This table is being developed for a "Best in Slot" analysis for tanking, from an Unholy perspective. Due to the changing nature of boss fights and incoming damage type/size, it's nearly impossible (and barely useful) to create separate tables for each type of fight. Clearly the sets listed here will be less/more ideal depending on the encounter.

I'm evaluating the slots with reasonable gemming. This list is being developed at work; progress may be slow. The current listed gear is merely placeholder and may not be accurate until this disclaimer is removed.

Slot	Effective Health	Avoidance	Pre-Heroic hard mode	Hit/exp capped as priority
Helm	[Conqueror's Darkruned Faceguard]	[Helm of the Faceless]	?	?
Amulet	[Bronze Pendant of the Vanir]	?	?	?
Pauldrons	[Conqueror's Darkruned Pauldrons]	?	?	?
Cloak	[Titanskin Cloak]	?	[Cloak of the Makers]	?
Breastplate	[Conqueror's Darkruned Chestguard]	?	?	?
Bracers	[Mimiron's Inferno Couplings]	?	?	?
Gloves	[Handguards of Revitalization]	?	[Conqueror's Darkruned Handguards]	?
Belt	[Indestructible Plate Girdle]	?	?	?
Legplates	[Legplates of the Endless Void]	Same	[Saronite Plated Legguards]	?
Boots	[Charred Saronite Greaves]	?	?	?
Ring	[Fate's Clutch]	?	?	[Platinum Band of the Aesir]
Ring	[The Leviathan's Coil]	?	?	?
Trinket	[Heart of Iron]	[Furnace Stone]	?	?
Trinket	[Royal Seal of King Llane]	[The General's Heart]	?	?
Weapon	Dark Edge of Depravity	?	?	?
	-	-	-	-
Stamina	1857	-	-	-
Strength	889	-	-	-
Armor	14652	-	-	-
Dodge Rating	509	-	-	-
Parry Rating	277	-	-	-
Hit rating	214	-	-	-
Expertise	72	-	-	-
Haste rating	85	-	-	-
ArPen rating	0	-	-	-

I guess my question is simply "why?" 4pT8 is a 10% physical damage reduction that lasts for 5 of 45 seconds. If you want to move on to use 239 tanking items (hands, legs, and possibly undiscovered), are we convinced that this set bonus is worth it to not take more than 1 of those items? From my own point of view, the 4pT8 bonus is very unappealing, as there are multiple fights where it makes perfect sense to use AMS on reacting to a boss event (debuff, big blast attack), and relatively few where spamming AMS on CD would even make much difference.

2pT8, on the other hand, is free threat at very low cost. We have to use the chestpiece anyway (perhaps there is an undiscovered hard mode chest alternative), so pick your next favorite piece and go from there (helm or shoulders most likely).

I also cannot understand the appeal of the 4 Piece. It seems utterly useless to be honest.

I will echo the sentiments on the 4pc T8. The only fight I can think of where using it would make a lot of sense, offhand, would be Vezax combining AMS with IBF so you can take even less damage during his enrage and avoid having to kite him.. but having to hold back so much RP to ensure availability might gimp your threat.

That said I don't consider the T8 pieces to be "bad" as they are decently itemized if you can look past the parry rating on them.. but Blizz really didn't do the best of jobs giving people an incentive to upgrade before 25-man Ulduar as most of the 10-man tanking items are junk compared to T7.5 ones, and some are even junk compared to T7 10-man.

The best answer I have seen from the DK Macro Thread here on EJ:

Death Knight Macros

Yeah the 4-piece isn't great. Comparing the set items (including the set bonus) to the offsets aren't compellingly in favor of either however. The bonus will be used regularly on Ignis (if your raid is offtanking adds) when the stacks are high, Freya and/or snaplashers, pounce, Crusher tentacles, Thorim, Eternal Guardians, etc. Describing it as "utterly useless" is hardly accurate; it's 10% off during the hardest hitting moments in Ulduar, short of Plasma Blast.

When I get my sheets in order I'll post the specific tradeoffs.

On the other hand, many of us are likely going to hammer away at Ulduar10 for [Royal Seal of King Llane]. Additionally, the best tanking helm stat-balance wise seems to be [Ironbark Faceguard], which drops from Freya10. Another pretty decent ring is the [Signet of Winter] and a pretty unique set of legs [Archaedas' Lost Legplates] (only legs itemized in this way). With the exception of the trinket and helm, I'm not saying these items are better than their 25 man counterparts, but they are still pretty good for certain gear set-ups.

This is the spec i'm using at the minute and it just feels like complete guff when i'm tanking. Really not feeling that i'm putting out enough damage and threat even though I feel I have a nice hp boost from this spec. I really want to try frost now for howling blast, frost strike and obliterate to up my threat and damage but I have always been an unholy tank and i'm scared to change away from my comfort zone. Any chance anyone could give me a few tips on my current spec or if frost is the way to go. Using IT>PS>DS>BS>BS>RPDUMP(rune strike as much as possible and DC) then DS>DS>BSx2>RPDUMP.

The Ironbark Faceguard is no where near better then the T8.5 helm but I'd say that the Signet of Winter with The Leviathan Coil are the two BiS rings. Those legs are unique but compared to the 25man Maly pants they aren't that great, especially when you have the Signet of Winter because you lose 17.5 Defense if you traded the Maly pants for those.

GoD not refreshing BP when BP has less than three seconds remaining is a known bug, it's not just you; forcing 18s refreshes pretty much totally ruins GoD.

What's the cap points for DK tanks on expertise and hit rating? Noticing a lot of people are stacking it, especially in comparison to hit rating (personally sitting at 200ish hit and 24 expertise). Just wondering if there is some hidden benefit to this expertise surge of top tanks compared to pre 3.1 patch. Even the original poster of the thread is sitting at around 33 expertise...

Also must say that I ran through Ulduar 10man last night as MT again, new instance through thorim and I must say I was highly disappointed when I went back to blood spec over frost. There's no comparable AOE (can't keep worms off AoE in Hodir's cave), the lose of avoidance makes the entire fight spikey (WoTN isn't that much help), and the TPS is nowhere near the same. The one thing I did notice was I didn't have sunders regularly which hurts the TPS but still...I can't base a spec off a specific raid buff. One reason it could have sucked was that I did try glyph of disease and using primarily death strike...probably should have got death rune mastery and a different glyph, since heart strike spam was doing better TPS in general. It's also very hard to do the rotation of glyph of disease without death mastery because your "oh shit" VB/Rune/MoB are all blood runes...which you need for pestilence to keep the rotation going. Kind of contradictory.

Either way, I plan on finishing it up with Unholy to kind of get a feel of each spec..even though Blood could have been gimped a little, it just doesn't match up. Frost heavily outweighed my ability in Blood in nearly every aspect.