Warstehgnome

Personally one thing I see lacking here is a discussion of how amazing blood will be come 3.1. With blood boil hitting upwards of 1300 w/about 4k AP and crits obviously double that, you're looking at some great aoe threat with blood, which is exactly what it is missing. Huge HP, still lots of cooldowns, a nerfed but still effective WotN, and better scaling with our diseases. Also the change to free DC's in blood is very nice. Hopefully we can drop oblit someday if they ever come out with a death strike sigil which is comprable to Awareness.

Tsarurukai, Tank of <OP> Blackrock
www.op-guild.net
Tankspot Member Wars.

 

m0nkehh

Why can't blizz just make 1 tree into a prot type tree, instead of scattering random tank abilities into 3 diff trees? With 3.1 coming, idk wut spec to do, was considering a http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9626 45/5/21 as a build...but not sure myself yet.

Guess we will see what happens...

 

Sinlore

I had a similar idea to this, but a bit different on the talent choices:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...1&version=9658

45/5/21

Raid Buffs (Abom, Hysteria)
High Single Target Threat (Blood Spec)
High AoE threat (UB,BB,CE,HS)
High Avoidance
Vamp Blood
Good Expertise and Spell hit rating

 

Krett

I'd switch that around a little, drop ghoul because he doesn't generate any threat for you, but keep corpse explosion. Frost tree is fine, for blood I'd definitely pick up WotN and improved rune tap, maybe move some more points around to get spell deflection depending on how ulduar plays out. A DK will have a minimum of 30% parry (including Blade barrier) so napkin math would say that 3 talent points gets you 9% spell mitigation which is a pretty nice amount, AND it scales. Keep Abom's might, probably drop sudden doom first, maybe bloody vengeance.

 

drothar

I have two questions, and i apologize in advance if they have been asked before because I recently started tanking.

1. Reportedly (according to my GM) Death Knight and Druid tanks are the best for Ulduar. I was wondering what spec most people are using for Ulduar, or if it is still up in the air.


2. Tonight we did our weekly 25 man Sarth+3D and I didn't bother to respec from Frost to tank Sartharion. (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft)

With this spec I was taking ~20k damage per initial breath and ~29k per breath with Shadron active (pre-Vesperon).

Obviously this did not work so I respec'd to my usual Unholy build for Sartharion (Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft)

After this, I was taking only ~10k damage from initial breaths and ~14k from breaths with Shadron active. In both cases I was using a Rune of Spellshattering on my weapon and the only other thing I changed was putting on Essence of Gossamer in place of Rune of Repulsion.


Long story short, I started taking ~50% less damage from breaths when I gained 5% magic damage reduction and 2% stamina. I was hoping someone could explain this to me, or perhaps there was some other factor I'm overlooking such as luck or a forgotten fire resist aura. Here's my armory for reference: The World of Warcraft Armory

Thank you

//Edit
I forgot to mention this was without any cooldowns. I was saving IBF/Bone shield/AMZ etc for Vesperon breaths. Mercci's post in the other thread reminded me.

 

Mercci

Firstly you get 20% damage reduction from bone shield (all sources). Other than that it could be a number of things. IBF uptime on hits, AMS/AMZ as well as priests guardian spirit on you etc.

 

Zerath

Looking over your spec (you can spec over in to VotTW for a better OS3 spec, btw) - there's nothing that stands out. And there is no reason why those breaths should be halved. The only idea that popped in my mind was FR aura or FR totem. Check your logs to make sure either of those weren't active.

Or - you were *really* lucky with breath resists. In my typical OS3 spec normal breaths hit for ~10k, Shad breaths hit for ~20k, and Vesp breaths knock me out w/o cooldowns.

So, the fact that you were getting hit with 20k breaths initially confuses me. Were you in Frost Presence? (Not a joke. I wiped our a 10man Maly tonight because I forgot I was in Blood instead of Frost.)

 

Kallo

I have never really had to MT Sarth 3D but now my guild wants me to do it instead, I was thinking I should go with this spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Any thoughts? Suggestions? etc?

If I go with that spec should I worry about using CD's at all before Vesp? I was thinking that simply with a Disc Priest & Holy Pally on me beforehand, along with Frost Resist Gear for health, def trinket off 10-man, fire resist pot, magic dmg reduction gem, and fire reduction enchants on my gear, I should be perfectly fine until Vesp and then simply rotate my CD's and when Vamp is up by its self I should ask for tenacity pets ability which puts some damage on themselves, and priest shield/abilities occasionaly.

Otherwise simply rotate my CD's.. If I have enough defense with that trinket should I put spellshattering enchant on my weapon? Or perhaps I shouldn't get the frost resist gear so I can have enough defense and simply get the gems/enchants I previously mentioned along with SSG enchant on wep.

Any experienced DK that has done this, would you mind giving me a brief explanation regarding CD usage and when to ask for external CD's, along with gear/enchants.

 

ZaoZao

You should start using your CDs as soon as Twilight Torment kicks in. before this happens you should be able to survive every Breath with around 10-20% without any CD. (even though I do use my CDs until there's around 1 Min. left to Vesperons landing.)

On a side note: A Disc priest alone should be able to keep you topped off alone until Shadron's death, at least that is the case for my guild. And with some intelligent shield giving ( I must admit how exactly he's doing it) he ca absorb around 12-15k Damage from a flamebreath, which allows me to survive a Flame Breath with Boneshield alone.

Edit: on another Side note: Your specc is fine. There isn't much of an option anyway, it's either the VotTW/BS or the Blood build for tanking S3D.

Edit2 (I should read through post properly and not post past 12 PM): The Frostresistance gear is a bad choice, it DOES have lots of health on it. But since it totally lacks any kind of avoidance stat you will have major issues staying defcapped, which would cause you to regem everything (because I do not think that SSG would make up for the loss in def). So the health gain will be on the negative side.

The Frost resistance gear is for druids only, because they can remain defcapped through talents alone and only stack stamina for MTing S3D.

 

Lanlaorn

It's easy to remain def capped in Frost Resistance gear using SSG, Repelling Charge and the tanking Sigil. I do it every week, losing avoidance is a pain against the melee but I feel it's worth it for extra breathing room on breaths.

 

ZaoZao

And there lies the problem: you gain what? around 2k health? but for those 2k health you loose something around 5% avoidance, and probably quite a chunk of Expertise.

And as you said, those stats will really REALLY hurt after Shadron's Death. not to mention that if you are JC the health difference will only be around 1k, since you'd have to exchange either essence of gossamer or the JC trinket for repelling charge.

So yes, I do not consider the Frost resistance gear a good choice for MTing Sartharion 3 Drakes.

 

Lanlaorn

It's around 4,000 health (before aura), and yes in addition to the avoidance hit/expertise suffer but I'm not concerned about TPS in the slightest. I'm not a JC, switch Repelling Charge and the badge dodge trinket; which are about the same avoidance and the RC has a nice on use effect for breaths as well. It's really just a "with your healers, what's more dangerous breaths or melee?" question.

Anyway, completely regardless of how good an idea you consider it, in your earlier post you said it was not feasible to wear FrR gear without gemming for defense and in fact losing health overall. That's just completely untrue and it's all I was pointing out. If you need the extra health, the option is there. I don't see why you're so vehement on the topic.

 

Canismajoris

Some sort of variation of this build, depending on upcoming changes in the PTR is what I'll use in 3.1.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...7&version=9684

Any suggestions?

 

Zerath

Removal of Deathchill for that 1 point. Removal of Epidemic due to either Pestilence/Disease glyph. Add points to Frost Aura and max out Bladed Armor. This will maximize your damage reduction and AP increase.

Epidemic is still an "out there" figure so, I'm not sure if anyone knows the exact TPS on that. The majority of our current builds lack Epidemic already.

Granted, nothing changes.

 

ZaoZao

Hmmm, Wowhead lists the Glyph of Disease as a Major glyph, not quite sure if I like that. Glyph of Disease

Oh and you should remove the IBF Glyph, since you are tank specced you will have something around 35% damage reduction already. I'd rather exchange it with either Obliterate or Disease (if it really is a major).

 

sanddemon

Is Acclimation that bad of a Frost talent? Just curious since I'm getting bored as a blood spec and thinking about switching to deep frost.

I'd also get rid of the Howling Blast glyph and get Rune Strike - I've found it helps significantly in aggro.

 

Erous

Has anyone had a chance to test DK tank changes in 3.1? I'm currently frost, and I enjoy frost tanking the most, however was leaning towards blood a bit due to the nice additions to OB dmg in the talent tree. But the dmg reduction of imp frost presence seems like a win for those who like frost.

On that note, Im trying to balance a spec where I can go deep frost, with the necessary top tier tanking talents, AND include 3/3 scent of blood to make up for the sanctuary nerf bomb. I like leaning towards a spec that gives me as much OB dmg and crit as possible for high threat, with that and rune strike being my top threat abilities during an encounter.

Does anyone have comparable specs from the 3.1 talent calculator I could look at and compare? I'll even welcome a blood spec for comparison.

I'm also relatively curious about the threat you generate in 3.1 with your spec. I'm sorry for the demands, lol, just getting into a raid in PTR as a dk is a dime a dozen.

 

Awolfscry

Hey! A first time poster here.

I too have been working on a similar spec for my Death Knight. I'm currently DPS, but I have been pretty excited about the blood tree for tanking as far as dual specs go.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9684

I also have Abom Might and Hysteria, but I decided to pick up Mark of Blood as well. It can be useful for long fights so the healers can conserve more mana. However, I picked up Improved Rune Tap and Spell Deflection for emergency healing and better spell mitigation (dropping sudden doom and blood vengeance).

The only problem I have right now is trying to figure out what I could dump in place for Might of Mograine.

I think this spec could work out really well for tanking if we could decide on a set Blood Tree. The only problem is there are a lot of good talents that you need to pass up for others.

 

Epicenter

Hello guys, in my guild we're struggling with you don't have an eternity with me as a tank because a affliction warlock is making too much threat. I was wondering which spec you would prefer me to use? Thanks in advantage.

Notes: i would like it to be frost so i can make more threat in the vortex.

 

Tarantio

ptr testing seem to indicate that blood is not going to require ub in order to aoe tank effectively, hence, there won't be a need to go that deep into unholy. My original plan was to go with a build quite like this but the more I look into it the more I think a deeper blood build is the way to go, here's what I'm leaning to at the moment.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The intention is a general purpose build, with raid utility. apparently scent of blood now has no internal cd anymore, which is what finally convinced me to take it, though it seems like more of a dw talent to me, I'll see how it goes once the patch goes live, if it turns out i don't have much of a problem with runic power ill probably dump it in favour of IIT. Thats the problem with dk, there's always some really really nice stuff you got to skip

 

◊ Kaubel

Why do so many people think that others are interested in random, untested specs? It's just noise, folks. Thread-cluttering, time-wasting, unhelpful noise. FUCKING STOP POSTING YOUR SPECS. WE DON'T CARE.

(Also, please report this post. Please.)

 

drothar

Assuming the warlock is already using soul shatter, a paladin is giving him blessing of salvation, and you are getting misdirects, you may want to swap gear for more expertise/hit (if your healers can handle it). In my experience, Frost is the best threat gen if you are lacking expertise (low gear level) and Unholy/Blood are better and fairly even for higher gear levels. I would suggest Unholy because that would allow more threat gen during vortexes than Blood. Don't forget to use AMS in the vortex and spam Death Coil.

 

ZaoZao

I wonder why so many people include the Glyph of Howling Blast in their glyph list.

As far as I have seen/heard i't isn't really viable to just run with one or no disease since most skills now got a percentage modifier for diseases.

So you'll end up using Plaguestrike anyway (especially now that it's damage has been buffed). And the only thing to with the lef over Frost rune is to use Icy Touch. So even without the HB Glyph you'll end up using IT and PS, which makes it fairly obsolete and frees up the glyph spot for something different.

Probably I haven't thought about something. If that's the case...enlighten me.

 

Kashir

For single target, yes. For AOE trash clearing and incoming spawns, the initial application of Frost Fever on every mob would be fantastic, and your only damage boost from Blood Plague is the disease damage itself. It also allows you to burn your Blood runes on Blood Boil, for a very simple AOE rotation of: HB BB BB OB.

It's probably not optimal, but it would be nice and simple and I'm pretty sure it would be sufficient for holding AOE threat.

 

Zerath

Acclimation is a very non-useful talent outside of several fights. Those fights have to be similar to Saph where it's constant ticks (1-3s pulses) in order to have the talent stack. Outside of those - it's worthless.

Frost is higher TPS than Blood, but, Blood is just as fun.

HB Glyph doesn't seem that great in my opinion, either, I agree. We'll have to wait to see if they change it.