Topic: TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK (Read 3925 times)

A² · « **on:** February 18, 2010, 07:11:10 PM »

So I have a Drood at L40 now, and Ixyral at 80.

And yet I still don't feel comfortable tanking for anything other than having Def or another good friend healing me.

Part of it is a nagging feeling that I am not doing it right.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&n=Ixyral Spec here.

Tank Gearwise, 232 Onyxia Helm, 4p T9, the Triumph Sigil...and Inevitable Defeat, since Onyxia is a dumb and won't drop OEB. Briefly considered DW Tanking with Rimefangs/PEacekeeper Blade before being told DW Tank is bad and I should feel bad.

Abilitywise, on AOE, I drop Death & Decay. I Icy Touch, Plague Strike, spread it. If Killing Machine/Freezing Winds pop up, that gets thrown down, I glyphed it. Sometimes I'll AOE Pull with a KM'd Howling Blast, at which point I Plague Strike, Pest, D&D.

On bosses, I spam Oblit with a Rune Strike Macro (<3 the person who showed me it) after diseasing them, and do what add management I can. Death Grip/Dark Command an add, chains of ice something that needs to not touch the boss, whathaveyou.

Am I doing it right, am I doing it wrong?

Doom · « **Reply #1 on:** February 18, 2010, 10:33:51 PM »

Tank everything you feel like until it becomes clear that you cannot. This includes Icecream Citadel once you are in full 232s or better. Fuck anyone who doubts you.

Malikial · « **Reply #2 on:** February 19, 2010, 08:25:42 AM »

This http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Korgath&cn=Shockazooloo&group=1 is a spec a see being thrown around a lot in Raid tanking for DKs. Has a bit less AOE but overall more threat generation. You can also throw hysteria on any Warrior/Rogues you've got DPSing the boss during burn down phases for increased Damage. But, as Doom stated, do what you feel comfortable with. As a DK your focus should be spread diseases, use AOE(Be it Howling Blast or Blood Boil), use your strongest hitting ability and rune strike on the Main Target, Control Mobs, and as with any tank, avoid everything that is avoidable. As you tank you'll become more aware of shit. I don't understand how tanks can lose mobs, not notice when they get pulled off of, or get hit by things like Deep Breath. I've been tanking for going on a few years now so I have my stuff specifically designed to notice the whole area. Camera pulled out as far as is comfortable, No add-ons blocking the top 75% of my screen. The best thing for a tank to do is to tank, it gives you more experience and you will become more aware. As the tank you should be the focus of heals, but still you want to get out of stuff, don't get zoned into tanking and not notice slime pools or other environmental damage. As a rule you're already taking a shit ton of damage so you should do everything within reason to avoid taking more. If something can be interrupted, don't let it happen. If you can move and avoid something, avoid it. This becomes moot sometimes but it's still good to keep in practice. The pound in Azjol is now like a weak ass 4-5K hit that stuns for a bit but it's still best to avoid it. Still, like I said the best thing you can do to feel more comfortable is just to tank more. It might be annoying and people might be dicks but you can basically get instant queues in the Random Dungeon thinger as a tank and if people have problems with your tanking in there, tell 'em to go fuck themselves.

Bal · « **Reply #3 on:** February 19, 2010, 09:43:57 AM »

So long as people are assisting your target, your opening D&D should be enough. It is significant threat in frost presence. The only problem you run in to with Blood tanking is the lack of snap aggro on groups. You have to rely on your D&D, and as much threat as you can get out of Heart Strike's cleave when fighting multiple targets and then taunt when the inevitable non-conformist DPSes something on which you don't have enough threat. Vampiric Blood is a great emergency button to have, as is Mark of Blood. Though neither is a direct DR ability, they can definitely make the difference.

Here's the real deal though. You, as a DK, are the least desirable tank in a raid situation. You're DR is too low, and your emergency buttons not as valid against the really heavy hitters. This doesn't mean you can't do it, people would just rather you DPS.

Pacobird · « **Reply #4 on:** February 19, 2010, 01:07:18 PM »

Replace the Ony Blood trinket with Glyph of Indomitability and get rid of those parry gems. Even if it were a good idea to gem avoidance stats (which it isn't), Dodge is point for point in every way superior by a fairly substantial margin.

Effective Health is a concept you should make yourself familiar with. It's a function of your health and armor. The math isn't important; what IS important is the fact that after your defense is capped, Stamina and Armor are your two most important stats, because they allow you to eat more sustained hits before dying and thus make you easier to heal. Raw avoidance stats do not (this is not to say Dodge is necessarily bad, but it's not as good as armor for a bonus stat).

Similarly, Expertise isn't going to be a huge deal for you unless you tank as Blood; I don't play a DK but if I'm not mistaken both Frost and Unholy have a lot of straight-up spells in their rotations, for which Expertise is irrelevant. Again, this is not to say Expertise is BAD for a tank; it's just that you'd probably benefit more from stacking more avoidance. As a general rule, you shouldn't gem/enchant for threat, because tanks have such a huge inherent threat lead on DPS now if you lose aggro it is almost certainly a gear differential or rotation issue. YMMV and I'm sure someone will pipe in to disagree, but you're just better off with more effective health for now.

Heavy Borean armor kit for your gloves, enchant your chest (275 health) and cloak (225 armor). Buy the triumph tanking ring for your second slot after you get the trinket, and go get Tyrannical Beheader or Mourning Malice. First Frost Badges would go to the belt or the cape unless you're hot for T10; in that case I'd say go T10 gloves and shoulders to get your 2-piece as fast as possible and then go belt and cape, because they are both crazy good. If you are rich get the Primo Sar tanking boots because they rule, but that's all long term.

For now you should ideally be shooting for 35k unbuffed, which is very attainable for all classes. Raid-buffing to 40k in a ten-man is a good mile marker because it will allow you to survive two consecutive hits in additional to unavoidable ambient damage from nearly every boss you'll be expected to tank, which is more than enough time for somebody to drop a big heal on you.

Quote

This http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Korgath&cn=Shockazooloo&group=1 is a spec a see being thrown around a lot in Raid tanking for DKs.

There is no way anybody in this life or the next is going to convince me that Morbidity is better for raid tanking than 10% more slow on icy touch.

sei · « **Reply #5 on:** February 19, 2010, 01:50:40 PM »

Someone else brings aspd debuff and blood's aoe threat sucks, so they want a shorter DnD CD?

It's not like frost (either main spec or subspec when going blood or unholy) is popular for DKs any more, so how are they getting the speed debuff, making a warrior offtank use thunderclap?

Pacobird · « **Reply #6 on:** February 19, 2010, 02:42:20 PM »

And when they are not tanking mobs within Thunderclap range of each other? Or if the DK isn't co-tanking with a Warrior? You want the Paladin or Druid to tab-target to you every couple seconds because you couldn't sacrifice three points?

It's simply too huge a benefit to pass up for such a small investment. That's why it's first tier, after all. Even if I grant Morbidity, you're saying every single one of those 58 points in Blood is so crucial as to disallow maxing your Aspd debuff? If you can't cover that distance, then DKs are worse tanks than I thought.

EDIT: Honest question: Might of Mograine? With a 10% crit chance? There has to be a reason and I hope you'll be so good as to explain, but really?

Malikial · « **Reply #7 on:** February 19, 2010, 07:44:03 PM »

I have no idea about that spec, I was talking to her about general tanking knowledge and stressing being aware and avoiding shit. My tanks are a Warrior and a Druid. That guy is a tank I do 25 ICC with sometimes on my druid but that blood spec is what most of the raid tanks I see are using... I talked to her in IRC about stuff like effective health over avoidance.

A² · « **Reply #8 on:** February 22, 2010, 11:37:16 PM »

Well Fordragon Blades found their way into my hand so I think that's an upgrade from Inev Defeat maybe??????

Defenestration · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2010, 04:22:26 AM »

Lyrai, do me a favor.

1. Install this: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/rating-buster.aspx

2. Compare and determine which offers more

3. Keep the one that's better.

You seem to have trouble determining upgrades in things that are not caster stats, that mod will help.

Quote from: P. Birdy on February 19, 2010, 01:07:18 PM

Effective Health stuff

I don't really subscribe to that interpretation of the EH theory. It's absolutely, positively vital to have a very, very large health pool and a lot of armor to be able to take hits, sure. But having 40% avoidance makes each individual point of HP worth a significant amount more as well from a statistical viewpoint.

Shinra · « **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2010, 06:56:41 AM »

Effective health (armor & stamina) gives you more bang for your itemization buck on 100% of fights without elemental damage as a primary component*. That's why you eschew avoidance for it - that, and effective health is idiot proof. I geared avoidance at one point in BC, when Paladins weren't great EH tanks, and it bit me in the ass constantly - I'd be tanking gruul at a relatively easy point (5-6 growths) and end up getting killed because the healers got too used to not healing me due to avoidance streaking. You're going to end up with 40%+ pure avoidance without giving up effective health anyway, but shooting for more than that means making sacrifices in places you have no business making sacrifices from.

Also, I don't mean to nitpick, but avoidance does not increase the value of your HP - besides not being able to count on it, avoidance provides exactly the same benefit to someone with 1 hp as it does to someone with 60,000 hp. You either avoid the attack or you don't. Armor makes your HP more valuable, and for shield tanks, possibly SBV (though to such a low extent that it's pointless to stack) by reducing the overall damage you're taking from each hit that gets through your avoidance.

(*on these fights you're better off just stacking health and not worrying about armor. These are the fights you swap rings and trinkets on.)

Pacobird · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2010, 01:47:54 PM »

Quote from: Defenestration on February 23, 2010, 04:22:26 AM

I don't really subscribe to that interpretation of the EH theory. It's absolutely, positively vital to have a very, very large health pool and a lot of armor to be able to take hits, sure. But having 40% avoidance makes each individual point of HP worth a significant amount more as well from a statistical viewpoint.

Statistical modeling matters when you are flipping a coin a thousand times but we are talking about a situation where if the coin comes up heads twice in a row, you die.

EDIT: the ring-and-trinket swapping thing is all well and good except the best resist ring and trinket in the game right now are stam/armor and straight stam, respectively, anyway.

Büge · « **Reply #12 on:** February 23, 2010, 01:54:35 PM »

You can't pick up chicks as a tank.

A² · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:50:22 AM »

Messed with some things. At 8% hit (With a Space Goat in my party) and 34991 HP Unbuffed (I count Frost Pres when I say Unbuffed I think?)

Going to hope 3.3.3 comes soon, grab Saronite Swordbreakers for my wrist. I got the ring before my trinket because the ring gave me a bigger bonus.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&n=Ixyral

Pacobird · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2010, 09:10:57 AM »

Looks good. I personally think even gemming for hit is dubious but I respect that reasonable minds may disagree here. Keep running ToC10 for Band of the Valkyr; Mark of the Relentless is great but as you get more into the Primordial Saronite/Frost Badge tanking gear, you'll run into a lot of pieces with no +defense on them so you'll want it from everywhere else you can get.

Rico · « **Reply #15 on:** February 24, 2010, 12:27:11 PM »

Gemming for Hit or Expertise always felt like a half-of-a-bandaid to me. Since parry-hasting is non-existent on anything meaningful, both are purely threat stats, and that usually means "Just get a better weapon if threat is a real issue." While to some extent any stat fits into this reasoning, threat stats feel particularly so.

Now, if you're gearcapped and having threat problems that's something else, but otherwise it's probably a rotation/spec issue anyway or get a new weapon so why burn 200 gold/badges/20h cooldown when you could just gem Solid, Enduring, or Shifting and get a longer-lasting and bigger return?

A² · « **Reply #16 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:03:25 PM »

Between me and a friend, I have access to 5 Gem CDs, and two are Transmute Mastery.

The hit thing was me realizing I was at 4% hit and not liking it. We can reliably clear ToC10 with our alt crew (Ixy included) so Band is something I can shoot for. The eventual goal is to not have to gem for hit at all (My mage is lucky in that respect, gear + talents are super generous with hit). 3.3.3 should hopefully completely destroy the high prices of Titansteel & Crusader ORbs, allowing me to pick up Saronite Swordbreakers for cheap. If I'm lucky, I can get the plan themselves, since she's BS/Alch

One thing that keeps eating at me is hearing my friends talk about 3 different sets - a Threat set, an Avoidance set, and a Health set. Warrior/Paladins also talk about a block set. At what level do I need to start worrying about THAT, and should I look into 4x24 slot bags for it?

Rico · « **Reply #17 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:30:49 PM »

You "didn't like it," but were you actually having threat issues? If not, then it's a waste no matter how many transmute procs you're getting. If you were, then it's always more efficient to look into spec/rotation, as all reports from all tanks except 264-geared Paladins on Vezax or something report that threat is a complete non-issue.

A² · « **Reply #18 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:35:36 PM »

Fair enough. Bad times tanking previously could easily be attributed to DPS going after the unmarked target.

Hopefully I can get her into an ICC10 run after the Warrior's gotten her two Ramiladani's and stop trying fruitlessly to get Onyxia to drop her fucking weapon.

A² · « **Reply #19 on:** February 27, 2010, 06:01:39 PM »

I tanked H-HoR successfully, with only one wipe, and a Paladin & Warrior who didn't understand the concept of attacking the marked target or "Stay away from the guys who spew shit"

News:

Author Topic: TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK (Read 3925 times)