5.4 Blood DKs: Avoidance or Mastery?

[Hoboverlord 1]

Since 5.4 I've begun gemming for avoidance rather than Mastery due to Scent of Blood now proccing off of dodges and parries. However, while I have not had time to compare survivability, I have been generating so much Runic Power that I often come close to capping on RP, Runes, and Blood Tap stacks simultaneously. It's actually pretty scary and I sometimes begin tunneling so that I don't end up wasting anything. I'm wondering if regemming for Mastery will avoid this but I'm not sure what the difference in survivability is. I'm able to consistently DS on CD with 3-4 stacks of Scent of Blood which is the equivalent of casting DS with 1-2 stacks and 300-400% mastery. Also, while I never miss a GCD, the risk of wasting resources is heavy on my mind and I'd like to avoid tunneling. Any thoughts?

Edited October 10, 2013 by Hoboverlord

[Ceraius 34]

 I'm able to consistently DS on CD with 3-4 stacks of Scent of Blood which is the equivalent of casting DS with 1-2 stacks and 300-400% mastery.

 

That just isn't true :P

 

While the SoB stacks do increase the amount a DS heals they do not have any effect on the following shield. That is still based on the healing of DS before it takes SoB into account.

[Hoboverlord 1]

That just isn't true

 

While the SoB stacks do increase the amount a DS heals they do not have any effect on the following shield. That is still based on the healing of DS before it takes SoB into account.

 

Ah, didn't know that. So I should go mastery?

[Ceraius 34]

Thats a question of preference I'd say. Full on mastery can have a pretty big shield up per DS, but your style nets you a whole lot of resources, which means smaller shields but more of them. On top of that Riposte converts all that avoidance into crit, giving you a better damage dealing edge.

 

There's the question of RNG with avoidance though. You either avoid a hit or you don't, whereas heavy mastery build is more reliable in terms of damage reduction and available "on command." (Which is why I personally prefer heavy mastery.)

[Theharbinger 1]

That just isn't true

 

While the SoB stacks do increase the amount a DS heals they do not have any effect on the following shield. That is still based on the healing of DS before it takes SoB into account.

This statement is not true at all. You just need to attack a training dummy to see that the SoB affecting the heal of DS does indeed affect the shield you get.

[Ceraius 34]

Rly? At least they didn't use to affect the shield, and I dont recall seeing notes of such change. Gotta look into it.

[Storm 426]

I've mostly stepped down from hardcore heroic raiding, but at least from what I have seen in normal there is once again little to no threat of a DK tank dying on at least 10 of the 14 bosses.

 

Mastery is still our best survival stat, but if you aren't going to die anyways then there isn't really a reason to worry about more survival, unless your healers need some extra help. Off the top of my head though I can't think of a fight that I can't last at least 30 seconds without getting a heal if I need to.

 

So the real question is do you:

A.) Take dodge/parry and get the extra crit from riposte, and also as you've pointed out a ton of RP from the extra scent of blood procs. (This hasn't seemed significant for me against a single target, but when tanking multiple targets I too have noticed I almost generate RP faster than I can use it, and I only have about 7% dodge, and 28% parry unbuffed)

 

or B.) keep tanking in DPS gear like a lot of us were throughout ToT.

[Ceraius 34]

This statement is not true at all. You just need to attack a training dummy to see that the SoB affecting the heal of DS does indeed affect the shield you get.

 

Turns out you are right. I've had confirmation on this myself now also, and my apologies for the misleading information.

Edited October 15, 2013 by Ceraius

[Lunsj 0]

So I take it mixing both mastery with avoidance, looking for middle ground, would be bad and it's just better to go one or the other? Since Avoidance now gives us DPS stats, and then mastery is still there as a buffer for bad RNG luck? Just a thought I had out of nowhere.

[Reniat 23]

There really isnt any reason that mixing would be bad. most people just go 100% one way or the other, but theres nothing wrong with middle ground. You will do less damage than a full avoidance build but more than a full mastery build, but you will be less RNG dependent than a pure avoidance build and slightly more RNG dependent than a full mastery build. 

[Failhard 2]

Mastery and Scent of blood both effect the size of the shield you get from DS, the important thing to note is the shield itself from DS is not based of damage done. The heal from DS is 20% of the dmg you took in the last 5 seconds (non player dmg), so if you have avoided the damage by say dodging and parrying your heal is much smaller. Scent of blood increases the healing and damage by 20% for each stack on the deathstrike ability and is proced by "a chance" from dodge/parry/melee swings.

Note: 100k DS and resulting shield with scent of blood unmodified by mastery and damage recieved*

 

 

 

Its the actual mastery for blood that shields you for 50% of the ammount healed by DS.  So the question is really: Which is higher the shields from straight mastery and getting punched in the face, taking hundreds of thousands of damage, for a sure fire bigger shield?  The bonus healing/dmg of 20% per stack if you can ever get them? Well the answers are it depends and its complicated.  My given chart above does not factor in the reality that you won't get 5 stacks of scent of blood with out taking damage.  Somewhere in that stacking phase or rune cooldown phase you are going to get hit. period.   This is going to boost the shield you get additively with your existing shield and inflate the numbers.  That's just one possability, here are a few more.

 

Possability 1: you spam DS on cooldown and mash buttons all the time.   Well if this is how you play, then next level gamimg of avoidance streaks and using DS only after you've taken or will take some hits is not for you.  You should probably just go mastery or use the highest item level thing you can find.  Remember kids 535 items are auto-better than 528 items!  Joking about hilariously bad stats from timeless isle garbage aside, you can actually do this and succeed.  Additive shield stacking and high mastery values enable you to essentially keep rolling a shield and good heals.

 

Possability 2:

 

According to what i read at on wowwiki and EJ, 600 mastery rating is 1% 885 dodge, 885 parry is 1% 915 str also converts to 1% parry.  This is important as I will now be pretending to use the best DK on my server, who just so happens to be blood. And I'm pretty sure posted in this thread up there.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/ysera/Theharbinger/advanced

 

He has

29% parry

10% dodge

244% mastery

I'm also going to guess he doesnt use DS with out at least 3 scent of blood stacks which he generates very rapidly because he has 29 frickn parry chance.

 

 

So basically you should get enough mastery and stam to survive and keep a shield rolling.  Then add as much dps as you can to the fight by being hit/exp capped and letting the str to parry conversion take care of your avoidance.

 

*EDIT* charts didnt post as well as they looked in preview will fix later.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Failhard

[Tarazet 144]

With the sheer amount of healing output that all of the classes can deliver now, stacking Stamina is also viable. You don't have to worry about being a mana sponge, given that all healers pretty much have infinite mana with the LMG. Stam results in the smoothest apparent damage intake. But, it's likely this approach would be overkill for anything but 25H raiding and it doesn't seem that you are doing any heroic content at least on this character.

 

I play a class (Guardian Druid) that is very much an avoidance tank and wish I had alternate options for survival that aren't just keeping my avoidance buff up, but in our case, that's pretty much it. The fact is, high-avoidance tanks tend to be very good as off-tanks, since they are more effective when the RNG is balanced out by a higher frequency of hits. On the flip side, they tend to have problems with hard-hitting bosses and the raid will need a mitigation tank to make up for their weakness in that department.

[Teldae 1]

My blood DK I've opted to reforge for mastery and gem for stamina. The result is 1.1mil health and 165% Mastery with raid buffs and my current gear (549 equipped). There are a few crucial abilities that rely on %maxhp, including the minimum healing for Death Strike, then Anti-Magic Shell and Rune Tap. Locks' healthstones also restore %maxhp. I've found that the dodge and parry from my tanking gear still gives enough avoidance during add fights that I have a constant stream of RP generation, and the health and mastery enables me to tank raid bosses with ease even after a healer dies. On our last Sha of Pride kill, I had the lowest damage taken out of everybody there, simply due to large self-shielding. (Build a shield while other tank is tanking, upon taking taunt back, boss has to plough through 1.1mil shield before getting to me, and I'm still adding onto the shield constantly.) From log analysis, I've found that the majority of all healing done on me, is by me. Even more than the healers (not combined, individual contribution). Most I've done so far is 55% by me, and the rest from healers.

 

My 2 cents :-)