DK tank builds 4.0.6

WoW Insider have a post up with a Death Knight tanking 101, freshly updated for 4.0.6. On there they have a DK tank build which is this one I call the Lichborne build. This is because it includes the Lichborne talent, which turns you undead and thus you can heal yourself with Deathcoil. This is meant to be used as a tanking cooldown for some self-healing when trouble arises, and can be made easier using the following macro:

#showtooltip Lichborne
/cast Lichborne;
/cast [@player] Death Coil 

This will activate Lichbourne, then cast Death Coil at yourself, even if you have another mob targetted. It can be used instead of the actual Lichbourne spell on a toolbar, and spammed to use all runic power in self heals.

Now some people don't like this style of play, and so don't want the Lichborne spell in their arsenal. The build Blood tanking in the sidebar does not have Lichborne, instead pics up Virulence and Morbidity with the hope of some more AOE threat, with diseases doing more damage and threat and DnD having more damage and threat. This removes your Lichborne spell.

Finally, there is a variant of the Lichborne build I called Blood Lichborne tanking 2 build on the site. This one takes a point out of Scent of Blood and one out of Epidemic, to put points into making Mind Freeze cost no runic power. I've read 2/3 Scent of Blood is optimal anyway, so no worries there. Taking 1 point out of Epidemic means diseases will need refreshing sooner, but the bonus is you get to interrupt every 10 seconds even if you are dry on runic power.

Now for 5 mans I think this will be useful because some of the encounters need multiple interrupts, and I have had to do interrupting myself as tank sometimes. For normal mode raids, it may not be so useful because you can have DPS doing the interrupts, or reserve some runic power, but then again if you find yourself having to do interrupts a lot, this spec may be good. In 4.1 the interrupts will always hit, so getting a tank to do them will be more viable than now, where you run the risk of missing.

I am undecided which build to take, I may try the Blood Lichborne tanking 2 build so I can interrupt in 5 mans, at the moment AOEing stuff down is not really done, so single target threat is probably more useful and I can live without more threaty DnD and diseases.

Gearing update

I have finally finished Twilight Highlands on the DK, and gotten a nice 333 item level boots reward. Next up is grinding through the Deepholm quests so I can hit revered with Therazane and grab 346 rings, both tanking and Dps.

Ding 85 and now for some gearing

In the Twilight Highlands I dinged Pys the deathknight up to 85. Immediately I thought what gear do I need and what reputations to grind, to gear up for heroics and normal instances. What Cataclysm factions are there and what do they offer?

Luckily Wow Insider have a Death Knight DPS reputation guide and a Death Knight Tank reputation guide. well I say reputation, but those guides cover gear from other sources too.

Faction / tank rep / dps rep
Dragonmaw E R
Hyjal E E
Earthen ring R -
Ramkahen E R
Therazane R R
(If not a scribe, Therazane E E)

On that evidence, Hyjal Exalted then Dragonmaw Revered and Ramkahen Revered and Therazane Revered get a good spread of gear for both specs.

Hyjal can be quested to Revered in Mount Hyjal, but they have no dailies so I would tabard them.

Dragonmaw have 5 dailies, so I intend on doing those when I can. Really Dragonmaw can be dailied to exalted.

Ramkahen have 2 dailies, so those should be done. However, since my aim is revered initially, I will tabard them in preference to Hyjal, to Revered at least. Then it will be between Hyjal and Ramkahen and I think Hyjal have the tank items and Ramkahen have the dps item at exalted.

Therazane can almost be quested to Revered in Deepholm, just 1 or 2 sets of their dailies are needed to hit Revered, so ignore their tabard and grind on dailies to exalted if you need to. My DK is a scribe so I can stop at revered.

Finally ER offer nothing for dps but the head arcanum for tanks. I think a half or quarter of honoured to revered is left once you finish Vashj'ir and Deepholm, but they have no dailies, so this rep should be tabarded to revered. I will likely do ER once Ramkahen and Hyjal are revered.

Death Knight Frost DPS leveling build and how to

Having taken the Frost 2H leveling spec for the trip from 80 to 85, it occurs to me that nowhere could I find a guide about how to play such a spec. Sure the places I read about it vaguely mention what you're meant to do, but having played it a bit I thought it would be useful to write down what to do.

Presence
You play this in Unholy Presence, to decrease the GCD so you can mash spells faster, and increase rune regeneration so those abilities come off cooldown faster. Now if you face an AOE situation, you can use Frost Presence for more actual damage while spamming Blood Boil and Howling Blast.

Priority
For single target:
First off is Howling Blast which uses a Frost rune. With the Glyph of HB the target gets Frost Fever, so you've damaged them and diseased them in one hit. I tend to only use Howling Blast (when it consumes a Frost rune) once a fight for a single mob.

Next use Obliterate. This uses one Unholy and one Frost rune. With the Glyph of Obliterate, it does 20% more damage.

Next if nothing else is up, use those Blood runes on 2 Blood Strikes. The talent Blood of the North which you get for speccing Frost, makes Blood runes come back as Death runes, which you can use for Obliterate when they refresh.

Finally you can burn the extra Unholy rune on Plague strike, or if you have it, use Blood Tap to get a Death rune, then Obliterate using the Death and Unholy rune.

All these abilities are generating Runic Power thanks to Chill of the Grave, Might of the Frozen Wastes and Improved Frost Presence. Which you use on Frost Strike generally when there is nothing else to press.

Once the runes regenerate, you continue to hit Obliterate to use the Frost and Unholy or Death runes, filling with Blood Strikes to use the Blood runes.

However, this spec seems to be all about watching for procs from Killing Machine and Rime.

Killing Machine makes your next Obliterate or Frost Strike a crit, and will highlight the spells on the toolbar and put two curved frost graphics around your toon (if you have spell alerts on). This should be used asap on Obliterate, or Frost Strike if Obliterate is not up.

Rime causes Obliterate to give a 45% chance that you get the Freezing Fog buff, which makes Howling Blast free. When Rime procs, HB will be highlighted and a curved frost graphic will appear above your toon. Mash Howling Blast when this happens! Of course, Rime can trigger from a Killing Machined Obliterate.

Sometimes Killing Machine and Rime come up at the same time, in which case I tend to use the Rime effect on a Howling Blast if I cannot Obliterate, then either Obliterate or Frost Strike if Obliterate is still not up. If I can Obliterate straight away, I use Obliterate then HB.

In practice I seem to attack with Howling Blast, Obliterate, Frost Strike and then either Rime or Killing Machine are highlighting a spell which needs pressing, then by the time I've done that, Obliterate is ready again or I have too much Runic power and need to use Frost Strike. Sometimes I can use a Blood rune or two with Blood Strike.

AOE:
For AOE, not that I have done this much, but I suspect its Howling Blast to damage a lot of targets, and put Frost Fever on them, then Blood Boil for the AOE then Death and Decay. Use the other unholy rune on Plague strike. Watch for Rime to do a free HB.

These priorities work fine for soloing, for actual instances, check out EJ for more details of what to do when for optimal DPS.

Healing
If low on health, you can use Lichborne to turn yourself undead, then self-target and spam Death Coil for some self-heals.

You can also use Death Strike in place of Obliterate to self-heal.

Given the massive amount of Runic Power this spec generates, you can summon a Ghoul then sacrifice it with Death Pact for a 25% health heal.

Escape
Hungering Cold will trap enemies in 10 yards in ice, allowing you to make your escape.

Conclusion
Frost leveling is a lot of fun. Sure I miss the days of Blood tank spec being both big damage and lots of self-heals, but the sheer speed that things die in Frost means its very good. I plan on keeping the spec for grinding dailies as well!

Rurikhan DK blood guide

Rurikhan again delivers the goods with this video on Blood DKs. Check the big one out there, or on his website.

I am still working through Vashj'ir on my DK. I have DPSed Throne of the Tides but not tanked anything until I get some better gear.

Rurikhan DK blood tank video

Rurikhan has posted a video about the Death Knight blood tank which runs though specs and shows him tanking a heroic. It is very informative and well worth checking out.

Links for Cataclysm

If you haven't seen this yet, Pwnwear.com have a post with links to loads of 4.0.3 threads, with such useful information as a Tanking 101, starter tank gear list (for Cataclysm) and a cookie-cutter tank spec. Which is very much like the one I have, because pwnwear.com is where I got it from :)

I have been meaning to take a look at the gear available from quests etc, but given my leveling plan, I intend on doing probably Vash'jir -> Deepholm -> Uldum -> Twilight Highlands, with some instances along the way. The gear list posted on pwnwear is excellent and will really help me spot which gear to keep along the way.

It goes without saying that the best quest rewards are in Twilight Highlands, so I will be hitting that as soon as I can so I can finish all the quests and get some great gear.