thoughts about UH tanknig after patch

[Useful]

i was reading forums carefully during last week and noticed plenty of unholy DKs are going to spec into frost for tanking after the patch today. the reason is simple - unholy is getting owned in terms of tanking because of BS nerf. Blizz also promised more magic and phisycal damage reduction. During last week i tested both unholy and frost in 25 instances. In frost i had some troubles with tps but still this spec has more avoidance buffs than anholy. AMZ still looks superior for me so i developed a hybrid spec. i call it - stamina and tps spec.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...h=041117050401

pluses:

8% stamina increase (10 with new rune which ill definately use)
6 expertise (instead of 5 from unholy)
Toughness+Impurity+bladed armor combo. dont know how it will do. Only numbers will tell.
AMZ - my favorite spell ever.
Boneshield - its nerfed but still worth a talent imo.

minuses:
less avoidance : no frigid dreadplate, lichborne, unbreakable armor and guile of gorefiend.
no additional desease (i hope another unholy DK in our raid will compensate it)
the threat issue is still questionable: will this spec be able to put out nice raiding tps cos we got a lot of t7 dpsers already.

overall:
this spec looks good to me and iam going to test it during next cooldown, especially on Sartharion + adds encounter.

post ur thoughts and comments. i ll gladly appreciate some feedback and critisism =)

(edit for stamina% numbers)

[DarkFerret]

Any unholy tanking DK that thinks they won't be able to tank post-patch (which is NOT today, BTW) needs to quit.

[Bullshifter]

Unholy is not getting owned. It will be the same, if not even a little better than before in terms of AoE threat generation with the buff to Blood Boil and the removal of the cooldown from Pestilence. The other trees are getting some nice buffs too (particularly Blood, because it really needed it tanking-wise), so there will be a little more parity between the trees for tanking- but if you like tanking as Unholy, there really is nothing about this patch that should run you out of the tree.

[Sartuk]

Any unholy tanking DK that thinks they won't be able to tank post-patch (which is NOT today, BTW) needs to quit.

Agreed. Bone Shield is being nerfed, not absolutely reduced to garbage. It's still a fantastic talent that will provide significant mitigation. Unholy tanking is not going anywhere, folks (and this is coming from a die-hard fan of Frost tanking.)

[Ghrim]

no additional desease (i hope another unholy DK in our raid will compensate it)

Just in case you don't know it: Only your own diseases count for abilities that scale with the number of diseases on the target.

[knubs]

not picking up: Crypt Fever, Ebon Plaguebringer, Wandering Plague, Rage of Rivendare, and Unholy Blight would most definitely be a TPS loss. Picking up the points in blood will give you more raw AP & crit (only 2% though when compared to 3/3 Ebon Plaguebringer) at the expense of a lot of bonus Disease and magic damage.

Crypt Fever = 30% disease damage
Wandering Plague = 100% bonus damage (based on ticks) to creatures affected by disease based on crit. Keep in mind when AoE that is each of say 3-5 mobs that have that rng running each time a disease ticks on any of them and will affect all mobs in 8 yd radius of them.
Ebon Plaguebringer = 13% magic damage->(everyone in raid) + (30% disease damage from Crypt Fever) + 3% crit->(everyone in raid)
Rage of Rivendare = 10% more damage with all abilities if Blood Plague is active and it should always be up
Unholy Blight = at naxx lvl gear is supposed to be more than 500 tps to all mobs in 10yds

vs 666 -> 680 more AP, 2% more crit, 1 expertise, and 8% stam with glyph

So i am guessing you will actually be doing a lot less threat with that build.

UH tanking as it is has no problems and will only benefit from all the changes in my opinion. Less active mitigation with more passive making us much less "spikey" when healing.

just my estimation Good Luck either way.

[shiztec]

This patch is far from an Unholy Tanking nerf. UB down to 40 RP thats huge for DPS/TPS

[Maker]

Wandering Plague = 100% bonus damage (based on ticks) to creatures affected by disease based on crit. Keep in mind when AoE that is each of say 3-5 mobs that have that rng running each time a disease ticks on any of them and will affect all mobs in 8 yd radius of them.

I only disagree with this comment. I guess it comes down to how you choose to spec, but those 3 pts are no longer worth it to me. It was a great talent when I was levelling and was able to maintain 15-20% crit in my tanking gear. Now that I'm no longer wearing crap, my crit's dropped to about 9%. 3% of which is from talents. I have a minor amount of agility on my weapon, but not enough to write home about. It's very lackluster at higher levels of gear.

[Shamb]

Seriously AMZ sucks (imo of course)... we'll have 15% less dmg from magic baseline after patch (quite enough) and there are almost no boss whatsoever that does more then 50% of their damage as magic dmg so...it's pretty much a waste of 6 talent pts imo.

I love Unholy tanking right now cause Bone Shield owns. Unholy will get a bit weaker after patch but not that much, it will still be viable while frost don't get weaker at all since unbreakable gets buffed (now adds 10% str + 5% parry, not one or the other as is now) and the baseline armor mitigation compensate for the little nerf to IBF.

Blood tanking will be interesting, but I doubt It will be more then that... interesting.

So after patch I'll either stay Unholy or more then likely switch to frost (although with 15% magic mitigation I am not sure I'll take acclimation anymore).

Those that says frost lacks TPS never tried it... or are thinking of DW tanking (which is not frost btw... but unholy with some more talents in frost...)

[knubs]

I only disagree with this comment. I guess it comes down to how you choose to spec, but those 3 pts are no longer worth it to me. It was a great talent when I was levelling and was able to maintain 15-20% crit in my tanking gear. Now that I'm no longer wearing crap, my crit's dropped to about 9%. 3% of which is from talents. I have a minor amount of agility on my weapon, but not enough to write home about. It's very lackluster at higher levels of gear.

I think when tank specced I have 12% lil more lil less. What that is though is 12% per tick, per disease, per mob to all mobs in 8yds. So it isn't that bad of a proc rate. That being said I would have to parse some WWS to see how it actually stacks up.

Seriously AMZ sucks (imo of course)... we'll have 15% less dmg from magic baseline after patch (quite enough) and there are almost no boss whatsoever that does more then 50% of their damage as magic dmg so...it's pretty much a waste of 6 talent pts imo.

with the talents that's 20% reduction + AMZ is for party benefit and can be very nice heavy AoE fights. Sure it isn't game breaking but 16k damage is nothing to scoff at when considering healer burden. It's all up to what makes you tingle and your play style really, otherwise we would all be Warrior tanks from vanilla.

[Bullshifter]

Unholy will get a bit weaker after patch but not that much

I am struggling to see how Unholy is going to get any weaker at all with this patch, though I agree with comments about the other specs being buffed.

I will say though, that they aren't being buffed enough to where the spec itself will make my decision for me as to what spec to choose, but rather which playstyle I enjoy the most.

edit- spelling =P

[Shamb]

with the talents that's 20% reduction + AMZ is for party benefit and can be very nice heavy AoE fights. Sure it isn't game breaking but 16k damage is nothing to scoff at when considering healer burden. It's all up to what makes you tingle and your play style really, otherwise we would all be Warrior tanks from vanilla.

That's why I said in my opinion mate.

[Useful]

Just in case you don't know it: Only your own diseases count for abilities that scale with the number of diseases on the target.

i knew it of course. was talking about a debuff for caster dpsers.