Need help with Hit Rating on Tank DK

[Daegalus]

So, I've read like every tanking thread there is here at TS and at EJ. I have almost everything down, but I recently got some gear from ToC25 (neck and cape) that made me lose over 80 hit rating, taking me down to 56 hit rating. This is really impacting my spec because my guild leader would prefer me running Imp Icy Talons since we do not have an Enhance shaman to provid Imp Windfury. This normally wouldn't be an issue, but because of the sudden gear change, I need to spec 3 into Virulence to get 3% hit to help me out. This has made me remove 3 points from Killing Machine. Its either that or Bladed Armor, and in the end I chose BA because it would provide better sustained TPS than KM would. I just don't like the way my spec is going right now and I can't figure out how to remedy it short of socketing hit rating, which is like a last resort move for me. I was also thinking of getting Saronite Swordbreakers to help with the hit rating, and just an overall upgrade for the slot, but that might take a bit to get since it will roughly cost me 2.6k to get them.


I come asking for any help or suggestions on what I should do about my hit rating or how I should spec to keep Imp Icy Talons but get the most TPS i can out of the spec. If I didn't need Virulence for the hit, I would be almost perfectly fine.

Here is my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory - Daegalus @ Area 52 - Profile

Thanks for the help in advance.

[ghromorth]

Ok look there are 2 gear upgrades that will get your hit where you need it: helm from onyx and boots from valkyrs in toc10 after youget those you should be around 200 and with the ring from icc you'll get a decent amount of hit rating. Your talents arent that bad so i see you just need to get better gear pieces b4 upgrading

[Daegalus]

Ok, Ill try to get those as soon as I can, currently locked out from Ony2 and toc but Ill keep running them and try my luck

[k3rr1g0r]

Let me preface this by saying that I tank exclusively as blood, so I don't know a ton about frost tanking.

As a blood DK I don't really worry about hit that much. The reason that I worry at all is that I don't want to miss taunts. You can avoided this problem by glyphing for taunt (though at the cost of a threat reduction from the glyph it replaces). If you are not hitting enough, drop a couple points into epidemic to make up for it.


If you really need the hit, my first suggestion would be to buy the tier 9 helm, which is essentially a slightly worse version of the ony 25 helm. Another way would be to grab a different pair of gloves. T10 as well as many others have hit. Also, there is nothing wrong with gemming for hit. Many of the top geared tanks i see running around gem around 60 hit. Another suggestion is to pick up a 2 hander with a bunch of hit on it:

Citadel Enforcer's Claymore - Item - World of Warcraft if you make it to ICC10,
Death's Bite - Item - World of Warcraft
Stormedge - Item - World of Warcraft
Abaddon - Item - World of Warcraft

would all do nicely.

Good luck,

Failer@Lothar.

[Kurtosis]

This is really impacting my spec because my guild leader would prefer me running Imp Icy Talons since we do not have an Enhance shaman to provid Imp Windfury.

Ideally providing this buff shouldn't be on the tank if it costs survivability, which it does. Do you have more than one dps DK in the raid? Need 1 UH dps DK for Ebon Plague, but can you make the other go Frost dps for IIT? IIT raid buff shouldn't be on the DK tank, especially since haste is the least useful stat for us, and unless you're Expertise hard capped, can even increase incoming dmg via parry-hasted autoattacks.

This normally wouldn't be an issue, but because of the sudden gear change, I need to spec 3 into Virulence to get 3% hit to help me out. This has made me remove 3 points from Killing Machine. Its either that or Bladed Armor, and in the end I chose BA because it would provide better sustained TPS than KM would.

Good choice. BA > all, imho. AP buffs everything -autoattacks, special strikes, spells, even diseases.

I come asking for any help or suggestions on what I should do about my hit rating or how I should spec to keep Imp Icy Talons but get the most TPS i can out of the spec. If I didn't need Virulence for the hit, I would be almost perfectly fine.

Here is my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory - Daegalus @ Area 52 - Profile

Thanks for the help in advance.

Your current spec looks like about the best you can do under the circumstances. Only thing I'd do differently is move those last 2 points from Killing Machine into Scent of Blood. The proc rate on 2/5 KM probably isn't worth the extra RP regen from 2/3 SoB - need RP for RS, FS, AMS, and IBF.

Also, don't sweat low hit rating too much. Rune Strike can't miss no matter what your hit rating is, and that's where most of your single target threat comes from. As long as you can keep a threat lead on normal boss fights, you shouldn't have to worry too much missing taunts.

For boss fights like Gormok that require constant taunting, carry around a stack of Glyph of Dark Command in your bags just for those fights, and reglyph for them. Replace the Howling Blast glyph since you'll be using Oblit instead of HB on that one. Carry HB glyphs too for when you move on to the next boss.

[Daegalus]

Let me preface this by saying that I tank exclusively as blood, so I don't know a ton about frost tanking.

As a blood DK I don't really worry about hit that much. The reason that I worry at all is that I don't want to miss taunts. You can avoided this problem by glyphing for taunt (though at the cost of a threat reduction from the glyph it replaces). If you are not hitting enough, drop a couple points into epidemic to make up for it.


If you really need the hit, my first suggestion would be to buy the tier 9 helm, which is essentially a slightly worse version of the ony 25 helm. Another way would be to grab a different pair of gloves. T10 as well as many others have hit. Also, there is nothing wrong with gemming for hit. Many of the top geared tanks i see running around gem around 60 hit. Another suggestion is to pick up a 2 hander with a bunch of hit on it:

Citadel Enforcer's Claymore - Item - World of Warcraft if you make it to ICC10,
Death's Bite - Item - World of Warcraft
Stormedge - Item - World of Warcraft
Abaddon - Item - World of Warcraft

would all do nicely.

Good luck,

Failer@Lothar.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have made my offspec blood tank so that I can go between frost and blood depending on the situation, and the blood spec dishes out some decent dps too if i need to put on DPS gear for a fight. I will look into those. Atm I think my hit is doing fine, and with a few gear upgrades, I should be able to get rid of virulence.

Ideally providing this buff shouldn't be on the tank if it costs survivability, which it does. Do you have more than one dps DK in the raid? Need 1 UH dps DK for Ebon Plague, but can you make the other go Frost dps for IIT? IIT raid buff shouldn't be on the DK tank, especially since haste is the least useful stat for us, and unless you're Expertise hard capped, can even increase incoming dmg via parry-hasted autoattacks.

We only have 2 DK in our guild, the guild leader, who is Unholy DPS main, Frost Tank offspec, and me, Frost Tank Main, BLood Tank offspec (or vice versa, since they are both main spec really). We also dont have an enhance shammy for imp windfury.

Your current spec looks like about the best you can do under the circumstances. Only thing I'd do differently is move those last 2 points from Killing Machine into Scent of Blood. The proc rate on 2/5 KM probably isn't worth the extra RP regen from 2/3 SoB - need RP for RS, FS, AMS, and IBF.

Also, don't sweat low hit rating too much. Rune Strike can't miss no matter what your hit rating is, and that's where most of your single target threat comes from. As long as you can keep a threat lead on normal boss fights, you shouldn't have to worry too much missing taunts.

For boss fights like Gormok that require constant taunting, carry around a stack of Glyph of Dark Command in your bags just for those fights, and reglyph for them. Replace the Howling Blast glyph since you'll be using Oblit instead of HB on that one. Carry HB glyphs too for when you move on to the next boss.

Thx for the tips. Ill be sure to look into them. I am going ot mess around with Blood Tanking as I recently moved my offspec to blood tank spec. So now I have frost and blood to play with depending on the situation. I will try the glyph thing for Frost, but the issue might be with Blood, since its hard to replace my blood glyphs.

If you go to my armory link now, it should have both specs up and my current gear. got a few upgrades since then.