Jasper is overloading. I have jasper+cobalt, our other tank has jade. After jasper overloads either cobalt or jade overloads. If cobalt overloads we do nothing, if jade overloads I taunt jade and he taunts cobalt.

Remember that you can break cobalt mines with your ams, and during cobalt overloads.

[Vorret]

I just looked through your armory quickly but here are a few things I noticed: Enchant your legs. Get two glyphs (I'd suggest ams and vb for stone guards). I'd get lichborne/purgatory over amz for stone guards. Reforge your waist to mastery. At your gear level I'd value defensive stats over hit/exp, so I'd reforge away into avoidance stats on your back and wep.

Tanking stone guards is pretty much just taunting properly, there are a few different strats to this. We prefer to have the other tank keep the dog with the highest energy (that isn't overloading) while I take the two others, after the overload is done I'm ready to instantly take his dog if it's the one that overloads (and he takes the one that I had that didn't overload), otherwise there's no need to change them.

To illustrate. Jasper is overloading. I have jasper+cobalt, our other tank has jade. After jasper overloads either cobalt or jade overloads. If cobalt overloads we do nothing, if jade overloads I taunt jade and he taunts cobalt.

Remember that you can break cobalt mines with your ams, and during cobalt overloads.

Thanks!
Will fix it when I get home tonight !

Only reason I didn't enchant my leg is they're dps pants and the enchant cost over 1.5k gold...

[Deleted]

Thanks!
Will fix it when I get home tonight !

Only reason I didn't enchant my leg is they're dps pants and the enchant cost over 1.5k gold...

You're welcome.

There's a cheaper version if you don't want to pay that, you lose a lot of stats not having any leg enchant.

[Dracodraco]

Just because you never want to use hit/exp as a priority for defense, doesn't mean they don't have value as a defensive stat. The reason you don't use them defensively is because there are better stats to prioritize strictly for defense. As far as hit/exp being superior for magic fights, take another look at stamina and haste. If blood shield is truly useless, then SoB loses a lot of it's value as well. Haste on the other hand, will increase the rate you can heal yourself with DS. Mastery may not mean anything, but your raw heal from DS still scales with magic damage making haste just a proportionally potent as it was when compared to all the other stats for defense, which sets it apart when all other stats stop being valuable or have some of their value stripped (like SoB and your shield).

As far as the tank swap thing goes, there are no fights this tier that involve a tank swap so quick that you need more hit/exp to build a full shield. It should only take ~20-25 seconds to build up a shield from nothing with no dmg taken at all going into it, when in reality you will usually be able to land a DS right as you are done tanking, using some of the dmg you took in the past 5 seconds to give you a good head start into the full shield.

Haven't run the numbers for hit/expertise vs haste, but I do recall that haste was approx 40% as strong as mastery (assuming no overhealing, and before considering haste's diminishing returns). SoB scales just as well with damage taken as haste does, because it's a 20% increase per stack. Regardless, if you've got numbers for haste vs hit/expertise, I'd be very interested in seeing them, can't wrap my head around calculating SoB stacks with a napkin. Only dabble with my DK as a LFR alt, plenty of tanks to go around and not enough healers and I happen to have two of those, so I don't usually get to tank much, and am by no means an expert. It just seems like Hit/Expertise is worth getting regardless of them being slightly weaker than mastery and avoidance, for the SoB benefits and DPS benefits mostly.

Encounters where you could build up the shield and need to do it very quickly would include sha of fear for thrash, bladelord after a tempest (usually does his strike right after, being able to do 2x DS with one being SoB buffed before will negate much of that damage), general empress mitigation (fields will eat the shield), Tsulong heroic (taunt every 20 seconds or so for breaths and stack resets) and Will of the emperor (can build a full shield during the dance).
It's still true that you'd probably have enough time to do it anyway, but you also have to consider that in one scenario, if your DS heals for 20% more on average, you'll have to use 20% less death strikes to build the shield, giving you more runes to maintain the shield after you've taunted, surely?

[Reniat]

Encounters where you could build up the shield and need to do it very quickly would include sha of fear for thrash, bladelord after a tempest (usually does his strike right after, being able to do 2x DS with one being SoB buffed before will negate much of that damage), general empress mitigation (fields will eat the shield), Tsulong heroic (taunt every 20 seconds or so for breaths and stack resets) and Will of the emperor (can build a full shield during the dance).
It's still true that you'd probably have enough time to do it anyway, but you also have to consider that in one scenario, if your DS heals for 20% more on average, you'll have to use 20% less death strikes to build the shield, giving you more runes to maintain the shield after you've taunted, surely?

For sha you want a shield quickly, but avoiding parts of thrash/dread thrash is pretty valuable as well. This is why BT is so important for this fight, as it allows you to place at least 2 DS before each trash consistently.

For bladelord you can easily keep your shield up through blade tempest. Simply palce a DS right as he starts it as youre running away, and then run in just before your shield drops. even if you run in too early and take a tick of dmg, you will still have plenty of shield remaining.

You can use VB to help with fields if they are an issue. I generally haven't found field explosions to be an issue on any difficulty of empress, but I can see how it could if your healers were behind on tank healing.

On tsulong it's not hard to get a full shield in 20 seconds. even if you don't, the tank dmg is relatively light, and VB + ams makes the breath absolutely trivial.

if your DS heals for 20% more on average

I think this is where you are getting tripped up. it's not a 20% increase to your shields on average. getting more accuracy increases your CHANCE at NOT losing a stack, or 20%. on average, euliat simmed it to be about a 2% mitigation gain, without factoring in the avoidance lost. Just like avoidance, hit/exp is rng based. You may get the benefit, or you may not. It's fully possible to not lose a single stack with 0% hit/exp, and in fact fairly likely.

[Cops]

Reading your guide you make many valid points, but you really should touch on the value of haste once you become more geared as a Blood Death Knight. As your mastery becomes better and better; haste becomes a better stat. If you need clarification or wish to discuss the topic you can contact me in-game: Itsthecops on Mal'ganis.

[Reniat]

RAs your mastery becomes better and better; haste becomes a better stat.

Both mastery and haste scale fairly linearly until you either reach a mastery level where you are capping shields with a single death strike or you reach a haste level where you can apply a new shield with ~2 seconds of the previous shield falling off (not counting situations where you've built up a shield. This would require an unreachable amount of haste). There is some double dipping in haste benefit from more mastery in that the extra SoB procs you get will be worth more, but it's not nearly enough to make it viable.

Haste simply doesn't scale well with blood. Frost likes it because haste massively devalues crit, as in you can think of haste as having a +crit component. Unholy likes haste because they get a +10% regen/speed modifier from unholy presence that makes the raw rune speed benefit scale much better. Blood has SoB procs, but the increased SoB speed from any attainable level of haste doesn't even come close to making haste viable. Not to mention hit/exp will do more for SoB than haste anyway.

Just to show you what i mean, I quick did a reforge into the build you propose (we have similar gear. 511 vs 508) and I got a whopping 4.8% reduction in regen time. That's not fast enough to save you in a DS gap, and it's not enough to outweigh the loss of avoidance in terms of TDR, meaning it doesn't have stability or long term mitigation value over the other options (avoidance/accuracy).

There is one place you would use haste, and honestly this is what I thought you were doing with a RE haste build: massive dps. By gaming RE for B runes and stacking hit/exp and haste you can do ridiculous amounts of dps. Now, this would be horrible for survivability so it's a farm-only kinda deal. Outside of that, both RE and haste don't really work for progression blood tanking.

TL;DR
Haste gives less dps than accuracy and less mitigation than avoidance, so outside of rare circumstances (lei shi or farm content dps) you wouldn't want to put it ahead of either of those stats.

If you think i've overlooked something, my realid is reniat#1320


Also, how are you guys feeling for 5.2? I'd like to see more US guilds in the top 20 and there are only 4 there right now with the evodus merger, so get on it!

[Nillo]

There is some double dipping in haste benefit from more mastery in that the extra SoB procs you get will be worth more, but it's not nearly enough to make it viable.

That's not double dipping mate....

[Reniat]

That's not double dipping mate....

benefit 1: faster rune regen means more death strike, whose value is increased by mastery

benefit 2: increased haste gives faster SoB procs, whose value is increased by mastery

that's a double dip of rocky road my fine french vanilla friend.

[Nillo]

benefit 1: faster rune regen means more death strike, whose value is increased by mastery

benefit 2: increased haste gives faster SoB procs, whose value is increased by mastery

that's a double dip of rocky road my fine french vanilla friend.

SoB procs increase at about the same rate as the number of DS do => you just get more DS with about the SAME amount of SoB for each. Double dipping would be if you get more SoB per DS which is clearly not the case (unless you run into overcapping issues with haste in which case haste loses value rather than gaining it)

Want an example of real double dipping?
Righteous Vengeance with 2pc t9 at Twins in ToC:
Crit increases the chance to get RV
Twins buff increases crit damage
Crit then increases the damage of RV
Twins buff increaes RV damage.

That was double (or even triple dipping)
(1+x)*(1+x) not (1+x) * (1+a)