I would go with either IBF or rune strike, depending on how often you find yourself needing IBF and depending on how often you spam rune strike. I say do not use the IT glyph because HB and oblit both generate 10 RP, but in the patch they will generate 15 RP and with Chill of the Grave that would almost be the equivalent of IT glyph and you usually use oblit and HB more often then IT. I will probably go with rune strike.

I think the UA glyph is pretty much junk now you will be way over the armor cap with UA+Inspiration, and it will get even worse at later tiers(when you will well over the armor cap with just the 25%+inspiration). I really like the IBF glyph since there is no risk of not having the runic when you need it(like faerlina enrage).

If I stay frost I am going to go glyph of frost strike, glyph of runestrike and glyph of icebound fortitude(currently, ua, it, ibf). I find Howling does more damage on average than Oblit so I usually use that so the Oblit glyph is kind useless. One reason I am dropping the IT glyph is that I will be swapping to the IT Sigil when threat is important, if the IT Glyph lost the -10% I might have kept it.

Err... no. The current formula for runic power generation is 5 + (5*runes). Two-rune abilities generate 15 RP, while 3-rune abilities generate 20. They're nerfing 3-rune abilities (DnD, AotD) to only generate 15. The change doesn't affect Death Strike, Obliterate, Howling Blast, or Scourge Strike at all.

Threat is going to be a massive issue for death knights, in particular unholy spec. Main tanking Naxx 10 tonight pretty much made me cry because I had no way to keep up with our mage in TPS. While this particular case might be solved with a new weapon and some more expertise items (armory), we're still screwed in the long run.

There are three major problems as I see it:

1) The ghoul.
While it's nice to have a buddy when you're out questing, I think it's sane to believe Blizzard balanced Unholy DPS against Blood/Frost with Unholy+Pet in mind, which means an unholy tank must do 20% less threat on single targets no matter what. With DKs already behind other tanks on threat generation due to complete lack of (single target) threat abilities, this means an unholy tank will fall hopelessly behind as DPSers keep gearing up.

2) Death Rune reset bug.
After painstakingly converting blood runes into death runes with Blood Strike, it's pretty demoralizing to watch them reset to blood runes when I get Scourge Strike parried/dodged/miss, which feels like 50% of the time. This is an insanely huge loss of threat and needs to be fixed ASAP.

3) Pestilence disease spread delay.
Instead of having diseases spread to other targets the instant Pestilence hits, it appears they only actually get applied on the main target's next disease tick. This means that if your diseased target dies before the next tick (ie within 3 seconds if unlucky), none of the other mobs will be diseased, despite having been hit by the Pestilence damage. It's a common issue on trash pulls where your target has a habit of dying quickly, leaving its little undiseased friends scattering to rape clothies.


Fixes for issues 2-3 don't need much discussion, but 1 is a bit trickier. The two ideas I've considered are either letting us gain the pet's damage as threat in Frost Presence, or giving Unholy Blight an added threat modifier like DnD already has. By upping it to 4x damage we'd probably gain at least 10% TPS, which would help a lot, especially since it can't be parried. Note that I'm stuck on the European forums, where reporting bugs/suggestions is akin to sending loveletters into a black hole, so if you've encountered these bugs, please report them where they'll actually be noticed.


I felt so impotent when I had to ask the damage dealers to calm down a bit at the start, only to hear "We never have these problems with a warrior tanking. I don't even have Omen installed anymore."

#2 is not a bug. I've never seen Pestilence fail to spread disease, either, except when Pestilence is what kills the target, which really isn't an issue at all since we're talking about raids here right? You're also forgetting that Rune Strike is getting a threat buff (overall; 150% damage 150% threat instead of 200%/100%, which yields 225% threat total).

so I OT'd 10Naxx yesterday and on Patch they put me as main tank. I had serious threat generation issues. I think mostly because I was more concerned about staying alive than anything else. Recently I got some major gear upgrades which seems to have solved my survialbility issue but since that was my first time out with all the new stuff I was not really concentrating on threat.

So whats the typical rotation for the most threat generation possible. I usually go with DnD, IT, PS, UB and BS with PS, BS and SS having rune strike macro'd into them. Should I be using DnD every time its up?

Other than that I did ok for my first time in there OT'ing, Glob gave me some trouble because I kept getting the debuff making grabbing globs harder.

P.S- My current spec is my PVP, Heroic tank spec not my normal Tank spec. I normally tank in the typical Unholy Tank spec.

so i have a couple questions about dk's for tanking, mostly about talents. ive a decent amount of this thread...but havent found answers to what exactly i'm looking for. please forgive me if these have already been addressed. 1. why the 2 set bonus for 10% increased chance to crit strike on plague strike? just a little bit of extra aggro? i havent seen it do much damage at all. 2. does 2-handed weapon specialization affect just strike moves and melee dmg, or does it affect ALL damage i deal. i mean to say would i more dmg and threat with say a DnD with it or the same regardless. 3. does bladed armor affect the impurity talent in unholy for spell damage from attack power? 4. is wandering plague a semi useless talent point for dk tanking, unless you spec deep enough into blood to get dark conviction (xtra % chance to crit). i mean i think my melee crit chance is only...10% or so. should i put the points into something more useful perhaps? such as bladed armor if it does affect impurity. 5. what exactly does virulence affect? just icy touch and death coil? 6. what is better for threat if i have the extra points to spend, necrosis or blood-caked blade? 6. assuming bladed armor affects impurity and assuming 2 handed weapon spec affects all damage i deal, which would be better for threat generation? (possibly ignore this question depending on above answers). 7. does frost aura stack with buffs, such as frost resistance aura from pallies or druids gift of the wild? thanks for your time, hopefully i'm not too bothersome ^^.

1. Next to zero use for a tank.
2. All that is Strike ( Frost/rune/heart/scourge/etc) and autoattack.
3. Yes.
4. Unholy aoe is already the best, wandering plague has a minor benefit for a low crit tank.
5. IT, DC, Pestilence, BB, DnD. Does not affects Strikes and autoattack.
6. Necrosis.
7. Frost aura is under the same rules as any resist buff since TBC, and that is none stacks. Only the most powerfull applies, and the order is paladin aura(130) > frost aura (80) > gotw(54).

My top single target TPS rotation is: PS IT BS BS SS SS --> DC or UB then DC

If you look closely at Omen, you'll find Deathcoil does massive threat. I have runestrike macro'd into my Deathstrike and Scourgestrike. Whenever I have excess RP --> DC.

Now if I need to get a huge lead in threat, I don't spam my DS or SS so I don't runestrike, I save my RP for DC.

Deathcoil seems to be our top threat generator.

I've been pushing expertise to help with parry / threat. If / When I get the expertise axe from Naxx 25. I'll add in more hit to make up for the loss in hit.

Congratulations on Inevitable Defeat - I've been waiting for this weapon for some time. It'll boost my tanking quite nicely through threat, avoidance and longevity.

With the upcoming potential changes to the death strike major glyph, I've been thinking about using the SS Glyph too. I have the new sigil which adds considerable damage. I'll be testing the dps on SS with this sigil. If the healing bonus from DS Glyph isn't significant, I'll exchange it for more threat.

My other glyphs include the DnD glyph which I believe to be the best trash mob / heroic glyph out there bar none. I request all my guild DKs to use it.

Here's a question... and it's more rhetorical than anything.. but what is Blizzard really trying to do here?

We see currently that both Frost and Unholy make for decent tanks. I've seen pretty good specs for both. Now Blizzard is trying to up Blood's tanking viability. 3 trees for tanking, 3 trees for DPS. Why does this seem so scatterbrained to me? I've seen that all (now three) trees bring something "different" to the table in terms of tanking... but the Death Knight, as a class, was explained to be "Melee DPS, Tanking ability, and Spell-based DPS"... though it seems that they've strayed from this archetype pretty far.

Now, I'm quite fond of the idea behind Dual Wielding, and the Death Knight class, and though I'd love to see it (too) get some tanking love... I'm not too unhappy with the fact it is DPS... because I know my role. Doesn't it seem a bit counterproductive to make a single spec a "Swiss army knife"? I personally don't think it's necessary to have an all-in-one "Lets DPS and tank efficiently with the same spec" spec. Variety is good, but not to the point of overpowering the class, and thus diluting the view of it. I'm seeing the public moving from the "Lets QQ about Ret Burst" (Author's note: I don't play a paladin, this is not a topic of the Retribution Burst factor), to a "How is it that Death Knight can both Tank and top the DPS charts every time even with Rogues, Warlocks, and Mages?"

Is this a legitimate concern here, or am I not seeing something all of you are?

Thanks Shadai... I was seriously having concerns about the class... even though I'm loving the idea behind it. I thought Blizzard was supposedly going one specific direction with it, but I was apparently misguided. Thanks for the clarification on that.

Anyone given any tought about the Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight?
I think this is a rather poor idea for a defensive item as defense is something you are supposed to be able to rely on. This sigil does not help much in making def cap easier to reach and linking it as a chance to a skill I use once in two rune cycles is even worse for uptime. Now if this would be changed to "Your Icy Touch also increases... for 20s" for example, I'd see some real use.

From what was posted so far, it already does what you want, there is also a blue post from GC confirming that. It gives 53 def rating for 30 sec. What i don't know is if a new IT refreshes the duration, or you have to wait for the buff to expire. And since you already use IT for the speed debuff, i see no drawback compaired with existing seals, as long as you focus on defensive stats. There is allways the option to get better offensive/threat sigils.

Reports sofar indeed seem to indicate that the sigil has a 100% chance to proc which would mean that considering normal rotations its uptime is 100% or close to.
It does however function badly with Glyph of Scourge Strike because you try to limit your IT casts hampering its uptime.

The information from GC makes it appear that the tooltip on the sigil is simply poorly-worded.

If the information from players regarding the sigil is accurate, then it is a 30 second duration with no internal cooldown. I cannot think of any reason why the buff would not be freshed, so with 54 defense rating that will stay up as long as you cast IT every 30 seconds, I think it's a solid choice, even for those who are currently uncrittable.

I passed [Repelling Charge] to our Warrior, and am looking forward to dropping my [Seal of the Pantheon] and all of my +def gems once the patch goes live. Over 154 defense rating from Runeforge + sigil alone is going to give DK tanks amazing flexibility regarding gemming and enchanting.

Does DnD really produce that much threat over the other abilties?

I have tanked Naxx10 since I hit 80 and I really haven't had any threat issues. My guild really isn't geared that well either, but neither am I, so I am sure that plays a role. My only concern with starting with DnD is the use of all those runes right off the start.

Are there any calculations on exactly how much TPS that DnD is producing over other abilities?

I didn't had any agro problems so far, but the DPS are starting to get upgrades and proper talents and getting closer than i like of my tps. I will try using DnD every cooldown, instead of just the start of fight, to see how it works for myself. If it is a noticeble increase, talenting DnD for 15 sec CD will be a big difference.

Now i see your rotation is for unholy tanks. How much TPS boost you think DnD gets from Unholy talents like Impurity and Desecration ( the only ones i found without equivalent in frost tree) ?

Just a bit of an aside here, Desecration is an awful talent for a tank (and a pretty bad talent for any PvE situation). The fact is, due to Epidemic, you just aren't Plague Striking often enough to refresh the 12sec Desecration (and if you are, you're nerfing your damage much more than the 5% would provide). So, it ends up being an increase in DPS by about 3.33%, which is pretty low for the steep cost of 5 talent points (Blizzard has stated that for DPS talents, the "rule of thumb" is about 1% DPS increase per talent point. Plus, if you're DPSing with the Glyph of Scourge Strike, Desecration has even more downtime, sometimes drastically so. Desecration is a PvP talent, through and through.

Either way, I'm here to report on my quest for more TPS. I was unholy, and always had trouble keeping up with my Enh. Shaman and DPS Warrior friends... they were getting capped quite often, in both heroics and in raids. I tried dropping DnD as part of the rotation... didn't really have an appreciable effect. I tried stacking hit and expertise high enough to have into the mid-30s in expertise, and up to the melee hit cap (something few tanks should have to do at the entry-level of content, simply due to gearing concerns)... that solidified my 3000tps level, but never really got me ahead.

I went Frost earlier this week, partially because I feel the upcoming DK adjustments make Frost a slightly stronger general tanking spec. than Unholy, and I wanted to feel it out (for some reason, I stayed Unholy throughout nearly all of Beta). I am pretty confident that with a Frost spec, I'm now able to put out comparable single-target TPS to a similarly geared Prot. Warrior. I'm also very happy with the "snappier" aggro that you can get on a large group with Howling Blast. The only fight that any threat issues whatsoever occured on was Sapphiron, and that was due to his high magic resists, and was easily solved by a single Salv.

I'm wondering if anyone else had a similar experience, and if one of the earlier posters might just have an excellent point about Unholy having inherent problems due to the assumption that the Ghoul/Garg contributes to one's DPS, yet not one's TPS.

I actually really enjoy my Frost spec, having been frost the entire time. Obliterate does a massive amount of damage and thus, threat and the fact you can spam it for three or four strikes at the end of a rotation really does wonders for single target threat. Combine it with morbidity, deathchill, and Howling blast, I find that I can easily adapt to AOE or Single target quite effectively.

I'm happy with the changes that Bone Shield is being brought back into line with the rest of the talents so I don't feel like I'm forced into that spec once I hit that magical bit of avoidance. I do think that the ghoul in that tree perhaps hampers the performance, at least, it makes logical sense. Why would Blizzard make you tops on single target AND give you a pet? Hunters are balanced with the pet, as are warlocks (although the latter is debatable) so if Unholy grants a permanent pet, I would assume that would count as well.

I do have concerns with Unbreakable Armor and the glyph. An earlier poster mentioned you'd hit the armor cap if you use it with the changes to Frost Presence. Is there any substance to this claim? And what exactly is the armor cap for us?

As far as highest threat generated per rune -
I'm really curious if using DnD truly is more threat gen vs using those runes on Oblit, HS, or SS and turning the others into Death Runes?

I also think "after patch, of course" we should sit down and figure a general rotation in ideal conditions just so some of the converted tanks have a better idea on what works and what doesn't work.

#4 - it's already been widely established that Unbuffed Wandering Plague is not stellar but Raid Buffed many tanks with 5-15% crit rating are being buffed upwards of 10-20% on top of their base crit.

Wandering Plague is Very useful as an AoE tanking ability but only shines in a Raid setting.