New DK is it worth me becomming tank?

[Spooked]

Basically I am lvl 60 right now (Obviously total newb with it) so I was going to starting tanking around now to learn it so will have a clue when I ding 80. but read allot of the "Glass half empty" posts and its difficult to see what's whine and what's true.

I love tanking and I like the idea of DK tank just looking for opinions and possible tank build that will ease me in (if it exists).

I'm 4 year vet with game but was warlock/hunter.

Kind regards,

Spooked

[Spooked]

well that will be a long way off ill be content with naxx for now lol. what about build whats easiest build to start with and can some one link it but please not via wow head as im at work and this pc cant vue there talent page for some reason

[Blaugrana1899]

i currently use this spec for tanking: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...1,awY3eO,10392

oh and personally i've not noticed really big differences between me and other tanks in my raid (we don't do 25 hardmodes though). of course, the last nerfs kinda sucked... but i've seen DKs who refuse to tank because of those nerfs, saying the class is broken now and blablabla. that's definetly BS.

[Deleted]

Best advice I can give you: If you're really into tanking, then have a look at your talents, go through each of them and think: "This is a talent for tanking - or not". Look at your skills, what they do, read the tooltips. Get some tanking experience, how to bind multiple mobs on you. Try to get gear and read up on the forums on rotations and stuff.

Don't expect to get fed info and to become a decent tank, especially if you haven't tanked before (I did in BC with my druid and I clearly see improved reactions when it comes to "oh shit" situations whereas some girlfriend of on of our raides who started tanking right now lacks that clearly. "Oh wait, there is a mob in the raid - or isn't it? What should I do?", well, it will come, hopefully, some time ). Get used to the class and get hands-on experience. And read, read, read, read, read!

Good luck

[Wardley]

To be honest, I wouldn't bother at lvl 60 to think about tanking.

Unless you can guarantee that you'll be able to get a group together to run instances from 60-70, it'll be better to just level up at least to get into the Northrend instances ASAP and then think about it. In terms of talent points though, there are 3 talents in each tree near the top so there's easy to get that were, at least when I started, considered 'complusory' for tanking - Blade Barrier, Toughness and Anticipation. I think Blade Barrier has now dropped out of being complusory, but I still like it.

I actually levelled all the way to 80 as an unholy DPS build and then switched to tanking. When I got to 80 I then started tanking doing smallish stuff - the level 80 group quests in Icecrown to begin with and the Zul Drak arena, then any non-heroic instance before I went and got defense capped and started in heroics.

I'm not the best tank in the world and could probably work on getting my rotations a bit tidier - but I've main tanked Naxx and OS and off tanked in Ulduar now.

There's some pretty good DK tanking guides around that make it really easy to pickup on sites like tankspot.com.

The only problem with DK tanking is that it does suffer a lot from 'flavour of the month' syndrome. At the moment, Blood is generally considered the best spec, but not too long ago it was Frost. At some point they might even buff unholy up so that that becomes the flavour of the month. Each time that happens you generally have to look at all your talents and abilities again and relearn what you have to do with them. To be honest, when this does happen, it only really matters to those who are trying to tank the hardest encounters in the game - for running Naxx or OS or 5 man heroics you can stick with whichever spec you like, but it's just annoying if you offer yourself as a tank to a pug and you get some wise-guy sneering at you because you're still Frost spec'd when 'everyone knows that since the last patch Blood is the tanking spec now'.

This is different from the other tank classes because at least with them you'll know that whilst they may buff or nerf a few talents each patch, on the whole you're still going to be a protection warrior/paladin or feral druid.

[Deleted]

Well, don't listen to the wise guys Been blood tank since hitting 80 and never looked back. I leveled with unholy and then switched, and to be honest: I was frost for like two heroics, but didn't like it very much, just a personal preference.

Never had someone sneering at me - well, except for the healer for hdz4 that said: "No, you have to bring a melee for the timerun, with all-ranged DDs is will just not work out" o.O His reasoning: A melee can take a hit and survive, a ranged will drop instantly. Hell yeah - I know, offtopic and all that, but it just came to my mind...

[Spooked]

well i nearly dropped off the floor, some excellent advise and not a single flame orr troll...surely this needs sticky ;D

[Xaos]

we're not super tanks of awesomeness anymore. but we're still fine.
however i wouldnt bother with tanking till your in northrend.

as for builds im a fan of blood tanking myself (as i mostly raid mt)
but frost is probably a better all-round tank spec (my aoe threat suffers)

if you really want to try tanking asap, then once you hit 68 get a friendly blacksmith to craft the entire cobalt tank set and you'll be fine for the basic northrend instances.

[Deleted]

well i nearly dropped off the floor, some excellent advise and not a single flame orr troll...surely this needs sticky ;D

you are the first one...

but to the OP: for naxx (which is lot's of AOE tanking), you can go best go either frost or unholy. blood is more a true bosstanking build for things like ulduar.

basic build is 5/5/5 (or 5/8/5, if you want 20% attack speed reduction on mobs). from there, check each talent and see if it reduces damage you take in any way, either directly or indirectly.

[jai151]

You are quite free to think about tanking now. I created my DK day one of Wrath and planned to do nothing but tank with him, so I started out in a tank build and levelled that way. Amazingly, it's just as efficient as levelling DPS. Blood tank is my spec of choice (way back when, when blood wasn't viable, I was unholy. Amazingly now unholy is the "non-viable" tank spec), and it works very very well for a levelling build with the self heals.

[Nym]

I am still semi-new to DK-Tanking. My Dks just about ready to get into either 10mans or OT25mans. The Links below were extremely helpful to me starting up.

A simple and Straight Forward DK Tank Guide. Talks about itemization and rotation in dif specs.
http://www.ensidia.com/home/guides/t...-death-knight/

A great pre Naxx tank gear list. This is was originally designed for all classes so some gear doesn't pertain to DKs but its still good use. I used the one posted here on MMO-champ and then when i started doing heroics I used the one below to help guide me to which Heroics I should go to next for upgrades.
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/4...gear-list.html

Im Currently http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?deat...1,awY3eO,10392
the same as Blaug and I'm really enjoying it.

So far ill say being a DK tank is awesome but be prepared at the start for a rough ride. Might want to DPS till you can get some gear together to tank. I went right into tanking and its been a bit slow and painful with no one running normals and no one wants to take a tank with less then a certain amount of health on there runs. Now that I have more health its not an issue anymore but just food for thought.

[Deneve]

Why not?Just as simple as that..

[Solidshock]

personally.. i love tanking on my DK, even though i am dps main spec! as i ran naxx and heroics often with my guild, i started to pick up pieces of tanking gear, as i was geting ulduar gear on for my main spec, when i became def capped, i began to tank the odd heroic such as nexus and UK, and have now quickly progressed to HoL, HoS, and CoS, i have also off tanked XT002 and Razorscale. At first i found tanking a little dificult, but now i have quickly got used too it and find it extremely easy now that i have got all my key taunts and CDs keybinded.

Some taning advisce, smack down DnD as much as u can, and hold ur aggro, cos u have to pay attention alot more than when ur dpsing.

Well, my advice is to vary between both dpsing and tanking, as a dk neither is extremely hard, and both are extremely fun =P

Hope this helps, Solidshock!