DK Tank Wake Up

[Ivalen]

This is not a rant or complaint, just my observation.

I'm an 88 dk Tank, loving the tanking, but I've learnt real quick that MoP dungeons ask more from me.

Specifically I'm finding that I really need to pay attention to runes for use with Death Strike and that all of my effort is spent on maximising this. Forget dps, it's almost all I can do to just keep blood shield up and use cooldowns.

Up to this point I found I could top dps charts with casual use of DS and firing off blood boils like crazy. But now I feel like a real tank - I can't dps, must rely on my team for that, and have to pay real attention otherwise it all falls apart.

I've also found that reforging gear for tank spec, even junk greens, really helps also.

I like it - just wanted to say that the cata-to-mop transition on dungeons opened my eyes.

[Kiqjaq]

Just wait until you gear up a bit, then you can go back to facedominating dungeons like a good DK should.

[Harzaka]

Got a 86 DK, decided to buy MoP blues 415 ilvl+ and its so much fun just pulling 3-4 packs and not dying. Havent tanked since Naxx in wotlk and i dont understand why

[Katallo]

The DPS part will even out when you hit 90, you'll be doing pretty respectable DPS and there's a couple of things you can do to increase it further:

- If Crimson Scourge procs and your diseases still have a long duration, drop a DnD instead. To be honest I always favour DnD over BB from Crimson Scourge, regardless of disease duration - I can afford a spare blood rune for Blood Boil disease refresh, I can't afford a death/unholy rune for DnD that would otherwise go on Death Strike. The only exception is below the 35% mark when you be replacing Heart Strike for Soul Reaper on single target.

- Unless you need to save Dancing Rune Weapon for a period of high physical damage, abuse the hell out of this ability for DPS - it duplicates your attacks and really pumps up your dmg.

- Learn which spells Dark Simulacrum can duplicate, there's a few good spells out there that NPCs launch at us, that can be thrown back at them for some massive dmg. A good example: in the Scarlet Monastary heroics there are priests that cast Holy Fire, it's a long cast and most tanks will interupt it as it does a ton of dmg on hit and then as a dot. Pop your Anti Magic Shield to make you immune to the dmg and whack Dark Simulacrum on them, it'll allow you to cast it back at them.

[Ivalen]

Thank you for the hints - I will research Simulacrum. I didn't have much luck with it so sort of gave up.

[Aeidial]

Heroics get rather boring at 90 once you acquire decent gear. I just throw on dps gear now and smash through it all. Even a healer in greens/blues can keep us up using dps gear. I find this allows for faster runs due to the added damage seeing as your pugs aren't always to be relied upon...

[potatoe]

to expand upon what katallo said about using dancing rune weapon...
It duplicates your diseases from Outreak and will spread them to other packs of adds with pestilence (or Blood Boil if you have Roiling Blood talented, which I do).
Also, it's great to use on bosses in conjunction with Soul Reaper at 35% health.

Agreed with Aeidial about gear.
I am in 382 ilvl dps gear and I tank in dps gear (blood spec of course) with few problems.
If the healer is having trouble then I will switch to tank gear, but I find that more dps helps smooth the run out and go faster.
Poor dps makes the fights go longer and especially on AOE fights where the group is taking damage, this can strain a healer.
I find that I am able to bring more to the group in dps gear, so I do.

[jd812]

I love tanking on my dk the most i have tried tanking on all tanking classes but i gotta say dk tanking is the most fun for me then pally tanking second. Hell i enjoy it so much i now have a baby dk tank too.

[Jinna]

Hi,

I just dinged 90 and was wondering if the crafted blues are enough to jump straight into heroics with? I'm returning to the game after a long break. I noticed there didn't seem to be an option for me to do normal mode dungeons on the LFG tool (bug?) it jumping straight to heroic mode. Is there anything I should do/get (and quest rewards I should seekout) before doing heroic pugs?

I'm a link this here, though I know I've a bunch of stuff to do (level inscription, enchant/reforge gear, arrange glyphs) as I just dinged 90 last night and bought the blues from AH (got epic legs on my first ever scenario!).

Cheers

[yurano]

- If Crimson Scourge procs and your diseases still have a long duration, drop a DnD instead. To be honest I always favour DnD over BB from Crimson Scourge, regardless of disease duration - I can afford a spare blood rune for Blood Boil disease refresh, I can't afford a death/unholy rune for DnD that would otherwise go on Death Strike.

I much rather save my DnD CD for opening a pull over trying to bump up my DPS.

The OP is talking about how he feels exceptionally squishy as a blood DK, not how his DPS is terrible.

@ OP - Do you 'game' your Death Strikes? Basically you should save your Death Strike(s) (at least 1) for when you take a bunch of damage. I personally use IceHUD to track my health so I can see when I take a large spike of damage perfect timing for a fat DS + Blood Shield or two.

[Katallo]

To expand upon what katallo said about using dancing rune weapon...
It duplicates your diseases from Outreak and will spread them to other packs of adds with pestilence (or Blood Boil if you have Roiling Blood talented, which I do).

Yes indeed it does, when pulling a boss you can pop DRW and then Outbreak for double diseases, I use this pretty much every heroic boss.

One thing to note, if you pull with DRW it used to make the boss evade and despawn (not sure if it still does), so pull using taunt, pop DRW and then Outbreak and you'll notice that there's 4 diseases on your target, rather than 2.

I much rather save my DnD CD for opening a pull over trying to bump up my DPS.

The OP is talking about how he feels exceptionally squishy as a blood DK, not how his DPS is terrible.

@ OP - Do you 'game' your Death Strikes? Basically you should save your Death Strike(s) (at least 1) for when you take a bunch of damage. I personally use IceHUD to track my health so I can see when I take a large spike of damage perfect timing for a fat DS + Blood Shield or two.

I didn't get that feeling from his post, but what you've said is good advice - Blood Shield Tracker is also a good addon for tracking how much Blood Shield you've currently got built up and how much you'll get from your next DS (it calculates it on the fly).

[TheMeII]

Hi,

I just dinged 90 and was wondering if the crafted blues are enough to jump straight into heroics with? I'm returning to the game after a long break. I noticed there didn't seem to be an option for me to do normal mode dungeons on the LFG tool (bug?) it jumping straight to heroic mode. Is there anything I should do/get (and quest rewards I should seekout) before doing heroic pugs?

I'm a link this here, though I know I've a bunch of stuff to do (level inscription, enchant/reforge gear, arrange glyphs) as I just dinged 90 last night and bought the blues from AH (got epic legs on my first ever scenario!).

Cheers

You are good to go, just be careful in the beginning while you work out your healers capability. I have a DK tank of almost exactly your gear level and ran few heroics, and worst I have been told is "you're easy to heal while Bone Shield is up and hard when it's not". So try to use your lesser cd:s/Death Strike more when BShield is down and you know you are taking hits.

Edit: Added link to my DK in (wrong reforge atm)

[Jinna]

I didn't get that feeling from his post, but what you've said is good advice - Blood Shield Tracker is also a good addon for tracking how much Blood Shield you've currently got built up and how much you'll get from your next DS (it calculates it on the fly).

Heartily agree with this, I used BST in Cata and when you've got so much healing coming into you over 5 seconds, it can sometimes be hard to spot opportunities where a big hit and big heal came really close together and you are due a large shield. Having something that watches your incoming damage and does these calculations is invaluable.

[Gilian]

Heroics get rather boring at 90 once you acquire decent gear. I just throw on dps gear now and smash through it all. Even a healer in greens/blues can keep us up using dps gear. I find this allows for faster runs due to the added damage seeing as your pugs aren't always to be relied upon...

I heal dungeons with my discipline spec because it gives me faster queues now. I just use my dps gear. All I have to do is spam smite and everyone stays alive while I am doing 30-70k dps and maybe even more in some situations.
This is the first tier of this expansion and it is already so ridiculous. I don't understand how blood DK's being able to solo heroics and me healing with atonement only is good design.

[bals]

I heal dungeons with my discipline spec because it gives me faster queues now. I just use my dps gear. All I have to do is spam smite and everyone stays alive while I am doing 30-70k dps and maybe even more in some situations.
This is the first tier of this expansion and it is already so ridiculous. I don't understand how blood DK's being able to solo heroics and me healing with atonement only is good design.

because CMs are the difficult content now, not heroics. Although blood DKs still do awesome in them.

[Gilian]

because CMs are the difficult content now, not heroics. Although blood DKs still do awesome in them.

This makes no sense at all. Why would I do CMs to cap valor except for having some fun?

They introduce an item upgrade system and a legendary quest which I have to cap valor for and then make heroics extremely easy. They also give JP which I want to buy more heirlooms. And they give a nice amount of gold. I understand why they want heroics at this difficulty but why make me go through them then? I have never understood this. They even give more incentive to do them by making them give you more valor for the first one you do.
You don't have to do them but they are so efficient that there is not much reason for me to not do them. Same with LFR, the rewards you get for the effort you put in are just way too high. It feels counterintuitive to skip LFR.

[Ivalen]

Thanks for the insights everyone.

I do use BST - in fact my eyes are focused on it very intently now that I tank in MoP dungeons. I believe it's the DS 'gaming' that I really need to get used to and I focus more and more on that blood shield countdown. I get real nervous when I don't have runes for DS and the shield just got whacked in a single hit.

I've also got to condition myself to stop using cooldowns when either things get scary bad and start using them more frequently. I macro'd my LB/DC combo and my Raise Dead/Death Pact combo (I was misclicking those too often).

As for DRW - I didn't know that about the diseases. That's pretty killer right there. I will use that frequently.

[Katallo]

Proper use of CDs is also crucial, you can bridge a lot of gaps using your CDs frequently and the majority of them are short CDs that are insanely powerful.

Vampiric Blood is a good example, glyphed it provides a 40% healing buff and it's only got a 1 minute cooldown. I use this pretty much on CD whenever I can to save my healer mana.

Dancing Rune Weapon - in addition to the other benefits that have already been mentioned, it's only a 90 second CD and provides a massive 20% parry.

Anti Magic Shell - 45 seconds, glyphed it absorbs a ton of magic damage.

Learn your dungeons, know the trash and the bosses to maximise and almost plan your route and CD use as you go from pack to pack. After a few runs you'll have it down perfect!

[potatoe]

re: cooldowns

Blood DKs have a ton of cooldowns (Vampiric Blood, Icebound Fortitude, Bone Shield, Anti-Magic Shield, Anti-Magic Zone, Raise Dead/Death Pact, Lichborne/Death Coil, Dancing Rune Weapon, Empowered Rune Weapon, Rune Tap).
Between all of these you can use one every minute (or more).

e.g. Use Icebound Fortitude. After a minute use anti-magic shield. After a minute use Death Pact. After a minute use Vampiric Blood. After a minute use Bone Shield. etc.

So if you are hoarding them, try using 1 every trash pack.

Also, a common newbie tank mistake is to panic and use more than one CD in an emergency, and then not have them later when needed.
Try to practice using only one CD in on a trash pack and trusting the healer (and your Death Strike) to bring you up from there.

Depending on the situation I may use more than one cooldown, but it's something you pick up as you go.