DK ToC Stats

[parkerdj26]

I have 540 Defense, 37% avoidance, and 26.5hp.

I have no issues holding aggro but today while doing heroic ToC I died twice with a pally tank healing me. He said I was taking more damage than any tank he's ever had to heal. I looked in the log and was taking about 4k from whirlwind, 4k from fireblast, 4k shot from hunter boss. This rotation of attacks happened three times and I died.

Kept aggro on all three so I was the only one taking damage except for the idiots sitting around getting whirlwinded for some reason.

I've done it twice before without issues. So I'm wondering, given the stats I have should a healer be able to heal me in Heroic ToC? It's possible my last couple groups were really good. Should I aim above the def cap of 540 or is there some other way to reduce the damage taken. Or did this healer just suck?

[Luztra]

aim for a bit more avoidance and you should be a lot better off. I think 40% is the sweet spot and it just gets better from there.

[x]

a pally tank was healing you??


also is 26.5k hps unbuffed? frost presence?

a little low but in reality if you are having troubles just burn cooldowns

[Exclusive]

With 26.5k HP (assuming it's unbuffed) I would only do normal mode 5 man and maybe try a heroic if you have a good healer. And if you say "a pally tank healing me" that's not really a good healer.. And are you using IBF or any of the deep trees cooldowns on that part? Those 3 bosses at the same time sure do a lot of damage so I would really use IBF and another cooldown, maybe even combined with some trinket as long as they're up all 3.

Also, what's your spec? It's well known that blood takes more damage than frost/unholy, but blood heals yourself back up a little to compensate.

You can't really directly reduce incoming damage a lot.
You can try to get enough gear to get above 540defense from just gear and rune. Don't gem or enchant to go above it, that's a waste. But getting more defense will give you more dodge/parry, the boss will have less chance to hit you (yes, that's something different than your parry/dodge) and your IBF will be a little more effective.

[Deleted]

26k ub is more than enough to clear every heroic assuming that the healer is equally geared. This is what we did when we started heroics and we went through them just fine. Heck, our healer decided to switch to dk tank and we go to ulduar-10 with her, 26k ub.

It's not a question of gear, but it is a question of capable players. There is absolutely no need to have 30k ub to tank any heroic! Stop spreading this misinformation (just because you or your healers suck badly?)

This is getting on my nerves...
sol

[nikel]

Hi, I'm assuming you are quite new to dk tanking. H totc is not the easiest of the heroics. In fact bosses hit more than 2 times harder than other Heroic 5mans.

You dont need 25man raiding gear to do H totc, but you need to do your stuff right. For example. If you are a blood tank you gotta heal yourself, thats your job. If youre a Frost tank, you got to use your cooldowns.

Also you have 0% chance to parry/dodge/mitigate a fireblast ^^, so using anti-magic shell, mind freeze and strangulate are good moves. And keeping a hunter boss in range shouldn't help either, save deathgrip for when he disengages, or chains him and run all over him, you are the tank, ppl should follow you.

In fights where there are several bosses wich you kill one by one, its generally best to boost your avoidance (cooldowns, trinkets, pew pew) at the beginning, when damage input is the highest.

[Harlequinn]

To the OP what is your spec? I mean each tree has some pretty decent oh shit buttons. Unholy has bone armor / blood has good self healing / ice has... well it has somethin' I think.

Imo any monkey can tank H ToC, just everyone has to be smart about it. Faction champions: Shaman (always kill first no matter what you may think you know) he heals and does some serious damage if left alone. Rogue you can kill him first if shammy ain't present, he can be a real pain in the ass if left to his own devices. Huntard pain in the ass, but doesn't do any kinda ridiculous damage, it's very consistent. Mage can easily be interrupted and poses no real threat. Warrior only hurts if you get too close, and this sounds like your problem.

So basically you were in H ToC with a pally healer and your whole group was taking a lot of damage cause they got too close to the bladestorm. You just had a bad group is all, paladins are single shot healers with no aoe heals outside of beacons. He started to panic and was healing the other party members and you died. Imo take a druid or priest next time, HoTs & bubbles are the way to go.

[Cûr]

Hi, I'm assuming you are quite new to dk tanking. H totc is not the easiest of the heroics. In fact bosses hit more than 2 times harder than other Heroic 5mans.

You dont need 25man raiding gear to do H totc, but you need to do your stuff right. For example. If you are a blood tank you gotta heal yourself, thats your job. If youre a Frost tank, you got to use your cooldowns.

Also you have 0% chance to parry/dodge/mitigate a fireblast ^^, so using anti-magic shell, mind freeze and strangulate are good moves. And keeping a hunter boss in range shouldn't help either, save deathgrip for when he disengages, or chains him and run all over him, you are the tank, ppl should follow you.

In fights where there are several bosses wich you kill one by one, its generally best to boost your avoidance (cooldowns, trinkets, pew pew) at the beginning, when damage input is the highest.

Great post, and excellent advice. ++rep.

[parkerdj26]

I'm running a standard Frost tank build.

I meant to say Pally healer. Popping IBF I did mid fight when things started getting rocky on the first pull. Since I mained a healer for ages I thought there was ample time for healing me and his flash heals healed me for approx 4k each, which I think is low because my lvl 70 priest flash heals for at least that much.

Put the first fight into perspective. We had killed warrior but two died in the process from WW. I was down to about 1/4 health somehow, and died. I could have summoned ghoul and sacrificed quick or popped a pot if I weren't out I suppose, but I wasn't expecting to be that low.

Second fight. I prefaced with stay out of WW I can't avoid it since he follows me. This was followed with "Oh, ww is what killed me." Engaged, grabbed aggro and popped IBF. By the time it ends warrior is down to last 1/4 hp and WWing. Two start taking damage and I stop getting heals. Then the pally healer bitches about how undergeared I am and I die too fast.

I have all heroic gear except for my chest is Wyrmcrest revered. Bracers are sardonite because no other ones have dropped for me, and my shit trinket is the crap 26 def trinket from Hellfire. I'm gemmed for defense/stam depending on slot. Shoulders are Crusaders Pauldrons (trying to get H-ToC ones) Have all reg ToC tanking items, and have helm and neckpiece from H ToC (I know the neck isn't the best for DK tank, but dammit it was a hefty upgrade at the time).

I can't see where the 30k thing is coming from because if the H AN trinket would drop I'd be at 27.5k unbuffed. And if I could get good bracers I would either get a Stam Boost or be able to resocket some def to stam. This would mean that I would still be running with about 28k max with full heroic gear and fully enchanted with max enchants. How can I hit 30k HP in heroic gear as a DK without sacrificing Def/Avoidance?

Anyway, ended up running with some people I knew afterwards and had no issues. Group was warrior/rogue/caster that we got. Healer we had was a priest this time and said he had no trouble healing me, he was in some naxx gear. So I'm chalking this up to, I'm not running with Pally tanks anymore unless I know them.

Hi, I'm assuming you are quite new to dk tanking. H totc is not the easiest of the heroics. In fact bosses hit more than 2 times harder than other Heroic 5mans.

You dont need 25man raiding gear to do H totc, but you need to do your stuff right. For example. If you are a blood tank you gotta heal yourself, thats your job. If youre a Frost tank, you got to use your cooldowns.

Also you have 0% chance to parry/dodge/mitigate a fireblast ^^, so using anti-magic shell, mind freeze and strangulate are good moves. And keeping a hunter boss in range shouldn't help either, save deathgrip for when he disengages, or chains him and run all over him, you are the tank, ppl should follow you.

In fights where there are several bosses wich you kill one by one, its generally best to boost your avoidance (cooldowns, trinkets, pew pew) at the beginning, when damage input is the highest.

Thanks, never thought about tanking the warrior on top of the hunter. This would probably mitigate some of the damage. I threw out Stangulate on the caster but long CD.

[ExitiumNL]

his flash heals healed me for approx 4k each, which I think is low because my lvl 70 priest flash heals for at least that much.

Don't compare classes like that, 4k noncrits aren't bad for a pala. Back at 70 I FoL'ed for a bit over 2k if I recall correctly. Nowadays at 80 my crits are 6-6.5k or so, which would mean 4-4.3k noncrits. However, when all three mobs are up there, he should have beacon on you and be more or less spamming HL on the melee who are probably taking some damage too. (while trying to keep the FoL HoT running if possible)

[Lhasa]

You're a bit low to run H ToC honestly - you'd need a pretty decent geared healer to help out. It's doable, but a bit more of a challenge.

ToC is interesting in that its difficulty is a factor of what champions show up and what your group makeup is (e.g. all melee dps group with warrior and rogue champion = bad times).

Healing H ToC is toughest for a pally healer. They'd have to be really geared and know who to heal. I've only grouped with one pally healer who could do it well, and he had 27k+ mana. ;D

As another poster mentioned, always keep the hunter close. When he pings you from a distance, he does > 4k damage, and he'll multishot the group for > 4k damage, stressing the healer even more.

[aikouka]

I actually have the most trouble in here with my Death Knight as well and my DK is very similarly geared compared to my Warrior and Paladin (only class I don't tank on is a Druid and he's almost ready :P) and those two classes have no issues. I've tanked it without any wipes and I've tanked it with wipes. Last night, I think the biggest problem I had was people not giving me some ample time to ensure proper placement and aggro on all three targets (hunter, mage, rogue). That's one of the biggest problems I have while tanking... no one waits for you to get your mobs in order. When it comes to the Faction Champions, I like to pull them myself... I do not want a hunter to misdirect one of them to me. The other two pulls were much easier since it's mostly one target.

To give you an idea... when I do it on my Warrior, I charge a specific one based on what I have... for example, if I have the mage, rogue and hunter, I would charge the hunter, shattering throw the mage (silence ftw) and shockwave when they all come at me. Last night, when I finally told the hunter to stop screwing up my pull, I dropped the DnD on the hunter and Strangulated the mage. The rogue came up to me, so that's not an issue. If you have itchy finger DPS, you may also want to consider using ERW to gain more initial threat because I don't think most realize that you can blow all of your runes quickly (although you're Frost and I'm Blood).

Imo any monkey can tank H ToC, just everyone has to be smart about it. Faction champions: Shaman (always kill first no matter what you may think you know) he heals and does some serious damage if left alone. Rogue you can kill him first if shammy ain't present, he can be a real pain in the ass if left to his own devices. Huntard pain in the ass, but doesn't do any kinda ridiculous damage, it's very consistent. Mage can easily be interrupted and poses no real threat. Warrior only hurts if you get too close, and this sounds like your problem.

I disagree with your ordering and it also depends on your own group make-up. If you do not have a class that can remove a poison, I highly recommend killing the rogue before anything else. The rogue's poison does a ton of damage per tick if it's stacked up to 5. I have had group make-ups like this and as a Death Knight, I can mitigate this by using AMS to make me immune to poison applications. The shaman isn't much of an issue. When I'm on my warrior, I simply interrupt him myself and use Shockwave on cooldown. If I have to, I can stun him. The warrior is another pain in the butt, mostly because of his throw. If you're unlucky, he'll throw you toward the large entrance door, which last I knew, you can still be thrown past an invisible wall, which puts you out of line of sight.

But hey, as long as what you do works, that's fine with me :P.