Death Knight AOE Spec, MT Spec and Rotations

[Satorri]

Ha ha ha, fair enough. Yeah, I suppose I try to temper my ideas of how things could be improved with a degree of hands-free thinking. I don't dwell on little things I would tweak, since like you said not everyone would appreciate that change the same, and moreover, if it's worth doing Blizz will do it, but their priorities tend to be big deal changes. It's not often I think there is a big deal problem with the game, especially not since they made the shift pre-Wrath of really listening to player feedback. I was blown away in the beta with all of the just plain fun and smart changes they made that you know were directly in response to players saying, "hey this is just not fun, not easy, why am I being punished for trying to play the game like this," etc.

(Another element of WoW that blows me away: the age range and demographics in general of the people who play. I routinely play with whole families, as much as 3 generations deep at a time! With married/engaged couples, with middle school and high school kids, with young professionals, with old professionals...

It's crazy, and really cool.)

[Krenian]

Oh I'm not going to deny that WoW is by far the biggest MMO that has been created, short of probably a couple of debated ones (Kudos to Everquest and Ultima online who probably got the ball rolling on it all.)

But it is to be certain that there are changes that any individual would like to see. Whether it comes from a PvE, PvE or simple playing content, there's always going to be 'one' thing that nags at you and you'd love to see Blizzard fix.

...however I've got a list of them and I rather keep them to myself. So far, I'm not too worried. The way my current class is going, I'm quite content with: dual wielding will be answered through ToT, Blood and Unholy are quite strong and are in a good position to stay that way..

Tis a good day with this individual has very few complaints. Because for those who know me, I usually have many complaints

[GonzoTheGreat]

Just thought I'd touch in on the SoB in a Blood tanking build discussion.

My build absolutely leans towards death coils and I fire them off at a fairly high priority in my rotation.

In terms of Scent of Blood, I spec it fully and rarely catch myself capping RP, I even find myself Horn of Wintering during black outs to gain as much RP as possible.

It's not so much that you absolutely need the RP from Scent of Blood, and some people may just not run a tight enough rotation to make it worthwhile.

[tehnuubguy]

It is already bad that DKs cant block atakes, their AoE aggro atake takes 30 sec CD and only have single target taunt,but blizz is dicreasing DKs tanking powers evry patch,but why do we have 2 tankings talent trees (blood and frost, unholy is for dps)and having that it causes the tanking talents to be to spread out, and most of our talents are for DPS.If blizz dosent fix thist Death knights will become a dps class.

[Pruke]

It is already bad that DKs cant block atakes, their AoE aggro atake takes 30 sec CD and only have single target taunt,but blizz is dicreasing DKs tanking powers evry patch,but why do we have 2 tankings talent trees (blood and frost, unholy is for dps)and having that it causes the tanking talents to be to spread out, and most of our talents are for DPS.If blizz dosent fix thist Death knights will become a dps class.

Sorry but your wrong.

[Krenian]

It is already bad that DKs cant block atakes, their AoE aggro atake takes 30 sec CD and only have single target taunt,but blizz is dicreasing DKs tanking powers evry patch,but why do we have 2 tankings talent trees (blood and frost, unholy is for dps)and having that it causes the tanking talents to be to spread out, and most of our talents are for DPS.If blizz dosent fix thist Death knights will become a dps class.

This is complete misinformation and I'd advise you to read up a bit more on the class and furthermore not to post replies in threads that are nothing but complaining about upcoming changes. Not only does it annoy the users here at Tankspot, but it's also against the rules. The fact that you're stating stuff like this, furthermore, leaves me with a strange taste that you're not very informed on how a Death Knight is played. Take a second and step back, and start rereading some of the Death Knight threads.

All three trees can tank, all three trees can DPS, and we are in NO way of losing our tanking position as of yet. Yes we're getting nerfed but Blizzard intends us to tank, therefore we will.

[Satorri]

^^

We're in no way currently, or in the upcoming patch, unable to tank. And Unholy is every bit as capable as Blood and Frost at tanking.

I never understand why people like to make sweeping(ly ignorant) opinions as if they are inalienable fact. Of course, I also don't understand why people feel the need to tag their opinions with "IMO/IMHO."

[Proletaria]

^^

We're in no way currently, or in the upcoming patch, unable to tank. And Unholy is every bit as capable as Blood and Frost at tanking.

I agree with your first sentence, but the state of frost now and post-patch is cearly below that of blood and unholy just because of it's cooldown UBA being so poor. Barring some kind of trash-boss where the pseudo-block mechanic became a boon, I don't see this tree gaining many patrons except DW tanks who just won't say die.

[Satorri]

Your concern with UA is fine, but that doesn't leave Frost tanking behind, Frost sports the best passive survival and the weakest (against bosses, strongest or second strongest against trash) primary CD for the tree.

Frost has been the most popular tanking tree since 3.1 dropped, regardless of UA.

[Celchu]

Last night when we were doing Frea and Hodir trash our RL was getting tells from DPS class that I was having threat issues. Going by my spec and gear, can anyone tell me where I could improve? Or do I just have a few meter watchers in my raids that could care less about watching there own threat and would rather b***h out the tanks instead of controlling there own threat?

The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks,

Chris

[Satorri]

They "Halp!" forum is the right place for stuff like this, but if you want to post this there I recommend looking for something a little more than just, "here's my gear and armory, tell me what I can do better."

I agree though, DPS are the first ones responsible for their threat. If they can control it but it is still limiting their dps, then it becomes the raid leader's responsibility to come to you about improving your threat.

[Krenian]

A note on Frost:

You don't see many Frost tanks just because of two things:

UA is a very lackluster talent. And I don't mean because of what it does, I mean because of the rune usage: Frost. It's terrible. The fact that it uses a frost rune pisses me off to no end because it really messes up rotations and also messes up your primary rune usage in that tree. As such, it's a very clunky skill.

Secondly, the two other trees right now offer a versatility that's pretty strong. A passive 20% reduced damage for 6+ hits in Unholy is very hard to pass by, especially when you can chain the skill with IBF and your trinkets if need be. Gives you a ton of good, strong mitigation. Also, let's just not forget UB at this time, which is a great AoE tool. Blood offers the single highest health in the DK arsenal to give you a strong effective health measure, as well as gives you self healing mechanics which really is great. Although Blood tends to be the tree where you probably get hit more often, this is also offsetted by the fact that you have Vampiric Embrace which boosts your health for 30 seconds and makes your own heals even that more potent, and you have strong single target DPS/TPS.

Coming back to Frost, the only time I ever want to use UA is right after one rotation where I've used BS, utilizing Blood Tap to gain a Death Rune immediately and activating UA with that rune. Even then, that doesn't bode very well because it uses the Blood Rune in that rotation so an alteration must be done so I can continue to DPS (I normally do an IT, OB, OB, BS rotation, opening with a BT to switch my rune into a Death Rune, which means for 30 seconds I still can't use the skill.) In the end, the skill's just a pain in the arse to use.

[Celchu]

I know about the help forum, I am more interested in my spec/rotation and if there is anything I need to tweak. Right now I am using Satorri's build, minus the disease glyph(using IBF Glyph instead) right now I start my rotation with disease, then HS and finally DS with RS thrown in when ever it is up. Would starting with a diseaseless DS cause more snap threat then a PS/IT startup?

[Satorri]

Um, small thing, the IBF glyph will do absolutely nothing for you, they fixed it to work as intended, so you only get a boost if you're well below the uncrittable point on defense.

DS's damage isn't based on diseases, so it will do it's full damage without them, that said, the threat however can be. No diseases, no healing, and that healing threat can be pretty serious, though far less so on groups. Starting with that also delays the application of your diseases a little bit longer, so really it's a bigger chunk followed by the same lull (which may put you in dangerous territory for other people who take a couple CDs to rev up as well). I will sometimes do this when switching to a mob late in a group pull just to make sure I have an extra little burst there, even if somehow it lost my diseases.

[gulmortheus]

hey fella+ dead guys.. this is link to my armory:
The World of Warcraft Armory,
atm i m in pvp set, but will switch to pve when i go online..

i need opinions on my gear, talents and glyphs. mostly i tank in unholy tree as aoe and huge threat it gives, but my raid healer is complaining that im squish for gear i have and that im much easier to heal in frost spec.. now my problem is frost spec, as i cant seam to do enough threat in multimobs fights, for example the Thorim 1st stage of fight when the audience from arena is jumping in, but in unholly they r allways all on me, no problem..

so my q is what to do to improve my frost tanking..

ty all for answering and have fun in Azeroth
p.s. if osmeone now online ill switch to tank gear in min
p.p.s. talents for ghoul r couse i m use this tree for pvp

[Satorri]

The forum you are looking for is here: Halp! I need advice!

[Jayna]

Please update the Guide with your blood tanking rotation for single and AoE pppplease

[Satorri]

I don't use a rotation, I use a priority system (like a warrior tank?).

Click my name you'll find a bigger profile message I typed explaining how that works.

[Mexol]

Sorry if this was already mentioned but I didn't want to search through 37 pages of posts.

I've seen two different single target rotations out there, one with PS and one without it. (This is for a Frost build)

1.Single Target Rotation - IT-BS-OB-(Blood Tap if no Death Rune)OB RPDUMP = RS/FS

2. Single Target Rotation- IT-PS-BS-BS-OB-OB-RPDUMP= RS/FS

Problem with the first one is of course Blood Tap is on a minute cooldown. Any thoughts on leaving out PS?

[Satorri]

There are two methodologies for Frost: single disease, and double disease. Depending on which you choose will determine your priorities for moves and influence which glyphs suit you best.

For single disease, you will only be using Frost Fever (i.e. no PS). That means for everything but BS and OB you're getting full damage, and those two you lose 12.5%. The trade off is a somewhat easier feeling rotation and good dmg/threat. This trade means that HB will do more damage than OB even on a single target and will be your first choice whenever it is available. This also makes the glyph for HB very ideal since you'll rarely have cause to use IT either.

The double disease method has a heavier hitting OB and BS, the former now surpassing HB as your first choice on single targets (but you should still use those tastey Rime procs of course). The rotation feels a little clumsy for having to reapply diseases, giving you one less FU pair for OB/HB, but it still works just fine.

Playing either well (and they do benefit from different things differently) puts them on faily equal footing when it comes to tanking. Personally I prefer the former as it lends itself better to splash aoe threat, but that's not what you asked about. =)