How easy is it to switch to blood from frost?

[Vestaryn 0]

I currently have an ilvl 519 frost DK, I am considering giving tanking a go but I am wondering how much I have to change my gear to try tanking (lfr only to start with)

 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/draenor/Valesh/simple

 

I know about the 2 handed weapon, mainly looking at everything else.

 

I keep reading that dps gear isn't the worst thing for dk tank, but I don't want to shame myself and waste 24 other peoples time by making a stupid mistake.

 

If someone could just advise and let me know if with enchanting/gemming/reforging I am acceptable to go to lfr that would be great.

 

Cheers guys and sorry for n00bish question.

[Cupidx 5]

I'm not the greatest person to ask for Blood tips, but I can give some basic insight. At a low item level you'll want as much mastery as you can get since it's the biggest part of your survival. I think it's somewhere around 200%, or wherever you feel comfortable, when you stop taking mastery and start going avoidance stats for more DPS. You want your Hit and Expertise at 7.5%, too.

 

I know you didn't ask for it, but I would like to point out that your current gear for Frost has some things I would tweak. You're missing a gem in your ring. You're also currently gemming mastery for some of your gear, and even using your JC gems as mastery. At your item level, strength is still your best stat by far. It isn't until around 540-550 when gemming secondary stats is worth it as DK. You're under hit cap, and over expertise cap. You want at least 7.5% for both hit and exp before you start going for any other stat. The other stats don't mean anything if your attacks miss or get dodged/parried. I would also recommend changing one of your Glyphs. Drop Glyph of Anti-Magic Shell for Glyph of Regenerative Magic. AMS soaking is huge for DKs right now, and Regen Magic is amazing for it.

 

Anyways, I'm sure someone else who is actually Blood could give a little more insight for it than I did.

[Vestaryn 0]

Thanks for the input, the gem/reforges that are missing are due to recent drops so haven't sorted them out yet, I was debating the switch to blood so was saving some gold before doing it.

 

As for my current frost stats - I have to be honest I followed askmrrobot and just kinda trusted it as I am a new dk player. 

[Elro 47]

While it's true that Haste and Crit aren't entirely useless for Blood DKs, it is still much better to have Mastery, Dodge, and Parry on our gear for increased mitigation, especially at lower gear levels.

[Vestaryn 0]

Ok bud, thanks. Was just hoping to give it a whirl before WoD and hoped that gearing wouldn't take the last couple of weeks. Ah well, run as dps and roll on tank I guess. 

 

Thanks for the advice guys.

[Storm 426]

DK's can tank easy stuff like lfr in dps gear because higher ilvl = higher stam regardless of whether its tank gear or dps gear. and higher stam = higher minimum death strikes, which will be the majority of your death strikes in lfr.

 

the dual wield has to go though. I've been known to dw blood from time to time just to make people ask why I'm playing dw blood, and because I wish Blizz would make it a viable option, but dual wielding is going to cut your dps by at least 30%, and with a lower ilvl that's going to give you major threat problems. (fyi: technically if you have 2x tank 1h's, and runeforge fallen crusader on one, and swordbreaking on the other then dw blood does actually take less damage than 2h but we're talking about 1-2% less damage taken while sacrificing 30% of your dps).

 

I'd say give tanking a shot once you find a 2h weapon. you're enough over the base ilvl of LFR that you should do fine even with the dps gear.

[Failhard 2]

its as easy as clicking the primary/secondary spec tab with the red skull and clicking activate.

[Shine 144]

The only tip I can give you (assuming you dont already know this) is to simply put loot preference to blood. this way you can DPS as frost and start getting some good blood gear.

This feature is always handy when dualspeccing.