The Scourge Strike's BackFollow

You're right, because your -% to magic dungeon is useless.

Hey Dark Knight, apparently your magic damage is low. And the damage from ghoul explosions is nothing. And the poisons, lightning and fire from champs is NOTHING.

And, apparently, Anti-magic shield and Anti-magic zone are no mitigation either.

And, if Bone Shield is down in seconds, you NEED more avoidance. My Bone Shield has lasted WHOLE FIGHTS in Heroics. And I'm not kidding. It should easily last 30 seconds with mediocre avoidance. And, even if it DOES go down in 15, it is still the best mitigative talent DKs have. UA sucks compared to it. And the extra seconds on IBF are nice, but shouldn't matter with Bone Shield. And ALL Frost gives you is -2% damage and +3% dodge. That is not something a healer would notice. Ever.



So you did 2 hours of TCing and took a talent that proved to be crap with math, because you were curious if it wasn't crap?

Things generally look BETTER on paper. It's an incredibly rare chance they are better in practice. And, when they are, it is because the situation is dynamic.

For example, trying to use TC for PvP.

[EDIT]

And you think Frost would be better for ToC?

What's the kill order you'd use with all 4?

Generally you take out the Rogue or Warrior first, because their damage is high. That means the Shaman and Mage (and Rogue) are nailing you with magic damage while you work down the melee. Bone Shield will probably only last 15 seconds at the start of this fight. But it reduces ALL damage in that 15 seconds. UA would only reduce the Rogue and War's damage (and not by much). 3% avoidance is useless on them as well.

On Paletress, your magic mitigation would be way better. Physical MIGHT be better for Eadric (but he is easy to make BS last a while on).

Phase 1 DK- pitiful physical damage. You shouldn't need ANY additional mitigation for this phase.

Phase 2-Physical reduction would be useful, but the magic reduction is potentially the difference between life and death if you are caught in a CE.

Phase 3-The most dangerous phase. And 6% magic reduction would be HUGELY beneficial. And AMZ makes this fight super easy for healers. Add in a longer AMS, and you have a clear winner.

I love Frost, but superior damage reduction (by Mit. or Avoid.) is not its strength.

Edited, Dec 21st 2009 8:36pm by idiggory

I've found that my rate of fail in groups is less if we take out the Rogue first, because even players with high DpS can't move out of the poison. Same thing with WW. I got tired of seeing geared players fail miserably and just started taking out the DpS first, with my focus being the Shaman, so I focus on interrupting him (always have a BR, don't DC so Brain Freeze is up).

He doesn't get off a heal, or only a few, and we tend to lose fewer DpS.

Even with fast hitting mobs, your bone shield will NOT go down faster than 15 seconds. It can't. That still makes it awesome mitigation.

And, like I said, the kill order depends on how stupid and able your DpS is. If they can pump out damage, but are blind to the world while doing it, then the Warrior and Rogue are a better choice.

If they have lower DpS, but can move, then you take out the Shaman.

In either scenario, someone who can actually use their class should be able to interrupt the Shaman's heals (don't bother with the CL casts). If you get rid of even 50% of them, Warrior/Shaman is better.

And if you have a Hunter with Aimed Shot (or anything else that can lower healing received), that's just cake.

[EDIT]


Your claim was that Frost takes less damage. And you're wrong. The discussion was never about what offensive skills they have.

And I'm getting better TpS as Unholy than I did as Frost--Increased Disease, Blood Boil and DnD damage is far superior to HB.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2009 1:15pm by idiggory

Crypt Fever/EBP increases disease damage by 30%.

EBP increases magic damage by 13%.

Impurity increases the damage of Both.

Wandering Plague increases your disease damage.

While BS is up, you get an extra 2% from that.

Not having to waste points to go into Unholy for Imp DnD, you get to go into Blood for Bladed Armor.

You can get 3% more stength(edited)

It's really clear that you've done a lot of theory crafting for DKs. Your knowledge of the talents is astounding.

Edited, Dec 22nd 2009 6:57pm by idiggory

Then you clearly have no authority to say that one spec is greater than the other. You don't know what you get from them. And gemming for Parry is one of the worst things you could do. It's about a few pegs above gemming for Spell Power and MP/5.

I can tell you the talents, tier and requirements for every DK tree. Even Blood, and I have never DpSed or Tanked as it before.

I know all of my classes soft and hard caps for stats.

I know how DRs work, and which stats get hit harder (which is why you shouldn't gem for Parry, ever).

It is only because of this, and ample experience with both trees, that I feel comfortable to make claims about which has a higher ability to do X.

You've admitted that you don't even know what Unholy's talents are. And you've made terrible talent/gear choices. Due to that, I feel no need to take what you say regarding tree balance seriously.

If you want help learning about the trees, I'd be happy to answer your questions. To critique your build. To offer gear/gem/enchant suggestions.

But you are clearly not in a position to help anyone else.

No. Not it doesn't.

A. 1% Parry is slightly worse than 1% Dodge, since it comes later on the hit list.
B. 20 Dodge is WAY more avoidance than 20 Parry, since it has a DR that is way lower.




A. Spell Deflection ONLY works on direct damage spells, and not for DoTs or AoE. That means it's severely diminished on most fights. It can be useful for specific encounters, but not worth it overall unless you are a very specific tank (I'd just have an off-spec for fights that it would be useful on).

B. The Dodge reduction means NOTHING for why you shouldn't go for Dodge. It is a flat -20%. Not a percentage. That means it remains more effective than Parry.

C. Just gem for Stamina. [EDIT] Unless the socket bonus is high enough to warrant a Stam/Dodge or Stam/Threat stat gem.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2009 9:10pm by idiggory

Hey Gory, I know it's tempting but.... nobody comes to these forums to get a grocery list of what you (or me, or anyone) knows. Nobody cares what we know outside the scope of their questions. Not a criticism, just trying to save you some blood pressure.

Personally I find it better to just answer the respectable questions (and even a few faceroll ones) when I can, make a joke and move on.

With that said, looks like you got it all right. Heels, I suggest you start looking into talent/skill mechanics if you really want to know more about how DKs actually work. Don't guess (that's gotten me into TONS of trouble!). Knowing is sexier. Err... I mean better.

In any case, gem for stam aside from meta-gem requirements (where you gem with stam hybrids). Looking at the overall gem-available stats, you get more from a stam gem than from either dodge or parry gems. Look up "effective health".

And for the record, dodge is purposely weighted to be better than parry point-for-point by the wizards at blizzard. They have their reasons.. mwahahaha!!!

Harvey Lee Oswald acted alone.

There. I said it.


But I know where you're coming from. Looks like the errors have been cleared up in here. GG!

Threat stats = Hit, Exp and Str. For tanks, under soft caps, all are approximately equal. I'd go for Expertise for Blood/Unholy. Probably for Frost, too, though it gets more from Hit than the other two due to HB.

And you did NOT wipe because Bladestorm took your Bone Armor. It lasts 20 seconds. Your Bone Armor is guaranteed to last 14 (and will likely last longer. BS tics every 2 secs, and the ICD is 2.5 seconds. So each tic won't take one).

That's at least 70% of the ability being mitigated 20%, at worst, if you activate BS as he uses Storm.

UA would last all 20 seconds, but would provide a pittance of mitigation. Mine gives just under 5% reduction to physical damage. And .2% to Parry. Plus, can Bone Storm even be Dodged/Parried?

Yeah, really awesome. I'm sure that would have saved you. FYI, the problem with that wipe was irrelevant to your spec. Either you improperly used your CDs or your healers dropped the ball.

Of course, I'm assuming that you didn't lose aggro as well.

But, regardless, I'm POSITIVE that either BS going down didn't cause the wipe, OR you would have wiped in Frost as well. The spec was not wrong.

Besides, "I just died. This spec sucks" is a TERRIBLE argument. Especially when you are in progression raiding.

I wouldn't bother with Bone Shield during Bonestorm anyway. Seriously, unless you're running around after the guy, it should only hit you for something like 1k every time. Hardly reason enough to use a 20% mitigate. It doesn't last for 1 minute, does it? So once you pick up aggro you'd be left without Bone Shield.

I'd say save it for when he ends Phase 2 and you pick him back up. Will be useful if the healers need to position themselves before starting their healing rotation on you.

That build is pretty well designed, yes. There's only one thing I would change (and I don't think you took any bad talents).

I would drop two points out of Necrosis to grab Vicious Strikes. It's 6% crit to 2-3 abilities per 10 seconds. And you'd only lose 6% additional Auto-attack damage from Necrosis. But, on top of that, it will make your SS crits hit for 30% more, which is pretty sexy.

Overall, GJ with the build. Kudos.

That's something I'd like an answer to, really. A while back I read a huge discussion thread on EJ about Army of the Dead and the outcome was that
A) unless you were sure your runes would be up by the time the actual fighting started it would be a DPS loss (I.E. it's only use in say, Naxx, would be in between Thaddius and his two caretakers) and that
B) absolutely nothing ever lowered the cast time on Army of the Dead - no Power Infusion, no haste, no Bloodlust.
While I'm not too interested in how valid A) still is (it seems a rather moot point; with ghouls not taunting in raids it's a small amount of free DPS on some bosses but nevertheless not a very interesting spell), I'm wondering about B) - I had a discussion with someone about this not too long ago and they said their haste actually did lower their Army of the Dead cast time. Am I misremembering the original EJ topic, did something change, or is AotD indeed always on a 10 sec cast timer?

I was just wondering why CE is there if the only time you get to use it is AFTER the fight. I personally would like to be able to use it during a boss fight.