Death Knight Threat...discussion/concerns

[Rockslyde]

Morning. I've been sort of stalking TS since i've started my DK, and up until 3.08, I was doing fine on threat, and then all of a sudden, My threat disappears. I'm not sure if this is from the patch itself, or something else. I've noticed my threat is really spikey, and even though i did alright tanking a 10 man Naxx, Other than the other dk in the party i was the best geared. I also ran a 10 man Vault pug, and the OT also a DK was pulling around 4k threat, while i was pulling only around 2.5k. The OT was in all blues, and similar build to mine. I use the Frost rotation listed in the DK tanking guide/forum post. Here's what i'm wearing and my spec

Armory Lite - The WoW Armory Alternative: Rockslyde of Aggramar

I've searched around, and this is the closest thread i've found to helping, maybe i need to re gem or something. Any help would be apprcieated.

[Satorri]

I'm not sure what the patch would've done to hurt you.

From looking at your gear and spec, your gear is certainly not at all buffed for threat, you have low expertise, low crit chance, and moderate AP and hit chance, but that's to be expected with the particular gear you've picked up (epic, but survival bent). Your talents seem fine, though I'd question why you got Outbreak. Also, for deep frost builds, I find Morbidity and Merciless Combat are less than ideal, and KM is actually quite valuable now for your spec/gear, and filling Bladed Armor is always worthwhile, when you can manage.

What is your rotation/move priority?

[Ray]

Morning. I've been sort of stalking TS since i've started my DK, and up until 3.08, I was doing fine on threat, and then all of a sudden, My threat disappears. I'm not sure if this is from the patch itself, or something else. I've noticed my threat is really spikey, and even though i did alright tanking a 10 man Naxx, Other than the other dk in the party i was the best geared. I also ran a 10 man Vault pug, and the OT also a DK was pulling around 4k threat, while i was pulling only around 2.5k. The OT was in all blues, and similar build to mine. I use the Frost rotation listed in the DK tanking guide/forum post. Here's what i'm wearing and my spec

Armory Lite - The WoW Armory Alternative: Rockslyde of Aggramar

I've searched around, and this is the closest thread i've found to helping, maybe i need to re gem or something. Any help would be apprcieated.

I would ditto most of what Satorri said. Low Exp, mod hit, and mod AP are some of your problem. But at your gear lvl your only going to get to about 3 to 4K TPS on most boss fights which really, at your gear lvl would be perfect rotation.

2 things that were wrong with your spec though, As frost, you want to pick up glacier rot and epidemic. Epidemic lets you use 3 OB in your second rune CD (after turning your blood > death) which will help your TPS alot. last, fill in BA. It really is that good. Also, drop outbreak and move points to 2H weapon special.

[Ashern]

This is turning out to be a very informative conversation. I would like to jump in and offer some feedback with my experience as well. I recently have been using a blood/unholy spec for MTing bosses on my guild raids. My survivability has taken a HUGE increase with my new talent build as I can reach 43k raid buffed and hit 50kish hps for brief periods of time during intense situations. As for my TPS just like a few others on this thread I have noticed extreme periods where it spikes from 6k to 2k. I have no idea what is causing this. Could it be server lag? (lately naxxramas has been really laggy and I never have aggro issues during heroics). I carry hit food with me all the time to make up for being just shy of the hit cap. Anyway here is my armory link I'd like to know what you all think my spike problem could be from?

[Satorri]

Incidentally, everyone's threat is actually spikey, if you have a small enough sample period, DK's seem to be the most extreme. With a combination of our 2-handers and slow swing speeds, and the limitations of rune CDs we tend to have steeper threat generation (TPS is a slope), but more distinct periods of slower threat between swings/RS and runes. Unholy has some nice tools to smooth that out if you use DnD, UB, and CE well, and that's part of what I like about the tree.

[Rockslyde]

Thank you very much, that's what i was thinking, and heading towards, but our DK class leader said i was fine with hit and expertise, i'll point him in the direction of this thread. As for rotation, IT, PS, S, BS< OB, OB dumping excess runic into FS, RS (single) Aoe, DnD, IT, PS, HB, BB, FS, OB, HB, Pest

[Vanathar]

I am in 4pc t7, random epics, with three rare pieces still equipped. I was having trouble with threat, but respecced last night into an unholy build, with 5 points in Bladed Armor. My threat went from 2500 or so to around 3500-4000 in 5 mans with minimal buffs.

I also macroed rune strike to each of my strikes. This way, every time I hit a strike, it automatically casts rune strike. Rune strike is a key part to threat generation, and missing one is all too easy when manually hitting your rotation, because you have to spend too much time staring at the bars and not at the encounter.

Example with Scourge Strike
#showtooltip Scourge Strike
/cast Scourge Strike
/cast Rune Strike

Using this macro means I hardly ever miss an opportunity to case rune strike, plus I have to stop to use an RP dump far less often.

I also think survivability is on the minds of a lot of DKs to a larger degree because we can't use shields, when in reality our survivability is excellent. One very important aspect of DKs is that it is critical to spec into dps talents in order to maximize your threat generation. I have seen and tried a few builds that maximize survivability, but ultimatly they hurt my threat enough that my group would have to really hold back.

So get your mandatory 5 points in each tree for avoidance, and put your 5 points in bladed armor. That talent is really impossible to beat. It gave me over 500 AP boost, and that will only increase as you gear up and get more and more base armor value. DPS talents are very important to theat generation as a DK, so make sure you build a balanced spec, and you will find your threat much improved!

[harliequinn]

ive posted this in another frost spec thread, but i'll go again cause i have found it the best spec i have used so far

The World of Warcraft Armory

7k TPS is my average with this spec, health is higher, expertise is higher and i find aoe easier to hold aggro on

With that spec my rotation for AoE is
DnD>IT>PS>Pest>HB then from there all you do is tab target and Pest>HB tab Pest>HB.... and so on till death. if its a pull that you know will die quick dont use plague strike, just get up the frost fever and Pest>HB tab
there i will be a few seconds of waiting for the 5sec CD but dont worry. save the runes for HB because you will get alot of Aoe Threat.

Single target i use
IT>PS>BS>BS>OB>OB then FS for dump.

because the spec doesnt have extended dot times there is no second row of spamming double rune strikes. but i have had no trouble with this

my glyphs are Obliterate, Frost Strike and Rune strike

my only macro is for every ability its -

#showtooltip Icy Touch(Rank 5)
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Icy Touch(Rank 5)
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")


and replace the spell for each one
that way runestrike will go off every time its up. you dont have to double press for it to work just once will do both spells

[sawzz]

After a little more experimenting with rotations I have found using a DC as a rp dump to be a waste. As a side note this may not apply to frost tanks, not sure how FS vs. RS vs. DC per RP compares with one anouther threat wise. I now save all my runice power for RS, this seems to make my TPS allot more even and about 700 to 1000 tps higher on average around 5.5k. Still not the 7k that allot of warriors do but better considering my gear level. I curious to see if others have found this to be true.

[Mufuti]

I was beginning to experience slight trouble with my threat as well, then today I grouped with a prot pally for the first time in a raid environment (no kidding). We were doing heroic naxx and to me it seems that Blessing of Sanctuary does all the difference. I could easily stay at at around 4-5k tps during most boss fights which is solid for me, I am still using the Titan Steel Destroyer because of my horrible drop luck while my dps starts getting one best in slot item after another.

I just hope Blizzard will work this out, the pally was a friend of the guild we took with us because we were short one tank and I dont want to be so much worse off without this buff.

It doesnt seem right to make it mandatory to raid with a prot pally so THE OTHER tanks can do their job better. A lot better in the case of deathknights.

Also I am sort of getting annoyed with druids(Blizzards class design and difference of the required effort between tanking classes, not the player ofc and I do like the challenge actually). I just dont like getting out tanked by a class which has to use less buttons for threat generation than the player has fingers on one hand. This is in some ways also true for pallys...but they are a chapter of their own I dont want to get into right now...

[ttocs]

Runic Power priority for me typically has been:

Rune Strike > [Unholy Blight/Frost Strike] > Death Coil

You pretty much shouldn't be using Death Coil ever as frost, unless you're picking up an add at range with it. I use Death Coil as Unholy only when I don't need to refresh Unholy Blight. But always try to keep at least 20RP (remember, RS now only uses RP when the swing actually occurs, not when you first trigger the ability) for Rune Strike.

[Tarrke]

(remember, RS now only uses RP when the swing actually occurs, not when you first trigger the ability) for Rune Strike.

Not sure this has been changed, can't really try at work, but I'm sure that 3 monthes ago this wasn't the case. RP was consume on RS activation, not on swing, making our RP management way easier.
Just say I can't be sure cause if I got BoSanc I don't care at all about RP, just hit FS as soon as I got 40 RP and some time (macro'ed FS of course), if I dodge i just gain 20 RP so RS is usable, if I don't get BoSanc I just use FS while near 100 RP.

[Satorri]

From what I've seen it seems to sometimes spend it and sometimes not. I've seen activting the ability also spend the RP to un-light it, but I've also activated it and then accidentally slipped below the 20 RP (reapplying UB probably, or blowing someone up) and seen it gone gray until I hit a quick PS to light it back up.

For all the testing and fixes there are still some little quirks in the power system.

[reigoor]

hey Harliequinn, it seems you have changed speck since making your post, can you pls link it from another place like mmo or wowhead?

[Somethingintheway32]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but noticing a lot of DK's with Frost Aura which I find odd unless your guild does not have a druid with Imp GoW. Last I heard Frost Aura does not stack with GoW so avoiding this talent frees up atleast 2 points for more threat generating talents. Havn't tested it since recent patch though so I may be wrong. Am aslo curious whether Acclimation is all that worth getting, I believe it does stack with GoW, from when I had it, but still never really seemed to do all that much more mitigation that my heals couldn't heal through anyhow. That gave me 5 more points to help buff up Obliterate a bit more. I may be wrong an feel free to correct me, specially since last patch.

[Bloodyhelln]

ive posted this in another frost spec thread, but i'll go again cause i have found it the best spec i have used so far

The World of Warcraft Armory

7k TPS is my average with this spec, health is higher, expertise is higher and i find aoe easier to hold aggro on

With that spec my rotation for AoE is
DnD>IT>PS>Pest>HB then from there all you do is tab target and Pest>HB tab Pest>HB.... and so on till death. if its a pull that you know will die quick dont use plague strike, just get up the frost fever and Pest>HB tab
there i will be a few seconds of waiting for the 5sec CD but dont worry. save the runes for HB because you will get alot of Aoe Threat.

Single target i use
IT>PS>BS>BS>OB>OB then FS for dump.

because the spec doesnt have extended dot times there is no second row of spamming double rune strikes. but i have had no trouble with this

my glyphs are Obliterate, Frost Strike and Rune strike

my only macro is for every ability its -

#showtooltip Icy Touch(Rank 5)
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Icy Touch(Rank 5)
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE")


and replace the spell for each one
that way runestrike will go off every time its up. you dont have to double press for it to work just once will do both spells

I looked at your current spec, which is unholy, would you care to post that spec you mentioned of, that clearly is a frost spec of some sort, since you mention HB as part of your rotation.

[Device442]

I'm being out TPS by a pally tank like none other.. my gear is on my name tag, and I will link the pally. I use some macros to help.

/startattack
#showtooltip Plague Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Plague Strike

for SS, and BS also.. but man I'm not even in the same ball park as him... as fights go on I'm always nipping at his heals. If I taunt mobs off his AoE I can manage but soon as he sets focus they turn quick..

and yes I have been having issues with Frostfire mages.. however most threat seems fine for 10 and 25 man as long as the DPS gives me first hit.

IT > PS > SS > BS > BS > DC > DC repeat

The World of Warcraft Armory
Vs.
The World of Warcraft Armory

[Inaara]

Device,

Your spec is all over the place and that is one of your major issues. The lack of Vicious Strikes is absolutely killing your SS damage, you have no Reaping to convert those Blood Runes into another SS, No Bladed Armor, there's too much to list so I'll just show you a proper spec.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Besides the spec there is alot of room for improvement via gear upgrades. Since your Defense is extremely low getting Repelling Charge - Item - World of Warcraft would allow you to make alot of changes to gems and chants. Rune of Repulsion - Item - World of Warcraft is absolute crap, don't use it.... ever. For my avoidance set I use Repelling and Valor Medal. Obviously your bracers need to be changed out to Bracers of the Unholy Knight - Item - World of Warcraft from Rasuvius.

Get your expertise to a minimum of 26 Expertise to knock dodge off the table. That can easily be accomplished once you get Repelling Charge - Item - World of Warcraft and regemming.

As for rotations, my opening looks like this on any boss. IT-PS-SS-BS-BS-ERW-SS-SS-(RP dum at this point and get diseases back up).

For AoE run to mobs and drop DnD-IT-PS-Pest-UB(pop BB's when they're up, DnD when it's up, Corpse Explosion when things die)

I out-threat my pally in AoE and single target situations. Your pally is owning you on threat because you were missing out on alot of proper everything lol.

[MouseDK]

A change to the macro prevents Rune Strike from turning off. That is to say if you bind it to Blood Strike and hit blood strike once to turn it on, another hit can turn it off. To fix this, my macro looks like this:

#showtooltip
/cast Whatever-skill-you-want
/cast !Rune Strike


the "!" is the important part

[Device442]

No Lichborne, Ravenous Dead?

Ravenous Dead = STM, STR (AP/Parry)

and Lichborne for the self heal as well as a SHTF button..

as for Reaping, with my rotation I never really come up with a rune down.. never needed it I suppose..

I will give the spec a try, I know the trinks are crap but trust me better then what I had.

Def is @ soft cap, but its 554 effective combat. should I put more into it or just start building Hp to absorb big hits.

also AMZ is absolute garbage, if I was DPS I would take it to support but as a tank its not my problem.