4.3 Death Knight Tanking Guide and Discussion

[Deleted]

Hi Outlined.

With your tanking gear you shouldn't have any problems in heroics. Sure you could get some more hit, but that would only help you in the threat and interrupt departement.
As long as you pay attention to the mechanics bosses should be cake. Otherwise they can and will oneshot you.
In some dungeouns trash really is more annoying and dangerous than the bosses. If you haven't yet, start marking mobs for CC. Best candidates are caster and healer type mobs. Or if you haven't enough CC, burn those down first and keep interrupting.

If you're doing all these things already, it could be that your healers aren't up for the challenge. They have to know that your health will jump up and down quite a bit and start throwing big spells at you early on is wasted mana. (Try a guild healer once and get him on vent. Let him tell you if you're squishy or not)

Hope this can help you a little bit. Wish you the best and good luck.

[Zao]

I've also noticed that I get into groups with significantly worse geared healers and DPS after I hit the 350 ilvl mark.
Makes my daily hc a pain if there's not guildies around.

[Deleted]

Hey Zao, after going back and forth on the matter in the "Tanking without DRW" thread, I looked into this sticky.
In section 1.7 of the OP you basically say "Use DRW when you need more threat" but while discussing glyphs you devalue Glyph of DRW, because as of now threat is not an issue. However you don't mention the +20% parry buff DRW also provides with an uptime of ~13.3%.
Wouldn't this make it an "Use on cooldown" ability such as glyphed VB? Of course you wouldn't want to spent RP if you plan to LB/DC or RD/DP heal you in the near future. But between Boss's coolddowns it can help save healer mana.

[Zao]

It really depends, it's most effective when used together with BSh, or wduring phases with increased damage from autohits (Cho'Gall Fire command). I usually wouldn't suggest using it on cd like glyphed VB.

[zealous]

I have a question. I'm currently leveling a blood dk. Objectively will have to spend a lot of time in heroics.

I don't have any problems with single target threat, but I was wondering what is the AoE threat rotation of choice for you guys? The issue is to get it fast, considering how trigger happy most dps are.

Also what talents would you suggest for good AoE tanking?

Are Crimson Scourge and Morbidity worth the points invested into them?

(note I'm mostly aiming at tanking heroics with this char for faster gearing, not looking for raid tanking advice)

Thanks in advance.

[Zao]

From the sticky:

1. Mark Stuff. Be a good tank and at least mark a skull and maybe a cross. If cc is available, use it and mark a cc target
2. Death and Decay a bit in front of the group, so the tip of it just touches the mob closest to you. This is to prevent that mobs don't run out of DnD while you're still running towards them.
3. If necessary: DG a caster to you
4. IT on skull
5. Pestilence
6. Blood Boil
7. Depending on your Blood Runes either DS or BB (if >3 targets) or HS (if <4 targets)
8. Rune Strike, and if you have a comfortable threat lead, tab through targets and RS them too.
9. Interrupt and use DSi

And you really shouldn't be having problems with AoE threat, even in heroics. So these talents are considered a waste of points, yes.

[zealous]

From the sticky:


And you really shouldn't be having problems with AoE threat, even in heroics. So these talents are considered a waste of points, yes.

Hm well maybe I'm just used to tanking as a paladin and warrior where you have a couple of straightforward AoE spam moves.

Preping AoE threat through DnD>IT>Pestilence seems a long time in comparison, not to mention DnD and Frost Fever are DoTs (i.e. tick over time and dont frontload threat) and you are also not generating much threat on the primary target.

Does DnD generate a lot of additional threat btw?

[Blueguy]

Does DnD generate a lot of additional threat btw?

very much so. Directly from the tooltip: "This ability generates a high amount of threat"

Also, after pestilence, if there's problems sticking mobs to you, note the quote from the sticky. BB and HS both get them to stick.

[Deleted]

Well if you have a DD going all out on Cross instead of Skull you'll get a problem. Otherwise D'n'D + diseases are sufficient to keep non-skull targets stick to you. Often you can start cycling through mobs after you landed a couple of Rune Strikes. Also Heart Strike's cleave helps you a lot.

[Zao]

Aye, the above statement was written under the assumption that your DPS are not blind.

There's little chance anyone will hold aggro with 3 DPS dpsing a different target each.

[zealous]

Aye, the above statement was written under the assumption that your DPS are not blind.

There's little chance anyone will hold aggro with 3 DPS dpsing a different target each.

Well as paladin you mostly have enough AoE to hold mobs even if your dps lack brain cells. I'm new to DK tanking and the AoE moves feel a bit slow in build-up to me.

I'd like to think I'm not an inexperienced tank, I know enough to tab cycle and have known how to efficiently execute sheep pulls since TBC. More interested in DK class mechanics and spell roles. BB for example seems a bit weak to me damage-wise, and I'm not sure if spending time and runes on diseases>pestielnce is always worth it.

very much so. Directly from the tooltip: "This ability generates a high amount of threat

Yes, I've learned to read the tooltips after 4 years playing this game, thank you very much =)

As the description "high amount" was vague however, I decided to ask for a personal feel. I didn't do any research on the modifiers.

[Joker12489]

Alright i got a question here is my dk tank stats

Hp 124k unbuffed
Mastery 14.25%
Expertise 17
hit 3%
Dodge: 12.11%
Parry: 12.09%
Avg. itmlvl 338

now my thing is i just ran a heroic deadmines and i got OWNED like steam rolled. I go down pretty fast i'm trying to improve myself as a tank so i ask for help and not to be flamed. Based on my stats what is wrong? i know it's not the way i play im using the right moves for the situation at hand but is my gear that bad. Do i need more dodge/parry? or mastery what? i'm so lost i was like =O after deadmines just confused i can tank several other heroics without an issue but gaaaahh.

[Venjin]

Quick question, is there a definitive choice in what we should gem in our prismatic sockets? My DK's a blacksmith and I've left her extra sockets open as I'm not sure whether we're supposed to gem straight stam, mastery/stam, parry/stam, or dodge/stam.

[Zao]

Joker12489: 124k seems awfully low for an ilvl of 338. Is that with or without Blood Presence? DM is a rather dangerous instance damage wise. Try using more cc if you're getting wtfpwnd by trash and rotate your cds on bosses. Not much else I can say with the info you've given.

Venjin: There's two gearing strategies currently. Gemming stamina and reforging for avoidance, or go all out for Mastery. Both have been proven to be viable for endgame. But nobody knows which one's truly superior.

[warzin]

ok i've only read the first few pages so i might have mist somebody else being wierd and tried this aswell but, as a gnome DK if you can manage your thread is it valuable to get 2 tank 1h swords(gnome racial=3 expertise with 1h sword) with the 3% hit talent in frost? this way you have a free 3 expertise and 3% hit. i just dinged my DK 85 and still gearing(its not my main). i'm hoping this is in anny way atleast a bit valid? (trying to get the 1h sword out of hc stonecore, wearing 333 maces from grim botal atm)

i do know it isnt the best but i'm just wondering if this is valid enough to keep it for hcs etc. (i always liked the little gnome tanking with his 2 swords since wrath)

(sorry if i have anny spelling errors but i got even problems with that in my own language)

using the 2% parry on mainhand for the ocasional disarm and %stamina/armor on ofhand

[Zao]

To quote myself again:

Wrong.

EJ did discuss it in the old thread and it was quickly dismissed, because DW provides ~1RP/sec over 2H. That's 1 RS (which has a 150% threat modifier btw) per 30 seconds and on average 1 DS per 3 minutes.

That does not even begin to offset the threat you loose by having 1000 less maxdamage on your weapon.

LB is taken in a 2H spec anyway, the only difference is that three of the talent points you spend to get there are not wasted.

Hit is not important for overall survivability, neither is expertise. Oh, and even with 8% hit and 26 expertise you'll still have a 9% chance to be parried.

Look. This kind of thread pops up twice a week. And each and everytime I post http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ght=Discussion . All of the arguments brought up here have already been discussed in that thread and DW was dismissed as loosing far too much for virtually no gain.

I know this answer is a tad unfriendly, but we get your question very often, and just a bit of research would've given you one of the thirty threads that have been made since the cataclysm hit and said that DW is not viable, especially not in heroics, where threat cana ctually be an issue.

[Venjin]

Joker12489: 124k seems awfully low for an ilvl of 338. Is that with or without Blood Presence? DM is a rather dangerous instance damage wise. Try using more cc if you're getting wtfpwnd by trash and rotate your cds on bosses. Not much else I can say with the info you've given.

Venjin: There's two gearing strategies currently. Gemming stamina and reforging for avoidance, or go all out for Mastery. Both have been proven to be viable for endgame. But nobody knows which one's truly superior.

Thanks Zao. I wasn't sure if we had anymore confirmation for which is superior yet.

[Joker12489]

Joker12489: 124k seems awfully low for an ilvl of 338. Is that with or without Blood Presence? DM is a rather dangerous instance damage wise. Try using more cc if you're getting wtfpwnd by trash and rotate your cds on bosses. Not much else I can say with the info you've given.

Venjin: There's two gearing strategies currently. Gemming stamina and reforging for avoidance, or go all out for Mastery. Both have been proven to be viable for endgame. But nobody knows which one's truly superior.

yea bro thats with my blood pres on i mean i get into groups and immediatly im being yelled at for having low hp or being a squishy =(


here is my armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...arkpimp/simple

[warzin]

ok thx annyway i'll try working on a more suitible gear set then

[Mistafreez]

I'm a blood tank. Right now im stacking mastery while trying to stay at the hit and expertise cap. Do i really need to be at the hit cap or expertise cap? should i be stacking other things besides mastery. My armory is Mistafreeze on Duskwood if you care to look at that. Thank you in advance any help is much appreciated.