Combining Defensive Cooldowns

[mcbone 0]

I know typically we don't want combine or overlap our major defensive cooldowns. However, I have a couple of dodge cooldowns one from ENG prof and one trinket.

 

Does it make sense to combine one with Vampiric Blood to provide some damage mitigation while my HP is "hopefully" being restored? Or, should/could they be better combined with something else?

 

I'm only running LFR/Flex so I'm rarely using these cooldowns anyway. Just looking for a way to take more advantage with them. 

[Estarriol 167]

I don't DK much, but dodge trinkets in general have a fairly specific purpose. They allow you to dodge hits. Pretty intuitive, right? This means they're best used when you're taking heavy melee damage. However, they can also help you avoid certain mechanics. He's Noxious Poison, for example, will not get put on the ground if you dodge his attacks. Thus, I like to use dodge trinkets when he has that poison up and the melee are focusing him.

 

DKs and warriors are special snowflakes thought, so we get extra use out of dodge trinkets. If there's nothing you need to save that trinket CD for, you can use it to boost your DPS output via Riposte. I wouldn't necessarily recommend combining them with Vampiric Blood, though. Not sure if you have it glyphed, but its unglyphed form can be used to help you soak stacks of a hard-hitting ability while the glyphed form helps your healers out when you're taking heavy DoT damage. Neither of those situations would really benefit from the use of a dodge trinket. being used at the same time.

[mcbone 0]

Great thanks for the reply. I never even considered using them as a DPS gain to benefit from Riposte. I wouldn't want to focus on using them for DPS. But maybe use them toward the end of a fight on a DPS burn when I've got plenty of other CDs ready.

 

Also, I'll try and think about them differently than just "another" CD and more for when I should be using them against a particular boss ability. Thanks again for the great info!

[Estarriol 167]

Keep in mind when using them that even if you're not using them for a DPS CD, that they still are a DPS boost even when used as a defensive CD. I do that with my own. If I'm trying to avoid getting Rook's puddles on the ground, I'll pop my dodge trinket(s) as well as Bloodbath and Dragon Roar to take advantage of the trinket fully.

[Storm 426]

Any sort of dodge proc, or on use dodge ability has a very niche use in raids. To be effective they need to be used proactively. The reason is because of the random nature of avoidance. If you are already low health, and you pop a dodge cooldown. there may be a 50% chance it saves you, and a 50% chance you die anyways. That isn't good enough odds to be considered a reliable cooldown.

 

The time to use a dodge trinket is when you know the boss is going into a phase of heavy melee damage. When you know you're about to get wrecked you can pop your dodge cooldowns to slow the rate you're losing health. If you have 2 then I would recommend chaining them one after another rather than using two at the same time.

 

Using Vampiric Blood in combination with a dodge cooldown is a good idea if the RNG isn't going in your favor. I wouldn't recommend always planning on using VB with a particular dodge cooldown, but if you try to use your dodge cooldowns proactively, and then your health is still getting low. then pop VB to help the healers get your health back up.

[mcbone 0]

Great thanks Storm! I'll try to work the dodge CDs into where it makes sense for melee damage and use them early in that phase to take advantage of any grace the RNG gods show me. I hate to have a couple of CDs and never use them as they go wasted. Just trying to squeeze out any mitigation I can.

[Ceraius 34]

Vampiric Blood*   

 

Usually one cooldown is enough barring some very special cases.

 

Magical Burst - AMS

Sustained Heavy Magical - VB

Heavy melee or lots of melee - DRW

Any kind of huge hit - Army channel

All around trusty CD - IBF

 

That's how I'd advise using them mostly. Of course there's a lot of freedom in there especially with VB and IBF.

 

Edit: I might've gone a little off topic here seeing its mostly about the avoidance CDs. Sorry.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Ceraius

[mcbone 0]

Avoidance/Defensive it's all semantics right? 

 

Thanks everyone again for the great insight!

[Drtain 74]

Tbh I combine them but that's slightly do to the fact I am lazy (the engineering golves and vamp) but idk i thought it was a good idea since if I don't dodge do to bad rng I could die