Sick to Death

[Gazgul]

Improved rune tap is a pretty fantastic emergency heal and will count for more healing done to yourself (provided you use it) than one point in imp. BP. That being said, you can get away with not getting either if you want to rely on healers. Personally I enjoy being a self-healing tank.

---------- Post added 2010-08-26 at 05:27 AM ----------



Frost may do more TPS but is it really TPS that you're going to need? I calculate not. I much prefer being an out and out better, more survivable tank than doing a little more aoe tps - because in every good measure for tanking besides aoe tps, blood outpaces frost.

The extra crit you get from subversion is really chump change compared to what you can get that gives you more effective health and self healing from other talents.

edit: I cannot think of a tank build that doesn't get 3/3 morbidity at this point. That's not what I'd call gimping.

And we're talking about a DK tank wanting to do HC's effectively where threat is the issue for the most part with most dps pulling enough tps to pull off you all the time.

Where Frost would be king.

"chump change" like picking up improved death and decay for tanking a boss... yeh thats 3 wasted tallent points right there.

[Jadugarr]

And we're talking about a DK tank wanting to do HC's effectively where threat is the issue for the most part with most dps pulling enough tps to pull off you all the time.

Where Frost would be king.

"chump change" like picking up improved death and decay for tanking a boss... yeh thats 3 wasted tallent points right there.

Doing heroics effectively does not require the aoe tps edge frost provides over blood. It is far better to be a more survivable tank by speccing blood. Also, which is it you're arguing - aoe tps is good or aoe tps is not needed? Because your last comment seems to indicate that morbidity is wasted talent points, which it isn't when you're tanking trash or adds on a boss.

Threat is not the issue in heroics, and if it is for you then you might want to consider your own playstyle as blood.

Definitely do not spec blood with low-end gear. Raiding is definitely dominated by blood DKs but HCs are perfect playground for frost DKs. It is all the more important if you are starting DK tank because forst has so much better snap and AOE aggro than blood. Also, blood spec wont bring you any benefits in poor gear because % of very little of something is a very very little benefit. Similar issue is with self-healing since as poorly geared tank you will hit for nothing and healing for a % from nothing is not a big benefit.

What you're saying here indicates to me that you think death strike heals are based off the damage it deals, when in fact they are based off your total health (which, by the way, will be higher as blood).

In equal gear a blood dk will always be easier to heal than a frost dk, that is the simple truth of the matter. I have two ~5k gs healer alts, a shaman and druid, and my experience with dk tanks other than myself supports my stance - not that anecdotal evidence means much.

[linusivar]

Sorry what realm do you play on, because I have never seen anyone get warned or banned for bad language...

There is rules about bad language.. read the rules maybe???

[Seriss]

A quick glance at your signature tells me that you know better than to believe people who think blood is bad for tanking.

And I don't know, I think I'd have an issue with someone who was trying to tank as unholy nowadays. It's bad enough tolerating frost tanks, especially those who dual wield tank weapons.

Ah but the point is that I wasn't so sure about it back then, you see. I had been a warlock until T5/early T6 content, and during T5 content I had already begun playing my shaman and had been a resto-shaman for god knows how long then up until the end of Sunwell. But I had never tanked. And the DK was a brandnew class. D&D still had that OP fear effect on the mobs who stood in it back then. I didn't know much about DKs, I didn't know much about tanking; I was clueless, insecure and always asking if what I was doing was okay. There wasn't much info about DKs in general, not like there is today. So I stood there and listened to what people said. And they said "Blood DKs aren't tanks. Frost-DKs are tanks. And Unholy rocks for AoE tanking." That was what people believed back then. I'm convinced many still firmly believe in it.

But still, I liked my blood spec and felt the most comfortable with it. And even if it hadn't been really nice for tanking, I'd have remained specced like that because it was a spec that I could handle. I had tried out frost for a single dungeon once but I just couldn't get the hang of it, partly due to the fact that even after I had told people that I was trying out a new spec and that they should give me a few moments when I pull a mob to get accustomed to the new things, big bad moonkin idiot just hurricaned right into the mobs when my D&D wasn't even ticking yet

Since then I switched servers and played another DK to 80 (yes, I'm odd like that... but I need a character that I can farm with when I'm bored and didn't want to transfer my old DK). My new DK is frost DW now and getting the hang of her procs and priorities. But I'm not tanking with her. Maybe I will try it again in Cataclysm as soon as my main character has hit 85 (raiding is more of a priority than levelling an alt )

[Deleted]

And we're talking about a DK tank wanting to do HC's effectively where threat is the issue for the most part with most dps pulling enough tps to pull off you all the time.

Where Frost would be king.

"chump change" like picking up improved death and decay for tanking a boss... yeh thats 3 wasted tallent points right there.

It's not like 90% of an instance is trash or anything. Definitely not.

[Jadugarr]

Oh, I was under the impression someone told you that recently.

Yeah, back then the tank specs were pretty up in the air. Will of the necropolis sucked back then, I think unholy and frost were competing for the best tank spec. So they weren't inaccurate.

[miekkagoon]

it is pity that now in the end of wotlk people look yer gs when you bloody pug to hc... seriously been kicked twice while doing medicore dps just after fights when some smart guy starts looking gear...

Sheesh ... i probly get next game card in few months just to do reclaiming isles and gnomer while waiting cata to hit .
I see a wave of QQ because everyone must have icc 25 gear to do new instaces on normal in the future... oh that is going to be "great"

and remember you heard about it here first

[Gazgul]

Yo everyone play there character differnely, i roll with a trash spec and a MT boss spec.

I used to have Blood/Blood with my trash with 3/3 Morbidity , glyph of D&D, and glyph of icy touch. And yeh it does fine, but i swaped my offspec to frost DW and i just makes like much easyer and more interesting.

having 2 shadowmornes in your raid and demo warlocks require a hell ton of tps to keep adds off them, blood does a good job with the right spec and glyphs. But as i said having to take this spec and glyphs is weaker.

Its all down to how you want to play the game really though.

[Kucedon]

Well I just did HoS heroic with absolutely no problems, but I did just buy the t9 helm before hand and am now like 15 over the Defense Cap (:

Also had a pretty chill group, except the Fury Warrior who was determined to go all out DPS whenever I pulled, but hey I like a challenge!

There is no defense cap!
What you refer to is defense minimum to get to the uncrittable by melee attacks from mobs statistic.
Second, as is told, go in blood spec as tank , healing a frost specced tank is much harder.

[Deleted]

Y'know what I mean xP

[Baron01]

Healing blood spec might be easier for additional healing received and some extra hp. Only the extra healing remains as benefit on low gear levels. So the only reason to say blood is easier to heal is the fact heals hit for a bit more.

Blood tanks receive equal or more damage than frost tank. Frost has 3% reduced chance to be hit. Frost has additional 2% damage reduction from improved frost presence. Frost has Unbreakable Armor and prolonged Icebound fortitude. Added all together, with proper use of CDs, increased mitigation and avoidance from talents, frost tanks will be hit less often for lower amounts than blood tanks.
Healers will be a lot less stressed to cover spikes that are definitely more prone to happen on blood than frost tank. It will be easier to refill blood tank's hp back to full from pure HPS view due to extra added healing potency and DK self-healing. However, healers cant rely on tank's ability to self-healing abilities to save the tank. They will have to spend mana or GCD to cast healing spell anyway, which might end up as overhealing. There will be times when extra self-healing and survival CDs of blood tank will save the day but this is more likely happen in raiding than in heroics.

Again, nobody disputes the fact that blood is the spec-to-go for raiding. However, saying that blood is the best spec for heroics, especially when starting, is just not right.

[Deleted]

Hmm I've always been a Blood Tank, and I've never got any Problems, from Heroics to Naxx over Uld to ICC (drop ToC it's crap ^^) and I've also never had any Threat problems.

So I think it is less a gear prob, then a "what do you like" prob

I just love the Blood Specc )))

And about how to skill, I will alway choose improved Rune Tap, cause up to 10k heal is great for emergency

[Smoopie]

Run toc5 normal, run heroics for about 30 hours. Then you will be geared.

Who cares what crap you put up with, "getting geared" is a very short lived process these days. You will see it all but it won't be so bad.

[Deleted]

First off sorry if this comes out as a double post, this only just appeared.

I'm only Frost atm because I was lead to believe that it had superior threat and being in the gear that I am I thought that would be the main worry, I might try out blood now you've said that...

Blood is cool though it lacks the aoe abilities of frost and unholy so keep that in mind, blood is an awesome single target tank though.

[Fenixdown]

Thank the man that made GearScore and the people that support it as "practical" for the state of the community as it is.

Even in BC when people required T6 to run Karazhan, those people were just laughed at and shunned. Now they're the majority.

Frankly, I'd just do what everyone else seems to be doing nowadays. Don't tank. When the community's tank supply is so low that it takes them nearly an hour to do their one random, maybe they'll learn to stop treating everyone else like crap for no legitimate reason whatsoever.

Or they'll quit WoW in an emonerdrage. You know, whichever happens first. Both solutions still solve the problem.

[Smoopie]

Even in BC when people required T6 to run Karazhan, those people were just laughed at and shunned. Now they're the majority.

!!!!!!!!!!!

YES. someone else noticed this...

It is like all the 4 hour a week "raiders" have taken over. And no I don't mean the the 4 hours a week clear everything guild, i'm talking the ones that readycheck between trash pulls and take 5 min breaks for loot...

[Frozendekay]

If all you're going to be doing for a good while is heroic grinding then I would stay frost. It really is vastly superior in AoE situations.

Once you start tanking anything that has a chance of killing you (raids) then you can make the transition to blood.

[Spectrez]

Sorry what realm do you play on, because I have never seen anyone get warned or banned for bad language...

...report spam or go into help request and report that you are offended by their language, blizz will do something about it, trust me. I've been banned 4 times D=

[Onorvele]

Doing heroics effectively does not require the aoe tps edge frost provides over blood. It is far better to be a more survivable tank by speccing blood. Also, which is it you're arguing - aoe tps is good or aoe tps is not needed? Because your last comment seems to indicate that morbidity is wasted talent points, which it isn't when you're tanking trash or adds on a boss.

Threat is not the issue in heroics, and if it is for you then you might want to consider your own playstyle as blood.

When gearing up, threat is definitely an issue in heroics. Try gearing in 200s and running with a few 5500 GS DPS. DPS has been programmed to open up with AoE right off the bat - and the triple AoE (DnD, HwB, BB) that Frost can open with is awesome. During my initial move from Frost to Blood tanking I did the higher opening aggro sequence of DnD, BB, IT, PS, RP dump, Pest - the better rotation is to not BB until the second round, saving the blood rune for a first round Pest after applying diseases, but strong AoE DPS would pull mobs away from wimpy undergeared DnD.

Frost is significantly at quickly gaining aggro on large pulls, which is important when you're dealing with a gearing deficit compared to the DPS in group.

In equal gear a blood dk will always be easier to heal than a frost dk, that is the simple truth of the matter. I have two ~5k gs healer alts, a shaman and druid, and my experience with dk tanks other than myself supports my stance - not that anecdotal evidence means much.

You're definitely right here. Blood has higher survivability to Frost. And, if you can trust your DPS not to pull aggro off you in those initial pulls (or, at least your healer not to heal the DPS that do pull aggro off you), then I'd similarly recommend Blood.

What you're saying here indicates to me that you think death strike heals are based off the damage it deals, when in fact they are based off your total health (which, by the way, will be higher as blood).

Sorry, you're not exactly right. The maximum amount healed depends on your total health (5% of maximum health + 5% per disease, up to a maximum of 15% with 2 or more diseases). The actual amount healed is 80% of damage dealt + 40% per disease. So as Blood you've got a higher opportunity - but you've still got to hit hard to take advantage of it.

[Jadugarr]

Sorry, you're not exactly right. The maximum amount healed depends on your total health (5% of maximum health + 5% per disease, up to a maximum of 15% with 2 or more diseases). The actual amount healed is 80% of damage dealt + 40% per disease. So as Blood you've got a higher opportunity - but you've still got to hit hard to take advantage of it.

Yeah I am. Death strike tooltip reads: "A deadly attack that deals 75% weapon damage plus 222.75 and heals the Death Knight for 5% of his/her maximum health for each of his/her diseases on the target."

I used death strike multiple times on a target dummy, they all hit for different amounts but they all healed for an identical amount. Death strike healing is not based on damage done.