Zerath

I'm really interested in your spec and gem choices. Could you post a WWS (or two) for me and what does your TPS run on the average boss? (Not Patch.)

 

Pyros

Probably a Sartharion set with more stamina than usual, I'm looking somewhat making one too, out of the frost resist gear. If your a JC+BS you have some leeway on def gems, at least a bit, so you can actually stack some heavy stamina. As a JC you also get a 100+stam trinket to go with hadronox one which gives a nice 2.4k hp on trinket(with talents, or something like that). The necklace with block on it from sapphiron quest item is pretty nice too, can gem it with 24stam for like 108stam, and you can get a titanium frost resist ring crafted with again a 24stam gem for 124stam(those numbers aren't double checked just going from memory).

30.4k hp in a normal set though, sounds like a lot. But on sartharion, you could be hitting with a fishing pole it wouldn't matter if it gave you more stamina.

 

• Furiosa

character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderlord&n=Fur�*osa

Armory, the I is a bit weird, ALT - 0237 for the code to put it in if your on XP, forgot the mac version. Just type The World of Warcraft Armory in front. Daimn I need a name change :/.

Anyways, I've just got the JC'ing trinket(the badged dodge one paired with it), 540 defense on the button and gemmed the rest stam for Sarth, my avoidance is in 60% ish, a bit under, with horn of winter. My TPS is 4.5k-5k I think? Spiking 6k+ on any given fight, although I'm generally the off-tank. The only fight I've ever had problems with was Malygos, and that was just one warlock pushing 5k dps through the spinning shit (forgot the name -_-). I don't have WWS's, so you'll have to take my word for that. I'll try to push things out next week, but christmas is :/.

 

plagueknight

all your posts have been much helpful, in my tanking Thank you.

 

Namuh

Don't be suprised that a pally tank can outthreat you....we spoke about this a few pages back.

1. They have an enormous amount of front load damage
2. They have Shield of Righteousness Rank 2
Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage equal to your block value plus 400. This spell causes a high amount of threat.
3. They can ALSO use Shield of Righteousness Rank 1 (bug)

With those skills and a bug that increase threat gen - there is NO way a DK can outthreat a pally that knows what hes doing right now.

We will see after the bug is fixed.....if they fix it.

Edit - apparantly my Shift kEy is BrOKen :P

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

SirCowdog

This might be a complete noob question, but I'm curious why in your frost tanking talents you've taken Frost Strike, but then don't list it as being used in the standard rotation.

I've been an unholy tank for my entire career of about 250 emblems worth of heroics and OT in everything up to 25 man Naxx, so I don't really fully understand the inner workings of a frost tank. The few times I've tried out frost, Frost Strike just seemed like an extra button with no purpose. Is it meant to be a RP dump? Why wouldn't you just use Death Coil? If it's not something you're using regularly, why spend a valuable talent point on it?

Apologies in advance if this has already been covered, but it just seemed a little strange.

 

Namuh

It is and should be used in the standard rotation - especially in the first 100 rp gained - the fact that it cannot be Dodged parried or missed is a guarantee of front load threat.

im sure he uses it and may have simply neglected to add it.

as to its damage output its not that bad of an rp dump with all of the frost damage modifiers we get in the frost tree coupled with the threat modifiers its a fair amount of front end threat.

Icecicle - Human
Frost DeathKnight Tank

 

Feorthas

Most likely because the post being referenced was from the early theorycraft in the first 8 pages / 150 posts of a thread that is about 10x as long right now.

As far as frost strike goes, it is strictly a better RP dump than Death Coil and retains all of the benefits of a spell (not subject to melée avoidance/DR) and, thus, replaces DC in all RP dumps made by frost DKs.

 

Poe

When I open with DnD (burning 1B-1U-1F) and then pop PS (1U) > IT (1F) > BS (1B). I end up on CD for almost all the abilities for at least a few secs. I end up staying on CD most of the fight.

I refresh diseases when I can, I RS when its up and I'll dump RP with FS, and throw in the occasional HB. When going after multiple mobs I try to get BB in if I can. Most of the time everything goes off without a hitch but I tank H UK last night and had the others in the group saying I should be on CD so much and that I should have up DnD at all times.

Am I'm doing something wrong if I'm on CD a lot and end up using a FCFS approach.

Note: Only one player was a DK and I doubt he ever tanked but I could be wrong...its happened before, once.

 

Suno

Or, due to Runestrike procs, it's impossible to try to preemptively plan when you'll have the RP to dump on a Frost Strike. That's actually why it's not included. I understand that the post is (slightly) outdated, but just about all of the information found in it is quite current excluding any PTR changes, and if there are any small bits of info in that post that are outdated, they will be addressed when I update it for changes that go live next patch.

The post tries to stress the importance of the high improbability of being able to execute a flawless rotation in an endgame encounter. Use frost strike when you'll otherwise be generating wasted RP from an ability, or anytime you have 40+ RP and your runes are on cooldowns. The endless variables in a fight prevent any sort of rigid rotation.


In regards to the question about it's use, yes, Frost Strike is an RP dump that is superior to deathcoil. It is enhanced greatly by several talents in the frost tree (guile of gorefiend, black ice, glacial rot, etc), just looking down the tree should make it clear why frost strike is a no-brainer for frost tanking.

 

Lurne

I'm currently leveling my DK frost - enjoying it a lot. I was wondering about tanking rotations and dps. If you have enough of a threat lead (i'm thinking bosses mainly), would swapping in FS be more of a help than continuing to RS to increase threat? I picked up merciless combat and it seems that this would be a better way of helping finish off a boss than continuing to build threat ad nauseam. Of course this is for after the patch when RS damage is nerfed. Also, obviously you could swap back RS if your dps gets extremely close again.

I have read that once you reach higher end content, threat is much more of an issue than in Naxx/Heroics so this would not apply then.

 

Feorthas

At about the midpoint of a boss fight, I'm usually not lacking for RP so I'd suggest macroing RS into BS/OB/DS and trying to run your rotation as you normally would. Just make sure to have the IT glyph and 2/2 CotT and you'll be generating enough RP for at least half of your FS output, give or take.

 

Carnerro

I wonder why no one mentiones BS glyph and desecration for an unholly single threat TPS. I understand that the dislike for the desecration is that alot of the fights are mobile. But alot of them are not. Desecation is a "snare" and BS will do 20% more damage to a snared target. Given the fact that we need to get rid of the blood runes would it not make sence to open up with IB, PS, BS,BS for a high front load in TPS.

My gear is pretty shoddy but I was easily pushing 3000-3300 tps on Glyth and getting closer to 4k when the runestrike on my SS procked.

Just wondering if this was looked at mathimatically by someone. It just seems that weaving in a DND on a single target is somewhat expensive and difficult at times.

 

Womba

Rune Tap would be very useful for fights such as Loatheb (small window of healing) and Gluth (after a decimate when healers are scrambling to get health up).

 

Feorthas

I think this has been asked before somewhere--possibly buried in the FAQ thread but maybe somewhere here as well--but fortunately the answer is really simple:

Almost all bosses that don't involve being intentionally snared in the fight for a mechanic reason (snare and run away or *Bad Things* happen, or some variation on that) are immune to snares and will not receive a debuff that the BS glyph will activate on.

 

◊ zirky

I'm currently specc'd into an OT role for my guild, mostly tanking trash and elementals on Sartharion. I've been using various Unholy spec's and last night on our first Sartharion + 3 kill, I ended up picking up Suppression and AMZ. The 8 seconds of spell immunity on enraged elementals proved invaluable. After some discussion, we decided that as I am in a utility (Unholy Aura, Ebon Plague) and OT (and dpsing when not actively tanking) role, it would not be a bad idea given the upcoming spell damage buff to Frost presence that having that much more spell mitigation and AMZ probably would not be a bad idea to have.

I've come up with this spec to fill the role. It affords the raid utility talents of the Unholy tree and enough dps talents not be completely worthless. Unfortunately, I cannot pick up Wandering Plague, which I have come to highly value in AE tanking situations.

My thoughts are to either drop 2 points from either Bladed Armor, or more likely Impurity for 2/3 WP resulting in something like this or to drop the dps pet related talents and end up with this build, picking up WP and 2/2 2H spec.

With the Night of the Dead changes providing much needed AE avoidance to our pets, the "free" dps gains seem like a no brainer. Impurity has always seemed to be a talent that rates higher than just filler, yet not quite a must have. I'm also uncertain if I am getting to the point where I'm just simply trying to do far too much and will end up coming in short.

Edit: I'm also uncertain if I am placing too much emphasis on WP and that the points are better spent elsewhere.

 

Suno

Precisely. I haven't found a single useful scenario for desecration outside of kiting Gluth's adds. Even in PvP, the slowness debuff isn't applied instantly, so trying to slow a target running from you is often impossible. If I could place it in front of a target, or if the debuff applied instantly (instead of waiting on the eye-candy animation), I could see more applications.

Desecration needs some attention before it's worth 5 points in any environment in my opinion.

 

Carnerro

Thank you guys. This actually makes sence. I did not find this mentioned in this thread in quite this way. May have mised it. Well this opens up a few more points in my spec, but it seems come the patch it will no longer be important.

 

Mu

I lost track of all those acronyms about halfway through the post but between creative use of blood tap, using hungering cold just to spread diseases, and empower rune weapon I don't have any problems with chain pulling.

Blood tap was a real 'oh, duh' moment for me personally. I misread the tooltip at first and didn't realize not only can it change a blood rune to a death rune, it causes one to light up as a death rune if both are on cooldown. It also has some weird behavior where if your second blood rune is active and the first one is down, it gives you two death runes. Pretty cool ability I underestimated for a long time.

 

raei

I discovered the same thing a day or so ago (duh) and I've gone from 'why do I care about this' to using it almost every pull on trash, etc. just for the ability to get things like pest/bb going faster, or as frost, if I'm missing one of the two runes for HB. More importantly, great for making things like Bone Shield / Unbreakable Armor / Rune Tapalbe to be used on demand. I get the feeling that Blood Tap is something a lot of people really miss when it's right there (no need to chime in with 'I knew it all along you're dumb.')

 

DarioZ

Indeed it's a good skill but only for recovery I'll tell why.

I noticed that (Mtanking heros, all naxx 10) as frost I use all runes in couples:



-My AoE pull rot:

IT(ranged great opening) > PS > Pestilence > Blood Boil(use asap 2 blood runes to have the increased parry rating) > Deathchill (preparing...) > Howling Blast (Boom!)

So I tapped all runes in a 8 seconds (latency and reflexes rounding to GCD) so I have 2 seconds of void before starting with Frost Strike/OB spam

(This grants loads of AoE aggro in few moments without any d&d that make me feel "rune thirsty"...)

But the point is: if I activate that death rune (Blood Tap) I gain 1 DeathR active. At that point is completely useless if I didn't messed with diseases (clicked 2 time Plague Strike for instance) because helps me just to do one Blood Boil more or Blood Strike and doesn't help for the couples that I use for OB/Howling Blast/Death Strike.

It's a great "Mess recovery" skill imho but not such a great ability if you do rotations well. In pull I use for defenses Icebound Fort so no rune need.

 

Kurenai

That has really nothing to do with what raei said. If you need an "oh shit" ability and Icebound is on cd you can still press Blood Tap and use whatever you talented for (Bone Shield/Vampiric Embrace/Unbreakable Armor) without having to sit on your runes waiting and not generating a lot of threat for that time.

 

raei

Exactly. I don't think that it's the be all and end all that should be included into rotations, but I do think that Blood Tap is something that a lot of DKs (myself included) completely overlooked; i.e. that it actually gives you an instant death rune regardless of the cooldown state of your runes.

 

Flashertyp

Hi,

i just cant figure out why frost tanksshould have lesser dmg income than unholy tanks.

In fact there are following different talents wich frost and unholy dks have:

1) Frigid Dreadplate (-3% Melee) vs. Magic Supression (-5% Caster)
and
2) Unbreakable Armor (25% Armor + 5% Parry) vs. Bone Shield (-20% after nerv)

In my opinion 1) is like you want, that should be a big issue, but wich talent in 2) is better? Raidbuffed i think a geared DK should have about 25-30k Armor, so 25% more would be about 31k-37k. If wowwiki is up2date, that would be about 1% less dmg income (Armor - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft) + 5% parry.
Bone shield seemsto have an internal cd, when bone stacks are decreases. Furthermore you have a alot of dodging and parry rating, maybe around 60-65% both togehter in raid, so it takesome time till all stacks are done.

can u help me to find any errors in this idea?

 

Afabar

@Flashertyp

I think you have miss-read wowwiki article. Going from 30k armor to 35k give you 10% physical damage reduction.
And with the new Unbreakable armor glyph, with 30k armor you would have 42k armor during UA. Witch is according to wowiki, 21% of mitigation. You add 5% parry.
So for 20 second you have a 26% damage mitigation.

From what I've read, Internal CD of Bone shield is 2 second.

So you have to compare 26% damage reduction for 20s or 20% damage reduction that can last between 10s and 40s depending of the RNG.

And Frost spec give you also 6s more Icebound Fortitude.