Death Knight Talent Spec for MTing Sarth3D

[Varya]

Hello all. I've searched through the forums here and I can't find an answer to my question, so I'm hoping it can be answered here. If it has already been answered elsewhere, sorry for the spam!

To get to the point. Our guild is in the middle of Sarth3D attempts, and they want me to tank Sartharion. I've heard several conflicting reports as to which talent spec to use: Blood or Unholy? They both have strong reasons to use each spec, and I'm interested in hearing some opinions from other tanks.

Here is the blood spec I'd probably use (it also happens to be the spec I usually tank with). The cooldowns I could use would be Vampiric blood + IBF, AMS, and Army of the Dead. Will of the Necropolis would always be there to lower the damage significantly as well.

Here is the unholy spec I'd consider using, and in fact I used it fairly recently on a Sarth3D 10 man run. Seemed to work pretty well, with the boosted stamina and plenty of cooldowns. It has AMS, AMZ, IBF + BS, and Army of the Dead to work with, not to mention higher passive magic resistance.

The way I see it is this. Blood has higher effective health with Will of the Necropolis, but needs to rely more on outside sources for flame breath surviving cooldowns. Unholy has more cooldowns for itself, but lower effective health. Which is the better Sarth3D tanking build? Some opinions on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Here is a link to my armory page as well, in case it is helpful. I should be in tanking gear and currently blood tank specced.

Thank you for your time and any help you can provide. =)

[yawns]

Try out Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft its what I've been using on our sarth attempts.

Your build doesn't get the 2% stam from shadow of death, and also I believe spell deflection is either bugged or just doesn't work for sarth's breath. You're focusing alot on threat by the time the dps gets to sarth you'll already have a big lead survival is more important (assuming they do enough dps to actually down the drakes). Black ice / Icey reach are just fillers so go with either one though personally I think black ice offers more. I've not got my title and some one else could probably offer more / better info for you(I figure the wipes and attempts I've hade will of given me enough info to at least offer some help).

Your hp also seems a little low, you can add a socket to that belt to help out.

[Cornix]

I would suggest the blood spec, the extra health is critical and Vampiric blood will definitely help your entire raid.

Threat is NOT an issue on sartharion thanks to the fact that you have several MINUTES to build a threat lead during this fight.

Spell Deflection works only on 'direct damage spells', sartharion's breath is an AoE effect and will NEVER trigger spell deflection, those 3 points can be used anywhere else...
As far as those 'filler' points you have in Icy Reach, they would serve you much better in Glacier Rot.

However, in a more serious sense, I would take Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft As your spec instead... another 2% stam... Annihilation is not so important on sartharion as spamming Death Strike with your FU runes is much more effective and is another help to your healers to give them less heals cast on you and as such better mana for the fight.

[Necroisis]

Quote from another post ive made a while back:

Personally I have tanked sart +3D on 25 man with the following spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I am not sure how much hp I actually have during the fight, but unbuffed, specced and in frost presence I have 34k-35k HP. I also use 4pt T7 for the extra duration of IBF because sometimes one IBF can take 2 breaths before it dissipates. My CD rotation during the fight is: VB (Glyphed ofcoz), IBF and lastly AMS. Very important here is that you cast your CD about 1 sec after Sart starts casting his breath, eg, do not burn your CD if he is NOT casting a breath on you.

I have read that people use different rotation but the above rotation has worked fine for me. The reason I use AMS last is so that I can call for external help if I need to. Eg when I use my AMS I check the timer on next VB, if VB is less then 10 sec away then I am fine; if not, I call for help. This happens very very rarely though and the rotation can keep you going forever if you don't screw it up. Don't forget that you can use army of the dead as a o shit button when you do screw something up.

[Varya]

Quote from another post ive made a while back:

Personally I have tanked sart +3D on 25 man with the following spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I am not sure how much hp I actually have during the fight, but unbuffed, specced and in frost presence I have 34k-35k HP. I also use 4pt T7 for the extra duration of IBF because sometimes one IBF can take 2 breaths before it dissipates. My CD rotation during the fight is: VB (Glyphed ofcoz), IBF and lastly AMS. Very important here is that you cast your CD about 1 sec after Sart starts casting his breath, eg, do not burn your CD if he is NOT casting a breath on you.

I have read that people use different rotation but the above rotation has worked fine for me. The reason I use AMS last is so that I can call for external help if I need to. Eg when I use my AMS I check the timer on next VB, if VB is less then 10 sec away then I am fine; if not, I call for help. This happens very very rarely though and the rotation can keep you going forever if you don't screw it up. Don't forget that you can use army of the dead as a o shit button when you do screw something up.

I've switched some gear and specced this way: I've managed to squeeze 31,010 HP out of my gear, unbuffed and in frost presence. I'm in 1 piece T7.25, 4 T7.10 so have the 4 set bonus for IBF. I was curious about whether VB would be enough on its own to survive some breaths, so hopefully it will work for me even with my lesser HP. We'll be running with a disc priest so I'll be getting plenty of shields! There's two holy paladins too, so divine guardian will be up for a fair while too.

Thank you for the tips, all! Glad to hear blood spec is the preferred choice: it's my personal favourite spec.

[Necroisis]

I was curious about whether VB would be enough on its own to survive some breaths

It is if you have high enough base HP, with glyph, VB last 30 and during that time you are perfectly safe, so don't use any other CD.

Basically what I meant with CD rotation above is that you use VB when sarth breaths, it last 30 sec and when it disappears, you just wait until sart do another breath, then you pop IBF, preferably let him cast for 1 sec before activating IBF (his cast is 2 sec), this way you have higher chance of taking 2 breaths while IBF is up.

[VerticalEvent]

I was thinking about using this build for my guilds Sarth3D attempts
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I feel that Bone Shield would provide better damage reduction, then Bloods health boost - I typically have at least a 2/3 chance of dodging Sarths claws, before raid buffs, and, from previous experiences, I find he melees every 2 seconds or so, so I can expect Bone Shield to last about 40 seconds, Glyphed.

I took Lichborne to have another tanking CD for those "Oh S&$*T" moments, as well as Improved Icy Touch to slow down his melee attacks, making Boneshield last longer.

Magic Suppresion to reduce his flame attacks, and AMZ as an additional Flame CD.

The additional stamina and strength talents give me +8% Stamina, and +11% Strength, for an increase in Parry (not much, but I think it comes to an additional .25% chance to parry)

As well, Unholy Aura to increase raid members movement speeds, to help a few members avoid the flame waves a little better.

As well, Morbidity is taken to increase Death Coils power, so I can use Lichborne + DC myself, for additional healing. It's not a lot, but, if I'm in a situation where I need to use Lichborne, every bit of healing helps.