DK tanking 3.2

[ghromorth]

I'm and old player in WoW, been playing DK since the begining of WOTLK done a lot of hardmodes, been playing wow since 1.0. Have tryed almost everyclass in endgame(have a warrior BC, Lock BC and Pre BC, Priest BC and WOTLK). I've been tanking with my dk since i got it to 80 i found it interesting and fun. Everything was fine (gotta admit a little bit overpowered) until now... I was used to tank as Frost in Uld, and unholy in OS3D(and naxx/maly) but now... mmm idk what to spec xD

During the PTR stage of the patch i wasnt so happy with my nerfs, I tryed cool stuff there and saw that DW was absolutly awesome for tanking. So with my main I started farming ulduar 1h and stuff like that. Yesterday the patch came out and i realise now that the nerf was big and important, not only my hp was reduced by 6k (had 43,6k fully buffed now 37,7k) but my dodge is now 3% less than it used to be (down to 28% from 31% fully buffed) and i hoped that my parry will raise but guess i was wrong again xD (still the same 20%) anyway I'm tired of whinning in Blizz forums and QQ is not my best shot. I have created 2 builds in order to try to be the tank i was. Plz help me rebuild my main (i don't want to reroll pally xD)

Frost/Blood (Frost Main) (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=2050320500300300000000000000305050503 50033010001203101200005000000000000000000000000000 0&glyph=000000000000&version=10192)
The main idea of this specc is to mitigate damage, 2% extra from frost presence, and 3% avoid from the melee (i had those b4 patch but idc xD), veteran of third war a must because of the lack of stamina and spell deflect to make an excuse for tanking some magic bosses, unbraeakable armor cause now any mitigation helps and incomplete guile cause IBF isn't that great now plus no important boss skill lasts more than 15 secs.

Blood/Unholy (Blood Main) (http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=2050321503303310230023130350005000000 00000000000000000000005230300000000000000000000000 0&glyph=000000000000&version=10192)
Ok so this one is the one i hope is going to save me as a tank, placed point in imp deathstrike cause now i need some health regen, as well as worms and the mark. Will of the necropolis now a must as well as veteran of the third war this might give me some chance to get healed b4 i got owned by a horrible boss hit. Spell deflection same reason as b4 and well the other talents are for aggro generation for example bloodgorged and might of mograine. and finally the 3% extra strengh in unholy for extra parry boost. Lets hope this works or else i wont really know what to do.

Anyhow... If you might want to help me with my build suggestions are obviously welcome ;) teach me how to be a better tank plz now that i am glass made ;). Prolly if those specs don't work i'm going to have my professions changed to JC/miner... that might get me close to the other tanks.

BTW if you see my armory i have that weapon specced like that bcause i need the stamina xD (I have worldcarver too), i have leviathan's ring in the inventory and the new ring from the new 5 man instance. As well if my equip isnt gemed as it should b plz tell me :)

Some people might tell me my gear is crap, but I like to belive my gear isnt as bad as I think.

Spec epic gems is not the solution because everyone has those gems, that will just make the gap in stamina even bigger. And i dont want to spec JC/Miner (I'm inscription/herb, i like the shoulder enchant)

[Satorri]

There's no possible reason for you to lose 6k health. Something else contributed to that change beyond the patch changes. I am a Ulduar geared Blood DK, and I stacked health for days, I got the biggest health break you could possibly, and I only lost 3k or so in full raid buffs (also, lost 2% dodge and gained 0.5% parry, but I wouldn't generalize that to your stuff, there can be quite a bit of range).

As for your specs:
Frost/Blood
First off, I'm not sure why IBF is somehow mysteriously worse than it was, they simply cut your maximum possible uptime in half if you used it on CD. It's less available but otherwise it's the same powerful protective CD it always was. The spec itself, this sort of thing has been around for ages, and personally, I think you sacrifice WAY more than you gain in net value. Let me be more specific:
Vet of the 3rd War is nice, but +3% Stam and +6% Str are not THAT big a deal (note I leave out the Expertise because you give up Tundra Stalker to get it). Spell Deflection is nice, don't get me wrong, but is it really worth the relative gains you're giving up in Frost? You also took Butchery and Scent of Blood which are nice for buffing your (weaker) Frost Strikes (for not having Tundra Stalker at +15% damage). You didn't even take Bladed Armor which is a MASSIVE amount of AP for a tank in Frost Pres. Dark Conviction, as much as I like it, is not value enough for a tank to carry it's weight in the Blood tree, but that is mainly just a stepping stone for you to reach the talents I commented on above.
In Frost, what are you losing? Well, you've buffed your 2h strikes from Blood, but you've forfeited 15% crit chance on Oblit (think 15% damage from that talent alone). You've sacrificed Tundra Stalker that is worth 15% damage on everything you do, which is slightly more than 15% threat (when you factor Rune Strike). Losing Howling Blast is also a very big deal, even to a double-disease strategy. HB on it's own is fine threat, but when you factor that Rime gives Oblit a 15% chance to proc a free Howling Blast, that's a major damage loss. You've also sacrificed Chill of the Grave (strong amounts of RP in a deep frost build) to dig into Blood. The bonus RP is not just additional FS's, it's some nice small bonus threat as well.

In short, I think you're losing out more than you gain, but bear in mind, you're likely gaining survival value at the expense of crippling your threat. That's a balance you are welcome to make, but I think when it matters, you'll rather you had the threat than the lesser gain in survival value.

Blood Spec
Ravenous Dead is not a bad idea to take, but I wouldn't take it thinking of parry. In my gear it amounts to about 0.05% parry per point, in late Ulduar gear. The buff overall is not a bad one though for threat and avoidance. Again, you are losing A LOT LOT LOT from not having Bladed Armor. To give you an idea, you have what, about 29k armor in Frost Pres and buffs? That's 161 AP per point, or 806 AP for the full stack! That would be a 33% increase in your total AP. That trickles down into everything you use for threat and quickly becomes one of your most valuable threat talents.

Be aware, Butchery is terribly under-whelming in raid tanking. How often do you get a killing blow to trigger the 20 RP gain? And the steady trickle is a much much smaller value than even 1 pt of Scent of Blood (if you're particularly interested in RP, Blood doesn't need it much). Bloodworms is terribly underwhelming come endgame as well. The healing does not scale very well, and the worms do not position well so their parries can trigger boss haste and cause more damage than they heal.

Here's the part that really dismays me. Heart Strike!! This is a MAJOR ability for Blood. It replaces BS with far superior damage, and it gets buffed so very well from talents. Using DRM (which you don't have) you can convert FU pairs into death runes, and spam HS's (or still use DS if you need the heal) buffed by Subversion crit rates (which you don't have), and maintaining stacks of Bloody Vengeance (which you don't have) for a solid 9% overall physical damage buff (slightly more than that, though it doesn't buff non-physical damage it plays very well with RS).


Forgive me if this comes off rude, but your understanding of your class doesn't seem to even come close to approaching your gear. Not even slightly.

[ghromorth]

ty ty ty :D BTW i like your current specc so im going to base on it and made a slight change :P
tnx for the heartstrike explanation.


pd.
sry about that xD im an excelent tank but i really never play blood its my first time xD plus i never understood it so xD i tryed deep frost and unholy/blood b4 but blood is completely new for me :P

update: hehe with the blood spec i have the same stamina that i had b4 :D (fully buffed 2k less but well idc xD)