question time

[Abalaster]

I've found myself trying to tailor a tanking build the suits my play style,and found a few that i rather enjoy. presently, i find myself drawn to unholy, both for it's AoE and magic mitigation; however, i find the hybridize versions to be more appealing, and have a few questions about it's viability...far too tired of looking over builds and forums to simply continue looking for those answers, so i come to you

firstly the build in question

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

the main reason for hybridizing frost was to gain frigid dreadplate and improved icy touch to keep bone shield up as long as possible. also i find avoidance to be of far greater benefit then stamina, my other hybrid goes down to veteran of the third war.

my question, is obliterate a viable alternative to scourge strike, i realize scourge is the intended upgrade; however, glyph'd and talented into annihilate, and utilising the third disease what degree of difference are we looking at, between the two?


another thing i'd like know does icy talons benefit rune strike...seeing as it utilizes the next melee swing...i realize it's marginal but 20% faster rune strikes...

i'm really trying to justify the 5, at least from what i see, wasted talent points getting down to dreadplate, that why i'm interested in know how obliterate stands up....




any thoughts would be appreciated

[Rialév]

First of all, I really like the "hybridizing" as Unholy, I've done a similar thing with Unholy and Blood with 5 in toughness, up to veteran of the third war like you mentioned. Which is more of a throw survivability out the window and just hit the SOB spec (good for threat)

I like your build quite a bit due to frigid dreadplate. Which I never considerred when I made my current spec. As far as how you've talented it, it looks like the survivability is pretty solid. That Frigid Dreadplate is going to have a good synergy with Bone Shield's Uptime.

As far as scourge or obliterate. I have always found scourge stike to be a better choice for the two, considerring that it's damage is not negated by Armor of an opponent due to it being shadow damage. The difference won't be huge but it will be pretty evident without certain talents in the frost tree which really up Obliterate's damage.

Personally I'd stick with Scourge Strike, which will benefit greatly from 5 points in Black Ice. So I think as far as that is concerned, you may possibly see a pretty big difference in Damage.

If you're not benefitting greatly from Icy Talons, your other raiders will anyway, so as far as that talent is concerned, it was well spent.

[Satorri]

First to your questions:
If you're deep enough in Unholy to get ScS it will likely do more for your investment than Oblit. That said, if you shift that point elsewhere, and you have Annihilation, and glyph Oblit, you probably won't notice the shift much as the ScS glyph is not a dmg buff, it's a disease utility.

Icy Talons, in theory, will buff your ability to use Rune Strike, especially if you run high avoidance (note: Frigid Dreadplate does NOT buff your RS since it only procs on Dodge/Parry). More frequent melee swings means you use proc's more quickly opening the doors for still more procs. It won't be a huge buff, and this talent is not a buff at all if you have an enhancement shaman or a second shaman dropping Windfury for the raid.

Now as for the build:
The key in DK builds is synergy. Get talents that play well together, stack to a theme and support each other in application. For that I like what you did with the build. Icy Talons (again assuming no Windfury) is not actually wasted, it will play very nicely with Necrosis and BcB. In general what you can expect from this build is pretty strong single target threat, and decent AoE threat, and survival will be decent provided good gear, especially with strong avoidance. As a side note, avoidance doesn't actually buff Bone Shield, but they play well together since your shield will not be consumed as quickly to protect you from multiple damage sources that hit more or less simultaneously.

The two major factors that you will miss, and I personally think Frigid Dreadplate isn't worth the cost, are Bladed Armor and Rage of Rivendare. Bladed Armor is a huge buff for a tank, it is actually what (combined with Toughness in tank gear) will make Frost Pres pretty much equal in damage buffing Blood and Unholy Pres. In high level tank gear it can be upwards of 700-900 AP, personally it's about a fifth of my raid buffed AP. Rage of Rivendare, even if you don't need the Expertise (which you will want since your build relies heavily on melee auto-swings) is a 10% catch all damage buff which is a big deal for threat.

At the core this is a build that stretches for survival at the expense of threat, so unless your threat is well and above the dps you run with, you'll need to compensate with more threat buffing from your gear.

Hope that helps. =)

[Abalaster]

Ok, now that i know obliterate to be a viable alternative, i think things should look a little more like this:


Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


I had similar fears...bladed armor and Rage of Rivendare constitutes a massive amount of an unholy DK's threat; however, with Bladed armor and the high level of expertise itemization, i feel losing Rivendare to be...tolerable.