Death Knight AOE Spec, MT Spec and Rotations

[Satorri]

1- i know HC is only useful situationally, so im willing to replace that talent point anywhere else...

I heartily agree. It is very nice in certain situations, and if you use it well, meaning particularly with advanced notice to your group, it can be a very valuable tool on trash and 5-mans (really handy against the slimes o' doom in the Construct Quarter of Naxx25). I usually trade it off to talents that are a little more fundamental in supporting my tanking, though I really think that's a matter of personal preference.

2- Death Rune Mastery - i absolutely love have Death Runes since it gives me a more dynamic style of playing allowing me to be able to freely choose what ability to use depending on the situation...which i feel is the key to DK-Tanking unlike following a set rotation...but should i consider something else? i need a lot of convincing on removing these point and allocating them

I generally agree. I tried a spec that had BotN and DRM, and I enjoyed that I could have a lot of Death Runes a lot of the time. That being said, I don't often obliterate in my frost tanking, and at that, I actually Death Strike less since the payoff is weakest as Frost. Why? Howling Blast is often up frequently enough, I actually IT more often than I need to (since it hits for a solid 1600 for me, and crits over 3k in deep frost), and neither of them are parryable, and they ignore armor. As a result when it came to tanking I stopped using DRM. It's not a bad idea, it's just one that I wouldn't get as much out of as another talent.

3- Merciless Combat - quite iffy about this one...12% increased dmg when the target is below 35% health - does it help with threat management? is it useless? some feedback on this is highly appreciated...

I posted this somewhere else, I forget which of the threads. I avoid this while tanking. Why? Because if you still need a threat bump when the boss is at 35% health, then you need a bigger fix than this talent. This is a prime talent designed for dps to power through enrage territory, and it's a nice dps increase, but I usually leave that to the dps section, and spend those 2 points on something that will help me survive the enrage portion of the fight. After all, that's our part, right?

and now for the main question...Frost Aura + Acclimation...amazing on paper...but are they really worth removing points from Death Rune Mastery & Merciless combat?

I need some major convincing if I'm to do so...

Another thing I explained somewhere else. Frost Aura is a solid 80 resist all the time, across the board. Acclimation is a reactive boost of 50 resist to a single type for 18 sec, that stacks up to 3 times, and can stack with as many different types as you get hit with. The two combined will almost match a resist aura/totem if the damage is infrequent (longer apart than 18 sec), and is much bigger if you're taking frequent damage from that type. They're great, and in the endgame you'll find a lot more spell damage flying around than you'd think. I'm not going to try and convince you, you are smart enough to figure out what will suit you best, having the information.

P.S...my guild is loving my tanking methods and ability...our healer/s is/are always safe when I'm tanking with my current spec. Threat is rarely an issue with me...
Many times our dps were wiped out due to them starting when i wasn't ready...yet the healer and I were able to take down the boss cuz i kept him safe...i always put our healer as my main priority...if i keep him safe...then i know i will keep on rocking...and vice versa with him...its a great agreement that we have :P

Good, we can always use players creating good PR, last thing we want is the painfully ignorant idea rolling around that DK's can't tank, or are inferior to other tanks.

I've seen it pop up in a few places, and I'm not sure who the original credit goes to, but my ethic when I used to raid as a healer:
If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the tank dies, it's the healers fault. If the DPS die, it's their own damn fault!

[Satorri]

Firstly - Sapph is not immune no more.....I never played PTR or Beta but I was IT'ing her all night last night.....eventually got her down.

Hallelujah, if I were religious I'd praise the lord. That hurt me so much, I had to duck out of my first ever Naxx run on the beta to go respec so I could actually do something to her, as Frost was my spec of choice (and my HB's at the time were critting for 8-9k).

1) I think it was Satorri that refered to testing speccs on the dummies. Well for me testing specs on the dummies only works for looking at DPS (i use recount) and then that does not seem reliable.

Twas not I. Personally I don't feel like I can REALLY gauge a tanking spec unless I'm getting hit. TPS is wonderful, but you never have an accurate sense of that when you aren't reacting to a tanking situation. Repositioning the boss, popping CDs for survival, etc. Though a training dummy can give you a best case scenario of how much hurt the spec is capable of putting out. Now, I haven't tested, but if you have omen set to display without being in a group it should show your TPS while you're hammering on the dummy, yeah? That'd be a good addon for one of our tanks on Tankspot who's addon savvy, a dynamic TPS meter. Something you can initiate metrics and gauges to keep track of peak threat, average generation, profiles over fights, that'd be something I'd like to be able to review after a fight.

2) Yesterday after I did my original post I spent the whole day in heroics and raids (archavon, naxx, obsidian). I was constantly checking recount to see what was happening. Now here is the kicker. I am DWeilding right now as the 1handers have def rating on them and I don't wanna drop below 540. As I understand it, a DK's threat comes from applying and spreading diseases. Recount says that my most dmg is coming from melee, closest below that is IT by about 10%. Is this normal.....shouldn't it be the other way around?

Nope. Melee is usually one of my largest damage contributions, usually in the top 2. Normally as Unholy, tanking 5-mans, DnD will be my largest, then melee, then usually Blood Plague and Frost Fever, followed by PS and IT (and those last 2 are usually around 8-10%, with the diseases being a slightly higher %). Never underestimate the threat of just plain auto-attacking on the target. Dual wielding your melee damage will be even higher, that's one of the perks of dual wielding, it doesn't actually take miles of hit to get better melee dps out of 2 1-handers at the same level as the 2-hander. Now, here's a question, is your main hand slow or fast? Did you get the slow main-hand tank axe from the quest in Zul'drak? Or maybe the delicious sword from heroic UK? If you're using a fast main hand, run UK until you get the Infantry Assault Blade and you'll see your other damage go up a nice measure, specifically Plague Strike, Scourge Strike, and Blood Strike.

3) In alot of the posts I see peeps talking about not putting points in a specific talent as it does not generate threat etc. How do u know what generates threat and what does not? Is there some easy way to calculate this or something?

Well, as DK's none of our moves have "added" threat, like a warrior's sunder or shield slam. That's about to change with Rune Strike, but otherwise our threat is 100% simply our dps with a threat modifier from frost stance. So the more dps you do the more threat you generate. It's worth noting as well, that the healing of Death Strike generates heal threat (2 pts healed = 1 threat normally, but it gets the benefit of Frost presence as well), so that has a nice threat buff built in. Between that and that the self-healing makes your health functionally longer without outside heals, I will preferentially hit DS if my health isn't full over ScS/OB, especially as unholy since it heals me for 2.5-3k minimum in 10-mans, and if you're running with a holy priest who drops Guardian Spirit on you (or you're blood and you pop Vamp Blood), your heal will be even bigger.

4) In terms of DWeilding. I didn't see anything about an answer to my hit rating question. My guildies have been throwing around some figures that I should be looking at but tbh....they seem pretty high. Any ideas? Either way I am gonna stay DWeilding until I can safely replace the 50 def rating I am getting from the weps. That is just 2 much to loose imho.

Well, for the sake of comfort, you want ~229 hit rating to never miss your specials in heroics and raid trash. There is some discussion going on about the actual raid boss miss margin. Safe to say if you have 295 hit rating your specials will never miss, if you run with a draenei in your group of any flavor, you only need 262 for the same safe margin. And current thinking is that 262 may be enough without hit buffs (meaning a draen will bring you down to 229 on a raid boss). Rather than dealing with ratings that may mean little to you, the thing to remember is this is how hit works:
Hit rating does not techincally increase your chance to hit, it reduces your chance to miss. Your chance to miss is PURELY a factor of the level difference (by way of weapon skill and defense skill, since you cannot buff weapon skill and bosses don't buff their defense skill). At maxed weapon skill you have 400 weapon skill. For bosses their defense skill is equal to their level times 5, just like ours. So, at equal values, 400 weapon skill versus 400 defense, you have 5% chance to hit. The classical values were that this increased by 1% for each of the first two levels the mob was higher than you, and then 3 levels made a bigger jump. Please note: these are hit values for wielding a single weapon and melee hit based special attacks (I'm still testing DK's "spells" for hit rating requirements). So, the % you need to not miss with your special attacks on a mob are not dependent on your wielding a 2-hander or 2 1-hands, and they are:
level 80: 5% level 81: 6% level 82: 7% level 83 (boss): 9%
Heroic bosses are 82. Nothing short of a raid boss is level 83. Hit rating while dual wielding beyond this % goes to reduce your miss chance with melee, which is not wasted, though I wouldn't stress it. To never miss with your dual wielding melee you would need:
level 80: 24% level 81: 25% level 82: 26% level 83 (boss): 28%

5) I have seen quite a few DK tanks with 5/5 Bladed Armor. Opinions?

The better your armor gets the bigger this value becomes. My tanking gear, off the top of my head, puts me at about 25k armor. With 5/5 in Bladed Armor that's worth 694 AP. Tell me that's not silly to pass up. =) It scales with the armor increase from Frost presence, and from Toughness.

[Debris]

Hi

First off this is my first post. I tried to keep up with the tread but it is very hard for me to sit and read while my friends keep asking me to join them on instance runs.

I would also like to say I am very impressed with the depth of discussions about tanking on tank spot. It has given me alot of insight in to tanking and the Death Knight class over all.

Then I would just like to mention that my Death Knight is my first attempt at tanking. I've always played DPS or support classes, because its easier to do (or at least thats how I feel). But with the reacent sortage in tanks on my realm espescially I decided to give it a go.

So here goes with a couple of questions:

As a first I've recently spent alot of time on finding a nice weapon fro my Death Knight and gone about getting the Titansteel Destroyer (craftable mace). The very same day I've been told that im an idiot for tanking with a 2H DPS weapon and I should be using 2 x 1H weapons, because 2H is too slow. I didnt really understand the argument because he kinda insinuated that my runic power generation had something to do with the speed of my weapon. But as far as I know I only gain runic power from skills (correct me if im wrong)!

So the Question really is what should I be looking at? 2x1H or a 2H weapon?

As for my spec, I went with the suggested frost spec in the very begining of this thread and I like the way it plays, it suites my style of playing. Is this still the suggested frost tanking spec?...12/52/7...

Then im struggeling sometimes to keep the agro and I suppose that has alot to do with my relative inexperience and lack of skill as tank. The problem I have is I keep on running out of Runic Power and my runes keep filling up like crazy. Can someone suggest a reason why i get bogged down without RP and have my Runes on cooldown? Any constructive ideas would be very much appreciated.

Greetings; Debris

[Satorri]

Well, first off the Titansteel Destroyer is a fine tanking weapon for a starting tank. It's piled with stam and strength, and the hit rating will go a good distance.

Second, that is A tank spec, I highly recommend refining your spec to suit your personal discoveries about the class. The spec you linked isn't bad, I'd make certain changes, but it'll be good enough to start off with I would think.

As far as threat, runes, and RP, can you tell us more about what your priorities/rotations are? What moves do you use, how do you start fights? Do you use any macros?

[Debris]

Well at the moment im trying to do alot of heroics and so on. So obviously theres alot of trash that requires some aoe'ing. So I end up pulling a ranged mob with death grip then throwing Death n Decay on the ground, then I usually use Icy Touch & Plague Strike.

After that I go to Pestilence and Blood Boil to spread the dmg and try to keep threat on other mobs, i spam my frost strike, death strike and rune strike in between when they are up.. This is usually enough to shoot high on the Threat meters but my enhancement shaman friend Usually ends up pulling agro on a mob somehow.

This concerns me because we join another guild on their ten man runs and i dont wana drop agro on mobs in raids. thats dangerous.

I'm not too concerned about single targets, I dont loose agro on those...

Edit: I'm experimenting with a macro that uses Rune Strike if its up.

[xKhellendrosx]

Well at the moment im trying to do alot of heroics and so on. So obviously theres alot of trash that requires some aoe'ing. So I end up pulling a ranged mob with death grip then throwing Death n Decay on the ground, then I usually use Icy Touch & Plague Strike.

After that I go to Pestilence and Blood Boil to spread the dmg and try to keep threat on other mobs, i spam my frost strike, death strike and rune strike in between when they are up.. This is usually enough to shoot high on the Threat meters but my enhancement shaman friend Usually ends up pulling agro on a mob somehow.

This concerns me because we join another guild on their ten man runs and i dont wana drop agro on mobs in raids. thats dangerous.

I'm not too concerned about single targets, I dont loose agro on those...

Edit: I'm experimenting with a macro that uses Rune Strike if its up.

Tell your enhancement shaman friend to focus on your target. Also if you are frost spec, make sure that you dropping Howling Blasts when you can.

[Satorri]

Aye, if an enhancement shaman is pulling threat it's likely because he's pushing on an off-target. In general I think dps pulling threat is a responsibility on them, all they have to do is hurt stuff, it's not a lot to ask that they watch their threat.

I do however take it as a personal challenge to try to out threat the hardest they can push. That doesn't mean I don't hold them responsible for pulling aggro and dying.

Now, the thing about Rune Strike is that it is great threat, good damage, and if you use it with macro's or are just quick on keeping it filled, you will not have the same amount of RP to throw around. Beyond that, so long as you are using DnD you'll find your runes are frequently blacked out, which is an uncomfortable feeling, to be sure, as a tank.

As frost, I don't actually use DnD, unless I'm prepositioning or just trying to hold aoe aggro off of a healer. You can do better aoe threat if you save your runes to use HB smartly. If you can spread frost fever and keep it up, Deathchill can make it so your HB is great aoe threat so you don't need to spend all the runes on DnD.

Blood and Unholy are a different matter, DnD is the best aoe threat that blood has, and Unholy, it's powerful threat if you have morbidity and you're buffing the damage with Ebon Plaguebringer.

Frost is capable of good aoe threat, but you have to work for it.

[Shazlonium]

Satorri,

Thanx for the amazingly useful info in your reply... awesome as always

I rarely have threat issues when bosses are under 35% health, a respec is in order :P

Regarding DRM, i'll drop it for a while along with Merciless Combat and pick FA+Acc...see how that goes for me....i can always respec back no?

As for HC...i still dont know whether to keep it or drop...i like the fact that its at least an instant AoE disease, which i admit is very useful sometimes...any suggestions on what else could be useful?

And about who's fault it is when a certain class dies...I TOTALLY AGREE!!! lol

[dracosveen]

Yo yo,

Thanx for the hit rating info. Both my weps are 2.60 (the axe u referred to as well as the 1h from Ebon Knights). I have been trying to find out about faster weps but a every1 knows since most dmg is coming from abilities the slower weps have the bigger base dmg that the abilities are calced on so I go for the slower ones.

Ok....Omen3 doesn't show the threat from target dummies. I think the reason is that Omen3 uses the new Blizz threat API instead of extrapulating threat from the combat logs like Omen2 did. I am gonna test this by loading omen2 up and seeing what happens.

I did find an addon called Tankadin something or other on Curse....looked good until I read that it had only been updated last year sometime....and wouldn't work for anything but a pally and maybe a war and a druid.

Right so, so far I am still Unholy spec. Now my next question is the following. There was a discussion earlier in the thread about Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis. If I remember correctly both were seen as point wastes. But since most of my dmg is coming from melee....especially as a DWielder.....surely those would be 2 excellent talents to sink points into? I mean more dmg = more threat right?

So far I have seen that Omen3 reports my threat gen at around 3.3k (max I have seen). I haven't really had problems dealing with multi-pulls except if I can't get Pest off early enuff.

So I am thinking about respeccing to include somethings we have discussed so far and also Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade....just to see. Going to Naxx tonight so I think that that is a good test.

Will let you guys know how it went.

Cheers
Draco

Update: Just tried Omen2 on target dummy. No threat shown....so it doesn't work. Hope some1 knows something that does

[Satorri]

I have been trying to find out about faster weps but a every1 knows since most dmg is coming from abilities the slower weps have the bigger base dmg that the abilities are calced on so I go for the slower ones.

This is correct, several of our abilities are based on weapon damage, so slower weapons have a higher damage range for the same dps. It is your main-hand only, though that determines that damage.

Right so, so far I am still Unholy spec. Now my next question is the following. There was a discussion earlier in the thread about Blood Caked Blade and Necrosis. If I remember correctly both were seen as point wastes. But since most of my dmg is coming from melee....especially as a DWielder.....surely those would be 2 excellent talents to sink points into? I mean more dmg = more threat right?

So, it's not to say that either is a waste of points. The quirks of BCB are that, if A.) you're dual wielding, the extra strike it generates is also parryable which increases your parry haste liability. If B.) you're using a 2-hander, the chance to proc is based on auto-attack swings and the 2-hander isn't swinging that often and it's being replaced with Rune Strikes regularly. The upshot is you don't see the same value when you're tanking that you might if you were dpsing or didn't have plenty of other good places for your talents. Necrosis on the other hand is a nice flat damage increase on your auto-attacks, but it is only that. Neither is a waste, but they're also not in the list of best choices.

For my money, more damage is more threat, yes, but as unholy though melee damage always a large %, I'm not generally as interested in my main target threat as my off-target threat. I focus on increasing the damage of my diseases, DnD, UB, etc, so that I can roll more wide area threat and my threat is better even when it's just left to passive ticks (which continue through stuns, knockdowns, and blackouts, think druid hots, but for threat). So, BcB and Necrosis may be nice, but they're purely improving the one thing I'm least concerned with.

[dracosveen]

Yeah I ended up not taking BcB....after I read it properly....the 30% is not big enuff....for me anyway.

but interesting point that u make about the weps. I thought that it was both weps that have to be slow. So what you are saying is that I can get something like Red Sword of Courage that is 1.6 for my off-hand? That would be awesome.

Anyway. Since I am a stupid fellow ....I didn't wait now. I went back to frost cos I like HB. So I am gonna see if I can apply what I have learnt so far to Frost Tanking. I dunno....I did so many respecs no today I went from 20g to 50g. Think I have spent 500g on respecs cos I can't make up my mind and nothing is really working for me....or I can't see it working for me.

Really getting to that frustrated point where I am ready to lvl my druid again....that and my guild is crying for a druid tank.

Also my wife (80 priest) says that it was much easier healing my druid than it is healing my DK

[Satorri]

Ha, well, DK tanking is not a game for novices, to really make it work it does require some good practice, and at that practice at one particular tack. The class, more than most of the others that are the same role from tree to tree, requires a heavy amount of tact changing from tree to tree.

The best thing you can do is find a spec that makes sense, even if it isn't perfect at first, and stick with it for a good while. Get the gear to support tanking (you may not remember, I had forgotten, but tanking can be very frustrating until your gear improves beyond the level you're tanking at), and you may find it get easier.

My girlfriend (80 priest =D) enjoys healing my DK and hasn't said much since my gear stepped up, about my warrior or pally being easier to heal. She also loves that she can bubble me as much as she wants.

[Blueduck3285]

I would have to agree. With people stating that DK's are spiky to heal, I have put my guild healers through some runs before I upgraded some of my gear and found many of them enjoy healing DK's once we are beyond a certain point in gear and skill. One, a druid healer in my guild says they Love to heal a DK the point I am at and ones further along.

One of the best things given to us (I know I sound like a broken record about this) but we can spec almost any way we like (within certain limits) and tank well. The problem most DK's run into is rotations, CD's, and just overall resource management. DK's are very uniqe in that we have 2 systems to manage. With the right rotation, you can make nearly any spec work. One person I usually fallow is Satorri, in that Satorri knows a great deal more than I and usually is a great source of info. If anyone has questions on rotation and DW/2H, Satorri has put out some great posts with lots of information, especially the DW topic which that post made my brain hurt after this first page :-P.

[dracosveen]

Yep yep.....Satorri is good stuff

Oh well. Went to Naxx with my shiny new frost spec last night. Ppl weren't very impressed that I was mostly 2nd on the DPS list until I reminded them that I was aoe tanking and they shouldn't feel bad lol.

Anyway. I have to say that I enjoy the Frost spec more. I feel more complete if that makes any sense.

Current Frost Spec

Well there it is. Comments/Opinions/Criticism all welcome

[Satorri]

Awww, stop guys, you're making me blush!


It's an interesting spec, to be sure, and I think I can see why you went for what you did. DC over FS as a RP drop since it's not weapon damage dependent, Virulence for the improved hit chances on your spell based moves (which is almost all of them), leaving off BotN presumably since BS is a smaller damage constituent with dual weapons.

Could you do me a favor, let me know what your sheet crit chance is and what sort of proc rate you get on Killing Machine, I'd appreciate it.

Otherwise, despite the weapon based hindrance, I think you might get more bang for your buck out of frost strike, and for a smaller point cost (allowing you to finish Tundra Stalker, and maybe Killing Machine, or pick up a bit of Frost Aura). I say this because Glacier Rot, Black Ice, Annihilation, Killing Machine, and Guile of Gorefiend all buff FS up very well. Even dual wielding, I usually get HARD hitting FS's.

[Maci]

Hello!
I chose DK over Paladin tank and tanked most of the outland instances with it, both frost and unholy specced, and i have to admit, that Unholy is the way for me. At one point I thought that I needed the mitigation of Frost, but when i was getting better and better gear it wasnt a big deal and now being a habit of the dpses to pull off more and more aoe, i just find Unholy a bit better in handling threat and protecting my group. Also one thing why I prefer Unholy is the Boneshield. I know it will be nerfed, and still I dont rly care. Just started tanking the Nothrend instances with a quite good gear for my level and it seems that my Boneshield (with the Glyph of Boneshield) can outlast any encounter. I feel it a lot better getting 40% less dmg(20% after patch) for almost 40-50 secs or so, than Unbreakable Armor just for 20 secs, and also that i can cast it and lasts 5 minutes, so between groups i can have the CD again. Other thing is DnD, which is an ability that a lot of times saved the life of my group. And becouse of its reduced CD I cast it more so I dont have to worry that much about rotation, couse one thing that was sometimes on my toe with Frost is not being able to decide in the 4th or 5th set of rotations what to cast. In Unholy there is DnD with reduced CD. I dont know how my view will change during raiding, but for now it seems i can perform better with Unholy.
BUT, and this is the main reason I posted here, I have some issues with rotations though. I almost every time start with IT, PS, DnD, Pestilence(even there is just 2 mobs, couse I want to make sure on holding threat), then comes ScS. Although I am not good at theorycrafting and couldnt rly set up a proper 4-5 sets of rotations and becouse of that i have to keep watching my Rune CDs and not being able to concentrate completely on the fight goin on. It would be great if I just knew which abilities I could use one after another for around 1 minute, so i would be able to watch the fight and just pulling my macros/hotkeys and didnt have to watch my CDs that much. So if you could post me a chain of rotations, I would be glad. I am just lvl 70 now, so my specc looks like this: Unholy Tanking

Regards,
Maci

[Hyperios]

I am currently level 78 and planning to be a MT in my guild. After much reading and trying out tanking as frost and unholy i have decided on the build linked below as my lvl 80 raid tank build. I went far enough down in blood to get the HP boost and down far enough in frost to get unbreakable armor, and only down far enough in unholy to get epidemic and anticipation. After this i had 5 points left over, i put 3 in bloody strikes (increased blood strike dmg) and 2 in viscious strikes (increased plague strike dmg) i felt that for my 5 points these would increase threat in general the most over what my other options would be. Any comments or suggestions on the build would be welcome.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

[Merko]

food for thought:

going that far down the frost tree and not picking up guille of gorefiend is a sin...

unless you are unholy, putting points in vicious strikes has very small gain vs. talent point spent (plague strike hits like a 90 year old lady and does the threat of one too)

besides RS you want to pick a runic power dump (if your blood or unholy get morbidity to beef up your deathcoil, if your frost get frost strike)

- Even tho our 51 point talents (besides UB) are terrible for tanking, the 45-50 point talents are enormous for threat gen and really support the tree they are in.

[Hyperios]

my reasoning for not getting guile of gorefiend is because of the icebound fortitude nerf coming in 3.0.8 but is something i would reconsider. Also, i dont have enough points after going down that far in blood to get a full 3/3 guile of gorefiend or frost strike so would you suggest i dump the hp/str bonus of blood just to get frost strike for additional threat?

[durgoe]

Hi All

Great stuff in here, question with the new patch and the fact that i am new to the DK what is a good spec to use for leveling purposes and 5 mans for the time being untill i get back to the raids... i am running around in the blood tree right now but i dont think it is going to help with the 5mans i could be wrong.....

thoughts?