WotLK Death Striking - A Blood Death Knight Tanking Guide

@Mercy
I see,I myself never attempted an avoidance build so wouldn't know. thanks for clarifying.

Yeah Gnimo's point makes perfect sense.

Dodge Expertise cap can be reached with:
Gloren - 114 exp rating
And 5x 10exp15stamina gems - 50 exp
Total of 164 expertise rating and exact (26) dodge cap with VotTW.
Those gems can be put in Helm, Chest, Belt, armor Ring and Neck.
U will be able to go RS boots and T10 helm with Marrow Legs which will give u a nice boost when it comes to Avoidance, but will result in some stamina lost (which will be minimum cos of the extra gem in legs and extra stamina from 284 feet).

Hit can be capped perfectly with Gloves, Legs, Ring and Cloak and 1x 10hit15stam gem (69, 85, 55, 44, 10 total of 263 hit), or if u dont have Engineering u can use 20 hit enchant on gloves with couple (4) of 10hit15stamina gems and use the Armor Cloak from emblem vendor.

Rest of the gems should ALWAYS be 30stamina, unless u are chasing some avoidance or other OCDs which wont work the best when facing some bosses...

Armor has a huge Value on Bosses like LK that have huge base hits, while outside of ICC (not counting RS) i feel that 277 items like Marrow Wrist, Fester Belt, (maybe even LDWs Ring, if u really want to push for extra avoidance) could be better mainly cos they will give u a bit more stamina (264 vs 277 items) and nice amount of avoidance, both stats will help u when it comes to avoiding hits and self healing.

All in all, i doubt there is anything better than this that will offer u overall stat balance, which i consider to be the best way to go for when it comes to tanking 30% buff and content outside of ICC (RS not included, mainly cos for Halion u will need to cap Parry Expertise - 56, and thats whole another story).

Again, Armor and Stamina is the best way to go for if u want to be a tank that doesnt die to beeing dumb, and/or bad RNG, but pushing for some insane amount of armor/stamina and sacrificing other stats, even tho that armor wont mske almost any diference when it comes to: "2 hits tanked, if not healed > 3rd hit > dead" situation.

There is no perfect tank that has it all in WotLK.
Huge chunk of stamina and armor > Bear
A lot of def cds and self healing > BDK
Best suport tank > Paladin
Papertank > Warrior (ex di)
Trying to push and make of a DK something that its not in its core is wrong if u ask me (or any other class/spec when it comes to DPS/Heal/Tank)...

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Originally Posted by MissNemo

@DamnOrginial
"What does that have to do with anything? Melee DPS can't stay 15 yrds away from Keleseth and still do DPS. 8yrds Whirlwind/Divine Storm =/= 15 yrds Shadowmourne proc, conflating them doesn't work. I have no idea how someone can have this much trouble with concepts this simple. Then again, you did say you were tired. "

You seem to still have a hard time comprehending this, the dps are going to switch weapons when heading to kele while you will be no where close to kele AKA 15yards+. how are you still not getting this is beyond me.

Spoiler: Show

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

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Originally Posted by MissNemo

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

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Originally Posted by MissNemo

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Originally Posted by DamnOriginal

The Nuclei spawn all over the place which means they can easily spawn near your Shadowmourne. The range of the proc is also around 15 yrds, longer than any other melee AoE and it's RNG on top. This is why Shadowmournes are switched to backup weapons and all controlled AOE is used with care on that fight. Another reason Shadowmourne is bad on that fight is if it's being used by the Keleseth tank, where the constant AOE damage will shorten the lifespan of the Dark Nuclei he's tanking.

Do you honestly think warrs/palas and dks aren't using SM @ LK/Vala/Tald?

It was pretty clear that I was specifically talking about the BPC fight where any good Shadowmourne DPS will switch to a backup weapon when going on Keleseth or risk wiping the raid for 500 more DPS. Just because this is too complicated for you, doesn't mean good raiders don't do it.

You're purposely pretending not to understand this at this point, Lets go over the scenario you placed slowly

1. DPS will move form point A(Vala/Tald) to point B(Kele). You the tank is going to be 15yards+ away from Point B and his nuclei.
2 You the tank like the "good dps who will use their backup weapon" will do even better. and not even go to kele lol

The quote you responded to had nothing to do with tanks at all, it was about the possible risk factors of having Shadowmourne DPS on Keleseth. Learn to read.

By the virtue of your poor reading comprehension, you're basically now just agreeing with me when you say DPS switches for Keleseth. Whether you actually realize this or not is a whole different story.

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Originally Posted by MissNemo

Your tanking knowledge is very supbar, feels like you do not even know about the unhitable macro.
/script dr=function(x)return 1/(1/16+0.9560/x)end;DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combat table coverage. Currently at: "..string.format("%.2f", GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance()+GetParryChance() +5+dr(GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL)/122.962)))

it tells you your current cumulative avoidance, when you hit 102% which is obtainable in game you technically have 100% avoidance. but ofc it doesn't mean you won't get hit.

Oh, the irony. You say my tanking knowledge is subpar and then proceed to say something so utterly stupid. That macro checks your combined avoidance + block, maybe if you could read, you'd notice where it says "GetBlockChance". Block is not avoidance, you are not avoiding a hit, you are mitigating it and it usually constitutes 40%+ of those 90-100%, which means that in order to reach the same numbers with just hard avoidance, you'd need to somehow get 40% extra dodge/parry/miss. Good luck with that.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

This whole "Because of the way avoidance works" talk and then proceeding to comparing stamina to avoidance stats, point for point is silly. Avoidance stats scale due to probability logic and diminishing returns. Every point of avoidance you obtain or take away changes the value of it. Avoidance also being inherently random, in itself, makes it (exceedingly) difficult to compare it with a static stat such as stamina. Stamina is much more straightforward and tangible, so it is often preferred whenever in doubt, to most people. I get that. But you're also basing all of this on logic that is hypothetical. Which coincides with my following point;

The randomness of avoidance actually makes it (exceedingly) easy to compare to a static stat like stamina because you want consistency and not RNG as a tank. EH is preferred over avoidance because good players understand the power of consistency, not because they're afraid of trying this other super spacial tanking style that is secretly just as good and only a matter of preference and encounter. The only way for avoidance not to be inferior compared to EH in Wotlk is if you can make it consistent by getting unreachable amounts of it, which you can't.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

Your whole argument is based on the assumption that the tank's life is at risk. Imagine a scenario where the tank, even if only for a moment, is not in any danger of dying. The argument then shifts from these statements to what will be more efficient on healer's mana. Going to an extreme of both avoidance and EH are very rough on healer mana. With high EH and no avoidance, the tank never avoid hits, so the heals will always have to heal the tank. Whereas a tank with high avoidance and low EH will take hits less often, but will require nuke heals to top them off ASAP in the event the tank gets unlucky and is hit twice back-to-back.

The tank's job is to be at risk. If the tank isn't in any risk of dying, he's not tanking anything he needs to optimize for and at that point deriving conclusions based on what you can get away with in that trivial situation is pointless. Can you tank trivial content with avoidance gear? Sure. Can you tank it in EH gear? Yes. Can you tank it in DPS gear? Might as well. Does that tell us anything about how to properly optimize in actually dangerous content? No.

The old argument about healer mana not only has no place in Wotlk but it's also just flat out wrong. If healers are to regenerate mana from an avoidance tank, they'd need to downgrade themselves from proactive to reactive healing but if they do that with an avoidance tank, they risk him randomly dying before they can react even more. The reality of things is that an avoidance tank will consume at least as much mana as an EH tank because the optimal playstyle for healers is to spam heals, not wait for damage and then heal. Hell, an avoidance tank will probably consume more of the healer's mana and attention than an EH tank because the healers have no idea when he might just get a random damage spike, which forces them to be alert and overcompensate constantly, as opposed to only during scripted damage spikes.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

Being naive enough to try and claim that avoidance is completely useless and is never better than EH is a silly argument in itself,

Can you name even a single boss in Wotlk where an avoidance tank will consistently survive better than an EH tank to even back any of this up before calling someone holding the opinion of most experienced tanks naive? Cause I can name dozens where the opposite is true.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

when you consider that the two almost never compete with each other except in gems and trinkets (emphasis on "almost", because there are choices of bonus armor items vs. non-bonus armor items).

You're gonna have to put a lot more emphasis on that "almost" cause in the real world, 12/16 BiS plate tank slots for DKs and 12/17 for warriors/paladins have both an EH and an avoidance variant. Of course, most of those avoidance variants aren't really considered BiS for obvious reasons, save for some set pieces which you're forced to wear.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

Trinkets are often determined in usefulness based on boss mechanics, not because "oh this one has more stamina or whatever stat". For example, Sindragosa's Flawless Fang, while having a pretty large chunk of stamina on it, do you think it would be used so commonly if not for its on-use effect? I rather quite doubt it. Then addressing gems and enchants, if a decision on a handful of gems (let's say 3-5 gems) is going to "make or break" your ability to tank an encounter in ICC with the 30% buff up, then you have bigger problems to address than which gems you should be using. Problems that indicate that the tank, or a healer, or someone else in the party, has trouble with knowing how to play their class or how to do the encounter itself.

No idea what point you were even trying to make here. Your choice of trinkets is obviously determined by both the amount of passive EH it has and the usefulness of the use effect for the fight. Sindragosa's has the highest EH on a trinket in the game, save for some niche exceptions like Unidentifiable Organ when you're getting hit by multiple sources, so yes, it would still be used. None of this is in any way helping your point about avoidance. What fight is Corpse Tongue Coin favored in?

At no point did I say 5 gems will instantly make you not viable as a tank but by replacing those 5 stamina gems with avoidance, you have just downgraded your consistent survivability for no tangible gain. You have like 1% more dodge which you can never rely on or actively make use of, all you can do is pray you win the lottery someday. Joining a raid with avoidance gems and then looking for other people to blame when you die is just a clown thing to do because you can't truly say you did your best to prevent your death.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

If we're talking about specific items in question that, for example, do not have bonus armor on them, then we're talking about differences in specs and preferences. Plenty of people have their opinions and preferences on how to min/max their class. But I feel that should be recognized as the glory of having choices in how to customize a character in this game. Being able to make choices in a game should be part of what makes it fun. Rather than looking up on the internet the 'cookie cutter how to do x y z', which is a lot less fun and enjoyable. Likely the reason Blizzard moved away from this stat paradigm in the first place. At the end of the day, I have seen a non-BiS Protection Paladin without any gems or enchants solo-tank LoD post-Phase 1, and the boss died. Which means this whole discussion boils down to people fighting over their desire to be "right" and everyone else be "wrong". You can be right, or technically right, or however you want to call it, and that's fine. What's not fine is jumping into someone else's guide/thread and telling them that their way of playing the game is wrong when it very obviously works and does get the job done. Playing this game isn't about who is right and who is wrong, but rather what sorts of things you can try out and enjoy and still manage to beat the content in the process.

What's best and what you find most fun and enjoyable are two completely different things. You can like avoidance all you want but you can't make a compelling argument for it other than 'I like it" because there isn't one and this has been figured out a long time ago by people much better at the game than both of us. Personally, I don't find being a selfish tumor to my raid and expecting to get carried by other people "fun". Your mileage may vary

As for me jumping into this thread to discuss and argue opinions, isn't that the whole point of a thread? Especially a guide thread that's meant to educate newer players. I'm sorry if I hurt someone's feelings by presenting arguments for why their playstyle is suboptimal but in no way are they forced to neuter their fun to play optimally if that's not important to them. Meanwhile, a lot of people look up guides to find the most effective way to play, people who don't necessarily share your idea of fun. Lying to those people that all options can be equally good because of personal bias and not facts is just disingenuous. What happens when Billy eventually finds out his avoidance build is significantly less effective for current content and he just spent a bunch of time and money making it? You just screwed someone over because you couldn't separate "most effective" from "my favorite".

Luckily, OP has shown to be pretty open minded when it comes to shaping his guide to be as accurate as possible and doesn't take offense to people presenting him with arguments for why his way of doing things is sometimes suboptimal. An attitude a lot of people can benefit from.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

With that said, this conversation can end, and the derail of the thread can cease so that the thread can be the guide it was intended to be.

I wasn't aware a discussion regarding DK tanking weapons was offtopic in a DK guide or that discussing anything after the guide somehow made the guide worse. The more you know.

@Damnorginial

You practically quoted all the texts and still don't get it....
"You're purposely pretending not to understand this at this point, Lets go over the scenario you placed slowly

1. DPS will move form point A(Vala/Tald) to point B(Kele). You the tank is going to be 15yards+ away from Point B and his nuclei.
2 You the tank like the "good dps who will use their backup weapon" will do even better. and not even go to kele lol"

"By the virtue of your poor reading comprehension, you're basically now just agreeing with me when you say DPS switches for Keleseth. Whether you actually realize this or not is a whole different story."

Why would I argue that dps won't switch? can you quote me making that argument?

I do agree with Mercy that we're derailing/hijacking this thread. if you want to continue this we can make a new thread or w/e. but lets just leave it at this wth me clarifying what I meant.

if I gave a wrong idea about what I meant let me clarify. yes I did mean the dps will change weapons when going to kele. if it didn't make sense in my writing it's due to my bad writing nothing more. because by no means did I mean the dps not switch weapons @ kele....

Made some changes recently, gonna bump the thread. More feedback is welcome.

This are the best talents for double buff: https://wotlk.evowow.com/?talent#j0EMqIhcsbobsZhxLxcMhz (Endless Winter is mandatory, 4% to str and always reliable interrupt is insane for just 2 points), now we have 2 free points. What is the best? 2% Dodge in Anticipation, 2%hit for IT in Virulence, 5/5 Black Ice and 4/5 Killing Machine for more IT spam or maybe Heart Strike and Bloody strike (instead of Bloody Vengeance) and 5/5 BI. I'm sitting with dodge, but a lot of people have HS. I prefer to use Blood Runes on VB, RT, BT, Pest and Blood Strike only when Blood Barrier buff is falling. Threat wise passive 9% more dmg is better than 45% better HS, right? For IT spam what is better, hit or more dmg and procs? Or maybe boring 2% more dodge is more useful overall? It's minor things but I would appreciate if someone knows math behind it, thanks

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Originally Posted by fikoblin

This are the best talents for double buff: https://wotlk.evowow.com/?talent#j0EMqIhcsbobsZhxLxcMhz (Endless Winter is mandatory, 4% to str and always reliable interrupt is insane for just 2 points), now we have 2 free points. What is the best? 2% Dodge in Anticipation, 2%hit for IT in Virulence, 5/5 Black Ice and 4/5 Killing Machine for more IT spam or maybe Heart Strike and Bloody strike (instead of Bloody Vengeance) and 5/5 BI. I'm sitting with dodge, but a lot of people have HS. I prefer to use Blood Runes on VB, RT, BT, Pest and Blood Strike only when Blood Barrier buff is falling. Threat wise passive 9% more dmg is better than 45% better HS, right? For IT spam what is better, hit or more dmg and procs? Or maybe boring 2% more dodge is more useful overall? It's minor things but I would appreciate if someone knows math behind it, thanks

I tested the icy touch damage difference between our talent builds (however as I'm looking at threat, I put those 2 additional points into killing machine since for the sake of the threat argument not taking those is invalid)
After an average of 20 icy touches, the damage differences (I didn't count crits) was 1.
That means the difference is between Heart Strike, and no runic power requirement on mind freeze
A better threat build would put that Heart Strike talent into Glacial Rot, which is an extra 100+ Icy Touch damage.
That or taking deathchill which is a free killing machine proc.
For a reliable interrupt I'd make the argument that:
1: Death Coil is non-existent in rotation and rune strike shouldn't use ALL of your runic power
2: Strangulate is there too, if you're doing your rotation right you should have a blood rune up every few seconds, not to mention death runes.