I'm looking into raiding 10N or even 10H as a tank, but I hear that Blood isn't good.

[exochaft]

Blood can tank any fight in the game. The healing required for blood is similar to the other tanks. Blood does have some weaknesses though. Some have been mentioned and some haven't.

-raid utility and buffs- If you are in a 25 this is far less of a problem just due to the number of people. In a 10 this can be huge. What utility we do bring is very situational.

-lower dps- This is due to blood getting less return from vengeance than the other tanks. This may be fixed in WoD with the removal of offensive vengeance.

-aoe rampup time- If adds are going to be up a while blood aoe is fine, but if it is stuff that needs burned quickly blood falls behind. Between our aoe being largley dependant on dots and those dots requiring setup blood is at a disadvantage here.

-gear scaling- Blood actually scales too well with gear and is too weak without it. This makes blood overpowered as hell when outgearing content but weak in fresh content. A blood DK in 560ish gear is basicly unkillable in normal SoO, but that same DK in 520ish gear will be a liability.

OP when considering which tank to level and gear do yourself a favor and be honest about what you will tank. If lfr and flex are as far as you will go blood is very good. If you want to do normals blood is still fine albeit a little comp dependant. If you intend to get into heroics I would advise you to not roll blood. Blood can get the job done, but the others will make it easier and offer a lot more to your raid.

From the "raid utility" aspect of things, what the majority of the player base views as utility and what Blizz considers utility are very different. If you ask a random person what they think raid utility is, they'll likely say something along the lines of Devo, Demo banner, crit banner... basically damage reduction/boosting cooldowns for the entire raid. However, Blizz considers things like standard raid buffs and CC/movement cooldowns part of the whole utility package. That's partly why monks/paladins/warriors get viewed as the "better" tank, since they come with the large package of raid wide damage-oriented CD's.

From the mitigation aspect, part of the reason why monks/paladins/warriors were considered "better" than DK's/druids is their % damage reduction active mitigation mechanics. The simple version is that this reduction is mainly gear independent and very easy to abuse if there is no cap involved to keep it from being abused... also their AM is proactive instead of reactive That being said, that's partly why Guardians/DKs got late buffs since ToT wasn't too kind in that respect, and from the Guardian perspective it made us kind of OP while the blood changes added that extra buff to help with large burst (I tank with both Guardian and Blood DK, which I feel share quite a bit in common despite their differences). Also, with how raids are designed currently, a proactive tanking model is much easier to play than a reactive model, and it takes some healer training to not blow major cooldowns on a Guardian/DK when we're capable of tanking most of our HP in damage at once and instantly recover without external help. In all actuality, this makes Guardians/DK's stronger when things go wrong, since those two tanking classes are very capable of keeping themselves alive with minimal external intervention, while paladins/warriors/monks tend to go "plop."

In a world of tanks caring a lot more about damage than they used to (a little too much imo, but that's the design), damage scaling is a legitimate concern. I've seen similar scaling issues as Vengeance goes up with my Guardian as I do with my DK, as quite a bit of the damage toolkit doesn't scale as well with Vengeance. It also doesn't help that Guardians/DK's are balanced around DoT's, where the other tanks have those big heavy hitting abilities that scale better with Vengeance which can be a detriment to the formerly mentioned classes for threat or burst damage. Nothing's a bigger slap in the face when you spend several GCD's setting up threat/damage when other classes can go lawlKegSmash or something similar and be just as effective in one GCD. Taunt threat change helped with this for single targets, but it's not really going to help in the realm of AoE.

I don't want to get too long with this post, but the short version is that the general perception of blood DKs, as well as Guardians, is far from reality. These tanks are harder to use properly and master with how raids are currently designed compared to warrior/paladin/monk tanks, but they perform just as well (or better in some cases) as other perceived "better" tank classes.

[Deleted]

Other tanks have only better Raid cds. I tanked 10/14 hc and healers won't change me for other tank

Pretty much this. I'm currently tanking at 9/14hc, The only thing I'd like is a decent raid CD.

Something like the T13 Blood 4 piece.

[Deleted]

I think you should just play Death Knight if you feel like it. It's the most fun of the tanks I've played. I am getting sick tired of this classification of which tank is the best. The player makes the class better mostly.

[SlippyCheeze]

I think you should just play Death Knight if you feel like it. It's the most fun of the tanks I've played. I am getting sick tired of this classification of which tank is the best. The player makes the class better mostly.

I find those threads entertaining. I know for a fact that I don't even come close to being good enough to have the spec make that much difference. I think most of the "rate my tank FOTM" folks are In denial about being in the same boat.

Unless you are pushing for server or world first you probably don't need the optimal class or spec. If you are you probably don't need mmo-c to tell you which class is next.

[xytech]

Can someone explain me why? Or is it because other tank classes just do a better job tanking than a Blood DK?

I joined some guild run in need of a tank when I was 550 ilvl. Back then I didn't know any heroic tanking tactics (nor did they explain much, and I hardly understood any of their Swedish). We did 7/14 hc without any issues at all (which was their current progression). I'd say DKs are great atm, but my progress is pretty poor so I don't know if I'm in a position to say anything. What I can say with absolute certainty is that we're perfectly viable for the easy heroic parts and full normal.

Got to say tho, we're amazing when overgearing stuff. I've solo tanked Thok normal and finished second last on damage taken.

[Deleted]

Blood is just fine! Other tanks are supprior, but they are fine!

[Snuzzfizzle]

Got to say tho, we're amazing when overgearing stuff. I've solo tanked Thok normal and finished second last on damage taken.

I'd like to see some logs of that.

[Deleted]

My raid leader actually replaced a Prot Paladin for me.

I'm having no issues in SoO HC. 11/14HC at the moment.

[rhapso]

I'm 13/14HC (working on Garrosh HC) right now and I have to say Blood DK isn't the best tank (mainly from an utility/damage standpoint), but you can easily tank all the content that is available. You will have a harder time at certain points (BlackfuseHC Shredder), but you can still be a good tank.
The most important factor is, that you won't be raiding in a top3 world setting, which means it doesn't really matter what tank class you use - sure, a warrior can almost two-shot the shredder on blackfuse and will do a shitton of dps on heroic, but that doesn't mean you stand in the corner with 0dps. I solo tanked Malkorok's blood rage phase on heroic, solo tanked Thok heroic without much trouble, so it's not like DKs are bad - DK's are fine in fact. Other classes are just superior (mainly in utility).
[Edit: Although one of the worst parts is being the Rik'kal tank on Klaxxi HC. Luckily I only had to do this for few attempts and our offtank got his act together again... Gotta love absolute values instead of fixed timers on AM #sarcasm]

Use the class that fits your personality most, tanking is a lot about encounter and cooldown management, so sticking with what works best for you will work best for your raid - even if it's just 10N.

[Deleted]

Blood DKs are beast.
Which I hate cause I'm trying to get a DK dps spot in raid groups.. = IMPOSSIBRUUU

[Deleted]

this thread was dead for 2 months /sigh

[SlippyCheeze]

this thread was dead for 2 months /sigh

...but "is this spec viable" is a burning question for people who ask it on forums five months into the tier. Just like "is this sub-one-percent difference racial going to make the difference between success and failure raiding", and other micro-min/max questions that are best answered with "if you have to ask, it makes less difference than your lack of knowledge about the class does"