Hiya folks!
This is Kassadin from Robat (in the SGA), or Balvarine from Order of the Ebon Hand, I have played with some of the folks in TF.
Since I have began tanking Raids, I was asked by [7F]LarryBoy to hop on over and give my experiences/advice if anyone was interested in reading it. While I am not the best DK, nor have I played the longest, I have found patch 4.0.1 and above to be a nice baseline reset in how most classes are played. So far I have managed to complete all but two of the heroics (silly Random Dungeon Finder tends to give me Deadmines every single night), and killed the Conclave of Wind in Throne of the four Winds since the time of this post.
So! To the meat...
-- Tanking Styles --
I have tried out three methods of tanking, going the WotLK model of Sta till you cant Sta no more, the old Vanilla/TbC Model of Avoidance after enough Sta to not be two shot, and the new Cata possibility thanks to Mastery.
WotLK Sta Model :
- Gear for Stamina, avoidance and mastery is an after-thought.
Vanilla/TbC Avoidance :
- Gear for just enough Sta to not be two shot, and then grab as much parry and dodge till diminishing returns.
Cata Mastery Tank :
I enjoy the Cata Model as it feels like I am in control of the fight at all times. I decide when and how I heal, what hits I absorb, and which hits I take. With proper rotation of Vampiric Blood, IBF, Death Strike and Rune Tap I have managed to tank Venessa VanCleef with no healer from 50% and below, along with the adds that accompany her from 50 to 25%.
The Vanilla/TbC Model works, is effective and healers love you because they do not need to change how they play....but then your just a Warrior with unholy, freezing and blood attacks, at least in my opinion.
The WotLK model is simply not viable anymore, no one should gem, enchant, gear for maximum stamina. Healers just wont ever be able to keep up with you.
-- UI --
While those going for a Mastery Route will definitely need this UI mod, I recommend it to any DK, and Blizzard really should make it default!
http://www.wowace.com/addons/blood-shield-tracker/
It is always better to know your getting a 30,000 heal and a 25,000 shield then to spam the Death Strike button every time it is up and just keep getting a 5,000 shield and heal.
-- Mastery Tanking --
I am not going to go over how to maximize your survivability as an Avoidance DK, you can look up any guide from the TbC days or ask a Warrior or Paladin about it.
As a Mastery DK, you will want to gear for Stamina and Mastery, you do not give up Parry/Dodge completely as that would be foolish (and if you ever have to pug you would spend hours explaining to them why your in DPS gear), but you take excess of anything and make it into mastery.
Currently Kassadin has 10% Dodge, 14% Parry and 100% Blood Shield.
For Death Strike, that means I can self heal 20% of the damage done to me, then completely negate 20% of that damage on the next swing.... Now you might not be thinking that is a lot when you can just Block a fair chunk as a Warrior or Paladin. However unlike a Warrior or Paladin a Blood DK can apply the Blood Shield from (not to) magic damage. That is to say you take a 75,000 damage spike because a Melee Strike and a nasty Magic Breath got you.
Your healing yourself for -15,000- damage.
Your absorbing the next melee hit for -15,000- damage (AND empowering your next Blood Shield and Vengence)
Your nearly at 50% mitigation with just 100% Blood Shield, and that is without Dodge and Parry!
The reason I recommend the UI mod so badly is at times it is hard to know exactly what your going to receive, and if you even have a Shield up. The UI mod provides you with the estimated heal/shield, the amount on your current shield, and a color code for if it is a good or bad idea to death strike.
I will give an example situation where it is imperative you have the UI mod.
Ashad in Conclave of Wind :
- He channels every so often a very nasty AoE Cold that follows you about. Normally your instinct is |Pop a Death Strike to help the healer out if AMS is not up! Keep popping em!|
Problem with that is you will only heal maybe 5% of the damage he dealt to you, and gain a blood shield for maybe 1K.
What you do is determine :
Ok what am I taking right now? No physical hits occur...so Blood Shield is pointless, as would Parry/Dodge/Block, so I just need to let the healer heal me.
What can I do to help the healer? You can sit still and eat the breath, then -as it finishes- hit your Death Strike, you will be guaranteed a heafty heal and a big ol bubble, so that the healer has time to top you off after the nasty cold.
What the UI mod does for you. What if you took a nasty hit just before because he left a ice void zone under you and you again had AMS on cooldown... well without the UI mod you do not know if your shield is up, or for how much really without mousing over your tooltips...and that is not gonna fly in a raid. The UI mod will warn you right as he takes a chop out of your shield so that you can apply another one right after, making you the superior tank to the other classes.
-- Healers (New Section) --
Healing a Blood DK who focuses on Mastery is different then other tanks. As you or the healer will inevitably waste mana overhealing.
It\'s a tricky bridge to cross when talking to healers about how they should heal you, as you don\'t want to come across as telling them how to play their class, and pre-emptivly explaining your a Mastery DK just seems rude.
You want a healer to be keeping you at roughly 75% life, that way your blood strikes never over heal, and they never overheal should you blood strike. This ensures that healers can keep you alive for a very long period of time.
If anyone has suggestions on how to approach various healers not already doing so, feel free to suggest! Currently, I only point it out if the healer is having trouble going OOM.
---
Figured I would share what I have found from anecdotal testing, and minor theorycraft. What works best for me may not be best for you! I would love to hear what other DKs think, or if they would like more details on how I do things like keeping AoE threat on trigger happy DPS, or whatever else just let me know. I also run around in the Arena, and Battlegrounds if folks want to talk PvP.
This is Kassadin from Robat (in the SGA), or Balvarine from Order of the Ebon Hand, I have played with some of the folks in TF.
Since I have began tanking Raids, I was asked by [7F]LarryBoy to hop on over and give my experiences/advice if anyone was interested in reading it. While I am not the best DK, nor have I played the longest, I have found patch 4.0.1 and above to be a nice baseline reset in how most classes are played. So far I have managed to complete all but two of the heroics (silly Random Dungeon Finder tends to give me Deadmines every single night), and killed the Conclave of Wind in Throne of the four Winds since the time of this post.
So! To the meat...
-- Tanking Styles --
I have tried out three methods of tanking, going the WotLK model of Sta till you cant Sta no more, the old Vanilla/TbC Model of Avoidance after enough Sta to not be two shot, and the new Cata possibility thanks to Mastery.
WotLK Sta Model :
- Gear for Stamina, avoidance and mastery is an after-thought.
Pros :
- You have a ton of HP
- You can with liberal use of Cooldowns take down bosses with no healer.
- You never really need to be higher then 50% HP.
Cons :
- Your a mana sponge, your healer will be OOM nearly every fight. This is probably the easiest way to wipe in the new Cata Model.
- You have a ton of HP
- You can with liberal use of Cooldowns take down bosses with no healer.
- You never really need to be higher then 50% HP.
Cons :
- Your a mana sponge, your healer will be OOM nearly every fight. This is probably the easiest way to wipe in the new Cata Model.
Vanilla/TbC Avoidance :
- Gear for just enough Sta to not be two shot, and then grab as much parry and dodge till diminishing returns.
Pros :
- You take less damage over longer periods of time.
- With luck you can actually fight bosses with your healer only using Hots.
- You do not take much mana, and your pretty effecient. Healers love you.
Cons :
- A string of bad luck and a healer cannot keep you up. Sure that is the case with Warriors and Paladins, and Druids oh my!...but we are DKs!...
- You do not take advantage of your mechanic, and actually damage your mastery.
- Bad Luck means a dead tank.
- You take less damage over longer periods of time.
- With luck you can actually fight bosses with your healer only using Hots.
- You do not take much mana, and your pretty effecient. Healers love you.
Cons :
- A string of bad luck and a healer cannot keep you up. Sure that is the case with Warriors and Paladins, and Druids oh my!...but we are DKs!...
- You do not take advantage of your mechanic, and actually damage your mastery.
- Bad Luck means a dead tank.
Cata Mastery Tank :
Pros :
- You take less damage over longer periods of time.
- You do not rely on RNG, you are the master of your own fate.
- You reap the full benefit of Vengence, every bit of damage absorbed by your shield turns into Vengence, while every bit parried, dodged and the 30% removed from blocked is gone forever.
- You can handle older/overgeared content without a healer, and complete several (non-raid) bosses from nearly 50% to 0%.
Cons :
- Most healers will make your mechanic much more painful and burn through much more mana then they need to.
- If you do not monitor your Blood Shield you will become a mana sponge. You will need a UI mod to play this properly.
- You take less damage over longer periods of time.
- You do not rely on RNG, you are the master of your own fate.
- You reap the full benefit of Vengence, every bit of damage absorbed by your shield turns into Vengence, while every bit parried, dodged and the 30% removed from blocked is gone forever.
- You can handle older/overgeared content without a healer, and complete several (non-raid) bosses from nearly 50% to 0%.
Cons :
- Most healers will make your mechanic much more painful and burn through much more mana then they need to.
- If you do not monitor your Blood Shield you will become a mana sponge. You will need a UI mod to play this properly.
I enjoy the Cata Model as it feels like I am in control of the fight at all times. I decide when and how I heal, what hits I absorb, and which hits I take. With proper rotation of Vampiric Blood, IBF, Death Strike and Rune Tap I have managed to tank Venessa VanCleef with no healer from 50% and below, along with the adds that accompany her from 50 to 25%.
The Vanilla/TbC Model works, is effective and healers love you because they do not need to change how they play....but then your just a Warrior with unholy, freezing and blood attacks, at least in my opinion.
The WotLK model is simply not viable anymore, no one should gem, enchant, gear for maximum stamina. Healers just wont ever be able to keep up with you.
-- UI --
While those going for a Mastery Route will definitely need this UI mod, I recommend it to any DK, and Blizzard really should make it default!
http://www.wowace.com/addons/blood-shield-tracker/
It is always better to know your getting a 30,000 heal and a 25,000 shield then to spam the Death Strike button every time it is up and just keep getting a 5,000 shield and heal.
-- Mastery Tanking --
I am not going to go over how to maximize your survivability as an Avoidance DK, you can look up any guide from the TbC days or ask a Warrior or Paladin about it.
As a Mastery DK, you will want to gear for Stamina and Mastery, you do not give up Parry/Dodge completely as that would be foolish (and if you ever have to pug you would spend hours explaining to them why your in DPS gear), but you take excess of anything and make it into mastery.
Currently Kassadin has 10% Dodge, 14% Parry and 100% Blood Shield.
For Death Strike, that means I can self heal 20% of the damage done to me, then completely negate 20% of that damage on the next swing.... Now you might not be thinking that is a lot when you can just Block a fair chunk as a Warrior or Paladin. However unlike a Warrior or Paladin a Blood DK can apply the Blood Shield from (not to) magic damage. That is to say you take a 75,000 damage spike because a Melee Strike and a nasty Magic Breath got you.
Your healing yourself for -15,000- damage.
Your absorbing the next melee hit for -15,000- damage (AND empowering your next Blood Shield and Vengence)
Your nearly at 50% mitigation with just 100% Blood Shield, and that is without Dodge and Parry!
The reason I recommend the UI mod so badly is at times it is hard to know exactly what your going to receive, and if you even have a Shield up. The UI mod provides you with the estimated heal/shield, the amount on your current shield, and a color code for if it is a good or bad idea to death strike.
I will give an example situation where it is imperative you have the UI mod.
Ashad in Conclave of Wind :
- He channels every so often a very nasty AoE Cold that follows you about. Normally your instinct is |Pop a Death Strike to help the healer out if AMS is not up! Keep popping em!|
Problem with that is you will only heal maybe 5% of the damage he dealt to you, and gain a blood shield for maybe 1K.
What you do is determine :
Ok what am I taking right now? No physical hits occur...so Blood Shield is pointless, as would Parry/Dodge/Block, so I just need to let the healer heal me.
What can I do to help the healer? You can sit still and eat the breath, then -as it finishes- hit your Death Strike, you will be guaranteed a heafty heal and a big ol bubble, so that the healer has time to top you off after the nasty cold.
What the UI mod does for you. What if you took a nasty hit just before because he left a ice void zone under you and you again had AMS on cooldown... well without the UI mod you do not know if your shield is up, or for how much really without mousing over your tooltips...and that is not gonna fly in a raid. The UI mod will warn you right as he takes a chop out of your shield so that you can apply another one right after, making you the superior tank to the other classes.
-- Healers (New Section) --
Healing a Blood DK who focuses on Mastery is different then other tanks. As you or the healer will inevitably waste mana overhealing.
It\'s a tricky bridge to cross when talking to healers about how they should heal you, as you don\'t want to come across as telling them how to play their class, and pre-emptivly explaining your a Mastery DK just seems rude.
You want a healer to be keeping you at roughly 75% life, that way your blood strikes never over heal, and they never overheal should you blood strike. This ensures that healers can keep you alive for a very long period of time.
If anyone has suggestions on how to approach various healers not already doing so, feel free to suggest! Currently, I only point it out if the healer is having trouble going OOM.
---
Figured I would share what I have found from anecdotal testing, and minor theorycraft. What works best for me may not be best for you! I would love to hear what other DKs think, or if they would like more details on how I do things like keeping AoE threat on trigger happy DPS, or whatever else just let me know. I also run around in the Arena, and Battlegrounds if folks want to talk PvP.
