DK Tanking in 4.0.1Follow

Your level 80 build has 2 missing points. :P

Exp/stam will always beat parry/stam as expertise is more useful as it helps both threat and reduces incoming damage If you somehow were expertise hard capped str/stam would win, parry DRs are brutal and will continue to be AFAIK.

Blood Tap CD reduction is more useful now than it will be at 85 or to people without 4t10. So that talent is more situational. As personally I don't have 4t10 and don't expect to get it so the talent losses most of its luster.

Will probably swap between DS and DnD in the major spot as both are good. Depends on how cheap/easy swapping is of course.

Blood Boil glyph wins for now but I can see Rune Tap winning easily at 85 depending on how healing works out.

Going to end up doing this on patch day. And something like this at 85.

If Bloodworms are terrible they can go, but I used to have them and I miss them sometimes. So for sure picking them back up.

I notice not having worms in 5 mans. Not as much as I notice the lack of Imp BP but it is still noticeable, plus worms do some DPS.

Blood Tap sacs a blood rune to make a death rune. You want blood runes as Blood. So the blood tap CD reduction is more geared for DPS as a sub spec option.

Only things Blood will like it for are DnD and BS, PS as well but that is rotational and should be timed as such, as they are on the U rune now. Both are usually not needed ASAP typically as BS has a minute CD and lasts for a bit and BB is snap aggro worthy now so DnD is not as big of a deal as BB can make do for a bit if needed.

Blood Tap on a lower CD with 4t10 is very nice though and you would foolish to not take advantage. As a potential 30% uptime on 12% DR is huge. ShËšt will be OP at level 80.

That's not how it currently works, and the wording on Wowhead hasn't changed.

If both blood runes are on cooldown, it brings one off of cooldown immediately as a death rune. That makes it quite useful.

I was just about to make a thread for that. That is pretty awesome having a direct RP drop that we don't need to avoid for. Now to decide if I still want it bound to everything...

Yeah but what about things we need to spend RP on (mind freeze - unless that changed, at least pre-85 we can't get it for free).

Bind it to half of your attacks?

I acting under the assumption that we will have a steady supply of RP so it wont be and issue, like Maul or HS currently. I have it bound currently and usually have the RP to MF and use DRW.

If this is not the case and it needs a separate bind then it will be annoying to say the least as 95% of the time it will be spammed.

Well I should really read the things I quote then.

I'm still having trouble with the difference in rune cooldowns and whatnot, though that's probably because I haven't done but a couple dungeons on my DK(been focusing on my fresh to 80 paladin).

Once I get the hang of those, I can see enjoying the class still. Helps I was Blood beforehand, though.

Edited, Oct 19th 2010 1:24pm by Poldaran

I've been wanting to give DK tanking a spin since the patch, but I'm holding off for a couple reasons. Mainly, because my main is a pally tank in a group attempting to down HM LK10 before Cataclysm, which is consuming a lot of my thought and time, but partly because I don't want to spend a couple weeks getting used to a tanking style that seems likely to change at 85.

From all accounts, disease-less tanking seems to be the best way to handle any sort of trash pack, and with Outbreak coming up I don't want to have to re-learn half of the DK tanking mindset if it ends up changing. It looks like a lot of fun, though, and I definitely intend to switch when I get her up to 85.

Had a good time tanking the past couple of days. I had my first official run through ICC as a tank, and we did 11/12 heroics and started working on H LK.

The only issues I ran into were being rune starved and not having any good snap/initial threat leading to some pulls by dps at the beginning that they generally don't have issues with, with our warrior tanks.