Tanking - Blood or Frost

[Ruger]

Hello everyone!

I've done a fair bit of research, both through these forums and others and there is so much information out there. It truly is wonderful. Big shout out to those who have spent their time to help others. I have a few questions though that I didn't really have answered after reading all of the great guides here.

1. Outside the DK playerbase, which spec is generally preferred? Let's say that I can play both frost and blood exceptionally. I would hate to not be considered to tank raids simply because I took blood over frost or vice versa.

2. After looking at all of the suggested specs, I came up with one with a few changes and it would be great to have some outside opinions on it. To be more specific I didn't put any points in Blood Gorged which left me with 6 floating points which I put towards Icy Talons and Necrosis. Will the 8% increased attack speed + the 8% shadow damage outperform 10% armor pen? I've even thought about going 4 in Icy Talons or 4 in Necrosis.

http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EM...bssZhg0bZ0gh0b

Thanks!

[mosat3]

the most preffered dk tank spec is blood, because of its tons of HP and self heals + he offers one of the strongest dps cooldowns - Hysteria. But still, both tanks are viable and good

As for the spec, I don't know, what's ur gear, but you shouldn't forget Virulence, if you lack spell hit 17%, which means you have 3 floating points, I like putting them into scent of blood, but it doesnt matter if you put it to necrosis either.

Blood gorged is kinda useless + it doesn't work properly, so it's not really worth going for it.

[taralej]

Necrosis is a weak talent for threat. Melee is very low on your threat list, don't be fooled by it being high on Recount, so an 8% increase on that is not going to do much. Dump it. Icy Talons is a good on-the-way talent towards Frigid Dreadplate, but that's it. By itself the only thing it does is increase your Rune Strike rate.

Also, you said 6 points? Are you considering Dancing Rune Weapon? The weapon summoned is a separate entity and thus has its own aggro - this means that it will not help your threat in any way, nor does it give any defenses. As a tank, you should not even consider that talent.

Regarding your first question - if you're talking about Lordaeron, then you can play any of the specs you want, as long as you're good at them. For Icecrown, however, Blood is the best choice because of the way the spec works and the Icecrown Citadel buff/debuff. Still, even on Icecrown you're free to play whichever spec you want before ICC.

[Ruger]

Also, you said 6 points? Are you considering Dancing Rune Weapon? The weapon summoned is a separate entity and thus has its own aggro - this means that it will not help your threat in any way, nor does it give any defenses. As a tank, you should not even consider that talent.

I said 6 points when taking into consideration the other 2 points I spent in frost (Icy Reach) to get Icy Talons. If I'm dumping Icy Talons, then for now, I'm going to dump Icy Reach. I'm left with 6 points to spend so I've listed the possibilities below in order of effectiveness, at least in my opinion. Top being the most beneficial.

Virulence
Subversion
Blood Gorged
Scent of Blood
Imp Blood Pres
Icy Reach
Icy Talons
Imp Blood Pres


Any suggestions?

Regarding your first question - if you're talking about Lordaeron, then you can play any of the specs you want, as long as you're good at them.

Yes, I'm playing on Lordaeron and I was leaning more towards Blood anyways. I tanked as frost in retail so I figured I would switch it up this time around.

[taralej]

Virulence - OK talent, less misses = more aggro, less wipes from missed taunts
Subversion - weak. That's just 9% crit on your Heart Strike.
Blood Gorged - so-so. 10% overall damage when topped + 10% ArPen, seeing as the majority of your damage comes from melee, HS, DS, and RS. I actually like this talent, which is the main reason I dip deep into Blood.
Scent of Blood - useless. You'll never starve on RP anyway, because RS is the only thing you'll ever use RP on as Blood.
Imp Blood Pres - delete your DK if you consider speccing into this. This has been acknowledged as the crappiest talent of all 3 DK specs and possibly of all classes on WotLK.
Icy Reach - OK talent. Longer range on IT makes picking adds on LDW, Vali, LK etc a lot easier.
Icy Talons - meh. By increasing your attack speed, you can get out more RS because they are "on next melee", like warriors' Heroic Strike or druids' Maul. But that's all you get for a whopping 5 talent points.
Imp Blood Pres - refer to above mention of the talent.

Yes, I'm playing on Lordaeron and I was leaning more towards Blood anyways. I tanked as frost in retail so I figured I would switch it up this time around.

Well, you could also try Unholy. Blood has one main advantage and one main disadvantage. Its advantage is that it is guaranteed to survive two consecutive boss hits because of its high passive EHP and Will of the Necropolis. From that point on, it is up to the player's skill to increase your life span through clever usage of DS, Rune Tap, Vamp Blood and other cooldowns. If you look at it like that, Blood actually seems like a pretty good choice on Lordaeron, where bosses hit very hard. Its disadvantage is exactly that - bosses hit very hard, so with Blood's low avoidance your healers will suffer if you slack on using the before mentioned abilities.

Unholy, which you haven't even mentioned so far, actually has the highest possible damage reduction from all 3 specs when played correctly. At the same time, when played incorrectly, it is the worst of the 3 specs for tanking. Thus why you almost never see Unholy tanks.

[Ruger]

Subversion - weak. That's just 9% crit on your Heart Strike.

Wouldn't a +9% crit chance to Heart Strike be beneficial or is it just that Heart Strike isn't used enough to be able to get the full benefit?

I just realized I listed Improved Blood Presence twice in my list, sorry about that.

I really appreciate your feedback and just recently found a comment of yours regarding the Blood spec that you prefer (http://wotlk.openwow.com/?talent#j0EMqI0IsbodssxhxZ0gh). I'm not sure how I missed it, but I like that spec.

At this point, I think I'm going to go ahead and leave Frost out of the discussion. So with the raids on Lordaeron and their buffs, do you feel a certain spec is better than the other between Blood and Unholy? Let's just assume that I know my stuff and play each at a high level. Although, I haven't done any research in Unholy tanking so I'll have to look up some guides to see if I would like the play style.

Again, thank you for tanking the time to help me out.

[taralej]

The thread where you found this spec probably contains a lot of other useful information. Yes, this is indeed the spec that I use on my DK. It is different than the standard Fridig Dreadplate hybrid.

Advantages: contains Death Rune Mastery for versatility, has very high threat both single- and multi-target, due to Blood Gorged and Morbidity.
Disadvantages: Icy Touch's range remains 20 yds (which can cause problems if you're OT on LK), does not have the +3% avoidance from Frigid Dreadplate.

The reason why I don't have Virulence is simply because I'm running with Glyph of Dark Command.

I feel like Unholy is the better choice for Lordaeron and I'll give you one objective and one subjective reason why. The objective reason is simply that at that gear level avoidance and EHP are more or less on par, in contrast to end-game where EHP >>>>>> avoidance, and this gives Unholy a chance to shine, since it relies a lot on avoidance for higher Bone Shield uptime. The subjective reason is, well, because Unholy is an entirely different experience - you'll have Anti-Magic Zone for your raid, you'll have to watch Bone Shield carefully in order to minimize damage taken. You'll be the underdog of your guild's tanks and all other DKs will look at you with distrust and envy, because they won't know how the hell can you tank with Unholy. And the answer is easy - focus on avoidance, keep your eye on Bone Shield, chain cooldowns to minimize damage taken.

[Ruger]

You'll be the underdog of your guild's tanks and all other DKs will look at you with distrust and envy, because they won't know how the hell can you tank with Unholy. And the answer is easy - focus on avoidance, keep your eye on Bone Shield, chain cooldowns to minimize damage taken.

Love it the way you put that haha!

So what I'm taking away from this is that actually, with the way Lordaeron's raids are, Unholy is the bets tank spec to go with in terms of survivability? What about threat? I obviously need to do some research in regards to Unholy tanking, but if you were to have a DK tank on Lordaeron for dungeons and raids, you would spec Unholy?

[taralej]

I would, yes. As for threat - AoE is no problem due to Morbidity being a staple talent pick, single-target is also not an issue as you will be doing the same or even higher threat than Blood. And then there are always rogues and hunters to help you with threat.

[Ruger]

I've got an Unholy tank spec: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EMZhxZbghcx0zxcht0ucq

Could I get some feedback on this?

Really the only thing that I could change is removing the 1 from Unholy Blight and putting it in Icy Reach.

[Bensten]

I've got an Unholy tank spec: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EMZhxZbghcx0zxcht0ucq

Could I get some feedback on this?

Really the only thing that I could change is removing the 1 from Unholy Blight and putting it in Icy Reach.

I'd go with something like this http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EMZhxZcgGhx00gf0z0uIV if you really want to pick http://wotlk.openwow.com/spell=50121

You shouldn't use SS at all so why pick it? UHB is even controversial on DPS DKs, so again no value. The only DPS talent that is really increasing your tanking potential is WP. All the other talents are useless on a DK tank.

All your specs are way to offensive if it comes to raid tanking. For UH I'd rather go a heavy blood subspec like this http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0ER...cgGhx00gf0z0uc for two reasons.
- rune tap
- DRM > Reaping

[Ruger]

You shouldn't use SS at all so why pick it?

SS is pretty strong when it comes to threat and other than disease application, SS is the best use of FU pairs. With that being said, you've got to take Outbreak.

UHB is even controversial on DPS DKs, so again no value.

This is true and I actually I couldn't decide where to put that last point. I thought about Icy Reach, Dirge, Black Ice, Wandering Plague or Dark Conviction if I didn't go Unholy Blight.

Regarding your spec, Virulence isn't strong enough to take if you're glyph Dark Command. Unholy Command is a waste of talent points as well as Ravenous Dead. You're only getting benefit out of the Strength increase but 3% isn't worth 3 talent points. Desecration doesn't really have any benefit to survivability or threat generation so no need to put 2 points in it. You're also missing out on one of the most important talents in Desoloation. 5% additional damage with all attacks. As I said before, you have to have Scourge Strike and with it comes Vicious Strikes, Outbreak and Reaping.

I'm curious as to why you think that Unholy tanks should never be using Scourge Strike.

[Bensten]

DKs threat comes from Icy Touch. And only Icy Touch. If you are using something different to generate threat you should be reading up on aggro and multipliers on 3.3.5. And for survivability it's always DS > SS.

The problem with UH is that your tanking talents come pretty late. There's nothing that provides any tank advantage other than DPS on the lower tiers.You basically have to take PVP talents.

Desecration increases your CC on AOE fights.
Unholy Command lowers the CD on Death Grip, again CC.

Desolation si completely useless on a DK tank. DK tanks don't do any dmg. Not even with SM equipped you do any damage. Why would you increase nil by 5%? Especially if these 5% cost 5 talent points.

[Yhorema]

blood is trash, frost gives more healing/survivability/utility/TPS.

long lived bethe hybrid masterrace http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0Eb...ZhgctVrhz0bfkh

[taralej]

blood is trash, frost gives more healing/survivability/utility/TPS.

long lived bethe hybrid masterrace http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0Eb...ZhgctVrhz0bfkh

Why would you even go for hybrid, if you're not picking Will of the Necropolis?

@Ruger - I tried to make a build without SS in it. This is what I came up with. Basically, I've picked Desolation because there is literally no other option at that point. Five per cent more damage is more than ten per cent more threat, so yeah. I mean, I guess you could just put those points into Ravenous Dead, Reaping, or BCB, but there is really no reason to do this. Three per cent strength for the price of 3 TPs doesn't seem like a bargain to me, Bone Shield refreshing happens through Blood Tap anyway, and BCB is an extremely low-yielding talent.

Unholy Blight is not as useless as you make it seem, Bensten. It's pretty much a flat 10% increase to Death Coil. And Wandering Plague is not exactly a great choice, seeing as you won't have more than 10-15% crit.

Anyway, the changes that I see possible in my build are switching Desolation and UB for Ravenous Dead and WP, resulting in this.