Question with DK tanking, progressing on HM's

[Gosleepbaby]

Hey there! So i have a question for you all. I am a dk tank who recently got into a guild who happens to be progressing on HM's as the off tank. I have been doing a hit/exp> mastery to 150% (more like 170 but still) > parry > dodge build, and has been working fine. But the gm, and main tank want me to try out a full mastery build. What are the benefits to a full mastery build right now? I'm enjoying the dps and smooth damage intake im getting from 55% avoidance and dont really want to change.

Is a full mastery build the way to go for HM progression?

Heres my armory and a log from last night (its on norushen so a little bit off most likely)
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/pu1v6lwjpypqilpx/
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...eepdk/advanced

[spoolatarygos]

Try a little more mastery and a lot less dodge. Last i had known sword shattering isn't giving riposte, making it a weaker alternative to other runeforges. I brought myself up to around 200% mastery, then stacked parry>dodge and I've found it to be a lot cleaner damage-wise.

Dk tanking is, however, more about expecting big damage or reacting properly to already done damage. Without perusing logs I would first suggest trying to sit on extra runes instead of constantly spamming buttons. On taunt switches, first get the required threat to hold over the other tank, then slow and steady on death strikes to optimize them better.

[Gosleepbaby]

a lot less dodge? o.O im completely reforged out of it. going to assume you mean parry? i'll switch runeforges then, i thought i had read that it did count towards it. thanks for that.

im assuming the 200% is buffed, correct?

[spoolatarygos]

No, unbuffed. Parry/dodge is great for riposte damage, but mastery is almost always better for survival.

[Gosleepbaby]

ooh alright. thanks. i'll go ahead and give that a try!

[spoolatarygos]

As an aside, I've also had blood presence bug on me during norushen heroic the first few weeks we were on it. Basically wasn't activating, so check your health and make sure it's your normal amount

[Negative]

You might want to take your mastery slightly higher if it is being terribly spiky and maybe gem a tad of stam and then take some of that dodge and throw it in parry.

[bals]

stick with what you're doing. The small amount of survivability you'll gain isn't worth losing the tons of damage.

why is your paladin using seal of truth?

why did you use a healing pot haha

[Gosleepbaby]

stick with what you're doing. The small amount of survivability you'll gain isn't worth losing the tons of damage.

why is your paladin using seal of truth?

why did you use a healing pot haha

stick with what i am doing as whats on my armoury right now? because whats there right now is different from what i had last night.

I do not know why he's using seal of truth. Last night was my first night raiding with them. Im going to guess it's because we had 2 1% wipes, maybe to increase his dps a tad?

I used a healing pot because im bad. I don't know how it took the spot of my armor pot on my keybinds. that was an accident. haha

- - - Updated - - -

You might want to take your mastery slightly higher if it is being terribly spiky and maybe gem a tad of stam and then take some of that dodge and throw it in parry.

Ya, I've made it a habit of always reforging out of dodge, to either parry or mastery. I didn't find my damage taken too spiky, but then again im not healing, so they could see something that I dont.

[bals]

yeah i'd stick with 150-200sh mastery > parry

[spoolatarygos]

Those are the stats I said he should try :P. Anyway, did you feel a little more durable, gosleep?

Two 1% wipes are more likely just tightening the strat than anything else on norushen. i believe we had 3 or 4 the first night we did it. With low gear it's really rng heavy, we even had a 30k wipe once. It was soul crushing.

[bals]

Those are the stats I said he should try :P.

those are also the stats he said he had initially...

[Raikh]

Very high mastery builds aren't very effective in my opinion, sure you need to have mastery to some degree but overdoing it is wasting stats.
Mastery over 200% buffed is kinda the maximum which makes really sense. (25 hc raiding is another thing as the bosses hit harder but there having 200% is also plenty)

One thing is, not everything deals physical dmg. Taking especially Juggenraut as an example, the actually interesting dmg comes from the dot/breath dealing fire dmg, and you don't need a bazillion mastery to take mines.
There are other examples as dark shaman where the dangerous dmg is spell dmg, but thats only one point as there a harder melee hitter out there too.

Parry vs Mastery: Mastery does exactly one thing: increasing blood shield, which is fine and needed to a degree (my sweet spot would be around 180-200% buffed but thats not even heavily needed). Parry grants: passive dmg mitigation, more dps and more slefheal/resources through scent of blood.
More deathstrikes means more real heal, which is more effective against magic dmg and is overall good, more resources are quite handy for everything dps and survivability and passive dmg mitigation is also not to ignore.

Also if you have bosses with really high melee dmg bloodhsield caps earlier with one or two strikes, more mastery from that point is worth absolutely nothing.

Its the whole paclkage which makes parry desirable, especially on progression tank dps can be very important and swiching from like 5% avoidance to 50% more bloodshield if you already have like 180% isn't going to show a really menaingful difference, if at all.

Full mastery is just outdated as hell. Maastery dks deal no dmg have no really superior survivability or can tank better than other tanks if its no abosolute need for surviving the boss its just a waste and even if survival is problematic i would first look for personal mistakes - the right usage of DS is far more impacting than a few points mastery ever could.

A personal thing at last: i would suggest using fallen crusader rune. Stoneskin/sword shattering are okayish, but fallen crusader grants some selfheal, even if only little, grants str, which is parry and again a dps increase and not a too little one for sure. If stoneskin saves your day its probably something else thats going wrong.

Also if the boss dies faster, there is less heal needed.

[Gosleepbaby]

I initially had like 130% unbuffed on mastery, was going full on parry almost. I tried a full mastery build last night. it was ok.. my dps was much lower. and on bosses where i take magic damage, there was nothing i can do. i can get a 1m bloodshield in 3-4 deathstrikes, but it just sits there while i have no runes and magic damage is wrecking me. I'm gonna tinker around with it tonight some, and try to find a happy medium.

[Deleted]

We are doing heroics atm where i have done tests with both a mastery build and my normal parry build.
We are at 8/14 hc right now, and last reset we did it with me in mastery build. And both me and my raid team prefered the parry build. Since my survivel was at times better than mastery build but damage wise there is a huge difference. And since we are a 10 man team tank dps can make or break some fights.

[Deleted]

Stick with your stats, you're having right now. More mastery isn't necessary, because there isn't any hardhitter in soo 10m.

Go still Hit/Exp(7.5)>Mastery to ~150%>Parry>Dodge>Parry from Str>Haste

[Ikrekot]

If I remember good palas get more surv from mastery build too. Tell your main tank to switch from haste to mastery because it's give more surv. If you don't have problems with tanking you shouldn't getting more mastery losing dps and gaining a bit more surv.

[spoolatarygos]

those are also the stats he said he had initially...

170 % buffed mastery is not 200 unbuffed. The two numbers are worlds of difference apart. Besides, there are other places where he can make up some of the stats. Parry instead of expertise in chest, mastery instead of sha armor on gloves, and a few swapped reforges. 10 or 25, I wouldn't sacrifice mastery for parry if I'm having survivability issues, which is why he's asking for help. There's plenty you can do on magic damage fights, especially considering most of the time it's not the massive, telegraphed attack that kills you, it's the melee swing that follows.

It sucks, but right now dks are at the bottom of the barrel for both survivability and damage output. If you're having a problem meeting a dps check that early in to heroics, it really shouldn't be falling on the tank to make that up. Do what you can to survive first, wol ranks are second.

[bals]

I'm having survivability issues, which is why he's asking for help

he never said he's having survivability issues. he said his guild is telling him to stack mastery.
anything from 150-200 mastery is fine for hms

[spoolatarygos]

His guild is telling him to stack mastery because he's dying. Cause and effect. You wouldn't suggest somebody fix something unless there was an inherent issue.

Raikh put it best though, the difference is negligible in comparison to proper ds timing and cd management.