Death Knight Hybrid Build

[silvach]

this is my new DK tanking build. I would like to know, what does the "old-good-tankers" think bout it. It dosn't do any damage at all (well it does) but as far as i know, tank shouldnt do damage but threat.

First time tanking i was using some "ready-to-use" builds from webpages (blood/frost). I could do nice damage but my surviv + damage reduction was indeed "lame". So i thought about doing a build which will only be usefull for tanking

24/37/10

First of all - why Frost as main? (37) - to reach Unbreakable Armor - it has 60second CD, but last 20seconds, what makes it preaty "spammable" skill. And its allways nice to have 30% more Armor and 20% more STR. Isnt it?

Icy taloons and improved - More haste = more Rune Strikes = more threat and more Dodge rate from sigils

Hungering Cold - usefull as hell - firstly coz of huge aoe threat, and 2nd because sometimes party can go messy...

Blood (24) - Blade Barrier - one big ofc

Spell Deflection - what else to say?

Veteran and Mark of Blood - well, i thought much bout Mark of blood (veteran si quite obvious) but i came to conclusion that it is usefull to have such a CD when healer goes OOM or is "stunned" "silenced"

Unholy (10) - Dodge, Faster grip and D&D - nothing to say but IT'S A MUST i think

what do you think bout it?

about glyphs - Dark command, Unbreakable and Frost Fever...

Rotation: when single - IT, PS, Unbreakable, PS, CB, CB. surely enough - IT makes huge threat now
AoE - D&D, IT, PS, Pestil, runestrike whenever i can on different mobs, IT, IT (or unbreakable), PS, PS, CB, CB, runstrike whenever, D&D....etc...etc...

TANK HYBRID BY SILVACH

[Satorri]

Damage is not to be discounted by tanking, but it will generally only be a make-or-break when you're looking at the bleeding edge, i.e. hard mode ICC.

What I'd expect from your build?

Before 3.3.3 the build would have lots of passive survival buffing and relatively VERY weak threat. Now? You will probably do fine, provided you use Icy Touch in high proportion.

My bigger issue with builds like this is that they are lacking in cohesive design. What do I mean?

Blood Runes = you will have a weak BS and a weak BB, neither of which will feel meaningful to hit
FU pairs = you generally won't want to use OB because it will wipe your diseases, but it will also hit relatively softly. Your DS will hit softly and heal for as little as it can. Generally, you will probably just want to use Frost runes for Icy Touch, which will give you plenty of threat, but be a bit boring. To go with that, PS will hit softly and feel like filler.
RP burning = RS is ever-present, but it will hit about as softly as you could get (without any of the passive damage buffs your threat suffers as well). You don't have FS, and your DC will not be anything special.

Overall, you have plenty of passive survival tools, but the spec will lack style and synergy that comes of actually playing to the design of a tree.

On some of your conclusions: Unholy Command has much more relevance in PvP or chain pulling instances. I liken this to glyphing taunt, if you are expecting to taunt a lot, you're trying to cover a lack of threat or poor skills at picking things up. Those are the things to fix, not just be able to taunt stuff back faster. There has been one clear place where Unholy Command has been very useful in pve: Malygos for pulling in sparks.

Mark of Blood is a great spell, but it is not an oh sh*t button. It will not save your life usually when things are bad, it is a tool worth using to ease the damage for healers in non-emergencies and is heavily worth using on CD if you have good places to use it (like Unbreakable Armor).

Glyphing Dark Command is a little silly unless you *absolutely* need for your taunts not to miss (i.e. tank swapping fights in progression for your raid team). You will normally have a fairly low miss chance if you have any hit rating, and if your first taunt misses and it absolutely can't wait for the CD, you can Death Grip. The chances of missing both are slim.

If you are looking for threat buffing glyphs, OB, FS, and DS are probably all out for the reasons listed above. I wouldn't go with Frost Fever though, despite not having a lot working in its favor, RS will probably be your strongest threat glyph. Frost Fever will only be a remotely comparable threat value when you are tanking a very large group. That said, it will support your AoE threat, since you only have DnD to really help with that (your diseases will be light, your BB will be light, and you have no HB).



Could it function? Possibly.

Will it be fun? Most likely not.

Try it out and see what you think.

[silvach]

hm. It's not so boring so far. I thought bout doing this as well http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...P,r8O3eO,11685

It will make me more using DS and having more "place" for IT which is critically Threaty those days... what do you think?

or this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...B,r8O3eO,11685 more AP and more STR with Death Strike Glyph

[Satorri]

They still have something in common: they ignore the larger tree synergies to cherry pick talents.

Generally speaking, there's not much you can't make work if you play the game well. If you want to play the class well though, I'd highly recommend trying to play your talents to a central theme.

For example, Blood uses heavy physical damage and a self-healing/health buffs. The Blood tree has lots of inter-relating talents that play up to those common elements so that the talents play together well and you accomplish something more than just taking A+B+C, you get AxBxC.

I wrote a short novel on the topic, maybe if you follow my link in my signature you might find something interesting in the synergies I laid out where you can find one of your own.

[silvach]

Hm... syenergy you say. But Blood is hella hard to tank (much damage recive), strict Frost dsnt have buffs to survival, and unholy is just a wicked dps build up (not counting Antimagic shield and armor). To make tanker you need "syenergy" from each tree... thats what im making. Tank needs surv from blood (Veteran, Mark, Spell Def) hardened buffs from frost (unbreakable, sta, str buffs, haste) and some of unholy to make D&D faster.

Syenergy in tanking is not bout making a super-duper extra Damage Giving Tank. When DS takes from few talents and makes itself extra hard. Without talents it still heals fro 1,5k (iv got 15k hp at 74). It dsnt make damage, i agree.. but i can make threat. Pestilance have high threat (check the tables of threat for DK) when im in need i use Hungering Cold which have realy high aoe threat (using Tank Panels i can see that they realy fast change from "red" non aggro to "green" full aggro on me). Icy touch makes bout 10k threat (if beliving omen) thats way enough... i can easly 2 times IT and leave mob for dpsers....

[Sterbefall]

Blood is easy to tank in and IFP and Frigid Deathplate don't suddenly change that.
Frost has good survivability with IFP, Frigid Deathplate, and GoG.
If you're mostly Frost, you might as well dip down enough to get Howling Blast, in which case the lower DnD cooldown is irrelevant.

What threat table are you talking about?
As for "super duper extra damage giving tank", the fact is that for non-trivial content, threat and tank DPS matter, something your spec completely ignores.

[silvach]

since now its workin fine. I was in dungeon with lvl 80 player (5,5gearscore, hunter) and i was able to hold threat easly. Hungering Cold + D&D + Pestilance + CB and i can easly hold aoe threat... :/

DPS ofcourse counts but even without "those" buffs i do enough damage.

Last time i used other rotation, D&D,IT,PS,Pestil,DC or Runestrike, DS, DS, Pesti, CB (runestrike whenever i can)... With 4 death runes i could spam IT if something went wrong and get wholla big threat...

Well.. sticking to one tree is good for warriors and pallys but not DK's i think. They dont have "strict" tanking tree..

[Sterbefall]

A hunter isn't a good test of aggro ability. They have a perfect 30 second CD aggro dump. Additionally, you seem to be talking about 5 man dungeons in which stuff dies so quick with decently geared DPS that aggro hardly matters.

And there's a reason that DKs build solidly in one tree and not use hybrid specs. All the trees have synergy as Satorri said. In current end game, your spec would simply fail to put out enough threat. Additionally, you're missing out on some nice tanking talents.

By not going deep enough in blood: Vampiric Blood, Improved Death Strike (by virtue of additional healing), and WotN.
By not going deep enough in frost: Guile of Gorefiend.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but plenty of new DK tanks like to charge into forums and boast about their shiny new hybrid spec and how its threat was fine for VoA or random 5 mans. The fact is that in end game, these specs don't cut it for lack of threat and lack of key tanking talents.

[silvach]

Ok, so i have redone my builds,

what do you think about this;

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EMV...zhxZ0gh:psGVmM

or with dual:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0E0V...Z0gh0xc:psGVmM

[sicariusdracus]

You should try out my 27/44 tanking spec. It's fantastic for raids, taking the bonus health and avoidance from both blood and frost. You hear about people talking about cherry picking talents, but its really about your playstyle and the capability of your healers. Try out my spec tho. Melee will love you for your dual buffs, and healers will love your high hp and reduced damage, and You'll love how easy it is to tank with icy touch spam, Oblit spam.

(edit: forgot link)

[Sterbefall]

It's a modified Blood tank build. I don't understand maxing out Sudden Doom (poor threat talent) but ignoring Subversion and Blood Gorged. Also, Blood Worms are fairly useless.

Don't entertain blood dual wield. It doesn't work.