Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Verdict on Blood Tanking
As my last post noted, Blood will be the dedicated tanking tree come Cataclysm. At first, this news bothered me a great deal. I worked hard to get to the point with dual wield tanking that it was viable and rather capable. Up until 3.3.3, my main problem was not enough threat generation. That was mostly resolved with changes to the class as well as me switching to two slow 1h weapons rather than 2 fast 1h tanking weapons.
However, after my initial outrage subsided, I figured that I should give Blood tanking another chance. I had tried it out back last summer and didn't care for it. I couldn't do enough AOE and I was hard to heal. Partly because of my gear, partly because Blood doesn't lend to AOE very well. Also, I was doing mostly heroic 5mans so it just wasn't viable. Now that I have considerably better gear, and a nice 2h sword from ICC10 (Citadel Enforcer's Claymore), I figured it would be a good time to try Blood again and get used to it before Cataclysm.
I did research over the span of 2 or 3 days, for the best spec. I finally settled on a 56/8/7 build. I dropped my beloved Frost DPS spec to try this out. I wanted to keep my Frost spec ready in case things went badly in an instance with Blood so I could switch. I tried it out in a heroic 5man and things went well enough but it wasn't enough of a real test to see how it would do.
Going into ICC10 on this past Friday (which was the day that I decided to test all of this, forgot to mention that), I let our raid leader know what I was doing that way he didn't give me any hassle if I was sucking and could let me know if things were turning south. We got in and I kept with the Frost spec for trash, mostly because of the AOE threat generation. Trash up to Marrowgar was same as always. Engaged the boss after switching to Blood spec. Things some what went south during this fight and we had some bad moments but we recovered and brought him down. I still was unsure about the spec overall but I had noticed that my threat generation was through the roof compared to Frost, which I had expected and was very pleased with.
Moving on to Deathwhisper, we had some issues with having enough time between waves of adds to burst the mana shield. We managed to get it off and I picked her up first. We had an issue with the off-tank but he was new and still learning the fights. I was pretty pleased with my survivability at this point, starting to notice that my Death Strikes were healing me decently and Rune Tap was doing a great job when I was getting low for a quick save.
Loot boat went off decently. We had an issue with bringing the Horde boat down quickly like we usually do but still got through it. I was being healed from one of our healers but honestly, I think I would've been alright without it. The few times that Saurfang was able to hit me, I was able to heal myself through it.
Deathbringer Saurfang was where we stumbled. We, quite honestly, sucked really bad at this on Friday. We usually are able to get him down. Our raid leader and some other guild officials attributed it to the amount of new people we had, including my off-tank. I attributed it to we weren't paying attention. Our off-tank had never done the fight and was accidentally hitting the Blood Beasts when they spawned, despite repeated attempts telling him to stop doing it. He got better but we still were unable to down him. I, on the other hand, felt great about my own performance during Saurfang. There were a few times where I didn't taunt him as quickly as I usually do but I was somewhat watching the off-tank to make sure he was doing as he should (had an issue with taunts). However, I felt that Blood was doing a great job on this fight. I was receiving a pretty constant stream of healing from our healers but was also noticing that my own self heals were keeping me topped off and I actually had to stop attacking Saurfang when it was time for my off-tank to taunt so he could grab aggro from me.
Despite getting no upgrades in gear (tank gear never drops in the run I do on Fridays) and having several new people, I'm disappointed in the run but very pleased with Blood as a tanking spec. I would like to see them give a threat bonus to Blood Boil in the new tanking Blood tree in Cataclysm to lend us a hand with AOE threat. I'm sure Blizzard has things covered on this though. Blood tanking represents a whole new style of tanking which is a welcome change. Druids can tank without shields but only DKs tank without shields and use self healing as a mechanic to keep themselves alive rather than massive amounts of mitigation/avoidance like a Druid or shields like Warriors/Paladins.
My verdict: I'll be sticking with a dual spec Blood tank/Frost tank for some time now, mostly likely until Cataclysm.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Cataclysm: Cold winds of change
As of late, I've been extremely happy with the changes to Death Knights. Being a big fan of the Frost tree, I love the recent changes. When I was playing my Warrior before my hiatus pre-Wrath, I was dual wield Fury spec. When I learned that Death Knights would be able to dual wield, have having known they would be a tanking class already, my first thought was dual wield tanking.
When Wrath launched, and the months thereafter, it was quickly learned that dual wielding was terrible. It required perfect balance of stats and even then was mediocre. After a while, I (like every other DK at some point or another) gave it a try. I really liked it but it just was not viable for DPS, let alone tanking. Then, 3.2 dropped and it was like a light from the heavens for all Death Knights who wished to dual wield. 3.2 gave us the Threat of Thassarian talent deep into the Frost tree. While dual wielding was still a way off from being great, it was getting better. A while later, 3.3 dropped and added Icecrown raids and dungeons. More importantly, Rune of the Nerubian Carapace was added, giving us a 1h version of the Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. Suddenly, dual wield tanking was viable. Not only was it viable, it did pretty well provided you could generate enough threat.
3.3.3 changed dual wield tanks even farther and Death Knight tanks in general with the addition of the high threat mechanic of Icy Touch. Off-hand damage was also increased by changes to Nerves of Cold Steel. Changes to Icy Talons made a constant raid wide haste buff possible, removing the need to constantly hit Icy Touch within a rotation and bringing back Pestilence rotations. 3.3.3 was very good to us Frost tanks, especially the dual wielders. I've even heard that dual wield tanking is now the preferred tanking spec of Frost tanks, though I can't remember where I read it at.
Now, dear reader, you may be wondering what I have to be upset about. As far as Wrath, I have nothing to be upset about. What I am upset about is the recent from Ghostcrawler that in the massive changes coming to classes in Cataclysm, Death Knights will no longer be able to use each talent tree to tank with. You may be thinking that it's not a big deal and you'd be right. The community has asked for a unified tanking tree and Blizzard has granted that. All tanking will be done by one specific tree, the same as how Druids, Warriors and Paladins all have. The difference lies in the name of that tree. Frost, right?
Wrong.
The sole tanking tree for Cataclysm will be Blood. Some do not regard this as a big deal. The fact that it will be a unified tanking tree is a welcome change. All tanking abilities will be united under Blood. According to GC, it's because Blood already has strong self-healing and defensive abilities. However, most of the community seems to agree that Frost tanking has better mitigation and actual passive defensive abilities. Call me petty, but this isn't even what I'm upset about. What I am most upset about is the loss of dual wield tanking. Some call it a gimmick and mostly just for fun. I, however, run it as my main spec. I main tank a weekly ICC10 run while dual wielding. It is extremely satisfying for me to be able to have Killing Machine proc as often as it does while dual wielding, allowing for Frost Strike to hit from both hands and guarantee a crit, hitting for usually 3k a piece.
Dual wield tanking is part of the reason I play my DK. I don't DPS with him very often. Granted, when I do, it's (again) dual wielding and I've noticed a big jump in my numbers. In Vanilla, I was a main raid healer. In BC, I was main raid DPS. Wrath, I've been a tank for most of the time. Out of the three, I love tanking. I love being in the thick of it and being the main line of defense between the boss and it eating healers. Part of this passion for it is the fact that I don't wear a shield. I have a weapon in each hand. The animations for tanking while holding 2 weapons is awesome for me.
There will be a lot of change before Cataclysm goes live. Hopefully this is something that Blizzard will reconsider.
When Wrath launched, and the months thereafter, it was quickly learned that dual wielding was terrible. It required perfect balance of stats and even then was mediocre. After a while, I (like every other DK at some point or another) gave it a try. I really liked it but it just was not viable for DPS, let alone tanking. Then, 3.2 dropped and it was like a light from the heavens for all Death Knights who wished to dual wield. 3.2 gave us the Threat of Thassarian talent deep into the Frost tree. While dual wielding was still a way off from being great, it was getting better. A while later, 3.3 dropped and added Icecrown raids and dungeons. More importantly, Rune of the Nerubian Carapace was added, giving us a 1h version of the Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. Suddenly, dual wield tanking was viable. Not only was it viable, it did pretty well provided you could generate enough threat.
3.3.3 changed dual wield tanks even farther and Death Knight tanks in general with the addition of the high threat mechanic of Icy Touch. Off-hand damage was also increased by changes to Nerves of Cold Steel. Changes to Icy Talons made a constant raid wide haste buff possible, removing the need to constantly hit Icy Touch within a rotation and bringing back Pestilence rotations. 3.3.3 was very good to us Frost tanks, especially the dual wielders. I've even heard that dual wield tanking is now the preferred tanking spec of Frost tanks, though I can't remember where I read it at.
Now, dear reader, you may be wondering what I have to be upset about. As far as Wrath, I have nothing to be upset about. What I am upset about is the recent from Ghostcrawler that in the massive changes coming to classes in Cataclysm, Death Knights will no longer be able to use each talent tree to tank with. You may be thinking that it's not a big deal and you'd be right. The community has asked for a unified tanking tree and Blizzard has granted that. All tanking will be done by one specific tree, the same as how Druids, Warriors and Paladins all have. The difference lies in the name of that tree. Frost, right?
Wrong.
The sole tanking tree for Cataclysm will be Blood. Some do not regard this as a big deal. The fact that it will be a unified tanking tree is a welcome change. All tanking abilities will be united under Blood. According to GC, it's because Blood already has strong self-healing and defensive abilities. However, most of the community seems to agree that Frost tanking has better mitigation and actual passive defensive abilities. Call me petty, but this isn't even what I'm upset about. What I am most upset about is the loss of dual wield tanking. Some call it a gimmick and mostly just for fun. I, however, run it as my main spec. I main tank a weekly ICC10 run while dual wielding. It is extremely satisfying for me to be able to have Killing Machine proc as often as it does while dual wielding, allowing for Frost Strike to hit from both hands and guarantee a crit, hitting for usually 3k a piece.
Dual wield tanking is part of the reason I play my DK. I don't DPS with him very often. Granted, when I do, it's (again) dual wielding and I've noticed a big jump in my numbers. In Vanilla, I was a main raid healer. In BC, I was main raid DPS. Wrath, I've been a tank for most of the time. Out of the three, I love tanking. I love being in the thick of it and being the main line of defense between the boss and it eating healers. Part of this passion for it is the fact that I don't wear a shield. I have a weapon in each hand. The animations for tanking while holding 2 weapons is awesome for me.
There will be a lot of change before Cataclysm goes live. Hopefully this is something that Blizzard will reconsider.
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