Frost Tanking rotation advice needed

[GhoulTek]

Hello all,

I picked up a 2H Frost spec for tanking instances while leveling. However, the Frost tanking rotation seems off.

I've been testing the following AOE Rotation:
DnD, IT, PS, PEST, HB, BB, FS, OB, HB, PEST
When Excess Runic Power is available Use Frost Strike and Rune Strike as Runic Power Dumps

I copied the rotation directly from "http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/40694-death-knight-aoe-spec-mt-spec-rotations.html" at TankSpot.

Here is the issue... By the time I'm ready to do the first Howling Blast I don't have the runes available and there is approximately another 5-8 seconds of waiting for HB to become available. Blood Boil is unavailable as well. Using Blood Tap makes BB available but starts Blood Taps' cooldown.

Is the above rotation out of date based on the current game mechanics?

Here is a link to my Armory ==> The World of Warcraft Armory

Thanks in advance

[Molohk]

Your rotation seems fine. There's an alternate rotation you can use with the glyph of howling blast: DnD, HB, BB, Blood Tap, BB... HB, OB, BB, BB. You're skipping PS and Pestilence, but because you open with DnD, HB and BB you'll have tons of threat to start, and no one will pull aggro from you. You'll rarely have to tab target, but if you do tab target to spread the OBs and RS, you won't believe your threat.

Also make sure you're using your Rime and Killing Machine procs for more HB power.

[Tango]

My rotation is very similar to the above poster. What I use and goes excellent with it is the glyph of howling blast that was released in the 3.1 patch (Howling blast infects targets with frost fever). I had the problem of it taking too long to generate threat on aoe groups but using that glyph and the rotation above I had awesome results.

[DKTankaholic]

I have actually two rotations, one for mob pulls one for single pulls,

Single Pull
IT, PS, BS, HB, BB, DeathChill, Obli, Rinse and Repeat and use Deathchill when available for Obli, FS and RS for Rune Dump

Group Pull
DnD, IT, Pest, BlootTap, HB, IT, PS, Pest, HB, BB, FS and RS for Rune Dump

I'm still working out the rotation kinks on my single pull but the group pull works really well for me

[bashef]

Until the patch (or a while after it - took me a while to get back to my frost DK) I was using something similar to what you say. With the patch the new HB glyph makes things a lot easier/more fun.

Your single target and AOE rotations are different largely because of death runes, and thus your single target rotation spans 2 rune sets rather than one (the first rune set is BBFFUU and the second DDFFUU). AOE rotation is (... signifies waiting for runes to refresh):

D&D, HB, BB... HB BB BB Ob (for rime proc) ... then just HB BB BB Ob til everything's dead. Feel free to frost strike while waiting for your runes to come back, and rune strike whenever possible.

Single target rotation is:

HB BS BS OB... OB OB OB... HB BS BS OB... OB OB OB... etc

Again, watch for rime procs with all those obliterates, and frost strike/rune strike where appropriate.

Also I notice you don't have blade barrier in your spec, which is essential both in and of itself and to get to bladed armour and two-handed weapon spec (the latter is so strong because of the number of obliterates you do with this spec/rotation). Morbidity on the other hand is not so useful, since I only ever drop D&D on the pull of a trash pack.

[Hayate]

I really don't understand why people or blizzard intended that you must plague strike being a frost tank, pretty much you guys who play a frost tank should take plague strike out of your action bar or unbind it.

for Single target rotation: IT, OB, BT, OB, BS -> FS for RP Dump

for AOE: DnD, IT, Pest, BT, HB(I macro it with Deathchill)

Here Fixed, Miss Type BT to RT

[Molohk]

I really don't understand why people or blizzard intended that you must plague strike being a frost tank, pretty much you guys who play a frost tank should take plague strike out of your action bar or unbind it.

for Single target rotation: IT, OB, RT, OB, BS -> FS for RP Dump

for AOE: DnD, IT, Pest, RT, HB(I macro it with Deathchill)

People use plague strike in single target rotations because it adds 12.5% damage to your primary strike, because it smooths out your rotation over 20 seconds with 4xOB, and because that way you don't rely on blood tap which is not available for every rotation. In your rotation, you're actually wasting a blood rune by using BT before BS, that means in 10 seconds you're going to lose an Obliterate because you'll only have one death rune instead of two. At first glance, your rotation is probably sacrificing overal TPS for the sake of initial burst TPS. It is probably possible to remove PS from your rotation in an effective way, but it's definitely not mandatory as you seem to imply.

PS: I think you're confusing Rune Tap with Blood Tap.

[Durandro]

When I eventually get my Frost Tank leveled up, this is the rotation I'll be using:

AoE:
DnD > HB > BB > RP Dump >
BB > BB > HB > OB > RP Dump

Single:
IT > PS > BS > BS > OB > RP Dump
OB > OB > OB > RP Dump

Obviously glyphed for Howling Blast. If it's a boss with adds then I'd be using a single target rotation, but switching out Obliterate for Howling Blast whenever it's off cooldown. Nothing too complicated.

Edit: Also specced for Mordity 2/3 to get 20 second cooldown DnD.

[Hayate]

you are wasting that plague rune to do a PS that virtual generates no threat to a OB which generate tons of threat, I know what all this guide said you do your PS and your BS, but 1 OB do more threat than your 1 PS and 1 BS combine, that just not it, you are looking @ 3 second for 2 GCD to do 2 useless spell over do 1 powerful spell over 1 GCD. If you are a real Tank you know how valuable those GCD are, don't waste it.

[!3M]

first of all i guess what everyone else forgot to explicitly mention would be that you NEED the Howling Blast Glyph for the 'new' rotations...

for groups i would maintain almost similar to the rest:
DnD > HB > BB > RP dump (or BT for another BB if i'm low on RP)
* BB > BB > HB > OB (HB if Rime procs) - rinse repeat * while weaving in FS or RS (depending on how fast DPS is catching up to you on threat and how much RP you have to spare)

Note: also depending on situation, i might IT for the additional defence rating from Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight...

for single targets it would be
IT > PS (additional dmg from OB?) > BS > BS > OB > FS > OB
OB > OB > OB > RP dump - while still weaving in RS or FS where required

On a side note (and i guess you already know that), I find that this should only be your base guidelines... and that you should prioritise your moves depending on the situation... eg:
- do you need to refresh DnD (for situations where adds will spawn)?
- do you need the additional boost from Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight (IF you still use it, i know many have moved away... i just have not upgraded mine, and the additional defence helps my healers)?
- do you need to pop UA to eat some burst damage?

[vine]

- do you need to pop UA to eat some burst damage?

I have UA and VampBlood bound with ERW in my respective builds to ensure I have the runes available when I need them.