DK frost tanking guide

[fptackle]

A Quick Guide to DK Tanking.
(Alternative title: The lazy man's DK tanking guide to heroics.)
I decided to make this guide as I've been playing a DK tank for a while now. I recently started playing an alt and using the random group finder has revealed one thing to me, there are a lot of crappy dk tanks that don't know what they are doing. If you are a DK tank that knows what they are doing, you will probably get little help from this guide.

Disclaimer: I'm not a heavy raider, so I don't claim this is the best tanking guide for raiding DK's. This will however get you through those heroics!

First the Spec. DK's are kind of unique in that unlike other tanks their tanking spec can vary quite a bit and still be useful. The spec i chose is a dual-wielding frost spec. Glyphs are also in the link.
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
You can quite easily drop the dual wielding talent points and spend them where ever you feel like.
This is basically my aoe tanking spec. Death and Decay cools down quickly, howling blast, and bloodboil. I don't even mess with plague strike/blood plague.

Now the macro's I use:

Howling Blast Macro:

#showtooltip howling blast
/startattack
/cast rune strike
/cast howling blast
/cast Icebound Fortitude


Obliterate Macro:

#showtooltip obliterate
/startattack
/cast rune strike
/cast obliterate
/cast Icebound Fortitude
/use 13

Frost Strike Macro:

#showtooltip frost strike
/startattack
/cast rune strike
/cast frost strike
/cast blood tap
/cast unbreakable armor
/use 14

Blood Boil Macro:

#showtooltip blood boil
/startattack
/cast rune strike
/cast blood boil
/cast anti-magic shell

This takes everything except taunting and summoning ghoul or army of dead and breaks it down into 4 buttons.

You'll notice on my macro's I've tied Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic shell in. This probably isn't the most effective way to use these, but I'm lazy so it makes sure they go off whenever not on cool down. It'll get you through heroics, which is the goal of this guide. I've also thrown my trinkets in there too so they go off whenever their off cool down.

In the Macro's I've also put Rune Strike in everyone, so this way while I'm spamming my tanking buttons, if rune strike is available, it'll go off. Rune Strike goes off on next swing, so it won't mess up your global cooldowns either.

Rotation is pretty straight forward. Pull with Death and Decay. Then Howling Blast once they're fairly grouped up. Now Blood Boil for more AOE good-ness. Frost Strike when you have the runic power. Obliterate while waiting on Howling Blast to come back. Blood Boil every time it's up to keep blood runes on cool down and blade barrier going.

One last note, on single target pulls/boss fights you can blood strike instead of blood boil. It'll give you slightly more threat. Honestly though, I've never had problems on single target threat while continuing to blood boil.

[Zantas]

Reminded: Change title to frost instead fost ^^

[fptackle]

Ha, thanks. Done.

[madheinrichs]

This is a horrible guide.
You basically gave us macros to pop all CD's... that's the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.

[xstend]

Nice macros

[HunterTricker]

Put tanking cooldowns, NEVER to spam macros.... you use them when you NEED them, not when you just feel like using some cooldowns, nice guide still (NOT)

[pantryboy]

Nice guide.. I don't play a deathknight myself, but this may also be useful (Use a similar thing for my tankadin):

Death Grip
#showtooltip Death Grip
/cast [target=mouseover, exists, nodead, harm] Death Grip; [nodead, harm] Death Grip

[fptackle]

This is a horrible guide.
You basically gave us macros to pop all CD's... that's the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.

I like how you point out exactly what I already said in my guide.

Taken from the guide:
"You'll notice on my macro's I've tied Unbreakable Armor, Icebound Fortitude and Anti-Magic shell in. This probably isn't the most effective way to use these, but I'm lazy so it makes sure they go off whenever not on cool down. It'll get you through heroics, which is the goal of this guide."

This is to help people get through heroics. It uses those abilities when their up, because in a heroic, why not? Not like you need to be saving them for some really hard fight.

[Shammyinz]

at least the macro gave me the idea to add /cast runestrike at the beginning/end of all my macros=)

[BiGDeE]

as a fellow frost tank, this is pretty embarassing.. its a guide on how to use all your cds instantly..

for multi targets open up with - dnd hb ps pest blood boil
single target - it ps ob x2 hs x2 pest burn your rp with frost strike/rune strike.

[IndoBear]

Imho a tank shouldn't pop his cooldowns for no reason like this, even in a heroic. You can always keep them to make larger pulls or to save you in dire situations (yes they occur in heroics too -e.g healer is slacking for a sec).. Since you use it due to laziness (even thought it's wrong) I suggest you use the alternative title "The lazy man's frost DK tanking guide to heroics" as the thread name instead of the misleading "Frost DK tanking guide"

Apart from that, your Rune strike macro is faulty. Assuming it works on next melee like Maul (and I'm pretty sure that's the case), putting it in a macro that you spam will constantly toggle it on and off, making it totally random if it's going to land a normal hit or rune strike.

It should be as follows, in order not to be toggled off during button spam:
/cast !Rune Strike

I hope that last bit is helpful to someone, personally I don't like the guide.

[nitescreen]

i hold my ht up to anyone who can DK tank as i have tried it my self and its not an easy job.

[Kables]

I have a Deathknight Frost Tank and that guide helped me a bit.

Kables, +rep.

[blink18247]

i am a DK frost tank and i must say your whole guide and spec is fail

making people pop CDS when not needed
you have a fail spec, you dont even have it specced so your deathgrip and DND are on lower cool downs
you use frost strike, frost strike is a waste of points, if your tanking all you need to use is dnd, howling blast, blood boil, and maybe runestrike with some death coils and you should never lose aggro if you keep popping DND and howling blast and blood boil

you have an empty minor glyph spot, why not fill it?, you are using glyph of raise dead but your not unholy or blood dude, you should never need a pet if so thats why they made AoTD

you glyphs should really be

Major- Howling Blast
Major- Rune Strike
Major- Obliterate
Minor- Blood Tap(for rainy days)
Minor- Horn of Winter
Minor- Pestilence(so when you have big groups you can use howling blast with the glyph and give disease then also hit with plague strike then pest all around to bigger groups so you can keep the aggro harder to take)

i have tanked ICC 25 and never had a problem ill upload a spec later today

[fptackle]

i am a DK frost tank and i must say your whole guide and spec is fail

making people pop CDS when not needed
you have a fail spec, you dont even have it specced so your deathgrip and DND are on lower cool downs
you use frost strike, frost strike is a waste of points, if your tanking all you need to use is dnd, howling blast, blood boil, and maybe runestrike with some death coils and you should never lose aggro if you keep popping DND and howling blast and blood boil

you have an empty minor glyph spot, why not fill it?, you are using glyph of raise dead but your not unholy or blood dude, you should never need a pet if so thats why they made AoTD

you glyphs should really be

Major- Howling Blast
Major- Rune Strike
Major- Obliterate
Minor- Blood Tap(for rainy days)
Minor- Horn of Winter
Minor- Pestilence(so when you have big groups you can use howling blast with the glyph and give disease then also hit with plague strike then pest all around to bigger groups so you can keep the aggro harder to take)

i have tanked ICC 25 and never had a problem ill upload a spec later today

Ok, here's the thing about DK's. There are many spec's that work for tanking. I just put up what I use to help people have a starting point. This isn't the end all, be all guide of DK tanking. Nor did I claim it to be. I just noticed there was no DK tanking guide and thought I'd put up something I know a little about.

That said, I think you looked to quickly at my spec. I am spec'd to reduce cool down on DND. Death grip I don't need/waste of points with the other taunt on a 6 second timer.

Frost strike works fine, It's a good runic power dump. I will agree that glyphing rune strike is an acceptable way to go instead.

I do have an empty minor slot, because for me it doesn't matter. I don't use plague strike so no need for pestilence because frost strike hits all around me disease it already.

I don't make anybody use their CD's instantly... that's why I explained what was going on in the guide. If you, or who ever doesn't want to, their free to delete 1 line from each macro. I made this guide as a start for people tanking heroics, and it will work fine for that purpose.

All that aside, I do appreciate the feed back, both positive and negative. It would also be helpful for you to post your spec/tips/ whatever when you get around to it.