are death knight tanks viable?

[Deleted]

theyre perfect imo druids are the worst tank.. and always been

[Seriss]

DKs are awesome. Very easy to heal. <3

[Voytrekk]

theyre perfect imo druids are the worst tank.. and always been

Druids haven't always been the best tanks. Think back to the beta when encounters were designed around having a druid tank and you couldn't do it without one. The main issue with druid tanks right now is our damage taken from AoE tanking. Blizzard just needs to make our Savage Defense like the Death Knight's blood shield, and then we will be near the top.

OT: As others have said, DKs are perfectly fine tanking. Any additional damage they are taking over other tanks can be mitigated through cooldowns and self heals.

[noteworthynerd]

Death Knights and then Druids are arguably the best and second-best tanks in the game right now, so your friends are terribly wrong lol. I've tanked on my Death Knight, my Druid and my Paladin, and so far I enjoy my Death Knight the most. You've got so many cool-downs and fun mechanics at your disposal, not to mention that awesome Blood Shield whenever you use Death Strike. =D

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I know why: Because of the feeling when you have a massive big expensive heal just about to hit them... and they deathstrike, bringing them close to full HP. Shit ton of overhealing, thx tank.

Nah, that's not it. Paladins WoGing and Warriors using Victory Rush do the same thing but it doesn't bother me. Being a Druid healer, overhealing in 5 mans is kind of par for the course. Doesn't hurt my mana any.

[Rudolpho]

We are 2\13 heroic with a DK and a druid tank, and I can say pretty confidently that its generally not tanks dying that causes us to wipe. DKs can get hit hard, but they have so many useful cooldowns and abilities that it more than makes up for it.

[Lirik]

12/12 tanked as a blood dk. So I assume so.

[Infernochaos]

yea DK tanks are one of the best tanks out there (if you know what you are doing) I do close to 6-8k hps + 7-9k dps and no one can get close to me on threat b/c im doing so much heals + my reg threat rotation.

[Strakha]

The most important thing to learn is to just chain your CDs so you always have some kind of a CD up to mitigate dmg, and knowing what is going to happen in advance, either by video or by DPSing an instance and observing the attacks and moves bosses and mobs do, you can basically anticipate things and use the proper CDs in the right order and cakewalk pretty much any encounter.

There is really no unexpected RNG type of moves these days, everything can be anticipated and the Blood DK has a CD for every thing. It's just a matter of chaining the right ones at the right times to maximize your survivability while using Death Strikes properly to gain that extra 8% healing.

[Sageless]

Nah, that's not it. Paladins WoGing and Warriors using Victory Rush do the same thing but it doesn't bother me. Being a Druid healer, overhealing in 5 mans is kind of par for the course. Doesn't hurt my mana any.

There is a BIG difference in the amount a Paladin heals with WoG on himself and a Warrior using Victory Rush with a Blood DK using Deathstrikes. Blood DK can reach 6k HPS on figths and yes, healing them when there is a lot of damage incoming can be quite annoying at times. With them Deathstriking to full just before Divine Light hits. Looking at them from a healing point of view I detest that they are balanced around self healing as it makes it more difficult to heal them.

On the other tank classes I am able to rotate expensive and efficient heals to maintain the HPS that is needed to keep them up. Blood DK's need the same amount of HPS, but due to their self heals it is quite possible to overheal, meaning I loose HPS that I need to rectify by using additional expensive heals.

In most cases this is a small annoyance, but as a direct healing class (paladin) this can easily result in massive overhealing. The fact paladins are pretty much forced back into tankhealing makes it suboptimal to have the combination of holy paladin and blood dk.

[Staunch]

So much fun to look at the DK fanboys and the blood shield rooters. It ain't about you doing ZOMG amazing hps as a DK, bc as everyone knows by now (hopefully) That is your avoidance / mitigation. Where as warriors and paladins are blocking the attacks. The 7k dps you are doing are obsolute information. Vengeance ftw eh?
DKs are nice, but for taunts they are absolutely horrible. They have 2 like for example paladins do. 1 on a 8 sec CD, and then 1 on a 30!!!! sec CD.
For add tanking that is horrible. For bosses, it's not a big deal, bc of the nonmiss taunts nowadays.

ATM All tanks are almost equal, close to anyways. That is the MAIN idea of tanks. To be balanced.