DK tanking - Active vs. Passive

[SSHA778]

Time it as in delay using your DS by ~2s.

Generally, when someone speaks about timing DS, it means timing it so that the hit that you want will count toward your DS. As in, Stomp's cast will finish in 2s, but I can use a DS now. Instead of using that DS now, I wait 2s for Stomp to hit my character (provided that I would live the hit without DS), and then I DS. If, however, Stomp would deal damage to me 5s from now, then I would use a DS now instead of waiting.

You can apply similar logic to large auto-attacks.

[Zao]

There's no black and white answer when timing your DS.
It's something that comes with experience. On most bosses you'll want to use it after you received two to three hits or if your second set is about to regenerate. That does however interfere with Runic empowerment. And as pointed out before, some bosses have abilities or times where they hit hard enough so it might be worthwhile to sit on your runes for a few seconds. Madness would be another such instance, where it's favorable to get one or two DS in right before the impale.

[ayashi]

On a fight like madness, avoidance does nothing to mitigate an impale, while blood shield just piles on the eh. While a normal tank will have 200k hp for an impale, thus requiring a shield wall for a single impale, a dk can have 300k (minimum), and up to 400k if you get lucky with damage before impale, meaning we can get by with just a bone shield/unglyphed vamp blood. I took 2 impales on every platform on my dk with no external cds pre-nerf, pretty sure no other class is capable of that.

Just on the 2 empales on every platform part:
A tankadin can do it too:
1: Dream -> Ardent defender
2: Kings -> Hand of protection (+taunt)
3: ardent defender -> Bubble (+taunt)
4: Kings -> Hand of protection (+taunt)
Actually i think it's doable on heroic too, since you still have divine protection (+20%) for every first empale.

Back on topic, i also find active mastery heavy spec the "better" choise out of the two, assuming at least decent player skill.
Stam heavy is fine for rerolls that you don't plan on taking much futher than lfr, or maybe a couple of 10m normal mode bosses.

[shockzine]

For stamina to increase your shields, you would have to be death striking for a minimum heal. Anything higher than minimum, and stam does less for your shields than mastery. For all intents and purposes, if you are "regularly" death striking for a minimum amount, you aren't doing content hard enough for it to matter.

sorry but you are wrong. Stamina increases BOTH your min and max blood shields... 7% of 100k hp is a 7k, 15% of 100k hp is 15k.... 7% of 200k hp is 14k, 15% of 200k hp is 30k. Personally I prefer a balance of stam and mastery. The more stam you have, the more each point of mastery is effected and vice verse. stam is nice for the big blows that mastery wont help you with, and allows you to build bigger reserves of BS in your downtime with weak DS... but even then... Always, I prefer mastery>avoidance. Only exception to that rule is fights like Halfus where avoidance = less healing debuff stacks, in which case... give it to the palis xD

[JackTheLad]

What your opinion about balance mixture (avoide+mastery+stamina)? I'm personally do it and i rarely get damage spikes. OFC i'm switching runeforging an trinkets/main weapon depends on the fight (pure stamina and mitigation/mastery for magic fights and avoidence for fights like Blackhorn).

[ayashi]

sorry but you are wrong. Stamina increases BOTH your min and max blood shields... 7% of 100k hp is a 7k, 15% of 100k hp is 15k.... 7% of 200k hp is 14k, 15% of 200k hp is 30k. [...]

you really should go back and read the spell tooltip again. Stam does nothing at all for BS over the minimum amount.

[eijin]

you really should go back and read the spell tooltip again. Stam does nothing at all for BS over the minimum amount.

-technically- the maximum blood shield is effected by sta, as higher max hp gives you a higher maximum blood shield. (as blood shield is capped at your max hp). only time this would really be a reason to value high HP for the reason of max blood shield, imo, is impale.

[Catokot]

sorry but you are wrong. Stamina increases BOTH your min and max blood shields... 7% of 100k hp is a 7k, 15% of 100k hp is 15k.... 7% of 200k hp is 14k, 15% of 200k hp is 30k. Personally I prefer a balance of stam and mastery. The more stam you have, the more each point of mastery is effected and vice verse. stam is nice for the big blows that mastery wont help you with, and allows you to build bigger reserves of BS in your downtime with weak DS... but even then... Always, I prefer mastery>avoidance. Only exception to that rule is fights like Halfus where avoidance = less healing debuff stacks, in which case... give it to the palis xD

What does 15% matter? As was stated, the only time it matters is if you are capping blood shield, which either means its a two tank fight or you're soulshifter vortex proc'd at a good time.

Thanks ayashi, forgot about paladin bubbles. Derp. Wouldn't ardent defender leave you fairly susceptible to the occasional insta-gib melee right after impale though?

[ayashi]

I stand corrected, technically stam does provide some very situational potential increase in BS max power.

I usualy follow up the ardent with a 3HoP WoG which gives me back anything from ~35 to 100k hp on top of the 15% left from the proc, and Holy shield so not really. Maybe in heroic mode that'd be tricky, but i'm thinking you'd always have at least one healer cd avaliable in that case.

[SSHA778]

Actually i think it's doable on heroic too, since you still have divine protection (+20%) for every first empale.

HoP doesn't work on heroic.

sorry but you are wrong. Stamina increases BOTH your min and max blood shields... 7% of 100k hp is a 7k, 15% of 100k hp is 15k.... 7% of 200k hp is 14k, 15% of 200k hp is 30k.

1. Where did the 15% come from?
2. How often do you even reach your max Blood Shield, anyway?
3. Now let me rephrase that question: how often do you even reach your max Blood Shield while actively tanking a mob?

You don't stack stamina because it has the potential to interact with Death Strike (because it usually doesn't). You stack stamina to live the hits that you are taking. If you can already live those hits, then you don't need more stamina.

What your opinion about balance mixture (avoide+mastery+stamina)? I'm personally do it and i rarely get damage spikes. OFC i'm switching runeforging an trinkets/main weapon depends on the fight (pure stamina and mitigation/mastery for magic fights and avoidence for fights like Blackhorn).

Mixed sims somewhere in the middle of high-mastery or high-avoidance.

I don't have any strong opinions about it. As long as your gear strongly favors mastery, dodge, and parry (in any ratio), it's rather hard to go wrong. The hands-down largest factor that affects survivability is how you play, not how you gear, as that can easily have the same impact as a rating difference of +/- 1500.

[MihmetCrido]

@flashur both.

I didn't have time to read everyones comments, but in general avoidance will be superior on a patchwork type boss in terms on how much damage was avoided.
However the issue with avoidance is the unpredictable nature of it which is why mastery is superior by a tiny bit. When you then add the bossfights mechanics which will allow you to avoid/reduce damage taken when it's more vital mastery becomes the way to go in DS on most fights. Also mastery will require you to be more active and have a better understanding of how to juggle runes/RP and when to use and not use DS. Avoidance still require you to do this but since you are not gearing towards
boosting this as much it's more forgivable in that sense. I don't know if you are talking about normal or heroics but up to 4-5/8hc IMO it rarely matters that much since the bosses are pretty simple but I would still say Active if you can handle DS/runes etc. I don't have how big the difference is between them but I wouldn't be surprised if isn't very small so unless you would have been really hardcore progression I don't think it would have made any difference.

Like some other have pointed out (SSHA778) you need to communicate with your healers, cus if they are used to healing tanks in one way it might still be easier for them to heal you if you are avoidance instead of mastery or vice versa.

On madness I was going avoidance before.
1: Dream+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
2: IBF+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
3: Army+DRW+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
4: IBF+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)

Requires no external cds however you need a shield thats around 60k which shouldn't be a problem.

I'm going mastery nowdays bec it's second nature to now when to stack a shield so it's up for impale
Same order but I have a bigger hp pool and around 200k+ shield so it's really simple. I rarely drop below 80% hp after a impale.

[Majesty]

I personally far favor mastery stacking as active mitigation gives you control over your own survivability (the better you play the bigger the impact you have on you performance), while an avoidance build is just rolling the dice and giving over to RNG.

I've never seen a top-level mitigation tank. Only mastery-stacking or stamina-stacking. I feel avoidance stacking is far sub-par for current heroic content, and the only two "viable" options are mastery stacking or stamina stacking.

[xtramuscle]

On madness I was going avoidance before.
1: Dream+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
2: IBF+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
3: Army+DRW+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)
4: IBF+BS+Dodge trinket+ Shield+VB(if needed)

Is impale avoidable? I was under the impression it could not be avoided, only soaked?

[MihmetCrido]

Is impale avoidable? I was under the impression it could not be avoided, only soaked?

No its not avoidable, but your avoidance makes army stronger

[xtramuscle]

No its not avoidable, but your avoidance makes army stronger

Yes I'm aware that DRW + (casting) army gives 50%+ reduced damage.. but if its not avoidable, why is that guy using a dodge trinket each time?

[SSHA778]

Because the melee hits before and after it are avoidable.

[Nillo]

Because the melee hits before and after it are avoidable.

Yup - especiallly the melee hits before the impale matter if you have Blood Shield pre-stacked. The ones after it don't matter as much because if you happen to drop low from impale t13 2p + WotN will take care of it.

[MihmetCrido]

By dodge trinket I meant the 378 dodge with on use absorbs damage, (52k max or w/e it is)
Edit: Stay of Execution, sorry I wasn't clear - posting a ton today so I thought I already had explained which trinket I meant

---------- Post added 2012-02-13 at 04:00 PM ----------

But with decent gear its easier to do it as mastery IMO cus with the innate large health pools and mastery the only "hard" part is making sure you have a large DS.

[Warhunt]

Have stopped raiding altogther since 4.2, so I've been doing nothing but the new 5 mans.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the passive build, as I'm focusing purely on staying on top of the DPS charts. It's just bloody good fun having healers laughing at the DPS when I do 30% of the damage.

Plus I sacrifice the avoidance/mastery for DPS stats (to a degree) to ensure the healer doesn't sit there bored. Overgeearing is my favourite part of a tier I've decided.

(Note: I'm not saying this is how the game should be played, or even that it's good for the game. Just that it is FUN)

[ananoon]

I find avoidance this tier to not be very helpful for me as a blood DK. I've main-tanked our 4 out of 5 of our first heroic progression kills on 10 man in almost all DPS gear except for my tank 4pc for the raid CD. I've found that all I was trading was about 10% in avoidance for more haste, which helped with increased number of death strikes, and some blood shield size loss. The only boss I've used my full tank set for is Zon'ozz, because of the increased tank damage as he stacks focused assaults.

There's multiple reasons why avoidance this tier is less useful than previous tiers:

1. Tank melee damage is much less of an issue compared to previous tiers.
2. AoE tanking is non-existent this tier.
3. Even though avoidance may be shown to be less overall damage to tanks relative to mastery in some situations, that's only an issue if healers are having mana problems related to tank healing. From what I've seen, my healers barely give me any direct heals, even when I'm wearing dps gear. Avoiding a few more melee hits wouldn't make any difference in the healing they give me.

I've recently switched to gemming for stam from mastery on my tank set. I found that that being able to absorb a few big hits without dying while pooling up my death strikes allows me to make much bigger shields than what the extra mastery would give me. This works great for bosses like heroic hagara, where I let her rape me for a bit with focus assault, then do two quick death strikes to build a massive shield that will mitigate most of the rest of the damage. By the time I get runes back, she's eaten through the shield, and I can do it again for a 200k+ shield that mitigates pretty much all the melee damage before the next focused assault.

After switching to stam stacking for the last few weeks, I can firmly say that it has made my life easier as a blood dk, without increasing any more healing pressure on my healers.