Topic
Blood dk aoe - Aggro or Survive?
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Why is it that Death Knights are still the only class that actively cuts in their survival for AoE threat and applying debuffs? Blood Plague is going to cost you half a DS with Outbreak being on a 60 second CD whereas Hammer of the Righteous, Thrash and Thunderclap are free? Not only that, but they are also the AoE abilities of the other classes so they get to apply the debuff much faster and at no cost. A Death Knight that wants to do the same will lose atleast 1 Unholy Rune and then a Blood Rune to spread the diseases. If said Death Knight also wants to get aggro on a pack of mobs, he is losing another Unholy Rune for Death and Decay and atleast another Blood Rune for Heart Strike/Blood Boil (and usually even more if it's streaming adds or you need more threat; the Heart Strikes and Blood Boils all cut into your Death Runes by then). Roiling Blood will help here, but not by much. |
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Outbreak is on a 30 sec cooldown now, and you can spread desieses, blood boil, death and decy, and then using blood tap, you have enough runes for two death strikes still.
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Edited by Athsgirl on 2/22/12 1:02 PM (PST)
This still doesn't justify the fact that we have to waste those globals on threat rather then survivability. Not to mention my post is in relation to the MoP model of blood dks, so we lose blood tap, we lose crimson scourge, we will have less survivability because of the loss of blood tap. |
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i think this depends 100% on how our mastery are going to work on MoP ..
if we have exactly the same system, then yes, there might be a problem. But until they give the final word if our mastery is going to work the same way, or we actually test it ingame .. we can't be sure. |
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I honestly wouldn't worry about MoP just yet. A lot of the problems DKs had this expansion was due to the fact that they had to balance tank damage around block tanks having a passive 30% DR, so DKs not having the consistent mitigation caused problems. However, in MoP, they're giving all tanks some kind of active mitigation model and will balance around that.
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This still doesn't justify the fact that we have to waste those globals on threat rather then survivability. What AoE pull is killing you in the first 9 seconds? I've always been a proponent of seperating Blood Shield from DS, but I have to wonder if this is an actual issue. Are Blood tanks getting ROFLStomped by AoE encounters? |
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Edited by Geliebter on 2/22/12 2:38 PM (PST)
Throw down DnD, hit Blood Tap, and you should be good nowadays.
Runic Corruption is going to be far better then Rune Tap. |
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Honestly, it's not that you get rofl-stomped, it's that controlling those crucial opening seconds is really touchy with a DK and leave you with two very important requirements pulling you in incompatible directions. To illustrate: You can (and should) open with Death and Decay, but a competent DPS isn't going to be stalled on a DnD from a tank with NO vengeance (you're going in cold here folks). And this is where things go sideways. If you Deathstrike to get your defenses rolling, the rest of your group is going to start getting eaten because DnD is pretty weak even with +500% threat. On its own it won't hold threat for more than a couple seconds. However, you can solve that by hitting pestilence/outbreak....in exchange for getting hit HARD. You have no blood shields for a particularly unnerving span of time, and even worse it's when incoming damage is at its absolute highest. Just not good. It's a constant juggling act with every pull as a DK tank. Sometimes I appreciate it...but the simplicity and effectiveness of my warrior/paladin usually calls me back. I just don't have to make that decision, and even with the AM previews in MoP I still won't for them. Of course, there is also the tangent of the availability of a DKs AoE options which also irritate me sometimes. Diseases on their own just aren't enough, and their pick up speed is pretty low. Blood Boil, without said diseases, hits like a wet noodle even WITH Crimson Scourge. Death and Decay (arguably the main source of DK aoe threat) only has a 30% coverage. Once DnD is down you'd better pray nothing else enters the fray because you're not going to hold them without a lot of work (and often sacrificing defenses to do so). The quickest a DK can reliably pick up any additional targets is around 2 GCDs, and that's only if there's anything around left with diseases still rolling. If not? You're kind of hosed. |
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Edited by Deathtime on 2/22/12 2:38 PM (PST)
DnD has an additional threat modifier on it. Its threat generating ability is outrageous. Pretty much what I do to open an aoe pull is DnD->Outbreak->Pestilence-> death strike. After that, your blood boil is hitting for more damage and along with tab targeting there is more than enough aoe threat. Usually the first couple of hits from an AOE pack are not bad and using death strike the 4th gcd into the pull is usually where you would need to use it anyways. Your kind of over exaggerating the difficulty to produce threat and live in AoE situations there Fean. Now I do kind of agree with the OP some in that we shouldn't have to choose between mitigation and AoE threat. Id be fine if they made DnD cost a blood rune for blood and make outbreak a 30 sec CD again. |
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Edited by Deathtime on 2/22/12 2:44 PM (PST)
Actually, right now, it almost seems like all the tanks except DKs will have a almost passive 30% DR. It entirely depends on rage income for warriors and bears but right now it looks like they could have 100% uptime on savage defense and shield block which would make warriors block cap earlier and bears start out this way. Pallys will still block cap early which leaves DKs. If they want to keep the reactive model and I'm right about the rage income for bears and warriors, Dks will need around a 30% increase EH through armor and stamina in order to survive things that would challenge the other 3 tanks. |
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Edited by Feandel on 2/22/12 3:15 PM (PST)
I've had more than a few DPS who are well geared and know how to push their DPS out to maximum pull off of DnD threat inside of the second global. It doesn't produce THAT much threat.
Most often warriors and Frost DKs. However, you only sputtered exactly the solution I stated specifically (epic reading comprehension failure). Instead of getting defenses rolling by using Death Strike, I can eat a **** load of extra damage by using my next 2 GCDs applying and spreading diseases. This is your "solution" which only exaggerates the DK spikey syndrome. So I have to chose: solidify my threat lead and get ripped apart -OR- get my defenses rolling and risk easily losing control of the ENTIRE pull. It's a very delicate balancing act, one that I'm just not in the mood for sometimes. -edit- and to reiterate why that annoys me is because this choice has to be made at the START of any given pull when the incoming damage is at its absolute highest. |
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Edited by Deathtime on 2/22/12 3:22 PM (PST)
Thats the thing. You dont take **** loads of damage in that time. If you are taking a lot of damage then you should of popped a cd. I usually see the "spike" right before you counter it with the DS. (if you can call it that. I usually only dropped to 40-50% health and thats well before I got geared.) |
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Edited by Geliebter on 2/22/12 3:20 PM (PST)
What on earth is ripping you apart in two GCDs?
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Edited by Feandel on 2/22/12 3:23 PM (PST)
Oh hell yes you can. I've spiked well over 120k damage in those 3 seconds against the last trash pulls in End Time, and it happens nearly EVERY time I'm in there. The melee dragonkin can hit like god damned freight trains. That's NOT a good time to have your DS locked away behind 2 gcds of threat production.
The 5 packs trash pulls in Hour of Twilight before the second boss? I've had them rip right through me once or twice because "RNG is random". 35% combined avoidance doesn't particularly protect reliably. That's where Blood Shield is SUPPOSED to be covering you...but you don't HAVE one yet. -edit- I'm not saying "I'm dead" but "Well crap, there goes WotN". |
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Thats because your supposed to use a cooldown for it. Its the same for ALL tanks. The trash packs in front of the 2nd boss in Hour of Twilight? These are the packs where I found this method MOST effective. |
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Edited by Ahanss on 2/22/12 3:33 PM (PST)
<roots a melee, hibernates a caster. WIN! But seriously, just mash your CDs on those packs and do it like normal. You want to wait the 3-4 seconds anyway so you get a big fat DS after. AMS is a very good idea at the start as well, since it more or less prevents the burst from ever being fatal (since only the melee dragons are hurting you). Army+HS spam wrecks one pack, as well, though if you want to talk about burst you should see what they do when they kill off the last ghoul :). |
There is a lot of speculation that the block masteries are just placeholder for now. If not though, then yeah it could be a problem. |
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Edited by Feandel on 2/22/12 3:41 PM (PST)
No, I don't. I don't on my warrior, and I don't on my paladin. They BLOCK IT. Reliably, every time. My DK is sitting on armor that is completely ignored, and avoidance. If my DK doesn't avoid both that's bad news. Hell, not avoiding ONE hurts bad enough.
And you're right, the method you're refering to IS the most effective in HoT. Why? Because going defensive on your second GCD (ie Death Strike) is a quick way to lose control of the entire pull....and the damned hunters already do a damn fine job with that on their own if your healer isn't johnny on the spot with the dispels (and "avoid the ice arrow" is a fine sentiment but half the time you can't even see it through all the rest of the crap flying around). I'm not saying you can't hold AoE threat. I'm not saying DK defenses are weak. I'm saying that at the start of any given pull the two exist in polar opposite and incompatible directions. You don't get both. You have to pick and hope you either chose correctly, get favorable RNG, or your Healer covers the gap. First gearing up and going into Shadowfang, that first ghoul pack literally ate my DK alive in three and half seconds. I don't shoulder the blame entirely because the healer wasn't paying that much attention, but I was doing the "threat" routine...and the combination of the RNG not favoring me and the half-asleep healer resulted in sudden tank death. Needless to say they started paying more attention after that. When did this really become an "issue" of sorts? When the Death Strike heal stopped generating threat (and for the record, I don't mind that, it was way out of hand especially at raid levels of incoming damage). Before that change however, my DS heal also provided a good amount of threat coverage, which meant that I didn't have to sacrifice my threat production in order to get my defenses rolling. 3-4 seconds is a long opening to RNG your way through. I've had it go sideways enough time to be put off by it occasionally. And it's difficult to "react" to incoming damage when you're "reaction" is most often tied to the GCD I might add. |
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Edited by Geliebter on 2/22/12 3:43 PM (PST)
Why not weave a DS into your aggro-generation?
Outbreak-DS-Pestilence-DnD-Blood Tap-DS If the healer isn't on top of things, Vampiric Blood will help buy you time. Rune Tap when you can, should be good. Edit: Or start with DnD, if you can't keep control until Pestilence. |
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Edited by Feandel on 2/22/12 3:43 PM (PST)
Because that doesn't solve anything. You're still putting off solidifying your threat in exchange for getting your defenses up and running. It doesn't matter where in that opening rotation you "weave" Death Strike. If it's not at the end, all you have running is Death and Decay and it's not enough on its own.
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