DK Tanking Guide (updated for 5.4)

[Reniat]

If you don't find what you need here, you can always ask me anything on twitter @ReniatDK.

This thread contains both the simple and advances tanking guides. The first part is the simple guide, however if you want to get a more in depth look at blood tanking, I encourage you to read on into the Advanced section. There you will find logic behind the choices displayed here as well as some other blood theorycrafting tidbits (WARNING: there be math in them there hills).


Advanced guide: The advanced DK tanking guide is located in the second post of this thread Here.

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Basic Tanking Guide

Table of Contents:

0. tl;dr (very brief version)
1. talents/glyphs
2. stats
3. gems/enchants
4. playstyle
5. maximizing damage





0. tl;dr

This section is NOT meant to be a complete guide. This is a very rough set of guidelines that you can grab if you are about to tank for the first time and need something quick. If you are trying to get good at Blood DK tanking, read the entire guide and don't just rely on this first section.

The tl;dr to blood tanking is as follows:

talents/glyphs: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/tal...aa!120000.!eRm.

stats: In 6.0 there are two main build options. mastery>haste, or crit>mastery.

The crit build is more damage oriented, while the mastery build is more balanced with damage and survival. If you are not sure, go with the mastery build.

playstyle: Apply diseases with Outbreak. Spend your Runic Power on Death Coil, spend your blood runes on Blood Boil or Soul Reaper if the target is under 35% health. Spend your death, frost, and unholy runes on Death Strike. Use Plague Leech often to get 2 D runes back, as replace with glyphed Outbreak.

This concludes the tl;dr section. I HIGHLY encourage you to read the rest of the guide, especially if you are trying to become a good DK tank.

1. Talents/glyphs

The basic skeleton talents and glyphs are:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/tool/tal...aa!120000.!eRm.

There are fights where you will want to deviate from this template. The common deviations are using Chillblains instead of Death's Advance (tier 3) for fights where adds need to be slowed, using Desecrated Ground instead of Gorefiend's Grasp if there are stuns you can get out of (and your raid doesn't need grip for that fight), and using Remorseless Winter instead of Gorefiend's Grasp for slowing/stunning adds (again if your raid doesn't need grip).


The only glyph changes to that template you might need to make for major glyphs is using Glyph of Icebound Fortitude if there is a frequent large plannable hit, but in general you will want to stay away from this glyph. A similar concept can be applied to Glyph of Vampiric Blood.

2. Stats

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS FOR LEVEL 90 CONTENT. THIS WILL BE UPDATED UPON WARLORDS RELEASE.

Your stat priority

Crit does more damage than mastery, but mastery is a better defensive stat. This results in 2 build options, one with a more offensive focus and one with a more defensive focus.

Mastery: stamina to enough EH(explained below) > strength>mastery>haste>crit
or

Crit: stamina to enough EH(explained below) > strength>crit>mastery>haste

What does "stamina to enough EH" mean?

EH = effective health, which means how many hits you can take without heals before you die. Your health size, how much armor you have, whether or not you have a cooldown up, all of these and more affect your EH. The reason we need "enough" EH is because we have a reactive active mitigation model, meaning we have to take damage before we can recover from it as opposed to preventing it in the first place (usually). Without enough EH taking bursts of damage makes us spiky and unpredictable, and how much you actually need depends on what content you're doing, what your ilvl is like relative to that content, and the style of the fight. If you feel bursty and unpredictable overall, then try adding a stam trinket and see what that does.

3. Gems/Enchants/Professions



Gems:

For crit gemming follow this template:
Prismatic Socket: Smooth (crit)
Red socket: Inscribed (crit/str)
Yellow Socket: Smooth (crit)
Blue socket: Sensei's (mastery/crit)

For mastery gemming follow this template:
Prismatic socket: Fractured (mastery)
Red socket: Perfect (mastery/str)
Blue Socket: Sensei's (mastery/crit)

Enchants

Shoulder - Greater Ox Horn Inscription/Secret Ox Horn Inscription(inscription only) (300 stamina 150 dodge/750 stamina 150 dodge)
Chest - Superior stamina (300 stamina)
Wrist - mastery/Fur lining - Stamina (Leatherworking only) (mastery dodge/750 stamina)
Gloves - Superior Mastery (170 mastery) or Sha Armor Kit (150 stamina)
Legs - Ironscale Leg Armor (430 stamina and 165 dodge)
Feet - Pandaren's Step (140 mastery and movement speed boost)
Ring - Greater Stamina (Enchanting only) (160 Stamina)
Back - Greater Protection (300 stamina)



weapon - as of 6.0 Strength is a very strong stat for us. Fallen Crusader is the default rune at the moment.



Death Strike:

Most people are aware that blood DKs use Death Strike a lot, but the phrase (if you need to) is kind of abstract. This is covered in a lot more detail in the advanced version of the guide, but a lot of our
smoothness as tanks comes from how we time Death Strike. So how do we do that? To put it simply, you want to be making sure you use Death Strike after bursts. If you are still getting the hang
of the class as a whole, just try to Death Strike after you take a decent chunk of damage. In terms of just normal tanking (boss melee hits) think about is as a heal, not a shield. Don't sit on your FU runes
forever though, as you don't want to lose throughput. The way our runes work, you only lose recharge time if you have both pairs up at once, so we can sit on a DS without losing throughput as long
as we make sure we use it right before our other FU pair comes back (within a second or so). To recap, simple DS timing is waiting for either a good hit and DSing after, or using it before your next FU
pair comes back, whichever comes first. The rabbit hole of DS timing is very deep, and learning the nuances of DS timing can make a good tank into a great tank, so I encourage you to check out
the advanced guide for the full rundown on DS timing at some point.

Keeping diseases up:

This is done passively for the most part, since Blood Boil refreshing them. Apply with outbreak and keep them up with the Blood Boils you get with Crimson Scourge.

Spending fully open runes:

As I mentioned earlier, we only lose rune throughput if you are sitting on both of one kind of rune (since only 1 can charge at a time). This means you want to avoid sitting on both runes.

Spending Runic Power on Rune Strike:

There's rarely a reason to hold on to Rune Strike, so if you don't need to DS at that exact moment, use it when you have enough RP.

Spending B runes:

This is just about using the right B rune ability for the moment. Blood Boil or Soul Reaper (or Rune Tap for a defensive option)
Spending Crimson Scourge procs:

This is free damage, so don't sit on it. Death and Decay does more damage in AoE and single target, so as long as the target isn't going to move use that when available, otherwise Blood Boil

Cooldown management:

this is not blood specific, as all tanks need to know how to use cooldowns effectively. Using them effectively is just a matter of knowing when the big damage is coming, which is easier said than done usually.
This is a large part of why experience is so important as a tank, as it takes a while to get the "sixth sense" of when to use CDs. In general, you want to make sure you are using CDs with mechanics first. Stuff like Executes on Nazgrim, Electrostatic Charge on Siegecrafter Blackfuse, high stacks of Fatal Strike on Malkorok, ect. If you don't have those mechanics to worry about and the damage is purely from the bosses standard toolkit then you can use CDs based on your rune pattern. If you find yourself in a large DS gap, that would be a good time to use a short CD like Vampiric Blood. Bone shield can be used in this way for mechanics, but in general you want to use bone shield whenever its off cooldown UNLESS you have charges remaining. Charges dont stack, so wait until your charges drop before using Bone Shield again to get the most coverage.


Rune Tap:

Rune tap in 6.0 is now a small CD that can function as Active Mitigation. We will be using it both ways, depending on the fight being tanked. In general, it is best used as a bridge between DS gaps, preventing you from taking large damage while you are vulnerable. In fights with large burst mechanics (such as Siegecrafter Blackfuse and Nazgrim) it will be used to handle those burst mechanics easily. It is important to know which way you are using it in a given fight, since you don't want to not have it if you need it for a mechanic.


5. maximizing damage

Fill GCDs:

The frist step to doing good damage is to make sure you're not playing slow. Fights are finite in length, so while it feels like each GCD is not very important by itself, there is a cap for the number you have
during the fight and making the most of EACH one is huge. Always try to be using SOMETHING in each GCD (don't spam DS though. there are plenty of resources to fill your GCDs without spamming DS).

use DRW offensively:

DRW is a solid survival cooldown, but it's an amazing damage cooldown as well. It basically doubles your damage output while up, so getting the most out of this 12 second long CD is very important. The first part of this is using double diseases. DRW copies all our abilities, and icy touch/plague strike/outbreak are no exceptions. This means you can have 2 sets of diseases running at the same time, and the best part is the diseases applied by DRW DO linger after it goes away. It is important to note, you will not see them on recount, as they are neutral damage as soon as your pet fades, but they DO still do their damage. Doing good dps is about doing damage to the boss, not padding the meters. Just because it doesn't show on the meters doesn't mean it inst helpful.

To do this for single target, simply apply diseases first with Icy Touch and Plague Strike on the 2nd or 3rd GCD after you pop DRW (there is a delay, so if you use them RIGHT after you pop it, it will likely not register. Use RS or HS instead for the first GCD.) Then when the pet is about to de-spawn (make a timer or watch carefully) use outbreak, and it will put the copied diseases at 30 seconds.

[Reniat]

Advanced DK tanking guide

This is the advanced DK tanking guide. This is meant to include most of everything I know/use for Death Knight tanking in a top 5 US guild, and while it's written as a DK tanking guide chapters 7 and 8 are applicable to all classes/roles. This guide assumes you have the basics of DK tanking pretty much internalized, and will do very little hand-holding (especially in the proofs). BY NO MEANS DO YOU NEED TO FOLLOW ALL THE CONCEPTS RAISED HERE. this is means to be a place to understand WHY the things they are they way they are, and no one should feel that studying this is required to play the class. One of the reasons I split the guide into two separate guides (basic and advanced) is so that I could write this and let it be completely no holds barred. I intend to include as much theorycrafting information as I can. In this place brevity is for the weak, and tl;dr is a dirty word. Here is (mostly) everything I know. May God have mercy on your soul.

1. Smoothness and stability
2. Cooldowns
3. Death Strike timing
4. Stats
5. Talents
6. User Interface
7. How to improve
8. Execution
9. Proofs

1. Smoothness and stability

One of the most important abstract concepts in tanking is the idea of smoothness>everything else. Spread out mitigation is almost always preferred over big but infrequent mitigation (there are exceptions to this). For example say you had to take 5 boss hits. It is better to negate them all for 80% each than to take 4 for the full amount and completely nullify one, even though they are the same on paper (5*20% = 100% vs 1*100%=100%).

Even in situations where on paper the overall approach seems better, for example taking each hit for 85% as opposed to fully removing one (5*15% = 75% vs 1*100% = 100%), you would still want the spread out mitigation because it is predictable and much smoother. Obviously if it is something like taking 99% of all hits versus taking half for full and half for 0, then that's different. The point being made here is that spreading out your mitigation has value that doesn't show up on paper, but is incredibly important when it comes to tanking as it affects both active mitigation as well as how we use cooldowns.

The reason smoothness is preferred to overall mitigation is because tanking is a very "in the moment" thing. It doesn't matter how much damage you took overall, what matters is that you never go below 0 at any one moment, and by extension what matters is that you never go below a certain threshold often enough to be considered spiky or unstable. So what kinds of things can we draw from this? Well never stacking cooldowns (outside of specific mechanics) is one. DS timing as a whole is about shape > size, but that has its own chapter. The AMS glyph is a good example of this concept. on paper it doesn't have any net change in mitigation, simply increasing the per hit cap of ams from 75% to 100%, without changing the total amount absorbed. However, like we established earlier, taking two hits reduced by 75% of AMS and then 25% of AMS is far preferable to taking one reduced by 100% of AMS and another reduced by nothing. Putting it this way you can easily see why we don't take this glyph, and it in fact would be worth less than no glyph at all even though its neutral on paper.

This concept is EXTREMELY important for blood, as we are the only tank that has to take the damage before we can recover from it. This means without this concept we would be very spiky and predictable, but applying this ideology in our active mitigation and cooldowns as well as stats lets us mitigate this problem (pun intended) and if done right we are as stable as any other tank for progression content. This is one of the reasons we like stamina so much as blood, as being able to smooth out all the damage passively, even if that means taking slightly more overall damage, is almost always worth it.

Try to keep this concept in mind as we discuss cooldowns and DS timing later on.

2. Cooldowns
The most important aspect of cooldowns is to make sure not to overlap them, because we want coverage. This goes right back into the discussion in section 1 about smoothness and spreading out mitigation. In some cases its better to even let a small gap between the cooldowns to take one hit without a CD up to get even more spread. That seems counter intuitive, but think about it this way: lets say you have 20 hits to take all of equal value, 1 hit every second, and you have 2 cooldowns that last 8 seconds each for a total of 16 seconds of coverage. You could use them both in succession, which results in you covering the first 16 hits with cooldowns followed by 4 unmitigated hits. or you could take 1 hit use an 8 second cooldown, 1 hit then your second cooldown, then the last 2 hits and then you're done getting hit. By adding a tiny bit of gap you could make more out of the same total coverage time. Now, you need to make sure that taking a hit without a cooldown is ok. If the boss is hitting you hard enough with cooldowns that getting a hit without one will kill you or close to, go for the safe play and go for complete coverage, but the option of gapping is there.

In many cases cooldowns are pretty rigid in that you have a mechanic that dictates how you will use them. For example if its a rampup mechanic that makes you take more damage as you go higher in stacks (not always stacks but usually), you'll find the point at which you take more damage than is stable and use cooldowns starting at that spot until the other tank taunts, never overlapping cooldowns to maximize coverage. (you generally don't want to use cooldown gapping for ramp ups, since if you can afford to take non-mitigated hits you should probably delay using CDs until you can't, depending on the ramp up mechanic in play.

The other type of place where cooldowns are dictated for you is infrequent plannable hits, where every so often you take an incredibly large amount of damage. Coverage isn't the name of the game with these mechanics, and it becomes about how often you can use them. For example, this type of mechanic makes us want the Icebound Fortitude glyph to cut the duration by 75% but reduce the cd time by 50%, since as long as the CD is up for the very moment that you are hit with the mechanic it doesn't matter how much coverage you got. Using Bone Shield for this type of mechanic is usually a good idea. To use bone shield in this way just don't use it when you normally would and save it for right before the big hits, so you have a guaranteed 20% damage reduction without using one of your "normal" cooldowns. If you use Bone Shield normally, you can't guarantee the 20% damage reduction will be there since you can't always dictate how fast you lose charges.

The final aspect of using cooldowns well is making use of external cooldowns. A good tank tracks the cooldowns he has available to him in his user interface, and that includes external cooldowns. I use Hermes to track them, and can see how many of each external cooldown I have at my disposal, and how long till they are available again. You can almost double your CD coverage in many cases by taking advantage of using external cooldowns. It is the responsibility of the tank, not the healer (or dps warrior/pally), to call for external cooldowns to be used on them. You should have a better idea when to use CDs than your healers, so you shouldn't rely on them to put externals on you at the right times.

3. Death Strike timing.

DS timing is about changing changing the shape in which we take damage. Like the first section covered, spread out mitigation is better because it's smoother. Smoother is better because it is a predictable and "safe" shape. a wavy line of damage is easier to heal than a jagged spiky line of damage. DS timing involves changing the shape of damage by removing bursts retroactively. If you react to a burst and heal up <1 second after it happens, you "nullify" that burst. a visual example can be found here:



Notice in the visualization, how the second EKG reading err, damage shape (*cough*) seems more like a pattern, where the first one seems more random. That is the power one burst removal can make. This is what is meant by using DS to alter the shape of your damage, and actually doing this in reality takes practice and refinement, so give yourself plenty of time.

good Death Strike timing is kind of like a series of yes/no/maybe questions to be gone through each time you take damage. The basic idea can be visualized as a flow chart found here:



That shouldn't be regarded as a hard rule by any means though. In reality rarely is a damage shape is going to be exactly the same as the shape of another section of damage, making Death Strike timing much more fluid and abstract. The questions in the flow chart also then have to become more abstract. For example, "are you about to get another FU pair back?" is a yes/no/maybe question in the flow chart, but in reality you can have anywhere from 100% to 0% remaining recharge on your next FU pair. Everyone would agree that if you have 100% remaining charge time left, the answer to the "are you...pair back?" question would be 'no'. similarly, almost everyone would say that if you have 0% recharge time remaining (both FU pairs up), then the answer would not only be 'yes', but also 'yes and you should have used them already.' But what about 33% remaining time? Is that a 'yes' or a 'maybe'? What about 30%? 20%? There are no strict rules. Almost everything ends up as a blurry line that has to be decided with good judgement, which means you have to foster the judgement to do it well. How do you do that? practice. You need to actively engage with getting better with DS timing, more-so than any other aspect of tanking that I know of. If you want to improve on DS timing beyond "use it when you take big damage" you need to really dig in and start internalizing it to the point where you can see the big picture at all times, and be flexible so you can adjust on the fly for every situation.

Defining what a "big hit" looks like depends entirely on the damage around it. If you take 20% hits for ages then a random 50% hit, that's going to be a very likely candidate for a DS removal. But if you are taking 50% hits regularly, it is not nearly as likely to be removed with DS unless your runes are about to come back. A big part of knowing when to use DS is to know the burst potential you are in, based on the content and based on your gearing. If you are stacking avoidance, then you are going to have to account for more burst than normal due to to risk of spikier intake, meaning you might let one burst go that you would have removed in another setup like stam or mastery.

4. Stats

When looking at stats from a survival point of view, you have to look at how they will help you in changing your damage shape. For the most part, this means either how it affects DS timing and how much coverage it gives because those are the factors that go into how smooth your damage shape will be. It is important to note, overall damage reduction is rarely the deciding factor in which one is best. The shape of the damage is almost always more important than the overall amount. Let's look at each stat and how they work as smoothing stats.

Haste:

Haste works by giving us more Death Strikes to work with. If you get a DS slightly faster, you can be a bit looser with your timing because you have more flexibility with high haste. Using an FU pair on a burst that wasn't 100% optimal is not nearly as punished, and you can safely remove more smaller bursts without being at risk of getting large ones.

Mastery:

Many people think mastery is about the DS it's attached to, but in reality the benefit of mastery works in a very similar way to the benefit of haste - bridging the gap between death strikes. think about coverage as having something between you and the boss, not necessarily something super powerful between you and the boss. An attack mitigated by say 20% may not seem like a huge deal, but the difference between a burst for 60% of your health and for 48% of your health is definitely significant. If you assume the boss has a swing timer of 1.8 seconds, then one "covered" attack can be though of as buying 1.8 seconds towards your next rune pair. The less time between your rune pairs, the less chance of you being left without one when you need it. More mastery means a better chance at getting an extra attack covered.

Multistrike:

Multistrike is our best secondary stat in regards to damage output, though it is very weak defensively. It is good enough as both a rotation smoother and damage output that we will be pursuing multistrike fairly heavily early on the expansion, however for pure survival there are better options.

Versatility:

Versatility works as just a minor overall increase to both damage and survival. It is not as strong as other stats, but it still better than others.


Critical Strike:

In 6.0, Crit is just converted into Parry. This is not strong defensively, nor is it extremely strong offensively. There are better stats to pursue.

Strength:

Strength has become a very potent option in 6.0. It increases our Death Strike size as well as gives us a small amount of avoidance, in addition to being our top damage dealing stat per point by a considerable amount.

Stamina:

stamina is our best defensive stat in terms of smoothness. Passively spreading out ALL attacks, magic or physical, by a small amount is incredibly strong for blood. We also have a sizable stam modifier, so we get plenty of health per point of stam.


5. Talents

Tier 1:
Plaguebringer - very poor option for blood DK. Do not take.

Plague Leech - By using the glyph of outbreak and eating diseases off cooldown, you get a significant DS gain, however it uses a GCD. Right now we have a large amount of downtime, and can easily take advantage of this, but in the future this may not be the case and the GCD lost may end up being worth more than the resources (like it was in 5.4).

Unholy Blight - This spread diseaes without using a B rune, however since when multiple adds are involved you will be using Blood Boil anyway, there is really no reason to ever use this given other options.

Tier 2:
Lichborne - With decent AP the Lichborne/Death Coil does significant healing. In fact it only takes (.5*hp-3966)/1.7699 AP to make A single Death Coil cast on yourself do 50% of your health(proof #10), matching that of Death Pact. However there are downsides, the primary one being that you have to spend 40 RP AND a GCD to use it every time you heal yourself. This makes it a pretty significant damage loss whenever you use it. That aside, it's not the healing that makes or breaks Lichborne but rather how much you value Purgatory. The ability to "die" every 3 minutes is very powerful, especially considering how our AM works. This safety net can save a lot of would be wipes, and not just those caused by mistakes. Progression content can hurt, and anything you can do further remove any tank deaths is something worth doing. That said, if you are very certain you will never get use out of purgatory, such as lower damage content with less healers (or bad ones) you can make the switch to lichborne as a "I need healing and no ones giving it to me" button, though it still comes with the damage loss. There is no math to tell you which is better, since they are apples and oranges, however for mos progression content I would highly recommend Purgatory.

Anti-Magic-Zone - As already stated, Purgatory is highly recommended for progression content, however some mechanics will make AMZ almost a necessity, depending on your raid comp. If you feel comfortable with taking off purgatory for a fight and AMZ is needed don't hesitate. You should be able to function without Purgatory and if your raid needs the AMZ for a strat, you shouldn't hesitate to switch if a dps DK can't do so instead.

Purgatory - One of the most powerful anti-death tools in the game. It basically allows you to "die" once every 3 minutes. While you shouldn't be "dying" at all if possible, progression content can hit hard and sometimes the safety net is just a no brainer. Plus, having Purgatory up for big hit mechanics that are timable means you can go light on the CDs, since if your judgement is low on how much you need for the hit you don't die, which means you can potentially get more out of your CDs and play your CDs 'riskier' without much risk. This doesn't mean play like an idiot when Purgatory is available, it means if you think you can survive the next plannable hit without a CD but aren't sure then you can safely take the risk.

Tier 3:
There is very little choice here. If you need the slow, take chilblains. If you need the extra stun, take asphyxiate. Otherwise pick Death's Advance every time. Mobility is an important factor for tanking as well as damage output, and this is our only place to get it. There isn't a breakdown for each one here, because the choice doesn't warrant a discussion.

Tier 4:
Death Pact - This cooldown plays right into our reactive style. It's basically a big DS heal without the shield, and should be used in the same way in that you use it to smooth out the damage shape by removing a burst, similar to DS timing.

Death Siphon - Better used as a damage dealing ability than a heal. The issue with this talent is that it takes 2 GCDs to spend the same runes you would use a DS on, which is a problem when we are as GCD capped as we are now in 5.4. It's simply not worth taking Death Siphon from a survival point of view(proof #11) or a damage point of view(proof #12).

Conversion - There are a couple reasons why Conversion is rarely taken if ever. For one, while it is active you do not gain RP from Scent of Blood. This is a problem. The seconds issue with it is that we simply don't have much value for small constant heals, because they don't help us shape the damage nearly as much as we can with larger timable heals like Death Pact.

Tier 5:
I have given this tier its own section. See the next section (6) for details on our rune regen talents.

Tier 6:
This tier is chosen primarily by mechanics. Each talent option has a specific and obvious effect, gripping adds with Gorefiend's, slowing/stunning with Remorseless Winter, and removing stuns (when you can) with Desecrated Ground. There is no 'optimal' choice by default as each one is completely depending on mechanics for its usefulness. It is worth noting that Remorseless Winter can be used fantastically as a CD if you are being hit by stunnable adds. Just be aware that their swing timer resets when they unfreeze, so move slightly to have them reach you at different time to prevent one big whollap when they come unstunned.

6. Rune regen talents

why NOT to use Runic Empowerment:
The one thing that makes me groan more than any other thing when it comes to DKs, is when I see them tanking with Runic Empowerment. This is the only "bad" choice when it comes to out rune regen talents, as it directly works against DS timing. Unlike the other two options, you have to put both runes of one type at the moment you use Rune Strike/death coil to have a chance at getting that rune back. This means when you use DS is less dictated by when you can use it for best DS timing and more dictated by when you need to dump runic power. As blood we want to have a FU pair ready to go if we take damage requiring a reaction. With RE, we have to put all FU pairs down and get 2 pocs before we can DS again. This is at LEAST 2 seconds (one for each GCD for the rune strikes), and realistically ~4 seconds to get them back IF you spend EVERY SINGLE GCD on rune strike until you have it back(proof #13). Any GCD used on BB, DnD, etc. will delay it by another second. Now, 4 seconds between death strikes isn't bad, but this is time that you CAN NOT recover from burst with death strike, making you vulnerable EVERY TIME you want to dump RP.


7. User interface

Not everyone agrees with this, but many raiders, including myself, will swear on a good user interface as being important to your success as a raider. In the Execution chapter I mention internalizing things
to help with execution in a stressful situation. Basically the more things you have committed to muscle memory, the more focus you have to pay attention to other things like raid awareness. A good user interface is GREAT for helping the internalization process. For example, Bone Shield should generally be used off cooldown as long as you have no remaining charges, but if you have remaining charges you should delay using it until they are gone. You could just keep track of all this mentally, OR you could just have an addon in your user interface tell you when to use by telling it to only go off if Bone Shield is up and you have no charges. Simply hit Bone Shield when that icon comes up and you have perfect optimal use of Bone Shield just. You transferred something that would normally take a lot of focus and made it into just reacting to your interface. UI elements like this go a long way in helping your performance.

Other factors of a good UI involve tracking all your CDs (including externals!!!) and runes in a place where you can quickly asses your current resource situation. DS timing requires a constant awareness of your health and runes, so both of those should be very visible in your UI.

Finally things such as threat plates help you keep track of threat without having to tab through mobs, as well as selecting a non-aggroed add out of a clumped up group of aggrod ones.

8. How to improve

If you're reading the advanced guide, there's a good chance you are trying to grow as raider and move up into the next tier of raiding from where you are. If that's the case you've taking the right first step, but improving in any performance based field isn't just about knowledge. you have to be able to apply it to your performance before it will do you any good. The first step to this is never making excuses, only observations. Did you die because you had an add on you that the other tank was supposed to have? Sure it may have been his "fault", but if you didn't use a cooldown then you still made a mistake.

That ideology will make a better player in the end run, because whose fault it actually is has nothing to do with getting stuff done. Regardless of who did what, look at what YOU could do with the situation to make it better. If you missed something that might have saved the situation, then make a note of it and admit you could have done that better. The same ideology goes with criticism. If you aim to push your way into high end guilds, you're going to get criticism at some point. Being able to take whats being said without getting defensive is an important attribute, because again not having something be your fault doesn't change the situation or teach you anything.

Another great technique for improving your performance is recording yourself. If you have access to a screen capture software (I myself prefer Bandicam) then record the entire raid and take some time
to watch it. You don't have to watch it all the way through, but just watching some key moments as well as some overall play is great. You see a LOT more looking over your own shoulder than you
will just be keeping track of any mistakes live.

Finally, realize that you can't improve everything at once. Focus on specifics and until you're all rounded out. Know what your weaknesses are and focus on those until you have new weaknesses in comparison, and rinse repeat until every attribute is where you want it to be. Whatever your weakest skill, invest all your energy into improving that skill until its on par with everything else.

9. Execution

One of the most important elements of any performance field (competitive games, music, sports, etc.) is execution. If you can't take what you know and apply it, it's not doing anyone any good. If you have problems with execution or performance anxiety, you're definitely not alone though. Performance Psychology is a field growing at a huge rate, and for good reason (I am not a Performance Psychologist, but one of my good friends is) . There is a lot of science behind why people get nervous when its time to put up or shut up, and there are a lot of techniques around how to deal with it. What may work for someone else may not work for you, but at the very least take heart that you're far from alone.

Part of being able to execute is to internalize as MUCH as possible. Make as much as you can passive and automatic so that you can focus on the things that DO need your attention. If you try
to focus on absolutely everything going on at once you're going to drop something important, so take the time to commit things to muscle memory so that you can simple execute when the time comes.

One thing that prevents many players from perfect execution is performance anxiety, also known as "stage fright". Maybe it's when they first join a new guild, or maybe its when they get to a new boss,
but at some point many players have suffered from nervousness that kept them from playing at their peak. Nerves are a vicious cycle. If you make a mistake your are likely going to get more nervous, which
makes you more likely to make more mistakes, so on so forth. Many people deal with nerves differently. Some people take steps beforehand to prevent nerves in the first place using rituals like always eating before raid or running over raid strats for at least 30 minutes before raid etc., while some are able to simply recognize when they are in that vicious cycle and take a deep breath and stop it. In the moment of panic after a mistake is made, the best thing (in my opinion) is to just completely ignore it for the remainder of the pull. Don't ignore the mistake in that you don't adjust your play around it (picking up an add that may have spawned or something), but don't dwell on it. As far as your concerned, until the fight is over and its time to look at what happened, you just need to keep going and what's in the past is in the past, even if that's <10 seconds ago.

There are many other techniques than what I've listed here, and performance psychology is a widely applicable field so you can find non-video game related resources on nervousness and apply it to raiding very easily.

10. Proofs

1) 12750 haste = 1.748 seconds of rune regen time saved.

The formula for calculating rune regen time is as follows:



haste buffs are 20% from blood presence, and 10% from raid buffs, and base rune regeneration is 10 seconds. To find the time saved in seconds from 12750 haste, we use that formula above to calculate the recharge time at 0 haste with buffs and subtract from that the recharge time at 12750 haste with buffs.



the result is 1.748 seconds saved from 12750 haste rating.


2) 12750 mastery rating = 133% additional shield

it takes 96 points of mastery to get 1% additional blood shield.
12750/96 = 132.8125%


3) You get x% increase in auto attacks for x% increase in haste from rating

The formula for calculating swing timer is as follows:



take the swing timer with 0 haste and divide by the swing timer with x haste rating to get the % increase, y.



which simplifies to:



Remember that x is still in ratings at this point, not %. Next, solve for x:



then to show x and y are equal, convert x (which is still in haste rating) to haste %
1.01 (1%) haste = 425 rating, so x rating = (x/425)/100+1 = x as a percent



turns into



simplification:



x being equal to y proves that for every x% of haste you have, you get x% more auto attacks


4) You get 0.185% mastery from each % of haste you have through SoB

As proved in proof #3, you get x% more auto attacks for every x% haste you have.
1% of haste results in 1% more auto attacks. Since we don't hard cap exp%, about
7.5% of our auto attacks will be parried (assuming 7.5%/7.5% hit/exp)
therefore 1% increased haste translates to .925*1=.925% increase in successful auto attacks.
since each successful auto attack is worth 20% mastery through SoB, we take the increased
successful auto attacks and multiply it times 20 to get 20*.00925 (.925%) = 0.185%


5) You get .04179 points of mastery for every 1 point of haste through SoB

As proved in proof #4 we get .185% mastery for every 1% haste.
.185% mastery is equivalent to 17.76 mastery rating, and 1% haste is 425 haste rating.
17.75/425 = .041788 mastery per haste.

6) We get 0.0000203 seconds of coverage per point of avoidance (before DR)

Before DR, we get 1% avoidance for every 885 points. this means 1/885=0.0011299% of avoidance per point.
A usual boss swing timer is worth 1.8 seconds, so at .0011299% avoidance per point you get 1.8*(0.0011299/100)=0.0000203 seconds.



7) We get 0.00013175 (average over haste values 0 to 15000) seconds off our rune charge time per point of haste

The formula for finding the rune recharge time is as follows:



we start by taking that formula solved with x haste rating and subtract from it the same formula solved with x+1 haste rating
giving us a curve representing the seconds gained by 1 point beyond x haste rating. This looks like:



to find the average of this curve from 0 haste to 15000, we take the definite integral of the function above from 0 to 15000
and divide by the total spanned distance, 15000-0=15000.







8) Haste gives .00235% additional SoB procs per point

As proved in proof #3, you get x% additional SoB procs per x% haste from ratings.
since it takes 425 haste to get 1%, you get 1/425=.00235% haste from 1 point, making .00235% additional SoB procs.



9 Avoidance gives .0011299% more SoB procs per point(Before DR)

Before DR it takes 885 points to get 1% additional avoidance, or 1% additional avoidance attacks. Since every
avoidance attack results in a SoB proc, it also means 1% additional SoB procs. Since it takes 885 points of avoidance
to get 1% increased SoB procs, you get 1/855=.0011299% more SoB procs per point before DR.


10) It takes (.5*hp-3966)/1.7699 AP to make a single Death Coil cast on yourself do 50% of your health

set up the equation half your health = value of DC:



solve for AP




11) It's not worth taking Death Siphon from a survival point of view.

There is not much math to this, since the simple fact that not having a shield
is enough to make trading a DS away for a Death Siphon not feasible for physical content.
The shield we get from DS is just too important.


12) It's not worth taking Death Siphon from a damage point of view.

Again not much math required on this one. The fact that it takes 2 GCDs to do similar damage to a single Death strike
which uses 1 GCD makes it not usable in the GCD starved state we are in. even if those 2 GCDs did more damage than the 1 GCD for
the same total resources, because you are not going to get that time back through an open GCD you basically cut your damage for those 2 seconds in roughly half.


13) It takes ~4 seconds to get an FU pair if you spend every GCD on rune strike.

after 1 second you will have done 1 RS. You have a 45% chance to have 1 F or U rune and a 55% chance to have nothing.
meaning you have a 0% chance to have a DS to use.

after 2 seconds you will have done 2 RS. You will have a .45*.45=20.25% chance to an FU pair, and a .45*.55*2=49.5% to have 1 F or U rune,
and a .55*.55=30.25% chance to have nothing, resulting in a 20.25% chance to have a DS

after 3 seconds you will have done 3 RS. You will have a .45^2*55*3=33.4125% chance to have an FU pair back, a .45*.55^2*3=40.8375% and .55^3=16.6375% chance to have nothing.
This means you have a .334125+.091125= 42.525% chance to have a DS at 3 seconds.

After 4 seconds you will have done 4 Rune Strikes. You have a .45^2*.55^2*6=~36.75% chance to have 2 back, a .45*.55^3*4=~29.948% chance to have an orphaned rune,
and a .55^4=~9.151% to have nothing at all. This means you have a .041+.20048+.3675=~60.898%
to have a DS to use after 4 seconds of being without without having your recharging pair back.

Since it took 4 seconds to get above 50% success rate, you will more often than not end up waiting 4 seconds for your FU pair if you use every single GCD on rune strike after DSing.


14) Blood Tap is going to have slightly higher DS/min than RC.

Blood Tap gives back death runes, so 2 uses of blood tap at 10 total charges is equal to one death strike
it takes 5 rune strike to get 10 charges, so blood tap gives 1/5th, or 20% of a death strike per rune strike

Runic corruption gives 30% of each rune when it procs, and it has a 45% chance to proc on each rune strike, resulting in
.45*30=13.5% of a death strike per rune.

20% is significant higher than 13.5%, but remember this is only the benefit we get from each proc. Since this is only one part of our total DS/min,
you don't gain anywhere 67.5% more death strike total from switching from RC to BT.


15) RC is going to have slightly more damage per rp than BT.

Proof #12 showed that blood tap gives 20% of a death strike per rune strike.
It also showed that runic corruption gives 13.5% of a death strike per rune strike, but it also
gives 13.5% of a blood rune.

Since death strike has a weapon modifier of 259%, and hearth strike has a weapon modifier of 136.5% (105% with a 30% boost from diseases)
a single blood rune to be used on heart strike is about 5.4% more damage than a single death rune to be used on half a death strike.

RC gives 13.5% of a death strike and 13.5% of a blood rune. The blood rune can be thought of as 14.2297% of a death rune in terms of damage.
Thus, RC gives 13.5%*2+14.2297% = 41.2297% of a single death rune, and BT gives 20%*2 = 40% of a single death rune, making RC a roughly 3% gain over BT in damage per RP.

[bleiben]

Very thorough, I like the visuals! Great guide 10/10!

[HydroxyEthane]

Very good guide, it will help me a lot when i decide to tank as a DK

[Nangz]

Quality guide as usual, replaced your old one with this new one.

I'm just curious why there is no discussion about damage vs survival since its a decision where you personally prefer the former. In fact, so substantially that you almost "avoid" avoidance.

[Resurgo]

Quality guide as usual, replaced your old one with this new one.

I'm just curious why there is no discussion about damage vs survival since its a decision where you personally prefer the former. In fact, so substantially that you almost "avoid" avoidance.

Since it's a guide, I imagine it's for the beginning Death Knight.

As such, this gives that Death Knight a good solid foundation to work with.

We can always work out the damage part later after they're comfortable with the class. For example, there's times where despite Death Siphon being inferior to Death Strike most of the time, there are a couple of places where 1) We can't be in melee range to Death Strike, or 2) A boss mechanic like berserker stance, or (was it Windlord?) that takes inflated damage that Death Siphon can overtake Death Strike immensely in damage/rune.

However, those instances are probably things that would require a more intimate knowledge of everything else before tackling.

[Reniat]

Quality guide as usual, replaced your old one with this new one.

I'm just curious why there is no discussion about damage vs survival since its a decision where you personally prefer the former. In fact, so substantially that you almost "avoid" avoidance.

There really should be one. I intended to add a section on that but forgot (the cost of "finishing" a guide at 4am). My first priority when I get home is to fix the math errors i found in the haste vs avoidance section (which has been temporarily removed), but ill add on the topic of damage.

As far as my preference, im curious why you say I have a preference for damage.

- - - Updated - - -

Since it's a guide, I imagine it's for the beginning Death Knight.

the advanced section is intended to be for the DK looking to really dig in, so it should mention the topic of damage/survival. I will put one in later tonight.

[Cryopathy]

Solid work. I'm going to read this more in depth when I get home and get to nitpicking

[Deleted]

Hey hey, great guide Reniat!

One thing that I couldn't see/find on here was anything about the different runeforges. I've got a 581 Prot Warr, 577 Prot Pala, and since we got our Garrosh hc kill a few months ago, I've been gearing up my Blood DK for alt runs.

I'm at about 550 ilvl and quite comfortable with keeping myself alive. I've just been using the Stoneskin Gargoyle Runeforge, for the Armor/Stam% and basically because I've been too lazy to bother changing.

In terms of a DPS point of view, what should I use? I've seen a few people using Rune of Swordshattering for 4% Parry, but since this doesn't equate to extra crit rating (and merely provides a higher chance to proc Riposte) I don't see the DPS benefits of it - especially since my riposte upkeep is always high already.

Is Rune of Fallen Crusader for the strength proc worth using?

What about Rune of Lichbane (for passive +2% damage) - or is it still merely 2% damage of white attacks and still as crap as it was in WoLTK?

Or is generally just a waste to use a 'DPS' runeforge since we only take 7.5% expertise?

Thanks in advance and apologies if I've made any Nooblet DK mistakes x)

/Alry

[Reniat]

One thing that I couldn't see/find on here was anything about the different runeforges.

woopsy. I forgot runeforges, professions, and echants. All of which have been added (the runeforges are part of the enchants). Thanks for mentioning it!

[Cryopathy]

Alright, I promised some nitpicking, so here we go! Overall I think it's a great guide and an improvement over your previous one (not that the first one was bad), especially thanks to the advanced section.

-I think you should emphasize the importance of AMS, especially this tier with such a short cooldown due to the glyph and CDR trinket. First and foremost, it should be saved if it's needed to soak large hits, but in the cases where that's not needed (thanks to a fight's mechanics or availability of other cooldowns), I'd stress the importance of using it as often as possible as a low- or no-risk way to greatly increase resource generation. Even when it is needed to soak a large hit, the cooldown is so short now that you can essentially use it on CD as long as you pay attention to boss timers.

-There could be more detail to the maximizing damage section. DPS cloak, trinkets, using Army during Bloodlust with high vengeance, using Ghoul on CD, importance of Soul Reaper (many DKs especially fail to maximize this), and so on.

-For Tier 1 talents, I disagree that Plague Leech is always suboptimal. I agree that most of the time Roiling Blood is the best choice, but I don't think the usefulness of having a DS on-demand should be understated.

-Glyph section feels incomplete. Glyphs of Death Grip, Dark Simulacrum, Death and Decay, and Festering Blood all potentially have uses. Also, can you educate me as to why Loud Horn should be a default glyph? In the long run, the RP generation is the same between glyphing it and not glyphing it, so I'm guessing your argument is that RP generation will be higher with it glyphed considering Horn costs a GCD, so it's more likely that we'll be able to Horn once every 40 seconds rather than twice every 40 seconds? Lastly, why is glyphing Vampiric Blood a poor idea? My understanding was that you'd typically leave it glyphed unless you need a proactive EH boost for a certain mechanic.

-For professions, I'd include the mobility boosts (and rarely the usefulness of EMP stuns) as benefits. For me, it's as good as Blacksmithing or Leatherworking when you add in those intangible benefits.

-This is minor and fairly unimportant, but getting expertise to 15% should be in the priority for raw damage. The last time I checked my spreadsheet (which is an adaptation for Blood of a spreadsheet Euliat made to demonstrate the level of haste at which Frost GCD caps), a point of expertise between 7.5% and 15% is better than avoidance and haste, but worse than crit for DPS.

That's pretty much all I have. It's a testament to the quality of the guide that the disagreements I have are both minor and debatable.

[Reniat]

Most of that stuff (expanded talk on damage, AMS use) are going to be added when I add the damage part to the advanced guide, which I'll add when I get some time to do it right.

As far as the PL comment and the Loud Horn comment go, both have to do with GCDs. Because we are so starved of open GCDs, resource generation actually has less to do with our damage output than normally, because we may not be able to spend it optimally or at all due to how often we can use it. The reason why we want the Loud Horn glyph and the reason we don't use PL are the same: Doing the opposite would cost us a GCD.

Think of it this way. you have x number of GCDs to use in a given window. Normally, you'd have y resource generation, so you'd use abilities to efficiently spend all y resources to maximize the damage of those x GCDs, since doing resource inefficient abilities would just make you resource starved and give you more downtime. Right now we have a huge resource surplus while actively tanking. We have enough resource generation that while actively tanking we can pretty much use max damage per execute abilities for almost every GCD, and need to do so in order to not waste a GCD.

A DS gained from PL is free in terms of resources, but it costs you a GCD every time you do, so that DS you got was 1 DS's worth of damage over 2 GCDs. Meaning you might have gotten more damage by doing something else (dumping RP, spending a B rune, using a CS charge proc) for both of those GCDs instead.

Similarly, by using glyph of loud horn you are getting in 1 GCD what you would otherwise get in 2, though even with the glyph in you won't find much room for HoW in many cases, especially around AMS soaking, DRW (with 4 piece) and GL trying to spend resources efficiently during bloodlust.

The difference is open GCDs, and how we basically have none while actively tanking. This will be changed in WoD, and stuff like PL will be viable (and probably optimal almost always) once the importance shifts back to resources as opposed to being able to get what you have out before you cap at every moment.

[Cryopathy]

Yeah, I figured both had to do with the lack of open GCDs. By default I'd use Roiling Blood if there are any adds, but I see situational uses for Plague Leech on many fights that may be useful. Its usefulness is more for progression than trying to max dps for ranking, which is where we're at now.

Regarding glyphs, to benefit from Loud Horn, you need an average of fewer than 3 open GCDs per minute (which is certainly common now with good enough gear). Any more, and you'd be able to get the same RP generation from unglyphed Horn of Winter. The maximum possible benefit of Loud Horn vs. unglyphed is 15 RP/min, which equates to .5 RS and .25 DS (assuming Blood Tap). This would only be achievable if you only have a free GCD for Horn of Winter exactly every 40 seconds, i.e. exactly 1.5 free GCDs/min. Remember also that it's more realistic that you might have open GCDs during some portions of a fight such as tank swaps, and no open GCDs while you're tanking.

Because of these reasons I'd still recommend using something else as a default. Let's look at the options:

Vampiric Blood: If you're at the gear level where your resource generation is high enough that you'd see benefit from Loud Horn, you're likely at a high enough gear level that you don't need the EH boost from Vampiric Blood for anything. Your HP-percentage based self-healing is slightly inferior, but the extra healing taken from your healers and non-percentage-based heals dwarfs that. IMO that survivability increase is worth more than the very minor extra RP generation from glyphing Loud Horn.

Festering Blood: On fights with a lot of adds (like Sha of Pride, Immerseus, or Dark Shamans), the damage boost from the initial diseaseless Blood Boil (remember that even with Roiling Blood, with a diseased mob in range, the initial Blood Boil on the diseaseless mobs does not include the 1.5x damage multiplier--you know this, but others might not ) is probably more than the practical damage increase from Loud Horn.

Situational glyphs such as Death Grip, Icebound Fortitude, Dark Simulacrum, or Death and Decay.

In the end, I see Regenerative Magic as mandatory, and additionally Pestilence as mandatory on fights with adds (which is almost every fight). That leaves one slot for most fights, which I feel is better suited for VB as a default, or a situational glyph for the fight such IBF, DSim, or DnD. On a pure single target fight with no use for the other situational glyphs, maybe I'd slot Loud Horn, but that situation is the exception rather than the norm.

Honestly glyphs have such a minor effect on performance that it's maybe not even worth discussing, but hey, min/maxing is min/maxing.

[Reniat]

Yeah, I figured both had to do with the lack of open GCDs. By default I'd use Roiling Blood if there are any adds, but I see situational uses for Plague Leech on many fights that may be useful. Its usefulness is more for progression than trying to max dps for ranking, which is where we're at now.

Even during progression, open GCDs ware a problem. It's not just a max dps during farm thing. Also, there weren't really any fights this tier that would be good for PL. The time PL really shines is on big hit mechanics, like Nazgrim's execute. The only problem is Nazgrim has a ton of adds so RB is still preferred. Other fights with similar mechanics are Siegecrafter Blackfuse which unfortunately has a ton of adds as well (mines, shredders, etc.), Paragons (again, RB should be obvious). The only fights I would even consider PL is Malkorok and Thok, but in both of those cases it's still a dps loss to use it.

Remember that if you aren't glyphing outbreak (which no one should be as of this post) you have to have outbreak off its 40 second cooldown in order to use PL, and even in situations where there aren't a bunch of adds there are still times you won't want to use outbreak or will not have it available due to a new target, PLUS AFTER ALL THAT, you have to remember that even if you get a DS out of it, it took an extra second to use so it wasn't even a great reaction to the damage you're trying to recover from. It's better than nothing, but it's not the same as using a DS to recover using open FU pairs.

Regarding glyphs, to benefit from Loud Horn, you need an average of fewer than 3 open GCDs per minute (which is certainly common now with good enough gear). Any more, and you'd be able to get the same RP generation from unglyphed Horn of Winter. The maximum possible benefit of Loud Horn vs. unglyphed is 15 RP/min, which equates to .5 RS and .25 DS (assuming Blood Tap). This would only be achievable if you only have a free GCD for Horn of Winter exactly every 40 seconds, i.e. exactly 1.5 free GCDs/min. Remember also that it's more realistic that you might have open GCDs during some portions of a fight such as tank swaps, and no open GCDs while you're tanking.

Don't look at RP generation, look at GCDs. Even glyphed you're not going to use HoW off cooldown. far from it. It's just to fill those RARE moments where you don't have anything better to use, and those don't happen often. By adding the glyph you are at least having the potential to get more out of HoW even with this infrequent use. and even if it results in RP capping, it will still at least match the output of unglyphed HoW. Plus, as i'll get to below, there is really not any better options.

Because of these reasons I'd still recommend using something else as a default. Let's look at the options:

Vampiric blood glyph is EXTREMELY situational. If you value this as a survival boost glyph for anything outside of a specific fight mechanic that it works with, then you need to re-read the first section in the advanced guide. The smoothness gained by VB unglyphed is far superior to the healing increase by using the glyph.

Festering Blood does give you an extra 50% damage on the first blood boil in certain situations, but rarely will that ever matter at all. On all the examples given, the adds on that fight either die so quickly that it's irrelevant (oozes on shamans, sha of pride adds, small adds on immerseus) or are their own target, meaning saving HoW to help burst them down with single target spells are better anyway (adds during transitions on immerseus).

Situational glyphs such as Death Grip, Icebound Fortitude, Dark Simulacrum, or Death and Decay.

You said it yourself, all of these are situational. If a fight mechanic makes these favored, then use them, but why put them in for the "default" glyph options? IBF is actually a terrible option to have as default, because unless the mechanics play into the way it works (big infrequent burst) then it's actually worse than an empty glyph slot.

[Cryopathy]

Thought about the Glyph of VB, and what you are saying makes sense.

Re: the situational glyphs, I worded/formatted my post poorly. I meant to convey the idea that 3rd glyph slot (Regenerative Magic and Pestilence being the other two) would be holding a situational glyph if a fight needed one. I did not mean to suggest leaving a particular situational glyph slotted all the time--I am aware that glyphing IBF when you don't need to do so is a poor idea. In other words:

Glyph 1: Regenerative Magic (all fights)
Glyph 2: Pestilence (almost all fights)
Glyph 3: Loud Horn or situational glyph

[Reniat]

the "standard" glyphs are meant to be your default assuming no fight mechanics favor something else. of course if you need one of the situational glyphs you put them in.

[dogu16]

Thanks for guide.

[SH4D0WS1N]

I'm reading this to see if I can improve our guild's BDK. We run 25m heroics and they're rather spikey and definitely have survival issues at times (most prevalent on Malk, Thok, and Siegecrafter progression). Before I ask for any direct help for them specifically I'll ask some question I have about DK tanking in general.

Either I missed it (which could easily happen) or is there no part for proper BT usage? My main concern is how I just learned how it's best to hold one FU pair (since I've just been burning then when they're up for more shields) which brings me to, how am I supposed to use BT in this case? Do I want to just use BT when I can for more blood shield or should I be holding onto them for bigger spikes of damage? Or if I have 10+ BT stacks should I save them and then just not keep a FU pair up?

And what are your thoughts on these seemingly arbitrary mastery caps? I know our tank tried running a 200% (unbuffed) mastery cap and then stacking full avoidance with parry >= dodge.

Currently they have 9k mastery with 15.5k parry and 10k dodge. My main concern is their death strike usage which I will definitely be looking into now that I've discovered something new with FU pair usage. I know that one of our tank's biggest concerns is the amount of damage they're dealing. I have a lot to look into (in both proper DK playstyle and exactly how they're playing) before I start asking for specific help for them though.

Do you recommend TTT/Rook, TTT/Malk, or Rook/Malk?

Thank you in advance.

[Kiqjaq]

Brilliant work as always Reniat! On behalf of the community I thank you for your contributions. ^^

In regards to the flowchart (Yes -> No -> No path), I think the two paths are switched. Why would you never Death Strike after a particularly large hit?

[Reniat]

I'm reading this to see if I can improve our guild's BDK. We run 25m heroics and they're rather spikey and definitely have survival issues at times (most prevalent on Malk, Thok, and Siegecrafter progression). Before I ask for any direct help for them specifically I'll ask some question I have about DK tanking in general.

Either I missed it (which could easily happen) or is there no part for proper BT usage? My main concern is how I just learned how it's best to hold one FU pair (since I've just been burning then when they're up for more shields) which brings me to, how am I supposed to use BT in this case? Do I want to just use BT when I can for more blood shield or should I be holding onto them for bigger spikes of damage? Or if I have 10+ BT stacks should I save them and then just not keep a FU pair up?

And what are your thoughts on these seemingly arbitrary mastery caps? I know our tank tried running a 200% (unbuffed) mastery cap and then stacking full avoidance with parry >= dodge.

Currently they have 9k mastery with 15.5k parry and 10k dodge. My main concern is their death strike usage which I will definitely be looking into now that I've discovered something new with FU pair usage. I know that one of our tank's biggest concerns is the amount of damage they're dealing. I have a lot to look into (in both proper DK playstyle and exactly how they're playing) before I start asking for specific help for them though.

Do you recommend TTT/Rook, TTT/Malk, or Rook/Malk?

Thank you in advance.

Theres some stuff i need to add. BT use is one of them. I've just been busy busy busy. There are no real mastery caps. You just use what you feel comfortable with based on desired survivability and damage output. There is certainly such a thing as "overkill" mastery though, depending on your gear and the content you're doing.

- - - Updated - - -

Brilliant work as always Reniat! On behalf of the community I thank you for your contributions. ^^

In regards to the flowchart (Yes -> No -> No path), I think the two paths are switched. Why would you never Death Strike after a particularly large hit?

oops :P

I'll try to get to that tomorrow.