Frost Tank or Blood Tank?

[Rima]

I am currently tanking as Frost 2H and I'm not uber geared but I don't have any problem in heroics (yeah, lame I know).

I was wondering what people prefer as tanks?

Frost DW Tank?
Frost 2H Tank?
Blood 2H Tank?

My Armory ==> http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ran&n=Arcturus

[Whitcher]

As offtank you can be whatever, but as MT I would recommend blood.

[Asur]

Blood to me would seem more simple to start with but frost does have alot of defensive cooldowns

[aenimus]

frost dw tanking is a waste of talent points. frost has defensive cd's and blood has health gaining abilities, either is viable. as a healer i don't even notice the difference.

[PANDALOL]

Blood!

[Deleted]

Id say Blood 2H.

Ive tested all specs and Blood turned out the best aggro control and health
and those 2 are very important for ICC

[mhp]

I'm a DW frost tank, used to be Blood. While Blood does provide more health, you also take a ton more damage as that spec. That's somewhat countered by the self healing of death strike, but from my experience, 99% of the time, DS was overhealing, unless I broke the rotation.

As DW frost, I have ~3k less health (sitting at 39,7k at the moment in avoidance gear, 41.5k in stamina gear; compared to the ~44k as blood), but I have 2% damage reduction, 3% to be missed and 4% more parry, and 25% more armor 30% of the time, which in the end, makes me take less damage in the long run than when I was blood.

My threat is also a lot better, since TotGC gear has nearly no hit, and as DW frost, I could afford to loose some, without loosing threat (I actually do more TPS as DW frost). Not to mention that DW frost has good AoE threat: I can solo tank Onyxia both on 10 and 25 easily, I can easily hold aggro on Anub'arak's adds (just killed him on 25-man heroic yesterday, with me being one of the add-tanks), I can spec & glyph into Hungering Cold, making it a very good interrupt on Anub's adds, and a decent CC on faction champions.

All that, and DW frost is a lot more fun to play in my opinion. Blood was terribly boring.

I'm a happy dual wielding tank.

[Deleted]

I'm a DW frost tank, used to be Blood. While Blood does provide more health, you also take a ton more damage as that spec. That's somewhat countered by the self healing of death strike, but from my experience, 99% of the time, DS was overhealing, unless I broke the rotation.

As DW frost, I have ~3k less health (sitting at 39,7k at the moment in avoidance gear, 41.5k in stamina gear; compared to the ~44k as blood), but I have 2% damage reduction, 3% to be missed and 4% more parry, and 25% more armor 30% of the time, which in the end, makes me take less damage in the long run than when I was blood.

My threat is also a lot better, since TotGC gear has nearly no hit, and as DW frost, I could afford to loose some, without loosing threat (I actually do more TPS as DW frost). Not to mention that DW frost has good AoE threat: I can solo tank Onyxia both on 10 and 25 easily, I can easily hold aggro on Anub'arak's adds (just killed him on 25-man heroic yesterday, with me being one of the add-tanks), I can spec & glyph into Hungering Cold, making it a very good interrupt on Anub's adds, and a decent CC on faction champions.

All that, and DW frost is a lot more fun to play in my opinion. Blood was terribly boring.

I'm a happy dual wielding tank.

Link me your armory then...
I want to see that spec of yours, cause last time i gotten no threat out of DW

[darksöul]

I'm a DW frost tank, used to be Blood. While Blood does provide more health, you also take a ton more damage as that spec. That's somewhat countered by the self healing of death strike, but from my experience, 99% of the time, DS was overhealing, unless I broke the rotation.

As DW frost, I have ~3k less health (sitting at 39,7k at the moment in avoidance gear, 41.5k in stamina gear; compared to the ~44k as blood), but I have 2% damage reduction, 3% to be missed and 4% more parry, and 25% more armor 30% of the time, which in the end, makes me take less damage in the long run than when I was blood.

My threat is also a lot better, since TotGC gear has nearly no hit, and as DW frost, I could afford to loose some, without loosing threat (I actually do more TPS as DW frost). Not to mention that DW frost has good AoE threat: I can solo tank Onyxia both on 10 and 25 easily, I can easily hold aggro on Anub'arak's adds (just killed him on 25-man heroic yesterday, with me being one of the add-tanks), I can spec & glyph into Hungering Cold, making it a very good interrupt on Anub's adds, and a decent CC on faction champions.

All that, and DW frost is a lot more fun to play in my opinion. Blood was terribly boring.

I'm a happy dual wielding tank.

I like to see your specc m8 because i dont really can hold aggro in dw frost

[Soulbender]

depends if you're running with T8 or T9 gear.

With average alt gear (T8), blood spec was very bad, and frost was a lot more survivable, without any question. 2H in both cases.

Same as dps imo. With full T9 gear blood > All, but if not, you're gimping yourself.

Too much people rely on "blood is the best spec because i read it on the internets". It CAN suck a lot :P

[Lug]

I can spec & glyph into Hungering Cold, making it a very good interrupt on Anub's adds

Last time I tried, it poped "Immune" all over. At least in 10HM.

[Deleted]

The Best way to tank is basicly have 2 tank specs xD

Frost and Blood.
Blood for Single targets,
Frost for AoE packs? :P

[mhp]

Armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...r=Vashj&n=Dors

And yeah, Hungering Cold does pop immune on Anub's adds, but it still interrupts their cast, which is what matters.

[Deleted]

Armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...r=Vashj&n=Dors

And yeah, Hungering Cold does pop immune on Anub's adds, but it still interrupts their cast, which is what matters.

Its friday and its a raid night, i will transform into this spec.

grab my 2 titanguards from the bank and test it out

[Lug]

Armory: http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...r=Vashj&n=Dors

And yeah, Hungering Cold does pop immune on Anub's adds, but it still interrupts their cast, which is what matters.

Guess I'll give it another try. Thanks for this.

I still don't find what frost DW gives compared to frost 2H. (maybe threat ?)
You said you were having 4% more parry. I assume you were talking about the swordbreaking runes on your weapons.
Still, the 25 def/2% hp rune gives you 1%parry/1%dodge/1%miss unaffected by DR (or at least as EJ and TS said). So, I would not say 4% more parry, but 1% more avoidance, in exchange of 2%stam.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wong.

[mhp]

grab my 2 titanguards from the bank and test it out

Don't. Fast/fast is bad. You'll have stupidly low threat with two titanguards. Quel'Serrar is so-so with it's 2.0 speed, anything below that is plain terrible.

I still don't find what frost DW gives compared to frost 2H. (maybe threat ?)

Threat (and higher uptime of the avoidance sigil, due to more rune strikes: when I'm not on add duty, it's up all the time).

Feel free to correct me if I'm wong.

You are correct. I tend to forget the defense component of the 2h rune.

[Mudvein]

concerning the rune strike. its not really a buff in frost because the 245 sigil in any spec in decent gear should never fall off if your using it when its up. it procs of a dodge/parry not a attack so faster wepons means nothing.

Yes the most noticable downfall of duel weild tanking is no stone skin gargoyle for one handers which is being corrected in 3.3 so frost will be gettig a nice buff.

In high end gear my opinion is go Blood if you will be MTing more and Frost duel weild if you will be OTing mroe and dealing with adds. Being able to grab both would be great. The gap between them isnt much they are both viable each excelling a little more in one feild

Blood=single target due to higher single target threat and being able to self heal well when on one target

Frost= mobs(anything with more then one target) due to stronger aoe threat, and this is where the extra mitigation of frost shines due to taking less damage from multipe targets as when blood your blowing you cds on bloodboil, death and decay, and heartstrikes for agro and not able to use death strikes to self heal.

2hand frost is not viable anymroe jsut as 2hand dps isnt. You simply jsut cannot put out enough dps/ tps in this spec to effectively tank or fufill your role as a dps. And along with the 3.3 buff of one hand stone skin gargoyle why would you want to 2hand over duel weild frost tank?

Is Mting as duel weild frost viable? Sure it definitly is. As of now blood is again a little better on single target but healers shouldnt notice the difference. Anyone who tries to say you wrong by tanking in duel weild frost is wrong and prolly jsut cant play the spec them selves.
plus theres indirect advantages of frost like posted above, of being able to easily and i mean easily solo tank 10 and 25ony. Is it possible as blood,... well sure but its hell. (have done ten man and dont even want to try 25 unfortuantly dont want to drop dps spec for frost and dont ahve a second weapon yet anyways.

Two more quick things about frost. You due need to be a little mroe picking about gear. You have mroe to balance and need the right one hand weapons(As Slow as possible) and the rotation is a little harder.
compared to blood being able to pick up any 2hander and being able to rock n roll and blood rotation is extremely easy.

So my recomendation is try out blood and duel weild frost and just go with what ever you have mroe fun or if u no if u will be mostly mting or oting. what it comes down to is that both are viable.
good luck with what ever you choose

[mhp]

concerning the rune strike. its not really a buff in frost because the 245 sigil in any spec in decent gear should never fall off if your using it when its up. it procs of a dodge/parry not a attack so faster wepons means nothing.

It means I can RS more often. Not because I'd have more runic power, or dodge/avoid more, but because it's an on-next-hit attack. I had trouble keeping the proc up as blood at times. No such worries as frost.

Blood=single target due to higher single target threat and being able to self heal well when on one target

Everyone seems to go on and on how that self healing is great but... from my experience, and looking at my old logs when I was blood, the vast majority of it is overhealing, making it quite useless.

The 3% to be missed and 2% damage reduction easily outweighs the self healing in my book.

Is Mting as duel weild frost viable? Sure it definitly is. As of now blood is again a little better on single target but healers shouldnt notice the difference. Anyone who tries to say you wrong by tanking in duel weild frost is wrong and prolly jsut cant play the spec them selves.

This. I've MTed everything currently in game both as blood and as DW frost. With the exception of Anub'arak 25 HC (only tanked the adds there) and Alone in the Darkness 25 (tanked it as frost on 10).

Two more quick things about frost. You due need to be a little mroe picking about gear. You have mroe to balance and need the right one hand weapons(As Slow as possible) and the rotation is a little harder.

That's what I like about frost. It's not faceroll, and the rotation/priority system keeps me awake, while I could tank anything as blood while happily snoring over my keyboard.

[Mudvein]

It means I can RS more often. Not because I'd have more runic power, or dodge/avoid more, but because it's an on-next-hit attack. I had trouble keeping the proc up as blood at times. No such worries as frost.

If your gear is toc or even ulduar lvl you should have more then enough avoidance to have rune strike constantly proccing. On my dk i rune strike nonstop and the thought of the buff falling off never crosses my mine. but never the less this is such a small thing its not worth arguing over.

Everyone seems to go on and on how that self healing is great but... from my experience, and looking at my old logs when I was blood, the vast majority of it is overhealing, making it quite useless.

The 3% to be missed and 2% damage reduction easily outweighs the self healing in my book.

This is another reason why blood has passed frost aside from nerfs from naxx to toc.. The healing from blood scales with gear, the avoidance and damage reduction does not. The better your gear is the harder you hit and the more hp you will recover. Also its not hard to death strike when your not completely toped off instead of when u are to make the healing useful.

This. I've MTed everything currently in game both as blood and as DW frost. With the exception of Anub'arak 25 HC (only tanked the adds there) and Alone in the Darkness 25 (tanked it as frost on 10).

simply another example of how both specs are viable

That's what I like about frost. It's not faceroll, and the rotation/priority system keeps me awake, while I could tank anything as blood while happily snoring over my keyboard.

in my opinion the above quote explains what should be your decision maker between blood and frost duel weild.

If you are new to tanking and want to get use to it without having to worry about your rotation at first roll blood. If tanking is farily easy for you as it should be roll frost to make it a little more fun. for my self blood dosnt bother me because its my alt so im not playing it all the time.

[McSuk]

Anyone know if using Glyph of Howling Blast is beneficial? I think using 1 hard-hitting disease applier would produce more threat than 2 weak disease appliers. Especially for groups.

I've found I put out more dps with 1 disease this way, so I was just wondering if it worked the same way for tanking. Of course they're 2 completely different things, but it's just a thought.