WotLK Which tanking spec is better at low gear?

[Lynea]

I've been trying to figure that out, and it looks like it, but I can't be certain yet. It's a difference of necrotic 3 or 4 shotting raging spirits, as far as I can tell.

[Beanlord]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=70337/necrotic-plague
Well it is dispelled with a dispel ability dispelling ''disease''(di i say sdispel too much?).It deals shadow damage,and the tooltip says Disease,so it probably should be influenced in some way.I can't say if it actually IS getting affected tho.

[taralej]

I just want to say that, Taralej that is the most intelligent thing ever to be spoken from a meat shield. Kudos to you sir, for not being a turd tank and owning the flaws we have.

Thank you very much, mate :) As for talents, I too am going for deep Blood. I don't think that the 20% attack speed from Frost is worth the investment and I am pretty sure that those points in deep Blood award more threat. I picked the extra points for reducing DnD's cooldown from Dancing Rune Weapon and Sudden Doom - DRW has 0 aggro contribution because it's separate from the DK, and Sudden Doom has an incredibly low threat contribution, even if the fight allows you to 4xHS instead of 2xDS.

Single TPS isn't really a problem for me, except for Hunters who don't use MD. Glyph of Rune Strike is just amazing here. As for AoE - well, no tank can keep adds ftom a Demo Lock (speaking from experience on both sides of this) but overall it's manageable with DnD, BB spamming and Tabbing with HS on less targets.

[Lynea]

^ @20% attack speed buff; The most common dps DK is frost anyway. There's a really good chance in a larger raid, you'll get one.

[Bensten]

Thank you very much, mate :) As for talents, I too am going for deep Blood. I don't think that the 20% attack speed from Frost is worth the investment and I am pretty sure that those points in deep Blood award more threat. I picked the extra points for reducing DnD's cooldown from Dancing Rune Weapon and Sudden Doom - DRW has 0 aggro contribution because it's separate from the DK, and Sudden Doom has an incredibly low threat contribution, even if the fight allows you to 4xHS instead of 2xDS.

Single TPS isn't really a problem for me, except for Hunters who don't use MD. Glyph of Rune Strike is just amazing here. As for AoE - well, no tank can keep adds ftom a Demo Lock (speaking from experience on both sides of this) but overall it's manageable with DnD, BB spamming and Tabbing with HS on less targets.

Deep blood has absolutely nothing to offer except threat. And single target threat is no issue for a DK as IT benefits absolutely insane from Frost Presence. You start the fight with 6x IT and you basically can go AFK afterwards. And even with 3/3 http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=48963 AOE threat is just low. Spread diseases, drop DnD and use one BB and wait for runes and watch everyone get aggro. Not just demo locks, also cats, mages, rets with RNG luck, warriors. If you have any chance of holding threat against those classes with >4 mobs and without MD you should just search for better dps.
Going for more than 43 points in blood is pointless.

The reason I would go (actually I am...) into "deep" frost is http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49186. It's the only tanking related talent you can reach with 28 points left. You can take 20% attack speed or http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49140. Doesn't really matter.

[angrylol]

Hmm I really never have threat problems with 43pints in blood and 20% haste(not the aura, i get that from another frost Dk). No need to waste runes additional runes on threat. However I don't pug, so I meet very few facerollers, and even then some few IT when retri pops wings and you give hysteria to him and thats it.
I never do 6xIT or whatever, I think that is if you are 200ilvl and there BiS dps in grp.
spread diseases, drop DnD, rune strike adds that are yellow, use DnD ASAP on every cd, blood boil instead of blood strike. Sometimes someone takes add, but simple taunt helps and of coarse that dps changes traget to my target and its ok. If you are used to be in groups where every dps attacks each his own mob.. of coarse AoE threat is "bad" then. And abotu warlocks demonform immolate... they usualy drops that thing.. Break souldshard or something that reduces threat by 50%..

[taralej]

Soulshatter

Here is the build that I am using. I find Morbidity invaluable for any kind of off-tanking as a BDK, simply because otherwise our AoE threat is nonexistent. I keep supporting my claim that deep Blood awards more threat than Frost and that Frigid Dreadplate alone isn't worth the huge investment needed. Glyphs are the usual ones - Vampiric Blood, Dark Command, and Rune Strike. Glyph of Death Strike is also a decent choice for a threat glyph, but it's not as good as Rune Strike, unless you're spamming Death Strike all the time, which you shouldn't be doing because this means 1) less threat; 2) your healers are doing something wrong.

[angrylol]

Hmm, as we all know there is no "right way" and each experience form different opinion.
I play with
This build
in frost(increased range and 20% speed), threat on Rune Strikes, better add herding with increases range
in Unholy(disease duration and morbidity), less headache with diseases, 3% spell hit and increased AoE threat.
Glyphs Vampiric Blood, Disease(even more Deathstrikes) and Dark Command.

Successfully tanked all bosses ICC/RS on all difficulty 10/25 as MT and OT.
Easy to use and powerful build, never felt lacking in any scenario.

[Lynea]

I've played all of the specs thoroughly on my DK. Tanking and DPS. I personally find Blood to be the least enjoyable and weakest. But I prefer to mitigate damage and trust the healers to do their job. I'd like it more if wotlk had blood shield, but it doesn't. So... yeah. I find Frost to be the sturdiest tank, especially for starting out (where the 30% buff is largely irrelevant; you won't be doing ICC when you should be doing RDF and PoS instead). Unholy I've found to be my favorite. It's not as sturdy as a Frost tank (its still pretty sturdy, especially against magic damage) and doesn't heal as much as the others (would be the same as Frost, but Threat of Thassarian bug), I find that the buffs it brings are more rare and desirable. Mostly, though, I just find Wandering Plague and Death and Decay to be really fun.

Stated with bugs considered, of course.

[Bensten]

I've played all of the specs thoroughly on my DK. Tanking and DPS. I personally find Blood to be the least enjoyable and weakest. But I prefer to mitigate damage and trust the healers to do their job. I'd like it more if wotlk had blood shield, but it doesn't. So... yeah. I find Frost to be the sturdiest tank, especially for starting out (where the 30% buff is largely irrelevant; you won't be doing ICC when you should be doing RDF and PoS instead). Unholy I've found to be my favorite. It's not as sturdy as a Frost tank (its still pretty sturdy, especially against magic damage) and doesn't heal as much as the others (would be the same as Frost, but Threat of Thassarian bug), I find that the buffs it brings are more rare and desirable. Mostly, though, I just find Wandering Plague and Death and Decay to be really fun.

Stated with bugs considered, of course.

I took your comment and tried Unholy today. I used this spec. I wanted to get Rune Tap as powerful as possible and also glyphed it (also used the glyph on blood).

It's really fun to play as it feels totally different. http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49222 uses an UH rune, so you have to focus on blood and UH runes. This creates a more active gameplay. Threat also feels totally different - but that isn't a real surprise as UH AOE threat is just the best out of the three trees.
On the other hand my feelings about http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49655 are really mixed up. Good for AoE, but useless on boss fights. I'm thinking about dropping http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=55062 and http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49655 to go for http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=49006. Any thoughts on this?

[Lynea]

Aye, Wandering Plague isn't so hot for a single target fight, but Icy Touch does all the work in that case. Off-tanking Lich King is incredibly easy, especially when it comes to picking up all the ghouls. I drop my Death and Decay where the ghouls spawn, and my pestilence often reaches the ghouls and even the Lich King from my off-tanking position. Whatever I'm tanking, I focus on spreading my aids and use Icy Touch for those single targets if I need the threat.

Bone Shield is an interesting cooldown. Instead of having a short duration, it has charges of how many hits it can mitigate. Since it has a short cd, it can be really effective if used properly. For example, it's excellent for Soul Reaper. If you don't have another tank to taunt off you, you can AMS to absorb the shadow damage, then Bone Shield to mitigate the hasted hits Lich King does in the few seconds after. If you're taunting off another tank because they got Soul Reaper, Bone Shield is excellent for that too.

AMZ is also an interesting cooldown where it's essentially a smaller AMS that can be used to assist your raid-mates. I also find it useful to mitigate magic hits on yourself like Sindragosa's frost breath. It comes at a cost of only 1 unholy rune, so the ease of access to it is just the same as Bone Shield.

The only other thing I use unholy runes for (except on boss pull, where I use plague strike to apply my disease) is Death Strike, so the unholy runes are fairly easy to manage. I like to use the glyph that allows me to refresh my diseases with Pestilence.

About your talents, I personally for more threat and I don't go so deep into blood. You're also missing out on a lot of threat from not taking Rage of Rivendare. I also like to take Scourge Strike so I can use it for damage when I don't have the need for Icy Touch threat or Death Strike healing.
My spec looks like this: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0gMZhgZfgGI00bgc0z0uIq
I don't get Necrosis despite having Shadowmourne, because I focus my threat on my magic damage (especially as an off-tank).
I get Night of the Dead because I utilize Death Pact a lot, and I can't afford my ghoul to get frost breathed when I summon it, for example.
Desecration looks like it's a preference on utility. It's useless against a boss, but if you needed to slow some adds in bulk, I guess it'd be useful. Otherwise, I'd just use chains if I'm kiting 1 or 2 targets.
Reaping I've never found much use for, as a DPS as well.
Improved Icy Touch should be considered useful for obvious reasons. It's your primary source of single target threat, and the attack speed reduction on your targets is mitigation.
Two-Handed Weapon Specialization, I'm not sure how much I can quantify the threat gain of this talent, since I focus mainly on my diseases and Icy Touch for threat. I may end up putting the points into Bladed Armor. The amount of attack power (and thus, threat) from Bladed Armor is huge with my current gear.
I've never been a fan of Rune Tap. I don't feel it's worth enough to divert so many points out of Unholy to go for it.
Gargoyle is worth getting if you need the extra DPS to push a phase on a boss, also.

For the last several years, I've always played my tanks like they were a DPS. I'm always trying to parse the highest numbers possible (which is why I have zero problems with threat). This is one of the reasons why I find unholy great. I find I can do more dps and better benefit the raid's dps as unholy.

Btw, you guys should know, Death and Decay can crit. I find it's my 2nd highest source of threat after Icy Touch, even on single target. And it's great!



/rambling

[taralej]

Hmm, as we all know there is no "right way" and each experience form different opinion.
I play with
This build
in frost(increased range and 20% speed), threat on Rune Strikes, better add herding with increases range
in Unholy(disease duration and morbidity), less headache with diseases, 3% spell hit and increased AoE threat.
Glyphs Vampiric Blood, Disease(even more Deathstrikes) and Dark Command.

Successfully tanked all bosses ICC/RS on all difficulty 10/25 as MT and OT.
Easy to use and powerful build, never felt lacking in any scenario.

Well, you're basically comparing using Heart Strike with all the improvement talents - +45% damage for Heart Strike and +30% for Blood Boil from Bloody Strikes, +45% crit damage bonus from MoM on almost all of your damage, +10% damage on all damage from Blood Gorged (read, ALL damage) - with using Death Strike and a 20% haste buff for Rune Strike. I very often argue with you, angrylol, and sometimes you're right, sometimes you're not - I'm pretty sure that I'm the right one here and deep Blood is a lot more threat than 20% haste Frost, both for single-target and AoE.

By the way, there was one huge imported DK guide here about tanking but I just can't find it. It explains everything a player would ever need to know about DK tanks with all specs. My spec is made by using all the information I could get and digest from that guide. The only difference is that I take points from Sudden Doom into Morbidity because I'm still low geared and I am often asked to off-tank.

Regarding Unholy tanking, that's pretty much what I used on my DK before ICC - godlike threat, magic damage encounters were a joke, Bone Shield is just broken with that constant 20% reduction. Lynea, for single-target Unholy Blight is far stronger than Morbidity, by the way. It depends if single-target threat is a problem for you, I guess. Unholy Blight is a 10% damage increase on Death Coil with just one TP and the DoT also stacks. You can also take a look at this build here. I decided to sacrifice Two-handed Weapon Specialization for Necrosis. I am trying to remember if Rune Strikes also procced Necrosis since they're more or less auto-attacks. Someone mentioned it somewhere but I just can't recall right now. I consider Night of the Dead and Ravenous Dead very weak for tanks and Icy Reach - not worth the TPs.

Honestly, I'd gladly keep to Unholy or even Frost, but Blood is just better than them in ICC. Yes, it's boring, it's straightforward, but above all I am a man of numbers and optimal performance and Blood is the spec which can deliver the most from all the 3 specs in ICC. That's just how Blizzard designed WotLK, DKs and ICC. Maybe if they did a better job we would still be able to tank with all specs. *shrug*

Oh, also I just saw this:

^ @20% attack speed buff; The most common dps DK is frost anyway. There's a really good chance in a larger raid, you'll get one.

The 20% haste from Icy Talons stacks with the 20% haste from Improved Icy Talons. That's not a bug. I know what angrylol means but the 20% haste just can't compare with deep Blood.

Edit: I tried making a Blood + Frost spec and this is the best thing that I can come up with. However, I see problems with it straight away - no Morbidity means you won't be able to OT LK, period. Black Ice is a very weak talent for Blood, single-target threat will be lower than standard deep Blood build.

[Bensten]

Edit: I tried making a Blood + Frost spec and this is the best thing that I can come up with. However, I see problems with it straight away - no Morbidity means you won't be able to OT LK, period. Black Ice is a very weak talent for Blood, single-target threat will be lower than standard deep Blood build.

DKs have the highest single target TPS out of all tanks on warmane by simply using IT. With Rune Strike and the other skills you are far higher than any warrior or paladin. The 43/23/5 spec is the best for MT anything or OT RS. With 2/2 http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=55061 you can also OT LK.

[taralej]

DKs have the highest single target TPS out of all tanks on warmane by simply using IT. With Rune Strike and the other skills you are far higher than any warrior or paladin. The 43/23/5 spec is the best for MT anything or OT RS. With 2/2 http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=55061 you can also OT LK.

Thing is you're not supposed to tank by simply spamming IT. It gimps your Death Strikes, most importantly, but it also limits your AoE capabilities when Pestilence is needed and it vastly reduces your damage (yeah, I know tanks shouldn't bother with damage but the loss is quite significant).

I constantly keep an eye on Omen and I only resort to IT spamming when everything else fails - Hand of Salvation, class-specific threat wipes, TPS rotation rather than Death Strike rotation.

Here is everything I can think of: Hunters use MD for threat transfer and they also have Feign Dead for aggro wipe; Rogues have TotT for threat transfer, Vanish for aggro wipe and Feint for threat reduction; Mages' Mirror Image keeps them safe until it's over after which you can very predictably and reliably Taunt back, if the issue persists they can go invisible for an aggro wipe; Warriors and Rets need some time to build up steam - Warriors can be problematic here but only at near-BiS gear; same goes with FDKs without Subversion who decide to pick Blood-caked Blade instead; Priests have Fade; Warlocks' highest damage spec, Affliction, tends to generate low threat and even then they also have Soulshatter; and I've never had problems with Druids or Shamans, maybe because they're not even close to the top of the meters.

[angrylol]

Well I use Death Strikes, not Heart Strikes simply because I have no threat problems and to get more self heals. Tanks has low crit chance so 45% in crit damage is.. not much of a threat increase even if I needed more threat. And no, I don't spam IT. Blood gorged value is diminished because, well, you are tank and you will be below 75% some bit of time. 20% haste does not interfere in any way with my Death Strikes or any spells with rune cost while giving nice threat boost, that is why I like it. And on related note I suggest not to put /cast !Rune strike in all your macros[if you take 20% I guess], it can corner you in situation where you cant use Icebound/ams/death pact because RP is spent on RS.
This is my reasoning why I don't go deep Blood. Death Strike available at almost any moment while sufficient threat and every survival/tanking bonus taken from spec. Plus can take some nice tools from other tree, for example, increased IT range, I just couldn't live without it same as Morbidity.

Edit: This is what have crystallized out of hundreds of talent changes, guildes, other DKs opinions, Rawrs 'n stuff and simply raiding experience when and what I was lacking during raid. It does not have highest possible threat, it has maximized survival while having enough threat to do the job.