Serious Discussion on DW tanking

[Tyrean]

MOD Edit: No more cataclysm discussion, MoP discussion goes here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1169016


So after having some time in heroics and on a few raid bosses I am noticing these things about level 85 tanking:

1.) Boss threat is a non-issue after first few seconds.
2.) Stamina is not the greatest end all stat anymore and more avoidance will help my healer's mana pools
3.) My self healing abilities and cooldowns are making those big hits I am taking not so bad and thus mastery very strong.

So I was originally reforging all my gear to get as close to hit cap as I could and as close to soft expertise cap as I could and then dumping the rest into mastery. I found that this dropped my overall dodge and parry by a significant margin while upping my blood shield mastery about 12%.

So I am thinking that since I already have decided to go down the route to Lichborne subspec (strong cooldown btw) that I could dump some of the filler points into one-handed spec for the 3% hit and switch to two tank one handers. I still want to be close to hit cap because interrupts are still important, but for threat I am currently not concerned with it (I know it will change as gear improves). My thought is to go with two tnak one handers and forgo the gargoyle enchant for the 4% parry total and dropping all my reforges I should be able to net about 8-10% avoidance in exchange for a small amount of stamina and the loss of hit cap. I don't feel like there are any downsides except for the occasional miss on an interrupt.

Right now with my two-hander with gargoyle and my average 341 iLvl gear where I went avoidance>mastery>hit>expertise for reforging I am at:
1.17% hit
9 expertise
77% blood shield
29359 Armor
15.38% dodge
14.31% parry.

Before the reforge it was more like 10% dodge parry and hit caps. If I drop the gargoyle and go with parry that drops about 2k health and about 1k less armor which I think is a super trade for 4% parry and basically free 3% hit.

What do you guys think?

[Tyrean]

But the DS heal and subsequently the shield have no reliance on the damage done, only the damage taken. I could use a level 1 starter weapon and gain the exact same healing as my current mace.

[Appletini]

But the DS heal and subsequently the shield have no reliance on the damage done, only the damage taken. I could use a level 1 starter weapon and gain the exact same healing as my current mace.

Wow, where was my brain? Haha!

I'll be interested to see how this works out for you though I will say I expect the DW talent to be moved in the tree in the near future because DW Unholy is simply not what the devs want so... try it while it's still there!

[Alexiaa]

1.) Boss threat is a non-issue after first few seconds.

You obviously have never had any DECENT dps in your groups because I can confidently say threat is always an issue.

DW tanking is dead, fucking dead. It is fossilized and will never be alive again. Stop trying to jurrasic park it.

[Tyrean]

Yes, threat was an issue in last content cycle, but I can tell you now doing heroics and the few raid bosses we have been able to attempt or down it has been a non-issue. We have top 100 ranked dps on WoL so I doubt my guild needs to l2p. Sounds like you are set in thinking in antiquated terms and can't take a second to think outside of the box of what EJ tells you to think. If you can't bring something constructive, just stay away. It does not hurt you for us to discuss the merits or detriments of DW, and you do nothing to help us but merely show how close minded you are.

[Appletini]

You obviously have never had any DECENT dps in your groups because I can confidently say threat is always an issue.

DW tanking is dead, fucking dead. It is fossilized and will never be alive again. Stop trying to jurrasic park it.

Are you having problems holding threat against bosses in current content? Rune Strike's threat modifier is so high that it's pretty dead simple for a Blood DK to stay two-to-four times as high as the next highest person on threat against a single target boss.

---------- Post added 2010-12-17 at 01:20 PM ----------

I went avoidance>mastery>hit>expertise for reforging

Why? You're reforging mastery/hit/expertise off in favor of avoidance stats? Just to go from 20-30% avoidance you have almost no hit, expertise or mastery? I think that's a very bad idea considering avoidance is unpredictable while hit, expertise and mastery all translate to consistent mitigation.

[McFrotton]

.....

Right now with my two-hander with gargoyle and my average 341 iLvl gear where I went avoidance>mastery>hit>expertise for reforging I am at:
1.17% hit
9 expertise
77% blood shield
29359 Armor
15.38% dodge
14.31% parry.

Before the reforge it was more like 10% dodge parry and hit caps. If I drop the gargoyle and go with parry that drops about 2k health and about 1k less armor which I think is a super trade for 4% parry and basically free 3% hit.

What do you guys think?

How are you at 38% dodge and 31 % parry???

[Kitchlol]

I saw "Serious discussion on DW tanking" then i laughed.

[McFrotton]

I saw "Serious discussion on DW tanking" then i laughed.

Why??? the only argument I saw to NOT go DW tanking was the threat issue, and ATM at 85 I do not knwo a lot of DK with threath issue, hell even if a dps go balls out single targeting all his arsenal from hell on a single mob in the first half second of a fight i just launch a RS asap and BAM 4 time the threat. Why cant we try it, it would be fun, and 4% avoidance is worth considering.

[Appletini]

Certainly if you have access to two tank one-handers, now would be the time to try it because of where the DW hit talent is and the fact that threat is a non-issue.

However, I do think those are both going to change. I think the devs are aware of how simple threat is right now and they don't want it to be so simple (based on this recent blog post by Ghostcrawler) and I think the DW talent is going farther down the Frost tree.

So now would be the time if you want to try it, but I don't expect it to last.

[unholyfury]

I don't feel like there are any downsides except for the occasional miss on an interrupt.

Isn't the hit chance on mind freeze dependent on spell hit anyways?

As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have the additional armor and hp (higher death strike + blood shield) and not having to worry about theat with a 2-hand spec with gargoyle, rather than avoidance and less threat. Our armor has already taken a large hit without adding to it. But I'm main spec dps so what do I know.

[I stand in fire]

I stopped at the tittle when it says DW tanking,

NO, you will be seriously gimping your threat if you try DW as a tank.

[Freshouttajail]

Yes, threat was an issue in last content cycle, but I can tell you now doing heroics and the few raid bosses we have been able to attempt or down it has been a non-issue. We have top 100 ranked dps on WoL so I doubt my guild needs to l2p. Sounds like you are set in thinking in antiquated terms and can't take a second to think outside of the box of what EJ tells you to think. If you can't bring something constructive, just stay away. It does not hurt you for us to discuss the merits or detriments of DW, and you do nothing to help us but merely show how close minded you are.

I agree with that, my friend is a DK tank and he holds my fire mage aggro very well, I can go all out from the start, the only moments it gets dangerous is insane crit streak and combustion on top of it but that's still manageable.

[rabbimojo]

Wrong place to have this discussion, unfortunately. There are nuances that exist, but you'll just be getting people regurgitating communal beliefs at you. You might be best off trying tankspot, or if you're pretty sharp and can hold your own you can try EJ. (Not that EJ has better posters than TS or anything, but they do tend to have some strict mods.

As for a hint, you may want to math out the gains to RP via scent of blood and how that, through the runic empowerment cycle, can provide a rune regeneration boost. That yields more DSes, and DSes have threat via self-healing (50% of the heal value, *3 due to thread mod, divided amongst all targets). You can also compare the strength of BCB to the other early threat talents, though I think BCB's generally quite poor.

Anyways, good luck. :P

[Seaxneat]

You obviously have never had any DECENT dps in your groups because I can confidently say threat is always an issue.

DW tanking is dead, fucking dead. It is fossilized and will never be alive again. Stop trying to jurrasic park it.

Dude, thats why Blizz gave us Archeology

[Nyanmaru]

I stopped at the tittle when it says DW tanking,

NO, you will be seriously gimping your threat if you try DW as a tank.

If you want this discussion to be serious, please provide some number comparisons. Not from a small piece of RNG but from a rather large set of numbers. Or so to say: Show some math, like this for damage calculation, napkin math charge on! Now show me where the big threat loss is from!

Let's start with the strike damage.
For the "weapon damage" part of the strike you need to normalize the gain first:
normalized_damage = base_weapon_damage + (X * Attack Power / 14)
X = 3.3 for 2h and 2.6 for 1h

So the AP can be calculated as a % of AP
23.5% of AP for 2h
18.6% of AP for 1h

A difference of 4.9% scaling.
At 30.000 AP this would translate to a difference of ~1.5k weapon damage per strike.

The average weapon damage is always DpS * Swing Time.
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/56346/elementium-fang/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/56342/s...ottomless-pit/

DPS: 525.9 vs. 409.4
Damage: 1998.42 vs 1064.44
Absolute difference: 933.98 damage

So we are looking at 933.98 + 4.9% AP in difference of strike damage.
Let's keep to the 30k AP figure and we would be at a difference of about 2.5k weapon damage.
7.5 DS + 7.5 HS per minute = 225 RP
~30 boss attacks = 4.5 SoB procs (2/3 for 2h + 3/3 for DW) = 90 RP for 2h / 135 RP for DW
3x HoW = 30 RP
345 RP for 2h / 390 RP for DW
11.5 RS for 2h / 13 RS for DW

Let's see the damage done (no crits, this is napkin math, no simulation, but I did put in HS glyph):
all 2h DS = 7.5 * 1.45 * (1.5 * ( 1998.42 + 0.235 AP ) + 495)
all 2h HS = 7.5 * 1.3 * (( 1998.42 + 0.235 AP ) + 819)
all 2h RS = 11.5 * (1.5 * ( 1998.42 + 0.235 AP ) + 0.15 AP)

all 1h DS = 7.5 * 1.45 * (1.5 * ( 1064.44 + 0.186 AP ) + 495)
all 1h HS = 7.5 * 1.3 * (( 1064.44 + 0.186 AP ) + 819)
all 1h RS = 13 * (1.5 * ( 1064.44 + 0.186 AP ) + 0.15 AP)

Assuming 30k AP again, adding all this up we are at:
2h: 439,478 damage = 7324.633 DpS
DW: 403,855 damage = 6730.9166 DpS

Let's check the difference in white hits. assuming 8% hit from gear for both but NoCS for DW. So 100% hit chance for 2h and 84% hit chance for DW.
2H = ( 30.000 / 14 + 552.5 ) = 2695.36 DpS
DW = ( 30.000 / 14 + 409.4) * 1.575 * 0.84 = 3376.64 DpS

Adding it up with the previous numbers we get:
2h = 10019.99
DW = 10107.56

But remember, there are still factors like Glyph of DS, crits from strikes and more DpS stats from 2h weapons that effect this calculation. If you calculate all of them 2h will let DW eat dust. Even in this calculation 2h will pull ahead once DW does not have 8% hit + NoCS but lower hit. Though in Tier 13 or Tier 14, the base melee damage may have increased as much as needed to have them on par.

Since Rune Strike scales pretty good with AP and relies less on weapon damage and DW would have an increased runic power generation through 3/3 SoB they could even be on the same level when it comes to TpS values. (If you really want to compare, use above numbers and add the threat modifiers to the different abilities add them up and see what different the threat is, but since actual threat is not an issue, I just look at the DpS values)

Also, once you lose out on 3/3 SoB and go with 2/3, the extra RS DW gets are lost and the strike based damage of DW further diminishes. If you go as far as to pull the 2 points from Endless Winter and stick them to 1/3 BCB and 3/3 SoB there would be even better DpS for DW (Assuming OBr on CD + BT with IT for disease we get a 3.75% increase in melee damage per point in BCB). You lose a free interrupt but would gain some more DpS.

Basically I'm pretty sure that DpS + TpS wise DW and 2h are pretty much the same right now if you got enough attack power. If you check above numbers with the basic ~15k AP you usually get in normal heroics you are stuck with DW behind 2h by a fair margin. DW only really shines if you got the AP to support the loss of strike damage. So for 99% of the DK community, 2h will be better TpS and DpS for quite some time.

There still is the threat of "parry haste" even while it is removed on big-hitters afaik it's still around for most of the bosses, meaning with DW you have to account for more incoming damage due to parry-hastening the bosses attacks.

Anyway, I personally would not go for dual wield tanking, mainly because of the aesthetic value, fiddling 2 pokers just doesn't give the feel of being a tank. I need a big weapon to swing in the face (or kneecap) of the enemy.

[Deleted]

You obviously have never had any DECENT dps in your groups because I can confidently say threat is always an issue.

You obviously need to l2p if you're not trolling, because nobody has Threat issues these days unless they have no idea how their Spec/Class/Role works.

Rune Strike's threat modifier is so high that it's pretty dead simple for a Blood DK to stay two-to-four times as high as the next highest person on threat against a single target boss.

Rune Strike is only a part of the problem. Vengeance is the main cause.

DW Tanking is dead, the Threat drop is insane, and there's absolutely no gain to doing it. If anything, there's a loss of 3 Talent Points you're forced to spend on Nerves of Cold Steel. Just stop trying. Seriously. DW Tanking won't even last. Like the other guy in the Thread said, Devs want Threat to matter, so soon DW will die Threat-wise. Don't even bother getting used to it, no point.

I went avoidance>mastery>hit>expertise for reforging

1. Read the Tanking Sticky
2. Rage over how much Gold you wasted.
3. Reforge.
4. Remember to read the Tanking Sticky first, and ask questions later.

Isn't the hit chance on mind freeze dependent on spell hit anyways?

Yeah. If you want to make sure your Mind Freezes don't miss get 7% Hit and 3/3 Virulence. DWing does nothing.

@Nye: Where's the TL;DR Version?

[Zao]

Shamelessly copied from EJ:

es, Gurnsey, thanks. The numbers seemed absurdly high, so I triple-checked the math, and it was all right. Correct math can't compensate for human stupidity, though. Correct numbers follow:

Two-hander
SoB 1 = 0.75 RP/sec, SoB 2 = 1.39 RP/sec, SoB 3 = 1.69 RP/sec

Dual-wield
SoB 1 = 0.77 RP/sec, SoB 2 = 1.50 RP/sec, SoB 3 = 2.05 RP/sec

I would probably take two points in SoB with a two-hander, and three with a pair of one-handers. This gives a RP disparity of 0.66 RP/sec, or 0.78 RP/sec after taking in all the recursive boosting. Net difference is one extra Rune Strike per 38.64 seconds, and one extra Death Strike per 171.7 seconds.

This makes a lot more sense than what I posted yesterday. Also makes dual-wield look a lot worse.

So even when ignoring the 10% loss in DPS, you gain practically nothing. Min/Maxing is fine. But you one DS every 3 minutes isn't really worth anything. And the 171.7 seconds even assumes forced FU RE procs.

You'd gain more mitigation by simply killing the boss faster <.<

Most people are simply aiming for DW Blood "because they like" the style, not because they want to min/max. And in that case all of the discussing is worthless, since you're simply trying not to be as shunned as you currently are, by trying to tell us it's superior.

[Nyanmaru]

@Nye: Where's the TL;DR Version?

Napkin math says:
DpS and TpS are pretty close once you get high AP.
At Heroic level you are at ~15% less DpS and ~8% less TpS
At Raid level with full vengeance you are at ~8% less DpS and same TpS
If you add 1/3 BCB DW gets ~1.2-1.5% closer. But if 2h does 2/3 BCB and no endless winter it's the opposite...

For those of you "but RE will proc so much more" guys: yeah, 2 procs per minute, not enough to make up a 15% DpS gap.
At T13 raid level DW pulls slightly ahead

It's really not that much of a TpS issue. It hurts more in the DpS department.

Though I question if the few points dodge/parry you get from 1h is preventing more damage than the DpS 2h does, bare with me, if a 10m fight gets reduced to 9m54s that's also some damage reduction... 10% of 10k Tank DpS in a 100k DpS raid is 1% of raid DpS and thus 1% less overall damage taken (thinking of 10m raiding here, the value gets diminished in 25m, 1 tank vs. 7 others has a lot more meaningful DpS than 1 tank vs. 17 others). BTW yes, we moderators are connected to a single hive mind. Hence Zao just said the same...

Though these numbers are all just very rough, I'm pretty sure that the 2h gains some more DpS through the stats on the DpS 2h compared to the tanking 1h. Also crits favor the strike damage (it's a lot higher % of overall damage compared to melee) with Glyph of DS and Glyph of RS it further widens the gap.

[Tyrean]

1. Read the Tanking Sticky
2. Rage over how much Gold you wasted.
3. Reforge.
4. Remember to read the Tanking Sticky first, and ask questions later.

Yeah. If you want to make sure your Mind Freezes don't miss get 7% Hit and 3/3 Virulence. DWing does nothing.

@Nye: Where's the TL;DR Version?

Well, I am capable of reading but I am also capable of critical thinking on my own. The sticky does nothing to say why mastery is better than avoidance but I have also happened to read the EJ threads and absorbed that information. My point has been that mastery is indeed a very strong stat but it comes at the price of larger front loaded hits. Now this is not problematic in 5 mans because the healer is not ever trying to keep you close to full health and I can actually heal myself a lot more, but in a raid environment even with the healing changes you still have to keep your tanks above 70% health reliably because mechanic wise you can get gibbed from that state right now in our current gear. So DKs have the threat of taking more damage quickly because our armor has been nerfed to compensate for the strong mechanic of the DS shield.

So my hypothesis is that in early stages of gear it is more advisable to gem/reforge for avoidance stats to help with healer mana for the fight instead of just pushing our mastery to absurd levels. Even now, I lost about 12% on my BS shield but gained almost 10% avoidance total. I think that is a pretty fair trade.

Talking about DW though, the whole reason I was asking was because of the interest in pushing my avoidance up I was also not reforging for hit/exp. This pushed my hit to very low levels and the DW hit talent was looking very appealing since I am already subspecced frost for lichborne. I am not concerned at all about interrupts, that is what we have rogues/dps dks/wars/druids/shaman/mages/ret pal/etc for in raids. My job in a 25 man raid is to control threat, positioning and to not die. So I am trying to solve the not dieing part by upping my avoidance levels, and I believe that threat levels will be sufficient even with DW being behind 2H right now because in order to tank I just need to be ahead of the top threat and right now I am light years ahead of the top threat so in effect I have wasted TPS.

Napkin math shows that even at low levels of AP DW is still not too far behind 2H and this loss is okay in current environment where I have such a large lead on threat that no one will ever catch me. I get so far ahead that I sit on my runes and only use them to keep blade barrier/FF/BB up and use all other runes on DS to time with my shield dropping. The dps los sis minimal when I go from 7k to 6.5k it is not so bad when our top 5 are all doing 16k.


In any case I think I got the answer I was looking for and it is basically that I can keep the 2H for now and just not be concerned with the fact that I have less than 2% hit because my threat is so far ahead anyway and I do not need to worry about interrupts. The only thing I have to worry about is the situations where I may miss applying a BB and take a hit or two at +10% damage. I think the loss of hit is worth the gain of avoidance.

Thank you to those that took the time to think about the situation and work out some interesting math. To those that just blindly dismissed it because "the sticky said so" I hope you just don't bother posting in these types of threads anymore if you are not willing to at least challenge convention to prove or disprove it.