What's the best DK tank spec for OT/AOE threat??

Woah, woah, woah! I came here to look for interesting replies and maybe help a noob DK player out and what do I see?

- You don't need glyph for taunt.
- Unholy is not designed to be a tanking spec.

Holy ****ing ****...

Taunt is a spell and as such it can miss. Missing your taunt means raid deaths and possibly wipe unless whoever aggroed has a threat wipe/stall (Ice Block, Fade, Feign Dead, Vanish, Soul Shatter) and is quick enough to use it. If you're playing a tank and you seriously think that glyph of taunt is a bad/useless glyph, please tell me your in-game characters so I can blacklist them for my guild's recruitment, thank you in advance.

Unholy is capable of tanking, just like Blood and Frost. In fact, it actually has the highest EHP of all 3 specs due to Bone Shield. The reason why Blood is better than Unholy, however, is that in ICC and RS you get -20% dodge, which hurts Bone Shield uptime greatly, and in ICC you get +30% max HP and healing, which helps Blood the most out of all DK specs.

"Wait. So Blood is only better than Unholy in ICC and RS?" - Yes. Outside ICC and RS Unholy and Frost are just as good, if not even better than Blood. No, that's not my opinion - that's a fact.

"So why do people only play Blood, then?" - because it's the easiest, it can solo stuff when overgeared due to self-heals, it has Hysteria for your donor rogue/hunter, and it is the end-game spec for ICC/RS.

"Just that?" - Yep. Blood has trash AoE aggro, the lowest avoidance and the lowest mitigation from the 3 specs, and its AP aura is provided by MM hunters (compulsory for every raid) and Enh Shamans (yeah, I know Enh Shamans are a myth). So there's no other reason you'd prefer Blood, really.

The reason people moved to Blood was when they buffed Will of the Necropolis on retail.
I rather not address most of what you wrote here since it is widely inaccurate and also I don't give a damn.

Regarding Glyph of Dark Command, I didn't comment it until now, personal I rather tanks have it then not as a raid leader. But it depends on talents, gear and the encounters that tank would be facing, if missing a taunt is critical and wipe-worthy then it matters a lot, of course that as a DK it is EASY to taunt a target even without Dark Command.

The only think that strikes me is this:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by taralej

"So why do people only play Blood, then?" - because it's the easiest, it can solo stuff when overgeared due to self-heals, it has Hysteria for your donor rogue/hunter, and it is the end-game spec for ICC/RS.

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Feral or a Warrior by a milestone.

That's been my experience so far, I haven't noticed missing a Taunt, even when I'm outgeared / under-aggro'd by another tank on DBS (Nm or Hc), and I have to Taunt off of him.

With Rune Strike, Icy Touch, etc, I'm usually not even out-aggro'd, and the only times I've noticed having threat pulled from me is when the other tank Taunts by accident themselves, which I've always been able to re-gain aggro anyways...

When all my diseases are up, and I'm just burning RP down with Icy Touches, etc, I'm most often at least 60k + ahead of the other tank, even if they're BiS and on good rotations. I don't know if I've just been lucky, or if it's a combo of what's going on with Unholy (I've honestly never poured over my combat logs to check), but I really haven't had a problem ever Taunting, so I've used my Major glyph slots for things like GoD, etc instead.

Can we set up something in-game possibly (running a VoA, ToC, etc, something that isn't end-game like ICC, RS, etc) so one of you can watch what's going on with my toon?

Or point me in the direction of a combat add-on that'll log my data, so we can examine it?

I'm really, really not being boastful, naive, etc, I seriously just haven't ever had an issue with getting aggro / snapping Taunt on a boss / mob, but if I really should be using glyph of Dark Command, I want to see why, because as it stands so far, it's never been an issue, unless I get stunned or webbed or something.

GoD, Icy Touch, and DnD glyphs have seemed to always served me well, but if I can drop DnD (which seems like the one to replace if I have to pick), I just want to be sure I'm choosing the right one. Between all three of those, I really don't want to drop GoD (it always keeps my diseases on my targets, so Ebon Plaguebringer is always rolling), and it seems like Icy Touch is a must too.

Since I usually OT though, I don't want to drop DnD, because of pack mob pulls, that DnD seems to really help get me way beyond anyone else's threat outputs...

I'm at a loss here guys :(

Also, could anyone take a closer look at what gems they think I should replace? I'm really trying to make sure I've got my toon set up right, since I use this guy to tank more than dps, so I want it to be as correct as I possibly can.
As far as gear goes, until I get some Sanc tokens to upgrade my stuff, I just keep running stuff hoping for the few more upgrades I can get, but so far (like 20+ ICC 25 nm / hc and counting), I seem to kind of hit the wall as far as upgrades go (crappy luck with drops so far, it's either stuff I already have, or pieces that are better for other tank classes :( ), so I want to make sure that I've got what I have maximized as much as possible...

Help?

From what I can see, it looks like I should put these gems in these pieces, please take a look and see if I'm selecting the right ones?

Shoulders : Swap in a http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40138
Cloak : Swap in a http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40166
Chest : I can't decide between http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40138 or http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40141
Hands : Swap in a http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40166
Belt : Swap in a http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40138
My ring (Juggernaut Band) : Swap in a http://wotlk.openwow.com/item=40138

With swapping those in, I may need to switch the rune on my wep back to the tank rune, correct?

Can anyone take a look at these, and offer some suggestions, etc, to make sure I'm choosing the right gems to swap in?

I'm basing these decisions off of the info in this topic : http://forum.warmane.com/showthread....light=god-tank

Thoughts?

Blood has Will of the Necropolis that cuts all damage below 35% Hp by an extra 15%. Essentially, the last 35% of your HP is 1/0.85 = 17.6% more valuable.

In terms of EHP, this can be viewed to be an overall health multiplier of around 6.2%. So when you're using Bone Shield as your point for comparison, you're actually comparing it to Vampiric Blood + WotN. EHP-wise bone shield still has a very slight edge but the difference is close. Vampiric Blood has the neat advantage of having that +35% healing taken tacked on to it, while Bone Shield has the possibility of lasting longer thanks to lucky avoidance streaks. When all is said and done and your defensive cooldowns expire, Blood still has WotN going for it, active all the time. This is the reason for Blood's overall EHP superiority and why it's the go-to DK tank spec for the most part. Of course, Unholy has AMZ, reduced magic damage taken, and improved AMS, but those are why it's mostly a niche spec, not the primarily preferred one.

As for the taunt glyph, yeah it depends on the encounter. Depending on the fight, you might want the full 9% spell hit + glyph if not landing a taunt in time could cause a wipe. On others, it could be acceptable to run with only 6% spell hit + glyph if it's a fight where you're able to count on the fact that the spell hit DEBUFF is always active on the target. In some (like Halion), you don't taunt at all other than that the beginning. There it'd be fine to be without the glyph.

On LK, you only need 6% spell hit + glyph to guarantee taunt swaps on reapers, but I'd strongly recommend running with the full 9% + glyph for Raging Spirit pick ups, even with Icy Touch. With Death Grip being a little broken currently and not working as a full taunt it's a good crutch to have.

Yeah, Death Grip not working is definitely a pain in the ***, as far as using it to taunt.