Archives for Tanking category
There was a request made to go over Ulduar weapons for tanking death knights. Since there still are no two-handed tanking specific weapons I figured no one would mind if I went over Ulduar weapons for tanking and DPS. Read more… »
I’ve updated my previous Death Knight DPS Builds – Patch 3.1 and Death Knight Tank Builds – Patch 3.1 posts. There is no new information or talent changes, I’ve just switched to Wowhead talent links (I like them better) and changed the posts’ format to be (I hope) easier to both read and skim for key info.
The Death Knight Guides page has also been updated with links to all of the new patch 3.1 talent build posts I’ve done.
I’m glad the DPS post especially has been so popular and started so many conversations. Thanks for your support.
13 Apr
Based heavily on the Elitist Jerks Death Knight forum here are what are considered to be the standard tanking builds for patch 3.1. Tank builds differ from DPS builds in that since a tank isn’t trying to do a single thing very well (i.e. lots of damage) more flexibility in builds is called for. Some tanks may want more damage mitigation, others may need more damage talents for better threat generation. These are solid builds worked out by the top theorycrafters, however you are free to adjust them to suit your own play style or needs so long as you understand deviating from the standard makes you, not others, liable for the consequences.
As before there are two popular tanking builds, one for frost and one for unholy. Frost provides better initial threat and constant damage reduction while maintaing AoE threat generation ability. Unholy provides better AoE threat, more damage mitigator buttons, and raid buffs. Blood tank builds may appear later, the new Will of Necropolis is certainly nice in some settings, but the jury is still out on blood being as viable overall as frost and unholy. I know, nothing new there.
So let’s go over our two standard tanking builds so you can setup your own build from there. Read more… »
5 Feb
Here’s some additional stat weight links for Wowhead. The stat weight values are the same, but these links lead to item browsing rather than comparing items you specify. Just click on the armor slots you are interested in and you can easily see the top slot items in game right now.
You’ll note there are also weapon links here. For whatever reason this method allows for weapon DPS to be scored. It it worth noting that in many cases you should be more concerned with a weapon’s base damage than its DPS or stats, but a quick guide to look at doesn’t hurt.
Among the many features of Wowhead is their gear compare feature. It is a nice way to compare the stats between two or more pieces of gear and is a principle way I go over my gear wish list. A less used aspect of the compare page is the stat weight score.
Stat weighting allows you to assign a fixed numeric score to a piece of gear, based on its stats. Each stat is giving a fixed amount of points, usually ranging from 1 to 100 on Wowhead but any fixed range works, and Wowhead then calculates a final score based on how much each stat is worth and how many of that stat the item has. For example strength is usually worth 100 (being our best DPS stat) so 10 strength on an item gives the item a score of 1,000. If the item also has 5 crit rating, which is worth 47 in the stat weight presets I’ll go over, then the item is worth 1,235 (1,000 from the strength, 235 from the crit). Read more… »
One thing that can be overlooked from all of the patch 3.0.8 changes we went through is a lot of our glyphs can tuned, too. For the most part the negative effects of a glyph were removed, but a few changed almost entirely. I don’t want to go over the changes themselves (breaking news sites and blogs are good for that) but rather do a favor for both death knights and inscribers out there. What death knight glyphs are actually useful? Read more… »
After finishing off Naxx with Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad last night my guild headed to Obsidian Sanctum. We worked on three and then two drakes up, but what with the post-patch server conditions ended up settling for a one drake kill. We were running with three warrior tanks that evening, so I was asked to tank the flame and whelp adds.
Here is the combat log report from our one drake up kill (the log is set to anonymous but you shouldn’t have a problem seeing me). Note who had both top damage out and top damage in. How did that happen? Well, I kept almost all of little adds pissed off for most of the fight (one of the warriors acted as an emergency pick up, since the AoE tank can’t move well) with Pestilence (I love it being off cool down), Death and Decay, and Unholy Blight. Oh, and I forgot to change into my tank gear that attempt. Yeah, wouldn’t recommend that last part. Nice numbers, though.
20 Jan
As you’ve no doubt heard patch 3.0.8 is being rolled out. You can all thank me for the roll out, I respected and got some gear enchanted on Monday so now I get to respec again Tuesday and pine over the wasted enchanting mats.
If you’ve kept up with the various changes in this patch you know death knight changes are significant. The changes from the launch of the public test realms to today have also been significant. We’ve been teased with changes only for them to be taken away. Check out Blizzard for the official patch notes (as of this posting they aren’t up, but will be at the link provided). I also love MMO Champion’s coverage of patches, as they cover the notes and the stuff left out of them. I don’t want to do a point by point reposting of death knight changes this patch, but there are certainly plenty of items worth highlighting. Read more… »
First the big news, no new tank weapons for death knights.
Ghostcrawler: The two-handed Blacksmithing tanking weapons are not going to be implemented.
Indeed, we did not want to stick DKs with these weapons forever, nor did we want to start itemizing 2H tanking weapons forever. DKs were designed to tank with 2H dps weapons.
The new sigil and runeforge enchant should help players with low defense.
Original thread can be found here.
If you read the thread it is about concerns of death knight tanks getting stuck with one of two tank weapons for the rest of the game, barring more tanking two-handers being released. A valid concern, and Ghostcrawler comments on that with things we heard back when the death knight was first announced. So no new weapons, but we’re still going to be better off defense wise than we were. Read more… »
With holiday and raid schedules lining up together I’ve been doing more tanking in our guild raids. Enough so that I’ve been dealing more with tank gear than DPS gear. This has lead me to reading more in depth about tanking theorycraft. Read more… »
