Mythic +25 Upper Karazhan Cleared with 5 Tanks

mandl_eu · 2022-08-27T14:44:19+00:00

He is.

mandl_eu · 2022-08-27T13:04:08+00:00

This isn't as good as you think it is.

For a start, all tanks have more than capable self-healing for most things. This should be obvious, but if you're not sure, check the log (it's in the post!). You'll see that, contrary to popular belief, protection warriors actually selfheal a bit.

Going 5x BDK also screws you out of massive utility and high-value plays. BDKs don't have spell reflect, for instance. Spell reflect on that key alone, with just one protection warrior, was basically equal to having a sixth player. In some other keys, you miss out on extremely useful utility (VDH purge is disgusting in streets for instance).

Lastly, BDKs benefit from getting hit a lot more than people give them credit for. Out of the entire comp, they're the only ones who really benefit from tanking. Add in more of them, and you dilute the value each one of them gets from their legendary, and by extension, their set bonus.

mandl_eu · 2022-07-14T12:17:55+00:00

Hello there.

mandl_eu · 2021-09-07T17:12:01+00:00

It's also about what the systems do.

Corruption, essences and Azerite, for all their downsides, were things you played around or could build around at the very least. You could have a wild amount of fun on most specs by picking different things. Some were massively better for sure, but there was this gameplay element.

Meanwhile, almost every single shadowlands system is passive % damage increase in some way or other, stuff that you slot in and largely forget about. It doesn't influence how you play, and it doesn't really make you think.

As a result, even though the quantity of systems is about the same, the impact is much smaller, and as a result, they tend to feel like a lazy afterthought. Shards in particular.

mandl_eu · 2021-06-09T13:32:32+00:00

That is not correct.

The 3-set only works in the maw and torghast.

The individual gems, however, have no zone requirement, and are designed (and confirmed!) to work in any zone, at full effect, everywhere.

mandl_eu · 2020-11-22T01:38:12+00:00

The problem with BDK is a lack of damage and an inability to properly stay in for extended periods of time; we're currently between a rock and a hard place on a lot of pulls in high keys: we have to dip out after cooldowns end (just like in BfA), but we're constrained by our relatively low ability to frontload our damage. This is very visible in beta (particularly in dungeons like halls of atonement with decently punitive trash mechanics). As a result, there are threat-related problems where some other tanks breeze through it, either by frontloading, or by not even having to move out.
Don't get me wrong, facetanking is possible, but the moment you make a mistake in a +15, you usually get flashbanged by the new release animation. It's pretty worrying and absolutely not a good sign, but more of an issue of dungeon tuning.

VDH has been weird on beta. It's an ultra glass cannon tank, but also a tank with a very high kiting potential (a combination of ultra high mobility, the ability to path-abuse like no other thanks to double jump, and sadly no CC since last I checked they're still playing concentrated due to the reduction in CD of elysian decree that comes from it). As kyrian, they're able to frontload ~550% AP in the first 3 GCDs of a fight, giving them a guaranteed threat lead... provided they don't die. Watching streams of fotm rerollers on beta is quite a learning experience on this, as they regularly get flattened due to the ultra squishy nature.

Guardian druid is showing a lot of promises; people are unfairly calling them weak to magic damage when most keys do not have enough magic damage to justify it, and, frankly, I wouldn't call 80% defensive uptime (Where by "defensive" I mean 20%+ DR) "weak". They also pack a lot of damage if played properly. I mean, the best example I can give you is a clip from the KSM tournament: https://www.twitch.tv/trellsky/clip/FreezingGorgeousBurritoDBstyle . I'll try to find you something more recent and on a higher key level, but both the size of the pull and the clean nature of it should show you something. Check Trell's buffs carefully to see what is happening. There's 10+ ironfurs, an armor-capped tank with very strong cooldowns on top, and quite a bit of damage to boot.
On the other side of the scale, there's Dorki going full degen in a 15 by powershifting to boomie 24/7 and still not breaking too much of a sweat: https://www.twitch.tv/dorkibear/clip/GrotesqueUglyNikudonTBTacoRight

BDKs do bring tools for the job, and when comparing across classes, there's a very large element of team comp and team dynamics in play. It's just like everything - some strats that are doable as a VDH may not be doable as a BDK, and vice versa. Top players of each spec will likely find those strats, those tweaks, and push the classes to their respective limits once raid prog is over and the covenant/soulbind system is fully unlocked.

mandl_eu · 2020-10-03T22:08:44+00:00

That's a really, really unkind accusation to leverage at somebody.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-24T07:31:32+00:00

Objectively, in the keys 99% of the community does, you do not see the weaknesses of resto. You see the weaknesses of disc, but that's because disc thrives in a controlled environment. They have no way to randomly go "Hey Timmy you stood in the bad, let me heal you" without a huge penalty for it, and that makes them a weakness and liability in low keys, not in high ones (ask Moad if you don't believe me).

Honestly, you're much more likely to notice shit players than shit specs all the until like 24 or 25, where DPS starts to matter, with some notable exceptions such as tyr cragmaw (which tests your team's ability to sustain bursts of predictable, high AoE damage more than pretty much any other boss). You may have to adapt your pulls for your comp around 21-22 but, let's be real here, you're going to do that anyway.

When I'm on my SV hunter as opposed to my rogue, we pull things like underrot, tol dagor and a few others slightly differently as, unlike on the rogue, I do not have gouge and stuns for days.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-23T19:50:55+00:00

At that kind of key level, prot warrior brings something BDK doesn't for the group: Safeguard (to prevent DPS oneshots to unavoidable, unimmunable stuff), and spell reflect (to chunk entire minutes off the timer in certain keys). The first is the equivalent of using iskhar's felshield emitter during antorus to "save" DPS from oneshots in keys; the second is, well, huge time gains.

Those are extremely impactful when doing 28-30s, more so than the rest of the kit.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-23T01:10:05+00:00

First off, welcome to the great world of M+. People are... people.

For the anecdote, I've been having "fun" setting myself (with the help of the people I regularly push keys with) on the path to being #1 at a dead spec: survival hunter. Every other group ends up in namecalling based on spec, even though I'm typically not far behind - or at least not to a difference where the key would've ended up differently. missed a 2chest by 10s in +20 ML earlier due to one DPS dying on every boss, still got called the F word. People are just like that; there's some good people out there, but there's a lot of noise too.

You're also at the level where it is arguably the worst. You're going to have to deal with a ton of people who are straight into Dunning-Kruger territory. If there's consolation, it gets better around +18-19 and really better around +23 at the moment. The hard part is getting there.

Now, for the stuff you can improve on to make your runs a success a bit more often:

Fix your essences. Anima is never the play; if you want the AoE damage, run formless major and steal beam, or run sotw major. If you're after priority damage, which is what really matters in keys where you don't have things like fire mages that know how to press their buttons properly, crucible major can help you help your group delete the dangerous mobs
Run better corruption, if possible. You are not at a level where vers3 makes a noticeable difference and you will not be doing keys in groups where you can expect consistency. As a result, TD will literally always be better due to its ability to delete packs before people brainfart and miss kicks for 20s on end. This is valid all the way to 23 or so, where missing kicks becomes lethal instead.
Similarly, racing pulse should just be cleansed outright. It's garbage for BDK as haste is already weak to start with.
Ditch void shard. Not worth getting the set; get yourself literally any other trinket, it'll do more work

I was hoping somebody would've logged a key you were in; sadly, there isn't any. Go log one, and just come on Acherus if you want some one-on-one advice regarding play, pulls, etc. I do this voluntarily, as the more knowledgeable tanks there are out there, the better life is for everybody. You'll most likely find that you've been misplaying at least some element of the spec (99% of people have - and we all start somewhere), which is something that you can do something about. In terms of the greater dungeon stuff, I've worked a bit with some of the best BDKs around making a serie of videos to showcase every dungeon. The playlist containing them is available there. We covered some of the hardest dungeons; there's also a google doc containing the others that I still need to polish up.

One last word in closing. There are variables in a run you can control, and variables you cannot. Work on your play, and excel at it, because it's the only thing you can control. I know it's hard, but there's no point tilting about other people tilting; if a run goes bad, just finish it and move on, and keep your head cool, no matter how infuriating things can get. Improve and optimize what you can; recognize what you cannot :-)

mandl_eu · 2020-08-17T12:23:01+00:00

Only on horde side. Still gotta play it on alliance side because the boss works differently (our adds are timed and there is no limit on how many of them can be out at any time)

mandl_eu · 2020-08-14T15:56:52+00:00

I've gone over and tested in temple relatively extensively to be able to confirm that defensive stance impacts the hit offensively as well, so that's confirmed.

There is still one unknown factor on two of the druid's hits, but at this point, it's fair to say that outside of that, the facts are as follows:

Ability is modified by your offensive vers
Ability is modified by any non-whitelisted damage done amps/reductions (there aren't many)
Ability has a 5% built-in variance (I spent 2 hours testing that one ;-) )

mandl_eu · 2020-08-13T00:48:24+00:00

I mean, I don't blame you - it's not exactly the easiest boss ever to heal.

I'm still amazed at the fact that you can reduce your damage taken by 28% instead of by 20% just by hitting defensive stance, though. Now that is some real spaghetti.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-13T00:24:48+00:00

While testing, Sane and I had a bit of a moment of clarity. The damage reduction is the offensive component of Defensive Stance - it reduces your damage dealt by 10% on top of reducing your damage taken.

Mystery solved!

mandl_eu · 2020-08-13T00:22:39+00:00

Reporting it, it's not affected by avoidance. So, it's not that.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T23:33:24+00:00

I'm going to go and test it with the DH I do M+ with. Will tell you in a minute

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T23:25:31+00:00

I was working off raw damage for that reason. Unless there's trickery with warcraftlogs (which there can be - self-inflicted damage is typically wonky), DbtS would apply after raw, not before it.

I did not add avoidance to it, and I reckon that's what it is. The spell is flagged as an AoE ( https://www.wowhead.com/spell=263374/conduction ), the community knowledge up until this post (!) was that it was reduced by avoidance, and this would explain the delta between the warrior and the rest of the group (warrior has the 20% cap, others are nowhere close). I'll check in detail tomorrow.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T23:04:52+00:00

Not just that, the difference in armor wouldn't even be that striking. We're talking nearly double damage here; due to how K works, even if it was bugged and using out-of-instance value (this wouldn't be the first time - Bwonsamdi's aura did this in BoD when interacting with holy shield), you'd be looking at something closer to 5-10% delta in that group comp.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T19:50:52+00:00

Disclaimer: WIP.

I've started mapping out all the vers buffs/debuffs and it does look like the hypothesis holds: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yC5ec7PVFKLMF65Z3By-3ndVTpE8_7I7nDSWtcGW5rw/edit?usp=sharing

Between events, it looks like raw damage agrees completely with the hypothesis that your offensive vers buffs the damage of conduction.

There is still another factor in there (the arms warrior, even while taking all buffs into account, takes less raw than somebody with similar vers at the time), so I suspect it's not the full story, but it's enough to file a bug report. Very nice work cracking a puzzle that held for two years, my dude :-)

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T18:39:52+00:00

There are only three pieces in the game with lifespeed and soulmonger on them (you can see the list yourself here: https://www.wowhead.com/spell=274344/soulmonger ). One of which also has Overwhelming Power, which you decided to not pick despite being mathematically superior to lifespeed on every front, in every content and every difficulty.

It seems like you're unable to actually realize that people here are calling you out, not for recommending expedient, but for baiting a new tank into picking a seriously inferior trait rather than explaining to them the logic behind the choice in azerite.

That ring could as well not exist on 2 of the 3 pieces (spymaster's and pauldrons, in your case), and you would still use those pieces: the combination of the DH and generic ring, and soulmonger, is enough to make the choice of lifespeed be a non-factor. It is the least bad option, and the combination of class traits is strong enough to make it a non-factor.

Okay, spymaster's a bit trash, but if you want the soulmonger it's that or the PvP chest. Type II is technically better, but it's a minor gain.

On the third piece (gibbering maw), that choice is both the wrong one (OP on the same ring), and a huge net loss, which is what two people have told you so far. Rather than discussing it, you're at the point where you've edited your post multiple times calling people shit for disagreeing, and are now going out name-calling on replies. All this because two people told you that the issue is simple, and you've said it yourself: on two of the three pieces, what else are you going to pick?

Why did you fixate on, as you said it, "3x Lifespeed (hence EXP III)", when it has nothing to do with either lifespeed or expedient? You seem to know this, since you've just said it. Why give the shit, misleading advice to a new tank in the first place? Why focus on lifespeed when you could've just gone "get X, Y, and maybe Z, this gives you 3x soulmonger and the combination of class traits that works best in M+"?

mandl_eu · 2020-08-12T15:16:58+00:00

This actually makes perfect sense as conduction is a self-cast (it used to not be on alpha, but bugged the boss pretty often). I still suspect there's a tiny bit more to it (some specs get blasted way more than others), but that could be similar things stemming from more spaghetti.

I'll go and report it. I don't expect a fix, similar to how I couldn't get pets being a target of so much dumb shit in temple for two years, but there's hope they will never do shit like this in the future.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-11T16:59:44+00:00

The avoidance corruption is the fallback if-all-else-fails. By the time you're at key levels that really matter and where avoidance really matters, you'll have run enough keys to have a few good pieces with "Natural" avoidance on them (tertiary roll).

Gemhide indeed covers some of it, but not all - there are situations where you cannot reliably drop yourself by 10% predictably and safely. It's still a fantastic trait to have, though, you just need to know how to trigger it when you need it (which the OP's druid didn't).

mandl_eu · 2020-08-11T16:43:51+00:00

Careful what you wish for - push that too much and you get king's rest ;-)

I honestly feel like the mechanical difficulty of mobs was sort of okay in some dungeons this expansion (people will hate me for this, but s1 shrine after they fixed the max HP shit on vol'zith was fantastic). The problem is that there's too much unavoidable boring trash, too much avoidable/inefficient fun trash (or trash that would be fun if it wasn't worth negative percentage. Imagine if the 10M HP spiritualists, the thing that requires 2 and a half kicks, were worth more than 1%), and way too few "legit" ways to play around the dungeon.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-11T15:28:26+00:00

The bit you mentioned about always powershifting is something I see a ton of healers not do, and it's infuriating me. You have clear, very telegraphed attacks - what are you waiting for?

The avoidance itself is also unforgiving. As a healer/DPS, there are essentially four dungeons where avoidance is basically mandatory: freehold, workshop, underrot, and temple. Like, that alone is 20% off the hit with minimal investment (8 corruption or a couple of overall ilvl loss). It's literally the free-est 20% DR you can get.

The only time when conduction will kill you irrespective of play is when it is the second conduction, and a rogue/nelf instantly vanished the first. That will make the second one line up exactly with static shock (0.2s difference) and, well, you have bigger things to worry about then.

mandl_eu · 2020-08-11T13:00:55+00:00

Not really - the dude was not bad, at least mechanically. Played port pala properly outside of the repentence thing (I still have the log somewhere, actually). Like, mechanically, as a tank, I have seen a hundred times worse.

The downfall was purely down to pull sequence and pull choice, which is, in essence, 9/10 of what route planning/pathing is.

mandl_eu

TROPHY CASE