Not going to dissect that build entirely, but just as a minor point, Black Ice is inherently better in that build than Glacier Rot, so you might as well move those two points. You don't have Frost Strike or Howling Blast, so the only skill Glacier Rot will affect for Unholy is Icy Touch, and it will only add the 10% damage on diseased targets. Better to take 2 points of Black Ice and get 12% extra frost damage all of the time to your Icy Touch instead.

Edit: I fail at reading comprehension and didn't see he was picking up Lichborne.

So I don't completely waste the post, though - I personally wouldn't waste points on quicker Death Grip in Unholy, I'd rather put them anywhere else, for example some increased damage/threat. Slightly faster pulling and a fake-taunt don't seem worth 2 points for me in an already heavy tree.

Alright...I read the replies to my spec and looking it over again (I was at work when I worked it out), I realize what was wrong with it.

Recently I've also tried out an Unholy tanking build, and was able to tank Azjol-Nerub with very little problems while at the same time am comfortable soloing as that spec. Wanting to get a bit of input on it, as there are quite a few intelligent people here that I'd value pointers/advice on.

The build at 80 will be: 7/11/53.

To briefly explain the idea of this build:

Has the basic avoidance talents from each spec, plus the 4% two-hand weapon damage from Blood for threat, improved icy touch, frost damage, and Lichbourne as an added panic button. The rest is Unholy stressing AOE tanking with longer diseases and Wandering Plague, along with Unholy Blight. EB and BCB is for added threat, and Pale Horse for the 30% stun reduction. I needed to place an extra point somewhere to get to the next tier so I got the 2% str/stam talent, even though I can see being annoyed with turning into a ghoul at death (prevents any druids from BRing me quickly should I drop, although that hasn't happened yet).

I skip Obliterate since it takes two runes I'm normally using for other things (I try and keep DnD down when available, and IT my main target to follow up with PS and Pestilence), and frankly if I have the two runes open I'd rather use SS as it averages about 1k non-crit damage a hit.

Pretty basic tank spec, so far my rotation is to pull (normally with IT, but DG if it's a caster), PS, Pestilence, DnD, then Bone Armor (so that Blade Barrier is up before BA goes up, and it doesn't get eaten right away). By that time UB is available and I keep that up until they're dead.

So far at 72 (tanking an instance with mostly 73-74 mobs) I had no problem taking on Azjol-Nerub. Any thoughts? Hopefully not as weird as my last spec?

The prot warrior section has a great beginner's tank gear thread.


My take on DK tanking: Right now, the focus is on generating threat, and that may be because most people are still doing 5 mans where mobs are dying very quickly and dps generally outgears the instance. However, at least for the forseeable future, threat is not an issue for raid boss tanking so I think the proper discussion we should be having is which spec provides the best survivability for a DK. In this vein I think any build that doesn't include bone shield is severely underpowered. I'd expect a DK entering Naxx to have easily 40%+ avoidance counting blade barrier.

Because of the way bone shield scales with avoidance, I think a build that emphasises avoidance (a tri spec taking all the avoidance talents) woud be the best. Bone shield is also unique in that it has the side effect of indirectly scaling our mitigation with increasing levels of avoidance. That is, as our avoidance goes up, the damage we do take when we don't get hit goes down.

Now, when we're doing Arthas and DPS has skyrocketed, maybe we should talk about building threat. But I really don't see a point in doing so at the moment, when DK's clearly are the tanks atm that can be most easily bursted down.

Thanks! I didnt want to assume that itemization was weighted the same for DKs as prot warriors.

I generally agree with your sentiment, though I disagree with the specific point about the need for Bone Shield. Bone Shield *is* tremendous, and compared solely against Unbreakable Armor, it's a pretty clear cut victor, particularly glyphed. However, comparing it against Frost tanking as a whole is a bit more accurate. A Frost tank will also have Frigid Dreadplate (3% miss) and Guile of Gorefiend (+6 sec on Icebound Fortitude). This brings Frost and Unholy much more in line, albeit with Frost having an advantage against non-Melee fights. Additionally, a Frost tank only needs to spend 5 points in Unholy; and Unholy tank probably needs to spend 11 in Frost. Combine that with a Frost DKs need to only take 50 points in Frost, compared to a likely 53 in Unholy, and the Frost tank also has more room for the tasty, early Blood talents.

To your point about emphasis on survivability, I completely agree. The art of DK tanking seems to be all about when and how to use our cooldowns. Without our cooldowns we are probably the "worst" of the 4 tanks at the moment. With judicious use of them, we are arguably the best. At the cost of one rune and 20 (or zero glyphed) runic power, we have ~40 seconds of each minute of *very* high survivability. Combine that with two "on use" trinket abilities that have 2 minute cooldowns, and we have a very nice "rotation" of survivability. Stack a chunk of those cooldowns, and we are probably the best tank in the game for dealing with an "enraged" boss. I think the real key for us is going to be determining the "best" usage of those abilities.

Personally, I am not a big fan of On a Pale Horse, I'm not to sure the stun reduction is a major factor. Also, why spend 5 points in Magic Suppression and not get AMZ, seems like a waste to me. I'd also max out Impurity if you have a focus on AoE tanking as your threat is gained through magic damage. I'd go something like this. It focuses more on the AoE abilities and improving them. I also feel that improved death grip is a waste of talent points for anyone. And last but not least, turning your blood runes into death runes just owns.

I did 5 points in MS for the permanent 5% damage reduction in spells and an additional 25% spell absorption with AMS, meaning 100% resistance to spells for 5 seconds. I can see your point with AMZ, however I'm not a big fan of it personally. I know it affects you as well, but it looks like an ability that relies on the knowledge that your party will be taking spell damage...and if that's the case you're not doing your job.

I also concede that 10 seconds off of the CD for death grip isn't really worth the 2 points after running an instance with it...you don't use it nearly often enough anyway. Still a bit weary of Outbreak since I only use Pestilence once or twice in a battle anyway and it's not the damage I use it for, but for transferring diseases to other targets. And honestly I just don't see the big deal about Blood Boil. I can spend that 1 blood rune on much more useful skills.

Is corpse explosion any good, or has that really just been shelved for DPS specs? I can see it being a nice burst of AOE threat once the first target goes down, and it only takes 1 unholy (and 1 talent point). Otherwise alternatives (since at the 19 point mark you need to put a point somewhere to get to the next tier) are Outbreak (which I voiced opinion on above), Ravenous Dead (which is, needless to say, worthless for tanking), Necrosis (too many points for too little return value), On a Pale Horse (and I agree of it's questionable usefulness now), or right back to Unholy Command.

And while looking a bit further into Frost tanking, I came up with: 15/51/5, utilizing IT-->P/HB to keep aoe threat (with DnD thrown in of course) and Obliterate on the current target. I realize Death Chill (or Runic Power Mastery) isn't the greatest but I'm weary of using those points for Icy Talons instead, and I'm just not sure what Hungering Cold can really bring to the tanking table (aside from refreshing IT on all targets, but Pestilence does that just as well while also transferring any other diseases). With the one point left over that I ended up dumping into Deathchill it was either that, another 10 runic power (which I can see being useful if you're wanting to continue to macro Rune Strike to every disease and still have enough RP for Frost Strike and everything else, but everyone here seems to have concluded that it's not worth it), or Rune Tap (which a base 10% is again something most have concluded to be rather useless by itself).

Regardless I'll keep chugging at it, and any input is again definitely appreciated. My respec cost is already up to 50g =\ but such is the life of a new class.

Ravenous Dead is not useless, %increase of STR is always good for us, since STR is our primary DPS stat and a secondary tanking stat. Maybe I'm biased to %increase talents from my days as a survival hunter way back when, but they always seem to pay off (particularly as gear progresses).

It's 3 points for 3%. It's not worth the points unless you're going for the ghoul, in which case you're not really wanting to tank.

You can get a build with both Frigid Dreadplate and bone shield in the same build. Death knights have very few mitigation/survival talents unfortunately. The additional talents from frost is mainly for threat. Guile of Gorefiend is very situational and not very good for general tanking (most warriors will agree that the old imp shield wall was a mediocre).

edit: I forgot, frost also gets unbreakable armor, which is good, but not nearly as good as bone shield. Being that it's a situational cooldown move, it doesn't pack enough punch to make using it actually reliably affect the course of the fight.