PTR Tanking

[Myrcaus]

So I tried a blood build for tanking in Cataclysm, and I must admit I was a bit bewildered by all the changes in the tree.

First off, I had a real problem finding space on my bars for all of the things I need to have. I'm used to having 20-odd binds as a DK, with 6-8 for your normal rotation (the strikes etc) plus utility spells like Chains of Ice, Mind Freeze, Death Grip and so on.

The thing I found baffling as a Blood knight, though, was that you now have access to no less than five separate defensive cooldowns.

You have:

Bone Shield (20% damage reduction, 3 charges. Lasts 5 min, 1 min cooldown)
Dancing Rune Weapon (doubles attacks at half damage, +20% parry. Lasts 12 sec, 1 min cooldown)
Icebound Fortitude (+60% damage reduction, Stun immunity. Lasts 12 sec, 1 min cooldown)
Vampiric Blood (+15% health, +25% healing from all sources. Lasts 10 sec, 1 min cooldown)
Rune Tap (Heals for 15% of current health, 30 sec cooldown)


Bone Shield consumes an Unholy Rune; Dancing Rune Weapon needs 60 Runic Power, and Rune Tap consumes a Blood Rune.

Also, there are two passive effects in play:

Blade Barrier (semi-passive, reduces all damage by 6% for 10 sec when Blood runes are on cooldown)
Will of the Necropolis (when damage takes you below 30%, all damage is reduced by 25% for 8 sec. Also refreshes Rune Tap and grants a Blood Rune. Internal 45 sec. cooldown)


My real question is: do the other tanking classes have as many cooldowns to juggle? Does the high count of cooldowns on short refreshes mean I'm going to be squishy when I *don't* have one available? I remember having to chain cooldowns to stay alive as a DK tank, and I don't look forward to playing that again, especially given the tricky rotation Blood has to live with now.

I think it's going to take me a while to figure out which ability to use when; especially DRW, which requires 60 Runic Power to activate (so it's not a panic button by any means, unless you team it with Empower Rune Weapon, which is on a 5 minute cooldown).

[Acnele]

For saf:

http://img.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/not-good-computer.thumbnail.jpg

[Saectrum]

Paladin Cooldowns:

-Divine Protection (20% dmg reduction) - 1 min cooldown

-Guardian of the ancient Kings (60% damage reduction) - 2 min cooldown (level 85)

-Word of Glory - 18 sec cooldown (will be used less often than 18 seconds as it takes holy power, which is used for shield slam a la pally)

- Holy Shield (+16% block)- applied when using holy power - can be activated every 4.5 seconds, in practice will be every 18 seconds

I have no clue how the warrior and bear work, but I think they are trying to give more flexible tools to the tanks to give them more control of their health.

[Eklef]

Bears:

Frenzied Regeneration: Increases maximum health by and to 30% and converts rage into health for 20 seconds (3 minute cooldown)

Survival Instincts: Decreases all damage taken by 60% for 12 seconds. (5 minute cooldown)

Barkskin: Decreases all damage taken by 20% for 12 seconds. (1 minute cooldown)

Savage Defense: (Passive Effect) Whenever you crit in Bear Form, 50% chance to reduce next physical attack by 75% of your attack power.

I am really wondering why all of the DK cooldowns are so short. Icebound Fortitude and Survival Instincts are going to be essentially the same thing, but SI has a 4 minute longer cooldown? Doesn't make much sense. I think they'll probably end up messing with the tanking cooldowns a lot more (maybe not right away, but once people start to see them in action for Cata raiding). It wouldn't be particularly fun if your classes is balanced around having to constantly juggle your cooldowns to make sure you're not more squishy than other tanks - you wouldn't really have a true cooldown anymore. On the other end, I'm hoping they decrease some of the bear cooldowns, or give us another one. Also not fun to be the guy who just doesn't have anymore buttons to push in an "Oh Shit!" moment.

[Myrcaus]

Turns out I misread DRW; the 50% is the damage you do with the Rune Weapon. It has no incoming damage reduction.

This makes it pretty weak, I think; 20% parry and some increased threat from the damage, for 60 RP.

[Myrcaus]

Also, the Mastery for blood is pretty interesting:

Each time you heal yourself via Death Stike, you gain 50% of the amount healed as a damage absorption shield. Each point of Mastery increases the shield by an additional 6.25%.

Currently, the shield only absorbs physical damage. It's still pretty striking, though. Death Strike heals for 30% of the damage you've sustained over the last 5 seconds, or 10% of your maximum health, whichever is greater. Assuming our DK tank has 50,000 health, a fully talented (+45% healing) DS will place an absorption shield on them good for a minimum of 3625 damage.

On PTR, with 350-ish Mastery Rating, Myrcaus' Death Strike gives him 97% of the heal as the Blood Shield, so I assume we'll be looking at 150% or more by endgame. So... what does this mean?

If we assume our DK tank has 100K health in raid buffs, and takes, say, 45K over 5 seconds, a Death Strike will heal him for 13,500 damage and put a shield up for a realistic minimum of that amount.

[Saectrum]

So I made a premade dk tank on the ptr tonight. I have only gone to the training dummy test some rotations. This one is my aoe rotation that I'll be trying tomorrow. First I pop bone Shield for the damage bonus, and extra mitigation. Every few pulls you can open with DnD, so this rotation starts with it (rotation feels fine without it too). Then its: IT, PS, Pest, and HS and then Blood Boil (for the damage reduction). Hit PS the moment it pops and then use my free Blood boil. This rotation didn't allow me to Death Strike as often, and Festering Strike isn't in the rotation at all (it just doesn't fit). This rotation means refreshing diseases before they pop, and they will each fall off at differing times. I pestilence when the latter disease is about to end. My rotation went heavy on Plague Strike/free Blood Boil, with Heart Strike. My dummy dps was about 2.2k (three level 65 training dummies).

My single target rotation hit at around 2.5-2.7k DPS (didn't test it as long though so it could be RNG, but with a crit so low its unlikely), which focused more heavily on Death Strike, less on making free Blood Boils.

I would have run a heroic but need to sleep. I'll be playing with it tomorrow after work. This rotation feels oddly similar to how prot paladins are in the sense that there is so much free time to auto attack. Just not something I am used to as a tank! I couldn't use Rune Strike, so that will fill in a few GCDs, probably closing up the rotation a little.

[Myrcaus]

Festering Strike is for Unholy. It uses Blood and Frost runes, which leaves an Unholy for a Scourge Strike.

Death Strike doesn't come up often because of the new Rune refresh system, but it's also easy to step on it by using up your Death runes on Heart Strikes - something you really have to watch for.

Once you actually tank something you'll find plenty of GCDs for Rune Strike, and (if your 5 mans are anything like mine) Dark Command and Death Grip every time they're up. Threat was just ... fussy as hell for me. Getting Dark Command is probably a must, as is Virulence, unless you can gear up to the spell hit cap. It's not certain at this point, but the tooltip on Virulence seems to suggest they are expanding the interpretation of what is and is not a Death Knight "spell" (it now says anything that isn't a direct weapon strike, which would seem to include a lot more than what hits on the spell table today).

I'm hoping that once you can level up through 83 and get the points into Morbidity, Death Coil will be useful as a ranged attention-getter. In the 5mans I've done, I haven't had much free RP to use it, though. Tanking multiples pretty much lets me fill all the free GCDs with Rune Strikes.

Oh, and using PS to power a free BB is basically trading an Unholy rune for a Blood - which can be a good thing, and may not be, depending on where you are in the rotation. The general thought is that if Runic Empowerment procs an Unholy rune, use PS to get a free BB or HS from it - that is, unless you have a Frost, in which case you'll want to use it on DS instead.

[Sol]

in wotlk, warrior prot tanks have a bajillion buttons to push. there are a sick number of useful abilities and cooldowns.

I was identifying all the useful abilities and came up with over 12.

[Shaidarharan]

all i can say is i like what i am seeing in beta so far
haven't had a chance to try any tanking yet