So with that rotation..should I glyph Vamp blood, oblit, and rune strike?

My threat on larger pulls seems increased from the patch, as KM really is a monster. My usual AoE rotation is DnD->IT->Pest->Blood Tap+Deathchill (if needed/up)+HB. At that point, everything was glued to me. When my U and F runes came up from DnD, I'd HB again followed by tabbing to a target to Pestilence the Frost Fever back around if needed.

Pestilence having a shorter CD and HB having a second off really is a noticeable buff. I was pulling off of our Warrior and Paladin tank for AoEing quite constantly.

My single target TPS was 6.8k-7.5k on Patchwerk, while MTing.

Being nitpicky but Patch tps is an unreliable measure for threat since his attacks apply threat to you.

I'm currently using a deep frost tanking build (check my armory for more information) and I found that adding killing machine to my build was a fantastic idea! The procs are amazing esspecially if they come along with a Rime. I get wonderful threat spikes of about 7k TPS and if I manage to keep the rotation perfect I hover around that number. This was tested this morning (Europe realms) on VoA 10 without BoS BoK or BoM, just Battle Shout and Horn of Winter.

Hopefully tonight in Naxx 10 with more buffs I shall see my true threat gain

I still totally prefer frost tanking over blood or unholy - they feel un-natural to me and the lack of "panic buttons" makes me a little bit nervous. But its all down to preference I guess

Test results I've seen measuring DoT damage show the figure is higher, that its lineraly scaled at 0.15% per point of defense.
400 defense - 20% base IBF
540 defense - 21% increase to IBF
600 defense - 30% increase to IBF

I tested DoT damage at 400 (20%), 540 (41%) and 557 defense (43.55%). Results showed it does indeed scale at 0.15% per point. Making Gargoyle worth 3.75% increase to IBF.

As a long time reader, on my rogue through the entirety of BC and as a DK with the open beta and launch of WotLK, I would like give back and share with this community my thoughts on Death Knight tanking at the present time.

I too, like others in the later pages of this thread, have chosen to give blood a try with the release of patch 3.0.8. and have been nothing but pleased with the result. First of all, the single target threat, which is priority number one for me, is outstanding; ranging from 6k self buffed to upwards of 10-11k peaks with BoSanc on Patchwerk. Multi-mob threat isn't on par with unholy, but with some more work (mainly tab HSing) there's nothing to worry about. Next best part of the build is the health pool. I'm sitting at 35k with only frost presence and 43-44k in raids. That's only 6k less than our bear! Last I would like to mention the cooldowns. Mark of Blood is obvious in it's inclusion and utility as is Vampiric Blood. combined with IBF and crab, survivability is the last thing I'm worried about.

The clincher? A no disease rotation/priority system. Oh how it makes things easy.

I try to start with OBx2 and then just throw HS and DC until i can OB again. It's brainless and frees up talent points everywhere. In fact, maybe too many. In my effort to max out the spec around this rotation, I grabbed Hysteria for a TPS oh-shit cd and then stared at my screen for a while trying to find places for the four other points i had taken form IIT and Epidemic. From a lack of anything better to fill out the spec, I finally settled on Ravenous dead and finished off Improved Rune Tap. Both have worked out well, I think. 3% str isn't the most amazing use of three points, but it's not worthless either and, much to my surprise, I have been able to use rune tap quite often; healing for huge amounts in conjunction with VB during the occasional pinch or healer disconnect.

By no means do i feel it's THE best spec for DK tanking. A spec should mirror a player in style and in action. In that regard, I am convinced blood is the right choice for me and my raid. But in my never ending search to balance and tweak my character, i have been pondering something: being at 36 exp, i feel i can afford to drop some and so i look to blood gorged and wonder if it would be a better spend of five points to drop them in necrosis. My health, as most can attest, is hardly above 75% all the time. For arguments sake, I estimate that my health is above 75% 50% of the time on any given boss fight. That's 10% more damage on every attack i have while, according to this WWS(Guild left AP last night for greener pastures on Archi and Skadoosh was taken) white swings were only 19% of my total outgoing damage and that's with me dpsing for loatheb, thaddius, Maexxna, and probably a few other fights. Writing this out, it seems I'm answering my own question, but math and theory aren't always, if ever, the same thing.


Thanks for the chance to give back and here's my armory - The World of Warcraft Armory

I was wondering what peoples thoughts were about using Obliterate glyph as the 3rd glyph,Seems like it wouldn't be that bad since your using it 2-3 times per rotation...

Okay yesterday night i had my first raid with 3.0.8 and I tried a blood spec. Well we did malygo me as dd nothing to mention here :-) After that, Sartharion 2d me as Sratharion tank!
My Raid leader was a little suspicious about my new spec and if i could hold it, well it went better then ever, since I have 10% more stamina through my spec + gargoyle. TPS was also very nice which i tested later in Naxx on Patchwork. I tanked him and had about 6k tps through the whole fight.

i have got a 51/4/16 spec to get rune weapon and shadow of death (less repair costs :-) and more stamina).

Through gargoyle i switched seal of pantheon with the trinket from heroism marks which gives me more dodge.

so now i have 549 def about 30% dodge and about 20% parry without blade barrier.

unbuffed I got about 30k HP in frost pressence and tanking gear.

My rotation was basicly:

PS -> IT -> DS -> HS -> HS -> DS -> HS -> HS -> HS -> HS -> HS -> HS
I renewed PS and IT as soon as they ran out and casted DC's as often as Sudden doom was up.

I plan to get more avoidance gems in favour to the healers and more dmg gems in favour to aggro further i would take more stamina to increase my stamina pool.

Glyphs i used: Death strike, Rune Strike, Rune tap, Pestilence, horn of the winter and i want to get the glyph for no reagent for pet.

Anecdotally, and speaking as someone who has been frost even in the barren years I can say that TPS has increased. I had no issues through a high dps class abomination wing nuke in 10 man. Certainly it *seems* that rune strike fixes are a significant threat increase for any spec, but with Frost Strike available as a RP dump and Killing Machine giving regular crits on IT/FS or HB threat is currently no issue. Where this is useful is that previously some of the dps were hitting aggro cap, where now our Enh Shaman is able to full nuke.

I will perform some testing over the weekend and try to drag out some more meaningful numbers and a couple of Recount snaps.

I've tried unholy yesterday in Naxx25, and was a bit afraid I would be blown away in threat by the other tanks as I've read bad things about unholy TPS but really enjoyed the spec so far. I have to say: I did not notice much difference. My threat was a tiny little bit lower than usual, but, we often take a prot pally who couldn't make it yesterday, so I imagine missing out on BoS could have been the issue.

I was pondering over frost tho and stumbled upon a question: why take frost strike at all? RS lits up all the time and even with BoS, I'm usually able to spam away my RP easily with only RS. Ofcourse I'm getting *some* help dumping RP with UB, but still, I don't see much point in getting Frost strike. Could a frosty enlighten me? Even if I can't dump that 1-in-15-seconds excess 40 RP I fail to see why I shouldn't just DC that away, IF at all it happens, saving up one talent point. Am I missing some secret threat multiplier involving FS? As far as my experience goes I've always figured RS >>> FS anyday, especially since 3.0.8, or am I wrong?

I'm well aware of the lackluster advantages of haste to a DK, but in compiling builds for most tanks in most guilds, this build is a reasonable addition, not to mention, it's very viable in end game. There's nothing short of OS3-MT I couldn't tank with it. Good for guilds with 1 main shaman.

You have it a little backwards. Imp Icey Talons is the replacement for enh shams, not Abom might.

His spec seems perfectly reasonable assuming he has no shaman, no marks hunters, and that he is the offtank, or significantly out gearing the instance.

Ravinia: Merciless combat is like, the worst talent that frost tanks can reasonably take, and is generally only taken if you have spare points. I would not take it over epidemic even if I did IT every rotation.

Doesn't Abom Might make up for the lack of Unleashed Rage or is there another class we're bringing that offers this (my knowledge of the other classes new stuff isn't up to 100% yet)?


Is that point better spent elsewhere in the build? I'm not sure where to put it exactly.

Assuming you didn't want morbidity and wanted both might and talons, I would probably do this. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft or Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

While not as high on the Expertise curve as you are, I'm sitting at 22 expertise, hitting 26 (soft cap) with Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak without Blood Gorged. Consequently, I'm opting for 4/5 Necrosis, Corpse Explosion (to help a bit with AoE threat) and Shadow of Death. I just couldn't resist adding another 2% Stam & Str for one talent point. Currently, with both Shadow of Death and VotTW, I've *almost* hit 50k when under Vampiric Blood. One more upgrade, and I should get there easily.

While I agree with your end conclusion, your not quite giving Blood Gorged enough credit. It doesn't just buff white damage, it buffs *all* damage. So, going with your estimated above-75%-50%-of-the-time, it would be worth about a 5% overall damage boost, fully talented (not counting the expertise), making it still a very solid talent point spend.

I'm contemplating dropping Abomination's Might and Mark of Blood (which I've been less than impressed with... seems very situational) for 3/5 Blood Gorged. That would allow me a bit more flexibility in my food choice. I may also slide those 3 points into Spell Deflection since it seems to no longer be bugged.

Edit: On a side note, Blood Aura is freakin' amazing! On Thaddius, it healed the raid for over 400k. On our last raid, it accounted for 4.4 million healing, making it approximately equivalent to the #2 healer on the raid. Now, it may just be pushing up our healers overheal numbers, but if it's not ... wow...

For the very beginning of a fight I can understand using Obliterates and Heart Strikes first, but have you actually tested that you wouldn't do more threat per second by adding in plague strike, and icy touch(assuming someone else is doing the attack speed debuff, or that you don't need the defense)?

I really like the idea of a DK build where there truly is no need for diseases, because it creates a really genuinely different playstyle from the norm.

Also, how important is it for blood DKs to use Death Strike? I figure it generally isn't without vampiric blood, and when you do pop vampiric blood it's probably worth the drop in TPS to get the extra healing?

Subversion doesn't effect Death Strike...

However, if you are asking if Might of Mograine and Vicious Strikes stack to give you Death Strikes that crit for 275% of base damage, the answer is "yes".

Really an impossible thing to tell when blood aura was the difference between a death or not, but it can't hurt. No way of really telling how mandatory of a buff it is with content so easy and very little raid damage outside of malygos and 3D. I would advocate that tanks fit it into a blood spec, however I am not sure if it is worth a dps hit for a dk to go blood (which by all evidence blood is still not top 3 spec for dps)

Been reading this thread for long time now, as a starter I just want to thank the community as I've learned a lot from all you guys' contributions. Anyway...

My DK is an alt and I just hit 80 two days ago and I've been tanking heroics with some of the other alts in the guild who recently dinged this week. I've had a lot of success, really enjoying AoE tanking with my spec, and so far my healer buddy hasn't had any trouble keeping me up even though we're all in blues.

My plan was start up a Naxx for all the guild alts this weekend but I'm starting to worry about being undergeared. I had a little trouble holding threat against one of our shamans. (His main spec is resto so his enhance gear isnt min/maxed but he's collected a lot of Naxx epics since we don't raid with one.) I know there's a good chance I'll have epiced out dps coming who missed our main Naxx this week, specifically a FFB mage and an ele shaman. Under normal circumstances I know threat shouldn't be an issue but with a really large gear gap between myself and the DPSers should I be worried?

My Armory

My main is a lock which is why I gravitated to the Unholy build, which I absolutely love but have heard conflicting opinions on its threat gen. People seem in general agreement that the new KM makes frost a great threat build, but I'm afraid changing to a spec I've had absolutely no experience with might not be a good idea.

I think I'm ready to tank Naxx in my current spec/gear but I'd to get some second opinions and ease my worries before I subject my friends to a potential wipefest.

It seems like with my testing, that the Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight is up 100% of the time you use IT and lasts for 30 sec. Would that make it a viable tanking sigil and be able to lose out on some def rating on gear?

I need some help on my Frost Tanking Rotation.

After they hotfixed Obliterate, I went back to a Frost Tank spec and tried out some things I've been picking up from here. Primarily the Plague Strike-free rotation.

[IT] -> [BS] -> [OB/HB] -> [OB] -> [Dump]
This ended up running my DPS ~1550, and only seemed to work well on ONE target.

After not really being satisfied with that, I went back to my old rotation using both [IT] and [PS] - to much better results.

On Groups:
[DnD] -> [IT] -> [PS] -> [Pest] -> [Dump]
[HB] -> [Pest] -> [DnD]
NOTE: Bold Pest is cast on a different target. That way I can use 1 rune to maintain diseases.

I don't get Freezing Fog procs, but honestly it only screws up my rotation on groups anyway.

On Single Target:
[IT] -> [PS] -> [BS] -> [BS] -> [OB] -> [Dump]
[IT] -> [PS] -> [OB] -> [OB] -> [Dump]

I wasn't able to parse single targets all that well (and I apologize, but I don't have the WWS links at the moment), but if it was less effective than not using PS at all - it wasn't by much.

Finished the night with ~2200 DPS. Still a far cry from the ~2900 I was getting as Unholy, but with more survivability.

My Armory should be up to date. I'm kind of at a loss.