[Guide] Unholy, the God-Tank
Unholy, the God-Tank
Borrowing a bit from my Frost-tank guide's format: http://forum.warmane.com/showthread.php?t=325582
Please refer to my Frost-tank guide for the bulk of the information on stats and gear choices. Exceptions are outlined in this guide.
Q: Is Unholy a good tank spec?
A: Yes, it most certainly is. It may not be the strongest, but it is very powerful.
Q: Does Unholy require skill to play?
A: Yes, it requires more skill to play effectively and at the top level than any other tank except maybe the Protection Warrior.
Q: Why do I never see people play Unholy tank?
A: It's a mix of it requiring skill to play and people on private servers having this belief that it is bad, usually because the spec was heavily bugged in the past, or the fact that people who try it usually aren't meeting the skill requirement. This is also due to most people focusing on ICC content specifically, and Blood being strong in the 30% nerfed version of the raid.
Q: What makes Unholy stronger than the other two DK specs?
A: Short answer: Bone Shield, Ebon Plaguebringer, Anti-Magic Zone and an enhanced Anti-Magic Shield.
Q: In what situations would Unholy be stronger than the other two DK specs?
A: AoE threat, magic damage when frequent mitigation CDs are required, physical damage when frequent mitigation CDs are required, desirable raid-wide damage buffs.
Q: In what situations would Unholy be weaker than the other two DK specs?
A: Self-healing (Blood is superior in this regard), instant threat (Frost is superior in this regard), constant magical damage mitigation (Frost is stronger in this regard).
1. Gear & Stat differences from Frost
The only difference here worth mentioning is that you will be using a Two-Handed weapon instead of Dual-Wielding. This means the stats you may be missing from two One-Handed weapons are either going to have to be made up on your Two-Handed weapon, or on other item choices.
BiS Weapons
Glorenzelg, High-Blade of the Silver Hand (expertise)
Cryptmaker (hit rating)
Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter (healing procs)
These are examples of weapons that work well for an Unholy tank. Use weapons such as these, as they will be more useful than you than weapons that focus on agility, strength, haste and/or crit.
But what about Shadowmourne?
The weapon damage, extra strength on the weapon, and the AoE damage proc make it great for threat. Otherwise, it performs at a lesser value than the above listed weapons, which are better suited for tanking.
Things to worry about while gearing.
You want to focus on getting your stat caps first and foremost. Defense is the most important, at 540 value (not to be confused with defense rating). Hit rating and expertise are both important for threat, and for landing your Death Strikes to improve your survival (which are 8% melee and 26 value, respectively).
Weapon enchant: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle
Rune of the Fallen Crusader can be useful for getting more dps on farm content when you are defense capped.
Gems
Don't be afraid to gem for the stats you need. Particularly Hit, Expertise and Defense. Getting socket bonuses when you can while gemming for the stats you need is a great way to get a little extra stats to make up for what you would lose when gemming a pure stat. It is recommended for Unholy that you mix in some avoidance gem stats (preferably Dodge) into your gem setup to maximize your avoidance. Getting more avoidance boosts the effectiveness of Bone Shield (refer to the Bone Shield section of the guide).
Solid Majestic Zircon (Blue Socket)
Regal Dreadstone (Red Socket)
Guardian's Dreadstone
Vivid Eye of Zul
Enduring Eye of Zul (Yellow Socket)
Thick King's Amber
Rigid King's Amber
Stalwart Ametrine
Precise Cardinal Ruby
2. Spells, Abilities and Rotations
- Icy Touch for instant single-target threat, and to apply your Frost Fever disease. This is your strongest single-target threat generator.
- Plague Strike for applying your Blood Plague disease.
- Blood Strike is a filler for when you have nothing else to use your Blood Runes on.
- Blood Boil is a filler for instant AoE threat when you have nothing else to use your Blood Runes on.
- Death Strike is used to heal yourself when you have all three (yes, 3) of your diseases on your target.
- Pestilence is used to spread your diseases among multiple targets. This increases your AoE DPS and threat, and buffs other people's DPS by spreading your Ebon Plaguebringer
- Death and Decay is your strongest source of AoE threat. It is very strong. Use it on CD when tanking multiple targets.
- Death Coil is additional DPS and ranged threat. Can also be used to heal your pet(s) or yourself while using Lichborne.
- Rune Strike the threat this ability generates is huge, but I highly recommend macroing it into your other "strike" abilities.
Quote:
#showtooltip
/cast Plague Strike
/cast !Rune Strike
/startattack
How to use your Runes
First, it is important that you have Reaping
Second, you will want to use Icy Touch as much as you need to in order to establish your threat dominance on a single target. After this point, you will want to maintain the up-time of your diseases, refreshing them with 3 seconds left or less if necessary. Use Pestilence and Death and Decay to establish AoE threat. Blood Boil if additional AoE threat is needed.
Lastly, once all of the above is accomplished, you will want to use Pestilence or Blood Strike to utilize Reaping and turn these Runes into Death Runes. With your Death Runes active, you are able to use Death Strike 3 times, succesively, without having to reapply your diseases, due to Death Strike requiring a Frost and a Unholy Rune for each use.
How to get the most out of Bone Shield
Unholy Runes are only used for the occasional Plague Strike and for Death Strike. This means that most of the time, you will have runes available to use Bone Shield. If you do not have a rune available for Bone Shield, but you need to use Bone Shield immediately, you can use Blood Tap or Empower Rune Weapon which will instantly give you runes to use.
To properly use Bone Shield, it is important that you know how the boss encounter you are in works. It is a proactive CD that requires you to know when you are going to be taking a sizable physical hit. Once you can predict these periods of large physical damage, you will know when to properly use Bone Shield and use it at its greatest effectiveness.
In addition, it is important to note that the more avoidance you have, the more effective your Bone Shield will be. When you avoid hits, your charges on Bone Shield don't get used up. This is probably the biggest difference between Unholy and the other Death Knight specs. Both Frost and Blood tend to focus on a full EH (effective health) build for ICC, where an Unholy will put a little bit more emphasis on avoidance.
The role of Scourge Strike
Simple. You replace Death Strike with this in order to do more DPS when you don't need to heal.
3. Talents and Glyphs
Ask below and I will be willing to discuss this subject and my preferences. I'll keep to explaining the more controversial picks for now.
http://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/d...33101203133150
- Lichborne - Allows you to heal yourself with Death Coil and break yourself out of fears or charms. Highly situational and completely optional.
- Outbreak - Required if you're going to bother with Scourge Strike. Otherwise, disregard.
- Night of the Dead and Master of Ghouls - Your ghoul can provide some extra DPS, but it's not much. More importantly, it gives you more freedom with how you use Death Pact. The ghoul's stun is also situationally useful. The reduced CD on Army of the Dead is good too. I would have to say these talents are optional, but I do advise them to be used.
- Dirge - Completely optional, but you need to keep one Runic Power generating talent active at all times. Scent of Blood is an acceptable replacement.
- Desecration - Though not taken by this particular talent build, it can be useful for controlling non-boss NPCs, usually "adds".
- Summon Gargoyle - Viable choice for pushing DPS for just one talent point.
Glyph of Dark Command is a must.
Glyph of the Ghoul is great for increasing the healing via Death Pact and your ghoul's survivability and DPS.
Glyph of Death and Decay is excellent for AoE threat, for which Unholy excels at.
Glyph of Bone Shield makes your Bone Shield last a little bit longer, obviously. Gives a little bit of breathing room for messing up and using it a little bit early.
Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell is great for sustained magic damage encounters, and offers some breathing room for poorly-timed Anti-Magic Shield use.
Talent Build #2 (Hybrid; Veteran of the Third War)
http://rpgworld.altervista.org/335/d...33101201100000
<Do not use this build if your group needs Ebon Plaguebringer.>
- Put one more point into Virulence if you are at 8% spell hit or lower with already two points into this talent. You may also drop points if you are over the hit cap. (9% + Glyph of Dark Command is your taunt hit cap.)
- Spell Deflection is RNG. If you do not want the RNG factor, you can place these points elsewhere.
- Epidemic points for more up-time on your diseases so you can Death Strike more.
