Death Knight

I am thinking of experimenting with a 23/48/0 tanking build.

The up side is 6% more str and stamina and 4 more expertise then a normal frost tanking build. You also get rune tap (which I love)

The down side is you have less avoidance and you have to refresh diseases more often.

You could also pull 3 out of tundra stalker to get 3% more dodge but I'm thinking 6% damage and 3 expertise is a little too much to give up.

Personally I think trading 5% dodge for 6% stam and 6% str isn't bad. It still has close to the avoidance of a Unholy tanking build because you gain 3% miss.

There is also the completely off the wall 23/11/37 build which will get you more str and stamina while still still grabbing lichborn and bone shield. I have a feeling that you will be completely gimp in threat though.

Okay, Ive been thinking about it some more and I think I may raid as:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jcEMV00cZGxxthcdohoVosh

The main compromise is sacrificing rune tap for 4% crit. I should be able to pull off good DPS and tanking like this. Its close to a frost DPS build and I think the extra str/exp will help it stay competitive in DPS even though its missing a few DPS oriented talents.

That's a cool build. I'm not entirely sold on trading 5% dodge for -1% to be parried/dodged, but it should be pretty solid given that the DK tank gear stacks an ungodly (unholy?) amount of strength to turn into parry.

Its less for the expertise and more for the Stamina. The extra str will also give you a little parry back but thats secondary. Rune tap is pretty good too. If I find myself tanking more I'd probably take it instead of the crit.

To extend that on that idea, you could spec 24/47 for improved rune tap. At levels of tank health I'm already seeing, that would be worth 5k health every 30 secs if needed. Pretty decent.

EDIT: You could also shift the two points in crit to Spell Deflection if so inclined.

Yeah, ill probably try it out at 80 and see how it goes. Theres going to be a lot of experimenting with death knights.

Lots of stuff from the Devs here.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...129078969&sid=1

Sounds like:

PvP nerfs
Blood PvE buffs

Though this was "his thoughts" so no idea what that means.

Ghostcrawler is head of class development, "his thoughts" generally mean "this will happen unless one of the other devs comes up with a good reason why it shouldn't."

Overall I like the changes to blood. I liked the style when I was leveling so I might spec back once those changes go through. It seems like you can get a solid dps/tanking build.

Should be really easy for DKs to hit uncrittable now, as long as that isn't a typo which meant to say 25 defense rating.

When I first started leveling my DK, I said to Matron that they should move Corpse Explosion to RP since it was so unusable on an unholy rune. The pet avoidance is beautiful making the ghoul actually usable. The removable of the CD from pestilence is a god send too.

Overall, very solid changes.

Should be really easy for DKs to hit uncrittable now, as long as that isn't a typo which meant to say 25 defense rating.

Its confirmed to be flat defense. Help a ton.

Should be really easy for DKs to hit uncrittable now, as long as that isn't a typo which meant to say 25 defense rating.

It's not a typo. DKs generally have a harder time reaching the defense minimum especially early on in raiding (no tanking weapons and no shields which generally give significant +def to warriors and paladins).

Not long after they've gotten a few pieces they should be able to drop this runeforge in favor of one the gives more DPS/threat. It's a stop-gap measure that should make everyone who plays a DK tank happy.