[Guide] Active Mitigation Hipsters - 5.3 DK Tanking

[Zuksam]

Ok, thanks for the info. But seeing the initial post:

Parry% = 3.588 * dodge% - 10.757
Parry% = (3.588 * 8.69) - 10.757 = 20.422%

Seeing that I don't use the Rune of Swordshattering, I guess I need to deduct 4% from the total, making it 16.422%.

The macro (Without swordshattering) returns an ideal parry of 12.78.

What's the discrepancy between them then?

[Reniat]

What's the discrepancy between them then?

Simple. I forgot to update the rest of the DR section when I updated the Macros

the macros are correct. I'll update the written portion of that section when i get home.

[Lancet]

Can anyone confirm how our 4P bonus works?

I am reading reports it is only a heal (which feels like useless overhealing to me) yet some people state it is increasing our BS as well (which is awesome if it does).

I currently have 4P of Tier to cash in yet I would need to replace my 496 norm gear in favour of 489 Teir gear. Is the bonus worth it?

Thanks.

[Reniat]

At first it didn't affect Blood Shield, which made it good but not great. It has since been hotfixed to affect Blood Shield, so it's now totally awesome. Get it.

[Lancet]

Do you think it is worth the ilvl drop?

I'd have to replace 4 pieces of 496 gear with 4 pieces of 489 Tier gear.

[Reniat]

I'd have to look at the pieces to be 100% sure, but i'd say yes. The 2pc is also amazing, so it's really comparing only 2 pieces for the 4pc.

[Diend]

What's the general consensus on bis off tier piece for us? I'm thinking chest from Lei Shi since it has mastery.

[Lovestar]

When I'm doing easy dungeons I sometimes feel tempted to go full Heart Strike spam. But then I feel guilty for not maintaining Blood Shield. However, if I spend them on DS I feel guilty for not maxing out DPS to speed up the run. :p

So I'm curious. When you have 4x D runes after the initial 2x DS, roughly how much of a DPS difference is it between?
- 2x DS
- 4x HS

Is it significant enough to be worth consciously switching based on situational DPS vs. Survival needs?

[Reniat]

1 death strike does 6.74% less damage than 2 heart strikes, so it's not like you should feel bad by not sacrificing death strike or anything. It's something you do if you need to to crank every once of dps out of your runes, not something you should feel obligated to do by any means.

@diend
I would say yes, but I seem to have lost the file where I had all the different gear options laid out so i'll have to start from scratch to make sure. In reality, everyone is probably just going to go with whatever tier they can get first. I'll try to redo all the gear comparisons sometime after christmas.

Oh, and merry christmas DK community. Especially you tanks. filthy dps....

[Lovestar]

Thanks.

Is that 6.74% assuming only 1 target, though? On for example, a 3-4 mob trash pull would the difference become more significant?

[Zao]

Single Target with diseases.

[Reniat]

yes that was single target, but now lets look at 3 targets and you don't see much difference.

One heart strike does about 58.55% less damage than 2 heart strikes with three targets, but that still doesn't mean you are obligated to sacrifice survivability for damage. That damage difference may sound huge, but remember DS and HS aren't our only damage dealing abilities. In fact, using heart strike in place of Death Strike with 3+ targets is only an overall dps increase of about 7.28%, so even with 3+ targets you shouldn't feel that using death strike normally is "bad" by any means. only make the tradeoff if you really don't need to DS.

[Dossou]

Thanks.

Is that 6.74% assuming only 1 target, though? On for example, a 3-4 mob trash pull would the difference become more significant?

Depending on your Vengence, Blood Boil can become better at as little to 2 targets (AP scaling shenanagins etc)

[Reniat]

Actually there is no (positive) value of AP that makes BB>HS for even 3 targets let alone two (assuming a weapon of at least 463).

heres the graph for 3 if you don't believe me (graph is for 463 weapon)

That said, you're still right in that more adds there are, the more damage you lose by death striking. The numbers I gave you were based on 3 targets, though regardless of how many you have it's still always your first priority to stay alive and maintain stability, so you should never feel guilty about death striking no matter how much dps you lose.


oh, and grats on US 7th dossou

[Rhia]

Actually there is no (positive) value of AP that makes BB>HS for even 3 targets let alone two (assuming a weapon of at least 463).

heres the graph for 3 if you don't believe me (graph is for 463 weapon)

That said, you're still right in that more adds there are, the more damage you lose by death striking. The numbers I gave you were based on 3 targets, though regardless of how many you have it's still always your first priority to stay alive and maintain stability, so you should never feel guilty about death striking no matter how much dps you lose.

Image doesn't work for me, but is it taking into account heart strike being reduced by armor while bloodboil isn't? I'm commonly seeing bloodboil > heartstrike on 3 targets.

[Reniat]

Hm not sure why the image isn't working. But yes the math accounts for the targets armor as well as raid debuffs (magic and physical vulnerabilities)

[Onyxeyex]

Thanks, this thread has helped me a lot.

[Dracodraco]

I have to disagree with the part about Purgatory being risky and, or, worse than Lichborne.
Main point is Death pact - if you use that in combination with Purgatory, it essentially turns in to an absorb shield against ANY damage.
Let's say you're decently geared, and have 700K hp raidbuffed (my dk at 492 avg has that, with only 2 items aquired from a raid - safe to say most DK's who are doing heroics should have the same or better). You're about to take a 1M hit, with no cooldowns aviable.
In this situation, you'd be overkilled by 300K, but if you use your death pact immidiatelly after the hit goes out, you'll end up alive, at 50K(+whatever the healers managed to bomb into you). While I can't think of any specific encounters for this tier where it's entirely relevant, a prime example could have been Madness Heroic, where you needed to cooldown every impale, and would quickly run out of CD's.
That's not to say that this doesn't WORK for encounters of the current tier - you can always use another cooldown. I'd just say that it is FAR more usefull than Lichborne - during the 10 second gap, you can get 3, maybe 4 DC's off, which heals me for a 50K base (I assume it scales with attack power as to not be totally useless). However, all the runic power you spend on coils will not be contributing to your Tier 75 talent, which means less death strikes, and less healing/mitigation through THAT.

[Reniat]

For any content that has risk of burst damage, I agree 100%. However not everyone does 25H content, and there are people out there who raid at a low enough level that burst damage just doesn't exist. In those cases you have to see how lichborne will likely see more benefit than purgatory which isn't likely to even proc. Some tanks only tank LFR. When was the last time you procced purgatory in LFR?

If this was strictly a "hardmode progression guide", purgatory would pretty much be the only option outside of occasional utility use with AMZ (H elegon for example), however I have to write a guide that helps tanks who are doing 5m normal content as well as tanks who are doing 25H content.

That said, I do appreciate your input.

EDIT: your avatar makes me happy.

[Nillo]

For any content that has risk of burst damage, I agree 100%. However not everyone does 25H content, and there are people out there who raid at a low enough level that burst damage just doesn't exist. In those cases you have to see how lichborne will likely see more benefit than purgatory which isn't likely to even proc. Some tanks only tank LFR. When was the last time you procced purgatory in LFR?

Well if you're not in danger of dying then what's the point of having a talent that just eats up runic power °_°