WotLK DK tanking, Unholy, why not?

[Feralbeard]

I was thinking lately which spec should I chose to tank with DK, it is hard choice because you can tank with any spec. I am complete newbie at tanking, never done this role a lot before, but as I want to start smth new I would like to look at every pros and cons.
Most common specs I have seen are Blood, followed by Frost and Unholy I see very rarely.
So I want to make some kind of spec comparison.

Basically DK with unholy spec I chose provides:
Frigid Dreadplate[frost talent] = -3% chance to be hit by melee
Magic suppression[unholy talent] = 6%magic.red.
Arguably better anti magic shield with talent, absorb 100% but might exceed amount faster and break shield faster which is not really good.
Anti Magic zone
Bone shield 20% dmg. red. 1min cd 4 charges with glyph, internal cooldown 2 sec, so the duration will be at least 8 sec if you get hit very fast, can potentially last a lot longer.
Additional disease = Death strike heals for 15% max hp, same as Blood.

I would say this is hybrid spec, I did not go deep into Unholy to get Frigid Dreadplate. Because I want to make best possible survival spec and I do not ever have problems with aggro.

Ok, now what common Blood have:
Rune tap = 20% heal, 30 sec
Veteran = 3% stam
Vampiric Blood = 15%max hp + 35% better healing for 10 sec, 1min cd.
Necropolis = 15% reduction at or below 35% hp.

Ok, now what common Frost specs have:
-Frigid Dreadplate[frost talent] = -3% chance to be hit by melee
Improved Frost presence = 2% dmg.red.
Unbreakable armor = ~5% physical red. 20 sec, 1 min cooldown.
6sec longer Icebound Fortitude.

*I did not compared utility talents and spells, only pure survival enhancers.
In my eyes Unholy is the best = less chance to be hit by melee, flat magic reduction, 20% dmg reduction on short CD, amazing anti magic raid cooldown, same healing from DS as Blood.

What Blood have better? Rune tap? It is reactive heal, not really good because reactive actions are worse than proactive, healer might already cast a big heal on you, you pop Rune Tap and healer overheals. Bad cooldown in my opinion.
3% stam is trivial...even in ICC the actual bonus is so small, same as 2%stam runeforge.
Vampiric Blood is good CD, so do Will of the Necropolis. But are they better than Bone shield + 6% flat magic reduction and -3% to get hit by melee? You might never get below 35% in fight, and Vampiric Blood is reactive skill. Well at least in MoP as I remember from retail, proactive skill were always better.

Frost offers 2% reduction which is also trivial. +5% physical reduction which lasts 20sec, 1 min CD, while Unholy have flag 6% magic reduction. Things that kills tanks are generally magic attacks, so magic reduction is better.
The only really good thing is +6sec to Icebound.
Frost doesnt have 15% heal from DS, nor 20% reduction from Bone Shield, nor Will of the Necropolis 15% reduction below 35% HP.

Anti Magic Zone is just too epic and only Unholy have it.

So why the hell there are so few Unholy tanks?
Really ppl think that stamina is everything, you will drop some good stuff for 3% stamina bonus? Why?
What do you think, are Unholy good tanks? Are DKs in general good tanks?
I think the biggest letdown for DK is lack of block mechanic, while Warriors and Paladins have block, Druids have Savage Defense, DK equivalent is Death Strike heals. DS heals are good but it is reactive more likely healers will overheal you anyway after you DS, proactive mechanics are always better for soaking damage.
DK have also best passive reductions and best avoidance but are they really comparable to block mechanics? Warrior can block for like 2k, crit block for 3k+, paladin like 2.5k, dont know about druid, probably like 3-4k. And they will block almost every attack. That is a lot. I think even with perfecly timed DS, block mechanics are better, especially on adds...there is no doubt about that.
Back to topic, why not Unholy? Why DK at all?

[jendah]

ICC/RS 20% dodge debuff(Halion has a buff, that lets him to ignore 20% of targets dodge chance). -> Unholy relies on avoidance the most of all tanks and therefore suffers from this far worse, than others.

So unholy is working great outside icc/rs. He is just in a worse situation than others inside icc/ruby (unless niche fights like tanking keleseth,... shadow realm rs is not bad either). You can still pull it out though.

[Feralbeard]

ICC/RS 20% dodge debuff(Halion has a buff, that lets him to ignore 20% of targets dodge chance). -> Unholy relies on avoidance the most of all tanks and therefore suffers from this far worse, than others.

So unholy is working great outside icc/rs. He is just in a worse situation than others inside icc/ruby (unless niche fights like tanking keleseth,... shadow realm rs is not bad either). You can still pull it out though.

I dont get it. The difference between specs are Key talents - Vampiric Blood,Rune Tap, Will of Necropolis, Unbreakable Armor, Bone Shield, AMZ.
How is that Bone Shield,flat magic reduction and AMZ are worse? Will of the Necropolis is somewhat similar to Bone Shield, but in my opinion Bone Shield is superior because you can use it when you need it, and there can be fights where you barely drop below 35% HP, Bone Shield actually gives more reduction, overall you should get more dmg reduction benefit from Bone Shield over encounter. Vampiric Blood vs AMZ and flat 6% magic reduction, hard to compare, both are good, Vampiric for physical fights, AMZ and 6% reduction for magic obviously.
Frost have 2% flat reduction and ~5% physical reduction from Unbreakable armor and 6 sec longer fortitude VS 20% from Bone Shield, 6% magic reduction and AMZ. Frost have worst heals from Death Strike. Frost might be better at physical fights, but well timed Bone Shield can be just as good + Unholy is 100% better at magic fight.
Tanks should not die to auto attacks, tank killers are mostly magical attacks, I just fail to see why Unholy is worse, why it relies on avoidance more, they have Unholy shield which can last pretty long and have low CD.

[taralej]

You're not looking at it from the correct point of view, mate.

Unholy indeed offers the best damage mitigation IF YOU ARE ABLE to use its tools correctly. Otherwise its damage mitigation is as bad as Blood's. It sports very solid AoE threat, and single-target magic reduction from Magic Suppression & AoE in the face of AMZ.

Frost is the best rounded, it doesn't require as much interaction on the part of the player, it has decent mitigation, solid single-target and AoE threat, and higher EHP than Unholy.

Blood requires the least interaction on the part of the player - you do most of the stuff just by doing your normal rotation and the spells are easy to use and not requiring you to break your rotation. It is the spec with the highest EHP. Its self-heals are %max HP, which means they also automatically scale with EHP. It also contains talents & spells, which strongly favor EHP (Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap, Will of the Necropolis).

Now, to your question. Unholy is not bad. It's actually the best from the 3 specs outside ICC, again, IF YOU CAN USE IT CORRECTLY. The 20% damage reduction from Bone Shield is MASSIVE. The problem is that you need high avoidance to make it worth, increasing its uptime. WotLK, unlike TBC and vanilla, is not an avoidance-expansion. It's about EHP, ESPECIALLY in ICC. ICC's buff and debuff both kick Unholy away from the scene and invite Blood with a round of applause. If you want to raid as Unholy before ICC - sure, go ahead. But Blood's kit solidifies it as the spec of choice as far as ICC is concerned.

So if we're talking about Lordaeron - you can go ahead and tank with Unholy until ICC is released. But if we're talking about the other realms - don't play around and just go Blood, the other raids don't matter there anyway.

[jendah]

I dont get it. The difference between specs are Key talents - Vampiric Blood,Rune Tap, Will of Necropolis, Unbreakable Armor, Bone Shield, AMZ.
How is that Bone Shield,flat magic reduction and AMZ are worse? Will of the Necropolis is somewhat similar to Bone Shield, but in my opinion Bone Shield is superior because you can use it when you need it, and there can be fights where you barely drop below 35% HP, Bone Shield actually gives more reduction, overall you should get more dmg reduction benefit from Bone Shield over encounter. Vampiric Blood vs AMZ and flat 6% magic reduction, hard to compare, both are good, Vampiric for physical fights, AMZ and 6% reduction for magic obviously.
Frost have 2% flat reduction and ~5% physical reduction from Unbreakable armor and 6 sec longer fortitude VS 20% from Bone Shield, 6% magic reduction and AMZ. Frost have worst heals from Death Strike. Frost might be better at physical fights, but well timed Bone Shield can be just as good + Unholy is 100% better at magic fight.
Tanks should not die to auto attacks, tank killers are mostly magical attacks, I just fail to see why Unholy is worse, why it relies on avoidance more, they have Unholy shield which can last pretty long and have low CD.

95% of tank dmg taken @lk are autos - I dare to say that tank is wery unlikely to die to spell dmg there - same goes for halion majority of dmg taken is physical (in shadow realm, there same physical dmg + extra load of magic dmg, so unholy is good there). Problem with dodge debuff is that it makes bone shield way less effective. Other dk specs have more stamina (+30% icc buff). Those all factors in combination are enough to sway it out of unholy dks favor. (again talking about icc/rs)

As I said before You can still do it with unholy, others have it easier though.

[Lynea]

WotLK, unlike TBC and vanilla, is not an avoidance-expansion. It's about EHP, ESPECIALLY in ICC. ICC's buff and debuff both kick Unholy away from the scene and invite Blood with a round of applause.

That's not entirely true. While it applies to ICC and RS, and to a lesser extent ToC, avoidance is a very important tanking build for a number of encounters in both Naxxramas and Ulduar. Especially after the way Warmane is buffing some encounters. Patchwerk, for example, is fully capable of 2-shotting tanks who are geared for that content. Avoidance is also extremely important for the Iron Council, Thorim, and even Algalon.

So if we're talking about Lordaeron - you can go ahead and tank with Unholy until ICC is released. But if we're talking about the other realms - don't play around and just go Blood, the other raids don't matter there anyway.

I've Unholy tanked ICC and RS a fair number of times (including plenty LK and Halion kills in the process). I would never suggest that someone go play the strongest class in lieu of something else they may enjoy more. One should remember that this is a game and what is fun is most important. Unholy tanking in ICC and RS is completely viable -- I would argue that even moreso than a Prot Warrior (unfortunately for warriors). Especially in a group where the buffs an Unholy DK provides is sorely needed.

[Selaya]

95% of tank dmg taken @lk are autos - I dare to say that tank is wery unlikely to die to spell dmg there

[ .. ]

Soul Reaper

[jendah]

Soul Reaper

Ye, that is an important one. But it does heavy physical dmg (instant part) and only a weak magic dot in comparrison. + increases LKs AS.

[taralej]

Soul Reaper is the reason why tanks switch on LK. And even if they don't, a DK can just AMS it.

@Lynea - yes, yes... we know, mate. I've also seen ppl tanking Marrow with an Enh Shaman. The fact is that Blood is significantly better than Frost and Unholy in ICC. It's just how the spec works, it's just how ICC works, it's just how WotLK works. If he wants to have fun, then he'll play whatever he wants - even if that's an Unh/Frost dual-wield hybrid tank spec. If he wants to perform to the max, he'll pick Blood into ICC.

[Lynea]

@Lynea - yes, yes... we know, mate. I've also seen ppl tanking Marrow with an Enh Shaman. The fact is that Blood is significantly better than Frost and Unholy in ICC. It's just how the spec works, it's just how ICC works, it's just how WotLK works. If he wants to have fun, then he'll play whatever he wants - even if that's an Unh/Frost dual-wield hybrid tank spec. If he wants to perform to the max, he'll pick Blood into ICC.

You don't have to be snide, and comparing an Enhancement Shaman tanking to an Unholy DK is by far and away an extremely unfair comparison.
Especially when you speak about max performance. An Unholy DK can make much more of a difference than a Blood DK in terms of the raid as a whole.
And no, the difference isn't nearly as abysmal as you make it out to be.

[Drakantas]

Soul Reaper is the reason why tanks switch on LK. And even if they don't, a DK can just AMS it.

@Lynea - yes, yes... we know, mate. I've also seen ppl tanking Marrow with an Enh Shaman. The fact is that Blood is significantly better than Frost and Unholy in ICC. It's just how the spec works, it's just how ICC works, it's just how WotLK works. If he wants to have fun, then he'll play whatever he wants - even if that's an Unh/Frost dual-wield hybrid tank spec. If he wants to perform to the max, he'll pick Blood into ICC.

If you think that you get the best performance for ICC as blood you're wrong. Each of these 3 specs will perform better according to the situation, and from my experience doing endgame raids I can say that Frost will outperform Blood when it comes to endgame fights (LK & Halion), there are also those blood-frost hybrids which are quite uncommon as having frost tanks, but at the end I can say for sure that these could outperform a Blood DK.

As you've said, blood has a really bad dmg mitigation and it's true, but they have insane self-heals. But when it comes to endgame fights, I'd put damage mitigation before self-heals (Which you can still have as Frost or Unholy, just not as crazy as Blood's), it's because when you're doing endgame fights your healers will most-likely be overhealing you and that results in you either overhealing (Useless self heals) or your healers overhealing because you got your self-heals.

At the end of the day, it's just that certain classes work better for certain encounters. But my favorites for endgame raids are: Blood-frost hybrid and Frost.

[taralej]

@Lynea - it's big enough to make Blood better than Frost & Unholy.

@Drakantas - that's why you time your Death Strikes and cooldowns.

So Unholy and Frost can be better on fights like BPC and the sorts? Cool, but we're talking about the overall winner here. The spec which is most heavily influenced by the tank climate for the expansion and by the raid's specifics. And that's Blood. I'm a guy who's all about min-maxing, you guys are all about "but it's possible", especially you Lynea - I know you well enough for all these years (I don't know the other guy). We're just talking on completely different levels here. Blood > the other two specs. Yes, it's possible to tank ICC and RS with them, but Blood is just better. I have tanked with both Frost and Unholy many many times, seriously. Yes, they're fun, they're strong, they have their place, but they're just not better than Blood in ICC. Blame Blizzard for that, not me...

That's like arguing Warrior PvE Arms vs Fury. Of course Arms is viable and has its niche place, but Fury is just better in end-game, no matter what you do.

[Drakantas]

@Lynea - it's big enough to make Blood better than Frost & Unholy.

@Drakantas - that's why you time your Death Strikes and cooldowns.

So Unholy and Frost can be better on fights like BPC and the sorts? Cool, but we're talking about the overall winner here. The spec which is most heavily influenced by the tank climate for the expansion and by the raid's specifics. And that's Blood. I'm a guy who's all about min-maxing, you guys are all about "but it's possible", especially you Lynea - I know you well enough for all these years (I don't know the other guy). We're just talking on completely different levels here. Blood > the other two specs. Yes, it's possible to tank ICC and RS with them, but Blood is just better. I have tanked with both Frost and Unholy many many times, seriously. Yes, they're fun, they're strong, they have their place, but they're just not better than Blood in ICC. Blame Blizzard for that, not me...

That's like arguing Warrior PvE Arms vs Fury. Of course Arms is viable and has its niche place, but Fury is just better in end-game, no matter what you do.

What? lol. Frost is way better when it comes to endgame content (LK & Halion), why? Better aggro, Frost can and will always be a better OT than Blood, and when it comes to Main Tanking (Which is kinda rare to see but happens) it'll also be able to mitigate LK/Halion attacks/spells better than what a Blood Tank "timing" his abilities does. Blood at the end of the day is paper when we talk about LK & Halion, at this point it's just my opinion and if you've experienced endgame fights as frost or hybrid you'll agree with me.
You're just saying a bunch of comments from yourself that you try to make sound as arguments with no proof, I am also giving my opinion but I'm just leaving it there as a possibility just because I have nothing to prove myself right, if you do have something to prove yourself right then bring it.
Stop talking about other classes with completely different examples just so your reply sounds "legit".

To be honest, I don't think you have enough endgame experience like to say Blood is better than Frost/Frost-Blood-Hybrid/Blood-Frost-Hybrid. Timing self-heals isn't the issue, as I've said those timings end up most of the times becoming overhealing for the tank or the healers, and we're not here to overheal but to do a proper job. Each ability makes use of runes (which have a CD) and you also have CDs which you have to arrange so the boss doesn't 1shot you or makes healing quite intense, but at the end of the day those CDs don't last those 15minutes LK fight, that's why sometimes tanks have to switch targets, but blood dks become a 10-seconds tank for lk's 2nd&3rd phase because of it's lack of damage mitigation, self-heals my ***, they feel like paper. What about halion? Corporeality goes a bit high and he's dead, you'll have burned all of your CDs before that moment comes (when corporeability starts growing), and it won't be a healers' issue but tank's. So at this point you'll only want to have this bloodDK as off-tank but even then you'll prefer having a FrostDK because of aggro and better mitigation.

TL;DR; Remember that Frost/Unholy DKs can also use Death Strike.

[taralej]

The only real mitigation which a Frost DK has better than Blood is Imp Frost Presence's 2%. Are you serious? Or are you going to tell me that the 3% avoidance from Frigid Dreadplate, the 6 extra seconds on IBF, and the armor gain from Unbreakable Armor are better than Veteran of the Third War, Rune Tap, Vampiric Blood, Will of the Necropolis, and the improved heals from DS? Heck, even if you don't use DS at all, Blood still has better overall tank tools than Frost. Will of the Necropolis and Vampiric Blood are massive and are the main reason why Blood is so strong inside ICC. They're what makes Blood the only spec which can't be 2-shotted from all the three specs (not counting UDKs w/ Bone Shield up, obviously). You've got Rune Tap on a 30sec CD, Vampiric Blood on 1min CD, (IBF on 2min CD, AMS on 45sec CD, Death Pact on 2min CD) and on top of it all - you've got WotN making sure you can't get *****slapped to the ground. Vamp Blood and WotN are just that good. And EHP is just that good on WotLK, and Blood just so happens to have the highest amount of it. Frost is close, yes, but not quite there. And Unholy I'm not even mentioning because of how hard Bone Shield loses to the ICC debuff. That's all, really. That's not just my opinions here, mate. As I said before, blame Blizzard for this... Even they admitted this and turned Blood into the only tank-able spec from Cata onward, but I guess you'll say that's another irrelevant commentary.

And since when is threat a problem for a BDK, in case most of my damage comes from Rune Strike? It sure never has been for me. The only issues I've ever had with threat have been from FDKs without Subversion, Hunters who don't use MD, and BiS Mages at the start of the fight.

I respect your choice and it sure is more fun tanking as Frost, hybrid or honestly any other spec than it is with Blood - I know because I play DKs since Day 1 of their release. But still that's just your choice. For example, I tanked w/ 2H Frost until ToC was released and Threat of Thassarian arrived. You can rest assured I'll tank as Unh on Lord for a long time because it's just so much fun and it's so effective when used correctly. But you can also rest assured that I'll respec to Blood the moment ICC is released there. As I said, I value performance above all in WoW.