[nips]

Source: Nerlth You waste a point on your ghoul... Why? I'm thinking something more like this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Why not...?
I like to have my little buddy with me.. he's loyal, friendly, would give his life for me and most important he keeps he's mouth shut

[Nerlth]

Source: nips Why not...? I like to have my little buddy with me.. he's loyal, friendly, would give his life for me and most important he keeps he's mouth shut

You don't really use it while tanking. I'm just saying, one point spent better else where.

[nips]

Actually i always use it while tanking. Its 2-300 more dps and a free stun each 20 sec. Not bad for one point imo.

[Rev13]

I am leaning towards Frost as AMZ, squishy pets and AOE dmg boost talents will do me little good while eating Hateful Strikes or inspecting Sapphiron's molars for cavities. I am just not sure how well Frost fairs in the TPS department. Anyone else pulling the primary tanking duties who can shell out some advice?

AMZ is highly situational and typically best specced as part of a specific encounter and/or dual spec (if thats going to happen) It doesnt need to be a constant in any Unholy MT/OT build (it isnt in mine)

And the imp ghoul talent is a waste, I find that he just gets in the way (and this is coming from a Hunter) His DPS while active is ok, but a tank wasting a GCD on rezzing a ghoul he cannot heal seems like a waste. Best to leave ghouls to the DPS DKs. Spend the point in gargoyle, its great scaling RP dump.

[nips]

Sup with the ghoul hate

Ofc he's sort of a wast if you only mt raidbosses, but i do alot of other stuff aswell. When someone else mt in raids i go from 1700-2k dps only by using my ghoul. Also sending him away to stun that anoying caster while my deathgrip is on cd is invaluable. Dailies goes faster and pvp is more fun (Leap/gnaw ftw).

[Nerlth]

If you like the ghoul, fine. =) We aren't forcing you to do anything.

My question:

Is it important to try to keep Bone shield up whenever possible, or can it be put on the back burner?

[Foxx33]

Satorri what glyphs are you using as that spec atm? I'm curious because of the rune tap talent if u picked up the glyph of not. Also, how often do you use corpse explosion? Also to answer Nerlth's question.. Bone Shield is like you're love. You make love to it all night long as long as you can. 40% damage reduction is alot and even with the upcoming nerf 20% is still ALOT of damge reduction especially with the Bone Shield glyph.

[Nerlth]

Source: Foxx33 Satorri what glyphs are you using as that spec atm? I'm curious because of the rune tap talent if u picked up the glyph of not. Also, how often do you use corpse explosion? Also to answer Nerlth's question.. Bone Shield is like you're love. You make love to it all night long as long as you can. 40% damage reduction is alot and even with the upcoming nerf 20% is still ALOT of damge reduction especially with the Bone Shield glyph.

Thanks. I try to use Bone Shield whenever possible, but the thing I hate is the minute cooldown. Is it really needed? It already costs us a rune, which in my opinion is a lot. The cooldown is probably for PvP. >.> /Sigh

[Satorri]

Aye, until the next patch Unholy Knights are very dependent on Bone Shield since we have very little else by way of passive survival buffs. Right now we are surviving on CDs in the hardest tanking situations. Bone Shield I prebuff and recast on CD, it goes a long way. Normally my gear is such that I only pop IBF when I'm taking a rush or I get caught with Bone Shield on CD when I may really need it. Other than that I tend to only use it on super hard hitting bosses (Patchy on 25, you tubby bastard, and hell Patchy on 10), and when I know the healers could use some relief.

And Foxx, I am currently using Bone Shield, Scourge Strike, and Rune Tap for my major glyphs. I love Rune Tap and its glyphs and I wish I could comfortably take the fully improved version (20% of your health every 30 sec, instant cast, is pretty crazy, for me that's an 8k heal when I'm fully buffed). The Rune lets me set up my party smartly and I can ease the healers, or pop an emergency life save on another tank or healers, or what have you. I have actually saved lives with that by giving that little burst of health to get the healer a half second more to finish their cast.

I've swapped from DS to ScS because my gear has reached a point where I don't use DS as regularly any more, I just don't take damage the same, so I spam ScS far more frequently. The glyph has been great for extending diseases so I can use more high damage moves and rely a little less on IT/PS (though I still drop PS frequently enough to keep Desecration rolling).

Rather than thinking of AMZ as situational, I see it as a way for me to avert group damage. Any fight where there will be aoe or collateral spell damage (again, ANYTHING that isn't physical damage), I will drop that on my way in and my ranged/healers know they can stand in it to take the hits off. The last pull before the final boss of AN have a random member shadow dot that can kill people if the healers don't work hard (big tick short duration). I drop my bubble and it eats the first which is usually enough time to get through the pull. On the trash before Grand Widow Faerlina on 25, the caster packs do a shadow bolt volley. It's not a big deal but if the ranged all stand in it, it soaks up a HUGE amount of damage, enough so that I can pull two groups and we can nuke them down all at once. You get my point, the value is only limited by how much and how well you use it. (I also use it to tank Anub'rekhan without kiting for locust swarm)

As for Corpse Explosion, I tend to only use it for AOE pulls at the moment, just a fun way to do some more aoe hits, though I've found lately it can be very handy for fast ranged pickups of groups. For example, a pat joins your pull and starts running for the healers, I target one, pop CE which detonates a nearby body and gives me that initial threat so they run into my aoe and I start picking them up more solidly. It's just too much fun to use, I'm psyched they're doubling the base damage (and I'm not sure what they're doing to the coefficient). As an RP costing move it will be interesting, I wish it didn't have a CD since with Blessing of Sanc I'd be able to spam it non-stop in any aoe tanking situation >.> (which is why I'm sure they added a CD).

[Nerlth]

I'm thinking something like this for Unholy.

Unholy Talent Build - World of Warcraft

I dropped Ravenous Dead and picked up Blood Caked Swords.

[Satorri]

Nerlth, for tanking I'd avoid BcB. The extra strikes are a bit more single target threat but they're also parriable. Ravenous Dead on the other hand provides you a % strength buff that improves how your gear scales and Str gives us more AP and parry chance, so a double threat bonus with a bit of avoidance as well.

You may not notice the difference, and it probably won't kill you, but I prefer to stay away from BcB

[Nerlth]

Source: Satorri Nerlth, for tanking I'd avoid BcB. The extra strikes are a bit more single target threat but they're also parriable. Ravenous Dead on the other hand provides you a % strength buff that improves how your gear scales and Str gives us more AP and parry chance, so a double threat bonus with a bit of avoidance as well. You may not notice the difference, and it probably won't kill you, but I prefer to stay away from BcB

Isn't Ravenous Dead dependent on your Ghoul though?

[Satorri]

No no, only half the talent benefits your ghoul and half benefits you.

It gives you 1/2/3% more strength, and increases the % Str/Stam your ghoul gets from you.

[Nerlth]

Source: Satorri No no, only half the talent benefits your ghoul and half benefits you. It gives you 1/2/3% more strength, and increases the % Str/Stam your ghoul gets from you.

Ah. Then I had read it wrong.

[Erthan]

This is the unholy tanking build im using atm.
World of Warcraft Europe -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talents


And btw, isn't the frost aura pretty useless? You get 75 spell resistance from druid buff, and they don't stack. 2 talent points for 5 resistance is a waste imo. But i guess you have to put the points there to go down the tree if you don't have icy talons.

[Satorri]

Well, and not everyone has the Druid buff in all their raids (or any depending on who you regularly run with). You also don't need Imp Icy Talons if you have a shaman, definitely not if you have two, or if you do have two to drop Windfury and WoA, then they could drop Nature resist when it's useful.

This is the big raid buff game, and it's quite flexible these days.

[yawns]

I'm thinking of using a frost build like WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator

I'm really wondering how good this build will be?

As for any explanations on talents off the top of my head here they are.

Might be wiser to pickup rune tap instead of corpse explosion for the 10% self heal, although corpse explosion seems like a nice idea to help with aggro in some situations. Morbidity is very appealing just from the times I wanted / needed to drop a DnD and it was on a long cooldown.

For frost talents endless winter really seems like a good idea solely for reducing the runic power cost on mind freeze to nothing, the rest of the talents for the most part are just pumping up my damage for more threat.

Here is a link to my armory
The World of Warcraft Armory .

And for my current build the way I'm going at 80 it will look like this WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Death Knight -> Talent Calculator




I know I still need some better gear though I'm working on it.

[sohcahtoa]

What do you guys think of the ghoul's survivability after next patch change to "Night of the Dead?"

[edit] oh and also the change of the ghoul glyph to make it less squishy

[sohcahtoa]

Hey guys,

Any Blood Tanks here? or planning to be after the patch?

I grp with my gf most of the time and shes a Disc Priest, so her shields are my dmg mitigation. I want to try blood tanking next patch and see how it works out.

This is my plan for a heavy blood spec build, what do you guys think?
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=162008040501

I got Butchery + Dancing Rune Weapon hoping thats a good synergy for Runic Dump. Got lichborne for tanking. And now heres my biggest debate for a better combo/synergy:
Death Rune Mastery + Vicious Strike for Death Strike (and death strike glyph)
or
Death Rune Mastery + Annihilation (for obliterate)

Or should i go this build instead?
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=162008040501

This takes away Butchery and Dancing Rune Weapon for both Annihilation and Vicious Strike.

Suggestion guys? Thanks alot, i really like this thread and the info.

[Foxx33]

Source: sohcahtoa Hey guys, Any Blood Tanks here? or planning to be after the patch? I grp with my gf most of the time and shes a Disc Priest, so her shields are my dmg mitigation. I want to try blood tanking next patch and see how it works out. This is my plan for a heavy blood spec build, what do you guys think? http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=162008040501 I got Butchery + Dancing Rune Weapon hoping thats a good synergy for Runic Dump. Got lichborne for tanking. And now heres my biggest debate for a better combo/synergy: Death Rune Mastery + Vicious Strike for Death Strike (and death strike glyph) or Death Rune Mastery + Annihilation (for obliterate) Or should i go this build instead? http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=162008040501 This takes away Butchery and Dancing Rune Weapon for both Annihilation and Vicious Strike. Suggestion guys? Thanks alot, i really like this thread and the info.

I'd say for your biggest debate for a combo/synergy i'd take Death Rune Mastery+Vicious Strikes until ur better geared. Then, switch to the other.