DK tank improvement on dps/damage

[Summerknight]

Try to read up here for weeks now and getting more and more frustrated about my tanking improvement.
I am doing really low dps/damage, wich confuses the hell out of me. Seem to lack AP and damage, could use some advise how to improve it if you would be so kind. And maybe some rotation...

The World of Warcraft Armory


Ty so much

[Theotherone]

Your talents need some work but we'll get to that.

The DK mantra is Strength and Stamina. 1 point in Strength = 2 Attack Power - also Strength goes to avoidance. I'm not a fan of the dual gems. The second socket on your chest should be a red slot if I remember correctly - put in a Bold Scarlet Ruby or Bold Cardinal Ruby. I'd suggest same on your hands (if that's a red socket), I know you'd lose 120 HP, but I'd take the strength. The dual gems are okay if you need a color to activate a meta, but other than that it's like getting two "eh" stats, instead of one good one. On the golves you might want to enchant with expertise, since you're basically hit capped or put stam on them. Work on your Hodir rep too, get the exaulted enchant for the shoulders. All these are minor tweaks.

The big change should be in your talents.

You only have two of the three necessary 5-5-5. Blade Barrier, Toughness and avoidance.

Blood Tree - (5) Blade Barrier, (5) Bladed armor, (2) 2 Handed Weapon specialization.

Frost - I'd lose Icy reach, you don't need it. While I was a big fan of Litchborne, I finally got rid of it and am pleased. Lose Hungering Cold, it's pvp; also, i'm not crazy about Acclimation 3 talent points for "maybe" getting a benefit; also Chill of the Grave is a bit of a waste, I find I'm hitting mobs so much, runic power is not a big issue.

Unholy - I'd lose Virulence, Ravenous Dead and Outbreak.

The uncontroversial talent I'd take in Frost is: Merciless combat. The more debated ones that are my prefernce are (5) in Icy Talons and the (1) in Improved Icy Talons, since I can't count on running with a Shammy. I'd put (1) in Death Chill (I like the crit on demand, especially HB). The I'd put (3) in Killing Machine and (3) in Tundra Stalker. Ideally, I'd love to have 5 in KM and 5 in TS, but there are other talents I like.

There are variations on this spec - some don't like the Improved Icy Talons or Death Chill, but they do like Scent of Blood. Taking out the differnece of opinion talents, by spec is pretty vanilla.

I'd Change out Glyph of Disease for Glyph of HB. It's nice to get a quick disease on all targets. Also, I like the DnD glyph, since I use DnD a lot (I know it uses up runes, but I'm used to my style).

Professions - Mining and skinning? Do you have an alt that can make use of those? If not I'd suggest dumping skinning and power leveling Blacksmithing (socket bracers and gloves) or Jewel crafting - Dragon's Eye gems are awesome.

Here's my Armory.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Hope this helps. I'm sure others will chime in.

[vine]

Everything Theotherone said, start with a standard spec and work from there. Personally I gem everything x+stam for red and yellow sockets, blue straight stam.

Also, your glyphs seem to be around the wrong way: your frost glyphs are on your blood spec.

[Summerknight]

You only have two of the three necessary 5-5-5. Blade Barrier, Toughness and avoidance.

Ty so much for all the above!
What you write here confuses me though... I cant seem to find avoidance?

[Theotherone]

Sorry, it's in the Unholy Tree it's Anticipation. My bad.

Good luck

[Summerknight]

Oh tyvm
Changed all the above and it did a lot of good as you ofc expected
Any special thing about rotation? Or spells to not forget to use or something?

Tnx

[Theotherone]

Rotations I"m not so good with, but hopefully someone can chime in who know them. I tend to use PS, IT, DS, DS, OB; once the runes come up. DC to burn runic power and RS whenever it procs.

[vine]

Hmm, you skipped over Blood of the North which means lower FS damage, and no Death Runes. Death Runes are basically free runes that you can use for anything. Do some more investigating of standard Frost specs, not one of them will skip Blood of the North.

Also you're still using Glyph of Disease, generally Frost works on a 1 disease rotation - Frost Fever - applied through Howling Blast, try replacing that glyph with Rune Strike for increasing single target (boss) threat.

[Summerknight]

Changed all the above, exept Blood of the North. Couldn't decide what i should skip instead... Did 1.9k dps as OT in OS25 last night, and 1.3-1.6k in hc instances. A big improvement as it was 800-900 before these changes!

TY soooo much for the advise!

One more question pls... I still loose agro easily when there is a warrior or hunter in the party - wondering if I have to change playstyle or other things or could it be them having something in their rotations that cause a lot of treat?

[Wolftank]

They need to wait for you to get an aggro lead - 2-5 sec before laying into the mob.
Hunters need to learn to use Feign Death to drop aggro when they start to overtake the tank.

On the other hand you need to use aggro generating moves ASAP.
I am a blood tank and I try to get DnD down whenever I can (I am specced for 15 sec), but I am also using everything in my arsenal to keep ahead.

One thing that strikes me is: Do you have Rune strike macroed to your abilities?
Its a huge TPS boost for me.

#showtooltip Icy Touch
/cast !Rune Strike
/cast Icy touch

Is an example. (Not sure ! is needed anymore, but should make you not toggle on/off when hitting button twice in a row.)



Since it seems the others recommendations have already helped you I havent looked into your current gear and spec (Armory seems down as well anyhow).

One thing though: My personal gemming is for HP, so I am using hybrid dodge/stam or parry/stam for meta activation or very good bonus. - currently running with 47.5k hp in raids. 56% avoidance.

/Wolf :Q

PS: Remember your dps is secondary to tanking

[Summerknight]

Ty for your comments Wolf.
As soon as servers are up again ill make and try the macro, tnx for that one!
And yes ty, I know dps is secondary, but the more damage i do the more treat i generate, or...?