I posted this in the dk endgame tanking thread but did not get a response so perhaps this dw specific thread may provide a bit more incite.

Zokudu, I have also been wondering to take points out of Epidemic. (It would make your rotation a lot tighter though, possible your diseases might fall off during situations where you are occupied doing 'other things'. I find that as a tank you have enough stuff to worry about allready. )

Gonna test it out myself though, but I'd rather put the extracted points in Black Ice over Virulence. I don't find Virulence is THAT great for a frost tank. After your 8% cap on special attacks, spellhit only helps your IT and HB (and taunt, but you got 2 of em). And iirc, you get a frost rune refund if your IT misses, so it only slows your rotation a bit. Virulence benefits Blood/Unholy more because they use Deathcoil as runedump.
Acclimation is a no go, not enough fights that trigger it to have a stack-up/constant uptime, and if the uptime is constant, the dmg intake is negliable anyway (e.g. Festergut aura).

With the increased IT usage of your new rotation, you might want to pickup CotG instead of SoB for RP regen talent. (On I side note, I use my BS's before OB, to trigger Blade Barrier faster.)

Well I have been running some rotations on a test dummy and honestly the rotation is freer then with Epidemic. You apply 14 second diseases with a 10 second rotation so overall I find I have more "free" time for FS and being sure to grab each KM proc where I may have dropped a few in my 20 second rotation. Though you are clipping diseases losing dps in theory but it all depends on KM procs how much of that extra 4 seconds is put into weaving in FS.

This does bring the question though while on the dummy I had more then enough RP even without SoB proccing (and while I haven't raided with it I've had no issues in heroics with it yet. We shall see tomorrow evening) would I end up moving those 2 points from Epidemic to CotG in which case wouldn't the epidemic rotation produce more dps making the change unneeded?

Really I have been toying with this spec idea to bring more utility though honestly I found the 10 second rotation a bit easier to follow in hectic situations where sometimes I may "lose" a rune here and there such as not waiting on my deaths to cooldown and popping 2 BS instead of an OB.

I think this may be a viable build but it would depend where you place those 2 free points. With the extra time in the rotation perhaps the 5th point in KM would be a good investment?

Keep in mind when testing things on a target dummy:
1) It doesn't hit you, so no RP regen from SoB
2) It doesn't hit you, so no dodges/parries to activate Rune Strike (20RP)
3) You probably didn't try using IBF and Mind Freeze on it (both 20RP)
Rune strike (macro'd) is a good chunk of your RP useage, and it will deplete your RP fast without RP regen talents. HC's are generally a bad representation of a raid environment, many adds there so a RP overflow from SoB.

I would probably go for this 10/56/5 build with 1/5 BI and 5/5 KM and 2/2 CotG as RP regen instead of SoB. But I'm still unsure about a trade off between those 2 talents, 2/5 BI and 4/5 KM instead perhaps, but personally I feel like I never can get enough KM procs.

I use this build which does not include Epidemic and I haven't found serious issues with it when I am tanking raid trash or raid bosses. The rotation is a lot 'tighter' as you said, and I will sometimes intentionally let my diseases fall off instead of clipping them 2+ seconds early, but the threat is solid and I haven't had any issues, even with warlocks and warriors doing 6k+ DPS.

PS If someone can shed some light on whether or not I should let my diseases drop off, that would be awesome. I'm stuck in the affliction warlock mindset of "clipping DoTs means that you will burn in hell for all eternity". I've read the Frost DPS thread and it seems that letting diseases drop off is a much more minor sin, thanks to the high auto attack rate.

Any thoughts on this single target tanking build? Assuming Raid melee haste is brought by someone else. Works on a Rotation rather then priority. Getting most of the Blood goodies by giving up HB and 5% Dodge. No need for Oblit talents since you don't use FU strikes at all. Relies more on boosting Rune Strike and Icy Touch damage while improving Runic generation to Rune Strike more.


No need for Epidemic or Oblit. Rotation: IT>IT>PS>PS>BS>BS>FS>IT>IT>PS>PS>IT>IT>FS Repeat

That was a mistake. Should be this. Butchery is for increased RP generation since double Rune Strike is a large part of the design.

Shouldnt a spec that is relying heavily on Runestrike aim to maximize the chance to actually use it, aka you need to dodge to use it and without anticipation you will get less runestrikes.

Most of the blood goodies? I thought the real goodies in the blood tree was Vampiric Blood and Will of the necropolis?

What is the goal? Max threath from IT?
With decent gear/spec/gems/enchants singletarget threath hasnt realy been a issue for a long time.

The big thing is Veterans of course. 3% Stam, 6 Expertise, and 6% Strength. The additional 10% total strength makes up at least some in parry what you lose in Dodge, which suffers from high diminished returns on a geared DK in icc anyway. My working theory is that your own faster attacks will let Rune Strike go off more and the idea is you are RP constrained rather then avoidance constrained. I don't have the 1h's to test this out in practice tho yet. You also get a pretty good Rune Tap and the direct damage resist. The idea is to maximize EH while still maintaining awesome single threat.

What do you need awesome singeltarget threath for? Singletarget threath is not by any means a problem.

With that spec you may do better threath but survivabillity and dps will suffer and you need both for hardmodes

Double Rune Strike? What is that all about? It's not because you DW, that you'll magicly do 2x Rune Strikes at once if that's what you are thinking.... Butchery + SoB + CotG is RP regen overkill.
Single target threat with a 'standard' build is allready great, and indeed you are 'nerfing' your RS chance (and avoidance). A fact is, Parry diminishes way faster than dodge. So basicly you are giving up 5% undiminished chanced to dodge from Anticipation (dodge/parry% from talents doesn't suffer from diminishing returns) for a tiny bit of heavy diminished parry from 10% of your strenght. Parry from Forcefull Deflection is (Strength*0.25) / 45.25 at level 80. This is before DR kicks in. If you'd say you got about 1500 strenght, 1650 with your +10%, thats 8,3% parry and 9,1% parry respectivly. Only a 0,8% parry gain BEFORE diminishing returns.
Rune Tap is only any good if your healers are slacking and you won't get healed for 5 secs or so... It's about the worst reactive defensive CD wich you didn't even fully spec for.
What does your own faster attacks have to do with proccing Rune Strike? Your RS procrate in your build is lower, and your auto attacks are just as fast as any other DW build. (DW builds with IIT even attack faster).

What are the frost communities thoughts on CotG vs SoB?

My thinking is since I'm currently specced into IIT for the 45% melee haste that SoB would give better returns as its RP gains are based off of your attack speed while CotG is a static amount limited by your rune cooldowns.

Eg The faster i can swing out my 2 swings for SoB the faster another proc can be used fully without overlapping with a former SoB proc resulting in more RP. At least thats how I'm theorizing it.

What are your thoughts between 2 points in CotG vs 2 points in SoB?

EDIT: I did some basic thinking on it and im stupid I didnt think of it like this before.

Within a 20 second rune rotation (with epidemic) You would get off 1 IT and 4 OB guarenteed which equals 25 extra RP from CotG. If Rime Procs you get 5 per Rime so in each rotation you should get .6 Rime procs (in theory or 1 every other rotation or so) so the result over 2 20 second rotations is ~55 RP.

If the boss is swinging once every second over those same 20 seconds you should average 3 procs per 20 seconds whcih if each is used fully equals 60 RP or in theory over 2 20 second rotations 120 RP under optimal circumstances. Now again using what i said above the faster swing speed from IIT should help to not waste SoB procs but even if wasting a few with overlapping procs it seems to me SoB results in more RP.

Thoughts on this?

Currently I haven't specced into IIT, but I do have 2/3 SoB. When I'm tanking I find that I have enough RP at my disposal (even with possibly overlapping procs). But I do blow HoW every cd possible. The regen from SoB is somewhat random, sometimes you are overcapping (especially with adds), other times you are a bit starved for a few secs.
The RP regen from CotG is indeed more steady. And the regen doesn't 'suffer' from tank switching like SoB does. E.g. Festergut/Saurfang and many others. (You OT = no dodge/parry for you, only AoE to trigger SoB)

Atm I'm leaning towards CotG, because with the IT threat boost you will (probably) use IT more often.


Disease clipping
On the subject of clipping vs letting your diseases fall, a few arguements to clip and not let diseases fall off:
Icy Touch/Frost Fever : Dps/Tps and 'mitigation' loss (no speed reduction).
(Blood Strike / Obliterate : Big loss on extra dps/tps for not having diseases up.
Glacier Rot : 20% dmg loss on HB and FS, and IT (by clipping frost fever).
Tundra Stalker: 15% dmg loss to all abillities if no Frost Fever up

Arguements not to clip:
Can't think of anything to not clip, other than big changes in AP (UA), overwriting a 'big AP disease' with a 'lower AP disease'. Also as dps, I clip on purpose for the DoT effect, when I know I need to run for a while.
So I can't see a reason why not clip (at 1-2 seconds left on diseases). Clipping at 6 seconds while you can still toss in an OB or something, thats another story because OB is better dps/rune usage wise than reapplying diseases.

Well even going to a single rune cycle rotation without epidemic I feel SoB will give you more RP to work with.

I don't see the gains from "spamming" IT because in most situations I'm very far ahead on threat and no extra threat gen is required so maximizing dps by using a standard rotation would be preferred. Though in an IT spam situation then yes CotG gives much better returns because it gains 5 RP for a single rune vs 5 RP for two runs with OB.

But as you said when your not directly tanking a mob theres significantly less RP gain from SoB. I think it really comes down to personal preference and either one will work for most builds.

This forum is for endgame raiding. Butchery is useless for endgame raiding, but its in that build, and even more, its a HYBRID build. (meaning you have less room for crap talents) I am not sure you are getting that it has to be YOU who kills the target to get the benefit of that talent. It is NOT you in a raid killing mobs - its your DPS team.

Some people prefer an "OH CRAP" button and Rune Tap seems to fulfill that role for them. However, if you are a healer and play a DK also, its a laughable talent. Ask a healer if you should take that talent and they will be staring at the question wondering if you are insulting them.
Tanks should be using their own CDs, which are plentiful enough in all builds to easily tank current content. The only answer people come up with when arguing over Rune Tap is something like "But but..my healer could be in trouble! They may have to MOVE or something!". Okay...in the event your healers aren't very coordinated and nobody heals you for 5 seconds or something, blow a CD. Let's see, off the top of my head, in an event of an emergency I have access to:

3 tanking cooldowns
2 trinket cooldowns
a health stone
a health potion
an Indestructible potion
Death Strikes if I have runes
Summon Ghoul/Death Pact macro

If you don't think you can tank an encounter with all those options because you don't have a 20% heal (fully specced) that's only available if you have the rune at the time, then by all means take it to reduce stress.

So, Spell Deflection. Its already been established elsewhere many many times how worthless this is. Go do a search on it to find out for yourself (sorry but reposting links is a no-no here). I am sure you just didn't realize, because this is one of those talents Blizz makes look totally amazing only to find out it doesn't effing work.

You ignored Anticipation entirely. I noticed in a later post you said it was because of dodge's diminishing returns. Anticipation does NOT suffer from DR, so that argument is moot. Therefore you just screwed yourself out of 5% dodge, a number which cannot be matched by any other talent.

The spec has absolutely no AoE at all. I am not sure what you would do in that scenario...ask another tank to take over for you?

"When I say double rune strike I mean you rune strike with both weapons from Tot"

No, no, and no. ToT is a talent meant to make sure you are not gimping yourself by using two weapons and only getting damage from the main hand one, which would be vastly inferior to a 2 hander obviously. That's it. You do not suddenly get twice the threat/damage switching to DW from 2H. You do not whack the boss with two almost simultaneous Rune Strikes.

I was testing the threat output with my gear in the kahorie's sim (probably not the best one to use for tanking, but ill check the others later too) between different builds. The odd thing is that I am getting more threat from this w/o even changing the rotation to use DnD one instead.

The old 12/52/7 is giving me less threat then this build of 10/51/10 -> Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

You can swap GoD or RS for DnD as well. I went with GoD + DnD+ OB. Added benefit of this build is that it brings WF buff to the raid as well. I just took out points in BI which provides the least dps and 1 out of KM to get IIT. W/O BoTN there isn't much point in getting FS and you can use DC as a RD instead.

No BoTN should be fine since you will be using DnD and Pest + IT + PS, then BS+BS + 2x OB or OB + HB

The build still has the same mitigations/avoidance, just more AoE and ST threat.

When I tank almost all my RP goes to RS and using CDs like AMS and IBF. You could drop KM entirely and go for something like this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft or pick up the utility talents.

And this simmed both higher ST and AoE threat moreso if you have 2pT10.

I simmed both with GoD, and the spec still gave higher threat with this build. The 25% haste adds a fair bit of threat, and faster RS usage as well. I have to figure how to make the rotation use DnD instead of the standard Frost rotation still though.

In a standard tank build you aren't using FS or BS that much. you BS 1 or 2 times depending if you are using GoD per 20s. for pure threat your RP is better used in RS, which in most cases for me ends up eating almost all my RP.

The only issue I can see with the build is possibly parry hasting, but I don't find that to be a problem since I have 35 Expertise from the random tank gear that I have.

Last I checked this is a forum for theorycrafting which is what I'm doing.

Does it sound odd that I take Butchery? Of course it does because you don't bother actually considering the impact it might have on the spec. I"m not sure why you care about the killing blow RP gain, the reason for butchery is to generate RP in combat. Had you actually bothered to sim the spec as I had you would see that it has trouble maintaining RP and thus the gains from RP is actually quite large on threat and DPS. How this works out in practice is certainly up to debate. A lot of it depends on things like boss average attack speed and current avoidance. Example below Boss wing speed 2s, Avoidance 50.

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances		Uptime	TPS
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
IcyTouch	260564194	18.8	91930	2834.4	70688	73.5	2274.8	21242	22.1	4696.4	4243	4.4				10505.4
RuneStrike	241413625	17.4	71647	3369.5	57663	80.5	2791.4	13984	19.5	5753.2						2440.3
RuneStrike(OH)	151201724	10.9	71647	2110.4	57465	80.2	1744	14182	19.8	3594.9						1528.4

Boss swing speed 3s avoidance 30

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances		Uptime	TPS
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
IcyTouch	244523329	18.3	87384	2798.3	67434	73.8	2252	19950	21.8	4644.8	4040	4.4				9858.7
MainHand	189681163	14.2	107930	2569	60475	43.8	1695.7	13360	9.7	3492.4	30042	21.8	34095	24.7	1187.2	1092.5
OffHand	150133690	11.3	137230	1614	76306	43.6	1060.1	16713	9.5	2181.7	37776	21.6	44211	25.3	741.5	864.7
RuneStrike	123888436	9.3	37034	3345.3	29781	80.4	2769.8	7253	19.6	5708.2						1252.3
FrostStrike	107362072	8	26511	4049.7	17000	60.5	2595	9511	33.9	6649.9	1574	5.6				618.4
BloodPlague	101590898	7.6	89393	1136.5	89393	100										585.1	100
FrostFever	88191421	6.6	79799	1105.2	79799	100										508	99.8
RuneStrike(OH)	77425743	5.8	37034	2090.7	29770	80.4	1730.8	7264	19.6	3565.6						782.6

One of these happens to be RP constrained. Can you guess which one?



I was incorrect in talking about DR with Anticipation, I know it is applied after DR. The spec itself however offers EH advantages like 3% stam and even lame Rune Tap. Whats wrong with Rune Tap again? Are we going to start complaining that we have too many things to use? I use everything available to me. Its a means to an end, with that end being Veterans, without sacrificing longer IBF and UW.

The spec itself has a lack of AE threat. Woopdedoo. If this spec was meant to tank trash or heroics I wouldve said so. Why do I need AE threat? I can leave AE tanking to Bears or Paladins for all I care or I can drop a few gold to respec for a fight I might actually need AE threat. You don't need a 1 spec fits all.

I did search for Spell Deflection. Did you? Its worth varies depending on encounter. Let me help you since you seem confused.

I don't know why you're complaining about my phrasing for Rune Strike. It hits with both weapons now, it didn't before. I wasn't saying you used it twice, I was saying it hits twice, once with MH once with OH. Its a double rune strike. /shrug Take it how you will that's what I meant and thought I'd clarified that already.


I've done quite enough simming on that oddball spec already so I know what it's capable of. I'm already ahead of the game here. I'm interested in real world tests since I don't have the weapons to try it myself yet. God forbid patches change things and odd specs might become not so odd. If we didn't bother to try them out we wouldn't know anything.

I do play healers. In fact I've played every healing class. Raided at an endgame level with them. I consider Rune Tap, in some ways, the most OP heal in the game. Other classes of tanks would kill for it, if anything they get crappy hots like enraged regeneration.

I have a question for you. Have you ever died, as a tank, without being 1 shot? Then RT could have saved you.

From a healing standpoint, lets compare INSTANT cast heals. (I won't be counting crits because you can't rely on them as a healer)

Shaman:
Riptide, 6 second CD, Direct heal is in the 5-8k range? Been awhile, but it's certainly less then 10k. Applys a hot.
Nature's Swiftness + Healing wave, 3 minute CD heals for in the 10-15k range.

Priest:
Priest I'm the least familiar with, I don't believe they have an instant heal other then COH, the 5 person smart heal on short CD.

Druid:
Swiftmend, 15 second cooldown, but requires a hot to be up, heals for 12-15k.
Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch, 3 minute CD. 12-15k.

Paladin:
Holy shock 5-8k, 6 second CD.
Lay on hands, risky as it now procs forbearance, but it heals for their full hp, but on a 10 minute cd.

(It's all on memory, I'm not double checking for the purposes here, it's close enough.)

Rune Tap, 12-15k hp on a 30 second CD. So its as effective as healers biggest oh shit, natures swiftness, which requires 2 abilitys (first not on the gcd granted) but has a 3 minute cooldown.

It's more comparable to Swiftmend really. Swiftmend requires a hot up already, and RT requires a rune. (BT isn't on the gcd either so BT+RT is comparable to NS+HT.)

I never see a tank get one shot in ICC unless someone grievously messes up. Most tank deaths are either because healers are moving/refreshing beacon/Divine Plea, or because the healers synced up. All the casts take at least a second, all the hots are at least a second in between tics. And occasions where dps is coming in faster, and heavier than HPS.

Which is why instant heals are so OP. On my Druid I have prevented more tank deaths than you can imagine with Swiftmend. A tank getting a Swiftmend of their own and 90% of them don't even seem to spec into it?

This amazes me.

I get that we have all these cool CD's we can pop, but they aren't always up, and sometimes need to be saved for a specific situation. Regardless, if you are at 1k hp, whats better, a cd like IBF to take 50% less damage, or a 12-15k heal? If you don't get a heal in time, RT is better, but you'd probably die either way, however, pop them both, and you'll live to get that holy light that is in the que. In an endgame situation, it matters, don't write it off.

Delete this gotta fix something.

My 2 comparisons by the way. One using my spec. The other using the Frost spec listed in Suno's thread. One using my priority the other using the standard Priority in Kahrorie's. Both are identical stats using 251 2.6 Weapons, have 10% bonus from ICC, Boss speed 2s. The reg spec I also gave 4 additional avoidance(30 vs. 34).


My spec

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances		Uptime	TPS
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
IcyTouch	285446092	19.1	110194	2590.4	93924	81.5	2240.3	16270	14.1	4611.7	5071	4.4				11508.6
MainHand	183820708	12.3	104181	2600.8	58009	43.6	1708.3	12670	9.5	3523	28936	21.7	33502	25.2	1196.5	1058.8
RuneStrike	174554335	11.7	53057	3289.9	42489	80.1	2716.4	10568	19.9	5595.9						1764.4
OffHand	160207233	10.7	145138	1625.5	80766	43.4	1067.7	17793	9.6	2200.8	41036	22	46579	25	747.4	922.7
FrostStrike	134125806	9	26003	5158.1	8986	32.5	2588.2	17017	61.6	6515.1	1609	5.8				772.5
RuneStrike(OH)	108698558	7.3	53057	2048.7	42699	80.5	1697.5	10358	19.5	3496.6						1098.8
BloodPlague	105259525	7.1	94897	1109.2	94897	100										606.3	96.4
FrostFever	101085554	6.8	76656	1318.7	76656	100										582.2	100
FrostStrike(OH)	83939890	5.6	26042	3223.3	8999	32.6	1617.3	17043	61.7	4071.2	1570	5.7				483.5
PlagueStrike	53241184	3.6	47596	1118.6	43011	85.3	1015	4585	9.1	2090.8	2799	5.6				306.7
BloodStrike	42593311	2.9	27851	1529.3	25155	85.3	1331.3	2696	9.1	3376.6	1656	5.6				245.3
PlagueStrike(OH)	33263406	2.2	47603	698.8	43019	85.4	634	4584	9.1	1307	2792	5.5				191.6
BloodStrike(OH)	26574866	1.8	27848	954.3	25189	85.4	832.2	2659	9	2110.6	1659	5.6				153.1
Horn			94		94	100
BloodTap			5685		5685	100
UnbreakableArmor			5685		5685	100
KillingMachine			22534		22534	100											6.6
ScentOfBlood			26895		26895	100
OrcRacial			3086		3086	100											12.9
DPS	4147(+/- 630)
Total Damage	1492.81m	in 100h
Threat Per Second	19838
Generated in	32s
Template:	IceDWTank
Priority:	FrostDWTank
Presence:	Frost
Sigil:	None
RuneEnchant:	None /	None
Pet Calculation:	False

Normal

Ability	Damage done				hits			Crits			Misses		Glances		Uptime	TPS
	Total	%	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	%	Avg	#	Avg	#	%	Avg	%
Obliterate	296518929	18	67773	4375.2	49013	67.8	3068	18760	25.9	7790.4	4538	6.3				1707.9
Obliterate(OH)	185103624	11.2	67756	2731.9	48997	67.8	1916.5	18759	25.9	4861.8	4555	6.3				1066.1
MainHand	169508136	10.3	100231	2519.7	54986	42.4	1639.8	12288	9.5	3377.9	29333	22.6	32957	25.4	1148	976.3
RuneStrike	155324958	9.4	45442	3418.1	36574	80.5	2832.3	8868	19.5	5833.9						1570.1
OffHand	143211191	8.7	135046	1569.3	74475	42.6	1025.2	16784	9.6	2111.9	39960	22.8	43787	25	717.4	824.9
HowlingBlast	126759832	7.7	17830	7109.4	8678	46.6	4278.5	9152	49.1	9793.6	801	4.3				730.1
BloodPlague	123488137	7.5	108162	1141.7	108162	100										711.3	95.7
FrostFever	122879472	7.5	108049	1137.3	108049	100										707.8	99.7
RuneStrike(OH)	96917274	5.9	45442	2132.8	36642	80.6	1770.4	8800	19.4	3641.4						979.7
FrostStrike	63369138	3.8	13600	4659.5	7250	49.8	2717.5	6350	43.6	6876.7	950	6.5				365
BloodStrike	45506839	2.8	27017	1684.4	23569	81.7	1408.2	3448	11.9	3572.1	1842	6.4				262.1
FrostStrike(OH)	39479893	2.4	13592	2904.6	7284	50.1	1698.8	6308	43.4	4297.1	958	6.6				227.4
BloodStrike(OH)	28286141	1.7	26977	1048.5	23618	81.8	880.2	3359	11.6	2231.9	1882	6.5				162.9
PlagueStrike	22015468	1.3	18240	1207	16009	82.3	1068.4	2231	11.5	2201.7	1210	6.2				126.8
IcyTouch	16478325	1	4355	3783.8	1774	39	2330.7	2581	56.8	4782.5	191	4.2				664.4
PlagueStrike(OH)	13822038	.8	18218	758.7	15873	81.6	667.6	2345	12.1	1375.1	1232	6.3				79.6
Horn			12198		12198	100
BloodTap			5351		5351	100
UnbreakableArmor			5351		5351	100
KillingMachine			21666		21666	100											29.3
Rime			10214		10214	100											8.9
ScentOfBlood			26895		26895	100
OrcRacial			3086		3086	100											12.9
DPS	4580(+/- 729)
Total Damage	1648.67m	in 100h
Threat Per Second	11265
Generated in	48s
Template:	FrostDWTankNorm
Priority:	Frost
Presence:	Frost
Sigil:	None
RuneEnchant:	None /	None
Pet Calculation:	False

So you see the DPS of my spec isn't far off and I didn't even include the extra expertise my spec has. It has more HP, Rune Tap, the spell parry, more parry, and a ton more threat at the cost of AE threat and some dodge. Seems like a pretty good tradeoff.

I feel I need to bring something up for discussion because no one else is. If this is an endgame progression forum, why are you DW frost tanking in the first place? If you read the main DK thread there has been discussion of a hybrid to include both WOTN and frost's 3% miss, which is potentially viable in certain circumstances, but lets compare Deep Blood vs Deep Frost here.

BLOOD VS FROST
The only effective health gains are:

3% stamina, vs 2% mitigation.

You would be hardpressed to rate mitigation as 50% more valuable then stamina, in the current mana is meaningless healer scenario, so blood wins.

3% miss, vs up to 110% of your hp in self healing, per 30 seconds. (2 15% DS every 10 seconds, + 20% RT).

If you are timing your self heals for instantly after you take damage, it acts as a form of mitigation. Since we don't have block. I can't say how many times I've got hit for a large amount, instantly Death Striked, got hit a second time without a heal that reduced me below the 8-10k I had just healed myself for, and then got the Holy Light. So DS saved my life.

Vampiric Blood, vs Unbreakable Armor.

It has been attempted to compare these on the main thread but it's a little difficult as they are so different. In a situation where you aren't getting any heals, UA wins, in most circumstances, especially with Blood's self heals, VB is as good or better. UA has the benefit of being 5 seconds longer unglyphed.

6 seconds on IBF, vs WOTN

A 15% mitigation cd that is ALWAYS active, and is so good as to nearly count as 15% effective health. Vs 6 seconds of CD time every 2 minutes.

2hander, vs DW tank weapons

First off, if you are DW as blood, you are wrong. /sigh I know it should be obvious but I see it all the time. Thought I'd mention it. Anyway, 2handers have more stamina, vs the gain in avoidance from tank weapons. Stamina = EH which > Avoidance. And if you choose a 2hander with expertise or hit, that's more avoidance you can have on gear.

Blood vs Frost dps wise

Dps matters even from a tank in the endgame scenario. I haven't compared them dps wise, but I will promise you, if you are spamming IT at all to hold aggro, than blood wins. A more accurate comparison would be useful, But tps isn't an issue for either spec currently, so I don't really care which has the most tps.

Tps past the point where dps needs to sweat it, and where rogues are comfortable tricksing to other dps, is wasted. Wasted as much as being past the parry cap in expertise. Utterly pointless.

When Frost IS Viable

1. If you need to bring IIT.
If you need to bring it in a 25 man endgame progression scenario... seriously recruit an enh shaman they are better.

2. In a tank rotation, being able to chain UA + IBF for 11 seconds longer than blood, can be argued to be better than the self heals and -15% damage from blood. The only current situation I think that can even be argued, is Heroic Putricide 25 man, if you're only tanking in phase 3, and probably just 1-2 turns, it is very valuable.

3. If you aren't in serious progression.
My offspec is DW Frost as it's way more fun for pugs, 5 man randoms, and trash.

A lot of this has been accepted as fact, some is my opinion, if you want to discuss further cases where Frost is viable, it's worth being discussed. I just don't think people should be blindly sticking with frost, especially after the WOTN change.