Frost, or just go blood?

[Scribbly]

So I know the for survivability blood is way better. However their threat is pretty **** in my opinion, especially AOE threat. And well I enjoy frost more, I have not raided as DK since early WoTLK (only did Naxx, didn't like the x-pack at the time). I havn't even set my foot inside a HC dungeon yet.
So my question is, should I just get used to blood DK threat being as it is, or can I play frost DK and still be as good as blood? Like is it only for specific fights that blood is way better like for example Sapphiron?

This is on Lordaeron btw, so more focused around the earlier raids. Just exclude ICC and the gear from your argument.

[Kemii]

Never had a single issue with threat as Blood. Diseases (Icy Touch first then Plague Strike) > Pestilence > Death and Decay > Heart Strike/Blood Boil.

[Scribbly]

Never had a single issue with threat as Blood. Diseases (Icy Touch first then Plague Strike) > Pestilence > Death and Decay > Heart Strike/Blood Boil.

Care to provide some proof or you're just a fanboy that can't accept that fact that your class has flaws?

[slymania1]

yo i dont know the dude, but he has a point; most of the time D&D is enough to keep aggro on a whole group of mobs.
This being said, if DPS outgears you, you'll be having trouble as a tank, no matter if you're frost, blood, warr, pala or druid.

Frost tanking is great for 5mans/heroics and i think alright for naxx as well.

[Kemii]

Care to provide some proof or you're just a fanboy that can't accept that fact that your class has flaws?

I've been a DK for 4 expansions atm, Wrath > WOD.
I don't main Blood, so no I'm not fanboying anything except the fact I know my damn class like the back of my hand. You can see I'm the author of 5 DK guides here (Cata Blood Tanking, Cata Frost PvP, Cata Frost PvE, MOP Frost PvE, MOP Unholy PvP) and when/if the time comes for WOD here you'll get 3+ more off me.

Threat is easily managed with a combination of high damage and correct usage of high threat abilities. Icy Touch causing one of the highest threat per ability (Ruin Strike being the highest) is used on the opener to get instant threat as well as applying your Frost Fever, into a Plague Strike to give you both your diseases for both all your abilities to deal more damage (and in turn threat), spreading this with pestilence if there is AOE tanking required to allow your Heart Strike to do more damage too on secondary targets. Now you have threat of everything, and should do unless someone goes yolo deeps on something straight off the bat. From now on it's a case of using Icy Touch if you notice your threat dropping, or to refresh Frost Fever, Plague Strike for Blood Fever and then a combination of Heart Strike and Death Strike for sustained threat/healing and Ruin Strike to dump both Runic Power and to gain serious threat.

If after this you still have threat issues then it's down to you as a player. There is nothing wrong with Dk threat.

[Scribbly]

I've been a DK for 4 expansions atm, Wrath > WOD.
I don't main Blood, so no I'm not fanboying anything except the fact I know my damn class like the back of my hand. You can see I'm the author of 5 DK guides here (Cata Blood Tanking, Cata Frost PvP, Cata Frost PvE, MOP Frost PvE, MOP Unholy PvP) and when/if the time comes for WOD here you'll get 3+ more off me.

Threat is easily managed with a combination of high damage and correct usage of high threat abilities. Icy Touch causing one of the highest threat per ability (Ruin Strike being the highest) is used on the opener to get instant threat as well as applying your Frost Fever, into a Plague Strike to give you both your diseases for both all your abilities to deal more damage (and in turn threat), spreading this with pestilence if there is AOE tanking required to allow your Heart Strike to do more damage too on secondary targets. Now you have threat of everything, and should do unless someone goes yolo deeps on something straight off the bat. From now on it's a case of using Icy Touch if you notice your threat dropping, or to refresh Frost Fever, Plague Strike for Blood Fever and then a combination of Heart Strike and Death Strike for sustained threat/healing and Ruin Strike to dump both Runic Power and to gain serious threat.

If after this you still have threat issues then it's down to you as a player. There is nothing wrong with Dk threat.

I just find it very interesting when if you look through archive, youtube, guides etc there's talk about that blood lack AOE threat. Especially vs other tanks or just frost DK.

But disregarding threat. Survivability, does a frost DK lack too much compared to blood? While progressing that is.

[jendah]

I just find it very interesting when if you look through archive, youtube, guides etc there's talk about that blood lack AOE threat. Especially vs other tanks or just frost DK.

But disregarding threat. Survivability, does a frost DK lack too much compared to blood? While progressing that is.

I would say that frost is even better @early wotlk. Blood benefits a lot from icc hp and healing buff, while frost (and especially unholy) suffer way more from dodge debuff - that is main reason why blood is mostly prefered. Frost takes less dmg, and heals less, thats pretty much all the difference. I would pref frost @sapphiron because acclimation is just op on constant magic dmg fights.

That being said best approach to progression is to experiment (unholy has also a lot to offer).

[mosat3]

Well, maybe its said somewhere that blood has bad aoe threat, but as Kemii said, DnD + diseases are enough for it.

And about survivability, frost DK is a tank that has just 2 def CDs which are UA and IBF. Although blood doesn't have more CDs than frost does, he has those big self heals.

If you wanna raid, I don't recommend you rolling frost, he just doesn't have enough mitigation and with these buffed raids it is even worse. Bosses hit very hard and every self heal is big +

[zerf]

First of all - both specs are viable at this gear level and each of them has their place. I have both specs at the same time in naxx and regularly swap between them depending on the situation. For heroics I would almost exclusively use frost, it's not even contest there (unless vs boss with a bad group that will probably die and I'll have to solo).

For naxx, I typically use blood for long fights where tanks don't have to take turns taking boss and I can make use of healing (4HM, Heigan - rune tap is amazing after dispell). On most other however bosses I use frost, since I'm either on adds (Howling Blast is amazing, KM amplifies it even more) or there's magic damage involved or have to rotate cooldowns with other tank.

There's lot of misinformation going around regarding blood vs frost (probably because situation changes with better gear), first, compare passive defenses you get from talents (using typical builds):

Frost:
* 10% dmg reduction Frost presence + 5% blade barrier
* + 3% miss chance
* Good magic dmg reduction - Acclimation (very useful on multiple naxx boses)

Blood:
* 8% dmg reduction Frost presence + 5% blade barrier
* +3% stamina
* Will of Necropolis
* Weak magic dmg reduction - Spell deflection (doesn't work on AoE, low parry % in naxx gear = almost useless talent atm)

As you can see, outside will of necropolis safeguard, frost tank will simply take less damage in all situations (passively), especially on fights with magic dmg.

Then compare active defenses (that differ):
Frost:
* 2min cd -18 sec duration - Icebound Fortitude
* 1min cd +30% armor, 20sec - Unbreakable Armor (glyphed)
* 1min AoE freeze - Hungering Hold (very situational)
* 4k hp Death Strike (assuming 40k hp, typical for geared naxx tank)

Blood:
* 2min cd - 12 sec duration - Icebound Fortitude
* 1min cd - 15 sec - Vampiric blood (glyphed)
* 3min cd - Mark of Blood (~1,6k heal on each hit)
* 30sec cd - Rune Tap - heals 9093,26 glyphed, 8266hp without glyph (assuming same gear as frost, with +3% hp = 41,3k hp)
* 6,2k hp Death Strike (assuming same gear as frost, with +3% hp = 41,3k hp)

Frost is better at short phases of high incoming physical damage (let's say, stacking up enough adds to aoe). UA is amazing for tank swaps aswell.
Blood is better at prolonged fights with less predictable incoming damage, if you can make use of healing. Rune tap is amazing, Death Strike is great, however with current HP pools, it's difficult to squeeze in effective heals. Plus, sometimes you can't even heal when you need it the most, like on Maexxna, Loatheb.

[dabozz]

I just find it very interesting when if you look through archive, youtube, guides etc there's talk about that blood lack AOE threat. Especially vs other tanks or just frost DK.

Yes, perhaps, but those archives or youtube videos do not exactly rank the aoe capability of a blood dk. Perhaps they may have lesser aoe threat capability does not mean that the class is totally flawed and that you will lose aggro on every single adds and can get away with blaming the flaw in the class itself, perhaps a frost dk could do it better than a similarly experienced blood dk, and good blood dks can and certainly do better than "average" [Insert any other class/spec tank here] tank.

[Scribbly]

Yes, perhaps, but those archives or youtube videos do not exactly rank the aoe capability of a blood dk. Perhaps they may have lesser aoe threat capability does not mean that the class is totally flawed and that you will lose aggro on every single adds and can get away with blaming the flaw in the class itself, perhaps a frost dk could do it better than a similarly experienced blood dk, and good blood dks can and certainly do better than "average" [Insert any other class/spec tank here] tank.

That's now what I said though, now you're just trying to stir up hate. Stop lying and read the thread again.

[Scribbly]

First of all - both specs are viable at this gear level and each of them has their place. I have both specs at the same time in naxx and regularly swap between them depending on the situation. For heroics I would almost exclusively use frost, it's not even contest there (unless vs boss with a bad group that will probably die and I'll have to solo).

For naxx, I typically use blood for long fights where tanks don't have to take turns taking boss and I can make use of healing (4HM, Heigan - rune tap is amazing after dispell). On most other however bosses I use frost, since I'm either on adds (Howling Blast is amazing, KM amplifies it even more) or there's magic damage involved or have to rotate cooldowns with other tank.

There's lot of misinformation going around regarding blood vs frost (probably because situation changes with better gear), first, compare passive defenses you get from talents (using typical builds):

Frost:
* 10% dmg reduction Frost presence + 5% blade barrier
* + 3% miss chance
* Good magic dmg reduction - Acclimation (very useful on multiple naxx boses)

Blood:
* 8% dmg reduction Frost presence + 5% blade barrier
* +3% stamina
* Will of Necropolis
* Weak magic dmg reduction - Spell deflection (doesn't work on AoE, low parry % in naxx gear = almost useless talent atm)

As you can see, outside will of necropolis safeguard, frost tank will simply take less damage in all situations (passively), especially on fights with magic dmg.

Then compare active defenses (that differ):
Frost:
* 2min cd -18 sec duration - Icebound Fortitude
* 1min cd +30% armor, 20sec - Unbreakable Armor (glyphed)
* 1min AoE freeze - Hungering Hold (very situational)
* 4k hp Death Strike (assuming 40k hp, typical for geared naxx tank)

Blood:
* 2min cd - 12 sec duration - Icebound Fortitude
* 1min cd - 15 sec - Vampiric blood (glyphed)
* 3min cd - Mark of Blood (~1,6k heal on each hit)
* 30sec cd - Rune Tap - heals 9093,26 glyphed, 8266hp without glyph (assuming same gear as frost, with +3% hp = 41,3k hp)
* 6,2k hp Death Strike (assuming same gear as frost, with +3% hp = 41,3k hp)

Frost is better at short phases of high incoming physical damage (let's say, stacking up enough adds to aoe). UA is amazing for tank swaps aswell.
Blood is better at prolonged fights with less predictable incoming damage, if you can make use of healing. Rune tap is amazing, Death Strike is great, however with current HP pools, it's difficult to squeeze in effective heals. Plus, sometimes you can't even heal when you need it the most, like on Maexxna, Loatheb.

This is the kind of answer I was looking for, someone who can actualy discuss and look at the class instead off getting their panties wet about one word. Thanks.

[zerf]

As for specs, for Frost i suggest using something like this: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EZhxexV0Iz0zfuuAo0x
Add Glyph of Unbreakable armor, Glyph of Dark Command (4HM says hi). As for third glyph, depends on what you need, I usually roll with Glyph of Howling Blast for easier add handling.

Notes:
- 5 points in KM is probably too much, you can take Endless Winter if you need to interrupt spells often (good for heroics and raid trash)
- Bladed armor = free ~700AP
- If you're kiting something, consider Chilblains
- I don't see any reason to go Obliterate subspec atm, unless you really need to squeeze out more single target dps
- Hungering Cold is very situational, however is there really anything more useful that you can get for 1 point? You can make use of this talent on all fights where you're tanking adds that take no damage for a while (Sartharion adds, Gluth if you're kiting, Grobbulus oozes, Noth adds, etc)


For blood, i suggest something like this: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0EMqI0IsbodssxhxZ0gh
Add Glyph of Vampiric Blood, Glyph of Dark Command. Third one situational (Glyph of Rune tap, Glyph of Death Strike, etc)

Notes:
- You can drop 3 points out of Unholy (Morbidity) if you don't have to deal with adds, however there's nothing really that useful to pick up (Lichborne perhaps?)

[Kemii]

This is the kind of answer I was looking for, someone who can actualy discuss and look at the class instead off getting their panties wet about one word. Thanks.

You asked about Threat... So I gave you an answer in good detail, about managing threat.

You didnt ask about the actual class defensive mechanics.

[iMidgardz]

Is possible to tank with Unholy spec ?