What is the proper Frost Tank DK spell rotation?

[Mofoe]

I leveled unholy and tank all non-heroic instance easily but know that I am moving into Heroics I want to go frost for more o shit buttons. However my frost damage isnt that great can a few people give me thier rotation on mobs and boss fights? Also let me know how much DPS you guys are doing?

[LordDarkmatter]

I'm currently tanking frost, my rotations are:

for Aoe groups:
D&D, IT, PS, Pest . . . HB, BB, BB, Oblit . . . IT, PS, Pest, HB, BB
by this time most groups are dead I dont often use D&D more then once per fight

for single target:
IT, PS, BS, BS, Oblit . . . Oblit, BS, BS, Oblit
I only us HB on single target if i get it for free from Rime

I think I do about 1100 dps, the highest crit I've ever gotten with HB is about 4k it combos nice with deathchill

[Abandon]

If you want to gain quite a lot of aggro on all of the mobs at once, you can use:

D&D, Icy Touch, Pestilence, Blood Tap, Howling Blast.

Throw in a Deathchill if you really want to keep them stuck on you.

[Vallos]

I'm curious if there's a way to get higher damage. I've Unholy tanked my way through heroics with around 1800 DPS and I went to try Frost last night for kicks. Admittedly I'm awful at it, since this is my first time picking it up-- but I had a hard time breaking 1200 DPS. Is this normal? Am I doing something horribly wrong?

[Mofoe]

I have the same problem with frost tanking I know DPS isn't what tanks shoot for but my unholy DPS compared to my Frost DPS is a major decline I am also wondering do I just suck at frost

[LordDarkmatter]

It's hard to say, Unholy is the major aoe tree so your dps would be higher on group pulls, youd have to compare your single target dps to frosts to get a more accurate idea, I'm gona be trying an unholy build today see how it works.

[madsweeney]

Frost tanking has an advantage in single target DPS vs Unholy's AE DPS. Compare your boss fight DPS between the two specs and frost should be significantly higher. Overall, unholy will put out more dmg due to trash pulls.

[Cûr]

That's about right Vallos, I'm routinely between 1200-1400dps in Frost in heroics. I leveled in Beta and exp as Unholy and tanked heroics in Beta too. WP added to FF/CF and UB is really amazing DPS.

[Elektrik]

Here is a little something to go by.

If you're in vent for the instance you're doing, you should be frost.

If you're not in vent, you should be unholy.

Unholy does more damage, frost takes less damage. Heroics/5 mans are easy, 10/25 mans require a little less damage to be taken.

So, kids, if you're pugging a heroic and the group leader won't take you because you're unholy, then find a group that doesn't have an idiot as a leader.

[Cûr]

In regards to the rotation, I usually drop DnD, yoink the mob that dies first, PS, IT, Pest, BS (to get BBarrier going), HB... then I go into a priority system... HB when up, tabbing FS and Rune Strikes to spread aggro... reapplying diseases as necessary and starting again.

Strictly adhering to some (macro'ed :-[) rotation is bad. Don't do it.

Bad DKs are Bad.

[Righteousone]

I see many tanks speccing for Frost Strike but i do not see many of them using it in their rotation. Can anyone explain this?

Also, what are the pros and cons for Frost strike?

[Gamehenge]

If you want to gain quite a lot of aggro on all of the mobs at once, you can use:

D&D, Icy Touch, Pestilence, Blood Tap, Howling Blast.

Throw in a Deathchill if you really want to keep them stuck on you.

Dude awesome! Totally didn't think about this before i had forgotten blood tap immediately refreshes your blood rune and changes it to a dr, so used to having to wait for runes to refresh as dr's. Haha this is so much better than doing the dnd->it->ps->pest->cross your fingers that you aoe dpsers don't pull before runes back->hb->bb

Oh and i use frost strike a lot in my tanking. Usually after the 2nd rotation or so i'll have more rp than my rampant rune strike spams are consuming and will then start to frost strike spam

Macro rune strike to pretty much every skill you use. Makes it way easier, you'll use it more, and your threat will be better. Here is the macro you should use:

#showtooltip *spell*
/cast *spell*(rank #)
/cast Rune Strike

[Scripts]

Marco Question regarding the Rune Strike Macro you're using Gamehenge - Do you always have to include the spell level, or will it autocast the highest spell available?

I've got Oblivion/Deathstrike macro'd with a shift modifier. I just want to make sure I don't need to modify that one to include spell level. Otherwise, it'll be a major Macro rework every few levels for everything...

[jtgreg77]

Here is a little something to go by.

If you're in vent for the instance you're doing, you should be frost.

If you're not in vent, you should be unholy.

Unholy does more damage, frost takes less damage. Heroics/5 mans are easy, 10/25 mans require a little less damage to be taken.

So, kids, if you're pugging a heroic and the group leader won't take you because you're unholy, then find a group that doesn't have an idiot as a leader.

You Sir are an idiot, you do not have to be frost or unholy just because you are pugging a 5 man and you dont have vent. I have tanked as all three specs and admittedly frost and unholy is much easier, but i like blood as well for tanking. All three specs have their strengths and weaknesses as far as tanking goes. If your having trouble tanking (which is a little off topic, but hey) Gear up first then start worrying about spec and rotation.

You seem to know what your doing (tanking wise) and just need to tweak for max efficiency, Lord Dark has a great rotation posted above, similar to what has been posted on elitiest jerks and it works out great for frost.

If your new to DKs dont listen to this dude.

[Gamehenge]

Marco Question regarding the Rune Strike Macro you're using Gamehenge - Do you always have to include the spell level, or will it autocast the highest spell available?

I've got Oblivion/Deathstrike macro'd with a shift modifier. I just want to make sure I don't need to modify that one to include spell level. Otherwise, it'll be a major Macro rework every few levels for everything...

Don't know off the top of my head. Pretty simple to test though just make a macro with the rank number and note the damage, take the rank out and see how much it does. Also though it's not too much of a pain to rework your macros when you get new rank lvls as it's just 1 number you have to change in it, rune strike never gets a rank.

And i have to say elektrik's advice is quite bizarre. I've never heard of changing your specs based on if you're in vent or not ??? Frost doesn't have that much more survivability than unholy, just an odd statement on a whole tbh.

And for aoe tanking frost that rotation abandon posted is the best as a howling blast will gain you more threat off the bat than the ticking of blood plague. Sure your blood boils will be weaker for one rotation, but you'll get to howling blast during that second rotation again as well, so instead of getting 1 hb 2 bb's in your first 2 rotations you can do:

dnd->it->pest->blood tap (you should glyph this anyway as most of the minors suck)->hb
Refresh
bb (if hb is still on cd, should be off by the end of the gcd)->hb->it->ps->pest again.

This will not only leave you with fresh diseases on everything going into your third rotation, but with quite a bit more threat as well cause you have 2 howling blasts in there instead of one.

Thx for pointing that out btw abandon, i noticed my aoe threat was much better using the blood tap to howling blast in the first rotation.

[Scripts]

Did quick tests on the training dummies last night with my shift modifier vs Hard hitting Obl/DS. It looks like it casts the highest level available, based on damage against the lvl 60 dummies in UC.
I had some good crits with both, after applying 1 disease (OB specced in frost for no disease loss) alternating between IT and PS.

I have my spellbook setup to only show a single rank of all of the spells, in case that matters.

I did use the level 70 dummies, after the level 60 ones. It seems to give the same results.

If someone else could double check, who's a higher level, I'd appreciate it.

I'll see if I can set aside sometime this weekend to do more testing, but that's hard to do when none of your characters are at 80 yet...

[Sedative]

The requirement to list the spell rank in macros was taken out a really long time ago. Macro's will default to max rank if no rank is specified.

[Scripts]

The requirement to list the spell rank in macros was taken out a really long time ago. Macro's will default to max rank if no rank is specified.

That makes it much easier to do what Game's suggested then. No re-macroing every 2-3 levels. I'm a TBC era player, so never experienced the joy of raiding through the old world or the pain of tweaking macros.

[Ramces]

...
for Aoe groups:
D&D, IT, PS, Pest . . . HB, BB, BB, Oblit . . . IT, PS, Pest, HB, BB
by this time most groups are dead I dont often use D&D more then once per fight

for single target:
IT, PS, BS, BS, Oblit . . . Oblit, BS, BS, Oblit
I only us HB on single target if i get it for free from Rime
...

Nice post!

I have seen in other forums, that PS is a waste of time in small groups, even for dps, because of the waste of runes, what about it, is it true?

My current rotation is:
AOE:
D&D, IT, Pestilence, BT, HB, FS, FS, Obl, Obl, Pest (I use the glyph of disease), HB, FS, FS...

Single:
IT, PS, HB, FS, FS, Obl...

They produce a nice amount of TPS.

Thanks!

[elseagoat]

You should always open with Icy Touch on every single pull, even on large groups.

Icy Touch will apply Frost Fever, which dramatically increases your damage and thus, dramatically increases threat output.

On large groups, you should probably do Icy Touch, Pestilence, Death and Decay, Blood Tap Howling Blast.
This will ensure that you get maximum damage from Howling Blast and Death and Decay, and your FF will start ticking on all mobs sooner, this will produce the greatest amount of AoE threat.