Woot. Second on DPS in AN with the new Incite spec. Thanks for the advice. Now all I need to do is get my tier DPS gear and fix it all up nice with gems and enchantments.
QuantumQuark on
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
I never felt all that great about the execute talent in fury. It seems to add so little. I never looked into the rending glyph though. That might help me a lot.
Improved Execute is pretty nice because it pulls double duty - your executes cost less so you can use em if you don't quite have fifteen rage, and since they cost less, more of the max of thirty rage goes to bonus damage instead of being soaked up in the base cost of the ability. I think that's how it works, anyway.
It seems like the problem with both the glyph and talent for execute is that they just increase the damage by a static amount and so don't really scale well.
It could certainly get a better AP modifier, but if you're Arms, there isn't a whole hell of a lot choice in glyphs, and execute is one of your major damage sources. My Fury spec includes one point in the talent to move down the tree with only.
It seems like the problem with both the glyph and talent for execute is that they just increase the damage by a static amount and so don't really scale well.
I have to disagree since Execute scales with AP as well. So with enough diligence you could calculate what the dps works out to but its to the effect of:
Rage_Used * (Damage * AP Coefficient)
Edit
I was completely wrong...
(BASE_DAMAGE + 0.2*AP) + 38 * RAGE_CONSUMED
So yeah, the glyph doesn't scale... Warrior DPS glyphs kind suck.
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Fury and Arms have very little options, but I'm glad they're at least interesting glyphs. Glyphs like 'allows cleave to hit an additional target' and 'increases block by 10%' are way more interesting than just a straight 3% damage increase or whatever.
Wait, so the rage->damage part of execute scales as well? I was under the impression that it didn't and only the base damage did. That would be helpful if it did.
There isn't a lot of choice in glyphs, no, but if you're incite arms, I imagine you'd go Rend/Bladestorm/HS and skip out on execute.
Glyph of Mortal Strike for 10% more MS damage. I imagine that's better than Bladestorm or Heroic Strike for raiding. For heroics, Glyph Sweeping Strikes and Bladestorm and run with a healer who likes you.
IIRC, Execute is mostly a GCD filler and comes in above slam on your Arms priority rotation, unless your Sudden Death execute is almost up, then it comes in pretty high (just so you don't waste the proc). I don't believe you really want to gear or spec around Execute, its just something to use over slam to fill up a GCD.
Alright there is a lot of misinformation about Arms going around in here, so let me clear it up.
Glyphs: Mortal Strike, Rending, Execution. Don't glyph anything else unless you are an advanced user, and even then the only thing you'd consider is swapping Execution for Bladestorm.
Skill Priorities: MS always gets priority when it's up. From there, it branches two ways. If you happen to have high expertise (which you should NOT be trying to have), burn Execute after MS is on cooldown. Then move on to Overpower and finally Slam if nothing else is available. The idea here is you won't generate many overpowers from dodges, so you don't want to overlap Sudden Death procs.
If you happen to have low expertise, and you should because it's a junk stat for arms, you prioritize Overpower after Mortal Strike to make sure your Taste for Blood procs don't waste any dodge-procced Overpowers.
Bladestorm should be used immediately after a Taste for Blood Overpower so that your next one comes up right as the whirlwind effect finishes.
Edit: Heroic Strike only if your next melee swing will overfill your rage bar.
Edit 2: Someone will inevitably ask "What about Rend?" Start the fight with it, and when it runs off, you can use up to 3 GCDs to get it back on. You aren't interested in the rend damage, just the TFB procs, and the effect can only occur every 6 seconds anyway. Use that time in between to get MS back on cooldown or burn that Sudden Death.
I have heard the opposite about Expertise and/or Hit rating for Arms.
Capping those two will help your Rage generation significantly.
I didn't say anything about hit rating, since that in fact has the highest value of anything until it's capped. Keep pursuing 8%.
Expertise on the other hand doesn't cost you significant amount of rage to ignore. The math is there, and my own raiding experience confirms it.
Interesting, (I'm not disagreeing) since many classes rate it on greater than or equal to Hit Rating before you reach the Soft Cap. I'm curious to see the fundamentals behind this.
I have heard the opposite about Expertise and/or Hit rating for Arms.
Capping those two will help your Rage generation significantly.
I didn't say anything about hit rating, since that in fact has the highest value of anything until it's capped. Keep pursuing 8%.
Expertise on the other hand doesn't cost you significant amount of rage to ignore. The math is there, and my own raiding experience confirms it.
Interesting, (I'm not disagreeing) since many classes rate it on greater than or equal to Hit Rating before you reach the Soft Cap. I'm curious to see the fundamentals behind this.
It's all in the mechanics of Overpower. Based on the poor scaling of Execute and poor damage returns on Slam, the only scenarios where you lose damage on a dodge is from whiffing a Mortal Strike, or failing to burn up your TFB proc before you get dodged.
The odds of either are so low that it's not worth sacrificing important stats like Armor Penetration, Hit, or any source of attack power to get it.
IIRC you don't lose the cost of the attack on a dodged special, and I think there is some limited rage gain on dodged white hits.
But yes, it's worth it. I've never found myself starved due to dodges, even while sitting at the bare minimum through just Strength of Arms and one point in Weapon Mastery (the equivalent of 8 expertise).
Edit per WoWiki: When a warrior's special attack is parried, he does not lose the rage cost associated with that spell (even though the spell fails)
Expertise isn't bad per-se, its just lower than armor pen, crit, attack power, and strength. Might be lower than agi depending on your gear setup, I imagine its above haste but that probably depends on your overall gear level. If you have expertise, hooray! If you don't? Hooray! Just don't gear for it, you'll probably have some from gear unless you manage an Arms BIS setup or just get lucky.
I think Glyph of Heroic Strike with an Incite build might overtake Glyph of Execute when your crit is high enough (as it essentially makes Heroic Strike free). Not sure where that crossing point is or if its achievable with current gear. Mortal Strike, Rend, "something" is the best glyph setup, going with execute or bladestorm is almost always a safe bet.
Iroh didn't mention it, but make sure you use Sweeping Strikes on any AoE fight every time its up. The buff lasts 30 seconds and the ability has a 30 second cooldown, so on any fight with an AoE component you should be using sweeping strikes on every CD, unless you go 30 seconds with no AoE damage it will net you 5 free attacks every use.
Bladestorm's a nice way to compensate for screwing up your rage generation, if you go overboard with heroic strike or get some unlucky dodges to kill your rage bladestorm will keep your damage up while you generate some red. Don't go out of your way to save bladestorm for rage starvation, but keep the cost in mind when you decide to activate it.
On extremely large AoE pulls (ICC trash, for instance), thunderclap is decent damage and more rage-efficient than spamming cleave. Less likely to get you killed than bladestorm as well.
If you're gonna be captain brostorm and pull threat with sweeping strikes + bladestorm in a heroic, use retaliation first. Its active during bladestorm and will make your inevitable death that much more enjoyable.
Iroh's priority list is pretty much spot-on. Mortal Strike every CD, overpower as often as you can, Execute when you can't do either of the others and slam when you can't do anything. IIRC theorycraft puts TfB procs as your highest priority ability when the buff is about to expire (don't waste it!) and sudden death procs with that buff is about to expire as your next high priority (the idea being: better to delay Mortal Strike than waste Execute).
Remember you can use recklessness when starting fights (so long as your tank isn't terrible). Recklessness, switch to battle, charge, rend, bladestorm (all recklessness charges will be used), overpower, then you should have just enough time to sneak in a mortal strike before the juggernaut buff fades.
Axes and Polearms are your best weapons. Maces and Swords are still "ok" and you should never pass up a significant upgrade just because its a sword or mace. Generally speaking, weapon type discussions only come into play when you can pick between multiple weapons of the same ilvl and general quality.
I think Glyph of Heroic Strike with an Incite build might overtake Glyph of Execute when your crit is high enough (as it essentially makes Heroic Strike free). Not sure where that crossing point is or if its achievable with current gear. Mortal Strike, Rend, "something" is the best glyph setup, going with execute or bladestorm is almost always a safe bet.
I can see why one would think so, but not really. Since one uses Heroic Strike to prevent rage overflow, getting 10 back for a crit really doesn't net you any damage in the long term. With Endless Rage it's just overkill.
Being Execute glyphed isn't fantastic, but it provides a reliable damage buff where others do not.
You'd need to have enough crit that the ability to heroic strike more often (and get the 10 rage refund) would overtake the bonus damage from the execute glyph, which scales terribly IIRC. If you're close to the crit cap (but not close enough that incite becomes redundant) I suspect the glyph may overtake or at least compete with execute, but that would be an enormous spreadsheet project and would have a nightmare of variables to figure in.
Either way, the important part is Mortal Strike, Rend, and Something. There's no really good glyph for that final spot, both Bladestorm and Execute are acceptable and there's some theorycraft that Heroic Strike might be as well, but you're talking about performance differences of around 1% or less, so it isn't something to fret about.
Personally I'd go Bladestorm because its more fun and the lower cooldown is great on any AoE fight (Jaraxxus, Twins, Anub, Deathwhisper, Gunboat, every trash pull in ICC). Execute is probably the best choice for almost all players who are interested in maximizing their single-target DPS, maybe heroic strike at weird gear levels, but none of the glyphs are really critical because--again, that third glyph is really irrelevant.
Considering all I really DPS in are Heroics (I tank for our raids) Bladestorm is serving me really well, along with the new Incite spec. Tanking is still my first love but being able to pull out my whopping 2-hander and tear through some mobs every now and then is good fun.
Thanks for all the advice, by the way, it's helped out a lot.
The worst thing about bladestorm in heroic trash is that either 2 things happen: 1) Hit it too early and pull aggro, or 2) Hit it too late and waste like 2 or 3 seconds of it on 1 or 2 mobs.
Hey guys, I have a question for all you warriors who have tanked sarth 3d 10 man as the only tank. I never did it before and the strategy they were using was to burn down sarth. Using all cooldowns, heroism, everything. I died every single time and I was the cause of the wipes they told me. Basically we were supposed to have sarth dead before the other two drakes after tenebron came down. I felt like a fail tank because I had all the triumph pieces and I still sucked. So the question is have any of you tried this method?
Hey guys, I have a question for all you warriors who have tanked sarth 3d 10 man as the only tank. I never did it before and the strategy they were using was to burn down sarth. Using all cooldowns, heroism, everything. I died every single time and I was the cause of the wipes they told me. Basically we were supposed to have sarth dead before the other two drakes after tenebron came down. I felt like a fail tank because I had all the triumph pieces and I still sucked. So the question is have any of you tried this method?
How were you dealing with the first drake? She kind of melees for thirty thousand... on tanks. You'd pretty much have to use unglyphed shield wall plus have awesome healers to survive any length of time tanking the drake, much less both the drake and Sarth at once (the rape-machine damage on drakes activates when Sarth goes below ~35% health). When I did it, we had a dude kite Tenebron off into the distance for as long as possible.
Unless you have some really sick DPS, the only option is to kite.
Maybe if you were a paladin tank with Gaurdian Spirit + argent defender + Shield wall you could tank both.
Hey guys, I have a question for all you warriors who have tanked sarth 3d 10 man as the only tank. I never did it before and the strategy they were using was to burn down sarth. Using all cooldowns, heroism, everything. I died every single time and I was the cause of the wipes they told me. Basically we were supposed to have sarth dead before the other two drakes after tenebron came down. I felt like a fail tank because I had all the triumph pieces and I still sucked. So the question is have any of you tried this method?
I've done it. You're basically looking at chaining cooldowns in order to cut some serious damage and desperately hold on to two bosses while 8 DPS make a boss explode far faster than it should. The timing on every member's part is unforgiving: DPS need to put out some fantastic numbers (numbers which are, to be fair, much easier to achieve nowadays), the healer needs to chain heals into the tank nonstop, and the tank needs to balance defensive cooldowns.
You're looking at a window of about 2-3 seconds leeway, if you use your cooldowns too early they won't last long enough and if you use them too late, well, you're dead.
It isn't particularly complicated, but it is extraordinarily unforgiving, because missing your cooldowns by a few seconds will wipe the raid.
All that said, I obviously have no idea if you were the reason for the wipe or the raid just couldn't complete the strategy. If you used shieldwall to survive the almost unhealable portion of the fight and the boss was still alive, DPS can't cut it. I think each member needs to average 4-6k or so.
What do you think is more dps for tanking heroics?
1. 15/5/51 with deep wounds
2. 7/13/51 with the 100% bonus damage on cleave.
gain: 3% crit, 100% bonus on cleave
lose: deep wounds
I don't have the talents in front of me. So I'm sorry if they don't add up correctly but the spirit of the question remains. I'm obviously glyphing cleave in both scenarios.
What do you think is more dps for tanking heroics?
1. 15/5/51 with deep wounds
2. 7/13/51 with the 100% bonus damage on cleave.
gain: 3% crit, 100% bonus on cleave
lose: deep wounds
I don't have the talents in front of me. So I'm sorry if they don't add up correctly but the spirit of the question remains. I'm obviously glyphing cleave in both scenarios.
You also lose impale, which probably pushes 15/5/51 to the front, especially when you factor in the fights where you only have one target. If you want to push your cooldown buttons more often, you could go 15 / 3 / 53 and pick up improved disciplines, if you're using recklessness and retaliation every time they're up that might be more useful than 2% crit chance, or at least more interesting.
I did some vague number-crunching the other day when I was discussing tanking talents with a guildie, and I came to the conclusion that Deep Wounds probably works out as more DPS overall. It's probably a little behind or just breaks even on packs, but for single target it's obviously miles ahead. I never have threat issues with a Deep Wounds spec.
The key really is Incite. If you were loafing around with a 5% crit rating on all attacks it'd be pointless, but pushing that up to 20 for Cleave and Thunder Clap (both of which can proc Deep Wounds for half the average damage of your weapon) I think brings it up to par with Improved Cleave for AOE.
QuantumQuark on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Hey guys, I have a question for all you warriors who have tanked sarth 3d 10 man as the only tank. I never did it before and the strategy they were using was to burn down sarth. Using all cooldowns, heroism, everything. I died every single time and I was the cause of the wipes they told me. Basically we were supposed to have sarth dead before the other two drakes after tenebron came down. I felt like a fail tank because I had all the triumph pieces and I still sucked. So the question is have any of you tried this method?
I've done it. You're basically looking at chaining cooldowns in order to cut some serious damage and desperately hold on to two bosses while 8 DPS make a boss explode far faster than it should. The timing on every member's part is unforgiving: DPS need to put out some fantastic numbers (numbers which are, to be fair, much easier to achieve nowadays), the healer needs to chain heals into the tank nonstop, and the tank needs to balance defensive cooldowns.
You're looking at a window of about 2-3 seconds leeway, if you use your cooldowns too early they won't last long enough and if you use them too late, well, you're dead.
It isn't particularly complicated, but it is extraordinarily unforgiving, because missing your cooldowns by a few seconds will wipe the raid.
All that said, I obviously have no idea if you were the reason for the wipe or the raid just couldn't complete the strategy. If you used shieldwall to survive the almost unhealable portion of the fight and the boss was still alive, DPS can't cut it. I think each member needs to average 4-6k or so.
Really, someone needs to kite Tenebron away from the raid at 35%~
That was probably it, the encounter was probably way too chalenging for me and we had 2 dps that were only pulling 2.4k dps. I feel better about it, thanks.
That was probably it, the encounter was probably way too chalenging for me and we had 2 dps that were only pulling 2.4k dps. I feel better about it, thanks.
No, that's the bigger issue. It honestly wasn't your fault because the DPS that was required for the burn wasn't even there.
Really, someone needs to kite Tenebron away from the raid at 35%~
That's probably the way the encounter is supposed to work, but the "lol DPS zeeeeeerg!" gets the job done. Its simple and anyone who has ever tried to PuG Saurfang in ICC can tell you most DPS will respond to "kite Tenebron with "kiting whut is dat?"
The DPS burn strategy works, and its kind of fun to tank (its satisfying to tank the untankable, or something like that). I'm not sure its a big deal which you use anymore, any group reasonably capable of completing one strategy can probably complete the other as well.
That was probably it, the encounter was probably way too chalenging for me and we had 2 dps that were only pulling 2.4k dps. I feel better about it, thanks.
That's about half of what they need to be doing (for the burn strat), so unless you have two DPS doing around 8k each to compensate they will wipe the raid every time for lack of DPS.
Really, 2.4k in a 10 man burn (where you probably have heroism / bloodlust) is pretty pathetic. I probably do that while tanking.
Really, someone needs to kite Tenebron away from the raid at 35%~
That's probably the way the encounter is supposed to work, but the "lol DPS zeeeeeerg!" gets the job done. Its simple and anyone who has ever tried to PuG Saurfang in ICC can tell you most DPS will respond to "kite Tenebron with "kiting whut is dat?"
Actually the encounter involves a rather hectic strategy in which you have two tanks. The first tank is on Sarth 24/7 with a dedicated healer. Meanwhile the other tank needs to keep the adds controlled and the dps need to burn down each drake in short order. Once all three drakes are dead you engage Sarth and rip his shit up.
The zerg strat was never the 'intended' strategy. It just happened to work. The drakes were never 'supposed' to enrage and need to be kited, it was a safeguard against a zerg strat, but players have outwitted it by kiting Tenebron away.
True story, raiders who get hand-holded through the T9 into T10 content can be retarded and not understand basic mechanics.
Actually I think doing Sarth+3 on 10-man the "intended" way required 3 tanks. It might not anymore for groups who outgear it, but back in the 213 gear level days, I think groups were doing it with 3 tanks (with probably the off-off-tank being a feral druid or DK or something that could do reasonable DPS when not tanking).
forty on
Officially the unluckiest CCG player ever.
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AngryThe glory I had witnessedwas just a sleight of handRegistered Userregular
Actually I think doing Sarth+3 on 10-man the "intended" way required 3 tanks. It might not anymore for groups who outgear it, but back in the 213 gear level days, I think groups were doing it with 3 tanks (with probably the off-off-tank being a feral druid or DK or something that could do reasonable DPS when not tanking).
naw, when we did it the legit way for our plagued we had me tanking sarth (dk) and a paladin picking up everything else. hardest fight i've ever done.
really wish they had removed of the nightfall title when they removed the plagued.
Angry on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
You could use two or three tanks on 10man. Using three tanks usually meant you had to use two healers or else your DPS wouldn't be enough.
Using two meant your add + drake tank had to be a superhuman god, however.
Dhalphir on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Really, someone needs to kite Tenebron away from the raid at 35%~
That's probably the way the encounter is supposed to work, but the "lol DPS zeeeeeerg!" gets the job done. Its simple and anyone who has ever tried to PuG Saurfang in ICC can tell you most DPS will respond to "kite Tenebron with "kiting whut is dat?"
The DPS burn strategy works, and its kind of fun to tank (its satisfying to tank the untankable, or something like that). I'm not sure its a big deal which you use anymore, any group reasonably capable of completing one strategy can probably complete the other as well.
That was probably it, the encounter was probably way too chalenging for me and we had 2 dps that were only pulling 2.4k dps. I feel better about it, thanks.
That's about half of what they need to be doing (for the burn strat), so unless you have two DPS doing around 8k each to compensate they will wipe the raid every time for lack of DPS.
Really, 2.4k in a 10 man burn (where you probably have heroism / bloodlust) is pretty pathetic. I probably do that while tanking.
I think someone already said this, but kiting Tenebron is part of the DPS zerg strategy, not the original strategy. Its a safer alternative to trying to have your lone healer healing a tank through an enraged drake.
Dhalphir on
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AngryThe glory I had witnessedwas just a sleight of handRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
we used 2 tanks and 2 healers i'm pretty sure. our paladin tank is by far and away the best tank i've ever played with though.
Posts
I have to disagree since Execute scales with AP as well. So with enough diligence you could calculate what the dps works out to but its to the effect of:
Rage_Used * (Damage * AP Coefficient)
Edit
I was completely wrong...
(BASE_DAMAGE + 0.2*AP) + 38 * RAGE_CONSUMED
So yeah, the glyph doesn't scale... Warrior DPS glyphs kind suck.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
There isn't a lot of choice in glyphs, no, but if you're incite arms, I imagine you'd go Rend/Bladestorm/HS and skip out on execute.
IIRC, Execute is mostly a GCD filler and comes in above slam on your Arms priority rotation, unless your Sudden Death execute is almost up, then it comes in pretty high (just so you don't waste the proc). I don't believe you really want to gear or spec around Execute, its just something to use over slam to fill up a GCD.
Glyphs: Mortal Strike, Rending, Execution. Don't glyph anything else unless you are an advanced user, and even then the only thing you'd consider is swapping Execution for Bladestorm.
Skill Priorities: MS always gets priority when it's up. From there, it branches two ways. If you happen to have high expertise (which you should NOT be trying to have), burn Execute after MS is on cooldown. Then move on to Overpower and finally Slam if nothing else is available. The idea here is you won't generate many overpowers from dodges, so you don't want to overlap Sudden Death procs.
If you happen to have low expertise, and you should because it's a junk stat for arms, you prioritize Overpower after Mortal Strike to make sure your Taste for Blood procs don't waste any dodge-procced Overpowers.
Bladestorm should be used immediately after a Taste for Blood Overpower so that your next one comes up right as the whirlwind effect finishes.
Edit: Heroic Strike only if your next melee swing will overfill your rage bar.
Edit 2: Someone will inevitably ask "What about Rend?" Start the fight with it, and when it runs off, you can use up to 3 GCDs to get it back on. You aren't interested in the rend damage, just the TFB procs, and the effect can only occur every 6 seconds anyway. Use that time in between to get MS back on cooldown or burn that Sudden Death.
Capping those two will help your Rage generation significantly.
Expertise on the other hand doesn't cost you significant amount of rage to ignore. The math is there, and my own raiding experience confirms it.
Interesting, (I'm not disagreeing) since many classes rate it on greater than or equal to Hit Rating before you reach the Soft Cap. I'm curious to see the fundamentals behind this.
The odds of either are so low that it's not worth sacrificing important stats like Armor Penetration, Hit, or any source of attack power to get it.
But yes, it's worth it. I've never found myself starved due to dodges, even while sitting at the bare minimum through just Strength of Arms and one point in Weapon Mastery (the equivalent of 8 expertise).
Edit per WoWiki: When a warrior's special attack is parried, he does not lose the rage cost associated with that spell (even though the spell fails)
I think Glyph of Heroic Strike with an Incite build might overtake Glyph of Execute when your crit is high enough (as it essentially makes Heroic Strike free). Not sure where that crossing point is or if its achievable with current gear. Mortal Strike, Rend, "something" is the best glyph setup, going with execute or bladestorm is almost always a safe bet.
Iroh didn't mention it, but make sure you use Sweeping Strikes on any AoE fight every time its up. The buff lasts 30 seconds and the ability has a 30 second cooldown, so on any fight with an AoE component you should be using sweeping strikes on every CD, unless you go 30 seconds with no AoE damage it will net you 5 free attacks every use.
Bladestorm's a nice way to compensate for screwing up your rage generation, if you go overboard with heroic strike or get some unlucky dodges to kill your rage bladestorm will keep your damage up while you generate some red. Don't go out of your way to save bladestorm for rage starvation, but keep the cost in mind when you decide to activate it.
On extremely large AoE pulls (ICC trash, for instance), thunderclap is decent damage and more rage-efficient than spamming cleave. Less likely to get you killed than bladestorm as well.
If you're gonna be captain brostorm and pull threat with sweeping strikes + bladestorm in a heroic, use retaliation first. Its active during bladestorm and will make your inevitable death that much more enjoyable.
Iroh's priority list is pretty much spot-on. Mortal Strike every CD, overpower as often as you can, Execute when you can't do either of the others and slam when you can't do anything. IIRC theorycraft puts TfB procs as your highest priority ability when the buff is about to expire (don't waste it!) and sudden death procs with that buff is about to expire as your next high priority (the idea being: better to delay Mortal Strike than waste Execute).
Remember you can use recklessness when starting fights (so long as your tank isn't terrible). Recklessness, switch to battle, charge, rend, bladestorm (all recklessness charges will be used), overpower, then you should have just enough time to sneak in a mortal strike before the juggernaut buff fades.
Axes and Polearms are your best weapons. Maces and Swords are still "ok" and you should never pass up a significant upgrade just because its a sword or mace. Generally speaking, weapon type discussions only come into play when you can pick between multiple weapons of the same ilvl and general quality.
Being Execute glyphed isn't fantastic, but it provides a reliable damage buff where others do not.
Either way, the important part is Mortal Strike, Rend, and Something. There's no really good glyph for that final spot, both Bladestorm and Execute are acceptable and there's some theorycraft that Heroic Strike might be as well, but you're talking about performance differences of around 1% or less, so it isn't something to fret about.
Personally I'd go Bladestorm because its more fun and the lower cooldown is great on any AoE fight (Jaraxxus, Twins, Anub, Deathwhisper, Gunboat, every trash pull in ICC). Execute is probably the best choice for almost all players who are interested in maximizing their single-target DPS, maybe heroic strike at weird gear levels, but none of the glyphs are really critical because--again, that third glyph is really irrelevant.
Thanks for all the advice, by the way, it's helped out a lot.
How were you dealing with the first drake? She kind of melees for thirty thousand... on tanks. You'd pretty much have to use unglyphed shield wall plus have awesome healers to survive any length of time tanking the drake, much less both the drake and Sarth at once (the rape-machine damage on drakes activates when Sarth goes below ~35% health). When I did it, we had a dude kite Tenebron off into the distance for as long as possible.
Maybe if you were a paladin tank with Gaurdian Spirit + argent defender + Shield wall you could tank both.
I've done it. You're basically looking at chaining cooldowns in order to cut some serious damage and desperately hold on to two bosses while 8 DPS make a boss explode far faster than it should. The timing on every member's part is unforgiving: DPS need to put out some fantastic numbers (numbers which are, to be fair, much easier to achieve nowadays), the healer needs to chain heals into the tank nonstop, and the tank needs to balance defensive cooldowns.
You're looking at a window of about 2-3 seconds leeway, if you use your cooldowns too early they won't last long enough and if you use them too late, well, you're dead.
It isn't particularly complicated, but it is extraordinarily unforgiving, because missing your cooldowns by a few seconds will wipe the raid.
All that said, I obviously have no idea if you were the reason for the wipe or the raid just couldn't complete the strategy. If you used shieldwall to survive the almost unhealable portion of the fight and the boss was still alive, DPS can't cut it. I think each member needs to average 4-6k or so.
1. 15/5/51 with deep wounds
2. 7/13/51 with the 100% bonus damage on cleave.
gain: 3% crit, 100% bonus on cleave
lose: deep wounds
I don't have the talents in front of me. So I'm sorry if they don't add up correctly but the spirit of the question remains. I'm obviously glyphing cleave in both scenarios.
You also lose impale, which probably pushes 15/5/51 to the front, especially when you factor in the fights where you only have one target. If you want to push your cooldown buttons more often, you could go 15 / 3 / 53 and pick up improved disciplines, if you're using recklessness and retaliation every time they're up that might be more useful than 2% crit chance, or at least more interesting.
The key really is Incite. If you were loafing around with a 5% crit rating on all attacks it'd be pointless, but pushing that up to 20 for Cleave and Thunder Clap (both of which can proc Deep Wounds for half the average damage of your weapon) I think brings it up to par with Improved Cleave for AOE.
Really, someone needs to kite Tenebron away from the raid at 35%~
No, that's the bigger issue. It honestly wasn't your fault because the DPS that was required for the burn wasn't even there.
That's probably the way the encounter is supposed to work, but the "lol DPS zeeeeeerg!" gets the job done. Its simple and anyone who has ever tried to PuG Saurfang in ICC can tell you most DPS will respond to "kite Tenebron with "kiting whut is dat?"
The DPS burn strategy works, and its kind of fun to tank (its satisfying to tank the untankable, or something like that). I'm not sure its a big deal which you use anymore, any group reasonably capable of completing one strategy can probably complete the other as well.
That's about half of what they need to be doing (for the burn strat), so unless you have two DPS doing around 8k each to compensate they will wipe the raid every time for lack of DPS.
Really, 2.4k in a 10 man burn (where you probably have heroism / bloodlust) is pretty pathetic. I probably do that while tanking.
Actually the encounter involves a rather hectic strategy in which you have two tanks. The first tank is on Sarth 24/7 with a dedicated healer. Meanwhile the other tank needs to keep the adds controlled and the dps need to burn down each drake in short order. Once all three drakes are dead you engage Sarth and rip his shit up.
The zerg strat was never the 'intended' strategy. It just happened to work. The drakes were never 'supposed' to enrage and need to be kited, it was a safeguard against a zerg strat, but players have outwitted it by kiting Tenebron away.
True story, raiders who get hand-holded through the T9 into T10 content can be retarded and not understand basic mechanics.
naw, when we did it the legit way for our plagued we had me tanking sarth (dk) and a paladin picking up everything else. hardest fight i've ever done.
really wish they had removed of the nightfall title when they removed the plagued.
Using two meant your add + drake tank had to be a superhuman god, however.
I think someone already said this, but kiting Tenebron is part of the DPS zerg strategy, not the original strategy. Its a safer alternative to trying to have your lone healer healing a tank through an enraged drake.