[Guide] Active Mitigation Hipsters - 5.4 DK Tanking

[Reniat]

I would avoid gemming stamina unless you need the EH beyond 2x stam trinkets (you get more stam per mastery lost with trinkets than you do with gems). Also, don't be afraid to get sockets bonuses, especially stamina socket bonuses.

Here is the general rule when gemming:
Yellow slot: fractured gem (mastery)
Blue slot: Puissant gem (mastery/stamina)
Red slot: fine gem (mastery/parry) or Keen gem (mastery/exp) if you are going for hit/exp caps.
Prismatic slots: fractured gem (mastery)


Also you seem a bit inconsistent as to what build you are going for. You reforge out of avoidance into accuracy in some places and out of accuracy and into avoidance in others. Generally there are 2 default setups: mastery>avoidance>accuracy and mastery>accuracy>avoidance, so pick one of those and stick to it (though you have the right idea to stack mastery). You also go into haste a bit, and while haste is viable i wouldn't recommend it outside of very dps oriented builds, which is not a build i would recommend for you at the moment. For now, don't worry about haste.

As far as your runeforge, if you are going for max survivability go with swordshattering and if you want a bit of a dps boost use Fallen Crusader.


Finally get the meta that has +324 stam and +2% armor until you can get the legendary meta. There isn't enough spell damage this tier to justify the spell damage meta.

And double finally, I would avoid Runic Empowerment as blood. It doesn't allow you to time death strikes quite as well as the other 2 options, which is very important for blood.

---------- Post added 2013-04-18 at 02:19 PM ----------

also, an update for the guide: I should FINALLY finish the encounter guide sometime today. I will also edit the stuff i already have to account for the feedback you guys gave, which i appreciate btw.

[Got5tanks]

hey does anyone know if the 2set dk dps if used by blood dk does the proc minion benefit from the %attack power and how many RPPM a blood dk can get on that 2set ?
my english is not the perfect since main language is greek

[Ikrekot]

If I remember it's 1RPPM for Blood Death Knight but I am not 100% sure. I don't know scaling with AP.

[Nillo]

Judging by some logs of people who use them the dps 2pc seems to be able to do around 10k dps so it's definitely worth using.
On a related note the dps meta gem is generally about 11% of damage done (which is sometimes more than 20k dps)

[Deleted]

Got any suggestions, tips or tricks for Twin Consorts and Lei Shen?
Going to start Normal progression on them in the coming days and was wondering if there is anything I should look out for as a DK.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...schka/advanced

[Deleted]

Close to every ams cd should result in a full runic power bar, but apart from that there's not really anything special as a blood dk compared to the other tanks (you could in theory solotank both bosses, but it's hardly worthwhile during progress, mainly due to fan of flames/decap).

For twins night phase, don't tank the boss+the add (or well, you can if you want to, the boss/add hits for nothing), you won't require any heals when tanking the add due to your self healing. Day phase, drag the boss around to ice comets and use a cd (ams is great) /make sure you are topped for each fan past the first one. Dusk phase, drag the sun lady around to comets.

Lei Shen. I use ams to get a full runic power bar each thunderstrike in p1, tank the boss at your desired pillar to destroy until ~90 energy, then drag him to the next, swap the rest at ~85. Run away when decap goes out and tank swap. In the transitions you can take one platform by yourself which makes it significantly easier for your team, if you get two swirling balls just take one on the first and one on the second bounce, you'll get one add that you easily can kill solo. To help your team out a bit you can taunt a diffused add or two from the other platforms when you don't have balls coming out. For p2 it's the same thing with pillars, just that you generally want to keep the one you want to destroy for last (unless your dps is amazing). Fusion slash really doesn't do much (you can easily eat two in a row with ams, but ideally tank swap) just make sure that you don't get knocked down. For the last phase there's not much to say, tankswap when your co-tanks stacks get high/yours drop. If your co-tank for some reason dies you can quite easily reset them on your own by running to the other side of the platform while he's casting something.

[Sukoidha]

I am going to start tanking after playing a mage for so long and I found this thread extreamly helpful. Very well written and easy to understand. The only thing that I am confused on is; is there a dodge and parry cap? I know that I want to be stacking mastery and i am very famillar with gemming with secondary stats, but is there a point where there is no more need for dodge or parry becuase of a cap and if there is, what is it?

As said before, played a caster for almost 5 years now, so this is something very new to me. Thanks for the help!

[Deleted]

There's no cap for dodge/parry, though they do suffer from diminishing returns. Since parry and dodge are relatively low on the stat scale you never really care about this.

[Sukoidha]

Ok perfect, so just take what I can from gear and reforge into Mastery. Should I choose one to reforge out of all the time if an item has Dodge and Parry on it, or should I try to keep it even.

[Nillo]

Ok perfect, so just take what I can from gear and reforge into Mastery. Should I choose one to reforge out of all the time if an item has Dodge and Parry on it, or should I try to keep it even.

Reforge off the one with the highest value.... or just try to avoid those pieces entirely (at least for 10m you're generally better off going for accuracy stats or even haste)

[Deleted]

Ok perfect, so just take what I can from gear and reforge into Mastery. Should I choose one to reforge out of all the time if an item has Dodge and Parry on it, or should I try to keep it even.

Either do as Nillo suggests below and aim for accuracy stats over them (I think claiming that haste is on the same level is taking it a bit far) or reforge them according to this macro (assumes swordshattering), if the ratios aren't perfect that doesn't matter much and you'll usually be just fine reforging into parry:
/run d=GetDodgeChance() n=3.22 if UnitRace("player")=="Gnome" then n=n-.01 end p=235.5*d/65.631440-((235.5/65.631440)*5.01-n)+4 DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Ideal parry for current dodge: "..string.format("%.2f",p))

[Sukoidha]

Last question, If i have a choice between 2 rings, one gives me haste and Mastery and the other gives me Dodge and Parry, do I take the Haste and mastery one because of the master increase?

[Deleted]

Last question, If i have a choice between 2 rings, one gives me haste and Mastery and the other gives me Dodge and Parry, do I take the Haste and mastery one because of the master increase?

I (and I think most dks) definitely would, simply because it's more reliable (and adds some dps). That being said, the dodge+parry one (reforged into mastery) should yield slightly more damage reduction in total.

[Sukoidha]

Ok, thank you for answering all my questions cookie.

[Deleted]

Ok, thank you for answering all my questions cookie.

You're welcome.

[Skygoneblue]

Hey guys,

I'm dusting off my DK (just hit 86 last night), and like virtually every class transitioning from Cataclysm to MoP, I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with all the additional hotkeys needed to play a spec at its bare minimum. Are there any key macros I should be considering as Blood to help reduce the number of keybinds I need to use? For instance, as a hunter, you can do a macro like the following to eliminate one hotkey:

/castsequence Arcane Shot, Glaive Toss

I'm having trouble thinking of good ways to combine abilities like that on my DK though. Because I'm only a casual player with no intentions of raiding, I am opting for the passive talents where I can (Roiling Blood, Runic Corruption, etc). Here's the list of abilities I'm thinking is "bare minimum":

Icy Touch
Plauge Strike
Outbreak
Heart Strike
Death Strike
Vampiric Blood
Blood Boil
Death and Decay
Mind Freeze
Rune Strike
Bone Shield
Anti-Magic Shield
Icebound Fortitude
Raise Ghoul
Army of the Dead
Rune Tap
Horn of Winter
Death Grip
Dark Command
Raise Ally

Abilities that would be good to have once in a while, but I can't find room for:

Death Coil
Strangulate
Control Undead
Conversion

Anyway, you get the idea. Any tips for how you manage all these hotkeys, or convincing arguments as to why XYZ ability isn't worth hotkeying?

Thanks in advance guys!

[Kiqjaq]

I'm having trouble thinking of good ways to combine abilities like that on my DK though. Because I'm only a casual player with no intentions of raiding, I am opting for the passive talents where I can (Roiling Blood, Runic Corruption, etc). Here's the list of abilities I'm thinking is "bare minimum":

It's suboptimal, but you wouldn't lose TOO much making Icy Touch and Plague Strike into a castsequence. If you're applying diseases manually then you usually want both up anyways. Since you're not raiding it won't likely cause a ton of grief.

It's also suboptimal, but you can macro Bone Shield into Death Strike so that you'll just spam Bone Shield off CD. It's off the GCD, has no cost, has a short cooldown, and lasts as long as you need it (as opposed to Vamp, which wears off regardless of whether you're taking damage). I did that when I was learning Blood because **** it. It's something you just put out of mind, and can pick up later when the rest isn't overwhelming you. Might wanna use something to clear/block all the error messages you'll get.

And shove Vamp in to Rune Tap? Now I'm just thinking of anything you can cut from your attention really.


You're definitely going to want Empower Rune Weapon and Dancing Rune Weapon though. Amazing cooldowns.

[Skygoneblue]

Thanks for the feedback man! I didn't realize Bone Shield was off the GCD. I suppose that, in advanced raiding, you'd want to save Bone Shield for times when you're anticipating large physical hits, but if I'm just running heroics or old raids, it probably won't matter.

I like the Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap idea too - that's good!

And yes, you're right. ERW and DRW are powerful cooldowns - I just forgot to add them to the list.

[Nillo]

Let's see:
ERW/Army : I click those because they have such a long cd and generally don't require a fast reaction time.

On the topic of conversion: Get Death Pact instead and while you don't need a hotkey for the ghoul you'll need one for DP.

What I do to manage those abilities is by putting them into sections and by having keys bound twice => 1-5 are main abilities (HS/DS/RS/DnD....) alt 1-5 for situational stuff (IT/PS/BB...) then a,d,f,g,h (+alt) for cooldowns , r/t/z/6 for utility (taunt, interrupt, grip)
Just my way of managing things though and may not be applicable for everyone else :O

As for macroing cooldowns: Can only think of a few that would be useful and even they won't save space on your bar.
Like VB + RT: Since I really don't want to desync my runes that macro could end up being a problem if I need VB, but no RT - what I do instead is have my double bindings set up so I can click both of them easily (skills being on A and D respectively)
Ghoul + Death Pact might work, but if you want to summon the ghouls preemptively (say you know you'll need DP within the next 30 seconds -> you summon the ghoul now to save a gcd later) you may need to be careful not to activate DP accidently.

[Deleted]

Hey guys,

I'm dusting off my DK (just hit 86 last night), and like virtually every class transitioning from Cataclysm to MoP, I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with all the additional hotkeys needed to play a spec at its bare minimum. Are there any key macros I should be considering as Blood to help reduce the number of keybinds I need to use? For instance, as a hunter, you can do a macro like the following to eliminate one hotkey:

/castsequence Arcane Shot, Glaive Toss

I'm having trouble thinking of good ways to combine abilities like that on my DK though. Because I'm only a casual player with no intentions of raiding, I am opting for the passive talents where I can (Roiling Blood, Runic Corruption, etc). Here's the list of abilities I'm thinking is "bare minimum":

Icy Touch = 1
Plauge Strike = 2
Outbreak = V
Heart Strike = 3
Death Strike = 4
Vampiric Blood = D
Blood Boil = T
Death and Decay = R
Mind Freeze = 5
Rune Strike = U
Bone Shield = F2
Anti-Magic Shield = -
Icebound Fortitude = =
Raise Ghoul = Click
Army of the Dead = Click
Rune Tap - A
Horn of Winter = 0
Death Grip = 7
Dark Command = 8
Raise Ally = Click

Abilities that would be good to have once in a while, but I can't find room for:

Death Coil = 9
Strangulate = F3
Control Undead = Click
Conversion = Ditch it, get death pact, and click it, next to raise dead.
I also use S for trinkets and other aditional CDs.

Anyway, you get the idea. Any tips for how you manage all these hotkeys, or convincing arguments as to why XYZ ability isn't worth hotkeying?

Thanks in advance guys!

I've added my keybinds to the quote above, i do have very large hands, and you may struggle to reach some of these, so tweak them a little.

You also need Dancing rune Weapon, which i've bound to Z!
Clicking the abilities i do is not so much an issue, they're all on 2 minute or more CDs, I also click my prepots. So anything which i use rarely through a fight, and dont normally need in a clutch situation, then i'm fine to click it. Death pact is questionable on this, but it's difficult to use on a clutch situation because ghoul summon is on the GCD. I often summon my ghoul and use it within the minute, if i anticipate high damage.