Is unholy viable tanking specc?

[BoxofRox]

Honestly, I'll put it out there just bluntly. No.

I refuse to admit that Unholy is a viable tanking spec in ICC. You get less damage mitigation and basicly zero cooldowns, which in blood / frost you get nearly two of the best cooldowns in the game. It doesn't add to the fact that Unholy requires high avoidance, and you're already missing 20% dodge.

Sorry, but no.

[Lyaral]

The only reason I see to play unholy is to provide the 13% magic dmg buff, on the assumption the 10% ap is either provided or not needed due to it being a caster focused group in 10man lacking either a boomkim or lock which is quite unlikely unless its a mixed group of dps.

Blood offers the highest effective health out of the 3 specs and this is the most important thing in icc when bad rng can be 4-5 hits in a row.

[Bokoshoko]

For a slightly different view point from someone who is an Unholy DK Tank...

I'm tanking our 10 mans in ICC, have full clears of ToTC etc etc. I have absolutely no idea where the notion of that unholy is "terrible" for single target and AoE threat - I don't seem to have a problem and am not entirely reliant on rogues and hunters to use threat transfer.

I seem to have little problem being kept up during Fester at 3 stacks of inhale, for example, despite us using only 2 healers; maybe it's the buffed 55k+ health without using pure stamina gemming and some awareness of how to actually use Bone shield and IBF - I don't know...

My gear is purely from 10 mans with only 2 piece T10 and the crafter boots - so I'm not out gearing the content per se.

It's a more demanding spec to play; is that the issue? you need to understand disease management and stop thinking of BS or IBF as purely for oh s**t moments and more as part of your tanking rotation/priority.

As the RL I know I'm not the rate limiting step in our progression at the moment; I'm not threat capping the DPS and I'm not a huge mana soak for the healers. If this changes I'll swap to blood but for the moment my actual experience shows the unholy is a viable spec, even in ICC.

But all this means nothing compared to the shared internet wisdom that says Unholy is not viable.

[Puupi]

UH tanking is viable. Reasons:
-6% spell dmg taken, better AMS, AMZ, good aoe snare (desecrated ground), Bone Shield, Threat is equal to other specs now that IT is ridiculous (just spam IT and PS, dont use SS)

The only thing unholy ISN'T good is the aoe tanking, no snap threat. Tank diseases are a joke and Wandering Plague doesn't really work in tanking gear (too low crit) and that talent shouldn't be taken in a tanking spec.

[Zao]

6% Magic damage is more or less on par with Spell Deflection overall. ANd Spell Deflection is considered pretty bad for a reason.
As explained above it doesn't matter if AMS is improved or not, on fights where it matters you get hit for more than 50% of your health no matter if its 100% absorbed or 75%.
AMZ is rarely needed (though it does have its uses.
Where do you need an AoE Snare? you could alswell spec into Chillbains in Frost if it mattered for you trash tanking.
BSh's problem is that it CAN fall off too quickly, which can be devastating on specific fights.
There's been enough discussion on IT spam. It makes you bad. period.

I agree that Unholy's TPS/DPS isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, but it's still worse than the other two specs. And as I said, besides EP there is nothing Unholy provides that Blood wouldn't provide more efficiently.

Edit: I'm still waiting for someone to post his video where he tanked ICC with a 0/0/0 spec and claims it to be viable. Without a doubt it's possible, but that doesn't mean you should do it.

[Puupi]

AMZ is just another self cooldown as a tank....or a cooldown for the other tank that's standing next to you.

[Bokoshoko]

Edit: I'm still waiting for someone to post his video where he tanked ICC with a 0/0/0 spec and claims it to be viable. Without a doubt it's possible, but that doesn't mean you should do it.

Depends on viability definition I guess; you could argue that the video of the hunter "tanking" Marrowgar is a demonstration of the viability of hunter pet tanking in ICC but we all know this is a novelty.

I qualified my statement quite carefully and deliberately by indicating that to me viability means that I should not be threat capping my DPS or causing such a drain on my healers that they consider me a mana soak. If I'm doing neither of those things, staying alive, and successfully tanking the content we're working on then I'd argue that's a pretty good example of viability.

My disagreement isn't with the rational discussion that contributors such as you are putting forth it's with the people who you strongly suspect are merely repeating "received wisdom" which is clearly indicated by some of the posts made in this thread.

[Rankka]

So far I've successfully tanked ICC10 12/12 and 11/12H + some bosses in 25/25HC as my guilds MTs haven't always been there.

I have never had any survival issues nor threat issues. Maybe it's because my mainspec is UH dps, I've very much used to every UH abilities, and whenever I've tried Blood-spec I've just failed. Badly.

Luckily we're still in 3.3.3. where we can spec for whatever spec suits your style best. I'd try out frost if I'd ever get any decent weapons for that, but so far I'm very happy as unholy. Though it has to be said that our guild has awesome healers, and when I've talked with them they've said that healing me is no different from our pally/druid/warrior MT.

So I'd say: go with whatever style that suits you. The 3,000 extra HP wont make or break the fight. If they do, you have something else to worry than your spec, imo.

-R

[Ericdaroude]

In heroics/Normalmodes every spec is useable. As soon as you start raiding hardmodes, the tiny bonus to you aoe threat won't matter at all and your face will be smashed too hard.

[Bloodgruve]

This^

I've tanked 6/12 ICC10 normal with an unholy dps spec in tank gear w/o problem. I can imagine some issues past that with a dps spec but it wasn't anything our heals couldn't handle. If I can do it in a dps spec normal mode shouldn't be an issue for a competent group.


Blood~