Lichborne: Glyphs, gems and enchants for the blood tank
by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 4th 2010 at 9:00AM
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly peek into the latest news, tips and strategies for the death knight class.
Last week, we went into the basic outlines of what makes a blood tank: your talent choices, your gearing choices, your threat rotations and things such as that. Once you've got all that down, though, the next thing you can do to take your tanking to the next level is to get some decent gems, glyphs and enchantments. They'll separate an adequate 5-man tank from a tank who's ready to step on and start taking on the game in earnest. Glyphs
If you want a quick and dirty recommendation of which glyphs to take, I'd suggest the following setup:
Minor Glyphs:
- Glyph of Blood Tap
- Glyph of Pestilence
- Third minor glyph of your choice
Some blood tanks will swap in Glyph of Disease for Glyph of Death Strike. It can be useful in that it allows you to use one more Blood Boil or Heart Strike instead of throwing out a Plague Strike and Icy Touch to refresh diseases. That said, I personally wouldn't bother with it. Icy Touch is very solid threat generator since the buff to it last patch, and you'll probably find that you get better overall threat on single targets by refreshing your diseases the old-fashioned way.
You may also be tempted to take Glyph of Rune Tap for the extra health and the group heal. For the most part, this one is very hard to use effectively. For full effect, you'll want to activate it when most of your group is hurting. Of course, not only does that rarely happen in basic 5-man play, but you also may be tempted to pass on using Rune Tap for yourself because you're trying to save the group heal for when it matters most. This is a tempting glyph to take, but there's too many roadblocks to effective use for my taste. I'd suggest steering clear of it.
Gems
We could be here all day debating whether to gem for avoidance or effective health, and when to go for a socket bonus or not, but since this meant to be a simple 101 guide, we'll go ahead and set a few basic ground rules: We're going to focus on gemming for stamina and only go for socket bonuses when said bonus is at least +6 stamina.
That basically means we're going to be going Solid Majestic Zircons in every gem slot. If a socket bonus is worth going after, you're probably going to want to use Regal Dreadstones for the red slots, and Enduring Eye of Zul for the yellow slots.
For your meta gem slot, use the Austere Earthsiege Diamond, and make sure to fit a Regal Dreadstone into one of your slots to activate it.
All this said, if you feel like you need a bit more threat output than you currently have, gems are an excellent place to strive for the hit and expertise caps. You can start putting Vivid Eyes of Zul in your yellow slots until you hit the 8% special attack cap and Guardian's Dreadstones in your red slots until you reach the 26 expertise dodge cap. As a warning, this can drop your effective health dangerously low, so make sure you and your healers can stand the extra damage before you replace all your gems wholesale; even then, consider only gemming for threat when the socket bonus hits the +6 stamina mark.
Enchantments
It should be noted in this section that I'll go over the stuff everyone can get. Feel free to replace any of these with your proper tradeskill enhancement, if you have it.
- Head Go for the Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector from revered Argent Crusade faction.
- Shoulders The Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle from exalted Sons of Hodir is your best bet here.
- Cloak If you're still working on hitting the defense cap, go for Titanweave. If not, you may want to consider Mighty Armor.
- Bracer Major Defense can help you hit the cap, but if you're already there, you'll probably want Major Stamina.
- Chest Greater Defense is another great way to hit the defense cap, but if you already have it, Powerful Stats provides a nice balance of threat and defensive stats.
- Gloves Go for Armsman here, for both threat and defense.
- Waist It's not an enchant per se, but don't forget to grab an Eternal Belt Buckle and stick an extra Solid Majestic Zircon in it.
- Legs Frosthide Leg Armor will provide you with both health and avoidance.
- Boots Tuskarr's Vitality is the obvious choice here. The extra run speed will allow you to position mobs and turn them away from the DPS and healers that much faster.
- Weapon Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle not only gives you 25 defense skill, which will be a major chunk of the 540 you need to be crit immune against raid bosses, but it will also grant 2% more Stamina, raising your effective health even higher. Because of this, it's arguably worth it just to keep this enchant on at all times, even if you're having no trouble hitting 540 defense.
- That said, there's just as compelling an argument for using Rune of Swordshattering. The 4% parry chance it provides not only completely ignores diminishing returns on the stat, it actually indirectly provides more threat for you by providing more chances to Rune Strike. Thus, if you're having threat problems, it becomes a good idea for you to use this enchantment. Overall, with sword rune you use may come down to personal preference or threat needs.
Welcome to Lichborne, the weekly class column on the newest WoW class, the death knight, where we discuss PUG etiquette and Emblem of Triumph gear for the death knight, 5-man Icecrown dungeon gear and basic death knight statistics and mechanics. You might also want to check all the other articles in our death knight category.Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
SR May 4th 2010 9:11AM
Might I suggest Glyph of Raise Dead and Glyph of Death and Decay? The extra panic button that the Dark Pact can provide is quite useful, and I must say it has saved me countless times in dungeons and raids alike. As for Glyph of Death and Decay, I think the extra damage to our largest AOE holds threat pretty nicely; I've rarely had people pull off of me after I got the glyph.
Cowmonaut May 4th 2010 9:47AM
The Tier 10 2 piece bonus is already the same as the Glyph of DnD. Sure they stack, but I've had no problems doing AoE tanking in Blood. And I even drop Morbidity for Spell Deflection (which regardless of past disclaimers, DOES work on some "DoT" spells for some reason; I guess it just has to be calculated as a direct damage spell and not necessarily BE a direct damage spell).
I definitely recommend Glyph of Raise Dead though. Free emergency heal if you can pop your Ghoul.
N-train May 4th 2010 10:41AM
I've been tanking blood since Ulduar, and I've used Glyph of Death and Decay since the beginning, because it helps on trash pulls and especially in random dungeons. But yeah, once I got the t10 2 set, I swapped it out for Rune Tap.
But using Glyph of Raise Dead just doesn't make a lot of sense, though minor glyphs aren't all that big a deal. Assuming you put 3 talents into it (which as a tank, I can't see why not) then you're getting a 10% heal every 30 seconds (11% with the glyph). This tends to be just enough to give my healers an extra second to get me back up. While popping a glyphed ghoul definitely gives more health (40%), its on a 5 minute cooldown, which means once you've used it, its down for the rest of the fight. That's also assuming ur ghoul doesn't get cleaved or aoed or whatever before you have the runic power to pop it.
Frankly, I would use glyph of corpseboom (if you're cool enough to spec into it) or horn of winter (assuming you don't have a shammy).
Tom May 4th 2010 1:26PM
Corpse Explosion is both fantastic and classy. It's a great boost for AoE as well - with it my Blood spec doesn't feel any weaker than my Frost spec in that regard.
Oto May 4th 2010 9:14AM
"Gloves Go for Armsman here, for both threat and defense"
No... its either armor or stamina enchant, armsman is terrible and a waste. That 2% threat is nothing. 2% of 15k tps is only 300, and needless to say the parry rating is nothing.
"That said, there's just as compelling an argument for using Rune of Swordshattering. The 4% parry chance it provides not only completely ignores diminishing returns on the stat, it actually indirectly provides more threat for you by providing more chances to Rune Strike. Thus, if you're having threat problems, it becomes a good idea for you to use this enchantment. Overall, with sword rune you use may come down to personal preference or threat needs."
No... theres only a 1% avoidance gain in exchange for a 2% stamina loss. 25 actual defesne provides a death knight with 1% dodge, parry, and miss. Also if you ever have single target threat problems for some reason, you hit icy touch until its back in control.
Leorad May 4th 2010 9:30AM
"No... its either armor or stamina enchant, armsman is terrible and a waste."
Another person who deals in absolutes. Armsman is neither terrible, nor a waste, and is the choice of plenty of endgame tanks. Also, you are calculating absolute threat, and not considering that EVERY attack from pull to kill has 2% increased threat. If you're group has any dps that, even when managing threat, can produce incredible amounts of damage (my 10 man has a hunter who can drop 8k), you need to stay ahead. The enchant is worth more than 2% or your total threat at the end.
*Some enchants are non-negotiable. This is not one of them.*
I do agree more with the second comment, although you fail to address that the defense enchant is subject to diminishing returns IF you are overcapped, at which point it might make sense to switch runes. However, with the new tank gear itemization in ICC, it seems like there is less defense on gear, making it far more likely that people need to use gargoyle rune.
Oto May 4th 2010 9:37AM
No, the defense from stoneskin is immune to diminishing returns as well. Thats why its actual defense and not rating.
And the point with armsman is that you shouldn't have threat issues, and if you somehow do, armsman is not the route to go to fix it. Getting more hit, or expertise would be a better solution, because if you can't hold agro your either not hitting the target, or not following appropiate rotation.
Boobah May 4th 2010 10:05AM
Oh noes! Not a hunter that can produce threat! Too bad they don't have the ability to give their tank some of that. Or the ability to remove all their threat every 25-30 seconds. Or to have some of that damage generate no threat to the hunter.
kesherz May 4th 2010 10:28AM
You're assuming the Hunter actually bothers to use Misdirect or Feign Death to manage aggro.
Primeval May 4th 2010 12:54PM
@ kesherz
They should at least MD from the start, just to give the tank that little extra nudge.. It is to help the raid over all after all.. FD is more of an 'oh snot' ability and should only be used if the MT dies and OT is trying to pick up the boss (assuming it's one of those raid encounters that only requires one tank on the boss)..
swelt May 4th 2010 9:18AM
Or...
Shoulders: PVP shoulder enchant for 30 stam - http://www.wowhead.com/item=44957
Chest: Super health (275 hp) - http://www.wowhead.com/spell=47900
Gloves: Gloves reinforcements (240 armor for the EH enthusiast) - http://www.wowhead.com/item=34207
Krugeroff May 4th 2010 10:14AM
he mentioned the armor to gloves, but PvP shoulder Glyph? Really?
with resilience taking up a stat slot that could actually be useful in PvE content, which is what is being discussed? I think not.
~Tanking~
Elleyna May 4th 2010 10:34AM
I've seen plenty of pve tanks using the pvp shoulder enchant. 30 stam is nothing to scoff at especially since it's not hard at all to get over the defense cap.
Heilig May 4th 2010 10:52AM
Resilience lowers the defense cap. It's far from useless.
archbaotho May 4th 2010 11:59AM
Resilience does exactly what defense is so important for, lowering your chance to be critically hit. I would say yes resil is less useful, because it doesnt provide that small buff to dodge/parry etc... but still in a pinch or if perhaps its all you've got on you when you get an upgrade in ICC, go ahead and slap the pvp enchant on.
gutserker May 19th 2010 7:03PM
i use the pvp sholder enchant, and it allows me to stack EH gear without dodge on it and not have to gem or enchant unreasonably into def. 536 def and still capped. the 15 resil from the enchant is like having 5 def skill. now the pve shoulder enchant dosnt suck, but we're talking about blood dk's, we stack as much stam as possible for survival and mitigation combined. 300 life is big
Oto May 4th 2010 9:22AM
"Shoulders The Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle from exalted Sons of Hodir is your best bet here."
Its a decent enchant, but the pvp one provdes 30 stamina which is better because effective health is king.
"Chest Greater Defense is another great way to hit the defense cap, but if you already have it, Powerful Stats provides a nice balance of threat and defensive stats."
You want 275 health on your chest, because there again effective health is king.
"Boots Tuskarr's Vitality is the obvious choice here. The extra run speed will allow you to position mobs and turn them away from the DPS and healers that much faster."
Questionable, in mosts fights where its necessary for you to run you can switch to unholy pressence (which is a greater speed increase) and the extra stamina from 22 stam is usually best.
Hal May 4th 2010 9:37AM
That seems like a bad idea to me, though. If you're out of Frost Presence, you lose the bonus threat and armor, which really decreases your usefulness as a tank. I think I'd have less mobility needing to swap presences on the fly than I would otherwise.
Pantyraider May 4th 2010 9:58AM
I agree with you on the shoulders enchant, I prefer the stamina PVP enchant as well. The chest is really more preference, personally I stick with the +DEF enchant for more avoidance.
However, switching to unholy presence to move... can't agree with you at all on that one. It costs you two GCDs to do that and then switch back, and if something should hit you while you are in Unholy you will have a smaller health pool and less armor. If you want run speed, stick with Tuskarr's, I do. If you don't care about it, go with Greater Fortitude... however, that's only 7 extra stamina and you run slow.
Oto May 4th 2010 10:19AM
It's no different then a feral swapn to kitty for the run speed increase, being able to swap stances on the fly is an important skill. That said you'd only be using it when you "need" to run. Its not somethiing that you're using non stop. Most fights you're standing still letting the boss smack on you, not much use for movement speed there.