Frost Tanking in 3.1

[KRM]

I was thinking this spec and glyphs:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...3&version=9767

The rotation would be Icy Touch > Plague Strike > Blood Strike > Howling Blast > Pestilence (which is what i been using for months)

With Glyph of Disease, after the rotation I listed above.. use Howling Blast whenever not on cooldown or Obliterate when HB is on CD. Pestilence when you need to refresh your main target's disease and continue to spread, along with 5/5 Blood of the North. Basically my idea is that after using Icy Touch and Plague Strike once I will never have to use them again on that target. That would free up a frost and unholy rune for extra howling blasts and obliterates.

Now to decide if I want to start raiding again since there is a new instance. :P


Oh.. for the person who was talking about Lichborne, for me even on live I never really used it for the 25% miss feature. It was always a self heal to help out when people are having to move around. If I find that I am runic starved during fights I will put that point some place else.

[Lollygagger]

Since Frost Fever and Blood Plague now last 15 seconds untalented, do you think 21 seconds is really needed (2/2 Epidemic)?

Was thinking of using those 2 points elsewhere, like on Rune Tap and Deathchill. I guess all 3 talents could be considered "personal preference" just curious on your thoughts.

@Narshe

To my understanding the old rotation of (runetap if no DR) IT- OB- OB- BS- RPDUMP isnt going to be the best to use with the new changes to PS and scaling.

It seems the new best rotation to use in 3.1 is IT- PS- BS- BS- OB RPDUMP OB- OB- OB And with the longer rotation i guess i would just rather have the added time from epidemic.

[Keyadri]

I honestly think that this build is one of the best, Its almost the same as my Tanking spec before the patch and its seems pretty damn close and if not better.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9733

Q/A

Q:Why take out Epidemic?
A:Its useless really, your rotations should keep that up.

Q:Why Morbidity?
A:As a fellow DK tank I know from experience that not having Morbidity is a true hassle. The cooldown of D&D without it is Ridiculous.

Q:Why do I see all these specs spent in Frost that would add damage to my attacks?
A:Simple. More Damage gives you more aggro.

Qeathchill...?
A:Of course with out one single doubt. Its an almost needed skill to tank. Say your tanking a trash pull in Naxx, Your loosing aggro. Oh no what to do? Pop Deathchill and Howling Blast and boom you have aggro for at least another 5-6 seconds for you to pop D&D and diseases down.

The real challenge on making a tank spec for DK is to balance how to get the most aggro you can but yet hold it easily.

[Gomexus]

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...4&version=9767

I'm still up in the air about two things:

1) Deathchill: It's not necessary by any means, and I have been running without it forever, but I have had Merc. Combat. I am not sure if Deathchill can make up for the added threat during the "Burn Him Down" CD popping phase of the fight...I'm leaning towards 1/2 Merc. Combat and leaving Deathchill out.

2) Scent of Blood-vs-Subversion: SoB sounds sexy...especially considering the change to BoSanc. I have heard rumors of it being different than the tooltip and basically acts just like BoSanc but only gives 10RP when you dodge/parry instead of BoSanc's 20. That rumor, if true, would make SoB a definite yes in my opinion. However, if that rumor is false, SoB may be less useful than Subversion. Obliterate is going to be a BIG player for Frost tanks of all gear levels now and having 9% more crit would bring it up to 27% just from talents...pushing 40% after buffs and base are factored in.

The deal breaker on #1 is the first Naxx group I run. If I am having any doubts about my threat during BL/Heroism then I will dump Deathchill and get 1/2 Merc. Combat.

For #2 its tough. Looking at charts with SoB I may see FS being used more than Obliterate, therefore being a bigger contributer of dmg which would make Subversion seem less attractive. However, my increased use in FS is due to having extra RP generation from SoB...what would the charts look like with 9% more crit to Obliterate and less FS usage due to less RP generation? It'll get sorted surely.

[Diablomortis]

Maybe I'm an idiot but why is everyone completely ignoring Glyph of UBA? Seems to me that any tank would do well to have that. I've never been close to losing single target threat; I can't believe the changes are going to be so damaging to threat that I'll need to spend 2 or 3 glyphs on increasing TPS/DPS. Glyph of Obliterate is a no-brainer... but I'm going to have a hard time passing on UBA glyph.

[gadgetknight]

just wondering what people think about this build:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EGMh0cZhxx0NbI0f0iosh

[AshiTheXen]

Pretty good gadget, but there's a couple of comments I'd like to make:

Why death rune mastery in blood spec? I know some people like to advocate the flexibility for situations but why would you have any need, as a frost tank, to convert UF runes into death runes (essentially, meaning that you want to convert them into blood runes)? For... a blood strike, a blood boil? There's really no need for it. Death runes make sense in some situations such as Unholy DPS, which can grant you an additional scourge strike in your next rune cycle, but in this case they aren't necessary. Personally I would put those points into dark conviction for more Threat or rune tap / spell deflection ( I hear Ulduar has a lot more magic casting bosses ).

Merciless combat isn't necessary in my opinion. If you have maintained threat by the 35% point, you're not going to suddenly lose it then. I know people like to put up big DPS numbers and dealing more damage is nice ( and, in some hard modes, necessary ) but I think you'd benefit more from moving a point there into maxing killing machine. Small quibble but there you are.

Lastly, in my opinion, anticipation is not optional. It's a tough one, I know, because I really like veteran of the third war too, but that is 5% non-diminishing returns dodge. Don't really know what to suggest here, they've forced some tough choices.

Also, someone up there said they never used Lichborne for 25% miss. Unless I am entirely mistaken about that ability I believe that was a non-diminishing return stacking. With decent gear & blood barrier & horn of winter & a couple buffs up, you've got 25% dodge + 35% parry + 5% miss = 65% avoidance from physical. That +25% miss gives you 90% avoidance. Stacked with a dodge trinket, DK tanks could actually push hit off the table for a good chunk of time. Lichborne was nerfed because it was godly. Saddens me to see that people didn't use it when they had the chance.

[Ripkit]

In 3.0 I've been a heavy advocate of blood tanking with maximized stamina. Right now, I'm sitting at 31 expertise, 233 hit, and 35.7k unbuffed HP with a combined dodge-parry of approximately 56%. Armory Hoc of Dethecus if you're curious about precise spec. This approach looks like it may be equally viable in 3.1, but Frost is looking so tempting.. I'm thinking of either one of these two specs:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...5&version=9767

- I liked subversion in 3.0, but now that obliterate isn't a useful ability for blood, I'm not a fan. Although I've never had even the slightest bit of TPS trouble on any fight in the game WITHOUT bosanc (never had a consistent prot pally, but I still pull anywhere from 5-9k TPS), I decided to pick up SOB partially due to the lack of other useful talents to take. I decided not to take Spell Deflection because with the nerf/change to Blade Barrier, it really could only proc 18-20% of the time.. kinda meh, but I may change my mind. I also deemed Will of the necropolis unnecessary, for three reasons--I never drop to 35% health or below except while MTing 3-drake sarth, 15% is insignificant, and the cooldown on it makes it useless imo. DRW is mostly a spare talent. I might pull the 1 point out of DRW, 4 points out of rune tap and imp rune tap to grab spell deflection and runic power mastery--we'll have to see.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...0&version=9767

-I think this spec is fairly straight forward. I took all the non-pvp talents, basically. The only thing I'm still a little shaky about is the glyphs. Can't decide if I'd rather go for glyph of Howling blast or glyph of Disease. Glyph of disease seems like it'd allow for better single target due to saving extra runes for another obliterate. Glyph of howling blast seems like it might be just for ease of AOE tanking on short-term fights. The other thing is glyph of Unbreakable armor. Increases the reduced damage by 20%... if that means it's taking the 1500 (or so) damage reduction and adding 20%, that sounds completely wasted. Thoughts?

[crhme]

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to still ignore PS as a frost tank or dps for that matter, or is the loss of blood plague too significant with how the strikes scale with 3.1? Basically what I'm thinking is pick up glyph of howling blast, glyph of obliterate and glyph of frost strike and completely ignore the use of icy touch/plague strike. Just spam howling blast for frost fever, obliterate for rime procs when howling blast is on cooldown, blood strike for deathrunes and frost/rune strike as rp dump?

I haven't been much on the ptr, so I'm not really sure this would land better tps than doing what i do now, with heavy use of icy touch to generate rp with the glyph and then spamming frost/rune strike with obliterates and howling blasts (on aoe packs and rime procs) mixed in.