blood dk and crit

[Deleted]

I have a guildy (currently we're 2/14 hc at this time) and he keeps swearing outright crit is his 2nd go to stat after mastery for a tank. I find this to be a bit unusual, so hoping someone who plays blood as a main spec can let me know whether im ill informed or if its incorrect.

[Falagor]

For heroic 10 man you go mastery, haste to 20% then crit for a damage build. For 25 man its mastery, avoidance and stam stacking. Once comfortable with fights a lot of 10 man blood dks go straight haste and crit to rank higher.

[Deleted]

For survivability as a blood dk, crit provides nothing, only damage.

[Deleted]

am i not right in thinking dodge/parry would be better because of double dip? avoidance which gives survivability, and some dps as a plus. it seems kinda silly going for items with crit on them as a tank that has 0 benefit

[Deleted]

I had some obnoxious guy in a 5 man giving me 'friendly advice' about this too, though this guy ignored mastery completely... Of course going crit and haste will help out your raids damage, but no one in there right mind should ever prioritize damage stats over survivability stats as a tank.

I wouldn't know, but assume that when you get into dps check bosses and need the extra dps it's not a terrible idea, so long as you (the tank) are skilled enough to actively mitigate damage and the healers are geared and skilled enough to be able to deal with the extra damage you receive.

I guess it depends on what your raid group needs and wants, so long as the healers know that he's stacking crit over avoidance I guess it's fine. However going for a damage build for the sake of it without caring for the healers extra load is a bad thing, most of the time the extra damage can just be made up by dps having better gear or playing better, so I understand if you're trying to be top end or really wanting to get the heroics down as fast as you can.

[Deleted]

am i not right in thinking dodge/parry would be better because of double dip? avoidance which gives survivability, and some dps as a plus. it seems kinda silly going for items with crit on them as a tank that has 0 benefit

If he want extra dps, go with haste, since that actually have some survivability due to faster DS's.

[Deleted]

im at 150% mastery and i am going haste and gem even strength but crit...... no thx

[Nillo]

im at 150% mastery and i am going haste and gem even strength but crit...... no thx

Yeah except gemming strength is kind of stupid... since that's like gemming parry except you get less parry and no riposte.

- - - Updated - - -

If he want extra dps, go with haste, since that actually have some survivability due to faster DS's.

Which doesn't do all that much since the SoB/Riposte changes. At some point avoidance just offers way more damage reduction and a similar amount of dps.

Also not even warriors go for crit so why should dks who get nothing from crit (warriors get more rage) but gain something from avoidance (more RP, stronger DS heal)

[kramjam]

im at 150% mastery and i am going haste and gem even strength but crit...... no thx

is 150% mastery the cap most people are going for? currently at that but have 0% haste, is it worth to invest in some haste? Also is the 150% before or after mastery buff

[Deleted]

With Riposte I really don't think crit is ever worth gearing for anymore, and that's coming from someone who geared almost entirely for crit last tier. At decent avoidance levels you can already have a really high uptime on it and with crit offering no survivability it's pretty much a no brainer, especially with how tank damage is looking this tier.

Stat priority for this tier when wanting to focus more on DPS should probably be 7.5% Hit/Expertise > Haste to 10k~ > Dodge/Parry > Haste > Mastery/Crit.

im at 150% mastery and i am going haste and gem even strength but crit...... no thx

Gemming strength is really pointless, even ignoring the fact that secondary stat gems have double the stats of primary ones. It's our weakest stat for damage and it's also weaker than everything except crit for survivability.

[Cryopathy]

With Riposte I really don't think crit is ever worth gearing for anymore, and that's coming from someone who geared almost entirely for crit last tier. At decent avoidance levels you can already have a really high uptime on it and with crit offering no survivability it's pretty much a no brainer, especially with how tank damage is looking this tier.

Stat priority for this tier when wanting to focus more on DPS should probably be 7.5% Hit/Expertise > Haste to 10k~ > Dodge/Parry > Haste > Mastery/Crit.

Hey Auk. I'm wondering about your reasoning for continuing to gear for Haste up to similar levels as last tier (IIRC, shooting for 20-25% haste and then stacking crit was the suggested gearing in T15 for max DPS).

There are many changes in 5.4 that would seemingly devalue haste:
-Scent of Blood procs on successful avoids
-Glyph of Regenerative Magic results in more frequent AMS soaking
-T16 4-piece bonus results in 4 free runes every DRW cooldown
-Vial of Living Corruption boosts the effects of both the AMS and DRW points listed above

Wouldn't it follow that Blood will GCD cap at much lower haste levels than last tier, especially on fights where frequent AMS soaking is possible? Anecdotally, I've found that to be the case; even at only about 15% haste unbuffed, I had no free GCDs on fights where I can AMS soak. Anecdotes aren't enough though, so I modified a DW Frost spreadsheet that Euliat posted in the PTR thread. My goal was to see at what level of haste Blood GCD caps. The sheet is here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...PUTJuQlE#gid=0

As you can see, Blood (theoretically) GCD caps even with zero haste on fights with a decent amount of AMS soaking. Once we reach that point, the only way to increase DPS is not through more actions per minute, but by removing lower DPS actions (Horn of Winter, Heart Strike, Blood Boil) in favor of higher DPS ones (Death Strike, Rune Strike, Soul Reaper). Using a Simcraft actionlist (which I posted in the tanking thread) that dumps runes and RP as soon as possible (thus maximizing the benefit of haste) showed Avoidance being a higher DPS per point increase than Haste, as well.

My conclusion then is that this tier, for maximizing DPS, Avoidance (or Crit if you're in no danger of dying) should be the first choice after Hit/Exp capping for increasing DPS, rather than Haste.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this considering you have a proven track record of being at the top echelons of DPS for Blood DKs.

[Deleted]

The issue I have with avoidance is that riposte isn't necessarily going to have 100% uptime, especially on fights with tank swaps. It is entirely possible though that, due to the reasons you stated, avoidance will overtake haste for DPS. Haste also lost some value from the RPPM fix. It doesn't seem to be possible to modify riposte uptime in SimCraft at the moment so I can't say conclusively.

On that note, SimCraft seems to be giving me very odd stat weights. Simming in my current gear gave me the following:



Using this as the priority:

# Executed before combat begins. Accepts non-harmful actions only.

actions.precombat=flask,type=winters_bite
actions.precombat+=/food,type=black_pepper_ribs_and_shrimp
actions.precombat+=/blood_presence
actions.precombat+=/horn_of_winter
actions.precombat+=/snapshot_stats
actions.precombat+=/army_of_the_dead
actions.precombat+=/mogu_power_potion
actions.precombat+=/raise_dead

# Executed every time the actor is available.

actions=auto_attack
actions+=/antimagic_shell,damage=300000
actions+=/mogu_power_potion,if=buff.bloodlust.react|target.time_to_die<=60
actions+=/use_item,slot=hands,if=buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/berserking,if=buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/raise_dead
actions+=/dancing_rune_weapon,if=runic_power>89
actions+=/outbreak,if=(dot.frost_fever.remains<=2|dot.blood_plague.remains<=2)|(!dot.blood_plague.ticking&!dot.frost_fever.ticking)|buff.dancing_rune_weapon.up
actions+=/plague_strike,if=!dot.blood_plague.ticking
actions+=/icy_touch,if=!dot.frost_fever.ticking
actions+=/death_strike,if=frost=2&unholy=2
actions+=/soul_reaper,if=blood>0&target.health.pct-3*(target.health.pct%target.time_to_die)<=35
actions+=/rune_strike,if=blood<2|runic_power>70
actions+=/heart_strike,if=(blood=1&blood.cooldown_remains<1)|blood=2
actions+=/death_and_decay,if=buff.crimson_scourge.up
actions+=/blood_boil,if=buff.crimson_scourge.up
actions+=/horn_of_winter

You can tell immediately that it's inaccurate as it's not possible for strength to be almost equal to crit for DPS. Vengeance was definitely working fine as well. Had similar results using the default priority and the priority which you posted here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...2108119?page=7. It seems that Reniat had similar issues.

[Tojara]

I use to go haste/crit focus in 5.2 but have been slowly changing over my gear towards mastery/avoidance. With the SoB change giving RP from avoidance as well as attacks, I just felt like my level of haste (which was close to 30%) was way too much as blood. Even dropping up to 10% haste I still feel like I have roughly the same amount of abilities as I did in the past. SoB change alone with regenerative magic glyph on some encounters (it won't always reduce the CD by much, but it certainly will if you ever VB/AMS). This goes further if you get the tank trinket that reduces our CDs.

Even before then I would never gem crit as a blood DK. I gemmed strength/haste mostly because I was both tank/dps and this tier I doubt I'll get to DPS. As such most of my yellows are going to pure mastery until I feel comfortable with my mastery level, while my reds are going to parry/mastery.

Riposte is actually quite nice and while you will get more damage actually gemming crit it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do it. Not counting diminishing returns to make it simple 2000 parry rating is roughly 3.25% parry. For the same amount of parry rating you could get 1000 strength. The strength is modified by RoTFC, stats and by 10% AP. But it's essentially less parry and a decent chunk of AP. 2000 parry rating virtue of riposte is 1500 crit rating, or 2.5% crit. Parry/dodge essentially give crit now and is free itemization. Critical strike also scales better with higher vengeance levels (as does haste, but crit is better if you have too many abilities) than the raw AP of having more strength does.

I will still maximize damage as a tank when I can, but the free crit we get from riposte is a nice temporary fix at the moment. I can't really justify going pure haste/crit, or even strength at the moment when I can get more mastery and bonus critical strike from what I use to consider as 'awful tank gear' when I saw dodge/parry on items. I was running slightly over 22% crit and 25% haste prior to the launch of this patch. Now I am currently running with like 17% haste and like 8% crit. Riposte goes up instantly and I immediately am at like 16-17% crit. Granted it's still not what I had in the past, but I gained a lot of mastery and avoidance.

The first thing I get rid of now if I need more damage is the tanking cloak. The tanking meta is just way too good at the moment. Maybe when I have a lot of heroic gear.

[Whiteout]

With how close Haste and riposte are simming (at 100% uptime) I'd like to believe that haste would pull slightly ahead if the uptime drops 10-15%. So far in t16, I've been running 20-24% haste and haven't really noticed anything gcd capping. As for gearing for crit, I stacked crit last tier for almost the entire tier, and I don't think there will ever come a time this tier where that is going to be viable again. The only possible situation would be if you actually needed the dps difference between avoidance and crit and absolutely did not have any room to improve survival, which probably won't happen.

[Deleted]

You're not reading SimC right. It tells you that 1 STR = 1 Crit, and nothing more. Obviously, since gems give twice the secondary stats, then...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that strength giving equal DPS per point as crit at 140k vengeance AP doesn't make sense. It also doesn't explain why the stat weights for dodge and parry are vastly different despite giving equal benefit from riposte.

A couple more examples, 25k iterations and no changes between sims.





Something definitely isn't working as intended.

[Nillo]

Wat parryhaste?
That's sooo 3.0

[Deleted]

im at 150% mastery and i am going haste and gem even strength but crit...... no thx

at 215% mastery. Should've known this earlier, though despite often being bored I like my survivability. (raiding normal)

[Deleted]

Parry gives parryhaste over dodge which gives nothing, so Parry should nearly always be rated higher than dodge unless you get into ridiculously high DRs. Strength also gives parryhaste as well on top of AP.

1 STR = 1 crit doesn't seem particularly wrong. You rate the gems higher because you get 2 crit for 1 STR, so effectively the gems are twice as good, so I absolutely do not see anything wrong with 1 STR = 1 Crit at all.

That being said, yes, the sim is not working as intended, if all 3 results come from the exact same parameters.

I was under the impression that parryhaste was a thing of the past for both bosses and players. Just tested it and you're absolutely right, pretty big oversight on my part. That said, strength still doesn't scale much with vengeance and at some point secondary stats are going to overtake it. Gems of course are a no brainer just due to budget but trinkets are more interesting.

As far as I'm aware SimCraft is the only publicly available resource for Blood DPS simulation at the moment and that doesn't seem to be working correctly at all, at least for stat weights. The only other work that I've seen on Blood DPS weights is here: http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t130560-...5/#post2309031. I can't speak for it's accuracy but those weights are more in line with what I would expect at high levels of vengeance.

[Cryopathy]

Glad to see some discussion started. I agree that the initial weights I saw when testing this patch surprised me. I was one of the people that geared for ~25% haste at the end of last tier, and the new mechanics in 5.4 caused me to take a look at all of this.

I agree that the sim results are strange. In the latest version if simcraft, I am getting similar and wildly varying results with both my action list and yours. I am wondering if the key to this is the fact that our time spent Waiting is almost nil. If the sim is programmed to (correctly) not allow the time spent waiting go negative, then there may be tons of little jumps and dips in the value of haste as the action priority gets shifted towards higher-damage abilities so that actions do not exceed available GCDs.

Crit vs. STR is a pretty easy comparison to make, because we know the AP scaling for the damage of all our abilities, and crit is essentially a simple multiplier to ability damage. Crit has a huge effect on damage at high AP levels, whereas adding more AP does not. Strength has a few more effects on damage by increasing Parryhaste and increasing the uptime on Riposte (due to more Parry) as mentioned above, but I don't think that should contribute to damage as much as Simcraft is suggesting.

[Tojara]

I wouldn't necessarily worry about the amount of avoidance needed to keep riposte up, it's essentially up forever as long as you're tanking.

I do wish however that it lasted longer, it really sucks on tank swap fights that last for more than 20 seconds.