by Snowflake*NOTE THIS IS A VERY BASIC GUIDE. PLEASE DO NOT LOOK HERE FOR AN IN DEPTH GUIDE ON ANY PARTICULAR SPEC*
Death Knight tanking was an interesting experiment by Blizzard, namely making 3 separate viable tanking trees. This current setup will unfortunately no longer exist in Cataclysm so this guide will be obsolete soon. Put simply, Blizz did not like the way their experiment went and are making only a single tanking tree in Cata, Blood. Also I would like to say that much of the information that I used came from Elitist Jerks
Table of Contents
Blood is currently the strongest single target threat tree in DK tanking. It also sports amazing Effective Health(EH) and self-heal capabilities as well as high RP generation. Blood tanks are considered the most viable spec for end-game content due to the fact that they have the highest EH at high gear levels.
Some weaknesses include the fact that their AoE threat is fairly low until you get into ICC, so blood is generally not used as a 5-man tanking build. Blood also has mostly physical damage, so some bosses with very high armor at early gear levels will pose a threat.
There is currently only one real blood build. You may play around with points (I personally don’t have DRW or hysteria and I put the points in Sudden doom, but I would suggest keeping to this spec until you feel comftorble with your knowledge of game play)
Glyphs, once again, are fairly set, and they are in the build. Some people take Glyph of Disease over Glyph of Vampiric Blood, but this is a choice that you should make once you have a better knowledge of how you play.
Single Target Rotation: IT-PS-DS-HS-HS DS-HS-HS-HS-HS RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil
Multi Target Rotation: DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HS/DS/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil
These rotations are not set in stone! Improvisation is the mark of a good tank, make sure you always have threat even if it means you must IT spam!
Frost is a well balanced tree with a good amount of damage mitigation built in. With many AoE and single target attacks, this spec is great for 5-mans and lower gear levels. It shines in quick fights and has the ability to survive big hits.
Some weaknesses of frost include that its abilities are static mostly, and do not scale well. It also has no real raid buffs unless you spec into ITT (not recommended).
There are two cookie cutter talent builds for frost: 2h build and DW build
Both are viable for tanking, although as a DW tank you MUST pick up dps weapons that are slow/slow. The stats on tanking weapons may look nice, but you will have almost no threat with them.
You can pick up Acclimation in either build, but it only mitigates from direct spells, i.e not AoE damage. Lichborne is not worth the point, and neither is Runic Power Mastery. Deathchill is a talent to take a look at as it allows for snap aggro on a huge group with Deathchill then Howling Blast
Glyphs are in the builds again, with no real flexibility.
These rotations are not set in stone! Improvisation is the mark of a good tank, make sure you always have threat even if it means you must IT spam!
2-hander
Single Target Rotation – IT-PS-OB-BS-BS IT-PS-OB-OB RPDUMP = RS/FS
Multi-Target Rotation – DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-HB-BB-OB-BB-RPDUMP RPDUMP = RS/FS
Dual-Wield Standard (under construction today)
Single Target Rotation – IT-PS-OB-BS-BS IT-PS-OB-OB RPDUMP = RS/FS
Multi-Target Rotation – DnD-HB-BB then TAB-HB-BB-OB-BB-RPDUMP RPDUMP = RS/FS
The only exception is if you get a Rime proc, you immediately HB
Unholy is a different tree than frost or blood, built not on high EH to survive, but rather a combination of Bone Shield and aviodance. Unholy is a hard spec to use at low gear levels and at ICC because of a much smaller amount of avoidance. At ToC and Ulduar gear levels though, unholy can provide a fun distinction from frost and blood.
Unholy suffers from the ICC debuff Chill of the Throne and from a dependence on Bone Shield to survive hits. It has a lower EH and a lower single target threat, but has very good AoE threat.
Glyphs are included in both specs. The first one is recommended, with the main advantage of the second one being the ghoul for increased dps on dps races. In the first spec, you can switch the point in Unholy Blight to Summon Gargoyle if you wish.
These rotations are not set in stone! Improvisation is the mark of a good tank, make sure you always have threat even if it means you must IT spam!
Single Target Rotation – IT-PS-BS-BS-SS IT-PS-SS-SS RPDUMP = RS/UnholyBlight/Deathcoil
Multi Target Rotation – DnD-IT-PS-Pest then TAB-SS/Pest/BloodBoil RPDUMP = RS/Deathcoil
Out of DateThis guide is out of date as of 4.0. If anyone is interested in adopting it and updating it, please leave a comment here. Until then, it will be moved to the archive section.
Great guide!Great guide 🙂 Overall nice, could use a little formatting, bolding, underlining etc just to keep things easy to read and so on. A litte bit of colour would be awesome! Now, just a few things I’d put in/change 🙂
-” a DW tank you MUST pick up dps weapons that are slow/slow. The stats on tanking weapons may look nice, but you will have almost no threat with them.”
Not neccessarily true. Yes, your threat will be higher with slow weapons but for a gearing tank for example, tank weapons can be vital for keeping you over 535 def. Also, it’s only on white swings – your DnD, HB, and rune strikes will be about the same. (Hit softer, but more often.)
Also your rotation for 5 mans is a bit off. A better one is DnD>HB>Whatever. You need that initial burst threat because AoE DPS won’t wait for you. (Opinion thing, put it alongside yours?)
Finally, add in a macro which you should macro to almost all of your melee abilities.
/cast random spell
/cast !Rune Strike
Since RS is off of the GCD and up almost constantly, this is pretty cool 🙂
[hr]
“[i]Wise is the man who knows he does not know[/i]”…
…Or who knows why my mother keeps calling me.
I will try to keep this upI will try to keep this up to date with cataclysm, but currently all the beta information gives us bloated talent trees, so once we get better information I will post it here or somewhere else on this site.
Nice guide Talton, itsNice guide Talton, its looking good overall and has some very interesting stuff that any basis DK should know.
To bad this guide will be out-dated if Cataclysm launches. Or will you keep this up-to-date?