A "side long" view at disease(less)tanking

[Warhunt]

there are many examples of where this logic is flawed. you assume that every encounter you have that both tanks will always be on the same exact target at all times. this is untrue in MOST cases. therefore keep diseases up always. the end.

You two can take your little spat elsewhere if you wish. As for your posts and info, please read the OP and some of my other replies.

I state that for the purpose of this discussion (which is a "side long" view after all) the debuffs are unimportant (or applied elsewhere).

We know that the debuffs are important in the game, as is discussed in my posts. Applying debuffs when they aren't there doesn't need to be said out loud.

[Sigismund]

I find with my raid comp that Plague Strike is more important to get off then Icy Touch if I only have 1 death rune up. This is due to having a DW frost DK in the group who keeps frost fever up. But I don't ignore Icy Touch when I have 2 runes up. Outbreak on CD is a must for any DK tank for the rest of the game.

[Nitrak]

Granted, that we debuff the target with our diseases making him do less dmg, and having the healers heal me easier, but i might tank diseaseless for short period of times, mainly if i forget it.

[Deleted]

i see no upside to diseaseless tanking, maybe i miss something but the diseases reduce the damage we take and also cause damage which surely creates more threat on a mob(not 100% sure if deseases help with threat) i have no trouble with threat, the only thing i some times change is when to apply my diseases for instance if we are going to aoe a pack down ill d an d and blood boil first then disease a mob and spread. at this point if you are not struggling with health you are free to burn runes on heartstrike. and if you start having trouble with health a blood tap is usually all that is required to get a DS off, i usually DS everynow and again on trash and HS,RS to keep threat.

single target threat i have absolutely no trouble with i can often stand their autoattacking after 30 secs of the fight and wont get pulled off for ages.

so please enlighten me to the advantages of diseaseless tanking im not trolling or anything i just dont see much benefit to it but i have likely missed something.

[Deathquoi]

There's no point at all to discussing the matter if the debuffs aren't a concern. On any meaningful content, the survivability of a death strike far outweighs the crap damage of FF/BP.

[Soundmantom]

i think i was not clear enough in my previous post. If you are saving all your frost/unholy runes from death strike, assuming this is the idea behind diseaseless tanking, outbreak should still be used due to its no rune cost. Yes you can still apply diseases via runes, but the only reason for a diseases less rotation is for the use of those extra frost/unholy runes. If it doesnt take away those runes why would you not use outbreak? Since it is no rune cost it should be used on CD. please pardon the ambiguity.

[Sobegreen]

There's no point at all to discussing the matter if the debuffs aren't a concern. On any meaningful content, the survivability of a death strike far outweighs the crap damage of FF/BP.

This. Really if you are going to complain about us talking about the debuffs then there isn't much else to talk about other than saying "I use diseases" "I do not use diseases" and then the topic is over. There are only three factors that come in to play with diseases. Attacks do more damage. You generate more threat. And the applied debuffs help the raid. You can't really argue or talk about the first two any beyond that without diving into the debuff discussion which really is the only thing that can apply depth to the conversation. Ignoring the debuffs diseases will give you more damage and more threat at the occasional loss of a Death Strike. The end.

As for the other guy I never once said the debuffs will always be up by another player. Common sense will tell you that sometimes you will have to do it.

[Nyanmaru]

There's no point at all to discussing the matter if the debuffs aren't a concern. On any meaningful content, the survivability of a death strike far outweighs the crap damage of FF/BP.

Apart from what Deathquoi said, why is a blog entry open as a discussion thread here?
I mean it's all cool to display your opinion but there's not much to discuss here...

No Debuffs?
- FF/SF > DS
Only SF there?
- might be better to add the FF but it's rather close
Only FF there?
- Doesn't matter
Both Debuffs there?
- DS > Diseases

If your healers are bored 90% of the time and you are outgearing the content, you'll be HSing for more DpS and will want the diseases even more...

[SurrealNight]

I personally like to apply the debuffs when they aren't being applied by someone else. Since I mostly do 25m and we usually have a DK I can rule out FF needing to be applied by me (outside of free Outbreaks anyways). So why does it have to come down to either being "diseaseless" or not? Why can't you run both? Just look at BoT as an example. Specifically from a debuff standpoint (not addressing the DPS increase, I personally don't care) assuming you have classes that can provide the phys damage reduction.

Halfus - If you are MT then debuffs need to be applied as the DPS is on drakes. If you are a drake tank and have the classes that provide it then they are optional
Twin Dragons - One target, odds are high you have other classes providing both debuffs.
Ele Monst - If your tanking Ignatious with no Fury/Arms warrior, you need to apply the debuff for sure yourself. Same with Arieon.
Cho'gall - In theory they are being applied by other classes, but with worships, switching to adds ect probably best to keep it up yourself if you want to insure 100% up time.

[Avatar Killer]

I personally like to apply the debuffs when they aren't being applied by someone else. Since I mostly do 25m and we usually have a DK I can rule out FF needing to be applied by me (outside of free Outbreaks anyways). So why does it have to come down to either being "diseaseless" or not? Why can't you run both? Just look at BoT as an example. Specifically from a debuff standpoint (not addressing the DPS increase, I personally don't care) assuming you have classes that can provide the phys damage reduction.

Halfus - If you are MT then debuffs need to be applied as the DPS is on drakes. If you are a drake tank and have the classes that provide it then they are optional
Twin Dragons - One target, odds are high you have other classes providing both debuffs.
Ele Monst - If your tanking Ignatious with no Fury/Arms warrior, you need to apply the debuff for sure yourself. Same with Arieon.
Cho'gall - In theory they are being applied by other classes, but with worships, switching to adds ect probably best to keep it up yourself if you want to insure 100% up time.

this is a very clear and incisive point. You can "pay for a death strike to apply the diseases" at the cost of someone else already applying the debuffs but if you ever EVER use heart strike, are not in range of the target for even 1 swing or miss an attack even once diseases provide continuous threat that will not miss (once its on the target) as well as ensuring that if the target for some reason isn't being attacked by the other player also supplying that debuff diseases win out. the end result damage from diseases vs the death strike damage from the same rune cost is roughly half a death strike, but if you press heart strike even once you make up that difference, AND you don't have to do anything to keep that damage, its a DoT.

the only thing you truly miss out on is the healing and the shield. but even blizzard accounted for that one. they even made a post that stated that you generally should pull off 7 death strikes a minute which is perfectly doable while keeping up diseases.

just no real reason not to in the end vs the benefits of what they provide. if you just wanna press 2 buttons then go ahead with your DS>DS>RS combo and be bored... its your character.

[Drunkenvalley]

Afraid you're going to have to quote where I said that damage has been modified by diseases now, as it just doesn't exist i'm afraid.

So I see. Sorry, my eyes tricked me and I somehow read "Now that they not only tick away consistently [...] but also increase the damage [...]"

[Ssith]

i do not run diseases unless it's applied via outbreak because it's a net mitigation loss. as for the damage and threat they provide, you should be using Blood Boil to game Blood Runes to try to make more F/U/D runes proc and not using heart strike at all - and diseases increase BB from 2k to a whopping 3.5k. zounds.

they're clunky to apply out of outbreak and INCREASE our net damage taken when we apply them by using rune-consuming abilities. they are fundamentally broken for Blood spec.

[Soundmantom]

i do not run diseases unless it's applied via outbreak because it's a net mitigation loss. as for the damage and threat they provide, you should be using Blood Boil to game Blood Runes to try to make more F/U/D runes proc and not using heart strike at all - and diseases increase BB from 2k to a whopping 3.5k. zounds.

they're clunky to apply out of outbreak and INCREASE our net damage taken when we apply them by using rune-consuming abilities. they are fundamentally broken for Blood spec.

why the hell are you using blood boil? they do NOT proc F/U/D rune. No idea where you got that from. Secondly, Heart strike hits hard. Avg for me 7-8k way more than blood boil. How can they increase our damage taken when Frost fever applies an attack speed debuff and Blood plague applies a 10% physical damage reduction? They are not broken. I do not mean to insult but this is a large lack of knowledge on class mechanics.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=81229 Nowhere does it say blood boil.

[SurrealNight]

they're clunky to apply out of outbreak and INCREASE our net damage taken when we apply them by using rune-consuming abilities. they are fundamentally broken for Blood spec.

Without logs to back up that you end up taking less damage by saving your runes for Death Strikes over applying FF/SF debuffs, I'm not going to believe that "opinion". Again, these are in scenarios where another class is not already applying both debuffs for you. If you have a DPS DK on your target you can feel safe that FF is up 99% of the fight, which means you just need to decide if Plague Strike+SF is needed or not.

I can understand using BB to try and quickly clear your blood runes to get your armor proc back up (to prevent a delay from misses), but it last 10 seconds so no reason you can't work in Heart Strikes after that and keep the buff rolling. But as pointed out since they don't proc runes this should be more of a last resort, not part of your rotation...

[Avatar Killer]

i do not run diseases unless it's applied via outbreak because it's a net mitigation loss. as for the damage and threat they provide, you should be using Blood Boil to game Blood Runes to try to make more F/U/D runes proc and not using heart strike at all - and diseases increase BB from 2k to a whopping 3.5k. zounds.

they're clunky to apply out of outbreak and INCREASE our net damage taken when we apply them by using rune-consuming abilities. they are fundamentally broken for Blood spec.

wow do you even play a DK?

it might be a mitigation loss but its not severe enough to not use. secondly using BB is just a fail move period, it also also doesn't proc anything at all, and not using heart strike is just as retaraded.

they are not clunky to apply you press a different button instead of "im going to fail and press Blood boil".

they are not broken at all you just don't actually play a DK

[Deathquoi]

i do not run diseases unless it's applied via outbreak because it's a net mitigation loss. as for the damage and threat they provide, you should be using Blood Boil to game Blood Runes to try to make more F/U/D runes proc and not using heart strike at all - and diseases increase BB from 2k to a whopping 3.5k. zounds.

they're clunky to apply out of outbreak and INCREASE our net damage taken when we apply them by using rune-consuming abilities. they are fundamentally broken for Blood spec.

I see...only badness...