So I have been looking for a good Frost Tank build. Seems to me that everyone is tanking in Blood, any reason for that? I was under the impression that Frost was "THE" tanking spec while Blood was DPS and Unholy was for folks that want to be hunter's wearing plate.
Of course I realize that you can DPS and Tank in all the specs, but the community usually moves towards one spec or another as the best for each activity.
Would you say that Blood Frost and Unholy are equal in their ability to tank?
Is there a cookie-cutter Frost Spec for tanking?
I was looking at something like this.
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Frost Tank Build?Follow
It all depends on how you want to tank. I haven't tried tanking with a Blood spec yet and have stuck with the Frost spec in my sig. Your build could be improved by doing the following:
Drop Icy Talons and Improved Icy Talons. If you end up with a Shaman in the group, these points are wasted as it won't stack with Windfury Totem.
Drop Deathchill. Killing Machine procs enough that you don't need a snap crit. You should be far enough ahead in threat that it won't be necessary.
Drop Chilblains. Running mobs is never a problem in an instance.
Drop Ravenous Dead. You usually don't have your ghoul up long (pop him out, use Death Pact for 40% life) and 3% strenght is not enough for those points.
Pick up Runic Power Mastery. As a Frost tank, you'll be focusing on generating RP for Rune Strike and Frost Strike. The more RP you have, the more of those you can use.
Pick up Annihilation. On single targets, Oblit is better than HB, and not peeling off diseases generates you more threat.
Pick up Chill of the Grave. See the statement on Runic Power Mastery.
Pick up Frigid Dreadplate. 3% miss is just sexy.
The last three points are more of a personal choice. They can either go in Bladed Armor for more attack power or Scent of Blood for more RP generation. I seem to have a really hard time blowing through all of my RP with Scent of Blood.
The main thing to remember when tanking is to use your cooldowns wisely. They can make or break the instance/raid.
Drop Icy Talons and Improved Icy Talons. If you end up with a Shaman in the group, these points are wasted as it won't stack with Windfury Totem.
Drop Deathchill. Killing Machine procs enough that you don't need a snap crit. You should be far enough ahead in threat that it won't be necessary.
Drop Chilblains. Running mobs is never a problem in an instance.
Drop Ravenous Dead. You usually don't have your ghoul up long (pop him out, use Death Pact for 40% life) and 3% strenght is not enough for those points.
Pick up Runic Power Mastery. As a Frost tank, you'll be focusing on generating RP for Rune Strike and Frost Strike. The more RP you have, the more of those you can use.
Pick up Annihilation. On single targets, Oblit is better than HB, and not peeling off diseases generates you more threat.
Pick up Chill of the Grave. See the statement on Runic Power Mastery.
Pick up Frigid Dreadplate. 3% miss is just sexy.
The last three points are more of a personal choice. They can either go in Bladed Armor for more attack power or Scent of Blood for more RP generation. I seem to have a really hard time blowing through all of my RP with Scent of Blood.
The main thing to remember when tanking is to use your cooldowns wisely. They can make or break the instance/raid.
Frost isn't 'the' tanking spec, none of the three is. Blood gives you a lot of hit points and single target threat. Unholy gives you a lot of magic mitigation and multiple-target threat. Frost gives you alot of melee mitigation and decent single and multiple target threat. It's really a matter of preference, or possibly the content you're in.
Jornam: Thank you very much for your run down. I am into everything you had said except for two thing, that I had questions on.
1) I really do not see a good reason for Runic Power Mastery. I usually do not have a need for that much Runic Power. That being said I am level 66, so will that change later?
2) You suggest: "Drop Ravenous Dead. You usually don't have your ghoul up long (pop him out, use Death Pact for 40% life) and 3% strenght is not enough for those points." But in your Build you have points into a buffed Death Coil, Morbidity. I find myself using Frost Strike over Death Coil a lot, in which case Ravenous Dead would help that, while the Morbidity would do nothing. What do you think?
1) I really do not see a good reason for Runic Power Mastery. I usually do not have a need for that much Runic Power. That being said I am level 66, so will that change later?
2) You suggest: "Drop Ravenous Dead. You usually don't have your ghoul up long (pop him out, use Death Pact for 40% life) and 3% strenght is not enough for those points." But in your Build you have points into a buffed Death Coil, Morbidity. I find myself using Frost Strike over Death Coil a lot, in which case Ravenous Dead would help that, while the Morbidity would do nothing. What do you think?
When you get into tanking at a later time, your two main attacks are going to be Frost Strike and Rune Strike (due to the high threat). Rune Strike is not tied to the GCD so you can use it as often as it pops, which will be a lot. Frost Strike is one of your main damaging abilities, so again you'll be using it a lot. With Chill of the Grave and Scent of Blood, you'll be generating a LOT of RP and you want to be able to store as much as possible so you can keep firing off those abilities. If you don't feel you need it you can put those two points in a different talent, but it's hard to find a place to put those points and keep Howling Blast.
Morbidity does increase the damage done by Death Coil, but it also reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay by 15 seconds. DnD will help you generate a ton of threat when dealing with multiple mob pulls. I use it on pretty much every multi mob pull and having it come up quicker reduces downtime waiting for it to come off cooldown.
Morbidity does increase the damage done by Death Coil, but it also reduces the cooldown of Death and Decay by 15 seconds. DnD will help you generate a ton of threat when dealing with multiple mob pulls. I use it on pretty much every multi mob pull and having it come up quicker reduces downtime waiting for it to come off cooldown.
That makes a ton of sense! Awesome. I will definitely look into changing my build to suite that.
Jornam and Mozared nailed it pretty well, but playing my own DK tank I feel I oughta chip in for some things they missed.
First of all, specs. Most people use Blood because, well, it works. AoE actually isn't very bad with Blood, DnD, IT+PS, Pest, BB. Depending on the length of the pull, maybe DnD again, or just BB, keeping Pestilences up. You can play any spec you want really, but Blood is the community favorite right now for the very good single target and acceptable AoE, along with simply all of the self-healing you're getting.
DS will get you 15% of your health per hit, then after that it depends on what you talent. Improved Blood Pres. gives your other Pres' the 4% health-as-damage trick. Bloodworms, Rune Tap, etc. Simply great for me because I have more control over if I'm dying or not (Almost solo'd Loken on Heroic from 50%, got him to 5% on my own.) If for some reason your healer isn't working as intended, you can keep yourself alive, in Heroic's anyway. In raids your self healing won't go very far.
As for actual specs, Bladed Armor is a big one. I and most others recommend 5/5. All of that armor gives you really nice AP, and thus more threat through damage. Recommended for all specs.
If you want to stay Frost, as Jornam said, it's a chance to become an RP factory. I did this with great results when I first hit 80. Scent of Blood, as called by others, is simply laughable. I take it on my DK simply because there is nothing else left to take really, the random extra RP is nice sometimes. If you want loads of RP, Chill of the Grave is a must, and then Glyph of Icy Touch!
Elitist Jerks doesn't like this glyph, DPS or tanking, but I found it incredibly useful. That's 25 RP per Icy Touch. Combined with KM, that's alot of crit Frost Strike's and HB's. (Along with the FS glyph, -8 RP cost.) When you use Blood Strike they will become Death Runes, allowing for 4 IT's, leaving you with just 2 Unholy runes, but that wasn't a big deal.
Something I still need to try is something EJ came up with for DPS, called the machine-gun IT spec. You get Death Rune Mastery, in Blood, which requires 13 points, beyond the normally just 10 I would spend there. (Again, for Frost and Unholy, Scent is...not so great.) So, what do you do? Normal for the first rotation, then set it up so you use Pestilence (Depending on if glyphed, if not this is a bit harder), Blood Strike, and 2 Obliterates. End result? 6 Death Rune's. 6 IT's. Loads of Frost Strikes, plus loads of crits from KM. Not so many Rime procs though.
The spec that I used for Frost. (I picked up Morbidity because...eventually...I wanted DnD back on 15 secs CD for easier pulling.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EZGxx0AbI0czbuzAo0gh:ksw0VM
Machine-gun IT spec. (Experimental. I'll respec along with someone else on the board if someone wants to test it. Otherwise I'll eventually probably try it and post results eventually. Fill in your own 3rd glyph.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0E00hZGxx0AbI0czbuzAo0g:ksZ0VM
My Blood spec. (Good threat whilst getting all of the self healing, and Hysteria. Melee DPS will love you for giving it to them.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcEroI0IosRbosxhxhZ0gh:phimVM
First of all, specs. Most people use Blood because, well, it works. AoE actually isn't very bad with Blood, DnD, IT+PS, Pest, BB. Depending on the length of the pull, maybe DnD again, or just BB, keeping Pestilences up. You can play any spec you want really, but Blood is the community favorite right now for the very good single target and acceptable AoE, along with simply all of the self-healing you're getting.
DS will get you 15% of your health per hit, then after that it depends on what you talent. Improved Blood Pres. gives your other Pres' the 4% health-as-damage trick. Bloodworms, Rune Tap, etc. Simply great for me because I have more control over if I'm dying or not (Almost solo'd Loken on Heroic from 50%, got him to 5% on my own.) If for some reason your healer isn't working as intended, you can keep yourself alive, in Heroic's anyway. In raids your self healing won't go very far.
As for actual specs, Bladed Armor is a big one. I and most others recommend 5/5. All of that armor gives you really nice AP, and thus more threat through damage. Recommended for all specs.
If you want to stay Frost, as Jornam said, it's a chance to become an RP factory. I did this with great results when I first hit 80. Scent of Blood, as called by others, is simply laughable. I take it on my DK simply because there is nothing else left to take really, the random extra RP is nice sometimes. If you want loads of RP, Chill of the Grave is a must, and then Glyph of Icy Touch!
Elitist Jerks doesn't like this glyph, DPS or tanking, but I found it incredibly useful. That's 25 RP per Icy Touch. Combined with KM, that's alot of crit Frost Strike's and HB's. (Along with the FS glyph, -8 RP cost.) When you use Blood Strike they will become Death Runes, allowing for 4 IT's, leaving you with just 2 Unholy runes, but that wasn't a big deal.
Something I still need to try is something EJ came up with for DPS, called the machine-gun IT spec. You get Death Rune Mastery, in Blood, which requires 13 points, beyond the normally just 10 I would spend there. (Again, for Frost and Unholy, Scent is...not so great.) So, what do you do? Normal for the first rotation, then set it up so you use Pestilence (Depending on if glyphed, if not this is a bit harder), Blood Strike, and 2 Obliterates. End result? 6 Death Rune's. 6 IT's. Loads of Frost Strikes, plus loads of crits from KM. Not so many Rime procs though.
The spec that I used for Frost. (I picked up Morbidity because...eventually...I wanted DnD back on 15 secs CD for easier pulling.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0EZGxx0AbI0czbuzAo0gh:ksw0VM
Machine-gun IT spec. (Experimental. I'll respec along with someone else on the board if someone wants to test it. Otherwise I'll eventually probably try it and post results eventually. Fill in your own 3rd glyph.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0E00hZGxx0AbI0czbuzAo0g:ksZ0VM
My Blood spec. (Good threat whilst getting all of the self healing, and Hysteria. Melee DPS will love you for giving it to them.) http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jcEroI0IosRbosxhxhZ0gh:phimVM
A bit late to the party, but I guess you can copy my spec:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anetheron&n=Tyrendor
Works great for me.
Runic Power Mastery is very meh... you should never be sitting on so much Runic Power that it's actually needed, since you'll be using Frost Strike and Rune Strike a lot anyway. Same for Glyph of IT - you just don't need that much Runic Power.
I do miss Morbidity a little, but overall, with Glyph of Howling Blast, Howling Blast followed by 2 Blood Boil generates all the AE threat I usually need, so I'd much rather have Scent of Blood. I think picking up Morbidity is a left-over from making Blood/Unholy tank spec, where D&D is a mainstay ability, it isn't so much with Frost.
Deathchill isn't all that great, but it has its use, while Hungering Cold seems more or less useless in raid situations. I guess if you're mainly doing 5 man and you're having issue with pulls, sure, but at my gear level it's a wasted point.
Glyph wise, I decided to go with Cheaper Frost Strike and better Obliterate, mainly to increase my single target threat. Glyph of Howling Blast makes AE tanking a joke.
I haven't checked theorycraft website for specs in a long time, so I guess it's possible some of my knowledge is outdated, but it's been working good for me.
I personally played around with Blood when were having a hard time on General Vexaz, figuring self-heal would help the healers, but the healers mainly told me I was actually harder to keep up (due to less mitigation I guess) in that spec. I have a hard time seeing how Unholy could work as a decent tank spec now that they've changed Unholy Blight, seems like they'd be no reason to go Unholy over Blood or Frost to tank now.
Edited, Aug 29th 2009 1:42pm by Tyrandor
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anetheron&n=Tyrendor
Works great for me.
Runic Power Mastery is very meh... you should never be sitting on so much Runic Power that it's actually needed, since you'll be using Frost Strike and Rune Strike a lot anyway. Same for Glyph of IT - you just don't need that much Runic Power.
I do miss Morbidity a little, but overall, with Glyph of Howling Blast, Howling Blast followed by 2 Blood Boil generates all the AE threat I usually need, so I'd much rather have Scent of Blood. I think picking up Morbidity is a left-over from making Blood/Unholy tank spec, where D&D is a mainstay ability, it isn't so much with Frost.
Deathchill isn't all that great, but it has its use, while Hungering Cold seems more or less useless in raid situations. I guess if you're mainly doing 5 man and you're having issue with pulls, sure, but at my gear level it's a wasted point.
Glyph wise, I decided to go with Cheaper Frost Strike and better Obliterate, mainly to increase my single target threat. Glyph of Howling Blast makes AE tanking a joke.
I haven't checked theorycraft website for specs in a long time, so I guess it's possible some of my knowledge is outdated, but it's been working good for me.
I personally played around with Blood when were having a hard time on General Vexaz, figuring self-heal would help the healers, but the healers mainly told me I was actually harder to keep up (due to less mitigation I guess) in that spec. I have a hard time seeing how Unholy could work as a decent tank spec now that they've changed Unholy Blight, seems like they'd be no reason to go Unholy over Blood or Frost to tank now.
Edited, Aug 29th 2009 1:42pm by Tyrandor
19 posts
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#j0xoZGxxzNbh0fzbuuNo0xGh/is what I use, and it's pretty good! use, and it's pretty good.
6 posts
Unlike some of the above, I associate each tree with a specific playstyle. I consider Frost to be a tanking spec, no matter how contriversial it might seem, it's talents are made to compliment the frost presence, which is, the tanking presence.
However, I don't use frost on my tanking DK. Before 3.2 I did, then I changed to the blood spec a couple of days ago. I love it! I'm glad I did it. I hit harder, maintain aggro better, and help out the healer just a tad bit, which can go a long way depending on the group and the fight.
Here's my tree incase you're interested:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Anetheron&cn=Blackthorn&gn=Pestilence
My glyphs are not up to date yet, haven't gotten to an auction house to purchase new ones yet.
Good luck mate.
However, I don't use frost on my tanking DK. Before 3.2 I did, then I changed to the blood spec a couple of days ago. I love it! I'm glad I did it. I hit harder, maintain aggro better, and help out the healer just a tad bit, which can go a long way depending on the group and the fight.
Here's my tree incase you're interested:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Anetheron&cn=Blackthorn&gn=Pestilence
My glyphs are not up to date yet, haven't gotten to an auction house to purchase new ones yet.
Good luck mate.
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