@Megaginho
U can keep living in ur own reality where u are a god of this game. U are not. Sorry.
Il just show u this and stop arguing with u cos i have no intention to argue with a wall of cringe.
Vampiric Blood. Will of the Necropolis. Spell Deflection. Improved Rune Tap. Veteran of the Third War. Improved Death Strike. Abomination's Might. Hysteria. + Frigid Dreadplate. Improved Icy Talons. Glacier Rot and Killing Machine for HUGE amount of aggro.
VS
Bone Shield. Magic Suppression. Anty Magic Zone. Ebon Plaguebringer. Anticipation.
Glad to know that u have ton of DK tank expirience on every spec there is. And GL mitigating dmg once u lose Bone Shield to bad RNG.
Oh most importantly... Fun fact: WARMANE IS NOT RETAIL! (22 vs 26 expertise cap, Halion INSTANTLY cleaving after Breath, and so so so on...) unless u have 8 years of graphics on how things work on this new warmane core, pls stfu about that thing. tyvm.
And it proly never will be same as retail which is not a bad thing in the end.
@Mercy
Going more avoidance in order to keep Bone Shield up longer is also RNG. U can have 99% chance not to get one shoted, if that 1% happens, rip, wipe.
If u stack up stamina and armor, as blood u basicly remove the RNG factor and u rely on ur own skill with more defencive CDs.
Every time i tank RS 25m hc i know that i have to save runes for both Death Strike and Rune Tap before and after the breath. Cos if im not on 100% hp when it happens i may die, if i dont do Death Strike or Rune Tap after breath and healers cant heal me i may die. Only thing i rotate is Sindra Trinket and 4/5 Blood Tap on cutters to give healers a little break while they move. Other than that i dont use any other defencive CD, unless corporeality goes up and boss starts dealing more dmg. I never drop less than 10-20% HP if corporeality is normal. Both tanking inside and outside.
Icy Touch with Killing Machine and Glacier Rot is just such huge aggro machine u wont even need a single MD, EVER.
Also if u are suposed to tank Phisical realm have in mind that u have to tank both boss and the inferno (big add), which will make u lose stacks on Bone Shield more often. If u are suposed to tank shadowrealm blood is again better cos u bring 10% atk power and 20% haste to the table, since hunters ussualy are not inside on that boss. Also, u wont always have hunters and fdks in RDF or 10m raids.
I will agree that Bone Shiel is OP, thats why when i love playing Unholy DK dps even tho its boring as ****. U are an easy 3rd tank and there is almost nothing that can kill u from aoe dmg in raids (things such as sindra 25m hc bombs are not included). But once u lose that Bone Shield u have nothing left. As blood frost hybrid there are more options for u to take, talent wise, since most of defencive passives and abilities are in top or midle of Blood and Frost tree while with unholy u have to go way deep for couple of them. Which u can see with ur Imp. Icy Talons spec where u cant even 5/5 Blade Barier.
Unholy from my point of view is maybe better for RDF, mainly cos of huge aoe aggro compared to blood, since blood dk is just pure crap when it comes to that. In RS its better as the 3rd tank for the little adds, if there is no UHDK, cos u buff the magic dmg done on little adds with plagubringer aswell. But when it comes to tanking a single boss with 1-2 more posible targets u might have to take, BloodFrost hybrid beats any spec and any other tank in the game.
@Everyoneelse
Where are dem god damn unholy tank specs?
-
Wind of Northrend
-
Member
I guess all tanks that run blood spec is untalented by nature according to you.
Blood doesn't just rely on death strikes for survival, they actually have a bunch of cd's they CAN rely on.
Gl getting caught with ur pants down when ur bone shield drops against a strong hitter or single target spell.
-
Member
I am having some trouble replying to the forums while being logged in so that's why i haven't replied.
My question has been answered and i am satisfied. Thank you,Mercy once again for putting amazing information on yet another death knight thread and explaining me directly things that i want to hear. For all the others and Mercy as well thank you for taking your time and putting your thoughts on the subject.
-
Field Medic Moderator
It's not at all cut and dry like that, like you two are making it out to be. You both just look silly now.
I'm glad I could help.
-
Wind of Northrend
Starting from page 1 boysss:
Yeah, they're all viable, but are worse or better, depending on your skill level and, to some extent, gear.
I'd say blood is the most difficult spec to properly play out of all 3 since you don't get as many passive damage reduction talents but what you get is insanely good self-healing and some defensive abilities which take you knowing your limits into consideration (WotN/Rune Tap).
Frost is the most generic tank spec out of all 3 and it is extremely good for new players. It has tools to reduce damage taken passively at all times (Improved Frost Presence, Acclimation) while having insanely high threat numbers+longer defensives.
UH is also okay for new players but it isn't as good as frost on this patch anymore. Managing Bone Shield in ICC/RS is much harder since it usually lasts for just a little while, but you do have AMZ (useful for 1 damaging spell absorption) and better magic damage mitigation via AMS (I'd argue that frost still has better passive spell damage mitigation due to potentially getting up to 150 bonus resistance of specific school).
Poor comparison, only 1 raid and it's RS - a raid where Corporeality can literally mess up stats in a matter of seconds. If you want to show stats which are actually reliable, do it on a boss which has consistent damage and it doesn't get increased in any way during the fight (Lord Marrowgar in ICC for example).
Lichborne is irrelevant when it comes to the very end-game of Wrath. Death Coil healing is not going to save you from that 15-40k hit (depending on boss). The ability itself is only useful up to ToGC patch. Anything after that, Lichborne is more of a bait for RP since it eats at least 20 RP (with glyph) and has a decently long GCD when in frost presence.
Desecration is a whole different story and is in fact useful for certain PVE encounters like Jaraxxus, Champions, Anub'arak, LDW, DBS, VDW, LK, General Zarithrian, Halion hc.
Shamblings can no longer be slowed nor frozen with Hungering Cold. They can still be stunned, which is why I'd recommend paladin, protection warrior over DK or druid on SR at this point.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My own recommendations would be:
If you're new to this class in general, play Frost tank. Insane threat numbers+somewhat typical tank spec with good defensive abilities uptime and also doesn't require you to manage your defensives too much.
If you're not new to this game but still trying to learn, stick with Frost for your main raids and start slowly experimenting with Blood/UH specs. Only by doing your own research and applying your own mechanics to a certain spec can you learn what's the best for you.
If you're a high tier end-game raider, you should already know what spec is by far the best for you and why.
I strongly advise against going Blood or Unholy if you're a new player who doesn't know much about the raid+class mechanics. These specs, while they might seem strong, are only actually good when you understand at least the very basics of the encounter you're doing and the way this world works in general. Blood, much like Unholy, relies on good timing of defensive abilities which is why it is much more complex for newbies to pick up.
-
Member
in the end-game content of 3.3.5 ( ICC and RS) Blood is not only the strongest tank spec for dk, but also is easiest.
Frost DW is a hipster build
Frost 2h is just trash, even u can do the same even without speccing into talents at all lol.
UH dk is unviable comparing to Blood cuz of "Chill of the Throne" and "Twillight precision" aren't helping with maintaining Bone shield, u know.
but outside of that end-game content, UH is the way to go - u wont find any better dk tank spec for doing some Ulduar/Togc/Naxx achieve runs
-
Member
Actually a 2h frost dk would be an extremely good counter versus halion's inside realm and sindragosa due to the high armor + passive magic resistance + less parry-hasting (if it works).
-
Field Medic Moderator
Then all I can say is that I understand his point even less now.
I agree and disagree at the same time. Throwing someone under the bus, putting them under pressure, can have valuable results. This doesn't work for everyone, naturally, but if the person is up for it - it can be a rewarding experience. However, Frost is still stronger, in my opinion, than the other specs at entry level.
On the point of magic mitigation, Frost is definitely effective when the damage is constant. Examples being Sindragosa and Prince Keleseth. However, I would argue that Unholy's magic mitigation is better for Lich King because Soul Reaper isn't constant damage. This is just another example of why I say that X spec is "best" for Y boss, but not Z boss. This is not to say that Unholy is universally better on Lich King than Frost is - that is just the case for the spell damage portion of that specific mechanic. I'm not trying to make a broader generalization, but more a precise point.
Tank talents and specs should be organized and built around their specific role in encounters, and their raid groups and compositions. However, while that was a thing on live, that is very very rarely the case on here. If someone is truly committed to the tanking role, then I would suggest that they use two tank specs, of which they can alternate between bosses as necessary. If not, then that's fine. That's how most people roll nowadays anyway.
-
Wind of Northrend
It's very hard to tell whether blood is the strongest tank spec for dk when it comes to RS, but I agree that blood definitely has a much easier time in ICC for the majority of the fights. I think that right now because of breath+melee hit, frost is a much safer and more reliable spec for Halion tanking.
Let me expand this thought on why I think blood spec is better than frost for most of the ICCs people run through. As we all know, frost relies much more on other healers rather than self-healing while blood has insanely powerful self-healing tools+Vampiric Blood to increase that power further on. The problem with most runs is that players are not extremely good (the average player doesn't want to go too much into depth when it comes to a video game because it might seem like a waste of time). This is where blood outperforms frost. During pugs, your self-healing abilities can heal you more than any healer in the raid (again, assuming raid has at best average healers). When it comes to end-game guilds like mine where you are required to play extremely well compared to most of the playerbase, you have to do your job to its fullest potential which means, most of the time, holy paladins or restoration shamans will cover tank heals without too many troubles. This automatically makes blood worse because one of your main gameplay tools, self-healing abilities, become less efficient. At this point you want to mitigate more damage, keep aggro consistently and position properly more than anything else. That is my own logic behind the decision to go ahead and switch to frost-I simply can mitigate more damage with frost.
Not sure what that means, it has its own advantages although I feel like when you choose to go DW frost, you are obligated to use up at least 6 additional talents which is kind of a waste, imo.
I'm currently sort of a 2h frost tank on my DK, been rolling around with this spec. My main problem with this spec so far has been playing against Shamblings since you can't really stun them and you are basically required to react to the below 20% enrage nearly instantly with BT+UA or IBF, otherwise you might die (applies only on heroic LK). During other encounters, including phase 2/3+transition phases of The Lich King, I found this spec much better than blood because of how the insanely high threat you can cause in a very short span of time while having great defensive abilities uptime and some utility tools against certain boss mechanics (for example, you can use Hungering Cold on Vile Spirits and soak them up after a few seconds).
I'm not going into detail about UH tank since this is the only spec I haven't properly tried out (and tbh most likely never will) since it doesn't seems like it is stronger than frost/blood in ICC/RS. Not sure why people keep glorifying it either, all it does better is take on the magical burst-damage, apart from that it doesn't have any passive tools to reduce incoming physical damage. And not only that, it also has relatively poor uptime on its main defensive ability, Bone Shield because of these debuffs you mentioned while Vampiric Blood/UA last a consistent amount of time (I have a golden rule that higher levels of consistency > playing with higher RNG factor).Edited: November 15, 2016
-
Member
A few things:
Threat of Thassarian is currently bugged and doesnt give additional 2.5% healing per disease from the offhand meaning 10% DS healing instead of 15%, that makes the whole talent obsolete because you certainly dont need the dmg from ds. Additionally you have runepower problems because onehanders consume RP like no other. Going twohander just allows you to skip 6 Frost talent points which you can put in something more useful.
Now why is frost op?
+ Icy talons
+ Black Ice (10% more Frost dmg -> 10% more Icy touch threat. very good)
+ Killing Machine 5/5 (Icy touch crits -> INSANE threat.)
+ Glacier Rot (20% more icy touch dmg -> also insane threat)
+ Frigid deathplate, decent
+ Unbreakable armor 20sec. 75% mitigation aswell as good str bump
+ Guile of gorefiend 18sec IBF duration very strong
+ Acclimation good vs most icc encounter, strong vs halion
+ Rune tap self heal, less healer dependend
=> compared to blood you get insane threat and you trade WotN and 10% DS healing for strong mitigation cds.
id recommend you to test it
for low hit rating
with spell hiz cap u have a few more optionsEdited: November 15, 2016
-
Field Medic Moderator
@blackfriars, one thing I liked about the benefits of Unbreakable Armor, back when I actively tanked with a Frost spec, is that the strength you gain from the ability also benefits your parry values. Which is definitely worth mentioning in my opinion.
-
Member
From what I read on few sources (One of them I think is wowhead comment), Threat of Thassarian only increases damage, but does not increase healing amount
-
Field Medic Moderator
Yes, as far as I've been able to figure out on my own, it should not affect the healing of Death Strike. If someone can provide solid sources that state that it should, I'm game. Otherwise, I'll stand by the consideration that it shouldn't affect healing.
-
Wind of Northrend
There is nothing u need to slow in order to survive, exept valkires. If u slow adds on some fights (LDW and RS for example), and they reach their destination where they need to be AoEd down fast u make them die slower (slower they die the higher chance for them to be empovered by something and harder to kill), and sometimes u even **** up the dps that have a perfect window where they can switch and lose almost 0 dps. Thats why any kind of slow on adds that needs to be killed asap is more of a bad than a good thing. My personal opinion atleast.
Only place where descecration can be helpfull is LK (valks only), DBS (bloodbeasts) and TOGC Champions. And for that u can use hunters with frost traps instead of wasting 2 talents for constant slow that can sometimes slow other things aswell.
About BONE SHIELD...
After couple of bosses in ToC and VoA, uptime of Glyphed Bone Shield, with 37% dodge and 25% parry raiting, was 12 - 23sec. If i got hit by a spell and didnt dodge / parry a single attack Bone Shield lasted for 12 - 16 sec (Jaraxus melted Bone Shield, puf, gone...). Best uptime was 30sec on Fire boss in VoA where i dodged way too many attacks. Part from that it never lasted longer than 23sec. For this much dodge and parry raiting i sacrificed expertise, hit, arround 2k health and 4k armor and 4/5 T10 bonus so there is no chance in hell u will ever reach this much avoidance with proper tank itemization.
About AGGRO...
Compared to bloodfrost hybrid i ussualy use, unholy aggro was bad. I was far away from losing it but whenever i wanted to save runes and do couple of Death Strikes i had to build it up all over again where i ussualy pop IT with Killing Machine to escape the greedy dps (this was all while asking hunters and rogues not to MD me at all).
About RAID BUFFS...
In ToC 10m normal we didnt have a hunter, no 10% atk power aura. With Ebon Plaguebringer i buffed only Mage and a Shadow Priest which wer minority in mostly melee setup grp.
About SURVIVABILITY...
Whenever i lost Bone Shield i felt like i was just a DPS in a tank gear. If i didnt spec in Rune Tap id proly be that...
I was using this spec for these tests: http://wotlk.openwow.com/talent#j0ER...cthI00bxchp0uc
I will most likely test it a bit more in Ulduar and Naxx before i put my overall feeling about Unholy Tank here, but so far i still dont see anything that can give it upperhand when it comes to surviving compared to blood. Bone Shield is just not worth when u lose it after 15sec and u are left with nothing for 45sec. While with blood u always have Will of the Necropolis at ur hand.
Oh, one more thing... How can a tank spec that works better, as most of u stated, on fights such as Lich King and RS, where u are striped to almost nothing left from avoidance, where u need everything timed corectly in order to survive if healers cant heal u, work bad on content like TogC, Ulduar, Naxx and lower where bosses hit way less? That logic right there, blows my mind open.
-
Member
Threat of Thassarian is currently bugged - finally fixed i would say
i stronlgy believe that u've made a typo, because in a no world unbreakable armor grants 75% miitigation lol
icy talons - kinda situational buff, i would rather take a dps frost dk for that
black ice/glacier rot/killing machine kinda on point - but i've never struggle to maintain aggro as blood anyways, so those talents have no use for me
acclimation is not reliable enough to maintain.
frigid deathplate sounds like ok but its only 3% for melee
Spell deflecton talent - srsly? How much use that ****-tier talent has for u? For me it seems that u can reduce inc damage only from LDW frostbolts and Kelesth shadow bolts. thats it. that talent has no more use in icc (its even completely useless in rs, cuz there aren't direct damage spells outhere, A.K.A. single target spel)
its funny how u've missed Improved Frost presence, since its miles away better than frigid deathplate and unbreakable armor combined
overall i wont recommend to ur specs at all for a simple reason - i didnt get nor howling blast nor rime nor annihilation, so u diecided to spent dam frost and uh runes on deathstrike only, and in that way you loose almost all the additional threat which frost dk talents can bring. if u gonna spam those death strikes like in a last day of your life - u better reconsider respeccing into blood dk, since blood is the best death strike spammer
