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.
I tanked nexus at 73 and never had threat issues what-so-ever. I was frost at the time and generated 2200 TPS. I have never had morbidity. I would sometimes drop DnD to pull then IT->PS->Pestilence then wait for runes again to Boil Blood then Howling Blast. Morbidity is not needed for frost tanks, though very nice for blood and unholy tanks.
A) Is Hateful Strike dodge/parryable? - if so than Lichborne just as IBF drops (that is if you took it in your spec)
B) have we confirmed 3.5 sec internal cooldown on bone charges dropping?
A) From Wowhead...
Hateful Strike hits the person in melee range with the most hitpoints primed by aggro. (The goal is to have one or more off-tanks be this target)
Hateful Strike hits for between 22,100 and 29,900 damage before mitigation.
Hateful Strike can never crit or be a crushing blow.
Hateful Strike hits roughly every 1.2 seconds.
Hateful Strike does not try to reapply upon a dodge/parry/miss.
and again... Bone Shield is not less effective with Lichborne up, nor is Lichborne less effective with BS up. Quite the opposite. BS up time is benefited greatly by popping the two in conjunction. Avoidance trinkets will benefit BS up time in the same way.
B) I was under the impression the change to a 3.5s internal cooldown was changed back to the original value (2s?). Reference info such as this ought to be chucked into a new EJ thread which is updated consistently after patches. Any volunteers who will keep it up to date for the foreseeable future?
4. if all of the above are to the positive - an unholy OT on patchwerk is perfect.
Bone shield is amazing as the 2nd OT. In fact, as the 2nd OT with decent gear and non-horrible RNG you can mitigate every hateful strike by either bone shield or icebound fortitude.
It's becoming clear that content is so dumbed-down that you could pretty much tank with any fillers in your respective trees. Like me for example, i like unholy...i haven't noticed a difference one bit when having, BCB which most people "frown" apon, or taking\not taking OaPH, "putting points in WP is wasting them" and so on...
Hell, i even took Corpse Explosion just for fun. My point is, you can basically take the points you want after you get your real true "must-haves" (BS for unholy, XXX talent for frost) I don't use Lichborn on Patchwerk, and we have one-shot him the past 3 weeks. Yeah, we have good healers, but like i posted before, make good use of your cool downs and you should be fine. (and yes i overlooked the fact that you were blood-spec to the OP, but if you know your about to tank, throw on some HP gear and pick up a trinket from doing heroics?)
I've changed my build countless times since we started clearing 25-man raids...and with all the changes, i've still yet to have someone pull aggro straight off me while single target tanking. As for AOE tanking, with WP, pest, BB and UB up after a DnD is ticking, I've noticed you can pretty much have your whole raid bombing down AOE's and maybe once in a while that one straggler will peel off and you can death grip him back to you.
It's becoming clear that content is so dumbed-down that you could pretty much tank with any fillers in your respective trees. Like me for example, i like unholy...i haven't noticed a difference one bit when having, BCB which most people "frown" apon, or taking\not taking OaPH, "putting points in WP is wasting them" and so on...
Hell, i even took Corpse Explosion just for fun. My point is, you can basically take the points you want after you get your real true "must-haves" (BS for unholy, XXX talent for frost) I don't use Lichborn on Patchwerk, and we have one-shot him the past 3 weeks. Yeah, we have good healers, but like i posted before, make good use of your cool downs and you should be fine. (and yes i overlooked the fact that you were blood-spec to the OP, but if you know your about to tank, throw on some HP gear and pick up a trinket from doing heroics?)
I've changed my build countless times since we started clearing 25-man raids...and with all the changes, i've still yet to have someone pull aggro straight off me while single target tanking. As for AOE tanking, with WP, pest, BB and UB up after a DnD is ticking, I've noticed you can pretty much have your whole raid bombing down AOE's and maybe once in a while that one straggler will peel off and you can death grip him back to you.
The point of this forum is to min/max talents. Of course you can tank with the talents you listed, but is that ideal? Not at all. To be successful at end game, you should min/max. The content we have now is the equivalent of kara and gruul for godsake. It should be easy. And i guarantee you that it will not stay that way.
Like me for example, i like unholy...i haven't noticed a difference one bit when having, BCB which most people "frown" apon, or taking\not taking OaPH,
People frown upon getting BCB because the blood cake strike can be parried, so you can be parry gibbed. It's rare, and it takes a boss that can be parry hasted and hits extremely hard, but it can happen. People have successfully tanked very hard content while not being crit immune.. but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Originally Posted by phixx
(and yes i overlooked the fact that you were blood-spec to the OP, but if you know your about to tank, throw on some HP gear and pick up a trinket from doing heroics?)
I didn't know I was about to tank until the raid leader gave instructions before the patchwerk pull. I did have my tank gear on me (I always carry both tank and dps gear) but my gear is still weak. And HP gear is good, but not at the expense of other things.
I think I now have, or am now approaching the avoidance where I can have a decent uptime on bone shield and am considering speccing into an unholy tank build. The only problem is that I run with an unholy dps DK who doesn't want to respec and does amazing DPS. I know there's currently an issue where unholy DKS overwrite eachother's ebon plague. If I specced into crypt fever but didn't get ebon plague, would that problem still exist? It doesn't seem to be a major loss to my own DPS (only 3% crit) and since the other DK would be putting up ebon plague, there wouldn't be a raid DPS loss. Has anybody tried this? If not, I'll give it a shot and report back.
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.
It IS worth getting of you're not speccing into IIT, especially if you find yourself swimming in RP and therefore have glyphed Rune Strike. The buff lasts 30s and you can choose an opportune time to HB an AOE pack.
Originally Posted by Rejju
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.
My current crit rate = 10%. 10% of 1000 disease ticks is 100 procs. This is a tanking thread, and one point in this talent provides much more TPS than the ghoul you have listed in your unholy tank build. Ghoul is useless.
I find it interesting that you've assumed the role of the expert in this thread, yet have personally tanked no raids, and would choose ghoul over WP in an AOE-drenched raiding world. Your argument against killing machine should instead be an argument for IIT. If you are not speccing into IIT, KM is an excellent choice, not a worthless one.
The point of this forum is to min/max talents. Of course you can tank with the talents you listed, but is that ideal? Not at all. To be successful at end game, you should min/max. The content we have now is the equivalent of kara and gruul for godsake. It should be easy. And i guarantee you that it will not stay that way.
Some of the may or may-not be ideal....but basically you are saying if you follow your build, you will be doing things right and will be a good tank. I disagree, i have noticed more of a threat build by having the talents that i do right now, versus spending points in frost(past 5) to get to Lichborn, or following your "do it this way cookie-cutter build." Only a couple times have i even been worried and when that happens, i pull out my ghoul and sac it + HS and things are fine.
It IS worth getting of you're not speccing into IIT, especially if you find yourself swimming in RP and therefore have glyphed Rune Strike. The buff lasts 30s and you can choose an opportune time to HB an AOE pack.
My current crit rate = 10%. 10% of 1000 disease ticks is 100 procs. This is a tanking thread, and one point in this talent provides much more TPS than the ghoul you have listed in your unholy tank build. Ghoul is useless.
I find it interesting that you've assumed the role of the expert in this thread, yet have personally tanked no raids, and would choose ghoul over WP in an AOE-drenched raiding world. Your argument against killing machine should instead be an argument for IIT. If you are not speccing into IIT, KM is an excellent choice, not a worthless one.
Thank you. That was the other thing i was going to mention about WP....when fully raid buffed im almost at 15% crit, which the talent itself is based around, making it worth picking up. Ghoul is about as worthless as masturbating with a cheese grater, it has next to zero AOE mitigation, and has lasted me through roughly.....no boss fights.
It IS worth getting of you're not speccing into IIT, especially if you find yourself swimming in RP and therefore have glyphed Rune Strike. The buff lasts 30s and you can choose an opportune time to HB an AOE pack.
My current crit rate = 10%. 10% of 1000 disease ticks is 100 procs. This is a tanking thread, and one point in this talent provides much more TPS than the ghoul you have listed in your unholy tank build. Ghoul is useless.
I find it interesting that you've assumed the role of the expert in this thread, yet have personally tanked no raids, and would choose ghoul over WP in an AOE-drenched raiding world. Your argument against killing machine should instead be an argument for IIT. If you are not speccing into IIT, KM is an excellent choice, not a worthless one.
Like Bucknasty, I found that I had 1 point to spend anywhere in my 9/11/51 Unholy tanking build. My options were to put the 1 point in:
Ravenous Dead
Corpse Explosion
Master of Ghouls
1/5 Magic Suppression
1/5 Desecration
1/2 Night of the Dead
or 1/3 Wandering Plague
Ravenous Dead is a weak talent unless you've maxxed out your ghoul talents (which means you're sacrificing several tanking talents). Same with Master of Ghouls and Night of the Dead. While I LOVE Desecration, there are simply too many fights where I have to run around a lot to make it worth it. I tanked BC on my prot pally and quickly got tired of the acrobatics trying to keep stuff in consecration -- I am glad to be free of that worry now (and Desecration doesn't generate any threat on that caster mob that was outside it when cast, but got DG'ed into it afterwards anyway...so it's just the extra 5% damage IF I can stand still and tank). And in any case 1 point in Desecration is silly -- having Desecration up for 12 seconds out of every 90 (on average) is hardly worth one point.
Magic Suppression is a nice little boost to magic resistance, but helps nothing when I'm off tanking or DPSing (we will be using a 4 tank team approach in 25 man content, and currently use a 2-tank team approach in 10-mans). Even if I were main tanking everything in Naxx, I'm not sure 1% Additional magic resistance and a small bonus to AMS is a better investment than more AOE damage/threat, even if it only procs on a 10% rate.
Wandering Plague gets a static benefit you don't otherwise get by putting 1 point into it (if no points, no chance to proc -- unlike Magic Suppression, where you already have a base chance to resist + base bonus to your AMS). So that 1 point put there gives me the occasional extra threat when tanking, and when I slap on my crit-heavy DPS gear for fights where the other tank is taking the lead, it helps a lot more.
1 pt in WP makes a lot of sense from that perspective.
Thank you. That was the other thing i was going to mention about WP....when fully raid buffed im almost at 15% crit, which the talent itself is based around, making it worth picking up. Ghoul is about as worthless as masturbating with a cheese grater, it has next to zero AOE mitigation, and has lasted me through roughly.....no boss fights.
The one point in ghoul can go to WP, not a big deal. I would assume everyone would get imp icy touch due to the damage bonus and reduced attack speed bonus, no reason not to. As far as WP goes, I prefer frost for tanking anyway as I do not have the avoidance to make unholy better. Personally, I think of WP as a dps talent. Yeah it will add some TPS for aoe, but I have had no issues with AoE threat. Is it better than ghoul? More than likely.
I appreciate you guys pointing this information out to me and I will update my information accordingly. This is a discussion thread and as such is a learning experience.
Originally Posted by bucknasty
It IS worth getting of you're not speccing into IIT, especially if you find yourself swimming in RP and therefore have glyphed Rune Strike. The buff lasts 30s and you can choose an opportune time to HB an AOE pack.
My current crit rate = 10%. 10% of 1000 disease ticks is 100 procs. This is a tanking thread, and one point in this talent provides much more TPS than the ghoul you have listed in your unholy tank build. Ghoul is useless.
I find it interesting that you've assumed the role of the expert in this thread, yet have personally tanked no raids, and would choose ghoul over WP in an AOE-drenched raiding world. Your argument against killing machine should instead be an argument for IIT. If you are not speccing into IIT, KM is an excellent choice, not a worthless one.
I honestly see no advantage of KM over IIT. Mostly because our crit rate is that low. I do see your point about glyphed rune strike and getting that extra chance and see the potential advantage of it. However, I prefer UBA, icy touch and death strike glyphs. I am still playing with them to see what is ideal. I will be updating recommended specs based on new information.
Magic Suppression is a nice little boost to magic resistance, but helps nothing when I'm off tanking or DPSing (we will be using a 4 tank team approach in 25 man content, and currently use a 2-tank team approach in 10-mans). Even if I were main tanking everything in Naxx, I'm not sure 1% Additional magic resistance and a small bonus to AMS is a better investment than more AOE damage/threat, even if it only procs on a 10% rate.
1% threat (actually less) vs 1% less magic damage taken? Is that really a hard decision for people? If threat is a bigger issue for you than damage mitigation, I'd suggest evaluating your playstyle first before getting talents that marginally increase dps for tank.
I have been following the discussion since the start here, and I've learn many things. You guys really know your stuff. However I've noticed some certain truths and would like to submit a new hypothesis. It seems (most) of the posters seem clear that Unholy is the best way to go for AOE tanking once you hit that magic number of 45. And most people seem to think that Frost isn't as capable, and they revolve it all around a couple of things; the first being bone shield, the second being the various AOE threat Unholy can throw about.
Now, I'm a relative newcomer, at the time of this posting I am not 80 yet (life with a job = less wow time then I like) but I've tanked more then my share of instances. And right now I'm using a frost build that looks like this: Frost Build. Of course, since I'm not 80, its not complete yet. But its the build I'm working on. Some of this stuff is elementary for some of you, but as a first time reader here, some of the newcomers and new players to DK (its all new, right?) may find this helpful.
I would like to try and dispel this notion that Frost is not as good as Unholy for AOE tanking.
I'm clear that bone armor is overpowered and just begging for a nerf. But it only becomes that way with gear. For those of us (like me) who don't have that gear yet, Frost seems to be the more reliable choice for tanking. But one of the main "defenses" an Unholy DK has at its disposal also its greatest weakness for AOE tanking. Bone Armor has only so many charges. Meaning its great for the 10 or so secs its up (depending on the cooldown of those bones, some people thing 3.5, others think 2) but prolonged AOE fights could really hurt the tank quick. This is because (obviously) with multiple mobs the tank is abosorbing 1 or possibly 2 hits a second depending on how many mobs there are. Where as in single target, average attack swing is what, 2 secs? With one swing coming in every 2 seconds, all that avoidance plays a much bigger role and makes UA more effective. And yes, I'm clear if that happens IBF is just a click away. But it puts you on another cooldown that the frost tank only needs once (one click at 18 secs)
First, defintions as how I will refer to them:
There are three types of tanking encounters.
Single Target (Boss) Tanking: (STT) This is mano e mano. One mob or boss vs you and your buddies. Most commonly the boss fight or something similar.
Multiple Mob Tanking: (MMT) Otherwise referred to as the standard pull. This is usually less then 5 mobs, most often all elite that you tank one or two depending on your CC or all 4 if none.
AOE Mob Tanking: (AOEM) This is usually any pull with more than 5 mobs, usually they are non-elite but sometimes are weak elites that often are killed by suicidal mages using AE. Laugh appropriately when die.
Why Frost Works
This build uses several things, most of which are discussed here in this thread. A quick highlight would be: The three talents in each tree that helps tank (duh), Bladed Armor for great increased damage and therefore, TPS. A pretty standard Frost build with HB and GoG. Then in Unholy Epidemic (longer diseases is really the way to go) and Morbidity for DnD cooldown. I tried using this build without Epidemic but found it was much easier to do with it. The problem was that without it, I was reapplying diseases every 2 rotations. And if something missed or was resisted, it really screwed everything up. Extra time was a godsend to help really get to the meat of this, HB, Pest, and OB (with FS thrown in for good measure).
However, its not without its problems. Mainly its a problem not just for frost but for ALL DKs, and that is rune generations and adds.
Tanking is a study of Location and Timing. As a tank, you will (almost) always control Location. Its the easist thing to do, and requires only a little forethought. Your best location is A) One that doesn't get you killed, like being out of the healers range or his LOS; B) One that doesn't get your raid/party killed, like dragons breath and cleave come to mind; and C) One that allows you best to react to the situation at hand aka what doesn't get your healer killed.
Usually C involves adds. Adds suck as a tank because as soon as they start for you they will key toward the healer once that renew ticks. And will veer off to the healer without some sort of Taunt, AOE threat generator or something of the like. The problem I've found with DKs is the very thing that makes us strong. Rune generation is slow, and when all of them are down on cooldowns it could be several seconds before you could knock out another DnD, pest or the like. Which forces you to rely on taunt, deathgrip and other rune abilities, that is, if you have the rune power to use the latter. Thats easy enough for one guy. But 3 or 4 and you (and your healer) will quickly find yourselves up shit creek without a paddle in a flash flood. So location on something like this is generally between your healer and where the mobs are coming from. In fact, it should always be this way unless you don't expect any adds at all.
Timing is the one thing that as a tank you can't control ALL the time but can roll with and ride MOST of the time. This is vitally important as a DK so far in my limited experience. Sure, in your raid group everyone is competent and knows WTF is going on at all times. However, people in pugs do not have the same gear/experience/playing ability. And sometimes Shit just happens. You get adds and you have to deal with them. Sometimes your ready, othertimes, not so much.
If you clicked on my build you'll notice I'm short one point. Thats because I have questions about the final talent. I'm hoping you fine folks can help sort it out. That is because I think its going to be the last point in the Frost tree, HC. Reading the posts and various builds in this thread over, it seems its either gotten completely overlooked at best, or completely disregarded as a pvp talent at worst. And I'm quite honestly scratching my head about it. Here are my reasons:
1. It would be an effective "snap" aggro tool. If you get that section of intial adds, how many times do you get them all ALL (hell, ANY) runes been up? If your experience is like mine, they are 9 times out of 10 on cooldown. But usually I have the runepower. Run to the offending mobs, HC, continue tanking what you were tanking for a slow 7 sec count, saving a FU rune for the HB to snap them onto you when HC expires. At the very least it allows time for those runes that are on cooldown to come off, so you can drop a DnD or the afformentioned HB
2. It would not only help in the snagging of enemies, but REDUCE the amount of damage taken in normal MMT pulls. If your DPS is paying attention, you should have some frozen enemies for 10 secs. That should be enough time for DPS to kill one, thus when it breaks you have one less mob to tank, thus one less incoming source of damage. Thats another 10 secs of "clicky" abilities to help mitigate damage.
3. Effectively stops adds from moving, thus giving you more time to react and less time your healer could be taking a beating.
Is there something I'm missing here? I'm not seeing it in alot of tank abilities. Is this because its written off as a PVP tool? Or is that frozen part of the spell commonly resisted/immune? Please let me know!
As for Rotations, it depends on what I'm tanking.
For STT I use IT>PS>BS>BS>deathchill>OB to open, using RS as much as possible and FS when I need to dump runepower. For the second rotation I keep up the RS theory while trying to do OB until I have to reapply diseases.
For MMT I use IT>PS>Pest>BB>deathchill>HB while doing RS and FS on the main target and refreashing HB every once in a while.
For AOEM I use DnD>IT>Pest>runetap (the one that refreshes a blood rune as frost, I forget what its called at the moment, apologies if I'm wrong)> deathchill>HB
Those are beginning rotations to open with under optimal conditions. This is assuming your deathchill is up and your not chain pulling, etc. DKs are not like any other tank I've played. Its not mindless like some other tanks. I've found I really have to think and plan and be able to quickly make decisions based on changing conditions.
People ask what my second rotation is and I tell them no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Instead, I use several guidelines to help me.
1. Diseases have to be up. As the tank you should have both IT and PS diseases up. However, sometimes with ichy trigger finger DPS, you won't always have PS up. At the very least, be sure every mob has Frost Fevor.
2. When using DnD if threat is a concern when reapplying disease take a few seconds to wait for three runes to come up and reappy DnD while your at it.
3. AOEM rotation can be used for a MMT pull with RS as neccessary on the single mob DPS is on. I'm not sure which rotation produces more TPS as I don't have the numbers (I'm looking into it) but my money is on the AOEM rotation.
4. In my experience a DK needs to be a "smarter" tank. Its really all about Location and Timing. A DK needs to be a bit more aware based on the mechanics of how the class works. I find it way more enjoyable.
Sorry its a bit winded, I hope this helps, and please, Help me out with your thoughts! (especially about HC)
Since I haven't played WoW long and have tanked even less these questions may seem stupid but...
1) In order to mitigate damage early (as a Draenei or getting a Draenei to do it) would casting Gift of Naaru be worth it, either just prior to casting whatever you use to pull with or immediately after the pull? Or is the amount that is healed so small that a real difference won't be seen?
2) Given a choice between Anticipation 5/5 and Bladed Armor 5/5 for the last 5 point of my build, which is better, the 5% dodge gained or the 5 AP per 180 armor? I'm currently lvl 72 the next 3 points will go into Morbidity and with the final 5 points I'm still undecided.
Note: I haven't had time to read this whole thread so if it has been discussed, sorry.
Since I haven't played WoW long and have tanked even less these questions may seem stupid but...
1) In order to mitigate damage early (as a Draenei or getting a Draenei to do it) would casting Gift of Naaru be worth it, either just prior to casting whatever you use to pull with or immediately after the pull? Or is the amount that is healed so small that a real difference won't be seen?
2) Given a choice between Anticipation 5/5 and Bladed Armor 5/5 for the last 5 point of my build, which is better, the 5% dodge gained or the 5 AP per 180 armor? I'm currently lvl 72 the next 3 points will go into Morbidity and with the final 5 points I'm still undecided.
Note: I haven't had time to read this whole thread so if it has been discussed, sorry.
Anticipation hands down, but you should really try to swing both. You can check out some recommended specs back on page 24 that I have posted. Just ideas.
To Shadai. Great info and good insights there. The only beef I have with DnD, is that its 3 rune commitment. I will usually use it to pull or lay it down early in anticipation of a pull so runes come back up faster. For AoE tanking as frost I find that Pestilence, Boil Blood and Howling Blast are more than enough. Honestly, it's all what you feel comfortable with.
Maybe it's just me and my guild, but we aoe the hell out of everything that isn't a boss. Hungering cold might save a wipe occasionally, so it may be worth it for you. Plus, it's just plain fun. In a frost tanking build, it's just one point that won't be sorely missed elsewhere.
As unholy however, I'd rather spend the 60 RP on unholy blight, pop IBF, BS, and maybe Lichbourne and dive into the middle of the new pack.
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.
Morbidity seems like a must-have talent to me, even having a deep frost build. The DnD threat gen is very nice, the circle is quite large, reducing the CD to be closer to the duration is a no-brainer for me. Being able to throw down high threat, large area circles quickly is a powerful agro tool. It certainly makes Sartharion easier for picking up the lava adds, even if the void zones end up being harder to see =0.
I can't seem to find any information on it, but I have a few talents questions:
#1 2 pts into Icy Reach vs Black Ice? Why are people putting those 2 points into black ice and not icy reach, I found a lot of the time I pull with Icy Touch and the extra range just allows more time for gcd and rune regeneration.
#2 What is the advantage of getting necrosis as a tank build? Wouldn't those points be better spent on Unholy Command and On A Pale Horse / Virulence?
#3 Does Black Ice effect our Frost Fever damage?
#4 Does Two-Handed Weapon Specialization only effect our auto attack damage, or is it a 4% bonus to all damage?
#5 What is so important about Lichborne? I mean call me a freak, but I think AMZ is a better tanking talent simply because I think damage that is guaranteed to be mitigated is better than a CHANCE to avoid it.
#6 As a Frost tank or Unholy tank are Dirge or Chill of the Grave worth the 2 pts?
To Shadai. Great info and good insights there. The only beef I have with DnD, is that its 3 rune commitment. I will usually use it to pull or lay it down early in anticipation of a pull so runes come back up faster. For AoE tanking as frost I find that Pestilence, Boil Blood and Howling Blast are more than enough. Honestly, it's all what you feel comfortable with.
Yep and I'm with you on that but like I was saying sometimes timing is an issue. I've found that sometimes (read : often) its not always practical because it take a 3 to 4 seconds minimum to fire that off. That is of course assuming you have the runes up. If anything its faster, more instant threat when picking up adds. Which make me think HC would help.
#1 2 pts into Icy Reach vs Black Ice? Why are people putting those 2 points into black ice and not icy reach, I found a lot of the time I pull with Icy Touch and the extra range just allows more time for gcd and rune regeneration.
These are mostly builds for raid tanking, rather than 5man tanking. Being able to pull from 10yds away is not as useful for boss fights as a little extra threat. I would absolutely take reach if you are focusing on 5mans.
#2 What is the advantage of getting necrosis as a tank build? Wouldn't those points be better spent on Unholy Command and On A Pale Horse / Virulence?
Again, this is mostly because of 5man tanking vs raid tanking. Unholy command is not useful for tanking bosses and virulence only effects a few of our abilities. I could be wrong, but I don't think there are many (or any?) boss encounters where the tank gets stunned, so OaPH would see limited or no use.
#3 Does Black Ice effect our Frost Fever damage?
Yes, frost fever deals frost damage.
#4 Does Two-Handed Weapon Specialization only effect our auto attack damage, or is it a 4% bonus to all damage?
It effects auto-attacks and strikes.
#5 What is so important about Lichborne? I mean call me a freak, but I think AMZ is a better tanking talent simply because I think damage that is guaranteed to be mitigated is better than a CHANCE to avoid it.
If you combine Lichborne with Bone Shield, it will extend Bone Shield's expected duration (getting hit less means charges don't get burned off as quickly).
#6 As a Frost tank or Unholy tank are Dirge or Chill of the Grave worth the 2 pts?
Sounds like you do mostly 5mans, so yes. If you can expect to be with a paladin who gives you blessing of sanctuary all the time, you will have more RP than you know what to do with.
Last edited by Claidic : 12/04/08 at 6:30 PM.
Reason: proofread
I'm here looking for a bit of assistance on behalf of a guildmate. He's having a terrible time maintaining even adequate threat levels, to the point that it's awfully difficult for me to assign him tanking roles. I try to maintain some semblance of balance in the tanking team for my guild and everyone gets thier opportunities to stare at boss-crotch. In tank-and-spanks, he's just putting out barely passable threat to stay ahead of the dps, ~2500-3500 tps depending on the boss. In fights where the dps has gimmicks, or extra time on target (Heigan, Malygos, Sapphiron), he just cannot stay ahead, whereas our prot warrior and bears are consistently in the 5k tps range, and I'm generally around 6500-7k.
I've read back in the thread, and pretty much the only thing I've seen touching threat is a consensus that it doesn't matter anymore.
Here is our WWS from Tuesday night's Naxx25 clear: Wow Web Stats
Relevant fights: Blassreiter tanked Faerlina, Gluth, OT'd Patchwerk. He started MTing Heigan, but DPS was pulling off, so I ripped it off and tanked it myself. Horrible tanking ettiquette, I know. He tanked Sapphiron until he died about halfway through, I was maintaining 2nd threat, so we saved it. That fight in particular, I spent most of the time nearly stopped on producing threat, so as not to overaggro.
I'm hoping someone has some tips, Blassreiter is a player I respect a lot, on his bear he was essentially our guilds progression MT through Sunwell. Thanks in advance.
If you clicked on my build you'll notice I'm short one point. Thats because I have questions about the final talent. I'm hoping you fine folks can help sort it out. That is because I think its going to be the last point in the Frost tree, HC. Reading the posts and various builds in this thread over, it seems its either gotten completely overlooked at best, or completely disregarded as a pvp talent at worst. And I'm quite honestly scratching my head about it. Here are my reasons:
1. It would be an effective "snap" aggro tool. If you get that section of intial adds, how many times do you get them all ALL (hell, ANY) runes been up? If your experience is like mine, they are 9 times out of 10 on cooldown. But usually I have the runepower. Run to the offending mobs, HC, continue tanking what you were tanking for a slow 7 sec count, saving a FU rune for the HB to snap them onto you when HC expires. At the very least it allows time for those runes that are on cooldown to come off, so you can drop a DnD or the afformentioned HB
2. It would not only help in the snagging of enemies, but REDUCE the amount of damage taken in normal MMT pulls. If your DPS is paying attention, you should have some frozen enemies for 10 secs. That should be enough time for DPS to kill one, thus when it breaks you have one less mob to tank, thus one less incoming source of damage. Thats another 10 secs of "clicky" abilities to help mitigate damage.
3. Effectively stops adds from moving, thus giving you more time to react and less time your healer could be taking a beating.
Is there something I'm missing here? I'm not seeing it in alot of tank abilities. Is this because its written off as a PVP tool? Or is that frozen part of the spell commonly resisted/immune? Please let me know!
IMO, Hungering Cold will be useful to a DK in either a DPS, OT, or MT role. Why? Because CC is never useless.
Now, if it were a 5 point talent that was either 5 points spent or useless it would be worth skipping.
However, if you honestly don't have a use for it in whatever situation you're in it's only one point, and those situation seriously come up a minority of the time (yes...that minority includes boss battles but c'mon).
Honestly, if you're convinced that the placement of a single talent point will spell the ultimate difference between boss down and wipe you've got different problems.
Besides that, I have a problem with the phrase "Trash doesn't matter".
IMO trash does matter. The less time you spend clearing trash the more time you have to fight the boss.
Once the bosses are no longer a problem any time you can shave off the trash is time you can spend doing other stuff.
While I agree you shouldn't spec for trash you should still pay them some mind, and--at the end of the day--one talent point really doesn't matter all that much.
..unless we're talking the hypothetical difference between something stupid like pre-3.0 ruin vs. the difference between 4/5 and 5/5 in another talent. But if that's your issue you have issues all your own.
I'm here looking for a bit of assistance on behalf of a guildmate. He's having a terrible time maintaining even adequate threat levels, to the point that it's awfully difficult for me to assign him tanking roles. I try to maintain some semblance of balance in the tanking team for my guild and everyone gets thier opportunities to stare at boss-crotch. In tank-and-spanks, he's just putting out barely passable threat to stay ahead of the dps, ~2500-3500 tps depending on the boss. In fights where the dps has gimmicks, or extra time on target (Heigan, Malygos, Sapphiron), he just cannot stay ahead, whereas our prot warrior and bears are consistently in the 5k tps range, and I'm generally around 6500-7k.
I've read back in the thread, and pretty much the only thing I've seen touching threat is a consensus that it doesn't matter anymore.
Here is our WWS from Tuesday night's Naxx25 clear: Wow Web Stats
Relevant fights: Blassreiter tanked Faerlina, Gluth, OT'd Patchwerk. He started MTing Heigan, but DPS was pulling off, so I ripped it off and tanked it myself. Horrible tanking ettiquette, I know. He tanked Sapphiron until he died about halfway through, I was maintaining 2nd threat, so we saved it. That fight in particular, I spent most of the time nearly stopped on producing threat, so as not to overaggro.
I'm hoping someone has some tips, Blassreiter is a player I respect a lot, on his bear he was essentially our guilds progression MT through Sunwell. Thanks in advance.
This may be sound dumb...but it could be true, is he in Frost Presence? Cause if he isn't he is killing himself by having Subversion. Also, im going to try and convert him...do you raid with a Unholy DK as of right now? Because you may ask him to try it out, i found myself building up more TPS in Unholy vs. Frost, but like alot of other people on these forums, that may have to do with my own personal play style. Maybe his play style as Frost is garbage and a change for him would be nice. IMO you shouldnt raid without a Unholy or Blood DK, thats just me though.
This may be sound dumb...but it could be true, is he in Frost Presence?
I'm positive he's in Frost Presence. His HP and Armor are too high for him not to be. He's also not doing 3k dps, so 3k tps would be a strech in blood or unholy presence.
It's tough for him to go unholy, as we don't currently have an enhancement shaman on the roster.
12/04/08, 2:06 PM
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