So I was tanking a heroic...

[Jessicka]

DKs are such horrible tanks, I tanked VoA10 and half of Nexus last night without being in any presence (dual spec ftfail). I only realised in Nexus something was up because the Warlock had left his Demon's taunt on.

[kenneth044]

IMO
Heroics: Pally > Warrior > Death Knight > Druids
Raids: Doesn't really matter, althought I don't like healing druids for some reason ???

[Azutael]

I dont care what class, or what gear the tank have. Aslong as the player is acctually good.
Well, gear should be heroic ready obviously but thats not hard to come by anyways.

I still prefer a good prot warrior to tank.

[Shawaam]

As far as I know, DKs are the worst tank, if you only judge the class and not the players, due to them being quite squishy as far as I know. Can deal the highest threat though, if you spam Icy Touch like crazy :P

[dabros]

it's a heroic, does it really matter?

[Shiira]

due to them being quite squishy as far as I know

We have more armour than warriors and paladins in the same gear as well as better passive defences, better cooldowns and a better 4t10 set bonus than either of them, so I'm not sure where you got that from.

Sure we take more damage in heroics but in the situations where tank survivability is actually an issue we are equal at worst.

[evan_s]

As a general statement I would say it's false. DK tanks work a bit differently than other thanks but all tanks are close enough together in EH and other metrics that it's more about gear and skill than class.

In the specific context of heroics, classes with a shield can get to the point where they are literally mitigating every incoming melee attack from the trash to 0 damage by dodging, parrying or blocking every attack and block is absorbing enough damage to reduce the attack to 0 dmg. This is part of the reason why they are changing block to a percentage for cataclysm. It's an interesting trick, so to speak, but ultimately pointless as healing heroics is already easy enough you don't need the tank to literally take no damage from the trash to make it easier.

[Nektarious]

This is slightly off topic, but I was running around on my DK alt the other day, leveling it up. I had joined lfg to do a BC instance. Ramps pops and I go in. I take a look at the warrior tanks gear, and I'm surprised to see him with the old vanilla pvp shield and 1-h sword. I figured he had some experience and knew what he was doing. This lasted until the pulls right before the first boss, where he pulled more than he could handle. Me being the professional meat shield that I am, switched to frost pres, grouped all the mobs and took over tanking for the pull. After preventing the wipe, I get told to go back to blood pres and stay in my place. I asked what was his issue with DK's. SHouldn't have bothered to do that as the next five minutes was spent dealing with the rant coming from this guy how DK's aren't good tanks and that everyone that plays one gets given everything, etc... the usual. Well we get to the boss, and the healer manages to get aggro from one of the adds and the hunter gets aggro from the other. So, once again I switch to frost after a few seconds of this to prevent the wipe. After the fight he starts bitching again. I say fine if you think we are so bad at tanking, I'll tank the rest of the instance. You go DPS and we'll see the difference. I pulled the next three groups, and he initiated a kick and booted me from the group. I felt bad for them after that, none of them really knew what they were doing. I got a tell from one of the group that happened to be from my server 20 minutes later saying he was sorry about that. They hadn't been able to finish it after they booted me because he kept dropping aggro to the healers/other DPS.

So sorry about the wall of text and soap box time.
But the bottom line is that the skill of the tank is always the biggest factor in running an instance. I've tanked them on my warrior and on my DK. By mechanics a DK will take more damage in a heroic, but we don't have the issue with AoE threat on retarded pulls.

But as long as you don't have a stupid DPS pulling before anyone is ready almost everything is out geared now.

Just follow the old addages of; slow is smooth, smooth is fast and fast is deadly; and if the tank dies, it's the healers fault, if the healer dies it's the tanks fault, and if the DPS dies it's their own fault.

[Nibbler]

It seems that DK tanks have the hardest time of actually being played well. So are all DK bad tanks?, no. Are all people who play DK tanks bad players?, no. But there is a fairly large learning curve to a good DK tank. When I am tanking, I will only tank as a DK. Bears have only 2 buttons to press, pallies are boring as hell to tank (IMO) and I just never liked playing warriors in any spec (can't stand Rage mech...).

Chances are the druid was just upset because he had a bad DK and thinks all DK must be bad. Stereotypes are counter-productive in almost every regard.

Basiclly, IMHO, I will always play DK > any other tank. However as a healer, I don't care who I am healing. In a heroic or raid, whatever the case, tanks are tanks, enjoy the game.

If you enjoy playing a DK tank, play it. Never listen to people's misguided hate of a class/spec. Pardon my internet speak here, but if you have 'butthurt' healer in a heroic, just run it, get your tokens and put them out of your mind. People that will not be open minded and listen to reason are pointless to argue with. This is a game, not real life. You shouldn't need to deal with people like that in a game.

[Emothianes]

DKs have significant trouble in heroics at low gear levels. However, its more of a design flaw than the fault of the class. We're probably the most engaging of all the tanking classes when it comes to AoE aggro before the content is stupidly out-geared.

[SilkforCalde]

Honestly, i prefer a DK over a warrior any day, considering the DK is good..

Their AOE ability makes waves in Halls of Reflection x10 easier than a shitty warrior running around and taunting.

Yeah... this post is pretty fail. I find tanking HoR to be almost made for a warrior tank. So easy.

[Shaefaerie]

For lack of a shield dks, like druids, make up for it in other areas.


on a side note 95% of death knights are bads.


also 60% of statistics are made up on the spot



he probably just hates dks.

[Deleted]

Next time just question the healer right back, then proceed to self heal with death strike ;3

[Sesshomaru]

But when it comes to Magic fights, then EVERYONE would like a DK tank. (Like HC MGT, soloing it as a tank is easy, however noone except DK tanks can dodge that damn Pyroblast from Kael'thas )

[Jirmus]

I just wanted to make sure about something. Are Death Knights really the worst tanks in the game atm? Or is this guy just a DK hater?

i always get told: Dude put some gear off it's so boring to heal you becous i dont!
that is just in heroic's gear and now im in icc gear i always tell the healer to go dps and trow a heal if needed. they do so... everyone happy eh?


OT: no we are sertainly not the worst class to tank did he complain about his bear ass tanking to mutch dmg? no? well then he was already race changed into a troll i guess. he is still one of those burthurt people becous they cant one shot a newly dinged dk in pvp with their wrathfulls gear becous they lack skill.

anyone got a better explanation?

[Deleted]

Problem with common DD-behaviour on a dk-tank is that on ae-pulls (which make up a lot of the pulls) a dk needs 3 gcd's to get a firm aggro on the mobs. Sure, with KM+HB it's no problem, but an opening with DnD, HB, PS, Pestilence will not suffice against bladestorm, divine storm+soc or whatever.

DK is the only tanking class that lacks reliable upfront-aoe-aggro and that's something many DDs call "bad tanking".

[Spartanoble]

shields are for pussies

[SilkforCalde]

Problem with common DD-behaviour on a dk-tank is that on ae-pulls (which make up a lot of the pulls) a dk needs 3 gcd's to get a firm aggro on the mobs. Sure, with KM+HB it's no problem, but an opening with DnD, HB, PS, Pestilence will not suffice against bladestorm, divine storm+soc or whatever.

DK is the only tanking class that lacks reliable upfront-aoe-aggro and that's something many DDs call "bad tanking".

If an arms warrior pops Bladestorm early in a pull, no matter which tank they have, they will pull threat and I will let them die and then I will spam /laugh and /golfclap until they leave the group.

[GuyWithFace]

If an arms warrior pops Bladestorm early in a pull, no matter which tank they have, they will pull threat and I will let them die and then I will spam /laugh and /golfclap until they leave the group.

Based off your posts from other threads, you're one of the most amazing tanks ever. And yet, you won't simply taunt the mob off of the BS'ing warrior and do your job as a tank?

Back on topic:

Some people are simply biased against DKs from the beginning of Wrath, *still*. Sometimes I'll pop on my tank gear if I don't feel like waiting 5-10 minutes for a DPS queue for my daily. If a healer says "OMG DK TANK GTFO BAD", which happens very rarely, I might add, I just ignore them, and proceed in pulling mobs.

This is true for most tanks in semi-decent gear, but unless it's one of the ICC 5-mans, I don't even need heals in a heroic. On more than one occasion I've continued and finished a heroic after the healer left for whatever reason without replacing them.

[SilkforCalde]

Based off your posts from other threads, you're one of the most amazing tanks ever. And yet, you won't simply taunt the mob off of the BS'ing warrior and do your job as a tank?

Hmm? It's the dpsers job not to pull threat. If they do a high threat AOE ability in the first seconds of a pull? They deserve to die. And I will let them do so and laugh about it. How hard is it to wait a few seconds?