Death Knight tanks

2008-11-26T00:07:10Z

I do not get it everyone wants a Frost death knight tank, or a undead aoe dps or a blood dps but no one wants a Blood tank. Let me tell you about my toons I have a Sub rogue in a mix of T4 and badge gear I have a Boomkin Druid in all badge gear that I have took to T6 raids and was at the top of the damage meter. Now that Wotlk came out i have been playing my Death knight at a fair rate between work and school and i speced her blood which is not that uncommon, but people have pointed out to me is uncommon is that i have my toon in tank gear instead of DPS giving me 13k health and 15k armor unbuffed. It is not that people point it out that bothers me it is that i can not get into insta groups as a tank. and it is not like I'm Un-experienced completely i tanked on my druid for a while till i decided i would rather have a Boomkin since they are fun.

People have told me that Blood is not a tanking spec and kicked me from group more than once. the thing is i say neather is frost in that case. From what i have seen and what other of my guildes have seen is that frost tanks can not hold Aggro on more than one mob instead of holding aggro they Freeze them in place which is quite useless if one breaks and you are on CD. as well as frost do not generate enough Runic power to do there stronger moves that keep aggro.

Where a Blood tank can hold more than one mob using there common skills that all DK have like blood boil and pestilence but since they are in blood they have therm improved thou (might of mograine) and other talents not available to Frost. What i say is Blood does not hold them in place till they brake free and attack the healer they deal with them while still holding aggro vs Aoe, heals, and High damage high threat toons, while still having enough runes and having enough Runic power to spare. as well as all the self heals they have instead of relying on pots that can be only used once per entering combat.

I did not want to discuss Unholy for I have not tried it to its full extent i am only mention the specs i have been

There are good tanking moves for frost (Hungering cold) (unbreakable armor)(toughness) (linchborn)(frigid dreadplate)(Acclimation)

As well as good tanking moves in Blood (Blade Barrier) (spell deflect)(Rune tap) (Veteran of the third war) (Mark of Blood) (Will of the Necropolis) and my favorite so you don't need a healer as much (Blood Aura) and (bloodworms)

I say that there should be no discrimination between Blood and Frost tanks and insta groups should be fair with the person since it is not the spec it is how well you can tank with it and if you know what you are doing.

Side note: Frost aura is a good tanking move but can be easily compensated for

Side note: my current Lv. 70 spec is (55/5/1) blood

Update November 25 2008

"DKs make a reasonable tank no matter what your spec but most DK tanks I know are frost and use 2 x 1hd weapon, I think thats to do with the threat limitation on using a 2hder its slow spiking threat not a stream or threat, Im at level 79 with my DK and I got 20.6k HP and about 16k armor unbuffed Im blood/unholy about 34 points in both trees, good dps,good self heals and good threat I can tank most mobs with easy in frost stance, maybe the people on the server your are a fickle lol."

I do agree with that heriophant the 2h does give out Spikes of threat that is probability why they gave Frost <Nerves of Cold Steel> for Duel welding. but none the less I'm holding a 2H axe and i have not had any problems holding Aggro from mages to rogues i have yet to see them pull it off.

As for the "but you must have frost aura active for tanking, +5 threat and Armour and hp buffs" I believe you are referring to Frost Presents not Frost Aura for what frost Aura does is increase Spell resistance that is why i classified it as not 100% needed and can be compensated for.

@sogetsu_kazama i saw you had some good points i would like to see this spec your friend made to give it a test drive it sounds quite interesting. I have made the complete cobalt set for my DK and substituted some other items i picked up

Side note: for some reason i can't comment to my own blog so i'll just write it here.

Last update Nov 27 2008. Happy Thanksgiving and good luck on Friday

Blood tanks

Death Knight tanks