4.3 Death Knight Tanking Guide and Discussion

[SSHA778]

Translation for us dum-dums: Moar Armor makes you take Less Damage.

That would be the obvious conclusion which wouldn't require math, but that's not helpful when you're weighing choices. You always want to look at one stat in relation to the big picture.

The not-so-obvious conclusion is that each point of armor is just as effective at keeping you alive as the previous point. This is the key, and the reason I posted the math that I did, because this defeats the entire "armor gets less effective with the more you have" argument.

[flashur]

Just out of interest, what trinkets do you guys run with for the different bosses?

I only have Scales of Life, Fire of the Deep, and Mirror of Broken Images, still haven't seen a trinket drop in DS, normal or heroic. I only use Mirror for Yorsahj and Zonozz and the other two for the rest, but I was interested as to whether Indomitable + Soulshifter is superior for all fights bar Yorsahj and Zonozz, or if another combination is useful.

Personally I found Fire of the Deep to be pretty useful on Blackhorn hc to avoid sunder stacks, but would Indomitable or Soulshifter be better?

I'm yet to tackle Spine and Madness heroic, but will be attempting them next reset and I'm trying to figure out the best trinket setups. Would much appreciate any advice in terms of trinket setups and tanking tips for those fights.

Thanks!

[Ipawnu]

NE or Dwarf for DK Tanking?

[Firebert]

Nelf for more avoidance, Dwarf for more Armor on a cooldown.

Nelf is better, I think.

[hyperionx]

Dwarf racial stopped giving armor in cata. Now it's just a 10% damage reduction. You could make the argument that 10% damage reduction is better on magic fights, and Nelf better for physical fights or add fights, but in the end, it's not enough to really matter.

[weta]

In my opinion the Dwarf Racial is quite powerfull and for me, its way better than the nelf racial. i think espacially on heroic mode its more powerful to decrease damagespikes by 10% than a permanent, but in spikes way smaller damagereduction caused by 2% dodge.

Hey zao: there is an out dated information in you well written guide. epicgems are making blacksmithing the best in slot profession(lets exclude stamina). now, it provides 150 stamina, 100 mastery and avoidance.

greetings

[Jlenham]

Hey all!

Came back to WoW a few weeks back (left before 4.3) and started up a shammy, I decided to move across and race change my DK aswell and now im trying to attempt to get back into the swing of tanking on him
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...n/Ozoka/simple

Any suggestions on where to start? Ive read the Ej and mmo champ stickys but its not really..well sticking? Like I can half understand it but once you fall out of the WoW loop it looks like another language!

Like are out break, plague strike and heart strike still used? heart strike must be surely? but I didnt see it mentioned in the priorities bit,unless im blind ofcourse!

[SSHA778]

Heart Strike is on a very low priority, and even more so since Blade Barrier was removed. If you're doing rotation properly, you're probably not even using it more than 2 times per minute.

Outbreak is used. PS/IT are only used if Outbreak misses.

You can also try reading the DK tanking sticky in the DK forums on the official US forums:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/968396860

[Pope]

Jlenham, if you want DK-tanking in a nutshell:

Use Death Strike as much as possible. That means use as much runes for Death Strikes.
If you can't use Death Strike, use Rune Strike. It gives the chance to proc runes for more Death Strikes.
Use Blood Tap smart, but also as much as possible, more runes for Death Strikes.

Use Heart Strike only if you have Blood Runes up, but never with a Death Rune. Use Rune Tap if it's off cooldown (and you're not at 100%), because it's more useful then Heart Strike.

The rest is "advanced" tanking. Obviously use your Cooldowns, have a full RP-bar and preferably VB up if you use Lichborne, use Outbreak on CD (30sec cooldown, your disease-duration is 29sec), etc.

[Jlenham]

Ah thanks alot
Yeah disease rotation I was unsure of as it used to be all about IT/PS and all that but now its all changed.

Done two runs of zulaman and its not helping everyone being geared up like crazy and me still in the odd epic/early heroic blues!!

[Danishgirl]

I have a question regarding stats. I read that DK tanks go for either Mastery or Avoidance but is it okay to go for both? The reason behind this way of reforging/gemming is to make sure the difference between Parry and Dodge doesn't become too big. As in, gemming Dodge out of necessity and as a result loosing out on a fair bit of Mastery.

[Pope]

I have a question regarding stats. I read that DK tanks go for either Mastery or Avoidance but is it okay to go for both? The reason behind this way of reforging/gemming is to make sure the difference between Parry and Dodge doesn't become too big. As in, gemming Dodge out of necessity and as a result loosing out on a fair bit of Mastery.

Nowadays, most DKs decide between Stamina and Mastery. As in, trying to stack as much mastery as possible in any tanking pieces and using either stamina or mastery gems/trinkets.
Avoidance isn't really popular nowadays because it won't save your life in DS. (E.g. Impale)

The difference in parry and avoidance isn't such a big problem. Even if you have ~ 500 more parry then dodge, all you're losing is 0.1 - 0.2% avoidance.

[Danishgirl]

Nowadays, most DKs decide between Stamina and Mastery. As in, trying to stack as much mastery as possible in any tanking pieces and using either stamina or mastery gems/trinkets.
Avoidance isn't really popular nowadays because it won't save your life in DS. (E.g. Impale)

The difference in parry and avoidance isn't such a big problem. Even if you have ~ 500 more parry then dodge, all you're losing is 0.1 - 0.2% avoidance.

So in your opinion, what would be the better choice? Balancing Dodge and Parry or going for full Mastery. Also, what kind of dps would be expected from a DK tank in 393 gear on Ultraxion HM? If you have an idea that is.

Reason being our DK tank seems to do very low dps - as in 15kish and claims he can't push more.

[Pope]

So in your opinion, what would be the better choice? Balancing Dodge and Parry or going for full Mastery. Also, what kind of dps would be expected from a DK tank in 393 gear on Ultraxion HM? If you have an idea that is.

Reason being our DK tank seems to do very low dps - as in 15kish and claims he can't push more.

He should go full mastery. As much pieces with Mastery as possible, and he can get as low on hit and expertise as he can. You can balance Parry and Dodge afterwards (Most of the time, that'll mean reforge parry to dodge because we've got more parry due to strength.)

DPS, I dunno. 15k sounds pretty low. Do you have any logs present? It's important to mention that a lot of DKs out there claim "I give everything I can" while they're screwing up majorly. (RE, BT-usage, HS-usage)

Or cooldown-usage. (esp. on ultraxion. Uptime of DRW should be pretty high, and that's a DPS-cooldown).

[hyperionx]

You will never be able to balance dodge and parry, you simply do what you can while valuing mastery higher. For example if I have a piece that has parry and dodge, i'll reforge the parry to mastery, or a piece with parry and mastery, then the parry becomes dodge.

For Heroic Ultra 10M, i did 23k. But that was with a Blood dps spec (BCB, Virulence), gear, pots, flask, and runeforge. I think I could have done more if I had used my DRW more often and at better times. Even though I wore 4 piece tank set, I also reforged to about 6.5% hit and didn't really worry about expertise. I'm at about 394 gear level.

15K is about what I pulled using full tank gear and spec. With he 10% nerf next week he might not have to go to such extremes, but if your trying to down it this week then either he does what it takes or your dps pull more.

[Danishgirl]

He should go full mastery. As much pieces with Mastery as possible, and he can get as low on hit and expertise as he can. You can balance Parry and Dodge afterwards (Most of the time, that'll mean reforge parry to dodge because we've got more parry due to strength.)

DPS, I dunno. 15k sounds pretty low. Do you have any logs present? It's important to mention that a lot of DKs out there claim "I give everything I can" while they're screwing up majorly. (RE, BT-usage, HS-usage)

Or cooldown-usage. (esp. on ultraxion. Uptime of DRW should be pretty high, and that's a DPS-cooldown).

Here's a log from our last Ultraxion HM kill - or the last one logged. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=2494&e=2806

[Nillo]

Here's a log from our last Ultraxion HM kill - or the last one logged. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=2494&e=2806

only 30% drw uptime

[Danishgirl]

You will never be able to balance dodge and parry, you simply do what you can while valuing mastery higher. For example if I have a piece that has parry and dodge, i'll reforge the parry to mastery, or a piece with parry and mastery, then the parry becomes dodge.

For Heroic Ultra 10M, i did 23k. But that was with a Blood dps spec (BCB, Virulence), gear, pots, flask, and runeforge. I think I could have done more if I had used my DRW more often and at better times. Even though I wore 4 piece tank set, I also reforged to about 6.5% hit and didn't really worry about expertise. I'm at about 394 gear level.

15K is about what I pulled using full tank gear and spec. With he 10% nerf next week he might not have to go to such extremes, but if your trying to down it this week then either he does what it takes or your dps pull more.

Just to be clear, we've already killed Ultraxion on HM several times. Lack of dps is not an issue, I am only wondering about our DK tanks low dps.

---------- Post added 2012-02-26 at 10:34 PM ----------

only 30% drw uptime

But isn't there a CD on Dancing Rune Weapon? From memory it's on a 3 min. CD?

[Pope]

Here's a log from our last Ultraxion HM kill - or the last one logged. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=2494&e=2806

Well, looks way better then I expected. Over 8 DS per minute if I'm right, which is a good start.
BT-uptime is a bit low, I'm a fan of macroing it into my DeathStrike, but that's VERY debatable.
Like Nillo said, his DRW-uptime could be up to 50%, which will improve his DPS.
Armory looks good, some reforges are a bit off, he reforged off mastery on his trinket, or his weapon from crit to hit, some gems can be changed.

Just to be clear, we've already killed Ultraxion on HM several times. Lack of dps is not an issue, I am only wondering about our DK tanks low dps.

But isn't there a CD on Dancing Rune Weapon? From memory it's on a 3 min. CD?

We figured that out, you posted a kill ;-)

The CD on DRW should be 45 sec, while the duration is 24 seconds. (On ultraxion. Normally 90s CD and 12s duration)

[Danishgirl]

Well, looks way better then I expected. Over 8 DS per minute if I'm right, which is a good start.
BT-uptime is a bit low, I'm a fan of macroing it into my DeathStrike, but that's VERY debatable.
Like Nillo said, his DRW-uptime could be up to 50%, which will improve his DPS.
Armory looks good, some reforges are a bit off, he reforged off mastery on his trinket, or his weapon from crit to hit, some gems can be changed.



We figured that out, you posted a kill ;-)

The CD on DRW should be 45 sec, while the duration is 24 seconds. (On ultraxion. Normally 90s CD and 12s duration)

So it doesn't matter (much) that he's balancing Parry and Dodge over stacking Mastery? Also, will a higher uptime on DRW add another 6k dps? On some heroic bosses, he does 12k. On those same bosses, I do 20k. As in, he's always way below me. And I'm not an Agi stacker (bear tank).