DK Tanking for Dumies [Guide]

[crowdplzr]

So you want to tank on your DK? This is a small non-overwhelming guide to tanking with a death knight, whether your new to the Class or just a long time DPS DK that wants to tank this guide will hopefully help you. I will also share my key binds if you wish to use them. This is from a human blood death knight perspective.

The abilities you will need to have on your bars, where you put them is your choice however I will tell you how I key bind mine.
1. DS : Death Strike (this heals you)
2. HS: Heart Strike (aoe damage)
3. PS: Plague Strike (puts a disease on current target)
4: IT: Icy Touch (puts a disease on current target, can be used long range)
5. Outbreak (puts the disease from both PS & IT on current target, can be used long range)
A1: Horn of Winter (use it always, should never be off cool down)
A2: Death Pack (make a macro that looks like the macro below and put it on this button, this is your oh shit button when your low)
/showtooltip Death Pack
/cast Raise Dead
/cast Death Pack
A3: Blood Boil (aoe attack, does more damage to targets that have both your diseases)
AQ: Every Man for Himself (trinket, if not human ignore)
AW: Dancing Rune Weapon (use when you have a lot of Rune Power)
AD: Death n Decay (use when you have 3 or more adds)
F: Mind Freeze (interrupt a cast)
E: Anti Magic Shell (use to absorb magic spells)
R: Vampiric Blood (use when low on hp, gives u more health) this is also your whisper reply, i recommend using alt+r as new reply
T: Icebound Fortitude (use when your taking a beating and healer is struggling to keep u up, or when u pull alot of adds)
Z: Death Coil (use when u have more then 50 rune power and your runes are on cd)
X: Empowered Rune Weapon (use when all runes on cd and you need to death strike)
V: Bone Shield (use on cd, but not if u already have the buff)
Scroll Up: Dark Command (taunt)
Scroll Down: Death Grip (taunts and pulls target to you, does not work on bosses.. the pulling part)
Youll also need: Rune Strike and Strangulate.. put em wherever.. i got em binded to my mouse.


So now that you have keybound all these abilities, you que up for a dungeon and your about to pull the first trash pack. Here are some rules I follow, they may not be the most efficient to some but it has worked for me for the past 2 years.

1. 2+ Adds, pull w/ outbreak and blood boil, once all adds are in melee range heart strike and blood boil everytime it procs
2. if your getting low on hp use death strike
3. On single target, death strike and rune strike
4. never leave casters alone, they will generally aggro onto healer. taunt and strangulate or death grip them to you
5: always mind freeze at the last second of a mops cast, if u interrupt at the beginning that's just more damage your taking
6. never give your back to a melee
7. download an add on called GTFO, when your worried about mobs u forget to look @ what your standing on sometimes, especially when your new.. this addon is great for getting out of shit.
8. be nice to your healer, always keep an eye on him especially if shit is hitting him. Here are some things that will piss off a healer especially if your gearing up in randoms
*standing in shit
*letting shit hit him
*pulling when he has no mana
*not using your cds
*calling him bad because you decided to pull 4 trash packs and you wiped
9. if your going to LOS pull, tell your group.. dps are retarded especially melee and charge the target before it gets to you
10. If your not on last boss, before you decide to need a dps item check if the other plate wearer in your group needs it. If he already greeded ask him if you can need anyway, either whisper or chat. Why? Well when your tank trinket drops the chances of him ninja'in it are much lower.


disclaimer: if all this is common sense to you, then you are not a novice and should go to icy-veins.com for more in-depth guides

[Deleted]

"Death Coil when you have more than 50 RP with all runes on cd"?

You use DC only on Lichborne or if you have the glyph for healing allies, otherwise you shouldn't have it on your bars at all.

"2. Use DS if you are low on health?"

Seriously?

[Deleted]

It's never wise to ask people to mirror your keybinds, since people use their binds extremely differently (I don't bind Q and E because I use them for strafing. My A and D rarely if ever get used).

And a lot of your tips of when and where to use certain spells are very basic, but won't make anyone a better tank.

Sure, the thread title IS "DK tanking for Dumies (ironic)" but still, this isn't how most good DK tanks would wanna play.

[Murdos]

Is there a way to downvote a thread to negative stars? :/

[OhNine]

DK Tanking Like Dummies [Guide]

FTFY

[Angrybutcher]

"Death Coil when you have more than 50 RP with all runes on cd"?

You use DC only on Lichborne or if you have the glyph for healing allies, otherwise you shouldn't have it on your bars at all.

"2. Use DS if you are low on health?"

Seriously?

Pretty much this, however I will still use DC in a dire circumstance where I have no other choice to hit a range mob, and certain fights when there is an air phase of some sort.
He does make up for the lack of DS in his 3rd point.

[crowdplzr]

"Death Coil when you have more than 50 RP with all runes on cd"?

You use DC only on Lichborne or if you have the glyph for healing allies, otherwise you shouldn't have it on your bars at all.

"2. Use DS if you are low on health?"

Seriously?

I use Death Coil on targets that are out of melee range and everything is on CD. Along with Death Strike, I dont bother using it when I am AOE tanking. If I am low on health while tanking AOE trash then thats when I use Death Strike. Also in case YOU missed it in my wall of text, I will paste it here just for you.

So now that you have keybound all these abilities, you que up for a dungeon and your about to pull the first trash pack. Here are some rules I follow, they may not be the most efficient to some but it has worked for me for the past 2 years.

[Angrybutcher]

I use Death Coil on targets that are out of melee range and everything is on CD. Along with Death Strike, I dont bother using it when I am AOE tanking. If I am low on health while tanking AOE trash then thats when I use Death Strike. Also in case YOU missed it in my wall of text, I will paste it here just for you.

So now that you have keybound all these abilities, you que up for a dungeon and your about to pull the first trash pack. Here are some rules I follow, they may not be the most efficient to some but it has worked for me for the past 2 years.

Your guides does not mention this detail of you using DC in a dire need, but rather says use it when you have more than 50RP. Your RP should always be used for RuneStrike or DC+Lichborne or in some cases DRW.

[crowdplzr]

Your guides does not mention this detail of you using DC in a dire need, but rather says use it when you have more than 50RP. Your RP should always be used for RuneStrike or DC+Lichborne or in some cases DRW.

I do not use Lichborne, I spec into AMZ to help healer. I feel I have more then enough abilities to keep myself alive if shit hits the fan.

---------- Post added 2012-10-16 at 06:03 PM ----------

It's never wise to ask people to mirror your keybinds, since people use their binds extremely differently (I don't bind Q and E because I use them for strafing. My A and D rarely if ever get used).

And a lot of your tips of when and where to use certain spells are very basic, but won't make anyone a better tank.

Sure, the thread title IS "DK tanking for Dumies (ironic)" but still, this isn't how most good DK tanks would wanna play.

This thread is directed at new players mostly, a new player will almost never have key binds. Whereas they would not consider using QWER or ZXCV as Key binds that are friendly to their left hand. As far as common sense, I cannot count the amount of times I have qued as a dps and I have to pull shit off the healer because the dk tank is tunneling one target while the rest are beating on the group... for the sake of just talking out of my ass.
I was farming ORE, so I did not mind waiting for the long que. I qued for Corem as a dps (frost), our group was Monk heals, Mage, Ele Sham, Me fdk and a blood tank. We wiped twice before I just put on my tanking gear and went blood. The DK tanked the entire time where Corem is standing at the beggining, did not grip a single target to him and never got away on the disarm. So he is getting beat up from behind by adds, and the healer has aggro on em along with the mages pet who decided to attack an add. All in all you have over 4800 post and you are not a novice, so this post is not for you brother. Let the clueless Tanks take whatever positive thing they can from this post.

[Wih]

Misspelled multiple abilities, advice assumes the taking of Rolling Blood and Death Pact (that's right, it's Pact not Pack) without explicitly stating so, assumes human, ignores other racials, advocates use of DC instead of RS when over 50 RP...

Seriously, put a little more effort into things before throwing it out there. Look at what else is out there in the stickies here and elsewhere and see if your post gives anything that they don't. Currently it doesn't.

[solid77]

nice troll

[Deleted]

Lol someone likes Noxxix a bit to mutch.. what a shitty guide..

[hyperionx]

Here's the thing, I understand that you made this guide after a bad experience joining an LFD as dps instead of tank and wanted to make a quick post to point out some obvious how not to be completely retarded points about dk tanking.

The problem is you made this post in a place where the audience is already somewhat knowledgeable, and your initial post didn't cover some of the basic tenets that some of us live by. In my case you don't mention how important RS is, and even bring up DC as using as anything other than self healing is kinda bad.

What you should have done, is take this entire post and whispered it to the bad tank you met. Maybe it would have helped him, maybe not, but it's obvious that person doesn't visit any kind of forum or research how to play his class or even knows how to tank in general.

Rather than making a bad help guide, you probably should have just linked that bad dk tank to either mmochamp, elitist jerks, or even the wow forums since I think reniat made a "How to blood tank" post on there back the week before MOP went live. Would the bad tank have visited your link? Perhaps, but more likely not since some people are happy being ignorant. That's just the way the world is. The current guides in various places are good enough for a beginner to have an idea what to do. However I do not know if there is a generic "how to tank" guide that covers the basics of tanking like trying to put mobs in front of you, what line of sighting is for, how does threat work.

[Reniat]

disclaimer: if all this is common sense to you, then you are not a novice and should go to icy-veins.com for more in-depth guides

Icy-veins actually does what you are trying to do. They have basic playstyle guides, not the tanking dissertations that you find here, the wow forums, and EJ. Honestly i think most of the tanks who are looking for advice/guides on the forums are already beyond the skill level of what your guide is marketed towards. It's noble that you want to help the community, but perhaps there are other ways to go about doing that.

[Omertocracy]

*Grumble Grumble* Someone using this guide to tank will fail harder than... I can't think of a statement that shows a parable. Hitler attacking Stalingrad maybe?

Where's my Terrible Flowchart for Nubs(tm)?

Simple flowchart:
Can you:
Death Strike? ---yes---> Use it!
|
no
V
Rune Strike? ---yes----> Use it!
|
no
V
3+ targets? ---yes---> Blood Boil.
|
no
V
Heart Strike.
|
No runes.
|
V
Horn of Boredom.

If HP below X% use:
80% Rune Tap
70% Vampiric Blood
40% Icebound Fortitude
30% Ghoul + Death Pact
15% Oh god use something!

This will work at about 80% of your possible efficiency.

Nowhere near the best, but much closer to correct than that drivel, as well as not forcing keybinds on you that you may not find helpful, as well as spelling Death Pact right.

[Deleted]

I use Death Coil on targets that are out of melee range and everything is on CD. Along with Death Strike, I dont bother using it when I am AOE tanking. If I am low on health while tanking AOE trash then thats when I use Death Strike. Also in case YOU missed it in my wall of text, I will paste it here just for you.

I do not use Lichborne, I spec into AMZ to help healer. I feel I have more then enough abilities to keep myself alive if shit hits the fan.

You use AMZ to help healers but you don't bother to use DS on AoE (you just use it to HEAL yourself if you are low on health).

Seems legit.

[dgiras]

I ve deleted totaly the Heart strike from my bars.
I only use BB. ok to 1 or 2 targets is doing a bit less dmg, but it also refreses my deseases, im already doing much dmg as tank to be worried if i lose 1k dps, also i saved 1 keybind this way

[Reniat]

Simple flowchart:
Can you:
Death Strike? ---yes---> Use it!
|
no
V
Rune Strike? ---yes----> Use it!
|
no
V
3+ targets? ---yes---> Blood Boil.
|
no
V
Heart Strike.
|
No runes.
|
V
Horn of Boredom.

If HP below X% use:
80% Rune Tap
70% Vampiric Blood
40% Icebound Fortitude
30% Ghoul + Death Pact
15% Oh god use something!

This will work at about 80% of your possible efficiency.

For possible fun:
Step 1: Find fire.
Step 2: DRW
Step 3: Stand in fire.
Step 4: AMS
Step 5: spam your infinite RS.

no offense meant, but this advice isn't much better than the OP's alternative. Spamming DS whenever its available is a really poor way of using it, and cooldowns are meant to prevent low dips in health, not to be used after them. if you wait until 40% hp to use IBF then you're doing it wrong.

I ve deleted totaly the Heart strike from my bars.
I only use BB. ok to 1 or 2 targets is doing a bit less dmg, but it also refreses my deseases, im already doing much dmg as tank to be worried if i lose 1k dps, also i saved 1 keybind this way

Using BB instead of HS on single target is going to be a loss of roughly 8.6% DPS with less impact with more AP and more impact with less AP. 8.6% is assuming about 100k AP.

[Deleted]

Even keeping in mind that the OP may have done this in good will I must say this ain't good lad. I don't need to mention what's wrong since previous ppl already did it. Even Focusing on "Dumies" you realy aren't helping them, it's like you're trying to cure an heroin adicted with cocaine lol

[Darsithis]

Closing this here. Not only is this full of misinformation, but we have a tanking guide sticky at the top of the forum.