Is frost DK viable as a tank while leveling through outland and into northrend? Trying to help with finding dungeons quicker and i figured tanking was the best way!
if so, is it better to 2h or DW?
For leveling dungeons almost any class with a tank spec is just fine, whether they’re dipping heavily into that spec or not, particularly if you have some tank gear to swap to.
In general you want a slow 2h.
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DK leveling blood is the easiest and fastest i found, almost no downtime at all and can tank if needed.
Frost is arguably better than any other dk spec for dungeons and early raids due to better snap aoe threat and damage while maintaining almost all of the general tank stats outside of will of the necropolis. Of course this is assuming you’re in an actual tank spec and not a dps frost spec.
It might be possible to get away with tanking in a more dps oriented spec with frost presence while leveling but I’m not sure about that since I’ve never dealt with it.
I have tanked every fight in the game as frost dual-wield. More than viable, it is arguably the highest threat tank in the game.
Happy to answer any questions you have about it.
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do you know of a build guide that focuses on a tank spec version of frost? im looking and all i can find is frost dps
Not a guide really but wowhead has frost talent builds listed under the blood dk section as an alternative for trash and offtanking. Seems the guy who posted above you will have better information since I only actually used it for patchwerk and occasional heroics in p1.
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I’m still somewhat new to tanking (tanked a few lower level dungeons as prot pally), so any help and tips you have for dk tanking I’d love to hear! As far as talents/stats, what would you go for? I’ve started off heavily spec’d in blood, but if its better damage wise to dump into frost, then i’ll have to respec
There are videos on YouTube about frost dk tanking that give some ideas for builds and stuff.
Blood is an absolute beast for levelling though. It can tank well, clears through quests without issue, and is arguably the best spec in the game for soloing elites and tough content.
But ultimately play what you enjoy!
Icy Touch is your go-to threat for single target, and Howling Blast for AoE. Super important to keep diseases up so you always have the passive threat ticking, and for Death Strike. Death and Decay is high threat, but it uses up a lot of runes, so be careful when you use it. A lot of dps see it on the ground and go nuts, so they pull immediately when it wears off and your runes are on cooldown.
Here is what I was using for Naxx, which is a higher threat/lower defensive build assuming the link works correctly: https://eightyupgrades.com/set/xnP2xcJLK9Y8r1CrEAxx9w
It’s really useful for frost dps also, so you shouldn’t need to respec for anything. You do miss out on Improved Icy Talons, but that shouldn’t matter at all while leveling.
Frost/Blood hybrid is my preference for DK leveling.
I go far enough down each to get Imp Icy Talons and Abom’s Might. From there, it’s all discretionary. I just like that it provides a nice boost to all the groups you join so it goes faster/smoother.
I don’t know enough about blood to say either way. Abomination’s Might is super good, though. I was lucky enough to have a set group to level with, so I had the freedom to choose as I wanted for group buffs. Improved Icy Talons is incredibly good if you don’t get the haste from anyone else.
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