Death Knight Heroic Dungeon Tanking, is it possible?

[Jurio]

Tried main tanking Drak'Tharon Heroic with my 80 DK. I had 25,000 life (in frost presence) and 502 defense. I'm wearing all defense gear blues from AH and Dungeon Drops. I had 14% dodge and 13% parry.

It went 'ok' but I was always having to pop icebound fortitude, unbreakable armor, and lichborne. On the Trex bos he was hitting me so hard we eventually wiped. It just seemed too much for the healer to heal through.

Is there something fundamentally flawed with DK's that prevent them from tanking as efficiently as warriors/druids?

[Tigercat]

No, your gear is just terrible. Get some stuff crafted, and I don't mean the garbage blues.

[Vallos]

Nope. Not sure if you're doing something wrong or your healer is, but I've tanked most heroics (admittedly as Unholy, but I've seen Frost do it as well) completely without incident.

Get your defense up as the first matter of business. You want to be uncrittable, and for heroics that requires 530 on bosses (you want 540 defense for raids). With that low of defense, you're going to be taking very spiky and high damage, and that will ruin you.

I'm getting ready to tank Naxx, but I'm using easily-available gear from normal, heroics, crafted items and rep rewards. For reference: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...uncil&n=Anchev

[potasio]

yeah but other think look ur avoidance no is nothing bad compared to jurio 14 + 13 = very bad for heroic more DK get so big spike damage

[Jurio]

Nope. Not sure if you're doing something wrong or your healer is, but I've tanked most heroics (admittedly as Unholy, but I've seen Frost do it as well) completely without incident.

Get your defense up as the first matter of business. You want to be uncrittable, and for heroics that requires 530 on bosses (you want 540 defense for raids). With that low of defense, you're going to be taking very spiky and high damage, and that will ruin you.

I'm getting ready to tank Naxx, but I'm using easily-available gear from normal, heroics, crafted items and rep rewards. For reference: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...uncil&n=Anchev

Oh ok that explains it. I was getting some very big spikes. I need to achieve that uncrittable defense raiting. I think that will help a lot. Thank you

[burn]

its very possible, 1 get crit immune
2 seems to me if u have 25k hp and 500defence u have been stacking the wrong stat
3 use frostpresence (na u prolly need to take a look at ur rotations and stuf)

[Deleted]

I already tanked some heroics (not all), when none of my f/l tanks were online and we "needed" to do one cause this one drop would help one of my buddies. You can check my current gear, but I tanked in worse. I do AoE tank, sometimes CC'ing one in a 4 mob pull when I know that this special guy does something awful as in "Hey guys, I am in an ice block, have fun with 4 rampaging mobs " but normally without CC.

While I have some tank specs I will never specc in others just for a heroic instance.

[sd78]

1- You absolutely MUST have Blade Barrier up at all times.

2- You are supposed to be making use of IBF, Unbreakable Armor and AMS as part of your rotation.

[Righteousone]

I am not a DK so i do not know what IDF or AMS is but I do know for a fact that our guild DK is tanking all 5 man heroics and is doing fine.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Iron&n=Tyrioul

If you have anything to say about his spec or gear, please do so because I am trying to understand why he is taking such big hits and dying in NAXX.
Remember, Armory does not show Frost Presence so his hp is actually 23k (unbuffed) and 20000 armor.

[fathom12]

I have tanked every heroic so far in the game and have had almost no problems. The main thing as stated earlier is to get your gear up and to make yourself uncrittable. The other thing is to realize the reason all those skills are on a 1 minutes cooldown is because we are supposed to use them. Our cooldowns are what help us be amazing tanks. On bosses you should be able to keep your cooldowns up for over 50% of the fight.

[B3002ms]

Your dodge and parry are extremely low for tanking your def is fine *I run 515 def and have tanked all heroics and 10 man naxx up to and including kel'thuzad* making sure blade barrier is up 100% of the time is a must and use Ice bound fort and Unbreakable armor on cooldown *our oh shit moves are just another part of our rotation*

[Erudus]

To Righteousone

Well, for one he has gemmed some of his gear with attack power?! and dual wield imo is terrible for tanking, faster attacks = more parries from the boss = reset swing timer = tank squished.

also WTF is up with his spec? no Frost Strike? (Frost Strike cannot be dodged blocked or parried, making it an amazing tanking attack if you're not expertise capped) hes taken Endless Winter and Chillblains over Rime, Killing Machine and Annhilation and why has he taken Icy Talons and Imp Icy Talons as a tank?! he's also went too far into Unholy, why does he need 3 points in morbidity when D&D doesnt even need to be used to AoE tank, all you need is Icy touch the first mob, Plague Strike, then Pestillence and Howling Blast.

Hope this helps :P

[Righteousone]

This might help. I eat lunch with the guy everyday so i will ask him about his CD rotation and discuss his spec.
But i believe he went this spec with the impression that icy touch was his main tanking spell instead of perhaps the obvious choice, Frost Strike.

To B3002ms
What parry should he be at do you think? He is running dual one-handers to do haveing them both Runeforged with Rune of Swordbreaking increasing his effective parry rating by 4 (2 from each weapon)

I agree with the DK and think this is very useful although I do agree with Erudus when saying the weapons being fast means he will be hit more. Perhaps slow one handers?

[Hirork]

I am not a DK so i do not know what IDF or AMS is but I do know for a fact that our guild DK is tanking all 5 man heroics and is doing fine.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Iron&n=Tyrioul

If you have anything to say about his spec or gear, please do so because I am trying to understand why he is taking such big hits and dying in NAXX.
Remember, Armory does not show Frost Presence so his hp is actually 23k (unbuffed) and 20000 armor.

Shouldn't he tank with a shield ??? ??? I don't know anything about tanking, though.

[Draekon]

You also know nothing about the Death Knight. They can't use shields.

Draekon

[blizzy]

Shouldn't he tank with a shield ??? ???

Ouch.

[Coronel]

Shouldn't he tank with a shield ??? ??? I don't know anything about tanking, though.

http://www.funnyforumpics.com"][/url]

[Aerr]

Shouldn't he tank with a shield ??? ??? I don't know anything about tanking, though.

fail..

if you dont know anything about tanking.. dont reply on such a thread :P

[Deleted]

Recipe for SMOOTH heroic tanking on a death knight:

- Get 535 defense
- Get at least 38-40% avoidance with Horn of winter up (= 50% with BB)
- Spec deep unholy
- Get Boneshield glyph and icy touch glyph
- Enchant your gear and get at least 24k HP unbuffed (more is better)

You will absolutely destroy heroics with this setup. A frost spec is also great, however unholy is the king of AoE tanking and if played right you will likely outperform all the other dps'ers in your group to boot.

Rotation:

0) Pre-buff boneshield
1) Stand conveniently in front of your pull, and mark a skull at least.
2) Lay down a DnD and grip your skull to you
3) IT > PS > Pestilence
4) Now you should be > 60 RP if you had the icy touch glyph. Throw up Unholy blight
5) Now use your blood runes on Blood Boil, and Scourge strike whenever you got an FU pair.
5) Watch things die.

This is the basics. With my spec I got loads of Oh shit buttons on top, but usually boneshield + my passive avoidance does the job nicely. However these are the tools you got as nice topping:

- Icebound fortitude
- AMS
- AMZ (This is great in 5 mans)
- Lichborne

GL in your future runs. Unholy ftw.

[Strawberry]

Oh what a bunch of bullshit in this thread. No you dont need to be uncrittable. I'm not on my DK, and I've tanked every single heroic and even everything except Kel'Thuzad in Naxx 10 man without being crit immune. I got crit only once, on Gluth, for 10k damage (!), which is nothing for my 37k buffed hp. A friend of mine tanked Drak'Tharon Keep today, he's at 510 def and 25k hp. Not a single wipe, we didnt cc anything either, just pull and aoe, pull and aoe.
Get capable healer(s) instead.

And people stop fucking being so dependable on EJ and have a brain of your own. Those people live to their name, they want the absolute perfection.

It's like when people told me that I'll get pwned just because my 523 def isnt uncrittable (530 being uncrittable), and then they tell me to replace +275hp on chest with +22 def rating, which will bring me to what, 525 def? STILL UNCRITTABLE. And then they tell me that it will bring me closer to being uncrittable? What the fuck! 523 defense = 4.76% or so not to be crit, 2 extra defense is what, 4.9%? So that's 0.14% (LOL!) bigger chance to avoid being crit. At a cost of 300hp. That's saving me 1 crit in almost 1000 (one thousand) hits. Granted, you'll need to be uncrittable in 25-man raids, but once you're there, you'll have good enough gear to have high avoidance and 530+ def without having to sacrifice other stats. Heroics and 10 man, close to being uncrittable, but being uncrittable is absolutely not needed.

Piss off, learn fucking math.