[Guide] Active Mitigation Hipsters - 5.4 DK Tanking

[Ikrekot]

Tortos lets check damage from Rockfall -> magic damage.
AMS -> free runic power!!!

Only fight that I use AMZ was Lei Shen to help survive ppl on trans phase. Few times I use purg and other fights I use lichborn with 1 dc healing for 30-50% of my max hp.

[Jko]

I find this guide to be very misleading to the public as the opinions of the author do not at all reflect the time/research I have put into my DK.

I am a 13/13H Blood DK, GM of the #1 legit 2 night a week guild in the US and I was only able to read the first few paragraphs before I had to just stop as I found it completely inaccurate. I do not wish to write a guide of my own or break down point by point his takes, but I am always available to help DK's who wish to question me on my practices and theories via in game chat or PM's.

I am Jaeriko on US-Korgath.

[Ikrekot]

I find this guide to be very misleading to the public as the opinions of the author do not at all reflect the time/research I have put into my DK.

I am a 13/13H Blood DK, GM of the #1 legit 2 night a week guild in the US and I was only able to read the first few paragraphs before I had to just stop as I found it completely inaccurate. I do not wish to write a guide of my own or break down point by point his takes, but I am always available to help DK's who wish to question me on my practices and theories via in game chat or PM's.

I am Jaeriko on US-Korgath.

What's misleading in your opinion. Some ppls made a lot hard work to made this guide if they are wrong you should tell them.

[Jko]

What's misleading in your opinion. Some ppls made a lot hard work to made this guide if they are wrong you should tell them.

As I stated I'd rather not go into breaking down every point, perhaps next tier I'll do an actual breakdown of things and post it as I would like to get more involved in the DK tanking community and have been asked by many to post guides on different aspects of Blood.

I find the talents section misleading in multiple areas when it comes to explaining them as options when they simply are not viable compared to the other choices. I do find the boss breakdown section helpful it is very lacking when it comes to all the tricks/tips for encounters as well as not including alternate play styles.

An example from the boss section I do not agree with:

Horridon

Normal:
There are two parts of the fight that you need to deal with, Adds, and phase 2 burst damage. I highly recommend both Roiling Blood and Blood Tap for this. Roiling Blood makes it easier to keep diseases on all the new adds as they come in. If you need some help getting threat on the adds early, don't be afraid to use glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon. It's a damage loss, but dead dps is a damage loss too. Remorseless Winter works on the adds here, and if you can get the Bloodlords stunned you can help reduce the amount of raid damage going out in the form of the Rending Charge they do.

The reason I recommend Blood Tap is due to his ability Triple Puncture. Try to get at least 1 if not 2 Death Strikes before EVERY puncture. Save cooldowns for higher stacks. consider using glyph of IBF here, though it depends on how long your burn phase lasts. Ill explain that in more detail below in the heroic version to save space.

You don't want do Death Strike twice before a puncture. If you fear dying, you want to Death Strike once before a triple puncture and then again AFTER. The massive damage from triple puncture will cause you to instantly heal yourself back up as well as placing a large shield on yourself to help absorb his next melee attack and smooth out the damage for your healers. And Blood Tap is not needed here at all, you want to get RC. This way you can Death Strike yourself during a swipe, rune strike to get RC rolling, and immediately Death Strike again after puncture while still having runes available if shit hits the fan.

[Ikrekot]

That guide was written when ppl start progress with ToT. It's a bit outdate. I have 1m hp full buff and on horridon hc last time pala give hop on 12-13 stacks. Overgeared.

[Jko]

What I typed out for Horridon applies to a Death Knight on it as progression right now, not to strictly me on how I handle it at this stage in the game.

[Deleted]

I find this guide to be very misleading to the public as the opinions of the author do not at all reflect the time/research I have put into my DK.

I am a 13/13H Blood DK, GM of the #1 legit 2 night a week guild in the US and I was only able to read the first few paragraphs before I had to just stop as I found it completely inaccurate. I do not wish to write a guide of my own or break down point by point his takes, but I am always available to help DK's who wish to question me on my practices and theories via in game chat or PM's.

I am Jaeriko on US-Korgath.

If you find it misleading then you should post constructive criticism on how it can be improved.

An example from the boss section I do not agree with:

-snip-

You don't want do Death Strike twice before a puncture. If you fear dying, you want to Death Strike once before a triple puncture and then again AFTER. The massive damage from triple puncture will cause you to instantly heal yourself back up as well as placing a large shield on yourself to help absorb his next melee attack and smooth out the damage for your healers. And Blood Tap is not needed here at all, you want to get RC. This way you can Death Strike yourself during a swipe, rune strike to get RC rolling, and immediately Death Strike again after puncture while still having runes available if shit hits the fan.

The boss encounter tips were written shortly after ToT was released. As for Horridon the only difficult part of the fight is during the last portion where Horridon is enraged. Death Striking after a Triple Puncture isn't possible if you are dead. Both Runic Corruption and Blood Tap are viable choices and they depend entirely on personal playstyle and whether or not you need extra control over your survivability. There is no right or wrong answer for any situation.

P.S. as someone who only started playing a Blood DK in 5.2 and is in a 13/13H 2 day per week guild also, I strongly disagree with your statement that this guide is misleading.

[Jko]

If you find it misleading then you should post constructive criticism on how it can be improved.



The boss encounter tips were written shortly after ToT was released. As for Horridon the only difficult part of the fight is during the last portion where Horridon is enraged. Death Striking after a Triple Puncture isn't possible if you are dead. Both Runic Corruption and Blood Tap are viable choices and they depend entirely on personal playstyle and whether or not you need extra control over your survivability. There is no right or wrong answer for any situation.

P.S. as someone who only started playing a Blood DK in 5.2 and is in a 13/13H 2 day per week guild also, I strongly disagree with your statement that this guide is misleading.

"IF YOU FEAR DYING" is directly in my post. And if you read my post you can answer all your questions about my feelings on the guide.

[Deleted]

"IF YOU FEAR DYING" is directly in my post. And if you read my post you can answer all your questions about my feelings on the guide.

The only other thing you have mentioned is the following:

As I stated I'd rather not go into breaking down every point, perhaps next tier I'll do an actual breakdown of things and post it as I would like to get more involved in the DK tanking community and have been asked by many to post guides on different aspects of Blood.

I find the talents section misleading in multiple areas when it comes to explaining them as options when they simply are not viable compared to the other choices.

This is just stating opinions, not offering criticism or advice. You need to explain which aspects of the talents section are misleading and why.

[Reniat]

Since my little thing on horridon is the only thing you've mentioned specifically, i'll address that.

I'm a 25H tank. I have not tanked 10H horridon, because even my alts raid 25H. I have openly stated that all 10H data is speculation and have stated around various forums that I am more than willing to adjust those fight specific tips for 10m should people who raid there make a good argument to why in 10m it's different than the way I have it written due to my 25m background, in which case i'm more than happy to write out a strat for each raid size. How this applies to horridon, is that in 25H progression you DID need 2x DS before because otherwise a melee + puncture lining up together had a high risk of one shotting you, and you didn't want to DS immediately after unless you strictly needed to because doing so would not allow you to get guaranteed 2xDS before the next one, so on so forth. Due to needed 2 full DS before every puncture (10ish seconds apart i cant remember the actual interval off hand) you did need BT to make 100% you would have the runes needed, similar to how BT was optimal on 25H sha progression for the same reason.

TL;DR
I raid 25s, and because of that I am willing to hear any and all comments from high end 10m DKs. If you had come up and said "Hey, as 10m raider the horridon guide is off. Because puncture isn't as deadly in 10H, you can actually rely on only 1 DS and use another immediately behind it to help with stability". Boom. that's something I can take and do research on and likely change in the guide, but all you've done so far is say "this guide is teh suxorz" and I can't do anything with that information.


TL;DRx2
Give me more concrete info on what you think is false or "irresponsible" and ill start a discussion with you about those things and maybe well both learn something, instead of just throwing blind and unfounded attacks at me and the people who helped make this guide.


Also just throwing this out there, your status as GM/main tank/blah doesn't mean anything here. In no way am I right just because I tank in a top 5 US guild, and so in no way are you right because you are whoever you say you are. Provide some actual theorycrafting and give me a logical statement so we can begin a discussion where we hopefully are both enlightened in some way, or go be "world 1st <10 hour/week alliance that starts with the word High" somewhere else.

[Deleted]

I play Blood Spec DK thats spec'd something like this.

Hit/Exp/Mastery/Haste/Avoidence

I am just wondering,

how much % of each stat I need before dimishing returns/it makes it redundant ?

Haste - ? How much should I stack before it becomes worthless, I hear 20%ish is the sweet spot.
Dodge - ? How much dodge should a Blood DK have, I have something like 21% parry, without having it on one single item. Most people say 1/2 if your parry and some people say once you have 35% total including miss/dodge/parry.

Thanks

[Nyanmaru]

That wholly depends on what your goals are.

Reduce damage taken as much as possible?
Increase damage done as much as possible?
Well rounded overall stats?

Check the first post in this thread and see if it answers your questions, if it doesn't provide us some more details. (I know for sure that's a macro that tells you exactly how much more parry you need to balance it perfectly with dodge)

Haste hits a small wall if you get to about ~10% haste from gear where you likely won't be able to use all SoB procs in a raid environment.

[Deleted]

I am trying to get a nice balance between Mastery, Haste and Avoidence.

I am at 21+% of parry without having it as any stats on my gear and I feel I will waste to much mastery/haste pumping in dodge before I get 1/2 of the parry, so how much dodge can you get away with.

Haste, how much before its not worth putting anymore into it, 7 sec regen of runes, 6.5 ?

[Nyanmaru]

I hate quoting myself. But your answer was already posted in the post you replied to...

Check the first post in this thread and see if it answers your questions, if it doesn't provide us some more details. (I know for sure that's a macro that tells you exactly how much more parry you need to balance it perfectly with dodge)

Haste hits a small wall if you get to about ~10% haste from gear where you likely won't be able to use all SoB procs in a raid environment.

Try reading the first post, you will find a macro that tells you about dodge/parry ratio. And I already answered the haste question. There's not much value to regurgitate what was already written...

Haste is almost capped at the unrealistic level of ~250% Haste, that's when you are constantly alternating between DS and RS.

[Deleted]

Your telling me about a macro that suggests you get half dodge compared to parry, I am looking for how much dodge is needed in the sense, shud I go all parry and have 50% parry 25% dodge or can I have 5% dodge 10% parry, whats the ideal % I should go for ?

[Ikrekot]

You can't go to 50% parry 25% dodge or other because they have other dimishing returns. Parry from str isn't affected by dimishing returns. And yes use that macro.

[Reniat]

I see what you're asking, and the answer is it's all up to you. the more avoidance you trade for haste, the more damage you'll do and the more damage you'll take. if you feel your sweet spot is 30% total avoidance, then great. if you feel fine at 10% total avoidance, then that's fine too. It all depends on you and your healers. The important thing is you're not using your % as the goal point, but rather get your mastery to where you feel that comfortable first, then once you're happy with that THEN look at balancing haste/avoidance.

[Sunnydee]

Im a bit curious why alot of dks are using str/mastery in red socket instead of parry or exp /mastery combo. isnt that amount of str you gain from using those gems so small dps gain when vengance kicks in anyways?

[Ikrekot]

Parry rating have dimishing returns and parry from str don't have dimishing returns and it's nice to hold agrro on pull without any vengeance.

[SSHA778]

Parry rating have dimishing returns and parry from str don't have dimishing returns and it's nice to hold agrro on pull without any vengeance.

No, parry given by strength most definitely still has diminishing returns.

1 / post_dr_parry = 1 / c_p + k / (pre_dr_parry_from_strength + pre_dr_parry_from_rating)