You forgot to mention that you need 17% spell hit rating to not miss your taunt (its a spell), or just 9% with glyph that you don't even have in your tanking specs.
The dodge talent isn't reduced in ICC and doesn't have diminishing returns. correct me if I'm wrong I never tested.
The only abilities that can be parried or dodged by boss are heart strike, blood strike, plague strike, and death strike.
I don't have experience with hc ICC yet so idk if the big ooze goes faster in HC but big ooze is already very slow, I prefer to use chains of ice on small oozes instead coz it feels like they are going back after the dps sometimes if I don't do chains of ice.
You also forgot to list Army of the dead as a defensive CD, and Death pact as healing cd.
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Edited: March 17, 2018
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My mistake on the icy touch and bladed armor, I had mixed up how icy touch works considering it uses melee stats such as AP but still acts like a spell in that it isn't affected by expertise. That being said it would make more sense to have bladed armor as a talent.
As for the Death Rune Mastery argument, also a fair point. I never almost never need to threat burst in a fight and if I do popping Empower Rune Weapon is more than enough. Personally I'm not going to use Death Rune Mastery, but I'll include it in the guide as it may make sense for others.
Yea for the blood presence talent I threw one point in there because I needed 1 to get past that row, in hindsight it would have made more sense with dark conviction.
Worms don't typically spawn in a fight like Sindragosa when they spawn based off melee haste when the boss slows your attack speed. Not to mention even if they did the movement of the fight + AoE in P2 would easily move them away from her front or kill them. Blood Worms don't absorb AoE healing, I just tested and made sure.
Glyph of Rune tap is useful generally in healing tight fights for your party, but it's best used to counter infest on Lich King. That being said it does make more sense to use Glyph of Vampiric Blood earlyGlyph of Vampiric Blood is pretty much mandatory, not optional. Glyph of Rune Tap is not only optional but also very weak.
It seems you are correct here, with Fang you would gain 2920 health and with Jugs/Sat you'd gain 2450 while Scale would only provide 1.67% Damage Mitigation. I will argue however the active isn't useless but for a BiS list I see now it doesn't really have a place since although it adds 10% dodge, the amount of times a well geared dk tank will drop below 35% health is too low to recommend.
Using T10 Chest and the LDW Head provides +.08% Damage Mitigation while using T10 Head and Rotface Chestplate provides 710 Health while using Marrow Legs drop below expertise cap.
I have Cryptmaker and Bryntroll Lists under a second spoiler as well.
I agree that a large part of tanking is properly optimizing gear, but even with Shadowmourne the stats are so close between Gloren BiS that the active can be seen as desirable along with the armor pen and higher base damage as opposed to Gloren. I won't argue Shadowmourne is better than Gloren because it simply isn't, it's more useful than gloren however when you factor in it's active, higher base damage, and arp in general tanking and even some boss fights while the only thing you're losing is a bit of health.
Here are some numbers from each BiS list. Note: Jewlcrafting was used as a profession for Stamina Dragonseyes along with engineering for the helm and glove enchant.
Spoiler:Show
Thanks.Edited: March 17, 2018
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Some conflicting arguments here, hit cap in retail for taunts is 17% and likely on warmane as well. That's something I overlooked and will add in my next edit.
I'm not sure about the Diminishing Returns on it, but the ICC Debuff will bring you to 0% Dodge if you aren't over 20% including with the talent.
I personally like to slow it since it gives me much more time to make a path where I'm going but yes, slowing the small oozes as well is a good idea and I'll include that in my next edit.
Good Catch! I'll add that in as well.
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Banned
It's not about increasing your threat, it's about giving you much better control over how to spread that threat and have much better rune optimization. Without Death Rune Mastery every Icy Touch has a Plague Strike attached to it because you have nothing else to use that unholy rune on. With Death Rune Mastery and glyph of Disease, you can remove Plague Strike entirely after the initial application of Blood Plague because you can arrange your runes into either IT or Death Strike depending on what you need, you're no longer generating 1-2 useless runes for Plague Strike each rune cycle that you would use for threat like many bad DKs who just mindlessly spam ITx1 + Plague Strike x1 or just Death Strikes. You now have much better options like creating the threat of 2 rune cycles with 1 rune cycle by using ITx4 and then having the next rune cycle be Death Strike x2, essentially trading Plague Strikes for Death Strikes while maintaining the same overall threat.
You can use this to front load your threat for better Death Strike timing when you actually need it and you can use it to meet halfway in the middle with 2x IT and 1x Death Strike in the chamber for emergencies. It is flexibility and control at no cost and the only reason you wouldn't get it as a Blood tank would be ignorance.
Really dumb point. You are guaranteed to spawn Bloodworms over the course of the fight regardless of the attack speed slow, which in any proper raid will get freedom'd anyway. As for Bloodworms not eating up AoE heals, that's just wrong, they do in fact eat up Wild Growth at full hp and Chain Heal if damaged.
It doesn't make sense to use Vampiric Blood early, it makes sense to use it all the time because it's the best tanking glyph Blood DKs have. 50% extra uptime on one of your strongest defensives is a no brainer for any tank. Rune Tap glyph is just not only numerically bad but largely counterproductive as when you need it for yourself, your group probably doesn't need it and when your group needs it, you don't need it yourself.
It is useless. Are you going to rely on 10% extra dodge to survive a hit below 35% or self healing/cooldowns? Any good tank knows that there's always RNG but actively gearing for RNG is just bad.
You're losing EH for threat, a bad exchange for a tank. The 100 expertise/hit you would find on the other tanking 2handers allows you to get more EH from your armor and thus be a better tank, the proc and arp on Shadowmourne on the other hand does close to nothing for your survivability and is only useful if you want to turn your brain off in dungeons, it can even be a liability in situations where you don't want to AoE. I understand you might be disappointed that your precious axe isn't the best weapon for everything but please don't spread misinformation on subjects that were figured out a long time ago, especially in guides. There is no actual debate of Shadowmourne vs Gloren/Cryptmaker for tanking and if you checked the other tanking guides, you would see that.
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I agree with DamnOrgininal in most of his points, it seems like this dude shouldn't even be making a guide.
only thing I want to ask you about is your talk on SM, I disagree that it's just for "trivial content". while I do agree Gloren does have the higher EhP. but the difference is only 24stamina. which ofc is better than SM from an EhP PoV. the expertise is also good to help with landing them DS and ofc sindy or any other boss where parry/haste enabled.
But when we take out parry/haste from the picture which is majority of bosses, then yes SM is pretty decent. and the str also giving us parry. and more threat from RS. but yea nothing much as compared to IT but still sth for a mere 24stamina.
I'm not underestimating the 24stamina I mean it's almost one whole free gem but still...
EDIT: to clarify am not saying SM>Gloren. I myself use Gloren over SM for tanking. just saying it's not as bad as you make it seem.Edited: March 18, 2018
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Banned
It's only 24 stamina in a vacuum and only if you decide to neglect expertise but then why are you using Shadowmourne over Cryptmaker which allows you to wear pillars and trade 32 stamina for over 1k armor without sacrificing hit? The only way you can rationalize Shadowmourne as a viable, not even good, just viable tanking weapon is if you ignore both hit and expertise which is just suboptimal in any challenging content. The abysmal parry you get from the strength is completely irrelevant, the only thing you get is threat, in an environment where threat is a complete non-issue, especially for DKs. You never want to sacrifice EH for extra threat, you want to be doing the complete opposite. If 2x Mithrios wielded 312 stamina, like Gloren, instead of 286, it would actually be better than Gloren for tanking because you have the tools to maintain threat even if you're just slapping the boss with your flaccid penis and you'd be gaining extra avoidance without losing EH and still getting the expertise on the weapon at the same time, allowing you to have the same gear optimization you'd have with Gloren. Shadowmourne not only provides less EH by default, it also forces you to get the expertise/hit from another piece of your gear, which is almost always a suboptimal piece to what you could be wearing instead if you didn't need hit/expertise.
The AoE is also a liability in raids and can pull shamblings to the main tank, pull Blood Beasts to the tanks, shorten the life span of Dark Nuclei when tanking Keleseth or pull them away from the tank doing so, break CC on Valithria or break tombs on Sindragosa.
The only thing I would ever recommend Shadowmourne for is AoE trash packs.Edited: March 18, 2018
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Wind of Northrend
MissNemo
I disagree on the part that he should not make the guide.
My first guide also had ton of mistakes in it...
This is a "perfect" way for him, and maybe even more people, to learn and become a better DK tank overall.
@Endeavor2
I know people did come at u like a swarm of locusts, great job on beeing calm about it, just be open minded and test all of the things they are saying urself.
DamnOriginal can be savage, but he knows what hes talking about.
I remember doing the same thing, and u will most likely see ur own mistakes after those tests and improve both ur gameplay and the guide.
Also, i know there are things that make ur gameplay fun and dandy, lets say Shadowmourne tank is a fun idea to try out, but u should draw a line and make a section about it in ur guide, separated from the general rules that work for everyone.
For example, lets stick to the weapon choice, Gloren and Crypt are indeed best weapons out there and u should advise people to use them, on the other hand, think of an optimal build and make a section where u will tell and help people how to use SM for tanking.
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Banned
I'm definitely not saying OP should delete his guide just because of a few mistakes. There's obviously effort and a lot of correct information in here. What I'd like is for the mistakes to be corrected and brought in line with the consensus that has been reached over the years so Billy the DK doesn't end up thinking Bloodworms and Shadowmourne are good for tanking.
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Good point, I never thought about using it like that.
I tested it with a resto shaman without damaging them, now I feel like an *****.
you misinterpreted what I meant, previously I had vamp listed after dark command was no longer viable (which it should always be viable considering it uses spell hit chance) and the way I meant that was it makes more sense to use vamp early and later on instead of switching to it.
For lower geared tanks it makes sense if you don't have a good alternative considering lower geared players drop below 35% all the time and 10% dodge is really useful for them, although in order to get it you need to complete RS25 so I guess it would be ok for an off spec tank if you have nothing?
There's a lot of things I haven't seen in other guides which is why I figured I'd make a case for it here and I'm loving all the information flooding in because half the reason I started this guide the way it was is because there was no information why talent builds were as such that I could find.
Also, can you provide a BiS list for crypt that uses pillars of might that's still expertise capped without sacrificing too many stats? I'm having a hard time with this one.
Yes, I'm doing my best to test everything I say. I'm using a trinity core on my extra server so I can see all the stats and everything while using my dk on warmane to test what I can there.
I've definitely seen why I was wrong on a lot of things so far and have been changing/fixing everything I can.
Fair enough, that's a good way to put it.
Yep, that's exactly what I'm going for.
I'm still a bit stuck on the blood worms, if I were to use this spec here:
https://wotlk.evowow.com/?talent#j0E...fobsoZhxxxmZ0x
what talent would you put the points in? dark conviction?
I still don't see the worth of losing ~10% free self healing even though some AoE healing will get swallowed up since you shouldn't be receiving too much healing from chain heal and/or wild growth in the first place and the worms should be farther away from the mdps on most if not all fights.
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Banned
Obviously if you don't have any 228 stamina trinkets, you can use the scale just as an EH stick but that's a pretty silly situation. The proc itself is just too RNG to ever be reliably useful. When you're below 35%, your job as a tank is to ensure that the next hit doesn't kill you by popping Rune Tap/Death Strike or cooldowns, you never want to be at the mercy of avoidance.
With Cryptmaker, you would use t10 + Pillars of Might, Bile-Encrusted Medallion, Sentinel's Winter Cloak, Gargoyle Spit Bracers, Verdigris Chain Belt, Grinning Skull boots, Band of the Twin Val'kyr and Devium's Eternally Cold Ring. Your hit comes from gloves + Cryptmaker + Virulence. Your expertise comes from Grinning Skull Boots + Veteran of the Third War + 3 exp/stam gems in helm, chest and belt with +9 stam bonus and food buff, which puts you at 21 expertise. You can get to 25 by putting exp/stam gems in the remaining +6 stamina bonus red sockets but ultimately expertise isn't anywhere near as important as hit.
You'll lose 35 stamina for using Grinning Skull Boots instead of Impending Resurrection, 10 stamina for using Twin Valkyr ring instead of Ashen Band, 13 stamina for using Cryptmaker over Glorenzelg, 14 stamina for using Pillars of Might over T10 legs, 18 stamina for matching the +9 stamina red sockets and 27 stamina if you match the +6 red sockets. Totaling 102 stamina at 21 expertise and 132 at 25 expertise, after 13% stamina increase. In exchange you gain around 1550 extra armor, which is around 1600 more EH than 102 stamina and 500 more EH than 132 stamina.
Bloodworms are a liability and their healing is largely useless because you have 0 control over it.Edited: March 19, 2018
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Im sorry if this was already mentioned.
But when you are bis geared you should have more then enough defense rating making the rune on your weapon kinda absoleet.
Isnt "Rune of the Swordshattering" a better option?
http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Rune_of_Swordshattering
In my eyes the passive 4% parry should be worth more then the 2% stamina.
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Banned
No, no, no. No. You just have a really bad understanding of how Wotlk tanking and defense work. Effective health > avoidance because you want to reliably survive hits as best as possible, all the time, not pray for RNG to save you. Therefore the stamina is just better even in a vacuum but what you also fail to understand is that 25 defense is actually 3% avoidance, which means that the difference between Stoneskin and Swordshattering in terms of avoidance is 1%, not 4% as you seem to think.
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I guess your right hehe ill keep my hands off this topic (:
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If you're curious of why this is so.How defense works is it both scales your Dodge and Parry by .04% per point while reducing the chance you will be hit with a critical strike (2x damage).
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@DamnOriginal
Fair enough you make a good point about trading EhP for threat is a fools errand, esp on a dk. since lets be honest aside IT we don't really need much, the RS is nice too.
But yes crypt hc and Gloren hc are good tank weapons, better than SM that we have already established. still doesn't make SM a **** weapon.the AoE from SM is complete bonkers. if ur SM AoE was gonna pull any mob. some DPS will pull it from waaay before!
I am not saying SM is a good weapon, all am saying it's not as bad as you selling it for. I'd take it over any weapon 264/271.
Itemization wise, for any DK who have access to icc25hc itemization. you can cap hit and exp without much trouble. as a matter of fact the 100%avoidance build is very close to that build.
is it optimal? nope. but no where close to being ****.
@Gnimo
You're right, but your guide was very different,there were no where close to basic mistakes that he is doing. your guide clearly showed that you had in depth knowledge of the class. I mean any tank who played abit with dk will reach a point to see how usefull death rune mastery is. at least doing some homework before making the guide I mean, or better yet see the other guides read them(and question them) see what they are missing and evolve from it. and tbh I learned much more from you in your discussions then the guide. esp your arguments with Rifo & Darkenhue.
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