Groggan

MOD EDIT: One tank thread is enough, go use the other one.

Update: Here's a starting point for general information from this thread. A large portion of this came from bucknasty here.

Overview
Death Knight tanks are the fourth and newest tanking class to be created in World of Warcraft. Death knight tanking shares qualities with all of the other tanking styles and has some of its own flavor to bring into the tanking pool. The biggest difference is the lack of a shield. To compensate for this lack of armor, Death Knights have a Frost presence, not unlike a druid’s bear form, that increases the armor gained from items.

Death Knights have two taunts, Dark Command (8 second cooldown) and Death Grip (35 second cooldown untalented). Death Knights do not have an AOE taunt.


AOE Tanking
One of the strengths of Death Knight tanks is their ability to maintain significant AOE threat levels. There are 5 main AOE tanking abilities at our disposal:
Death and Decay
Pestilence
Howling Blast (31 point Frost Talent)
Blood Boil
Corpse Explosion (11 point Unholy Talent)
Unholy Blight (51 point Unholy Talent)


2h vs DW
There are no dual-wielding specs that generate comparable threat to 2-hand tanking while retaining other essential tanking talents. There are also serious parry-hasting concerns that currently render DW tanking inferior to 2H tanking. This is subject to further study of course.


Tanking Builds
It is currently generally accepted that for raid-level main tanking Death Knights have a choice between creating a Frost build or an Unholy build. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, but both are fully capable of main tanking. There has not been significant theorycrafting to decide if a similar Blood spec could be put together to perform on par for main tanking. That being said, due to the wonderfulness of Frost Presence nearly any Death Knight build should be able to off tank in emergencies and in 5-man instances (assuming they have tanking gear in their bags).
Of note, for all of these builds there are many variations that a player could make to better fit their play style, the needs of their raid, and other circumstances.

Frost
There are two primary Frost build variations. The first includes Imp Icy Talons, the second skips it. The idea being, if you are raiding you will have a Windfury totem, which Imp Icy Talons does not stack with.
With Imp Icy Talons
Without Imp Icy Talons
For the build w/o Imp Icy Talons there will be significant variation in the first half of the tree due to the lack of obvious replacement talents for Imp Icy Talons. Killing Machine is typically an increase in threat compared to Imp Icy Talons (assuming WF is present), but feels lackluster for 5 points. Other options are Icy Reach to help with pulling or Merciless Combat for increased threat/DPS at the end of fights. Another area of variation will be whether or not to get Acclimation, it can be good, but it is not clear if it will stack with resist totems/auras and it is not useful on non-caster bosses.

Frost aura's contribution is debatable and some argue "better" places to put the points.

Hungering cold is highly situational at best and is largely considered a PvP talent. In my personal tanking experience I would never use it, as I haven't encountered single (or multiple even) packs where the damage incoming was too high. I've always preferred AOE to just burn everything down, and I've had the threat to allow (encourage) this.

Unholy Tanking
Unholy tanking is often considered an equivalent to Frost tanking the moment your bone shield can stay up for 20 seconds on average. This is obviously highly dependent on avoidance gained from gear, and is sometimes considered inferior to frost tanking for heroic/early-Naxx tanking. Bone shield is least effective when taking smaller amounts of damage at frequent intervals, particularly magic damage, as the charges will diminish quickly. It is currently believed that Bone Shield has a hidden 3.5 seconds cool down on bone-loss.
Generalize builds forthcoming

Things to Avoid
In general, any talents that are chance on auto-attack should be avoided if better options are available. This is due to the fact that many white-hits end up being converted to Rune Strikes, which can not proc these talents. This is the reason Killing Machine is such a lackluster talent for tanking. There may be an exception to this generalization if Dual Wield tanking ever becomes viable (since it would include many more white-hits).

Glyphs
Available tanking glyphs:
Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Icy Touch – The increased RP generated from this glyph is very useful. Rune strike, frost strike and death coil are all great abilities, and any extra RP is useful. Many other abilities require RP, including Anti-Magic Shield and Icebound Fortitude.
• Glyph of Bone Shield – A must for Unholy tanks.
• Glyph of Dark Command – A must for any tank. Having a taunt miss is obviously problematic and reducing eliminating this chance is essential.
• Glyph of Obliterate– Obliterate is the bread-and-butter ability for Frost tanking and this glyph buffs it once a certain average weapon swing damage has been reached. The exact number is yet undefined.
• Glyph of Rune Strike – Increases cost by 25% for a 20% increase in damage. Very useful if you find you have more RP than you know what to do with.
• Glyph of Death and Decay – Decent glyph for reducing incoming damage while AOE tanking or PvP fun.
• Glyph of Icebound Fortitude – Making shield wall free is never a bad idea.
• Glyph of Death Grip – This one is largely a PvP glyph. It has very limited raiding use.

Minor Glyphs

• Glyph of Pestilence – This is an amazing glyph for all DK’s. Use this one.
• Glyph of Horn of Winter – Not a bad glyph. It allows you to Death and Decay the use Horn of winter before entering combat (it is possible without this glyph).
• Glyph of Corpse Explosion – gives you the chance at an extra explosion for each use of the spell. Not great, but there aren’t a lot of minor tanking glyphs, and I needed to add a third.

 

Groggan

And, to start us off:

It's pretty clear that in general, with proper gear and practice, nearly any spec for a DK will be able to in the least tank in 5-mans/off-tank. That being said, I wonder if we can't find a few specs/rotations/strategies that are better than others.

As a talking point, I wonder if this: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft might not be an interesting tanking build. Focus of it is consistent mitigation coupled with high-runic power generation (allowing for extended use of FS and other runic power skills, like Lichborne followed by DC). I skipped the Talons to prevent uncontrolled hasting (lessens chances of parries) and took Ravenous Dead to increase the effectiveness of STR as a base stat (increasing parry as a result).

Thoughts?

 

Writhe

For 5mans i recommend opening on everything with Death and Decay regardless of spec.

I noticed you took ravenous dead, from what I have found so far in my limited DK (as unholy) tanking is that ghoul is only really used for using its stun as a spell interrupt or ghetto taunt while a caster is on my healer and grip is on cooldown. The ghoul also dies relatively quick in most boss encounters, there is a lot of aoe/tail-swipes around it seems. - ed. Ravenous dead is pretty good for strength but while doing 5mans I would still take DG.

I also believe talons to be an amazing ability for threat. Most of a DK's damage should be coming from melee damage.

My current spec:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
The points in black ice and possibly a few more will change once I am home and have some time to play around with the new spreadsheet.

Any thoughts?

Who pulled the surger with the core hound?

 

Shimerra

Unholy is actually a perfectly acceptable alternative to frost tanking. The only spec which I have any issue with 25 man MTing is blood and that is because Will of the Necropolis is lacking and a tree based around self healing doesn't make for a good tank in my opinion. Add in the fact that probably the specs best oh shit button can be picked up by any blood DK doesn't help it. That being said, I was able to MT just about all of 10 man naxx in a full DPS blood spec and OT'd a few 25 man naxx as the same spec so we shouldn't completely shove our blood tanks out of the fold.

Any confusion on abilities shouldn't happen by informed players of their classes and if it does can be cleared up quickly.

It also increases strength by 3%, and even for tanks is a nice investment. I don't find myself using death grip enough with a 20 yd range on Dark command to feel that unholy command on it and whether or not you take virulence is going to depend on how much hit comes on gear and I would suspect be a more valuable talent for frost tanks.

Due to the low percentage of damage white damage is for a DK Icy talons is mediocre. The fact that it's a 6 talent point(9 if you want to count imp IT) for something that can be covered by shaman for less only waters down the talent for me as a mostly 25 man raider.
I don't like hungering cold in PvE at all due to the fact that the vast majority of mobs are immune to it in raids or it gets broken instantly. I'm also not a big fan of death chill(as a tank) and would probably take that point and the point out of hungering cold and stick it in merciless combat.

 

Kayleytha

My tank spec will be Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft . I dont spec annihilation because im going to use dual wield due to the higher def and avoidance ratings. and so obliterate will be inferior compared to howling blast, which also has a higher crit chance.

I also dont use plague strike when tanking in a frost spec. your the only thing that has a benefit form it would be bloodstrike which doesnt do much dmg at all. for pestilence i think a icy touch - pestilence - howling blast rotation brings much more benefit than another disease on the targets. bloodboil also only needs one disease and doesnt benefit from a second. which is another reason not to use obliterate

but i couldnt get any ideas on how strong nerves of cold steel is. im thinking about letting ravenous dead out and speccing into icy talons and improved icy talons. especially in 10-man raids were you most likely wont have a melee shaman around you can tank and support.

later im planning to spec unholy for the bone shield. when i have a higher avoidance i think it will give me a higher survivability than the frost talents. another point is the magic shield which is quite strong in 10-man raid. i dont think its useful in 25-man. another bonus are the 2% more stamina which we lack totally in a deep frost tanking build. AoE tanking should be a little better also

for blood tanking i can only say that i tanked nearly all 5-man non-hero in full dps gear with a solo blood spec and it worked blood is stronger for add tanking or 5-man group and maybe 10-man raids. but i think it wont be useful at 25-man because some skills wont work anymore, for example 30% extra armor when you're below 35% health. most bosses will just onehit you regardless of your armor

just my 2 cent

 

Asari

Does anyone have any numbers for average hit rating and expertise at 80 if you're going to attempt to DW tank? Everything I've seen and heard suggests that its probably not the best idea. Additionally you have to be so spread out as-is to pick up the tanking tactics, what do you end up losing by taking the requirements that make DW work doing in the first place?

Additionally, as Shim mentioned. DKs are not like other tanks. We don't have a single viable tanking tree. Personally I'm getting annoying by the number of non-DK players I see in game with the idea that we MUST be frost or we're worthless as a tank. Whoever started this rumor has done the DK community a serious amount of harm before we've really been in existence.

It may turn out that once the final 25 man raid is released, and skills are adjusted, Frost proves to be the best spec. But for the moment that simply isn't the case as the evidence to date presents itself. It has some nice skills, sure, but so do the other trees.

I'd still like to know what the hard numbers for acclimation are.


Additionally, does anyone know if the dmage bonus from 2 handed weapon spec works like the paladin talent and increases ALL damage, not just white damage?

 

Kayleytha

you get 50resistence per charge, 3 charges possible. so with the aura skilled and acclimation you get 230 resi for free

for dw tanking i dont think you should look at your int at all. i didnt have much hit but i nearly never missed with my abilitys. roughly had about 3,5k tps, could be mistaking there didnt spent much time looking at omen. your white hits are just not interesting at all in my eyes. i only dw because i love dw and the fact that there are no 2handed tank weapons. if you want to mt use dw if its trash and you need tps use a 2handed weapon.

the hit you get on the tank items should be enough for not having to use hit-gems or enchants.

 

Asari

The biggest thing with DWing is that your target has more chances to parry. And of course the fact you have to overcome a 28% miss rate instead of 9%. Your abilities won't miss as much because they're based on 9%, but you lose a lot of damage, and thereby threat, from your normal attacks and procs.

 

Kayleytha

ofcourse you lose white damage but as i said before i see dual wield not as a threat spec. i use dual wield to overcome the fact that you need a whole bunch of def to get crit immun. if your tanking 25-man raidbosses you'll need those additional avoidance which 2h weapons lack completely. and of course you will have a higher tps with a 2h weapon. thats why i said i'll use dw for bosses and 2h for tps. i'd love to talk more about this but i had no chance of testing 2h against dw in a raid

 

Writhe

I wasn't attacking anyone's ability to tank things just fine in an off and possibly dps spec. I've been tanking 5mans perfectly fine on my DK so far as unholy. The point I was getting at is that in a min maxers game you are not going to have all the mitigation possible in being any other spec. Saying so is a flat out lie.

Please don't bring other classes in to this. This is partly my reasoning behind my first post. If we bring to many variables in people will get confused. Also why should a shaman spec, or at least nerf themselves for giving you a buff exactly? Why do you even need a shaman when you can change your tank spec a little and provide this buff to everyone?

Check the DPS Compendium for your stat queries.

And in your second point I can't disagree more warriors are in the same state death knights are in now maybe with a little more mitigation being in the prot tree. But all things equal an MS warrior is as viable as an unholy death knight to MT a 25man. Everyone likes happy meals, but it doesn't make them right.

There is no rumor. People are looking for a simple way to categorize the class and its specs. That is human nature in it self. Its not anyone's fault blizzard decided to group several damage mitigating talents into one tree.

Who pulled the surger with the core hound?

 

Kaylee

I see death knights the same way as paladin tanks before 3.0 - your armour is for mitigation, your weapon is for threat and you need both to be a good MT. Try and put defence in your weapon slot then your threat will suck, your DPS will complain and you won't beat enrage timers. Try and put threat in your armour slots then your mitigation will suck, your healers will complain and you won't stay standing long enough to find out if the boss even has an enrage timer.

Which is why if I'm in a 25 man as a tank, I'll be using a 2h weapon even though I adore dual wielding. Even ignoring the lower threat from the lack of hit rating, dual wielding seems like a terrible idea as an MT. Unless your expertise is capped, I'm not convinced that the added avoidance from a pair of tanking weapons is going to mean very much when you're also making the boss swing at you more often.

 

Pyros

I believe it's be proven during beta theorycrafting that unholy was actually a better tanking spec once your avoidance reached a certain level(45%?) so boneshield could be extended for an average of 20-25secs. Bone shield in all aspects is the best boss tanking talent in all of DK trees. However, until you can actually get those stats, frost is simply more robust due to Frigid Dreadplate giving a good passive bonus and Unbreakable armor not being reliant on avoidance. I definitely wouldn't compare it to Arms tanking, Frost has its strength, but it doesn't have that many more tanking talents than unholy, and the 2 talents only mitigate melee damage, which while being a good part of the raid boss damage, is still not all of it.

Blood is commonly accepted as the non raid tanking spec, but putting unholy with it is a shortcut people shouldn't go into, Frost isn't the only viable 25man raid tanking spec, at all. It's the best currently because all DKs are geared like crap, once we're sitting at 55 or 55% of avoidance, those 5 charges of bone shield will be able to last so long most fights will be a walk in the park if you have a DK tanking.

 

Cyandire

Could we get some tanking stat weightings? I know they've already got numbers for dps i.e.

Strength - 2.55
Expertise - 1.70

This would really help find the best gear to maximize our abilities

 

Sergeant MAJOR NURF

Isn't that talent kinda useless for a tank? Since, as far as I know, for parry-gibbing reasons you don't want to dual wield at all as a tank and it only increases chance to hit with one-handed weapons, and off-hand weapon damage.'

Also I was thinking, to those picking Dual Wield due to lack of tank two-handers, has anyone thought of using an Arena two-hander? I'm not entirely sure but I think they have decent stamina, and they'll always have Resilience to work toward that crit-immunity.

 

Noekie

Does anyone have some decent, reliable feedback about tanking 10man naxx? Is freshly hit 80 questgear sufficient?

 

p1mp

But,
Bladed Armor seems like a good talent for increasing therat.
More attack power relatively scaling for more armor means we can worry less about stacking strength and more about getting armor / agility in order to compensate for the lost Strength.
I'm pretty new to theory crafting so I'd love to be corrected if wrong.

 

p1mp

As far as I know,
Nihiluk / SK hit the content no problem before everyone dinged level 80.
The new content should be considerably easy for anyone..especially seeing DK tanking is quite easy from my short experience.

 

Eucharion

Kaylee pretty much has it right, as I see it. Mitigation from armour, threat from the weapon, in the mould of paladin tanks pre 3.0. Getting the biggest, baddest two hander you can, with as much strength as possible should be the way to go (and there is the additional bonus that strength converts to some additional mitigation through parry). Using dual wield would be unfavourable due to parry-gibbing, and whilst and arena weapon might be a valid option, I'm not sure it is the ideal (being forced to use pvp gear for tanking as a feral in TBC may have skewed my view on this however).

I'll also echo the disagreement on limiting the discussion to frost - tanking doesn't just include main tanking; in fact, I can see most DK tanks operating in the offtank role, and a discussion of how unholy (and to a lesser extent blood) cope with this role would certainly be appropriate. Also, as Pyros points out; unholy mitigation pulls ahead once you have enough mitigation from gear to prolong bone charges.

 

okkita

1) There's no mathematical proof that Frost is a better tanking spec than Unholy. Napkin theorycrafting discovered quite the opposite actually, as written by others here. And it's as napkin as the frost one.

2) It's too early to limit the discussion to Frost only. If we limit it so early, we're literally killing experimentation with the other specs.. and more importantly, we're maiming our chances that Blizzard puts all specs up to the same tanking strength. Which, mind you, despite what you'd like, IS Blizzard's stated philosophy for the DKs. And one I agree with wholeheartedly.

Don't underestimate the power of these forums over the community's perception. Do everyone a favor and keep an open mind about this class. Seeing Blizzard's best class design achievement at danger due to rumormongering in less than a week since release is just plain sad. Let's not be "those".

It'd be really great if those with the brainpower to do it could share their thoughts about tanking stat weighting! I'm particularly interested on the possibility to stack STR to overcome parry diminishing returns, if that's even possible at all (or possible with the current itemization levels).

 

dr_AllCOM3

Wielding two tank weapons outweights the parryhaste disadvantage. You get a lot of mitigation from them.

DocsDK UI
Simulator

 

Noraj

To give some perspective on the itemization of one-handed tanking weapons available, here's the list I managed to get from WoWHead.

Restrictions used in WoWHead's search: Axe, sword, no intellect, not obtained through PVP, has defense rating (only one mace fits those restrictions anyway...[Hammer of Quiet Mourning]

Note that all of these weapons have strength, adding more parry to the mix. Most of them have either expertise or hit rating as well.

• [Last Laugh]
• [Broken Promise]
• [Red Sword of Courage]
• [Slayer of the Lifeless]
• [Cloudstrider's Waraxe]
• [Infantry Assault Blade]
• [Eternally Folded Blade]
• [Crescent of Brooding Fury]
• [Blade of the Empty Void]

With Parry or Dodge, but no Defense (coincidentally sans Strength as well):

• [Quickblade of Cold Return]
• [Sword of Heartwrenching Slaughter]

If you want a >2.0 speed mainhand, and a ~1.5 offhand, you're relegated to Broken Promise as the MH.

"The question is not how far we are going to take it... the question is, do you possess the constitution to go as far as needed?" - Il Duce

 

dreadai

No, I don't think it does, the parry reset instagib isn't stopped by the extra small mitigation from having a second weapon, it is stopped by your healers being awesome. Best to not run that risk, I'd have thought.

 

Mairi

Does DW tanking weapons outweight parryhaste+TPS loss?

 

Cronjob

I agree here, ravenous dead is really wasted if you dont go down to master of ghouls. I use the ghoul in oh sh!t situations when my healer is cc'd and I need a quick health boost. I summon and immediately sac him. I also have blood rune tap as my other oh crap button for low health situations.

 

Xelopheris

Parryhaste isn't outgearable unless your two 1h's have enough expertise to put you over the mob parry chance.

That said, even dual-wielding, we only just put out the same number of attacks/second as a warrior. But keep in mind that that still results in some parryhasting, and you get even less with a 2h.