Progressive Raiding Spec Need Some Opinions on TPS

[Surren]

Hi all,

Quite new here, been using the forums for a long time and the wealth of information hear is staggering. Since WOTLK came out i've really gotten into tanking with my DK, and sitting down working everything out has been a lot of fun.

So now im kind of in a predicament, sat down last night thinking, yeah im running a normal cookie cutter Unholy tanking build, but sooner or later (Ulduar) etc is going to hit and i think theres a lot i can improve to up my survival.

Don't get me wrong with my current gear and spec i have no problems surviving in Naxx etc, but let's face it, it's only Naxx....

Heres my Armory with my current spec and gear.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Now what i was thinking was a kind of Blood / Unholy build, going deep enough into Blood to get Spell Defelection, Veteran of the Third War, and Mark of Blood.

Something like this:

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Now with what i dropped in unholy was AMZ, Wandering Plague, Unholy Blight and Rage of Rivendare.

What i was hoping overall was that picking up Two Handed Weapon Specialization and Dark Conviction would make the loss in TPS not as much.

Im yet to test it in a raid but plan on doing so tonight, but looking at general DPS figures, my current build puts out on average 1.2k DPS unbuffed, and i found the new build where i incorperated more of blood was around 850-900 DPS.

In your opinions do you think this is even viable ? Would the loss of some TPS be outweighed by the increase of survivability ?

I just really can't decide, theres just something that doesn't feel right with that much loss in DPS, or am i just letting numbers get to me ?

Any opinions would be great, anything that might help me make up my mind what route to take lol.

Cheers in Advance

[squats]

IMO, taking that big of a loss will have a huge hit on your TPS. if you dont have a hard time surviving now on fights such as patchwork, or the end of KT (assuming you OT on his fight) i wouldnt bother messing with your spec untill this new raid comes. at that point you can find out if you really have a problem or not.

[Surren]

Yeah i think thats what is making me hesitate a bit, kind of a "If it isn't broke don't fix it" kinda thing lol

[squats]

Yeah i think that's what is making me hesitate a bit, kind of a "If it isn't broke don't fix it" kinda thing lol

Yeah. No doubt you wouldn't be having issues with dieing, but with how dodgy Death Knight TPS can be already, taking a big hit on it would cause your dps to take aggro when they get on a hot streak of crits. assuming your an off tank in your guild, on heroic KT, if you dont have a issue survivng when he gets down to about 11% and his adds are hitting like MAC trucks, i wouldn't worry about it untill you know its broaken.

[Feanorr]

A lot of changes may happen before ulduar go lives.

For exemple, I saw a blue post saying they expected us to do better in term of dps/threat (for DK tanks, not dps ones); so we can hope that they will boost our tps before ulduar make live (when the threat of the tanks will really matter I think; even if there is already a few fight when it does matter, like Malygos).

Let's see what the next patch will do to us in term of dps/threat before thinking about ulduar's patch.