dks without shields?

[brain]

i have one of top geared dk tanks on my server but our guild raid leader and some others feel like dks arent optimal mts on say blood queen,lich king and few other bosses because we lack shields they would rather have a pali or warrior mt i was curious if any others have had this problem or if it was just my bad luck?I m not greedy about mt ing all the time we usually swap but it aggervates me when some1 says u cant mt this without a shield and ya dont even get to try, my undrestanding was dks dont have shields cause we dont need to hide behind them lol thus y my dk is my tanking toon

[Duskmourne]

Dks are balanced around not using shields. The same holds true for druids.

[Catta]

the main tanks of my guild were discussing with a dk who had been tanking up untill then and he actually went dps instead since dk tanking is a bit flawed... we take incredibly spikey dmg as u prolly have noticed...

[scoobysnacks]

MT'ing with a DK does require tighter control of abilities, but I've seen some fantastic ones tank all of those you mentioned.

As Duskmourne said, they are balanced without shields, so there is no reason why they can't tank anything in-game.

[mhp]

Your guild leader and some of the other fellas are terrible, if they think DKs aren't capable of tanking anything the other tank classes can. We are.

[KandyCane]

On Blood Queen I can understand it. Since the damage taken by the off-tank depends on the damage taken by the main-tank, you'd want the one with most mitigation to main-tank her, in this case someone with a shield.

However, for Lich King I'd prefer a Death Knight over a Warrior due to their cooldowns.... though, I don't actually have any experience with Death Knight tanks, so I could be wrong

[Arean]

As it has been stated in this thread, DKSs are balanced around not having shields

However, that doesn't mean they can't MT, a DK can MT fine, it just requires a good use of CD's and abilities. so in essence they can tank just as well as anyone else, the skill cap is just higher.

EDIT: DK Tanking in general actually has a lot more to do with the skill of the player than his gear. They say 2xTanking weapons is the biggest no-no for any Frost Tank, but I was able to MT the first six bosses of ICC25 with dual Rimefangs Claw without any problem, so I'm guessing it has more to do with utilizing the right abilites than anything else.

[restoftw]

i have one of top geared dk tanks on my server but our guild raid leader and some others feel like dks arent optimal mts on say blood queen,lich king and few other bosses because we lack shields they would rather have a pali or warrior mt i was curious if any others have had this problem or if it was just my bad luck?I m not greedy about mt ing all the time we usually swap but it aggervates me when some1 says u cant mt this without a shield and ya dont even get to try, my undrestanding was dks dont have shields cause we dont need to hide behind them lol thus y my dk is my tanking toon

We dont hide behind the shields!:P but it feels safer if u see a huge axe swinging against you

[ChildeRoland]

My guild's raid leader is our MT. He has the best tanking gear, and tanks most fights. He don't tank Bloodqueen though, but MT's LK :S (DK)

[jai151]

Our 10 man tanking setup is me MT and a bear OT. Shields are for wussies =P

[Pinkley]

I think the asnwr too that might be becaue you lack loads of avoidance compared to pala and warr..
so its nothing weird about not getting to MT

[terrih91]

worlds first HC LK kill was a druid MT. the druid has no sheild just armor and stam and doge. the dk has armor stam and parry and doge ur fine at tanking u dont need block ur a meat sheild.

[Parietis]

I think the asnwr too that might be becaue you lack loads of avoidance compared to pala and warr..

From what? Are Death Knights lacking an avoidance talent that Warriors and Paladins get? Last I checked they get the same 5% dodge, and in fact Frost gets an extra 3% miss. And aside from shields, the gearing differences are minimal; in fact Death Knights may end up with higher avoidance, since they take no gear with shield block rating/value, which comes down to either more avoidance, more expertise, or more hit.

so its nothing weird about not getting to MT

Apparently you also missed ~2 years of Blizzard posts stating their design is that all four tanks can main tank pretty much anything.

[Shiira]

Dks get more armour from frost presence than paladins or warriors get from their shields, so unless your raid leader thinks that block matters he's probably trying to replace you for another reason and just using shields as an excuse.

[PANDALOL]

Then your guildleader is a blood elf male.

[BoxofRox]

Show me a DK on wowiki that uses a shield, please, seriously.

Thassarian was a DWing DK, which is why we have it. Every other held two handed weapons.

[vemynal]

a druide tank once told me that druids have "Savage Defense", which he claimed to be something like the druids form of blocking

I#m not sure how all this together influences the avoidance of a charakter, but I think neither bear or dk are better or worse than a paladin or warrior (I'm a holy/disci, don't feel any difference in healing either one)

so I think Parietis is right, it depends on the player and his skills, not the class

[Mufasaprime]

the whole shield thing has plaqued me as a tank, especially endgame hardmodes, i have been replaced countless times on countless fights for a shield prot warrior, or a soakadin, though how i stam stack, armor stack, and with a responsible amount of avoidance, i tank very nicely (thanks to 4-peice tier 10 and bone shield) im like a druid, just not the whole Robert Williams look

[Zao]

the whole shield thing has plaqued me as a tank, especially endgame hardmodes, i have been replaced countless times on countless fights for a shield prot warrior, or a soakadin, though how i stam stack, armor stack, and with a responsible amount of avoidance, i tank very nicely (thanks to 4-peice tier 10 and bone shield) im like a druid, just not the whole Robert Williams look

Read the bold part.
Unholy is simply the worst tanking spec at the moment (and I'm counting 2h Frost as a seperate spec here). BSh falls off too quickly in most cases, and the threat/dps is subpar.That might be the reason they rather let you offtank

[brain]

im a blood tank with 49k hp unbuffed and 8% dodge in icc with 25% parry i know unholy isnt as good a spec but i think good blood dks can tank anything another tank can i just dont see y others think they cant unless there not not good in blood spec