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32 commentsI hear anecdotal evidence of DK tanks being benched so that our tanking brethren do the business instead. Whilst promoting the rawr:tankDK article in official wow forums, I read a thread there asking “where did all the DK tanks go?” (being the official forums I would normally immediately disregard everything as drivel)… but remembered long-time reader Kenshi commenting he’s now 3rd tank (he’s in a progression guild).
He’d shown a picture from guildies too. They’d read the “warriors are swiss army, DKs are from lego” post and thought maybe they’d joke about it rub some salt on the wound(see comments). Here it is.
- I disagree. DKs are not the fail tank.
I don’t get why a progression guild, or anyone, would claim DK tanks are universally weaker than other tanks. All the tanks, side-by-side have been largely normalised. Our big damage-reducing cooldowns are similar, our threat is similar (paladins still win there), stamina pool is similar (except droods, but that’s intentional) and so on.
There is some pro and con to each class. The ‘how do I tank‘ survey talked about it. None of the bloggers’ surveys I read said “my class is unbalanced and weak”. EJ seems fairly agreed that we lack threat in high-end non-melee progression fights, fair enough, but that doesn’t mean we suck everywhere.
Paladins don’t have a short-cooldown interrupt nor any gap-closing talents, both of which a DK does have, and both are valuable for tanks, yet maintankadins are seen as pwnage. What deficincies does a DK have that could offset those advantages and get us benched? Threat perhaps in a small number of encounters. It’s just a silly circular argument. So why would common people think DKs are weak?
I might say, it’s because there are so many goddamn loser DKs out there who ruin the reputation of the class. But that wouldn’t apply to a guild like Kenshi’s, which is progressive and you’d expect is updated on theory.
I might say, it’s because droods have loads of HP, so the World of Pugcraft mentality of “HP = tank” might mean DKs are less attractive. But that’s wrong too, blood tanks have slightly more HP than their plate peers, and only less than bears.
Maybe, this is all I can surmise: it’s just a phase of misinformation that will pass.
…or am I missing something? Is there a movement against DK tanks I’ve just not heard about? (If so, what a bunch of retards).
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In my example out of 1100 melee strikes the Pally blocked 900 strikes. ( if they were blocking 15-30% it wouldn’t really be an issue )
My avoidance was 10% higher, but he was much lower geared than I.
Not that I’m upset, but from a RL perspective it gave us a much easier time using the Pally over the DK.
I’m getting benched due to the fact that Block is win on Anub.
Our tanks are aiming for 102% mitigation and that is impossible to achieve without having a Shield for the block.
Yogg +1 Requires 1 paladin tank to make P3 doable due to there awsome in post aoe that makes a DK only wish he had the same. The other tank is usually a Warrior cause of the HP / swiss army skillz
Alagon = 2 tanks maximum
So I think it is all about the guild and there tanks. A 3 day raiding guild with 4 tanks is always a problem but Blizzard hasn’t made it Easier with the fact that most hard modes are based on a max of 2 tanks. So that means 2 always get benched for endgame dps combine all this with the fact we have nothing special
Same HP or less than Warrior/paladin
Less cooldowns than a warrior but more less powerfull ones than a paladin
No AOE taunt
Same DPs as other tanks
No block mitigation skillz
We use to have a better “shieldwall” More DR and alot more HP to make up for all this.
Twitter: Cimegs5088
I think 102% isnt a required number anymore?
it was initially needed to avoid crushing blow.
Twitter: gravitydk
Right, not needed, Kenshi was talking about anubarak for block tanks.
Twitter: gravitydk
Related reading, nearly two months ago I wrote about this ratio of tanks vs the rest of the raid, and the problems it causes.
Twitter: honorshammer
@sputniq
I’m trying to understand your numbers.
900 out of 1100 strikes is 81.8%.
There two ways I could interpret this. Either the other 18.2% of attacks were completely avoided (miss/dodge/parry) or the other 18.2% of attacks were full hits. Neither makes much sense.
My stats are 2k block, 13.6% of the time, plus ~55% avoidance including to-miss. That 13.6% of the time, should really be 43.6% because Holy Shield is 30% chance to block and which a proper 969 Paladin Tank rotation, it should never fall off. When you start to add in Raid Buff, and Miss buffs like Insect Swarm, I’m Block Capped.
It means that there is a minuscule chance any attack that isn’t fully avoided is Blocked. Block doesn’t negate the damage of the attack (or else it would just be another form of avoidance) but it does reduce the attack by my block value (about 2k). Against hits of 16k it doesn’t feel like much of a difference.
So if I interpret your numbers as 18.2% of attacks were completely avoided, it would indicate that the Paladin in question has nearly no avoidance. I don’t find this very likely. You’d have more than 18% avoidance just getting to 540 Def.
If I interpret that the 18.2% were full hits (unblocked), then the Paladin in question is not Block capped, or is not doing his rotation properly. If a properly geared Paladin, doing his rotation properly, failed to avoid 1100 melee swings by the boss, then we would expect to see 1100 of 1100 blocked. At most you’d see 4 or 5 hits get through.
My co-Tank is a Blood Death Knight. Our team feels equally confident with him tanking as we do with me tanking. We do Beasts together. Now we try to work to our strengths. He takes Jarraxxus, and I’m going to wrangle Infernals. But even then most of the time it doesn’t matter. We actually had him on Adds for Anub until we started preparing for Hard Mode. He did just fine.
All Tanks are fairly well balanced now. There are still some imbalances, but they aren’t so large as to matter. For example, my DK co-Tank is always ahead of me in raw HP.
I understand what DKs are going through. I empathize with their feelings. I’ve been a Paladin tank for a long time. I was a Paladin Tank back when we were fighting to be accepted as progression Tanks. I know exactly what it feels like to be feel like you’re a hindrance to the Raid just because you are Class:X and trying to Tank.
Lead Developer Ghostcralwer recently posted on Tank Balance on the official forums, here’s part of what he said:
“I am asking the question that I have asked before: if one or two of the tank classes have such a superior and unequivocal advantage in making a fight easier, why aren’t more guilds using them, especially given the evidence that they have swapped tanks on previous encounters? I understand individuals of you may state it has happened to your guild. That’s fine, but understand you are in a small minority. Overall, it’s just not happening.”
It’s just not happening.
The developers know they are changing the way Block works in Cataclysm, so I wouldn’t expect any major changes for the end of Wrath.
There’s been a ‘DK’ Boss every Tier until Tier 9. You had Sarth3D in Teir 7, and Vezzax in Tier 8. In fact, DK advantages were so large on those Bosses that Guilds DID switch their tanks to DKs.
Again, Ghostcrawler echoes these thoughts:
“On Sartharion +3, cutting-edge guilds who normally tank with a warrior would (perhaps somewhat begrudgingly) use a DK to tank instead because the benefit was so massive. The same thing happened on Vezax where good guilds replaced their warrior tanks with DKs. Death knights were overpowered at the time.”
Ghostcrawler goes on to specifically speak to the Anub’arak – shield tank issue.
“As an aside: there are some specific fights where the specific mechanics lead guilds to tend to use one tank over another, say a druid to tank Thorim hard or a shield-using tank on adds for Anub hard. Most players aren’t as concerned about these one-off encounters because it feels like such an encounter-specific problem and doesn’t feel like anyone’s job as guild main tank is in jeopardy. (Individuals of you may feel differently of course.)”
This actually sounds very similar to something I read about when MH and BT were the progression raids, alot of Druids and Pallys were talking about getting benched. It came down to people having run with warriors as the only tank for so long it just became common to only have warrior MT’s because thats just who everyone was comfortable with, now that pallys and druids have been around a while they are so much more common as guild MT’s, but DK MT’s are still kind of rare. Tanks are also a very possesive lot once we have that spot as MT we really don’t want to give it up. Anytime we see another tank trying to move into that spot we start to stop letting people rotate and we start just tanking everything oursleves so then it becomes a gear, experience and group mentality issue that is just a neverending cycle, can’t tank because I don’t have the gear/exp/trust, can’t get those things cause I can’t tank.
Btw full quote for picture if you want as it is out of context. (As i made it)
“Now we need somthing to describe paladin tanks.
I have just the thing!
[Insert Pic]
(Just Jking
)
I think its a Fair analogy as dks can change into diffrent roles easier with just a respec, Where as paladins are set in stone to what that are good/bad at.”
It was me replying to the dks are like lego post as i think its a good analogy for dks. As dks are the class that benifits from 3 diffrent trees with good tanking talents for diffrent encounters.
The problem atm is the anub 25man hc encounter with block being applyed before the %dmg increase it makes it too good to skip and thus the crazy stacking of block and avoidence. Which i agree it is making it unfair on dk tanks as add tanks in the fight.
Twitter: gravitydk
I should probably edit the post to be more fair, given it was tongue-in-cheek. Thanks.:)
Very interesting article, my own situation is somewhat unique, but it’s given me some interesting insights into the state of the tanking classes. I’m a founding officer of my guild, a Blood DK, and have been our MT since the beginning of Wrath. We went through a heavy recruitment phase over the summer to push into 25 man content, that of course meant fleshing out our tanks. Early on I decided I wanted to have a diverse tanking crew (one of each class), and though it’s proven to be difficult initially to establish, it’s also proven quite effective. We play to our strengths, we have generally specific fights where the warrior will be tanking X, and the paladin tanking Y, with me tanking the boss. Or me and the Druid tanking (Twins for example).
But mainly, we’ve done this so we can mix it up. Every tank has a secondary DPS set/spec so we can cycle people in, keep things interesting. In doing this, it’s given me a view of the tanking classes that they’re all fairly evenly balanced. They’re certainly not at a point where DKs just “can’t tank” or Druids, each of the classes has their difficulties because of available tools (Druid AE threat for example) and itemization (again Druids have trouble there). I think if anything, I’ve noticed more of a lack of Bears lately. Which I’m sure is a complex issue in itself.
To be more precise, I think there probably are some people benching established tanks for the fotm tank. Those people will always do that, and I really feel they are in the minority. I think most guilds really stand by their tanks.
Sorry I gave the parse where I got my info from in my original comment.
I mean out of being hit 1100 times, 900 were blocks. I was only talking about hits. Not avoidance.
I was also only talking about twins where it was very painful, where there is a lot of quick melee hits when shields are up which adds up quickly when you are blocking 2k of a 8k hits. ( though as I understand the fight better now, maybe that could have been more doable with cooldowns when the other twin is shielded. )
This is the log I was using in my example. http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/XP9NvUdTS84agS6G/details/0/
Pally is quite a bit more undergeared than the DK. Drackor Pally Tank Sputniq Blood DK Tank.
I believe it is the mentality that people have to believe that dk tanks are being benched. It’s the continuous nerfs the class recieves and thus the players themselves seem to give up even if they are on par with other tanks but mentally, believe they aren’t viable.
When Blizzard build Warrior tanks, they look at the Prot tree.
When they build Druid tanks, they look at the Feral tree.
When they build Paladin tanks, they look at the Prot tree.
When they build DK tanks, they cry a little inside at how much work they have to do making three trees work for dps and tanking.
So DKs have spent every patch bouncing around, abilities being added, taken away, totally changed … I gave up tanking and just switched to DPS because I simply didn’t care to relearn what to do every patch. If I screw up my DPS rotation at least I’m not getting people killed.
Twitter: Cimegs5088
I’m the MT of an icc25 guild, not top end tho, just done plaguewing, so i can’t really speak for edge cutting pve.
Personally, i did see a slight gap between our single target tps as compare to the current Warrior (i only got a slight upperhand in threat when tanking with my 5.4k gs warrior partner – i’m 5.9k), but even that, i think there’s still area where i could refine to make it better.
In terms of survivability, i had my own systems on splitting our cooldowns into “not significant help but good for long term mitigation” and “oshit button”.
In my frost spec, i have IBF, UA, AMS, and trinks. Usually i’ll pop UA whenever it’s up, and AMS whenever the boss cast a spell (unless he has a multi version spell that i will save for it). IBF and trinks i’ll usually saved it for emergency or boss’s enrage.
In blood tho, i popped Rune Tap whenever i’m less than 50% health, (depends if you have a imp version, for normal version the heals is just not huge enough to be o-shit button, so i’ll just use it whenever it’s up), pop Mark of Blood whenever it’s up, and save trinks and VB for emergency.
In Unholy tho (rarely play unholy, just done some testing recently and that’s about it.), i picked up the normal version Rune Tap, and use it whenever it’s up, and saved Bone Shield, trinks, IBF for critical moments. Popping Bone Shield up whenever it’s off CD isn’t a bad idea too, it’s just that, as unholy, we’re a lil lack of surviveability talents that could assist us in critical moments and turn the tides of the fight around.
After all, i think, initially we’re a class that has op cooldowns, and no matter how they changed and nerfed, at this point our tanking mechanism is still partially based on cooldowns, so management on cooldowns is really the gap between an on par DK tank and a under performing DK.
Do remember that, our class were made to create a more reactive class that has a unique playstyle. If every tree of us play the same as our counterparts in tankage, this game wouldn’t be as fun anymore.
I’m seeing a “partial” benching of DK tanks in ICC 10/25. Not so much raids refusing to run with a DK tank, but certainly a lot of resistance to running more than one DK tank. This is not something I’ve come across with Warriors, Paladins, or Druid tanks at all.
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