So, big news to DK tanks everywhere. Some more buffs are heading our way. In our current state any buffs are welcome, but let’s have a quick look at them…

1: Icy Touch will generate more threat.

More threat is welcome, particularly following the realisation that ours is somewhat gimped in Icecrown tanks to the 20% dodge reduction debuff. Since Rune Strike procs off dodge and parry, dodging less translates directly to less threat. The ICecrown ‘radiance’ debuff is, therefore, particularly crippling to DK tanks as it reduces not only our mitigation, but our threat. A high-threat Icy Touch is welcome, but is it the right buff? Consider that, now, outside of Icecrown, our single target threat might very well skyrocket, well past what other tanks are capable of. Now, at the moment there’s no math or testing to support this claim but it’s a possibility we need to entertain. Putting our threat gen on single targets outside of ICC well ahead of other tanks might be a mistake, particularly with Ruby Sanctum coming up. A better approach would be looking at how to make Rune Strike proc at the same rate within ICC as without. Perhaps by having it simply proc on damage taken, instead of damage avoided.

2:Will of the Necropolis internal cooldown removed.

This is going to mean a flat 15% damage reduction when we dip below 35% health, period. That’s pretty huge, and puts it at, or possibly ahead of, Ardent Defender. Do we want this? First off the benefit seems so large that it’s going to turn Blood into THE preferred tanking spec by a significant margin. It’s already somewhat superior to Frost on single targets but, combined with Icy Touch, this is potentially going to make Blood tanks the single best maintanks in the game. Is this a good idea? I think what any DK tank wants is to merely be on par. Personally, I’m not sure buffing us up to Paladin levels is the way to go about this, at least not unless Warriors and druids get these same buffs. A better strat would be to bring Paladins down to DK and Warrior levels, although I can see how this would not be a popular move considering Paladins are the most populous tank class right now.

These are the two biggest buffs. Unholy Armor will also increase strength somewhat more than as of current, which has the added advantage of increasing our Parry rating, but I suspect the difference will be hardly all that noticeable. Otherwise, Frost is getting little in the way of mitigation or effective health, and instead gaining more threat thanks to the reworked Endless Winter and currently undocumented buff to Glyph of Obliterate. Frost threat is welcome, but none of these buffs address our single biggest concern. Which is our inability to reliably mitigate spike damage when being attacked by a number of fast-hitting mobs. The single biggest reason for this continues to be our complete lack of a block or block-like mechanic. Both the other plate tanks have a shield block, and druids can approximate it with Savage Defense. We need the ability to reduce a set amount of incoming damage flatly instead of by a scalar means. The simplest way to do this remains changing Blade Barrier to a flat value based on some statistic, like strength, instead of a percentile.

So, while these buffs are welcome, they’re welcome for all of the wrong reasons. We welcome these buffs because, right now, we’ll take anything we can get. Like starving orphans. We shouldn’t be holding our bowl out asking Blizzard ‘please sir, can I have some more’. We should be saying, please sir, can I have something else besides more.

That said, these are PTR patch notes, so nothing’s set in stone. Hopefully testers will test, and come up with some conclusions as to whether these changes truly help us where it’s needed.

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