New DK Tank..

[M4neater]

Hi..

So I went to ICC25, twinkrun, with my new Tank Deathknight, having ~4800GS and being critcapped. I had around 50k hp fullbuffed with 35% avoid.
My problem was, definitly, keeping the aggro. Since I'm new to tanking, its really hard for me, ecspecially against those full 277geared guys who just spam aoe...

I started my rotation with DnD into the mobs, then IT - PS - Pestilence to share my little diseases with all those creeps, but I lost aggro in 1-2 seconds, barely managed to keep 4-5 mobs on myself with spaming Tab / HS.

Ok, it could be my gear, or the fact that i dont have 2t10 and DnD glyphe, but I never imagined these big aggroproblems, and I really felt totally useless and crappy.

So what do you think, am I doing something wrong?

My Glyphes are : Vampiric Blood, Death Strike and Rune Strike.

[Xunae]

an armory link would be nice, but with out it i can say that just starting icc and holding aggro from ppl with 277 gear will be difficult, if impossible, just because of the gear difference. are you MT or OT? if you are OT pop hysteria and just focus on a few of the mobs instead of trying to take all of them.

[M4neater]

http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...jatar&cn=Tykos

my armory, little updates now, but same problem in the end.

I was OT ^^

[XepNes]

First of all get rid of the blue belt and 200epics, and get key from frost and heart from black knight or trinket from Toc and get rid of that thumb, it raises your gearscore otherwise its useless. Well thats a start, not helping -> tell em to slack abit or let the MT do the job

[Deleted]

Use blood boil alot. It helps with aoe-tanking

[Chomag7]

Same prob only I'm worse geared and it's heroics.I'm wearing blues and epix, prolly 4k gs.

Let's asume a group of 4 mobs. I go in, dnd-IT-PS-pestilence. Right now I'm out of runes so I use blood tap and Heart Strike. At this moment everything I have is on cd and the dps overaggro and I need to dark command / dg which helps little.

On bosses there are no issues but on trash packs this is really stupid. For this reason I'm considering going frost for the extra snap aggro with howling blast.

Also, I find blood boil has very low threat. It's enough to get the mobs' attention off the healer or some dps who got too close and aggroed but when serious damage starts flying around, blood boil simply does nothing for me.

[Conno]

well obviously the gear is bad and you know that and this isn't a gear bashing thread etc.

First off, spend your frost wisely, 2pc t10 is a godsend for aoe tanking, that improved DnD is great, gives me the burst aggro as i get the diseases off and once they're out it's over and they're all MINE!

Avoidance trinkets are indeed dead and buried for dk's, you'll want to find either stamina or armor plated trinkets, we're all about mitigation rather than avoidance at the mo.

Lastly, a good tactic as you charge in is to drop that DnD, spread those diseases, hit blood tap and hit blood boil, that should give you a good starting aggro within 5 seconds.

also getting nearer that hit cap would help you greatly in general.

[M4neater]

but since its a long long way to 2t10, woulnd it be wiser to spend 60 marks in this great trinket ?

Aswell as I think, changing Deathstrike glyphe with DnD glyphe could help me..

[rabbimojo]

Couple things:
1) You aren't going to have ST TPS problems right now, since you can basically spam IT if that's what it takes. So, drop that rune strike glyph and pop DND in there. That will help.
2) Consider frost (or even unholy). Frost-2h is fine, since again, ST threat won't suffer, and the weapons don't affect your HBs. Unholy AOE is obviously going to be fine.
3) Get that 2t10.
4) You might really just have to ask people to back off for 1-2 seconds longer. It makes an enormous difference for a DK, since not only do you get the obvious threat, but it gets you that much closer to your next rune cooldown.

Regarding frost/unholy: realistically, as OT, for the bulk of the fights in ICC you aren't going to be taking the worst of it, so the stam/WotN (while nice) are not requisite. You can finagle the MT to take the bulk of all nastyhits. Even if you couldn't, the 20% buff makes even fresh tanks like you just fine for any fight.

---------- Post added 06-21-2010 at 02:21 PM ----------

but since its a long long way to 2t10, woulnd it be wiser to spend 60 marks in this great trinket ?

Aswell as I think, changing Deathstrike glyphe with DnD glyphe could help me..

Try the other suggestions before spending on the trinkets. It may seem a long ways off, but it's even longer if you spend the 60 now. Make sure you can hold threat before you spend the eofs.

[FireBorne]

um why are you running with ppl that have heroic 25 gear? and why are they running normal icc?

[Kittykitty]

Keeping good threat against well-geared players requires gear. Plain and simple.

You could be the best DK tank on the planet in all ilvl 200 gear and not have a chance at holding AoE aggro against an ilvl 277 hunter spamming volley.

[Pickwickman]

OP, if threat is REALLY your problem, try this:

Instead of using all your Death Runes on Heart Strike, use them on Icy Touch instead. Do this, and gain an easy 11k+tps. Also, don't forget to grab the IIT talent for the extra damage.


Edit: Also, for AoE tanking, and PURE AoE tanking, I could advise you to take an Unholy full AoE build, which nets more TPS on AoE than even frost, at the cost of no real snap aggro. (Don't flame me for this, let it sink in, unholy tanking is good for trash, when you don't need snap aggro. For single target it's poop, I know this.)

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0vMZhxZcghI0cbt0zx0uIq <-- A lil talentbuild centred for aoe tanking.

Second edit: Get http://www.wowhead.com/item=45551 crafted Belt
farm FoS for http://www.wowhead.com/item=50207 Boots
craft wrists: http://www.wowhead.com/item=47571

These crafts are very easy to get at the moment, and the boots are readily farmable, they will open up some gemslots for you to cap your hit/exp, which is a high TPS increase.

[M4neater]

OP, if threat is REALLY your problem, try this:

Instead of using all your Death Runes on Heart Strike, use them on Icy Touch instead. Do this, and gain an easy 11k+tps. Also, don't forget to grab the IIT talent for the extra damage.


Edit: Also, for AoE tanking, and PURE AoE tanking, I could advise you to take an Unholy full AoE build, which nets more TPS on AoE than even frost, at the cost of no real snap aggro. (Don't flame me for this, let it sink in, unholy tanking is good for trash, when you don't need snap aggro. For single target it's poop, I know this.)

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0vMZhxZcghI0cbt0zx0uIq <-- A lil talentbuild centred for aoe tanking.

Singletarget aggro isnt my problem, but the multitargetaggro ;D. You think spaming it - tab - it - tab - it - tab is better on 5+ mobs?

@ Items, as you can see at my shoulders and my legs, theyre already at an high ilevel, so I just dont to swap them now, and changing 60 marcs for handguards which can drop from ak10 or better, ak25... I dont know. I believe youre right, but I just want to go with the good guys on my server, and seeing me with 35000 hp unbuffed is ridicoulus, this is why I fell in love with the markstrinket

[Naxcis]

In all honesty, Frost is alot more fun : )

[Pickwickman]

Singletarget aggro isnt my problem, but the multitargetaggro ;D. You think spaming it - tab - it - tab - it - tab is better on 5+ mobs?

@ Items, as you can see at my shoulders and my legs, theyre already at an high ilevel, so I just dont to swap them now, and changing 60 marcs for handguards which can drop from ak10 or better, ak25... I dont know. I believe youre right, but I just want to go with the good guys on my server, and seeing me with 35000 hp unbuffed is ridicoulus, this is why I fell in love with the markstrinket

Reread my post nao first part is about single target, second part about AoE, also the EoF trinket is beast. For you its a huge upgrade from your trinkets, take it.

And I agree frost is a much more fun spec to play in AoE situations, but for sustained tps unholy > frost.

If you do all the things I have laid out, you probably would only get threat problems from people singletargetting in AoE situations, but in that situation, all tanks except for paladins have it hard.

[rabbimojo]

Singletarget aggro isnt my problem, but the multitargetaggro ;D. You think spaming it - tab - it - tab - it - tab is better on 5+ mobs?

@ Items, as you can see at my shoulders and my legs, theyre already at an high ilevel, so I just dont to swap them now, and changing 60 marcs for handguards which can drop from ak10 or better, ak25... I dont know. I believe youre right, but I just want to go with the good guys on my server, and seeing me with 35000 hp unbuffed is ridicoulus, this is why I fell in love with the markstrinket

By all means get the trinket. I just think that "Doesn't hold threat for beans" is going to cause you a lot more reputation/social trouble than "has 35k unbuffed hp", which is why I suggest you work to make sure you can hold threat before you worry about whether people think you'll live through it.

To be clear, I'm not saying "Buy the tier gear right now!", I'm saying "Hold onto the EoF until you're sure you can hold threat. If you can't, then you may have to suck it up and buy the gear to get 2set." And yes, you can get it from VOA, but you could also not see it drop for months. I've had both experiences in the extreme, so I don't plan around VoA much. ;P

[Squishie]

DK threat gets better the more gear you have to the point that you just don't even have to think about it. Frost will be a better tank spec for trash until you can grab 2 set tier 10. It's also a hell of a lot of fun.

Once your gear improves you will start to have less issues against well geared dps but there is no easy solution. As long as the dps are miles ahead of you on gear threat is there problem not yours.

DND - IT - PS - Pest - blood tap - Blood Boil - Death Strike - Death Strike - Empowered Rune weapon - Blood Boil x 6

That's what I use on big trash packs making sure to tab around after pestelance to share the rune strike love. I am much better geared than you but with that rotation no one is stealing your aggros. As a side note I hit 10k dps the other day with the middle and the left pack in the first room of ICC which is a new record for my DK

[Heltah]

DND - IT - PS - Pest - blood tap - Blood Boil - Death Strike - Death Strike - Empowered Rune weapon - Blood Boil x 6

That's what I use on big trash packs making sure to tab around after pestelance to share the rune strike love. I am much better geared than you but with that rotation no one is stealing your aggros. As a side note I hit 10k dps the other day with the middle and the left pack in the first room of ICC which is a new record for my DK

THIS. When ERW is on CD simply HS till BB is ready.

Also use this macro:

#showtooltip SPELLNAME
/cast SPELLNAME
/cast !Rune Strike

Replace SPELL NAME with the ability you need. I use this along all my Spells (DS, HS, Pest, BB, IT & PS) it will autocast Runestrike when rdy.
PS.: Use DeathCoil only to dump RunicPower when about to hit 100.

And

#showtooltip Death and Decay
/cast !Death and Decay

This macro allows you to Spam your DnD Button without canceling the Spell.

CHEERS

EDIT:
You also might consider some professions! :P

[Bokoshoko]

Firstly the gear differential between you and the i277 geared players is such that you won't maintain aggro over 5 damned if they're spamming their AoE attacks - there's not magic rotation or quick fix that's going to change that.

As you specifically mention that threat rather than death is the issue do not bother spending your frosts on the CSK - it's not going to help you at this stage and you'd be better off spending them on getting the 2pc T10 items or the cloak and belt.

If your role is going to be OT and you're going to end up doing things like add round-up on the lootship, Lady D adds etc then consider going Frost or Unholy both of which will give you beter AoE TPS with unholy better over a long period of time and frost better for snap aggro.

If the group is understanding you should also consider marking a specific mob in the trash, building threat on that then tabbing through the rest; the group can use focus fire on the marked mob and then by the time it's down you will have generated more threat on the other mobs and they're less likely to pull from you. If they won't go that far then get them to hold back - I'd had problems similar to yours at the start and I used to ask them to hold back till they saw the pestilence animation - too many people think that the minute DnD goes down that that is the cue for opening up with everything they've got.

[M4neater]

THIS. When ERW is on CD simply HS till BB is ready.

Also use this macro:

Replace SPELL NAME with the ability you need. I use this along all my Spells (DS, HS, Pest, BB, IT & PS) it will autocast Runestrike when rdy.
PS.: Use DeathCoil only to dump RunicPower when about to hit 100.

And

This macro allows you to Spam your DnD Button without canceling the Spell.

CHEERS

EDIT:
You also might consider some professions! :P

This DK hit 80 ~1 week around so I felt myself in the position to just go straight GEAR > Professions ;p.
All my attackspells are bond with Runic Strike, so thats no problem there....

And I fell in love with this trinket, but kk I'll keep your advice and go for 95 marcs -> Head / Chest.

Mining / Blacksmithing good combo for Tank ? Dont want to go Jewelcraft. again since my main already has it ^^.