[Keza]

You know it's the, 'requires 20 points' and so on at each level. I keep playing with it too, but it always leaves something unfinished.

[Krenian]

Edited my original post with more info.

[Keza]

Source: Krenian Weird. Let me see if I can't hack something out for you. EDIT: Well..to be honest, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't from what it looks like. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I prefer this for the extra Strength percentage as well as more AP from my armor, and I can live with the fact I only have two points in Outbreak and 4 in Black Ice. The reason is that Black Ice scales better at one point with BA, for a DPS DK. For a tanking DK, your stats are low to even consider using Black Ice over BA. BA at this point > BI. That's my thoughts anyway

Okay, I was debating between the 2 as I did not know which would scale better.

Thanks a bunch!

[Keza]

Oh, and I totally skipped over Ravenous dead, shame on me!

[Krenian]

No problem...Might have to review this F.A.Q. at some point and update it..Might do that today considering the downtime.

[Keza]

I'll give this it a shot and see how it goes. Our pally tank is pretty good, they may stick us both on arena duty. I may have to fraps, lol.

[Krenian]

Shouldn't be an issue at all in the Arena anymore if you have you and a Paladin doing it. How we do it is pretty nice. One picks up all AoE, the other picks up those Guardian dudes and takes them slightly to the side so their Whirlwind doesn't cleave the snot out of the other tank/players. This allows it to die from the AoE people are putting down as well as minimizes the damage done to your group.

[Satorri]

Unholy will feel a little nicer than Frost in that you can just keep Pest'ing diseases to new adds, keep UB rolling, and drop strategic DnD's to keep stuff roling even when you run out of runes.

I've been doing it as Blood though, so I would figure that and Frost have the same concern. Because you are using bursts instead of dots, you want to make sure you don't fire too early. If you only hit 2, then 2 more join, the new two will leave you feeling helpless as you wait for recharges. I've come to appreciate that positioning is a very big help on that fight. If you can set it up well the tanks' job is significantly easier, and if they're stuck trying to run around and grab stuff singularly, they're going to be stressed and people will die to missed adds.

As for Unholy, I didn't dig into your spec much, but if you're doing this particularly for the arena, I wouldn't bother with BcB, it's single target damage and not overwhelming. For the best aoe you can muster you'll want to focus on your magic damage. It's tricky though. For dpsers, Black Ice will usually trump Bladed Armor, but for a tank Bladed Armor will trump Black Ice. I always want to get both, but it's not worth what you give up in Unholy to do it (RoR, 2% *all* damage done will always trump 2% Frost/Shadow).

I haven't dug into what the impact of our continually disappearing armor will have on the value of Bladed Armor, but it was already a head above the rest with our Frost Pres armor modifier.

[Keza]

BcB was because of the required '20 points' to continue down the tree, and so on. You can't progress to the next tier in the tree w/o putting points into something you really don't need or want, otherwise I would have left it behind just like necrosis.

[Krenian]

F.A.Q. updated!

[HootyElune]

Source: Satorri Unholy will feel a little nicer than Frost in that you can just keep Pest'ing diseases to new adds, keep UB rolling, and drop strategic DnD's to keep stuff roling even when you run out of runes.

/agree

originally I was designed to tank the arena. Without improved DND this is pretty much impossible for any DK tank other than unholy. burst aoe ftl

The dk is much better off in the tunnel. Also helps with higher dps to down adds quicker.

[Satorri]

Note: I didn't say it was impossible, it just requires a different skill: patience.

Timing is the key, at first I fell into the trap of trying to do too much too early and kept finding myself unable to do anything when more were added, now I tank it just fine as blood.

And Keza, it's very easy to get valuable items in those first 20 pts without taking BcB.

Anticipation (5), Epidemic (2), Morbidity (3), and Ravenous Dead (3) are all directly helpful (even CE is kickass in the arena), and Vicious Strikes (2) and Outbreak (3) are both solid buffs to Unholy's skills though they may be single target focused. That's already 18. I'd sooner put the last two in CE and/or Necrosis than BcB, Necrosis is single target only, but has no additional liability (and scales a little better with a 2h). If the build is solely for the arena, you could even take Unholy Command, that would not be wasted in this situation by any stretch.

[Keza]

I see what you're saying. I had thought CE would be helpful there too.

[Krenian]

Depends on how long those bodies stay in the arena. If I recall, they don't stay there very long so you have to be pretty fast with CE and if you're in the middle of your rotation and you're under 40 rp, especially tanking, the 40 rp could cost you an UB or RS. I dunno if CE's the greatest thing in the world but to me I just don't see it's worth when corpses don't stay there long enough.

[Satorri]

Yeah, like Razorscale trash (which along with Vezax trash, and a little of Hodir trash, are the only places you can really make use of CE >.<) the bodies despawn pretty quickly, but they're there for a couple seconds, long enough to get blowed up, you just won't have a reserve waiting. I use it right as I know someone's about to die.

Generally, I'm more sad that Ulduar trash is predominantly mechanicals and elementals in the places where you really want to use CE most. Such is life though. =)

[Jaeden]

You should take necrosis, it is actually a pretty awesome talent, esp as a tank.

The reason is it works on both melee white hits *AND* Rune Strike. I think it works on a couple other abilities, but since I was focusing on watching it's interaction with melee and Rune strike I am not sure.

[Satorri]

It adds damage to auto-attacks, RS's, and BcB strikes. It is indeed a fine move and point for point I'd take that before BcB.

[Keza]

I think I read somewhere on EJ's forums about Necrosis being more for dual wield tanks. Nice to know it works with rune strike. It's hard to find credible advise and sometimes it comes down to tank style/preferences.

I appreciate the feedback.

[Satorri]

Necrosis works for everyone, the reason it is cited as a strong dual wield talent (having no bearing whatsoever on its 2h value) is that dual wielding does a higher % of its total from auto-attacks, rune strikes, and BcB if you have that too.

20% on your auto-attacks and rune strikes alone is a great buff. The limitation is only that it is a single target damage/threat buff, which again is not a bad thing, just its nuance.

[Keza]

I hated tanking as Unholy, and my guild was able to down Thorim w/o the benefit. So back to frost <3!