408 on my blood DK and struggle to not get one shot in a 19 fort while my 406 paladin was doing 20s with little issue. Just swapped to purguation to try to survive that crap but its just ridiculous full HP with boneshield up and SPLAT one shot by void slash on 19 shadowmoon. There’s too many one shot mechanics this expansion or blood DK has too low EHP atm. Like that would probably only do like 20% of my paladin’s hp but it does 100% of my blood DKs.
So Boneshield is just extra armor. Void Slash is shadow damage, bypassing armor.
That’s a tank buster for ya, requiring a defensive if you’re gonna take it to the face. Paladins have better magic mitigations innately it seems, which is why you’re seeing such a big difference
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Ye already used my vampiric and magic sheild so i guess its more of a DPS issue not getting them down fast enough. Ye teh paladin takes drastically less dmg from everything like 1/4th teh dmg seemingly.
Hmmm, can’t relate but i’ve been running rune tap a lot in 18+ keys, foul bulwark could help a bit too.
Most tank busters from trash mobs can be avoided by doing something called “back stepping”. If you can move out melee range before the cast finishes, the ability will fail and go on cooldown. Works with most dungeon mobs, including the ones you mentioned.
hmm? i tried that void slash can hit you from like 10 yards away at least and so can dark claw on temple.
you gotta kite em. dnd 90% slow. drw + bb spam to keep aggro while running for your life. Does it feel good? not really, but it’s what you’ve gotta do.
This is just specifically for the void slashes. other dungeons just stepping out works fine
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If you are using Crusader rune, dont. Go Gargoyle and i think you will feel the difference.
Ye kinda lame imo when prot warr/paladin can just stand there and shrug them off like nothing.
Dark claw can definitely be outranged its the intended way to tank those packs
Never ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER suggest backpedaling as a way to avoid a mechanic! It is quite literally one of the worst habits to develop, and one of the hardest to break if you get too into the habit of doing it.
Backpedaling is literally just walking backwards at half speed. 9 times out of 10 it won’t get enough distance, and whatever is in your face will just stay in your face if they chase you (this is why hunters that backpedal constantly are pretty much free kills in PvP if Disengage and all their good movement abilities are on cooldown)
Assuming you haven’t rebinded the keys, just use Q/E to strafe side to side and quickly turn yourself with your mouse as this will keep you at top speed. If the attacking mob stays in place for the incoming attack, this is far more reliable for getting out of the way of short range attacks. If the mob is chasing, Chains/Death’s Advance will generally get you the distance you actually need.
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God no i’m not saying to backpedal, it’s as you said turning your camera to the side and strafing is the fastest way to get out of range.
408 can feel a bit undergeared on fortified week. But I’ll add that you’re missing a ton of free stamina:
- Chest enchant offers a str/stam option
- Leg offers a str/stam option
- Boots offers a stam option
There are also some other issues:
- Wrist and Cape offer better leech options (regenerative leech and devotion of leech)
- Rings offer more stats (devotion)
If you still feel squishy, you can also pick the Stam/Stat gems. They’re like 3g each and can make the difference between proccing purgatory and living with 99% health.
DK has very little actual mitigation, so the way to survive some tank busters is to just be at 100% health right before they hit. In some cases, additional CDs will be required just to not get an overkill (even at 100% health).
Most of the time you’ll be taking a mix of physical and magical damage. The void slash section of Shadowmoon is an example of that. You use the physical damage on your blood shield to get beefy death strikes and keep you topped for the magical void slash. If your health is not at 100%, then you pop a CD when you see them start casting.
You also have an AoE disorient to the left of the DK class tree. If you see multiple void slashes coming at the same time, that can make them stop. This works great everywhere else, too. Most of the tank busters that can be interrupted will also enter their cooldown when they are interrupted. I don’t remember if void slash is one of those because it’s the only one I never had an issue with, but interrupting piercing shards on vault is just very very important.
EDIT: The void slash can be interrupted by stuns/displacement/blinding sleet and they will not cast it again immediately. It can also be parried, and I noticed I parry it a lot, which is probably why I never had issues with it, since I always have Dancing Rune Weapon for these two pulls. Each one is ~300k unmitigated, so you can survive up to two getting through at ~600k HP. Up to 20 should be fine to handle it all through grip/sleet/cd, but probably something you want to coordinate stuns for at higher levels.
It’s the best way to kite the tank shredders on Halls of Valor. Their frontal has very short range, you have very little room, and less movement = more dps time. Walking backwards is also very predictable (specially since you will have to turn upon reaching the wall), so it results in less DPS splat by the frontals.
But that really is the 1 out of 10, everything else should be strafed.
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I changed my talent build to include foul bullwark and umbiliculs fraternitus and purguation, my dps took a very small hit but I haven’t died since, yeah teh wowhead/icy veins talent guides really do focus on max DPS only and not survivability at all. I did a 20 and even a 21 today with no issues at all. Teh 21 was a flop because half way through teh healer just disconnected for no reason at all and never came back even though everything was going well. but ty for tell me abt thos enchants, got some of teh cheaper stam ones for like 20k more max hp which could be a big difference.
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Ya, is it just me or do those guides seem assume you’re healer is doing everything for you, or that your extra 1k dps is going to be what fails to time the key.
I’d much rather feel safer pulling larger groups (that actual dps get more dps out of) then having to kite everything 50% of the time. Also, if we’re having to kite to survive what’s the point of even having that extra damage on heart strike we’re out of range for?
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Most of the time you really don’t need the defensives, because BDK is either dead or self-sufficient with very little inbetween (at most you want external DR to survive because the tank buster is coming and you’re all out of DRs). So even if you sacrifice a few of the defensive talents for damage, they are almost free, since you’re able to heal for all damage you take.
There are some execution problems that can be alleviated with the defensive talents. Like Improved Vampiric Blood means you get to time VB a little less tighly/efficiently on encounters, while more points in Red Thirst means you get that safety net far more often (so instead of having it for every third tank buster, maybe you get on every second tank buster, which means you don’t have to be as perfect with your other CDs).
There are some defensives which are a bit trickier, such as Rune Tap: they might as well be mandatory on high enough keys (to turn a one shot into a 99% HP hit), but at any other situation you’d benefit more from, say, the extra RP generated through Heartbreaker (more rp = more death strike = more healing = less dead).
DKs are the weird tank in that it doesn’t really matter how much damage you’re taking, so long as it doesn’t kill you faster than you can Death Strike it out. If you’re on 200k DTPS, you’re probably also doing 200k HPS. So defensives are only useful up until the point they stop you from dying, but have no benefit beyond that.
I don’t think any of our talents let us avoid kiting entirely. But we only need to kite one shots, and because those are kitable, their damage is tuned high enough that they will kill you through any talents. Either way, we can probably avoid kiting at least up to 20s with good CD usage. Maybe not the trash in Halls of Valor - Mortal Hew breaks our legs while Breach Armor does our heads in.
But imo DKs get to kite less than other tanks, it’s just that at some point things overkill you from 100% health due to us having very little mitigation - hence Rune Tap becoming important at that point, and also why kiting avoidable busters is important, at least once we stop having the health to DS right after they hit.
Except for when tanks turn their back and get 1 tapped white hit from behind. I love those moments 
.
There’s nothing wrong with backpedaling in PvE
it’s more of a dps issue not getting them down fast enough.
You complain that bone shield didn’t save you from a pure magical tank buster hit, then blame it on your dps that you let yourself get one shot.
Maybe play a less important role to match your baby attitude lmao
Never ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER suggest backpedaling as a way to avoid a mechanic!
This is actually incredibly untrue for tanking, I promise if you ask any top m+ tank they will say there are absolutely times where backpedaling is useful
This is correct. But yeah dk kinda blows in higher keys keep on keeping on with that brew. Watched dorki staggered 1mil dmg at a time in a 25, blood would get 1 shot up there
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I would play BrM even if it was the worst tank spec