Chain Pulling - Tank Views

[MonkH]

My main is a paladin, i also have druid, warrior and dk alts all with a tank spec. If i were to rank them of ease of chain pulling (in 5man dungeons, were mobs die in less than 10seconds) druid first then warrior then paladin and way behind would be a DK.

DK has 30sec cd on DND 8 sec cd on HB. (Ive only tanked as frost spec, pls update me if its easier to chain pull with other specs)
Paladins abilitys are 6-10sec cds.
Warriors have tc on 6sec cd also cleave on no cd.
Druids have no cd to stop them chain pulling.

Id like bit of advice for my dk on how to make chain pulling easier on him? and how would you see differences on chain pulling between tank classes

[Samin]

Option a) take it slower. Lay back and enjoy your stay in utgarde keep inn.
b) go unholy, I think there are some CD reduces plus some additional AoE. Never got a DK beyond 68 (too boring) but currently trying again, so don't beat me if I'm not up-to-date.
I think pest and blood boil (both cost blood runes) are some nice additional AoE abilities

[Medivh]

I don't see the cooldown of my paladin or druidtank so i chain pull if the healer is awaken....i prefer to do a quick and fast run.

[kismet]

Having tanked as a warrior, druid and DK, I definitely agree. DKs can frequently get caught short with no runes available and just have to watch as the adds run by...

Provided you have Howling Blast, chain pulling shouldn't be too much of a problem, eg. HB first pack, pull them into the 2nd pack, drop a DnD, IT + PS + Pest, and pull the remaining ones into the 3rd pack and Pest + Blood Boil to spread diseases before they fall off, prob HB again, that kinda thing.

Much harder with a Blood spec. There you need to chain your abilities, eg. DnD for the first pack, get off a DS or two to generate some Death Runes, use those to Blood Boil spam the next pack, use Empower to refresh runes for a new (emergency) DnD, and Blood Tap for another BB when you need it. DG one from the next pack to get them to run into an existing DnD. All about timing your pulls to coincide with runes refreshing.

I consider Morbidity an essential talent for any DK tank spec when doing heroics.

If you watch Omen carefully, you can judge how much aggro lead you have, and if the mob will die before someone else pulls aggro on it, you can safely stop using any other abilities on it, letting your runes refresh so you can use them on the next pack.

[davesurfer]

I have a druid and 2 pally tanks. I actually find chain pulling on pally easier and a requirement to keep DP up. God forbid it drops off and I eat to get mana. That 5 seconds drives people crazy, so pulling multiple packs keeps my mana up.

My druid is geared/gemmed for avoidance and I seem to have rage issues even when I pull 2-3 packs. I guess I should just use swipe instead of maul mixed in.

I am now working on the gear for my DK to tank. He could actually tank now, but people now look at 27K as not enough to tank a heroic :

[Arag]

[quoted]I am now working on the gear for my DK to tank. He could actually tank now, but people now look at 27K as not enough to tank a heroic [/quote]Tanked everything except icc heroics with 24k dk tank. 27k is enough.

As dk: DND, bloodboil, bloodboil and you have 3 grps. In meantime use pestilence. If you get offguard with no runes use empowerment. It's your cooldown ffs.

[Gestopft]

Blood Tap helps. But yeah, it's harder for DK's to go as fast as other classes. Druids want to go especially fast since they don't want their rage to decay. Warriors have much better mechanics for getting rage quickly.

[darkwarrior42]

Tanked everything except icc heroics with 24k dk tank. 27k is enough.

As dk: DND, bloodboil, bloodboil and you have 3 grps. In meantime use pestilence. If you get offguard with no runes use empowerment. It's your cooldown ffs.

I think he knows that it's enough, I just think he's commenting on people getting upset if you don't have a 30k tank to do heroics... :-/

[rabbimojo]

I've done aggressive chain-pulling as all 4 tanks, and so far I would say either paladin or warrior felt 'best' at it. My paladin was horde-side, though, so I'm not sure how I'd feel without the extra positioning oomph from the AOE silence.

As DK, if you want fast heroics I would strongly recommend taking the CD reduction on DnD. Learning to chain pull on a DK is mostly about maximizing the useful threat you get out of each rune or cooldown you use. IE, if you're towards the end of a pull, consider whether you need to use any more abilities to hold threat. If you're just dpsing, it's not "useful" threat. Save those runes for the next pull.

Another option is to take up engineering Use the nitro boots to get to the pull ahead of your dpsers, gives you a threat lead and then you can take it easy as the pull winds down, to be ready for the next.

[Orccy]

Chain Pulling i find as a Dk is pretty easy especially once you have 2pcs T9 since CD on DC goes from 6 secs down to 4 makes its just super fast, now i dont like to be slow in the randoms so i'm always moving after my initial threat bust (DnD - IT - PS - Pest) i just blood boil the next lot move on.

however this works only given the right set up, if your tanking a group with casters and massive AoE then its probably best that you do a mass pull rather than a contant chain and if you got great single target damage go chain pulling.

As a DK tank sitting at 36k unbuffed = 38k unbuffed with the LFG Buff thing of 5% i use DnD for first pull saving DC and DG then use DG and blood boil for next group and keep DC for any ninja pulls, Glyph DnD if your blood for randoms this will stop your AoE being real weak untill u get yourself 2 pc t10 then you can get rid of it.

gear and awareness is everything for a DK tank if your awake and feeling ninja you will chain pull your ass off.

being blood rather than unholy and frost i find it easier than both unholy and frost simply due to the lack of AoE to chain pull and due to having 90% of my gear ilvl 232 and above threat just is never a prob even if i just blood boil now it's real hard to peel aggro off me. unholy's AoE requires staying inside your AoE to keep threat mostly so there is a slight time gap between pulls could be removed simply by good use of CDs

[Puri]

My druid is geared/gemmed for avoidance and I seem to have rage issues even when I pull 2-3 packs. I guess I should just use swipe instead of maul mixed in.

Don't tank in tank gear as bear - just use your cat's gear or collect "bear damage" (strength) gear. And gem for arp. This way you will do 3-5k dps on hero trash, and thanks to your crit chance never run out of rage. And unbuffed 27k health is more than enough for heros, esp. because of the agi on you gear you still have almost 50% dodge.
And for paladins and warriors: >500 def is enough, just use your best off-gear in some slots, it will significantly increase your dps, esp. for warris. No one cares if you should receive a crit which does 4k dmg instead of a normal hit of 2k, it just increases your rage generation.
Nothing more annoying than druids with 60k life in heros doing 2k dps. What a waste of time.

Considering chain pulling, I have no idea about DKs, but my order for the other classes are:
1. Druid (no CD, just spam swipe/maul, just charge into the next group, even adding groups are never a problem to catch, casters are quite difficult to tank since druids have no silence that doesn't render the target immovable/stunned)
2. Paladin (smalll CDs, just spam hammer/shield/consec, but no charge to speed things up a little, adding groups may be an issue if they don't run by your consecration)
3. Warrior (small CDs, can charge, only thunderclap for real AoE threat, needs to switch targets, adding groups can be a real pain in the ass when TC is on CD, but has many fine skills like intercept and spellreflect. For sure the most challenging tank of those three tankclasses to master)

[patrinion]

My main is a DK tank (blood) with 54k raid buffed! because of my bloodspec i made it more for boss tanking but never have problems with A LOT of adds done icc10 man as solo tank! never had treath problems even not in the big groups.
spec that way that your DnD has a shorter CD, mine is 8 sec because of talents ( just as long as every other tank) and use your icy touch and plaque strike and use pestilence get your talents right so the infections stay 6 sec longer on adds and spam bloodboil and after 7 sec get your runes rdy to use your DnD again and so on and you will never loose a add and when you see a spike of burst dmg ( mostly with pally's) taunt that one back in and you can hold as many adds as the healer can heal you true!
and if you want keep running pulling adds and not losing adds just spam these thing while walking spot a few sec when you dropped DnD so you shoot higher on treath and run further! never had any problems with agro like that and i also like to do a dungeon fast!