Oct 9

Today, I took my first foray into Death Knight tanking by tanking Nexus. I’m currently leveling as Unholy; I have tried both Blood and Frost, and while Frost is decent, I can’t really get into the swing of either. Unholy just really works for me. So, that’s the spec I use.

The talent spec I used to tank (because that was the one I was leveling with!) at level 72 was 7/0/56 Let’s take a look at some of the key talents in this build, as well as talents I did not have.

Blood Talents

Talents I Had

• Butchery (Threat)
  I really enjoy having a lot of Runic Power. Your mileage may vary. I don’t know if I’d have this talent in an end-game tanking spec, but it’s nice for leveling.
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Threat)
  Obviously a DPS buff. Since Unholy can be a bit more weapon-damage based than frost (though not as much as Blood), and it’s a great leveling talent, here it is.

Talents I Didn’t Have

• Blade Barrier (Avoidance)
  This is a really nice ability to have. It used to activate when all your runes were cooling down, but now only your Blood runes. You blow through them quickly with Blood Boil, so this will be a great end-game tanking talent, but not necessary while leveling.

Talents I Didn’t Have

• Toughness (Mitigation)
  Obviously a great tanking talent, mandatory for any end-game tank, but not present in my leveling build.

(Frost tanks, which will be very common, will, obviously, go much further down this tree.)

Unholy Talents

Talents I Had

• Morbidity (Threat)
  I love Death and Decay. It has a high rune cost, but there is almost no better way to open a multi-mob pull as Unholy, and the runes actually work out pretty well in the end, but we’ll get to that. I didn’t find myself casting Death Coil a lot, unless it was a single mob, but this is a nice leveling talent and it was there.
• Outbreak, Necrosis, Impurity, and Dirge (Threat)
  These are the standard DPS increasing talents you’ll take early in the tree. Also, I repeat my sentiment about having lots of Runic Power.
• Reaping (Threat)
  Death Runes count as any sort of rune. As you’ll be casting Blood Boil a lot, this is a great talent.
• Desecration (Threat)
  This is a controversial talent. Some people use it in their tanking builds, while others say it’s a 100% DPS talent. I have it for leveling, so I guess I’ll decide later. Here it is anyway.
• Bone Shield (Mitigation)
  The big mitigation talent for Unholy. Every tank should have it. A minute isn’t as long as it sounds, and with such high avoidance, it is possible to keep the buff up for quite a while.
• Crypt Fever, Ebon Plaguebringer, Wandering Plague, Rage of Rivendare, Unholy Blight, and Scourge Strike (Threat)
  The bottom tiers of the Unholy tree really focus on your diseases. You have several talents that improve the effectiveness of your diseases, and Unholy Blight, while not a disease in and of itself, counts as one for the "per disease" abilities, and Scourge Strike’s damage scales with the number of diseases.

Talents I Didn’t Have

• Anticipation (Avoidance)
  A no-brainer for an end-game tank, but not in my spec, mainly because of my level.
  
• Blood Caked Blade (Threat)
  I’ve seen a lot of Death Knights with this in their builds, but I just don’t like it. From my tests, it results in approximately a 1-2% DPS increase, and it’s just not worth it, especially with Necrosis right near it.
• Magic Suppression -> Anti-Magic Zone (Mitigation)
  This pair is really a powerful combo against magic-weilding mobs. I don’t have them in my leveling spec, for obvious reasons, and I haven’t played with them at all. We seemed to do OK without them.

There are certainly more that can be listed, but those are the really big ones.

BFU
Death and Decay
Deaty and Decay is a great way to get initial aggro on a large group of mobs. It is very similar to a Paladin’s Consecration.

U, F, B
If the primary target is close (ie, melee range) I’ll use Plague Strike to get one disease on it, and get the Desecration buff. Otherwise, I’ll use Icy Touch to get the other disease up (since it is a ranged nuke). Either way, both spells get cast on the mob, which causes the talented third disease, followed by Pestilence as soon as the other mobs are in range to spread the love around.

So now, we’ve got three diseases on every target in several yards. If I’ve got the Runic Power, I’ll hit up Unholy Blight (60 Runic Power) to get another "disease" ticking away on the mobs.

Remember, each disease is causing threat on the mobs, as well as setting you up to use your "per disease" abilities.

B, B
Your runes will start coming back a bit staggered (since you used three at once and then three in sequence), but eventually you’ll use two Blood runes to cast Blood Boil twice. This does two things: first, it builds threat on all your diseased targets, and it scales with the number of diseases (and since every target in AoE range has 4 diseases, this is a good amount of damage). Second, it sets up both Blood Runes to come back as Death Runes, which count as any type of rune. So, you can use them to Blood Boil again, if necessary, or use them to Scourge Strike your primary target.

FU, FU (FU)
You’ve used up your two Blood Runes, and they’re coming back as Death Runes, so now you can now give a big "FU" to the mob (sorry) and Scourge Strike it twice (or three times if you use your death runes–sometimes, if the primary target is near dead, I’ll switch to the secondary target to build some threat on it). This is a high-damage ability, that scales with the number of dieases, and causes its damage as shadow damage. This is huge! Shadow damage ignores armor, so you are basically getting a super-buffed, permamant Executioner enchant built into this ability.

Related posts:

1. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Unholy Tree
2. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Tanking
3. Playing a Death Knight
4. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: DPS
5. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Blood Tree