[Guide] Active Mitigation Hipsters - 5.4 DK Tanking

[Kiqjaq]

Again you may want to mention this is 25H - being able to almost completely negate melee damage on 10H definitely makes us viable. (as long as you don't use 2 DKs of course)

That's a product of overgearing. In 475 gear (around what early groups had) you couldn't do anything near negating all the melee damage. So the constant stream of damage that we can heal ourselves through, but not others, plus the adds' lasers and Gary's shadowy attacks that we had nothing for set up the perfect storm for burst damage, and DKs having the worst passive mitigation made them that much more susceptible to all of it.

10H had its own issues in progression though, with adds gibbing people. With fewer targets to pick from, it's just a matter of time until 3-4 pick the same person at once and smash his head in. That's hardly our fault.

[Nillo]

That's a product of overgearing. In 475 gear (around what early groups had) you couldn't do anything near negating all the melee damage. So the constant stream of damage that we can heal ourselves through, but not others, plus the adds' lasers and Gary's shadowy attacks that we had nothing for set up the perfect storm for burst damage, and DKs having the worst passive mitigation made them that much more susceptible to all of it.

10H had its own issues in progression though, with adds gibbing people. With fewer targets to pick from, it's just a matter of time until 3-4 pick the same person at once and smash his head in. That's hardly our fault.

Never really felt that way even in lower level gear.

Also looking at the sample size @ raidbots:
On 10H Blood DKs are pretty much always on top - yes this also includes Gara'Jal (okay there are about 5% less DK tanks but that's hardly significant).... with the exception of Mel'Jarak where the amount of DK tanks drops almost by half.
The ones with a noticable bump are Will (even 25H DKs seem to be the choice #1 here) , Garalon , Lei Shi and to a lesser extend Ta'yak (probably because that fight is easy anyway).

[Fockatron]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has the time to just check on my reforge and gems real quick. I would just like to know if I am correctly reforged and gemmed for normal modes, because i sometimes OT in my guild's raids. I feel like I am taking more damage then usual and idk why. Don't mind the dps helm, bad helm drops is bad.
us.battle.net/wow/en/character/stormrage/Pourchuck/advanced

[Reniat]

All your enchants/gems look fine, but there are a couple places where you could optimize reforging. First off, you could get more mastery out of your back and wrists by taking the mastery out of parry instead of dodge, and you are also a bit parry heavy. Using the formula from the guide, we can see that with 7.60% dodge you should have 2.598*(7.6)-5.797 = 13.95 parry. You currently have 21.81% parry, meaning you could lessen the affects of diminishing returns a bit by reforging out of parry and into dodge anywhere you aren't reforging into mastery (for example, parry-> dodge on your ring #2, removing reforge on ring #1, ect.)

Other than that you should be fine for normal modes. Any problems you have at this point will be due to something in your playstyle.

[Xarganthos]

a friend of mine told me to reforge for hit/exp and that i should stay @ 7k mastery unbuffed for the time being. is that true? i'm not doing much with him, just playing if i have free time to spare but i want to be able to play him as good as back then in cata.^^

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nthos/advanced

[Reniat]

Hit/exp is fine. It's a dps boost at a minimal suvivability cost, however do not sacrifice mastery for it should you decide to go for it. As far as 7k mastery goes, mastery does not suffer from the same type of diminishing returns that avoidance suffers, and until you reach a point where you are frequently capping shields with a single death strike (which is not possible at any gear level) mastery remains at the top of the list for dmg mitigation. The only reason you should ever sacrifice mastery is if you need an EH boost through stamina, and that largely depends on the fight/gear level. 7000 is just as significant as 7001 mastery, or 7002 mastery, or 8000 mastery or 1000 mastery. Do you see what I mean? The more the merrier, at all levels of mastery.

[Xarganthos]

i dont even know why he said that^^. i guess i just trusted his words since he's playing DK far longer than myself. so it doesnt matter if i lose some hit/exp?

also can someone give me some advice in how to use bloodtap? i was always playing with RC but decided to spec into bloodtap for more reliable death strikes but i cant get used to this playstyle. especially in aoe/movement fights i fail to manage my stacks and runes

[Reniat]

With blood tap you are simply banking a spare Death Strike. Use it when you don't have an FU pair available and would like to Death Strike. If you don't see a burst DS being necessary, you can maintain throughput by using both FU pairs back to back and then using 10 charges of BT. In rune terms it would look like: BxFxUx (normal rune sitting position) Bxxxxx (put all FU pairs down) BxDxDx (after using Blood Tap x 2). If you consistently needing to simply maintain throughput by resetting runes like this then it might be better just to go with RC for the dps gain, as the control of BT is not being utilized.

[Fockatron]

All your enchants/gems look fine, but there are a couple places where you could optimize reforging. First off, you could get more mastery out of your back and wrists by taking the mastery out of parry instead of dodge, and you are also a bit parry heavy. Using the formula from the guide, we can see that with 7.60% dodge you should have 2.598*(7.6)-5.797 = 13.95 parry. You currently have 21.81% parry, meaning you could lessen the affects of diminishing returns a bit by reforging out of parry and into dodge anywhere you aren't reforging into mastery (for example, parry-> dodge on your ring #2, removing reforge on ring #1, ect.) Other than that you should be fine for normal modes. Any problems you have at this point will be due to something in your playstyle.

Hey Reniat thanks for the awesome advice but i was just wondering. Is there an easier way to optimize my reforge, i tried using Ask Mr Robot but it never seems to get the parry/dodge right. Unless you have the stat weights differently.

[Nillo]

a friend of mine told me to reforge for hit/exp and that i should stay @ 7k mastery unbuffed for the time being. is that true? i'm not doing much with him, just playing if i have free time to spare but i want to be able to play him as good as back then in cata.^^

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nthos/advanced

Maybe he though 7k was a reasonable level to begin with.
I'd say about 8-9k or 150% unbuffed is closer to what you actually need.
As for hit/exp cap: As Reniat said you don't want to sacrifice mastery for it => if your goal is to cap accuracy stats you need to look for items without dodge/parry on them first.

---------- Post added 2013-02-21 at 05:58 PM ----------

Hey Reniat thanks for the awesome advice but i was just wondering. Is there an easier way to optimize my reforge, i tried using Ask Mr Robot but it never seems to get the parry/dodge right. Unless you have the stat weights differently.

It's pretty simple: Just don't bother with it - getting it to the perfect level doesn't give a noticable boost in survivability.
You're much better off focusing that effort into optimizing your skill usage.


Also why are your items only upgraded halfway? !_! You really need to focus on upgrading the better items fully (legs and shoulders in your case)

[Fockatron]

It's pretty simple: Just don't bother with it - getting it to the perfect level doesn't give a noticable boost in survivability.
You're much better off focusing that effort into optimizing your skill usage.


Also why are your items only upgraded halfway? !_! You really need to focus on upgrading the better items fully (legs and shoulders in your case)

This isn't my main, I play my DK when we are short a tank.

[Nillo]

This isn't my main, I play my DK when we are short a tank.

And that's why...?

[Fockatron]

And that's why...?

I dont do dailies or get valor capped weekly, just when i feel like playing him ill run some dungeons and stuff.

[Nillo]

I dont do dailies or get valor capped weekly, just when i feel like playing him ill run some dungeons and stuff.

And what does this have to do with you randomly upgrading your items?

[Fockatron]

And what does this have to do with you randomly upgrading your items?

not really random, i literally just got those pieces last week or 2 weeks ago. The upgraded pieces you see were already upgraded before i got the shoulders and legs.

[Nillo]

not really random, i literally just got those pieces last week or 2 weeks ago. The upgraded pieces you see were already upgraded before i got the shoulders and legs.

Still unless you got the shoulders before the legs why go only halfway with everything °_°

[Reniat]

Maybe he though 7k was a reasonable level to begin with.
I'd say about 8-9k or 150% unbuffed is closer to what you actually need.

150% doesn't mean any more than 100% or 200%. There is nothing significant about that number. What he "actually needs" is the same as what we all need: as much mastery as we can get while maintaining a high enough EH level.

It's pretty simple: Just don't bother with it

Yes, because ignoring DR is optimal. -_-

True you only get maybe 1% avoidance if that, but why not take the time to do it if you're doing an avoidance build? It literally takes you < a minute.

[Ikrekot]

Death Knight – We reduced the health of Bloodworms to 15% (from 18%) and reduced the health healed to 25% from 30%. Our earlier buffs were too generous (and they are still significantly buffed from 5.1).

Bloodworms got nerfed a bit. Someone could post logs from ptr with healing done and damage taken.

[rhapso]

Death Knight – We reduced the health of Bloodworms to 15% (from 18%) and reduced the health healed to 25% from 30%. Our earlier buffs were too generous (and they are still significantly buffed from 5.1).

Bloodworms got nerfed a bit. Someone could post logs from ptr with healing done and damage taken.

In 5.1 (live) they have 6% health and heal for 10% per stack. At first on PTR they had 18% health and healed for 30% per stack, which is 3*3 = 9 times as much as they do on live (at least in theory). Now they have 15% health and heal for 25% per stacks, which is 2.5*2.5 = 6.25 times as much as they do on live. (Nerf of about 30% from PTR, buff of 625% instead of 900% from 5.1 values).

[Deleted]

I don't really mind too much, the majority of that would've been overhealing anyways.