Frost DW hit cap
 

Quick question about the level 85 hit cap for frost DW: In the frost thread, Consider says:
"At level 85, you need 960 hit rating to be melee capped; 840 hit rating as a Draenei. This affects all of your melee attacks, white and yellow, preventing them from missing."

I'm assuming this is for dual wield and does this take into account Nerves of Cold Steel 3/3? Thanks

That is not for dual wield, it is only for 2h frost. When you include NoCS and dualwielding you need only 5% hit (which is 600hit) and a lot more to get zero misses on melee attacks.

I understand the purpose of the main tanking thread being information on endgame tanking, and the role of Elitist Jerks itself in the scheme of things.

That said, I was wondering where to go as a resource for tanking currently. At this point in time, (which is what most people care about) nobody is in the endgame - instead heroics are fulfilling that role, at least for most people.

Try Index to our guides : DK tank basics for some basic information

Death Knight Cataclysm (85) Tanking Guide : DK tank basics

Has about the most current info to date that I've found. A lot comes from discussions on these boards.

Presence for best DPS while in tank spec
 

I'm wondering what the best presence would be for DK tanks who find themselves in situations where they no longer need to tank, and only need to help the DPS finish an encounter (e.g. final phase of the Ozumat encounter, or any other "untankable" part of an encounter), but cannot switch their talents. Does DPS in blood spec benefit more from frost presence or unholy presence? I've been trying to test this empirically myself but it's proving very inconvenient; was wondering if anyone has some math/evidence that points either way.

My gut instinct was unholy presence, but I noticed that I spent an extremely long time just white-damaging, waiting for runes to come off cooldown, which makes me wonder if the 10% damage from frost would be better.

Improved Blood Presence is still superior in such scenarios: 20% increased rune regen, ability to use Rune Strike, and the additional AP through Bladed Armor outweigh the 10% dmg/runic and 10% rune regen/haste from regular Frost and regular Unholy Presence.

The decision might have been more debatable if they hadn't tacked on that 10/20% rune regen to IBP, but with that... there's absolutely no question.

Consider, would you be willing to re-post the gear lists for pre-heroics, and pre-raid for DK's in this Q & A thread? I know they are available on your blog. Further I am aware these are not "best in slot" lists, but, are only a listing of some good gear to have while getting ready to raid. I found them to be helpful in my planning, and a nice resource.

I have tried searching for the answer to this on my own and have come up with nothing. If I am a moron and have missed it, I'm sorry.

As a DK tank, in an aoe pull situation, why wouldn't your order (to start off) go something like DnD, Outbreak, Pestilence, BB? I have tried it myself and it seemed to work ok, but nowhere can I find anyone discussing the use of Pestilence after Outbreak to spread the disease and it seems like something that should work well. Thanks for any help!

Single Frost Priority
 

Single Frost priority taken from Consider's thread:
What if KM procs when no FU or DD runes are up? Is it ok to "waste" the proc on FS to maximize the number of procs, or is it preferable to go on with the priority regardless?

I'm guessing "don't worry about it, since FS dump is not far below in the priority list anyway so either your RP cap or your FU runes will come soon enough" but I would like a validation.

Otherwise, my priority would be:

Diseases > Ob If KM procced and FU/DD are up > FS if KM procced > Ob if both Frost/Unholy pairs and/or both Death runes are up > BS if both Blood Runes are up > FS if RP capped > Rime > Ob > BS > FS > HoW

It hasn't been discussed in that context because you have to spread diseases anyways for applying the haste-debuff to all mobs. So it is sort of common sense that you use Pestilence (which is from a survival point of view the cheapest way, since manually casting IT on each mob costs a lot of Death Strikes). Things are not as easy to calcualte if someone else provides the haste-debuff and things boil down to a simple matter of threat, because you are sacrificing a Heart Strike (or Blood Boil if there are many mobs) for the Pestilence. In this case it's often better to not spread diseases at all, but it depends on the number of mobs and how long they are expected to live.

At the beginner levels of heroic gear (ilvl 230ish) with hit around 6.5% and expertise around 20, both nearing the cap but not quite there. Dodge/parry around 11%. Is it advisable at this content/gear level to gem/reforge for more hit/exp to get closer to the cap, more mastery for the blood shield, or higher avoidance? Assuming that all of this is purely for tanking heroics, of course.

Remember that for heroics, the boss's are not +3 level, or "boss" ?? level.. they are infact still only level 87

This means that for hit you only need 6% and expertise 24 rating total (meaning 24 on your paper doll) in order to not get a miss or a dodge (parry is higher obviously)

Its a common mistake that I see Dk's doing at the moment aiming for "raid" level of hit and expertise when they are only doing heroics, and it makes life a HELL of alot easier to get to 6% hit and 24 expertise rather than 8% hit and 26 expertise.

(please note these figures are relevent to a DK blood tank and other spec's will vary)

How much DPS improvement is Improved Bloodtap for Unholy DKs? I'm considering taking Anti-Magic Zone for raid utility, if the DPS loss is marginal. I'm seeing every standard spec taking it, but never saw anyone proving the point and I can't do it myself.

The simple answer is, it's an extra free scourge strike once every 30 seconds instead of once every minute. Making a rough estimation, lets say you had a SS hit for 21k.

21000/30(seconds) = 700 dps

As opposed to untalented, every 1 minute

21000/60(seconds) = 350 dps.

So it scales with your gear, but at a decent gear level it will be a few hundred dps difference.