30
Nov

RAWR!!!! Back with a vengeance!!! DK SPECS!!!!

   Posted by: Skeleton Jack   in Specs

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RAWR!!!!!!  BACK WITH A VENGEANCE BABY!!!!  That’s right, this *IS* the 4th post in one day.  You guys don’t believe me when I say I’ve got at least 20 back logged ideas for posts at any given time…but I do!!!  I swear I’m not a blonde in rl or an airhead.  Wait…that was redundent…heh.

So, you want the good stuff right?  This is in no way comprehensive, and doesn’t cover all options.  There are ways you could probably find, or later discover, that will improve upon these.  But hey, they start you off in a good place.

PvP specs?  To come later.  I just have not had the time to personally test any out, and I’m not going to cut and copy info from somewhere else unless I can substantiate it myself, or with an in game DK I know.

HEADS UP – THIS IS THE FOURTH POST TODAY!!!  If you’ve not read yet today, you may wanna make sure you read the ones below this one too!!

 

Dual Wield Spec

Now you may be saying, “WTF FIVE SPECS!?!?!”  Well look, the jury is out ok.  DW DK’s are rare as hell to begin with.  Then you need to do testing with epics in raid environments, and out of the DK’s doing this…well with a DW spec they are few and far between.  However most tests are finding that it looks like deep Unholy/Frost is leading to the highest dps increases.

Another important note is that if you run in a raid w/o Subversion and your tank can keep threat easy, then some of the sub-Blood specs can be ignored.  Particularly the 3rd, which Gargoyle brings a massive dps increase.

I personally think 3/15/53 and 0/50/21 show the most promise…however there’s no telling till more players get out there and do some testing.

 

Blood Spec

50/0/21 appears to be the best DPS possible for blood atm, with the caveat that you will be suffering with Obliterate eating your diseases.  While it requires a bit more focus and a specific rotation, Gargoyle really does pwn that much.

 

Frost Spec

Ahhh…just one spec.  Easy mode!! :D

 

Unholy Spec

Easy mode again?!!?  Noice!!!

 

Frost Tank Spec

If you know you’ve got the haste from a shaman, go take the second one.  Simple.

 

Unholy Tank Spec

I have not seen a lot of information on tanking DK specs, but in my personal opinion as an Unholy DK I would roll out with this spec.  People who question Bladed Armor…remember you’re going to have a CRAP ton of armor, and your spells scale even better with Impurity.  Threat generation is still a “tank” thing.

 

Tank Notes

As a note on tanking specs.  Frost is arguably the best tanking spec for survivability until you reach high end epic gear.  Somewhere between 40-50% avoidance.  Once you are at the point where Bone Shield is staying up for 20 seconds or longer, Unholy becomes the more survivable spec.  Unholy is hands down the best AoE tank.

 

Rotations!!!  Glyphs!!!  HOLY CRAP BATMAN!!!  WHAT DO I DO!?!?!

Gotta wait, or figure it out on your own.  As always, I support personal testing…or the patience to keep reading my site for when the next piece of info comes out!! :)

As always guys, take care and thanks for reading!!

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24 comments so far

Aulum
 1 

Hey SJ,

Big fan here, but could you tell us what the BEST dps build is so far?

Since I am a dps junky (ever since I’ve started this DK) I’ve been leveling my dk with 51/13/7 and I am usuallly first on the dps but I’m starting raiding soon and I was wondering what the BEST damage build is out there.

Thanks

November 30th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Alexander
 2 

YA I feel the same way I’ve been wanting to raid and I was woundering what the best DPS spec is. I personally believe it would be based off blood but I was woundering if unholy would work as well. Can you plz find what spec is best for high high raid dps. Thx man ttyl

December 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Skeleton Jack
 3 

Uhm…. *blink* *blink* *blink*

*looks up at the post*

Uhm….you did read the post right Alexander?

BEST EVAR!?!?!?! That what you mean? Frost is winning atm. Sad? Yes. Will it continue to win once people have better gear…no one is sure yet. As to Blood, the 50/0/21 spec is outperforming the 51/13/7 one.

December 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Doomchicken
 4 

Not sure if its just me but the spec links arent working. All i get is the screen asking me to choose what class we want to see :(

December 1st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Zaxn
 5 

Hello SJ, love the site, great info. I play a Frost Tank DK. Love it, finally there’s a challenge for me in WoW lol… ANYWAY I was looking at your frost spec, ATM the best tank spec is 10/54/7, with imp Icy Talons so that a shaman can drop more beneficial tots. and without getting the 51 pt talent in frost (can’t remember the name atm and at my college all wow sites are banned, except yours lol), I’ll repost my spec when i get home. but anyway, that spec atm is the recommended frost tank spec according to EJ. and that’s what the most DKs on my server are using.

December 2nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
Zaxn
 6 

if u can copy paste this into my above comments or w/e you want to do. my tanking rotation and the one i’ve seen repeated all over is:
PS>IT>BS>BS>OB>FS Spam>PS>IT>OB>OB>FS Spam>repeat.

With this rotation i generate over 5k tps raid buffed.

December 2nd, 2008 at 8:32 am
zaxn
 7 

corrected spec now that I have access 12/52/7, without hungering cold, its RP requirement is too stiff for it to be of use, ur RP is better used with the FS spam

December 2nd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Skeleton Jack
 8 

The 51 point talent in Frost tanking is Hungering Cold. Had you looked, you would have realized that even though 51 points were spent, Hungering Cold was not purchased.

Maybe you’d like to take a look at the spec in detail later when you have more time?

December 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
zaxn
 9 

Sorry, if it sounded like I was correctingyou in anyway. At my college wowhead is blocked and I assumed with 51 pts in the tree u got it, my bad, looks like I made an a$$ of myself, Ive just seen so many specs with it with that make up, shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion that you would waste the point. I appologize for jumping to that conclusion.

December 3rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Alexander
 10 

I know I sounded dumb. I personally just dont want to have to go frost to get into a good raid guild. If you havent noticed SJ our server is very harsh on good gear and right spec DPS class. Not saying others arent but I was just woundering what the best is before I get a load of crap from a Guild Master saying this spec is better then that and waste money respecing every other raid. So I came off dumb and Im sorry. lol

December 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Skeleton Jack
 11 

Nope, not at all guys. You’re fine. Nine times out of ten, if it sounds like I’m being mean it’s probably my warped sense of humor that doesn’t translate as well through text, heh. :D Typically there’s a grin on my face while I’m laughing as I type this stuff. I joke a lot.

I’m going to be doing more in depth research on Frost specs soon, for tanking, dps’ing, and pvp. I look forward to learning more about it, and sharing those ideas with you guys. If you have something to share that I can learn from, I’m always interested. :)

Are my specs the best? Quite possibly no. But I do know they are solid. While perhaps not the best possible they are very effective at the very least.

December 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Cravenclaw
 12 

im a Unholy DK tank and we have only just started running heroics and started Nax (10 man) and while tanking and already have 45% avoidance with parry and dodge fully buffed tried with a blood and frost tanking build but it just doesnt seem to cut the mustard for me, to the point where i can and do pull threat off of a frost DK tank without even trying….

December 6th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Skeleton Jack
 13 

Uhm…sometimes people misunderstand me and think, “SJ thinks Frost is sucko!!” When in fact, it is not. If you’re pulling threat from a Frost tank that is more likely a player skill issue. Were you to go Frost you should be able to do significantly more TPS (threat per second) versus bosses due to the fact that Frost Strike pwns that much face in the tanking department.

Frost really pwns face at tanking. They basically have super mitigation 40 seconds out of 60, and have massive threat gen versus a single target. Did you try a solid Frost spec out for at least a week or so? And I don’t mean in heroics. Of course Unholy is gonna be easier and more fun in a heroic. But new specs are like fine wines. They need time to mature and breathe first before they’re any good.

December 6th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Void
 14 

Dude some of these specs suck, frost dps without DW? whatabout the killing machine procs! and unholy tanks dont need to move faster I am sure there better ways to plot 4 very important talent points, I do appreciate your time you put into this, and for the most part these are affective.

January 8th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Pixiking
 15 

By any chance did you playn a zerker in EQ?? cause I’ve seen that picture on someones avatar in a Zerker site. Just curious. Also on Tank speccs how you find blood after patch?? Iam torn between Blood, cause on those none raid days I fancy some solo old world stuff. Or UH due to its AoE madness good dps etc, seeing alot of the upper content even pre 80 pack kills. Cheers for youe time

February 5th, 2009 at 11:31 am
lucron
 16 

for the 13/51/7 imp icy talons i made a small switch because it makes a big difference.

for the aoe rotation for hwoling blast, if you throw in the instant crit, then you will get waaaaaay more dmg out of that… so i took out one point in frost aura and put it in Deathchill

February 13th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Mudkippz
 17 

10/5/56 = most versatile spec once you are geared for it. I can MT all the 25 man content, and still pull as much DPS as the next guy without having to respec. I went Subversion and 2h wep sec instead of Bladed armor, because subversion is pretty mandatory when you want to DPS, and 2h wep spec > bladed armor for only 2 points.

February 23rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
Steffen
 18 

ummm…okei those blood specs of yours are all screwed up…..first of all….if your going blood…there are 2 importent things 2 have….improved rune tap and Bloodworm…..

April 2nd, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Skeleton Jack
 19 

Did you look at the date of the post to even begin with? I mean…really? I’ve posted new Blood specs since then.

April 3rd, 2009 at 1:57 am
Thorbjørn
 20 

Hi im looking for a great Dual Wield Tank speck hope i get some help thx:)

July 22nd, 2009 at 3:48 am
IcanBdumb
 21 

I haven’t tried Frost spec for too long, So I can’t say that my Spec is the Best. But I, along w/ a few of my friends really enjoy 45/0/26. The two main factors in this combo is Heartstrike and a full time minion. The way raids are going now and days, it’s hard to rely on anyone to do thier job. With Death Pact and Rune Tap, this tends to be a great survival tank.

September 6th, 2009 at 11:13 am
salbashi
 22 

hey why cant i see the entire spec when i click on them? some of the points seems to be not distributed yet.

October 7th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Joe
 23 

I ve noticed an in depth thought on what talents to pick but i also noticed your not listing what talents to use for a lev 80 dk frost tank … with the new patch out .. now would be a safe time to suggest what you think would work well in heroic instances.. I personally do well in reg. instances though soon as i go into heroic everyone wants me to quit being a tank … def is maxed to minimum requirement health is at 25 k .. told it should be higher working on that .. and well I m willing to start over .. but what should a dk heroic lev 80 tanks minimum stats be? stamina , strength , def I m told are the major things to lev first then expertise for agro pulling … whats your suggestion on what the stats should be along with whats the best talent tree setup for frost tank .. for heroic instances.. ?
Thank you in advance for your future post you ll do on this question .. send me email when its ready ..

December 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am
billie
 24 

I was checkin out the specs and when i click the links it shows them not filled out completly can u plz help? lookin for a good frost tank spec

December 30th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

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