4.0.1 Death Knight Blood Tank Talent Spec

Looking to hit the ground running with the all new 4.0.1 patch?  How about starting things off with this level 79 Blood Tank spec, which gets you the basics of a good build, at least what worked well on the public test realm.

This build also focuses on Rune Strike, which continues to be a primary threat builder moving into 4.0.1 and beyond.  However, if you are looking for a bit more of survivability and less on the threat scale, then perhaps consider putting some points into improved Blood Tap.

Blood Tank Spec for 4.0.1
WowHead Link - http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#jchr0srrusdZ0h:Rzosmac
WowTal Link - http://wowtal.com/#k=YfHoQ3t1.a5o.deathknight. (How to use WowTal.com to automatically update your talent spec in game.)

Patch Day For 4.0.1

Looks like the new patch is for sure hitting the Blizzard servers as we speak.  It's a massive patch, 4.8gb to be exact and is reportedly taking up to 2 hours on a decent computer to install.  Yes, that is 2 hours to install, not just download.  Hopefully everyone started their background downloader a week ago.

4.0.1 Patch Highlights for Death Knights

• Runes - The way they fill is different, which slows the special ability use down, but allows for some different fighting mechanics. Runes will now fill one at a time, instead of all at once. Not meant to gimp the Death Knight, just allow for some broader changes come Cataclysm.
• Blood Is Only Tanking Tree - As mentioned in another post, quite possibly the biggest change for patch 4.0.1 will be that blood is the only tanking tree for Death Knights.
• Rune Empowerment - Ability to instantly refill certain runes, which allows for less cut'n paste rotations, a little variety in your fights.

Blizzard claims the servers will most likely be back up at noon, I'm doubtful.  Such a huge patch and Blizzard's history of never hitting patch deadlines, you'll probably be lucky to play before dark.  Hmmm, wonder if there will be a que to log on to my server?

Death Knight Tanking Rotations

This is a guest article submission discussing Death Knight Tanking rotations.

Tanking rotation is different than damage rotation because the spells that is used will be different. One of the disadvantages of the tanking rotation is that it is very hard to establish a rotation because of the different tanking situation. Tanking death knight has two important roles which is surviving and producing the highest threat on the enemies.

Passive defensive abilities are always kept at the highest level so you don’t have to worry about anything.

Active defensive abilities will help to increase your life span but they must be placed on the spell bar. It is difficult to place the active defensive abilities in a predetermined spell rotation because they are only used when you cannot be healed. Good tanking death knights will protect their healers and keep them alive. The cool down of the spells will stop them from being up throughout the time.

Offensive abilities are used by the tanking death knight to cause damage in order to hold the agro. Single enemy tanks uses power that are very similar to the damage spell rotations. The situation will become difficult when you are tanking several groups of mobs.

After you have applied the diseases on the Icy Touch and Plague Strike, you will use the pestilence ability. The pestilence ability will cause 65 – 79 shadow damage on the foes located within 0 yard. This ability will also spread the diseases on the targets to other enemies. The diseases that are applied on the enemies will last for a full duration. The pestilence ability is useful as an aoe disease refresher.

The blood boil had the ability to boil the blood of the enemies within 10 yards. It can also cause the 180  - 220 shadow damage. The blood boil is used after you have spread the diseases on the targets with pestilence. With the blood boil ability, you will be able to cause a lot of agro. After using this ability, you must reapply to other diseases.

The dark command will command the target to attack you. The dark command will put you at the top of the threat list when are unable to overcome the mob. Before the dark command spell end, you should first build on the threat.

The strangulate ability will strangulate the enemy and keep him silence for 5 seconds. This ability will also deal with 180 shadow damage at the end of the spell. The strangulate ability is suitable for tanks that are tanking caster mobs and need them to come to you. When you use this ability, the diseased mob will run to you to perform the melee. The bonus of the strangulate ability is that it will offers a small amount of damage after the silence has ended.

The rune strike ability will throw off your rotation and limit the threat generation when the mob resists on your abilities. Rune strike should be used whenever you are starting a threat on the enemies.

The death and decay ability is used in multiple mob tanking. Although it is expensive, the 30 second cool down allow you to perform many other task in between the cast.

Death Knight Tanks

This is a guest article submission on Death Knight Tanks.

Although Blizzard had claimed that the death knight is a hybrid tanking/DPS class, there are very little information on how death knights can serve as tanks. When coming to tanking, death knight are often looked down by other tanks. If you roll a death knight tank, you must keep in mind that a druid, paladin or warrior will often be selected by the group. One of the reasons is that you have less experience tanking. Besides, you are not equipped with a shield.

The tank has three important functions. Firstly, they must be able to create more threat compare with the healer on all targets. The thread is the number which is the priority on the agro table. The character located on the highest level on the agro table is central focus of the mob. When the tank is being healed, the healer will cause threat on the foes so the tank must protect the healer from the foes by staying in front of them on threat. Secondly, the tank and healer must survive. The tank will protect itself by dodging off hits, easing the severity of the damage coming in its direction and create a lot of hit points. In order to survive, the tank and the healer must work together so that the tank will require less healing and stay longer in the battle. Thirdly, the tank must generate threat on the primary target so that the damage dealers can kill it effectively. It is important to note that the tank’s responsibility is not to generate thread but to remain below the threat.

The first two functions are of utmost importance because if they are unsuccessful, they will perish and the group will be wiped out in a very short time.

Death knight possess only one threat generating ability which is the Rune Strike. The Rune Strike creates a next melee swing hit for 150% of normal damage, and 175% bonus threat which sum up for 262.5% of the thread of a normal attack. Generally the death knight utilizes a similar rotation as the DPS death knight but there are some exceptions.  When aiming at more than one targets, the death knight can use death and decay because it provides a lot of bonus threat.

The frost presence is essential while tanking because it can increase the total armor by sixty percent and the total stamina by six percent. In addition, frost presence will generate 2.0735x bonus threats for each of the damage released to the enemy. Frost presence gives the death knight ability to tank without requiring a shield just like in the Druid’s Bear form. Due to the fact that death knight can attain a large numbers of armors without a shield, the death knight can use two hand weapon. As a result, they can significantly increase the damage release to the Prot warrior or Prot Paladin.

All death knights are equipped with certain survival abilities including icy touch, mind freeze, death strike strangulate, death pact, icebound fortitude, anti magic shell and chains of ice. Each of this survival ability will protect the death knight in their unique way so the death knight can do his or her job of holding agro.

Break The Death Knight Stereotype

In game I'm lucky, rarely do I experience any type of discrimination simply because I play a Death Knight.  Normally group members are just happy to get a tank and usually I surprise them because of their low standards for Death Knight tanks, according to the popular Death Knight Forums.  I've composed a list of a few things that we can do, as Death Knight Tanks to bust up the myth that we are all bad.

1. Be Honest - If this is your first run for a dungeon, especially one of the new ones, let the group know.  They can offer up advice and they can react on their toes a lot faster if they can expect a few short comings from a tank not familiar with a fight of a pull.
2. Be Prepared - This is taken right off of my Death Knight Tank Check List.  It'll alleviate stress on your healers and DPS if you come to the fight prepared for what you know.  This means have food buffs, potions, and elixirs.
3. Know Your Spec - Whether you are a Death Knight DPS or Tank, know the limitations and the strengths of your specific spec.  Don't pull ahead of your abilities and don't try to AOE dps on a single target dps strong spec.  Knowing your talents and abilities goes a long way to proving to the group  that you aren't a Deathtard.
4. Don't Death Grip - There are only a few instances when using Death Grip is warranted.  If you aren't a tank or the tank doesn't request it, then just remove it from your keybinds.  Furthermore, even tanks should only be using this in a good group or on mobs that break lose from your aggro table.
5. Don't Army Of Dead - Using this in specific circumstances lends itself  to item #3, knowing your spec and talents.  Generally speaking, just don't pop it unless you know it won't affect a fight.  For example, on a dragon boss that's going to be spinning around trying to hit your little mates, DON"T.  Popping AoD on trash or certain bosses is like wearing the retard Tabard.

That's all the tips I have for now, so how do you break the Deathtard mold?

Death Knight Forums

The internet can be a vile and horrid place, full of misinformation.  Websites seemingly devoted to helping you improve your game can be a haven for those looking to troll and upset your actual abilities.  Keep this in mind as I provide the following links to Death Knight forums, most all information must be taken with a grain of salt.  Use this information found on these Death Knight forums wisely.

Official WoW Death Knight Class Forum - One of the larger offenders of providing misinformation.  Often these forums are trolled by others looking to spread incorrect information and strengthen the myth that all Death Knights are bads.  Only use these Death Knight forums as a last resort if the Death Knight information you are looking for cannot be found anywhere else.

Elitist Jerks Death Knight Forum - The EJ forums are some of the better place to find information, less the idiots looking to cause havoc.  However, with great power comes great confusion, so expect to comb through a lot of numbers and theory crafting to find the simple details.  Most information found on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum has been tested, retested, numbers crunched, and then made complicated and then throughly spread out over the course of 100+ pages.  If you can find what you are looking for then consider it golden.

WowHead Death Knight Class Forum - I would place the Wowhead forums one step above the official World of Warcraft forums, in regards to troll population.  More often than not there is a slew of idiot questions and not enough answers.  Furthermore this problem is compounded by having idiots spewing more misinformation, mainly those details that they found on the official WoW forums.  Garbage in, Garbage out.

DeathKnight.Info Forums - This can be a pretty good source of information and interaction within the Death Knight community, however it is not heavily traveled.  So, you may get all kinds of replies and feedback on general wow or Death Knight discussions, but specific information is generally copied and pasted from other sources.

MMO Champion Death Knight Forum - Pretty good mix of information and fun details mixed into one well designed Death Knight forum.  MMO Champion is also known for having the latest information on upcoming patches and behind the scenes information on Blue Posts from Blizzard.

Ten Ton Hammer Death Knight Forum - Again, pretty good forum for Death Knight information, but not one that is heavily traveled.  As of this post there were only a handful of threads that had even been updated in the past 15-30 days.  So, if you are looking for some general information it might work out, but for some patch sensitive info you might want to stick to some of the other options listed above.

Lastly, just a reminder, use all of these Death Knight forums as a tool.  A lot of the information surrounding Death Knights can be interpreted differently and should not 100% affect your play style.  Learn what you can, apply what you know, and test test test to see what works best for your Death Knight.  Have fun and beware of the forum trolls.

New Death Knight Tank Check List

It's intimidating learning how to tank and its even worse when learning to tank on a Death Knight. Throw in the fact that you are learning on Heroic level 80 dungeons and it makes for some heart pounding stress. But, if you like taking control, or if you are just sick and tired of DPSing from the cheap seats, jump right in.

The new LFG Tool makes joining dungeons a breeze and the fact that you will never see these people again should alleviate some of that noob tank stress. Every tank had to learn at some point, but not every tank who gloats in party chat had to learn in the circumstances surrounding Death Knights. Lastly, don't let that 2 button Druid Tank try to tell you how easy tanking is, it's much more complicated and involved to be a good Death Knight tank than a bear.

That being said, below is a check list I would recommend all Death Knights adhere to before jumping into your first Heroic tanking situation.

1. Reach Defense Cap - Yes, it is that important. Make sure you have at least 535 Defense before jumping into a Heroic Dungeon. I don't care that you've done it before without problems, you are a huge strain on your healer and a couple RNG crits will be the end of you and your group. So, go buy that cheap ilvl 200 tank gear, throw a Stoneskin Gargoyle Rune Forge on your weapon, and drink an Elixir of Mighty Defense if need be.
2. Watch A YouTube Video - I'm talking from experience, tanking an instance and dps'ing an instance are very different things. Watch a YouTube video of the fights in all of the Northrend Dungeons. You don't have to have them all memorized, but it will help in knowing the little tricks and odd mechanics of some of the boss fights from a tanking perspective.
3. Be Over Prepared - This means make sure you bring your own food buff, elixir, potion, or whatever. Minimum stats are just that, minimum requirements, be over prepared to alleviate healing and dps stress on others in your group. At this point, more often than not, your other party members will be over geared..so you should do everything you can to boost your stats.
4. Take Criticism - Even if you have a few flawless runs, ask at the end of the group what you could have done to improve. Most people are more tolerant of those willing to learn, than those that just assume they know everything. It also doesn't hurt to ask about an instance, if you have a question, while people are buffing at the beginning. And, don't get your feelings hurt if they point out your weaknesses during the run, use that input and take it all with a grain of salt. Knowledge is Power!

That's it for my checklist for now. It's important to not get discouraged and spread your tanking out over a few runs. If you see yourself starting to get angry, just step back, run as DPS for a few dungeons, and then come back to tackling the differences in tanking. It's ok to fail, despite what the WoW forums say.

Please chip in if you have any other tips for new Death Knight Tanks.

Recommended Death Knight Macro's

You can be a good player without using Macro's, but to be the best you can be, you have to use Macro's. Without question a Death Knight rotation, especially that of a DK Tank, require the use of Macro's to properly run through a rotation. Below are a collection of Macro's recommended for Death Knights.

Army Of The Dead Speed Cast
/use speed potion
/cast Army of The Dead

Rune Strike Macro
#showtooltip
/cast someability
/cast !Rune Strike

The Rune Strike macro is probably the most important Macro in the arsenal of a Death Knight Tank. Rune Strike is one of your primary threat builders, next to your Death and Decay, and damage causing abilities. Therefore, it's important to automatically Rune Strike when available and by using the above Macro you can forget about the procs and focus on your rotation.

Elitist Jerks has a HUGE thread dedicated to what Macros other Death Knights are using. Please view the Elitist Jerk Death Knight macro thread here.

Update Your Spec At Patch Time

Each patch brings it's own challenges in regards to every class and race. Typically even if you are a class that gets nerfed you can soften some of the blow by changing up your talent tree to compensate. Furthermore, what may have been the cookie cutter answer to Death Knight tanking 2 patches ago might not hold true now. Lastly, lets not forget those theory crafting freaks at elitist jerks, that are constantly updating what is the perfect option for Death Knight talent builds.

I've been tanking primarily in Blood Spec and after some reading and acquiring gear I realize it's time for me to respec. Since I have a lot more mitigation than previously, I can afford to drop some of my talented mitigation and move on to more damage producing talents, which will also increase my threat generation.

This is the recommended Blood Tank Spec from Elitist Jerks following the latest patch 3.3

Death Knight Tank Blood Spec Build with Rune Tap

So, don't set on your laurels and get used to the same spec your entire WoW career. Stay up to date on what nerfs and buffs are coming through on patch day and learn to adapt your talents as need be.

Death Knight Tank Elixir and Potions

I've become good friends with a couple of consumables that make my tanking easier. As mentioned previously, I'm new to tanking, so any help I can get I'm going to use. Consumables like potions and elixirs will be the first to come to mind, but don't forget the extra attack power and stamina boost from chowing down on your favorite food either.

Until defense capped I always used Elixir of Mighty Defense, which obviously can help you reach that cap to run Heroics or even Raids.

To help with threat generation I also down a Elixir of Mighty Strength. This is becoming increasingly important because most dps out gear me at this point and keeping threat on multiple mobs can be a challenge. Heck, even on single target tank'n spank bosses it can be an issue if maxed out warriors or warlocks decide to crit it up. Thank goodness Dark Command is on only an 8sec cool down.

To recap, new Death Knight tanks should always bring along Guardian Elixir's and Battle Elixir's. Only one of each can be active at any given time and they are inexpensive enough to keep plenty in your bags, just in case of wipes.

Lastly, as a side note, your healer may request you use Elixir of Mighty Fortitude. This has been a helpful elixir before I had a larger stamina pool or if my healer wasn't equipped to the teeth.

Happy Tanking.

My Must Have Head Enchant

Time to start grinding out some reputation to get certain rewards and enchants that will make my Death Knight Tanking life a little easier. Currently I'm setting at 500 defense and it' recommended to be 535 defense capped for heroic dungeons. To get there I will need some lucky drops in regular ToC and enchants. The Argent Crusade will provide me with my first tanking head slot enchant.

At revered the Argent Crusade rep vendor will sell you Arcanum of The Stalwart Protector. This head enchant will add 37 Stamina and 20 Defense rating to any head slot item. It's a must have and fairly easy to obtain, considering it's only a revered requirement.

To start getting reputation for the Argent Crusade, simply do quests in Zul'Drak and Ice Crown. There are a few long quest chains that help in getting at least a boost to your reputation. Just completing the one Ice Crown alone got me to Honored.

More on enchants for Death Knight Tanks coming later. Also, be sure to read other posts related to Death Knight Tanking Gear.

Death Knight Tanking Tip #2

So what happens when a new tank and a new healer get together in an instance? Magic! That's right, both are willing to help each other out, talk, and work out strategies. If one were much more advance than the other, chances are frustration would set in, wipes would happen, and groups would disperse. I've learned to love working with new healers and it provides a great learning opportunity.

2. Save your trinket and/or pots.

Having a backup doesn't hurt and can save the group from a wipe if the healer gets stunned or runs out of mana early during a boss fight. It's not necessarily because they are a bad healer or you are a bad tank, it's just a learning phase. So, having a little bit of back up makes the run smoother for all involved and keeps you on your toes.

Remember to pop that trinket at just the right time, like when you are about to die. ;)

Death Knight Tanking Tip #1

As a new Death Knight or at least new to tanking as a Death Knight, I'm finding out little things that might not be immediately apparent. So, I've decided to start a series of tips for tanking with your Death Knight. Keep in mind, these are just tips, not the end all and not the general info you can find on proper gear and boss fights.

1. Don't pull mobs with Death Grip.

Death Grip is a great tool to use if you happen to lose agro on a mob. This can save your group from a wipe if you have a healer that pulls agro or an overzealous Warlock or Mage that love to AOE.

So, just pull with something else and save Death Grip for when it really matters.