Tanking TPS and staying infront

[Pyorrhea]

Hi Guys,

1st I would like to say thanks to everyone contributing to this site as I have learned allot here.

If we can get on to my problem.

I have a DK Blood Tank on Silvermoon EU and I seems to have a problem with keeping threat.

Here is my armory link : The World of Warcraft Armory (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Silvermoon&n=Pyorrhea)

As you can see I am using the 53/8/10 build for tanking in blood.

So AOE threat is already a problem for me and keeping Multiple mobs on me is work allot of work itself.

I have setup Macro's for all my attacks to include Rune Strike, as I thought this might have been the problem with holding threat.
e.g /Cast Icy Touch
/Cast Rune Strike

This way I will always have RS up, when I dodged or parried an attack


My Rotation : IT > PS > Pest >(Rune Tap) > BB > RS> DS > HS > DS > DC >Pest, then I start from BB again. When there is multiple mobs I Tab after 1st Rune Strike.

I have thought about this for a bit myself and wondered if it is because I am stacking STA gems in my gem slots, ignoring the extra few points of Str, Def and Hit etc that I would pick up if I properly gemmed to meet requirements.

Obviously to get a successful attack across and generate threat I need Hit, is being Hit capped that important when tanking as DK?

When tanking as a Pally I got strength gems, as this increased DMG done by Cons, do I need STR for tanking as DK?

Halp! I am loosing threat to Locks, Mages, Cats and basically anything pushing out loads of DPS. What am I doing wrong?

Is it Spec? Rotation? Or am I not gemmed properly?

Side note : What is the Cap for Parry and Dodge to strive for?

I hope someone will be able to give me some advise that will help me, untill then I will be on the forums looking for someone that maybe had the same problem.

[ghromorth]

I tanked in blood for a while and there are three things i noticed (note: some tanks will disagree with this):

1. Talents: I would drop hysteria, imp blood presesnce and mark of blood. and get sudden death since HS is what you use to generate aggro.

2. Rotation: For single target try using: IT-PS-DS-HSx2-DC/RS dump-DS-HSx4 repeat
For aoe target, you are good, but try to use BB instead of HS. (and star with DnD)

3. Glyphs: I find more aggro generator RunStrike glyph than rune of disease, a lot more aggro in single targets, and AOE mobs wont last until a second refresh.

Your gems are good, the cap for Dodge and parry i would say if you sum and you get more than 52% you are good to go.

[Bezzie]

i liked blood tanking. but it made me mad on aoe tanking. i wasnt doing as well as i wanted to. you vastly outgear my dk (theonlybez) and i was having the same problem. i did try out frost the other night and it seems to work well for aoe tanking. but im on the fence about it.

as for the glyphs. i wouldnt get vamp blood personally...cuz the way i think about it is if a healer cant heal my without using my cds, i shouldnt be tanking.

[Pyorrhea]

So I have tried what u suggested dropping 1 point in Improved Blood and putting it into Sudden Death, I can see a difference of about 8% gain on my threat just by doing that.

Also putting in HS before DS was where my problem was I think, thanks for this one.

I will probably also drop Hysteria, as I do not use that as much, and don't see much of a threat gain when using it. Mark of blood on the other hand is something that I do use, when its of Cool Down. I macro'd it with Rune Tap, it helps healers allot as this gives back what incoming hits take off.

Bezzie
Vamp blood is something that you need! When you pop this you get extra HP, its not so much about the healing, but it does help. Blood has NO mitigation, which means we take allot more from hits. Currently I get about a 9K HP increase if I pop this.

In the 3 trees there is core abilities for each spec:

Blood : Vamp blood increase EH and healing done( Considering we take much more damage). Blood has the most EH.

Frost : Icebound Fortitude increases Mitigation, so you would not take the same damage as a blood tank, but you wont have the same HP pool. Also remember frost has highest mitigation when it comes to tanking.

Unholy : Bone Shield also increases Mitigation, works the same as frost. Unholy is more for magic resistance.

[Venom Rush]

I think you were referring to Unbreakable Armor for Frost. Icebound Fortitude is usable no matter what tree you're specced in.

[Bezzie]

well see im speaking off personal experience. as blood i can tank really well. hold aggro and i rarely have issues with staying alive. as frost all the mobs are out of control even though im using all my abilities to hold aggro. i also drop extremely fast with unbreakable armor on me.

anyways. im not trying to ninja your thread, but ill check out vamp blood when i get home tonight. see whats up with it.