Coriolanus

I like the Unholy spec without AMZ. That seems to be a pretty good summation of the consensus that has been come to by many unholy DKs in this thread.

That being said, I'd like to propose a different kind of without AMZ build that still takes 5 points in magic suppression. I know 5% for 5 points seems like a lot, but so much damage in raids is spell damage anyway, 5% and 100% on shell are pretty good.

The Build

Talent trade offs end up being one less point in necrosis and no more points in ravenous dead (which, as you say, has minimal impact) and ghoul (which until it gets an avoidance buff, it's not much more than a death pact battery -- a distinction that doesn't require the extra talent).

I think it'd be a valuable addition for people who want the 5% but don't see much value in AMZ.

 

Rejju

Ghoul is there since there isn't much to put it into. Blood Caked Blade is a huge no-no. It can be parried which is very bad. If you don't want Ravenous put 2 into outbreak, something like this. But honestly, if you are getting 5/5 magic suppression, you might as well get AMZ too.

 

Inamorata

Firstly you need more health, I'm pushing 37k hp raidbuffed and most of my gear are from heroics/emblems of heroism.

As for "avoidance tanks aren't good with immense damage" it's not true, was OT1 on Patchwerk today as unholy and healers was talking about how easy it was compared to healing a warrior. 65% avoidance and lots of cds make DKs great Patchwerk OTs. Regarding "non-tank-specced DKs don't off-tank patch well", I was OT2 on Patchwerk a week ago with a unholy dps build and about 34k hp and we one shot him (tanked Gluth and 4h on the same run as dps spec). This is in 25man raids.

After doing a couple of nights on Sartharion with 3 drakes up I find both magic suppression and AMZ really useful. I also can't believe that all of you think Wandering Plague is a bad tanking talent when it's consistently around 5% of my damage on anything that is aoe.

DKs armor values are already higher than both Paladin/Warrior, I'm at 27k armor unbuffed while Prot Paladins and Prot Warrior are struggling to get to 24k.

 

Coriolanus

Holy crap I did put points in Blood Caked Blade. That's embarrassing. I'd probably drop those 3 points in outbreak then. I can see the argument for "well, if you're doing that you might as well," as it is another avoidance button on a 3 minute cooldown. I don't know though, I'm just not that huge of a fan of the talent, but I haven't tested it either.

That's what I get for not sleeping much the past few nights.

 

jooce

Why do so many people skip Killing Machine for frost tanking? I find getting that proc with howling blast generates a ton of threat. Being able to get a perfect AoE howling blast (without using death chill) helps out on AoE tanking a lot.

It procs all the time too. Is the idea that Bladed Armor gives a much more consistant tps increase?

My spec right now looks like this Talent Calc

Thinking about dropping Frost Aura since it doesn't stack with pally/shaman resists, but if they're not present (or an encounter where there is no other form of resist), being able to stack Acclimation with Frost Aura is nice. Acclimation I like a lot, it procs off every instance of damage. Even with just 2 points in there I can get 3 stacks in no-time vs most heavy-mild magic encounters. Could very well lead to being 'the' magic tank.

 

Asari

it stacked with pally auras last time I checked.

 

jooce

May have stacked with the lvl 70 aura, but it definitely doesn't stack with the 130 ones, just double checked to make sure. Acclimation definitely stacks with everything though.

This means frost aura is typically a backup to the usual resists, it still provides rare nature resist and even more so holy resist I suppose.

The last mark gives what, 54? Would make sense for mark to stack with frost to give about the same bonus as the pally auras, but I can't confirm that one yet.

Could make an argument for dropping this and sticking with Acclimation.

 

Arkasi

The problem with killing machine is this: you tank with a big slow two hander. With our high avoidance Rune Strike is always up as long as you have the rp to use it. Since Rune Strike takes your next auto attack this means that, depending on your weapon speed, 3 out of 5 auto attacks are going to be Rune Strikes. Fully talented that means that about 2 our of 3 rotations might have the proc. Now that sounds pretty good but, is it worth 5 talent points to get that? I don't think so. As far as aoe tps, as soon as howling blast hits I have the mobs locked, they will not be peeling unless the dps decides it wants to target it's own mob and not yours. Tps for tanks in general is a bit of a joke and especially so for dk's since we put out a great deal more dps than the others.

 

faight

I'm pretty sure Rune Strike will proc KM. It procs Necrosis and BCB, as proven earlier in the thread. Granted, with low crit in tanking gear this doesn't mean KM is or isn't worth it, but assuming on-autoattack-swing procs won't go off with Rune Strike has proven to be folly thus far.

 

Brutorious

As far as frost builds, does anyone think its really worth it to pick up morbidity? There are less and less cc's being used and more AOE going on.

now the initial pulls and worrying about holding aggro after the initial pulls is not my problem. But with gauntlet events, and unexpected aggro, I find myself with D&D on cooldown an awful lot. So im forced to it > pest > BB > HB. Sometimes it just doesnt seem to hold aggro against most other aoe classes, mages for example. and ill end up getting strays.

Ill admit it seems an awful lot like a dps problem dps'ing way to soon, but I just see it as my job to be able to pick it up...

regardless, would it be worth it in a frost build. or would my last 3 remaining points in my build be better off getting say frost aura or acclimation. or finishing off bladed armor for more threat via damage.

what do you guys think? heres my armory if you want to see my spec

and honestly im still debating if Unholy tanking is better then Frost, but I just cant seem to find a good enough reason to switch and try it. I think im just so used to frost, i have leveled as frost/tank spec. But from reading or so it seems Unholy puts out more dps(threat) single and aoe. At times i find myself wondering why the hell dont I just try it, lol. oh lord...

 

seamusmc

You must have missed the part where he said he was spec'd a standard Blood dps spec. He did not have BS, UA or Lichborne. I think it goes with out saying he didn't have any of the tier 1 tanking talents.

I think Neddie needs to find out if he is going to be asked to OT often when he is dps'ing. In which case he should consider dps'ing as Unholy and grab BS, at least until we see what buffs Blood gets.

 

seamusmc

I have not had a chance to try AMZ, still leveling, but is it on a speparate cooldown from AMS?

 

Mairiiv

I've searched a bit but couldn't find the exact place where this should go. I'm interested in what your defense must be to be uncrittable against a normal lvl 80 insta and heroic boss.

On becomming uncrittable you need to have 540 defense to mitigate the 5.6% critability a raid boss have against you. With your defense at 400 (no extra defense rating) a normal lvl 80 mob have 5% crit chance against you. For each level above yours that a mob is he gains another 0.2% crit chance against you. Thus a normal 80 and heroic dungeon's boss (being 2 levels higher than you) you would need to mittigate 5.4% crit against you.

I've done a bit of backwards engineering on the calculated figures, havn't read all the formulae etc for the initial calculation.

5.6% crit reduction = 140 Defense (540 - 400 base)
1% crit reduction = 25 Defense
0.1% crit reduction = 2.5 defense
0.2% crit reduction = 5 defense

Thus the way I see it is for you to be uncrittable by a heroic boss you only need 535 defense. The main reason I'm asking this is to know that while doing heroics at what point I have to gear for (how much I can dip under the 540 defense uncrittable mark). Another thing is I don't see myself raiding on my DK soon as I have one of only 2 dependable healers my casual guild have for raiding. maybe eventually I will get enough people interested in raiding so that I can put forth a second 10 man team for Wrath raids that I can tank or DPS there.

Hmmm I see I've sidetracked a bit there :P my main question is. Is my calculations / understanding of how it will work correct?

Also another thing I thought about out of curiousity is how does crit work against lower level mobs? Do they lose 0.2% crit per level as well?

 

Aniron

How is your rotation if I may ask? Personally I have reaping and my rotation when single target tanking is PS > IT > BS > BS > OB > FS > OB > OB > OB > FS and start over again. This is only possible because of the Death Runes I generate while using BS, combined with the Obliterate Glyph I am doing close to 5k TPS (sometimes even over that) on static fights like Patchwerk and around 1500DPS on bosses when I am in Blood Presence when I am not tanking.

So I would say for Frost tanking Reaping is indeed a must have.

About gemming and what stat the focus on ... currently I have 25% dodge and 21% parry, unbuffed health is around 26600. I still have 2 blues in my gear (bracers and belt). I think keeping avoidance around 45% is pretty easy, my defense is at 542 and I stacked +24 Stamina gems as much as I could while keeping my defense capped. I think for now this is the way I am going to go, stack stamina, keep defense capped and keep avoidance around 45% minimum.

 

seamusmc

Sorry about that, the statement about DK's not being intended to be avoidance tanks was in this post by GC: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Any plans on fixing DK tank mitigation?

 

seamusmc

Reaping is an Unholy talent requiring 25 points. Do you mean BotN?

 

Aniron

Sorry guys, was fooling around in talent calculators and completely mixed it up. I mixed BotN and Reaping, sorry again.

Ghostcrawler stated clearly that DK's were not designed as avoidance tanks. I don't know how to read it ... you can read it as "DK's were not meant to be avoidance tanks, but they are going that way now and it is a valid option" or you can read it as "DK's were not meant to be avoidance tanks, so don't try it since it will not work".

Personally I think we should not fully focus on avoidance tanking. We have pretty good armor and pretty ok health pool. With the upcoming planned changes to Frost Presence it might even get better.

When I ask my healers if I am easier to heal when I am avoidance tanking or when I am effective health tanking most answer that the second way is the way to go. At the end it all depends on your playstyle and on your healers I guess anyway. I always liked stacking stamina and go the effective health way on my Warrior, so trying the same now on my DK's, which might work or might now, time will tell.

 

Mild Confusion

Rune Strike will proc killing machine, I've seen it multiple times and checked my combat log to confirm it.

 

Suno

It certainly does.

The problem with killing machine is that the autoattack (Rune Strike) crit rank for tanks is so low. That can be helped by glyphing Rune Strike (+10% crit), but it's still not spectacular.

Those disadvantages aside, it's still the place to put your points if you're not going after IIT as a frost tank.

 

Suno

Regarding where to put the last point in the "standard" unholy build, choose wandering plague, virulence, or unholy command. I personally prefer wandering plague because I aoe tank the lights out. Sure, it's only 1 point, but that doesn't effect the proc rate, just the amount of damage done per proc.

WP proc'd 11 times on the rock elemental gauntlet in H-HoL last night, and 78 times on the entire run. Not a bad single point contribution.

Ghoul is just plain useless for tanking, even considering the highly improbable situation of saccing it for a heal.

 

Asari

I've been using Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft to tank Naxx10 with no problems at all. I have over 50% avoidance so bone shield has a very decent uptime on bosses - especially when I use my dodge trinket.

I'm finding AMZ to be invaluable for tanking. It cuts down the healing tremendously on both trash and a number of bosses alike - it's really nice to have on 4HM and Loatheb.

Between my trinkets and cooldowns, I'm either at about 65% mitigation from armor, or 60% and taking 40%-50% less damage for nearly 40 seconds out of every minute. Hateful bolts from Patches normally only hit me for like 4-5k, which makes it real easy to heal.

 

Namuh

So if this is true (4-5k Hatefuls) it would seem that as a raid leader choosing an Unholy Tank as the Hateful sponge for Patchwerk is the best for the job.

Glyphed = 5 Haetefuls @ -40% than take the next one using Icebound fort - hrm... what's the hateful rotation?

If its faster than 3.5sec(internal cooldown of bones dropping?) you should be able to take a hell of a lot of hatefuls and immediately use IBF and reapply boneshield soon after.

Is Hateful Strike dodge/parryable? - if so than Lichborne just as IBF drops (that is if you took it in your spec)

ok so my questions are.
1. how often does patchwerk hateful - even approx
2. have we confirmed 3.5 sec internal cooldown on bone charges dropping?
3. are hatefuls avoidable?
4. if all of the above are to the positive - an unholy OT on patchwerk is perfect.

 

Neddie

Hard to do as blood. (read again, I was asked to off-tank him when specced for blood dps)

Naxx-25, so it's health-based, not threat based, right?

Death strike doesn't help much when I'm being hit for 25k.

I did Naxx again last night but we weren't able to get patch down. This time I was specced as a frost tank spec and had slightly better gear. On one attempt I survived for about 3 minutes before getting one-shot. My #1 priority was to reduce damage and avoid getting hit. I even dropped a consecration (off to the side) right before the pull and opened with a blood strike to make sure that blade barrier was up immediately. If I had a second avoidance trinket I might have survived a bit longer, but the problem was really RNG. IBF helps when you do take a hit, but a dodge trinket, unbreakable armor and lichborne just reduce the odds of getting hit. When it's patchwerk doing the hitting one hit might be all it takes. IIRC I had about 62% mitigation from armor, 31k health and 55% avoidance before cooldowns (not sure of the avoidance). I wasn't the only undergeared one, fortunately. When that plan wasn't working I respecced to a DPS build and a DPS warrior went prot, and we had basically the same problems, the warriors weren't getting hit as hard thanks to their shields and being able to gem more for stam, but they got hit a lot more often so healers ran OOM faster.

(BTW, this is all based off the (definitely sub-par) tank gear I currently have. I hit 80 about a week ago so I'm still in the process of getting geared up. I haven't had the luxury of gemming and enchanting for much of anything other than defense. If I can get to the point where I can comfortably survive a hit, and the odds of back-to-back hits are fairly low, I'll be pretty comfortable off-tanking patch.)

 

Septus

So I did my first "real" bit of tanking last night(Ramparts and Blood Furnace were too easy), in the Nexus. I may have been meeting acceptable standards of tanking, but I had a very hard time doing my best. I assume, my best as far as generating threat, on the multi mob pulls, is DnD every 15 seconds. I've got runewatch, but I had a hell of a time trying to figure out what abilities I could and couldn't use, to keep three runes in a triplet, that I would reserve for DnD. Any recommendations on how best to manage this? Or optimal uses of my ghoul? I generally just had him attacking my target for simplicity.

 

Rejju

Wow lots of questions, I'll see if I can answer them all.

First off about wandering plague. This is a dps talent, simply because its a chance based of your critical chance, which is usually very low in tank gear. There are better things for a tank to pick up than that.

Killing Machine- someone hit the nail on the head above. It's 5 points for a small amount of potential return. Chance on auto attack critical, which is usually very low in tank gear and then a 50% chance of that. Currently I have about 8% critical in my tank gear, totally not worth getting.

Anti-Magic Zone. As an unholy dk, I personally see no reason not to get it. Magic suppression is pretty nice and you might as well spend 1 more point to get AMZ. It is a separate cool down for AMS.

DKs are avoidance tanks. I have no idea what GC was thinking when he said we weren't intended to be such. With no shield to absorb that damage, it's kind of a given that we are. Our mitigation is actually pretty good considering we don't have a shield for that extra armor. Personally, I think we are good the way we are.