Deathknight tanking, learning the ropes

[Coltimar]

I dug out the DK that I started when Wotlk came out and decided I wanted to level him to 80 and sub him in as a tank. It has been a while. In fact, his talents had been refunded along the way but I was playing him Unholy. What I read now says that Unholy isn't really viable any longer due to some nerfs, etc. I know you probably could level that way but I am trying to sort out the best way to go.

Here is how I am playing him now: 10/41/5. Frost still seems like a tanking favorite. I am only going to be doing 5 mans and heroics. Here is what I use for tanking:

Single Mobs

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Death Coil
/cast Icebound Fortitude

Multimobs

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=combat Frost Strike, Blood Boil, Blood Boil

After reading a bunch of theorycraft I thought I was pretty smart in coming up with this, but it don't work well, lol. I don't have the proper runes ready when I need em'.

My question is this. I have real a lot of posts here about blood tanking, for those who have used both for 5 mans/heroics which is better/easier to macro? After 1 1/2 levels I'm not liking this Frost spec the way I thought I might.

Here is my dude: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Doomhammer&n=Torrethe

Yeah, his gear is suspect atm, but I'm not having survivability issues. If I can find a spec/rotation set I like I want to use the new LFG system to level him.

[Kang]

If you are going to go frost, you should pick up howling blast. It's great for either single or multimobs since it's AoE and it's ranged. You could use it with deathchill activated for a good opening pull on packs of mobs. Combine that with the glyphs for Howling Blast and Icy touch and you shouldn't have a problem keeping aggro or mowing down packs of mobs.

If you don't use howling blast, i suggest some form of

/castsequence icy touch, plague strike, pestilence, blood boil

it's good to have the pestilence in there before blood boil so your victims are infected with more diseases and generates more threat.

Others may have better macros they use.

This is my frosty tank. His talents need to be adjusted, but i have no trouble with aggro or damage as is:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Madoran&n=Tanakh

[Jubber]

Really guess it depends on which team you speccing him into help. Melee teams having him blood is enough. For teams with lots of casters Unholy is fine for 5 mans and heroics due to their AOE nature. Unholy survivalness has been nerfed in terms of raids and what not so unless you plan on raiding with him being unholy is fine.

[kcin]

If you are going to go frost, you should pick up howling blast. It's great for either single or multimobs since it's AoE and it's ranged. You could use it with deathchill activated for a good opening pull on packs of mobs. Combine that with the glyphs for Howling Blast and Icy touch and you shouldn't have a problem keeping aggro or mowing down packs of mobs.

If you don't use howling blast, i suggest some form of

/castsequence icy touch, plague strike, pestilence, blood boil

it's good to have the pestilence in there before blood boil so your victims are infected with more diseases and generates more threat.

Others may have better macros they use.

This is my frosty tank. His talents need to be adjusted, but i have no trouble with aggro or damage as is:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Madoran&n=Tanakh

I just recently started playing a frost DK tank, any chance you could share you frost tanking macro? I haven't been able to find one so far, and I'm inexperienced at making macros

The spec includes howling blast

[Zal]

Here's my Frost DK tank if you want to take a look at him. Yes, i know that current frost DK tanking is suppose to use 2 1h weapons but i don't currently have 2 1h tank weapons so i work with a 2h.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tortheldrin&n=Zalsar

and my tanking macro (multi-target tanking):

/castsequence reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Howling Blast, Pestilence, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Howling Blast, Blood Strike, Blood Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/use 13
/use 14

Single target tanking would be like:

/castsequence reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Blood Strike

[Altsoba]

Here's my Frost DK tank if you want to take a look at him. Yes, i know that current frost DK tanking is suppose to use 2 1h weapons but i don't currently have 2 1h tank weapons so i work with a 2h.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tortheldrin&n=Zalsar

and my tanking macro (multi-target tanking):

/castsequence reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Howling Blast, Pestilence, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Howling Blast, Blood Strike, Blood Strike
/cast Rune Strike
/cast Blood Fury
/use 13
/use 14

Single target tanking would be like:

/castsequence reset=nocombat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Blood Strike, Obliterate, Obliterate, Blood Strike, Blood Strike

Got this from wowwiki:



v. Level 80 mob: 5.0% / dual-wield: 24%
v. Level 81 mob: 5.5% / dual-wield: 24.5%
v. Level 82 mob: 6.0% / dual-wield: 25% (level of most heroic bosses)

How is anyone supposed to get that amount of hit? :s What am I missing here?

[Jubber]

That is for white hits Altsoba. Special attacks are still the 8% or whatever it is for a mob 3 levels higher raid boss. I guess for heroics you are aiming for 6%.

[Altsoba]

That is for white hits Altsoba. Special attacks are still the 8% or whatever it is for a mob 3 levels higher raid boss. I guess for heroics you are aiming for 6%.

Thank you Jubber, I've tested it in the lvl80 dummie and I have those 6% but still I miss around 12% in white hits. Even if the DK aoe and single target tanking are mostly based on special attacks it's still kind of "scary" to miss so many white hits...

[Mokoi]

Thank you Jubber, I've tested it in the lvl80 dummie and I have those 6% but still I miss around 12% in white hits. Even if the DK aoe and single target tanking are mostly based on special attacks it's still kind of "scary" to miss so many white hits...

You wont miss any white hits, they should all be rune strikes at lvl 80. If you don't dodge / parry a hit between weapons swings, something is wrong XD

I believe that Rune Strike is considered a special and part of the special table for hit.

[Altsoba]

You wont miss any white hits, they should all be rune strikes at lvl 80. If you don't dodge / parry a hit between weapons swings, something is wrong XD

I believe that Rune Strike is considered a special and part of the special table for hit.

Damn dumies refuse to attack me xD so I can dump rp.

You must be right though in real tanking environment there should be much less white hits or none(?).

[kadaan]

You're not going to dodge/parry enough to get a RS every single swing unless you're tanking multiple mobs at once, very much unlike heroic strike for warriors. I looked through some logs on WoL for Saurfang (tank and spank with no movement) and the DK tanks I saw were about 2:1 to 3:1 melee hits vs rune strikes. It doesn't really matter though, as you rely on your special hits for 90% of your threat anyway. Not sure what's "scary" about it, even melee dps classes don't really worry about it much after they're yellow hit capped.

A decent frost AE tanking macro would be something like:

(manually cast DnD first)

/castsequence Howling Blast, Blood Boil, Obliterate, Blood Boil
/cast !Rune Strike

HB talented applies Frost Fever to everything it hits, and your Blood Boil now does extra damage to everything. For AE packs I didn't really worry too much about Plague Strike much. You could change the Obliterate,Blood Boil to IT+PS+Pestilence if you wanted. You'll also want to tab around and dump your RP on Frost Strike.


I started out tanking as Frost, but recently switched to Blood and like it a lot better. AE threat is a little lower, but DnD+Pestilence+Heart Strike is enough to keep anything on me unless someone in a pug is nuking hard on something random. The boost to self-healing with Death Strike is also an added bonus.