Monday, August 18, 2008

Tanking Drak Keep as Unholy:

So how easy is it to tank Drak'Theron Keep as unholy? This easy.

Here was my build. As you can see, it's pretty easy to hold AOE agro as unholy, which is the way I like it.

I absolutely hate single target pulling, as it seems to make instances drag on for way longer than necessary. That's why I love to tank as unholy. So many juicy AOE talents. Unfortunately, Corpse Explosion is bugged and wouldn't let me use it on nearby undead corpses via auto target, and manually targeting corpses with 7 mobs in your face is a pain in the ass.

Overall I like it a lot. I had about 12% parry, 8% dodge, 16k armor, and 3 oh shit buttons with Lichborne, IBF, and Bone armor.

Combine that way multiple ways to grab and hold onto AOE agro, and instances get cleared very quickly.

Also I might note: I was doing roughly 1500 DPS the entire instance, while in frost presence. Granted, that probably has to do with the hunter serpent sting bug (targets take a ton more damage with serpent sting up right now for some reason). However, I was still #1 on damage with another 77 DK who was blood, a 75 hunter, and a 76 warlock with me. The paladin was holy.

It's also quite possibly the most gorgeous instance in the game thus far.

The music you hear is just some of Matt Uelmen's work from Naxx. Too bad he's no longer with the company. :/


Edit: Forgot to mention something. I tanked this instance using full green/blue DPS gear. Not one piece of defense gear was used. =]

25 comments:

Knaughty said...

Where would you put your last 3 points?

A friend is going Unholy for my 10-man crew as DPS/OT (I'll be MTing on my tankadin)

Or: How would you spec at 80 for a Unholy-build DPS/OT?

Lack of Magic-Suppression and AMZ seems a shame, given that my tankadin is very weak against casters - was assuming that any "pure caster" boss would be tanked by the DK and I'd strap on healing or DPS gear even though prot-specced.

Sam said...

Find me an encounter worth speccing AMZ for, and I'll spec it. =]

Knaughty said...

Well, the AMZ thing is obviously an assumption - given there's no raid content in , you have no idea whether there will be a "gimmick fight" for DKs.

Interesting problem for them: The gap between war/pal/bear tanks is small and getting smaller. Different but equal is easy to tune for (PvE raid tanking content).

But DKs are hugely better that the other three tanks at tanking casters if frost or unholy specced. How do you balance that against "different but equal"....

Assume the Warlock will tank it if yourgiu ld doesn't have a caster-tank-specced DK ?

So assume AMZ isn't required - where do you put your last three in that case? (Current build, PvE focus)

Sam said...

Rage of rivendare is 6% more threat. Blade Barrier is 6% more parry.

Depends on what you need. =]

Mohjoh said...

I'd probably go for the parry. If you need 6% more threat... well, you're not doing it right!

Anonymous said...

Wow they lowered the CD on Lichborne to 1 min!? I don't remember reading about that. Very awsome nonetheless :D

Anonymous said...

Dont upload videos on filefront please :x

Unknown said...

This is just simply awesome to have a look at. I can't wait until i can try it out. Unfortunately I didn't get a beta key, but i'm reading your blog and everything that has to do with wotlk. Keep it up, more tanking instancevideos.. wanna have a look at blood in an instance too ;-)

Anonymous said...

Nice video :)

I see that DnD has become a viable tanking tool. I'm a big supporter of the new BFU runecost.

Since I didn't get to do much tanking I'd love to hear your opinion on Pestilence. How good does it scale? There were so many number going off i think I missed it.

Also interesting to know would be how much defense you had!

-Saitoz-

Anonymous said...

How often in that Video were you out of runes?
With the ghoul out its hard to see your rune counter, I wondering because the build you used is very close to what i was planning myself assuming everything talent wise stays the same, but I'm trying to account for the possibility of putting a few points into Blade Barrier.

Anonymous said...

great vid as always jayde/leah(im not quite sure) i always enjoy your vids id love to see more of each spec/instances and pvp so everything thanks for giving me and others like info for WOTLK :P

Anonymous said...

can you please tell us what kind of a rotation you were using as far as abilities?

also does death grip now work like a taunt? or were you hitting them after you DG'd them off of another group member?

just looking for something to go off of when i think of tanking on my eventual death knight. thanks :)

Anthr4x said...

Really nice action there, hope I manage arround with my DK when it goes live o.O

Anonymous said...

Another great, clear video as usual leiah. We need more! us non-beta folks are clicking your site everyday waiting for a new upload! just fraps anything you're doing on it, and it'll be interesting to watch =p

Sam said...

!

That was two videos in two days!

I guess I need to look up how to stream gameplay somehow.

How does that work, anyways?

Anonymous said...

You can go to http://www.mogulus.com/ and set up a channel to live stream.

Anonymous said...

i would love to see how you tank without bugged Roar of Sacrifice.
My main concern is how you suvive two packs or even one.

Unknown said...

Again...another excellent video.

I'm a little worried however. It has been stated that Death Knights' damage is overly high right now. So, I am assuming that once WOTLK goes live, we will see alot of their damage go down. Will Death Knight's still be able to keep up with other DPS classes? Will Death Knight's be able to hold aggro and function as a decent tank?

I worry that we will find ourselves spread too thin. Hopefully they don't make us slightly below average dps and slightly below average tanks. That wouldn't be much of a Hero class. =(

Greydi_of_Pax said...

So how does Frost spec measure up to all of this. I understand from your previous post that Frost is a bit broken right now or simply just doesn't measure up. Is this the same in tanking and DPS? If so, any chance the frost talents will see some fixing and love here soon?

I ask because that tree looks the most appealing to me, but you've made Unholy look absolutely gorgeous. Thanks for sharing this vid.

Anonymous said...

Well it has been said that the tanking classes should be able to tank Normal Difficulty Dungeons without too much trouble as any spec (except possibly healing specs for druid or paladin) so the fact you were able to do exactly this should not come as too much of a shock to be honest...

surfmavericks said...

omg Jayde i am a huge fan from day one of your blog. is the giant dinosaur a boss? at one point like 30 hands sprout from the ground. what on earth or azeroth is that?? also how are blood elf deathknights compared to other races in tanking dps and overall survivability?

surfmavericks said...

P.S. when wrath goes live what server will u play on?

Willias said...

Hey Jayde, do you take requests?

If so, could you do a tanking video as a blood specced death knight?

Anonymous said...

I haven't actually played a DK yet but from what I have seen from the talents and videos and everything on the internet the best tank spec for a 2hand DK tank ( this spec rules out alot of DPS ) would be grabbing blade barrier then going down frost getting all the icy touch stuff. ( the frost line also can give you 15% armor increase, lichborne, and the frigid dreadplate thing ), then going over to unholy all the way down to bone armor grabbing bone armor and night of the dead. This spec eliminates alot of DPS talents but it gives you every tanking specific talent worth having. Except some of the self heal ones in blood anyway.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone else noticed that at 4:16 into this fight one of the NPCs calls him an "asshole"? There is no music to cover over the NPC comment.