So, about Death Knight...

[Aeo]

I dont really like DK that much b/c im on a low pop realm and ever since Lich King was released about every other person that plays on my Realm is a DK and its kinda Annoying

[Ramor]

It's definitely annoying to have a bunch of DKs floating around on your realm, but as others have said even on a high pop realm as long as you can manage to prove to people you're not a dime a dozen DK you'll manage to stand out enough to keep being invited back to things.

There's really nothing more fun for me than hitting things with a big axe, can't see myself going back to hunter >_>

[Pendas]

Yeah, as a DK main I'm very disappointed that there are so many of them running around all over place. If I would have known it was going to be this bad I would have stayed Hunter main, but I've already epiced myself out in Naxx gear. It may just be me though, I hate playing the class everyone does. If you're a tank, you should be fine when it comes to finding a spot in instances and raids, but you will have some trouble as DPS. Just be prepared to be greeted with the "We have too many DKs already" if you're doing PUGs. Find a good guild and establish yourself as a good tank and you will be fine.

[Maguspk]

Man, why didn't anyone mention they were lowering the price on Epic Flying to 2k next patch? I just blew 5k only to find out, upon entering Dalaran and the trade channel, that they were lowing it to 2k.

3k gold nuuuuuu Q_Q

[Clipse]

Man, why didn't anyone mention they were lowering the price on Epic Flying to 2k next patch? I just blew 5k only to find out, upon entering Dalaran and the trade channel, that they were lowing it to 2k.

3k gold nuuuuuu Q_Q

I'll have to see it in patch notes or a blue post before I even think of trusting some random person in trade chat.

[Korietsu]

I'll have to see it in patch notes or a blue post before I even think of trusting some random person in trade chat.

QFT. People QQing at epic flyer costs, especially with wrath gold income.

[Ramor]

That rumor was flying around during 3.0.8 also.

On the other hand, I get the feeling DK DPS is going to shift to blood, and that people may end up QQing about blood DKs in pvp soon (they'll be having rediculous self heals)

[Guitarman]

I keep hearing opposite, that unholy will be absurd and blood is getting the nerfbat. Though, at first plague strike was getting a 60% boost now mmochampion is saying 20%, so i'm honestly lost as for what to believe. I guess it's best to just wait till patch day.

[Galkaeater]

QFT. People QQing at epic flyer costs, especially with wrath gold income.

I know Pre Wotlk I had no gold on my charecters from just spending it on stuff before I stoped playing
when Wotlk comes out I just made a DK and made it my main instead and just from lvling the char I had enough for an epic flying mount within a few days of hitting lvl 80 from doing quests and that includes the 2k or less needed for normal and cold weather flying too

[shinoniken]

I haven't seen anything about blood getting the nerf, but frost dps for both 2h and dw is getting nerfed hard, and unholy got a huge buff. Blood dps has always been single target focused, and scaled massively with buffs and weapon, whereas unholy started strong but slowly fell behind as people got better gear. In the current ptr build, our top 2H has seen 8-10k scourge strike crits, and 4k plague strike crits, which is really a massive boost... a little too much actually. It's already been mentioned that plague strike is going to be lowered again, but afaik they want to keep SS where it is. Time will tell, but it looks like unholy and blood with ulduar 2handers will be topping the dps meters in 3.1.

[Bweigelt]

I haven't seen anything about blood getting the nerf, but frost dps for both 2h and dw is getting nerfed hard, and unholy got a huge buff. Blood dps has always been single target focused, and scaled massively with buffs and weapon, whereas unholy started strong but slowly fell behind as people got better gear. In the current ptr build, our top 2H has seen 8-10k scourge strike crits, and 4k plague strike crits, which is really a massive boost... a little too much actually. It's already been mentioned that plague strike is going to be lowered again, but afaik they want to keep SS where it is. Time will tell, but it looks like unholy and blood with ulduar 2handers will be topping the dps meters in 3.1.

Uhh 2h Frost wasn't nerfed, at worst it stayed the same but most people are reporting a slight buff.

[Ramor]

Well I'm already unholy, so if they want to buff it more go ahead, I just really want Blood to be a viable spec also because I always found it to be way more fun than Unholy or 2h Frost, although DW frost was also really fun (but alas, the cannon o' nerfin' be a firin')

[Maguspk]

Yeah, so I thought Defense Rating was a straight 1:1 ratio on Defense stat, but as I've discovered that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm sitting at 503 defense and wondering how the hell I'm going to manage 540. Also, my crit dropped to 7% from like 20% going from Unholy to Frost, with horn up I can hit 10%.. it's terrible. I tried to do some dailies and I felt so damn slow, Frost sucks for DPS.

Also, I see a lot of talk about avoidance and defense cap but I have about 28% avoidance (terrible) and 503 defense and getting my defense up higher is going to require losing some pieces of gear that are giving me about a % each of avoidance, so I'm going to have the defense capped but my avoidance is going to drop to like 23% most likely. Another thing is my armor is only 22.95k.

I feel like I'm on the right track and I even tanked UP a few times today successfully up to the Skadi chick. I stayed with one group trying 4 times to beat her and we couldn't ever do it. Finally some 80 Warrior showed up and just ran to the end and grabbed every single mob in that gauntlet and we somehow managed to AoE them all down with him managing to not lose threat. I asked him later on and he said he had 44k armor and 490 defense (less defense than me but his armor was so high he could tank the shit easily) which is why he could do that. Me on the other hand, I was trying to tell my group to stay back so we could fight the groups in smaller pulls so that I didn't get owned in a matter of seconds.


I understand hitting 540 defense is great and all but I am doing it at the cost of avoidance and shit which is where most of my survivability comes from. 540 defense to not get crit is great and all but isn't it a little pointless if instead of avoiding I'm just getting hit all the time? That's also ignoring that everytime I get a piece of gear with defense rating I also lose some crit rating and attack power usually too, so my crit rate drops significantly. Looking back at some of the gear you all recommended, I don't see why you recommended it. I think I need Defense Rating in every slot to be able to hit the 540 cap for now so reping Ebon Blade like alot of people recommended seems pointless. I don't need 66 crit rating on my feet I need the defense rating from the Wyrmcrest ones more.

[Ishido]

That warrior did not have 44k armor.

Also don't expect to have good stats until you are in a full or near-full set of epics.

[Jer]

Yeah, so I thought Defense Rating was a straight 1:1 ratio on Defense stat, but as I've discovered that couldn't be further from the truth.

You need 4.92 Defense Rating to equal 1 Defense Skill.

Edit: This may also be a stupid question, but are you figuring up your avoidance correctly? 28% seems awfully low for anything.

[Ramor]

Don't forget you're like to have +10% parry up almost all the time from skills (blood tree, blade something or rather), and if you went frost you'd have a (i assume) constant +3% miss from talents, but even with some pseudo heroic epics and things on me I can't hit the 540 def cap either (I'm DPS main but my offspec has a couple epics to it), so don't be real surprised if you have to go DPS to grab some badge gear for def cap first.

[Galkaeater]

Yeah, so I thought Defense Rating was a straight 1:1 ratio on Defense stat, but as I've discovered that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm sitting at 503 defense and wondering how the hell I'm going to manage 540. Also, my crit dropped to 7% from like 20% going from Unholy to Frost, with horn up I can hit 10%.. it's terrible. I tried to do some dailies and I felt so damn slow, Frost sucks for DPS.

Also, I see a lot of talk about avoidance and defense cap but I have about 28% avoidance (terrible) and 503 defense and getting my defense up higher is going to require losing some pieces of gear that are giving me about a % each of avoidance, so I'm going to have the defense capped but my avoidance is going to drop to like 23% most likely. Another thing is my armor is only 22.95k.

I feel like I'm on the right track and I even tanked UP a few times today successfully up to the Skadi chick. I stayed with one group trying 4 times to beat her and we couldn't ever do it. Finally some 80 Warrior showed up and just ran to the end and grabbed every single mob in that gauntlet and we somehow managed to AoE them all down with him managing to not lose threat. I asked him later on and he said he had 44k armor and 490 defense (less defense than me but his armor was so high he could tank the shit easily) which is why he could do that. Me on the other hand, I was trying to tell my group to stay back so we could fight the groups in smaller pulls so that I didn't get owned in a matter of seconds.


I understand hitting 540 defense is great and all but I am doing it at the cost of avoidance and shit which is where most of my survivability comes from. 540 defense to not get crit is great and all but isn't it a little pointless if instead of avoiding I'm just getting hit all the time? That's also ignoring that everytime I get a piece of gear with defense rating I also lose some crit rating and attack power usually too, so my crit rate drops significantly. Looking back at some of the gear you all recommended, I don't see why you recommended it. I think I need Defense Rating in every slot to be able to hit the 540 cap for now so reping Ebon Blade like alot of people recommended seems pointless. I don't need 66 crit rating on my feet I need the defense rating from the Wyrmcrest ones more.

drop points from subversion and frost aura and put them into killing machine will help with threat generation

[Maguspk]

I don't white crit, ever. I have no problem with threat. Hit 540 cap last night easy but I still have trouble tanking sometimes. OTd VoA wasn't bad, really easy apparently, but paladin drops. Tried Oculus today and I swear, druids suck at healing. Everytime I get a druid healer I somehow manage to die when I have lots of shit going on, I don't think their heals keep up on me whereas priests and paladins have no trouble healing me.

I sit at about 29% avoidance (15.58% dodge and 13.42% parry) now with 540 defense and 25k armor, but my health is terrible because I'm in all blues it's at 21k unbuffed, so there isn't much room for error. Like I said, I can tank fine and I pop cooldowns and keep Blade Barrier up often enough that my avoidance jumps up to like 45%, but I can still get hit so fast I don't even know what the fuck happened. Like earlier today in Heroic Gundrak I just fell onto th ground and had to read my log to see what the hell happened (apparently he punctured me for 10k then melee'd right after for 5k. Then just recently, minutes before typing up this post, I had a group of 3 Constructs in Oculus hit me fore 3.5k, then 4.5k then 5k and I dropped instantly again.

I also find tanking casters is a bitch, in Oculus I tried to LoS pull but the fuckers just stood back and starting casting blizzard because the idiots in my group wouldn't stay back and let me complete the fucking pull, so I had to fucking dance around and the healer kept dieing because blizzard was on her. It was terrible.

But yeah, here's my gear, any recommendations on what to run or what I should upgrade to would be really appreciated, really just need more HP as my stats seem to be ok but when I get denied to OT a Naxx or MT something larger like a raid the reason is because my HP is too low. Funny, people always ask "are you in your dps gear?" when I'm in my blues for tanking lol...but yeah. Halp? Also look at my spec and maybe comment on it?

80 DK - Frost Tank Spec

P.S. If you know of any armory links to good Dk tanks I can look at and model myself after, don't have to be totally geared out, anything really, that'd help a lot.

[omgaggrohelpme]

I have 3.4k AP. 40% Crit. Capped Hit on DPS gear and 545 Def Rating. 20.7% Dodge and 18% Parrying with 25k HP on Tank gear. I started as DPS and picked up some heroic epics and badge epics to build my set. I'd rather do Unholy tank/DPS I don't have problems switching from one to another, been able to tank pretty much anything but Maly so far in 10/25 man. If you just hit 80 or just recently started doing Heroics don't put too much thought into it, just find a pally or priest buddy to run with you. I don't hate druid healers just would rather have a healer that can toss an "Oh, Shit" heal.

PM me for some info if you want or leave me an aim/msn to contact you, I found a few places to look for gear/specs for tanking and DPS'ing. Try tankspot.com to get a list of some easy epics.

[Pendas]

^ Your tanking spec is fine, almost exactly the same as mine and I don't have any trouble tanking.

Gear Wise
Get a Sigil of Icy Touch, simple to get, just do a few dailies for the Venture Coins. Also, do some dailies and either buy the ingredients or buy straight up a Titanium Earthguard Ring, Titansteel Helm. Finally, work on Wyrmcrest Rep to get the Sabatons of Draconic Vigor.
Once you're done with that, Enchant all your Gear with +Dodge or +Stam to fill in the health Gap. Buy an Earthsiege Gem (+32 Stam + 2% Armor) for your Meta and Gem +Dodge / Def + Stam for the rest. Work on your Argent Crusade rep for the Helm Enchantment that gives Def and Stam. This should give you a nice HP Buffer to start Heroics, many groups probably won't invite you with low HP because lets face it, people are dicks sometimes. It's going to cost a lot of gold to get all this stuff, but trust me, its worth it.

Once you start running Heroics, it will be about collecting better gear that gives less Def Rating but more Avoidance and HP. You'll be saving your enchantments and Gems to fill in the gaps in reaching caps for Def and Hit and using the rest for Avoidance and Stam.