DK Tank - i'll lose to much hp to fast

[Harmacy]

No, fail logic is fail. *off-topic rant*

Uhh... I was discussing Improved Icy Touch, which anyone with a brain would agree is required for a DK tank. I have no clue what you're talking about.

[eint]

Uhh... I was discussing Improved Icy Touch, which anyone with a brain would agree is required for a DK tank. I have no clue what you're talking about.

As said in other threads, IIT should only be taken if you are a Frost DK Tank or perhaps if you are an Unholy DK Tank. Stop posting your exact same post in different threads. IIT is really not that good of a talent.

[Morrigann]

DK tanks will always be a bit squishy, but that can improve with gear (which you seem to be fine with). Blood is a pretty good tree to pick from a health standpoint and is good for pugging 5 mans. Pick frost though for a raid that you have healers for. There is more armor and more damage to do. When 3.3 comes out, I would suggest farming heroics for the gear reset (though you are certainly fine for gear), and maybe switching to DW frost.
Also, Macro your rune strike and then get the +dodge sigil. Rune strike will be proccing ALL THE TIME, so it's a great sigil to use.

[Tcip]

Thanks for all rude comment and all answer. I don't recall who help me with the specc i got today, if i remeber it i will type it out. For it was some one in this forum..

No one answer me about a good specc if this is so "wrong".

[Jona]

I don't know... I've got some offspec tank gear and I'm focusing on avoidance. Something like 73% avoidance buffed and sigil up. What really annoyed me today was this druid tank who had around 500 less gearscore than me, yet he still took less damage than me and he also had quite a bit more HP than I did. Is it because of the goddamn block (or in this case the druid version of it)? He took in more hits than I did according to recount, but still he somehow managed to recieve less dmg. Maybe I got lucky with avoided hits during IBF. Maybe they should buff dk tanks. Maybe I'll have another drink. Not going for pure stamina either, but gemming avoidance stat + 15 stam on non-blue sockets for the bonuses. It's more of a personal choice, I want to take less dmg and avoid as many hits as possible when I'm tanking, not to be high on stamina sponging massive amounts dmg.

I think we should get a block mechanic. Why do you people say we scale perfectly fine when we've reached high gear levels? I think that's totally absurd. If we scale bad we scale bad, no matter what kind of gear we have. Classes that scale better scale better no matter what gear they have. I mean, if you get shitloads of bonus % to stamina from talents (good scaling), the better you scale with stamina gear. Doesn't matter what gear you have, the scaling - these % incresaes - always stay the same. Our scaling got nerfed big time with the frost presence nerf.

Go stam. Use cooldowns, you have plenty of them. DK's are not avoidance or mitigation tanks. Our only means of mitigation is cooldowns, meaning that when don't have a cooldown active, we are inherently going to take more damage.

Druids don't have block. They don't have parry, either. They only have dodge, armor, and stamina. You'll notice they stack things Agility and Stamina. This is because Agility gives them armor, dodge, and crit. As a DK tank, you want to follow a similar route. Stack stamina where possible, pick up a high-stam, high-agility 2-handed dps weapon, and don't worry about avoidance. The avoidance that comes with the gear you obtain will be sufficient for your Rune Strikes.

You will always, always take more damage than another tanking class as a DK unless you use your cooldowns correctly. Knowing when is half the battle. I am frequently whispered by healers in pug raids (and even my guild) that I'm the easiest tank to heal, despite being a DK, and the reason is because I know when to use cooldowns and how to carry myself.

DK's don't need block. We have Frost Presence, and it suits that purpose.

Whoever said DK tanks scale extremely close with gear was dead-on. DK tanks in iLvl200 gear don't do exceptionally well compared to other classes in equivalent gear. DK tanks in 226+ gear can be some of the best tanks in the game. If DK tanks were as bad as everyone says, my DK tank -- who, by the way, is an alt -- would not be able to tank ToGC. But he does tank ToGC, despite being an alt and despite starting out in Conquest badge gear.

To the OP, your spec is fine. Your gear needs work, but it's sufficient. Keep up Horn of Winter, manage your runes, use cooldowns liberally (they'll be up again before you know it in heroic runs). Tab-targeting is your best friend. Macro Rune Strike and hit every mob you pull with it at least once. Twice if there's a Warlock hitting it. Consider re-speccing into a Frost build for better AoE threat until you're geared up enough to tank raids. Blood is perfectly fine for tanking heroics, but Frost has really good AoE threat and is better suited for heroics until you're in better gear.

[Deleted]

The only justification for skipping IIT is if someone can reliably maintain it. It's a vital raid debuff.

If your guild is letting raid bosses run around with a weaker version of it because you don't want to spend 3 talent points (with some DPS and TPS on the side) you're certainly doing it wrong.

For trash / adds it's not "vital" but still recommended taking it as a DK tank, especially considering 2 of the 4 tanks can't apply the debuff to multiple targets effectively.

Either way though, unlike DPS there's no "optimal" tanking spec. The values of talents vary wildly depending on what you're tanking.