Tank / DPS Hybrid? Follow

Hi Guys,

Just hit 80 and farming quests and instances to gear up as a tank, but for the moment I'm mostly having to OT or DPS in the guild HC runs as I'm not quite at the def cap. I also do some normal instance tanking to get a feel for the DK tanking style. I've leveled and pretty much stayed Unholy through out, but more and more I've noticed that the pet dies fast in hc's and my dps drops with it.

So I started reading posts and playing around with the specs, and wanted some critique on this spec

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=j0EZGxxthjdRhoVosx0x

I'm aiming for a mixed bag. I'm not trying to min/max tanking or dps at the moment, but want to be viable for both in a pinch, leaning more on the tanking side. Once I'm better geared I'll be respec'ing to pure tanking, but for the moment I need to maintain at least acceptable HC DPS levels. Not going to hit Naxx until suitably geared and respec'd so HC will be the hardest trials for me

Gear is mostly quest blues from Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, DragonBlight and Grizzly Hills and a few with thrown in from instances.

Any comments, suggestions, critique is welcome.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2008 5:52am by kadanis

Generally it's best to spec into your role rather than try to hybrid (which is something of a misnomer for DKs anyway). Even if you're off-tanking you should spec the basic 5/5/5 and whatever tanking talents you have in your main tree, the rest for DPS. With an easy stance-swapping macro and Outfitter (gear switching mod, there are others) you should be able to do fine DPS when needed. Not top o' the meter, but you wouldn't do that anyway without fully specing for damage. Then with a click you're ready to tank KT's adds.

Mainly you need to gear up and yes, you will need 2 sets of gear. But if it makes you feel any better most paladins had 3-4 sets of gear with them for raiding (I had 4). 2 isn't so bad =)

QFT.

DKs are not a hybrid class in the same way that druids or paladins are and only shift a few points around to optimize for tanking or DPS. My advice stands: If you're off-tanking (in raids) or tanking 5-toons (reg or heroics), you would be better served to spec for it and take the hit in your potential DPS (which you won't probably doing much of anyway). Or you could respec for raid nights when needed.

But honestly, if the OP were in my guild I'd be surprised if they didn't spec to their role even while gearing for it. Sure, you can "get away" with a pure DPS spec as tank in certain circumstances but it's not ideal. Just my opinion of course.

Actually I specced hybrid tank/DPS with Unholy as a base tree. I picked up Toughness, Blade Barrier and Anticipation and found myself easily capable of maintanking any pre-Heroic instance of equal level, with PUG groups not uber guildmates. This 'you need to specialise' is only true at level 80 Heroics and Raids, and thats only because you're competing with other players and classes.

Naysayers be damned, either I'm the most awesome DK player on these boards or it's entirely possible to be a tank and DPS alternately with the same spec. A non-focus tank just needs to pay closer attention to cooldowns, that's all. Hell, I tanked everything from Utgarde Keep to Halls of Lightning on Normal and was still coming top of the DPS meters.

I personally recommend Unholy or Frost as a hybrid base, Blood is just too specialised into DPS at the moment. Just make sure you have all three avoidance talents listed above, and try to pick up Bone Shield or Unbreakable Armor later down the line. Switch to Frost Presence and have fun.

No, those are the Tier 1 tanking talents, the ones designed for this very purpose.

On top of that we have Frozen Dreadplate, Will of the Necropolis, Unbreakable Armor, Vampiric Blood (imo a tanking talent and will be more so next patch), Acclimation, Bone Shield (dual-purpose), Magic Suppression... each tree has deep tanking talents that are included in tanking builds. 5/5/5 + DPS isnt a tank at all, it's just the baseline requirement for a focus DK tank. Whichever tree you focus on has more talents you'll need to pick up to maintank endgame, as part of a focused tank spec.

My point, which remains unchallenged, is that speccing those three easy 5pters creates a DK that is capable of tanking anything before Heroics (and probably after, with the next patch buff to Frost Presence) while still remaining a capable DPSer. This is different from Feral Druids which were forcibly seperated into Cat/Bear within the same tree; a DK can spec those three talents without losing a ton of DPS, and can then switch into tanking gear and tank effectively.

Edited, Dec 25th 2008 10:23pm by Sinstralis

Im not really sure how exactly this works for unholy, but i do know that the difference from a 5/5/5 + dps spec and a full tank spec seen from Frost point of view would be a staggering 3 points in chance to be hit talent...
In heroics 3% to not be hit isnt gonna cost you ur head.
In raids it isnt gonna cost you ur head

So as frost, a Hybrid spec is gonna cost you some dps, but its VERY viable to tank whatever your gonna see pre-naxx