Should DK tank be stacking mastery over stamina or other way round?

[Nillo]

Tank job is to take damage. For me,it is always much bigger feat when take less damage before than when i push more damage.

And if you're already close to taking no damage - what's the point? Unless you can reduce the amount of healers you need by 1 or significantly reduce the risk of you ever dying you're just better off going for dps once you're over the point where you can survive whatever the bosses throw at you. Most of the time bosses get easier if you bring a few thousand extra dps.

Besides - why are you specced into BCB if you're so dead set on reducing damage taken?

[kaelleria]

Stamina also increases your ability to take shots that will wtfpwn you otherwise... More of a buffer in your time to die countdown.

Zzodiac... The difference between the time of no nerf to the 5% nerf was probably about a collective 10-15 ilvl for everyone involved. You can't say that having the extra dps, hps and tank survivability made no difference in your strats, compositions, etc.

Just think of Blackhorn... Now think of him and his adds with 5-10% more hp. Now think of how you handled drakes and if it would work if your raid dps was significantly lower... Probably not.

Also, shaman buff does not count... What's next, me saying I have 415k hp since I hit that on Madness with VB, shaman buff and Alexstraza's buff?

[Zzodiac]

And if you're already close to taking no damage - what's the point? Unless you can reduce the amount of healers you need by 1 or significantly reduce the risk of you ever dying you're just better off going for dps once you're over the point where you can survive whatever the bosses throw at you. Most of the time bosses get easier if you bring a few thousand extra dps.

Besides - why are you specced into BCB if you're so dead set on reducing damage taken?

Because i am using it in Single target spec? And because it is doing more damage than dissease while i have took all survival talents? I should take Icy Reach instead of it? It is quite obvious that there is not any reducing damage talent left.

Let me accept challenge and asking obvious questions. Why you are reforging to hit and Expertise?

Also to guy above me with Blackhorn. I have done it before any nerf,that encounter was just a bit stronger pushover.

And yes Shaman buff has 100% uptime.

[kaelleria]

You did it 1 week prior to the nerf. That's still an extra 7 weeks of gear compared to when the front runners killed him... You can't say that means absolutely nothing in terms of dps/hps output.

And no... people do not usually count the shaman buff without saying it includes the shaman buff, hence the confusion from earlier.

[Zzodiac]

You did it 1 week prior to the nerf. That's still an extra 7 weeks of gear compared to when the front runners killed him... You can't say that means absolutely nothing in terms of dps/hps output.

And no... people do not usually count the shaman buff without saying it includes the shaman buff, hence the confusion from earlier.

Wrong. 3rd January isnt 1 week prior to nerf.

[Nillo]

1) Because i am using it in Single target spec? And because it is doing more damage than dissease while i have took all survival talents? It is quite obvious that there is not any reducing damage talent left.

2) Let me accept challenge and asking obvious questions. Why you are reforging to hit and Expertise?

1) You could pick up more RP generation which has the possibility of giving you more DS to work with. Yes it's minor, but after all it still gives more survivability bonus than picking up BCB.

2) Hit because missing with outbreak is a pain in the arse - yes the chance of a miss happening is very low, but with an unlucky miss before an impale you may end up either not having 10% dr reduce up or losing your bloodshield.
Expertise - purely for dps, because I really don't see a point in getting more avoidance while I'm at a point where logs tell me I'm not receiving any direct healing on half of the fights in ds (and very little on the rest of them).

[Hey Zeus]

mastery > dodge/parry > stamina. next question.

[kaelleria]

Wrong. 3rd January isnt 1 week prior to nerf.

Ok, fine. You swapped guilds midway, my mistake. That's still an extra 5 weeks of loot... It makes a difference.

[Zzodiac]

1) You could pick up more RP generation which has the possibility of giving you more DS to work with. Yes it's minor, but after all it still gives more survivability bonus than picking up BCB.

2) Hit because missing with outbreak is a pain in the arse - yes the chance of a miss happening is very low, but with an unlucky miss before an impale you may end up either not having 10% dr reduce up or losing your bloodshield.
Expertise - purely for dps, because I really don't see a point in getting more avoidance while I'm at a point where logs tell me I'm not receiving any direct healing on half of the fights in ds (and very little on the rest of them).

Or you can just Plague Strike 15 seconds before impale if you miss?

---------- Post added 2012-03-16 at 09:05 PM ----------

Ok, fine. You swapped guilds midway, my mistake. That's still an extra 5 weeks of loot... It makes a difference.

I didnt swap guild midway? And that was also 3rd week of HC raiding.

[kaelleria]

I see where the confusion is... Your guild did 25 man significantly later than it did 10. Jan 22nd is when you guys killed him on 25. Jan 3rd was 10.

Either way, I stand by the 5 weeks of loot making a huge difference.

[Zzodiac]

I see where the confusion is... Your guild did 25 man significantly later than it did 10. Jan 22nd is when you guys killed him on 25. Jan 3rd was 10.

Either way, I stand by the 5 weeks of loot making a huge difference.

Learn to count

[kaelleria]

5 Lockouts elapsed between Nov 30th and Jan 3rd...

Edit: I don't know what I was thinking with the Nov 30th date... Still 4 lockouts elapsed between December 8th and Jan 3rd.

[Nillo]

Or you can just Plague Strike 15 seconds before impale if you miss?

With the gcd and unholy rune I need to set up tanking the mutation and keeping my blood shield up? No thanks.

[Zzodiac]

5 Lockouts elapsed between Nov 30th and Jan 3rd...

Edit: I don't know what I was thinking with the Nov 30th date... Still 4 lockouts elapsed between December 8th and Jan 3rd.

Content was released on December 7th if i remember so.

[kaelleria]

DS was released on the 29th. The 6th was the first day you could do heroics.

[Zzodiac]

With the gcd and unholy rune I need to set up tanking the mutation and keeping my blood shield up? No thanks.

There is that death Rune that you can get from Blood Tap

[Wih]

There is that death Rune that you can get from Blood Tap

Which is already being used on cooldown to fund more DSs.

[SSHA778]

Really, all, let's stop with the armory flaunting "who killed Madness when and how many times" business. It doesn't make you any more right or any more wrong than anyone else, and it's really not even contributing to the discussion here.

You should form your opinion based on what is posted, and only on what is posted alone. Again, a heroic kill only shows that your raid group as a whole was competent enough to down the encounter. It doesn't make you infallible, or even correct, even if, with some setup, you were able to do something. Frankly, it makes me just want to ignore you because it's pretty much like basing the foundation of your support on "I've done this, so it's right," and that's something that's both 1) pointless to debate and 2) impossible to actually compare because your metric is 100% a pass/fail metric. If both pass, then how can you say which is better? You can't, so stop adamantly insisting that you can by saying one way is better.

I am in a different situation though as my guild is still progressing through 25man heroic. My goal is to provide as easy of a target to heal as possible and not only mitigate as much as possible but more importantly to provide them with no wipes caused from the tank. This is why I strongly advocate a mix of stam/mastery and not an extreme of either.

Underline done by myself.

There's the difference. You do 25's, and I do 10's. I said I would have more if I tanked 25's because it's a very simple and provable fact that bosses in 25 hit harder than bosses in 10. Consequently, the minimum HP threshold necessary (to not be 2-shot) is higher. The minimum HP threshold is also a function of skill, which is yet another function of quite a lot of variables that I think I've discussed quite at length now. The TL;DR of that is that what works for one player does not necessarily work for another player because, if you try to say that, you are holding a metric ton of variables constant that are not actually constant.

Yes sir, but again this is true for both and does not support the assumption that DS timing is more important for mastery dks.

Knowing when to use it is important for all dks.

I absolutely agree that knowing when to use it is important for all DKs (because it is), but if you look at the %-wise comparison of just how much damage Blood Shield mitigates for the mastery setup, it's much higher than for any other setup. A mastery DK has very little damage reduction in between DS's (just avoidance), and a smaller health buffer than a stamina DK. Thus, it has a higher importance because it represents a significant swing in your survivability.

Stacking stamina provides a larger buffer for your healers. Your shield is less, but the fact that you have the extra HP compensates for it (because your healers are bad if they aren't topping you off). While this may not always buy you time, it is giving your healers more room to work with, and it is giving you a larger margin to recover from making a mistake. This is precisely the reason why world-first progression tanks generally tend to bias stamina rather heavily--they go into content severely undergeared, which means they have less natural stamina, so they make up for it with stamina gemming to give them more room for learning mistakes. However, there is a point when you're going overboard (unless it's for DPS reasons), and that's when you're not even regularly accessing the full range of your HP bar, because whatever range you're not accessing is providing no benefit at all.

The whole ides that "stams stacking" is easier on those who don't know how or when to DS is just silly. It's an argument made up to make you feel better about yourself if you stack mastery. You (not you personally) say it and think "i'm stacking mastery because i'm good at DS timing, I must be pro!"

No, it's not silly, and it's incredibly easy to show using the concept of EH. It has nothing to do with an ego, and, no, I don't take it personally. The point of a tank is to not die. In the case of a DK, the point of a DK tank is to not die before his/her next DS. His/her next DS is a function of RE/rune management and any sort of pre-planning.

I DS every 5 seconds, as I said previously. Do you know what Blizzard balances you around? Using a DS every 10 seconds. In my case, I take at maximum 3 hits per DS window (8% of the time). In the balance case, you take 5 hits at maximum (17% of the time). That's an astronomical difference in healing needed between DS's. Absolutely astronomical. 25H bosses hit for over 100k. Normal-case, I need 200k (if I were in 25's). Normal-case, balance needs 400k!!!!!!!! Every single bit of stamina will help out that "balance" DK because it's going to buy his/her healers more time to reach that maximum, because in between DS, the only source of mitigation that that DK has comes from RNG avoidance (which, although isn't totally unreliable, isn't reliable). Let's say I avoid a hit--then I'm totally fine for that 5s window and won't die. Let's say that "balance" DK avoids a hit--that's still 300k damage. Stamina totally and definitely will help there because it absolutely can cross you from the "you die threshold" to the "you barely live" threshold (after you account for absorbs).

If you you suck at DS timing and you stack mastery you will get larger shields than if you stack stam.

Let me emphasize something here:
The size of the shield is not important (relatively).
The timing of that shield is everything. The timing of the shield is what has the most dramatic effect on your immediate damage taken.

Devastate coming in 3s, and I'm at 75% HP. Do I want a 60k shield or an 80k shield? I simply just want a shield (and the heal). If I don't get a shield, there's an extreme risk that I'm going to be in a world of hurt, and both the 60k and the 80k reduce that risk. If I live, my healers can fix it. If I die, only a battle resurrection can fix it. Could that 20k make a difference on an attempt? Yeah, sure, but probably not all that often.

Again, let me emphasize something here. You don't use Death Strike to reduce your overall damage taken as much as you possibly can. That's the amateur's interpretation. You use Death Strike to make the damage you take as consistent and manageable as possible. How that's done is independent of gear. All gear changes is what the minimum HP threshold is.

Tank job is to take damage. For me,it is always much bigger feat when take less damage before than when i push more damage.

And just how do you actually quantify "less damage," and, furthermore, how do you quantify the "value" of taking that "less damage?"

As you said Stamina is affecting only your minimal shield while mastery is affecting even that minimal shiled to be more than stamina one?

There is a point where stamina increases your maximum shield size more than increasing mastery does.

(1.05*1.05*1.08*1.09*14*75)*.07*mastery% = .07*Max_HP*(50/179.28004*.0625)

That would be assuming you are looking at gems.

[Zzodiac]

Which is already being used on cooldown to fund more DSs.

Another Ayatollah of DS spamming.

[Deleted]

As a healer and old DK tank I give all of you stamina tanks the middle finger.