IsaacSirene

I would alter the specs/glyphs slightly to start with:

Blood Tanking: Link
Frost Tanking: Link

While Frost Tanking Rotations:
PS IT BS BS OB/OB OB OB
Rune Dumps: FS/Rune Strike, Very generic. Your going to get more Frost Strikes now however that you have glyphed for it.
Rime Procs are on use at all times, don't use them with Killing Machine over Frost Strike for single target threat. If your doing the Thorim Arena, Killing Machine+Rime=Win.

While Blood Tanking Rotations:
PS IT HS HS DS/HS HS HS HS DS/PS IT HS HS HS HS
Rune Dumps: DC/Rune Strike, with the glyph for DC, alot more damage output from Sudden Doom and DC's fired out. When you have enough threat to keep the boss on you, then you can worry about Death Striking alot to sustain health.

Those few changes gave me quite the bit of threat gen earlier, although I'm unsure if they are the TOP threat gen's or not. Although it is hard to test when there isn't a pure Tank and Spank fight with no suprizes that we can truely test our TPS on.

 

Sans

About blood tanking rotation on single target: on fights like Mimiron where you can directly melee the boss I would start rotation with Death strike rather than IT and PS
- death strike damage is not affected by diseases
- at the beginning of the fight there are chances you'll be full life so you won't get any threat from the DS healing
- starting your rotation with DS will allow you to get your first death runes faster to spam hs.
- you will raise your threat faster in the first seconds of the fight.

that's not a big deal but if your dps have trouble waiting for you to build aggro, it can help.

 

Flash3038

Hey guys. Very very long time reader first time poster.

My guild is 10/13 Ulduar and I have to say throughout my entire time of tanking I have had zero problems with blood. It's absolutely amazing TPS (spiking over 10k regularly) and with 2 piece conq you get upwards 8-9k rune strikes. I usually sit at 2.5k ish dps on bosses. You have (in my opinion) the best mitigation and "oh shit" buttons out of any class. The health you can have with this spec is absurd. I'm sitting at 34,800 health unbuffed. With cooldowns popped I can reach 53k health. A lot of people complain about the lack of aoe dps, but I don't know how any death knights have trouble aoe tanking with 3/3 morbidity and the opportunity to BB 8 times in a row.

The current spec I am using is 56/5/10. I have multiple DK's with imp icy touch in the raid so I have no worries about that. I also chose Hysteria and Sudden Death over 3/3 imp rune tap because the majority of the time I forget to even press rune tap, and it usually ends up overhealing. Hysteria + a feral druid or rogue will make them top meters every time. I have only 2/3 scent of blood because the majority of the time I'm sitting at 100 runic power. I'm using glyph of death strike, rune strike, and vampiric blood.

All I can say is, macros macros macros macros.

I have macros for everything. You want to faceroll tank? Macro /cast !Rune Strike to all of your abilities. I macro'd them to both heart strike and death strike (I will probably macro them to PS and IT as well) and my dps and threat increased extremely generously. A lot of times the time it takes for you to react to press rune strike you miss an auto attack and you end up wasting what could have been a rune strike.

I started Ulduar as frost spec and I'll probably finish as blood with no regrets. God I love the death knight class.

 

Panzerkin

Highest single target glyphs for blood are Death Strike / Rune Strike / Dark Death. Highest single target glyphs for frost are Obliterate / Rune Strike / Frost Strike.

Rune Strike glyph is key here. It represents roughly 10% more threat from the ability that contributes the most to your threat. It works particularly well with 2t8. Frost spec only has an additional 3% miss so you will likely sit around 12%-17% miss (depending on racials and debuffs on the boss) and ~40%-50% dodge/parry. This will result in less damage overall, but should not change the amount of Rune Strikes you can fire off since those misses would have just been hits anyway. If someone knows I am mistaken on this point please feel free to correct me.

Also, as the above post mentioned, Macroing Rune Strike to your most often used attacks will be a large net gain in threat unless you have very good reflexes and low latency.

Getting to melee special hit cap (8%) and expertise soft cap (26 expertise or 6.5% dodge/parry reduction) is also key to threat. After getting enough defense to remove crits, I would prioritize hit/expertise above even stam since you usually get plenty of that with tanking gear.

As far as your blood spec goes for single target threat... Move points out of DRW and Runic Power mastery and into Morbidity. 30% bigger deathcoils (glyph + morbidity) will help your single target threat in addition to AoE (more DnD damage). And I really don't see where else to put them that will help your threat more. DRW and Runic Power Mastery don't do anything for your threat. You could also take those points and put them into Subversion for 9% Heart Strike crit, but I find that I have better luck with Morbidity. AoE threat has always been a larger issue for me than single target using Blood.


I don't use the frost tanking spec due to play style issues (it just feels clunky to me) so I will let people with more experience talk about that.

Edit: Spelling, Macro Love, Hit/Expertise

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich von Schiller

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
- George F. Will

 

Zurai

There's really no reason to macro RS directly to an attack unless you're already using both mousewheel directions for other commands. The best way I've found to handle RS is to bind it to the mousewheel (up or down, doesn't matter); that way you can easily spin it for instant usage when you have the RP to spare, but can instantly stop using it when you need to conserve RP (Fusion Punch/Shock Blast/Surge of Darkness incoming, etc), all without any impact whatsoever to your main rotation/priority queue.

 

Avirex

I'm kind of wondering if Rune of Death Strike really useful if you're macroing Runestrike to all of your abilities. It seems like you'll be fairly low on RP quite frequently. Wouldn't something like Vamp Blood provide more benefit for the major slot?

 

Mongia

Greetings Elistist Jerks !

I have been using this website as an invaluable source of information for many months and decided to sign up to join in the conversation.

I’m a Blood DPS Death Knight with a thirst for pain so I am going to be using my 2nd Spec to tank (plus I get use out of all the ‘off-spec’ loot I have picked up along my travels)

I’ve done a lot of reading across these boards, in particular this thread and here is my conclusion. I’ve also tried a few different combinations myself in game and wasted (invested?) a lot of hard earned gold on re-speccing, re-glyphing and re-gemming :P

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...&version=9757#

It’s pretty cookie cutter tbh, but im not sure about my rotation

AoE:
DeathChill > Rune Tap > Unbreakable Armor > HB > D&D > FS / RS Runic Dump
BB > BB > HB > Ob > FS / RS Runic Dump
D&D > HB > Ob > Frost FS / RS Runic Dump

Single target:
DeathChill > Rune Tap > Unbreakable Armor > HB > BS > OB > FS / RS Runic Dump
OB > Obe > Blood Strike > BS > FS / RS Runic Dump
HB > Ob > Ob > FS / RS Runic Dump

I am not using Plague Strike or pestilence, just using Glyph of HB to keep Frost Fever up.

I know this is all pretty obvious stuff but I wanted to put it down here in case I am also missing something obvious, or doing something drastically wrong! – you guys are the experts here :P

I’d really appreciate any feedback at all.

 

Zurai

You only need 26 RP for the glyph. If you have 2/3 or 3/3 Scent of Blood, you should have plenty of RP available to keep the glyph energized and RS every time you can.

 

Panzerkin

Between Scent of Blood + Druid HoTs I haven't problems with runic power. The Mimiron pull is the only time I even have to think about having enough RP for a AMS/IBF. And that is only because that first Plasma Blast can come within seconds of the pull sometimes.

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich von Schiller

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
- George F. Will

 

mosse

You should drop Morbidity for Scent of Blood, it's pretty must for Frost-tanking and with Morbidity you gain practically nothing. Frost can never have enough Runic Power!


About rotations, I find prioritizing far more effective for tanking because of high parry/dodge/miss. Basically just hit what hits the most without runes/rp rotting.

 

Mongia

thanks a lot. going to pick up scent of blood certainly.

 

scrangos

Hello fellow posters, I've sorta avoided posting in worries of being brutally bashed to kingdom come but my server is STILL down and I'm feeling particularly brave today :p

I'm here to propose or ask why no one else has tried this. I might've missed it of course as Im not gonna claim inventing anything but for the sake of discussion this is what I mean.


Blood tanking with 4/5 Necrosis. We know Runestrike is one of our biggest threat generators, and while necrosis woudnt have its threat multiplied... 16% of that damage as extra threat is nothing to scoff at. This assumes you have a pet frost dps DK in the raid.

Blood Tank: 52/5/14 Talent Build Link - DS focused build with with 4/5 Necrosis.

I went ahead and posted the most controversial version I've used for the sake of discussion. The changes are within blood itself and their minimal at best. My logic deviating from the more conventional builds is as follows:

1) Runetap taken - I hear a lot of people underrating it. Its primary purpose for me is to reflex counter big spikes, specially important if for some odd reason everything else is on cooldown.

2) Death Rune Mastery skipped - This is a DS focused build. This makes the build less flexible but I don't need that many blood runes for anything with proper planning.

3) Spell deflection is too situational, and thus skipped. Any big direct hits are mitigated with tanking cooldowns and runetap.

4) Aboms might - Plenty of other people can bring it. I get it for 10's though. ~50AP from this. Meh.

5) Failworms - Purely testing. They do heal for a fair amount of mostly overhealing. Either by them or your healers. Personally I find em as useless as I've found em situationally useful. Points here are generally put into aboms might if no one has it. Maxing scent and putting 2/3 sudden doom or scent of blood. All marginally useless.

6) Sudden Doom - Mostly using DS and my blood runes are often used for cooldowns makes this largely unattractive.

7) Pestilence Glyph ~= Vam Blood Glyph - With the nerf to 2 minutes to vamp blood this is more used as a tanking cooldown now adays than part of a heavy cooldown uptime rotation. 20 secs is generally enough to save you from any heavy damage phase or sudden burst. Pestilence gives you an extra DS every two rotations or so at the cost of a HS. Ive tested both and I havnt noticed much of a difference in my threat. They've both got their good points and bad points. But pest makes imp icy touch even more useless.

7) 4/5 Necrosis > 3/3 Imp Icy Touch - The main difference is this. Asuming a frost dps dk is around then the slow is not missed. 5/5 Is not taken in favor of 5/5 Blood gorged which is far better at first glance in my opinion. The 16% extra dmg from normal attacks (heavely being runestrikes) is fairly large in comparison to other options in where to put the points. With the RS glyph, the blood physical buffs (like armor pen, crit, phis dmg) and 2/5 T8 it makes your normal/RS damage fairly substantial. Making Necrosis that much better.

8) Morbidity is taken to help with aoe threat, and improve the RP dump.

Edit: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Conservative approach.

 

Avirex

Interesting ideas, but I've got a few qualms. The big one is that I think Runetap is generally not picked up in PvE builds is because you're essentially doing somebody else's job less efficiently. A 20% heal on a tank with 40k raid buffed health is only 8000, slightly less than one Holy Light from a paladin with 1300 spellpower. 4 talent points is a very steep investment for throwing yourself a heal from a pre-heroic geared paladin every 30 seconds.

Once you throw out Runetap, then there really isn't a good reason not to pick up Abom's Might, since otherwise you can't get to the 35 point talents without picking up something weird, like Subversion or Butchery, both of which are pretty lackluster for tanking. The same applies to DRM.

Bloodworms just seem to be too iffy to really bother picking up, so that leaves us needing to pick up at least two points in Sudden Doom in order to get to the 40 pointers. After that, we really just pick up the tree.

So, the variables this leaves us with, in my mind anyway, are Hysteria or Mark of Blood, which is really a matter of preference and raid comp, and Necrosis vs. 3/3 Sudden Doom and IIT. I think you make a good argument for Necrosis, but I just can't see myself taking a build without IIT. There are just too many moving parts to rely on somebody else for a massive debuff you can provide yourself, but that's me.





I'm with you on Spell Deflection, though.

 

scrangos

I do agree its not a big heal, and it is indeed 'doing someone else's job'. However, unlike DS, I do not see runetap as a self heal. I see it more as a tanking cooldown as a weaker version of last stand. In conjunction with blood tap (or some uncomfortable rotation trying to keep a blood rune up while holding the barrier buff) you can effectively have 20% more health during a spike or special boss ability simply by healing yourself as the damage hits. Once your topped off the benefit ends, but until then you effectively have that 8k more Hps than you would during the spike.

In fights with mechanics what affect the healers performance like crowd controls, cast slows, silences and forced pauses (or with subpar healers) it gives you a really nice room for error that you coudnt get elsewhere. Whether this speaks badly of healers or not, there have been a few ocassions where I've hit 4k health during a spike after using runetap I woudn't have survived otherwise.

This extra instant heal I consider more valuable than the 50AP contribution from aboms might, or whatever RP I get from butchery, or the small threat increase from subversion (specially since I dont use HS as much with a DS focused build).


Moving fights (and possibly the death of the debuffer) is a strong point against it. I think I'm going to sit down and analyze which fights it is not reliable on for current progression content (Ulduar). Seeing as my realm STILL isn't up.

 

drake_rocket

I'm curious as to what the general thoughts are regarding the use of the furious gladiator weapons as tanking weapons. Their high stam and dual sockets seem like they would make them attractive options, though the lack of a second stat (either agi or strength) likely diminishes this a bit. Still, I've not read a lot of discussion on their potential efficacy.

 

discofurby

Do you usually have another Frost DK in the raid? Mine is always Unholy, and my Warriors are either tanking (usually away from me for the most part), or are DPS specced and refuse to debuff (/wrists).

 

Taiyoken

A good use for this can be for some fights which require you have a huge hp buffer such as Hodir hardmode, IC Hardmode, or Mimiron hardmode. One large issue with wearing such high stam gear (such as Frost Resist for Hodir) is that your threat stats decrease by a large margin. Tier1/2 weapons have enough damage and offensive stats on it that you should be pulling respectable threat while being a solid tank. If you're replacing a weapon like Aesir's Edge or Worldcarver the avoidance (parry) you get from it is pretty low and the stam benefit far outweighs the parry. Replacing a weapon like Rune Edge will give you nearly 1000 more health and is useful for avoiding a one-shot where no amount of dodge and parry can save you.

I plan to pick this up for my DK and replace my Aesir's Edge (with 2x 24 stam), which will be my DPS offset weapon.

 

scrangos

I've set myself on the path to getting one as of last week. Ive sunk close to 2k into the project so far >.< And ive found out im pretty bad at PvP.

That aside, for EHP and survival purposes I see them as the best two weapons in the game. If your going for a low defense setup trading defense for other stats, the resilience could come in handy. With no current threat problems anywhere nearby I really like the massive amount of health over any other option....

Its probly getting nerfed though.


Perks of leading :x As far as hes concerned in heavy ulduar gear he says frost is the best DPS. As far as the validity of it you'd have to look into the other dps threads as I'm not upto date on those.

Frost DPS DK is the only viable option without gimping someone. Tanks can dual spec into dps, but wont have the slow. Tank specced tanks are half the time elsewhere not in range to provide the debuff. Forcing a dps to grab the talent without it being within the regular spec would hurt their dps. Least hurt would be a Frost DK followed probably by a feral druid.

 

Cemetary

[Seal of Ulduar]
[Abaddon]

Both very good tanking items that aren't mentioned anywhere on these forums. I think they deserve another look.

 

ZaoZao

@ Cemetery:

Even though both are good tanking items they are not BiS (or do even come close to it)

If you want a complete list of Ulduar tanking loots take a look at my Thread further below, it should be fairly complete and you can build your own set in regard of what you/your guild can and can not do.

Phat tanking Lewts with 3.1 (Ulduar Drops Only)

 

Cemetary

Correct. However I did not say they were BiS - Although I do believe they are BiS in the "Pre-heroic hard mode" category.

 

Pyros

Seal of Ulduar vs Band of the Aesir(normal Auriaya drop) isn't a clear win, you trade armor and parry rating(terrible returns) with defense and dodge. Abadon is pretty much crap I'm not sure why you'd think it's BiS, there's like 2 hardmode 10 weapons([Hammer of Crushing Whispers] and [Aesir's Edge]) that are miles better, and 2 normal 25man weapons([Worldcarver] and [Rune Edge]) that are as good/better depending on your point of view. If you want to continue the discussion though, probably better to move it to the BiS tanking loot thread, even though I'm not sure there's much to discuss.

 

Avirex

I don't think Abaddon is a clear upgrade from Inevitable Defeat, let alone a pre-hardmode best in slot. Most DKs are at or near the hit-cap in T7.5 stuff and dropping ID for Abaddon would probably be a pretty significant expertise loss. Tanking is a funny thing that way. Just because something is from the last boss of the next instance doesn't mean it should be considered as an upgrade.

 

cronosparis

Hi,

I've only now found the time to reply. My choices for my "ackward" talent choices are:
- 3/3 Subversion -> 9% extra crit on OB is definetely the way to go. I have ~41% crit with this talent on Obliterate without druid aura.
- 3/3 Scent of Blood - I find myself very often runic power starved.
- 1 point in Deathchill is not worth it in my opinion due to KM.
- Since i have 2/2 Improved frost presence, i put out 3 points out of blade barrier.

To reach the 3/3 Subversion and 3/3 Scent of Blood i had to give up 3 points in Blade Barrier and 2 points in Bladed Armor. At my gear level, this means ~320 less AP for 9% extra crit and 3% less damage reduction for more runic power.

I've also found that using the Howling blast roatation does less threat.

For rune choices, I selected Rune Strike, Howling blast (very usefull for thrash) and Obliterate.

I also you the following priority system for runic power dump:
1 - KM proc -> save runic power for Frost Strike
2 - No KM proc -> rune strike
3 - If Runic power > 60 -> do a frost strike

Frost spec I chose: 13/51/7

 

Vendettitian

Hello

Today I finally looted sigil from razorscale and thus I'm in a considering what to do with my equipment. Atm I'm at 531 def w/o any gems and getting to 540 with unfaltering knight. Since I dont really want to put gargoyle instead of parry rune on my weap I'm thinking of using swap macros such as

/equip unfaltering knight
/cast IT

/equip sigil of deflection
/cast runic strike

Since I remember reading about smth blizz did with gcd or some crap when swaping weapons it rises a question: Is swaping deflection for unfaltering only to refresh defence buff?