DK spec for 4x ret + dk heroics?

[Shodokan]

Right now i'm running a howling blast based build for snap aggro... and using basic castsequence macros and filling in with frost strike.

Any suggestions on other more stable builds? Like where healing could be less of a problem. <3 Because though i have 33k life and 556 def.... i get hit like a TRUCK.

I'm having a decently hard time holding aggro too for whatever reason off of geared people while trying to gear 2 pallys and my dk. Any tips are helpful.

[Boylston]

I run more on the blood side, which helps with some of the healing tools. I didn't ever worry about aggro as long as I have death and decay down...

If you don't run with some sort of hybrid blood/frost spec for your own instances/heroics/arena (where you get Haste+10% AP buffs), you're doing it wrong, IMO!

[Myc]

I liked doing blood and going into frost enough to get icy talons so the pallys can rick roll with Aboms Might & Icy Talons
blood has decent healing, but for aggro idk how to build it up all that great on a DK.

[Prega]

today used a dk with my 4 retri pallys.
done a couple of heroics, without issues.
ofc he have great issues keeping aggro, expecially in aoe situations. his gear is somenthing i m working on.
my spec is blood. deep blood, with 8 pts in frost and 10 pts in unholy.
asap i will do dual spec, 2nd will be frost. atm cant use dual welding, weapons skills are too low.


for better infos about specs suggest this really good guide, from tankspot:
http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.php?59900-Comprehensive-Guide-to-Death-Knight-Tanking

excellent analysis and some interesting tips.

[heyaz]

I also got terrible results from frost spec. No aoe threat (wtf is howling blast for anyway?), not even good single target, and bad survivability. I went blood and never looked back. Survivability is great, lots of self and group healing, I don't really have to heal anymore.

Here's the spec:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Nathrezim&cn=Mevrouwv&group=2

And the macro (I start group pulls with DnD though):
/castsequence reset=8/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Death Strike, Blood Boil

I tank VoA 25 every week spamming this stupid macro, against people doing 8-10k dps and I've never lost it. I don't know why it works so well but it does. With hand of reckoning spam on the paladins in heroics my DK always gets the threat back without a taunt.

[Shodokan]

I also got terrible results from frost spec. No aoe threat (wtf is howling blast for anyway?), not even good single target, and bad survivability. I went blood and never looked back. Survivability is great, lots of self and group healing, I don't really have to heal anymore.

Here's the spec:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Nathrezim&cn=Mevrouwv&group=2

And the macro (I start group pulls with DnD though):
/castsequence reset=8/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Death Strike, Blood Boil

I tank VoA 25 every week spamming this stupid macro, against people doing 8-10k dps and I've never lost it. I don't know why it works so well but it does. With hand of reckoning spam on the paladins in heroics my DK always gets the threat back without a taunt.

You use that macro even for single target?

Not something like...

Dnd

icy touch, plague strike, death strike, blood strike, death strike, death strike, blood strike, blood strike?

[ghonosyph]

i toyed with the idea of having my dk tank for my pally group, but double dipping for buffs means you dont have a traditional tank build, and your agro can be VERY wonky. If i were to do it, i'd go frost/unholy with a few (5 or so ) points in blood. :)

[Talos]

I used to spec frost when tanking on my DK/4Ret team.
After having switched to Blood for my guilds ICC runs i started using Blood in my box setup too.... Amazed at how effective it has become.

As a Blood tank i use 2 macro's.... only 2.
Both Castsequence macro's starting with /startattack and ending with /cast !Rune Strike.

SingleTarget:
/castsequence reset=4/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Pestilence, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike.

This is done with the talent Death Rune Mastery turning the FU runes from death strikes into Death Runes. So the rotation looks like:
F(rost), U(nholy), B(lood), D(eath)
F, U, FU, B, B, FU, D, D, B, B, repeat
This allows for massive single target treath especially with the new threatbuff to icy touch.
I use this to singletarget tank stuff like saurfang or rotface/festergut (or any ICC boss actually)


For AoE i use a 2nd macro.
/castsequence reset=4/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Death Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Pestilence, Hearth Strike, Heart Strike, Death Strike, (repeat from 1st pestilance, copy/paste 10 times in Super Duper Macro addon)

This looks like:
F. U. B, B, FU, B, B, D, D, FU. (repeat)
I usually cast 1x DnD up front for extra aoe agro to start with, sometimes followed with an extra DnD halfway if new add's spawn. Adding a DnD up front using up FUB runes, leaves enough runes for a disease/pestilence start followup with a short wait till it BloodBoils. No 10k dps mage pulls agro off of me ;)

Thanks to the /cast !Rune Strike and being a tank (ie. getting hit a lot) means i dont have to use up runepower for deathcoils or anything. My runepower is usually between 20 en 70 the entire fight, I hardly never top it or deplete it completely, always having enough extra to use for CD's

[Shodokan]

I used to spec frost when tanking on my DK/4Ret team.
After having switched to Blood for my guilds ICC runs i started using Blood in my box setup too.... Amazed at how effective it has become.

As a Blood tank i use 2 macro's.... only 2.
Both Castsequence macro's starting with /startattack and ending with /cast !Rune Strike.

SingleTarget:
/castsequence reset=4/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Pestilence, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike, Heart Strike.

This is done with the talent Death Rune Mastery turning the FU runes from death strikes into Death Runes. So the rotation looks like:
F(rost), U(nholy), B(lood), D(eath)
F, U, FU, B, B, FU, D, D, B, B, repeat
This allows for massive single target treath especially with the new threatbuff to icy touch.
I use this to singletarget tank stuff like saurfang or rotface/festergut (or any ICC boss actually)


For AoE i use a 2nd macro.
/castsequence reset=4/combat Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Pestilence, Blood Boil, Death Strike, Death Strike, Heart Strike, Pestilence, Hearth Strike, Heart Strike, Death Strike, (repeat from 1st pestilance, copy/paste 10 times in Super Duper Macro addon)

This looks like:
F. U. B, B, FU, B, B, D, D, FU. (repeat)
I usually cast 1x DnD up front for extra aoe agro to start with, sometimes followed with an extra DnD halfway if new add's spawn. Adding a DnD up front using up FUB runes, leaves enough runes for a disease/pestilence start followup with a short wait till it BloodBoils. No 10k dps mage pulls agro off of me ;)

Thanks to the /cast !Rune Strike and being a tank (ie. getting hit a lot) means i dont have to use up runepower for deathcoils or anything. My runepower is usually between 20 en 70 the entire fight, I hardly never top it or deplete it completely, always having enough extra to use for CD's

I'm doing something similar and am having no problems. I don't wanna drop the DPS increase of IIT. My no geared paladins are already doing 2.7k with crap gear other than like quel'delar.

[heyaz]

You use that macro even for single target?

Not something like...

Dnd

icy touch, plague strike, death strike, blood strike, death strike, death strike, blood strike, blood strike?

Yep, I only have one macro. I'm sure it could be refined quite a bit and would probably need to be for 25 icc and such, but I haven't bothered because it seems to work. The paladins and enhance shaman pull >5k on everything and it works fine. I was really surprised to find it worked in 25 mans as well with people who are pulling twice that much DPS. I sometimes peel aggro from the other tanks in VoA after their taunt wears off if their rotation isn't efficient.

The snap aggro works well in heroics when I open with DnD and once the pestilence goes off I have it - the paladins won't peel with divine storm or SoC procs. With hand of reckoning spam the first target dies before the taunt wears off so one of my paladins is tanking for a few seconds but its rarely an issue. On bigger pulls I sometimes have to taunt with the DK as one ret seems to get aggro on the second reckoning and even in tier 9 they really can't take more than a few direct hits from heroic mobs... amazing how soft they are

One thing I forgot is the /click hotkeys all have rune strike - that's definitely needed for single target threat and once you have one of those go off the mob sticks to you.

[Shodokan]

Yep, I only have one macro. I'm sure it could be refined quite a bit and would probably need to be for 25 icc and such, but I haven't bothered because it seems to work. The paladins and enhance shaman pull >5k on everything and it works fine. I was really surprised to find it worked in 25 mans as well with people who are pulling twice that much DPS. I sometimes peel aggro from the other tanks in VoA after their taunt wears off if their rotation isn't efficient.

Interesting...good to know though.

thanks for the help :)

You run 3x rets + 1x enhance + 1x dk?

PM me some info on how ya do your enhance, looking to do that on my shammies :)

[heyaz]

Interesting...good to know though.

thanks for the help :)

You run 3x rets + 1x enhance + 1x dk?

PM me some info on how ya do your enhance, looking to do that on my shammies :)

Yeah I switch it up sometimes. My shaman have been semi-retired since last fall, but having access to wrathful weps and unspent arena points I decided to gear up one of them to sub in on the new team since enhance looked really fun. It definitely adds to overall team dps and versatility in PVE (more so than a 4th, redundant paladin). Haven't tried in pvp yet.

Shaman gear/spec looks like this:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nathrezim&cn=Yoobox

He pulls higher dps than the paladins with a crappy hack job enhance castsequence I threw together, and still wearing a few pieces of ilvl 200 and elemental gear.

I just set up the shaman few days ago so by no means consider his spec and/or gear as the best way (or even a decent way) to do it :)

[Shodokan]

Yeah I switch it up sometimes. My shaman have been semi-retired since last fall, but having access to wrathful weps and unspent arena points I decided to gear up one of them to sub in on the new team since enhance looked really fun. It definitely adds to overall team dps and versatility in PVE (more so than a 4th, redundant paladin). Haven't tried in pvp yet.

Shaman gear/spec looks like this:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Nathrezim&cn=Yoobox

He pulls higher dps than the paladins with a crappy hack job enhance castsequence I threw together, and still wearing a few pieces of ilvl 200 and elemental gear.

I just set up the shaman few days ago so by no means consider his spec and/or gear as the best way (or even a decent way) to do it :)

Yeah, might wanna put some fire nova in there =P

[heyaz]

Yeah, might wanna put some fire nova in there =P

Definitely. It's good enough to use single target even without the glyph. With the glyph and talents it just destroys trash pulls.