"Don't QQ" - A clarification on the blood tanking "nerfs"

[Zao]

Okay, Since there were about 5 threads popping up at the same time and I can't be bother to answer every single one of them, I'd like to concentrate the discussion about it here.

First: The armor nerf. The armor bonus provided by Blood Presence was lower by 30% to 30%.
This is a nerf in current content and leaves us with lower armor than pallies and Warriors.
However: The nerf was obviously intended for cataclysm content, since shield provide a rough 30% increase of armor for a warrior/pally.
Their armor without a shield in raiding gear is somewhere between 30-35k and a shield provides around 11k armor http://www.wowhead.com/item=59444
So the "nerf" brought our armor in line with them.

Second: The nerf to DS isn't a nerf if you look at the whole picture,
Yes, each DS heals less. But in turn we can also DS far more often through the 20% buff to Blood Presence. So our damage negated over a period of time will probably be the same, or even higher than before.

[Ikkatsu]

Zao, are you saying that 85 our mitigation (before masteries) will be identical to the other tanks?

I think the reason most people are QQing is because our Tank CDs had the CDs Increased and now our Armor has been reduced.

Straight away that will make people think "ffs, we was supposed to be high-armor, multiple cd tanks because we can't use shields... wtf are we now?".

Just more clarification would be nice i suppose.

[Deleted]

I understand the nerf's completly but would it not have been better to leave the armor nerf for 2 weeks untill cata then hotfix it in :s

[Rhodianni]

If DK´s can´t tank lvl 85 content, they are going to fix us, just chill and wait.

[kerwyn]

If DK´s can´t tank lvl 85 content, they are going to fix us, just chill and wait.

This right here. Content barely matters at the moment. If it's an issue, just use a different tank class for two whole weeks.

[DrKirre]

Straight away that will make people think "ffs, we was supposed to be high-armor, multiple cd tanks because we can't use shields... wtf are we now?".

Just more clarification would be nice i suppose.

Thanks for putting my thoughts into words! This is exactly it.. what seperated DKs from the rest is, well, that! And now that's gone. So we're just sorta... bland. If tanks are oatmeal, paladins of delicious healing strawberries, druids have those evasive peach chunks, warriors have big ol' apple wedges of might, and DKs.. are just extra-thick oatmeal. We used to have choice of topping! But now, just thick.
...I probably shouldn't post before breakfast.

[Xarai]

First: The armor nerf. The armor bonus provided by Blood Presence was lower by 30% to 30%.
This is a nerf in current content and leaves us with lower armor than pallies and Warriors.
However: The nerf was obviously intended for cataclysm content, since shield provide a rough 30% increase of armor for a warrior/pally.
Their armor without a shield in raiding gear is somewhere between 30-35k and a shield provides around 11k armor http://www.wowhead.com/item=59444
So the "nerf" brought our armor in line with them.

so 359ilvl warrior set provides 13919 Armor + 1927 Belt + 1499 Bracers + 2355 = 19700 Armor
(11896[Shield]/19700[Plate Items)Armor * 100% = 60,3%
so just by wearing a shield their armor is increased by 60%... now would someone care to explain why they gain a 60% increase +the ability to block another 30% of the damage, while Blood Presence just grants 30%?

ok granted we have the ability to heal up to 20% of the damage taken over the last 5 seconds (roughly every 8 seconds) and have a minor increased damage reduction via Blood Presence + Blade Barrier (14%) while Defensive Stance only is a 10% reduction. but ~6k armor (half the amount of a shield) seems a bit too much

[Evolixe]

I want my armor back, yeah.

[Zao]

Zao, are you saying that 85 our mitigation (before masteries) will be identical to the other tanks?

I think the reason most people are QQing is because our Tank CDs had the CDs Increased and now our Armor has been reduced.

Straight away that will make people think "ffs, we was supposed to be high-armor, multiple cd tanks because we can't use shields... wtf are we now?".

Just more clarification would be nice i suppose.

Our basic Mitigation will be pretty much the same. As soon as we start to factor in Bloodshield/DS healing vs Block vs Savage Defense it gets a lot more complicated. Especially because the value of DS can vary greatly on how you use it.

Yes, a lot of the QQ comes becuase most of those nerfs have happened at once, which makes it seem like DK now is the worst tanking class, which is simply not true.
Our abilities were brought in line.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard homogenised the main tanking cds to the 50% reduction, 3 minute CD because they want to balance boss abilities around that, and needed some sort of common denominator for that.
We still have nearly twice the amount of cooldows other tanks have.

• IBF
• VB
• BSh
• AMS
• WotN

Now if you think DKs are boring or not is a personal opinion and nothing I say will probably change that.
Personally I love DKs especially because DS is way more interesting than Block, since we can use it intelligently and get a far greater return out of it than Block would.

[Nyanmaru]

I just compared my armor to one of the warrior tanks in my raid.
I'm about 1.6k armor and 5% avoidance short but got 6k more HP and 8 more mastery then he does. (that's with ~264 gear)
After we took 2 healers with us and got us a nice LK ID we stepped in to do some damage tests.
After about 1.5h of swapping back and forth between add and LK tanking we compared the numbers and were at most 4% different from each other, but over all the same. This was no comparison of damage taken but damage taken and overhealing taken. Our healers were 2 paladins that did a pretty good job (~22% overheal on the warr, ~26% on me). After factoring the self heal from DS in and adding blood shield to it while the warrior had blood craze. We came to a level where I mitigated/countered about 10% more incoming dps than he did.

For current content, I'd say that we are still in a good spot but the "lol 2 hit your dead" mechanic doesn't suit with that...

[slayerx]

Zao, do you know if Improved Death Strikes works?

[Deleted]

Zao, do you know if Improved Death Strikes works?

Ofcourse it does, but only if we take enough damage to break the minimum heal.
If you don't get enough damage so that DS only heals for the 7% maxhp, improved DS won't factor in. But it didn't before either. I think that´s to fix the hc 5mans/leveling healing against the raidhealing - it won't be too much for low/solo stuff, but also not too less for raids.

[Deleted]

Half the people qq'ing probably don't even know what death strike is or how it works...

Seen DK tanks without mastery trained before :s

[Ikkatsu]

Ofcourse it does, but only if we take enough damage to break the minimum heal.
If you don't get enough damage so that DS only heals for the 7% maxhp, improved DS won't factor in. But it didn't before either. I think that´s to fix the hc 5mans/leveling healing against the raidhealing - it won't be too much for low/solo stuff, but also not too less for raids.

Yeah, as you said, it only takes affect after the minimum heal has been "breached". This means that pre 7% maximum health... the 45% improved death strike does not "work" (as intended).

Example: Tank with 100k Health and Improved Death Strike.

Over the past 5 seconds, he has only taken 20,000 damage and he then uses Death Strike.
20,000 * 0.20 (Normal Death Strike) = 4,000 but this is below the minimum heal of 7% so the standard 7,000 Health will be applied.

Now, this time the tank has taken 80,000 damage over 5 seconds and then uses Death Strike.
80,000 * 0.20 (Normal Death Strike) = 16,000 * 1.45 (Improved Death Strike) = 23,200.

I could be wrong, but im pretty sure the Improved Death Strike is applied AFTER the original calculation.

OffTopic: I love your Avatar ;o

[Zao]

Zao, do you know if Improved Death Strikes works?

I read a thread on the offical boards about imp DS being bugged.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/916824643
If it's true or not, I can't say yet.

[Maharishi]

If DK´s can´t tank lvl 85 content, they are going to fix us, just chill and wait.

Now that shattering's actually hit, i'm vastly less complelled by this argument.

If you look at wrath as an indicator of their reaction time to balancing tanking, they let tank classes sit fairly under powered for over half the exp, E.G. warriors 3.0.1-3.3.

[Foibles]

Now that shattering's actually hit, i'm vastly less complelled by this argument.

If you look at wrath as an indicator of their reaction time to balancing tanking, they let tank classes sit fairly under powered for over half the exp, E.G. warriors 3.0.1-3.3.

I tanked as a Warrior during those times, as did many others. Just because Warriors were last in EH doesn't mean they couldn't complete the content as either an OT or an MT.

[Deleted]

i agree with the nerfs that dks got, but the armor one is really a pain, was doing a RS HC run just to get some guildies there achievement and got owned big time, well i guess now i have a go reason not to go on farm raids. whohoo

[Nyanmaru]

i agree with the nerfs that dks got, but the armor one is really a pain, was doing a RS HC run just to get some guildies there achievement and got owned big time, well i guess now i have a go reason not to go on farm raids. whohoo

Care to share the logs of your last 4.0.1/4.0.3 raid and of this 4.0.3a raid?
I'd really like to see the actual difference in damage per strike on live numbers.

[Neichus]

If you look at wrath as an indicator of their reaction time to balancing tanking, they let tank classes sit fairly under powered for over half the exp, E.G. warriors 3.0.1-3.3.

As Foibles said, Warriors were not that bad through most of that. The bigger problem in my experience was DK dominance, where a 1 minute CD IBF made them patently superior to any other tank for any fight that required predictable cooldowns. And once it became obvious that it wasn't just Sarth3D but several significant fights in Ulduar that DKs were too good at they acted rather swiftly to rectify the situation.

Personally I love DKs especially because DS is way more interesting than Block, since we can use it intelligently and get a far greater return out of it than Block would.

This is where I can definitely agree. Block is near-passive as a Paladin and the latest changes to Shield Block (down to 25%) make it a nearly macro'able ability. Personally I feel like Death Knights are the closest to what I always wanted out of being a tank (this is coming from a Warrior of 5 years), where a great deal of your own survivability is in the hands of the tank; so much can be done as a good DK tank to influence your survivability.