DK tanking in 3.3?

[Antologic]

Hi, I'm now leveling my DK. On 80 i want be tank. I don't know as blood or frost Dual wield. Blood is look better as frost but can you help me please?

sorry 4 my English.

[mhp]

Frost's superior AoE is better for heroics, which is where you'll start at 80.

But... if you have a good 2-hander, go blood. If you have two good one-handers, go DW frost. At the heroic level, it doesn't really matter.

[Trod]

DW frost is teh best right now itll probably get nerfed but its the way to go

DND
IT+PS+Pest
HB on every CD
OB/BS with RS macro which ever is on CD
DC when RP maxed

I was doing 2800 dps on mobs of 4

[Deleted]

DC when RP maxed

Why not frost strike and why wait until RP is max, at which point you've lost RP

[Cadeus]

I would agree frost is better for when you are starting to tank, and definatly better for newer DK tanks in heroics. But once you have some decent gear and start to get the feel for blood, it trumps frost by far. It can also put out some massive dps while tanking, was doing 3.2k or so while tanking saurfang the other night, and right around that much while tanking bosses in a random CoS last night. But even on AoE packs you can do some really good threat,

DnD -> IT -> PS -> pest -> blood tap -> blood boil -> normal aoe dps rotation as blood including deathcoil when runes are on cooldown

just mark a first kill target and you will have enough threat by the time it dies to hold off of anyone single targetting a mob your not. If the group is bad, just tab through and death strike instead of focusing on one mob yourself(kind of like warriors used to have to do to hold any sort of aoe threat before shockwave, and still have to, to some extent).

Plus your deathstrike will help out the healer and make some content even soloable later on.

[Trod]

I would agree frost is better for when you are starting to tank, and definatly better for newer DK tanks in heroics. But once you have some decent gear and start to get the feel for blood, it trumps frost by far. It can also put out some massive dps while tanking, was doing 3.2k or so while tanking saurfang the other night, and right around that much while tanking bosses in a random CoS last night. But even on AoE packs you can do some really good threat,

DnD -> IT -> PS -> pest -> blood tap -> blood boil -> normal aoe dps rotation as blood including deathcoil when runes are on cooldown

just mark a first kill target and you will have enough threat by the time it dies to hold off of anyone single targetting a mob your not. If the group is bad, just tab through and death strike instead of focusing on one mob yourself(kind of like warriors used to have to do to hold any sort of aoe threat before shockwave, and still have to, to some extent).

Plus your deathstrike will help out the healer and make some content even soloable later on.

Id have to disagree allthough i havnt tanked ICC yet but DW frost was better IMO for tanking TotC 10 havnt tanked 25 yet in frost ran this week as dps when i did 25

[mhp]

I disagree aswell. DW frost worked better for me (hell, even pre-3.3 :P) in TotGC25 & now in ICC aswell.

The majority of the blood self heals will be overheals, and you can use death strike in any spec, if you want to solo older content. I'm happily soloing PoS heroic trash, Doomwalker & a lot of other things as DW frost.

[Cadeus]

Don't get me wrong, I am a die-hard frost fan... just need better 1 handed weapons to tank with... tried it with the 10-ony quel-serrar and the rimefang one... (would use a dps weapon main hand but the ones i have all have crap for stats)... so I can only really speak from my experience, and I do like the feel of 2h blood tanking over 2h frost tanking... but dw frost tanking is a blast...

Tried it out for awhile... then i went back blood for my guild's raid and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50415 (bryntroll), dropped... and since i was using worldcarver, I just couldn't say no lol. Though I am looking to get a few good 1h's to tank with and go back dw frost... but til then can really only talk from my experience, and I pulled a ton more threat as blood than frost, and found equal survivability if cooldowns are used properly

[Antologic]

Thx guys and can you please post some talents blood and frost DW?

[Raptorg]

You play whatever you prefer, I was blood when it was the worst tanking tree and I did just fine(full party of "scrubs" in blue gear.)

You can find two variations of specs on my armory(click the banner in my sig) one for blood, one for dw frost.

[Rivm]

DW frost only really pulls ahead if you are expertise capped from the front (56 expertise)

Aside from that, blood tanking, specifically on single targets, will produce significantly more threat than frost, not to mention Abominable Might, Hysteria (to use on a dps), Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap, larger Death Strike heals...

Having said that, both specs are perfectly acceptable for tanking any content in the game right now, it really boils down to the gear available to you, and your play style preference.

[Spmxvc]

Okay, so here's a different question.... I've been tanking Heroics lately as Blood, but am thinking of going DW Frost since 1) The Frost spin up time for threat on mobs is quicker in Random Heroics where everyone AoEs/Ignores kill order, and 2) Was lucky enough to get 'Lucky Old Sun' and like the idea of tanking with 2 huge orb-ish maces.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EZh...fuzAo0x:sNw0MV

Here's what I've got for a start. Realize this is an AoE centric, Heroic build, NOT a raid build. My focus here is strong initial AoE threat with Frost Fever and Howling Blast. (Pop Hungering Cold to spread FF, then HB.)

I like all the self-heals of Blood, but setting up AoE threat is just a pain when people are racing through content in Random Heroics. By the time I get DnD, IT, PS, Pest, Blood Tap, Blood Boil down I usually have to taunt a mob off of whatever DPS outgears me the most. (Usually the Warlock, but occasionally Shammies) I'm hoping HC + HB provides more snap threat.

take the 2 pts out of endless winter for 2 points in epidemic.

[soulcrusher]

Why DW as frost? What advantage does it bring compared to additional levels of hit etc required? Im 2h frost tanking at the moment and it seems fairly decent. Isnt HB normalised now anyway?

[Wardley]

Yeah - I'd like to know that too. Is frost tanking with a 2 hander really that bad? I've been doing that since patch 3.1.

I've just been 'bumped' up the guild tanking list recently though cos we've lost our main MT and our main OT seems to have gone AWOL as well so I'm being called to OT the main guild raid runs more often now. We're not a particularly progressive guild - we generally just do the normal versions of raids and we're letting everyone gear up with badges for a few weeks before we go into ICC, but are my options now as a 'serious' DK tank either Blood tanking with a 2 hander or Duel wield Frost tanking?

[vkei]

GoHB,and HB DnD BB for AE is so goooood
at least better than
IT PS ............ and everyone OTed....

[soulcrusher]

Why DW though? Why not 2her?

[hatchetman240]

OMG! So I re-speced DW Frost last night and hit up Dungeon Finder (Remember I'm a Heroic Tank, not a Raid Tank) It was INSANELY easier than Blood. I mean, out of this world easier to hold threat.

The main plus I see for DW Frost Tanking is that you can find 'tanking' 1h weapons with Dodge, Def, Etc, so that you can dedicate more of your gems/enchants/whatever to threat. That said, I'm running 1h Garg on both of my weapons (one is a tanking mace, the other a DPS axe)

My idea of using 'Multi-Icecube-Disease spread' didn't pan out, but DnD followed by a HB does the trick quite nicely. Note sure if I'll swap out my glyphs to make DnD do 20% more dmg, or have HB spread Frost Fever.

I'll be using HB, IT and OB glyphs myself, I'll dump the OB glyph for UAglyph in hardmode content if needed.

Also the biggest thing you can do to improve your threat is snag a couple of slow DPS weapons, we still get insane utility from runeforging to help out what we lost here. No need to gem for threat when using slow DPS weapons will produce what five gems can't.

[eloki37]

<a href="http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...il">Sonnet</a>, my DK, started her career as frost, and has been a tank since day 1. I recently adopted a DW tanking build to compare it to normal 2h tanking. Here are my observations:

• More sustained DPS, which in turn equals more threat output. (I've out dpsed many dpsers during daily randoms lol)

• Runestrike can be used far more often because of the faster swing speed

• Less hit rating requirements because of Talents

• Easier defense requirements because you can actually use tank weapons if you choose

• KM Frost Strikes actually hit harder than with a 2h equipped

Granted, your strikes don't hit as hard as with a 2h weapon equipped, but most of our actual threat producing abilities don't depend as much on the weapon as they do on your attack power (DnD, Rune Strike, Diseases, Howling Blast).

My only real complaint is that you give up 6 talent points to make an effective DW build, which means you have to pass on other defensive talents.

All in all, I am pleased with the way it has been working out. I've successfully tanked the 3 heroic ICC dungeons with little problems, and I'll be doing some raid tanking with the build as soon as my work schedule lets up and I can devote time to it.

[patrin]

There aren't any 2h weapons itemized with Defense/Dodge. By going DW with 'tanking' weapons you free up a little slack in your defense cap for itemizing for other stats (personally I went Parry). Since the majority of what you're looking for in a weapon is 'Max Dmg' the tanking weapons are usually fine for threat.

in any decent gear (like badge + normal modes of current instance) you'll be so over the defense cap it doesnt matter my dk was pushing 580 defense before i swapped my chest and cloak enchants for health and armor.

[rabbimojo]

in any decent gear (like badge + normal modes of current instance) you'll be so over the defense cap it doesnt matter my dk was pushing 580 defense before i swapped my chest and cloak enchants for health and armor.

Agreed.
Personally, I think it should vary on encounter. Typically run a MH dps and OH tank.
I keep a second DPS weapon for high threat-demand situations and a second tank weapon for when threat is a secondary concern to survival.