Hey all, im MTing Sarth 3D tonight for (hopefully) our guilds first kill. Im comfortably sitting on 35k life unbuffed, 51k raidbuffed with VB active, good avoidance, good threat etc.
I have a few questions though, that maybe some of those with experience on this fight can answer for me;
1) Stoneskin Gargoyle vs Spellshattering?
This ties into which spec i use (SG is better for unholy, since the avoidance equates to longer Bone Shield duration), but so far i am leaning towards SG anyway, simply because the extra HP i can gain from using 2x stamina trinkets (whereas, without SG i would need to put in a defense trinket) should really outweigh the damage reduction given by Spellshattering.
2) Unholy or Blood?
This is the real question. Both trees have some valuable talents, but im struggling to decide between them;
Vampiric Blood vs Bone Shield: These two fill pretty similar roles. The problem is knowing - without having done it before - if i can guaranteed survive a breath with one of these active. My GF tanked Sarth 3d (but we didnt down him) on my character last week, and although she was using a slightly lower stamina setup than i plan to, she said that even with Vampiric Blood up, i could still get 1-shotted by the breaths, which is obviously bad, but Bone Shield is now only a 20% damage reduction, and im not sure if that would be enough to keep me alive through the breaths. Both have an approximate uptime of 30 seconds (assuming both are glyphed), so that isnt an issue.
Will of the Necropolis vs Magic Suppression: 5% passive magic reduction vs 15% off anything that takes me below 35%, its an easy win for WotN here, the talent was pretty much made for this kind of fight.
Additionally, unholy has access to Anti-Magic Zone, which is obviously great for surviving a breath every 2 mins.
Finally, is Frost worth a shot? Acclimation stacked up 3 times combined with an aura grants a total of 280 Fire Res. Is that enough resistance to make sure i can survive breaths? Does it justify the loss of the other nice talents in unholy or blood?
At the moment im leaning towards unholy, with a build like: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=j0EMV...fg00xcoxeoocou
Getting all the unholy goodness, plus VotTW and Spell Deflection from Blood. It means dropping a point in toughness, but that 3% armor wont help me against breaths, whereas Veteran will.