@ Claidic

Well, now I feel like a dunce because I'm actually the primary OT for my 25 man raid guild... We've got VoA - Sarth and 2 wings of naxx down and so I guess I have the idea of tanking horribly misunderstood?

In all honesty i didn't even look at the WWS report, cant pull them up while im here at work from this machine. I just figured i would toss it out there. Hopefully someone who has more experience with frost tanking will be able to help you out. All my knowledge comes from what i like, and find useful from being an Unholy tank.

And actually, to elaborate on that point, I've never had trouble with single target threat. OB, RS, and FS pull ALOT of hate your way and are the mainstays when your STT. That last point could go into something like two hand spec for increased dmg/threat but I think having the extra mitigation that the Frozen provides (frozen enemies can't attack for 10 secs) it well worth it. AOE threat (not as much as UB, but still) and mitigation at the same time. I think its a slam dunk. I just haven't been able to figure out why more frost tank builds don't include it.

EDIT: And actually, now that I'm thinking about it. Unless the single target I'm tanking hits really hard (like a boss fight) most healers have no problems keeping me up without me blowing cooldowns. When the fight starts to get crazy, then I'll pop a cooldown or help the healer out by using DS in rotation instead of OB once.

it's probably his rotation, i actually get slightly more TPS with unholy also... i just recently respecced from frost to unholy and love the results so far, i'm taking far less damage on bosses like patchwerk (25man) (MT).

also my TPS suffers on bosses where i miss a lot (like patchwerk) missing with a DK screws the whole rotation, being specced into epidemic helps a lot with rotation recovery. i have around 4% hit and my WWS still shows 16% misses with icy touch on patch (WTF?). I see my TPS go from 3k and spike to 6.5k, i think i avg around 4k TPS (on that boss), i still have a blue weapon and don't have the naxx sigil . but none of our DPS is complaning about more threat, so it's a non-issue so far.

when i tank 10man patchwerk, i miss far less (WWS reflects this) and i also do WAY more TPS since my rotation doesn't get fubar'd, i sustained a pretty steady 6k TPS (when i was frost, havn't done a 10man yet with my new spec).

Edit: Make sure he's using Rune Strike every time it's up, this does HUGE threat/dmg, it's by far my biggest hitting move.

This is a bit of a shot in the dark but...

Isn't his hit a little low of the 295 mark? Armory lists it as 128 (+3.9%). While tanking with a 2-hander requires gobs less hit than duel wielding might, he's still way below the cap for his specials.

If his threat is low his missed ITs and PSs might be a contributing factor as, even with 2/2 Epidemic, if he misses them it might screw up his rotation.

Looking at the WWS parse his IT and PS miss rate was almost 10% each.

...thing is...looking at his gear I'm not sure where he could shave points without some major upgrades...

It's not the reason his threat is low. But it's contributing...at least a little.

Could someone with more knowledge of Hit Rating chime in?


Also...a Question from me...

Do "miss" entries in the attack table push "parry"'s off? Or will parries push off misses?

Random question

Might have something to do with that DW tanking I've threatened my friends with but promise my guild I'll never actually pull during progression :p

I don't feel that acclimation is a very good talent. Those three points could go into the bladed armor, but that is not too much of an AP increase.
Ask him what his rotation is?
DND - IT/PS - PS/IT - BS is better for single target threat over IT/PS - PS/IT - BS - BS - HB/SS/OB

My rotation on a boss is -
DND - PS - IT - BS - SS - SS - BS -EMP - SS - SS - PS - IT

Something close to that.

Does anyone know what the up-time is for Blade Barrier? I am trying to figure out if I should could that 10% into my avoidance when someone asks me what it's at.

If it's not 100%, you're doing something wrong. Count it in.

The way blade barrier works right now is when you use the 2nd blood rune (and it counts the two blood runes, regardless if they are blood or death at the time, the two original blood runes) it procs for 10s, and then while they are down any additional rune based strike will refresh the 10s.

Essentially, whenever you use a rune ability, the game asks "are the two blood runes down?" and if the answer is yes, your blade barrier duration is set to 10. This generally guarantees 100% uptime past the initial few seconds, assuming you can keep spending your runes.

I'll just make a note, it actually refresh on any action. This includes mining, mounting, drinking a pot, etc. This obviously means in combat, it'll also proc off RP using abilities, not just strikes. And really the only thing that can make it drop is a really bad string of parries/dodges on bloodstrikes, preventing you to spend the runes. Patchwerk did that to me earlier, had blade barrier down for like 10secs straight ^^.

If you're having problems refreshing blade barrier because of a miss string, you can dump your blood runes with blood boil. The rune will be spent even if BB gets resisted.

I'm wondering why are people including reaping in their unholy tanking builds? Personally I've found it of very little value. 2 blood strikes do comparable damage to a scourge strike, so even in the best circumstances you're at most gaining a global cooldown. The worst thing about reaping is that it doesn't proc from Death and Decay.

DnD is one of our best threat generation abilities even on single targets. It does comparable or superior damage to a scourge strike+blood strike combined even before you consider the extra threat modifier DnD gets or the extra deathcoil you get to cast. I think it's worth using in any fight where you don't need to move the boss out of the aoe. The only time I'll skip using it is on fights where the graphic covers other important aoe effects. Using DnD every 15 seconds makes you unable to take advantage of Reaping for converting 2 blood strikes into a death strike or scourge strike.

I tank with 9/11/51 currently. The point in Mastery of Ghouls would likely be better spent on Necrosis, but so far I haven't wanted to give up my ghoul. If I ever start running into major threat problems I might consider it. I'm a little concerned about the future nerf to bone shield. While bone shield is absolutely amazing now, unholy doesn't have a lot of strong mitigation abilities otherwise. If the nerf is severe, I'll likely respec to a frost tanking spec for better mitigation.

What they SHOULD do is buff UA up to Bone Shields capability. There is no reason that UA being that high in the tree like Bone Shield should be that weak, comparatively. They are in the same tier in different trees. Both should be equally powerful, not one head and shoulders above the other. However, it is Blizzard so what they WILL do is probably nerf the shit out of Bone Shield to lower it to UA's standard.

Ideally I would think an increase in the armor % bonus could make it happen but I doubt Blizzard is willing to do that. I'm expecting a Bone Shield nerf. Far easier on their end to lower BS to UA's standard then to tinker with the balance issue they would create if UA increased armor and/or lowered incoming damage (not unlike BA) while keeping UA at a flat 20 secs. They could decrease the time of UA to 15 or 10 secs to account for the increased mitigation but then that would gimp frost, seeing how a well geared unholy tank can keep BS up... what? 20 to 30 secs? average? And just to increase that mitigation without taking something away makes 20 secs an long, long time in PVP.

Far easier to nerf BS I'm thinking.

Not overly wierd, he's not Expertise or Hit capped, which is quite an issue for DK tanks, with only 4% to hit, he has a 13% chance that his 'spell' abilities will miss. I think this guy is suffereing from mitigation fever ... he's focused so hard on getting Def cap (not easy) and stamina that he has missed the importance of Expertise and hit. There are some rather cheap Expertise enchant around too.

An addition to this, is that Rotation is vital for DK tanking, it's not about mashing buttons when they are lit up. Check his rotations with him, ask him to practce on dummies. DK playing is not dissimilar to shadow priests or affliction locks. You need to keep your diseases up at all times while also timing your powerful abilities to hit at the most advantageous time. It's too easy to turn it into a button mash class.

I think that given time, he'll get settled into a high TPS rotation, certainly, I am significantly less well geared, and can hold aggro from sunwell + geared raiders in 10 and 25 man Naxx as needed.

Re talents, I'd suggest that he takes 5/5 bladed armour and 2/2 in 2 handed weapon spec in blood and lose some of the points in frost in the less valued tanking talents (Icy talons, Imp Icy talons) I'm assuming you rock with more than one shaman and WF will be there constantly anyway.

Going on again with random tests...
I equipped 2 weapons and went against my random northrend quest mobs.
I am not talking of dps in this moment, as I am currently specced blood and dual wield is -not- viable solution for blood, but I wanted to test the parry-haste returns and general rotation handling.
Results: the difference in damage is within 20% from 2hander, which is impressive considering I have no dual wield buffing talent.
Rune Strike: I think this is the main point... the weapon speed of my MH was 2.50 and I noticed I was spamming Rune Strike twice as much I usually do with a 3.50 2hander; I think a possible threat generation loss in DW -may- be filled by a huge use of Rune Strikes.
Runeforging: Fallen Crusader doesn't stack. It happens to procc the same number of times either using a 2hander or going dual wield. But this mean you can have a Fallen Crusder on MH and a Swordshatter on OH.
Parry hasting: I actually didn't notice any difference in damage taken or parry % taken, given the same rating of Expertise. Will Log something soon with logger-head to show some numbers.

These breif and superficial considerations apply to any specc.

They're not going to buff Unbreakable Armor to the level of Bone Armor, because once you have enough avoidance with Bone Armor, it is absurdly good already. Running around with near 100% mitigation in two trees is not what Blizzard is intending, I'm sure. The idea goes that by nerfing Bone Armor (and IBF), they can afford to increase the mitigation on Frost Presence to the point that we will be smoother tanks as opposed to spiky tanks. It makes sense enough, considering how squishy we can be without cooldowns sometimes.

As for the previous comment on Acclimation, it is generally accepted as not being very effective for raids as a result of not stacking with other resistance buffs well. You'll probably be better off spending the 3 pts you save in Bladed Armor or another such talent.

As for the continued dual-wielding vs 2H comment. Keep in mind that we have confirmation from the devs that in most occasions, parry hasting still exists. It may not exist for certain mobs that hit really hard (like Patchwerk apparently), but it is still in the game and something that thus needs to be considered.

Blizz is also taking into consideration that when BS is down, Unholy tanks are very squishy. So far the toughest content in the game is relatively easy, in the next tiers it will be more difficult and I expect that they have already seen in internal testing that Unholy tanks takes a pretty strong hit to capability. BTW BS is balanced against UA by taking into account the fact that the Frost tree has several mitigation talents that aren't available to an Unholy tank.

Additionaly GC has posted several times that they did not intend DK's to need to keep cooldowns up all the time in order to be viable tanks. Abilities like IBF, UA and BS were meant to be used situationally and they're trying to make that happen with the changes to tanking abilities.

Personally I can't wait to see what they do with Blood tanking.

Yeah that sounds like a good idea, but i wonder how adding an Avoidance of say "increases dodge and parry by 5%" would work out. On the other hand they could go with the "-10% DMG and adds 50 DEF" that way we have a little easier time when capping DEF while not sacrificing avoidance stats. Granted ive only been tanking heroics and dont start Naxx-10 till sat and dont know how well i will off ill be OT. Ive seen the loot on wowhead from there but have yet to complie a "tanking set stats" but i feel like gemming for DEF may be an issue for us.

What abilites are those? Frigid Dreadplate? 3% miss? Like the 1% more then the nelf racial? 6 sec increase on IBF? Okay, but its still only 6 secs. If the target for BS is 20 to 30 seconds that extra 6 seconds on IBF means nothing. All of the other mitigation type abilities an Unholy tank can get to. I hope your not referring to frost aura. I don't know what your talking about.

Lets not mince words here. BS is clearly superior to UA in every way. And apparently, most people here think Unholy is the only way to tank the end game and Frost isn't even in the ballpark. Clearly its not for those "other" mitigation talents.

This is absolutely the case. For the folks worried about an impending Bone Shield nerf (and yes, it seems quite likely at this point), know that the end result will likely be better survivability than you have right now. While it might be fun to "ooh" and "aah" at Patchwerk's hatefuls that only do 9k to you with BS up, it's the 15k hits you take when it's down that give your healers a heart attack. All it takes is one dip below zero HP for you to die and likely cause a wipe. Hopefully the upcoming change will reduce the chance of this happening.

Are you saying here that Frigid Dreadplate and the nelf racial dont stack? :O If it's the case it would be really stupid from blizzard, making one talent 66% less good for one race.

If not, are you saying that 3% pur avoidance (with no diminushing return) is nothing? :O


Maybe I am missing something but if not, it's almost as good as anticipation (in fact, as far as I understand the way miss and dodge work it's even better by talent points, cause there is no DR in miss chance, right?)



But I agree that the frost avoidance talent doesnt scale up the way BS does, especially since we can get BS and Frigid Dreadplate ^^, making it BS vs UA+6sec IF.

No, what I'm trying to do is clarify what seamusmc was saying in the post I quoted above. I edited it for clarity. He was saying BS is balanced against UA and the "several" other mitigation talents frost supposedly has. I was trying to figure out what "other" mitigation talents he was talking about.

I get what your saying, but I'm saying if you have a nelf unholy tank who didn't spec in frigid dreadplate his nelf racial makes up for over half of that talent. Then the only thing he's missing is that extra 6 seconds. I realize that they both stack. But thanks for telling me Unholy tanks can spec in Frigid Dreadplate, I wasn't sure of that when I initally wrote the last post.

So your last statement is quite correct sir. Frost UA+ 6 sec extra IBF does not equal geared BS.

Very low weapon skill? Hadn't used 2h maces in a while, got a brand new 2h mace and started using it in Naxx?

Especially if he's a former feral druid (like me) he might forget that you have to spend some time leveling up your weapon skills before using them in a challenging PvE setting.