[WoW] 3.1 - Ulduar

[Palum]

Originally Posted by Blumpster

Also, why are DKs classified as Pure DPS? They can tank. Warriors are hybrids but DKs aren't? They need to figure out their class role balance again because it's starting to get wonky.

They really aren't besides perhaps 1-2 culprit talents/abilities, it's just a case of Blizzard's fixes to the blood tree having essentially made its 'niche' high dps cases standard fare in Ulduar. Packs of 2-4 mobs or high burst damage situations with little to no movement or scaling buff fights = blood paradise, which is pretty much all Ulduar is except for bosses which suck for mostly everyone.

[spronk]

I wobble between my DK and my mage and I think my DK is more fun to play now and will continue to be better. Just a lot more ways to stay alive it feels on my DK, not to mention the tiny trickle of self-healing in blood is just huge on many ulduar fights. Don't get me wrong, I love my mage, he's got something ridiculous like 6k achievement points and almost all 219/226 gear, but its getting harder and harder to improve DPS even with big gear upgrades (FUCK ULDUAR GEAR AND HIT) whereas my DK is just growing leaps and bounds with every gear upgrade (frost tank and unholy DPS, all 213 gear). I'll beat most casters on ulduar25 boss fights except Hodir/Mimiron and I don't have to worry about running oom or using gems.

Feral DPS is definitely very OP right now, it just goes back again to the mediocore feral player will be average but a really good feral DPSer is insane. I'm sure 3.12 has some stealth feral nerfs in it anyways, Blizzard doesn't let one class get the upper hand in PVE for very long.

[Kidriot69]

Ugh..I fell back into WoW. Havent played since...Its first year of launch, so I should be in for a shit storm. Going on Crushridge, with an 80 priest, mainly for PvP with my room mate, but will enjoi some good lore and grinding out achievements.

I sure hope they start developing more hero classes, ala DK. They should have really done it W3 style. Like a Dwarf Paladin would be a Mountain King, Undead Mage would be a Lich (or variation of), Orc Warrior or Rogue could be a Blademaster. Stuff like that.

Oh well, here comes a subtle addiction.

[Erumaron]

Originally Posted by Kidriot69

Ugh..I fell back into WoW. Havent played since...Its first year of launch, so I should be in for a shit storm. Going on Crushridge, with an 80 priest, mainly for PvP with my room mate, but will enjoi some good lore and grinding out achievements.

I sure hope they start developing more hero classes, ala DK. They should have really done it W3 style. Like a Dwarf Paladin would be a Mountain King, Undead Mage would be a Lich (or variation of), Orc Warrior or Rogue could be a Blademaster. Stuff like that.

Oh well, here comes a subtle addiction.

Heh...alliance or horde?

[Aria]

What kind of stats am I looking for to start tanking heroics on my DK? Got the 535 Defense, about 22k HP unbuffed, all my avoidance stuff is around 15%. What should I work on?

I know I can enchant some HP in there, but what else?

[TheYanger]

That's far more than enough to tank heroics...that's enough to start in Naxx really.

[Zerai]

Yeah, your stats are quite good for starting. If you can throw a bit more hp in there, it's nice. Makes your healers job a bit easier to give them a bigger buffer if you get an unlucky avoidance streak.

[Aria]

Cool, it's nice being almost naxx ready considering I hit 80 two days ago

[Narac01]

Originally Posted by Aria

What kind of stats am I looking for to start tanking heroics on my DK? Got the 535 Defense, about 22k HP unbuffed, all my avoidance stuff is around 15%. What should I work on?

I know I can enchant some HP in there, but what else?

I started with about 25k hps, 25k armor and 540 defense. You don't need nearly that much, but I was afraid of trying to tank heroics, so I picked up titansteel armor + enchants + some factioned items that took me way over the top.

On a side note, on my first run through H AN i picked up an essence of gossamer + ancient aligned girdle and legplates of the infinite drakonid from my first H CoS.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Aria

Cool, it's nice being almost naxx ready considering I hit 80 two days ago

Well it's still low for naxx25 imo, but it's decent enoguh for heroics, really once you're at the def cap it's ok to run heroics, just avoid the really shitty ones(Old Kingdom, Occulus, timed Strat too since a shitty tank will prevent from completing it if your DPS slack too much) and farm the easy ones when you can. Aim for these epics too, VH is a must to do everyday, it's fast, usually easy unless you get the shadow or the light balls guys and the legs are like BiS until tierset or maybe some random crap from naxx, at least back when I was gearing up. Also some good tanking stuff from Wyrmrest rep, like up to revered I think, you get cloak and boots and something else iirc, but been some time.

In general though, unless you're a terribad player, you can do heroics right from the moment you hit 80, they're that easy. For tanks it might take a bit more to def cap, but still rather easy to do nowadays with enchants and so on, and lots of room for improvement after that. Healers could probably run heroics at like lvl 75 if they could zone in, and I've done heroics with such shitty DPS I don't think being 80 would be better than having a well geared 70, again if they could enter. K maybe not 70 but still I've done some heroics with people doing less than 1k DPS, I can do more than that pressing a /castsequence macro on any class.

[TheYanger]

Not too low. I wasn't even crit immune the first week in Naxx, had like 20k unbuffed hp, it was fine. It's probably too low if you're going on scrub alt pugs, but with real healers and dps and shit it's fine.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by TheYanger

Not too low. I wasn't even crit immune the first week in Naxx, had like 20k unbuffed hp, it was fine. It's probably too low if you're going on scrub alt pugs, but with real healers and dps and shit it's fine.

Yeah but it was a guild run, with like minded people in the first week of wotlk. You wouldn't get anywhere close to naxx nowadays with such gear, even in a guild people would argue they can find a better tank pretty much anywhere(which wouldn't be untrue). Don't even get me started on pug asking you for full achievements and tons of epics for invites. It's doable but the probability of running naxx in crittable gear nowadays is very very low.

[mek]

Originally Posted by Aria

What kind of stats am I looking for to start tanking heroics on my DK? Got the 535 Defense, about 22k HP unbuffed, all my avoidance stuff is around 15%. What should I work on?

I know I can enchant some HP in there, but what else?

Defense cap is all you need to tank heroics. And thanks to Stoneskin Gargoyle, it's hilariously easy to have def cap the second you ding 80 as a DK. (I do it in dps spec to speed it up and help with aoe'ing everything down.) Just use IBF/AMS constantly, heh. I'd stack HP until you get to 30k unbuffed (not hard for a DK) and then start worrying about avoidance. Your goal for entering uld-10 should be 50% dodge + parry, 30k unbuffed hp, and defense cap, easily achieved in a couple weeks of raiding.

If you start tanking ulduar, you will want two sets of tanking gear: a max stamina set for magic damage heavy encounters, and a max avoidance set for physical damage heavy encounters (hi Vezax). TBH the first half of Ulduar post-nerf isn't a big difference in tank damage from Naxx-25, though. First real gear check in there now is Hodir.

If you haven't figured out your professions, mining/JC is amazing. Makes you money and adds serious tank stats.

[Modo Icecrown]

I'd say to actually shoot for enough EH to take two hits from anything serious, then cap avoidance from there. Don't disregard armor in this department. Dk's are imba.

And if you're minmaxing tradeskills, go blacksmithing/jewelcrafting over mining/jc.

[mek]

BS/JC is so close to Mining/JC that I think it's pointless because levelling BS is horrible and it has zero moneymaking potential. You can level mining and JC at the same time, it's not that bad, and then you can get Enchanting to 300 on an alt with all the shitty rings you made.

Mining = 500 hp, BS = 2 gems = 48 stamina, the only benefit is that BS can give you defense or dodge instead, a little added flexibility.

BS/JC is definitely superior for a dps class, though. If/when epic gems drop, they might cut into the value of Prismatics, and add to the value of 2 sockets. Then Mining/BS might actually be superior. But who knows.