Post by Psybernetic
I was thinking of a
51/20/0 build for DPS. There might be a better reason to go into frost for Nerves of Cold Steel, but I'm not sure that it outweighs the benefits of an addition 6% strength and 5% shadow damage on every melee swing. Undoubtedly Dancing Rune Weapon will be one of the key talents in any DPS builds. Keep in mind this would be a strict PvE damage build. No talents for PvP exclusively have been included.
18/53/0 PvE Unholy DPS build. Focuses on disease damage, but I don't think it'll be as strong as the Blood build. Might be good for 5 mans or for those who just like summoning.
16/5/50 Frost build. I tried to build a decent DPS build from the tree, but with the lack of threat reduction from Blood or Unholy Aura and the probably high base-threat of Frost attacks, this probably won't do so well.
Post by Detton
Alright, let me give this a shot.
WARNING!! Very Long! You might want to take a short nap to prepare yourselfThe Purpose: - To be a 5-man instance AOE tank.
My guild already runs several very powerful and skilled tanks for raids. Warriors, paladins, druids, and i'm sure we'll get some dedicated Death Knight tanks as well when they come out. I am going to be focusing on AOE/normal instance tanking because that's where the leveling will come from. It'll also allow me to get into groups more easily myself for the same purpose.
Primary Skills used: - Non-talent skills to be primarily used (
Others will, of course, also be used, but on an as-needed basis and aren't the focus. Obviously, I don't know have any practical experience playing here :) ) - I will be using the designations (F) for Frost Rune, (B) for Blood Rune, and (U) for Unholy Rune. I'm doing this to track rune usage and requirements, so that's the only 'cost' i'll bother with listing. Information on rune usage taken from
http://wotlkwiki.info/index.php/Deathknight and is subject, of course, to change.
Blood- Blood Boil - AOE taunt to all dieseased targets
- Pestilence (B) - Helps Blood Boil by spreading dieseases
- Death Pact (B)(U) - Self-heal by sacrificing a ghoul
Unholy- Plague Strike (B)(U) - If the 'plague' counts as a disease
- Degeneration (U) - Same as plague strike. Might be redundant, needs testing
- Death and Decay (B)(U)(F) - More AOE damage for group threat
- Anti-magic Shell - (U) Anti-caster measures
- Death Grip (U) - Taunt
- Raise Dead (U)(U) - Summons a ghoul to feed Death Pact
Frost- Obliterate (B)(F) - Finishing blow/heavy damage strike for single-target agro. Will be talented.
- Icy Touch (F) - Probably won't work on raid mobs or bosses, but good for rest
- Mind Freeze - Inturrupt
- Icebound Fortitude - 1 minute cooldown armor boost for physical damage
- Empower Rune Weapon - Probably necessary for rune activation.
- Chains of Ice (F)(F) - Freeze/root control with a 20-yard range
Primary presense: Frost (obviously) for threat generation.
From the above list, I can see that I will need a minimum of two frost runes, and two unholy runes to activate Raise Dead and Chains of Ice. I am guessing that the six runes I will need to engrave are, at least, (F)(F)(U)(U)(B) and the sixth rune can vary. If I find I need to taunt alot, a third Unholy rune (to give me the ability to cast Death Grip more often), or if not, a second Blood rune.
Talents and talented skills: - The hard part; the talent spec and talented abilities to be primarily considered.
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=jwct0hZZe0EsozIzuhcbst - Keep in mind that I only have a teneous grasp on what i'm doing, so this is subject to change.
Key talent-gained abilities:
Blood- Forceful Deflection/Spell Deflection - Extra parrying combined with less damage from spells because of it. Win/win.
- Rune Tap - Could help. Was only a single talent point, and gives me more options.
Frost- Improved Icy Touch/Icy Talons - Increases my attack speed and damage. Taken on the (probable) chance that i'll DPS at any time, especially considering all the DKs likely to be made at start. Switch to Unholy Presense and get some very nice attack speed boosts going.
- Nerves of Cold Steel - More DPS upgrades for a few points
- Black Ice - Frost and Shadow damage, greater threat
- Frozen Rune Weapon/Frigid Dreadplate - Increases threat somewhat and helps reduce incoming damage.
- Runic Power Mastery - alot of skills (death and decay, hungering cold) depend on runic power and this gives me more of it, effectively improving my AOE ability.
- Frost Rune Mastery - For one point, i'll see how well this works. Anything to let me use abilities more often, especially the valuable frost ones.
- Howling Blast - Strong AOE
- Annihilation - Obliterate not consuming dieseases will turn it into a more powerful attack, and let me keep the DOTs going for damage and taunting with Blood Boil
- Merciless Combat/Frost Strike - Not sold entirely on it. I have enough strikes and attacks as it is.
- Guile of Gorefiend - Overall more damage and improved icebound fortitude.
- Tundra Stalker - More damage, more threat...
- Hungering Cold - AOE utility. Frost mages will love you. Enemies considered frozen means howling blast does more damage, too, for a nice one-two AOE combo.
Wow, that's a lot of bullet points. I know I probably didn't need to go over every primary choice, but I wanted to list the general reasons behind why I picked a given talent over another, without having to keep explaining myself later.
Here's a few more bullet points for your pleasure (don't put an eye out)
Regrets - What I wish I could have taken
- Toughness - Obviously, more armor is good, especially without a shield. This might very well be a key/required talent. I just don't know where to pull the points from. :( Maybe Merciless Combat/Frost Strike. This is definently up for debate.
- Chill of the Grave - I wanted to take it, but again, no spare points. More runic power is more fuel for several key abilities, especially AOE ones like Hungering Cold and Death and Decay.
- Acclimation - I tried to focus on anti-caster tanking as much as I could, hence the 18 points in Blood. As usual, not enough talent points. I'm hoping Spell Deflection and anti-magic shell can take care of it.
- The entire unholy tree - Man, I want Anti-Magic Zone. It just sounds cool. And Lichborne would make a great "Oh Crap!" button, which when you're AOE tanking comes in handy often. And Corpse Explosion for AOE... And Wandering Plague... And Unholy Blight... Sigh.
- Blood Tree, Blade Barrier - I see this build as being able to dump Runes VERY easily. Being able to push additional parry would have been nice.
The End
Alright, so that's my tanking spec idea, the abilities and talents I will use, and my thoughts and reasons behind them. How does it sound to other people? I like to think I have a good feel for this game based on the common sense i've gathered over the years, but part of that common sense is admitting that other people have just as good of a grasp on things as I do, and that asking for advice is never a bad thing. =) So go nuts, rip it apart, let me know if you agree, anything!
Thank you