The real DK tank

[Arsyn]

Well it seems to me frost isnt really shaping up to be good for tanking after all. To me it seems like will of the necropolis, forceful deflection, spell deflection, blade barrier, and pos scent of blood seems alot better for tank then frost.

well here is my tanking spec, still in the works but kinda hard to spec something you never played

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...10000000000000

[SwiftSM]

You're putting points in Unholy and not even getting the best talent in Unholy for tanking which is Bone Armor.

As has been said before many times in these forums, there aren't enough tanking talents on the way to it to make it worth it. By not going into frost you are giving up several key talents and picking up ones that won't mean anything for tanking. Will of the Necropolis is not good, because you don't want to be that low on HP while tanking. Whereas you could get Toughness, and have 15% extra armor all the time, which is better than 30% less than 10% of the time. The only good part of Will is the 12 expertise, and it's not worth speccing that deep into Blood for it. Also, Hysteria seems like a great talent, but not for a tank. You shouldn't be targeting someone in the raid to cast a spell while tanking, and it really doesn't seem like that's the type of debuff you'd want to put on yourself.

Frost has way too many talents to not go at least 35 points in to. Unholy isn't worth it at all as a tank imo.

33/38 or 30/41 still seem like the best options for tanking.

[SwiftSM]

Depends really. I dont like the OP's talent tree, but for magic tanking, unholy is the best/.

Why, because of Magic Suppression and Anti Magic Zone? Anti Magic Zone is a pvp talent. Magic Suppression is decent, but only when Shell is up, and that's every 15 seconds. Spell deflection is a much better talent, with the insane amounts of parry that DKs that spec to Blade Barrier will have. The unholy tree simply isn't worth it unless you plan on being a gimmick tank, and if so, that's fine. I plan on being a tank that can handle pretty much anything, and you can't really do that in Unholy.

[ShadowWeaver]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00510100000000

From what I can tell, strength and stamina are going to be a DK's biggest stats for tanking, so I've tried boosting them in
every way possible.

In case you don't know... STR becomes PARRY which in turn becomes MAGIC DAMAGE REDUCTION

I have a few fillers in my unholy tree, which I will probably iron out in the game, but I went down to the bone armor
since I can see it being like a shield?? for warriors and paladins, and how they block melee attacks or whatever

The anti magic stuff is also added in since DK's are meant to specialise in anti caster combat, so...

Any tips/advice or whatever is appreciated.

[Arsyn]

Will of the Necropolis is not good, because you don't want to be that low on HP while tanking. Whereas you could get Toughness, and have 15% extra armor all the time, which is better than 30% less than 10% of the time. The only good part of Will is the 12 expertise

Well yea, See, i play a pally tank and ill tell you that ardent defender is a life saver, will of the necropolis is just a mini version, though I do agree Unholy isnt prob the best place to put my other points. Also frost doesnt really add much in the ways of tanking besides a few points here and there, and to me, it looks like the tree is set for pvp snares and retarded burst dmg. Just think about it, why would a tank need to root a mob while he tanks, aside from runners. SO my revamped spec is

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Edit: Hysteria doesnt need to change target to cast, just click and click on portrait. or make a macro.

[Gestalt]

Oooookay. Probably best not to start a "help me figure this out" thread with something like "The real...". But that's as maybe.

I can certainly see going deep enough into Blood to get Blade Barrier, but it looks like you're sinking a lot of points into blood to get Will of the Necropolis. Yes, AD is a lifesaver, but you don't have to throw away points to get it in the Paladin Prot tree.

Don't trivialize the returns from Frost, though. That 15% armor is 15% to your BASE, the value that the Frost Presence armor multiplier gets applied to. If you're tanking, you're taking that talent. I confess I'm scratching my head over the first three rows in general. Why would you skip a constant 15% haste? Bit further down, Unbreakable Armor synergizes VERY well with Blade Barrier, Death Rune mastery, and all the Strength/parry talents. Howling Blast is a nice swat of AoE, and that leaves you points for Frost Aura for 6% health.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

And yeah, I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in front of calculators (since the alpha leak) trying to make an Unholy-heavy spec I was happy with. Hasn't happened yet, and barring a top to bottom tree redesign I don't see myself tanking with so much as a single point in Unholy.

And I really wish people would get their heads out of this "magic tank" thing. DK's have a "shield block" for spells, 3 interrupts, and high natural resist. Naked and with 0/0/0 they're better at soaking magic damage than any other tank class. That doesn't mean you SPEC exclusively around tanking magic damage (unless you're playing 90% as dps, 10% as a gimmick). It's every bit as tiresome as the "frost isn't tank, frost = control" schtick that gets brought up every time someone suggests that a few points in frost are mandatory for a serious tank.

[ullysis]

Currently, this is what i have simply bcos frost still requires some work.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Especially with "acclimation" which needs to be moved up a few tiers as it has the potential to give the entire raid 150-300 resistance (we'll know as soon as blizz decides on a value) . Initially it was 50 per proc for 3 procs to 150 for the entire raid but then it's gone back to - When hit by a spell, you have a X% chance to boost resistance to that school of magic for 18 sec. Stacks up to 3 times. (If blizz makes this 100, it will easily make this a must have option). But for now i'm just looking at something that protects just the DK tank.

Should Acclimation be viable i would go :-
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Even though a a prot tank I'm very aware f the value of parrying which makes me know i would definitely be dual-wielding in order to get more parries which in turn would lead to even more more hits (including just the speed of the weapons as i know waiting any boss cos of GCD or no runes will hurt threat - as dpsers will always continue), leading to more white dmg and higher chance to crit and proc killing machine (reason for my selection of conviction) which in turn gives me yet another crit, all without having to use "deathchill".

Anyway, it's all still in the air cos i really believe more work is needed on the frost tree. It's easy to see the synergy btwn blood/unholy and unholy/blood while frost kinda stands on its own. i guess it's sort of how arms/fur and fury/ams fit but prot just sits on its own. If this is Blizz's objective i don't mind but it'd be nice to have acclimation as i think it's quite undervalued cos of the whole "anti-magic zone" focus.

[zox]

1, dual wielding does not increases ur chance to parry, but increases the cance that the boss will parry u in a given timeframe
2, u say crit is very important to u and yet u spend 0 points in bloody vengeance

edited crit->parry :s

[Reinhard]

I would go along those lines : http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Ravenous Dead and Lichborn seem nice, but blade barrier (15% parry very often), unbreakable armor (15% on each frost rune to up threat, parry and armor) and enhanced frost aura (who doesn't want 6% more life).

[SwiftSM]

Also frost doesnt really add much in the ways of tanking besides a few points here and there, and to me, it looks like the tree is set for pvp snares and retarded burst dmg. Just think about it, why would a tank need to root a mob while he tanks, aside from runners. SO my revamped spec is

Frost has some amazing tanking talents, have you even looked at it? Toughness, Icy Talons, Frigid Dreadplate, Unbreakable Armor, and Frost Aura are all invaluable to tanking.

Here's what I plan on going with for my DK Tank @ 80.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Some of the talents are interchangeable, but what is necessary in each tree is;

Blood - Forceful Deflection, Spell Deflection, Third War, Abomination Strength, and Blade Barrier,

I'm not sold yet on Rune Tap. 14.5% HP fully talented isn't all tha great, when chances are one hit from a boss mob may very well be that much or more. For 3 talent points that could be better spent elsewhere at the moment, I'm just not sure yet.

Frost - Toughness, Icy Talons, Frigid Dreadplate, Unbreakable Armor, Frost Aura

[SwiftSM]

However, with the possibility of being able to have 2 specs at once and switching between them, and the DKs ability to hold aggro through doing damage, the second spec may not need to be a grinding spec.

If this is the case I may have a secondary tanking spec that is focused around mitigating casters, playing to the strengths in both Blood and Unholy at tanking casters. What I would do in that case would be a pretty hybrid spec, something like this http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...10510100000000

It's 20/19/32, going down to Spell Deflection in Blood, and getting Anti Magic Zone, Magic Suppression and Bone Armor in Unholy, as well as a few low tier items in frost.

[Gestalt]

However, with the possibility of being able to have 2 specs at once and switching between them, and the DKs ability to hold aggro through doing damage, the second spec may not need to be a grinding spec.

You raise an EXCELLENT point that I hadn't given much thought to. We all seem more or less settled on 33/38 (until they reshuffle the talent trees and this all becomes a moot point), but what about the OTHER spec?

[Reinhard]

However, with the possibility of being able to have 2 specs at once and switching between them, and the DKs ability to hold aggro through doing damage, the second spec may not need to be a grinding spec.

If this is the case I may have a secondary tanking spec that is focused around mitigating casters, playing to the strengths in both Blood and Unholy at tanking casters. What I would do in that case would be a pretty hybrid spec, something like this http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...10510100000000

It's 20/19/32, going down to Spell Deflection in Blood, and getting Anti Magic Zone, Magic Suppression and Bone Armor in Unholy, as well as a few low tier items in frost.

I would twist it a little beat.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...12510100000000

I like death rune mastery to have a bit a flexibility in your choice.

In Unholy Ravenous dead seems cool. 5 points ==> 5% strength (threat and mitigation).
And corpse explosion could go nicely with death and decay for AOE tanking.

But then again, I play mage at the moment, so I'm maybe not the most informed citizen in these matters. :=

[Kadvael]

i figured on my own a spec tanking oriented :

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jV0...xVZchgzoIotVko

i maybe should exchange the "frozen run weapon" and "master of ghouls". the rest of the talents trees have been built with synergies in mind.

so i took almost all strength and stamina upgrades as well as the armor boosts and damage reduction (bone armor, magic suppression, spell deflection)
all that has in mind thius scheme :

strength gives AP and parry (through forcefull deflection)
armor gives AP (through bladed armor)
AP boots even more spell dmg (through impurity)

i agree that anti magic zone can be somehow seen as a pvp oriented talent, but just think to fights like aran (and i'm pretty sure there will be some in wotlk). what do you think about getting the whole raid in the zone and let the first 12k5 (with the magic suppression synergy) dmg just be absorbed ?
and there are other fights where the raid take huge magic damages. and even fights when the dk is not obliged to tank basically all bosses that does magic damages to the raid (kael'thas, void reaver, a'lar, hydross)ok it's the boss killer talent nor an easy mod. but it's a plus you can def use to ease the fight.