I'm looking into raiding 10N or even 10H as a tank, but I hear that Blood isn't good.

[Colors]

Statements like this are what cause people to shy away from Blood. Yes, as Blood you will take certain hits without bloodshield up, that's just the nature of our am - however, if you understand the class and play intelligently, you will have a shield for every dangerous attack that comes your way. Also, we have cds out the ass, so if you ever find yourself in an oh shit moment, there's always something to pop.

OP - If you're interested in it, then give it a shot. People are too quick to give sweeping generalizations about specs/classes, but it really comes down to what you like and your skill.

[Darsithis]

Statements like this are what cause people to shy away from Blood. Yes, as Blood you will take certain hits without bloodshield up, that's just the nature of our am - however, if you understand the class and play intelligently, you will have a shield for every dangerous attack that comes your way. Also, we have cds out the ass, so if you ever find yourself in an oh shit moment, there's always something to pop.

OP - If you're interested in it, then give it a shot. People are too quick to give sweeping generalizations about specs/classes, but it really comes down to what you like and your skill.

Absolutely. Played right there is nothing wrong with a blood DK. I stuck through T12 with one (went avoidance for that tier) and even managed heroic modes.

[Phanuel]

They all can take full damage. Warriors can't CTC cap any more. Bears don't parry OR block.

Can't CTC, sure, but you're still blocking passively 30% of all physical damage for 6 out of 9 seconds, and can shield barrier (all damage) for gap coverage.

Bears are also at the bottom with DKs of the tanking power rankings at the moment.

[PerryTP]

Did anyone do 25H SoO? How did that go if someone did it?

EDIT: Not that it matters now, but I'd like to start or join a guild that will do Mythic raids in WoD but who knows how will the DKs be by then

[Snuzzfizzle]

Killed Garrosh HC with my Prot Paladin and killed up to Malkorok HC on my Blood DK.
It really doesn't matter what kind of tank you are for 10N and DKs are just fine the first half of 10H as well. Heck, I solo soaked Malkorok Blood Rages phases fairly well.
I've progressed spoils HC on my DK without any problems whatsoever and I've heard of DKs solo tanking Thok.

Klaxxi HC and Garrosh HC are the only encounters where I imagine DKs having problems due to the spiky damage nature of the fights.

Bottom line is, Blood DKs are fine for what you're looking for.

[Shiira]

If you're starting raiding now, don't worry about it.

Death knights are weaker than other tanks, but the difference is pretty small and you aren't going to be competing at a level where your choice of tank is going to hold you back anyway.

For what its worth my guild did every heroic mode apart from siegecrafter with a dk tank, and we never felt like he was holding us back on the thirteen bosses he was in for.

[PerryTP]

Was that 10 or 25 Heroic?

[onemanaleft]

They all can take full damage. Warriors can't CTC cap any more. Bears don't parry OR block.

warriors can keep up shield block

bears have 70-75% armor while blood dks have 56-58%. a dmg taken differance of about 1.5 more

if dks had the option to be able to stack armor till 75% reduction, or just passively have 70ish without doing any stacking, then they wouldnt be spikey at all

[Herecius]

It doesn't even matter if Blood isn't *quite* as good as the other tanks, because if we're being honest here, it's really only the bleeding edge of progression where those kinds of differences actually matter. Blood will do perfectly fine throughout content you'll be hitting when played properly.

[Anetulan]

9/14 normal and our blood dk is amazing. High damage, doesn't die easily. Even if they aren't the best, a DK is more than viable for what you're doing. They may be a bit spikier, but they can heal back that damage quick, and have a lot of cooldowns for when they need it.

[Liax]

They are only good damage if they are the main tanks, ie the scumbag tank stealing all the vengeance. However, survivabilitywise, they can live through pretty much anything with the right amount of mastery. Magic damage though... not so much. But with the new AMS glyph, it's amazing how much shorter of a cd AMS is. Also with the vial from malkorok, it's even better.

In the end, a well played DK will out tank a monk or a pally that are mediocre anyday. Play what you find fun.

[Sunnydee]

It doesn't even matter if Blood isn't *quite* as good as the other tanks, because if we're being honest here, it's really only the bleeding edge of progression where those kinds of differences actually matter. Blood will do perfectly fine throughout content you'll be hitting when played properly.

while i understand what you're thinking, bolded isn't exactly the real truth, if you'd be a dk with equal gear, skills and progress as prot pala/warr as example. and both apply to same guild, guess who they would take...

just beacuse its not cutting edge doesnt mean the guild wont do everything they can to make progress easier. i meanwhy make it harder for yourself then it has to be?

[Shiira]

Was that 10 or 25 Heroic?

That was 25 man.

[Deleted]

I love how people are so set on druid-tanks being the worst tanks, dunno if Im supposed to laugh or cry.

[Powell]

DKs are capable of tanking the same as the other tanks. The difference is in the way they deal with damage taken.
Other tanks mitigate it, DKs convert it.

Its how healers have to deal with that damage intake that makes DKs less desired than other tanks, wich have smoother damage intake.
Its a dangerous game to play with damage spikes.

Additionally, DKs lack raid utility. The only raid utility they get is from a talent, Anti-Magic Zone.

[Tojara]

I like how people think Feral tanks are awful, they aren't.

DK is on a tier of it's own as far as useful to the raid.

Our damage is actually fairly decent if you do an avoidance build, every other category we are awful at. We excel in zero things as far as raiding 'categories' go this tier. Basically there is never going to be a time where your raid would think that a DK could do this job way better than another tank.

Still a viable tank option though. We did 14/14H with me tanking as one. Few of the bosses hit pretty hard, but you can still make due.

It's a shame because unlike Cataclysm where we actually had a tier where DKs were amazing (save a couple bosses, which is fine) we never really had one this time, lol. Dragon Soul was amazing for DKs, except for like Spine.

[CausalXXLinkXx]

They aren't that bad, but they are worse than paladins/warriors/monks.

[onemanaleft]

being the lowest dps tank is also pretty bad on top of the spikey dmg

this is mainly since we have all weapon dmg abilities, not attack power abilities, so with vengeance our dmg barely goes up

[falagar112]

DKs are capable of tanking the same as the other tanks. The difference is in the way they deal with damage taken.
Other tanks mitigate it, DKs convert it.

Its how healers have to deal with that damage intake that makes DKs less desired than other tanks, wich have smoother damage intake.
Its a dangerous game to play with damage spikes.

Additionally, DKs lack raid utility. The only raid utility they get is from a talent, Anti-Magic Zone.

Just my 2c, being a DK tank in a 25HM guild. My guild is running warrior/druid/dk as tanks, there hasn't been a single fight where I felt I had problems. I cannot speak about siegecrafter (progressing on him) since I am doing that fight as frost (needed mine slows) but since they fixed DRW affecting adds that should be cake too.

I don't really agree with "how healers have to deal with the damage intake" you are talking about spikes. The one thing that DK shines at is spike recovery by personal cooldowns, not external healing. I've experienced the 100%->30% hp instant hp drops, the nature of an avoidance build, but my healers don't get an instant heart attack when they see me drop, because they know I am perfectly able to handle that drop myself. On the other hand when our warrior tank is abit to trigger happy pulling trash out of range of healers, he will actually die because he can mitigate the damage perfectly but cannot heal himself up at the same time, so he dies (slowly!) while I can perfectly handle myself until healers catched up.

I think out of a 10 man PoV, most guilds would take a monk/paladin/warrior over a druid/dk only for one sole reason: raid utility. There's only so much raid utility you can put in a 10 man roster, while on a 25m roster you are not as reliant on them because you can take dps warriors and ret/holy paladins too. More flexibility. We do lack on raid utility unfortunatly - though do not forget about mass grip - it's an awesome spell thats really good on quite a few hardmodes this tier.

I personally feel fine, but I would love some more raid utility, im considering rerolling another tank class come WoD if they do not fix the issues that plague our class currently. One of the reasons we were such awesome tanks during DS is because the DS 4 set gave us a really awesome raid cooldown on top of AMZ. Give back raidwide VB please

[Irefusetodie]

Tank balance is about as good as it has ever been. Any tank can tank any content. However, just because the margin between them is smaller doesn't mean that there isn't a margin.

DKs are considered "low tier" because their damage intake is a hell of a lot burstier and spikier than the other tanks. Burst is what kills tanks, so put 2 and 2 together.