DeathKnight non Frost Tanking

[Adewey]

I am not really looking for help just some finer points

I have never tried Frost tanking and since someone said a good player can tank in frost and a Warrior tank experianced player can tank in blood but a great player can tank in Unholy. I am more of a Hybrid with just enough points in Unholy to get Bone Shield and I balanced the rest in frost and Blood. I hold aggro good and am just as hard/easy to heal as a frost tank. I like having the Ghoul out all the time to pester the non targeted mobs the anti magic shield that protects the the few that are under it. Helps in HOL last boss fight and angainst a couple of other boss fights

As I am gearing up for possible raids in the future is there anything that would better refine my spec. or any wasted talent points that would better refine my tanking in something else?


I changed the talent tree and I like it, I am holding real good AOE threat. The Strength gems are there to use i am not a stam whore and will not deviate from gem slot color. I have gone from 1800GS to 2318 GS (on wowheroes) Like I said before the extra str stam and 1 point extra expertise in Vet in my opinion overpowers ScS and ebon plaguebringer. I have 3 new peices I went from 26 exp to 35 then now 24 until i get the 245 helm it probally wont go back up. I have 2 friends one runs as blood the other frost and so far I am at there level in ability eventhou they out gear me still. my chances to tank in raids probally not going to happen since I have a Rogue as my main. So this is a Heroics tank maybe some time in the future I will run raids but for now I am happy. I use Runestrike all the time.

[Jaeden]

Your spec looks more like it is attempting to be a pvp spec in pve content. Take your points out of frost except for toughness, the 5 in Dark Conviction and put them in the unholy tree. Not taking your tree's strike is a detriment, as is not having Ebon Plague and reaping.

Elitist Jerks has a really good Unholy tanking spec, which I'm going back to since I got the tanking axe from ICC 10 last night.

Other than that, keep expertise at or a little above 26, defense around 540 and just get some badge tier gear. Your gear isn't bad for a (seeming) fresh 80.

[Adewey]

I have taken a look at the talents you meantioned and that is more of a pure UH tank got on different tread talking about suvivalbility vs threat and I think I will flesh out my unholy tree nerf my frost and go for Vet of the 3rd War it gives str stam and 1 point more expertise then RoR. I am going to use CE instead of ScS since it is single and AoE damage thou not effective against pure single targets and I have Obiliterate and Rune strike for that. I think the more damage a tank can mitigate/avoid and still maintain threat the easier it will be on the healers. 3rd will come stam then the balance of maintaining hit cap and high expertise not just 26 but as close to 60 as i can get.

[saranna]

Whats with the strength gems?



*edit* oh and what Jaeden said

[Jaeden]

I'm not sure you quite understand the mechanics of how some of the things this class uses works.

Rune Strike should be used all of the time, macroed into your abilities and not as a should I click that or something else.

Obliterate will kill your diseases when it hits, unless you are specc'd into Annihilation, which you are not. This means using it is a dps/threat killer the way you are now.

In order to get the exp/stam talent in blood, you have to take too much out of Unholy. You lose Scourge Strike, Ebon Plaguebringer...basically the reasons for being unholy spec to start with.

Just spec blood, you seem to want it anyway.

[Vittorio]

Why do something that's harder to do just to be "leet"? If you raid, just tank in blood spec like everyother DK and make it easier on everyone else in the raid (esp healers). Frost tanking has gone the way of Heroics. Blood Tanking is more single target (notice only one AoE unless you count Pestilence). Plus vampiric blood. Makes sense to me. As a Blood Tank you have the most Health and Damage Reduction CDs than any spec. Vampiric Blood, IBF (any spec), Raise Ghoul + Death Pact (any spec), and if you're smart you'll have Satrina's Impeding Scarab - Item - World of Warcraft
Plus Death Strike refills 5% of your health. And also a proper Blood Spec (here's mine http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Arathor&n=Vittorio&group=1) with the right rotation (Rotation - IT, PS, DS, HS HS HS, OBL (runestrike anytime it's up) rune dump, repeat.) (must be in Frost Presence) you hold alot more threat than in frost or unholy spec, especially against raid members (i.e. Fire Mages) taht have little or no threat reduction.


PS Make sure to bind a macro with Runestrike into every one of your core rotation abilities. Hope that gave you some pointers, seems to be working great for me

[Jaeden]

Being a Unholy tank, and just spending some time having some fun Frost DW tanking, I disagree that it's gone "the way of the heroics"

Each tanking spec offers compelling options to make you utilize it. I daresay Frost tanking might be more suited for icc due to more armor mitigation from cooldowns.

[Sevynn]

Why do something that's harder to do just to be "leet"? If you raid, just tank in blood spec like everyother DK and make it easier on everyone else in the raid (esp healers). Frost tanking has gone the way of Heroics. Blood Tanking is more single target (notice only one AoE unless you count Pestilence). Plus vampiric blood. Makes sense to me. As a Blood Tank you have the most Health and Damage Reduction CDs than any spec. Vampiric Blood, IBF (any spec), Raise Ghoul + Death Pact (any spec), and if you're smart you'll have Satrina's Impeding Scarab - Item - World of Warcraft
Plus Death Strike refills 5% of your health. And also a proper Blood Spec (here's mine The World of Warcraft Armorywith the right rotation (Rotation - IT, PS, DS, HS HS HS, OBL (runestrike anytime it's up) rune dump, repeat.) (must be in Frost Presence) you hold alot more threat than in frost or unholy spec, especially against raid members (i.e. Fire Mages) taht have little or no threat reduction.


PS Make sure to bind a macro with Runestrike into every one of your core rotation abilities. Hope that gave you some pointers, seems to be working great for me

In your rotation why would you ever use OBL as a blood DK tank. Most blood dks are spec into improved DS, have Death rune mastery and have Glyph of Death Strike.

with thise your rotation on single target becomes IT PS HS HS DS (DC dump) DS HS HS HS HS HS HS. this will generate the most threat as a blood DK. If you are being hit like a truck swap out the HS that use your death runes for more DS to heal your self up a bit.