It's pretty easy to put a good tanking build together. The big talents you'll want are Blade Barrier, Toughness, and Anticipation. Morbidity for the D&D cooldown reduction is very helpful as well.
From there you can pick one of the 3 trees to invest further in. Each tree has a few defensive talents you'll want to pick up along the way as a tank, from there you can pick up anything else for more utility and / or threat generation.
56/5/10 Blood is what I'm using currently to tank Ulduar 10. It's less aoe heavy than a frost or unholy build would be, but D&D paired with blood boil spam on large groups or just tab HS for smaller groups is more than enough to hold aggro.
So I recently switched to a DW frost build from a 2H Blood one. Perhaps its just because I was a shitty Blood DK but I went from a Top-20 DPS to a Top-10 in our last raid, just with the welfare epics from the tournament for my weapons.
I really like the spec.
If your gear for each of the specs was comprable, your 2H Blood spec should be higher DPS then DW Frost. I have played both and find the Blood Rotation much easier then DW Frost in high pressure raids.
So I recently switched to a DW frost build from a 2H Blood one. Perhaps its just because I was a shitty Blood DK but I went from a Top-20 DPS to a Top-10 in our last raid, just with the welfare epics from the tournament for my weapons.
I really like the spec.
If your gear for each of the specs was comprable, your 2H Blood spec should be higher DPS then DW Frost. I have played both and find the Blood Rotation much easier then DW Frost in high pressure raids.
If you have low armor penetration DW Frost and 2H Unholy will outperform Blood, which could justify such a huge deeps jump.
Really its a waste for single target situations. You want to keep a steady flow of attacks in single-two target situations.
As far as I know this isn't the case for unholy, especially if you have it glyphed. I don't think you'll get more threat out of the runes than with D&D. Of course, that assumes you won't have to drag the mob around and out of the AoE.
This is kind of a dumb question, but are any DPS or Tank builds viable with 2handers? I just got outta Acherus and have been putting points into a DW Frost build for leveling, but I love the idea of my guy weilding a big bad 2hander to chop heads.
Elessar Elfstone on
Tobias: Or it could be your colon. I'd want to get in there and find some answers.
Blood and Unholy both work very well as 2H for tanking or DPS
Prior to the advent of Threat of Thassarian, DW wasn't any option without some rather stange builds/strategies.
ExistentialSoundandFury on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited August 2009
All three trees work as 2H in fact.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
That's the raider in me talking, prior to 3.2, and even more so now, Frost has been under-performing compared to the other trees. 2H does piss-poor compared to DW these days. I think it stems from the Frost Strike Nerf.
That's the raider in me talking, prior to 3.2, and even more so now, Frost has been under-performing compared to the other trees. 2H does piss-poor compared to DW these days. I think it stems from the Frost Strike Nerf.
That's the raider in me talking, prior to 3.2, and even more so now, Frost has been under-performing compared to the other trees. 2H does piss-poor compared to DW these days. I think it stems from the Frost Strike Nerf.
Was frost strike's damage nerfed?
A little bit yes, at least from what I remember of the notes. Also, they made it dodge and parryable.
Frost DW does a crapton of damage now. I don't know what it's doing compared to 2h frost, but I am at the very least holding my own against comparably-geared DKs on my alt.
Frost Strike Nerfs were just enough to put Frost 2H pretty far behind, as opposed to only slightly. I imagine the problem they're having is that Frost had way too much burst dps.
DW is insane, I did it for a short while with my hodge-podge dps set, and I put out pretty decent numbers. Sadly, from tanking as blood for so long, I just could not get a comfortable rotation going. I've since switched to blood, started building up my ArP and its been smooth sailing since.
I don't see how that would affect an expertise capped DPS DK.
It doesn't, but the base damage was reduced by 8%. That's a huge hit when you have a rotation that only uses skills other than Frost Strike to generate more RP to use Frost Strike.
How much damage came from Frost Strike, generally (single target fights)? About 30%? An 8% nerf is less than a 3% damage decrease. Sure, it sucks, but it's not going to completely gut a spec (2H frost) if it were viable before.
I run 2H frost for PVP, and do VOAs with it. Pre-nerfs, I was doing 3000-35000ish DPS. Now I'm lucky to pull 2500. I'm still awesomely bursty and brutal in PVP, but the spec sucks ass in PVE.
You know what stat I fucking hate? Expertise. How much should I have? My DPS set is essentially, every peace from normal ToC. I'm also DW Frost.
Edit: Fuck it! I'm going back to blood. DW Frost needs all kinds of stats I don't have.
You know what stat I fucking hate? Expertise. How much should I have? My DPS set is essentially, every peace from normal ToC. I'm also DW Frost.
Edit: Fuck it! I'm going back to blood. DW Frost needs all kinds of stats I don't have.
Not the least bit true. Blood has a MUCH tighter rotation than Frost, so hit/expertise capping is more important or that gets screwed up. Blood also needs a fair amount of Armor penetration (which the ToC gear has). Frost's rotation is fairly tight in Blood Presence, but Frost does better in Unholy presence than any other tree, as the RP dump (Frost Strike) is 20% cheaper when glyphed. DW frost in Unholy Presence has enough extra GCDs that you can afford the occasional miss/dodge without screwing your rotation.
UnbrokenEva on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2009
Was thinking about trying out blood for tanking purposes.
You're on the right track, but you have a few points I would considered "wasted", notably Dancing Rune Weapon, Mark of Blood and Blood Worms, none of which are that great for tanking.
I basically took the EJ build and tweaked it slightly (one point in Necrosis? two in Subversion? No Sudden Doom? What?). This is what I run:
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2009
I don't see how DRW is 'wasted' since it would provide a significant amount of threat (AFAIK, the thin will rune strike when you do)
Mark of Blood I take because it basically = "Boss does less damage to you for 20 seconds"
Bloodworms I'm not married to, I just like the effect.
Blood tap I have because it's 10% of your health! Instant! If you know you are in for a string of big hits, you can slap that abilitity pretty quick.
I think I will switch the rune strike one to the DND one to improve the AoE tanking capabilities.
I'm just really attracted to blood right now because I was able to tank Doomlord Kazzak using my blood spec in tank gear/frost presence fairly easily, but I couldn't while I was in frost spec. The huge amount of self-healing and health bonuses are fairly attractive to me.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
If you are in a situation where you need Blood Tap, something terrible has happened and you are going to die anyway. Not to mention, if you are doing your rotation correctly, you won't have any Blood Runes to use it anyway
Dancing Rune Weapon is a pet, when it causes threat, it causes threat for itself, not for you.
Mark of Blood is not nearly as good as it sounds on paper. I've tested it, against a boss hitting you for 20+K (common), it's completely worthless.
The reason Vampiric Blood and Death Strike don't fall in to the "if you need this, you're probably already dead" category is that they are a HUGE amount of healing. My DS's heal me for 4k+, and quite a bit more than that if I have VB active. Not to mention, DS should be part of your regular rotation anyway, so it should just be considered free healing.
With Blood, don't get transfixed by the self healing. In later raid situations, it's not nearly as good as it looks on paper. The reason you spec blood to tank is that it causes a significant amount of single target threat, not because it self heals.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2009
I've been in some situations where something went wrong and I kept myself up via deathstrikes and summoning/sacrificing a pet. Usually it's when I'm an offtank and there's a switch of some-sort. It's particularly useful on a boss like XT when tanking the sparks during tantrums, or on Iron Council if my healer runs a different direction from me during an overload, or on Hodir if one healer is dead.
I'll switch one point out of bloodworms since I acknowledge that it's pretty useless, but I have trouble believing that a slightly better scent of blood will provide more utility than DRW.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Slightly better Scent of Blood isn't where you should be putting the point from DRW, it should be in Sudden Doom, which is great burst threat.
Sudden Doom is better in every conceivable way than DRW and Blood Worms for tanking, it's not even a contest. Test it how you want, but this has all been tested ad naseum by others.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited September 2009
So I should take the one point of out scent of blood and put it into sudden doom?
Fine by me!
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Personally I don't put any points in Scent of Blood. Runic Power doesn't give you much bang for your buck as a Blood Tank. Personally I would invest in IIT, Morbidity, and Epidemic if you haven't already.
DRW is not very useful at all for a tank, other than a brief spurt where you have 4 diseases rolling instead of 2. The threat it generates doesn't transfer to you so its basically a minor dps boost.
Abom's might, Hysteria(throw it on your top physical dps), and Mark of Blood all provide more benefits for a tank. Sudden Doom is nice for single target threat, as is Necrosis.
((I can't look at your build since I'm at work.))
ExistentialSoundandFury on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
Scent of Blood is good because DC dump spam is a great thing when you need to burst threat. Scent of Blood helps you build the RP pool to drop a DC bomb on the target and to do it often. It's certainly better than Blood Worms or DRW, which are both...and let me say this again, completely useless for tanking.
Mark of Blood is one of those love it or hate it skills. I find it to be a waste of a hotbar slot, other people love it. It's at least subjective enough to have a discussion about.
ITT, Morbidity and Epidemic are required tanking talents. If you don't take them, you're a scrub. They are right there with Anticipation, Toughness and Blade Barrier as far as I'm concerned.
Not the least bit true. Blood has a MUCH tighter rotation than Frost, so hit/expertise capping is more important or that gets screwed up. Blood also needs a fair amount of Armor penetration (which the ToC gear has). Frost's rotation is fairly tight in Blood Presence, but Frost does better in Unholy presence than any other tree, as the RP dump (Frost Strike) is 20% cheaper when glyphed. DW frost in Unholy Presence has enough extra GCDs that you can afford the occasional miss/dodge without screwing your rotation.
I disagree that Blood has a much tighter rotation than DW Frost. Unholy Presence allows for a more relaxed rotation, but it's inferior due to all the wasted GCDs if you're at the top of your game. In Blood Presence, it's not uncommon for me to drop 200-300 DPS if my rotation isn't absolutely perfect.
aunsoph on
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
When you say wasted GCDs, what are you doing with them? I found blood presence was tight enough that it was hard to find room for more than 1 Rime proc per rotation, not to mention blowing extra RP from AMS soaking. Other "extra" GCDs are used to HoW for extra RP, or blowing cooldowns (ghoul, blood tap/UA). I have a bit of downtime in the first rotation, but once I get going UP wastes very little. I'm hit capped anyways and about 1% short of dodge capped, so that isn't entirely due to losing GCDs to misses/dodges, but UP definately helps keep the rotation together when I do get dodged. Also, Razorice stacks faster with the increased attack speed, and the 15% run speed boost is handy on many (most) fights in Uld/ToC.
I dropped DW for a while to try out Oblit-Unholy, as I won Aesir's Edge and felt I needed to use it. I miss DW though and picked it back up the other night. I don't have WWSes to compare yet, but my spot in recount didn't change much even though I went from an iLevel 232 2-hander to a pair of 219 one-handers.
I know im looking at around 8% hit rating to cap yellow attacks (5% with 3 points in Virulence, which I have). Can someone give me the stats that I should be looking at for Armor Penetration, Expertise and Crit, what the priorities are after hit cap and should i be gemming for these stats as opposed to just gemming strength? (I can link my armory atm)
-Phil- on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
edited September 2009
You don't really want to seek out Armor Pen (though it's probably impossible to avoid altogether) - it doesn't affect Frost Strike at all, though it does help blood strike/obliterate/white damage. It's not terrible, it's just not as good as it is for other specs. Expertise caps out (for dodge) at 24, and any more than that is a waste as you should be behind the boss and not being parried anyways.
There's no cap on crit, but as a lot of your main strikes have really high crit rates anways from talents, it's not something that you need to actively try to stack. Just load up on Strength, Strength, and more Strength.
In term of gemming I'm using the 21 Agi/ 3% crit damage meta gem rather than the 21 crit/3% crit damage one. The slightly inferior gains from Agi instead of crit are offset by the easier metagem requirements. It needs one of each color, so I use a single Nightmare Tear (+10 all stats) which covers that, and then I have a Bold Cardinal Ruby in every other slot.
Epidemic is iffy as a required, but it gives you considerably slack in your rotations. Especially if you have Pestilence.
IIT also depends on how tight your raid tuning is, if you have frost dps, odds are its not needed.
Even when you have a Frost DPS, I think it's good for a tank to have ITT. There are a lot of multi-mob boss encounters these days where the Frost DPS may be off beating on something else, leaving you the only one capable of laying ITT. Given the survivability issues DK's have post-3.2, even that 6% melee de-haste helps.
Every raid is going to be different though, you're right.
Epidemic is iffy as a required, but it gives you considerably slack in your rotations. Especially if you have Pestilence.
IIT also depends on how tight your raid tuning is, if you have frost dps, odds are its not needed.
Even when you have a Frost DPS, I think it's good for a tank to have ITT. There are a lot of multi-mob boss encounters these days where the Frost DPS may be off beating on something else, leaving you the only one capable of laying ITT. Given the survivability issues DK's have post-3.2, even that 6% melee de-haste helps.
Every raid is going to be different though, you're right.
Posts
Get reduced cooldown on D&D in Unholy and glyph it.
Pick a tree use rest of points.
There you go - pretty much good AOE tanking right there.
From there you can pick one of the 3 trees to invest further in. Each tree has a few defensive talents you'll want to pick up along the way as a tank, from there you can pick up anything else for more utility and / or threat generation.
56/5/10 Blood is what I'm using currently to tank Ulduar 10. It's less aoe heavy than a frost or unholy build would be, but D&D paired with blood boil spam on large groups or just tab HS for smaller groups is more than enough to hold aggro.
If your gear for each of the specs was comprable, your 2H Blood spec should be higher DPS then DW Frost. I have played both and find the Blood Rotation much easier then DW Frost in high pressure raids.
I think that's more or less what my problem was. I seem to be better able to execute the DW Frost Rotation.
I don't think that Frost or DW is inherently better than 2H Blood or anything rather it seems like it is better for me.
Forsake, Warlock of Stonemaul
Prior to the advent of Threat of Thassarian, DW wasn't any option without some rather stange builds/strategies.
I picked up the Valour BP for him for that extra 10% exp bonus. I'm guessing hit Outland now that I'm free of Arthas?
Forsake, Warlock of Stonemaul
A little bit yes, at least from what I remember of the notes. Also, they made it dodge and parryable.
DW is insane, I did it for a short while with my hodge-podge dps set, and I put out pretty decent numbers. Sadly, from tanking as blood for so long, I just could not get a comfortable rotation going. I've since switched to blood, started building up my ArP and its been smooth sailing since.
It doesn't, but the base damage was reduced by 8%. That's a huge hit when you have a rotation that only uses skills other than Frost Strike to generate more RP to use Frost Strike.
Edit: Fuck it! I'm going back to blood. DW Frost needs all kinds of stats I don't have.
Not the least bit true. Blood has a MUCH tighter rotation than Frost, so hit/expertise capping is more important or that gets screwed up. Blood also needs a fair amount of Armor penetration (which the ToC gear has). Frost's rotation is fairly tight in Blood Presence, but Frost does better in Unholy presence than any other tree, as the RP dump (Frost Strike) is 20% cheaper when glyphed. DW frost in Unholy Presence has enough extra GCDs that you can afford the occasional miss/dodge without screwing your rotation.
How about this build? http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deathknight=0055121530003313211021131351305000000000000000000000000000052300000000000000000000000000&glyph=202610000000&version=10192
You're on the right track, but you have a few points I would considered "wasted", notably Dancing Rune Weapon, Mark of Blood and Blood Worms, none of which are that great for tanking.
I basically took the EJ build and tweaked it slightly (one point in Necrosis? two in Subversion? No Sudden Doom? What?). This is what I run:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EGVh0IcbofssxhxZ0gh:Gio
I stuck my glyphs in there as well.
Mark of Blood I take because it basically = "Boss does less damage to you for 20 seconds"
Bloodworms I'm not married to, I just like the effect.
Blood tap I have because it's 10% of your health! Instant! If you know you are in for a string of big hits, you can slap that abilitity pretty quick.
I think I will switch the rune strike one to the DND one to improve the AoE tanking capabilities.
I'm just really attracted to blood right now because I was able to tank Doomlord Kazzak using my blood spec in tank gear/frost presence fairly easily, but I couldn't while I was in frost spec. The huge amount of self-healing and health bonuses are fairly attractive to me.
Dancing Rune Weapon is a pet, when it causes threat, it causes threat for itself, not for you.
Mark of Blood is not nearly as good as it sounds on paper. I've tested it, against a boss hitting you for 20+K (common), it's completely worthless.
The reason Vampiric Blood and Death Strike don't fall in to the "if you need this, you're probably already dead" category is that they are a HUGE amount of healing. My DS's heal me for 4k+, and quite a bit more than that if I have VB active. Not to mention, DS should be part of your regular rotation anyway, so it should just be considered free healing.
With Blood, don't get transfixed by the self healing. In later raid situations, it's not nearly as good as it looks on paper. The reason you spec blood to tank is that it causes a significant amount of single target threat, not because it self heals.
I'll switch one point out of bloodworms since I acknowledge that it's pretty useless, but I have trouble believing that a slightly better scent of blood will provide more utility than DRW.
Sudden Doom is better in every conceivable way than DRW and Blood Worms for tanking, it's not even a contest. Test it how you want, but this has all been tested ad naseum by others.
Fine by me!
DRW is not very useful at all for a tank, other than a brief spurt where you have 4 diseases rolling instead of 2. The threat it generates doesn't transfer to you so its basically a minor dps boost.
Abom's might, Hysteria(throw it on your top physical dps), and Mark of Blood all provide more benefits for a tank. Sudden Doom is nice for single target threat, as is Necrosis.
((I can't look at your build since I'm at work.))
Mark of Blood is one of those love it or hate it skills. I find it to be a waste of a hotbar slot, other people love it. It's at least subjective enough to have a discussion about.
ITT, Morbidity and Epidemic are required tanking talents. If you don't take them, you're a scrub. They are right there with Anticipation, Toughness and Blade Barrier as far as I'm concerned.
IIT also depends on how tight your raid tuning is, if you have frost dps, odds are its not needed.
I disagree that Blood has a much tighter rotation than DW Frost. Unholy Presence allows for a more relaxed rotation, but it's inferior due to all the wasted GCDs if you're at the top of your game. In Blood Presence, it's not uncommon for me to drop 200-300 DPS if my rotation isn't absolutely perfect.
I dropped DW for a while to try out Oblit-Unholy, as I won Aesir's Edge and felt I needed to use it. I miss DW though and picked it back up the other night. I don't have WWSes to compare yet, but my spot in recount didn't change much even though I went from an iLevel 232 2-hander to a pair of 219 one-handers.
I know im looking at around 8% hit rating to cap yellow attacks (5% with 3 points in Virulence, which I have). Can someone give me the stats that I should be looking at for Armor Penetration, Expertise and Crit, what the priorities are after hit cap and should i be gemming for these stats as opposed to just gemming strength? (I can link my armory atm)
There's no cap on crit, but as a lot of your main strikes have really high crit rates anways from talents, it's not something that you need to actively try to stack. Just load up on Strength, Strength, and more Strength.
In term of gemming I'm using the 21 Agi/ 3% crit damage meta gem rather than the 21 crit/3% crit damage one. The slightly inferior gains from Agi instead of crit are offset by the easier metagem requirements. It needs one of each color, so I use a single Nightmare Tear (+10 all stats) which covers that, and then I have a Bold Cardinal Ruby in every other slot.
Even when you have a Frost DPS, I think it's good for a tank to have ITT. There are a lot of multi-mob boss encounters these days where the Frost DPS may be off beating on something else, leaving you the only one capable of laying ITT. Given the survivability issues DK's have post-3.2, even that 6% melee de-haste helps.
Every raid is going to be different though, you're right.
Virulence gives spell hit, not melee hit.