Death Knight Tanking spec?

[crowdx]

Hi all,
so in the macro compendium there is some macros for an Unholy Deathknight tank, it seems to work reasonably well but I am wondering is this the main spec that multiboxing tanks are using or are others using blood? If you are using blood what macros are working for you?
Any insight greatly appreciated.

[ghonosyph]

Dk tankin is a fickle beast but its very simple to macro their rotation as it never really changes.

My dk tank uses a frost/blood sub spec that is rather strong, unholy works well but I don't prefer to use it as much as frost

The two things you need to be mindful of for dk tank is aoe vs single target as the threat Gen is vastly different and the rotation is completely trash if you try to run the aoe rotation vs a single target

When I get home I'll copy paste my tank macro for you on my cell at my parents right now with no access to wow lol

[crowdx]

Cool, that would be great.
I do need a pretty strong AoE taking rotation though, I am gearing the DK with a fully geared shammy group and chain lightning does a lot of AoE damage and so tends to pull mobs off the tank.
Thanks for the help though, would be great to see your macro

[ghonosyph]

Theres a couple things you could help out with first, that might make designing a macro set for you easier. What type of macro do you use on your shamans for normal play? one button dps spamming pretty much i imagine correct>? one button for aoe and single target? or 2 separate keys one for aoe one for single?

Dk tanking relys quite a bit on gear, spec, and glyphs. What spec do you want to use>? Do you KNOW how to play a dk? ie do you understand rune mechanics(rune refresh rate, death rune creation/consumption/usage)? Do you know what a runic dump is? (>>>INSERT PERVERTED DISGUSTING JOKE HERE<<<) lol

If you use a spec like i do(taking the two talents that give you death runes, one from the blood tree, one from the frost tree) and using the glyph of death and decay, death of howling blast, and the third glyph i usually use is rune tap(*because i use that skill on all 3 of my dks for party heals on my team) but my third glyph choice for normal frost tanking use is glyph of frost strike.
the basic macro is as follows(keeping in mind i have no clue how click macros work given my setup of addons/bars/stuff)

i suggest leading off with death and decay on every pull. this is to be put on a key separate from every other key. DnD creates a royal shitton of threat but it doesnt help in the making of death runes which is kinda super important for single target threat gen. Dks icy touch skill has a super duper high threat modifier and the goal to threat gen on ANY single target fight is your ability to spam it as fast and as much as you can. For single target you dont really need to use DnD to pull, though it works well as a starter, you WILL have to roll into your rotation a little bit and spam your tank macro a couple times before you load your shamans up and start spammin the dps key.

Since i tend to use my mouse to move forward, and one of my buttons on my mouse is my /toggle autorun key i unbound my W key from move forward. I put my tank macro on my W key and spam that while positioning mobs/my tank before i start my dps.
I'll put in parentheses what runes each part of the cast sequence uses so you can better follow the two button system( runes and runic power usage) technically you'll need 4 keys for tanking. An aoe key, a single target key, a runic power key, and a key for dnd ********edit sorry, you may need a fifty key, for howling blast procs ******

lol i hope you're not confused yet!

/target focustarget **i use a focus as lead system for my set up, you can use ftl just delete this line**
/castsequence reset=combat howling blast(UF),plague strike(U),Pestilence(B),Blood Boil(B),Icy Touch(F),Obliterate(UF), Obliterate(UF)(** at this point when all your runes refresh you should have a frost , unholy and 4 death runes, Using One howling blast, 1 pestilence if the free howling blast didnt proc from obliterate/rime talent, then 3 blood boils), Pestilence(B), Blood boil, blood boil, blood boil
/cast !rune strike

this is the aoe rotation(above). If it hangs up, use blood tap to convert one of your blood runes into a death rune, or use empower rune weapon to reset it. At any point during your spamming of this dps macro it hangs up and all your runes are still on cooldown, you should have runic power made and casting Frost strike on your runic power key is what you should do. Casting howling blast whenever you can (as rime will proc a free one on occasion for casting obliterates) CAN MESS UP THE MACRO, but it shouldn't given the time delays in the ability usage, IE howling blast resets every 8 seconds after you use it. with all your runic dumps and the other skills in between when howling blast lands in the macro you should never run into conflict, but it CAN happen it shouldn't but nothing is perfect lol.

some minor advice when it comes to DK tanking, especially as frost. OMFG take all the + hit talents from both the frost and unholy tree, and stack hit on gear as much as you can until you reach 10 % +hit (around 318 rating)on your character sheet. ALSO, stacking EXPERTISE is OMFG important for multiboxing, ESPECIALLY as we're using cast sequences. The cap for expertise is 24 on your character sheet to push dodge/parry off the chart from behind. HIGHER is potentially wasted, but if you can find gear with it, use it. My tank set averages around 32 expertise. MISSING JUST ONE ATTACK can throw off the WHOLE rotation/macro. It sucks, but unless you do the click macro thing its something you have to live with.

Now for a cast sequence for single target

/target focustarget
/castsequence reset=combat Icy touch, plague strike, Blood strike, blood strike, obliterate(*runic power dump press your other keybind !!), Obliterate, icy touch, icy touch, icy touch, icy touch, Obliterate,blood strike, blood strike, obliterate, icy touch, icy touch, icy touch, icy touch
/cast !rune strike

the idea behind single target tankin is to cast obliterate and icy touch as much as you can. Obliterates and blood strikes if you're specced right turn your runes into death runes. Death runes can be used as any kind of rune, and icy touch is the most threat per use ability we have next to death and decay, but death and decay doesnt generate enough threat that it will work for sustained threat vs how icy touch does so we go for broke casting it

Everything should be good to go as is, remember to use your runic power dump for frost strikes whenever you dont have runes up.

[crowdx]

So I ran some dungeons last night with my DK, I cleared Halls of Lightning. Forge of Souls and then farmed the hammer from Garfrost. Overall I am now at 3.6k GS but no badge gear so far.
Here is my toon: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...er&cn=Thadeous . I may change out some glyphs but in general I am now using the macros for the macro compendium. Being very new to tanking with this toon, the whole rune management as described above seems a lot to take in :P , the rest of my team in most cases is able to nuke the mobs before my offspec healer runs out of mana. The two main priorites I try to keep up is my bone shiels and horn of winter. On most pulls I open up with Death and Decay as an AoE aggro spell and most times I can hold aggro.
What is the spec and gear of the toon you tank with ghonosyph?

[ghonosyph]

Hmm well my dk name is moocrewa horde azgalor server his gear is mostly raid drops and badge gear and as my main raider toon he's got a pretty high gearscore. Around 5500 ish in his tank gear. I use a frost/blood sub spec, for tanking and also a frost dps spec, if you armory him you should find it I suggest learning how to play your dk solo lol as learning how to play dks as a rule will improve your understanding of the macro and other info I have given

[ghonosyph]

Its very important that you understand how the Rune thing works so that you can time things properly. Its not that hard though! I recomend reading up on dk info at elitist jerks website. That's where I learned all the ins and outs and part of the reason I'm so good at dk =)

[crowdx]

I took a look at your toon but he is logged out in his PvP gear. My main interest was weapon stats and gemming/enchants. So far I have been leaning towards stamina on my gems and enchanting so as to get his health pool up, but from my understanding of DK mechanics they need a lot of dps also due to dps being their mechanic to create aggro.
I am toying with the idea of using the weapon from the battered hilt for his main weapon (have 3 of them sitting in my bank and not sure what to use them for due to the market being dead for hilts on my server)
I presume agility is also something I should be enchanting/gemming for to give him more avoidance?
I agree I need to play him solo and I did try one random dungeon last night but the healer was constantly going afk "chatting with their guild" and so I just ended with a repair bill from it. Other than using random dungeons i do not see any other way to learn the mechanics other than in my own team, pugs would be way faster to gear up in though

[crowdx]

As an update, I am slowly starting to gear my DK, he is now close to 4k GS and has cleared quite a few dungeons in Random Dungeons. The only place I had issues was in PoS where I missed aggro here and there on some mobs but the group overall was over 5k GS and so were a little more impatient with a poorly geared tank, although several times I did get compliments on the job I was doing with such a low GS.
Overall I may take a look at a frost tanking spec at the weekend once I have some more gear and maybe even dual spec him so that I can flip betweem the two specs. I do like the fact that as a tank he can still put out decent dps, this makes a nice change from some other tanking classes
Thanks for all the help

[ghonosyph]

As for weapon I use crypt maker off of blood princes 25 man. It has a large amount of stam and strength, as well as hit.

I cannot stress enough to you the importance of hit and expertise! If using macros for your dk and not using a click type macro rather a vast cast sequence you never ever want to miss or you throw the whole macro to the dogs. Ie not good! Lol. I gem for hit up until I get to around 8 to 9 % then expertise up to at least 24 and finally stamina. Some folks may say don't gem for hit or expertise and go all stam but not me! If you can get carried to saurfang in icc 10 he drops a nice two hand axe called ramaldinis something lol forget the actual name but it has a butt load of expertise and is a very good tank weapon! . Never ever gem for agility lol. Go to www.elitistjerks.com and browse the dk info to see pro breakdowns of what info you REALLY ought to know