We’re doing our Cataclysm preview on the death knight changes later this week, but we knew one change risked overshadowing all the others, so we figured we’d go ahead and drop the proverbial Blood bomb today.
In Cataclysm, death knights will have a dedicated tanking tree, much like the other three tank classes. That tree will be Blood.
We’ll go into more detail in the upcoming preview, but we wanted to take the opportunity to explain the reasoning for such a big change.
Why the about face? We actually thought the “tri tank” experiment worked out okay. We suspected there would always be a “best” tanking tree, because that’s the way these things shake out, but we hoped it would be close enough that many players could tank with their favorite tree. When we tried out this design for Wrath of the Lich King, we were using it as a test case to see if we wanted to do similar things with the warrior and paladin talent trees.
A lot has happened since that time. We introduced the dual-spec feature, allowing players to have a tanking spec and dps spec that they could switch between. We introduced Dungeon Finder, which makes it easier to find players who want to tank, and even let players level up using a dedicated tank spec. In Cataclysm, we are introducing the concept of passive talent tree bonuses and we think that feature is a lot stronger when the talent tree has a particular focus (such as damage, tanking or healing). For example, it’s safer to give more passive damage to a tanking tree than we can a dps tree. Above all, we were just spending a lot of effort trying to balance three trees (though it was really six trees, since each tree was trying to do two things).
It started to feel unfair to the other tank classes that we had to spend so much effort tweaking three types of DK tanks, and it even started to feel unfair to the DK that we couldn’t focus their tanking experience. One bit of feedback that really struck home was the DK players who said, essentially, “I look at the Protection tree and I’m jealous of all of the cool tools they have to help their tanking. As a DK, I have to pick and choose tanking talents from within a sea of dps talents.” Rather than have a strong focus, the trees felt a little watered down because they were trying to do so much. With Frost as a dual-wield, spell and runic power focused tree, Unholy as a disease and minion focused tree, and Blood as a self-healing, defensive cooldown, tanking tree, we think the focus of each tree is a lot clearer and cooler.
In Cataclysm, Blood will be the death knight version of a Protection tree. It will have passive talent tree bonuses that reflect tanking. It will have tools, such as a Demo Shout equivalent, necessary for tanking. Several of the more fun tanking talents from Frost and Unholy will be moved into Blood. We will be able to revise (or even remove) clunky mechanics like Rune Strike and focus on letting DKs generate threat with their normal Blood tanking rotation.
This is major change, and we understand it will be met with some disappointment from players who really liked the flexibility, those who appreciated the unorthodox talent tree design, or those few of you who really liked Blood dps. Nevertheless, we are convinced that this is the right change for the game.
More exciting death knight news coming up soon in the preview.
(Source)
hay i love wow haha
Like or Dislike:
1 
1
you know what it would be awsome to finally see DK tanks with a shield I take it that Blizz is reading all the quotes we make atm and make decision more on our responses but whatever really happens having a main tank talent tree for DKs is a good idea. Blood dpsers switch off and learn to freeze adds or get your pet and double team them lmfao
Like or Dislike:
1 
2
Well it happened a DK tanking tree. My alt is a blood specced DPSing tank. So my question is what’s going to happen with the other talents from Unholy and Frost? Anticipation from Unholy and desecration were basically more for tanking and frost has the Armor buff and duel wield specialty? I just want to see what talents go where now for both frost and unholy, but seriously that’s awsome to have a single tanking tree for DKs alot of us liked the fact that it was more of a challenge to figure out what talents we wanted to have for tanking but at the same time it sucked seeing Protection talent trees from Pallies and Warriors, hell even the Druid bear had more tanking abilities then the mixed breeded DK tanks
Like or Dislike:
2 
0
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
1 
4
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
0 
11
I have been Frost tank since i started tanking with my DK, i must say im really enjoying it. been frost tank since i have seen most aoe tanking abilities in frost, Frost is also a Very good dps spec, Top dk in my guild does 10kdps with his frost spec so pointless 2 say its only a tank spec, its good for tanking but also for dps, i think its good dk’s are getting a tank spec so evry1 knows what tree 2 choose. further more its pointless 2 say they messed up since theirs no change yet! let us wait until theirs some proper examples on how its gonna look like
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
4 
0
LOL.
I’m currently using a high threat tank spec because my guild has some very capable healers and a few dps that need me to pull hard threat. What gets my nerd-rage up is crappy dps that cant keep from pulling aggro. I’m holding just fine against a rogue, a ret pally, a blood dk, 2 hunters, and a warlock that are all above 5k dps…. personally I dont give a [Dalaran Gold Coin] what spec they use to get it done.
But they are all “capable players”, not the asshats that think gearscore or spec mean more that 1/3 each of how well you perform. It’s that other 1/3 that is hard to find.
Like or Dislike:
2 
1
Will unholy become the new 2 hander dps in cat because i can only do 2 handed dps. If frost is duel weild im gonna fail trying to use a 2 hander in that spec in cat. Unholy is all about diseases and your fail minion(sorry to all the people who just love the minion but to me it didn’t do that much)and there is barely anything about weapon damage. Blood in WOTLK was the 2 hander dps talent to me and i could get about 6000 dps in blood with a 2 hander. I have tried DW frost and my deeps got to 2000. Unholy was too annoying and wasn’t fun or good to me at all. I think frost should be the tank spec because to me it has most of the tanking criteria. Blood should be dps because then all the DK’s in the world who are usually 2 handed weapon weilders and fail at DW don’t have to start a new class in wow.
Like or Dislike:
1 
3
I think you guys are over reacting without all the facts. Until you see what the trees are gonna look like you will not know. The only fact we know for sure is that you won’t have to spread talents out like you do now. Which I think in the end will make a better tank.
I was tanking unholy before this just for the sake of being different and I always got shit from people at the begining of a random, ‘Unholy?! I didn’t know you could tank Unholy!’ whereas by the end I always made them eat their words by giving them a smooth run.
I think this will clear up the confusion and allow for better talent allocation, while overall making the DK a better tank.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
8 
0
There is a lot of interesting commentary that’s valid on all sides. I really want to know what the new talent trees across the board will look like.
The fact is, despite having the ability to switch specs and tank in all three, having one tree that is better defined may help out the class overall. Look at how many revisions, and how much complaining was done about them, at every single iterative step for all of the Vanilla classes were made to get to BC (3 Year period) and then to Wrath (4 year period). The two that come directly to my mind are Pallys and Druids. Vanilla Paladins were endgame healers and buffers. They didn’t tank. Ret was a joke and they didn’t see serious changes until BC came out. For Druids, Hurricane used to be a 31 Point Balance ability. After patch 1.8, it became a trainable talent. Same thing with Innervate, as it was also a 31 point Resto talent until patch 1.11. No class is perfect, and the idea of changing the way the tanking tree is may in fact be more in line with what is needed to better balance the entire game considering all of the other changes being made.
Picking and choosing talents is great, however when your upper level talents are better suited for DPS than they are tanking, it becomes harder to justify selecting what talents you want. I could have a very viable 18/45/8 build, but I would miss out on Howling Blast in lieu of getting Improved Rune Tap on a 30 second CD for added survivability if something goes wrong and I’m unable to sacrifice my minion because it’s on a 3 Min CD. Lets just wait and see what the Devs have come out with before we say that the worst is upon us.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
9 
0
Like I tried to say a few posts ago, even the developers don’t know for certain how the tanking talents/skills/gear will play out for Blood Tanks.
You guys really need to relax and be a bit more optimistic that Blizz will work their hardest to keep WoW on top of the charts just like it is already. I can think of many frost and unholy talents that could slide over to the blood tree and fit in nicely and make DK’s a quality tank, comparable to Warriors, Paladins, and Bears in every respect. In the end, successful raiding will always be more about the skill and knowledge of the player rather than the gear/talents/spells of the character… nerfs or no nerfs.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
1
Will, had you read last comments, you’d know they in fact CAN. Seen blood tanks tanking bosses WITHOUT healers.A new tank is in the market, Live with it. I bet your char tanks and is jealous. P.S. Given the mastery bonuses for frost, it seems frost Dks do melee after all. Thanks Blizz, just made up for blood Dps. Well, part of at least.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
8 
3
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
2 
7
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
1 
16
i belive this is great atm in 3.3 frost is a aoe tanking spec truly bad blood is made for single target tank and thats great for icc i have bin a tank as a os for a long time and its really sweet dks where brought to this game to be one of the top tanks my dk has 38k unbuffed 4.8k gs and i have tanked the first for bosses of icc with no problem
Like or Dislike:
2 
3
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
4 
10
And a little reminder for those of you who are already QQ’ing about blood/frost/unholy… have you forgotten the crazy changes between BC and Wrath? Come on, people! Making assumptions about what a talent tree will be like in Cataclysm before the developers are certain is definitely a fools errand, and all you crybabies have already fallen for the trap. As my guilds “Officer of Tanks” I’m far more upset about the base mitigation of Parry and block then what talent tree is used for Protection Death Knights as compared to Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins and Feral Druids! Let the developers build the game before you tell them that they screwed up something they haven’t really done yet.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
11 
1
My DK is Blood for dps and DW-Frost for tanking. I would like to see a straight forward similarity between DK’s and Warriors.
-Frost = Fury (dual wielding PvE damage dealer)
-Blood = Protection (replace the shield with an offhand for PvE tanking)
-Unholy = Arms (2hander PvP maddness)
With creative talent changes and mastery application the lack of threat that DW DK’s currently suffer can be totally eliminated without overbuffing their dps, which is the problem that has plagued Death Knight tanks from day one. Rune Strike is a failed attempt to deal this this issue, imo.
Hot debate. What do you think?
4 
5
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
2 
7
I might add though, that I am also frost dw dps specced and I also really liked it. I tried blood dps with a 2 hander and didnt really get along with it, despite the massive dps output. I had more fun with frost dual wielding even during the time we did less damage than unholy and blood PvE dps specs (which is not an issue now). So, true that frost has inherently more tank oriented (or at least more obviously so) talents, but as a dps tree it also rocks. You could also say the same for the blood tree mind you, though the tank talents there seem to focus more on self-healing and higher stamina, rather than avoidance combined with mitigation (unbreakable armour ftw!).
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
9 
3
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
1 
12
Well Cj, I was one of the ones that expressed regret on losing the ability to frost tank. I am not even going to mention how insanely cool is to dw frost tank, because I beleve it has been touched in previous posts. I am mourning the loss of flexibility. Players generally dislike DKs because, well there are lots of them around and not always good DKs, but as an experiment and a truly innovative class concept, everyone must agree DKs are very, very cool. What made them so cool and that Blizz somehow managed to make viable tanks and dps (for both PvE and PvP) of ALL THREE SPECS! This is really, really freakin’ cool. An now, as GC sadly announced they are removing this flexibility from DKs… I am sorry but I cannot help but mourn this and find that it sucks.
Buuhhh to you again GC!
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
8
Crap. Loved my blood + anihilation spec. Well, at least try to keep blood dps talents in other trees. And, for goodness’ shake, do NOT turn frost into a spell spec. Unholy works best for it already. Keep frost for melee dps, both because it mixes well with dual- wield and because it’s this or no Dk melee spec. Think of shammans, but with tanking spec rather than resto. Please, some people just can’t cast.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
2
i know they’re doing that whole mastery system thing but would it really be that difficult to make dps and tanking talents for all the trees and have the passive abilities reflect the talents you’ve chosen that way we can keep our flexability and be more effective in the role we play?
Hot debate. What do you think?
7 
8
I’ve was tanking with frost for most of my time as a dk tank. It made ok agro, but the downside was it put far too much stress on the healers. I’ve recently switched to Blood Tanking and I can tell a huge difference for the healers. As for the aggro generation, yes it may be a bit harder but if you pay attention while tanking it’s not bad. Most people that play frost that go to blood complain because they can’t just throw down a Howling Blast and instantly have aggro. With blood you have to play with your diseases along with your rune strike and heart strike. Overall if you pay attention while you’re tanking with blood it’s a good tanking spec. I believe Blizzard is doing a noble thing in trying to make a designated tanking tree. But some people do prefer it for tanking. My vote is good job Blizzard.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
11 
6
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
4 
9
As a DK I Tank in blood, healers seem to love it cause you heal a lot of your own damage(roughly 30%). I have actually had several healers tell me in H PoS that they were bored and they would start to help dpsing. BUT I do not like that they are going to make blood the official tank spec. I use my tank spec for PvP as well. I was reading comments about how bad this will turn out. I see two sides, Good: Finally a safe tanking spec that will make it easier, Bad: Say good bye to a great PvP/Leveling spec. Blood at its current state is very versatile in what it can do and should stay that way. BUT if it doesn’t I won’t be too disappointed because it will make it easier to tank.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
13 
1
Well, this will prob make DK tanking easier. The thing about giving people so many options on tanking pre-Cat, is that it confused noobs a bit, so they didn’t even know which talents were really tanking talents, and which were dps talents. This is why there were so many bad DK tanks out there; they weren’t even specced correctly, much less knew how to play their class correctly and use the proper tanking talents and spells. I’ve analyzed my damage taken in icc boss fights and it pretty much matches the damage taken by equiv geared pally & warr tanks. A little more damage in some encounters, a little less taken in others. Proof that DK tanks aren’t an inferior tanking class, just played by more unskilled players than other tank classes.
Guess we’ll see what happens in Cat, then the criticisms will come.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
14 
0
Whatever. People complaining over how they liked frost tanking, and not blood; it’s not gonna be the same blood, it’s gonna be completeley different, it may be just like frost is right now (who knows). The only people I feel bad for are the blood dps’s RIP guys.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
11 
2
i have played a DK since wotlk was release and have been all spec for dps and tanking an found blood to be the most useful for tanking i found frost to be a great dps spec if done correct but when it came to PVP blood would be my only choice which will make it good to see wat they change in cata .
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
7 
2
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
13 
19
Blood the new tank, not Frost? Frost has been -the- tanking tree for a while now. The others work, but most people are, or point to, Frost, as far as I’ve seen. Blood second and Unholy last. For DPS I usually see either Blood or Unholy.
Mostly because as I see it, Frost is more focused on AoE tanking. The diseases are probably the worst examples of AoE threat to keep up out of the tanks. SoV is the easiest of that type, with Sunder Armor/Lacerate being kinda annoying but easily sustainable, as well as stackable. Diseases don’t stack and need two largely single-target moves, as well as one damage-free AoE (which NEEDS to be glyphed to refresh main target duration) before they can get started. That usually leaves D&D, which as a three-rune move isn’t always the best move.
Blood Boil? Yeah, OK, but it needs diseases to ramp up its damage, and it shares runes with Pestilence.
Look at any mob in WotLK – it’s all aoe all the time now. Most of the DPS I see don’t even wait for the tanks to get threat anymore – or even do ONE aoe move! They just blast it down. I can pull something by getting too close. while looking the other way, and the odds are that my group won’t let me hit them before they attack. In fact, sometimes that’s how a mob is pulled in the first place. They blast it before I get there, for whatever reason.
It’ll be nice if we get the tougher pulls, the ones that the DPS can’t faceroll through as often as they do now, and that do take some of the focus off of “aoe all the time”. The new heroics are a nice step back in that direction, especially HoR, which has mobs coming from all directions in unusual ways, and really forces the tank to work. But Cata could have the problem that HoR does now – you still have groups largely trying to faceroll them, ignoring CCs, LoS, range, whatever. I’ve had HoRs where nobody hides behind the pillars, expecting me to run all over the place while frozen with a Rifleman’s trap or mage’s CC, magically convincing the entire enemy wave to stop with the ranged attacks and bunch up. Or they either spread out during the Lich King event, or just attack incoming enemies while I’m looking the other way, attacking the ones I’ve got.
Tl;dr? I hope Blood DKs get more AoE support if they’re going to be tanking, because I’m not confident that we’re going to instantly relearn the old (and new) tricks to pulling in Cataclysm.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
14 
7
I’ve always thought DK tanking should be about health regen as their main edge…in WC3, the death knights had a special ability to push their health regen to almost completely equal out the incoming damage, and personally I am glad to hear that the DK will be taking these steps. It sticks more to lore, and more importantly, it really puts a more diverse and unique experience for a DK tank, rather than just being a clone of another (and possibly better) class
Hot debate. What do you think?
12 
9
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
11 
17
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
7 
11
Well dang… I’m a Blood/Frost tank and its been working out perfectly for me. I get all the normal tanking stuff along with self healing. What the hell Blizz? If even thing should be tank it should be Frost. And put the Dual Wielding stuff near the beginning of the tree so Unholy or Blood can use it too to further their DPS.
Oh well I guess the whole class is gonna be turned around now so all DK’s will have to relearn their class.
We will see how well this idea works out.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
12 
4
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
9 
14
I am a hugh fan of Blood DPS which saddens me alot to see if go. Primarily a majority of the frost spec is set up to tank or assist in tanking so reversing it to blood truely is a curve ball. Blizz I hope you know what your doing, because now I have to relearn my class entirely from the ground up.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
30 
4
Fact is; DK’s are still in their infancy. Consider how much other classes have changed since the Vanilla release, coupled with the major changes coming with Cataclysm, and it makes the changes to DK’s minor indeed.
DK’s are a face rolling class, for a face rolling expansion. I hope that Cataclysm returns the need for CC and execution in instances and removes the face roll element present in all the WotLK dungeons.
From a healers stand point; it’ll be nice to know how much healing a DK tank will need without trying to figure out what kind of tank they think they are ;-p
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
19 
8
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
17 
23
Dislike this change. I am satisfied with the current implementation of tanking where any spec is viable. The recent icy touch change allows for a lot more diversity in the placement of talent points. Appreciate where blizz is coming from but as usual blizzard always chooses balance as an alternative to gameplay instead of an integral part of it. Really disappointed Blizz.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
18 
7
Why so gloomy? Changes are never final anyway.
I have tanked in all 3 trees, but I did find blood better.
Also there are no overpowered classes. Just underskilled players.
Ask for more stuff for your class instead of less for others or we will be throwing rubber chickens at each other in the end.
So I guess the biggie really is: will unholy and frost do well as dps and PvP?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
27 
4
well this sucks
i love blood dps i tried to do the others but they never realy interested me. guess ill just delete my DK in cataclysm and lvl somthing else :/
Hot debate. What do you think?
19 
16
Well this sucks a bit. I am a dw Frost tank and I love it. They are basically ruining what i found so cool about DKs, which is like GC said the flexibility.
Buhhh to that GC!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
19 
10
This change was needed,
I as a resto druid can’t stand unholy DK tanking heroics xD
Thanks Blizz this will be kick ass
@ Undeadthor
there is nothing unfair about it if you followed the storyline
and think about it it would be silly to start out as a level 1 DK so no it’s good DK’s start at 55, be glad they aren’t overpowered anymore like they used to since that was intential, storywise.
But no punk ass kido’s had to whine, DKs overpowred help us blizz.
This game shouldn’t be Pegi 12+ thats the only real misstake Blizz every made, but financially very smart.
And Spirit healer with subliminal messages, ye, you got us sheep all to play wow 24/7
Hot debate. What do you think?
24 
21
since Wrath of the Lich King came out i was always a blood tank becouse of the ability to self heal. But when i got to 80 it was intresting to see that most of the Dk tanks had switched to frost and that even healers hated healing blood DK tanks. so i thus switched over to a frost tank. I am glad to see that Blood will be the tanking class overall.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
22 
13
Well darn… I’ve always been a blood dk dps at heart (even though it sucks it up atm compared to Unholy and Frost). It was my leveling spec, and raid spec when I started out with it.
It would be nice for people like myself though, who enjoy knowing what spec is the best… and it really did feel like you were shooting into the dark at anything past the first tier of talents as to what you should pick for a tank set. So having one tank tree will help with that, I am interested that they’re removing Rune Strike, it was always fun to see that pop up while soloing and killing stuff even faster. Oh well, good times.
RIP 51/0/20… it was a fun run while it lasted.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
36 
5
well, not much of a change for me atm, as i’ve been Blood tank since 3.2 when i started tanking. Still, more tank-oriented abilities will be nice for end game raiding. Festergut is kind of a bitch with only 2 real OH-S**T buttons – IBF and VB/RT. Hope we get some real tank abilities!
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
35 
14
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
21 
49
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
13 
71