3.1 Death Knight - Tanking Specs

[Oninuva]

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=j0EZ0xxzhZzgGfxck0hVocsh - Unholy Spec Tanking

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=j0EMV0hZhxxtAMIzc00ooZ0gh - Frost Tanking



If you see any other viable builds, please share.

 

[Cornface]

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=j0xZ0xZ0x

+Whatever you prefer

And oh, how come you haven't responded to this thread yet, Oninuva
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=119480

And in the second frost tank specc, why did you pick Morbidity, it's not like you gonna use Death Coil in the frost build where you have Frost Strikes. And why no Hungering Cold and Imp Frost Presence/Guilde of Gorefiend/Acclimation?

 

[Oninuva]

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?talent=j0xZ0xZ0x

+Whatever you prefer

And oh, how come you haven't responded to this thread yet, Oninuva
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=119480

And in the second frost tank specc, why did you pick Morbidity, it's not like you gonna use Death Coil in the frost build where you have Frost Strikes. And why no Hungering Cold and Imp Frost Presence/Guilde of Gorefiend/Acclimation?

Hmm I will try to reason my decisions as best as possible.

Morbidity - Since frost tree is receiving an epic nerf next patch, you will need something to beef up your AoE to grab aggro unless you want to go the full 51 points for Howling Blast. Pestilence also does no damage as of 3.1 and only spreads disease.

Hungering Cold - Doesn't really do much in a PvE tanking enviroment, unless you used Howling Blast, then again, you need 51 points for howling blast. If you just want it for the application of a frost disease, it's better to just Icy Touch + Pestilence to spread. Along with blood plague.

Guile of the Gorefiend - Yeah that is going to be a choice, imo you could take the 3 points in blood from Spell Deflection and move them there. My mistake. :shades:

Acclimation - Only useful for certain encounters..

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Dunno whats to answer on the other post though, it's old.. outdated, and quite useless now.

Hope this helps :thup:

 

[Cornface]

Actually, HB gained a slight damage buff in the latest 3.1 PTR build. And I wouldn't say frost nerfed yet. Every tree is getting changed a lot, but nerfed, well, we'll see when 3.1 is released.

"* Howling Blast damage has been doubled (from 259-281 to 518-562 for max rank), cooldown changed from 5 seconds to 10 seconds. " But unfortunately the cooldown was doubled, meh.
And the spell deflection, it's just spell damage, so it is only useful for certain encounters too, like acclimation. And I noticed something else, why pick Endless Winter? It's not likely your going to use chains of ice on the bosses, and mind freeze RP cost is so low anyway, and put of global cooldown so you'll barely notice any difference.

And to defend the Hungering Cold! Have you actually tried it out? It can be a real life saver in trash mobs situations, able to freeze down X mobs for 10 seconds can probably save a lot of repair bills.

 

[Oninuva]

Well I was a main frost build until I recently respeced to blood/frost tanking. It's not bad, good in 1v1, freeze, bandage, etc; as you said, cc mobs in dire situations, or generally, to apply frost disease and HB. I guess since it's easy access in frost you could take it, more of a personal choice, in current builds, its a 51 point talent so I respec'd off of that. Didn't change my play style much. So while it's useful, it's not something that changes you much unlike Frost Strike, HB, etc.

As of the latest PTR build, death knight is getting really gimped as with tanking in general..

I thought they was going to remove CD on HB at 3.0.9. but because they couldn't solve some bug, they just gave it a 5sec cd which isn't much difference but takes away from HUGE burst damage we could be doing.

Anyways, we'll see how DK's come out after the 3.1 release. Can't really decide much right now.

 

[Cornface]

Anyways, we'll see how DK's come out after the 3.1 release. Can't really decide much right now.

Aye, what is the point of talking 3.1 speccs then, since we actually have no idea how it will turn out when released?

(Although I can say discussing speccs is fun, whenever they are going to be released or not)