Exactly, there is no reason for defense to have a value below the floor because it is a requirement, no amount of dodge or stamina or parry can make up for it. I mean, I guess technically you can say the drop is from infinity to slightly less efficient than dodge, but that seems kind of pointless.

Depending on how all three of the buffs stack with each other, DnD could become worth the runes spent. As well as an "important" part of tanking rotations.

Just a quick questions regarding the current standard frost spec.

Am I really not using plague strike on my single rotation? Is it just not worth it to plague strike?

I certainly hope not; one of the things that I enjoy about the DK class is that I have a lot of different buttons to push. If we become forced to use 3 runes every 20 seconds on DnD that is really going to limit our flexibility. Also, that would put blood tanking at a disadvantage since they would have to take 5 talent points that do relatively little for their TPS outside of DnD.

How DnD is designed all but precludes in from in-combat use except in dire situations, often with the help of ERW or BT; it doesn't use the same runes as one of our other attacks so we can't just swap out like a DS or SS or Oblit for it and having to click on the area you want to cast it essentially adds an ~1 second cast time to it.

Maybe if they reduced the damage on it, made it into a UF move and at least gave the option of having it cast on the ground centered around your target, then I could see it playing a decent in-combat roll. Right now I think it is too clunky and costly to play a large roll unless they force us into it.

Looking at the BiS List - I have a question regarding trinkets:

The MT Warrior in my guild rgot his 2nd Juggernaut'S Vitality today from heroic mode. He mentioned that the nonheroic and heroic Version share the same CD on their use-effects.
Is it still worth taking and wearing both, or is e.g. the heart of iron a better trinket for slot #2?

I believe it is a 30 second shared cooldown. Even if you only got one cooldown, 2x Juggernaut is better for EH.

Hello all, first time poster, long time reader. First thank you all for the work you do for the community! I have learned a lot from you.

The below question is for the standard unholy tanking build:

I am in an interesting position and am not sure what is mathematically better. Is Armsman always better than precision for threat? Or is it dependent on your gear setup? I'm in a position where my expertise is going to soft-cap finally with some new upgrades, but at the cost of major amounts of hr, dropping me to around 111 (before food). I can't seem to find any hard numbers on comparing the two enchants.

(Obviously if your over 8% this would be a moot question).

Because a decent chunk of DK threat comes from rune strike (which can't miss), hit rating's weight as a threat stat isn't as big of a deal as it would be for a DPS trying to reach cap. 20 hit rating isn't 2% more hit, so linearly it wouldn't be 2% more threat the way armsman is (plus an insignificant but free 10 parry). T9 gear is rather lacking in hit and overflowing with expertise so if picking 245 tier pieces, head/shoulders are the ones with it, plus get the crafted bracers asap as they're a very strong piece.

I see nothing about Rune Strike not being able to miss. Rune Strike is unaffected by expertise levels, but hit rating is still important to ensure that Rune Strike does not miss.

To be clear, this is not to say it is the hit rating best threat stat (strength is from I have read) or that precision is better than armsman. As your gear improves Armsman becomes more and more valuable because of how well it scales. An entry level tank might want precision over armsman, but I doubt it.

There might be certain fight mechanics that make not missing a taunt 100% mandatory (i.e. Brutallus). If that is the case than precision might be worth it if you need the 20 hit to be capped, but even then using a gem for the hit would probably work out better.

Hit is still extremely good for us regardless of spec. It's a shame it's a bit dicey to get it lately though, having to use hit food myself and still below the cap. any form of setback to delay your rotation is in my opinion a lot worse as a tank than as dps. You lose some dps in the latter case, but in the former you lose -dpsers- with a bad start.

Ok, maybe not quite so dire usually. But it can really set you back threatwise, especially when you are holding more than 1 mob and need to put out as much threat as you can on either. There's also the obvious thing with Dark Command missing that is quite annoying.

That said, I tend to do with Armsman myself. It just feels more rounded.

Runestrike can miss, it is tested and confirmed.

I was under the impression that the 'taunt' part of death grip couldn't miss.

The taunt part of the Death Grip is not affected by the very common "immune", but it can miss if the whole spell misses.

I have in fact had both taunt and deathgrip miss their taunts on Gormok in ToC 10 while doing the tank switch.

delete please. covered elsewhere.

I search for anti magic shield, and didn't see it discussed in the results. I was wondering if a good timing on AMS use can prevent the Ice slash debuff from Anub? I know I have been able to avoid the paralytic toxin from Acidmaw before, I just haven't timed the slash correctly.

Anti-magic shell will NOT prevent the stun from anub'arak's freezing slash. It WILL absorb a lot of its damage (and fill up your RP bar), but you'll still get stunned the same way.

On 25m heroic, your AMS should absorb the full hit of freezing slash (or 75% if you don't have magic suppression) and is pretty key for not dieing.

AMS does not absorb Freezing Slash damage since it is a mix of physical/frost like Rapid Burst was arcane/fire. Nontheless it is helpful to cast AMS as soon as the cooldown timer for Freezing Slash nears its end to prevent those Leeching Swarm ticks from ticking you down while frozen or taking you below 100% before Slash+melee hit.

Not true:

[20:31:49.765] Frotesz casts Anti-Magic Shell
[20:31:51.093] Anub'arak casts Freezing Slash on Frotesz
[20:31:51.203] Anub'arak Freezing Slash Frotesz 1373 (A: 15559)
[20:31:54.906] Frotesz's Anti-Magic Shell fades

You can't resist the damage, but that does not mean you can't absorb it.

So what? I didn't say you can't absorb it, you just can't absorb it with AMS.

[18:00:10.115] Gruumsh gains Anti-Magic Shell from Gruumsh
[18:00:10.115] Gruumsh casts Anti-Magic Shell
[18:00:13.162] Anub'arak casts Freezing Slash on Gruumsh
[18:00:13.288] Anub'arak Freezing Slash Gruumsh 18442
[18:00:13.288] Gruumsh afflicted by Freezing Slash from Anub'arak
[18:00:15.120] Gruumsh's Anti-Magic Shell fades
[18:00:15.580] Gruumsh gains 305 runic power from Gruumsh's Anti-Magic Shell
[18:00:16.249] Gruumsh's Freezing Slash fades

Darkside is right, AMS will absorb Freezing Slash, that's the only way you would gain 305 RP from AMS. Your combat log must not have told you that it was absorbed.