Why Tank Damage Matters And How To Improve It (Blood DK) | Cataclysm Classic

[@andreaskvaloy]

My experience is that you can never be tanky enough to drop a healer... Instead, how many healers you need depends on how good the rest of your raid is, I mean how good they are at avoiding/mitigating damage, and how good your healers are. With that in mind, why not go for extra damage after you are tanky enough to survive?

[@SubtleFW]

Great vid! Dk disc is gonna be so mad

[@Riyaniwow]

Thanks bud! This vid was the reason I wanted to talk about it on the pod this week. Watching the debate right now and it's excellent tea.

[@ShrEddie3]

@@SubtleFW dk disc is hilarious. I'm so tired of people saying tank parses don't matter as a guise to cover up poor play. A tank can be a huge gain to a raid if he is skilled

[@SubtleFW]

@@ShrEddie3 it's just a lot easier to say something doesn't matter than learn how to do it

[@Lotuswalker]

In a 25 man environment the Tank DPS is way less impactful than in a 10 man environment. In a 10 man Raid, every DPS point counts. And optimising Tank DPS is always the best approach

[@1859ddd]

Our 357ilvl blood DK is having a hard time keeping agro on our heroic Halfus attempts. I'm a 358ilvl fire mage and I have even counted to 10 full seconds after releasing the whelps and the two drakes. I open after 10 seconds and even if I don't combust for 100+ k dps numbers once my living bomb goes off I kept ripping agro off of him and getting one shot by one or two of the drakes. This shouldn't be happening right? He should be able to hold the agro correct? What might be happening?

[@Riyaniwow]

No it should not be happening- if he struggles, tell him to use the dancing rune weapon glyph and pop DRW before he dnd; not that it should be needed, though.

[@Lordturisas1]

I struggled at first. It's really hard to keep track of what the dragons are doing while watching Halfus stacks. It's all about the opener and maintaining aggro for enough RP to use DRW with DND. Once those are down, you have unlimited threat.

[@xerosum2060]

@@treepop9907 Its a dev problem because you want to focus on damage rather than actual tanking? Weird devs would make tanks actually tank instead of parsing... this whole vid is just ridiculously bad lol

[@LeprosuGnome]

@@xerosum2060 it's just a lot easier to say something doesn't matter than learn how to do it

[@alianthus997]

Let’s goooo. Been waiting on this vid.

[@donmeo-ne4gw]

mate i saw your videos about blood DK and i saw that u focus on haste stat alongside 8% hit and 25 exp could you please let us know wt are the gems that we gonnan need and wt enchants we will be using because based on ur videos its a whole transformation for wt we know about blood DK's

[@Modelicco]

is there any bis list for tank dps build

[@francescotrepiccioni]

hey really nice video, I'm a bit triggered by the fact that in heroic dangeons I can tank really easily but yesterday doing my normal raid of 10 I felt completely useless, in the raid there was also a tank paladin with me who even though with less ilvl he could tank much better

[@TheSpikeszz]

Would love a full blown parsing vid! Keep it up 💪

[@roujin518]

Any chance you got a video to improve bear dmg? I usually get in the 80 parses, but would like to try to improve that.

[@Riyaniwow]

I have raided a bit on my feral this expansion, but I'm personally not enjoying myself with it. Don't know about too much tech rotation-wise, but I feel like it primarily comes down to your gearing and how much time you can catweave and how good you actually are at pressing your spells as a cat and proper Berserker usage. A lot of DPS can be gained by swapping a few talents around from the cookie-cutter tank build, so you can play around with the sims there as well. The feral discord usually has some rather solid information. I'm probably going to invest a bit more time into the feral later on, but is unfortunately not my priority right now :(

[@nogunk147]

Would have been more helpful if you went in depth about how we can change our rotation and ability usage to opt for hgher dps over sustain

[@Riyaniwow]

Absolutely-- doing a full video breaking down rotation, gearing, and fight specific tips. Should be out next week.

[@zehulk12]

Should we use strength flask instead of Stam? Thank you!

[@Riyaniwow]

Str flask is very limited value over stam- but if you want to parse and you can survive without griefing, why not!

[@MadProgger]

well it's only like around 150 AP (mb even less) over stam flask.

[@Variia]

If your healers are on point im sure this is valid, but a lot of the time i'm holding death strikes on certain bosses to heal/shield after a big hit. Im losing casts over the entire fight by doing that, but it gives more survivability. Might become less of an issue with more gear, but if i just press buttons for dps i feel significantly squishier.

[@Dewwwwvwvwvw]

in all honesty,this just sounds your healers are pushing wrong buttons,not even that they might be healing too little. healers should never focus heal tanks in cata,every healer has some sort of aoe heal and every healing class has a very specific role they should follow or else they will just do badly. discs have pom/atonement/prayer of healing(the best heal they have and the most used spell and this applies both hot AND a massive shield on the entire party they cast it on) which will constantly pounce from dps to tank,and they even have shield to throw to tanks for free mana every 12 seconds. tanks are also the best target to use penance on cd to procc 4set/grace/inspiration. can also throw the free flash heal procs on them without them going to waste on some dps who is already full hp. resto druids have hots everywhere,just everywhere,theyre going to have some hots on the tanks at some point. rshamans have earth shield,who is a better target than the tanks? no one,they also have healing spring,which will constantly pulse to heal the tank. they also have chain heal as smart heal,goign to hit tank sometimes when the tank is low. hpalas are aoe healing madness and have beacon,ofc beacon goes to tank,otherwise youre just wasting gcds reapplying it. they also apply constant shields. now,who should target heal a tank when they get low? that is always the disc priest with penance/using heals to lower inner focus cd+to reduce weakened soul debuff+apply inspiration or hpala with holyshock or in emergency you can have rshaman drop massive heals because of their mastery/inspiration.

[@Variia]

​@@Dewwwwvwvwvw you're aware theres more than one tank on 12/13 bosses?

[@Dewwwwvwvwvw]

@@Variia shouldnt be a problem on any boss,i never felt our feral or bdk being squishy on any boss at any part of progression,and i played disc priest. ive progged/killed every boss on hc during multiple diff weeks. raid healing is always the hps check not tanks dying in 5 seconds, just go for what ever gives most mitigation,not ehp if you care about tankyness from healer pov.

[@Variia]

​@@Dewwwwvwvwvw i didnt feel squishy either, because i was using death strikes when they were needed instead of for dps. Thats what this entire conversation is about

[@tupacshakur5868]

@@Variia probably gear issue, I cant recall having trouble maximising dps, the only external healing i ever received was rejuvination.

[@Cazzperr100]

Hey there, im currently looking for a optimized stat list somewhere but im unable to find one, what hit/Expertise are you going for? My addon is removing all my exp when I reforge, do you cap it at 26% and hit at 8?

[@deceivedonegaming6105]

Get hitcap , expertise is almost usless, then go mastery or haste for secondary

[@Riyaniwow]

If you aren't struggling with survivability, then hit 8 and expertise 26 before focusing on mastery or haste. Stam is king generally though, but there's usually never any trade-off between primary and secondary stats.

[@Phreakkie]

Doing me dirty at 0:26 only 75 parse cuz add damage don't count smh

[@Riyaniwow]

Just ignore adds and hope no one notices of course!

[@Variia]

yo phreakkie you ended up playing cata afterall?

[@Phreakkie]

@@Variia that was always the plan 🙂

[@tupacshakur5868]

Former world rank 1 Blood dk (Cataclysm :26/28 Rank 1 parse at the same time): Survival might not be a problem but there is not much value in sacing the 4p tankset, having more defstats allows for greedier play in some situations. go for hit/expertise softcap and use damage gems/damage trinkets/damage flask/damage pots. In all honesty, the only thing that people probably dont utilize when going for damage is proper vengeance stacking. You need to have a feeling for numbers, i used to jump in boss fights and rapidly turn my character model so i get hit in the back from time to time to maximize vengeance. Definetly use fallen crusader and dont buy armor pots they are shit.

[@notted3]

after get DPS tier 4set bonus then use coil instead RS?

[@Riyaniwow]

No you still use RS

[@notted3]

@@Riyaniwow So use DPS 2p is just for stats?

[@Riyaniwow]

@@notted3 Yep

[@DontDoItJimmy]

Whats the opener with the claim of 40-60k opener?

[@NegativeOne7337]

Chuck Death and Decay down, then Outbreak - Pestilence > Death Strike > Dancing Rune Weapon, Blood Boil > Heart Strike etc etc....Literally with my iLVL at 306...Im hitting 20k + a little here and there

[@Riyaniwow]

Army 7-8 sec pre-pull, horn, str pot, DS, HS, DRW, DS, HS, ERW, DS, HS, DS, RS, HS, RS into normal rotation. 40k+ is assuming lust on pull.

[@coachfloyd1904]

@@Riyaniwow when you popping the on use strength trinkets for opener?

[@DontDoItJimmy]

@@Riyaniwow Ahhhh alright. I had been using Army defeensively, so I had to DS - Heart - DS - Heart, DRW - DS - Heart etc. I shall try pre pull

[@Riyaniwow]

@@coachfloyd1904 Macro with DRW

[@richardely2079]

please do a full parse video

[@Riyaniwow]

Thinking I'll come out with that next week sometime.

[@Riyaniwow]

It's now out!

[@jespersandstrom5771]

Allways fun to do more dps then to lowest dps in the raid ;) (pls dont nerf blood dk)

[@lolleonlolable]

prepotting armour who does that xd ?

[@Riyaniwow]

You’d be surprised

[@notted3]

what about trinket? use double heart too? i rly impressed thos vid. and now i wonder i can gearing DPS items in every slot and gems. then we can save a lot of gold and time. all we need just push N.

[@Mediiiicc]

How am i supposed to get easy 99 parses when you guys are informing everyone how to git gud 😂

[@Riyaniwow]

I deeply apologize

[@chl2161]

True... I've seen very few videos bringing that up and we know Cata brought the "Tank DMG" importance. People follow guides blindly. Sadly, Cata is a shade of what it was with raids released post nerf. There's very few survivability bosses, healers ending encounters with nearly half of the mana left. So yeah, if you play as DK, gear for the damn dps.

[@beiggo21]

The raids ARE NOT post nerf. People need to stop spewing out misinformation. They are post FIX. The raid would be easy af even on heroic if it was post nerf...

[@alianthus997]

Don’t release the full parse vid, dONT SHARE OUR SECRETS.

[@Riyaniwow]

We can't gatekeep!

[@alianthus997]

@@Riyaniwow 😂😂 I’m just messing anyway. Looking forward to it, maybe I’ll learn a thing or 2 from it! Can I get in touch with you on disc or something? I’m also really into WoW tank parsing / tanking in general. I think we could have some fascinating conversation! :D

[@Riyaniwow]

@@alianthus997 Always down to answer any questions. Personally not super into parsing, I just like to provide as much value as I can (and yes, sometimes doing big numbers can be kind of fun). Riyaniwow on disc if you want to shoot a message.

[@themotherfdude8891]

Nope. Tank job is to get hit and be in the correct positions. That’s it. Anything extra is just extra.

[@Riyaniwow]

Ofc that's the biggest priority; but it's not like they are mutually exclusive.

[@brandonkruse6412]

Incorrect, depending on which version of the game you play. Post-Wrath tanks are damage dealers and Blizzard has designed boss health with tank damage in mind. In modern WoW, tank damage = survivability.

[@Touchmyguitar]

Tank in cataclysm is so easy and boring that you can at least try to make some decent dmg so reduce the kill time

[@BlindGuardian050]

Typical smooth brain dps take

[@kitsuneman3]

Tank damage doesn’t matter. You holding threat? You not dying? You tanking in the right spot? Then you’re good. Parsing has ruined mmos

[@xerosum2060]

100% this! Vids like this encourage bad tanks to try to parse and piss off healers, instead of actually realizing a tank is there to actually tank..

[@notafortnitegamer]

If I could go back in time, I would make a change so that death knight NEVER became a playable class

[@LethalDarknessHD]

cringe

[@notafortnitegamer]

@@LethalDarknessHDbroken class, rotation: slam head into keyboard. Not my fault y’all are too dumb to play LITERALLY anything else lol!

[@brandonkruse6412]

Didn’t know a dev was in the comments. High Ghostcrawler!

[@notafortnitegamer]

@@brandonkruse6412 yea i got hired at blizzard last week because I said i was trans and hate the orange man... crazy right?

[@acillius2]

As a healer, I could care less how much you can heal or damage that you can deal, first be good at surviving then do all that. Healing tank damage is easy this expansion.

[@Riyaniwow]

Surviving is the first priority ofc, no denying that.

[@nogunk147]

Warped thinking. You realize that if your overall raid damage sucks. Bosses die slower meaning boss stays alive longer meaning boss does more overall damage meaning more likely healers tap or people die. Why would you not care how well the people youre healing are doing lol

[@acillius2]

@@nogunk147 How is it warped thinking? If the dps are doing their job then I could careless how much damage a tank is doing, your damage is damn near irrelevant . If the boss is dying and the dps are doing good damage then who cares how much a tank does, it does not matter since it will only shave off 5 - 10 seconds of a fight, literally a pointless argument if you think it is "warped thinking" to not give a shit how much a tank does for dps.

[@ShrEddie3]

It's cata.. tank dps matters

[@acillius2]

@@ShrEddie3 no, it does not.