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  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Reniat View Post
    It comes down to how much you value DPS. I am in the "survival > everything else" camp of DK tanks, so naturally im going to recommend that first and assume people asking for advice are coming from a survivability point of view.
    Still I think you should always explain the pros and cons instead of just blindly promoting the defensive joice (especially if the survivability gain is so marginal compared to the dps loss).

  2. #82
    I'm going to start tanking on my DK but there are two "issues" I have:

    1: I'm 88 and apart from a exp or hit + mastery piece or two, the only tanking gear I have is firelands level 85 gear. I guess I should just quest some as blood until I have a decent set? Or maybe tanking normals in DPS gear works fine...

    2: I liked DK tanking back at 85 (pre MoP patch), but I generally felt like AoE pulls were really nice/easy when DnD was up and pretty hard when it wasn't. Maybe it was just my imagination, but regardless, I wouldn't mind a tip or two for AoE pulls with DnD on CD.

  3. #83
    Also a few remarks about your guide:
    I suppose it is meant for tanks that are already somewhat experienced, but it may be confusing for newer players who still need help with the basics.
    I've had several tanks who were unable to make use of their basic cds used 6 DS per minute and yet they were specced into Lichborne (without ever using it)
    The tank who joined us this week didn't use Crimson Scourge procs or HoW at all and thus losing a lot of RS - all the while using BT.

    => Make a disclaimer for all active abilities (Lich Borne, Plague Leech, Blood Tap) to explain that even though those abilities can help you if used correctly they only do so if you can actually manage handling a few extra abilities. (because I'm pretty sure that for a large part of the tanking community they do more harm than good)
    => Mention using Crimson Scourge / HoW for runic power in your rotation part.

    (an epic non-JC gem is 320 mastery or 320 stamina)
    I think it's 240 stamina :P

    Jewelcrafting - 480 stamina or 320 mastery
    Sadly the stamina bonus requires you to use pure blue gems (which generally isn't optimal) so it's more like 480 stam at the cost of having to trade 320 mastery vs 240 stamina.
    Gem changes screwed with JC as a stat boost big time /:

    Choosing between Swordshattering and Stoneskin Gargoyole:
    Why not mention FC? It also gives a decent amount of parry (about 1.5% according to my char sheet), self healing proc (generally about 2% of my damage taken) and dps. Seems pretty damn good to me (and if you don't at least mention why you don't think it is in your guide).


    And.... maybe it's just me but I think the guide is too "wall of text"-y and could use a few paragraphs.

    ---------- Post added 2012-10-19 at 02:37 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Maxie View Post
    I'm going to start tanking on my DK but there are two "issues" I have:

    1: I'm 88 and apart from a exp or hit + mastery piece or two, the only tanking gear I have is firelands level 85 gear. I guess I should just quest some as blood until I have a decent set? Or maybe tanking normals in DPS gear works fine...

    2: I liked DK tanking back at 85 (pre MoP patch), but I generally felt like AoE pulls were really nice/easy when DnD was up and pretty hard when it wasn't. Maybe it was just my imagination, but regardless, I wouldn't mind a tip or two for AoE pulls with DnD on CD.
    1) From my experience everything up until lvl 90 heroic dungeons (and partly even normal mode raids) are easily doable in dps gear. Just make sure to prefer dps gear with mastery and haste/hit/exp if possible. Using Firelands gear is a bad idea because the lower item lvl means less armor and less stats in general.

    2) Spec into roiling blood => apply diseases (preferably via outbreak ... or if you're pulling too fast try to keep 1 add with diseases alive for the next pack) and spam blood boil.

  4. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    Also a few remarks about your guide:
    I suppose it is meant for tanks that are already somewhat experienced, but it may be confusing for newer players who still need help with the basics.
    I've had several tanks who were unable to make use of their basic cds used 6 DS per minute and yet they were specced into Lichborne (without ever using it)
    The tank who joined us this week didn't use Crimson Scourge procs or HoW at all and thus losing a lot of RS - all the while using BT.
    There are plenty of DKs who wouldn't quite be able to grasp this guide, but those DKs generally don't do research on their class anyway. I believe the people who read guides and browse forums for the purpose of self-improvement are usually competent enough for my guide.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    => Make a disclaimer for all active abilities (Lich Borne, Plague Leech, Blood Tap) to explain that even though those abilities can help you if used correctly they only do so if you can actually manage handling a few extra abilities. (because I'm pretty sure that for a large part of the tanking community they do more harm than good)
    => Mention using Crimson Scourge / HoW for runic power in your rotation part.
    Again, i'm willing to believe that anyone who reads through my guide is competent enough to know that if they take talent, they actually have to use that talent. I did neglect to include HoW, and i'll add that right away but I do include CS procs in the playstyle section. Please read through the whole thing before making constructive criticism.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    I think it's 240 stamina :P
    Thanks for pointing this out. Every once and a while I find these little errors left over from the beta. Back when this guide was first written stamina gems gave the same amount of stats per gem as any other gem.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    Sadly the stamina bonus requires you to use pure blue gems (which generally isn't optimal) so it's more like 480 stam at the cost of having to trade 320 mastery vs 240 stamina.
    Gem changes screwed with JC as a stat boost big time /:
    gemming stamina can be optimal. Yes you only get 75% of the stat (240 vs 320) but you have to remember that the two stats serve COMPLETELY different purposes. If you need more EH, stamina is the only option and if you already have 2 stam trinkets the only logical optimal choice is stamina gems. When I had to tank 2 dogs on 25H stone guard in <470 ilvl (i think i was 469) you had better believe I had stam gems. I needed the raw effective health so stam gems became the optimal choice. I have more gear now, and have switched back to mastery heavy gems, but I still have plenty of pure stam gems in my bags for 25H will of the emperor since he has such a broad melee attack range (damage range not spacial range).

    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    Why not mention FC? It also gives a decent amount of parry (about 1.5% according to my char sheet), self healing proc (generally about 2% of my damage taken) and dps. Seems pretty damn good to me (and if you don't at least mention why you don't think it is in your guide).
    because FC is not a viable runeforge for progression tanking. The parry is the only real value, since so much of the heal would lead to overheal. It's simply not close enough to the other 2 in terms of survivability. I was thinking about adding a "how to maximize dps as a tank" section, and FC would belong there, but not in the main "how to tank" bulk of the guide.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nillo View Post
    2) Spec into roiling blood => apply diseases (preferably via outbreak ... or if you're pulling too fast try to keep 1 add with diseases alive for the next pack) and spam blood boil.
    Unholy Blight would serve this purpose just as well. Rolling Blood doesn't do any aoe threat, it's just a different way of applying diseases. Hitting UB and then pulling spreads diseases just as well. That said, if you do use Rolling Blood i'd recommend the Glyph of Outbreak, as it would allow to apply diseases with the left over RP and wouldn't force you to drag one mob with you through each pack of trash forcing your healer to stay in combat for way longer than necessary.

  5. #85
    Quote Originally Posted by Reniat View Post
    1) There are plenty of DKs who wouldn't quite be able to grasp this guide, but those DKs generally don't do research on their class anyway. I believe the people who read guides and browse forums for the purpose of self-improvement are usually competent enough for my guide.

    2) Again, i'm willing to believe that anyone who reads through my guide is competent enough to know that if they take talent, they actually have to use that talent.

    3) I did neglect to include HoW, and i'll add that right away but I do include CS procs in the playstyle section. Please read through the whole thing before making constructive criticism.

    4) gemming stamina can be optimal. Yes you only get 75% of the stat (240 vs 320) but you have to remember that the two stats serve COMPLETELY different purposes. If you need more EH, stamina is the only option and if you already have 2 stam trinkets the only logical optimal choice is stamina gems. When I had to tank 2 dogs on 25H stone guard in <470 ilvl (i think i was 469) you had better believe I had stam gems. I needed the raw effective health so stam gems became the optimal choice. I have more gear now, and have switched back to mastery heavy gems, but I still have plenty of pure stam gems in my bags for 25H will of the emperor since he has such a broad melee attack range (damage range not spacial range).

    5) because FC is not a viable runeforge for progression tanking. The parry is the only real value, since so much of the heal would lead to overheal. It's simply not close enough to the other 2 in terms of survivability. I was thinking about adding a "how to maximize dps as a tank" section, and FC would belong there, but not in the main "how to tank" bulk of the guide.
    1) Who knows - from my experience I'd say there are quite a few tanks who do read those guys and are all hyped up about how the pros tank but don't realize that they're still missing the basics before making use of Lich Borne over Purgatory or BT over RC/RE.

    2) What I'm trying to say is the problem is people think they are competent enough to use the skill - might even be able to use it at a reasonable efficiency but at the cost of the more important basic skill usage.

    3) You mention CS for disease uptime - which is what blood boil or Outbreak are there for (it's rare but I've had cs procs about 25-35 sec apart). CS procs are there for RP generation (and disease uptime as a bonus).

    4) Oh I don't doubt that - I'm just saying that JC is a questionable profession in general since MoP and only works at full potential if your spec profits from pure main stat gems.
    If you're generally going Yellow/Green/Orange JC falls a bit behind since you either get only half the bonus to the yellow gem or need to turn green into blue.

    5) The healing is just as unpredictable as the parry gain. Might not be better in general (for survival) but on a boss like the guard doggies who mainly deal damage through an unavoidable dot I'd bet on FC over SS.

  6. #86
    Fluffy Kitten Zao's Avatar
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    Are you sure the additional heal increases our Bloodshield? I can't test it but Healing modifiers (positive and negative) never affected BS in the past.

  7. #87
    Quote Originally Posted by Zao View Post
    Are you sure the additional heal increases our Bloodshield? I can't test it but Healing modifiers (positive and negative) never affected BS in the past.
    Not going to reread previous posts for context, but there is actually a pattern to these effects.

    Effects that say they increase the healing size of Death Strike (and exclusively Death Strike) have always increased the size of Blood Shield. Effects that say they increase healing done or healing taken have never increased the size of Blood Shield.

  8. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by SSHA778 View Post
    Not going to reread previous posts for context, but there is actually a pattern to these effects.

    Effects that say they increase the healing size of Death Strike (and exclusively Death Strike) have always increased the size of Blood Shield. Effects that say they increase healing done or healing taken have never increased the size of Blood Shield.
    Ah yes, sorry. That was for the posts a page back concerning 4T14. And so far I haven't really been able to test it/see it in action.

  9. #89
    If the 4pc doesn't affect our shield at all, then the 4pc is surprisngly lackluster. Getting he 4pc would come down to whether or not you valued the raw healing increase at the cost of some mitigation. For 25H raiding I would probably go for it, as +10% DS heal after a burst is worth something to me, but the less bursty you get the more lackluster the 4pc would get until you would much rather forget the 4pc and just get BiS non-tier gear, which would result in more mitigation stats.

  10. #90
    another question, that kinda isn't relevant yet since it is about gear we can't get yet, but it is still bugging me ^^
    looking through the tier gear etc, there kinda seem to be a theme of "a lot of parry/dodge, a little bit of hit or exp (the actual % you get from the rating to each stat is kinda equal)" on stuff that doesn't have mastery, looked at I think it was guildox and it suggest to reforge the hit and exp to mastery, but you'd get a lot more mastery ratting out of a parry/dodge->mastery reforge, on the for example normal mode head it's 457 vs 184 mastery from reforge unless I fucked up the math ^^

    so I wonder what is better for survivability, giving up hit/exp for a little mastery or giving up parry/dodge for a lot more mastery

  11. #91
    We value mastery for the way in reduces damage, not just the amount. Even though you might take slightly more damage overall (depends on a lot of factors) by getting your mastery from hit/exp, it's still generally preferable to reforge out of whatever gives you the most mastery. It does largely depend on the number of each though. If you are talking about a piece with 500 and 499 hit, obviously you'd reforge out of the hit since the mastery gain isn't worth it, however if it were 1000 parry and 400 hit you'd obviously take the parry and put it into mastery since the gain is large enough. There is no definite answer, as it will vary on both personal preference, the gear you are dealing with, and the content you are running.

  12. #92

  13. #93
    Deleted
    can someone explain more deeply why a lot of blood dk choose runic corruption instead of blood tap?
    i really miss the point on why 100% rp is more valuable of a controlled Death rune generator, and i don't even see how could be a dps increase since not counting DS, with that death rune we could use heart strike or soul reaping wich hit more than RS..
    i'm certanly missing something

    thanks
    Last edited by mmoc1bc5712b14; 2012-10-30 at 05:54 PM.

  14. #94
    Quote Originally Posted by Lacrime View Post
    can someone explain more deeply why a lot of blood dk choose runic corruption instead of blood tap?
    i really miss the point on why 100% rp is more valuable of a controlled Death rune generator, and i don't even see how could be a dps increase since not counting DS, with that death rune we could use heart strike or soul reaping wich hit more than RS..
    i'm certanly missing something
    thanks
    None of these talents affect RP, they simply change what happens when we spend RP. RC and BT are very similar in terms of survivability value. BT has the ability to store a full death strike, which is fantastic. RC give consistent and frequent increased rune regeneration, which is also fantastic. The difference is that RC speeds up rune regeneration, while BT exchanges our B runes for D runes (in a sense. your overall rune throughput still goes up). In other words you're going to get more B runes to use with RC, which gives RC will about a 10% increase in dps over blood tap. That is the reason why many are using RC instead of BT.

  15. #95
    Fluffy Kitten Zao's Avatar
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    Most DKs I met that used it (and that I asked about it) choose it because they perceived it to be the one with the best combination of control and amount of runes.

    To the uninitiated RE sounds very unreliable.

    "What do you mean I get a below 50% chance to get a random rune back? That sucks!"

    BT is just another button that needs to be managed on a class that already has plenty of different cds to watch and has therefore a high potential to be wasted.

    RC is way easier to handle. It's virtually impossible to completely waste it, and 100% increased rune regen sounds nice when reading it.


    Keep in mind that most of those tanks don't really read guides. It's gotten worse with the "it's all just flavor anyway" approach some have to talents since the revamp.

  16. #96
    Quote Originally Posted by Zao View Post
    BT is just another button that needs to be managed on a class that already has plenty of different cds to watch and has therefore a high potential to be wasted.

    RC is way easier to handle. It's virtually impossible to completely waste it, and 100% increased rune regen sounds nice when reading it.
    That's mostly it for me. The possible gain in control is outweighed by:
    - Taking up space on and already overloaded action bar/key binding.
    - Being another thing to have to manage
    - Generally being a loss in Runes returned over RE/RC
    It's only really worth it for the upper 0.0x% of dk raiders who actually need to be able to handle 40 key bindings while keeping track of 20 cooldowns, for most of the rest it's more often than not a loss in overall throughput.

  17. #97
    Overall throughput isn't really the issue. RE gives the most throughput hands down, but it's still the worst option for survivability. When you place your death strikes is worth 1000x more than how many you had. BT gives control, and that control definitely outweighs the loss of throughput. As far as managing it, it all comes down to a user interface. The reason good DKs can keep track of so many things is that they make a user interface that helps them keep track of everything. I use weak auras to custom make everything on my UI, from my runes to my cooldowns. I'm thinking about adding a section of UI tips, do you think you and others at your same level of raiding would find that useful nillo? If so i'll definitely add it to my list of things to do in the near future. The DK specific guide is on that list too btw...

  18. #98
    Love the guide, don't like the attitude of the writer towards new tanks.

    "There are plenty of DKs who wouldn't quite be able to grasp this guide, but those DKs generally don't do research on their class anyway. I believe the people who read guides and browse forums for the purpose of self-improvement are usually competent enough for my guide."

    Not willing to scare you. I just started tanking (73, moving on fast) and I am doing research, how? By coming to mmo-champion to read the guides. But seeing as how condesending you come across towards DK tanks really makes me doubt the whole guide you have written.

    Question for the others:

    I see a lot of DK videos with them having Purgatory. Now from what I gather, it can either save you, or kill you rather fast. I myself, chose AMZ. Why? I assumed that it would be handy for the magic heavy fights. But somehow, I barely pop it. Either because

    a.) I have enough other cooldowns
    b.) The magic damage isn't high enough to be a real threat.

    I know it's because I'm levelling, but seeing as how Lichborne seems to be more PVP oriented, and Purgatory seems a bit risky, what else is there to do?

    Also, your opinion. Not what sims better! But your personal opinion people,

    Conversion or Death Siphon.

  19. #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by lanerios View Post
    Love the guide, don't like the attitude of the writer towards new tanks.

    "There are plenty of DKs who wouldn't quite be able to grasp this guide, but those DKs generally don't do research on their class anyway. I believe the people who read guides and browse forums for the purpose of self-improvement are usually competent enough for my guide."

    Not willing to scare you. I just started tanking (73, moving on fast) and I am doing research, how? By coming to mmo-champion to read the guides. But seeing as how condesending you come across towards DK tanks really makes me doubt the whole guide you have written.
    I think you missed the point of the statement. He's saying that most dks don't do any research on their class (i.e dks who don't put effort into learning their class mechanics, not just builds) and it is those dks who will likely be unable to grasp this guide.

  20. #100
    I am sorry I've given you the impression I don't care for new tanks. The exact opposite is true. I wouldn't have put the time in if I didn't want to help any and all tanks looking to improve. What i meant by that is that I didn't feel the need to say "hey, if you pick an ability you actually have to use that ability", since that should be fairly obvious. Do you think a mage guide would be required to say "living bomb is the highest dps choice of the t75 talents, but you have to use the living bomb in order to get the benefit," or is the fact that you have to use the button you pick obvious enough to be left out?

    The DKs I was referring to are the DKs who just go through their spell book, put spells that look good on their action bars, and have at it without thinking of whats optimal or not. It's not a DK thing, all classes have this level of player. surely you've seen arms warriors using 1h weapons, or a ret pally who just chills in righteous fury despite repeated prompts from the group. What i'm trying to say is that there are many levels of players in this game. People will play the game how they wish to play it, and I will never tell them to do otherwise. I've got nothing against players who play that way, and can't fault them in any way for playing the game how they wish to play it. My target audience with this guide is anyone who sincerely wants to improve their DK tanking, and i try to give them any and all tools to do so at any level. For someone just learning how to tank I feel the simple playstyle section is enough to get started:

    Single Target:
    Use FU runes (including combos of F U and D runes) on Death strike, dump Runic Power with Rune Strike, make sure you always have diseases on targets you are tanking, and dump blood runes with heart strike (above 35%) Soul Reaper (below 35%) and make sure you are keeping diseases up through Blood Boils from Crimson Scourge to maintain diseases. If you are left with an open GCD, use Horn of Winter. It's free Runic Power and should be used anytime you don't have something else to use.

    AoE:
    very similar to the Single Target, except you may have to use D runes on Blood Boil (4 or more targets) or Heart Strike (3 targets or less), as well as D or U runes on Death and Decay. Try to balance survivability with AoE threat, since D and U runes spent on non death strike abilities means less death strikes. It's better to err on the side of survivability, since a dead tank doesn't hold aggro well.
    I hesitate to simply it much further because if i lay out a "rotation", I fear people will adhere too strictly to it, which is bad for blood tanking. You can't put DK tanking into a simple rotation and get good results, and i'm afraid if I simplify it too much it may do more harm than good.

    I have no feelings of condescension towards tanks at any levels, and am sorry you got that impression. If you feel the guide needs to have a more simplified section for brand new tanks, I will see if I can write a section that simplifies it without going too simple, and risks doing what I mentioned above.

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