I'm just starting my dk tank. I'm around 3.6k GS and I bought battered hilt.
I'm currently using dw frost spec for tanking but I feel I cant really hold aggro or survive aoe fights in heroics or fos normal. I'm considering whether I should get the 2h weapon from battered hilt and switch to blood tanking, or should I take the 1h sword and stick with frost.
TL;DR Which spec is better for tanking at that level of items? Any advice is welcome.
-
Member
Which tanking spec is better at low gear?
-
Member
If soneone is interested - I respecced to blood, got the 2h sword from battered hilt questline and upgraded 2 other items. Now I'm at around 4.3k GS and I'm doing pretty fine in hcs. Might be because of the spec, but it also might be becaused I have better gear. Not sure.
What really helps me currently is the vast amount of defensive cds in blood spec.
-
Banned
Frost is considered the most balanced tank spec and the best one to start with at low gear. Unholy is the one with the highest mitigation from all 3 specs, but it also requires the most attention - otherwise it will perform worse than Frost and Blood, thus most people just don't bother with it.
Blood is only considered significantly better than the other two once you get into ICC. The avoidance debuff hits the two other specs in the shins very hard, especially Unholy, while at the same time the health buff helps Blood the most. And then Blood also has the highest EHP of the 3 specs, which seals the deal.
tl;dr - Frost in general, Unholy if you want a rewarding challenge, Blood if you're going into ICC.Edited: September 8, 2015
-
Field Medic Moderator
To add to what taralej said, the benefit Blood gets from the ICC 30% buff is two-fold. Blood has the most self-healing of any of the DK specs. Since healing benefits from the 30% buff in addition to having a larger health pool from which the heals scale, it makes the heals that much more significant.
Also, Frost has the talent "Acclimation" which is particularly effective in the occasional boss encounter where there is constant magic damage, such as tanking Prince Keleseth in the Blood Prince Council encounter. Unholy is more effective at mitigating magic damage that isn't constant, such as Frost Breath from Sindragosa.
It should also be noted that if you play a well-geared Unholy tank in a boss encounter that has a lot of adds, you are probably going to get all of them. If you try main-tanking Lich King as a main tank, you're going to have a hard time, because it will be nigh impossible for the off-tank to get ghouls off of you. While this is good for the RDPS group, it is bad for the off-tank who has to keep Necrotic Plague active until the Shambling Horrors die (no ghouls for the off-tank = you will probably lose the plague early). If you are off-tanking, then more power to you. It will be impossible for anyone to get adds off you, and as an off-tank for that encounter, that is a very good thing because the adds will stay where they belong. Unholy tank can be quite strong for RS25hc as well, for p1 and p3.
-
Banned
Just out of curiosity, does a blood dk heal really that much more with Death strike than a dual-wield frost dk who has threat of thassarian?
In addition the frost dk has the ability to convert blood runes in death runes for a extra death strike.Edited: September 8, 2015
-
Field Medic Moderator
Death Strike's heal working with Threat of Thassarian is a bug, but it does turn out to be a sizable heal. It's pretty notable. Since it heals twice, you can consider it a +100% healing bonus from a single Death Strike. Blood's talent for that increases the healing of Death Strike by 50% with 2 points in it. So, basically with proper talents, Frost's Death Strike heals at 200% value, while Blood's Death Strike heals at 150% value. Yes, Frost can Death Strike more often, at approximately a rate of 1 extra Death Strike every 20 seconds or so, which is 3 per minute if the "rotation" is done perfectly. However, Blood also has Rune Tap as another heal, and Vampiric Blood which temporarily enhances the DK's self-healing by 35%. As far as I know, Blood Worms are bugged, so the actual healing difference between the two specs, currently, is not that large of a difference -- the difference is much smaller than what it should be.
-
Banned
It makes me curious why everybody roles blood when frost heals currently even more with DS and has in addition also more dmg mitigation talents with unbreakable armor, improved frost presece and Acclimation.
Only problem that comes in my mind is that a frost dk maybe cant provide enough aggro when he replace Obliterate with Death strike.
-
Field Medic Moderator
Single-target, a Frost DK has plenty threat if they use Icy Touch liberally enough (and Rune Strike should be macroed into nearly every damage ability). I've personally main-tanked LoD without threat problems. I don't know how Blood fares on AoE threat, but Frost's AoE threat leaves a bit to be desired. Howling Blast coupled with Death and Decay can produce a decent amount, but it doesn't stand up to Unholy at all - king of AoE dps/threat. Which is fine, I suppose, since Frost is far better suited for main-tanking anyway.
-
Member
Frost aoe threat is in the midle (blood < frost < unholy) in my experience.
-
Banned
That, and Blood is just generally a no-brainer compared to Frost when it comes to tanking. There are very very few DKs, who actually make the most from their Blood spec, yet it requires little to be "average" with that spec so it doesn't matter. Even if you're slacking as Blood, you'll only do slightly worse than a try-hard Frost or Unholy. And if you're slacking as Unholy, for example, you're basically as easy to kill as a plate DPSer.
Anyway, even if your aggro does drop when you replace Obli with DS, you still have your Rune Strike queued all the time, and as a dual-wielding Frost DK with ToT your Rune Strike hits a lot more often and for a lot more TPS than with any other spec.
Still, even with those bugs and factors being taken into consideration, Blood's % scaling nature is what really pushes it ahead from Frost and Unholy. In the end, no matter how much you theory-craft it, you'll end up with the same conclusion - Blood is the best tanking spec for ICC, largely due to Blood's scaling, the ICC buff and debuff, and EHP > avoidance on WotLK.Edited: September 9, 2015
-
Member
Since I've never tanked with dk in ICC before I think the fact that Blood is easy is good for me currently. Still I want to be above avarage - so what would you say doest it take for an avarage blood tank to become good/great?
-
Banned
Weaving Death Strike inbetween boss hits so that you can make the most from its healing. Recognizing the best situations for using Mark of Blood (Marrowgar's Bone Storm, BQL's Bloodbolt Whirl, Twin Val'kyrs' Vortices, Rotface's Slime Spray and other similar cases where the boss is inflicting heavy AoE damage to the players - keep in mind that environmental damage does not count: the AoE during Festegut, i.e.). Getting used to Blood Tap as an emergency tool for using either Rune Tap or Vampiric Blood, and combining Rune Tap and Death Pact with Vampiric Blood for the extra healing. Learning to weave Rune Tap into your rotation in fights where you require constant healing. Recognizing the best situations for using Anti-Magic Shell in general (Sindragosa's Frost Breath, Keleseth's Empowered Shadow Lances).
A lot of people think that BDKs only have one real defensive cooldown in the face of Icebound Fortitude since AMS only absorbs magical damage and has a limit, and Vampiric Blood doesn't give mitigation. T10 set4 turns your Blood Tap into another defensive cooldown, first of all, and then as you can see above there are a lot of cases where you can use your tools in a smart way to balance the fight. Blood has the least mitigation from all 3 DK trees, so using your self-healing to balance the scales is the key here. Learning to use these tools properly instead of blindly spamming your rotation and then blaming the healers, saying that "you did everything properly, so it's not your fault" is what differentiates an average BDK from a great BDK.
Every time I die as a tank I don't look at the healers to see if they are alive and have mana, and then start blaming them - first I look at my cooldowns and think "what did I miss?". This way of thinking will make a great tank from you in general, not only as a DK. It is your job as a tank to draw and mitigate as much damage as possible from the boss (not just holding aggro), so that the healers can breathe and turn their heads to the rest of the raid. If you have this mindset in you, the rest will come naturally.Edited: September 10, 2015
-
Member
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.
-
Forum Veteran
With enough gear Blood becomes so powerful.. you can do ICC normal without healer on you, of coarse its not like you can solo everything, what I mean is healer can take care of raid with occasional HoT on you.
And about blood AoE threat, if you reduce DnD cooldown in talents sacrificing Mark of blood(which has no real use anyway) you will never have AoE threat problems. There are people who lack clarity and just wastes runes on unnecessary healing(not making use of that DnD talent to fullest) making hard to AoE threat. It's just a stereotype that Blood sucks at AoE or people cant grasp sudden style change for AoE, idk.
Also, 9 out of 10 Blood tanks go too deep in tree taking Heart Strike, Might of Morgraine, Blood Gorged, those are pure(bad) threat talents(choose 20% attack speed in Frost for your Rune Strikes for some real threat). All you need is Will of the Necropolis. 43 points in blood, that's it. You get expertise talent early in tree, that is one more + for Blood.
If Frost double healing from Death Strike is bug... well idk frost has no real potential in my eyes then. Unbreakable Armor and.. Acclimation(when(if) it is stacked to 3)? No thanks, if I compare it with vast potential of Blood.
About Unholy, it lacks. Heals are same as Blood (15%), bit boosted raid dps, bit less magic damage taken, those are passive things. Active things, Bone Shield.. it's ok, but Blood offers Vampiric Blood that just rocks your world in ICC. Blood has passive -15%dmg taken automatically when under/will be taken under 35%, no need to flex your brain with "when" it just is there. Are those 5% worth such timing and risking, I think not(maybe, just maybe outside ICC/RS). Sometimes I think Blizz guys mixed something up and gave Will of the Necropolis to wrong tree making Blood so overpowered.
So here is my point of view on tanks, go Blood. Time your Death Strikes, stretch CDs so you are never left as piece of meat without anything, Save up runes so you can Death Strike when your good stuff is on CD or healers have to run/heal raid. Go and be BAMF you little undead you.
-
Member
Speaking of unholy DK off-tanks, does anyone know for a fact whether the damage taken by adds from Necrotic Plague is increased by Ebon Plague (+13% spell damage) and crypt fever (+30% disease damage)?
Quote
